David's Blog

A nice way to end my trip was at this little music concert which was part of a big annual music festival called the Grachten Festival (canals festival). There are about 10 concerts/events everyday for a week in August. It's one festival, but there are many different types of music and many different venues. They make use of various well-known sites around the city. For example, this concert was at the Anne Frank House. This particular group, Jetje en haar dansorkest, plays dance music that was popular around World War II. The music itself could have been American, but the words were in Dutch, except for this one song that I took a video clip of. It was half and half.It was a female singer and 4 male musicians. They were having a good time and their enthusiasm was contagious. One song (which I wish I had recorded) sounded totally Hawaiian (even with Dutch lyrics). They all wore leis and one guy played a little Hawaiian guitar.

While this post now appears first on the homepage, it is chronologically the last post of my Summer 2006 travels. I will now start blogging about my November 2006 travels through central europe. It will have a more touristy perspective due to much shorter visits. I appreciate the positive feedback I've received for this blog so far, and I'll try to keep it up.

Labels: amsterdam, music, netherlands

Posted by David at 4:31 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

On the west side of Amsterdam is a train station with a kind of funny name, Sloterdijk. Sounds like "slaughter dike". I share it not because of its name but rather because it had a fairly futuristic feeling to it...both the station, and it's surrounds. The architecture of the train station involves a lot of clear glass and curvature which I usually attribute to the future, probably because it reminds me of the Jetsons. Unfortunately I took better pictures of the view FROM the station rather than OF the station. You really have to be inside it and walk around to appreciate it. (totally off topic: Am I watching TV at the wrong time, or are Jetsons reruns not happening anymore? I haven't seen it in ages, but thanks to YouTube, I can watch that catchy intro and theme song anytime: "Meet George Jetson, his boy Elroy".)

Labels: amsterdam, netherlands

Posted by David at 3:18 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Do you ever read cyclingnews and say, "Hey, there's a protour race nearby tomorrow. I think I'll go check it out."? Unfortunately you can't say that in the US, not yet anyway. But if you're in Europe, you'd probably say that all the time. The Benelux tour is the ProTour's creation, because the individual tours of Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxemburg, aren't cool enough on their own...at least not as cool as the Tour of Poland says the UCI. This year's Benelux tour didn't even go to Luxemburg, so it's more the Bene tour. This year it started in Den Helder, an hour north of Amsterdam.
My favorite road cycling event to spectate is a prologue. You get to see everyone one at a time over several hours. You can watch the big names warm up, see all the team cars, walk around to different points along the course. Which sure beats 200 guys flying by in less than 5 seconds.
Being a ProTour event, all the big teams and the big names were there. Star attraction of course is Tom Boonen. Racers are passing by the staging area. Are the people watching them race? Some are, but a lot more (including me) are next to the Quick Step bus watching Boonen warm up. If more people are watching you warm up than are watching someone else race, you just might be a Tom Boonen. Even my video clip of him warming up has been viewed over 2500 times on YouTube. It's my most viewed clip of this blog:

The one drawback to watching a race in person, is that you don't see the finish or know who won, unless of course you're at the finish line or quick enough to get to the podium ceremony. I guess a radio or portable TV would also help. In any event, it would be nice if they could post some unofficial results somewhere. As I found out later, George Hincapie was 2nd by half a second. George came back to take the lead of the race by one second, but on the last day, he was crashed out by Stefan Schumacher whose 2 second bonus gave him the win by 1 second. Yes, the same Schumacher who won the prologue by half a second. Maybe next year they can find some hills in the Benelux region so the time gaps aren't so close. Here are some nice pictures from the prologue:

Big crowd watching Boonen warm up.	Rabobank rider about to start.	T-mobile getting low in a straightaway.
View from a hill as Astana rider goes by.	Getting close to the action.	Spectators on a hill cheering on a Lampre rider.
CSC warms up.	Swede Magnus Backstedt, looking intimidating as always.	World champion Tom Boonen warming up.
Backstedt takes a turn.	Boonen without a rainbow jersey in the time trial.	George Hincapie (USA) loses this TT by half a second.

View of the North Sea from Den Helder

Labels: cycling, netherlands

Posted by David at 2:05 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Despite its small popluation, Sweden is relatively large geographically. Stockholm had enough to offer, that I didn't venture to other big cities farther away. However Uppsala is a nearby city of notable size where I spent an afternoon with my Swedish friends. Its history is interesting enough that I'll recommend a glance at the wiki. Aside from its really big church, the buildings are not too tall. A lot of water, hills, and greenery in the city makes for a peaceful atmosphere. For example...this garden with bushes trimmed in the shape of pyramids:

Uppsala is well known for its centuries old university and lays claim to several noteworthy scientists, some of whom I didn't even know were Swedish: Carolus Linnaeus, Anders Celsius, Anders Ångström, Svante Arrhenius, and a non-scientist although probably more famous, Ingmar Bergman. It's not often that I can tie in engineering with travel, so I'll point out that Celsius and Ångström appear more often in my Master's thesis than all other units of measure combined.

My visit to Uppsala would not be complete without something bike related. So here it is, a nice pile of mangled bikes. Is this a bicycle graveyard or is there just a shortage of rackspace? My favorite bike is the one on top, kind of hovering sideways without a seat or handlebars.

Labels: sweden

Posted by David at 12:07 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

This here is the Stockholm city hall. With over 100 city council members (partisan elections), they've got a pretty big size government for a population of just over 1 million. Compare that to LA with 15 council members for a city of over 3.5 million. Aside from the day to day government activities, this building is famous for the nobel prize banquet. The prizes are awarded at the nearby concert hall, but afterwards they have a fancy party with the King of Sweden and other distinguished guests in the room pictured right:
The city hall was built by a famous architect and took many years to complete. On the inside, the rooms and the layout are nice. Looking to the outside, the views are very nice especially since it's right on the water. (pictured below). Definitely worth taking a tour. There are tours five times a day with options for 5 different languages. Do you think the LA city hall offers guided tours in chinese serveral times a day?

Labels: stockholm, sweden

Posted by David at 11:40 AM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

As a Volvo fan I was pretty excited to see all the Volvos in Sweden. Volvo limousines (sorry, didn't get a picture of one), tons of volvo taxis, and a generally huge marketshare, which you might not expect given that they're a) not so cheap and b) owned by Ford.
Sure, the native brands are popular...Skoda in Czech Republic, VW in Germany, but for one brand to be so dominant is not so common. (sorry Saab, didn't see too many of you)

Stationwagons were the hands down favorites. Maybe 2 or 3 for every 1 volvo sedan. In fact, this picture of 3 volvo stationwagons in a row in a parking lot is one of the most common sites in Stockholm. Interestingly though, not too many 240s. I would have liked to see more 240s representing. I guess Stockholm is too hip for that retro 80s look. But somewhere out there, maybe really far in the north, there's a city where Sony walkmans outnumber ipods, and that's where all the old 240s are alive and well.

Labels: stockholm, sweden

Posted by David at 12:20 AM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I don't know what the swedish word for "down" is, but I can tell you that these 3 escalators from right to left are going: up, up, and not up.
Since I took this picture in August I had planned to poke fun at the odd choice of "not up" instead of down. After all, direction is one of the few things that are always in absolute terms. Left is not "not right". North is not "not south". Down therefore should not be "not up".
But just now, 4 months later, it struck me...this sign is perfectly accurate. An escalator can be labeled as "down" only if it will take you to a lower level. If you are approaching an escalator coming down from a higher level, then unless you like treadmills, you are in fact not going up. Logic like that can really come in handy. Note to self: The door that says "do not enter" is not an exit.

I can admit when I'm wrong, so let's start keeping score.
Head of signage at the Stockholm public transportation agency: 1
David: 0

Labels: escalators, signs, stockholm, sweden

Posted by David at 11:28 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

A lot of people seem to get Switzerland and Sweden mixed up. It's nice to see the Swedes can poke fun with that. Here's an advertisment for the newspaper DN, Dagens Nyheter (Daily News) and its international coverage. This woman is pointing to a map where Switzerland is labeled as Sweden. The question posed is: "Do you see the world as the world sees you?". Very clever.

Labels: ads, stockholm, sweden

Posted by David at 5:45 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

No comment.

Labels: stockholm, sweden

Posted by David at 5:23 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Stockholm has a very clean, elegant, stately feel to it with not even a hint of snobby. The kind of thing you'd expect in Scandinavia. Nobody's showing off, nobody's excluded. It's high quality living for the masses. Maybe it was just the really nice weather and clear sky, but I ended up with a lot of nice pictures whether it's a view down a street or a row of buildings. Here are some nice images of Stockholm:

Labels: stockholm, sweden

Posted by David at 12:39 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Los Angeles: Barely an underground metro system. Amsterdam: Not much of an underground system. Paris: A very extensive albeit shallow underground system. My point being that it was not until I went to Stockholm that I had the privelege of seeing a very long escalator (center picture). I thought the Swedes were pretty odd to dig so far down and figured only such a high tax country could afford the maintenance such escalators surely require. I wasn't so much impressed that these long escalators existed, but rather that they functioned reliably. I later discovered that Prague and Budapest have equally long escalators if not longer (Prague yellow line). Prague escalators were moving kind of slow (yellow line excluded) but they all provided a good opportunity for text messaging...on the way down to let your friend know you're hopping on the metro...on the way up, to announce you've arrived.

Very often there are 3 escalators together, perhaps to allow 1 to break down. But since they usually all work, it's 2 down, 1 up or vice versa. One remarkably annoying yet common configuration is when the 2 outer tracks are going one way and the middle track is going the opposite. It just results in very bad traffic flow, because people on the middle track will have to go left or right and in both cases they will cross in front of people walking straight into them.

Labels: escalators, prague, stockholm

Posted by David at 5:45 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I'm no expert on food, (except of course its consumption), but the presentational qualities (or lack thereof) at various restaurants in Stockholm did not go unnoticed. The first of these plates is perhaps the most atypical. I'll be the first to give a square plate a second chance, but to quote Alan Hale from an Andy Griffith episode "that's not even enough food to get skinny off of". After that meal, the only thing as empty as my stomach was my wallet. I don't know whether to applaud the sculpted mash potatoes or to accuse someone of dragging a spoon through it. FYI: The restaurant's name was "J". Shouldn't be too difficult to avoid.
The next three plates get no complaints. Looked good, tasted good, and served on circular plates. Not cheap, but nothing in Stockholm is. The last plate though, warrants explanation. My first impression was that this is a thin fila or tortilla-like dough with something wrapped inside. But on closer inspection I discovered it is a bag, and the trout filet I ordered was inside. A less skeptical person than I might have tried eating the bag. Why would you put it on a plate if it's not edible!?! Total lack of presentation.

Labels: food, restaurant, stockholm, sweden

Posted by David at 4:00 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

There seemed to be enough obstacles between the road and the river. such as benches, plants, poles, etc. But there isn't any solid railing, so the Swedish government would really like you to buy a car such as this one whose center of gravity is so far back that it can extend this much over without falling in.

Labels: signs, stockholm, sweden

Posted by David at 8:53 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Nice view of Stockholm on a warm sunny summer day. Picture taken from a bridge where one side is the top of a building and the other side is ground level on a hill. I apologize for posting what is now about 4 months old seeing as how all these buildings in Stockholm are probably covered in ice right now. I went back to Europe before finishing blogging about Eurotrip 1. So in the next couple weeks I'll be catching up.

Labels: stockholm, sweden

Posted by David at 8:26 PM | Share this post on:   facebook   del.icio.us   digg   StumbleUpon     | Permalink | Comments | links to this post