The life and times of a fallen hacker
Archive for the ‘travel’ Category.
The 2:30 arrival in Helsinki was probably my latest ever thus far.
And with the luggage among the last to emerge on the carousel, this meant an even later arrival home.
Got to bed around four. Both ears firmly locked up from the combination of flu and pressure changes. Mr. Otrivin will so be employed tomorrow to do its unblocking magic.
The late flight meant plenty of time to walk around the city. And an interesting discussion on the fair price of a late checkout.
One of the things on the shopping list was local music. Metal, not folk-dancing. Locating a recordstore proved to be on the hard side, but one was available near Acropolis. The cellar shop had plenty of domestic metal, but it was also missing a lot of the shop-owner’s favorite bands for some reason. Settled on one stoner album and another that seems to be death metal (Nightstalker and Nightfall, respectively).
Noticed that I had a nicely building up flu in the morning, and it kept escalating with semi-automatic sneezes throughout the day. Flying out will probably be an unpleasant experience.
The late checkout - that turned out to cost 50€, not too bad when divided between three people, and especially not bad since it kept us cool up until it was time to split.
Rode the metro downtown again, this time with the full complement of luggage.
Walking to the hotel, Novotel in the Omonia district, took a while, and up until the final corner seemed to be an entirely wrong area for a proper four star hotel. Happily enough it wasn’t, and the fabulous-ish shower provided was much appreciated.
The neighbourhood didn’t seem too lucrative for a proper dinner, and as the hotel advertised a rooftop restaurant, that meant an easy enough approach for the last proper meal of the trip.
The view from the top was indeed great. The surrounding area (and pretty much the whole city) being of buildings of not very great height, the vistas offered pretty much 360 degree access. The sun setting behind one of the hills got to be probably the greatest photo opportunity of the whole weekend.
The dinner, while expensive, was worth the money. Finally got to tick off “octopus” from the list of things to be eaten, and the tuna steak for the main course was a nice change of pace from the ubiquitous souvlakis. Drinks varied between awesome (the margarita for an appetizer) and awful (the daiquiri for dessert was genuinely artificial in taste).
Took a look at the neighboring hills before heading out to Athens for the second leg of the trip.
The area around Parnith mountain was badly burnt a few years ago, and the environment is just beginning its recovery from the fire. The hillsides were bare, with just blackened stumps remaining.
On top of the mountain was probably the saddest casino I’ve ever seen. Its appearance (the entrance shown to the left) should have deterred all but the most compulsive gamblers.
Walked into downtown Kifissia for dinner.
The local equivalent of Pigsty (can’t recall the name, had heavily pig-related imagery and the word souvlaki in the name) offered a competent selection of large dishes. Had stuffed vine leaves for starters and a cypriot mincemeat dish (whose name also goes unremembered) for the main course. By far the largest dish turned out to be an appetizer - the pita flambé was correctly noted to be “on the big side”.
Dessert demanded a bit of walking about, since the list was rather meager. Had an excellent chocolate souffle and a glass of local wheat beer (Maisel’s) at the Beer Academy in a way posher downtown location.
Walking in the area was interesting. The streets were very unevenly equipped with any kind of walkways, and the availability of streetlights varied between blocks completely. Locals in the more suburban roads tended to carry sticks to deter dogs, but never bumped into any on the way.
Spent a couple of afternoon hours hiking in the ancient Acrocorith fortress.
The afternoon sun was once again merciless, but the views on the hillsides and the ruins of the fortress itself were worth the pain.
The way up was rocky, and occasionally plagued by stones worn smooth throughout the years. Noted that sandals are not really the optimal choice from hiking. While neither the small-grained sand nor insects were not really an issue, small rocks lodged themselves between the sole and the sandal, requiring shakeout operations.
Borrowed a wide-angle lens (Sigma’s 10-20mm) on the way down the hill, and delayed the descent quite a bit for experiments with the objective.
The hill is about 140 meters high, and the distance covered was felt upon arriving back down. The adjacent stall was running its cooling equipment at an overdrive, and the bottle of water consisted mainly of ice.
Rode to the Corinth canal to see the waterway whose completion effectively turned the Peloponnesos into an island.
The journey snaked its way on the side of the Mediterranean, with plenty of interesting scenery to view. The harborside extending a long distance from Pireus had quite a few funky-looking ships, and the water itself was of a beautifully deep blue when viewed from above. This unidentified hardy tree grew on the cliff at one of the photo stops, and its green needles provided neat contrast on all other elements in the image.
The canal itself was deceptively short-looking, but nonetheless impressive. With its sides growing higher towards the east it must have been quite a piece of work to complete in the late 19th century.
Had a cheap souvlaki lunch next to the canal - way better than yesterday’s overpriced meat, at a fraction of the price.
The most unorthodox aspect of the area was viewing the rising of a submergible bridge at the west end of the waterway. At that point it’s not really a canal, as the sides are at ground level. Hence the need to allow passing boats an unobstructed route.
Took a cab from the well-airconditioned Athens airport to Kifissia.
The driver seemed very uncertain about directions and worrisomely kept leafing through an atlas throughout the journey. No idea what the constant radio chatter was about, but he did get us into the homebase in decent time and with no extra charges.
Settled in and noted that this will be a hot trip indeed, as the temperature had already broken 30 degrees and it was still a couple of hours till noon.
Took a train to downtown Athens, onto the bottom of the Acropolis hill. Didn’t cross into the museum itself - the sun was too high up, and the interest waning. Walked around the area and noted that the old buildings do not really stand out that bad from the dry hills. And that the dogs have the right idea - though lying in the shade would probably been a better idea than soaking the plentiful rays in the open.
There weren’t too many tourists around - this being pretty much in the off-season already. But plenty of shops and restaurants catering for the few still walking the scorched streets. The t-shirts sold were of a few common designs shared between the shops - imagery taken from the greek letters, classic designs, and as a new arrival, the aesthetics of recent-ish 300-movie.
Ate a late luch at Diogenes. The very first souvlaki was not worth the 20+ euros it cost, but all in all the food hit the spot at the right time.
Flew to Greece for an extended weekend.
This is the very first time in the birthplace of democracy, and I intend to lap up the scenery and the heat. And considering the weather forecasts for the next four days, there ought to be plenty of the latter.
The flight in was eventless, apart from an unreasonably early wakeup call.
The flight was also my first no-complimentary-whatever since the SDG-BOS- trip in 2007. I thought all European non-cheapoid carriers at least gave you minimalistic breakfast, but was proven wrong.
Sheesh. I got relegated back to basic level of SAS-membership on account of not flying enough. Clear proof that work has become increasingly domestic lately.
Didn’t lose much, though. While the ability to use the business check-in counter in Helsinki is occasionally a boon, it’s by no means a loss of tragic proportions.
Spent a couple of hours around noon walking around Tampere and catching two museums I’d long planned to visit.
The Lenin Museum was smaller than I thought - basically two rooms packed with paraphernalia (letters and documents mainly) on the life of the first soviet leader.
The Spy Museum was a slightly bigger affair, and packed with lots of information and goods. The museum in Tampere claims to be the very first establishment on the subject in the world, but the vastly bigger one in D.C. has surpassed this. Though here photography is not banned, it just costs extra.
Rounded out the trip with a visit to Swamp Music (new Alice Cooper and Blackfoot’s Flying High amongst the loot) and a lunch at Plevna (excellent mutton sausages accompanied by stingingly hopsy pale ale).
The first day of the annual science fiction convention was filled with decent panel discussions, odd generation gap-related moments and running into friends in the halls.
Indeed, the biggest (and free) covention provided a good show this year as well.
Missed the opening ceremonies, on account of not taking the very first train in the morning and started the day with a trio of gaming-related presentations. Attraction of MMOs was all talk, without any samples on the screen, and as a complete newbie in the subject, quite a few of the nuances of the games discussed (especially Uru) were not immediately obvious. Obeyed rule #2 (don’t forget to drink) and missed the first half of the presentation on Eve online. The science fiction game seemed interesting, a massively multiplayer take on Elite can’t be all bad. The panel on scriptwriting for videogames was packed with finnish luminaries of the niche, and hence the level of discussion was both topical and high. Hideo Kojima’s MGS-series (especially the last part) got righteously trashed. I kinda expected an example or two on the state of the art of gamewriting, but none materialized.
Wandering the halls of Tamperetalo inbetween presentations was more than a little bit challenging initially. The building was just absolutely packed with kids attending the co-located Animecon. Most of the participants were in more or less full cosplay regalia, and I couldn’t but feel sorry for those in the warmest clothes (like the guys dressed as bears - for them the 26C weather must have been even harsher than most of the others).
Originally I planned on having lunch around two, but managed not to find anybody to eat with, and decided to follow through the entire day and have a dinner only. Hence, slowly ambled to the most interesting session amongst the ten or so available. Tits Ahoy! concentrated on the dubious female images and characters of movies and comics. And true to form, a lot of the pictures presented contained people in seriously impractical, but seriously revealing garb.
Panel on translating comics was interesting, even though I don’t really read any in finnish. The sample sentences given proved that the work is far from trivial. And sometimes requires an iron stomach to withstand the relentless assault of cliches from every direction.
Running in parallel with the more traditional shows was a set of more scientific presentations - the one on house of the future strayed from underneath the subject immediately, but was interesting enough to warrant sitting the full time. Though the style, where the slides were pretty much read aloud verbatim, started to grate in minutes.
For the the last session of the day I chose a panel on translating fantasy literature, a topic that actually carries weight these days with a couple of interesting players in the game. The finnish market is no longer totally filled with mass market fantasies and D&D-novelizations - publishers like Vaskikirjat and Kirjava have introduced quality to the market overflowing with nothing but quantity. Vaskikirjat was the only publisher present in the panel, and the one man company gave good insight into the dynamics of the industry - thus far their books have been chosen from the classic (and reasonably priced) end of the market, but even still the numbers needed to break even per book are rather high. The Tähtivaeltaja-award won with I Am Legend ought to help, though.
Had dinner in Coyote on Hämeenkatu, on the way to the hotel. Despite an odd delay in providing the tuna-steak burger the dinner was good indeed.
The official evening program was held in Telakka. Spent the evening outside. Indoors the temperature reached towards unbearable numbers (unofficially: above 50C), and the warm dusk was much better experienced outdoors.
Didn’t take any pictures, spent very little cash at vendors’ booths (Hannun Basaarissa was pretty much the only thing bought today).
Great pages like Lee Byron’s analysis on how walkable San Francisco nastily highlight the fact that it’s been all too long since the last visit to the city by the bay - almost four years right now. Definitely time to stage a convenient trip to California.
Spent the weekend in Nivala - and since the only computer in the house was infected with Vista, spent very little time with it, thus: off the grid.
Since this is a boring haircut post, I’ll let y’all off the hook with a simple listing of the activities undertaken.
Visited Russia, our eastern neighbours, for the very first time on tuesday. The day trip was a bachelor party for a friend, which turned out low on humiliation and high on quality walkingabouts.
The way in and out was easy, a train called Sibelius worked just fine, apart from a surgically early wakeup call.
Rain was pretty consistent during the train ride in, but happily enough, subsided almost immediately after the arrival.
Despite scary stories in the media, there were no evident criminals in the crowd. Or at least the tales of spectacle-snatchers and wallet-kidnappers proved false. Shopping-wise the town doesn't hold much to offer. The old market hall provided pirate cds and dvds, glassware and really ugly dolls. Nothing to entice, really. Had lunch at the Slavjanskaja Trapeza, near the castle. Had a plateful of pelmens (first ever), Emperor’s Meatloaf, and honey-nut pancakes, all of which were packed with goodness. Didn’t bring a camera, but took plenty of pictures, the freshly charged n95 ran out of juice on the backward swing, the load of trying to pick up of low signals of the basestations having taken its toll.
Missed the Round Tower, but did a long round of the Castle, the tower was scaffolded, but fortunately the view from the top was not blocked. 
I will write a proper report on the day trip to Vyborg one of these days, let’s just say as a teaser that the town was in inconsistent condition, pleasant to walk in (apart from the rain) and surprisingly close to Helsinki.
Something to try out on the next visit to London: a canopy walk in the Kew Gardens.
In the era of having to leave luggage unlocked for TSA, these untamperable security seals ought at least give comfort that the airport personnel cannot break into the suitcases without the owner’s knowledge. Not that this has really been a problem (especially this spring, when the need to travel has been minimal).
