Kiruna and Beyond

I booked my first ever train ticket to the arctic circle this week, it got me quite excited! I absolutely love trains anyway (seriously, I really prefer it over every other form of travel, it's civilized, elegant, has very low CO2 emissions, and is just plain enjoyable), so the fact that it's the cheapest way up to northern Sweden is a great plus.

Mid-February my master's program switches from here in Würzburg to a semester in Kiruna, Sweden (yes, way up north inside the arctic circle) until the end of June. So how exactly can you go from southern Germany all the way up to northern Sweden with less than a week off to do it?

- You can pay about 300 Euros and fly from Frankfurt to Kiruna with a layover in Stockholm (boring, non-environmentally friendly, and you can only take 20kg of luggage, so EEHH!)

- You can rent a car with 4 other people and split the bill 5 ways, so maybe 3-400 Euros apiece. Great option, you see some wonderful sights, but I've been through Germany lots of times, and quite frankly after 5 months in Sweden I'll probably see all the wildlife and scenery from Scandinavia one can take for a while. So coupled with the trouble of getting people to commit, worrying about insurance, and how to actually drive in -45 temperatures (even though I'm an engineer and should care about whether it's F or C, i conveniently leave it out because at -44 the two scales are the same, pretty cool eh?). You can also bring a good deal of stuff if you're willing to carry it on your lap for 30 hours, but in the end, no.

- You can take the BEST option and go the whole way by train. So the train i booked on the Swedish rail company, whatever it's called, was only 524 Korna (close to 60 euros) from Stockholm ALL the way to Kiruna, about 1200 km, how cool is that? It includes a sleeper car since it's a night train. Chaching!

Notice that's from Stockholm of course, so the plan is now to get a super cheap advance ticket straight from here to Copenhagen on maybe a Monday or Tuesday, spend a day or two there, take a quick cheap train up to Stockholm, another day or two there (including a nice Sabbath in Stockholm, not a bad place to be right?), then Saturday night hop on a 6 pm night train to Kiruna, and voila, I'm there Sunday morning ready for classes on Monday.

So in total you assume 40 euros to Copenhagen, 20 more to Stockholm, maybe 60 to Kiruna, toss in 200 euros for hostels, food, and fun in Scandinavia, and for a measly 300 euros I get to where I need to and see some absolutely amazing cities on the way, does life get any better?

I might add my trusty companion on my trip will be Gao, a fellow SpaceMaster I live right next door two. We've become quite good friends so it should be great fun traveling up together. Since he has to go back to China in the summer to see his family anyway we've thrown around the idea of a nice train trip all the way from Sweden to where he lives in Nanjing, but that's just a though for the moment : ) (my wheels are always turning for travel plans...).

Enough of this for a while, off to bed. I've finished the assignment for class tomorrow ("Spacecraft System Design", or lovingly SSD) so I just have to wake up, do some laundry, and sit through lecture in the afternoon and then enjoy the weekend. Very nice life here at the moment, happiness abounds quite often when I really think about it : )



(A rough visual of the trip)

Starting up again...

Ok, after a veeeery long time away I really want to start blogging again, I need a nice record of the next couple years so here goes.

Ok ok, not yet since I don't feel like it now, but better than nothing no? In the meantime here's a picture at least, it shows the whole group of "SpaceMasters" (that's the master's program I'm doing, I'll talk more about that later...) in front of the Informatiks (computer science) building at University of Würzburg, Germany, where I'm studying at the moment. A second one as well, in front of the humongous "Residenz" downtown, a great old baroque building we took a tour of our first week here.

Whew, yes, much more to say about all that but no fun to give all details now. I've been here since August 31st, and other than a week in Austria for the Feast I haven't left Germany. I'll go home (if there is such a place, it's sort of England at the moment since my well-traveled parents are there) during the winter break and then in the middle of February transfer to a mysterious place in northern Sweden until the end of June. Yes, much more to come, you just wait....

Nothing new. Yet...

It's been May since I updated this, so here's something for my own satisfaction. I'm about 1/3 done with my very last semester of undegrad, can't believe how fast it's gone and I know it's simply going to fly by the next 10 weeks. My departmental honors project (mini-thesis) is going fine, I made a big breakthrough with my data analysis method and basically have that part straightened out, I have 4 weeks to write the thing and it feels wonderfully manageable at the moment.

Big things will happen for me in the next year or two. I graduate May 4th, 2008 at 2:00 PM EDT at UTC's McKenzie Arena with my Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (and maybe a minor in Physics, it's all up to the petitions committee whether they count a thermo class or not).

I've applied for another internship in Germany for the summer, 2 positions with Bosch and 1 with BASF. Also applied to three different Master's programs in Europe through the Erasmus Mundus program. Two in aerospace engineering, a third in energy management. If I get one of those I'll live in 2-4 European countries for the next two years.

If not..., well I don't have much of a plan for that yet. I've applied to no US schools, so no fall back options there. I'd ideally like to work for a few/several months, save money and make a massive world trip, dwarfing any of my previous travels in all respects. Then once I've gotten that out of my system apply for more grad schools for Fall 2009. Work just isn't what I want to go straight into right now.

Enough of that, I'll probably update this again when I find out what will happen to me for the summer. If that works out, and doubly so if a Master's does, I'd like to do some video blogging and keep a much more up to date written journal on here or a new blog, since for all intents and purposes I'd be severed from most of my family (but not as much as you'd think, haha, [end prophetic statement for my future amusement]) and all my great friends and acquaintances I've developed the past 10 years in Chattanooga :(

Although... I'm not sure why, but last semester (Fall 07) I was definitely not ready to graduate, I was sad and sentimental and just plain liked being in school. This semester I'm much more focused and am getting much more out of my classes, and somehow all the nostalgia is gone, I'm mentally ready to move on past undergraduate studies at UTC to something else, whatever that may turn out to be....

All Over Again

Time is fleeting at the moment, but I feel the need to fill a few lines in form of an update. I left Atlanta on May 6th at 6:35 pm and arrived to London shortly after 7 in the morning. Immediately making my way north across town (at the terrible price of 20 pounds!), checked in for my Eurostar train to Paris and had a couple extra hours to tour around a bit. London Eye, Parliment, 10 Downing street, Westminster Abbey; all within easy walking distance of Waterloo station. Wanting about 6 pounds storage per bag, I rather carried my backpack and suitcase several miles through the streets of London, not fun but very cheap.

I arrived to Paris a bit after 5 in the afternoon and went north to Pont Ste. Maxence to stay with Courtiols for 3 nights. We made several day trips, the best of which was to Beauvais to see one of a famous series of astronomical clocks. Absoltely amazing; the mechanism, guilding, craftsmanship, all of it a wonder.

On Thursday the 10th of May I traveled on to Bonn via Cologne, and met Zoltan to get the key for my new apartment. Everything's gone fabulously since then, my 7 semi-room mates are from Afghanistan, China and Germany. Some adventures in the past few days have consisted of being locked out of my office and apartment for an entire night, popping the back tire on my bike, and braving the smells from the manure based exerimentation going on in the shop next door.

Life is good, but grocery stores close early so I must...

Web Picture Album

Pictures from last week's YAW and the Colorado ski weekend. Also, have added the Feast in Tulsa, Paris, Vienna, and hunting in South Dakota. More updates eventually, enjoy!

Dan's Web Album

(Thanks to whomever reminded me to actually post the link!)

Not Again

The more I think about traveling the less I want to recreate certain aspects of the trip this summer. I'm hoping to go back to Europe summer '07 and then somewhere else in the world in spring '08, so I've put lots of thought into my traveling philosophy. The best times I had this summer were with other people, that's one big point. The other is that I don't want to just go more places to see nice landscapes and structures, take pictures, and do dancing videos.

I want to experience things and people, not take pictures of scenery. Well, I DO still want to see scenery, but to the extent that it dominated my travel philosophy to the exclusion of (or even simply disinterest or apathy toward) the actual experience of being in a place, I'm sorry. So maybe that means I'd rather...get thrown in jail for a week in Nepal and live to tell about it than dance in front of the Sydney Opera House? Maybe.

Ok, here it is, the long awaited dancing video.

Laugh, cry, marvel at my bravery for handing strangers my camera to film me, do whatever just as long as it brightens you day and maybe even broadens your horizons and expands your mind a bit.

And never, ever stop dancing.

The final tally

The earth's circumference is roughly 24,901.55 (thank you about.com).

During 100 days in Europe plus a few days extra before and after in the US, I traveled very roughly 21,000 miles. That's pretty cool!

Averaged, that's roughly 210 miles per day. So that's the equivalent of getting into a car every single day and driving on the highway for about 3 hours, for 3 straight months!!

I finally picked a song for my dancing video. I don't know if it's the perfect one but it should give the effect I want. Upbeat, bordering on annoying, and sure to get stuck in your head for days! Not sure if I'll get something put together before the feast but it will certainly come eventually...

A few thank you's in no horribly particular order. Just everyone that comes to the top of my head. 90% of these people will never read this post but I feel like writing it anyway.

Thank you to....

• My parents, for giving me the best home I could have ever grown up in and for raising me to think big
• Peter, for being the first person to greet me on my trip, for getting us lost in Bristol and having an awesome time with me climing barbed wire fences and walking through cow pastures to get home, and for becoming one of my best friends in one short week with a very... interesting dorm : )
• Roberts, for taking the afternoon off to take me and Pete to Bath
• Winchesters, for adding me to their 4 mile long list of people they've put up for a few days
• Donald, for taking me to the Tate and a tour or London even though you've done it yourself thousands of times
  
• Mel, for taking me to Britain's ultimate medieval experience (Warwick) and then going medieval with me on Britain's best theme park (Alton towers!!), oh and for helping me find a cheap ticket to France! : )
  
• Mrs. Harradine, for hosting me when I was unexpectedly homeless in the UK for a few days and for taking me to Oxford to see the world's COOLEST ever natural history museum
• Steels, for being the coolest young couple ever and the best example on the planet
  
• Fritzes, for being great hosts and cooking me many a dinner over the summer, you're no longer just my parent's friends, you're MY friends
• Gutmanns, for letting me spend a relaxing Sabbath with you and taking me around Wiesbaden
• Ulmers, for hosting me 2 straight weekends and taking me to the most incredible lake in the middle of nowhere in the black forest with the freshest, cleanest air in the world
• Zoltan, for taking my application for the summer program and letting me travel pretty much whereever and whenever I wanted
• Ishtvan, for being the biggest Hungarian born German soccer fan on the planet, and for telling us the story about almost getting punched because of your blue shirt after Italy lost!
• The Eaton student, for letting me randomly meet you on a platform a hundred meters off the coast of Monaco on a floating platform on a gorgeous day on the French Riviera
  
• Sara, for letting me into the tour of the Vienna parliment, biking sooo fast I could hardly keep up, and eating ice cream with me every day I was there : )
• Alex, for giving me a tour of the world's oldest zoo and letting me feed my first giraffe, that was AWESOME!
• Angelika, for hosting me even when you were dead tired from incredible shifts at the hospital and for having one of the coolest decorated apartments on earth
• Elena, for accidentally making me miss the 4:40 to Milan, and the purposefully missing your 5:30 to Pesaro : )
  
• Gary, for completely owning Alex in the whole Arsenal-Barcelona debate
• My campers, for being a great bunch of guys even though you almost killed me and Peter : )
• Daniel, for being the best first time camper in the history of camp
• Paolo and Adriana, for being incredibly gracious hosts and inviting me in for coffee, sorry I lost your address, I'd write you otherwise
• The carful of Swedish guys, for giving me a ride, enjoy the camera case I accidentally left in your trunk
• Every single person who held my camera for a dancing video and at least pretended to be amused

And thanks to everyone I met, saw, and talked with, for the best three months of my life.

Pictures from last week in Bonn

Ok, no real order to these pictures. You might like to know while I'm composing this post I'm listening to "I'm Yours," an absolutely awesome song by Jason Mraz. Search youtube.com for it, it'll make your day.

Me with Zoltan, great guy, he's been in school for the last 27 years! I had lots of fun with him, he just got married after I left in August, I'll be working with him for the next year and a half on my thesis.

Me at my desk at the Institut fur Landtechnik, Uni Bonn


Zoltan at HIS desk. Exciting stuff!

The next few are from an outing around Bonn the Thursday before I left (July 27th I think) Everyone's taking pictures....

Great view of the Rhine behind me from the top of THE Loreley (not one of those, uh, fake imitations)



On the ferry crossing to the other side of the Rhine. Right is Tukta, my first Thai friend! She had an internship there from July-August. Left is another guy's girlfriend who was visiting from Bulgaria.


This is at a monestary still in use by REAL live monks, I shook the hands of one of them. Middle is Zoltan, me just left of him, Tukta on the far right, and the other two are Chinese girls from I don't know where, they just appeared for the tour and supposedly had something to do with the Institut, I think they were really spies. The guy in charge knew them, but that must just mean he was a spy too.



A view of the warehouse of the Institut. I'm probably not even supposed to post this picture since all the equipment and (very fun!) toys are a bit classified till they're patented, so don't look too closely ;)




Holland! This is where I spent my very last Sunday in Germany. The back yard of Queen Wilhemina's Palace, Het Loo. Gorgeous gardens, I got a dancing video here!


Another shot of the back of the palace, it's made of good'ol fashined bricks.


There was a big collection of sleighs, this was one of my favorites. Looks comfy doesn't it?





Picture of Alvin and me in the car in Wageningen, he's one of only a few members in Holland.

That's all for the moment, I'll try to add more within a week. Enjoy!

Some Totals

Life is settling down quite a bit. I guess not for two long since it's barely a month till the Feast though! Go Tulsa!

Quite the trip I just had, I need to go back and fill in my personal diary a bit more with all my thoughts, impressions, feelings, etc. and then sort thru my thousands (4,400 to be semi exact) of pictures so I can show people when I see them without boring them out of their minds with the 4,200 bad ones : )

I'm not sure what will become of this blog, I really don't think a ton of people read it, and those who do read it probably email me once in a while anyway so I'm not terribly motivated to keep it up, but I will try to add more posts eventually with more pictures. As far as much writing goes though, I'm going to say probably not much will be goin down here for a while, so I'll leave it at to be continued in summer 2008...



A bunch of random numbers from my trip:

-100 days (cool!)
-76 trains rides
-10 missed train rides
-dozens and dozens of car rides
-20 bus rides
-4 Major undergounds (London, Paris, Milan, Vienna)
-25 City-train (Stadtbahn) rides
-$ X,XXX dollars spent
-14 Sabbaths, kept in 11 different cities (only repeats in Bonn, Vienna, Coniston), but not a single one alone!
-0 Saturday nights in my apartment in Bonn (no, not because I was out partying, I was at somewhere else every single weekend!)

And the coolest numbers:
-9 different countries (in order, England, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Wales)
-6 plane rides for about 9,000 miles

I'd really like to include the total number of miles for the WHOLE trip but I'm a bit tired at the moment so I'll edit this post later.

AND DON'T WORRY, THE DANCING VIDEO WILL COME. Hopefully before the feast. Relax.