Last entry. Wow. Let's see how my memory serves.
Dinner Easter night was absolutely delicious. Chicken wings and potato wedges, not to mention Denny, David and Sigrid giving us massive amounts of chocolate, or the sweet rolls shaped like a rabbit the hotel provided. HUGE rolls. HUGE. And then there was more chocolate too... it was great.
Haiko, whose name I'm probably misspelling horribly, wanted to check out the Reeperbahn with Denny. This is an area that some of our people went to the first or second night and Hamburg, and the consistent opinion was “... interesting.”
Yeah, that's about right. Cool statue of Otto von Bismarck, though.
Eventually Haiko wanted to grab a drink, so we found an actual bar and had a round of Astras. The place was alright, trying a little hard to be glossy – fairly well lit, clean counters and coasters for your beer, American flags and pictures of dollar bills along the bottom of the bar, a saxophone in a glass case over the bar. It did have really good prices though, you could get 12 shots for only 15 euro if you wanted. Obviously, there weren't enough of us for that. We sat and talked for a while, Haiko and I had a second beer, and we headed back.
Came back, chilled in the room, whatever, bed.
Monday, decided to skip breakfast, I honestly don't remember lunch all that well. Class was long, and hilarious. David called Jake “Jason” and Kanako “Zypy.” He called Allen the expert on penises, thanks to Matt's prank on Allen's essay where he replaced a word with Penis and David's comment was something like “You've lost me here. I'm not sure of the logic behin your examples.” That had us rolling. There was a bit where we were discussing whether or not Frankenstein's monster was sterile or not, and David was saying the monster may have been mixed male and female, and I was trying to explain somatic cells vs. sex cells, and said “what's going on in your hand has nothing to do with the cells in your reproductive system” and David said “I don't know what you do with your hand, Tim” and we all just straight up died. Class was probably 4-5 hours long in all, we discussed a lot of broad, big picture stuff about the trip, no surprise. At the end David got choked up, then Zypy cried a little bit, then Nate got a little choked up. I was worried all of us would have to cry at least once before they'd let us leave.
Dinner was good, and the night was a whole lot of finishing up essays and chilling in the bar under the hotel. So we all hung out there, as people not leaving with the main group filtered off to bed there were hugs and goodbyes, that sort of thing. I was the only one who stayed up all night. I almost forgot to wake up Swaffie and had to RUN to get him like, 8 minutes before we left. They only sent one six-person taxi, rather than the three four-person or two six-person we were promised, so meh. Some quick farewells when it came back for the second wave with Swaffie, Zypy, David and Sigrid, and then it was off to the train station.
On the train we chatted, ate our lunch bags, whatever. At one point I ended up “talking” with a guy who I think was deaf, or at least mostly mute. It was a lot of hand signals and me trying to figure out hard-to-understand German. Yeah, it's even worse when it's a foreign language. I got across to him that we were flying, he said he was a photographer, I think he had SCUBAed and done photography too. He wasn't flying today, but he did other times. Then he got out a pad and marker and we talked that way, and wow. He asked if we had been to Africa, I said Tanzania. Turns out this guy was a crazy awesome world traveler. Kenya, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, I don't remember half the countries he wrote down. Markko, would that be Morocco? So I gave him the full itinerary, at least, I wrote “3 Monaten zusammen” and the list of places. He was suitably impressed. We went back and forth that way a bit, me appreciating his lengthy list of places he'd visited, and then it was time for him to go. Gave him a handshake on the way out, and he grinned and waved at the whole group as he walked past the window. I think he was really happy to have that short “talk,” and man, what a cool guy, you know?
So, airport, needing to pee horribly because of downing my orange pop, Allen's orange pop, and my water, getting tickets, security was surprisingly easy. I had to get patted down because of my shoes though, then I was selected for a random check where they took a sample from outside my backpack and ran it through a device. For gunpowder and explosive powder, maybe?
Plane to London Heathrow, as hard as I've slept in my entire life, no surprise there. I had been up for something like 20 hours after all. Barely made it off the plane, then London Heathrow. Normally a miserable airport, but we actually had a pretty easy time of it. I got selected for a random check again. It's happened to me a lot this trip. Never travel with a beard, eh? Denny's bag had to be fully examined, real fun there. We went on, got our passes, I took a nap for 20 minutes or so until the gate was listed and Vince woke me up by tugging on my lizard. At the gate, we got asked about if we had had our bags or if anyone had given us anything. I haven't been asked those questions by a real live human being this entire trip, I think. It reminded me of flying as a little kid. Yeah, I know, to some of you I'm still a little kid. I mean littler.
So then about half of the people entering the gate had to be patted down, pockets emptied, shoes checked, soles of feet checked, and bags examined. I'm glad they didn't make me TOTALLY do my backpack, the guy commented on me not having a stein like Jake and I said “you can see, I don't have any room left.” He was pretty friendly, in fairness. So we went through that, and here I am now. Slept a little bit, ate some pretty good pasta, watched “Fantastic Mr. Fox” which I actually really liked, and worked on my prompt a bit. Denny told me last night that most people tell him too much, I'm “parsimonious” with my thoughts and play it close to the chest. Amused me.
Man. Next time I get off a plane I'll be in the United States for the first time since middle of January. The next time I leave an airport I'll be in Cleveland for the first time in three months. It's truly bizarre. The trip has felt like so much more than three months, I'd practically believe I was gone for a year. At first I was just super excited to get home, but the last three or so days it started to catch up with me. I'm still looking forward to seeing everyone, but it's just hard to believe the trip was over. We were talking about how we felt like we were just going on to the next destination, the Amazon must come next, right? Airports mean another new biome, not where we live and grew up. It's gonna be a huge change of pace getting OUT of the biomes routine, though I hope a few of the good habits stick with me. At least, that's the goal. I'm glad I'm traveling a bit right when I get home, Greyhounding to visit a friend and then to a PeaceJam. It'll help stave off the culture shock. May though... three weeks in one place, with a dresser, and classes in a classroom and stuff? It's going to be very odd.
Anyway, that's enough of my thoughts. I'm sure most of you stopped reading this thing some time back in Tanzania when you realized my writing wasn't getting any shorter. I hope you all enjoyed, regardless. This is me signing off. I've on-and-off considered continuing this thing in some other format, but no, if I maintain any sort of blog when I get home (even if it's about the after-effects of the trip), it'll be a separate blog under the same profile. This place should serve as a document of the experience, and the experience alone. Yeah, of course, the experience doesn't exactly “stop” here, it's going to keep coming up again and again for years, probably the rest of my life. But... call it the end of a chapter so that another may begin.
As the French say, and as David said to us yesterday afternoon: bon voyage.
Tuesday, April 6th, roughly 3:20-3:45 PM local time
Monday, April 12, 2010
Hamburg in a nutshell:
Found an awesome local pub with an extremely welcoming crowd. They were surprised we were ABLE to find it, this place was literally about as big as a large dorm room. You could fit maybe ten people inside... uncomfortably. I spent a lot of time there and had some great conversations.
The Easter Fires were pretty awesome. Not quite as large as we had heard in terms of the fires themselves, but definitely a huge event for the city. Met a couple cool guys, Marco and Frank, talked to them for a while, tried to find the group for a while, didn't have any luck on the beach, eventually found them back up away from the river and had a fun night. Ended up not going to the Fish Market, but that's okay, I had a great time.
Found an awesome local pub with an extremely welcoming crowd. They were surprised we were ABLE to find it, this place was literally about as big as a large dorm room. You could fit maybe ten people inside... uncomfortably. I spent a lot of time there and had some great conversations.
The Easter Fires were pretty awesome. Not quite as large as we had heard in terms of the fires themselves, but definitely a huge event for the city. Met a couple cool guys, Marco and Frank, talked to them for a while, tried to find the group for a while, didn't have any luck on the beach, eventually found them back up away from the river and had a fun night. Ended up not going to the Fish Market, but that's okay, I had a great time.
Forgot to mention. In Berlin-Tegel Airport, while we were waiting at the baggage carousel, I got talking to a guy from Syria who worked in Norway, but was visiting Germany for a couple days. We first got started talking when I was laughing at how the bus took us a distance we could have walked more quickly and he said “it's very German.” I told him a bit about our trip, where we had been, he said he was a computer engineer working in the south of Norway and that it was sort of boring, he'd had enough of nature. The most interesting thing to me was when he asked if we had been to the Middle East and I said we had been around the edges of it, Egypt, Turkey. He agreed that Turkey was sort of an in-between, but Egypt was definitely the Middle East to him. Interesting to hear a perspective from someone from a very different country. Nice guy, too.
Tuesday, March 30th, roughly 5:45 PM local time
Rooming with Swaffie here at the Elsa Brandstrom house, only mit more umlauts. It's a nice place, really good meals, a pretty view. Yesterday we had class and then went into Hamburg, saw a lot of the sights. We went into a St. Michael's Church with a tower that was a lot more stairs than we thought it was, but it had a great view. Kind of the Empire State Building of Hamburg, but a lot shorter because Hamburg is a lot shorter, obviously. They have a single room on the way up with four or five bells, which is pretty cool. We also saw a St. Jacob's Church, which apparently is part of an ancient pilgramage from way up in the north down to Spain. If you do the pilgramage, you can stay one night in each of these St. Jacob's churches for free, which is sort of neat. Came back to the house and chilled all night, nothing else really exciting. Tried a jever, a local beer, pretty good.
Today we left at 9 AM for Belsen-Bergen, a concentration camp about two hours from where we're staying. It was a work camp, but that's not to say thousands of people didn't die here, a lot from disease and exposure, and a whoooole lot of Soviet POWs, for whom the official policy of the Reich was that the Geneva Convention didn't apply. It was a long walk to the Soviet cemetery, since they were housed in a slightly different facility, and it was interesting because the area is still used as a military training ground. Don't go off the path. Cool to see, though I didn't stay long because I wanted to spend time in the museum. The whole place is sort of incongruous, it's a beautiful natural area that would make an absolutely stupendous park if it weren't for the history. I don't usually believe in Evil with a capital E, but 1933-1945, visiting Dachau in '06 and visiting Belsen-Bergen today might change my mind. If you ever want to see the purest face of evil (Evil), you could do worse than visiting any one of these camps.
After that another bus ride and on to Luneburg, a town still retained from medieval times. It wasn't damaged at all in the war, so there's still a lot of original architecture. Very cool to see, certainly more uplifting than the morning. I had a kebab for lunch, it was just okay sadly, and some gelato as well. Pretty churches, walking around, seeing the architecture and some great street art that was extremely incongruous, but really good. I found a little store called Mythos that was mostly toys and books, in addition to childrens' stuff and LEGOs it had a lot of fantasy stuff, board games, that sort of thing. If it wasn't all in German I definitely would have bought some, as it is I picked up a puzzle for 3 euro just for fun. Almost bought some dice, but I already got some in Turkey and they were just eh, okay. Walked a bit more, met in front of the town hall, that was cool, tried to find steins with people, no such luck, headed out. John and Clay peed on the side of the road, back to Elsa Brandstrom, dinner was downstairs at the bar, had a good beer, soup, bread, meat, cheese, and some sort of chicken salad, and then we met for a class/meeting. This weekend should be absolutely fantastic, the plan is to see the Easter Fires and then stay up all night and go to the fish market (which is really a flea market) that starts at 4 AM Sunday.
Thursday, April 1st, roughly 9:20-9:30 PM local time
Tuesday, March 30th, roughly 5:45 PM local time
Rooming with Swaffie here at the Elsa Brandstrom house, only mit more umlauts. It's a nice place, really good meals, a pretty view. Yesterday we had class and then went into Hamburg, saw a lot of the sights. We went into a St. Michael's Church with a tower that was a lot more stairs than we thought it was, but it had a great view. Kind of the Empire State Building of Hamburg, but a lot shorter because Hamburg is a lot shorter, obviously. They have a single room on the way up with four or five bells, which is pretty cool. We also saw a St. Jacob's Church, which apparently is part of an ancient pilgramage from way up in the north down to Spain. If you do the pilgramage, you can stay one night in each of these St. Jacob's churches for free, which is sort of neat. Came back to the house and chilled all night, nothing else really exciting. Tried a jever, a local beer, pretty good.
Today we left at 9 AM for Belsen-Bergen, a concentration camp about two hours from where we're staying. It was a work camp, but that's not to say thousands of people didn't die here, a lot from disease and exposure, and a whoooole lot of Soviet POWs, for whom the official policy of the Reich was that the Geneva Convention didn't apply. It was a long walk to the Soviet cemetery, since they were housed in a slightly different facility, and it was interesting because the area is still used as a military training ground. Don't go off the path. Cool to see, though I didn't stay long because I wanted to spend time in the museum. The whole place is sort of incongruous, it's a beautiful natural area that would make an absolutely stupendous park if it weren't for the history. I don't usually believe in Evil with a capital E, but 1933-1945, visiting Dachau in '06 and visiting Belsen-Bergen today might change my mind. If you ever want to see the purest face of evil (Evil), you could do worse than visiting any one of these camps.
After that another bus ride and on to Luneburg, a town still retained from medieval times. It wasn't damaged at all in the war, so there's still a lot of original architecture. Very cool to see, certainly more uplifting than the morning. I had a kebab for lunch, it was just okay sadly, and some gelato as well. Pretty churches, walking around, seeing the architecture and some great street art that was extremely incongruous, but really good. I found a little store called Mythos that was mostly toys and books, in addition to childrens' stuff and LEGOs it had a lot of fantasy stuff, board games, that sort of thing. If it wasn't all in German I definitely would have bought some, as it is I picked up a puzzle for 3 euro just for fun. Almost bought some dice, but I already got some in Turkey and they were just eh, okay. Walked a bit more, met in front of the town hall, that was cool, tried to find steins with people, no such luck, headed out. John and Clay peed on the side of the road, back to Elsa Brandstrom, dinner was downstairs at the bar, had a good beer, soup, bread, meat, cheese, and some sort of chicken salad, and then we met for a class/meeting. This weekend should be absolutely fantastic, the plan is to see the Easter Fires and then stay up all night and go to the fish market (which is really a flea market) that starts at 4 AM Sunday.
Thursday, April 1st, roughly 9:20-9:30 PM local time
Last night was a total SNAFU. The trains weren't running so we had to take buses, the buses were few and far between and we got split up, then when we finally got there Swaffie had gone looking for us, Anh and Caitlin went looking for him, Swaffie came back, they were still gone, we finally got to the hotel and... it was actually pretty nice. Free wi-fi, good TV, bathroom a little small but functional. I was on the bottom bunk, Swaffie up top, and John and Nate shared a queen. We had dinner at this little place that was clearly closed but we had reservations (we got in late, what with all the bus shenanigans), had delicious beef with pretty good potatoes and vegetables. By the time I was done finishing off other peoples' plates I had SO MUCH BEEF. It was GOOD.
Back to the hotel, watched Numb3rs, fooled around online, slept. Woke up, breakfast of a meat and cheese sammich, pack all the extra layer clothes, and get ready to head out. We caught a train (they were running now) to the airport, it was pretty empty, easy to get through security. I got called out for a random check, but the guy doing it was pretty friendly, and hey, whatever. I've gotten a few of those actually, blame the beard. Waited a bit there, got some munchies, onto the plane, listen to an alternation of music and baby crying. Seriously, people. Children. Planes. Ugh.
Land, get onto a bus, and we're at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof now waiting for our train to take us to Hamburg. Dinner will be probably either fish and chips or doner kebab. We'll see.
Tuesday, March 30th, roughly 4:10-4:20 PM local time
Back to the hotel, watched Numb3rs, fooled around online, slept. Woke up, breakfast of a meat and cheese sammich, pack all the extra layer clothes, and get ready to head out. We caught a train (they were running now) to the airport, it was pretty empty, easy to get through security. I got called out for a random check, but the guy doing it was pretty friendly, and hey, whatever. I've gotten a few of those actually, blame the beard. Waited a bit there, got some munchies, onto the plane, listen to an alternation of music and baby crying. Seriously, people. Children. Planes. Ugh.
Land, get onto a bus, and we're at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof now waiting for our train to take us to Hamburg. Dinner will be probably either fish and chips or doner kebab. We'll see.
Tuesday, March 30th, roughly 4:10-4:20 PM local time
Today was an absolutely fantastic day.
Breakfast was bread with meat and cheese, bread with cheese, bread with margarine and bread with nutella. After that I got ready to go dog-sledding, which meant putting on everything I had. Nikki, Kanako, Allen and I met the guy and headed off to put on MORE gear – coveralls, their boots, their mittens, a ski mask, hat, and goggles. We were extremely toasty. We drove out to the kennel, got shown the basics of the sleds and started to harness the dogs. Allen and I's team, starting at the front, was Venus and Cartman, Tequila and Fry, and Kauto and Embla. I hooked up Venus and Fry. Fry was eager to get in that harness, it was funny, he almost helped me along with it. Once we got him hooked up though, he was actually a pretty whiny dog, at least at first. Allen drove first and off we went... and our dogs immediately became a pile of fighting. Our sled actually ended up ON Kauto's head, and I was horrified we were going to kill him, but the dogs were all fine once we got them separated, amazingly. We hadn't gotten too much further before Tequila got her leg over the line, and I had to get out and fix that. From there it was pretty good going for a while, sitting in that sled is surprisingly relaxing. I almost could have taken a nap. I got lots of good pictures, though my fingers felt frozen and I ended up having to make the trade-off of the warmth of their mittens (my gloves didn't fit under) for the lack of coordination. Still figured out how to take pictures with the mittens on though, even if I did get a lot of lens errors. I even have a few videos.
The dogs got fighting again, and this time one of our two guides (Ruben, only with more accents, who was from Stockholm, and Richard, I dunno where he was from), it was Richard, came back and switched Cartman and Fry. It was a lot smoother going after that, Cartman had been the troublemaker. We didn't really see anything else alive other than another team of dog-sleds at one point, but the landscape was just beautiful. Textbook glacial valleys covered in snow. Eventually we turned around, they did a good job making sure we'd catch our plane, and I switched to driver. It was surprisingly easy, the dogs know the route, all you have to do is brake occasionally. The girls ahead of us had a better lead this time than the way out, so I didn't even have to brake half as often as Allen had.
We got back in and unharnessed the dogs, I put away Embla, Tequila and Venus. (I just noticed now Allen put away all three boys and I put away all three girls). Then we fed the dogs, which was interesting. One dog, Frigg, caught my attention. The rest of the dogs would jump and yelp and try to get your attention, but not Frigg. No, she just watched me and waited. She knew it was coming. She actually hadn't eaten much of it by the time we left either, which I thought was interesting. (For those who know Norse mythology, there was also a Loke, a Balder, and a Froya, only the o has a slash through it).
Then it was time to head back, strip our gear, thank Ruben with many accents (who told us a great story about doing a sauna in Northern Sweden, going outside to cool down, and getting his hand stuck to the door on the way back in), struggle to find my lunch (I never did, but a few people had extra stuff so I got a full meal), get our bags, onto the bus, to the airport. In Tromso we had to go through customs and check-in and security all over again, I was afraid we wouldn't make our plane, but we did, and that's where I am now.
Monday, March 29th, roughly 5:30 PM local time
Breakfast was bread with meat and cheese, bread with cheese, bread with margarine and bread with nutella. After that I got ready to go dog-sledding, which meant putting on everything I had. Nikki, Kanako, Allen and I met the guy and headed off to put on MORE gear – coveralls, their boots, their mittens, a ski mask, hat, and goggles. We were extremely toasty. We drove out to the kennel, got shown the basics of the sleds and started to harness the dogs. Allen and I's team, starting at the front, was Venus and Cartman, Tequila and Fry, and Kauto and Embla. I hooked up Venus and Fry. Fry was eager to get in that harness, it was funny, he almost helped me along with it. Once we got him hooked up though, he was actually a pretty whiny dog, at least at first. Allen drove first and off we went... and our dogs immediately became a pile of fighting. Our sled actually ended up ON Kauto's head, and I was horrified we were going to kill him, but the dogs were all fine once we got them separated, amazingly. We hadn't gotten too much further before Tequila got her leg over the line, and I had to get out and fix that. From there it was pretty good going for a while, sitting in that sled is surprisingly relaxing. I almost could have taken a nap. I got lots of good pictures, though my fingers felt frozen and I ended up having to make the trade-off of the warmth of their mittens (my gloves didn't fit under) for the lack of coordination. Still figured out how to take pictures with the mittens on though, even if I did get a lot of lens errors. I even have a few videos.
The dogs got fighting again, and this time one of our two guides (Ruben, only with more accents, who was from Stockholm, and Richard, I dunno where he was from), it was Richard, came back and switched Cartman and Fry. It was a lot smoother going after that, Cartman had been the troublemaker. We didn't really see anything else alive other than another team of dog-sleds at one point, but the landscape was just beautiful. Textbook glacial valleys covered in snow. Eventually we turned around, they did a good job making sure we'd catch our plane, and I switched to driver. It was surprisingly easy, the dogs know the route, all you have to do is brake occasionally. The girls ahead of us had a better lead this time than the way out, so I didn't even have to brake half as often as Allen had.
We got back in and unharnessed the dogs, I put away Embla, Tequila and Venus. (I just noticed now Allen put away all three boys and I put away all three girls). Then we fed the dogs, which was interesting. One dog, Frigg, caught my attention. The rest of the dogs would jump and yelp and try to get your attention, but not Frigg. No, she just watched me and waited. She knew it was coming. She actually hadn't eaten much of it by the time we left either, which I thought was interesting. (For those who know Norse mythology, there was also a Loke, a Balder, and a Froya, only the o has a slash through it).
Then it was time to head back, strip our gear, thank Ruben with many accents (who told us a great story about doing a sauna in Northern Sweden, going outside to cool down, and getting his hand stuck to the door on the way back in), struggle to find my lunch (I never did, but a few people had extra stuff so I got a full meal), get our bags, onto the bus, to the airport. In Tromso we had to go through customs and check-in and security all over again, I was afraid we wouldn't make our plane, but we did, and that's where I am now.
Monday, March 29th, roughly 5:30 PM local time
Yesterday I worked, relaxed, slept some. Lunch was meat and cheese sandwich followed by peanut butter sandwich. Around 5, 5:30 or so, Swaffie, John, Allen, Kanako, Brenna and I went up to check out this abandoned mine not far from our hotel. The hike was... less than pleasant. A lot of two steps forward, one step back (maybe more like one to one) because of the snow and ice. I followed others' footsteps where I could, where the snow was icier they made good holds. I did a fair bit of it on all fours too, punching holds in and then using them for my feet as I ascended. Felt like a yeti or a polar bear. So I finally got up there and more or less rolled onto the wooden walkway, lost track of the other guys and followed their footprints up onto the roofs of the buildings and around. We found a door in and most everyone was there and went to explore the inside of this mine.
It was pretty awesome, people left chalk up there and there were names everywhere. I signed as “Tim “The Yeti” Luttermoser,” next to John's with “Hiram College Baby!” and “Biomes '10”. Someone apparently had a birthday party up there (we later found out from our host that someone hosted a movie up there in December once, which to me is absurd). Lots of old machinery and stuff. I did slip and fall on an ice slick going into one room, but otherwise we were alright. There were these two rooms that were completely dark, pretty creepy to go in. The orange light from my camera didn't help much, and according to Allen people doing camera flashes behind him was even creepier. We hung out in there for a while, exploring and all that. Lost track of John and Swaffie, eventually the rest of us were ready to go, I had to track them down and get the group photo done real quick and then we left. We all slid a fair bit of the way back down, it was faster than walking.
We got back in the middle of dinner, had pasta, sauce with bacon, and some vegetables. Dessert was absolutely delicious berries and what little ice cream was left over. John and Swaffie showed up late, but people saved them plates. I fooled around with a puzzle Nate had while Nate told Becky and someone else about kissing another guy, which of course they were inordinately fascinated with. Chilled in my room, had trouble falling asleep (it was still twilight well after 11 PM) finally fell asleep, woke up, showered, forgot my towel, fetched a towel, and here I am. Breakfast starts soon, dog-sledding today!
Monday, March 29th, roughly 7:40-7:50 AM local time
It was pretty awesome, people left chalk up there and there were names everywhere. I signed as “Tim “The Yeti” Luttermoser,” next to John's with “Hiram College Baby!” and “Biomes '10”. Someone apparently had a birthday party up there (we later found out from our host that someone hosted a movie up there in December once, which to me is absurd). Lots of old machinery and stuff. I did slip and fall on an ice slick going into one room, but otherwise we were alright. There were these two rooms that were completely dark, pretty creepy to go in. The orange light from my camera didn't help much, and according to Allen people doing camera flashes behind him was even creepier. We hung out in there for a while, exploring and all that. Lost track of John and Swaffie, eventually the rest of us were ready to go, I had to track them down and get the group photo done real quick and then we left. We all slid a fair bit of the way back down, it was faster than walking.
We got back in the middle of dinner, had pasta, sauce with bacon, and some vegetables. Dessert was absolutely delicious berries and what little ice cream was left over. John and Swaffie showed up late, but people saved them plates. I fooled around with a puzzle Nate had while Nate told Becky and someone else about kissing another guy, which of course they were inordinately fascinated with. Chilled in my room, had trouble falling asleep (it was still twilight well after 11 PM) finally fell asleep, woke up, showered, forgot my towel, fetched a towel, and here I am. Breakfast starts soon, dog-sledding today!
Monday, March 29th, roughly 7:40-7:50 AM local time
Woke up yesterday, showered, ate, all that jazz. Breakfast was bread and butter, bread with meat and cheese, and bread with nutella. Om nom nom. We had class, then headed down to the University Museum.
It had a lot of history of Spitzbergen, a little bit of natural history but mostly human stuff. Pretty interesting. Most of the stuff was Norwegian and English, but some (especially the animals) was only Norwegian, which was unfortunate.
After that we went out onto the ice near the ocean. You could tell when you were on the frozen ocean because it was a lot smoother. It was AWESOME. Lots of fun purposely falling and sliding around, I joked that the ice made anyone a good breakdancer. We also found a patch that was still liquid for some reason and took pictures of us putting our hands in it. Yeah, it was pretty cold.
Went to the grocery store, got some food, walked back up. Cold, cold walk. Cold. Got back in and basically chilled the rest of the day, dinner was swedish meatballs, rice and broccoli (I missed it due to Dramarama) and dessert was absolutely delicious fudge pudding and ice cream. Then we had a long talk about whether or not we should go dog-sledding based on budget and what we'd be giving up in Hamburg, we voted in Denny's room individually (a good call of Swaffie's), I ran my “Sand and Snow” entry by Denny and that's about it. Breakfast today was the same, and today's a work day, more or less.
Sunday, March 28th, roughly 10 AM local time
It had a lot of history of Spitzbergen, a little bit of natural history but mostly human stuff. Pretty interesting. Most of the stuff was Norwegian and English, but some (especially the animals) was only Norwegian, which was unfortunate.
After that we went out onto the ice near the ocean. You could tell when you were on the frozen ocean because it was a lot smoother. It was AWESOME. Lots of fun purposely falling and sliding around, I joked that the ice made anyone a good breakdancer. We also found a patch that was still liquid for some reason and took pictures of us putting our hands in it. Yeah, it was pretty cold.
Went to the grocery store, got some food, walked back up. Cold, cold walk. Cold. Got back in and basically chilled the rest of the day, dinner was swedish meatballs, rice and broccoli (I missed it due to Dramarama) and dessert was absolutely delicious fudge pudding and ice cream. Then we had a long talk about whether or not we should go dog-sledding based on budget and what we'd be giving up in Hamburg, we voted in Denny's room individually (a good call of Swaffie's), I ran my “Sand and Snow” entry by Denny and that's about it. Breakfast today was the same, and today's a work day, more or less.
Sunday, March 28th, roughly 10 AM local time
I both love and hate what my body's becoming. That is to say, I went to bed after midnight last night and woke up before 7:30 today with no alarm. That's before even Denny was awake, judging by the fact that he was going towards the shower as I was getting out of the shower. It's a stark contrast with back home.
Friday we went to see the university museum, some cool natural history stuff there. The most interesting part was a series of digital polls next to almost every piece of the exhibit to get the opinions of those attending. Things ranging from whether or not the Minke Whale hunt should be continued, to the priorities of farm animals and predators, to whether or not man and apes have a common ancestors. After you answered, it showed you the percentage of yes's and no's from both English-speakers and Norse-speakers who had answered. (I was surprised to see on the evolution one how many Norse-speakers said no, over 20%!). There was also a photo exhibition of cultural things from Afghanistan, interestingly, a fair bit on the Sampi or Sami or Same people, the indigenous peoples of Norway and Scandanavia in general (or Finnmark), and a geology bit that I zipped through because none of it was new. The store had a few neat things, not the least of which was some Viking board game that looked like chess only not, but Norway is pricy.
I left a little before the group and got lost on the way back, ended up wandering a long time until I found Anh and Denny again. Apparently the rest of the group had found a sledding hill and went sledding while I was lost. These things happen. Got back to the hotel, rested, dinner I'm unfortunately having trouble remembering. Swaffie, Becky and I went out to try to see the Northern Lights, but it was cloudy so we just walked. The cemetery was pretty cool, one grave had an eternal flame (actually a few candles around it, plus an eternal flame). The snow was well over the flames, though, so there was just sort of an eerie glow coming out of holes in the snow near the grave. We met the main group on the way back in, who apparently did see the lights later on that night, but I was pretty cold. We spent the rest of the night watching youtube videos, including Swaffie introducing us to Drunken History, which is hilarious.
Woke up, ate breakfast, got ready, off to catch the bus. Through the airport, John met a guy there and talked to him a bit about cars. Apparently Norway has compulsory service, so he told us a little bit about the army too. get worried because I'm seated next to a couple with an on-and-off crying child. They suggest I move to an open seat nearby, I do, the child must have been at least somewhat quiet because I slept the whole flight.
Apparently we were supposed to arrange a bus BEFORE arriving in Spitzbergen/Svalbard, but it got worked out easily enough. The airport's right on the ocean, so when you arrive you can see both the water and these towering mounds of snow and ice. This place is definitely different from Tromso. Tromso had snow-covered mountains with trees growing up this. This place is just mountains of snow. We saw four or so tufts of grass... next to the road... once. As vegetation goes, that's it so far. Got to our hotel, got our rooms set up (I'm in a quad, two bunk beds, with John, Swaffie, and Nate), rested.
A group went down to get groceries, no one told us exactly when they left so John, Nate and I dashed after them, eventually catching up. We saw a couple reindeer (caribou) off in the distance, and the grocery store as a bit farther than we thought, but it wasn't too bad. My mustache definitely froze though. Get to the store, start rounding up stuff, interesting policy here, there's a limit on how much alcohol you can buy if you don't live here. I just picked up a six pack of a brand called Mack's which, according to the Brits there, is brewed in Tromso and as local of a beer as I can find. My card had all sorts of issues with their computer system, but I finally got it taken care of and we headed back. John had a lengthy discussion with David about American vs. European education systems, which was interesting.
Relaxing in the room, dinner was hot dogs, salad and spinach. Pretty good. The juice here is just normal juice, unfortunately. In Tromso we had ultra-concentrated stuff that you mixed 1 to 4 or so with water, which was useful. After dinner I basically just relaxed in the room all night, had one of my beers (it's pretty good), talked with Swaffie and John a long time (Nate had been invited to some party, how I have NO idea), mostly John telling reprehensible stories. Like he does. Finally fell asleep and here I am.
Saturday, March 27th, roughly 7:40-8 AM local time
Friday we went to see the university museum, some cool natural history stuff there. The most interesting part was a series of digital polls next to almost every piece of the exhibit to get the opinions of those attending. Things ranging from whether or not the Minke Whale hunt should be continued, to the priorities of farm animals and predators, to whether or not man and apes have a common ancestors. After you answered, it showed you the percentage of yes's and no's from both English-speakers and Norse-speakers who had answered. (I was surprised to see on the evolution one how many Norse-speakers said no, over 20%!). There was also a photo exhibition of cultural things from Afghanistan, interestingly, a fair bit on the Sampi or Sami or Same people, the indigenous peoples of Norway and Scandanavia in general (or Finnmark), and a geology bit that I zipped through because none of it was new. The store had a few neat things, not the least of which was some Viking board game that looked like chess only not, but Norway is pricy.
I left a little before the group and got lost on the way back, ended up wandering a long time until I found Anh and Denny again. Apparently the rest of the group had found a sledding hill and went sledding while I was lost. These things happen. Got back to the hotel, rested, dinner I'm unfortunately having trouble remembering. Swaffie, Becky and I went out to try to see the Northern Lights, but it was cloudy so we just walked. The cemetery was pretty cool, one grave had an eternal flame (actually a few candles around it, plus an eternal flame). The snow was well over the flames, though, so there was just sort of an eerie glow coming out of holes in the snow near the grave. We met the main group on the way back in, who apparently did see the lights later on that night, but I was pretty cold. We spent the rest of the night watching youtube videos, including Swaffie introducing us to Drunken History, which is hilarious.
Woke up, ate breakfast, got ready, off to catch the bus. Through the airport, John met a guy there and talked to him a bit about cars. Apparently Norway has compulsory service, so he told us a little bit about the army too. get worried because I'm seated next to a couple with an on-and-off crying child. They suggest I move to an open seat nearby, I do, the child must have been at least somewhat quiet because I slept the whole flight.
Apparently we were supposed to arrange a bus BEFORE arriving in Spitzbergen/Svalbard, but it got worked out easily enough. The airport's right on the ocean, so when you arrive you can see both the water and these towering mounds of snow and ice. This place is definitely different from Tromso. Tromso had snow-covered mountains with trees growing up this. This place is just mountains of snow. We saw four or so tufts of grass... next to the road... once. As vegetation goes, that's it so far. Got to our hotel, got our rooms set up (I'm in a quad, two bunk beds, with John, Swaffie, and Nate), rested.
A group went down to get groceries, no one told us exactly when they left so John, Nate and I dashed after them, eventually catching up. We saw a couple reindeer (caribou) off in the distance, and the grocery store as a bit farther than we thought, but it wasn't too bad. My mustache definitely froze though. Get to the store, start rounding up stuff, interesting policy here, there's a limit on how much alcohol you can buy if you don't live here. I just picked up a six pack of a brand called Mack's which, according to the Brits there, is brewed in Tromso and as local of a beer as I can find. My card had all sorts of issues with their computer system, but I finally got it taken care of and we headed back. John had a lengthy discussion with David about American vs. European education systems, which was interesting.
Relaxing in the room, dinner was hot dogs, salad and spinach. Pretty good. The juice here is just normal juice, unfortunately. In Tromso we had ultra-concentrated stuff that you mixed 1 to 4 or so with water, which was useful. After dinner I basically just relaxed in the room all night, had one of my beers (it's pretty good), talked with Swaffie and John a long time (Nate had been invited to some party, how I have NO idea), mostly John telling reprehensible stories. Like he does. Finally fell asleep and here I am.
Saturday, March 27th, roughly 7:40-8 AM local time
Well, I'm bloody behind.
Woke up this morning, showered, ate a quick breakfast, class. Lunch, lay down a moment, and then it was off to Polaria, which is a local museum/marine mammal place. We watched a video on Svalbard, saw lots of fish, invertebrates, and two bearded seals. There was a tunnel where they swam over you, which was pretty fun. I spent a lot of time watching a video on king crabs in the Barents Sea, which was interesting. At 3:30 they did an enrichment show, which had some pretty cool stuff. I got some good videos and a couple really nice pictures. They claimed to be doing it mostly for the seals' benefits... hard to say, but it was cool to watch. A little Q&A afterwards and we left. I argued with Allen the whole way up about the fact that Polaria sold seal fur products. I actually agree with him in a lot of ways, but his position was more extreme than mine on fur products in general... shocker, yeah? He's probably right though.
Chilled a bit, dinner was delicious. Pasta, sauce, vegetables, strawberries, blackberries, blackcurrant, lingonberries, and raspberries. And ice cream at the end! (Neapolitan). Absolutely fantastic. After that I chilled in my room, found out I missed the Northern Lights because no one got me, got bitter... but that got better.
Clay and Jake came up to get Vince and I, Vince passed. (To be fair Jake had been throwing snowballs at the window to get my attention and I just had been wondering what the odd thumping sound was.) On the way down we met Becky as well, and the four of us set out to find a good place to see the lights. We saw it pretty faintly, but it was still beautiful, though there wasn't much color to it. Just little light spots and ribbons in the sky. We got directions from a guy, half-followed them, eventually we ran into a guy walking his dog who offered to show us the best spot himself.
Oh, by the way, me in all this is sockless, unlaced boots, and no hat. I was in a rush to get out. It wasn't so bad, but just to let you laugh and shake your heads at me.
So this guy leads us, talking to us, and we eventually get out onto a frozen lake... maybe? I wasn't clear on that. But it was as little light pollution as you could get, and while the bright half-moon didn't help, the sky was BEAUTIFUL. It took a while to get going but we saw great green ribbons that turned white, even a little bit of pinkish-red at one point. Pillars or columns that rotated like a flame, ribbons that moved like snakes, lots of green and white. It was absolutely beautiful, and at some points huge. I also saw Ursa Major and Casseiopeia, though I was a little disappointed – no Orion. The dog turned out to be half German Shepherd, half Husky, and all awesome. Named something like compass or kombus, it means “buddy” in Norwegian. The guy headed back and we stayed out a while longer, though it never got quite that good again. Jake and Clay were talking Cavs the whole time, Jake's knowledge is truly astounding. Becky told him to be a sports announcer and she might be right. Eventually we came back in, though my ears got a lot of good out of borrowing Becky's toasty toasty hat for a little bit. Dunno what's going on tomorrow, but wow, that was amazing.
Thursday, March 25th, roughly 12:05-12:25 AM
Woke up this morning, showered, ate a quick breakfast, class. Lunch, lay down a moment, and then it was off to Polaria, which is a local museum/marine mammal place. We watched a video on Svalbard, saw lots of fish, invertebrates, and two bearded seals. There was a tunnel where they swam over you, which was pretty fun. I spent a lot of time watching a video on king crabs in the Barents Sea, which was interesting. At 3:30 they did an enrichment show, which had some pretty cool stuff. I got some good videos and a couple really nice pictures. They claimed to be doing it mostly for the seals' benefits... hard to say, but it was cool to watch. A little Q&A afterwards and we left. I argued with Allen the whole way up about the fact that Polaria sold seal fur products. I actually agree with him in a lot of ways, but his position was more extreme than mine on fur products in general... shocker, yeah? He's probably right though.
Chilled a bit, dinner was delicious. Pasta, sauce, vegetables, strawberries, blackberries, blackcurrant, lingonberries, and raspberries. And ice cream at the end! (Neapolitan). Absolutely fantastic. After that I chilled in my room, found out I missed the Northern Lights because no one got me, got bitter... but that got better.
Clay and Jake came up to get Vince and I, Vince passed. (To be fair Jake had been throwing snowballs at the window to get my attention and I just had been wondering what the odd thumping sound was.) On the way down we met Becky as well, and the four of us set out to find a good place to see the lights. We saw it pretty faintly, but it was still beautiful, though there wasn't much color to it. Just little light spots and ribbons in the sky. We got directions from a guy, half-followed them, eventually we ran into a guy walking his dog who offered to show us the best spot himself.
Oh, by the way, me in all this is sockless, unlaced boots, and no hat. I was in a rush to get out. It wasn't so bad, but just to let you laugh and shake your heads at me.
So this guy leads us, talking to us, and we eventually get out onto a frozen lake... maybe? I wasn't clear on that. But it was as little light pollution as you could get, and while the bright half-moon didn't help, the sky was BEAUTIFUL. It took a while to get going but we saw great green ribbons that turned white, even a little bit of pinkish-red at one point. Pillars or columns that rotated like a flame, ribbons that moved like snakes, lots of green and white. It was absolutely beautiful, and at some points huge. I also saw Ursa Major and Casseiopeia, though I was a little disappointed – no Orion. The dog turned out to be half German Shepherd, half Husky, and all awesome. Named something like compass or kombus, it means “buddy” in Norwegian. The guy headed back and we stayed out a while longer, though it never got quite that good again. Jake and Clay were talking Cavs the whole time, Jake's knowledge is truly astounding. Becky told him to be a sports announcer and she might be right. Eventually we came back in, though my ears got a lot of good out of borrowing Becky's toasty toasty hat for a little bit. Dunno what's going on tomorrow, but wow, that was amazing.
Thursday, March 25th, roughly 12:05-12:25 AM
Readers, listen to me, and listen to me well.
If your child is not old enough to speak, your child is not old enough to fly.
We're on the plane now, after our gate got changed a few hundred times and I tried to send Jake an e-mail on the public computers, but the mouse was being goofy and word “backstory” became
“backstor
o”
Met a woman in line who plays football (soccer) in Tromso, she's from Denver originally. Apparently working on a Master's, I forget the exact phrasing, but basically Peace Studies. It was Peace Something and Conflict Management. She said she had just been in training in Turkey. Apparently there's a college in Colorado with 3 or 3.5 week block scheduling, like Hiram's 3-week but year-round. Crazy, eh?
Flying out was cool, I actually stayed awake long enough AND it was bright enough to see the landscape for once. Just coated in snow, lots of forests, tiny little towns, pretty mountains in the distance. Right now there's a great sunset to my left out the window. A baby in the row behind me woke me up crying, and I've been more or less miserable since listening to it being miserable. I think it's in the bathroom now. Poor kid, it must be hell on their ears. But yeah, Tromso in probably less than an hour. And seriously, don't fly with babies. Just don't do it.
Tuesday, March 23rd , roughly 6:30 PM local time
If your child is not old enough to speak, your child is not old enough to fly.
We're on the plane now, after our gate got changed a few hundred times and I tried to send Jake an e-mail on the public computers, but the mouse was being goofy and word “backstory” became
“backstor
o”
Met a woman in line who plays football (soccer) in Tromso, she's from Denver originally. Apparently working on a Master's, I forget the exact phrasing, but basically Peace Studies. It was Peace Something and Conflict Management. She said she had just been in training in Turkey. Apparently there's a college in Colorado with 3 or 3.5 week block scheduling, like Hiram's 3-week but year-round. Crazy, eh?
Flying out was cool, I actually stayed awake long enough AND it was bright enough to see the landscape for once. Just coated in snow, lots of forests, tiny little towns, pretty mountains in the distance. Right now there's a great sunset to my left out the window. A baby in the row behind me woke me up crying, and I've been more or less miserable since listening to it being miserable. I think it's in the bathroom now. Poor kid, it must be hell on their ears. But yeah, Tromso in probably less than an hour. And seriously, don't fly with babies. Just don't do it.
Tuesday, March 23rd , roughly 6:30 PM local time
So uh, I ended up not sleeping Sunday night. Finally, feeling bad about constantly going in and out waking up Swaffie and Clay, I packed up some stuff and went to camp out in front of the Starbucks. I felt sketchy, but it seemed the best option, as it would keep me awake and I didn't want to just fall asleep in the lounge or something, and proper sleep definitely wasn't happening. I felt even worse as the employees started to show up, but I really was going to go in and buy something. I had been there for three hours in the freezing cold, fingers going numb, when I finally gave up and went back to the Pension Funk at 7:08 AM.
Breakfast, napped under an hour, class in which I'm pretty sure I was slurring my words. Napped instead of lunch, maybe an hour, and then to the Botanical Gardens. They were very pretty, we spent the entire first section seeing stuff from back home. Denny was recognizing things from Ohio left and right. Some great crocuses. We went inside a greenhouse, saw some cool stuff there, and then on to the main greenhouse. It's built so that you walk through it in a loop, each room with plants from a different area or a different theme. There was a beautiful room of camelias and some other flower that just smelled fantastic, also some cool side rooms on moss, carnivorous plants, and other things.
Came back to the hotel and went to Starbucks, in no small part to find news on the healthcare bill. Had a smoothie and stayed there until they closed. At one point this little kid came up to me and asked if I spoke English, I stupidly said yes and got to read a scrap of paper with his sob story about being from Kosovo. A Starbucks employee shooed him out pretty quickly.
Went back to the hotel, talked to the Texans a bit, NOW they want to go out. They tried to get me to come along but I was way too beat, not to mention having to leave this morning. I packed for a bit and passed out early.
Woke up this morning, finished packing, breakfast, gods I love having the fruit and orange juice every morning. Catch the bus, where we get in everyone's way including each others', airport, go through the airport remarkably quickly, plane, crash. I was asleep after we landed, even. Wake up, get to the airport, find out that Norway stupidly makes you get your baggage, no automatic transfer, and find out that Norway is also stupid expensive. The CHEAPEST sandwich we found was 49 kroners. It's 5.7 kroners to the dollar.
Anyway, in the Oslo airport, our plane leaves around 4:20, and on to Tromso.
Tuesday, March 23rd , roughly 1:40 PM local time
Breakfast, napped under an hour, class in which I'm pretty sure I was slurring my words. Napped instead of lunch, maybe an hour, and then to the Botanical Gardens. They were very pretty, we spent the entire first section seeing stuff from back home. Denny was recognizing things from Ohio left and right. Some great crocuses. We went inside a greenhouse, saw some cool stuff there, and then on to the main greenhouse. It's built so that you walk through it in a loop, each room with plants from a different area or a different theme. There was a beautiful room of camelias and some other flower that just smelled fantastic, also some cool side rooms on moss, carnivorous plants, and other things.
Came back to the hotel and went to Starbucks, in no small part to find news on the healthcare bill. Had a smoothie and stayed there until they closed. At one point this little kid came up to me and asked if I spoke English, I stupidly said yes and got to read a scrap of paper with his sob story about being from Kosovo. A Starbucks employee shooed him out pretty quickly.
Went back to the hotel, talked to the Texans a bit, NOW they want to go out. They tried to get me to come along but I was way too beat, not to mention having to leave this morning. I packed for a bit and passed out early.
Woke up this morning, finished packing, breakfast, gods I love having the fruit and orange juice every morning. Catch the bus, where we get in everyone's way including each others', airport, go through the airport remarkably quickly, plane, crash. I was asleep after we landed, even. Wake up, get to the airport, find out that Norway stupidly makes you get your baggage, no automatic transfer, and find out that Norway is also stupid expensive. The CHEAPEST sandwich we found was 49 kroners. It's 5.7 kroners to the dollar.
Anyway, in the Oslo airport, our plane leaves around 4:20, and on to Tromso.
Tuesday, March 23rd , roughly 1:40 PM local time
I didn't get out of bed until 1:30, left the hotel around 2. I went up to Potsdamer Platz, which was... eh, okay. The Arkaden would be kind of a cool mall, if I was into malls, but what was neat was this display of giant Easter eggs. They were all marked with a number like 500, 520, 550, 600, and eventually I figured out it was the wavelength of light of the main color on the egg. That and they were just beautifully decorated in general.
Got tired of the rain after about 45-60 minutes, grabbed a kebab with cheese, came back to the hotel, napped. Went to Starbucks for almost two hours, helped David and Sigrid out with their computer briefly, had a brownie. Matt, Nate, John and I wanted to go to the Philharmonic, but Denny gave Nate bad directions and we didn't make it in time, ended up lost all over the place. We just came back to the Zoo bus stop and went to the Italian place we ate at the first night. I had a calzone which was delicious, and even more exciting, they had Berliner Weisse! John and I got green, Nate got red, both were delicious. Really really good call. We talked a lot, we came back to the hotel and here I am in the dining room, letting Swaffie sleep and typing this. Gonna start reading Shadowrun, since I downloaded that at Starbucks, woohoo.
Sunday, March 21st, roughly 9:50-10 PM local time
Got tired of the rain after about 45-60 minutes, grabbed a kebab with cheese, came back to the hotel, napped. Went to Starbucks for almost two hours, helped David and Sigrid out with their computer briefly, had a brownie. Matt, Nate, John and I wanted to go to the Philharmonic, but Denny gave Nate bad directions and we didn't make it in time, ended up lost all over the place. We just came back to the Zoo bus stop and went to the Italian place we ate at the first night. I had a calzone which was delicious, and even more exciting, they had Berliner Weisse! John and I got green, Nate got red, both were delicious. Really really good call. We talked a lot, we came back to the hotel and here I am in the dining room, letting Swaffie sleep and typing this. Gonna start reading Shadowrun, since I downloaded that at Starbucks, woohoo.
Sunday, March 21st, roughly 9:50-10 PM local time
Woke up around 10:30.
Got distracted.
So I lazed a bit, eventually went to Starbucks, got a blueberry muffin and an orange juice, spent some time online. Denny had mentioned this massive flea market, so Clay, Nate and I went up there, Matt joined us along the way. It was pretty cool, I ended up picking up [gifts] and some CDs for myself. They were 1 euro each, I asked the guy if they were any good, he said he hadn't listened to them, that's why they're 1 euro. He gave me 3 for 2, I had 7 originally, cut out one so now I got 6 for 4. We'll see.
Came back, napped for a long time, spent some more time at Starbucks, went out with Becky to dinner. We went to this pizza place she knew of, I had a margherita pizza, a Warsteiner, and most of the lasagna, she didn't like it much though we planned to split it. We had a really good talk about the trip. We came back, I figured out where this club Dice is, and we're probably going there later tonight.
Saturday, March 20th, roughly 8:25-8:40 PM local time
Got distracted.
So I lazed a bit, eventually went to Starbucks, got a blueberry muffin and an orange juice, spent some time online. Denny had mentioned this massive flea market, so Clay, Nate and I went up there, Matt joined us along the way. It was pretty cool, I ended up picking up [gifts] and some CDs for myself. They were 1 euro each, I asked the guy if they were any good, he said he hadn't listened to them, that's why they're 1 euro. He gave me 3 for 2, I had 7 originally, cut out one so now I got 6 for 4. We'll see.
Came back, napped for a long time, spent some more time at Starbucks, went out with Becky to dinner. We went to this pizza place she knew of, I had a margherita pizza, a Warsteiner, and most of the lasagna, she didn't like it much though we planned to split it. We had a really good talk about the trip. We came back, I figured out where this club Dice is, and we're probably going there later tonight.
Saturday, March 20th, roughly 8:25-8:40 PM local time
Oh, woe is me, so busy having fun in Berlin that I have trouble remembering everything to blog about.
Woke up, groggily and slowly got out of bed, breakfast, class for a bit, off to an exhibit of art from artists who traveled to South and Central America after Humboldt's expeditions. Some great paintings and drawings of rainforests, local peoples, an especially impressive one of a volcano. After that we tried to go to the Egypt museum but that failed again, so we got some food. They have these guys who carry around a bratwurst stand, there's an elaborate system of straps around the back and waist and a little grill right in front of their torso. So we picked up that, sat a bit, and then went to the natural history museum here. It's... wow.
Not as much in English as I might have hoped, but still a fair bit. But wow, is it a great museum. The dinosaur hall has some really big dinosaurs, of course, with these cool little videos for most of them where you stand in front of a screen that covers your eyes like binoculars and swivel it around to see the different videos. There's some great stuff on evolution, most of which I couldn't read, but fantastic specimens. Fantastic specimens was just true all around, nothing was fading, nothing looked beat up, everything they had on display was BEAUTIFULLY prepared, from the birds to the mammals to the fossils to the insects.
I really just wanted to take one of their insect boxes home with me. One of the cooler moments of the day, for me personally, was when I recognized a species of long-horned beetle from my mentorship at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, there's a little grey and black one really common in this area that we had specimens of there, and here's two boxes full of them in Berlin.
A nice trippy room on the solar system where you can lie on your back and look up into a show of the history of the universe, a minerals room which to me is always just “pretty rocks,” but they were pretty, a good room on human evolution, a FANTASTIC exhibit of local wildlife, especially birds, that sadly had almost no English, and a really cool hallway that explained the process of preparing exhibits, something you don't often see in museums. I picked up a t-shirt in the store, was amused by them selling Measuring the World, one of the books we're reading for our classes, and then headed out.
I opted not to join the group going to the Berlin Philharmonic, ultimately probably a mistake, but that's life. Anh, Nikki, Jake, Vince and I ended up walking around, we visited the KaDeWe, this absolutely enormous department store, and grabbed gyros at a place nearby. I had souvlaki, it was quite good. I came back to the hotel, talked a little bit to the people from the other group staying here (I was locked out of my room which helped). We might be going out later tonight, so I gathered up a bunch of fliers and went to Starbucks to try to research the clubs. Sadly, none of their websites had any English, but I'm still hoping to get to one tonight. The good news is that my orange juice, though expensive, was delicious. We'll see what happens.
Friday, March 19th, roughly 9:50-10 PM local time
Woke up, groggily and slowly got out of bed, breakfast, class for a bit, off to an exhibit of art from artists who traveled to South and Central America after Humboldt's expeditions. Some great paintings and drawings of rainforests, local peoples, an especially impressive one of a volcano. After that we tried to go to the Egypt museum but that failed again, so we got some food. They have these guys who carry around a bratwurst stand, there's an elaborate system of straps around the back and waist and a little grill right in front of their torso. So we picked up that, sat a bit, and then went to the natural history museum here. It's... wow.
Not as much in English as I might have hoped, but still a fair bit. But wow, is it a great museum. The dinosaur hall has some really big dinosaurs, of course, with these cool little videos for most of them where you stand in front of a screen that covers your eyes like binoculars and swivel it around to see the different videos. There's some great stuff on evolution, most of which I couldn't read, but fantastic specimens. Fantastic specimens was just true all around, nothing was fading, nothing looked beat up, everything they had on display was BEAUTIFULLY prepared, from the birds to the mammals to the fossils to the insects.
I really just wanted to take one of their insect boxes home with me. One of the cooler moments of the day, for me personally, was when I recognized a species of long-horned beetle from my mentorship at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, there's a little grey and black one really common in this area that we had specimens of there, and here's two boxes full of them in Berlin.
A nice trippy room on the solar system where you can lie on your back and look up into a show of the history of the universe, a minerals room which to me is always just “pretty rocks,” but they were pretty, a good room on human evolution, a FANTASTIC exhibit of local wildlife, especially birds, that sadly had almost no English, and a really cool hallway that explained the process of preparing exhibits, something you don't often see in museums. I picked up a t-shirt in the store, was amused by them selling Measuring the World, one of the books we're reading for our classes, and then headed out.
I opted not to join the group going to the Berlin Philharmonic, ultimately probably a mistake, but that's life. Anh, Nikki, Jake, Vince and I ended up walking around, we visited the KaDeWe, this absolutely enormous department store, and grabbed gyros at a place nearby. I had souvlaki, it was quite good. I came back to the hotel, talked a little bit to the people from the other group staying here (I was locked out of my room which helped). We might be going out later tonight, so I gathered up a bunch of fliers and went to Starbucks to try to research the clubs. Sadly, none of their websites had any English, but I'm still hoping to get to one tonight. The good news is that my orange juice, though expensive, was delicious. We'll see what happens.
Friday, March 19th, roughly 9:50-10 PM local time
I ended up napping a touch, went to Starbucks, got a strawberry banana smoothie (bottled, sadly) and a blueberry muffin and spent a little over two hours online, some of it responsible, some of it play. Came back from that, lent Nate the computer, and went out exploring.
I took the U1 to its conclusion, Warschauerstrasse. The area's very different from where we're staying, we're in Charlottenburg, upscale, high end, that sort of thing. The neighborhood around Warschauerstrasse, whatever its name may be, is brick buildings covered in graffiti. Some of it's just graffiti, some of it is really cool street art, there's an especially impressive one of a humanoid form made up of smaller men, and it's lifting a hand towards its “face” which is holding one of the individual men in a different color. It may not sound good in writing but I thought it was pretty cool. I walked around there, saw some small coffee shops and things, lots of piercings, messenger bags, leather jackets, I think you're all getting the idea. Then I found a tiny little record store and wow. Really cool stuff, the sales were tempting too. I was this close to buying a Supertramp album for 2.50 Euro before I realized I couldn't get it home safely. Too bad really, they had a lot of awesome stuff, not only Bowie, Beastie Boys, Bob Marley, The Clash and so on, but even Fugazi which I certainly wasn't expecting to see in Berlin. I was tempted to pick up a CD, maybe this weekend I'll explore there some more. I also grabbed a dozen or so fliers for various parties, clubs and concerts this weekend.
Came back, picked up bratwurst, fries and a cherry coke for dinner in one of the stations. We met at 7 to go to a concert with Haydn, Vivaldi, Mozart and Arman. It was a small group, but they were very good. A beautiful concert hall, though it was almost comical to me how much it fit the stereotypical concert hall. Statues of Greek gods and busts of famous composers along the walls, literally. For the last few pieces they had a soloist on flugelhorn and trumpet, he played trumpet on The Festival of Venice and... wow. The playing almost sounded like a constant stream of air with occasional notes emphasized, like there was a constant sound and then a different instrument altogether hitting certain notes. He was obviously triple-tonguing, not sure if there was another technique to or not, but it was impressive. Suffice to say he was really good. As people were clapping and clapping and clapping, he even came out and improv'ed a short little encore on the same theme, which was really cool.
Walking back from that, we passed the Brandenberg Gate, read about the 1848 revolution, saw the lines marking where the Berlin Wall stood, and eventually came to the Holocaust Memorial. It's built on top of Hitler's bunker, and consists of featureless stone blocks at various heights. They look like graves more than anything else, at least to me. When you first enter they're short, but as you go further in they get taller and taller, and the ground dips, so that eventually they tower over you and you're “trapped” under them. It's meant to cause discomfort and disorientation, and though you can look left and right and see the streetlights pretty easily, it's still an impressive experience.
We came out from that, caught a bus back to the Zoo, and most of us walked back from there. I stopped with a handful of people to get kebabs, I got cheese and this time and wow. Excellent decision, it was absolutely delicious. And now here I am back at the hotel. Class in the morning.
Thursday, March 18th, roughly 11:50-12:05 PM local time
I took the U1 to its conclusion, Warschauerstrasse. The area's very different from where we're staying, we're in Charlottenburg, upscale, high end, that sort of thing. The neighborhood around Warschauerstrasse, whatever its name may be, is brick buildings covered in graffiti. Some of it's just graffiti, some of it is really cool street art, there's an especially impressive one of a humanoid form made up of smaller men, and it's lifting a hand towards its “face” which is holding one of the individual men in a different color. It may not sound good in writing but I thought it was pretty cool. I walked around there, saw some small coffee shops and things, lots of piercings, messenger bags, leather jackets, I think you're all getting the idea. Then I found a tiny little record store and wow. Really cool stuff, the sales were tempting too. I was this close to buying a Supertramp album for 2.50 Euro before I realized I couldn't get it home safely. Too bad really, they had a lot of awesome stuff, not only Bowie, Beastie Boys, Bob Marley, The Clash and so on, but even Fugazi which I certainly wasn't expecting to see in Berlin. I was tempted to pick up a CD, maybe this weekend I'll explore there some more. I also grabbed a dozen or so fliers for various parties, clubs and concerts this weekend.
Came back, picked up bratwurst, fries and a cherry coke for dinner in one of the stations. We met at 7 to go to a concert with Haydn, Vivaldi, Mozart and Arman. It was a small group, but they were very good. A beautiful concert hall, though it was almost comical to me how much it fit the stereotypical concert hall. Statues of Greek gods and busts of famous composers along the walls, literally. For the last few pieces they had a soloist on flugelhorn and trumpet, he played trumpet on The Festival of Venice and... wow. The playing almost sounded like a constant stream of air with occasional notes emphasized, like there was a constant sound and then a different instrument altogether hitting certain notes. He was obviously triple-tonguing, not sure if there was another technique to or not, but it was impressive. Suffice to say he was really good. As people were clapping and clapping and clapping, he even came out and improv'ed a short little encore on the same theme, which was really cool.
Walking back from that, we passed the Brandenberg Gate, read about the 1848 revolution, saw the lines marking where the Berlin Wall stood, and eventually came to the Holocaust Memorial. It's built on top of Hitler's bunker, and consists of featureless stone blocks at various heights. They look like graves more than anything else, at least to me. When you first enter they're short, but as you go further in they get taller and taller, and the ground dips, so that eventually they tower over you and you're “trapped” under them. It's meant to cause discomfort and disorientation, and though you can look left and right and see the streetlights pretty easily, it's still an impressive experience.
We came out from that, caught a bus back to the Zoo, and most of us walked back from there. I stopped with a handful of people to get kebabs, I got cheese and this time and wow. Excellent decision, it was absolutely delicious. And now here I am back at the hotel. Class in the morning.
Thursday, March 18th, roughly 11:50-12:05 PM local time
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Yesterday, woke up, breakfast, which included some sort of cake thing with chocolate chips that just seemed ridiculously decadent. Class, mostly biomes, lunch break, and then it was off to see Schloss Charlottenburg, this old summer palace. Beautiful place, it was shelled really badly in WWII but they've done an astounding amount of restoration work. Everything you think of when it comes to 18th and 19th century royalty, gold-plated everything, beautiful oak furniture, more porcelain than you'd think possible, mirrored walls, huge portraits everywhere, you get the idea. We had audioguides and it was mostly pretty interesting, actually. There was a whole room dedicated to Alexander von Humboldt at one point, which almost seemed rigged for our trip. After we spent some time in there and in the New Wing, we went out back to the garden, which exemplified the absolute worst in English gardens. Everything extremely controlled, no actual nature, bah. In the back it got more natural, we saw lots of ducks, a dog chasing some of them (the owners had no control of the dog, or of their daughter for that matter, it was funny), trees that looked less heavily manipulated. We couldn't go into the building out back, though we did see a field just COVERED in signs of moles, which apparently means that they're eating invertebrates in the soil which means that the field doesn't have insecticides or herbicides in it.
We headed back to the hotel and I went out to a haircut. The guy was from Paris but has apparently worked in Australia, Canada, Germany, I don't remember all the places he mentioned. He spoke German and a little Italian, as well as English and French. A little fancier than I'm used to, but it was a good haircut. Towards the end a woman who also worked there came in and when he told her I wasn't German, she guessed Russian. One more on the list of nationalities, eh? I could ALMOST understand her German but she just spoke too fast for me to pick up much of it, unfortunately. I'm really missing how good I was four years ago. That was 15 euros, tipped him 3, back to the hotel.
Thursday, March 18th, roughly 11:25-11:35 PM local time
We headed back to the hotel and I went out to a haircut. The guy was from Paris but has apparently worked in Australia, Canada, Germany, I don't remember all the places he mentioned. He spoke German and a little Italian, as well as English and French. A little fancier than I'm used to, but it was a good haircut. Towards the end a woman who also worked there came in and when he told her I wasn't German, she guessed Russian. One more on the list of nationalities, eh? I could ALMOST understand her German but she just spoke too fast for me to pick up much of it, unfortunately. I'm really missing how good I was four years ago. That was 15 euros, tipped him 3, back to the hotel.
Thursday, March 18th, roughly 11:25-11:35 PM local time
Breakfast was pretty good, I had bread/meat/cheese and LOTS of fruit. Oh, and some yogurt, which I hadn't had in ages. Not because we haven't been in countries with great yogurt, more because I'm a little wary of what people call “good” yogurt versus what I actually like. I've tried lots of new food, I figure I'm allowed one or two.
Took a nap after that, then class, which was mostly a discussion of Berlin and Berlin history, along with a little more on this theme of “who owns art?” that we've had going on constantly since Egypt. We got our week passes for the public transit and got some time off for lunch. Swaffie and I wandered, amused at how we're polar opposites in appearance. We saw lots of cool little stores, a big church with a nice playground, Berlin is just a really cool city to walk around in. Some old guy who was probably crazy swore at us, I only caught “die Scheisse Deutschland,” but it was clearly directed at us, especially since he kept watching us after we passed. That was odd. Eventually we went to a little grocer's nearby called Kaiser's, picked up some sandwich stuff, orange juice and an apple, came back to the hotel and had lunch. There was a little bit of snow on the way back, which we certainly haven't seen in a long time.
After lunch we waited around for a bit and then headed on the buses to the museum. Somewhere between class and here, I lost my pass. NO IDEA. I had put it straight into my wallet. I tried to tell Denny after the first short stop and he laughed, saying “you had me there for a second.” He honestly thought I was messing with him. So I spent the rest of the bus rides in horror of ending up having to pay some enormous fine (they had told us all about it this morning), but I got away with it. We went to the Pergamon Museum, the lady selling us tickets told Denny that “this is better, because we have the real thing” when he told her we had been to Pergamon.
Yeah, sometimes people are like that.
The museum itself was truly impressive. The ancient gates were incorporated into the doors so that when you walked through a doorway, you were going through one of these gates. Upstairs they had a bunch of statues, amphoras, and other things only recently recovered from Russia that had been taken in WWII. Truly beautiful stuff, and even a little bit of mythology mixed in. We had been hearing all about this in our art discussions, so it was cool to see it. Maybe the coolest part for me was a small Babylonian section, seeing as I know so little about Babylon. The art style reminded me a little bit of Aztec art, which was surprising, but it was definitely there in some pieces.
After that we tried to go to the Egypt Museum but were probably 30 seconds late, they have very specific entry times and the group before us got in. Meh, whatever. John, Clay, Allen, Swaffie, Nate, Brenna and I wandered a bit, briefly went into a Catholic church being renovated. Some idiot had drawn a pentagram with 6s and “Satanus de Angelus” near the door. Inside it was beautiful despite the work, lots of paintings, though definitely in that sort of creepy old Catholic style of everything being pain and suffering. There were a couple that weren't, but the majority were. No offense to Catholicism, I'm just saying. We saw a GORGEOUS fountain with Poseidon and a bunch of other creatures around him, absolutely beautiful work though it wasn't flowing just then. Eventually we passed some stalls with some guys selling Soviet-themed stuff, hats, flasks, pins. John got a flask, Swaffie and I both got hats. WARM and comfortable. Wow. I probably got ripped off at 15 euro, but that's life, and it's actually practical. I took the pin out and now I can wear it here and in Norway, not to mention back home (pin in, obviously).
Eventually we were done and headed into the subway (called the U) to come back. We got these delicious chicken kebabs, 2.5 euro and huge and oh so tasty. I had to buy a ticket, which was... intimidating. I walked into this little room and of the two women running the counter, one is in this huge argument with a woman trying to do... something. I'm not sure what. That went on for several minutes, and when it eventually became my turn, I got the woman who was arguing. I was afraid she was going to be pissy with me, ignorant tourist, but I just said I'm a tourist and I need to get here and she told me the route (we had already figured out the route) and yes, I could buy one ticket for the whole thing and it was 2.10.
So we got that taken care of, got the first part of the route down fine, heard a guy play guitar and sing in an Irish accent on the train (he switched to British when he spoke, though). We got to the transfer JUST as a train was pulling out, and Nate DASHED us onto the train, holding the door long after it had meant to be closed. Here two guys were performing, one playing guitar and singing, another playing soprano sax. This was actually pretty awesome, the sax guy was really good and we all liked the song. I gave them 70 euro cents, and then Nate figured out we were on the wrong train. Well, yeah, when you hardly pay attention to what you're boarding. So we got off and got on the train going the right direction, headed back, walked back to the hotel, and here I am. Other than the whole losing my pass thing, definitely a good day.
Tuesday, March 16th, roughly 7:40-7:55 PM local time
Took a nap after that, then class, which was mostly a discussion of Berlin and Berlin history, along with a little more on this theme of “who owns art?” that we've had going on constantly since Egypt. We got our week passes for the public transit and got some time off for lunch. Swaffie and I wandered, amused at how we're polar opposites in appearance. We saw lots of cool little stores, a big church with a nice playground, Berlin is just a really cool city to walk around in. Some old guy who was probably crazy swore at us, I only caught “die Scheisse Deutschland,” but it was clearly directed at us, especially since he kept watching us after we passed. That was odd. Eventually we went to a little grocer's nearby called Kaiser's, picked up some sandwich stuff, orange juice and an apple, came back to the hotel and had lunch. There was a little bit of snow on the way back, which we certainly haven't seen in a long time.
After lunch we waited around for a bit and then headed on the buses to the museum. Somewhere between class and here, I lost my pass. NO IDEA. I had put it straight into my wallet. I tried to tell Denny after the first short stop and he laughed, saying “you had me there for a second.” He honestly thought I was messing with him. So I spent the rest of the bus rides in horror of ending up having to pay some enormous fine (they had told us all about it this morning), but I got away with it. We went to the Pergamon Museum, the lady selling us tickets told Denny that “this is better, because we have the real thing” when he told her we had been to Pergamon.
Yeah, sometimes people are like that.
The museum itself was truly impressive. The ancient gates were incorporated into the doors so that when you walked through a doorway, you were going through one of these gates. Upstairs they had a bunch of statues, amphoras, and other things only recently recovered from Russia that had been taken in WWII. Truly beautiful stuff, and even a little bit of mythology mixed in. We had been hearing all about this in our art discussions, so it was cool to see it. Maybe the coolest part for me was a small Babylonian section, seeing as I know so little about Babylon. The art style reminded me a little bit of Aztec art, which was surprising, but it was definitely there in some pieces.
After that we tried to go to the Egypt Museum but were probably 30 seconds late, they have very specific entry times and the group before us got in. Meh, whatever. John, Clay, Allen, Swaffie, Nate, Brenna and I wandered a bit, briefly went into a Catholic church being renovated. Some idiot had drawn a pentagram with 6s and “Satanus de Angelus” near the door. Inside it was beautiful despite the work, lots of paintings, though definitely in that sort of creepy old Catholic style of everything being pain and suffering. There were a couple that weren't, but the majority were. No offense to Catholicism, I'm just saying. We saw a GORGEOUS fountain with Poseidon and a bunch of other creatures around him, absolutely beautiful work though it wasn't flowing just then. Eventually we passed some stalls with some guys selling Soviet-themed stuff, hats, flasks, pins. John got a flask, Swaffie and I both got hats. WARM and comfortable. Wow. I probably got ripped off at 15 euro, but that's life, and it's actually practical. I took the pin out and now I can wear it here and in Norway, not to mention back home (pin in, obviously).
Eventually we were done and headed into the subway (called the U) to come back. We got these delicious chicken kebabs, 2.5 euro and huge and oh so tasty. I had to buy a ticket, which was... intimidating. I walked into this little room and of the two women running the counter, one is in this huge argument with a woman trying to do... something. I'm not sure what. That went on for several minutes, and when it eventually became my turn, I got the woman who was arguing. I was afraid she was going to be pissy with me, ignorant tourist, but I just said I'm a tourist and I need to get here and she told me the route (we had already figured out the route) and yes, I could buy one ticket for the whole thing and it was 2.10.
So we got that taken care of, got the first part of the route down fine, heard a guy play guitar and sing in an Irish accent on the train (he switched to British when he spoke, though). We got to the transfer JUST as a train was pulling out, and Nate DASHED us onto the train, holding the door long after it had meant to be closed. Here two guys were performing, one playing guitar and singing, another playing soprano sax. This was actually pretty awesome, the sax guy was really good and we all liked the song. I gave them 70 euro cents, and then Nate figured out we were on the wrong train. Well, yeah, when you hardly pay attention to what you're boarding. So we got off and got on the train going the right direction, headed back, walked back to the hotel, and here I am. Other than the whole losing my pass thing, definitely a good day.
Tuesday, March 16th, roughly 7:40-7:55 PM local time
BERLIN!
Now, to back up a bit.
Got up yesterday, ate, sat around a bit, went out to try to find some ziploc bags or something for the olive oil. Well, it turns out ziploc hasn't made its way to Turkey yet, so I ended up buying trash bags for 75 kuruks, which isn't so bad. On the way back got confused for an Australian by a man trying to sell me carpets, so I can add that one to the list. (English, German, Scandanavian, and Australian so far). I ended up popping my head into some random small place for lunch and saying “I need something quick,” the guy said only chicken was ready, I said that was perfect. So I had a chicken wrap and some really, really good lemonade for lunch while watching Apocalypto with both English and Turkish subtitles. At least, I think it was Apocalypto. That was only 7 liira, which was awesome, went back to the hotel, sat downstairs for a bit watching football with Nate because John had our roomkey (I had earlier left a key in the room, Nate got another key made, lent it to John, then John left with it and the original key was still in the room... yeah). John came back, I packed, taping the olive oil's cork down, wrapping it in a trash bag, wrapped in another trash bag, and then taping the hell out of that.
Bus to the airport, sign in, have to redistribute some of Becky's stuff because she's about 5 kilos over and cheated Egypt Air, go through one of the longer passport control lines we've seen, though it wasn't bad. The Azerbaijan wrestling team was there with a trophy, we congratulated them. Our gate changed from 202 to 206 to 211 but eventually we got on the plane. I slept almost that entire flight, 4 hours. Arrive in Riga, we're supposed to only have half an hour to get to the next plane so we really want to rush.
Move move move, passport control which seemed odd for a transfer, the woman was actually trying to make polite conversation (“what will you be doing in Berlin?”) but I was a little too frazzled for it, get to the gate... our plane's been delayed. Awesome, we don't have to panic. They didn't feed us on the flight over (don't fly Air Baltic, EVERYTHING costs money, even water), so Denny bought us all some sandwiches and water. Then our flight seemed to disappear altogether, which was a worrisome period. Then we heard it departed, then we heard no, it's still there... anyway, eventually after another flight left the one gate, we were able to get on. The plane had very few people on it, we probably could have spread out but we pretty much stuck to our seats, though I did switch with Sigrid (which was good, because I had an aisle and she had a window, and I was afraid in aisle some steward would notice my backpack being, well, my enormous freaking backpack). Got a little nerd work done on that plane, land, get our stuff off the carousel, and into Berlin!
We took the bus, the group of us sitting in the back speaking horrible horrible German to each other. Got off at Uhland Strasse and started walking to the Pension Funk. (Not pronounced how you think it is.) I warned David about the horrible German, he said be prepared for 8 days of being corrected constantly, I told him it wasn't just me.
Our hotel's pretty nice. It used to be the apartments of... let me check the brochure. “In the former residence of Asta Nielsen, star of the silent film.” Clay, Swaffie and I are in a very comfortable triple, our own bathroom and shower and all. After we settled in and got some food money from Denny, it was out to find dinner and beer (Bier!).
We walked towards the train station, having been told that was a good way to find food. Met some Belgian kids at least 4 years younger than us who were trying way too hard to smoke, they were clearly inexperienced and coughing regularly. Yeah, I don't smoke myself, but I still know how to recognize people who are new to it. They were outside a bar with 4 euro beers, we decided to keep walking. Eventually we found a pizza place and somehow ended up all eating together, which wasn't really a bad thing. I had a pizza margarita and a hefeweizen dunkel (dark). The krystalweizen was okay, the hefeweizen hell (light) was actually really good, and my dunkel was pretty good, we all swapped tastes as usual. The pizza was a pretty standard cheese pizza. But hey, all for something like 7 euro, I'm not complaining.
Some people stayed out longer but I came back to the hotel and went to bed. I had trouble falling asleep for whatever reason, but once I was out I stayed out, so that was good. Woke up some time around 6:45, if I had to guess, showered, got dressed, did my best not to disturb Swaffie and Clay but this building is not a quiet one. Breakfast starts in 10 minutes.
I'm SO excited to be in Berlin. Germany's the only country of the whole trip I've visited before, and I didn't get to Berlin last time. I mean... it's BERLIN. Capital city of one of my favorite countries of the world, and I had a great time in Heidelberg and Munich, so it follows that I'll have a great time in Berlin. I've been wanting to come here for a long time (probably after about my first year of German or so), so it's great to actually be here. And unlike the last two months of move move move, we get a full 8 days here. 3 of those days free (Thursday, specially requested as the day after St. Patty's, and Saturday and Sunday.) It's going to be fantastic.
Tuesday, March 16th, roughly 7:05-7:20 AM local time
Now, to back up a bit.
Got up yesterday, ate, sat around a bit, went out to try to find some ziploc bags or something for the olive oil. Well, it turns out ziploc hasn't made its way to Turkey yet, so I ended up buying trash bags for 75 kuruks, which isn't so bad. On the way back got confused for an Australian by a man trying to sell me carpets, so I can add that one to the list. (English, German, Scandanavian, and Australian so far). I ended up popping my head into some random small place for lunch and saying “I need something quick,” the guy said only chicken was ready, I said that was perfect. So I had a chicken wrap and some really, really good lemonade for lunch while watching Apocalypto with both English and Turkish subtitles. At least, I think it was Apocalypto. That was only 7 liira, which was awesome, went back to the hotel, sat downstairs for a bit watching football with Nate because John had our roomkey (I had earlier left a key in the room, Nate got another key made, lent it to John, then John left with it and the original key was still in the room... yeah). John came back, I packed, taping the olive oil's cork down, wrapping it in a trash bag, wrapped in another trash bag, and then taping the hell out of that.
Bus to the airport, sign in, have to redistribute some of Becky's stuff because she's about 5 kilos over and cheated Egypt Air, go through one of the longer passport control lines we've seen, though it wasn't bad. The Azerbaijan wrestling team was there with a trophy, we congratulated them. Our gate changed from 202 to 206 to 211 but eventually we got on the plane. I slept almost that entire flight, 4 hours. Arrive in Riga, we're supposed to only have half an hour to get to the next plane so we really want to rush.
Move move move, passport control which seemed odd for a transfer, the woman was actually trying to make polite conversation (“what will you be doing in Berlin?”) but I was a little too frazzled for it, get to the gate... our plane's been delayed. Awesome, we don't have to panic. They didn't feed us on the flight over (don't fly Air Baltic, EVERYTHING costs money, even water), so Denny bought us all some sandwiches and water. Then our flight seemed to disappear altogether, which was a worrisome period. Then we heard it departed, then we heard no, it's still there... anyway, eventually after another flight left the one gate, we were able to get on. The plane had very few people on it, we probably could have spread out but we pretty much stuck to our seats, though I did switch with Sigrid (which was good, because I had an aisle and she had a window, and I was afraid in aisle some steward would notice my backpack being, well, my enormous freaking backpack). Got a little nerd work done on that plane, land, get our stuff off the carousel, and into Berlin!
We took the bus, the group of us sitting in the back speaking horrible horrible German to each other. Got off at Uhland Strasse and started walking to the Pension Funk. (Not pronounced how you think it is.) I warned David about the horrible German, he said be prepared for 8 days of being corrected constantly, I told him it wasn't just me.
Our hotel's pretty nice. It used to be the apartments of... let me check the brochure. “In the former residence of Asta Nielsen, star of the silent film.” Clay, Swaffie and I are in a very comfortable triple, our own bathroom and shower and all. After we settled in and got some food money from Denny, it was out to find dinner and beer (Bier!).
We walked towards the train station, having been told that was a good way to find food. Met some Belgian kids at least 4 years younger than us who were trying way too hard to smoke, they were clearly inexperienced and coughing regularly. Yeah, I don't smoke myself, but I still know how to recognize people who are new to it. They were outside a bar with 4 euro beers, we decided to keep walking. Eventually we found a pizza place and somehow ended up all eating together, which wasn't really a bad thing. I had a pizza margarita and a hefeweizen dunkel (dark). The krystalweizen was okay, the hefeweizen hell (light) was actually really good, and my dunkel was pretty good, we all swapped tastes as usual. The pizza was a pretty standard cheese pizza. But hey, all for something like 7 euro, I'm not complaining.
Some people stayed out longer but I came back to the hotel and went to bed. I had trouble falling asleep for whatever reason, but once I was out I stayed out, so that was good. Woke up some time around 6:45, if I had to guess, showered, got dressed, did my best not to disturb Swaffie and Clay but this building is not a quiet one. Breakfast starts in 10 minutes.
I'm SO excited to be in Berlin. Germany's the only country of the whole trip I've visited before, and I didn't get to Berlin last time. I mean... it's BERLIN. Capital city of one of my favorite countries of the world, and I had a great time in Heidelberg and Munich, so it follows that I'll have a great time in Berlin. I've been wanting to come here for a long time (probably after about my first year of German or so), so it's great to actually be here. And unlike the last two months of move move move, we get a full 8 days here. 3 of those days free (Thursday, specially requested as the day after St. Patty's, and Saturday and Sunday.) It's going to be fantastic.
Tuesday, March 16th, roughly 7:05-7:20 AM local time
The Hagia Sophia was... wow. Just fantastic. Also, HUGE. Like, I almost felt agoraphobic, it was that big. Beautiful architecture, huge mosaics, wonderful stained glass, and just wow. Also? Big. Very impressive, though unfortunately I can't put many details here. Anh did this thing called the sweating column, you stick your thumb in and if it comes out wet your wish will come true. Kind of goofy. I waited outside for a long time, people-watched, the group didn't know I was outside (I told Anh and Brenna), eventually they found me and we moved on.
The Blue Mosque was closed for prayers, we waited about 15 minutes and then it opened. Very impressive as well, though the chains hanging from the ceiling make photos difficult. The center chain has some ostrich eggs on a triangle near the top, which is kind of neat. They have a little Islam information center near the back which seemed remarkably welcoming, “there is no compulsion to religion,” though I didn't end up going in. Seemed alright though.
Pizza for lunch. Had a sausage and green pepper deal, gave all my olives to others, ate some of Anh's margherita and some of Kanako's mushroom too. From there we got some time to wander the city. I came back to the hotel trying to drop my camera off, but the guy thought he didn't have the key. (He did). I'm glad though, because when I went to the park I actually got some cool pictures. There's a NICE park en route to the Hagia Sophia, free and open. I walked a bit, semi-stalked this couple near my age trying to figure out their nationality, definitely American or English but not sure which. I was going to let them be but the guy was finding all the cool birds, so I was following him to get pictures of the birds. Lots of stuff here, not just crows and little seed-eaters but also big herons and... of all things, bright green parakeets. They seem really out of place but there they are, in great numbers. Also a fair number of cats, of course, lots of museums I couldn't afford to go into, and a pretty globe with just a small piece of map outside of the museum of Science and Technology in Islam.
Nate eventually caught up with me, we walked a bit, left the park, went down towards the docks, walked some more, ended up back by the milestone and this big Egyptian obelisk near the Hagia Sophia. He bought this candy thing, kind of like taffy-texture rock candy, Anh Kanako and I had had them earlier. They take a stick and roll it so the candy wraps around it, and it's five different flavors all rolled one after the other. It's DELICIOUS. I want it in the states almost about as I want tuktuks/auto rickshaws. So we had that, walked some more, ended up back at the hotel, chilled a bit. Had an Efes with John, Swaffie, Matt and Caitlin, listened to some music, dinner. Good dinner, so many courses, so many desserts, so good.
The Blue Mosque was closed for prayers, we waited about 15 minutes and then it opened. Very impressive as well, though the chains hanging from the ceiling make photos difficult. The center chain has some ostrich eggs on a triangle near the top, which is kind of neat. They have a little Islam information center near the back which seemed remarkably welcoming, “there is no compulsion to religion,” though I didn't end up going in. Seemed alright though.
Pizza for lunch. Had a sausage and green pepper deal, gave all my olives to others, ate some of Anh's margherita and some of Kanako's mushroom too. From there we got some time to wander the city. I came back to the hotel trying to drop my camera off, but the guy thought he didn't have the key. (He did). I'm glad though, because when I went to the park I actually got some cool pictures. There's a NICE park en route to the Hagia Sophia, free and open. I walked a bit, semi-stalked this couple near my age trying to figure out their nationality, definitely American or English but not sure which. I was going to let them be but the guy was finding all the cool birds, so I was following him to get pictures of the birds. Lots of stuff here, not just crows and little seed-eaters but also big herons and... of all things, bright green parakeets. They seem really out of place but there they are, in great numbers. Also a fair number of cats, of course, lots of museums I couldn't afford to go into, and a pretty globe with just a small piece of map outside of the museum of Science and Technology in Islam.
Nate eventually caught up with me, we walked a bit, left the park, went down towards the docks, walked some more, ended up back by the milestone and this big Egyptian obelisk near the Hagia Sophia. He bought this candy thing, kind of like taffy-texture rock candy, Anh Kanako and I had had them earlier. They take a stick and roll it so the candy wraps around it, and it's five different flavors all rolled one after the other. It's DELICIOUS. I want it in the states almost about as I want tuktuks/auto rickshaws. So we had that, walked some more, ended up back at the hotel, chilled a bit. Had an Efes with John, Swaffie, Matt and Caitlin, listened to some music, dinner. Good dinner, so many courses, so many desserts, so good.
So we stayed in a 5-star hotel that night. It was uh, impressive. I felt out of place as all hell in the restaurant. Next morning, woke up, swam a bit, sauna, into a COLD pool, sauna, COLD pool, steam room (“Finn Bath), COLD pool, breakfast. The best way to wake up, ever. Period.
After that we drove a bit, I feel like we stopped to see something but I completely forget. Anyway there was a ferry across the sea which was kind of fun, met a Turkish kid who offered us cigarettes and may or may not have offered us whiskey, I'm not really sure. He spoke very little English and Nate and I, of course, spoke no Turkish. Also had fun throwing bread to the gulls, there were huge flocks of them around the boat. Back onto the bus, see the Tomb of Mehmet and the Green Mosque, I forgot my camera which was obnoxious. Both very impressive structures, apparently the color of the tiles in the Green Mosque has never been recreated, they're not sure what the composition was to get that exact color. Picked up an Evil Eye bracelet for myself outside the Green Mosque for 1 liira.
Get into Istanbul, go to the Grand Bazaar for two hours. One hour probably would have been enough, but wow. The place is IMPRESSIVE. There for centuries, Marco Polo was there, all very cool. I got a couple gifts for others, John picked up some awesome pipes. I really wanted to get some apple tea but decided against it. I'd love to go back there some day with a bunch of money and just blow it all, much as I normally don't like shopping. Nate bought a pair of sunglasses, which ended in a whole lot of hassling. A big guy came over to talk to me at one point, asked me where I was from, apparently he has two stores in Texas. I didn't see a store anywhere nearby which was why he seemed safe to talk to, but he whisked Nate and I around a few corner to his store. En route a guy asked me “is this guy your friend?” and I just shrugged, he laughed at that. Turned out that guy worked at the same store, a carpet store. As soon as I realized it was carpets I just went “oh no no no,” and they actually let us go pretty easily. It was kind of nice. This one guy selling chess sets said he'd give Nate one for free if Nate beat him, after his first move he said “wait 6 months” for the next one. Supposedly he tricked Kazmarov or whoever the famous Russian guy is the same way. Funny old man, if a bit obnoxious. Fortunately both of the guys who sold to me were alright. I've learned that the best way to barter is to ACTUALLY not have enough money with you.
Had a pretty good dinner, kofte, salad, bread, various things. Ate a whole bunch of raw onion because Brenna didn't want it, which was interesting. We had a great variety of conversations, the most amusing of which to me was assigning animals to each person there. Brenna's a dikdik, Liz is a slow lorence, Nate's a river otter (all smiley), and I'm apparently a red panda? Not sure how that happened. Zypy's a fish because she claims she doesn't sleep. I don't remember anyone else, though Becky might have ended up a lion, we never got that confirmed.
After dinner I just came back to the hotel and sat around, pretty much. Just finished up breakfast and off we go to the Hagia Sophia today
Sunday, March 14th, roughly 9:40-9:50 AM local time
After that we drove a bit, I feel like we stopped to see something but I completely forget. Anyway there was a ferry across the sea which was kind of fun, met a Turkish kid who offered us cigarettes and may or may not have offered us whiskey, I'm not really sure. He spoke very little English and Nate and I, of course, spoke no Turkish. Also had fun throwing bread to the gulls, there were huge flocks of them around the boat. Back onto the bus, see the Tomb of Mehmet and the Green Mosque, I forgot my camera which was obnoxious. Both very impressive structures, apparently the color of the tiles in the Green Mosque has never been recreated, they're not sure what the composition was to get that exact color. Picked up an Evil Eye bracelet for myself outside the Green Mosque for 1 liira.
Get into Istanbul, go to the Grand Bazaar for two hours. One hour probably would have been enough, but wow. The place is IMPRESSIVE. There for centuries, Marco Polo was there, all very cool. I got a couple gifts for others, John picked up some awesome pipes. I really wanted to get some apple tea but decided against it. I'd love to go back there some day with a bunch of money and just blow it all, much as I normally don't like shopping. Nate bought a pair of sunglasses, which ended in a whole lot of hassling. A big guy came over to talk to me at one point, asked me where I was from, apparently he has two stores in Texas. I didn't see a store anywhere nearby which was why he seemed safe to talk to, but he whisked Nate and I around a few corner to his store. En route a guy asked me “is this guy your friend?” and I just shrugged, he laughed at that. Turned out that guy worked at the same store, a carpet store. As soon as I realized it was carpets I just went “oh no no no,” and they actually let us go pretty easily. It was kind of nice. This one guy selling chess sets said he'd give Nate one for free if Nate beat him, after his first move he said “wait 6 months” for the next one. Supposedly he tricked Kazmarov or whoever the famous Russian guy is the same way. Funny old man, if a bit obnoxious. Fortunately both of the guys who sold to me were alright. I've learned that the best way to barter is to ACTUALLY not have enough money with you.
Had a pretty good dinner, kofte, salad, bread, various things. Ate a whole bunch of raw onion because Brenna didn't want it, which was interesting. We had a great variety of conversations, the most amusing of which to me was assigning animals to each person there. Brenna's a dikdik, Liz is a slow lorence, Nate's a river otter (all smiley), and I'm apparently a red panda? Not sure how that happened. Zypy's a fish because she claims she doesn't sleep. I don't remember anyone else, though Becky might have ended up a lion, we never got that confirmed.
After dinner I just came back to the hotel and sat around, pretty much. Just finished up breakfast and off we go to the Hagia Sophia today
Sunday, March 14th, roughly 9:40-9:50 AM local time
Good day. Woke up early, breakfast, little bit of time online, out we go. I slept almost the entire drive and then we came to a farm/winery that a former Hiram student lived on. Spent some time with horses, which I hadn't done in a long time. They produce an absurd amount of body heat. Some were skittish, but most were really friendly, there's some great pictures of them getting really close to people (Swaffy). One tried to eat the strap on my camera case. After that they showed us their wine facility, which they're just getting started. Mosaic, keep an eye out for it in the states in 5 years if we're lucky. We had a taste of Survivor, which was a wine they made of the leftovers at the highest pressing, which should just be crap but actually turned out pretty good. We have a bunch of other wines in water bottles to taste later.
From there we drove into town and ate on the Aegean sea. As Matt put it, it was like home, we were on the water and the meal consisted of only one thing. These fried egg/vegetable/meat/doughy things that were delicious. There was also a sour yogurt drink that very few of us liked, and at the end sage tea that was really good, though Jake's got destroyed by people putting 30 or so sugar cubes into it. I had 4 in mine originally, it went up from there due to others but never got too bad.
We walked a bit, bought some cookies, and then ran into these two guys making a sweet fried dough thing on the street, with a woman standing there. Aysen explained that the woman's father died 40 days earlier, and on the 40th day it's a tradition to give out this sweet bread as a good deed for the family member's soul. So we had some with cinnamon, it was delicious, and thanke them. I like that tradition, I think I'll instate it in the US.
The attitude towards animals on the street seems very different here. People feed them regularly, they look healthy, apparently the gov't sometimes even vaccinates and fixes them, tags them, and then puts them back on the street. The woman, the former Hiram student, I was talking to said it is still viewed as a problem, not so different from the US, but it still looked very different to me.
We walked back and here we are on the bus, ready for a looooong ride to Istanbul.
Friday, March 12th, roughly 2:45-2:50 PM local time
From there we drove into town and ate on the Aegean sea. As Matt put it, it was like home, we were on the water and the meal consisted of only one thing. These fried egg/vegetable/meat/doughy things that were delicious. There was also a sour yogurt drink that very few of us liked, and at the end sage tea that was really good, though Jake's got destroyed by people putting 30 or so sugar cubes into it. I had 4 in mine originally, it went up from there due to others but never got too bad.
We walked a bit, bought some cookies, and then ran into these two guys making a sweet fried dough thing on the street, with a woman standing there. Aysen explained that the woman's father died 40 days earlier, and on the 40th day it's a tradition to give out this sweet bread as a good deed for the family member's soul. So we had some with cinnamon, it was delicious, and thanke them. I like that tradition, I think I'll instate it in the US.
The attitude towards animals on the street seems very different here. People feed them regularly, they look healthy, apparently the gov't sometimes even vaccinates and fixes them, tags them, and then puts them back on the street. The woman, the former Hiram student, I was talking to said it is still viewed as a problem, not so different from the US, but it still looked very different to me.
We walked back and here we are on the bus, ready for a looooong ride to Istanbul.
Friday, March 12th, roughly 2:45-2:50 PM local time
Thursday, March 11, 2010
So I was supposed to be at dinner at 7. Woops. The chicken and fries were absolutely DELICIOUS, though, as well as the massive salad and other things I enjoyed. Good rice too. Chilled in the lobby on the internet most of the evening, met a guy named Meherretam, or something close to that. He's from Eritrea originally, but lives in Germany with his wife Lenna, who's Russian but lives in Germany. He was pretty talkative, thought I was German at first actually (he spoke it too fast for me to recognize even the basic stuff), but also good English. Nice guy, I had fun talking to him. We leave here tomorrow, short post I know, but I wanted to get the guy down before I forgot.
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 9:35 PM local time
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 9:35 PM local time
Woke up, brekkers, waited a bit, nothing exciting there. Today we visited Ephesus, or Efes. That's somewhat more exciting.
We had been told beforehand that this would be the best of the ancient cities we visited, the most intact/preserved, the most impressive. All true. We saw baths, toilets (great group photo there), a remarkably intact facade of the library there, and a huge ampitheatre. Now, I told Swaffie he had dibs on the netbook, so more to come later.
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 5:10 PM local time
So yeah, saw all those awesome things. 5 of our people sang “Amazing Grace” in the ampitheatre to give us an idea of the acoustics, it was pretty awesome. Liz, Michelle, Becky, Nate, Allen. Saw some more things, also Ephesus is FULL of cats and at the end there was a momma dog with puppies and it was adorable. From there we ate and went to a Basilica, lots of beautiful old architecture, prickly pines with names carved into them, and a millipede. So that was all pretty cool. Also saw a column way off in the distance with two storks nesting on top of it. The last stop of the day was a house that supposedly the Virgin Mary stayed in at the end of her life, which was in very pretty surroundings. Walked in, which was about all I did, not being Catholic and all. Nice little shrine though.
We came back to the hotel and I sat around for a little bit before Nate suggested we go to the pool. This turned out to be a very good decision. We swam a bit, Zypy joined us, Nate helped teacher her to swim a little bit, I got my breathing better (still needs work), and then Nate said he wanted to try the sauna. Well first we sat in the Turkish bath for a little bit, watching two people get slapped and then rubbed with these glove things. That was uh, interesting. Nate had some trouble figuring out the paying for it, but wow. It was HOT in there, but nice. You literally feel the heat when you breathe. We had a good talk, deep stuff and all that, came out for a break and were a bit confused about what to do next. A guy working there told us to go into the pool, so we tried it.... wow. FANTASTIC feeling. Utterly amazing how refreshing it was. A few laps, back into the sauna, fantastic. A bit, back into the pool, few laps, back to the sauna, back to the pool, one last bit of sauna with Swaffie joining, and that was it. I never really got sauna before, now I understand. Awesome. Maybe we can do it in Norway?
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 6:45-6:50 PM local time
We had been told beforehand that this would be the best of the ancient cities we visited, the most intact/preserved, the most impressive. All true. We saw baths, toilets (great group photo there), a remarkably intact facade of the library there, and a huge ampitheatre. Now, I told Swaffie he had dibs on the netbook, so more to come later.
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 5:10 PM local time
So yeah, saw all those awesome things. 5 of our people sang “Amazing Grace” in the ampitheatre to give us an idea of the acoustics, it was pretty awesome. Liz, Michelle, Becky, Nate, Allen. Saw some more things, also Ephesus is FULL of cats and at the end there was a momma dog with puppies and it was adorable. From there we ate and went to a Basilica, lots of beautiful old architecture, prickly pines with names carved into them, and a millipede. So that was all pretty cool. Also saw a column way off in the distance with two storks nesting on top of it. The last stop of the day was a house that supposedly the Virgin Mary stayed in at the end of her life, which was in very pretty surroundings. Walked in, which was about all I did, not being Catholic and all. Nice little shrine though.
We came back to the hotel and I sat around for a little bit before Nate suggested we go to the pool. This turned out to be a very good decision. We swam a bit, Zypy joined us, Nate helped teacher her to swim a little bit, I got my breathing better (still needs work), and then Nate said he wanted to try the sauna. Well first we sat in the Turkish bath for a little bit, watching two people get slapped and then rubbed with these glove things. That was uh, interesting. Nate had some trouble figuring out the paying for it, but wow. It was HOT in there, but nice. You literally feel the heat when you breathe. We had a good talk, deep stuff and all that, came out for a break and were a bit confused about what to do next. A guy working there told us to go into the pool, so we tried it.... wow. FANTASTIC feeling. Utterly amazing how refreshing it was. A few laps, back into the sauna, fantastic. A bit, back into the pool, few laps, back to the sauna, back to the pool, one last bit of sauna with Swaffie joining, and that was it. I never really got sauna before, now I understand. Awesome. Maybe we can do it in Norway?
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 6:45-6:50 PM local time
Our current hotel is alright, though the Helen and Berk set high standards. The place has free wireless only in the lobby, the restaurant is just okay, and the other guests are... well, there was a group of Germans that was WAY too into the mediocre guitar player near the bar. His version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was painful. So I chilled in the lobby and used the interwubs for a while, came upstairs, watched music videos on this Italian radio channel on TV until an absolutely horrid one came on, some Italian song that was trying way too hard to be an old Western video with two guys hitchhiking... almost Poison-esque, but so much worse. So I headed downstairs to try and find Nate, failed but did talk to Anh and John for a bit, got a drunk guy off Anh (he was really just drunk, I think, less hitting on her) by talking to him in German a bit, he was actually the guide for the obnoxious Germans (and considered them a bit “weird,” I think because two of them were pretty clearly lesbians). My German was very... rudimentary, but I got to talk to him a bit anyway. Anyway, came back upstairs, more music videos, showered, Nate's back, and we're talking about female singers as sex symbols in the music industry. Good times.
Wednesday, March 10th, roughly 11:50 PM-12:05 AM local time
Wednesday, March 10th, roughly 11:50 PM-12:05 AM local time
On the bus en route to somewhere or other.
Dinner last night involved a great quantity of courses, of course. A tasty salad, a green bean and yogurt dish that... took some effort, some meat and rice, some more things I don't remember, a tasty apple.
Woke up this morning, spent some time online and packing, had breakfast of cereal and bread with meat and cheese. I have to thank Brenna for yesterday morning when she suggested I pour the milk into my glass so I could acceptably drink the milk from my cereal. Sat around a bit more and onto the bus. We went to Bergama, ancient Pergamon, and picked up a tour guide who started almost every sentence with “my dear guests.” It was amusing, and certainly better than “my friend, my friend.” We saw an ancient temple that had become a church that had become a mosque, the acropolis here which had a nice theatre, many temples, and chambers (now underground) that were used as dormitories, animal storage, prison and general storage, a famous altar of Zeus which is now in Berlin, all pretty cool stuff. There was a great story about an emperor wanting to see a bear fight a gorilla, the arenamaster forced an actor to wear a gorilla suit and fight a bear. In the arena the actor whispered “please don't attack me, I'm not a gorilla, I'm just an actor,” and heard the bear say back “don't attack me, I'm an actor in a bearskin.” From there we had a buffet lunch which was pretty good, and then on to the Asklepion, one of the first hospitals of the world.
Apparently they had psychological treatment, including music and drama therapy, and physical therapy all the way back then? It was interesting. Granted, one of the psych treatments, walking down a tunnel while psychotherapists pretended to the be the gods above you and whispered down through windows, sounded like it would make me go crazy before it cured me, but hey. The hospital had a theatre, as I mentioned, they apparently used that as part of treatment too. We also heard a funny story here, of an emperor who was questioned by a madman, and upon telling the madman who he was, got the response “how sad, I got here because I said that too.”
By the by, our tour guide also sang in Turkish for us twice on the bus. That was pretty cool. Driving through miles of olives again, having just munched on a handful of hazelnuts, and uploading my pictures.
Wednesday, March 10th, roughly 4:20-4:30 PM local time
Dinner last night involved a great quantity of courses, of course. A tasty salad, a green bean and yogurt dish that... took some effort, some meat and rice, some more things I don't remember, a tasty apple.
Woke up this morning, spent some time online and packing, had breakfast of cereal and bread with meat and cheese. I have to thank Brenna for yesterday morning when she suggested I pour the milk into my glass so I could acceptably drink the milk from my cereal. Sat around a bit more and onto the bus. We went to Bergama, ancient Pergamon, and picked up a tour guide who started almost every sentence with “my dear guests.” It was amusing, and certainly better than “my friend, my friend.” We saw an ancient temple that had become a church that had become a mosque, the acropolis here which had a nice theatre, many temples, and chambers (now underground) that were used as dormitories, animal storage, prison and general storage, a famous altar of Zeus which is now in Berlin, all pretty cool stuff. There was a great story about an emperor wanting to see a bear fight a gorilla, the arenamaster forced an actor to wear a gorilla suit and fight a bear. In the arena the actor whispered “please don't attack me, I'm not a gorilla, I'm just an actor,” and heard the bear say back “don't attack me, I'm an actor in a bearskin.” From there we had a buffet lunch which was pretty good, and then on to the Asklepion, one of the first hospitals of the world.
Apparently they had psychological treatment, including music and drama therapy, and physical therapy all the way back then? It was interesting. Granted, one of the psych treatments, walking down a tunnel while psychotherapists pretended to the be the gods above you and whispered down through windows, sounded like it would make me go crazy before it cured me, but hey. The hospital had a theatre, as I mentioned, they apparently used that as part of treatment too. We also heard a funny story here, of an emperor who was questioned by a madman, and upon telling the madman who he was, got the response “how sad, I got here because I said that too.”
By the by, our tour guide also sang in Turkish for us twice on the bus. That was pretty cool. Driving through miles of olives again, having just munched on a handful of hazelnuts, and uploading my pictures.
Wednesday, March 10th, roughly 4:20-4:30 PM local time
Went to an olive factory, got shown the old way of doing things and how it developed over time, which was interesting, and then the new factory. Tasting olive oil is like tasting wine: the process isn't the same, but they both seem overly complicated to me. You have to sniff, wait, sniff again (supposedly it's different), take a sip, swish it, hiss and draw it back into your mouth to the back of your tongue to taste it... yeah. I didn't get a whole lot of olive oil so I'm pretty sure I didn't get a good taste, Anh was confused about the whole thing, I guess she doesn't get dipping bread in olive oil. Cultural differences in cooking and all that. Moved on...
Had a fantastic lunch of salad, little meat things whose name I can't spell, chicken, bread, olive oil, fruit, and probably some more courses I forget. I had a mixed fanta/coke which turned out to be pretty good, we guilted Becky for putting food on her plate before everyone was even settled in and then again later for asking for another piece of orange (the humor there being that none of us really cared), talked about video games and sniper rifles and all sorts of things. We being Swaffie, John, Becky and I. It was fun. From there we headed out in a four-wheeler which we really didn't properly fit into properly to a valley which, honest to God, reminded me of Ohio more than anything else. I felt more home there than I probably have this whole trip. Home isn't hot showers and wireless, it's not the stores around me, home is the trees I recognize and a rocky creek to play in. There was a GORGEOUS waterfall and then we headed down to the creek itself, took some photos, clambered around on rocks...
and then I see Swaffie and Nate in boxers in the water.
You can all guess what happened next.
It was COLD at first, though I did my best to accept and roll with it. When I went entirely in and tried to swim against the strong current, though, I was surprised. My whole body in, it was far less cold than when only part of me was in. It felt absolutely fantastic. Got out, got mostly dressed (underwear came off, soaked as it was) and headed back up the hill, the last one to move out. I felt absolutely invigorated and told Denny I'd love to replace my morning shower with that, I'd never fall asleep in class again.
Back up the hill, sitting in the four-wheeler, making a good dig at Becky (she said “I'm really, really hot” because she wanted the window open, I said “I'd debate that”) that got me a slow clap (the only one of the trip? Not sure). Got back down, put our stuff over a furnace to dry, had some tea, took some group photos. One of the guys leading us, by the by, had what he called “cat eyes.” The bottom part of his iris was missing so it looked like a vertical slit, but it didn't go all the way through. Really odd, but cool. So these people were wonderful, on our way out they gave us a couple plates of these delicious little cheese rolls, yeah MORE food, which we did our best to eat. I told Denny that Turkish culture seems to consist entirely of feeding people and he said feeding people, moving slowly, and kissing people. I said I hadn't experienced the last yet. On the bus, by the way, our guide Isen bought us Kit-Kats, so MORE food... yeah. Between that and Denny giving us biscuits, cookies and Turkish delights constantly, we're hardly starving. Now I'm driving past miles and miles of olives on the way back to the hotel.
Tuesday, March 9th, roughly 5:25-5:35 PM
Had a fantastic lunch of salad, little meat things whose name I can't spell, chicken, bread, olive oil, fruit, and probably some more courses I forget. I had a mixed fanta/coke which turned out to be pretty good, we guilted Becky for putting food on her plate before everyone was even settled in and then again later for asking for another piece of orange (the humor there being that none of us really cared), talked about video games and sniper rifles and all sorts of things. We being Swaffie, John, Becky and I. It was fun. From there we headed out in a four-wheeler which we really didn't properly fit into properly to a valley which, honest to God, reminded me of Ohio more than anything else. I felt more home there than I probably have this whole trip. Home isn't hot showers and wireless, it's not the stores around me, home is the trees I recognize and a rocky creek to play in. There was a GORGEOUS waterfall and then we headed down to the creek itself, took some photos, clambered around on rocks...
and then I see Swaffie and Nate in boxers in the water.
You can all guess what happened next.
It was COLD at first, though I did my best to accept and roll with it. When I went entirely in and tried to swim against the strong current, though, I was surprised. My whole body in, it was far less cold than when only part of me was in. It felt absolutely fantastic. Got out, got mostly dressed (underwear came off, soaked as it was) and headed back up the hill, the last one to move out. I felt absolutely invigorated and told Denny I'd love to replace my morning shower with that, I'd never fall asleep in class again.
Back up the hill, sitting in the four-wheeler, making a good dig at Becky (she said “I'm really, really hot” because she wanted the window open, I said “I'd debate that”) that got me a slow clap (the only one of the trip? Not sure). Got back down, put our stuff over a furnace to dry, had some tea, took some group photos. One of the guys leading us, by the by, had what he called “cat eyes.” The bottom part of his iris was missing so it looked like a vertical slit, but it didn't go all the way through. Really odd, but cool. So these people were wonderful, on our way out they gave us a couple plates of these delicious little cheese rolls, yeah MORE food, which we did our best to eat. I told Denny that Turkish culture seems to consist entirely of feeding people and he said feeding people, moving slowly, and kissing people. I said I hadn't experienced the last yet. On the bus, by the way, our guide Isen bought us Kit-Kats, so MORE food... yeah. Between that and Denny giving us biscuits, cookies and Turkish delights constantly, we're hardly starving. Now I'm driving past miles and miles of olives on the way back to the hotel.
Tuesday, March 9th, roughly 5:25-5:35 PM
Well, I was a little off. Yesterday was all travel, the coolest stop we made was a BP with an astonishingly clean bathroom, for a BP. Our bus had some mechanical issues but they got taken care of. We got to the Berk Hotel, settled in, and had a HUGE freaking dinner. The best tomato soup of my life, two salads, beef and potatoes, chocolate pudding with coconut sprinkles, an apple, and THEN cake. It being International Woman's Day, the idea was for the men to cut and serve the women, but Sigrid wanted to cut, so she cut and then the men served. Liz was very amused when I did a mock bow as I presented the cake. The cake, also, was DELICIOUS We also got a gift bag from the local Chamber of Commerce, which was both nice and astoundingly unexpected. The rest of the night was chilling in the room, not counting me trying to find my way around the hotel to find Swaffie's adapter, which was an adventure in itself. The place is fairly maze-like and the numbers don't strictly follow floors. I was up fairly late, woke up a little before 8:30, had a breakfast of bread, meat, cheese, and cereal (om nom nom junk chocolate cereal! First time in a long time), onto the bus.
We went into town, walked a bit, saw a dog threatening a cat and the cat mostly not reacting, though the cat lashed out once and the dog nearly ran. There were lots of dogs here, with collars which is new for us, but even more notably SO MANY CATS. Wow. We saw probably dozens in a short walk in the rain. Also saw an old Greek Orthodox church in need of restoration, but the Greek Orthodox Church doesn't want to let the Turkish Government fix it up, sadly. A bit more of walking through the rain and wet streets, and back onto the bus. Not sure where we're headed next.
Tuesday, March 9th, roughly 11:30-11:40 AM
We went into town, walked a bit, saw a dog threatening a cat and the cat mostly not reacting, though the cat lashed out once and the dog nearly ran. There were lots of dogs here, with collars which is new for us, but even more notably SO MANY CATS. Wow. We saw probably dozens in a short walk in the rain. Also saw an old Greek Orthodox church in need of restoration, but the Greek Orthodox Church doesn't want to let the Turkish Government fix it up, sadly. A bit more of walking through the rain and wet streets, and back onto the bus. Not sure where we're headed next.
Tuesday, March 9th, roughly 11:30-11:40 AM
The university was pretty cool. Saw some labs including fish, analysis and phytoplankton, a small museum, and a movie of mostly underwater photos and a few videos. Talked to a lot of the professors there, learned a fair bit. I got the feeling that one or two of them were trying a little too hard to impress us, but that's life. We even talked to the head of the department, one of the faculty who had been to University of Oregon worked as a translator.
Also, the badger in the room that was otherwise all aquatic animals seemed somewhat out of place.
After that we went to lunch, had burgers and fries, played Checkers with Nate, watched some idiotic Funniest Home Videos-style show. I got to playing the old paper football game with Nate, using a water bottle cap, but when we weren't paying attention a guy took it away when he was clearing our table. A minute or two later, another waiter brought it back to us. That was pretty cool. I won 9-6, by the way.
I'm not really sure where we're headed now. Mostly I wanted to get the bottlecap story down before I forgot. I'm sure we'll see something cool this afternoon.
Monday, March 8th, roughly 2:35-2:40 PM local time
Also, the badger in the room that was otherwise all aquatic animals seemed somewhat out of place.
After that we went to lunch, had burgers and fries, played Checkers with Nate, watched some idiotic Funniest Home Videos-style show. I got to playing the old paper football game with Nate, using a water bottle cap, but when we weren't paying attention a guy took it away when he was clearing our table. A minute or two later, another waiter brought it back to us. That was pretty cool. I won 9-6, by the way.
I'm not really sure where we're headed now. Mostly I wanted to get the bottlecap story down before I forgot. I'm sure we'll see something cool this afternoon.
Monday, March 8th, roughly 2:35-2:40 PM local time
Sunday, March 7, 2010
So we had a short class, then Kanako, Jake, Vince, Allen, Swaffie and I went out to the town. We wandered a bit, there's pastry shops EVERYWHERE, Kanako and Swaffie looked at some clothes, we saw the horse from the movie Troy which was pretty cool, the guys other than tried to hit the backboard of a basketball hoop, and Jake got a jersey from a local team. Came back, did nothing for a while, slept. Woke up today, breakfast, I just had lots of bread products, and that's about it. Off to meet some university people today, and maybe Ephesus?
Monday, March 8th, roughly 8:40 AM
Monday, March 8th, roughly 8:40 AM
Had a good breakfast, some cherries, delicious bread, some sausage, and then onto the bus. Slept a bit, sat a bit, looked out the window, had to correct Nate and David on Greek Mythology about how the Trojan War started (I later asked David if I was going to have to do Norse Mythology in Germany), chatted a bit, we stopped at a store somewhere in all that mess. I was conked out but semi-woke up, then David told me they had pencils.
PENCILS.
I went into the store, asked Swaffie, got a pack of 8 pencils, 5 pens, and a fanta. PENCILS. AND PENS. OMGWTFBBQ. So exciting.
See, I knew I was going to lose pencils on this trip. I didn't know that they were impossible to find in most of the world. I had decided no country outside of the US even sold pencils ever. But they were here! It was exciting.
Onward, used a car/bus ferry and the wind was COLD but it was cool, stopped at a little store, had some tea, and then into Troy. Yeah, Troy. That Troy.
We had a good guide who showed us a few things outside first, some displays explaining the levels of the city and the history of its excavation, a big replica wooden horse, and then into the city itself. It's not very big, but it's pretty impressive. They do a really good job of showing the different levels/eras of construction, often right next to each other. Some very cool stuff, and we learned about the ongoing work there, there's still something like 90% of the site not yet excavated. Well worth the long ride.
We went back to the little store, had delicious delicious apple tea. We talked with an older man who was somewhat hard to understand, but he talked about the contributions of the Turkish military in various conflicts from Korea to Serbia to Afghanistan (the army, he claimed, is the second strongest in the world), I think some things about Armenia but I'm not sure (if I understood him correctly Armenian illegal immigrants are like Mexican illegal immigrants in the states, but maybe not), and a lot about politics. Talked about how terrorists sell hashish to make money, and the quote I liked the best, “terrorists have no religion.” Seemed a knowledgeable guy, albeit opinionated in the “very proud of his country” way. That was cool.
We headed to our hotel, which is pretty nice, had a brief break, explored the TV options (not many, though some music, some sports, and CNN). dinner which had salad, bread, soup, chicken/mushroom dish and rice (Matt and I got Brenna's meat, hoorah!), the waiter mistook Liz being vegetarian to mean to bring her ONLY meat which was funny, and a delicious chocolate pudding with coconut sprinkles to round it out. Short class in 5 minutes, then... in here? out on the town? Not sure yet.
Sunday, March 7th, roughly 6:45-6:55 PM
PENCILS.
I went into the store, asked Swaffie, got a pack of 8 pencils, 5 pens, and a fanta. PENCILS. AND PENS. OMGWTFBBQ. So exciting.
See, I knew I was going to lose pencils on this trip. I didn't know that they were impossible to find in most of the world. I had decided no country outside of the US even sold pencils ever. But they were here! It was exciting.
Onward, used a car/bus ferry and the wind was COLD but it was cool, stopped at a little store, had some tea, and then into Troy. Yeah, Troy. That Troy.
We had a good guide who showed us a few things outside first, some displays explaining the levels of the city and the history of its excavation, a big replica wooden horse, and then into the city itself. It's not very big, but it's pretty impressive. They do a really good job of showing the different levels/eras of construction, often right next to each other. Some very cool stuff, and we learned about the ongoing work there, there's still something like 90% of the site not yet excavated. Well worth the long ride.
We went back to the little store, had delicious delicious apple tea. We talked with an older man who was somewhat hard to understand, but he talked about the contributions of the Turkish military in various conflicts from Korea to Serbia to Afghanistan (the army, he claimed, is the second strongest in the world), I think some things about Armenia but I'm not sure (if I understood him correctly Armenian illegal immigrants are like Mexican illegal immigrants in the states, but maybe not), and a lot about politics. Talked about how terrorists sell hashish to make money, and the quote I liked the best, “terrorists have no religion.” Seemed a knowledgeable guy, albeit opinionated in the “very proud of his country” way. That was cool.
We headed to our hotel, which is pretty nice, had a brief break, explored the TV options (not many, though some music, some sports, and CNN). dinner which had salad, bread, soup, chicken/mushroom dish and rice (Matt and I got Brenna's meat, hoorah!), the waiter mistook Liz being vegetarian to mean to bring her ONLY meat which was funny, and a delicious chocolate pudding with coconut sprinkles to round it out. Short class in 5 minutes, then... in here? out on the town? Not sure yet.
Sunday, March 7th, roughly 6:45-6:55 PM
Die Turkei!
Cairo that night was interesting. We had to ask three or four different people for directions to find pencils, finally a guy from a perfume store showed us a shop that, unfortunately, we already knew about and were about to go to, Swaffie ended up going to the guy's store briefly because he showed us the way. Then I tried to track down a specific gift for a friend or two back home, ended up in a guy's shop, he called his brother, had to buy something from him (though it was nice), waited a while for his brother, chatted with him a bit, brother showed up, led to me another shop where I FINALLY found what I was looking for, and then finally got back to the hotel. Wake up, breakfast, quick housekeeping meeting, eat at Hardee's which was a mistake for a number of reasons. Turns out we all hate eating food fast now, we've gotten so used to non-American ways of eating. It really just felt... gross and unenjoyable. I showed Swaffy the last store I went into, he tried the museum store too, guy was looking for a bracelet and had no luck. One of the door guys showed me a Batista video and a Jean Claude Van Damme video, which was amusing, bus showed up, I was pretty sure I lost my coat (it ended up in Caitlin's bag, probably because I tossed it on the bag pile) and off to the airport. Tickets passports security, nap in the airport, play around with these silly table games like rolling a marble through a labyrinth or matching all the little balls in their color cup, on the plane, read The Physicists, sleep, wake up, watch Dexter's Lab, miss the food and drinks due to sleep but oh well. Get into Turkey, onto a bus, quickly drop our stuff off at a NICE hotel, off to dinner.
By the way, Turkey? Far colder than expected.
Have dinner at a nice place right on the water, we had bread, salad, meat with delicious pepper, spaghetti, fries, and some amazing fruit as dessert. We all got a sip of Denny's Efes Dark beer, which was a tasty tasty beer, though I didn't order one. Back to the hotel, fool around with trying to figure out my classes and internet, to bed. Wake up half an hour before the wake-up call, shower, and I think we're going to Troy today.
Sunday, March 7th, roughly 6:40-6:50 AM
By the way, Turkey? Far colder than expected.
Have dinner at a nice place right on the water, we had bread, salad, meat with delicious pepper, spaghetti, fries, and some amazing fruit as dessert. We all got a sip of Denny's Efes Dark beer, which was a tasty tasty beer, though I didn't order one. Back to the hotel, fool around with trying to figure out my classes and internet, to bed. Wake up half an hour before the wake-up call, shower, and I think we're going to Troy today.
Sunday, March 7th, roughly 6:40-6:50 AM
Desert!
On the bus back to Cairo.
Woke up, had a decent breakfast, had a class about deserts, and got into the land rovers. It wasn't far to the black desert, an area that was volcanic ages and ages ago. The “black” comes from basalt thrusting up through the earth left over from the volcanoes. Really stark pillars and mountains, though it's covered by sand some places. We also saw a few attempts at cultivation, some more successful than others.
We got to see a sand dune, what they call a “whale dune” here because it's so big. We also got to climb up it, an adventure in itself, and get a group photo at the top. Wow, the view was beautiful. Sliding down it, well, sliding worked less well than expected, though rolling was fun. Seeing scarab beetle tracks in the sand was really, really cool.
The White Desert has a lot of calcium carbonate on the ground, limestone, hence the white. We started at a Crystal Mountain of mica and quartz, as well as a dog's head of stone, but it was near our campsite that the place really got impressive. There are these mounds and pillars of stone all over the place, carved by wind erosion (and the sand the wind carries). Because the sand doesn't fly very high, the bottoms are affected more than the tops, and it makes all kinds of weird shapes. A lot of mushroom shapes, some that look like various heads, it's awesome. We set up camp, used the toiletrocks (one for men, one for women), sat around the fire. A lot of stargazing, some idiotic conversation (mostly Matt and I). Everyone kept seeing shooting stars, I had no such luck, though I did make out Orion (he's been there everywhere we go), the Milky Way, and the Big Dipper. Dinner was soup, chicken, rice and potatoes, with oranges for dessert. After dinner our guide and the drivers played some drums and sang, lots of call-and-response stuff. We did... okay with the responses. Then they got people dancing, Anh was freaking amazing (we joked that she might have agreed to marry one guy via dance), it was pretty fun. They asked us to sing an American song and we took so long to decide they eventually gave up, though if someone had mentioned Fresh Prince of Bel-air sooner it would have worked great. (“All-star” was later suggested as something that would have worked too.) I got a couple pictures of the sky, nothing too impressive but eh. The moon came out REALLY late, but it was absolutely beautiful. As I was lying down, I finally saw a shooting star, thankfully. No sleeping bag, but the blanket they provided was pretty good, even if it was freaking cold out.
Woke up, had a breakfast of bread, honey, delicious cake. We packed up, saw some more of the white desert including a rabbit stone, a “fossil whale,” a mushroom with a chicken next to it (seriously, it looks exactly like a chicken, even if Allen didn't get why it was the chicken stone and told us he couldn't see it at all until he realized he was looking at the wrong rock the whole time), very cool. Got a beautiful panorama view of the area on top of a hill. Drove back to Bahariiya, I slept almost the entire way, and here we are. Lunch has been whatever Denny bought in the store, biscuits, bananas, oranges, chips, that sort of thing. Dates with almonds in them are pretty good. Back in Cairo tonight, hopefully a little more shopping, turning in a paper or two, and off to Turkey tomorrow afternoon.
Friday, March 5th, roughly 12:40-12:50 PM local time
Woke up, had a decent breakfast, had a class about deserts, and got into the land rovers. It wasn't far to the black desert, an area that was volcanic ages and ages ago. The “black” comes from basalt thrusting up through the earth left over from the volcanoes. Really stark pillars and mountains, though it's covered by sand some places. We also saw a few attempts at cultivation, some more successful than others.
We got to see a sand dune, what they call a “whale dune” here because it's so big. We also got to climb up it, an adventure in itself, and get a group photo at the top. Wow, the view was beautiful. Sliding down it, well, sliding worked less well than expected, though rolling was fun. Seeing scarab beetle tracks in the sand was really, really cool.
The White Desert has a lot of calcium carbonate on the ground, limestone, hence the white. We started at a Crystal Mountain of mica and quartz, as well as a dog's head of stone, but it was near our campsite that the place really got impressive. There are these mounds and pillars of stone all over the place, carved by wind erosion (and the sand the wind carries). Because the sand doesn't fly very high, the bottoms are affected more than the tops, and it makes all kinds of weird shapes. A lot of mushroom shapes, some that look like various heads, it's awesome. We set up camp, used the toiletrocks (one for men, one for women), sat around the fire. A lot of stargazing, some idiotic conversation (mostly Matt and I). Everyone kept seeing shooting stars, I had no such luck, though I did make out Orion (he's been there everywhere we go), the Milky Way, and the Big Dipper. Dinner was soup, chicken, rice and potatoes, with oranges for dessert. After dinner our guide and the drivers played some drums and sang, lots of call-and-response stuff. We did... okay with the responses. Then they got people dancing, Anh was freaking amazing (we joked that she might have agreed to marry one guy via dance), it was pretty fun. They asked us to sing an American song and we took so long to decide they eventually gave up, though if someone had mentioned Fresh Prince of Bel-air sooner it would have worked great. (“All-star” was later suggested as something that would have worked too.) I got a couple pictures of the sky, nothing too impressive but eh. The moon came out REALLY late, but it was absolutely beautiful. As I was lying down, I finally saw a shooting star, thankfully. No sleeping bag, but the blanket they provided was pretty good, even if it was freaking cold out.
Woke up, had a breakfast of bread, honey, delicious cake. We packed up, saw some more of the white desert including a rabbit stone, a “fossil whale,” a mushroom with a chicken next to it (seriously, it looks exactly like a chicken, even if Allen didn't get why it was the chicken stone and told us he couldn't see it at all until he realized he was looking at the wrong rock the whole time), very cool. Got a beautiful panorama view of the area on top of a hill. Drove back to Bahariiya, I slept almost the entire way, and here we are. Lunch has been whatever Denny bought in the store, biscuits, bananas, oranges, chips, that sort of thing. Dates with almonds in them are pretty good. Back in Cairo tonight, hopefully a little more shopping, turning in a paper or two, and off to Turkey tomorrow afternoon.
Friday, March 5th, roughly 12:40-12:50 PM local time
Oasis!
Bus ride was longer than expected. We watched 2012, unfortunately, and started a de Niro movie called Ronin that looked really good, but we didn't get to finish. The first rest stop defined middle of nowhere, it was insane. Hard to believe they could even run a business there. I could have made $1000 by diving face-first into the most disgusting water I've seen in my life, but, well. (Lucky for John I chose not to.) Lunch was a tasty Egyptian buffet. We got to the hotel, dropped stuff off, met our guide and into rovers to explore the nearby area. He showed us a hill he played on growing up, which had a decent view and some mantid egg cases on a bush, we saw lots of the desert, a salt lake which apparently has some small fish in it, and then there was this naturally eroded cone/pyramid-shaped hill.
Yeah, we climbed it.
Not all of us, but a handful. It was taller than expected, and while I love climbing stuff, sand is definitely different. Tricky. One step forward, sink two back. It was easier to climb the stone, usually, when you could find it. Finally I got up there, one of the last of the group that had headed up, we took a couple group shots and back down again. Beautiful view of the surrounding area from the top.
Stone is harder going down than sand is. Reverse.
So the top part was mostly stone, so that was hard, but when we got to the sand I took a page out of John's book, sat on my butt with one leg out and one leg bent, and slid. I lost control a few times but it was great fun and a lot faster. Partway down I found a dessicated stick or reed or something which I used as a ski pole. Eventually walked towards the bottom, talked with some German tourists for about 45 seconds, and “galloped” the last bit down. At least that's how the people at the bottom described it. Then we had to wait for a couple people who had gone up later than the original group, then we finally headed out.
They stopped to show us how they pump water up, but Nate, Allen and I went to play soccer for maybe two minutes with some guys there. My team scored, I learned that “tamal” means goal, and then we had to go. That was fun. One great thing about soccer, it's easy to join a pick-up game, even in the middle.
The last stop was a hill with a ruined house, really just parts of walls. It was built by the British in WWII, and natural erosion had done all the damage. Beautiful sunset, photos, some guys played hackeysack and I got a few good pictures of that, and back down again.
Came back to the hotel, had a good dinner, great chicken and bananas as well as some vegetables and rice. Then we went swimming. The pool here is a little... questionable, rather brown, but nice and warm being from a warm spring. I was a little late getting in, but it was great to be in water again, and I got out last of all. Played around with people, sat, did lengths (small pool) holding my breath the whole way, sat at the bottom, lay at the bottom which was an odd experience. Yeah, it really did feel great. Then a shower and here I am. Bed soon, breakfast, class, Black and White Deserts in the morning.
Wednesday, March 3rd, roughly 9:25 PM local time
Yeah, we climbed it.
Not all of us, but a handful. It was taller than expected, and while I love climbing stuff, sand is definitely different. Tricky. One step forward, sink two back. It was easier to climb the stone, usually, when you could find it. Finally I got up there, one of the last of the group that had headed up, we took a couple group shots and back down again. Beautiful view of the surrounding area from the top.
Stone is harder going down than sand is. Reverse.
So the top part was mostly stone, so that was hard, but when we got to the sand I took a page out of John's book, sat on my butt with one leg out and one leg bent, and slid. I lost control a few times but it was great fun and a lot faster. Partway down I found a dessicated stick or reed or something which I used as a ski pole. Eventually walked towards the bottom, talked with some German tourists for about 45 seconds, and “galloped” the last bit down. At least that's how the people at the bottom described it. Then we had to wait for a couple people who had gone up later than the original group, then we finally headed out.
They stopped to show us how they pump water up, but Nate, Allen and I went to play soccer for maybe two minutes with some guys there. My team scored, I learned that “tamal” means goal, and then we had to go. That was fun. One great thing about soccer, it's easy to join a pick-up game, even in the middle.
The last stop was a hill with a ruined house, really just parts of walls. It was built by the British in WWII, and natural erosion had done all the damage. Beautiful sunset, photos, some guys played hackeysack and I got a few good pictures of that, and back down again.
Came back to the hotel, had a good dinner, great chicken and bananas as well as some vegetables and rice. Then we went swimming. The pool here is a little... questionable, rather brown, but nice and warm being from a warm spring. I was a little late getting in, but it was great to be in water again, and I got out last of all. Played around with people, sat, did lengths (small pool) holding my breath the whole way, sat at the bottom, lay at the bottom which was an odd experience. Yeah, it really did feel great. Then a shower and here I am. Bed soon, breakfast, class, Black and White Deserts in the morning.
Wednesday, March 3rd, roughly 9:25 PM local time
So, yesterday. We were woken up basically when we had to leave, woops, quickly got ready and onto the bus. A couple people grabbed us bread to eat, which was nice of them. We met our guide and went out first to a museum of Memphis, fairly small, had a big statue of Ramses II inside and a fair bit of stuff open-air. Pretty cool, some nice statues, our guide did a good job teaching us various things.
From there we went to Sakkarah, a place known for carpet schools and the step pyramid designed by Imhotep, who may or may not have been the biblical Joseph. (Old Testament, with the coat and the brothers, not New Testament). Nice little Imhotep museum there as well as some cool architecture that wasn't reproduced any other type in ancient Egypt. After that we had a buffet, good food and.... well, the atmosphere was okay. “Semi-authentic,” not as hokey as I expected, honestly, but still a little hokey so I can't give it full credit. Better than expected, though, honestly.
From there to Giza itself, which is a growing city, by the way. Denny's been here enough times he told us about how far away the city used to be from the pyramids compared to how it is now. They are quite impressive, even if it did have the most aggressive vendors we've seen in Egypt. (The guy who grabbed my sleeve was not appreciated). Obviously still more than worth it though, Giza was fantastic, so amazing to climb up the one pyramid, take some great pictures of all six, see the Sphinx. On the way down to the Sphinx a lot of people tried to sell us stuff, the best two being one kid who knew he wasn't going to sell to us, so he just whipped out a bunch of postcards and said “one million dollars!” and a guy talking to David, whom David joked with that he'd sell the guy postcards in the next life, and they actually legitimately talked for a minute. David pointed out that some of them are real people, I pointed out that the problem is that so many aren't you never know. See: Arusha. Another one was telling us prices in English Pounds, so I was amused by that too.
After the Sphinx it was fairly late, but we had one more stop to make, the Egypt Papyrus Museum, the only official government papyrus store in the country. It really is more a store than a museum, they start you out with a demonstration showing how it's made, teach you the myth of the Judgment, and then try to sell you stuff. Granted, the demonstration was pretty interesting. I really impressed the guy by knowing cartouche (which I learned the other night from Allen's book on hieroglyphs), a little bit about the Judgment scene and the weighing of the heart, and the myth of Set killing Osiris. I didn't mean to impress him, but, well. He grabbed me and pulled me aside to show me a slightly smaller one of the Judgment that he really wanted me to have. I mean, it may have just been a hard sell, but considering how he kept sweetening the deal (giving me my name on it in Arabic and hieroglyphs for free for starters, and it just kept adding on after that) I honestly think he liked that I knew some mythology and thought I should have it. At least I'm going to convince myself that or else I REALLY got conned. He was actually a nice guy, I got his name and e-mail address as well. The other kids were talking to guy who apparently spoke 14 languages including Gaelic, so that was cool, they gave us a brief demonstration of how to see fake papyrus made from banana leaves or sugar cane, we got free bookmarks with the hieroglyph alphabet, and we headed back to the hotel.
Our guide was very good, by the way. He kept it academic, not shoppy, like Denny wanted, was very friendly, “my heart is open to you” was his way of saying we could ask questions, and he warned us excellently about how much we should haggle people down to, what cons to avoid (“free gifts” being the most insidious, I thought, they actually wait until after you come back out later to get you). Props to him.
Had dinner at the hotel, a delicious cheese sandwich and fries which came out to $2 with water, which was awesome. Chilled, walked with John, Jacob and Swaffie, back to the hotel, bed.
Woke up before the alarm this morning, about 6:15, showered, all that. Had a good breakfast, met an Australian named Ben that was working on a PhD in pathology and about to go on a tour of Egypt. He had some really cool stories about safari in South Africa. Got on the bus, and here I am, oasis in 3+ hours.
I'll be back at our hotel for one night before we leave, but I want to say this here before I forget. The City View has been really good to us. The staff is helpful well behind what we're paying them for, insisting on carrying our bags, always getting the elevator for us (they're a bit baffled by us using the stairs, actually, they've asked us why we do it so much), but even beyond that, the number of times they've helped us find a business or store we wanted is truly astounding. You ask a guy where you can get a coke or where the ATM is, and he walks you all the way there to take care of it, not just pointing the direction. So a huge thank you to the City View Hotel in Cairo, which has been absolutely one of the best places I've stayed on the trip so far. I wanted to give credit where credit was due.
For anyone looking to visit Egypt, by the way, the fact that the City View is across the street from the Egyptian Museum doesn't hurt either.
Wednesday, March 3rd, roughly 8:25-8:45 AM local time
From there we went to Sakkarah, a place known for carpet schools and the step pyramid designed by Imhotep, who may or may not have been the biblical Joseph. (Old Testament, with the coat and the brothers, not New Testament). Nice little Imhotep museum there as well as some cool architecture that wasn't reproduced any other type in ancient Egypt. After that we had a buffet, good food and.... well, the atmosphere was okay. “Semi-authentic,” not as hokey as I expected, honestly, but still a little hokey so I can't give it full credit. Better than expected, though, honestly.
From there to Giza itself, which is a growing city, by the way. Denny's been here enough times he told us about how far away the city used to be from the pyramids compared to how it is now. They are quite impressive, even if it did have the most aggressive vendors we've seen in Egypt. (The guy who grabbed my sleeve was not appreciated). Obviously still more than worth it though, Giza was fantastic, so amazing to climb up the one pyramid, take some great pictures of all six, see the Sphinx. On the way down to the Sphinx a lot of people tried to sell us stuff, the best two being one kid who knew he wasn't going to sell to us, so he just whipped out a bunch of postcards and said “one million dollars!” and a guy talking to David, whom David joked with that he'd sell the guy postcards in the next life, and they actually legitimately talked for a minute. David pointed out that some of them are real people, I pointed out that the problem is that so many aren't you never know. See: Arusha. Another one was telling us prices in English Pounds, so I was amused by that too.
After the Sphinx it was fairly late, but we had one more stop to make, the Egypt Papyrus Museum, the only official government papyrus store in the country. It really is more a store than a museum, they start you out with a demonstration showing how it's made, teach you the myth of the Judgment, and then try to sell you stuff. Granted, the demonstration was pretty interesting. I really impressed the guy by knowing cartouche (which I learned the other night from Allen's book on hieroglyphs), a little bit about the Judgment scene and the weighing of the heart, and the myth of Set killing Osiris. I didn't mean to impress him, but, well. He grabbed me and pulled me aside to show me a slightly smaller one of the Judgment that he really wanted me to have. I mean, it may have just been a hard sell, but considering how he kept sweetening the deal (giving me my name on it in Arabic and hieroglyphs for free for starters, and it just kept adding on after that) I honestly think he liked that I knew some mythology and thought I should have it. At least I'm going to convince myself that or else I REALLY got conned. He was actually a nice guy, I got his name and e-mail address as well. The other kids were talking to guy who apparently spoke 14 languages including Gaelic, so that was cool, they gave us a brief demonstration of how to see fake papyrus made from banana leaves or sugar cane, we got free bookmarks with the hieroglyph alphabet, and we headed back to the hotel.
Our guide was very good, by the way. He kept it academic, not shoppy, like Denny wanted, was very friendly, “my heart is open to you” was his way of saying we could ask questions, and he warned us excellently about how much we should haggle people down to, what cons to avoid (“free gifts” being the most insidious, I thought, they actually wait until after you come back out later to get you). Props to him.
Had dinner at the hotel, a delicious cheese sandwich and fries which came out to $2 with water, which was awesome. Chilled, walked with John, Jacob and Swaffie, back to the hotel, bed.
Woke up before the alarm this morning, about 6:15, showered, all that. Had a good breakfast, met an Australian named Ben that was working on a PhD in pathology and about to go on a tour of Egypt. He had some really cool stories about safari in South Africa. Got on the bus, and here I am, oasis in 3+ hours.
I'll be back at our hotel for one night before we leave, but I want to say this here before I forget. The City View has been really good to us. The staff is helpful well behind what we're paying them for, insisting on carrying our bags, always getting the elevator for us (they're a bit baffled by us using the stairs, actually, they've asked us why we do it so much), but even beyond that, the number of times they've helped us find a business or store we wanted is truly astounding. You ask a guy where you can get a coke or where the ATM is, and he walks you all the way there to take care of it, not just pointing the direction. So a huge thank you to the City View Hotel in Cairo, which has been absolutely one of the best places I've stayed on the trip so far. I wanted to give credit where credit was due.
For anyone looking to visit Egypt, by the way, the fact that the City View is across the street from the Egyptian Museum doesn't hurt either.
Wednesday, March 3rd, roughly 8:25-8:45 AM local time
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
So we met this guy whose name I never caught at the first place we tried, which had drinks but no food. He said he'd tell us where a few restaurants are and point them out to us, he ended up walking with us and even sitting with us at one. Turns out he's a professor, PhD and all, a curator at the Egyptian Museum specifically in animal mummies. He mostly talked to Denny, but I picked up a bit of it – he's Nubian, from further south, getting married soon. Very cool, very helpful, turned down money from Denny, Denny finally argued him into paying for his coffee. Unfortunately the restaurant we were at was really a restaurant, not a snack place, so quick food didn't mean quick. However, I had some absolutely delicious fried calamari, and considered it worth the lost time at the museum to meet this guy. After that we headed back to the museum, Becky and I shopped a bit, I got a few gifts out of the way, spent a little more time in the museum upstairs and then had to head back to the hotel.
From there it was time for a river cruise and dinner on the Nile. The boats were... interesting. Small, smoky engine at first, but nice and comfortable nonetheless. We went up a ways, seeing the city, some cool architecture, the other boat had music and the guy running it was sort of goofy, clapping and all. Their engine eventually cut out, though our boat didn't realize it right away and wasn't sure what was going on as they tied on to another boat. Eventually we got the two boats tied together, had a tasty dinner of some noodle/onion dice and a pepsi. There was music, and people dancing, including with a couple guys from the hotel who seemed to be having a great time. I made a joke to David about them faking it for the tourists or actually enjoying it, adding that I couldn't ever trust what I see anymore. He agreed with me that they probably were really having fun. So there was ridiculous dancing, we got back, thanked them, hung out a bit, and then Denny wanted to take a group to this historic Windsor Hotel.
It was a bit of a walk, but we got to see a lot of the town. Very few people hassled us, none really. Saw a lot of cool shops, including this one famous pastry shop. After a meandering pleasant walk, we finally got there. Classy joint, nice seats and tables, my chair was made out of a barrel. We hung out there, talked a lot, varying topics ranging from Koh Tao to wind and solar power. Great waiter, very helpful, nice guy. Good night.
Tuesday, March 2nd, roughly 12:30-1:15 AM local time
From there it was time for a river cruise and dinner on the Nile. The boats were... interesting. Small, smoky engine at first, but nice and comfortable nonetheless. We went up a ways, seeing the city, some cool architecture, the other boat had music and the guy running it was sort of goofy, clapping and all. Their engine eventually cut out, though our boat didn't realize it right away and wasn't sure what was going on as they tied on to another boat. Eventually we got the two boats tied together, had a tasty dinner of some noodle/onion dice and a pepsi. There was music, and people dancing, including with a couple guys from the hotel who seemed to be having a great time. I made a joke to David about them faking it for the tourists or actually enjoying it, adding that I couldn't ever trust what I see anymore. He agreed with me that they probably were really having fun. So there was ridiculous dancing, we got back, thanked them, hung out a bit, and then Denny wanted to take a group to this historic Windsor Hotel.
It was a bit of a walk, but we got to see a lot of the town. Very few people hassled us, none really. Saw a lot of cool shops, including this one famous pastry shop. After a meandering pleasant walk, we finally got there. Classy joint, nice seats and tables, my chair was made out of a barrel. We hung out there, talked a lot, varying topics ranging from Koh Tao to wind and solar power. Great waiter, very helpful, nice guy. Good night.
Tuesday, March 2nd, roughly 12:30-1:15 AM local time
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