Gerade höre ich vom Erdbeben in Japan, und der anschliessenden Explosion, die zu einem Austritt von Radioaktivität führte. Ich musste sofort an "Die Wolke" denken.
Erinnert sich noch jemand an das Buch, dass 1988 von Gudrun Pausewang erschien? Das war kurz nach Tschernobyl und ich 14 Jahre alt. Ich erinnere mich nicht mehr an die Details, aber es war eines der Bücher, die mich am Meisten mitgenommen haben.
Ich glaube es gibt auch einen Film dazu, den ich aber nie gesehen habe. Ist der sehenswert?
Ahh, und von wegen, sowas kann in Deutschland nicht passieren, da es hier keine so heftigen Erdbeben gibt: Obwohl natürlich noch keiner nichts genaues weiss… Der Schaden kam wohl nicht als direkte Folge des Erbebens, sonder laut BBC:
An attempt to explain the risk to the Fukushima nuclear plants following the earthquake: The plants are designed to shut down automatically, which halts the main nuclear fission reaction, but there is a residual amount of intense heat within the system. Back-up generators should kick in to power the cooling mechanisms needed to dissipate that heat – but if they fail, as appears to have happened here, temperatures rise. If this isn’t stopped, the reactor vessel itself could eventually melt and leak.
Ein anderer Report sagt, dass die Notstromaggregate angesprungen wären, aber nach einer Stunde aus (der Öffentlichkeit) unbekannten Gründen wieder abschalteten.
Heute ist in Schweden "Fettisdagen" (aka Fat Tuesday, Mardis Gras, oder Fastnacht). Und in dieser Zeit gibt es "Semlor". Eine Semla ist im Grunde ein riesiger Windbeutel, der mit Sahne und Mandelmasse gefüllt ist.
Habe heute in Göteborg an der Uni ein Semlafrukost gehabt, ein richtig leichtes Frühstück. Ummpf. :-). Lecker!
I feel like Tom Hanks in "Terminal" now, having come back from the worst trip, I ever did. At 50h journey from St.Louis to Zurich, with a 30h stopover in London Heathrow. And I am lucky, I just got away, as the airport seems to have been closed for the next 2-3 days after I left.
All began on my way back when BAA took 30 minutes to position some stairs at our aircraft, so we could disembark. This meant, my connection flight to Zurich (which still left on time) was gone. And around this time snow hell started in Europe. I was rebooked on a flight to Frankfurt instead (which suited me well, as I had planned to visit my family in Germany anyway). That flight was first displayed as "on time", then as "2h delayed", then as "on time" again. Half an hour before boarding started, its status went to "cancelled". So were basically all other flights to Sweden, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany. So, I rebooked on the next flight to Frankfurt a few hours later. This one was cancelled too. So, I was rebooked on the next flight, leaving the next morning, which meant I would be spending the night at the airport.
I tried to book a hotel (250£), no luck all booked out. They called various other hotels, no luck either. So I slept on the marble floor in the airport (the rows of chairs all have screwed on handholds, so you can’t lie on a few chairs). At 2.30am some airport employees offered me a yoga mat and an aluminium foil blanket which I gladly took (the floor was really cold).
The next morning I tried to board another plane to Frankfurt. We sat grounded in the plane for 3 hours until they announced that the flight was cancelled. So I was rebooked to a flight to Paris, which was soon after cancelled. So I was rebooked on a flight to Milano (with the possibility to continue to Frankfurt or Zurich from there).
Our plane left half an hour late and while driving to the runway it started snowing. After 5 minutes of snow, at the starting position on the runway hour start was aborted (NOOO, that was close!!!). Back to the gate and Waiting for deicing: Another 4h in a plane on the ground. Fortunately, we then started to Milano, arriving with a 4.5h delay. One out of 2 Milano airports were already closed when landing. HURRAY, away from LHR!!!
Of course all connecting flights in Milano cancelled. I gave up on flying, managed barely to get the very last train to Zurich. Why do neither ticket vendors nor conductors in international trains speak at least a tiny bit of English in Italy? Thanks Giulia for helping me get a ticket (twice as expensive as Swiss rail suggested. By now I didn’t care about money anymore).
I made it home at 1am, after exactly 50h of traveling, and 30h in Lon. Heathrow. I have 11 boarding cards, organized 5 rebookings to Zurich, Frankfurt, Paris, OR Milano and passed the security check 6 times in Heathrow alone.
While I can’t blame anyone for bad wheather, I missed my first flight (which was on time) because BAA did not manage to get some stairs to our plane in LHR for 30 minutes after us being in final position! Also had 200€ of lost expenses for hotels and trains I never took. What a horror.
Today, I saw a logo and followed the link to the official Belgian Ministry of Justice website. Yes, the thing on the very left is their logo. What does it look like to you? Rorschach test! If you see a women’s string with an “look here” arrow pointing to sensitive areas, you should either:
visit your local Psychoanalyst who is well versed in Freudian issues and/or
sue the heck out of the Belgians for objectification of women (or whatnot).
Seit heute wird mein Alter auf 40 Jahre aufgerundet. Gestern habe ich meinen Stromadapter nach der Vorlesung liegengelassen. Besteht da ein Zusammenhang?
(Den Adapter wiederzuholen hat nur 3 Stunden gedauert, da wegen Personenschaden und Stellwerkstörung ein S-Bahn Chaos herrschte.)
My optician had warned me: Don’t expose your glasses to excessive heat. Yeah, one of those superfluous security warnings like: "Do not iron while wearing shirt." Right?
Wrong, as it turns out. I went to the sauna, reading a newspaper. The sauna had 105° rather than the advertised 90° (I should probably sue those bastards). As it turns out that was enough to produce a flurry of small cracks on the surface of my glasses. It took a while to recognize this as my glasses are usually so dirty that they always look like that. But what the fuck? A hundred degrees celcius destroy that piece of craftsmanship. I bet Leornado da Vinci made better glasses. That makes a 400 CHF fee for not listening to my optician or seeing the world in a blur. Which might not be such a bad choice after all.
Oliver liebt Nudeln, und er weiss genau dass man “Körner” zu “Mehl” mahlt, aus dem man “Teig” macht. Und dass Pasta nicht nur aus der Tüte kommen, sondern auch aus Teig gemacht werden können, weiss er jetzt auch.
Today I met Michal Juraska, the former exchange student who stayed at my uncle’s place for a year. The world is small, isn’t it? He is a nice guy and speak near-perfect German after 9 nears of abstinence. He might take me on a hiking trip on Saturday (he tried climbing first, but my Burger-filled body is not up to that task…)
Random curious impressions: Even Hawaiian Burgers contain Teriyaki Ham and "Swiss". What defines Swiss Cheese, I wonder? Ketchup does not go with fries automatically, one has to order it. Teriyaki is my fate, I cannot avoid it.
Wedgwood Ale house has both motherly waiters that greets regulars like they are family members and cool, baseball-cap donning and toothpick chewing waiters for people like me. It does have some advantage though (besides being a few blocks from my home), it features "Steam Train Porter" — a robust dark ale is brewed with Chocolate, Brown and Crystal malts that give it chocolate and raosted coffe flavors.
Also, I do note that I am getting old. My favorite radio station is KJR FM, the Seattle station that plays 50s-70s music. Oh my…
This is the garden of my apartment that I have rented. I have to say that sitting out in the shade and working with a laptop is not that bad at all. And yes, that is a cat on the bridge. :-). We need it to fight the mouse in the house that got in yesterday…
On a related note… I miss my family…
I miss them (Almut too, even if not on this picture :-))
