65-60-??

August 27, 2007 in In 80 days around the world? | 5 comments

… are the measures that will accompany me out of this country. Yes, indeed, it is true:

Levent is about to leave the building!

It will be to the two years, when I embark on my flight to my new home….

Switzerland!

Lausanne, to be precise. Now, if you are still wondering about my not so curvy travel mate: those numbers are the weights of my three suitcases that gonna carry my stuff (made in china electronics, made in china pants, made in china.. well, you are getting the picture…) straight into the heart of…
… the home of the International Olympic Committee!
Yes, the IOC, International Overlord of Corruption, is seated in Lausanne! If that gives rise to hope for some good ol’ fashioned fear and loathing, what else will?

Let’s be honest: The reason I had gone quite wasn’t so much that I didn’t have anything to write about, it was just too much! In the mother nation of all democracies, fear and loathing can be encountered around every corner. Be it 2000cal burger menus, cars that look like tanks and consume 25l per 100km, students that don’t know how to dress and talk, or the accelerating decay of the US government, it is fear and loathing overload! I have to be honest with you guys, I could not handle it! But in la Suisse, things will be much slower, quieter, easier to digest. I bet there will be a lot to be reported when I start my job there next week.

Well, now that an era is coming to an end, certain questions arise: What was learned in two years in the US? What do I take with me as positive or negative impressions? Do I leave for good or is there a chance that I might be coming back? I don’t have any answers at this point, I am afraid, they will require both the distance in space and time. In the meantime, I will have fun with trying to get settled in a country whose language I do not speak (Lausanne, the capital of the canton of Vaud, is in French-speaking Switzerland)! Cool, eh?

I also have some unwritten blog entries, which I finally may finish and publish. I am not promising anything, but stay tuned… 🙂

From Galaxies Far, Far Away


July 7, 2007 in In 80 days around the world? | Permalink

… they do come: Cosmic Rays. They penetrate time and space, traveling Megaparsecs of distances to give us a glimpse of the most exotic and oldest objects in space. Accelerated in the process to violent to imagine, they reach energies which are well beyond our technical capabilities.

Oh, all right, stop it! Obviously, the real picture of the radiation that is bombarding our little planet is a bit more complicated and actually not very well known. And this conference I am stuck at is summarizing more or less the status quo in experiment and theory in unraveling the mysteries of a radioactive space…

So, to make it short: Iam thrilled and enthralled and tired to the bone. After four days of constant sessions (8.30 – 13.30 with short breaks, and then 16.30-18.30) I am completely saturated and cannot digest any more information! But, to my luck, the tour day is coming up tomorrow! I will be visiting Chichen Itza while slowly cooking/broiling in 36C in the shade. And there is no shade on that pyramid…

Otherwise, there isn’t much to report from here. I will have some time to do some museum tours on Monday or Tuesday, but otherwise I just try to get away long enough from the conference to get half an hour or so at the pool! Couldn’t do it today, though, we just had a major downpour… sigh…

Ok, I am falling asleep while typing this, so I will switch off. Expect some stories and pix tomorrow!

Muy Caliente, caramba!

July 5, 2007 in In 80 days around the world? | 2 comments

So, here I am, slowly burning in MĂ©rida, Mexico. I arrived here from Atlanta on Monday, and the needle hasn’t gone down below 35C during the day! Well, I have to admit that it gets reasonably cool in the night… And I am spending my days in a climatized, darkened, windowless conference room (aka “Überlandkeller”), so I can’t really complain.

Trip here was funny, at Atlanta I was one of the last to register at the gate, and they wouldn’t let me and two other passengers on the very small plane, since they had to check the weight and balance… I was already getting ready to stay night in Atlanta, but then everything was fine and I hopped on a plane that had basically been taken over by physicist. Scary….

What can I tell you about MĂ©rida? Nothing. We went to the central square on Tuesday, but were on our way back after only 1.5 hours, it was just too hot! The cathedral at the square is the oldest on the continent, but that is basically all I know about MĂ©rida. Sunday I will go on a tour to Chichen Itza, that will be certainly interesting, but I am not sure if I can manage to get away another day… We’ll see.

So far, Montezuma hasn’t shown up, but I have been only eating/drinking in the three hotels where the conference is held. Maybe it is time to risk a bit? Well, maybe not… Anyway, the food is great, though I am sure that these big hotels tailor the food to the tourist’s taste. Hope I can get some more authentic stuff later. I already had a few beers here, very nice, and the Tequila rocks, obviously! Yumm!

Ok, so much from here. I doubt I will have much more to tell you since I am basically stuck in the conference, but you never know, right?

The summer is here

May 27, 2007 in Living in America | Permalink

So, it is official: the summer season 2007 had started. Or will start tomorrow with Memorial Day. We already are slowly backing in temperatures around 30C, but at least the humidity hasn’t arrived yet. Even though I am more of a Arctic man, I suppose, the heat isn’t too bad. Especially with the cool breeze coming and going…

Haven’t written much lately. So, let me see if I can fill some of the gaps from the past months ever since I have been back from the Pole….

My car: Yep, till riding my red Olds Cutlass Supreme International. It stinks, it is loud, and behaves rather unpredictable sometimes, but it still runs! A few weeks back someone hit the front, now I have a big dent above the left headlight. This happened on one of the University parking lots, of course, the person didn’t leave a note or anything… Well, it gives the car a notorious character, I guess…

My job: Work has been intense and interesting lately. We are preparing contributions to a big conference, so things are a bit hectic… The conference is in MĂ©rida, Mexico. That is close to beaches and Mayan ruins, so this might be a fun vacation…. Well, obviously I am there for work… 😉
What else? I have been applying for jobs. So far, I haven’t gotten any offer, but there are still options open. I can say a much: If I don’t stay here, then I will be either back in Europe or still on the North American continent. Let’s keep fingers crossed!

My movies: Well, haven’t been out much lately. Of course I saw “Spiderman 3”, “Grindhouse”, and “28 Weeks later”. Nothing much to report, they were entertaining, but not much more. Ok, “Planet Terror” rocked, it was very funny… Will watch Pirates 3 next week. On DVD, I saw some interesting movies. “The Fountain” was strange but also very touching. Aronofsky is a hell of a film maker, if you ask me! “The Crying Game” also felt unusual, but was very good. And no, I didn’t know about the worst kept secret… Anyway, movie wise things are a bit slow right now…

My music: PĂ€rt and Schnittke are definetly the composers of the season. What, never heard of them? Try “Tabula Rasa” or “Alina” for PĂ€rt, check out the violin concertos or the Concerto Grosso No.1 for Schnittke. And if that is too heavy, go and check imdb for their music used in films… 😉

Hmmm, I guess that is pretty much all for now. Enjoy the summer feeling!

No travelin’ no mo’

May 15, 2007 in In 80 days around the world? | 3 comments

Hullo!

Well, just came back from another journey. This time, my destiny led me to Barcelona, Spain, to witness the wedding of two very dear friends: Mireia and Roland. Needless to say that there was a big party, amazing amounts of food, and some tears here and there between the smiles and laughter. I will write in a bit more detail about it in the coming days…

… right now I want to share a thought about traveling: Please, no more! There comes a time where there is a tiredness in your bones which comes from being on the road too often or too long. Or both. Right now I am looking forward to a weekend with no journeys, no travels, no nothing. Just sitting at home and “eierschaukeln”…

Don’t get me wrong: The next trip is looming up at the horizon! My presence at the next International Conference for Cosmic Rays is expected from the highest level… The big event happens in Merida, Mexiko…. At least the time shift is moderate!

All right, so much as a mini update from the tired traveler…

“These roads dry out one’s soul”

April 23, 2007 in Living in America | 1 comment

Imagine… Four lonely travelers, on the road for oh-so many hours. Riding the Interstate 90 westwards. Always westwards, towards the sinking sun. The road is glowing with the bright reflection, tiring out the eyes of the driver and making the inside of the van stuffy and uncomfortable. A slight dampness of the clothes nears witness to the stifling heat that the feeble AC can’t fight. The road is as unforgiving as the ever present sun, being straight as a needle and flat as a German housewives’ pancake. Yes, sir, these roads do dry out a man’s soul!

When these travelers, weary and dusty from the voyage, finally stop to have a decent meal and some cold beverages, the prospect of rinsing the throat and quenching the souls’ thirst brings life into the tired faces:

– “I’ll take a Tsing Tao, please” – “Oh, me, too!”
– “Sorry…”
Darn ,they are out of the good stuff… Well, I can live with an American beer tonight.
– “… but on Sunday’s we can;t serve beer or wine.”
and a Michelob isn’t that…. Whoa, wait. What was that? “‘Scuse me, come again?”
– “Sorry, no alcohol on Sundays”

We were shortly behind Toledo, Ohio, when we couldn’t get hold on any beer to wash away the woes of the day!

WHAT THE F***!?!?!?!?

Well, welcome to the Midwest of the US. Where good people don’t on the “Day o’ the Lawd”. Amazing, huh? So, we ended up drinking our sodas and hitting the road, hoping to leave Ohio behind as fast as possible! Now we are staying over night in Shipshewana, Indiana, in the middle of nowhere, and still no beer. Dude! Wisconsin better be no dry state!

From the road, yours truly, the sober and very dry l

The call of the road

April 23, 2007 in Living in America | Permalink

And there we are again: on the road. Yesterday, we set out to drive to a collaboration meeting in Lake Geneva….
… Wisconsin. Of course, driving there in a straight line would be boring, so we put the Niagara Falls on the menu, just to make it more interesting:

GOP at the Falls

So, for some reason we four made it over the border and back. I guess, even though our stories and outfits didn’t necessarily speak for our benefit, we just make an too harmless impression to raise any concerns. We even made the American officer smile when we came back from Canada: “di you buy anything in Canada?” – “No. But we ate there, does that count?”. Well, I know, a bit lame… Physicists on the road, ej!

The Dark Side Of The Pole

March 18, 2007 in Beaker's Blog | Permalink

Yes, indeed, there is a dark side: According to the station manual, “the Dark Sector provides an area free from light pollution and electromagnetic noise for astronomy and astrophysics research”. Of course, this is only true in winter and refers to artificial light or em sources. Anyway, the picture, taken from the Icecube Lab, shows the new 10 Icetop stations, their sun shades glittering white in the sun, the 10m telescope, the Icecube drill camp and MaPo. The black box in the lower right corner is one of the “Icecube showers”: a toilet… 😉 More pictures can be found at the usual place….




The Silence Of The Traveler

March 16, 2007 in Beaker's Blog, Living in America | Permalink

Yes, I have been silent lately. And why not? After six exciting and extraordinary weeks, I feel like Frodo: “How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back?”

All right, that is a bit melodramatic. Sure enough, the slowness of my life in this little college town give me enough time to sort and edit all the 1456 pictures I took… Here are a whole bunch of Antarctica pictures I just uploaded:

Antarctica Mosaic

More are coming, I am still working on the actual Pole pictures. Of course, there are still the tons of New Zealand pictures waiting on my hard disk…

What else? The movie front has been silent recently, but that isn’t surprising, the year is still young. I am still working on some books on Antarctica, “Cherry” right now, a biography of Cherry Apsley-Garrard, and “Shackleton’s Forgotten Men” soon. The latter is especially interesting. Everyone knows about the “Endurance” and its crew’s tremendous fight for survival. At the same time, however, oblivious of the fact, that Shackelton will not make it to the Pole, a smaller group of men set out from the opposite side of the continent to lay depots for Shackelton’s party. these men also lost their ship and still carried out their mission, three of them loosing their life.

I a sense it almost feels decadent that I made the same trip that took Amundsen almost three months in just under three hours. Sure, the same can be said about any voyage nowadays, but somehow the harshness and hostile environment of Antarctica gives it a unique twist. I don’t know if I make sense here….

Anyway, so much for now. More pictures will follow soon.

New photos!

February 27, 2007 in In 80 days around the world? | Permalink

So, I finally started sorting through my pics. I’ll take me at least two weeks to post the ones that will survive the rigorous selection process, so please, be patient. You can find three new sets on my photo page: “Christchurch”, “Edoras”, and “Hobbiton”. Enjoy!


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