Budapest

All the photos from my European adventure are now on Flickr. In particular, Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest are the recent additions.

Vienna


Bratislava


Budapest

Prague

Some of the photos I took in Prague are now up on Flickr.

Running With The Bulls

Man partially paralyzed at bull festival [CNN]

Running with the bulls in Pamplona would be a crazy rush. But I don't think I'm crazy enough.

Viking

Flickr

I created a Flick Account for myself. I've posted photos and commentary from the London lag of my vacation. I plan to add photos from more cities as time permits.

Vacation

I'm back from my (second) great European adventure. I started with a visit to my cousin Michael and his girlfriend Katie in London then travelled around Zealand/Øresund in Denmark and Sweden (i.e. Copenhagen). Afterward I went on the Berlin to Budapest Contiki tour (that also included intermediate stops in Prague and Vienna).

It was a lot of travelling (14 towns and cities in 8 countries, 6 airports, 6 train stations, 2 boats, well over 100 km of walking, and far too many buses, subways, and taxis to count), but I had a great time and so many unforgettable experiences - an English picnic in Hampstead Heath, sailing a Viking ship across a fjord, visiting the Tivoli amusement park, World Cup parties in Berlin, enjoying plum wine with friends in an open-air cafe on Prague's Old Town Square, cruising down the Vltava River, riding the famous Prater ferris wheel, and relaxing in the Gellért Thermal Baths.

I'm always willing to try new food and drinks, especially while travelling - salmon carpaccio (oops, I thought it was going to be cooked!) smoked eel smørrebrød (interesting...and I learned that the point and pick method of choosing food can yield some unexpected choices!), a giant pork knuckle with a 1 litre beer mug in Berlin (this meal can only be described as 'massive'), Sacher Torte chocolate cake at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna (very yummy), and a shot of absinthe ("Prost" to the 'green fairy'). And of course, I would be remiss if I did not have a 'Danish' pastry (weinerbrød) in Denmark!

I visited a lot of churches including Vor Frue Kirke with Thorvaldsen's beautiful marble statues of Jesus and the twelve Apostles, the ornate Berliner Dom, the singular Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächniskirche (the shattered bell tower is all the survived World War II), the beautifully rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche, and St. Vitus in Prague Castle.

Of course, I also stopped at museums (e.g. HMS Belfast on the Thames, the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, and the famous Pergamon in Berlin), as well as palaces and castles (e.g. Kronborg Slot, Christiansborg, Prague Castle, the giant Schönbrunn (summer) and Hofburg (winter) palaces in Vienna).

The sights - Charles Bridge, the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag, Fernsehturm TV tower, etc. - and history - a walking tour through Berlin (e.g. Checkpoint Charlie, Bebelplatz book burning commemoration, etc.) as well as the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and the Berlin Wall, etc. - were also numerous.

With all that, somehow I also made it to three concerts! - The Red Hot Chili Peppers in Prague (awesome), a classical music concert in Vienna, Pink in Heroes' Square in Budapest.

Lastly, I should mention all the wonderful people I met - the friendly and polite Danes as well as all the great people and new friends from the tour.

I'll post pictures (with stories) once I have time to sort through all the photographs that I took.

Vacation Planning

In my spare time I've been slowly perusing info about Europe. I'd like to visit there again for my next vacation. When I visited there two years ago, I didn't make it to Scandinavia so I'd like to spend some time in Denmark (in and around Copenhagen) with maybe a short detour to Sweden (e.g. a day in Malmo). I'll probably spent a few days in London too because my cousin lives there. But I'm not too sure what else to do. (The "masterplan" is to go for about three weeks).

A few of my ideas are:

• Scotland (or the UK in general).
• Stop for a few days in various places between London and Copenhagen, such as Paris, Brussels/Brugge, or Amsterdam.
• Spend about a week in Berlin, or some other part of Germany.
• Tour a few places in Eastern Europe such as Budapest or Prague.
  

Like Denmark, Scotland is another place I'd like to visit, but didn't make it to on my earlier trip. The pictures of the Scottish countryside are always so scenic. I'm not too sure what specific things there are to see and do though.

Stopping along the way between London and Copenhangen would be convenient and I don't think you can run out of things to see and do in Paris. However, I've visited Paris and Amsterdam (and London) before, so half of places on the trip would not be "new".

Last time, we only spent a day in Germany and it was in a village along the Rhine, so Germany would be "new" and I think there are lots of famous sights, museums, etc. in Berlin.

I haven't been to Eastern Europe before, so that idea is appealing. If I can't find anyone to go with (which seems likely), I would be tempted to go on a short tour of Eastern Europe. Contiki, has a few tours to choose from: Berlin - Prague (8 days), Berlin - Prague - Vienna (10 days), Berlin - Prague - Vienna - Budapest (12 days), as well as Berlin - Prague - Vienna - Budapest - Krakow - Warsaw - Berlin (14 days).

Any thoughts or suggestions?

To Do List

I can't believe that 2005 is almost over. With work being so crazy busy, I doubt I'll be able to do anything big outside of work before Christmas. So, here are some things that I want to do in 2006:

• Learn how to ski: I use to live where there was lots of snow, but no mountains. Now I live where there is no snow, but lots of mountains. So I should take the opportunity to go skiing at least once. I've only been downhill skiing once and that was when I was in grade six and on a ski hill. (Emphasis on hill). Last year there was little snow in the mountains, but this year is suppose to be a good winter. (Some of the ski resorts are open already).


• Visit Europe: I haven't really gone on vacation this year. My masterplan is to visit Europe again next year. Probably Copenhagen, London, and a couple other cities.


• Learn how to scuba dive: One of co-workers goes scuba diving and gives lessons once in a while. I should join one of his classes.


• Go to another chess tournament: It's been a while since I've played in a chess tournament. (Although I'm playing a game every week or two at work and doing well).


• Visit Crater Lake: I read that Crater Lake has the deepest blue water in the World. It's in eastern Oregon and I'd like to going camping and hiking there some weekend during the summer.

Round 2

Last night was the second round of the chess tournament that I'm in at the local chess club. Somehow I misplayed the opening and ended up at a slight disadvantage. There wasn't too much choice on what to do after that - I managed to force trading off lots of pieces to (more or less) equalize. The result was a fairly unclear endgame. I accepted a draw offer at that point as it seemed like a decent result. (Although, it probably would have been a good experience to play out the game and see what would happen).

I've finished posting all my photos from my trip to Europe. (While, technically that's not all the photos I took, but it's all the photos that I'm going to post here).

Camping

I'm back from my camping trip with my friends Darryl, Martin, and Austin at Ferris Provincial Park, which is outside Campbellford. (i.e. North of Trenton). But we had to drive to Kingston first to pick up Austin. It was a good weekend. We mostly spent it just hanging out, but we also did some fishing. I've never been fishing before. (Darryl and Martin were the fishers in the group). We caught a lot of small bass ("panfish"). Some of them we ate and some of them we threw back.

I've added photos from Florence, Pisa, and Monaco to my photos page over the past couple days. The only part of my Europe trip left to add is France. Afterward, I'll add some photos from my Convocation as well as from the camping trip.

Rome

Today I added photos from Rome I forgot to mention that yesterday I added photos from the Vatican. If I'm productive then tomorrow I'll add photos from Florence.

Lost In Translation

I rented the "Lost In Translation" DVD with my sister and brother-in-law last night. I had heard good things about it, but I found it slow and confusing, so I was disappointed.

I added some photos from Venice to my digital photo page. Only about 10 more places to go...

Busy, Busy

This has been a really busy weekend. Saturday was my convocation. (I'm now a graduate with a Bachelor of Mathematics - Honours Double Combinatorics and Optimization & Computer Science Cooperative Program With Distinction - Dean's Honours List...or something like that). I had a lot of fun seeing my various friends although the ceremony was a little long.

Saturday as dinner with various relatives and Sunday was lunch with various other relatives. e.g. My cousin (who is back from a year of teaching in Iraq) came down from Ottawa with his girlfriend. Sunday night I went out with friends who were in town for Convocation and Friday I went out with other friends who were also in town for Convocation.

On Friday, we saw the movie Supersize Me. I thought it was really good. It is a documentary about a guy who eats nothing but McDonald's for a month. However, it is much more sophisticated than that. Rather than bashing McDonald's, it examines the state of people's health (wrt exercise and diet) in the US. He travels around interviewing various people, e.g. a law professor involved with law suits against McDonald's, a lobbyist for the food industry, a very obese guy who was getting his stomach stapled, the 3 doctors and 1 nutritionist who supervised him, etc. I'd recommend seeing it.

Tomorrow I'm planning on going to a talk at the Fields Institute in Toronto.

I also posted some photos from Liechtenstein and Austria on my digital photo page. Eventually I'll finish adding photos from my trip to Europe and then I'll add some from Convocation.

Switzerland

I've added 14 photos from Switzerland.

More Photos

I put up photos from the Netherlands and Germany.

London

I'm still organizing all the photos I took in Europe. I've selected some from London and added commentary. You can find links to them from my digital photo page. I'll add photos from the rest of my trip over the next week or two.

I haven't really been up to anything exciting since I've returned. Convocation is Saturday. I'm hoping to go camping during the long weekend, but we are poorly organized. I heard that (another) one of my friends was hired by Microsoft and is going to move to Seattle. So I'll know at least one more person when I get there!

Back From Europe

I'm back from my 22-day 11-country trip to Europe. I had a really awesome time! I'll post my details later. Right now I'm just tired, jet-lagged and busy trying to catch up on stuff...

London

I'm in london (england)! It's very cool. Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben. etc. I want to go to the Natural History Museum today. Tomorrow the tour starts and I'll be on my way to Amsterdam. My Internet time is almost up...

Europe

Twenty-four hours from now I should be in Gatwick if all goes well. I'm off to Europe for 3 weeks. England, France, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. Plus Liechtenstein, Monaco, and maybe the Vatican City if you want to count those as countries. Plus driving through Belgium. I'm not sure how often I'll have Internet access, so don't expect me to send e-mails or post updates too frequently, if at all.

Kronborg Castle

When the school term is over I want to travel in Europe for 3-4 weeks. I haven't really planned much though. I want to go to England, France, Denmark, Germany, and maybe Scotland and Italy.

Kronborg Castle is one of the cool sounded places that I'd like to visit. It is 45 minutes north of Copenhagen or so, in Elsinore (Helsingør). The castle was build over 400 years ago ago to protect the sound between Denmark and Sweden (although there were fortifications at the site since the 1400s). Among the castle's claims to fame is that it is where Shakespeare's Hamlet takes place.