Long day

It's been a long day. I left home before 4am in the morning to catch an early plane, and came back home after 11 pm. I went to our office in the capital to attend a workshop starting at noon. I thought it was a good idea to have some other meetings and talk to people I work with in other projects while I was there.

I just got the time to grab a salomon wrap in the cantina before the workshop started. The topic was exploration for metals in the deep oceans. Very exciting, to plan the activities which maybe, and only maybe, will be a big source of income in the future.

I got to meet people in our company who I normally never meet. The guys on the upper floors, the guys doing business analytics and stuff like that. They talk about business drivers, value chains, scalability and revenues. I only talk about science. That's easy.

It was dark when I took the train to the airport at 6pm. I had a shrimp sandwich and a beer, while waiting for my plane. The sandwich was incrediby expensive ($20). I thought I should pocket the beer glass when I left, as a revenge.

My plane was delayed. Late incoming fight. More time to kill. I sat for a while thinking about my dear soulmate, who I miss.  Then I went to the bookstore to look at the new books. That's the only stores I like. I saw a cute lady in tights. I walked over to the sci-fi shelf, pretending to be interested in intergalactic-war-fantasy-novels, just to see her from behind. Thick thighs, big butt, very nice. That's not an offense, is it? I didn't say anything, didn't touch. I just watched, and she didn't notice.

Maybe I committed a crime, or a thought crime. I don't know. It's strange times ...  >:)

(Picture taken tonight, while waiting for the train to the airport)

Four days in Reykjavík

I spent four days in Reykjavík this week. Just going to meetings this time, no time to enjoy the Icelandic nature. It was cloudy, windy and raining most of the time. So, it wasn’t a big sacrifice to stay indoor.

We made some plans for how to proceed with the geoscience in and near the well we drilled one and a half year ago. It was the deepest and hottest geothermal well ever drilled, reaching more than 500 degrees Celcius (930 Fahrenheit) at a depth of 4.5 km (2.8 miles). 

In the evening we enjoyed the local draft beers  in the pubs. Walking back to my hotel in the dark and rainy night, I thought that I’m quite impressed and fascinated by this country.  They have plenty of fish, and plenty of water, both hot and cold. Except from that, naural resources are scarce. There are no trees and the climate is too cold for farming anything but sheep and horses. With a population less than 350,000 people, the Icelanders are doing great in science and in sports. 

When the country went bankrupt in 2008, they restarted the country and got through it with a shrug of the shoulders (to say it somewhat simplified). And they did it without prayers.

Some time ago, I read an interesting poll from the Pew research institue. It was about belief in God by age groups. Like the rest of Northern Europe, Iceland is very secular. Among adults age 50 and older, about 15 percent believe in God. The sensation was, however, for age 25 and younger, the percentage believing in God was none, zero. Iceland is about to come the World's first Atheist country. That would be a great achievement. It would still be worthwhile to see the Hallgrim's Church in Rekjavik for the cool architecture. 

The last night in Reykjavík, we celebrated meetings finished mission completed. We had a great dinner in a downtown restaurant serving exotic local food. We had puffin for starter, and whale meat for the main course. The pale ales we drank were excellent too >:)

(Picture taken in downtown Reykjanes this week. In the background of the picture, you can see the tower of the Hallgrim's Church. The Icelanders still have cars, though not as big as the SUVs they drove before the financial crisis.)

Travel diary of 2017

I usually write when I’m out traveling. That’s when I get time and space to do it, on airplanes, and in hotel rooms. As I mention some posts ago, I lost my dear notebook last fall, which means I also lost everything I wrote on my trips to various places, my travel diaries, kind of.

So, now I want to write it down from my memory, before it’s too late, before I forget. It’s not very important. It won't make a difference to the world. I do it just for fun, while enjoying a weekend alone, and wasting my time on whatever I want.

Moscow, March. 

Five-day work trip. I’ve written about this before, here.

Moscow, April.

Another work trip to Putin’s empire. We had a big meeting on a Tuesday, and I needed a full work week to prepare. This means that I had to stay over a weekend in Moscow, finally. I’ve been to Russia 25 times over the last 5-6 years, but never spent a weekend there. Just worked. Flying out Monday morning, going home Friday afternoon. That’s crazy.

Most of the time I worked, as before. I walked to the office in the morning, a nice walk along the river. It was colder than usual, according to my Russian friends. No nice and warm spring weather. Then I spent 10-12 hours twisting equations and interpreting data. Around 9 in the evening I went back to the hotel, had a beer and ate some borsch. Not too exiting. Wednesday through Saturday passed like this.

Saturday night I went downtown, to eat dinner together with the boss and another guy, at Vysota 5642. It’s a Caucasian restaurant, named after the summit elevation of Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe, though the French dispute it. We got some strange dishes. It was delicious. Going back to the hotel, we took an Uber taxi. It’s the best taxi service in Moscow, if you stick to drivers with a rating of 4.5 or more.

Sunday, I took a full day off. I travelled around Moscow on the metro. First, I went to see the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, where Pussy Riot made their famous gig by the altar (the video is is on YouTube). It’s a strange church. It looks old, but is almost brand new, decorated with neon-light signs on the inside. The original church was demolished by Stalin. Jesus Christ wasn’t very popular in the Soviet Union. The church was rebuilt 1997-2000. No objections. Stalin is dead. Putin and the clerics are buddies.

I happened to visit the church in the middle of a mass. I went in to watch the show. Very interesting. The mass was run by Patriarch Kirill himself, assisted by an army of holy men, all of them dressed in red and gold robes, and funny hats. The women in the congregation wore scarves to cover their hairs. Everybody kept their arms crossed over the chest while receiving the communion. They all drank the wine from the same spoon. Alcohol, or God, kill the bacteria, I presume. No photos allowed inside.

Then I went down to the Kremlin, to see the inside of the fortress. I have tried before but gave it up because of the long lines. This time I had plenty of time, and was determined to get in. First there was a one-hour line to get a ticket, then half an hour to get through the security check. It was worth it. I skipped the Historical Museum and St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square. I’ve been there before.

Tuesday was the day for our big meeting, with bosses from Big Oil and Huge Oil (the biggest, and probably the most corrupt, oil company on Earth). It’s kind of odd the way they do it in Russia. The bosses sat around the table in the meeting room. The technical guys, including me, were placed on chairs in the back, along the walls. We were supposed to present our technical work, and then shut up. I took the freedom to speak up whenever I felt like I had something important to say. I come from a country with free speech. The meeting was run with simultaneous translation between Russian and English. It’s somewhat tiring, everything is said twice, but you get used to it.

In the evening, I went out to eat and drink beer with my Russian friends. The next morning, I overslept. I ran to the Paveletskaya Metro Station, with my suitcase. I jumped on to the ring line to Belorusskaya Station, and got on the airport train to Sheremetyevo. I didn’t miss my flight back home.

Iceland , June.

I went to Reykjavik with a couple colleagues, on a quick business trip. Just two days, to discuss upcoming geothermal projects. The meeting was in an old hydroelectric power station. Nice building, nice location by the river. After the meeting, we went on a quick road trip to see the geothermal area, with two power stations, near the Hengill volcano.

Iceland is full of tourists in the summer. The airport is crowded, and hotels are expensive. I paid $400 for one night in a downtown hotel. Breakfast not included. If you ever go to Iceland, don’t forget to buy the Icelandic licorice candy, probably not very healthy, but very good.

Amsterdam, June.

Weekend trip to Amsterdam with the boys. Canals, bicycles, and the smell of marihuana from the so-called coffee shops. That’s Amsterdam to me, a city full of sin. The Dutch are probably the most liberal people in the world. Very good.

We went to see the Rembrandt Museum and the van Gogh Museum. Great museums, both of them. Mad men. In the Moco Museum they had an interesting street-art exhibition, with works of Banksy. Nobody knows who he is. Lucky guy.

There's also a sex musemum and a torture museum, which we didn't visit. I,ve been there before. Bizarre stuff, the latter. 

Sao Miguel, July.

Vacation on Sao Miguel, the largest of the Azorean Islands. The islands are located on a plate boundary, just like Iceland. The Azores popped out of the sea where the Eurasian, American and African crustal plates meet in a triple junction. We rented a car to get around. Craters and crater lakes, hot springs and fumaroles. Very cool, and hot.

We stayed in Ponta Delgada, the biggest town and capital. The neighboring town of Ribera Grande, has a geothermal power plant, with wells drilled by the Icelanders. There’s a lot of interesting geoscience on the Azores. I couldn’t completely forget my job.

We went on a whale safari on the ocean, to watch sperm whales and dolphins. They don't hunt the whales in the Azores anymore. In Winterland, we do. Why shouldn't we. The meat is delicious. We ate it regulary for dinner when I was a kid. Now whale meat has become very expensive.

The best thing about vacation is getting plenty of time to read books. I read “Capital in the 21^st Century” by Thomas Piketty, 700 pages, great read. Recommended.

Iceland, August.

We went to Iceland to do some field work. We studied the geology of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and measured the magnetic field and the acceleration of gravity. The weather was nice and sunny. We were lucky. Good weather doesn’t come too often on Iceland. That's my experience.

Iceland has 300,000 inhabitants (almost all of them are Atheists), and 1.5 million tourists every year. Getting a hotel is difficult in the peak tourist season. The first 3 nights, we stayed in a motel in Keflavik, near the international airport.  It’s a weird place in many ways: It’s probably due to the US air force base that used to be there during the cold war. The base is closed down now, but still the town is like a piece of America. Going to a burger place in Keflavik, feels just like being in a Wendy’s restaurant in Colorado or Wyoming.  

We spent two days in the lava fields in the geothermal area close to the airport. Then we drove for an hour along the south coast, and checked in to a hotel in the town of Selfoss. The next two days we worked in the lavas near the Hellisheidi geothermal area. Again, we measured the magnetic field and the gravity. I walked around like a shepard with the magnetometer in my hand. Magnetism is mysterious. Gravity is real. Neither are magic. It's just science.

It’s the anomalies that are of interest to us, because that’s where the subsurface geological information is hidden. After we came home, I’ve spent weeks and months analyzing the data. I’ve been digging into some really cool science, and I’m currently working on a publication. My masterpiece. No, just joking.

Salt Lake City, October.

I went to Salt Lake City to attend my first ever conference on geothermal energy, and presented some of our recent research. It was a good week. My talk was well received. I got some challenging questions from a French professor. That's the way it should be. I learnt a lot more from going to my first geothermal conference than I would have done on my 20^th conference on petroleum geoscience.

Salt Lake City is an interesting city, but also somewhat bizarre, with the Mormon influence on everything. I admire the Mormons in many ways, but I also think it’s the most stupid of all religions. It’s so obviously fake. That’s the drawback of a new religion. All the bullshit is more easily revealed than for an ancient religion obscured by 1400 or 2000 years of history.

I spent hours at Temple Square, to see the Tabernacle, and the visitor centers (there are two of them). I had some interesting and entertaining discussions with the missionaries, a holy army of polite young men and women. The nice thing about the Mormons is that they’re tolerant, apparently. They accept that you have a different view on their religion (I think it’s pure nonsense), but they disagree of course. At least they are peaceful, and don’t chop your head off.

The last time I was in SLC, alcohol was allowed only in private clubs. Now I was happy to see that beer was available in all restaurants. I had some very good beers, with funny names, like Polygamy Porter, and Latter Day Stout. Cheers. Maybe the Mormons have a sense of humor, or more likely, the heathens are playing jokes on them >:)

(Some pictures taken on the various trips)

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)

East Berlin

I just came back from a long-weekend in Germany. Little boy and I went to Berlin to visit older boy, who is in Berlin for an internship this fall. We didn’t visit any of the conventional tourist attractions, except the Reichstag building, the parliament, from where Germany (and Greece) are being ruled. Most of the time we spent in East Berlin, the former Soviet sector.

We went to a suburb east of the city center to watch a football (soccer of course) game with FC Union in 2. Bundesliga. The game wasn’t too good, but it was really cool to be on the packed stand with 20.000 crazy people. The red shirts of FC Union bear a witness of the working-class background of the club. The supporters called their team Eisern Union (Iron Union). We were surrounded by factory workers who enjoyed their free weekend, and unemployed craftsmen who lost their jobs to the Polish and Lithuanians who do their work for a lower price. Citizens of the European Union.

Near the tram station in Warschauer Strasse (Warsaw Street), we passed a homeless young man sitting on the side walk with his sleeping bag and a filthy dog. In front of him, he had three cups labeled “food”, “weed” and “BMW”. In the “food” cup there were some coins, the other two were almost empty. I dropped 2 Euro in the “weed” cup and 3 Euro in his “BMW” cup. Homeless people have dreams for the future too. And in the meantime some weed may be good for the comport, in the brutal capitalist world.

At night we went to concerts in small obscure clubs in old East German industry buildings, to enjoy Berlin’s underground music scene. The beer was good, and people were nice and friendly. Some bands were good, some not so good. The lead guitar player in one of the garage-rock bands was a 48 yo professor at Humboldt University. He performed under a stage-name/pseudonym to avoid mixing business and pleasure. I immediately felt a connection with him; a guy with a PhD and some obscure and secret cultural interests on the side.

It was good to get away for a while. Nobody yelling at me. Nobody asking me difficult questions. Nobody interrogating me about scary thoughts in the darkest corners of my soul. It was a true feeling of freedom, for a while >:)

(Some pictures taken in Berlin, RAW Gelande, former train repair station and now subcultural center (top), football game with FC Union (2nd), East Berlin's famous Ampfelmann (3rd), and garage rock concert (bottom). The Humboldt professor is the guitar player to the right. Fortunately, the picture is to unfocused to see his face.)

Fuck Denmark

Some time ago I happened to visit the Faroe Islands. The rocky basalt islands are covered by green grass, and inhabited by 50.000 people and twice as many sheep. The nature is awesome, with some and some spectacular places.

The Faroe Islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Since 1948 the Faroes have enjoyed the high degree of self governance, but they are still under Danish rule in many respects, such as foreign policy. Today the Danish rule is quite mild, but it hasn't always been like that. Throughout history, the Faroe Islands have been treated pretty much as a Danish colony.

On the top of a small hill in Torshavn, there is a basalt obelisk, erected in the late 1800s, to celebrate the visit of the Danish king. I heard that some people accept the monument, and some people dislike it. I was disappointed to see that the obelisk was so clean and untouched. Send some young punks or students up there to decorate the obelisk with some "Fuck Denmark" graffiti, at least.

BTW, I have nothing against Denmark. Copenhagen is a great city >:)

(Pictures taken at Faroe islands a month ago)

Wet shoes

I'm out traveling again. Tonight I was out drinking a dark beer with two good colleagues and friends. Last night I had even better times with an even better friend. tonight the rain is pouring down. My shoes got soaking wet when I was walking along the streets. I should remind myself that there are bigger problems in this world than a pair of wet shoes. They probably dry up by tomorrow, or the day after >:)

(Picture taken last night, when the clouds were coming in, but before the rain. Good times.)  

Not too bad

I'm out traveling for a couple of days, to the capital. I don't like it very much so I don't go there very often.

After work I checked into the hotel. Then I went for a walk in the city center, near the King's castle and the parliament building. For a while I walked behind a fat and cute girl. She was more sexy than the skinny girls I met.

I went into a bookstore and bought two books, by Stig Sæterbakken and Michel Houellebecq. Then I went to meet a friend. We had a good dark beer (porter).

It was a nice evening in this city that I don't like very much. Not too bad >:)

(Picture taken tonight when I was out walking. That's the King's castle at the end of the street.)

Siberia

So, I ended up in Siberia. It wasn’t too bad. It was very nice actually, except for the beginning

The jetlag is bad when going 7 time zones eastward. It’s still bothering me a little bit.

I arrived at the airport in Irkutsk a 4:30 in the morning. I traveled together with a colleague from our Moscow office.  I have seen the city only in the dark. But it looks very nice, with all the old large log houses in the city center.

We have been working all day, and only went down to the city center to eat after work. I’ve eaten lots of good food, mostly fish from the Lake Baikal. It was species of fish I’ve never heard of before, such as sig and omul. They are species that live only in Baikal.

We have been effective at work, so today we finished at noon and went for a trip to Baikal. It’s the lake of the lakes, 1600m (5300 feet) deep, and contains 20% of the (liquid) fresh water on earth.  

I really liked Siberia. I think I would like to go here for vacation some time,

Tomorrow Aeroflot will take me back to Moscow.

(Picture taken today on our afternoon trip to Lake Baikal.)

Sent to Siberia

Someone must have been telling lies about me. I knew I had done nothing wrong, but his morning I was sent to Siberia.

You may have recognized the opening already.  I borrowed and adapted it from The Trial by Kafka.

It’s true that I’ve done nothing wrong, as far as I know, nothing serious at least. We all do things we regret, and things we should regret. That’s the case with me too, but nothing to worry about. YOLO; that's what the kids say.

It’s also true that I’ve been sent to Siberia, by the company I work for.  I’m on my way to Irkutsk, close to the Lake Baikal.

 It’s such a long flight, so I was allowed to fly business class. Now I’m sitting in the Aeroflot lounge in the Sheremetyevo airport, waiting for my next flight. I kind of have a feeling that I’m surrounded by Russian oligarchs, people with expensive clothing and jewelry, and small dogs carried in expensive bags. Actually, many people look quite ordinary too, poor guys like me.

Whatever. The lounge is quite good. I get free food and drinks, and I can relax while reading and writing, but I wish they could turn down the volume on the TV.

  

It’s gonna be interesting to visit Siberia. I wonder if it’s very cold there now. We will see tomorrow >:)

(I haven’t been to downtown Moscow today, just waiting in transit at the airport. So I picked a picture from my collection, taken a couple of years ago, from the top of Moscow State University, one of the famous Seven Sister, built for the 800 year anniversary of Moscow. The big venue in the center of the picture is the Olympic stadium from the 1980 summer Olympics. The games were boycotted by most western countries due to the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan.)

Gameboy in Texas

This week there’s a huge conference on petroleum technology in Houston. I’m not attending, and I don’t want to. First, Houston is not my favorite place to go. Second, the conference is too crowded (more than 50.000), too much business and politics, and too little science.

I have, however, been to this conference once, some 10 years ago. I was invited to give a presentation on some research we had done.

There was a somewhat complicating issue, because I brought older boy with me on the trip to the US. Back then, he was a little boy, only 8 years old. He was going to visit a friend who lived in Colorado at that time (the father of his friend was a professor on sabbatical).

Older boy looked forward to visit Denver (where we lived for a while when I was a student).

But first we had to go to Houston.

Houston is a big city with high crime rates (in some areas). It’s not a place where you want your kid to get lost. Also, he didn’t speak English. In case he got lost, he wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone.

This was a challenge when I was giving my talk at the conference.

After some negotiations with the conference management, I got a special permission to bring the boy with me to the technical-session’s area.  He was not allowed to visit the exhibition halls, where lots of heavy-duty offshore equipment was shown.

I went to the speaker’s preparation room, to upload my presentation and check that it was OK. I put the kid on a chair next to me, with some candy and a Mountain Dew, to keep him quiet.

Then we went to the auditorium where my session took place. When it was my turn to speak, I put the kid in a seat in the first row, right in front of the podium. I gave him his Gameboy (a Nintendo device), and told him to turn off the sound.

I gave my talk, presenting the mathematical model and application examples. All the time, I kept an eye on the kid from the podium, while he was sitting still playing a Pokemon game.

After my talk, we went straight to the George Bush airport to get on the plane to Denver. Then we went up to the Rockies to enjoy some slushy May skiing in Arapahoe Basin.

(For some reason, I've never used my camera when visiting Houston. I took the picture above by the I-70, west of Denver, where the highway starts climbing up the Rocky Mountain Foothills)

Room with a view

I'm out traveling gain. This time I'm on a domestic flight on the west coast. This is one of the places I couldn't live. The town is nice, but it's too little snow in the winter. Skiing areas are too far away.

The funny thing that happened on this trip was as follows: I knew the hotels would be pretty full this week, so I booked long time in advance. Yesterday when I arrived, it turned out that the travel agency had messed up the booking, so I didn't have any hotel, and all of them were full.

But I found a solution, a small pension near the town center. It's a small and simple place. I think I'm about the only person staying here right now. Kind of scary to be alone in an old and empty hostel. Reminds me of The Shining. Bad weather and heavy winds outside, all kinds of weird and mysterious sounds ... mwuuuhaaahahaaah >:)

The price is less than 1/3 of the hotels we normally use on business trips, and the pension only has 7 rooms. It's like living in someones private house. I don't complain. This is different, and interesting.

Here are the pros and cons of a place like this:

Pros: Breakfast is very good. I'm being served by a table on my own by the lady who runs the place. Nice and cosy, and they do have a WiFi. No TV; then I don't need to waste my time on that (I hardly ever watch TV anyway. Bought a cool book in the airport yesterday; Invisible by Paul Auster). The center of the town, with bars and restaurants is a five minutes walk away. There is a library downstairs, same as the breakfast room, with books and newspapers.

Cons: No bathroom and shower in my room. I have to go down two stairs to get to the shower, and three stairs to get to the WC. Front door closes at midnight. Yesterday I checked in 5 minutes before closing time. Tonight I've got my own key to the front door, so I can come in as late as I want.

Cool place to stay. I don't miss the luxury of a high-class business hotel, not at all.

(It's my pension in the picture above. I downloaded it from the internet. It's a nice old house, in the old central part of town. I'm staying on the top floor. I have a nice view of the town center in the morning when it's getting light.)

Things I hate about flying

Last year, I was traveling quite a lot, way too much for a normal family life. My resolution for 2012 should be to travel less.

When I updated my trip recording yesterday, I made a quick count. In 2011, I went on 19 business trips, to a variety of interesting places:

• Milan, Italy.
• Doha, Qatar.
• San Antonio, Texas.
• Moscow, Russia (7 times).
• Murmansk, Russia (4 times).
• Domestic, northbound (2 times).
• Domestic, southbound (4 times).

Fortunately, we use video conferencing quite extensively. We hardly do domestic travel anymore.

There are a few things I really dislike about flying. This is my top 3 hate list:

1. Sitting in a center seat: A long flight squeezed between two fat guys, and fighting for the arm rest is a nightmare. I want a window seat.
2. When the guy in the seat in front of me leans his seat backward and steals half of that small space I have to read and write and work. The seats should be fixed in the upright position.
3. Airport security is such a hazzle; taking off clothes and shoes, emptying pockets, taking lap top out of the bag, long lines.

I shouldn’t complain too much. I know I’m lucky and privileged, traveling to (some) nice places, and even getting paid for it.

Flying is not all bad. There are things I like about it too:

1. Sitting by the window looking down on interesting places as we pass by.
2. Getting some undisturbed time to read and write.
3. The comfort in business class. I don’t fly business class very often, only on flights taking 6 hours or more. Most of the time I fly Economy Extra, to be able to re-book flights as needed.

My ambition for 2012 is maximum 10 trips. That’s acceptable.

Anyway, next week I go again; booked my tickets today.

(I took the picture above last fall, on-board an Aeroflot plane, over the western part of Russia. The clouds make up an interesting pattern of almost parallel lines. I'm not sure what's causing this, but it was a nice view.)

Deja Vu: The old jew from Brooklyn

Today D.L.Hammond at Cruising Altitude 2.0 is hosting the Deja Vu Blogfest. The rule: Repost some good old stuff from your archives, as simple as that.

Originally posted in May 2010, this is probably my own favorite from my blog archive:


The old jew from Brooklyn

Last night I was reading some old travel diaries, from university days, when I was a physics student.

Once we stayed in a small youth hostel in Vienna. There were six beds in each room, and separate rooms for boys and girls. In my room I met a small and skinny man, with white hair and a big beard. He was an 85 year old jew from Brooklyn, older than the rest of us together. He had sold everything he owned, and wanted to spend his money traveling around the world until he died. I thought that was a cool thing to do, while waiting for life to fade out.

He would have been close to 110 years old now, if he was still alive. I wonder how far he got on his journey. I hope he made it all the way to the end >:)

City of two teams

I’m visiting this city where I always get lost, the capital of Lombardia, Milano (in Italian), Milan (in English), Mailand (in German).

On my way south, I had a connection at the fucking Frankfurt Airport. Many times I've promised myself to never go there again. But it's one of the major connection points in Europe, and hard to avoid. We came in late, due to capacity problems in Frankfurt, as usual. I ran like Hell to get from Terminal B to Terminal A, down 4 stairs, across a long transport band, and up 4 stairs on the other side. I made it just in time.

The plane to Milano was packed. Lots of Italians of course. Japanese tourists with face masks covering mouth and nose; afraid of being poisoned in Europe? A young girl with bright-blue hair; cute. An orthodox Jew with iPod; I wonder what kind of music he was listening to. I leaned back in my seat with a good read, On Writing by Stephen King.

Milano is completely flat, located on the plains of River Po. There’s no fjord or hill, unlike my hometown, no mountains in the west, unlike Denver. It's just flat, and damn hard to keep track of directions, in particular when the sun is hidden behind the clouds. Thanks to the metro system, I can usually find my way back to the hotel.

This is a city of two teams. If you know anyhing about European football (soccer), you know what that means. Some well known examples are Manchester (City and United), Liverpool (Everton and Liverpool FC), Glasgow (Rangers and Celtic), Madrid (Atletico and Real), and Milano (Inter and AC Milan).

Arriving at the Linate Airport, I passed the aggressive pirate-taxi drivers hanging around the exit, with "special prize for you", and walked over to the line with the reliable White Cabs. When you jump into a taxi, there is never any doubt which team the driver supports, the car always decorated in the colors of his team, black and red (AC Milan) or black and blue (Inter).

I’m here just for a two days, on a business trip. Unfortunately, there is no time to watch AC Milan on San Siro Stadium, nor a Verdi performance on La Scala. I hope I’ll get a tour of downtown Milano, to see the magnificent Duomo, the huge cathedral from the 15th century.

Tonight, I'm going out to get some good Italian food and a beer >:)

(I took the picture above from the roof of the Duomo a couple of years ago. It's a crap picture, taken with my cell-phone camera.)

Wikileaks and KKK

I’m sitting in the airport, waiting for my plane back home. This is my 11th day travelling in three weeks. I’m tired of it.

I just read the latest news about the Wikileaks case.

According to the newspaper, the leaks are embarrassing for the American government, because of the way they have described leaders of other countries. Putin is the alpha-dog (which probably just flattered him), Berlusconi is the corrupt criminal (it’s true anyway). For the American government, this is easy to get away with. It was internal communication, not intended for publication. As easy as that. Every organisation in the world is doing the same, internal mails and memos, analyses of partners and competitors, confidential reports to the boss. For your eyes only. But all organizations have unfaith employees.

What is serious for the American government is that the leaks reveal their plans and strategies, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the world economy. The Wikileaks founder is arrested, on a rape charge. It smells like conspiracy. Get something on him, get him jailed, get rid of him. The American and European governments are pissed of course. Openness is good, but only when they can control the information that is leaked.

According to the newspaper, PayPal has blocked all money transfers to Wikileaks. But donations to the Ku Klux Klan are accepted. It’s a crazy world.

The good news: Ive written 1000 words for my so-called novel today, some really hot stuff. I hope it’s not on Wikileaks tomorrow >:D

Hungry as Hell

You won't imagine what happened yesterday!

I was out traveling again, just a day trip to the south. I was up at 5:30 am to get on the morning plane, and came back home at 7 pm, tired and hungry as Hell. I hadn't eaten since noon.

But my old lady refused me to eat. She was preparing for a gathering with her friends, and had all kinds of obscure dishes spread all over the kitchen. She said I would just mess up everything if a made a couple of sandwiches. Crazy isn't it?

I just had to be patient, but it paid off in the end, when the salmon rolls were served ... and finally, the oyster >:)

Going home

I’m on the way back home. Around noon today, I was transferred from the seismic vessel to the chase boat by the FRC, an acronym for "Fast Rescue Craft".

In the picture above, the seismic vessel is in the background, and
the FRC is that orange little boat in the front. It’s a fast motorboat, about 20 feet long. It’s the rescue boat in case someone falls over board, but is used for various other purposes too.

The chase boat is supporting the seismic vessel, transporting food and fuel supply from port, and clearing the sail lines ahead for fishing equipment. The chase boat is only 48m (160 feet) long, and is rolling like crazy in the waves. Fortunately the sea is calm today.

The transit to port takes about eleven hours, long and boring, and no internet connection. I spend the time reading, writing and sleeping. Sleeping in a boat rolling on the waves is very nice, actually. We will arrive in the northernmost town in the world late tonight. Tomorrow morning I will try to get on the first plane back home.

The seismic data acquisition will continue for another two or three months before we’re finished. I will follow up the remaining part of it from the office. Then we will work on the processing and interpretation of the data for more than a year … and in 2012, I hope, we have identified the best spot to drill to find oil >:)

The old jew from Brooklyn

Last night I was reading some old travel diaries, from university days, when I was a physics student.

Once we stayed in a small youth hostel in Vienna. There were six beds in each room, and separate rooms for boys and girls. In my room I met a small and skinny man, with white hair and a big beard. He was an 85 year old jew from Brooklyn, older than the rest of us together. He had sold everything he owned, and wanted to spend his money traveling around the world until he died. I thought that was a cool thing to do, while waiting for life to fade out.

He would have been close to 110 years old now, if he was still alive. I wonder how far he got on his journey. I hope he made it all the way to the end >:)