Book Review - Burial Rites

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a very well written book read by an extremely good narrator. The dialect and accent on the spoken passages in Icelandic seemed spot on in the audio-book and really brought the reader into this world.

This book is heavy and dark. The premise is depressing at best, and the entire mood is heightened by place, in the grey, cold reaches of Iceland. As a reader, you have an idea of where this book is going to end right when you come into it, but it is the journey through the final months of the main character's life that really drive this book home.

The characters were very well written, with the young priest being the exception. His place in the book was largely not necessary and I never felt he was critical to the story or the development of Agnes through her final days.

I would not consider this to be a light read, and in fact, was a difficult one to get through when the weather was so pleasant out in the spring and early summer. This is the type of book you read on a rainy October Sunday in front of a fire with hot tea and some cookies. You are going to need those tea and cookies because they are the only thing that are going to make you feel good while you read this. Agnes is almost the stereotype of a tragic character. Almost everything that could have possibly gone wrong in her life has, and there is a deep sense of depression painted around her. The reader receives only the briefest moment of melancholy relief when her story finally ends.

In some ways I am at a loss for how to wrap up this review. This book is written beautifully. The writing is almost poetic at times and the attention to detail with the use of the Icelandic language was masterfully done. That detailed use of language though is also what makes the book as deep and as heavy as it is. This isn't the type of book for everyone, but it has all the markings to become a "classic" that is still recognized decades from now.

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Ridelog: 2018-06-03


Nothing special on this particular ridelog. This is  your standard shot down towards Starved Rock. As you can imagine it was very crowded. There are some really great roads south of I-80 that you can take down to Starved Rock for a pleasant trip, most notably W Dupont, Pine Bluff and River Road.

Germany - Day 6

Alright, we are rested and refreshed any ready to take out a full day of Berlin. Breakfast at our hotel was nice and got us going for the day. 

Our first trip for the day was to walk the Eastside Gallerry, which is a section of the Berlin Wall, which was still up. From there we followed the wall route to the heart of the city where we checked out Check Point Charlie and some other attractions. Even by 9:00 am the heat was almost unbearable. I just couldn't believe how hot it was outside and being in the sun for any extended periods was really uncomfortable. 

It was on our walk of the wall that we came across a section of Berlin that we really felt uncomfortable in. I am unsure if it is a section of gypsies, refugees or just a poor area of foreigners, but we walked upon a two block area that appear to have some slum apartments. Lined up and down the street were RV's, just tons of them with people living in them. As we walked by there were two men on a bench who said "English". We continued on our way out of that area without lingering. 

We then made it to Check Point Charlie before continuing onto the Topographie des Terrors. I was surprised at how much a tourist trap the checkpoint was. The crowds were intense for a street that was still opened to traffic and there were actors dressed as American soldiers standing around the checkpoint who were willing to take a photo and "stamp your passport" for $5 or so. Sort of disappointed with that. 

The Topographie des Terrors though was something entirely different. A free museum, it is built upon the site where the SS headquarters used to be. A portion of the old foundation is excavated outside the building and with it were story boards explaining the rise of the Nazi party. Inside the museum there is a chronicle, in no hesitation, of the horrors that the Nazi party committed during their reign. It was an impressive museum and fairly sobering. 


After the downtown area we hopped on the subway and headed across the city to visit the Charlottenburg Palace. Another impressive estate from German royalty. Unfortunately our camera died part way through the tour. We hit up lunch across the street at an Italian cafe  for some pasta before heading back to explore the palace grounds. 

Our last major stop for the day was to head up to the Olympic stadium from the 1932 Olympics. It is the last major piece of Nazi architecture that has survived in the city. A major storm hit right when we arrived, but we were able to get some good photos in between the downpours. 

And that is it. We finished up the day back near our hotel. We grabbed some burgers on the street and watched one of the UEFA cup games on TV's set out on the sidewalk. Megan bailed on me when I needed her translation skills for the shop vendor. He was middle-eastern and was speaking german to me. My bill was $15.08 and I could not understand that I needed eight cents for him. 

There was also an uncomfortable incident next to us where a drunk man sat down next to some ladies on the sidewalk while watching the game and he was very loud. The staff pushed him away. Good burgers though. 

The next day we left Berlin. Our trip back to the US took almost 24 hours. Our flight to Newark was delayed five hours from Berlin. Our flight then from Newark to Chicago was also delayed almost two hours. We arrived back in Chicago at 1:30 AM the next day, which was Monday. Brutal couldn't even begin to describe that flight.  Overall a great trip though.  
 

 

Germany - Day 5

Alright, so we made it to Berlin. It was incredibly hot outside, around 95 degrees. Once getting out of the train station we took the subway to the east side where our hotel was. First impressions were not that great and we sort of found ourselves in a pretty rough neighborhood , while taking a wrong turn getting to the hotel. There was broken glass and graffiti strewn about everywhere in the city. It was tough to tell if it was part of the artist neighborhood we were staying in or just a poor section of town.

After settling into our hotel, taking another shower and decompressing we headed out for the day around noon. We hit up the Berliner Dom, which is perhaps the largest church I have ever seen. We walked up to the top of the dome for an impressive view of the surrounding city. 

Next stop was to the Pergamon Museum, which showcases some amazing antiquities from the middle east. The most impressive part of it is probably the reconstruction of the Ishtar gate from the city of Babylon. The stone tables that they had one display were also incredibly detailed and really impressive. By this point we were both pretty tied and I actually found myself nodding off a couple of times while sitting on a bench in the museum. 

Our last stop for the day was to hit up the Brandenburg Gate. Unfortunately there was a sort of summer festival being setup behind it so we couldn't get very close. The US Embassy is located right next to it as well and there were lots of flowers out front in response to the night club shooting that had occurred a few weeks earlier. 

 Dinner was at schlesisch blau, which was a nice restaurant. I had fish and I cannot remember what Megan had. There was a huge summer salad though that came with four or five vinaigrette options. 

Germany - Day 4

Day four had us saying goodbye to our awesome apartment in Munich and catching a train to Nuremberg. We left our photos on the travel wall and hopped on the high speed train for about an 90 minute ride up to Nuremberg. 

What makes Nuremberg so unique are primarily two things. 1) the medieval old town portion of the city, which includes Albrecht Durer's house and the castle and the court house where the Nuremberg trials were held. The old portion of the city is filled with old stone buildings, including some very old stone cathedrals. It was amazing that just a few city blocks held three very large catholic cathedrals. 

More cathedrals and some lunch before we headed off to the Albrecht Durer's house and the castle. 

Albrecht Durer's house was a highlight of the city. Very cool inside. 

Next up was the old royal castle. Great medieval   style here compared to the rocco style seen in the other royal palaces. This is actually what I was expected most of the castles to look like inside. the castle also had a great history of the royal families and the politics around the Holy Roman Empire. 

Next step was the court room where the Nuremberg trials were held. There was a a nice museum attached to the court room, but by this time of the day we were pretty fired. It was hot, in the 90's during the day. 

We finished off the day at a toy museum and some dinner, before we began our true adventure back at the train station. 

I'll let my videos describe our adventure in the Nuremberg train station, but I will add that we ran into a heartbreaking individual while waiting for our trains around midnight in the station. While sitting on some benches waiting for our trains there was a young man sitting across from us. He asked us if we were American and then proceeded to ask how he could get to America. Through our conversations we found out he is Iraqi and he showed us his Iraq passport. He had been living in Germany for eleven years and he was unable to make a living there. He wanted to literally try and achieve the "American Dream". I didn't know what to tell the guy. He seemed so hopeless . The only advice I could give to him was to go online and goto the US State Department website to looking into what the immigration process might be. 

Germany - Day 3

Day 3 of our trip to Germany was an excursion out to the country to visit two castles and the town of Oberammergau. We took about an 90 minute bus ride out to the country and the edge of the alps to get to the castles. Our guide told us that Austria was a mere miles away on the other side of the mountains. 

Our first castle was Castle Linderhof. It was the hunting lodge of King Ludwig II. He was a reclusive "mad" king and lived in this palace in almost complete solitude. The castle was not huge, at least by palace standards, but it was incredibly ornate, decorated in a french style known as Rocco in Germany. Unfortunately photos of the interior were not allowed. 

The second stop on the trip was to the town of Oberammergau. There wasn't anything here that really was that impressive, but it was a nice little country town. There seemed to be a whole bunch of these small towns in the countryside. 

The third and final stop on our tour took us to castle Neuschwanstein. This is perhaps the most famous castle in Germany and is known as the "Disney" castle as the castle in Disney land was modeled after it. The castle was also building by Ludwig II, but it was not completed or fully furnished before his mysterious death. The castle is only 1/3 complete and only one of the floors is decorated. During World War II the Nazi's stored art in the building to keep it from being bombed by allied forces. 

The yellow castle you see in the photo is that of King Ludwig II's mother and she lived just below castle Neuschwanstein. Both castles are surrounding by five lakes, one of which you can see in our photos. It was very pretty. 

We finished off the day back in Munich for some dinner. A nice summer salad and a "chef's selection" for our entree. 



Germany - Day 2

The second day of our trip really has us kicking into Munich. The morning starts of off with one of the most impressive locations on the whole trip at the Munich Residenz. This is the royal palace for the House of Wittelsbach. As you can see from the photos, they had quite a liking to French style decorations. It is hard to describe from the photos who truly intricate and impressive some of the decorations are, but they were some of the most impressive decorations I had ever seen in my life. 

A lunch with some wienerschnitzel, beaten, spaetzle, potato salad before we took the subway up north to the Olympia Park from the 1972 Olympics and the BMW headquarters and museum. 

After the museum, and an increasingly warm day Megan and I were feeling pretty worn out. We finished off the evening with a light dinner which was a cheese plate and some beer. I have to say that I was extremely impressed with the beer in Germany. I am not a beer drinker, but I had more beer in the week that i was there than I probably had in my entire life. It may be important to note that you do not get free water at restaurants. You have to buy all of your water bottles, usually with "gas" and it costs about as much as the beer. A 0.3L glass of beer is typically around €3-4.

Germany - Day 1

Megan and I had been talking about going to Europe for several years now and we decided to just "pull the trigger" and get it done. German was the destination and I bought airline tickets last fall and assumed we would just figure out our itinerary over the next several months. Our trip this year was to visit Munich, Nuremberg, and Berlin. 

The flight into Germany went fine, although Megan didn't get much sleep on the plane. We knew we were going to arrive around mid-morning so we had to check into our Air BnB apartment and then figure out something for the afternoon. Our apartment was located abut two blocks from the main train station. One of the tenants of the apartment, Marina, met us there to let us in. The apartment was gorgeous. You'll see some more photos of the apartment later. 

For our first afternoon we were planning on hitting up a couple of art museums, namely the Pinakothek der Moderne. Unfortunately it was closed because it was a Monday. Our afternoon was starting off poorly, but we then decided to head of to the Englisher Garten, which is Munich's "Central Park".

The highlights of this garden were the manmade river that ran through the center of it and the beer garden. On many days in the summer residents would swim in the river. It was sitting unusually high on this day though due to recent rains. They have a small section near the south side of the park where surfers ride the waves. 

Look at the size of that beer. 

After lunch in the garden we went and walked around the grounds of the Residenz, which was the royal palace. 

We then just sort of wandered around the "old town" area, and walked into a beautiful church and got luck by walking up to see the Glockenspiel right when it was going off. 

The day finished off by hitting up another church and also walking through the main market square. 

Mexico - Day 5 and flying home

So day five was just our flight home from Mexico. Overall I have to say I was really impressed and had a great time there. The people and the food were fantastic. The country was fun. I would go back in a heartbeat. 

I did however catch the infamous stomach bug so I was knocked off my feet bad with a fever for a couple of days. I ended up having to go to the doctor, but in the end I chalk it all up to part of the experience. 


Mexico - Day 4

So day four was our most touristy day of the trip. We spent the day at a place called Xcaret, which I guess I would describe as a sort of amusement park. It is built around an underground river that connects to the ocean. Basically a natural lazy river and you spend a good hour or so floating down this river to the main section of the park. 

The river was pretty cool, but they funnel everyone who enters the park to this location first so it is extremely crowded during the morning. We actually went back and tried one of the other routes on the river (there are a total of three) around 2:00 pm that afternoon and we were basically the only ones on the river at that point. 

Lunch turned out to be pretty good. It was a one of three buffets in the park and we elected to goto the Mexican one. It was huge and the food was very high quality. The horchata also really hit the spot in the afternoon heat. 

The rest of the park I would consider to be "so-so". Many of the attractions required additional expense, so we sort of meandered around there aquarium and their Mayan village section for a few hours. There was a nice botanical type garden and a pretty good butterfly house. 

Those turned out to be pretty neat, but the highlights of the day really turned out to be the shows we stumbled across. 

First was some aerial dancers who did a sun ceremony on top of a pole. You can see the photos below. 

The next performance we came across was some sort of Mayan ritual dance. Again, a great performance. 


The highlight though was the grande finale at the end of the evening, which was a two hour show starting at 7:00 pm. If you don't go to this thing I wouldn't consider the park worth it. The show was basically a highlight of Mexico's entire history and heritage and it would be the opening ceremony to the Olympics of Mexico got them. The first hour focused on the Mayan history and the arrival of the spaniards to Mexico. The second half then focused on the traditional folk music and dance from different areas of the country. 

It was incredible and I was taken aback by how much pride was displayed from the audience. Mexicans who were there at the show were singing to many of the songs and they really got into the show. It really was quite impressive.