In 80 days around the world?

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Many of you people out there will be thinking: “Wait! This guy has been given two weeks in one of the most astonidhing places on this planet. Now he is gonna waste his time there by going on nerd tours about some odd fantasy movie? Why, oh why would he do THAT???”

Well, in general I agree with that notion. Especially after seeing some adds and talking to the people on the Edoras tour (most of them were beyond help), most of these Lord of the Rings tours are strange. They take you to some place, where a tree or a bush or maybe a rock stands that was seen in any arbitrary shot in the movie for maybe, say, 8s. Then they give you some props, you pose, get a pic, and everyone is happy. WICKED!

But not Edoras. While most places in the movie, Helm’s Deep, Minas Tirith, Lothlorien, etc, were heavily edited after shooting, the valley and the rock, where Edoras was built, are real. Of course, the whole set was removed and the valley returned to its original state, but that doesn’t take away the majestic panorama when you are actually on that hill. You don;t believe me? Check out this:


Ah, what lovely little town. Though all the visitors I met agree that the town is rather, well, sleepy, even boring, it was the rather relaxed and easy atmosphere here that made me enjoy my visit. I had time to stroll around the Botanical Garden, visited the Canterbury Museum, which has an Antarctica exhibit and, on temporary display, the Hallet research station, that was decommissioned and send north. The latter was very interesting since the station, built somewhere in the fifties, directly impacted a colony of Adelie Penguins, causing a great drop in the population number in the first decaade of operations. When the station was finally abandoned and later disassembled, a huge amount of junk, waste, and leaked fuel had to be removed from the site. Today, a large area that includes the original stations site, is under environmental protection and mostly off-limits to visitors.

A short trip across the road brought me into the Museum of Contemporary Art. Two very nice exhibitions, Giacometti, Scupltures and Drawings, and Craig Potton, Floating on Ice, entertained me for at least another hour. After that I went for the Christchurch Gondola, an outlook that is roughly 500 high. The hill is part of an old crater, that has now Lake Ellsmere in it. I walked quite a stretch along that crater and then turned towards the coast. I can’t upload the pix I took right now, but be assured, the landscape is gorgeous!

Well, the rest of the day was spent with food and drinks, which was rather delightful. Though one thing is certain: the local nightlife is rather dull and limited….

Wow. The time has come… My first post in re: Trip to the South. The South!

Now, that trip is actually still a few days away. The first part of my journey took me to Christchurch in New Zealand. And what a travel that was… My original flight path was Philadelphia to Dallas, to Los Angeles to Auckland and finally Christchurch. Now, we all now that this year the winter is exceptionally warm everywhere. No snow, no freeze, nothing. However, this Sat, eactly the same Sat where I leave for my greatest adventure ever, well, guess what? Ice rain over Dallas. Great, huh? So, my first flight out of Philly got cancelled. The second one made it to Dallas, but instead of continuing to LA, thay just kicked us out of the plane. Now, the next plane to LA was still fine for me, but it had a defect fan in the avionics…. Yeah, great. So after three more hour in Dallas I arrived in LA one hour to late for my NZ flight. Quickly, I was rebooked to Sydney, which was a 14h flight. Boy. Well, I shouldn’t complain, Qantas has nice food…. In Sydney, I was told that I am checked through to Christchurch, but they can’t let me fly since my ticket doesn’t allow rerouting. In other words: pay or stay. Luckily, the supervisor at the transfer desk was a bit more competent, so I did get my boarding card and had actually a quit enjoyable flight thanks to my charming seat neighbor.

Of course, that couldn’t have been just a happy end. Oh no, obviously, some casualties were to be expected. And the weakest link in air trvel is… your checked-in luggage.. Well, they found it and it should arrive tomorrow, and I did get one of their overnight kits. The one for women. With a white T-Shirt in it that has a Qantas logo. Come on, they can’t expect me to run around in a shirt that says: ” Look, I am one of those lucky bastards that lost his luggage. Guess the name of the airline…”

So, now I am checked-in to the Windsor, a beautiful little bed and breakfast in downtown Christchurch. Place is neat, the people here are very nice, the weather is warm, but not hot. I will take a shower now and then check out the town! Expect some pix soon!

All right, folks. This is your personal blog beaker, signing off for today…

Second week in Germany and I my body feels like cheese that aged too long… One would wager that one week is plenty of time to adjust to the time shift, but alas! my body firmly refuses to tick according to CET. Furthermore, the coffee that i supposed to bring back life into my aging and aching bones is too strong for me! This brings me to the unavoidable conclusion, that my naturalization to the USofA way of life has progressed very far indeed…

Today, our collaboration meeting started. That brings a certain rhythm into their life: coffee and cookies at 9, 11, 15, lunch at 13 , dinner at 20. So one basically eats and its in talks, trying to stay awake. In the breaks, a little conversation is included with the drink, but people are people, so they stick together in the usual groups. After a week, everyone goes back home, probably a few pounds heavier but not necessarily more enlightend.

Anyway, the whole thing isn’t too bad. Besides, these meetings are usually accompanied by some nice dinner and a bit of sight seeing or so. Furthermore, I’ll have a few days in Hamburg and Uppsala next week, now, that isn’t bad at all!

Ah, back in good ol’ Germany: The first lunch was a “Currywurst mit Pommes”, boy, my stomach couldn’t take it! Apparently, it has grown weak, suffering from an American diet. The “Wienerschnitzel” went down much better, let me tell ya!

Yep, I am back, and enjoying it. Still jet lagged, obviously, but coping much better with than last time (being sick then mde it especially hard). I already extended my visa, was a piece of cake. Kinda. I did forget to deposit my cell with my backpack, so at the entrance they turned me down. Fortunately, a nice newsstand owner at the nearest underground station is running a little “storage service”, free of charge. Isn’t that great? Anyway, after this little mishap things progressed along the expected lines: Only a few questions, here and there a clarification, and finally the confirmation of another year of fear and loathing!

The greatest thing about the Visa journey was the train. Man, after having been “Amtraked” half a dozen times or so I was just cherishing to “fly” around in an ICE. What a wonderful trip I had from Hamburg to Berlin and then further on to München! I guess if all of the German Rail costumers were forced to spend just a day with a train anywhere else in the world, they might appreciate the service over here. I am looking forward to the journey back to Hamburg next week!

Now I am in München, hangin’ out with Roland and looking forward to some fun on the Oktoberfest tomorrow. Hope, I can sneak through without being recognized as a “Preiß”… 😉

So much from here for now.

Greetings!

It is half-time in my vacation game and time to pause and reflect on the last few days. I arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, last Friday. Joining our Canadian outpost, Yann and Reilika, we immediately hit the road towards the Okanagan Valley. Situated close to the US border, the Okanagan ist one of the wamest regions in Canada. It also has Canada’s only desert ecosystem and is considered its foremost wine growing region. So we didn’t only enjoy a little lesson about the Okanagan ecosystem, we also had some little nippers of delicious wine on our journey from Osoyoos to Kelowna. Now, that is a good start for a vacation, right? In Kelowna, we left the Okanagan and drove west. We crossed the Fraser river, the longest stream in BC, the towns Lillooet and Whistler (big skiing resort, they are preparing for the Winter Olympics right now) and arrived back in Vancouver for a short stop.

Then Vancouver and the Guld Islands were on the menu. We crossed over to Salt Spring Island, where we stayed at a beautiful camp ground. The next day, a visit to Dave and his honey production was fun. We got the grand tour, including detailed stories to every old Buick he has on his farm, dating bsack to 1957. After a lot of photos and honey gifts, we hopped over to Vancouver ISland and visited Cathedral Grove in McMillan Provincial Park, where BC oldest Douglas Firs live, the oldest being 800 years old! The largest ones have circumferences up to nine meters, and reach almost 100m in height. This concluded more or less the trip. We returned back to Vancouver with the ferry from Victoria.While en route on the ferry, four Orcas waved us farewell, it was a pity that it was already so dark that one could only see there silhouettes…

What will the next days bring? Tomorrow, downtown Vancouver will have to suffer me. Friday we might check out “the Chief”, a mountain near Whistler. Saturday is my last day here, I just might take it easy….

So much from the far west. I wish everyone back home a pleasant evening!

It has been awhile, I am afraid, since I shared some of my insignificant flapdoodle, but I guess it is time again… I hope that everyone had nice and cosy holidays and “slided” just fine into the new year. I certainly did, though it didn’t look very bright at all from the start! Where to begin?

Ah, yes, with travelling, of course. I reckon that nowadays it is taken for granted that reaching an arbitrary point B from any point A in the so-called civillized part of the world is a matter of routine. One just hops into a plane, more or less stumbles out of it and embraces whoever is picking one up from the airport. Now, I used to share that notion but I learned the hard way how innocent my views have been….

It all started so well: I arrived early at the airport around 7pm, three hours prior to departure. I skipped the quite short queue, since I was travelling alone, and after some nice chat with the check-in desk attendant got a free upgrade to the next higher cabin! Never happened to me before. However, when she asked if I am going to Hamburg tonight, I replied “hopefully”. That was a bad omen, I really have to learn to keep my sarcasm in check from time to time! Well, the damage was done and I would have to bear the consequences later on. Regardless, I enjoyed hanging around the shops and having a beer with fries in the Terminal C pub. Slowly, I set out for the Gate and made my self comfortable…

Finally, the flight was ready – almost on time, I might add – and people began boarding the plane. Happily, I lowered myself into the economy plus seat, which does have a generous amount of additional space in front of your legs which can make all the difference after three or so hours. Then came the next positive surprise: The gentleman sitting next to me was trying to get a seat next to his wife and child! Sitting in the economy plus cabin with an empty seat on the left and the aisle on the right: That’s bliss! So indeed he moved and I settled for a nice flight with a lot of room for myself!

That’s when the first announcement came: Due to technical problems the departure will be delayed. Half an hour later it turns out that the problem is more severe and that they have to power down the aircraft which makes it necessary for all of us to leave. Having done that and being back at the gate, the next announcement let us know that they tried everything and will now go through the check-up again. At last, after keeping the passengers at there toes for more than two hours, the final verdict came: Due to a defect valve in one engine’s fuel line the flight was cancelled!

That’s when the chaos started: No one seemed to know what needs to be done next. Supposedly, busses were waiting to take the passengers to nearby hotels. But first we had to get our checked-in baggage! And where were the busses waiting? And where would they take us?

Now everytime the fine fabric of custom is ruptured, human beings revert to their most natural behaviour, shedding all acquired education in an instant: You had people angrily discussing with personal, others were crying and were devastated, again others were laughing or cracking jokes. I guess I belonged to the last group, I found it all just hilarious! Anyway, the busses arrived eventually and off we went to the closest hotel, which was totally unprepared to host 80 to 100 people in the middle of the night! So when I finally was inside, the queue moved about one party per three minutes. It took me another two hours to get into my room and around four o’clock in the morning I fell asleep, totally exhausted!

The next morning we had to check out at noon, so I was back at the airport around 1:30pm. The place was completely empty expect for the poor wretched fellow passengers: No officials, no open check-in desks, and no news or information to make us feel at least not forgotten! Also, the place has no food or drinks, not even a bloddy coffee dispenser, so I set out on a mission to find something to drink… After an hout or so I found a coffee, so I resumed queuing and making acquaintances with fellow victims of the system. Meanwhile, people started to get hungry, so I joined a few guys who decided to order a pizza…. 😉

Lizenz zum Trinken

Altogether, we spend another four hours waiting till I finally was checked-in again! Boy, at least I got my free upgrade again, I had feared the worst! The plane was supposed to depart at 18:15 now, but we didn’t lift off till eight o’clock….

…. which automatically made me miss my connecting flight in London. They did rebook me on a flight of a competing airline, but of course my suitcase never made that change…. So, when I finally arrived in Hamburg, I had slept maybe eight hours in three days. And since I had missed a whole day of my vacation, I couldn’t rest that evening, there were appointments I had to attend. The whole rest of the week was so busy that right on the 26nd I hit the bad with a cold! Great, huh? Fortunately enough, my cold wasn’t so bad, I still had a very good time back home!

Now, the trip back was supposed to redeem that particular airline in my eyes. And everything went pretty well! I even ended up in economy plus again, because a lady wanted to sit next to her friends in the economy cabin. How could I have refused her!

But then it happened: After the plane had halted in its park position at Philly, they wouldn’t let us get up and off! Turns out that they have broken power units, so the engine had to keep on running till they get power from a ground unit. When they let us disembark finally, it was 45min later and the engine was still running, which meant that they couldn’t open the cargo bay! I spent two hours at the airport before I finally got my luggage and could leave!

Well, well, well, let’s not forget that after all I went and came back safe and sound and that’s what matters, doesn’t it? I have spent hours in storage ring control rooms waiting for a proton beam to come alive, so technical problems are no real news to me… 😉

Now I am back in good old Newark, planing my next steps. There is the driver’s licence business I have to seriously take on now and there are a few other projects like my new toy that has to be setup properly! Otherwise, I am trying to pick the threads of my new life and to continue the ongoing adventure of being abroad!

Yours truly, Levent

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