Just to be on the safe side, we'll start this one with another pronounciation guide, it's Forarlberg if you happen to be thinking in english. What is this Forarlberg? Why, it is the province/Bundesland/whatever in the far West of Austria, bordering Switzerland to the South and West and Germany to the North. It mostly consists of Alps. Why did I go there? The previous sentence may give you a clue. More exactly, I had been intending to visit my Erasmus 'buddy' (the standard joke is that we are never friends, just buddies...) Ruth in her homeland for the whole summer, but business and abominable weather meant that I just couldn't manage it in my time in Austria, so I had to go back.
The less said about the boring plane journey from Heathrow to southern Germany (Friedrichshafen, englishly free-dricks-harfen, or fry-drick-shaffen to the shockingly uninformed man at the Lufthansa check in desk) the better.
When Ruth asked how long I wanted to go hiking during my stay, I answered 'as long as possible!' So after driving to her family home, briefly admiring its bewilderingly large size (although it is by no means an unusually large house by Austrian countryside standards) and eating some tasty foods, we set off that very evening through the thick mist to reach after 2 hours the mountain hut at 1744m, where we would stay the night. The translation is rather inadequate, this 'hut' in the Austrian alps resembles the most amazing up market, pine panelled and shiny youth hostel you could imagine. We slept in the big communal sleeping area, and that only cost me €14 a night. The place was packed in the evenings, due to the promise of some halfway decent weather that had apparntly been rather lacking in the area this summer.
After picking up two friendly frenchmen and inviting them to come with us on our hike, in addition to two further Austrian friends, we set off the next day to, well, climb a mountain. The hiking is probably best left to the picture gallery to describe. Needless to say the whole experience was tiring, but completely worth it for the views and just for the knowledge the next morning when I looked up at the peak that 'I was there'. And I saw a mountain goat. The Austrians kept apologising or the poor weather, and I had to explain that for a British walker, clouds above the level of the peaks (especially if said peaks are 2800m high!) is perfect weather, no matter if everything is still a bit grey.
One friendly evening filled with hearty Bergsteigeressen ('mountaineer food'), beer, conversation and a peculiar Vorarlberg card game using a deck of only 36 cards (from 6 to Ace) later, and one restless night due to the snores of the large walking party we were sharing the Lagerraum with that day, we awoke more or less refreshed and embarked on a second hike.
This time part of the route led us up a Klettersteig, better known to the English as a Via Ferrata. If you don't know any of those words, what it is is a long series of cables bolted at intervals to the rock, accompanied by bolted iron rungs on the vertical or near vertical parts of the rockface. You wear a harness and a helmet, and clip onto the safety cable at all times. It is a relatively safe and easy way of climbing a larger and more sheer rockface than you would otherwise be able to without a long rope and lots of climbing gear and experience. This one included a brief jaunt through a cave halfway up! I have enclosed a handy route guide at the end of the photo album for the curious. It was a long way from the top of the Klettersteig to reach the highest peak I have personally ever climbed, a paltry but not insignificant 2817m up. I returned to the hut even more exhausted than before, able only to lose very very very badly in a further spate of Vorarlberg card games that evening.
My final hiking day in Austria dawned rather rainy, so we walked for distance rather than height, winding our way down to the valley floor and back to Ruth's house. That night I was given the opportunity to attempt to polish my poor knowledge of the local dialect by going out to a Spanish bar with the Austrians. Vorarlbergisch is basically Swiss, and thus really really different to your average school german. Even 'ein zwei drei' sounds like 'een zwee dree'... I am still very poor at it but apparently I am better than the Viennese. This strikes me as because the Viennese don't WANT to learn it, not that they are worse at austrian dialect learning than me. Oh those big city people, eh?
In conclusion, Alps are fantastic, and I will undoubtedly be back in them as soon as doing so doesn't require me to be wearing skis.
Der Tom
Saturday 2 October 2010
Sunday 26 September 2010
Eye-la/Islay
My summer holidays rapidly slipping from my grasp I made a last ditch attempt to 'do stuff'. Thus I am furnished with exciting things to plug awkward conversations with in the coming freshers week, plus also I got to have a really good time in some cool places. Everyone's a winner!
First up is the scottish island of Islay, (that's Eye-la for you pronounciation fans!). I was graciously invited to stay in her family's amazing house by my friend Claire, who I have known for two years but have only actually interacted with for something like two weeks in all that time... Also along for the ride were a large number of other people, some more scottish than others, all gathered together by their mutual desire to celebrate Claire's birthday and drink alcohol on a picturesque island.
Islay doesn't look all that far in remote scottish terms, it is as the crow flies pretty close to Glasgow. Don't let that fool you, you have to take a three and a half hour bus journey up and down a peninsula, then a two and a half hour ferry journey. If you're unlucky like I was, there may even be a squall which prevents you from docking at your first choice of port and adds an extra hour and a half to your ferry journey... Normally I am very zen about this aspect of travelling, content to enjoy the feeling of doing nothing while being whisked to my destination. However, I foolishly chose to leave london on the 5.39am train, and it took me around 15 hours all told (including waiting at changeovers) to make the trip, so I wasn't exactly sprightly on my arrival.
Over the next few days I was shown the island. The beaches are stunning, wide with bright white coral sand and turquoise-blue water in the sunlight. They may be a little more blustery than your average caribbean island, but then again on what carribbean island would you be able to have the beach pretty much to yourself? The scenery of the islands is clearly very influenced by the thick pile of ice that 'recently' retreated from it, hummocky and rounded with few big hills meaning the highest peaks visible a lot of the time are the 'paps' of the next island over, Jura, or just the anvil shapes of thunderclouds out in the atlantic. I spent a lot of time over-exuberantly pointing out various geological quirks that were to be seen in abundance (raised beaches, dikes, the second oldest rocks in the British Isles) and I hope my blind enthusiasm was enough to prevent at least total disinterest from the people around me.
The scenery and atmosphere of the island, bathed as it was in late summer sunlight, was utterly relaxing. Sitting on the end of the pier in the tiny harbour/beach ten seconds from our door, gazing out at the blinding white of the lighthouse against the purplish green grey of the hills on the opposite shore of the inlet, surrounded by gently lapping clear bue water and free at last from the bastard midges that plagued anywhere more inland, I thought to myself that there might be nowhere better to sit with a book for a hundred miles.
The thing to do when the sun isn't cooperating with idyllic dreams of perfect beaches is to go to the distillery. Unfortunately I am physically/psychologically unable, at this point in time, to drink whisky. I am all in favour of anything with as much subtle taste, variety, and reliance on locality as whisky undoubtedly possesses, I just can't drink the stuff. Luckily I appear to be able to eat it, as the haggis with neaps, tatties and a honey cream and whisky sauce I had at Ardbeg distillery was fantastically delicious. Although I only had 3 full days to enjoy the scenery, atmosphere and cuisine of the island, and the entertaining company of my hosts (most of whom were totally unknown to me before I made the trip) I would rate this mini holiday as HIGHLY EXCELLENT. I would go again, and probably will when I want to go somewhere to do nothing in gorgeous surroundings, Costa del Sol be damned!
As always, some approximation of the landscape can be found here.
Der Tomcdh (Approximate Scottish language spelling of my name, probably)
First up is the scottish island of Islay, (that's Eye-la for you pronounciation fans!). I was graciously invited to stay in her family's amazing house by my friend Claire, who I have known for two years but have only actually interacted with for something like two weeks in all that time... Also along for the ride were a large number of other people, some more scottish than others, all gathered together by their mutual desire to celebrate Claire's birthday and drink alcohol on a picturesque island.
Islay doesn't look all that far in remote scottish terms, it is as the crow flies pretty close to Glasgow. Don't let that fool you, you have to take a three and a half hour bus journey up and down a peninsula, then a two and a half hour ferry journey. If you're unlucky like I was, there may even be a squall which prevents you from docking at your first choice of port and adds an extra hour and a half to your ferry journey... Normally I am very zen about this aspect of travelling, content to enjoy the feeling of doing nothing while being whisked to my destination. However, I foolishly chose to leave london on the 5.39am train, and it took me around 15 hours all told (including waiting at changeovers) to make the trip, so I wasn't exactly sprightly on my arrival.
Over the next few days I was shown the island. The beaches are stunning, wide with bright white coral sand and turquoise-blue water in the sunlight. They may be a little more blustery than your average caribbean island, but then again on what carribbean island would you be able to have the beach pretty much to yourself? The scenery of the islands is clearly very influenced by the thick pile of ice that 'recently' retreated from it, hummocky and rounded with few big hills meaning the highest peaks visible a lot of the time are the 'paps' of the next island over, Jura, or just the anvil shapes of thunderclouds out in the atlantic. I spent a lot of time over-exuberantly pointing out various geological quirks that were to be seen in abundance (raised beaches, dikes, the second oldest rocks in the British Isles) and I hope my blind enthusiasm was enough to prevent at least total disinterest from the people around me.
The scenery and atmosphere of the island, bathed as it was in late summer sunlight, was utterly relaxing. Sitting on the end of the pier in the tiny harbour/beach ten seconds from our door, gazing out at the blinding white of the lighthouse against the purplish green grey of the hills on the opposite shore of the inlet, surrounded by gently lapping clear bue water and free at last from the bastard midges that plagued anywhere more inland, I thought to myself that there might be nowhere better to sit with a book for a hundred miles.
The thing to do when the sun isn't cooperating with idyllic dreams of perfect beaches is to go to the distillery. Unfortunately I am physically/psychologically unable, at this point in time, to drink whisky. I am all in favour of anything with as much subtle taste, variety, and reliance on locality as whisky undoubtedly possesses, I just can't drink the stuff. Luckily I appear to be able to eat it, as the haggis with neaps, tatties and a honey cream and whisky sauce I had at Ardbeg distillery was fantastically delicious. Although I only had 3 full days to enjoy the scenery, atmosphere and cuisine of the island, and the entertaining company of my hosts (most of whom were totally unknown to me before I made the trip) I would rate this mini holiday as HIGHLY EXCELLENT. I would go again, and probably will when I want to go somewhere to do nothing in gorgeous surroundings, Costa del Sol be damned!
As always, some approximation of the landscape can be found here.
Der Tomcdh (Approximate Scottish language spelling of my name, probably)
Saturday 4 September 2010
I can't believe Christopher Nolan made me do this.
I saw Inception for the second time today. I think it is a very very good film. However there is one tiny detail which (if I didn't persist in flat out ignoring it) would make it in my opinion if not a bad film, then an extremely poorly constructed one.
Yes, I'm talking about that ending. If you haven't watched the film and you are still reading, this is your cue to leave the building.
My argument is this: I cannot see any way in which the great 'will it, won't it' spinning top ending benefits the film. In my eyes it is a cynical, lazy thing to do. Of course we will spend our days debating 'what would have happened next', human nature being what it is, and we all enjoy the aura of mystery and inclusiveness we gain from muttering in hushed tones while our companions (not so lucky as to have seen Inception with us) look on in jealousy. Naturally I am sure this has persuaded many to see the film to figure out what the fuss is about. And everyone enjoys having a pet theory.
But if you're going to make your film end on an ambiguous note, there is one key thing you have to do. BOTH outcomes must be plausible. In my opinion, it is impossible to find a way through the plot and world of Inception that would allow Cobb's presence in a dream world in that final shot, unless (and this is key), Christopher Nolan's notions of plausibility and world building are radically different from those of a normal human being. So either the top falls over just after the cut to black, or Christopher Nolan is very stupid. Either explanation is pretty unsatisfying
and therefore I think leaving the final 20 seconds in the film is a mistake.
Any attempt to create a situation whereby Cobb remains asleep runs up against problems. If we decide that he has in fact been in a dream for the entire film, then this dream breaks all the rules of dreaming introduced in the film, making them worthless. Totems would have to be an idea completely created within the dreamworld (or at least an idea that existed in the hypothetical real world but didn't work) because otherwise Cobb would not be able to spin the top and see it fall on two (possibly three?) occasions in the early part of the film.
If it is assumed Cobb begins the film awake, we have to choose a point at which he transitions to dreaming. This has to be after the two episodes of top-spinning, or we run into the same argument as above. My candidate would be the cut/transition to Mombasa where Cobb meets Eames, assuming that about 15 minutes later when Cobb gets out of the first brief drug induced sleep and attempts to spin the top in a panic in the bathroom, he does not succeed. But there are unanswered questions, the most important one being WHY? Nobody in the film is set up as having the slightest reason or ability to accomplish this feat. I can postulate any number of my own reasons (therapy? stupidly expensive counter espionage?) but these are complications that add to the complexity of the plot without in any way improving it, and none of them is more valid than any other. If in order to understand or extract a message from the film we have to invent things that have absolutely no signposts in the plot whatsoever, if we can generate an almost infinite number of explanatory scenarios using the information given us, then I say the film has failed.
The most defensible way to have Cobb still asleep at the dénouement is to assume everything is as played in the film and Cobb simply hasn't woken up from limbo. I question what this achieves, it's not a very satisfying ending although I guess it does have a nice dollop of poignancy. Furthermore, I didn't see anything in the film which implied that Cobb or anybody was able to create a world that detailed and realistic. Granted, Moll and Cobb can create an entire city, which they fail to people, and Saito does manage some people. (But he appears to have no independant thinking, as-they-were-in-real-life companions.) Maybe Cobb's powerful catharsis after concluding the whole Moll chapter of his life allowed him to create this world for himself? This final scenario is the one that requires a choice. It does fit the facts if you stretch them quite a bit, and your judgement of whether it is impossible and/or a downright rubbish way to end the film or not will dictate what you think. I personally think that it isn't a great explanation. It also leaves itself open to the same occam's razor like criticism as before, if I have to come up with that many apologies to make the whole ending work, is it a good ending?
So there you have it, my three cents on why the top definitely falls over... What annoys me is that I should have to deduce it. The film should either have not adressed the question or made the choice more ambiguous. One thing that bugs me and seems to indicate a last minute attempt to make the ending ambiguous without changing the rest of the tightly knit rules of play, is the fact that the kids are wearing the same outfits as their dream selves. I have to choose to ignore this as a coincidence, as I have been left no way to connect this piece of evidence to a coherent series of events that I can explain without recourse to hours of theorising outside the boundaries if the film I saw.
To conclude, Inception is fantastic and wonderful and great, but that spinning top ending is cheap, manipulative and pointless.
PS I am a terrible contrarian, and I can already feel myself start to generate counter arguments at myself, so I must stop now before I attempt to refute everything I just said.
PPS I promise actual real world things in my next post!
Der Tom
Yes, I'm talking about that ending. If you haven't watched the film and you are still reading, this is your cue to leave the building.
My argument is this: I cannot see any way in which the great 'will it, won't it' spinning top ending benefits the film. In my eyes it is a cynical, lazy thing to do. Of course we will spend our days debating 'what would have happened next', human nature being what it is, and we all enjoy the aura of mystery and inclusiveness we gain from muttering in hushed tones while our companions (not so lucky as to have seen Inception with us) look on in jealousy. Naturally I am sure this has persuaded many to see the film to figure out what the fuss is about. And everyone enjoys having a pet theory.
But if you're going to make your film end on an ambiguous note, there is one key thing you have to do. BOTH outcomes must be plausible. In my opinion, it is impossible to find a way through the plot and world of Inception that would allow Cobb's presence in a dream world in that final shot, unless (and this is key), Christopher Nolan's notions of plausibility and world building are radically different from those of a normal human being. So either the top falls over just after the cut to black, or Christopher Nolan is very stupid. Either explanation is pretty unsatisfying
and therefore I think leaving the final 20 seconds in the film is a mistake.
Any attempt to create a situation whereby Cobb remains asleep runs up against problems. If we decide that he has in fact been in a dream for the entire film, then this dream breaks all the rules of dreaming introduced in the film, making them worthless. Totems would have to be an idea completely created within the dreamworld (or at least an idea that existed in the hypothetical real world but didn't work) because otherwise Cobb would not be able to spin the top and see it fall on two (possibly three?) occasions in the early part of the film.
If it is assumed Cobb begins the film awake, we have to choose a point at which he transitions to dreaming. This has to be after the two episodes of top-spinning, or we run into the same argument as above. My candidate would be the cut/transition to Mombasa where Cobb meets Eames, assuming that about 15 minutes later when Cobb gets out of the first brief drug induced sleep and attempts to spin the top in a panic in the bathroom, he does not succeed. But there are unanswered questions, the most important one being WHY? Nobody in the film is set up as having the slightest reason or ability to accomplish this feat. I can postulate any number of my own reasons (therapy? stupidly expensive counter espionage?) but these are complications that add to the complexity of the plot without in any way improving it, and none of them is more valid than any other. If in order to understand or extract a message from the film we have to invent things that have absolutely no signposts in the plot whatsoever, if we can generate an almost infinite number of explanatory scenarios using the information given us, then I say the film has failed.
The most defensible way to have Cobb still asleep at the dénouement is to assume everything is as played in the film and Cobb simply hasn't woken up from limbo. I question what this achieves, it's not a very satisfying ending although I guess it does have a nice dollop of poignancy. Furthermore, I didn't see anything in the film which implied that Cobb or anybody was able to create a world that detailed and realistic. Granted, Moll and Cobb can create an entire city, which they fail to people, and Saito does manage some people. (But he appears to have no independant thinking, as-they-were-in-real-life companions.) Maybe Cobb's powerful catharsis after concluding the whole Moll chapter of his life allowed him to create this world for himself? This final scenario is the one that requires a choice. It does fit the facts if you stretch them quite a bit, and your judgement of whether it is impossible and/or a downright rubbish way to end the film or not will dictate what you think. I personally think that it isn't a great explanation. It also leaves itself open to the same occam's razor like criticism as before, if I have to come up with that many apologies to make the whole ending work, is it a good ending?
So there you have it, my three cents on why the top definitely falls over... What annoys me is that I should have to deduce it. The film should either have not adressed the question or made the choice more ambiguous. One thing that bugs me and seems to indicate a last minute attempt to make the ending ambiguous without changing the rest of the tightly knit rules of play, is the fact that the kids are wearing the same outfits as their dream selves. I have to choose to ignore this as a coincidence, as I have been left no way to connect this piece of evidence to a coherent series of events that I can explain without recourse to hours of theorising outside the boundaries if the film I saw.
To conclude, Inception is fantastic and wonderful and great, but that spinning top ending is cheap, manipulative and pointless.
PS I am a terrible contrarian, and I can already feel myself start to generate counter arguments at myself, so I must stop now before I attempt to refute everything I just said.
PPS I promise actual real world things in my next post!
Der Tom
Monday 16 August 2010
In Search of the Beast of Bodmin
This summer, in marked contrast to last year, I have absolutely nothing I have to be doing. This pleasant fact means that should I so wish, I can go visit places. I had always been curious to see the house and surroundings of my good friend and coursemate Peter, as he lives in a tiny hamlet-ette on the Northwest coast of Cornwall. I and my colleagues had in fact got remarkably close two years before when we visited the nearby town of Bude on a geology field trip, therefore you can see that he was clearly located in a prime visiting area. Add to this the fact that instead of tolerating geological incursions Peter would actually instigate them, and you have all the ingredients for a trip to England's distant southern pointy bit.
I was not disappointed. Schloss Peter is a tasty haven of homemade lemon curd and honey, plus also homemade pottery. I even got a whole guest bedroom/ caravan to myself! This holiday was a chance to do some tourism in my own country for once. After all, the scenery in the Alps and Vienna is very impressive, but how can I appreciate that if I ignore my country in the meantime? Basically we spent the four days I was there wandering around the area, strolling up and down the (excessively in my opinion) rolling hills and valleys that lie above the precipitous and very geologically impressive cliffs, or wandering along the many long beaches. That's not something you get to do if you visit a friend in a more urban environment, and makes a pleasant change.
My dad recommended we check out the village of Morwenstow, only a few miles away from the house. There you can find the smallest National Trust owned property in the country, Hawker's Hut. This tiny wooden construction facing out to sea was the favoured sitting place of the eccentric but fascinating Reverend Hawker of Morwenstow, parish priest, supposed inventor of the harvest festival, poet and determined burier of washed up mariners, among other fascinating things. The remains of over 40 unknown sailors lie buried under a figurehead in the churchyard.
Another day I got sunburnt exploring Bodmin Moor. This is basically like a mini Dartmoor or Exmoor, identical in feel and appearance due to the fact that all 3 are located on exposed lumps of basically the same vast mass of rock that underlies the Cornish peninsula, most of the reason why it even sticks up out of the sea in the first place. It was a beautiful day, as I hope my pictures can convey slightly. Lots of the abandoned remnants of past inhabitants and complex granite block scenery that make the high granite moors such fascinating places.
On my last day, after marvelling at the tortured structures in the rocks around Bude harbour, I was able to squeeze in a delicious pasty before making the arduous journey home. I remember we once tried to explain what a pasty was to someone who had never seen one. Our best shot was to describe it as 'like a sort of folded in half pie'. So yeah, if you've not eaten a pasty/pastie, you should do! It's way better than my feeble attempts at description might lead you to believe.
Der Tom
I was not disappointed. Schloss Peter is a tasty haven of homemade lemon curd and honey, plus also homemade pottery. I even got a whole guest bedroom/ caravan to myself! This holiday was a chance to do some tourism in my own country for once. After all, the scenery in the Alps and Vienna is very impressive, but how can I appreciate that if I ignore my country in the meantime? Basically we spent the four days I was there wandering around the area, strolling up and down the (excessively in my opinion) rolling hills and valleys that lie above the precipitous and very geologically impressive cliffs, or wandering along the many long beaches. That's not something you get to do if you visit a friend in a more urban environment, and makes a pleasant change.
My dad recommended we check out the village of Morwenstow, only a few miles away from the house. There you can find the smallest National Trust owned property in the country, Hawker's Hut. This tiny wooden construction facing out to sea was the favoured sitting place of the eccentric but fascinating Reverend Hawker of Morwenstow, parish priest, supposed inventor of the harvest festival, poet and determined burier of washed up mariners, among other fascinating things. The remains of over 40 unknown sailors lie buried under a figurehead in the churchyard.
Another day I got sunburnt exploring Bodmin Moor. This is basically like a mini Dartmoor or Exmoor, identical in feel and appearance due to the fact that all 3 are located on exposed lumps of basically the same vast mass of rock that underlies the Cornish peninsula, most of the reason why it even sticks up out of the sea in the first place. It was a beautiful day, as I hope my pictures can convey slightly. Lots of the abandoned remnants of past inhabitants and complex granite block scenery that make the high granite moors such fascinating places.
On my last day, after marvelling at the tortured structures in the rocks around Bude harbour, I was able to squeeze in a delicious pasty before making the arduous journey home. I remember we once tried to explain what a pasty was to someone who had never seen one. Our best shot was to describe it as 'like a sort of folded in half pie'. So yeah, if you've not eaten a pasty/pastie, you should do! It's way better than my feeble attempts at description might lead you to believe.
Der Tom
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Ostalpenquerschnitt
And so we come to my last weeks in Austria. Not much to write home about really, just the usual horrible rush to say goodbye to people and feelings of time slipping away without the ability to see EVERY art gallery/ Wuerstelstand etc etc. I really feel like I only just properly got into the swing of things, with friends, routines, knowledge, language skills, everything. But people say that about leaving anywhere, right? That seems to imply we are always 'getting better' at living wherever we live, which is pretty cool really. I don't think I'm going to do a summary post of the whole year though, because what would I say? This whole blog is the shortest summary there's going to be. It's a year for goodness sake!
Oh , before I left I did get to go to the Donauinselfest (massive FREE festival on the Donauinsel) and see Wheatus play live, which wasn't exactly on my list of life goals, but was pretty cool anyway.
Directly after that I embarked on my last gasp Austria tour/ field trip for my regional geology course. One whole week spent exclusively trying to speak Austrian while hanging out with native speakers was a big challenge, but I return armed with bucketloads of handy slang. In some ways that was the best part of the whole trip actually. Alpine scenery is of course stunning, but as we were travelling in a (mercifully air conditioned considering the 30+ degree heat) small coach we didn't spend much time hiking around up at the treeline or whatever. Drive by geology trips run the risk of being 70% driving, which can depress the enthusiasm of even the most seasoned geologist by turfing them out of a coach just after they've finally got comfortable enough to sleep. That said of course there were also some super cool rocks (just don't mention marl to me in the near future, ugh) and a drive along Austria's highest road (up to 2500m!) the Grossglocknerstrasse. Pictures are as always readily available by clicking some green looking words. I have tried to make the rock pictures interesting even for you non-rocky types by explaining them a little bit.
Several people have asked what I will do with this blog thing now. I'm not sure, I am inclined to keep adding to it but I don't see much value in just listing stuff which has happened to me that almost everyone reading it already knows about. Mostly the motivation to continue stems from not wanting this to be another of the hundreds of dead blog relics you can find by clicking that endlessly fascinating 'next blog' button at the top left. I will probably put my accounts of live music up here if/when I start doing them again, and write about trips I make. Coming up soon is a brief sprint to visit Peter in Cornwall, then a trip to Islay and finally a return to Austria to check out Vorarlberg in September. Fingers crossed for the weather!
As for the title, I'm keeping it, though once I've come up with something witty enough I'll change the description bar. A quick pronounciation note though, Wien = 'Veen' NOT 'Vee-en', as apparently some people (*cough* Tim *cough*) have been reading it wrong all year in their heads. Naturally this is the end of the world.
Bis Bald,
der Tom.
Oh , before I left I did get to go to the Donauinselfest (massive FREE festival on the Donauinsel) and see Wheatus play live, which wasn't exactly on my list of life goals, but was pretty cool anyway.
Directly after that I embarked on my last gasp Austria tour/ field trip for my regional geology course. One whole week spent exclusively trying to speak Austrian while hanging out with native speakers was a big challenge, but I return armed with bucketloads of handy slang. In some ways that was the best part of the whole trip actually. Alpine scenery is of course stunning, but as we were travelling in a (mercifully air conditioned considering the 30+ degree heat) small coach we didn't spend much time hiking around up at the treeline or whatever. Drive by geology trips run the risk of being 70% driving, which can depress the enthusiasm of even the most seasoned geologist by turfing them out of a coach just after they've finally got comfortable enough to sleep. That said of course there were also some super cool rocks (just don't mention marl to me in the near future, ugh) and a drive along Austria's highest road (up to 2500m!) the Grossglocknerstrasse. Pictures are as always readily available by clicking some green looking words. I have tried to make the rock pictures interesting even for you non-rocky types by explaining them a little bit.
Several people have asked what I will do with this blog thing now. I'm not sure, I am inclined to keep adding to it but I don't see much value in just listing stuff which has happened to me that almost everyone reading it already knows about. Mostly the motivation to continue stems from not wanting this to be another of the hundreds of dead blog relics you can find by clicking that endlessly fascinating 'next blog' button at the top left. I will probably put my accounts of live music up here if/when I start doing them again, and write about trips I make. Coming up soon is a brief sprint to visit Peter in Cornwall, then a trip to Islay and finally a return to Austria to check out Vorarlberg in September. Fingers crossed for the weather!
As for the title, I'm keeping it, though once I've come up with something witty enough I'll change the description bar. A quick pronounciation note though, Wien = 'Veen' NOT 'Vee-en', as apparently some people (*cough* Tim *cough*) have been reading it wrong all year in their heads. Naturally this is the end of the world.
Bis Bald,
der Tom.
Sunday 27 June 2010
Invasion of the space people
Right well things happened. It's relentless this linear progression of time, isn't it?
So what have I been doing? The majority of my time for the past few weeks was taken up by alternately doing exams, preparing for the doing of said exams, watching large storms happening, or watching 22 tiny people in coloured shirts run around with a ball. Thankfully all the exams are finally over now so that leaves more time for frivolous pursuits, and also more watching of 'feet ball' as I believe it is called. Oh yeah and then I have occasionally been spluttering dumbfoundedly at the sheer quality if the recent Doctor Who output.
But more interesting to write about is my foray into the besuited world of the european space think tank, courtesy of flatmate, german, friend and European Space Policy Institute intern Andreas. The occasion was the opening of an art exhibition in the ESPI offices by a one Gerald Martineo, an Austrian-Romanian artist who makes paintings by pouring colourful plastics onto canvasses. His art is apparently quite science and technology focussed, and his latest series of work consists of colourless resin poured over huge canvasses, studded with used radiation sensors from various satellites and then themselves irradiated at Austria's only reactor to discolour them slightly. It was pretty good actually, though I was more immediately attracted to the coloured stuff. As I remarked at the time it is interesting that to look at one of his newer pieces you have to know a lot of background about it, without which none of the point of the work is evident. I've always thought that whether or not your art has an amazing message it should also look really cool on your wall, but this is just an opinion.
Anyway, although the art was fun, I really came because I've never been to a european space policy intitute before and I wondered what it would be like. I like to think I got a glimpse into a way of life/ career that is very different to my own. That week was the annual meeting of the UN Comittee on the Peaceful Use of Space so there were many UN types and hangers on wandering around. Unlike me free posh food and wine at a random exhibition opening are probably more the rule than the exception, so they all looked a lot less lost than me for the beginning of the event. However I got into the swing of things after some sandwiches and a couple of interesting speeches by a physicist and the artist himself about the meeting between art and science (in short our primary reward for doing either is the fact we are doing them) and an interesting but overlong speech by the ex-astronaut head of the COPUOS. Do you think that's an ugly acronym, or is it just me? It reminds me of coprolites for some reason (it might help to point out that in conversation it is pronounced 'cop-wuss').
I get the feeling that as I am not normally exposed to such speeches I actually found it far more engaging than some of the more experienced space-people. Frankly I was excited enough that there even exists a comittee on the peaceful use of space that says things like 'guys, let's use space for peaceful awesome things!', a fact which was naturally pretty obvious to everyone else. I'd kind of put my interest in space on the back burner, not having the benefit of a large planetary science department at Uni Wien, but being in a room with all these people who deal with space all day every day, even if primarily from a political/legal viewpoint, brought it all back. I very much enjoyed being able to wander up to people and get reasoned answers to things like 'Who's going to be taking people and stuff to space in 2030?' And true to form, I also got to add my two pennies on the importance of geology in space, or rather the importance of space infrastructure to the progression of geology. I believe geologists are the only scientists who would claim that it is absolutely undebatably better to land a man on the moon rather than send a robot. But even if that doesn't happen any time soon, geologists will have to rely on the political and technological developments in the space industry for a massive amount of their future research, from planetary geology to the use of aerial measurements of the earth, so I think it's time we got more interested in this sort of thing as a science.
Aaanyway so there you go, that's my pompous way of justifying why it was good to go to a place where they gave me free food and wine.
Bye for now!
So what have I been doing? The majority of my time for the past few weeks was taken up by alternately doing exams, preparing for the doing of said exams, watching large storms happening, or watching 22 tiny people in coloured shirts run around with a ball. Thankfully all the exams are finally over now so that leaves more time for frivolous pursuits, and also more watching of 'feet ball' as I believe it is called. Oh yeah and then I have occasionally been spluttering dumbfoundedly at the sheer quality if the recent Doctor Who output.
But more interesting to write about is my foray into the besuited world of the european space think tank, courtesy of flatmate, german, friend and European Space Policy Institute intern Andreas. The occasion was the opening of an art exhibition in the ESPI offices by a one Gerald Martineo, an Austrian-Romanian artist who makes paintings by pouring colourful plastics onto canvasses. His art is apparently quite science and technology focussed, and his latest series of work consists of colourless resin poured over huge canvasses, studded with used radiation sensors from various satellites and then themselves irradiated at Austria's only reactor to discolour them slightly. It was pretty good actually, though I was more immediately attracted to the coloured stuff. As I remarked at the time it is interesting that to look at one of his newer pieces you have to know a lot of background about it, without which none of the point of the work is evident. I've always thought that whether or not your art has an amazing message it should also look really cool on your wall, but this is just an opinion.
Anyway, although the art was fun, I really came because I've never been to a european space policy intitute before and I wondered what it would be like. I like to think I got a glimpse into a way of life/ career that is very different to my own. That week was the annual meeting of the UN Comittee on the Peaceful Use of Space so there were many UN types and hangers on wandering around. Unlike me free posh food and wine at a random exhibition opening are probably more the rule than the exception, so they all looked a lot less lost than me for the beginning of the event. However I got into the swing of things after some sandwiches and a couple of interesting speeches by a physicist and the artist himself about the meeting between art and science (in short our primary reward for doing either is the fact we are doing them) and an interesting but overlong speech by the ex-astronaut head of the COPUOS. Do you think that's an ugly acronym, or is it just me? It reminds me of coprolites for some reason (it might help to point out that in conversation it is pronounced 'cop-wuss').
I get the feeling that as I am not normally exposed to such speeches I actually found it far more engaging than some of the more experienced space-people. Frankly I was excited enough that there even exists a comittee on the peaceful use of space that says things like 'guys, let's use space for peaceful awesome things!', a fact which was naturally pretty obvious to everyone else. I'd kind of put my interest in space on the back burner, not having the benefit of a large planetary science department at Uni Wien, but being in a room with all these people who deal with space all day every day, even if primarily from a political/legal viewpoint, brought it all back. I very much enjoyed being able to wander up to people and get reasoned answers to things like 'Who's going to be taking people and stuff to space in 2030?' And true to form, I also got to add my two pennies on the importance of geology in space, or rather the importance of space infrastructure to the progression of geology. I believe geologists are the only scientists who would claim that it is absolutely undebatably better to land a man on the moon rather than send a robot. But even if that doesn't happen any time soon, geologists will have to rely on the political and technological developments in the space industry for a massive amount of their future research, from planetary geology to the use of aerial measurements of the earth, so I think it's time we got more interested in this sort of thing as a science.
Aaanyway so there you go, that's my pompous way of justifying why it was good to go to a place where they gave me free food and wine.
Bye for now!
Thursday 10 June 2010
Yt anthr blg ntry
Well I got carried away posting videos of Austrian pop bands last post so now I'll bring things a little bit more up to date. Apart from some more of the seemingly neverending exams (I'm even starting to see the benefit of having an exam term, things must be bad!) the most important thing that happened between then o'clock and now p.m. was my first field trip with the university here. I guess I was sort of apprehensive at the start what with not having a clue what was going to happen, but it turns out that the field trip experience in Geology is one that is relatively constant across language and cultural barriers.
Basically when you group geologists together they are suddenly surrounded by other people who will not only listen to but positively encourage discussion about rocks. Combine this with the fact you are being shown tonnes of new exciting rocks by an expert in the field, you're in the countryside, and in the evenings plenty of whatever the local food and beverages are is to be had, and you have a rather pleasant holiday. On this trip there wasn't even the pressure of marks to spoil the enjoyment!
Due to the differences in geology between the UK and Austria, almost every rock I saw in the 3 day trip was one I had never seen outside of a hand specimen. Whole cliffs stuffed with lovely minerals I never saw more than one of in the lab... Anyway what it all amounts to in not so rock speak is that I had fun. Especially cool is that the people leading the trip were working on research of the area, and so half the time we'd stumble upon something interesting and cool for them too, sometimes even something they couldn't identify at all! At which point we would usually have to break out the sledgehammers, because even normal geological hammers wouldn't make much of a dent in any of the rocks we saw...
It was also a pleasant change to have a full three day immersive german course too. No escape! Well, I could have escaped by speaking english but I really tried not to do that even though everyone is always really keen to show you they can, because (as good old WRN put it much better than me), if you start talking to an Austrian in english you've immediately ruled them out as a potential speaking-german-together person... It's weird how when you start out in one language, there's a sort of language inertia even though you're both pretty good at either. The countryside along the banks of the Donau near Melk and Krems is beautiful, (even with the Donau filled to overflowing the roads at some points due to the recent spate of rain), as are the small and very Austrian villages of the Waldviertel. Something that really does improve on the UK experience were the Gasthoefe we stayed at along the way, simple countryside hotels (maybe inns is a better word??) where the food is always tasty and pig and dumpling related. I tried some Schnapps made from what I reckon (translation problems aside) were Rowan berries. Actually pretty tasty, even though the original berries are supposed to be poisonous...
So yeah, lovely.
Time is really getting tight now, I'm wracking my brains and trying to make sure I don't accidentally sleep away my last few weeks here, which would be easy to do in the current 32 degree heat! Also I still have YET MORE pesky exams which I also need to learn for without letting said learning take over my life. I had an hour and a half long oral exam on Thursday. Granted half of it was basically being lectured at rather than asked questions of but still, phew! A far cry from the good old (mind numbingly terrifying for no discernible reason) 10 minute oral exams at school!
Der Tommington
Basically when you group geologists together they are suddenly surrounded by other people who will not only listen to but positively encourage discussion about rocks. Combine this with the fact you are being shown tonnes of new exciting rocks by an expert in the field, you're in the countryside, and in the evenings plenty of whatever the local food and beverages are is to be had, and you have a rather pleasant holiday. On this trip there wasn't even the pressure of marks to spoil the enjoyment!
Due to the differences in geology between the UK and Austria, almost every rock I saw in the 3 day trip was one I had never seen outside of a hand specimen. Whole cliffs stuffed with lovely minerals I never saw more than one of in the lab... Anyway what it all amounts to in not so rock speak is that I had fun. Especially cool is that the people leading the trip were working on research of the area, and so half the time we'd stumble upon something interesting and cool for them too, sometimes even something they couldn't identify at all! At which point we would usually have to break out the sledgehammers, because even normal geological hammers wouldn't make much of a dent in any of the rocks we saw...
It was also a pleasant change to have a full three day immersive german course too. No escape! Well, I could have escaped by speaking english but I really tried not to do that even though everyone is always really keen to show you they can, because (as good old WRN put it much better than me), if you start talking to an Austrian in english you've immediately ruled them out as a potential speaking-german-together person... It's weird how when you start out in one language, there's a sort of language inertia even though you're both pretty good at either. The countryside along the banks of the Donau near Melk and Krems is beautiful, (even with the Donau filled to overflowing the roads at some points due to the recent spate of rain), as are the small and very Austrian villages of the Waldviertel. Something that really does improve on the UK experience were the Gasthoefe we stayed at along the way, simple countryside hotels (maybe inns is a better word??) where the food is always tasty and pig and dumpling related. I tried some Schnapps made from what I reckon (translation problems aside) were Rowan berries. Actually pretty tasty, even though the original berries are supposed to be poisonous...
So yeah, lovely.Time is really getting tight now, I'm wracking my brains and trying to make sure I don't accidentally sleep away my last few weeks here, which would be easy to do in the current 32 degree heat! Also I still have YET MORE pesky exams which I also need to learn for without letting said learning take over my life. I had an hour and a half long oral exam on Thursday. Granted half of it was basically being lectured at rather than asked questions of but still, phew! A far cry from the good old (mind numbingly terrifying for no discernible reason) 10 minute oral exams at school!
Der Tommington
Monday 7 June 2010
Writing on the internet about things that have occurred to me.
Quite a full agenda this week. Let's press on, shall we?
Last weekend was the Vienna Stadtfest. I didn't realise at first how much of a big deal it was going to be, but walking through the city centre the day before I noticed the massive crowds and the many many stages sprinkled liberally about the place. I started out watching a Balkan brass orchester, the Orchestr Marijan Krstic. If you don't know what Balkan brass music sounds like already, you should probably just go listen to some. It's basic premise is to make you happy and cause you to dance by the masterful combination of many many brass instruments, all played with incredible skill and at high speed. These guys were masters of their art, and the dancing really got going when all 9 descended from the stage in the Heldenplatz and wandered about in the crowd, blasting full on trumpet solos into the faces of occasionally exstatic and occasionally just confused looking Viennese...
By this time my flatmate Joseph/Giuseppe had turned up, and we proceeded to wander towards the other stages. On the way we saw a VERY large number of tourists, lots of living statues and a man walking on a tightrope while juggling flaming torches. Arriving at the Radio Wien stage we stopped to observe the antics of several, I assume extremely cool, stunt bike rider type people. It is always faintly embarrassing hearing German speakers using english words while trying to be cool, and the music was deafening and a bit rubish, but I have never seen anyone do a backflip on a bike befoe, so i was pretty happy. All through the DJ set a band were slowly setting up with a drum kit, a violinist and a tuba player. I got that familiar feeling of excitement when you can;t figure out what the next band are going to sound like, and persuaded Joseph to stay and see the band. As it turns out, this was a highly excellent decision.
Binder and Kriegelstein is the name of the band, they consist of one man on vocals, drums and laptop, one man on trombone and occasionally tuba, a man on violin and a small, smiling ridiculously clothed frontwoman. The attire is an integral part of the group's appeal, and I think shows up an important point about them, namely that they are in no way at all serious about what they are doing. Each member was dressed for a completely different band, the violinist with a solemn face, trousers and a leather waistcoat like he was some traditional austrian session musician. The trombonist in a full on ska-esque suit, the lead singer in a weird combination of traditional austrian dress and cape with an electric pink wig, and the drummer in a scruffy T-Shirt.
The music was a genius mix of ska-pop, rap, pure sugary pop goodness and honest-to-goodness folk music, with hefty doses of silliness in behaviour and lyrics. The main aim of the band is to entertain you, and entertain us they did, with an aptitude for the ridiculous which was more suited to a band taking part in the Brainlove festival, incidentally happening at the same time back in London. The mighty crushing together of genres is a powerful mix, and it fills me with happiness that such a band are popular enough here to find a number 2 spot on the biggest stage at the Stadtfest.
After the end of the set we escaped to the haven of the classical music stage, where some waltzes were the perfect background to some delicious Kaesespaetzle (basically thin gnocchi like stuff with heaps of melted chesse and the odd bit of onion and pepper. Unhealthy and tasty, as all street food must be). On the move again we quickly escaped the pedestrian rock of some beloved Austrian band of yesteryear to find ouselves in the more unusual company of 'Angelas Wean Herrn Band'. These guys combined tradition Viennese songs with Jazz, with some success I feel. The Jazz kept on the right side of utterly insane, so I was able to deal with it and enjoy the songs and solos, rather than just stand there and wander why the heck everyone was tapping their knees in time, as I have been known to do when exposed to Jazz in the past...
All in all a successful day.
I shall leave you with a couple of musical gifts from Binder and Kriegelstein, to brighten up your day. First a crazed video:
And now a pop hit:
And to finish, the live experience:
Last weekend was the Vienna Stadtfest. I didn't realise at first how much of a big deal it was going to be, but walking through the city centre the day before I noticed the massive crowds and the many many stages sprinkled liberally about the place. I started out watching a Balkan brass orchester, the Orchestr Marijan Krstic. If you don't know what Balkan brass music sounds like already, you should probably just go listen to some. It's basic premise is to make you happy and cause you to dance by the masterful combination of many many brass instruments, all played with incredible skill and at high speed. These guys were masters of their art, and the dancing really got going when all 9 descended from the stage in the Heldenplatz and wandered about in the crowd, blasting full on trumpet solos into the faces of occasionally exstatic and occasionally just confused looking Viennese...
By this time my flatmate Joseph/Giuseppe had turned up, and we proceeded to wander towards the other stages. On the way we saw a VERY large number of tourists, lots of living statues and a man walking on a tightrope while juggling flaming torches. Arriving at the Radio Wien stage we stopped to observe the antics of several, I assume extremely cool, stunt bike rider type people. It is always faintly embarrassing hearing German speakers using english words while trying to be cool, and the music was deafening and a bit rubish, but I have never seen anyone do a backflip on a bike befoe, so i was pretty happy. All through the DJ set a band were slowly setting up with a drum kit, a violinist and a tuba player. I got that familiar feeling of excitement when you can;t figure out what the next band are going to sound like, and persuaded Joseph to stay and see the band. As it turns out, this was a highly excellent decision.
Binder and Kriegelstein is the name of the band, they consist of one man on vocals, drums and laptop, one man on trombone and occasionally tuba, a man on violin and a small, smiling ridiculously clothed frontwoman. The attire is an integral part of the group's appeal, and I think shows up an important point about them, namely that they are in no way at all serious about what they are doing. Each member was dressed for a completely different band, the violinist with a solemn face, trousers and a leather waistcoat like he was some traditional austrian session musician. The trombonist in a full on ska-esque suit, the lead singer in a weird combination of traditional austrian dress and cape with an electric pink wig, and the drummer in a scruffy T-Shirt.
The music was a genius mix of ska-pop, rap, pure sugary pop goodness and honest-to-goodness folk music, with hefty doses of silliness in behaviour and lyrics. The main aim of the band is to entertain you, and entertain us they did, with an aptitude for the ridiculous which was more suited to a band taking part in the Brainlove festival, incidentally happening at the same time back in London. The mighty crushing together of genres is a powerful mix, and it fills me with happiness that such a band are popular enough here to find a number 2 spot on the biggest stage at the Stadtfest.
After the end of the set we escaped to the haven of the classical music stage, where some waltzes were the perfect background to some delicious Kaesespaetzle (basically thin gnocchi like stuff with heaps of melted chesse and the odd bit of onion and pepper. Unhealthy and tasty, as all street food must be). On the move again we quickly escaped the pedestrian rock of some beloved Austrian band of yesteryear to find ouselves in the more unusual company of 'Angelas Wean Herrn Band'. These guys combined tradition Viennese songs with Jazz, with some success I feel. The Jazz kept on the right side of utterly insane, so I was able to deal with it and enjoy the songs and solos, rather than just stand there and wander why the heck everyone was tapping their knees in time, as I have been known to do when exposed to Jazz in the past...
All in all a successful day.
I shall leave you with a couple of musical gifts from Binder and Kriegelstein, to brighten up your day. First a crazed video:
And now a pop hit:
And to finish, the live experience:
Saturday 29 May 2010
Some things what I have been doing.
Well I guess I owe you all another blog nugget, or blogget. Despite the almost comically miserable weather, things are going rather well at the moment. I feel like I've really finally managed to completely settle in here. One month before I leave, naturally.
One of the many things that makes Austria a fine place to live is its position as the country with the second most national holidays in the world. This means that in May not only do we get Thursday off for the ascension of Christ, we also get a holiday for Pentecost too, only a week and a half later, and then a week and a half after that we get another Thursday off for a reason which I am not currently sure of. I think of it as 'Holy Thursday The Return' or something like that. My two day pentecost holiday combined with the department policy of not having lectures on fridays led to a sort of mini half term break last week. I spent a lot of time creating colourful A3 depictions of the regional geology of Austria, and I can I think happily say that I sort of understand the formation of 1/3 of the Alps. Which is a start. Inbetween the regional geology funtimes, I found a couple of opportunities to leave the house (during breaks in the incessant surprise thunderstorms).
The one and only WRN (currently firing lasers between space telescopes above the clouds on top of a volcano in the canaries, dammit) had informed me that right down the bottom of the Prater was a sort of reed filled nature reserve place, so I resolved to find it. I was very excited when I found the place, some old cut off arms of the Danube from before it was coralled into the rather dreary straight line channel that it occupies today. The place was FULL of wildlife. I was surprised by a Black Woodpecker hacking away at rotting wood only a few metres away, then minutes later I spotted my first of two probable water voles, and listened to a chorus of absurdly loud frogs. Oh and admired some mandarin ducks sitting calmly on the fallen logs. It was a beautiful spring evening, warm but not hot, smelling strongly of the flowers from the chestnut trees... I decided to extend my walk out of the Prater, however I took a wrong turn and ended up walking around in the outskirts of Vienna proper, past a huge power station. But this is Vienna and I was walking along a pleasant road with trees along each side in the sun, so I didn't mind so much. I eventually realised my mistake and made it back home, generating many delicious pictures.
That extended weekend also brought yet another trip to the Albertina, excellent as always, and a much needed but very boring shopping trip. Luckily, I didn't have to wait long until interesting things started happening again, on Thursday I had to go look around a flat for Ash. The owner was apologetic and said actually we couldn't go see the house today, but then invited me into his amazing first district appartment for a drink. He was an old ex dancer who had danced for 25 years at the Staatsoper, as well as many other places. He had even danced the Viennese waltz with the Princess of Kent, after which she tripped over and fell on him, meaning he got in ALL the papers, many on the front page. I mean I know this must have been in the 70s or so but still surely there was other stuff happening?? I sat round a table at which he had entertained Robert Redford and Meryl Streep of all people. Fascinating conversation, once I got over the initial confusion of someone being so nice to me.
Then yesterday it was the Lange Nacht der Kirchen, when most of the churches in Austria are open late till 12:00, with services, cakes/ other food, displays etc. The Stephansdom was lit up by an honest to goodness LASER DISPLAY shining through the incense smoke, backed up by a choir. Seriously, wow! I maintain that lasers are not inappropriate for the modern church, if people had been able to make heavenly laser displays back in the 16th Century there is no way they would have left them out! We went down into the crypt to gaze at the huge piles of bones and skulls, ossuary style but a little less artfully arranged. Plague victims, cardinals, it;s all down there. Apparently Mozart was probably in one of those piles, a far cry from his lovely and fake gravestone in the Zentralfriedhof. After that little memento mori we headed off to see the inside of the Orthodox Cathedral (amazing paintings, not a bit of wall blank) and passed through (somewhat surreally) an Anglican church where they were singing a mass in English. We then proceeded to the Museumsquartier for beer, just to balance out all the holiness. An excellent evening!
The city is still really busy as today and tomorrow are the Stadtfest, with stages and events happening all over the place. I'm off soon to check out some Balkan brass band in the Heldenplatz! I just hope it doesn't rain again....
Bis Bald, der Tom
One of the many things that makes Austria a fine place to live is its position as the country with the second most national holidays in the world. This means that in May not only do we get Thursday off for the ascension of Christ, we also get a holiday for Pentecost too, only a week and a half later, and then a week and a half after that we get another Thursday off for a reason which I am not currently sure of. I think of it as 'Holy Thursday The Return' or something like that. My two day pentecost holiday combined with the department policy of not having lectures on fridays led to a sort of mini half term break last week. I spent a lot of time creating colourful A3 depictions of the regional geology of Austria, and I can I think happily say that I sort of understand the formation of 1/3 of the Alps. Which is a start. Inbetween the regional geology funtimes, I found a couple of opportunities to leave the house (during breaks in the incessant surprise thunderstorms).
The one and only WRN (currently firing lasers between space telescopes above the clouds on top of a volcano in the canaries, dammit) had informed me that right down the bottom of the Prater was a sort of reed filled nature reserve place, so I resolved to find it. I was very excited when I found the place, some old cut off arms of the Danube from before it was coralled into the rather dreary straight line channel that it occupies today. The place was FULL of wildlife. I was surprised by a Black Woodpecker hacking away at rotting wood only a few metres away, then minutes later I spotted my first of two probable water voles, and listened to a chorus of absurdly loud frogs. Oh and admired some mandarin ducks sitting calmly on the fallen logs. It was a beautiful spring evening, warm but not hot, smelling strongly of the flowers from the chestnut trees... I decided to extend my walk out of the Prater, however I took a wrong turn and ended up walking around in the outskirts of Vienna proper, past a huge power station. But this is Vienna and I was walking along a pleasant road with trees along each side in the sun, so I didn't mind so much. I eventually realised my mistake and made it back home, generating many delicious pictures.
That extended weekend also brought yet another trip to the Albertina, excellent as always, and a much needed but very boring shopping trip. Luckily, I didn't have to wait long until interesting things started happening again, on Thursday I had to go look around a flat for Ash. The owner was apologetic and said actually we couldn't go see the house today, but then invited me into his amazing first district appartment for a drink. He was an old ex dancer who had danced for 25 years at the Staatsoper, as well as many other places. He had even danced the Viennese waltz with the Princess of Kent, after which she tripped over and fell on him, meaning he got in ALL the papers, many on the front page. I mean I know this must have been in the 70s or so but still surely there was other stuff happening?? I sat round a table at which he had entertained Robert Redford and Meryl Streep of all people. Fascinating conversation, once I got over the initial confusion of someone being so nice to me.
Then yesterday it was the Lange Nacht der Kirchen, when most of the churches in Austria are open late till 12:00, with services, cakes/ other food, displays etc. The Stephansdom was lit up by an honest to goodness LASER DISPLAY shining through the incense smoke, backed up by a choir. Seriously, wow! I maintain that lasers are not inappropriate for the modern church, if people had been able to make heavenly laser displays back in the 16th Century there is no way they would have left them out! We went down into the crypt to gaze at the huge piles of bones and skulls, ossuary style but a little less artfully arranged. Plague victims, cardinals, it;s all down there. Apparently Mozart was probably in one of those piles, a far cry from his lovely and fake gravestone in the Zentralfriedhof. After that little memento mori we headed off to see the inside of the Orthodox Cathedral (amazing paintings, not a bit of wall blank) and passed through (somewhat surreally) an Anglican church where they were singing a mass in English. We then proceeded to the Museumsquartier for beer, just to balance out all the holiness. An excellent evening!
The city is still really busy as today and tomorrow are the Stadtfest, with stages and events happening all over the place. I'm off soon to check out some Balkan brass band in the Heldenplatz! I just hope it doesn't rain again....
Bis Bald, der Tom
Monday 10 May 2010
Oh dear, someone let Britain have an election again...
Seriously, what. Apart from the fact I was deprived of my democratic right despite Jaques getting his postal ballot in Israel (note he is in the same constituency), and the brilliant discrepancy in the votes cast to the seats gained, what really annoys me is the media (for which read BBC as there is no other media, right?) reaction to the election. Basically the British people have screwed up by serving up this unpalatable result. Yes, those idiots should have known this was going to happen and voted differently. Well, they will get what they deserve! Also, can I be the only one thinking that Nick Clegg + David Cameron is better than David Cameron + David Cameron? PERHAPS. Anyway, considering that most other European Nations have had species of proportional representation for years, our terror at the mere thought of coalition agreements seems sort of cute.
I am still alive over here, and infinitely glad to be able to switch off the news whenever I want and remain blissfully unaware of the latest political bowel movement, or whatever it is that is happening on News 24 right now. Last week was the European Geosciences Union conference, so many UCL geoscientists were in Vienna. This was a cause for great celebration and beer in the Siebenstern brewery, and I caught up with 2 PhD student friends of mine (demonstrators quickly become your friends in the Geology department, due to the joy of field trips). It was really great to see them and get some department gossip, and also meet some other members of the department who I only really knew by sight. Geologists are absolutely the most fun scientists you could find yourself with in a bar, I am pretty sure. There's even a section of American Dad honouring them I believe.
I had an exam on friday. I spent hours and hours revising but my 20 sides of coloured A3 notes where once again proved foolish by the 30 minute test I took. I am not annoyed at the university any more, I am annoyed at my inability to readjust myself to the new system and not waste time I could have spent learning yet more things... Ho hum.
Sunday was way better, after a day or two moping around with an unseasonal and annoying cold, I felt better and the sun was bright, so I headed out for a walk in the hills next to Vienna. And by next to, I mean I reached them with a 30 minute public transport ride from my door. I use this word far too much but the scenery out there is just beautiful. And made all the prettier by the incredible fact that for the most part you are still just on the border with Vienna, and even inside it. If I was in London, it would be like going for a hike in Brixton or something, distance wise...
Anyway, I indulged in my absolute favourite pastime, looking at stuff from high up. Pictures ---> SO COOL
Der Tom.
I am still alive over here, and infinitely glad to be able to switch off the news whenever I want and remain blissfully unaware of the latest political bowel movement, or whatever it is that is happening on News 24 right now. Last week was the European Geosciences Union conference, so many UCL geoscientists were in Vienna. This was a cause for great celebration and beer in the Siebenstern brewery, and I caught up with 2 PhD student friends of mine (demonstrators quickly become your friends in the Geology department, due to the joy of field trips). It was really great to see them and get some department gossip, and also meet some other members of the department who I only really knew by sight. Geologists are absolutely the most fun scientists you could find yourself with in a bar, I am pretty sure. There's even a section of American Dad honouring them I believe.
I had an exam on friday. I spent hours and hours revising but my 20 sides of coloured A3 notes where once again proved foolish by the 30 minute test I took. I am not annoyed at the university any more, I am annoyed at my inability to readjust myself to the new system and not waste time I could have spent learning yet more things... Ho hum.
Sunday was way better, after a day or two moping around with an unseasonal and annoying cold, I felt better and the sun was bright, so I headed out for a walk in the hills next to Vienna. And by next to, I mean I reached them with a 30 minute public transport ride from my door. I use this word far too much but the scenery out there is just beautiful. And made all the prettier by the incredible fact that for the most part you are still just on the border with Vienna, and even inside it. If I was in London, it would be like going for a hike in Brixton or something, distance wise...
Anyway, I indulged in my absolute favourite pastime, looking at stuff from high up. Pictures ---> SO COOL
Der Tom.
Thursday 29 April 2010
T-Shirt weather!
Finally the nice weather has returned, I think we have just about reached the point where one can walk out the door wearing no more layers than a T-shirt and expect to be warm most of the time (except for during the random outbreaks of torrential rain, but I guess they come with the warmth). This is quite a good thing, obviously.
These past few weeks have been pretty leisurely, I am enjoying for once being a mere spectator to the plainitive cries of those stuck in the revision mill, even if the prospect of most people I know finishing exams 1 month before my last lecture is slightly daunting. I have to remind myself that just because I haven't been given a big long holiday in which to freak out about exams, doesn't mean I don;t have any. Even if one of them IS a multiple choice exam. You know, before university the last multiple choice exam I did was probably the 11+, this is the second time I've had one at university... To be fair, this is only a fragment of one course unit. A weird fragmentary effect tends to occur with many courses consisting of sets of lectures by 4 different people. When this leads to 4 separate exams this can be pretty annoying. As far as I can guess this is further evidence for my theory that you're probably supposed to read deeply about the small number of things you're actually interested in and coast through the rest. I'm not really into that attitude, but I will see what I can do. A lot of the exams would mormally be held in september, which is a it rubbish for me, as I will have to fit them in before I leave.
On leaving: If you had asked me a couple of months ago if I was ready to leave in 2 months, I think I might have said yes,but now spring/summer are here I'm not so sure. Chatting with Ash about London has realy brought to the forefront of my mind how amazing it is to live somewhere this pleasant, in weather as much as architecture or people, and I think it will make the walk back from Manor House to 80 Warwick Gardens (if that is indeed where I end up living) on an overcast day in October just that little bit more forbidding. Ho hum, that's what you get for daring to widen your horizons I guess!
Speaking of 'widening my horizons', (which is in itself one of those beautiful school foreign language lesson catch-all phrases that can be used to pepper oral or essay work at will), I have a feeling my grand TV experiment may be working. Ever the scientist, I cannot be sure whether to attribute my recent improvement in German to watching TV almost every day, to some kind of psychological factor where I think I should be getting better so I do, or something else entirely, of course. It helps that I am practising regularly with Ruth on our now twice weekly climbing trips to the Haus des Meeres Flakturm. When Hitler ordered the building of these concrete behemoths, I doubt he imagined he was creating opportunities for future climbing wall-sea life centre combos... I must remember to take my camera one day. And subsequently remember not to drop it from a 30m climbing wall...
Hmm, I gues there are many half finished thoughts that have drifted in and out of my head in the last few weeks, but I can't remember them now thus they are by definition unimportant.
Enjoy your election hype, Britain fans!
TG
These past few weeks have been pretty leisurely, I am enjoying for once being a mere spectator to the plainitive cries of those stuck in the revision mill, even if the prospect of most people I know finishing exams 1 month before my last lecture is slightly daunting. I have to remind myself that just because I haven't been given a big long holiday in which to freak out about exams, doesn't mean I don;t have any. Even if one of them IS a multiple choice exam. You know, before university the last multiple choice exam I did was probably the 11+, this is the second time I've had one at university... To be fair, this is only a fragment of one course unit. A weird fragmentary effect tends to occur with many courses consisting of sets of lectures by 4 different people. When this leads to 4 separate exams this can be pretty annoying. As far as I can guess this is further evidence for my theory that you're probably supposed to read deeply about the small number of things you're actually interested in and coast through the rest. I'm not really into that attitude, but I will see what I can do. A lot of the exams would mormally be held in september, which is a it rubbish for me, as I will have to fit them in before I leave.
On leaving: If you had asked me a couple of months ago if I was ready to leave in 2 months, I think I might have said yes,but now spring/summer are here I'm not so sure. Chatting with Ash about London has realy brought to the forefront of my mind how amazing it is to live somewhere this pleasant, in weather as much as architecture or people, and I think it will make the walk back from Manor House to 80 Warwick Gardens (if that is indeed where I end up living) on an overcast day in October just that little bit more forbidding. Ho hum, that's what you get for daring to widen your horizons I guess!
Speaking of 'widening my horizons', (which is in itself one of those beautiful school foreign language lesson catch-all phrases that can be used to pepper oral or essay work at will), I have a feeling my grand TV experiment may be working. Ever the scientist, I cannot be sure whether to attribute my recent improvement in German to watching TV almost every day, to some kind of psychological factor where I think I should be getting better so I do, or something else entirely, of course. It helps that I am practising regularly with Ruth on our now twice weekly climbing trips to the Haus des Meeres Flakturm. When Hitler ordered the building of these concrete behemoths, I doubt he imagined he was creating opportunities for future climbing wall-sea life centre combos... I must remember to take my camera one day. And subsequently remember not to drop it from a 30m climbing wall...
Hmm, I gues there are many half finished thoughts that have drifted in and out of my head in the last few weeks, but I can't remember them now thus they are by definition unimportant.
Enjoy your election hype, Britain fans!
TG
Thursday 22 April 2010
Decidedly non-volcanic Ash
I thought of the hilarious pun above ages ago, and almost didn't use it after it transpired that my parents had already thought of it. Bang goes my originality, I thought. Nevertheless, I feel I should take the chance offered to me by my great benefactor geology.
Ash came to visit! And this time it wasn't -2 degrees, or snowing, and his flight wasn't even cancelled once! His arrival was mighty timely, for I was still in tourism mode from my Finland trip. I am really glad that he turned up and jolted me out of my routine and back into properly noticing Vienna. I had got into a bit of a rut, travelling only between home and university or occasionally the odd climbing wall or cafe, but this gave me a chance to spend a whole week showing off Vienna to Ash and myself and doing those things I kept 'meaning to do' but never did. Of course, part of my enewed enthusiasm for the city has been created by the spring weather too! My, it is lovely here at the moment, in between the rainstorms.
I hope Ash won't mind (as he posted this on his facebook status I'm guessing not) but I will allow you to browse through the photos of an actual photographer (that is Ash) this time. Simply go here and type the word Vienna in the box. Even with his non monstrous camera Ash captured some impressive shots. While you're there, check out his other work, I think you will agree it is pretty impressive.
When Ash arrived I took him on a proper long walk round the whole city in delicious sunshine. On the way I was shocked at how suddenly spring had crept up on all the parks and things I last remember looking at in about february, making them all green and flowery. This realisation that things had been growing all over the place really surprised me with how little I had visited these places recently. We went up the scaffold in the Karlskirche, as you can see in the pictures. The roof painting was incredible, the wobbling scaffolding (60m high), less so. Worth the entry price though! Ate tasty food at the restaurant with the self proclaimed best falafel in Vienna. Ooh yeah.
Tuesday we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Hofburg museums (arms and armour and ancient musical instruments), both things I had kept meaning to do but never got round to. We only properly managed the Kunst half of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and even then it took several hours... Literally every pre 19th century painter of fame seemed to be there. The amount of talent and the sheer age of most of the stuff was a bit overwhelming. Highlights? Seeing several real Arcimboldos, (6 or so years after we had to constantly analyse the man's work for art lessons) the giant wall covering epics, the odd excellent Titian, seemingly almost everything done and still existing by a Dutch legend called Pieter Bruegel the Elder. All the people in his pictures had their own little expression and impression of a story behind them. Especially cool was 'The Battle Between Carnival and Lent'. Just take some time to look at all the brilliant characters! Also fascinating was an exhibition all about one single picture by Vermeer, and all the inspiration, methods, research, restoration and themes around it. I like the idea of knowing so much about just one picture by an artist.
Wandering around the Hofburg in seemingly endless classical marble halls surrounded by random ancient things, especially on a day when the museum was otherwise deserted, was a surreal experience reminiscent of exploring some kind of mystery computer game setting... The arms and armour collection was crazy. One of the largest in the world, and really what more is there to say than there was a LOT of exquisitely designed armour and weaponry on display. Some exquisitely designed but not actually meant for real use of course, as the ludicrous shield-gauntlet-sword-oil lamp-spike combo in Ash's pictures demostrates (if used it would have doused your arm in hot oil, apart from the many other design flaws). Equally interesting was the collection of old musical instruments. There are a LOT of ways to make noises, my goodness. The free audioguide was especially appreciated for this one, because really what use is looking at an instrument without knowing how it sounds?!
Thursday was spent at the zoo (sealion feeding! pandas! giraffes! you know what happens in zoos) which was pretty darn cool. As the afternoon sun (19 degrees ) began to go down we made it to the gradens arguably Vienna's most famous palace, Schoenbrunn. Stunning, even by Viennese standards. Friday we went to Bratislava. I feel this place gets a bad rap from people, yeah I suppose the biggest part of the city is just ugly tower blocks, but the old town and castle area (where we spent all our time) really is beautiful. Plus can you really complain about a place whre a 500ml 10% beer costs you €1.10? No, I thought not. A few of my photos of Bratislava can be found here.
Saturday the rain came down with a vengeance, but I still managed to give Ash a brief tour of the Naschmarkt and let myself be ritually ripped off by it. Gosh darn it, if only the food they rip you off with wasn't so tasty! The combination of bergkaese and true (in saltwater) pickled gherkins is definitely unbeatable. We also toured the Schatzkammer, I'd been before but you still can't really prepare yourself for that much sheer opulence and age... Sunday we went to the Naturhistorisches Museum, my favourite museum here, at least taken by number of visits (I think I have been 4 times at least). Every time it is fantastic, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The last day and a bit of Ash's stay I had university, but we still managed to meet up in the evening for a semi traditional Siebensternbrauerei visit. Ash (against my advice) went for the chilli beer. He loved it, but seriously people, a warning, when they say chilli beer, they mean it! That beer has serious burn! As usual the food was stupidly filling but also stupidly tasty.
So yeah, there you go. Who knows soon you may find out what's been going on more recently.
Until then!
Der Tom
Ash came to visit! And this time it wasn't -2 degrees, or snowing, and his flight wasn't even cancelled once! His arrival was mighty timely, for I was still in tourism mode from my Finland trip. I am really glad that he turned up and jolted me out of my routine and back into properly noticing Vienna. I had got into a bit of a rut, travelling only between home and university or occasionally the odd climbing wall or cafe, but this gave me a chance to spend a whole week showing off Vienna to Ash and myself and doing those things I kept 'meaning to do' but never did. Of course, part of my enewed enthusiasm for the city has been created by the spring weather too! My, it is lovely here at the moment, in between the rainstorms.
I hope Ash won't mind (as he posted this on his facebook status I'm guessing not) but I will allow you to browse through the photos of an actual photographer (that is Ash) this time. Simply go here and type the word Vienna in the box. Even with his non monstrous camera Ash captured some impressive shots. While you're there, check out his other work, I think you will agree it is pretty impressive.
When Ash arrived I took him on a proper long walk round the whole city in delicious sunshine. On the way I was shocked at how suddenly spring had crept up on all the parks and things I last remember looking at in about february, making them all green and flowery. This realisation that things had been growing all over the place really surprised me with how little I had visited these places recently. We went up the scaffold in the Karlskirche, as you can see in the pictures. The roof painting was incredible, the wobbling scaffolding (60m high), less so. Worth the entry price though! Ate tasty food at the restaurant with the self proclaimed best falafel in Vienna. Ooh yeah.
Tuesday we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Hofburg museums (arms and armour and ancient musical instruments), both things I had kept meaning to do but never got round to. We only properly managed the Kunst half of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and even then it took several hours... Literally every pre 19th century painter of fame seemed to be there. The amount of talent and the sheer age of most of the stuff was a bit overwhelming. Highlights? Seeing several real Arcimboldos, (6 or so years after we had to constantly analyse the man's work for art lessons) the giant wall covering epics, the odd excellent Titian, seemingly almost everything done and still existing by a Dutch legend called Pieter Bruegel the Elder. All the people in his pictures had their own little expression and impression of a story behind them. Especially cool was 'The Battle Between Carnival and Lent'. Just take some time to look at all the brilliant characters! Also fascinating was an exhibition all about one single picture by Vermeer, and all the inspiration, methods, research, restoration and themes around it. I like the idea of knowing so much about just one picture by an artist.
Wandering around the Hofburg in seemingly endless classical marble halls surrounded by random ancient things, especially on a day when the museum was otherwise deserted, was a surreal experience reminiscent of exploring some kind of mystery computer game setting... The arms and armour collection was crazy. One of the largest in the world, and really what more is there to say than there was a LOT of exquisitely designed armour and weaponry on display. Some exquisitely designed but not actually meant for real use of course, as the ludicrous shield-gauntlet-sword-oil lamp-spike combo in Ash's pictures demostrates (if used it would have doused your arm in hot oil, apart from the many other design flaws). Equally interesting was the collection of old musical instruments. There are a LOT of ways to make noises, my goodness. The free audioguide was especially appreciated for this one, because really what use is looking at an instrument without knowing how it sounds?!
Thursday was spent at the zoo (sealion feeding! pandas! giraffes! you know what happens in zoos) which was pretty darn cool. As the afternoon sun (19 degrees ) began to go down we made it to the gradens arguably Vienna's most famous palace, Schoenbrunn. Stunning, even by Viennese standards. Friday we went to Bratislava. I feel this place gets a bad rap from people, yeah I suppose the biggest part of the city is just ugly tower blocks, but the old town and castle area (where we spent all our time) really is beautiful. Plus can you really complain about a place whre a 500ml 10% beer costs you €1.10? No, I thought not. A few of my photos of Bratislava can be found here.
Saturday the rain came down with a vengeance, but I still managed to give Ash a brief tour of the Naschmarkt and let myself be ritually ripped off by it. Gosh darn it, if only the food they rip you off with wasn't so tasty! The combination of bergkaese and true (in saltwater) pickled gherkins is definitely unbeatable. We also toured the Schatzkammer, I'd been before but you still can't really prepare yourself for that much sheer opulence and age... Sunday we went to the Naturhistorisches Museum, my favourite museum here, at least taken by number of visits (I think I have been 4 times at least). Every time it is fantastic, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The last day and a bit of Ash's stay I had university, but we still managed to meet up in the evening for a semi traditional Siebensternbrauerei visit. Ash (against my advice) went for the chilli beer. He loved it, but seriously people, a warning, when they say chilli beer, they mean it! That beer has serious burn! As usual the food was stupidly filling but also stupidly tasty.
So yeah, there you go. Who knows soon you may find out what's been going on more recently.
Until then!
Der Tom
Saturday 17 April 2010
Yet another post about Finland directly contradicting the title of this 'Weblog'
Happy volcanic ash week! The last one of these, and we can get back to where I actually, you know, live.
The train to Helsinki was uneventful but pleasant. Every finnish train I went on was extremely comfortable, very nice cushions for the head among other things. I just sat there and watched the trees and lakes slide past. I was looking out for a reduction in snow and although there was a bit, mostly it still looked pretty darn snowy all the way...
I got out of the station, found a free (if unwieldy) map, booked a hostel and then thought about what I should actually be doing. I was pretty darned glad to have a hostel to be honest, even though one night in Helsinki in Spring was never exactly going to be a huge problem... The romantic explorer part of my brain was rather taken with the idea of an island fortress out to sea, so I decided that this would be my first port of call. The place is called Suomenlinna, originally a giant Swedish naval base (Sveaborg) from the 18th century and generally strategically important all the way through history. Today a surprisingly large number of people live on the island(s), it is like a village connected directly to Helsinki by a 20 minute boat ride. Apparently though, Helsinki really owes its existence and expansion to the fortress, rather than the other way round. On my walk to the harbour I was struck by how much more swedish Helsinki is, although there are two official languages in Finland I hadn't really seen such an obvious swedish presence before, with swedish theaters, bookshops, dual text on everything, and of course swedish written or carved on the older buildings.
The view when I got there was pretty amazing. I hadn't for a moment considered that the sea would freeze over, and coming across the whole harbour filled with ice fragments all bobbing and clinking and crunching against each other was definitely exciting. The bright sunshine of course helped! In the distance I could make out some tiny islands in the bay and the tall blocky shapes of the ferries, and looking inland the towering Orthodox and Lutheran cathedrals were just sitting there against the blue sky! Noice. The ride was windy and cold and incredibly incredibly bumpy, but very fun. I guess it was us pushing ice fragments under our hull and them scraping under us that caused all the noise and shuddering, as the ice ahead was very well broken up for us already. Whatever it was, it seemed pretty routine.
I got out of the ferry and looking at the map I realised that this place was huge! Its not really a single castle type fortress but a big sprawling ex military village/ town with bits of walls and bastions all around it, all meandering confusingly and seemingly the result of many many layers of building. The walk to the southern point of the island was about 2 km I think. All kinds of different buildings, big granite walls and gates, small houses, wooden huts, and some people who definitely looked like locals rather than tourists. They had that semi resentful look I imagine they reserve for out of season tourists disturbing their peace. The whole island is really just a smoothed out lump of bedrock from the last glaciation, very low down indeed. The ragged edge means you can pretty much always see one or two bays and bits of sea but it was only when I reached the Southern point and gun batteries that I got a really good view back towards helsinki and out towards the little swarms of other islands on the horizons. As usual, my photos of the place maybe make all this pontificating pretty pointless. I tried to imagine what it would have been like being a swedish guard there in winter, but I really couldn't. Too cold.
I managed to go down to the still partially snow covered beach, where I indulged in some brief geological exploration, before realising quite how late it was getting. I found time for a beer that had been brewed on the island, but my enjoyment was dented by the (typical) €7 price tag!
Back in town I wandered around the outside of the brilliant red brick Orthodox Cathedral (sadly closed for easter things) and then up to the big landmark Lutheran cathedral opposite it. Inside it was pretty minimal, big but not that impressive, but the big swathe of steps and square leading up to it looked great in the sun. The first boombox wielding teenagers of the year had just taken up residence on the steps, lovely to see the circle of life continuing.
Afterwards I went to look at the natural history museum, which was free, but actually not as great as the Jyvaskyla one because it was less specific to Finland and I had in any case seen all of the stuffed fauna before by this point. Still, a competent exhibition about the evolution of life, I just wish there had been more about actually finnish rocks. Sadly these are very poor at portraying the history of life, I think there was a quote in there that Finland's geological record is like the covers of a book with no middle, ancient rocks and rocks from last week and almost nothing in between!
My big plan was to explore the city further by going on a big walk, the purpose of which would be to find some kinda finnish food. Sadly this was not to be, there were only chinese, thai, nepalese and italian restaurants, with the occasional closed tapas bar or fast food shop. Weary from my semi aimless wandering in the geometric streets (grid patterns still freak me out a little bit...) I settled for an actually very good indian restaurant, rationalising that I hadn't actually had an Indian since the last summer, so it was still unusual enough. I consumed a delicious spinach soup and cheese (Paneer?) food which I am sure Claire would A) scoff at the inauthenticity of and B) know what to call.
My hostel bed was as all hostel beds are, pretty poor really, I have no idea what happens in winter. I had selected it though because it was a brief walk from the bus, airport and freedom! To cut a long and tedious story short, I woke up and then eventually landed in Vienna. And there you go! More than you ever really wanted to know about the furthest north I have ever been!
Der Tomppa
The train to Helsinki was uneventful but pleasant. Every finnish train I went on was extremely comfortable, very nice cushions for the head among other things. I just sat there and watched the trees and lakes slide past. I was looking out for a reduction in snow and although there was a bit, mostly it still looked pretty darn snowy all the way...
I got out of the station, found a free (if unwieldy) map, booked a hostel and then thought about what I should actually be doing. I was pretty darned glad to have a hostel to be honest, even though one night in Helsinki in Spring was never exactly going to be a huge problem... The romantic explorer part of my brain was rather taken with the idea of an island fortress out to sea, so I decided that this would be my first port of call. The place is called Suomenlinna, originally a giant Swedish naval base (Sveaborg) from the 18th century and generally strategically important all the way through history. Today a surprisingly large number of people live on the island(s), it is like a village connected directly to Helsinki by a 20 minute boat ride. Apparently though, Helsinki really owes its existence and expansion to the fortress, rather than the other way round. On my walk to the harbour I was struck by how much more swedish Helsinki is, although there are two official languages in Finland I hadn't really seen such an obvious swedish presence before, with swedish theaters, bookshops, dual text on everything, and of course swedish written or carved on the older buildings.
The view when I got there was pretty amazing. I hadn't for a moment considered that the sea would freeze over, and coming across the whole harbour filled with ice fragments all bobbing and clinking and crunching against each other was definitely exciting. The bright sunshine of course helped! In the distance I could make out some tiny islands in the bay and the tall blocky shapes of the ferries, and looking inland the towering Orthodox and Lutheran cathedrals were just sitting there against the blue sky! Noice. The ride was windy and cold and incredibly incredibly bumpy, but very fun. I guess it was us pushing ice fragments under our hull and them scraping under us that caused all the noise and shuddering, as the ice ahead was very well broken up for us already. Whatever it was, it seemed pretty routine.
I got out of the ferry and looking at the map I realised that this place was huge! Its not really a single castle type fortress but a big sprawling ex military village/ town with bits of walls and bastions all around it, all meandering confusingly and seemingly the result of many many layers of building. The walk to the southern point of the island was about 2 km I think. All kinds of different buildings, big granite walls and gates, small houses, wooden huts, and some people who definitely looked like locals rather than tourists. They had that semi resentful look I imagine they reserve for out of season tourists disturbing their peace. The whole island is really just a smoothed out lump of bedrock from the last glaciation, very low down indeed. The ragged edge means you can pretty much always see one or two bays and bits of sea but it was only when I reached the Southern point and gun batteries that I got a really good view back towards helsinki and out towards the little swarms of other islands on the horizons. As usual, my photos of the place maybe make all this pontificating pretty pointless. I tried to imagine what it would have been like being a swedish guard there in winter, but I really couldn't. Too cold.
I managed to go down to the still partially snow covered beach, where I indulged in some brief geological exploration, before realising quite how late it was getting. I found time for a beer that had been brewed on the island, but my enjoyment was dented by the (typical) €7 price tag!
Back in town I wandered around the outside of the brilliant red brick Orthodox Cathedral (sadly closed for easter things) and then up to the big landmark Lutheran cathedral opposite it. Inside it was pretty minimal, big but not that impressive, but the big swathe of steps and square leading up to it looked great in the sun. The first boombox wielding teenagers of the year had just taken up residence on the steps, lovely to see the circle of life continuing.
Afterwards I went to look at the natural history museum, which was free, but actually not as great as the Jyvaskyla one because it was less specific to Finland and I had in any case seen all of the stuffed fauna before by this point. Still, a competent exhibition about the evolution of life, I just wish there had been more about actually finnish rocks. Sadly these are very poor at portraying the history of life, I think there was a quote in there that Finland's geological record is like the covers of a book with no middle, ancient rocks and rocks from last week and almost nothing in between!
My big plan was to explore the city further by going on a big walk, the purpose of which would be to find some kinda finnish food. Sadly this was not to be, there were only chinese, thai, nepalese and italian restaurants, with the occasional closed tapas bar or fast food shop. Weary from my semi aimless wandering in the geometric streets (grid patterns still freak me out a little bit...) I settled for an actually very good indian restaurant, rationalising that I hadn't actually had an Indian since the last summer, so it was still unusual enough. I consumed a delicious spinach soup and cheese (Paneer?) food which I am sure Claire would A) scoff at the inauthenticity of and B) know what to call.
My hostel bed was as all hostel beds are, pretty poor really, I have no idea what happens in winter. I had selected it though because it was a brief walk from the bus, airport and freedom! To cut a long and tedious story short, I woke up and then eventually landed in Vienna. And there you go! More than you ever really wanted to know about the furthest north I have ever been!
Der Tomppa
Friday 16 April 2010
A Comet in Moominblog
Jyväskylä is not the biggest city in the world. Its population (spread over quite a large municipal area) is only 10,000 more than the 'greater High Wycomber Urban area' (whatever that is) and about two thirds of a Milton Keynes. It is not going to be visited by any major rock bands on tour, and it was only founded in 1837, yet it shares for me the feeling I get about Vienna in that it seems a good place to live in. Perhaps my judgement is so skewed by the smoking metropolis that is London and the sporadically vomit covered streets of High Wycombe, but still, there you have it. As with everything in Finland, it lies between several large lakes, which were still frozen while I was there, although all but one particularly intrepid skier had abandoned the ice in anticipation of the thaw.
The university buildings seemed to be all over the place, and I think it would be fair to say that it is quite a university town, (except actually a city). In fact, several people I have met or heard about from Austria had spent Erasmus years there, which from a UCL 'only the biggest and most famous universities will serve as partners' point of view, is surprising. I have the sense that awareness of Finland is higher in Austria than the UK, many more people than I expect seem to have at least visited the place. Why this should be and whether this observation is more than mere coincidence, I do not know. The architecture is pretty modern, so it looks alternately shiny and modern and shabby and 70s depending on the light quality and the age of the block of flats. Nonetheless a few older buildings survive around the university and the church near Mirva's flat.
Of course, the first tourist-y thing I did was to climb the observation tower on top of the Harju to gain an overview of the area. Definately everywhere is improved by having a hill, observation tower and large frozen lake. Afterwards I went with Mirva to the 'natural history museum of central Finland' which was great! Obviously I was extremely happy with the geology section. As I had hoped there was a lot of information about the local glacial geology and a bit more on the formation of Finland as a whole. There is nothing like the knowledge that the rocks for 300km in any direction are older than over 99% of the British Isles bedrock... There was also a pretty cool pile of paper representing geological time. It was nearly 4m tall I think and *each sheet of paper* represented 200,000 years of time. Homo Sapiens is somewhere in the region of 200,000 years old, maximum. One sheet of paper in a stack of 4 metres. The current series of ice ages is about 4 pieces of paper. The error on a radiometric 'exact' date for older rocks spans 5 sheets of paper...
The museum also had the stuffed fauna of central finland. I hadn't really thought much about the fact that Finland still has (a few) bears, wolves, wolverines and lynxes, and there were 'underwater' displays where the surface of the water had been made out of some resin surface cast into startlingly realistic waves, in some mysterious process I have no idea about. The fish were cleverly arranged to be attached in such a way that their supports were not visible, looking as if they were just hanging there in the water.
Aftewards, encouraged by the blue skies and bright sunshine peeking through the clouds that had otherwise been constant since my arrival, I took a walk around the lake. My photos from this walk once again speak for themselves, a beautiful walk in bright late afternoon sunshine, everything all the brighter for the snow still on the ground. Amusingly, when Ash looked at my photos from this walk he first thought that the lake was in fact a large snow covered park or other open space... It just doesn't occur to us english to imagine whole lakes freezing...
The day after I visited the Museum of Central Finland. I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but it ended up being a fantastic museum. The reasons for this are several, partly I reckon any museum where you know NOTHING about the subject will keep your attention, and partl it was a particularly well made museum. I like museums where they tell you stuff and show you stuff. I know interactive 'pretend to be a finnish dinosaur hunter' or whatever exhibits are fun sometimes, but nothing beats being shown cool things and told why they are cool. And not only did the museum do this, they managed to do it in perfect conversational english and weave in mysteries (why was this lone broken ski at the bottom of an ancient lake?) with family histories.
Over the two floors, one a general history of central Finland and another specifically about the city, I learned a huge amount. I enjoyed all the differences between the history of a country like Finland, only independant since 1917 (and before about 1400 but that doesn't count cos nobody was writing things down) and a place like the UK, which usually spent its time doing the owning. The lives of the Finnish were shaped by things like log booms, an idea which seems odd to us but had a huge effect on a place like Jyväskylä at the end of the 19th century... All the writing was accompanied by a large number of photos of the things involved. And the large models of Jyväskylä through its history were especially helful for thinking about the development of the town, especially with the bird's eye view I had gained for the observation tower the day before and the persistence of the landmark of the old church next to where I was staying.
Tune in next time when our intrepid hero takes a train to Helsinki...
The university buildings seemed to be all over the place, and I think it would be fair to say that it is quite a university town, (except actually a city). In fact, several people I have met or heard about from Austria had spent Erasmus years there, which from a UCL 'only the biggest and most famous universities will serve as partners' point of view, is surprising. I have the sense that awareness of Finland is higher in Austria than the UK, many more people than I expect seem to have at least visited the place. Why this should be and whether this observation is more than mere coincidence, I do not know. The architecture is pretty modern, so it looks alternately shiny and modern and shabby and 70s depending on the light quality and the age of the block of flats. Nonetheless a few older buildings survive around the university and the church near Mirva's flat.
Of course, the first tourist-y thing I did was to climb the observation tower on top of the Harju to gain an overview of the area. Definately everywhere is improved by having a hill, observation tower and large frozen lake. Afterwards I went with Mirva to the 'natural history museum of central Finland' which was great! Obviously I was extremely happy with the geology section. As I had hoped there was a lot of information about the local glacial geology and a bit more on the formation of Finland as a whole. There is nothing like the knowledge that the rocks for 300km in any direction are older than over 99% of the British Isles bedrock... There was also a pretty cool pile of paper representing geological time. It was nearly 4m tall I think and *each sheet of paper* represented 200,000 years of time. Homo Sapiens is somewhere in the region of 200,000 years old, maximum. One sheet of paper in a stack of 4 metres. The current series of ice ages is about 4 pieces of paper. The error on a radiometric 'exact' date for older rocks spans 5 sheets of paper...
The museum also had the stuffed fauna of central finland. I hadn't really thought much about the fact that Finland still has (a few) bears, wolves, wolverines and lynxes, and there were 'underwater' displays where the surface of the water had been made out of some resin surface cast into startlingly realistic waves, in some mysterious process I have no idea about. The fish were cleverly arranged to be attached in such a way that their supports were not visible, looking as if they were just hanging there in the water.
Aftewards, encouraged by the blue skies and bright sunshine peeking through the clouds that had otherwise been constant since my arrival, I took a walk around the lake. My photos from this walk once again speak for themselves, a beautiful walk in bright late afternoon sunshine, everything all the brighter for the snow still on the ground. Amusingly, when Ash looked at my photos from this walk he first thought that the lake was in fact a large snow covered park or other open space... It just doesn't occur to us english to imagine whole lakes freezing...
The day after I visited the Museum of Central Finland. I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but it ended up being a fantastic museum. The reasons for this are several, partly I reckon any museum where you know NOTHING about the subject will keep your attention, and partl it was a particularly well made museum. I like museums where they tell you stuff and show you stuff. I know interactive 'pretend to be a finnish dinosaur hunter' or whatever exhibits are fun sometimes, but nothing beats being shown cool things and told why they are cool. And not only did the museum do this, they managed to do it in perfect conversational english and weave in mysteries (why was this lone broken ski at the bottom of an ancient lake?) with family histories.
Over the two floors, one a general history of central Finland and another specifically about the city, I learned a huge amount. I enjoyed all the differences between the history of a country like Finland, only independant since 1917 (and before about 1400 but that doesn't count cos nobody was writing things down) and a place like the UK, which usually spent its time doing the owning. The lives of the Finnish were shaped by things like log booms, an idea which seems odd to us but had a huge effect on a place like Jyväskylä at the end of the 19th century... All the writing was accompanied by a large number of photos of the things involved. And the large models of Jyväskylä through its history were especially helful for thinking about the development of the town, especially with the bird's eye view I had gained for the observation tower the day before and the persistence of the landmark of the old church next to where I was staying.
Tune in next time when our intrepid hero takes a train to Helsinki...
Wednesday 14 April 2010
The Further Adventures of Moominblog
It has been a while but unfortuntely real people/ Ash (in case you don't think he is real) and Vienna in all her glory and also rain have taken my precious morsels of free time. But fear not electronic voyeurs! I have finally returned to tell you tall tales and short sagas of a land so full of finnish people the world knows it as Finland (although the finnish themselves know it as Suomi).
When we last left our intrepid hero he had just endured temperatures of OVER 60 degrees and DRAMATICALLY JUMPED into some snow to escape them. After which he ate some pancakes, played a game which involved piling up wooden animals and then went to sleep...
Leaving the summer house we encountered some somewhat less pleasant spring weather, temperatures hovering around zero and constant drizzle/sleet. However I'll be honest it was all so new and unusual that I didn't really mind that it was raining when we pulled up in Savonlinna to go look at the castle. Savonlinna castle is a rare example of a really old thing in Finland, and as with most such things it was built by the swedish, on their border with Russia.
You can wikipedia it as well as I can, so I will leave the history out, as I didn't really know much as I was looking round. What I did notice was that it's a pretty great looking castle, situated on a little rounded, glacially scratched lump of bedrock poking out of the lake (which joins with the thousand or more other lakes and streams in the area and would therefore allow you to travel by water all the way to the sea!). And the towers have these wonderful flared, porthole-like cannon ports. I enjoy anything which is different, and this was definitely stylistically slightly different to the UK castles I have been to. In common with the UK however it was originally what I think of as a 'poper' castle, ie one that was actually built to defend stuff not for some toff to live in! Savonlinna is pretty small but it does apparently contain the best pizza restaurant in Finland, where we ate before Mirva, Outi and I clambered aboard a bus for the long journey to Jyväskylä.
I didn't really look around the city the next day, I had a free day of train travel from the interrail pass I had bought (for ease and cheapness) so I spent the day visiting Tampere, Finland's 3rd larges ciy and largestoutside the immediate area of Helsinki. With a population of 200,000 the size of the place isn't overwhelming, but the setting squeezed between two lakes with (of course) trees all around and a glacial moraine hill at the back, it was a very pleasant place. More importantly there was a lot to do, I managed to fill a day even though I arrived on the one day of the week all the museums were closed...
I will try not to write this much about everything I saw but I think the first location I visited, Tampere Cathedral, is worth a mention. It was built at the beginning of the 20th Century and dates from a time when Finland was starting to be more proud of being finnish, featuring murals and stained glass windows by two famous finnish artists. The building itself is refreshingly diferent to the gothic encrusted cathedrals of central europe, retaining the shape but made out of solid grey granite rather than smoke-dirtied sandstone. As the photos show (poorly) the entrance and inside pillars were carved with some really nice looking decoration, and the stained glass windows were beautiful, not traditional but also not just a boring random scatter of colours. The main thing that made the inside really impressive were the murals, a set of 12 naked boys (apparently representing the disciples) carrying or dragging a wreath around the edge of the balcony, thorn motifs twisting up the arches, and a snake surrounded by huge pale angel wings at the apex of the dome.
The painting of the resurrection above the altar is simply good art. Even more modern churches seem to either go for minimalism or the old traditional depictions of the bible. Frankly in terms of 'looking good' as opposed to historical worth and biblical allegory (and gold content) I much much prefer 'modern' art. The colours, the people, the size, everything about the picture really fitted together.
I saw a lot more churches throughout the day, a (sadly closed) orthodox church and a Lutheran brick church with some nice wooden stuff going on inside. For the most part I just wandered around looking at stuff, this being the first finnosh city I had really explored. My photos show everything at least as well as I could describe it, so I won't say much more. Towards the end of my visit I climbed the harju and found the observation tower. It is getting to the point where if I haven't climbed an observation tower I haven't properly visited a place... Anyway it was great to get a bit of a long distance view of the landscape. The trees along the roads and railways give you a sense of the amount of forest (well commercial plantations) around, but they block any opportunity for uninterrupted views that really allow you to appreciate the extent, and the way the landscape might be low, but it is emphatically not flat.
I ate a tasty home made doughnut in the cafe and travelled back to Jyvaskyla, spending the whole journey talking to a guy who worked for a paper machine selling company and had endless stories about Indian, Singaporean, American and other nationalities' first visits to the sauna on business trips. You could not get much more finnish if you tried really...
When we last left our intrepid hero he had just endured temperatures of OVER 60 degrees and DRAMATICALLY JUMPED into some snow to escape them. After which he ate some pancakes, played a game which involved piling up wooden animals and then went to sleep...
Leaving the summer house we encountered some somewhat less pleasant spring weather, temperatures hovering around zero and constant drizzle/sleet. However I'll be honest it was all so new and unusual that I didn't really mind that it was raining when we pulled up in Savonlinna to go look at the castle. Savonlinna castle is a rare example of a really old thing in Finland, and as with most such things it was built by the swedish, on their border with Russia.
You can wikipedia it as well as I can, so I will leave the history out, as I didn't really know much as I was looking round. What I did notice was that it's a pretty great looking castle, situated on a little rounded, glacially scratched lump of bedrock poking out of the lake (which joins with the thousand or more other lakes and streams in the area and would therefore allow you to travel by water all the way to the sea!). And the towers have these wonderful flared, porthole-like cannon ports. I enjoy anything which is different, and this was definitely stylistically slightly different to the UK castles I have been to. In common with the UK however it was originally what I think of as a 'poper' castle, ie one that was actually built to defend stuff not for some toff to live in! Savonlinna is pretty small but it does apparently contain the best pizza restaurant in Finland, where we ate before Mirva, Outi and I clambered aboard a bus for the long journey to Jyväskylä.
I didn't really look around the city the next day, I had a free day of train travel from the interrail pass I had bought (for ease and cheapness) so I spent the day visiting Tampere, Finland's 3rd larges ciy and largestoutside the immediate area of Helsinki. With a population of 200,000 the size of the place isn't overwhelming, but the setting squeezed between two lakes with (of course) trees all around and a glacial moraine hill at the back, it was a very pleasant place. More importantly there was a lot to do, I managed to fill a day even though I arrived on the one day of the week all the museums were closed...
I will try not to write this much about everything I saw but I think the first location I visited, Tampere Cathedral, is worth a mention. It was built at the beginning of the 20th Century and dates from a time when Finland was starting to be more proud of being finnish, featuring murals and stained glass windows by two famous finnish artists. The building itself is refreshingly diferent to the gothic encrusted cathedrals of central europe, retaining the shape but made out of solid grey granite rather than smoke-dirtied sandstone. As the photos show (poorly) the entrance and inside pillars were carved with some really nice looking decoration, and the stained glass windows were beautiful, not traditional but also not just a boring random scatter of colours. The main thing that made the inside really impressive were the murals, a set of 12 naked boys (apparently representing the disciples) carrying or dragging a wreath around the edge of the balcony, thorn motifs twisting up the arches, and a snake surrounded by huge pale angel wings at the apex of the dome.
The painting of the resurrection above the altar is simply good art. Even more modern churches seem to either go for minimalism or the old traditional depictions of the bible. Frankly in terms of 'looking good' as opposed to historical worth and biblical allegory (and gold content) I much much prefer 'modern' art. The colours, the people, the size, everything about the picture really fitted together.
I saw a lot more churches throughout the day, a (sadly closed) orthodox church and a Lutheran brick church with some nice wooden stuff going on inside. For the most part I just wandered around looking at stuff, this being the first finnosh city I had really explored. My photos show everything at least as well as I could describe it, so I won't say much more. Towards the end of my visit I climbed the harju and found the observation tower. It is getting to the point where if I haven't climbed an observation tower I haven't properly visited a place... Anyway it was great to get a bit of a long distance view of the landscape. The trees along the roads and railways give you a sense of the amount of forest (well commercial plantations) around, but they block any opportunity for uninterrupted views that really allow you to appreciate the extent, and the way the landscape might be low, but it is emphatically not flat.
I ate a tasty home made doughnut in the cafe and travelled back to Jyvaskyla, spending the whole journey talking to a guy who worked for a paper machine selling company and had endless stories about Indian, Singaporean, American and other nationalities' first visits to the sauna on business trips. You could not get much more finnish if you tried really...
Thursday 8 April 2010
The Finn Family Moominblog 1
Currently Ash is visiting so I haven't had much time to write on this here thing. But I will scribble something here while he is off watching a dance class. We shall see how far I get.
Quite a while ago now I managed to make it all the way to Finland. That is the furthest North I've ever been! I've spent so much time in planes recently I barely noticed the actual plane flight, just the normal upsetting amounts of sitting around. The 2 hour wait at Riga airport was somewhat trying, although I won't hold that against Latvia too much, that would be horribly unfair. The most disappointing thing about the trip was that for the flight to Finland we got a second jet plane. I had noticed that often on flights to the smaller airports in Finland you get to go on a propellor plane, which for obvious reasons is super cool. Propellors make it a real adventure!
Luckily, I didn't let the propellor based disappointment get me down too much (even though propellor based disappointment is one of the worst kinds of disappointment!)and we were soon coming in to land at Tampere airport. Gazing out the window of the plane my first impression of Finland was seeing the tiny lights of the outlying houses, separated by large amounts of blackness. A big contrast to flying in to any of the 'London' airports! After strolling off the plane (the times when I don't get passport checked are still strange for me) I soon located Mirva and her friend Matti, who took us back to the flat he shares with his wife Anneli. Perhaps I should be using the silly phonetic finnish pronounciation that occurs in my phrasebook(thanks Jacques!!), but it might give the wrong impression of the language.
I spent a while being british and embarassed at being offered hospitality by anyone (oh, food! Goodness, for me?! Well, you didn't have to. No no, I don't want to take too much! Nonesense, I'm quite full thank you...) then we went to bed, to arise at 6am (my 5am) the next morning for the long drive to the summer house. I'm not sure that many British people would drive 5 hours for a weekend stay anywhere, but this does not appear to phase Finnish people. I would attribute this to the fact that instead of having to negotiate a packed M25 and M6 they just have to drive on gently winding roads through the snowy forests. This was my first look at Finnish scenery, and it was enough to see that Finland has one broad theme. Gone are the sharp changes in views between towns and cities, forests, moors, meadows and cornfields. Instead, everything was ariations on a theme, a foresty, laky, incredibly snowy theme. And while the countryside is technically very flat on average it actually undulates a fair amount, meaning you don't get that weird agoraphobic feeling of space that can sometimes be felt when driving around dead-flat Norfolk. In fact, the low hills and the trees (birches and pines) make it quite hard to appreciate the sheer scale of the landscape. It's all very well knowing it's trees and snow and lakes from here for another 300km, but without being able to see it, it is hard to keep in your head.
The summer house was amazing when we arrived. It was truly a house, just another one of the low lying building covered in snow we had been seeing huddled around lakes for most of the drive, but this one we got to live in! The snow was still about 2 feet thick in the garden, and perenially excitable dog Selma wasted no time in diving in and demonstrating this to us. Because finnish people can't bear to be doing nothing, we immediately set about clearing the snow from the drive and path to the sauna and fetching wood and water for it. To aid me in this task I obtained a pair of snowshoes! Sadly they don't actually look like tennis rackets, they are a little smaller than that, but they did work surprisingly well, even on the damp, weak early spring snow. The photos don't quite show this, although you can sometimes see from the relative depth of my feet compared to that of the dog.
Two more of Mirva's friends arrived, so after the obligatory semi comic 'I've heard a lot about you' introductions we (well they) prepared an ancient finnish traditional meal, tortilla wraps. The legend goes that finnish explorers brought this dish to mexico hundreds of years before its discovery by the rest of the European powers. Few people today know of its secet origins!
That evening it was necessary for me to take part in probably the most important activity in Finland, the sauna. I was slightly apprehensive as a sauna combines the englishman's triple dislikes of public nakedness, extreme heat and extreme cold. I must admit, it did take me a while to get used to the idea. As I am a beginner the wood stove wasn't even that hot, the thermometer on the wall showing just over 60 degrees C. I spent most of my first try in the sauna thinking 'well this is rather hot' and slightly unconvined of any relaxing properties. My skepticism did not reduce when we then went outside completely naked to roll in the snow! Actually,the sauna is so warm that I think your whole body temperature must increase, as it really didn't feel that bad. I expected it to feel colder, like when you step out of a hot shower, but it wasn't quite like that at all. You could stand in the night air for quite a while with no discomfort. It is more a psychological thing I suppose, your brain is not sure if the whole snow thing is a good idea. Afterwards I went in another 2 or three times, punctuated by more time outside in the cold, but no more leaps into the snow. Having that behind me I was able to relax a bit more and perhaps start to see some of the benefits. All in all, I would say that while I do not think I will be having daily saunas any time soon, I think they could grow on me. I certainly slept very well that night!
Before sleeping I was able to consume a quatity of delicious pancakes. Because even normal fruit is considered unhealthy in Finland due to its loss of vitamins during transport (tell that to the South African apples you just bought at Sainsburys...) and because there are simply lots around, there was a delicious ray of various preserved berries/jam. You'd think it was some kind of cliche that couldn't actually be right, but I definitely noticed an increased berry based importance. Then again, I suppose the reason we aren't rolling in berries happily all year is their price and if they were cheaper, we would eat them just as much.
Hmm well I think that's enough paragraphs for now, I shall go away and ponder how to be more brief next time! As usual the shocking amount of photos I took are over here. Please don't feel you have to look at them at once, or all of them at all!
Yours sincerely, Tomppa (my finnish name which I may have spelt wrong)
Quite a while ago now I managed to make it all the way to Finland. That is the furthest North I've ever been! I've spent so much time in planes recently I barely noticed the actual plane flight, just the normal upsetting amounts of sitting around. The 2 hour wait at Riga airport was somewhat trying, although I won't hold that against Latvia too much, that would be horribly unfair. The most disappointing thing about the trip was that for the flight to Finland we got a second jet plane. I had noticed that often on flights to the smaller airports in Finland you get to go on a propellor plane, which for obvious reasons is super cool. Propellors make it a real adventure!
Luckily, I didn't let the propellor based disappointment get me down too much (even though propellor based disappointment is one of the worst kinds of disappointment!)and we were soon coming in to land at Tampere airport. Gazing out the window of the plane my first impression of Finland was seeing the tiny lights of the outlying houses, separated by large amounts of blackness. A big contrast to flying in to any of the 'London' airports! After strolling off the plane (the times when I don't get passport checked are still strange for me) I soon located Mirva and her friend Matti, who took us back to the flat he shares with his wife Anneli. Perhaps I should be using the silly phonetic finnish pronounciation that occurs in my phrasebook(thanks Jacques!!), but it might give the wrong impression of the language.
I spent a while being british and embarassed at being offered hospitality by anyone (oh, food! Goodness, for me?! Well, you didn't have to. No no, I don't want to take too much! Nonesense, I'm quite full thank you...) then we went to bed, to arise at 6am (my 5am) the next morning for the long drive to the summer house. I'm not sure that many British people would drive 5 hours for a weekend stay anywhere, but this does not appear to phase Finnish people. I would attribute this to the fact that instead of having to negotiate a packed M25 and M6 they just have to drive on gently winding roads through the snowy forests. This was my first look at Finnish scenery, and it was enough to see that Finland has one broad theme. Gone are the sharp changes in views between towns and cities, forests, moors, meadows and cornfields. Instead, everything was ariations on a theme, a foresty, laky, incredibly snowy theme. And while the countryside is technically very flat on average it actually undulates a fair amount, meaning you don't get that weird agoraphobic feeling of space that can sometimes be felt when driving around dead-flat Norfolk. In fact, the low hills and the trees (birches and pines) make it quite hard to appreciate the sheer scale of the landscape. It's all very well knowing it's trees and snow and lakes from here for another 300km, but without being able to see it, it is hard to keep in your head.
The summer house was amazing when we arrived. It was truly a house, just another one of the low lying building covered in snow we had been seeing huddled around lakes for most of the drive, but this one we got to live in! The snow was still about 2 feet thick in the garden, and perenially excitable dog Selma wasted no time in diving in and demonstrating this to us. Because finnish people can't bear to be doing nothing, we immediately set about clearing the snow from the drive and path to the sauna and fetching wood and water for it. To aid me in this task I obtained a pair of snowshoes! Sadly they don't actually look like tennis rackets, they are a little smaller than that, but they did work surprisingly well, even on the damp, weak early spring snow. The photos don't quite show this, although you can sometimes see from the relative depth of my feet compared to that of the dog.
Two more of Mirva's friends arrived, so after the obligatory semi comic 'I've heard a lot about you' introductions we (well they) prepared an ancient finnish traditional meal, tortilla wraps. The legend goes that finnish explorers brought this dish to mexico hundreds of years before its discovery by the rest of the European powers. Few people today know of its secet origins!
That evening it was necessary for me to take part in probably the most important activity in Finland, the sauna. I was slightly apprehensive as a sauna combines the englishman's triple dislikes of public nakedness, extreme heat and extreme cold. I must admit, it did take me a while to get used to the idea. As I am a beginner the wood stove wasn't even that hot, the thermometer on the wall showing just over 60 degrees C. I spent most of my first try in the sauna thinking 'well this is rather hot' and slightly unconvined of any relaxing properties. My skepticism did not reduce when we then went outside completely naked to roll in the snow! Actually,the sauna is so warm that I think your whole body temperature must increase, as it really didn't feel that bad. I expected it to feel colder, like when you step out of a hot shower, but it wasn't quite like that at all. You could stand in the night air for quite a while with no discomfort. It is more a psychological thing I suppose, your brain is not sure if the whole snow thing is a good idea. Afterwards I went in another 2 or three times, punctuated by more time outside in the cold, but no more leaps into the snow. Having that behind me I was able to relax a bit more and perhaps start to see some of the benefits. All in all, I would say that while I do not think I will be having daily saunas any time soon, I think they could grow on me. I certainly slept very well that night!
Before sleeping I was able to consume a quatity of delicious pancakes. Because even normal fruit is considered unhealthy in Finland due to its loss of vitamins during transport (tell that to the South African apples you just bought at Sainsburys...) and because there are simply lots around, there was a delicious ray of various preserved berries/jam. You'd think it was some kind of cliche that couldn't actually be right, but I definitely noticed an increased berry based importance. Then again, I suppose the reason we aren't rolling in berries happily all year is their price and if they were cheaper, we would eat them just as much.
Hmm well I think that's enough paragraphs for now, I shall go away and ponder how to be more brief next time! As usual the shocking amount of photos I took are over here. Please don't feel you have to look at them at once, or all of them at all!
Yours sincerely, Tomppa (my finnish name which I may have spelt wrong)
Thursday 25 March 2010
Spring. (Boing!)
It is well and truly Spring this week. Blue skies, 20 degree highs, a blessed lack of sleet, refreshing (rather than evil and biting) winds, etc etc. It is weather that shows the city at its best I feel.
I am well, despite a continued inability to find out how the monkey got there. I'm still going to lectures and otherwise carrying out the important homeostasis activities required in order to stay functional. Rock learning is excellent, especially the subject of the formation of the Alps. I cannot wait to get out into the mountains and poke all the rocks we've been learning about with a stick. I wonder though, if Austrian geologists end up way better field and structural geologists due to having to get their heads round this whole alps thing whilst we are swanning around the comparatively simple Dorset...
In other geology news I have provisionally sold my soul to Dr Ian Wood, and my MSci Project next year will be something along the lines of 'Isobaric equations of state and thermal expansion in Pyroxenes', If you don't know what that is, don't worry, you've got about 1 year of me doing it to find out, no rush! Basically the bit that I would mention in bars to impress people is that I get to play with a big expensive X-Ray laser machine.
Mirva came to visit this week, but as she was taking extra classes at the university there wasn't a whole lot of time for sightseeing. Still, (we didn't want to disappoint you blog-ites, naturally), we did manage to get out on a long meander around the Prater and take a trip to the massive Zentralfriedhof (Cemetery). The walk around the Prater was nothing remarkable until we turned off the main path and discovered a weird area of perfectly regular little streets with small picture-postcard houses, all looking thoroughly out of place in Vienna, where nobody lives in anything that is not a flat. It turned out to be some sort of uniquely germanic thing called a 'Kleingarten', which is translated in dictionaries as 'allotment' but appears to have more emphasis on living and social aspects than our own purely agricultural version. It was perfectly quiet and walled off from external interference by woods on one side, littered with community noticeboards and little plaques, with a big earth bank shielding it from the road on the other side. A very mysterious little area, which I imagine is either a cooperative and friendly paradise or a horribly claustrophobic community of snobs. Perhaps both. I would like to visit the Gasthaus there one day and see what it's like inside.
The trip to the Friedhof was made on a warm but grey Sunday. The aim for the day was to locate Beethoven's grave, which wasn't as easy as you might expect given the paucity of signage. However, that can be forgiven because after all it is a place of rest (The suffix Fried- means peace) not a tourist attraction. The Cemetery is really big, though I'm not sure how it compares with the bigger London ones. As this is another country after all, the style of graves and especially the names are all pleasantly different. Huge numbers of imposing monoliths where long long family lines are interred, and of course a lot of Jewish graves too. Especially honoured people are located in the central region of the cemetery amongst the Ehrengraeber or 'honoured graves', and there were plenty of very beautiful gravestones and interesting characters to be seen. The Jugendstil Church in the middle of the place is absolutely huge and an awesome example of the style, a refreshing change of pace from the other chapels and churches in this part of the continent.
Good old Ludwig Boltzmann, with his formulae on his tobstone! Way to go!
Brahms and Strauss. Can you tell who liked to write frivolous waltzes??
Beethoven
Blue!
Architecture.
Well, that's about it, I'll be back soon with tales from sunny Finland. In the meantime, if you are bored you can check out the rest of the cemetery photos and some others here.
Der Tom.
I am well, despite a continued inability to find out how the monkey got there. I'm still going to lectures and otherwise carrying out the important homeostasis activities required in order to stay functional. Rock learning is excellent, especially the subject of the formation of the Alps. I cannot wait to get out into the mountains and poke all the rocks we've been learning about with a stick. I wonder though, if Austrian geologists end up way better field and structural geologists due to having to get their heads round this whole alps thing whilst we are swanning around the comparatively simple Dorset...
In other geology news I have provisionally sold my soul to Dr Ian Wood, and my MSci Project next year will be something along the lines of 'Isobaric equations of state and thermal expansion in Pyroxenes', If you don't know what that is, don't worry, you've got about 1 year of me doing it to find out, no rush! Basically the bit that I would mention in bars to impress people is that I get to play with a big expensive X-Ray laser machine.
Mirva came to visit this week, but as she was taking extra classes at the university there wasn't a whole lot of time for sightseeing. Still, (we didn't want to disappoint you blog-ites, naturally), we did manage to get out on a long meander around the Prater and take a trip to the massive Zentralfriedhof (Cemetery). The walk around the Prater was nothing remarkable until we turned off the main path and discovered a weird area of perfectly regular little streets with small picture-postcard houses, all looking thoroughly out of place in Vienna, where nobody lives in anything that is not a flat. It turned out to be some sort of uniquely germanic thing called a 'Kleingarten', which is translated in dictionaries as 'allotment' but appears to have more emphasis on living and social aspects than our own purely agricultural version. It was perfectly quiet and walled off from external interference by woods on one side, littered with community noticeboards and little plaques, with a big earth bank shielding it from the road on the other side. A very mysterious little area, which I imagine is either a cooperative and friendly paradise or a horribly claustrophobic community of snobs. Perhaps both. I would like to visit the Gasthaus there one day and see what it's like inside.
The trip to the Friedhof was made on a warm but grey Sunday. The aim for the day was to locate Beethoven's grave, which wasn't as easy as you might expect given the paucity of signage. However, that can be forgiven because after all it is a place of rest (The suffix Fried- means peace) not a tourist attraction. The Cemetery is really big, though I'm not sure how it compares with the bigger London ones. As this is another country after all, the style of graves and especially the names are all pleasantly different. Huge numbers of imposing monoliths where long long family lines are interred, and of course a lot of Jewish graves too. Especially honoured people are located in the central region of the cemetery amongst the Ehrengraeber or 'honoured graves', and there were plenty of very beautiful gravestones and interesting characters to be seen. The Jugendstil Church in the middle of the place is absolutely huge and an awesome example of the style, a refreshing change of pace from the other chapels and churches in this part of the continent.
Good old Ludwig Boltzmann, with his formulae on his tobstone! Way to go!
Brahms and Strauss. Can you tell who liked to write frivolous waltzes??
Beethoven
Blue!
Architecture.Well, that's about it, I'll be back soon with tales from sunny Finland. In the meantime, if you are bored you can check out the rest of the cemetery photos and some others here.
Der Tom.
Friday 12 March 2010
Wednesday 10 March 2010
The Haps, what they are.
The second semester is upon me! No more travelling to foreign lands for at least two weeks... Had two exams in the first week and a bit, left over from last term. They were a lot less silly seeming than some previous exams, I enjoyed them in the way one enjoys exams that provide you with a challenge that you know you can overcome, instead of in the way where you silently wonder if the whole thing is a trick. Also, the new lecture regime (see below) is definitely causing my academic German to improve, hurrah! This is great even if it is pretty much useless when all science ever is conducted in english. Seriously, learning science in another language is probably one of the most pointless uses of one's language skills, even if it may be fun because I get to feel clever for doing it (this is definitely the case).
I have new lectures now, a vast array relative to last semester as I need to be taking twice as many credits at Vienna this time. This means I actually have a sensible working week with at least 3 hours of lectures every day except fridays (our department does not believe in friday lectures and WHO AM I TO ARGUE?) Only one 9am lecture, all the other days begin at 11am which is fast becoming my all time favourite lecture start time. You can actually get enough sleep, still get up at a non brekneck speed BUT you have to leave the house before you can start hating yourself for having watched 4 episodes of the Big Bang Theory instead of being constructive.
Obviously everyone is dying to know what I am studying and how the lectures are.
So:
Petrogenesis: It's a masters Petrology course. We study how to find out where rocks came from using their chemistry and lots of thermodynamics/ diagrams/ reaction kinetics/ equations. It is awesome. I love learning things that need understanding, rather than just memorising. This course is hard, but the lecturer is good and so it's all gravy (super cool colloquialism or what?).
Isotope geology: Masters version of the course I did last term, as such seems to be recpping a lot I learnt for that at present. However, it will be good to actually KNOW this stuff by repetition. Also when we get past the basics I have high expectations as all the lecturers involved are darn good at their research and their examples are always fascinating. I am happy to be benifiting from the different research direction of Wien vs UCL.
Applied/ Envionmental Geology: All about engineering geology and taking natural resources, so the economic bits and lists of production amounts are boooring as heck. That said the theory of why the things are why they are is a lot more interesting. Minus points for the engineering geology lecturer who has the strongest austrian accent yet and speaks 5-10 times faster than any lecturer I have hitherto experienced, and is commonly unintelligible to me despite his obvious huge enthusiasm...
Quaternary Geology: That's the last 2.6 million years to most of you. This is a great lecture because it concerns geomorphology (landscape), and one of the first things I loved about geology was really partly geomorpholgy, that old 'standing on a hill and knowing why it is there'. Theother part is about climate and the recent climate changes (my recent, of course). It is exciting and humbling to follow the history of the ridiculous numbers of ice ages that have happened in recent times, and the impressive marks thay have left. More than ever I am really getting that feeling of just how much stuff goes on on the planet even in time periods we often blithely include in the +/- error on a date. Also thinking about the impact of ice on all those proto humans, wondering whether/ to what extent (as I do not have a masters in human evolution unlike some friends of mine) we are really a product of all these slightly unusual (over geologic time) ice age shenanegins. Final plus point is the fact that it is concentrating on Austria, so I get a new geological perspective not really available in the UK, we know sod all about the Alps for obvious reasons.
Regional Geology is cool because I get a summer field trip through the alps! Hurrah! Also because I am again getting a new geology perspective, literally all geology I learned before now was grounded in UK examples, it is great to start to get a more Europe wide view. Plus, there is a big emphasis on the alps and how they came to be, so I'm learning some mountain chain evolution geology in heaps more detail than we ever would at UCL
Finally I signed up for a module that is entirely field trips. Provided I can figure out how to actually go on these, the reason why this is brilliant should be obvious to all!
I am also starting to go climbing again and attempting to make some more friends who will disappear shortly (at least I can leave them behind too this time!). While doing this I spent a large proportion of my time hanging out with and insulting the accent and culture of the one and only William Naylor, quantum physicist teleport engineer extraordinaire.
All in all, going well so far. Though there is the foreboding shadow of my to do list looming ever larger in the background. I shall fight it the only way I know how, by watching and rewatching more episodes of The Big Bang Theory.
Goodnight!
I have new lectures now, a vast array relative to last semester as I need to be taking twice as many credits at Vienna this time. This means I actually have a sensible working week with at least 3 hours of lectures every day except fridays (our department does not believe in friday lectures and WHO AM I TO ARGUE?) Only one 9am lecture, all the other days begin at 11am which is fast becoming my all time favourite lecture start time. You can actually get enough sleep, still get up at a non brekneck speed BUT you have to leave the house before you can start hating yourself for having watched 4 episodes of the Big Bang Theory instead of being constructive.
Obviously everyone is dying to know what I am studying and how the lectures are.
So:
Petrogenesis: It's a masters Petrology course. We study how to find out where rocks came from using their chemistry and lots of thermodynamics/ diagrams/ reaction kinetics/ equations. It is awesome. I love learning things that need understanding, rather than just memorising. This course is hard, but the lecturer is good and so it's all gravy (super cool colloquialism or what?).
Isotope geology: Masters version of the course I did last term, as such seems to be recpping a lot I learnt for that at present. However, it will be good to actually KNOW this stuff by repetition. Also when we get past the basics I have high expectations as all the lecturers involved are darn good at their research and their examples are always fascinating. I am happy to be benifiting from the different research direction of Wien vs UCL.
Applied/ Envionmental Geology: All about engineering geology and taking natural resources, so the economic bits and lists of production amounts are boooring as heck. That said the theory of why the things are why they are is a lot more interesting. Minus points for the engineering geology lecturer who has the strongest austrian accent yet and speaks 5-10 times faster than any lecturer I have hitherto experienced, and is commonly unintelligible to me despite his obvious huge enthusiasm...
Quaternary Geology: That's the last 2.6 million years to most of you. This is a great lecture because it concerns geomorphology (landscape), and one of the first things I loved about geology was really partly geomorpholgy, that old 'standing on a hill and knowing why it is there'. Theother part is about climate and the recent climate changes (my recent, of course). It is exciting and humbling to follow the history of the ridiculous numbers of ice ages that have happened in recent times, and the impressive marks thay have left. More than ever I am really getting that feeling of just how much stuff goes on on the planet even in time periods we often blithely include in the +/- error on a date. Also thinking about the impact of ice on all those proto humans, wondering whether/ to what extent (as I do not have a masters in human evolution unlike some friends of mine) we are really a product of all these slightly unusual (over geologic time) ice age shenanegins. Final plus point is the fact that it is concentrating on Austria, so I get a new geological perspective not really available in the UK, we know sod all about the Alps for obvious reasons.
Regional Geology is cool because I get a summer field trip through the alps! Hurrah! Also because I am again getting a new geology perspective, literally all geology I learned before now was grounded in UK examples, it is great to start to get a more Europe wide view. Plus, there is a big emphasis on the alps and how they came to be, so I'm learning some mountain chain evolution geology in heaps more detail than we ever would at UCL
Finally I signed up for a module that is entirely field trips. Provided I can figure out how to actually go on these, the reason why this is brilliant should be obvious to all!
I am also starting to go climbing again and attempting to make some more friends who will disappear shortly (at least I can leave them behind too this time!). While doing this I spent a large proportion of my time hanging out with and insulting the accent and culture of the one and only William Naylor, quantum physicist teleport engineer extraordinaire.
All in all, going well so far. Though there is the foreboding shadow of my to do list looming ever larger in the background. I shall fight it the only way I know how, by watching and rewatching more episodes of The Big Bang Theory.
Goodnight!
Monday 1 March 2010
Moonshen/Mew-nick/Munich
Last week I went to visit my friend Naomi in Munich. So begins the first sentence of many a GCSE German writing prompt or translation task, and so begins this entry. Although it does make the whole blog a little visually tedious, I think I will first and foremost direct ye to yet more delicious photos, which will facilitate easier visualisation of my subject or some other such waffle.
I set off on the TRAIN at 8.20am. I heart the train. After all those hours spent in aeroplanes the lack of security checks, massive legroom and huge chairs were extremely welcome. No safety briefing, but there was one of those cool screens like you sometimes get in planes that shows a map of your journey, the amount completed so far and the speed the train is going at, which is fun when you get to 200km/h because it really does not feel like that much. Okay planes fly higher and go faster, but apart from the bonus of actually arriving fresh at your destination and being able to do things I really value the way it actually feels like you've travelled. By plane, you go through the same process to get to Israel as you do to get to Berlin or Northern Ireland or Gatwick, the timing of the intermediate step changes, but not the experience. The ground is more often than not hidden from view by clouds. The result is a bit like the effect you get if you only travel around London by tube, your departure point and destination completely divorced from each other, only a vague sense of distance and different weather. But on the train, you (or I) can stare out of the window the whole way, actually experience the journey, watch different landscapes and styles of architecture (both aspects of the much more important geology of course) slowly grade in and out. Trains, woo!
Arriving in Munich I was taken for a tour around the city centre by Naomi, in a short time taking in the many many churches of stunning impressiveness scattered around, as well as the super gothic neues Rathaus, bratwurst and sauerkraut in the Viktualienmarkt, and the Beer Hall where the Nazi Party used to meet, back in the day. We then hunkered down in a coffee shop avoiding the rain and afterwards went back to the flat to cook some delicious fake risotto and to 'test'/drink many different varieties of delicious beer we procured at a nearby Supermarshay. During this we had an unexpected but very pleasant skype call from one of our friends from halls who is still in the UK, trudging his way wearily through the last year of his degree. It is strange that life goes on without one, even if to think otherwise is very self centred.
The next day I headed of alone to find the Haus der Kunst, the gallery the Nazis built which most famously hosted the massive 'degenerate art' exhibition where they condemned most of the artists of the day. I sought it out because most of the so called 'entartete' artists were german expressionists, m absolute favourite artists of all time. Sadly I hadn't paid attention, and the Haus actually houses no permanent collection, instead showing changing moder art exhibitions. Undeterred I was treated to the weird combinations of unrelated words and pop art pictures of Ed Ruscha, and a highly weird exhibit grouping together four current artists uinder the loose theme of examination of history. Really, although they justified it in art language I didn't feel the theme of the latter really came through. It was enjoyable, but not really beautiful. The 'coolness' factor of the sculptures and darkened sculpture and video filled rooms was in immersing yourself completely in the weirdness. How often do you get the chance to wander around a completely designed but utterly surrealist place? It is fun to be confronted with really confusing things occasionally.
Refreshed I wandered out into the joyous joyous sunlight and spent the next hour exploring the area around Odeonsplatz and the Residenz of the Bavarian Princes/Dukes/ whatevers. The big yellow church I can;t remember the name of had some rather lovely baroque statuary going on, along with a healthy dose of bigness. After a quick look at the nice old buildings of the University I met up with Naomi and she took me to the Brauhaus. These are much more prevalent in Munich than in Vienna, and pretty much replace the cafes we have here. They are wonderful friendly places where all the staff wear traditional bavarian dress without a hint of irony or tackyness, and where the beer is delicious and very cheap, only surpassed in deliciousity by the food. I had a massive roasted pork slice with mushroom sauce and fried gnocchi like things (kaesespaetzle in German, what a mouthful...). Extremely satisfied and a little intoxicated we set off for an aimless wander around the streets, literally picking whichever street looked nicest until we reached the river at sunset. The Isar isn't quite in the centre of Munich, but it is beautiful, a little ribbon of park and river, big white smooth river stones and incredible architecture and ornate bridges at regular intervals.
Bidding goodbye to Naomi earlyish the next morning as she headed Londonwards I made a beeline for the palaentology museum, only to find it seemingly closed for renovation. I travelled further to the Neue Pinakothek, the newer (duh) of a pair of galleries slightly north of the town centre. I was aiming for the expressionists again, but it appears they are housed in the Pinakothek der Moderne. Not the first person to get their Pinakotheks mixed up I reckon... There was an OK collection of german and landscape painters, a few massive religious paintings (MASSIVE) some cool impressionism, a Van Gogh sunflowers, pleasant stuff, but not ultra exciting. I still spent a good 2 hours in there though! The best picture came near the beginning, Wilhelm von Kobell's 'The Siege of Kosel'. I think my favourite thing about this was the viewpoint, the perfect impression of distance, and the great clouds. The picture i've linked to is a bit of a rubbish one of it actually, but it'll do for an impression.
For lunch I hung out in the Viktualienmarkt and consumed yet more nourishing nourishing roasted pork with dumplings, and then (perhaps unwisely after a big meal?) scaled the 92m tall St Peters Church tower to be rewarded with brilliant panoramic views of the city. It was a perfect and very clear day, and the Alps seemed very near indeed. After a final wander along the Isar river and up into the big park of the englischer Garten, it was time to go home!
Munich was a beautiful place, though I have no doubt that my impression was significantly improved by the appearance of the first proper warm spring day, judging by the grey and bedraggled snow and grit heaps all around, it wasn't so pretty a few weeks earlier! Really Munich wasn't that different to Vienna, but it had more of a city-like feel to it due to its increased size. The beautiful buildings are ever present, but don't come in such intimidating blocks as in Wien. Plus, the beer was cheaper! All in all, a good not-weekend.
I set off on the TRAIN at 8.20am. I heart the train. After all those hours spent in aeroplanes the lack of security checks, massive legroom and huge chairs were extremely welcome. No safety briefing, but there was one of those cool screens like you sometimes get in planes that shows a map of your journey, the amount completed so far and the speed the train is going at, which is fun when you get to 200km/h because it really does not feel like that much. Okay planes fly higher and go faster, but apart from the bonus of actually arriving fresh at your destination and being able to do things I really value the way it actually feels like you've travelled. By plane, you go through the same process to get to Israel as you do to get to Berlin or Northern Ireland or Gatwick, the timing of the intermediate step changes, but not the experience. The ground is more often than not hidden from view by clouds. The result is a bit like the effect you get if you only travel around London by tube, your departure point and destination completely divorced from each other, only a vague sense of distance and different weather. But on the train, you (or I) can stare out of the window the whole way, actually experience the journey, watch different landscapes and styles of architecture (both aspects of the much more important geology of course) slowly grade in and out. Trains, woo!
Arriving in Munich I was taken for a tour around the city centre by Naomi, in a short time taking in the many many churches of stunning impressiveness scattered around, as well as the super gothic neues Rathaus, bratwurst and sauerkraut in the Viktualienmarkt, and the Beer Hall where the Nazi Party used to meet, back in the day. We then hunkered down in a coffee shop avoiding the rain and afterwards went back to the flat to cook some delicious fake risotto and to 'test'/drink many different varieties of delicious beer we procured at a nearby Supermarshay. During this we had an unexpected but very pleasant skype call from one of our friends from halls who is still in the UK, trudging his way wearily through the last year of his degree. It is strange that life goes on without one, even if to think otherwise is very self centred.
The next day I headed of alone to find the Haus der Kunst, the gallery the Nazis built which most famously hosted the massive 'degenerate art' exhibition where they condemned most of the artists of the day. I sought it out because most of the so called 'entartete' artists were german expressionists, m absolute favourite artists of all time. Sadly I hadn't paid attention, and the Haus actually houses no permanent collection, instead showing changing moder art exhibitions. Undeterred I was treated to the weird combinations of unrelated words and pop art pictures of Ed Ruscha, and a highly weird exhibit grouping together four current artists uinder the loose theme of examination of history. Really, although they justified it in art language I didn't feel the theme of the latter really came through. It was enjoyable, but not really beautiful. The 'coolness' factor of the sculptures and darkened sculpture and video filled rooms was in immersing yourself completely in the weirdness. How often do you get the chance to wander around a completely designed but utterly surrealist place? It is fun to be confronted with really confusing things occasionally.
Refreshed I wandered out into the joyous joyous sunlight and spent the next hour exploring the area around Odeonsplatz and the Residenz of the Bavarian Princes/Dukes/ whatevers. The big yellow church I can;t remember the name of had some rather lovely baroque statuary going on, along with a healthy dose of bigness. After a quick look at the nice old buildings of the University I met up with Naomi and she took me to the Brauhaus. These are much more prevalent in Munich than in Vienna, and pretty much replace the cafes we have here. They are wonderful friendly places where all the staff wear traditional bavarian dress without a hint of irony or tackyness, and where the beer is delicious and very cheap, only surpassed in deliciousity by the food. I had a massive roasted pork slice with mushroom sauce and fried gnocchi like things (kaesespaetzle in German, what a mouthful...). Extremely satisfied and a little intoxicated we set off for an aimless wander around the streets, literally picking whichever street looked nicest until we reached the river at sunset. The Isar isn't quite in the centre of Munich, but it is beautiful, a little ribbon of park and river, big white smooth river stones and incredible architecture and ornate bridges at regular intervals.
Bidding goodbye to Naomi earlyish the next morning as she headed Londonwards I made a beeline for the palaentology museum, only to find it seemingly closed for renovation. I travelled further to the Neue Pinakothek, the newer (duh) of a pair of galleries slightly north of the town centre. I was aiming for the expressionists again, but it appears they are housed in the Pinakothek der Moderne. Not the first person to get their Pinakotheks mixed up I reckon... There was an OK collection of german and landscape painters, a few massive religious paintings (MASSIVE) some cool impressionism, a Van Gogh sunflowers, pleasant stuff, but not ultra exciting. I still spent a good 2 hours in there though! The best picture came near the beginning, Wilhelm von Kobell's 'The Siege of Kosel'. I think my favourite thing about this was the viewpoint, the perfect impression of distance, and the great clouds. The picture i've linked to is a bit of a rubbish one of it actually, but it'll do for an impression.
For lunch I hung out in the Viktualienmarkt and consumed yet more nourishing nourishing roasted pork with dumplings, and then (perhaps unwisely after a big meal?) scaled the 92m tall St Peters Church tower to be rewarded with brilliant panoramic views of the city. It was a perfect and very clear day, and the Alps seemed very near indeed. After a final wander along the Isar river and up into the big park of the englischer Garten, it was time to go home!
Munich was a beautiful place, though I have no doubt that my impression was significantly improved by the appearance of the first proper warm spring day, judging by the grey and bedraggled snow and grit heaps all around, it wasn't so pretty a few weeks earlier! Really Munich wasn't that different to Vienna, but it had more of a city-like feel to it due to its increased size. The beautiful buildings are ever present, but don't come in such intimidating blocks as in Wien. Plus, the beer was cheaper! All in all, a good not-weekend.
Monday 22 February 2010
The Israel Blog
I went to Israel! Instead of writing absolutely everything about it, I am going to try and be a bit briefer and allow you to flesh out your impressions with the myriad of delicious photos which I took during the week, which include semi informative captions. Oh, who am I kidding. This will be loooooooooooooooonnnnnggg. A gift of procrastination fuel for you students out there!
I arose at the horrific hour of 4am to get my plane, which left at 6.30. Check in at small airports like Vienna is amazing, so much easier and more relaxing. If only I could always fly from small airports in the very early morning I think I might find the whole process around flying a bit more enjoyable. Changeover in Berlin (yes I know that's the wrong direction but it was cheaper!) was hectic to say the least however, as there were only 20 mins between our landing and the connecting flight. Luckily I wasn't changing airlines so they waited and everyone made it, although our bags didn't. I was prepared for this however (spare clothes in my hand luggage) due to the scheduled 45min transfer time which i KNEW would clearly be less than that. I don't think I've ever got on a flight which left perfectly on time? This isn't a big rant, as I'm usually not silly enough to be relying on time margins like that, it is just an observation. On the flight I was disconcerted by the free drinks, muffins and bagels, a sign of my frequent easyjet trips. But when you're paying way too much (or perhaps the correct amount, actually, environmentally speaking) it turns out you get free bagels and sweets!
My first taste of Israel was a discussion on landing with the israeli arab guy who was sitting next to me. He had missed his first outbound flight due to a 3 hour detention by israeli security for being arabic... Welcome to Israel, thought I. I was a little perturbed by the questions they ask you at the border, too. I tend to act all weird and guilty when I'm questioned as to what I'm actually doing in the country, it appears. If I were to travel to 'interesting' parts of the world (or America), I would have to work on this first!
I took the train into town and met Jacques at the exit. Jacques, for those of you who aren't him, is my excellent friend from scouting times past, who I see on average once every 6 months due to his education having encompassed at this point 3 countries that aren't the UK and at least 6 languages in the last 5 years. He is the best free tourguide anyone could ask for due to his mad hebrew speakin' skills, Middle Eastern Studies knowledge and appreciation of the vast importance of tea in fostering a healthy life. (Dear Jacques, you are also my friend and not just a tea dispensing tourguide, honest!)
That evening we wandered around the nearby market/shouk, I ate a massive and delicious lamb shwarma (hebrew for kebab), and I admired the beach, the warm night air and the view of a car park from the balcony of the flat. I went to sleep pretty early, and my delayed bag arrived before I even woke up!
After tea and breakfast we set out for a wander round the city. Tel Aviv is only 100 years old, so it has a very different feel from Vienna. Not only does it have no anchoring oldness, it also doesn't really have a centre as such, and it is a mix of more modern architectural styles in various states of repair and not repair, often directly opposite each other. It is saved from a Milton Keynes-esque feeling of soullessness (sp?) by being unplanned and busy. It has its labyrinthine malls and massive towers which block out the sun but overall it still manages an eclectic mix of buildings and shops, and you get to see people living everywhere rather than them being boxed off behind a roundabout and a screen of trees. Plus it helps having 25 degree sunny weather even in February and hardly a cloud! Israel in general does not subscribe to the Northern European convention of not speaking to people in the street, which is also good.
We headed south into the old town and the old city of Jaffa (Cake) or Yafo, where I ate an amazing pasty full of several different cream cheeses after we had explored the old houses, antiques/random stuff markets and gazed out across the mediterranean. The pictures give you a pretty good impression really.
Saturday is Shabbat, which means that everything is closed to a rather high degree. We (Jacques, boyfriend-Sean and flatmate-James) went on a leisurely stroll around the city after a delicious breakfast of shakshuka. I learnt many intriguing facts about Judaism and Shabbat from Jacques' flatmate James, who did his undergraduate degree in Religious Studies among other things, and is an absolute fountain of obscure yet fun religious facts.
Sunday I went to Jerusalem. Check those photos kids. Jerusalem is ODD. It is not really possible to comprehend exactly the amount of history that is sort of floating around and occasionally getting in the way of everyone's comings and goings. Of special mention are the major religious sites I saw, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, The Western Wall, mosques from a distance. Standing around at one of the most holy places for someone's religion gives you a strange feeling, like you'll be discovred and thrown out at any moment. It is weirdly voyeuristic when people start kissing stones and stuff, although there are lots of tourists too. In slightly less religious news there was also the citadel, with a brilliant view over old Jerusalem and an extremely handy exhibition which really allowed me to get my head round the chronology of the place, and what all the dynasties and names meant on the ruins and not-so-ruins that are everywhere.
The day after it was on to Akko/ the Crusader city of Acre. The old town there is very nice, not as claustrophobic as the markets of Jerusalem I would say. Also, good hummus. The castle was pretty interesting, especially as it has been excavated only relatively recently. Hard to imagine all the pilgrims sitting in the halls, preparing to head off into the unknown holy land.
Tuesday we made it to Caesarea/Qesariyya, where Herod (yes, THE Herod) built a huge temple, harbour and massive palace, to please his patrons and himself respectively. The original harbour was huge, and you can still see the walls lurking just under the waves. The hipppodrome which in its heyday could hold 10000 people was especially memorable, most of the ones in the UK don't really stick up as imposingly from the ground anymore. Also notable was the way that after a mere (geologically) 2000 years Herod's Palace was largely worn away by the see. Not quite an Ozymandias moment, but getting close. On top of all the Herodian things are layer upon layer of later history, building up into an impressive mound of oldness. Afterwards we headed further up the coast to Haifa. Not a place I'd have thought to visit if I'd been alone, but it features a rather nice hill, stretching down which are the absolutely beautiful gardens of the Baha'i temple. Very well designed, perfectly balanced geometrically, and also by colour. A real surprise!
On my last proper day in Israel Jacques and I boarded a 3 hour bus to the Sea of Galilee (upon whose water Jesus once walked, if you remember correctly). I was happy to note that there was lots of wildlife and geology, which nicely balanced all the cities from the previous days. We decided to walk from the main town to the Churches further round the lake. This ended up taking nearly 2 and a half hours, but it was definitely better than taking the bus. The scenery was amazing, there was a strong haze, (which I was grateful for as it stopped me dying of heatstroke), that made the lake look veeery mysterious and peaceful. Seeing the piece of rock on which Jesus laid he bread and fishes was strange too. In fact, knowing that the basic shape of the landscape hadn't changed since some nobody called Jesus wandered around it nigh 2000 years ago was the oddest. Rocks can be faked, mistaken or lost, but its dead certain where the mount that Jesus gave his sermon on was and which lake he fished on.
So, Israel! Really enjoyable, and pleasantly cheap (after getting there). As is usual with visiting places I now know how much I didn't see, and I am quite interested in going back to see the proper desert and the proper mountains at some point. I think I will keep any political musings to another post, because this one is already longer than I would ever read if someone else posted it, despite me leaving out vast swathes of things. Oh well.
Chiao,
Der Tom
I arose at the horrific hour of 4am to get my plane, which left at 6.30. Check in at small airports like Vienna is amazing, so much easier and more relaxing. If only I could always fly from small airports in the very early morning I think I might find the whole process around flying a bit more enjoyable. Changeover in Berlin (yes I know that's the wrong direction but it was cheaper!) was hectic to say the least however, as there were only 20 mins between our landing and the connecting flight. Luckily I wasn't changing airlines so they waited and everyone made it, although our bags didn't. I was prepared for this however (spare clothes in my hand luggage) due to the scheduled 45min transfer time which i KNEW would clearly be less than that. I don't think I've ever got on a flight which left perfectly on time? This isn't a big rant, as I'm usually not silly enough to be relying on time margins like that, it is just an observation. On the flight I was disconcerted by the free drinks, muffins and bagels, a sign of my frequent easyjet trips. But when you're paying way too much (or perhaps the correct amount, actually, environmentally speaking) it turns out you get free bagels and sweets!
My first taste of Israel was a discussion on landing with the israeli arab guy who was sitting next to me. He had missed his first outbound flight due to a 3 hour detention by israeli security for being arabic... Welcome to Israel, thought I. I was a little perturbed by the questions they ask you at the border, too. I tend to act all weird and guilty when I'm questioned as to what I'm actually doing in the country, it appears. If I were to travel to 'interesting' parts of the world (or America), I would have to work on this first!
I took the train into town and met Jacques at the exit. Jacques, for those of you who aren't him, is my excellent friend from scouting times past, who I see on average once every 6 months due to his education having encompassed at this point 3 countries that aren't the UK and at least 6 languages in the last 5 years. He is the best free tourguide anyone could ask for due to his mad hebrew speakin' skills, Middle Eastern Studies knowledge and appreciation of the vast importance of tea in fostering a healthy life. (Dear Jacques, you are also my friend and not just a tea dispensing tourguide, honest!)
That evening we wandered around the nearby market/shouk, I ate a massive and delicious lamb shwarma (hebrew for kebab), and I admired the beach, the warm night air and the view of a car park from the balcony of the flat. I went to sleep pretty early, and my delayed bag arrived before I even woke up!
After tea and breakfast we set out for a wander round the city. Tel Aviv is only 100 years old, so it has a very different feel from Vienna. Not only does it have no anchoring oldness, it also doesn't really have a centre as such, and it is a mix of more modern architectural styles in various states of repair and not repair, often directly opposite each other. It is saved from a Milton Keynes-esque feeling of soullessness (sp?) by being unplanned and busy. It has its labyrinthine malls and massive towers which block out the sun but overall it still manages an eclectic mix of buildings and shops, and you get to see people living everywhere rather than them being boxed off behind a roundabout and a screen of trees. Plus it helps having 25 degree sunny weather even in February and hardly a cloud! Israel in general does not subscribe to the Northern European convention of not speaking to people in the street, which is also good.
We headed south into the old town and the old city of Jaffa (Cake) or Yafo, where I ate an amazing pasty full of several different cream cheeses after we had explored the old houses, antiques/random stuff markets and gazed out across the mediterranean. The pictures give you a pretty good impression really.
Saturday is Shabbat, which means that everything is closed to a rather high degree. We (Jacques, boyfriend-Sean and flatmate-James) went on a leisurely stroll around the city after a delicious breakfast of shakshuka. I learnt many intriguing facts about Judaism and Shabbat from Jacques' flatmate James, who did his undergraduate degree in Religious Studies among other things, and is an absolute fountain of obscure yet fun religious facts.
Sunday I went to Jerusalem. Check those photos kids. Jerusalem is ODD. It is not really possible to comprehend exactly the amount of history that is sort of floating around and occasionally getting in the way of everyone's comings and goings. Of special mention are the major religious sites I saw, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, The Western Wall, mosques from a distance. Standing around at one of the most holy places for someone's religion gives you a strange feeling, like you'll be discovred and thrown out at any moment. It is weirdly voyeuristic when people start kissing stones and stuff, although there are lots of tourists too. In slightly less religious news there was also the citadel, with a brilliant view over old Jerusalem and an extremely handy exhibition which really allowed me to get my head round the chronology of the place, and what all the dynasties and names meant on the ruins and not-so-ruins that are everywhere.
The day after it was on to Akko/ the Crusader city of Acre. The old town there is very nice, not as claustrophobic as the markets of Jerusalem I would say. Also, good hummus. The castle was pretty interesting, especially as it has been excavated only relatively recently. Hard to imagine all the pilgrims sitting in the halls, preparing to head off into the unknown holy land.
Tuesday we made it to Caesarea/Qesariyya, where Herod (yes, THE Herod) built a huge temple, harbour and massive palace, to please his patrons and himself respectively. The original harbour was huge, and you can still see the walls lurking just under the waves. The hipppodrome which in its heyday could hold 10000 people was especially memorable, most of the ones in the UK don't really stick up as imposingly from the ground anymore. Also notable was the way that after a mere (geologically) 2000 years Herod's Palace was largely worn away by the see. Not quite an Ozymandias moment, but getting close. On top of all the Herodian things are layer upon layer of later history, building up into an impressive mound of oldness. Afterwards we headed further up the coast to Haifa. Not a place I'd have thought to visit if I'd been alone, but it features a rather nice hill, stretching down which are the absolutely beautiful gardens of the Baha'i temple. Very well designed, perfectly balanced geometrically, and also by colour. A real surprise!
On my last proper day in Israel Jacques and I boarded a 3 hour bus to the Sea of Galilee (upon whose water Jesus once walked, if you remember correctly). I was happy to note that there was lots of wildlife and geology, which nicely balanced all the cities from the previous days. We decided to walk from the main town to the Churches further round the lake. This ended up taking nearly 2 and a half hours, but it was definitely better than taking the bus. The scenery was amazing, there was a strong haze, (which I was grateful for as it stopped me dying of heatstroke), that made the lake look veeery mysterious and peaceful. Seeing the piece of rock on which Jesus laid he bread and fishes was strange too. In fact, knowing that the basic shape of the landscape hadn't changed since some nobody called Jesus wandered around it nigh 2000 years ago was the oddest. Rocks can be faked, mistaken or lost, but its dead certain where the mount that Jesus gave his sermon on was and which lake he fished on.
So, Israel! Really enjoyable, and pleasantly cheap (after getting there). As is usual with visiting places I now know how much I didn't see, and I am quite interested in going back to see the proper desert and the proper mountains at some point. I think I will keep any political musings to another post, because this one is already longer than I would ever read if someone else posted it, despite me leaving out vast swathes of things. Oh well.
Chiao,
Der Tom
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