Travel

London, Dublin

The recent lack of posts in the blog are not a sign of disinterest but more a question of lack of proper access to blogging technology. In the last few days I have been in London and Dublin. London is one of my favourite cities in the world and I try to be there on a regular basis. This trip was a very brief visit and no real time to visit my friends who live there. So if you are reading this post please forgive me and I will be back.

Besides the usual stuff I managed to go running on Hamstead Heath which was a great early morning experience. Naturally I also managed to do a bit of street art spotting and I came across this one near Oxford circus showing the pointlessness of CCTV.

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I also think I spotted some Banksy from the taxi out but I could not be sure so it could be copies. Dublin is a great city and I have found lots of interesting stuff but I will have to write more later…

Posted on by mklang

Passing Through

Some of you may have noticed I ride a lot of trains. Not only have I done so but with my new job I will be on even more trains. I like trains (good thing too). Train stations, however, tend to be rather boring. Today I came across an interesting exception.

My journey from Kalmar to Lund included a 20 minute stop in Alvesta. Not really enough time for sightseeing but enough for a brief look at the station house. To my surprise not only was the station house a rather grand building on its own it also included a micro exhibition on Carl von Linneaus and a second hand bookshop.

Alvesta Station House in 1907

What can I say – I almost missed the connecting train…

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Creative Commons in Kalmar

Right now I am in Kalmar to present Creative Commons tomorrow. Kalmar is a very pretty old town in Sweden with both a castle and an walled old town. It also has a very impressive cathedral. The wikipedia page about Kalmar is rather good.

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Kalmar Castle

Most of the street art was political notices pushing the anti-fascists but I also came across this stencil in the old town – it is really very brutal.

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The text reads “This is your fault”

Stenciled on one of the shopping streets in Kalmar – it really makes you think about more than buying stuff…

 

Posted on by mklang

Exit Turkey

It’s the last day and my bags are half-packed. Yesterday I managed to spend a couple of hours in Istanbul and to take in some of the more obvious sites, experience the feel of the city and to generally be a tourist. Naturally there was no time for any longer exploration it was more a case of following the advice on this t-shirt I saw in the beginning of the week.

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The tour included notable sites like the Galata Tower, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar. All of which are incredible and leave a desire for further exploration. But I guess I should not complain as I was not even sure that I would finf the time to see any of the sights.

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The amazing Blue Mosque

Naturally there was a lot of people and culture watching and I even managed to find street art in Istanbul – it is very familiar and only goes to show that globalisation even entails a certain level of cultural uniformity – even in relation to counter cultures. I will put more Istabul street art on my Flickr site.

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Posted on by mklang

Turkey Images

The Sile campus is on a hilltop and the student room I am staying in has an excellent view of the Black Sea. Here is the sun rising over Sile.

Early Sile

Early

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Bit later

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Almost morning 😉

Posted on by mklang

Travel is amazing

Landing in Istanbul was uneventful but the ride to Sile was more exciting. Traffic is an interesting thing here. Driving along motorways filled with cars but no lights. Weaving among heavy lorries and small cars – bumper to bumper at between 100-130 km an hour gave the impression of a high-speed chase in a typical action movie. Most invigorating after the boredom of air travel.

The university campus at Sile is a large affair and I have been installed in a very nice student room overlooking the Black Sea. I can see a red crescent moon and hear the waves breaking on the beach. Across the bay are the lights of Sile town (I assume) and a lighthouse sweeps the bay.

This morning I saw ostriches on my morning jog – not something I was expecting…

Travel is amazing.

Posted on by mklang

Travel is a waiting game

Sitting in an airport looking at other people I realized that the whole thing with travel is all about the ability to wait. To make yourself relaxed and comfortable in unnatural, artificially priced environments. It’s easy to forget about this with all the exotic adventure propaganda being published.

Good travelers are not those who have stocked up on the latest air-sickness tablets and tourist-tummy pills but those who bring more than a magazine on a five hour flight, those who begin flights by politely ignoring people who are, in reality, sitting way way to close to each other. Seriously we don’t let people come this close unless they are family, lovers or medical staff.

Airport boredom can be relieved in many ways (one is blogging), work is another good method, reading, watching movies or simply counting the number of people who have white or red shoes. The only thing you don’t really want it is someone who is too bored to amuse themselves and therefore strike up conversations…

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Turkey tomorrow

Tomorrow I am off to Turkey to attend and teach on a course called Legal Aspects of the Information Society in Sile on the Black Sea. This is a great opportunity to meet some interesting people and to travel but there is one thing that really annoys me. Since I have just started on a new job I don’t really have the time to stay in Turkey. This means that I will not have time to explore Istanbul which is one of the cities that I have always wanted to explore.

Turkey, Istanbul, the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, Marmara Sea – all this evokes the exotic region to be explored. I have been totally fascinated by the region and its history since I read Michael Psellos‘ histories of the Byzantine emperors and lots of crusader literature. This fascination continued and I almost wrote my masters thesis in maritime law on the transportation of oil through the narrow straights of the Bosphorus. But in the end my thesis was on IT law – despite this my fascination remained.

Despite the fact that I will have no time to spend in Istanbul I cannot help myself. I have bought an Istanbul guidebook and I am reading Orhan Pamuk’s amazing book Istanbul –

Reading about a city which I will be crossing but not exploring is a peculiar form of masochism but I think the root lies in the desperate hope that somehow I will find time to see something of the city.

Posted on by mklang

Discovering Lund

Yesterday I managed to arrange my sleeping quarters in Lund. I am now sharing an apartment in the center of town. I also managed to get an office so I am beginning to feel like the practical elements of life are falling into place. Since I could stop worrying and did not have to catch a train I spent some time exploring the town yesterday. Like all cities Lund has its secrets and I am looking forward to uncovering a few of them.

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Found on a wall in Lund…

Posted on by mklang

Sunrise on the Malmö Express

There is something special about seeing the sunrise while sitting on a train. Rushing past the waking countryside and towns. Sitting motionless on a fast moving train watching the inaction of life outside. The Göteborg-Malmö line has not been part of my regular travels. Most of my trains have been in the east-west direction (Göteborg-Malmö) but now with the new job this trip is going to be a regular weekly event – So it’s kind of important that it’s a nice ride.

It was a long time since I had a first day at school after a summer vacation. You remember the feeling? New pencils and paper, maybe new clothes. A kind of anxious excitement about returning to the familiar routines. This is new and exciting. Even though I have no new lunch-box or pencil case 🙂

It also feels great to be breaking out of old routines and doing something new. It reminds me of the poem The Road not Taken by Robert Frost – OK so I had to look up the poem but I did remember the punchline

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Posted on by mklang