Capstone at STUBA

Skiing Round 2

2009-12-18T13:03:00.000-08:00

Prof. Magdolen offered to take us with him skiing again. Which meant another ski trip but on the cheap as I only had to pay for my equipment and lift ticket. So Steve and I rented skis and got up at 8 this morning for our ride to Austria. It was a beautiful day the sun was out and it was clear skies and not even that windy. My only complaint is it was -15C out or about 5F which is cold!

Anyway here are some of the pictures from our trip.

Skoda gets us there again!

The map of the mountain. Look there is more than 2 runs open YAY!

I love the trees!

Nothing quite like a beer to warm you up mid day! Also Rattlers are great.

Trying real hard to not show that we're freezing

Again I just love these trees. It was like this as far as you could see up at the top.

Me carving up the snow! And I'm glad this pictures was taken when it was because 10 seconds later I ate snow big time!

Serious Skiers.

Yeah not really.

WOW!

I was freezing at this moment because if you don't want to have to walk up this hill you have to take the run before the hill at speed. It was fun but I couldn't feel my face for a few minutes.

It was really hard to have to leave this at the end of the day. Especially I hit like a perfect rhythm on the last run. I don't remember the last time I skied that well. It was a great run to end on!

One last view from the top.

Like I said at the end I don't think I've skied that well in a very long time. And it was a great way to end the day. We were all exhausted by the time we got back to the car I was so glad not to be driving. I think I passed out only a few minutes after we left. It was a wonderful day of skiing and what we could see was Amazing. I'm so glad i went again.

Sport Shooting Club

2009-12-16T13:13:00.001-08:00

Near the beginning of the semester one of our Slovak Friends from class asked if we'd be interested in joining the shooting club at the school And it turns out there is a shooting range (for compressed air pistols) at the top of our faculty building. We were interested and the professor was willing and he let us join. Anyway. It's a different style of shooing than I'm used to it is competition sport shooting and due to our traveling I managed to miss all but the first competition. However it was a lot of fun and I think I learned a number of tips and tricks to improve my shooting ability. Today was supposed to be our last day however I guess we can go next week as well. However today I wasn't shooting paricularly well as my shots were not nice and clustered but I did get one of my rifle targets put up on the wall of fame board and I shot two dead on bullseyes today.

Anyway here are some pictures of the set up and my two pistol targets today. Those two shots made up for (me) all of my terrible shooting today.

The 5th floor range.

The pistol!

The correct form for holding and firing the gun. A lot different and more difficult than two handed shooting.

Check it out right through the center of the center of the bullseye.

The second target that I might be unnecessarily and overly proud of!

The lead pellet is just big enough to fit through the center inner of of the bullseye . The 10point has two circles the inner most is used at high level competition because at that level every one is always hitting tens and there needs to be a way to determine who hit the "higher" ten. Anyway I realize I'm overly proud of this and if you look at the rest of my target it's um a bit.... yeah. It's still really cool!

Stuhleck Ski Trip

2009-12-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

On a whim last weekend Kevin and I rented a car and went skiing in Austria. A couple days before Stuhleck (www.stuhlech.at) opened our Professor told us that it was opening and that it was really close and not that expensive. So we found a place that rented us equipment for 7euro per person per day and we went. We actually got started to late on Saturday so we went on Sunday and Monday instead. It was actually cheaper to drive back to Bratislava Sunday night by at least 20 Euro so we did and got up early again to go on Monday. It was a blast even though only two runs were open.

It was Kevin's First time skiing and I ended up being his teacher. I think I did an alright job and he picked up on it pretty quickly especially since he was kind of forced down a blue square with really no previous skiing knowledge.

After going down a few runs we grabbed lunch and a beer and met up with Professor Magdolen and his son. And Prof. Magdolen also gave Kevin some pointers. We skied until the mountain closed and had a great time.

Kevin after he gained a bit more confidence on the skis.

Just testing the snow! There as dip that I didn't see and then all hell broke loose and my skis came off and I toppled over (right at the base of the lift).

See I'm not half bad.

A beer for warmth. MMM Rattlers are tasty!

Okay so this is Kevin and Prof Magdolen's son on one of the coolest lifts I have ever seen. It is a six seater with a wind cover that you can pull over. It's a normal chair lift but you can shelter your self while riding up with the awesome cover!

Prof. Magdolen and I on the same lift. Do I get an A for Skiing?

This picture is just awesome because it just looks so off.

So I wore 3 extra layers on bottom, thermal long jons, jeans and then outer pants. And I was relatively comfortable despite it being -15C (5F). But I thought it was great when I took my outer layer off the cuffs of my pants were frozen. I was also wearing 5 upper layers Thermal shirt, t shirt, sweater, shamie shirt and my big leather jacket. Now if they just insulated the ski boots....

I miss Tucson, but you really don't get this there!

The end of day 2 of great skiing!

I had a blast it's been a little while since I've been able to go Skiing and it was so nice to go again. In fact I might be going again on Friday and even better Prof Magdolen is going for sure and willing to drive us so I only have to worry about equipment rental and lift ticket WOO!

Poland and Krakow

2009-12-16T08:16:00.000-08:00

A couple of weekends ago a friend of ours, Joanna, offered to show us around Krakow with her boyfriend, and we took her up on the offer. We rented a car from our favorite car rental guy again and got on the road. We wanted to set out early however there was a little miscommunication between us and him and we got on the road much later than intended. It kind of sucked because I could have gotten another good 1.5 hours of sleep, but we were all in that situation so I guess oh well.

One we actually go on the road we stopped in a little Slovakian town for some breakfast and got a parking ticket from two female officers who were anything but nice. Thankfully it was only 30 euro but still sucked big time.

There was a nice castle that our friend Andrea tried to show us when we went to her cabin however it was to late that day. We tried to go see the castle again however it is closed for the winter. We were a bit frustrated and thus laid seige with our little Skoda Fabia.

Actually we really just didn't know you weren't allowed to drive you car up. Thankfully the guy who came out was a good sport about it. He just politely informed us we're not allowed to have our car here. But let us take a few pictures and be on our way with out throwing a fit. Could you imagine trying something like that in the States?

A little later in the day we came up to another town with a really awesome castle. The tour was only in Slovak but the guy spoke a little polish so Joanna was kind enough to translate for us but the Castle needed little verbal explanation to increase the shear impressiveness of the castle. Also every little town with a hill has some sort of castle here in the eastern bloc but some are way more worth visiting than others and this one is one of those. It is a very vertical castle and parts of it just seem to grow up and out of the rock that it sits on.

after the castle we didn't stop for much else on the way to Poland. Shortly after we crossed the border Steve just barely got out of getting a speeding ticket and I took over driving to Krakow. The only reason the officer let him off too is because we didn't have enough money to pay in the Polish currency and because we're not Polish the fine had to be paid there on the spot. This said there were no speed markers and we were moving with traffic, but apparently you're just supposed to know the speed limit magically from these little town signs. So I basically drove at the pace slower than sea urchin for a good portion of the rest of the way due to shear fear of getting a ticket.

Once we got there we checked into the hostel (The Good By Lenin Hostel) and Steve and I found a place to park the car and walked back. We met up with Joanna's boyfriend Adam and went out for Pirogies.

Afterwards we had a couple of drinks and went to bed.

Steve woke up pretty early the next day and Kevin and I got ready shortly there after and we all went to the Christmas Markets with the intention of meeting up with Joanna and Adam but apparently we just barely missed each other and none of our phones were working. Kevin, Steve and I spent the better part of the day at the market getting gifts for people. They had a lot of really amazing wood work things. And just some really interesting stuff in general.

One of the market stalls where I bought a beautiful chess set

One of the many big churches in the Krakow near the market

Pigeons and man they were fearless. If the girls tried to get rid of some more would fly in to take the old ones place.

After spending almost until dark at the market we went back to the Hostel to drop off our loot. We met up with Joanna and Adam there and we agreed to meet for dinner after we went and saw the Castle. Unfortunately the Castle buildings were closed (apparently since 14:00). So we couldn't go in and see anything.

But we walked around the complex and then met up with Joanna and Adam for dinner. It was a nice dinner. After the dinner every one else went for a Polish pickle and vodka party. I don't much care for Vodka and I wanted to get up early the next day to go see the Jewish district and the market there. So I stayed at the hostel and went to bed.

It was only a 10 minute walk to get down to the Jewish district of Krakow. I looked for latkas at the suggestion of Laura but was unsuccessful. There were a number of Synagogue in a very small area which were interesting. I wandered around the area and took a number of pictures on Steve's camera. We found a couple of geo caches in the area and also saw the market.

The high Synagogue

At the end of the Street is the Old Synagogue

Fence around the Old Synagogue

Fence close up

Part of the Old Synagogue.

After while Steve and I wandered into the market. It was pretty big and had all sorts of goods.

Mostly clothing. We had a good time but it was short as we had to leave by a certain time.

That afternoon we did a tour of Auschwitz. It was a deeply personal experience and I do now wish to write about it here more than I was there.

Later that night we went out for a beer and retired pretty early as we had to leave the next day for Bratislava. We did get a few more pictures of the central square.

I really like how this one turned out.

The next day we got up relatively early to go back to Bratislava. I slept or watched movies for the better part of the car trip, while being in and out of sleep. I was really exhausted. I know the guys did a fair bit of geo caching on the way back. All in all it was a wonderful trip, Krakow is really a beautiful city and possibly one of my favorite places we've been

Hungary - Budapest

2009-12-16T05:25:00.000-08:00

A week or two after Zurich we had an itch to travel again so Steve, Kevin and I rented another car from our favorite rental place and took the first road we could find to Hungary. We stopped right on the border the first night and actually stayed in guest zimmer in Slovakia but spent the evening walking around Hungary, trying to find our way in to the Natural Spa there. Unfortunately it was closed so we grabbed dinner and went back to our zimmer. Our dinner was great I had Hungarian Goulash and this giant bowl of Garlic Soup, both were delicious but unfortunately I wasn't feeling well that evening and was not really able to enjoy them.

The next day we hopped the Danube and stated off in Hungary in the town of Esztergom. The first thing you notice while driving into the town is A giant basilica.

Steve has a picture which gives a good size comparison where he is standing between two of the pillars and the incredible size of this because apparent. The inside was beautifully decorated as well.

This place was amazingly acoustic as well. I think it would have been awesome to hear the organ play.

Later that day we found a couple of geo caches and this tobaggon ride. It was kind of cool you could ride a toboggan down a railed track. Steve has some good pictures of this and I will add them when I get his pictures. After freezing from going down as fast as we could we got back into the car and continued on to the next town. This one had these really cool castle ruins. What was left was built into and on the top of the hill /mountain and just had this very imposing look about it.

That night we got into Budapest, we didn't have any hostel reservations but we tried the first one in the Lonely Planet guide and it turned out to be awesome. I haven't stayed in too many hostels but this one was definitely one of the neatest I've stayed at. We got in kind of late due to traffic but the had plenty of room available and we probably spent an hour and a half talking to the girl at the front desk getting suggestions for places to go for a nice drink that night. We ended up going out to one of the places she mentioned and met this Hungarian guy who had just gotten off from school and was celebrating his English proficiency exam with a beer. After we talked with him for a little bit he took us out to all of his favorite places. We had quite a bit to drink that night and I feel bad because we definitely out drank the Hungarian and he was a little sick in the last place we were at. At the close of the night he showed us where to get some good late night gyro style food and then he walked us to where we could catch the bus back.

The next day we got some suggestions for where to go and what to do in the city, but got a late start due to talking to J who had some interesting stories to tell. He had some really good advice for the things to see and do.

The first thing we did was head down to Hero's Square. Which is just this huge open square with large monument of various important rulers of Hungary in and on the gates and the founding chiefs of Hungary in the center topped by and angle. This place was also apparently very well known for trading spies as it is so open that neither side could try and tricks with out the other side being well aware. In honor of this we had some water bottle exchanges / trades.

The Hero's Square Monument

One of the founding cheifs of Hungary.

After spending much longer than any of us thought taking in Hero's Square we went to the House of Terror, which had been converted into a museum about how the Nazis and Soviets desecrated Hungary and particularly Budapest.

The House of terror was a death camp set up for political opposition or any one in general resisting Nazi and Communist oppression set up in a large house on one of the main streets in Budapest. It was very long museum and unfortunately not particularly well set up. There were a number of rooms that had a little bin with a paper to read but frequently it didn't explain the significance of things in the room. The message of the oppression that was imposed upon the people was clearly conveyed which is the most important thing however a little more explanation of certain rooms could have made it more meaningful.

After the museum we went back to the hostel to have our internet meeting and grab our stuff for the thermal spa. It was nice and relaxing the best part was there was one pool that had a set of jets in an inner area of the pool that sent you around in a little vortex. It was a lot of fun. There were also a number of different acidity and temperature pools. The best ones were in the 28C + range. There were a few that were 18C and really cold. Coming back from the pools that evening we passed through Hero's Square again and it was pretty eerie.

Hero's Square at night.

Once we got back I wasn't planning on being up very late but we started talking to a couple of Aussies who were also staying at the hostel and ended up playing this epically long card game. It was fun but I didn't get to bed until around 5am and man was I tired.

The next morning I dragged my sorry rear out of bed and we got going at a half reasonable hour. We stopped for some goodies from the bakery and got on our way. We did stop and get a few pictures of the Parliament building which is just awesome from across the river.

On our way back to Bratislava we drove by a nuclear power plant, and another large church and castles. I unfortunately do not remember exactly where there were just that it is somewhere between Budapest and Bratislava. I was mostly dead after saying up so late from the previous night that every time we got in the car I'd pass out and only wake up if we were actually stopping to see things.

Nuclear Power Plant in Slovakia of unknown location to me.

Church in Slovakia also of unknown location to me. We did find a geo cache near here though.

This is possibly one of the coolest castles I have seen while being here or ever for that matter. Again I'm not sure where it is other than in Slovakia. It was HUGE and becuase we got there so late in the day (16:00 or so) it was getting dark and we don't really have any photos that do it justice :'(. But still when I figure out where it is I'll try and find some professional pictures or something to link to because it is just an awesome huge castle.

The Zurich Trip part 4 (Zurich to Bratislava)

2009-12-16T03:56:00.001-08:00

Well I'm sorry for not writing in a while. I got inundated with school work at the end of the semester and between school and traveling I've had no time for much else. But now the semester is about over it's time for some big blog updates.

After our last crazy night in Zurich we got up very early the next day and Steve drove and I navigated. We got across the Swiss Lichtenstein border fine despite Laura-Ann not having her passport. I think Steve and I were both a little stressed about this Kevin and Laura-Ann were just passed out in the back of the car dead to the world.

Steve and I decided to go see Vaduz again because it was actually daylight out. Unfortunately it was a big foggy. However we did see this group of girls out walking to school and they all had reflective safety vests on which we though was great.

We also found some very verbal goats that I talked to for a few minutes before we got on our way because it was too foggy/cloudy to see anything good from up on the hill.

The houses here were also really amazing they're all 3 and 4 stories but built right into the side of the hills.

I mean this house sort of actually has three "ground" floors. Oh nos!

The majority of our drive was nice an in the daylight just surrounded by beautiful snow topped mountains. We did stop a few times specifically to enjoy the snow and scenery.

Austria's highest waterfall clocking it at 380m or 1,247ftIt is near Krimml Austria.

We found this huge reservoir up in some mountains on the way back. We stopped the water was so blue and there was so much snow. We had some fun in the car and a small snowball fight before booking it home to Bratislava. It was very serene and quiet up there.

The Skoda that could -- this car was great it safely got us everywhere. Despite not liking it much it it topped out at 108mph going downhill with the wind on the autobahn. We had a lot of fun in it and since rented 3 more cars from the same guy.

The rest of the trip was uneventful it was getting dark so we drove straight home. I took over driving after a quick Burger King dinner and that is when I toped Steve's previous 107mph. Other than that we went straight back to our Dorm and then dropped the car off.

The Zurich Trip Part 3 (Zurich)

2009-11-18T13:36:00.001-08:00

After a much needed good night of sleep Malcolm made us a great breakfast. We had fried eggs, bacon, and toast with a variety pack of spreadable Swiss cheeses. It was a nice way to start our day of Masterlabing (The Atlantis STU term for working in Matlab). After breakfast Malcolm took us to his lab which is at ETH Zurich. The lab was full of technology that’d make any geek happy. For starters the meeting area were these tables that had an electronic box that raised up out of them with power connections as well as AV connections for the big screen tv. When the system was activated the blinds automatically shut. When we turned off the system later the blinds automatically re-opened. There was also a robot that delivered mail right outside the lab. Think star wars big black box on wheels roaming the Death Star. It apparently could interact with the elevators and go up and down floors as it needed. Then in the actual lab part its self it was like stepping into a neat freak mad scientists room. I think we all agreed there was more technology in that entire room than there was in our whole university if not Slovakia. It wasn’t long before we were all crowded around one another’s computers sharing our ideas and methods I think on both sides we learned quite a bit and gained an appreciation over all for the power of Matlab.

We worked in the lab for a good five hours or so and it was well after dark on a Sunday when we left. This is a good thing as we would have never gotten Laura-Ann out of the shopping area when Malcolm showed us the “main square”. Zurich is a very pretty town it incredibly clean and neat. Malcolm said he has seen normal citizens on more than one occasion picking up trash and putting it in the trash cans. His accommodation also has one day out of the semester where they come and do a cleanliness inspection and he said it was really intense and they were checking under the cabinets to see if that was clean. They also expected the stove top to be spotless. This mentality was well reflected in the actual city. Despite it being either dark or overcast when we went out and saw it, it was always very clean. Anyway the only thing open on a Sunday there was the main train station. So we headed there to grab a pre dinner dinner as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and then took the amazing trams back to Malcolm’s. When we got back we found out that we would not be able to push our presentation back and we’d have to stay in Zurich longer than indented Malcolm was very accommodating and offered to let us stay as long as we needed (In fact he told us to stay Tuesday night after the presentation and just go in the morning). So while we Masterlabbed even more to make sure we could wow Dr. Enikov for the presentation Malcolm prepared a wonderful fondue dinner for us. It was a traditional Swiss Fondue with melted Apenzeller cheese and bread and potatoes for dipping. It was a very hearty and filling meal. After the meal there was a little more project discussion that was quickly surpassed by food coma.

The following morning we got up and saw the city. We walked around the lake under the recommendation of some of Malcolm’s friend. It was really pleasant there were also a ton of curious swans there. Every time we approached the edge of the lake they would stick their long necks up looking for food. We also saw a bunch of them flipping themselves over in the water and splashing about. It became pretty clear they were just cleaning but it was pretty funny to watch. The whole city was just nice to be in. When you look out over it though all you see are the church steeples stick up out of the rest of the buildings.

We passed by a big Swiss army knife store unfortunately there were none with forks and spoons but there were some pretty nifty ones and then the classic every tool!

After our little city tour we had to book it back to the car as we were meeting a friend of Steve’s who works in Frey’s chocolate factory. The friend, Johanas, was willing to give us a tour of the factory which happens to be the largest in Switzerland. When we pulled up you could smell the chocolate permeating the air even inside the car. Once inside we had to get all suited up for sanitation reasons; I had no idea they made beard hair nets. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside of the factory but I imagine I looked pretty goofy. During the tour we learned a fair bit about the factory there is still a surprisingly large number of people required to run the factory despite so much of it being automated. A lot of the checking systems were really cool though they were often based on balance and if the chocolate item was too heavy or light it would fall of the line into a bin to be melted down and put back through the line. After each pass of the line there were huge piles of samples of what was being made on the line. The samples were specifically for guest and well we started stuffing our faces with chocolate. We were absolutely shocked because Johanas picked up some stuff for us to try and said the chocolate was not good anymore and he just chucked it. He did the same with whatever we tried and didn’t finish. (We were all like wait that is still good chocolate). My favorite chocolates were the little truffles at the end. There were some with a pistachio filling that were to die for. We were all quite sick of chocolate by the end of the tour though.

To repay all of Malcolm’s generosity we decided to stop and buy a bunch of groceries and make some homemade fajitas for him and his roommates for dinner that night. They turned out quite well and I think every one really enjoyed them (It was a first for his roommates). After dinner it was back to work on the project which we had to give a big presentation for on Tuesday night. After another late night we turned in.

Tuesday was a bit boring in terms traveling as we all got up late and spent the entire day working on the project. Malcolm made us another breakfast and then had to take off for class. Up until about four we worked on our project and presentation and at four we did a couple of practice runs. When Malcolm got home it was only a few minutes until we gave the presentation. It went over really well, there were a couple of things that Dr. Enikov really wants to see and soon, but it was things that we were aware of and just until we get the right equipment cannot proceed on. Dr. Rilo seemed pretty happy with our work as well although wants to show us the current system that is in place to see if we can implement some of the features. Once the presentation was over it was celebration time. We started with leftover Mexican food and margaritas. There was also an appearance of the Green Man.

It is still unclear how Malcolm arrange the appearance but we are grateful none the less. It was a pretty good party night that unfortunately had to end with an early morning in the car again.

The Zurich Trip Part 2 (Munich to Zurich)

2009-11-18T13:21:00.001-08:00

After a short night, despite getting up later than intended, we all got cleaned up and had the free toast breakfast offered by the Hostel. Then we got on the road again. Our first intended stop was the Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle that Walt Disney based the castle at Disneyland after. The It was built for the King of Bavaria at the time. However he only lived in it for a few weeks. The castle was never completed but turned into a Museum only a couple weeks after the Kings premature death. The inside was absolutely unbelievable the entire castle was not decorated to celebrate the king but to be a story of plays written by a playwright the king was fond of. We arrived at an unfortunate time missing the English tour right before us. We did decide to wait the two hours to see the next tour which happened to be at two. This however did cut our daylight hours for the rest of the car trip a little short.

We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the castle but we could take them of the view from inside.

After the Castle we continued on our way to Liechtenstein. It was dark before we hit Vaduz

When we actually got into Liechtenstein we drove through the better part of the country (it is only 12miles long in its longest direction). While driving through a mountain road we found this huge private castle. Unfortunately it was too dark for any of our pictures to turn out very well but it was a nice view of the city as well from up on the hill. After driving around for a little while we decided to grab dinner in Vaduz. We stopped at a little restaurant and I had my first hamburger since being gone. We also ordered Riviella which I would not suggest. It is some sort of carbonated drink that was hard to get down. It was pretty late when we finished dinner so we headed straight on to Zurich. When we got in to Zurich around midnight we were greeted by Malcolm who was kind enough to let us stay at his flat. The flat was very nice, especially for student accommodation. It is a four bedroom place with two bathrooms a big kitchen a spare side room (where they had put out the sleeping pads for us. And the whole front of the flat is just these huge sun windows. We were all exhausted but somehow managed to stay up for a good while talking, and making plans for the next day. I think we went to bed around two.

Zurich Trip Part 1 (Bratislava to Munich)

2009-11-13T05:26:00.000-08:00

The Zurich trip's main purpose was to meet with a fellow student, Malcolm, in Zurich to talk about our project and share ideas because he is working on something similar. However, you really can't expect a group of four students to hop on a train and go to Zurich and miss out on all the fun along the way. So Wednesday before we left a friend of ours here at the school helped us find a local small car rental company where we were able to rent a Scoda Fabia 1.4 for a total of 140euros over 6 and a half days.

The car that barely could.

Thursday night we went to go pick up the car. The rental place was literally a some guys house with a bunch of Skodas parked out front. It was interesting to say the least but he was very friendly as was (we think he wife who translated for us). After Steve signed some papers the showed us the car and handed over the keys and we drove off to pick up supplies.

After picking up the necessary road trip food we turned in for the night as we planned to leave before dawn. Very early the next day while it was still dark out we loaded up the car and took off. I was in the right rear passenger seat and passed out for a good while so I don't know what happened but we made it out of Slovakia and into Austria just fine. Later that day we made some detours of the high way just to see the country side. We were driving down some dirt roads with big fields on either side of us with some very nice country homes around them. When we convinced Laura to get out and ask this women if we were near Munich and how to get to Munich. We where no where near Munich and it was pretty clear but the women played a long a little amused and gave us directions back to the highway and which direction to take (this conversation took place in German between Laura and the woman so what I write now is based only on facial expressions and Laura's translation). We thanked her continued on our way. While headed back to the high way we came across this pleasant little stream and stopped from some pictures.

While driving we decided to stop in Braunau. The town of Braunau is the birthplace of Hitler. There is a memorial stone in front of the house, which now is a center for children and people with learning disabilities. The stone reads

"For Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Never Again Fascism. Millions of Dead Warn (us)".

I have mixed feelings about including this here, but I feel it is important to remember history both good and bad. So that we do not let such horrors repeat them selves.

There was also a very nice church in Braunau. It had very nice stone work on the outside, and a guy with a beard that puts mine to shame.

Before returning to the road we stopped in a Bakery. I mean how could you pass this stuff up.

We got back on the road and took another detour. After our little pictures stop I stole the wheel from Steve and did a little driving through the country roads. The cars here are a little different. Reverse is in the wrong place. It is on the left side of first gear but you have to push down on the stick to get it to go over far enough and engage.

The car is still a little too clean.

While flirting with the Austrian German border we encountered a number of beautiful sights.

We turned this big corner and all of a sudden this thing was in our face.

Germany here we come

More spectacular country roads!

It was getting later in the day and we found this lake, but we couldn't find any place to stop so we drove around and around and we eventually found this little park and dock so we stopped and had our packed lunches. It was so pretty it was almost surreal.

When we finally pulled in to Munich we freshened up and headed out to see the town. We wandered down to the Rathaus which was this imposing gothic style building.

Unfortunately the little dancing people under the clock didn't go off while we were there but we caught a live musical street performance instead. The group was quite good and I have no idea how they had the dexterity to play considering it was close to freezing out!

After the group finished playing and started to pack up we wandered our way to the Hofbrauhaus. For what was to be only one beer. I mean we couldn't very well go to Munich and not have one could we?

The place was incredibly crowded but this nice German family who had come into the city specifically for beer that night let us join them. The father and daughters were very happy and were doing their best to talk to us and they were all nothing but smiles. It was very pleasant but after a good bit of prosting we ran out of beer and well ordered more.

After two liters of strong beer they had to return home for the night and we were joined by a group of Canadians allegedly part of the National Canadian Ski team. After almost 3 liters of strong beer I had to turn in for the night. Steve and I made it back to the Hostel where I conked out, first and not sure what the rest of the team did for the night.

Munich to Zurich coming soon.

Big Project Breakthrough

2009-11-13T03:54:00.000-08:00

The official point of our Zurich trip was to meet up with a fellow U of A student, Malcolm, who is doing similar work in matlab to exchange ideas. The trip was great and I will put up an epic post about it soon. During our meeting with Malcolm I had a huge breakthrough in our program and have figured out how to access and correctly use the position data that our simulink model is generating. Matlab and Simulink have some different standards of dealing with images and the position points that might have been intuitive and so when I first brought the positions out of the model into the workspace it the graphed points looked like a jumbled mess that didn't match the fishes trajectory. However after some manipulation (that I later found out makes perfect sense with how matlab handles this data) there is a perfect overlay with the trajectory of the fish in the video. From here we were also able to pull out the velocity and acceleration vectors of the fish as well and plot them. I put a short little video together to demonstrate that the graphed trajectory is actually the fishes trajectory. I apologize the as the video has to be heavily compressed for uploading, but I think it still gets the point across.

Note: The fish's position is marked by the center of the area of the viewable fish

Here is the actual trajectory graph. The values correspond to the number of pixels and the

y-axis is negative due to matlabs way of handling images where the origin of the image is in the upper left corner.

During our trip we also gave a presentation to Dr. Enikov and Dr Rilo, our bosses if you will, they both seemed pretty happy with the progress we have made and had some suggestions as well. We should be having a meeting soon to talk again about functionality of our code which will be good as of now we have been just making assumptions to the data that we need to harvest and what might be useful to the end user. I think we're all looking forward to getting real input from the end users and having some more concrete goals to pursue.

I will get on posting about the actual trip it self soon. It was an amazing trip and there were some major reality checks like: I'm in the middle of Europe in the Austrian alps; I'm driving on the Autobahn; Wow the U.S. economy sucks and the Dollar is frustratingly weak!

The Steve and Rick Day Trip

2009-11-13T01:43:00.000-08:00

Last Monday Steve still had the car for a day after his and Kevin's trip to Hungry. Neither of us had anything to do so we decided to take the car and see some of western Slovakia. The first town we went to I do not remember the name but we went up to this awesome castle on a hill. What is cool about all of these towns around here is they all have castles on a hill, however out of the ones we have come across this was probably one of the coolest.

The leaves were falling on the way in and it was absolutely gorgeous.

Steve and I were greeted by peacocks that were just roaming the grounds.

The inner court yard.

We had just found a geo cash outside the walls which were huge.

On our way to Trnava, after the castle, we drove through the country side and just passed through a number of small towns. They all had very similar layouts with the church near the center of town surrounded by a couple of pubs and then the rest of it was residential.

Once in Trnava we walked grabbed a Kabab and walked around. The old town was really cool, it was entirely surrounded by a wall with this old European stately buildings. there were a number of old churches here but they were all closed. We also passed by a synagogue.

It too was closed but it was an interesting looking building. Once we had walked by all the major sites in Trnava we headed back to Bratislava by way of a few more small towns, that Steve had discovered while on his road biking trip. We saw some interesting things. I wish I had some pictures of this residential area we passed through. It was one of the few places where it looked like things were in very good repair and there weren't abandoned buildings everywhere. I think this is probably one of the nicest residential areas in all of Slovakia but 5 minutes down the road we found this.

It was so weird to go from from luxury homes to what looked like a partially demolished building and trash dump with abandoned military base and equipment across the street.

After our last little detour we headed back to the airport to return the car and caught a bus back to the city center. It was a pretty nice day and definitely worth getting up that morning. It was just a shame that we didn't do it in reverse the Castle would have probably been a nicer note to end on.

Short Circuit

2009-10-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

Apparently since I have been gone from the States I have been incapable of typing the word pub. I have done this so consistently I had my Dad a little confused and Laura convinced that people here call pubs here pups I guess every one else has been kind enough to just not say anything. I'm a tad bit embarrassed but mostly amused. If only I had realized that I was doing this and kept it going only to claim later it was a big plot. Oh well. I hope this clears some things up, but I am leaving my posts the way they were because of the comedic factor. I apologize for any confusion that has ensued. From here on out I will be diligent in only using pup to mean pup.

Quick Project Update

2009-10-25T11:18:00.001-07:00

So I've been spending quite a bit of time playing in Simulink trying to track the fish from pre-taken videos. What I have would work from a real time input as well, but we don't have continue access to the fish tank. There are still some random blobs that need to be filtered out, but this is off of a single video stream with some minor signal manipulation. The simulation runs much faster than my initial attempts as well (working on a net book can be a pain), and produces very similar results. At the beginning of the video there are a bunch of mistake blobs this is because of the webcams built in auto focus. I also have not yet figured out how to track the lighter fish. And the dark fish cross paths and become "one" fish for a little while. But we're definitely much further along than we were before. Prof. Lubos says he has some suggestions as well. But we've not yet had a chance to discuss these with him yet.

(The video is pretty highly compressed for the uploading sorry)

There is still a lot of work to be done, but I think what I have thus far is pretty cool, and has been quite fun to work on thus far. My friends have to drag me away from the computer to go do things.

The Dam

2009-10-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday we were offered a surprise visit to a Slovakian dam on the Danube. Steve Kevin and I went. It was really awesome. Our Professor was preparing measurements to determine what was going on in the gate rooms where the water goes through. We got an explanation of how the were water proofing and preparing the set up for the large volumes of turbulent water passing through the room as well. We also got to see the locks in actions as well. This was also amazing considering the huge height difference in water. It was a fun unexpected trip.

Here we are 30m under the water level. The room is usually full of water. Also if anything went wrong where we were we would have been done for.

This side of the lock is under reconstruction but you can really see the height difference in the water level (look at the water lines on the cement).

The full set of pictures are here.

Brno, Skalica, and Kuty

2009-10-25T05:49:00.000-07:00

Alright time for some big updates.

On Saturday this past week Kevin, Steve and I packed up our bags for four days and did a little traveling. We had arranged to stay with a couchsurfer in Brno. This was all done under the pretense of a Matlab conference in Brno on Tuesday. This was my first time couch surfing and our hosts first time as well. It was a really great experience one that I admit if it weren't for Steve and Kevin coming being there I probably would not have tried. Couch Surfing (CS) is a hospitality community and is orginized through this website. Basically willing hosts post information about their place and them selfs and you can contact them and see if they are willing to host you for a period of time.

Anyway our trip started leaving from Bratislava. We went to the train station via the tram and bought our tickets there. It was a little unclear if we were going to be able to get to Skalica the way we wanted to but we went for it anyway. The train from Bratislava goes through Kuty there is a transfer to continue to Brno but there is also a transfer to go to Skalica as well, however the ticket lady didn't speak very much English and it was hard to tell if she understood exactly what we wanted.

We got on the train only a few minutes before it departed found some seats and sat for a while. Steve pulled out his GPS and was telling us a little bit about some of the places we were passing as he had ridden through them on his bike before. It was cool, but it is amazing just how different it gets just right out side of the city; there are so many abandoned buildings and decrepit structures.

When we arrived in Kuty we found out we had an hour until our next train departed. Despite the actual town being a mile out from train station we decided to try and walk in and get some food. It was interesting to say the least. So many of the houses were just cement blocks with siding on them to try and disguise this fact. But there were some very nice looking ones. We stopped and asked a few people where we might get some food. Being so far from the city no one spoke English but some German was understood. We got directions into the town. But turned the wrong way. We were out side of a pup and this old semi toothless man beckoned for us to come join him and made drinking motions. We played charades and used a little German to say we were actually looking for food. He pointed us in the right direction but we decided to leave due to the time constraint. On the way back we managed to hitch hike the last 5-10 minutes of the walk which is good because we just caught our single car train. The guy offered to drive us to Skalica for 5 euro just for the petrol, but we turned him down because we already had tickets. (I'm glad too because he lit up in the car).

Our train car to Skalica was awesome. It was a single car, and the toilet just dumped right on to the track. It was a longer ride that I expected in the train but it was worth it. The town was quite beautiful. According to one our school mates this town was a capital of Slovakia after one of the world wars. However I did a quick search online and couldn't find anything about this and every one we have asked here looks a little confused. Either way the town had a number of really nice churches and a beautiful graveyard way up high on a hill that over looks the town. After wandering around for a little bit we grabbed some food and warmed up in a pup. We didn't spend too much time there was we still had to catch the train to Brno.

We took the train back from Skalica to Kuty and waited in the freezing cold for the train to Brno which was late. Once on board we were in a nice cabin with a heater and we relaxed for a bit. There was a bit of delay after we crossed the border. Once we got into Brno we headed to a pup/club that was recommended to us by some one who is Studying in Brno. It was alright we were there quite some time waiting for our CS host. When our host picked us up he took us to this awesome medieval pup. You would never know the pup is there if it were not for the a guy sometimes standing in the alley way wearing medieval attire. To get in you go down a set of stairs into a brick wine cellar that looks ancient. There are skins hanging on the wall and all the light is provided by candles or very well disguised lamps. The seating was wooden benches with sheep skins draped over them. And occasionally there are men in armor that really go at it through the walk ways in the pup and out in the street outside the pup. We missed this unfortunately. All of the drinks were served in pottery type mugs and cups, the plates and bowls were similar. They also had things like Grog and Mead on the drink list. All in all it was just a really cool place. After the pup for the first time we went back to Ondrej's place and dropped off our stuff. And went out to a near by pup from a beer and some foosball. After a couple of hours we headed back to find Ondrej's roomate and girlfriend in the Kitchen not doing PG things. Because of this Ondrej slept in the same room as us. The next day Ondrej took us to see the Castle and some of old town Brno. There is a great church where a disgruntled Mason carved a little statue of a man bearing his butt to the world (thanks lonely planet).We also climbed up this tall cathedral and got some nice views of the city. After freezing our rear ends off we went back to the medieval pup around 3pm and ordered some hot mead. Let me just say it is a bad idea in a jug. It is sweet and warming and you have no idea how strong it is until you try and get up after 3/4 of liter. After the pup we went for wonderful ribs unlike any others I have ever had before and another pup. I wasn't feeling to great after all the foreign food and drinks and was dropped off at the apartment (this time we made plenty of noise before coming into the kitchen). While Steve Kevin and Ondrej went for more drinks.

On Monday Ondrej took us to see his School. He is a second year med student. The university was huge and attached to the hospital. It was quite nice if not a little dead inside. Brno his a huge college town. I think the student population is on the order of 100,000 students, so it was surprising there seemed to be so few students there. We got to see the schools private collection of medical anomalies and specimens. It was a bit like the bodies exhibit, but also quite different. There were a lot of pieced preserved in alcohol and whatever else is used for that. But it was very very interesting and later we found out we weren't actually supposed to be there it is only for students and researchers. I'm glad we got to go anyway. We grabbed lunch at the what could be compared to the student union at the U of A which was good, and we headed back into town.

We had a home cooked meal that night that consisted of stuffed mushrooms and corn. It was quite tasty.

Later we met up with some of his former roommates / friends at a wine bar. It was fun. There was a huge dog in there which was kind of odd to see in a food establishment. My only complaint was it was quite smoky in there. I felt like a chain smoker after we left. But despite that we had a good time. Apparently here engineers have the very think glasses and high sock stereotype and his friends were quite surprised to learn that we were engineering students. It was a little weird I'm much more used to wow it is cool you're putting your self through that rather than oh your an engineer... Being out with them reminded me a lot of hanging out with friends back home and despite there wasn't a lot of English spoken between them it was pretty easy to follow various conversations. After they left we headed back to the apartment.

On Tuesday we had the conference and Ondrej had class. We went to the conference it was kind of long and not to pertainable to what we were doing. A lot of it was about autonomous code generation into C/C++ and HDL. It was interesting and really important things for down the line but not enough of the lecture was dedicated to how to do it but just that it was available. We got some good documentation that I still need to look through. For example there is a package that lets you take your matlab / simulink code and package it into sand alone software. After the conference we traumatized Laura Ann by taking her to the Medieval pup. Afterwards she instisted in going to some store so we parted ways and did a little geo cashing. And then we caught the bus back to Bratislava.

All in all it was a great experience and it was really great to be able to stay with some one who is so knowledgeable about the town and was willing to show us around and give us a place to stay. Ondrej is originally from Bratislava and Usually comes home on the weekend so we hope to hang out with him more next time he is in town.

The rest of the are pictures here.

Slovak Language

2009-10-13T06:46:00.000-07:00

Dobrý deň

Or good day. The Slovak lesson was interesting to say the least. We got a few basic words greetings, I like / I don't like, I want / I do not want, yes and no etc.. The conjugation of the verb to be and I have. The numbers 1 - 10 and then at the very end the alphabet. It was a little shy of two hours and most of it it was here is how to ask the question here are some answers then she'd ask and we'd have to answer. I am having a hard time telling how in depth the class is going to go just because a lot of things were oh this language is very complicated, to complicated to learn in just a semester. Which is a shame. I love language and would be happy to get the full brunt of it.

Beyond that there is not much else to say, about the first class. What we learned wasn't to difficult a lot of the gramatical structure seemed similar to Greek and Spanish with some minor differences but it was the first class. We'll see what the semester has in store.

I will write more again soon.

Wimp for Cold

2009-10-13T04:39:00.000-07:00

This will be short, but I can not remember being some where where there was such a quick transition from nice weather to it being freezing. About two days ago it rained and everything cooled way down and it has not warmed back up. After walking to school today I could barely feel my hands. It has also been hailing on and off today. But literally three days ago I was out and a little warm in my jeans and t-shirt and now I'm bundled up even inside.

I'm about to have my first Slovak language class today I will write about it afterwards.

Class and Project Update

2009-10-09T05:09:00.000-07:00

So it is probably about time I write about my classes and our project here.

We just finished our third week of classes here. Currently I am enrolled in 5 classes here. Intelligent Mechanics, System Models in Mechatronics, Introduction to Finite Element Analysis, Semester Project, and Slovak Language. Thus far we have yet to have our Slovak Language class. It should be starting next week. I am looking forward to it. I think we have all picked up on a few things here and there, but still we're more or less in the dark when it comes to the language.

Intelligent Mechanics is being taught by our liaison here, Prof Lubos Magdolen. The course is all about using Matlab and Simulink to model at this stage mechanical systems. It has been pretty interesting and really opens ones eyes to the power of the Matlab / Simulink software. As the semester progresses Prof. Magdolen wants to show us how to model systems using both mechanical and electrical components, as well as possibly program a prefabricated robot, using the modeling system. It is a very interesting course and Prof Magdolen has been very accommodating in trying to tailor the course to our specific interests.

System Models in Mechatronics seems like an introduction course to mechatronics which is the combination of different systems into a single product to improve its function. The class is a bit intimidating during the last lecture he would call us up to the board and ask us to write the equation for a system down and if you got one thing wrong he would say no that is an awful mistake. I think he was sightly frustrated with his English, but as the class has revolved more around mechanical systems and I have only had a intro physics course on mechanics I feel a little ignorant at times. Prof Musil has been very helpful thought he won't continue until he is convinced you understand and he always comes to us american students after class and ask's each one of us if we have any questions. Either way robotics is embodies the combination of electrical and mechanical systems and this seems to be what a good portion of mechatronics is and I think it will be a great class to have taken.

Introduction to Finite Element Analysis, has been pretty interesting. We just had our first lab in the class yesterday. Our lab instructor has been out of the country until now so we have only had lectures. Conceptually Finite Element Analysis seems pretty simple. It is a matter of breaking down a structure or structures into small elements that resemble something we already know how to solve and then put it all back together to get a solution for the whole system. That said though the theory we have been getting is a bit more complex and I'm not sure I have followed it in its entirety. The lab was pretty cool though. We built a structure in Ansys gave it material properties and then subjected it to loads and saw how to pull up the numerical solutions. It was just an introduction to the Ansys software but it was interesting and I think was helpful in understanding a little bit better what Finite Element Analysis is. There is a class at the U of A in the AME department which this sounds identical too, so I am sure that there will be no trouble transferring it.

We haven't had our language class yet so I can not say much about it. We should be starting it next week assuming that the teacher as the appropriate time slots free.

We have now had a couple of meetings about our semester project. They have consisted in some basic theory of image processing and then some instruction on the various functions available to us in matlab and simulink. Next week we should be getting a fish tank and attempting to track one fish. It is very exciting. I also was today to use my built in web camera to manipulate live video. I was able to save some of the video although my computer crashed at one point; I guess yrunning matlab on a netbook is a bit silly. It has worked for most things so I think it will be fine for the semester.

Well that is were everything stands. I think we are planning on going to Budapest either this weekend or next weekend. Weather isn't great. When we do go I'll make sure to get pictures from the team to post here.

New Computer

2009-10-02T08:11:00.001-07:00

So after trying to deal with newegg unsuccessfully I have broken down and gotten a new netbook here. To my surprise it was about the same cost as if I had managed to ship the one from the States. However, it helps significantly that Prof. Magdolen used is connections to allow me to purchase it through a distributer rather than from a normal retail store. I am slowly going through the process of acquiring all of my lost software again and figuring out how to install and English version of windows onto a computer without having an optical drive. This is not particularly difficult but mildly annoying especially without having internet at our dorm. Anyway I should be able to post more frequently now and actually put up some pictures albeit not ones I have taken but from the other students here.

I am excited to be able to use a computer consistently again and finally get to work on my software oriented projects and classes. Matlab is incredibly powerful. I had no idea.

I will post a more project / Bratislava related post soon.

Modra - The Wine Festival

2009-09-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Steve, Kevin and I got on a bus and road to Modra. It is a small town about an hour outside of Bratislava. When I first got here I was told about a wine festival that Steve confirmed from one of his bike rides.

This wine festival featured wine which to my understanding has only gone through the first processes of becoming wine. It is not clear like normal wine and it is very very sweet. We're not sure about the alcohol content either but it was quite delicious. The festival was very much like a normal street fair. There was live music lots of food stalls all selling chicken or long kilbossas which you could watch get cooked right there. All of the food stalls had vats of the new wine in white and red varieties. There were also plenty of baked good stalls, and stalls with cheep plastic junk. Save the food stalls the most interesting things were the wood workers, many of whom were making their various goods on the spot. The three of us enjoyed a few glasses of our new wine while watching a man in traditional garb carve out a wooden bowl with hand tools. He did it in stages with these sharp curved tools with different radii of curvature. It was mesmerizing and after he finished one he took a beer break and we got a little nod of the glass.

All in all it was a very pleasant excursion, and it is a shame the new wine has no shelf life. So in spite of this we enjoyed as much of it as we could there.

Steve has a few pictures from our trip and I will try and get them from him when we have time.

I will write more soon.

Bad Things Happen

2009-09-23T03:07:00.000-07:00

Alright first and fore most, sorry I haven't written in a while. I have good reasons though.

So I've been in Bratislava for a few days now. This town is very interesting, you can be walking down the street and there will be a grand and stately church, completely surrounded by old graffitied buildings that are falling apart and can easily be placed in the communist era. Steve, one of my fellow American students here, was placed in what he has deemed the matchbox because our rooms were still being renovated. Apparently this room was just big enough for the bed and his bike box to have all of his other things stacked on top of it. This is the housing for many students here. But on the other extreme, there is old town, which is easily the most picturesque area of the city. I wish I had my camera to show this but alas it has been stolen.

I've spent the last couple of days really just wandering around ordering random food, and hanging with my American friends. We have gotten small tours from various slovak students.

The former Slovak side atlantis students have done a good deal of showing us around and taking us to good places to eat. They also helped us get things like photos and sim cards.

The last two nights we've bought food and prepared it in our rooms. It's been a nice way to relax in the evenings considering the culture shock and getting ready for school to start. In general everything has just been nice and pleasant everyone has been very accommodating and helpful. And I just want to get all of this out there before I rant a little.

So the first night all of us American students were here together in Bratislava, we went out grabbed dinner and had a few drinks. We went back to our dorm and hung out for a while and you know bonded. This is really the first time we're all meeting one another outside of the initial oh you all would like to apply for the Atlantis program. We are almost the only ones in our hall way so for the better part of the night our doors were open and we were just in and out of our rooms, sharing stories, and celebrating a little. Around one we part ways, I go to bed and pass out. Sometime between one am and six am when I woke up. Someone broke into my room, and stole my passport, camera, laptop, ipod mini, calculator, and hard drive. In short they took off with approximately $1000 of stuff which was more or less all of my valuables and my connection to the outside world. Now stuff is stuff it can be replaced, however my gigabytes of music and photos can not. So at the moment I am computerless, cameraless and photoless and trying very hard to make the best of it. My classmates have been great and have been letting me borrow this that and the other, and hopefully I'll have a computer and maybe camera again of my own to be using relatively soon so I can get back to writing and documenting my trip easily.

I did get down to the embassy, I should have a new passport in about a week and whoever has my old one will at least be blocked from getting to the U.S.

I'm not going to let this ruin my experience here the town is great, the food is pretty good (I've eaten mushrooms and potatoes and enjoyed it so yeah...) the people save the thief have been helpful, accommodating and mostly full of smiles. So short of the thief returning my stuff there is really not to much more I could ask for.

I will write again soon, (just maybe not as soon as I would like).

Bratislava First Day

2009-09-17T08:46:00.001-07:00

So today is my first real day in Bratislava.

I had a meeting with Prof. Magdolen this morning at 10. He asked how things were and passed on the fact that we'll be having a meeting on Monday for the Atlantis students to get all registered and settled in. I also learned that we're going to be required to take a Slovak language class. This is because the students last semester didn't do enough cultural things and failed their language class. I was a little surprised to learn this but I'm really looking forward to it. I think formally studding the language will actually put me at much greater ease. I aslo met one of his former students Peter who looking to do a PHD program in England. He's still waiting for his acceptance letter but it's very likely he will get the spot.

After my meeting Peter showed me the buffet downstairs. For 1,70€ I was able to get the main dish which consisted of something like giant couscous and a couple of thick slices of chicken in a very flavorful mushroom gravy. I actually really enjoyed it although my stomach and I are regretting the consumption of mushrooms. It was a huge portion but apparently was just the small. Peter stayed with me for lunch and then walked me over to the Radio Station (a Giant Upside Down Pyramid) which had a bank machine (ATM). So I could finally withdraw what I needed to pay for my room. My room is cheap, really cheap at 3,73€ a night. I might have to pay for the internet in it. But I won't be able to deal with that until October anyway. After the ATM we ran into a friend of his Abe, a fellow student and we went to the main shopping street and grabbed some coffee. We sat there and chatted for a bit. Abe is from Lebanon and speaks French, Slovak, English, and Arabic. We were joined by a few more of his friends. It was quite pleasant and they were all very friendly.

When Prof. Magdolen finally called we went back to the university to meet up with him and then walked back to my dorm. He helped me settle up with them for the first 15 day's rent. I have to go back around the first of each month and pay for that month. I might see if I can take care of at least through December with the next part of the stipend comes in. On our walk back to my dorm, Prof. Magdolen pointed out a few more bank machines, and also proceeded to tell me that unlike in many places it is perfectly legal to be drinking / drunk in public, but there was an absolute zero tolerance for guns and drugs. Peter said there is a wine festival going on in a town near here and there is a unfinished wine that is in its first stage of becoming a wine that I really should try; I will have to ask him again for the name of this type of wine again.

Anyway I think I'm going to head over to the university again now to actually post my stuff and see if I can get my pictures uploaded. Then it'll probably be time to find some food and go to bed. Steve is supposed to be getting back to night so I might try to meet up with him.

I'll write again soon.

Bratislava – I’ve Just Moved in

2009-09-17T08:09:00.001-07:00

So after a very stressful journey spanning more waking hours than I care to think I got to the Bus Station and was kindly picked up by Prof. Magdolen. He has been incredibly helpful and kind both before arrival and getting here as well. I will need to get a mobile while here though it is just too difficult to not do so.

Anyway it is time for the poor quality picture tour of my room.

So this is my front door off the the left is part of my closet and to the right is the toilet.

This is the front door, the door the toilet, and a little bit of the shower and sink area.

This is the toilet. The Tile is a very weird green color.

This is the sink and shower area. The shower is bigger than many European showers I've been in. But the door seals magnetically and the handle was hard for me to find (In short the first time I used it I couldn't figure out how to get out) Anyway….

Here you can see the front door again and the closet. Then in the bedroom work area off to the left is the spare bed and to the right the night stand for my bed.

This is the bed that I have chosen to sleep in mostly because the door separating the bathroom area and the bedroom doesn't swing into it. The linnes were provided although my blue blanket is um a British Airways blanket that I accidentally took. It was nice having the two beds in here because I could take the pillows. The beds are very hard but the comforters and pillows are just right so it all works out.

So I have a tv apparently with satellite and English channels but I don't get a remote for it yet. It's got a pretty nice picture but without the remote all the programming was Slovak news so I don't think I'll be watching to much of it for the time being (Until maybe after I start my Slovak language class). Since these rooms are really meant for like foreign visitors to the university they're more like hotels the furniture is much nicer and there is more of it or so I've been told by a former student and Prof Magdolen. Anyway I think that explains the random table with two chairs.

This picture was taken at the same time as the rest of them so I'm not sure why it was so dark. But anyway there is the table and chairs as well as my desk and part of the extra bed. You can see I have my olive oil and Greek Sand. I feel my little things make me feel a lot better in here even if they were very recent acquirements. Too bad I don't' have a printer or I'd plaster the place with my Santorini pictures as well.

And here we have the end of my desk the extra night stand and the other bed missing most of its bedding.

Here is the fridge water boiler and what I'll probably use as my pantry.

So here is the last picture. The very far left is the shelving for the pantry the middle is part of the closet and on the right is my red front door again. Thus we've come full circle on the tour of what will be my home for the next few months. It's probably between the sizes of Laura's room and my room freshmen year in the dorms but I don't have to share it whoo hoo.

I'm all settled in here now save the fact that I desperately need to stock up on food and find a place to do laundry though that not as desperately.

I apologize for the terrible photo quality my camera is low on batteries so I've been avoiding using the flash -- besides these aren't the pictures that really count now are they.

Oia –> Fira –> Athinios –> Athens –> Budapest –> Prague –> Bratislava

2009-09-17T08:08:00.001-07:00

I don't have any pictures of this part of my trip I apologize.

So on the 15^th of September I was required to leave my beautiful hostel and new found friends for a really long and incredibly stressful journey. I caught the bus from Oia to Fira without any problem in fact Xavier, Laura, and Aurelie were on the bus with me and it was nice. But I had to wait over an hour for the bus to Athinios (the main port on the island where the ferries come in and out of). It was hot and I couldn't really go anywhere because of that stupid suitcase, which has been a major pain in the rear end for my entire journey. When the bus finally does arrive I barely got a seat despite being one of the first people there again because of the suitcase and because unlike all the other busses they didn't bother to announce where this one was going. Go figure. However Silvia from the volcano tour was of the ferry at least to Paros which was nice because I was able to get up a couple of times without worrying about my backpack. She accidentally got off at Mykonos and had gotten all the way to the information station before learning she had gotten off at the wrong island. (Neither of us heard the announcement for what island we were at). Anyway I'm incredibly impressed that she made it back to the boat but she did and it for at me made for a good laugh and she'll have a great story out of it. Anyway the next top was Paros and she got off and I was alone again. I spent most of the time writing on my computer or trying to doze off unsuccessfully. When the boat reach Athens port it was dark and there were a million taxis all waiting right as you got off the ferry and it took a good 5 -10 minutes to wade through to a spot where I could pull out my map. (Also they were all trying to tell people that the buses weren't running it wasn't very nice) but I found the X96 bus and got on it to the airport. It was a long ride in which I ended up standing with my like 40 pound backpack on next to my suitcase because there wasn't a good place to put either. Once at the airport Which it's now I think 2am local time give or take an hour. I got on the internet for 45 minutes and talked to Laura. Their free wifi only lasts 45 minutes but you can't even buy more time you have to go to a terminal with horrible keyboards or just be without. I chose to use a terminal at least at least get in a good bye and short explanation of what happened.

Around 4am the lines for the check in finally opened. I was one the first inline but I had to rearrange my suitcase which only 6kilos over was going to cost me an extra 55euros to send that way, yeah no thank you, but rearranging did mean waiting in line again. By the time I had finished there was only 10 minutes or so to make the 4:30 boarding time requirement. So I hurried to the gate foolishly only to have to wait till like 5:20 before they got us on a bus to go to the airplane. Yeah that was an interesting experience. I got to get on one of the airplanes that had the stairs that fold down from them unfortunately no stair car :'(. It was an actual jet with turbine engines to Budapest. The flight was uneventful but the chairs were so uncomfortable I couldn't sleep. The top half of the chair actually was leaning forward so there was no way to relax at all. Only out of sheer exhaustion I must have slipped in and out of sleep long enough to miss the drink rounds.

The Budapest airport was very nice and had big comfortable chairs. I was able to doze off a little there. Again we had to take a bus to a plane. This plane was very odd looking. It's wings were really far back and above the plane and it had to propellers. When I saw it I thought to myself this might kill Laura. The plane was surprisingly quite and comfortable. I also didn't have anyone in the seat next to me so I think I might have actually conked out at least up until about 15 minutes before arrival because I remember seeing that they left me a roll and orange juice on the tray in the empty seat which I was very grateful for but it was only a few minutes later that they came by to take the trash so we could land. Once in the airport I had free internet so I check all the bus stuff and tried to figure out how to get there. I finally gave up and asked a lady at the info stand. (Oh they never stamped my passport despite being leaving the main area, nor did they stamp it when I entered Slovakia. It was very strange so as of now I only have a stamp for Greece). She told me to take bus 100 to the last stop and there would be the metro. So I go and withdraw 200CzK which I think is 26 is right about 1 euro, so it wasn't very much at all. I only needed like 39CZK but unfortunately 200 was the least I could withdraw, and Prof. Magdolen and my Lonely Planet guide said to avoid the Airport exchange stalls.

I bought my tickets and I ran out to catch the 100 bus I see pass by where it said to catch busses in the airport signs. I get on the bus and think all is well but the first stop is the terminus and the bus driver is like GET OFF. I go up to ask him for help and he opens the door to the driver seat steps out and indicates to get my stuff and follow. So I do and as soon as I do he hops back on and drives off. So now I'm totally lost in Prague near the airport. I wander around a little and find a bus stop for both the 100 and the 179 As I am approaching from the other side of the street I see the same 100 bus and driver going the direction that I guess I really wanted to go the first time. A little peeved I wait for another buss and the 179 comes and I realize I can take this further into the city. I take and the entire time while riding with my giant suitcase I was stared at by all the passengers. It took a really long time to get from the airport to the metro that I needed. The metro was easy but the signs didn't say which way the trains were headed thankfully when the next train came it had the terminus on the front and sides so I was able to figure out where it was headed. Like on the bus, I was stared at while on the metro. It was a bit Unnerving. When I got to my metro stop, I again ended up wander around the block before finding the buss station. At the bus station there was free wifi. I hoped to find my ticket e-mail waiting for me, but alas no luck so I try the reservation number at each of the various booths. They all tell me it's not for their company. So I ended up buying just another ticket. After getting my ticket it said I was going to a different bus station than the one I was originally intending to go to. This caused another minor freak out but I looked it up and quickly found out it was the same thing. The bus ride was uneventful. I dozed off for most of it which is unfortunate because every time I did stir and look out it was very very pretty, unfortunately my camera was not in easy reach. Once I got to the bus station I realized I had no idea who I was looking for and Prof. Magdolen was in the same boat. I did see someone who looked kind of professor in the same manner as Dr. Enikov and I guess I must have looked enough like an exhausted and terrified student, because this was Prof. Magdolen. He drove me to my dorm and I was finally able to get rid of that god awful suitcase and take of my backpack.

After dropping off my stuff and taking care of a few of the administrative things at the dorm we drove over to the university. The walking distance is really only a little bit further than my place in Sam Hughes to the Student Union at the U of A which is really nice. I won't have to deal with the trams or a car or anything. Anyway he drove me over to their main building and I walked back. Once back I nearly passed out from exhaustion but I managed to unpack and shower before I went to bed.

It was a very long and at times a bit terrifying journey but in the end I made here it safely with all my stuff.

I'll write more soon.

Oia Pictures Link

2009-09-17T07:36:00.000-07:00

I for only linking but it is the easiest way to share pictures.

Oia

Oia Stanorini Two

2009-09-15T01:46:00.001-07:00

Edit : a photo or two more to come soon.

So um yeah I apologize for not posting in a while. I'll give a tour now in hopefully a few mintues of writing what I spent so much time doing and not enough time writing it all down.

So the day I got here. I slept from 6 in the evening to 9 the following morning. I guess that's fair since I was up for 48 hours before because of the ferry and lack of an alarm clock. Whoops.

When I got up the next morning I had breakfast provided by the hostel which was a nice change from Athens. It consisted of sweet bread and three pieces of plain white bread orange juice and choice of coffee or tea not that there was really any decision to be made.

After breakfast I wondered around for a few hours taking more pictures than I thought possible. It was mostly walk a few steps oh must take a picture walk a few more, and the best part was there was no one around in the morning. I ran into maybe three locals all setting up there shops. So I had the place to my self. Once the shops were open I took care of my gift getting and headed back to the hostel to play with the pictures.

Later that afternoon I went to lunch had an amazing tiropita and absolutely afwul sandwich as well as a coke and frape. It was very plesant aI had a nice view of the ocean. It was just a very plesant lunch. Save the sandwich.

Later that evening I met Hire (I hope I spelled his name right) a Japanese student traveling on holiday. We chatted for a while and went to try and capture the sunset. When we got back is when I met my French traveling buddies. Xavier, Laura, and Aurelie. We enjoyed a few drinks from the bar and a very plesant evening.

The following morning I went on the Volcano tour. Where I met Silvia and Marissa two fellow Americans staying at the same hostel. It was nice to have a group to go with, becuase was able to relax about leaving my stuff. The tour was great the Valcano was a little anti climatic there was barely any smoke it wasn't much warmer than the surounding area and there was really no sulfer smells. However the views of the surounding islands were great. Then we went to the hotsprings which required jumping from the boat because there was no dock. So after jumping into 20 C water we swam to the hot spring which were very nice and warm. Unfortunately we didn't have very long there. When I come back becuase some day I will have to I want to charter a boat to just spend the better part of a day near the hotsprings. When they called us back we had to swim back into the cold water which was not a refreshing as it would have sounded because the hotsrpings were more like warm springs. Once everyone was back on the boat we were taken to a place for lunch it was alright but because all the places are ment for tourist they were overpriced.

We we got back from the tour I put my few pictures on my computer and then got ready for happy hour. Again I met with my friends and we enjoyed a few glasses of wine and converstaion before heading out to a well recomended resturant where I got the octopus. We shared a great bottle of white wine. When every one else had left the resturant we figured we probably should as well. Unfortunately no where else was open and we returned to the hostel. It was probably good becuase We agreed to meet the following morning for sunrise at 6.

The following morning I failed to get up ontime and I actually saw them turning the corner out my window. I gave chase barefooot which hurt quite about actually. But I caught them and they waited for me and we went up to the castle ruins to watch sunrise. It was a nice quite and serene moment. There was absolutely no one else around and the sun came up over the mountains and it was just absolutely beautiful.

After being up so late and getting up so early once the sun had risen we returned to the hostel for a few more hours of sleep. And we decided to go to the beach. We after much confusinon we did make it to the beach and enjoyed a nice day on the black sand. It was overcast so the sand was not incredibly hot. After the beach we stoped for a frape on the way back. We made it back just intime for another happy hour. It was nice and we ended up going back to Skala for dinner as it was the only place open. I had the octopus again and it was just so very plesant.

I'm running out of interent time and I need to check a few things so I promise to write more and fill in the details soon.

I leave today for Athens again and Slovakia the followign morning. Yay fun night in the airport.

Oia Santorini

2009-09-12T03:35:00.000-07:00

Oia Santorini is the most beautiful place on earth!

Unfortunately the internet is expensive and I can not use my own computer therefore there will not be photo evidence of it's beauty for a little while. But I have over one hundred photos to look forward to.

Athens Day 3

2009-09-10T05:49:00.000-07:00

So it's about 4pm local time. I spent the better part of the day wandering around lost again looking for this travel agency. I got my directions again form the Greek Lady but for some reason unbeknown to be I didn't bother to look up the address. So after wandering up and down the streets near where she said it was I gave in and made the trek back to the hostel. Although during trip over their the first time I stumbled upon a partially excavated roman bath in the middle of the city.

The agency was down in a similar area to the Acropolis and I'm going to guess it was also about two kilometers from the hostel. I did look up the address the second time and I'm quite glad I did, the agent was extremely helpful and saved me a ton of money. I was able to book my tickets to and from Santorini at 33.50 euro each direction as well as get a flight from Athens to Prague for less than 200 euros. The flight to me is the most amazing part because in all of my attempts at finding flights I couldn't find anything less than 400euros.

Anyway after putting in about eight km today I'm pretty beat. (also it was much warmer today than it has been). So I'm going to rest up at the hostel for a bit and try not to dwell on the shear amount of money I've spent.

I'll post again after dinner again the pictures will have to wait though I don't have much from today just the bath.

So I went and got a gyro from a local place tonight it was very pleasant and the meat was so much more flavorful than the ones back home. Beyond that not much more to say about the food. I'll write again after Santorini when I have Internet.

Athens Days 1-2

2009-09-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

EDIT: I got all the pictures up for this particular post.

EDIT: pictures are going to have to wait. It's 2:30 in the morning and they're not uploading at all. I'll add them as soon as I am able.

Alrighty I finally have an internet connection if you could call it that. I vaguely remember dial up being faster. I will try to post as many pictures as I can, I have tons of them from day 2, but given the slow internet I may not get all my pictures up online for a while.

Day 1:

So I arrived alright in Athens although Finding my hostel was a completely different story. Let me just say the bus stops are entirely unlabeled and the street names are almost in the same situation. I did a lot of wandering before finally find my way here and promptly crashed after making me bed the first day. I did go out wandering that night for an hour or so and picked up some bread and water for my room. Other than that my first day wasn't to productive.

Day 2:
I got up around 9 today And wandered around Pangrati for an hour or so before heading back to the hostel in search of a good map. After my two wandering I recognise a few streets near by but a lot of the residential buildings look entirely the same in my area and again the street signs are impossible to see if and when they do exist.

When I got back to the hostel the kind Lady in the office gave me a map and we had a very broken (in my part) converstaion in Greek about how should go about getting to the Acropolis. She then was kind enough to make sure I got every thing my repeating her instructions in English. I was able to understand quite abit although relaying what I wanted to say was a bit more challenging.

With my map in hand I set out for the acropolis. I decided to walk and stop at a number of sites along the way recommended to my by the office lady. First on the list was the Olympic Stadium from the 1800's it was recently restored for the Athens Olympics and was quite stunning the 70,000 person stadium seats being entirely marble. After the stadium I passed by a large fountain infront of the Congress Hall and Exibition Center. There was also a nice park in and around there where I found a turtle. After the Congress Hall I continued on the Haden's Arch. Just past the arch I was able to glimpse the acropolis and it's various monuments proudly sitting ontop of it. To excited to try and find the entrance to the archeological area (which I had accidntally passed) I continued in the direction of the acropolis. I did accidentally pass the enterance though in my defense it wasn't marked. At the entrance I was informed that American students are well infiantly more disliked then all other students are my entrance fee was not free like all other students but half the normal fee. Granted I was still grateful to only have to pay six euros rather than twelve. Once I had my ticket I made sure to walk around the entire base of the acropolis before ascending to the Parthenon. The entire site was breathtaking to say the least despite all the scaffolding and other obstructions due to restoration efforts. After making sure to read all the signs and see everything I wandered down to the Ancient Agora (an ancient market area) There was a nice museum which I didn't enter as it wasn't part of my ticket for the acropolis, though outside the museum there were a number of partial marble statues and tablets. As well as a beautiful little church and another temple off a little further away. However I was feeling a little ill and after making it up to the temple I decided to head back to the hostel. And more or less turn in for the day. Tomorrow I plan on making use of the rest of my acropolis tickets and seeing what I missed today, as well as trying to arrange to get to Santorini.

Me in front of the Olympic stadium, the person taking my photo failed to notice the lens cover got stuck. Oh well.

Very random turtle I found in a park on my way to the Acropolis.
Fountain and Congress HallGiant mostly marble theater on slope of AcropolisMe trying to take a photo of my self in front of the gateway to the top of the Acropolis.My favorite building on top of the acropolis which is not the Parthenon.The Parthenon sadly covered in scaffolding and cranes sticking out the top. I tried to hide this as best I could.Rubble from previous incarnations of the temples used to rebuild the walls after a war.
Curch in the Ancient Agora area.
Stone tablet in ancient Greek. Outside of the Ancient Agora Museum.Another Temple in the Ancient Agora areaThe Acropolis after I descended. This was actually taken before I visited the Ancient Agora area, but I think this is a better picture to end on.

Kiling Time with a Vacation in Chicago

2009-09-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

So Laura and I decided to spend Labor Day Weekend in Chicago to have some fun before I left.

Ghost Skyline

Laura and Mirror Laura at the Cloud Gate

Cloud Gate Mirror World

MMM turkey corn dogs by the river!

We also went on an awesome fireworks boat tour on the Chicago River and Lake Michigan but both of us were enjoying our selves to much and did not dig out the camera.

The following day we went to the Zoo. It was free which was nice and made up for the parking costs. It was a nice and surprisingly big zoo. My last state side supper will be Chicago Deep Dish Pizza for the first time.

Tomorrow I leave for Greece. I will try to post pictures any time I get the chance.

Last Great Act Before Leaving the States

2009-09-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

So Laura asked me to build three reptile cages for Scout, Tucker, and Sue. The cages are finally finished making her living room look a little like a reptile shop.