Entries tagged 'travel'

now that you have been thoroughly inoculated with puppy pictures, here are some pictures from auschwitz, taken on my trip in the summer of 1990.

i am sure that other people have written about the experience of seeing auschwitz much better than i ever could. it is a tremendously moving experience, and something i would really recommend not missing if you ever have the chance.

and there probably won’t be a film shoot in your way. those things have been following me around for decades, i guess.

now that we’re about two weeks away from the wedding, it seemed like a good time to get around to booking our honeymoon. we tried to book a trip to the maldives through a travel agent, but after a week of back-and-forth, it turns out the resort they steered us towards wasn’t available. (and, in fact, would not have any openings until march. thanks!)

so we took a step back, regrouped, and realized that while we want to visit the maldives before it disappears, we could get much more bang for our buck elsewhere at this late date. so i looked into booking a trip through cathay pacific, where we might have the connections to score a free upgrade. after a lot of time spent in their vacation package system scoping out destinations and hotels, we finally put together a nice trip to thailand and hong kong which was several thousand dollars cheaper than the maldives trip that the travel agent had tried to book.

only now i can’t book it because the travel agent has a pending charge against my credit card that they did not clear up, even though i asked them to do so when i told them we would be making alternative arrangements.

i’m sure it will all work out, but it means that the “book honeymoon” item on my wedding todo list is unchecked again.

one of the sights that just blew me away on my trip through eastern europe in summer 1990 was the still-destroyed buildings in dresden. when doing some research to figure out what church was in this picture, i ran across the articles about how the frauenkirche had been rebuilt, and realized the photo above was of the destroyed frauenkirche.

my fiancée celia and i, her brother angel, and some other family members made it back from an extended weekend trip to vancouver.

other than visiting stanley park, where the picture of the daisies comes from, we didn’t do a whole lot of touristy stuff. but we did eat. and eat. and then we ate some more. some of the chinese restaurants we stuffed ourselves at included no. 9 (which had great lemon chicken), spicy szechuan (with great red-bean puff pastry desserts), and northern delicacy (where we first had “little dragons,” or juicy wonton-ish things). on the non-chinese front, we enjoyed cuban food and people watching at havana on commercial street, jazz and italian food at capone’s in yaletown, tasty treats from tim horton’s, and gelato from la casa gelato — just a few of their 218 flavors.

we had a blast. so much so, that there’s some serious consideration to heading back in about six weeks for some of the celebration of light (or as it used to be called, the “symphony of fire”).

here’s a reasonable shot that includes most of the people who were in my tour group. i’m not sure where exactly this was, or even the date — my notes for the roll just say “fulda / weimar” but neither of those are in the itinerary i still have.

and here’s more evidence of a long-running photographic interest: graffiti. wir hassen nazis, indeed. i’m not sure what the symbol that looks like a circled “b” with an arrow pointing from it means.

when we left washington, d.c., we first went through jfk airport in new york city, where we had to run with our luggage between terminals, and then heathrow, before making it to munich. from munich, we travelled on to nuremburg.

this latest batch of photos from my summer trip in 1990 is from places we went in munich and nuremburg, but my notes are scant enough that i can’t say where in each city these places are, or even which of the cities they are in (or near).

i think the name of the girl in the corner of the frame was rachel. she was one of the other students in my tour group.

way back in the summer of 1990, i participated in the people to people student ambassador program, and spent a month traveling through parts of western and eastern europe. i recently had the negatives from the ten rolls of film i shot on the trip digitized, and i’m going to start putting the highlights online.

the first two days were spent in washington, d.c., where we toured the capitol building and some of the other usual tourist stops. we also met up with some of the other student groups getting ready to head overseas.

as you can see, standing in a rotunda and shooting up isn’t just a new habit of mine.

as a preview to come, here’s the itinerary from the trip:

• june 24-25: washington, d.c.
• june 26-28: munich, west germany
• june 29: nuremberg, west germany
• june 30-july 1: dresden, east germany
• july 2-4: prague, czechoslovakia
• july 5-7: krakow, poland
• july 8-9: lvov, u.s.s.r.
• july 10: debrecen, hungary
• july 11-13: budapest, hungary (homestay)
• july 14-15: budapest, hungary (hotel)
• july 16-17: balaton, hungary
• july 18-21: vienna, austria (homestay)
• july 22-23: vienna, austria (hotel)
• july 24: return home

of the seven countries (besides the united states), four of them no longer exist as they did back then — east and west germany have unified, czechoslovakia split up into the czech republic and slovakia, and the u.s.s.r. broke up.

the los angeles times describes travelling in cuba, which is mostly not legal for americans. because that embargo is going to push castro out of power any day now.

i spent the last few days in seattle, meeting with the developers of the various mysql connectors.

while in seattle, i stayed at the moore hotel, in downtown seattle. the building is just two months newer than where i live. i guess not all of the floors have been refurbished, but the room i had was great (and pretty cheap).

this is the first time i spent any time in seattle, and still didn’t take any time to do any sightseeing at all. but seattle seems like a cool city, and i probably should do that some day.

one observation: i took the bus to the office from my hotel, and it was a much, much whiter crowd than i’ve ever seen on any bus in los angeles. i was impressed by seattle’s bus system.

take allergy medication during the middle of the day that you know will knock you out.

as horrible as some parts of the flying experience has become, i have to say that i am totally in favor of the kiosk check-in, and even better, the online check-in. especially when exit-row seats are available via the online check-in. northwest’s online check-in system is slow, but at least i’ve already got an exit-row seat for my flight later today. (although i know there’s still a chance for them to screw it up.)