How should we spend Saturday and Sunday?

Isn’t it cute how they photoshopped the seats that they’re touting out of the picture entirely? I especially like the lady by the “window” who looks like she’s snoozing in a comfy armchair. Why bother with pesky realities like a 1.5° recline or armrests? We got fares to peddle!

Wow, KLM. Just wow. I knew that the balkanization of the economy cabin was coming (and KLM isn’t the only offender on this score, UNITED), but I thought it was going to be isolated to exit rows. Spreading the upcharge fever to the bulkhead rows as well is really slimy. I’ve only flown KLM a couple of times and, in terms of service while in flight and in the airport, I have no complaints. But their frequent flier program is atrociously structured, they are rarely the most competitively priced option (and they don’t appear to offer any extra comfort, amenities or reliability to justify the higher price) and now they’re pulling this stunt?

It’s still economy. I still need a shoehorn (butthorn?) to get in and out of the seats, whether in the center row or a bulkhead row. I may very well pay a little more for bulkhead seating now, if only to avoid your planes.

*Thanks Ian - this cracked me up so much that I just had to give a shout out!

Oh, and Jentry’s right about two things:

1.

The Kasse and Schlange setup causes more than a bit of a faff. We witnessed it ourselves, even in a low-traffic situation. Didn’t see the indicator lights she mentioned, but witnessed the confusion 2 and half working registers cause when there’s not a clear line for customers to stand in. One shopper almost managed to out-flank us, but we squeezed her out at the last second as the half-open cash register operator waved us over, signaling his readiness to take our money.

2.

The housewares (and hardware odds and ends) section is a bit lacking by comparison, but the offers they had were better than good and I am most likely going to have to fight the urge to pop in and browse on weekend shopping trips.

Turns out it’s going to be a big ol’ project to renovate it in four phases. And this is only the first phase. On the one hand, I’m just glad they’re not isolating Stadtamhof residents even further by completely closing the Steinerne to foot/bike traffic, given that the Protzenweiher Brücke is still closed to car traffic following its barge-collision meltdown several years ago (and it looks like they’re building a new foot/bike bridge in parallel to the existing wooden workaround). And don’t forget that what used to be our Netto is still at least the better part of a year away from being a usable grocery store again.

On the other hand, I wonder if such a project really can only be carried out in such a manner, and whether that is really in the spirit of Denkmalschutz and whether emergency vehicle traffic (Notarzt, Krankenwagen, Polizei) will finally also have to be re-routed around the Steinerne Brücke. Of course, if this renovation project will allow taxis and buses to use the bridge, then maybe it’s worth it. I’m sure we’d use the bus more if the three or four lines which used to stop at our Netto would become viable options again.

Anyone got more scoop?

  
This is the second time since Fall 2009 that leftovers from WW2 have had a direct impact on me.  Another time, my train from Nürnberg to Regensburg had to be re-routed because of a bomb dug up at a construction site near the railway.  Has it ever happened to you? 

But a colleague of mine plans to return to Germany / Regensburg / the office on that day after a big long business trip around several of our company’s Asian locations. When asked, he said he’d return on March 15th, which you and I know as the Ides of March.

I said

Whoa. Be careful.

He said

Uh…why?

I said

March 15th! On that day Julius Caesar was murdered!

He said

Cliff, what are you talking about?

I said, with disbelief

Um, “Et tu, Brute?” and all that?

His eyes told me he had no idea what I was talking about.

I said

OK, March 15th is pretty famous as a bad luck day because Kaiser Julius got stabbed in the back by people he trusted on that day.

He said

Wow, Cliff, you know a lot about history.

He walked off and I stood there, shaking my head. This is country of Asterix and Obelix. This is the country whose Gymnasien made me sit through 4th-year Latin classroom instruction, reading Pliny the Elder and tales of Roman conquest and exploration throughout Gaul and Brittania (uh…18 years ago…maybe things have changed since then). This is Shakespeare’s spiritual Heimat (as far as they are concerned). This is the country of Roman baths and where people know what Q.E.D. stands for.

But the Ides of March — or even the significance of March 15th — is a mystery? But that reminds me of a similar incident a few months ago: another guy in our same office is getting married on May 8th.

I say

Congratulations! May 8th, May 8th, May 8th, why does that sound familiar to me?

*ponder*ponder*ponder*

Oh right, ‘L’ — I guess you’re capitulating, huh?

L says

Uh, what?

So then I told him about V-E Day, and how Russians celebrate it on May 9th, and all I got were those polite nods and grunts you receive when the conversation has lost its relevance and can we please just go back to looking at our computer screens?

CNN has got to do a better job of sorting out the titles and descriptions on their feeds.

Here are some more snowy rooves. I know you’ve been missing them since we moved from the top floor loft to essentially two ground floor apartments across town. Thanks, Nürnberg!

There’s apparently a protest movement going on about Neo-Nazi clothing brands and the stores used to sell it. I tried googling it quickly, but I’m still at a loss. The English wikipedia article makes it sound like a clothing company with an unfortunate choice of logo (in the past at least), whereas the German sites my searchers turned up claimed it’s clothing line for Nazis, by Nazis (the Aryan FUBU?). The text on the billboard informs us that Nazis are camouflaging themselves. Nürnbergers, care to clarify this topic for us?

Following up with another cheery racial theme, how about Mr. Bleck? This topic intrigues me in two ways. First because of how freakin’ hard it must be for Germans to say the vowel sound I know and love in such words as “cat,” “scratch,” and — say it with me now — “black.” Apparently “bleck” and “black” are tonally indistinguishable ’round these parts. OK. But if you have a minstrel as your logo, shouldn’t you just call yourself “Mr. Black” and be done with it? AFAIK, “Bleck” doesn’t have any other meaning to it in German that would allow for a pun…I guess, unless it’s the proprietor’s name or something.

Kinda weird that the vegetarian aspic loaf is on the meats.

Saw this via the blog of a friend of friend.  It’s great.  Read it if you think people should be treated fairly.  Read it even if you don’t — it might change your mind.

I read woot.com’s feed for good deals on stuff — typically electronics, but not always (and I rarely buy anything, but enjoy their product descriptions).  Now and then they also put together excellent collections of content for pure entertainment’s sake.

I saw this page today (linked above):  Nicholas Cage, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Krazy Kiefer Sutherland shilling for the Japanese market, and some true-to-form Kyle MacLachlan Twin Peaks canned japanese Coca-Cola-company-produced coffee weirdness*.  Enjoy.

In less gripey news, it only took us 25 or 26 hours of continuous travel to get home to Regensburg (it was at least 29 on the way down). Time to take a shower and spend some time reclining.

The Newlyweds...well, two years ago

Or was it just a fluke?

But after they headed home to crappy weather, we stuck around down here for another week,

• soaking up the sun at the pool,
• strolling up and down the beach,
• observing the pelicans,
• scouting around downtown and the local supermarket for good eats,
• playing with camera gadgets (thanks Susie!),
• and as is tradtional for a visit down here, OOHing and AHHing at the sunsets.

Here are some of our favorite shots of those activities:

Here are the rest of our favorite shots from this trip:

Stuff we (still) want(ed) to do (again) but which will have to wait until next time:

• head over to Bucerias for Wednesday Night Tacos or just in general
• check out the Botanical Gardens
• watch baby turtles run down the beach after hatching
• try various recommended resturants
• Rent Segways® for zooming around the marina area
• charter a sailboat and crew for a day sail around the bay

Some of these things are more fun or cost effective when you can split the cost more ways, or when someone who’s done it before can show you the ropes.

This has been an excellent trip, but we are dreading the return to reality. Planning our return always keeps us hopeful.

1. I wasn’t a big Headline News (HLN) watcher before we moved to Germany, but I though that it was news that gave you the headlines. Instead, it appears to be very angry, aggressive women and their angry guests shouting about really lurid, horrifying crimes and the court cases that result from them. Is that about right? So what does HLN stand for now? Harassing Lurid Nasties? Horrid Ladies Network?

2. Beastmaster is a truly dreadful movie that is very funny because of its colossal badness. Marc Singer, his body oil, John Amos and Rip Freakin’ Torn. With leather diapers and weasels. It’s like it was designed for a drinking game.

My sister and brother-in-law departed today, headed back home to cold parts of the world (though apparently not quite cold enough for winter sports, he lamented). It was great seeing them; we attended their wedding in December 2007 (after a previous visit to Puerto Valllarta) and hadn’t seen them since. We only overlapped with them for two full days (odd that we didn’t notice that at the time of ticket purchase), but we’re thankful for the time we had and their recommendations in the whale watching adventure.

Here are just a few shots of them, with me trying to get my candid artsiness on:

And here are the shots from our whale watching adventure. There are about 30 of them…Sarah and I tried to cut it down, but although these shots are not technically perfect, we’re already reliving the thrill by viewing them. We were lucky to get not only a glimpse of a whale, but a mother-calf combo at play.

In town, Captain Tobi approached as we made our way toward the harbor and asked if we wanted to do some whale watching. Yes, indeedy! My favorite shot from the trip is pictured here. There are more however, and I’ll upload them when I can and make a slideshow out of them.

After the whale watching, we snagged lunch at a beachside restaurant. I had Camarones Ensilantrados — Shrimp in a garlic/butter/cilantro sauce. Yum!

Here’s Punta Mita in relation to Puerto Vallarta:

View Larger Map

Today we stocked up at the grocery store on our favorites: chorizo,
Malibu, those lime-flavored coated “japones” peanuts, coconut yoghurt.
Tomorrow will probably be a whale watching expedition. Low-key stuff
today was a good idea given the monster travel day yesterday.

The post-Fruit-of-the-Boom-era extra security screening at the ticket counter upon checking in was the same old questions, just no longer phrased as yes/no questions, with a few new questions, like “how long have you owned that piece of luggage you’re checking?” But they made us split up for separate questioning even though we told them we’re married because we didn’t share a last name (or presumably part of one, like in a hyphenation situation) and didn’t have our marriage certificate on us (should we schlep a copy of that with us everywhere we go again? We used to have to do that in the early phase of our move here for bureaucratic purposes), even though our one piece of baggage to be checked had both our names and common address on it.

For the FRA to DFW flight, we were sitting in a row marked “DC ELECTRONIC POWER OUTLET AVAILABLE UNDER SEAT.” Never used one of those before. Is there some kind of adapter I can buy to plug in my laptop? I didn’t get a close look at the receptable, but it looks like it would accept a round plug. What voltage is it?

Time to get on our flight to PVR pretty soon. Greetings from DFW (nice airport, Texans!).

Cathay Pacific to Australia & New Zealand
This one goes on for a while. Until February 28, you can book flights from FRA only to various destinations in Australia and Auckland in NZ. The travel period is rather restricted - May 1 to June 30 - but the prices aren’t too outrageous. With fares that start just over 760€ RT and an easily searchable site, this one looks like a winner.

Aer Lingus specials from Munich
For purchase until January 22, Aer Lingus is offering low-fare flights to Dublin and Cork in the Republic of Ireland and Belfast in Northern Ireland. The terms say that the offer is valid for flights until March 24, but the exact start date isn’t given. And the Aer Lingus site does that infuriating thing where each leg of the flight is priced separately and fare, fees and taxes are all broken out into line items and not brought together for a total until the final page before purchase. That said, you can still do flights on certain dates for as little as 79€ per head. Not too shabby.

That’s all for now. Anything else interesting comes along, I’ll post in the comments. You do the same if you have something you just gotta share.

Or maybe I should not be surprised, given the caning episode. (How did that go down, by the way?) In Malaysia, four Christian churches in three days have been firebombed as protest against a Catholic newspaper’s use of the word “Allah, ” and the court system’s support of that usage. CNN reports that Muslims believe non-Muslims should not use the word at all. Here’s where I get bewildered and need your help:

1. Does that apply to all Muslims? Or maybe just some of the fundamentalists? Is there a Koran directive or commandment or documentable dogma for this, or is CNN generalizing here?
2. According to Wikipedia, that word is used by Arabic-speakers in general, and that is the word used for God. Non-muslim speakers of Arabic, wherever you are, do you face your Muslim neighbors’ wrath for using the word?
3. So, what are the odds that I’d accidentally offend a Muslim, perhaps while on vacation in Malaysia (sure looks nice, Truly Asia and all) talking about God (not that I do that much, except in a historical, philosophical, or cultural context)? Or be misunderstood, talking about something that sounds like “Allah”? (Challah, Valhalla, Lalala, Margot’s chow Nala, Alexei Lalas, the list goes on…)
4. The Tourism Malaysia e-brochure on customs and etiquette has lots of tips about Malaysian culture — particularly interesting was the section on naming conventions on page 2 — and useful contact information, but sadly no hints for what to do if you should find yourself in a church on fire.

Hit Wikipedia for some details on the song. It’s trying to sound like English without actually being English. I think it works!

But it’s still worth it, in my opinion.

We got started with a 6:30 a.m. pickup on Sunday morning and headed North through the Taurus Mountains. We stopped for breakfast at a rest stop on the far side of the range outside Konya, and it was like walking into a giant mouth whose teeth had never been brushed. Ever. It was clean and apparently well-maintained. But intolerably smelly (at least, to us — no one else seemed to mind or notice).

We continued into downtown Konya to visit the site of an original Islamic Dervish sect, our guide giving us details about the sultan (at the time), his advisor and that guy’s son, who started the movement. He also gave us insight about modern Turkey’s secularism — which is not as straightforward as it might at first seem. Turkey outlawed various religious sects around the time of the Atatürk revolution. What I can’t figure out is that if the government should be separate from religious organizations, why would they interfere with religious sects like the Dervish? Especially ones (such as the Dervish) whose own tenets are ones of patience and tolerance?

But whatever. Inside the “museum” — since it can’t be a mosque, officially, anymore, we saw ancient Korans (some dating back to the 7th Century), carpets, and other artifacts and works of art. Very beautiful stuff — especially the miniature Koran, said to have been handwritten with an eyelash.

We got back on the bus and headed along the Silk Road through wide, flat country, until we needed a break for lunch. It was cheap and tasty in a clean and non-smelly rest stop (with free WLAN, no less!). We began to approach the inactive volcanoes of Cappadocia. We got some panorama shots of the area, viewing the results of millions of years of eruptions of ash and lava and the resulting erosion. Finally, we retired for the night in a quaint hotel made of the same stone as these structures: tuff (Tuffstein), the volcanic ash formed into lightweight and breathable stone over time.

Dinner and breakfast at the hotel was very tasty — much better food than what we’d been getting at the resort. We got a jump on some of the rest of the tourists in the area, visiting an underground city (used for refuge in case of attack and also long-term storage of perishables, given the constant temperatures), and some ancient Orthodox churches set into these same kinds of Tuffstein structures. There are hundreds of these little churches set into the hills, some with very beautifully restored murals. No flash photography was allowed in them and also no tripods were allowed; else I might have some great shots of them here to share.

Then we got back in the bus for the same long trip back in reverse, this time with a stop at a jewelry store and pottery store and a Karavansaray — trading stop on the silk road connecting the Orient with Europe, rather like a small garrison to protect the traders from pirates and give them a sheltered place to rest — dating back to the 12th century. Once more back on the bus for the long ride back across the flat expanse of land between the volcanic hills of Cappadocia and the Taurus Mountains on our way “home” to Antalya.

We finally reached our hotel after about eleven hours of being on-the-go that day. There was a terrific wind/rain storm over night and it didn’t seem likely our afternoon flight would take off the next afternoon…but it all blew over. Here are some parting questions directed at Turkey experts:

• Is the constant evening woodsmoke smell from wood-fired stoves from all the streetside vendors, or is that a means of heating their homes? Ugh.
• What days constitute the weekend? Having been there for over a week, and traveling a lot of the same highway stretches on our excursions, we thought we’d be able to detect the traffic ebbs and flows. But not so much.
• Really? No bacon or any pork at all? Not even in a 99% German resort?
• What kind of dirty pictures must Nestle have on every single restauranteur in Turkey? I can only assume there is some kind of massive blackmail involved, because who in their right mind would choose to drink Nescafé? Can there really be no middle ground between Turkish Coffee (probably not bad, once you get a taste for the metallic aftertaste that accompanies it) and this sludge?

We got home without incident; our flights and train connections were very pleasantly boring. It’s good to be back here, despite the typical Regensburg wintry mix.

The last slide show for this trip:

After about three hours in windy, hilly, sometimes scary traffic conditions straight through Antalya and out the other side, we finally made it to the mountainside turn-off described in the book. We pressed on faithfully, even as the road stopped being a real road and we were sure we were lost among roadside chickens and the odd ramshackle “pansiyon.” And we got to the Chimera “base camp.” There a friendly old man pointed enthusiastically at pictures on postcards when Sarah mentioned the Turkish name for the phenomenon of the eternal flames on the mountainside: Yanartaş.

The hike up the hill was only 1000m and was well marked — you can’t miss it. We managed to not get rained on, though you can probably tell by the pictures that it was threatening to the whole time.

After making our way back down the path to the car, we decided to scout out some dining options. But it was getting late and long since dark and we opted for a stop to the Migros supermarket in Kemer for a snack of potato chips (an American brand…so, so much better than what we can get in Germany) and an old favorite, Fanta Limón. Why did they never introduce Ruffles in Germany and why the heck did they stop distributing Fanta Limón?

We made it back in time for a light, healthy dinner at the resort. The road traffic in Antalya reminds me a lot of what I’ve seen in Puerto Vallarta and Iaşi: lanes are extremely optional and horn taps and high-beam flashes are friendly, helpful measures — not the deadly serious insults we’re used to in the U.S. and Germany.

Still, I’m glad the tour bus driver is handling the rest of our surface travel.

Our Frommer’s Turkey book gave Aspendos three stars and merely a mention to Perge. Aspendos was a pleasure and I’m really glad we did it, but we really thought the ruins of the ancient city of Perge were worth at least as many stars as the amphitheater at Aspendos.

When the bus picked us up at our hotel, it was about half full. We made one or two more stops and then were on our way to Perge. We saw the stadium outside the city wall first and then made our way in through the gate. The amount of old stone lying around on the ground, much of it ornate, was impressive. And then we got a look at the columns, many of which had been restored or at least re-inserted into modern replicas of their sockets. For me, I think the highlight of the Perge visit was passing from the Frigidarium through the Tepidarium to the Caldarium and checking out the ancient Fußbodenheizung structures underneath the floors of the baths.

We took a little break from the made-man marvels to visit a waterfall not too far away in a park area. It would have been a nice place for a picnic, but our lunch plans brought us back toward mankind’s creations near the 2000 year old amphitheater at Aspendos, so after a few minutes of admiring the waterfall and wildlife, we got back on the bus to move along. We pulled into a ramshackle village within sight of some ruins at Aspendos — not sure what those were, since we never talked about them — and sat down for lunch. It was pretty much the same deal as yesterday’s lunch: some bread, some salad-type stuff, and your choice of chicken, ground beef, or fish/vegetarian main course, followed up by fresh fruit dessert. Then, back on the bus for a two-minute ride to the theater at Aspendos.

Sarah remarked afterwards that once you gain admission to it, the theater is really yours to explore. There didn’t seem to be any restricted areas. We guessed that all they need is someone to hang around and make sure you don’t actively desecrate the place; otherwise, since you accepted the risk of climbing around mostly (but not entirely!) intact stone stairwells and bench seating, what else could go wrong? That building has been there twenty times longer than you can hope to live. The view from the top row out over the walls towards the Taurus Mountains was breathtaking. It was easy to see why this theater is still an active performance site: you can put sixteen thousand people in it and it still sounds great — we tested that a little bit, our normal speaking voices clearly audible between the top row and about half-way down. Just a little louder than normal is all you would need to project all the way from the bottom up to the top.

After hanging around there for about a half an hour, we sampled a mix of freshly squeezed and orange and pomegranate juice (yum) and got back on the bus for just one more stop to go. We made our way out to a bridge crossing a river that was built in the 1200s (and modernized more than once over time). This was not a big deal to for anyone who lives in Regensburg, and the rest of the guests didn’t seem too jazzed about it either. At that point, I think we were all just ready to get back to our respective hotels and chill out a little before dinner.