Life at the Equator

It’s hard to coherently describe all the observations that I’ve made about the Maldivian life while I’ve been here, but hopefully these tidbits will give you a taste.

-None of us have noticed any beggers or homeless people around the island.  It seems like there isn’t really a large economic gap between the rich and poor native Maldivians, although you can definitely pick out the rich tourists.

-The houses are mostly made of concrete walls, making them look like foretresses, then there is a little inner garden area.  There are quite a few brightly colored buildings, as well as empty concrete “shells”.

-There are people milling around at all times of the day.  Many times they will be sweeping, which seems to be a neverending task on an island with fine white sand…

-Motorbikes are the preferred method of transportation.  Quite often we will see men riding in the front with the women in headscarves on the back. Sometimes the women are riding “side saddle” with their legs off to one side.  But women can be seen driving themselves around and with their children.  They recently paved the main road running along the atoll, and I guess they had quite a few accidents so there are speed bumps about every 1 km.  People just walk down the middle of the road and don’t seem to realize or make an effort to get out of the way.  The motorcycles also just merge without looking or don’t seem to care at all if you come up behind them and want to pass.  This is especially bad around dusk when many families can be seen out wandering around, fishing, taking in the sunset, and enjoying the evening.

-Regarding headscarves, most women wear at least a headscarf while some wear the full tunics.  One of the NCAR ladies asked a lady a the Dhiraguu (cell phone) shop who wears the scarves and who doesn’t, and the lady adamantly replied “everyone should wear headscarves!” It has been my observation, though, that the younger generation are moving away from that trend and are seen more frequently without headscarves than the older women.

-Everyone speaks English for the most part.  Maldivian is impossible to read (looks like a bunch of lines and open circles to me arranged in 3 lines), but we are learning a few words here and there from the local Maldivian waiters at the Equator Village.

-They frequently keep the lights off during the day, or just eat in the dark at night.  There have been several instances where we thought a place was closed because it looked dark inside, but really the lights were just off.  We went to a little café down the road the other night, and we sat outside where they had very dim lighting (the NCAR folks who go there frequently brought flashlights so they could read the menu), and when I looked inside the restaurant there were two tables sitting and eating in the dark! We also ate at a Thai restaurant and they brought us flashlights to read the menu. They also seem to eat late and generally stay out late (I would say dinner time is 9pm...?)

-They are definitely on "island time". Things move at a slower pace; they will get done eventually. 

-The atoll that I’m on has about 13,000 people, and is made up of several different islands. For those of you who don’t want to google it and zoom in as far as possible to even see the land, I’ve included an image. We are staying on the southern island with the airport a the Equator Village.  The S-pol Site is labeled  to the north west of Gan. We can go out and snorkel on the beach in front of the hotel.

-Despite water being basically everywhere, water treatment is difficult. They mostly collect rainwater and drink bottled water.  We were advised to only drink bottled water even in the hotel. The last few years have been pretty dry for them, so they have had water shortages at times. This generates a lot of empty plastic bottles that either end up in the ocean or get burned.

-In the little booklet in the hotel, they suggest that you pack your trash, and particularly the recycleables, with you back to your home country.  They do not have very sophisticated processing plants and end up burning most of the trash. 

-They are a surprisingly connected country (well, maybe not so surprisingly since it would be difficult to run land lines between all the islands).  In fact, Dhiraguu (the main mobile provider) seems to have the nicest stores of anything.  The hotel internet is $17 / hour, so most of us just went and bought 3G modems for our computers from Dhiraguu and it mostly works out except when everyone gets on in the mornings to check all the email that has come in from the US over our night.

-Grocery stores are pretty small and have very limited fresh food selection, as least the ones I’ve been too.  They mostly remind me of 7-11’s or convenience stores, both in appearance and in stock.  Most of the fresh fruit is bananas, coconuts, oranges, or occasionally papayas.  They can mostly be purchased at little roadside stands.

-Their weekend is on Friday and Saturday.  It is nearly impossible to get deliveries (for radar fuel, for example), on Fridays.  However, some of the grocery stores and such are still open.

-I have heard the call to prayer almost every morning I've been here.  It's somewhat jarring to us, and sounds a bit like you are getting pulled over by the police due to the loudspeaker they use.  However, we speculate that they find it as comforting as we do church bells.

-There are cats everywhere but no dogs.  Dogs cannot be brought into the country.

-I think this is the first country I've ever visited that doesn't have a McDonalds.  While that sounds stupid, I think it's very telling.  I'm not sure a McDonalds would fit in here (although that can probably be said for many places that have them now!)

1/2 Way Around the World in 3 Days

I figured I should start writing about my experiences here in the Maldives, as it is really nothing like I've ever experienced before.  I have traveled mostly to Europe and Australia / New Zealand, but I've never before been what I would call "outside the western world".  So I thought I would share some interesting observations and / or stories of my adventure from now and then.

My trip here was much smoother than I had imagined.  It involved 3 days, 3 airlines, 4 stops and 3 countries, so I was expecting something major to go wrong.  Most particularly I was worried about arriving in the Maldives where the instructions for getting a business visa included being pulled aside into a back room and forking over $59 American (or the equivalent Maldivian) money.  We were also supposed to be met by members of the Maldivian Meteorological Service (MMS), and they supposedly also had copies of our passports to identify us.

This time through Dubai (I return through there as well) I figured I would just stick to the hotel and airport and see how comfortable I felt in order to judge what I should do on my return trip. One thing I was hoping to see, however, was the world's largest building.  I guess I thought it would just be obvious as we were flying in or driving around in the taxi, but it was so hazy I could hardly make it out (though I did spot it).

Finding the world’s tallest building is a bit like spotting Waldo.  It is in there somewhere…

I was also hoping to get a flavor of the cuisine at breakfast, but seeing as I was in a Sheradon, I'm guessing it was intentionally geared toward more western travelers.  However, I did note the bacon and sausage were both beef rather than pork. I also had a savory donut that seemed vaguely Indian, which I enjoyed.  It was 94º when we landed at 9 pm--blech.  Thankfully I spent most time in air conditioned buildings or the cab.

On my flight from Dubai to Male, I had specifically engineered a window seat so I could look out and take pictures as we flew over the Arabian peninsula, sea, and into the Maldives.  It was breathtaking! Emirates Airlines was really nice, with the personal entertainment systems in the seat backs and a "menu" for the meal (though it was typical airline quality food and I was forced to make the dreaded choice between mushrooms or random fish…if you know me you would probably be surprised to find I went with the mushrooms.  I could easily scrape them off the beef, whereas the random fish dinner didn’t look appetizing in the least). I really liked the headware that the female flight attendants wore when we took off and landed.

Yes, they do wear the goofy head things on takeoff and landing.

We landed in Male with a thud, then slammed on the brakes in order to stop by the end of the runway (it was in a 777)—the forward facing camera they display showed we came really close to the end of the runway—then turned around and taxied back on the runway.  The “customs” counter was right there, but there was a long line. I stood there nervously wondering what was going to happen when I noted one of the customs agents wandering around with what looked like my passport photo.  It was clear he didn’t connect my picture with me, so I flagged him down and he helpfully ushered me through customs, through getting my bag, through changing money, and into a little back room where an officer stamped my passport and took my 750 rufiyaa ($48).  Then I was met by a very nice guy from the MMS, who took me over to get a SIM card for my (unlocked) iPhone, and then over to get checked in to my next flight. It was then that I ran into a bunch of NCAR folks whom I had briefly met before, and boy was it nice to see a friendly face! It actually turns out one of the ladies stopped over in Dubai as well, and was even on my flight!  I wish I had known that beforehand….:-/

It started raining right about as we were getting ready to board the plane from Male to Gan, and so a bus pulled up at the terminal, we all loaded on, and it proceeded to take us 200 ft to the bottom of the airstairs.  Literally.  I ended up in one of two backwards facing (think flight attendant) seats on the Dash-8, which made it very awkward as I was just staring at the rows and rows of other passengers on the plane (including row #2 right in front of me).  My most interesting experience to date was when they came around with a tray full of what looked like candy, so I grabbed what I thought was a dark /white chocolate swirl number, but instead found it to be a baggie with slices of nutmeg, a clove, and a small cinnamon stick.  I’m still wondering what I was supposed to do with it…. (I tried one of the nutmeg slices but it didn’t have a lot of flavor nor was I really able to chew or suck on it….)

When we checked in, we were given a nice glass of papaya juice with a straw and sat down to fill out all of our paperwork.  Actually one thing I have noticed is that they don’t really seem to like people standing and waiting around.  There seem to always be chairs available and they encourage you to sit down (for example we went into a wireless store and they had several rows of chairs for people waiting, unlike in the US where you just have to mill around until they call your name). We arrived right in time for dinner.  My board includes both breakfast and dinner, which are both served from 7:30 to 9.  They are very particular about where you sit, but over the past week that strictness has eroded as hoards of us with the project have come and gone and basically sat wherever we wanted (within a few allotted tables).  Dinner that night was Chinese themed, and I tried a little bit of fish (wahoo) that I actually liked.

So all in all, it was a long trip but relatively smooth!

Switzerland - Appenzell

1 September

It was pouring rain in the morning, but luckily we were mostly on trains.  We took a train from Zürich to Gossau, and then switched to an older train that would take us the rest of the way to Appanzell. The scenery was what I would call “classic Switzerland” with rolling green hills, red roofed houses, little onion dome churches in every little dorf, and cows grazing in every pasture. We even passed a Swiss cattle drive, where I jumped up to get a photo and it ended up out of focus. They were even wearing the traditional outfits! By the time we got to Appenzell it was 12:15.  We had read there was a bus that would take us to Stein, which was where the cheese demonstration factory was located.  However, when I asked about it in the train station, the lady told me that wasn’t possible but we could take a public car through Die Post. So, she booked us on a 12:45 shuttle and a return 2 hours later (we didn’t know how long it would take). We had a little bit of time to wander around the sleepy town of Appenzell, which was even more sleepy due to the fact that everything but the cafes close down from 12-13:30.  It was still neat to look around and see all the buildings and signs.

The Postal car was just for us, and was 5 Francs each with our discount with the Eurail pass. It was about a 10 minute drive through very scenic countryside.  When we got to the Appenzell cheese demonstration factory, there was a tour in progress with people milling around everywhere. I tried to get the attention of the people in the info booth but they ignored me.  As such, we decided lunch would be the first order of business. We ordered two beers from Appenzell (not liters, but pretty large nonetheless).  We ordered toast with tomato and pear with cheese melted over the whole thing, and a sampler platter of 5 of their cheeses (aged differently, organic, etc.).  It was really good, and felt very Swiss. We got a little confused about how the tours worked (seems they needed to be booked in advance) so we didn't get on one but did get to explore some exhibits and got so look down on the curd development and first press. We also saw all of the cheese aging in the cellar, and were fascinated by the machine that would pull out three cheese wheels at a time, flip them into the brine bath, then reload the slot and proceed down the column. Just like they’ve done for hundreds of years, I’m sure. We had booked a return car for 2 hours later so that limited the amount of time to explore the cheese factory.

We were the only ones in the first class section of the train back to St. Gallen and it was really hot and stuffy before we realized that we could open the window. Good thing we did because we heard the cow bells as we rode though the hillside! It was a very picturesque train ride, but the heat and afternoon made us a bit sleepy. We switched trains in St. Gallen, where we had a brief layover. Back in Zürich, we got a little confused and got on the train to Affoltern am Amp instead of just plain “Affoltern”, which is the one we needed to get back to Cathy and Martin’s, but in the end we figured out our error quickly and recovered. We had purchased a SIM card for the unlocked 3G iPhone that morning. It hadn't been able to get on the Internet all day, so Ryan went into an Orange (a local mobile phone carrier) store, got up the confidence to ask "sprechen Sie English?" and turned out to have gotten a lady with a very thick Scottish accent! It took a bit of time and several reboots but it did eventually start working. 10 CHF for the SIM card and 2 CHF per day for the internet isn't bad.  We stopped off at the store to pick up some food to have at Cathy and Martin’s (and see the grocery store). We only got a little lost trying to get back to their apartment from there... They made a very delicious dinner of pork tenderloin, polenta, and a mâché (apparently called Nussli (?) in Switzerland) salad (I was very happy to have the vegetables!) and we had good wine and prosecco. We also threw in some laundry so we would be ready for our trip over the weekend to Geneva.

I was having a hard time understanding people in Switzerland, we we happy to hear that is because Swiss German is very different than hoch Deutsch or even anything in Southern Germany due to the influence of French and to a lesser extent, Italian.  So it’s not just that I have very poor German skills that I’ve forgotten over the last 10 years, but more that I speak very formal, prissy German!

Austria - Innsbruck

31 August

We arose early to catch the train to Innsbruck. Ryan wanted to go through Austria and it just so happens that the timing worked out for a short stopover. We grabbed cappuccinos and chocolate croissants for the ride in the train station.  The train ride was a little stuffy but really pretty scenery with the stereotypical alpine houses (a squatty a frames with gorgeous flower boxes in every window). It took about 2 hours to get to Innsbruck. We walked around town and were a bit horrified to find that a stadtplan (map) cost 3€ and the bathroom cost 0,50 € in the train station. We bought a street map at the info center for 1€. It seemed that everything pointed towards the Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof), but when we finally found it it was a bit disappointing. It was fun, however, to wander the town with old painted buildings, decorative architecture, street cafes and cobblestone streets. 

We saw some buildings and a tram going high up the side of one of the alps, and decided at would be fun. 

We found it on the map and thought it didn't look too far away... so we started walking. I should point out here that both of us were wearing our "traveling shoes"-- that is, slip ons for comfort and easy airport screening. We walked across the river (it was very silty and gray) and then through a park. Then we started ascending... Then the sidewalk disappeared as we kept going up and up. It was pleasant out (70 deg) but we were both sweating with pained feet by the time we reached our destination. As we were paying for the funicular ticket it became obvious that we could have picked it up farther down the hill and we had gone way out of the way and unnecessarily up a long hill. At least we got our exercise! The funicular was 6,80€ round trip which we thought wasn't a bad deal. However when we reached the top and had to transfer to the tram we discovered it was  23€ to go all the way to the top of the mountain. We begrudgingly paid the additional fee and went all the way up to the very top of Nordkette, Hafelekar.  The views were spectacular! You could see in every direction from downtown Innsbruck to the small airport (got to watch some planes take off in the valley) to the craggy Alps in most of the other directions. There was a short path to the very top and we debated going given our pain levels, but eventually decided we would regret it if we didn't go. We hoofed it to the top to even more amazing views and we're glad we did. I made it up the last bit telling myself that if the Von Trapp family could do it so could I.The summit was 2338 m (7400 ft). 

We went back down to the first tram stop (called Seegrube) to have lunch on the patio while overlooking the town. I battled the surprisingly pushy older crowd to get us food. Feeling pretty confident that I was ordering Ryan a meat and cheese sandwich and myself spinach dumplings, I ordered in German and the guy had no problems understanding me (but he didn't understand the thickly accented German of a guy behind me). However, what came out was a "snack platter" with various cheese and cured sausage with what looked like uncooked shreds of bacon and shredded horseradish. Ryan didn’t mind. My spinach dumplings were good but heavy. I also got "almdudeln" to drink, which we found out later is an herbed soda (and it was pretty good, I thought). This mountain was clearly a destination for hikers and mountain bikers and a destination for "locals.”

We rode the tram and funicular back down and found ourselves MUCH closer to the city center than our long and steep route. We walked the streets for a bit longer, and got some gelato. Having had enough of an adventure for one afternoon, we headed back to the train station (getting only marginally lost....) where we got on some free wireless and checked our email again.

The train from Innsbruck to Bregenz where we had to switch trains for Zürich was really nice with geblinken lights everywhere and leather seats and power plugs. The section manager came by and gave us orange juice boxes and KitKats (they tasted different!) We charged equipment and listened to music to tune out the loud, and probably nearly deaf, pair of Swiss gentlemen in the seats in front of us. Just as we were coming into Bregenz they made an announcement about connecting trains, including something about the train to Zürich.  I knew they said something about a delay and/or change in the schedule, but as soon as the German announcement completed the guys in front of us erupted in a tizzy and were very incredulous, so we missed the English announcement.  Since we had about an hour in Bregenz, we stopped in the bahnhof cafe for a couple of kleine biers. We both liked it (less bitter than the other pilsner that we had had) and 30 ml seemed downright manageable.  When we returned to the tracks we heard more announcements in German about a delay and the other patrons were in disbelief. Turns out the train was running 20 minutes late which is unheard of in Switzerland! Despite our best efforts, the two loud gentleman again sat right in front of us once the train did arrive. Other than that it was nice to watch the scenery go by from the train.  Right at the Swiss border the ticket guy came around and checked passports.

Martin met us at the Zürich Hauptbahnhof (HB) and we took a series of trams and busses to get to their apartment.  It seemed like a long way back to their place, but in the following week we repeated the process almost daily and it got shorter and shorter.  We made sandwiches for dinner, and discussed what our plans for the next day should be given the weather forecast.  Initially we were going to take a boat on the Zürichsee, but it was supposed to be rainy so we thought the Appenzell cheese factory might be a better dreary day sort of adventure.

Germany - München

August 28

 The first leg of our trip from Denver to Chicago was pretty uneventful.  In Chicago we had a several hour layover, and Ryan was keen on getting a true Chicago dog, so we found a place in the airport. I had the “Wisconsin Dog” which was a hot dog drenched in nacho cheese sauce.  Ryan did get his Chicago dog, but it was sadly lacking the fluorescent green pickles (he said it was good nonetheless). I asked Ryan if he had ever seen the lights at ORD, and he had no idea what I was talking about.  For a few minutes I looked crazy raving on and on about the cool light tunnel without any indication of where it was or how we could find it, but it turns out we were pretty close.  We rode the moving sidewalk through the neon light display, which was probably more nostalgic for me than the “totally awesome light display” I had made it out to be.  I also didn’t remember the pantone color mosaics on the wall.  Still, it was a way to pass the time.  I spent a little time sitting with 10 of my closest friends at a charging station so we could make sure we had enough juice to get through the 8 hour flight. We had specifically arranged our journey such that the trans-atlantic portion would be on a Boeing 777, as Ryan had never ridden on one before. It was a pretty nice plane and seemed new. The 2-5-2 arrangement might suck if you are in the middle section, but it was perfect for just the two of us, plus, we were in Economy Plus. :)

August 29

Dinner was... interesting.  I ordered the pasta, which was tortellini, but Ryan got the “meat” option, which was a very strange and mysterious mix of meat pieces in some sort of “gravy.” At least his mashed potatoes and mixed veggies were good.  We both ordered wine for the meal, and the flight attendant claimed their machine was broken, so it was free.  After that we decided to each get an after dinner drink (Bailey’s for me, scotch for Ryan). We tried to watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (I forgot how bad that movie is!  It’s amazing anyone ever watched the Last Crusade), but then decided if we wanted any appreciable amount of sleep we should get to it. I don’t think either of us slept particularly well, and we were listening to the Channel 9 ATC channel.  Ryan heard a discussion of a ELT (emergency locator transmitter) over eastern Canada. Although they can sometimes be triggered accidentally, this one seemed to possibly be associated with an actual plane going down as several planes reported hearing it over about a five minute period. I found the most interesting part was hearing the different accents, particularly as we passed over the Shannon, Ireland control area.

Breakfast on the plane wasn’t too bad: yogurt and banana bread. We got into Munich 30 minutes early and sat on the taxiway until a gate was available.  As we were landing, Ryan commented on how all of the roofs were red.  Everything looked so green, too.  We had no problems going through customs or getting our luggage, so before long we found ourselves on the S-bahn riding through what seemed like the countryside toward the city center. We stayed at the King’s Hotel Center, which was a cute little hotel that boasted 4 poster beds and “luxurious accommodations at an affordable price”. We were both so tired and jet lagged that despite our plans to immediately hit the town to combat jet lag, we took a two hour nap.

Our hotel was in a pretty convenient location, only a few blocks from the Hauptbahnhof and a 10 minute walk to Marienplatz.  We took in the Neues Rathaus, and as it was about 4 pm, I maintained that we should wait and watch the Glockenspiel at the top of the hour.  However, nothing happened as the clock passed 4 pm, and no one else seemed to take note. We read later that it goes off at noon and 5 pm.

Ryan had read about Augustiner beer before we came to Munich, as it is the only one of the “big 5” Munich beers that you can’t really get easily in the US. After much discussion about how to spend the afternoon, we found the “small” Augustiner beer garden (more like Cafe) out on the Neuhauserstraße, and we started in on the beer consumption. I had the weissbier with a tomato/mozzarella salad, while Ryan opted for the dunkel and onion sausage sauer "salad".

We were feeling pretty good at this point, and decided we were up for a full-on beer garden experience.  We made our way down to the famous Hofbrauhaus and settled in in the patio.  It was a very nice evening temperature wise, and of course the ambiance was jolly and relaxed.  We couldn’t believe the waitresses actually carried upwards of 5 liters of beer all at one time!  Their forearms were pretty beefy to say the least.  I had heard about the pretzels the size of one’s head, so I just had to get one.  We also had to have Kaiserschmarrn (“emperor's mess”) which is kind of like a scrambled up dutch baby.  MMMMMM. At one point our “table neighbors” kept “Prosting” (a toast like “cheers”) us, and we chatted with them for a while.  One couple was from Zürich and was visiting the other couple who lived in München.  It really added to our whole experience. I think by the end of the night, all told, Ryan had put back 3 liters of beer, and I had 2.5 (although one of them was a Radler, which is 1/2 dark beer and 1/2 “lemonade” (like a Sprite without lime).

As we headed out, Ryan confidently lead the way, proclaiming he knew exactly where our hotel was.  After walking for a bit and convincing Ryan that we had never seen these parts before, we looked at a map and discovered we had gone in about 180º in the wrong direction out of Hofbrauhaus to get back to our hotel.  At least our path home took us through Marienplatz at night and we could see the cool Rathaus and churches lit up. We actually made it back to the hotel by a respectable 11 pm.

30 August

Needless to say, we were moving pretty slow the next morning, so didn’t quite get up as early as we had imagined.  We opted for the 12 Euro buffet breakfast at the hotel over grabbing something as we toured around town.  It was expensive, but actually a pretty good breakfast with hot and cold options, as well as meat and cheese, croissants, etc. We took the train to the BMW Welt and Car Museum. I really enjoyed the BMW Welt part of it with the interactive displays about the cars, as well as little floor cleaning robots that wandered around displaying messages about keeping things clean while stopping and turning red if they encountered any dirt.  I also really liked watching the cars come up in the elevator to the delivery floor.  The car museum was very interesting as well, with lots of old cars and history about motors, cars and BMW. Even Ryan enjoyed it even though he thought he wouldn’t. Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling all that well (um, I don’t usually drink close to 3 liters of beer in a day!), so we were moving slow and I didn’t really linger in at different displays as long as I might have normally.  We grabbed some sandwiches / paninis at the M1 BMW cafe and regrouped.  We could see the Olympiapark and Olympic tower from the 1972 games as we were eating.  One interesting side note was that we were walking around in BMW Welt and Ryan heard a “Hallo!” only to find our friends from Hofbrauhaus the previous evening waving and smiling at us!

We took the U-Bahn to English Garden, but weren’t quite sure which stop to get off at. We popped up near the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where we had a good view of the St. Ludwig church and it’s mosaic roof.  I was in need of some Tylenol at this point, so we stopped into a pharmacy, where I asked for Tylenol by name.  I got a blank stare back.  Ryan dredged up from the depths of his mind the name paracetemol (how does he know this stuff??), at which point the lady nodded and got me a box of the stuff. We also passed the Siegestor, which is a large monument with the inscription “dem sieg geweiht vom krieg zerstort zum frieden mahnend”, which loosely translated means “Dedicated to victory, destroyed by war, and a monument to peace”. We wandered through the English Gardens for a bit in search of the Chinesischer Turm and associated beer garden.  Ryan got himself a liter of beer while I had a mid-afternoon ice cream snack.

I really wanted to see the Glockenspiel back at the Rathaus, so we took U-Bahn back to Marienplatz about 4:30.  With some time to kill, we wandered into the Apple Store (which also just happens to have free Wi-fi....) for a bit. Then we watched the Glockenspiel play at 5 at the Neues Rathaus.  It was neat and everything I thought it would be based on my memories from German class.

We poked around the Viktuelnmarkt (kind of like a large farmer’s market) and went into St. Peters church where I got yelled (actually, sternly whispered) at for taking a photo. We ended the afternoon in Marienplatz with Frauskirche.

After dropping stuff off in our room, we went down to the little bar in our hotel for “happy hour”. I had a very fruity, but delicious drink with kiwi and other tropical fruits while Ryan experimented with a German margarita (German only in the sense that we were in Germany. It was actually pretty ‘normal’). We asked the bartender’s opinion on which beer garden we should hit up for the night, as both Augustiner and Löwenbrau were pretty close. She said she thought Augustiner because Löwenbrau was smaller and tended to be a bit more “rowdy” with more a more unsavory crowd.  We got lost trying to find the beer garden, even though it was only about 5 blocks from the hotel.  Upon actually finding it, we discovered that they only served liters of “helles” / original pilsner (not the weiss bier or dunkel), so we both got ein Maß. I didn’t really like mine so Ryan ended up having at least half. We had observed many people at Hofbrauhaus with a pork knuckle, so figured that might be a pretty traditional item to have while drinking copious amounts of beer, so that’s what I got for dinner.  Ryan ordered pork schnitzel as he wanted to have schnitzel.  He thought it was a lot like chicken fried steak.  My pork knuckle was good but kind of hard to eat.

Luck o' the Irish

My family is Irish.  In fact, I like to tout that I'm 3rd generation off the boat (my grandpa's parents immigrated here in the early 1900's).  So, like any good Irish family, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day with family, boiled meat, potatoes, bread and snakes.

Snakes?

Yep, snakes.  Maybe I should start at the beginning.  We had a delicious meal of corned beef (the good quality stuff), colcannon, and my personal favorite, Leprechaun Pie (my entire family waits 364 (365 this year!) days just to savor a few bites of this Dolan family tradition).  We retired to the downstairs of my sister's (formally my parents) house for a few minutes after the meal was finished.  As we were down there, R went to pet Smokey, a normally outgoing and friendly cat.  As R reached to pet his head, Smokey jumped about 4' off the ground.  Clearly, he was spooked by something, but we didn't really give it a second thought. After R and I had been sitting there for a few moments, R asked if I heard a repeating "fssssss" sound coming from the furnace room, and if so, was that normal (I had lived in that house for several years)?  I couldn't recall anything, but who knows what it could be.  So as the rest of my family made their way down to join us, R asked everyone else if they heard the noise.  Sure enough, everyone thought it was a little strange, but we all concluded it was probably the hot water heater giving off some steam.  Well, my mom, having lived in the house a number of years, brazenly opens the door to the furnace room to check it out.   She immediately freaks out and shuts the door.  We all stare at her expectantly and demand to know what she saw.  "What is it? A bobcat?" we jokingly inquire.  She finally manages to hiss out, "it's a rattle snake!"  Well, that's when the chaos broke out.  My sister was trying to herd the animals out of the downstairs, Brian and my dad (Patrick) went to get the infamous "snake pole", and R and I were left with a slight bit of curiosity and a rather scared Calvin, who could sense the excitement of the rest of us.

I'll save you from the boring details and suffice it to say that the rattle snake is no longer with us.  But he left us with a rather eventful and memorable St. Patrick's Day.

Yes, I realize that the legend of St. Patrick and the snakes does not really refer to real snakes.  But nonetheless, it makes for a good story:  The St. Patrick's Day where Patrick (and Brian) drove the snake out of the house.

Something happened on the way to my degree...

Yep, something happened on the way to my degree:  I lost the ability to sit around and do nothing.  Maybe it's just my personality, maybe there just isn't anything good to sit around and do nothing about.  But I think it's because I'm an overworked grad student.  Sure, I can procrastinate with the best of them.  Gotta turn in a poster tomorrow?  Sure, I've got a few hours to watch mindless TV.  Need to run some simulations?  What better time to iChat!

But here I am, with nothing to do, and I can't sit still.  I feel like I need to do something.  I was just playing SuperBounceOut.  It just doesn't have the same addiction and appeal that it does when I'm playing because I'm avoiding work. 

Usually I turn to the TV for my "do nothing" time.  R never wants to watch as much TV as I do--which is good, because it keeps my TV watching in check. On the other hand, there is nothing good on TV these days.  Tivo has 155 suggestions and nothing sounds interesting.  Seinfeld?  Seen it.  Friends?  Seen it. Super Monster Truck Rally?  What the...??? It seems like my favorite shows haven't had new episodes in weeks, and Battlestar Galactica won't be new until April.

Sure, there are plenty of things that I could or should be doing.  Working?  Yes, there is part of me that thinks I should be working.  That part of me also thinks that every waking moment should be spent working on my dissertation so that I can just be done with it.  And the other part of me thinks that I put in a long day, got a lot of things accomplished, and the same will be true tomorrow (hopefully). So why not relax?  How about cleaning up my iTunes library?  No way, that would take way to long and way too much thought.  Clean up the basement?  Don't get me started.  Send out long overdue emails to friends and family?  Well, yah...Take out the trash? Yep, that's a 5 minute project.  Play games online?  Been there, done that.

Maybe I'll just blog.