Beautiful snap of the mighty Aare River, transporting huge volumes of melting snow from the Swiss Alps towards the North Sea, as it enters the medieval city of Bern,
The Presidency Building in Sofia
This is it, the Presidency Building in Sofia
These are not ceremonial guards – they are members of the Bulgarian special forces. As you can see in the lower right, someone is taking their photograph. Approach any nearer and the next stop on your itinerary is likely to be one of the hospitals in downtown Sofia.
The Mighty Niesen Supervolcano in Winter
This is a scene of the mighty Niesen supervolcano, lying dormant in Winter. This was the view from my apartment when I lived in the Swiss hamlet of Oberhofen am Thunersee.
There are only around 20 known super-volcanoes in the world. Most scientists concur that the next eruption of this supervolcano will extinguish all life in Europe.
1300th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Bulgarian State
Some of the most impressive things about Bulgaria are not Bulgarian at all, but rather the vast number of Soviet-area statues and monuments all over the cities and countryside.
Below is one of them, that features prominently at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia:
Thun Flowers
Continuing the series, here are some flowers at the Saturday morning street market in Thun,
The amazing roundabouts in Barcelona
If you’ve ever spent time driving around Europe, you’ll notice a few trends that depend on geographic location. One of those trends is that, the farther south you drive towards Spain, the more lanes the roundabouts will have.
Roundabouts in Northern Germany is likely to have no more than a single lane.
Roundabouts in Northern and Central France are likely to have two lanes.
Roundabouts in South France are likely to have three lanes.
But once you cross into Spain all bets are off, and as this snap shows, the roundabouts can have many, many lanes:
Driving to Andorra
Andorra is one of the smallest countries in Europe, nestled high in the mountains between France and Spain.
And when you drive here, this is the first sight you’ll see of the main city:
Bus driver snooze
I caught this bus driver taking a mid-day snooze in the luggage compartment of his bus in downtown Saigon:
It’s obviously not the first time he’s done this, as you’ll see his approach to his hammock is well-tested:
Getting ready to mime in Avignon
A street mime puts on her makeup on a secluded street in the medieval papal city of Avignon,
The amazing swarms of Hondas in Saigon
Automobiles are few and far between in the capital city of Vietnam, Saigon – the streets are ruled by scooters, known to the locals (despite their manufacturer) as Hondas:
How do you cross a busy street like this? It’s easier than you might think: you just close your eyes and start to walk slowly. The drivers are so careful and aware of what’s in front of them, that they will easily move to avoid you.
Fruits, nuts, and birds in Barcelona
If you’ve been to the major pedestrian area in Barcelona known as Las Ramblas, then you know how it is.
Barcelona fruits:
Barcelona nuts:
And Barcelona birds:
Colorful Saigon
The Saigon skyline, along the Saigon River no less, at night:
The development of ultrabright light emitting diodes has transformed how cities look at night.
Saigon Roots
Continuing the series, when concrete meets roots in Saigon,
All roads lead to Quillan
Did I accidentally discover a new Einstein?
I am not the world’s biggest fan of museums, but I had a frightening, emotional reaction at the Einstein Museum in Bern, Museum, when I looked at this grammar school photo of Einstein’s class:
My reaction was frightening and emotional, because all of the dozens of schoolchildren at staring emotionless and straight faced at the camera, with only one notable exception: the young Einstein is smiling:
Interestingly, I’ve noticed this one time before. At a large Indian wedding a group of small children asked me to take their picture with my digital camera. After reviewing the picture some years later, I realized that only one of the children was smiling:
Could it be my path crossed with the next Albert Einstein?
Two spectacular views of a Chinese junk
OK, it’s not a real Chinese junk – it’s a restaurant boat.
But be that as it may, here’s one view, taken during the day from the 50th story of the Bitexpo Financial Tower in Saigon:
And here’s another view, taken at night from the Saigon River itself:
Amazing realization made in Vietnam: what cables tell you about culture
When I arrive in a new place I’ve never visited, my antenna are stretched out, the gain is tuned to high, and I am looking for that first impression moment where something unique and new strikes my interest.
When arriving in the mega-city of Saigon in the south of Vietnam, that first impression moment unwound slowly but methodically in the first 15 minutes, when my taxi cab got stuck in traffic next to a telephone pole. At first, my eyes caught a jumbled mess of cables:
I’ve seen messy telephone cables all over the world, so to be honest this was nothing remarkable or new for me. But as I sat there patiently in traffic, starting at this pole for many minutes, my eyes scanned the area, took in the Big Picture, and I slowly came to an important realization.
This is what I saw as I expanded my gaze:
What occured to me was how much insight you can get into a culture just by looking at its telephone cables.
In this case in Saigon, the cables are all identical: black, approximately the same gauge, and all of very good quality. A stunning degree of structure, organization, and tidiness in the transmission: The cables coming into the pole are highly organized and carefully wrapped into a tight bundle, and the cables coming out of the pole are highly organized are carefully wrapped into a tight bundle. And a stunning degree of pragmatism, acceptance of non-conformance, and low stress at the interface: the cables fixed to the pole are in no way bent or stressed, and the pole almost seems happy to carry this mass of important lines that meet every which way but somehow go exactly where they need to go.
Buddha Flowers
Continuing the series, a snap, then something AMAZING.
First, the snap:
And now for something amazing. This snap was taken in the city of My Tho, near the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. But that is not what is amazing. What is amazing is that there is nothing native in this snap! Both Buddhism and pink Bougainvilleas have been imported into Vietnam a long, long time ago: Buddhism, by the migrating hoards of Buddhists; and Bougainvilleas by the French during their colonization of this region of Southeast Asia.
Kaleidoscope Corridor
Somewhere in France, this snap reminded me of a kaleidoscope:
I looked it up, and I discovered that the kaleidoscope was patented in 1817.
Super Wolf Moon over Saigon
I felt pretty honored and privileged to have been able to have taken this snap:
Here you see the Super Wolf Full Moon shining above the new Ho Chi Minh City skyline on the Saigon River in Vietnam.
How the wonders of the South French countryside are linked to the development of human intelligence
The fellow with the circle around his head is Saint Laurent – but not THAT Saint Laurent that you are thinking about!
But what does Saint Laurent have to do with Southern France, you might ask?
While driving across a lonely rural road from Nimes (a French village that a lot of tourists visit) to Beaucaire (a French village that a lot of tourists don’t), I spotted what looked to be a old stone building deep in a farm field. Because there were no angry tourist-hating French farmers with pitchforks around – and because the Gendarmes were probably all busy elsewhere looking after the protesting Gilets Jaunes, I took the liberty if not the risk of trespassing on the farm to take this wonderful snap:
I like the way the sun reflects off the stone and really highlights the building.
Fortunately, there was a sign just outside, so I quickly came to know this was the Cathedral of Saint-Laurent, dating back to the 1100’s.
And what does any of this have to do with the development of human intelligence?
Turns out that Saint Laurent was martyred in 258 for refusing to hand over the church’s riches to the local Roman emperor. What makes this very interesting indeed is while he was being persecuted for refusing to hand over riches, Rome itself was being ravaged by one of the first instances of the bubonic plague, the so-called Plague of Cyprian that killed thousands of people every day.
This is an electron micrograph of the plague, Yersinius pestis:
Interestingly, it has been show that Europeans today have increased resistance to this bacteria, most likely due to natural selection processes, i.e., the millions of people with less resistance were killed in the many outbreaks of the plague over the centuries.
This is what led me to speculate that, in a similar way, the Herpes virus has had a pronounced effect in the development of human intelligence.
Pickly pear in Provence
While traipsing about the southern countryside in Provence, I spotted this cactus hiding out behind another plant:
This is no ordinary French cactus – in fact, it isn’t French at all! It is a species of cactus known as the prickly pear, and it is in fact an invasive species that was introduced to Europe – from America – back in the sixteenth century.
Interestingly, like a fool, I tried to pick up one of the fruits and received about one thousand little stingers in my finger. I was able to remove most of them – but now, three weeks later, as I write this post, there is still one lodged in my finger and causing me pain. Not quite sure what will happen, since try as I might, I can’t seem to remove it – or even see it.
A spacetime distortion over a medieval French village?
Continuing the series, this is a snap showing the medieval French village of Gordes,
Just left of center you’ll notice a very obvious distortion in the fabric of spacetime. It is quite likely an intense gravitational rift opened at precisely the instant I took this snap – but no ordinary spacetime distortion was this, since the expected rainbow colors were not present. Most likely, the gravitational distortion which affected the light waves was accompanied by an intense magnetic field, and this triggered a massive anti-Stokes scattering phenomena which exactly compensated the light distortion.
But if you think this is amazing, then hold onto your hat: it gets even MORE amazing than this!
What is even MORE amazing than a spontaneous gravo-magnetic distortion of spacetime in a medieval village in France is that it occurred at precisely the location in which two separate photographs of the village were stitched together to create the panoramic picture shown above!
How amazing is THAT?!?!
For whatever reason, I don’t think my reasoning is that far away from what I‘ve seen some astrophysicists have used in discussing dark matter. In an upcoming blog I‘ll probably mention Mr. Occam and his Razor.
Amazing Grasse: Medieval village of perfume – 2
Continuing the series, this is a view of the center of the medieval village of Grasse,
The Amazing Cypress Trees of Provence
Southern France has some amazing, amazing trees.
I’ve written about the amazing plane trees of Provence.
I’ve written about the amazing umbrella trees of Provence.
And now, standing at attention like massive soldiers before storming into battle . . . the amazing cypress trees of Provence:
Interestingly, you can steal the unopened nuts off the trees, let them dry out the pop open at home, and grow your own cypress trees rather easily. I’ll show the steps in an upcoming blog entry!