My time in Poland is over, back to the U.S.

After 22 and a half months in Poznan, I moved back to the U.S. on Friday July 26th.  It wasn't an easy decision as I had really grown to love Poland and the people I met in Poznan, but it made the most sense at the time. 

I will miss my friends there a great deal, especially Kasia and Bartek, Pawel and Iga, Agnieszka, Kate, the two Chris's, and the whole gang at Starbucks.  I guess the question now is how soon do I want to move back. :)

I have been back in the U.S. for a bit over a week now and here is a quick status update for anyone that cares:

• The jet lag is starting to go away, although I have slept a LOT this week.  
• I haven't spoken to or seen hardly anyone I know outside of work, although now that my brain is starting to catch up to the time zone, I will be hoping to see my cousins soon.
• My work schedule has not been fun since many of the people I still need to work with are in Europe.  This has made for 6am (or earlier) meetings, and that is with declining the 3am ones.  This might also be part of the reason why I have been sleeping so much.  :)
• I have not bought a car yet, and am still driving the rental car I got.  Because of my back issues, finding a good car for me is rather difficult.  And unfortunately, the prices of the cars I have found that seem pretty good so far are very high.
• I haven't even seriously started looking for a new place to live yet.  I need to buy a car first, and get my first U.S. paycheck so that I know what my new take-home pay is and how much any car payment may impact it.

Now the question is, what do I do with this blog?  Do I keep it running?  Or do I end it here?  Feel free to comment with your answer.

Thanks

The Japanes Garden in Wrocaw (10 pictures)

On our last day in Wrocaw (Sunday June 24th) we went to the Japanese Garden in Wrocław.  The park was prepared for the 1913 World's Fair.

There isn't a lot of info about the garden other than that one fact that I could come across online, so this post will mostly be made up of pictures.

Wandering around Wrocław (19 pictures)

Wrocław is a city with an interesting background.  At various times in the past it has been part of Poland, Bohemia, Prussia, Germany, and the Austrian Empire.  The city is built on both sides of the River Oder, as well as on some islands in the river.  It is known for a large number of bridges.

Under German rule, the city was known as Breslau and it was a stronghold of the Nazi's during the war, with the city's population of 10,000 Jews being nearly entirely wiped out.  Speaking Polish in public was made a crime and there were nearly 10,000 Allied prisoners and 51,000 slave laborers (mostly Polish) based around the city in forced labor camps. 

The city was besieged by the Soviets towards the end of World War II and nearly half of it was destroyed.  In August 1945 the city had a German population of 189,500, and a Polish population of 17,000.  Almost all of the German inhabitants fled or were forcibly expelled between 1945 and 1949 and were settled in Allied Occupation Zones in Germany.

Now the city is becoming fairly international again, with large presences by companies like IBM, HP, Google, 3M, Microsoft, and a large number of other firms as well (such as Siemens, SAP, Cargill, and Dolby Labs to name a few).  It's not the hotbed for young people that Warsaw and Krakow are, but it's probably 3rd on the list. 

I rode down from Poznań in my friend Paweł's car with his wife Iga gracing us with her presence (thank you again Iga for letting me take the passenger seat).  :)

Once we got to the city we met up with our friend Kryz and spent the rest of that Saturday and the first half of Sunday wandering around.

The picture below is of the Sky Tower (either currently, or recently was the largest residential tower in the EU, although it only partially residential) looking down a canal.

If Snow White lived in Wrocław, she would hang out with a lot more than 7 Dwarves...... (28 pictures)

My weekends for a while have been a bit bonkers as I prepare for my move back to the United States.  It's hard to believe it's now only 2 weeks away.  So I decided I need to catch up on some of blog posts I haven't gotten around to.

First up are a couple of posts from my trip to Wrocław (that's sort of "vrots-wav" to my non-Polish-speaking readers from my non-Polish-speaking self) with my friends Paweł and Iga Macko, to see our friend Kryz Ptak who moved there after he left Franklin.

Wrocław was a very neat city that I liked a lot.  But I'll start off first with the Dwarves of Wrocław.  Or Krasnale, as I believe they called in Polish.  There are around 250 of them in the city, mostly in near the city center, and each one is unique.  Not just every emplacement, but every dwarf throughout the city is unique.

There aren't prominent signs or anything pointing them out.  They are just present.  Sometimes just on the sidewalk near a building, statue, or fountain.  Sometimes on a ledge outside a shop.  So you have to keep an eye out for them.

Their placement is strictly controlled by city hall and you have to petition to have one placed.  What's cool is that all of them have been created and placed just since 2009.

Anyway, the rest of this post is just pictures of the dwarves.  The next post on Wrocław will show pictures of the rest of the city and a bit about what we did.

Have a great day!

Helsinki - Part 3: Oddities and a far from perfect ending (6 pictures)

Closing out my series of posts on my trip, I thought I would include a few random pictures from Helsinki.  These are things that caught my eye or that didn't fit elsewhere.

One of the things that caught my eye was this young woman walking her cat like a dog.  You can't really tell from this picture, but the cat below is on a leash.  And it strolled right by me next to it's owner just a dog would.  I was so surprised I had to snatch out my camera, turn around, and take a picture.

Helsinki - Part 2: Suomenlinna (11 pictures)

On my second day in Helsinki I went to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Suomenlinaa (which means Castle of Finland).  This fortress, built across 6 islands, was built by the Swedes to guard against Russian Expansionism, but was captured by the Russians in 1808.  The capture paved the way for the occupation and annexation of Finland by the Russians in 1809.

It's a popular site for both visitors to Helsinki and natives, and is only about a 15-20 minute ferry ride from the harbor.

As you come into the dock, this is one of the views.

Helsinki - Part 1 (8 pictures)

The last city I visited on this trip was Helsinki, Finland.  Helsinki is a bit of an odd city to me in that it felt like it belonged in a former Communist country in some ways.  The city is not dirty (unlike Copenhagen), but for the most part it is quite drab and nondescript.  I don't think there are any buildings over 10 stories tall, and most seem to be 8 stories or less in the downtown area. 

On the other hand the people are incredibly nice and in many ways it felt like "home".  Maybe that's because so many people I saw looked like me or like family members.  I saw one old woman on the bus who if she was about 70 lbs heavier would have been a spitting image of my grandmother.  The exact same hair (some color, same curls, etc) and a very similar face.  Just a lot lighter.  :)

So despite having to take a bus from the airport (a train into the main train station downtown should finish sometime in 2014) and the general lack fantastic old buildings (with a few exceptions below) to take pictures of, I actually enjoyed my stay.  It also helped that I was there for the beginning of the 2013 IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) World Championships and managed to get a ticket to the USA vs. Austria game on the Saturday before I left.  It was my first taste of live hockey in several years and was fun to go see.

However, when I arrived, this was the view out my hotel window, which isn't exactly inviting.

However, in this post I am mostly going to focus on some pictures of the "big 3" (my term) churches in Helsinki.  Two of which dominate the skyline, and one of which dominates the tourist crowd.  :)

Stockholm - Part 2 (10 pictures)

One important thing to realize about Stockholm is that it is an expensive city to be in, but this can be a bit deceptive given the exchange rate between the Swedish Krone and the US Dollar.  When I was there it was around 7 Krone to the Dollar.  So when the equivalent of a medium Starbucks latte (no Starbucks that I could see unfortunately) costs 40-50 Krone, it doesn't immediately strike you that you are paying $6-8 for a drink that costs $4 or less (if I remember right) in the U.S. 

Why do I bring this up?  Because museum prices in Stockholm are just as high.  Expect to pay at least $15 to visit a museum in Stockholm, and possibly $20 or more.  So my main piece of advice is to buy the Stockholm Card.  A 3-day card will cost you a bit over $100, but not only does it include free admission (one time only) to nearly every museum in the city, it also includes free use of all of the mass-transit options (metro, tram, bus, and even some of the ferries). 

Unfortunately for me, I bought just the 3-day transit pass which was much cheaper, thinking I would want to visit many museums (I usually don't).  But Stockholm has a number of museums that looked quite interesting and if you are going to be there and like museums, the Stockholm Card is a massive bargain.

There was one museum that I HAD to go to though, and that was the Vasa Museum on Djurgarden island.  It is the most-visited museum in all Scandinavia and displays the only 17th-century ship that is almost fully preserved.  The Vasa was a Swedish warship that finished construction in 1628, and due a faulty design sunk barely a nautical mile into its maiden voyage.  It lay lost in the harbor for 333 years before being found and recovered.  The Wikipedia article makes for interesting reading on the loss, sinking, re-discovery, raising, and preservation of the ship.

Like a lot of folks, I found the museum fascinating and spent a couple hours there (maybe more).  Unfortunately, the museum is a bit dark and the flash on my little camera wasn't up to lighting that much space, so I didn't get a lot of great pictures.  But some of the better ones are in this post.

 This is looking down the hull from the front of the ship towards the rear.

Stockholm - Part 1 (11 pictures)

I left Copenhagen by train, going over the Oresund bridge to Sweden and up the coast to Stockholm.  The trip took about 5 hours, but the ticket was very cheap (about $30 for a non-refundable 2nd class ticket) and it gave me the chance to see a bit of Swedish countryside on the way.

Stockholm was an absolute delight, and my 2 and half days there weren't nearly enough.  It's a large city of around 2 million residents (in the greater metro area), with the main city area spread out over 14 islands connected by over 50 bridges.  Of the 5 main districts in the inner city area I only managed to see Gamla Stan (the old town), most of Norrmalm, and part of Ostermalm.  I also made a visit to the eastern end of the Djurgarden island on my last day.  However, the city is huge and I think I could easily spend a month or more exploring.

One interesting way of getting an idea of the scale and layout of the city is to check out the Stockholm scale model that is in the cultural building in Norrmalm.  Here is a picture of part of the model.  It's built at a scale of 1cm of the model equals 10 meters in reality.  It's very cool in that it not only shows current buildings, but is many places shows future developments (the white buildings).

Copenhagen - Part 3, "Graffiti Time" (6 pictures)

One of the things I noticed about Copenhagen is that there is a pretty large amount of graffiti.  Most of it is of the tagging variety and sucks both artistically and in it's presence.  But in some places you come across some really cool graffiti artwork.  The main place I saw a bunch of really cool stuff was in the "Free City of Christiania".  Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures of a lot of the good artwork because it was on buildings located in the "green zone", which is where all the hash sellers have their stalls and where people come to smoke marijuana.  And in that area they have a strict no camera's policy (no surprise, as it's illegal).

I'll include pictures of a half-dozen of the cooler graffiti I came across in this post, both in Christiania and in the city.  Eventually (this weekend sometime probably) I will create a Copenhagen section on my photo site.  But for now, this will be the last of Copenhagen photos.

 This was in Christiania.

Copenhagen - Part 2 (8 pictures)

I normally don't go to a lot of museums when I travel, but luckily I decided to go to the Thorvaldsen Museum when I was done visiting the palace, as it's right next door.  Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) was a Danish sculptor who lived in Rome for over 40 years, who gifted his entire art collection to the city of his birth before he died.  This included not just his own artwork, but that of many of his friends and students, as well as a few antiquities he had collected.  When it was opened in 1848, it was the first public art museum in Denmark.

I have to say, I was blown away by how good the sculptures that Thorvaldsen did are.  There are plaster copies of his "drafts" (used to finalize the design of a sculpture before creating it in hard stone) which are usually bright white.  And then there are the actual final sculptures which are usually darker.  The level of detail he put into his work is really incredible and you can't get the full effect via pictures.

However, I hope some of the examples below give you an idea of how good the sculpture is and convince you that if you ever go to Copenhagen, to put a visit to the museum on your list of places to go.

This lion is one example.  I have a full body picture that I will throw on my photo site later.

Copenhagen - Part 1 (10 pictures)

I took what will probably be my last extended vacation trip in Europe before returning to the U.S. from April 27th though May 5th.  I had looked at a number of options and decided to do a Scandinavian capitols trip and go to Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Helsinki before returning to Poznań.

The first city was Copenhagen.  I had a 6am flight from Poznań that arrived at 7am, which unfortunately meant getting up around 2am.  Transportation into the city was easy, as there are both a train line and a metro line that run from the airport to the Central Train station downtown.  From there it was a 2-block walk to my hotel.

One thing you notice very quickly about Copenhagen is that they love their bikes.  I got my first clue of this when I walked out of the Central Train station and saw this.

This is just part of the bike racks in front of the Central station.  There are dedicated bike lanes that run next to the sidewalks throughout most of the city (that I saw), and a dedicated bike line through the center of the old town.  The local English-language paper even had an article while I was there on a plan to build two "bicycle highways" that would improve bike usage from the suburbs by building dedicated routes that avoided the roads where possible so that bike riders would not need to stop at lights and stop signs.

A Quick Trip back to the U.S. (12 pictures)

I made a quick trip for work back to the U.S. from March 2nd to March 10th.  I was on kind of short notice so I didn't have a chance to set up some vacation time, and I was going to be in project meetings most of the time I was there and wouldn't have much time to socialize much.  I was also travelling with my co-worker Paweł Macko and sharing a rental car, so I couldn't run off in the evenings to visit family around the Bay Area.  Luckily, some of my family came to see me.

We stayed at the Hyatt SFO just south of the airport, and as usual on my first day back in the U.S., the jet lag had me up at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m. or so.  By the time the sun had started coming out, I was out and walking around.  I managed to grab this picture before Paweł and I headed out for our one day shopping extravaganza on the only full day we didn't have to travel or work. :)

He had a shopping list from his wife, and I was looking mostly for some snacks and goodies to take back with me.  The only other thing I was looking for was a Google Nexus 7 to use as an e-reader since my iPad is too heavy most of the time (I've found).

Christmas 2012 (19 images)

I decided this year to take a short trip around Christmas again.  But instead of heading to Edinburgh, I went to Germany. 

As an overall itinerary, I left on Friday the 21st from Poznan and took the train to Berlin and then on to Dresden.  I spent Friday evening and Saturday in Dresden wandering around and enjoying the oldest Christmas Market in Germany.  Sunday morning I headed to the city of Braunschweig, which I sort of picked at random to spend a day in before heading back to Poland on Monday, Christmas Eve.  I spent Christmas Day and Boxing Day in Poznan before returning to work on Thursday.

My co-worker Marva Kington travelled to Dresden with me, where she combined both the tourist thing with the Christmas thing; while I went off in a different direction and did a mix of the shopping thing, the tourist thing, and the Christmas Market thing.  :) 

This was the 578th Dresden Striezelmarkt, although this year there were actually 11 different markets of differing sizes spread throughout the city.  The Winterlichter market was being held on Pragerstrasse, just out outside the hotel we stayed in.  You can see the view from my hotel window below, taken Friday night, not long after we arrived in Dresden.

 

From Rain to Snow

I'm back in Poland after nearly 3 weeks back in the U.S. and I'm starting to wonder if I'm hauling bad weather around with me.

The five days before I left California included massive amounts of rain as three storms pounded northern California one after the other.  There was so much rain that one of the tree's in the neighbors yard behind my Mom's house fell and crashed through the fence, just barely hitting the edge of the roof (no damage I think).

As you can see, it made a bit of a mess.

However, while my Mom was lucky with this tree, there was another tree in the neighbors yard that was leaning at quite an angle and looked like it was going to come down too.  Unfortunately, while it wasn't aimed at her house, it was aimed directly at the utility pole that carried the power, phone, and cable lines.  Take a look at the picture below.

Thanksgiving Pictures

One of the things I have bought on my visit to the U.S. has been a new pocket camera to replace my old Panasonic.  I bought a new Canon G15 and took along when I went to my cousin Victoria's house for Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately, I forgot to fully charge up the battery after I took it out of the box, so I ran out of juice far quicker than I would have wanted.  Between that and trying to learn a new camera I didn't get a lot of pictures taken, but I did get about 20 that I think are worth sharing.

I will include a few below, and you can go to my picture site to see the full set.

Many thanks to my cousin Victoria, her husband Danny, and their kids Joshua, Zachary, and Aliana for making my visit home so nice.  Now on to a few of the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

Have a wonderful day!  And if you go to my picture site, please rate any pictures you happen to view so that I get an idea of what people like.  Thanks!

 

Great Train Journey - Munich: Part 3 (14 pics)

I think the title of this post should be "The Cathedrals of Munich", but I figured I would stick with the format I have been using all along.  There are several churches in the old town area of Munich, but the ones I made it to were the Frauenkirche, Michaelskirche, Theatinerkirche, and the Cathedral of St. Paul.

 

 This is a picture of the Frauenkirche.  Unfortunately, it's in a confined area and there was construction going on around it, which meant that this was the best image I managed to get of the exterior.

Great Train Journey - Munich: Part 2 (9 pics)

Like in nearly every other city I visited on this trip (Nuremberg was the only exception), I had to visit some parks while I was in Munich.  Munich doesn't seem to have the sheer proportion of park space that Dresden has, but it has a giant of a park in the English Gardens.  I only wandered around in the very southern part of the Gardens, but they go on for quite a ways north.  To give you an idea, let me borrow a few statistics from Wikipedia:

• They cover an area of 3.73 km squared.
• They contain over 100 bridges
• They contain 8.75 km of streams (length)
• The contain roughly 75 km of roads, footpaths, and bridlepaths

 
As you can see from this picture, they are also a favorite place for locals to bring their dogs.

Great Train Journey - Munich: Part 1 (9 pics)

The last city I visited on my trip was Munich, and I have to admit that did not explore nearly as much as I could have.  After having spent a week walking at least 8 hours a day (and some days closer to 12), my body was telling me it was time to lay off a bit.  So out of the three days I was there, I probably only explored for about two.  For the rest of the time, I actually did something I rarely do.  I hung out at Starbuck's and other cafe's reading books on my iPad and just relaxing.

One thing that was definitely true about Munich is that it was BUSY and full of people.  I did not take nearly as many pictures in Munich as I did in other cities like Dresden, so the posts on Munich will be short and sweet.  Today, just some introductory pictures around town.

 

This is the gate at Karlsplatz, that leads onto Neuhauser Strasse, the main pedestrian street in the center of old town area.

Great Train Journey - Nuremberg: Part 3 (8 pics)

This will be my last post on Nuremberg, and I'm just going to show some pictures of some of the interesting things I saw (that aren't churches, castles, or similar old buildings).  :)

The picture below is from The Way of Human Rights, which is an outdoor sculpture between different parts of the German National Museum.  There are 30 pillars in total, with each being inscribed with one article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in German and one other language.