das Chaos

I think I take my newly developed German ability for granted now. For the last week, I've been in Croatia, and nothing makes you feel more foreign than not understanding anything anyone around you says. I just started my return trip toward Munich, and although the trip was enjoyable, it feels good to be heading back to a place where I feel at home.

I've gotten used to German order, German punctuality, and German the language, and part of the reason that I took this trip to Croatia was to get away from that. Not that I don't like those things, but a change of pace is always good. Admittedly a much larger part of the reason I took the trip to Croatia was that Rostock has been cold and rainy for the past 4 months and I wanted to spend some time in the sun flirting with skin cancer.

I booked the trip rather spur of the moment and really didn't plan it at all, so for part of the ensuing chaos I am to blame. A large part of it was, in my defense, totally endemically Croatian.

The first theme of this trip has been train problems. Right out of the gate, my train from Rostock to Hamburg was stopped dead by a downed tree, which forced me to stay a night in Hamburg and head out the next day. In Munich, the train to Zagreb was very typically eastern European, crowded, loud, kinda shitty, and due to passport checks at the Slovenian border, an hour late. I spent some time in Zagreb, but only about 2 days. Zagreb doesn't really have that much to do in my opinion, but that's ok, I don't want a thrill-a-minute vacation. I wanna relax.

This is a giant cemetery in Zagreb. It was kind of creepy that this was a tourist attraction.

This is how most of Zagreb looked...It's a good thing I came in the summer; in winter it can be depressing.

I then decided to head to the coastal town of Split. Buses are the typical mode of transport in Croatia, but while googling bus fare, I stumbled upon news of a recent bus crash in Croatia that killed 8, so that, along with the fact that I wasn't entirely sure where the bus station was, caused me to just buy a train ticket. This train was a fairly high quality train, I thought, until it dumped us in the quaint mountain village of Gračac. Much to my dismay, two buses were dispatched to pick us up and take us the rest of the way. I kind of crapped my pants a little bit when I realize that my seat belt didn't work; they probably hadn't repaired it since the last bus crash.

In defense of the Croatia trains (and buses), they are totally worth it compared to flying, because the landscape of Croatia is utterly gorgeous, and if you just stick to the cities you would never see any of it.

Split was a lot livelier than Zagreb. In Split there are beaches everywhere. Some are shallow and sandy, some are deep and stoney, all of them are pretty, none of their names are pronouncable.

Just gorgeous!

I spent the whole day on the beach. Like I literally didn't do a single thing.

Split is a very tourist-oriented town though. As I stepped off the Winnebago of Death that shuttled me from Zagreb, I was assaulted with easily 10 offers for places to stay, like these people are on you like stink of shit once you hit the ground. Luckily I already had a hostel, and a pretty nice one at that. The rooms were spacious, air-conditioned, and this place was technologically tricked out! The bathroom however, was so small that one could easily use the toilet and wash his hands simultaneously...which I guess has it's advantages.

The first night in Split I checked out the old town with some people from the hostel. The old town is actually the palace of Diocletian, a Roman emperor, and it's stunning how well it's preserved.

I walked around the palace at night and it was worth it for sure.

Shit picture, but I stumbled upon a fire twirler.

This is the main tower of the palace.

I also wandered through the park west of town, which is also really pretty.

This plants fascinated me! They look like yuccas, and they may be, but I've never seen them that big.

The rock face on the mountains near town.

A view of Split from the mountain park.

I would recommend that you all watch the movie Eurotrip. First of all it provided 90 minutes of laughter, all the more if you've actually been to the countries it mentions, but more than anything else, this movie gives a decent picture of eastern Europe. Unlike the characters in Eurotrip though, since I was alone, I purposely avoided partying. The last thing I wanted was to wake up on Hvar surrounded by bricks of cocaine and handcuffed to the severed arm of an Italian prostitute...which I felt might have been a plausible outcome.

Easily though, the crowning glory of my time in Split was a side trip I took to the national park called Krka. Right. You're wondering how you pronounce that. Basically, insert an I after the first K, and make sure to roll the R like you're in Spanish class. Getting to Krka is another one of those clusterfuck bus connections. First a long distance bus to Šibenik, then a local bus to Skradin, then a park bus to the entrance. This time though it was totally worth it. This park is a natural wonder!

It's famous for its waterfalls, as you'll see.

Where's Waldo?!

I think that the take-home message from my time in Croatia is that you don't go to Croatia for its culture, architecture, or its history. Croatia has got natural beauty in spades. If I were going to do this trip over again, I would plan more time for camping and hiking, and I would have avoided the larger cities.

Oh Jesus, so right now I'm in a sleeper train back to Zagreb, I have absolutely no faith that I will make my connection to Munich, but we'll see. I have just been strong-armed into switching cabins with some dude by this Russian/Polish/something Slavic girl, who I'm convinced is either a spy or a mail-order bride. She came into my cabin before we switched asking stupid questions like “when do we get to Zagreb?”, that would be printed on the ticket. “Can you help me with my luggage?”, etc, etc. And now after 10 minutes of doing some Hustler-style gymnastics to get to said luggage, I shit you not, she is currently eating a banana with more gusto that I have ever seen, she clearly learned this from the KGB. I'm avoiding eye-contact.

vom Unglück verfolgt sein

Living in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is very much a double-edged sword. There are lots of things about MV that either sound great but in reality are shitty or vice-versa. For instance, there are almost no English speakers here, which sounds lonely at first, but in reality it means that my German has improved loads, and I am making German friends. Another example is that MV is almost nothing but farmland, however this means that a plant biologist like me always has fun stuff to see. Finally, this state is the tourism destination in Germany, which is great until you realize that almost all of the industry here is in one city and is devoted to tourists, which can make finding a job rather difficult. On the balance though, once you get to a bigger city here, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

That whole tourism thing that I mentioned is what I want to talk about right now though. MV is an absolutely gorgeous state to visit. It's hard to find an area of the US to compare it to. Whereas Bavaria looks almost exactly like Kentucky, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is similar to Minnesota in that it has over 2000 lakes, but it's flat and fairly treeless like northeastern Kansas. So you might think it's like the American midwest, but it is coastal, which, in addition to giving the area a whole different vibe, also means that the summers and winters are really really mild. Finally, and this part I'm still not used to yet, we are at the same latitude as lower Alaska. The sun officially sets at 9:50pm, but it's not really dark until around 11pm. Sunrise occurs at a painful 4:40am, but that infernal morning twilight (and the birds chirping) begins at about 3am.

So suffice it to say that I find the area rather unique and very pretty. I wanted to take advantage of that in my time here, and I've had one goal (to rule them all). That goal is to see a national park by the name of Jasmund. This park is (supposed to be) breathtaking. It has bright white chalk cliffs that soar over the sea, fields of flint stones, and amber floats in the water there. The park is located on an island called Rügen. I tried to reach the park last winter, and I made it all the way to the biggest city on Rügen and then it started to snow, and since I was not prepared for snow and had to turn back. I was pissed!

Last weekend, I resolved to right this wrong and travel back to Rügen. I also wanted to see a few other things on the island, and I figured I could easily kill a day there. Sunday morning, David and I set out at 7 with the train to a tiny town called Binz. Binz is the prototypical coastal German coastal town. Very similar to Graal-Müritz, it's got thatched-roof cottages, steam trains, and is just very quaint. Near Binz there is a small hunting lodge that is now a museum, the Jagdschloss Granitz. Once we were in Binz and had gotten our bearings we set out on foot for the lodge. The trek to the lodge is through a forest and up what the locals called a “mountain.” While the lodge was technically at a higher altitude than the city, the mountain was really more of a hill. During this forest trek, I noticed that it was starting to rain, but I really didn't mind since the trees covered me. The forest, though, was very nice. It was very orderly with paved paths and had clearly been manicured. It was peaceful and in certain parts you could smell the pine trees. The hunting lodge itself was very cozy. Comapred to the other castles I've seen, this seems like one that I could actually feel at home in.

This is the outside of the lodge. We were very disappointed to learn that the building is actually pink, a decidedly unmanly color.

The staircase leading up to the tower of the lodge. The figure in the center is  some raptor  attacking a pike.

Just a few of the trophies hanging on the walls of the lodge.

The weather was sort of shitty, as I mentioned, but you can see here how flat MVP is.

You can also see how many lakes there are.

We then trotted down the “mountain” back into Binz. On that way back to the train station though, I noticed something that blew my mind!

It should say something that the store is proud that it is open for a total of 5 hours on Sunday.

See, in Germany like I've mentioned, the whole country shuts down on Sunday. Like, god help you if you have a heart attack, because the doctor will be like, “Sorry, it's the Lord's day. Gotta keep that sabbath holy.” So seeing a supermarket that is open on Sunday, even it it's only for five hours, is earth shattering.

David and I then hopped on a train to take us to Prora, which has a giant series of vacation homes built by the Nazis.The Nazis had this great idea that in order to conquer Europe, you would need a well rested workforce, so they built an enormous set of vacation apartments on the coast of Prora for all of the workers of Germany. It was part of a project called “Kraft durch Freude” shortened KdF, which means something like “Strength through Joy.” Right now, the vacation complex is sitting mostly empty. Weird that no one would want to spend their free time in a huge Nazi building. Who knew? The buildings also play house to a museum about the KdF project and the Nazi times. I would definitely recommend the museum if you're in the area.

Seeing Hitler in a knight's uniform was hilarious to me.

These things are huge and extend all along the coast.

This is, I hope, a play on words. It could either mean something like "...is a vacation" or  something like "Authority vacation", considering it's a sign about the Nazi vacation houses, I really hope they intended the play on words.

Around about the time we were arriving in Prora, the rain had started to pick up a little bit. I didn't have a rain jacket, so I looked like a drowned rat after we walked along the beach trying to find the museum. By the time we were done with the museum and ready to set out toward the coveted goal of the national park, David was starting to give me looks and ask some leading questions, “what do you think about the rain?” "are you getting cold?" The park is in Sassnitz, but the chalk cliffs and anything worth seeing is a good 5 mile hike away from the town.

I really hate to give up on my goals, especially since I'd already made it that far once and had to turn back, but I eventually came to the decision that hiking onto a cliff made of chalk after 12 solid hours of rain might not be the best idea. This is especially true since parts of that cliff break off all the time, and just last year a huge section broke off and buried a ten year old girl. It was with a heavy heart that I decided to head back to Rostock...

So all in all, I'm sort of pissed. I mean, yes I got to see a cool museum and hunting lodge, and got to spend more time with David, but I've been to Rügen twice now and have yet to see the Chalk cliffs. Today's word means “cursed with bad luck” and that's how I feel about this damned Island of Rügen.

einen Hafen anlaufen

Ever since I lived next door to a Dane, I've always found Danish men mysteriously attractive.

For me the Danes are the epitome of European manliness. Maybe it's the conspicuous amount of facial and chest hair, maybe it's their smokey language where they sound like they are trying to clear their throat and talk simultaneously, or maybe it's the nautical vibe they give off. Regardless, I hear “Danish” and I think “MAN!”

The fact that the Danes invented Legos doesn't hurt their case either.

Over Memorial Day weekend, David and I decided to take a trip to Copenhagen. Copenhagen in Danish is København, which translates as “merchant's harbor.” Today's phrase means “to put into harbor.”

Looking at a map, you may think that getting to Copenhagen would be easy for me since I am right next to the place. You would be half right. The journey itself is not hard, but it's long. The first leg of the journey is a ferry from Rostock to the town of Trelleborg, Sweden. I don't speak Swedish, nor do I intend to learn, but the phoenetics of Swedish are totally beyond me. “Trelleborg” for instance does not rhyme with morgue, but rather with glory....I found myself thinking of the Swedish Chef from the muppets the entire time I was in Sweden. He actually approximates Swedish quite well.

This scene essentially played out before our eyes in the bus station

The ferry ride started at 10pm and took 6 hours, during which time David and I planned on sleeping, which we did, with gusto. We slept so long in fact that we almost took the ferry back to Germany. After this near miss, we stumbled through Trelleborg to find the bus station. Upon reaching the bus station we were greeted by a small flock of chickens who seem to have free reign at the bus station. No bullshit there were easily 15 chickens in this place.

Cock of the walk, indeed

Then we heard this weird call from some animal, and since we had 20 minutes to wait, we went to investigate. This is what we found.

Yes. That's right, we found chickens and a damned peacock in the bus station. You can't make this shit up, people!

Taking our leave of our feathered friends (read: ravenous beasts) we departed for Malmö, Sweden, where we would grab a train to Copenhagen. Malmö was finally a normal town, like it had pigeons and magpies, not chickens and peacocks, in the train station.

We arrived around 9am in Copenhagen and set to work checking the city out. But not before David enjoyed a good sit in the complimentary couch in the train station.

We've been doing lice and scabies checks ever since we took the picture.

Walking down the main drag in Copenhagen was pretty run of the mill. That is, until we realized that we had unintentionally picked the weekend of Copenhagen Carnival for our trip. So I heard some kick-ass music and naturally started walking in that direction, and what did I discover?

Showgirls. That's what I discovered.

Naturally, a drag queen was there too.

And then the Peruvians...holding Danish flags.

Once we got off the main drag, Copenhagen got a lot more beautiful. First of all the city is absolutely full of bikes. Children on bikes, old people on bikes, bikes with cargo containers, bikes with strollers. The bike lanes in Copenhagen are wider than the traffic lanes. I don't know if it has to do with the bike riding or not, but the Danish men wear some damned short shorts. My jaw hung open the entire weekend. Think Daisy Duke, but provocative. I was pleased with the fashion choices of the Danes.

This was the parking lot at a fairly small train stop.

Also, I don't know why exactly, but the architecture of Copenhagen is very pretty. I mean, of all the things I expected to be nice looking in Copenhagen, somehow the buildings weren't the first. It's certainly modern, but it doesn't look like an art school project; it looks smart, but progressive. It all seems very forward looking, but without losing a sense of classical style.

The half-timbered house style, seems to be the exception, not the rule.

David and I did the city totally on foot. Now David grew up on Sicily, which means that his olivine skin is impervious to sunburns. I, on the other hand, after a year in north Germany, have the complexion of a naked mole rat. So these two marvelous days in Copenhagen left me with a killer sunburn. That's right, I travel to fucking Scandinavia and return with a sunburn. Still Copenhagen is a very walkable city. The one thing that people kept on recommending that we see was this Mermaid Statue in the north part of the city, so we set out to visit her. Two hours later, we arrive, and the statue is choked with Japanese tourists. Now I'm thinking this must be a nice-ass statue. I finally cut through the crowd, and the statue is about 3 feet tall and is some pitiful little mermaid just siting there. Not doing a backflip, not swimming, not even emoting. Just sitting there. I was so crestfallen that I refused to take a picture of the hoe.

David and I also checked out the hippie commune of Christiania. It's kind of a cool place. You're not allowed to take pictures, so sorry about that in advance. The main “street” in Christiania is called Pusher Street, for obvious reasons. The last thing the hash dealers want is photo evidence of their merchandise. It's a cool area though. I was getting a contact high just walking through the grocery store there with these people.

On Monday, we retraced our route back to Rostock, but I spent the entire weekend looking for this picture in Copenhagen:

Something's rotten in the state of Denmark!

Oh and finally, we got to see sunset on the Baltic sea, which was gorgeous.

die Besessenheit

I am slowly catching up on the backlog of blog posts that I need to write from the month that I spent travelling and being otherwise preoccupied. As anyone who as ever been in my bedroom in the US will know....

You need to squint to see what it is, but it's a 6' tall pixelated image of Spock's face made out of paint swatches I took from Lowe's. This hangs in my bedroom.

I am kinda of...

Lord. This needs a post of its own. It's a scientific poster I made describing how warp travel works. I have a 4' version in my room.

A huge Trekkie.

Today's word means “obsession” and I am obsessed with Star Trek.

I've known forever that there are Star Trek fans around the globe, and from the moment I got to Germany I started looking for a Star Trek Convention to attend. I went to one in Chicago in 2006. I skipped a week of school. I said my grandma died...again. Whatever. My professors didn't miss me that much! The convention in Chicago was a big step for me to take. Going to a convention is like taking the final step into Trek-dom, like a coming out ball for a Southern debutant. It's like the difference between having a cat and having cats, if you get my drift. There are loads of people who've seen the movies, but there is something about shelling out money, travelling, dressing up, and geeking out with other trekkies that really separates the fans from the Trekkies. That Convention was awesome, but like I said, I was scared and didn't dress up. I regret that in hindsight, because there were some awesome costumes!

He's wearing a late 23rd century uniform.

We start them young.

The woman in red is holding a tribble and wearing an early 23rd century engineering uniform and holds the rank of lieutenant. The other two are wearing 24th century uniforms. The chick is a science offices (also a lieutenant) and the dude is an engineering officer, but I can't see his rank.

Yes. That's right, this lady has blue face. She is an Andorian.

The mom is a Vulcan, but somehow her kids are not. Someone was lied to.

She is dressed up as Seven of Nine, a cyborg and the hottest plot device ever created..

This old bird is also dressed as a Vulcan, and is giving the Vulcan salute.

Another Seven of Nine, the lady was Australian if memory serves. and the dude is dressed like someone from the 23rd  century mirror universe...don't ask.

Anyways, getting back to my point. Once I got to Germany I started searching like a starved jackal for a Star Trek Convention. I only found one that was worth mentioning. It is called FedCon and takes place in Düsseldorf every year. I immediately looked at ticket prices but was disappointed to discover that they were between 109€ and 399€ for the weekend, plus the hotel. As a person living on 220€ per month, this was out of the question. Then I thought, “Oh hell, sometimes if you check the English version of a store's website, the prices are the same just in dollars.” So like with iTunes, in the States a song costs $0.99, but in Europe they cost 0.99€, and in England they cost 0.99£, which means you actually pay anywhere from $0.99 to $1.60 for the same song depending on where you live (which is utter bullshit, but if it works in my favor I won't complain too loudly). In this case, the price was converted so there was no “discount.” I did notice though that the English version of the website was incomplete and poorly written, and I thought, “well if I can't get in, at least I can help them be successful.” So I shot them an email offering to translate the website into English. Their response was “That sounds great, do you want like a free ticket for doing that?”

…

I nearly passed out.

Last month my dream came true, and I visited the convention, this time without lying to get away, and it was awesome! There were 5,000 other fans there to enjoy Trek-dom with. I stayed with the host family of a friend, all of whom are also trekkies!

I don't know if you know how a convention works, my guess is no since almost everyone I tell this to has asked me what the hell one does at a convention. Basically it's four solid days of Q&A rounds with actors and directors, presentations about SciFi and fantasy stuff (Mistakes in Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Mormon Theology, The End of the World in SciFi, etc), a costume contest, a merchandise room, several parties, photo and autograph session, and mingling with fans. You have to make a plan of attack before you go. Schedules are sent out in advance for this purpose. No bullshit.

During one of the question rounds with Dr. Frasier from Star Gate (btw, despite the name, it's not just a Star Trek convention, but a general SciFi and fantasy convention), I got up to ask a question. Now the Q&A rounds are conducted in English since most of the actors don't speak German. This means that everyone asking questions has a thick German accent. Everyone that is, except me. So I walk up to the mic and say, “I've always wondered if scifi actors...” and the actress cuts me off “Where are you from?! Not Germany.” So I tell her I'm from Kansas, and then everyone in the room laughs at the way I said Kansas. Then she said, “Boy, you're cute, how old are you? What”s the age of consent in Germany?” I then said that I'm old enough and then that I'm single. We flirted like this for about 3 minutes in front of 5000 other people. Then I asked my question, she answered, and then she asked my name. I told her, smiled, and walked away. I thought this would be the end of it. Then during another Q&A, the actor who played Doral on Battlestar Galactica pulled the same thing...sadly without flirting. After this, I was officially known as “Alex from Kansas" around the convention grounds. No less than 4 people came up to speak to me just because of this, and in the grocery store outside the convention, I overheard two different groups of people saying in German, “oh yeah that's Alex...she was right; he is cute.” So that's how I got thoroughly embarrassed at a Star Trek convention.

Ok now you can enjoy the photos.

Thunder-Thunder-Thunder Cats. HooooOOOOO!

Alien vs. Predator. They were married. and their son was a small predator.

Fry, Zap, Nibbler, and Amy

For all my friends playing Settlers of Catan, you can get a Star Trek Version now!

Fraking Toaster.

I think this might have been some sort of bondage relationship, since the slave Wraith had the collar on all weekend. There were more Wraiths, and it was hilarious to see them just chilling outside the hotel smoking a cigarette like it is the most normal thing in the world to have 20" dreadlocks, blue faces, and fangs.

One of my people on the subway toward the Convention site.

Who you gonna call?!

A Gorn talking to a Vulcan. The actual fight scene with Capt. Kirk and the Gorn is such a shitty scene. But so shitty that it's good.

More fans, along with the guy who held the talks on Temporal Logic and Mistakes in Star Trek. Both in German. Temporal Logic was a kick in the head at 9:30am. OH and the SyFy channel was there giving out goodies. One of the goodies was a condom...as if anyone is getting laid at a Star Trek Convention....

Any Mass Effect fans out there. to the left we have Shepard, and to the right we have a Quarian.

One of the Star Trek make-up artists did a tutorial that took this dude from normal to Klingon in a hour. The trick: paint the prosthetic piece blood red, and then apply the skin tone make-up.

R2-D2 was rolling around like a pimp. I'm not sure of a midget was inside controlling or if it was remote controlled.

This lady was kinda strange to talk to, but he costume was impeccable.

Sadly the only picture of me. The woman is a Trill. I am dressed as a 23rd century science officer (commander). My mom made the costume.

I am so addicted to conventions now. I am already planning my next costume. Unless my mom can either sew leather or tease leaves into a wig I may have to do this one on my own.