London> Guest Blogger, Doug Moldover

I have just returned back to Wisconsin from a week long trip in London and my friends back at the work site were pretty enchanted with England... and it's jolly old scaffolding! To begin with I visited Greenwich and went to the royal observatory. You were right Larry, the scaffolding was worth the trip. It's the first time I have seen construction being done on an observatory and it made me wish we did more star gazing in Sheboygan.

Even better, if you go inside the museum you can see old photographs of a construction effort from the early 20th century. If only I had a time machine! I would go back and explain to them that 1/2 inch beams just aren't enough when working with a circular structure. You've got to go at least 3/4's of an inch! I'd tell them about the wonders of safety netting and quad fold magnesium joints.


Now this one was a bit of a shocker. I always thought London was a pretty safe town but apparently they need to install security systems on their scaffolding. I guess that's another reason why I am proud to be American. Here in the land of the free, a man need not to live in fear that another man will steal his scaffolding. The funny thing is that scaffolding is terrible. It looks like the work of a painter. Hey buddy, stick to painting walls and let the big boys handle the scaffolding.

Lastly we have some scaffolding on Westminster Bridge in London. (On the left of the shot you can see Big Ben.) Now if I hadn't seen this work I would have thought that the British building industry doesn't know their asses from their elbows but this piece of work was impressive. They aren't messing around. Those are steel girders! When working on bridges you've got to have a strong structure, as my now deceased friend Bob Jadinski so fatefully learned on the Ashby bridge. Why Bob, why!

Vigelandsparken> Travels

These Photos are from Vigelandsparken in Oslo. This park had some great statues designed by Gustav Vigeland in early 20th century.

Norwegian pedestrian Crossing> Travels

Here are some pictures I took of the pedestrian crosswalk lights in Oslo.
As you can see there are two red dudes on top of one green dude. What's the freaking deal? I asked the people working at the tourist info office and they claimed they didn't know why. So I am left to speculate what the extra red guy is for:

-To make it really clear not to cross?

-Showing off the city's largesse?

-Bad urban planning?

-Papal Decree?

-Punk kids up to no good?

-Something to do with cross country skiing and/or whaling?

-Some sort of two tiered system where the elderly, disabled and disenfranchised get more time to cross?

-A product of a country obsessed with pedestrian safety?

-A mindfuck for tourists?

-A tribute to Prince Olaf the VIII, sadly killed by a motor car in the early 20's?

Any ideas?

Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!> Travels

Yesterday I flew to NJ, coming home for the first time since September. Needless to say, my Mom hated my new tattoos, but I guess you can't please everyone. I think the Chinese symbols make me look more philosophical.
London was OK, but the weather was crap the whole time and my cold was slowing me down a bit. I spent Sunday morning visiting Greenwich, home of the prime meridian and Greenwich Mean Time. Here's a picture of me with one foot in the Western Hemisphere and one foot in the Eastern Hemisphere. I also went to the maritime museum, the Royal War Museum, Science Museum and natural History Museum. Yeah, now I am museumed out. On Monday I hung out with my friend Paul who I met last Summer in Panama and crashed at his apartment in Notting Hill. My flight was rather uneventful other than a crying baby a few rows from me. Again, who would be against knocking out all children under the age of 16 on any flights longer than an hour? There is money to be made here. I saw a few movies, King Kong, The Matador and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. The Matador was pretty bad. Three burials was a mildly interesting Tommy Lee Jones pet project and he plays a role that was very Clint Eastwoodesque. I'll be putting up some pictures soon for my past posts on this trip.

My Shakespearean Debut> Travels

I am in London now and will be here until Tuesday when I fly back to the states. Yesterday I went into the Tate Modern (Modern Art Museum) for a few hours and then walked over to the nearby Globe theatre. This is a reconstruction of the original one that Shakespeare co-financed and where he performed most of his work. I got tickets to a performance of Coriolanus, one of Shakespeare's best political tragedies. It's about a Roman military leader who is valiant in combat, but so openly disdains the plebes that he ends up being player hated. I actually only saw the first half so I am guessing he eventually dies, but where I left off he had been chased out of Rome. The performance was a bit touristy as it is Shakespeare in the round. I bought standing tickets which are both good and bad. The bad is you are exposed to the elements, and it was raining throughout the performance which didn't help my cold. You also have to stand.

The good thing is the actors actually come into the standing area and performed scenes inches away from me. I was also able to participate in one of the battle scenes, which was a lot of fun. I punched some Japanese guy and held one of the peasant's in a head lock until Coriolanus could stab him with a trident. Needless to say, me and Coriolanus were on the losing end of this battle and I too was tossed out of Rome. So I missed the second half, but all the rain and cold was making my head feel stuffy and frankly those peasants (and the Japanese guy's family) looked pissed.

Today I spent 7 hours in the British museum, the largest museum in the world. The British Empire did a great job of "collecting" the world treasures when the sun was setting on them and this is certainly the best collection I have ever seen. I think I got to see everything currently on display. I am all museumed out for a few weeks.

Irish Eddie> Travels

Yesterday I visited Oxford of University fame and Salisbury (of steak fame). Oxford was worth the visit. Great architecture, tons of history. I met with my friend James who took me for a tour of his hometown and we had proper afternoon tea and scones. Good times! I then caught a train to Salisbury, which has one England's nicest Medieval cathedrals (Medieval Times!) and is about 8 miles from Stonehenge. That night I stayed in a room that a pub rented to me on the cheap and played some pool with the locals. This was the kind of tiny Neighborhood pub that are on every corner in England and by the quality of their play, I am guessing the people I played with were fixtures. There was one short fella who went by the name of Irish Eddie. I'll post a picture of him eventually. He was Irish and acted the part. I played doubles against him and a woman named Caroline who was a lot better than me. (British table have tiny balls and tiny pockets with rounded edges which make the game much more difficult when you aren't used to it. A big guy named John was kind enough to carry me on his back to several wins. He had a black eye and smelled of elderberry. Not unpleasant at all, just distinct. Probably good for my cold too.

There was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf!> Travels

Earlier today I went to the real, uncrushable, Stonehenge. Was I overwhelmed? Underwhelmed? Whelmed? It was pretty frickin' cold and raining, which detracted from the moment a bit. Also you can't go anywhere near the stones unless you book a special afterhours tour. My guide told us that it had healing powers at a certain axis of the stones. I stood there for a while and for a moment my congestion cleared up a bit, although that could have been the early numbing stages of hypothermia setting in. In the end I'm glad I was able to visit the big ass rocks and check it off my list of CNN time lapse station identification sites. I would say whelmed was just about the right way to describe my feelings towards this famous ancient site. It will certainly not make my list of the 100 most disappointing tourist attractions. Which I'm sure Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap would appreciate. No Derek, to answer your practical question, we are not gonna do fucking Stonehenge tomorrow.

Cambridge> Travels

Yesterday I was hit pretty hard by a cold that can be described as ebola without the internal bleeding. Despite that, today I walked around in a semi-conscious daze, visiting the various colleges (Kind of like institutionalized frats.
Think Harry Potter). They were all closed to visitors because of testing in progress, but I had my friend Pedro´s ID card so I was able to go where I pleased. The architecture here is pretty amazing. I was actually here in 2003, right when I started consulting, but my memory isn´t too good ever since those motercycle/boating/elevator/soft shelled clam accidents.
I took a pre-dinner nap at Pedro´s and then watched him play in his inter-college series ultimate game. After that I rushed to a formal dinner that Pedro had tickets to but could not go do to due to his double secret girlfriend´s knee issues. I was the last person to show up and I didn´t know any of the 80 post grad student in attendance so I had to wander around the room for a while looking for a seat. Speaking of the room, it was in the oldest building in all of Cambridge, built sometime in the 1100´s as a nunery. I met some nice people who knew Pedro and had lovely dinner conversation. I was going to pretend that I was a taxidermist, but one of the nice people happened to be a zoologist so I have a feeling it would have been hard to pull off.

Wonderful Copenhagen> Travels

Today I am leaving Copenhagen after having a nice extended weekend hanging out with friends at a big ultimate tournament. I will write more from the UK.

Something Interesting > from the Pink Wizard's Lab

"Hi, my name is Larry Beethoven and I went to Sweden and went on a train and saw a fjord and I'm a flaming liberal blah blah blah blah"

I know you want some CONTENT folks, so here we go.

Google has introduced a new feature in which you can see what people are googling where. From this valuable resource I learned the following:

Toronto contains the most people googling "metamucil," while London contains the most people googling "immodium." Bangalore takes a more holistic approach -- leading the pack in the quest for "prune juice."

And of course, the wonderful Islamic culture that brought us algebra, couscous, and global jihad, also brings us much internet exploration of "sex" (Cairo), "anal sex" (Ankara), and "child porn" (Izmir, Turkey).

Surprisingly, Montreal beat out Melbourne in the quest for googling "bestiality."

And Larry, I suggest you move to Budapest, where people are googling "Vin Diesel" like there's no tomorrow. There you'll be as popular as you were in Rochester, which leads the world in google searches for "poop."

Oslo> Travels

A bunch of the past two days need some photos to be best described. Yesterday I took the train from Bergen to Oslo.





During the course of the seven hour train ride I went from the fjords of the West Coast, green with spring, then over the mountains that form the spine of Norway, still ensconced in the snow from the Winter, and then back down along a river that snaked it way back into Spring and Norway's capital. Was that a run-on? It also happens to be the most expensive city in the world and by my 4 dollar gatorade, 10 dollar whopper and 180 dollar prostitute (and that was just to show me a bit of ankle) my wallet was certainly made aware of the costs. Also a convention was in town and when I got to the tourist info building they informed me that all hotels, hostels and park benches were booked out in Oslo and all of the towns within 80km. I faced a similar dilemma in Barcelona in 2000 so I knew exactly what to do. (For my Scandinavian readers: yes I considered using the, "Jeg er ikke her fra byen. Kan jeg sove i din seng i nat?" line.) I put my backpack in storage in a locker at the train station and then I walked around from hotel to hotel asking if they had a maid's room that I could rent. Many hotels do, they just can't really talk about them. Kind of like the fight club. Finally I found one in a pretty skeezy hotel. I ended up paying over 100 dollars to have what amounted to a cot and a sink. In order to save a bit of money I had a hamburger dog. I then went for a walk in this big park with lots of statues. There were plenty of punk teens playing hooky from school, enjoying the warm weather, bbqing and throwing frisbees very poorly.
This morning I woke up, stored my bag at the hotel and then bought an Oslo day pass. Free transport and free museums all for 30 dollars. I made the most of it, running around town. I started with the Viking ship museum which had three pretty complete Viking ships that were found buried in the 1900's. I then went to the Norsk culture museum, which wasn't quite open yet, but I was able to stroll the grounds. And stroll I did. The place looked like a summer camp I went to when I was a kid, only with more eclectic architecture and grass on the roofs of the buildings. From there I went to the Kon-Tiki museum, which was great. They had the raft Thor Hverdale sailed from South America to the South Pacific Islands, proving that Polynesia could have been populated by South American ancestors. I then went to the FRAM museum. The FRAM was the first ship to go to both the Antarctic and Arctic. It's pretty bad ass. Then I briefly looked into the maritime museum, but it was just model ships so I jumped on a ferry and I went to the Castle. It was OK. From there I went to the Edvard Munch museum. They have tons of security as two years ago the scream was stolen, again. How embarrassing. From there I took a long subway ride to a ski jump and ski museum. I took a ride an a ski jump emulator. Good times? Something like that. From the top of the ski jump I could see all of Oslo, which is actually only somewhat majestic. I much preferred Bergen. Then I went back in to town and visited the Nobel peace institute, where they honor and choose the recipients of the Nobel peace prize. It was pretty interesting with great interactive displays. After that I had some mediocre 12 dollar Pad-Thai.
I am now at the train station and in a half an hour I will catch a train to the airport and find a nice bench to sleep on. My flight is early tomorrow morning and I don't feel like paying for a crappy hotel room only to have to catch an expensive train at 5 Am. Tomorrow I will be in Cope, watching some ultimate and catching up on sleep.

Last night in Bergen> Travels

Last night I went out with Bentine, Jarle and Tonja to play pool and say goodbye. It's been a great time here in Bergen. My mother always told me that I had, "good taste in Norwegians," and although I had no idea what that meant when I was 4 years old, now I know my Mother was right. And a bit creepy too.

More Reflections> Travels

Look at the ice on this river breaking up the reflection.

Reflections> Travels

Road trip> Travels

Yesterday Jarle and I went on a long drive to visit some Fjords outside of Bergen. The following posts are pictures from that trip.

Hauchstemplersburg, Germany > travels with the Pink Wizard

So the Pink Wizard has caught the travel bug!

Annoyed with a kvetching wife and a crying baby, I got on a plane yesterday to Germany. I then rented a Peugot and drove randomly, taking a right here, a left there, not at all caring where I was going. And I ended up in a quaint town called Hauchstemplersburg.

The building with the spire is the Hauchstemplersburg Castle on Knauchblachstrasse. It was built in 1606 in honor of Duke Maximillian von Hauchstempler, who defeated the Tartar invaders in 1602. The architecture is simply exquisite. I couldn't go inside though because I forgot my papers. The Germans don't let you do anything unless you have your "papers."

While in Hauchstemplersburg, I also had time to visit St. Gunther's Cathedral. Its absolutely stunning. It was partially destroyed by allied bombing during WWII, but they did a nice job reconstructing it. Notice the flying buttresses.

And finally,I visited Schmarpelstadt -- a small hamlet adjoining Hauchstemplersburg. The town square goes back to Medieval times. here is a German pizzeria called "Arturos" which is absolutely disgusting. Stay away fromthe German pizza.

Crossing Guards> Travels

A stat I left off of last week's NationMaster entry is that Norway has the least pedestrian automobile fatalities per capita in the world. Not suprisingly, they also have the most crossing guards per capita in the world too. The reason: Every 5 year old child must serve one year of National service as a crossing guard. I like this system. It gives those children a year away from school to evaluate their lives so far, get some perspective and maybe even find themselves. I wish I could have had that in my childhood. The pictures below show some of the guards on a break and a pack of them walking to work. Hey Doug, notice the scaffolding in the background!

Norway is Fjordgeous> Travels

Yesterday Jarle took Bentine, their friend Tonja and me out for a day on his family's boat. We cruised around his local fjord, went fishing and had a BBQ. The weather, company and scenery made for a memorable day. I'll save the comedy and lies for another post.

Left Prague, Now in Norway> Travels

This morning I left Prague and flew to Bergen, Norway. The flight took me over a spine of mountains that runs down the interior of this country. The landscape was covered in snow, frozen lakes and rivers. Bergen and its sorounding area was where the snow ended giving way to green forest covered mountains and many Islands dotted with suburbs. In 1978 the Farmers Almanac:International Edition rated Bergen the loveliest place in the world. I am visiting my good friends Jarle and Bentine, who I met last year on my Central America trip. Today Jarle and I visited his family home and the fjord, Lyse Fjord, that it sits on. Then we went into Bergen, which is tiny, but really nice. Infact in the 1982 Farmer's Almanac: International Editon they rated Bergen the best tiny city in the Northern Hemisphere, losing the world title to Brisbane. (In 1984 they finnaly took the title, but it was a somber occasion because in that year the prince of Bergen, Sværre, died of tuberculosis.)
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Right now Larry is at a pre-partey with me, Bentine, and some friends of mine! He definetly came at a good time, cause the weather is amazing in Bergen right now!!!! Any way, we are going to show him all of Bergen in just a couple of days, so he is in for a rough one.. Wish us luck!!! Så god helg alle sammen! Det blir nok kjempe bra skal dere se!!!! :-) Skål!!!