Month: June 2018

June 6-7

So our adventures with Sarah continue in Prague. We took a bus from Munich to Prague on the 5th. A quick picture from the bus ride – we found German hops growing along the side of the road!

The bus was scheduled to arrive at 10:40pm but was running late, so we got dropped off at the bus station in Prague after 11. Now, Michael and I have taken quite a few buses on this trip and bus stations can be a bit seedy or located in a tough part of town. When we arrived in Prague, it wasn’t that the neighborhood was scary. It was empty. I usually worry about our surroundings when it is empty. When there are a lot of people around, you might get pickpocketed, but you’re not getting mugged. And we are mostly in a good position to avoid the former (knock on wood).

We had a mileish walk to pick up the keys for our airbnb and then half a mile walk back to the airbnb. This was not a moment where we were going to sit alone with bags while Michael went to get the keys. We all walked it together. First we had to cross under the overpass.

Nothing like a dark empty tunnel to get your adrenaline rushing. Then, add in the four random people hanging out down there in the dark that our imaginations assumed were up to no good. We were on edge.

Next, we had a group of jerky 20 somethings who had probably been drinking who started yelling things at us as they approached and then one jumped in Michael’s face. Ugh. Get us out of here. Another issue? In Prague, they use two sets of street numbers for each location that climb in opposite directions. After a few days in the city you get the hang of it, but it added a ton of anxiety and uncertainty to our walk that evening.

We found the apartment and by some act of God got into the building. Then we found this hallway ahead of us:

Now, that is the hallway during the day. I wish that I had captured it at night. It was dark and shadowy and we were definitely going to be murdered. I was freaked out. The directions from our host told us it was the first door on the right down the hallway. In a last ditch effort for things to not be as bad as they seem, Michael tried the door immediately on the left instead of following the directions and heading down that hall. Boom! Our key worked there too. Now there was another door immediately on the right. And just like that we’re in the nicest apartment we’ve seen in a few weeks. Unreal.

Straight to bed. There was no way that we were going back out that night.

As is the case with most things, it looked much better in the light of the morning after a good night’s sleep. The neighborhood we were staying was a very normal neighborhood, but a bit out of the touristy area, so the apparently it shuts down on week nights by midnight.

We started our day at Cukrárna Mysák which is a renowned sweet shop opened in 1911 that serves traditional Czech pastries and cakes. It was a really cutesy space that reminded me of the ice cream shop right when you enter six flags… but fancy.

We popped in for breakfast and it did not disappoint. The center items are open faced sandwiches – delicious beet and goat cheese on the right. Michael has an apple strudl on the left and Sarah has a cake with some cherries in it? We had a harder time getting a translation for that item.

Next we were off to walk around the city. To give you an idea of how much we walked on this day, we got somewhere around 29,000 steps in. Sarah has a Fitbit and Michael has a Garmin which both calculate steps. After much analysis, we think Sarah’s might be off a bit or she doesn’t swing her arm while walking. There’s no real way of knowing. But the important thing is that we walked about 29 thousand steps on that day. That is a ton. If you’ve never counted your steps before, for reference, most people try to get 10,000 in a good day. That is a fairly standard goal. Since Michael and I aren’t working right now, we try to get just under 15,000 in a day. Twenty-nine is a lot. So here’s what we saw…

Very quickly we were informed that people in Prague drink and sell Absinthe, a distilled, highly alcoholic beverage with an anise flavor. (Shout out to the random dude sitting next to us at lunch who told us that’s what it tastes like).

We left our fancy breakfast and headed to Old Town Square which is famous for its Astronomical Clock. The square has a handful of other historic buildings including Old Town City Hall, St. Nicholas Church and Tyn Church.

This is the Jan Hus Memorial which was put in the square in 1915 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of the religious reformer, you guessed it, Jan Hus.

Mostly the town just had a bunch of really cool Baroque and Renaissance buildings including this one. We overheard a tour guide say that Einstein use to hang out in this building, at the bar, when it use to be a pharmacy (a pharmacy that apparently also had a bar).

Then on to the big event! The Astronomical Clock!

You may notice in the above picture that there is scaffolding around the clock. Not good. The Astronomical Clock was built around 1410 and is amazing. The clock face represents the Earth and the sky, a part for day and another for night. The clock’s outer ring shows old Czech time. The astronomical dial shows the movements of the sun and the moon and a third dial is for the zodiac signs. Apparently the clock is really difficult to read and understand. It was especially difficult to read since it was blocked entirely by scaffolding and is being refurbished.

Most people just come for the hourly show of the statues of the Twelve Apostles who process out of the clock one after the other. We watched the show. They did a video version on a screen which was on top of the scaffolding.

On the right hand side you can see a skeleton who represents death that strikes the hour. There are also small statues on either side of the clock that represent vanity, greed and hedonism.

https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/img_0584.trim_.mov

I have to assume that the real thing is way more cool.

Also, it was noon and apparently they do an test of their emergency alarm system at noon on this day of the month or something, so halfway through our video show there was what sounded like an air raid siren that went off. Even with the loudspeaker warning that it was just a test, it was a bit disconcerting hearing an air raid siren go off while standing in the main square of a European city.

Just off the main square is the Powder Gate which is one of the main symbols of Prague. It is a gothic gate that leads into Old Town dating from 1475. It was built as one of 13 gates to the city and was built to connect to the royal palace. However, before construction was completed, the King moved his residence to the Prague Castle.

And also an absintherie (we did not go in):

Next we were off to visit that Prague Castle.

In order to get to the castle, we had to cross the Vltava River.

We crossed at the Charles Bridge which is a super famous bridge ordered under construction in 1357 by King Charles IV. It was originally the only means of crossing the river Vltava which made it an important trade route between Eastern and Western Europe. The bridge is decorated quite elaborately with 30 baroque statues.

https://youtu.be/xJMtGhqPCW0

Here is a church that was turned into a hotel. How bizarre is that? I would have at least expected someone to take down or move the elaborate religious symbols.

Next we walked up to the Strahov Monastery. Said to have beautiful buildings, beautiful views and a brewery, this made perfect sense for us.

We grabbed lunch and a few beers, including one of the better salads I’ve had in my life and a deliciously refreshing blueberry beer. After lunch we hiked up to the Perrin Tower which is a replica of the Eiffel Tower, but smaller.

And then finally we got our beautiful view of the city:

No – we didn’t pay to go up in the fake Eiffel Tower. We just kept walking until we found an overlook that got the job done.

After more walking, we finally made it to the Prague Castle.

I didn’t think the Prague Castle was that cool. However, St. Vitus Cathedral, which sits inside the Prague Castle was quite incredible. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Prague and both the exterior and the interior are quite stunning.

The church had elaborate mosaics throughout:

And these windows! The pieces of glass used were incredibly small – more like the mosaics than stained glass windows.

And this tomb. There are thirty or so people buried at this church including Vitus, himself, Wenceslaus I, Wenceslaus IV (not sure which one was the Good King and which one was just Wenceslaus), Ferdinand I, Elizabeth of Bohemia, Charles IV (Holy Roman Emperor), among others. I’m not sure who is being represented in this tomb. Maybe Cardinal Friedrich Schwarzenberg because of the hat? You’d think the words would make it more obvious to me, but they don’t.

Some more pictures from outside the Cathedral:

And then that was about enough of the Prague Castle. Great Cathedral, but the rest of the castle leaves something to be desired.

There was one more place that we wanted to see in our whirlwind tour of Prague: the Jewish Quarter.

Josefov was formerly the Jewish ghetto of Prague. Jews started settling in Prague in the 10th century. Starting in the 13th century they were ordered to give up their homes and move into a small area between Old Town and the river. In 1389, some 1500 Jews were massacred on Easter Sunday in Prague. I don’t think that’s the Easter message Jesus was hoping for.

The ghetto was most prosperous towards the end of the 16th century when the Jewish mayor became the Minister of Finance and used his wealth to develop the area. Then their ability to leave the quarter and do business outside grew increasingly more difficult. According to legend, things were so bad in the 17th century that Rabbi Lowe created a beast out of clay called the Golem of Prague and brought it to life to protect the Jews from persecution. Apparently the Golem ran amok and Rabbi Lowe had to destroy it.

In the 1850’s the quarter was renamed “Josefstadt” (Joseph’s City) after Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor who emancipated Jews with the Toleration Edict in 1781. Around this time Jews were allowed to settle outside the city, leaving only orthodox and poor Jews living within the ghetto.

Most of the quarter was demolished in the early 1900s when Prague was trying to remodel itself after Paris. This left only six synagogues, the Jewish Town Hall and the Old Cemetery.

When Prague was taken over by Nazi Germany in 1939, the Jews were sent by the thousands to concentration camps. However, their buildings were not destroyed. Apparently Hitler decided to keep Prague’s well-defined Jewish sites intact to be used as a future memorial to a race of an extinct people. After the war, Josefov became an inspiration for Jews around the world.

These days, the area is mostly used for tourism and also houses upscale stores and hotels.

While walking, Michael was reminded of another thing we had to see in Prague so we headed off to Stavovské Divadlo, or the Estates Theatre which was built in the 18th century.

It’s motto inscribed above the entrance: Patriae et Musis or To the Native Land and the Muses.

Also at the theater is this statue in honor of Mozart who conducted the world premiere of his opera, Don Giovanni, here in 1787.

We thought about trying to see a show, but the one that was playing looked really bizarre with a bunch of actors running around with hoola hoops. That is not really the kind of show we’re looking for.

So that was our huge day of walking. We went back to the Airbnb for showers and naps and did head out to dinner, but we were dragging a bit by this point. Nothing a few beers and a few sips of absinthe can’t cure! The beers were fine. The absinthe was horrible. That is a once in a lifetime mistake to make.

The next day we had an afternoon train ride to Vienna, so we dropped our bags off at some lockers in the train station and went out looking for place to relax for a few hours. We started at the James Dean restaurant for breakfast. True story. I just wanted “real breakfast” (eggs instead of a pastry), so Michael found us the most amazing touristy diner this side of Europe.

It got the job done. Then we walked back to the far side of the river again to see the Vrtba Gardens. It’s famous for being the most important baroque garden in Prague. It is different than normal gardens because of its terrace floor graduation.

The garden was nice and at the top of the garden you get this view:

But mostly I just enjoyed laying on a bench by myself for an hour or so, enjoying some music on my headphones, reading about Schrödinger’s cat, and alternating between a view of this trellis over my head:

And this view to the left of me:

After the gardens, we took a long stroll back to the train station and THANKFULLY remembered one final thing we had to do in town before leaving. Eat this:

This is a Trdelnik which is made by rolling out dough, wrapping it around a metal stick, sprinkling it with sugar and spice mixture and setting it over flames to cook. When we ordered ours, the woman just cut it off the stick and handed it over. It was good, but I wanted it to taste more like funnel cake or an old fashion donut.

Michael went in a different direction with his snack:

And now we’re off again. Thank you Prague for a great visit. Things started pretty shaky, but we had a wonderful time!

June 4

Warning: sad and a little bit graphic. But mostly just sad.

I wanted to separate this post out because the great, happy, wonderful feeling we had enjoying the city of Munich stands in stark contrast to that of our feelings at Dachau concentration camp. It was actually a bizarre shift in mood that was made a bit easier by the extra processing time I allocated us by taking the wrong trains (both going and returning from Dachau).

Once we finally arrived into town, we took the local bus to the Dachau memorial.

Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany, originally intended to hold political prisoners and later to included the imprisonment of Jews, German and Austrian criminals, Communists, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Romas, and eventually foreign nationals from countries that Germany invaded. The concentration camp was opened in 1933 on an abandoned munitions factory about 10 miles outside of the town of Dachau.

Dachau became the concentration camp that other camps were based off because of the incredible brutality that was used against its prisoners. Other Nazis were sent to Dachau to learn their tactics which included brutal beatings, floggings, tree or pole hangings, standing at attention for extremely long periods, and cruel medical experiments on both healthy and sick prisoners. On top of this was extreme humiliation, starvation and deplorable living conditions.

A recreation of a bunk room:

Nazis reopened the munitions factory and the prisoners were to serve as forced labor in the factory or in the building and expansion of the camp.

31,951 documented people were reported killed at Dachau, but many thousands more deaths were undocumented.

Arriving into the camp, you walk through a gate with the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” which translates to “Work will make you free”. This was Nazi propaganda which tried to trivialize the camps as labor and re-education camps instead of the brutal death camps that they actually were.

I don’t think that anyone “likes” going to a concentration camp. Just like I doubt any of you “like” reading this post. Just like I wish I wasn’t writing this post. We didn’t like going there. We could have just hung out in Munich, enjoying the sights, having another beer. But I knew that I wanted to visit a concentration camp while we were in Germany and once Sarah mentioned that she was interested, we committed. It was awful.

The memorial did a really good job of showing the size, scale and depth of horrors committed while infusing enough personal stories of prisoners to avoid glossing over the deaths as happening to one group of people or even just lumping it into one big terrible thing that happened. This was millions of terrible things that happened to hundreds of thousands of people and not by just one or two people. It was done by a lot of people while even more stood by and did nothing to help. And I think we mostly know that. But the reason why we still need to go see these things first hand and continue to tell these stories is so history doesn’t repeat itself.

What shook me is that the racist propaganda that is documented at this memorial is not that dissimilar from some of the racist things that are being said about immigrants around the world today.

The idea that it is easier to cage people if you dehumanize them and call them “animals” is the way that normal Germans were able to accept the horrible things that were going on in their backyards. What is wrong with caging an animal? A criminal? We have to be reminded about the way that things escalated in the 1930s and keep an eye on the way that immigrants and unprotected people are treated and talked about in our world today.

US forces liberated Dachau on April 29, 1945. More than 30,000 prisoners were freed but could not leave the camp immediately because of an epidemic of black typhus among the prisoners. Of those liberated, another 5,000 were too sick and died before actually leaving Dachau. Here is a picture taken of prisoners on the day of liberation:

US troops forced all residents from town to enter the camp to see the conditions and help bury the dead. Most local residents claimed no knowledge of the activities at the camp, but many benefited financially from the camp. Here is some insight into the economic effect of the camp on the town.

The below was a picture of the residents being forced to see the piles of bodies that were waiting to be cremated when the US forces arrived.

There are several memorials built on the property. The below reads: “May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933-1945 because they resisted nazism help to unite the living for the defence of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow man”.

This memorial called attention to all of the different types of prisoners at Dachau. Political prisoners wore red badges, professional criminals wore green, “work-shy and asocial” wore black, Jehovah’s Witnesses wore violet, homosexuals wore pink, emigrants wore blue, Jews wore yellow combined with another color, among other classifications.

There is a Catholic chapel on site,

a Protestant chapel,

and a Jewish memorial.

Michael expressed concern that the Catholic chapel is in the center of the three religious buildings instead of the Jewish memorial.

In several languages below, it is written: Here in Dachau every third victim was a Pole + One of every two Polish priests was martyred + Their holy memory is venerated by their fellow prisoners of the Polish clergy.

Off to the side from the other religious memorials is a Russian Orthodox chapel.

We weren’t able to enter, but you could see inside to this mural of Jesus leading the prisoners out of Dachau.

Also there is a Carmelite Convent on-site. One of the guard towers has been remodeled as the entrance of the convent.

There were many stories and visuals from this visit that just devastated me and will likely haunt me for a long time. However, I am encouraged by the number of school children that were visiting. Yes, some of them were goofing off and could have used a mean glance from an adult. But the fact that these visits are being done and that kids are getting this information in such raw form makes me hopeful that future generations will not forgot.

June 3-5

Munich is a beautiful city: beautiful buildings, beautiful scenery, beautiful people.

We arrived early afternoon and Sarah and I headed out for a walk around while Michael napped. We quickly realized how amazing our “neighborhood park” is. Englischer Garten has an area of 910 acres, with its name referring to its English garden form of informal landscape. Thank you Wikipedia.

The park has several huge open green spaces where people just laid around enjoying the beautiful weather. Situated right next to the university, Englischer was packed with young people. The huge green space reminded me very much of New York City’s Central Park.

It also has several streams that flow through the park that a ton of young people were jumping in and riding the fast moving current, only to jump out, walk back up and do it again. There was even a rope swing that people were using at one point in the stream.

There is a lake that these streams feed into with paddle boats and ducks scattered throughout. There is also a beer garden that sits on the edge of the lake – one of two beer gardens in the park. This beer garden has 2500 seats. So, you know, just a little place to pop into for a beer.

The two or so hours that we wandered around got us super excited to explore more of this city. Then we headed out to met Michael for dinner… my fish definitely won the meal.

And then we headed back to bed early. After a few late nights out with Ken and Janine, we all needed some good sleep.

The next morning, we woke up, grabbed a quick breakfast and jumped on a train to head out of the city. That’s right, after 15 hours in the city it was time to leave again. But we didn’t go too far. An hour and a half on trains took us out to the city of Dachau. It was only suppose to be an hour, but I put us on the wrong train and shook Sarah’s confidence in her travel partners. But we finally arrived and spent three or so hours before returning to the city. I’m going to write a separate post about that experience next. So for now, let’s just skip ahead a few hours and get back into the city.

There were a few things that we needed to see while visiting the city. Mostly, we wanted to walk around, explore the old town and then head to the original Hofbräuhaus.

The majority of our exploring centered around Marienplatz which is the main square in old town. It was named Marienplatz for the Virgin Mary after the city prayed for her intercession during a cholera epidemic.

This column with Mary on top was erected in 1638 during celebrations marking the end of the Swedish occupation of the city.

This is the New City Hall building… that’s actually what it is called. Its construction started in 1867 and it’s considered new.

We wandered through some of the shops and a market next to the square and then headed off to Hofbräuhaus. It had been a full day without a beer…

Hofbräuhaus was originally built in 1607 with several restorations, including one in 1958. The beer served is from Staatliches Hofbräuhaus brewery and they also serve a variety of meats and pretzels. Interesting fact: on February 24, 1920, Adolf Hitler organized one of his first propaganda events here. There are actually quite a few buildings and sites to see in Munich related to that period in history. So even breaking Dachau into a separate post can’t separate all the bad history from this area.

We got there at a great time and were able to get a table out in the biergarten.

The place is huge, but was also quite full. We hung out for a few beers and taught Sarah how to play golf.

Inside there was a bandstand and kitschy decorations.

Lederhosen!!! Those guys don’t work here. That is just what they are choosing to wear.

Afterwards we wandered home, making a few stops along the way.

A church:

Excited to see a family name:

Missing Ken and Janine:

Ice cream:

Funny thing about that ice cream – you can see in the back of this picture that they are trying to move a piece of stainless steal furniture through the ice cream shop door. It’s stuck. They served us our ice cream through a window while a group of people stood around not sure what to do next with it.

And then bed. It was another early night to bed, but we had a very draining day and were exhausted.

The next morning we had to check out of our Airbnb by 10am and then had about 6 hours before our bus ride. Carrying around all of our bags, we had the perfect way to spend this time: back to our favorite park! We found a shady area and enjoyed the fresh air for hours. Sarah and I took the opportunity to get a little sun, although we ultimately passed on floating down the river.

We saved a bit of time to pop into one of the two beer gardens for lunch where Michael decided to order spongy moist meat. Gross. There is no picture of it, so you’ll have to use your imagination. Then it was off to Prague. There was definitely more to see here in Munich, but I think we were ready to keep moving. It was a great city and a really great park.

May 31 – June 2

We woke up early after a late night with Ben (still on first name basis) and headed to the Paris airport to meet up with a few buddies who had come to visit and drink a few beers with us. Sarah, Janine, Ken and I all went to college together, and since Janine and Ken live in Chicago, Mike and Ken have become great buddies (as you’ll see in the upcoming photos). We had been anxiously awaiting their visit and I was too excited to sleep the night before.

https://youtu.be/9fpKBHY-Viw

We had a bit of drama getting to the airport that morning. The Paris trains were not going all the way to the airport so we got dropped off a stop a few miles away. From there, buses were shuttling people to the airport. There weren’t nearly enough buses which made it a disaster. It was like being at a Walmart at 5am on the Friday after Thanksgiving. People were pushing and shoving, trying to get on the buses and make their flights on time. It was dangerous. People were throwing luggage over other people to get on the bus. Really horrible. We waited 30 or 40 minutes and finally just got an Uber. This landed us at the airport right on time to meet Ken and J9 (and a bit late for Sarah – whomp whomp).

Then we headed straight to the train station next to the airport to grab our train to Brussels.

Look how unhappy Michael is. Then….

Ken brought his bestie some presents: beer, beer hat, beer book. Look at how happy Michael is!

Train pics:

After a few hours on the train, we were in Brussels. So these couple of days mostly blur together. We had an amazing time together. We visited three breweries, had a few amazing meals, ate waffles (obviously), played some Euchre, and just had, in general, a great time catching up and spending time together. Here… you can check out the proof.

Yep, that is Michael tearing up over a beer that Ken brought for us to drink from Chicago.

No – he didn’t get to play this hand. His partner called something red, I believe, which is why the photo had to be taken.

This is all that was left of the waffles that we inhaled:

And, J9 with a life sized waffle:

Cantillon brewery, the big daddy of Belgian beers:

This translates to “good beer takes time”. Ok – it’s a pretty rough translation.

Brussels Beer Project:

Then a few pictures of us out on the town:

Just way too much fun walking down the street!

Awwwwwwwwwwwww:

Another day and another brewery. This time we went out to 3 Fonteinen.

We had an amazing cheese spread while playing some trivial pursuit. We felt great about the game since it was in English until we realized it was the British version. That made quite a few questions much harder than they should have been.

I’d like to say that we had fun and it doesn’t matter who won the game. But let’s be honest – in a game being played with four of the most competitive people out there – it definitely matters. Sarah was an innocent bystander. In the end, Michael and I demolished Ken and Janine. Big time. Maybe next time Janine will assert herself more. Or Ken will listen to her more. I’m not sure where we landed on who was at fault.

Then back to town for more fun in the city center.

Did you know that Barbie in Brussels is named Lucy? And Lucy is ready for the World Cup!

How awesome are these pin wheels?

The mussels were good, but Janine definitely won at dinner.

Back to the city center for some people watching!

He said yes!!

Why does it feel like somebody’s watching me?

Yes – he’s still creeping back there. https://youtu.be/91LQWQEyD8w

Finally, he almost made it into the foreground of a picture… almost.

Take a look at the couple to the left in the picture. Why is he holding her leg up!?!?

So. Many. Questions.

Only more now.

We had just a great couple of days together. The pictures actually do some justice to how much fun we had. Michael and I are so lucky to have wonderful friends who are willing to take such a long flight to come visit us for just a long weekend. Thanks Ken and J9! We love you both tons and miss you already! And now it’s off to our next adventure with Sarah in Munich!

May 30

So… I’m a huge Ben Folds fan. I’ve been a fan for 20 something years – basically ever since my brothers started being Ben Folds fans. Michael likes Ben Folds, but I’m a bit obsessed. Good news is that now Michael is a bit obsessed as well after this concert.

Michael found these Paris tickets a few months ago and the interesting thing is that he saw there were some VIP tickets for a pretty reasonable price. The VIP involved a 30 minute question/answer session with Ben Folds, a chance to get our picture taken with him and then soundcheck before the show. Now, this gives me a bit of anxiety. What on earth would I say to Ben Folds if I had a chance to meet him? Nothing? I like his music a lot, but I don’t have anything clever to say to him. However, I did think soundcheck sounded amazing!! So we did it.

Now, I’m struggling to figure out what to say in this post. Half of you also love Ben Folds. The rest don’t care about him at all. So, should I just talk about the cool experience or spend this post trying to convince the rest of you why you too should love Ben Folds? (Shout out to Sarah who is sitting next to me and adding value to this post). So I have decided that I’m going to try to convert every one of you to being huge fans! Or at least to find a bit of appreciation.

We arrived around 4pm and got checked in for the event. We soon found out that the group was only going to be 8 other people. So now there is no chance that we can just hide in the back. We are legit going to be talking in a small group with Ben Folds. Anxiety is super high at this point.

We talked with a few other people waiting. We figured out the group was a pilot from the US, some US expats, a few locals and some women from Germany. And us.

We sat down in the first three rows of the theater and after a few minutes, Ben came and sat on a chair right in front of us. That’s right. We’re on a first name basis now. I’m completely geeked.

Ben told us that he started playing music as a percussionist when he was a child and that he experienced, along with a lot of other musicians, is that when he wanted to learn how to play rock and roll, he basically had to just hack through it. There wasn’t really anyone who would tell you about their process or the struggles they had from a musical aspect. So this was our chance to ask questions about music. Since I fall into the category of people who do not play a single instrument and has never taken a singing lesson, this session might end up being a little less technical than he was hoping.

But it ended up being awesome. A few takeaways:

– I couldn’t stop smiling. Aggressively smiling. Michael took a picture of me smiling aggressively but it’s way too much to post here.

– He is really funny, animated, and really down to earth. He mentioned that he basically just doesn’t have time for any drama from other artists.

– When asked about musicians that he liked working with he jumped straight to Sara Bareilles. He loves her music plus thinks she’s an awesome person. I agree.

– Ben is currently working as the first ever Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra to work on programming. We knew that he had played with orchestras because we saw him last year with my family when he played with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Another fun fact about Ben is that he composed a piano concerto. We heard him perform it last year.

https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/img_0288.mov

That wasn’t it… more a sampling of what type of piano work he’s throwing down.

– Now that everyone is on the same page that Ben plays percussion, likes Sara Bareilles, and plays with orchestras, here is a really great video of Sara playing with Ben (who’s wearing an eggplant colored suit and standing up playing a drum of sorts) and the National Symphony Orchestra:

https://youtu.be/9V-mVSwVjeE

Now, he was playing solo this time around, which was just great, especially since we got to see him during soundcheck!

Here’s what is cool about soundcheck: he will play whatever the small crowd requests. The crowd was the 10 of us from the question/answer section and another five or six people. So we just yelled out his songs and he would play them. Amazing.

We had a list of songs that we wanted to hear, and didn’t get to hear all of them, but loved every moment of it. It was fun seeing him try to hack through his older songs that he didn’t completely remember how to play. It was also super exciting to hear some of my favorites, like the below which is a recounting of my high school time spent in guitar shops… mostly bored:

https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/img_0286.mov

After soundcheck we had a little time before the concert, so we left the theater and grabbed dinner next door. And then it was back for more Ben.

Isn’t the theater beautiful?

The concert was great – we were in the fourth row, near the middle so we still had a great view of him.

He apparently hadn’t visited France in something like 10 years, so he played through all of his hits from the early days and a few songs off his new album. But the best thing about his concerts is his story telling.

Hearing him talk about the reasons why he wrote a specific song for his daughter or how his perspective changed on something is so interesting to me.

It’s a little washed out, but look at how excited he is!!

https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/img_0300.trim_.mov

Also this happened which made Michael so happy:

https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/img_2477.trim_.mov

While playing the piano, Ben was offered a drum, which he started playing and then had an entire drum set assembled in front of him on stage. It was awesome.

We loved it and my excitement level was off the charts when we walked back to our Airbnb. If you ever have a chance to go see Ben Folds, you definitely should, even if you don’t know his stuff – the music is just good music and the concerts are maximum fun.

That’s right… conducting the audience during a sing along. I just loved it. And we both sang along at the top of our lungs.

May 30

We took a bus from Amsterdam to Paris for a 36 hour visit before the crew got into town. Originally we had just planned on meeting Ken, Janine, and Sarah on the 31st in Brussels, but then we found out that Ben Folds was having a concert in Paris on the 30th, so we adjusted our plans to make that happen. It also gave us a chance to visit the Louvre which we hadn’t managed in our first two visits to the city of lights.

Also we got to see Square Louise Michel which was pretty cool thing to happen upon:

So for those of you that haven’t visited, the Louvre is crowded and hot, but I will say that the art, the architecture and even the Mona Lisa is really cool.

We had already had our fill of Greco-Roman art from our time at the Vatican, so we headed towards the Egyptian exhibit.

Bird boy mummies:

The below was my favorite out of the stone carvings.

Really big feet:

Am I the only one that is thinking of this:

https://youtu.be/8yiqGtZXCmQ

Then we wandered through the French painting section, but the ceilings were more fantastic than most of the paintings:

And we got to see the Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of the Empress Josephine in Norte-Dame Cathedral on 2 December 1804 by Jacques Louis David which is not only incredible and massive, but also wins the award for the longest title of a painting ever.

I’m somewhat sure you’d call the below an icon. I wanted to go straight “Russian icon” but I have no facts to back this up. I actually just spent ten minutes googling all combinations of icon, Russian icon, louvre, Mary, Jesus, and Evangelists to get more information on this piece of work and found absolutely nothing in such a ridiculous fashion that if I didn’t have the picture I would assume it didn’t really exist in the first place. So with no information, here’s a piece of art that I liked and wanted to share with you:

The last supper… but in Italy during the renaissance?

And a couple pieces of art that I actually know the names of:

Winged Victory of Samothrace – one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world per Wikipedia, created around the 2nd century BC. The statue is 8 feet high and was created to honor the goddess, Nike, along with a sea battle (you can kind of see that she’s standing on a the bow of a ship).

Apparently before she lost her arms, which have never been recovered, Nike’s right arm is believed to have been raised to her mouth to deliver the shout of victory. Now this is a direct quote from Wikipedia, where you know you are getting the best possible information: “The work is notable for its convincing rendering of a pose where violent motion and sudden stillness meet, for its graceful balance and for the rendering of the figure’s draped garments, compellingly depicted as if rippling in a strong sea breeze”. Perhaps a bit of a run on, but I liked that description.

And then the big event! We saw the Mona Lisa!

Ok, ok. We fought through crowds who were throwing bows and shoving cameras and selfie sticks everywhere and saw the real one too:

After much pushing and struggling to maintain patience we got a bit closer for some one on one time (at least that’s what the pictures look like).

First – what do we think this security guard is doing behind me? Second – we both look quite disheveled. That is how hard it is to visit the Louvre. Between the hot rooms, the crowds and the overwhelming size of the place, it is physically taxing, but also a really great experience. We might be back on a future visit to Paris, but this might be the only time we need to see this lady. When I need my Mona Lisa fix, I’ll just listen to this instead:

https://youtu.be/7ATmg_k4UwM

Now off to the next part of our day!