Maybe, probably

I haven't written much this year, for different reasons. Most important, I didn't want to. For a while, there was nothing I wanted to say. Worse is that I lost my notebook this summer, on a trip to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. I lost a lot of valuable notes. They were valuable for me, not for anybody else. Now, I have bought a new notebook, same type as the previous one, black Moleskine. Maybe, probably I'm gonna start writing again.

And now it's the damned Christmas coming up. Happy winter solstice. Soon we will meet again ...  >:)

(Picture taken in the area where I maybe, probably, lost my notebook, where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge comes up from the deep sea.)

Moscow diaries

Last week I worked from our Moscow office. I do this from time to time, because of the Russian laws: Geophysical data can’t be taken out of Russia. That’s the general rule. Therefore, the easy solution is to go to Moscow to do the work.

I worked long 12-hour days. Not much of interest happened, except from fun science that I won’t say much about. This is some of what I wrote in my notebook. It’s not very interesting.

Sunday
A taxi picked us up in the airport. The Moscow traffic jam was about as usual, even though it was Sunday night. It was dusk and raining.  I checked in to the hotel, tried a new one this time, a hotel I haven’t stayed in before. It was a 4-star hotel. That's perfect; 5 stars are too much, too much useless luxury for me. Then we went out to eat in a German-style restaurant nearby. The sausages were good, but I was disappointed that they had no Russian bears.

Monday
I walked to the office around 9 in the morning, in light rain, carrying a small and almost empty backpack. The new thing now is that we can’t bring our own laptops anymore. We can’t bring our regular phones either. So, I had a special one, for this trip only, with a temporary SIM card. The Russians are spying on us all the time, trying to steel our business secrets.  I borrowed a computer in the office, and installed the software I needed for the rest of the week. The first day isn’t too busy. We went out in the lunch break to eat in a nearby restaurant. I ordered borscht, the great Russian beetroot soup.  One of my colleagues told me that it’s of Ukrainian origin. The Russians now how to take things from Ukraine.  I worked till 9 pm, and went back to the hotel. I had a simple dinner in the hotel restaurant, and the went to the bar to have a Russian beer; Hamovniki, unfiltered, very good. There were about 10 other people in the bar, most of them speaking Chinese or Japanese. I wasn’t the only foreigner in the hotel, quite the contrary.

Tuesday
Another 12-hour day at work. We had lunch in the canteen in the basement of the office building. The canteen is big, like a labyrinth, where I can hardly find my way. We share it with all the other companies in the 22 story building. The chefs in the canteen only speak Russian. I ordered pasta. It’s an international word that they understand. Then I worked for another 7 hours, and went back to the hotel.  Once again, I had dinner in the hotel restaurant. 
"We have a special Lent menu, without meat",  said the waitress.

“No problem, I’m not a Catholic, fortunately”, I said.

I’m free from all religion. At least I’m free from something. 

Wednesday 
Gray and cloudy in the morning. In the middle of the day it was nice and sunny, but I only saw it through the dirty windows from our office on the 14^th floor. We had a quick lunch in the cantina. The lunch breaks get shorter and shorter, there’s still a lot of work to be done. It was dark when I walked back to the hotel. Once again I had dinner in the hotel restaurant. There was a new waiter tonight, and he was slow serving the food. I had a Russian beer while waiting; Zhiguli, classic Soviet beer, light lager. Not the best. Before I went to bed I talked with a good friend on Skype.

Thursday
Last day in the office, very busy, to get things finished. I skipped lunch. A geologist sitting on the desk next to me gave me a yogurt.  In the evening, we had a meeting to go through the stuff we had done during the week. Then I spent a couple of hours to clean up my stuff, moving files around, and storing all my results on the internal network, where others can pick it up. I can’t bring anything with me back home. Then I left the office, for the last time on this trip, and went to a sushi restaurant on Garden Ring, to have dinner with colleagues and friends. A couple of hours later, I walked alone back to my hotel. Mission completed, for this time. I noticed that there were a lot of people outside the Paveletskaya metro station, and in line outside the movie theater close to my hotel. This way of working is somewhat special. It’s like living in a bubble, paying attention to nothing but work, closing out the rest of the world. I kind of like it. I like Moscow too, my Moscow.

Friday 
I packed my stuff and checked out from the hotel. I sat down in the reception to wait for the taxi driver to show up. After ten minutes, I went out to look for him. The drivers do things differently. I they speak English they call when they’re there. If not, they just sit in the car outside, waiting for you to find them. Outside there was a black Mercedes parked on the corner.  I said my name, and jumped in.

“Nur Deutch,” said the driver, “in Schule gelernt, aber slecht”.

“Zum Flughafen”, I said.

On the way to the airport, we passed through Central Moscow; the Kremlin, with the Bolshoi Theatre, the Lubyanka building (KGB head quarters), and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. At least I got to see it from a distance, through the window of the taxi >:)

(Picture taken one morning on the way to work. Nice and quiet street to walk through.)

A nice day

I left home a 7 in the morning. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. It was a nice day. 

Now I'm sitting in an air plane, Aeroflot SU2165 on the way to Moscow. The stewardess is serving coffee and snacks. I asked for an orange juice, and I got it.

I'm  surrounded by Russians. They talk in a language I don't understand, about things I don't know. That's OK.

The Russians are on the way home.

I'm on the way out. 

I like it. It's good to get away from everything, or at least most of it. 

Below us there is ocean as far as I can see. Soon the Riga Bay will show up, I presume, and the trip has just started. There's still a long way to go >:)

(Picture taken from the plane)

Autobiography

I was small when I was born. Later
I grew bigger and started school, where
we learnt to read and write, and
we learnt about God and Jesus, but
I never believed that stuff, and
that's a pity, because otherwise
I could have been a Catholic, and
I could have become a monk, and
I could have lived in a monastery,
between old stone walls,
in a library with thick books, in
slow and peaceful contemplation.

(Picture taken up north many years ago. Sometimes it feels like it would be nice to just jump on a ferry and go ... with someone somewhere in summertime)

Light and dark

Out skiing.
In the light snow.
And the darkness of my soul.
The days are short at this time of the year.
In an hour it's all dark.

(Picture taken in the mountains today)

So this was Christmas

And what have you done?

I haven't done much actually, except the usual not-so-interesting stuff. The weather was bad, windy and rainy, so the skiing was disappointing too.

On Christmas Day, I went to church, to watch and listen to the mass in our big medieval cathedral. The cathedral is visited by some 250.000 tourists every year. I've been there many times in the tourist way, to enjoy the architecture, the glass paintings, and the stone carvings, and to climb the stairs to the tower with the kids. But I have never attended a mass. This Christmas I did, just for fun.

I enjoyed the music, the two choirs, and the sound of the big Steinmeyer organ, which has recently been restored. When they read from the Christmas gospel, it came to my mind that this thing about fake news, that we heard about in the US election, is nothing new. Some fake news have been repeated for almost 2000 years, and there are still people believing in it.

I'm not a believer, and I hardly ever go to church. If I do, its only for weddings and funerals. When I was a kid, we had to go to church from time to time. It was part of Christianity class. We're mainly Protestants in this country. Martin Luther was supposed to be our hero. Now it's almost 500 years since the reformation, when the Catholics were kicked out, with their saints and confessions and indulgences. There's no doubt that Luther had a point.

Our protestant church got dull and boring. It seems like the congregations want more show, more like the Catholics do it. I think I noticed, in the Christmas Day mass, that Catholic elements are coming back. The service was performed by an army of clerics. They were parading proudly through the church, behind a guy in white robes carrying a tall pole with Jesus on the cross. There were four priests (two female) and the bishop himself, dressed in white and purple robes. I find it kind of funny that the bishop has the name of the Norse thunder god, Tor.

In our town we have always been somewhat schizofrenic about the Catholics. We have always celebrated our local saint, the king of the vikings, who was killed in battle 1000 years ago. It was noticed (according to the saga) that his nails and hair continued to grow after his death; the sign of a true saint.  Every summer there's a festival to celebrate the holy king, including rock concerts, to attract more people I guess.

Whatever, I have nothing against neither Protestants nor Catholics as such. Religion is just fairy tale to me, and rock concerts are great.

And a happy new year >:)

(I took this picture on New Year's Eve of the public fire works at the old fortress. Sorry about the poor quality. My cell phone camera isn't very good in this kind of conditions. )