Nowhere To Go But Up

I finally got to go snowboarding this past weekend. It was a ton o' fun for me. Great conditions (a little more fresh snow would have been nice), relatively small lines & crowds, and one of my favorite snowboarding destinations: Copper Mountain. I left late with Kent and Mary Beth, with no real sense of urgency. We had a casual breakfast, drove slow heading up, and were in no particular hurry. It was nice and chill, no pressure to catch the first chair lift. I was a little worried that I would forget everything I ever knew about snowboarding after a year and a half break, but it really came back to me right away. I didn't have any bad crashes, never fell down getting off the lift (well, once, but it wasn't my fault....Kent took me out), and was even able to dart in and out of the trees a bit. The sun was so warm early in the day that I actually felt over dressed, which beats freezing the whole time. We all had a late lunch (I'll never forget the nacho pagoda) and rode until the lifts quit at 4pm before heading home. Just like the ride up, we all chatted the whole trip home. All in all, it was a good day out on the slopes.

I went out with some friends for a night of bowling yesterday. I went with Matt & Erin, who I've been staying with, to pick up Kristen & Marley before meeting Tim. The thought never crossed our minds that it was a league night (every night is a league night) so we had to kill some time at The OG. It's not exactly where we thought we would end up, and we ordered an odd assortment of drinks & snacks. After briefly thinking our car was towed away, we strapped Marley to the back seat and decided to check the status of the bowling alley. After a short wait
in which Marley bravely engaged one of her peers, we finally got to do a little cosmic bowling....

For the next week I am in Colorado, visiting with old and new friends. I hope to take the snowboarding trip that I had planned for Europe. On Thursday, I will go to Denver to attend orientation classes, sign paperwork, and get everything set up for another season at the south pole. I'll leave the following day, if everything goes as scheduled:

Travel Details Friday February 2, 2007
Flight Information
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimated Time 2:35
Distance 845 Miles
Origin Denver, CO
Destination Los Angeles, CA
Plane MD-80
Departing 4:40 PM
Arriving 6:15 PM

Flight Information
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimated Time 14:30
Distance 7509 Miles
Origin Los Angeles, CA
Destination Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Plane BOEING 747-400
Departing 10:30 PM
Arriving on 02/04/07 08:00 AM

Travel Details Sunday February 4, 2007
Flight Information
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimated Time 3:05
Distance 1323 Miles
Origin Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Destination Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND
Plane AIRBUS A320
Departing 9:50 AM
Arriving 2:55 PM

It's always fun crossing the international date line because they come through and give you a certificate for a free day later when you go the other way. It looks like I will be watching the Super Bowl from The Holy Grail in Christchurch, NZ (Go Colts! Rehm, your Bears are going down). The following day I will head off to McMurdo, Antarctica. A day or two there should do it before heading to the south pole. Nine more months at pole....an evening, a night, and a dawn.

I think this is kinda cool, got it from Laurie.




create your own visited states map


I have a lack of exposure to the northeastern states as well as the Dakotas. Eight years in Colorado and I never even visited 3 of the states that border it.




create your own visited countries map

My travels through Europe don't seem so impressive on this map. From now on, I am going to visit countries based on size, just to fill up this map faster. Actually, that's sort of true anyway, I want to go to Austrialia, Russia, China, and India. I can't believe that I've never actually set foot in Canada.

For my 200th post, I thought I would follow the lead of The Blur and post a few pictures from my various travels. I took plenty of pictures of old buildings, which you can use your favorite search engine to find professional-quality photographs. I'm just showing some random pictures from the group that didn't turn out too bad.

Vienna: I mostly took pictures of buildings, so here's all you get.


Zagreb: I went to a Christmas party there, which had some polka-style music and rad stew.

Kyiv: Most of what I did in this town was at night or in a school, so no pictures.


Amsterdam: I went to a museum, yah.


Prague: I could put dozens of pictures of this city. It's beatiful, fun, and has some, you know, culture and stuff.

Most of my trip to Europe had nothing to do with being at the south pole, so it doesn't really warrant being included in my blog about the south pole, other than to say that be-bopping around Europe is how this particular polie decided to spend his time off the ice. On most of my trip I would have various Q&A-style conversations in the back of pubs about everything that has to do with being in Antarctica and, more specifically, the south pole. Talking about the south pole on my trip helped me avoid talking about the fact that I hold a passport from the country where our president, international policies, eating habits, moral values, and other various perceptions are extolled over the various media outlets, which provides fodder for most of the world for their opinions of the United States. (I had to go see Borat just so I knew what everyone in Europe seemed to think of me). Talking about being from Antarctica was more fun than talking about being from the United States, simply because most people know less about Antarctica (most people don't 'know' as much as they think, of course, but most people don't even have an opinion about Antarctica, other than it is cold, dark, and windy...which is true). During my visit to the Ukraine, I had the opportunity to talk about Antarctica, the south pole, and auroras in a group setting at the Kyiv International School. *I have decided not to include any images or names from my visit to the school, because as I found in a previous post, there are some bad people in the world*

I found myself at the KIS after receiving an invitation from the teacher of a class that I had been corresponding with while I was at the south pole last winter. Getting to the Ukraine involved a fairly cheap flight from Amsterdam. Getting to the school involved a fairly expensive taxi ride from the airport (I have nobody but myself to blame for getting into a cab without negotiating a price, or having a fixed destination...I consider it a learning experience now).

I felt like a giant in the classroom, as this was the first time I had been back to a grade school since I had attended classes in the 80's....a decade before these kids were born (when did I get so old?). I showed up at the end of the week for a full day with a class full of 11-year olds who were learning various topics that 11-year olds learn. I came to school early, sat in the classroom while the teacher was going over the previous day's journal entries, and acted as a tree to the class gecko. The daily schedule was written on the chalk board, with a chunk of midday time set aside for talking to "Antarctica Dude". The students had given me the nickname "Antarctica Dude", which made me feel like a prominent figure in the Antarctic scene. Maybe I was the third in command of all Antarctica, just behind Mr. & Mrs. Antarctica. Possibly my various exploits were on the cover of all the Antarctic rag magazines. Was it possible that I even scored the winning goal in the Antarctic Cup? I guess it could just be a way of remembering me and more interesting than just saying my name.


I was a little surprised when I found out that in addition to talking to the class that I had corresponded with a few weeks earlier, I would also talk to two other classes of students. I was also going to be talking not in a classroom, but in an auditorium...on a stage...about, hmmm, uh, well maybe I should be thinking of a topic right about now... Anyway, I had known ahead of time that I would "talk" to some students so I had at least come prepared with a couple of videos and a slide show presentation about aurora loaded onto my flash memory drive. So, I spent the morning going over my slides in the back of the class, while the students were learning about fractions. I had also been given a list of questions that the students had written for me for editing purposes. Nothing seemed too racy and communism was gone, so I saw no reason to remove any of the questions.

After the lesson, it was time for my big talk. All of the students lined up, single file, to head to the auditorium. The auditorium was not nearly as big as I had thought it might be, which was a good thing since my mind was blank on what I was going to be talking about. The students from other classes were already there, chattering as a group in the way that made any one conversation inaudible over another. There was a computer and projector set up in the middle of the room, in front of the stage, where I could load my presentation and movies from my flash drive. Good, just insert the little drive into the USB port and away we go. What? Not recognized, why not? A teacher from the other class came to help. Looks like it doesn't like my drive that worked just fine in the classroom. So, my drive, with the electronic pictures and movies that I had hoped to use as a crutch during my talk, was shuttled off to another computer to try to extract my information. In the meantime, there I stood with 35 or so eleven and twelve year olds gawking at me. It was time to start and all I had was a few scraps of paper with questions written on them, a blank mind, and the urge to tap dance.

So, I tap danced. I started talking about who I was, where I came from, why I went to Antarctica, and a little of what I did down there. That was good for five minutes, only 55 more to go. I started going through the scraps of paper and answering questions that were written there. Many of the questions were repeated, so that lasted only about 10 minutes. Then I opened up the floor for questions the students had. That lasted until, finally I was saved by the arrival of my formal presentation on the computer. The movies were taking more time. So I gave my presentation, I even asked for a volunteer to help explain why the south pole is dark for six months straight. It went pretty smooth, but still no movies to show, which I had really hoped to kill most of the time. So, time for more questions. After talking about auroras, the students had fresh questions to ask. Actually, with my explanation of each question, a new wave of hands would go into the air. The answer to each question was inspiring new questions. I remember when learning was like that. Just as I seemed to be running out of steam, the smallest of my movie files had been loaded onto the computer so we were able to show a movie of auroras to the students. Each stream of aurora that crossed the screen was greeted with "Woooooow" from the students. Of course, once kids figure out that they can scream in school, they keep doing it louder and louder. The completion of the movie marked the end of my talk. Was it an hour already? Oh, I was over on time? It went by so fast.

Immediately after the presentation, I got to have my Ukrainian school cafeteria experience. Actually, the food wasn't so bad, though it made me realize how really, truly wonderful our cooking staff had been the past winter at pole. Everything on the plate was various shades of brown and there was no beer with the meal. After lunch, we got to go visit a class of 5-year olds who the older students would mentor and read to for an hour. I found that to be an extremely good idea. Both the older and younger students seemed to really enjoy and benefit from it. Eventually we got to go to recess, where a game of kick-ball was the main focus. At the end of recess, we posed for a group photo...yeah, even me. Then swimming (I went to a school with no pool, so I found this cool....hahaha, I'm a poet and didn't know it). After everyone was dry and back in class, there was a quiz over the fractions everyone had been learning earlier. Everyone seemed totally surprised by this, even though it was written on the board all day long. After that, it was time to go home. The day went by so fast. Several students came up to me and asked for autographs. I've never signed an autograph before.

I really enjoyed my day in school. When I was 11, I would have loved any day that I was not in school, but going back 20 years later it was fun to see things from a different perspective. It was a little bit like holding your sister's baby for a few minutes: you're not the baby and you're not the mom, so you can actually enjoy the moment without any responsibilities. I was in school but I wasn't a student and I wasn't a teacher. I was just there soaking it all in.

So I am almost done with my European trip. Right now I should be in a big jet screaming across the Atlantic while I watch a three month old movie that I didn´t even know existed because I am so unplugged from civilization these days, all the while inching (or is it mile-ing?) closer to Chicago and eventually ´home´. I´m not in a screaming aircraft, but rather I am at the Frankfurt airport at an internet kiosk killing time while I wait for morning to come. You see, that screaming aircraft took off without me earlier today. That is mostly my fault for scheduling a train ride to arrive just before the plane departed, but a little the fault of the railways for deciding to have the train arrive late to my connection which caused me to show up in Frankfurt about 20 minutes after the plane had taken off. To be fair, even if I had shown up on time, I would have been hard pressed to get my e-ticket and get through security in the 30 minutes that I would have had....so it´s REALLY mostly my fault, but sharing the blame is more fun.

So, as I have to wait nearly 24 hours before I can give it another go, I thought I would check in with my abysmally neglected blog. What can I say? I could tell anticdotal stories about why I seem to be a target for taxi drivers on this continent to take advantage of, or how much fun I had sitting in hole-in-the-wall bars in various cities, or how the forces of nature have conspired to make my entire 6-week snowboarding vacation totally devoid of snow, or even how certain children in Europe believe me to be their father. But, those stories are better told over a pint in a pub sometime and at the very least, should have been told when they were fresher in my mind (my mind can be described in many ways at this point, none of those ways involve the word ´fresh´ or even ´defenestrated´). So in place of stories, I will give some impressions of the places I visited.

Amsterdam
This was the first place I had the chance to visit. It is has all of the classically beautiful architecture you would expect out of any major western European city. The canals were lovely. Everyone spoke English, which was a big bonus for me since I knew not word one in Dutch. It was relatively inexpensive to eat, drink, and stay in a hotel. Maybe the biggest mark against this city is that it is very touristy. It was easily the most tourist-ridden place I visited on my entire trip. It also rains a lot, but that is neither positive or negative, just depends on what you are into.

Eindhoven
Don´t bother going here. Really, unless you have turned over every other stone on the continent or you really just want a pin in the map for this city, then there is no reason to go. There is a space ship, but even that doesn´t make it worthwhile.

Kyiv
The first meaningful conversation I had in this city started with: `Welcome to the land of men who wear pointy-toed shoes and, and....um, I forget the other thing....´ The other thing turns out to be gold-domed Orthodox churches. There are many and they stood in sharp contrast to the sometimes bleak landscape of Kyiv (some people like to spell it ´Kiev´, take your pick). Kyiv was the most unique town I visited on my entire trip (if you go much farther east in Europe, you´re not in Europe anymore) and I had my most unique experiences there. The personal experiences I had aren´t really something that the average person would get to enjoy (getting taken for a ´ride´ in a taxi, going back to school, having an Antarctica Dude party....), so I will just leave that stuff out and focus on the the other stuff. The town is huge, sprawling. It´s not very westernized at all; most people don´t speak English, the fashion is very distinctive for men and women, and the architecture is not what would be considered mainstream European. The Ukraine is still looking for an identity after a long, sad past. I found that some things were very cheap (food, alcohol) while other things were very expensive (accomodations). I liked Kyiv a lot, but I don´t think I could live there.

Prague
Hands down, my favorite place in Europe. I didn´t see the whole continent, I´m no Rick Steves, but I just found that this city suited me the best. This would explain the enormous amount of time I spent here. I kept leaving and coming back, but I really can´t put my finger on why. Being in this city during the holiday season was a big bonus. The entire downtown area was festively lit and decorated. The people that I met had a wonderful spirit. The dive bars that I discovered and was taken to were some of the best drinking holes I have ever experienced. There was enough western influence to make it easy to get around, but it is still alien enough to still have a bit of charm to it (granted, you were as likely to hear German or English in the town center as Czech). The city is centrally located in Europe and in it´s own country, so it makes quick day trips easy to pull off. The beer was the best I had during my travels, even though I do not traditionally consider myself a fan of Pilsner. The fact that you could drink all night on what is charged for one beer in the USA didn´t hurt things any. All things considered this was a relatively clean city as well. I´m currently working on reasons that I should not move there, few come to mind.

Zagreb
This city was sort of a smaller, more quaint version of Prague. The Czech and Croatian language sounded very similiar to my ear and many of the locations had the same feel. I probably should have stayed here longer, as I was only there for just a few days. It was inexpensive, everyone under the age of 30 gladly spoke English with me, it felt safe at all times of day, and the city center is so small that I never needed to use public transportation.

Vienna
This is another place that I should have spent more time with. I came to Vienna late enough in my travels that my tolerance for looking at old monuments and buildings, as well as my fiscal supply, were at an end. Vienna is big enough and expensive enough that my visit there didn´t really do it justice. Having said that, I sort of walked away with the feeling that it was a pricier version of Amsterdam without the legalized pot and prostitution. I would really like to go back, because I feel like there was so much that I didn´t get to see.

Overall, there are some things I can say that are true about every town I visited. There was a uniqueness to every town and a similarity among them all that made them distinctively European rather than American: Why does everything close at 9pm? Why is KFC so popular rather than, say, Taco Bell? There was an abundance of pizzarias everwhere I went, yet none delivered. If I could afford it, they didn´t accept credit card, which I had thought would be my main form of payment during the trip. Every town had beautiful people. Every town also had some ugly people. Europeans smoke more than Americans, but I think Ukrainians smoke more than most Europeans. I generally hung out with young, early 20´s types for my entire trip, so that probably skews my opinion somewhat. I was also in these places during dreary winter months. Most of these places are totally different in the summer, I´m sure. Anyone who remembers back to my original posting about all of the places I was going to visit must keep in mind that I left myself the option of camping out in a place if I liked it, and that´s exactly what I did in Prague.

I will not even try to hide my dismay that it didn´t snow for my entire trip.