Travel

Switzerland is a land of mountains, rivers, and lakes. it’s a great place for skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, walking, and sailing. Those are all sports I’ve done. When I was several years younger we had a day’s racketing: Racketting is walking with rackets attached to your feet across the trees up in the mountains. It’s fun, although occasionally tiring sport. At one point we took a break for lunch. During this time a few of us were jumping over a young tree and someone was taking photographs. Within a period of weeks, one of those photographs was blown up to poster format and used in several shopping centres. it was also used for the cover of a local tourism magazine. The picture was of a younger me in a ski suit with rackets attached to my feet. Many people have seen that photograph and I was a cover boy for at least one issue of the local magazine. Recently that picture was in a shopping center much closer to where I live and we recuperated it. It’s now sitting on my desk at home. I’m thinking about going raquetting if there’s enough snow for it to be worthwhile. I haven’t done that sport for many years and I think it’d be interesting. It’s simple. No need to drive to where the snow is good, Thirty minutes and I’d be where I may be able to raquet. If there’s snow that’s what I may spend a few hours doing.

The World’s “Biggest silent disco” was made up of only 200 people but they danced for over an hour to all the music they had on their ipods, mobile phones and other mp3 playing devices. It was very amusing. I arrived over an hour early and scouted out the area seeing where the event would be most likely to take place. As I did this I looked around, seeing which people were likely to participate. I saw two or three groups of friends, then some more. Around 1830 a lot of people were standing around and waiting. Within a few minutes more and more people were coming and you could see them all watching the clock. They saw the counter switch to 18:42 but it took ten to twenty seconds before people started dancing. My camera was ready and rolling as soon as 18:42 was on the clock. I was listening to my own music and was filming. I saw lot’s of people start dancing and laughing. I saw some individuals synchronise their music, others shared. Some came with only small earphones whilst others came with big headphones. Some of them danced in groups. Overs danced alone and many people took photographs and video. Conga lines and waves were formed as the individuals listening to their music formed into groups of people who danced the evening away under the arches of Paddington station. I filmed for fifty seven minutes and I’ve got over 300 individual shots of a variety of people dancing, interviews being carried out(I can’t be bothered with interviews and I didn’t have a mic anyway) and more. There was a small police presence but they did not intervene until the very end when some musicians started to play. The crowd loved it though. When I started editing last night was the first glimpse of how surreal the event must have been for the by-standers watching the dancers. I can hear lot’s of squeaking shoes and conversations can be heard loud and clear since there was no loud music. It’s hilarious to see such an event and when it happens again I’ll definitely participate in as many as I can. I’ve been looking at what people say about it on facebook and there are many people that I recognise from the video footage. Overall it’s a great bit of random fun at a random time on a random day and it’s great to see.

We had been walking around various parts of Demnark with a friend when he said that we should go to a bar. In some countries the name would not be allowed but in this part it is. It’s spunk bar. It’s located on one end of Westbork in Copenhaguen. We were having a drink when a person with a chinese tattoo walked past and told us “this is snake”, a strange statement. He went and sat down for a bit, then came back and asked if we knew goose eye. Nope, first I’d heard of it. He went back to his seat. Are you American? was his next question. No I live in London. He went away again. Hey, do you know how an ash tray flies. Both my friend and I were perplexed, wondering what he meant by that. “well I do”, back to his seat. Do you know scientology, nope. Ok, yet again to his seat. Where in London… Do you know churchill park? nope, it’s a nice place. They bury people there. This is probably the best example of surrealism I have seen in a long time. Those fragments are so random that we couldn’t help but burst out laughing. How often do you hear this type of statement? After that he went away and the episode was finished.

Wait in terminal And so the weekend came to an end. It began on Thursday with a trip around Malmo and dropping into two or three bars and a night club. Discussions were had and dancing took place. The first day was about getting back up to speed with the friend and keeping to the promise that I’d made about coming to Sweden would come to fruition. I was in the city of Malmo, across the Oresund from Copenhague, Denmark’s capital. It’s on the southern tip of Sweden. It’s a city of around 500,000 people. We went to two bars before dropping into l’étage. A nightclub that wasn’t that busy. We met a few people of which a fashion student. I was interested in what she had to say but this was cut short by the boyfriend interrupting to speak about football. The night ended early and I was exhausted. The second day was more relaxed consisting of a meal at a restaurant I had been to previously where the food was good. On the third day, we visited the city of Copenhagen. I had already been to the airport but it’s nice to visit the town and notice some of the atmosphere and the architecture. There’s a circular ice rink where people can come and ice skate in a square. It’s some grass in the middle so it’s circular. Some people were enjoying the ice. Back in Malmo we had some dinner before passing by a night club where we stayed till closing. It felt relaxed, consisting of a corridor and three rooms. One part was the restaurant, another the dancefloor and the other a room with table tennis. It lasted till three am and can’t think of any conversations I flew the next day and I was writing this entry on my phone it seemed that we were chasing the sunset back to London. Those sunsets are always enjoyable and colourful.

In about 23 hours I’m going to be ready both physically and mentally for a trip to the city of Malmo in Sweden. There I expect to find a city I have already been to twice in the past. It is there that I may find a cold wind, blankets in the piccolina Piazza… Lilla Torg and enjoy pear cider. I take the tube towards central London and the bus from there to Stansted. I board a plane that will fly for around 1hr and 20 minutes, land in Copenhague, get to the train station, catch the Oresund train across to the city of Malmo and look at the big waves in the sea below the tracks. It’s a short enough trip. I haven’t spent more than five weeks at a time in the same place since the beginning of the academic year. I love traveling and seeing other countries and their cultures. It may be the last time I drop by for cheap since the friend will be moving from Sweden within a short amount of time. Three nights in Sverige It may be time for me to learn some Swedish other than “what are you doing” or “you are cute” and learn more relevant sentences. Thursday will make these decisions for me.

You should always visit friends in their country of origin because it’s fun. Within a week I’ll be in Sweden enjoying Swedish hospitality. I booked the flights today so within a few days I’ll be flying off once more. It’s not that being in a country for too long bothers me but simply that this opportunity won’t last very long. I liked Sweden the previous two times I’ve been there so I’m going again. It’s a bit of a misnomer because although I’m a full-time student I only have 2hrs a week of tuition with the rest of the time left for dissertation work, work experiences, and of course the technology module. I’ve been listening to this week in media, power user tv, Net at Night, and This week in tech for several months by now, therefore, it’s part of my culture to think about tech.

I’m back in the northwest of London waiting for Monday to come when I can fall asleep in the first lecture of the week… In reality that’s probably not going to happen. Instead, it’s going to be the final three modules before the course is over. It’s going to be fun since I love the modules I need to do. The flight was good, enjoyed watching a film on my i-pod, and finally getting a proper opportunity to check my noise-canceling headphones out. They make quite a difference.

In Austria, there’s a pollen warning. Apparently the lack of frost has encouraged the trees and other plants to begin releasing pollen. That’s quite amusing. We have the same temperatures in central Europe as you’d expect to have down in the south Israel has seen snow but the resorts can’t open because of the lack. Where is winter? Is it hiding in the south? Should people go on skiing holidays with their bikes and hiking boots rather than snowboards and skies? On the Porte du Soleil ski pass you’ll see that they advertise their summer time activities like downhill mountain biking.

I’ve been watching a series of underwater diving videos from around the world from the website divefilm and there are a number of interesting ones. Most of them are by the same person but occasionally there are guest appearances by those aiming to protect whales, others aiming to protect dolphins. There are also some videos showing the “shower” fish, those cleaning other fish. It’s an interesting collection of videos. A little different from other videos I’ve watched.

There are times in life when a little peace and quiet are the perfect thing. When you know that the people who are getting drunk are there for one night then the motivation is lacking. Add to this a language and sound barrier and what you get is an unmotivated individual. It’s not that I’m being anti-social. What’s the point of these intellectual and language barriers being formed. I’m glad that I spent a few evenings working in the uni library so that I could work on becoming integrated into a culture and ethnic group I would otherwise have less to do with. One of the weaknesses in this global society is that the individuals are not open enough to learn the languages and break out of the shackles of their father and mother culture. These idiots should adapt to inherit a new culture. One where it does not matter what social background you’re from, what country or ethnic background. Everyone should be outward-looking. This is especially true of those living abroad. What is the point of coming to Switzerland simply to be stuck with the same people and language as if you were in the nation of origin? Forget those who travel without adapting because they are a waste of time and energy. Those are the views I hold whilst listening to some music in a bar/nightclub. goodnight