Iceland - Vik - A View from the Hotel

This is what I saw when I woke up in Vik, this is what I saw. You're looking at the beach down yonder. The motel is on a high hill off the ring road.

Farewell, Vienna, I'll Be Back

Thank you Berenice.

Thank you Magnus, for letting me tag around with you and for showing me Roboexotica.

Thank you Sylvia, for translating everything during Metalab and the closing party.

Thank you Johannes, for Taugshow.

Thank you, Andres, Jorg and Stefan for Coordinated Sewing Machine for Mapping, Analyzing and Transforming social Groupings of interactive Systems.

Thank you Lorenz, for documenting this important occasion.

Thank you everyone at WerkzeugH, for the food and the hospitality.

Thank you, everyone at Paraflows and Monochrom who I forgot.

I'll see you soon.

Vienna - Night of the Living Dead Media - Dawn of the Web

After the symphony on Saturday, I immediately headed over to MuseumsQuartier where the lads from Paraflows were throwing their closing party, and what a party it was. In their typical fashion, every detail was executed, and it all worked with the theme.

The theme of the party was Night of the Living Dead Media - Dawn of the Web; the whole thing was set the night before HTML, the language used to script Web pages, was born. A pretty cool concept, from the cocktail waitress walking around with a silver platter of silver champagne glasses (only ball bearings and other metallic goodies in those glasses, mind you), to the 90's-themed music the DJs were spinning.

I made it just in time for the performance, which consisted of a vocalist and a guitarist singing songs about events that were taking place circa '91, including some pretty funny rants about (what else?) sex and drugs. Thanks again to Sylvia for translating all of this for me!

After the performance the DJs started banging out thick-kick drum'd mid-paced techno, a style that's probably known as "tech house" these days. Back on the night of Dawn of the Web, though, it was all just music.

Some of the other great touches included the projections of original Sega and Nintendo systems on opposite walls. People could actually play the Nintendo system, and I saw some pretty heated games of MarioKart up there. All in all, it was a great way to conclude a week of innovation, creativity and community.

Thanks to everyone who was responsible for me having such a blast here in Vienna!

Schoenborn Palace, Vienna

There were some things I liked about this place, but NOT the hordes of tour groups I had to fight my way through to make it through the 40-plus rooms of this place. The outside was much cooler. I bought the E-ticket, so I could pretty much check out everything for only a few Euros more. The first picture is part of a garden just to the left of the palace, if you´re looking at it from the front.

This next one is a picture of some flowers in said garden. The hedge (above) surrounds the garden.

Finally (for now), this is a picture of the palace from the back, on an arcade called Gloriette on a hill. Gloriette was built in 1775, and I climbed to the top of it to take this picture. I used some serious zoom here, as the palace is quite a ways away from Gloriette.

Mozart at Musikverein, Vienna

Last night I managed to score front row balcony tickets to see the symphony in Vienna. The program was all Mozart, which was cool. They did the song from that car commercial, the one from The Simpsons where Homer is in space and about to crash into the ant colony, and the one from that Mickey Mouse cartoon. I thought they might do the theme from Beef (it´s what´s for dinner) but maybe that´s not Mozart. I´m only somewhat cultured.

But seriously folks, it was a great night and a great experience, despite the many numbers they did with opera singers. They were impressive at times, but for me, it was kinda like going to a downtempo show and having the band bring out an MC to rap all over the otherwise good music. This wasn´t quite as bad as that, though.

Vienna - City of Tiny Lights

Big thank yous go out to Berenice and Magnus (from Vienna) for making last night a great one! Berenice has been posting comments on Magnus' pictures at 23hq.com (Bere, please post link!) and so she introduced us.

I got some great shots of Schoenborn Palace yesterday, and I'm working on getting tickets to see Mozart tonight, so don't worry, I am getting a good mix of culture here.

Magnus and I met last night at Karlsplatz, a major transit centre here in Vienna. I said I'd be wearing a blue raincoat, he said he'd have an exploding umbrella. We agreed to meet in this huge expanse of territory, and somehow found each other. Headed over to the venue to find we were about 2 hours early, so he took me on a breakneck pace walking tour of the city, mostly of the museums. He suggested the Leopold Museum, so that will be the one I go to in addition to the Freud museum.

Had a drink, checked out his workspace, and then back to the venue. A bar was setup in the basement of Konzerthaus, along with a room with about 50 chairs, a set of decks and a guitar. Two men dressed as pirates were the hosts for the program, called Taugshow. Taug, as I understand it, is to really dig something here in Vienna. It's part of a larger event called Paraflows '06 that's going on now. They did it in English for the first time, which was great for me, as my German is pretty bad.

Their guests included such eclectic guests as Lauren Hill's personal shopper and a man from New Zealand who is working on a project to create self-replicating machines. The monologue (or dialogue) between the two hosts and the audience at the beginning focused on typos in email (or eNail, they quipped), and was pretty damn witty at times.

The musical act was also well-placed and well received. I have to get all the names straight, and I'll post a link to the main site later.

I'm off to the brunch they're hosting for Paraflows now, and I have to probably go to the venue to score those Mozart tix and it looks like rain. Should be an interesting day, if not a dry one, here in Vienna.

Aah, Prague

I arrived to Prague on Sunday, and I leave tonight. I don't want to leave, but Vienna awaits.

When I arrived, I was feeling pretty awful from a full night out in Berlin on Saturday, but I headed into town to explore nonetheless. Walked around as it got dark, fascinated by the architecture and the castle looming in the distance on the other side of the Vlatva River. Got a little turned around, found something to eat, and jumped back on the tram to go home.

Monday I explored the city alone. I managed to see quite a bit of it, as it's really a small city compared with Berlin. Berlin has about 14 pages of maps in my DK guide, Prague, six. A bit smaller, but I'm not sure what the scale is like.

Prague is a city of twists and turns, of winding roads and changing street names. All the streets are stone and about as wide as your thumb, so it's tough to get around and easy to get killed. But believe me, I'd rather die in Prague than live in a lot of places I've been.

Monday ended simply enough, I headed back to the hostel, had a couple of beers at the "bar" there for about $1 USD each, and crashed out.

It was a massive day out in Prague Tuesday, as Markus from Perth, Australia and I headed out to hit the town. Went up to the castle where we somehow managed to see the president of Lithuania. Took the funicular (read: tram) down to the base of the Vlatva river and stumbled into the Museum of Modern Art where we were treated to an exhibition by Kupka. More on him later.

Headed out to ask about some tourist activities. Maybe it was the Prague talking, but we wanted to do something special to commemorate our trip. So we sussed out some help from the tourism office.

We asked the girl at the tourism office, "Excuse me, do you speak English?"
"Yes," she proudly replied.
I cleared my throat and said, "We'd like to jump out of a plane." She wasn't quite sure she'd heard us right. Markus bit his lip, hard, to keep from bursting out laughing.
"Excuse me?" she asked, puzzled.

Next we headed to Klub Arkitecture for dinner. Had some asian-fusion style pork and some local dumplings, along with Czech beer, of course, some of the best and cheapest in the world. It was almost $2.25 USD per pint at this club, which is actually pretty expensive for this place. Yeah I know, I'm in heaven.

Finally, after dinner, we decided to catch some music at one of Prague's many excellent jazz clubs. Finally found one after trying to find another one from Markus' Lonely Planet guide that listed the wrong address. They had a sign on the door that read, WE ARE NOT JAZZ CLUB. WE DO NOT KNOW JAZZ CLUB.

When we finally got to a decent one, we saw an excellent four-piece combo complete with a vocalist with stylings recalling Bebel Gilberto and an older gentleman whose fingers were difficult to see when he played his stand-up bass. The guitarist had serious chops as well.

We stumbled home after two sets, finally springing for a cab after we couldn't find the 52 (night tram) back to the hostel. Our hostel, by the way, was absolutely excellent. Look up The Boat House if you're ever fortunate enough to find yourself here.

I have been writing this over the last couple of days. I´m in Vienna, heartbroken that I had to leave Prague, but we´ll see what this city brings. Not much so far.

I´ll try to post more on Prague soon, and something on Vienna. Watch this space for the story of the dumbest thing I´ve done on this or any other vacation.

Prague

Slept on the train most of the way down to Prague from Berlin after closing the bar a bit late with my new friends Tim and Bashar. Bashar totally hooked me up with point-to-point directions from the hostel to the train station, and when I got back to the hostel and got all packed up, Glen and Anya gave me a wakeup call to get out the door ontime. Although, Glen did come running in like he'd forgotten and I was so disoriented from only sleeping a few hours I didn't even notice he was pulling my leg. Glen is the Kiwi who owns the place, and Anya's his girlfriend. If you're ever in Berlin, that's the place to stay.

Took a cab here today because I couldn't figure out how to buy a ticket for the tram. It turns out most people just forego that part of the experience. Hardly anyone outiside of the tourism industry here seems to speak much English. I don't mind being surrounded by their language though, it's really different and cool, in its way.

Tomorrow I'll do all the touristy sightseeing stuff. It's pretty reasonable here but maybe not as reasonable as I'd imagined. xe.com says that 100 Czech Republic Koruny is about $4.50 USD, and I managed to get a ameal tonight for about 150 including tip (10% here is decent) and a good-sized Budvar beer (original Budweiser, none of that American stuff here!).

I'll post more pictures when I get to a computer with USB, not sure that these have them at the hostel.

Goodbye Berlin, Hello Prague!!!!!!

I hear Prague rules.

I don´t doubt it.

Berlin was up and down, but I had some great experiences here, for an ex-club-kid who didn´t go out Friday OR Saturday night.

Iceland.

Iceland.

Iceland.

Iceland.

How happy I was.

P.S. Coca Cola SUCKS in Germany.

Dropping Knowledge

Dropping Knowledge

Today I happened on the coolest thing in Berlin since the fall of the wall, maybe. There's an organization called Dropping Knowledge (www.droppingknowledge.org), and they hosted their first ever table of open ideas here in Berlin today. I was fortunate enough to be part of it all. Here is a picture of some of the panel members at the end of the 100 question day.

It was a massive outpouring of emotion and opinion from these 112 panelists. I was very proud to have been there for sessions 1-2 and 7-8, the alpha and omega of this very important event.

112 panel members. 100 questions, 11,200 answers. It was a long day for all of us.

This is what it looked like when it was all over. More to come.

In line at the Reichstag

These four semi-mimes operated a life-sized mannequin to help make the time pass more quickly while we waited to get up into the Hitlerdome. You wouldn´t believe some of the things these skilled puppeteers can do with Mr. Foamy here. That´s my translation, ov course.

Berlin - Hostel Thoughts

Which key?

OK, it's this one.

OK. Now which way does it go into the slot?

Up, no, down. No, up. Teeth up. OK.

Now which way do I turn it? Left? Left feels right. Let's try that. OK now how far do I turn it? All the way?

Too far.

I hope I'm not waking anybody up.

I hope nobody wakes me up.

Push the door. Still locked.

Try the other way. All the way. OK, that worked.

Did I tip enough at the restaurant?
Do they tip in this country?

But they know I'm an American. What does that mean?

Should I tip more?
Less?
Should I tip at all?

What precedent does this set or not set or unset?

OK, now where's that key?

Berlin Uber Alles!

Well, maybe not over all, but it's still pretty cool. Not as cool as Iceland, mind you, but that's a pretty frigging tall order.

I walked all over the city today, and took bus line 100, which is the hot tip if you want a free tour of all the big sites. This is a view down Unter den Linten, which is the main drag near my hostel, at sunset this evening.

I've heard mixed reviews about Berlin. All I can say so far is that everyone here has gone out of their way to help me whenever possible, and the people have been very warm and friendly. It's a little strange, as sick as I was of English in Reykjavik is about as weirded out by all the German (and no English) that I'm hearing here. I've been trying not to think in Icelandic (when I'm not thinking in English), but it's really, really hard. I know now that I'll be back to Iceland in the not-too-distant future to do the entire ring road. As expensive as Iceland is, there's really no place like it on Earth, or anywhere else for that matter.

Sunset At the Beach In Vik

We´d just dropped off our German hitchhiker Nils when Kieth and I got to Vik. It had been raining the whole trip, but I predicted sun when we arrived.

I love it when I´m right :)

This is a picture of one of the most visually stunning and mysterious places I think I´ve ever been. The black sand of this beach is very coarse, and very beautiful.

I have so many more pictures but I´m off to Museum Island here in Berlin. I´ll try to post some more pictures soon.

Thanks to everyone for the comments!! It makes me feel like you´re here with me.

And What Does One Do On A Glacier?

GO SNOWMOBILING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

High Atop Mighty Vatnajokull

Tuesday I went up to the top of Vatnajokull, the biggest glacier in Europe (and 3rd biggest in the world) with my new friend Kieth. Here´s a picture from about halfway up. The top of the glacier is about 2km high, if I am not mistaken. Here, we are probably about 800 m up. The view would have been better if it weren´t raining, but it wasn´t coming down too hard. I can´t complain about the rain, I really got very lucky. For such a rainy place, I only saw rain for about 1 1/2 days.

Iceland - Ring Road Pictures (cont.)

This is a picture of the "glacial lagoon," which is between Vik and Hofn. I had no idea it was there, so needless to say it was a nice surprise to come upon this. Look at the blue color of the glaciers. I donät think the color could ever come out as vivid as how it looked in person.

One Road to Rule Them All

Iceland´s Route 1, which circles the entire country, has some amazing sites. I´m in a cyber cafe in Berlin (which RULES, by the way, despite the fact that the y and z are switched on the keyboards) after driving from Reykjavik to Hofn and back over the past two days.

Here is one picture of one of the manz waterfalls on the Ring Road. I have never seen such beauty. More to come.

The Golden Circle Tour

I did the Golden Circle tour today. It was probably about $100 USD but well worth it. We went all over the place, from the smelly sulphery geothermal plant that pumps all of the water for Reykjavik INTO the city to the cheesy gift shop at the end where they screwed me on postage (because of this, all them postcards what come from Iceland will end up costing me about $4 USD apiece).

This is a picture of the site where Iceland´s first parliment was held. Lotsa history today. Iceland was founded in 930 A.D. Pretty funky huh?

Also, on a personal note, I was in a room with five very nice people last night and one jackass who snored ALL NIGHT LONG. Me and the three girls (all from Michigan and Ohio, what happened there??) in the room got ZERO sleep. I kept dozing off in the bus.

Cry me a river, as long as it looks like this :)

A huge ever-growing pulsating crater that rules from the centre of the ultraworld

Need I say more? If you don´t get the reference, don´t worry. Look at the colors - the water, the soil... one thing I can say about this place is that pictures will never do it justice. You have to see it for yourself.

Iceland´s famous The Blue Lagoon

If you´ve never swum in The Blue Lagoon, I highly recommend it. It´s a natural geothermal spa. That means it´s powered by volcanic activity, like much of Iceland.

Who was asking me why I wanted to come here again?

Reykjavik - Picture of sculpture near harbor

When I find out the name of the sculptor I promise to update it and give him or her credit.

Greenland from above

As promised.

I woke up in Reykjavik

Well, my days of practicing the language have paid off. I met a couple of people last night who were very hospitiable, and extremely impressed that I spoke the language at all. They never asked me to repeat anything, so I assume they either understood me or just didn´t care what I was saying. Either way, thað er flott (that´s cool).

I´m in a basement Internet cafe on the main drag, as far as I can tell. This place is much crunchier and less corporate than the one last night.

Tonight I´m headed to The Blue Lagoon. As this keyboard doesn´t seem to have an underscore character, I just had to hunt on the ´net to find a frigging underscore character so I could put that link in there. This is painful. Anyway The Blue Lagoon should be extremely cool. I think the hostel organizes trips from there, so I´ll just head back there no later than about 430 or 500 this evening. There doesn´t seem to be a colon on this keyboard either.

Outside, some people are singing their hearts out about smoking crack. They were just down here looking up the lyrics to said song. Now there´s an American girl looking for directions to some publishers. It turns out she worked for childrens´magazine, and she´s trying to get her book published. She wrote it and did illustrations for it.

This keyboard is kinda sucky and I forgot my damn cable again to dump those pictures, so I´ll leave it at this for the time being.

101 Reykjavik

I should probably retitle this blog, I Speak Icelandic Poorly. I finally got up the courage to talk to the stewardess on the flight over to Iceland and she couldn´t understand a word I said. Well, that´s not true, after i repeated myself she did understand me and I understood her answer.

I´m trying over here, and people are very friendly and patient. So far nothing massive has happened, went to the state store after walking from the first hostel thur center of town.

It´s cool because there are a lot of words I recognize when I´m listening to people speak, but there are a lot of other languages here...

Today´s highlight had to be flying over Greenland. I took some pretty amazing pictures. I´ll post them soon.