Street Art in Zagreb

Wandering through Zagreb my first days there, I was thrilled by the street art that was everywhere.  I hadn't had enough exposure to Europe yet to realize this was a common occurrence, so I took tons of pictures:

Art and architecture in Liverpool

Liverpool is an artsy city, not just because of music: it was declared the Cultural capital of Europe in 2008.

Liverpool music scene as experienced by a non-musical person

I took a side trip for a few days to Liverpool and Manchester.  It's actually a lot cooler than I thought it would be.  Liverpool is a city I could see myself living in.  I loved that all day every day I could hear people singing on the streets, usually The Beatles, of course.

I was lucky because David, the guy I met on the ferry from Northern Ireland, had stayed at a great hostel while he was in Liverpool (and I was in Edinburgh) so he recommended I stay at Hoax.  It's a new hostel -- only opened this month -- so it had low prices despite being in the most desirable part of town.  It was right by the Cavern (top left), which is where the Beatles played before they outgrew it.  I happened to be there during Beatles Week and so there was a constant (sold out) line up of cover bands playing there.  There's also a statue of Eleanor Rigby (top right) in the alley where Hoax is, and the brick wall outside the Cavern (bottom left) has the names of all the famous people to sing there.

The basement of Hoax, Hopskotch (bottom right), is a bar they also own, and I wandered down for open mic night, where I heard this adorable girl play some great covers of American Country music.  You just never know what you're going to hear over here!

When you think of Paris...

...you inevitably think of the Eiffel Tower.

Not the most flattering blog ever written about Paris

The first thing I noticed about Paris was....how to put this delicately.....

It's kind of gross.

Now some of my perception could be blamed on the fact that I just came from the Netherlands and the Dutch people are stereotypically clean freaks.  The street sweeping truck passed me multiple times a day in Amsterdam.  I'm pretty sure they employ someone just to go around and find all the gum people spit out during the day.  My view of all cities everywhere has been ruined by the cleanliness of Amsterdam.

But regardless.  Paris...

Farewell Tour of Zagreb

Tomorrow morning I hop a train to Munich (change of plans!) so today I -- and my belly full of food poisoning (one should not choose a tuna sandwich that's been sitting in the deli window for God knows how long, even if one is suffering from an acute hypoglycemic episode) -- took one last trek through Zagreb.

On a whim I entered the Archaeological Museum, only to find out that it was closing in 20 minutes.  Lucky for me, Sundays are free, so I took advantage of my twenty minutes and asked the museum workers for a recommendation.

"Third floor."

"Oh, third floor, yes." 

"Third floor, on your left."

Upper left: broach made with a pretty rock during the iron age
Upper middle: stone figurines that look a helluva lot like bears to me
Upper right: repeatedly patched pot
Lower left: a bunch of pendants and other jewelry
Lower middle: A doll's head?
Lower right: more broaches