A few interesting notes from Praha:
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I forgot to mention this documentary when I saw it a few weeks ago, but you should definitely check it out if you have a chance. It is beyond fascinating; it’s one of the most riveting documentaries I have ever seen. This is the sort of thing you usually see in the movies, complete with media manipulation, massive public unrest, and a tremendously popular leader. It’s like a Tom Clancy novel, except 100% real. Thanks to the BBC, I was able to see it in the comfort of my own flat.
Check out this synopsis: “While shooting a documentary on Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, an Irish film crew found themselves caught in the middle of an attempted coup by opposition leaders and members of the military.”
I’m telling you, this movie is excellent! It looks like it’s opening in Los Angeles at the end of November. It is already open at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. (Mom and Dad? Get some friends together and have another one of your movie nights.)
This morning at 05:45, I am leaving with almost all the Cal Poly crew (31 of 32 of us) to go to Prague. I’m pretty darn excited; I know very little about Eastern Europe, and I figure there’s no better way to learn than to go there!
I’ll try to keep you all appraised of the happenings there; we’ll see about Internet usage. And, of course, I’m taking my camera.
Our humanities professor, John Makey, took us to the National Army Museum today. We spent the entire time there in a presentation given by a military historian, and it was absolutely fascinating. He gave a much more real view of what was actually running through the minds of the soldiers in WWI than I got from surveying the numerous artifacts and plaques at the Imperial War Museum.Read the rest of this entry »
It appears that some researchers at the University of Calgary may have discovered a tremendously beneficial use of a naturally-occuring virus called a reovirus. There’s a FAQ on the subject.
This is incredible, incredible news! Almost everyone has apparently already been exposed to the virus, with no more than cold-like symptoms. It’s almost entirely harmless and it appears to have the ability to kill two thirds of cancers. Perhaps we can put the blunt instruments of radiation and chemotherapy behind us!
I have an essay do tomorrow in my Poly Sci class. I do not like my teacher at all. Mostly because she is stupid. And our book is outrageously bad. (One really begets the other, I guess.)
Case in point: IR: The New World of International Relations defines a ‘system’ as ‘something composed of many components.’
This is on page 5 of the book. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Crappy book or not, I’ll be done with my essay reviewing the recent John Pilger film “Breaking the Silence” very soon. And then: sleep.
I am in the process of booking the rest of my travels. I’m going to Ireland with Michelle at the beginning of December and Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam with Jordan and Rob during my last week here. So, naturally, I’ve been looking at airline prices pretty in-depth recently.
I have been absolutely amazed by how much and how often the prices fluctuate. Today, I looked into prices for Dublin. RyanAir had the best fares at £51.42, after taxes and airport charges. I discussed it with Michelle and we decided I should buy the tickets tonight. When I finally got around to it, the price had dropped to £43.93.
Yesterday, I booked a flight from Amsterdam to London Gatwick for €54.49. Now the same flight costs €75.49. [EDIT: And when I checked again the morning of 4 Nov, the price had dropped again to €47.99. Looks like I should have taken a slightly more long-term approach to buying these tickets.]
I was also able to take advantage of a special deal from British Midlands for a Heathrow-Paris CDG flight for only £9 (£28.80 after charges and taxes). That fare goes back up on the 4th.
Granted, you can’t save money by spending it. But damn if it doesn’t feel good to get a deal!
First of all, please note that I’ve finally put up the pictures from Italy and Greece. I still haven’t written down everything that happened to me in those 5 days I couldn’t get access to a computer, but I’ll get to that eventually.
Tonight I went to a FREE concert at the Notting Hill Arts Club. There were to be five acts, but when I got there I discovered that the two bands I’d never heard of had decided not to come. So I heard Crooked Fingers, Azure Ray and Her Space Holiday.Read the rest of this entry »
Today being Halloween, I went out with some people. We left at 22:00; apparently, bars here close at 23:00. We got down to Picadilly Circus by 22:30, but it took us until 22:45 to find the people we were supposed to meet there. Then we had to decide where to go. Someone wanted to go to Soho, but no one really knew where that was. We stumbled onto it and found a club some people wanted to go to, but the cover was £6. The group split up, then split again. I wound up back here by 0:00.
But I did get a great piece of sponge cake at a little Chinese bakery! It was nummers, and not too terribly expensive. Topped with pineapple jelly. Mmmmm....
Mmmmm.
M.
I got a package from my mom today! It’s been sitting there for awhile, I fear, so I hope it isn’t anything perishable. I’m going to open it right now!
It’s... It’s.....Read the rest of this entry »
I can’t remember hearing anything about this at the time, but it appears that a man was arrested in 2001 for taking part in the largest attempted scam ever. It involved counterfeit US Treasury bonds, and the man and his associates were apparently going to try to pocket $2.5 trillion! Here I am, trying not to spend a single pound I don’t need to, and this guy was going to have more money than the entire world’s gold reserves.
Asshole.