A renaissance man for the twenty-first century!
Or is it, fighting fires with Unix? At any rate, I spotted this Unix fire extinguisher hanging on a wall in a café in Andorra, one of the world’s tiniest countries, and Europe’s highest capital city, locked high in the Pyrenee’s mountains between Spain and France.
Twice per week, that is. Each garbage bin is much, much bigger than you’ll find anywhere in Europe. The contents of the bin are not regulated by law; anything from old boxes to old batteries to old bananas is ok. And the driver stays in the air conditioned cab and operates the controls remotely.
One reason I love India so much: India provides an amazing glimpse into the history of Europe.
Shown here are the Dhobi Ghats, or clothes washing area, of Mumbai. What 99.99% of most tourists don’t realize is that Europe had these places, too, and you can find a picture of one in my recent blog about Petite-France. Today, the washing area in Petite-France is covered in flowers and lined with street cafés; but a few hundred years ago, clothes were washed in segments along the river: the clothes for the rich people upstream, and the clothes for the lesser privileged downstream. So what you see above is likely much cleaner and nicer than what it would have looked like in France!
My biggest gripe: Europe evolved slowly, and these old places were slowly transformed and retained. In India as in the U.S., the high-speed of big urbanization means that interesting cultural places (such as the Dhobi Ghats) are often developed right out of existence.
OK, probably not. This is a photograph of the convention center in downtown Sofia, Bulgaria – but it bears an eerie resemblance to “the shot” of the Taj Mahal, which I photographed here. I wonder if the architects were aware of this, or if it is just coincidence?
It’s nothing special, but this photo of the sun radiating off the white skyscrapers in Sofia, Bulgaria is one of my favorites. You’ll have to zoom the picture to see the effect.
I’m taking this photograph from the posh Dragalevtsi neighborhood at the foot of the Vitosha mountain. Looking north, those are the Balkan mountains off in the distance.
Located in Alsace just north of Strasbourg, and even in the pouring rain as shown above, Haguenau is a pretty village where you won’t find many tourists. There is a terrific old church dating back to the 1200’s, and the village itself is part of the Villes et Villages Fleuries competition, dating back to 1959, in which each village tries to out-flower and out-green each of its neighbors.
During my first trip to Dehli, in the middle of the hot summer, an auto rickshaw driver was surprisingly honest with me: he asked if he could drive me to a store for tourists, because he would receive a 100 Rs “commission” from the owners for each tourist he delivered there. It was the “off season,” he said, and he needed the extra money for his family.
I have NEVER seen such honesty and openness from an auto wallah before!
So I made a deal with him: he would drive me to as many of these tourists stores as he could: I’d shop for a few minutes then buy nothing and leave, he’d collect 100 Rs from each store we visited — and at the end of the day, we would split the proceeds 50%/50%.
After a few hours we hit nearly 15 different stores, my voice was hoarse from 15 repetitions of the question “Do you have any little paper maché elephants made in Kashmir?” and his pockets were full of money! Because I didn’t need the money but wanted the fun, I then told him he could keep it all, because he was so honest and open.
He was really happy with this, and we spent another 2 hours in which he took me on the best auto tour of Dehli anyone is ever likely to get, even stopping to drink tea with his other auto wallah friends near this great big stone arch-thing.
Motto: The people who want to take advantage of you can often turn out to be very nice people – and sometimes you can have a lot of fun by turning the tables and taking advantage of the system itself!
You’re not likely to find any native Swiss or Lucernians on this bridge – only tourists.
Continuing Part 1 of the series, this is the Rheinbrücke Konstanz (or Rhein Bridge at Constance). Today nobody gives this bridge much thought – but hundreds of years ago, after you paid a sizable toll, this would have been your gateway from a dangerous, lawless outside to the safe and Disney-Land-like city of Konstanz.
The armies of tourists that descend upon Konstanz rarely if ever cross or even see this bridge, much less the best part: a hidden alleyway underneath the far side of the bridge (just visible in the top picture), where there is a collection of stunning graffiti artwork painted on the walls.
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This is a different view of the island in a recent blog post, but taken from a different angle. An interesting bit of trivia is that the various bridges (only one is shown here) are known as the pont couverts (which is French for “covered bridge”), even though the covering has been gone for quite some time.
I don’t want to violate any copyrights or trademarks, but if you want to see a really impressive set of photographs of this area, just click here.
If you’ve been to Strasbourg, then you know how it is. The cathedral is big and imposing and it stands in the center of the city and you can visit it. It’s surrounded by outdoor coffee shops where you can sit and look up at it, and if you can manage to hail a waiter you can drink coffee and smell the strong cigarette smell coming from other patrons who sit and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. But you can’t watch the carabinieri stroll by because this is France not Italy.
OK, I’m not Hemingway, and this is not that cathedral. This is the Church of St. Paul. In any other city, this would would be the cathedral – but here it lives among the ranks of the SCHNN (smaller churches hardly nobody notices) because it is eclipsed by the much bigger cathedral.
This is a picture of a Strasbourg canal, taken from the Grande Île in the Petite-France neighborhood. With all the bridges and blacktop you’d never realize this was an island – and I never realized it either until I looked it up on Wikipedia.
This is also a “best kept secret” of Strasbourg, since it is only just a few blocks from the main train station (Gare Central) in Strasbourg, but in a direction opposite to where most tourists head when they descend upon the city. It is amazing what things you can miss – or find – by simply walking in the wrong direction.
I think it is known as “the shot” of the Taj Mahal, which I took in high summer. You can’t see it here, but it was over 40 C (100 F), and this was the time of year that tourists stay away.
Whether it is the desert in mid-summer or Warsaw in mid-Winter . . . you don’t just save money, but also you get an interesting (or even better) view of touristy places when you travel during the off-season.
A guest blog, by Arlene Ritley
We all want to be rich. Being rich means living the good life. Being rich gives us the freedom to go where we want to go and buy what we want to buy. Being rich can and often does create a feeling of happiness or euphoria.
Sooner or later, however, we come to realize, whether consciously or subconsciously, that happiness and contentment is fleeting. Happiness doesn’t last long. We want this feeling to last a life-time but it truly is short lived.
Pearl S. Buck once said, “Many people lose the small joys in the hope for big happiness”. How true.
I have found the small joy in my life that brings me continual happiness.
You are probably sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting to read what this small joy is.
I will gladly share it with you now.
New Faucets
![IMG_0604[2]](https://ritley.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/IMG_06042.jpg)
You laugh. You think I am a crazy old woman. How can you find happiness in a new faucet? But I do!
Keep in mind the last thing I see before going to bed is my new faucet. I stand there admiring the newness, the shine and the sleek sensual look. My spirits soar, joy bubbles up, and my outlook for tomorrow becomes positive. I go to bed knowing that in the morning my friend the faucet will still be there shining light on a new day.
Day after day, night after night, for a short period of time I’ll feel rich and, yes, happy.
This guest blog was submitted by Arlene Ritley, an editor with the Island Moon Newspaper – one of South Texas’s largest community newspapers.
It’s just incredible what cameras in mobile phones can do. I took this picture as the sun was setting on the bridge between Ile Saint-Louis (on the right) and Paris (left).
This is the restaurant Auberge de la Reine Blanche (or White Queen’s Hotel) on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris, the location of the terrific short story “Paris is a Bitch” by Barry Eisler. Of all Eisler’s books, I always thought this story was very aptly named as a double or even triple entendre: it concerns the unrelated trouble and violence encountered in Paris by an assassin, just prior to him terminating a long-time romance.
We take it for granted that buildings have frontsides – and that the front façades are somehow meant to be the most impressive. But this is the backside of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and in my opinion it is far more impressive and enjoyable to look at than the front side. And what’s more: this great view is perhaps rarely seen or enjoyed by the armies of tourists that stop briefly to visit then move on.
I have a few more examples where the hidden backsides of things are more stunning than the visible front sides, which I’ll post as time permits.
You’ve heard of cable cars and cable bridges and cable TV – but have you heard of a cable ferry?
This is something I have not encountered very often: a car-carrying ferry across a river, which itself is pulled by a cable that runs high above the river, rather than pushed by a motor. What you see here is located on the Rhein river, between Germany and France, in the small town of Plittersdorf. I discovered this quite by accident during my first year in Germany, by taking the Rastatt exit off the autobahn then driving towards the river. (Very embarrassing admission: I exited the Autobahn here in need of gasoline, and it seems I confused the village name with the German word for the Autobahn rest area, or Raststätte! I wonder if anyone else makes this mistake?)
It is amazing just how little known this is – but during the summer, and especially on bicycle, it is a wonderful old-time way to cross the river.
Another one of my all-time-favorite photographs. The skyline is punctuated with both very old and very new spires. And the purpose of the spires, both old and new, simultaneously was and is both spiritual and acoustical communication.
I suppose it’s nothing special, but still it’s one of my all-time favorite photographs that I’ve taken. I love fishing, I never associated fishing or seafood with Istanbul – and I was thrilled and impressed to see so many passionate fisherman on the bridge.
I’ve always been fascinated by termite mounds as an example of emergent behavior – but as far as I can tell (mainly by the millions of little black ants swarming all over it), this is a true ant mound, not a termite mound. I took this picture in Tamil Nadu, not too far outside of Tiruchirappali, in the far south of India.
An unresolved mystery I want to clear up one of these days: when I talk to the village locals, they invariably refer to these structures as “snake houses” and not “termite houses.” I think we both agree snakes live here – but I’ve never really understood if the villagers know these structures are created by insects, not reptiles.
If anyone has any links to the termites and ants of southern India, please do share them with me! I’ve seen some very exotic architectures, and I’ll post more pictures as time permits.
The search for an upgrade for the Eiger Chopper continues. I spent about 500 km on a Honda CTX1300A this weekend – here it is shown parked on the south shore of the Bodensee, also known as Lake Constance, between Germany and Switzerland.
Very nice bike. Very comfortable upright touring position. Center of mass very low to the ground. Terrific power. Windscreen very effective. Saddlebags and top case made of cheap plastic, could scratch easily. Handgrip heating system very nice.
I couldn’t go wrong with this one, but I’m still looking.
I just returned from my first trip to Israel, where I had a fabulous time. What is happening in Gaza is of course a tragedy, but away from Gaza in Israel – as elsewhere – life goes on. I wanted to share a few pictures and observations and thoughts after my first visit to this country.
Motivation
The Gaza conflict has devastated the travel industry. Airline tickets and hotel prices are ridiculously low, sites visited by thousands of tourists are empty, and as as long as you are not in Gaza Israel is statistically safer than your own country, no matter what your country may be. But also, this is a region it seems, unfortunately, of perpetual conflict – and I wanted to see and feel for myself a bit of what life is like in Israel.
Getting there
A few things disappointed me. I had read that the security is so high, even at the airport you’ll be “approached” by other passengers who are really secret Mossad operatives trying to size you up as a terrorist threat. Or that the security in Ben Gurion airport is so high, they will open your luggage and inspect each item. I was really looking forward to this! Sadly, none of this was true in my case. Our jumbo jet was filled with 30 passengers at most, so we could sit where we wanted. And at the Ben Gurien airport I never saw a guard or a gun. The only difficulty was getting through customs: the customs officer spoke with me (and I am not making this up!) about 10 minutes before he finally let me through. “Sir, you do understand that we are in the middle of a war?” Me: yes. “And let me understand correctly, you are here on holiday?” Me: yes. Well, you can imagine what he was probably thinking.
Finally, I was looking forward to having my passport stamped with “a visa stamp so damaging, other Arab countries may put you in jail.” Sadly, this never happened either. My passport was not stamped; instead I got a little printed paper with a barcode and was told to keep it in my passport. So after returning home, I taped the printout to my passport instead of throwing it away – just to give me that diabolical feeling!
Impressions
5 days is not nearly enough to take in this fabulous country. Europe is “brand spanking new” in comparison to the history you’ll find here. Fabulous food. Very friendly people in all Quarters of Jerusalem. Fabulous weather. Economically, lots of shopkeepers seem very worried about their immediate future – since the city is of devoid of tourists, but at this time there should be thousands.
As time permits I’ll share a few other pictures I took.
I was recently asked: how do I keep current on the latest trends and developments in IT? The short answer: ACM.
Technical folks can be the worst marketers, and that’s probably why the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is not as well known in the general IT community as it should be. This is the best professional society to support IT that I know of, and membership brings you lots of benefits:
To be fair, I think the organization struggles with one challenge: it tries to reach the complete IT audience, from the academic scholars that research if P=NP, to the compiler designers, to everyday IT guys like me. This shows in their monthly magazine, which might have little to appeal to your tastes. But this is more than compensated for, by the library and specific topical newsletters.
Summary: If you want to stay current in IT topics, I highly recommend you consider membership in the ACM.
You can find out more about the ACM at their webpage.