Universe of Synergy

WDW Vacation Roundup – October 2011

2012-01-04T21:34:00.001-08:00

I’ve been meaning to write my trip roundup for the last several months, but other things keep getting in the way (not the least of which was putting my house back together after arriving home from this trip to the aforementioned burglary). But now that I can reminisce of the awesome trip, here we go:

The trip began with an adventurous red-eye trip through Dallas to arrive in Orlando on Saturday morning. Sure, it maximizes the vacation time, but it definitely makes for a challenging day of sleep-deprived travel. But who cares?! It’s vacation in The Most Magical Place on Earth™! [note: not to be confused with Disneyland, The Happiest Place on Earth™] One of these years I will make it to the other Orlando-area theme parks, but that wasn’t this trip. Disney makes it too easy to trap yourself in its own version of the magic with the free Disney’s Magical Express shuttle buses that take you straight from the airport to your WDW resort hotel, and then back again when your trip is over. Who needs (or would want) to drive?

This was my 5th trip to WDW, and my 4th trip staying at the Port Orleans Riverside resort. Throughout my trips, I’ve visited many of the other WDW resorts, and still based on both the scenic views and the value for the money (one of the Moderate-level resorts), as well as its nearly central location to the entire WDW property, it’s a perpetual favorite home-base.

Port Orleans is actually two related resorts, Riverside (the old antebellum South, plantation-style living), and French Quarter (a taste of Bourbon Street and old New Orleans). An added bonus is the manmade Sassagoula River, which winds its way through the resorts and all the way down to the Downtown Disney shopping and entertainment area.

Hard to beat the easy boat ride connecting the two. But you didn’t start reading this to hear me go on about the resort now, did you? After settling into the room, we headed over and hopped a bus to my favorite of the four WDW parks, Epcot!

Greeted immediately at the entrance by the monumental Epcot landmark, Spaceship Earth, we made our way into exploring the park. Lots of activity to be found at Epcot during the fall, as we were there during the annual Epcot International Food and Wine Festival. What might be compared to a more organized (and only slightly less commercialized) version of the Bite of Seattle, the Food and Wine Festival adds many extra food and cooking demonstrations with celebrity chefs, as well as additional food “taste” kiosks at the various countries around World Showcase. In fact they add extra countries that aren’t usually represented by the eleven permanent countries’ pavilions. For those Food Network fans out there, you may recognize this famous chef especially from his show, Dinner: Impossible, Chef Robert Irvine was signing cookbooks and posing for pictures, with the line all the way around the pavilion. I did not wait in line, but did snap a couple of grainy iPhone pics of random other people posing for pictures.

After some adventures and fun in Epcot that day, we eventually made our way later in the evening to catch the Huskies playing Stanford on TV at the ESPN Club on The Boardwalk (an area a encompassing most of the upscale Epcot resorts, and just a short walk from the Epcot park). If anyone doesn’t remember that debacle of a performance by the Dawgs, I won’t help you relive it. Suffice it to say, we left at halftime and made our way back to the hotel to catch up on some much needed sleep.

The second day happened to be my birthday, which I reluctantly acknowledged when we were checking in at the resort the day before, and was given a “It’s my Birthday!” button which I decided to wear ONLY on my birthday. They actually have quite an array of buttons you can ask for, for whatever occasion you happen to be celebrating. In addition to the “Happy Birthday” buttons we found “Happy Anniversary”, “Just Married”, “Just Engaged”, “Happily Ever After”, “Family Reunion”, “1st Visit”, or if you can’t manage to make any of those work for you, the generic “I’m Celebrating!” button. I have to admit, wearing the Happy Birthday button throughout the parks, almost every single cast member said “Happy Birthday” to me, whether I was waiting in line, or just wandering through the park. I can’t say I’d enjoy that on most days, but once in a while it’s kinda fun.

The night of my birthday, we had dinner at the Rose and Crown, a restaurant in Epcot’s UK showcase right on the lagoon. It was a later dinner, and timed so perfectly that while eating dinner it was time for Illuminations, the nighttime firework spectacular at Epcot. Nothing like prime seating and not having to wade through crowds to see anything.

Speaking of crowds, there’s definitely something to be said for NOT going in the summer. Crowds were mercifully minimal throughout most of the week we were there, except for the Saturday we arrived which was slightly heavier than the rest. Rarely did we have to wait too long for any attraction, except for the most ridiculously popular ones in the parks with fewer big attractions than others (cough, cough, I’m talking to you Toy Story Mania, cough cough).

Monday included adventures at the Magic Kingdom. Though that night we had reservations at the Crystal Palace, a restaurant right on Main Street U.S.A., which included my first ever experience of Character Dining. Let me just tell you, if you have kids this is well worth the price of whatever it happens to be if you don’t have to wait in line to see their favorite characters. This restaurant featured Winnie the Pooh and his friends, each of which makes his way around to your table to personally greet you throughout your meal. I really didn’t expect this to be too exciting, especially for a couple of older young guys like ourselves, but we played along, and it actually was pretty fun. I think the characters appreciated having some people other than kids that they could have fun taking pictures with. When Pooh came by, he immediately motioned with me to coordinate a priceless picture:

Of course, not to be outdone, I had remembered Andrew mentioning to me that his coworkers often call him Eeyore at work, so it was only appropriate to stage a gloomy picture, that Eeyore was more than happy to oblige:

Another first for me on this trip was attending one of WDW’s trademark after-hours parties at the Magic Kingdom. During the fall, those consist of Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, on selected nights throughout September and October. The park closes to the day ticket holders around 7pm, and they flush all of them out of the park while those of us who bought the separate event tickets had our way around the park. The party featured trick-or-treat stations set up at a half dozen various locations throughout the park, where they would fill your bag with handfuls of tasty morsels (though we’re pretty sure they save the good stuff for the little kids).

I was very impressed how well they deck the park out for the Halloween parties. The park is vastly transformed into one giant haunted (but not-so-scary) place. I’ve always been a fan of the HalloweenTime decorations at Disneyland, but these are far more comprehensive. They have a special “HalloWishes” firework show, and it’s also one of the few times ever that you can find the Seven Dwarfs out posing for pictures:

Of course, one of the best parts is that there are so many fewer people in the park, you can pretty much walk on to every ride you’d ever want to! Not a bad deal, and a lot of special stuff you don’t see anywhere else.

Wednesday we decided to go to the Animal Kingdom park, and caught a great time on the Kilimanjaro Safari ride, with plenty of animals out roaming and in great places for pictures.

The nice thing about WDW is that you don’t have to spend all-day every-day in the theme parks riding rides. It’s much more than that. From enjoying fun and uniquely-themed restaurants, to the various shopping and nightlife areas, elaborate mini-golf courses, and just exploring the amazingly-themed resorts, all under the Florida sun, you never run out of things to do (well, you can do even more if you have an endless pocketbook, but that’s another issue).

Yet another new experience was on Friday, when we went on one of the special guided behind-the-scenes tours We got to the park at opening and attended the Epcot Future World UnDISCOVERed tour. There were about a dozen people on the tour, and we given a more detailed history and background information on some of the attractions as well as taken backstage to some of the cast areas to see how Epcot operates and what all it takes to keep it functioning. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed in most of those areas, so I’ll leave it to your imagination. But we visited the ginormous cast costuming department where everyone who works at Epcot goes to check-out their uniform while working in the parks. We also made it back to the marinas behind the park, where the Epcot area boats are maintained, as well as the firework barges used in Illuminations.

That night we made our way back over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios park. The park at night looks almost like it could be a city street in downtown Hollywood.

But besides wanting to ride the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror again, our goal was to see WDW’s version of Fantasmic! Now, this is WDW’s second-incarnation of Disneyland’s original nighttime show on the Rivers of America. I had warned Andrew that this was a lousy knockoff, though I constantly read and hear comments made by those Disney World obsessed folks that claim that it’s far better than Disneyland’s version. Different? Yes. But better? We think not. Yes, it’s a bigger amphitheater, designed specifically for the WDW version of the show.

But bigger isn’t necessary better. They stretched the time to make the whole thing longer, but the problem is that the filler they used turned it into an often incoherent mix of random musical segments. They Disneyland original has a clearly apparently plot that follows it throughout. Whatever the issues, it’s enough to make me want to go back to California for the real deal.

Fortunately the only rain or even remotely questionable weather we had to deal with was on the last day we were there. The rest of the week was sun, warm, and no humidity, just the way I like it.

Sadly the trip came to an end. The only thing that makes the trip more fun is having more friends go along too. Who knows when the next WDW adventure will be, but maybe there’ll be something new to celebrate? Doesn’t that sound like fun? I think so.

Welcome home! We hope you enjoyed our stay…

2011-11-13T23:15:00.001-08:00

Normally this would be the obligatory blog post where I extol how awesome my vacation to Disney World was, and all of the awesome things we did, complete with pictures that you love to see. But that post will have to come another day. Instead I’ll recap what’s happened since I returned home. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of coming back home from a fantastic vacation… especially when you come home to find that someone else wanted to enjoy your house while you were away.

I arrived home on the Saturday night before Halloween. After picking up my car from my parents’ house and driving home, I arrived in the driveway hoping to climb into my nice warm bed and get some sleep. As I pulled up, I was somewhat surprised to find that the garage door wouldn’t open. Odd, but plenty of reasonable explanations why that might have been the case. So I parked my car on the street and made for the front door. However, as I looked up from the street into the living room window, I noticed the lights were on. Just very dim, but on no less. And the blinds were open. I was pretty certain neither of these were the case when I left, and at this point I think I subconsciously knew something was very wrong. At this point, I didn’t even bother reaching for my house keys, but just went straight for the door handle, and found it decidedly unlocked. As I went in and turned on the lights, my worst expectations were recognized as it was obvious someone else had been there.

I walked into my office on the first floor, and couldn’t see the carpet because papers were scattered all about every corner of the room. I cautiously made my way up to the main floor, to find things surprisingly relatively orderly, but also remarkably bare at places. I honestly wouldn’t have noticed much wrong except that a couple of the kitchen cupboards were open, and a few things open elsewhere. At this point in partial shock, I just grabbed my phone and called 911. The dispatcher said she’d send a police officer over to take a report. Much to my surprise, a Shoreline officer showed up in less than 5 minutes. He looked around and surveyed the situation. This was also the first I went up to my bedroom to see what had happened up there. Again, besides a few drawers that I never use sitting opened, I wouldn’t have noticed much wrong.

After a bit more investigation, we found the point of entry: the downstairs window. The perps had used a screwdriver to pry the trim off around the window frame, then jam the screwdriver through to pop the latch on the window. In hindsight, this is one form of entry that could have been thwarted by ye olde stick in the window. However, my more cynical opinion is that had I made it harder to slide the window open they would have just broken the glass, which would have been a lot worse for me to have to deal with.

I’m not generally one to live in fear, but I have to admit, I didn’t really get much sleep that night. I was lucky that I didn’t realize until morning that one of my spare house keys was missing as well. I was able to secure the window with a stick that made me feel reasonably safe, but it took me several days until I got the locks changed and believed that things were really secure again. In the meantime, I took the rather insane approach of barricading the front door with a bench before I went to bed, just in case someone wanted to come in the middle of the night. I also for the first time locked my bedroom door, because well, if it helps you sleep better more power to you. By the end of the week, my paranoia was gone, and I now feel like it’s back to my own safe and sound house. All things considered, getting over it that quickly is probably better than most.

Two weeks following the break-in, I’m still finding things missing. There’s nothing quite like looking at an empty shelf and thinking “I know there was something there, but what exactly was it?” The obvious stuff was gone: several laptops, a bunch of collectible coins, pretty much anything shiny. It took me a while to realize that some of the more important things were gone, such as my flute and piccolo. On the whole, not too much that was irreplaceable was taken. The exceptions were some random souvenirs I had gotten from trips over the years, like from the Vancouver Olympics, and unfortunately all of my pins I had bought or received on the various trips and bowl games over my years in band. I’ve heard that most thieves make use of what they find for hauling the booty away, namely any sort of bags they find to load up. I think the most noticeable was the fact that nearly every duffel bag or storage bag in my house was taken, presumably to load up the goods. But on the more bizarre side, there was a noticeable amount of random food and such taken from the fridge. Ice cream, cheese, salami, and even peanut butter. I mean, honestly? Who takes such things?!

But without a doubt the strangest thing I never noticed happened the other night when I was going to wash a pan in the sink. As I’m standing at the sink I immediately reach out for the dish soap, and it isn’t there. Yes, that’s right, they stole a half empty bottle of Dawn. I do not at all understand that one. It makes next to no sense to me whatsoever.

So I’ve been dealing with the insurance company, sending along lists of what was taken, and then replacing as much of it as I can. Part of the reason it’s taken so long to get this posted is that I just got a new laptop on Friday. While in some ways it’s fun shopping to replace all of the things that were taken, I really would much rather just have my stuff back.

No word as to if they’ll ever catch the people who did it. My flute was probably the most traceable thing that was taken, as I even had the serial number to track it with, but unless they take it to a pawn shop to try to get rid of it, it’s unlikely they’ll ever get caught. Maybe someday they’ll get caught for some other crime and they’ll find some of my stuff, but I’m not counting on much. As it goes, you just have to move on and pick up the pieces. It’s only things, and things can be replaced.

But I still want my stuff back…

Infomercial Theory

2011-10-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

They say the golden rule for infomercials is:

1) Convince the audience of a problem they never knew they had.
2) Provide a solution to the problem that they never knew they had.
3) Scare them into thinking the problem they never knew they had is worse than they ever thought it could be.
4) Give them a one-of-a-kind too-good-to-be-true offer that they have to act on right away.
5) Give them something extra to make the too-good-to-be-true offer EVEN MORE too-good-to-be-true.

I have to admit, I love watching infomercials. I find them oddly captivating (and usually the acting is absolutely priceless... as in I don't think they paid anything for real actors).

Have you also noticed how there are "regulars" in the infomercial acting world? I'm like "that's the same old lady who had fell in the tub and needed the suction cup handle to make her safer after washing her feet with these scrubber things that so you don't need to actually touch your own feet, yet also grows her tomatoes upside down, but talks to her grandkids while grandpa listens to the TV using the wireless headphones so as not to disturb her, all the while wearing her Snuggie so she can knit without her arms getting cold!"

But that's not why I write today... I write about the latest trend in the mainstream market that capitalizes on the problem I never knew I had. The hands free soap pump for home use!

As the commercials point out, "who wants to touch a germy soap pump? EW!" Now you too can keep your family safe and healthy from harmful germs with the hands free soap pump next to your sink!

Now, I don't doubt that there are germs on the soap pump (well, perhaps I do, but that's another issue)... but what do I do normally when I touch something nasty or germ-ridden? Wash my hands! But wait? That's ALREADY what I'm doing! What a deal! So why should I care if the soap pump is germy? I shouldn't! That's the point! It's the perfect problem you never knew you had, coupled with this country's obsession with cleanliness and scaring people into thinking that germs are out to get you! "I don't want my kids touching that! Ew!"

I guess there really IS a sucker born every minute...

News, Updates, and D23 Expo

2011-08-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've made a purely Disney-related update (I know I know, you're going to say it's been a while since I've made ANY update)... but I like this stuff.

This weekend is every Disney fan's dream for new information about upcoming events and happenings. The D23 Expo will be occurring this weekend in Anaheim, a convention where Disney often releases all of the news and excitement of things they're planning for the upcoming year and beyond. In conjunction with this, today we have the release of the first set of Pixar themed postage stamps from the USPS. The Send a Hello series features images from 5 classic Pixar films (Cars, Ratatouille, Toy Story, Up, and Wall-E).

As much as nobody really sends mail anymore, it's always fun to find an excuse to send things. The nice feature of these is that they are FOREVER stamps, and won't lose their value if you mail things as infrequently as I do. I typically use them on postcards, even though they're more postage than you need, because who wouldn't want one of these stamps on a postcard? :)

In other news, we've heard rumors of Disney's "NextGen" project for years now, but only find out pieces here and there about what it consists of. One of the latest tech pieces to be discovered is the future plans to use fancy RFID wristbands for resort guests.

An article over on dizfanatic.com goes over just some of the uses for this technology, including room keys, park tickets, fastpasses, photo pass, and all kinds of other interactive whosawhatsits. Pretty neat idea, it'll be interesting to see how this works out once they implement it at some point.

In my own news, I'm looking forward to yet another trip to Disney World this October. Few people understand my ~~obsession~~ insatiable enjoyment with going to Disney theme parks. It's not that I always go on vacation there exclusively -- as you know from my blog here I go lots of different places. But I do like the ultimate carefree not-thinking-about-the-outside-world aspect to going to a Disney theme park. This trip should also be interesting because I'm going during a different time of year than I have in the past. I'll be there during the Epcot Food and Wine Festival, an annual month-long event where Epcot becomes a giant food festival, with additional food stands set up all around the World Showcase, presenting foods from the various countries, as well as plenty of other special events and guests.

Additionally, the Magic Kingdom will be decked out for the Halloween holiday. I've been to Disneyland during Halloween season several times, and it's always fantastic. I've always been a big fan of Halloween, so maybe I just enjoy those decorations a bit more than usual.

That's the news that's fit to print for now.

Street where the riches of ages are stowed… – Day 14

2011-07-02T14:51:00.001-07:00

Portobello Road, Portobello Road,
Street where the riches of ages are stowed.
Anything and everything a chap can unload
Is sold off the barrows in Portobello Road.

I started my last day in London with a walk down to Portobello Road. For those who have never seen the lesser-known Disney movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks, starring Angela Lansbury, this probably won’t mean much to you. Though I’ve seen this movie way too many times to remember, and can’t get the Portobello Road song out of my head.

On Saturdays this street turns into a giant street market, selling everything from antiques to new chotchkies, to a more conventional farmers market with produce and other foodie goods. And of course, the usual unique street performing entertainment.

After a nice walk down this road and buying nothing, because I found no junk that I never knew I needed, I hopped the tube across town towards St. Paul’s Cathedral, famously in another Disney movie, Mary Poppins, where the old lady fed the birds.

Along the way, I stumbled upon the Museum of London. This wasn’t on any of the maps I had, but I stopped in anyway (it’s another free museum, so what did I have to lose?). It was actually a very interesting museum specifically talking about the history of the city of London, with plenty of interactive things to play with (because just like any kid, I get bored in museums pretty easily if there isn’t stuff for me to play with). It was a worthwhile diversion. They should put these on maps.

Finally continuing down the street, I made it to St. Paul’s Cathedral. One small problem I hadn’t accounted for, however, was that on Saturdays it closed to visitors at 1pm. Apparently Jesus needs his naptime. Waah waah. I lose. Complete failure of planning.

But what can I do? I continued on down to Fleet Street, and kept walking around town. Next thing I knew I was in the West End’s Theatretown, and there were theatres everywhere. Being Saturday, they all have their matinee shows, and I walked past a theatre showing a new musical that I had seen advertised quite a bit around town this past week, Betty Blue Eyes.

There were still last minute day of show tickets available, and the show started in just 15 minutes, so I plopped down 20 pounds and grabbed a seat in the 3rd row of this beautiful theatre having ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what this musical comedy was about. It story was set in Britain during the food rationing times of post-WWII, specifically around the time of the royal wedding of then-Princess Elizabeth and Philip. The plot is entirely centered around key points in British history, which while an entertaining story with good music, would probably have a rough time playing to US audiences on Broadway. Though I’d have to say it was worth what I paid to see it, and I enjoyed the well done show.

Following that, I walked my way back across Oxford Street and the shops that still didn’t have anything worth buying. But walking around the city as much as I have, this is the first time I’ve been in a city where people drive on the “wrong” side of the street. And it’s confused the hell out of me. Ultimately, the only thing that has saved me countless times when crossing at crosswalks is the abundant use of instructions to those crossing.

I’d say they put these in solely for tourists, but that would be wrong. I think the locals use them just as much. The problem is that you never know if the road you’re crossing is a one-way this way, one-way that way, or two-way street, each of which requires you to look a certain direction. LOOK RIGHT –> and <- LOOK LEFT are the most important words you ever see. Once you do that, the system works. Though even after a week in the UK, I can’t for the life of me remember which direction traffic is coming at an unmarked crosswalk. But the tricky part that I instantly realized is that not only do they DRIVE on the left, trains and subways travel on the left of each other, so at the train platforms you’re expecting the train to come from the other direction. AND, walking on the street, you tend to walk on the left too, though with so many tourists in town, that quickly becomes a disordered mess. Walking down the middle or against a wall seems to be the most efficient way to get through things.

Well, the bags are repacked, ready to head off to the airport in the morning for 14 hours of in-flight relaxation. Unfortunately, no direct flight home this time, so I have to split the trip in half with a stop at JFK in New York. It’ll be a long day. But fortunately the holiday weekend yields a day of recovery on Monday.

For you avid blog readers who have followed my journey, I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I’ll try to keep up with some intermittent blogging before my next adventure, but we all know how that goes. Thanks for the memories. Please tip your waiter. Good night.

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square – Day 13

2011-07-01T14:39:00.001-07:00

Day 13, nearly at the end of our journey, but today was a bit more upbeat as I traveled to some of the more royal landmarks in London.

The day began with a stop by the Royal Mews, where all the Queen’s horses are stabled, along with the royal carriages and motorcars. Of particular interest was an up close look at the Glass Coach which has famously been seen in many royal weddings, notably carrying Princess Diana to the wedding with Charles.

Following a brief stop at the Queen’s Gallery, which displays selected paintings and other artifacts from the Royal collection, I made my way down the street to Buckingham Palace.

I hadn’t planned to see the Changing of the Guard, but just happened to walk past at the right time, along with the throngs of people who had lined the plaza to watch. Almost every reference I read said that the changing is completely overrated and not to waste your time, but since I was there, I joined the party. It wasn’t so bad.

OK, so what I really enjoyed was the royal beefeater band. They were rather good to listen to, and it was nice watching them march out.

Not a large group, and as usual the clarinets are in the back of the block, but that’s to be expected. :) They were followed by men with guns, and then a second group of just drums and fifes (or piccolos as the case may be, historical accuracy be damned). They were fun too, but need a lesson in keeping the piccs in tune. Seriously.

Watch the band marching
Watch the drums and piccolos marching

Continuing on I went to the Churchill War Rooms, which were the underground bunker rooms used by Churchill and the British cabinet members during WWII. These were surprisingly interesting, and well worth the stop. This also included the Churchill Museum, which was basically a biographical museum all about the man himself.

Just next door is 10 Downing Street, home of the current prime minister. It’s not quite as glamorous as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but it seems to have nearly as many men with guns standing out front. I could see about this much:

I was not on the guest list, so I moved on. I apparently was on the guest list at Westminster Abbey, where I couldn’t take any pictures inside, but got some nice ones from outside worth seeing.

This place was second only to the Tower of London in terms of how many people were touring it. And since it’s so much smaller relatively, it was next to impossible to get around in there. But I still saw plenty of old stuff, and dead people crypts. Classy.

From there, time had escaped me a bit, but I wanted to make my way down to Greenwich, and took a river cruise from Westminster down the river. Sadly, it took about an hour and a half to get there, and I didn’t make it off the dock until a bit after 4pm. Hustling up to the places I wanted to get, I had basically the option of going to the National Maritime Museum, or the Royal Observatory up the hill, in the time I had left. I decided to walk part the museum and head up to the observatory, which I arrived at about 20 past 4pm. I head on in, and actually viewed some rather impressive displays on timekeeping and how it all developed. And more importantly, I saw the arbitrary line of no particular significance, except that they had to draw 0° somewhere and these people decided it would be through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich: The Prime Meridian.

This classy self portrait of me standing halfway in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres was my souvenir of this part of the journey. Now my ironic gripe of the night: I was informed when I entered the observatory at around 4:21pm that it closes at 5pm. Fine, I figured I could see plenty by then. I make my way through seeing things, and just as I’m heading into the last building, at 4:45pm, the lady tells me that they’re closed, and they kick everyone out of the place. At 4:45pm. WHAT THE DEAL? The sign clearly said “Closes 17.00, Last admission 16.30”. You would THINK that the place that DEFINES THE TIME FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD could at least get the time right. C’mon Greenwich.

Once I got over that, I went into the town of Greenwich, where I found a nice pub and had a tasty hamburger, for a reasonable price, which included a pint for only 50 pence more, so who could argue with that. On the TV the big match that had England captivated was the Wimbledon semi-final between Britain’s own Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal. The world seemed to stop so everyone could watch this. Even back in the city up on Oxford Street, an outdoor pub garden was packed with onlookers watching on the TV.

And finally, on my walks through town I passed by another of the famous town squares, this one immortalized in song, Berkeley Square.

Though I heard no nightingale singing over the hustle and bustle of a busy city, it still looked like a nice place to mention in a song. I leave you with that song.

Off with her head! – Day 12

2011-06-30T15:50:00.001-07:00

It turned out to be a rather dark and bleak day today, but not weather-wise, only topically. The adventures started out with a trip to the Tower of London, formerly the Alcatraz of the British Empire, and now probably the most visited tourist attraction.

This is actually an amazing place, and besides getting to see the Crown Jewels of yet another country, the whole place is VERY well done. There are plenty of tours of the grounds led by the local Yeoman Warders, aka the Beefeaters. I caught parts of several, and I actually in hindsight would have just stayed with the guided tour the whole time, it was that well done. The Beefeater knew everything under the sun, and was highly entertaining. Though gruesome at times, it was very educational and historical. A few highlights:

A display of the Heads of State? OK, that was not really a highlight, but was worth the cheap laugh.

This dragon was kinda odd too, but I thought it looked cool. After a little over two hours in the Tower of London, I moved down the river to the Tower Bridge.

I did go up inside the tower, which is an attraction in its own right. But it was pretty lame. Probably the only lame thing I did today. I guess nothing’s perfect.

Once on the other side of the river, I went on recommendation to the Winston Churchill’s Britain at War Experience. This place wasn’t much on the outside, and looked rather cheesy and half baked in the entrance. But despite the fact that it was less than technically impressive, it was actually quite captivating. Its focus was the Blitz on Britain during WWII from the British perspective. Like any good WWII museum, it had lots of artifacts and stuff, but this one made you feel like you were actually there, not just through pictures. Well worth it.

Finally the London Bridge Experience and London Tombs was nearby. I had no idea about this one, but it was free with my London Pass, and I walked by it. It turned out to be part history lesson, part interactive live theatre, and part haunted house. OK, well, the whole thing was haunted house, basically. The first part led the group through several scenes with live actors in character leading the group on the dark history of the London Bridge. From there, we “went down into the tombs”, where it basically turned into a gratuitous haunted house, where live actors try to scare the pants off of the guests. I found the whole concept to be incredibly hokey, but so well done (even rivaling Disney’s standards of theming), that it was actually something I would say not to miss. And yes, it was scary. And dark, very very dark.

The night concluded with taking in a West End show. I had looked at what was playing around town, and didn’t really find anything in particular that I hadn’t seen but really wanted to, so decided to go to one of my favorite musicals, Wicked. It’s amazing to see it in a permanent theatre, as I usually only see touring productions that have scaled back and transportable sets. This was elaborate and altogether a great show. Though it was a bit odd to hear the musical with British accents, I actually believe that these people enunciated much better than the past two touring productions I’ve seen in Seattle. I could clearly hear many of the lyrics that I knew but are all too easily slurred and blurred on stage.

It was also very cool to see one of these old theatres. At least I assume it was old, it was pretty cool. One thing that is odd in the British theatre world is the different names for everything. What we in the US would call the Orchestra Level or Main Floor, they call the Stalls (though I have no idea why). The balcony, or mezzanine, they call the Dress Circle. I’m sure there’s ye olde English explanations for these, but I have yet to bother to figure it out. So it is.

Tomorrow I think I’ll head to Westminster Abbey, and probably other places around the central part of London. Or I’ll start wandering. I gave my feet a bit of a rest today and took the Tube around most places, so maybe tomorrow I’ll be recovered enough. But first I must sleep.

Mummies, Music, and Muttering – Day 11

2011-06-29T14:43:00.001-07:00

For some reason I feel the need to turbo tourist through this and kill myself. But now I’ve still got 3 full days after this, and I will be able to do a lot of different things that are a bit more relaxing, I think. But today was turboing through London attacking many different areas.

The day started with a trip back to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. Room after room filled with art from all the ages. Nothing particularly memorable there, but then again, I’m no art historian, so that’s OK. A brief stop next door at the National Portrait Gallery, which was more endless rooms of paintings of dead kings and queens. Similarly yawn.

But then things got interesting as I made my way up to the British Museum. First of all, pictures were allowed nearly everywhere. This is good museum policy, folks. People want to take pictures that they’re never going to look at again. I mean, why not? Every museum should allow pictures. I do understand the no flash policy, as the camera flashes can sometimes damage things. Fine. I’m cool. Just let me snap some shots of the more interesting things so I have something to put on my blog. Capice? good.

So the British Museum has a lot of old stuff. Most notably probably is their Egyptian collection of mummies and stuff. And of course, big rocks with writing on them.

OK, OK. So the Rosetta Stone is actually pretty cool. By far the most interesting piece in the entire museum, but then again it was probably one of the single most important archaeological discoveries of the last 300 years. Or something. I’m not so good with numbers, that’s why I use a calculator.

After the British Museum, I hopped the tube up to King’s Cross and explored a bit of St. Pancras Station, right next door. After being disappointed to find it was not insulin producing, I was thrilled to find the Olympic Rings greeting all of the EuroStar trains arriving from Paris.

I’m pretty sure that’s there just to impress Jacques Rogge when he drops in to check on preparations for 2012. But unlike most of the things London has done for the Olympics (the logo, the mascots, the logo, the mascots), this one is actually tasteful. I approve.

Next door to St. Pancras is the British Library. They have a gallery showcasing some of the more famous pieces in their collection, including things like the Magna Carta and quite a few illuminated manuscripts and such. But I was particularly interested by their rare music collection. It included such things as the original manuscript for Handel’s Messiah. And this other rather famous piece that I’m pretty sure most everyone knows. But I’ll leave it for you to figure out… name that tune!

From the Library I went all the way across town to the Tate British museum, which had more unexciting art in it. I walked through and moved on. But a walk along the Thames was nice, and I found myself in Westminster right next to the Houses of Parliament. Definitely one of the most ornate and interesting buildings in London.

As I was walking by the visitor entrance, I was told that the House of Commons was in session, and since I obviously looked common enough, they invited me to the viewing gallery. After going through airport-style security checks, I made my way into Westminster Hall, and upstairs to the gallery.

Though my camera was confiscated before entering the gallery, it was exactly like watching British C-SPAN. They were simply giving floor speeches, which didn’t have a lot of interesting to say. But there was some muttering, so I was satisfied I got my zero-point-zero-zero pounds worth.

Big Ben greeted me outside, in all his splendor. Before I made my way back up to Oxford Street, the busiest shopping street in Europe (at least that’s what Wikipedia says, so it must be true). I only walked a short stretch of the west end of it, before I made my way back to the hotel. On the way back I stopped at a pub and had some fish and chips, this time FAR better than the ones I had in Edinburgh. Either luck, or just I was near a locale that caters more to tourists tastes. I don’t know. Either way though, there was tartar sauce, so I was satisfied. :) After dinner though, as I got up to leave, I realized that my legs and feet were protesting. They had basically locked up while I was sitting there. I hobbled my way back down the street to the hotel and have had a nice relaxing night in the hotel room. My feet and legs are happier now. More adventures tomorrow.

Adventures in London – Day 10.2

2011-06-29T12:18:00.001-07:00

A relaxing and uneventful train ride to London, parlayed into a wet and crazy evening walking around the city. I arrived into King’s Cross, and then hopped down to the tube to Paddington Station, where my hotel is nearest to. A quick check-in to my small, yet adequate and nicely furnished room, and I was ready to go.

Of course, as with my luck, the thunder clapped, and it turned into a torrential downpour stranding me at the hotel for a while. The skies looked to be clearing up, and I finally ventured into the city as the rain had stopped. My luck continued, as just as I was safely about 3 or 4 blocks from the hotel, the thunder crashes and the rains begin again. I took shelter in the covered archway entrance to a hotel, until I got so fed up with it I just left and got wet anyway. Fortunately, at some point it let up a bit and I could get around town. I took a walk across Kensington Park, and then found myself at the Natural History Museum. Lots of interesting stuff there, but then the scary stuffed cat scared me and I left.

I went next door to the Science Museum, which was pretty cool. After wandering through there for a good amount of time that I lost track of, I wandered up the street and ended up at the world famous not-to-be-missed gihugous department store Harrod’s. Living up to its reputation, it had pretty much everything you could POSSIBLY think of under one roof. So the next item up for bids… impress your friends with the desk to replace all desks. Hand-crafted from exquisite hardwoods and with that olde-world charrm you don’t find these days, it’ll be a perfect addition to your warehouse-sized office of any size! And it could be yours… if the price is right.

Did someone bid $1? Oh, I’m sorry. The actual retail price is… 76,799 pounds, or the unbeatable price of approximately $122,000. Definitely something to add to your collection.

After gawking at all the overpriced junk at Harrod’s, I continued down the street towards Piccadilly Circus, but was entertained by some store’s elaborate window displays, including what I can only describe as “The Gin God”.

Hmmm, kinds makes me want a martini. I made my way on through the rather anticlimactic Piccadilly Circus, and on to Leicester Square. Weaving through all of the West End theatres, I dropped down to Trafalgar Square where I found the 2012 Olympics countdown clock.

Looking forward to that, in a little over a year’s time. Speaking of the Olympics, the city is an absolute nightmare right now. Practically everywhere you turn, there are streets closed and construction barriers up, as they rush to finish all these construction projects in time for next year’s Games. Makes it a bit of a challenge for the summer tourists this year, but I guess that’s the price you pay.

After successfully getting myself halfway across the city, I hopped the tube back to Paddington, and drug my sore and tired feet and legs back to the hotel. Plenty of adventures to continue on Wednesday.

Leavin’ on the morning train to… – Day 10.1

2011-06-28T03:24:00.001-07:00

A bright and early start to my day today, as I made my way the several blocks uphill to get to Waverly Station in Edinburgh to catch the 8am train to King’s Cross. I continue to be a day late (and presumably a dollar short) with the weather, as it was a gloriously sunny morning in Edinburgh, the nicest day I’ve seen in my entire trip. I now just crossed through York and am about 2 hours out of London, and the skies are cloudy and grey. But I’m wearing shorts anyway, because I really don’t care

I just finished sketching out my time in London. Today I should arrive and get situated by around 2pm, and hopefully have a few good hours for exploring the city. Wednesday will be free adventures day, with plans that may include the British Museum, National Gallery, Tate Britain, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and/or the British Library.

Yes yes, I know, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to see all of these in a single day. But when I’m traveling, especially by myself, it’s only loosely guided. I generally have a good idea what major things I want to hit in a single day, but I’m not so concerned about hitting up every one of them, and if I’m bored with a place, I leave. The holy grail of touring for me though is a cheap paper tourist map that is usually just good enough to help me find roughly where I am, and has all kinds of interesting museums and tourist attractions marked on it.

Guiding principle #1: It’s ok to get lost. You find more interesting things – the things that AREN’T on a map – when you’re lost. This works as long as you have enough sense of direction to know how to get un-lost when you want to get back.

So we’ll see what happens. I really could use some nice weather though. If I wanted this, I would have stayed home. Then again, I hear it’s been beautiful back in Seattle recently, so maybe I just bring the rain.

Another update later tonight after the rest of today’s adventures.

Great Scott! – Day 9

2011-06-27T14:49:00.001-07:00

The rains came and the rains continue. This paragraph was about 8 times longer, but then my computer locked up and I lost it all. You didn’t miss much.

I started my day by climbing the Scott Monument. 283 steps to the top, up narrow winding stone staircases. From the top you can see a lot of Edinburgh, but you can see those pictures for yourself over in the album.

Edinburgh is probably one of the only cities in the world where it would be perfectly normal to have a bagpiper playing on a street corner. Even from the top of the Scott Monument, those highland pipes live up to their reputation. I could hear them clear as a bell.

From there, I made my way up to the Royal Mile. It’s a stretch of street that spans from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Abbey. The original plan was to check out one of the must-see castles of the world (at least that’s what the Travel Channel told me). Though my introduction to Edinburgh Castle was a ~~line~~ queue of a bajillion people waiting to get tickets.

I actually started waiting in line, then it started to rain. As many umbrellas popped up like a game of whack-a-mole, I decided it wasn’t worth it and would come back later, and headed back to the Royal Mile for some other sightseeing. The tourist traps are in full force, but I took a walk through the (free) tartan mill.

The looms were whirring and spitting out tartans of every color and clan. After hunting down the family tartan, I moved on to the next stop. I went to the massively-commercialized Scotch Whisky Experience. Part Disney-like ride in a whiskey barrel, part informative explanation of the Scottish whisky industry. I was surprisingly impressed with the “experience”. It also included a walk through the World’s Largest Scotch Collection of over 3000 bottles of scotch.

After stopping for lunch, I continued back to the castle. This time, not a soul in line, I walked right up and bought my ticket and headed inside. But at the entrance to the castle they were assembling a large complicated grandstand for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo that takes place in August. Apparently this is a “new” set of stands that can be assembled and disassembled in only 6 weeks, as opposed to the old one that took 3 months to put up and take down. Seems like a lot of work, but must be a big deal.

Inside the castle were too numerous things to mention, but of particular note were the Scottish Honours, a.k.a. the Crown Jewels. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed. But they were shiny. These were officially retired when Scotland united with England to form Great Britain in 1707, and locked away in Edinburgh Castle, until they were found again in the early 1800s and put on display. This is one more set of crown jewels I can put into my collection of those I’ve seen.

Following that I made my way back down the Royal Mile to St Giles Cathedral, head of the Church of Scotland and the mother church of Presbyterianism.

Later, I went on to Calton Hill. It was by far the most interesting looking hill from downtown, so I went until I made it up there. A nice walk, but not very exciting. It’s much better looking from afar.

Tonight I’ve just been relaxing a bit and catching up on pictures, postcards, and blogs. I’m off to London in the morning, and should have a lot going on there. Currently just short of 300 pictures overall, and I’m sure there’ll be plenty more to see once I reach London. Ready for a relaxing day of train travel down to England tomorrow.

Adventures in the Highlands – Day 7 and 8

2011-06-26T15:05:00.001-07:00

Saturday was mostly a travel day, as I said a fond farewell to Sweden and headed over to Scotland. My friend Heather met me at the airport, and after dropping my stuff at her flat, we went out around the town. No trip to Edinburgh would be complete without a stop at a local pub, and one nearby was the Queen’s Arms.

I have to say, if we had pubs like this back in the States, I might find myself here more often too! We sat and had a pint at a nice little table in the corner. And yes, all of those books are 100% real, no staging here. What a crafty place.

So we wandered around the city, and I explored a bit of the sights of Edinburgh. Lots of old stuff around, and a fair amount of newer stuff in old buildings too. I was particularly thrilled with this picture of Calton Hill right in the middle of Edinburgh. It looks almost… fake. But I don’t think even Disney could replicate this one that well.

Moving on to Sunday, we were on a quest to find some whisky distilleries. We took the train up towards Inverness and stopped at the small village of Pitlochry. We chose it because it was home to two distilleries, both within relative walking distance of the train station.

We stopped at the Blair Athol Distillery, home to some fine whiskies. It had a nice little tour, which was vastly similar to many of the bourbon tours I took in Kentucky, but still worth the trip. The scenery was nearly as good. Though it was a rainy day throughout, with quite a few bouts of moderate downpour. While this one was only the better part of a mile from the station, the other distillery, Edradour, was about 2.5 miles by road out of town, or you could take the “walk” through the woods for a slightly shorter journey. It might be a little nicer if it weren’t pouring down rain. But we went past this lovely sight called the Black Spout.

We finally made it to the Edradour Distillery, the smallest distillery in Scotland. They produce about 90,000 liters of whisky a year, which ain’t a whole lot. The distillery grounds reminded me a bit of the Maker’s Mark bourbon distillery in Kentucky, just in that it’s so far off the beaten path and quite scenic. But I was rather disappointed that this one was so touristy. Apparently, despite being the smallest distillery in Scotland, it is also the most visited. During the summer months, they get over 700 visitors a day, which doesn’t surprised me considering the tour buses we saw outside. Unimpressed.

After quite a journey back to Edinburgh, we were starving so decided to get the local favorite, fish and chips. Now, this was my first experience with authentically Scottish / British fish and chips.

Where do I begin? First, the fish is, like they took a giant fish filet and deep fried it. Call me crazy, but I always thought that part of the point of fish and chips was to be easily eaten with your hands. This is not. The chips were quite nice. But… I decided to be authentic and eat as the locals would, with plenty of “brown sauce”. Frankly, I’ve met few sauces I didn’t like, and this is no exception. Quite tasty stuff. So the chips get a pass in my book. But let’s get back to the fish. Despite the large and less-than-easily-eaten piece of fish, it was untasty. Now, I’ve never been a huge fish fan, but I always considered myself a fan of fish and chips. But you know what? I think I may not like fish and chips… I think I may just like tartar sauce. It is entirely possible that my love for fish and chips consist only in so much as they are a tartar sauce conveyance device. But of course, tartar sauce is distinctly American. And you know what, I think American fish and chips are better than the original. There, I said it. The end. But you want to know real tastiness… then I present the antipasto plate I had last night at a local Italian restaurant.

I dub thee… plate of cured meats. And I ate ever last bit of this plate, and it was delicious. My arteries may be clogged, but I probably walked 8-10 miles in the last 2 days, so I feel fully entitled.

And finally I ask… up or down? In my never ending quest to understand why different countries have different ideas of which way is up, I have found the lightswitch. So far I see:

USA – Up is On
Denmark – Down is On
Sweden – Up is On
UK – Down is On

For goodness sake people, if my life depended on this, I wouldn’t have any clue which way to go. I mean, if Sweden and Denmark can’t even agree, what’s up with the world? Maybe I’ll figure it out sometime. At least we have lightswitches.

A Swedish Midsummer – Day 6

2011-06-24T13:39:00.001-07:00

Today turned out to be a rather eventful day. It was a holiday in Sweden, Midsummer’s Eve, otherwise known as the day before Midsummer, though for convenience moved to the nearest weekend. Virtually everything in the city shuts down, and people head home to spend time with their families and celebrate. There are a lot of similarities to American Thanksgiving in that regard.

We were invited to spend Midsummer with one of our coworkers, Jörgen. He and his friend Steve were heading out to some friends small cottage out on the coast to celebrate the traditional Midsummer’s Eve.

The cottage was this family’s summer home outside of the city. It was in a little community built on the rocky shores. Apparently this area is public land owned by the city of Gothenburg, but plots of this land are leased to individuals who were originally allowed to build small cottages, but then continued to add on patios and more enclosed areas, and many have basically turned into small houses. Yes, that’s right, it’s the Crescent Bar of Gothenburg.

Shortly after arriving, we headed down to the center of the community to visit the Midsummer Pole. It was a rather windy day which blew most of the flowers off of it, but the greenery remained. Apparently the pole is traditionally a sign of fertility. I can see that. But I’m not sure if that’s fact or just urban legend.

Now the festivities began, with all of the kids (usually brought along by their parents) forming a circle to dance around the Pole. Singing traditional Midsummer songs (that literally every Swede there seemed to know by heart because they all sang them around the Pole when they were kids), they danced and sang to the lovely sounds of the old man playing the accordion. For some reason, this didn’t even feel like such a strange thing… it was kinda cool.

Midsummer Pole Accordion Man
Dancing Around the Midsummer Pole [ Clip 1 | Clip 2 ]

Following the festivity, we took a walk down to the water. They call this Herring Bay, and it was ridiculously windy. With lots of rocky shore, it was pretty neat.

We eventually concluded the afternoon with traditional Midsummer dinner.

Some traditional, some non traditional, but included in dinner were boiled new potatoes with dill, salad, cheese, bread (though they like their Swedish hard bread, I prefer the soft kind, thankyouverymuch), and of course, the ever ceremonial pickled herring. Now, I’ve once again avoided pickled herring for most of my life, but in my never ending quest to “try anything once” I had some, much to the Swedes amusement. But believe it or not, (well, I didn’t believe it), it wasn’t half bad. I mean, I’m not going to be seeking it out as the greatest thing I’ve ever eaten, but it wasn’t so terrible. Following dinner was traditionally Swedish strawberries (they do love their strawberries) with whipped cream. Everything else was delicious as expected.

An exciting view into the Midsummer festival in Sweden. That concludes the adventures in Sweden this time. Tomorrow I head off to Edinburgh, the land of the Scots, for some new adventures.

Wrapping Up the Week – Day 4 and 5

2011-06-23T13:46:00.001-07:00

Nothing much to report from yesterday, so there was no blog post. Today was the last day in the office, as Friday is a holiday in Sweden… Midsommarafton or Midsummer Eve, is the day before the Midsummer Day (surprised?). Apparently it’s supposed to fall on the actual solstice, but for practical reasons it now falls on the nearest Friday/Saturday.

After wrapping up things at work, I took the opportunity to head downtown (if that’s what you call it) to do some shopping. I didn’t succeed doing much more than walking aimlessly for several kilometres around town, but it was a nice evening. I stopped at Nordstan, the largest mall in Scandinavia. It spans about 6 city blocks, mostly enclosed under a roof.

The most interesting thing I found was walking past the liquor store in the mall. The line to get in the door stretched back a good 150 feet, which was rather amazing. In Sweden, the only thing that can be bought in stores is stuff with less than 3% or so alcohol content. So pretty much just the weak beers and that’s it. All your good beer, wine, and liquor has to be bought at the liquor store… which isn’t open on holidays. So everyone is waiting to get in to buy their liquor up for the long weekend.

In other scenery, the Goteborgs Hjulet. I can only assume that means “wheel” in Swedish, but I’m too lazy to look it up.

This is one of those odd landmarks that everyone knows about and just shrugs and go “oh well”. They call it the Lipstick, for I guess obvious reasons.

Sleep is upon me. Tomorrow plans are still up in the air a bit. It’s expected that downtown will be a ghosttown due to the holiday. We may go seek out some Midsommar festivities in traditional Swedish style. Should have some interesting pictures from tomorrow’s festivities. Saturday I head off to the rest of my adventures, starting with Edinburgh. Where at least they speak my language… though some might argue that’s not the same. :)

An Evening at the Park – Day 3

2011-06-21T14:23:00.001-07:00

I thought I was adjusting to the time change fairly well. Then I woke up wide awake at 4:30am this morning and couldn’t fall back asleep. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that as long as I wasn’t tired later. Today the waves of sleepiness didn’t hit me until 3 hours later than yesterday, this time closer to 5pm, so that was all good.

Work was another day filled with meetings, but after work today we had a team outing to Liseberg, the amusement park here in Gothenburg. Think of it similar to the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, but a little more carnival-y. Still, it proved to be quite entertaining.

After our adventures there, we went to dinner where those of us who went (a large portion of the Gothenburg team, plus those of us India and Seattle folks in town) enjoyed a nice Swedish dinner. I guess it was Swedish anyway, but whatever, it was in Sweden at least.

Beyond that, we walked back to the hotel and here I am writing this now. Kinda tired tonight, and don’t have a lot of witty commentary about the day’s events, so I’ll leave you to view the Picasa photo album if you’re so inclined.

And with that, I’ll hope that I get a normal time night’s sleep.

Forgotten Highlights from Yesterday – Day 2

2011-06-20T12:25:00.001-07:00

I adjusted fairly well to the 9 hour time difference, all things considered. I was so tired last night, I managed to fall asleep around 7pm and though I distinctly recall waking up around 10pm and 2am, I slept relatively soundly through until about 7am for a solid 12 hours of joyous restful sleep. The one saving grace is that this hotel room is ridiculously soundproof, so I was not woken up by random noises outside at odd hours of the night (see last year’s adventures in Copenhagen…).

Today was pretty typical work day, got up and had breakfast in the hotel, walked over to the office, and was bombarded with meetings throughout most of the day. After lunch I started getting these waves of sleepiness, which would come and go, but I survived. After work we went out for some drinks with some coworkers, and then my boss and I were still hungry, so we went to the absolute best Italian restaurant I’ve found in years, just blocks from the hotel. I found this place when on the last night I was in Gothenburg last year, and knew I had to go back. It wasn’t a fluke, it was still delicious.

Now I’m getting ready to go to sleep again, but was recalling all of the great things I forgot to mention from yesterday because I was so tired. So, first the spectacular movie reviews from yesterday’s flight:

The Adjustment Bureau – Ironically, I was just days earlier recalling how I had thought this movie looked interesting, but never got a chance to see it in the theatres. Lo and behold, it wasn’t in the theatres long, and now I know why. It was an interesting concept, fairly interesting action and effects, and a completely mundane and anti-climactic ending. But I watched it because it was free.

HP7.1 – The Deathly Hallows – Yes, I’ve already seen this movie, but I watched it again. No, it was not any better the second time. However, it wasn’t any worse either. Lots of people die… makes for a pretty good childrens’ book, I guess.

And finally, in other news, that 9.5 hour flight from Seattle to Amsterdam was long. And you really should eat something before getting on one of those long flights. The meal we were served shortly into the flight was actually rather tolerable this time, however, it wasn’t exactly substantial. By the time we reached hour 7 or so, I was freakin’ starving. Like whoa. Like I think I’m going to feel sick because I’m so hungry. Fortunately, I had brought along some granola bars which I ate to make me a little less grumpy. But around an hour before landing we were served “breakfast”. This consisted of a hot round inedible breakfast sandwich, which was neither breakfast, nor a sandwich. I refused to eat such nonsense. However, for fruit we received a banana. Now, this may come as a shock to some, but I am allergic to the taste of bananas. But folks, I was so hungry, I ate a banana. This was probably the first time in my entire life that I have actually eaten a banana, as it is always a food of last resort, and I’ve never had to resort to it. And I know you all want to hear the happy ending, where I say “and it wasn’t half bad” and how I’ve become a reformed banana lover. But too bad. It was nasty. I ate a banana… and I did not like it.

And that was my story. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

The Next Adventure – Day 1

2011-06-19T09:23:00.001-07:00

Well, folks, I’m back. Once again I’m off to Sweden for a week of work. This time instead of arranging for a week of vacation before my week in Gothenburg, I’ll be working a week and THEN taking a week of vacation. Variety is the spice of life, eh? And this time I have my first excursions into the UK to look forward to, with time in both Edinburgh and London. But until that, we’ve first got this.

As I write this I’m sitting on a plane. The same plane I’ve been sitting on for the last 9 hours or so. Fortunately I’m on the same 1:40pm direct flight from Seattle to Amsterdam that I took last time, so I didn’t have to get up too early. I’ve never understood why so often when starting a vacation people (myself included) see the need to get up at o’dark early in the morning to get to the airport. I guess I do it to maximize my vacation time, but one of these years I’ll decide to maximize my sleep and relaxation time instead. Sadly, sleep and relaxation are rarely the stated goals of my vacations.

But I digress… the airport was relatively uneventful. Though it was absolute mayhem at the Delta check-in counter. I fly Alaska so much that I’m used to their highly efficient “airport of the future” check-in process. This, however, was nothing like that. I fail to see the operational logic in having about two dozen self-check-in kiosks, followed by one bag drop counter staffed by approximately 4 agents. Oh well. I was pleased by the fact that even though I have no scale to speak of in my house, my suitcase checked in at a modest 45 lbs, to which I immediately exclaimed to the bag check lady “I WIN!” as she amusingly replied “Yes, yes you do.”

Fortunately, the TSA proved far more efficient, as I had almost a zero wait at the security checkpoint and literally had a whole x-ray screening lane to myself. Making my way to the gate and sitting around for a while wasn’t so bad.

The flight has been mostly uneventful. Now, if I have your attention, I’d like to point out the features of this Airbus A330-300 aircraft. The plane is equipped with personal entertainment devices in each seat back, stocked with a limited stock of movies that appeared in theatres sometime between 1997 and 2010. As usual, the entertainment system requires rebooting at least once while inflight, usually just during the climactic part of the film you are watching. Once we reach cruising altitude, the passenger sitting in front of you will slam his seat back into your legs, thereby allowing comfortable sleep… for him. While aboard there are 6 lavatories, one located 3 rows in front of you, but you are not allowed to use that one because it’s for the people who paid more to sit in the fancier seats; you must use the one located 18 rows behind you, but please beware of the beverage carts that will always be blocking the aisle. Enjoy your flight.

All things considered, with just under an hour left, it’s been a pretty comfortable and uneventful flight. I managed probably a total of an hour nap, though considering I got on the flight just about 3 hours after I woke up this morning, that’s not so bad. Usually when traveling on these horrendously long flights, I actually try to convince my body to sleep when it should be time to sleep where I’m going, but that just led to extreme frustration last time where I tried to force myself to sleep even though I wasn’t tired. So screw that. I’ll survive.

Upon landing shortly, I’ll have a 7+ hour layover in Amsterdam where I plan to leave the airport and head into the city and check things out. (Yes, this was intentional and by design.) I’ve been to Amsterdam once before, back in the summer of 1997 I believe, so it’ll be interesting to make it back again.

OK, so fast-forward to the afternoon. I’m now sitting back in the airport at Amsterdam with about 2 hours until my flight to Gothenburg boards. I had recalled from my previous trip that there was a nice relaxing place that had comfy chairs and was out of the way… I just couldn’t recall where it was. So I started exploring and came upon the Airport Park. I’d make it sound more glamorous, but picture if you will, walls bathed in pictures of people at parks. A lush green FieldTurf lawn, and fake trees strategically placed throughout. Oh yeah, did I mention we’re still inside? Comfortable park benches, bean bags for lounging, and relaxing chairs. Couple all that with the piped in sounds of birds chirping, and you have an incredibly fake but somehow relaxing atmosphere. Yet I’m almost certain this is the same area I found back in September that was quaint but not nearly as hokey.

I did take a nice trip into the city earlier, and wandered the streets and then had lunch. The Euro sucks by the way… prices look the same as US prices, but the value is about 2/3s. Not impressive. But it was a fun excursion anyway.

Well, I’m finally to Gothenburg and safely in the hotel. I’m so tired. I would add pictures to this, but I have zero energy to do so. Rounding just up to 24 hours with only perhaps 2 hours of sleep. I think I may just let tomorrow happen and see where things end up. Unfortunately, I have a very busy day and can’t afford to be tired.

Crossing the US Border

2011-05-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

As usual, after a 7-month blogging hiatus I'm finally going to make a good-faith effort to get back into the blogging of random thoughts, OUTSIDE of when I'm on vacation and actually good at blogging. So here goes...

Today's random topic: Why are US Border Agents so gruff?

So yesterday I took some friends up to drop them off at the Vancouver cruise terminal. As usual, it's a quick and rather uneventful drive until you get to the border crossings. Normally I use the NEXUS lanes, so I don't have to deal much with the Canadian border agents (they typically just wave through the NEXUS card holders with little more than a passing glance to see if there's anyone else stowed away in your car). Though this time since my friends were "normal people" we had to use the regular lanes. No wait at all, so we just pulled up to the booth and the Canadian border agent made typical idle chitchat while scanning our documents. "Where you from? Where you headed? How do you know each other?" The typical questions where it really doesn't matter what you answer, just how you answer. The usually cordial Canadians welcome you with a "have a nice day" and you're on your way.

I delivered my friends to the cruise ship, then turned back for home. No adventures in Vancouver for me today, it was a nice drive though. As I pull up back at the US side, similarly low wait times at the border. I, of course, now having nobody else in my car, could take advantage of my NEXUS card and use the special quickie lane. Though really, I think I've had more pleasant US border crossing experiences when I'm NOT using the NEXUS lane.

Now, ostensibly the point of the NEXUS program is that you voluntarily submit yourself to a background investigation by both the US and Canadian governments. Assuming they find you suitable (and you pay the $50 processing fee), they give you a NEXUS card, identifying you as pre-screened, low-risk traveler who really just wants to be able to get back and forth across the border without hassle. This honestly seems to be the way the Canadian border patrol views the NEXUS program. Admittedly, the Canadian border agents are less concerned overall with Americans traveling into Canada, but the US side is so vastly different.

First of all, I have only once had a cordial experience with a US border agent. I believe they are trained to be intimidating. After all, I guess they are the bouncers at the door of the hippest club in the world, the United States of America. But seriously... I am an American who lives less than 2 hours from the Canadian border, trying to get back to my own home in my own country. I have done everything I possibly can, including actually PAYING to get a NEXUS card and VOLUNTARILY submitting to a complete background check to ensure that I have no criminal history or pose a likely threat to my own country. Maybe they can stop being like the bouncer and more like the doorman, who will welcome you back to your home.

This trip as I pulled up to the border:

CBP: What have you been up to?
ME: Dropped some friends off at the cruise terminal.
CBP: (looks around the car, looks at me, looks a little longer) Goodbye.

That was the end of it. Should I expect much more? Probably not. But I think it was the "Goodbye" that threw me off. What, not even a "have a nice day"? Is that so much to ask? I think a bit of good manners goes a long way.

But I can't be too hard on the fine men and women of the Customs and Border Protection service. They ARE there trying to keep the bad guys out, and to protect us Americans. I just wish they were a little less intimidating. I shouldn't feel like a criminal when I come through the border to get into my own country.

Heading Home – Day 16

2010-09-05T18:04:00.001-07:00

Well folks, another vacation comes to a merciful end. I’m currently sitting on the airplane, somewhere over the… well, I’m not sure exactly where. This plane doesn’t have a mappy map showing us where we are. But we’re about 4.5 hours out of Seattle, so probably coming off of some polar trajectory over Canada at this point would be my best guess.

Where did I leave things off last? Oh yes, Friday was about as uneventful as I really expected it to be. Continued to get some work done, but really just wrapping things up in preparation to go home. Oh, and my Swedish coworkers gave me a present to take home with me… a bona-fide Swedish-made cold. Actually, it’s very mild at this point, just a bit of congestion and hopefully that’s all it will remain at. I’m sure my coworkers in Seattle will appreciate me not sharing this particular gift with them.

As a result of said cold, I decided to take it easy and not push myself too much on Saturday. Though even at that, I headed out and strolled Gothenburg for the better part of the afternoon. It started out as a cruise ship pulled into port along the river.

Being a Saturday, the locals were out in full force doing one thing I’ve noticed they really love to do… go shopping. One of the more interesting places I stumbled upon was the local market, where obviously all of the locals picked up a lot of their groceries. Honestly, in all of my travels the past two weeks, I hadn’t even considered the lack of the modern American convenience… the supermarket. Then again, I was also constantly in the city, and if you ever try to find a supermarket in downtown Seattle, that wouldn’t happen either. But regardless, the Gothenburg market was a sight to behold. Though definitely smaller than, say, Pike Place in Seattle, there was definitely a certain charm to behold. And if there’s one thing avid blog readers should have learned from these past two weeks of blogs: I’m all about the charm.

So let me take you on a little photo tour of the Saluhallen market in Gothenburg. Friends, right here we have a veritable smorgasbord of the finest olives North of the Mediterranean.

Olives not to your liking? Not a problem, how about some find bread from the local bakery? Who doesn’t like bread? Well, maybe those with a gluten aversion, but I’m sure we can find something to suit you.

What goes well with bread? Did someone say “Variety Meats?” Oh, wait, that was me. We’ve got quite a selection of tasty meat products for you to feast on. And look at the fine gentleman behind the counter just waiting to serve you.

Wait wait, don’t run away yet! I’ve still got more to show you! What’s meat without cheese?! How do you like it? Mild or smelly? Bleu or white? Soft and runny or hard and robust? That’s right, friends, we’ve got it all here at the cheese market.

For my lactose-intolerant friends, I’ve got a solution for you… SAUSAGE! And remember the golden rule of sausage… don’t ask what’s inside, just enjoy! :)

Neat some snackage? How baout some dried fruits and nuts. Make your own trail mix. Or just munch. It’s up to you.

Not enough meat yet for you? Well, fear not. We haven’t even touched salami yet… the food so good it gets its own counter! But first you do need to know what kind of salami you want, please consult our handy-dandy salami chart:

And on to the salami selection:

Looks good, no? Couldn’t say it better myself. Hmmm, someone needs some fiber. Time to take a stop by the produce stand.

Delicious and nutritious! But I would be neglect if I didn’t stop by and pick up some delicious fresh pastas for dinner. Those tortellini look good enough to eat!

Well, we’ve almost come to the end of our tour of the market, but what am I missing? Oh yes, MORE MEAT!

Them’s some mighty tasty looking steaks! Nobody makes cows like they do in Sweden. [Editors note: I don’t really know if that’s actually true, and if so whether it’s a good thing or not…]

Well, this has been an eventful journey. It’s now 11am Pacific Daylight Time, which means just 4 more hours on this plane before I can return home, keep myself awake until a reasonable end of the day, and then enjoy a nice long night’s sleep into a happy Labor Day holiday. Seriously, someone needs to invent a faster means of transportation between continents.

On the bright side, the flight is once again quite pleasant. The seating configuration on this Boeing 767-300ER aircraft is 2-3-2, and I’m in one of the aisle seats of the 3, but through careful planning [not really], basically the only empty seat on the plane is right next to me. So I have the luxury of two tray tables, and all the extra space I want.

No personal TVs on this plane, but we’ve just completed the third in-flight movie of the trip. First we had The A-Team, which was really nothing more than a typical action-thriller, I guess loosely based on the back-story from the TV show of the same name. Whatever, it was OK. Netflix it when it comes out on DVD.

Second movie was The Joneses. I actually watched the first half of this movie on the way over, before my in-fight video screen broke and I never saw the end. This was a fascinating movie about what is termed “stealth marketing”. People planted in a affluent community, but with the sole secret purpose of showing off all of their fancy stuff in hopes their neighbors will go out and buy them. The premise is actually quite brilliant, though the plot is actually pretty predictable, but worth seeing just to watch the pieces of the real story fall into place over the course of the movie. This would be a great group movie night movie, because the group reactions would be priceless.

Excuse me while I interrupt this review to comment on the gentlemen across the aisle and a row in front of me, who has had what I conservatively estimate is his 8th glass of chardonnay. I really wouldn’t have noticed, except that every time he finishes a glass, he’s the type that will ring his call button to get the flight attendant to bring him another glass. He’s minding his own business, I’m just intrigued to see how this one plays out.

The third movie on the list this afternoon was the Steve Carrell and Tina Fey rom-com Date Night. As much as I think I would have enjoyed the movie, it was an appropriate time in the flight for a brief nap. So I’ll leave that on the watch list for another time.

Final movie on the docket just started. We’re now at the point in the flight where everyone’s sick of movies and/or sleeping, so we get older movies. Today it’s The Blind Side. I am sticking with the iPod on this one. Though rather disappointed, because if we were flying TO Europe, the mystery older movie would be Quantum of Solace, which would have been fantastic. C’est la vie.

Maybe if I keep writing throughout the rest of this flight, this blog entry could go on for about 10,000 words or so. Fortunately for you, you all probably stopped reading after my tour of the market [I know I would have], so I’ll just wrap it up here.

I now return you to my regularly scheduled intermittent blogging. :)

Working in Göteborg – Day 10-13

2010-09-02T12:08:00.001-07:00

As expected, once the work week started up here, things got a bit busy. When I haven’t been working, I’ve been out and about the town, and then I get back to the hotel and sleep is the highest priority. But some interesting happenings.

The view from my hotel room on the 9th floor is actually quite tolerable. This was the view on the first night, when the rains were still passing through. Fortunately, after the work week started the weather cleared up and has been cool, but sunny and mostly pleasant the whole week.

Göteborg seems to have a little of everything. Part old shipping town, part college town, and now part tech town. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with the folks in our office here. They all are great people and like to have a fun time at work. Almost reminds me of the office back home in Seattle. :)

Among the more interesting things that happened, the other day I went out to lunch with some folks from work, and went to this Swedish bistro. I took the opportunity to enjoy a food I have never had before. Can you guess what it is?

a) Alligator
b) Reindeer
c) Piranha
d) Rattlesnake

Answer after the picture…

The correct answer is: (b) Reindeer. Though as it was prepared the dish looked almost identical to a traditional American Thanksgiving day meal. It consisted of reindeer (with bacon) and mashed potatoes, all covered in gravy, with some lingonberries on the side. Really, if you replaced the reindeer with turkey, and the lingonberries with cranberries, you would have Thanksgiving all over again. Though it was quite delicious, actually. I can now check reindeer off of my mystery meat checklist. :)

Some various pictures around the office are on the Picasa album.

Tomorrow is the last day of the work week, then I have a leisurely Saturday before the long flight home on Sunday morning. Final vacation updates probably on the way home.

On the Train Again – Day 9

2010-08-29T10:57:00.001-07:00

After a leisurely morning where I did next to nothing except for watch old episodes of Frasier with Norwegian subtitles, I’m back on the train and heading off to Gothenburg. This time I’ve just got a short leisurely 4-hour journey out of Norway and back to the Swedish empire.

Nothing at all too exciting going on here right now. The train was packed full when we left Oslo, but has now actually become rather empty as many have gotten off at various stops in the southern part of Norway. I’ve now got two seats to myself and am relaxing and stretching out. This leg of the journey is on a Norwegian NSB train, rather than the previous two trips on Sweden’s SJ line. Different looking trains, but really not much else difference beyond that. My only beef is that the vast majority of the seats on this trip happen to be facing backward. I’ve determined that I don’t really like riding backward, I’m much happier riding in the forward direction.

Though I must say, this is by far the most scenic of any of the trips I’ve taken so far. Norway is fantastically beautiful country (and I must say, definitely has the coolest flag of any of the Scandinavian lands).

After today, I expect the blog postings to slow down a bit, as I get into a very routine week of work in Gothenburg. There may be some surprises though, which could provide some interesting material. And I’ll try to take some exciting pictures of our office to get the perspective of what the “real world” (as opposed to the “tourist world” of Sweden is all about. I’ll be sure to keep my camera on me even at work. You never know I’ll find something interesting. :)

English as a Common Language – Day 8

2010-08-28T07:56:00.001-07:00

Today I’ve been taking it pretty easy. Just wandering around Oslo, seeing what I find to see, and avoiding the random rain showers that keep occurring.

Before I give the daily recap, I want to go back to a topic I touched on a few days ago. As I’ve pointed out, most everyone in Scandinavia speaks English. But contrary to what most of them may want to admit, really, English isn’t a second language to them, it’s their common language. In Norway, they speak Norwegian to each other, but they speak English to everyone else.

Why is this important? Because they have absolutely NO problem speaking English, if they know you don’t speak Norwegian. But they only way you know is if you start speaking English first. I’ve had the worst time as I start picking up small words and phrases in these languages, and when I use them, they assume I know their language and start talking to me in it. This is fine, but then they find out I only really speak English, and THEY actually are feeling bad and apologizing to me because they weren’t speaking in English. The moral of the story: contrary to popular belief, it’s actually better not even to attempt to speak their language. :)

Today was rather uneventful, actually, so this should be short. I started out on this dark and dreary morning heading up to really the only place that everyone said “you have to go there,” the Vigeland Sculpture Park.

Though most people know it as “the park with all the naked statues.” If it weren’t raining I probably would have wandered around longer, but as it was I can’t say it was particularly exciting. It was a nice big park though. At the center was the “tower of naked people” (I’m rusty on the direct Norwegian translation).

Moving on, I headed back toward the main part of the city, and did pass by a pretty cool cinema called the Oslo Kino Colosseum. Looking it up after the fact, it’s the largest cinema in Northern Europe, and the largest THX cinema in the world. Pretty cool building too.

And then it started raining a lot. A LOT. I huddled with some people under an awning on a street corner and watched as the water slowly filled nearly to the height of the curb.

Then across the street from where I was avoiding the rain happened to be the National Gallery. It was all art, but did have some pretty cool paintings, most notably Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

The rest did include some pretty cool Picassos, Renoirs, Monets, Manets, and one of Van Gogh’s self portraits.

I continued on to do some shopping, trying to find something definitively Norwegian to take home. But instead was distracted by a bunch of pretty colored yarn.

I looked at a wide array of Norwegian sweaters, and decided that I wouldn’t spend $400 on something I actually WOULD wear, let alone something I probably wouldn’t. :) Though some of them did look nice. Perhaps I’ll find something before I leave Oslo tomorrow.

I leave you today with one of the most “interesting” street art I came across in Oslo. I call it Norway’s “Salute to Aluminum Foil.” Enjoy!

Oslo That Ends Well – Day 7.5

2010-08-27T12:41:00.001-07:00

First a more thorough recap of the journey from Stockholm to Oslo. The train emptied in Karlstad onto 3 waiting tour buses bound for Norway. There were actually many people going to somewhere inbetween Karlstad and Oslo, which allowed one of the buses to load just those going direct to Oslo and we could go without having to stop. That wasn’t so bad. The bus was relatively peaceful, and the windows actually clean so I could take some good pictures.

And there was plenty of good pictures to take. Green trees, deep blue lakes scattered and abundant, and rolling wheat fields. Beautiful countryside! That’s why I didn’t take a plane.

The hotel room in Oslo was quite a bit larger than the previous ones in Stockholm or Copenhagen, but I wouldn’t necessarily say “nicer”. I also am in a smoking room, so the smell of stale smoke permeates the room. But then again, so it also permeates the streets in all of Scandinavia. Geez people, stop smoking.

After dumping all of my stuff and reloading to head out, I wandered out for my typical first orientation to the city. I start walking until I get lost enough, then figure out where I am and find my way back. And I usually find lots of good stuff along the way. Today I found… lots of shopping, and this jolly fellow who was quite pleased that I threw a crown in his podium.

I ran into Oslo Cathedral, and on to the Akershus Fortress. Trolls guarded my journey.

I also came across the Nobel Peace Center, which was interesting considering I found the Nobel Museum in Stockholm. But the Peace Prize gets awarded in Oslo rather than the rest of the Nobels which are in Stockholm. The Peace Center had a big exhibit on Obama, which I did not go see.

Finally, as I continued my wanderings back towards the hotel, I came upon this large building, the only one in Oslo with 10-feet high fences and armed guards at all of the entrances.

After getting the evil eye from most of the guards who saw me taking pictures of the building, I knew for certain it couldn’t be any other building than…

The U.S. Embassy. Visitors unwelcome. The sign out front pretty much says “go away”. Actually, I think it says “if we didn’t ask you to, don’t come in.” This is by far the highest security building in Oslo. For comparison, the King’s Palace is right across the street.

And besides the Royal Guards patrolling out front, who will smile and take a picture with you if you ask nicely, there’s nothing too menacing or intimidating there. You can even get close enough to actually touch the building… which I did just to prove I could. Try that at the U.S. Embassy.

Of course, you could also be the Canadian Embassy on the other side of the palace, which occupies one floor of a non-descript office building, indicated only by the presence of the maple leaf hanging out front on the flagpole.

Tomorrow I’ll endeavor to go somewhere interesting. Hopefully the rain is done after today, and I can have a nice day to explore with my last real day of “vacation”, before I head to Gothenburg on Sunday to get ready to work next week.

Plenty more interesting pictures in the Picasa album for you to check out.

Nobody told me there would be a bus – Day 7

2010-08-27T06:33:00.001-07:00

Up in the morning, actually kinda tired when I got up, which is a first for this trip. Slept great last night though. Today is the transit day to Oslo, and what a transit day it’s shaping up to be.

After shoving everything back into the suitcase and laptop bag, I checked out of the hotel and had about a little over an hour to get to the train station, so I decided rather than hopping the subway down to the station, I would just walk the little over a kilometer down there. It turned out to be a good choice, since it was such a nice morning.

As usual, I make it to the train station earlier than I needed to, but that’s not a big deal. It was nice to sit around and relax a bit first. Then made it to the platform and the train arrived.

Now, first off, this is not exactly a glamorous high-speed train like I came in from Copenhagen on. Though honestly, speed-wise I can’t tell the difference and I think the difference in top-speed is only about 20kph in this case. However, the bigger surprise that I had not been made previously aware of is that they are doing work on the tracks to Oslo, so after a 3-hour train ride to Karlstad, I get on a bus for another 3 hours to Oslo. NOT impressive. Here I was expecting a nice relaxing train trip, lounging in my meager window seat, looking out through a window that probably hasn’t been washed in 6 months, but it was my personal space. Now, I’m going to be trapped on a bus for 3 hours after being trapped on a train for 3 hours.

Oh well, I’m here for a Scandinavian adventure afterall, aren’t I? Maybe the bus won’t be jam-packed full and I’ll have a little more space than I would expect. I can think positively.

No internet to post this until later, so more updates to come as we go. [9AM CET]

[Update 3:30pm CET]

Well, I actually made it. Checked into the hotel no problem. Plenty of updates to come later, but for now I’m off to wander the town… and find some food. Mmm… food.

Museum Fatigue Sets In – Day 6

2010-08-26T12:43:00.001-07:00

I really use the museums as a convenient excuse to drag myself to different parts of the city. It works out pretty well, but after a certain point you just get sick of them all. Today I finally reached the “museum fatigue” point, probably because there wasn’t anything historical about most of them themselves, they were just buildings with historic stuff in them. Or something. But, for my last day in Stockholm it went something like this:

I started out heading over to the Ostermalm neighborhood, and went to the blandly named History Museum. Even though its name was rather uninspired, the museum itself was probably one of the more interesting and well-designed museums I’ve been to yet. Really, this museum is dedicated to the history of the Swedes, from before they were Swedes to where we know them today. The museum itself was just interesting. I give lots of credit to the airport-terminal inspired gallery, that I just thought was a creative design idea:

Following the History Museum, rather than taking the bus down to the next museum area, I decided to walk the kilometer or so down the road. It was quite nice (until it started pouring down rain). But along the way I seem to have run into Embassy Row. Without looking too hard I ran into the Hungarian, Turkish, and Korean embassies. Though according to Google Maps, I walked right past the US Embassy without realizing it.

Hungarian Embassy

Fortunately for the pouring rain, this time I brought my rain jacket with me, and all was fine. I checked out the Maritime Museum, which was decidedly yawn. Then I went next door to the Sports Museum, which was also pretty yawn, but they did have a curling stone, so I guess they aren’t all that bad.

Moving on to the Police Museum, this one was relatively newly constructed, and pretty poorly maintained. And boring. Though I suppose it was interesting looking at their CSI field kit display:

What is a field kit without useful numbers to put everywhere. I don’t see any chalk though… how are you supposed to outline the dead body!? Obviously an incomplete kit. :)

Finally made it on to the one museum today I was really looking forward to the Technological Museum. This was pretty much like going to the science center, but also had some more interesting museum-like exhibits as well. The museum is in what looks like it once was a top-secret national laboratory, or at least some non-descript industrial building that you really don’t know what goes on inside.

It was at this point museum fatigue started setting in, and after an hour and a half, I just had to leave. I still saw plenty while I was there and it was certainly an interesting museum.

I thought I was done with museums for the day, until I wandered past the Musikmuseet. And of course, I couldn’t pass that up. I’m glad I stopped, because it was a fun place to just play instruments and make noise. Though it would have been nicer if I were there by myself, because all of the other people making noise on the instruments were driving me bonkers. My music friends can relate, when there’s just people banging on instruments and making noise, rather than at least trying to do something melodic. It’s like having a room full of 30 kids with recorders all noodling at once. Kill me now. But I digress.

In an interesting coincidence compared to last night’s blog post, one exhibit offered me an answer to a question I didn’t bother to look up… WHO is that lady on the 50 kronor bill?

Well now I know. It’s Jenny Lind, The Swedish Nightingale. A famous opera singer. Though my favorite comment in the exhibit was something to the effect of, “What did she sound like? We don’t know, because no recordings persist.” But she must have been fantastic anyway. :) Though I just keep flashing back to the movie Singing in the Rain. Nevermind.

Among their many exhibits, including the obligatory tribute to Sweden’s own ABBA, was an entire floor with a salute to drums. Seriously? Are drums really that important that they need their own exhibit? Every drummer I’ve known has been… nevermind.

So the drums exhibit did include something I had a ton of fun with. It was a dynamic sculpture called the Rytmobil. Basically it was this strange collection of noise-making stuff, that was played by a computer, and you could program your own drum beat track to control the 5 elements.

My beat was pretty rockin, given what I had to work with.

That concluded the first bulk of the day, but a trip to Stockholm would not be complete without a stop at the World’s Largest IKEA store!

Yes, it was big, 4 floors of Scandinavian-designed junk. However, I can hear your question now, if it’s 4 floors, how can IKEA control you in one single loop around the store like they’re known for? Easy, the main store is round. You start at the top, and you wind your way down, round and round until you reach the bottom and check out. Other than that, it’s like every other IKEA I’ve ever been to. Except for the restaurant.

So the top floor has the big IKEA restaurant, where I couldn’t resist enjoying some dinner.

The place was packed, crazy full of people. But who can resist the quality cafeteria-style food at ridiculously low prices?! For my diner I decided to break with the easy mold of meatballs and mashed potatoes and instead go with the more delicious sounding sausage, potatoes au gratin-ish, and pickled beets. I splurged and also got a salad and chocolate mousse for dessert, with a lingonberry soda to drink. All that for the ridiculously low price of 40 kroner, or about $5 US. And it was yummy.

As I then circled my way to the bottom of the store, I found on the second floor the 5 kroner cafe! Everything 5 kroner!

5 kroner is essentially zero dollars. OK, it’s actually about 65 cents US. Still pretty good deal for your snackage. Hey, it’s a big store, you’ll probably get hungry every floor or so. Finally I made it to the bottom, where I found… ANOTHER cafe. Geez. I plowed through the warehouse of IKEA goods, and to the checkout, to find of course the snack bar. (What if you get hungry before you make it to the car?) All in all, it was interesting, but it was IKEA. I would go again just for the food though.

Well, that was a long day and a long blog. If you made it this far, kudos. Time for me to get ready to go to bed, before I have a 6-hour train ride in the morning to Oslo, where we will continue my final 2 days of “vacation” before heading down to “work” in Gothenburg. As always, plenty more pics on the Picasa album. See you in Oslo.