Back in France!

Okay, yes, I have been remiss in updating the blog of late.  It has been a busy month or so.  I traveled back to the US for two weeks, although at least one week was way too much running around to be called “vacation”.  Then I went back to Sylt for one last week, most of which was spent packing and finishing up work there.  Now I am back in France…where it is warmer, and light for a little bit longer (just further enough south).  I’ll try to update more often, again!

Travel mishap

So, I survived my first real travel mishap in Europe.  I went to Copenhagen for the weekend to sight-see and meet up with Nancy, and had a well-planned return trip.  I have made the train trip to Copenhagen before (on my way to Sweden and back), so I thought this was fool-proof–the connections are tight, but worked out well before.  However, the train across Denmark was running really late this time and I missed my connecting train south to Tonder, where there is a weird little train that runs across the Danish/German border–a 24 minute train ride, with a little extra time built into the schedule in case there is a cow on the tracks or somthing.  Well, the train people piled us into cabs to race towards Tonder and I just hopped on, not thinking that they would send us to Tonder without making arrangements for the connection.  But instead I ended up in Tonder after the last connection, and cabs will not take you across the border.  So I was stuck on a chilly Sunday night in a dark, tiny town where I didn’t speak the language.  I was weighing the options of sleeping at the train station (locked for the night, so it would have meant sleeping outside) and walking to Germany (not really ideal, since it would mean trekking through cowfields in the dark).  I decided to walk into town, and happened on a little motel; there was a sign on the door in Danish, German and English that said the phone to the right of the door would connect to a receptionist 24 hours a day, so I decided to pick it up.  Luckily the woman who answered spoke English, and said they had one room left for the night.  She drove over from her house (in her pajamas) and checked me into the last available room, so I slept in Tonder for the night and caught the first train to Germany in the morning, arriving at work only 40 minutes late…but exhausted, and mildly hungry, since all I had had to eat since Copenhagen was a granola bar and an apple.  

Not exactly the relaxing end to the journey I had anticipated, but at least I didn’t freeze sleeping in the train station nor did I get lost wandering around cow pastures in the no-man’s-land between Denmark and Germany on a chilly autumn night… 

More on Copenhagen plus pictures to come (once I have slept).

Life Update

Things have been quiet on the blog, because they have been very non-adventurous of late.  I have been trying to keep up with running, working almost non-stop…basically, a boring life.  The good big news this week is that I have a job interview for a good position in the US, the bad big news is that my family is mourning the loss of my uncle to cancer.  I miss him terribly and am sorry to think of all the rest of his family and friends hurting.

Hopefully this weekend will bring some spirit-lifting.  I am taking advantage of the three-day weekend (Friday is a holiday to celebrate German re-unification) and heading to Copenhagen to sight-see and meet up with my college roommate, Nancy.  A much-needed break from work and chance to enjoy some new sights and an old friend.  (Literally old, this week Nancy celebrated her birthday.)

Update

Well, I survived my half marathon.  It was a beautiful running route, perfect weather (mostly sunny, 60 degrees F, light wind), with lots of water stops (bottled mineral water, poured into recyclable cups), and I finished…just really slowly.  I guess not tapering–running 18 miles the Sunday before–was not a good strategy for having a speedy race.  But I felt good afterwards, I could have kept going, so there may be hope that I can finish the marathon in a little more than a month.

It is getting cooler here.  It has barely hit 60 all week as a high, and it is down in the 40s at night.  Unfortunately, the heat is not on yet in the apartment building so things like showering are a bit like working at summer camp in the mountains of Washington again.  Not to mention, the power in the bathroom was off one night this week so I had to use a flashlight to use the facilities; this was exactly like summer camp.  Anyway, this weekend I will trade out the gloves and hats and sweaters from storage in the suitcase and put my bikinis and sundresses away.  Sad.

Off To Kiel

This weekend, I am off to Kiel to sight-see and run in a half marathon on Sunday morning.  Kiel is the capital city of Schleswig-Holstein, the northern-most state in Germany (the state in which I live), and is a port city on a fjord off the Baltic.  It was heavily bombed in WWII, because it is the prime location for ship-building and submarine operations for Germany.  It’s population is about 240,000, and has a big university.

Sylt in the National News

Activities by Greenpeace off Sylt, specifically the dropping of large rocks to prevent fishing by trawl, have put Sylt in the national news here in Germany.  You can read the English version (brief) here.  Last weekend, Greenpeace had one of their boats in the local harbor in List along with an informational booth on their activities, and the people wandering around the harbor area (mostly tourists?) were quite interested. 

There is no doubt that European fisheries policy is not where it needs to be, and that trawling is indeed destructive, but there are a lot of other problems in the area that are hurting the bottom of the sea as well–for example, the mining of sand to combat natural erosion on the island of Sylt.  That is my marine ecologist input on the topic…for now, at least.

Running hallucination? No…

Today I had just finished an 8 mile run (the wind and rain stopped for a whole three hours today, so I rushed out to get exercise), and was waiting to cross the street at the roundabout near my apartment.  A loud-engined car came by, and as it passed I noted that it was an 80s-style Chevy with red and blue cop lights, and the back said “Highway Patrol.”  It didn’t really strike me at the moment, but as I watched it round the turn, I noticed that it also said “911″ and “To Protect and To Serve” on the side.  Then it suddenly struck me–I’m on a relatively remote pile of sand in Northern Germany!  Why is there a highway patrol car here?!?  I will probably never know…

Sunny Saturday

It is beautiful here today, sunny and clear, low 70s.  Of course, somehow I developed a horrible ear infection yesterday, so I didn’t sleep well and woke up with the right side of my head swollen up (I look like I have half a case of mumps).  Very painful.  Despite that, I did my 18 mile training run for the marathon, very slowly (I’m slow anyway, but anything beyond a gentle shuffle-y run and my ear hurt too much).  Then a nap…so really, other than appreciating a dry and not-too-windy run, I haven’t really gotten to enjoy/relax in the nice weather.  Hopefully tomorrow will be just as beautiful, and I can be lazy and read on the beach.

Brussels Day 3 (24 August 2008)

This morning, I started out with the Musee des Beaux Arts, both ancient and modern.  As in Stuttgart, of course there was major renovation underway which meant that some of the works I wanted to see were actually not on display (really, I wouldn’t mind a little asbestos exposure to see more Ensor and Magritte, but I guess I can understand the workers at the museum preferring to limit their exposure in the long run). 

The highlights of the museum for me were seeing David’s ‘Death of Marat’ in person, seeing a bunch of Ensor and Magritte’s works, and being reminded of how BIG Rubens’ paintings are–they are not my favorites by any means, but they are huge and truly striking in person. 

The museum itself is a beautiful, huge old building.

Besides the Grand Place, the other ‘must-see’ sight in Brussels is the Manneken Pis:

This statue of a little boy peeing is so famous that world leaders are always presenting little outfits to the city, and the naked boy is often dressed up.  The day I visited was Ukraine Day.  Lots of people crowd around the statue taking pictures:

Some other photos from my walks around the city.  First, an old piece of the city wall in the midst of apartment and business buildings:

Street scenes and scenes of downtown:

After a day of walking around, I had an early dinner at Mappa Mundo, which has famously good mojitos and cheap but big sandwiches, and returned to the Hotel, where I treated myself to chocolate mousse for dessert and did some work to get ready for my meeting in Paris with my working group.

 Yum, dessert…

Brussels, Day Two (Saturday 23 August)

I had breakfast for the second day in the ‘Indian Garden’ room at the Hotel Metropole–very European room, but decorated with murals of India and complete with fancy china with tropical birds.  After that, I set out to walk around the Grand Place, THE place to see in Brussels.  It is a square surrounded by architecturally amazing buildings, including the Hotel de Ville (the old town hall).  Full of tourists, rain or shine.  This week, there was an outdoor music festival with sites around the city, including a big stage set up in the Grand Place–slightly tacky, and hiding some of the architecture.

Hotel de Ville

Then it started to rain, so off to the Comic Strip Museum–Belgium was home to both the creator of Tintin and the creator of the Smurfs, and the museum highlights these two comics plus has descriptions of how comics are designed and produced, plus hundreds of plates of old comics.  The museum is well-laid out and the displays are made particularly interesting by creating ‘life-size’ sets of famous comics.  Of course, most of the writing is in French and Dutch, so it was a bit difficult to follow everything.  It was the 50th anniversary of the Smurfs…

I then had lunch at a fantastic, tiny Japanese restaurant (Samourai) where I got to practice a little of my Japanese…much easier than French for me, still. 

In the afternoon, despite the rain, I hiked up the hill again and walked past the EU buildings to the Parc de Cinquantenaire, which has some history museums, a mosque, beautiful gardens, and the famous arches which were created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Belgium.

The gardens in Brussels were absolutely amazing.  The climate is similar to that in the Pacific Northwest, so a lot of the plantings reminded me of the gardens on Bainbridge and around Seattle, Portland, Victoria and Vancouver.

In my hike around the upper town, I also stopped at the church of Notre Dame du Sablon, and the park, Place du Petit Sablon.  (Sablon refers to the sandy marshes that used to populate the hill area).

Along the way home, I took some pictures of the beautiful Cathedral de Sts. Michel et Gubule, which was close to my hotel and my landmark for navigating. 

After my long hike, I had to stop at the hotel for a hot bath and cappuccino…I think I walked about 8 miles in the early part of the day.  Re-energized, I wandered in the opposite direction to explore some of the lower town, starting with the Eglise Ste. Catherine, an old church which is beautiful but hasn’t been cleaned on the exterior for a long time–there are trees growing out of some of the brickwork.

In the area around Ste. Catherine, there are a lot of fish restuarants; the area used to have a canal running through it, but has been paved over and there are fountains in the middle of the plaza instead of running water now.  I saw my favorite restaurant sign thus far in Europe…inappropriate, and inexplicable.

Then, walking around what I thought what was just another stage set up for the outdoor music festival, I stopped to take a picture of a fountain at the end of a long pool.

Then–and I hesitate to write this, knowing Nathan Hall will get ideas–all of a sudden there was the sound of a motor and this appeared:

Two guys were water-skiing (only on a board, but calling it ‘water-boarding’ seems inappropriate) in the fountain pool, with their tow ropes attached to power winches run by gasoline generators.  Completely bizarre.  I followed this sight-seeing with a Belgian beer, Mort Subite Faro, at a great bar called ‘Monk’ in Ste. Catherine Place (across the street from where I took this picture of the restaurant area).

Then I walked south of Ste. Catherine Place and found a great street full of Thai and Vietnamese restaurants, and had another Thai dinner at Restaurant Theva.  Then I wandered back to the hotel, stopping at Place du Martyrs, where there is a statue commemorating those that died in the fight for Belgium’s independence.