Reflections on 2008

As 2008 comes to a close, it seems appropriate for me to reflect on the events of the last year. To call it an interesting ride would be an understatement. While the world at large has recently changed in irreversible ways, I have attempted to keep a more introspective focus here. I do not mean to suggest these experiences happened in a vacuum; such a statement would of course be ridiculous.

What follows are some of my experiences in the past year.

I have traveled to 7 countries outside the US. Seven of my last twelve months have been abroad, and I still have three more to go.

Before leaving, I was lucky enough to grow intellectually and swap ideas with some of the best academic minds in the world. In June my family flew to Boston to attend my graduation from what US News & World Report ranks as the top engineering university in the nation. My research allowed me to spend a month in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by a 123 page thesis report submitted only four months later.

In Iceland, I visited incredibly pristine environments and some of the most naturally beautiful landscapes imaginable, including volcanoes, craters, waterfalls, glaciers, mountains, geothermal pools, and geysers. In late June, I watched the sun set at 2am and come up a half hour later. A few weeks later, I went hiking (with daylight) around midnight.

I stood at the edge and looked down the largest waterfall in Europe (Dettifoss, North Iceland).

I toured both the worlds largest and second largest museums (Louvre in Paris & Prado in Madrid), and saw Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Picasso's Guernica.

I have come far too close in the wild with the world´s largest land and sea mammal (elephants and whales, respectively).

Throughout the year, I lived with people from Bolivia, China, Hungary, India, Japan, Kenya, and Spain.

One Hungarian roommate taught me how to drive a manual transmission in Reykjavik. Many thanks to the patient Icelandic drivers who tolerated my constant stalling at intersections :)

Although I missed out on many new films, I watched The Dark Knight in Reykjavik and Quantum of Solace in Dublin.

My culinary experiences grew just as fast; I saw & ate foods I never thought possible (mostly in Ghana & Iceland) - including goat, whale, bush rat, blood pudding, rotten shark, and sheep's head.

There were lots of drinks along the way: the highlights being Oktoberfest in Munich, Guinness in Ireland's oldest pub, wine under the Eiffel Tower, apeteshie at the Fire Festival in Northern Ghana, sangria in Madrid's Plaza Mayor, brennavin in downtown Reykjavik, and port in Lisbon's Palace Square. I learned how to say "toast" in all the local languages.

In Spain, I caught glimpses of traditional culture through Flamenco dancing and bull fights, performed in much the same way as it was in past centuries.

I stood on bridges and aqueducts built by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago.

And last but not least, I spent an afternoon in a penis museum in Husavik, Iceland.



Of course, not all of it has been fun & games.

It is always annoying to live out of one's suitcase, but I know few who have done it for months at a time. Or six.

Virtually all my time abroad has been in countries where English is not the primary language.

I have bared witness to abject poverty, starvation, diseases like Guinea worm, and people whose only source of water resembles a large mud hole located several miles away. I have lived in places without running water or reliable electricity. I have been awoken by rats chewing on my bed and animals walking on the roof. I know in certain places this is simply a way of life, and in other countries people are much, much worse off.

Having these wonderful experiences while simultaneously seeing how others live has burdened me with a substantial amount of guilt, a natural reaction of watching others toil without getting to enjoy life to the same degree. I still haven´t figured out how to justify much of my lifestyle when thinking of starving children, a concept starkly more sobering when experienced in first person and not as pictures on tv. The reality is these people are real, there are a lot of them, and they live less than a day's travel away.

By all accounts, this has been a hell of a year for me.

Despite how this can be read, I don't say it to brag. If anything, traveling has hopefully instilled some much-needed humility. When abroad, you are the idiot and everyone else knows what's going on. There are barriers to understanding, the most obvious two being language and a lack of knowledge of local customs. But overcoming these obstacles, or even just briefly peeking over them, is the joy of traveling.

While it has been a lot fun, the truth is that I often feel isolated. It's incredibly frustrating to have these wonderful stories and few people to share them with. I suppose part of my desire to write this blog has been to address that.

"What have I learned" is a difficult question to answer, not for a lack of substance but because I find it hard to coalesce my impressions. Or even if I do, finding a way to express them into words is often beyond my ability.

I have a greater appreciation for things I took for granted, whether it be a safe place to sleep, a hot shower, or even having a friend to talk to.

My time abroad leads me to believe most people often want the same basic things out of life (no matter how different the cultures), and happiness is very weakly correlated to personal wealth. People in Ghana smile the most of any country I've visited.

Seeing cultures live in such different ways has altered my way of viewing the world. I now see my beliefs and ideas of "right and wrong" as but one in a set of many.

I expect 2009 to be much more "normal" (indeed I will be surprised if any calendar year tops this one), but I do plan on living out my last three months abroad to its fullest.

Overall, I'd like to think my travels have made me a more caring, open-minded person. And I hope they continue to do so.

Prost!

Location: Munich, Germany






This post is actually a little delayed as some of you know, but a few weekends ago I went to Munich for my first Oktoberfest. I have been very eager to go since I have become quite a fan of German beer over the past few years, especially the Hefeweizens.

The seeds of this trip were planted several months back while I visited college friends in California and by chance discovered a friend would be in France at the same time. She generously invited me to tag along with her girl friends to Oktoberfest. It was a difficult choice, but in the end I went for it...

Once there, we all woke up bright and early (6am I think) in order to get a good spot in line. Since it was a Friday (not the weekend yet), there was hardly anyone there. We arrived with ~2 hours to spare, and I think we were in the first 20 people in line. Keep in mind these beer halls each hold thousands of people, so it would be fair to say we were ahead of the curve. The group had previously decided to go to the Hoffbrau tent because of numerous high recommendations from others, and since I had no reason to think otherwise I agreed.

Here is some of our group standing in line. I showed this to some of my Spanish friends and they responded with "La vida es dura", which translates to "Life is hard". A very perceptive assessment, I would say.
My good friend (directly to the left of me in the Fencing sweatshirt) and I decided that standing in line wasn't doing it for us, so we wandered around to take pictures. This is what the Oktoberfest area looked like; essentially it was an amusement park with occasional beer tents. I oddly liked the idea of this as a family event - sort of like "bring the kids and leave 'em in the roller coaster line while daddy drinks a pint!"
I couldn't pass up the chance to get my picture taken with this ride. My female compatriot did not understand why I found this humorous. If you don't get it either, read this to find out what the Shocker represents in popular American culture.
Disgusting right?!? Who says this blog isn't educational :)

Eventually they let us into the tent. "Tent" is actually a stretch in my opinion, since these places have amenities such as hard-wood floors, solid walls, fully operating kitchens, and live bands. The only tent-like aspect is the roof, which is hardly noticeable and seems to be a very thick plastic material.

The culture inside is mostly what I expected...lots of young people from other countries. I think the most common language there was English, which did come as a surprise. And obviously they become very crowded, noisy, and smoky place as the day progressed.

But here is a picture with my first liter.
And then it was gone...kind of like a before and after photo. Fortunately they had more.
For some unexplained reason, every now and then (half an hour or so) the sound of people rumbling would suddenly pick up and we would all stand , scream at nothing in particular, then toast and drink heavily. Kind of like "the wave" at football games, I found myself wondering who actually started these things.

Here is what it looked like.
And a video of the experience.

Apparently we left the Hoffbrau tent in the early afternoon (I don't recall this at all) and wandered into the Paulaner one. Oddly enough, no pictures were taken there...or anywhere else the entire rest of the evening for that matter. The moral of this story is: If you start drinking at 10am, make sure to eat plenty of food throughout the day.

I wake up the next morning in my hotel room and try to piece together what happened. Apparently I became separated (likely to be my fault) from the group but still managed to find my own way home. This might sound strangely familiar to those who know me.

For Oktoberfest, headaches are deemed as nothing but minor obstacles to be overcome through the consumption of more beer. And so we pulled ourselves out of bed and started all over again.

As promised, these next set of pictures come from the following day. I was unaware of this but apparently some people dress up for the event. My favorite is the nun.
I had received restaurant and brewery recommendations prior to my arrival, including one claiming one place to have "the best Hefeweizen he ever had". So my friend and I departed from the group and Oktoberfest tents and brewery-hopped around Munich instead. I wound up having a much better time this way because the beer was much better (and cheaper), the food was more plentiful, and the atmosphere resembled much more traditional German and less of a frat party.
NOTE: That last sentence was difficult to type because it made the author feel old.

This picture is in front of the IsarBräu house ("best Hefeweizen ever brewery"), which as you've noticed doesn't look like much except a brick building.
This is their front sign. I personally think they need to fire the person in charge of advertising.

To set the stage a little bit, I'd like to backtrack and lend a review of the beer inside the Oktoberfest tents. In short, it was surprisingly bad. First off, one could only order one of the following three items:
1) A beer
2) A non-alcoholic beer (I liken this option to those few souls to manage to score tickets to the Super Bowl while admitting they don't really like football)
3) A raddler (half beer, half lemonade). I think there is a mutual international understanding that men aren't supposed to order these.

And the "beer" choice was always a very light lager - kind of like a German equivalent of Bud Light. Very easy to drink one (or even five!), but never very flavorful or satisfying.

So with this as my backdrop, I was very excited to get to "the good stuff". As mentioned, our first stop was the IsarBräu and it did not disappoint. It mostly consisted of a restaurant with all the vats and other beer processes spread out in the corners. Here's the view coming in the front door.
And I finally got my local German Hefeweizen of which I am such a huge fan. My impression? Not the world's best, but likely to be in my top 3. Lets just say that smile is definitely real.
And these are probably the coolest yet most ridiculous place holders I've ever seen. Yes I think a case can be made for a bit of sexism here, but then again look at that smile...
We wound up staying for about 3 hours eating large quantities of food and trying every beer on the menu (my other favorite was the Dunklweizen, which is a dark yet sweeter Hefeweizen).

Our next stop, Augustiner, came as my partner in crime's suggestion and took us out of the boonies and back into downtown. The brewery also happens to be the oldest in the city and has been producing since 1328! More fantastic beer and food ensued.

We eventually left and were wandering the downtown streets, weaving in and out of shops looking for gifts when suddenly we found ourselves in front of the Paulaner pub, which so happens to make my favorite beer. Naturally, we strolled in and took a seat.

Here's a picture of the lively inside. After more talking and a couple pints I decided it still holds my top spot. After that we were spent and found our way home, but it was the perfect last place to stop off.
In the morning we pulled ourselves together and made our way to the airport, where I happened to notice a beer concession stand close by the ticket counter. By luck, it happened to be a small outlet for Erdinger which we had not found yet.
Upon closer inspection, temptation reared its ugly head...
And with a whole hour left before my flight, why would I possibly waste it without a beer in my hand?

Clearly I would chalk up the trip as a success. My one suggestion - for anyone coming to this festival seeking great beer, I would highly recommend leaving the tents behind for the actual breweries instead. And always remember to say "Prost" as the proper toast!

For additional pictures of debauchery, click here.