Yes, I've been lazy both in writing and uploading pictures.
But as you will find out pretty soon, I've also been lazy at taking them!
It's not much, but it will have to do:
If something doesn't make sense in their order ... that's because I'm very lazy :P
Lazy cheers,
Nathan
Monday, September 13, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Keep Walking
It's not that I am lazy, it's just that I've been doing a small amount of activities each taking a long time, so I felt kind of silly posting each day with one paragraph. So now, after a few days, I can write a single post to summarize them and maybe a bit later sort through some photos and upload them as well.
So (not remembering where I got to in my last post) after a few hours of driving we got to Geneva and immediately procceeded to drink a bottle of champagne followed by a bottle of fine Israeli red wine (Ben Zimra). Not much happened that evening, we just settled in my cousin Misha's place and went to sleep.
The next day we we drove across the french border to Mont Blanc to a small town called Chamonix, took a cable car to 2300m altitude and did a 5hr trek. Somewhere along the way we stopped at a small mountain cafe for hot chocolate and wine and local mountain cheese (was good). At the end of the trek, we got a mountain glacier which was pretty huge and even walked in a small cave inside it. Sad Fact : due to global warming, the glacier has lost over 300m in height. When you see how big the glacier is not and how nig is the vacant space it left, you can't but be afraid for what will happen if we don't stop global warming (Green Propoganda de Jour). We got off the mountain, drove back home, drank a lot of local wine and ended the day drinking beer while watching a match between Zenith Saint-Peretersburg and Tom (some siberian team).
The day after that, which is - as far as i know - today, we spent walking up and down vineyards and along the shores of some big Swiss lake. Overall, it had some nice moments but mostly everything looked the same and I got bored after abour 1 hr (which didn't prevent that day from lasting for over 6 hours ... yay).
Well, that's about all I can be bothere to write. If you have any special requests, feel free to make them or I will keep writing whatever I care to write.
Cheers
Nathan.
So (not remembering where I got to in my last post) after a few hours of driving we got to Geneva and immediately procceeded to drink a bottle of champagne followed by a bottle of fine Israeli red wine (Ben Zimra). Not much happened that evening, we just settled in my cousin Misha's place and went to sleep.
The next day we we drove across the french border to Mont Blanc to a small town called Chamonix, took a cable car to 2300m altitude and did a 5hr trek. Somewhere along the way we stopped at a small mountain cafe for hot chocolate and wine and local mountain cheese (was good). At the end of the trek, we got a mountain glacier which was pretty huge and even walked in a small cave inside it. Sad Fact : due to global warming, the glacier has lost over 300m in height. When you see how big the glacier is not and how nig is the vacant space it left, you can't but be afraid for what will happen if we don't stop global warming (Green Propoganda de Jour). We got off the mountain, drove back home, drank a lot of local wine and ended the day drinking beer while watching a match between Zenith Saint-Peretersburg and Tom (some siberian team).
The day after that, which is - as far as i know - today, we spent walking up and down vineyards and along the shores of some big Swiss lake. Overall, it had some nice moments but mostly everything looked the same and I got bored after abour 1 hr (which didn't prevent that day from lasting for over 6 hours ... yay).
Well, that's about all I can be bothere to write. If you have any special requests, feel free to make them or I will keep writing whatever I care to write.
Cheers
Nathan.
Friday, September 10, 2010
A Right Turn
So,
After finally achieving internet, I got on CouchSurfing and found someone to hang out with ^_^
The poor victim was Tao Wu and he was forced to buy me delicious German beer at the local pub ;)
We had a great time and I started regretting that I only had a few short hours left in Baden-Baden (an unexpected turn of event). We ended up making plans to visit the legendary hot springs once I drop my mom off at the airport (I might be a day late for Oktoberfest, but I'm not particularly worried :)
At the morning of ... today actually, we packed up our stuff and left Baden-Baden for Geneva. It was a wonderful 5 hour drive (with a short stop at Bazel for some Ramen o.O) with the best landscapes I've seen in my life (yes, I'm a sucker for parentheses and landscapes - Pix incoming).
Tomorrow the plan is to climb mont-blanc and trek for a few hours to an iceberg thingy in the middle of the mountain, I can't say no to that :P
I'm also pretty tired and drunk from red wine and real champagne, so I'm sorry if I'm not making much sense.
I'm going to climb a mountain tomorrow!
Nathan
After finally achieving internet, I got on CouchSurfing and found someone to hang out with ^_^
The poor victim was Tao Wu and he was forced to buy me delicious German beer at the local pub ;)
We had a great time and I started regretting that I only had a few short hours left in Baden-Baden (an unexpected turn of event). We ended up making plans to visit the legendary hot springs once I drop my mom off at the airport (I might be a day late for Oktoberfest, but I'm not particularly worried :)
At the morning of ... today actually, we packed up our stuff and left Baden-Baden for Geneva. It was a wonderful 5 hour drive (with a short stop at Bazel for some Ramen o.O) with the best landscapes I've seen in my life (yes, I'm a sucker for parentheses and landscapes - Pix incoming).
Tomorrow the plan is to climb mont-blanc and trek for a few hours to an iceberg thingy in the middle of the mountain, I can't say no to that :P
I'm also pretty tired and drunk from red wine and real champagne, so I'm sorry if I'm not making much sense.
I'm going to climb a mountain tomorrow!
Nathan
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
It's going to be Legen ... Wait for it ... ZONDEC!
Thinking about the beginning of the last trip, I realize that it has been a Zondec-fest from the get go. This trip, however, started out pretty damn smooth.
There were no delays or overbookings, the plane arrived on time, we got our lugage quickly, got our rental car quickly and set out for a 2hr drive to Baden-Baden. We knew we had to take Route 5 but I was still adjusting to the new car and German driving habits so I missed the first turn to route 5. "A-ha!", you think, "Here comes the Zondec". But alas, what we actually missed was the wrong turn and actually ended up saving ourselves a lot of hassle.
[One things I have to mention about German driving habits is that I don't get them at all. Most of their roads have a speed limit of 120kmph but on their roads which only have 2 lanes, the right lane crawls at about 90kmph and left lane flies at 150kmph. So either they're all sissies and criminals or there's something I'm not getting. And when you go at 120 on the left lane, nobody honks, flashes, or tries to pass you from the right, the just line up behind you in a neat line and wait for you switch lanes and then zoom past you at relativistic speeds.]
With hardly any delays we got to our friends' house in the picturesque town of Baden-Baden. They were very friend and hospitable and we had a nice lunch and a lot of local wine. The weather outside was partly clouded with slight drizzles and a temp of around 17C (which is neither cold nor hot). Life was good.
It is at about that time that I started to feel the Zondec creep up on me.
I asked them if I could use their internet, but apparently they don't know the password to their wireless network, don't have any network cables, and the only computer they have just lost its screen in a terrible accident. I tried to log into the router with the cable it uses to connect to the modem but everything was in German and they were useless at translating technical terms to me so I just gave up on that.
When we go to their son's house (where we are supposed to spend out 3 days in Baden-Baden) I was shocked to discover that for some reason they disabled their Wi-Fi and there are, again, no cables to connect to the router directly. The son, wife and the kids are on a vacation somewhere far far away and I've been requested by their technophobic parents not to touch anything. BLEH. And so, at the point of writing this post (On the second day of the trip), my laptop has yet to see a Wireless German Network.
The rest of the first day we spent walking about town with Alexander (One of the friends) being our tour guide and spewing a load of tour-guidy information at us. The plans for day 2 were as follows:
1) Visit the local Casino (Which is apparently some great tourist attraction and holds its own guided tours).
2) Rent bicycles and ride around town.
3) Go to some uber-famous Spa called Caracalla.
In theory, that sounds pretty awesome, but you have to remember that I'm hanging around with a group of 4 Russians about my mother's age (or somewhat older) and most of what they care about is Russian culture and history (which Baden-Baden seems to be full of .. Damn Russians). So my first priority is actually finding a working wireless network, getting on CouchSurfing, and finding someone decent to hang around with.
[Apparently, once the Zondec hits you, there's nowhere to run, and by the time I wrote this post for the first time, Notepad crashed on me :( Who even though that's possible?! so I had to rewrite this post from scratch. Also, the biking part was canceled due to rain and the casino part was canceled (at least for me), due to me caring more about sleep than an old people's casino.]
Now, I'm finishing this post from Baden-Baden main shopping center (which is about as big as one isle in Azrieli and, guess what it doesn't have ...). I could probably continue to add rants to this post every time I open my laptop and find no internet, but I'll just leave it at this and save any extra happening to a later post. Right now, I'm going to go out of this center and wonder about town (in the rain) in hopes of finding an internet.
Have a better time than me,
Nathan
EDIT: I walked around town all day (across the damn thing) and found no internet to speak of. We ended up buying our friends a new monitor (my mother felt obligated) and now that she no longer does, she gave me full permission to mess with the house router - woohoo! I CAN HAS INTERNETS!
There were no delays or overbookings, the plane arrived on time, we got our lugage quickly, got our rental car quickly and set out for a 2hr drive to Baden-Baden. We knew we had to take Route 5 but I was still adjusting to the new car and German driving habits so I missed the first turn to route 5. "A-ha!", you think, "Here comes the Zondec". But alas, what we actually missed was the wrong turn and actually ended up saving ourselves a lot of hassle.
[One things I have to mention about German driving habits is that I don't get them at all. Most of their roads have a speed limit of 120kmph but on their roads which only have 2 lanes, the right lane crawls at about 90kmph and left lane flies at 150kmph. So either they're all sissies and criminals or there's something I'm not getting. And when you go at 120 on the left lane, nobody honks, flashes, or tries to pass you from the right, the just line up behind you in a neat line and wait for you switch lanes and then zoom past you at relativistic speeds.]
With hardly any delays we got to our friends' house in the picturesque town of Baden-Baden. They were very friend and hospitable and we had a nice lunch and a lot of local wine. The weather outside was partly clouded with slight drizzles and a temp of around 17C (which is neither cold nor hot). Life was good.
It is at about that time that I started to feel the Zondec creep up on me.
I asked them if I could use their internet, but apparently they don't know the password to their wireless network, don't have any network cables, and the only computer they have just lost its screen in a terrible accident. I tried to log into the router with the cable it uses to connect to the modem but everything was in German and they were useless at translating technical terms to me so I just gave up on that.
When we go to their son's house (where we are supposed to spend out 3 days in Baden-Baden) I was shocked to discover that for some reason they disabled their Wi-Fi and there are, again, no cables to connect to the router directly. The son, wife and the kids are on a vacation somewhere far far away and I've been requested by their technophobic parents not to touch anything. BLEH. And so, at the point of writing this post (On the second day of the trip), my laptop has yet to see a Wireless German Network.
The rest of the first day we spent walking about town with Alexander (One of the friends) being our tour guide and spewing a load of tour-guidy information at us. The plans for day 2 were as follows:
1) Visit the local Casino (Which is apparently some great tourist attraction and holds its own guided tours).
2) Rent bicycles and ride around town.
3) Go to some uber-famous Spa called Caracalla.
In theory, that sounds pretty awesome, but you have to remember that I'm hanging around with a group of 4 Russians about my mother's age (or somewhat older) and most of what they care about is Russian culture and history (which Baden-Baden seems to be full of .. Damn Russians). So my first priority is actually finding a working wireless network, getting on CouchSurfing, and finding someone decent to hang around with.
[Apparently, once the Zondec hits you, there's nowhere to run, and by the time I wrote this post for the first time, Notepad crashed on me :( Who even though that's possible?! so I had to rewrite this post from scratch. Also, the biking part was canceled due to rain and the casino part was canceled (at least for me), due to me caring more about sleep than an old people's casino.]
Now, I'm finishing this post from Baden-Baden main shopping center (which is about as big as one isle in Azrieli and, guess what it doesn't have ...). I could probably continue to add rants to this post every time I open my laptop and find no internet, but I'll just leave it at this and save any extra happening to a later post. Right now, I'm going to go out of this center and wonder about town (in the rain) in hopes of finding an internet.
Have a better time than me,
Nathan
EDIT: I walked around town all day (across the damn thing) and found no internet to speak of. We ended up buying our friends a new monitor (my mother felt obligated) and now that she no longer does, she gave me full permission to mess with the house router - woohoo! I CAN HAS INTERNETS!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Re-Start!
I like how this becomes a sort of tradition :)
It's been about a year (minus 5 days) since I've stopped updating this blog in the middle of my previous Euro(+US)-Trip and here I am again, in BenGurion airport, waiting for the plane which will take on a new journey to this Europe thing.
I don't really know why I'm writing this blog. Maybe it's because I want to stick it in your face that I'm on a real vacation to places you'd like to be at. And all other options aren't nearly as likely ;)
The outline of my trip:
Family Part:
Baden-Baden : 3 days
Geneva : 6 days
Frankfurt : 2 days
Real Vacation Part:
Munich (Oktoberfest) : 4 days
Amsterdam : 6 days
With the highlight of the trip shifting between Oktoberfest and the Official Opening Party of Nicola's and Michele's (and maybe another-dude-I-don't-know's) new restaurant Talia.
[Nicola is a dude I met near the end of my last trip]
When I have some time, I'll go over my posts from lat time and see if I can find inspiration for some more Start-Of-Journey material.
Until then,
I'm in Europe and you're not!
Nathan
It's been about a year (minus 5 days) since I've stopped updating this blog in the middle of my previous Euro(+US)-Trip and here I am again, in BenGurion airport, waiting for the plane which will take on a new journey to this Europe thing.
I don't really know why I'm writing this blog. Maybe it's because I want to stick it in your face that I'm on a real vacation to places you'd like to be at. And all other options aren't nearly as likely ;)
The outline of my trip:
Family Part:
Baden-Baden : 3 days
Geneva : 6 days
Frankfurt : 2 days
Real Vacation Part:
Munich (Oktoberfest) : 4 days
Amsterdam : 6 days
With the highlight of the trip shifting between Oktoberfest and the Official Opening Party of Nicola's and Michele's (and maybe another-dude-I-don't-know's) new restaurant Talia.
[Nicola is a dude I met near the end of my last trip]
When I have some time, I'll go over my posts from lat time and see if I can find inspiration for some more Start-Of-Journey material.
Until then,
I'm in Europe and you're not!
Nathan
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Trains (and Tower)
Since I'm so far behind on my posting, I will, as usual, write what I'm doing right now before I go about retelling the past. So, right now, I'm on ferry to Seattle from BainBridge Island after hitchiking for a few hours. As for the past:
On my last day in Cali, I got to the Amtrak train station to board the Coast StarLiner (Huge trains that goes from San Jose to Seattle in 26 hours). The train was an hour late (how typical of trains) and in the mean time I met a nice girl named Mila who helped me through a lot of boring hours on the trip.
The first 8 hours of the trip, which started at aroudn 10pm, were pretty much in complete darkness and there wasn't really anything to do except sleep and talk (and not much talk after everyone's gone to sleep). Naturally sleep was quite awful and scarce, but that's just how I roll nowadays.
After I woke up for the last time (of many) and saw it was finally light out, I started taking picture and admiring the view. MAN! there were awesome views. Soon after breakfast was served. Over breakfast, I got seated with a bunch of random people and everyone told his story of how he got to be on the train. The same thing, pretty much, happened for every meal. The food was nice and it was really fun passing the trip just by talking to a lot of random people.
I met David, Ashley and Havier at the station and they immediatly took me to a Jazz & Swing bar for a few beers (Teh life!). After that we went up the space needle and got a few pictures of racoons. Then David and I drove all the way back to Port Angeles where I spent my next ... 11 days, having an awesome time!
Okay, the ferry's docking so it's time to go.
Salutations,
Nathan
---
Thursday, September 10, 2009
They Come in Gallons?
So, after a long long time without update I decided I should spend some of my free time (woohoo for actually having free time) to update the blog a bit, especially about the fun stuff that happened.
So, on my last day in California I woke up, starved as hell, and played some DotA, Woke Ariel (That's the other Israeli Couch Surfer staying with me) up and went out to catch the LightRail to Downtown San Jose.
Throughout the time I was staying in Cali, a few people from the Bay Area sent me SMSs about them wanting to meet me, but I was either too lazy, lame or busy to actually meet with them. So this time, I sent them all messages telling them that I'm going to SJ and asking them if they can meet. At first all of them replied that they're too busy and me and Ariel kinda accepted the fact that we're just going to wander aimlessly around DTSJ.
A few minutes after we boarded the LightRail, thought, I got a message from Matthew Williams that he actually got some time off work and he's coming to meet up with us. YAY!
Basically Matt and his lovely gf Caitlyn took us to some crazy restaurant that served the hottest wings in the entire universe (They were painfully hot). I could only eat two wings before giving up (Ariel gave up after a single bite). Matt and Caitlyn were awesome and bought us a Gallon (1 US gallon = 3.78541178 liters) of beer which made us quite tipsy for the rest of the day. After eating tons of food, drinking lots of beer and talking about all kinds of stuff, Matt had to drop us off back in SJ and go back to work.
They dropped us off at the SJ City College Library (or something) and we started strolling about and taking pictures. Man these colleges looks awesome. Also, a lady came up to us and started talking about how she was in a picture we took (she was in the background) and starting asking us all sorts of weird questions. For some reason it felt to me like she was drunk or something (or maybe that was because I was somewhat drunk at that point :P )
After that we went back, I packed my stuff and set out to the Train station to catch my 25hr train to Seattle.
More about the Train ride in the next post.
Cheers,
Nathan
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