Sunday, June 15, 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Blossoming LDR
It's been 13 days since my last post.
My shoulders are sunburned from a session of beach volleyball on Friday. I'm ok though, it's a good hurt.
Mike Z, my friend and former landlord in Ft. McMurray has moved and is living in Victoria and still hasn't worked in over 9 months. He's attempting to go green in both his professional and personal life. I'm jealous and inspired.
I'm going to a wedding in Cairo this weekend. More importantly, I have a date. Some of you know this story from phone calls or emails or were eye witnesses, for others this will be news. In the middle of our European hockey roadtrip in March we stayed in Den Haag. If you'll recall from my earlier post we happened upon a birthday celebration for an attractive brown haired Dutch girl. Well, one thing has led to another... Our stop in Tilburg was mostly due to me wanting to visit Frederieke again, but it wasn't too hard convincing my fellow travellers to make the detour.
Frederieke visited me here in Egypt in April for a very quick 5 days. The time flew by but we had a great time hanging around the resort during a big Egyptian holiday to ring in Spring. Now she's due back this Thursday for a longer 10 day visit, starting with a wedding in Cairo! Then back to Sukhna where I still have to go to work and Frederieke is going to write her bachelor thesis for her psychology degree. This is the last step to receiving her degree before moving to Ireland to start her PhD. But in the meantime we'll enjoy some quality time together here in Egypt...
The latest on the work situ... There were murmurs of going back to Brisbane on the PNG project at the end of June, but those have essentially past. The possibility of me going back there eventually after Egypt is still open but just not yet... So I'm here until further notice, it's looking like the end of August. SO, I'll get another 2 week vacation / rotation leave here at the end of June or early July. I'm not sure what I'll do though. July 3rd is the first day of the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, which I think is the front runner. I haven't seen friends and family in Calgary since Christmas, and that was only for a quick week when everyone was busy during the holidays anyway... A dose of home could cure the sickness and tie me over until I wrap up here in Egypt... Something to think about anyway. If anyone has any suggestions please leave your comments, remember to sign your name so I know who's talking...
Latest surfing highlights:
SWPL adam riff discobelle shabba
My shoulders are sunburned from a session of beach volleyball on Friday. I'm ok though, it's a good hurt.
Mike Z, my friend and former landlord in Ft. McMurray has moved and is living in Victoria and still hasn't worked in over 9 months. He's attempting to go green in both his professional and personal life. I'm jealous and inspired.
I'm going to a wedding in Cairo this weekend. More importantly, I have a date. Some of you know this story from phone calls or emails or were eye witnesses, for others this will be news. In the middle of our European hockey roadtrip in March we stayed in Den Haag. If you'll recall from my earlier post we happened upon a birthday celebration for an attractive brown haired Dutch girl. Well, one thing has led to another... Our stop in Tilburg was mostly due to me wanting to visit Frederieke again, but it wasn't too hard convincing my fellow travellers to make the detour.
Frederieke visited me here in Egypt in April for a very quick 5 days. The time flew by but we had a great time hanging around the resort during a big Egyptian holiday to ring in Spring. Now she's due back this Thursday for a longer 10 day visit, starting with a wedding in Cairo! Then back to Sukhna where I still have to go to work and Frederieke is going to write her bachelor thesis for her psychology degree. This is the last step to receiving her degree before moving to Ireland to start her PhD. But in the meantime we'll enjoy some quality time together here in Egypt...
The latest on the work situ... There were murmurs of going back to Brisbane on the PNG project at the end of June, but those have essentially past. The possibility of me going back there eventually after Egypt is still open but just not yet... So I'm here until further notice, it's looking like the end of August. SO, I'll get another 2 week vacation / rotation leave here at the end of June or early July. I'm not sure what I'll do though. July 3rd is the first day of the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, which I think is the front runner. I haven't seen friends and family in Calgary since Christmas, and that was only for a quick week when everyone was busy during the holidays anyway... A dose of home could cure the sickness and tie me over until I wrap up here in Egypt... Something to think about anyway. If anyone has any suggestions please leave your comments, remember to sign your name so I know who's talking...
Latest surfing highlights:
SWPL adam riff discobelle shabba
Monday, May 26, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
misc cool
Bansky, if I were an artist. Can someone print each of his outdoor works on glossy paper and mail them to me?
From his Leeness: TheFoggyMonocle
An informal listing of men’s style, wit and wisdom.
In an attempt to be cool and because I myself am not creative I vow that when I live in a real house again, in a real city, I'm going to try and furnish it a la yanko.
From his Leeness: TheFoggyMonocle
An informal listing of men’s style, wit and wisdom.
In an attempt to be cool and because I myself am not creative I vow that when I live in a real house again, in a real city, I'm going to try and furnish it a la yanko.
Friday, May 16, 2008
ketchup
Am I getting more mature, or less?
The fridge was bare... the pasta sauce I made sucked. I decided to try and salvage it by adding ketchup.
The fridge was bare... the pasta sauce I made sucked. I decided to try and salvage it by adding ketchup.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
What?
What?
Why haven't you written? The people who care have at least emailed me...
Haha, I'm kidding. Sorry for the gap in posts. Believe it or not work has been crazy busy lately, so my internet time has dwindled.
Anyways, Egypt is alright... weather is getting warmer, golf course greener, beach has more bikinis, the BBQ is always full of steaks, and the end of the project is in sight! What more could a boy ask for? haha
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Podcasts
I think I'm addicted to podcasts. I mean, I don't have a ton of spare time... my commute is only 10 minutes, my evenings typically filled with squash or golf or something, I get one day off a week which is usually spent somewhere not conducive to listening to podcasts. So basically I don't have a lot of opportunity to listen to podcasts... I can squeeze one or two episodes an evening, maybe while I'm cooking dinner or possibly one as I'm going to bed.
But I still subscribe to and download like 20 different podcasts... programs that are 30-60 minutes... ranging from music, CBC programs, Ricky Gervais, Peter Mansbridge, Bill Mahr, and my current favourite This American Life...
I can't possibly listen to them though. And yet I subscribe and d/l. Strange.
But I still subscribe to and download like 20 different podcasts... programs that are 30-60 minutes... ranging from music, CBC programs, Ricky Gervais, Peter Mansbridge, Bill Mahr, and my current favourite This American Life...
I can't possibly listen to them though. And yet I subscribe and d/l. Strange.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Streaking down the wing...
The story from 2002, still a gooder. I've got $200 to any of my friends that repeats this during the playoffs, but not during play please... maybe right when the period ends.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Go Flames!
Stop yelling at me
Here's an article from the NYT on the noise in Cairo. Where I am in Ain Sukhna it's not nearly as bad, but the incessant honking, trucks, music, etc. is evident even in the "5-star" resort where we live... I think it's because most of the people there come from Cairo...
Cairo Journal
A City Where You Can’t Hear Yourself Scream
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
CAIRO — Egyptians in this capital city say it is harder and harder to be heard and to have a voice, but they are not talking politics. Well, not only politics.
What they are talking about, or rather yelling about, is noise, the incredible background noise of a city crammed with 18 million people, and millions of drivers who always have one hand on the horn and a rules-free way of thinking.
“Whenever I talk to people, they always say, ‘Why are you screaming?’ ” said Salah Abdul Hamid, 56, a barber whose two-chair shop is on the corner of a busy street on the north side.
Mr. Hamid was, of course, screaming.
It was 4 p.m. in Rhode al Farag, a typical Cairo neighborhood teeming with people and shops and cars and trucks and buses and horse-drawn carts. From his shop, the landscape of sound revealed a chorus of people struggling to make a living, trying to assert themselves in a city, and in a country, where they often feel invisible.
Noise — outrageous, unceasing, pounding noise — is the unnerving backdrop to a tense time in Egypt, as inflation and low wages have people worried about basic survival, prompting strikes and protests. We’re not just talking typical city noise, but what scientists here say is more like living inside a factory.
“It’s not enough to make you crazy, but it is very tiring,” said Essam Muhammad Hussein, as he sat in a cracked plastic chair outside the corner food shop his family has owned for 50 years. He was shouting as he talked about the noise, though he did not seem to realize it.
“What are we going to do?” he asked. “Where is the way out?”
This is not like London or New York, or even Tehran, another car-clogged Middle Eastern capital. It is literally like living day in and day out with a lawn mower running next to your head, according to scientists with the National Research Center. They spent five years studying noise levels across the city and concluded in a report issued this year that the average noise from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is 85 decibels, a bit louder than a freight train 15 feet away, said Mustafa el Sayyid, an engineer who helped carry out the study.
But that 85 decibels, while “clearly unacceptable,” is only the average across the day and across the city. At other locations, it is far worse, he said. In Tahrir Square, or Ramsis Square, or the road leading to the pyramids, the noise often reaches 95 decibels, he said, which is only slightly quieter than standing next to a jackhammer.
“All of greater Cairo is in the range of unacceptable noise levels from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.,” Mr. Sayyid said.
By comparison, normal conversation ranges from 45 to 60 decibels, a chain saw registers 100 decibels and a gunshot 140. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, every 10 decibels equals a tenfold increase in intensity.
Noise at the levels commonly found in Cairo affects the body. It can cause elevated blood pressure and other stress-related diseases. It can interfere with sleep, which almost always makes people more irritable. “People need a chance to sleep, to have a chance to think, in quiet,” said Dr. Nagat Amer, a physician and researcher with the national center.
But quiet is in short supply, especially in densely packed neighborhoods like Rhode al Farag, where the streets are alive 24 hours a day with people struggling with one another to eke out a living. In the last six weeks, 11 people have been killed in fights in lines to buy some of the cheap subsidized bread many rely on to feed their families.
While noise is never cited as a reason for the spasms of violence, it is a silent enemy that makes the pressures of life that much harder to cope with, people on the streets here said.
“The noise bothers me and I know it bothers people,” said Abdel Khaleq, driver of a battered black and white taxi, as he paused from honking his horn to stop for passengers.
“So why do you do it?” he was asked.
“Well, to tell you I’m here,” he said. “There is no such thing as logic in this country.”
And then he drove off, honking.
In general terms, the noise is a symptom of an increasingly unmanageable city, crowded far beyond its original capacity, officials at the National Research Center said. The main culprit is the two million cars, and drivers who jam the city roads every day.
But Egyptians also like to live loud, preferring community to private space, mourning a death and celebrating a wedding with a good dose of noise. Muezzins’ calls to prayer wail from loudspeakers in the minarets of thousands of mosques in the city. The problem is there are more people now, more cars, more competition for a sale, more jockeying for a spot on the road. And with that much more, there is less consideration for the person behind or next door, social commentators said.
“We like to live our life with people around us — there is no privacy,” said Ahmed El-Kholei, a professor of urban planning at Monufiya University in the Nile Delta north of the city. “This is not a bad thing in itself, but the way it is expressed is wrong. Before, when someone held a funeral, the neighbors would postpone a wedding out of consideration. Today, you see the funeral and the wedding all howling in the microphones at the same time.”
Still, Egyptians do not, as a rule, complain about noise.
“What noise?” asked Madbouly Omran, who has run a small nut stand on Rhode al Farag Street since 1970.
The trucks rumbled by. A pickup truck hit its air horn. Taxis honked.
Moustafa Abdel Aleem, who works in the booth with Mr. Omran, said, “The noise is not something I want, but I can’t do anything about it; it’s forced on me.” So he turned on the radio in search of a song he liked, and of course, turned the volume up.
In a nation where about 40 percent of the population survives on about $2 a day, people understand the struggle to feed a family. In Rhode al Farag, men worked on cars in the street, butchered meat in the street, blasted radios and turned up television sets. Like shellshocked war veterans, residents sat out on the street, sipping tea, oblivious to the cacophony.
Even when it came to the shop run by Mahmoud Faheem, people did not complain. Mr. Faheem rents out concert-sized speakers, and he displayed his speakers on the street, offering the entire block a never ending thump-thump of dance music. “Let him eat bread,” said Atef Ali, 45, the owner of a food shop next door, using an Arabic phrase to explain why he did not complain, even while he detested the music.
And so the people shout, and shrug.
They shout to be heard, and shrug because they say there is nothing they can do but join in, honking, banging, screaming, whatever they need to do to make it through the day — or the intersection. The noise is the cause and the reaction, they say.
“Life is like this,” said Ahmed Muhammad, 23, who makes his living delivering metal tanks of propane to homes. He hangs four tanks off the back of a rusted bicycle, then rides with one hand on the handlebars, the other slamming a wrench into one of the tanks to announce his arrival to the neighborhood. “Making money is like this,” he said. “What am I going to do? This is how it is.”
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.
Cairo Journal
A City Where You Can’t Hear Yourself Scream
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
CAIRO — Egyptians in this capital city say it is harder and harder to be heard and to have a voice, but they are not talking politics. Well, not only politics.
What they are talking about, or rather yelling about, is noise, the incredible background noise of a city crammed with 18 million people, and millions of drivers who always have one hand on the horn and a rules-free way of thinking.
“Whenever I talk to people, they always say, ‘Why are you screaming?’ ” said Salah Abdul Hamid, 56, a barber whose two-chair shop is on the corner of a busy street on the north side.
Mr. Hamid was, of course, screaming.
It was 4 p.m. in Rhode al Farag, a typical Cairo neighborhood teeming with people and shops and cars and trucks and buses and horse-drawn carts. From his shop, the landscape of sound revealed a chorus of people struggling to make a living, trying to assert themselves in a city, and in a country, where they often feel invisible.
Noise — outrageous, unceasing, pounding noise — is the unnerving backdrop to a tense time in Egypt, as inflation and low wages have people worried about basic survival, prompting strikes and protests. We’re not just talking typical city noise, but what scientists here say is more like living inside a factory.
“It’s not enough to make you crazy, but it is very tiring,” said Essam Muhammad Hussein, as he sat in a cracked plastic chair outside the corner food shop his family has owned for 50 years. He was shouting as he talked about the noise, though he did not seem to realize it.
“What are we going to do?” he asked. “Where is the way out?”
This is not like London or New York, or even Tehran, another car-clogged Middle Eastern capital. It is literally like living day in and day out with a lawn mower running next to your head, according to scientists with the National Research Center. They spent five years studying noise levels across the city and concluded in a report issued this year that the average noise from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. is 85 decibels, a bit louder than a freight train 15 feet away, said Mustafa el Sayyid, an engineer who helped carry out the study.
But that 85 decibels, while “clearly unacceptable,” is only the average across the day and across the city. At other locations, it is far worse, he said. In Tahrir Square, or Ramsis Square, or the road leading to the pyramids, the noise often reaches 95 decibels, he said, which is only slightly quieter than standing next to a jackhammer.
“All of greater Cairo is in the range of unacceptable noise levels from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.,” Mr. Sayyid said.
By comparison, normal conversation ranges from 45 to 60 decibels, a chain saw registers 100 decibels and a gunshot 140. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, every 10 decibels equals a tenfold increase in intensity.
Noise at the levels commonly found in Cairo affects the body. It can cause elevated blood pressure and other stress-related diseases. It can interfere with sleep, which almost always makes people more irritable. “People need a chance to sleep, to have a chance to think, in quiet,” said Dr. Nagat Amer, a physician and researcher with the national center.
But quiet is in short supply, especially in densely packed neighborhoods like Rhode al Farag, where the streets are alive 24 hours a day with people struggling with one another to eke out a living. In the last six weeks, 11 people have been killed in fights in lines to buy some of the cheap subsidized bread many rely on to feed their families.
While noise is never cited as a reason for the spasms of violence, it is a silent enemy that makes the pressures of life that much harder to cope with, people on the streets here said.
“The noise bothers me and I know it bothers people,” said Abdel Khaleq, driver of a battered black and white taxi, as he paused from honking his horn to stop for passengers.
“So why do you do it?” he was asked.
“Well, to tell you I’m here,” he said. “There is no such thing as logic in this country.”
And then he drove off, honking.
In general terms, the noise is a symptom of an increasingly unmanageable city, crowded far beyond its original capacity, officials at the National Research Center said. The main culprit is the two million cars, and drivers who jam the city roads every day.
But Egyptians also like to live loud, preferring community to private space, mourning a death and celebrating a wedding with a good dose of noise. Muezzins’ calls to prayer wail from loudspeakers in the minarets of thousands of mosques in the city. The problem is there are more people now, more cars, more competition for a sale, more jockeying for a spot on the road. And with that much more, there is less consideration for the person behind or next door, social commentators said.
“We like to live our life with people around us — there is no privacy,” said Ahmed El-Kholei, a professor of urban planning at Monufiya University in the Nile Delta north of the city. “This is not a bad thing in itself, but the way it is expressed is wrong. Before, when someone held a funeral, the neighbors would postpone a wedding out of consideration. Today, you see the funeral and the wedding all howling in the microphones at the same time.”
Still, Egyptians do not, as a rule, complain about noise.
“What noise?” asked Madbouly Omran, who has run a small nut stand on Rhode al Farag Street since 1970.
The trucks rumbled by. A pickup truck hit its air horn. Taxis honked.
Moustafa Abdel Aleem, who works in the booth with Mr. Omran, said, “The noise is not something I want, but I can’t do anything about it; it’s forced on me.” So he turned on the radio in search of a song he liked, and of course, turned the volume up.
In a nation where about 40 percent of the population survives on about $2 a day, people understand the struggle to feed a family. In Rhode al Farag, men worked on cars in the street, butchered meat in the street, blasted radios and turned up television sets. Like shellshocked war veterans, residents sat out on the street, sipping tea, oblivious to the cacophony.
Even when it came to the shop run by Mahmoud Faheem, people did not complain. Mr. Faheem rents out concert-sized speakers, and he displayed his speakers on the street, offering the entire block a never ending thump-thump of dance music. “Let him eat bread,” said Atef Ali, 45, the owner of a food shop next door, using an Arabic phrase to explain why he did not complain, even while he detested the music.
And so the people shout, and shrug.
They shout to be heard, and shrug because they say there is nothing they can do but join in, honking, banging, screaming, whatever they need to do to make it through the day — or the intersection. The noise is the cause and the reaction, they say.
“Life is like this,” said Ahmed Muhammad, 23, who makes his living delivering metal tanks of propane to homes. He hangs four tanks off the back of a rusted bicycle, then rides with one hand on the handlebars, the other slamming a wrench into one of the tanks to announce his arrival to the neighborhood. “Making money is like this,” he said. “What am I going to do? This is how it is.”
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Donkeys!
Last week camels, this week donkeys. Did you know the plural of donkey is donkeys and not donkies? That's our cooling tower in the background of this one:
And that's our Ammonia Synthesis Converter in the background of this one:
And that's our Ammonia Synthesis Converter in the background of this one:
Sunday, April 13, 2008
New hat
More golf pictures! I know you love it. These are mostly to show off my new hat. Stylin'!
From L to R: Jim, Ben, Greg (relaxing), and John.
From L to R: Jim, Ben, Greg (relaxing), and John.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Hmmphf.
I'm going to have to kick up the intellect level here, I'm embarrassed. But I checked my friend Mike's blog and he was rated Elementary too, so now I don't feel bad. He reads lots and is way gooder at spelling than me.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
"CAMELS!"
"CAMELS!" is what Frank would say if he was on a roadtrip in Egypt. I took these today on the way back to work from lunch:
Saturday, April 05, 2008
PNG LNG Update
Everyone's favourite project is still kicking around downunder. The project I was on in Australia has almost revived itself in the form of an LNG plant instead of a pipeline from PNG to Australia... so we'll see what happens. Read this article if you're interested... No word yet on when/if they'd have me back, but KBR knows its my #1 choice for a project after Egypt.
Mirage
Had a great weekend... Left on Thursday and caught a ride with a co-worker to the JW Marriott in Cairo. A friend who used to be the golf director here at Stella Di Mare is now working as the Golf Manager at the Marriott in Cairo, so he invited me down there to play. It is also the last weekend for one of the Swedes I've been hanging around with (Jocke) and he's been chilling out at the Marriott for a few days, so it was a good opportunity to see him off as well.
We played an executive 9 on Thursday afternoon because I didn't get there until 3'ish, which was fun. Golfing with two potential professionals is somewhat intimidating, but also a great way to pick up some tips. They were both helpful. That night we went for dinner at the Birdcage... no, not the cross dressing cabaret bar from the movies, but the Asian fusion restaurant in the Intercontinental hotel in Cairo. From there we hit the casino for a couple hours (-$100 on roulette, +$75 at blackjack, free drinks, good times) before ending up at Mojito, which is on the rooftop of the Nile Hilton. That was good time, chilling out with Calle, Jocke, and a few of Calle's expat co-workers... We made trails around 3:30, slept in 'till 10am, then Jocke took me to practice some more. He was like a personal golf coach that Friday morning, but once our game started it was all business. We played for 50 LE the front, 50 LE for the back, and 50 LE overall in a game of Copenhagen (some Swedish game) which was fun. I ended up +150LE on the day between Jocke and one other guy. I guess the lessons paid off (or I'm a sandbagger).
Hope everyone else is having a good weekend!
We played an executive 9 on Thursday afternoon because I didn't get there until 3'ish, which was fun. Golfing with two potential professionals is somewhat intimidating, but also a great way to pick up some tips. They were both helpful. That night we went for dinner at the Birdcage... no, not the cross dressing cabaret bar from the movies, but the Asian fusion restaurant in the Intercontinental hotel in Cairo. From there we hit the casino for a couple hours (-$100 on roulette, +$75 at blackjack, free drinks, good times) before ending up at Mojito, which is on the rooftop of the Nile Hilton. That was good time, chilling out with Calle, Jocke, and a few of Calle's expat co-workers... We made trails around 3:30, slept in 'till 10am, then Jocke took me to practice some more. He was like a personal golf coach that Friday morning, but once our game started it was all business. We played for 50 LE the front, 50 LE for the back, and 50 LE overall in a game of Copenhagen (some Swedish game) which was fun. I ended up +150LE on the day between Jocke and one other guy. I guess the lessons paid off (or I'm a sandbagger).
Hope everyone else is having a good weekend!
Berlin Tourny
Anyone who is interested, here is a link to more photos of the Berlin tournament. This site is the firefighters who put together the tournament and invited us there.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Sun Sketches
Anyone out there listen to CBC's Vinyl Cafe? Ya, I do, I'm a CBC dork. Whatev.
Here are some pictures from Peck's camera on the trip, I think he has more to come.
The Fab Four at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The Nazi's used the Gate as their symbol, and it was also part of the Berlin Wall, cut off from East Berliner's by the death strip.
Here it is during the fall of the wall:
During the walking tour in Berlin, note the unrestored buildings around, still waiting for the united Berlin to get to them after decades of neglect by the Communists:
The Sony Center in Berlin, pretty cool building, a piece of modern goodness:
After a hockey game, why can't we get beers like this in dressing rooms in Canada? Oh ya, we're, we're influenced by the overbearing rules of the police state to the south of us. Loosen up Canada.
Team Canada and the Berlin police team, after an exhibition game. Jared and I (left back row) donned the Berlin jersies for this one:
Well earned:
Outdoor rink in Berlin... had the ice cooling system and everything... great idea. But it doesn't get that cold in Berlin, so I'm not sure this would be utilized in Calgary where it gets to -30...??
After a hockey game, why can't we get beers like this in dressing rooms in Canada? Oh ya, we're, we're influenced by the overbearing rules of the police state to the south of us. Loosen up Canada.
Team Canada and the Berlin police team, after an exhibition game. Jared and I (left back row) donned the Berlin jersies for this one:
Well earned:
Outdoor rink in Berlin... had the ice cooling system and everything... great idea. But it doesn't get that cold in Berlin, so I'm not sure this would be utilized in Calgary where it gets to -30...??
Amsterdam, local hangout. It was closed at the time we visited, but still posed for a pic:
Giant Dutch shoe. Boo ya:
German countryside:
The van in Berlin:
Graffiti in Berlin. Everywhere you went there was some, and it worked...
Giant Dutch shoe. Boo ya:
German countryside:
The van in Berlin:
Graffiti in Berlin. Everywhere you went there was some, and it worked...
Striking it:
Mad Dog line in the Netherlands:
1-litre beers, ya that's how you do it when on a hockey roadtrip to Europe:
Let's cheers our one litre beers:
Cafe Momfer De Mol in Den Haag. We were there every night, keeping our tab open for the whole stay. That's the owner Joep in the background... He was a great host, as usual... 3 years running we've here:
Mad Dog line in the Netherlands:
1-litre beers, ya that's how you do it when on a hockey roadtrip to Europe:
Let's cheers our one litre beers:
Cafe Momfer De Mol in Den Haag. We were there every night, keeping our tab open for the whole stay. That's the owner Joep in the background... He was a great host, as usual... 3 years running we've here:
Muxtape
Apparently the kids are going crazy for this thing. Consider the bandwagon jumped.
http://ryeandcoke.muxtape.com/
http://ryeandcoke.muxtape.com/
Sunday, March 30, 2008
CHICKENS!
Picture of somewhere in Europe on the only sunny day we had:
Well well well... I'm back in Egypt after the Euro vacation, and what a ride. I'd have to rate that trip as one of the best. The hockey was a fun excuse, but the highlights were definitely hanging out with Frank, Nabber and Peck and the good times we had together.
Nicely translated:
What are all those red lights in the background?
Well well well... I'm back in Egypt after the Euro vacation, and what a ride. I'd have to rate that trip as one of the best. The hockey was a fun excuse, but the highlights were definitely hanging out with Frank, Nabber and Peck and the good times we had together. The Den Haag tournament went alright, we were poised to win the whole thing on the last day but the 9:00am game time got the better of us. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the four of us staying up until 5am, getting 2 hours of sleep, and then heading to the game. When the rest of the team showed up to the rink Peck, Frank and Nabber were asleep on the floor outside the dressing room looking like a sad, sorry crew. I was doing alright, still floating on the high from the previous night (not that high, a different kind of high). The game was back and forth, our goalie kept us in it, not allowing a goal through 2 and half periods. But we couldn't produce either, not enough quality chances were generated. It wasn't just our line misfiring either, the others all had a little Amsterdam'itis setting in... We eventually let one in off of a faceoff miscue in our own end that resulting in a shot from the point careening in. Unfortunately we didn't have enough gas to come back and succumbed to the team from San Diego.
But enough about hockey, or this may turn into a boring hockey and golf blog, we wouldn't want that now would we?
Back in Berlin we hung out a lot with Lee, a friend through a friend of Peck's who lives in Berlin while working on a PhD in political sciences... ya, I suppose you're wondering what we're doing hanging out with a guy like that... But it turns out he (or we) fit right in, and we ended up having a blast with him at the hockey games and more importantly afterwards... We also did the standard walking tour of Berlin in order to get a broad idea of the city's history. I'd been before in September, but the boys enjoyed it as well. We were supposed to leave Berlin Sunday after our last game in order to see some German or Dutch country side, but ended up staying until Tuesday on account of the fun we were having... or more likely that we slept through check out time and one of us had to get out of bed to beg to stay another day/night at the front desk. Good times... if anyone is in Berlin, the East Seven hostel is essentially a hotel and highly recommended. It's a great neighbourhood with a vibrant nightlife and close to all the sights. Brewer's walking tour also conveniently picks up there, and it led by some great tour guides.
Guess what this is:
Nicely translated: We met some people from Hamburg along our travels, and they offered to show us a night out there if we wanted... so naturally we piled into the minivan and drove to Hamburg. Hamburg was a beautiful city, we pretty sure anyways. We were there for less than 24 hours and it dark for most of that. The Reeperbaun is something else though, for those that get to visit. Our hosts showed us a good time until after 5am... But we had to make our way to Amsterdam so that Frank could see it with his own eyes, unfortunately cutting our stay in Hamburg short.
Wednesday we were in DAM, that's local speak for Amsterdam I guess... With one night only we had to make the best of it. Although it was raining and cold, the DAM didn't disappoint. The bumper boat was invented, we bought a fist-trophy for our hockey team, and someone doubled down on a deuce.
Thursday we had a practice in Den Haag, so off we went. Our accommodation there rocked, we stayed at Hotel 't Centrum where we had been before, only this time we had a big apartment on the first floor to ourselves, complete with kitchen, fireplace, living/dining room, and big red curtains.
Hockey aside, Den Haag was epic. By far close to the best 4 days I've ever had. We frequented our regular haunt, where we've been going since 2006... Joep and Sus the bar owner/staff showed us a great time once again. We've gotten to know them so well we left our tab open from Thursday to Sunday, stopping in every night until 2am before heading out to another later night establishment. People in Den Haag are great, and it's a great city for both site seeing and making new friends.
On the night before our final hockey game we were planning on taking it easy... go out for a nice dinner with Fowler and Steph (fellow Calgarians on the hockey team), have "a couple" drinks, then get to bed before 2am in order to rest up for hockey at 9am. So we find a quiet restaurant, not only that they sit us upstairs away from everyone except an elderly couple on the other end... Everything is going as planned, I get the spicy ribs. We're drinking wine, being civilized... We should have known better. Up the stairs come 1, 2, 3, 4, then a 5th girl, the waiter sits them 20m from us. Oh great. The evening wears on... they have dinner, then out comes a birthday cake with a sparkler ablaze, they're singing to brunette... it's all downhill from here. We're in denial though, we order coffees after dinner, we have an early game in the morning. And then the birthday girl gets up, comes over to our table and says something incomprehensible. It was in Dutch. She sees our stupid looks and repeats herself in English... Would we like to request a song? She's collecting requests for the bartender to play... We're still not up to it, fumbling through the conversation with nothing better to offer than U2's Beautiful Day. She returns to her table, we look at each other, that was sad. Stephanie calls us losers.
We apologize to our hockey team and our "big game" in the morning before ordering 11 shooters from the waiter. On our way to their table we clear our throats and start in with the English version of happy birthday. I think they're appalled, but we find out afterwards it was "sweet"... Walking home at 5 in the morning after a nice crazy teenaged bar-top dancing (not us, them) to rehashed 90's dance music, turns out it was a beautiful day.
From Den Haag to Ghent, Belgium. On the way we drove through the Blizzard of '08, along the coastline of the Netherlands and Belgium... Saw the North Sea, drove over a big-ass bridge, through a 6.6km tunnel under the North Sea, waited for a boat at a bridge crossing, circled roundabouts like madmen, and made decent time if I don't say so myself.
Cool restaurant in Ghent, it used to be an old textile warehouse:
Ghent:
St. Nicholas' church, ya, that St. Nick:
Belgian beer of choice, Westmalle (Duble):
This often overlooked medieval town was charming... We left Peck in charge of arranging our lodgings, which put us into a youth hostel eating breakfast with 10 year olds and sleeping on rubber mattresses that had no doubt been "wet" in the previous night. Just giving him a hard time, it wasn't that bad, and cheap too!
St. Nicholas' church, ya, that St. Nick:Belgian beer of choice, Westmalle (Duble):This often overlooked medieval town was charming... We left Peck in charge of arranging our lodgings, which put us into a youth hostel eating breakfast with 10 year olds and sleeping on rubber mattresses that had no doubt been "wet" in the previous night. Just giving him a hard time, it wasn't that bad, and cheap too! Two nights here, then off to Ypres/Ieper for a little WWI history and war memorial touring.
We stayed at a great B&B with the best hosts. They drove us to town at night, then picked us up in the eve. We witnessed the Last Post at the main gate to the city. The city performs this every night at 8pm to thank the Allies for liberating the city after WWI. They're the only city to do this... the only exception is during WWII when the occupying Germans prohibited it. But it was resumed on the very evening of liberation, September 6, 1944. Very special to witness, traffic is halted and school kids pack the area under the gate to witness it, every single day.
We did a driving tour through Flanders...
A Canadian soldier resting on his gun:
The Menin gate and the Last Post, guess what time it was:
A German WWI cemetary:
The Menin gate and the Last Post, guess what time it was:A German WWI cemetary:The largest Commonwealth war memorial in Europe (Tyne Cot Cemetery):
"Real" trenches near Hill 62:
The bunker where Canadian physician Lt. Col. John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields on May 13, 1915, near the Essex Farm war cemetery:
From there we made our way to the bustling city of Tilburg... The 6th largest city (in 2006) in the Netherlands, Tilburg is the self-proclaimed wool capital of the Netherlands, giving birth to such famous people as Sebastiaan "Bas" Rutten. This was my last night in Holland and was spent in the company of great friends, both old and new.
"Real" trenches near Hill 62:The bunker where Canadian physician Lt. Col. John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields on May 13, 1915, near the Essex Farm war cemetery:From there we made our way to the bustling city of Tilburg... The 6th largest city (in 2006) in the Netherlands, Tilburg is the self-proclaimed wool capital of the Netherlands, giving birth to such famous people as Sebastiaan "Bas" Rutten. This was my last night in Holland and was spent in the company of great friends, both old and new.
Massive underground bike parkade. It was manned by security 24 hours who took your bike like you're checking your coat at a nightclub... and it was free. It was complete with a moving ramp (a la airport style), security, and Dutch girls (one in particular)! North America has so much to learn:
That about wraps it up... Thanks to my traveling companions, old friends, and all the new friends we met along the way.
And now I'm back in Egypt. Go Flames.
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