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
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