Today was a lot of carrying trusses around. The people who delivered them put them right where we wanted them, parallel to the side of the basement right beside it but they put the front end at the back so it was a major pain in the ass to turn them all around. It hurt almost, some of these things were long. By the end of the day I actually managed to get a cramp in my forearm, that's never happened before. Bring on the jokes.
We finished the sill plate up by lunch, then Randy and Garrett both went and bought big boots because they're feet were getting cold. I already own a pair of -100 sorels so I was gtg. After lunch we started firing up the trusses, after a scare on the first one because we thought they were all 4 inches too short, turns out the labeling on the trusses was covered with ice and after looking at it properly we had taken a truss that was incorrect. After that we were rolling. We only really slowed down when we had to put in the beams that hold up the trusses around the staircase going to the basement. Getting those hangers on and everything going there took a while.
We worked 9 - 9, it was such a nice day out, -19 at least, 0 wind, balmy. After moving all those trusses I was sweating pretty good. Later in the day it got a bit colder, because the trusses had snow in them my gloves got all wet and in the evening the gloves totally froze up, it was ridiculous trying to handle anything when you're gloves are sheets of ice.
I had some fun thoughts during the day but I'm so tired that I totally forget what they are. Maybe tomorrow. -35 with the windchill for tomorrow: Hello Frostbite!
mark.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
My stiff frozen upper lip.
Schteeve. Stiff. I'm absolutely sure that the person who coined the phrase "stiff upper lip" was from a northern region and had a substantial amount of facial hair, especially in the mouth region. If I'm outside for more than 10 minutes my whole moustache turns to ice and it's hard, it feels like when you put a band-aide on your finger and it feels good and then you move your finger and it's all in the wrong spot. It freezes into one position and then all other positions are bad.
Anywho. Although yesterday was technically the first day building today was the first day we actually worked. The plan for today was to put the sill plate on, we got it about 1/2 done, things always pop-up that we forget about or think will take no time but they do.
So, the sill plate is a 2x6 that runs along the top of the cement basement walls, these walls are formed with logic blocks (i think that's a brand name) which are just styrofoam walls with a gap in the middle where the cement is poured into (after the metal has all been put inside them). They look like big lego pieces all fit together. So on top of the cement wall we put the sill gasket ( a rubbery, poly-something-o-fane-y thin flat layer of stuff), then the 2x6, then we drill holes through all of that, into the cement. Then we hammer anchor bolts into the holes with nuts on the end to hold the plate on, the bolts are placed about every 4 feet. We put the plate 2 inches from the edge of the logic blocks so that 2 inch styrospan (just another fancy name for 2 inch styrofoam) can be put against the floor trusses making the truss area even with the outside styrofoam from the logic blocks, our sheeting for the walls will come up against this outer wall of styrofoam.
After installing the sill plate we will lay our floor trusses onto the sill plate. Because these trusses have specific placements (it's an engineered floor so depending on what will happen in that area of the house ie. kitchen or bedroom, there may be more or less support meaning more or less trusses), we mark out where the trusses will be placed on the plate before drilling the anchor bolts to ensure that the bolts don't line up with where a truss should be placed -- if the two are in the same spot we'd have to cut the anchor bolt off and put it somewhere else which we don't want to do.
Tomorrow we'll finish the plate and hopefully finish getting the trusses in. After that sheeting the floor I think.
You can see the sill plate there and a beam that the guys are shimming up so it lines up nicely with the top of the cement. That's that. If you are looking for more pictures check facebook, I've been putting them up there.
Over and out.
mark.
Anywho. Although yesterday was technically the first day building today was the first day we actually worked. The plan for today was to put the sill plate on, we got it about 1/2 done, things always pop-up that we forget about or think will take no time but they do.
So, the sill plate is a 2x6 that runs along the top of the cement basement walls, these walls are formed with logic blocks (i think that's a brand name) which are just styrofoam walls with a gap in the middle where the cement is poured into (after the metal has all been put inside them). They look like big lego pieces all fit together. So on top of the cement wall we put the sill gasket ( a rubbery, poly-something-o-fane-y thin flat layer of stuff), then the 2x6, then we drill holes through all of that, into the cement. Then we hammer anchor bolts into the holes with nuts on the end to hold the plate on, the bolts are placed about every 4 feet. We put the plate 2 inches from the edge of the logic blocks so that 2 inch styrospan (just another fancy name for 2 inch styrofoam) can be put against the floor trusses making the truss area even with the outside styrofoam from the logic blocks, our sheeting for the walls will come up against this outer wall of styrofoam.
After installing the sill plate we will lay our floor trusses onto the sill plate. Because these trusses have specific placements (it's an engineered floor so depending on what will happen in that area of the house ie. kitchen or bedroom, there may be more or less support meaning more or less trusses), we mark out where the trusses will be placed on the plate before drilling the anchor bolts to ensure that the bolts don't line up with where a truss should be placed -- if the two are in the same spot we'd have to cut the anchor bolt off and put it somewhere else which we don't want to do.
Tomorrow we'll finish the plate and hopefully finish getting the trusses in. After that sheeting the floor I think.
You can see the sill plate there and a beam that the guys are shimming up so it lines up nicely with the top of the cement. That's that. If you are looking for more pictures check facebook, I've been putting them up there.
Over and out.
mark.
Monday, August 18, 2008
From something to nothing
Sorry about the lack of posting on this here thing. I'm working on some things, and by that I mean I am doing everything I can to avoid work in any and every form. That's not totally true. Anyway, I've now managed to force myself to get some things done on a computer and so a post is coming forthwith. I made some notes on my drive home from BC and I wanted to incorporate some of those in the post but I left them in my car and it's at the "shop" right now getting certified for MB so all you're getting is this lame post.
In order to satiate your wild appetite for my fine looks I will provide a picture :)
That last one is because I know how much matt likes his picture on the internet
In order to satiate your wild appetite for my fine looks I will provide a picture :)
That last one is because I know how much matt likes his picture on the internet
Sunday, July 27, 2008
And on the last day, Mark posted to the internet
We actually had a good "quote of the day" way back in Zadar, Croatia. It wasn't by one of the crew but the late middle aged man was from Toronto so he was practically one of us. "I can't wait to get back to Canada and have an ice cold Canadian and a pack of Du Maurier king sized." Hahaha, this guy loves all things Canadian I guess.
Innsbruck, July 27, 2008. It's noon, I've got a cough, the day started sunny and we had breakfast, shortly after that the clouds rolled in, again; avoiding rain today is going to be a chore. What am I writing? This needs to stop.
Last night Jen and I went out to a New Orleans styled outdoor concert that was the culmination of of the weekends New Orleans festival. It was pretty fun, there was one very Austrian man in the band that was actually from New Orleans and they rocked out. But that wasn't the really fun part. Jen and I rode up to one of the several bars available at the event and ordered two of their finiest draft beers. Jen received hers first and after what was about 15 seconds of waiting for mine I look over and see beer flying in the direction of the man waiting behind Jen, then a funny surprised look on the face of that very same man. Jens right side is drenched in beer, her cup is overturned and her head is down because she is embarassed at how much beer she has just spilled all over everywhere and -- this is gold -- because she has gotten beer in her eye and it stings. At this point I'm pretty sure I laughed but I don't really remember. The bartender brought over my beer and saw Jen in all her beer covered glory and said "she was thirsty." He then promptly brought over a full glass and winked at me, I'm pretty sure he liked me. That was really the highlight of the night for me. Jen felt it as a different kind of highlight I think but at any rate we both had a good time.
The night before this we were in Vienna, the "supermodel" of european cities enjoying a nice outdoor, bigscreened opera. I'll write about that another time but I will say it was a treat.
mark.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Lookout ladies!
Wow, what a day. I spent the whole day wandering around Prague thinking I might eventually find the train station, only to find out that the 2 maps that I had were not to proportion at all (the transit one doesn't even have the river path on it correctly) and most of the roads are not on the maps. This kinda makes things hard but I did manage to find my favourite intersection. I sat and read at it for a while (in the round-about area) and then had coffee at a place at one of the 5 parts of the intersection, I also had a chocolate croissant. Mmmmm. Thank you Beth for introducing those to me.
I still haven't managed to get to the meat of the post. So here we go. All day I've kind been searching for places Ravi, Josh and I were at last time I was here so I can kinda get my bearings but I couldn't seem to find any. Then I found one, or two but they were the big sites and those are really hard to miss so I kept looking. Around supper time I found this place that I distinctly remember we felt lost at, so I ate there. I sat down by these 3 guys, one of them clearly speaking a dialect of north american english I like to call "normal", possibly "plain" english. Right off the bat I notice that the one dude (normal guy lets call him, Norm for short) is standing up and kinda giving these other 2 dudes a speach. First I thought they may have been getting ready for a business meeting, maybe they had to give a presentation for a class they were taking or something but no, in fact the other two dudes must have been paying this guy to teach them how to be "players."
Now, I'm going to skip ahead here to prove Norms "playerness" so you believe me. At one point he said, and I roughly quote, "about a year and a half ago I looked at the list of girls phone numbers I'd gotten, did that math and realized I'd only slept with about 1 in 30 of them. Now, after using the techniques I'm teching you, I'm at about 1 in 2 1/2. I go out 4 nights a week, get at least 1 number a night so I'm pretty much guaranteed every weekend." Norm, you're a stand up guy, thanks for being you. Oooh, he also mentioned that any , I think he called it "play", you make in the afternoon has a far higher chance of leading to booty than one in the evening.
I walked in well into the talk and it seems they'd been doing this for a couple of days already so this is only a small amount of what must be the "bastards handbook" but I'd like to share.
When I walked in they were just covering what you need to be like when you're talking to a girl you've just approached. The answer is? High energy, especially when you're in a club/high energy type area. If you're in a pub or somewhere else where the energy is lower, you have lower energy also, but it must be above the average of the place. The idea is to get her energy going also. Energy is kinda loosely used here. Oh man, I'm forgetting so much of what this dude said which may or may not be fortunate for me (cough). Now at this point you're supposed to be playing games with her, this must have been covered earlier because that's all that was really said. He said something about trying to make her feel like it was her fault that you were talking to her. "Why you gotta be so hot tonight? I just wanna throw you over my shoulder and take you home you're so hot", a lot of that kinda talk, making her feel like this is her problem.
Then he covered kissing, meaning how to initiate it, I'm going to skip that, I can't share all my secrets :). Then he wrote down some graphs which were energy level and you're chances of getting a second date / getting laid. He used these two interchangeably. Once you have the girl excited and into you, "you're building her interest in you up" I think he said, you have to transition from a physical excitement to an emotional one or things will go like "this" then he drew the graphs, I couldn't see them but we can assume the graph looked like something limp (I'm imagining the opposite of the picture jacky treehorn drew in the big labowski). She'll give you a sign that she's interested, tilt her head and look up at you, maybe touch you in a certain way, hrm, there was one other thing, that's when you change gears and try and make the emotional connection. "You want to make her feel like she's winning you" were Norms words. In order to start this off you need to change you're tone, lower energy, calmer, more laid back I guess. Then you go from skimming over topics to getting deeper into some to make it feel like you're getting to know each other more personally. Getting her to tell you about something that you're interested is one way to get her to feel like she's winning you, fitting into you're puzzle. "I really enjoy impressionist art, do you have any favourite artists?" (That was close to what he said but not quite there), he really said he didn't like doing it that way though. "I was recently in Berlin and I really connected with the city, I can't explain it, have you ever felt that way?" He had a couple other examples. Getting her to dish something really deep to herself seemed to be important and when he was talking he took this with all seriousness, this was something sacred to him that you don't joke about.
He also covered the "close". Give a complement and then just pop a question was generally the way it went. His complements kinda sucked though and were mostly about how "hot" the girl was but he did pull out a couple of good ones which, of course, I managed to forget. The close was actually discussed before the switching to the emotional part so I kinda forget most of it. The two guys listening wont' though because they had notebooks and were feverishly writing. Norm also mentioned that after he figured these things out he wrote in depth articles on some website, I thought it was RMS web but I looked that up and it's wrong, then, during my search I discovered that this is a pretty hot topic on the web, who knew?
There was also a question and answer period, I didn't catch the question but the answer went something like,
You have to treat it like the prisoners dilemma he said, if she is into you, you're attitude must be "she's into me" and if she's not into you, you're attitude must be "she's into me" because the only way you win is if she's into you, so you have to act that way. I was sorta surprised he pulled out the prisoners dilemma for this one, and he is right here, the prisoners dilemma does have the prisoner doing the same thing no matter what the situation, you're chances of winner are better that way.
SO that's about it. I just couldn't get over this guy and needed to laugh, and then write about it so here we are.
Also, about the PDA post, I meant to mention that we should start a new extreme sport: Extreme PDA. Let's make a new show on that extreme sports channel. Who's with me?
mark.
I still haven't managed to get to the meat of the post. So here we go. All day I've kind been searching for places Ravi, Josh and I were at last time I was here so I can kinda get my bearings but I couldn't seem to find any. Then I found one, or two but they were the big sites and those are really hard to miss so I kept looking. Around supper time I found this place that I distinctly remember we felt lost at, so I ate there. I sat down by these 3 guys, one of them clearly speaking a dialect of north american english I like to call "normal", possibly "plain" english. Right off the bat I notice that the one dude (normal guy lets call him, Norm for short) is standing up and kinda giving these other 2 dudes a speach. First I thought they may have been getting ready for a business meeting, maybe they had to give a presentation for a class they were taking or something but no, in fact the other two dudes must have been paying this guy to teach them how to be "players."
Now, I'm going to skip ahead here to prove Norms "playerness" so you believe me. At one point he said, and I roughly quote, "about a year and a half ago I looked at the list of girls phone numbers I'd gotten, did that math and realized I'd only slept with about 1 in 30 of them. Now, after using the techniques I'm teching you, I'm at about 1 in 2 1/2. I go out 4 nights a week, get at least 1 number a night so I'm pretty much guaranteed every weekend." Norm, you're a stand up guy, thanks for being you. Oooh, he also mentioned that any , I think he called it "play", you make in the afternoon has a far higher chance of leading to booty than one in the evening.
I walked in well into the talk and it seems they'd been doing this for a couple of days already so this is only a small amount of what must be the "bastards handbook" but I'd like to share.
When I walked in they were just covering what you need to be like when you're talking to a girl you've just approached. The answer is? High energy, especially when you're in a club/high energy type area. If you're in a pub or somewhere else where the energy is lower, you have lower energy also, but it must be above the average of the place. The idea is to get her energy going also. Energy is kinda loosely used here. Oh man, I'm forgetting so much of what this dude said which may or may not be fortunate for me (cough). Now at this point you're supposed to be playing games with her, this must have been covered earlier because that's all that was really said. He said something about trying to make her feel like it was her fault that you were talking to her. "Why you gotta be so hot tonight? I just wanna throw you over my shoulder and take you home you're so hot", a lot of that kinda talk, making her feel like this is her problem.
Then he covered kissing, meaning how to initiate it, I'm going to skip that, I can't share all my secrets :). Then he wrote down some graphs which were energy level and you're chances of getting a second date / getting laid. He used these two interchangeably. Once you have the girl excited and into you, "you're building her interest in you up" I think he said, you have to transition from a physical excitement to an emotional one or things will go like "this" then he drew the graphs, I couldn't see them but we can assume the graph looked like something limp (I'm imagining the opposite of the picture jacky treehorn drew in the big labowski). She'll give you a sign that she's interested, tilt her head and look up at you, maybe touch you in a certain way, hrm, there was one other thing, that's when you change gears and try and make the emotional connection. "You want to make her feel like she's winning you" were Norms words. In order to start this off you need to change you're tone, lower energy, calmer, more laid back I guess. Then you go from skimming over topics to getting deeper into some to make it feel like you're getting to know each other more personally. Getting her to tell you about something that you're interested is one way to get her to feel like she's winning you, fitting into you're puzzle. "I really enjoy impressionist art, do you have any favourite artists?" (That was close to what he said but not quite there), he really said he didn't like doing it that way though. "I was recently in Berlin and I really connected with the city, I can't explain it, have you ever felt that way?" He had a couple other examples. Getting her to dish something really deep to herself seemed to be important and when he was talking he took this with all seriousness, this was something sacred to him that you don't joke about.
He also covered the "close". Give a complement and then just pop a question was generally the way it went. His complements kinda sucked though and were mostly about how "hot" the girl was but he did pull out a couple of good ones which, of course, I managed to forget. The close was actually discussed before the switching to the emotional part so I kinda forget most of it. The two guys listening wont' though because they had notebooks and were feverishly writing. Norm also mentioned that after he figured these things out he wrote in depth articles on some website, I thought it was RMS web but I looked that up and it's wrong, then, during my search I discovered that this is a pretty hot topic on the web, who knew?
There was also a question and answer period, I didn't catch the question but the answer went something like,
You have to treat it like the prisoners dilemma he said, if she is into you, you're attitude must be "she's into me" and if she's not into you, you're attitude must be "she's into me" because the only way you win is if she's into you, so you have to act that way. I was sorta surprised he pulled out the prisoners dilemma for this one, and he is right here, the prisoners dilemma does have the prisoner doing the same thing no matter what the situation, you're chances of winner are better that way.
SO that's about it. I just couldn't get over this guy and needed to laugh, and then write about it so here we are.
Also, about the PDA post, I meant to mention that we should start a new extreme sport: Extreme PDA. Let's make a new show on that extreme sports channel. Who's with me?
mark.
Shirts with sayings on them
It seems that in Croatia/Bosnia/Serbia (and possibly everywhere I've been, I can't really remember) shirts with sayings on them are really popular. Especially for the ladies. "100% organic cotton" "I love my shirt" and there are lots of others. I'd remember more but the sayings are generally spread over an area of the body that distorts flat surfaces and leaves the person who was trying to read the shirt generally trying to get a better look at the distortions. It's kinda like trying to look at one of those 3d images.
There is a specific reason I bring this up: this fad seemed to be big in north america before europe and, in my general understanding of fashion, this is backwards. Also, there seems to be more women wearing the shirts than men, and in the womens case it's almost always a tight fitting shirt with big letters that are shiny silver or something and generally no graphics. The content of the words / graphics are generally self promoting "I'm going to do X with my body" or "This t-shirt is too hot for you", etc, etc. Nothing really crude, until today. Granted, it was a 45 year old man wearing the shirt but it really threw me off. Again, young children, skip the rest of this paragraph. The shirt had 2 people on it and the saying below the people was "get a job", after reading the saying I looked more closely at the people, which was a man with another person (possibly female) on their knees at the other persons midsection. I was kinda floored, I'm not sure why but all the different parameters that went into me seeing that older gentlemen at 11 in the morning on a saturday at a grocery store. Anyway. It was this mans shirt that reminded me I hadn't posted anything about all the girls wearing shirts with sayings.
Thats all.
mark.
There is a specific reason I bring this up: this fad seemed to be big in north america before europe and, in my general understanding of fashion, this is backwards. Also, there seems to be more women wearing the shirts than men, and in the womens case it's almost always a tight fitting shirt with big letters that are shiny silver or something and generally no graphics. The content of the words / graphics are generally self promoting "I'm going to do X with my body" or "This t-shirt is too hot for you", etc, etc. Nothing really crude, until today. Granted, it was a 45 year old man wearing the shirt but it really threw me off. Again, young children, skip the rest of this paragraph. The shirt had 2 people on it and the saying below the people was "get a job", after reading the saying I looked more closely at the people, which was a man with another person (possibly female) on their knees at the other persons midsection. I was kinda floored, I'm not sure why but all the different parameters that went into me seeing that older gentlemen at 11 in the morning on a saturday at a grocery store. Anyway. It was this mans shirt that reminded me I hadn't posted anything about all the girls wearing shirts with sayings.
Thats all.
mark.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Morning coffee can be rough
Yesterday, maybe the day before yesterday, I had an interesting experience trying to pay our bill at the coffee shop just around the corner from our hostel. We had been at the cafe about 1 1/2 hours (this might seem like a long time but when you don't know what day it is ... it just isn't, hard to explain).
Our server, who appears to work day and night, was at the counter. I had just finished using the internet and we were all done so I was nominated to pay the bill. We didn't really know how much the bill would be but we figured 2000 forint would do the trick. 8 coffees (Matt and Jen are nuts about coffee, I'm trying to take it easy as the shakes aren't really my thing anymore) and internet = 3150 forint. whoop, I had no more cash so I went to the kids to get more money, I walk back with an extra 1050, put it down, smile, she looks at me like I'm a crook and then says enough english to make me realize i'm still short. I would have assumed that 2 coffees would be enough to wake my mind up, this does not appear to be the case on vacation. A trip to the kids and back produces enough money to cover the bill and some change. At this point I'll mention that it's about noon, maybe 1230 and there is an older (large) gentlemen at the bar having a beer. I give her the money and get the change, as I do the older (large) man grabs my hand, says something to me in Hungarian (which I don't think it's actually called) and then turns my hand over and makes me put the change on the bar as a tip. I smile, say in English that I was going to leave a tip at the table as the amount that was on the bar was not enough -- about a 4% tip or something -- he smiles at me, says something back and I interpret it as "leave", so I did, no extra tip, sorry lady, you need to get ride of the big bar guy before I leave more tip.
That doesn't sound quite as funny as it may have been as Matt and Jen thought that would make a good story for the blog. Sorry for wasting you're time.
I keep making older european gentleman mad at me for some reason. I think they might be jealous of my hair. First thing I do when I get home is going to be shave my head. Done and done.
mark.
mark.
Our server, who appears to work day and night, was at the counter. I had just finished using the internet and we were all done so I was nominated to pay the bill. We didn't really know how much the bill would be but we figured 2000 forint would do the trick. 8 coffees (Matt and Jen are nuts about coffee, I'm trying to take it easy as the shakes aren't really my thing anymore) and internet = 3150 forint. whoop, I had no more cash so I went to the kids to get more money, I walk back with an extra 1050, put it down, smile, she looks at me like I'm a crook and then says enough english to make me realize i'm still short. I would have assumed that 2 coffees would be enough to wake my mind up, this does not appear to be the case on vacation. A trip to the kids and back produces enough money to cover the bill and some change. At this point I'll mention that it's about noon, maybe 1230 and there is an older (large) gentlemen at the bar having a beer. I give her the money and get the change, as I do the older (large) man grabs my hand, says something to me in Hungarian (which I don't think it's actually called) and then turns my hand over and makes me put the change on the bar as a tip. I smile, say in English that I was going to leave a tip at the table as the amount that was on the bar was not enough -- about a 4% tip or something -- he smiles at me, says something back and I interpret it as "leave", so I did, no extra tip, sorry lady, you need to get ride of the big bar guy before I leave more tip.
That doesn't sound quite as funny as it may have been as Matt and Jen thought that would make a good story for the blog. Sorry for wasting you're time.
I keep making older european gentleman mad at me for some reason. I think they might be jealous of my hair. First thing I do when I get home is going to be shave my head. Done and done.
mark.
mark.
PDA
I've got some things to say but first I want to clear up one thing. PDA, public displays of affection (for those of you who haven't reached the age of 13). In Canada/North America these acts are often seen as grave social mistakes which under the right (or wrong) circumstances can have you ostrisized by not only you're friends but everyone around you.
This does not appear to be the case in the parts of europe we have visited.
You've been warned.
This interesting distinction in social behaviour was first noticed in the city of Zagreb. After arriving in Zagreb and finding a place to stay at a local hostel (hostel international or something of the sort) we went for a walk through the local square/park. After passing one couple on a park bench straddling each other almost falling off of the bench making out our eyes were quickly opened to the rest of the benches which hosted couples in varying stages of the game "make people uncomfortable around you by kissing/touching/groping/kooing/sitting in the most uncomfotable position while giving the person in front of you 'sexy' eyes." It was shocking. It turns out after a couple of walks through the park this activity by the locals (we assume) goes from uncomfortable to watch into more of a spectator sport where you really start to root for the couples to do something even crazier than they already are. This went on at pretty much every city we visitid. No, not pretty much, every one, without question.
The spectating wasn't exactly a "pick up the popcorn and coke" style deal but at least it provided something to look at when the 1000 year old buildings got boring (and they do, who needs all this carved stone anyway?). Everything was fine until Belgrade. Jen and I were minding our own business (sitting on a park bench at the Canadian standard "we're just friends" distance apart) drinking Fanta in the old town/castle area of Belgrade at an area where we are quite high up, the wall is maybe knee height and then goes up well over our heads. At the knee height area there is a nice view of part of the city and the drop off is not like looking out the window of a plane but it's nothing to roll down the hill over either. Whew. So, as we are minding our own business (I think I was trying to read a book) this young couple comes up, leans against the part of the wall where it starts to get taller, the male has his back against the edge of the wall and the female is agressively pushing herself into him while they are ... kissing ... I guess, hard to say what it's really called. He starts to fall over to the side from all the pressure and I start to worry for their lives, the thought "My son died while making out at the old castle" flies through my head and I chuckle because, if you believe in evolution, this is probably pre-determine to happen but is not really required, all they really need to do is move over 1/2 a foot but they don't, I lose interest and nobody dies but it was close there for a second. So ends my spectating of PDA in europe, it's not worth the stress.
mark.
This does not appear to be the case in the parts of europe we have visited.
You've been warned.
This interesting distinction in social behaviour was first noticed in the city of Zagreb. After arriving in Zagreb and finding a place to stay at a local hostel (hostel international or something of the sort) we went for a walk through the local square/park. After passing one couple on a park bench straddling each other almost falling off of the bench making out our eyes were quickly opened to the rest of the benches which hosted couples in varying stages of the game "make people uncomfortable around you by kissing/touching/groping/kooing/sitting in the most uncomfotable position while giving the person in front of you 'sexy' eyes." It was shocking. It turns out after a couple of walks through the park this activity by the locals (we assume) goes from uncomfortable to watch into more of a spectator sport where you really start to root for the couples to do something even crazier than they already are. This went on at pretty much every city we visitid. No, not pretty much, every one, without question.
The spectating wasn't exactly a "pick up the popcorn and coke" style deal but at least it provided something to look at when the 1000 year old buildings got boring (and they do, who needs all this carved stone anyway?). Everything was fine until Belgrade. Jen and I were minding our own business (sitting on a park bench at the Canadian standard "we're just friends" distance apart) drinking Fanta in the old town/castle area of Belgrade at an area where we are quite high up, the wall is maybe knee height and then goes up well over our heads. At the knee height area there is a nice view of part of the city and the drop off is not like looking out the window of a plane but it's nothing to roll down the hill over either. Whew. So, as we are minding our own business (I think I was trying to read a book) this young couple comes up, leans against the part of the wall where it starts to get taller, the male has his back against the edge of the wall and the female is agressively pushing herself into him while they are ... kissing ... I guess, hard to say what it's really called. He starts to fall over to the side from all the pressure and I start to worry for their lives, the thought "My son died while making out at the old castle" flies through my head and I chuckle because, if you believe in evolution, this is probably pre-determine to happen but is not really required, all they really need to do is move over 1/2 a foot but they don't, I lose interest and nobody dies but it was close there for a second. So ends my spectating of PDA in europe, it's not worth the stress.
mark.
Buda-pizzest
So we landed in Budapest yesterday morning a bit after 5. That was after falling out of the train a bit before a bit after 5. There was a big music festival near Belgrade called "Exit" I think (in Novi Sad maybe) and so the train, after looking like it was going to be mostly empty (we finally managed to get our own cabin on the train) wound up being over full, every compartment was packed and the hallways were lined with people all wanting to be sitting somewhere comfortable so they could sleep for the remaining 5 hours of train ride. First time I've ever been saved by the manditory seat reservation but it was worth every cent of the 2 or 3 euros we had to pay for it.
That's pretty much the news. I was hoping we'd head to Kosovo but the amount of travel to get there would have been insane. Looking at the map it probably doesn't seem like a lot of trouble but you can only enter kosovo through certain borders and the ones we were close to were not part of that set. Everyone had mostly had enough of the coastal lifestyle and heading north meant an easier trip back to the airport in germany so Budapest it was. Followed by Prague (I think) for me. We'll see I guess.
In other news, if you are a small child reading this, read this post with a filter because it's about to get awkward or something.
Last night we were walking around looking for a place to eat, we wound up on the "shopping" road on the north end heading south. We passed the usual 2 H & M's and still hadn't picked a place, la-dee-da, we keep walking, all of a sudden this dude in a suite comes up to me and asks "you like the boobs? pussy? fucky sucky?" and his voice is so funny and his words so un expected i couldn't help but laugh, it seems we had managed to walk right into the stripclub/whatever club part of town and I was not prepared. so we turned the corner and found a place to eat. I wasn't expecting much because we were a stones throw from dirty alley but I wound up having one of the best meals of the trip. Don't get me wrong, almost anything wrapped in bacon is going to be good but the bacon wrapped tender beef thing I had yesterday with potatoe in wedge format all spicey and saucey was amazing. The place was called apotels or something, it looked a lot like apostel but wasn't quite. Anyway, i recommend it. Our waiter was super awesome too.
Anyway. Back to "real" life.
mark.
That's pretty much the news. I was hoping we'd head to Kosovo but the amount of travel to get there would have been insane. Looking at the map it probably doesn't seem like a lot of trouble but you can only enter kosovo through certain borders and the ones we were close to were not part of that set. Everyone had mostly had enough of the coastal lifestyle and heading north meant an easier trip back to the airport in germany so Budapest it was. Followed by Prague (I think) for me. We'll see I guess.
In other news, if you are a small child reading this, read this post with a filter because it's about to get awkward or something.
Last night we were walking around looking for a place to eat, we wound up on the "shopping" road on the north end heading south. We passed the usual 2 H & M's and still hadn't picked a place, la-dee-da, we keep walking, all of a sudden this dude in a suite comes up to me and asks "you like the boobs? pussy? fucky sucky?" and his voice is so funny and his words so un expected i couldn't help but laugh, it seems we had managed to walk right into the stripclub/whatever club part of town and I was not prepared. so we turned the corner and found a place to eat. I wasn't expecting much because we were a stones throw from dirty alley but I wound up having one of the best meals of the trip. Don't get me wrong, almost anything wrapped in bacon is going to be good but the bacon wrapped tender beef thing I had yesterday with potatoe in wedge format all spicey and saucey was amazing. The place was called apotels or something, it looked a lot like apostel but wasn't quite. Anyway, i recommend it. Our waiter was super awesome too.
Anyway. Back to "real" life.
mark.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
This time I ate before posting.
It occurred to me a couple of hours after I visited the internet last that I may have half told a couple of stories.
I haven't re-read anything so I'm going by vary vague memory here. The Urchins in my foot left black marks in the bottom which couldn't really be removed hence the tatoo.
The other clarification is that Jen made it clear it was the sphincter at the top of her stomach, as you're body has more than one sphincter.
So. What's going on now? I've been relatively tired the whole trip, which sucks but I am what I am. Coffee helps to make up for this, gravol taken for a bus trip (which I took today) does not. Belgrade is our new home, it seems we have given up on going south and we're now heading back north. Budapest is likely the next destination, either tomorrow or the day after. Who knows. Sarajevo was beautiful, slapped right in the valley of some mountain/hills with a small river running through it, amazing views, an old town that was made for strolling down and brandys that were made to make you feel sick the next day. We did that, as always we didn't really want to leave. We met two guys at a cafe one night named Vacky and Aldo, I just didn't want to forget their names so now you know, they are the ones that got us on the brandy trip, apricot was one of the favourites.
We also gave up the car in Sarajevo so we are now bus/train'ing it again. Having a car was so convenient it was ridiculous.
I think that's about it for now, I'm off to read. Whoohoo.
mark.
I haven't re-read anything so I'm going by vary vague memory here. The Urchins in my foot left black marks in the bottom which couldn't really be removed hence the tatoo.
The other clarification is that Jen made it clear it was the sphincter at the top of her stomach, as you're body has more than one sphincter.
So. What's going on now? I've been relatively tired the whole trip, which sucks but I am what I am. Coffee helps to make up for this, gravol taken for a bus trip (which I took today) does not. Belgrade is our new home, it seems we have given up on going south and we're now heading back north. Budapest is likely the next destination, either tomorrow or the day after. Who knows. Sarajevo was beautiful, slapped right in the valley of some mountain/hills with a small river running through it, amazing views, an old town that was made for strolling down and brandys that were made to make you feel sick the next day. We did that, as always we didn't really want to leave. We met two guys at a cafe one night named Vacky and Aldo, I just didn't want to forget their names so now you know, they are the ones that got us on the brandy trip, apricot was one of the favourites.
We also gave up the car in Sarajevo so we are now bus/train'ing it again. Having a car was so convenient it was ridiculous.
I think that's about it for now, I'm off to read. Whoohoo.
mark.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Is that a sea urchin in you're foot or are you just happy to see me
It's soooo wonderful to not remember the last time I used a computer and to also not remember what I did when I used it last. Makes the stories go so much further.
First off I want to say that Matt and I have tried to start a "Quote of the day" for the trip where each day we pick something crazy that someone said and yadda yadda pretty self explanitory. The thing is, Jen killed it right off the bat. "I've got the worlds tightest sphincter." Seriously, there is no longer a point to having a competition at all, it's over, done, finito (that's for you Erin), there is nowhere to go but down after that comment.
I really wish I would have been keeping a better journal, I feel like I've forgotten 1/2 of the things we did on this trip that weren't sleeping. The dreams of magical elephants are vividly remembered.
So yes, I somehow managed to step on a sea urchin, it stuck me right in the big toe, maybe 5 or 6 spikes. This sorta pissed me off the most because we were just jumping into deep water and the urchin was actually on the side of the cement wall that I was trying to climb to get out. Whatever, no big deal, it hurt, I cried, matt pee'd on my foot to make it better and we were back to fun water sports. THEN, on the way back down the peer and home to mirijana (our house mother) I side stepped an old man laying out his towel by sorta jumping over it and he got all pissed at me. WHAT? "No, it's not OK!" he says to me, hahaha, grumpy old men. That's not the end of the broken story though. The next day we head out to (this is all on Rab island by the way, look it up, we were staying in Rab city), so we head out to a different beach on the northern part of the island which is supposed to have nice beaches. We get there and every beach we find is packed so we pick one as far north as we can and it's all full so we start hiking further up the coast to see if there is a decent spot (it's pretty rocky) to sit/swim. Finally we find one, I take off my sunglasses (*prescription), my sandals, and as I'm walking to where the rock naturally provides a path into the water I notice written on the back of a big rock (at this point i'm really close to this rock) "FKK NUDE". I then laughed and noticed that there were people across the small beach that weren't wearing anything and were proud of it. At least I think, I wasn't wearing my glasses, whew. So I walk into the water and step on an urchin, I'm not sure why I wasn't closely watching the rock for urchins but needless to say I wasn't. Square in the heel, 7-9 black thorns in my foot. I actually had to pull the urchin off, which I did in haste not ever realizing that my fingers were extremly vulnerable. Turns out they didn't get hit but now I've got 2 foot tatoos. Sorry mom, I guess I broke our promise. Matt was a little squeemish to pee on my foot at this point so I went up to the random nude guy and he took care of it, nice folks those nudies.
Well, I'm off to make more memories.
mark.
First off I want to say that Matt and I have tried to start a "Quote of the day" for the trip where each day we pick something crazy that someone said and yadda yadda pretty self explanitory. The thing is, Jen killed it right off the bat. "I've got the worlds tightest sphincter." Seriously, there is no longer a point to having a competition at all, it's over, done, finito (that's for you Erin), there is nowhere to go but down after that comment.
I really wish I would have been keeping a better journal, I feel like I've forgotten 1/2 of the things we did on this trip that weren't sleeping. The dreams of magical elephants are vividly remembered.
So yes, I somehow managed to step on a sea urchin, it stuck me right in the big toe, maybe 5 or 6 spikes. This sorta pissed me off the most because we were just jumping into deep water and the urchin was actually on the side of the cement wall that I was trying to climb to get out. Whatever, no big deal, it hurt, I cried, matt pee'd on my foot to make it better and we were back to fun water sports. THEN, on the way back down the peer and home to mirijana (our house mother) I side stepped an old man laying out his towel by sorta jumping over it and he got all pissed at me. WHAT? "No, it's not OK!" he says to me, hahaha, grumpy old men. That's not the end of the broken story though. The next day we head out to (this is all on Rab island by the way, look it up, we were staying in Rab city), so we head out to a different beach on the northern part of the island which is supposed to have nice beaches. We get there and every beach we find is packed so we pick one as far north as we can and it's all full so we start hiking further up the coast to see if there is a decent spot (it's pretty rocky) to sit/swim. Finally we find one, I take off my sunglasses (*prescription), my sandals, and as I'm walking to where the rock naturally provides a path into the water I notice written on the back of a big rock (at this point i'm really close to this rock) "FKK NUDE". I then laughed and noticed that there were people across the small beach that weren't wearing anything and were proud of it. At least I think, I wasn't wearing my glasses, whew. So I walk into the water and step on an urchin, I'm not sure why I wasn't closely watching the rock for urchins but needless to say I wasn't. Square in the heel, 7-9 black thorns in my foot. I actually had to pull the urchin off, which I did in haste not ever realizing that my fingers were extremly vulnerable. Turns out they didn't get hit but now I've got 2 foot tatoos. Sorry mom, I guess I broke our promise. Matt was a little squeemish to pee on my foot at this point so I went up to the random nude guy and he took care of it, nice folks those nudies.
Well, I'm off to make more memories.
mark.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Beep.
Well. It has taken quite some time to get to the internet and actuallz tzpe something. It seems that itćs so easz to avoid computers and forget about everzthing when life is cafe hopping and sitting bz the water.
Anzwaz, wećre alive, ićm going to rock out of here because I donćt have anz pictures with me and the zs ans ys are still in the wrong spot on the kezboard.
mark.
Anzwaz, wećre alive, ićm going to rock out of here because I donćt have anz pictures with me and the zs ans ys are still in the wrong spot on the kezboard.
mark.
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