Other issues...

So I ran out of deodorant in Paris. Not good. I unsuccessfully searched several drugstores looking for a brand I could recognize. I noted that they had one that promised to be effective for 48 hours.

I didn't go with that one, as I shower on a daily basis. Bottom line is that I can't wait to get to Spain to find something effective. It's not just that it's not also an anti-prespirant; it really does nothing for the smell.

The devil you know...

So keep in mind that my high school French classes ended over a decade ago.

Very few places have an English language menu. It's usually not possible to get someone to translate the whole menu for me, so I just end up making due with certain words I remember. Poulet is chicken, gateux is cake. I take care to avoid anything that looks like "cheveux," horse.

So I saw something that looked like beef tartare. So I chose that one, as it seemed familiar. I have never consumed it, knew nothing about it, but I had at least heard of it. It was the devil I knew. I thought it strange that the waiter didn't ask me how I wanted it prepared.

Raw meat doesn't require this information. I was provided with two cups, and happily consumed one of them. I figured that at some point in time, I had consumed something worse. And if the French are serving it, it will at least be tasty, and it was. So maybe I'm over my raw meat issues.

But the whole thing does remind me that the devil you know isn't necessarily better than the devil you don't...

Mumps

I also see all of these stories about the mumps in Illinois and Iowa. Do you all have your MMR vaccine up to date?

I'm going to explore Paris now.

Illinois, the album

I've long since stopped saying that I'm an American, and say "I'm from Illinois" when asked where I'm from.

A handful of times, the response has been, "Oh - have you heard the album?"

Sufjan Stevens (SUF-Yan) is apparently making an album about every single state. Everyone raves about the Illinois album.

So my question is, is it a big hit at home?

Paris...

So I saw the Mona Lisa. It was ok. Actually, there are some much better paintings hanging in the same room. It may have to do with the fact that it is you and 100 of your closest friends trying to view the painting at the same time, which is behind a thick pane of glass. No photos allowed, so I couldn't take one of the crowd.

I'll see Notre Dame and St. Chapelle tomorrow, as well as some more art. The city has a lot of it.

Anyway. I go to Dijon Friday afternoon, and stay there until Tuesday morning. Then, I go to Lyon for a night and a day. I have an overnight bus trip to Barcelona on 3 May. On Saturday, 7 May, I fly to Edinburgh to meet Steve for the week. We'll hit the Highlands. London is 14-17 May. I have a week for Ireland before I head back to the US on 24 May.

Egypt...

Yes, that subject is correct. Most of you have heard about the bombings in Dahab. I was there in February - it's where my diving gear malfunctioned.

I don't think that I had actually eaten at the restaurant, but certainly knew where it was, and had passed it, and the bridge, on a daily basis.

So how do I feel? It was the surprise of hearing about somewhere I had been, but not in a good way. There's a bit of the "before the grace of God go I" feeling.

Would I go back again? Not to Dahab - I didn't have a good enough time there the first time. Would I go back to Cairo or Luxor? Yes. Bali? Yes. London? I'm going.

As an engineer, I try to weigh, measure, calculate. I'll travel to areas with prior terrorism on the assumption that the occurance of something "bad" is more or less a random event with low probability. I don't go to places like Nepal, where the government is unstable at best. It seems to me that unstable governments lead to "bad" events that are still random, but with a slightly higher probability. Or it may be that there's no mechanism to deal with a "not so bad event" random event, thus increasing the probability that a spirals out of control into a "bad" event.

There has to be a PhD dissertation in here somewhere...

D-Day tour

I had a great tour of the D-Day sites. We covered the obvious places, like Utah and Omaha Beaches, the American cemetary, and St. Mére Eglise.

But we also saw what now looks like random fields. We saw a field that was an airsrtip, which, if overshot, would have the plane go off of a cliff. We saw the places where men earned a Medal of Honor. Without going, you can't get a proper idea of how close the Americans and Germans were to each other during the fighting. (I have loads of pictures, but still can't find a means to upload.) I saw the hedgerows, which even now, before all of the leaves are out, are difficult to see through.

I heard a lot of stories of individuals who were not where they planned to be on D-Day, but yet did countless things that made all the difference. One LT, dropped miles from his intended drop zone, killed the only German general in the area. You realize that it turned on a dime, and could have gone the other way easily. It was all very sobering.

Paris...

So I'm in Paris now. I have received a fine intoduction to Paris: Someone spit on me as I was entering my hotel.

Needless to say, I was totally disgusted. It's a common ploy to pick your pocket, so I didn't let the man get too close to me. He did repeatedly say "Pardon" but I agree that Paris would be great without the Parisians.

Minor change in plans...

So I'm heading to Brussels today instead of Antwerp. I couldn't find a hostel in Antwerp. I couldn't find one in Brussels either, but they have a beer museum and a life sized model of an atom. Two things I wouldn't pass up. And a Magritte museum too.

So I'll head to Bayeux on Saturday via unknown means...

So yesterday was a good day...

I took a train to Den Haag - The Hague - even though I'm not a war criminal. I was interested in two places. The first was the MC Escher museum. My parents had a book with all of his prints. I must have spent hours with it, as nearly all of the pictures in the museum were quite familiar to me. It was a strange sense of deja vu. All those times I had looked at the book, and then to see a genuine print...

I also wanted to see The Mesdeg Panorama. It's a 360 degree painting made of the area back in 18??... You enter the panorama in the middle. There's a tarp overhead, and a skylight you can't see. Surrounding you is a lot of sand that falls off, and then you have the painting. The result is very vivid, especially when they play the music. There's a railing that keeps you away from the painting itself so that you can't see the brush strokes. The skylight provides natural light, so as clouds move overhead outside, you see the effects of lighting on the painting.

I continued onto Rotterdam. The architecture is great here. It was mostly flattened by Hitler, and rebuilt after the war. It looks more like an American city to me than any other I've seen in Europe.

On to Belgium tomorrow...

So I managed to weave my way through the construction at Centraal Station Rotterdam to get a bus ticket to Antwerp. Actually, Antwerpen if you're in the Nederlands. There is construction at most of the major train stations in The Netherlands. They have some multiyear project to upgrade to a high speed rail system. It's not a large country, but they have 60 million people, and they all eventually need to go someplace else.

Anyway. I've had a great time here. I did all of the traditional Dutch things - eat cheese, take a canal ride. And I ate raw herring at the urging of Jozien. It has the same consistency as smoked salmon. I do have pictures of this, as the herring came planted with a small Dutch flag. But I have yet to find a computer to let me upload pictures...

And, I ate at a Febo. This is a chain that's at the crossroads of vending machines and fast food. They make a variety of products, all described in Dutch, but mostly burgers or something out of the fryer. You insert the exact amount of money (change machine on premises) and open up a little window and collect your food. The picture will make it easier to understand... Slather with mayonnaise, and you're all good.

Normandy

I received confirmation for the D-Day tour that I booked. I think that I get about 30 minutes in the American Cemetary. If anyone would like me to visit a particular grave, get a photo, that type of thing, please shoot me an email...

Future movements...

So I'm going to The Hague tomorrow for the day. I'll try not to commit any war crimes that could result in my imprisonment. But I just want to see an MC Escher museum, so I will move onto Rotterdam for a couple of nights. Then two nights in Antwerp, Belgium (beer sampling).

From there, I'll go to Bayeux, France. It's in Normandy. I''m taking a two day tour of the American D-Day sector (23-24 April). After that, it's Paris for a few days, then Dijon.

What I've been up to...

So I spent a day with Jozien and her sister in a small town near Columborg. It's very Dutch. I know, I know, what did I expect?

So they took me to a cheese shop. That was great. Wheels of cheese. And then the dairy section of a grocery store. They have something called vla here. It''s not as thick as yogurt, but thicker than milk. They have all consistencies here. It puts Wisconsin to shame.

I also got to go up into a windmill. That was really cool as well. Jozien found the molaar (operator of a windmill) to show us the inner workings of the mill. He applied the brake, and then let me help restart the mill. It ruled! I took pictures. Unfortunatly, I don't seem to be able to find an internet cafe in Amsterdam that will let me upload pictures. They all seem to have massive control systems on them that prevent me from hooking up the USB cable...

We also went for a drive in the area. They explained winter dikes and summer dikes. A diagram would help, but I couldn't readily find one. But the summer dike is the first barrier around the river sides. Then, there's a flood plane, surrounded by a higher winter dike. Then, beyond this winter dike, you have the town. So you can see houses behind the winter dike, but know that you're looking at the second or third story of the house.

So I had a great time and made it back to the train with a whole 15 seconds to spare...

News flash...

There are Dutch people still in The Netherlands! I know this may not seem like much to you, but everywhere else I've been, I've met Dutch people. It's led me to believe that all the Dutch were out traveling the world instead of being at home.

But, having safely made it to Amsterdam, I have found the Dutch. They may just be flocking home for Easter, but they are here.

As an aside, Tegel Airport in Berlin was the only airport that I've been in where the directions were not self evident. Normally, I find airports to be much the same; easy to navigate, similar functions and processes; no surprises. In Tegel, there are no signs outside the terminal indicating which airline conducts check- in at the inside counter. They also have an unmarked terminal. I found signs indicating its existance only after I wandered around the first one aimlessly and developed a headache wondering how the Germans, normally meticulous, could have planned this airport.

Happy Easter!

Let's keep this between you and me...

So yesterday was spent at the Topography of Terror exhibit and the Memorial to Murdered European Jews. The first is a chronicle of the property that housed Gestapo and SS headquarters. The second, you can surmise.

So I needed a little levity in my day. I went to Potsdamer Platz for a movie at the Sony Center, where movies are shown in their original language. Ice Age II was playing. I purchased a ticket (Tuesday was cheap day, a bonus.)

On the way in, I investigated the concession stand. Low and behold, I could get a Pauliner Dunkel Hefe Weizen. This translates into half a liter of a dark wheat beer. Not something I am capable of passing up.

After questioning the woman behind the counter, I find that yes, I can purchase this and take it into the theater with me. Just leave the glass in the cupholder when I'm finished. It was actual glass, complete with the Pauliner logo.

The beer was quite tasty. It gave me a feeling of being at home watching a movie, instead of being at the theater. Don't worry, I wasn't sitting next to any kids, but I did feel a bit strange.

As a "cultural" report, before the film began, there were 20 minutes of commercials, not movie previews, just commercials. The last one was for ice cream. Then the curtain closed again, and someone waled around the theater to sell ice cream. After five minutes, the curtain reopened, and the movie previews began. Finally, about half an hour after the posted start time, Ice Age II began. I felt like a geologic age or two had passed me by...

Breakfast

So the breakfast is usually served cold in these parts. Museli, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, cheese, bread, you get the picture. (As an aside, for the last month, I've been in places that pronounce the "j" as a "y," so I first typed "jogurt" instead of "yogurt.") I wanted fried eggs for breakfast, and thus asked the hostel receptionist for directions to fried eggs.

I arrived at a brunch buffet, with scrambled and boiled eggs, but not fried. No matter. I ate cheese of all sorts, museli with yogurt, and cheesecake. (I've started running again, so my appetite was great.) No one came by to clear my used plates. But I noticed that none of the other tables had piles of dishes. In my attempts to figure out the system, I noticed that all of the Germans were using the same plate for each trip to the line.

Our public health code doesn't apply here...

How could I have forgotten???

Here in Germany, they are very environmentally conscious. The kitchen in the hostel has a place for metals/packaging, and a separate place for organic matter, and finally a bin for waste. So it should come as no surprise that it is here that I have found the next generation of butt gaskets.

I was in the bathroom of the Opera House. There is a plastic box next to the buttons to flush. It had a picture of a toilet seat, with an arrow around it. I pressed the button, and disinfectant sprayed out. The idea is to put the disinfectant on a piece of toilet paper, then wipe the seat. This uses far less paper than a typical gasket.

I wish I had taken my camera with me, as you would have a picture posted here...

Balet

So I attended the ballet last night. I got a standing only ticket for €6. The opera house itself is noted for it's decoration and overall impressiveness. The standing only tickets are at the top floor. I had a close look at the paintings on the ceiling, and would have to agree with the hype. The show was great. It was a more modern ballet, with no tutu's. It was music by Hayden.

As an aside, I went to the bathroom before the show commenced. There was, of course, a line. Moments after I entered the bathroom, the lights went out. There was quite the chorus of "Hhhuuh!" and "Ahhhh!" let out by the German ladies.

I flipped the light switch I had just nudged and said "Pardon" with an accent that I hope didn't sound American...

Future movements...

So I have a train this afternoon from Prague to Dresden. I'll be there for two nights, then move on to Berlin on Saturday. I'll so see a jazz musician from Atlanta that I met here.

I'll be in Berlin until Friday the 14th. I have a flight to Amsterdam, where I'll be until the 18th. Then I'll head south through Belgium to France, and down to Barcelona. On 7 May, I'll fly from Barcelona to Edinburgh. The 14th of May is a flight from Edinburgh to London.

Prague

I have arrived safely in Prague...

I didn't want to take the overnight train from Krakow to Prague, as there are lots of stories about people being involuntarily separated from their stuff. There is a town on the border that is half Polish and half Czech, separated by a river. My Krakow hostel said that it was cheaper to take a bus to the border, walk across the border, and then take a train into Prague.

I found the border. The Polish immigration agent had no issues. The Czech agent wanted to know what I was doing there. I told him I was going to Prague. He repeated his question, with more the tone of "Why on earth are you in the middle of nowhere?"

I showed him the map provided by the hostel, highlighting the path from one station to the next, the bus and train schedules, and then he seemed to understand the method to the madness.

I did take a photo of the crossing, but I'll have to post that later...

I may hit the embassy tomorrow, or I may do a walking tour instead. I need to investigate government hours...