The Stork Highway of Ancient Rome

Walking through Selçuk’s streets during the ongoing heat wave, we couldn’t help but notice the most unusual sight: massive white storks perched confidently atop Roman aqueduct ruins and modern utility poles alike. These aren’t just random visitors – they’re part of an annual migration pattern that has turned this historic town into Turkey’s unofficial stork capital.

Every March, storks return to Selçuk from their winter homes in sub-Saharan Africa. The storks choose the highest points available for their nests, including the remnants of Byzantine aqueducts that once supplied water to ancient Ephesus. Local authorities have even installed special platforms on utility poles to prevent the birds from electrocution while preserving their traditional nesting sites.

Mysteries of the Multi-Breasted Goddess

Our visit to the Ephesus Museum revealed one of archaeology’s most debated artifacts: a towering statue covered in what appears to be dozens of breasts. This is the famous Artemis of Ephesus, but those protuberances might not be what they seem.

The 292-centimetre-tall statue actually represents a fascinating scholarly controversy. While traditionally interpreted as multiple breasts symbolizing fertility, many experts now believe these oval objects are bull testicles, hung as offerings during sacrificial ceremonies. Some scholars even suggest they could be bee larvae, as bees were sacred to Artemis. What makes this debate particularly intriguing is that none of the “breasts” have nipples – a detail that ancient sculptors, masters of human anatomy, would hardly have overlooked.

This statue likely stood in the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, making it a tangible connection to one of antiquity’s most celebrated structures. The temple’s destruction by 401 CE means this museum piece represents our closest link to understanding how the ancient world venerated this powerful goddess.

Where Emperors Built Upon Apostles

The ruins of the Basilica of Saint John dominate Ayasoluk Hill, their weathered stones telling a story of imperial ambition, religious devotion, and inevitable decay. Emperor Justinian I commissioned this massive structure between 548 and 565 CE, designing it as both a pilgrimage destination and a worthy monument to house the tomb of John the Apostle.

The basilica measured 428 by 213 feet, making it potentially the seventh-largest church in the world if reconstructed today. Justinian modeled it after the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, creating a cruciform structure crowned with six domes. The builders incorporated materials from the nearby Temple of Artemis and other Ephesian ruins, recycling ancient marble and stones into Christian architecture.

The basilica’s decline began with Arab raids in the 7th and 8th centuries, which forced the construction of defensive walls around the structure. By 1304, invading Seljuk Turks converted part of the building into a mosque, and in 1402, Tamerlane’s Mongol army destroyed it during their invasion. Earthquakes in the 1360s completed the devastation, leaving the impressive ruins we see today.

A Castle Built on Sacred Ground

Crowning Ayasoluk Hill above the basilica ruins stands a fortress that represents the practical realities of medieval defense. The Ayasoluk Castle, built during the Byzantine era around the 6th century CE, incorporates stones from dismantled Roman buildings, including materials from Ephesian structures.

The castle’s strategic position made it valuable to successive rulers. Seljuk Turks expanded it after conquering the area in 1090, and Ottoman forces later added their own modifications. The fortress enclosed fifteen towers connected by 1.5 kilometres of walls, protecting a small community that included a mosque, cisterns, baths, and residential quarters.

What makes this castle particularly fascinating is its relationship with the basilica below. Rather than destroying the Christian site, medieval builders incorporated it into their defensive strategy, using the basilica’s walls as part of the lower fortress complex. This created unique architecture where Islamic military architecture literally rests upon Christian sacred space.

Divine Intervention at the Neighbourhood Mosque

Our exploration of Selçuk’s religious landscape led us to the İsa Bey Mosque, a remarkable example of 14th-century Anatolian architecture. Built between 1374-75 by Syrian architect Ali ibn el-Dimişki, this mosque demonstrates the transitional period between Seljuk and Ottoman architectural styles.

The mosque’s segregated prayer areas for women represent traditional Islamic practice, though such arrangements can appear restrictive to visitors from different cultural backgrounds. These architectural divisions reflect religious interpretations that prioritize modesty and separate worship spaces, practices that have shaped Islamic religious architecture for centuries.

During our visit, we discovered that the mosque offers free Quran copies to interested visitors – a practice that connects contemporary Islamic outreach with the site’s long history as a religious centre. While there, we met a local man who was especially eager to talk to us about Islam. He explained that he hadn’t actually planned to visit the mosque at that time; he was on his way to complete some errands, but on a whim decided to stop by and pick up a Quran for a friend. Instead, he ran into us and was convinced that our meeting was no coincidence, telling us he believed it was divine intervention.

Our conversation quickly turned philosophical. He earnestly shared his belief that the Quran contains the answers to every question in life, presenting it as the ultimate guide to truth. At one point, he shared a rather striking perspective: he said that people who believe in God are the highest tier of lifeforms, followed by animals, with people who don’t believe, especially those who “act like they are their own god”, ranking below animals. I couldn’t help but laugh internally, realizing that by his definition I must be beneath the neighborhood cats lounging in the sun! He meant no offense, his words were offered with sincerity and a desire to share his worldview. Still, I got the impression he didn’t realize we weren’t religious ourselves, or how his ranking might sound to an outsider.

Echoes of the Population Exchange

Our journey to Şirince village, perched on a hillside 8 kilometres from Selçuk, revealed one of Turkey’s most poignant historical legacies. This mountaintop settlement, originally called Çirkince (meaning “ugly” in Turkish), was supposedly named by its Greek founders to deter other settlers from discovering their mountain paradise.

The village prospered under its Greek Orthodox Christian population, who spoke primarily Turkish despite their religious identity. By 1908-09, over 1,000 houses sheltered Greek families who cultivated vines, tobacco, figs, and olives while maintaining their distinct cultural traditions.

The 1923 Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey devastated Şirince’s established community. This compulsory transfer, formalized in the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, displaced approximately 1.6 million people based solely on religious affiliation. Greek Orthodox Christians from Turkish territories moved to Greece, while Muslims from Greece relocated to Turkey. The abandoned houses we encountered represent this traumatic displacement.

The Grandeur and Complexity of Ancient Ephesus

The archaeological site of Ephesus, directly connected to modern Selçuk, represents one of the Mediterranean’s most significant Roman cities. As we walked among its ruins during the intensifying heat wave, the scale and sophistication of this ancient metropolis became immediately apparent. A local restaurant owner’s joke about Efes beer – suggesting we walk a few kilometres toward ancient Ephesus since “Efes” is simply the Turkish name for the ancient city – highlighted how thoroughly this archaeological site integrates with the culture. The beer’s naming represents a modern commercial connection to ancient prestige.

The Temple of Artemis ruins, reduced now to a single reconstructed column, still commanded respect as the remains of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Though little survives of this massive structure, which once measured 137 metres long and featured 127 columns each standing 18 metres high, the site’s significance resonates across millennia.

Ephesus declined through a combination of geographical and political factors. The Küçük Menderes River gradually silted up the harbour, cutting the city’s vital connection to maritime trade routes. Natural disasters, including a devastating earthquake in 614 CE, damaged infrastructure repeatedly. The rise of Christianity displaced traditional pagan worship, while Gothic invasions in 262 CE destroyed much of the city, including the Temple of Artemis.

I was captivated by how Ephesus’s grandeur was engineered. The ancients combined brute force and technical innovation. Iron pins and lead clamps held massive marble slabs together, damping seismic shocks and locking the city’s great structures in place (though unlikely they knew how well that method would stand up to an actual earthquake).

Workers used wooden cranes, pulleys, and earth ramps to raise monolithic columns, guiding tonnes of stone into precise positions.

We realized that knowing Latin wouldn’t have helped us decipher most Ephesian inscriptions. The city’s later inscriptions switched entirely to Greek, the region’s lingua franca after Alexander the Great’s conquest. An odd feeling – usually we lament not knowing Latin, but this time, it wouldn’t have helped at all. Amid these weighty ruins, we saw samples of the ichthys fish symbol (colloquially known as the Jesus fish symbol), scratched into ancient stones, symbolizing early Christianity. In Greek, it’s written as ΙΧΘΥΣ, and is sometimes seen abbreviated using a symbol resembling a pizza cut into eight slices.

The Temple That Bridged Empires

Among Ephesus’s countless architectural treasures, the Temple of Hadrian stands as a masterpiece of cultural synthesis. This elegantly proportioned structure, built around 117 CE, demonstrates how Roman architects embraced and transformed Eastern design traditions through its distinctive Syrian arch.

The temple’s facade tells multiple stories through stone. Tyche, goddess of city fortune, crowns the keystone wearing walls as her crown, symbolizing her protection over Ephesian prosperity. Above the inner doorway, a relief of Medusa emerges from acanthus leaves, not the terrifying monster of myth, but a protective figure surrounded by the Mediterranean vegetation that inspired Corinthian column designs.

Roman Domestic Life Preserved in Paint

The Terrace Houses of Ephesus shattered our expectations of ancient Roman domestic architecture. These luxury residences, inhabited by wealthy families from the 1st to 7th centuries CE, revealed that Roman homes were far more colourful and sophisticated than typical stone ruins suggest.

The houses featured extensive frescoed walls with floral motifs, geometric patterns, and figurative scenes painted directly onto plaster surfaces. Archaeologists have carefully restored many of these paintings, revealing the artistic sophistication of domestic Roman decoration. The mosaic floors display intricate geometric and figural designs, demonstrating the high level of craftsmanship available to Ephesian elite. These restorations represent authentic ancient artwork, not modern interpretations.

The houses incorporated sophisticated engineering, including hypocaust heating systems that circulated warm air beneath floors and within walls, and plumbing that provided both hot and cold running water. These amenities matched those available in Roman public baths, demonstrating the luxury standards of Ephesian wealthy families.

The Library That Conquered Death

The Library of Celsus stands as Ephesus’s most iconic structure, and deservedly so. This magnificent building, constructed between 110-135 CE, served the dual purpose of housing scrolls and honouring the dead. Tiberius Julius Aquila commissioned the library as a memorial to his father, Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, who had served as Roman consul and proconsul of Asia. The building functioned as both a repository of knowledge, holding approximately 12,000 scrolls, and as Celsus’s mausoleum – his marble sarcophagus rests in a crypt beneath the building.

Fire destroyed the library’s interior around 262 CE, though the façade survived until earthquakes brought it down in the 10th or 11th century. Austrian archaeologists reconstructed the façade between 1970 and 1978, creating the impressive sight that draws crowds today for both daytime visits and evening light shows.

As we left, we saw people lined up for hundreds of meters lining up to see the evening light show – many of them coming in from cruise ships.

See more images from Selçuk and Ancient Ephesus

Cologne (Köln)

Last time I went to Cologne, I celebrated the Carnival and didn’t really see or do anything else. This time, I spent a half day checking out the chocolate museum and have a few beers.

The museum chronicles the history of chocolate, from the cultivation of the cocoa bean, to the industrial machines that produce the chocolate. Visitors can even order their own custom chocolate bar! They pick the kind of chocolate (white, dark, etc.) and can choose a multitude of condiments too.

I honestly was more impressed with the industrial chocolate making machinery more than the chocolate itself. As a graduate of mechatronics engineering, I can certainly appreciate the engineering behind these machines. The movements of each component is precisely controlled to perfectly pick up and drop pieces of chocolate or to pour liquid chocolate into molds, and the subsequently release them.

Afterward, we met up with a friend of mine who decided to move to Germany from America. He was so interested in Germany that he earned his C1 level in the Goethe Insitut examinations (it’s one level below native speaker), and when talking to him, I could always tell his future was in Germany. He found a job working at Deloitte and his German is so good that he doesn’t even speak English at work! Even I can’t do that with my German.

Next up: the bar. You can’t go to Cologne and not try the local brew, Kölsch. Germans outside of Cologne assert that Kölsch shouldn’t be considered a real beer, and honestly, I find it to be just okay. It’s not great and not terrible. A unique part of the Cologne pub culture is that if the waiter sees you with an empty glass, he will automatically serve you another one, regardless of whether you want one or not. The sign that you’re done is to put a coaster over the glass.

We walked around town a bit and went to probably the biggest landmark in town: the Cologne Cathedral. This Cathedral is the second tallest church in Europe (the first is in Ulm, also in Germany), with a height of 157m. It’s hard to imagine the size, but most of the buildings in Cologne aren’t very tall so this building appears to tower over the skyline.

Düsseldorf

Next, we drove to Düsseldorf. All we did there was walk a bit around town, but the streets just kind of look like other cities nearby, like Cologne, except Cologne has a giant cathedral to look at. We did come across a small celebration in the street though. I’m not completely sure, but I think it’s for the massive Carnival celebration that was gonna happen in late February.

The fun started later that night though. We were looking to get some dinner and went to a local pub. It was Friday night and the place was packed – so you can be pretty sure this place is good. Normally, you’d just walk in and sit at any free table – there’s nobody to show you to your seat like in America. There was nothing free anywhere.

A group of Germans signaled to us that we could join them and they’d make space for us. I politely told them that it was okay and we could wait, but they started shifting over so we ended up joining them. We chatted with them over drinks and they turned out to be super fun people!

A older couple were having beers with their son in law and his friend until we joined (they were drunk already when we showed up). They were so happy to chat with us and kept telling us how awesome we were for visiting Düsseldorf. One guy kept telling us in his German accent how “North Rhine-Westphalia is the most open-minded place in all of Germany”, how he grew up in Bavaria near Allgäu, but can never go back there because Düsseldorf is just so amazing, and that we should live here permanently.

Germans when they’re drunk, really like speaking English. One of them kept getting stuck on words and he’d ask their friends what the word was in English. I’d translate the words for him each time and eventually one of their friends literally just told him, “don’t ask us, ask him! He knows all the words!” They were super impressed by my German and it’s a pretty great feeling to know that my German is good enough to have these conversations with locals.

My friend on the other hand, could more or less understand what was being said, even though he couldn’t speak the words. In fact, he had a bit of trouble with his pronunciation, to the point that not a single server in any pub we visited in Germany understood him when he tried to order a Radler. This bar was no exception either, and I couldn’t help myself but laugh at his misfortune

As we left, we jokingly said we’d meet again at the same place and same time to have beers together again. I gotta say that most Germans I’ve met have been pretty cool.

That’s all for now!

• Cologne
• Düsseldorf
  

It’s reminiscent of other developing Asian nations. People are riding around in motorbikes, pedestrians cross the street by weaving through vehicles, and there’s so much traffic that it kicks up a ton of dust. Cars here often don’t have AC and more often than not have hand cranked windows. The official language is Nepali, but many people speak Hindi or at least know some words. It’s timezone is also quite interesting… Its offset is 5:45 from UTC meaning it’s got a timezone that shifts in 15 minutes instead of a whole hour. And I thought India’s 30 minute shift was annoying.

Durbar Square once held the palaces over the kings that ruled over the city. In the surrounding area, there are also some courtyards and temples. The architecture of the temples is reminiscent of temples in China, which makes sense since Buddhism is quite prevalent in both countries.

In the center of the square, masses of street vendors sell trinkets to visitors. The trinkets are mainly Buddhist prayer bowls, and other religious paraphernalia.

The most shocking thing to me in Nepal, is that as a part of their Hindu and Buddhist traditions, people worship “kumari“, young prepubescent girls that represent the manifestation of divine female energy.

The worship of the goddess in a young girl represents the worship of divine consciousness spread all over the creation. As the supreme goddess is thought to have manifested this entire cosmos out of her womb, she exists equally in animate as well as inanimate objects

Wikipedia

Within Durbar Square, in an almost non-descript brick building, the kumari appears from time to time within the windows that look into the courtyard of the building, but no photography is allowed. I had randomly stumbled upon this building only because there were so many people around it.

The Boudhanath is one of the largest Buddhist stupas Nepal, and it’s architecture is unlike anything in the city, so it’s quite prominent. The prayer flags have five colours, which represent different “elements”: earth, water, fire, air, and space. The elements are also represented as a part of the structure with the base as earth, the dome as water, the square platform as fire, the spire as air, and the umbrella as space.

The Pashupatinath Temple is situated on the banks of the Bagmati River, and is a Hindu religious place. Where the fires burning in the picture is the actual place where cremations happen. Within the area are a collection of different temples, but I wasn’t allowed to visit them because I’m not a Hindu. I never thought I’d ever be discriminated for my religion (or lack thereof)!

See more pictures of my trip to Kathmandu here

STP 2017

In the summer of 2017, two friends and I rode STP over the course of two days (this was my first cycling event ever). At the time, I didn’t really know how to train other than just riding a lot of miles and I never really gave any conscious thought to hydration or nutrition. I clocked in about 1500 km over 70 hours of training from March till July (which was totally below what the official training plan called for).

On the event day, I ate whatever there was at the rest stops and drank the electrolyte drinks. I also ate this supplement called SportLegs that people were giving out. They supposedly improve muscle performance (however, sports dietitian thinks they’re more placebo than anything). I didn’t know anything at the time, and I just ate them anyway.

We were worried that our legs would be too sore to continue on the second day, but on the morning of the second day, we didn’t feel fresh, but nonetheless we made it through both days (with both legs still working!) and we were super happy with ourselves for having accomplished this. We joked that maybe it was the SportLegs (to this day we still don’t know). As we crossed the finish line, I said to my friends, “OK so we’re going to do STP in one day next year right?”. They thought I was joking, but I wasn’t.

The problems begin

The next event that summer was Obliteride 2017, a century ride to raise awareness and fundraise to fight cancer. I figured that since I had done STP, I’d be able to do this ride no problem. This is where problems for me started.

Around the 50 km mark, I started cramping up a little bit, and I still had 110 km to go. I started drinking much much more of the electrolyte drinks and eating, but the cramping just got worse and worse. It’s not that I didn’t have the strength – but each stroke I took, I felt the cramps. But the cramps weren’t SO bad that I couldn’t continue – I just had a terrible finish.

I went to see a physiotherapist to see what was happening, and she took a look, and she could only identify a slight pelvic rotation (my hips were leaning to one side of the bike), but she didn’t think that was the root cause. She couldn’t see anything wrong with the bike fit either, but thought it could have been a lack of training since Obliteride was much hillier than STP. I did the exercises she asked me to do and that was about it. I had also signed up for the Whistler GranFondo and Chilly Hilly as well, but I couldn’t even finish either of them. At one point, my entire right leg locked up on me and I couldn’t bend it for a couple of minutes. I began to worry if I could even continue cycling anymore.

Tackling the problem

I was so fed up with this problem, that I scheduled appointments with different doctors in sports medicine to get their advice. They all suspected that it was a nutrition problem and referred me to a sports dietitian. At my first appointment with the dietitian, she asked me about my lifestyle, how much I ate, exercised, etc. and immediately said, “you’re not eating enough for the exercise you’re doing” (I estimated that I was eating about 2200 calories/day). She wrote out on the whiteboard a high level guideline as to how I should eat.

I saw her for about a month and a half and after following her advice, my problems were solved! In a way, I got the OK from the nutritionist to eat as much as I want, even massive amounts of sodium and sugar, provided that I keep up my level of exercise. Knowing that eating more was the fix, I had no problem with that.

She also got me to measure my sweat rate, so I’d know how much water to replenish during big rides.

Training for STP 2018

I rode sporatically in the winter (I should have followed Rule #5 of the Velominati) and didn’t really start training seriously until June. From January to May, I clocked in only 848 km over 38 hours, which was only a bit less than year before at the same time, but I had started earlier in the year this time.

I made a plan for myself where I would do intervals twice a week with a big ride on the weekend (in June alone I clocked in 577 km over 25 hours). Two of the big training rides I had were century rides, where I got to work out the specifics in my nutrition and hydration plan. In total, I rode about 1600 km over 73 hours, not counting the intervals.

Three weeks before the event date, I started sleeping earlier and earlier (by about 15-30 minutes each day) to get myself used to waking up early since I would have to be on the road by 5:30am on event day.

Two days before the ride, I started carb loading (as per instructions from the dietitian).

My emotional state

I didn’t like the fact that training took so much time out of my week. I was already spending 10+ hours on the saddle, and I was beginning to feel mentally tired from all willpower required. The intervals drained me mentally even more because of the mental focus I needed to force myself to spin as hard as I could. It’s so easy to just stop when things get tough, and interval training was more mentally draining than any training ride I did.

As the event date drew closer, thoughts of my possible failure creeped into my mind, getting stronger day by day. I couldn’t think of anything else. I thought back to the wise words of Sun Tzu:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆。

I even started meditating to calm my mind. My coworkers could tell that I was more distracted than usual and provided me with good encouragement.

Race day

My friend and I started the ride around 5:30 am, and because there were so many cyclists on the road, drafting propelled us quickly and we made it to the halfway point around 2:30 pm. I still felt pretty fresh at that time which was good.

I knew that most riders do the ride in 2 days, so I expected not to be able to draft behind other riders. By about 200 km, I started feeling tired, but I knew I had to keep going. There was still 120 km to go.

I wasn’t having fun anymore. At this point, it was just a grueling grind to the finish, where the finish line was hours away. I wanted the day to be over. and thought to myself, “this too shall pass”. Looking at my bike computer frequently to see how far we’ve gone made it worse – slowly watching the distance ticking upward while thinking “when will this end?”

The temperature that day went up to a max of around 38 degrees Celsius. We rode in the burning heat, slowly becoming more and more dehydrated. I wanted the sun to set faster, so that it’d be cooler.

Judging by the dozens of people we saw at rest areas, we figured our pace was pretty good. But as we went further along, there were less and less people at the rest stops. Either they bailed, or they were much faster than us.

The finish line would close at 9 pm, and there was no way I’d get to the finish line in time. I wish I had trained harder.

For most of the last third, we rode mainly on our own, occasionally seeing another rider, whom we’d ride behind just to get an extra bit of a boost.

At the last rest area, there was almost nobody, maybe like a dozen people at most, but we were only some 25 km away. We could do this.

My friend and I would swap taking the lead every five minutes so that we could balance out the wind load between the two of us. The fact that the two of us rode together allowed us to talk to each other and help lift each other up. I think that helped a greal deal mentally and emotionally.

At dusk, we finally entered Portland. We were now just 30 minutes away from the finish line. We joined a group of other riders and rode together till the end.

I called out to the other riders with encouraging words like, “yeah! We’re almost there wooo”, but looking back I think I sounded too happy (despite my true feelings of misery) and the people around me probably thought I was a jerk for being so happy while they felt miserable.

Finally we reached the finish line at 10:30 pm. People were still there and cheering us on as we arrived. I almost shed a tear. I was overjoyed having finally achieving this goal.

Other friends who drove to Portland met us at the finish line and could see our happiness despite how filthy we were. We weren’t even hungry nor thirsty. We were in no mood to do anything. We just wanted to sleep. My friend was told that he sounded brain dead because he replied with one word answers and lacked the concentrated gaze that he normally had, whereas I was still considered having a sound mind.

The next morning, I woke up with quite the hangover even though I drank no alcohol. I was just REALLY REALLY dehydrated from the bike ride in the blazing heat.

After this entire ordeal, I told myself, “I’m not going to do this again next year”. I didn’t get back on the bike until late August – I think STP scarred me a little bit. I definitely don’t regret having done this at all, and I’m still very proud of what I did.

First stop, Lincoln Memorial.

“In this temple as in the harts of the people for whom he saved the union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln” is enshrined forever”. Powerful words. His two most famous speeches are also written on the inside walls in his remembrance. “This nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

Directly in front of the monument, is the reflecting pool.  Too bad there was construction at the time, otherwise it’d looks way nicer.

On the south side of the memorial, there is the Korean War Memorial.

This phrase beside it is probably one of the most well said quotes.

Freedom is definitely not free.

On the north side of Lincoln Memorial, there is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The names etched into the memorial are everyone who was killed or missing in action.

This is where politics happens. The Capitol, where Obama pwns his political opponents and passes bills through congress.

Next stop, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Definitely lots of interesting things here!

To show off the history of aviation, naturally there is a model of the Wright Brother’s plane.

Eventually, we built fixed wing aircraft.

Fast forward a few decades, and there is a lunar lander.

In the present day, we are now blowing people up from afar using Predator drones…

Too bad there wasn’t enough time to visit other museums in the Smithsonian. Would have liked to see the natural history exhibits too. But at least I got to briefly see the Smithsonian Castle.

We then took a nice and relaxing boat tour on the Potomac River.

Of course there’s also the Washington Monument.

Then there is the White House, where the boss aka Barack Obama lives. There’s even three guys on the roof to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary.

Then while leaving the city, the tour bus driver had the great idea of driving into the Pentagon parking lot.

And here is a nice picture of sun rays passing through clouds that I managed to capture while we were on the road to the next destination.

We spent the night in Atlantic City, where those interested got the chance to visit the casinos and “try” to win money. I on the other hand, was pretty tired. I pretty much went to sleep right away when we got to the hotel. Needed some good rest for the trip to Philadelphia the next day.

More photos here

It seems that since I got back I never wrote an entry about the end of my time in Germany.  When I realized I’d be going home soon a few weeks before, I felt a rush of excitement.  At the same time I felt sort of sad when since that also meant I’d leave all the friends I’ve made when I returned to my old life in Canada.  It was kind of reminiscent of when I left the first time – the idea of leaving everything behind for a little while.  However, unlike Canada, a place that I knew I would return to, the thought of never seeing all those people I met over there ever again made going home a scary thought. 

I never aimed to be good friends with people there.  Being good friends with certain people just happens.  It could’ve been part of my psychology where I unknowingly looked for companionship in the form of friends in a foreign place.  Now I wonder, if I will lose contact with them now that I’ve returned to my old friends again.  It seems like a real possibility to me now.  It will be weird not to see them.  It’ll be weird waking up in the morning and not take the 98 bus to work.  It’ll be weird not taking the U6 to Schlossplatz for our weekly hangouts. 

I suppose it was good that I was not the only one eager to go home.  It mitigated the scariness of it when I knew everyone else looked forward to it too.  A friend of mine who still had four months to go at Bosch was jealous of the fact that I got to go back.  Another friend from Germany was also excited to go back to his hometown.  As I coped with the reality of me leaving I got more and more excited about it.  For a few days before I left, I was so excited about leaving that whenever my mind wandered, I’d be thinking about going home. 

When I landed in Vancouver, I could hardly believe that I was actually back.  The moment I stepped out of the plane, I immediately recognized that I was in Vancouver International, but there was something about it that was strange.  I kept questioning whether I was actually back yet.  After awhile, I stopped getting that feeling and have now adjusted back to life in Vancouver again.

I definitely learned a lot of things in Germany and I think in many ways this experience has affected who I am in some ways (I probably wouldn’t even notice some of them).  For example, I now kind of have a better idea as to what career path to pursue (or not to pursue).  I learned a lot of things about MEMS, but I can’t see myself become a MEMS researcher in the future.  I also learned a bit of German and it’s always good to know an extra language.  The other day, I heard some people speaking German in a store and I could pick up a few words in what they were saying.  German’s even useful for showing off too.  I even have a better familiarity with foods in different European cultures.  I feel that I am now more aware of a lot more of the cultures that exist in this world.

In these eight months, I saw a large chunk of Europe, but I’ve only scratched the surface.  There are so many more places to go that it would take multiple trips to see it all.  There are places like Venice, Copenhagen, Oslo, Dublin, Glasgow, Budapest, and Belgrade, just to name a few.  In total, I travelled to 11 different countries on about 20 different trips.  It resulted in me taking over 5000 photos (I’m glad I was using a digital camera and not film).  Even though I’m already back in Vancouver, I still feel like travelling.  Maybe when I’m done school and have money for it I will start doing that, but for now, I think I’ll be staying in Vancouver.

To my surprise, my reassimiliation back in to life in Vancouver was rather immediate.  Apart from unpacking, I still remembered exactly what I used to do at home.  A lot of it was just little things like where I’d put on my contact lenses or where I put my toothbrush.  I remembered these little differences, and I guess that can be attributed to the fact that I have such an intimate familiarity with the house I lived in that I shouldn’t forget it.  When I first started driving again, it felt so natural, despite what I initially thought.  In a way, that was like riding a bike.  I also notice that now I am no longer as compelled to take photographs as I was before.  I can’t really put a finger on why, but it might be due to the fact that to me being back in Vancouver is just “ordinary”, while being abroad, everything seemed to be to be “extraordinary” and people do like to take pictures of extraordinary things.  I guess my life has returned to normal again.

During a conversation with one of my German friends, the topic of the use of articles in languages came up and my friend told me that in his English class, he learned two different pronunciations of the word “the”.  One way, the way that most people should be familiar to, is pronounced like “thUH”, while the other had a “thEE” sound.  He also mentioned that he learned that these two ways of saying the word had a “rule” associated with it.  He said that the “thUH” pronunciation was used for words that had an opening sound of a consonant while the “thEE” pronunciation was used for words with an opening sound of a vowel.  For example, he would say “thUH” car, and “thEE” others.  There’s also “thUH” time, or “thEE” hour.  I learned no such rule in any of my English classes as far as I was concerned.  It didn’t matter to me which pronunciation people used.

I too noticed that some people say “the” differently, but I had no idea there was a pattern.  I tried it for myself, but I couldn’t really test it while thinking about it.  Eventually, as we kept talking, I found myself following this same pattern.  I followed this pattern without even knowing it.  I probably did this since I learned how to speak English.  I didn’t do it just once, but on multiple occasions.  I wondered how it could be that I followed the pattern so implicitly.

I sought to find out why this was.  Eventually, I learned that this was a difference between British English and American English.  Many Americans would simply say “thUH” for everything (maybe except for some who have a more Northern accent for English).  The distinction in the pronunciation lie in British English.  Me being from Canada, similarly follow this aspect of British English.  Now whenever I use the word “the”, I often find myself thinking about which way I said it.

Using the Germanwings “Blind Booking” promotion, which randomly (kind of if you don’t know how to work the system by seeing which flights are full) selects a destination from a predetermined list for passengers at a fixed price.  Using this promotion, we got to fly to Vienna.

We were even planning to go to Budapest as a day trip from Vienna, but that turned out to be too expensive, and that there was plenty in Vienna to see.

Flight to Vienna

While waiting for our flight at Stuttgart International, we saw two double sized Foosball tables set up to go along with the Women’s World Cup Soccer.  By double sized, I mean that instead of only four rotating sets of players per side there were eight per side.  They took up so much space that one had to quickly hop to the other size to control the other set of players.

We played this for a little bit until the rest of our party arrived.  Once everyone arrived, we went to get our boarding passes and then to the security checkpoint.  One thing that really surprised me there was that the airport security wasn’t very strict at all.  All I did was go through the metal detector and got my backpack checked by the X-Ray.  They didn’t open it up/search it or anything like that.  They didn’t do that to anyone.  They didn’t check my bag for liquids either.  People could easily smuggle prohibited items on the plane.  Once we passed the security checkpoint, we waited until we could board.

We boarded a small Airbus A319, which looked like it could probably only fit about 100 people on it.  I noticed that each passenger was given a barf bag (I’ve heard of people getting nosebleeds while flying, but not nausea).  On one side of the barf bag, there was a chart that showed at what levels of nausea would cause one to puke and the caption that was written for the top level was “the price of our competitors”.  I’m guessing that their price is so low that people will puke?  Either way, I thought it was pretty comical.  To be fair though, Ryanair typically has lower airfares in my experience (I hope I didn’t sound like I’m advertising these airlines).  The flight itself took only about an hour.  The plane went up to 28000 ft. briefly before having to descend again.

Food

Since we arrived in the evening, we got hungry pretty quickly after dropping off our stuff at the hostel.  We looked around for a restaurant to try some Viennese food.  Apparently, Vienna is known for their Wienerschnitzel.  With that in mind, that’s what we ordered.  Every single one of us in our group ordered that except for the guy who was vegetarian.

What puzzled me about that meal was that the restaurant served the schnitzel with rice.  I thought it would be served with something like potatoes.  I guess that’s the choice of the restaurant.  It didn’t matter to me though since I just wanted the schnitzel.  The schnitzel itself was basically a huge piece of boneless pork coated in breadcrumbs that was fried (not deep fried).  I thought it tasted good, but it wasn’t amazing to me.  Pork isn’t that high up on my favourites.

A Bit of Relaxation (Kind Of)

After our meal, we went to a park to relax a little bit by throwing a Frisbee around.  It was kind of strange to me since we hadn’t done any real sightseeing yet and it seemed as if the others went to Vienna to throw a Frisbee around.  They even went to the grocery store to buy a few six packs of beer!  We all had the impression that Vienna was a really classy city, but what we were doing didn’t really seem classy at all.

While we played Frisbee, we noticed an insane amount of flies, mosquitos and other pesky insects.  Apparently, the others encountered the same thing when they biked to Austria one time.  These flies flew around in groups and were so annoying, especially the mosquitos that kept buzzing around my ear.

Schloß Schönbrunn by Night

After about an hour of Frisbee, we walked a little further to the schloss.  The schloss used to be the imperial summer residence back in the day.  It is now one of the most famous monuments and one of the most visited attractions in the country.  Since we arrived really late, the schloss had already closed and the guard there told us to leave when we tried to enter.  We ended up taking pictures from the outside.  Since there was nobody around to take a group picture for us, we set up an improvised tripod using the box from a six-pack of beer and used the camera timer.

Afterward, on our way back to the hostel, we came across two guys from Prague asking us if the park was a good place to sleep.  We were all kind of puzzled since we figured everyone would just book a hostel or something like that.  When we mentioned going to a hostel, one of the guys just made the subtle finger rubbing gesture to show that it was out of their budget.  While talking to them, a friend of mine with a beer in his hand just said “na zdraví”, which meant “cheers” in Czech and the guy was really surprised that he knew it (we learned that from Prague).  We ended up directing them to the park and then went back to the hostel to meet up with another friend who was joining us later on.  He came by train since he decided to come with us after we had already arranged our transportation.  Once we met up, a few people in our group decided to go a bar and somehow ended up back at the hostel at around 3 am.

Wien Mitte

The next morning (glad I went to sleep instead), we took a trip to the city center, which is usually where a lot of the touristy stuff is.  One of our friends decided to take a nap at the hostel instead since he came back so late the night before.  The first place we went to was the St. Stephen’s Cathedral.  What annoyed me a lot here was that the cathedral was under maintenance.  The face of the cathedral we were supposed to see had a large construction cover over it.  The inside, however, was super nice.

After seeing the church, we just walked in a random direction until we saw something cool.  The worst part about walking that day was that the temperature was at least 30 degrees Celsius.  It was like walking around Las Vegas in the middle of summer (ok maybe not as bad).  I didn’t pack any shorts and ended up partially rolling up my jeans.  I even took some paper to make a fan out of it.

One thing I noticed that was very common was that the locals here really liked wearing fedoras and giant hipster glasses (more prominent at least, but it’s not like they’re everywhere).  Even better was that they looked good in them.  It really added to that impression of classiness that we had from the beginning.  Even the H&M stores looked classier than the ones in Germany.  The way the Austrians spoke German sounded a lot nicer too.  It sounded more “clean” because they spoke slower and enunciated more unlike the Swabian German that I’m used to hearing.  Apparently, Vienna is tied with Vancouver for cities with the best quality of life.  I can see that.

Memorial for Mozart

Afterward, we headed to the Hofburg Palace.  Along the way, we came across a memorial to Mozart.  It was a statue of him posing majestically and in front of the statue was a garden with flowers arranged in the shape of a treble clef.

I guess when it comes to Austrian music, Mozart is a big deal since he was born in Salzburg.

Maria-Theresien-Platz

After we walked a little bit more, we reached the Maria-Theresien-Platz. This area contains two of Vienna’s major museums: the national history museum and the art history museum (more classy stuff).  While I was there, I took a picture of both buildings, but looking more closely at the pictures, it seems like the two buildings are almost identical.

At the center, there was a giant statue that basically acted as a giant shade and a lot people just crowded there.  It was reallyyyyyyyyy hot that day.  While headed to the Hofburg Palace, we came across a public water fountain, which gathered a rather large crowd of people.  The funniest thing about that water fountain was that it had the words “Wiener Wasser” (literally “Viennese Water” in German) printed on it.  Maybe I’m immature, but I still think it’s funny.  Maybe even funnier, the water from that machine tasted really good.

Hofburg Vienna

Eventually, we ended up the Hofburg Palace, the former home of some of the most powerful people in Austrian history, such as the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Currently, it is the residence of the President of Austria.  In contrast to the Schloß Schönbrunn, this was their winter palace.

Outside the palace, there was the Volksgarten for people to enjoy.  In the garden, there were flowers (typical of a garden I guess), and the Theseustempel, which was intended to be a replica of the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens.

After walking around this area, we reached the government district of the city.

The Parliament and Rathaus

Although we only walked by the parliament (why we didn’t spend time there I don’t know), I did manage to get a quick shot of the building.  Walking a little further, we reached the rathaus (city hall).  Both of these buildings had really impressive architecture.  Looking back at the photos, the Austrian parliament building bears some resemblance to the German Reichstag and the rathaus bears some resemblance to the Munich Rathaus.

When we were there, the city had set up a giant screen and a bunch of chairs for the open air theatre for opera and concert films.  We planned to check it out later, but we never got to that.  We also met up with our friend who chose to nap at the hostel instead of coming with us to see the tourist sights (sucks that he missed out).

The Burgtheater

Across from the rathaus, was the Burgtheater, one of the most important German language theatres (the ones for plays and not movies) in the world.

Near the top of the building, there were busts of famous playwrights such as Goethe and Schiller.  They even had a bust of Shakespeare, even though he wrote English plays.

Liechtenstein Museum

Our next destination was the Liechtenstein Museum.  Along the way, we passed the University of Vienna and the Votive Church.  Eventually, after walking several blocks, we reached the museum.

The museum mostly contained old works of art and also a really impressive horse carriage used by family members of the House of Liechtenstein.  Also in the museum was an old library.  The interior of the library looked like something out of Harry Potter – full of old books (but without the dust and the screaming people).

Somehow I don’t think I was supposed to take pictures of any of these things.  I took a close look at a lot of these books, and there were titles from a variety of genres like science and literature.

Mozart’s Requiem at the Karlskirche

Knowing that later in the evening, we would be going to see Mozart’s Requiem being performed at the Karlskirche, we went back to the hostel to wash up before heading out (we felt so sweaty and gross for pretty much the whole day).  While we waited for the others, we played a few games of Pool at the hostel.  Originally, the concert was supposed to be at the Vienna State Opera (at least that’s what the website said), so we were kind of disappointed when we found out that the performance would be at a church (even if it was near where Mozart died).

After we bought our tickets, we proceeded inside and enjoyed the design of the interior of the church.  When I walked in, I was totally surprised by how impressive the inside of the church was.  I did not expect something so amazing, especially the design of the altar.  The bright light around it made it even more amazing.

While listening to the concert and the sound of the violins, I felt a strong urge to take up violin.  It’s also something I always wanted to learn, but I wasn’t sure if I’d end up sticking with it.  The concert wasn’t quite as I good as I expected it to be.  I felt that the concert in Prague sounded a lot better, but it might have been because of the acoustics of the room.  The church we were had didn’t have very good room acoustics.  However, the singers sounded really good.  Despite that, the audience liked their performance a lot and clapped for a few minutes.  Some people even stood up and clapped.  After the concert, we came out in the middle of a thunderstorm some distance away.  I tried to take photographs of a lightning bolt, but I couldn’t react fast enough with the camera to get the shot (even on long exposure).

Wombat Hostel Bar

For some reason, when we got back to the hostel at night, we went down to the bar and started drinking.  Maybe it was because we wanted to take advantage of their amazing deal for shots – 1 shot for 1 euro.  We ended up having six shots in an hour – not counting the Jaegerbombs we had before that.  We ended up mixing a lot of different shots together like Tequila, Whiskey, Vodka, Schnapps, and Gin.  I forgot the last one.  Now that I think about it, the last one we had was Sambuca, which tasted like liquorice and it sucked, but I think the Schnapps were worse.

The coolest part about the Jaegerbombs was how the bartender arranged them.  He arranged the glass of red bull in a line while a shot of Jaeger sat in between two glasses.  He knocked over one shot into another and they all fell in the glass of red bull like dominoes.  After having so many shots among all of us, we could almost build a pyramid using only shot glasses.  We could have, if someone didn’t break one.  When the bartender saw us, he was really surprised at how many shots we had, but I think he just felt super uneasy at how we tried to build a shot glass pyramid.  At the end of all of that, I didn’t really feel dizzy – maybe the alcohol hadn’t got to me yet.  The others then decided they wanted to go out to another bar, but I declined and went to sleep instead.  I didn’t feel like coming back super late and not having energy for the next day’s adventure.

The next morning, I found out some of us came back at around 3, while others came back at around 4 or 5.  One of our friends didn’t even end up sleeping at the hostel and ended up sleeping outside at a cafe.  That was REALLY bizarre.  I would never do something like that.  Because they came back so late, some of them ended up missing the hostel breakfast and slept in until around 12 pm.

Those of us that had breakfast got to enjoy a great breakfast buffet.  The hostel had a sandwich maker so we stuffed as much stuff in our sandwich as possible and got the whole sandwich toasted.  I never thought cheese, salami, ham, cucumbers, and peppers in a toasted sandwich could be so good.  I think I had around 3 of them.

Schloß Schönbrunn by Day

Since we weren’t able to go to the schloss at night that day, we returned to the schloss after we had the breakfast at the hostel.  Just like the day before, the temperature was super hot (probably about 35 degrees or so).  From the outside, the schloss just looked like the same setup as the Neues Schloss in Stuttgart.  It had the same U-shape and the fountains out front.  However, we found that the schloss had a giant garden in the back, kind of like a smaller version of the one in Versailles.  It also had a labyrinth with walls of hedges and also had a zoo. 

Behind the garden, at 60 meters in elevation higher, there was the Gloriette structure. From there, we got a nice view of the whole city.  Inside the building was a cafe and it had really delicious ice cream (although it was kind of expensive).  Outside the building, a bunch of people set up tripods with their DSLR’s and everyone had these filters for their lens to tweak with the color of the photographs since the sky was so bright.

We could even go up to the top to get an even better view.  On our way up, we bumped into someone we knew from Bosch, but at the time I didn’t know for certain who that was.  It was only afterward when I realized it and by that time, it was already too late to say hi.  When we finished seeing the Palace, we took the metro to Danube Island (Donauinsel) for a bit of relaxation (hard to call it that when the weather feels like fire).

Donauinsel

The metro station here was in the middle of a giant bridge and when we walked out, we saw two people just sitting on the edge of it.  All of a sudden, one guy just jumped into the water and started swimming.  And then the second guy followed and made a giant splash when he hit the water.  It must have been at least 25 meters or something like that.

On one side of the shore, one could see the older part of Vienna and on the opposite side, the newer part.  There were quite a few high-rises on waterfront property.  On one shore, there was a set of trampolines set up over the water and that was really cool.  The whole area had tons of tropical themed cocktail bars and seafood restaurants.  That really gave the place a huge tropical vibe.  One of the things that people do in tropical areas is swim in the water and that’s what some of us did.  I didn’t though.  I don’t even know how to swim (I wouldn’t swim in a dirty river anyway).  None of them brought any swimming trunks or anything like that, so they just went in with underwear (kind of strange if you ask me).

While people swam, I walked around exploring the area and saw a TV tower.  Near the top, there was a walkway that protruded from the building and apparently it’s used for bungee jumping.  I don’t think I’d have the balls to jump off that.  After everyone finished their swim in the river (it was a little bit dirty too), we went to the Vienna State Opera.

Wiener Staatsoper

We arrived pretty late, so all the tours of the inside were already over.  We only looked around the outside and figured out what time the tour would be for the next day, which we did end up going to.

We also found out that the opera has a “summer vacation” in July and August.  The only shows there during the summer months aren’t part of the state opera and are just borrowing the location.

Sand in the City

Since there wasn’t anything to see in the evening, we ended up going to the Sand in the City, which was just a collection of cocktail bars and pubs in a place that had a beach feel (minus the water).  The whole area literally had sand all over and many people sat in beach chairs.

Also here was a shisha bar.  People got to take the hookah to their table and just smoked it until it ran out.  I didn’t know what shisha was at first, but I found out that it really is just flavoured tobacco inhaled through a hose from the hookah.  I figured I’d try a little bit.

It didn’t have the pungent odour of cigarettes and just had apple flavoured smoke.  I didn’t really like the taste, but I did learn how to blow smoke rings and that was the cool part.  It’s not something I’d do any again though.  Not long after doing the shisha, I must have had a strong allergic reaction to it.  My nose ended up being plugged for hours and I couldn’t stop sneezing even though I only had three puffs.  When I went to bed, my nose was still plugged.

Tour of the Wiener Staatsoper

The next morning, we went on a tour to the inside of the opera house.  The interior of the building had such an intricate design.  A lot of the design had a theme too.  For example, above the busts of famous playwrights and composers, was a painting of a scene from their most famous opera.  The interior could have looked even nicer, but parts of it were destroyed during World War II.

The tour guide showed us around most of the building too.  One room in particular, the Tea Salon, was a lot nicer than all of the others.  Apparently, the royalty used to use that room.  Nowadays, the room is used for super special occasions or when the media needs a really nice background to show when doing interviews for the opera. 

The tour guide also showed us some of the intermission rooms, which weren’t as nice since they were part of the reconstructed portion of the building.

While there, the tour guide explained to us the history of the place (which I don’t remember), and little factoids like how there’s an underground tunnel to the building that stores the costumes and how trucks deliver set pieces and other materials before shows.  Finally, the tour led us to the main auditorium of the opera house.

Apart from the movie theatre style seats, there were balcony seats all around on many different floors.  The tour guide explained how much different seats in the opera cost and apparently they can go up to tens of thousands of euros.  Behind each seat was also a display for subtitles, since the lyrics of the opera weren’t always in German.  Together, I think the capacity of the theatre could be about 2000 people, not counting the standing spaces.  We even got to go backstage to see some of the mechanisms on the stage.  The tour guide explained how the multiple platforms could move such that the stage scenery could be exchanged on the fly.  Coming to this place was probably the best part of the whole trip.

Flying Home

We ended up killing time at a park with the Frisbee before we had to go to the airport.  We didn’t do much else.  There weren’t anymore attractions that we wanted to see or had time to see.  When our flight came, we went on it and just went home.  We all pretty much had the disappointed feeling of “oh man, we have to go to work the next day.”

More photos here

Our latest trip took us to Prague, the capital of Czech Republic.  After going there, I’d say that Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. The city managed to retain its wonderful architecture because the city was not heavily bombed (relative to other cities) during WWII. Otherwise, we could not see this wonderful architecture today.

Since I lost my wallet, I couldn’t use my Bahn25 for my discounted tickets anymore, so I ended up cancelling my train tickets and instead went with others who were going by car.  We met at around 7:30 in the morning and began our journey.  As usual, I slept for most of the car ride.

The Mosaic House Hotel

We first went to our hotel to meet up with the others.  When I first walked into the hotel, I was surprised at how nice everything was and we only had to pay 72 euros for 3 nights.  The lobby of the hotel was also a restaurant/pub and each night, the hotel would hold events/parties.

The hotel room even had the coolest shower.

Normally, I don’t post about showers, but this one was too nice to ignore!

Czech Crowns

Since Czech Republic didn’t adopt the Euro, we had to go to the currency exchange.  Before leaving we learned that the rate was about 1 euro for about 24 crowns.  When we got our currency exchanged, we felt so much richer because of all the extra zeroes.

The Czech bills look cool too, but maybe that’s because I’ve never seen them before.  I really hate the change though.  Apparently a 1 crown coin exists and those were really annoying to carry around.

Old Town Square

At the old town square we saw some of the most well known historic landmarks in Prague such as the Týn Church, Jan Hus Monument, St. Nicholas Church, and the Prague Astronomical Clock.  We went here on the first day as well as the second day when we went on the free walking tour.  Many of the historic landmarks survived throughout the Second World War unlike many other cities because this city did not get bombed as heavily as other cities.

The tour guide talked about the history of Czech Republic briefly and explained the significance of the buildings and interesting factoids about them.  For example, he explained the story of how Jan Hus was burned at the stake, how the astronomical clock doesn’t actually correctly predict the correct positions of the sun and moon since it assumed that the Earth was in the center of the universe, and that the designer of the clock was blinded by people who did not want him to build a similar/identical clock elsewhere (what a terrible way to be treated after such an accomplishment).  He also talked about the defenestrations that occurred in Prague prior to the Hussite and Thirty Years War.  He even told us about random facts like how pedestrian lights in Prague only stay green for 9 seconds.

Random Frisbee Game

On our way up to Prague Castle, we decided to stop for a beer nearby.  I got to try one of the Czech beers called Gambrinus, a type of Pilsner.  It tasted similar to all the other kinds of Pilsner I’ve tried.  Afterward, we came across a grass field and decided to play some Frisbee.  While passing around the Frisbee, we somehow got the Frisbee stuck in the tree and spent about 10 minutes trying to get it down.

We even played a game of Ultimate Frisbee too. I ended up running so much, and I surprised myself as to how long I ran for. I guess going on all these trips and walking around all the time really boosted my endurance without me realizing it.

The Tears of Stalin

While walking toward the castle, we came across a giant metronome on the hill.  In front of it, a huge sign read “The Tears of Stalin” with some missing letters.   According to our tour guide, he said that the area used to be the site of the world’s largest representation of Stalin until the statue was destroyed in 1962.

The picture is crooked because I took it while crossing the street, but at the top of the hill, the words can be see (although some letters are missing).

Prague Castle

When we arrived at the entrance to Prague Castle, we saw two palace guards dressed in a really formal uniform and they behaved like the guards at Buckingham Palace.  Each one wore a blue uniform with a rifle fitted with a bayonet.

When we reached the courtyard of the castle, we came across a bunch of people coming out from the cathedral while chanting.  They even had people wearing backpacks with a giant speaker coming out of it.  I remembered that the day was Corpus Christi and that would probably explain what was going on.

Once the people passed, we saw the St. Vitus Cathedral up close.  It seemed as massive as the cathedral in Cologne.  Apparently, this cathedral here is the largest in Prague.  We didn’t get to go in though because of the Christian holiday.

Everywhere around the castle were examples of really well kept architecture from hundreds of years ago.  It was quite an amazing site to be able to see all of that.

On our way down the mountain, we took tram 22.  Before going to Prague, I had read on the travel report for the city and it explicitly stated that lots of pickpockets operate along that tram route specifically targeting tourists.  So in order to prevent myself from getting pickpocketed again, I was extremely vigilant in watching my surroundings and protecting my stuff (I think I’m quite paranoid with that now).  Nothing happened and I didn’t notice anything suspicious either.  I guess the time that we went wasn’t exactly the peak traffic time.

Church of St. James

The next day, we went on the walking tour around the city.  We began at the old town square where our tour guide explained a lot of Czech history.  He also took us a number of other locations.  The next location we went to was the Church of St. James, where someone happened to be getting married that day.  That’s a pretty cool and unique sight if you ask me.

The tour guide also went on to talk about the history of this place.  In particular he told the story about Vratislav was buried alive by accident in the church.  Story says that the man climbed out of his coffin, but could not get past the stone doors.  Some thought his screams were because his spirit could not find peace so they tried to resolve the problem using holy water.  When the tomb was opened several years later, people found his dead body outside of his coffin.

Also in the cathedral is a statue of a mummified forearm which belonged to a thief who tried to steal from a statue of Virgin Mary inside the church.  Apparently the statue grabbed his hand and refused to let go.  After the thief’s hand was cut off, it was kept at the church to serve as a warning for all thieves.

Franz Kafka

Moving on to the next destination, the tour guide showed us a statue of Franz Kafka, a famous author from Prague.  The statue represented him conquering his demons in his dreams.

Before Kafka died, he did not want his works to be published.  He requested that all his works be burned, but the friend that he entrusted this task to felt that it would be a waste to do such a thing.  After publishing his works, Kafka became very well known and is now considered to be one of the best writers of the 20th century.

The Jewish District

Our next destination was the Jewish district of the city.  This is where we got to see a lot of synagogues build hundreds of years ago.  One of the synagogues, the Spanish Synagogue, had a design unlike most synagogues.  The tour guide said that the synagogue looks more like a mosque and could be due to the fact that the synagogue was built with the help of Muslims and the mosque-like design served as a thank you to them.

The next synagogue we went to was the oldest synagogue in Europe.  Known as the “Old New Synagogue”, it doesn’t look very beautiful as far as architecture goes.  If the tour guide did not mention that it was the oldest in Europe, I would have walked past it thinking that it was just any old building.

The last synagogue we saw was known as the “High Synagogue”.  Unlike the other two, this one didn’t have as interesting of a history.

After seeing the Jewish District, the tour proceeded close to the Vltava river, the river that runs through Prague.

The Rudolfinum

Near the river, was the Rudolfinum, which is a music auditorium.  It is also the home stage of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

Walking further along the river, we could see the Charles Bridge.  And further in the distance up in the mountain, we could see Prague Castle.

Charles Bridge

The Charles Bridge, named after Charles IV, used to be the only bridge across the Vltava river and therefore, this bridge was used extensively as a trade route between Western and Eastern Europe.

While on the bridge, it started to rain and all the artists selling painters instantly covered up their art to protect it.  Unlike last week in Munich, I brought an umbrella.  On a different part of the hill, we could also see the tip of what looks to be a lookalike of the Eiffel Tower.  Apparently, it is an lookout tower and a transmission tower.

One the bridge, there were so many statues across its length.  One of them however, according to the tour guide, was of John of Nepomuk, who was thrown into the river hundreds of years ago.  This man is usually portrayed with a halo of five stars.

For some strange reason, the weather couldn’t really make up its mind at the time, so I got interesting pictures of the bridge with rain clouds and white clouds hovering over it.

Epic Karaoke

That night at the hotel, they had an karaoke event.  Those who were brave/drunk enough, went up on stage to sing for everyone.  When we were there, it was quite rowdy, and our group had quite a bit to drink too.  Some of my friends went up to sing “Summer of ‘69” by Bryan Adams.  They were like the Backstreet Bro(y)s.

While they were up there singing, the audience was really into it too.  People were dancing too.  I guess that’s a good thing.  Just for kicks, I took my friends lighter and started waving it back and forth like at a real concert.  Later on, with some “encouragement” from my friends (probably peer pressure), I went up with them too.  Never went up on a stage like that before, but I guess it worked out.  Afterward, the others went to the largest club in Prague.  Apparently it has six floors.  I didn’t go though, because I really hate clubbing.

International Music Festival

While in Prague, the International Music Festival happened to be on and so we went there to check it out.  I wasn’t that excited for this, since I’m not exactly a fan of any of the music they played there.  What was cool was that the event people shipped a truck full of beer and hooked it up to all the beer taps.  It’s like a dump truck (but with a smaller container that didn’t spin) carrying beer being transported over water.

When we left the festival, we came across the weirdest demonstration of modern art.  Just looking at it confused the hell out of me.  It just made no sense.

Modern Art

There was an modern art exhibit that people could walk through.  We didn’t go in it, but as we walked past the exit, we looked inside and saw some pretty strange stuff.  There was a couple standing in a room with glass windows on all sides and all they did was hug each other.  They stayed in the same hugging position and didn’t move.  Another exhibit had a tent with white cloth draped all over it with someone inside dressed in a similar way (I didn’t notice at first until he/she started moving) and all he/she did was move around randomly inside.  It made no sense.

There was also this thing called a “Sleeping Box”.  I guess it works really well for people who want to block the sunlight while sleeping outside.  Or maybe it was part of the modern art thing.  I don’t know.  The weirdest part about it were people randomly walking around holding a copy of “The Great Gatsby” that had an iTouch/iPhone taped on one of the pages and walked around reciting lines from a play.  It just didn’t make any sense.

The National Museum

Since the modern art exhibit was close to the box office for tickets to the opera, we decided to see if there were any tickets available for that.  Unfortunately, all their tickets had sold out.  Instead, what we did was go to the National Museum to see a mini classical music concert.

The concert played music from famous composers such as Vivaldi, Bach and Mozart.  When I heard the sound of the violins playing, it sounded so nice as I heard the instruments themselves as well as the echo.  I really admired the skill that these people had in music.

Food

In addition to just visiting landmarks around the city, we also tried some of their cuisine.  For food, I got to try their pork knuckle and their goulash.  They also served more mainstream things like perogies and burgers.  The perogies and burgers don’t sound very Czech (maybe not the pork knuckle either), but it was still very delicious.

The menu said that the pork knuckle was only 250 grams, but when they served it to me it seemed more like a kilo of just pork.  Somehow, I ate all of it (except for the really fatty part).

We also went to another restaurant called the “Iron Curtain”.  It was set up using the most stereotypical communist way.  It was underground and in every hallway was some paraphernalia from the communist times.  They were items like propaganda posters, or really old motorbikes.  They even had busts of Stalin and Lenin.  The front cover of the menu even said we’d have a “propaganda experience” and indeed we did.  The item with the best name on the menu had to be the CCCP Burger, where CCCP stood for the “Classic Capitalist Cheeseburger Plate”.  Oh the irony.

The “Iron Curtain” had the best restaurant atmosphere I’ve ever seen.  We left them a generous tip and the waitress was very happy about that.

Drinks

Many know that Pilsner beer comes from the Czech Republic, so everywhere in Prague, people drank Pilsner.  They had lot of brands, but the two most common ones were Gambrinus and Pilsner Urquell.  Apparently, the original Budweiser, came from Czech Republic and not from America.

We also tried another drink called Absinthe.  It is highly alcoholic (45 – 74% ABV).  According to Wiki, it says “Absinthe has been portrayed as a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug” and so, many countries banned it (Canada included).  However, it isn’t proven that the drink is any more dangerous than other types of liquor.

We prepared it by lighting a mixture of sugar and absinthe on fire and then dunking that mixture in a glass of water.  By lighting the mixture on fire, the sugar would caramelize and the absinthe would lose some of its alcohol content.  Apparently, that is one of the mainstream preparation methods for the drink.

We drank it and depending on the concentration of sugar, the drink would either be too bitter or too sweet. I didn’t like it very much. We even tried it without the sugar. We just lit the absinthe on fire and had a flaming shot. That drink just burned as it went down. Someone mentioned that it was kind of like Bacardi 151.

Going Home

On the morning of the fourth day, we went back to Stuttgart.  On the whole, the trip wasn’t very expensive.  It only cost me about 200 euros with transportation and accommodations included.  We even ate out at a restaurant every night.  If I had a wallet at the time, it wouldn’t have hurt at all.

More photos here

Because I didn’t manage to see some of the attractions when I went to Paris the first time around, I went again. In this trip, I went to Paris as well as Normandy. This post only talks about Paris and I’ll write one later about Normandy. Even though it was my second visit to Paris, most of the sights I saw this time around were different.

Getting there

Since our trip involved going to Normandy, this meant that we needed to buy tickets using the French railway company rather than Deutsche Bahn. In order to avoid that, I used a EURail pass to go everywhere. However, since the EURail pass doesn’t come with train seat reservations, we had to go buy one for our train to Paris. It just so happened that the only train available for reservation was the City Night Line. We should have reserved seats for the train earlier than two days before. My friend and I managed to get the last two spots on the train. The third person we went with still had to buy his train tickets and ended up on a train that left earlier that night. This meant that we had to look for him once we arrived in Paris. When we got to Paris, we looked everywhere in the station for him and couldn’t find him. We couldn’t call him either because of the change in cellular network when leaving Germany.

Rather than waiting for him to show up we just proceeded to the hostel. I went to buy tickets from the lady at the ticket window and tried to buy day tickets for the Metro. Luckily, I had prepared for this due to my prior experience in Paris before. I had looked up the phrase in French for this and bought the tickets successfully. I managed to do this using only French. When I asked for the student discount the lady there asked me how old we were. Luckily I still remembered random French vocabulary from Grade 5 and I knew how to answer the question.

Once we got to the hostel and dropped everything off, we found that the check in time wasn’t until later in the afternoon. Finally, I got a text message from the friend we were trying to find and apparently he had been in the train station the whole time, but we somehow couldn’t find him. We went back to the station to get him and brought him back to the hostel.

The check-in process for our hostel was quite painful since the guy at the front desk looked like he tried to work as slow as possible. In order to check people into their rooms, each person had to fill out a form telling the hostel staff their names, nationality etc. Using the slowest work efficiency, he handed out the forms to one party at a time. It also didn’t help that the party ahead of us were a bunch of snobby American girls from Texas (they were probably even slower than the guy at the front desk). Once we filled out the forms, the guy would take his sweet time looking through the files to find our reservation while watching a Tennis game on the side. It look almost 45 minutes for us to check in. After checking in though, we began to see tourist attractions.

Arc de Triomphe

Although it was my second time coming here, I could still admire the beauty of the structure. It represented many of Napoleon’s victories and also featured many of his generals. On the ground directly underneath the arc, are plaques remembering the most recent wars that France fought in. Also there is a plaque of General de Gaulle’s radio speech to the French people over BBC. Near it is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Avenue des Champs-Élysées

One end of the street is the location of the Arc de Triomphe, but on the opposite end is the location of the Louvre. We walked along this street for a little bit and stopped whenever we saw something cool. We ended up passing by the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. We also passed a bridge that had statues made of gold. Near the bridge, a couple was taking wedding photos. They definitely chose a wonderful place to do that. This is where we left the Champs-Élysées and walked across the street to the Invalides.

Les Invalides

This palace consists of museums and monuments that relate to the military history of France. It is also a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans. A few well known attractions there are Napoleon’s Tomb and the Museum of the Army.

Chapel of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides

The chapel here also matches the look of the exterior of the palace itself. It was inspired by Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Famous Tombs

The most notable tomb here is most definitely Napoleon’s. His sarcophagus sits in the center and directly beneath the dome of the Invalides. Among others buried here are some of his family and other French war heroes such as General Foch (he is the one who described the Treaty of Versailles in 1918 as an “armistice for 20 years”).

Musée de l’Armée

The Museum of the Army had exhibits that pretty much described all of France’s military history. We didn’t have enough time to see every exhibit so we only saw the exhibits on World War I, World War II, and France during the Medieval Age. Since we were all technically residents of the EU according to their definition (we each hold a student visa), they granted us free admission into the museum.

The exhibits on the two world wars had so many cool things to show. In addition to teaching the history of the wars, they also showed many weapons used in the wars. I got to see World War I and II era weapons, artillery, uniforms etc. They even had a V2 rocket. They also had a Nazi flag on display as well – something that people don’t ever see in Germany (even in museums).

The exhibits on the Medieval Age showed a large range of armour worn by warriors and even the armour used by their horses. The best part about this exhibit was that each set of armour had a different design in a variety of sizes. The exhibits even had a section showing Japanese and Chinese suits of armour. Also displayed were various weapons that the warriors carried. They showed different types of swords, crossbows, and even muskets.

Eiffel Tower by Day

This is probably the attraction that everyone goes to Paris for. I don’t think people come to Paris and don’t see the Eiffel Tower. It is just an amazing feat of engineering (at the time) and an amazing structure to look at.

Another thing I found out about the Eiffel Tower is that the grass fields in front of the, the Champ de Mars, is perfect for picnics. Anybody who has a chance to do that must do it. Maybe something like sitting on the lawn while eating a baguette while staring at the Eiffel Tower.

Notre Dame

This is another attraction that I revisited. I could have skipped going to this place when I came the second time around, but it is definitely a must-see for people who have never seen it before.

Place de la Bastille

Here is the historic location of the fortress-prison, Bastille Saint-Antoine. On July 14, 1789, an attack on this prison marked the beginning of the French Revolution. Every year on this day, France celebrates Fête de la Fédération, which is known as Bastille Day in English. Although the prison is no longer there, a historical plaque on the side of a building describes it. In the center of the roundabout here is the July Column, which is a monument to the Revolution of 1830, that saw the downfall of Charles X of France.

Eiffel Tower by Night

Because I never got to see this the first time I came, I had to take this opportunity to visit the tower in the night. However, since it is still early summer, the sun didn’t finish setting until around 11 PM, so I had to wait a little while before I could get a picture of the tower in the night without the light of dusk. While at the tower, I spotted a couple hugging in such a way that I could get a romantic shot (at least I tried to) of them with the Eiffel Tower (3rd pic).

Our reservation for the Eiffel Tower was at 11 PM, but we only managed to get tickets for the second level and not the top level because those tickets were all sold out. It was okay for me I guess, since I’ve already gone up to the top before. The lights of all the buildings looked really nice, but unfortunately my camera couldn’t really capture it that well. I tried playing with the exposure time, so that kind of helped.

On our way down, we didn’t want to wait for the elevator like everyone else so we took the stairs. I can’t prove it, but I think going down the stairs was totally faster than waiting for the elevator. Going down the stairs also allowed to see the giant lights that lit up the tower in the night. In addition to just the bright lights, the tower would have a light show every show often where the lights on the Eiffel Tower would flash. I only managed to see a bit of it as we left the tower.

Moulin Rouge

Another famous tourist attraction is the Moulin Rouge. It is located in the red light district, but the place attracts so many tourists who wish to see musical dance entertainment. The Moulin Rouge is also best known as the spiritual birthplace of the modern can-can dance. We only looked at the outside, because the shows there were very much out of our budget (90 euros minimum).

Musée du Louvre

Since the Louvre was so large that I couldn’t see everything last time, I went back again this time to see the things I never saw the other time. One of the exhibits I missed out on last time was the exhibit on the interior design of the residence of Napoleon III. I also saw the inverted pyramid that the Da Vinci Code made so famous.

Château de Versailles

I originally thought that this mansion was just a mansion that Louis XIV lived in, and I never knew that the palace took up so much land area with its canals, gardens, and orchards. I knew Louis XIV lived extravagantly, but I never saw it firsthand until coming to this place. Seeing the remains of his rich-flaunting lifestyle gave me the impression that this guy must have been the biggest douche-bag ever. Almost everywhere around/in the palace was something made of gold or a fancy statue (sometimes both). Going inside Versailles would have cost us 15 euros, but since we’re residents of the EU, it was free.

When we got inside, we were surrounded by so many tourists that it was almost impossible to walk anywhere. It’s as if the staff there just kept letting people in regardless of how many people were inside just to make more money. It didn’t help that each doorway acted as a choke-point for all the people trying to get out.

Once we got outside, everything was okay. The air suddenly smelled nice, and we got to feel the gentle summer breeze. And we go to enjoy the beautiful gardens and orchards. There was even an artificial lake a few hundred meters down that people rowed boats on.

Père Lachaise Cemetery

Even though this place is a cemetery, it still attracts a lot of tourists probably because a lot of famous people are buried here. Names I know off the top of my head are Frédéric Chopin (pianist), Joseph Fourier (mathematician and physicist), and Jim Morrison (from The Doors). I didn’t really try to look for these people, but we did stumble onto Chopin’s grave. That was a really cool find. The graves here have the most extravagant design I’ve ever seen. All the graves I’m used to in Vancouver are just plaques in the ground, but the ones here are huge. One grave could be for an entire family and not just an individual.

Catacombes de Paris

I had no idea that the remains of about six million people were buried beneath Paris in a series of tunnels until I came here. The catacombs here used to be a limestone mine and even now the rocks on the ceiling of some of the tunnels still drip water. Before going in, we found out that the staff there only permitted 200 people inside at a time, so we ended up waiting in line for almost 2 and a half hours before being able to get in. Even though the tour was only about 45 minutes, it was so worth it. Never in my life have I seen skull and bones stacked up in such macabre ways. In some parts of the catacombs, some of the bones were loosened from the stack and people could easily take a giant femur and start waving it back and forth (I don’t know why anyone would do that though). And for those who are sick enough to, could steal a skull as a souvenir. Although, I couldn’t resist touching century-old skulls and bones. It is also said that Robespierre is among these remains, but no one knows exactly which one.

Photos: here