Big Trip

So Rachel, Jeff and I have a big trip planned.  Next Tuesday, the 23rd, we will begin a 16 day trek through 7 countries.  We will be visiting Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo, Hungary and Slovakia.  Our tentative itinerary is as follows: 

Sarajevo, Bosnia - (arrival) by plane - 3 nights

Dubrovnik, Croatia - by bus - 3 nights

Kotor, Montenegro - by bus - 2 nights

From Kotor to Prizren is currently going to involve an overnight bus from Podgorica, Montenegro to Pristina, Kosovo and a bus from there to Prizren.

Prizren, Kosovo - by bus - 2 nights

Skopje, Macedonia - by bus - day trip

Belgrade, Serbia - by overnight train - day trip

Budapest, Hungary - by overnight train - 3 nights

Bratislava, Slovakia - by train - day trip

Many of the hostels we've looked at, and have pre-booked, have internet so I hope to be posting tidbits of what we're seeing as we go.  That way I won't have so much to do when I get back, since my return to Giessen on March 11th is only 3 days before my sister comes to visit me.  

Struck Out

Well friends, it seems a third time has come in my experiment where I did not write during the day.  Alas, I think I'm done.  The deep drive to see if writing was something I could do has revealed an appreciation for conversational writing styles, but nothing in the way of ordered writing.  It is beyond me, but I will continue to exercise my wit and humor as best I can through pleasant monologue discourse (I think there is an oxymoron in there, but he's hiding).  

Day XI - 108 Weeks

So my continued life plan for living on a boat isn't exactly coming to fruition, but it is progressing.  I've given myself until my 29th birthday to make it happen and that happens to be in 108 weeks, give or take.  Why did I choose weeks?  Mainly because counting months would be to slow and counting days would be too tedious and silly.  Of course, you might say counting weeks is silly.  Well, so be it but I will make it happen.  There will be space enough for me to stand up straight (I'm a little shy of 2 meters) and there will also be a barbecue.  There will be cold beer, cats, and good times.  Mark my words.  In 108 weeks, there will be a blog here detailing my new boat.  I thought I should let you know now.  

Day X - Cold

It was -5 degrees celsius today and I needed to go grocery shopping.  It was a classic example of sucky timing.  A little bit of wind chill helped us along as well, plus the still remaining pockets of compressed snow-ice.  Needless to say it was treacherous.  I think I may have been looking at my computer screen all day except for the two hours I was away shopping.  My head is a little on the pained side and my eyes are doing funky things.  It's probably a bad sign and so I'm now deciding to type with my eyes closed.  Note to self: be sure to do a spell check.  

It's a funny thing to type with the eyes closed.  I find that I drift away from conscious thought, in a sense, and start typing on automatic.  Typing whatever comes into my head at that moment.  I become more conscious of my inner monologue.  Kind of like free writing.  That is what it's called, isn't it?  When some writing instructor tells you to just write exactly what is in your head as it pops up there.  For example, while writing that sentence, I started thinking about Winston from 1984 sitting in his corner of the apartment away from the telescreen so he could write in his journal.  Who knows where I would have gone next.  

As you can no doubt tell, another unremarkable and uneventful day has transpired here in Giessen.  A forecast of plans include Marburg on Wednesday and Frankfurt on Thursday so let's hope I'll have bloggable material to swoon and stimulate your imaginations.

Day IX - Missed Again

Well friends I botched another day.  And this time I don't even have the excuse that I was too busy and not on my computer.  I was simply lazy and forgetful.  I think I've come to the conclusion that I won't be a writer.  It is just not my artistic method.  I'm a musician and therein has always lain my gift of expression.  Sure, I've written a few poems and started or participated in a short story fiasco once or twice, but I enjoy writing the most when I'm just being conversational.  Like right now.  Blogging seems to be such an easier format.  Not being constrained to any formal boundaries of what is and what isn't appropriate form to write in is freeing.  I can talk like I normally do but in words, projecting as best I can the thoughts running rampant in my head.  I will finish the experiment but after that I will return to a normal frequency of blogging.  Thanks for bearing with me in this test.

Day VIII - Blah

I picked a heck of a week to start trying to write.  There is nothing going on here.  I did start working on the story, but I feel weird writing it.  I think I'm trying to get too much back story while simultaneously trying to introduce characters as well.  Of course, a real short story will probably be several pages and it would be silly to post such a thing here in pieces.  I guess I'll keep putzin' away at it in a Word document.

Meanwhile.

Today in my longing for home I came down with an intense craving for relish and onion on top of a ballpark hotdog.  A baseball game along with it was also part of the craving.  So strange.  And that is the order of the craving.  First it was relish, then that made me think of onions with it on top of a dog.  Then of course baseball.  Rachel then mentioned a bagel dog, the cream cheese and grilled onion topped polish dog in a big warm bun.  You get those after the game at the stand on 1st Avenue.  Hoo doggie.  

It's my friend's birthday today.  He is the other person from the physics department at the UW who came with Rachel and I on this exchange program.  He's a lot like me when it comes to birthdays.  We don't really want a big hubbub.  We just want to bond with close friends doing something we all enjoy.  Since I moved to Seattle, my thing has been going out to a brewery with a small group and hanging out.  He's coming to my place now and we're going to have a beer.  Cheers!

Day VII - How to Start?

I'm finding it very difficult to get my thoughts in order for a short story.  Where do people come up with ideas?  Maybe I'm just having an off day, but I can't seem to get it together.  I've gone through half a dozen ways of getting to the end of my story and can't pick one that I like the most.  I've read hundreds of short stories in my life and now that I'm in Germany, away from all my books, I can't even look at them to get an idea for how they're laid out.  I'm not going to give up though.  Some piece of fiction will be written so help me.  I'm afraid this is all I have for today.  

On second thought, it's possible my lethargy, apathy or whatever else my block may be is derived from a feeling of homesickness.  The past couple days have been a little more difficult than normal.  Oh yes.  I am homesick every stinking day.  I'm excited to be abroad, yes, but am most definitely thinking of the Pacific Northwest all the time.  I guess we'll see what things are like tomorrow.

Day VI - Simple Things

It might be one of those days where I don't have much to say and must resort to simplicities.  I'm listening to the soundtrack from The Dark Knight.  I really enjoy how well Zimmer, the composer, not only manipulates his previous themes from Batman Begins into something new but also folds in music from the original movies.  I believe he did the same in the first but more subtly.  My favorite track from the album is "I'm not a hero."  It's long and contains many different motifs.  

It finally stopped snowing here.  It hasn't snowed in at least a day.  Yesterday it was primarily rain but we've had a lot of clear skies finally.  There were even several halos produced on the clouds.  They were so vibrant that the refracted light partially reformed into a second sun if you know what I mean.  It was quite bright.  

I think I've come up with a short story idea.  It's nothing to dramatic or over the top, just a simple story.  In fact, it's more like an excerpt if anything.  I just want to jump right in and get to my climax.  I'm going to use the last week of my 2 week experiment to write the story in parts.  If it doesn't take 7 parts, that's alright.  As a little teaser, my idea takes place on Mars, probably 200 years in the future, give or take.  I have to do a bit of research first to make sure I get a terraforming time frame right.  Or I may just screw it and say humanity created some new technology that allowed terraforming on a much quicker scale.  And like I said, nothing dramatic.  There are no bad guys.  If anything I suppose it's a moral story.  Hope it works.  Starting tomorrow!  

Cheers!

Day V - Missed It

Yep, that's right.  Day 5 was actually yesterday and I missed it.  But, my excuse is simply that I was on my computer for all of 5 minutes yesterday.  I had my test yesterday and, frankly, it didn't go so well.  Besides having difficulty translating the questions to a point that I understood the problem, the gentlemen who were proctoring the exam did not provide a lot of help.  One went so far as to say he wasn't allowed to answer questions.  I didn't want to ask a question about the problem, I wanted to ask what the problem was.  After that, there was only time to eat a quick lunch before my next class started and it wiped me out so much so that during the hour and 45 minute break, I took a nap.  Then with the end of class finally around 6, I went and hung out with Jeff, one of the other students from the States who also took the test, and we ordered pizza and watched Seinfeld.  Then I went to bed.  All in all, an exhausting day that didn't start out too well and ended with simple fellowship due to extreme weariness.  So, I try to make up for missing yesterday by writing about yesterday.  I hope that'll still count since I will write something different for Day 6. 

I started reading a new book.  It is Solitudes by John Crowley, the first book in a tetralogy.  I'm looking forward to it and will keep you posted.

Day IV - Nothing

Can one write about nothing?  Definitely not because of course by writing something you've written about something, correct?  I have no idea.  I guess it depends on your at-the-moment concept of nothing.  I start with this since I couldn't think of anything to write about, but the experiment must go on!  There was a funny show on during the 90's that I never heard about before coming to Germany.  It's called Newsradio and had Phil Hartman in it before he passed away.  In an episode just recently watched, he made the point about the phrase "it's nothing."  "'It is nothing' implies an it, which is something."  Of course the way Phil Hartman said the sentence is much funnier than just writing the same.  So then my first sentence of this post means the same thing, no?  Well, I added the word about, didn't I?  You can not write nothing, but you can write about nothing and I did just that.  Sorry to have wasted your time, but it won't be a waste if you try to check out that show I mentioned.  It is a great diversion from physics homework and it's silly stupidity is refreshing in such serious times as these.

Day III - Finals

It's finals time...finally.  After a grueling 4 months, we've come at last to the moment of truth.  And what a moment it is here in Germany.  Typically, there are no tests at all during the semester.  The only thing providing any measure of accomplishment in class are homeworks and frankly I've not had the best ones while here.  Usually there are 3 maybe even 4 tests during the quarter at home and they scale in such a way that bombing one doesn't mean a complete failure.  Sometimes one is even dropped.  Here there is no chance of that.  You bomb this, you bomb for good.  It's so much pressure!  There have been 12 in class practice problem sheets and 12 homework assignments for one class and no indication by the teacher what might be the 'big problem' on the test.  You know, the one that should take 20 minutes and call upon a great deal of what you've learned?  No idea what I should really focus on and there isn't enough time to really review everything in the fullest.  There are so many equations, so many formulas, so many relations, tricks, and concepts that need to be known just to do the homework.  I take an hour just looking in textbooks and online for the tools I need to do a problem.  I'm not even sure what the equation sheet that will be provided for the test will look like.  How will I be able to take a test?  

I knew that school here would be more difficult.  It seems that since moving away from California 4 years ago I've been progressively increasing the difficulty of my schooling.  First changing majors, going to a community college, getting accepted to the University of Washington for astronomy, doubling my major to include physics and now studying abroad during a critical time of my physics education: EM and quantum.  I know taking quantum mechanics will be difficult, but now I'm revamping my position to saying it will be near impossible.  I do not look forward to taking it this coming semester.  What will the test for that class be like?