Puerto Rico 101

When visiting new places, Anne and Mark almost always learn new things.  Sometimes tour guides or locals explain things to Anne and Mark, but usually they just figure it out on their own.  This is the case in any new place they visit, but for some reason they feel like they may have learned an extra large amount on their visit to Puerto Rico.  For example, in the photo above, a local lizard poses on a sign that says "Bienvenidos."  After taking the picture, Anne and Mark realized that they had just learned not only that lizards could pose for pictures, but also that apparently, 'Bienvenidos' is the magic command that makes them stand perfectly still.  Who knew?

Not every lesson was quite that profound.  For example, one day on the beach, Anne and Mark learned the importance of knowing where your light source is when taking a picture.  

At least we think this is Anne and Mark...

They are still not sure where the light source is supposed to be relative to the subject of the photo, but they did learn that this arrangement doesn't really work.  Live and learn.

They also learned some specific things about religion and the holidays in Puerto Rico.  For example, they learned that even in January, it can be too sunny to take a decent picture of the Christmas tree.

El Tannenbaum?

One day, Anne and Mark visited a local landmark cathedral that dated back to the Spanish colonial days.  There was certainly a lot for them to learn there.  For example, they learned that angels can have multiple different haircuts ...

Cherubim with the 'bowl cut,' Seraphim get the curls?

... and that some religious sculptures include territorial flags (Anne and Mark had of course seen religious sculpture with state and national flags, but never flying the colors of a territory).

Mary, Jesus and La Bandera

Anne and Mark also visited some of the national monuments located on Puerto Rico.  In the old section of San Juan, Anne and Mark visited the two old Spanish forts there, the Castillo San Cristobal and the Castillo San Filipe Del Morro.  While touring these facilities now under the control of the US National Park Service, Mark learned that if you fall down on the staircase (even as a joke) ....

.... a park ranger will come over to check on you and offer assistance.

"Um, no, I was just joking, no need for an ambulance...."

In addition to the protection and service of the national park service, Anne and Mark also learned a bit about the services provided by the local governmental authorities.  In particular, Anne and Mark learned that the authorities governing the public beaches in Puerto Rico are wildly optimistic, but a bit strict.  Consider this (actual, non-photoshopped) photo of a sign taken at a public beach on the eastern end of the island:

Notice anything noteworthy?  That the sign is all in Spanish?  True, but this is not that surprising since most everything on the island is in Spanish.  It's what they speak there.  Anything else?  That word - Bienvenidos - they must be telling a lizard to pose...  Anything else?  How about that picture on the top row, on the left.

Seems a bit optimistic to expect enough snow, especially this close to the El Nino year...

Admittedly, Anne is an Iowa native and Mark is from the great state of Minnesota, so they may be biased.  But to our midwestern adventurers, that looks an awful lot like a snowmobile.  

And consider this other symbol on the sign:

As you can imagine, Anne and Mark did not frolic on this particular beach.  Two reasons.  First, the beach appears to prohibit.... well, women and men.  Bummer.  Second, the beach appears to allow snowmobiles.  While Anne and Mark did remember their cameras and flip-flops, they could not fit the snowmobile into the carry-on.  Too bad.

Lastly, and most importantly, Anne and Mark learned a few things about the people who actually live in Puerto Rico.  All in all, they were very friendly.  They seemed to be having a great time and enjoying life.  For example this guy:

Anne and Mark also learned that this guy was not moving until he got a dollar.

Someday - any day - Mark hopes to be half as happy as that guy appeared to be.  Carry on, my friend.

And why would the people of Puerto Rico not be happy?  Great weather, no federal income taxes.  What else could you ask for?  Anne and Mark learned that in addition to the aforementioned tax advantages, the people of Puerto Rico also enjoy the finer things in life.  For example, a bottle of booze that goes for about $2K and air conditioning in their cars.

This is the life.

I'll have a case, please

Seems legit.

Wet and Wild

If you visit El Junque rain forest and it does not rain, you get your admission price refunded.

Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island that is a territory of the United States.  San Juan is its capital city.  San Juan is also home to an airport that is serviced by AirTran Airlines.  Since Anne and Mark have been racking up frequent flier miles that they could now redeem from AirTran, they decided to spend the last week of winter break in Puerto Rico. 

Anne and Mark realize that some of the readers of this space may be somewhat geographically challenged, particularly on U.S. territories.  So, in an effort to help out, Anne and Mark have posted the approximate location of Puerto Rico (relative to some well-known landmarks).  You're welcome.

For orientation, this map shows the area directly south of Atlantis.

There are tons of recreational activities available on the island, as it boasts both beaches and a rain forest.  In a visit to either place, you are well advised to bring your swimming gear.  The rain forest is visited several times each day by, you guessed it, rain.  The beaches are generally clean and easily accessed and are suitable for all sorts of oceanside fun.

Anne and Mark first visited the El Junque National Forest.  This is the only legitimate rain forest in the United States.  As such, Anne and Mark (who are Americans), have spent some time in forests, but do not have a great deal of experience in rain forests.  So, on this visit they learned a few things.  First and foremost, the name - RAIN forest - is no joke.  It rains and stops and rains and stops and rains and stops.  Kind of like at the Rain Forest Cafe.  The difference is that the food at El Junque was a little better.  Go figure.

Before Mark attempted to climb it, this tree was perfectly vertical.  True story.

Mark was, as usual, tricked into hiking by the nefarious tactics of Anne.  As has been chronicled in this space on several occasions, Mark has a body type that is not built for hiking (or cardiovascular activity of any kind or vegetables or middle seats on airplanes or getting pushed around by small Venetian women or shirts that are XL or smaller or .... I could go on, but let's try to stay focused here).  After .7 kilometers (which is approximately "miles and miles" according to Mark's complaint filed with the El Junque National Forest) of hiking through "dense and undeveloped brush" (again, these are the terms taken from the complaint filed by Mark - the National Forest authority refers to the same path as a "partially paved trail"), Anne and Mark found the El Mina waterfall - one of the most popular sites for visitors in the forest.

For those of you who do not speak Spanish, 'El Mina' is Spanish for 'the Mina.'

Anne's death march through the jungle ("hike") began early in the morning, so when Anne and Mark arrived, no one else was present at the falls.  So, despite it being 7:30 am in early January, Anne and Mark switched over to swimming gear and jumped in the waterfall.

Mark takes advantage of 'nature's changing room' and shows off his sweet "6 months in Bulgaria" tan.

Anne's head floats into El Mina falls.

Later, on a separate day, in fact, Anne and Mark engaged in the beach variety of recreational activities that Puerto Rico had to offer.  They took a catamaran ride on the eastern side of the island (they were staying in a town called Ceiba, which is on the eastern side) and stopped off at a couple of places to snorkel.  At the second stop, Mark jumped in the water and, after a few minutes, spotted a stingray trolling on the sea floor.  Mark popped his head up to alert nearby snorkelers to this find.  One of the crew members on the catamaran heard Mark and suggested that Mark dive to the bottom and grab the ray on the outside of its fins and take a ride.  Needless to say, that catamaran company got a poor review on tripadvisor.com.

The other highlight of the snorkel adventure was probably the discovery of Anne's newfound calling as the fish whisperer.  While Mark splashed about in slow, lazy circles, Anne was consistently surrounded by fish of all stripes.  She even had them virtually eating out of her hand.

Nice grab, my friend.

After a long day of vacationing, there's no better way than to top it off with a walk on the beach.  Anne and Mark don't mind if they do.

Christmas Break in the U.S.A.

First, an apology.  Since last we posted here, 237 of you have checked in to see if there has been a new development in the adventures of Anne and Mark.  Unfortunately, you web surfers found no new content here, as Anne and Mark have not posted anything new in nearly five weeks.  Sorry about that.  Particular apologies go out to new readers in South Korea and Paraguay. 미안합니다 and lo siento, respectively.

Eventually, Mark got back on a plane and flew back to Bulgaria.  Unfortunately, his flight from Charlotte to Munich left right after kickoff of the Packers-Giants playoff game.  Since Mark has been hearing so much from the Packer fans all year about how great that team is, he simply assumes that the mighty Packers won that game and will advance in the playoff hunt.  When do they play again?

This is not to say, of course, that nothing happened in those five weeks, just that Anne and Mark were not near their computer long enough to write about it.  On their way back to the states last December, Anne and Mark stopped first in Atlanta to visit family.  Then they drove to Chicago to jump through hoops for the Bulgarian consulate in the futile hope that Anne could be issued a visa to stay in Bulgaria for a few months.  On their way to the windy city, Anne and Mark stopped in a small town called Lynchburg, Tennessee.

Anne stands next to the world's largest bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, or, as Mark referred to it, "about the right size."

For anyone who is not familiar, Lynchburg is the home of the Jack Daniels whiskey distillery.  However, Lynchburg is located in Monroe County, Tennessee.  Monroe County has the distinction of being one of the few remaining dry counties in Tennessee.  When you consider these together, the situation appears absurd: they make whiskey in a place where you are not allowed to buy or consume whiskey?  Yes.  Yes, they do.

Mark posed with a statue of Jack Daniels in front of the spring from which the water used in the product is taken.

After touring the distillery and related facilities, Anne and Mark headed north for the holidays.  The use of the term "holidays"is not an attack or slight on Christmas, but instead a recognition of several holidays that occur in rapid succession: Christmas, Mark's birthday (28 years young), New Year's Day, Anne and Mark's anniversary (not sure on the exact date, but it's around there somewhere) and, of course, the day of the college football national championship game.  After all that celebrating, Anne and Mark needed a break.  So they hopped a plane to Puerto Rico....

Munchin' in Munchen

It was only half-full when I got it (I swear).

While in Munich (that's "Munchen" to the locals - hence the title of the post), Anne and Mark visited some of the many places to eat.  As previously mentioned, they quickly found a street vendor with extrem scharf in his currywurst (I think there is a cure for that now).  Now it was time to visit the big shots.  First up, the Hofbrauhaus.  (*editor's note: please excuse the egregious misuse of double dots over the "u" in "brau" and "Munchen" - this keyboard does not have the umlaut character).

The Hofbrauhaus is a huge place in the middle of Munich.  Anne and Mark made it to the third floor
(they estimate this was half-way through the hall) before being lured by the siren song of an "oom-pa" band back to ground level.  The atmosphere at this centuries-old beer hall was quite festive, even though Anne and Mark visited in the middle of the afternoon on a slow day.  In addition to the fine HB products pictured above, the Hofbrauhaus served "hocks" of several varieties (you know, ham hocks and.... other hocks) and several cabbage products.  Good times were had by all.

After leaving the Hofbrauhaus, Anne and Mark were careful to avoid turning left.  The reason is that they saw this sign to the left:

Obviously, this sign designates that area as a single-mother and child only zone.  Anne and Mark do not qualify, so they avoided that area.  This type of sign was fairly common.  On their visit to Fussen, Anne and Mark noticed this:

This one was really quite inconvenient because it was on the main walking path to the castles.  However, when visiting foreign lands, Anne and Mark try to obey local law and custom, so they avoided these areas.  This is not to say that Anne and Mark agreed with the law.  They actually felt quite uncomfortable when they saw this sign:

Discrimination of the worst kind.

Granted, Germany is allowed to make whatever type of laws they want, but a no-single mother zone?  Is that really necessary?  I don't think so.  It is certainly not very classy.



Back to the food.  Speaking of classy, on the classiness meter the Hofbrauhaus was a bit above the currywurst vendor, but that's not to say that  the currywurst vendor was inferior in any other way.  In fact, the currywurst vendor may have been a genius.  In addition to the spicy dish, the currywurst vendor also had a "ketchup-udder."  Just brilliant.  The hungry customer holds the currywurst (or whatever else) beneath the bottle and gives it a gentle squeeze.  Ketchupy goodness is then released.  How in the world did we never come up with this technology before?

Streamlined design, inspired by nature.

Later, Anne and Mark went WAY up on the classiness meter and had dinner at the Rathaus.  Although it may appear to, this does not translate as "Rat House."  (Or maybe it does, Anne and Mark do not speak German.)  What they do know is that it is a bad idea to fill up on pretzels and mustard before your entree arrives, no matter how much you might like pretzels.

Free pretzel appetizer?  I paid five bucks for a pretzel at a Twins game last summer.

 Anne and Mark visited one other place for a meal, but they are still not quite sure where this place would fit on the classiness meter.

 If you want to make the argument FOR "Classy," you have these points to work with: suit of armor on the wall (Classy), restaurant provides a bib for the patrons (Super Classy), and you are encouraged to eat with only a knife and your fingers (Uber Classy, until you cut off a finger, then Klassy).

 If you want to make the argument AGAINST this place being classy, consider that this is what happens when you leave a light tip.....

Thank heavens for abnormally thick wrists, or Mark would still be in the stocks.

And with that, Anne and Mark are on break.  See you in January...

Curry and Castles

One of the main goals of the visit to Munich was to find some spicy food.  Bulgarian cuisine can be quite good, but it is not particularly spicy - unless you count garlic as "spicy."  But Germany has pretty much everything, so Anne and Mark (particularly Anne) were excited to sample the foods there.  In particular, Anne wanted to track down some Currywurst.  Currywurst is a street food that is what it sounds like - bratwurst and curry. 

Feeling rather adventurous, Anne and Mark wandered the Christmas market until they found a currywurst stand.  But they did not stop at the first stand they saw.  Instead, they sought out a big, bad currywurst stand.  One that was so tough, it had to have a warning label.  Eventually, they found one that had the sign pictured above.  Although neither Anne nor Mark Deutsch Sprechen, they took a stab at translating this anyway.  The first word, "Achtung," is taken from a famous U2 album called "Achtung Baby" and is probably there to attract music lovers to the stand.  The second line says "extrem scharf."  We were hoping for extreme, but certainly did not want to end up scharfing on ourselves.

Anne winces her approval of the spicy currywurst.

As it turns out, this was an extremely spicy currywurst (they should have given us a warning about that!)

After snacking on the sharf currywurst, Anne and Mark ventured to the town of Fussen, which is home to two large castles.  The smaller of the two is called Hohenschwangau and the larger and more famous is called Neuschwanstein.  Anne and Mark tried to get an explanation of these names, but the best they could surmise is that in the German language, you buy two syllables and get three more free.



Hohenschwangau

Both castles are tied to King Ludwig II of Bavaria.  He grew up in Hohenschwangau and built Neuschwanstein.  He is sometimes referred to as "Mad King Ludwig," although whether he was actually insane has never been determined.  Regardless, the guy liked castles.

You know who else likes castles?  Anne. (In contrast to Ludwig, however, Anne's sanity is quite well established)  Anne is picured above on our approach to Neuschwanstein.  If this looks somewhat familiar to you, maybe it is because several other castles have been patterned after this one, including the castle in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

Saint George is on Anne's right, slaying that dragon.

After wandering around the castle grounds for a bit, Anne and Mark wanted to get a look at the castle from a different angle.  They decided to take the walk over to Mary's Bridge.  Mary's Bridge is pictured below.  It was placed a good distance away from the castle, but provides a fantastic vantage point from which to see Neuschwanstein..... usually. 

Mary's Bridge - no fog problems yet.

Unfortunately for Anne and Mark, by the time they had made the trek from the castle to the bridge, it had begun to rain and the fog had rolled in.  So, its value as a vantage point was.... somewhat diminished.

Mark poses on Mary's Bridge with Neuschwanstein in the background (take our word for it)

The fog was actually a bit of an issue on the way back to Fussen.  Anne sets much more of a quick pace than Mark does (no big surprise there).  Usually, this is no big deal, but when the fog started getting thick she nearly disappeared from view all together.

Christmastime in Germany

City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks

December 8 is a holiday in Bulgaria that falls right before the end of the school year.  Anne and Mark decided to take advantage of that scheduling quirk by leaving town for a long weekend and visiting the Christmas market in Munich, Germany.  Many people associate Munich with a festival that occurs a little earlier in the year, as Munich annually plays host to a huge Oktoberfest celebration.  However, the Christmas market is no slouch, as Anne and Mark found out.

There are several markets set up around the city.  Anne and Mark looked enough like locals that they were asked to give directions once or twice.  At first, they stated that they did not know their way around, as they were not actually from around the area.  After a little thought, though, Anne and Mark decided that a flat denial was just not in the Christmas spirit.  The next time someone asked for directions, Anne and Mark decided that they would give some (left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down, B, A start?), for better or for worse.

One of the large Christmas markets starts in Marianplatz (which roughly translates to "Mary's Plaza"), which is right in the center of Munich and spreads along the adjoining streets.  If you go to Munich with a travel guide, it will send you to Marianplatz so that you can view the famous Glockenspiel.  For those who don't know, the Glockenspiel  kind of looks like a huge cuckoo clock.  Everyday at 11 and 12 o'clock, the clock chimes and the glockenspiel re-enacts a joust from four hundred years ago (or something like that).  After the home team (the Bavarian knight) wins, some little coopers do an interpretive dance.  According to our guide, the coopers were the beer makers of the time.  Unfortunately, the city was hit by plague.  As often happened with plague, they blamed it on the cats.  So they killed the cats.  This allowed the rat population (which actually spread plague) to balloon and things got really bad.  The people started quarantining themselves in their homes to avoid getting sick.  This was bad news for the coopers (because no one buys beer if they never leave their house).  So, long story short, they imported some cats from Italy, took down the rats, plague goes away, everybody wins.  The people, though, still did not know that the coast was clear.  So the coopers turned to the most logical form of communication for this type of situation - interpretive dance.  They invented a little twirling dance to symbolize that the plague was over.  The coopers in the glockenspiel do it every day.  The coopers in the city of Munich do it once every seven years, to commemorate .... well, I guess to commemorate the day that the imported Italian cats got after the German rats.  So, if you're interested in seeing the coopers of Munich do a swirling dance down the streets, head's up - the next one is in 2012.  Anyway, for some reason the Glockenspiel is a famous tourist attraction.  Anne and Mark were more impressed with the Christmas market.

The Christmas market at Marianplatz was pretty extensive.  Even so, the vendors could mostly be categorized into one of two camps: (1) arts & crafts or (2) booze.

Possibly selling arts & crafts AND booze.

Anne and Mark eventually found their way to a stand that was peddling Gluhwein, which is mulled wine.  Anne and Mark were encouraged because although the arts and crafts vendors were frequented by fellow tourists, Anne and Mark had to elbow their way past Munichians Munchkins Munichese people from Munich to get to the counter of the Gluhwwein stand.  When eating or drinking on the road, always go where the locals go.  If you need to fight past the locals - all the better.

What does that lady have in her hat?

Later, Anne and Mark took a short trip to a town called Fussen.  Fussen is much smaller than Munich, but also had a market.