Sonderzug nach Pankow
I think I’ll go to Berlin. They understand me there.Archive for Czech Republic
A long silence. First, I was skiing in the Czech Republic with my tenth graders, then upon my return to the grey, gloomy streets of my beloved Berlin, I discovered that my internet connection was at the point of death, the faint throbbing of bits and bytes the only indication that it hadn’t completely left me. I’ve been getting better acquainted with Berlin’s internet cafes, seeking out the ones where it’s comfortable to linger, where the food is good enough that I’m buying a sandwich or a cup of coffee not just because it rents me a table for an hour or so, but I’m still fairly shameless; all of the cafes in Zitty‘s “Essen und Trinken” issue that mention W-LAN have been highlighted, and I’m dropping by anything within reasonable distance from my house, one by one.
My skiing companions: Leni & Holger
At the moment I’m eating a mango chutney chicken foccacia at St. Oberholz at Rosenthaler Platz. “Essen & Trinken” calls it “a communal office for Mitte’s (underemployed?) freelance creatives. That, it may be; nearly everyone here has a laptop open, and the place is bustling. If these people are underemployed, however, it could be because they’re not actually working; both of my immediate neighbours have been on Facebook for the past 15 minutes or so.
He’s probably not actually “working”
Getting here was a puzzle; the cafe sits right on an U-bahn station, but ver.di, the BVG’s union, is on strike. Rather hubristically, a few weeks ago, I wondered aloud why the U-bahn stations have doors, if they never close. They do close, when the union is on strike, and we have to rely on S-bahn to get around. Thank goodness the weather is getting warmer; my bike carries me where the trains don’t, and I’m actually getting to know the city better.
BVG, I miss you!
“Stockholm? In February?!”
The waiter at the Greek restaurant we stopped at for dinner wasn’t the only one to question our sanity, but the numbers speak for themselves: nearly every youth hostel bed in the city was booked last weekend, when we were there. Februrary is a fantastic time to go to Sweden.
Tim’s having a great time at Skansen, Stockholm’s Open Air Museum.
In fact, February is a pretty amazing time to go just about anywhere. Last February, Veronica and I went to New York City, and it was so quiet and clean that I felt like I was in some alternate-reality movie set New York. Locals might have been kept indoors by the weather, but we flew out of Toronto in a blizzard, and found the temperatures positively balmy.
Toronto Pearson Airport, Flight Cancelled
Coat? Who needs a coat?
I’ve been thinking about off-season travel, why I love it so much, and how to make it work. If you’re not prepared for the weather, a trip to somewhere cold can be miserable, but if you’re comfortably bundled, it might be the best time to go. Cheaper prices, shorter lines…
I’m glad I didn’t have to wait around in this weather!
The New York Times is catching on. Under Wintry Skies, a City Revealed explains why you should visit Prague this winter. Rag’s got a point: when we were there in October, you could have body-surfed the crowds.
Does anyone know where the Charles Bridge is? I can’t see past these @&#$ tourists!
So, go to Prague, or Stockholm, or New York, or Quebec City in February. My coat’s a completely ingenious custom job, designed for winter travel, but if your mother isn’t as cool and handy with a sewing machine as mine is, you can always dress in layers. It works.
