Boy, are we lazy

So you really think you needed your car for that trip to the store today?
(ignore the first pic and scroll down for the really good ones)

suckPod

I hate my iPod. I believe I have posted about this before. I still hate it. Even more than when I first got it. Sheep that I am, it didn't occur to me to look at other MP3 players. Everyone's got an iPod; they must be great, right?

The click wheel is stupid. I always end up overshooting my goal when wheeling through menus. It's impossible to use it while driving, since you pretty much have to be looking at it to hit anything but "play" or "menu". And if I want to listen to the same album today that I was listening to yesterday, I have to go all the way through all the menus again and find the same playlist! Can the stupid little drive just remember what I was listening to when I hit pause? Noooo....

Those people won't stop until they make on that's microscopic. Maybe they should focus on making the normal-sized ones usable. I don't see why anyone needs one that's smaller than my Mini.

St. Loser

Oh how I hate the Cardinals. If only I could have stayed in Europe for the entire month and ignored this pathetic mess completely.

The double-curse

We all know that the team with the most ex-Cubs almost always loses the World Series. But in this case, he was asking for it.

Why Christians should care about global warming

"This concern for Creation Care as we call it, comes straight from God and the Holy Spirit who is regenerating people’s hearts to realize the imperative of the scriptures to care for God’s world in new ways. It comes from God Himself. ... The climate change crisis that we believe is occurring is not something we can wait ten years, five years, even a year, to address. Climate change is real and human induced. It calls for action soon. And we are saying action based upon a biblical view of the world as God’s world. And to deplete our resources, to harm our world by environmental degradation, is an offense against God. That’s what the Scriptures say. Therefore, if we are to be obedient to the Scriptures, there is no time to wait, no time to stall, no time to deliberate."

--Rev. Richard Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals

Find out where to see the movie.

Nice post by Nemesis today

Especially worthy of observation is the violent-rage-of-Clinton link.

Sienna and the Tuscan countryside

We enjoyed our guided tour out to two old towns in Tuscany, and the
views of the country-side that we saw from the bus to and from our
destinations. The tour first took us to the town of Sienna, which is
one of the oldest towns in Tuscany, having been an ancient city
settled by the Etruscans, with stone buildings and walls before Rome
was more than a camp. Sienna is built on three hills, and has very
narrow streets running between old brick and stone buildings that are
4 and 5 stories tall, so the streets are in shade for most of the day.
They have an amazing Duomo (cathedral) with many elaborate stone
carvings on the floor, and the usual assortment of statues and
illuminated manuscripts, ornate gilded patterns on the ceiling, etc.

The central piazza of Sienna is very large, and shaped like a big
sea-shell. They have a horse race around the square every summer, in which the 17 different districts of the town each enter
one horse to compete. 40,000 people cram into the middle of the
square and the horses run around the outside. It sounds crazy, and
very hot. It is odd to think of living in a building that is 800
years old, or even 400 years old, like some of the people in Sienna
do.

Our tour then took us to San Gimignano, which is a very well preserved
medieval town. Partly it is so well preserved because it was
abandoned for hundreds of years after the black plague killed most of
the people in the town. It is famous for the tall towers that still
survive, packed in relatively densely.

While both towns were interesting, we felt rushed. I think this is the nature of any guided tour, but it seemed the best way to get out to Sienna. We wished we'd had more time there; as it was, we hardly had any time to explore in either of the towns. But it was certainly relaxing to spend a day not having to make any decisions about what to do and where to go, and talking to some people who were native English speakers for the first time in 10 days!

Back home

Our access to the Internet was pretty limited in Italy, but we're back in the states now, currently in St. Louis. We are heading back to San Fran tonight.

My in-laws asked -- and we keep asking each other -- what our favorite cities or sights were. I still have to say that maybe my favorite aspect of the whole trip was finally getting to use the German that I studied for so many years in high school and college -- but it also made me wish I knew more! In Prague most people we dealt with spoke English, but it was disconcerting going to Italy where even the hotel clerks didn't know much English. That was a challenge.

The main thing I didn't expect about some of the cities we went to was the amazing throngs of tourists and the accompanying trade of tourist crap. Florence in particular is overrun with guys who spread out a sheet on the ground and display knock-off handbags. They use the sheet as a bag to move to a new spot on a regular basis. There are also the stands selling t-shirts, hats, post cards and other junk (like cheap statues of the David and the ubiquitous boxer shorts with the corresponding parts of the David statue printed on them). At times it almost felt like we were in a Disneyland version of these cities instead of the real thing, since everything seemed geared toward tourists. After a couple days I was able to get used to it and notice but see past the crowds and appreciate the grandeur of the sights we were seeing. Still, our experience in Berlin was different. Though we did touristy things there, I also felt like we experienced some of what Berlin is like for Berliners; I don't think we got that in the other cities.

I'll post some more detailed summaries of what we did in Florence and Rome, drawing from Nathan's updates to our families from when we were there.

Florence

This morning we arrived in Florence around 9 a.m. We were on our train from Prague from abou 5 p.m. until almost midnight, when we switched in the Munich train station. That, so far, has been the most surreal of our experiences in Europe. On the train to Munich, I had been stretched out on some empty seats sleeping. Nathan woke me up when we pulled into Munich and we quickly gathered our things and detrained and learned out Florence train was on the other side of the station. As we quickly hauled our bags across the station, we were passed on all sides by streaming masses of young German Frauen und Herren in traditional German dress and lederhosen. Oktoberfest was supposed to have ended the day before; my theory is that the festival stays open an extra day for those who worked it, and the Bier drinking goes on ... I was half asleep through all this and kind of disoriented. I pulled out my little camera to try to capture at least one of these groups of crazy bier drinkers, but it was temporarily not working. So I'll never know if it was all just a dream...

From Munich we were in a car with a set of bunk beds, so we slept (surprisingly well) on our way to Florence. We took a cab from the train station to our hotel and were lucky to find our room ready, we checked in and showered and then set off to explore for the day. I was starving, and luckily we found a place that sold big, delicious slices of pizza for 2.50 Euros. In our wanderings we saw more African guys selling knock-off handbags and sunglasses than just about anything else. Well, except tourists, of course. My guidebook says Florence has about 320,000 residents and 9 million visitors per year. We passed over the 'gold bridge', which houses dozens of jewelry sellers. Shopping appears to be the favorite past time here. The tourist guide brochures even advertise guided, all-day shopping tours. I think maybe you can get some good deals here, if you're so inclined; designer jeans that would probably cost about $150 at Nordstrom are about 50 euros here.

On our way back to the hotel, Nathan commented that the city seemed dead outside of the tourist center. That was around 2 p.m. After resting at the hotel and venturing back out around6, we realized that we had been seeing the long lunch break; at 6 things were happening. So I guess the ideal schedule is : mornings at a musuem, than lunch, then a nap from 2-4, then shopping, then dinner!

Florence is very walkable, and our hotel is outside the city center, which I think is beneficial in that it shows us a more authentic Florence neighborhood as we walk back from meals, sightseeing and such. It is absolutely a lovely city.

Tonight we ate at a terrific restaurant that was recommended in the guidebook. I tried tripe, which is supposed to be a Florentine specialty. It was ok. I think Nathan's veal was better.

Tomorrow we hope to get up early and go to one of the famous museums before the que gets too long.

Prague

Sunday morning we left
our hotel in Berlin after eating a quick breakfast so we could get to the
Hauptbanhof (train station) for our 7:42 train. It arrived on time, of
course, and we took our seats and settled in for the four-and-a-half
hour trip. We napped some at the beginning, read our books, and looked
at the scenery. The part of Germany that we went through was quite
flat, and Berlin quickly gave way to farmland. No sprawl like in the
U.S. After the Czech Repub. border it started getting quite
mountainous. We even saw terrain that reminded us of Yosemite, as the
train tracks followed a river with sheer rock cliffs jutting up from
the banks.

Our train happened to arrived in the smaller of the Prague train
stations. We decided to take a cab to our hotel, since we didn't have
any idea how to do public transit here (we only took one cab in
Berlin, to the hotel this morning, because the buses weren't running
frequently enough that early on Sunday--only about $15 for the cab
ride). We were quickly spied by a cab driver who offered to take us to
our hotel for 500 Crowns -- about $30! I didn't realize the exchange
rate and that we should have bargained with the cabbie. Oh well. Now
we know.

Lunch was at a restaurant near our hotel. It was an Italian place, but
we had some Czech sausages in addition to our salads. The salads were
not quite like anything we knew -- I had tuna and Nathan had fried
calamari. His came in the shape of onion rings on a bed of cucumber,
super-thin-sliced onions, eggs, tomatoes, etc (mine was on the same
bed). It was good, but the beer and sausages were great.

After that we checked into our hotel room. Then we
took a bus down to the main part of the city and walked to the castle,
which is by far the most popular and most celebrated attraction in the
city. It's really a little city unto itself on a hill above Prague.
And it is filled with souvenir shops and restaurants just waiting to
ensnare tourists (most of whom speak English or German). Prague
reminds me of the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco, with it's
throngs of tourists, souvenir shops and signs blaring -- mostly in
English -- things like "best ice cream in Prague" or "oldest pub in
Prague." In spite of all that, the castle is amazing. Construction
started in it in the 1300's. It took a couple centuries for it to be
mostly finished, I think. We visited St. Vitus (sp?) Cathedral within
the castle. It was crammed with people tilting their heads to take
pictures of the enormous stained glass windows, the towering ceiling
and the colorful light reflected through the glass onto the stone
walls. Nathan said it reminded him of Notre Dame, and I think I heard
someone else there saying the same thing. After that we wandered
through some of the rest of the castle and down through the gardens in
front. Then we walked down the main touristy drag and did a bit of
souvenir shopping. (Prague is known for its crystal and blown glass
items.)

Monday morning we had breakfast in our hotel -- included again, and
pretty similar to our breakfasts in Berlin, but we missed having
orange juice. After that we checked out of our hotel and took the bus
to the main part of Prague. It was a bit of an adventure. First we
couldn't get on the 133, the bus we took last night that took us right
where we wanted to be, because it was too full! So we waited a few
minutes and took the 207, which stopped a little short of where we
wanted to be, so we had to walk an extra half mile or so. The bus was a bit slow because of traffic jams -- a thing unknown in Berlin. The subway
and trams in Prague don't seem to cover a great area. The buses seem
to go just about everywhere, but I don't think we had a great transit
map. The streets are so windy in Prague that I had a very hard time
getting my bearings, and the language is so unfamiliar that it was
hard to remember the names of the streets we were on.

We spent the whole day wandering around the main part of Prague,
stopping here and there to sit and watch the people go by. Prague is
an amazing city, and a bit overwhelming. Walking the cobblestone
streets and alleys between the centuries-old buildings is a unique
experience. This is a day we won't forget; hopefully we'll be able to
come back here some day.

One last thought: Before we came to Prague, we heard lots of talk about how cheap
it is. From what we can tell, that's a bunch of hooey.

German food

Germans make the worlds finest cars. They make the worlds most comfortable shoes. Where they do not excel is in the making of food.

Berliners should be on their knees thanking their Turkish neighbors every day for bringing them flavorful, scrumptious Doner and Kabap. In recent decades thousands of Turks have immigrated to Germany and many have settled in the bustling Kreuzberg neighborhood where we’re staying. You don’t have to walk more than a block from anywhere to find a stand or restaurant selling gyros and kababs. Some are better than others, of course, but they are all good.

I think Berliners must eat at the Turkish joints a lot, as well as at the many Italian places and other ethnic restaurants we saw. Because if they ate anything like the schnitzel I ate last night on a daily basis, we would see a lot more fat people in Berlin (we’ve hardly seen any) – or maybe just fewer people, because they’d all be dying of heart attacks. Schnitzel is breaded pork with cream sauce, and it often comes with French fries (which they call here by their French name, pommes frites). It is quite bland. And no one seems to be interested in serving fresh veggies or anything healthy with it.

That said, the Germans make wonderful breads and pastries. There are backeries on every block, selling rolls, loaves, danishes and big pretzels that are almost crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. There are soft, delicious rolls at our big breakfast every morning, and we can slather them with fruit compotes or make them into little sandwiches with deli turkey and swiss cheese slices.

We can sustain ourselves easily on the big breakfast buffet that’s included in the price of our room, the cheap, yummy and large Turkish gyros and the bakeries – including Dunkin Donuts.

Thoughts on German fashion

This city is mullet-crazy. We see mullets. Lots of mullets. Everywhere. On dudes, on chicks. The other morning we saw a small group of school kids on a field trip and at least two of them had mullets. And at least one of them was on a girl. Yikes!

I’ve noticed a lot of Pumas on German feet. Berliners also seem to like American baseball fashion: I’ve seen Yankees hats, a White Sox jacket and at the market in the Hermmanplatz across from our hotel, tie-dyed Dodgers tees for sale.

Women seem to like wacky boots; lots of embellishments, details, etc. Red boots over white pants seem trendy. I haven’t seen all that many folks wearing Birkenstocks. But, since I love Birkenstocks, I had to check out the Birkenstock store in the central district yesterday. They’re half as much here (since they’re made here!) as they are in the US. So I bought an awesome pair of purple thongs. Super-awesome.

The leggings rage seems to have caught on quick here. I’ve also seen miniskirts over cargo pants. Miniskirts just with regular stockings turn heads.

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed is brightly-colored shoes that match the top. Like bright pink or lime green. Very interesting.

Last day in Berlin

On our last day in Berlin we decided to take a trip outside the city to Potsdamm, where King Frederick the Great built his Schloss Sanssouci, or “palace without worries.” It’s about 40 minutes outside the city, but, as with the city itself, easily accessible via public transit. We spent a little more than two hours there and barely covered half the grounds. And we didn’t even go inside the castle, as this requires the purchase of an 8 Euro tour, which was sold out until three hours after we got there. So we walked around and explored the immense tiered gardens, strolled numerous hidden paths with wondrous statues of people and creatures and structures in the Rococo style -- even a huge obelisk. We toured the grounds of the Fierenkirche (Church of Peace) where King Frederick is buried. And we had a picnic lunch by a pond on a bench in the shade while we watched the tourists and day-trippers stroll by.

Yesterday afternoon we visited the Technikmuseum, a huge museum built on the grounds of an old train station. (As with many modern Berlin buildings, the architecture was impressive.) It houses boats, trains and planes of all eras. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of the exhibit information was translated into English.

Tomorrow morning we will check out of our hotel early and catch a 7:45 train to Prague. Aufwedersehen, Berlin!

More in Berlin

Here's Nathan's email to our family about our day.

Oh, and I'm happy to report that Dunkin Donuts in Berlin is as good as in Chicago!


This morning Kathy and I had another yummy breakfast at our hotel,
> then bought our U-bahn passes for the day. We were up early and the
> museums don't open until 10, so we took a walk and bought some cold
> remedy for Kathy at a drugstore and picked up some diet coke
> (Coca-Cola light here) and beer to drink later at a little grocery
> store. Then we dropped that stuff off at our hotel and took the U8
> line up to the Alexanderplatz U-bahnhof (subway station). We walked
> from there through the park that surrounds the Fernsehsturm, a very
> tall and bizarre-looking TV tower, and continued on to "museum
> island". We went to the Pergamon Museum, where they have giant
> reconstructions of a temple that was originally in the Greek city of
> Pergamon, and also of one of the outer gates of Babylon, the Ishtar
> gate, that was built during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. We
> listened to the very informative audio tour in English, then wandered
> around to some other parts of the museum, including the wing holding
> Helenistic artifacts: statues, columns from temples, etc.
>
> We then walked back to the Alexanderplatz U-bahn station, stopping
> en-route long enough for Kathy to take some pictures of a giant
> fountain containing statuary of Neptune or Poseidon and assorted
> minions, and to get a drink and donut from Dunkin Donuts. Then we
> came back to the vicinity of our hotel, picked up a cheap lunch from a
> doner/pizza place across the street from our hotel (lots of yummy food
> for $4 euros!) and ate it and rested in the room a bit.
>

In Berlin

We got to our hotel around noon yesterday. The window in our room overlooks a plaza that is surrounded by shops and some little take-out and fast-food restaurants. I was amazed
that there was a Dunkin Donuts down the block on the corner -- they
don't have any Dunkin Donuts in the Bay Area, but they do in Berlin. We still haven't tried it, so we'll see if it's as good as back in Chicago. We ate a quick lunch at a little doner stand (think Turkish gyros) down the street. It drizzled on and off all day.

After lunch yesterday we went to Checkpoint Charlie, which has an interesting
little history exhibit about the Wall, Cold War, etc, but is overrun
with people selling silly souvenirs and other touristy garbage. After
a short time there, Nathan got extremely tired, so we sat for a bit
and then took the U-Bahn (subway) back to our hotel. It's really easy
to take the U everywhere; we can see the station entrance from our
room and we've never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a train. And
it goes everywhere we've wanted to go so far, and probably everywhere
we'd want to go.

We got back to our hotel around 5 and immediately went to bed. We
slept almost 12 hours, and hung out in our hotel room until breakfast
time. Breakfast is included with the room and is a buffet, with eggs
one of three ways, lots of tasty bread, cheeses, lunch meats, fruits,
veggies, yogurt, and juice. There were also some...meat loafs? They
were these slices of something that reminded me of these soaps I've
bought called Primal Soaps. The slices are made of something clear
(fat?) and have bits of meat and maybe peppers and maybe olives
suspended in them. I tasted one. Very strange.

We were out of our hotel by 9 a.m. armed with a guidebook and our day
pass for the U-Bahn, purchased at the front desk. We got to the Mitte
(middle) section of Berlin, but only after being delayed by one stop
because of our car being crammed full of kids on some kind of field
trip; we couldn't get to the doors in time! But the next stop was
close enough to our destination, so we got off and walked a bit south
to Unter den Linden (Under the Linden Trees), a main promenade through
central Berlin. This took us to the Brandenburg Gate, which, if you
did a Google Images search, you would recognize from the fall of the
Wall, when the East Germans stood on top of the wall as it was coming
down in front of Brandenburg Gate. It's huge and has an amazing statue
on top.

Then we walked a little further to the Reichstag, which is more than
100 years old and is now one of the main parliament buildings. We took
an elevator to the top (after waiting "only" an hour) to view the city
from the glass cupola, which has at its center a structure that Nathan
thought looked like a device a villain in a Bond movie would use. I
thought it looked like a cousin of the Bean in Millenium Park. After
that we took a boat tour on the Spree River, which is the main river
running through the city. The tour covered the Reichstag, several
other government buildings, the spot where Berlin originated as a
fishing village in the 1300s, the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral,
modeled after St. Peter's in Rome) and Museum Island. This includes
the major museums in Berlin, including the famous Pergamon, which we
plan to hit tomorrow. It's supposed to be amazing!

After the boat tour we walked around for a while looking for a lunch
place. We finally found an authentic-seeming German place where Nathan
ate Currywurst (a sausage with curry sauce on it, also commonly found
on the street for a Euro) and I had some goulash, which the waitress
warmed me was "really hot." I figured the German definition of "really
hot" was different than mine, and I was right. I enjoyed it. The restaurant had the
tables mashed together, so we sat by the open front window and some
businessmen on lunch sat next to us and offered to help us translate
the menu. Most people know English, it seems; we encountered another
friendly volunteer translator on the subway this morning.

It's about 4:30 p.m. and we're at our hotel relaxing for a bit. We
plan to go back out again in a bit and maybe check out Potsdammer
Platz, another big site in the main part of the city.

Here are a few pics!

Gross, yet cool

This is my upper right wisdom tooth, extracted today after it started to chip. Look at how the chipping has started to reveal the black decay of the cavity! Grody. Yet awesome.

Banned book week

Someone sent this to my mothers' club mailing list (um, "A Light in the Attic"?!? What is wrong with people...):

every year, the last week of september is the american library association's banned book week. 2006 marks the 25th anniversary of this event.

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

please consider reading a 'banned book' in the coming week (or anytime for that matter!) or read one with your child. at the very least, please just look at the list(s) of books that have been banned or challenged in some capacity. i think you will be suprised (judy blume books? where's waldo? to kill a mockingbird? where did i come from?)

i checked out the RWC public library site, and as far as i can tell, they're not doing anything to promote this.

if you''d like to read more, here are some helpful links:

ALA banned books main page
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.htm

ALA explanation of banned/challeneged books
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/challengedbanned/challengedbanned.htm

ALA 100 most challenged books 1990-2000
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=85714

even more complete list of banned books on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_books

some great quotes on censorship
http://quotes.forbiddenlibrary.com/

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
-- John F. Kennedy

"Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance."
-- Lyndon Baines Johnson, February 11, 1964

"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1730

The real question is, what do they sound like?

My star's turned TURQUOISE!!!!

I just got this email from Ebay:

Congratulations! You've achieved a feedback rating of 100! With a Turquoise Star beside your user name, you are an active and well-established member of the eBay community.

We want to thank you for helping make eBay, The World's Online Marketplace™, a safe and vibrant place to trade. Your success is our success. We're cheering you on every day.

We hope you'll download your Turquoise Star Certificate and display it proudly. You've certainly earned it! (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don't have it, get it here.)

Again, congratulations on your success, and keep shooting for the stars!


Meg Whitman
President and CEO, eBay Inc.

Um, are you KIDDING me?!? An achievement certificate?!?!?!? Since when did Ebay's marketing become the purview of second graders? What acolossall waste. What were they thinking?!?

Wait 'til Next Year

A documentary on the Cubs' futility premiers on my birthday.