Me sleeping on the train
The Prague Castle
The Cologne Cathedral
The illuminaugi
14 years ago
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
March 3, 2009: ADATO (Another Day at the Office)
No I am not talking about the 14c sport route, by the same name, at Horn Lake if any of you were wondering. Today I did my work thang, had some soup and enjoyed the privilege of Internet access. I also pounded out a big-o-blog as you can see from the past few days’ entries.
March 2, 2009: The Never Ending Day
Today never really began. It was merely a bumpy train riding continuation of yesterday, albeit a more tired one. I left the train at 6:50 this morning after the 12-hour train ride direct from Prague. This morning my Internet was going to be put in between 8 and noon. I got home with some bread that I procured from the bakery on the way back from the train station and cleaned up the house and had a shower. I ate some bread any laid down to wait for the Internet guy to come.
He came at 10, plugged me in and I left for work. Work was relatively uneventful. I left and got home to fix my internet that was not working this morning. Alice Internet helpdesk does not speak English here I figured out. This was a problem because although I can ask “do you have a mirror?” in German I cannot figure out Internet issues in German. I called in a favor from my landlord Mr. Großman and his native German got the job done. Two hours and twelve minutes of Interneting later I hit the hay.
He came at 10, plugged me in and I left for work. Work was relatively uneventful. I left and got home to fix my internet that was not working this morning. Alice Internet helpdesk does not speak English here I figured out. This was a problem because although I can ask “do you have a mirror?” in German I cannot figure out Internet issues in German. I called in a favor from my landlord Mr. Großman and his native German got the job done. Two hours and twelve minutes of Interneting later I hit the hay.
March 1, 2009: The Lotsa Castle and Lotsa Rock
I got up at 10:00 and set out on my day after a brief breakfast and checking out of the hostel. I had decided not to join the Australians today because they were heading out to see a church made of bones and I wanted to see the National Technology Museum.
Prague is a beautiful city with a charm unique from all the western countries that I have visited. The architecture is very different; I almost liked it more. My first stop was the Charles Bridge, a famous bridge made in the 1200’s lined with statues. It was fantastic. Then I was off to the largest castle in the world, yes that is right here is another quote from Wikipedia:
“Prague Castle is one of the biggest castles in the world (according to Guinness Book of Records the biggest ancient castle) at about 570 meters in length and an average of about 130 meters wide.”
Inside the castle was another massive church and lots of neat “artisan cottages” as various guidebook describe them. I check out all this, saw some Czech dudes in fur hats marching in formation and continued onwards to the museum.
I made it there and much to my dismay it was closed. Damn. Oh well, I thought, I will just go to the National Agriculture Museum next door. This was the single oddest museum that I have ever been to. The actual exhibits were housed several floors apart from one another in a building fillied with offices. Half of the rooms were barred off with velvet ropes and there were printed sheet of paper flapping in the wind with Czech written on them along with arrows pointing places. The exhibits were odd too, Tractors, paper models and famous Czech garden architecture. I left after an hour.
The next stop was another museum, the National museum of the Czech Republic. I was not to be disappointed. This place was amazing. There was natural history, paleontology, mineralogy, zoology and Czech history exhibits housed in a massive and extremely well laid out medieval looking building will gold leafed pillars and an old airplane hanging from the roof of the lobby. The minerals were my favorite part, my buddy Graham would have lost his mind. I think that there must have been two of every mineral there. 3 massive room with shelf after shelf of mineral each neatly labeled. Each shelf had 2000 specimens, I did the math, and there was a ton of shelves. I left when the museum closed and headed to the train station for my overnight train home. I did not sleep that well.
Prague is a beautiful city with a charm unique from all the western countries that I have visited. The architecture is very different; I almost liked it more. My first stop was the Charles Bridge, a famous bridge made in the 1200’s lined with statues. It was fantastic. Then I was off to the largest castle in the world, yes that is right here is another quote from Wikipedia:
“Prague Castle is one of the biggest castles in the world (according to Guinness Book of Records the biggest ancient castle) at about 570 meters in length and an average of about 130 meters wide.”
Inside the castle was another massive church and lots of neat “artisan cottages” as various guidebook describe them. I check out all this, saw some Czech dudes in fur hats marching in formation and continued onwards to the museum.
I made it there and much to my dismay it was closed. Damn. Oh well, I thought, I will just go to the National Agriculture Museum next door. This was the single oddest museum that I have ever been to. The actual exhibits were housed several floors apart from one another in a building fillied with offices. Half of the rooms were barred off with velvet ropes and there were printed sheet of paper flapping in the wind with Czech written on them along with arrows pointing places. The exhibits were odd too, Tractors, paper models and famous Czech garden architecture. I left after an hour.
The next stop was another museum, the National museum of the Czech Republic. I was not to be disappointed. This place was amazing. There was natural history, paleontology, mineralogy, zoology and Czech history exhibits housed in a massive and extremely well laid out medieval looking building will gold leafed pillars and an old airplane hanging from the roof of the lobby. The minerals were my favorite part, my buddy Graham would have lost his mind. I think that there must have been two of every mineral there. 3 massive room with shelf after shelf of mineral each neatly labeled. Each shelf had 2000 specimens, I did the math, and there was a ton of shelves. I left when the museum closed and headed to the train station for my overnight train home. I did not sleep that well.
February 28: The Slog to Prague
I got up at 5:00. I prepared myself to leave and got on the local commuter train to go to Essen where I would catch the next train to Berlin then to Prague. I got on the train and met some entertaining drunk people smoking up a storm on the train. The train is one of the few places in the country that you cannot smoke. They were coming back from downtown and playing jokes on each other and having a good time. I even tried out some German on them with mediocre results.
I got to Essen and switched into the posh Berlin bound ICE high-speed train. I got onto the train and saw something that I found truly German: there was a middle-aged couple with their daughter. The daughter was balling her eyes out and clutching a toy bulldozer. I thought to myself that this is what mechanical engineering parents do. In my over tired state I quickly cobbled together a back-story for them and had a little chuckle.
I got to Berlin and made my reservations for the next train to Prague. I grabbed some Mc Donald’s and was on my way. This train meandered along the Vltava River and skirted beautiful limestone cliffs. Rustic houses and artillery hole-filled buildings lined the river; this was a completely different sight from Western Europe. I felt truly grown up sipping a coffee, writing in my journal and watching the countryside zoom by.
I got off the train and walked into an environment that had a completely different vibe from Western Europe. I could not read a word on any signs, my Czech is not too good, I had a tingly feeling all over; I was in Prague!
I switched my Euro to koruna; I got 1300 for 50 Euro, and was on my way. I felt balla clutching my 1000 koruna bill.
2.5 hours of going the wrong way down the same street four times, it is possible (trust me), and I found the white small sign for the Clown and Bard Hostel. I walked down the stairs and into the rich wooden bar area of the hostel. It was empty except for an attractive Swedish girl at the desk. I began booking my room. This is when I met Jim and Kim from Australia; we agreed to have a beer together later that night.
I was handed my key, attached to a large piece of wood, and headed up the stairs to my room “Residence 4.” I headed up a large staircase and saw that all the rooms had sweet names “Justice,” “Loyalty,” “Honor,” “Winter Garden,” “Nice View,” “Best View,” and then “Residence.” I got into the room and met Billy, Fiona and Nicola, Fiona and Nicola from the UK and Billy from Australia. These would be my partners in the misadventures to come. We talked for a while and agreed to meet up after dinner for a pub crawl that was going on.
I asked the lady at the front desk where a good, reasonably priced restaurant is. She replied “do you like meat?” I said I did and she pointed me in the direction of a local Czech place that apparently was good. Before leaving I had a beer with Jim and Kim and discussed possible plans to meet up the next day to explore the Prague castle.
I followed the directions and managed not to get lost on the way to the restaurant. I sat down in the non-smoking section and ordered a Pilsner Urquell. The guy brought me a menu, which fortunately had English on it, and I ordered an onion/cheese soup and some ribs off the “for big eaters” menu.
The soup was delicious, sort of a Czech take on French onion soup. Then the main course arrived. I can best describe it as the definition of manliness. 700g of meat covered with a tomato/onion sauce sitting in the middle of a wooden cutting board. The meat was overlapping the sides of the board and I sat in awe of the largest piece of meat that I had ever seen delivered to someone at a restaurant. There was no veg to separate me from the meat, just the meat and me. Time to begin. I finished about 20 minutes later, another victory for man over meat.
Another sweet, sweet Czech beer washed down the rest of the beer. This most excellent meal only set me back 250 Crown (10 Euro), dope. I headed back the hostel. Here I had a drink or two with the Auzies while planning the game plan for the night. We decided to try to catch up with the pub-crawl. So we showed up at the bar that apparently the pub-crawl meets at and they were no place to be found. We asked around and figured out that it was not going on tonight. No problem, we just asked the nice fellow at the bar next to us where a place with loud techno and jumping people was, he said he had just the place for us.
I will spare the details of the trip to the club, but it involved loosing Billy and asking for directions. We showed up at the place. There was sparkling white lights shining from between twisted rebar-welded into odd shapes reminiscent of a certain statue behind a UVic art building. This however was MUCH cooler; all the rebar was combined with car parts and pieces of pipe to form the interior of the main club. Large moving chandeliers fabricated from car components rotated on the ceiling sending off a neon glow from the florescent tubes attached to them. Loud techno music boomed from the dance room which had a wall covered with the motherboards of computers complemented by more LED lights. A funky looking DJ spun some mad beats. We took a seat and ordered a beer. The only available seat was with a Czech guy. He tried to teach us some Czech but it was a futile effort.
We spent a while on the main level and then decided to check out the basement. Magic. The basement had an electrical theme. Everything was decorated with the large ceramic insulators found on high-voltage lines as well as massive transformers and Telsa-coils. Bad Ass. We got into the main room of the basement which had low ceiling supported by brick arches. The music playing was AMAZING. It was a DJ spinning some techno with a hard-core looking Czech guy with a shaggy Mohawk rapping away faster then I had ever heard anyone rap before. Then a guy with a flute started playing in the DJ box. NO WAY! This was awesome, was all I could think for the next hour, I faux-danced away with a massive grin never leaving my face.
We cabbed home after some more shenanigans and I go to bed at some unearthly hour in the morning.
I got to Essen and switched into the posh Berlin bound ICE high-speed train. I got onto the train and saw something that I found truly German: there was a middle-aged couple with their daughter. The daughter was balling her eyes out and clutching a toy bulldozer. I thought to myself that this is what mechanical engineering parents do. In my over tired state I quickly cobbled together a back-story for them and had a little chuckle.
I got to Berlin and made my reservations for the next train to Prague. I grabbed some Mc Donald’s and was on my way. This train meandered along the Vltava River and skirted beautiful limestone cliffs. Rustic houses and artillery hole-filled buildings lined the river; this was a completely different sight from Western Europe. I felt truly grown up sipping a coffee, writing in my journal and watching the countryside zoom by.
I got off the train and walked into an environment that had a completely different vibe from Western Europe. I could not read a word on any signs, my Czech is not too good, I had a tingly feeling all over; I was in Prague!
I switched my Euro to koruna; I got 1300 for 50 Euro, and was on my way. I felt balla clutching my 1000 koruna bill.
2.5 hours of going the wrong way down the same street four times, it is possible (trust me), and I found the white small sign for the Clown and Bard Hostel. I walked down the stairs and into the rich wooden bar area of the hostel. It was empty except for an attractive Swedish girl at the desk. I began booking my room. This is when I met Jim and Kim from Australia; we agreed to have a beer together later that night.
I was handed my key, attached to a large piece of wood, and headed up the stairs to my room “Residence 4.” I headed up a large staircase and saw that all the rooms had sweet names “Justice,” “Loyalty,” “Honor,” “Winter Garden,” “Nice View,” “Best View,” and then “Residence.” I got into the room and met Billy, Fiona and Nicola, Fiona and Nicola from the UK and Billy from Australia. These would be my partners in the misadventures to come. We talked for a while and agreed to meet up after dinner for a pub crawl that was going on.
I asked the lady at the front desk where a good, reasonably priced restaurant is. She replied “do you like meat?” I said I did and she pointed me in the direction of a local Czech place that apparently was good. Before leaving I had a beer with Jim and Kim and discussed possible plans to meet up the next day to explore the Prague castle.
I followed the directions and managed not to get lost on the way to the restaurant. I sat down in the non-smoking section and ordered a Pilsner Urquell. The guy brought me a menu, which fortunately had English on it, and I ordered an onion/cheese soup and some ribs off the “for big eaters” menu.
The soup was delicious, sort of a Czech take on French onion soup. Then the main course arrived. I can best describe it as the definition of manliness. 700g of meat covered with a tomato/onion sauce sitting in the middle of a wooden cutting board. The meat was overlapping the sides of the board and I sat in awe of the largest piece of meat that I had ever seen delivered to someone at a restaurant. There was no veg to separate me from the meat, just the meat and me. Time to begin. I finished about 20 minutes later, another victory for man over meat.
Another sweet, sweet Czech beer washed down the rest of the beer. This most excellent meal only set me back 250 Crown (10 Euro), dope. I headed back the hostel. Here I had a drink or two with the Auzies while planning the game plan for the night. We decided to try to catch up with the pub-crawl. So we showed up at the bar that apparently the pub-crawl meets at and they were no place to be found. We asked around and figured out that it was not going on tonight. No problem, we just asked the nice fellow at the bar next to us where a place with loud techno and jumping people was, he said he had just the place for us.
I will spare the details of the trip to the club, but it involved loosing Billy and asking for directions. We showed up at the place. There was sparkling white lights shining from between twisted rebar-welded into odd shapes reminiscent of a certain statue behind a UVic art building. This however was MUCH cooler; all the rebar was combined with car parts and pieces of pipe to form the interior of the main club. Large moving chandeliers fabricated from car components rotated on the ceiling sending off a neon glow from the florescent tubes attached to them. Loud techno music boomed from the dance room which had a wall covered with the motherboards of computers complemented by more LED lights. A funky looking DJ spun some mad beats. We took a seat and ordered a beer. The only available seat was with a Czech guy. He tried to teach us some Czech but it was a futile effort.
We spent a while on the main level and then decided to check out the basement. Magic. The basement had an electrical theme. Everything was decorated with the large ceramic insulators found on high-voltage lines as well as massive transformers and Telsa-coils. Bad Ass. We got into the main room of the basement which had low ceiling supported by brick arches. The music playing was AMAZING. It was a DJ spinning some techno with a hard-core looking Czech guy with a shaggy Mohawk rapping away faster then I had ever heard anyone rap before. Then a guy with a flute started playing in the DJ box. NO WAY! This was awesome, was all I could think for the next hour, I faux-danced away with a massive grin never leaving my face.
We cabbed home after some more shenanigans and I go to bed at some unearthly hour in the morning.
Monday, March 2, 2009
February 27: Pipes in Köln
I left work at 2:30 and took a bus and train to Köln where I was going to pick up my Eurail pass. Düsseldorf apparently does not sell these things. Anyway, I made my way to the customer service desk in the train station in Köln after an hour long train ride. At the desk I picked up my ticket to Europe: 8 days of unlimited travel on all forms of train in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands and the Czech Republic. I shelled out a huge pile of dough for this baby but it would surely be worth while.
While in Köln I thought that I would take some time and explore the city. I had read that Köln has the tallest church tower. I will now quote one of my best friend in the world of technology, Wikipedia:
“The choir of Cologne Cathedral, measured between the piers, also holds the distinction of having the largest height to width ratio of any Medieval church, 3.6:1, exceeding even Beauvais Cathedral which has a slightly higher vault.
Construction of the Gothic church began in 1248 and took, with interruptions, until 1880 to complete – a period of over six hundred years. It is 144.5 metres long, 86.5 m wide and its two towers are 157 m tall.”
So I walked out of the train station entrance and was greeted by the single most menacing structure that I had ever seen. The Dom was EMENCE; it just kept on filling my field of view as I exited the train station. The travel guide that I have describes it as the “Mount Everest” of cathedrals. Years of pollution have left the outside almost pitch black which made it even scarier to look at. Inside was equally impressive with a massive vaulted ceiling. This is the only building that I have ever been into that has given me butterflies in my stomach just being in its presence, it is REALLY cool. Another interesting fact is that it was the tallest building in Europe until the Eiffel Tower was erected.
To continue my tale I walked around Köln for a while longer and stopped for the best falafel that I have ever had. It was so good I ordered another. I sat with an old guitar player from Chicago named Scott who was also all into the falafel. I bid him adieux and ventured on. I saw a pipe shop and, intrigued, I went in.
Inside I met a short guy from New Orleans with a green sweater vest and one of those old hats, with the floppy bit that buttons onto the brim of the cap, on. He would turn out to be the most interesting person that I would meet in this town. After the German shop owner failed at talking me into buying something this guy started. Personally I do not smoke but I enjoy the concept of smoking a pipe. This shop had two levels with all the walls packed with different types of pipe in velvet holders. In the middle of the room was a large table with all the varieties of tobacco laid out. He promptly asked what type of tobacco I was looking for. I said, I did not smoke but a few of my buddies in Vic did and I wanted to pick them up some eurobacco.
“well,” he began, “fruit tobacco is for beginner smokers,” as he unrolls a leather pouch with 6 or so expensive looking pipes, “as you get to be a more advanced smoker you move away from that and into something with more paprika.” All the tobaccos were colour coded and each had a number based on the blend that they had. “My favorite tobacco here is number 66, as you get more advanced you tend to strive for things like number 168. Number 168 has a more complex flavor that can easily burn the lungs of a beginner” This guy spoke of smoking like an Olympic sport, if it was a sport he was built like a champion smoker.
I left and had a relatively uneventful time at a local bar before I headed to the train to get a few hours of shut eye back home before I left to Prague.
While in Köln I thought that I would take some time and explore the city. I had read that Köln has the tallest church tower. I will now quote one of my best friend in the world of technology, Wikipedia:
“The choir of Cologne Cathedral, measured between the piers, also holds the distinction of having the largest height to width ratio of any Medieval church, 3.6:1, exceeding even Beauvais Cathedral which has a slightly higher vault.
Construction of the Gothic church began in 1248 and took, with interruptions, until 1880 to complete – a period of over six hundred years. It is 144.5 metres long, 86.5 m wide and its two towers are 157 m tall.”
So I walked out of the train station entrance and was greeted by the single most menacing structure that I had ever seen. The Dom was EMENCE; it just kept on filling my field of view as I exited the train station. The travel guide that I have describes it as the “Mount Everest” of cathedrals. Years of pollution have left the outside almost pitch black which made it even scarier to look at. Inside was equally impressive with a massive vaulted ceiling. This is the only building that I have ever been into that has given me butterflies in my stomach just being in its presence, it is REALLY cool. Another interesting fact is that it was the tallest building in Europe until the Eiffel Tower was erected.
To continue my tale I walked around Köln for a while longer and stopped for the best falafel that I have ever had. It was so good I ordered another. I sat with an old guitar player from Chicago named Scott who was also all into the falafel. I bid him adieux and ventured on. I saw a pipe shop and, intrigued, I went in.
Inside I met a short guy from New Orleans with a green sweater vest and one of those old hats, with the floppy bit that buttons onto the brim of the cap, on. He would turn out to be the most interesting person that I would meet in this town. After the German shop owner failed at talking me into buying something this guy started. Personally I do not smoke but I enjoy the concept of smoking a pipe. This shop had two levels with all the walls packed with different types of pipe in velvet holders. In the middle of the room was a large table with all the varieties of tobacco laid out. He promptly asked what type of tobacco I was looking for. I said, I did not smoke but a few of my buddies in Vic did and I wanted to pick them up some eurobacco.
“well,” he began, “fruit tobacco is for beginner smokers,” as he unrolls a leather pouch with 6 or so expensive looking pipes, “as you get to be a more advanced smoker you move away from that and into something with more paprika.” All the tobaccos were colour coded and each had a number based on the blend that they had. “My favorite tobacco here is number 66, as you get more advanced you tend to strive for things like number 168. Number 168 has a more complex flavor that can easily burn the lungs of a beginner” This guy spoke of smoking like an Olympic sport, if it was a sport he was built like a champion smoker.
I left and had a relatively uneventful time at a local bar before I headed to the train to get a few hours of shut eye back home before I left to Prague.
February 26, 2009: The Flat Spin
Mr. de Best (yes that is his actual name) came to visit me today at work. He is the computer scientist that we outsource to. He spoke perfect English fortunately and I guided him through what I needed him to do for me. We had a lunch on the company tab and finished up in time for me to get all the little chores I needed to do done before I left work. Finally it is looking like I have things to do. YES!
After work I went to the grocery store and pulled out all the stops; I went on a shopping spree. 47 Euros and a cherry chili chocolate bar and package of REAL SWISS OVALMALTINE later I walked home. There, I decided that I needed some exercise. I decided on running 1.5km to the pool then swimming 1km then running home.
I was too close for missles I had to switch to guns. “Watch out Goose, I think we are going into a flat spin!” I shouted in my head as I swam behind a massive guy who was swimming like a drowning monkey and kicking up more jet wash then Iceman in Topgun. I swam my 40 laps and ran home. A Budweiser from the Czech Republic, bratwurst, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and green beans made my tummy full. Tomorrow is a big day. I decided against Hungary, because 32 hours of travel would give me less then 24 hours in Hungary, and decided that I instead would go to a random location in Europe that I would decide based on when the trains leave. This is the way I roll. Good night Canada and whoever else reads this thing.
After work I went to the grocery store and pulled out all the stops; I went on a shopping spree. 47 Euros and a cherry chili chocolate bar and package of REAL SWISS OVALMALTINE later I walked home. There, I decided that I needed some exercise. I decided on running 1.5km to the pool then swimming 1km then running home.
I was too close for missles I had to switch to guns. “Watch out Goose, I think we are going into a flat spin!” I shouted in my head as I swam behind a massive guy who was swimming like a drowning monkey and kicking up more jet wash then Iceman in Topgun. I swam my 40 laps and ran home. A Budweiser from the Czech Republic, bratwurst, mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and green beans made my tummy full. Tomorrow is a big day. I decided against Hungary, because 32 hours of travel would give me less then 24 hours in Hungary, and decided that I instead would go to a random location in Europe that I would decide based on when the trains leave. This is the way I roll. Good night Canada and whoever else reads this thing.
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