- Wrote software for the fastest computers in the world.
- Drank sulfur spring water in Aachen.
- Visited "Bodies".
- Went clubbing in Berlin.
- Visited the Alhambra.
- Heard the orchestra in the Budapest Opera House and drank wine on the balcony during intermission.
- Got my first apartment.
- Visited Auschwitz.
- Started my PhD studies.
- Ate Roman gelato.
- Knocked down a house in New Orleans.
- Competed in the USA national triathlon championship.
- Lost a good friend and mentor in a school shooting.
- Bathed at the Szechenyi Bath & Spa.
- Ate ox tail.
- Ate cock testicles.
- Ate millet mixed with blood.
- Visited the Cologne Cathedral.
- Got sunburned on the clothing-optional beach at Malaga.
- Visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine.
- Watched fireworks in Prague.
- Got my first publication.
- Drank espresso and ate crescents in Paris.
- Saw my sister get engaged.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Signing off
Well! It's been a completely unforgettable summer and certainly one of the most defining years of my life. God has blessed me so richly and given me so much! Here's a list of life-long memories from just this year:
Munich, Berlin, and Home!
I arrived in Munich at 1:00 AM in the middle of a rain storm. Fortunately my hostel (Jaeger's Hostel) was just across the street from the central train station.
I met a Hollander named Paul at breakfast. We took a walk around the city, visited the Olympic Stadium and the BMW Museum, and generally chilled out. We dropped in on the University and Geschwister Scholl Platz to see an exhibit about Sophie Scholl, who, along with her brother, was a member of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. Coming out of the exhibit, M94.5 radio interviewed us on what we were doing this summer. (If I find a recording I'll stick it up here).
Paul called an old coworker, Eric, to come hang out with us, and in the afternoon we were joined by Linda, the girl I met in Paris. The three of us spent the day together and shared some glorious Italian food for dinner at Pasta Basta.
The next day I took the first flight out to Berlin and arrived back at Ute's apartment around noon. We talked a lot and then went back to KaDeWe for dinner and present shopping. The next morning, I took a suitcase down to the Kaisers Market and filled it with chocolate for transport back to the States. Ute accompanied me to the airport, and then I was on my way home!
I met a Hollander named Paul at breakfast. We took a walk around the city, visited the Olympic Stadium and the BMW Museum, and generally chilled out. We dropped in on the University and Geschwister Scholl Platz to see an exhibit about Sophie Scholl, who, along with her brother, was a member of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. Coming out of the exhibit, M94.5 radio interviewed us on what we were doing this summer. (If I find a recording I'll stick it up here).
Paul called an old coworker, Eric, to come hang out with us, and in the afternoon we were joined by Linda, the girl I met in Paris. The three of us spent the day together and shared some glorious Italian food for dinner at Pasta Basta.
The next day I took the first flight out to Berlin and arrived back at Ute's apartment around noon. We talked a lot and then went back to KaDeWe for dinner and present shopping. The next morning, I took a suitcase down to the Kaisers Market and filled it with chocolate for transport back to the States. Ute accompanied me to the airport, and then I was on my way home!
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Malaga!
After my escape from Rome and two jam-packed days in Granada, I was ready to relax. I looked along the coast of Spain for towns with a beach and an airport, and Malaga was the closest, so I went there.
I stayed in the Residencia Universitaria Santa Paula, where I found the most relaxing hostel bed I've had the pleasure to sleep in. The rooms are enormous, include a balcony, and cost only $30 a night!
The weather was amazing.
I only took two pictures of the beach because it was clothing-optional, making it hard to find an angle where I wouldn't be photographing a lot of skin. Completely naked, very beautiful people were everywhere and I felt very out of place. I expected a "beach bouncer" to come over any time and kick me out. "Excuse me sir, but you are simply too white and ugly to be on this beach. The sunlight reflecting off your pale, pasty body is interfering with low-orbit satellites."
These trees remind me of "Horton Hears a Who"
After three days of bumming around on the beach, I was sunburned, poor, and very ready to return to the cold drizzle of Germany. On to Munich!
I stayed in the Residencia Universitaria Santa Paula, where I found the most relaxing hostel bed I've had the pleasure to sleep in. The rooms are enormous, include a balcony, and cost only $30 a night!
The weather was amazing.
I only took two pictures of the beach because it was clothing-optional, making it hard to find an angle where I wouldn't be photographing a lot of skin. Completely naked, very beautiful people were everywhere and I felt very out of place. I expected a "beach bouncer" to come over any time and kick me out. "Excuse me sir, but you are simply too white and ugly to be on this beach. The sunlight reflecting off your pale, pasty body is interfering with low-orbit satellites."
These trees remind me of "Horton Hears a Who"
After three days of bumming around on the beach, I was sunburned, poor, and very ready to return to the cold drizzle of Germany. On to Munich!
Rome!
First stop after the internship was Rome, Italy. The flight and train ride into the city were uneventful, but somehow I lost my notebook/diary which contained not only every personal thought and feeling since last January, but also my hostel address. After stamping around the train station a while, I managed to recall a map I'd seen showing where my youth hostel was in relation to the Vatican. From that and a metro map, I made it to the Il Cerchio youth hostel.
The Il Cerchio is family-staffed and generally fantastic. The grandmother of the place poured a glass of fresh orange juice for me a check in, and told me to help myself from a large fridge filled with goodies. I took a brief walk around the neighborhood, ate cheap pizza, and discovered that, in Rome, just 2 Euros will buy you four scoops of the greatest gelato in the world (whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and sugar cone included!).
The next day I visited the Vatican! It took three hours of standing in line to get in, but it was well worth it.
The Sistine Chapel is stunning. You aren't supposed to take pictures, but I did my best undercover work.
After the Vatican came the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. The scale of these things is unbelievable!
Roman hair-do in the Museum of Sculpture near the Forum.
I took a walk down to the "capital building."
Trevi Fountain. Toss one coin over your shoulder and you will return to Rome. Toss two, and you will fall in love with an Italian. Three coins gets you a wedding in Rome.
St. Peter's is now my definition of BIG.
The view from the top of St. Peters.
Some nuns, come to see the view from the boss's office.
The most at-home homeless person I've seen. He's set up shop in the road median and is reading the newspaper with his slippers off and drinking coffee. The life!
I ate dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall place recommended by both Lonely Planet and my hostel grandma. It served amazing Italian "home-style", which is pretty much spaghetti.
Getting out of Rome was challenging. A combination of a worker strike at the airport, my nonexistent Italian, and the presence of two airports in Rome, caused me to miss my flight. Unfortunately, easyJet makes it very clear that a missed flight is nonrefundable in any way, so I had to buy a full-price ticket to Madrid at the airport. Missing this flight meant I missed my train from Madrid to Cordoba, so the Cordoba trip was off. All in all, it took about $500 and a sleepless night to get me out of Rome and to my hostel in Granada.
On the positive side, I got to stay another day in Rome so I visited the Castel Sant'Angelo.
View from the top of the castle.
Miraculously, I found my diary in the train station on the way to the air port. All my reservations and other such papers had been taken, but the rest was fine. Whew!
The Il Cerchio is family-staffed and generally fantastic. The grandmother of the place poured a glass of fresh orange juice for me a check in, and told me to help myself from a large fridge filled with goodies. I took a brief walk around the neighborhood, ate cheap pizza, and discovered that, in Rome, just 2 Euros will buy you four scoops of the greatest gelato in the world (whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and sugar cone included!).
The next day I visited the Vatican! It took three hours of standing in line to get in, but it was well worth it.
The Sistine Chapel is stunning. You aren't supposed to take pictures, but I did my best undercover work.
After the Vatican came the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. The scale of these things is unbelievable!
Roman hair-do in the Museum of Sculpture near the Forum.
I took a walk down to the "capital building."
Trevi Fountain. Toss one coin over your shoulder and you will return to Rome. Toss two, and you will fall in love with an Italian. Three coins gets you a wedding in Rome.
St. Peter's is now my definition of BIG.
The view from the top of St. Peters.
Some nuns, come to see the view from the boss's office.
The most at-home homeless person I've seen. He's set up shop in the road median and is reading the newspaper with his slippers off and drinking coffee. The life!
I ate dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall place recommended by both Lonely Planet and my hostel grandma. It served amazing Italian "home-style", which is pretty much spaghetti.
Getting out of Rome was challenging. A combination of a worker strike at the airport, my nonexistent Italian, and the presence of two airports in Rome, caused me to miss my flight. Unfortunately, easyJet makes it very clear that a missed flight is nonrefundable in any way, so I had to buy a full-price ticket to Madrid at the airport. Missing this flight meant I missed my train from Madrid to Cordoba, so the Cordoba trip was off. All in all, it took about $500 and a sleepless night to get me out of Rome and to my hostel in Granada.
On the positive side, I got to stay another day in Rome so I visited the Castel Sant'Angelo.
View from the top of the castle.
Miraculously, I found my diary in the train station on the way to the air port. All my reservations and other such papers had been taken, but the rest was fine. Whew!
Monday, July 16, 2007
In Rome!
Hello all!
My internship is officially over! It was a great success and my code will be included in the next major release of the SCALASCA software-nerdy-stuff that I was working on. More good news: I have an offer to come back to Juelich next summer for three months (paid!). Loverly.
I'm on the shared youth hostel computer so I'm not going to put up photos or much now, but I've got gay cheerleaders, vats of molten chocolate, indoor rain forests, and smoked sheep cheese to write about.
Laters!
My internship is officially over! It was a great success and my code will be included in the next major release of the SCALASCA software-nerdy-stuff that I was working on. More good news: I have an offer to come back to Juelich next summer for three months (paid!). Loverly.
I'm on the shared youth hostel computer so I'm not going to put up photos or much now, but I've got gay cheerleaders, vats of molten chocolate, indoor rain forests, and smoked sheep cheese to write about.
Laters!
Krakow!
My CESRI internship ended with a debriefing in Krakow, Poland. I arrived a day ahead of everyone else and spent the night in the Elephant on the Moon youth hostel (thus named because an elephant is a Polish symbol of good luck, and the moon is a symbol of sleep). The staff were very friendly and suggested I join a friend of their, Justine, on a pub crawl that night. Turns out that a "pub crawl" in Krakow is what I would call "clubbing", and my gray VT sweatshirt and sneakers got me bounced from several of our destinations. It was a seriously lame way to spend the night.
To cheer myself up after the pub crawl debacle, I used my extra day to visit the Auschwitz death factory. Auschwitz is of course horrific and shocking, but also very fascinating. The exhibits were strangely unadorned and included little explanation, mostly because they required none. Piles of shoes and clothing taken from murdered children are easily recognizable as a work of evil. The hair was the most disturbing. The Jews were shaved and their hair used to make textiles, exactly as if they had been sheep. (Imagine buying your daughter Jew-hair bedsheets!) Two tons of hair taken from murdered women were on display, and the smell was very disturbing. It smelled like people.
The Gate of Death, leading into Auschwitz Birkenau.
After I got back from Auschwitz, I checked out of my hostel and into the hotel downtown where I was to meet the rest of the CESRI fellows and our supervisors (Agi, Chris, and Vijay). We had another amazing gourmet meal at CESRI's expense (I had pierogi). Vijay has a degree in religious studies, so we had a great conversation about belief and religion. During dinner, Thomas taught us how to make a polish friend (video here).
The next day was the first round of presentations. Each CESRI fellow talked for 20 minutes about their research this summer and other such academic fiddle-faddle. Lunch was excellent, as always, but an adventure. I asked for roast goose, but instead got Polish blood pudding: a plate of millet mixed with blood. It tasted somewhere between pan-fried hamburger and chocolate. After that was over, we took a 3-hour walking tour of Krakow with a charming guide who spoke with a perfect British accent and was very short.
We visited the University of Krakow (Copernicus graduated from here) and made many discoveries. The best 15th and 16th century scientific equipment was on display: telescopes, astroglobes, and chronometers (a.k.a clocks).
Krakow is a very beautiful and romantic place.
That night we feasted at "Under the Angel", a high-priced Polish gourmet restaurant. I tried honey mead, Polish bread drink, vodka, borsch, bread with bacon fat, and other amazing foods. After dinner we had a vodka party on Vijay's balcony. A really amazing night.
The next day we had the last of the presentations and a final good-bye lunch. Agi, Chris and Vijay had to leave quickly to catch a flight, but the food was amazing. Each dish was brought out on a covered platter and then dramatically uncovered. Thomas sang polish songs of farewell and embarrassed many people considerably, but I enjoyed the performance (video here).
After lunch, we visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine. This beautiful network of salt caves is one of the wonders of the world and includes the largest underground chapel in the world. Everything is made of salt, which comes in various colors and levels of purity. Salt sculptures are everywhere and artistic lighting creates a beautiful atmosphere.
Salt leaking out of the ceiling to form "salt spaghetti".
Salt sculpture.
And so ended the CESRI fellowship! I've still got ten days before I return to the USA, so I'll be visiting Rome, Granada, Malaga, and Munich before returning to Berlin for the flight home.
One thing I forgot to mention is the Krakow sheep cheese. This stuff is EU-protected so it can only be sold in certain places in Poland and it tastes great! It looks like a small loaf of bread and you buy it grilled from street vendors (the best will include some cranberry jelly). It squeaks in your teeth and tastes amazing.
To cheer myself up after the pub crawl debacle, I used my extra day to visit the Auschwitz death factory. Auschwitz is of course horrific and shocking, but also very fascinating. The exhibits were strangely unadorned and included little explanation, mostly because they required none. Piles of shoes and clothing taken from murdered children are easily recognizable as a work of evil. The hair was the most disturbing. The Jews were shaved and their hair used to make textiles, exactly as if they had been sheep. (Imagine buying your daughter Jew-hair bedsheets!) Two tons of hair taken from murdered women were on display, and the smell was very disturbing. It smelled like people.
The Gate of Death, leading into Auschwitz Birkenau.
After I got back from Auschwitz, I checked out of my hostel and into the hotel downtown where I was to meet the rest of the CESRI fellows and our supervisors (Agi, Chris, and Vijay). We had another amazing gourmet meal at CESRI's expense (I had pierogi). Vijay has a degree in religious studies, so we had a great conversation about belief and religion. During dinner, Thomas taught us how to make a polish friend (video here).
The next day was the first round of presentations. Each CESRI fellow talked for 20 minutes about their research this summer and other such academic fiddle-faddle. Lunch was excellent, as always, but an adventure. I asked for roast goose, but instead got Polish blood pudding: a plate of millet mixed with blood. It tasted somewhere between pan-fried hamburger and chocolate. After that was over, we took a 3-hour walking tour of Krakow with a charming guide who spoke with a perfect British accent and was very short.
We visited the University of Krakow (Copernicus graduated from here) and made many discoveries. The best 15th and 16th century scientific equipment was on display: telescopes, astroglobes, and chronometers (a.k.a clocks).
Krakow is a very beautiful and romantic place.
That night we feasted at "Under the Angel", a high-priced Polish gourmet restaurant. I tried honey mead, Polish bread drink, vodka, borsch, bread with bacon fat, and other amazing foods. After dinner we had a vodka party on Vijay's balcony. A really amazing night.
The next day we had the last of the presentations and a final good-bye lunch. Agi, Chris and Vijay had to leave quickly to catch a flight, but the food was amazing. Each dish was brought out on a covered platter and then dramatically uncovered. Thomas sang polish songs of farewell and embarrassed many people considerably, but I enjoyed the performance (video here).
After lunch, we visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine. This beautiful network of salt caves is one of the wonders of the world and includes the largest underground chapel in the world. Everything is made of salt, which comes in various colors and levels of purity. Salt sculptures are everywhere and artistic lighting creates a beautiful atmosphere.
Salt leaking out of the ceiling to form "salt spaghetti".
Salt sculpture.
And so ended the CESRI fellowship! I've still got ten days before I return to the USA, so I'll be visiting Rome, Granada, Malaga, and Munich before returning to Berlin for the flight home.
One thing I forgot to mention is the Krakow sheep cheese. This stuff is EU-protected so it can only be sold in certain places in Poland and it tastes great! It looks like a small loaf of bread and you buy it grilled from street vendors (the best will include some cranberry jelly). It squeaks in your teeth and tastes amazing.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Koeln is Really Really Gay
I managed to make it to Koeln (Cologne) a second time this summer, and it was really, really strange. Unbeknown to me, I'd arrived right during the Koeln Gay Pride weekend festival. My first clue was all the guys holding hands, but as the day wore on, the abundance of seatless leather pants and street-corner lesbian porn peddlers somehow made it obvious.
Some gay cheerleaders.
The gay pride parade, lead by Santa Clause and Mr. Slave. I never thought of Santa as a gay icon, but think of him as a hairy old man who delivers packages down your chimney and he fits right in.
After a while, I got tired of all the gayness in the streets so I visited the Lindt Chocolate Museum. This place is fantastic! There's an indoor rain forest, a complete bean-to-truffle chocolate manufacturing line, and a chocolate fountain. You get free samples from the fountain and the entire museum smells fantastic.
The Koelner Dom! This massive structure is the definitive Gothic cathedral. Dark, huge, and a little foreboding, it's truly amazing. Personally, I prefer the smaller and more colorful Aachener Dom.
These strange "mystery bananas" were everywhere. I saw a few in Aachen also.
Some gay cheerleaders.
The gay pride parade, lead by Santa Clause and Mr. Slave. I never thought of Santa as a gay icon, but think of him as a hairy old man who delivers packages down your chimney and he fits right in.
After a while, I got tired of all the gayness in the streets so I visited the Lindt Chocolate Museum. This place is fantastic! There's an indoor rain forest, a complete bean-to-truffle chocolate manufacturing line, and a chocolate fountain. You get free samples from the fountain and the entire museum smells fantastic.
The Koelner Dom! This massive structure is the definitive Gothic cathedral. Dark, huge, and a little foreboding, it's truly amazing. Personally, I prefer the smaller and more colorful Aachener Dom.
These strange "mystery bananas" were everywhere. I saw a few in Aachen also.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
