The Big Eenentwintig

Thanks, Mike! Yessir, as of May 26, I am the big twenty-one. I'd say something about being a responsible adult now, but really the only thing that's changed is the big alcohol issue. Now I can drink booooze in any country in the world, except India (25!) and various Muslim countries. This is not a post about how silly the drinking age is.

What did I do for my birthday? Not a lot! I planned to keep it very hush-hush, quiet like. Normally this annoys me. When people say "I don't want to have a big party, because I don't like parties" or "I don't deserve it" or whatever, that's just self-pity. Please. A spontaneous celebration is usually a good thing, in my opinion. In my case, however, I think I just wanted it to be low-key because this whole semester has been like a party, and it's kind of obnoxious. It's all either party or travel, and while I'm a big fan of travel, there was no way I was getting trashed on my 21st birthday like every other idiot. A lot of my friends here have gotten stupid doo-doo dumb when they turned 21, and that's retarded. The 21st doesn't even mean anything here!

So I managed to have a couple of good nights with my closest friends here. It was very nice! I will miss these folks, much as I try to say "I'm moving on with life, and going home, and looking forward" and all that. While I don't know if any of my friends here are BEST FRIENDS 4EVER OMG, it's definitely been fun while it lasted, and I would consider giving a Regard* to a couple of them.

*you know when you say "give him/her my regards"? What if you only had a fixed number, say, 100 Regards? And when you ran out, you're done? Whom would you give your Regards to? Naturally, a few to your family, and to your future family, for sure. Which friends would deserve a Regard? If you think about this in a certain exclusive way, it's probably destructive, as it just creates a border between Regards-friends and other friends. But if you just think of it in the sense that meeting a person who's worthy of a Regard is nice, it's a neat concept.

I think that tomorrow I will consider my life status so far, and where I am on the dawn of my 22nd year, and post something a little more deep.

Hooray for Jones Soda!

They won the Seattle Seahawks stadium beverage rights! Rock on! This is either the first step towards, say, Great Lakes Brewing Co. instead of Bud at Cleveland Indians games, or another reason I want to move to Seattle.

Trip report: Morocco

Okay, it's time. I've got stuff about Budapest too, but it's less interesting, so we'll go in reverse chronological order.

Our trip to Morocco was intense! Let me start off with a disclaimer: these stories aren't on my photo page (which parents, etc, read) for obvious reasons... However, the internet is still very public, so all is left sorta vaguely anonymous. And for better anonymity, let's play the game of "all of these except one are true":

1. Whole rotisserie chicken, plus bread, fries, olives, sauces, all the fixins for 5 people, $6.50
2. One of my friends and I rode a camel over a sand dune to meet our other friends, who were buying hashish from a guy named Abdullah.
3. Snake charmers!
4. I hired a kid to take me to the tanneries; he got picked up and carted off by the "tourist police."
5. We went to a hookah bar where a monkey refilled the coals.
6. My friend traded his pants for hash.
7. We smoked said hash on the roof of our Marrakesh riad with one of the workers.
8. We did eat a sheep's head. Also a couple bowls of snails.
9. I bargained a guy down from 700 dirham to 60.
10. A kid got walloped with an orange.
11. I have three and a half weeks to get married.
12. We ate some shit fucking good food!

Okay, now I'll explain. Keep in mind that one of these is still fake.
1. $6.50 chicken: we arrived in Casablanca at midnight or so, and as Casablanca is kind of crap, we wanted the first train out (4:50 AM). Being frugal and thrifty, we were not about to pay for a place to stay. So we, you know, wandered the streets for a few hours. It was deserted and shady. Casablanca is not a particularly safe town, and we were sort of lost. Whatever- we're five big dudes! Nobody will mess with us! Luckily, that turned out to be true. A couple junkies followed us for a while, but we managed to lose them somehow. And then, miraculously, our famished selves came upon an open restaurant, and we were in there faster than you can say "student discount."
The owner looked and sounded a little like Watto. We happily ordered this big chicken dinner and discovered the beauty of the dirham. 10 to 1. So 65 dirham = EU$6.50 (or like US$8) Anyway, three days later, we had to get the first train to Casablanca airport at 5:05 AM, and we found ourselves in Casablanca at midnight. What's up, Watto? We retraced our steps entirely, and pretty successfully!

2. Essaouira beach. Camel rides? Sure! One of my friends and I paid 100 dh each, which was probably overpriced, given that you should bargain for everything, but totally worth it. It was kinda nondescript; a little bumpy but not bad. Getting up and down was the only lurchy, tricky part. Anyway, we go over to find our friends, and they are hiding behind a sand dune (no kidding!) conducting shady business with a guy named Abdullah. They ended up buying a bag that was supposedly opium but actually sticky and useless, making it probably the only straight-up scam of our trip.

3. Well, okay, scam #2: the snake charmers. We walk into the Djemaa el Fna (the big square in Marrakesh) and the first thing we lay our eyes on is a bunch of snake charmers. We walk over, a little awestruck, a little sleep-deprived, and we're totally cool with them draping a snake over us, and letting us get pictures with their big ol' cobra. Then they take us aside and say "you have to pay us (I saw this coming) 200 dirham (didn't see that number coming, though!)" I'm willing to pay a buck for a good photo, not 20.
Now, I've already accepted the service, so in some weird logical system, I owe them whatever they ask for. But I know this is a scam, so I don't want to give them more than 10 or 20 dh. But they are using clever mind tricks, and a forceful "You have to pay us this much!" is a pretty effective argument. But not effective enough; I see my friends getting hustled too, out of the corner of my eye, and so I blurt something about my friends paying them, and I run away. We were not all so lucky; sometimes they hold both ends of a snake around your head, like a rope, until you pay!

4. My little guide and the tourist police: so it's the last day, and we've kinda seen Marrakesh, and my friends are more tired than I, so I run off on my own. For a goal (because it's important to have a goal, even if you don't care at all about reaching it) I head towards the tanneries, which are supposedly cool and also stinky. I hear they're north of the center, so I wander north, and as I reach the end of the souks (shops), things get poorer quick and I realize I'm not in the tourist's Marrakesh anymore. Instead of ramshackle shops and every shop owner bugging me to come in, it's even-more-ramshackle houses and every kid giving me weird looks. (Of course, you can't blend in in a country where your skin is a different color) It's interesting, but I feel way out of place, and when I'm in Morocco, I don't want to mess around. Besides, people can smell unease, and that's never good. So when a kid asks "Djemaa el Fna? Big square?" I say "sure!" and he walks me in the right direction. I know he'll want a tip, and that's fine. I get back, and it's cool. I gave him 10dh, and he kept bugging me for 2 more. Err... sorry, I'm out of change.
A while later, another kid starts taking me on a tour of the shops, or something. Sure, great! I'll give him another few dirham afterwards. He shows me the dyers, who are using magic color-changing dye. (ooh!) Then some metalworking guys. I ask him about the tanners, and he says sure (I think; language barrier...), and we start walking along.
Then these big burly guys grab him and pull him away. Huh? Whatever; I'm not getting involved. A couple minutes later, he (somehow) finds me again, and we keep going. Then, a couple minutes later, some other big burly guys grab him! Another older kid tells me it's the "tourist police." Apparently, local kids aren't allowed to hassle visitors, and so if you're talking to one of them, the tourist police can take you away- make you pay a 100dh bribe or go to jail for a day or something. It didn't quite make sense; a tourist will give you a small tip (they seemed to think my 10-20dh were the norm) so you'd have to take a lot of tourists around to make up for the bribe, even if you only got caught 20% of the time or whatever.
But I soon learned the secret: the older kid offered to guide me (he spoke Spanish better than English, so that was fun) but he said I had to keep a distance behind him. It felt sorta sneaky and spy-ish, and I'm always in for that, so I followed him, and he took me to the tannery. (15 minutes walk through impossibly labyrinthic streets) The tannery was kind of interesting in the fact that it's such a repulsive place- big vats of dye or whatever, trash all over the place, piles of stuff I wouldn't want to touch with a 29 1/2 foot pole, a kinda bad smell, maybe a donkey here or there. But hey, as usual, the journey was more fun anyway.

5. Yeah, so on our Casablanca adventure(s)- there were two of them but they were exactly the same- we whiled away a large portion of our time inside a hookah bar, which sure was open all night, and that was nice. Gave us a safe place to sit while waiting for our 4:50AM train, and that was all... we thought. Then we ordered a hookah, and the shopkeeper brought it out. Cool, tasty, etc. (my first real hookah experience!) but then the coals cooled off a bit, so they had to be changed. The employee comes out with a monkey! We're a little weirded out, okay, maybe it's someone's pet, but then it goes ahead and picks up the old coals, tosses them into his little bucket, and uses tongs to put new ones on. Whoa. None of us could figure out if this is a standard thing, or maybe it's this shop's special gimmick, or what. But we were pretty thrilled to see the monkey keep coming out and changing the coals. And you wonder why we recreated our entire Casablanca trip the second time?

6 and 7. Pants for hash: my friends bought some hash (which was an experience in itself; a deal with a guy who walked by and said "hash?", conducted in an alley, while another friend and I acted as lookouts), and they were looking for a place to smoke it. Hey, our riad has a roof... oh yeah, and when we walked in, we smelled hash... so my friends asked the guy if we could smoke on the roof. "Sure... smoke what?" "err... tobacco." "and?" "uhh... something else?" In short, the riad worker joined us on the roof that night, and many hash joints were passed around. But then the worker expresses his liking for our friend's pants. Sorry, did you say pants? They were old J.C. Penney shorts, blue, good shorts if I do say so myself. The worker explained that he couldn't get that style in Morocco, and he really liked it. In the end, my friend wouldn't trade them, but my other friend traded his. So yeah, long story short, pants for hash.

8. Sheep's head and snails: truth!

9. Bargaining in Marrakesh (they don't do it so much in Essaouira) is nuts. It kept me guessing. I've heard numbers like 1/5-1/7; you shouldn't pay more than that for a product. So, the first couple times, for sunglasses and stuff, I offered maybe 1/5 of the price, and got flat out rejected. Meanwhile, my friends were getting stuff for maybe half price, no problem. Eventually I gave in and ended up offering maybe 30%, and going up to 50% by the time we were done arguing. I still got some good deals for large quantities of spices and stuff. But then, on the last day, I was looking for some wooden things, and this guy showed me a "magic box." It's a little trick gadget thing, like you have to know the secret to open it, and I thought, cool, a magic box. I figured it'd be a couple dollars (because, you know, everything comes from the big ol' Morocco factory somewhere...) and I asked, sportingly, how much it was. "700dh." What?! That's EU$70! I said forget it, and proceeded to argue about something else. As I was leaving the store, I said, "I'll give you 50dh for the box." He immediately came down to 350, and after some haggling, I got it for 60. Huh! I sure showed him! Then I realized I just bought a box I didn't really want, and it became clear who showed whom.

10. Orange fight: this reminds me of two stories. First, "orange": We got fresh-squeezed orange juice, The Best that I've ever had, made for you on the spot, from Moroccan produce, for 3dh/glass. (that's 30 cents) It was so good that I had to stop drinking it, because it was just too sweet. Next time I pay a buck twenty for a freakin' Minute Maid processed-from-concentrate-preserved bottle of orange snot, I will think of Marrakesh and groan.
Second: "fight": We saw a lot of fights in the streets. Not sure why. The most notable involved a kid who tried to steal an orange. He got caught, and the shopkeeper started hitting him with the orange. Come on, dude, you just squeezed like six of those oranges into my drink! It probably cost you 50 centimes! (100 centimes = 1 dirham. I think I saw a 50-centime coin once.)

11. Married in three and a half weeks: I got the worst (or best) fortune telling ever. These old gypsy-looking ladies have chairs set up in the Djemaa at night, and they have tarot cards and stuff, so I figured, I could use some advice as much as anyone. I asked a lady "do you speak English?" because a French fortune would not be so useful (although probably funnier) and she waved over this other lady, who spoke broken English, to translate. Okay, so there's two levels of language barrier here, this is a good start.
After our snake charmer experience, I knew better than to just take the fortune telling without negotiating in advance. I said 20dh, she said 150dh, we settled on 40. She shuffled the cards, held one out to me, and motioned that I should hold it on my chest (without looking at it). Then she took it back. She put the cards in three piles, and pointed, saying "one, two, three." So I pointed at them and said "one, two, three." At this point, she probably thought I was retarded. Fair enough. But she happily continued, and started looking through the deck. The first thing the translator said was "You... husband?" "No." "Okay, you, husband... four weeks." "I'm going to be a husband in four weeks?" "Yes, yes."
She continued by offering such sage advice as "you will... very rich." and "you think change." I noticed that every time I translated ("my thoughts will change?") she would reply "yes, yes!" I think, throughout the course of the telling, I got good fortune too, and a comparison to her mother. Okay.
Afterwards, I felt a little ripped off (not only because the translator started bugging me for "some money for her too", because the 40dh just went to the reader) but also because the tarot reader didn't even know how to read the cards. She just shuffled through them and said stuff. It was like the barber college version of the tarot reading, except that a haircut at the barber college probably costs less than EU$4.
That said, though, I only have a couple weeks left! Ladies, start lining up!

12. All the food stand owners would try to get you to eat their food. They figured that the best way to do that was to become your friend, and the best way to do that is to relate to you somehow, and the easiest way to do that is to talk about something from your homeland. So everyone really wanted to know where we were from. If we said "America", they'd say "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!" and so on. Sometimes they'd pick a city ("Holland? From Amsterdam?"). Or sometimes they'd just guess we're English and start spewing English. My buddy at the one stand kept talking about how his food was "Better than Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen! Shit fucking good food! It's the dog's bollocks!" I think we actually ate there at one point.

Phew! That's all I've got for now, although that's still not all that happened. What a crazy country. Ask me about it sometime.

By the way, I live in a country where this apparently works. Oh, Nederland, I will miss you when I have to leave. (seven days exactly. :(

Aaahh just kidding!

Sorry! By "Wednesday" of course I meant "next Wednesday after I get back from Morocco" and by that I mean "later tonight actually Wednesday night because right now it's still kinda Tuesday" and I am still tired from staying up two nights out of four and my stomach is finally saying to me "WHAT you ate a sheep's head and snails for dinner and followed it up with chicken from a shady Casablanca joint at 2 AM oh my god you are getting sick now" (thank you mr. stomach for not messing with me while I was actually in Morocco) and update later don't hurt me.

In the meantime, check the photos, even though they're pretty darn inadequate to describe all the neat-o goodstoryriffic things that happened.

wuv, Dan
who still harbors the dual illusion that: A. people read this thing, and B. said people care if I update ever

Back from Budapest!

... going to Amsterdam tomorrow, got to sleep a bit! I have some good stories! Not great, but interesting enough that if you've taken the time to get to my blog you might as well read them! But not now!

To hold you over, I offer this summary:
Budapest is like a carnival: tacky but fun, tasty but fat, confusing but friendly, and formerly communist.

For more details, wait until probably Wednesday!

Dear QuickTime,

I do not want to even know that you are installed on my computer, except when I need you to play movies. This is not debatable, because you are are a software program, not a living being. A means to an end, just like a bulldozer, city map, or sandwich maker. Therefore, EVEN IF you just got updated and are so proud to show off your new features that you just can't wait for your turn, I do not want your icon in my system tray OR in my quick launch bar.

Your buddy RealPlayer is just as bad, but at least I haven't heard from him in a long time.

Thanks!

The worst thing about drunkenness

is that it makes you feel like you're so much funnier than you really are
-Da"drunk blogging instead of .vomitting for once"n

Anyone know AJAX? and What is it about Christianity? and "At least it's not $1 zillion" and Thanks a lot, slugger.

First of all, does anyone know how to make a webpage where users can click and drag stuff all Googley-like? For example, Google calendar? I've heard the term "AJAX" but I don't really know much about it, and considering my knowledge of making web pages is pretty much limited to stuff like this, I'd like to know if it's, well, feasible and/or worth learning. Sort of a big ballpark view of the whole thing.

Second, Christianity bugs me a little bit, and this time I'm not talking about the Christian Church and their big old doctrine and the Bible and all that, but rather Christianity as pop culture/clique/whatever:
- The music: I guess I'm starting from an assumption that Christian rock is SO BAD, (snicker; I just remembered the old inside joke about SO BAD in capital letters... nevermind) anyway, Christian rock is not even in a league with other modern popular musics. If that's not a fair assumption, let me know.
- The clique: being "Christian" has become a Thing That You Can Be. You can be a jock, a stoner, a nerd, a hipster, a prep, ... or a Christian. It's got a whole culture. I guess that's fine.
- The tolerance: So there's a Christian clique, and they are going out of their way to talk about how goddamn tolerant they are. They will invite you! You are welcome! All are welcome in God's house! Even if you're not Christian, you are welcome! (nevermind that such an invitation is like inviting Freddy R. Jock to your LAN party, or Christopher Straightedge to your body piercing club)
- The language: When you read your Christian friend's away message, and it has some Bible quote. You know what I mean. Or "Sorry, I'm away, I'm off enjoying God's wonders." (except the fermented beverage wonders, or the human body wonders; see the next point)
- The abstinence: Okay, no sex and drugs. Whatever floats your boat. But when you get combine the Christian language, the overbearing tolerance, and the mindless abstinence, you get:
- The arrogance: At some level, this is all rooted in a sense of superiority: they have found The Truth, and life is great for them, and we're-not-trying-to-convert-you-but-you-can-find-the-truth-too. And, you know, you might be a heathen, and there's nothing wrong with that, but really you'd be happier if you joined our side. (and avoided, particularly, sex and drugs.) Argh! I hate it when people act like they know the secrets of life! (if they really do, I'm jealous; if not, I hate their pretense) And Christianity just happens to be a fully society-sanctioned way to act like you're the greatest thing.
(incidentally, this guy, shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up.)

Transition from religion to politics, because one eternal unanswerable question is not enough-- it's time for the horizontal line!

---

I found this: Cost of War
While it's just some cute little liberal "Bush is so bad!" site, it also has a big number on it, and well, that's a really big number, and there's not much more to say to the readers of this blog, because boy is that number pretty goshdarn big.

Oh, also, back to religion.

---

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy really has some pretty good wisdom in it, as I was pondering yesterday, and here's why: say you had an oracle, and you could ask and get answers to any question. What the hell would you ask it? Would you say "what is the meaning of life?" What does that even mean? Here's how my conversation with the oracle would probably go:

Me: What's the meaning of life?
Oracle: What is the meaning of an orange? Or a lobster? Or a cloud? They just are.
Me: (gets frustrated and kicks the oracle)
FIN

Okay, say I didn't kick the oracle.
Me: Okay, sorry that was too vague. What should I do with my life?
Oracle: You want a step-by-step guide? Here. (hands me a 10,000-page tome)
Me: (starts reading) "3:36:05 start reading book, 3:36:47 stop reading book and take one step forward, 3:36:58 open book again..." All right, this won't do. How about just a vague outline?
Oracle: Well, okay. You've got three choices. You can take the programmer path, or the professor path, or the travel-the-world-and-become-a-monk path.
Me: That's all? Stop telling me what to do!
Oracle: You asked.
Me: (gets frustrated and kicks the oracle)
FIN

Orr...
Me: Right, sorry. I meant, where do we go when we die?
Oracle: Underground. Unless you get cremated. Or pull a Jeremy Bentham.
Me: Oh. I knew that. Sorry.
(pause)
Me: What questions should I be asking?
Oracle: I don't know. You want tomorrow's lottery numbers? That's a pretty popular request.
Me: Ehh, sure, I guess. (takes lottery numbers and leaves, kicking the oracle on the way out.)
FIN

Queensday

I went to Koninginnedag. It was in Amsterdam. Pictures are up. My schedule for the next few days is absurd. It looks like this:
Thursday: Maybe go to this party
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
Monday:
Ram, I challenge you; I think, over the next five days, you might be busier than me.
However, I have a couple things to do during those days:
figure out plans for Hungary
figure out plans for Morocco
figure out plans for Spain
figure out if I'm going to Bratislava
figure out how I'm getting home
read some stuff about linguistics?
read some stuff for environmental philosophy class
prepare a presentation on said reading
write a short paper on said reading.
I think this post is a list. Sorry, Wikipedia. (Wikipedia does not like lists in articles. Did you know?)

A Dutch ad

This cracks me up for a couple of reasons:
1. It's not even anywhere near Christmas
2. Santa Claus is "de kerstman" (because Christmas is "kerstmis")
3. "Beltoon" = ringtone
4. "Drink de kerstman onder tafel" sounds funny, even if you don't know it means "drink Santa Claus under the table"
5. "Nogg" with two g's.

I credit Janet for this link

Alarmist? Yeah. But partially/mostly true? Also, yeah. More and more, it scares me to think that (eventually) there will be another big terrorist attack, and if (god forbid) anyone with certain dictatorial tendencies happens to be in power, he/she could do all sorts of nasty stuff. I mean, we could have our own Reichstag burning down, and then maybe the president declares a state of emergency and hauls off a whole bunch of left-wing media folks to Guantanamo. Whatever.

The president can do this! A possible scenario (and correct me if this can't happen):
(George Bush and I are playing ping-pong somewhere on his big Texas ranch, on one of his many many holidays)
Bush: How many points do I have?
Me: Four.
Bush: No, I have five.
Me: No, it's four. We've played eight points, and we both won four of them.
Bush: No, I have five points.
Me: No, you have four.
Bush: I have five.
Me: Okay, fine. You have five.
Bush: Are you saying that because you want it to be five, or because I really have five?
Me: I don't know! You've got four! Five! However many you want to have!
Bush: I don't believe you. You're an enemy combatant!
(the Secret Service guards whisk me away to Guantanamo, where I remain for the rest of my life, without charges or trial. Waterboarding is a distinct possibility.)

So the only thing that's impossible in that situation is that, in reality, I wouldn't have let him win ANY points. But in all seriousness, it is creepy.

Furthermore:
Jews <--> Islamic extremists (in a less politically correct world, this might just be "Muslims")
concentration camps <--> Guantanamo
Enabling Act of 1933 <--> Patriot Act
Do we want to wait for more pretty obvious parallels?

-Dan, who will believe anything you tell him, but is pretty sure that the US is farther in this direction than we should be, and who welcomes dispute, because I hope I'm wrong

The Actual Center Of The World, or, I Had a Better Time in London than You

Back from London, which is huge. I was visiting Erik, a friend from high school (and middle school, and grade school...) who's going to the London School of Economics for a year. That's cool. As such, he's living in pretty much the absolute middle of London. A few minutes walk from Covent Garden (which is pretty cool), Leicester Square (which is not really, unless you're going to a show), and Piccadilly Circus (which is not at all). Between Holborn and Tottenham Court Road stops on the Tube. It's the best location!

However, it also costs a ton, because living in London is straight up "double everything." One pound is more than two dollars, and most things cost the same in pounds as in dollars. Worse than Switzerland even (I think).

Whatever. Totally worth visiting anyway. I'd already seen all the tourist things (Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Changing of the Guard, even the London Eye) on previous visits, so I didn't have to do them again, which was great for my energy (because seeing those things all day really saps you somehow), Erik's enthusiasm (I bet he's been to them all multiple times), and my wallet (they all cost like ten pounds. That's like $20 to see a church! Who does that?! Except the Changing of the Guard, which is free, but also lame). So instead, we went to the Tate, some cool restaurants and pubs, neat parks, and a bunch of markets. And it was fantastic!

Interlude: if I ever wrote a travel guide it would look like this:
Dan's Travel Guide
1. don't worry
2. know someone who lives there
(and if you have a lot of money that's nice too)
The End

London has great markets. Maybe even The Best. Here is a guide of things to see, if you find yourself in London:
1. Seven Dials. Go to Covent Garden and go North, and you'll come across this hub-and-spokes shaped area, with the coolest stores and restaurants! Like Neal's Yard, the Monmouth Coffee Co., Magma Books, or some of the theatres.
2. Camden Town Market- they sell a lot of things. Go here if you want to decorate your house or buy clothes, and if you want your house and clothes to be really cool. Also you might run into a bunch of mohawks.
3. Borough Market- The Place to go if you're a snobby foodie. Actually, you don't have to be snobby, just rich. If I had money, I would never get tired of shopping at this place. It's a testament to London that this is only #3.
4. St. James Park- it's so pretty, especially the views across the little lake. The squirrels are (maybe too) friendly.
5. The Tate (Modern)- cool modern art museum. Expanded my horizons a little bit. I couldn't tell you much of what I saw, except that Magritte is still a baller (they only have one painting by him I think), Brancusi is a neat sculptor, and some guy made a video of New York from cameras inside an oil drum that he rolled down the road.
6. Covent Garden- touristy? sure. But also a good place to see some street performers.
7. Portobello Road Market- this is neat too, but more antiques and stuff. Cool food stands though. If you're looking for something to do, you could do worse.
8. Cabinet War Rooms- also pretty neat. Where Churchill and co. directed the WWII efforts from. Still, though, left me wondering if it was worth the 9 pounds (aka $20)

And if you've got a hankerin' to see Westminster Abbey or the Tower, fine, go for it. Make sure to go to some English pubs too though. They're not even fakey replicas- they're still actual English pubs! Very nice!

Pictures coming soon!

Here's an article about a guy who is "happy"

A real champ, and also, I like this magazine.

But somehow, it seems like the same old story. I feel like I know everything I'd need to know to get pretty well enlightened; I just have to go make these changes in my life. What I mean is that reading more isn't going to do it for me. Maybe that's true, maybe not.

One thing that reading more will help: what am I going to do with my life? Ideally I'll stumble on a really cool problem, dive into it, research it for a bunch of years, come out with a few extra letters after my name, and be a happy, erudite, often-teaching Professor. Slightly less ideally I'll get a job at a software giant, rise through the ranks, and be a happy, productive, rich Computer Guy. Even more ideally, I'll spend a few years traveling the world until I get sick of it, write the Alex Grubb Book of Things That Are The Best, and settle down into one of the tracks above. In reality, I'll bounce between options for a bunch of years, and then find it. Hmm.

Scotch and who?

The following is a list of people in Scotch'n'Soda that I don't know at all. Like, I wouldn't recognize them if they hit me with a brick on the street. And this is just from the board position nominees, so they must be major players in the whole SnS scene.
(just first names because I'm sure they don't want their names on some random guy's blog who doesn't know them)

Noah
Elliot
Rico
Matt
Shaun
Ankar
Tim
Sarah
Lianna
Michelle
Su
Miriam
Jackie
Sarah
Sarah
Alexa
Ian
Damian

This is great for SnS!
-Da"out of touch"n

Music gush of the minute

Okay, my mp3 player (Samsung YP-U2J, don't ever buy it) has refused to connect to my computer, rendering it pretty useless (unless you want to listen to Of Montreal, Mates of State, Scott Walker, or a book about learning Dutch...), so I haven't been up on all the latest tunes.

I haven't made up my mind about Neon Bible yet. I can't decide if this is Arcade Fire's next step on the track to being the next Talking Heads or Radiohead or other monumental band with "head" in the name (not that they sound anything like those two; they're just examples of how their reputation could turn out, I think), or if all their hype is still fueled by the (rightful) hype about Funeral.

If Metacritic is to be trusted, this is the year that all the bands we were hoping wouldn't slump didn't. Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Andrew Bird, Of Montreal, the Shins, Ted Leo, !!!, Modest Mouse, etc. are all 75+. But whatever, I haven't heard most of those yet, so back to Neon Bible:

I mean, Black Mirror and Neon Bible could be slow, brooding masterpieces, or they could just be slow, brooding songs. Keep the Car Running is upbeat and fun, but it's just Headlights Look Like Diamonds. You could say Antichrist Television Blues is awesome, or you could say it's monotonous and long. I love "No Cars Go" a lot, but that's just straight up recycled.

The one thing you can't argue with, though, is that Intervention is pretty goddamn cathartic. How can they get away with making the entire song one big crescendo? And all the lyrics, I don't know if they fit together, but "working for the church while your family dies", "hear the soldier groan all quiet and alone", "don't want to fight, don't want to die, just want to hear you cry"... every line is a big ol' grandiose and paranoid image. Two thumbs up.

Hot Chip is pretty great too, Grizzly Bear is too laid back and solemn for me, RJD2 is pretty cool although I appreciate the more techno stuff than the more hip-hop stuff, Art Brut is funny although I really can't stand another British-accent-punky band right now, and I don't know about Islands yet. (I'm really appreciating the old Unicorns album that I never really listened to that much)

A quick thought about evolution and capacities and adrenaline

Hey! Just back from a grand trip with my family. More on that later. Right now, an unrelated thought:

Brussels Airport just went on strike yesterday. So all the people who were on the flights yesterday probably got rescheduled for something soon, because airplanes are always 3/4 full or something. Now, the airplanes could just totally book all their flights to capacity, but then what happens if a strike (or whatever) happens? Everyone who's on those flights just gets held up forever. Maybe they'll get on a flight in 6 months. That won't do. It's a catastrophe.

Similarly, we humans have a certain physical capacity. And then we've got adrenaline, and a little extra capacity. How much more would we die if we didn't have that, and just operated on full strength all the time?

For example (with apologies if this point is already so clear that an example is pedantic and tiresome). Say I can bench press x pounds. Now, if there were a giant brick falling on me or something, and I had to push it away so it didn't crush me (this is an arbitrary situation that illustrates how bench pressing isn't really all that useful, but that's another issue), I could probably bench press 1.25x pounds, or x+20, or something.

Wouldn't it be nice if I could just lift 1.25x all the time? I could do bigger, better things! I could lift heavier things! Other guys in the gym would cower in fear! But then, one day while I'm lifting my maximum amount, a fly would land on the bar, and I'd be crushed.

I mean, unless there was a spotter. (who would probably be yelling "come on dude, you can do it! This is all you! I'm not even lifting it at all!")

The point is, it would be a lot easier to die (or pass out, or whatever) if our body operated at max capacity all the time. (which is kind of counterintuitive, but not as counterintuitive as Nash Equilibria.) I wonder if there's a lesson to be learned in that.

Black (music) Forest, and Here Comes the Sun

You know, they call rap and hip-hop "black music" here? Just throwing that out there.

Yeah, so two things happened over the last few days: I went to the Black Forest, and life got a lot easier.

Black forest first! I've got a good travel-narration on my pictures site, so check that out shut up. Here, I'll share thoughts about it instead: it was fun, and pretty, although I was almost more impressed by Freiburg than the Schwarzwald itself. I think it's all because of expectations. I was expecting trees wider than a Smart Car and taller than a Köln Dom, creating an eerily dim (nay, black) setting, with the ground covered by moss, and, you know, elves popping out here and there, and if they wouldn't mind posing for a picture that would be nice. It wasn't that. I kept thinking I could see the same thing back home. But I did take a few moments here and there to just enjoy being out in the woods (and by the lake), and that was nice, so I consider it a big old success.

Plus, you know, there's my whole motto about how your primary goal while you're traveling will end up irrelevant, and the things along the way will be memorable. Like how, after our long hike, we stopped in this little diner (in a end-of-the-line tiny train station, no less, in a place called "Seebrugg") and got some soup, and they gave us each a shot of plum-flavored honey schnapps afterward, and what a great drink, and it was perfect. (Brought home a bottle, souvenir-hunting and liquor-swilling tourist that I am.)

Or how Freiburg has The Best little market, all around their (big, impressive) cathedral, almost every day! Or how it has little canals in the roads and is very eco-friendly. All those trees... it had a similar feel to Seattle, and I think that was because of the smell or the cleanliness of the air or something. Oh, and I almost forgot the great restaurant we went to! Friday night, we got in late and we were hungry, so we kind of stumbled into the first place that looked cool, and it was cool! Classic German bar sort of thing. I had some Badische Nudelsuppe (from Baden-Wurttemburg, the name of the region) and a half Flammkuche, which I didn't know what it was, but it turned out to be an Alsatian thin, crispy pizza-ish thing (a "tart", I suppose. Don't start calling French dishes pizzas.), with some kind of awesome bacon and cheese.

It was also fun to play interpreter, as my little bit of German was a little more than Andy's no German. I helped him get a 5-day German railpass for less than the cost of the ticket to Freiburg. I felt so useful! But still a whole lot of people spoke English. It still surprises me.

But yeah. Freiburg is a great city. It'd be fun to live there for a bit. In a sustainable house, you know. It's like Maastricht, except you'd have more crunchy people and less rich people. (the prices were nice too!) And the Black Forest is a cool place. I'd love to get to explore it more.

The other thing that happened was my project presentation and exams. First of all, the project presentation was great. Our robot didn't quite solve the maze (he needs a little nudge whenever he hits a crossroads), but we did better than most of the groups, I think, and the teacher was so impressed by all the nifty tricks we did that I'm not sure if he even noticed the shortcomings. High-fives all around, and now we can move on with our lives.

Exams were fine too; I think I did well enough in both to get grades that translate into A's. Competitive, though: their scale is from 0 to 10, with about an 8 = A, 7=B, 6=C, etc. That extra differentiation at the top sucks. I mean, at CMU, you can get A-'s in all your classes and get a 4.0. In the Netherlands, you'd get an 8.0, I guess, which is worse than some other kid's 10.0. (That other kid would be Daniel or Michael, the two German guys I worked with.) But hey, I don't think these grades even get factored in to my GPA, so whatever. The classes are done, and I did pretty well.

That means I have no classes this weekend, my family's coming, and next block is two easy classes. Rock on. The sun is shining, it's market day, and I got very little sleep last night but I'm feeling fine!

Let's throw the word "emo" around some more. Also, "carb."

Panic at the Disco isn't emo, guys, really!

That's like a black guy in the pre-civil-war South saying "hey guys, I'm not black!", with the difference being that there's nothing inherently wrong with being black.

More accurately, it'd be like a pack of Spamsicles (a Spamsicle being still hypothetical, but you never know) yelling out "There are no carbs at all in us!" It's false, but it's almost true. However, saying it is unnecessary; furthermore, they only feel compelled to say it because all their contemporaries are being bashed for having these evil little "carb" monsters lurking about. Finally, it entirely misses the point.

Speaking of carbs, what's the deal? Is the current low-carb, high-protein craze (which has gone beyond the Atkins diet and seeped into a lot of consciousnesses, like mine) correct? Or is it like the 90's low-fat craze, which has seeped into not only consciousnesses but also everything, with the result being that low-fat stuff is still all around us, despite the yelps of every doctor ever, who really would like to emphasize that unsaturated fats are good for you? Will proteins soon become the next fats, and carbohydrates glorified as the new Grand High Macronutrient? What IS the right balance, calorie-wise, of carbs/fats/proteins? Is it the seemingly sensible (to an Atkins-influenced mind) 40/30/30, or the old-fashioned 60/30/10? And will these three titans battle it out in their inflatable gladiator jousting bouncy room until the end of time, or will the doctors blow the whistle and kindly inform them it doesn't even matter?

Meanwhile, the Germans will continue to cut out that second level of the food pyramid (you know, the one with all the foods of green and other colors) and replace it with beer, and still be somewhat relatively more healthy than us?

Report (and pictures) from the Black Forest coming up, but first, there's studying to be done, and a filthy room to be cleaned.

... so apparently I'm pretty good at pictures

Dutch food is not a barren wasteland!

There is good Dutch food! It just all happens to be mush or dough. And mush is tasty, but you can only take so much; dough is tasty, but it will kill you. For example:

Mush
Erwtensoep (thick pea soup, usually with sausage)
Stamppot (potatoes, onions, kale/other greens, whatever vegetables you want, mashed up in a pot, with sausage. Also my favorite Dutch word.)
Hutspot (potatoes, onions, carrots, mashed up in a pot, with sausage)
Hachee (a thick stew that includes beef... I've never actually made this correctly or eaten it, so I'm not sure, but it sounds mushy)
Vla (yummy pudding)

Dough
Pannenkoeken (pancakes, very big and floury)
Oliebollen (I've already raved about these donutty guys)
Wafels (okay, they're Belgian, but especially here in Limburg (south Netherlands) they're popular)
Stroopwafels (these are Dutch, I think. Thin little waffles. Still waffles.)
Poffertjes (apparently they're like little pancakes)
Vlaai (not to be confused with Vla. Vlaai is a simple pie.)

Herring
Okay, so herrings are not mush or dough.

The point is, how did the Dutch survive all these years?! How are they not all bored of food and fat? And why don't they, you know, get a little creative? (the same applies to the Germans, but I think their food is a little more varied. To be fair, they do have a lot more land to work with.) Also, I need a few eaters who don't like to cook. I can only eat so much food myself. (I'll really try though!)

Hey, Janet, Mike, and Zach again...

I guess I'm not going to see this band after all.

Bummer!

Attitude adjustment

I think I've been seeing people's flaws too much. Maybe I should open up more. I tend to get this way when the ol' social order has been established, though. Like before I know anyone, I play this game of who's cool and who's not, and whom I should hang out with, and whom I should make eye contact with when I'm talking, and so on. A lot of it's unconscious. (Unfortunately, a lot of it is conscious too.)

But then, once I get to know people and people get to know me, and there's some respect flowing back and forth, and I start feeling socially comfortable again, I start to think "hey, everyone's my friend, no worries" etc. The people that I don't like have sort of filtered themselves out of my company, while the people I do like have filtered themselves in. So I relax this whole social climbing nonsense and act like myself.

For example, two months ago, I would pick out every flaw of the American students here. (Maybe that's because I subconsciously indoctrinated myself not to like them because I didn't want to hang out with Americans all the time.) Now, for the most part, they're friends that I would very much enjoy traveling with. It could be the mere exposure effect (where I like them more just because I've seen them more). Or, it could just be that I'm relaxing my mind's little rules.

And who knows, maybe this is all working out for the best. Maybe if I was so open to everyone at the beginning, I'd make friends with the wrong people and then get all fed up in a couple months when I couldn't stand my "friends."

Probably not, though. I think it's just a social quirk of mine, and I should mostly drop it.

This is pretty funny

And I think everyone else has probably seen it already:
RIYL: Yacht Rock
Also, in my book, Justin Timberlake has completed his transition from crappy boy-band has-been to pop hero, if only because of this video.

I had all my non-American friends over for dinner last night, meaning 4 small groups of acquaintances, and it all worked out pretty well! It then morphed into a huge party being held by the Italians across the hall. Today I saw the Netherlands American War Cemetery, had a great lunch, and walked through confusing tunnels under Maastricht for a long time, all c/o the CES. Hey, if you like economics, law, psychology, or other things, you could do a lot worse than going to Maastricht. The folks at the CES are really great. By "the folks" I mostly mean Nathalie, who's in charge of coordinating a lot of stuff.

I'm feeling good.

Another Dutchism

"Sneeuwwitje stikte in de appel." - "Snow White choked on the apple."

Apparently, in the Dutch version, when the evil witch gave Snow White an apple, she didn't just fall into a deep deep sleep until her true love came around and gave her a kiss; she just choked. I'm hoping this is a shining example of Dutch humor.

Sorry, korfball

I appreciate the effort. You were kind of fun, at least in principle. Plus, all the korfballers (and the coach/trainer guy) were really helpful and welcoming. But you just weren't fun in practice.

Plus, you're absurd. So you're like basketball, except there's no backboard, you can't dribble or run with the ball, there are 4 offenders and 4 defenders per team (of which 4 are male and 4 female), and there field goes behind the basket too. That's cool. So the practices are across the river, and you use a soccerball when you clearly should use a basketball... that's fine too. The tricky part is that the practices always consisted of lots of crazy drills that I never understood (partially because they were always yelled out in Dutch, partially because they were too complicated for my simple mind). You go here, you go there, throw the ball to him, he throws it back, then you shoot at the basket, then she gets the rebound, then you become the new rebounder and then go to the end of the line. Aaagh! I'd be confused for about four minutes before I understood, and then a minute later, they'd start a new drill.

I think the breaking point was when the coach called out something that sounded like "fifteen dollarball!"* and everyone started practicing underhand layups. Ask me to show you some korfball techniques sometime, it'll make for a good laugh.

* I later found out it was "vijftien doorloopball", or "practice fifteen times the walk-through-ball", and really, calling it a "walk-through-ball" makes just as much sense as calling it a "lay-up."

All that said, though, I do like the sport in theory. It's like team handball or basketball without the whole macho charging-into-the-lane thing that frightens pansies like me. Or like Ultimate Frisbee, except you don't need to know how to throw or catch a frisbee.

Hey, uh, Janet, Mike Yin, Zach Harris?, and all the other hipsters who might read this blog and care about this:

I'm going to see this band in Cologne on April 1.

I'm excited!

Not worryin' about it

My initial plan for this weekend was to use up a couple of Railpass days making a voyage through France. Hit up a town that everyone's heard of but nobody actually goes to, like Dijon or Lyon or Strasbourg. Taste some French food and French wine. And then be confused about what I was going to do, because I don't know what people do in these cities. Nobody wanted to go to France, though, so I talked to one of my friends here and we decided to go back to Amsterdam. But then we realized that, for a "short weekend trip", that was pretty expensive. (plus my friend's on the no-budget plan) So we went to Belgium instead, because traveling through Belgium is real cheap. ($4.50 from any Belgian city to any other) We picked Antwerp, pretty arbitrarily.

So I was a little disappointed. But that didn't make any sense; I'm going to a new Belgian city! That's cool! So I decided not to be disappointed, and to just take it really easy, and just not worry about anything. Not plan anything, not read about it in my guidebook, not think "oh no, I'm missing all this cool stuff"... just exist, walk around, do whatever sounds like a good idea.

We got there at 3 pm or something, spent a couple hours looking for a hostel, with no luck. We found a double hotel room for $50, but like I said, my friend was not about to spend any more than he absolutely had to, so we decided to head back that night. We wandered for 4 hours, probably missed every Antwerp landmark, saw a couple of cool pubs and other neat things, almost had The World's Most Exclusive Beer, and so on.

So what's the end result of this trip-and-travel-style-experiment? I don't know. Was it enlightening? A little bit. Disappointing? A little bit of that too. I wish I'd planned a room in advance anyway. Once we had a map, things made more sense. I still can't decide if I want to travel like my dad- planning things out at every step along the way- or like a carefree person who just stumbles along and happens to run into cool things. I think I like planning things. But again, not too much! If you spend all your time planning, you see all the tourist sites, you never get a feel for a city at all.

I guess the best thing to do is to find a balance. Surprise!

Oh yeah, also, I went to the TEFAF. Check my photos!

I get pretty manic depressive about coding

When a project is working, and I'm making progress, I'm on fire. I get totally wired. Almost jittery. I could do it for hours and hours, nigh-nonstop. That's probably a sign that this is actually a good career path for me.

However, when it's not working, and especially if it's not working because of some stupid issues, like a method in an external library isn't doing what it's supposed to, or I don't have the right documentation to find what I want it to do, or I just don't understand someone else's code, it's the worst. It sucks a lot. That's probably a sign that I will have a lot of difficult times in this career path.

However, I'll have some GREAT times too, especially if I have some equally enthusiastic co-workers (as I do on this Intelligent Systems robot maze project), so I guess it turns out well in the end. I'll let you know how this project goes.

This train is going 251 km/hr. That's faster than I've ever gone on land, including the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point.

If we're comparing European cities that I've seen to American cities I may or may not have seen, and I'm not saying we are, but if we were, and if we said maybe Paris is San Francisco, Amsterdam is Vegas (which is unfair to Amsterdam, but remember, we're not comparing these cities anyway), Rotterdam is Pittsburgh (in 20 years...), and Brussels is DC, Berlin is definitely New York. Besides Paris (which I saw under crummier circumstances), it's the only city that, to use a trite iceberg metaphor and an awkward sentence structure, I didn't see beyond the tip of. I didn't even see the whole tip. If Berlin is a dartboard, I only saw the 50-point bullseye, the 9, and maybe the double-17. If Berlin is one of those donuts from Dunkin' Donuts (which abounded here, by the way...) with a little extra nub so you can hold it while you dunk it in your coffee, I just ate the nub and called it a day. If Berlin is creme brulee, I ate the crispy top.

That said, it was a tasty crispy top ("mmm... lekker!" as the Dutch would say. or "heerlijk!"). I'm not going to say Berlin exceeded all my expectations, but it exceeded the meager expectations I had before I read about how great it was. It wasn't all communist grit (although it had some of that), Holocaust apologialia (although it had plenty of that too), and wursts with sauerkraut (surprisingly little of that).

First, I had a great time there culinarily. I had a nice lunch today of artichokes and feta fried with mushroom sauce, with noodles and awesome bread-with-tomatoes at a vegetarian cafe called "Cafe V". (you know, like that movie, V for Vegetariendetta.) Yesterday, I awkwardly sat at the tables that I think are meant for people waiting for take-out, while everyone else ate in the nice restaurant upstairs, and ate some nice Indian food ("rogan josh"- now I know what that is) for dinner. (oh well, at least they didn't turn me away like the first place I tried to go to. Come on, restaurant, you clearly weren't full, and I clearly could have eaten at the bar. Plus, it's not like you were trendy and exclusive. If you don't like my tourist jacket, haircut that might have been rebellious in the 60's, or, well, lack of dining companions, say so!) I had some yummy yummy spaetzle Friday night for dinner, in a quiet but German cafe whose name I don't remember. But the best was yesterday for lunch: a hip medium-sized vietnamese place called Monsieur Vuong. It was packed at 2:30pm. But I found a seat, chose from their something-like-4 choices of food, and received a curry dish that rocked my tastebuds. You know how they say Southeast Asian food is about balancing sweet, sour, salty, and spicy? Yeah, this did. I can't even explain the flavor, except to say it sure did have coconut milk, lemongrass, and (I think) lime leaves (among other things).

None of my awesome meals cost above EU$10, including a drink. Plus, my hostel cost EU$20 for two nights! Berlin sure is affordable. Hey, also, thanks for letting me slip the word "apologialia" past you two paragraphs go.

Second, they have neighborhoods, and that's a thing about cool cities: neighborhoods. I'm not sure if distinct neighborhoods cause a city to be cool, or coolness causes neighborhoods, but cool cities tend to have them. I got to see about three of the neighborhoods, but I can tell you this: West and East are glitzy and gritty respectively. But not overly so! West Berlin (Charlottenburg, for example), is like New York's Midtown. Not quite so upscale, but equally commercial. They have all the big names, from H&M to Gucci, and so I mostly stayed out of this area.

Meanwhile, Kreuzberg (in the East*) is like New York's Lower East Side. It's the kind of place that actually appreciates a super-cloudy day or a sunset, because the low light airbrushes over the graffiti and bits of trash in the street. It doesn't do so well in the harsh light. Like the Lower East Side, though, it seems like you'll find the best record shops and cheap food options there. It's got a "counter-cultural" reputation. That's where the Cafe V was, and also the Jewish museum. (which was cool! see photos)

Prenzlauerberg, in the northeast, would have to be Greenwich Village then, but it's not quite as cool. Okay, I'll confess, I went there because there's a Beirut song named after it. (well, that's as good a reason as any; if it's that memorable, there must be something good about it) It was nice- it had its fair share of cool restaurants. Also, there were a lot of police cars relaxing after (apparently) a day of arresting protesters, and a spontaneous art installation (but more about that in the photos).

*okay, it was in West Berlin. But it's geographically in the East, and it feels sort of Eastern.

Third, it have good public transportation. Now there's a cause of coolness. It's not The Best: a couple stations had work being done, and it's not like Paris, where you see a metro everywhere you look. Also, some of the trains are called S-bahns and they go above ground, as opposed to U-bahns, which go underground. Sometimes U-bahns go above ground too, particularly in the East, and an above-ground U-bahn is ugly and badly-named. Minor gripes aside, it's great public transport, and a day pass costs EU$6, which is not bad.

For the record, I forgot to mention, but Rotterdam also has great public transportation, including a two-line subway and lots of trams. Good for them! Pittsburgh, Cleveland, every city who wants to be something, are you listening?

Finally, it had street performers (a few) AND markets, two more defining characteristics of cool cities. 4 for 4, Berlin.

In the end, Berlin hits #2 on the "cities I didn't see and I want to see again" list (after Paris), although time will tell if I actually am going to see either of those cities again. I mean, I can get to Morocco for EU$100, and my railpass has only one more trip on it... (after somewhere-in-France and the Black Forest)

On another note, if you've ever talked to me for any length of time, when I'm in a great mood, I'm sure I've gotten all starry-eyed and told you about how my life is like a movie. I used to be pretty sure it was the Truman Show. Now, I think it's an episode of Mr. Bean. I mean, on Saturday I found myself wearing shoes that hurt my big toes because I hadn't broken them in yet and my toenails were too long. (meanwhile, I left my nail clipper at home, despite repeatedly reminding myself to bring it, just in case) So I search all over, passing apothecaries and restaurants, but finding nowhere that would have a nail clipper. Then I found one, but I had to search for a restroom where I could clip my nails. I didn't find one until the Pergamon Museum. So here I am, in a museum bathroom stall, clipping my toenails.

The good thing is, Mr. Bean's life is pretty awkward, but it's also eventful, and I've always idolized That Guy (or girl, to be fair) who manages to have amazing things happen to him, wherever he is. You know, like he'll be in a restaurant on the way to a concert, strike up a conversation with some guy who happens to be the webmaster for the band, and he'll hang out with the band afterwards. Or he'll be hiking in the woods and wander over a ridge and just happen to see a caber tossing competition. Or whatever. And the more I do, the more I realize that that kind of stuff just happens, and all you have to do is be there, and be ready for it. The more outgoing you are, and the more languages you know, the more this will happen, and I'm pretty poor in both those categories, but that can only improve with time, eh?

Just a thought.

Goin' to Berlin, right now

Not right now, but in like 8 hours. Eurailpasses let you travel at the drop of a hat. Or at the drop of a "why not travel this weekend?" Further on the list of "being comfortable traveling by myself", I offer you this: despite none of my friends here going, if the Eurailpass lets you travel for free, and two nights hostel costs me EU$20 (total!), why not go?

Signed, flying by the seat of my pants and loving it.

Vindication!

Well, sort of.

Yeah, so 7up got slammed a little bit for their "100% natural" nonsense. But now Coke and Pepsi are making diet sodas with a few vitamins, and marketing them as "healthy."

Arrgggh! That's not how it works! Here's why:
1. Just because something has zero calories, that doesn't make it healthy. I mean, a rock has zero calories, because you can't digest it. (right?) Windex has zero calories. Battery acid has zero calories.
2. If a drink has a few vitamins, that doesn't make it healthy. If it's like 7up plus and Propel, the current "healthy soda" leaders, it'll have like 10% RDA of a couple different B vitamins. Hoo-ee.
3. Even if the drink had a lot of vitamins, say, 100% RDA of 20 different vitamins and minerals, that doesn't make it healthy either. I could crush a Flintstones multivitamin and sprinkle it on ice cream, but that doesn't make it healthy.
4. Caffeine is still not healthy.
5. Whatever acids and chemicals they're putting in there are still not healthy.

Rotterdam? More like Betterdam!

This weekend gave a big boost to the ol' "trust your muse" school of thought. (You should trust your Muse, too, because they will make absurdly grandiose rock spectacles with lots of lasers, and you can count on that) I sort of hatched the idea of seeing some other Dutch city last week. You know, somewhere besides Amsterdam, the tourism-and-joints capital of the world, and Maastricht. But by the time Saturday rolled around, I got up at noon, nobody else wanted to go, I was feeling a little bit sick, it was raining like a big rainy thing, and I had no hostel reservation.

So of course I went. I decided to go to the train station, see if it's cheaper and easier to get to Rotterdam or Utrecht, and go there. It was about the same (read: EU$40 and an annoying train-bus-train connection because of rail line work), but I had heard about these windmills in Kinderdijk, near Rotterdam, and I thought that that sounded cool, and also I don't think I would be allowed out of the country in June if I didn't see any windmills. Rotterdam ho!

How'd it turn out? In two words, very well! I got in at about 5:30pm, after all the museums and stuff closed, and I thought I'd have nothing to do all day. Surprise, it's Museum Night! All the museums and art galleries (about 40 in all) were open from 8pm to 2am, having special exhibits, DJ's, parties, drinks, etc. Next time I complain about my rotten luck, remind me of that time I went to Rotterdam and it was Museum Night.

So I saw a bunch of museums with cool art, some neat galleries, some over-the-top pretentious modern-art galleries, a church with organ music, people out on the streets, and architectural wankery. The next day I went to see some windmills, which was not quite so good.

Classes are still pretty easy (although I have no idea if this project we're working on is ever going to come together... urrghhh projects), I got into a Dutch language class (I got into level A2, instead of A1, because of all that reading I did on my own, proving that it wasn't a waste of time after all), I'm still in the acting class and it's not bad, and I'm looking for a trip this weekend. I'm thinking Berlin, but I'm not sure.

I feel like an old man. I walk around a city and some windmills for 24 hours, and my legs were sore the next couple days. Also, I always look like I'm dying, mostly due to the big dark bags under my eyes. ("You look like a, um, dead thing, um, what is the word... a zombie" commented one of my fellow actors yesterday) More importantly, I often feel very tired, no matter if I sleep a lot or a little, exercise or not, eat well or not, drink coffee or not, take Claritin or not. Huh. Nothing new, really. Still, it'd be nice if a doctor or someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong.

But other than that, life is smiley and nice. Well, that's not true either. Life's not "pleasant"... it's certainly turbulent. But in a good way; in an "I'm meeting a lot of new people and trying new things and going to a new city every weekend" sort of way. I like it.

This makes me wish I was back in America

I mean, not really. But it would be a cool thing to do if I were in America.
Dismemberment Plan Reunites
These guys played the best concert I have ever seen. (Although Tally Hall comes in a close second.) If you're in Pittsburgh, it's only 4 hours away. Look, I took a 4 hour trip this weekend, and that was just little old me traveling on train-bus-train and staying in a hostel, going to a city not much bigger than Cleveland because I thought maybe I should see some windmills. (More on this trip later.) You don't have much of an excuse not to go to this show.

Plus you could go to Plaza Garibaldi.

Crash and burn.

My phone interview with Google, my big chance to talk to an actual person at Google (which is rare enough!) just ended. One design question, one estimation question, zero actual answers from me, a lot of me being all over the place, and a big pile of ugh. I'm not cut out to be a project manager at all. At least, not yet. I don't actually have any PM skills.

Please, please, Google interviewers, if you're reading this because you Googled me (ironic, and maybe you did) to dig up some dirt on whether or not you should talk to me again; don't disregard me for an engineering position just because I'm kind of a ditz when it comes to designing anything! Give me an algorithm, I'll tell you its runtime, big-oh, big-omega, whatever you want! I'll make a chess computer that beats Deep Blue and Garry Kasparov at the same time, blindfolded! I'll prove P=NP! I'll solve the halting problem! I mean, I've been instructed by Klaus Sutner himself, and that has to count for something.

A story that I believe should be told

Because I forgot to tell it earlier, and it was kind of funny, and I don't want to forget it. It happened like a month ago in a Paris subway, and I was dragging home a friend who was really drunk and throwing up. Needless to say, I was a little annoyed, and a little in that frame of mind where I'm saying "Hey, God! Check it out, I'm doing a Good Deed! There better be some good karma in this for me!" which of course makes it insignificant and not really a good deed at all.

So we're going through the subway, right... we have to go about 4 stops, but there's a transfer in between, so we come off one train and this guy has to throw up. We find a trash can, he does his thing. Then a French guy sees us and motions and somehow mimes that he can get us water. I think he said "l'eau." (of course I felt proud of myself for recognizing a French word.) So I don't know what to think, but he's pointing the same way we're going, so I just start walking that way, and he walks with us. My drunk friend is going "Hey Dan, should I trust this guy?" and I'm trying to play it cool, so I kinda don't answer, but eventually I just go "I dunno" and keep walking. Eventually we get to a little water faucet. My friend washes his face off, and the French guy looks very satisfied because HE did a Good Deed. I say "merci!" and we walk away. But he's following us.

Suddenly we turn a corner and I realize: - French guy's friend has joined us, and - nobody else is around at all. And we go to walk away, but French guy stops us and says something that, in my paranoid state of mind, sounded like "Hey hey... let me teach you some karate." And with that, he puts his leg between my friend's legs and goes to do the stage-combat flip. You know, where you kinda grab their arm and toss them over your hip. At this point, I pull him away and go "Non!" so he tries again, and goes "okay, okay, hey hey hey... karate!" as if this would convince me that it's a good idea ("oh, karate! well, go right ahead!"), and I yell repeatedly in progressively louder voices, "NON!" So he backs away and lets us go.

At this point, I was pretty convinced that we were just about to get mugged, and I had saved us both. In retrospect, that's, uh, probably not the case. If they wanted to mug us, they could have, well, mugged us. Either they were just jerking our chain a little bit (in which case they probably got a big kick out of the fact that I was so scared) or they were trying to teach me how to carry him or something (in which case they were probably a little miffed that I was so rude). At any rate, it makes for a good story. At least, I thought so.

Parlez-vous Ski Bum? or, Heidi and Rin Tin Tin do not live in Verbier, or, Ow ow ow ow

First of all, let me say thank you to every person, place, thing, circumstance, happening, and bit of money that allowed me to go skiing not once but twice in the Alps. This is the first year that I've made multiple trips to big mountains, as well as probably my first 10-ski-day year. If everyone were able to achieve their goals and dreams so easily, we would all be pretty lucky.

Pompousness aside, let me give you a short narrative on how those 3 days skiing actually went.

First, Carnival ended Tuesday night. I was sad to see it go. The closing ceremony was really kind of bittersweet. The prince gave a little speech, they sang some sad songs, the Mooswief came down, the oliebollen stands closed up, and that was that. I mean, people still partied all night, but that was sort of that.

Wednesday was train day! And I'm not kidding. Let me trace out my route for you:
Maastricht-Aachen (bus)
Aachen-Koln (train)
Koln-Freiburg (the Aachen-Koln ran late, so we missed the train from Koln-Mannheim. But this train from Koln-Basel was running late, so we got on it. Since it was running late, however, it didn't go all the way to Basel; it stopped in Freiburg.)
Freiburg-Basel SBB (not to be confused with "Basel Bad.")
Basel-Biel (of course we were off schedule, so we were going to go via Morges per the train station people's advice, but then the conductor said we should get off in Biel. Fair enough.)
Biel-Lausanne
Lausanne-Martigny
Martigny-Le Chable (on the "St. Bernard Express")
Le Chable-Verbier (bus)
Total: 9 vehicles, over 12 hours. Anyone who tells you train travel is easy is not correct. Well, that's not true; train travel is easy for certain things. If you're going from big city to big city, it's no problem. But if you're going from small Dutch city to small Swiss city, it's a bit of a trip.

Something about train travel, though: why is route planning hard? When I get off schedule because one train is running 10 minutes late so I miss my next connection, I go and talk to the Train Station People, and they give me a route with all the connections and times mapped out. But a couple times, I've gotten suboptimal routes- like they go an indirect way, or they start an hour in the future, or something. First of all, why don't they have their magic computer out at a terminal somewhere, so I can use it? Second of all, why don't they give me the best route? It can't be an algorithmic problem, because hell, I could make that program. There must be some hidden variables (maybe they're trying to load-balance on their trains, or maybe they're trying to find me the fewest connections instead of the shortest route, or something), but I'd like to know what they are, and how I can just ask for the fastest path.

Okay, so about Verbier. I wasn't so enchanted with it as I was St. Anton. Something about it just seemed more exclusive, less fun, and more resorty. In retrospect, I think it was mostly the prices: 68Sfr for a lift ticket, 45 or something for rentals, and every place except the Bunker was really expensive to sleep. We found a pizza place for about 20 francs each, and a crappy burger joint for 10-15, but other than that, everywhere cost 35-40 euros (edit: whoops, I mean 35-40 francs) for a main dish. Of course, a franc is about 80 cents US, but there's still some sticker-shock there, all the time. It's mostly psychological, I'm sure... those 35 franc meals wouldn't have seemed like so much if they had been 21 euros. All the same, it was enough to make us live subsistence-style, buying bread and peanut butter, stocking up at the free breakfast, etc. I don't think I got the sense that I was in Switzerland, magical Switzerland, land of snow-capped Alps and Toblerone and fondue and watches and neutrality and the good life that everyone else is missing out on. I felt like I was in a ski resort. Which was true.

Speaking of bare-bones living in a rich town, did I mention the Bunker? That's where we stayed. Check out my pictures (link on the right) to see more about it. It was pretty minimal. 30 bunks in a room, concrete floors, etc. But it did have a hot tub and a restaurant, a fun atmosphere, and it cost 25Sfr per night. Graffiti on the walls, etc. Most of the inhabitants were ski bums. I liked it a lot, and I'm glad we didn't stay there any longer.

Speaking of ski bums, let me tell you about my traveling companions:
4 guys who came to Verbier a few days before us and skied for a week; 2 Coloradoans, 1 Aussie, and 1 Pole. The Coloradoans skied like 30-some days a year. One of them raced. Of course they were pretty much Too Cool for School. But they didn't act like it.
2 Indianans, former football players and so on, the kind of guys who think it's funny to buy a Jack and Coke, because they sell it in a can, at 10AM on our first train.
1 economist who liked to start conversations like "To you, what is it that adds value when you buy a product?"
1 girl from Toronto who, first of all, had to have a lime in her beer, and second of all, was afraid that she'd get some disease when she cut said lime on the floor and then put it into her beer, and therefore never drank the rest of said beer.
Guess who I liked traveling with the most? Well, the 2 Indianans, really. Goes to show, I don't know what the hell I like in travel companions. The 4 guys were pretty cool too, but they were pretty much ski bums, and I can't deal with that whole lifestyle.

For those of you who haven't met any, a ski bum is an interesting breed. He/she (although almost always he, although there are a few girls) loves skiing, obviously, and skis as much as possible. Sometimes he gets a job at a ski resort for the winter, just to be there to ski. And here's the paradox: he's usually young and sort of poor. At least he plays up the "poor" angle a lot (by, say, buying bread and eating sandwiches 3 meals a day). But he wears nice ski equipment, has his own skis, and, well, skis so many days per year. You can't do that if you're poor! So, probably, the average ski bum is a guy like me, in or out of college, who decided to spend all his money on the slopes. He also likes to party a lot, and drink, especially beer. Somehow he's able to ski a lot without sleeping a lot. And when he skis, he's pretty amazing, going backcountry a lot and so on, and also spending a lot of time in the terrain park.

So why is that not me? Maybe it's a bit too bohemian, maybe it's a bit too party-oriented. I like my 8 hours of sleep, especially when I'm skiing. Drinking comes later. Clubbing comes last. Especially in ski resort towns, where the ratio of guys to girls is about 10 to 1.

Speaking of the ratio of guys to girls, we met this ridiculous dude. He was staying in the Bunker too, and he asked us if any of us had any fudge. "You know, it's a hair care product." Turns out, he's right. We couldn't help but think it was a code phrase for something. He did tell us about "Le Pub", though, or the "Pub Mont Fort" where we all spent an enjoyable evening. Cool place. A big beer and I had a nice moment together. What does that have to do with the ratio of guys to girls? He made a comment about it, and also referred to some of us as "good looking." He must have been hinting at something.

And, as a final note about skiing: It was not an easy trip. Well, first of all, the Bunker didn't allow for ideal sleep. But besides that: my left ankle was killing me, my whole legs hurt after a day, my boots didn't fit, and I couldn't turn well at all. Snow was icy or hard, visibility was poor on the last day, and to top it all off, I feel like I'm losing my yen for skiing. Or at least my jonesing for skiing. It used to be the one thing I always wanted to do, and now, if you said I could go this weekend, I'm not sure if I would. I think I just need to take a lesson, get my own skis on again, have a couple nice days, go with friends, etc... but all in all, it's another reason the ski bum lifestyle isn't so appealing as it used to be. It's disillusioning. But it's like anything else I guess: after your initial euphoria subsides, there'll be a down period, and eventually, if you really like it, you'll grow to appreciate it again, and then you'll truly enjoy it. My initial euphoria for skiing just so happened to be about 10 years.

But anyway. It's now a few days later, and life is flying by. I should schedule some trips. I should work on my project. Did I tell you about it? It's a robot programming thing: get a robot to go through a maze. Bleargh. But that's life, and people do that sometimes, and maybe the only reason I don't like robots is that I haven't done anything with them, and if that's the case, I am in the right class for sure.

As for trips, I'm adding some more ideas for destinations:
1. Utrecht, or Delft, or somewhere Dutch this weekend. Hopefully something a little bit authentic, at least. (I keep searching for this vague "authenticity", as if some places that I go are somehow not real. I guess what I mean is I want somewhere without souvenir stores and bus tours. But why do I, with my big ol' American coat and camera on my belt, deserve that any more than the next tourist?)
2. Berlin next weekend?
3. Krakow, or Budapest, or Prague, or all three
4. Somewhere in Italy where they have great food (i.e. everywhere, but you know, somewhere particularly great)
5. Somewhere in France where they have great food (i.e. everywhere, but you know, somewhere particularly great)
6. Iceland! I would love to go there.

So the list is getting huge. And I feel like I'm just collecting capital cities, and I'd be better off just getting to know the Netherlands, maybe, or taking a trip to the lesser-known destinations in a particular country.

Or maybe that's just my handful of worrying that I do all the time, and I should stop it right now. (surprise!)

And on the Dutch front, I have been meeting some non-American people, and it's fun! Monday I had my acting class again, which seems full of people who are pretty neat. Tuesday, the ESN (Erasmus Student Network), who puts together a lot of events for us, invited like 80 of us for a typical Dutch dinner, and so of course 3 of us showed up, and we had typical French quiche. The girl who cooked for us, and her housemates, very nice though! They just hung out with us all weekend and talked about whatever, (although The Economist who also happened to be in Verbier tended to steer the conversation towards nonsense about the EU and so on...) fed us great quiche and lots of wine, and acted like there's nothing they'd rather do than hang out with a bunch of naive Americans. And then, I even had a positive club experience, as this bar played pretty good music downstairs. (It didn't hurt that I was with two beautiful ladies, one French and one Greek)

If I write anything more I will get nothing done today. Check my photos if you want more detail. (Please do; some of them are very pretty!) Rock over London, rock on Maastricht, Rauch fruchtensaefte: "Ich brauch mein rauch!"

(Rauch = "smoke", and also the brand name of the fruit juice company. The slogan means something like "I need my Smoke!" which is funny when it's an Austrian Olympic skier telling you that.)

Carnaval's almost over...

Hey. I'm not going to post much about things that happen or things that I do here, if there are photos to go along with them, because those will be on the photo site, and if I have to reiterate stuff, I'll get bored and one of the iterations will probably suck. So check out the photos, because there are a bunch of Carnaval now! Also, this little castle that I saw. And more to come, of Carnaval in Koeln (Cologne).

Speaking of Carnaval, it's about over, which means a couple of things:
1. I can get back to eating at least somewhat normal and healthy foods. Although, man, Dutch/European carnival food >> American carnival food. Here are some things that are good:
- waffles
- herrings
- big ol' fried fish sandwiches
- sausages
- oliebollen, which are The Best, and which are fried up fresh and filled with tasty delights. Wow. Donuts usually don't do it for me, considering how they're about the least healthy thing in the world, and if I'm going to indulge, I want to indulge on something awesome. Fresh donuts, on the other hand... man. I think if you go to heaven, you get a lot of these. Or maybe that's just in Fat Heaven.
2. I might have to get back to some sort of responsibility. Like cleaning my room, for example.
3. I'm going to Switzerland tomorrow! It's a long train ride. But it will get me there, and I will ski on Thursday, and that is neat.

And this is unrelated to Carnival, but here's a question: what's the appeal of the typical bar->drink->club cycle? This seems to be the way you are supposed to have an evening. Go to a bar, get drunk (or at least get happy), and go dance in a club. I can understand how drinking is a pleasure. (it's a little less of a pleasure if you're drinking the same beer the whole time) Being in a bar, though, is not usually so good, because you can't even talk, because it's so loud. Then the dance club, the big prize at the end of the tunnel, right, is not even fun! I could understand if you, say, went salsa or swing dancing, or something with a little structure. Maybe if you went to a bocce ball club and played bocce ball. Or listened to jazz and chatted. Or went to a house and played drunk Taboo all night. (or Boggle! Now that would be fun.) But club-dancing, which seems to me like bouncing back and forth to a LOUD hip-hop/techno beat, is not fun. It's boring! You do it for 5 minutes, you've done all there is to do!

Now you will say to me "it's about the ladies; you're not just dancing by yourself, you are surrounded by attractive members of the opposite sex." Right, but so what? I'm not going to go home with someone I met in a club. Look, I'm not a non-verbal communicator here. If I find a girl attractive, I'd much rather talk to her, or play bocce ball or listen to jazz or go salsa dancing or play Boggle with her than press my body against hers, bouncing back and forth to the 4/4 beat of "SNAP YOUR FINGERS!" in the hope that she thinks "wow, I am quite attracted to this slightly-good-looking stranger. We should exchange phone numbers and go through the cliched courtship ritual based on nothing other than his hottt dance moves."

Note that this is unrelated to Carnaval. For the last few nights, just wandering the streets has been entertainment enough for me.

A couple things about this past week that I didn't mention yet:

1. Korfball. This video explains it all, I guess. I looked at the sports that they offered, and Korfball is the only one I hadn't heard of, so I went to their practice. There were about 15 Korfballers there, and they were all suitably confused as to why I would be there. You know, cuz, um, well, you know. Then we started practicing and they'd keep saying things in Dutch and some of the other players would try to interpret for me and it was a little confusing but it mostly worked out. It's a kind of fun sport: like basketball without the dribbling or the backboard, or like team handball except you have a basket instead of a goal. And sometimes they make goofy underhand shots or some nonsense. They seemed like a fun bunch, though.

Note that Korfball is mainly Dutch, but saying that the Dutch like Korfball is like saying that kids like playing with yo-yos: some do, but most think it's dumb. Likewise, saying that the Belgians like Korfball is like saying that blind kids like playing with yo-yos: they're just not very good. And saying that any other country likes Korfball is like saying that kids like playing with manila envelopes: false. There was one guy who made a living off Korfball, but he had to quit because he had to play like 40 hours a week.

2. I rode my bike to a castle the other day. This castle. Okay, so it's not Neuschwanstein, but wow! It was in Belgium; I rode my bike to another country. I love this continent!

3. Carnaval started today/yesterday. I promptly ate so much fried food and drank such a hodgepodge of rather stern drinks that my stomach was killing me all night. God has blessed me with many things; a cast-iron stomach is not among them. I'm also not the smartest guy in the world. But it's very neat! Streets full of revelers = happy me.

Your absurd news moment for the day

Senator hopes to gain clout and support of right-wing American parents by imposing stricter video game ratings

Among the quotes: "It calls for requiring video game rating organizations to play all games "in their entirety" before issuing labels and prohibiting game developers from withholding any "hidden" game content from raters."

1. Video game rating systems are kind of retarded in the first place, although I can see why parents would want them.

As it is, they're obnoxious... mostly harmless games get rated "T" and "M", and come on, video games don't make kids violent.

But say you were a parent and there were no ratings; how would you deal with your kids buying video games? What if they want to buy a game called (to pick a name from Metacritic) "Burnout Revenge"? How about "Blue Dragon"? "Fuzion Frenzy" sounds violent, but it's like Tetris... "Ratchet and Clank" could be slang for something awful, or it could be an arcade game about a couple of goofy looking characters. "Phantasy Star Universe" is (I think) a harmless RPG, but it sounds like a porn site.

So what do you do? Do you investigate each game? Your kid would get tired of that rull quick. Do you just trust your kid to make good decisions? That might be a better answer. But what if your little 8 year old is unlocking sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto? Well, your 8 year old would probably just get bored. But you know what I mean. But here's the reason this bill doesn't make any goddamn sense:

2. Good luck playing a game like World of Warcraft "in its entirety."

Belgium in 36 hours

I had a weekend free (you know, as opposed to all my other weekends here, that are booked full of important meetings) so I took a trip to Belgium with a couple other kids I met here, Becky and Camerin. There was a Decemberists concert on Saturday, which Becky was stoked about. I just wanted to see a couple of cool cities. And plus, train travel in Belgium is rull cheap, because they have this "Go Pass", which gives you 10 one-way tickets between any two Belgian cities for 45 euro. (and you can share it) So we just hop a train to the closest spot across the border (it's called "Vise", and it's shady) for EU$3.80, and it's EU$4.50 from there. Good deal.

Brussels was grand. I guess it's the EU headquarters, which means it's always full of politicians. Which also means it's stuffy and boring. But if you're just there for a day, there's plenty to do. Saw the famous Grand Place, and by golly it is grand and it is a place. Saw the Belgian Comic Strip Museum. Ate at this awesome little Congolese (I think) place called "Waka Moon." So much character! Little corner bar, great food (I had Maafe Agneau, which is apparently lamb in peanut sauce, and wow, I'd like to know how to make that.), and great wine for EU$2. I'm starting to really like wine. I think it's just because I feel all grown up when I buy it, like "Thank you for letting me be an actual full-fledged member of society" sort of thing. Plus there are so many kinds, and here, it's all pretty cheap. Call me a Decemberist, but I'd drink wine over beer any day.*

Speaking of the Decemberists, the concert was kind of how I imagined, and maybe a little better, because Colin Meloy was pretty animated, and there was intense audience interaction going on, and I like it when bands talk between songs. Maybe the Crane Wife deserves a listen. And they were pretentious and full of big words, and they did wear hipster clothes, and there was extensive instrumentation, and Colin did drink red wine throughout the show.

*unless it's crummy wine (big Gerrit Betz Jug of Sangria, I'm looking at you) vs. Brugse Zot, the beer from De Halve Maan brewery in Brugge, because damn was that tasty! Might have been my best beer experience here yet. Also, way to find the asterisk. Also, I actually kind of like the big Gerrit Betz Jug of Sangria.

Speaking of Brugge, after a night at the lovely Brussels Royotel (which was perfect in that it was right down the street from the concert, a private room, and EU$25/person) we went there, and it was like the guidebooks said: a tourist attraction but worth it. Very quaint, lots of medieval things (and many modern things too... the retailers have swooped in) but still cool churches, monuments, restaurants, etc. Worth seeing for sure if you're in the neighborhood. Some parts on the way into town I thought could be almost indescribably beautiful in the spring. (but it was winter.)

Hey, I wrote a lot of this synopsis in my photo albums, and there's no use repeating myself. Check them out!

In other news, I went to my first acting class today (with the drama club here... I couldn't be in their show because it's being performed after I leave), and really felt on top of my game. Improv teaches you a lot, maybe about acting, maybe about self-confidence, but whatever it is, it helped.

Have I mentioned how my bike has lights that are POWERED BY MY PEDALING? I just click the little roller into place and the lights turn on when the wheel turns. So cool! I want to ship the bike home (probably costing more than the bike itself) just for that feature. So cool! And all the bikes here have that!

Classes are marching on. I love buying and cooking food. My erwtensoep (pea soup) turned out well; I'll make it when I get back. I also like kwark a lot. And today I bought a jar of pickled herring.

Oh, and one more thing... if people actually like drinking a whole lot, like until they start blacking out, maybe I'm the anomaly. But if not, can we all stop pretending please? I won't think less of you if you're a lightweight. Really. So let's stop the shenanigans and drink sensible amounts. (I guess this is directed only at Americans.)

But other than the fact that I'm not made for a party-heavy culture, I love this place, and things are going pretty well. Thank you for everything, etc.

I'm gonna go ski in the alps again...

in Verbier, Switzerland. I'm staying here. I'm enthusiastic! I guess I actually mean "excited".

Also, I've been doing about no schoolwork. Not the best way to start off the block. One of my classes ("Intelligent Systems") is really "Programming a Robot" in disguise. Not something I would have picked on my own. But I'm willing to give it a try, eh?

Een fiets!

It feels so good to be on a bike again. I got a good used one, for EU$75, from a bike shop. It's steeper than the EU$30-50 that people say you should pay, but it's in pretty good shape. It's probably better than my bike from home. Also, pretty much the only alternative is to buy one from the "junkie", who is a homeless guy who steals bikes and sells them for like EU$10. Much as I'd like to participate in a local custom (bike theft is like the #3 national sport, after football and korfball), I've had a bike stolen, and it kind of sucks a lot, and anyone who steals a bike is pretty much a scummy scummy dude. Kind of like people who honk at cyclists, although nobody does that here, because bikes rule the roads. Rock on.

In other news, I'm going to Brussels and Bruges this weekend. I think I'm going to see a Decemberists concert. I don't even like the Decemberists that much. Plus, well, you know... and also, one of my friends just backed out, which is lame.

So I'm kind of psyched. But kind of annoyed. We'll see how it turns out.

Destinations.

I want to write down this list of places I particularly want to visit so that I don't forget it and so that I can prioritize.

- Switzerland. I'm thinking Verbier or Zermatt. Maybe only one more trip, due to time and money constraints. Maybe go to Geneva for a day on the way or something, to see some non-resort Switzerland.
- Sevilla. Spain has been rising in my mind as a destination, and this seems like the "slightly off the beaten path" Spanish destination. (as opposed to Barcelona and Madrid. Plus, they actually speak Spanish, not Catalan.)
- That said, Barcelona, maybe for this music festival.
- The Black Forest, Germany. Where do you go for that? Maybe Freiburg? Heidelberg?
- Scandinavia. Stockholm? Copenhagen? Kiruna? Reykjavik?

Okay, so there are five trips. Switzerland should be sooner rather than later to have snow, Barcelona would be May 31-June 2 or thereabouts, the Black Forest and Scandinavia should be later rather than sooner to enjoy nice weather, and Sevilla could be anytime, I suppose. (of course, these are not set in stone; all are subject to change due to other plans, changes of mind, and/or bank accounts running right out of moneys.)

Wow, but if I could do all of those, I would be one lucky dude.

Also: by God this comic is fantastic

And not just because it namechecks Pittsburgh. This is why Calvin and Hobbes is the best of all time.

Link for bigger