The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
This is a stitched picture of the “best view of Prague” as seen from a vineyard atop the old city. All of my Prague pictures from the Staff Association retreat are now online at http://flubu.com/various_pics/prague_may_2010/. You can right-click to save/view a full-size version of the image.
I’ve discovered that I like Rome, and that November is a great time to visit.
I attended the EMBL Council meeting that was held in Rome in the last week of November, and the weather was balmy. People were sitting outside, eating in terraces and walking in shorts and t-shirts. The tourist volume was also very low, according to locals.
I’ve also come to the conclusion that Ryanair are bastards with carry on luggage allowance. They had us queueing in the departure lounge for half an hour while they measured that all carry-on bags fit in the little blue rack. There was drama in the queue as overloaded italians were complaining. I saw a man trying to close his suitcase by sitting on it, while wearing 2 winter coats. He also had fabulously chavtastic bling and designer stubble. Fantabulous!
We made it to Rome without major hiccup. It was amazing to see Roman aqueducts from the air, right next to modern train tracks. The hotel, apparently a very posh one, was rather bemused at my dietary requirements but they did their best not to kill me. One thing I discovered about Italy is that everybody – and I do mean everybody – says that “the rules are just a suggestion”. Crossing the street becomes a challenge. Apparently the key is to show no fear. If you blindly set out from the corner, the traffic will stop. If you’re hesitant, they’ll ignore you. Either way, you run a good chance of still being run over :)
There was a little memo card on the desk in the hotel, saying that local fire prevention regulations prevent ironing/tea making facilities from being made available in the rooms. This little memo card was located right next to an ashtray and complimentary pack of matches.
Indeed.
I made a tactical error when I thought that the formal council dinner was on the Tuesday and our informal Staff Association dinner was on the Monday. Turns out it was the other way around, so I ended up going to a very posh dinner with all the council delegated wearing blue jeans and a sweater. The good news was that I was with the rest of the plebs, way at the back of the room, so nobody really noticed or cared. The food was good, the wine was ample, which was a very good thing considering that there was about an hour of speeches with a non-functional microphone. The people at the head tables seemed to be enjoying them, but the only thing we heard of the speeches were sounds of Charlie Brown’s mother. This again being Italy, a dinner that was supposed to be ending at 10 was cut short at 11:30, when we were told that the buses were leaving in 5 minutes (and most people had just been served their pudding).
I had a decent breakfast the following morning, fuelling up for a full day of listening to people (thank god for wifi). I had lunch with the council delegates from the UK, Luxembourg and Finland. The council meeting went well and we got through the agenda in one day. All the contentious points passed (though one required a bit of back-room deal-making, but such is politics).
I ate more pineapple and rocket than I can remember in recent times, and drunk way too much (good!) coffee, which is probably a good thing considering all that wine.
We had time to go walking on Tuesday night, before going to our SA dinner. We went to the Pantheon and then crossed the Tiber to go to a restaurant in Trastevere called Ripa 12 that is supposed to be well known for its fish. I tried some really nice tuna carpaccio and had excellent swordfish. And more wine. And then GELATO! At midnight. In November. Brilliant :)
The italian mentality for not giving a damn about the rules came up again while we were heading back to the hotel. We were told never to buy a bus or tram ticket. They have to pay people to check them – so they don’t – and if they do happen to find you without a ticket, they generally just drop you off at the next stop.
On Wednesday, I channeled my inner Italian and decided to go to the Colosseum and to the Forum in the time I had before my flight back to the UK (I even took the bus without a ticket on my way back!). I had a really good time at the Colosseum and my piece of advice is to always book a tour guide. It cost me 20 euro to get ticket entrances to the Colosseum and the Palatine gardens, with guided tours for both. This might seem a lot, but if you consider that entry fees for both are generally 12 euro, and you get 3 hours of tour guides in total, that’s not a bad deal. What’s the clincher though is that you bypass all the normal queues! That’s worth the money by itself.
I wish I had had more time to visit the Palatine and the ruins of the Forum, but I had to cut my tour short so I wouldn’t miss my cab to the airport. Still, I had a very good morning and took lots of pictures.
All of these, and more, are available here: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/rome_nov_2009/
My flight back was uninteresting and I wanted to kill the drunken lot behind me, but such is cheap air travel. The airport gods were clement on the way back though, because I managed to get through immigration and baggage reclaim at Stansted in less than 10 minutes. Unheard of!
Random quote of the airport, as said to a custom’s officer: Excuse me sir, but somebody’s sausage fell out near the baggage carousel.
The gods giveth, the gods taketh away. Our cab driver managed to misplace his parking ticket, so he had to make his way back to the terminal and get that fixed. We came back fairly chipper though, and when I asked him what sort of fine he had to pay, he said it was only £2. I asked him was his secret was and he said that he looked pitiful and sorry for himself. I said that that normally only works if you’re blonde and perky, but he said that it also works if you’re old and senile :)
Made it home, kissed Katy, ate take-away. All in all, a good trip :)
I made it back from Amsterdam in one piece and no drug-related incidents. I was mildly concerned that there might be dogs and they might have objected to some lingering scents from my clothes (oh come on, this is Amsterdam we’re talking about here!) but we made it back home with no problems. In fact, it was probably my easiest customs clearance in Stansted in memory. There was no queue. The buggers did change the layout of the landing card though, which made me waste a bit of time, having to read it.
I worked from home on Thursday and took Friday off sick cause I had a lingering headache that took its sweet time to go away. Yesterday was a bank holiday so all in all, it was a 4 day weekend. I could use more of those, even if Katy and I did spend it watching waaaaaaaaaaay too many episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, we are sad. Yes, we know it.
We did get some grown-up work done; laundry and groceries and the such. We’ve started buying nappies and baby wipes. One of the books mentioned that if you start buying that stuff before the kids are due and you’re still on full pay, it can really help ease the burden of low maternity pay. We stared, slack-jawed, at the wall of diapers in Tesco and we kept asking ourselves which ones to get and if more expensive really is better. In the end, we went for a brand name that was on sale. We’ll get more of the same in the following weeks. This mildly freaks me out.
We also managed to get some fun stuff done though. We had a BBQ on Saturday where we went completely overboard on the sausages. We went to Cafe Rouge on Monday, just for the hell of it. We wanted to catch a movie as well, but Katy was feeling a bit tired. The last few weeks have been emotional for her and it seems to have caught up with her. There’s the whole Rita issue, for one. She’s decided – and I support her decision – to simply cut all contact. Drastic, but it’s at the point where she’s getting more negative than positive from the whole thing and it’s time to call it quits and move on. I had something similar happen with Seb, years ago, so I do understand where she’s coming from. People change…
The plan for the next few days is work, work and work and then Ikea. I also need to start going back to the gym again. It’s been way too long and I’ve gotten in horrible shape. All the good work that I’d done for the wedding is long gone. I’ve not gained too much weight, but the muscle turned to flab and must be dealt with now. Blergh. Don’t wanna, but need to. Such is life.
I had really weird dreams last night. I don’t really remember them, but I do recall that they were weird.
I woke up to the usual noise. The Dutch builders are very punctual and assiduous in their work ethic.
I checked out of my hotel and brought alll my bags to the conference center. My tram was delayed on the way so I missed the opening keynote. Le poo. The auditorium is… huge! Having said that, I can happily report that my talk went very well. I didn’t swear or say anything inappropriate (always a fear). I don’t remember anything of what I said – that tends to happen a lot when I give a talk in public – but the feeling I have and the confirmation from my colleagues is that I came across very well. I always think that I talk too quickly, but at least it comes across clearly so I can live with that.
I managed to find a chhicken salad that didn’t look like it would kill me (and as I’m writing this now, it would seem that it won’t) and it was actually rather tasty.
The plan now is to hang around here until 4:30, when we’re scheduled to break down the stand and pack everything up. I’ll accompany the other people that are also leaving tonight and we’re taking a cab to the airport. The flight is scheduled for 9:30 local (and we land at 9:35 BST, imagine that!) so we’ll probably eat and shop a bit at the airport. If all goes well, I should be home by 10:30.
That last thought makes me happy.
My plans were thwarted when I arrived to find the bagel place closed. Shops close very early in Amsterdam, apparently. This did not make me happy, as I now had to go scavenge for food. I came across a deli that looked promising, but the only meat that seemed Richard-friendly at first glance had a mixed spice rub so I didn’t really want to chance it. Luckily, I have noticed three things about the Dutch.
They love bicycles.
They love to smoke (everything!).
They love steak.
Never in any country – including the US of A – have I seen a higher concentration of Argentinian steakhouses. I counted 4 visible from a single intersection – two being of the same chain and across the street from one another. So I didn’t starve, but my diet is still shit for this trip. I would have much preferred the bagel, but what can you do.
I did manage to make it back to my hotel at a decent time and the rest of my evening pretty much went according to plan.
I woke up with a mild hangover this morning, courtesy of Amsterdam’s finest. The construction noises didn’t help either. Breakfast was, if possible, even worse than yesterday and I didn’t stop burping it until close to noon.
Michel and Isabelle dropped their luggage off in my room while we went for a canal cruise this morning. It was a nice, easy way to wake up and then we parted ways. They picked up their luggage and took the train to Rotterdam to continue on their merry holidaymaker ways and I took the tram to the conference to see all the fun I’d been missing there.
Apparently the food here is horrible too (though I had no plans to sample it). I chatted a bit with the booth folk, uploaded my presentation to the speakers’ presentation system and then took in the poster sessions and the exhibitor hall. A few posters caught my eye and I found out that a company working in Victoria is planning a massive hiring spurt for software developers so I could have a job in Canada in the next few months if I wanted one. I’ll have to keep them in mind when my contract is up because, were I to come back to Canada post-EBI, the two places that I’d consider are Montreal and BC. The exhibitor booth is shockingly barren of good schwag. Everybody is only giving away cheap-looking pens. T-shirts, people, t-shirts! My preferred conference remains Javapolis, but I don’t think Ben will allow me to attend this year (and it was my turn on the rota too!)
The plan for tonight is to be a good boy. I’m going to go grab a bagel from the shop I found yesterday and then head back to the hotel. I want to go over my talk a few times and have an early night.
The conference program held nothing of interest for me and Michel and Isabelle – who I had not seen in ages – were in town. So I didn’t go to the conference and made the tactical decision to waste my time with fun friends instead of wasting my time trying to not fall asleep in a dark auditorium listening to recycled keynote lectures. We shall speak of this no more.
I woke up to a very noisy hotel room. I’d always been led to believe that Ibis hotels were good. Hopefully, this is the one exception that proves the rule. To put it bluntly, this Ibis Amsterdam Central has no redeeming features except that it’s close to the train station and that the rooms have 4 walls and a bed. Right now, the hotel is a construction site because planned renovations are taking longer than expected. I woke up to the pleasant noise of an impact hammer and various drills. The breakfast buffet has to be one of the worst hotel breakfasts I’ve ever had the displeasure to have. The “eggs” are so bland that the amount of salt and pepper needed to add some taste to them is frightening. They would also make good wallpaper paste. There is no bacon. Let me repeat this. There is no bacon. This might be very North Americal of me, but THERE IS NO BACON. This is a crime against humanity. Ok, so I exaggerate a bit, but it doesn’t change the fact that the decor is cafeteria-chic and looks onto train tracks and that the food is even less appealing than the decor. Like the rats from Ratatouille say: “food is fuel”, so I managed to find some things to eat.
Michel and Isabelle were still a bit jetlagged so they said they’d catch up with me around noon-ish. I didn’t want to waste too much sunlight to I went to the Rijksmuseum. The Rembrandts are… stunning! I’d never really looked at one. The light, the detail, the vibrancy of them! Beautiful. Took my breath away. There were also some Vermeers (he painted The Girl with the Peal Earring – but that painting is in the Hague) that were impressive, but Rembrandt steals the show.
After that, I went to the Van Gogh museum to wait in the queue while Michel and Isabelle were en route. Amusing moment: two French tourists were waiting behind me. One said to the other: “everybody is so civilized. Everybody is waiting quietly and nobody is cutting in the queue”. The other replies; “we’re not in France here”. :D
Finally the dynamic duo arrived and we met up and chatted about silliness while we waited to get in. The Van Goghs were impressive, but less so than the Rembrandts. What was impressive is the sheer amount of them. Pictures I’d only seen in books, not two feet away from my nose with only a little metal rail separating us. I didn’t know that old Vincent had had an Oriental period where he tried to replicate the Japanese woodblock print style. I bought a really cool poster of one of those.
We went to a “diamond museum” afterwards which was one part small, tacky exhibit room and nine parts large, tacky shopping area. The stuff was not particularly nice and bloody expensive. We went walkies after that with no real aim in sight.
Isabelle is an even bigger shutterbug than I am! She’s always snapping away at random things. The memory card on her camera is rated for a few thousand pictures and I’m certain that she’ll fill it in before the end of their trip. She kept telling Michel to “act natural” when she wanted to pose a scene with him in it :)
We had tea and lunch at a little bagel shop and then we went walking along the canals and in the flower market. Isabelle kept saying “photo opportunity” but the first time she said that, Michel heard “hippopotame chauve” which, translated, means “bald hippopotamus”. We kept teasing him about it. The weather was off and on. Raining a bit then a bit of sun, then more drizzle. Lather, rinse, repeat.
We went walking in the red light district. In daylight, it’s not really a pleasant sight. The hookers are past their sell-by dates and the whole area is grimy. Isabelle waned shortly after to she went back to her hotel while Michel and I made plans to sample some of Amsterdam’s finest, have dinner then see the red light in hopefully better light (when darkness would hide the worst of the grime).
The coffee shops are very generous in their portions and we discovered tat Amsterdam’s finest is potent as hell! We sat on the banks of the Gentlemens’ canal and shared a doobie. Now granted, it was a big doobie and had no tobacco in it to cut things down, but still. da-yum! I hadn’t been that stoned in years! We managed to fight back the giggles and had dinner in a nice steakhouse near Rembrandtplein.
Even though the night-shift of hookers in the red light is of better stock than the day-shift, it still leaves something to be desired. If I’d been single and carefree, there would have been only three or four ladies of negotiable affection that would have tempted my fancy in the dozens and dozens that we saw. The district is also packed with drunks, dopeheads, pickpockets and generally smelly and unpleasant tourists. We didn’t linger. Michel hailed a cab and dropped my off at my hotel on the way to his.
I talked with Katy on the phone, watched the olympic highlights and went to sleep.
It occurs to me that I am traveling with not one, not two, but three stuffed toys in backpack. This is two more than usual:
You see, one Bobbles always lives in my backpack. He likes it there and has moved in permanently. One Bobbles is for Isabelle, cause Bobbles rocks and she is now converted to the cause of the blue owl. Parsley, Katy’s lion, must follow me in all my Katy-less travels. He keeps an eye on me to make sure I don’t get myself into trouble (or so I’ve been told).
Our pictures from Canada are online at http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/bobbles_canada_may2008/.
You’ll notice a recurrent theme. As we were packing our bags prior to leaving, we realized that a small plush Bobble the little blue owl had been living in my backpack for close to a year now. How could we be so cruel as to evict him from his home? We couldn’t, so we took him with us and cataloged his many adventures.
It was quite astonishing to see where we managed to make him end up. He was an instant hit with everybody that interacted with him. I was shameless in trying to get him anywhere I could (Katy was mortified on more than one occasion). My motto was if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Because of this, we managed to get him:
Never underestimate the power of the owl! We got some pictures that still manage to crack us up! All in all, Bobble had a great trip, ate waaaaay too much for such a little blue owl that he is and tried to kill himself with chocolate on more than one occasion.
Having said that though, he was very tired at the end of the trip and was glad to be back home.
Katy and I are back from Canada. The bags are mostly unpacked, the laundry mostly done, the cats are back home with us.
Trip was good. Lots of pictures.
News to come.
Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired.
