Bid it up!

I sense I have begun to develop a bit of an addiction lately. After pretty much never having used it before, I've tried it five or so times since I've been home and I even use it when I don't particularly need it. Of course, I'm talking about John Donahoe's company eBay.

It all started when I needed a new charger for my laptop after mine almost started a fire in Europe. Next, was the search for the now discontinued Polaroid film. Polaroids have become a novelty again, ironically, and economics 101 has correctly predicted that the dwindling supply of unused film now translates into ridiculous prices. some packs of film, i.e. 10 exposures, are going for $30. I ended up bidding on four packs of film with a camera included and I won, but at what cost? $80. So now I have 40 exposures of film that has expired a few months ago. We'll see how this all turns out. Then I found an awesome seersucker suit from J.Crew to wear to my friend Denton's Southern shindig wedding, but lost, and made up for it by buying a vintage polo. And capped it off recently by buying a ray-ban sunglasses case to replace the one I lost. So there you have it, my second most expensive "addiction", after alcoholism.

Dammit, and Unscathed

my documentary about Dartmouth Cross Country is apparently too long for youtube.

In other news, last weekend a glass pie plate exploded about two feet in front of me on the stove. Luckily the only injury was from when I stepped on a shard after I reflexively lifted my leg up in what I assume was a move to protect my gonads. The episode still has my mom, who was also in the kitchen at the time, freaked and she is now absurdly considering switching to metal pie plates as a result (just don't put a glass pie plate on an electric range that is still ON).

Andy made a movie

Now I just need to fill the other 6 nights

My new friday night is Genna's Cocktail Lounge. Not that I haven't spend Fridays at Genna's before, but ever since my buddy JP moved away it's been just a little different. However, I've been the past three weeks and each time has been a success, even when I decide to just up and go by myself. It helps that I know one of the bartenders and my friend Brent works as a doorman/barback, but I've run into people I know from my past life each time I've been.

Blah blah blah, it's nice not to drink alone anymore.

In other news I feel like I'm playing Oregon Trail or something; I've been only mildly successful at fending off cougar attacks. She had a house. Wow.

A mini trip around the (cultures and cuisines of the) world

A few weekends ago I went on a whirlwind trip around the State Fair grounds convention hall, sampling food and shopping for purportedly authentic trinkets from around the world.
The occasion: the annual Holiday Folk Fair, made extra special by the fact that I hadn't been since I was in High School and it was my grandmother's 87th birthday.
This is a family tradition - my Grandma has been going for at least 30 years. It features food and shopping booths sponsored by ethnic group societies and such. Some groups present include the Bavarians, Czechs, Chinese, Egyptians, Thai, Native Americans and Mexicans.
The Folk Fair is a shell of its former self, many of the best food booths have disappeared (the old grannies are too old to cook anymore) or are catered instead of featuring homemade goods, but there is still tasty stuff to be found for adventurous eaters. Considering that half of my mom's family was there, it also helped that they serve 24 oz beers, with no apparent limit.

There was a cool photography exhibition, of astronomical effects as seen from Earth. I really liked how it showed how outer space looks from (and in relation to) vantage points here on earth. I also babysat my mom's cousin's kid Johnny. Johnny is about 4 or 5 but wicked smart. We tried playing chess and while it took some prodding to make him make legal moves, his understanding of some of the basic principles of the game was impressive.

The coolest thing was seeing some of the very things I had eaten in Europe during my trip. I could pronounce the names of the dishes at the Czech and Slovakian booths (but didn't eat them, since I'd had better not too long ago).

The next trip is scheduled

yes, I have only been back for a little over a month and my next trip is already being planned. A little bit different than the last one, and I may fit in another trip before then, but I will be going down to the dirty dirty South to Hotlanta in Summer of 2010. Why? Because my friend Dmoney is getting married. Hopefully there are lots of single bridesmaids.

Lost and Found

I'm bored so I'm making a catalog of all the things I lost and picked up while travelling.

Lost:
Dartmouth Baseball cap
smartwool socks
Ray Ban sunglasses case and lens cloth
A book on the European Southern Observatory
vintage plastic wayfarer sunglasses with neon-blue earpieces (I think)


Found:
"Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
30 Rock season 2 disc 2
I heart NY t-shirt (strangely not in NYC, but in London
a dozen beer mats of various brands

Rock Bottom

I"m living at home again with my mom.
tonight I was sneezing up a storm because I kicked up a lot of dust putting my old stereo back together.

mom: are you ok?
me: yah, i'm fine
mom: you should take some benadryl, your cheeks look puffy
me: yah, I know, I will
mom:get some from the medecine closet
me: mom, I already have some.
mom: ok, just remember to take two, but only if they're 25 mg, if they're 50 mg only take one

later, as I'm watching 30 rock in my room around 10pm
mom (calling from downstairs): ANDY!
me: what?
mom: did you take the benadryl
me: yes. jesus.
mom: did you take two?
me:ma, for crying out loud, I"m 22.
mom: ok. you can take another dose in 4-6 hours.
me: ya, except I plan to be knocked out by then
me(to myself): f my life.

I feel like Michael Scott in the Office, because I've hung out wit my Grandmother twice in two days, and have only seen one friend, on one occasion.

Getting to a home of sorts

I spent this past weekend on a whirlwind trip back to the alma mater, old Dartmouth College, for Homecoming weekend. For any of you not familiar with the concept, it is a special weekend designated for Alumni to return to campus. Dartmouth has a reputation of creating very involved and attached alumni, for better or for worse, so this weekend is generally a big deal.

I drove up with my friend Stu, with whom I'm staying in New York, and my friend Eric, a recent addition to my list of friends in the Big Apple. We all were in the same fraternity at Dartmouth, Sig Ep; Stu graduated in '08, while the E-Factor was a classmate of mine. We had a bit of an ordeal trying to find Stu's sister's car which was in White Plains (a train and bus ride north of the city) and navigating traffic in Connecticut, but we got to campus in time to get really drunk and go out. The night ended with me, Eric and Will '07 making food in the Sig Ep kitchen. The Factor and Will were frying hotdogs and I made the executive decision to make eggs, in the same pan as the hotdogs, naturally. I now have a new saying: too many drunk cooks make for a hilarious story. Stu however was determined for us not to be able to enjoy our creation, so he took it upon himself to ruin the food with any white, powdery substance he could find: Splenda, flour and salt all found their way onto our plates. Normally I welcome salt on my eggs, but when the salt to egg ratio is anywhere near one, I usually chalk it up in the loss column; however, I was determined, so I tried to offset the taste with parmesan cheese. As one might expect, this failed.

The notable (legitimate) event of the weekend was the banquet celebrating Sig Ep's 100th anniversary as an organization on the Dartmouth Campus. Not really too much to say about this, besides that drinking on someone else's tab is always nice and they had an amazing spread of hors d'oeuvres. I somehow found myself in a conversation with a few younger alumni who were maybe 26, that devolved into a discussion about the hors d'oeuvres at a recent party one of them had thrown. All I could think was that I really hoped I would not be in their shoes in four years time.

While I was having lunch with my friend Numra in London, I had told her about my plans to visit Dartmouth. She assured me that I would be disappointed and would see that the campus had completely moved on without me there and I would feel very strange being there. I agree that it felt strange, but for the opposite reason; I felt as if almost nothing had changed, and I had completely regressed into my old habits. The pattern of sweaty Chi Gam dance party followed by tomfoolery on friday and getting rid of hangover by hanging out at the cross country house only to find a regrettable hook up at Heorot on Saturday has been a tried and true method of wasting a weekend.

One more comment about friendship: I think that there are two moments you can have with your friends that are unbeatable. First is realizing that you have no idea exactly how or when you became friends with someone. The second is constantly being reminded of why you are friends with someone. Both of these happened this weekend, the second repeatedly, and this helped make it a great weekend. Lets just hope I don't over do it by going back next weekend, I kind of have to in order to make it back to Wisconsin as my flight goes out of Boston next Tuesday.

And then it ends....

On Monday I flew back to the US. London to Dublin, Dublin to NYC. So far the strangest thing to me is to have people that I know well to talk to on a regular basis (I'm staying with my friends Stu and Mike on the Upper East side for a bit.)

Before I left, I managed to get really smashed, decide I was too lazy to take advantage of my last shot at seeing a soccer match, piss off locals, get my brother so drunk he could barely stay awake on the busride to his friend's place, and be too hungover to go to Cambridge. On the plus side, I got to hang out with Numra, Scott and Tom, who I met in Prague, and introduce them to my brother. I also went to a baller, if not expensive, fish and chips place in London. The fish was so beautfully breaded, tender on the inside, yet crisp on the outside. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. I've decided I like vinegar with my "chips", but I will approach a "when in Rome" approach to french fry condiments, which means back to good old Heinz 57 here in the states. Vinegar on fried potatoes also applies to our chips, what the Brits call "crisps." Salt and vinegar is now officially my favorite flavor, followed by sour cream and onion, plain salted, and bbq.

Although I only spent a few hours in Dublin, I managed to get aquainted with a time honored Irish tradition - drinking. I made my first duty free purchase, two bottles of Irish Whiskey for 20 euro. They had a woman there with free samples from Ireland's purportedly "last independent distillery", and she convinced me to get two bottles instead of one. It's proven valuable, as drinks here in new york are really expensive, and the whiskey has a pretty good affect on me. I also managed to get a Guiness in the airport bar, I didn't need it, but I felt like it would be a shame not to have one. I got ripped off a little, but I suppose if they hadn't let me give them $9 for a 4.50 euro beer, I wouldn't have had it at all.

If anybody has been accustomed to reading this blog, fear not, I'm still technically travelling for two more weeks in the US, and I'll have a lot of summary kind of stuff when I get back to Wisconsin. Who knows, maybe I'll even keep it going for a bit, Madison can be strange as well.

Love it

I arrived in London a few days ago. The whole "it's really going to end soon" feeling is coming on full force. I've spent two days just lounging around my friend Prue's house, as I've spent almost the last 10 days just walking around European cities. Couple that with bad drinking habits and it was only about time before exhaustion and maybe even a little bug set in.

But thankfully I have a nice warm bed and more healthy food than I can eat. Prue works with food professionally and when I showed up she had already cooked two lasagnes, a plate of English sausages and had bought beer, juice and other food for me. Since I've been here, she's also cooked me several additional meals including a real English breakfast.

Back to beer: so the thing here in Britain is to go to a pub and drink "real" ale. Usually this is "bitters," and traditionally is cooled by keeping it in the cellar. It is then brought up to the bar by means of a hand pump (not electric or a tap). I learned this from a book and kept it in mind. Apparently the "British Pub" is dying out, being replaced by chain pubs that serve refrigerated lager and have huge plasma tv screens for watching soccer. So for a "real" pub experience, these are a big N-O. While I was out yesterday I went by this place called "The Salisbury", which advertised itself as a "sports free pub" and mandates that nobody can wear soccer jerseys inside. It also advertised hand-pumped ale, so I decided that this would be my first foray into drinking in London. If it didn't have good beer, it would at least have character. It was beautiful inside, with elaborate windows and carvings. It looked trendy - had lots of young, good-looking people - but the beers looked legit and I ordered a "Bombardier" bitter. The bartender even helped me out with my important decision by giving me a few samples. Bombardier was a bit darker, more flavorful than the other, so I went with it. Really good, smooth all the way down, nice color, looking forward for some more good ales tonight.

Monaco, for ballers only

Turbro, eat your heart out

The casino
the harbor

Beer and Love in Munich

Having just graduated from College, I still strongly remember how important beer and love are to one another. In a vicious cycle, beer allows for love and the thirst for love brings about the thirst for beer. While I like to think that I realized pong does not constitute a real date before I ended my senior year, there were many a night where I would partake in the partay so that I might be a little more inclined to approach a total stranger, either be funnier or willingly let her grind my junk into a pulp with her rear end in a sweaty dance party, and have the night end in disaster either there or a few hours later the morning after. In a bigger picture, beer was more than social lubricant between the sexes, it served as bonding agent among friends - wether you drank or even if you strongly opposed it, social stratifier (where else is your social position based on how well you hit a one-inch ball into a plastic cup?), and an outlet for the competitive side of once glorious high school athletes who were only big fish in a small pond.

In Bavaria, over the centuries beer has been woven a bit more subtly into the patchwork quilt of daily life. With one notable exception, beer becomes the flavoring of traditions, rather than the tradition itself. For example, most Barvarian villages have a may pole. Instead of dancing around it with ribbons (not sweet), the young men have a free for all king-of-the-mountain competition to see who can reach the top first. He who does is rewarded with beer. Also involving the maypole is the tradition of stealing another villages pole. Should you successfully do so, you can ransom it; you get to party and the village to which it belongs must pick up your tab.

Love is no exception; beer culture in Munich colors this aspect of life as well. Another tradition involving both a pole and beer is a courtship ritual, where a young man gets to show his affections for a young lady. This young man would cut down a tree, carve it into a pole and decorate it with colors and symbols that he thought would indicate he had made it and, in the dead of night, would erect it in the yard of whomever he fancied. The guy would then wait in the bushes until the girl came out and noticed the pole. If she recognized who had put it there (from the markings) and she had similar feelings for the guy, she would come out and dance around it. However, if the feeling was not mutual, she would quietly place a case of beer next to it. For me, it's a win-win for the guy.

As I said in a previous post, Oktoberfest started out as a wedding celebration for the heir to the Bavarian throne. They partied for two weeks and liked doing it so much, they had another party the next year (presumably for the anniversary). By the third year they just said "fuck it, lets make it a beer-drinking festival," so now, for two weeks every year in Munich, everybody just gets drunk.

Of course, Oktoberfest is the exception I mentioned, where it's really all about the beer. The Munich breweries all make special Oktoberfest brews, which come only in one liter mugs and are about twice as strong as normal beer. You can only get beer if you're in a tent; you must be sitting down and the tent you're in determines which beer you're drinking.

Though it's not really about love anymore, it's hard not to notice that raging hormones abound at Oktoberfest. Copious amounts of booze is always a good way to get the libido going and the dresses the women wear are probably the next best thing to a viagra for German men. The name for these dresses is approximately pronounced "durndle." As Frank, a Municher who I met in the tent, says, "every girl looks good in a durndle," which, while great for the present-tense of checking girls out, could be trouble for the morning after, when the durndle is lying on the floor. These wonderful garments have magical effects, beautifully emphasizing the right areas and even come with their own system signaling the girl's availability, God bless 'em. The dresses have a sash that goes around the middle and the placement of the knot on the waist pretty much determines how receptive they will be to one's advances. A knot on the right means "I'm taken," where a knot on the left means "I'm single." Additionally a knot in the back means "widower" and right in the front and center means "virgin." So basically, Oktoberfest is the world's biggest "red light green light party."

I think the best part of Oktoberfest is that the Bavarians don't keep it all to themselves. If you're respectful, fun, and can handle your liquor, they'll invite you to party with them with open arms.
And as I learned, thanks to a durndle-clad lass, even foreigners can enjoy more than the beer at Oktoberfest.

Oktoberfest Panorama

Unfortunately there aren't any girls in durndles in this photo, but you get a sense of what it's like inside one of the tents. Click on the photo to open a bigger version in another window.

N-eh-bors to the north

Pictures from Nice, Waynes Bar, etc.
Repping Fresh Friday, or "Tie-day Friday" as the Canadian guys called it. Earlier in the night I taught them all to play "sevens elevens or doubles." Obviously it was the perfect start to the evening.





















the canadians from right to left: Brittany, Emilie, Jennie, Drew, Poncho and Mark











Fountian dancing at 4 am

Good eats

Food has always been a big part of my travel experience even before coming to Europe and Paris, as expected, is the world headquarters of good eats. Yesterday I got a pain au chocolat, a croissant with chocolate filling, at this bakery that advertised as using pure butter. An unofficial rule I have is to always support places that use pure butter in their baking, like Umplebee's in Hanover, so even though I wasn't really hungry I was able to enjoy and delicious, golden, flaky, soft, buttery treat. Before I got hit with tear gas, I stopped by the mosque near the Jardin des Plantes for a pastry, as suggested by Andrew Lebovich. I'd never really had arab pastries before, although they did seem to have baklava, but everbody in the mediterranean seems to have that. I got a pistachio and honey pastry, which was really dense and sweet. So good.

Lunch today kind of took me by surprise. I wasn't planning on eating in Montmartre, but I walked into a charcuterie (kind of a delicatessen) and got jumped by a visual and olfactory display that only Hellen Keller with a head cold could walk away from. I got their 5€ special, which included a giant slice of chevre (goat cheese) et legumes (vegetables) quiche, a drink, and two cookies. Quiche is not something I usually eat back home, I think the last one I had was from Homeplate brunch my freshman year, when I didn't know any better than to try Dartmouth Dining services attempts and specialties from around the world. This quiche was so good that now I'm not sure any quiche I try back home can do anything but disappoint. We'll have to see, I guess.

For a snack I got some Tunisian pastry as I explored the area inbetween my hostel and the Pere Lachaise cemetary, where famous people are buried if they're not good enough to get into the Pantheon. It was a fried pastry dough shell filled with a mix of honey, almonds, and sesame seeds. Very different even from the pistachio thing I'd had the night before, but very tasty. I'm really glad I got to try these here because I have no idea where to even find Tunisian people in the United States.

My plan for tonight is to get some North African food in the Belleville neighborhood near where my hostel is. The suggestion came from one Robert Joynt, who studied an entire semster in Paris. There is an Algerian restuarant that the hostel clerk suggested, it appears to serve grilled meats and couscous, which sounds good to me.

So I only have a handful of Euros left and I won't take out anymore because I'm headed to London tomorrow, so whatever I don't spend on dinner will go towards wine to bring to Prue. Word of the Day: Plonk, british slang for cheap wine.
so prue, get ready for some sufficiently plonkish times ahead.

Hey Andy, remember your encounter with the Paris riot police?

Yeah, this is how it went down.

I had left the hostel to go check out this science film festival that was at the Natural History Museum. I would love to be able to say that I went and it was great and I was offered the job of my dreams after speaking to one of the filmmakers, but the truth is that I found out about the thing at the same time that the last films were ending. I felt obligated to go and just see if there was anything left, but it was all dead. The thing that pisses me off is I was basically AT the place earlier today, at the Jardin des Plantes (Botanical Gardens), yet I failed to see the posters advertising the thing.

Anyways, on my way back, I decided to check out the view from Sacre Coeur in Montmartre, so I got off the subway at the stop before the one for the hostel, only to find out that the subway tunnel was filled with smoke. I initially thought there was a fire, so I ran up the stairs just to get away. Then I saw police running down the steps in the opposite way and I was afraid there had been like a terrorist attack with nerve gas or something, so I really started moving. I covered my mouth and to my surprise there was even smoke on the street level. I saw flares burning bright red, a chorus of car horns, people on top of vans and everyone around was shouting and yelling. Needless to say, I was a bit worried that I'd gotten off at the wrong subway stop. I'd heard about youth riots in Paris from a few years ago, and that coupled with the fact everyone around me was arab-looking made me wonder if I'd stepped into some sort of race-riots a la Rodney King. However, I found out from some other lookers-on that this was mostly a celebratory gathering, as Algeria had just qualified for the World Cup 2010 this evening. Relieved to hear this, I decided to check it out.

I started out on the fringes of the people and started working my way through the poeple in the direction of Sacre Coeur. Flag waving, drum beating, dancing, whooping, hugging, the revelers seemed to grow in number every second. And then, a whole mass of people started moving my direction. So I stopped. And then, the people started coming towards me covering their mouths, breathing through their shirts. And then I got hit with a whiff of tear gas. It was not sweet, stung my throat and my eyes like really bad campfire smoke. Everyone around me was coughing and rushing in the oppostite direction I had been heading, so I made like a tree and got the fuck out.

So before I said that the gathering was mostly celebratory, but there were dozens of riot police visible, and the tear gas indicated that there was a little more going on. The police had sealed off one of the streets, so I had to go all the way around the block to get to the other side of the police line. Especially as the French team is experiencing difficulty qualifying for the World Cup (they may have to go into a one-game playoff for it), it seemed a little bit more than a citizenry-authority clash. The Algerians were shouting and looked to be taunting the police, even going so far as to throw glass bottles at them. That was about the time I decided I'd had enough.

But yeah, holy shit.

Reflecting on the Past few days

So to try and compare Nice to Paris is very difficult. In terms of jaw-droppage, Paris hits you so hard that you just walk around for the entire trip with your mouth hanging open, where as Nice is a little more coquettish, giving you just enough time for the amazement to wear off before getting you again with something to be in awe of.

Nice also has a kind of sensory overload effect. You can immediately get the sense that there have been a lot of influences on Nice's culture from throughout the Mediterranean, especially Italy, whereas Paris is almost "pure, concentrated France." Nice is very bustle-y, teeming with people, vehicles, shops. The people are all dressed differently, some in a "high-fashion" Paris kind of look, others in Italian Guido, while one can also see Muslim women in more traditional dress (head coverings, etc).

I've enjoyed it here because I've felt I got a little more of a raw experience. There aren't really a ton of sights to see and all, so I've gotten the chance to pretend I'm just a Nicois, going about his daily business. At the beach I saw students just doing there reading while catching some sun; going shopping a fair ways away from the beach and old town has given me a chance to go where the locals go for wine, bread, etc. I also don't stand out so much in my jeans, t-shirt, and sandals.

The hostel experience here has been awesome. The Villa St. Exupery is one of "Europe's Famous Hostels," a marketing ploy that has given me mixed results. I stayed at the "famous hostel" in Salzburg and while it was nice, I was not really impressed. These places seem to run at least $30, so I've usually been at cheaper places, but both here and in Salzburg there weren't a lot of really cheap options. Not that I've been looking for a famous hostel, I've just ended up at two of them for other reasons. But it's really big, has a great common room/internet/kitchen/bar area with a stained glass window. One of my biggest regrets this whole trip was not going on their "Canyoning" day trip to the french Alps. The Canadians who have befriended me all went and though it was 50 euros, it sounded like it was well worth it.

There are six canadians, two groups of three. Mark, Drew and "Poncho" are from the Toronto area while Jennie, Brittany and Emilie are from British Columbia. I started playing cards with the girls the first night, then we joined the guys game of quarters and we've been hanging out intermittently since then. I ran into the girls at a beach on the day I went to Monaco and this afternoon I'm going to go try to find the guys on the Nice beach to play some volleyball. Through quarters, Asshole, 7-11-doubles and a night out at Wayne's bar, I've begun to grow accustomed to their company; these next few nights in Paris are probably going to be a bit lonely.

There have been a few weirdos here too. The girls were having a small bit of trouble with a guy from the hostel who had either stalked them or ran into them at a beach and took pictures of them in their bathing suits. He sat down at our table the first night we played cards and I unknowingly invited their least favorite person to join our game. There was also this one girl who was a runner and is currently in a one-month break from training because her body fat percentage had gotten too low. She didn't say it, but from years of experience I know that this also means she stopped having her period (when the body senses it can't support a child, the reproductive system kind of shuts off). This is one of the biggest red-flags in my book for "hot issues". Lots of brow wipes on this one. Also, within 15 minutes she started telling Poncho about her friend who was pregnant and trying to leave her boyfriend by going to another country, but hadn't told him about this. From this girls account, it seemed like the guy had been a saint with all the parents-to-be stuff, but still this girl was intent on packing up and leaving South Africa. Issues, baby, issues.

On a happier note, this little trip to the Rivera has worked out swimmingly. I didn't expect to see the Cote d'Azur, but I've fallen in love with this sunny paradise. Definitely put it on your itinerary if you're going to France, unless you don't like fun, sun or life in general.

A night train to Paris, two days, and a Eurostar trip are all that are left before I hit my last stop and get to see a collection of both my oldest and newest friends!

Moules frites, or, a Nice Day

Yesterday, while I was walking around in Monaco, I got the idea to make "moules frites", or, mussels with fries back at the hostel kitchen. This is an old favorite of mine from the Canoe Club in Hanover, although pretty much anything served with their fries will be tasty. So, while I was out on the town in Nice today I bought up the various ingredients. One of the main attractions is the flower market in the old town. It consists of flower and produce vendors and is open every morning. I picked up some violet garlic from Provence (the French Departement where Nice is) and some green onions there. After a day of sightseeing, panoramic views of the city, and lots of sun on the beach, I picked up some white wine and fresh mussels on the way home. The wine I got from a wine shop, where I used my steadily improving French skills to explain that I needed a wine that I could use for both cooking and for drinking. The woman working there gave me a suggestion of what looked to be a local wine that she explained was good for my purposes because it was a little less dry than some of the others. It was only three euros, awesome! The mussels I picked up from a place that appeared to be a restaurant that also sold seafood out in front.

Making the moules frites was actually more work than I anticipated. You have to clean the mussels before hand, but other than that it went very smoothly, so while everybody else was eating the house pizzas for the third night in a row, I treated myself to delicous seafood.

But the Canoe Club ones are still better.

Now I just have to find the Canadians I've been hanging out with, who went out to dinner and probably aren't coming back. We've hung out at the hostel together the last two nights, but not out in the town. I know the guys are looking to get smashed and the girls might be as well. This will be my last night in Nice, so I want to make sure I see the city at night, some of the things around town look to be fitted with flood lights and I bet the place looks amazing at night as well as in the day.

Nice, I like!

As I mentioned earlier, our plans were somewhat jumbled and I found myself with a few days in France by myself before heading to London. I decided to spend two nights in Paris but had some extra days on my rail pass and wanted to see more of France. So, first I made a train reservation to go to Bordeaux, since it was easy to get to from Blois and I'd heard of it before. Then, Kat told me that travel guru Rick Steve's wrote that he would rather clean his refridgerator than take a FREE trip to Bordeaux, saying it was the most boring place ever. Thus, I did the equivalent of putting my finger on the map and going wherever it landed. Which is how I find myself in the French Rivera. I know, poor me, I've already been to the Mediterranean in Croatia.

If you are ever looking for a place to go in France, I highly recommend staying in Nice. Nice is a large city, very vibrant and close to a lot of cool things in the region. The hostel I'm staying in is awesome (Villa St. Exupery), the day trips you can do from here go to places like Cannes and Monaco, and it's even sunny and warm in October. Today I'm going into the city to explore, but yesterday I went to Monaco. Monaco is pretty much the nicest place on Earth. It is the second smallest country on Earth and only has a population of 30,000. But the average income is supposedly over 100,000 USD, you see beemers and benzes more often than not, and the landscaping is gorgeous. Along the harbour you can see 100 ft. yachts and places offering mussels with fries.

The hostel I'm at is an old monastery up on a hill behind Nice. It's kind of far, but they have a shuttle to the tram stop and it's only 1 euro to get to the city if you dont' want to do the very doable walk.

I'm now off to go to the town market and beach, hopefully I'll come back with some seafood and fries.

Paris is everything ,,,

I expected and more. The food, the lights. Now that I'm in france it's really cool to be able to speak the local language. Seeing the Eiffel Tower at midnight is something special, it lights up like a sparkler for a few minutes.I met up with Kat Rice, my friend from Dartmouth, and we spent a few days in Paris before heading elsewhere in France. Before we left we were able to get in a splurge dinner, a free walking tour, and the Musee D'Orsay (free on the first Sunday of the Month!), among other things. The Parisians certainly have their own way of doing things, we drank wine on the quais of the Seine, watching a fire twirler and some tango dancers who were also out that night.

We originally wanted to go to Colmar, in Alsace-Lorraine, but tried booking a train too late and couldn't go. After some frantic research in the train station's bookstore and a call to our dear friend Prue, we settled on a going to the Chateaux of the Loire Valley. We found a cheap hotel in Blois and it ended up being a very cool trip.

Munich .... is ....

a beer paradise. I just took a walking tour and almost everything can be linked to beer. Right now Im at an internet cafe slash bar and drinking a beer that has was first brewed 1000 years ago. Later, I will be hitting up the big show and trying to get a spot at a beer tent at Oktoberfest. Apparently, Oktoberfest was first started as a two week long wedding celebration and eventually was turned into a folk festival after the Munichers decided they liked partying for two weeks so much; this goes nicely with the theme of love at Oktoberfest. The bar owner told me he never made it home last night and you can tell a girls availability by the way the knot on her traditional dress is tied (Ill be looking for those with knots on the left side).

Lets just hope im not to hungover to make it to the science museum tomorrow.

Report on First Night in Prague

Dates covered by report: 16:00 10/09/09 to 02:30 11/09/09
Primary Subject: Andrew Phillip Han, male, born 26/01/87, country of origin USA
Secondary Subjects: Tom, Numra, Scott, Brendan, Rod, Rafael, Niko, Pancho.

Subject arrived at HostelOne Prague at approximately 16:00 on Thursday, September 10. Subject entered kitchen to eat meal of bread and nutella and sat next to secondary subject Tom, who happened to be an astrophysicist from Perth, Australia; subject proceeded to offer advice on Astronomical highlights of Prague and ask if people were going out that night. An irrevocable series of events was thus set in motion.

Subject left hostel to go to buy Vodka and a mixer. Subject returned to hostel to hang out in basement area bar, where he was started off with a "welcome shot" given to all guests on their first night. Subject then proceeded to join secondary subjects Tom, Scott from New Zealand, Pancho and Niko from Argentina, and Numra from London in killing both his own and Pancho and Niko's bottles of vodka, as subject has earlier indicated that his reasons for staying extra nights in Prague were to "hang the fuck out." Primary and secondary subjects proceeded to drink until hostel staff closed the bar around 24:00 and decided to go out with the rest of the hostel patrons to a bar/club in Prague. Reports from secondary subjects indicate that Primary subject was very drunk and among other things began muttering to himself about "exchange rates" and "currency conversions" and how his friend "got screwed by the exchange rate" and "should have gone with the currency conversion," overheard secondary subjects calling another bar patron a "wanker" and began informing said patron that he was in fact a "wanker," and waving inflammatory single-digit hand gestures in said patrons face, avoiding getting the shit beaten out of him through the deft diplomacy of secondary subjects Tom and Scott. Around 02:00 Secondary subject and Hostel Staff member Rod took primary subject home in a taxi, but stopped on the way to grab some water. Secondary subject reported hearing a car door open and slam shut and raced outside expecting to give chase to primary subject, only to find out that primary subject had exited the taxi only to walk around the car and enter the backseat from the opposite side. Subject was then dropped off at the hostel and shoved into his bunk, not to be aroused from sleep for 14 hours.

Just got here and already don´t want to leave

Croatia is the shit. Completely the shit. Great food. Great towns. Good sights. Great scenery. Right now I´m making my writing teachers cringe at my lack of adjectivial creativity, but I´m too busy doing stuff to write well, that will come in Copenhagen, when I have more time to relax.

Travelling the Croatian coast is like looking at a woman while drinking a yard-a-rita. It gets more and more beautiful the farther down you go. I´m not scootering around Croatia, as Darko, my wonderful hostel host in Split, suggested against it. Considering that I chose to visit croatia during the only week of rain from may to October, it was good advice. So I took the bus, which was long, but beautiful almost the entire way. Its also cheaper than a scooter, but I´m still hemmorhaging money right now.

Upcoming posts on Croatia: KIMPin aint easy, the Darko guide to betting on soccer, getting shat upon by the weather gods, and much much more!

non-pictures, part 1

Several times now, i´ve been in a moment where I needed to take a picture, only to realize I´d forgotten my camera. Im sure this will become a series, so here are the first few entries.

1. Location: Prague Old Town Subject: a shop called ˝Cream and Dream.˝ The name says it all. Given the amount of cabaret shows around there, it could have been a play on words, but as a frozen treat shop, its just an hilaroius example of ˝when foreigners miss double entendre˝.

2. Location: Prague, U fagy restaurant. Subject: a hatchet hanging from the coat rack. we thought it was part of the decor, which in many traditional czech joints tends to be vintage farm tool, but this place had a witch theme and it was a modern hatchet that one might buy at a hardware store.

3. Location: U fagy again. Subject: mustard on a six foot off the ground window, and all over Tom. I can also say that I wish I had a picture of the pork knee i ate, it was on a spit and everything, very impressive. but the hilarity reached a high point when I tried to turn the pork over on the spit, only to have it come all the way around and knock the tiny bowl of mustard off the tray and onto the floor. This incident may open up a new field of physics, as the mustard, which was unspilt until it hit the floor, somehow ended up on the window and on Toms back, which is impressive since the mustard landed in front of him.

4. Location: Dubrovnik Old Town Subject: simultaneously the cutest and most wretched looking puppy. This tiny dog wandered in through one of the gates and onto the main drag, running through tables in front of restaurants, not really begging or anything, just taking a jaunt through the street. The poor thing was missing most of the hair on its tail, looked like he had been roughed up a bit near the throat, and probably had ringworm, but with his eyes and a face he could have made Cruella deVille think twice about killing him.

Quick update

I'm really behind on posts; I'm sorry, I still owe stories from
Prague, of which there are many. But the past few days have been
pretty cool.
In three days I've been to Three cities: Salzburg, Ljubljana, and
split, all of which have been very cool.

Salzburg, the home of mozart, is very pretty and has a sweet fortress.
Also, getting my first glimpse of the alps was very cool. It looked
somewhat similar to therockies except everything is green and not
brown.

Ljubljana got truncated because of a little mishap in Prague that
forced me to stay an extra day there. Tina, please forgive me. But it
has a nice river and there seemed to be a good bar scene alongside it.
Unfortunately I gave my last euros to the hostel and wasn't able to
partake in the partay, as well as knowing that I would have to wake at
5:30 to catch the train I needed.

Split has been a revelation. I now understand why people are raving
about Croatia and also realize why it's important to see it before it
all changes. The tourist parts are all really nice but the busride in
showed that there are still some parts that could use some clean up
and repair. Some of the buildings were literally crumbling before my
eyes. Then again, part of the old town sections charm is that it's
built into the ruins of a roman emperors retirement palace. And also
the seafood is excellent, tonigt I had fried calamari and anchovies.
The restaurant is my kind of place, having only 5 things on the menu:
fish, squid, prAwns, octopus salad, and French fries. I've found that
the simpler the menu, the better I like places and the better the
food. Another perfect example of this is In n' out burger.

Well, that's all until I completely piece together what happened in Prague

Kicking myself

So far the last couple of days have been a whirlwind. I can barely form complete thoughts, so I'm just going to list a few things.

1) The hostel is seriously the shit. Great people, great atmosphere.
2) I hate myself for waiting to buy a train ticket. My beautiful $40 ticket to Ljubljana must be purchased on the internet 3 days in advance. Now i'm looking at 2000 crowns, which is at least $100.
3) If the words "mock fellatio from amazonian go-go dancer" aren't the sign of an epic night, I give up. More on this later. I never thought it would be possible, but I might end up on youporn. The brazilian who took video of it hasn't said anything yet. I really should just delete it from his camera, but he might have jetted off to another country already.

On the road again

Today I left Ondrejov and the Astronomical Institute for good, or at least for this trip. I said goodbye to Viktor and Mirek and then headed off to catch the bus to Prague. These next two nights I'm staying at a youth hostel in the city, which is really cheap and so far has been really good. It's not far from things and the neighborhood itself has a bunch of stuff. The staff and people here are really friendly, although probably 75% of the guests I've met are Aussies. No judgement, just a fact. One of them, Tom, is an astrophysicist back home, so I offered to tell him about the Prague astronomical tour and he seemed really excited about that.

My number one goal for these next two nights is to get hammered and have fun. So far a good start, as I killed my flask of Stranahan's Colorado Whisky and have a free shot waiting for me at the in-house bar. The hostel seems to have a good partying atmosphere, those who haven't already indicated that they're partying seem to be recovering from a hard night last night. There are plans to go to a triple-decker club, although I have plans to hit up a mythical 5-story club in downtown Prague.

Also on the agenda are visits to Pivovarsky Klub, a bar that is rumored to have over 200 kinds of Beer, and to any winebar that has Burcak, a czech specialty. Burcak is a 'young wine' which is known for its potency and the hangovers it causes.

All I can say is, Praha, look out.

Goodbyes and a wedding "party"

Today I met with Petr Hadrava for a final time. I caught a ride to the Prague branch with the director and secretary of the Astronomical Institute. While there I gave Petr an explanation of a paper I had written for an independent study in College regarding Drosophila fruit fly researchers. There had been talk that I would give this to the Natural History and History of Science departments, but that didn't come together, so my audience was just Petr. Considering that my paper was somewhat about evalutating the careers of scientists, Petr felt that it was relevant to the debate going on in the Czech Republic, on how to justify which science programs to fund and which to let dry up.
During this time, I got an invitation from one of the women at the institute to come join a party celebrating her recent marriage. She had just returned from her honeymoon and the Astronomers were having a get together to see pictures of the wedding, give her gifts, and generally celebrate. I assumed that Petr and the Ondrejov people would be there, but I was surprised to see that I knew absolutely nobody in the room. I was touched by how welcoming these people were, to invite me, a stranger, to this get together. They had wine and traditional Czech Wedding Cakes, small round pastries with a fruit and cheese filling. They were delicious, a fact that stands even though I hadn't eaten in 7 hours and probably would have eaten a ream of paper.
Before I left to catch the metro, Petr presented me with a small booklet he had prepared that was from the 2006 International Astronomers Union Conference, which was held in Prague. It was actually the invitation they had sent out, a small illustrated booklet of a poem written by the Czech writer Jan Neruda, from his "cosmic songs." The poem was about frogs learning astronomy; the founders of the Ondrejov observatory, the Fric brothers, had adopted the frog as a symbol for their astronomical pursuits, due to this poem.

I have been deeply touched by my hosts here and though I am excited for my travels ahead, will miss being hosted in Bohemia. Of course, I still have a little bit of partying to do before I leave for good ...

Devastated by the Germans ... and I'm not talking about Poland

So, how many of you here have ever seen Arrested Development? Ok, about half. And how many of you think it's the funniest show ever and would consider backing a petition to make the model home a UNSESCO World Hertiage Site? Ok, everybody who has seen it but one. And what is your name, sir? Dullston McFunsponge, oh, now it all makes sense. And how many of you watched at least one episode on Hulu before going to bed the entire last month of College? Just me? Wow, how embarassing.

Anywho, Arrested Development is possibly the most beautiful television show ever created after Planet Earth. I've seen the episodes way too many times and continue to be amazed at how many new things I pick up on each time I watch it. Thus, one can imagine my giddiness upon finding it playing on Comedy Central Germany one night, dubbed in German of course. Aside: you pick up on so much more visually when you don't understand the words that are being spoken.

The episode that was playing just so happened to be the Springbreak episode featuring "Girls With Low Self-Esteem". If you haven't seen this episode, or the show at all, you may stop reading this post. Those who have will recall that Tobias pulls down Zack Braff's pants to see how he likes being exploited, only to find out that he is wearing cut-offs underneath. "You're a nevernude!/(?)" To-bias exclaims. Devotees may see where this is going. It turns out that the show actually features a reference to Germany and the German language. You may recall that in Season One, Tobias argues for the legitimacy of the never-nude disorder by claiming that three members of the German parliament have what they call "neingestandingnude."

As soon as I realized which episode it was, I grew almost unbearably excited. To hear the German Tobias utter the word at the end of the episode! It would be perfect, I would burst out laughing and I could tell my brother and every cute girl I met who liked Arrested Development about how I heard "neingestandingnude" in the German dubbing of the show. So I waited. I listened for nothing except the sound of "never-nude" in the German tongue. The volume was all the way up; I'm sure my neighbors were on valium or something or they surely would have knocked on my door and told me in angry Czech to turn it the hell down.

But it never came.

Nothing even close.

Just ... jabber, the words during that segment as meaningless as I then felt life to be. How could they not use "neingestandingnude"!!!!!!!!! I know, the word is not really German, but don't you think the Germans might get that joke and be able to understand the word's meaning? I guess maybe not, the Germans are notorious for taking things way to seriously, stick around for my list of German jokes, courtesy of Jeff Wagner. The simplest explanation is that the translator never actually saw the previous episode with the reference, his job was just to take the English and turn it into German. I suppose it would only be funny to someone who has seen the original show and then was watching it in German for some reason.

Oh well, I suppose this story is almost as good to tell, hope it made sense.

German jokes:

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
The police. I'm afraid there's been an accident. Your husband is in the
hospital.

A man walks into a pub.
He is an alcoholic whose drinking problem is destroying his family.

Did you hear about the blonde who jumped out off a bridge?
She was clinically depressed and took her own life because of her terribly
low self-esteem.

Why do women fake orgasms?
Because they want to give men the impression that they have climaxed.

Two men are sitting in a pub.
One man turns to the other and says: 'Last night I saw lots of strange men
coming in and out of your wife's house.'
The other man replies: 'Yes, she has become a prostitute to subsidize her
drug habit.'

Why is there no aspirin in the jungle?
Because it would not be financially viable to attempt to sell
pharmaceuticals in the largely unpopulated rainforest.

I can has cheezburger?

I've found it. The only thing that is actually more expensive in the Czech Republic than it is in the United States. But first, some storytime.

Yesterday I took a daytrip to Kutna Hora, a town about an hour from Prague with a beautiful cathedral and a grotesque church decorated with human bones. The train schedule worked out that I would have to wait around a long time before I could take the bus home, so I decided to do so in Prague rather than this small town, where everything was already closed because it was Sunday. As I was walking around, it hit me that I hadn't eaten anything in a while so I grabbed a cheap baguette sandwich, which was not nearly enough. It was at that moment that I started jonesing for a cheeseburger. I did some mental math and calculated that it had been almost a month since I'd had two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, onions on a sesame seed bun or some variant thereof. The same sandwich stand had a "cheeseburger" for only 20 Kc, a little over $1 so I immediately bought it, only to be utterly disappointed. It turns out that the Czechs call anything on a hamburger bun a burger, so it was a "cheeseburger" in the most literal sense - cheese on a hamburger bun, nothing else. Come on!
I ate it, but the cravings only worsened, my appetite for All-American goodness only grew exponentially with time. I decided that I would not leave a matter as important as this to the amateurs, I was going to go to the pros, which led me to this stunning realization: McDonald's in the Czech Republic is ridiculously expensive.

Let me repeat that: McDonald's is really expensive here.

Like twice as expensive as it is in the states. Of all the things, I never expected Mickey D's to cost an arm and a leg (especially since that's about the quality of meat you're getting). I expected that Bourbon might be more (it's not, actually cheaper depending on where you go). It's not just cheeseburgers; you can get a burger at a pub for $5-6, like you can in the states, but specifically McDonald's, a BigMac is like $6 for the burger alone. Double cheeseburgers, my late-night go to at home, are the worst, running about $3 each. And they charge extra for ketchup!!!

I can only imagine that McDonald's is cashing in on the American brand. For the same reason that Olive Garden has the gall to charge people $10 for their spaghetti, McDonald's can charge these foreigners three times the market value of a Double Cheeseburger. The beef patty I had was even thinner and tougher than I'm used to in the states. In a sense, I should be grateful, these foreigners are most likely subsidizing my Dollar-menu binges back home, allowing the Double Cheeseburger to remain on the menu when it clearly should be selling for more than $1 (that, and Americans' insatiable desire to drink soda at fast-food joints, where the profit margins are ridiculous).

But yes, the cheeseburger did the trick, I'm probably good for another month, but I'll have to go to something stronger, maybe a quarter-pounder.

5 things I didn't realize I would really miss about College

1. Becky the Trainer and the training room in general. Damn my irritable IT band, I really could use the elbow of death right now.

2. Greenprint. Despite the fact that you're somehow always as far away as possible from the nearest terminal, getting free printing whenever you want, at a reasonably convenient location, is really nice when you think about it. Also, my printer at home only does like 5 pages/min, and doesn't do duplex.

3. Need 1 or 3 blitzes. I'm really missing the constant availability of at least one person I knew with whom I could hang out. Even at 1 am on a Sunday night (technically monday?), I would have a 90% chance of finding someone who wasn't sleeping or studying. I thought that even though there wouldn't be dozens of people I knew all with pretty much the same schedules and within 5-10 minutes walking distance, I at least wouldn't be starved for people to hang out with. But now that I'm spending 98 % of my time hanging out with myself, I'm really missing the ability to share time with people, especially when there's so much cool stuff to share here.

4. My library account. Talking with Petr has really gotten me interested in reading work in the History of Astronomy, but I don't have access to scholarly journals through Jstor and the like anymore. Who knew I would want to ever look in Jstor again?

5. The Homeplate salad bar. I seriously thought that there was no way I could possibly miss anything about Dartmouth Dining Services, except for maybe the quickness with which the Homeplate lady can check you out (this I already started missing at certain points during Senior Spring, when lines sometimes went all the way past the silver milk cow). But when you have about 3 square feet of fridge space, it's hard to get enough ingredients make up a good salad. Plus you have to cut and wash everything yourself.

Feeling good

after being in somewhat of a rut lately (bad sleep schedule is only the start) I decided to go out to dinner tonight. I had three options, the pub in town, the other pub in town, or the pizza place. I decided on pizza, since there is a limit on how much meat in sauce with potatoes and rye bread one can generally take. I'd been to Pizzeria Pietro before with the Hadrava family (on a beautiful weekend tour of the village) and I'm somewhat against the place, since they don't have any Czech beers on tap, only Stella Artois (which is Belgian). But anyways, it's actually a good place; I can think of very few establishments back home where you can get a Stella and a 12" pizza (with toppings) for less than $10.

It had been a while since I'd eaten so the beer hit me quickly. At this point I decided I would stop by my apartment, drop off the leftovers and head back up to the institute with a bottle of wine to catch a movie streamed fresh off the internet. My plan now it to get hammered and watch some trippy Japanese animated movie; I've settled on "Howl's Moving Castle" by the legendary Miyazaki. If you have not seen any Miyazaki works, I suggest you get yourself to either your local video store or wherever you have your netflix queue and dial up either "Princess Mononoke" or "Spirited Away," Miyazaki's magic is for everyone to enjoy.

P.S. I like the Templarske Rulandske Sede (Pinot Grigio) better than this Irsai Oliver I'm drinking.

P.P.S. Viktor says if you're drinking Czech wine to get white, as it's not sunny enough here to grow good reds.

Are you ready for some fotbal?

Since the retirement of Michael Jordan, I've pretty much only followed two spectator sports teams: my beloved Green Bay Packers and Wisconsin Badgers. Technically, it's three teams, since I follow Wisconsin football and basketball, but essentially it's all the same: same songs, same shirts, same Wisconsin pride. Recently, I have added Liverpool FC, which plays the other kind of football, but I have always been troubled by the fact that I don't really know how I became a fan. I have little chance of ever seeing them play, I have no connections to Great Britain, and I only know two other people who are fans here in the United States. I suppose the best explanation is FIFA 07, for Xbox, which is a little upsetting.

Also inexplicable is my desire for a second soccer team to cheer for. However, my Liverpool alliegance prevents me from choosing a Premiership team, and Liverpool's stature as a European giant prevents me from choosing another big team, like Juventus or Barcelona, in case they played each other in the Champions League. However, this trip to Europe has given me the opportunity to see soccer teams that have no chance of ever playing Liverpool and I believe I have found my new team.

Enter: Bohemians 1905. Finally, I have found a soccer team that I have valid reasons for liking. Bohemians 1905 is a Prague based team that competes in the Gambrinus Liga, the highest level of Czech soccer (reason 1: local to where I'm staying). Bohemians 1905 is not to be confused with Bohemians Praha, another team in the Gambrinus Liga, from Prague no less, which share the same colors and emblem. Wait, what? Yeah, it turns out that several years ago the team went bankrupt, was demoted to the second league, and sold it's brand to another team in Prague to get money. Which brings us to reason 2for liking them. Eventually the fans got together and bought the team, so, like my Packers, the team is entirely fan owned, which is way cool and is reason enough to adopt this team. Getting back to the colors and mascot; reason 3, they play in green which is another link to the Pack and their mascot is reason 4: a kangaroo. Many years ago the team went on a tour of Australia and were given kangaroos as gifts. They donated the marsupials to the Prague Zoo, but kept them as their mascot.

So now all I have to do is see a game. Of course, they haven't had any home games while I've been able to visit Prague, but there is a chance on September 12 to see them in Prauge. Of course, this means that I'll have to choose between seeing Salzburg, Austria, or seeing Bohemians play. Looks like we'll get to see exactly what kind of fan I am.

When it rains, it pours

Adding to my recent rash of troubles is the fact that my laptop charger is beginning to go kaput. some of the insulation on the cord is wearing out and the wires apprently have started to fray a bit, meaning they don't connect, meaning the current doesn't go all the way through, meaning my laptop can't charge. It's touch and go now, which sucks, because I don't know how many Apple stores there are in Prague or Croatia and even if I found one, chargers are like $60, plus they may be even more here, with value added tax and shit.

ugh.

Photo of the Day

This is Ondre, the son of one of the Astronomers here at the institute, Petr Skoda (seen at the bottom). The photo is from the demonstration by the Czech Academy of Sciences (again, more on that later). Briefly, the demonstration was about cuts to funding basic research, and the demonstrators were wearing donkey ears to signify their rhetorical question "you think you can make donkeys out of us?" Yeah, I didn't quite get it either, but it was funny to see all these people in donkey ears.

Ondre was also at a barbeque I attended at the Institute, a goodbye party for Danka who is going to Thubingen. He spent most of the time singing the riff to "Smoke on the Water", which was completely lost on the Czechs, but which I, as would any Guitar Hero, recognized immediately.

dern dern derrrrrrn, dern dern dun-uhhhh, dern dern derrrn dern derrrrrnnnn.

The Czech out Line

Third in the Series

Yesterday I went to Prague to hang out with Petr Hadrava, but this story is about the way back. There was a demonstration held by the Czech Academy (more on that later) and Viktor was in Prague for that, so he was able to drive me home. On our way out, he told me we would be stopping at the Hypermarket. I assumed this was the TESCO, which I had already been to, but Viktor informed that this one was even bigger than TESCO. Perhaps it was the way in which is was laid out, but I was amazed at just how much stuff there was.

Background:
The Hypermarket is certainly an experience to be had. Even though it is very in tune with American-style consumerism, it feels strangely foreign. For some reason which I haven't been able to determine, we don't really have anything like it in the States. It might be best described as a Sam's Club or Costco that was operated on a retail rather than wholesale basis, containing about the same ratio of food to non-food items. It's not like a super Target or Wal-Mart, because the hypermarket is more grocery store than anything else, but you can buy clothes, electronics, office supplies, etc if you so desire. I suppose the "hyper" part can also be due to the smaller stores that invariably share the same building but different cash registers. A florist and tobacconist are usually good bets, as is a deli or small restuarant.

This hypermarket literally has almost everything you could want to buy (except for Balsamic vinegar glaze, which TESCO does have and I've been trying for a week to get my hands on). This particular one, Albert, had like four different meat/deli counters: one for beef, one for sausage, one for fish and one for cheese. They had more different kinds of salami than my grocery store back home has of different kinds of any deli meat; their beer section alone was bigger than the market in Ondrejov; their yogurt aisle was more like a museum, showcasing all the different styles, flavors and brands one could buy (who knew there were so many kinds of Activia?).

I picked up some vegetables, some cheese and a type or roll with cheese and ham baked into, as well as some Becherovka, a Czech liquer.

That's about it, gonna end this post abrubptly. Guess that's what happens when you have a good title for your post, but nothing to back it up.

Revisiting Berlin: City of History, Beacon of Modernity

Without the World Championships, I doubt if Berlin would have made it onto my itinerary for this trip to Europe. When asked about it, people would tell me something to the effect of "don't go there, Berlin was completely bombed out during WW2 so it's all really new." I would like to publicly that this is a ridiculous reason not to go to Berlin. I believe that this kind of statement, which I heard from several people, belies an improper attitude that Americans have about travel and reflecting on my time in Berlin really helped me think through why I am travelling in the first place and why I want to travel in the future.

I think that the issue of "history" is largely behind why people said what they did. A main reason to go to Europe is to experience history in a way that we can't back in the United States. After all, Western Civilization has only been in contact with America for 500 years and its real hallmarks, especially architecture and the arts, have only been on a level comparable to Europe for 300 years, at the most. European culture, however, is incredibly old by comparison and thus one must go to Europe to experience this history. However, Berlin is not worth going to, since the physical vestiges of its history have been largely destroyed thus inhibiting our ability to experience said history. I find a problem with this, because it assumes that 1) nothing important to history has happened in Berlin since 1945 and on a deeper level, 2) we should go to Europe only to experience that which we do not have access to back in the Unites States. Obviously assumption 1 is ludicrous; the two most important issues of the 20th century were intimately tied to Berlin . But in America our understanding of World War Two is too often limited to Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and the Holocaust, and I would be most people have little understanding about how the Nazis came to power in the first place, which is tied heavily to the history of Berlin. Also, concerning the little thing called the Cold War, it wasn't until I came to Prague and Berlin that I truly began to grasp what it meant. For example, throughout my elementary school days, I always wondered why the atlases and pull-down maps in my classrooms always boasted that they were up to date, as of 1993 or something. For me, Russia and Krygystan and even the Czech Repulic had always been their own countries, but of course only a few years earlier the maps looked totally different. Although I was alive in 1989 when the Wall fell, I don't think that I or many others my age truly understand what it meant; the transition to Capitalism seems so swift, our memories don't let us realize what the world was like at the time we were born. Regarding assumption 2, I think it comes at odds with my own personal reasons for travelling. Sure, I admit that I can go to New York, or LA, or even Milwaukee to see modern buildings, but that I can't see a renaissance villa there. But this assumes that Berlin as it exists today is not by itself worth visiting, which I now think is entirely untrue. I believe that travel is worth doing because it not only shows us how the World was, but what it is and what it can be.

Berlin is a modern, global city and for that reason it deserves visiting for the same reason one visits Tokyo, Dubai or Sydney. Berlin, to me, was a great example of how Europeans are living modern life. The architecture and transportation in particular seem to be a prescription for how we should live urban life in the 21st century: there are places like Potsdamer Platz, a bustling hub in the middle of Berlin where people live, work, and play; the S-Bahn and U-Bahn provide an efficient way to get around the entire Berlin area in sleek, clean trains. Designated bike lanes on the sidewalks make owning a car almost an outdated idea (but make walking in them to avoid the pedestrian traffic a dangerous one). There are people who clearly have ties to places all around the globe, but have chosen to live in Berlin. On one of the nights I went out, we went to a club that had a Latin-Mexican band playing, and much of the crowd was singing along in Spanish. The global influence on Berlin is perhaps best shown in the two most popular street-food items, Currywurst and Doner Kebab, both which got started in Berlin. Currywurst is almost exactly what it sounds like, bratwurst with Curry powder, usually served with ketchup and a roll (and even french fries). Doner kebab is a bit harder to describe, but I like to think of it as a deep-dish version of a pita sandwich; clearly different from gyros, clearly something that could happen only in Berlin.

There does exist a tension between history and modernity in Berlin. You can see it at the Jewish Museum, where the uneasy history of Germany's Jews is presented in one of the most talked about buildings in Modern Architecture. You can see it at Checkpoint Charlie, the U.S. Army checkpoint along the Berlin wall where huge illuminated billboard type portraits of American and Soviet soldiers look out on their enemies' former domains. Perhaps my favorite example of this tension exists at Tacheles, which is possibly the coolest place in Germany. Tacheles used to be an old shopping center, originally built in the very early 1900s. it survived two wars and communism, but not without a little cosmetic damage (apparently bullet holes are visible places. Since 1990 it has been home to artists, a busy club scene (where I saw the Mexican band, there are at least three other clubs on site) and probably a squre mile of graffiti, all of them squatters. The owners of the building have an tenuous peace with the residents, but at the beginning of 2009, the building's future as a playground was put back in jeopardy; making money is still the name of the game, in the end. But the parties were still going on the Tuesday night I was there, so go while you still can.

Some cities manage to display both modern living and the glory of the past - London and Paris come to mind - but since this is my first trip to Europe afterall, I will probably concentrate on the History there. Therefore, I'm glad I got to experience what I did in Berlin. So go to Berlin, grab a beer and a rostbraten, and sit back and enjoy the eurotrash music. But seriously, it's everywhere.

Bites on my ass update

I now have reason to believe that fleas are actually the cause of my discomfort, as I have not found any physical evidence of bedbugs. Fleas are smaller, thus more likely to escape me finding the little ass-flesh eaters, but they still have the same pattern of several bite marks all in a row.

Me=really not happy

the dripping in the bathroom appears to have stopped, but I awoke this morning to tons and tons of bites on my ass. I can only conclude that I now have a bedbug infestation, which really sucks, as I still have to sleep here for two more weeks. Fuck.

Sweet Photo

Another awesome panorama I made. This is at sunset, right at the start of the 1500m final. If you click on the picture it should open in a larger one and you can see the runners in the bottom right hand corner.

Czech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

In the second of a series of posts titled with terrible puns, I will discuss an issue that I have noticed ever since I first got to the Czech Republic. Perhaps Borat could tell it best:

(cue music to "Throw the Jew Down the Well")
In this country there is problem/ and that problem is transport
It is very very scary/ because Czech drivers are bad.

Seriously, the Czechs make American teenage girls look like Jeff Gordon in comparison and the only thing scarier than being in the path of a Czech driver is being in the car of one. In the minds of the Czechs, there is really no such thing as a "speed limit" or "lane line", despite physical evidence to their existence. I know that we've all done 45 on a 30 mph street back home, but most of those streets are straight and wide. I've been in cars going 80 kilometers an hour (about 60 mph) barrelling down tightly winding roads that Americans would consider to be barely wide enough for a Subaru. Yes, the cars here are smaller, but these roads are narrow even by European standards. Yet that doesn't stop these Czech drivers from gunning it, passing other drivers frighteningly close to blind corners going uphill. City drivers are no better. If you've been accustomed to jaywalking even the arterial streets of your college town, as I have, crossing streets in Prague will quickly teach you to look both ways again.

Even the professional drivers are bad. Being in a bus while the driver is flooring it all the way into and through a tight turn is kind of scary. These busses may be older than the freely elected government, but that doesn't mean they can't accelerate.

Once when we were going to the Pub for a few beers after work, I was moved from the shotgun seat because Teresa, who does not yet have her driver's license, needed to sit shotgun so she could learn how to drive a stickshift. Why? Becuase since she didn't have her license, the penalty wouldn't be as bad if she got caught driving us home with a blood alcohol limit above the legal limit (whatever that was). Fuke ended up not drinking that night until later ( I think this was the night I stayed out until 6 am), but I'm pretty sure they were serious about all that and not just joking.

You don't even have to see a moving vehicle to realize the Czechs are terrible with their cars, just look at any row of parked cars and eventually you will see one with anywhere from one to four wheels in the middle of a pedestrian walk way.
This is the tiled walkway up to the Astronomical Institute. One might be able to explain this as a temporary parking job for some guy who had to move something very heavy. But no, he was there all day, and I've often seen other cars parked here. Yesterday I saw a car in Prague that had managed to get three of it's wheels up on the sidewalk.

I suppose at some basic level this reflects the "Bohemian" attitude towards rules, which aren't really enforced by anyone (I hadn't seen a policeman in over a week until Tuesday - you can't go two blocks in New York without seeing one of their Finest. In another comparison with New York, the Metro here has no such thing as turnstiles. It basically works on an honor system where you get a stamp on your ticket and plainclothes officials randomly check to see that you have a valid pass or ticket. This is great for me, I haven't paid metro fare in a week, I just keep an unvalidated ticket in case I get checked, with the plan to play dumb tourist and say I didn't know it had to be validated. And at $5.00 round trip from Ondrejov to Prague this has been huge savings). Either that or after the oppression of Communism they're happy to be able to do whatever they want. I guess at least they all wear their seatbelts.

Me=not happy

I came home today from Prague only to find out that a pipe burst in the apartment above mine, and my bathroom ceiling is dripping like woah. Fucking communist construction. Mostly I just don't know who even to contact about this and how I'm going to convey what the problem is. "Excuse me, a pipe burst above my apartment and the ceiling is dripping" is not in the phrasebook.
Fuck.

Na Konferneci

Back when I was trying to teach myself Czech in preparation for this trip, my housemates in the Hodge Podge Lodge would hear me groan "what the fuck?" or "fuck me sideways," or simply just "FUUUUCK." Czech a very different language from either French or English and the book/CDs I had weren't any help. I once complained to Nick Edwards that "This fucking book is on the second chapter and the dialogues are all about some fucking conference. What happened to teaching me how to greet people or order a Fanta?" "Yeah," he replied, "it's probably for business people. But think how grateful you'll be if you ever attend a conference."

Well, it just so happens that I did attend a conference this week hosted in Prague, on the Astronomia Nova of Johannes Kepler written 400 years ago. Not that I had remembered how to say "I'm here for a conference," but it was an interesting experience. They had scholars from around the world; some were full time historians, others were Astronomer/Astrophysicists with an interest in Kepler. There was even one guy from a conservative think tank who was doing something with the Astronomia Nova and training economists (I stopped paying attention after I saw the photos on the think tank's website depicting Obama in a Hitler moustache. www.larouchepac.org, it's pretty weird. This was also about the time the guy got into a hissy fit with one of the leading Kepler historians in the world, after she questioned the validity of one of his calculations.) But I digress. I was able to attend several lectures, witness a few general discussions, and even go on a field trip to Benatky, the palace near Prague where the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe lived (who supplied the astronomical tables which Kepler used in his work). Most interesting was to see the discussion sessions. Most of the discussion was very constructive - people would add their own esoteric knowledge on a particular topic, or discuss a tangential but fascinating side point. Sometimes personalities and ideas came head to head, in which case a "we'll settle this later" approach was normally used.
But it was an interesting look into how part of academia is conducted.

Prague Astronomical Tour Updated with Photos!!!

Czech it out, they're pretty nice.

Link here

An Exciting Development

My original impetus for coming to Europe was to go to Croatia. I believe it was Schwanz who told me, "you have to go to Eastern Europe now, because in 10 years London will still be London, but Eastern Europe will be completely different. I ended up in Prague only at the suggestion of Professor Rich Kremer, whose colleage (Petr Hadrava) I am now working with. And it was looking like getting to Croatia was going to be almost prohibitively expensive, but nonetheless, thanks to cheap as hell flights from Croatia Air and me just saying "fuck it," once I finish up in Ondrejov I will head down to Dubrovnik, stopping in Ljubljana (Slovenia), Zagreb (Croatia) and Split (Croatia) as well. For at least a week I will get to bask in the glory of the Adriatic Sun, I think after the tourists have all left, but while it's still warm. From the guidebooks I've looked at in the English language bookstores in Prague, it looks incredible - aweseome beaches, sumtuous seafood and plenty of magnificent views. I'm very tempted to do something like rent/steal a moped and just ride around the coast and island hop, taking it on the ferries. How cool would that be!?! I also think I'm going to stay in people's houses rather than hostels, as fun as the hostel in Berlin was. These places are already pretty touristy and I'd like to get a real taste (literally and figuratively) for what life is like in Croatia. Too bad I'm fat and haven't been working on the Beach muscles. I guess I still have two weeks.

Photos from Worlds

Steeplechase!!!

















I really was there!!!! 5k trials, heat 1, with Solinsky, Teg, Bekele

















And really did see a WR!!!

Worlds, August 20th

The days at Worlds only got better and better. The 20th was the big night of the week, before Sunday when the relays and 5k and so on would be run: it featured the 200m final and the women's high jump, in which Germany had a gold-medal contender. Thus, the stadium was the fullest I had seen it and supposedly the fullest it had been all week. I estimated that only 4 sections in the entire stadium were more empty than full. (Note the panorama I made of the stadium that night, click on it to get a full, high quality view). Awesome. Official attendance I later found out was 58,000 or so. Seeing so many people show up for a track meet was incredible; that the crowd was very knowledgeable was more than I had ever anticipated. It was really something to see a crowd that big so into a track meet. It's the kind of enthusiasm you only see at football games in the States.
Also big for me was the men's 5k heats, where the US had four runners, three of which I have met personally. Bernard Lagat, defending World Champion, was at Nike Team Nationals so many years ago; I have sold shoes to and used to live mere blocks from Matt Tegenkamp, 4th by several hundreths of a second at the last Worlds 5k; and Chris Solinsky used to be a member of the infamous Buddy Crew at Movin' Shoes Madison, and once bought me a beer post Christmas party at Karl's (I texted Chris Mah about this immediately afterwards).
Again, I used the bathroom trick to get better seats, in the section I sat the first night, right on the turn and also near the High Jump Area for the Women's final. It was the perfect place to watch everything, especially the 200.
The 5k heats went well for the US, Lagat, Teg and Solinsky all qualified. I had my Mmerican flag out and was jumping up and down and shouting rabidly at the US runners, especially Chris and Matt, who were in the same heat (also featuring none other than Ken Bekele). The Europeans were all giving me the who is this fucking Yank look, but I didn't care.
The Women's High Jump sealed the field events as the surprise of the weekend. This particular event was incredible, pitting mega-hottie defending Champ Blanca Vlasic against a Russian and the German girl. Many of the jumpers lead the crowd in the anticipatory slow clap, a US jumper in particular lead the way in getting hype throughout the competition. From the beginning it was clear that Vlasic, the Russian (Beijing silver) and the German were going at it. Vlasic would get the crowd going with slow claps, while the German would bring the crowd down completely to the point where you could have heard a sneeze on the other side of the stadium. I have never in my life seen 60,000 people be so quiet. When Vlasic cleared an impressive height near the end, she did a little dance that was quite enteraining and potentially arousing. She won and made some legit attempts at the World Record, but ultimately failed. However, the crowd had already had the fortune of seeing one of those.
Yes, the 200m final. There are few words to describe it. I will say this: I was about 60m into the curve and by the time Bolt (in lane 5) got to me he had made up the stagger on the outside lane, who was no slouch, Athens gold medallist Shawn Crawford. It was a foregone clonclusion by that point, only worth watching to see what time Bolt would finish with and how much he would win by (but both those reasons were well worth it). He made the World Championships final look like he was toying around at a twilight meet. Let's just think about this, he won by .63 seconds. Unreal.
The time 19.19 flashed - people knew that was fast, but there wasn't the eruption there was after he set the WR in the 100, I think mostly because people weren't as familiar with what the 200 WR actually was. When "NEW WR" flashed on the scoreboard though an already loud stadium reached maxiumum output. Photographers flocked him like paparazzi on nipple slip; Bolt hammed it up, posing, smiling, just giving them what they wanted. Just incredible, it sucks to be anybody else at the moment. Redefining what we think to be possible - this puts Bolt in the company of Einstein, or so I believe.
As the day wound down I saw Trey Hardee win the Decathalon. I was one marker shy of getting him to sign my Mmerican flag. oh well.
I really wanted to stay and get tickets for the weekend, but I had spent a lot of money already and thought I needed to get back to Ondrejov. It was an incredible close to an incredible experience.
There are a lot of problems in the World and oftentimes we humans get things very very wrong. But seeing the World Championships shows me that we've got some things right. People truly seemed to be cheering the performances and not just the jerseys. If only we spent more time finding the things that bring us together rather than those that bring us apart.

*steps off soapbox

Ugh, Gross

In order to save money this trip, I have been following the advice of my mother and have been eating bread, meat and cheese. Fruits and vegetables are really expensive, or a pain to make, or something I'm just to lazy to eat, but I've been taking a complete mulitvitamin (it even has iron, thanks Barry!) to offset the lack of nutrients I'm receiving from my diet. However, this means I have a really fatty diet and it's starting to show - my belt already is tight at the loosest setting. So I bought some fruit in berlin, some plums or pluots (plum crossed with apricot) or something. To my surprise, I found that several of the trees around my apartment back in Ondrejov have these fruits growing on them and on my trip to the grocery store I confirmed that these actually were edible. Great, I thought, I have a free fruit supply! So today after my botched attempt at a run I grabbed some ripe feeling ones and headed home to eat some fruit with my bread and cheese. They smelled so sweet - I washed them up and bit into one. Only the pit had some grainy stuff that didn't quite look right on it. And then, in a moment that will haunt my dreams for months, a maggot crawled out from right where I had bitten into the plum. I gagged and spit everything onto the floor, then ran to the bathroom (ha, luckily not far away in my tiny apartment) and literally washed my mouth out with nothing but toothpaste. *This* close to using soap. I then threw of the plum thingys out of the window that I just figured out how to open today (so thankfully my room will not feel like a sauna anymore). Ugh, talk about your all time backfires.