Europe

Hello all, I've returned to the states - arrived in Nashville a few hours ago. Unfortunately, lost is my black Google hoodie that I had all the way until Cincinnati. Must have left it at the terminal. In any case, I have a lot to do - fix my lappy, take care of the pigs, etc., etc., so I'll be posting back, probably tomorrow. Good night!

This will most likely be the last posting that I make before returning to the states. After a 5 hour trip from Salzburg, Austria to Aschaffenburg, Germany, we arrived at the Ashaffenburger Hof, which is a hotel close to where my uncle lives. The trip was mostly fun, excepting for MAJOR traffic jams along the way. If you think LA, DC or Boston traffic is bad, you haven't seen Germany. This is mostly because of an aging road infrastructure with a dramatic increase in the number of vehicles on the road. The autobahn is being widened at sections, but almost all of the road is restricted to two-lane roads. The trip should have taken about 4 hours tops. On a Sunday afternoon, we spent over an hour and a half in traffic jams on a 325-mile trip. We hit several jams along the way. Fortunately, the car's GPS and radio system work together; traffic updates automatically come through the radio, and also are sent to the GPS unit, which updates trip times, lets you view the individual traffic problems (shows you where they start and where they end as well as the condition of the traffic in a nice navigable list), and allows you to detour if you wish. Too bad you have to pay for those kinds of services in the US. However, the parts that flowed well were fun. I drove for the majority of the way, and had the chance to cruise along at around 110+ MPH, traffic permitting. It's a fun feeling.

Once we arrived, we visited my step-grandmother (my grandfather's second wife) at the nursing home where she is staying. She is doing quite well, and will be turning 93 in a few days. I hadn't seen her in about 9 years, so it was good to spend some time with her again. Afterwards, my uncle and his wife met us, and we went for dinner at a classy little joint near the center of the city. I've visited this city often, and always enjoy coming here.

I've definitely thoroughly enjoyed this trip. I am returning with thousands of pictures, but more importantly, with memories that will last a lifetime. To my sisters, my cousins, aunts, uncles, all of you that have made this one of my most memorable trips to Europe, thank you, grazie, danke. To all of you who have been following my entries, thank you for taking the time to read and/or look at pictures that I've posted. I hope you've enjoyed it. I know that some of the entries have been lame, but with a whirlwind tour that's gone this fast, it's almost impossible to completely appreciate everything around you, much less describe it accurately on a few lines of legible text on a blog.

I'm not sure how frequently I'll be updating this blog following my return. It's definitely growing on me, so feel free to check back and see what's up. Again, thanks for reading, and I'll see y'all on the flipside.

An HDR shot from the balcony of our room, before we leave. The sun was finally shining this morning. The pic isn't all that great primarily because of the relatively thick haze surrounding the mountains. More later.

Today was an eventful day. We started it at around 3AM, at which time we woke up to watch the first presidential debate. We the continued with the usual breakfast followed by a horse ride around the city of Salzburg. As could be expected, it was another relatively chilly and cloudy day. The sun would shine later, but only after we had returned from the ride. Since I had walked through a large portion of the city on an earlier day, most of what we saw was familiar to me, except for some of the structures along the outskirts of the older part of the city. We passed by the oldest church in the city, built in the 1200s.

The day continued with the family reunion, which started with a general greeting and then the concert that my father, my sister Bettina, and I had prepared earlier. It went well, and the folks enjoyed it. The clock that so mischievously interrupted our practice sessions remained mysteriously silent during the concert itself. Pics taken by my cousins of the performance itself will be posted (and credited) once I receive them. There were a few family members that I hadn't met, or didn't remember, and as it turns out, we have a larger number of people on my dad's side than we had thought - and these were only people on my dad's mother's side!



After some more excellent Salzburg/German cuisine for dinner, we had a speech from my father, and an informative and well-put-together PowerPoint presentation that my father's cousin had put together of our ancestors.

Unfortunately, due to the good food here and in Sicily, and despite my best efforts to exercise strenuously, I think I have gained weight. According to the scale in Sicily, I hadn't, but that was then, this is now. I'm not sure I want to look at the moment. Oh well, there's plenty of time to work it off again in the states. Trent, Jan, Steve and Ryan, if you're reading this, hope you're ready for some serious racquetball when I return!

In any case, we leave tomorrow for Aschaffenburg, so I should probably goto bed - packing to do tomorrow. It's been a beautiful stay here. There are many pictures with stories to tell, so more may be posted on that later. The drive to AB is about 5-6 hours long, so we should be arriving there in the evening. Following an overnight stay at my uncle's house, my mother and I will be taking a flight back to CVG, while my father continues on to France.

Thanks to all of you who have read this far, have posted comments, and have given me feedback elsewhere. While I've enjoyed this trip immensely so far, it makes you appreciate the things you have at home and take for granted. I will have another posting or two before I return to the states. Tomorrow evening, I should have some decent internet access at my uncle's place, so perhaps more pics can be posted. At the moment, the total is running at around 4520 pictures - plenty to sort through. This trip has gone by so fast, I barely had a chance to soak any of it in. Now that it's drawing to a close, I feel like I've just started to get a taste again of what it's like to be in Europe. Anyway, I'm going to bed now. More later.

Today we took the opportunity to see the peaks of the alps that my father climbed when he was younger. The image you see to the left (clicky for bigger) is of the Grossglockner. It's in the Austrian alps, about 1.5 hours south of Salzburg. The picture is an HDR composite - with a standard exposure it's impossible to see the foothills, the fields, and the mountains + clouds at the same time.

We wanted to drive up as high as possible to an outlook point, but since the clouds were so thick, we decided against this. Turns out this was a good idea, as motorists were being turned away later in the day due to excessive snowfall conditions. Since there was a fee of around 40 euro per car, we saved ourselves a pretty penny. Instead, we went to a small Gasthof that was built around 1350 and had an authentic Gulaschsuppe.

Because of a walk in the rain yesterday (it's about 40-50 degrees, variably, during the day), I caught a small cold. I'm trying to fight it off, and am doing well enough - still a pain. Getting sick once on a trip is bad enough, let alone twice. More family has arrived in the meantime, and weather permitting, we will all (about 35 of us) be taking carriage rides around the city of Salzburg tomorrow. Expect pics!

Afterwards, we will have the "formal" reunion. My father, my sister and myself will be performing musical excerpts - with the prerequisite that we need to time our performance around the chiming of an old clock that strikes at the hour and half past - losing about a minute each hour or so. Anyway, I'm going to bed now so that we can wake up at 3AM to watch the debates. After all the events tomorrow, I should be able to get around to a posting or so. The internet connection is getting sillier by the minute, but it should hold out just long enough. More later.

Today is my father's 75th birthday. As can be expected, the weather has acted accordingly and has provided poor visibility and rain. It's also cold, so todayreally isn't a day for going out. Our musical ensemble practice session is also on hold, because a meeting is taking place near where the piano is located.

I'm writing this from a version of Puppy Linux which I've booted off a flash drive - in a last-ditch effort to try to fix up my ailing disk before I return. The success of this also means that if my computer should stop booting, I can still get internet access, etc., until I get home. Unfortunately, any work in MATLAB would have to wait. Fortunately, we're not at that point yet.

So, I'm sitting outside under an electrically-retractable awning, browsing, etc., until the weather improves or until we decided to do something more interesting. More later.

Today I set out on two missions. 1. Find good internets. Internet access in Europe is generally silly. At our hotel, it is provided by Ethernet for free, with a catch. You have an 80MB (yes, megabyte) cap for 2 days (!). Any of you that know me well enough understand this to be a problem I ran into in about 2 minutes. There is wireless for an outdoor courtyard (which I'm using), but if you don't want to freeze off your [arse], I can barely get a trickle of it inside our room. Enough for a whole host of disconnects, lost connections, and general incredible slowness.

Mission 2: Exercise as much as I can. So, with those two goals, I set out on foot to Salzburg. I armed myself with a zoomable PDF of the city streets on my PDA phone, and some pre-made directions courtesy of Google Maps. What I wasn't told is that the store I had mapped myself to didn't exist for about 3 years.

However, the walk was lovely. I walked over 7.5 miles (12 km), and got to know the city a bit better. The directions took me straight into the city center, where you can see many of the wonderful churches and historic buildings of old Salzburg. The thumblet is of one of the larger churches right in the middle of the town square, so to speak. It's not really a square, but it's the center of Salzburg, and masses of people (mostly tourists) crowd the pedestrian-only streets.

Other sights included the Mozart Geburtshaus, which is the house in which Mozart was born in 1756. I didn't go in, as I was attempting to stay within a time limit that I had imposed for myself. However, we might go see it (by car this time) another day.

So, as for the store that didn't exist, I ended up walking another km or so to the same spot where I had purchased my external hard disk yesterday. Now, finding internet here is silly, like I've said. Those of you in the states, cherish your data independence. I attempted then to get a SIM card for my HSDPA modem so that I could use it here in Salzburg. T-Mobile, or something similar. Could I do that? NO! Not allowed. Only options? Buy a new modem, or sign up for a 2 year contract. Great. Seems like the people here enjoy the digital divide. I don't understand why one buys a portable modem that works in one country (folks, European countries aren't that big, meaning that if you take more than a few steps, you're in another country), and not be able to use it in another country with another provided, exclusively because they have stupid service agreements. Oh well, I guess sitting outside and freezing is cheaper than the $140 they wanted for a new modem and plan.

In any case, today my sister Bettina and her husband arrive - supposedly in the next 15 minutes - so I'm going to get going. Thanks to all of you who are reading and commenting, glad to see you're enjoying it. More later.

Good evening! (or afternoon, depending on your timezone...) Today, we drove to downtown Salzburg, the hometown of Mozart, to pick up a cello for me to play on at my father's birthday celebration/family reunion event. We drove to the middle of the city to a Geigenbaumeister (violin maker.) I picked out a nice-sounding instrument, and after everything was settled for the rental, we went to the Mozart Wohnungshaus (house where Mozart lived.) Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures. There were many original artifacts - keyboards that Mozart had used, original manuscripts, etc.

Our hotel is in a wonderful little area called Maria am Plain. It's a gasthoff (inn) that was built around the 1600s. It's beautiful, and is next to a church that was built as the result of a painting of Mary that survived a house fire. This was seen as a miracle, and thus the church was built with this picture as its theme.

The thumblet of one of the bell towers is part of that church. The bells are gorgeous - they sound like the stereotypical wedding bells heard in the Sound of Music, only right next door. Fortunately, they don't have a habit of ringing at night, otherwise I'd be plenty upset.

Speaking of ringing, there are sheep grazing right outside our place, and they are fitted with little bells that seem to be designed to provide me with maximum possible annoyance. Fortunately, the windows are equipped with electric shades that can block out most of the noise.

Finally, I was able to purchase an external hard disk. It's a rebadged Western Digital 160GB 2.5" drive (nothing special here), but it's a brand I've trusted for a long time. My laptop's internal drive continues to deteriorate, and is crumbling like and old stale cookie. While frustrating, my data is now safe, so I'm not worried as long as my tablet still boots.

Tomorrow, my sister Bettina and her husband arrive. We will be picking them up at the nearby train station. I don't know what's all on the menu, but more pics will be posted as time allows. Thanks for reading! More later.

Hello readers (anyone?)

We landed in Munich, Germany and promptly proceeded to the rental car company where we got our hands on this lovely little Benz C-class - a sporty 6-speed car with agile response, beefy engine (even for the US), and a wonderful, solid German feel. We drove across the border, but just before we left the country, we stopped by this wonderful little Gasthaus for a fantastic but relatively light true German meal. I had some Tellerfleisch (sort of a thin cut boiled steak) with potato salad and some veggies on the side. The meat came with some horseradish sauce on the side. My father ate the same, while my mother chose to go with a turkey steak with a creamy mushroom sauce.

We arrived at Maria am Plain on the outskirts of Salzburg, Austria. This is a quick sample of the room we're staying in. I've managed to move my bed into the corner of one of the rooms, so that I at least have some space of my own. From what I can see, the view is absolutely gorgeous, with a view of Salzburg, and the castle itself from the balcony of our room. The area here is beautiful too, but it's too dark to take without a tripod (that I didn't bring.) Tomorrow will bring new pictures, so at some point, check back for updates. Internet connection here is fast, and I'm not relying on the cell modem, so I can stay on longer and move data faster.

Technology-wise, I think I'll be purchasing an external hard disk once we get near an electronics store - we're picking up a cello for me to play on tomorrow, so we'll see what's around. The disk scans don't look too pretty at the moment, but I'm hoping it'll hold out until I get back to Nashville. More later.

Since we're in Rome, and my HDSPA modem is sorta connected to the "3G" network here, (from what I can see, HSxPA is half-baked at best... I'm so spoiled by a data network at home that just works!), I thought I'd post some modified bonus pics. These are the result of HDR images that I took at Agrigento and Selinunte. The colors on most of these are exaggerated/oversaturated on purpose - the actual color of the temples isn't quite so vivid, but such manipulation makes for an interesting photo effect. As always on these more interesting pics, clicky for bigger.

Since I have about two hours to browse, but no battery life and no outlets (don't you love customer-friendly airports?), I guess I'll to find alternate forms of entertainment. More later.

In the next few minutes we will be airborne - I'm writing this entry from the plane during the boarding process. Turns out we are leaving just on time, as Alitalia may cease to fly within the next few days.

I ran a scan 'n lock operation on the disk to weed out any remaining bad sectors - hoping that it will remain that way at least until I return to the US and can replace the drive. All in all, I've probably lost around 10 pictures, though the ones I've lost are largely unimportant, or duplicate. Still, it's annoying and a pain in the rear.

We are flying into Rome, and then out to Munich where we shall drive to Austria. More later.

This is our last full day in Sicily. I started it by going with Orazio (my mother's cousin) to a race that was held on a challenging course near Erice. There were several categories of races - standard small cars, a few tiny ones, and some faster ones.

Mid-race there was a problem, with one of the cars running into a barrier (slowly), and then needing towing out of the course. The cars are launched one at a time, since the road is extremely convoluted, steep, and challenging. It is essentially a timed race. I had a good vantage point to see the start and mid-way points of the race.

Following a hearty lunch featuring some yet-again amazing foods, we left for Erice, the highest point in Sicily. It's a city located about 2400 feet above sea level. Keep in mind that much of Sicily (at least at the coast) is at sea level, so it's really high.

I've been here before, but it was really cloudy, windy and cold - making seeing anything rather impractical. We had some beautiful weather this time around, so it was nice to see. The view from up there is impressive - you can see uninterrupted for hundreds of kilometers. The walls of the city slope straight down, so it's not a good idea to lean too far over the guardrails.

Our visit to Sicily comes to a close tomorrow. I will miss this part of my family very much - they have been very gracious in their hospitality, warmth, and their cooking. Sicily is a timeless place, and it offers a wonderful opportunity to take a step back and enjoy life as it is. More later.

Hello everyone,

Today was a rather special day, with a visit to two historic sites dating back to 500 and 600 years B.C. (that's 2500+ years ago!). We visited Agrigento, which is the home of some of the most well-preserved Doric temples in Europe. This was followed by a visit to Selinunte, which featured temples from the Corinthian period.

This image is a Doric temple, called the Temple of Chonchord, is the first well-preserved temple that you can see when you walk into the valley of temples. It's simply breathtaking. The amount of work done to bring this temple to life must have been of epic proportions. Each of the 30+ foot columns are pieced together from 10-foot-tall slices.

At Selinunte, this unnamed temple stands out amongst the fields. Alongside it is another temple, one of the largest in the area, which is completely in ruins following a set of disastrous earthquakes.

The image of me is at Agrigento, in an area where the early Christians built their catacombs. One can see early paintings that are hundreds of years old, including a well-defined one of a fish. All in all, I took about 560 images - more will be available in higher resolution versions on my online photo gallery once I return.

Family life is going well, and the food continues to impress every day. Today's trip took 12 hours - Sicily is definitely bigger than I imagined it to be. I'm sorry to be leaving it on Monday. If we can leave - Alitalia is in a major crisis, and we'll be lucky if we can get out before it is completely grounded.

I should add that everything here in Sicily is rather indirect. Getting anything done takes almost forever. It's timeless. You spend most of your day visiting friends, or having friends visit. At any given time, you'll have 2-3 friends ringing the doorbell and visiting for about an hour or two, with their kids. Which makes going anywhere a bit frustrating - but nice nonetheless. There's a huge sense of family and community, something of the likes you won't find at all in the US except for some very small communities, most likely foreign with the same values and principles. This reminds me very much of Argentina, and is something to be experienced.

That's all for now, I'm going to be going to bed relatively early, as we did a lot of walking today. More later.

P.S. To fellow photographers - yes, I know that my sensor has dust spots on it. Unfortunately, getting compressed air cans here isn't simple. Also, the resized images haven't been unsharp-masked on purpose to preserve a bit more detail.

This morning I woke up early to see my cousin Antonella off to the airport for her return to Pisa. That part wasn't so fun. We've become good friends since then (happened the first time I came to Sicily in 2003), and it was hard to see her go. Nonetheless, there's always another visit.

Following the trip to the airport (same one we came in to, near Palermo (Punta Raisi)), we stopped in Castellamare del Golfo. The pictures from the beach are from there. We then proceeded to visit a monument of a particularly famous individual, Garibaldi, that is credited for uniting Italy at that spot at around 1860. After that, we visited a fort near a city called Catalafimi (seen below)


Anyway, it's been a long day, and I'm going to bed - sorry for the relatively short entry. Tomorrow should bring more pics. I should add that after about 3-5 days of immersion, my Italian has become pretty fluent - I can speak uninterrupted and understand pretty well. Yes, I know, Italian and Spanish share a fundamental core of the language, but the key is to understand the differences. More later.

Looks like I had caught the flu - after an intense fever, stomach discomfort, joint pain, and just about everything else, I'm doing quite well today. The flu tends to last about 24 hours for me, but thanks to some amazing cooking from my family here, I'm almost completely recovered.

I should mention the cooking. In Sicily, you don't get one course. You don't get two. You just keep eating. At every dinner, and at every lunch, there are multiple courses and multiple entrees - I am working so hard to restrain myself! And of course, being in a Sicilian household, they don't take "no" for an answer. My parents return from Messina today, so I imagine that we'll have quite a dinner feast. My cousin Antonella (the older one) is leaving to go back to school in Pisa (mainland Italy) tomorrow, so this will somewhat be a goodbye dinner for her too. If I can snap some pics, I will.

No pics for this entry, There's a lot to distill, and of course I'll have an expansive collection on the online photo gallery once I get back. That's all for now!