A successful weekend

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Jen looks at screen in the control room of the USS Pampanito, a submarine built in 1943 at the Navy Yard Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in just nine months, and at a cost of $6 million. After use in the Pacific during World War II, the Pampanito docked at San Francisco.

Dylan walks up stairs to Ghirardelli Sqaure in San Francisco, where we proceed to eat chocolates and purchase wine.

It was gay pride weekend in San Francisco when we went, and the Mission Doroles Park was a center for rallying around the cause.

Suddenly in San Francisco, there was lots of honking and people shouting out in the streets, as well as cars swooping by equipped with Mexican flags. We were walking back home and had no idea what was going on. Apparently, Mexico had won a soccer match against the United States. As Dylan said, "only in the United States would it be tolerated for the winning team to celebrate so openly in the losing team's country."

How will we ever return to a two-day weekend?

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Dylan waits for the tube (BART - Bay Area Rapid Transport). We went to San Francisco for our three-day weekend and stayed at a hostel called El Capitan.

Dylan, Jen and Erica sit by a railing on the south side of the Golden Gate Bridge as we contemplate where we're going next.

The longest line we've ever seen for an ice cream shop. It's the Bi-Rite Creamery by Mission Dolores Park in San Francisco. Delicious but probably not worth the price and line.

The crew heads down the stairs to a BART station.

Moving in Las Vegas

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On Friday the 13th of August I left Syracuse, NY to Las Vegas, NV to begin my year-long term as a Nevada Conservation Corps crewmember. It is unbelievably hot here.

Because we weren't able to sign the lease to our apartment and move in until the 14th, I stayed my first night in the Gold Spike Hotel and Casino. Immediately at the entrance of every building I walk into, including my hotel, are slot machines and seizure-inducing flashing lights.

This was my hotel room (click and drag to rotate 360 degrees):
Surely the bright light coming through that window is daylight.


Oh wait it's actually a spotlight aiming right at my window in the middle of the night.

After moving out of this hotel the day after, I took an expensive Taxi ride to our Oasis Meadows Apartments.


View from our doorstep (we do also have a patio on the other side of the apartment). Incidentally this is also our house number where all gifts and care packages can be sent (3150 S. Nellis Blvd. #2131 Las Vegas, NV 89121).


Some Oasis Meadows apartments.

The size of this living area really surprised us all. It's bizarre that a living community this large has virtually no information available online. In any case, it's a very surprisingly nice place, and our three bedroom apartment is equally delightful, albeit unfurnished.

We did manage to pick up our first items of furniture from a couple of the garbage dumpsters located in the community, including a 1.5x1.5 ft. end table and a huge (in size and weight) 36" CRT television that we all thoroughly struggled bringing from the dumpster to our 2nd floor apartment (no elevators!). Our furniture count is now two, unless you don't count TVs as furniture.

One quickly apparent plus about Las Vegas is how cheap food and alcohol are.

While the apartment is nice and we'd all like more time to get settled in, we begin our NCC orientation tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. and won't be returning to Vegas until later this Friday.

At this point, things aren't too clear on where we'll be going exactly during our orientation week, but we did get an orientation schedule that more or less outlined our activities. It seems that a lot of this week will be spent in "classroom" settings, where we'll be learning about controlling erosion, trail design, layout (brushing corridor, constructing tread, drainage features) and theory, tool maintenance, Leave No Trace, and hopefully how to survive in the scorching heat. It's hot enough wearing shorts, but we have to wear relatively heavy Carharrt pants during our shifts everyday.

Notably, we'll be camping out the entire time starting Monday night at a location called Spring Mountains, which I believe are west and a bit south of Vegas.


Ben, Rosie and Sarah immediately after carrying this remarkably heavy TV to our apartment from by a dumpster. We were so happy to see static, ensuring it was in fact a functioning TV.


Ben, Rosie and Sarah after recovering from carrying the TV to the apartment.

Ugh, our forecast:

It better thunder on Wednesday. Only 30 percent chance? Come on thunderstorm, you can do it!

One more from my travels

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When we arrived at Newark from London, those of us trying to get to Syracuse found both each other and that our plane was canceled that evening. We spent the night in a nearby hotel after booking flights for the next morning (that flight was further delayed). We somehow spent $160 on room service.
Rachel and Alex enjoying some of our expensive wine.

Wait what, soundslides are due tomorrow?

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I had quite a late start, to say the least, on my soundslides. Some plans fell through, so I went to the Chelsea Antiques Market, Chapel Market, Petticoat Lane, and finally Portobello Road again because the former three didn't have a ton going on. Not that I expected otherwise for a Wednesday.
A fruit and vegetable stand on Portobello Road.
I've been trying to make a flash player for my soundslide. The content, of course, is also mine but I was trying to make the player itself. I've been fiddling around with Adobe Flash CS3 lately, because Newhouse won't teach me. Though in all fairness, I'm not there this semester.

Finding photos

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I went with Will and Madison today to Chinatown after graphics class to find some diversity pictures that we need to turn in on Thursday.
I would have went just down the street to Edgware Road for diversity pictures, but most of us have had bad experiences photographing those of Middle-Eastern descent. Actually we didn't feel that welcomed at Chinatown either. No one agreed to have their photos taken, but thank goodness for telephoto lenses.

Aggravating assignments

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I was searching London for half the day for good London economy photos, which we need for class, but didn't come across anything good. So I decided to visit the Natural History Museum instead.
Natural History Museum. Surprisingly, it's only 3:30 in the afternoon despite the sun going down.

The outside was clearly quite amazing, but the exhibits were a bit tacky and too often geared towards children, I think. It wasn't too impressive. And for some reason I was upset that the taxidermied animals on display weren't alive - why couldn't the museum have live animals? Then I realized this wasn't the zoo. In any case, the Museum of Natural History in New York City definitely wins in my book.

Surprise couch surfing

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Will and Levin met some American students studying in Italy for the fall who were traveling to London for the weekend. Looking for a place to stay, they invited them to stay at our flat. I'm glad it happened because they were awesome.
Danny, Will and Kiki assess some professional photographs at Piccadilly Circus.
AJ, Will and Danny enjoying the tube ride. Except Will, who is thoroughly displeased with me taking a picture.

More of being a tourist

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Tourists looking off from the Eiffel Tower's second level.
Iron lattice of the Eiffel Tower.
Aww, it's a baby Louvre!
The Louvre at night, as opposed to the day when it didn't lend itself to a photograph.
A European Union and a French flag hang beneath l'Arc de Triomphe.

And for funzies, an animated gif of the tower at night. It would have helped if I held my camera still.

On second thought, not enough money to leave Paris

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I wanted to stay in Paris for just a couple of days and then go south to Switzerland and then swing into south Germany until break was ending, then fly back to London. But then I checked my bank account. But also, there really was so much to do in Paris so I decided to stay in the cheap hostel for the rest of fall break.
Notre Dame.
One of Notre Dame's main front doors.
Two tourists light a candle inside Notre Dame.
Light from outside casts a shadow of decorative gates inside Notre Dame upon the tiled marble floor.
Gargi the Gargoyle (not actual name) on Notre Dame.

First days in Paris

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La Tour Eiffel behind the Monument for Peace in the Parc du Champ de Mars.

Although getting to Paris was expensive, Paris itself wasn't too bad. My hostel was only €19 a night. And the reason for that became quite apparent. The place was pretty run down, which I really didn't get the impression of from their website http://www.woodstock.fr/ which looks well up-kept. Worse than the actual building were the two clerks who ran the desk downstairs. They were the most miserable, irritable and unfriendly people that could possibly be running the hostel. They were the exact antithesis of the positivity emanating from their website.

One of the kids I was sharing a room with (I think his name was Iku?) in the hostel was from Osaka, Japan, and didn't speak English that well at all, and we sort of struggled talking to each other, as I didn't speak any Japanese whatsoever. But I really enjoyed that. This one girl running the hostel, however, had no tolerance for his broken English. Iku's luggage found its way on another plane during his voyage to France, so he didn't have much on him but the luggage was supposed to be delivered to the hostel when it arrived. When he and I were about to leave the hostel for the day, he wanted to ask this hostel girl to keep an eye out for his luggage, and, because his English was poor, the girl couldn't quite understand him and she was so visibly annoyed and was unbelievably rude to this poor kid.

Both hostel clerks constantly averted making eye contact with visitors, they spoke minimally if you wanted some information and were unhelpful. They just made me really upset in general even though they weren't necessarily mean to me personally.

And in contrast, the visitors I was living with for the week were amazing. The guys there came from countries including Poland, Germany, Argentina, Australia, Japan, Brazil and Mexico. Most of us would hang out in the evening and talk. It was cool. I was initially uneasy about the idea of sharing a room with other people, but I think it was in fact one of the best experiences I had in Paris.
Two Parisians enjoy some freestyle BMX action near the Eiffel Tower.
The subterranean Catacombes de Paris, the well-known ossuary.
It was really dark so not only did I have to use a very low shutter speed, but my autofocus wouldn't cooperate.

Shieldaig

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Sheep graze in fields outside of Strathcarron.

This past weekend I went to visit a family through the HOST program who live in Shieldaig, Scotland. I had booked a flight from the Gatwick airport to Inverness through EasyJet, and although I arrived an hour before departure time, they said the check-in desk was closed and that I couldn't board. Meaning I just wasted £80. This doesn't make any sense, as when we left for France last weekend, we bought our tickets, checked in and boarded the plane just 10 minutes before departure time. This was through RyanAir though, which may have been the key difference. In any case, this was rather infuriating and I'm going to try to have them refund my money soon.

This was on Friday, so I looked for other flights heading out of Gatwick to Inverness, and there was this other small airline which would have charged £214, so I didn't do that either. I was frustrated and my only choice was to book a sleeper train from London Euston to Inverness that night. For £117. Luckily SUL will reimburse me to a degree for these costs as I had to do this program because of SUL. Anyway it was pretty miserable, as was the sleeper train because apparently you have to pay much more to get a bed or even a reclining chair, which I did not do. I didn't sleep at all, and arrived at Inverness at about 8:30 a.m., then took a train from Inverness to Strathcarron. The picture above is from the train ride.

The HOST family picked me up at the Strathcarron train station and drove me to their house in Shieldaig. It was a very beautiful area.
My hosts live in that white house off to the left.

I climbed some mountains and walked around. I accidentally dropped my phone off into a ravine. So I had to buy a new one. And then I accidentally lost a blank CF memory card off a cliff.

The weekend was very expensive.

My hosts run a bed and breakfast year-round and are actively involved in restoring the forests in their approximate 1,500 acre estate, which like most of the Highlands in the region, are bare (the picture below is an example of this). The region was once the ancient Caledonian Forest of the Highlands, but now the native forest is nearly gone and its regeneration is especially difficult because of local farmers' sheep overgrazing the area, as well as red deer. It's a very relevant is topical issue up there because the Scottish government pays locals yearly for keeping sheep - this is done as an incentive for people to make a living up in an area with an otherwise low population. Every sheep that a farmer buys and keeps, the government pays a bit more. These farmers own vast estates in the Highlands and overgrazing is rampant.

My hosts own no sheep, and have fenced there area to prevent neighbors' sheep from entering, as well as red deer, so that their reforestation work can be fruitful.

Me by the mountains in Kinlochewe, the Scotland Highlands.

Uh, je ne comprends pas?

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Our weekend trip to France went a bit awry. Instead of Grenoble, we accidentally arrived in Rodez, which was not at all close to where we wanted to be. But that was okay. We hitchhiked to Séverac le Chateau, which was kind of in the middle of nowhere, and by the time we got there, and due to the lack of outward bound traffic (and therefore no more hitchhiking) we ended up having to stay the night there. We initially couldn't find a place to stay. But while searching, Andrew and Juliette walked into a hotel at about 11pm and found a key to a room just sitting on a desk by the door. It was pretty sketchy, but we were desperate and considered just taking the key and the corresponding room for the night for free. There was no reception to talk to of course at this hour, and the lobby and halls were completely dark.

Instead, we walked along a back road and found a hotel and bought a room for the night. Not nearly as cool as sneaking into a hotel room at night, but it was more legal.

The next morning when we left, a random donkey came up from a hill beneath to greet us.
We all harass the poor donkey with our cameras.
Our hotel, the donkey on the left, and Séverac le Chateau, which this town is named after, back in the distance.Nice was nice.

With a few hours to kill before taking us to Montpellier where we could catch the main railway, we went uphill and eventually to the castle. There was a splendid view.
Lost, France.

Atop Séverac le Chateau. Click and drag to rotate 360 degrees.

Another location from atop Séverac le Chateau. Click and drag to rotate 360 degrees.

St. Martin Vésubie in the French Alps. Click and drag to rotate 360 degrees.

Nederland

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A river running through Amsterdam's red-light district.

A crowded Amsterdam street at night.

A panorama of streets in Amsterdam at night.

I went to Amsterdam with Will, AJ and Matt this weekend. It was good fun, except that the traffic makes no sense there. What looks like a sidewalk could very well be an extension of the road, or a bike path, and pedestrians never have the right of way. And bikes were everywhere, which makes sense given the approximate €13 price of gasoline in the area. A very lively city, especially at night.

Then we went to Zaanse Schans, which was out in the country, and walked by some of Holland's oldest windmills by the River Zaan.
A family rides their bicycles on a path in Zaanse Schans behind the windmills.
This windmill, called De Kat was used as a dye mill. According to the Zaans Molenmuseum, this is probably the last wind-powered dye mill in the world.
Windmills line the Zaan River.