James Black : 2010 European Vacation Diary and Photos

Diary and Photo Gallery of the 2010 European Vacation of Carmen Cham and James Black
by James Black
Scroll to bottom to see photos.

page created April 2, 2010.

link to James Black homepage ( http://james.architectureburger.com/ )
contact James Black: jamesblack at architectureburger.com

Diary:

Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010:
Depart LAX. Layover in Chicago, eat unusually tasty chicken mcnuggets in terminal, get on airplane to Paris.

Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010:
An unusual “tempest” in Paris prevents our plane from landing. We are diverted to Frankfurt, Germany. Arrive around 9:00 AM. Wait around for a long time wondering how we will get to Paris. Accept airline’s offer to ride in a coach bus to Paris. Depart around 2:30 after waiting in the bus for an hour while stupid Americans buy food from a McDonalds (prefabricated like a shipping container) at the airport.
Listen to Kraftwerk the whole way. Bus stops at a truck stop in France near the German border, we eat peanut flavored puff snacks and pizza flavored crackers.
Arrive CDG airport near 10:00, take bus and two trains and get to our airBNB rental at 43 Rue des Gravilliers around 11:30. Our host Franck has been greatly inconvenienced and has put up with it.

Monday, Mar 1, 2010:
Eat croissants and pain au chocolat and drink espresso at Tartine, a little bakery with an ambience like a cozy Winchell’s.
Walk to Pompidou Centre, observe and photograph it and IRCAM. Enter Pompidou Centre and see exhibits on designer Patrick Jouin and work by women from their collection.
Walk to Les Halles.
Eat Ramen at Higuma near the Louvre.
Walk grounds of the Louvre, enter through glass pyramid, but skip galleries. Walk through attached underground shopping mall and depart.
Cross Pont Neuf, then see parade of a couple hundred horseback riders.
See monuments, Paris Opera House, Notre Dame at night, Pantheon.
Get cheezed-out eating savory crepes at Au P’tit Grec.

Tuesday, Mar 2, 2010:
Get takeout croissants and espresso at Un Moment Gourmand, eat them at the plaza in front of Arts et Metiers.
Visit “b@by connect” internet café.
Buy meat, cheese and baguette at the food gallery of Le Bon Marché, make sandwiches to eat sitting on a park bench in the Parc du Champs de Mars near the Eiffel Tower.
See the UNESCO complex, with buildings by Breuer, Nervi and Ando.
Walk to Eiffel Tower, wander around, eventually find and visit Musee du Quai Branly, an ugly building by Nouvel.
Walk to Arc de Triomphe, and down Champs-Elysees.
Dinner at Le Comptoir de Madame Tomate – steak, fries and Belgian beer.

Wednesday, Mar. 3, 2010:
Return to Tartine for croissants and espresso.
Take train to suburban Poissy, bus to photogenic Villa Savoye.
Walk back through Poissy, eat lunch at Café de la Paix (steak, fries and espresso).
Train back to Paris, walk through Montmartre and to Basilique du Sacré-Cœur at top of hill.
Return to Rue des Gravilliers. Buy fresh baguette at bakery across street from our home.
Wander around neighborhood. Buy a few items at G20 grocery store.
Eat a chicken and cheese crepe and a lemon-sugar crepe at Chocolat Rouge, then another lemon-sugar crepe at Creperie de Paris.

Thursday, Mar 4, 2010:
Breakfast on coffee and croissants at Café les Arts & Metiers.
Take train, visit National Library designed by Perrault.
Walk through cold and scenic Paris. See Institut du Monde Arabe.
Eat “Sandwich Grec” at Restaurant Pacha.
Tour Notre Dame.
Take train, sneak into a closed Cartier Foundation, get kicked out.
Walk through Parc Montsouris to Cité Universitaire. See Corby’s Swiss Pavilion and awesome Brazilian Pavilion.
Drink beers at Chouchou.
Eat savory Lebanese galettes from Man’ Ouché.

Friday, Mar. 5, 2010:
Pack up and leave Rue des Gravilliers; take train to Gare Du Nord, have breakfast at Café du Nord.
Take Thalys bullet train to Brussels.
Walk to Hotel a la Grande Cloche on Place Rouppe.
Eat lunch at nearby Café Bebo – Spaghetti Bolognese and Jupiler Beer.
Take metro, find and visit Horta Museum/Victor Horta’s house.
Return to town. Buy gaufrettes at Maison J. Dandoy, get advised to try to the Brussels waffle at Dandoy Tea Room.
Visit Grande Place.
Find Dandoy Tea Room, enjoy Liege and Brussels waffles.
See famous statue “Mannekin-Pis”.
Drink a Duvel beer at smoky café-bar le Roi des Belges.
Eat dinner at Thai/Vietnamese restaurant le Lotus Bleu – piles of meat and Hoegaarden beer.

Saturday, Mar. 6, 2010:
Walk to Grande Place, have breakfast of coffee and waffles at Dandoy Tea Room.
Wander town, visit arcades, see courtyard of Hotel Ravenstein, see art nouveau Old England building, walk to Porte de Hal.
Take train to Little Manhattan, walk through mall.
Find way to Belgian Comic Book Museum, in a converted warehouse designed by Horta. Eat lunch at Brasserie Horta in building – Belgian meatballs called boulettes. Tour museum.
Take train up to Heysel, tour Atomium and exhibition on Ludic Modernism.
Take train back to town. Walk by Royal Palace and Warandepark.
Eat a liege waffle at Le Funambule.
Eat fried foods including “taco” at Fritland.

Sunday, Mar. 7, 2010:
Get up early, walk to flea market Marché aux Puces de Bruxelles - Quartier des Marolles.
Drink breakfast coffee at adjacent Brasserie La Clef d’Or.
Pack up and leave hotel.
Walk through Marché du Midi street market. Carmen buys a hat.
Get a bratwurst sandwich with grilled onions at a truck called ‘T Hamburgerke.
Get a hot waffle from a converted van apparently called Gaufres Chaudes / Warme Wafels.
Get a tea at Café Liegeois in the Gare du Midi.
Take train to Amsterdam.
Check into CitizenM Hotel, see strange cylinder-filled room.
Ride tram into town, eat lunch at a Chinese-Indonesian restaurant Kam-Wah in the Jordaan district.
Walk to The Old Dutch Candy Store, ask serveuse to choose 5 euros worth of assorted “drops” candies that she likes, receive a heavy paper cone filled with candy, some of which are delicious, some of which are black licorice, and one of which is salty and tastes like ammonia.
Walk around Amsterdam some more. Have beers at Tomaz near the Begijnhof.
Walk to 17th-century jenever tasting room Proeflokaal Wynand Fockink, drink three glasses of excellent oude jenever.
Eat dinner at Casa Peru, special three course meal for restaurant week.

Monday, Mar. 8, 2010:
Take tram to Apollolaan.
Walk to Wasserette Center Wash, drop off dirty laundry for cleaning by kindly laundry man.
Walk to Ron Verboom bakery for croissants and coffee.
Walk through De Pijp neighborhood to Albert Cuyp Market (street market).
Drink a fresh squeezed orange juice from street vendor.
Pick up laundry, return to hotel.
Take tram to Jordaan district, eat lunch at The Pancake Bakery – cheese and ginger pancakes.
Long walk through scenic Amsterdam.
Take bus back to Centraal Station, and tram to Western Docklands. See MVRDV projects including Silodam.
Take tram back into town. Have steak and fries dinner at Argentinean restaurant El Rancho Grill.
Drink beer at ancient brown café Hoppe.

Tuesday, Mar. 9, 2010:
Walk to Bagels & Beans café for coffee.
Long walk by Free University, ING Group building, Municipal Orphanage by Aldo van Eyck, elementary schools by Hertzberger.
Eat lunch (gnocchi bolognese) at Pompa mediterrane keuken.
Walk through Museumplein, by Van Gogh Museum to Rijksmuseum. Tour gallery and see Rembrandt paintings.
Walk to Begijnhof, see the old wooden house.
Drink beers at old-timey brown café, De Pilsener Club.
Buy baguette, cheese, sausage at Albert Heijn supermarket.
Visit Febo for fried snacks served through vending machines.
Return to hotel, make sandwiches, watch movies on TV.

Wednesday, Mar. 10, 2010:
Take tram into town. Drink coffee at Koepelcafé.
Return to The Pancake Bakery. Eat chicken, cheese and onion pancake.
Take tram out west, see MVRDV’s Wozoco project.
Fish soccer ball out of canal for schoolboys.
Go to giant Albert Heijn supermarket, buy stroopwafels and Chocolonely.
Return to town, take bus out to Eastern Docklands. Go on long, freezing cold walk. See architecture such as the Whale and the Neutelings + Riedijk tower.
Drink beer at Café de Zuid.
Try to go to another ancient tasting house, but it’s closed.
Eat dinner at restaurant with roast ducks hanging in window, Wing Kee Chinees Eethuis.

Thursday, Mar. 11, 2010:
Get up early, tram to Centraal Station. Take train to Hilversum, change trains, listen to six Kraftwerk albums on Deutsche Bahn journey to Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
Walk toward our Berlin home, stop at discount store, buy Haribo candies.
Meet host at our rental, Flemingstrasse 4.
Go on freezing walk through Tiergarten park, see Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial.
Return to Flemingstrasse, eat pasta dinner at Trattoria lo Spaghettino.

Friday, Mar. 12, 2010:
Walk to station, take U-Bahn to Brandenburg Gate. Walk down Unter den Linden, snow on the ground. See monuments.
Walk to Museuminsel. Tour DDR Museum.
Walk to Alexanderplatz, see TV Tower, Nikolaiviertel.
See Dutch Embassy designed by OMA.
Walk to Aus Berlin shop.
Take train south. Visit workwear shop, buy Danish workwear jacket. Run into our host, Todd, apparently on his way to buy workwear. Todd warns us against overrated currywurst place, suggests nearby Vietnamese restaurant.
Eat lunch at Vietnamese restaurant 3 Moms.
Walk up to Libeskind’s Jewish Museum, tour exhibit.
Eat German food for dinner at Schwarzwaldstuben.

Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010:
Breakfast of coffee and croissants at Bistro Bellevue, beneath the tracks at Bellevue S-Bahn station.
Walk through Hansa Quarter, filled with late-50s buildings by prominent architects like Aalto, Gropius, Jacobsen, Niemeyer.
Tour antiques street market. Eat Bratwursts from Wurstbeisser truck.
Take train to Potsdamerplatz. Walk through Kulturforum, see Sharoun’s Philharmonic, visit Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie.
Walk to Bauhausarchiv/Design Museum, see exhibit.
Eat currywurst at Curry Nolle 7.
Take train to east side, visit Intershop 2000, where products from the DDR are sold.
Walk the East Side Gallery, section of Berlin Wall with murals.
Walk up the street of the Paris Commune, down Karl-Marx-Allee.
Take train to Friedrichstrasse, walk to Reichstag. Wait for a long time before visiting.
Dinner at Lasagna restaurant.

Sunday, Mar. 14, 2010:
Take taxi to Berlin Tegel airport. Fly to London Heathrow, spend a lot of time there. Eventually fly back to Los Angeles, watching five movies en route.

Photo Gallery:
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