/life/Lost: One Computer
Responds to name "Napoleon". Sorely missed, contains secret government documents. If found, please contact rob@infinitepigeons.org.
(I can't figure out who took my computer after Christmas. It doesn't seem to be Josh or Ian. Maybe it's in storage, but I don't remember seeing it there.)
So I'm in Waterloo now, once again. I just realized my schedule is messed up and I can't move to Ottawa on Thursday as I intended...it'll have to be Friday, which means running into long weekend traffic due to Labour Day in Canada. We'll see how that goes.
I have $2 left to spend if I am to make my first month's rent without using my credit card. We'll see how that goes too..I'm thinkin' it's not so likely as I was hoping.
The rest of my visit to Edmonton was most enjoyable. Rented movies, caught up with yet-another friend from high school, went to the world famous (?) West Edmonton Mall, etc. Good stuff.
Comments
Julia wrote
how did you spend 90% of your 3 day budget in 12 hours?
Rob wrote
Calzone, small caesar.
And the rest went on a couple of Tim's donuts at the new (!) tim hortons on campus this morning at the 7:30am (!) ribbon (!) cutting (!) ceremony (!).
Still have some trailmix left, though.
Any other questions?
Kim wrote
Damn(!) I wish I were there for that (i.e. the opening of the SLC Tim Hortons).
/life/Catching up with Canada
So I'm in Saskatoon, the closest place I have to a home right now I guess. My parents have moved away here, but there's still no shortage of places for me to crash. I've caught up with friends from high school, gone for a couple walks down by the river, bought some things, eaten at Subway twice, visited CompuSmart, and generally enjoyed myself in a place I know well.
To back up a bit, my bikeride to Orillia went well. It was 195km. Around the 160km mark I had my only sense of "uh-oh" but I just took a rest, drank some water, and kept on trucking. A bunch of my chestal muscles were sore, but it worked out okay. I helped paint my parents new place, and generally get the place ready for the truck that didn't arrive when it was supposed to. Caught a bus to KW because I'm stupid and didn't bring stuff with me for my trip to Edmonton, then at 5am the next morning I caught a bus, then a shuttle, then an airplane.
I couldn't remember my airline, but it turned out a girl in the shuttle was on the same flight as me, so we hung out in line and stuff. I fully applied my feminine wiles, and scored myself a ride from the airport into town -- a $13 (=~8EUR) shuttle-ride. I followed my sister's overly-detailed directions and found her lab. It was a fun-filled place of research and smartness. After sitting around the table with a bunch of PhDs talking about enzyme-this and cell-culture-that, I have a better sense of how non-geeks feel when there're too many geeks in the room talking about linux-this and megahertz-that.
Edmonton was alright. Very shopping-oriented. In a cloying sort of way, I had rides everywhere. I'm so used to taking out a map, finding a bus, walking, and generally being independent that all the car-time was a bit draining.
Monopoly is fun. Played Monopoly with my sister and her upstanding gentleman and an old friend of mine from high school and it was good. It's sorta a family tradition.
Saw The Manchurian Candidate. Three word review: It was okay.
Scored a ride with aforementioned old friend to Saskatoon, got in at 5am totally zonked. Since then I've seen many people from various places, and arranged a ride to Calgary, from which it'll be a relatively short-and-cheap bus-ride to Edmonton. Hopefully I'll catch up with a couple more friends in Edmonton, and maybe I'll go hiking with my sister and others.
That's where it's at. A fun recap: since landing in Canada, I have visited people in: Kitchener/Waterloo, Ottawa, Toronto, Alliston, Orillia, Edmonton and Saskatoon.
/life/Some Thoughts On Canada (and other updates)
I've been home for two weeks now. A few things are noticeable; some I expected, some I didn't, some are beyond my expectations.
First, the friendliness of your "average" Canadian is astounding. I'm thinking mostly about the little interactions like buying groceries or a donut. These are very simple, flat interactions in Finland. Here they certainly can be, but there's a measure of sincerity to them. As Andrew put it, it's almost like you're part of a community or something.
Second, the fatness of your "average" Canadian is similarly astounding. There are some very very large people here. It's an unfortunate thing for us to have to deal with.
There are lots of flags. The food choice is phenomenal. The University Plaza in KW has Indian, Persian, Mediteranean, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Jamaican, Italian, American, Egyptian, Pitas, Subs and Paninis, and probably a few I forgot. The basic food store had four or five different types of peanut butter. And oh, sweet frozen orange juice concentrate, how I've missed you.
Prices are nice, though this isn't as big of a deal as I was expecting; it's mostly just eating out that's really noticeable.
People drive far without thinking much about it.
Tomorrow I'm going to try to set a new personal distance record; Orillia appears to be about 200km from here, but my sister's place is halfway so I can give up if I want. I'm going to help my parents move in, them I'm off for a trip to Edmonton to visit some family and friends, then back to KW to move my stuff to Ottawa, then we're done.
I haven't caught up with as many people as I wanted...dunno why. I seem to have been lazy about it. And finals got in the way.
Oh yeah. I passed my course and so I'm all done. You can tell how anticlimactic it was by the fact that I almost forgot to mention it.
In other news, I finally took the plunge and switch web servers for this blog and the rest of my site. There're still tons of problems to work out, and sadly some of them will end up sitting until I'm settled in Ottawa. But the blog seems to be working acceptably, and that's the important part.
Comments
Andrew wrote
Sounds like there is some positive correlation between being obese and being personable. What additional evidence do we need for causation?
Andrew wrote
Hmm... titles aren't being displayed in the comments. The title should have been, "Fat => Jolly".
Tony wrote
The fatness of the average Canadian has cause me incessant problems buying pants! Garment stores just don't seem to believe that an adult male could possibly have a 28 inch waist.
/life/All Done And Healthy
Sorry for the absence; I've been studying. It was probably the most intensely I've ever studied. The exam went alright, but not well enough that I dare celebrate before hearing the final word from the prof.
Last weekend I made a quick trip to Toronto to catch up with some friends from last fall in Finland. I also picked up my luggage that I shipped to my sister's place, with the help of Andrew and his parents' car. Now my whole life is pretty much in Waterloo, which is good. Except that it needs to be in Ottawa, but it's easier to move from one place to Ottawa than from several.
The trip in Toronto was really fun, if slightly surreal -- When you wake up in a hostel with an American and a German that you only knew while in Europe, it's hard to grasp that you're in boring old Toronto.
Boring it wasn't, though. Saturday gave us the Chinatown Festival with Kung-fu and various interesting foods, and Sunday gave us the beach (south of Scarborough, I guess) and a Taste of Danforth with Greek food galore. Something there gave me an upset stomach. Jerks.
My trip to Ottawa was generally successful. I found a couple of places that aren't in a rush to rent out, so I could put housing in the back of my mind while I studied. By coincidence, and old friend from elementary school and high school was there, and it was good to see him again. He's headed off with EWB to some poor country to help out soon.
I still haven't decided on a place, and now that my exam is done I'm going to go looking again, but the prices feel high to me. We'll see what I can find.
Since I'm about to lose UW's Health Services, I decided to do one last checkup while the lineups are short. No new demons plaguing me. Getting bloodwork done shortly to check that all the little guys floating around me are doin' there stuff. I haven't eaten in 12 hours, and apparently I haven't drank enough water either, 'cause I'm dehydrated and have a headache. I'm looking forward to gorging myself on Tim Horton's donuts when I'm done.
Blog should get more attention now...the incredibly competent people who operate this server claim they're going to recover everything, but I have my doubts. Anyway, a faithful (?) reader sent me an archive of most/all stories, so it's just a matter of putting all the features like comments back up. Easy peasy, right?
From here, I'm going to hang out in KW for a few more days working on random things, and then I'm going to help my parents move into their new place. After that I'm heading to Edmonton to visit my sister, and then back to Ontario to move myself to Ottawa.
/meta/Recovering
Well, I got some of it back. It ain't nearly as good as it looks...I only have the 10 or so most recent entries, plus older emails (Thank's Tony!) which is enough to make it superficially back, but all of the entries from Finland are gone, basically. All comments are gone, too, even recent ones.
Everything should come back online slowly as I take study breaks.
/meta/Blog Lost!
As you've probably noticed, my blog disappeared.
I don't know why. My guess is a security breach, especially after hopping through so many dodgy internet cafes. I got complacent I guess.
For now, if you know what a cache is, and know how to search it, I'd appreciate any cached copies you may have lying around, especially very old ones (I have most from the last two months I think). (Hint: Search for "A Bug's Life")
I'll try to restore things to some semblance of sanity soon, but I lost a lot of other stuff too so it may take a while.
I'm in Waterloo. It is good.
/travel/cycling/Joint Trouble In Amsterdam
This blog entry was lost by my ISP and they did not recover it. A fairly complete copy existed on blog aggregators, but it may have lost formatting or links.
So, this evening Steve and I pulled into Amsterdam. I was cycling only with my left leg for the last 25km. Earlier this afternoon, after deciding (wrongly!) to push my knees a little bit farther than I had in the past, there was a very sudden shooting pain. Apparently this was accompanied by a sound that Steve thought was a branch breaking, but I don't remember that. So my right knee is okay for walking, but if I step too hard it hurts. And it's not at all okay for cycling. We've got a hostel in Amsterdam tonight, but this may end up being the end of the road for me. Probably not; hopefully tomorrow everything's okay, and I can just take it easy a bit, but right now my hopes are a bit low, though my spirits are fine. Steve and I have been doing well, though. His ankles are getting better slowly and a bit erratically. From Luebeck we did 80km or so to Hamburg. The first place we tried was full up, but they made a suggestion for us. This turned out to be in/on Reeperbahn, which is Hamburg's "Red Light District". Suffice to say it was an interesting walk to and from the hotel. Cheap, though, and plenty clean and stuff. From there, we caught a train to Muenster and caught up with Tessa, another friend from my time in Oulu. It was nice, but fairly brief. The next day we hit Holland, and then we had today. My trip-meter rolled over at 1000km, but I'm somewhere around 1150km right now. Not too shabby if it does end here, but lots more I'd like to see. Steve and I are taking notes about every day (especially after I lost our notes after the Rockies last year -- in my defense, they were on a napkin, and thus easily confused for garbage) so I'll probably write several more little stories when I have internet access and the notes beside me. We also watched the final of the Eurocup '04 football match - Greece 1, Portugal 0. Pretty surprising. So yeah. Stuff is okay , but a bit up in the air right now. Gotta go find some grub...this internet cafe is hugely hot.
/books/Ishmael
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Daniel Quinn's Ishmael is good. As a piece of writing, it's mediocre; it feels like he wanted to wrap a philosophical treatise in a story, but the wrapping was too thin.
The book is about a student, the author, and a teacher. The teacher represents someone who has learned and understood our culture from the outside, from reading, but not from being raised in it. The teacher is embodied in a gorilla, intelligent and communicative through some means that we are supposed to suspend our disbelief about. It, like Lila, spends some time examining native north American culture, though primarily a subset of the "Leavers", roughly what we consider the hunter-gatherers and primitive peoples. It spends much time tackling the nature of "Takers", roughly the western cultures, though including India and generally those who have turned to agriculture. It examines what would be called our "consumerist" nature, though it avoids such po-mo terminology. (Po-mo is my favourite non-word.) The book uses clever analogies with the creation of flying machines and interesting re-interpretations of our creation folklore (both biblical and scientific) to construct a fresh philosophical framework for thinking about environmental, cultural and social problems. It is not a be-all-end-all, and I was very disappointed that the book spent so little time on the analogs to Bernoulli's principles -- laws about all living things that govern whether or not our systems will "fly". The end of the manifesto is cultish, and the end of the story is cliche, but the arguments and discussion in the book are insightful and sound. Only a few relatively small points irked me, one of which was discussions of overpopulation which I think were inadequate. After you read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, read this.
/travel/cycling/Ferries and Dikes in Holland; Rain rain rain in Belgium
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Its been a while. Internet access is surprisingly hard to come by around here. Im in Brussels on a very strange keyboard layout (AZERTY) so youll have to excuse my mistakes. Im slowly getting used to it, but it doesnt help that the keycaps are inaccurate too. First and foremost, my knees are doing just fine. Weve been doing much easier days in general...Our longest since Amsterdam was 105km, but the rest have been less than 80km, I think. Taking it gently, and theres been pretty minimal pain. Weve been cycling for eight straight days, and we havent had a room since Amsterdam. After Amsterdam, we wandered through the lowlands of Holland, through Gouda (yes, the cheese), and eventually into Belgium to Hoegaarden (yes, the beer). We cycled along canals, passed windmills, over and on dikes, and eventually reached Belgium, where it immediately started to rain. Its been raining every few hours since then. When we got to Hoegaarden, it was about 21:30. We had no place to stay, and the hostel we had expected to find in the previous larger town no longer existed. We asked at the first pub we saw open, and it turned out that there was a big festival in the town that weekend, just for us! The local youth group showed us a place where we could camp, on space owned by the local church. We set up tent, then went back to join the festivities. It was a really fun night, and the Belgians that we met were very friendly and helpful; one even tried to set us up with a place to stay in Brussels, but that connection ultimately failed. The food has been excellent, but Atkins would be saddened by our carb-rich diet; bakeries have become our standard fare to avoid eating out so much. Weve also had Frites (essentially french fries, but with a bit more TLC than the McDonalds variety) several times, though the last time we bought them I had the presence of mind to ask what kind of oil they were fried in. "Grease" came the reply with a touch of pride...No more frites for me. Theyre terribly unhealthy anyway. Brussels is both beautiful and pricey; it reminds me a bit of Stockholm for that. The cycling has been mostly enjoyable, though the lack of a warm room and decent shower was getting annoying -- in Hoegaarden we scrubbed down with cold tap water in a rundown washroom they said we could use. Fun fun fun. Not sure where from here...Time will tell. We booked the hostel (two-bed room, so its essentially a hotel) for tonight as well, and both Steve and I have much internetting to catch up on. The Hoegaarden Brewery tour had some Irishy music at the end...it ,ade ,e ho,esick for Great Big Sea. Oh yeah...If anyone knows of a place for me to live September to January in Ottawa, preferably in the West of Gloucester or Downtown, please let me know... Miss home, miss yall, but having a good time to be sure. Hopefully Ill be able to update a bit more often from here on out.
/travel/And Ireland is Good
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After a bit of relaxed futsing about to collect the necessities, Clare and I went for a trip to southwest Ireland. With a (heavy) tent on our back and some money in our pockets, we headed off with a vague outline of a plan. We headed to Galway, one of the more major centers in Ireland. We had Chinese food in a little restaurant (warning: take-away menus cheaper than sit-down menus!). A table of four drunken Irish ladies antagonized each other nearby; the situation was tense, and they probably should have been kicked out. That night, we hit a local bar that had quite good music and a fun crowd. From there, we bussed to Ballyvaughn, the start of the Burren Way. The first day we walked about 15km to Fanore, slightly off the Burren Way. This path took us passed ruined churches and hundreds of stone walls. The sheer amount of human labour -- much of it apparently labour forced on the Irish by the British during famine to earn food -- required to build these walls is amazing, and the skill with which many of them are assembled is also amazing. Building these stone walls is refered to in John Raulston Saul's On Equilibrium as a highly intuitive activity, and I see why. We stayed in a B&B there, and as it turned out we had a whole small guest house to ourselves. 'Twas lovely indeed. The next day we walked towards Doolin, a "Mecca" of music according to some bit of tourist info. We had a lunch break atop a rather old (c. 3000BC, perhaps) stone-aged tomb, past a barbed-wire fence and a stone wall. There were cows in the same field, but they were a good distance away. This was the land of my childhood reading, where the Famous Five or the Secret Seven would get into some kind of adventure. (I guess that was actually England, but this captured the feel very well; there was a sense that this place was unexplored, at least in any formal way.) In the end, the path turned to a road and the scenery got less interesting, and so we hitched a ride to our destination for the day, Doolin. A French couple picked us up, and were friendly and helpful..my French came in handy, though between my French and English, Clare's English, Irish (that part of Ireland is still at least partially Irish-speaking) and Spanish, and my smattering of German, we were pretty well-assured of being able to communicate. Again we got a B&B, slightly less upscale (read: more reasonable) and slightly cheapter. The town was a long narrow strip along the sea, with a couple of pubs. We ate in one, listened to some music (live, of course) and then walked to another that had slightly better music, and called it a night. The next day we had the adventure of having 15EUR after paying for our B&B. We left our bags there, arranging to pick them up later that day, not knowing quite how we were going to deal with the cashflow issue. Doolin has no ATM. The nearest one was apparently 12km away, though rumour had it there was also one in Lisdoonvarna (ooooh..Lisdoonvarna), a few miles away. One of the three (!) hostels in this tiny tourist town also acted as the bus station. The somewhat unhelpful reception-worker gave us a curt answer about why we couldn't buy bus tickets on Visa. At this time, it just so happened than a man from Pennsylvania walked in, asking if there was an ATM. I pounced on him, politely demanding a life to the nearest ATM, we he obliged. He and his wife were friendly, and dropped us off in a little shop in Lisdoonvarna, whose shiny little ATM was adorned with an "Out of Order" sign. But they did Cashback. So we bought a couple of lovely sandwiches and some dainties to hit their 10EUR minimum, and got our precious cash. From there, we caught a bus to the unmissible Cliffs of Moher. I coaxed clare into lying down and crawling towards the edge of the precipice. She made it most of the way...looking straight down at a hundred meter drop was..well..impressive. The leashless dog that came up behind us at this point was frightening. It seemed all too probable that he would push us over the end, or lick us until we leapt of our own accord. We used our return ticket to take us back to Doolin, which is en route to Lisdoonvarna. By happy fluke, it dropped us near our B&B, and I had the brainwaave of trying to run and get our bags and catch the bus again at the hostel. I sprinted off, and Clare serendipitously stalled the bus driver due to her state of confusion about the plan while I sprinted, got the bags, returned the key and sprinted back. We smoothly caught the bus back to Galway, then to Dublin. The whole drip was originally planned to be longer, but Clare picked up a pretty bad fever, hence her slightly slow and delerious explanation of the plan to the bus driver. She's better now, though. Tonight I'm much looking forward to seeing Farenheit 9/11. Food in Ireland is much better than Finland. It's nice to have real meals with real vegetables and stuff again -- proper home-cooked meals, like I would never make for myself. And Quorn is good. Not sure what's in store for this week, except that I leave here Thursday night. Steve's enjoying his cycling on his own, or so he claims. So all is well. I hope I find a place to live in Ottawa without too much trouble -- that's my only big stress right now.
/travel/*Pow* And suddently you're in Dublin...
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Europe is neat. Drop a few Euro, and the keyboard go back to normal, they start speaking a language you understand (most of the time), and they drive on the left. So I'm in Dublin. I decided to shorten my cycling and extend my time in Dublin for reasons obvious to those who know and guessable to those who don't. Besides the obvious, cycling also doesn't really leave one feeling like one's had a nice relaxed vacation, so I figured I'd take the opportunity. This is the third (Stockholm, Amsterdam) major city that I've been in more than once, and I think it's a sign I need to start traveling outside of safe happy northern Europe. But for now it's a welcome change; civilization is nice. I spent about 150EUR (250CAD) to restore my wardrobe since I threw out many ratty clothes in Finland and cycled with only one set of "civvies" which consist of a rather grubby pair of shorts and a rather stretched tshirt. The end tally of the cycling was something just over 1500km, 24 days start to finish, one accident, one minor injury, more concentrated time with a single individual than I've ever experienced since I was in the fetal position for around nine months, and a general sense of success. The flight over was relatively uneventful, but getting my bike packed up was not the painless process that the Aer Lingus customer service representative lead me to believe it to be -- It was, however, the moderately annoying process I've grown to expect it to be. In a couple days, once it's settled in a bit more, I'll probably write down some more general thoughts about the different countries, but for now I'm going to wallow in the luxury of having both shorts *and* trousers (the Irish dialect is settling in already) close at hand.
/travel/cycling/Sweden and Copenhagen
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Gotta be quick...paying internet access by the minutes. Currently in Copenhagen. Did about 300km in Sweden, leaving from Výÿrnamo where i got dropped off, cycling down to Malmýÿ, and then catching a train across the giant bridge to Copenhagen. Along the way, I got four ticks, and thus sampled the Swedish medical system. It was effective and fairly quick, and cost me about 30CAD to see a nurse. that should be covered under insurance, but I'll have to take care of it later. I also lost my map, on which I was keeping a journal. I dedcided to backtrack to the gas station where I thought I had left it. After 8km of backtracking, iI stopped to stanck on a can of beans. About halfway through, a car honked at me. About 3 minutes later, it started to hail. Big hail, about 6 or 7mm in diameter. Lunder and thightening, too. it was the first time i've been hailed on while cycling. The weather has been pretty shitty all around, though my last day of cycling in Sweden was truly gorgeous, with nice views and a tailwind most of the time, and quaint little backroads that let me see the countryside proeprly. The night before that I stopped in a little campground and stayed in a room there -- most of the campgrounds have a couple hostel-style rooms where you can stay. It was quite pleasant, and the Swedes were very helpful and friendly. I went to a local pub for some pizza for dinner, and ended up chatting with the bartender there for a while; she was a very friendly swedish girl, and we watched the first half of the Denmark vs. Sweden Eurocup match. Heading out tomorrow, south towards Germany. Steve got here fine. Saw a castle today, pretty good. Copenhagen is expensive. Bumýÿed into a guy from PEI today. Strange, but friendly fellow. Gotta jet. Sorry for the lack of proofreading.
/travel/cycling/Luebeck is only an accident away!
This blog entry was lost by my ISP and they did not recover it. A fairly complete copy existed on blog aggregators, but it may have lost formatting or links.
(Lest you're short on time and concerned by the title, there were no injuries, and we got there fine.) So I'm in Lýÿbeck. Yesterday, Steve and I were cycling through the evening on some very beautiful German roads. They were essentially single lane roads, but there were very few cars. We were cruising along quite quickly when I passed a roadsign that I thought indicated that we were headed for a town that we had already been through. Since the road was quite wide, I slammed on my brakes. I heard Steve yell "Woah!" from behind me, as he had chosen that moment to read the sign and didn't notice my rapid deceleration. I was also sort of turned to see what he was yelling about. So he hit my tire. Bit of a bump, but no injuries. Except...the bike. My back tire was unrideable. It wasn't bent much, but too much, especially with the extra weight of the gear. Neither Steve nor I knew how to true a tire, but he knew a bit and we worked it out, and after half an hour of fiddling, it seemed rideable. I rode on, but it bent more. If we took off the back brakes, the bike would still go, so I ran with it for about 5km. Towards the end of this, we flagged down one man to ask for a cell phone ("haben Sie ein handi?"), but he didn't. Then we hit a house with some people in the backyard, and asked to use their phone to call Johanna, our erstwhile destination for the evening. I called her, told her we weren't going to make it. Then he asked what was wrong, and once it was explained ("alle ist klýÿr" (?)) and sort of took over and loosened my break so it wasn't rubbing anymore. We piled all the weight on Steve's bike (..which was bad since Steve's ankles have been bothering him a bit...) and I rode with my weight as forward as it could be. Once we got to the next real town (Ahrenbýÿk), we tried and failed to find an open bikeshop -- unlikely at 20:45 in a small town -- and then decided to ride onwards to Lýÿbeck. In the end, we got here safe and sound. Spent a nice day around Lýÿbeck today, seeing their Holstentour (sp?) which is the old and very massive and impressive town gate, and going up a church tower. Tonight we're making a big lasagna meal with Johanna and her two roommates and Andrea (another girl I know from Finland) and her boyfriend. In other news, crossing the Danish-German border was no problem...there was essentially nothing there. Euros are great; I'm very glad to be done with the various Kroners and back to a currency that I know fairly intuitively. The weather and wind have been much better in Germany. One of our campgrounds was right by a military base, and we were woken up at 08:00 to a helicopter taking off. Lots of pizza, falafels, and veggie burgers. Lots of checking the maps and signs for me, and following his gut for Steve -- sometimes with conflicting results. We're getting along well, though, and the accident was a good test of how we dealt with more-than-arguing-about-directions stress. I have 800km under my belt since Peter dropped me off in Sweden, of which about 330km are since Copenhagen. Soon we're probably heading to Mýÿnster with a probable pause in Hamburg (which all the Germans say that we simply must see) and then probably up to Groningen and then along the coast for a while. I heard the news about the election results on a German radio station; obviously I didn't understand it all, but it I got the basics. Personally, I think the results could have been a lot worse. Anyway, having a blast, learning lots more German, getting some excellent, beautiful cycling done...but now it's time to make some lasagne. Happy Canada Day! (And you thought I forgot! Pah!)
/travel/finland/Wrapping Things Up
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Argh. When I got my Visa card, they told me I needed to wait 6 months before I could get the credit limit upped from its current piddly 500CAD. I'm sure they mentioned it, but apparently it has to be "active" for 6 months. Now, I don't need my credit card every month. And if you let it sit for a month, your time gets reset. To add to the frustration, you can allegedly call collect to one of the Visa numbers. I don't know how to call collect from Finland, so I tried to use Canada Direct. It asked me for my long distance provider in Canada, which I don't have. So I pressed 0, and got a very curmudgeony woman who very quickly got frustrated and assumed I was stupid. It turns out you just have to pick Bell Canada, and then select a collect call. But then the Visa robot and the Collect Call robot just yell at each other. In other news, I got my biked tuned up at Pyýÿrýÿ Sauvola. Nothing quite so pleasant as a freshly tuned up bike. Got new racks, new treads, a toolkit, and some other miscellanies. They were friendly, helpful, and gave me a fairly decent "discount" without discussion. That seems to be the way in Finland, when you buy a bunch of stuff. They did a good job. I also closed my bank account today, and sent some money home to be spent on my upcoming cycling. It cost 16EUR to transfer the money in one week, and was otherwise quite painless. Nordea Pankki did much better than HSBC last year. Shipping my skis home would cost about 300EUR with Fedex. Can't ship them with the Posti since they're too long. Not sure what I'm going to do with them yet -- one option is to ask one of the Canadians here very nicely to courier them. I saw The Day After Tomorrow yesterday. It was grand, largely because I haven't seen a movie in cinemas for a long time. It was only 5EUR; apparently Thursday is Cheap Night. I'm reading The Da Vinci Code. It's not so much good as it is addictive. There are still many errands to be run. I need to pack and ship some stuff, buy fuel for my campstove, etc. And I want to finish my project here, so I leave them with something useful.
/life/Landed and Studying
Thursday I woke up in Dublin.
Friday I woke up in Amsterdam.
Saturday and Sunday I woke up on the 10th Sideroad just north of Beeton.
Monday I woke up in Kitchener, a stone's throw from Waterloo.
The flight from Dublin to Amsterdam was uneventful. I don't even really remember it now. It was sad to leave Dublin behind..I had a good time there.
Amsterdam consisted of a bit of internetting, some eating and drinking, an evening with a Native American from San Francisco at the end of a European tour. I got fairly intoxicated on three pints due to my rather meager weight -- I lost a lot while cycling.
Amsterdam was hot. I left my bicycle in the Schiphol airport for 5 EUR.
The flight to Toronto got messed up a bit, and they switched planes at the last minute and so we were delayed like an hour. The clouds were positively beautiful. The seatmates were two Spanish girls who, about an hour before landing, pulled out a giant makeup kit and proceeded to do their makeup. They also put on perfume. I thought that was rude. They also had pointy shoes.
My bro-in-common-law picked me up and drove me to his-and-my-sister's place, and it was good. I like it there. I unpacked a bit, repacked a bit, doddled a bit trying to get my head into Canadian space, went out for dinner, and went to sleep. The next morning I got up at 06:00, hopped on my bike around 07:30, and cycled to Waterloo. I got here about 14:30. I was about 500m from my destination when I started feeling woozy from heat and a slight lack of fluids. Not wanting to faint in traffic, I hit the nearby Tim Horton's. Apple Fritter, how I have missed you.
Got to Andrew's just as his mother was dropping him off there from his weekend home. Good timing.
Had dinner with a bunch of 2nd-and-3rd-degree acquaintances. It was fun. Veggie burgers, salad, crappy frozen punch, grilled veggies. Nice summer meal.
I've started studying in earnest. Tomorrow I'm making a trip to Ottawa to pick out a place to stay at. I have four choices. Hopefully I'll catch up with Kathleen and Ajay. That'll be good. And Jill, if she's there.
Gotta go study. Sorry about the bad formatting -- I'll fix it soon.
/travel/finland/Nine Months of Loose Ends, and Midnight Sun
Tonight was my last night in Oulu. It's nearly 6am, and I'm still up, taking care of various things. Nine months lets you build up a lot of loose ends.
Tomorrow I'm leaving with Peter, a German who drove here. He's taking me into Sweden, where I'll start my bike trip. He had some people over, so I went to have something of a goodbye party. At 12:11, there was that characteristics sound when everybody knows that something interesting is going on, but nobody knows what. Eventually I clued in -- the window by the kitchen was casting shadows. The sun was still up. Oulu's been cloudy lately, so this was the first time I'd seen the Midnight Sun.
My work has wrapped up, but unfortunately my project hasn't. I hope it goes well after I leave.
Today (well, yesterday) I shipped one of my suitcases home, and then I'll send the other one home in a few hours. It's costing more than I expected, somewhere around 160EUR = 250CAD. Ouch.
From here, I'm going cycling. I'll start in Sweden, meet up with Steve in Copenhagen, and then we make our way to Paris. I'm still not sure who I'm visiting along the way, but I've made a couple of connections.
The whole departure from Oulu has been very subdued. Most of the people I was closest with are long gone. The last couple weeks have been spent focused on wrapping things up, particularly at work. "With not a bang, but a whisper," or something like that.
Times like these always give me a sense of sadness; it's hard for me to see the details of the good things in my future, and it's easy for me to see all the things I didn't do while I was here. The consequences of my course failure were very unfortunate, and meant that I didn't get as much out of my time in Europe as I might have. I'm sure I'll find upsides later on, but for now it seems like a pretty big consequence. Could have been worse, though.
I'm looking forward to get back to Canada. I'm not overly eager to leave, but I'm ready to leave. Everything seems to be in a fairly good balance, under the circumstances. I've had my time here, learned, grew, met more people from more cultures than I ever have, and on many occasions thoroughly enjoyed myself in ways or situations that I wouldn't in Canada, where I can be more picky about things.
So, that's where I'm at. Moving on. I'll try to post things as I cycle, but I make no guarantees. Of course, they won't be in the /travel/finland category, but the /travel/cycling category.
I've also been very bad with emailing lately. I'm sorry about that, but it had to take a backburner while I tried to get my project done. I look forward very much to seeing all the people that I haven't seen in a long time, and hope my lack of emails and phonecalls hasn't pissed anyone off too much. :-)
And so ends the last (?) entry from Finland.
/travel/cycling/Joint Trouble In Amsterdam
So, this evening Steve and I pulled into Amsterdam. I was cycling only with my left leg for the last 25km. Earlier this afternoon, after deciding (wrongly!) to push my knees a little bit farther than I had in the past, there was a very sudden shooting pain. Apparently this was accompanied by a sound that Steve thought was a branch breaking, but I don't remember that.
So my right knee is okay for walking, but if I step too hard it hurts. And it's not at all okay for cycling. We've got a hostel in Amsterdam tonight, but this may end up being the end of the road for me. Probably not; hopefully tomorrow everything's okay, and I can just take it easy a bit, but right now my hopes are a bit low, though my spirits are fine.
Steve and I have been doing well, though. His ankles are getting better slowly and a bit erratically. From Luebeck we did 80km or so to Hamburg. The first place we tried was full up, but they made a suggestion for us. This turned out to be in/on Reeperbahn, which is Hamburg's "Red Light District". Suffice to say it was an interesting walk to and from the hotel. Cheap, though, and plenty clean and stuff.
From there, we caught a train to Muenster and caught up with Tessa, another friend from my time in Oulu. It was nice, but fairly brief. The next day we hit Holland, and then we had today. My trip-meter rolled over at 1000km, but I'm somewhere around 1150km right now. Not too shabby if it does end here, but lots more I'd like to see.
Steve and I are taking notes about every day (especially after I lost our notes after the Rockies last year -- in my defense, they were on a napkin, and thus easily confused for garbage) so I'll probably write several more little stories when I have internet access and the notes beside me.
We also watched the final of the Eurocup '04 football match - Greece 1, Portugal 0. Pretty surprising.
So yeah. Stuff is okay , but a bit up in the air right now. Gotta go find some grub...this internet cafe is hugely hot.
/travel/finland/Wrapping Things Up
Argh. When I got my Visa card, they told me I needed to wait 6 months before I could get the credit limit upped from its current piddly 500CAD. I'm sure they mentioned it, but apparently it has to be "active" for 6 months. Now, I don't need my credit card every month. And if you let it sit for a month, your time gets reset.
To add to the frustration, you can allegedly call collect to one of the Visa numbers. I don't know how to call collect from Finland, so I tried to use Canada Direct. It asked me for my long distance provider in Canada, which I don't have. So I pressed 0, and got a very curmudgeony woman who very quickly got frustrated and assumed I was stupid. It turns out you just have to pick Bell Canada, and then select a collect call. But then the Visa robot and the Collect Call robot just yell at each other.
In other news, I got my biked tuned up at Pyörä Sauvola. Nothing quite so pleasant as a freshly tuned up bike. Got new racks, new treads, a toolkit, and some other miscellanies. They were friendly, helpful, and gave me a fairly decent "discount" without discussion. That seems to be the way in Finland, when you buy a bunch of stuff. They did a good job. I also closed my bank account today, and sent some money home to be spent on my upcoming cycling. It cost 16EUR to transfer the money in one week, and was otherwise quite painless. Nordea Pankki did much better than HSBC last year.
Shipping my skis home would cost about 300EUR with Fedex. Can't ship them with the Posti since they're too long. Not sure what I'm going to do with them yet -- one option is to ask one of the Canadians here very nicely to courier them.
I saw The Day After Tomorrow yesterday. It was grand, largely because I haven't seen a movie in cinemas for a long time. It was only 5EUR; apparently Thursday is Cheap Night.
I'm reading The Da Vinci Code. It's not so much good as it is addictive.
There are still many errands to be run. I need to pack and ship some stuff, buy fuel for my campstove, etc. And I want to finish my project here, so I leave them with something useful.
/travel/*Pow* And suddently you're in Dublin...
Europe is neat. Drop a few Euro, and the keyboard go back to normal, they start speaking a language you understand (most of the time), and they drive on the left.
So I'm in Dublin. I decided to shorten my cycling and extend my time in Dublin for reasons obvious to those who know and guessable to those who don't. Besides the obvious, cycling also doesn't really leave one feeling like one's had a nice relaxed vacation, so I figured I'd take the opportunity.
This is the third (Stockholm, Amsterdam) major city that I've been in more than once, and I think it's a sign I need to start traveling outside of safe happy northern Europe. But for now it's a welcome change; civilization is nice. I spent about 150EUR (250CAD) to restore my wardrobe since I threw out many ratty clothes in Finland and cycled with only one set of "civvies" which consist of a rather grubby pair of shorts and a rather stretched tshirt.
The end tally of the cycling was something just over 1500km, 24 days start to finish, one accident, one minor injury, more concentrated time with a single individual than I've ever experienced since I was in the fetal position for around nine months, and a general sense of success.
The flight over was relatively uneventful, but getting my bike packed up was not the painless process that the Aer Lingus customer service representative lead me to believe it to be -- It was, however, the moderately annoying process I've grown to expect it to be.
In a couple days, once it's settled in a bit more, I'll probably write down some more general thoughts about the different countries, but for now I'm going to wallow in the luxury of having both shorts *and* trousers (the Irish dialect is settling in already) close at hand.
/travel/cycling/Lübeck is only an accident away!
(Lest you're short on time and concerned by the title, there were no injuries, and we got there fine.)
So I'm in Lübeck. Yesterday, Steve and I were cycling through the evening on some very beautiful German roads. They were essentially single lane roads, but there were very few cars. We were cruising along quite quickly when I passed a roadsign that I thought indicated that we were headed for a town that we had already been through. Since the road was quite wide, I slammed on my brakes. I heard Steve yell "Woah!" from behind me, as he had chosen that moment to read the sign and didn't notice my rapid deceleration. I was also sort of turned to see what he was yelling about. So he hit my tire. Bit of a bump, but no injuries.
Except...the bike.
My back tire was unrideable. It wasn't bent much, but too much, especially with the extra weight of the gear. Neither Steve nor I knew how to true a tire, but he knew a bit and we worked it out, and after half an hour of fiddling, it seemed rideable. I rode on, but it bent more. If we took off the back brakes, the bike would still go, so I ran with it for about 5km. Towards the end of this, we flagged down one man to ask for a cell phone ("haben Sie ein handi?"), but he didn't. Then we hit a house with some people in the backyard, and asked to use their phone to call Johanna, our erstwhile destination for the evening. I called her, told her we weren't going to make it. Then he asked what was wrong, and once it was explained ("alle ist klär" (?)) and sort of took over and loosened my break so it wasn't rubbing anymore.
We piled all the weight on Steve's bike (..which was bad since Steve's ankles have been bothering him a bit...) and I rode with my weight as forward as it could be. Once we got to the next real town (Ahrenbök), we tried and failed to find an open bikeshop -- unlikely at 20:45 in a small town -- and then decided to ride onwards to Lübeck.
In the end, we got here safe and sound. Spent a nice day around Lübeck today, seeing their Holstentour (sp?) which is the old and very massive and impressive town gate, and going up a church tower. Tonight we're making a big lasagna meal with Johanna and her two roommates and Andrea (another girl I know from Finland) and her boyfriend.
In other news, crossing the Danish-German border was no problem...there was essentially nothing there. Euros are great; I'm very glad to be done with the various Kroners and back to a currency that I know fairly intuitively.
The weather and wind have been much better in Germany. One of our campgrounds was right by a military base, and we were woken up at 08:00 to a helicopter taking off. Lots of pizza, falafels, and veggie burgers. Lots of checking the maps and signs for me, and following his gut for Steve -- sometimes with conflicting results. We're getting along well, though, and the accident was a good test of how we dealt with more-than-arguing-about-directions stress.
I have 800km under my belt since Peter dropped me off in Sweden, of which about 330km are since Copenhagen. Soon we're probably heading to Münster with a probable pause in Hamburg (which all the Germans say that we simply must see) and then probably up to Groningen and then along the coast for a while.
I heard the news about the election results on a German radio station; obviously I didn't understand it all, but it I got the basics. Personally, I think the results could have been a lot worse.
Anyway, having a blast, learning lots more German, getting some excellent, beautiful cycling done...but now it's time to make some lasagne.
Happy Canada Day! (And you thought I forgot! Pah!)
/meta/Partial Recovery
Well, I've got some of it back. Many old entries are there, minus links and other formatting, and anything that used to have a "Continued..." link is still gone.
There's still dwindling hope that my ISP will bother to recover the files that they lost, but that seems unlikely.
Comments and stuff will be back soon. The navigation system is there again, mostly. Once I think everything's back to normal I'll let you know and you can criticize appropriately.
Comments
Rob wrote
Comments are working again!
Julia wrote
wiki no worky.
Josh wrote
Where did you find this stuff?
Rob wrote
Someone used a blog aggregator to use my blog, that had the entries cached, minus HTML and anything behind a "continued.." link.
Wiki sucky. Fixy latery.
Tony wrote
Have you devised a backup system to prevent this from recurring?
Rob wrote
Backups are for weenies.
;-)
A backup system is being devised.
/travel/cycling/Ferries and Dikes in Holland; Rain rain rain in Belgium
Its been a while. Internet access is surprisingly hard to come by around here. Im in Brussels on a very strange keyboard layout (AZERTY) so youll have to excuse my mistakes. Im slowly getting used to it, but it doesnt help that the keycaps are inaccurate too.
First and foremost, my knees are doing just fine. Weve been doing much easier days in general...Our longest since Amsterdam was 105km, but the rest have been less than 80km, I think. Taking it gently, and theres been pretty minimal pain. Weve been cycling for eight straight days, and we havent had a room since Amsterdam.
After Amsterdam, we wandered through the lowlands of Holland, through Gouda (yes, the cheese), and eventually into Belgium to Hoegaarden (yes, the beer). We cycled along canals, passed windmills, over and on dikes, and eventually reached Belgium, where it immediately started to rain. Its been raining every few hours since then.
When we got to Hoegaarden, it was about 21:30. We had no place to stay, and the hostel we had expected to find in the previous larger town no longer existed. We asked at the first pub we saw open, and it turned out that there was a big festival in the town that weekend, just for us! The local youth group showed us a place where we could camp, on space owned by the local church. We set up tent, then went back to join the festivities. It was a really fun night, and the Belgians that we met were very friendly and helpful; one even tried to set us up with a place to stay in Brussels, but that connection ultimately failed.
The food has been excellent, but Atkins would be saddened by our carb-rich diet; bakeries have become our standard fare to avoid eating out so much. Weve also had Frites (essentially french fries, but with a bit more TLC than the McDonalds variety) several times, though the last time we bought them I had the presence of mind to ask what kind of oil they were fried in. "Grease" came the reply with a touch of pride...No more frites for me. Theyre terribly unhealthy anyway.
Brussels is both beautiful and pricey; it reminds me a bit of Stockholm for that.
The cycling has been mostly enjoyable, though the lack of a warm room and decent shower was getting annoying -- in Hoegaarden we scrubbed down with cold tap water in a rundown washroom they said we could use. Fun fun fun.
Not sure where from here...Time will tell. We booked the hostel (two-bed room, so its essentially a hotel) for tonight as well, and both Steve and I have much internetting to catch up on.
The Hoegaarden Brewery tour had some Irishy music at the end...it ,ade ,e ho,esick for Great Big Sea.
Oh yeah...If anyone knows of a place for me to live September to January in Ottawa, preferably in the West of Gloucester or Downtown, please let me know...
Miss home, miss yall, but having a good time to be sure. Hopefully Ill be able to update a bit more often from here on out.
/travel/cycling/Sweden and Copenhagen
Gotta be quick...paying internet access by the minutes.
Currently in Copenhagen. Did about 300km in Sweden, leaving from Värnamo where i got dropped off, cycling down to Malmö, and then catching a train across the giant bridge to Copenhagen.
Along the way, I got four ticks, and thus sampled the Swedish medical system. It was effective and fairly quick, and cost me about 30CAD to see a nurse. that should be covered under insurance, but I'll have to take care of it later.
I also lost my map, on which I was keeping a journal. I dedcided to backtrack to the gas station where I thought I had left it. After 8km of backtracking, iI stopped to stanck on a can of beans. About halfway through, a car honked at me. About 3 minutes later, it started to hail. Big hail, about 6 or 7mm in diameter. Lunder and thightening, too. it was the first time i've been hailed on while cycling. The weather has been pretty shitty all around, though my last day of cycling in Sweden was truly gorgeous, with nice views and a tailwind most of the time, and quaint little backroads that let me see the countryside proeprly.
The night before that I stopped in a little campground and stayed in a room there -- most of the campgrounds have a couple hostel-style rooms where you can stay. It was quite pleasant, and the Swedes were very helpful and friendly. I went to a local pub for some pizza for dinner, and ended up chatting with the bartender there for a while; she was a very friendly swedish girl, and we watched the first half of the Denmark vs. Sweden Eurocup match.
Heading out tomorrow, south towards Germany. Steve got here fine. Saw a castle today, pretty good. Copenhagen is expensive. Bumåed into a guy from PEI today. Strange, but friendly fellow.
Gotta jet. Sorry for the lack of proofreading.
/stuff/iRiver iFP 890t
I bought an iRiver iFP 890T MP3/WMA/OGG (i.e. "music") player. It's pretty small, takes one AA battery, does voice recordings and line-in recordings, has an FM radio, and acts as a USB storage device too. It was sent to Saskatoon, to be brought to me for my eurocycling trip. Hopefully it'll last me a few years. 180USD, from the manufacturer's website. Just in time, too, since my CD player is on its last legs.
