Crema Cafe

Introducing: A little place in Harvard Square where I go to to have my daily fix. I found this place by chance actually, mainly because the chain that I had been going to, Peet's, was closed for renovation. Peet's was quite good, wayyyyy better than Starbucks, but it wasn't just quite right. So although it caused me quite a bit of inconvenience to close for renovation, it helped me find Crema.

Crema is a delightful little place. It sells some cakes and other treats like muffins and cookies. It also has some quiches too. The ambience is a little dark, definitely not that conducive for people who came by to read, but it's good for chit-chat. A sign hung up on the second floor reminds customers to be polite enough to leave after an hour so that other customers will have seats to sit on when they come in.

The coffee is great, that much I would say. It is just the right strength (for me at least. Like I have mentioned before, I like it pretty strong). The only problem I would have is that it is pretty inconsistent in a peculiar way:

If you have your coffee in-house, it would come out great. And... If you didn't, and ordered take-away instead, it comes out pretty bad. My cafe latte comes out tasting like just hot milk. Strange, how it's supposed to have two shots of espresso. 

My conclusion?

Why, sit down and have a cup of coffee in the cafe of course!

And perhaps you'll get to meet some interesting characters too. I had a great conversation with this old man the other day about South East Asia and China. 

How about that for another great coffee place?

Harvard COOP: Musings

I was walking slowly down the well-lit aisle, browsing through books. The shelves, taller than myself, housed thousands and thousands of fiction titles. My hands were hovering above, "Thinkers", a new book that was just published recently, and had earned the Putlizer Prize for fiction in 2010. I was near the back of the store, where the back entrance was, that would take you to the second half of the Harvard COOP, which sold all the merchandise. 

I walk a few more steps, and I noticed this sign which said:

Looking for Harvard Insignia Gifts and Clothing? 

Go straight back and exit to the right. 

You will find the Insignia Department by using the Brattle or Palmer Street entrances of the Harvard COOP located in the building just across the street.

Just 3 seconds after I noticed it, two girls shouted, "Hey guys! We found out where to go!"

They read the sign out loud, then turned around, AND HEADED STRAIGHT BACK TO THE FRONT OF THE STORE. As they walked off in a hurry, I couldn't help but burst out in laughter. 

The sign had meant that they should walk straight, until they reached the back of the store (near where I was), and exit through the back entrance. 

I smiled in amusement and walked to the cashier. 

Summer School

I haven't gotten around to posting about it yet, but here I am, in Boston. I'm attending summer school in Harvard. Some people have asked me why I'm so willing to put myself through school and study during the summer, but hey, there's so many interesting things to learn! Learning is an adventure in itself.

So yes, I'm back to staying up late to finish assignments and with my cup of coffee. 

And I'm loving it. 

Wien

Wien, Austria. Or, should I say, Vienna, as it is more commonly known. This was our last stop during our epic Central Europe trip.

It would seem a little unkind to summarise all that we did in this place down to a few paragraphs, especially when I've elaborated quite a little on the previous places. The main reason for this was just simply because it happened quite some time ago and I've been busy doing things.. and thus not really having the time to come back here.

But in any case, I'll just make a list of the places I really enjoyed.

Haus der Musik:

House of Music. It has some really cool things in there, and there are free concerts too. You can even pretend to be a conductor (and there is a simulated orchestra that will actually move in tune with your conducting. hehe). Some floors were just weird. You'd have to go there and see what I mean. But it's a very nice experience nonetheless. :)

The Opera House:

Well, we didn't exactly watch the opera. It was a play. I'm not exactly sure why this was so, but we got to see it for free. Basically we think that it was because we happened to be there on a Friday. The Opera House would have a wide screen on the outside by the courtyard, and they'd lay mats out for people to sit on and some chairs as well. What we did was that we bought some Chicken Schnitzel, some crisps and some drinks and had a nice meal while watching it! Sure, it was all in German, but heck, we couldn't care anyway. We had fun. :)

Food!!!!!

Who doesn't love food?

When in Wien, go try some coffee. But the place you should go to for that (and some good cakes and some AWESOME asparagus soup!) would be DEMEL. :)

For the Chicken Schnitzel, go to this place called Figlmuller. It is cheap, and tastes fantastic. Reputed to be the best in Vienna, and I agree!

And last but not least, Cafe Sacher, for some brilliant Sacher Tots. :D

Some places to go, which might be a nice experience but I wasn't that fascinated by, was Mozarthaus (Mozart Museum) and the Imperial Guards Horse Practice.

Also, there is this really cool church. Now, most churches have stained glass. This church is a little different. It has coloured glass panels, and thus when the light shines it, it gives the church a trippy kind of feel. It becomes colourful! Weird, but cool.

I'm sorry to reduce Vienna to this, but my memory isn't that fantastic. All this is just based on pictures though.

Oh, and you should definitely pay for the walking tours to get a good overall view on Vienna.

Wien.. I love this city. Definitely one of my more favourite places in the world.

Summer Continued in Budapest and in Slovakia!

And so, after Warsaw we flew in to Budapest. I can't say that I can tell you much about it though. We honestly didn't have that much time, and we spent most of it just taking the tours around the city. They're free, and quite worth taking.

The morning tour, would be the Peace, Democracy (and something) walk. Basically taking you through history in terms of Hungary being ruled by the Soviet Union, the Nazis.. etc. The afternoon tour is about Budapest in general.

I would say that I did enjoy learning about the history of Budapest. And this is one society, I realised, that draws a lot upon the symbolism of things. Each statue is symbolic, and each act is too.

Take this fountain for example. It symbolises the democracy of the country. If you're far away from it, the fountain is up high (see the water level on the right of the picture). Come near it, the fountain disappears and you can walk inside it. Once inside, it will rise again, and it represents bars (like a prison cell).

But then the beauty of it is that, in a democratic society, people are free to come and go as they see fit, unchained by the political realities of the day, because the people ARE the backbone of society. So as easily as you can imprison yourself, you can also walk out of the prison by walking near it (the level will go down) and step out.

Another (cheesy) example. The locals here believe that if you take a lock, and lock it to the bridge (they have multiple) and throw the key into the river, your love will last forever. And so they write their names on the locks as well. It's rather sweet, if you think about it.

Those, among other things. It's really a beautiful city. A must go. Would have loved to spend more time there. Go to the hot baths and all. But there was no time!

However, a VERY good eat was at this restaurant called Ruben. Do go there if you're in Budapest.

And as for Slovakia (we went to Bratislava).. I must say that there is nothing much to see there. It's pretty though! Some historical sights here and there... But yeap. The interesting place was this church. It's really different and it looks like a place out of Alice in Wonderland.

Yeah. It's a marshmallow blue. Kids were playing Hogwarts outside it! And as for the good eats (and trust me, they're REALLY good)

The Slovak Pub

Verne

So well, for Slovakia, it's a slow-paced place. Nothing much to see (it's so tiny!) but the food is good. Budapest though, is a place to go. Slovakia? 5 out of 10. Budapest, 8. :)

P.s. I don't know why the pictures turned out weird (for the marshmallow church).

Summer Begins, with a little bit of Warsaw

The first installation of my travelling begins in Warsaw, Poland! I didn't have much time to do anything else but pack after my exams before I got on a plane with my travel buddies and jet-set off to holiday fun. We got there rather early and began to explore the place. If you happen to be a traveller in Europe, do check out this site: http://www.use-it.be/europe/ . It has the locals' input on things to see and to explore in a particular place. With that map in hand, we began to walk the old town. 

It looks a little small, but actually, it really is quite small. You can probably walk and see almost everything in the old town within a day as everything is actually quite close to one another.

Another curious thing was the number of churches that were there. What's so special about churches you say? Well, maybe it was the fact that we passed by so many, and in every single one of them, a wedding procession was taking place. One in the morning/afternoon when we walk past it, and another in the evening when we return to the place we had rented out.

After a bit of walking, we happened to chance upon the filming of a movie. It should be a local film, and a rather small production, but it was exciting to see nonetheless. The 'shooting of guns' and 'dying people' and all the old vehicles. We stood on top of a short wall to see what was going on. 

I must say that while the old town is rather beautiful and easily covered within a day, the other attractions in this city aren't exactly very near one another. Once you move out of the old town, the exciting bits are far away from one another, and it can be quite a hassle to walk there. We took half an hour to walk to the Chopin museum (we stayed in the old town), and an hour to walk to the Warsaw Uprising Museum. Not very pleasant if you happen to be unfit.

This is the picture of the Jewish Ghetto. When they were still prosecuting the Jews, the idea was that they should cram thousands of Jews into just two building blocks, so as to isolate them from the rest of the community before transporting them to Auschwitz. Many died, and the pictures that you can see are of some of the people who had lived and died there.

Here are some of the places that we visited that were definitely worth going/doing:

- The Jewish Ghetto

It is a part of history that we should never forget. I wish we had a guide with us to explain a little about the history of the place, butttttttttttttt, fortunately, we had our history buff (she happens to do International History at my University, and she does particularly take an interest in Jewish history) there to tell us a bit of what she knew and to explain the time line and other things.

- The old town

Walk around, take in the sites. There happened to be a little flea market sort of thing going on at the main square when we were there

- The Chopin Museum

It has a certain charm to it. This is one place which I feel only people who appreciate classical music should go to, or, if you are one of those people who takes a particular interest in Chopin himself. It really is a story about his life, his friends, his music... everything. You can sit there and listen to his music and not budge for a really long time at certain stations in the museum. Well worth the visit. And here's a little spoiler: Bet you didn't know that Chopin was a bit of a ladies' man. He had lots of lovers, but was passionate and torn inside, not being able to feel like he could live after a woman has left him. 

- The Warsaw Uprising Museum

Historical, interesting. I don't know how to describe this place, but it is a must go. I suppose it's not a place you would take young children to. I just don't think that young children can appreciate this sort of thing, and it's not very interactive to stimulate their minds. Lots of facts and artefacts and short films to see, but I can hardly imagine how it would keep a young child entertained. 

- FOOD

You absolutely HAVE to go to this place called Podwale Restaurant. The food there is fantastic, and value for money. My pork knuckles didn't even cost me 10 Euros! Everything that my friends and I ordered came out absolutely delicious, and we liked it so much that we came back the next night to have dinner there again! It's great how the waiter understood English and everything. 

If you want to take a trip down history, you could also visit one of the few milkbars (I have no idea why they call it that) too. They are communist canteens. Well, I meant it in a way that they used to be canteens where people could come and buy food while Poland was still under the communist regime. Can't say that I like the food very much in those milkbars, but it's worth a try!

OH, and for some reason, there seems to be a national love for ice-cream. Everyone is practically walking around with a cone in hand. Ice-cream shops at every turn and corner!

Here are some things you either don't want to do, or would want to spend very little time doing:

- Stalin's Empire State Building

It's just a landmark. Nothing special here. Just take a picture of the place and go. It's quite pretty though, but rather underwhelming. 

- FOOD

DO NOT go to this restaurant called Restaurant Boruta. Service is horrible, and we waited a good hour to get our food. Let's not mention that it took half an hour for my drink to come. The food wasn't even good. Measley portions (I could feed a goldfish with that). And it was expensive. Tourist trap for sure. 

That pretty much sums up our trip at Warsaw. We also visited 3 other cities; Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna. More about those later. 

If you're travelling and looking for a place to stay in Warsaw, I really recommend this place that we stayed at. It's called Design City Apartments (you can google this online to check it out). 50/5 Freta. Comfortable, pretty, well-furnished.. the works. The couple who owns the apartment is really friendly. There is a kitchen, fully equipped with the stove and cooking appliances.. They even give you coffee and tea! Bargain? Yup. Definitely. 

Warsaw as a destination?

Well, we were only there for 2 days. It didn't impress me much on the first day, but on the second day it kind of grew on me. I do like this place, but it wouldn't occur to me to come back a second time. If this is your travel destination then I'd say that a traveller should only spend about 2 days at this place.

P.s. Taking cabs are kind of pricey (they know you're a tourist who can't speak their language and they can't speak English either, and hence.. you get the idea). Be prepared to walk, and be prepared to walk far. 

On a scale of 10 (1 being bad and 10 being great), I'd rate Warsaw as a 6.5

Hiatus

Just one more exam until I'm free to do get out there and have fun again. But til that time next week, it'll just be me, my books, and coffee. Bring it on! So much of the world out there to see, but for the moment I'm stuck here in my room. Ah well. 

Who would have thought that we'd live to see the end?

Oh, and my friends and I have taken to drawing on coffee cups during this exam period. You might see more of them coming up. Coffee cup doodling. Hehe.