Ukraine VI: Yet more Kiev

Some other stuff from Kiev:

My apartment was on the street leading to Andrew's Descent, a steep decline lined with purveyors of the finest Chinese made crap, but also some decent eateries. I can't remember the name of the place my friend Natasha took me to lunch, but it had one of the best chicken dishes I've ever had. In general, food in Ukraine is very good - and cheap compared to western prices. It should be added that most places prepare the food from scratch, so it usually takes longer to get it, and service as such is often poor. But the food is yummy! I had this delicious dessert in a more fancy cafe by the entrance to Mariyinsky park:




This is Maidan Nezalezhnosti - Independence Square - where the Orange revolution took place. It's on Khreschatyk. Some find it a bit touristy, but I thought it was ok:








On the sidewalk just outside my apartment there were art students selling their paintings, some of them not too tacky:




The funicular from Mykhailvs’ka Ploscha down to the Podil area, which also has some nice streets and stores. The ride costs 50 kopek (10 US cents) and puts you very close to the river. I believe there are several companies there that offer boat tours:




Some other advice/comments on Kiev: It's still a great advantage to speak Ukrainian or Russian (which I don't) or to be in the company of someone who does (check!). I can pretty much spell my way through the cyrillic alphabet (tongue sticking ever so slightly out of the corner of my mouth, finger following the lines and taking my sweet time), and this came in handy on many occasions. In most parts of Ukraine you can get by on Russian, and Kiev is a bilingual city. The languages are generally mutually comprehensible anyway. The only place I was warned not to speak Russian was the western parts, especially the city of Lviv, which seemed to me to have something of a rivalry going with Kiev and reputedly has a general hatred of everything Russian.

People seemed to be proud of their city and proud to be living in Kiev. It has a significantly higher living standard than the rest of the country (though still poor by Norwegian standards) and I kept hearing that "everything is twice as good in Kiev". Anyway, it was more than good enough for me. Kiev is definitely worth a visit and it's definitely a city I'm going back to someday, though I suspect I'll be arriving by plane, not car the next time.

Ukraine V: More Kiev

Kiev is a very green city - I was told it's the city in the world with the highest percentage of area devoted to parks, forests, etc. It' s also a BIG place, officially some 3 million people - unofficially maybe double that. It is large in size as well, lots of places that would be considered "suburbs" in the west are within the city limit. I especially liked Mariyinsky park, which contains the famous "Lover's Bridge" and is flanked by the Lobanovsky Dinamo Kiev stadium on one side and the Presidential Palace (an 18th century baroque construction) and the Parliament on the other. Nice place for a walk, with views of the city and many of the suburbs - it gives you a feeling of the size of the place.

The suburbs and the river:






Along the Dniepr River there are sandy beaches and the Hidropark is reputedly a great place for picnics, family fun, etc (I didn't go, since I'm still afraid of being harpooned).




An outdoors amfitheatre in the park:




The presidential palace (Baroque) and the Parliament building (Neo-Stalinist):






The main street is called Khreschatyk, and it's got nice buildings, plenty of fairly modern stores and several nice cafes and restaurants. Ideal for people watching and getting a sense of the atmosphere of the city. It is still a place of great contrasts - most of the cars are surprisingly new, which my friend Natasha explained was due to the fact that only a couple of years ago Ukrainians discovered the concept of personal consumer loans. This led to an explosion in the number of cars, especially new & shiny ones on the streets of Kiev. There are, however still plenty of rusty, dirty old Ladas and the likes polluting the air.

There's also a decidedly generational gap in clothing and such. Most young people dress and behave like westerners (not always a good thing...) and cell phones are absolutely everywhere. On the other hand, you still see old ladies with their traditional headscarves, some of them begging on street corners. I don't usually encourage begging by giving, especially since there is absofuckinlutely no need for it in a country like Norway, or indeed any other place in western Europe but I feel somewhat more liberal towards it in a place like Ukraine. I was and remain all in favor of stomping out communism wherever it rears its ugly head, and the fall of the Soviet Union was one of the great victories of civilization (alongside victory in WW2 and the invention of soft toilet paper). Still, many ordinary people pretty much got their existence turned upside down in a very short time, and some saw a significant worsening of their living standards. Through no fault of their own they had been formed by an evil empire and had no way of coping with the new ways. The old women on the streets of Kiev are not the professional beggars or gypsy thieves who have turned begging into an industry in the West, they are people who have likely worked very hard all their lives but have now fallen on hard times. Spare them a thought, and if possible some change, mmmkay?


From Khreschatyk:








Some random Ukrainian babes along the street (in some of the touristy places there were actually people handing out brochures for "marriage companies"):

Ukraine IV: Kiev

Ok, I've already bored you with my tales of woe about the crappy apartment I rented, so let me now wax lyrical about the city of Kiev. Well, maybe not lyrical. It's a nice place to visit and I'm sure it will be even nicer once everybody older than 30 has been replaced, so that one might reasonably expect to find a fair number of English speakers.

I was lucky enough to know someone in the city - the formidable polyglot Nata, with whom I'd been trading insults online for several years. She's fluent in Ukrainian and Russian and also speaks English, German and Spanish (and probably more). A very convenient person to know!

Most of Kiev was bombed/shelled pretty heavily during WW2, but fortunately it was not rebuilt in the typical neo-stalinist style of ex-commie cities (Warszaw and St Petersburg come to mind). The streets are as clean as anything you'll find in the west, and there are some really nice buildings to be seen. One ever present fixture is the Orthodox cathedrals, there are several of them and they're all very colorful and grand looking:






Needless to say, I couldn't be bothered to set foot in them, though I did visit the former cave monastery of Pechersk Lavra, which has been turned into a museum area (some run by the church, some by the government). I didn't go down into the caves, but did enjoy the incredible museum of miniatures and the historical museum (which was somewhat less than incredible). One of the churches on the site:




I also went to the outdoors part of the War Museum (we came too late to go inside), which mainly contains old Russkie tanks and guns and such, plus a bunch of stone reliefs in the typical heroic worker style:






The indoors part of the museum is housed inside this HUGE "Motherland Statue" - quite impressive:






Yours truly surrendering to a T-55:

Ukraine III: Coming to Kiev

I arrived in Kiev way later than planned, and for some reason I had not been able to use my cell phone to get in touch with the company I was renting an apartment from (I had booked a place in a very central location, with a phone, spacious living room/bedroom, a small kitchen etc). I'll spare you the details of driving alone into a city of 3 million where all the street signs are in the Cyrillic alphabet, suffice it to say I was very proud of myself for finding the right street after stopping just twice to ask for directions.

I should take the time here to note that although most Ukrainians speak no English (and most of the ones who do speak very little and poorly), they make up for this by being very friendly and helpful. After parking I stopped a young couple to ask for directions to my apartement, and when they understood my predicament they used their own cell phone to call the rental company and insisted on waiting with me until they arrived. They absolutely refused any payment for the use of the cell phone.

I should also take the time to point out something I believe I've mentioned before on this blog - Eastern Europeans are usually very friendly and helpful when you meet them in a social context. But they are inflexible, incompetent and downright fraudulent when they're acting in an official capacity, be it as a civil servant or as a private company employee.

Since I had not been able to call ahead about my delay, the apartment I had booked had already been let out. Fortunately they had another place just a few minutes away. At the new place I was given keys and instructions by the American husband of the woman who owned the rental company - he was the one who told me what to do about traffic tickets - and all seemed fine at the time. I was just happy to have made it to Kiev in one piece, and on the surface the apartment seemed nice and the people renting it competent and helpful. Sadly, it was not to last.

Again, I'll spare you the details of my attempts to correspond with them and get the various flaws of the apartment fixed. The phone I had been promised was nowhere to be seen, which meant I had to use my Norwegian cell phone to contact them (expensive!) and the faucet in the shower was so leaky, most of the water just fell to the floor. This meant I had about 2 minutes of lukewarm drizzle to shower in before the water got ice cold. They kept stalling all week with lies and promises of plumbers, bringing a phone, etc, etc, and when I finally left the place they didn't even have the guts to show up and get the keys from me - they were left on the kitchen table with the door open. I had paid cash in advance, and the company didn't have my credit card number so I hope someone cleaned out the place before the bastards arrived.


The leaky faucet:

Ukraine II: On the road again

Ok, I'm FINALLY writing the rest of my travel story from my insane drive to Ukraine last year. I've already blogged about the Oslo - Berlin - Poland stretch for Saturday-Monday here.

Tuesday I drove to the Ukrainian border, alongside miles of parked trucks waiting to get in. I was very happy they had separate lanes for cars. Upon arrival a soldier wrote down my registration number and the number of passengers in the car (1) on a small scrap of paper. Despite his instructions that I absolutely, positively HAD to keep this little piece paper, I managed to lose it in the ten minutes it took to travel the 50 feet to the border checkpoint. I never even left the car, and to this day I have no clue as to how I did it. Clearly I have a talent for these things.

The guy at the immigration control gave a weary sigh when I explained that I had in fact lost the paper, and he then had to get out of his booth, track down some more paper and then painstakingly write the same useless information on a new, tiny scrap which he then stamped in red ink. I was then waived through with no further information. Imagine then my surprise when I came to the last checkpoint and was told I had to go back and get a BLUE stamp on it - for CUSTOMS, you see.

So I backed up the 50 or so yards to the main buildings and tried to get me a blue stamp. This was easier said than done. None of the many soldiers hanging around spoke English, but fortunately I was not alone in my quest, lots of Poles and Ukrainians were also stuck waiting for it. After five minutes a grumpy woman finally emerged from one of the side buildings, still wiping the crumbs of her lunch from her ugly mug. Needless to say, none of the cars got even a perfunctory check, she just stamped a dozen pieces of paper and went back inside again. Also needless to say, the guys at the final checkpoint just glanced at my red & blue stamps and waved me through. There was no point to the whole procedure, it just had to be done according to proper rules and regulations.

I'll save you the tales of woe connected with driving into Ukraine without enough hard currency on hand, suffice it to say I was very happy and very hungry when I finally reached a city big enough to have an international ATM. Having filled up on food and gas I stopped and asked for directions to get back on the main road, and probably provided entertainment for the rest of the month to a couple of young people walking their babies in strollers. They spoke maybe twenty words of English between them, and the directions were given (and received) using a combination of hand signals and sounds that to an uninitiated bystander probably looked more like we were all having brain seizures at the same time.

Ukraine is generally flat and boring to drive through. Giant forests and huge plains pretty much make up the landscape, and the many tiny towns and villages are quite dull, grey and worn down. As in Poland I could see (mostly old) people walking their cattle to graze from the grass along the roadside, and some places they were selling their local produce out of buckets or carts. I'm willing to bet their style of clothing hasn't changed much for a couple of centuries.

I'd been told that the speed limit on the motorways was up to 120kmh (75mph), so as I was on a four-lane highway I felt safe in doing 110. Road signs are few and far between in Ukraine, but I honestly thought I was on a motorway until I came around a bend and was promptly waved in by a couple of police officers. It turned out I was in a "town zone" - marked exclusively by a Ukrainian sign, not a number - and had been measured doing 108 kmh in a 60 zone. In Norway this would probably have meant jail time, or at the very least I'd have lost my license. Here they wrote "150" on a piece of paper - meaning I had to pay 150 Hryvna (=$30). My lowest denomination was a 200 Hr bill, which the policeman promptly put in his breast pocket (aka his pension fund). I was then given a firm handshake and sent off without any change or receipt.

I later found out that even this small amount was way too much. Apparently, since they know the odds of getting a foreigner to appear in court, local cops never push the issue of traffic tickets to the point of actually issuing them - they will only harass you for a while. Therefore, one should always keep a 20 Hr note ready to give them after arguing for a couple of minutes. That way both you and the Ukrainian government save face and money.


From the border area - No trumpet playing allowed!

Brief update from Kiev

Yes! I made it here alive! Brief summary of the trip so far:

Saturday: Norway-Berlin. Found a cheap motel without any hot water, but since there was a huge gas station with showers just 200 meters up the road, that was no problem. However, the house party they were having in the basement until 1AM was.

Sunday: Completely missed the intended exit into Berlin, which would have taken me to my hotel. Instead, through sheer dumb luck I ended up outside the Altes Museum, where I intended to go anyway. I spent several hours browsing through their wonderful Egyptian collection, and finally fulfilled my old dream of seeing the famous Nefertiti bust. It is every bit as stunning and lifelike as pictures make it out to be.

In the evening I hooked up with a couple of Dutch hitchhikers, who I'd agreed to take with me to Lublin, Poland (see hitchhikers). They were very nice people, and we had a pleasant dinner and conversation, much of it centering on the numerous similarities between Netherlands and Norway.

Monday: We navigated our way out of the road hell that is Berlin, and set off for Poland. T'was a long drive through mainly flat and boring landscape (there were shouts of joy every time we saw a hillside...) and a lot of jokes regarding the general standard of the Polish countryside. One of the Dutch suggested they could have been the set for Borat's hometown.

I dropped them off at their campsite and almost immediately picked up a couple of Polish hitchhikers. This turned out to be a fortunate move, since they were able to spot my hotel, whose sign was written in such a ridiculously embroidered writing, I wouldn't have found it in a million years.

I had dinner in the hotel restaurant. The food was quite tasty, but the waiter looked like it hadn't quite dawned on him yet that he would no longer be sent to Siberia for talking to westerners.

Off again

My travel foot is twitching, so I'm off again... driving to Ukraine Saturday morning! Stopping over in Berlin Sunday, on to Poland Monday, then off again to Kiev on Tuesday... then Saturday next week I'm driving to Odessa together with an Ukrainian friend and her colleague, then I'll start driving home Monday... going through Moldova, where I'll probably spend a night. I'll probably be back Thursday two weeks from now (if I make it back alive at all).

Travelblog: Northumbria

Wednesday I drove on to Lindisfarne aka Holy Island, which holds the dubious (in my view) title of "Cradle of Christianity" in northern England. The monastery here was one of the most important in all of England until the vikings raided their asses in 793, an attack commonly considered to be the first proper viking attack on the British Isles. The old Anglo-Saxon church was later rebuilt in Norman style, but that too is now in ruins (the proper state for any religious building if you ask me, which you probably won't).




One of the most important of these early morons/monks was St Cuthbert, who for large parts of his time here lived in isolation on this tiny island just off the coast of Lindisfarne. Mentally, I immediately renamed him St Nutbert.




Nice, pastoral image, eh?




The road between Lindisfarne and the mainland is often flooded. There are tables posted on either side to show when it's safe to drive out. The view at low tide:

Travelblog: England... and Scotland again

I drove on south alongside Loch Lomond, then across to Edinburgh before turning south again to Cornhill, a small place about 30 minutes west of Berwick upon Tweed (England). The hotel I had booked was an old manor house, very stylish and all, but the experience was somewhat ruined by a huge stain on the bed, which ran all the way from the top sheet down through several layers of blankets into the matress itself. Yuck.

Rather than pay the exorbitant £35 the hotel charged for a dinner, I ventured out to find some cheap pub grub. Within five minutes I found myself in the tiny Scottish border town of Coldstream which advertised itself as the "first real border toon" if I remember correctly. Here I had one of the best, positive surprises of my traveling life. I went to a cozy little pub called the Besom and ordered something called Moroccan chicken. This turned out to be possibly the best meal I've had on the British Isles. The sauce was honeybased and the taste was simply divine. I had just enough shame in me not to order a second full dinner, and settled for stuffing my face with their delicious cheesecake instead. If you're ever in the north of England or the south of Scotland, try this place!

Travelblog: Drive

The rest of Tuesday was one long drive... I decided to take the long route south, and drove all the way to the west coast, through places like Fort William and Glencoe. The Highlands are nice, and the landscape reminded me a lot of the Norwegian Highlands and the coastal areas of the north.

This is a memorial to British Commando soldiers, many of whom received their WWII training in the Scottish Highlands.




Them hills be STEEP.




You're mine, all mine. All the digestible parts of you anyway...




Is nice.

Travelblog:Loch Ness

Tuesday I bid farewell to Inverness and set off towards Loch Ness. After 40-45 mins I arrived at Castle Urquhart, which is a famous tourist destination. The old castle ruins overlook the Loch, and it's a pretty scenic place.




As proper castles do, it had a crummy little prison cell in the wall.




In one of the rooms, a pair of swallows had built a nest above one of the spotlights. The birds were precision flying in and out of the doorway, narrowly missing the tourists. The little ones where chirping and squealing their greedy little hearts out for the grub the parents were bringing in. I managed to get a pic of them in full hysteria mode, beaks wide open just as one of the adults come flying in. They look more like aliens than birds...




I spent a good 90 minutes out there before realizing that I'd forgotten to hand in the hotel keys. So back to Inverness to drop off the keys before setting off alongside Loch Ness once again...

Travelblog: More Inverness

After Culloden and the Clava Cairns, I drove up to a tiny village called Strathpeffer to have a look at the Highland Museum of Childhood. Spent about 45 minutes up there, a small but informative museum that shows you children did indeed have a life before Nintendo. The museum is situated in an old railway station which also houses some crafts shops, a wood carver and a small cafe. The surroundings are nice, and there are some walks to be had in the area. On my way back I stopped at a tourist information center along the highway and again showed that I can't be trusted with money. I bought no less than 21 calendars as gifts for friends and colleagues back home (in my defense they were discounted and really, really nice...)

In the afternoon I drove out to Black Isle (which is not an island, but a peninsula). My main goal was the clootie well just outside Munlochy: "The Clootie well, on the A832 just behind the village, is of much more ancient origin. It was originally the home of a fairy to whom a gift of cloth was given before drinking the health giving and luck bestowing water. The well was later incorporated into the Christian religion, and became known as St. Boniface's Well. The trees and bushes for some distance around are festooned with rags, and a visit into the trees beyond the well is a somewhat eerie experience."




Eerie indeed. It is of course incredible that presumably educated, modern people continue with this idiocy, but then people still vote Socialist, so one shouldn't be surprised I guess. When the reward is a percieved peace of mind, the human species has always demonstrated a frightening capacity, even desire, to be fooled.

After the clootie well I drove out to the cozy little village of Fortrose, where I had a decidedly overpriced and mediocre dinner at a local restaurant called The Anderson. Nice people, but their steak was partially burnt and the vegetables had a bitter aftertaste to them. Still, Monday was an eventful and busy day; a good start to my trip!

Travelblog: Inverness

Touched down at Edinburgh airport Sunday and had a very tense drive up north to Inverness. It takes some time getting used to driving on the WRONG side of the road, and the wind and rain didn't make the task easier.

The guest house was a nice little place, a privately owned house run by an elderly couple. Very nice people, and Inverness was a surprisingly nice town, not too big, with a genteel atmosphere. It is one of Europe's fastest growing cities due to its reputation for good schools, low crime and good job market.

One surprising factor was the local accent. I'd expected the usual unintelligible mumbling and throat clearing sounds, something like Glaswegian on steroids, but it's quite the opposite. The Inverness accent is actually the Scottish accent closest to southern English, and I had no problems at all understanding the natives.

Monday I drove out to Culloden battlefield, where the Scots had their hairy, blue asses handed to them by the Redcoats in 1746. The military campaign of 1745-6 was an attempt to bring back on the British throne the papist branch of the Stuarts, personified this time in "Bonnie Prince Charles", one of the most incompetent, self-important idiots ever to contend for the job, and that's saying something. His idiocy was a great part of the reason why the Scots were crushed, and good riddance to him... although when you think about it, the Kraut (Hanoverian) branch weren't much of an improvement on things. In 1760 George the 3rd became king and managed to lose the American colonies and even his mental health in a few years. But that's another story.

Some pics:

The battlefield as it looks today.



Our guide, Mike who was funny, knowledgeable and clever. I highly recommend paying the money for a guided tour.



Less than five minutes from Culloden is the bronze age burial site of Clava Cairns. These burial mounds are 3-4000 years old.

Ay up!

So, it's off to Britain I go... once again. The summer holiday is just around the corner, and yours truly will spend almost two weeks traversing Scotland and England, hopefully on the right (meaning the left) side of the road.

I'm flying in to Edinburgh Sunday afternoon, then I'll drive straight up to Inverness for a couple of days. Then down along Loch Ness, before going southeast to Berwick-upon-Tweed (kinda sounds like some sort of Gentlemen's wear, doesn't it? Gotta love them English placenames!).

After Berwick it's steady on down the coast to Whitby, Robin Hood's Bay and Scarborough before turning inland to a couple of days in York, where I'll leave the rental car. Then I'm taking an overnight bus to London, staying there for three days and flying out of Stansted Thursday, July 5.

Not sure what my internet status will be, but I'll try and keep you posted, dear fans!

Brief whining about movies

I didn't think it was possible, but they've actually managed to make Pirates III boring. Even more boring than Spiderman 3, which in turn was more boring than Hot Fuzz, which was kinda ok but a huge disappointement compared to the highly misleading previews I'd seen. This year's hypes have all been sadly disappointing, and I'm biting my fingernails down to the bone in fear of what they've done to Die Hard 4, a franchise I've always loved. Yippee-ki-yay!

One down...

Moral Majority founder, Christian fundamentalist and all-round Neanderthal numbskull Jerry Falwell has died.

In other news, a spit roast is being held in Hell tonight.

Travel report 2

Spent most of Easter in England - three days in London and two days in Lichfield, a small town just north of Birmingham.

London is possibly my favorite city in the whole world, and I spent some blissful hours at the British Museum and just walking the streets. I also joined up with something called London Walks, which I highly recommend. For only £6 per walk I participated in their Jack the Ripper Walk and a tour called Ghosts of the Old Town. Two hours of healthy exercise, lots of information and good entertainment.

Lichfield is a nice little town, with lovely old houses and I lunched at a place called Tudor, situated in a house built in 1510:




This is the dessert "Strawberry surprise", and it fully deserved its name. I was shocked at the sheer size of the thing, and it was very yummy:



All in all, a very enjoyable trip!

Travel report 1

Traveled to Dublin in late March and to England in early April... here are two brief reports, first from Dublin.

I went with 30 colleagues on a Fri-Mon trip to Dublin, and had a blast. Dublin's no London, but it's still a very nice place to visit. Spring had arrived (unlike in Norway at the time), this pic is from a nice little park called St. Stephen's Green. The only thing not so nice was that they had some sort of resident drunk at the entrance, and he seemed to take a particular dislike to me when I stopped to look at the map of the park posted on the other side of the road from his bench. I toyed with the very, very tempting idea of breaking his nose and kicking him comatose, but since I had two colleagues with me, I behaved. Anyways, 'twas a purdy lil' park:




In several streets the houses had very brightly painted doors. According to a tour guide this was an old device meant to help dead drunk inhabitants to find the correct door. A bit tacky, but it also put some color to the city.




We managed to get in some real Irish culture. On Sunday we lunched at the Brazen Head, which claims to be Ireland's oldest pub. They had live music of a very high quality, good ole footstompin', singalong stuff!




We had dinner Sunday at a very good place, the Ryan's pub & restaurant in Parkgate. Great food, though their spelling could improve:




During the dinner I was presented with a gift, as an appreciation of my efforts (I'd organized the whole trip - plane tickets, dinners, lodgings, etc). It may not be apparent from this picture, but this bearded hat is so big it actually rests on my shoulders when I put it on...



I would also like to recommend the hotel we stayed at, the Best Western Ashling. Despite the fire alarm that went off at 5AM Sunday morning, we had a thoroughly enjoyable stay there. On Sunday night (more like early morning) they even opened up the bar area for us to have our private little party in. High Five!

Look out Leprechauns!

I'll be in Dublin March 23-26 and you won't. Neener neener!

I'll be in London April 1-3 and Birmingham April 4-6. You probably won't be there either. Sucks to be you, eh?

Getting a life? Not anytime soon.

No, I haven't acquired a life yet... the reason I've been lagging here is mainly due to watching WAY too much TV shows the past month, either on DVD or downloads... To give you a picture of the depth of my problem, this is a list of the stuff I've watched over the past 4-5 weeks: The first five seasons of "24", two and a half seasons of House MD (which I absofuckinlutely LOVE), all the Firefly episodes (plus the movie), the 1st seasons of Rome and Dexter and I'll start on the first two seasons of The Wire next week. And now people are threatening to give me downloads of Prison Break too. How the hell am I supposed to find time to blog???

When a man ignores a woman

Finally, it's scientific: Men Hard-Wired to Ignore Their Wives. In addition to it being good, common sense, of course.

What was the death penalty invented for?

Probably this.

Thailand: Coming home

As an addendum to his crazy Thailand trip, let me close with this message from my lucky slob of a brother after he'd landed in Oslo:

Monday Jan 29, 2:09PM:
Wow. It's cold in just flipflops and a Hawaiian shirt here at the airport.
Idea for use of the petroleum fund: Norway buys Thailand and moves there.
All of us.
Before the weekend.

The last messages from Thailand

Sunday January 28, 08:46AM:
Well you can sit there and bitch & complain about -13 degrees (=8F), but we've been waiting for almost TEN minutes now to get our drinks and lobsters delivered to the pool. So nobody here feels THAT sorry for you.

Sunday January 28, 12:31PM:
Well, well... it's all over for now, hope you've enjoyed the travel reports. One last story: When we checked out of the hotel, I was mysteriously refered to as "Mister Beyond" on the bill. I wondered about this until our local Norwegian contact, named Bjørn-Tore, came to pick us up and was greeted thusly by the receptionist: "Hello Mistel Beyond-Tole!".

Yet more from Thailand

Saturday Jan 27, 10:03AM:
God damn! The last thing I remember was some Thai construction boss yelling "Coyote Ugly gleat movie" while ordering eight 16-year old girls in mini-skirts up on the stage.
Warm whiskey by the gallon. My psycho driver apparently drove us home. Drunk. They found him sleeping behind the wheel, out in a field.
Afraid, now. Hope I'm not married.

Saturday Jan 27, 11:49AM:
"No dogpets or sea animals allowed in room".
Damn it! I don't know who got caught with a walrus, two poodles and a penguin, causing the hotel to put up this sign - but I bet he was German!

More texts from Thailand

Some new text messages from my lucky slob of a brother in Thailand:

Friday Jan 26, 4:16PM:
Drunk, now.
Thai-party in the countryside.
Down here, nobody knows you're not supposed to eat the yellow snow.
Strange to think about.
*hiccup*

Friday Jan 26, 5:27PM:
Uh-oh. Outdoors party in the countryside.
Have just performed for 300 Thais... "Hotel California" with a band.
Received marriage offers from five women and two men.
Afraid now. Very afraid.

Taxi Dlivel

My lucky slob of a brother has landed himself a plum photo assignment, and is currently in Thailand on a week of all-expenses-paid fun in the sun. Here is a quick sampling of some of the text messages I've received this week, slightly edited for you poor, wretched non-Norwegians out there:


Tuesday Jan 23, 05:54AM:
Wow. Thais are lazy, it seems. They take the moped just to cross the street. And the guy who's trying to drive me around in Hua Hin can't even be bothered to use the indicator, much less break. Or turn. I think he may have lost the will to live actually. But the weather's nice.

Wednesday Jan 24, 11:17AM:
Driving a car again, now. Cheerful driver. He's looking forward to his confirmation. Wishes for a driver's license. He weighs at least a hundred pounds, including gold tooth, pencil mustache and white stick. He drives just like we do back in Norway - while the rest of Thailand drives on the left. Great. I'll probably have to threaten him with sex to make him stop. Wish me luck.

Wednesday Jan 24, 6:54PM:
"Kontli looooooooads, teke hoooooooooam
Tuvi paaaaaaace, ah bijooooooooooooooam"
So THAT'S how the song went... Clever, this John Denver guy. Thai, apparently.
But the very best thing about Thai music is that it feels so good when it stops. *hiccup*

Wednesday Jan 24, 10:51PM:
"Retard: Cultural learnings of Thailand for make benefit glorious nation of Norway". Heppy times! High five! *hiccup*

Thursday Jan 25, 8:42AM:
"Hello! I'm youl dlivel!!! What? I dlive you CLAZY? Haha, good joke! Sil? Mistel X? Why you clying? Me dlive vely nice! Why you close eyes? Ok, I close eyes too! Take nap while dliving. No ploblem! Good fol me, good fol you... zzzzz..."
*Background noise of sirens and a grown man crying*

Thursday Jan 25, 4:53PM:
"Ok, mistel X. Hele is place fol buy big stick! Why you want to buy... ow! OUCH! Me dlive caleful now! Ow! Plomise! Ouch!"

Friday Jan 26, 9:00PM:
In the jungle now. Silence. A monkey screams. Sun through the branches. A car is approaching on a dusty road... "kwang jin tao jong pnam HOTEL CAAAALIFOLNIA..." Silence again, except for my low sobbing.

Friday Jan 26, 09:42AM:
Crying now. It turns out that my weak-eyed, prepubescent "dlivel" has his own business card. Do you know what it says? "Save your life if go with me". Below is a drawing of a guy in a racing car, with a helmet on...

Friday Jan 26, 12:17PM
"TAXI and elephant show" reads the sign in the reception. Yes, how often hasn't one stood in a taxi line, gulping gin at 4AM and longed for a little trunk fun.

Friday Jan 26, 2:08PM:
I'm hungry. "Driver, stop at gas station".
He's wondering. "Plenty gas, Mistel X! Why?"
"Because. Now stop or I make sexy time on you! I'm hungry!"
He gawps. "You EAT gasoline?"
They don't do fast food outlets here.

A disturbing trend

Ok... things are getting serious. Only last week I blogged about the Second Coming of Christ in the shape of a chimpanzee baby, born of a virgin monkey mother in Louisiana. Now comes this story from England, where a virgin Komodo dragon has given birth to five little dragonettes (or whatever you call the offspring of dragons).

I think we can all see the signs here. The dragon is one of the creatures in the Bible most closely associated with the Devil, while chimps are Man's closest relatives. Obviously, we have entered the End Days and in less than thirty years' time we can expect the final battle between Komodo and Chimpanzee. I'm hereby declaring copyrights to any book or movie manuscript based on this scenario (I need the income to pay for my highly overdue increase in medication).

I don't WANT to do this...

... but your laziness is forcing my hand...

MAKE A COMMENT OR THE DOG GETS IT!

US vs Iran

This picture was taken during a recent match between wrestlers from the US (red) and Iran (blue). There were many comments that came to my warped mind when I saw it, but none that would really improve on the image as it is. Enjoy.

Monkey business

In a Louisiana Chimpanzee sanctuary, one of the animals has given birth. This would be unremarkable if not for one tiny little point: All the male chimpanzees there have had vasectomies. They've been castrated, emasculated, fixed, gelded, snipped, turned French.

This pregnancy is therefore disturbing on a number of levels. First, did the baby chimp look suspiciously like any of the male employees? If not, does this mean we're about to have Jesus return as a chimpanzee virgin birth? THAT would shake up both creationists and evolutionists alike!

I leave you with one final, disturbing thought: When delivering a chimpanzee baby... do the doctors... uhm... spank the monkey? (And should I increase my medication?)

Happy New Year, fans!

In Memoriam (excerpt)

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

- Alfred Tennyson

A special service to our readers

Phone cam recording of Saddam's hanging (via Drudge).

May plenty of others like him (Saddam, not Drudge... well mostly Saddam) find the same fate in the near future.

Thanks a lot, Universe

It's gone and done it to me again.

Given me a cold.

For the third holiday in a row.

I had a cold when I went to the US this summer, came down with one while in Prague in October... and now I've had to cancel my trip to Marseille tomorrow. That's not bad luck, that's a cosmic conspiracy.

I'm sniffling and sneezing and coughing. My joints are aching with fever. Bad, bad universe!

Christmas comes again

Christmas is multiorgasmic this year (and if that image is not enough to ruin the rest of the holidays for you, then I haven't done my job properly).

Not only did I buy the latest semi-autobiography by Bill Bryson today (titled "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid"), but when I got home I found a huge parcel on my doorstep. I unwrapped the several layers of packaging with greedy, trembling hands to uncover my precious loot: A leatherbound, signed copy of "The Absolute Sandman", Volume 1. It contains the 20 first issues of Sandman and it's absolutely brilliant in every way.

Guess my pupils will have to wait another week to have their papers and tests graded, muahahahaha!

Christmas comes early

Those (poor souls) who know me, know that I have a somewhat strained relationship with Christmas and all things related to said holiday. I'm no Christian and I don't share a smidgeon of the ideological basis for the celebrations. And I have nothing but scorn and contempt for the contemporary hoopla surrounding it.

Still, I'm a great believer in pampering myself (don't - for the sake of your own mental health and that of your children please don't - take the expression literally, much less attempt to envision it!), so I went browsing in a bookstore in Oslo today. And lo & behold, what did I find but new books by three of my favorite writers! My grubby, little hands are currently clutching copies of the following: "Fragile Things", a collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman, "Wintersmith", a new Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett and "Blue Shoes and Happiness", the latest installment in the thoroughly enjoyable "No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series by Alexander McCall Smith. As if that wasn't enough I also got an illustrated Pratchett book called "The Art of Discworld". Throw in a very cool looking book called "Historical Atlas of the United States", and you can imagine my mental state at this moment. In addition, I simply forgot to buy a new semi-autobiographical book by Bill Bryson that I saw in the shop, so that's also waiting for me down the line. Life is goooood!

Slow colleagues

When a person has failed to read his work email for three days, I think he should be declared legally dead. Just sayin'.

Prague II - Terezin

I was up bright and early at 6:45 the next morning, having decided to spend the day outside of Prague, at the former Nazi camp of Terezin (Theresienstadt in German). After a quick breakfast I took the metro a couple of stations, to the bus station at Florenc. I tried to make sense of the vast amount of schedules posted, but it was all in Czech, so I had to get in line and ask at the info counter. I was directed to the correct ticket office, where I purchased a ticket to Terezin. The bus didn't leave for another good hour or so, so I killed some time with hot chocolate and pastries at a cafe.

Buying tickets in advance turned out to be a good idea, since this meant I actually had a reserved, numbered seat. I watched in amazement as passengers were piled on, long after all the seats had been taken. I cranked the ventilation over my seat to max to quench the overpowering odor of the sweaty, unshaven native next to me and blissfully managed to doze for most of the journey.

The whole town is situated inside a huge fortification. I quickly located the Museum of the Ghetto, which is a very good one (although the introduction film can be skipped). It contains lots of artifacts from the 40s, lots of information about how Jews were treated in the old Czechoslovakia, and about their ultimate fates. Terezin was not an extermination camp in itself, it served mainly as a transit camp before the Jews were sent off to places like Auschwitz and Treblinka. In all, I think about 140.000 people went through there, and most of them never returned - more than 30.000 died in the camp. A cruel twist to the story, is that Terezin was presented to Red Cross inspectors as a "model camp", to show how humanely the Jews were treated.

After the museum proper, I went to a different section, just a short walk down the street. This place was an old army barracks which contained numerous examples of Jewish art, music and literature. As with the first museum, things were well marked in English, but I found this second museum to be too specialized, and quite frankly pretty boring unless one happens to have a special interest in Czech-Jewish culture.

I had planned to go to a small town just north, to see some more sights and lunch at a recommended restaurant. However, I was told that there weren't any late buses back from this town, so I decided to just stay in Terezin. After the usual hearty, meaty Czech lunch, I dragged my bloated self down to the old Fortress. Built as a military installation in the late 18th century, it had served as a prison for most of its existence. It had an interesting exhibition about its military history and the story behind the construction of the fortified city. To my great surprise I also saw the name of Gavrilo Princip listed as a prisoner there. I asked some of the guides, and they not only confirmed he'd been taken there, but also told me he'd died there, but that his body had been taken back to Sarajevo.

The fortress was also used as a prison by the Nazis, and there were still remnants like an "Arbeit Macht Frei" slogan painted on a wall. Outside, there's a big memorial ground, with a cross and a big Star of David, with plaques to commemorate those who died at the prison in the 40s. It's quite an unpleasant feeling to walk around in the narrow, damp cells even today, and it doesn't get any better when you think about what's been going on there.

After taking some pictures of Princip's cell, I went to the museum shop, which seemed surprisingly small. I bought a couple of postcards and a Star of David tie clip (not sure why, I wear ties less than once a year on average). Then I went back to town to wait for the bus back to Prague.

And what a good idea that turned out to be. I hadn't bought any return ticket, hence I had no reserved seat. I was fortunate enough to be early, and smart enough to line up early too. The bus was even fuller than it had been in the morning, and I think I managed to grab the last or second to last seat. Sadly, the cosmic punishment was swift and harsh. I did avoid standing for more than an hour, but the body odor from the two assholes in front of me was so strong that I was forced to sit with my head in the strong draft from the window, and I think this was what caused me to come down with a strong headcold two days later.

Oblivious to my coming predicaments I ended the day with a big ole dinner at the Corso. The English couple from last night had just sat down when I came in, and this time they even invited me to join them. A good time was had all round, I think. Later, at the hotel I had a good time with some old buddies from my stay there in March, including a Welsh bartender and the Israeli guy who's one of the managers there. During the night I was glorified by a bunch of Canadians when I played their national anthem on my computer after they'd beaten some Brits in a hard won match of fussball, but the glory quickly disappeared when I started singing "Blame Canada" two minutes later. Again, good fun was had by all!

Entering enemy territory

I've recently booked a trip to Marseille, France for Dec 23-28. I prefer to see it as undercover surveillance. Any tips for fun things to do in that region, feel free to leave your advice in the comments. The only sure thing is that I'm going to visit Monaco, to add yet another country to my list.

Prague - A Misanthrope's Diary

As promised, I'm going to serialize my writings from Prague... here's the first installment:

I booked my second trip to Prague just a couple of days after returning from the first one. I got a dirt cheap flight and fairly decent prices at the same hostel where I'd stayed in March, the plain but cheap & clean A&O Hostel. I press-ganged my brother into driving me to the airport, even though he still had the mother of all hangovers – after all, what is family for, if not to be exploited shamelessly?

The security check at the Oslo airport was snail-paced as usual. Little old ladies had to leave metal crutches and take off their shoes, and for some reason several people seemed unable to read the numerous signs written in large letters that implored them to take their effin' laptops out of their bags before sending them through the X-ray machines. Most people really do have the IQ of bricks, and nowhere does this become clearer than in airports.

In the departure hall I'd already suffered silently through the loud, incessant nagging of a bunch of 30-something women standing in my line. As is usually my luck, they were not only on the same plane, but also chose to place themselves pretty much all around me, except for the row directly behind me, which was occupied by three equally loud guys in their 50s. I swear... if they ever introduce IQ testing for passengers, 90% of the carriers will go bankrupt.

At the Prague airport I went straight to the ticket counter and bought a 7-day public transportation card, then quickly made my way through the throngs of passengers gawping at signs and wondering how to get into town (don't they do any research before flying to a foreign country???). I navigated my way past the taxi drivers and set course for the bus platforms and the local bus to the nearest metro station. The pleasure at saving the 650 koruna ($30-35) ride into town slightly outweighed the hassle of switching metro lines and putting up with the usual mix of heavy perfume and stale sweat that seems to be the prefered body odor of Eastern Europeans when on public transportation. Well, most settle for just stale sweat.

The single room at the hostel was tiny and irregularly shaped, and there were no toiletries. I ventured out to get some provisions and at least managed to get several laughs out of the non-English speaking Asians who ran the local grocery shop when I tried to demonstrate that I was looking for shampoo and shower gel. Luckily for us all I didn't need to demonstrate my need for toilet paper...

Back in my room I tried to find a wireless internet connection I could hook up to and steal some bandwidth from. My computer stubbornly claimed I was connected to an unsecured network and that the signal was strong, but I couldn't access any websites.

Down in the basement bar I met T., who I'd talked to when I was there in March. Back then he was a guest, but now he was bartending. He vaguely recognized my face, but it took a little while before he could place me. Surprisingly to those of you who know me, he even seemed pleased to see me again. I enquired about some of the other employees and regulars I'd met and was assured they were still around. We chatted a bit about local attractions, the wonderfully low prices of the town and football (T.'s English). I then sat down with my trusty Lonely Planet guide and my laptop to draw up a rough outline of the coming week.

The day was finished with a three-course dinner at the Restaurant Corso, which is less than 10 minutes from the hostel. When I'd last been there they'd had a humongous fish swimming around in a relatively small tank, looking extremely bored. Now the tank was empty. I asked the waiter what had happened to the fish and drew a hand across my throat with a questioning look. He grinned and said that the fish had been taken to a "fish shop", where it had a much bigger tank to swim in. "Is much better for fish", he said. His English wasn't that good, so I don't know if he really meant to say fish shop – in which case I guess the fish was on the marine equivalent of death row – or if he meant an aquarium. Or maybe the fish had croaked, and this was just his way of telling me that it had been "sent to live on a farm in the country".

The only other guests were an English couple, and we got to talking a bit. They told me they were retired, although they looked to be only in their late 50s or early 60s. They were now spending their times traveling the world (the husband had been to 89 countries!) and were shortly off to Australia for more than three months. Like most of their countrymen they were excellent company, although,like most of their countrymen they shared a slightly snotty attitude towards the good ole US of A. My American accent was commented upon, and they even asked me how long I'd lived in the States. I used my standard line about being raised on country music, but informed them that I was perfectly capable of speaking the Queen's English as well. After a pleasant meal we went our respective ways and I tucked in at the respectable time of 11PM.

The best things in life are free

Crazy night yesterday. Blondes dancing on the bar, people dancing naked around the football game table, my digital camera temporarily stolen, bartenders fistfighting each other, management called in at 5:30 am. I'll make a longer, more detailed post when I get back - suffice it to say that tonight I'm eating some very delicious, very free, sandwiches courtesy of the owners, and drinking orange juice on the house all night.

The Cosmic Conspiracy strikes again

Woke up this morning with a very sore throat. Made a quick trip to the National museum, but then went back and slept through the afternoon. My throat is still sore and I fear a cold is coming on. Fuck-fuckety-FUCK!

Report from Prague

Spent Friday getting re-acquainted with the area around the hotel and with the employees in the hotel bar. Had dinner at a good restaurant and got talking to a nice elderly English couple. The guy'd been to 89 countries, beating me by 53 (I've been to 36 for you numerically challenged out there).

Went out to the former Nazi transit camp of Terezin Saturday. Very good, very interesting museums with tons of info in four languages. Even saw the prison cell where they held Gavrilio Princip, the guy who started WW1 by killing the Austrian Crown Prince & missus. In the evening I had dinner at the same place, and this time was even invited to share a table with the English. My social skills must be better than I had thought...

Today it's been raining for most of the day, and my feet are sore from walking on cobblestones, so I've stayed indoors, reading.

Question to ponder: Why the fuck don't east Europeans BATHE regularly? The stench on the bus out to Terezin was 'orrible!