I wish me a merry Christmas...

I've made many brilliant decisions in my life, but I do believe the shmartest of them all was when I stopped celebrating Christmas, back in '92. I've had stress free Decembers for 15 years now, and I ain't goin' back. On the other hand, every day is pamper myself day, so this morning I bought the complete Seinfeld DVD box and the Twin Peaks Gold Box Edition AND Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl to top it off. Earlier this month I got me a signed copy of Absolute Sandman, volume two plus new books by Stephen Donaldson and Terry Pratchett. Life is good, people. Life is good.

Mea culpa

Okokokok... I know I've been tardy with my posts lately... I've actually been busy with work and shit, so there. Anyways, I know for a fact that most of you guys, especially the Norwegians who read this blog, are supportive of the US armed forces. So AGAIN, I'm pimping this webpage: anysoldier.com, where you can donate money or send care packages to US troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you support what they're doing, put your money where your mouth is. With the dollar being so cheap, your Norwegian krone will buy a whole lotta love for the guys and gals in uniform. 'tis the giving season, so spend your cash on something meaningful this year!

How to spend Halloween

1. Buy a small mountain of chocolate.

2. Dim the lights, bolt the door and draw the curtains.

3. Put on a DVD from the 3rd season of The Simpsons.

4. Shove said mountain of chocolate in your face until ready to puke.

5. Crank up the volume on the DVD as much as necessary to drown out the noise from the weeping, sugar-deprived neighborhood children on your doorstep.

Office party

I've said it before - the main reason I'm still teaching is my colleagues. They're a thoroughly fun bunch of people, and it seems the newcomers this year are great too. Friday we had our annual faculty party - ostensibly a "getting to know you" gig for the newly hireds, it is now the social highlight of the fall season. We were almost 30 people this year, and we ate & drank & laughed for hours.

There was also the annual raffle, in which the possibly most clinically insane of us (no, that honor is not mine...yet) raffles out not only the bought and given prizes, but also personal effects he's stolen from our work desks earlier in the day, together with every piece of furniture the host hasn't nailed down or hidden.

Later, as the sissies and the drunkards started to melt away, we turned on some music and in the end there was just half a dozen of us left. Around 2:30 yours truly started to sing... a little Simon & Garfunkel, a little Italian... I'm tellin' ya, I had the newbies swooning... it was 4:30 before I finally got home; tired but happy.

Mooooovies

It's been way too long since I've bored ya'll with my highly subjective and loudly voiced movie reviews. So here goes.

Stardust. Ah. Hmm. Uhm. *sigh* Absofuckinlutely great movie... IF - and only if - you haven't already read and fallen completely in love with the book. Good acting, plenty of fun, humor, action and adventure, all wrapped in the customary romantic light. Which is part of the problem. The book has lots of romance, indeed it depends on it. But not the kind of soppy happy-ever-after commercial blockbuster romance that the movie revels in. There are some pretty fundamental pieces missing in this film version, and it takes away most of the sense of mystery that added so much to the adventure and the melancholy that added so much to the romance in the book. (You'll be horrified at what they've done to the ending, which is possibly one of the saddest but also most beautiful texts ever put to paper.)

Gaiman's work of genius is more complex, more subtle, more sad and infinitely more poetic. By all means, if you don't know the book, go watch the movie; it deserves a fair, unbiased viewing. You'll likely love it, for it is still a good story well told, indeed it is one of the best movies I've seen in ages. But please, please, please go read the book afterwards and allow yourself to fall in love with the masterpiece of the planet's greatest living author - Neil Gaiman.


Planet Terror - Robert Rodriguez' half of the two-piece Grindhouse project he did together with Quentin Tarantino is a true joyride. It's got all the insane, hilarious gore one expects from a good zombie flick and it'll keep you laughing throughout. Good, unpretentious fun for the kids (meaning me)!


The Bourne Ultimatum - I've never cared much for Robert Ludlum (a stuffy Jack Higgins), nor Matt Daemon (a slightly retarded Leonardo DeCaprio), but this movie will rock you. The Bourne franchise has already given James Bond much needed competition and this is so far the best in the series, I think. High paced, full of action and excitement. Also, a journalist with The Guardian gets a bullet in the head, which is always a good thing.


Rush hour 3 - You've seen it all before, but it's still ever so slightly amusing (yes, I'm easy). The personal chemistry between Chan and Tucker creates a good atmosphere, and though the script is ridiculous and the punchlines are worn it still provided for 90 minutes of escape from reality.

Finally

Stardust finally premieres here in Norway Friday 21st! Woo hoo! The book is my absolute all time favorite work of fiction, and I can only hope that the movie is able to convey the humor, warmth, excitement and adventure that is Neil Gaiman's fairyland. If you haven't already read the book, buy it asap. If there's a smidgeon of poetry in your soul you'll love it!

I'll get healthy or die trying

Met with the diabetes nurse at the local hospital last week. It turns out my cholesterol and triglyzerid levels, which were at "nuclear levels" before the summer were now within normal parameters, which came as a huge, but very nice surprise to yours truly. I thought I'd more or less slobbed the summer away, but I must have done something right after all.

Inspired by the good results I've decided to try and become a wee bit more healthy (I can already hear certain people howling with laughter). So I went for hourlong walks in the woods Friday and Monday and today I played floorball again for the first time in a couple of years. 90 minutes of that stuff is the best workout I can imagine, and it's fun too! I had a somewhat difficult start, as I threw myself on the floor (I can hear you laughing again!) to block the first shot that came my way and banged my head hard against the wall. Five minutes on the sidelines with a bag of ice pressed against my empty skull... but after that I was a virtual wall.

I'll keep ya'll updated on my progress... or regress... knowing myself it's a 50-50 at best whether I actually succeed in this (you can stop laughing now, you bastards).

I don't get no respect

By unanimous consent of the teachers assembled I was appointed "office bitch" today and sent out to recycle four full bags of plastic soda bottles. One teacher even tried to kick me as I walked out. And these people are my friends.

We interrupt our scheduled programming...

... of foreign travel stories to bring you some pictures from Norway. These pics were taken on board the Skibladner, the oldest operating paddle steamer in the world. It was built in the mid 1850s and is still going strong. It's a handsome ship with a very stylish interior. As with pretty much everything else in this country it's a bit on the pricey side, but at around NOK 200 ($33) one way it's still worth a trip I think.


Some pictures of the interior (there are several lounges and a restaurant that seats around 70):










Views from the ship:






As you may have gathered from my Whitby photos, I like dramatic pics of the sky:

London

Monday morning I caught a cab to my hotel, the increasingly misnamed "Royal" Bayswater Hotel (on second thought, considering the state of the British Monarchy, maybe they're onto something after all). There was zilch, zero, nada and no flexibility or understanding for my pleadings of just maybe, possibly, please, for fuck's sake let me check in BEFORE noon IFFIN you have a bloody room ready. I glared at them through bloodshot eyes, but to no avail - their vacant stare was permanent and so beat mine. I lifted an arm and waved the smell in their direction, but their own garlic stench was permanent, so I lost that battle too. Fuckers.

Still, despite the cramped rooms and the noise in the hallways, the place is quite cheap, and it's central enough. Besides, I've taken a liking to the Queensway area. It's got two underground stations, so transportation is easy and cheap and there's lots of decent, but reasonably priced dining places in the area. There's even a multicinema complex to while away rainy days (who'd have thought that I'd become a mall rat in my 30s...?)

Another brilliant thing I discovered was that the shopping center with the theaters also sported a massage salon. Some of you may have heard about my time in Prague, where I got some "Thai massage" and afterwards felt like I'd paid good money to get beaten up by a five feet tall girl. This time it was a muscular six feet tall Eastern European guy, but the massage was a traditional back & shoulders kinda thing and really pleasant. Highly recommended!

Queensway also has tons of souvenir shops where you can buy all manner of useless crap. I bought the traditional "My brother went to London and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" and for his aussie girlfriend I bought one with a slightly less traditional "Some idiot went to London..." legend.

Random, useless and uninteresting pics:

Buckingham Palace:




The Victoria Monument outside the palace:




A monument to the Royal Marines:




Trafalgar Square, with the Nelson column:




A close up of the philandering bastard:




Charles 1st, of whom John Cleese said "The most interesting thing about King Charles I is that he was 5'10 at the beginning of his reign and only 4'9” at the end of it":




The controversial "Alison Lapper Pregnant" statue. My own caption: "When they told me rapid weight loss would cost me an arm and a leg, I didn't think they meant it literally".




Outside the National Gallery there's a statue of good ole George Washington:




I even was so artsy fartsy as to buy a ticket to their exhibition of Dutch portraits, and it was quite interesting. It's open until September 16, so if you're in London before then, go see it!

York

After Eden Camp I drove on to York, the ancient walled city. The (mostly Danish) Vikings made this their main city, and knew it as Jorvik. Due to rains and general fatigue (yes, I am a lazy bastard) I never made it to the Viking centre, but I did spend a few happy hours at the York Castle Museum on Saturday. They had some interesting exhibits devoted to life in and around York in centuries past, the most famous being Kirkgate, a recreated Victorian street. Highly recommended!

The hotel I staid at wasn't much, but joy of joys, I was able to find an unprotected wi-fi somewhere in the area, so I could finally keep up with emails and news again. Sunday I had lunch with an old friend from Huddersfield (she comments here under the name of Stef sometimes... we've been hurling abuse at each other online for a good five years now...) before spending most of the day in the railway station waiting for my night bus to London.

Ever the moneygrubbing little capitalist pig, I thought I'd be smart and save on a night's hotel costs by taking the overnight coach from Leeds to London. Oy vey, what a schmuck I was! Saving a few pounds was NOT worth having to spend the night in a crowded, stuffy bus where the garlic odors of the numerous Asian passengers competed for my attention with the garlic odors from the English drunk snoring in the seat next to me. A background sniff of stale sweat prevailed throughout. To top it off, the coach developed technical problems somewhere around 2:30am, so we had to wait for a replacement vehicle which was much older and had no suspension worth mentioning. It was a grouchy, sleepy, cursing Ghost that reached Victoria Station in the wee hours of Monday morning...

The Museum parking lot was full of birds and birdshit:


British cattle pre-growth hormones:


"Another bone? Thanks, but I'm stuffed!"


Some of the Victorian houses had real shops, I think this one sold old toys:


A Victorian class room... oh, to be able to cane the little bastards!


I think this is from the Edwardian "Half Moon Court", which is a follow-up to Kirkgate:


The famous York Cathedral:


The place where we had lunch on Sunday, a cozy place called "Hole in the Wall":


At least they had a cool bus shelter... the actual buses, on the other hand...

Eden Camp

After Robin Hood's bay I drove on to Scarborough, which I found to be quite dreary and dull looking. Just spent a night there and then drove on towards York on Friday.

On the way I stopped and spent three wonderful hours at Eden Camp, a former WWII prisoner camp that is now a museum. The 20+ huts cover several subjects relating to warfare in the 20th century, but the main emphasis is on WWII. It's a great place if you're into history, the exhibitions are both informative and entertaining. The only minus was an overpriced canteen that served rather tratidional English food (meaning barely digestible for humans).

Some pics:

Luckily for someone, this never exploded...




Nope, no phallos symbolism here. No sirree!




It was all I could do not to run around with my arms outstretched and make engine noises...




This sign was put up at a pub where a bomb had blown out all the windows... "More open than usual"... English humor at its finest!




I quite liked this one too:

Robin Hood's Bay

Thursday, I drove on to Robin Hood's Bay. The origin of the name is unknown, it's quite some distance from Robin of Locksley's supposed haunts in the Sherwood forest, down Nottingham way. It's a tiny fishing village (actually, it was best known as a center for smuggling) very, very quaint and cozy. You need a special permit to drive in it, the tourist traffic has to stop at a parking lot on the top of the steep hill that rises over the town. Again, narrow cobblestone streets and lots of little inns and pubs. Tourism probably makes up 90% of the economic activity there these days. Some nice pics:

View from the top of the hill:








Some local history:


Ish nice:



When I win the lottery, I'm going to buy this house, which sits right on the docks:



In a tiny, tiny tourist shop the old lady who owned it was having a closing down sale, so I got some loot at half price. I bought this keybox, which I am going to bribe my boss with tomorrow:

Back by popular demand...

Ok, I know I've been tardy with my travel stories, but with effin work starting up again there hasn't been much time, and even less motivation *sigh*

Still, here are the last parts of my UK travel in June/July... the last installment was from Lindisfarne. From there I drove down to Whitby, a cozy little city on the coast. It's a bit touristy in places, but in sum a very nice place. Lots of nice old buildings, quaint pubs and inns, narrow cobblestone streets etc. Definitely worth exploring, and I even moved my lardass to climb the "famous" 199 steps up to the ruins of old Whitby Abbey. Doing this after I'd just stuffed my face with a solid helping of Tikka Massala at the pub "King George" did not improve the experience. I recommend the pub, though. Good, cheap grub!

Whitby is a picturesque place, and the view from the abbey across the bay is quite simply stunning, especially when the sun's playing with the clouds. These pictures turned out quite nice I thought - but they don't come close to doing the real scene justice.


The whalebone monument to Whitby's past as a fishing village (tourism is the main thing these days):


The Abbey seen from the other side of town:


Nice beaches if you're into that sort of thing:


The 199 steps up to the Abbey:


The Abbey ruin:


Lots more pics of the bay area, taken from the Abbey site:

Ukraine X: Going home

Monday morning I left the Komsomolskaya hotel, and true to form no one working there had any clue whatsofuckinever as to how I might find the road to Moldova. After a couple of false tries I was fortunate enough to pick up a hitch hiker who was going in the same direction, and though he spoke little English he could at least point on the map...

My route home went through not only Moldova, which is probably the poorest country in Europe, but also through the "illegal" breakaway republic of Transnistria (or Pridnestrovje as they call it themselves). This is the ethnically Slavic part of the country, where Russians and Ukrainians outnumber the Romanian Moldovans. Also, it contains most of the industry of the old Soviet Republic, so they have a higher living standard than Moldova proper, though this does not stop them from being a corrupt mafia state to the bone.

At the border there were a couple of moments of hilarity. First, the Ukrainian guards were much more thorough in checking me and my car as we were leaving than the guys up at the Polish border had been when I entered. I sensed that the guy in charge, who spoke English surprisingly well, seemed to have a tad of humor, so when he stood there looking into my car trunk and asked the usual "Guns? Drugs?", my reply was "No... are you selling?". Looking back on it I was probably subjecting myself to the risk of a full body cavity search and an extensive waiting period at the border, but fortunately he just gave a little grin and nodded his approval.

They still managed to raise a bit of hell though, over the fact that I was driving a car not my own. My old Ford was and remains a sad, wretched wreck of a thing, so I'd borrowed my mother's Mitsubishi, and it was her name on the registration papers. The soldier looked up at me with a surprised look and asked "And where is your mother???" I swear, I've never in my life fought as hard to keep a straight face as then. I patiently explained that my mother was at home, in Norway (barely suppressing the urge to tell them that she was hiding in the trunk), but that the international insurance (required to drive in Ukraine) had my name on it, and that no one had raised this point with me coming IN to the country. I also pointed out the futility in making an issue out of this, since all I really wanted now was to LEAVE. I still had to stand there for a while and let them berate me, and I was sternly informed that the next time I planned on driving in Ukraine, I'd better bring either a) my own car or b) my mother.

After this I drove on into the corrupt hole that is Transnistria, where I was shaken out of appx $20 for a non existing "transit visa". Unfortunately I had very little cash left, so this made me quite nervous as I headed for the Moldovan border. There was a young soldier there who also tried to make me pay for an "exit visa", but I told him in loud and clear English that I had no effin money left, on account of his effin colleagues at the effin border with effin Ukraine effin taking it all. So he could take his effin exit visa and eff off. Fortunately he seemed to buy my little white lie and waved me on with an apologetic grin, which was more than I received from the fat old fuck that stopped me fifty yeards on and demanded an "environment fee". I just couldn't get around the old bastard and had to give him almost everything I had left - a couple of dollars, a couple of Hryvna and a couple of Euro I think. Fucker even had the nerve to give me change back.

I was understandably apprehrensive as I approached the Moldovan checkpoint, being virtually out of any and all kinds of hard cash. My fears only grew when I saw the character slowly getting up from behind a table and walking towards my car. I'm not sure if my description does him justice, but the best I can think of is a young, Russian-looking John Wayne. We're talking straight back, broad shoulders and a face chiseled in granite here. He bent down slowly and took my papers without a word, then examined them carefully for a long time. I swallowed hard. More time passed. Crickets chirruped. Far away a dog barked. Suddenly, still without saying a word, he clicked his heels together with a bang that probably shortened my life span by about two years, saluted smartly and handed me my papers back.


I can't recall if these pics were taken in Ukraine, Transnistria, Moldova or a combination thereof, but it's the same kind of landscape for much of the way, though things start to get more hilly in Moldova, as one approaches the Carpathian mountains:








The rest of the journey home was quite uneventful. I stayed for just one night in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau. It's not much of a place, but I got a decent dinner there. I would however like to mention the hotel I stayed at, the "Stella de Lux", not just because it's a decent place to stay, but because the night receptionist was possibly the nicest, friendliest person I've encountered behind a desk or indeed anywhere else. Her name was Natasha (a v-e-r-y common name in Eastern Europe), she studied business, and she seemed absolutely thrilled to have someone to practice English with. She helped me get some food and drink from the hotel dining room although it was closed, she gave me tips on where to go to get money and a decent meal and she told me about life in the city, etc, etc. And it was all done with such a genuine, cheery friendliness even an old grump like me was affected by it. After all, how often does a high school teacher experience people smiling from ear to ear as soon as they see his ugly mug coming down the stairs? Exactly.


Natasha, the friendly receptionist. I feel I'm not doing her justice, this pic was taken at the end of her 18 hour night shift - I kid you not!



I got the wrong road out of Chisinau, so I drove through some pretty desolate and poor areas (even for Moldova). I passed through a couple of gypsy villages, and they might as well have been in Africa. Crappy streets, buildings almost falling apart, filth and garbage and dirty, half naked kids everywhere. Ugh.


Cows crossing the road:



Turkeys running around more or less freely:




The crossing into Romania was smooth, it seems they've really got their act together after they joined the EU. The roads are still poor in places though, and it's hell driving through the mountains when you keep winding up behind old, slow, decrepit trucks that belch out the most foul, stinking fumes you can imagine and there's just no effin way you're going to get past them. Romania is in baaaad need of improving their infrastructure, from housing to roads, but it is a country with tourist potential. The mountains have some lovely scenery, and prices are still quite low.

From the Carpathians:












I drove as fast as I could through Romania, but still had to spend a night in Transylvania (which is also a nice area). I then flew low across Hungary and Slovakia before spending a night at a motel just south of Prague. The place is called Motel Zajicek, and I'd stayed there before, back in '02 (a travel story I've yet to complete - I've written almost 20 pages and I'm still only on day 4 out of 14. One day... one day...) . The motel is a clean, cheap and convenient place, and the staff there was very friendly even though I almost gave them a heart attack when I ventured downstairs in search of refreshments at 1AM, not knowing they were sleeping. I cheerfully grabbed the door handle and yanked the door open, causing a stick they'd propped up against it to fall to the floor with a deafening crash. This is the only time (so far in my life) that I've seen people jump from a horisontal position two feet above ground to practically clawing at the ceiling. I apologized profusely for waking them in such a manner, and they even insisted on getting me the beverages I was looking for, bless their pounding, trembling little hearts.

Early next morning I set off again, and this time I didn't stop for sleep until I got home around 4 AM. I must have covered almost 1,600 km (1,000 miles) that crazy last stretch, since I took the land route and not the ferry through Denmark. When I got back I swore that this would be the last time I made a car trip like this alone. It's interesting and nice at times to travel on one's own, but that last drive through Germany and Scandinavia is so long and boring it's just murder when you have no company besides the radio and your own, increasingly erratic mind.

Which is to say I'm now taking applications for my next epic car trip, whenever and wherever I'm going...