There apparently is some huge weather phenomena plaguing the Southwest, as all flights going through Dallas the day we were trying to leave were cancelled. Apparently, this had been going on for several days prior. As far as I could tell, it was just raining a lot, but I guess that's why I don't pilot commercial aircraft.
Anyway, we re booked our flight for the following day through Raleigh, NC instead of Dallas and got off without a hitch. Unfortunately, this new itinerary left us with a 7-hour layover in London Gatwick. We arrived in Gatwick, de-planed and had to change terminals for our connection. This involved touring an all-but-deserted part of the airport and going through what was perhaps the slowest security checkpoint I'd ever seen. The 7+ people working it seemed to be utterly incapable of operating on any timescale faster than geologic. Fortunately, there were only 3 of us in line. Exiting security, however, we were dumped into a waiting area that resembled a refugee camp. The place was swarming with exhausted-looking people (I don't know were they all came from, as the security point we went through would have taken years to process them all) sprawled out all over the combination shopping mall-terminal. Most seemed like they needed a shower and were desperately trying to sleep on whatever surface was available. Some looked like they had long ago give up getting on a plane.
We made it through the wait and the short plane ride to Portugal and arrived in the city of Porto. The city's airport was enormous, despite the fact that it only seemed to be hosting one or two planes. In fact, most of Porto, including the metro stops, streets, and most buildings, seemed to be significantly larger than was required by the population that used them. This gave the city the somewhat odd feeling that some type of mass exodus or plague had recently occurred, and it was only now being repopulated.
In addition to being big and empty, Porto is also the city from which the beverage Port originates. Walking along the river that runs through the city, one can see the plethora of Port breweries (Porteries?) lining the banks. Unfortunately, due to our flight troubles, we'd arrived a day to late for our scheduled tour of Port-making establishments, but we did buy a couple bottles to take home.
The Porto historic district contained the usual high density of churches, squares, statues, and monuments that one comes to expect of European cities. The most interesting of these was probably the main cathedral, which had an all-gold interior. According to the plaque, 400-600 kg (it seems like the folks building it would have been interested in keeping a more accurate account) of gold went into the making.
Kicking off the next leg of the trip, we procured a rental car and headed north to the little town of Guimares, which was were the proud country of Portugal (now the world's leading producer of cork) was born. Guimares actually had a much nicer feel to it than Porto, with plenty of quaintness to go around. Me and my brother instantly headed to the 10th century castle (I mean, come on, who doesn't like castles?), which was very nice and sported all the major castle components including towers, a keep, and those notches in the walls were you can pretend to shoot arrows at people below you.
We finished up our drive at a cottage in a vineyard which was as cute as it was difficult to find. After precariously navigating our way back and forth through a number of very narrow alleys, a nice Portuguese lady finally took pity on us and attempted to communicate to us where we needed to go. Me and my mom both spoke Spanish, which is kind of similar to Portuguese, and the Portuguese people would usually understand us when we spoke it to them, but we generally could not understand them speaking Portuguese to us, at least not on the first go. Given this, the way conversations usually went was something like this:
Them (in Portuguese): blah, blah blah
Us (in Spanish): OK, I think you said "blah, blah blah"
Them (Portuguese): No, no, no, I mean "blah, blah blah"
Us (Spanish): You mean "blah, blah blah"?
Them (Portuguese): That's it!
The cottage, after we found it (and probably before we found it, but I can't personally attest to this) was very nice. It was built in the 17th century and did a good job of combining old-style charm (stone walls, creaky wooden floors, gardens) with modern amenities (plumbing). It also had an excellent porch, with some oddly comfortable wooden recliners, which overlooked a vineyard and lemon grove. The whole area is encircled by mountains, which were visible in the distance, giving a very beautiful view.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Inaugural Post
Greetings blog readers, and welcome to the inaugural post of my hopefully soon-to-be epically adventurous blog. As of yet, my adventures have been only mildly to moderately epic consisting mostly of laying around the house and driving about Austin. But, hey, you got to start somewhere and now is as good a time as any to start blogging, so let me fill you all in on my life so far post-graduation.
Me and the family kicked off the summer with a trip to New York city. It was my brother's first time in the city, and it was my mom's first time since spending a night at the Harlem YMCA on her way to Siberia (no kidding). We stayed in a Hotel near Penn Station, which actually was pretty nice except the elevators were a little flaky. They had this bizarre tendency to stop a floor away from the floor we were on and then start going the opposite direction (ie. if we pushed the button in the lobby, the elevator would stop on the 2nd floor and then go back up). As a result, we generally had to climb the eleven flights to stairs between the ground and our room, rather than wait in the long line of people too lazy to use the stairs for an elevator that only showed up occasionally.
Anyway, despite all my griping about New York during my tenure at Princeton, that trip was actually pretty nice, especially since I was with people with enough financial resources to foot the bill for me. My bro wanted to do all the tourist-y things, so we hit up the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, all of which were nice, if cold. I'd probably have to go with Ellis Island as my favorite attraction, it's crazy to learn how lax US immigration policy used to be. According to the informational film (and I'm not one to doubt informational films) around 90% of people that showed up in Ellis Island were let into the country, very few questions asked. At first I was tempted to attribute this to the fact that there weren't as many terrorist to worry about back then, but my Dad pointed out that getting to Ellis Island from Europe required a several week-long and incredibly uncomfortable steam ship ride, and thus the real test of US citizenship was whether you wanted it enough to put up with the trip over.
Whenever my family goes on vacation, however, our true goal is not seeing the sights, but rather eating at all the good restaurants. Towards this end, I can report that New York has excellent (if expensive) Pastrami sandwiches, and that there's this place in Chinatown called Joe's Ginger that makes these crazy little dumplings that are filled with soup. So you get them, bite off the top, slurp out the soup, and then eat the skin. They were delicious, but I can't image how on earth one would make them.
With the New York trip done, I NJTransited it back to Princeton for one last time and started my drive home to Austin. The drive was mostly uneventful, except for the flat-tire incident, which many of you Bubblonians may have already read about, but for those of you who haven't I'll re-tell it below.
I was completing the final leg of my trip: the home stretch, if you will, from Dallas to Austin. The story begins as I was crusin' down I-35 and had just passed a sign reading "Waco 10 Miles" (a side note for those of you not up on Texas culture, almost all stereotypes about Texas -- toting guns, wearing cowboy hats, voting Republican -- are really only true of people from Waco) when one of my tires blew out. Fortunately, I was able to navigate to the shoulder without incident. I waited for a pause in the steady stream of semis whizzing by and then exited the car, closing the door behind me, and headed for the trunk to retrieve the spare. At this point I realized three things.
1)I had forgotten to pop the trunk
2)I did not have my keys on me
3)My keys were in fact locked inside the car
Now, when I say locked in the car I don't mean that I had a window open a crack through which I could thread a coat-hanger, I mean actually locked in the car, with all windows rolled up tight. After cursing to myself silently for a few moments I realized that my cell phone and wallet were also locked in the car and that, in fact, the only things I had on my person are 3 ticket stubs to ride the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building and about $1.30 in change, mostly dimes. It's also worth noting that it was around 12 noon in June, in Texas, and it was about a billion degrees out. I contemplated the 10 mile walk to Waco for a while, decided that it was probably feasible, although quite uncomfortable and possibly dangerous. I also considered flagging down a car, but was at a loss as to what they would be able to do for me aside from giving me a ride to Waco where I could possibly call my parents (whose phone numbers I didn't know, as they were stored in my cell phone, not my brain) and get the car towed or something. Finally, I discarded both options and settled on a third more suited for my quick-and-dirty tendencies: breaking in. Thus decided, I head out to find a suitable rock to throw through the window. After traipsing through waist high desert plants for a few minutes and carefully climbing through some barbed-wire fence, I found two modestly sized rocks, neither as big as I wanted, but the best of what was available. I headed back to the car and let one fly at one of the rear passenger windows. The first throw has depressingly little effect on the glass, but the second causes it to shatter (and the rock does bounce back as the glass shatters, it doesn't go through. I don't remember who I was arguing that point with). At last able to retrieve my keys I set out on my next task: unloading the massive amounts of junk in my trunk so I can get at the spare tire. This turns out to be by far the longest step in the process, but finally I have an enormous heap of stuff piled next to my car on the side of the interstate. The tire change itself went off without a hitch and I had another fun time getting all my stuff back into the trunk and then get back on my way to Austin, now only able to go 50 MPH because the spare is some tiny weak temporary wheel. I did eventually make it to Austin but it did make for an interesting time.
My time in Austin has consisted mostly of eating Mexican food, sleeping in, playing with my brother, and reading. Unusually for Austin, it has been raining a lot this summer, which is actually pretty sweet because it means that the river that runs near my house has water in. This river is fairly amazing as it has lots of waterfalls, rapids, and diving holes. Unfortunately it usually dries up by the middle of June, just when one would want to go swimming in it, and all the water turns into humidity and goes to Houston. This summer, however, it's still going strong and I'm hoping it will be around until the middle of July when I head off to the AT.
Looking ahead: tomorrow I head off to Portugal, where I'll be spending a few days and then going on a driving tour of Northern Spain (called Asturias). I will be back on the 10th of July, soon after which Lisa will be visiting me from the 12th-16th. Me and Jammy finally got around to planning out AT trip, and I'll be departing for that on the 21rst of July, hitting the trail on the 23rd. Most anticipated, however, I finally got my Peace Corps placement. I'll be going to the Republic of Vanuatu, a chain of 83 islands in the south pacific. I'm going to be a secondary education Math teacher, as well as fulfilling a variety of other functions (basically I'm going be around to do whatever needs doing).
Vanuatu looks to be an amazing place, and I've found many a website referring to it as an "island paradise." I'm inserting a few pictures of the islands at the end of the post for those of you interested. The country itself is very rugged and remote. There are very few roads and the Peace Corps says most of my traveling will be done in small boats, small planes, and on foot. Electricity is supposed to be pretty iffy outside the capital, and I've been advised that solar chargers and rechargeable batteries are necessary if I want to use any sort of electronic device (even for things like digital cameras -- batteries are supposed to be expensive and low-quality). Anyway, I've read that kayaking, snorkeling, SCUBA diving, and beach-going opportunities are abundant. The forests and jungles are supposed to be gorgeous, and there are a number of active volcanoes on the island that are described as "the world's most accessible volcanoes" (not sure if that's supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing). Also, for those of you concerned with my safety, the US State Department says that violent crime, civil unrest, and food shortages are rare, and that almost all exotic or tropical diseases (with the exception of malaria) are not found on Vanuatu.
OK, I think that's a suitably lengthy inaugural post (I might start getting accused of being like Noah...). Be back soon for tales of the Iberian Peninsula.
Vanuatu Pictures:
Port Vila (the capital)
Lopevi Volcano
Another PC Volunteer in some boat-like contraption
Beach
Wreck Diving
Me and the family kicked off the summer with a trip to New York city. It was my brother's first time in the city, and it was my mom's first time since spending a night at the Harlem YMCA on her way to Siberia (no kidding). We stayed in a Hotel near Penn Station, which actually was pretty nice except the elevators were a little flaky. They had this bizarre tendency to stop a floor away from the floor we were on and then start going the opposite direction (ie. if we pushed the button in the lobby, the elevator would stop on the 2nd floor and then go back up). As a result, we generally had to climb the eleven flights to stairs between the ground and our room, rather than wait in the long line of people too lazy to use the stairs for an elevator that only showed up occasionally.
Anyway, despite all my griping about New York during my tenure at Princeton, that trip was actually pretty nice, especially since I was with people with enough financial resources to foot the bill for me. My bro wanted to do all the tourist-y things, so we hit up the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, all of which were nice, if cold. I'd probably have to go with Ellis Island as my favorite attraction, it's crazy to learn how lax US immigration policy used to be. According to the informational film (and I'm not one to doubt informational films) around 90% of people that showed up in Ellis Island were let into the country, very few questions asked. At first I was tempted to attribute this to the fact that there weren't as many terrorist to worry about back then, but my Dad pointed out that getting to Ellis Island from Europe required a several week-long and incredibly uncomfortable steam ship ride, and thus the real test of US citizenship was whether you wanted it enough to put up with the trip over.
Whenever my family goes on vacation, however, our true goal is not seeing the sights, but rather eating at all the good restaurants. Towards this end, I can report that New York has excellent (if expensive) Pastrami sandwiches, and that there's this place in Chinatown called Joe's Ginger that makes these crazy little dumplings that are filled with soup. So you get them, bite off the top, slurp out the soup, and then eat the skin. They were delicious, but I can't image how on earth one would make them.
With the New York trip done, I NJTransited it back to Princeton for one last time and started my drive home to Austin. The drive was mostly uneventful, except for the flat-tire incident, which many of you Bubblonians may have already read about, but for those of you who haven't I'll re-tell it below.
I was completing the final leg of my trip: the home stretch, if you will, from Dallas to Austin. The story begins as I was crusin' down I-35 and had just passed a sign reading "Waco 10 Miles" (a side note for those of you not up on Texas culture, almost all stereotypes about Texas -- toting guns, wearing cowboy hats, voting Republican -- are really only true of people from Waco) when one of my tires blew out. Fortunately, I was able to navigate to the shoulder without incident. I waited for a pause in the steady stream of semis whizzing by and then exited the car, closing the door behind me, and headed for the trunk to retrieve the spare. At this point I realized three things.
1)I had forgotten to pop the trunk
2)I did not have my keys on me
3)My keys were in fact locked inside the car
Now, when I say locked in the car I don't mean that I had a window open a crack through which I could thread a coat-hanger, I mean actually locked in the car, with all windows rolled up tight. After cursing to myself silently for a few moments I realized that my cell phone and wallet were also locked in the car and that, in fact, the only things I had on my person are 3 ticket stubs to ride the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building and about $1.30 in change, mostly dimes. It's also worth noting that it was around 12 noon in June, in Texas, and it was about a billion degrees out. I contemplated the 10 mile walk to Waco for a while, decided that it was probably feasible, although quite uncomfortable and possibly dangerous. I also considered flagging down a car, but was at a loss as to what they would be able to do for me aside from giving me a ride to Waco where I could possibly call my parents (whose phone numbers I didn't know, as they were stored in my cell phone, not my brain) and get the car towed or something. Finally, I discarded both options and settled on a third more suited for my quick-and-dirty tendencies: breaking in. Thus decided, I head out to find a suitable rock to throw through the window. After traipsing through waist high desert plants for a few minutes and carefully climbing through some barbed-wire fence, I found two modestly sized rocks, neither as big as I wanted, but the best of what was available. I headed back to the car and let one fly at one of the rear passenger windows. The first throw has depressingly little effect on the glass, but the second causes it to shatter (and the rock does bounce back as the glass shatters, it doesn't go through. I don't remember who I was arguing that point with). At last able to retrieve my keys I set out on my next task: unloading the massive amounts of junk in my trunk so I can get at the spare tire. This turns out to be by far the longest step in the process, but finally I have an enormous heap of stuff piled next to my car on the side of the interstate. The tire change itself went off without a hitch and I had another fun time getting all my stuff back into the trunk and then get back on my way to Austin, now only able to go 50 MPH because the spare is some tiny weak temporary wheel. I did eventually make it to Austin but it did make for an interesting time.
My time in Austin has consisted mostly of eating Mexican food, sleeping in, playing with my brother, and reading. Unusually for Austin, it has been raining a lot this summer, which is actually pretty sweet because it means that the river that runs near my house has water in. This river is fairly amazing as it has lots of waterfalls, rapids, and diving holes. Unfortunately it usually dries up by the middle of June, just when one would want to go swimming in it, and all the water turns into humidity and goes to Houston. This summer, however, it's still going strong and I'm hoping it will be around until the middle of July when I head off to the AT.
Looking ahead: tomorrow I head off to Portugal, where I'll be spending a few days and then going on a driving tour of Northern Spain (called Asturias). I will be back on the 10th of July, soon after which Lisa will be visiting me from the 12th-16th. Me and Jammy finally got around to planning out AT trip, and I'll be departing for that on the 21rst of July, hitting the trail on the 23rd. Most anticipated, however, I finally got my Peace Corps placement. I'll be going to the Republic of Vanuatu, a chain of 83 islands in the south pacific. I'm going to be a secondary education Math teacher, as well as fulfilling a variety of other functions (basically I'm going be around to do whatever needs doing).
Vanuatu looks to be an amazing place, and I've found many a website referring to it as an "island paradise." I'm inserting a few pictures of the islands at the end of the post for those of you interested. The country itself is very rugged and remote. There are very few roads and the Peace Corps says most of my traveling will be done in small boats, small planes, and on foot. Electricity is supposed to be pretty iffy outside the capital, and I've been advised that solar chargers and rechargeable batteries are necessary if I want to use any sort of electronic device (even for things like digital cameras -- batteries are supposed to be expensive and low-quality). Anyway, I've read that kayaking, snorkeling, SCUBA diving, and beach-going opportunities are abundant. The forests and jungles are supposed to be gorgeous, and there are a number of active volcanoes on the island that are described as "the world's most accessible volcanoes" (not sure if that's supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing). Also, for those of you concerned with my safety, the US State Department says that violent crime, civil unrest, and food shortages are rare, and that almost all exotic or tropical diseases (with the exception of malaria) are not found on Vanuatu.
OK, I think that's a suitably lengthy inaugural post (I might start getting accused of being like Noah...). Be back soon for tales of the Iberian Peninsula.
Vanuatu Pictures:
Port Vila (the capital)
Lopevi Volcano
Another PC Volunteer in some boat-like contraption
Beach
Wreck Diving
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