Author Archives: melvisx

About melvisx

This blog is intended to share my experinces teaching, travelling, and observing.

Been a while.

Posted on December 19, 2017 by melvisx

Copenhagen; Flight from SFO wasn’t bad, slept a bit, and the legion of babies and toddlers hardly peeped at all. Of course I had my headphones on watching movies, as was everyone apparently. It was a little Orwellian, or maybe Bradburian (if that isn’t a thing, it should be) to notice everyone glued to a ‘telescreen’.

2 hour layover wandering the airport people watching and shopping for replacement headphones, as I had inadvertently broken mine, when I saw this at a newsstand:

“You know that’s a Danish magazine?” Says the cashier.

“Yep, I do; but gotta have it.”

Categories: Geography, netherlands, Original post, Travel | Tags: 1984, Copenhagen, Denmark, Fahrenheit 451, geography, George Orwell, Holland, Netherlands, Ray Bradbury, SFO, travel | Leave a comment

Vienna 2016 Revisited

Posted on July 29, 2016 by melvisx

One of the first things we did upon arriving in Vienna was head to Naschmarkt, yes, another public market, to find some food. While I apparently did not photograph the actual market I did take this where we ate:

Which roughly, very roughly, translates to, “Why are we arguing? You are sausage, I am sausage… we’re both angry men (?) let’s eat well anyway!” (My German is marginal and my Austrian is even worse! Google Translate helped me make an educated guess.)

After lunch, satiated with wurst, we embarked on a short walking tour where we saw the ‘cabbage’, the opera house, and the Albertina museum. I did go into the museum and will touch on that in a bit.

During our tour a few things caught my attention including this:

…this banana…

…horses in pink hats…

…and though I do know what the verb ‘fahren’ means I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this:

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Where’s Howard Stern when you need him?

(Story note: I started this several days ago, and have no idea where I was going with it, so I’ll pretend we went from here to….)

Schönbrunn was our next stop the grounds of which were beautiful and I played with some filters on my camera…

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…ran to see this…(wasn’t sure I could make the walk to it in time and get back on the bus)…

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…got there and saw this…

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…snapped a few photos using filters again…

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…then headed back to the bus. Another quick note of interest before I move one is that we did get a tour of the palace and on that tour we received ear pieces to better hear our guide who was using a microphone. Awesome! Right? Well, yes, except when the Chinese tour guide and her group kept getting too close and her audio would interfere with ours. Our guide tried to rectify the situation but the Chinese guide either didn’t understand, or just didn’t care. We let them pass.

While in Vienna we ate good food…

…saw some sweet roman ruins…

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…and some of us, for some crazy reason, decided to climb the 400 some-odd steps to the top of St. Stephen’s Cathedral…

…ok, maybe it was for the view.

At some point during our visit a few of us went to the Albertina Museum and saw some great pieces…

…and afterward I took this from the observation deck(?)…

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…and wondered, “What’s with the giant green rabbit?” Never did find out; that’s ok, after-all isn’t it better just to wonder sometimes?

Categories: Geography, Original post, photography, Travel | Tags: Albertina, austria, geography, Naschmarkt, photography, schonbrunn, travel, vienna | Leave a comment

Budapest 2016 Revisited

Posted on July 21, 2016 by melvisx

Of all the countries we visited this summer I was most excited to go to Hungary. I suppose my interest was because I’d never been to a country that had been behind the Iron Curtain. I had no idea what to expect, but Budapest turned out to be exactly what I had expected.

Before going people asked why I was so interested in going to Hungary I had some amorphous thoughts but couldn’t articulate them. After visiting Budapest and riding through the city seeing the grungy buildings with plaster falling off, crumbled buildings here and there, people going about their lives, I realized this is exactly what I expected. A former Soviet Bloc country rebuilding itself. Among the decaying and crumbling buildings were of course restored and maintained places of national pride as well as new construction.

One of the points of pride we visited was Buda Castle (I had no idea Budapest was formed by the union of two towns). Below are some shots of the street leading into Buda Castle.

It was difficult to get a shot of the whole castle given the small space and increasing number of people. Moments after we arrived at the castle two tour buses unloaded.

Tried to fit model of cathedral.

Courtyard

Couldn’t resist….

Of course after taking this I noticed my group and moved on, and I had no idea where. Oops.

The view from the castle was awesome:

From the castle we headed to the Pest side of Budapest and along the way passed this

…which looked really awesome, but alas was not one of our destinations. Instead we went to the city center for some lunch were I found this, and did that:

…but didn’t buy this:

We also took a sweet river cruise:

We also went to a bath house which was awesomely relaxing:

The morning we departed Budapest we visited another of what would become a theme of our trip, a public market….

…where we bought some snacks for the road and last minute souvenirs like this sweet fridge magnet:

Stalin

Wish I could read Hungarian 😦

And of course no trip for me would be complete with out at least one amusing sign…

budapest

…and random photos from a rest stop on the way to our next destination:

Categories: Geography, Original post, photography, Travel | Tags: budapest, hungary, Iron Curtain, photography, travel | Leave a comment

Eurotour 2016 Revisited-Signage

Posted on July 1, 2016 by melvisx

Being a Geographer with a bend toward the human/cultural branch I am always alert when abroad for signs, advertising, and graffiti. This has developed a penchant in me to periodically disappear from my tour group, then reappear with few people noticing; I’ve only gotten lost once. The risk of me losing my group is a small price to pay for my forays from the flock.

I tend to look for how different cultures do the same things, just differently. For example…

Sounds like a bit of a sticky wicket.

I particularly liked the politeness in London:

Psychopath?

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Those were on the way to Buckingham Palace as was this one:

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In a post Brexit world I understand why this was only one of two indications there was going to be a vote, the other was to get out of the EU, so at the time I figured the odds were 50/50.

Good to know.

Waiting for the bus to Oxford….

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I speak the same language, but what’s a food tin?

Favorite Graffiti from London; apropos given Brexit vote and carnivalesque Presidential race…

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In Oxford you can buy…..

Oxford.038 Oxford.043

I like that a dentist is above White Stuff even more! Oxford.041 Oxford.042

I’m a dog person.

Lastly, it wouldn’t have been a trip abroad without:

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Bubba Gumps? Really?

Categories: Geography, Original post, photography, Travel | Tags: Chipotle, Five guys, grafitti, KFC, London, McDonald's, oxford, signs, Starbucks | Leave a comment

Oxford 2016 Revisited

Posted on June 30, 2016 by melvisx

One of the last things we did before leaving London was take a side trip to Oxford the low light of which was that the bus took longer than scheduled both ways and the second bus broke down. Still, had a good time.

Full disclosure, I usually tune out tour guides even when they’re my colleagues, sorry, but I’d much rather wander and see stuff. Why is that relevant? Well, because I don’t exactly know what most of these photos are of, though I do know they were all taken in Oxford, England. So here are some things I saw worthy of being photographed:

Christchurch

Same, but diorama filter on camera

Thought it was pretty.

I call this, “Skeletor”

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“Archie”

“Dory”

While in Oxford we stopped and wandered the market above, where I had this:

Yummy meat pie with mash; why aren’t these shops here?

I’ll wrap this up with some photos of the cemetery in the middle, sort of, of Oxford; creepy cool.

Categories: Original post, photography, teaching, Travel | Tags: cemetery, cool, creepy, London, oxford, photography, the covered market | Leave a comment

London 2016 revisited

Posted on June 26, 2016 by melvisx

A week back seems a good time to revisit my trip, beginning with London. I kinda wish we had gone after the Brexit vote, London might have been cheaper. The trip began, as most do, with arrival:

Shortly after arrival we took Tube and hoofed it here:

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Which was to be our residence for the next few days. It was a great place in a good location and even had pub cat, which I inadvertantly let upstairs. Hope they found it. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time that’d happened.

One of the first things we did, after a night of rest, was head here:

To witness the changing of the guard, the coolest part of which was the music plyed by the guards, particularly this:

Following the pomp and circumstance we wandered over here:

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Where we foraged for food and saw lots of ineresting stuff like pumkinish tomatoes….

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Tiny potatos….

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Pretty flowers….

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Great photo ops….

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And Applebees….?

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Other touristy things we did, besides eating fish and chips, was visit the Tower of London where I was determined to find the exit hole for the “bathrooms” in the tower. Which I did; can you?

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There were also animals formed from chicken wire:

And great view of this….

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We made time for the Eye:

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Westminster Abbey:

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(Love catching people taking pictures.)

And Trafalgar Square where I played with my cameras’ filters:

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Categories: Original post, photography, Travel | Tags: borough market, brexit, buckingham palace, London, london eye, tower bridge, tower of london, trafalgar sqaure | Leave a comment

Fini

Posted on June 18, 2016 by melvisx

Our last day was spent on a bus tour of Munich, with one of the best guides we’ve had, knowledgeable and humorous. One of the stops we made was to Schloss Nymphenburg, the hunting lodge of King Ludwig I.

And were told to stay away from their poo…

From here half of the group went to town, the rest of us went to Neuschwanstein Castle;

Which had some great views…

Things I’ll miss about Europe

1) Using water with impunity.

2) Cheap beer in Czechoslovakia.

3) Medeival Czech villages.

4) Changing currencies….NOT.

5) Schnitzel and sausages.

6) Town squares.

7) Outdoor cafes.

8) Good public transportation.

9) The slower pace of life.

10) Dogs in lots of public places.

11) Many, many other things….

Keep an eye out for post trip posts!

Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Attempting to Divine Beauty From the Unthinkable

Posted on June 17, 2016 by melvisx

Line 2 for Orlando et. al.

Grateful for this trip.

Grateful to be in a German hotel bar blogging.

Categories: Original post, photography, Travel | Tags: dachau, Germany, holocaust | Leave a comment

Of Walking, Walking, Walking

Posted on June 16, 2016 by melvisx

Day 10 began with an

Late start, which was welcomed after the previous day’s bus ride. First stop today was Prague Castle where something was going on:

Involving this archbishop:

And likely some other muckity-mucks. There were also great views of the city

Someone’s armor

A lovely nearby park

With a white peacock

As well as a regular one

And a faux cave wall with lovely foliage in front

After the castle we spent the rest of the day wandering the old part of the city which had a market

The Astronomical clock

And many, many photo ops

Oh, and I had fried cheese for lunch

Though many miles were covered and I got a bit sunburned, ’twas a good day. Tomorrow, on to Munich!

Categories: Original post, photography, Travel | Tags: astronomical clock, castle, fried cheese, prague | Leave a comment

Of Long Ass Bus Rides and Too Much Jesus

Posted on June 16, 2016 by melvisx

Day 7: After breakfast we headed to a local public market which looked like this:
The downstairs had mostly food vendors and the upstairs had textiles, ceramics, tourist stuff and a restaurant or two and looked like this

After the market we boarded the bus and headed to Vienna where a few of us climed the 343ish stairs to the top of St. Stephens cathedral tower and were rewarded with sweet views of the city:

The quote of the day came from one of the students I passed on my way up. I asked her how making it to the top was and she responded, “There’s too much Jesus up there.”

“Odd; for a cathedral.” I added.

Our first day in Vienna wrapped up with some schnitzel then the Belgium vs Italy Euro Cup game and some beers at a cafe hotel.

Day 8

Today began with a tour of Schonbrunn Castle (story note; there should be an umlaut over the ‘o’ but I don’t know how to do that on my iPad.) First, the grounds of the castle are gorgeous.

Second, this is the first day I’ve really missed my dad on this trip. Knowing he had studied in Vienna I’ve been wondering which places I’m visiting that he visited also; he had to have been here, no way he’d pass up seeing the gardens.

Following the castle was a bus tour of the city then some free time which I used to visit the Albertina Museum:

Then we had dinner and walked to city hall to watch the Austria vs. Hungary match on the giant outdoor screen; but it was crowded.

So we found a bar instead 🍻⚽️.

Day 9 began with what would be about a six hour bus ride broken in half with a stop at the medieval Czech town of Cesky Krumlov (see previous story note regarding accents; the Czech language has a LOT.)

Lastly, we arrived in Prague:

Today = Prague tour!

Categories: Original post, photography, Travel | Tags: austria, cesky krulmlov, czech republic, jesus, prague, schonbrunn, vienna | 1 Comment

Author Archives: melvisx

About melvisx

Been a while.

Vienna 2016 Revisited

Budapest 2016 Revisited

Eurotour 2016 Revisited-Signage

Oxford 2016 Revisited

London 2016 revisited

Fini

Attempting to Divine Beauty From the Unthinkable

Of Walking, Walking, Walking

Of Long Ass Bus Rides and Too Much Jesus

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