TheMightyMcClaw's European Adventures, Episodes 1-3

[TheMightyMcClaw]

Just a quick post as a I sit here in a London cybercafe; I’m in Europe, it’s awesome. As I’ve only got fifteen minutes left on my computer, I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with copies of Elsewhere posted travel logs:

@TheMightyMcClaw

                                         <a href="http://themightymcclaw.livejournal.com/118029.html">TheMightyMcClaw in Europe Episode 1: Rise of Sweden</a>
 [IMG]http://www.flickr.com/photos/irisi/3519232499/[/IMG]

I arrived in Sweden a few days past, and head out for Copenhagen tomorrow.
The three of us (Molly, Constantina, and I) have been staying with Constantina’s family in Goteburg/Goteborg/Gothenborg/Gothenburg/however this city so chooses to name itself. They’re quite a fun lot - we’ve made a regular practice of attempting to give Constantina’s gigantic 14 year old brother advice for the problems he faces in life, only to be refuted with the power of immaturity and illogic. An excellent game.
This should come as a suprise to nobody, but I dig Sweden as I have dug few geographic locales before. We spent our first day wandering around Gothenburg, including such lovely spots as The Fish Church. Sadly, this is not actually a shrine to the mighty Dagon, but rather an old church which has since been converted into a fishmarket. Still, pretty great.
Oh, and I ran into a guy who liked like. And dressed like me. Long blond hair, biker jacket, leather pants, the works. Major bonus points, Sweden.
Oh, and then there was the part where I met Magnus Rosen.
Magnus Rosen, for those of you unfamiliar, is the bassist from the band Hammerfall. Hammerfall, for those of you who don’t know, is the band that first got me into power metal.
And where did I meet this king amongsts bassists? Why, the Chinese embassy, of course. Last night, Constantina’s dad took the three of us to a dinner/concert/event at the Embassy celebrating the one-year-hence 2010 World’s Fair in Shanghai. And who do they invite to perform there? A power metal bassist, of course. I was a bit confused at first by the poofy-haired and leather-panted gentleman amongst the crowd of businesslike Swedes and Chinese, but this confusion was replaced with raw zomg excitement one I realized who he was.

Yeah, I realize I look dorkily excited. And I was dorkily excited.
Unexpected encounters with metal heroes aside, the Chinese embassy event felt surprisingly natural. Eating Chinese food, speaking Chinese, practicing Chinese ettiquette - it just seems like the thing to do when in a foreign land, regardless of whether or not that foreign land is actually China. Molly and I both verily enjoyed a chance to practice our Chinese for a night.

So yeah, Sweden rocks. It’s also made of rocks, apparently. Great big huge ones, which they constuct buildings into the side of. We spent our afternoon out on coastal islands, climbing on the rock formations that bubbled up from out of the water. I really enjoy experiencing epic and grandiose scenery - even the most mundane actions feels adventuresome with the right setting.

@TheMightyMcClaw

                                         <a href="http://themightymcclaw.livejournal.com/118453.html">Episode 2: Denmark Strikes Back</a>
 I'm in England right now, but I need to write about Denmark because of just how absolutely amazing it is.

We and our crew spent a mere twenty four or so hours in Copenhagen, which was just enough time for me to fall in love with the country.
We wandered around Christiania, which is about a two block area full of hippies and potheads that seceded from Denmark in the 1970’s. Pretty awesome, right?
Christian, our couchsurfing host in Denmark, was one of the nicest guys we’ve ever met. Not only did he put us up in his apartment, he picked us up from the train station, and let us use his office to print out tickets. We spent our last afternoon in Denmark hanging out with him and his coworker Bill, hearing tales of mischief which seem to be part and parcel for Denmark. As it turns out, one of their principle hobbies was driving around trying to get stopped by the police the without actually committing any crimes. They would drive in circles around the American embassy (where Danish police are thick), with mysterious bags of dirt on their dashboard with chemical formulae and impressive-sounding Latin names on them (which, as it turned out, were just the formula and name for clay). Or keeping unmarked baggies of baking soda in their car, and claiming not to know what it was when stopped by the police. Or using fake Russian student ID’s to pretend to be foreigners so they wouldn’t have to pay for train tickets; apparently, Denmark has no way of fining foreigners for such infractions.
Those guys were amazing. I’m going to give them a call next time I’m in Europe.
Hippies and mischief aside, I was amazed at two things in Copenhagen; the grafiti and the bicycles. In order to one-up the socialized healthcare and education of it’s Scandanavian neighbors, Denmark has apparently invested in Socialized Bicycles. Throughout Copenhagen are “citybikes”, which have a coin-return lock that can be released for twenty Danish crowns; return the bike, and get your twenty crowns back.
Every other wall of the city seemed to be covered in varying levels and quality of grafiti, from crude scrawlings of names to brilliant and colorful murals. It seemed to play into the same general lack of fear of reprecussions that manifested in our hosts’ games with the police; we passed by a young man spray-painting a wall (quite nicely) and asked for his photo as he did it. Christian and Bill were telling us that Danish law is quite lax for most non-white collar crime, with a set of reprecussions that range from allowing petty vandalism artistic reign over city walls to public outcry for violent criminals being released with slap on the wrist jail sentences.
It’s interesting to hear about other country’s social uneases from within; it’s so easy to see foreign lands as Utopias, being only acquainted with their positive characteristics and seeing none of their problems.

@TheMightyMcClaw

Episode 3: London Drift
Ok, so now that I’ve properly expressed my love for Denmark, let me speak of England.
We’ve been in London for four days, and head out for Dublin this afternoon. Food in London is less soul-stabbingly expensive than I remember from when I was last here with my brother six years ago, but most of that leg of that journey was spent in a jetlagged haze.
We spent our first two days wandering about Greenwich, and I regret a bit not getting further out into the city earlier. That said, Greenwhich is a lovely place; massive parks, beautiful old buildings, and our hostel is but ten seconds walk to the train station. Of course, our first order of business was heading up the observatory, standing on the Prime Meridian which divides the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, and taking a decadent number of photographs of one another.
Yesterday, we finally sparked up and went into London proper, and took a bus tour and a walking tour of the city center. Both were quite enjoyable, although our bus came down with an infestation of French schoolchildren around the same time we boarded. At least it’s easier to drown out noisy children when you can’t understand them.
After hitting up Trafalgar square and Westminster Abbey and Tower Bridge and such, we had a walking tour of the city; but not just any walking tour, mind you; but a spooooky HAUNTED walking tour. Cheesy, I know, but learning about the vagrant spectres who’ve been sighted throughout the city was a good way to get into some of the more peculiar tidbits of British history. Our guide was a great fellow, who seemed to really know his stuff. Being the history geek that I am, I quite enjoyed learning about the haphazzard ways in which London has grown with time, and the ever-closing banks of the River Thames. Apparently, it’s but a third of the size it was when the Romans first landed on this isle and set about conquering/slaughtering/civilizing it’s natives.
We met a number of colorful characters in our hostel, including the requisite retired gentleman who’s now traveling the world. It was quite fun when Molly and I were conversing in Chinese, and suddenly another voice pops in with “Nimen shuo zhongwen ma?”
Quite nice, all in all.

[diesel_tke]

Wow sounds like fun! Keep the stories going so I can live vicariously through you!!

[TheMightyMcClaw]

Updates about Ireland!

@TheMightyMcClaw

Episode 4: Ireland vs. Mechagodzillalla
I seem to be falling behind on my blogging. I’m about to leave Paris, but first, I need to give the digs on Dublin.
Notable things about Dublin include:
-It’s really small. At least compared to the likes of London and Paris and even Copenhagen. Almost everywhere we wanted to go was within walking distance of everywhere else we wanted to go.
-Food is comically expensive. Even in grocery stores, it was hard to get a filling meal for less than a kick in the nuts. Strikingly, everything else we encountered in Dublin was extremely cheap; all of the tourist sites we went to were at most a few Euros, if not free, and when it became apparent that we needed warmer clothing, we found blue jeans for less than the average sandwich at a takeout shop.
-Speaking of warmer clothing, Dublin was a lot colder than we thought it would be. As in, noticeably colder than Sweden. Not to mention, it rains, mostly quite gently, nonstop, all the time.
-Dublin was, for lack of a better word, filled to the brim with information about vikings. I encountered substantially more viking history than I did in either Sweden or Denmark. I suppose this makes sense for a city that was founded as a viking encampment. Being the history nerd that I am, I did my best to learn as much as possible at Irelands medieval and archaic periods as I could. I was extremely happy with the amount of history that I was able to cram into my short trip. What’s more, it gave me a deep sense of smugness that I was a tourist in Ireland interested in something besides Guinness.
-We met an amazing traveling pair in our hostel consisting of a Croatian brother and sister. The brother was a long-haired gent wearing a Mjolnir pendant and a Manowar shirt, which I felt led to an instant kinship. It was quite fun learning about their country, and now I kind of want to visit Croatia.
-The Irish countryside is tied with the Himalayas for the most spectacular piece of nature I’ve ever witnessed. We took a bus out to the coast, and walked along high ocean cliffs on our last evening. I wish I had words to describe how overwhelmingly beautiful this was; the rolling low clouds over the blue skies, the endless sea, the rock formations crawling out of the sea like ancient beasts reawakening from hibernation; it was absolutely breathtaking. I’ll have photos up eventually, but potentially not until I get back to the states. While I remembered my camera, I forgot the cable for uploading photos off of it.
So yeah, Ireland is cool. I recommend going there.

I made sure to ask the Croatian guy about Crocop. Apparently he’s well known there, but not as big of a deal as in Japan.
He was also quite convinced that Mirko would’ve beat Gonzaga had they fought in a ring instead of a cage.

[TheMightyMcClaw]

Episode 5: Parisian Blues
Now that I’ve got Ireland out of the way, Paris.
We left Ireland at 6:30 in the morning, which, in retrospect, was a bit early.
We arrived in Paris tired, hungry, grumpy, and unable to speak French. All of these problems - aside from the linguistic one - disappeared the moment we popped into a sandwich/dessert shop and loaded up on delicious, cheap(er than Ireland) food.
Yeah, the food here is amazing. Hell, the fast food here is amazing. Crepes, pastries, sandwiches far better than I remember from the first time I came to Paris… all amazing.
We hit up the Catacombs, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower. The catacombs were totally boss - I was overwhelmed by just how damn deep under the city they were.
The Louvre, likewise pretty spectacular. Wandering through ancient Greek and Roman statues let us to a discussion on changing standards of beauty throughout time.
Oh, and we had a bomb threat on the subway, closing down the line we wanted to take. Kind of sucked.
But what really sucked was losing my Eurail pass. You know, the thing I spent 600 USD on to take the trains around Europe with. Yeah.
Fortunately, I have it insured. Unfortunately, said insurance is not all that great, and will refund me either the cost of my rail pass or the cost of the tickets I buy in lieu of using it - whichever is lower. So either way, I’m probably going to be losing out a bit.
I had to go to the police station to file a police report, which they seemed less than inclined to let me do, but persistence won in the end.
I have no idea what became of it - stolen, lost, mixed in with garbage and thrown way, left in the US - no clue. I had it in my travel pouch, and when we went to reserve tickets at the Paris station yesterday, it was gone.
I was not a happy camper. But I’m moving on.