so long and thanks for all the fish (and chips)

The motherland! Home!
Awash in my own language!
But, still, adventure.

London! It evokes all sorts of images: bad teeth, the Union Jack, afternoon tea, Big Ben, Her Majesty the Queen... but I found out that it was lots more. First, a summary of events!

Mathieu and I elected to sleep in Frankfurt Hahn, a tiny airport that's actually about 2 hours from Frankfurt, the night before we left. Our flight was at 06:00, and no shuttles run that early (surprise!). So we got to London on Ryanair, a brilliantly cheap airline which had given us our tickets (roundtrip) for a mere 2 euro. It was humourously cheap, too. There weren't stealable emergency guides in the seatback pockets because, in fact, there were no seatback pockets. Instead there were some poorly-illustrated guides on the backs of the seats ahead. None of the seats reclined, and even in-flight beverages weren't complimentary. Upon landing in Stansted (one of the three or four London airports), we were regaled with a trumpet and an announcement that, "Congratulations! You've just landed..." (I thought it was going to conclude here; Ryanair is famously bad) "on time with Ryanair, the only airline with more than 90% of its flights landing on time!" Well, that's a little better. :)

We blew through customs (and got passport stamps! huzzah!) in the UK, then picked up our rental car and headed out to find Jeff. He was supposed to meet us at the Cockfosters station for the Tube. Ingeniously, neither of us had acquired directions to this particular location, and so we stumbled around, looking for it. I have to say that riding in the wrong side of a car on the wrong side of the road was quite a thrill, and reading British signage ("Give Way" == "Yield") contributed to my general amusement.

When we did finally find Jeff, we headed to Oxford, that ages-old flagship school of the learned. I learned some about it, actually; I never realized that it is actually made up of 39 colleges, each of which is redundant with the others? Seems like kind of a terrible system to me, but I guess it's working for them. We saw the part of campus where bits of Harry Potter were filmed, which was appropriately touristy, and we explored some local fooderies and breweries (I had a steak and kidney pie and a Pimm's, and both were tasty) with a friend of Jeff's who is working on her PhD there. Then it was my turn to drive, and we headed for Stonehenge.

Everyone I've talked to says Stonehenge is a huge rip-off. It's true that it's out in the middle of nowhere (about 1.5 hours from the edge of London... *sigh*), and that it's 7 pound or so to get in (and a pound is about the same as a euro at the moment... 1.5 dollars-ish), but seeing those oddly-arranged rocks under a spookily overcast sky was pretty awesome nonetheless. Jeff and I took a photo as behooded druids, which will probably find its way into my culturally insensitive images album. :P

We took the car to the drop-off point near Heathrow (the big airport in London, and basically the closest spot to Stonehenge) and left it. Unfortunately, we also left Mathieu's camera in it, and no sign has been found. :-/ So I guess it's up to me to document the rest of the summer. Well, me or Titi. She'll probably do a better job. ;) Then it was a 3-hour frenzy of switching trains over and over and backtracking and "mind the gap"ing to get to High Gate. Favourite quote? The train's constant reminders that "Mind the gap between the train and the platform. This is a Picadilly Line train to Cockfoster's."

We met some more of Jeff's friends (jeez, he has a lot, doesn't he?) in London to have, um, Thai food. But it was good, and they were a fun bunch. One among them was Ken, whom I mentioned in the post on Greece. He helped me out with my accent, hahaha.

The next day began early, and also with a strange meeting. At King's Cross, one of the largest Tube stations in one of the largest metro systems in the world, I ran into a friend from school: Chris Impicciche. That was interesting. He's studying in London for a few weeks this summer, and I knew he was coming this weekend, but I had no idea that I'd actually see him. Ah, serendipity.

From there, a trip through Trafalgar Square to meet another of Jeff's friends near Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament (including the famed, but somewhat smaller than expected, Big Ben) and get tickets to ride the London Eye. During our flight we saw a neat flyover of the city for the Queen's birthday: fighter jets streaming white, blue, and red smoke. We were then due to pick up bikes to participate in the World Naked Bicycle Ride (London's ride is the largest in the world), but the timing was off and they were overbooked. Oof!

So instead we headed to Greenwich, home of Time. I stood at the Prime Meridian and was subjected to videos about what exactly that meant. It was a little bit tragic, but I'm glad that I saw it.

Oh, then what... fish and chips! That veritable bastion of English cuisine. Delicious with vinegar and salt (both the fish and the chips).

A rush back to London to Leicester (pronounced "Lester") Square to see a show on London's West End. The show that we saw was A Little Night Music, and it was brilliant! I was amazed by the acting and the story, which led to a very enjoyable evening.

That night, we met up with one of my friends (whom Jeff also knows...argh) for dinner at a local place. I tried bangers and mash for dinner with a pint of London Pride ale. We retired with the thought of waking up early again the next morning.

First thing was to see the Tower of London (where one souvenir available was a very classy paper sort of build-it-yourself guillotine) and the Tower Bridge. They were both quite imposing! As Jeff said: I wouldn't want to attack that.

More wandering brought us back past Westminster Abbey, and we found our way to Buckingham Palace. I didn't think it was that impressive, actually. Just... really big. The architecture was nowhere near as fine as that of the Abbey, nor Big Ben. Hrm. Green Park (around the palace) was also nice.

Next: Picadilly Circus ("circus" just means "square", basically) and Oxford Circus, and a pasty for lunch. Pasties are deeeeelllllliiiiiiicccccciiiiiioooooouuuuussssssss. A stop at the British Museum (where I got to see the front of the Parthenon, something I'd been robbed of during my trip to Greece; the Rosetta Stone; and some sweet Viking stuff). It's fantastic that the museums in the city have been "free to the world since 1753" (well, that one, anyway). We had afternoon tea at the National Geographic store, which was awesomely tasty.

Finally it was time to head to Shakespeare's Globe to see Romeo and Juliet peasant-style: standing in the yard in front of the stage. It was only 5 pound for the ticket, and it was totally worth it. The acting was fantastic, and the atmosphere was... well... I'm sure you can guess what it feels like to see a Shakespearean play at the Globe. If you can't, just think about what it might feel like to get slapped with 150kg of CULTURE.

Delicious Greek food for dinner wrapped up the evening, and we had an exhilarating run down 4 flights of escalators in London Bridge station to catch the last train home. This morning, an early (4am) awakening and some traveling mishaps (delayed flights, weather-induced airport closings, missed shuttles, you name it) eventually did lead us back to Darmstadt.

And now, work. Later I'll post some stuff about general impressions of London. They have a strange Big Brother complex going on, and I was fascinated by their totally unadvertised lack of sexual inhibition.

on rails

Shined by the weight of
Endless hurries and dreams, reach
For infinity.

I never realized how terribly poetic train tracks are. On the train ride to Wien, I paused for some time at sunset, distracted by the view out the back window. As we raced away from Nowhere, heading for the next bend in the tracks, the rails stretched out, rust worn away by the friction of endless passings by endless passengers: the English teacher going to visit his school friends for the weekend, the old woman on her way to see her even older mother in the hospital, the businessman rushing to finish a presntation before he arrives, the university students en route to whatever it is that awaits them nowhere in particular.

It's easier to appreciate a trip when there aren't responsibilities. Straight through from Frankfurt to Wien on a EuroNight train, no changes to worry about, no highways, insurance or directions, nothing to do but appreciate scenery and conversation, and, once the world inside and outside goes to sleep, to appreciate sparser and sparser dots of light on dark hills and the peaceful silence of one's own thoughts.

Learning to travel is a process that forks and forks, but I don't think that it ever terminates. It runs in the background on every trip, taking input from any experience that arises. It is certainly recognizable, though, as it chugs along: I can see the fresh look on Teetee's face when Mathieu and I speculate on whether our not our hostel will have bedsheets. "I am never telling my mother this," she affirms.

As I packed my bread into my backpack this afternoon, I wondered where I could have been today. But I realized that it doesn't matter. I found CS and am cultivating an admittedly still-nascent sense of adventure. I'm helping wear the rust off the tracks.

wolfram|alpha

How can you be in
A place, and not know it? I
Guess it happens a lot.

So I had tried out Wolfram|Alpha before, and I thought it was okay, then. But today I tried a new search, and it was a fail. I guess this goes to show that you can be a place your whole life (hey, the Internet is a place) and never really come to know it.

Strangely, this makes me think of how people travel. They always seem to think that their own home is dull, but other places are terribly exotic. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to travel around the U.S. before embarking on greater adventures, but I have to say that the idea of "Europe" is programmed to be exciting in my brain. Yet they all come to the States to see our parks...

Ein blogging mannschaft!

I first believe it is appropriate for me to explain how I met the two wonderful people who also contribute to this blog. I don’t generally blog but today I suppose I am writing for my friends in Darmstadt as much as for myself. I am not totally sure who reads this other than the three of us but I hope you find this post entertaining if anything. Perhaps at least one person in Hamburg will read. J I also apologize if I get too philosophical. Sometimes it happens haha.

I flew to Deutschland to take a German language course from the DID two week before my internship started. The class was really helpful and I am very gracious. There I met two French Canadians: Mathieu and Nadège. This meeting seems uneventful, sure, but I assure you, that could not be farther from the truth. For the three of us on this blog I will not indulge myself much further on this meeting. I will only just say that our craziness in Berlin could be summed up in 3 words: Bier, Mannschaft, und Kartoffel.

Meeting Valkyrie was slightly more interesting than just going to class on Monday morning. If you will, I would like to relay a pseudo dialogue between myself and Mathieu about this (sans dialogue though) haha.

Mathieu had told me that we were meant to meet his friend from Indiana at the Berlin Hauptbahnof on Friday afternoon because she was visiting for the weekend. To this I was rather astonished. I think I only know 5 people from Indiana and I grew up in Iowa! Though I’ve never spent a great deal of time there. Mathieu explained to me that the two of them were studying in the same lab for their RISE internships this summer and that Valkyrie was also bringing him a new computer. Again I was relatively surprised that this person had bought Mathieu a computer without ever having met him. This was a good amount of trust which was, of course, warranted. I suggest reading Valkyrie’s post on trust. It is well worth it. At this point I asked Mathieu how we were going to know what she looked like at the train station. To which he replied: “she will be wearing a bright pink skirt and rainbow socks”. I lost it completely haha.

 It was at then, when we entered the train station that day, that I remembered why I love traveling. Picture this scenario: I was standing on the platform of the main train station in Berlin with a good friend from Quebec who I had just met the week before. We were waiting for a warrior goddess from Indiana to get off a train wearing a bright pink skirt and giant rainbow socks and possibly a Pokémon hat. Tell me that isn’t a ridiculous situation! Haha. At the time it seemed completely normal. I will refrain from describing the remainder of the weekend’s activities here.

I would like to comment on traveling a bit. I believe the word that best describes how I feel about traveling is: liberating. Forgive my grammar please; I’m writing quickly. I choose to live by the relatively cheesy and over used motto: “you only live once”. I am, however, currently working on a way to live two or three times at least, and if you had been in Berlin with us, you would surely have thought we had died a couple of times. There is too much of the world out there for me to stay in one place very long. It is part of the reason why I chose geology as my field of study. Traveling is addicting. The situations I find myself in are sometimes so far fetched that I scarcely believe I’m actually in them. Yet somehow, at the time, the circumstances make perfect sense. For example: Last spring I was on a train from Prague to Berlin. We were meant to stop at the boarder to change trains. Upon arriving at the boarder of the Czech Republic and Germany we gathered our bags and made to get off the train. Before we were even half way down the corridor the train began moving again. The 3 of us (not wanting to get lost) then leaped off of the moving train, one of us basically doing a dive role, only to find that we had jumped off the train at the wrong station!! Upon pealing ourselves off the pavement we realized that we were across a river from a small Vietnamese market called Schuna. Instead of waiting for another train we decided to take a small boat across the river and visit the market. Interestingly, the only things on sale at this market were brass knuckles, knives, cigarettes, and knock – off lacost shirts. My friend got hustled by an old lady for a t shirt. That was hilarious. We then decided it was in our best interest to climb a small mountain which overlooked the valley. Again I found myself on the top of an escarpment overlooking a river and a small Vietnamese village in the Czech Republic holding a pirated tshirt that just cost my friend 3 times as much as it was worth.

The moral of this story: if you had told me I was going to partake in such an adventure, I would have just laughed. At the time though, it all made sense.

The best part about these stories is they are universally understood by travelers. Every person I meet while traveling has a story of a similar nature and never for a moment would doubt my sincerity when I tell mine. I am truly glad that my friends have asked me to write on this blog now because I fear I would never write about my experiences otherwise.

One more thing I might say about traveling. A small hobby of mine (was ist dine hoby??) is sociology. I am a scientist but for some reason am enamored with meeting people. I enjoy the construction of social scenarios and interpersonal interactions. I also think they are important. In this context, however, I find meeting people while traveling to be the most interesting. Often is the case that I meet people who oddly share the same types of ideas and theories on how the world works (or should work) while traveling. Even just seeing someone wearing a moderately large backpack and walking around a train station predisposes that person to having something in common with me. A corollary to this is in the realm of hospitality. I have met many people who have allowed me to crash at their place or who I would not hesitate to ask for a place to stay if I happened to be in their neighborhood. I would, of course, recapitulate. If anyone who I have met on my travels takes the energy to visit my country, I will ensure they have a place to stay. This is not common nor expected where I come from.

Mathieu has asked me to write about our time in Berlin. I am in the process of doing this. He believes it is good to have the stories written down so we don’t forget. I too agree with this and so I will write. I have spoken with my friends about this, but I will reiterate here. I find that in the end of these crazy travels, even with all the souvenirs and pictures, the only thing I will truly have in the end are the friends and memories. If I can hold onto those two things, or even just one of them, I will be happy forever. Interestingly (and part of the reason why I am writing) is that the memories sometimes fade. Sometimes there are too many things happening to remember all of them. I don’t mean forgetting complete chunks of time. I mean, instead of the total mental clarity one has while an event is transpiring or just after, the occurance becomes somewhat of a blur of actions and people and places (at which point friends are needed to recreate the entire story haha). At a certain point the memory is reduced largely to a feeling: a feeling of “that was fun” or “that was crazy!” or “what the hell is industrial techno?”.  Luckily the feeling is really all that matters.

I went on an “excursion” the other day with two other students and one of the geography professors in the department I am working in. We went to the church where Martin Luther posted his 95 theses and began the reformation. That was pretty cool. The town of Wittenberg is very nice and I believe quaint is the word. It is a medieval town and so has an open waste water drainage system. Somehow, as gross as that sounds, the drainages is actually aesthetically pleasing. We also went to a place north of Wittenberg and visited the terminal moraine from the second to last glaciation in Northern Germany. To me this was very interesting but I realize most people don’t consider a large pile of Scandinavian rocks in north central Germany very interesting.

I believe one of the more fascinating aspects of the trip was our return journey on the Autobahn. This road is the smoothest road I have ever been on, and luckily so. Our average speed on the Autobahn in the land cruiser we were in was about 175km/h. I believe that translates into close to 105mph. The relative normality of these speeds on the autobahn was most astonishing. While I was a “white knuckle” passenger for 45 min, the driver of our car was discussing what he had had for dinner last night while we were going 110 miles per hour in the biggest car in Deutschland! Quite an experience I must say. The next step is, of course, driving myself.

The last thing I will write about today is the BBQ I attended the other day. It was designed for international students to get to know each other. This was great as I had just arrived and didn’t know anyone in Halle except for my supervisor. I met two people from Montana at the BBQ. For those of you who have never been to Montana or don’t know rough estimates on population densities in the USA, there are approximately 900,000 people in the state of Montana. Montana is additionally larger than the entire German republic which has 82 million people in it. There are two people from Montana living in the same building as I am in Halle! Haha I thought that was amusing. 

on trust

Not in your hands, not
Something you control. Believe
In the good we do.

Traveling gives one a perspective on life that is vastly different from anything to be learned any other way. By coming to Germany, this place where I don't speak the language and know next to nothing about the social structure or customs, I am really at the mercy of human kindness. If someone told me to get on a bus that was going to Italy, there's a good chance I wouldn't know any better. But I don't think people are that way.

I've already had to throw myself at the mercies of fate a few times: that woman who happened to be sitting next to me on the train ride back to Darmstadt? If she had been leading me anywhere else, how could I have known? I couldn't even understand the announcement about the train station closing; it was only presented in German. There's a feeling that you learn to trust about people you meet. I felt it with Mathieu, even just through email, which is why I thought it was okay to spend $650 on a computer for him and that it was okay to cross my fingers and head to Berlin in my rainbow socks.

Sometimes the news can make us doubt the basic good of people, but it's there. For every serial killer we read about, just thing about the things we aren't reading about: every little American girl traveling abroad who makes it to her destination through extra efforts of people who don't even know her.