travel

The Légionnaire and the mint

It was just a mint.  Refreshing, no?  There was probably a good chance the large Bavarian knew at least one way of killing me with it.  Executed with minimal movement and devastating accuracy.  At least my corpse would smell ok.  The last time I declined his offer of a mint, he gave me a cold piercing look that said, "nobody refuses the mint; you're now on the list". 
    I had apparently just offended him by suggesting the area of Germany my mother was born in wasn't totally worthless.  There is some kind of Schwabian vs. Bavarian rivalry I wasn't aware of until now.  I had defended Schwabia by saying a Porche was faster than a BMW.  I thought we were just joking around; but you don't joke around with ex-Légionnaire mercenaries.  I casually refused the mint.  Everyone else took one, even though it would make their beer taste like toothpaste.  None-the-less, there it was; sitting in his palm; the answer to a fully-loaded rhetorical question.  I took the mint.

Story time

I've decided to use a narative, semi-fictional approach to blogging from here onwards.

Montpellier

Salut, mes amis!  I've moved to Montpellier, in the south of France for 6 months.  Programming physics with one of my friends from Dublin.

Time to update the travel blog.

Just read over my old posts... I'll try to do a better job with my grammar this time :)

Montpellier is tres belle or beau, ( not sure if it's a lady or a man... I'd say lady ). 

People actually commute on unicycles here... I don't think I'll even attempt to understand french culture.  Although; I will certainly appreciate it.  Cheese is soooo good here.

Dawson City aught 7

Dawson City Music Festival was so excellent I wont even try to put it in words.  I; being born in the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder; I guess I have a bit of a existential bias.  Everyone I know should go next year.  I'm going to hike the chilkoot trail first. 

Added a photo of me taken completely unawares; wander ing off into the boreal.  I don't even remember the person who took it having a camera at any point.

For an example of how I can't put into words how interesting and excellent DCMF was, I'll try to describe the Tuvan throat singing I heard:  Karaaaagaaaaaaaaaweeeuurrryyyririryiieeeee... shhoop!

Ghidera

Planet X is nice this time of year

I _am_ a Rockstar, honest!

I'm currently living in southern california, working for Rockstar games. I think this is quite appropriate for me. I once had a, not very deep, and incredibly brief period of flippant soul searching when I had to decide between trying to get serious about being a ( real ) Rockstar or a Computer game programmer. This way I can do the thing I'm good at and allows me to buy food; and still say I'm a Rockstar, even if I don't party like one... often.

New pictures from the beaches I frequent here.

Zhong guo

I took a short trip to China in May, I've put the pictures in the album. I really liked it there, much more natural beauty than I would have expected. The food was delicious. I knew something about real chinese food, so I think I picked my dishes well. Some people don't seem to enjoy the food in china, but I think that's because they try to order the same stuff they would get back in the west.

Shanghi was totally off-the-hook crazy. I've never seen a place in such an accelerated stage of growth. It's a unique place to be a tourist too, since you are both tourist and tourist attraction. People from China come to Shanghi as a vacation and since it is historically a western influenced city, one of the things they look for are westerners. My face, with an slightly ironic smile, adorns quite a few chinese photo albums now.

Flying on instruments

The items you carry with you through an airport can greatly affect your experience. This is quite obvious I suppose. You will be treated by airport staff much differently if you are packing an Uzi as opposed to something oozy.

I have been carrying either a surf board or a violin through airports recently. The surf board is usually in a 9 foot long reflective silver bag. I don't recommend carrying such a thing through the airport, unless you like being stared at. I had it standing upright in a trolly while going through an american airport once. Everyone was looking at me as if I had the cryogenically preserved body of Lenin in there, and was about to board the next space shuttle to the moon.

"Exuse me for asking, but what is that?"

"Comrad Lenin."

Now I've covered the bag in surf stickers, and most people get it now.

On the other hand, carrying a violin through the airport is highly recommended. I almost always get aproached by someone who plays or used to play and they start an interesting and informative conversation about music and playing the violin. This is an enjoyable way to pass the usually anxious and boring time waiting for your next flight. The guy taking boarding tickets told me he was relieved I had brought my violin so we'd be saved in the event they had to fly on instruments.

I got back from another trip to Ireland and am in Canada now. I should change the title of this page to Travel between Canada and Ireland. I've put up some pictures from Peru that I got from my brother. You may have noticed that this blog is not in chronological order. I have some pics from a trip to Norway I went on a couple of years ago that may go up next.

A thousand words worth one picture

Originally I wanted this blog to contain lots of photos and minimal text. I've had to make up for the lack of photos with thousands of words. Now that I actually have a camera, I'll shut-up for a bit. The photos are all from Vancouver Island.

Mas Fuego!

There is a small village at the edge of the Andes, just before Peru becomes jungle, called Paucartambo. In this village they have a fiesta in the honour of... from what we could tell, barely controlled chaos. We were totally in the dark about what was happening here. Our "guide" was too busy paying attention to his girl friend to actually give us any information about the festival. It kind of made it more fun.

The focus was on dancers wearing nifty costumes wandering the streets at all hours, dancing to catchy but very repetitive tunes played on a variety of instruments. On the first night, they all converged on the main square, where they ran around the square jumping through flaming piles of hay while carrying lit fireworks. Occasionally kicking the flaming straw into the crowd. They had constructed these huge bamboo towers, which had home-made fireworks all over them, which they lit off. The dancers and the crowd got showered with a hail of sparks from these towering infernos. That was pretty spectacular. Nothing that happened here would have been allowed in Canada, which is too bad, because it was awesome. The only thing that I thought was over the top, were the cow constructions with roman candles in their horns. They carried the cows around the square shooting the fire-balls into the crowd. I was never burned, but I didn't escape unscathed. At one point a group ran by me yelling "Toro!" Then I felt a sharp pain in my leg as a guy in a bull costume rammed me. I don't know what part I played in their festival, I just hope the bruise on my leg contributes to virile year for the village bull.

One of my favorite things about Peru is the stuff you can get to drink on the side of the road. I sure like ponche, whatever it is. I have no clue what most of it was, you never really know what you are getting. I thought the incredible, fresh fruit juice stalls were the exception. Then the lady started pouring this thick black syrup into my papaya juice. The label had a picture of a Swartzeneggerian bodybuilder and a tree. I'm hoping it was some sort of plant extract, and not a body-building by-product.