Hell is other people.
- Jean-Paul Sartre
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Quote of the Day
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.
- Otto von Bismarck
- Otto von Bismarck
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Numbers
This morning I weighed in at 110,8 kg. I'll probably put on some weight in Portugal, but this is very, very good news.
Quote of the Day
The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.
- Theodor Adorno
- Theodor Adorno
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Quote of the Day
When I hear somebody sigh "Life is hard", I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
- Sydney J. Harris
- Sydney J. Harris
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Quote of the Day
Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.
- Leo Burnett
- Leo Burnett
Friday, October 22, 2010
Applying for jobs
I'm sure this will be a recurring theme here over the next few weeks... regular readers (both of you) will know that I quit my teaching job at the end of september. So far I have applied for the grand total of TWO new jobs - one a couple of days BEFORE I quit, as a journalist in the local newspaper; and one yesterday, at Disneyworld's EPCOT Center, where the Norwegian pavillion is seeking some new meat to throw to the tourists. My guess is that I am several years too old, several kilos too heavy and several IQ points too smart to come into consideration for the latter job, but you never know. With my luck I'll probably be put to work washing Goofy's dirty socks.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Crimea XI: The rest
The days I spent in Crimea after Wednesday weren't all that busy. I got up late, spent a lot of time just lying in my room reading or stuffing face at various restaurants. My legs were giving me hell every time I tried to do anything remotely demanding, so I just settled for a little driving around Yalta and its surroundings.
I went to a place called Valley of Ghosts just east of Alushta, at a place called Luchistoye. The name sounded very intriguing to yours truly, but again my Lonely Planet guide was misleading - either about its actual location or about how interesting it is, because I was hard pressed to find much beyond the ordinary, landscapewise.
I had also read about The Swallow's Nest, a small castle that had been turned into a restaruant. I tried, but couldn't get closer to the place than about a kilometer, and with my legs that was a distance I didn't want to attempt, especially since there was a difference in height of a couple of hundred meters.
One good thing was that I finally managed to track down a couple of decent eating places. One is the "Pint Pub", of which there are two in Yalta. Go to the one on Pushkin street, not the one in the very center, the food is as night and day. As with all Ukrainian places it takes a little time to get your food, but the Pint Pub in Pushkin street was worth it. I can highly recommend the goose breast!
Also recommendable is the Kozyrnaya restaurant just outside the actual town of Yalta, part of a national chain serving traditional Ukrainian fare. The restaurant lies on the ocean side of the road between Alushta and Yalta, and the interior is tastefully decorated (as tasteful as anything can be in a country where spray-on whipped cream is still the very height of culinary refinement as far as desserts go) and the views are quite good too. I recommend their borsch (soup) and their sashliky (shish kebab), which is almost delightfully untouched by western thoughts on vegetables as an integral part of a meal. Meat eaters of the world, unite! I also had my first taste of Russkie dark bread and a peculiar Ukrainian dish called Salo - which is essentially salted pork fat, which you then spread on the bread, sorta like butter, and eat. Lonely Planet "dares" you to eat it, but I thought it was quite tasty.
Saturday I flew from Simferopol to Kiev, where I stayed the night at the highly forgettable airport hotel at Boryspil. Its only redeeming feature (besides the extremely purdy girls in the reception) is a 24-hour restaurant. Service was slow as always, but I actually got a heartfelt smile from the waitress when I asked for Salo...
Valley of Ghosts pics here, Swallow's Nest pics here and Kozyrnaya pics here.
All the pics from my October trip can be found here.
Valley of Ghosts. Looked like a pile of rubble to me.
The Swallow's Nest.
The Pint Pub on Pushkin street.
A Danish beer poster in the Pint Pub.
Kozyrnaya. This room, which I sat in both days I was there, was decorated in a charmingly haphazard way. You got the feeling you were in someone's home.
The sashliki. Meat stuffed in a thin breadlike thingy with some onion on the side. Meeeeeat!
Salo. Spread on dark, Russian bread it is quite tasty.
The exterior is quite cozy too.
There is a vaguely eastern Hansel & Gretel feeling to the whole place.
The airport hotel at Boryspil is Russkie concrete architecture through and through.
I think I know what they're trying to say here and I appreciate the sentiment.
I went to a place called Valley of Ghosts just east of Alushta, at a place called Luchistoye. The name sounded very intriguing to yours truly, but again my Lonely Planet guide was misleading - either about its actual location or about how interesting it is, because I was hard pressed to find much beyond the ordinary, landscapewise.
I had also read about The Swallow's Nest, a small castle that had been turned into a restaruant. I tried, but couldn't get closer to the place than about a kilometer, and with my legs that was a distance I didn't want to attempt, especially since there was a difference in height of a couple of hundred meters.
One good thing was that I finally managed to track down a couple of decent eating places. One is the "Pint Pub", of which there are two in Yalta. Go to the one on Pushkin street, not the one in the very center, the food is as night and day. As with all Ukrainian places it takes a little time to get your food, but the Pint Pub in Pushkin street was worth it. I can highly recommend the goose breast!
Also recommendable is the Kozyrnaya restaurant just outside the actual town of Yalta, part of a national chain serving traditional Ukrainian fare. The restaurant lies on the ocean side of the road between Alushta and Yalta, and the interior is tastefully decorated (as tasteful as anything can be in a country where spray-on whipped cream is still the very height of culinary refinement as far as desserts go) and the views are quite good too. I recommend their borsch (soup) and their sashliky (shish kebab), which is almost delightfully untouched by western thoughts on vegetables as an integral part of a meal. Meat eaters of the world, unite! I also had my first taste of Russkie dark bread and a peculiar Ukrainian dish called Salo - which is essentially salted pork fat, which you then spread on the bread, sorta like butter, and eat. Lonely Planet "dares" you to eat it, but I thought it was quite tasty.
Saturday I flew from Simferopol to Kiev, where I stayed the night at the highly forgettable airport hotel at Boryspil. Its only redeeming feature (besides the extremely purdy girls in the reception) is a 24-hour restaurant. Service was slow as always, but I actually got a heartfelt smile from the waitress when I asked for Salo...
Valley of Ghosts pics here, Swallow's Nest pics here and Kozyrnaya pics here.
All the pics from my October trip can be found here.
Valley of Ghosts. Looked like a pile of rubble to me.
The Swallow's Nest.
The Pint Pub on Pushkin street.
A Danish beer poster in the Pint Pub.
Kozyrnaya. This room, which I sat in both days I was there, was decorated in a charmingly haphazard way. You got the feeling you were in someone's home.
The sashliki. Meat stuffed in a thin breadlike thingy with some onion on the side. Meeeeeat!
Salo. Spread on dark, Russian bread it is quite tasty.
The exterior is quite cozy too.
There is a vaguely eastern Hansel & Gretel feeling to the whole place.
The airport hotel at Boryspil is Russkie concrete architecture through and through.
I think I know what they're trying to say here and I appreciate the sentiment.
Crimea X: Yalta
The actual city of Yalta lies in beautiful surroundings, completely surrounded by tall mountains which seemed veiled in an almost perpetual cover of clouds. Around the city are forests, with thick, almost impenetrable greenery and of course the vast Black Sea to the south.
The city has remnants of former grandeur, and is a mix of crumbling communist era concrete blocks and old, stately pre WW1-buildings. A few modern buildings have also cropped up, mainly housing western brand stores. A walk around town is recommended, you'll find everything from casinos and restaurants to tiny stalls selling anything from guided tours to cigarettes.
One more thing you have to know before coming to Yalta: The mild climate here makes it quite easy for cats and dogs to survive through the winter, and there are lots of them. You cannot walk through the city center of any major, Crimean town without seeing packs of dogs or several "wild" cats, and Yalta is by far the worst. However this is not as dangerous as it may sound - the dogs are not as wild as in, say, Romania, and the cats are not as aggressive and untamed as in, say, Rome.
The first day we had breakfast at McDonalds I was sitting outside, stuffing face when this purdy lil German Shepherd-looking dog came up to me. I naturally assumed some other guests owned it, and ever happy to make a new acquaintance I shared some food with it, and petted it. It seemed quite happy to be touched and eventually it lay down behind my chair and went to sleep. Imagine my surprise when my Ukrainian friends told me it was homeless and ownerless.
I started to look around the square and saw several other dogs sleeping or playing or begging for food, none of them aggressive in any way, they were just there. All the time. I noticed the same thing in Sevastopol and Bakhchysaray, dogs and cats all over the place. It seems like the Crimean authorities tolerate them as long as they're not a menace, and they all seemed reasonably well fed.
All Yalta pics here.
My first pics from Yalta - mountains in the sun, with clouds creeping down the mountainside. Mighty purdy.
I could wake up to this view for the rest of my life.
The girls on the rocky beach of Yalta.
Scenes from the harbor...
Lenin is still standing in the square right up from the harbor.
A wild dog. Doesn't exactly look ferocious, does it?
These two were "behind bars" in a courtyard so they probably weren't ownerless... yet.
The city has remnants of former grandeur, and is a mix of crumbling communist era concrete blocks and old, stately pre WW1-buildings. A few modern buildings have also cropped up, mainly housing western brand stores. A walk around town is recommended, you'll find everything from casinos and restaurants to tiny stalls selling anything from guided tours to cigarettes.
One more thing you have to know before coming to Yalta: The mild climate here makes it quite easy for cats and dogs to survive through the winter, and there are lots of them. You cannot walk through the city center of any major, Crimean town without seeing packs of dogs or several "wild" cats, and Yalta is by far the worst. However this is not as dangerous as it may sound - the dogs are not as wild as in, say, Romania, and the cats are not as aggressive and untamed as in, say, Rome.
The first day we had breakfast at McDonalds I was sitting outside, stuffing face when this purdy lil German Shepherd-looking dog came up to me. I naturally assumed some other guests owned it, and ever happy to make a new acquaintance I shared some food with it, and petted it. It seemed quite happy to be touched and eventually it lay down behind my chair and went to sleep. Imagine my surprise when my Ukrainian friends told me it was homeless and ownerless.
I started to look around the square and saw several other dogs sleeping or playing or begging for food, none of them aggressive in any way, they were just there. All the time. I noticed the same thing in Sevastopol and Bakhchysaray, dogs and cats all over the place. It seems like the Crimean authorities tolerate them as long as they're not a menace, and they all seemed reasonably well fed.
All Yalta pics here.
My first pics from Yalta - mountains in the sun, with clouds creeping down the mountainside. Mighty purdy.
I could wake up to this view for the rest of my life.
The girls on the rocky beach of Yalta.
Scenes from the harbor...
Lenin is still standing in the square right up from the harbor.
A wild dog. Doesn't exactly look ferocious, does it?
These two were "behind bars" in a courtyard so they probably weren't ownerless... yet.
Quote of the Day
There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
- Dick Cavett
- Dick Cavett
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Crimea IX: Bakhchysaray
On Wednesday, after the girls had gone home to Kiev, I went north to the town of Bakhchysaray, all on my own sweet self, to see the Khan's Palace. I first went over the Ay Petri mountain and then down on the other side, The ride was a very pleasant one, through leafy hillsides. The road wasn't too bad, but a bit narrow in places.
I passed several monuments related to WW2 and also some caves. There's an area not far from the Khan's Palace called Khufut-Cale, with lots of formerly inhabited caves, but I didn't go there. Also not visited was the Uspensky cave monastery. I blame my legs, which had begun to ache as soon as I looked at anything but level walking. Argh.
Bakhchysaray used to be the capital of Tatar Crimea, where the descendants of the Mongols who took the peninsula in 1239 held sway until til Katharina the Great kicked their asses in 1783. In the meantime they'd gone ahead and converted to muslims, making Islam their state religion as early as 1313. Ugh.
Anyway I spent a couple of interesting hours at the palace before having the second slowest service of my time in the Crimea by eating at the Pushkin restaurant, which my Lonely Planet guide mentions as the finest in town, to which I can only reply "poor fuckers". The food was so-so, it took ages to get served and the guy who took my order and then brought the food was a sweaty youngster, with greasy hair who spoke appalling English. I wish I'd had the guts to frequent one of the Tatar eating places instead. By the way - the Lonely Planet guide to Crimea is not a very good one, it is deliberately vague and unhelpful in places and not up to "usual standards".
All Bakhchysaray pics here.
One of the caves I saw along the way to Bakhchysaray.
One of the numerous war memorials. These can be found just about anywhere in the Crimea.
This little fella was snoring his heart out inside the palace. Not sure if he was one of the ownerless dogs that you can see all over the Crimea, but he had perfected the art of sleeping while people were making noises all round him.
A minaret, looking for all the world like a huge dildo penetrating the sky. Sweet Jebus how I hate Islam. And Christianity. And Buddhism. And Hinduism. You get the point.
The Fountain of Tears, with a bust of Alexander Pushkin beside it. His famous poem helped save the fountain. The story goes that the Khan fell in love with a harem girl and became inconsolable when she rejected him and then died (there are variations of the legend).
There's always a white and a red rose at the fountain, the white for pain and the red for love. Awwwwww.
The Grand Hall, where the Khan would receive visitors. It's good to be the king.
Nice summer lounge.
From the harem.
I passed several monuments related to WW2 and also some caves. There's an area not far from the Khan's Palace called Khufut-Cale, with lots of formerly inhabited caves, but I didn't go there. Also not visited was the Uspensky cave monastery. I blame my legs, which had begun to ache as soon as I looked at anything but level walking. Argh.
Bakhchysaray used to be the capital of Tatar Crimea, where the descendants of the Mongols who took the peninsula in 1239 held sway until til Katharina the Great kicked their asses in 1783. In the meantime they'd gone ahead and converted to muslims, making Islam their state religion as early as 1313. Ugh.
Anyway I spent a couple of interesting hours at the palace before having the second slowest service of my time in the Crimea by eating at the Pushkin restaurant, which my Lonely Planet guide mentions as the finest in town, to which I can only reply "poor fuckers". The food was so-so, it took ages to get served and the guy who took my order and then brought the food was a sweaty youngster, with greasy hair who spoke appalling English. I wish I'd had the guts to frequent one of the Tatar eating places instead. By the way - the Lonely Planet guide to Crimea is not a very good one, it is deliberately vague and unhelpful in places and not up to "usual standards".
All Bakhchysaray pics here.
One of the caves I saw along the way to Bakhchysaray.
One of the numerous war memorials. These can be found just about anywhere in the Crimea.
This little fella was snoring his heart out inside the palace. Not sure if he was one of the ownerless dogs that you can see all over the Crimea, but he had perfected the art of sleeping while people were making noises all round him.
A minaret, looking for all the world like a huge dildo penetrating the sky. Sweet Jebus how I hate Islam. And Christianity. And Buddhism. And Hinduism. You get the point.
The Fountain of Tears, with a bust of Alexander Pushkin beside it. His famous poem helped save the fountain. The story goes that the Khan fell in love with a harem girl and became inconsolable when she rejected him and then died (there are variations of the legend).
There's always a white and a red rose at the fountain, the white for pain and the red for love. Awwwwww.
The Grand Hall, where the Khan would receive visitors. It's good to be the king.
Nice summer lounge.
From the harem.
Crimea VIII: Livadia
Tuesday we also stopped in at Yalta's main attraction, and for me the highlight of the trip: A visit to Livadia Palace. The place is steeped in history, and was the setting for the famous meeting between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in February of 1945. This is where the bastards more or less agreed how to redraw post-war Europe's borders and where the commieloving cunt Roosevelt in particular, gave away half of Europe to the Russians. Sweet Jeebus how I hate that man.
Still, one can feel history in the very walls here, and the second floor is mostly devoted to the Czar family as Livadia was a royal palace before the revolution. Nikolai II was as ineffective and incompetent a royal as has ever been on a throne, so no great loss there, but they didn't exactly have to go and shoot both him and his whole family just to create a republic, eh? Especially when you think about the tyrannical psychopaths that took over. Sigh. All pics from Livadia can be found here.
The views and surroundings are still stunning.
The main hall, where they had parties and negotiated.
Cunts. Fuckin cunts. The lot of 'em.
FDR's room. He stayed at Livadia during the conference, while Churchill stayed at Vorontsov.
One of the conference rooms. I noticed that they haven't gone through with complete historical authenticity, since the US flag they show has 50 stars, but Alaska & Hawaii weren't states yet in '45. Score one for the nerd.
The Czar's office on the 2nd floor.
The inbred eejit and his surprisingly lovely family. There were lots of mementos of their time at the palace, and even a hardened republican like me felt a pang of loss for the lives that could have been.
I think this was used for keeping sheets of music in. Fancy schmancy design.
Piano. I believe the empress played on occasion.
When they didn't play piano they could always listen to the grammophone.
Two eejits and a hemophiliac.
Still, one can feel history in the very walls here, and the second floor is mostly devoted to the Czar family as Livadia was a royal palace before the revolution. Nikolai II was as ineffective and incompetent a royal as has ever been on a throne, so no great loss there, but they didn't exactly have to go and shoot both him and his whole family just to create a republic, eh? Especially when you think about the tyrannical psychopaths that took over. Sigh. All pics from Livadia can be found here.
The views and surroundings are still stunning.
The main hall, where they had parties and negotiated.
Cunts. Fuckin cunts. The lot of 'em.
FDR's room. He stayed at Livadia during the conference, while Churchill stayed at Vorontsov.
One of the conference rooms. I noticed that they haven't gone through with complete historical authenticity, since the US flag they show has 50 stars, but Alaska & Hawaii weren't states yet in '45. Score one for the nerd.
The Czar's office on the 2nd floor.
The inbred eejit and his surprisingly lovely family. There were lots of mementos of their time at the palace, and even a hardened republican like me felt a pang of loss for the lives that could have been.
I think this was used for keeping sheets of music in. Fancy schmancy design.
Piano. I believe the empress played on occasion.
When they didn't play piano they could always listen to the grammophone.
Two eejits and a hemophiliac.
Quote of the Day
It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.
- A. J. Balfour
- A. J. Balfour
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Crimea VII: The Nikitsky Botanical Garden
As time passes I get more and more insecure about whether we went to the Nikitsky Botanical Garden on Monday or Tuesday, but I do believe it was Tuesday. Either way, my hoytin' legs didn't allow me to enjoy the area to its full extent, I lasted about 15-20 minutes before going back to the car. However I managed to snap a few pics of the lovely surroundings and I can only wonder what it must look like in the full bloom of summer. Nikitsky holds over 50,000 different species.
All pics from the gardens can be viewed here.
A shallow pool. Ahhh, the urge to jump in was almost irresistible. Fond memories of the villa in Italy...
This cunt is former foreign minister Molotov. I have no idea what he was doing in this lovely garden, but his presence is a timely reminder to all visitors that Crimea is a lot more Russian than Ukrainian in its politics and culture.
And this cunt is Lenin. One of the most cuntin' cunts ever to live.
One might be forgiven for thinking one is in Florida or California for a short moment.
Lovely scenery, it must be gorgeous in spring/summer.
And the soul of the rose went into my blood...
All pics from the gardens can be viewed here.
A shallow pool. Ahhh, the urge to jump in was almost irresistible. Fond memories of the villa in Italy...
This cunt is former foreign minister Molotov. I have no idea what he was doing in this lovely garden, but his presence is a timely reminder to all visitors that Crimea is a lot more Russian than Ukrainian in its politics and culture.
And this cunt is Lenin. One of the most cuntin' cunts ever to live.
One might be forgiven for thinking one is in Florida or California for a short moment.
Lovely scenery, it must be gorgeous in spring/summer.
And the soul of the rose went into my blood...
Quote of the Day
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
- Mark Twain
- Mark Twain
Monday, October 18, 2010
Crimea VI: The Vorontsov Palace
Having made it safely down from the top of Ay Petri, we went and saw the Vorontsov Palace, which is also situated in Alupka. By this time my legs had really begun to hurt, and I was cursing the effin cholesterol pills that make my joints stiff. I lasted for all of five minutes, so I just told the girls to take their time and have fun, while I waited around at the entrance.
The palace itself is supposed to be quite a sight, built for prince Vorontsov, who was a governor-general of pretty much the whole of Ukraine in 1823-1844. The general architecture is English, but the southern entrance is more Asian in style. All my pics from the palace can be found here.
There's a HUGE garden surrounding the palace.
This little fella was so fat his belly almost touched the ground when he walked.
They might want to clean their pools every once in a blue moon.
The western entrance to the palace.
A fountain on the outside of the palace.
The palace itself is supposed to be quite a sight, built for prince Vorontsov, who was a governor-general of pretty much the whole of Ukraine in 1823-1844. The general architecture is English, but the southern entrance is more Asian in style. All my pics from the palace can be found here.
There's a HUGE garden surrounding the palace.
This little fella was so fat his belly almost touched the ground when he walked.
They might want to clean their pools every once in a blue moon.
The western entrance to the palace.
A fountain on the outside of the palace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
