Derby Square Bookstore, 215 Essex Street, in Salem, MA – what a wonderful place!

And after browsing through these pictures, imagine how the owner of the shop looked like.

Exactly!
Wow.

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Opeth & Norway.
Now I need to find a conference in Norway so that I get my plane tickets reimbursed.

by Sam Brown

Toronto

It took about 5 hours to get from Ann Arbor to Windsor, and another 5 hours to get from Windsor to Toronto. Windsor is seperated from Detroit by the Detroit River, which is at the same time the border between the US and Canada. Usually, getting from Ann Arbor to Windsor should not take more than 2 hours, and the main reasons for the delay were: (1) the very unreliable US train system AmTrek. After 2 hours of waiting, I took the GreyHound bus to Detroit instead. (2) My cabbie, who was stopped at the border “because, yes Sir, your German documents are all in best order, but your driver is known for bringing illegal immigrants into the country, and we cannot let you continue your journey.”
The weather in Toronto was amazing. It wasn’t particularly warm, but sunny the whole weekend, leading to a complicated pattern of reflections of reflections (of reflections) of sunlight within the network of towers of steel, glass and mirrors. I walked around for three days, sometimes accompanied by my wonderful host (whom I met on couchsurfing. If you still haven’t signed up, you might want to).

Worth living Toronto: Read the rest of this entry »

We can’t stop here – this is bat country!

— Thanks to Lucie, and greetings to New Zealand!

Worth living:

My eyes are closed, I realize I just woke up.
I haven’t slept properly for 4 days and feel exhausted, tired, but I am awake now. I have found a position to sit which is extremely comforting. Everything is silent, I am at peace, calm, happy.
The sun warms my hands, my arms, my face, and I open my eyes to watch the world outside of the train slowly moving by. I am sitting at a big window and I seem to be the only traveler, noone and nothing is to hear except for the very soft movements of the train.
Looking around I realize that I am driving through (or over?) a picture: someone drew huge geometric figures on the surface, polygons of different shapes, and colored them in yellow and green and brown tones – farmland. And he even took himself enough time to take out a brush and put a touch of white on everything that is moving by – fields and trees, houses and fences – giving the whole world a peaceful, a silent, a serene and clear expression.

Helsinki, the capital of Finnland, is one of the most southern Finnish cities, but still colder than many others who are located far more north. Why is that?

Because of the wind. Due to the fact that Helsinki has maritime climate (it is located at the sea), the wind usually blows rather strong, thus the temperature feels way colder. Here is a very informative diagram.
(x: temperature in °C)
(y: wind in m/s)

*BRRR*

After spending nearly four months in Finnland, most of the time in Helsinki, I just have to tell you about the Finns, the Finnish culture, about the things that are “special” here. The things that are important. The things you better know before coming here.

- Santa Claus is called “joulupukki”. No, they actually take this seriously, it just sounds ridiculous.

- Sauna is a very basic thing in Finnish life. Everybody knows this, of course, I don’t have to tell you. But here is a nice quotation of an email about Finnish Christmas culture which was sent around in the foreign-students list – it actually shows, how *very* important sauna is:
“After the porridge and declaration of the Christmas peace people go to the graves, leaving candles for the dead relatives. Then follow often Christmas sauna and church.”
Christmas sauna?…

- It does not matter if you exchange money in the bank or buy something in the supermarket: You will never pay *.49 or *.99, neither will you pay *.21 or *.81, the money is always rounded (which, I hope, is the correct term). I felt kind of ripped off the first time I bought something for 2.98 and actually had to pay 3 Euros.
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Die deutsche Bahn hat auf ihrer Homepage den allseits beliebten und bekannten “Sparpreis 50″, bei dem man sage und schreibe 50% Rabatt auf eine Zugfahrt bekommt. Ich habe mir vorhin mal die Zeit genommen, mir die Details anzuschauen – es sind ledigliche geringe Restriktionen, wollen wir sie einmal einzeln durchgehen:

1) Der Sparpreis 50 ist leider nur verfügbar, wenn man Hin- und Rückfahrt zusammen bucht. Aber jeder muss ja am Ende dorthin zurück, wo er herkommt, insofern stellt das ja wohl kein Problem dar.
2) Die Fahrten müssen einen Mindestpreis von jeweils 15 Euro überschreiten – denn sonst wäre das ja wirklich einfach zu billig. Dafür habe ich Verständnis.
3) Die Vorkaufsfrist beträgt 3 Tage. Klaro. Muss geplant werden. Logisch.
4) Es giltzusätzlich, dass die Fahrt entweder über das Wochenende oder am Wochenende erfolgen muss. Im Klartext heisst das, Hin- oder Rückfahrt muss am Samstag oder Sonntag geschehen, wenn ich das richtig verstehe. Aber an Wochentagen arbeitet der gute Deutsche so und so. Fein.
5) Das Angebot ist nur begrenzt verfügbar – was ich natürlich verstehe, schliesslich passen in einen Zug auch nur begrenzt Menschen. Ansonsten wird es nämlich zu voll.

*kopfschüttel*…