(no subject)
In Bern, halfway between Germany and Italy, and those two are playing each other in the football. People from both armies are watching on giant screens in public squares. Let's hope this ends well. Right now I'm in a hotel which provides free Internet access to its guests, which is a pretty good deal for people staying at this hotel, and an even better one for me.
There have been some adventures. We took a tour of the local brewery in Cesky Krumlov. Apparently the regular tour guide was sick, so they brought in an old man who works in the palace archives, and who stretched the last syllables of all his sentences like the Count on Sesame Street, with some in between. Resulting in things like, "Do you caaatch the fiiish?" and "All made from naaature. It's naaature yeeeast!" Even though they weren't brewing on the day we went, we still got to drink the fermenting beer from the big barrels at zero celsius, and some free ones in the brewery's restaurant.
Yesterday Melissa and Samara took a canoe and I took a kayak, the difference being that a kayak is smaller and that I didn't have to end up desperately abandoning ship to avoid some rapids, leaving a pilotless boat to be rescued by generous downstream Czechs. But other than that, it was a good, calm time going through the Czech forests and trying not to hit a lot of rocks.
The train ride here just ended, thirteen hours after our starting time of six in the morning. It wasn't a boring trip, though, considering we almost missed our first train, got booted from first class on another, and had to be rescued in the last seconds by an Irish aquaintance when we didn't realize we had boarded going the wrong way. Plus, I don't know if you've heard, but the mountains here are pretty nice, so there was plenty to look at along the way. I don't know what there is to do in Bern just yet, but it's time for some sleep.
Happy birthday, America. I didn't get you anything.
There have been some adventures. We took a tour of the local brewery in Cesky Krumlov. Apparently the regular tour guide was sick, so they brought in an old man who works in the palace archives, and who stretched the last syllables of all his sentences like the Count on Sesame Street, with some in between. Resulting in things like, "Do you caaatch the fiiish?" and "All made from naaature. It's naaature yeeeast!" Even though they weren't brewing on the day we went, we still got to drink the fermenting beer from the big barrels at zero celsius, and some free ones in the brewery's restaurant.
Yesterday Melissa and Samara took a canoe and I took a kayak, the difference being that a kayak is smaller and that I didn't have to end up desperately abandoning ship to avoid some rapids, leaving a pilotless boat to be rescued by generous downstream Czechs. But other than that, it was a good, calm time going through the Czech forests and trying not to hit a lot of rocks.
The train ride here just ended, thirteen hours after our starting time of six in the morning. It wasn't a boring trip, though, considering we almost missed our first train, got booted from first class on another, and had to be rescued in the last seconds by an Irish aquaintance when we didn't realize we had boarded going the wrong way. Plus, I don't know if you've heard, but the mountains here are pretty nice, so there was plenty to look at along the way. I don't know what there is to do in Bern just yet, but it's time for some sleep.
Happy birthday, America. I didn't get you anything.