July... was a blur. Parents, badeschiff, and starting at Humboldt

July was a blur. I have to recount my adventures with a calendar.  Since returning from Greece, we've essentially been in Berlin for 4 weeks. 

A few days after returning from Santorini (and the day after my last post) my parents arrived in Berlin.  Their plane from JFK was an hour EARLY!  Who knew planes could be early - I've only ever been late or on time! I woke up about 30 minutes before it landed - but the parents stayed put at the gate so I could find them.  I dragged them around some of the main city sights the first day (well mostly dragged Mom since Dad is used to dealing with America/Europe jet lag) which mom now remembers as a dream.  It was good for them to see Berlin with some sun, because it proceeded to rain for the next 3 days.  

Stop 1 was the Globetrotter store so Dad could buy a raincoat - and we finally found the "cold room" (EISKALT) in which to test cold weather gear.  We played with the thermal imaging camera and mom tested out the sleeping bag pads:

Mom testing out the sleeping bag pads in the cold EISKALT room at Globetrotter

Mom and Dad in the Berlin Rain

 We essentially moved more of our activities and sightseeing inside, spending more time at museums and beergardens than anywhere else, especially during the periods of heavy rain - and making use of our raincoats during the mostly drizzle style rain. Since we had been in Berlin about 5 weeks by this time, our navigational and event planning skills were much better than my haphazard tour for Jason and Sara.  We finally learned about the kleingruppe ticket - 15 euros for up to 5 people all day.  Those make a lot of sense for our purposes and then even worked for the evenings when Brian was done with work.  Unfortunately, the Philiharmonic orchestra that mom and dad had planned to see (and I had bought tickets for them a few weeks back) was at the Waldbune, which is outside.  They went and sat in the rain for an hour or so, until the show was finally cancelled and rescheduled for August 26th (boooo... thanks to issues with my visa card, I only just got refunded a few days ago)

We all got to see a bunch of museums - mom and dad each bought a museumpass for Sat-Sun-Mon and went to the Musical instruments Museum, the Jewish History Museum, and the Pergamon Museum.  Dad and I also went to the German Technical Museum (trains, boats, planes) and mom went to the Gemaldegalerie (18th century paintings). 

Dad at the Jewish Museum imitating Scotty "Computer?!"

Meter bier at the Lindenbrau

When the weather did clear up on Tuesday and Wednesday, and we went to the Reichstag building dome for the tour there (though without Brian since we've done it before).   This was one of the things we messed up for Jason and Sara, apparently just recently they started requiring you to sign up online at least 3 days ahead of time for a specific appointment, instead of randomly showing up at the door and waiting in line. 

Me and Dad with our audio guides on the spiral dome walk

 Wednesday, Brian took a day off and we spent the day wandering around Potsdam on bikes.  Brian was navigator and tour guide as he had printed off wikipedia articles about the castles and bridges.  It was really nice for me to let someone else do the navigation and planning - Brian has said that Sansoucci Palace is his favorite place in the Berlin area and loves showing people around in particular.  We did a bike route that was longer than we had done before, including around Park Babelsberg on the east side of Potsdam.  The photo below is almost at the end of the day - after passing some nude sunbathers in a park - well, more memorably, one nude male sunbather in particular who resolutely stood facing the bike trail with his hands on his hips, staring into the distance, obviously contemplating something other than embarrassment.

Brian led us around Potsdam on bikes with his printed Wikipedia articles

Since my parents left on July 8th, we've figured out some more things to do that are touristy that we wanted to do with our guests, including an evening boat tour.  We tried to manage a trip to Norway but decided against being broke - and also realized that especially when my class started July 18th we'd have limited time to do everything we still wanted to do in Berlin before having to come back home August 13. 

My "not afraid of swimming" friend Alena came to visit a week or so later and she and I went to the Badeschiff, which is a pool in a converted barge that is on the River Spree and adjacent to a beach bar.  The concept in itself is cool enough to be included in world lists of interesting pools, but, upon our arrival, a bit full of itself with some stupid rules.  First of all... no cameras.  I really can't claim to know much German at all, but I did respond appropriately to "Kein camera" from the guy who also took my water bottle with a "VAS????" and Alena also gave the guy a dirty look and said I heard correctly.  Its not a topless or nude place either. We stole some photos anyways and climbed aboard an adjacent boat/restaurant for a good overview of the pool area. 

Badeschiff photo from deck looking at the west end of the Olympic sized pool

Badeschiff pool and deck area (east end is in the foreground)

 I still have yet to take Brian, who I'm sure would have liked it.  Even though we now have a list of Berlin stuff to do before we leave, part of the problem of completing said items is due to the fact that we are having a mini ice age in July.  I remember being told last year that there was a heat wave of massive proportions (aka Charlotte weather in Berlin) at this time last year, but instead, July 2011 has been 65, windy, and rainy.  I've been reading enough facebook to know that USA weather remains hot and humid in a variety of locations; meanwhile, I'm wishing I had brought more pants, long sleeves, and maybe some waterproof boots.  Not that I'm complaining - I can't imagine 95 degrees in a country void of air conditioning.  I consider myself lucky that I'm not sweating sitting here writing this! 

So - our list of things to do: Pergamon museum (check), find some mexican food (very rare in Berlin, but thanks to the Maria chain of 3 restaurants, check), East Berlin's Treptower park (check), East Side gallery, Berlin nightlife (check - we went with Max from PV two nights last weekend), Neues museum(not check, were going to go last weekend, but the drinking got to us), Stradband Wannsee (has been too cold for the beach), Wasserski Grossbereen (same), the AquaDom on Museum island (check - and waaaaay cool, but my scanner doesn't work to scan the postcard), and trip to Munich (which we go to tomorrow evening). 

Its now the second week of summer university classes at Humboldt University.  I'm in the Green in the City class, which focuses on urban agriculture and city greening.  We have been to the kleingartens(allotment gardens) and the roof gardens(the "extensive" style is pretty common here in Berlin since any new building 4+ floors is REQUIRED to have a green roof).  Its very international since my class of 17 people are from many countries including Malaysia, Colombia, Mexico, Belgium, Germany, Brazil, Canada and 7 very different USA locations - NC, WV, MI, IA, AR, CA, and WA.  In the entire summer session there are 86 students from 36 countries.  I've also met people from Puerto Rico, England, Russia, and Korea (this girl was impressed that I can count to 10 in Korean, thanks to my TaeKwonDo brother).  I've actually have quite a lot of fun talking with the Brits, since they use language like "dodgy" and "canteen" and can't comprehend how we survive with the continental USA having more than one time zone.

my Land in the City class at Humboldt University visited a green roof

I've also been told on multiple occasions that many non-American people think that the USA is all like New York City - and are surprised when I tell them that even in big American cities, public transit really only exists in a functional capacity (especially for tourists) in NYC, Chicago, Washington DC, and San Francisco.  I think the actual size of America is glossed over by many people - many think that we choose to take cars over public transit not knowing that for us the public transit doesn't really compare or often times doesn't exist to the infrastructure that exists in other places - especially in Germany.  One of the girls from Malaysia said their transit is more like the U.S. - she generally drives everywhere since the busses or trains are slow or do not go where she needs to go. 

I really like working and simply interacting with people who are from such diverse backgrounds - its refreshing to get new perspectives from people from different locations - and often about the simplest things.  I feel like I have a little connection with many people in the class- with Mey from Malaysia about how it sucks to drive everywhere, with Reginald from Brussels about our diving trip to Nemo33 (the deepest swimming pool in the world, in Brussels), with Amy from California about what its like to live in San Fran, with Ana Carolina and Marco about scuba diving in Brazil, and of course, with Mike from Detroit about how much Detroit sucks. 

I'm impressed with this group of young people and their courage to spend a month away from their own familiar lives. Its easy to get caught up in your own little corner of the world, forgetting that there are so many different ways that people live on this planet.  And while it's possible to study life in other countries from news articles and photographs, its quite another to put yourself somewhere new.  I saw a t-shirt at the Humboldt University bookstore with this quote on it (written by Alexander von Humboldt, one of the founders of the University): "Die gefährlichste Weltanschauung ist die weltanschauung derjenigen, die die Welt nicht angeschaut haben", which essentially means "The most dangerous view of the world is the view of those who have not viewed the world".  And to this end... every international experience I've had has been different in ways I couldn't anticipate - which is probably why traveling can be so addicting.



So, my friends, if you ever feel like your life is monotonous, upend your life for a week or more by going somewhere where your way of life is the minority - it will change you forever!

(Athens) and Santorini!

I finally made it back to Greece!  Yessss!  There were two goals for this trip: (1)make Brian see how cool this place is and (2)collect sand from as many volcanic beaches as possible.  We flew directly from Berlin to Athens on a half empty Aegean Airlines flight on Friday morning.  The plane flew right over the city so we took some cool photos out the window.  After landing, we got our bags just in time to hop on the new Attika Metro (comes every half hour) to the main downtown station, Monastiraki.  Luck continued as we found an empty locker and stashed our stuff, grabbed a quick €2 gyro each, and started the short hike up the hill to the acropolis around noon.  

This is my 3rd trip up the acropolis, the first time was on a study abroad in summer 2004, after a cruise in 2007 with beloved Amy, and now in 2011 with beloved Brian.  Photos as follows: 

May 2004, Study Abroad Greece/Italy

May 2007, Graduation Cruise Turkey/Greece/Egypt, with Amy

June 2011, Berlin trip with Brian

We didn't have much time there, enough to take this photo, peruse around taking other ridiculous photos, find some acropolis cats, buy some orange icee/slurpee thingies, and head back down to try and find the jewelry shop that I had gotten jewelry from in 2004 (and fixed in 2007).  We may have found it, but I didn't recognize the two guys that were there before, so we just got back on the metro to the port for our ferry to Santorini, which was scheduled to leave at 4, but we had to get our tickets by 230pm. 

We should have wasted more time up there.  We got our tickets fine, got on the free bus for the port and told the driver "Diagoras" (the name of our boat) and got to our pier, E1, by 245pm.  We then proceeded to wait, standing in the sun, with everyone else for the next 2 hours until all the Special Olympics teams and their busses were unloaded from our boat.  We eventually squeezed in the shade and sat on the ground amidst some very angry Greek ladies, yelling at each other, presumably about the delay and lack of food/water/organization.  It wasn't so bad, since we were passing the time talking to Eva, a Chinese girl who was on vacation after spending a year in Munich studying German.  She was kind enough to let me know that the "knocking" on the table (mentioned in an earlier post) after a lecture is very common in Germany and went on to say that she has been to movies and other places where people knock wildly on anything hard anytime they see something they like.  

The Diagoras at Pireaus, well before we boarded

Eva and me waiting to get on the boat

We did finally get on the boat around 530pm, but the boat itself didn't actually leave the pier until 6ish, and food didn't actually start until 630pm.  By that time I was so hungry I just sat in the cafe on board for about 20 minutes until it finally opened. I suppose it could have been just because I was hungry, but the rice, salmon, tzaziki and bread I had was AMAZING.  On Greek ferries, its the cheapest to travel on deck, but we got a room, which is almost exactly like a cruise ship room, with actual twin beds, a shower, and bathroom.  After waking up at 4am and sweating all day in Athens, it was well worth it to take a shower and sleep for 7 hours without being concerned about our stuff getting stolen - and I hardly minded the delay.

We had a stop in Naxos on the way, and arrived in Santorini at 330am, instead of the 11pm that was scheduled.  Our transfer driver, George, luckily was simply waiting for us when we walked off with a "Mathios Hotel" sign - he seemed unconcerned that we were so late, but still asked what the hold up was.  He drove us to the hotel in Akrotiri Town, helped us find the keys left in the keyhole on our door, and took off.  

In the morning, we got up at 9ish to meet with Kostas (travel agent in the hotel) about what we would do while we were there.  I wanted to do a boat trip around the volcano, and he said we could do that today - but we had to leave at 10am.  He had us go eat breakfast- and during that time he set up the excursion, got us beach towels to borrow, told the driver we needed to stop for sunscreen, and started setting up a short car rental to be ready when we returned that afternoon. The driver drove right out on the pier and stopped directly in front of the boat, which was waiting for us.

The boat trip on Saturday was awesome.  Inclusive of water, beer, wine, and an extensive lunch of seafood, we were free to simply enjoy the view as we motored around the island and through the caldera.  We stopped at the hot springs to swim - which required a short swim through much colder water before arriving at the springs.  Despite being told the sulfurous water would probably stain our swimsuits, I put on my light colored rash guard, but it has yet to change color.  The lunch was great, the seas were calm, and there were three other couples our age to chat with - one couple was from DC, one from Connecticut, and one from Boston. 

A great place to lounge!

Red Beach(up close photos of this later!)

Near White Beach (only accessible by boat, but we didn't stop)

the front of the catamaran had the preferred seats

I think I could be here forever.  Well, until the wind picks up...

 And did it ever.  This first day was the only day where the wind didn't howl.  We still had Saturday evening to drive up to the town of Fira, the only part of Santorini (other than the Volcano Hiking) that I saw with Amy in 2007.  Fira is probably my favorite of the two "towns" on Santorini, the other being Oia.  Fira town is a myriad of winding streets, lined with shops, restaurants, and hotels - all perched on the side of a cliff. Oia is essentially the same but replace some of the shops and restaurants with private apartments.

Fira town streets

Fira town on the side of the cliff

View of the caldera island, Nea Kameni (essentially the same from anywhere on the cliffs)

And with those enticing photos to give you an idea about what everything looks like, I will now follow up with the 10 peso geologic history of the island.  Santorini's islands are all part of the same structure. It used to look like a regular island with a small bay to the southwest, but 3,600 years ago during the Bronze Age (1630 BC) when the Minoan culture inhabited Greece, Santorini blew its top. The caldera collapsed below the water surface, producing the steep cliffs on the inside edges of the island.  The Mediterranean Sea rushed in to fill the caldera, and that deep blue area in the center is about 900 feet deep. There have been multiple eruptions since the large one during the Bronze age, including a small one in 1956 (a grainy BW photo of which can be found at the airport).

Needless to say, this volcano has some dramatic views that attract visitors from all over the world.  It attracts me, of course, for volcanic sand.  The car we rented was a means to beach hop on our own schedule, so Brian could snorkel and I could collect sand. The best beach by far was the Red Beach, just a mile or so from Akrotiri to the south. We drove there, parked, hiked over the hill, and down a treacherous gravelly trail to the beach. 

Brian on the short hike to Red Beach

Admiring the poorly sorted volcanic grains

Brian savoring the last of our shade, which was more plentiful before noon

This Red Beach sand is coarse to very coarse sand, poorly sorted, and very red!  Among the other beaches where I collected Santorini sand were: Perissa, Kamari, and Crater beaches.  I'm in the process of cleaning, drying, photographing, and describing the sands at the Freie University Berlin, with the Sedimentology professor Christoph Heubeck ("Hoy-beck").  He has a Sand Wiki with lots of beach sands from around the world, but hasn't been to Santorini, so we are each going to trade for some new ones.  

Crater beach was also a bit of a hike, but that was mostly because I was too afraid to drive down the steep switchbacks.  It is located on the other side of the road from our hotel in Akrotiri (but don't forget the 300 foot drop).  Its not that I'm afraid of heights, just afraid of launching a manual transmission car off a skinny, steep, paved but gravel covered road with no guardrails.  Halfway down the paved switchbacks, we found a little trail that traipsed across an outcrop, seen below: 

Brian heading out on the outcrop

sitting with the Nea Kameni and caldera in the background

Caldera beach, our outcrop is just to the left of the trees in the center

We should have remembered our snorkels here, as we were told later that this place is pretty decent for snorkeling/diving.  

We did go watch the sunset in Oia on Sunday night, but it was windy, cold, and crowded.  I already mentioned that I much preferred Fira to Oia, but we couldn't know that until we went at least once.  It was actually pretty entertaining driving there, thanks to my nightmare laced efforts on the steep hills and narrow streets and not having driven a manual car since last September.  Though its only about 45 minutes driving 25 miles/hour from Akrotiri to Oia, we were still being Greek and driving on empty the whole way.  Gas stations were closed, and we didn't really want to spend much on gas anyways- we got the car empty and could return it empty.  Luckily there were no incidents; we really only drove a total of 8 miles to get there.

Kostas had arranged for us to be able to just leave the car at the airport, so Monday morning, we drove off to Kamari, which is right by the airport.  After I collected my sand sample there and the both of us deciding that we had to stay in the Hotel Kamari Beach at some point in the future, we looked for another cheap gyros stand for a €4 lunch.  One "sit-down" restaurant owner told us that his brother had a cheap gyros stand down the street and then ripped off a leaf from one of his plants, gave it to us, and told us to tell his brother that "this is from Amir".  So of course we presented the leaf to "Amir's brother", who smiled, saying, "I'd rather he give me 500 euros" - and proceeded to make a flower out of a napkin.  He pulled Brian around the counter and I took a photo: 

Brian and "Amir's brother" at his gyro stop

Gyros, greek style with paprika and french fries. 
Notice the leaf from Amir and the napkin flower.

 We made our way to the airport, which has a wonderful little open air shaded balcony that overlooks the six gates and the runway - all cleverly located AFTER security.  Our first item of business once back in Germany? Pretzels. 

Nuremberg pretzels

For more photos of the trip please visit my Santorini photo album on Picasa.

University in Germany

I have now sit-in on to two meeting of a geology class at the Freie University Berlin, on the subject of Sedimentary Petrology.  I'm quite excited to have been able to do this, since the class I am taking later this summer at Humboldt University is going to be a different experience - most of the students are going to be international students. I had wanted to do some work with the Sand Wiki, but I didn't realize how expensive transit was going to be, and my list of "fun" projects that I came up with seemed to be too long to include that too.

About the subject: The subject is well within "related" to my degrees, though kind of an extension. I have learned a lot about streams and water on time scales of 100 years or so, but this class' concepts are much longer in history.  For example, many sedimentary rocks that contain marine fossils are the product of thousands of years of accumulation and compaction on continental shelves that probably are not there today.  Fossil beds in Colorado are the result of deposition of shells of marine organisms in the Jurassic/Cretaceous shallow seas in the western USA, but have since been uplifted more than a mile thanks to the subduction zone on the western coast of the USA.  They are no longer located in the environment in which they are deposited, which looked more like the Bahamas.

At any rate, when these sedimentary rocks are sliced very thinly (30 microns) and viewed under a microscope, the results can be very pretty (and also helpful in decoding earth's past, but I know most of you don't care!)

Ooids (calcium carbonate rolled into spheres via turbulent shoreline wave action)

Radial ooid at higher magnification

Foraminifera

Algae-coated brachiopod shell fragments

 About the people: They are supposed to know English, and many of them do.  They seem to not use it all the time (which is more than I can say for most of my fellow Americans and any other language). However, the professor seemed very entertained when he announced during the first class in which I was present that "today, this lecture will be in English.  Does anyone have a problem with English?" - to which, some people sat up quickly with an, "Oh...!"  Everyone seemed to find the lecture comprehensible (the professor did his Masters at UTexas in Austin, and is very comfortable with German, Spanish, and English) and at least at the beginning I felt a little bit guilty, though reassuring myself that I could probably understand if it were in Spanish.  At the end of the lecture, showed thanks in the most unusual way.  Imagine "knocking on wood" but for the length of an applause at the end of a concert.  This is commonplace, and seems to have the same effect as clapping, though I didn't remember to ask anyone about it. 

In between the lecture and lab, the group of three I approached didn't engage talking to me first, but were quick to include me in a new conversation in English when I said "Hi".  I just asked them about where they were from, where they had been in the world, and where they like to go in Berlin.  They were your standard Geology nerds, and I felt like I was in the company of people I identified with. 

Lichens, climate change, and what is optional

I'm still reading "A Short History of nearly everything" by Bill Bryson (about halfway now) and this section of the book is talking about lichens.  Yes, lichens, like those little green mossy things on rocks in harsh arctic tundras and open deserts.  "It make take a lichen more than half a century to attain the dimensions of a shirt button... they simply exist, testifying... that life even at its simplest level occurs, apparently, just for its own sake."

I'm sure many of you have heard of that metaphor for the Earth's existence crammed into one day, but here's the gist of it: single celled organisms show up around 4am and do nothing for the next 16 hours.  At 8:30pm, sea plants, and other marine organisms appear on stage, trilobites at 9pm, first land animals at 10pm, dinosaurs at 11pm, the first mammals at 11:40, humans at 11:58 and 43 seconds.

The point Mr. Bryson is making here is that life quickly existed "to be", but doesn't seem to want to "be much".  "Its easy to overlook the thought that life just is.  As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point... we want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with.  But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably stronger.  If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock inthe woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on.  Lichens don't.  Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additional existence."

Now I'm not suggesting that we just quit our busy schedules.  Without the determination and long strides of the geologists on the idea of Uranium-Lead dating, we'd not have any idea about the length of Geologic Time, and therefore wouldn't have much perspective on which to ponder this thought that lichens have existed for much longer than we have.  I'm also not suggesting that we all just be lazy, but there is some benefit to trying to find peace within yourself in "just being".  Take a step out of your schedule, what other people have told you that you have to do, and think about what you are.  A human lifetime, as important as it seems now, is so short in comparison to anything else; it is easy to forget that what exists now, is not all there ever will be, and not all that ever was.  What you are a part of, is a species that has managed to eek out a niche for itself in the present organization of life on earth. 

And what are we doing to our niche?  We are changing the variables that allowed our species to flourish in the first place.  All this debate about climate change is not a debate that we are "destroying the environment" - though many people still write this. We are simply changing the variables that allow 6 billion of us to live on it. An environment on Mars or Venus is still an environment - just a kind of environment that makes it very hard for humans to continue to live in the manner that we live now. An environment with epic droughts will destroy our large and complex food supply.  Of course, food will still exist, but not in the quantities necessary to feed 6 billion people - and the transition will let some of us starve in the meantime.  An environment with higher sea levels will leave large amounts of the continents still above land, and certainly habitable, but by flooding coastal cities, especially large ones like Miami and New York, will produce millions of refugees for the time it takes those people to get their lives back in order in a new location. 

Plenty of humans will probably still be able to exist even if sea level rises 100 feet, but the problem with this from a governmental policy standpoint is that you can't rally behind policies that will eventually produce enormous hardship for a large chunk of your citizens. The rich will probably still have the ability to provide for themselves, even in the face of large catastrophes, simply because they have better access to resources.  (Remember house/senate congressmen and women make $174K per year, much more than many city-averages of $40K/year). 

It seems that the easiest way around trying to anticipate impacts to our current way of life is simply denial.  If you don't think that greenhouse gases might melt ice caps and flood our coastal cities, then its a potential problem you don't have to waste energy worrying about.  If you don't think you are ever going to be robbed at gunpoint, then you probably have never considered learning self-defense.  Its easier, in this sense, to put up some effort in saying that it won't happen.  And Al Gore thinks its not your fault, citing human nature in his current article in Rolling Stone Climate of Denial - "...since human nature makes us vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable, it naturally seems difficult to accept."

If we as humans are to model the lichens and "just be" in whatever capacity for years to come we have to consider the idea that our endless quest for wealth and prosperity might eventually get us in the end. The denial of climate change is fueled in a large part by oil companies that have the money to support their own special interests.  Their goal is short term and incredibly self serving- make as much money as possible before they retire, so they can retire to some tropical island... and... just be? 

In the words of whoever writes the script for the TV show "The Big Bang Theory" Sheldon says, "we don't HAVE to do anything.  We have to take in nourishment, expel waste, and inhale enough oxygen to keep our cells from dying. Everything else is optional."  Clearly, this is all what lichens do (though, as photosynthesizing algae or cyanobacteria, they inhale CO2 and not oxygen).  As humans, we do more than that. We have the imaginations that are able to consider what happened before we were born, what happens when we die, and what might happen to our childrens' childrens' children.  All of our actions, both greedy and generous from our birth to our death, influence the future outcome of our species.  Whatever else your "optional" is, take a moment to consider its place in the world. Does it align with larger goals that allow our species continue to exist? Or will the lichens continue to out-live us?

And don't forget the power of the average person - large national and world problems may seem daunting, but again here is a reminder from Al Gore's article (which is concerning climate change, but is also applicable to other issues):

• "You can start with something simple: Speak up whenever the subject of climate arises. When a friend or acquaintance expresses doubt that the crisis is real, or that it's some sort of hoax, don't let the opportunity pass to put down your personal marker. The civil rights revolution may have been driven by activists who put their lives on the line, but it was partly won by average Americans who began to challenge racist comments in everyday conversations."

X-men movie

Yesterday evening, Brian, Max and I went to see X-men first class at the Sony Center.  Thanks to my brother's obsession with the animated show when we were kids (we watched it every Saturday at 10am) I'm familiar with the characters and have my favorites.  I was, however, unclear as to the beginnings of the X-men, and this story was rather interesting to me. 

the characters of X-men, First Class movie

Some notes about having seen this movie in Berlin as opposed to America:

• First, the backstory of Magneto(then, the polish Jew Erik, about 10 years old) begins as his family is separated as they enter a concentration camp in Poland in 1943.  For starters, Poland is currently less than 100 miles away from our location.  Also, the plight of Jews and other Holocaust victims in the early 1940s as documented by the many history museums in Berlin is fresh on my mind.  Brian later likened it to a Berliner watching an old American Western in Colorado (omg this is where that happened!) or my Yankee self watching "Gone with the Wind" in Atlanta.  At any rate, since I was unaware of Magneto's beginnings, a surprisingly thick layer of relevancy was depicted in this scene that I probably wouldn't have noticed as much had I seen it back home.
• When Shaw begins talking in this scene, it is in German with English subtitles.  This is met with roars of laughter by the mostly bilingual Berlin crowd (something that probably doesn't happen in America since nobody laughed at the English subtitles when the few French and Spanish conversations came on later).  At the end of the scene, Shaw ends up shooting Erik's mother to get him to use his power (which we now know is fueled through anger).  Though Shaw "works" for the Nazis, he doesn't really support their "stupid blond hair, blue eyes" values and simply uses their maniacal tactics to get results and find more mutants.
• In 1963, when the angry Erik, having survived the concentration camp, vengefully hunts down his mother's murderer, Shaw, who is hiding in Argentina.  He orders a beer at a restaurant that Shaw supposedly owns.  The beer is of German origin, and another roar of laughter from the moviegoing crowd erupts when the owners that are present tell him its "Bitburger" (kind of like a Budweiser or Miller in America). 

I enjoyed the movie, especially how they wove the story into more real events in history (though clearly a nearby parallel universe!) - the movie ends with the X-men involvement in quelling the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I imagine that these extra reactions from the crowd would not have occurred, had we seen this movie in America. 

Belgium!

The first of our weekend trips to take advantage of our proximity to a variety of cultures in the European continent was to Belgium, though less devoted to sightseeing and almost wholly focused on going to the deepest swimming pool in the world to scuba dive.

Nemo33 is located in Brussels, Belgium and is 112 feet(34 meters) deep.  Yes, its a pool, not a spring, or ocean shelf - and cleverly heated by solar panels on the roof to a balmy temperature of 33 degrees celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). The entire pool is not 112 feet deep, just a deep well - which you can see in this quick sketchup model:  Most of the pool is contained within 2 stories of a buidling, and then the deep well is set in the ground.

Here is Brian in the shallower part (the middle platform in the pool foreground, about 15 feet)
Brian's head is probably around 6 feet

And the deep well (on the right foreground of skp model, total depth 112')

There are also caverns (under the middle platform) that are about 33 feet deep

The other cool thing about this place is that there is a restaurant immediately adjacent to the pool, with windows through which to see divers.

Here is the glam photo from the Nemo33 website: 

If you are a scuba diver and want to dive in an interesting environment (though devoid of fish) and test out your nerves for DEEP water, this is a great place to go.  Its high season is the winter, when most northern hemisphere dive spots are too cold for even wetsuits - and during winter they have a dive session every hour.  Each session is about $30 US dollars, and you can go every two hours.  All gear is included, so you just have to bring a certification card and a swimsuit. We spent the day there and ate at the restaurant.  I would have like to have more time to simply swim, but you only get the first 10 minutes of any dive for that activity.
More photos are available on my Picasa Album for Belgium

Here is our dive profile:

We did see some other things in Brussels, namely Belgian lace (of which I took photos for my mom) and the Grand Palace, which is a square with every facade being a beautifully ornate building - designated a World Heritage site.

We also ate some excellent food - a bucket of 50 mussels, a bottle of wine, and the best chocolate mousse and tiramisu I've ever imagined.

Imagine what you'll know, tomorrow... (Maps)

I start today with a quote from the 1997 movie, "Men in Black". At this point in the movie, Will Smith's character has just learned about the aliens that are living on earth and deciding whether to join the ranks of managing them.

Jay (Will Smith): Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it.

Kay(Tommy Lee Jones):  A person is smart.  People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.

Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew... the Earth was the center of the universe.

Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat.

And fifteen minutes ago, you knew that people were alone on this planet.

Imagine what you'll know... tomorrow.

I thought of this part of the movie while at the German Historical Museum with Jason and Sara.  The German Historical Museum is probably the most comprehensive history museums in Berlin.  Here is a rough outline of the past 2500 years in the area that is Germany and on the European Continent as described with text and artifacts in this museum: 

•  Celtic people existed in Germany in BC times
•  Romans (including the emporors like Claudius, Marcus Aurelius, Nero, etc) have a complex and tight history of the first 200 or so years after the birth of Jesus
•  Around 500, Christianity was no longer a crime (though many other religions then became crimes - sigh...) and Constantinople (Istanbul) was the center of the Greek/Roman culture that dominated the continent. 
•  Around 800 AD, it was the heyday of the French, with Charlemagne as their leader.
• 1050-1400s was the Middle ages, characteristics include feudal society, religious crusades, the black plague, and aristocracy
•  1400-1500s saw a Renaissance of science, questioning religion, exploration of the world - which is my favorite part (and tie to the movie script above) because at this point the maps of the world seem to begin to be filled in, see below:   

Globe (1492) with no American continent on it: 

1537 Painting of Christ with a Globe (I guess now globes are Ok):

Map with the first corner of the American continent on it (date?)

After much exploring the continent is much better represented:

These maps are SO intriguing to me because they show a progression of our understanding of our world.  Certainly, we take for granted our google maps now - thanks to the space program and satellite imagery - and you can wistfully dream about going to Hawaii without having to go to the trouble of discovering it.  However, for quite a long time, people only had maps for where they had been, and "hearsay" in the form of the descriptions and drawings (not digital cameras) from the people who had been anywhere else.  We are more willing to take a 5 week voyage to Hawaii if we knew it was there in the first place - and that tripadvisor could recommend a cheap but comfortable hotel and restaurant.   

Take this relative enthusiasm for exploring and mapping our planet and apply it to the 2010s and you get our cosmology and astrophysics fields of science.  These bright people are mapping well beyond our solar system, pondering how it works in an effort to get to new places more quickly.  Instead of figuring out how to tack against trade winds amidst a gigantic and unforgiving ocean, they are contemplating how to bend space-time against the nothingness that is space itself.  

Looking deep into space, going to the moon or to mars may seem like a stupid, expensive idea now... but what if the Monarchs of Catholic Spain had told that to Christopher Columbus or to Amerigo Vespucci?  We Americans simply wouldn't exist.  The world as we know it now would be wholly different, and likely more primitive.  The whole Middle ages was (to quote Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG-1) "a huge setback for Earth's civilization".  As advanced as we humans consider ourselves now, people even 200 years from now will think us to be stupid and ignorant.  

I'm slowly reading "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson on my [graduation present from Brian] Kindle, and I really like this quote: 

• "We may be only one of millions of advanced civilizations. Unfortunately, space being spacious, the average distance between any two of these civilizations is reckoned to be at least two hundred light-years, which is a great deal more than merely saying it makes it sound. It means for a start that even if these beings know we are here and are somehow able to see us in their telescopes, they’re watching light that left Earth two hundred years ago.
• So, they’re not seeing you and me. They’re watching the French Revolution and Thomas Jefferson and people in silk stockings and powdered wigs—people who don’t know what an atom is, or a gene, and who make their electricity by rubbing a rod of amber with a piece of fur and think that’s quite a trick.
• Any message we receive from them is likely to begin “Dear Sire,” and congratulate us on the handsomeness of our horses and our mastery of whale oil. Two hundred light-years is a distance so far beyond us as to be, well, just beyond us."

In the short period of 200 years, the society that would be presented is so foreign to anyone living now, to the point of being ridiculous and embarrassing.  I'm pretty sure being complimented on my primary mode of transportation, horses, (bicycles? cars?) and my "mastery of whale oil" (helloooo, electricity?) would embarrass me and my belonging to the civilization.  Heck, I'm embarrassed for the human race when they think that bulldozing forests for suburbs won't have any effect on our drinking water... but that's a problem of today; and a behavior to be scoffed at by people in 2200.

A person is smart, but people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it.
Imagine what you'll know, tomorrow...