Hello fellow internets,
I must apologize for the infrequency and then the sudden stop to the blogs. I was in Germany and then home very briefly and now I am at a work site in Northern Alberta. I am working on a construction site, and living in a camp right. The site is for a huge oil sands project and the camp is a 5 thousand person beast of a place that was soon to become a township due to it's size. It would have been a town made of ATCO trailers on a dirt hill.
Now one of the things you have to deal with at camp, is camp food. That is the thing everyone bitches about while they are up here. The truth is at this camp, Wapasu, we actually have a lot of selection, and the best part is a lot of raw food like veggies and fruits that are good for maintaining health. We have many pastries, premade sandwiches, tubs of hot food choices, all sorts of things. Now this doesn't sound that bad, we even have steak nights once a week. The problem is the monotony of similar food. There are many choices for lunch but it is the same choices every day.
The trick is the same as it is at home, variety. Of course there will be time when you look at dinner and wish for a good curry, or some Vietnamese, but that won't happen so you have to make due. Mix various combinations of foods. Explore the limited sauces that are available, but even then it isn't enough.
What you need is a supplemental pack of things to add spice to the food, literally.
Curry powder - sprinkle on some veg, fish, meats, to change the taste.
Coconut - Great in yogurts, on fish, with rice, and oatmeal
Chipotle - adds a smoky favor to the most of things, meats, fish, eggs, beans, potato salad!
Cinnamon sticks or powder - This is a great option at camp or not to add to coffee
Club Soda - There are many sugary drinks here, club soda is good to water them down and add some texture.
Nuts- Good for protein and not something typically offered up here
With these little things you can add a lot of variety to what you eat which helps stave off the dullness that eventually becomes of the food for the people up here.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Driving In Berlin
Now the first thing that the research will tell you is to not rent a car when traveling in Europe, mostly cause the rail is so good but also because the cities and towns can be confusing, having to deal with traffic and such. However when I travelled there this wasn’t the case.
People travel to places to experience the culture, the food, the drink, language, all sorts of things. One thing that I like to experience is the roads. I love seeing the new and different cars when I travel to somewhere new. I love seeing how traffic moves and responds in different parts of the world. So when I went to Germany of course I wanted to drive on the mighty autobahns. So despite the research saying otherwise, we rented a little car.
It worked out wonderfully, we picked up the Car in Berlin, right beside a train station making it really easy with the bag. It was EuroCar that we used. The plan was to drive it to Munich, park it and in the two other days we had the car, drive to the Ludwig castles and then a trip to Legoland. We could have done this by train but we figured by car would be a lot more convinent and it was.
The driving: Now the thing about Germany is the discipline in all the little details of life. For example at any escalator, people stand to the right to leave a path for people in a hurry to walk by without inconvience. The police rarely check tickets on the city trains because for the most part everyone is very honourable and respects the system and buys tickets.
On the roads this discipline is also there. The traffic flows so well, and on the autobahn it all makes sense. Whether it is a two lane or a three lane, the slower cars are in the right and the faster ones in the left. As soon as a car passes it moves into the slower lane until it is time to pass again. If you are passing a car and the car you are passing moves over to the slow lane, you move to the middle. There is such great flow that you never really have to hit the brakes you never feel hindered. And if you need to pass someone you get to flash your lights and they respect it. And if someone does it to you, you get the fuck out of the way.
In the small towns with the roundabouts you never get the sensation either that you are stopping for very long. You are always sort of in motion. And the lights are the usually green yellow red, but they also go red yellow green, giving you a yellow before you go to let you know to start moving. I like that feature a lot.
The reason to drive on the autobahn though is for that moment when the speed limits disappear, and suddenly you see every car around you start to surge as every foot is reaching deep into the floor pushing the accelerator pedal to the stop. The thing is though, even with the speed on these roads, you don’t feel it. The autobahn is wide, smooth, and well banked. My estimate is that with the population of Germany, and for what the tax, they have a lot of money to maintain these roads. With the density and length of roads in Canada it is understandable that they aren’t as good.
The car I was driving was a 2011 VW Golf TDI. The same car that Nikki drives at home, only two generations newer. I found out on the autobahns that this car goes a max speed of 200km/h, 202 when going down hill. And even at that speed people will pass you. Overall we averaged speeds of 170 when we weren’t faced with construction that reduced speed. The car came equipped with an integrated GPS system. I highly recommend these. Makes it so much easier to navigate around towns as the roads can be confusing if you don’t know them, or even if you do.
Altogether it is a great idea to try the autobahns. Just to see how a roadway and traffic should be. It is a great drive and thrilling to reach those speeds legally and be able to maintain them. I recommend them.
People travel to places to experience the culture, the food, the drink, language, all sorts of things. One thing that I like to experience is the roads. I love seeing the new and different cars when I travel to somewhere new. I love seeing how traffic moves and responds in different parts of the world. So when I went to Germany of course I wanted to drive on the mighty autobahns. So despite the research saying otherwise, we rented a little car.
It worked out wonderfully, we picked up the Car in Berlin, right beside a train station making it really easy with the bag. It was EuroCar that we used. The plan was to drive it to Munich, park it and in the two other days we had the car, drive to the Ludwig castles and then a trip to Legoland. We could have done this by train but we figured by car would be a lot more convinent and it was.
The driving: Now the thing about Germany is the discipline in all the little details of life. For example at any escalator, people stand to the right to leave a path for people in a hurry to walk by without inconvience. The police rarely check tickets on the city trains because for the most part everyone is very honourable and respects the system and buys tickets.
On the roads this discipline is also there. The traffic flows so well, and on the autobahn it all makes sense. Whether it is a two lane or a three lane, the slower cars are in the right and the faster ones in the left. As soon as a car passes it moves into the slower lane until it is time to pass again. If you are passing a car and the car you are passing moves over to the slow lane, you move to the middle. There is such great flow that you never really have to hit the brakes you never feel hindered. And if you need to pass someone you get to flash your lights and they respect it. And if someone does it to you, you get the fuck out of the way.
In the small towns with the roundabouts you never get the sensation either that you are stopping for very long. You are always sort of in motion. And the lights are the usually green yellow red, but they also go red yellow green, giving you a yellow before you go to let you know to start moving. I like that feature a lot.
The reason to drive on the autobahn though is for that moment when the speed limits disappear, and suddenly you see every car around you start to surge as every foot is reaching deep into the floor pushing the accelerator pedal to the stop. The thing is though, even with the speed on these roads, you don’t feel it. The autobahn is wide, smooth, and well banked. My estimate is that with the population of Germany, and for what the tax, they have a lot of money to maintain these roads. With the density and length of roads in Canada it is understandable that they aren’t as good.
The car I was driving was a 2011 VW Golf TDI. The same car that Nikki drives at home, only two generations newer. I found out on the autobahns that this car goes a max speed of 200km/h, 202 when going down hill. And even at that speed people will pass you. Overall we averaged speeds of 170 when we weren’t faced with construction that reduced speed. The car came equipped with an integrated GPS system. I highly recommend these. Makes it so much easier to navigate around towns as the roads can be confusing if you don’t know them, or even if you do.
Altogether it is a great idea to try the autobahns. Just to see how a roadway and traffic should be. It is a great drive and thrilling to reach those speeds legally and be able to maintain them. I recommend them.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
X-Fest Debreif
This past Saturday I went to X-Fest and it was awesome. Here is the low down...
It was at Fort Calgary, on a lovely summer's day. The bands that were there in opposite the order of appearance.
Jane's Addiction
Weezer
Social Distortion
Awolnation
House of Pain
The Dudes
Rural Alberta Advantage
Black Symphony Orchestra
Micheal Bernard Fitzgerald
All in all it was an amazing show. I was underwhelmed by the act put on by Jane's Addiction, so much so I actually walked out. Truth be told it was leaving a bad after taste in my ears after Weezer's killer performance. The one shocking thing I want to talk about with that show was the curtain drops and they start playing and there are these women in underwear suspended from the stage swinging back and forth. As I got closer I asked the question. Where were there harnesses. All I could see was bra, panties and stockings. Upon further examination I realized that they weren't harnessed. They were hooked. Literally they were jirating back and forth on cables attached into hooks pierced in their back flesh. After that I had images of them ripping out a hook and then the other and falling into the audience with essentially their backs ripped out. I was glad when they were lowered down after one song.
When Weezer takes the stage, they just go right into the music playing. And they play what they know will excite the crowd. With the encores they nail most of their singles, and they did two amazing covers. They covered Pumped up Kicks by Foster the People and they nailed...literally nailed it with coffin spikes, Paranoid Android by Radiohead. Which is amazing to hear because now when Radiohead tours they are all about the new stuff and wouldn't even touch that song. Also they did it so well, what was disappointing though was how many people weren't amazed by this song. Some people literally had no idea to appreciate what was happening And the personality the band has is awesome. They are just being there goofy selves which is great to see. The sound was amazing and made the whole show worth the price of admission, which I got at a discounted rate.
House of Pain and Social Distortion were among some of my other favorites, and on an unrelated topic both covered Johnny Cash. HoP did Folsom Prison Blues, and Social D did Ring of fire. I like the idea Everlast put forth of the JC being the original White Rapper, singing about prison, drugs, and popping folk. And despite trying to get there in time for the Rural Alberta Advantage, I missed there whole set which was disappointing because I heard they were really good. And I really enjoy their folky sound.
The festival experience isn't just about the music it is about the people too. Other include seeing several people from the drinking and hot sun get really sick. A girl's vag. Nic and I were sitting in the shade between sets and by the fence this obnixous girl came around saying she really had to pee. The line for the portapotties were long, but they went by pretty quick. She couldn't wait, she got a person or two to cover for her and then her short shorts were down and she was squating and spraying everywhere.
There was a lot of variety to the people there. Punks, families, and a lot of the alternative folks. With it being a hot day there were a lot of shirts off, revealing a lot of tattoos. From this I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of truly terrible tattoos out there. In fact Nic was making a game of capturing in photographs people's terrible ink. I think with everyone wanting to be unique they put up a lot of real terrible art on themselves.
The food there was great. Pretty reasonable. It was all those food wagons that travel Calgary, but can't park on 17th cause shop owners are all in a huff about there presence. So they parked on the grounds. Great food and for reasonable prices too. The beer however was not reasonable. $7 a can and they fucking ran out.
At X-fest they offered VIP tickets for a 50% more and this was thought to be a good idea, but then, while we were there we realized that the VIP area was essentially at capacity. This was lame for those that paid more to get very little.
All in all a good long day in the hot sun. I highly recommend Weezer though.
I will have to post some pictures later, I am in Berlin right now, and forgot the appropriate cord to offload the pics from my phone.
It was at Fort Calgary, on a lovely summer's day. The bands that were there in opposite the order of appearance.
Jane's Addiction
Weezer
Social Distortion
Awolnation
House of Pain
The Dudes
Rural Alberta Advantage
Black Symphony Orchestra
Micheal Bernard Fitzgerald
All in all it was an amazing show. I was underwhelmed by the act put on by Jane's Addiction, so much so I actually walked out. Truth be told it was leaving a bad after taste in my ears after Weezer's killer performance. The one shocking thing I want to talk about with that show was the curtain drops and they start playing and there are these women in underwear suspended from the stage swinging back and forth. As I got closer I asked the question. Where were there harnesses. All I could see was bra, panties and stockings. Upon further examination I realized that they weren't harnessed. They were hooked. Literally they were jirating back and forth on cables attached into hooks pierced in their back flesh. After that I had images of them ripping out a hook and then the other and falling into the audience with essentially their backs ripped out. I was glad when they were lowered down after one song.
When Weezer takes the stage, they just go right into the music playing. And they play what they know will excite the crowd. With the encores they nail most of their singles, and they did two amazing covers. They covered Pumped up Kicks by Foster the People and they nailed...literally nailed it with coffin spikes, Paranoid Android by Radiohead. Which is amazing to hear because now when Radiohead tours they are all about the new stuff and wouldn't even touch that song. Also they did it so well, what was disappointing though was how many people weren't amazed by this song. Some people literally had no idea to appreciate what was happening And the personality the band has is awesome. They are just being there goofy selves which is great to see. The sound was amazing and made the whole show worth the price of admission, which I got at a discounted rate.
House of Pain and Social Distortion were among some of my other favorites, and on an unrelated topic both covered Johnny Cash. HoP did Folsom Prison Blues, and Social D did Ring of fire. I like the idea Everlast put forth of the JC being the original White Rapper, singing about prison, drugs, and popping folk. And despite trying to get there in time for the Rural Alberta Advantage, I missed there whole set which was disappointing because I heard they were really good. And I really enjoy their folky sound.
The festival experience isn't just about the music it is about the people too. Other include seeing several people from the drinking and hot sun get really sick. A girl's vag. Nic and I were sitting in the shade between sets and by the fence this obnixous girl came around saying she really had to pee. The line for the portapotties were long, but they went by pretty quick. She couldn't wait, she got a person or two to cover for her and then her short shorts were down and she was squating and spraying everywhere.
There was a lot of variety to the people there. Punks, families, and a lot of the alternative folks. With it being a hot day there were a lot of shirts off, revealing a lot of tattoos. From this I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of truly terrible tattoos out there. In fact Nic was making a game of capturing in photographs people's terrible ink. I think with everyone wanting to be unique they put up a lot of real terrible art on themselves.
The food there was great. Pretty reasonable. It was all those food wagons that travel Calgary, but can't park on 17th cause shop owners are all in a huff about there presence. So they parked on the grounds. Great food and for reasonable prices too. The beer however was not reasonable. $7 a can and they fucking ran out.
At X-fest they offered VIP tickets for a 50% more and this was thought to be a good idea, but then, while we were there we realized that the VIP area was essentially at capacity. This was lame for those that paid more to get very little.
All in all a good long day in the hot sun. I highly recommend Weezer though.
I will have to post some pictures later, I am in Berlin right now, and forgot the appropriate cord to offload the pics from my phone.
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