Date: June 30, 2008
Location: The Neva River
Lat: 60° 10.32N Long: 027° 50.32E
Well we’re pretty much right here now. We’re real close to Russia. Speaking of which, I couldn’t be happier that Russia day is finally over. While we don’t have class, we did have an abundance of briefings. I can pretty much condense 5 hours of which down into one simple sentence: “Don’t do anything stupid.” The briefs were disgustingly repetitive. I sincerely doubt that Saint Petersburg is any worse than any major city, especially in the tourist areas. It’s not like America is a glistening paradise free of pick-pockets.
However, there were some interesting things to be gleaned from the meetings. Apparently gypsies are a big problem. Apparently what happens is this gypsy ladies and their entourage of little kids serve as a pick-pocket dream team. What happens is that after the momma gypsy spots a mark, she’ll make a bee-line for the target with her little criminal posse in tow. The kids will then move up on the target and will start grabbing them and the little gypsy hands weave their way into pockets pulling wallets out. Also, apparently the gypsies hypnotize people too, sounds like people to watch for.
Another thing is that you are not allowed to take photos of the subway system. While this is not a big loss in the Washington Metro where all you’ll miss is ugly grey concrete arches; the Communists, in an effort to show Russia’s splendor spent a lot of funds decorating their subway system so they are works of art.
We were also told some other important lessons. One such example is the Russian drunk tanks are not very welcoming places. If the police find you passed out somewhere, they’ll take you to the drunk tank. After you’ve arrived, you’re stripped and thrown into a freezing cold shower. After that pleasant experience you’re moved onto the hold, this is a frigid room full of other cold, wet, naked drunks. I think I’ll pass on seeing this bit of Russian culture.
Saint Petersburg was built on a swamp. This led to the city being a city of islands and canals, at night the bridges between these open to allow shipping through. Outside of a 15 minute window, one can easily be stranded on the wrong side of the river for most of the night. I guess the bright side of this is that this is during the white nights period in Saint Petersburg. This means that it stays light out around the clock.
The field programs division of the program usually puts on a pretty fun presentation to get everyone pumped up for the country we’re about to dock at. The theme for this port’s presentation was James Bond. The director of the office came out in a suit coat and started dancing around; all while laser lights flashed and the James Bond theme played. The theme was then extended while Captain Kingston’s father, who is a Brit, played the part of Q and gave us a talk about the logistics of things, all while keeping the spy theme up. Such as saying our green sheets (these things are full of vital information, such as where the ship is docked, the exchange rate, when field trips leave, numbers to call if we’re in trouble, etc.) will self-destruct in five days and we will be issued new ones when we make our next port call. It was all in good fun.
It’s real surprising how many northern Virginians are on the ship. One of my friends was a graduate from Jenny’s Alma Mater, Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology. I just found out another friend is from Mount Vernon, amongst many others. I guess it’s a small world after all, though I don’t know how much I believe that considering it took a European “voyage of discovery” (we’ve been discouraged from calling Semester at Sea a “cruise”) to unite us.
Apparently the good ship M/V Explorer should be passing some sort of Ship graveyard at 0530 so I’m going to go sack out so I can get up to see that. Early mornings are the best...
Monday, June 30, 2008
Speeding toward Russia
Date: June 29, 2008
Location: The Baltic Sea
Lat: 57° 53.9N Long: 020° 2.65E
I suppose I have to make up for some lost time. It’s hard to motivate yourself to write about the same story each day at sea. Pretty much it’s been more of the same. The food’s been the same, some type of fish (maybe with some mangos on top as a treat), some pasta (maybe with a few carrots thrown in here and there), and salad (but what will the dressing be, ranch or maybe peppercorn ranch?). I suppose that comes off as a bit harsh. The food’s not bad, I don’t mind it too much, and at least I don’t complain about it all the time like some of my friends do.
Of course we have classes too, lots of class. However, at least those seem to be going really well. I got a quiz back which I got a 13/15 on. I guess it helped that the professor accepted German Soldier #1 as a character from a play we read when I drew a blank. All the same, I’ll take the grade. Also I took a quiz on the Russian economy; I think it went pretty well.
I suppose Russia’s not a very complicated to place to understand. All its problems are rooted in both location and geography. Russia lacks resources, for example, their best farm land doesn’t get any rain, yet their worst farmland, which is all acidic due to the decay of pine needles, gets buckets dumped on it. Plus the serfdom system served to make Russia unable to compete with the industrialization of Europe. Ironically, Russia used to be the big kid on the block, its troops had marched through Paris after beating back Napoleon, yet after the industrialization of Europe, Russia became a backward footnote. Since then, Russia has strived to make up ground with Europe, however, state initiated reforms from the autocrat or the strongman of the day weren’t able to really make up the ground necessary to compete. I suppose I could go on with this, but it’s a journal, not a paper.
Intramurals have started on the ship. I’m on both a basketball and volleyball team. Unfortunately both of my teams are 0-1. We’ll get back into it. However, we aren’t exactly playing in a palace of athletics. The ship’s motion obviously impacts the game, not to mention the wind speed moving down the deck makes sinking shots in basketball pretty tough. Also equipment problems linger, for example, the volleyball is atrociously flat, and this is compounded by the fact that the pump to fill up said balls is also flat. The basketball is a new one; unfortunately it’s a woman’s sized ball so it’s a bit different. At least the ball doesn’t have huge lumps in it like the balls the new one replaced. Either way, we lost.
We have a pretty long day of meetings tomorrow about Russia. There are a series of talks about both the language, logistics of getting off the ship in Russia, and other matters. They are usually real helpful to go see, plus Russians as a whole have always had something of a xenophobic fear of outsiders, which may complicate things for us. I’m really looking forward to getting off the boat again, at least there are no classes tomorrow!
Location: The Baltic Sea
Lat: 57° 53.9N Long: 020° 2.65E
I suppose I have to make up for some lost time. It’s hard to motivate yourself to write about the same story each day at sea. Pretty much it’s been more of the same. The food’s been the same, some type of fish (maybe with some mangos on top as a treat), some pasta (maybe with a few carrots thrown in here and there), and salad (but what will the dressing be, ranch or maybe peppercorn ranch?). I suppose that comes off as a bit harsh. The food’s not bad, I don’t mind it too much, and at least I don’t complain about it all the time like some of my friends do.
Of course we have classes too, lots of class. However, at least those seem to be going really well. I got a quiz back which I got a 13/15 on. I guess it helped that the professor accepted German Soldier #1 as a character from a play we read when I drew a blank. All the same, I’ll take the grade. Also I took a quiz on the Russian economy; I think it went pretty well.
I suppose Russia’s not a very complicated to place to understand. All its problems are rooted in both location and geography. Russia lacks resources, for example, their best farm land doesn’t get any rain, yet their worst farmland, which is all acidic due to the decay of pine needles, gets buckets dumped on it. Plus the serfdom system served to make Russia unable to compete with the industrialization of Europe. Ironically, Russia used to be the big kid on the block, its troops had marched through Paris after beating back Napoleon, yet after the industrialization of Europe, Russia became a backward footnote. Since then, Russia has strived to make up ground with Europe, however, state initiated reforms from the autocrat or the strongman of the day weren’t able to really make up the ground necessary to compete. I suppose I could go on with this, but it’s a journal, not a paper.
Intramurals have started on the ship. I’m on both a basketball and volleyball team. Unfortunately both of my teams are 0-1. We’ll get back into it. However, we aren’t exactly playing in a palace of athletics. The ship’s motion obviously impacts the game, not to mention the wind speed moving down the deck makes sinking shots in basketball pretty tough. Also equipment problems linger, for example, the volleyball is atrociously flat, and this is compounded by the fact that the pump to fill up said balls is also flat. The basketball is a new one; unfortunately it’s a woman’s sized ball so it’s a bit different. At least the ball doesn’t have huge lumps in it like the balls the new one replaced. Either way, we lost.
We have a pretty long day of meetings tomorrow about Russia. There are a series of talks about both the language, logistics of getting off the ship in Russia, and other matters. They are usually real helpful to go see, plus Russians as a whole have always had something of a xenophobic fear of outsiders, which may complicate things for us. I’m really looking forward to getting off the boat again, at least there are no classes tomorrow!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Norway: The full report
Date: June 26, 2008
Location: Bergen, Oslo, Voss, and back to Bergen, Norway
Lat: 60° 24.09N Long: 005° 18.49E
Well, I’m finally back. That sure was a fun trip. It seems like we really did get to see the best parts of Norway. It’s real hard to remember everything we saw, but I’ll try my best.
First we boarded a night-train in Bergen. This was a good time as pretty much everyone on board laughed and joked around. We saw some great views of the Norwegian countryside, but that became a common theme of the trip. A funny thing happened, one of the windows on the other side of the train from the people I was hanging out with fell open in the middle of the train, the guys over there flipped as they had no idea what was going on. They tried to jury-rig a repair, but they weren’t too successful. Eventually a conductor type guy came by and they tried to explain the problem and he whipped out this little screw that shut the window tightly, kind of made me laugh how easy the solution was.
The beds were real comfortable. However, the beds are not made up the same way as they are in the US. In America you have you comforter on top and the other sheets laid down progressively. In Norway, it’s different. The comforter and the sheets are folded three ways on the y-axis, making something of a hotdog shape. This is laid down in the middle of the bed and then a small sheet, sort of like the size of a doormat is laid at the very end of the bed. This sounds real confusing, but it was pretty comfortable.
We were fed breakfast at the train station. The interesting thing about breakfast in Norway is that it seems to pretty much be cold-cut sandwiches. You have a selection of bread, meat, and various cheeses. This is accompanied by hard-boiled eggs and orange juice. I’m not sure if this was cheap fare, or if it is a cultural standard, but it was certainly different from the standard, milk and cereal, or maybe pancakes if you feel like doing some work in the morning.
After we got to Oslo we started a grand tour of the city. Our first stop was at the Vigeland Sculpture Park. This place was pretty odd, the park has 212 bronze and granite statues, of these 212, and only 3 have clothes on. Perhaps the oddest part of this place was the Monolith. This is a 46 foot tall pillar of naked people. Apparently it is supposed to symbolize man’s desire to be closer to the divine. I laughed at it and got a picture of me with it.
After we moved on from the Park, we then visited the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. This was used when Oslo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1952. I’ve always been impressed by ski-jumping. I guess it’s probably a bit more impressive on TV when it looks like the jumpers are birds floating miles above the ground. However, it was still neat to see how the ski jump looks. At the bottom of the jump, there’s a large amphitheatre style seating. The pit made by these seats is filled with water where people can swim in the summer. Apparently, there’s some controversy about the Holmenkollen. It does not meet the standards of the sanctioning bodies, so Norway is planning to demolish it and build a new one. I guess it’s kind of sad because it’s the second oldest, continuously operating ski jump. Oh well, if it doesn’t meet standards, it doesn’t meet them.
From the Holmenkollen we went to the Viking Ship Museum. This was real amazing. The museum has three Viking ships. Two of these are amazingly well preserved. The beautiful ivy work on the prow of the ships is still intact. However, the third one is a complete mess. The two well preserved ships were saved because they were buried in clay that created a hermetic seal. Apparently the Vikings buried their ships as a kind of tribute to their chieftains or other important people. The other ship was not buried in clay, so air was able to get in and leave only the keel and a few other timbers. It’s real humbling to observe these beacons of a culture that is more than a thousand years old. Geeze, the age of these things is staggering, it makes our Constitution look like it is still diapers.
After the ship museum, we all checked into our hotel. Our hotel was real nice. It had a balcony with a great view of the city. The hotel had some funny things too. Of course the beds were made in the same, weird, Norwegian way. However, I guess that’s standard here so I wasn’t too surprised. They also had a heated towel rack. This thing was awesome! It’s a real great idea, it’s so sweet to step out of the shower and have a warm towel waiting for you. Speaking of the shower, this was the odd thing. There wasn’t a shower curtain; instead there was a pane of clear glass that went about halfway back to the middle of the tub, leaving half of the shower exposed to the air. Of course actually figuring out how to work the shower was a nightmare. Usually figuring out how hotel showers work is hard enough in the States, but this was a different animal all-together. I did eventually get it to work, so I could enjoy the nice warm towel.
After we checked into the hotel we were allowed to wander around Oslo until we met up for dinner. I sure got a lot out of my wanderings. I headed out with a group of people and we sure saw a ton of things. The hotel was located near the U.S. Embassy so we walked by there, it was nice to see Old Glory flying and a little piece of sovereign U.S. soil. The Embassy was kind of a scary building; it was black with many angles. It almost looked like Sauron’s tower from The Lord of the Rings.
However, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself; we first went down to the waterfront. This was a pretty posh area of Oslo. There were tons of ritzy shops and things. It had an absolutely gorgeous view. There was also some fascinating architecture too. A lot of the apartment buildings had very large windows, or sun rooms where the spiral staircases, I guess it’s probably to let the sun in and helps warm the buildings up.
We also wandered by a lot of high-rise buildings. An interesting thing here was that the buildings had advertisements on them. Not like billboards, but like the company logo, like Lexus, Turtle Wax, Hewlett Packard, and others. It’s something you don’t see in America.
We also went by the Norwegian Royal Palace which was real pretty. Norwegian buildings are usually a vast panorama of color. This was a king of custard yellow that was real nice. There were also guards, obviously, dressed in traditional uniforms. Well, maybe they were traditional uniforms, sometimes it’s hard to tell, but they had bowler shaped hats with a big plume coming off the side. I enjoy the contrast of these uniforms that look like they could come from the 1800s yet the soldiers are carrying modern assault rifles. Another interesting thing is that the Norwegian soldiers swung their arms up as they marched to almost shoulder height. It was sure different than how our boys march. There was probably around 15 or so total guards, so I guess that’s probably near half of the Norwegian army.
From the Royal palace, we walked by the Parliament and the Hard Rock Café. I stopped in to get the standard t-shirt. The Interesting thing was the lack of security at the Parliament. At the Capitol back home, there’s an obvious security presence, yet in Norway, it was far more subdued.
Moving on, we went to the National Gallery of Norway to get our high culture in. The gallery was full of beautiful paintings. There was some Van Gogh, Matisse, Monet, and of course Edvard Munch. There were a lot of paintings that I really enjoyed. Perhaps my favorite was Arbo’s Åsgårdsreien. This painting depicts Odin and the Valkeryies riding over a battlefield with a mass of mangled bodies below. To the right, there is a ray of sunlight, depicting optimism for the future, despite the fog and carnage below...wow, I can’t believe I just said that, where’s my beret?
Seeing Edvard Munch’s paintings, such as the obligatory Scream as well as his other famous paintings: such as Madonna, The Dance of Life, and Self-Portrait with Burning Cigarette, was quite enjoyable. After the National Gallery, we moved to Norway’s museum of History and Culture. There were many neat things in the museum, such as Viking drinking horns, and classical stonework from the Roman and Greek days. An interesting thing was that the ancient stonework was extremely close and one could even touch it. It’s kind of humbling to feel the stonework that was worked on by the ancients. Of course in the US everything is behind glass with lock and key. I guess it’s a different kind of mentality.
After all this was over we made it back to the hotel. We then went out to dinner. It was pretty good; we were fed steak with a wonderful sauce. Afterwards, I went out to watch the football game between Turkey and Germany for the UEFA. Oslo was sort of disappointing, I sort of expected there to be more nightlife. We eventually made our way to a bar called, The Scotsman. I thought it was kind of funny given we’re in Norway. I guess the concept of the "sportsbar" is not a huge part of Norwegian culture. A kind of funny thing happened; as we were wandering we passed by a street performer who was playing The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkle. It seemed kind of out of place in downtown Oslo.
We left and then found a huge open air area where they were screening the game. It was kind of like a beer garden type atmosphere. There were hordes of people supporting Germany, but oddly enough there were plenty of people rooting for the Turks. I guess it’s because Norway is attracting a large amount of immigrants due to the welfare system, as well as the money with the oilfields. Things got rowdy with lots of yelling and shouting between the two fans. Nothing violent broke out, but it seemed more subdued than I expected.
We then went back to the hotel and sacked out. We had a real early morning; we had to be moving to the trains by 0545. Interestingly enough, the wakeup call wasn’t a phone call; instead the radios on the televisions were turned on automatically. This wasn’t all that effective, but we took off for the fjords.
We took a scenic, slow train to get out there. We passed the most beautiful scenery. We saw so many beautiful waterfalls and cliffs, it’s so hard to put their beauty into words, good thing I have tons of photos. It is kind of funny, it seems like all of Norwegian legends involve things trying to trick people. Like trolls, which are everywhere in Norway, can change shape, but they always have their tails. The Norwegians also have another legend about a beautiful lady who lives in the forest whose beautiful voice and body lure young men to their deaths as they are never seen again, but she also has a tail, so one should watch for it. It seems kind of odd, but at one point we stopped by a waterfall and to play on the legend a lady pranced out and started twirling around in the distance while nice singing played. I didn’t notice a tail, but I still stayed clear.
After the train ride to the fjords, we had lunch. There was a wide assortment of various meat and salmon. I didn’t realize it at the time but apparently I had cow tongue and reindeer. I probably swore I’d never eat tongue, but it was pretty good, and the reindeer was nice too. We then moved onto the fjord tour where we boarded a boat which took us around the fjords. The fjords are absolutely beautiful, the sheer cliff faces, juxtaposed with the water are stunning. There were also tons of waterfalls and plenty of greenery. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy with scattered rain, so it wasn’t as amazing as it could have been, but I was still very impressed. The kind of funny thing is how beautiful Norway is, it almost becomes routine. Like one becomes kind of jaded as they keep seeing all these waterfalls and cliffs, they get to be routine, yet anywhere else they would be magnificent, it’s almost boring when one looks at so many of them.
There was also a large group of Japanese tourists. I guess the Japanese love getting away from home because we saw an equally large group in Halifax. The annoying thing was that they kept feeding the seagulls. It’s real annoying when you have a Pulitzer prize winning photograph that would make Ansell Adams green with envy then all of a sudden a stupid seagull swoops in and destroys the image.
Eventually the tour ended and we started back to Bergen. We took a bit of a scenic detour going up an extremely steep road. There were 13 switchbacks to get up the steep face. I was impressed the buss could make it up; I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised; it was a Mercedes-Benz. Speaking of that, there are tons of real nice cars up here, such as a lot of Audis and other fancy machines.
We ended up going through the town of Voss. It was kind of nice seeing a smaller town. Voss is mostly built around tourism for its extreme sports, such as skiing, parasailing, and other fun things like that. We only stayed in Voss for like 30 minutes so there isn’t too much to say about that.
We eventually did make it back to the ship. It was sure great seeing so much beautiful scenery, though it was good to get back home.
Date: June 27, 2008
Location: The North Sea
Lat: 59° 41.98N Long: 004° 44.48E
Well, we are back at sea. The good ship M/V Explorer is hauling at 22 Knots. We’re on our way to our next port, which is Saint Petersburg. I’m real excited about that and I have quite the itinerary lined up. I’m going to be seeing Moscow, the Siege of Leningrad Battlefield, and will be seeing the city via the Neva River.
It’s good to get underway again. I had an absolute blast my last night in Bergen. I went out with some friends and we had a rip-roaring good time. Unfortunately, the prices are real rough. A Long Island ice tea will set you back 105 Kroner, with the exchange rate at around 5.16 NOK to 1 USD, that will set you back $20.35 per drink. I’m sure not going to miss the Norwegian Kroner and the prices here.
We got back pretty late, of course the sun was still out, but that’s to be expected in Norway. I woke up pretty late, but I was still able to get a bit more of Bergen in. Norway has some real neat food options. We didn’t know the Norwegian name, but we dubbed the product "the bacon-dog". This is a full length hot-dog wrapped in bacon. It is delicious. Another interesting thing is in Norway they have more than the standard Mustard and Ketchup, they have what they call, hot-dog dressing. This is essentially a garlic based sauce that was absolutely delicious on top of the bacon-dog. Norway also has a pizza dressing. It kind of looked like ranch, but I wasn’t sure, I didn’t have any. I also had a surge to drink, this soda was taken off the US market some years ago, and it was nice to have it again after so long being apart.
It sure stinks having to go back to school tomorrow. I have a quiz tomorrow, interestingly enough I saw my professor, who is giving this quiz, out at one of the clubs I was at, sure cracked me up. He’s a pretty young guy, like 25 or so, it’s not like old man winter was throwing back the brewskis.
I need to start getting ready for it, it’s pretty hard to believe that we’ll be in Saint Petersburg in a few days.
Location: Bergen, Oslo, Voss, and back to Bergen, Norway
Lat: 60° 24.09N Long: 005° 18.49E
Well, I’m finally back. That sure was a fun trip. It seems like we really did get to see the best parts of Norway. It’s real hard to remember everything we saw, but I’ll try my best.
First we boarded a night-train in Bergen. This was a good time as pretty much everyone on board laughed and joked around. We saw some great views of the Norwegian countryside, but that became a common theme of the trip. A funny thing happened, one of the windows on the other side of the train from the people I was hanging out with fell open in the middle of the train, the guys over there flipped as they had no idea what was going on. They tried to jury-rig a repair, but they weren’t too successful. Eventually a conductor type guy came by and they tried to explain the problem and he whipped out this little screw that shut the window tightly, kind of made me laugh how easy the solution was.
The beds were real comfortable. However, the beds are not made up the same way as they are in the US. In America you have you comforter on top and the other sheets laid down progressively. In Norway, it’s different. The comforter and the sheets are folded three ways on the y-axis, making something of a hotdog shape. This is laid down in the middle of the bed and then a small sheet, sort of like the size of a doormat is laid at the very end of the bed. This sounds real confusing, but it was pretty comfortable.
We were fed breakfast at the train station. The interesting thing about breakfast in Norway is that it seems to pretty much be cold-cut sandwiches. You have a selection of bread, meat, and various cheeses. This is accompanied by hard-boiled eggs and orange juice. I’m not sure if this was cheap fare, or if it is a cultural standard, but it was certainly different from the standard, milk and cereal, or maybe pancakes if you feel like doing some work in the morning.
After we got to Oslo we started a grand tour of the city. Our first stop was at the Vigeland Sculpture Park. This place was pretty odd, the park has 212 bronze and granite statues, of these 212, and only 3 have clothes on. Perhaps the oddest part of this place was the Monolith. This is a 46 foot tall pillar of naked people. Apparently it is supposed to symbolize man’s desire to be closer to the divine. I laughed at it and got a picture of me with it.
After we moved on from the Park, we then visited the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. This was used when Oslo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1952. I’ve always been impressed by ski-jumping. I guess it’s probably a bit more impressive on TV when it looks like the jumpers are birds floating miles above the ground. However, it was still neat to see how the ski jump looks. At the bottom of the jump, there’s a large amphitheatre style seating. The pit made by these seats is filled with water where people can swim in the summer. Apparently, there’s some controversy about the Holmenkollen. It does not meet the standards of the sanctioning bodies, so Norway is planning to demolish it and build a new one. I guess it’s kind of sad because it’s the second oldest, continuously operating ski jump. Oh well, if it doesn’t meet standards, it doesn’t meet them.
From the Holmenkollen we went to the Viking Ship Museum. This was real amazing. The museum has three Viking ships. Two of these are amazingly well preserved. The beautiful ivy work on the prow of the ships is still intact. However, the third one is a complete mess. The two well preserved ships were saved because they were buried in clay that created a hermetic seal. Apparently the Vikings buried their ships as a kind of tribute to their chieftains or other important people. The other ship was not buried in clay, so air was able to get in and leave only the keel and a few other timbers. It’s real humbling to observe these beacons of a culture that is more than a thousand years old. Geeze, the age of these things is staggering, it makes our Constitution look like it is still diapers.
After the ship museum, we all checked into our hotel. Our hotel was real nice. It had a balcony with a great view of the city. The hotel had some funny things too. Of course the beds were made in the same, weird, Norwegian way. However, I guess that’s standard here so I wasn’t too surprised. They also had a heated towel rack. This thing was awesome! It’s a real great idea, it’s so sweet to step out of the shower and have a warm towel waiting for you. Speaking of the shower, this was the odd thing. There wasn’t a shower curtain; instead there was a pane of clear glass that went about halfway back to the middle of the tub, leaving half of the shower exposed to the air. Of course actually figuring out how to work the shower was a nightmare. Usually figuring out how hotel showers work is hard enough in the States, but this was a different animal all-together. I did eventually get it to work, so I could enjoy the nice warm towel.
After we checked into the hotel we were allowed to wander around Oslo until we met up for dinner. I sure got a lot out of my wanderings. I headed out with a group of people and we sure saw a ton of things. The hotel was located near the U.S. Embassy so we walked by there, it was nice to see Old Glory flying and a little piece of sovereign U.S. soil. The Embassy was kind of a scary building; it was black with many angles. It almost looked like Sauron’s tower from The Lord of the Rings.
However, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself; we first went down to the waterfront. This was a pretty posh area of Oslo. There were tons of ritzy shops and things. It had an absolutely gorgeous view. There was also some fascinating architecture too. A lot of the apartment buildings had very large windows, or sun rooms where the spiral staircases, I guess it’s probably to let the sun in and helps warm the buildings up.
We also wandered by a lot of high-rise buildings. An interesting thing here was that the buildings had advertisements on them. Not like billboards, but like the company logo, like Lexus, Turtle Wax, Hewlett Packard, and others. It’s something you don’t see in America.
We also went by the Norwegian Royal Palace which was real pretty. Norwegian buildings are usually a vast panorama of color. This was a king of custard yellow that was real nice. There were also guards, obviously, dressed in traditional uniforms. Well, maybe they were traditional uniforms, sometimes it’s hard to tell, but they had bowler shaped hats with a big plume coming off the side. I enjoy the contrast of these uniforms that look like they could come from the 1800s yet the soldiers are carrying modern assault rifles. Another interesting thing is that the Norwegian soldiers swung their arms up as they marched to almost shoulder height. It was sure different than how our boys march. There was probably around 15 or so total guards, so I guess that’s probably near half of the Norwegian army.
From the Royal palace, we walked by the Parliament and the Hard Rock Café. I stopped in to get the standard t-shirt. The Interesting thing was the lack of security at the Parliament. At the Capitol back home, there’s an obvious security presence, yet in Norway, it was far more subdued.
Moving on, we went to the National Gallery of Norway to get our high culture in. The gallery was full of beautiful paintings. There was some Van Gogh, Matisse, Monet, and of course Edvard Munch. There were a lot of paintings that I really enjoyed. Perhaps my favorite was Arbo’s Åsgårdsreien. This painting depicts Odin and the Valkeryies riding over a battlefield with a mass of mangled bodies below. To the right, there is a ray of sunlight, depicting optimism for the future, despite the fog and carnage below...wow, I can’t believe I just said that, where’s my beret?
Seeing Edvard Munch’s paintings, such as the obligatory Scream as well as his other famous paintings: such as Madonna, The Dance of Life, and Self-Portrait with Burning Cigarette, was quite enjoyable. After the National Gallery, we moved to Norway’s museum of History and Culture. There were many neat things in the museum, such as Viking drinking horns, and classical stonework from the Roman and Greek days. An interesting thing was that the ancient stonework was extremely close and one could even touch it. It’s kind of humbling to feel the stonework that was worked on by the ancients. Of course in the US everything is behind glass with lock and key. I guess it’s a different kind of mentality.
After all this was over we made it back to the hotel. We then went out to dinner. It was pretty good; we were fed steak with a wonderful sauce. Afterwards, I went out to watch the football game between Turkey and Germany for the UEFA. Oslo was sort of disappointing, I sort of expected there to be more nightlife. We eventually made our way to a bar called, The Scotsman. I thought it was kind of funny given we’re in Norway. I guess the concept of the "sportsbar" is not a huge part of Norwegian culture. A kind of funny thing happened; as we were wandering we passed by a street performer who was playing The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkle. It seemed kind of out of place in downtown Oslo.
We left and then found a huge open air area where they were screening the game. It was kind of like a beer garden type atmosphere. There were hordes of people supporting Germany, but oddly enough there were plenty of people rooting for the Turks. I guess it’s because Norway is attracting a large amount of immigrants due to the welfare system, as well as the money with the oilfields. Things got rowdy with lots of yelling and shouting between the two fans. Nothing violent broke out, but it seemed more subdued than I expected.
We then went back to the hotel and sacked out. We had a real early morning; we had to be moving to the trains by 0545. Interestingly enough, the wakeup call wasn’t a phone call; instead the radios on the televisions were turned on automatically. This wasn’t all that effective, but we took off for the fjords.
We took a scenic, slow train to get out there. We passed the most beautiful scenery. We saw so many beautiful waterfalls and cliffs, it’s so hard to put their beauty into words, good thing I have tons of photos. It is kind of funny, it seems like all of Norwegian legends involve things trying to trick people. Like trolls, which are everywhere in Norway, can change shape, but they always have their tails. The Norwegians also have another legend about a beautiful lady who lives in the forest whose beautiful voice and body lure young men to their deaths as they are never seen again, but she also has a tail, so one should watch for it. It seems kind of odd, but at one point we stopped by a waterfall and to play on the legend a lady pranced out and started twirling around in the distance while nice singing played. I didn’t notice a tail, but I still stayed clear.
After the train ride to the fjords, we had lunch. There was a wide assortment of various meat and salmon. I didn’t realize it at the time but apparently I had cow tongue and reindeer. I probably swore I’d never eat tongue, but it was pretty good, and the reindeer was nice too. We then moved onto the fjord tour where we boarded a boat which took us around the fjords. The fjords are absolutely beautiful, the sheer cliff faces, juxtaposed with the water are stunning. There were also tons of waterfalls and plenty of greenery. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy with scattered rain, so it wasn’t as amazing as it could have been, but I was still very impressed. The kind of funny thing is how beautiful Norway is, it almost becomes routine. Like one becomes kind of jaded as they keep seeing all these waterfalls and cliffs, they get to be routine, yet anywhere else they would be magnificent, it’s almost boring when one looks at so many of them.
There was also a large group of Japanese tourists. I guess the Japanese love getting away from home because we saw an equally large group in Halifax. The annoying thing was that they kept feeding the seagulls. It’s real annoying when you have a Pulitzer prize winning photograph that would make Ansell Adams green with envy then all of a sudden a stupid seagull swoops in and destroys the image.
Eventually the tour ended and we started back to Bergen. We took a bit of a scenic detour going up an extremely steep road. There were 13 switchbacks to get up the steep face. I was impressed the buss could make it up; I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised; it was a Mercedes-Benz. Speaking of that, there are tons of real nice cars up here, such as a lot of Audis and other fancy machines.
We ended up going through the town of Voss. It was kind of nice seeing a smaller town. Voss is mostly built around tourism for its extreme sports, such as skiing, parasailing, and other fun things like that. We only stayed in Voss for like 30 minutes so there isn’t too much to say about that.
We eventually did make it back to the ship. It was sure great seeing so much beautiful scenery, though it was good to get back home.
Date: June 27, 2008
Location: The North Sea
Lat: 59° 41.98N Long: 004° 44.48E
Well, we are back at sea. The good ship M/V Explorer is hauling at 22 Knots. We’re on our way to our next port, which is Saint Petersburg. I’m real excited about that and I have quite the itinerary lined up. I’m going to be seeing Moscow, the Siege of Leningrad Battlefield, and will be seeing the city via the Neva River.
It’s good to get underway again. I had an absolute blast my last night in Bergen. I went out with some friends and we had a rip-roaring good time. Unfortunately, the prices are real rough. A Long Island ice tea will set you back 105 Kroner, with the exchange rate at around 5.16 NOK to 1 USD, that will set you back $20.35 per drink. I’m sure not going to miss the Norwegian Kroner and the prices here.
We got back pretty late, of course the sun was still out, but that’s to be expected in Norway. I woke up pretty late, but I was still able to get a bit more of Bergen in. Norway has some real neat food options. We didn’t know the Norwegian name, but we dubbed the product "the bacon-dog". This is a full length hot-dog wrapped in bacon. It is delicious. Another interesting thing is in Norway they have more than the standard Mustard and Ketchup, they have what they call, hot-dog dressing. This is essentially a garlic based sauce that was absolutely delicious on top of the bacon-dog. Norway also has a pizza dressing. It kind of looked like ranch, but I wasn’t sure, I didn’t have any. I also had a surge to drink, this soda was taken off the US market some years ago, and it was nice to have it again after so long being apart.
It sure stinks having to go back to school tomorrow. I have a quiz tomorrow, interestingly enough I saw my professor, who is giving this quiz, out at one of the clubs I was at, sure cracked me up. He’s a pretty young guy, like 25 or so, it’s not like old man winter was throwing back the brewskis.
I need to start getting ready for it, it’s pretty hard to believe that we’ll be in Saint Petersburg in a few days.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Norwegian Highlight #1: Whale-meat steak
Date: June 24, 2008
Location: Bergen, Norway
Lat: 60° 24.09N Long: 005° 18.49E
Shoot, we’re finally here in Bergen Norway. It was real neat waking up early and seeing the M/V Explorer maneuver into the port. The port of Bergen is centrally located in the city of Bergen and it’s real easy to walk everywhere. There are tons of neat things about this city!
Bergen is situated in the middle of a series of hills; in fact, it’s more like a series of cliffs. The fascinating thing about this is that there are many houses built into these cliff faces. Another interesting thing is that school children all wear reflective vests when they’re walking around the streets. I guess this can be viewed as more of Norway’s desire to hold the hand of every citizen.
I visited the Bergen fish market earlier. It’s sort of like a mix of fish being sold and arts and local crafts. I passed on the Norwegian sweaters so far, but you never know. The fascinating thing about this was that the storeowners didn’t seem to be pushing their wares too hard. Flea markets in the US are livelier than that. At least almost everyone speaks English. I guess there is not the same sort of motivation to push products as in other areas, with the welfare state as it is. A real interesting quote from my global studies class was that the top 90% of Norway support the bottom 90% of Norway. It’s a real different kind of mindset here because it seems like everyone feels like part of a collective whole.
Another fascinating, or rather frustrating, aspect of Norway is the prices. Everything here is extremely expensive. Taxes are real high here, which is clearly a part of it. Another thing is that people can afford the prices too, Norway’s real prosperous now. I’m going to go back out now, but those were some quick thoughts from my three hours in Norway so far.
Well, I’m back for a bit. Norway’s been swell so far. I’ve seen lots of wonderful architecture and buildings. In addition, we got some delicious ice cream and I even got a whale-meat steak! It tasted a lot like beefsteak with a slight fishy taste to it. It was sure tasty. Unfortunately the price was hard to swallow, for seven people, six of which got water instead of a soda, the meal cost 1,298 Kroner. The exchange rate is around $1=5 Kroner, so that’s approximately $260. That was pretty much my prestige meal, the one where I go to try to get the taste of Norway.
I also went up the top of Mount Fløyen. This is one of the seven mountains that border Bergen. The view up here was spectacular, truly unparalleled. I was able to see for miles and miles from up top. I can’t stop gushing about the view. It was easy to get up since there was a funicular which made getting up and down real easy.
Norway’s been outstanding so far, I’m going to grab a little bit of shuteye before I head out for Oslo. Outside of the disgusting cost of living, Norway’s excellent so far.
Location: Bergen, Norway
Lat: 60° 24.09N Long: 005° 18.49E
Shoot, we’re finally here in Bergen Norway. It was real neat waking up early and seeing the M/V Explorer maneuver into the port. The port of Bergen is centrally located in the city of Bergen and it’s real easy to walk everywhere. There are tons of neat things about this city!
Bergen is situated in the middle of a series of hills; in fact, it’s more like a series of cliffs. The fascinating thing about this is that there are many houses built into these cliff faces. Another interesting thing is that school children all wear reflective vests when they’re walking around the streets. I guess this can be viewed as more of Norway’s desire to hold the hand of every citizen.
I visited the Bergen fish market earlier. It’s sort of like a mix of fish being sold and arts and local crafts. I passed on the Norwegian sweaters so far, but you never know. The fascinating thing about this was that the storeowners didn’t seem to be pushing their wares too hard. Flea markets in the US are livelier than that. At least almost everyone speaks English. I guess there is not the same sort of motivation to push products as in other areas, with the welfare state as it is. A real interesting quote from my global studies class was that the top 90% of Norway support the bottom 90% of Norway. It’s a real different kind of mindset here because it seems like everyone feels like part of a collective whole.
Another fascinating, or rather frustrating, aspect of Norway is the prices. Everything here is extremely expensive. Taxes are real high here, which is clearly a part of it. Another thing is that people can afford the prices too, Norway’s real prosperous now. I’m going to go back out now, but those were some quick thoughts from my three hours in Norway so far.
Well, I’m back for a bit. Norway’s been swell so far. I’ve seen lots of wonderful architecture and buildings. In addition, we got some delicious ice cream and I even got a whale-meat steak! It tasted a lot like beefsteak with a slight fishy taste to it. It was sure tasty. Unfortunately the price was hard to swallow, for seven people, six of which got water instead of a soda, the meal cost 1,298 Kroner. The exchange rate is around $1=5 Kroner, so that’s approximately $260. That was pretty much my prestige meal, the one where I go to try to get the taste of Norway.
I also went up the top of Mount Fløyen. This is one of the seven mountains that border Bergen. The view up here was spectacular, truly unparalleled. I was able to see for miles and miles from up top. I can’t stop gushing about the view. It was easy to get up since there was a funicular which made getting up and down real easy.
Norway’s been outstanding so far, I’m going to grab a little bit of shuteye before I head out for Oslo. Outside of the disgusting cost of living, Norway’s excellent so far.
Monday, June 23, 2008
The sun never sets on Norway
Date: June 22, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic, very near Scotland
Lat: 59° 16.38N Long: 006° 11.80W
It’s 0323 on June 23rd, but I’ve got some quick thoughts. Classes were classes, but nothing too bad. I’m up because I’m reading Boris Godunov, which is a play about a fake tsar and Russian succession. It might be interesting, but it’s written in kind of an old style which makes it sort of hard to follow. That’s my last class of the day, so I’ll read the rest tomorrow.
A few interesting things happened today, well actually yesterday. I met up with my intramural volleyball and basketball teammates. It should be fun, and at least it’s a way to meet more people, that is always good. It will definitely be nice to get out of the books for a few hours. The sports are co-ed; basketball is teams of 4 with two boys and two girls. The other guy on the team’s pretty tall, so hopefully that will help. Either way, it’s intramurals so it should be fun even if we’re terrible.
It was said the sun never set on the British Empire, it seems like it’s that way with Norway too, at least in the summer. At 0329 the sun still hangs out in the sky. You can’t get a good view of it, but the light doesn’t go away. It is certainly an interesting feeling to be able to walk out on deck and see the sun even when it’s 0-dark-30.
We also had our first cultural pre-port meeting. These meetings are given before we reach port. The pre-port is pretty much designed to give us some cultural background in the country we will be visiting. We learned some real interesting things about the Norwegians.
Apparently Norway is the top of the charts on the World Peace Index, I am not sure what it entails, but Archbishop Desmond Tutu and some others thought it up, so I’ll take their word for it. Also Norway is extremely rich. They have no desire to join the EU because of their vast reserves of oil wealth. Norway has a very good infrastructure because they can afford it. They have a 15 mile long tunnel through a mountain because they could afford it. Also apparently their roads are top notch.
Also their artists are a pretty motley bunch. Apparently Munch, who is best known for painting The Scream had quite the number of personal problems. Also, the Fiddle was almost removed from Norway as it was viewed as the devil’s instrument; I guess the Norwegian’s hadn’t heard that Satan liked the electric guitar.
I’m really excited about seeing Oslo and the Fjords. Bergen seems like a real pretty city as well, I’m sure I’ll be able to get some top-notch seafood there. At the least it has to be better than the boat food. I guess that’ll sound a bit harsh. The food on the ship’s not bad at all, I don’t mind it, but it does get a bit old.
A real nice thing about the ship community is you can have some real good conversations with people. I must’ve talked for a good hour and a half with a guy about this and that, trying to solve the world’s problems. It seems like a little bit of America is on this boat. My roommate’s a from Colorado, we’ve got people from Iowa, Chicago, Indiana, California, Maine, even Alaska. We have people from all sorts of backgrounds, Hungarians, Poles, Vietnamese, Italians, etc. There’s a lot that can be learned about the US from all of us.
Unfortunately, all these deep conversations have prevented me from reading about Boris Godunov, so I’ll read about him tomorrow, it’s 0342 now, it’s time to get some sleep.
Date: June 23, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic, right outside of Bergen
Lat: 59° 50.62N Long: 002° 17.05E
Well, we’ve crossed the Prime Meridian now and are east of Greenwich, England. We saw land for the first time since we left Halifax today. Apparently we passed right by the Orkney Islands which are right to the north of Scotland. We’ve also seen plenty of oil derricks out in the Barents Sea. I was able to snap some good photos of them.
We had a logistical pre-port meeting today. These are meetings where we go over the logistical elements of our landings. This entails things like numbers to call, where to get money exchanged, when groups are meeting up to leave, things like that. The program is well run and put together; I don’t foresee any problems on that front.
I did end up finishing Boris Godunov before class, which was good. I got a little notebook I can scratch my thoughts down on so hopefully I won’t forget too much when I transfer my thoughts from my notebook to the laptop. I’m real excited about getting to Norway, it seems like it should be real nice. Apparently trolls are a big part of Norwegian life. I figure there will plenty of opportunities to get photos of them.
Apparently the Bergen Fish Market is a bustling place of culture and economy, so that should be real neat to see. I have pretty much the full day tomorrow to check Bergen out before I have to head out to take the midnight train to Oslo. I think everything will go real well. I’m told that it’s real neat to get up to see the ship sail into port, so I’m calling it a night so I can get up at 5:30 or so to see the ship start making it into the harbor. Apparently Bergen is situated in a fjord so it will be cool to see the good ship M/V Explorer make landfall. Also the dock is apparently right in the middle of the city, downtown Bergen’s a ten minute walk from the ship.
I’m going to go topside again to see the sun shining bright at midnight, but after that, I’m going to call it a night.
Location: The North Atlantic, very near Scotland
Lat: 59° 16.38N Long: 006° 11.80W
It’s 0323 on June 23rd, but I’ve got some quick thoughts. Classes were classes, but nothing too bad. I’m up because I’m reading Boris Godunov, which is a play about a fake tsar and Russian succession. It might be interesting, but it’s written in kind of an old style which makes it sort of hard to follow. That’s my last class of the day, so I’ll read the rest tomorrow.
A few interesting things happened today, well actually yesterday. I met up with my intramural volleyball and basketball teammates. It should be fun, and at least it’s a way to meet more people, that is always good. It will definitely be nice to get out of the books for a few hours. The sports are co-ed; basketball is teams of 4 with two boys and two girls. The other guy on the team’s pretty tall, so hopefully that will help. Either way, it’s intramurals so it should be fun even if we’re terrible.
It was said the sun never set on the British Empire, it seems like it’s that way with Norway too, at least in the summer. At 0329 the sun still hangs out in the sky. You can’t get a good view of it, but the light doesn’t go away. It is certainly an interesting feeling to be able to walk out on deck and see the sun even when it’s 0-dark-30.
We also had our first cultural pre-port meeting. These meetings are given before we reach port. The pre-port is pretty much designed to give us some cultural background in the country we will be visiting. We learned some real interesting things about the Norwegians.
Apparently Norway is the top of the charts on the World Peace Index, I am not sure what it entails, but Archbishop Desmond Tutu and some others thought it up, so I’ll take their word for it. Also Norway is extremely rich. They have no desire to join the EU because of their vast reserves of oil wealth. Norway has a very good infrastructure because they can afford it. They have a 15 mile long tunnel through a mountain because they could afford it. Also apparently their roads are top notch.
Also their artists are a pretty motley bunch. Apparently Munch, who is best known for painting The Scream had quite the number of personal problems. Also, the Fiddle was almost removed from Norway as it was viewed as the devil’s instrument; I guess the Norwegian’s hadn’t heard that Satan liked the electric guitar.
I’m really excited about seeing Oslo and the Fjords. Bergen seems like a real pretty city as well, I’m sure I’ll be able to get some top-notch seafood there. At the least it has to be better than the boat food. I guess that’ll sound a bit harsh. The food on the ship’s not bad at all, I don’t mind it, but it does get a bit old.
A real nice thing about the ship community is you can have some real good conversations with people. I must’ve talked for a good hour and a half with a guy about this and that, trying to solve the world’s problems. It seems like a little bit of America is on this boat. My roommate’s a from Colorado, we’ve got people from Iowa, Chicago, Indiana, California, Maine, even Alaska. We have people from all sorts of backgrounds, Hungarians, Poles, Vietnamese, Italians, etc. There’s a lot that can be learned about the US from all of us.
Unfortunately, all these deep conversations have prevented me from reading about Boris Godunov, so I’ll read about him tomorrow, it’s 0342 now, it’s time to get some sleep.
Date: June 23, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic, right outside of Bergen
Lat: 59° 50.62N Long: 002° 17.05E
Well, we’ve crossed the Prime Meridian now and are east of Greenwich, England. We saw land for the first time since we left Halifax today. Apparently we passed right by the Orkney Islands which are right to the north of Scotland. We’ve also seen plenty of oil derricks out in the Barents Sea. I was able to snap some good photos of them.
We had a logistical pre-port meeting today. These are meetings where we go over the logistical elements of our landings. This entails things like numbers to call, where to get money exchanged, when groups are meeting up to leave, things like that. The program is well run and put together; I don’t foresee any problems on that front.
I did end up finishing Boris Godunov before class, which was good. I got a little notebook I can scratch my thoughts down on so hopefully I won’t forget too much when I transfer my thoughts from my notebook to the laptop. I’m real excited about getting to Norway, it seems like it should be real nice. Apparently trolls are a big part of Norwegian life. I figure there will plenty of opportunities to get photos of them.
Apparently the Bergen Fish Market is a bustling place of culture and economy, so that should be real neat to see. I have pretty much the full day tomorrow to check Bergen out before I have to head out to take the midnight train to Oslo. I think everything will go real well. I’m told that it’s real neat to get up to see the ship sail into port, so I’m calling it a night so I can get up at 5:30 or so to see the ship start making it into the harbor. Apparently Bergen is situated in a fjord so it will be cool to see the good ship M/V Explorer make landfall. Also the dock is apparently right in the middle of the city, downtown Bergen’s a ten minute walk from the ship.
I’m going to go topside again to see the sun shining bright at midnight, but after that, I’m going to call it a night.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Norway-bound
Date: June 19, 2008
Location: Middle of the North Atlantic
Lat: 52° 5.27N Long: 034° 15.60W
The sea sure is big. We keep steaming towards Norway and I sure hope we’re getting closer. As best I can reckon we’re almost at the half-way point. Things are becoming routine now, but everything’s going well.
I think my classes might be harder than I thought, but they are still totally manageable. I really wish I had more to say, but I don’t. I think there might be a talent show in a few days, which may be fun to watch. I’m real tired, and we’re losing another hour tonight, so I’m going to call it a night early, but at least each time I wake up we’re that much closer to Norway.
Date: June 21, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic, Near Ireland
Lat: 57° 16.43 N Long: 018° 5.32W
I have to make up for two days. Things got a bit busy last night with pub night and then going into a high-stakes Texas Hold-Em Tournament, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Yesterday went pretty well. Pretty standard fare for the most part, there was a lot of reading and stuff, plus classes take some time away. I’m not sure about the global studies class, the professor is clearly animated, yet I think he spends a bit too much time talking about what he believes as opposed to what happened. I suppose it’s to be expected in a "Plato-to-NATO" style class; all the same, it’s frustrating. At least with my history background I have a pretty good time picking out what’s important and what’s just fluff. The class is structured around essays anyway, so given my acuity with them; it shouldn’t be a big challenge.
However, after the standard daily stuff, like getting a quick workout in and playing some basketball, the night got much more fun. They opened up the bar, and you are only allowed four drinks, probably a good idea. Given how drunk some people are, clearly some liquor got sneaked on board.
The kids that do tend to be the ones that are probably going to spend all their time getting drunk in foreign bars instead of actually getting something out of the program, I think they term for them is "spring-breakers." They are basically people who are treating Semester at Sea as spring break and not as actual school. I guess I can’t blame most of them, if their schools only take transfer credit on a pass/fail basis and an A is worth as much as a C, motivating oneself is a bit more difficult. Thankfully the good folks at the Purdue Study Abroad department did not give me that option with direct credit transfer.
I had my four beers, a first since I have been here. We did not have class today, so there was not much to lose, outside of $3.50 per beer. I got up there right when the taps opened so I was able to make it through the line, there must have been 400 people crammed up on the 7th deck aft. If you don’t get there early, you won’t have a chance at getting the four allowed drinks.
As I was socializing, one of my friends told me he was getting a poker tournament together with a $10 buy-in. I decided to join in and have some fun. I don’t know much about poker, but I was tearing it up. I almost won, but ended up getting third place out of six and not getting my money back, but I made a good run, but the people who actually knew the rules better than I ended up winning in the end. I guess my total lack of strategy was beneficial given how well I did.
The game ended around 0145 so I decided to head off to bed. I was tired so it was a good idea. There were no classes today so I woke up around 1230, which was a lot better than 0745, which is even better than 0545. I played some basketball and some cards with people, no one really felt like doing much work today given the off day.
I just got back from a talent show on the ship that was pretty good. A lot of singing and piano playing, but it was definitely a good time. I’m heading back to reading, but at least I’m staying busy.
Location: Middle of the North Atlantic
Lat: 52° 5.27N Long: 034° 15.60W
The sea sure is big. We keep steaming towards Norway and I sure hope we’re getting closer. As best I can reckon we’re almost at the half-way point. Things are becoming routine now, but everything’s going well.
I think my classes might be harder than I thought, but they are still totally manageable. I really wish I had more to say, but I don’t. I think there might be a talent show in a few days, which may be fun to watch. I’m real tired, and we’re losing another hour tonight, so I’m going to call it a night early, but at least each time I wake up we’re that much closer to Norway.
Date: June 21, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic, Near Ireland
Lat: 57° 16.43 N Long: 018° 5.32W
I have to make up for two days. Things got a bit busy last night with pub night and then going into a high-stakes Texas Hold-Em Tournament, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Yesterday went pretty well. Pretty standard fare for the most part, there was a lot of reading and stuff, plus classes take some time away. I’m not sure about the global studies class, the professor is clearly animated, yet I think he spends a bit too much time talking about what he believes as opposed to what happened. I suppose it’s to be expected in a "Plato-to-NATO" style class; all the same, it’s frustrating. At least with my history background I have a pretty good time picking out what’s important and what’s just fluff. The class is structured around essays anyway, so given my acuity with them; it shouldn’t be a big challenge.
However, after the standard daily stuff, like getting a quick workout in and playing some basketball, the night got much more fun. They opened up the bar, and you are only allowed four drinks, probably a good idea. Given how drunk some people are, clearly some liquor got sneaked on board.
The kids that do tend to be the ones that are probably going to spend all their time getting drunk in foreign bars instead of actually getting something out of the program, I think they term for them is "spring-breakers." They are basically people who are treating Semester at Sea as spring break and not as actual school. I guess I can’t blame most of them, if their schools only take transfer credit on a pass/fail basis and an A is worth as much as a C, motivating oneself is a bit more difficult. Thankfully the good folks at the Purdue Study Abroad department did not give me that option with direct credit transfer.
I had my four beers, a first since I have been here. We did not have class today, so there was not much to lose, outside of $3.50 per beer. I got up there right when the taps opened so I was able to make it through the line, there must have been 400 people crammed up on the 7th deck aft. If you don’t get there early, you won’t have a chance at getting the four allowed drinks.
As I was socializing, one of my friends told me he was getting a poker tournament together with a $10 buy-in. I decided to join in and have some fun. I don’t know much about poker, but I was tearing it up. I almost won, but ended up getting third place out of six and not getting my money back, but I made a good run, but the people who actually knew the rules better than I ended up winning in the end. I guess my total lack of strategy was beneficial given how well I did.
The game ended around 0145 so I decided to head off to bed. I was tired so it was a good idea. There were no classes today so I woke up around 1230, which was a lot better than 0745, which is even better than 0545. I played some basketball and some cards with people, no one really felt like doing much work today given the off day.
I just got back from a talent show on the ship that was pretty good. A lot of singing and piano playing, but it was definitely a good time. I’m heading back to reading, but at least I’m staying busy.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
On the high seas
Date: June 15, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic
Lat: 44°25.08N Long: 062°15.5W
Wow, I'm finally on the ship and it is truly impressive. There are tons of great amenities on board, not to mention 3 girls to every guy, odds like that aren't bad at all. It's pretty impressive finally getting under way. It's pretty offsetting to see land slip by the porthole as the ship moves out to sea. I still can't really believe that I'll be in Bergen, Norway in 9 days.
Most of today was standard introduction stuff. We met our RA and that sort of thing, plus participated in a lifeboat drill which was pretty boring. At least I'm making friends and getting out there, people are pretty friendly so it's not hard. It's a good thing to given I'll be moving all throughout Europe with these people.
So far I don't mind the motion. I can certainly feel the motion and the vibration of the engines, but in terms of getting seasick. I'm totally fine. I hope I'm not jinxing myself though. They say that we're supposed to have a glass sea going out across the Atlantic, so that should hopefully bode well. I'm going to sign out since we have a pretty early morning with a whole new round of meetings and introductions and that sort of thing. But so far, things are looking good around here.
Date: June 16, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic near the Grand Banks
Lat: 44°37.88N Long: 055°9.76W
Ugh, what a long day. Today was essentially an entire day of meetings. Some were rather interesting and clearly important, such as the briefing about the procedures for getting off the ship and field practica. Others were just long and tedious, such as the brief on the UVA honor code.
Nothing important really happened. It's been more of the same. We saw some whales on the side of the ship. It was kind of funny how some of the girls were just flipping out being extremely excited about the whale tails. It didn't exactly knock me off my feet, though it was cool, and it was a better than work.
I'm still getting used to working out on a swaying deck. It's hard to cleanly lift weights when you're worried about the ship pitching in the Atlantic swells. It's even more fun when the basketball games are happening. I played 3-on3 pickup, earlier. The guys I ended up with were both pretty tall so I mostly just dished the ball out to them, playing the point, but I got a few layups on my own. The courts really small, maybe half the size of a racquetball court, this is compounded by the fact that there’s a steel bulkhead against one wall and a net against the other. At least it opens up some real exciting passing opportunities.
There are a lot of immature people on the boat. That's to be expected I guess. This might make things real interesting when the bars open the taps tomorrow. Like a lot of people played cards and just slept through the meetings today. It's just disrespectful, but I guess they probably don't even realize it. Not a smart move if you ask me. Yeah, the cultures will be fun to experience, but we are here for credit, getting nine credit hours for 3 hours and 45 minutes of class a day isn't a bad deal, I intend to take advantage of it.
Date: June 17, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic past the Grand Banks
Lat: 45°9.82N Long: 046°52.56W
Well we finally had the first day of class. I really don't think it will be too hard at all. Mostly just reading and writing a few papers. Since I'm a history major I doubt I'll have a problem at all. I think the global studies class will be pretty easy. It kind of makes me laugh because everyone else is complaining really hardcore about it, but it seems pretty much no harder than a normal 200 level history class. I guess the only difficult part of it is that the classroom is at the bow of the ship so it gets the most wave action. It doesn't bother me, I just sway with the ship and go with the flow, but I heard someone puked in the earlier section. I actually saw them heading out of the room and puking since I was in the computer lab.
Speaking of the computer lab, I'm still having problems connecting to the internet. The IT ladies have a lead on it so hopefully I'll be able to connect soon. Besides that, everything's going smoothly.
Since we're heading east they keep setting the clocks forward an hour so it gets later and later real fast.
Date: June 18, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic
Lat: 48° 26.22N Long: 041° 44.28W
The sea finally picked up today. I guess it's about time; the sea has been glass so far. I didn't see anyone get sick but I saw some people run out of the student union pretty fast. The union's located at the very bow of the ship so it gets the most wave action. I have two classes up front, but outside of a chair pitching a little bit, I can't even notice it.
Today was pretty much more of the same. Classes keep going on. I find them pretty interesting. It seems that the major theme of all of my courses is the identification of Russia. The Russian elite have strived to be considered a member of the Europe, however, the population is much more Asian, plus many vectors, such as the extent of Roman law and other factors can be used to say Russia really is not European. I don't know though, I have a lot more days of class before I can answer any of that stuff.
I submitted my trips packet for the rest of the voyage. I have some really cool stuff lined up. I've decided I'd probably get more out of doing the Semester at Sea led trips then going independently. The good thing is that choosing to do the trips they run is not hampering what I wanted to do at all, and in a lot of respects it's a big time benefit. I would not have much of an idea what to do in Croatia and now I'm going to get to see the Croatian maritime museum in Dubrovnik, as well as visit a small town that was a Greek and Roman colony until destroyed by the Slavs.
I'm also going to get to see the Acropolis and the Greek Archaeological museum in Athens and see the Saronic Islands. Not to mention Pompeii, the city of Naples, and even the San Gennaro Catacombs. I have even more neat things lined up too.
Another day's pretty much over and life is good.
Location: The North Atlantic
Lat: 44°25.08N Long: 062°15.5W
Wow, I'm finally on the ship and it is truly impressive. There are tons of great amenities on board, not to mention 3 girls to every guy, odds like that aren't bad at all. It's pretty impressive finally getting under way. It's pretty offsetting to see land slip by the porthole as the ship moves out to sea. I still can't really believe that I'll be in Bergen, Norway in 9 days.
Most of today was standard introduction stuff. We met our RA and that sort of thing, plus participated in a lifeboat drill which was pretty boring. At least I'm making friends and getting out there, people are pretty friendly so it's not hard. It's a good thing to given I'll be moving all throughout Europe with these people.
So far I don't mind the motion. I can certainly feel the motion and the vibration of the engines, but in terms of getting seasick. I'm totally fine. I hope I'm not jinxing myself though. They say that we're supposed to have a glass sea going out across the Atlantic, so that should hopefully bode well. I'm going to sign out since we have a pretty early morning with a whole new round of meetings and introductions and that sort of thing. But so far, things are looking good around here.
Date: June 16, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic near the Grand Banks
Lat: 44°37.88N Long: 055°9.76W
Ugh, what a long day. Today was essentially an entire day of meetings. Some were rather interesting and clearly important, such as the briefing about the procedures for getting off the ship and field practica. Others were just long and tedious, such as the brief on the UVA honor code.
Nothing important really happened. It's been more of the same. We saw some whales on the side of the ship. It was kind of funny how some of the girls were just flipping out being extremely excited about the whale tails. It didn't exactly knock me off my feet, though it was cool, and it was a better than work.
I'm still getting used to working out on a swaying deck. It's hard to cleanly lift weights when you're worried about the ship pitching in the Atlantic swells. It's even more fun when the basketball games are happening. I played 3-on3 pickup, earlier. The guys I ended up with were both pretty tall so I mostly just dished the ball out to them, playing the point, but I got a few layups on my own. The courts really small, maybe half the size of a racquetball court, this is compounded by the fact that there’s a steel bulkhead against one wall and a net against the other. At least it opens up some real exciting passing opportunities.
There are a lot of immature people on the boat. That's to be expected I guess. This might make things real interesting when the bars open the taps tomorrow. Like a lot of people played cards and just slept through the meetings today. It's just disrespectful, but I guess they probably don't even realize it. Not a smart move if you ask me. Yeah, the cultures will be fun to experience, but we are here for credit, getting nine credit hours for 3 hours and 45 minutes of class a day isn't a bad deal, I intend to take advantage of it.
Date: June 17, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic past the Grand Banks
Lat: 45°9.82N Long: 046°52.56W
Well we finally had the first day of class. I really don't think it will be too hard at all. Mostly just reading and writing a few papers. Since I'm a history major I doubt I'll have a problem at all. I think the global studies class will be pretty easy. It kind of makes me laugh because everyone else is complaining really hardcore about it, but it seems pretty much no harder than a normal 200 level history class. I guess the only difficult part of it is that the classroom is at the bow of the ship so it gets the most wave action. It doesn't bother me, I just sway with the ship and go with the flow, but I heard someone puked in the earlier section. I actually saw them heading out of the room and puking since I was in the computer lab.
Speaking of the computer lab, I'm still having problems connecting to the internet. The IT ladies have a lead on it so hopefully I'll be able to connect soon. Besides that, everything's going smoothly.
Since we're heading east they keep setting the clocks forward an hour so it gets later and later real fast.
Date: June 18, 2008
Location: The North Atlantic
Lat: 48° 26.22N Long: 041° 44.28W
The sea finally picked up today. I guess it's about time; the sea has been glass so far. I didn't see anyone get sick but I saw some people run out of the student union pretty fast. The union's located at the very bow of the ship so it gets the most wave action. I have two classes up front, but outside of a chair pitching a little bit, I can't even notice it.
Today was pretty much more of the same. Classes keep going on. I find them pretty interesting. It seems that the major theme of all of my courses is the identification of Russia. The Russian elite have strived to be considered a member of the Europe, however, the population is much more Asian, plus many vectors, such as the extent of Roman law and other factors can be used to say Russia really is not European. I don't know though, I have a lot more days of class before I can answer any of that stuff.
I submitted my trips packet for the rest of the voyage. I have some really cool stuff lined up. I've decided I'd probably get more out of doing the Semester at Sea led trips then going independently. The good thing is that choosing to do the trips they run is not hampering what I wanted to do at all, and in a lot of respects it's a big time benefit. I would not have much of an idea what to do in Croatia and now I'm going to get to see the Croatian maritime museum in Dubrovnik, as well as visit a small town that was a Greek and Roman colony until destroyed by the Slavs.
I'm also going to get to see the Acropolis and the Greek Archaeological museum in Athens and see the Saronic Islands. Not to mention Pompeii, the city of Naples, and even the San Gennaro Catacombs. I have even more neat things lined up too.
Another day's pretty much over and life is good.
Halifax Day Three
Date: June 14, 2008
Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia
Today we visited the Fairview Cemetery in Halifax. The cemetery was where the White Star Line buried most of the dead from the Titanic. The company paid for the name, the date of the death, and the body number, which was used as a way to keep the unidentified bodies straight. If a family wanted to put more on the head stone, they would have to pay extra. This led to some pretty interesting quotes about Englishmen doing their duty and what not. Another interesting thing is when the bodies were being taken off the ships, the first class passengers were removed in coffins, the second and third class passengers were removed in body bags, and the members of the crew were removed in open stretchers, apparently class distinction was real important even in death.
We also visited a memorial built to honor the victims of the Halifax Explosion. I felt it was kind of ugly, the memorial was a jagged, triangle shape meant to symbolize the damage of the explosion. It also had some bells; all in all, it was pretty uninspiring.
We also visited a pretty nice pub. The food was good, but the highlight was totally the waiter. He had a thick Canadian accent which was pretty interesting to hear. Most people here say "aboot" and that's it. Every word this guy spoke was Canadian through and through. It was kind of a nice reminder that we're in another country as Canada is very much like the US in many ways.
Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia
Today we visited the Fairview Cemetery in Halifax. The cemetery was where the White Star Line buried most of the dead from the Titanic. The company paid for the name, the date of the death, and the body number, which was used as a way to keep the unidentified bodies straight. If a family wanted to put more on the head stone, they would have to pay extra. This led to some pretty interesting quotes about Englishmen doing their duty and what not. Another interesting thing is when the bodies were being taken off the ships, the first class passengers were removed in coffins, the second and third class passengers were removed in body bags, and the members of the crew were removed in open stretchers, apparently class distinction was real important even in death.
We also visited a memorial built to honor the victims of the Halifax Explosion. I felt it was kind of ugly, the memorial was a jagged, triangle shape meant to symbolize the damage of the explosion. It also had some bells; all in all, it was pretty uninspiring.
We also visited a pretty nice pub. The food was good, but the highlight was totally the waiter. He had a thick Canadian accent which was pretty interesting to hear. Most people here say "aboot" and that's it. Every word this guy spoke was Canadian through and through. It was kind of a nice reminder that we're in another country as Canada is very much like the US in many ways.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Halifax So Far
Date: June 12, 2008
Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia
Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia
Well, my trip abroad has finally started. I’ve landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It’s a pretty interesting town. It’s a pretty interesting mix of old school brick buildings and high-rise, skyscrapers. It’s still sort of surprising to see all these flags flying yet not seeing Old Glory up there.
My family is still tagging around with me. It’s nice having them here, but I’m really looking forward to getting out on my own. We went out to a variety of beer pubs, which were really nice. Canadian culture is really hard to put a finger down on. It’s an interesting mix of British and American culture. For one thing, it’s really interesting seeing people following the UEFA soccer championship extremely hardcore when it’s only an afterthought in America relegated to ESPN2 and ESPN360.com.
We also went out to see the Halifax Citadel. It’s a pretty large fort designed to protect the harbor back when Halifax was a major naval base for the British Empire. Its star shaped and it’s pretty slick. It’s kind of funny how pretty much every regiment of the British Empire served at the Citadel yet the tour guides depict the highlander regiments who served at the Citadel for a few years out of many.
Date: June 13, 2008
Location: Lunenberg, and Halifax, Nova Scotia
Today we woke up pretty early (around 8:30, my parents called it sleeping in, I did not) to go visit Lunenberg, Nova Scotia. The tour guides said it’s famous for its beautiful blue rocks. I for one am not a huge fan of beautiful blue rocks; rocks just look like rocks to me. Maybe the geology class I’m going to take next semester will change that, but right now, I can’t tell a difference.
We did get some good food in Lunenberg. We were going to go to a kind of tourist trappy style seafood restaurant but when we saw a load of Japanese tourists pull in we decided not to go there after all. Instead we went to a far classier establishment that we got some fish and chips at. Lunenberg was a pretty nice little town. It had a beautiful view of the sea, though it was pretty windy out. Lunenberg is probably around a good 35 or so miles away from Halifax so it was a decent drive. The drive was nice looking, there were lots of good views of real blue water and clear blue sky.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Heading Out
Date: June 11, 2008
Location: Fairfax Station, VA
Latitude: 38° 43' 51.3" Longitude: -77° 15' 22.8"
Location: Fairfax Station, VA
Latitude: 38° 43' 51.3" Longitude: -77° 15' 22.8"
It’s finally real. It’s hard to believe that something that’s been in the making since September 2007 is finally happening. I’m a little bit nervous right now since it will be such a new experience, meeting so many new people and new places. However, I’m not too worried given all I’ve already experienced, like living in Japan for two years. If I can climb Mount Fuji as an eight-year-old, how hard can all this be?
I haven’t really given too much thought to the places I’ll be going. I guess that’s kind of short sited, but I don’t know. As soon as I got back from school I went right to work with the Army Office of the Quadrennial Defense Review at the Pentagon so I never really had the downtime to fiddle around on the internet looking for random sites to go see. Even so, it should still be an amazing experience.
I can’t really figure out what I’m most looking forward to about the trip. I think Naples, Italy is the port I’m most looking forward to. I remember reading books about how they found those old Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum next to Mount Vesuvius. It’s amazing that they were preserved for so long; it will be like walking into a time capsule.
I figure my classes should be interesting enough. I don’t really know much about the Russian economy or culture, outside of what I’ve learned from movies like The Hunt for Red October and Red Dawn. Besides, if I can knock out the grades I have been lately, this shouldn’t be too bad.
No matter what happens, there’s going to be some changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes and it’s going to be a hell of a ride.
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