travel | anya elise

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March 2, 2015 by Anya Elise

once more unto the breach || berlin

It’s becoming ever more clear that I’m not a travel writer. Each time I try to settle down in front of my computer to wax poetical about our travels abroad this past November, I can’t come up with anything even mostly coherent, let alone even a little profound. I want to tie together our brief moments in another land into a vivid narrative. Tales relatable. Intriguing. Fun. Yet it usually just babbles out of me into something just shy of bullet point form. We did this, then this happened, we ate here, saw that, the end. “See Sally run. Run, Sally, run.” My internal dialogue does not pour forth into neat prose. Of course, rarely does it ever on the first go around. For any writer, I’m sure. But it still frustrates me when I can’t seem to get it right even after days of scooting words around the little blog post box. So instead of spending another week, two, more trying to mold this together, we are just going to dive in. Here we go!

Berlin to me is the following: New. Renewed. Complicated. Dynamic. Bright. Unexpected. Forthcoming. Bare. With all the development in the post-war years, there’s almost no wrong answer or impression. Everything is fluctuating and growing, while still remaining honest about the past.

During our second visit to Berlin we had the chance to cash in on our relative familiarity of the place and see more museums, wander more aimlessly, freeze more abundantly. Truly, totally frozen there in late November, it was like preparing for battle each time you walked out of the hotel lobby. Vest yourself of thy wooly garments and head once more unto the breach. Despite the need to enter a near-permanent state of thawing in the weeks following our trip, we felt more at ease and more in love with the city with each passing day we were there.

So here are some photos. You’ll notice a sort of Christmas, holiday theme thrown in with the group, which seems not at all fitting for March. But bear in mind that when we were there it was but weeks until Christmas. So feel free to take a moment to rocket backward in time to Christmas 2014 and crank a holiday tune or two while scrolling through these. The weather here in Colorado is currently quite suitable to such endeavors, so why not. Cocoa all around!

Above /// The Brandenburg Gate as seen well into the evening when most tourist type crowds have skedaddled along.

Above /// Magnets speaking to the history of Berlin. History that can still seem rather recent.

Below /// Dan holds on tight while trying to navigate us through the tunnels of mass transit. He did a great job.

Above /// A fantastic little cafe called Factory Girl! Exclamation point included by the cafe owners, but a totally warranted bit of punctuation. Delicious.

Below /// Established architecture and cranes building the way to new architecture.

Above & Below /// Christmas market! You drink hot mulled wine and listen to roving bands play polka (I actually don’t think they played polka, but it sounds fun). Then you eat delicious bratwursts and pick out ornaments.

Above /// Unter den Linden, one of the main boulevards of Berlin.

Despite the chilled air, I would highly recommend you go visit in the off-season months. First of all: Christmas markets. They are everywhere and spectacular. Secondly, we almost never dealt with big crowds of people jostling all around. Not on the subway, not in the museums, not at restaurants. The only crowd we found was at the Christmas market, but being packed in tight together meant conserving body heat, so it was still a win win.

We are extremely fond of Berlin, so go visit and let me know how much you love it too.

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February 3, 2015 by Anya Elise

a medieval city || prague

You know that question, “If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?” For years my answer was prompt and final: Prague. I suppose this unfailing need to see golden Prague — zlata Praha, or so I read somewhere — started when I was watching the Travel Channel many moons ago. In this particular show, Samantha Brown visits a restaurant in Prague called, Cafe Imperial. According to Zdeněk Jirotka, a Czech writer and humorist, there are three kinds of people in the world, easily classified by how they behave when confronted by a plate stacked high with day-old doughnuts. The first kind of person will simply stare at the doughnuts, the second will see the stale pastries and secretly imagine how it would feel to throw them about, and the third will be the sort “for whom the idea of a doughnut whistling through the air is such an enticement that they get up and actually make it happen.” Don’t we all sort of wish we had that sort of gall? Well, Cafe Imperial used to make such dreams come true, and in this episode, Samantha Brown was there to investigate. At the time it was possible for one to buy a stack of stale doughnuts and throw them around the restaurant at one’s fellow patrons with nary a consequence. And when I witnessed this act of culinary cheekiness, I remember thinking that if such a magical place existed in the world, I had to see it.

In November we had the opportunity to travel across the grand old pond to Europe. (Hey, if the Atlantic gets to the be “the pond,” what does the Pacific get as a nifty nickname? The puddle. The pool. The lagoon? Someone get on this please.) We spent a week traveling through the wilds of Berlin and Prague. Dan flew out to Germany before I did for a workshop, so I made the jump myself a week later. We technically spent that first night in Berlin, but we got up on the early side, lifted a copy of the International New York Times, ate some fancy breakfast buffet items and hopped a train to Prague. Which is where this tale shall truly begin.

Above /// on the train from Berlin to Prague

Below /// a tram in Prague that will run you over, so pay attention

Above /// the John Lennon wall

Below /// my travel companion looking impish; Prague Castle looming in the distance

Above /// scenes from the Charles Bridge; tradition says that if you touch the plaque and make a wish, you will be granted good luck and guarantee your one-day return to Prague

Above /// an astronomical clock dating to the 1400s

In the end, we never did throw stale doughnuts at anyone. The Cafe Imperial eventually did away with the option altogether. I imagine locals and tourists alike were not terribly thrilled with airborne pastries flying about haphazardly (as if there’s any other way for a doughnut to fly). But magic still existed within this golden, medieval city that I had so frequently imagined. It felt untouched, preserved. Escaping utter destruction during World War II, it’s a city that carries its centuries between every brick and red-roofed tile. In visiting this place, you feel that it isn’t so much a part of your story, but rather that you are but a footnote to its own.

You’re beautiful, Prague. Never change.

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September 4, 2014 by Anya Elise

the crab that was || san francisco

We returned, rested after a week spent in San Francisco under the ever-kind care of my grandparents. We erred on the side of relaxation, seeing several sights, but certainly not hitting the pavement at dawn and staying out until all hours to fill every last moment with activity.

Over the weekend we took to the beach. A quiet beach, empty of crowds. Miraculously, given the holiday nature of this past weekend. This is why it pays to know the locals (many thanks to my aunt for the directions!).

It being the ocean of northern California, the water felt frozen, the breeze frigid, and the sun — though shining brightly — didn’t give one the sense of much warmth. Yes, you guessed it, I got sunburned. Which never happens to me. No truly. I have such a small amount of personal experience with sunburn, that when my legs started getting red and tender later that evening I turned to Dan with a healthy amount of concern and said, “I think I’m having an allergic reaction to something.”

Yeah. An allergic reaction…to the sun.

Merciful heavens.

Despite that, we also bore witness to a small historical moment. For all the many years I’ve been visiting my family in San Francisco and enjoying trips to the beach, I have never before seen a live crab skittering around the sand. Only dead ones. Or remnants of dead ones. How’s that for foreshadowing.

We sat in our little beach chairs, reading and staring at the waves, and quite suddenly there appeared a crab, perched on a mini dune right before us. Uncertain if he was alive, we waited until he made a small circuit around his dune, then Dan cautiously approached him to get a closer look. (The photo at the top of this post was taken by Dan.) I — being the ~~wimp~~ pragmatic girl that I am and always wary of carnivorous creatures sporting too many legs who may be looking for a human toe snack — kept watch from the security of my chair. I mean, someone had to keep an eye on things, there could have been more of them. It could have been an ambush.

I have never been one to bear much affection in my heart for many-legged creatures. They are freaky, and I will stand by that very scientific conclusion until the end of my days. There was a spider who set up shop in the outdoor nook of one of our cottage house windows recently and I wanted to spray the thing right out of there with the lawn hose. Dan said I shouldn’t as that wouldn’t be very neighborly behavior. The point is, while I was interested to come across my first living beach crab, I wasn’t going to be inviting him over for afternoon tea any time soon.

But, he continued to sit there. Now and then the tide would reach him and he’d get a little salt bath. He might scuttle in response, but mostly he just sat. I began to imagine a little life for him. Perhaps he was shipwrecked and waiting here for his long lost love. Perhaps he was on the run from the law. Perhaps he really doesn’t like afternoon tea either, and is more of a coffee drinker like myself.

Perhaps I could find a little modicum of friendly tidings for this fellow.

And then the seagull attacked. It was like a scene out of a Hitchcock movie, except there was only one bird (at first) and it wasn’t even remotely interested in attacking me, Dan or the general population of San Francisco. As far as we could tell.

The gull grabbed our shipwrecked friend, flipped him over — the sight of those many legs flailing proving both terribly unsettling (why are there so many of them?) and more than a little sad — and pecked him. Several times. Definitively. The legs slowly stopped moving, the pinchers no longer pinching, and he perished. Then the seagull, now unhappily accompanied by a fellow gull or two trying to get in on this very fresh snack, started eating the crab. Right in front of us.

Within no more than 10 minutes, the crab was quite dead. Which is putting it mildly, but we don’t really need more details do we? As we related the tale later, we likened it to having a live version of the Discovery Channel play out in front of us. And though I, for a brief moment, thought about springing forward and defending the crab when the seagull first attacked, that’s not really how nature works. Sometimes you just have to let life run its course without interference.

So….good talk. I’m failing to come up with any really graceful exit strategy to this post. Also sort of wondering why this is the particular anecdote I chose to open the recap of our week-long vacation to San Francisco.

But there it is.

Seagulls, take us out!

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June 10, 2014 by Anya Elise

10 on 10 || June

We are six months into this year, and nary a vacation has been seen in these here parts. (Is that the proper use of the word “nary“? It feels false.) So to remedy the nary vacation situation (that was definitely incorrect…maybe…I’m lacking linguistic certainty), last weekend we finished up work Friday evening, drove to the airport, and hopped onto a plane to Southern California. Our first stop was Disneyland. Disneyland! [insert triumphant trumpet sounds here] Our second stop was San Clemente. Our third stop was back home to Denver [insert sad trombone sound here] (nothing but love for you Denver), as we are working folk and could only swing a weekend vacation. For now. [insert ominous, and yet hopeful, operatic overture here] (I need to get me a professional sound effects human to follow me and my blog writing ways around at all times. Any sound technicians in the house?)

This is all a long — and grammatically confusing — way of saying, welcome to the June edition of 10-on-10, our monthly venture into a recent, personal photographic endeavor. We’ll talk more about our day in Disneyland (brought to you by sunscreen) soon. For now, we’re jumping to stop number two and taking a walk along the southern California coast.

Guys, there is a train that runs along the coast. Making stops right there on the beach to pick up surfers, adventurers, and I can only assume Jack Kerouac types. I must get on this train immediately.

And then here is me. Looking west toward the ocean, basking in my exceptional paleness.

So it’s settled, our next vacation must incorporate coastal trains and more beach time.

Stay tuned for next time when we recap the “It’s a Small World” Disneyland ride in great detail so you too can share in our continued pain.

Until then…check out these fellow 10-on-10ers to see what they have been up to this past month. While visiting, sing them your favorite verse from the “It’s a Small World” theme song.

Courtney Z Photography

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February 1, 2014 by Anya Elise

and so, berlin || our grand adventure

Berlin, Germany. The end of our two-week adventure across three countries in Europe. It was an interesting exercise to start our travels amid the ancient churches and cobblestones of Rome, and finish it surrounded by history that occurred in our own lifetimes. In Italy, you felt the immense awe of events so far removed; in Berlin, you felt the very recent realness of them.

Before Dan suggested we visit Germany at all, I had always overlooked it as a destination. (My apologies to all of Germany, including my ancestors. Nothing but love for you all.) Italy and France and Spain and England, these were the places that most frequently sprang to mind when imagining European excursions. As such, dear Germany remained rather unknown to me. Which made it all the more wonderful to cap off our journey. I had very few researched, must-see venues to visit. So instead, we just followed the pavement as it spread out before us.

I’ve been struggling to come up with the proper words to seal this recap of our two weeks traveling through Europe. In fact, the browser window holding a draft of this very post has remained open for almost a week on my computer, just quietly awaiting some keystrokes. I think you approach such a pilgrimage with the assumption that one way or the other, you’ll come out the other side with a sort of revelation to carry back home like a souvenir purchased from a street corner vendor. I certainly have felt this necessity. But in truth, I don’t believe you can walk away from a trip with the impact of your experiences neat and tidy and ready to be shared. In actuality, they sit with you, and remain with you for a lifetime to come, to chew over and process continuously. Maybe there’s never a single nugget to sum it all up. Instead, you’re left with a handful of little strings that you’ve tied to each location, that will anchor your heart and mind in fragments. And maybe that is just as it should be.

So that, for now, is all she wrote. Thanks for sharing a part of this with me.