Vaguely Travel

Vegas Story

2010-05-20T18:04:00.007+02:00

This needed editing in the worst way. I've taken out some thing, still not done.

I went to Las Vegas for the first time when I was about 22 years old, it was the first vacation I ever went on alone. My parents and I had toured the south west in one of our yearly family vacations when I was a kid, but Vegas was conspicuously absent. Something about it being hell, probably. I went because I had a free plane ticket for reasons I no longer remember, and I had a week long break from my job. My first real paid vacation at my first real full-time job. It didn’t take much thinking for me to decide to go to the desert. Before I go any further, I have to distinguish myself from most of the people who go to Las Vegas. I wasn’t going to gamble, to screw a hooker, to get really drunk, spend a lot of money, and party. Although I would end up doing some of these things on my trip, my plan was to spend one night in the city of sin and then travel around to a bunch of national parks and trails.

In actuality, when I went I had no plans save a car to pick up and a vegas hotel for the first night. This is a zen-like way of traveling that I suspect can only be accomplished in the complete embracing of unembarrassed aloneness. One could probably not convince a family, a friend, a lover, to take on a mad and impulsive mission like this, nor would anybody want to. After a night at the Stratosphere (obligatory Vegas hotel gimmick: it’s really tall!) I head out of town in the morning. Over midnight omlettes, with an array of maps and brochures stolen from the gift store or taken from the lobby I semi-organized myself. I would go to the Hoover Dam first, a famous landmark which I had know the name of but not the location, nor even the significance of (it turns out it’s near las vegas). I would then proceed through Arizona and Utah in one night to what looked to be the most impressive nearby national park, Zion Canyon. The drive was exhausting and thrilling, driving there is like being on a roller-coaster you have to steer yourself. By the time night fell I was almost to my destination, but had begun to alarm myself with my observations. Observations like; I haven’t seen a hotel in a hundred miles, it might even be getting to be too late to get a room, perhaps I’ve overestimated my capacity to find a hotel on the road or Utah’s capacity to provide one, and there are no street lights here so I really can’t see anything anyway. Finally I did find something, basically a largish house turned bed-and-breakfast, where a kind and elderly couple who I had roused from either sleep or a particularly pacifying board game slowly showed me every room of the house and all its amenities before allowing me to settle for the night. The next day was one of those healthy days where you do everything an active young person is supposed to do; eat a hearty waffle breakfast, hoist yourself up a spectacularly and breathtakingly difficult chain-linked canyon wall trail, breathe the high mountain air, and, tipping your hat, be on your way. While I was exhaustedly limping back down this notoriously difficult trail I crossed the path of a mormon family. They were all blonde and smiles, healthy and beautiful, singing a song about jesus. Not one of them was out of breath.
On my way out of Utah I encountered one of the most interesting natural phenomena I have ever personally witnessed. The sky darkened and clouds roiled overhead, in a way that I had learned long ago meant a storm was coming. Then the strange thing happened, straining and hefting its weight around the sky made a big show of things. It raised its’ winds and summoned clouds to dim the powerful desert sun. Heaving and wrenching, with lightening streaking out of it in an impressive show of force and effort, the storm tried to do its thing. The clouds made a valiant effort but only a few drops fell on the parched earth. I guess it looks that way for a reason. The storm’s writhing was not in vain, because it did manage to raise a moving maze of dust, buffeting and coating all things in orange and brown. It was in these conditions, my car a pillar of salt, that I went back, driving past Vegas on a different route, all the way to the city of prostitution, Pahrump.

If you’ve ever gone to a city that has no reasonable explanation for why people would visit it and stayed in one of its hotels you’ll be able to imagine instantly what my Pahrump lodgings were like. It was one of those long, low, meandering rows of identical rooms sealed inside a stuco snake of a building. Everything about my room yelled at me, “what are you doing here!?“ or whispered genericness. At the creature’s head is its mouth, the check in desk, and its brain, a rack of brochures, maybe a TV tuned to something that no one would watch deliberately. The kind of thing that your eyes are drawn too and rest on for no reason other than its production of hypnotic colors and sounds. Brochure racks became a great friend to me during my trip. Previously when traveling I had always known what to do, either because someone else with some kind of life experience was planning to trip, or I had done my research. In Nevada I just went to whatever attractions were savy enough to purchase a billboard, brochure, or banner. I was the ultimate advertising market.
All this serves as an extended and unnecessary explanation for why I went to a brothel. What took me to Pahrump was, of course, its notoriety as being one of only two counties in the United States where prostitution is legal. Not to say I wanted to sleep with a prostitute, nor did I, it was just a kind of curiosity, a desire to see what such a place was like. Well, if you guessed that as a town, Pahrump was depressing in the extreme, you’d be pretty close but not exactly right. It was not only depressing, but actually had a sense of depression about it. Sand covered tractors sat disheveled in front of buildings that could just as easily been warehouses as homes. Billboards hung grey and torn in the sky, advertisers largely unwilling to abandon their messages to the winds. The stores looked like, if you entered them they’d be dimly lit and all of their stores would be held in glass jars or wooden crates and covered with dust 40 years thick. The dozing store clerk would startle upon seeing you and, leaning back in his chair behind the counter, eye you from beneath the brim of his hat while you birdlike picked through the merchandise, as if to say “don’t worry about it, I know you’re not going to buy anything, no one does”. I only speak from imagination because, of course, I didn’t go into any of the stores. Once you’re in one of these places that are infamous but not particularly interesting you are left wondering what to do. If you’ve ever been to 4 corners, the place where the 4 southwestern states meet in one place, you’ll be familiar with the feeling.”Well, here I am standing in 4 states at once, what do I do now?” It is an attraction that is attracting until the very second you are there.

So, left grasping at distraction to avoid sinking into the Pahrump nature, I decided to visit the “Brothel Museum”, which actually should have been named the “brothel, museum” since it was an actual operating whorehouse. I would like to describe it in loving detail, the folksy porch with glitter splayed over it, the red oak door with the vaguely sexual knocker, the lush sexualized carpet, but the fact is I can’t remember any of it. Truth be told, once I realized the situation I was in, I was terrified. It was unnerving and otherworldly and when I try to remember the place I remember feelings rather than facts, a rarity for me. I imagine it in my head as the most typical looking bordello you could imagine. A place where highwaymen and cowboys kicked off their dusty boots to be fanned with peacock feathers by buster blondes while drinking whisky sours in iced glasses. I remember it being very red, with a lot of wood. A couch, maybe. I have the feeling that maybe even my few physical remembrances of the place are more about a conglomeration of various famous brothels from television and movies. I couldn’t even tell you if they had a staircase. What a do remember is a bell being rung (or maybe it was an intercom or even a walkie talkie) and a group of women lining up in front of me all wearing very little clothes. They asked me if I had a girl in mind or if I wanted to choose one from the lineup. I have never, even in my childhood felt more like a child than I did at that moment.
“I’m just here for the museum” I think I must have said.

I can tell you one thing, it was definitely not a situation in which I would have been able to have sex, even if I had been willing to. I stunned around the museum, really just a largish room off from the viewing station, or whatever you’d call it, and glazed at various antique bustiers, handcuffs and dildos that had lost most of their flash and seduction, until I felt I had stayed for long enough to not seem rude, and then stumbled into the bar. I then had a conversation with a prostitute over a rum and coke. No, wait, they didn’t have rum, which I found very odd. A whisky and coke. Although I wish I could describe the conversation in detail, I am very hazy on it. I think we might have talked about her career aspirations and mine. A lot of them lounged, chatting up potential customers and sitting on barstools, smoking and drinking in outfits that seemed to invite urinary tract infections. Truth be told I was very out of it. The air was dizzying and the atmosphere swarmed around me, making it impossible for me to stay for very long. As much as my liberal attitude dictates that prostitution ought not to be illegal, I couldn’t feel much of anything in a place where people sold themselves. It is an eerie thing, like a morgue. I got back to my hotel, reverse following the handwritten directions I had jotted down on a piece of branded “sleep inn” stationary. Then next morning I wanted to get out of Pahrump, quickly. The hotel, unsurprisingly, had no home made mixed berry currant with waffles. Surprisingly, it didn’t have any breakfast of any kind. I didn’t care, I wanted to leave. It was under these circumstances that I drove to the desert that I almost died at.

I had learned my lesson from the parched hike the day before, so before I headed into the desert I stopped and purchased one whole bottle of water. This, I thought, should keep me hydrated. To be fair I wasn’t planning on going far. My raid-the-brochure stands strategy fell apart a bit at the previous day’s national park and I ended up actually having to talk to a person in order to figure out which trail I ought to take. I asked specifically for their hardest trail that could be completed in a day. And I got, well, exactly what I was looking for. I was exhausted by the end of it, but thrilled at my physical accomplishment, satisfyingly achy. With the previous day‘s strain still clinging to my body I resolved to try a trail of only moderate difficult, 2 miles long, 3 tops. This would leave me plenty of time to travel to back to Las Vegas and spend the evening there before I would leave the next morning.

Red Rock Canyon is essentially a desert, and the core problem with trails that are basically in the middle of the desert is the way in which they are marked. The traditional currency of a trail that doesn’t take its lead from some significant and obvious or natural feature is the line-of-rocks. A desert is a flat arid landscape that consists of mainly dirt, occasional scraggily plant growths, and of course, rocks. This means that if you are tasked with creating a trail through the middle of the desert it is really your responsibility to make sure the way in which you organize said rocks is noticeably different than the haphazard scattering of rocks a desert generally possesses. The trail blazers of red rock canyon failed at this task. I had intended to follow my path through some desert to a canyon, which I would walk through until its natural end point, a dry waterfall. This certainly sounds simple enough and you can’t fault me for imagining that this would be a fairly standard procedure. In actuality the trail fell apart almost immediately. There are some times when you’re at the beginning of an endeavor and suddenly and briefly you are gifted with a glimpse of clarity, an ah-hah moment in which you realize “this will not go well for me”. Of course, people tend to be curious creatures, always striving towards a greater goal, always bold enough to ask the question “what if this thing does not go badly?” As such we infrequently listen to our quiet voices of reason.

I like to site an experience that I had as a neophyte busboy in my first ever paid job. I was reshelving the freshly cleaned and steaming hot glasses in the bar and encountered two cups which appeared to be stuck together, one on top of the other. They wiggled around like a loose tooth stubbornly holding fast, but could not easily be pulled apart. “Ah-hah” my quick teenager science-class-attending brain deduced “these cups must have EXPANDED during the processes of being washed in scalding water and then heat baked dry. This is why they do not come apart. I am a genius.” I really was pleased with myself, but my thought process, slave to logic and safety, almost instantly added a premonition to this realization “You do not want to attempt to pull these glasses apart, it will definitively be a bad thing.” My counter point was “well maybe it won’t be”. I tugged a little harder and sure enough one of the glasses exploded completely in my hand, burying tiny suicidal shards of itself into my palm and fingers. I had to spray my hand with weak acid to dissolve the pieces, making a fist hurt for weeks.

It was a similar feeling that seized me early in desert hike, and it went something like this

“I have only been on this trail for a few thousand feet and already it seems to be fading into unrecognizability. I could easily not be on the trail right now, I don’t know where I’m going or where I’ve come from. I should probably just turn around now.”

After being run through my mental filter of optimism and machismo it came out in my actions as genial bemusement. What kinda jokers made this trail? Why I’m gonna take a buncha’ pictures of how badly designed this trail is and show them to my friends when I get home and won’t we have a laugh. So it was with this attitude that I first started going in what was definitely, in hindsight, the wrong direction.

An aside- when telling a story like this I always wonder if I should describe things as they seemed to me at the time, so that the listener is right there with me, experiencing the sudden shifts in perception and dramatic twists, or should I tell it as I know it eventually ended up happening, embellishing and retelling with the story’s eventual goal in mind. As you might see I’ve chosen the latter for this particular event, but I wonder how this might’ve come out if I had tried the other path.

It was at about the point when I started to scrape my arms and hands crawling through thorny bushes that I began to suspect something might be wrong about the path that had seemed to me to be the trail. But what was I to do now? I had picked my trail, and certainly it was just as good as their trail, as I couldn’t tell the difference between this and it. I pressed forward, figuring that eventually I would find something that resembled a traditional path. Once I dipped into the canyon I found what I had been looking for, some sort of open path which seemed to imply a trail. And then I made what may have been my third or fourth major lapse in judgment. I deduced that the trail could not, as it seemed, simply a dry river bed at the bottom of the canyon, littered with boulders and brambles. What would hikers do, I reasoned, when the river was flowing, as it must do in the wet season? After a hike up a steep slope which seemed to be ending in a dry and vertical canyon wall I was able to get some perspective. Looking down over the valley it was not clear that there was a trail at all, but the river bed looked like the closest approximation. I headed back down , blazing a trail through the bramble adorned bushes and jagged person-sized boulders. I arrived, finally, back at the presumptive trail and paused to make what must have been my seventh or eight major lapse in judgment. At this point I had only accomplished a very small portion of the trail, but due to my Aramaic wanderings, had taken a very long time doing so. I considered briefly cutting my losses and turning back right then; the hike was by all estimations going poorly, by way of a combination of my own ineptitude and that of various others, I had managed to get lost in at least two separate ways before even finding it. It was this sting of personal failure that spurred me on, I could not give in at this point because if I did it would mean I had personally failed at hiking this canyon. I was determined to turn this trail into another in a series of imagined glowing achievements in the face of the nearly insurmountable shiftlessness and inability of others. Already hungry, thirsty, cut, and bruised, I began the trail in earnest. It was only a mile or so long after all, what could happen?

The trail was not a mile or so long. In fact I had misread the sign as 3 miles roundtrip when it was actually 3 miles one way. I to this day do not understand why the length of the trail would be represented in this manner. No one is going to hike the trail one way, they are going to need to come back. Nor will they attempt to chain trails together, as you can do at some national parks, because this one is punctuated very definitively by a sheer rock face. Through the lens of time I feel nothing but self-preservative hatred for that canyon path, but at the time I remember thinking that it was actually rather nice. A bit long. But rather nice. There was an organic element to it that was lacking in my previous day’s climb, which was manicured, marked, and secured perfectly. Perhaps I picked up on this natural vibe because it wasn’t actually a trail at all but rather a dry riverbed filled with boulders the size of small rooms and large cars. Scrambling over these rocks, pausing the squint up at the sun glaring down at me from between the high rock walls, was actually pleasant, and would have been downright exhilarating if I weren‘t so aware of my growing thirst, and for the first time in my trip I felt what I had wanted to feel in the first place; alone.

I wasn’t exactly alone, I did see two other people during my hike, at the very end of the trail. They were shirtless desert teenagers, younger and older, doing whatever it is that people of this age do when they are forced to live in this area, which is to say, wondering around in the desert. I can describe them only as lean, with long blonde hair, they looked like they might shoot at rabbits with air rifles in their spare time. I saw them when I came to the dry waterfall that had been my goal, they caromed up the nearly vertical wall with an effortlessness that embarrassed me even before I tried to follow. I found it impossible to scale with my worn sneakers so I took them off, and my socks as well, and climbed up with bare hands and feet. At the top I rested near a grimy pool of long-ago-snow water which seemed to be the only source of liquid for miles around. A frog made a small home there in the mud. I lay on my back and listened to the two boys talk about whatever things you might imagine these people talking about, skinning animals maybe, I honestly don’t remember. The dark shadows and cool breeze refreshed me enough to make me realize that I was really in quite a lot of trouble. I was disoriented and thirsty and nearly exhausted in the middle of nowhere. It was then, at exactly the moment when it had the least possible impact on my options, that I realized I had gone too far, been too reckless. I needed to get back and although the place I was currently at was nice enough, I hadn’t eaten or drank anything in far too long. I glanced at the fetid and algaed water and gave it more than a second thought, despite the fact that it had lain still in a rocky basin for more than 5 months. To give you an idea of how extreme the situation was, at this point I would have considered asking another human being for help, if one had been around. The boys had climbed an even more improbable cliff at some point and had now vanished over the edge of the canyon. Eventually I decided that my best chances lay with getting back as soon as possible.
The trip back flew by in relatively short order because I no longer stopped along my way to admire rocks or plants or unusual and poisonous looking lizards. I was on a mission for survival now and I had become aware that I did not have an unlimited source of energy. Time was of the essence. It wasn’t long after I descended back into the thick of the canyon when I realized something disturbing. How on earth was I to know when to exit the trail? I knew for a fact it wasn’t marked in any coherent way, the riverbed would simply continue indefinitely on into the desert. And so, realizing this, I took to scrabbling my way through vegetation and loose sand up to a vantage point where I could look for signs of civilization, and then back into the valley, where the hiking was far easier. It took me 4 or 5 of these desperate climbs before I recognized the gleaming of car windshields, disconcertingly farther away than one in my condition might hope. As expected I had missed the intended way out, and was faced with the prospect of plodding through unshaded desert for another couple of miles. I wasn’t thrilled with what lay ahead of me, but I had made it. Triumph over the wilderness doesn’t feel nearly as good as you might expect it to, at least when the fight is that close. More like tired resignation than joy.

I staggered through the flat desert, looking half dead under the weight of my exertion and hubris. The car was close enough to walk to now, and I never for a moment thought I wouldn’t get there, but it wasn’t easy. I was lurching forward now, as fast as I really could manage at the time, sensing some of the urgency of mortality that should have been buzzing in my ears the entire time. I gave pause to a group of well-prepared looking hikers coming the opposite direction, into the cursed canyon. Their pace slowed in awkward hesitation and they stared at me, as if I might collapse and ruin their day, or cough on them and transmit whatever ghastly illness I so clearly was overcome with. I gestured half-heartedly behind me and offered “it’s not very well marked” as a kind of explanation for my condition. I never looked back after passing them, but I assume they went on to their doom. I didn’t care.

In my car the air conditioning blasted like an open oven, the steering wheel nearly liquid hot. Everything in the car had cooked so thoroughly in the sun in my long absence that had I placed any raw food in it before I left, it would certainly be ready to eat by now. Eat. And, more importantly drink. The act of physically operating a car, of pushing the pedals and turning the wheel, had never been something I never realized could be difficult. I wrestled with the weariness of my muscles on the long, speeding drive to the nearest gas station, listening to static on the radio I was too exhausted to bother changing. I parked diagonally in something that I can be almost sure wasn’t a parking space and dragged my body into the cool store. I headed straight for the beverage case and fished out one, no 2, no maybe 3 to be safe, of the 2 liter water bottles and chugged one of them right there at an oddly placed but convenient indoor picnic table. Although the danger was more or less over at this point my actions were all still gripped by a sense of fear and suddenness. I practically clutched the bottles to my chest as I foraged for something substantial to eat, as if someone would try to take them from me. Eventually finding a sandwich and an oversized cookie with pink sprinkles (to restore my sugars, I remembered thinking to myself), I paid the furrow-browed cashier, who I then realized had been watching me the entire time I’d been in the store with no small amount of concern. I mumbled something about hiking and went back to my vehicle. There is no pride in consuming a gas station sandwich, and I devoured it appropriately in as few bites as possible. It was, I’m sure you’ll understand, one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. The cookie too, disappeared quickly, as did a second bottle of water. At that point I collapsed utterly, napping in my running car outside the gas station for the next 2 hours.

That night I went back to Las Vegas. The rest of the last day of my trip passed like you might expect it to, the throngs of people hurrying around me while I drifted by like a ghost, into and out of ancient Rome, a pirate ship, the great pyramid. The unreality of the Vegas lights and sounds washed over me and gradually ebbed away, beaching me on the shore of the world of the living. I never did sleep that night, opting instead to just walk around the town. The 5 am absurdities of dancing shadows, plastic Venice, wax Nicholas Cage surrounded me, and all I could do was take them in, alive in the waking dream.

The Eldritch Floral Horrors of Western Germany OR A Door Into the Endless Green Night

2010-03-11T20:33:00.011+01:00

I write this as my mind begins to slip from my possession. I only pray that someone finds my writings before it is too late for them, nay the whole world.
I came to this seemingly pleasant state at first to calm my harried nerves after the unfortunate incidents of Ms. M______ and Mssr. G_______. Oh how I miss them, I can still hear the unearthly moans. My doctor recommended the Rhineland Palatinate as an escape from the smog and dishealthful clamour of London city, hoping its acres of peaceful vineyards would be balm to my troubled soul, myself being an amateur horticulturist and an admitted oenophile.
It quickly became clear that these were no ordinary wine fields. The tendrils of these plants grew like spindly spider legs, their fruits mean and hardened and wilting.
All through't grey clad and hooded men shambled like zombies, trimming at the looming rows constantly. Why should they clip at them so if these vineyards were their main subsistance, I wondered. Growing bold with curiosity I approached a workman, but he seemed to be deaf and dumb, continuing his work as if my presence were not even felt. When I tried to get his attention by coming between his shears and his target, he groaned aggressively at me and gestured threateningly. I saw in this moment that the man had no tongue and a strange marke tattooed on his left cheek.
Twisted unnaturally, the devilish vines pulsed with an unearthly hatred. Certain that something was amiss in the fields I endeavored to sojourn to a nearby hamlet, seeking answers. All the while the roots of unease grew in my mind.
The path was snowey and the day unseasonably cold and dark. The branches oe'rhead blotted out what little sunlight weakly filtered down. In these shadows I startled upon what appeared to be a half buried kraken along the sideroad. T'was just a treestump, although my racing heart told me to take caution anyhowe. Is it any great wonder that I imagined to see some movement as I briskly hurried a'past?
All along the path was lyned with grasses like daggers. Tall as a man and sharp enough to pierce skin. Never had I occurred upon such unusual flora. T'was as if they were militiamen, fearsome pykes in hand.
And strange heads of growth, trimmed back violently, rattled with sound unfamiliar in either plant or animal kingdoms. The sounds which the wind rustled from these baubles was likeas a whysper,

thhhhhouuuuuuuthhhhhhh

I speeded my pace.

Finally with pulse aquickened I arrived at my destination. The town was eerily still, with not a soul to be found. What was to be found easily, however, were more of the damned plants. It was around this time that I began to hear the voice, fell and gruesome, whyspering wordlessly.
Some buildings had fallen completely, now eruptions of pointed feelers, reaching in the cold air.
It spill'd from troth and from bucket until it seemed that not an inch was left uncovered.
I observed all manner of strange shrubbery that seemed completely alien. The tendrils of this ungodly growth snatched up a passing jay, quickly draining it of its life.
The spines that grew from this spiked tree shot out in growth so rapidly that it tore my clothes and cut a gash in my shoulder. It's growth so unnatural as to give the impression of maliciousness. It felt as if I were a man pursued! The pounding, it does not cease!
The very stoneworke sprouted with varietye of sinister plantlife. I began to wonder what had become of the residents. All too soon I would have my answer.
As I observed these things I chanced upon the sickly smell of death, yea, an odour I know all too well as of late. I followed the scent to it's source and was grimly unstartled to find a human corpse, desanguinated and disintigrating. Its skin all but replaced by green lichens, crimson blood-blossoms sprouting from it's veins. These horticultural horrors were blood drinkers!
All around me plant cocoons the size of human heads, held on narrow neck-stalks of green spilled forth from the Eayrth. The voice like a pounding now, cracking the foundations of my sanity. The ground trembled terribly, I turned to run..!
IT IS I SHUUUG NOOOOBOROTH . HUNTER OF FLESH . WHISPERER OF LIES . I WILL FEEEAST ON YOUR MIND HUMAN . WELCOME TO THE DARKNESS .

ssssssssss

hsssssssssssss

come in to the darknesssssssss

An Intractable Moron Visits the German Wine Country

2010-03-10T19:27:00.006+01:00

LOL SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP'! Represent back in europe with my number one dutchland peeps!
I learned in the airport when I get hear 3 dayz ago that the germans are really dutch and there countrys called Dutchland. Maybe thats where dutch master's come from lol..
You might be axing yourself why I might've returned to here, the historic home of beer pong and other rocking things when I had just left like: "I'm outy" only a few year and a halfs ago to return to america land of the free? Well, it turns out that I gotta come back cuz of some kinda lame @ss bull$hit about defacing some momunment and a international incident (sp?) tribunal trial and shit so to pair a phrase my boy "guess who's back??" Those were soem good times lol.
And you know I gotsta visit me some German wine country. Were talkin like everyone here is MESSED UP around the clock like so bad they cant even speak english anymore. Some dude was like "Spreken ze dutch?" to me and I was like "DAAAAAAMN SON U WASTED :)"
But ya I've been gettin my drink on not gonna lie, even tho last time I blacked out and woke up with some boot on my head in garbage can, but since when's that ever stopped ya boy??
So mainly I've just been chillin', checkin up on some fine german honeys and broing back some broskis with my bros.
These pics are from a town I stopped by through on the way to wherever this g@y-ass trials gonna be. I'm like roll up a jury on me, I dare you, go upside they're head with my belt, ya herd?
I think it's called Eatin' Clovin' or something.
It was "very nice!" (you remeber that movie Bort? That was MY MOVIE). Kindof a little quite for me, but they have these wineyards here and a bunch of statues and plaques and this thing made out of wood and it was pretty cool.
NE ways I think I gottsa to roll now some dude is yelling at me in dutch, it's like "calm down lt. red face, maybe you should go an concur poland again if you want to be such a facist lol" PEACE OUT PEEPS, FREEDOM!

Back in Europe, for a limited time only

2010-03-09T11:02:00.006+01:00

Hey everyone, on this, the last spring break of my grad-school career, I am going back to Europe. So, like a volcano, this blog erupts briefly with activity before once more sinking into dormancy.Airport carpet. Flew from Orlando to Atlanta, where the carpet may be even worse. There is some kind of psychological meaning to airport carpets, I'm sure of it. A mystery. The flight to Europe is a long one, you may be aware of this. I ended up watching 3 movies and part of a basketball game with the sound off. I will have a separate post about this later. The movies were
The Men Who Stare at Goats (***_ _)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (****_)
and Pandorum (*_ _ _ _), a spacehorror which seemed to consist entirely of running and darkness and whispering.
I missed my chance to sleep on the blame but was treated to that rare and bizarre pre-dawn light.
Soon I would be in Germany, first of my Euro-destinations. I think this might be the Rhine.
I was pleasantly surprised to find snow fields. As a long-time Floridian I am crazy for snow.
I guess this is outside of Frankfurt, where the plane is (hopefully!) going to land.And here is the city proper
One of very few German cities with this kind of skyline.
"Camel" brand 'smoking rooms' in the airport. They are so progressive in Europe!
I am taking Germany's fantastic train system to a little town called Edenkoben, in the German wine country. You'll see it tomorrow (if you want to). I had a stop over in Mannheim
Which seems nice, at least based on their Bannhoff (train station)
Next time we'll go down these tracks and see the place I'm staying at.

Amsterdam it's been a long time since I posted a blog

2009-03-02T21:47:00.007+01:00

I mean, a real blog that is. Like, not a rap blog.
This one is gonna be about Amsterdam.
When we last left our hero (me), he (I) was just leaving V's hometown of Witten to go to the Netherlands for a Sigur Ros concert (this will get it's own entry) (usage of parenthesis in one sentence record is now broken (by me)).
Since it's been such a long time I am almost certainly going to have a hard time giving you all the rich blog-experience you so heartily deserve. I will soldier on and do my best however, remembering what Amsterdam trivia I can and letting the pictures do most of the talking. Well... we arrived at the train station, which is quite a sight in and of itself.
And we walked to the Hostel. This was no easy walk, we got quite lost what with the endless canals
and the narrow streets.
Not that it was a great burden or anything, since we were seeing some beautiful sights.
Actually, now that I think back to it, we were carrying all of our possessions with us while we walked (yes, I had to lug everything I took to Europe around with me everywhere, the inglorious downside of traveling life), so yeah, it was a great burden.
Eventually we got to the hostel and were greeted with the unfortunate realization that we would be staying in a dorm with 30 something other people. Like, this was a hostel-hostel, not a hotel-hostel. I had thought we were getting a 4 person room, but I guess I am an idiot. At least the hostel had going for it that it was very centrally located, a short walk to all the interesting areas, including the red light district.
So what do I remember about Amsterdam to tell you guys? Well, there were a lot of bikes. More bikes than there are people actually. And something like 100 fall into the canals every day and are fished out by people who have this as a full time job. (Please don't quote me on that figure, it might be completely wrong, but I remember it was some astounding number.)
That night we went to the red light district for dinner, it's really an astounding place. I guess picture Bourbon street with hookers and marijuana everywhere. Next update I will show you guys the concert (complete with videos!) and the time after that we will do some Amsterdam exploring! It turns out I remember a bit more than I expected.
Thanks for reading guys.

Blap Rog is Black

2009-02-24T16:42:00.001+01:00

That'z right, everyone's favorite rap blog is back with all new content, let's say three days a week (the days I'm at work).
This blog is still going to be happening, but it's so hard to find the time. It'll certainly be updated less frequently now that I'm always out of the house.

please read my blogs

http://blaprog.blogspot.com

Blog Write, blog, right?

2009-02-19T19:42:00.002+01:00

This morning while I was driving to work I saw a guy painting a white wall the color of dirt. He was doing this, presumably, so that no one would be able to tell when the wall got dirty. Then it began to rain.

I like to imagine that this washes the paint away from the wall, even though modern paint is probably rain proof even when still wet. But in my mind the wall is white again and he is cursing his poor luck.

Sorry that it's been a while guys, it's hard to adjust to the grind of real life. I still miss the travel. Can't upload pictures while at work and etc. Will be back blogging soon.

The Economy Continues to Decline as Blog Posts Become Less Frequent

2009-01-11T02:50:00.006+01:00

Yeah, sorry guys, I guess I don't blog this blog thing as much anymore. It's back to real life for me, having a job, going to school.
That's no joke about the economy either, I'm working as many hours as is humanly possible to try and make some money, thus I have less time for this nonsense no one cares about.
But enough metablog, how about some blog? Today's pictures are from Witten, V's sleepy, industrial hometown. They're big on iron production there I think. Or mining. One of those dangerous things.
I went there to meet her parents and friends, see the place she grew up, etc etc. Also we were on our way to Amsterdam and it's kind of half way between there and Tuebingen.
Meeting her parents went better than expected. Better than meeting any girlfriend's parents ever has gone actually. An especially impressive feat considering they don't speak any English. But food speaks louder than words, just check out this home-cooked-all-vegetarian-mealstravaganza (and this was a lunch!).
So what's Witten got? Well, a lot of power lines for one.
A lot of them.
And other industrial looking stuff, you know.
Witten's one of those towns that's got a 'thing' going for it, like Berlin has bears. Instead of brightly painted festive animals it's got fat businessmen.
This was once a brightly colored fountain, when it stopped working they painted it grey so it would look more like a statue. I guess that's kind of a good way to sum up Witten as a town.
Not that I didn't like, it had a comforting humanity and utilitarianism to it that is sometimes not found in German towns. Next stop Amsterdam.
Also, check out V's blog for her picture report of us going to a Gaza protest in downtown Orlando.

It just wouldn't be moving day without me dramatically injuring myself

2009-01-05T02:32:00.005+01:00

Todays pictures are from my trip to Wiesbaden and Niedernhausen where I attended and presented at the EB-ACA conference.

..So here I am, back in Orlando (well, Winter Park to be exact). Spent all day looking for and transporting free furniture from Craigslist (that website is AMAZING++).

Here's my injury story: I was trying to roll a bed through a parkling lot and saw a speedbump coming that I thought those little bed-wheels might be able to clear if I got up enough speed. Well, the thing stopped dead instead and my leg went right into the metal frame. This might sound funny to you but I would have been surprised if it hadn't happened. In fact the only reason I wasn't more seriously injured is because I've done things like this so many times before. Build up a resistance, you know? Not that it doesn't hurt like hell. It really does.
Life in the states has been difficult to adjust to but I am appreciating the little things that make America so American more and more these days. And the things I used to hate about the states I can now categorize as interesting cultural differences.
Living in another country changes you, I think, even if it's only for a few months.
Anyway, tomorrow it's back to work, in a few days it's back to school. A new type of adventure is going to begin (it's an adventure called surviving the monotony of real life) and I'm ready, if not quite excited.
Fear not though, I still got lots of stuff to show you guys from Europe-times.
And I saw an Alligator the other day so tune in for that in about 3 months.

The Chapters in Which A Lapsed American Tries to Reinsert Himself Into Society

2008-12-27T01:11:00.007+01:00

Hey folks. Well, I might not be in good old Europa anymore but I can still write a blog right? In fact, I was so far behind that I really have quite a few stories and locations coming up. In the future look for Amsterdam, Cologne, The Canary Islands, Mexico, and much much more! Today's unrelated pictures are from a trip I took to Castle Lictenstein and the alluringly names Mist Cave.
Today I'm going to try something different. Having been absent for the states for so long I sort of feel like a foreigner myself. So in this blog entry I am going to test my Americanosity the only way I know how.
I am going to guess movie plots by the name alone. I know, I know, but I really think that if I can get at least 50 percent right it will prove something about me. I haven't been exposed to any advertising for any of the movies that are out in theaters right now (except maybe know who it stars from a movie poster) and I don't have any prior knowledge. So... here... we...go.
Marley & Me
1st Guess: A touching biopic about the narrators close but often confusing relationship with reggae great bob Marley. Some original footage is included but mostly its completely fictionalized. The Marley family fought hard to have it not be made but what can you do, white people wanted to make it. It's probably so-so.

2nd Guess: Marley is the name of either a dog or monkey or seal that is friends with a child. The pet probably doesn't talk but is personified in other ways (maybe it eats dinner at the table). Heatwarming family fun for all. The mother is divorced and meets a man through the dog's antics. A bad movie.
What it is according to IMDB.com's plot synopsis: A family learns important life lessons from their adorable, but naughty and neurotic dog.

Score: 100 Americas out of 100!!!!

Wow, off to a great start. Maybe I knew what this was about subconciously somehow but I am pretty impressed with myself. You can not count this one if you want, it seems almost impossible that I would have just guessed so accurately.
Bedtime Stories
1st Guess: J-horror imported and worsened for American audiences. A creepy little girl with straight black hair is an evil ghost and no one knows why. She terrifies children who are hearing bedtime stories or something. Starring almost mute but very pretty blonde actress with no personality. Not worth seeing.

2nd Guess: M Night Shamalyian's (not gonna spell check that) newest movie. Three vignettes told in the style of bedtime stories. M. Night is the narrator and he is bluntly self inserted reading the stories to his own real-life son. The first one is about ghosts, the second aliens, the third some kind of stupid monster. There are three twists in the stories and then a 4th even larger twist at the end, like maybe the stories were real and the narration was actually a story. It is exremely bad.
What it is according to IMDB.com's plot synopsis: A family comedy about a hotel handyman whose life changes when the lavish bedtime stories he tells his niece and nephew start to magically come true.

Score: 40 Canadas out of 100 Americas.

I was pretty far off with the percieved genre, who would have thought a movie called "Bedtime Stories" was actually for kids? I am giving myself points for guessing that bedtime stories would magically be coming true.
Yes Man (I know that this stars Jim Carey somehow)
1st Guess: A long awaited sequal to Liar Liar in which Jim Carey can now lie as much as he wants but he has to say yes to everything people ask him to do. He goes sky diving and stuff and then maybe gets tricked into committing a crime when some femme fatale discovers his flaw. Hilarity ensues further when he is asked at police headquarters if he would like to be cavaty searched. Everything is ok in the end. Movie is so bad it makes you wish Jim Carey had stopped acting after Ace Ventura 2.

2nd Guess: Jim Carey is a magical elf that has the power to say "yes" to people's wishes. He goes around giving people exactly what they want with glee but it turns out that sometimes exactly what you want is not exactly what you need. He also learns this lesson despite being some kind of mythical being. Maybe he falls in love. A movie I wouldn't see ever.
What it is according to IMDB.com's plot synopsis: A guy challenges himself to say "yes" to everything for an entire year.

Score: 80 Texases out of 100 Americas.

Whelp. Wrap it up American Movie Industry. I've got you down cold. Except maybe the source of his saying yes is self induced and not magical, but otherwise a pretty awesome guess. Maybe the movie is just named really well. By the way, I tried this very same self-experiment about 8 months ago and it turned out pretty awesome. I went to Europe. Consequently this might not be.
Seven Pounds (starring the Fresh Prince)
1st Guess: Will Smith has to lose or gain 7 pounds in order to land an important movie roll. It is really important to him for some reason and is very dramatic. Maybe he isn't an actor but is either a boxer or a wrestler who needs to be of a certain weight class to compete. I am kind of at a loss, 7 pounds being important enough to be a title is kind of tough. Regardless, he is gruff and unlikable until a woman cracks his hard exterior. Probably not too bad since Will Smith is in it, but I'm still not going to see it.

2nd Guess: There is some important object that weighs 7 pounds that Will Smith has to transport over some distance. This is made difficult by the presence of ENEMIES and explosions. Possible things weighing 7 pounds: 7 pounds of drugs, a baby, a crystal skull. This movie sounds completely awesome, he might even say "Aw Hell Naw" in it.
What it is according to IMDB.com's plot synopsis: An IRS agent with a fateful secret embarks on an extraordinary journey of redemption by forever changing the lives of seven strangers.

Score: 20 Frances out of 100 Americas. :( :(

I got this one pretty wrong but I have to blame the title. I mean, what the hell? 7 pounds? I am giving myself a few points because I am still absolutely sure about the love interest. I might see this movie.
Valkyrie
1st Guess: I know it's not an enormous epic special effects extravaganza with a huge budget about legendary scandanavian warrior women in some fantasy world, but how cool would that be? More likely it's some modern woman who is brave about something and is therefor just like a Valkyrie. Maybe she kills men or maybe she gets raped. I don't care for it on a number of levels.

2nd Guess: Could also, inexplicably, be a war movie. I am thinking WWI or WWII, named after some secret file or some secret batallion or some secret ship. Maybe there were women fighting in the war SECRETLY. It's very gritty and uses a shakey-cam. I would rather not.
What it is according to IMDB.com's plot synopsis: Based on actual events, a plot to assassinate Hitler is unfurled during the height of WWII.

Score: 90 American Samoas out of 100 Americas!
I am pretty impressed here. Maybe again this is a case of vaguely repressed knowledge, but I think I am just a good guesser and a good American. It sounds kind of cool actually. Probably it is a femme fatale who tries to assassinate him and she probably does get raped at some point.
Well, this exercise was pretty awesome. Tune in next time when I do a few more since this was so fun. Peace fellas, keep on readin.
Castle Count: 11 by the way

An Intractable Moron Goes Home

2008-12-16T22:02:00.006+01:00

WASSSSSUP!!!!
Haha, it's me, yer bro, an Intractable Moron. Jesse is too busy getting his bags packed and flying back to America to do a farewell blog so he asked me to do it for him (these are pictures of some lame town he was living in for like 2 months called tubbington or some lame s**t like that)
So I guess I am pretty happy cause guess why? I'm going back to America too, the greatest country on earth.
And todays blog entry is gonna tell you why sucka
First we have way awesomer stuff. You know like pink polo tshirts with popped collars and big SUVs although I guess they got less popular since some exonomic crisis or something (I love that game).
Second we have the baddest states, New Jersey, Texas, Boston, man there are so many great ones I forgot to name them all. Like california, I forgot to name that. Do you think that some lame s**t like baden-wuteverburg can compete with that (its got bad in its name for a reason!)
Hell no because you can't mess with the united state's states, these states don't run (not even from iraq!)!
Third of all how come Europitians are always talking out they mouth like they've got the most progressive countries or whatever when really they are a bunch of fassists. If have youre so free then how come you cant have guns?? Show me your guns europe and then we can talk like real men do (with guns).
Step four, sometimes on german magazine covers or books or something you can see a chick's titties right on the cover. Can you believe that s**t? Can we get something like that going down in america too? That one didnt have anything to do with the united states but ive been thinking about it a lot
And finally the fifth and final and most important reasons why I LOVE the united states better (never forget!) is because of all my awesome brosefs and brosefinas who are living there. THEY ARE CRAZY AND OUT OF CONTROL. Man I love you guys and so I'm coming back to chizill again w you all!!
Maybe not forever though, europe rocked pretty hard and so i'll probably come back some day like maybe when i'm not out of money!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo

-An Intractable Moron

So What's so Great about the USA?

2008-12-15T14:18:00.005+01:00

I don't know, but there's some appeal there still for me, or else I wouldn't be so excited about getting back. Unlike with Germany these reasons haven't been sitting in my head for the last months so I'll just have to see what I can come up with as I go along. Today's pictures are from my drive from Konstanz to Tuebingen (yes, we're leaving Konstanz now). Stopped on the way there at Insel Reichenau (featuring a church with the oldest murals in the europe or something) and Schloss Hohenzollern.
Well, for one there's costs. Everything is cheaper in the US. I guess this is the benefit of capitalism that is supposed to outweigh the threat of multiple debilitating stock market crashes. Seriously, things are that much cheaper. I can't count the number of times I've walked by a store window and seen things priced at levels that make me wonder if they're not secretly made of solid gold. I once saw a toy store selling an empty cardboard box for 20 euro. What exactly is it that can cause a hammer or a rocking horse or a sweater so expensive? I can only assume it has something to do with the government.
And there's another thing, everything goverment related costs much less. Want to know how much my driver's license cost me? 20 US dollars. The europeans reading this are probably just spilled their herbal teas all over their outdated computers. My passport? Only a little bit more. It's kind of frightening how much they expect you pay in Germany for these things. Anyone want to post what they paid for theirs in the comment section? (I know, this is a perfect example of an American talking about money. Did you guys know this was a stereotype they had about us?)
Speaking of outdated computers, technology doesn't seem to arrive here as quickly. In fact, nothing pop-culture and/or recreational does. Movies, TV shows, songs, technology, even my precious precious video games are all a few months late and at greatly expanded prices. I guess this is why America still matters, we have all the cool stuff.
A different but related point, the rap music is much better in America. There's just no comparison. Sure, Germany can claim to be the death metal champs (if they really want that title), but no one keeps it real or gets it crunk like America. Is there any other culture in the world that would come up with the concept of "making it rain"?
For fun, German Rap Youtubes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmQjCtuk2SY (from my girlfriend's hometown, Witten)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49KWQHQ1XFw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8nA_uOcEnc (from Berlin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJPq0KN0YYQ (this one has a video!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJHquLENKxM (German attempt at XZibit, if you're only going to watch one watch this one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jvX_yMxc-8 (These guys are pretty cool and they're from right around here, love this video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4trBWTbzPw (at 1994 this must be German first-wave. Also featuring a REAL BLACK PERSON that they've imported from somewhere and oh my god a rapping Turkish Girl at 2:40)
Last time I was comparing I talked about how nice it is that nothing is standardized here. There's another side to that coin however, there is a safety in standardization. When you walk into a starbucks you can be sure that you're getting a good cup of coffee at a large size. I don't really drink coffee so I don't know how good this example is, but bare with me. If you order a coffee in a cafe in Germany you could be getting something the size of shot glass or a normal cup, something so black you can hardly drink it or something so light you can hardly taste it.
I feel like I'm getting really nit-picky now, but these small things add up. No one gives you water in Germany. I've been thirsty almost the whole time I've been here and that's because there are no public water fountains and no free drinks at restaurants. This might not sound much but it really adds up. Even when you do break down and order a water it's usually in a glass that would be called very small by American standards. The entire country must be dehydrated all the time.
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, the diversity of cultures in what I really miss. No matter how much it has strayed from it's origins America is still the melting pot. In Germany people have more or less agreed to one set of expectations, this is what makes much of what is so admirable about Germany possible. However you will never find a more diverse group of people in one country as you will in America. Interactions of culture are no where more complex and even better this is all encouraged.
Overall my explanation of these differences can be (over)simplified down to one point. America is young, Germany is old. America is still trying new things, changing, evolving. It is a living nation and it still has a lot of work ahead of it before it comes to rest with it's own place in the world and in history. The really exciting part of Germany's story is over. I say this not to be insulting, this is a good thing. It allows the country to run really smoothly and for it's people to have unparalleled comfort and security. Contrary to America, no one is saying that Germany is going to stop mattering within the next 10 to 20 years. Perhaps in a five hundred years America will look more like Germany, it's something worth aspiring to.
Castle Count: 10

An Intractable Moron Visits Europe

2008-12-13T00:38:00.006+01:00

Hi everyone jesse's takin a break from blogging and so he asked me, an intractable moron, to write today's update for him. I'm supposed to talk about what things about europe I liked but lets be real europes not much of a country so its gonna be a short list lol
just kidding europe has been pretty good to me so far, but its no USA. Seriously god bless those 48 eagles (the states are the eagles, I don't count those other 2), never forget.
Anyway whats good about euope is mainly i think the free drinking
you can drink in public and anywhere and no one gives you a hard time, this one time I saw dude getting wasted in a church I SWEAR
And also kids are allowed to drink. or maybe thier not and just nobody cares if they do but really its the same. And this one time I went to amsterdamn and you KNOW what they do theyre am I right? HaHA just playing yo I don't admit to anything ;-))
so I guess number 1 is drinking, but it costs so much money. at first i thought it wasnt so expensive here just normla but than i noticed that they charge all your debit card in EUROES and that costs more for some reason and also my bank was a total DICKS about it and some kind of charge who knows.
the other cool thing is sometimes girls walk around with no shirt on on beaches. I havn't actully seen this but I heard on one message board that it's pretty common. I'd like to see that if you know what I mean ; )
But i guess it wouldn't be so great if they didn't shave there armpits I mean come on how gorss cant it possibly get?
And anoter good thing is that the girls here aren't so fat as they are in merica. Like if you ever walk through a wallmart DAMN thats some fat people and its not like that here for some reason.
Oh and also they eat trancefat here like ALL THE TIME I knew that stuff wasnt really bad for you they know whats up, If its so bad for you how come all of euopre aint fat huh??
So over al I think it was a good kind of thing to go to eurpoe because i saw a lot of things like arches and churchs and castels and old things like that but its worse cauze noone speaks english here and thats SUCKS
and also they have burger kings and stuff but the menu is different and it costs more what is UP With that?
One time I saw a anarchist
PEACE (-<)

-An intractable moron
(these pictures areof Insel Mainau or whatever its like a germany walt disney world but with plants and gardens instead of rides ops I almost forgot to say it what it was lol)

It's the last days

2008-12-11T23:35:00.005+01:00

Well, this is it, the start of my last week in Europe. As part of my wrap up I'm going to talk about the differences between Germany and America a bit, think of it as the conclusion section of this blog. Today I'm going to talk about some things that are undoubtedly better about Germany (this will be accompanied by pictures of lake Konstanz and its' many ducks).
Keep in mind these are just opinions so you don't have to get all huffy. Also it's by no means a complete list, so maybe I'll add more later when I think of it
1) The whole traffic system. Not only does Germany have the famously speed-limitless autobahn which I've had the pleasure of driving on several times, but everyone follows traffic rules here. I'm not talking about senseless things that you'd get a ticket for in the states but common coutisies that you just usually don't expect. Not a single time, for example, did someone pass me on the right. Traffic in the right lane always moves slower and the left lane always moves faster. If you're in the left lane and someone is coming up really quickly behind you, you simply get out of the lane and then they pass. It's like everyone really has agreed to all this, there hasn't been a single exception. Another thing is that I haven't heard anyone honking their horns. They're all just cooperating to make driving as efficient an experience as possible. How very German of them.
2)Related to above, the laws. They are way ahead of us in social progressiveness in Germany and not just because posession of small amounts of marijuana is decriminalized. They just don't bother with victimless crimes here. I have never gotten a parking ticket in Germany and you'd better believe I've done some illegal parking. Additionally the cops themselves are courteous and helpful, almost as if they got into this job not to tourture teenagers but actually to assist people. I was pulled over once because I was driving poorly. It was really late at night and I was nearly falling asleep. The police officers didn't even test me for drunkenness, they just took my word. Not only that but I got the impression I wouldn't have gotten a ticket even if I were drunk. No harassment, no intimidation, they just helped me. They told me not only how to get to my destination (I was a bit lost) but they even told me of a nearby hotel that wasn't too expensive. Now THAT is a public servant.
3) This is a tough one, but the way they have dealt with their grusome past. Almost everyone here takes the whole WW1, 2, holocaust thing very seriously. The anti-nazi movement is much bigger than the nazi movement, they teach about it in schools non-stop, there are memorials everywhere, and everyone is really, really sorry. More than that though, the government actually admits wrongdoing, and actually pays for it. My grandmother still gets checks from Germany. Classy. I don't see Japanese or African Americans getting any reperations and the bone we threw to the Native Americans is insulting. This is the only way you can deal with a thing like this and they really get it right.
4) Non-standardization. Of buildings, restaurants, stores, people. Nothing is the same here. The rooftops are slanted and the streets are often not a uniform size and direction. People aren't trying to fit in to one particular mold here and you can't find more than one of the same restaurant in almost any town. Sure sometimes you long for the safety of standardization, but most of the time it's oppressive. They have chains here and there, but it's not like America where most small businesses have been swallowed up by enormous chains.5) Environmental stuff. They really take it seriously here, it's something I just assumed people didn't have the capacity for after living in America for so long but boy was I wrong. The amount of recycling is astounding. Every trashcan is subdivided into 3-6 sections and everyone does their part. There is almost no litter and everyone is also conserving water and electricity. It's like someone sat Americans down and told them how serious everything was going to be if they didn't clean up their act AND they actually listened. It really makes me wonder what is wrong with my country that we are so behind on this.Ok, that's all I've got for now I think. I am sure there's more, but this is already like the wordiest blog entry even and this gives you an idea. Love this country, xoxo, Jesse

The Wonderful Life of Peter Lenk

2008-12-10T20:49:00.006+01:00

Peter Lenk, famous German sculptor.
I think it's safe to say that this guy singlehandedly makes Konstanz interesting. I think it's his hometown or something. Whatever the reason, they've decided to positively cover the town with his art.
It's a stange choice for a town that is still in many ways true to it's medieval roots.
He's got these statues all over Konstanz-
The town's main sqaure
The harbor
The old town
The middle of the lake
even in Meersberg.
He works in, at least, both bronze and stone
And his topics range from religious
to sexual
to political
They are pretty much everywhere and everyone just walks by them as if they weren't obscene at all.
The thing that doesn't make sense to me is that Germans are usually so reserved, and yet this guy-
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that I really like this stuff. I mean, who wouldn't?

I'm so Tired of this Trip to Europe...

2008-12-06T00:05:00.003+01:00

Time to go on a vacation!
I'll be in the Canary Islands for the next few days taking awesome blogging pictures
In the mean time enjoy these images of the first snowfall I experienced here, all the way back in October
Snow's a big deal for a Florida-native, you know?
Pathetic little snow men, you only know the world of cold! I'm going to a tropical island!

Just Some Pictures (Signs & Advertisements)

2008-12-04T19:49:00.006+01:00

I love these updates, they're low-effort high-reward
hmm, does something seem a little bit less than professional about these guys? (Berlin)
Berlin
Belfast
Belfast
Cologne
Dublin
Karlsruhe (yes, that's a robot serving wine to some people)
Unfortunately worded drink special, and look at those prices! (Berlin)
Berlin
Tuebingen (classy!)
Konstanz
Konstanz (anyone want to translate this lovely sign?)
Konstanz
Berlin

I think this is the endorsement that pushed him over the line (Berlin)
Berlin
Miersberg
Berlin

Who's ready for another SCHLOSSSS?

2008-12-03T17:36:00.004+01:00

Konstanz is no Berlin; it's a nice place to visit but it doesn't have all the big touristy things, the international culture, the museums and english language theaters. When I was there I was really just living there, not visiting. Consequently I had to get away from time to time.
On this particular day I took a ferry across the lake to Miersberg.
The other methods of transportation just weren't reasonable.
This was the place that V first lived when she moved to here from her sleepy industrial home town. Have to say I envy her, all I got was Storrs, Connecticut for my college experience.
But then again I do live in Florida, which is like paradise on earth to germans.
Miersberg is famous for basically the same reasons as Konstanz plus they make wine there *that is a wine place, above this text, I think.
So anyway, the other thing that this little town has is a schloss, the german word for castle, and I know that my castle count is very important to you guys. Here I am futily guessing at what number I am up to in front of it.
By the way, the castle count is at 9, but if I did this all in order and really counted all of them it's probably be at about 15. And to image I'd never seen a real castle before this whole thing.
V thinks I'll get sick of them eventually. Yeah, and she'll get sick of Florida eventually.
It just is going to take a little longer than 3 months when you've had your whole life without it.
I am already starting to miss Germany and I haven't even left yet

I've Got a Golden Ticket

2008-12-01T21:29:00.002+01:00

To a real, working, Swiss chocolate factory!
I wish I could say that I don't have any pictures because the awesome tour was so secret that they had to prevent their candy making techniques from falling into the hands of the evil Slugworth. No, they had an even more extreme way to make sure no one finds out anything, all their signs are in GERMAN! (any German readers want to translate this 6 golden rules to quality chocolate for me?)
Oh, and also, there was no tour. I know! It's an outrage! I guess I just figured that all chocolate factories had awesome tours. Instead, enjoy this picture of a plaque from the lobby.
It wasn't all bad, they had a bunch of free samples and we bought a bag of 10 freshly made chocolate bars for like 2 euro. However, that's not a blog entry by itself, a blog entry needs pictures! Well, I did manage to take pictures of goats. A whole field of them right behind the train station next to the factory.
Also, please note, these are like the only pictures of Switzerland that I have even though I went there a few times. So here it is, beautiful Switzerland!

Sea-Life

2008-11-29T22:16:00.005+01:00

I admit it, I love aquariums. I know, I know, it's cruel to the fish or whatever, but come on, they're soo cool looking.
Anyway, when I have the chance to visit an aquarium that also has a mission of environmental protection to help sooth my guilt you'd better believe I'm all over that.
The SeaLife aquarium in Konstanz is such a place. Run by Greenpeace, it's a theme aquarium through-and-through (have I mentioned yet how much I love things with unnecessary themes?), it not only tries to have an environmental message but also follows a kind of path from the start of the Rhine in the Alps all the way to the North Sea. This is a recreation of the caveman from which it springs.
At first the Rhine doesn't have much stuff in it, mainly jellyfish I surmise. I don't remember much (besides it being awesome), so I'm going to have the order of my pictures and some colorful exposition do most of the story telling.
The there were fish. This tank seriously has like a million fish in it. I think at this point we're in the part of the rhine that flows into Lake Konstanz. These guys also live in the lake right outside this building. The ones inside are lucky, they have free heating- see how environmentally sensative?We're at the a port city from which the Rhine flows into the sea now. Notice the plague rat? This place has a sence of humor, big rubber things all over the place.

Here we're getting close to the sea I think maybe? Oh, I remember, this is a ship wreck. It was cool, they recreated a tide with a wave machine. The fish were being pushed all over the place, not ideal for you and me but that's their thing, whatever floats your boat I guess (haha).
This is the shark and ray tank and now we're officially in the North Sea. Check out these awesome youtube videos of sharks, rays, and octopi.
Octopus
Rays 1
Rays 2
And this guy is just chillin, I took a picture of him cause he's so silly lookin'. Keep on keepin' it real my man. Sometimes I feel just like him, you know?
I don't know where this is in our little journey, but he's a pretty small guy. I guess he lives in the ocean too?
Oh, now I remember, these guys all live by the bottom in reefs and stuff.
They had this big glass tunnel that you could walk through and there were huge fish and eels and sharks and stuff. I am like 8.
And now, some coral, so that people don't get over-excited I guess.
They also had some kind of ice age fossil exhibition (represented by this awesome guy) but it cost like 2 extra euro. Extra? For skeletons when I just saw living sea creatures? No Thank You!

Where Dead People Live

2008-11-28T23:33:00.005+01:00

If you like bland, inoffensive 'funny things that children say' quotations I'm sure you love this title.
These are pictures of a cemetery I went to in Konstanz
Notable, I think, because there's a big section dedicated to jews. Yeah, that kind of thing is a little rare in Germany.
Something to love about Germany- the variety. Nothing is homogenized here- not the cafes, not the houses, not the tombstones. No rows upon rows of identical stuff here.
Although, admittedly, they look like they'd be more painful to fall on this way.
Here's something you don't see every day, Hebrew transliterated into German- how far we've come~

...hey listen, sometimes I just have some pictures to post, ok? Not every day is going to be a entertainment roller-coaster, just look at the nice cemetery.

Art Border!

2008-11-27T16:27:00.004+01:00

Well, at least it keeps the philistines out.
Remember how I mentioned that Germany borders Switzerland in Konstanz?
This is what the actual border, the part that isn't in the lake, looks like.
It's the worlds only art border (I think) and it's made of sculptures inspired by the major arcana of the Tarot
They don't even have armed guards! Crazy Europeans, what're they thinking?
The downside is, unfortunately, that I never got a Swiss stamp in my passport, they just let me through every time. The terrorists win.

Velcome to Baden-Virtenberg

2008-11-25T21:07:00.004+01:00

My adopted state for the last 2ish months.
Yeah, that's right, Germany has states. And I totally knew that before I got here. Baden Wirtenberg is Germany's southernmost, it's in the west. Bavaria is our neighbor to the east and to the north is some places no one's ever heard of.
The first place you're going to see and the first place I lived is Konstanz (or Constance).
It's right on the Swiss border and it's interesting for a few reasons, one of which is just that, the enormous eponymous lake which has a border in Austria, Switzerland, and of course good old Deutchland.
Of course it's got Alps surrounding it. On a clear day you can see them. This happened maybe twice and I guess I didn't have my camera. And it was fall while I was living here, that means pretty leaves even in dreary old Europe.

The other thing it has going for it is an interesting history and a few famous people that are from there, but I'll get to that later. The building below is from 1349 for example, older than all of America (except for native people which nobody counts anyway for some reason).
Let's face it, it's not berlin, got to maximize the blog entries I'm gonna get out of this place.
Welcome to Konstanz!

HAHA Fooled You Guys!

2008-11-24T20:40:00.002+01:00

I'm NOT done with all the holocaust stuff.
This delightful architecture is Berlin's Holocaust memorial. It's positively enormous. I went there months ago but I guess I'm getting around to it now.
There's a museum attached but there was a 'no-pictures' policy. At the museum they had a searchable database of those who died, I actually found some of my relatives. The Germans have always been good at classifying and organizing, as we can see above.
This is, I think, the largest memorial in the world. Don't quote me on that, but it is REALLY big. It feels completely cold walking between these stone columns even when it's warm out. Compared to other memorials, it is really good at creating a feeling. There is no thinking, no interpretation involved, just sensation. Really interesting.
The columns themselves are interesting too, the ground they're on is never even and they're all different sizes with slightly varying amounts of space between them. They are kind of reminiscent of coffins or tombstones. Kind of like a cross between those two things.
This is also the day I went to Checkpoint Charlie, one of the border crossing points between east and west Berlin. I don't know why I didn't mention this earlier, but here's the last Soviet flag, lookin pretty stylish.

We'll get back to the present soon, I promise, just want to make sure I don't forget this stuff.

Just Some Pictures

2008-11-22T16:38:00.005+01:00

I have too many good pictures that don't fit into any real blog update so I'm going to do a couple of these random picture things every once in a while. No explanation, no narration, enjoy. Maybe some will have some narration, maybe. We'll see how this works out.

Oh, and anyone who can guess where these are from (besides V) get's instant BlogCred (BC).

That Place with the Musicians

2008-11-21T23:30:00.004+01:00

I don't know how or why I forgot about this but I guess I did
I went to Bremen, quite a while ago now
Actually I went to Bremen twice, funny story. I thought I had booked the flight to Scotland for the 18th but I actually booked it for the 19th. Found out when I arrived at the airport.
However, this turned out to be a lucky enormous error because I had also forgotten my passport in Berlin.
So what I did was rented a car and drove back and forth in one day and caught my flight the next.
I plan on doing a whole update about driving here some time so I'll save my comments on the autobahn for then.
Bremen, by the way and in case you can't tell by the pictures, is a great city. Up until then I had only been in Berlin and Bremen was a lot quainter, prettier, and European city while still maintaining all the conveniences of a metropol.
Of all the cities i've been to in Germany I think Bremen is the one I'd most like to live in and that's a pretty big statement.
So why not give Bremen a try? This blog post paid for by the Bremen Association for Getting People to Come to Bremen.

Sachsenhausen part 2

2008-11-20T19:16:00.004+01:00

Go read yesterday's post first to catch up on what's going on. I mean, if you don't want to that's up to you but you'll be missing out on some continuity.
This is where the original crematory was, a crematory is used for burning bodies. Even though it wasn't an extermination camp, this concentration camp ended up killing a whole lot of people, especially near the end when loss was inevitable.
The remains of the more recent crematory, seeing this was really creepy.
I never really figured out why everything was so wrecked up here, maybe allied bombing?
These used to be prison cells, I think.
People come and leave tokens, it's nice to see that a lot of people have been here.
I have to admit, I was curious about how the Germans would deal with their history in places like this. As a rule it is done with as much gravity and humility as is possible. It's interesting how much the war changed them as a people, nationalism is now almost unheard of here.
This was an execution trench, it was used pretty much how you would imagine.
This was the most intense part of the camp, this little side area with the ovens and the trench. It apparently also has the ashes of it's victim's scattered right around here.
This is that soviet prison camp I was telling you about before, you know, the one they used for political dissidents. What a strange history this country has.
Inside the mini soviet museum that accompanies this section of the camp. There are museums everywhere, every building has another. Too many to even look at.This is the monument the East Germans erected here. There's something about soviet monuments, you can only take good pictures of them when lying on the ground. I wonder if this is intentional?
This is where all the prisoner's quarters were. They were made out of wood so they haven't been preserved.
The camp's prison.
At this point my camera just stopped working, it's just as well since I had seen almost everything by this point. Notably absent were the preserved insides of some prisoner's housing. Like I've said, this place was pretty horrible and this wasn't even one of the particularly atrocious or infamous camps. I miss writing fun blogs, I'll be back tomorrow with something uplifting maybe. Don't get too down guys!

Sachsenhausen

2008-11-16T15:04:00.007+01:00

So what's on your list of things you have to visit if you go to Germany? If you've got Grandparents who were Holocaust survivors or are jewish or have ever met a jewish person on that list might be "go to a concentration camp".

Since I have all three of these things going for me it was more or less a must. You don't really enjoy doing it but I guess you have to. Is there an analogue to this for other countries? Maybe like having to go to ground zero if you're in New York city.I've waited on this one for so long because I'm having kind of a hard time figuring out how to present it. This is one of the last things I did before I left Berlin, yeah, it was that long ago. So anyway, I don't think I can talk about in an entertaining way, it was pretty intense. So I'll just present the pictures and talk about them. This may make for some boring blogs but w/e, this will be about learning too. So this is the outer wall, the prisoners walked along this street on their way in.These are the former SS guard houses where they did training. This concentration camp is called Sachsenhausen, by the way. It was the closest Concentration Camp to Berlin and was mainly used for political prisoners although eventually a lot of jews were shipped there.It was intended to be the model upon which all other concentration camps were based and one that could be readily inspected and monitored. This was the alpha concentration camp, so to speak. This is where they came up with the whole idea.It's interesting to see how the various people who've been in charge of this sight since the war ended have dealt with it. It was in East Germany after the Soviet's took over and they demolished most of the smaller buildings and put up an enormous monument. They also turned a part of it into their own prison camp. Now it's back in the hands of Germany proper and they've added a lot. I don't know if there's anyone, besides maybe israelies, who take the holocaust more seriously than Germans.They have really well developed museums and various and usually impressive monuments all over the country. Seeing how Germany is dealing with it's terrible legacy makes me wonder what the hell we're doing with all those native americans, japanese, and blacks over in America (in a word, nothing). My grandmother still gets checks from Germany every month.
The other famous gate that has this written on it is in Auschwitz, I think. It says "Work will make you free".
This is where the prisoners gathered every morning for a sort of roll call.
These are the few remaining prisoner's barracks that remain. This is where, I believe, those that were sick got put. Although no one stayed sick for too long in the conditions there.
This is the medical building where autopsies were done on the dead and cause of death was determined. This wasn't an extermination camp so every death had to be recorded and categorized. Obvious creulty or murder weren't acceptable causes so there were a lot mysterious deaths.The stairs lead down into the basement, a morgue, where bodied were stacked to the ceiling.
When I was there I knew something about how many people died there on the average day. I've since forgotten, but it was some horrifying number.
This was the room where the autopsies were performed. Selected prisoners often had to do this as the SS guards and doctors didn't want to touch the diseased bodies, their accounts of what went on here is pretty terrible.
I'm gonna do this in more than one installment, because it's just too much. Don't get too down guys, we'll be having fun again soon. What can I say, there are just some things you have to talk about.

Take one last look at Ireland

2008-11-12T19:50:00.005+01:00

So, that's it, goodbye to Ireland. Of all the places I've been it's the one I'd most like to spend more time in.
As I said before we actually did make it to beautiful Connemara, but by then it was too dark for pictures. Sorry folks : (
Spent out last day walking around Dublin, what a great city. Goodbye Ireland, you are still missed.
You know they don't have cheddar cheese in Germany, but they do have it in the UK.. It's a real rip-off is all I'm saying. I guess they're too good for cheddar cheese in fancy continental Europe.
Welp, we're back to Germany for more German adventures next time I update. For those following along at home I went from Ireland to Konstanz and from Konstanz to Tuebingen where I am now.
Oh but not for long, tomorrow I am hoping on a train to traveling partner/girlfriend V's hometown in the Ruhr area and from there on to Amsterdam. Maybe blogging will be interrupted again, just warning you.
I am excited about finally showing you the places I've been living, Ireland now seems so long ago, I can barely remember why I took pictures of these things.
...
Ok, I know this one. There's a statue on that bench, it looks like that guy's talking to it. I guess you just had to be there (another good name for this blog). Love you guys, start commenting again or I'm gonna quit.

Happy St. Martin's Day!!!

2008-11-11T17:34:00.005+01:00

Never heard of it? Don't be embarrassed, it's only the cutest holiday ever. Kids make paper lanterns and walk around the streets singing songs at night. As for who the hell St. Martin is, all I can piece together is that he gave a piece of his cloak to someone who was cold. Yeah, that's right, not even the whole thing, a piece. I guess it doesn't take much in these times to be a saint.
Ok, so back in blog land we're still in Ireland driving around in this rental car. Next stop? You'll never guess.
Ok, it's a castle. Castle Count: 8
To be honest I have no recollection of what this one was called or why we went there. I guess it was just on the way.
It looks pretty cool though, buried in the forest like that. Most castles tend to be in places of prominence, you know, so they can rule over things. Maybe the king of the jungle lived here (a lion?).

A Long Awaited Return to this Disjointed Narrative

2008-11-09T13:08:00.007+01:00

So, yeah, I went to my big counseling conference and I'm happy to say it's over. If you care I think it went pretty well, but I know you don't so I'll just not talk about it.
It's time for a return to what this once-proud blog was all about! What exactly was this blog about again?

Oh, right, this stuff.
Last time we left our hero (me, I'm our hero) he was in Ireland and had just gotten back from Belfast, capital of both Northern Ireland and the Dangerzone.

I don't remember if I told you this at the time or not but I had originally planned to go to a bunch of awesome stuff in Northern Ireland but ended up not being able to because public transportation sucks. Determined to not make the same mistake twice I rented a car for one day and set out to drive all the way across Ireland to Connemara national park.
Being the master of my destiny and drive of a rental car I was free to make all sorts of stops along the way. Since it took so long to get to Connemara the stops ended up being the actual trip anyway, which is always the way it is, isn't it?
First stop! Bridgette's Garden. I heartily recommend this place to anyone going to Ireland, it's just about an hour out of Dublin and it's totally worth it. In addition to a fancy sundial (the largest in the ____)
and a bunch of other cool stuff (I think this was called a faerie fortress or something equally lame)
they had 4 landscaped gardens, each representing one of the Celtic seasons.
In case you didn't know (what? you mean you really don't know the 4 Celtic seasons?) they are Samhain (winter) (if you think you know how to pronounce this you are wrong)
Imbolc (spring)
Beltane (summer)
and who could forget Lughnasanh (fall)?

I love things that have themes even though they don't need them, like gardens.
Overall A++, would meander through again.

I am SO happy about Barack Obama

2008-11-05T17:17:00.005+01:00

I went to an election day party last night
It was so crowded that you couldn't even stand comfortably
It was nice to be part of the excitement though
I think the rest of the world (including Germany of course) is more excited about our president than we are. That's a good thing. I'm glad we didn't let them down this time.
I posted a video on YouTube of some German girls singing a song about Barack Obama. It is, of course, in German, so don't watch unless you have a high tolerance for pain and bad camera work.

Here it is (later, when it loads)

Congrats you guys, you really didn't screw this one up.

Pray

2008-11-03T11:53:00.004+01:00

and also, of course, vote. Vote for Barrack Obama. I don't care if you're a republican or a conservative or in the top 5 percent or you have some issue with his stance on social issues. Vote for Obama because the world wants to love America the way it used to in the pre-bush days. Every country in the world wants Obama to win, they'll be very disappointed if we elect another white republican after Bush.
You've got to understand how the world sees us right now- it's not pretty. The good news is we can redeem ourselves in the eyes of the world. All the talk of the past years about America losing relevance and no longer being a world power, this is our chance to do something about it. We have an invitation back into the good graces of the global community. Ok, that's all my polical ranting, back to the travel blog. But so help me god, if you people fuck up so badly that Sarah Palin becomes president somehow I might just stay over here in Europe.

Ok so, what's new? Well, I've moved again.
I'm now in a place called Tuebingen which is about a 2 hour drive north of where I was before, in Constanz. I know I haven't blogged about Constanz at all, but I'll get around to it. Just want to keep you guys updated with what's actually going on. The new place is wonderful, so clean and quiet compared to the horrible dorm housing we had last month.
We didn't even have internet there, it was like torture basically.
The bad news is for the next few days I'm preparing for this counseling conference I'm going to so that's going to mean no blogging. But stick with me and I'll be back early next week at the latest, able to devote my full attention to this stupid blog instead of being pulled in a million directions at once.
Love you guys, hi to you all, each one of you individually, I'm typing this for you!

I Unknowingly did Something ill-advised

2008-10-29T16:41:00.004+01:00

That's a good alternate name for this blog if you think about it. I went to Northern Ireland.
When making this plan I didn't think twice, but aparantly the war thing that they had going on up there was not that long ago.
V was kind of surprised when I expressed my desire to go there, but they had all the coolest sounding tourist attractions. I can't be blamed if I knew absolutely nothing about Irish history, I'm an American and it's my right to be uneducated!
It turned out that transportation there was a little more difficult than I had imagined (another good alternate title). We arrived in Belfast on a bus that was two hours late, only to find that even if it had been on time we wouldn't have been able to go to the places we wanted anyway (Giant's Causeway and Kereck-a-rede bridge if you wanted to know) because those buses only go once a day. If you're going to visit Northern Ireland I can only recommend renting a car.
It turned out to be a pretty good day anyway though, even though they demanded we switch back to Pounds once we crossed the border. Belfast is a nice and modern city with a lot of history, plus we only saw two policeman armed with automatic weapons (the universal sign of war-torn-nes).
We got a bit lost, however, and wound up in kind of a bad neighborhood while trying to find the obligatory castle. We got back ok, but boy was that a lot of walking. Never found it, so no castle count this time. I can hear you frowning.
We even ate at an American chain restaurant, Maggianos, the first in all of Europe apparently. I exagerate only slightly when I say it was the best food I've eaten since I got here.

You'll Never Get ye Hands on me Lucky Cathedral!

2008-10-27T17:50:00.005+01:00

St. Patrick's cathedral. Yes, THAT St. Patrick. Maybe this will help...
St. Patrick
Check out those flying buttresses. Those are some hott buttresses (big ups to my highschool history teacher for getting me to remember something like that after all this time).
What is it about Cathedrals is it that fills me with a sense of awe? Maybe it's that they always looks like they're about to crush you.
Not getting to look at the inside of things has been kind of a theme on this trip- I've not been inside any castles and the only way I would have gotten into the Cathedral would have been to actually go to a religious service. No Thank You! Maybe I should start getting up before noon.
Cathedral Count: 4
(I'm sure it's more than this, but I just haven't been keeping track)

Writers, Ireland, and Writers from Ireland

2008-10-26T00:52:00.006+02:00

Sure, we all know and love James Joyce, but did you know who else is an Irish writer? This enormous list of people that's who!
Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Bram Stocker, Johnathan Swift. Yeah I guess all those books in English had to be written by someone and it sure as hell wasn't an American.
Even more impressive is Ireland actually seems to respect and care about it's writers. There are monuments everywhere and these cool quotes on buildings in midtown Dublin. Even the airport was adorned with literary figures.
This is (a very small piece of) Dublin's Castle. Now that I've been in Europe I know longer understand how cities function without a castle. Where does the king live if there's no castle?
It's a very serious place.
Yes, that's right "ORDER". You officially know not to mess around.
Not too serious back here though, they've painted it festive colors. Yes, they painted a castle. Love this city.
I should note that this is still a functional castle. In other words people still use this as some kind of government building. People have desk jobs here, in this castle.

Oh, and, by the way-
Castle Count - 7
In the spirit of the Irish I've decided to honor the writers I appreciate in an appropriate way (admit it, at the beginning of the sentence you thought this was gonna be another drinking joke). Thus I'm putting a list of other blogs that I enjoy on the right side of my page for you guys to peruse.

I know, I know "But Jesse" you think and say "all my emotiono-blogo-investment is in your wonderful blog you magnificent stallion and nobel prize winner". While this is true it can't hurt to have extra stuff to read on the internet right? Check them out some time. After you read mine.

St. Stephen's Green

2008-10-24T01:07:00.004+02:00

I guess that's what this color would be if it were a crayon.My first day in Dublin I just wandered around the city. Let me tell you, it can be refreshing to be around large groups of people again, even for a social phobic like me.
This is St. Stephen's Green, a big park in the middle of the city.
I love ducks. Did I ever mention to you guys that I love ducks?
This isn't a duck but just look at his big floppy feet.
Swans are okay I guess, but they're no ducks. [/duck raving]
This statue is called 'famine' I think, but there's another, more famous famine statue in Dublin so I don't know.
Hhere are some good wallpapers for all of you.
This park was filled with statues as well as magnificent magnificent ducks. There was one of James Joyce that I really wanted to see.
But I never got around to it. Do you know how many good writers are from Ireland? You might after the next update.

Yes, I'm semi-planning ahead now. It's a new direction.

Remember Dublin City?

2008-10-22T16:44:00.004+02:00

I sure do because I was there a few weeks ago. Yes, we're finally leaving the Scotland part of the trip and going to Ireland. I hope everyone is excited.
I'll be honest, at first I wasn't (excited). I mean, I had JUST been in Scotland and how different could it be? Ireland felt almost like an afterthought.
I only got excited on the very day we were leaving. It might sound strange and obvious but the reason I got excited was that I remembered that everything Irish came from Ireland.
That includes Bailey's Irish Cream, which is probably my favorite standalone alcoholic beverage and a number of popular beers. Intoxicants aside I remembered that Irish people come from Ireland, and also St. Patrick's Day and Leprechauns. I was really starting to feel the Irish spirit. And I wasn't even drunk yet (does anyone want me to keep track of the drinking=irish jokes?).
Anyway, once we got there it became obvious that I should have been excited from the begining. Ireland is really, really nice. And furthermore Dublin, where we stayed all 4 nights, is a really nice city. I mean, I had just spent about 10 days in Scotland and I was starting to be convinced that nothing that this part of the world could produce could actually feel like livable. But Dublin proved to be a bustling metropolis, friendly and crowded with people.
And it was back to using Euros! Hurray! Everyone loves Euros!
Anyway, what I guess my point is is that I love Ireland. If there's anywhere I've been so far on my trip that I'd actually consider living in, it's there.
Tomorrow we'll go exploring a little bit and maybe I can show you why I liked Ireland so much.

A Blogging trip to Castle Blog (with the Blogging Team)

2008-10-21T00:53:00.007+02:00

Originally I was going to call this update "A Day Trip to Castle Durotar", because that's what it is about, but then I noticed something on the main page of this crazy website I blog from
BLOGS OF NOTE (and then a list of some 'blogs of note')
It's linked in case you want to see it yourself. Now if you're anything like me you might say, out loud while flailing your arms, "what the heck is a blog of note?!?!?!"
Luckily they had a little link for me to click and here's what they said

Blogs of Note

Interesting and noteworthy Blogger-powered blogs, compiled by the Blogger Team.

"Blogger powered blogs of note compiled by the blogger team?"
:(
Wonderful. I hope that some day I can not only use the same word 4 times in a sentence but also have that word be 'blog'.
I think I'm gonna resolve to never type 'blog' again.
Castle Count: 6

Magical Fairie Magic?

2008-10-19T17:20:00.004+02:00

There's no other explanation for these amazingly old structures.
Unless perhaps, before people had TV or written language they were really bored and had nothing better to do.
Either way these are called Cairns, they once served as burial chambers, maybe.
They're thousands of years old (I forgot how many thousands but it's a lot)
and they're laid out in perfect synchronization with the sun.
One of them has a chamber that would only have been illuminated at the last light of the winter solstice. You can't tell me that's not cool.
Either way, we can all agree that if you stand in the middle of one of these you'll be transported to another universe (as long as you have the magic mirror).

A Day at the Beach, Scottish Style

2008-10-18T00:01:00.005+02:00

Hmm, this doesn't look suspicious.. Yes, let's all go to 'fun beach'. It sounds fun.
Well, more like bitingly cold beach. But at least it's pretty.
I've started to look at physically unpleasant experiences with a new kind of optimism and determination. "At least I will get some good bloggin' pictures out of this" I think.
Hey! Did you know that Scotland is the EU's energy capital? That means they do a lot of oil drilling off shore-there. Even if that water wouldn't freeze me instantly to death I don't think I'd go into it. Actually, according to V this too is BS- the real answer is Iceland, which they apparently aren't counting. Bunch of cowards, afraid of Iceland... It's really quite green... unlike it's larger, icier neighbor...
Here Karol is explaining to me why exactly this is a "fun beach". Something to do with 1682 and some long forgotten social movement I think...
But what's this? Some kind of building half-submerged... No really, we have no idea. A bunker maybe?
A quick lesson in ecology (the forgotten science). The reason the Scottish beach is so wide here is because they've preserved the sea grasses that keep winds from eroding it away. This is why most Florida beaches are rather narrow and/or have artificial sand shipped in from elsewhere. This blog is about FUN FACTS!
But what's this they've done instead?
Why they've built a golf course right next to the ocean. The Scottish aparantly love this pseudo-sport. College kids sit around watching it like it was football or futbol or whatever real sports you all watch in America. Wow was it cold here.
In case you haven't yet looked at enough sea grass. If I were a manatee I'd be in heaven right now (That's not the kind of sea grass we like, it doesn't work like that! [shut up manatee, I'm writin' a blog!])
Anyway, it's time to go, can't feel my fingers anymore.
You know, with a view like this, it's almost enough to get me interested in golf...

..nah, not really.

What a bad sport.

More like GERMany

2008-10-17T02:28:00.003+02:00

Hi Guys! A 'hearty welcome' back to me, Jesse, who hasn't updated in so long that you all have probably forgotten about him or maybe think he's dead or something.
Well, I'm not dead, but I'm close. Not in one way, but in two (A personal best!). Not only have I been without internet for nearly a week (functionally dead), I have a bad cold or flu or something since I've been back in Germany.
Back in Gerany? I'm getting ahead of myself, let me talk about my last days in Scotland.
After Loch Ness I traveled east, all the way to Aberdeen (where all these pictures are from).
I said once that the trip kind of went down hill but I'm not sure that that's fair.
We were staying with a friend and our accommodations, while generously provided, were on the floor of her small bedroom in her apartment style dorm which had 5 other people living in it.
We literally made a bed out of clothing every night and slept on that. And roommates, while nice enough, all smoked, all the time. I'm not a whiner about smokers or anything- my dad smoked when I was a kid, my longest-term girlfriend did too.
But these people just never stopped. They were Italian is what it was. This meant also that they were not familiar with the concept of talking quietly. Or rather, in any volume other than loud shouting.
Needless to say it just wasn't the same as being able to travel about at will, seeing the countryside and with it's many castles and sheep and staying in exotic and cheap youth hostels in tucked into quiet corners of the landscape.
We did do some nice things there though, the most impressive being a castle I will show you tomorrow.
So where have I been? Well, after Aberdeen we traveled to Ireland where we did many exciting and blog-able things. Blogs will be forthcoming.
After that it was back to stuffy, old Germany. I'm now living in a place called Konstanz, but I'm also sick, like I said, so I haven't taken any good pictures yet. Thanks guys, for following my blog through these hard times. Lets do our best together to make this blog great.

Hypothesis: It's not one large monster, but rather a lot of small ones

2008-10-12T00:22:00.002+02:00

Next place I went was Loch Ness, home of the famous monster. No, I didn't see her, but I did learn a fascinating amount about just how much work has gone into proving her (non)existence.
Regardless, I want to believe, hence my theory of pygmy-loch-ness-monsters. If you imagine them right they're very cute. Disprove that, Science!
But wait, Loch Ness has more than not-monsters, they have not-castles too!
This crappy castle is called Urquhart. It's lousy and in ruins. Can you believe they wanted me to pay like 10 pounds to walk around that mess? Jokes on them, I stood on the fence and took pictutres for free instead!
This is somewhere else that same day. To be exact it's at the site of bloodiest battle in all of Scottish history (I think the one from Braveheart). So what's this little hut? Beats me, this was on the coldest day I've experienced here so far and there was no way I was sticking around to read the plaque.
And look, another castle. What? You don't see it? Ok, well this was taken through a fence and it's in the background...

Look, ok, castles are generally a ripoff. I think this one wanted 15 pounds per person! This was justified by the fact that it was the castle, ostensibly, from Shakespeare's MacBeth. Yeah, whatever, I ain't no sucker.

Castle Count: 5

Isle of Skye: GOOD name for a place or BEST name?

2008-10-10T00:32:00.007+02:00

This is a blog entry about the Isle of Skye, a little island off the northwest coast of Scotland.
It's a completely amazing place, with breathtaking landscape abounding. I mean, you really have to look at the pictures on this one.
That's right, for once my clever commentary will not be enough!
This is some famous geological feature, it's really enormous. That road has a 30 degree incline.

This is my favorite place in Scotland, hands down. It's just so empty and huge.There's a person in this picture- that's how big it is.
This is another geological feature, this one has a name I remember- The Old Man of Stor. Throw some extra e's on there and you've got a real Scottish sounding name. Olde Man ofe Store.
Again, there are plenty of impressive rivers and waterfalls. And it lives up to it's name by having some magnificent sky(e)s. Maybe this was just luck, who knows.
A view from The Stor, that old man from before. I am standing on top of him here.
The weather is a fickle friend on the Isle of Skye, in about the space of 10 minutes we had sunlight, clouds, light rain, fog, and hail (yes hail!)
Isle of Skye, I'll miss you.

But who cares about that old stuff- I'm in Ireland now! I don't really know how to handle this- I've got more things to write about Scotland but I'm somewhere else more exciting (to be honest, Scotland went a bit downhill after this and the next day).

Maybe I'll have time to catch you all up when I'm back in boring, stuffy, continental Europe again.

Come on Eilean!

2008-10-08T15:23:00.003+02:00

On this, the day before I leave Scotland, I thought I might share something different with you, my blog audience.
It's another castle.

Castle Count is now at 3, if you're keeping track at home.
This is Eilean Donan, it's unique for being really pretty or on a lake maybe. I don't know, just look at the castle. Listen, it costs like 5 pounds just to get in to one of these places and I think they're much more interesting from outside. But consequently this means I don't know anything about them. Wikipedia it or something.
Imagine waking up with this view and then, I don't know, subjugating some peasants or something. It's good to be the kind or clan lord or whatever they have here.
Tomorrow: Something Really Interesting: The Isle of Skye!

Scottish Highlands

2008-10-07T01:07:00.001+02:00

Come for a drive with me, won't you?

Today we're going from the city of Edinburg, Scotland's capital, to the tiny deserted wilderness town of Glencoe. Glencoe is significant because of it's isolated beauty, or so they tell me. It's right in the middle of the Scottish highlands.

Let's have a good drive, shall we?
We'll see some spectacular hills, bathed in light rare rays of sunlight. It'll be cloudy and rainy most of the time or course.
And mysterious lochs galore! Does this one have a monster in it? No, not this one. Maybe one later...
Bridges and crosses, both very old and no longer up to modern standards.
And look, how surprising, a castle.

This one looks like it's in rather worse shape than previous castles. That's because it's older

The sheep seem to have no respect for the ancientness of this cemetary. There's no telling where sheep are going to turn up in the scottish highlands (they are going to turn up everywhere. there are as many sheep as there are blades of grass).

Another loch (that's lake). Where does all this water come from (besides, of course, the endless rain every day.From rivers of course. The landscape is filled with them too. Most of the hills have several waterfalls rolling down them in a meandering way.

Castle Blackness

2008-10-06T00:53:00.004+02:00

I feel like I should be writing a live journal post with a title like that. Anyway, on the outskirts of Edinburgh there's a sunny little place called Castle Blackness that I opted to visit.
It's right on the ocean.

The thing about castles here that really gets me is just how common they are.
This castle served as a fortress and a prison, unassaibable from land because of it's location. A lot of castle are actually located like this.
I mean, for me, a castle is something special. I mean, just look how castley that is!
This is far from the most impressive castle I've seen by the way. Just look at all those holes... shoddy contstruction.

Aren't you excited for more castles in the near future?

Arthur's Seat

2008-10-05T02:18:00.004+02:00

So I've been raving about this landscape for days now, I think it's time to show you some of it. This is Arthur's Seat, a mountain/hill on the outskirts of downtown Edinburgh that I visited and climbed up on my second day here. This is what it looks like from a distance.It's really quite steep.
This is where you start climbing it... if you're a baby!
I went straight up the side instead. It was REALLY steep. AND it had just rained so it was really SLIPPERY. I am such a MAN.
Pictures of the climb up.
Scottish weather follows a strange pattern, it's really beautiful in the morning and then gets totally miserable for the rest of the day at around 12 or 1. This can also sometimes happen in reverse.
These pictures don't really do the job of conveying the size or scope, so just imagine it's really huge (it is!).

And to prove it here are some pictures taken of the city from the top.
This is the Parthenon or the Colosseum or the Leaning Tower of Pisa or something I think.
In the front, that stylish building is the Scottish house of Parliament, in the back that's a cemetery. Someday all the people in the first will be in the second.
The city and it's bay.
And finally Edinburgh Castle and the high city, this is where the king lives...I would imagine
And here are some pictures taken from the top. Wow, look at that landscape!
I love it here, it's a landscape that takes itself really seriously. Those are some rocks that don't mess around. The buildings here are like that too, I have yet to see one that isn't just building-material-gray.
This is the way I came down, running through grasses that came up to my waist.
And eating wild blackberries. This is the best vacation.

Italian Joke

2008-10-04T01:29:00.004+02:00

Sign in the front of busses in Italy: "Please don't talk to driver, he needs his hands to steer"

In other news, Scotland completely rocks. It's sooo cool.

The landscape is just huge rolling green hills punctuated with equal amounts of sheep and ancient ruins.

Just a real quick update cause I'm tired, some pictures. The city of Edinburgh (pronounced EyyD-IhN-buuuuurghughrhhhhuuuuu) by day. What is this? Really, someone explain to me
Each streets looks like it's straight out of a museum or old timey theme park
There are spires everywhere
And statues, a popular standbye in Europe. This one is in front of a church (jeeze, try a little harder guys, could it get more stereotypical?)
This just looks like a jigsaw puzzle

It's a famous thing!
I don't know, I think that's a castle. Every other building is like a castle here
And here's where the alien mothership crashed into the earth durring the MacLeod/MacSpacemonster feud.
I'm serious, everything in Edinburgh looks like this
Wow, I will upload more tomorrow or the next day because I love you guys.

Updates more regularly for next few days

In Scotland!

2008-10-01T11:32:00.002+02:00

It's great!

I can't upload any pictures now, but I will hopefully have a real internet connection at somewhere I stay within the next few days.

This place is absurd. I mean, aside from getting used to driving on the left side of the road, it's the landscape.
The other day I walked up a mountain called Arthur's Seat and on the way back down found some wild blackberries growing.

I mean really.

It's the best landscape in the world.

And people speak english here.

I can't wait for you guys to see this pictures!

Shoutouts to Lia who actually comments on my blog, big ups.

On Germans and Candy

2008-09-27T01:03:00.002+02:00

Attention Germans!Ginger is not to be used in candy! It is not a pleasant flavor at all and has nothing in common with other candy-standbys like chocolate, fruit, caramel, or nougat. No matter how much sugar or chocolate you put on it, it is still not a candy.

On the other hand your Kahlua filled balls of white chocolate are delicious and classy. And they sell these things to kids! What a wonderful country.
I wonder if anyone has gotten drunk on candy before..
Only one way to find out! BRB

Filmmuseum

2008-09-25T18:51:00.007+02:00

Hi guys,
after a brief period of no internet (that was a scary 15 hours!) I'm back and blogging to you live.

Today I'm going to tell you about yet another museum. I hope you like these stupid things, cause I sure don't.

Actually, I'm excited because today I'm talking about Filmmuseum. I love movies and apparently Germany has enough to do with them that they have a museum.

First and foremost, the filmmuseum is located in Potsdamer Platz, a very cool area. Kind of like a German Times Square.
Specifically it's in the magnificent and entirely un-germany-like Sony Center.
An enormous and dazzlingly lit (at night) complex that contains not only a huge all-english-language multiplex and an imax theatre, but also LegoLand
Where was I? Oh yeah, the museum.It covered German contributions to motion pictures and had a very cool layout, from the moment you stepped into the first room you could tell you were entering THE WORLD OF FILM.
And then you stepped out of the first room and it was pretty much like any other museum. Interesting stuff though.
It's been kind of a while since I've been there so I will remember what these pictures are of as best I can. This is Max Linder, a German Film Pioneer. Maybe like the first or second?
Did you know that the film camera had it's origin in Germany? It was simultaneously invented in a much more efficient way in some other place though, so they lose a lot of the credit. However, the first public showing of a film was right here, in Berlin.
It wasn't long before movies were being made, like this one, here. Dr. Cagliari's Amazing Moving Castle, or something. They had a lot of these neat little models. I wonder who makes them
Because this is a German film museum, they spent a lot of time on Fritz Lange. What, you don't know Fritz Lange? Metropolis? Die Spinnen? M? Well he's really good ok?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Lang
Watch his movies.
They also had a lot about Marlene Dietrich, a 20's movie starlet, including these incredibly racist little dolls that she always took with her when filming.
Other objects d'interest included this, the very first Academy Award. For Emil Jannings and his work on god-only-knows-what.
By the time I left the Museum Patsdamer Platz was humming with activity- it was a big German movie premier! This is where they do those things.
Wall-E! I loved that movie. And, oh my god, there are some celebs. This is now a celeblog. Just check out this girl, she looks like she's probably famous, right?
Seriously, I don't know who this is, but the crowd was going crazy for her. If anyone knows pls let me know in the comments section.

That's all for now people, here are some of the first movies ever shown, by Max Skladanowsky here in Berlin
Serpentine Dance
Boxing the Kangaroo
2 more days in Berlin!

Bears of Berlin

2008-09-24T00:24:00.004+02:00

So, there's something I haven't mentioned about Berlin. Aside from the impressive architecture, rich art scene, and cultural wealth, Berlin also has bears. In fact, they are crazy about bears, it's the city's mascot.

As such they are everywhere. Here is my chronicling of the bears of BEARlin (you see how that works?).
These are the official Berlin Bears, they are everywhere and decorated in various ways
In front of the Humbolt University library
In a mall, right outside a grocery store
In the VolksparkOn the street
On a bus
On Unter den Linden, the Pennsylvania Avenue of Germany
in Prenzlauer Berg, my neighborhood
In fancy Moabit, on a bridge
In Tiergarten

A fitting tribute to Berlin, the city that I'm leaving in about 4 days.

Want More Museums?

2008-09-22T20:46:00.004+02:00

Sure you do!

I went to the Alte Museum (old museum). It was very educational, here are some things I learned (about ancient Egypt, and more importantly, about myself).

Lesson 1: Don't put your fingers on the lens when you are taking an otherwise really great picture which includes both the Berliner Dome and the Radio Tower.
Lesson 2: Nefertiti's head is a really big deal.
Lesson 3: They had a lot of (funny looking) gods.
Lesson 4: Alligators love to party
Lesson 5: Oh god, someone get that child out of thereFor more exciting pics check out this album, it's got mummies by the armful.

Alte Museum

War inna Babylon

2008-09-20T23:23:00.005+02:00

If you know as little about Babylon as I did before I went to this exhibition you might wanna check out it's wikipedia entry. It's pretty cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon

So I told you a couple days ago that I went to an exhibition about Babylon. This update is about that.
The exhibition was called, roughly, Babylon: Truth and Myth. A neat idea to be sure, it was divided into two areas; one historical the other more focused on the Babel myth and legend. This was held in the famous (?) Pergamon, an antiquities museum on museuminsel (museum island) in the heart of Berlin.In case you haven't yet figured this out, this update will use the word 'museum' a lot.

Now this is the first real museum I had been to at this point in my time in Germany and actually the first real museum I've been to in quiet a while. Like, any time in recent memory. So maybe I was easily impressed or something, from lack of museum exposure.

My general rule is to never use the same word twice in two sentences but I guess my goal for this blog entry is to say 'museum' in absolutely every line.
Anyway, it was a really cool museum, having one section for ancient artifacts (think greek and roman statues) and another for Islamic art in addition to the two Babylon areas. I checked out the history first, which featured a lot of actual babylonian relics. It was fascinating at first but eventually became a little bit borring somewhere around the 'farming and agriculture' section (isn't that always where a thing becomes borring?). Lotsa statues, lotsa drawings of Marduk, lotsa tablets with inscriptions by Babylonian kings. Very cool overall.
(ex. The land that does not bow to Marduk I defeat him with my strong weapon -Some King, Babylon, A Really Long Time Ago)

The myth section was the real standout for me, it features a bunch of artistic interpretations of sections of the Babylon story. This is where it becomes interesting, really. Where did the idea of Babylon as the city of sinners come from? Who was this whore of Babylon and can I meet her?
What's the deal with the Tower of Babel? The fall of Babylon? Etc. Etc.
While it was totally awesome to see my favorite Bruegel paintings in their original form, the modern artistic interpretations were easily the most interesting.
Take a look at this modern tower of Babel, for instance.
Now picture that things are being shouted at you in different languages from all around the room and you'll get an idea of what it was like.

However, that was not my favorite- this was.
So some of you may know that Babylon was in modern day Iraq, and some of the people who knew that might know that Saddam Hussein attempted to create historical ties between himself and ancient Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. This piece was created from US magazine covers detailed Sadam's fall from power, glitter, and semen. Yes, semen.

All I can say is I love Berlin and art.

So overall, Pergamon Museum, big recommend. Everyone should go and see it.
I also took a buncha pictures of important old statues or something. Go check out this photo gallery for EVEN MORE CONTENT.
Pergamon Museum

Love you guys,

<3

Jesse

German Movies (Films)

2008-09-18T23:33:00.005+02:00

I'm dying to see a movie, but all they've got is this shit (in German). Wall-E had its big Germany premier today at the Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz, maybe I'll see that.

Will upload pics of that some other time, I think I saw some famous people but I didn't recognize them.

The Stock Market Crash

2008-09-17T23:40:00.004+02:00

has evidently failed to impact the many 9-euro-croissant sellers along Unter Den Linden.

Pretty area though.

Some of Germany's Famous Castles

2008-09-16T01:24:00.003+02:00

Sand castles that is!

I actually saw these within the first week of getting here. When I saw them the sandcastle building contest of which they were a part had already finished and they were half-way destroyed. Part of me thinks this makes them look even cooler, but another part wishes I could have seen the whole thing.

Regret....

It's Getting Cold Outside...

2008-09-14T21:51:00.001+02:00

But really though, it's very cold. If someone wants to send me a hat or something that would be nice.

Subtle Traces of America

2008-09-13T22:36:00.003+02:00

Finally I got to scratch my nostalgia itch a bit by attending my very first AMERICAN MONSTER TRUCK SHOW.
It was right in my neighborohood too, albeit to an area I had not yet been to. It was held at the Sportpark Velodrome, some kind of immense soviet sport structure.
Oh boy, hell drivers! Just like we have in America! This is gonna be good (after 3 or 4 drinks).
American Monster-Truck Motor Euro-Tour?
I had assumed it would be inside the drome, but it was actually a rather smallish event, and outside in the german cold no less.
Still, it ended up being pretty awesome. This is some of the aftermath. Boy, they really ran over those cars...

Check out these videos I took!

I actually put something on youtube!!

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4

This blog just keeps getting better and better! Hopefully someone will start reading it soon!

Pizza Night!

2008-09-12T17:22:00.005+02:00

So V is out tonight working as some kind of guide to an art exhibition and that means I am left to fend for myself for food. Consequently I'll do exactly what I do in the states and order a pizza.

Where do I order from?
Pizza Pimps of course!

I wonder who will deliver it...
That would be the pizza hoes I guess.

In other news I think I'll try to upload at least SOMETHING every day, so there's something between the larger updates. I just have so many pictures.
Kids! Don't forget to brush your teeth! Or I will eat you!

The Sounds of the City are Also for Me

2008-09-11T23:55:00.002+02:00

Hi everyone. Today was an eventful day, went to Germany's famous Pergamon Museum of ancient history. They were having this terrific exhibition about Babylon (I learned a lot!). And yes, I realize the appropriateness of going to a museum exhibition that is largely concerning the collapse of a tower on

SEPTEMBER 11TH (never forget)

I will update about that some other time.

Today is just a bunch of city-life pictures since I am now living in a very urban area in Berlin.

That means, for one, lots of cool graffiti all over the place. I was eating brunch across the street from here at a cafe called "Buy You Happy", best Schoko-waffles in Berlin (based on my sample size of one(1) Schoko-Waffle).
This is the entry-way to my building
and this is the sign for the shop next door, they are a bike-rental place and repair place. Everyone rides bikes here.
Here's the front of a cemetery across from my tram stop.

The most impressive graffiti in the city, however, tends to be on the remains of the Berlin Wall, wherever they are found. The following images were taken at Mauer Park, which has, I believe the largest entact piece of the wall still standing in it's original place. It's become a cool hangout as well as the chosen canvas for graffiti artists of all kinds. The day I went there was this huge cool fleamarket and festival, of which I will upload pictures some other time. (Themes people, themes).

Am I the only one who can only think of

September 11th

on 9/11?

In Germany, obviously, it's not as big of a deal, but I remember last year 50 Cent and Kanye West were both releasing CDs on this day and I found it really tasteless. And when I hear something like "sign up by september 11th for bonus deals" or something, I don't know, it's just a little weird. So could we please stop using this date for things, in short.

This is Where I am Now, But Why?

2008-09-08T21:44:00.006+02:00

So I've moved in to my new place, but at the moment we don't have our own real room. Per se.
We are sleeping in an artist's studio and we'll be moving in to the bedroom when the woman we are subletting from leaves, on

SEPTEMBER 11TH (never forget)

for, of all places, America. Yeah those things next to me in that picture? Art, major art. I've been immersed in art since I arrived, it's quite an art-y city.

For example I was at an exhibition the other day called "always keep a lemon in your pocket" about Mexican superstitions. Yeah, I don't know either.

So anyway, you all know I'm in Germany, but do you know why?

Well, the short answer is I met a girl from Germany. She's really fantastic and I met her in a really interesting way, but that story falls under the umbrella of traveling so I'll post it some other time. I decided, kind of spur of the moment, that I wanted to follow her back to Germany (please note, she wanted me to do this too). I'll call her 'V' for the purposes of this blog (most of you all know what her name is anyway.. but internet anonymity, you know?

Anyway, at this same time I was applying to present at a counseling conference in, coincidentally, Germany. And this all coincided nicely with me becoming rather sick of grad school and feeling like I needed a break. So I went to Germany.

And I'll be here for about 3 more months, back in time to start my school back up in the Spring.

Unless of course Sarah Palin somehow becomes president or vice president. That woman is a monster.

German Cemeteries

2008-09-06T19:37:00.001+02:00

Are really nice.

This is because each individual who has a family member burried in the cemetary is personally responsible for the grave site.

The result is a appealing mixture of completely overgrown wilderness and extremely well mannicured miniature gardens.

So, what then, is the job of the groundskeeper? Well, he goes around and puts little yellow tags on the plots that look too messy. You know, so that the owners will neaten up a bit.

In other news I'm in my new place now. Will update soon.

!! Moving Day !!

2008-09-04T16:11:00.002+02:00

This is a picture of my new street

Goodbye Moabit, thanks for letting me stay for a while

PS- You can click on all of the pictures to see them bigger, some of them are really nice!

Soviet Extravaganza

2008-09-03T16:29:00.007+02:00

Went to Alexanderplatz yesterday, the former heart of the GDR (East Germany)

Pictured above a twice life size statue of communism-originators Marx and Engels. They are facing the famous TV tower, visible from anywhere in Berlin, it was meant to be a showcase of soviet power and technology. It's very tall.

Of course now all the Soviets can do is sell their hats. It turns out that on sunny days the TV tower casts a shadow with a reflection the shape of a cross. This was a bit embarrassing to the atheistic communists who removed quite a few crosses from the city's buildings in their time.
Still, it seems every loves Marx and Engels, amazing how long I had to wait to take a picture with them.

An interesting cultural phenomenon here is "Ostalgie", which translates into basically "Eastalgia".
A glorification of everything GDR, all the hip areas are in the former east. That's where I'm moving to tomorrow. I'm gonna have my own apartment, no more sleeping on Vera's couch.

The Ironic Blog is Dead

2008-08-29T23:40:00.000+02:00

Welcome to the unironic travel blog.

I love traveling, it's a completely fulfilling experience for me and one of the few things I enjoy wholeheartedly and unashamedly. Within the last year I've been to maybe a dozen states, Sri Lanka, Great Britain, Canada, and now Germany. I know I'm not the most voracious traveler, but it is something I like to do with some frequency.

However with this last trip I may have really done it and crossed the border between rookie rambler and expert explorer (ok, maybe this blog will be a little ironic). I have left my friends, my family, my school, my work, and my beloved America behind for a gruelling 4 months abroad. I'll be visiting Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, France, and who knows where else. You may be surprised!

So in short I made this blog, so my friends can keep up with me while I'm gone. Everyone leave lots of friendly comments so that I know you miss me and will be enticed into returning. I am currently living in Berlin in an apartment in the fancy Moabit neighborhood. Here's what I see out of my window.

As this blog goes on I will share stories of past trips I've taken as well as keep you up to date on what's going on with me.

This blog will be heavy on pictures cause I like taken' em'. The first two are from Key West, which is where I went in the days before I left the USA and the last is from, like I said, Moabit, Berlin, Germany. The tags will always say which places the pictures are from in case I don't care to explain in the text.

Ok! Blog START!