Flogg

But this one is nice and short:
http://skepdic.com/theist

05:00 Wake up (at friend's place in San Francisco Bay Area), get dressed, pack
05:15 Friends father arrives to give ride to airport
05:30 Drive to airport
05:35 Remember you forgot your glasses, go back, search
05:45 Declare the glasses lost for now and have them mailed later
05:55 Take wrong highway, lose orientation a bit
06:20 Check in, go to gate, be bored because you're early after all
06:30 Board
07:00 Flight is delayed a bit
07:20 Take off
08:10 Land in LA
08:45 Leave airport, there are no signs for the subway (which we later found out exists, but is relatively uselees) or similar, ground transportation is equivalent to shuttle buses provided by hotels or car rental agencies
09:00 Arrive at National car rental, grab a small map of LA, no cars available, regret spending the last week not preparing the trip
09:05 Arrive at Alamo car rental next door, rent car at self-service counter, surprisingly cheap at 30 $ per day including taxes
09:07 Machine asks for ticket number for departing flight, human clerk clarifies this information is vital to maintain of the cars (ridiculous), friend has to call mother to find out his flight confirmation number
09:12 As expected machine accepts machine accepts number without checking it (How could it possibly check it?), get printed rental agreement from machine
09:20 Pick car, find keys in the car, be confused about company's security priorities
09:30 Drive off, show rental agreement to human security guard at exit
09:40 Realize driving around is a great and the only feasible way to explore LA, be content about decision to rent a car
10:00 Arrive at hostel in West hollywood, flip through tour flyers to get an idea what to do
10:30 Drive around, see Beverly Hills, Hollywood, famous streets
11:00 Drive around, get breakfast on Sunset Boulevard, read flyers, plan day
11:03 Regret spending the last week not preparing the trip, find some pointers what to do in descriptions of sight-seeing tours
11:40 Drive downtown, realize that LA is huge, Hollywood is a tiny area on the map, downtown is about 10 km away, and even with that extra distance the area is still tiny
12:20 Walk around at Gehry-build Disney Concert Hall, parking is charged in 1 1/2 minute intervals but fortunately the meter is broken
12:50 Drive around some more, decide to go to Venice Beach (The weather is fantastic, the sun is a bit too strong though, even with sun glasses.)
13:30 Parking at Venice Beach is hard, people leave their cars before the beach is in sight, fortunately the spot we pick has a broken meter
13:45 Venice Beach is great, long beach, warm water, nice waves, lots of little shops and entertainment possibilities, of course everybody else knows that too
14:00 Sleep at beach
16:00 Go swimming
16:15 Go for a walk along the beach
16:45 Walk to car, drive to Malibu beach
17:30 Malibu is a long stretch of nice beaches but nothing else, stay in car, head back to Hollywood along array of canyon road that eventually lead to Mulholland Drive
18:30 Arrive at end of Mulholland Drive which flyers had mentioned at giving great scenic views
18:45 Mulholland Drive is not paved anymore, becomes dirt road, good thing rental cars don't have to be washed before returning, preliminary evening plans become void due to lower speed though
19:15 Mulholland Drive is closed off, continue walking on foot for a bit
19:20 Watch most beautiful sunset over Northern LA hills (looking away from Hollywood), be happy about reaching great overlook just a few minutes before sunset
19:30 Drive back to go via freeway, realize there was a good reason why no other car had taken the Mulholland Drive at intersection
19:45 Realize we will parking spot for the night, wonder whether sleeping the car would have been the better option (Car: 30 $ per day plus - as it turned out - 30 $ for gas; bed in hostel dorm room: 30 $ per person)
20:00 Arrive at Hollywood just in time to catch Hollywood Bowl evening traffic
20:30 Arrive at hostel, feel stupid for not realizing ourselves that a hostel in LA of course has its own parking lot
21:00 Walk along Melrose strip, get good dinner
22:15 Walk to Hollywood Boulevard, check out Walk of Fame and Grauman's theaters, get a feel for LA Saturday night clubbing atmosphere
00:00 Walk back to hostel
01:00 Go to bed
09:00 Wake up, shower, have "breakfast" (Orbit hotel & hostel's interpretation of breakfast: a pack of cheap bread, three glasses with butter, jam and peanout butter, two kinds of cereal; all guarded and handed out by an employee intimidating people who might get second servings)
10:00 Start driving towards the East end of Mulholland Drive
10:30 Drive along Mulholland Drive, enjoy great scenic views to the North, discuss which of the houses is more fantastic to live in
11:00 Turn back, enjoy even better views, continue driving to beginning of Mulholland Drive (It's a long road.)
11:30 Stop at little park for a short hike, enjoy fantastic view over LA from Hollywood to downtown and further
12:00 Decide to go to Getty Museum
12:30 Arrive at Getty Center entrance, realize many people had the same idea: two lanes of cars slowly progress across the traffic lights before the entrance and wait there even longer at the entrance of the parking lot (The museum is free but parking costs 8 $, and printing the receipt takes a while even if you pay in exact change.)
12:45 Park car, go to entrance
12:50 Realize that museum is at the top of the hill and can only be reached from the parking lot via tram, wait in queue for tram, start worrying about making return flight
13:05 Board tram, be annoyed that they only admit one person per seat even though the cars are cleared to more passengers
13:10 Arrive at Getty museum, be stunned how beautiful the buildings, the gardens, and the views are, start regretting not having come earlier, go straight to the special exhibition of Bernini busts
13:35 Leave Bernini exhibition being hugely impressed and regretting not having more time, agree that even the short visit was worh the wait
14:15 Get gas, use time to pack loose stuff in car
14:20 Return car, catch shuttle bus to the airport
14:30 Arrive at airport just in time for friend to catch 15:00 flight

Air Singapore: Great. Complimentary tooth brush and paste and socks, good food, nice-looking uniforms. It's amazing how the technology keeps improving: They even offered a port for USB sticks and word processing features (Open office).

Air New Zealand: Lame. The food left me hungry. And I got bored by the entertainment program after a few hours only to find out after switching planes that the second part of the trip would have the same program. I just hope my trans-atlantic flight will have a different program.

I really had to think for a few minutes and eventually took out my ticket to figure out how it works. Every time I find it confusing, just like half moons.

Incredibly amazingly beautiful.

Fraser island is an 120 km x 30 km island consisting only of sand, which has accumulated enough nutrients to admit a rain forest vegetation and sustain great animal wildlife (i.e., dingoes at the beach). Even the ferry to the island can only be accessed with four-wheel drives, and on the island the beach serves as the only major road. I was most impressed by the lakes like Lake Wabby: After wandering across a big sand dune that is about 1 km in diameter and enclosed by rainforest, you find a totally clear fresh water lake between rainforest and sand dune.

The Great Barrier Reef is simply a must-see. I also found out that scuba diving is the only way how I want to spent time in salt water. After paying 200 A$ for a trip to the outer reef and one 30 minute dive, every other dive costs 40 A$. I bought two more, which is the maximum number possible on that tour. I hardly even considered snorkeling as an alternative.
Somewhat surprisingly to me, scuba diving even as a beginner is easy and safe - at least if you go at most 10 m deep, which is totally enough at a coral reef anyway. Unfortunately, no pictures because I focussed on experiencing it myself without being bothered by carrying a camera (45 A$ to rent for a day). I don't like buying the pictures they take of you - even if they were cheaper, it would still feel like cheating.

Rain forest: I went with Tropical Horizon Tours to Cape Tribuation, which turned out to be an excellent choice. The company applies themselves to become number one in the area, and they deserve it. I could have easily spent the whole at Mossman Gorge just hanging out and wading in the creek. And the Daintree Discovery Centre is great: They provide walkways and platforms within a patch of rain forest that let one experience the trees from the ground until above the canopy (about 25 m difference).

Two boring and irrelevant towns that are only needed as departure points.

I suppose Brisbane is kind of nice for a vacation, but the hostels there ruined it for the whole city. I had to check 5 hostels before finding one that charged lass than 90 A$ for one night in a single room. And the one I found sent me up to the fifth floor (elevator to the fourth) until my key worked. (Only the guys in the Yellow Submarine hostel were nice, apologizing for their inappropriate internet connection and recommending a competitor instead.)

One hostel didn't even admit me because I didn't have a backpack with me. They actually have a policy only to admit people with a full size traveller's backpack. The arguments that a small trolley suitcase is about the same size, easier to carry, and has the additional advantage of fitting the airplane cabin luggage restrictions were useless because the guys at the counter had no authority to make exceptions.

And then I was only allowed 4 minute showers in Brisbane because they are out of water. Stupid - if you don't have enough water, don't build the town there.

In Cairns I secured a night in a hostel first and then went out to search for a nice hotel. That turned out to be hard with all places I could find in an hour (about 10) being either too cheap or too expensive and mostly booked fully anyway.

A funny story from one of the finest hotels: A foreigner in front of me in the line who didn't speak much English tried to get a room by first inquiring about the price. The woman at the reception kept asking for his room number to which he replied that he doesn't have one. That went back and forth several times for a few minutes until the girl finally told him the price. When he asked if he could have a room, she answered that they are full.

Finally I gave up, went back to my room, and searched on the internet. I found a very good and cheap hotel around the corner within 10 minutes.

It's ridiculously expensive. I had to pay 10 A$ to drive four metro stops from the airport downtown, and that's already the student discount. Changing money was an ordeal with highly adjusted exchange rates (up to 5 % worse than market rate, even 10 % at the airport) and at least 6 A$ commission on every exchange. I got 88 A$ when A$ 100 would have been the market rate.

Spontaneously, I asked for the cheapest ticket in the opera house and it was 67 A$. Even the New York Met is cheaper. Since the opera (Don Giovanni) was already a quarter over, I thought I might get a discount, but no chance either. Strangely, when I was about to leave, the teller mentioned a 40 A$ ticket, but immediately clarified that the seats are so bad that nobody should take them. So I didn't.

2 people offered help spontaneously when I was looking for the way to my hotel. And when I went for a walk in the evening, I was asked for directions twice.

Tempertature was as low as 10 °C. I actually wore my hat to be warm instead of to protect myself from the sun.

They seem to be very proud of the opera house and the harbour bridge. Admittedly, both are great. But I couldn't help getting the impression that the city tries to compete out of its league with cities like New York or Paris. Seeing the bridge and the opera on every postcard or tourist guide, I just had to conclude that they have nothing else to show.

Somehow it was very easy to find my way around, much easier than in Singapure even though it's bigger.

Interestingly, the internet is most strictly censored among all the democracies. I couldn't find any blocked sites though.

There are convenience stores at every corner, selling crappy unhealthy products. And except for 7 Eleven stores, the products aren't labelled with prices so that you have to go to counter and ask for the price whenever you are interested in buying something.

On average, the food is as unhealthy as in the US.
However, there is no US-like health frenzy, which would provide the careful customer with healthy products. (In fact it has never been as easy to buy good and healthy food as in the US.) I heard that Australia is the most obese nation in the world, and having shopped there, it sounds totally plausible to me.

Bad bread seems to be a universal problem. Or maybe it's restricted to the former British colonies. In any case, I couldn't good bread anywhere.

The famous Australian mentality was quite annoying. For example, I had a company (Goana Adventures) cancel a trip that I had already paid for with two days notice. The reason was simply that they hadn't sold enough spots to make it worth their while. After complaining they put on a comparable trip with a different company. I still have to see that I get some of the money back.

Companies make you sign the most extreme release forms: Before climbing the Sydney harbour bridge, I had to grant them permission to do whatever they want with the pictures they take of me during the tour. A tour company made their customers sign that they will not get their money back if the tour is cancelled.

There are so many Germans that it's almost ridiculous. I talked to more Germans than Australians. Also the automated reasoning conference I attended was German-dominated with 9 out 39 papers German (France 7, UK and US 5 each).

Australian English is weird. As a general rule: If you have to inquire several times before understanding something as simple as "How are you", then you're talking to an Australian. Otherwise, he's probably German.

The typical Australian greeting is "Hi mite" (where "mite" is their pronunciation of "mate").

You can fly domestically without showing an ID. And security controls are quite weak.

Internet is noticably slower than anywhere else I've been.

The coins are the stupidest I have ever seen. The 2 A$ coin is tiny and heavy and considerably smaller than the 1 A$ coin and most other coins. The 50 Ac and 20 Ac, on the other had, are so huge that you really have to get rid of them fast in order to keep your wallet size bearable.

Food was forbidden not only in trains but even in my dorm room.

And taking off your shoes is so common in Asia that you even do it at the entrance of your dorm. I found forbidding even slippers annoying though.

The city is surprisingly small. I often walked too far because it looked bigger on the map. Especially the streets on the two sides of a river or canal have different names and look quite a bit apart on the map, can look like one big street in reality. Sometimes their way of using street signs is confusing though; I couldn't quite find out why.

A quick internet censorship test revealed all porn sites blocked, but not much else. The error page only mentions problems and doesn't give a feedback form like the one in Dubai.

The ethnic neighborhoods (Chinese, Arab, Indian) are great for shopping and eating. And their atmosphere is lovely until late at night. The same holds for the entertainment district right in the center along the Singapore river.

Due to the lack of homogeneous ethnicity and the high standard of politics and economy, the country is quite easy and interesting to emigrate to. Also its location is central in the fast-growing South-East Asian region.

The two favorite pastimes of Singaporeans are said to be shopping and eating, and both are indeed great here. For example, the Indian food is fantastic, and high quality electronics are cheap.

The good impression one gets about Singapore starts at the airport: no queues, good maps and guides, an employee offering help with operating the metro ticket machine before you've figured out where the machine is.

The metro is organized marvellously: Metro lines are named according to the direction they go (e.g., North-South line); stops have names and are numbered consecutively; it runs frequently enough to make time tables redundant; and it is cheap at 1 € for an average ride.

Singapore is right at the equator, and the climate is a wonderful constant 30 °C. Contrary to the much hotter and deserty Dubai, the city enjoys regular rain fall and consequently a rich tropical vegetation. Most streets are lined by palms and singing birds.

A visitor to Singapore also notices the extreme legal system first. My favorite fine is this one: 500 € if you stand too close to the tracks when the metro train enters the station. And the immigration form states outright: "Mandatory death penalty to drug trafickers".

The drug laws are especially weird. Technically, if someone slips you drugs into your drink before you fly to Singapore and you only change planes in Singapore, you are still a drug traficker. Or more realistically, a panicking traficker might dump his drugs on you when he sees the police arriving.

However, these fines are not always enforced: Gum is now available, and most pedestrians cross red lights.

On the plus side, Singapore is one of the safest, cleanest, least corrupt, and best-organized cities in the world. And it combines the advantages of good climate and democratic, liberal order like no other country in the world.

Singapore is in fact a democracy, albeit one with a UK-like majority voting system and only one major party. Its programme consists of social democracy and economic liberality which is actually quite nice.

Two nice things I picked up reading the local newspaper. Firstly, there are two pages for a section entitled "United Kingdom" and one page for the section "Europe".

And secondly, the main local news had a big feature on "public acts of intimacy" on the public beaches. Apparently, couples can be found "kissing" and "in intimate embrace" after sunset because the police patrol only checks every two hours. The funniest thing is that I was totally unable to tell whether

• the quoted phrases were euphemisms for sex or meant literally,


• the article was outraged about the immoral behavior, parodying the strict laws, or neutrally reporting an interesting fact.

In buses women sit in the front. In general there are not many local women visible in the streets.

It is hardly possible to get your laundry done within 24 hours. There are no laundromats, and the only laundry service with express option would have charged 20 € for about 1 kg of clothes.

They don't use what we call arabic numerals, they use a totally different font. I wonder whether we changed the font after we got the decimal system from them or whether they changed it.

Condoms are sold openly in supermarkets, they are locked behind glass though like we do with cigarettes.

Within only two hours of normal internet surfing, I hit two censored pages: the Skype homepage (although once downloaded somehow, Skype works normally) and some online gaming site whose name I forgot.

That intrigued my scientific mind, so I tried around a bit, but I only found out that all porn sites are blocked, including, e.g., the Google query "pron".

Some meta-research revealed that they block all sites related to sex (including, e.g., dating sites), gaming, religious conversion, and drugs. Political sites are not affected though.

Both illuminating and shockingly childish is their treatment of Israel: All *.il sites are blocked indiscriminately.

The strangest thing about their internet censorship is that it is not done as a secret violation of citizen's rights, which is how I've always thought of it. Rather, they do it as a public service to protect their citizens from inappropriate content with a majority in favor of it. There is even a feedback form to request that a page be unblocked.

A stunning argument in favor of the claim that Arab societies are in a pre-enlightened stage.

The modern areas are very impressive: 7-star hotels, the tallest building in the worlds, artificial ski parks in the middle of the desert, or huge water entertainment parks right next to the ocean. In fact they are not only impressive, they are pretentious, an obvious, obtrusive, and successful attempt to display wealth and luxury.

The whole city is strangely foggy, maybe it's sand in the air. I don't think it's smog because there are no factories. I didn't even need sun glasses.

Bus tickets are very cheap amounting to 40 cents for any ride. Buses go somewhat unreliably, e.g., buses simply don't stop if they are already full. But in general it's still much better than, e.g., in Pittsburgh.

They don't seem to have many great people to name things after. A few names are reused a lot.

It's one of the most multinational cities in the world with lots of people emigrating or visiting from other Arab countries, Asia, and Africa. (Of course, for a superficial citizen of the developed Western world, the effect is not so big because, more or less, those countries can all be lumped together).

Outside it's hot and humid: 40 °C throughout the day. It doesn't matter whether one is in the shade or not - the air is so hot that the whole country is an oven.

Inside it's cold and windy: Every room is air-conditioned down to 20 °C, even rooms that go to the street without doors. Even the bus stops are air-conditioned.

I alternated between sweating my clothes wet and freezing in the A/C drafts. In my hotel room I finally managed to get a good temperature going by switching on the A/C and opening the windows (but that didn't work at night).

In the traditional areas, it's cramped, hectic, crowded. Stores are only a few meters wide, döner grills are sometimes operated on the sidewalk. (Both doesn't exactly help with the temperature problem.)
The water at the beaches, on the other hand, has the perfect temperature - even after sunset.

You can tell that the Arabs are merchants: lots of stores everywhere specializing in all kind of weird combinations of products. Some stores are simply labelled "general trading", and wholesale-only traders don't have offices, but operate stores as well.

The sold items are almost exclusively imported from China, India, US, or Europe - household appliances, clothes, produced food. Only fresh food seems to be locally produced and is as cheap as the imported goods are expensive.
The hard-to-find traditional and Arab markets turned out to be normal malls with some stores specializing on traditional/Arabian goods. Even some of the traditional goods were imported.

The Indian food was good.
The windoes in the student dormitory rooms were not fully openable (for "hygiene and security").

Well, I spent most of the time at the conference, really. They had a cool gift this time: A pen that's also a laser pointer and that contains a USB stick.

I wanted to write this weeks ago, but I found the time only now.

However, by now I've forgotten most of the impressions. I do remember these:

It's not uncommon that a bathroom is so small that several steps back and forth are needed to get in and close the door. Doing that without touching anything can become quite complicated.

Taking the cheapest possible hotel turned out to be fine. Although it was weird to be in a hotel with only a mobile phone number and a concierge taking only cash, which he stores in his pants pocket.

Contrary to our initial plans, we went to the zoo in the beautiful Jardin des Plantes and ended up having only a few hours for the Louvre. We didn't regret that at all. Seeing the Mona Lisa means nothing compared to hand-feeding a Pudu (see below for the links).

The waxy monkey tree frog is cool:


The croissants are incredibly good. How can Germany be next to France without importing the knowledge how to do that?

The city is generally nice, more relaxed than and not as smogged as London. It stinks though in spite of a lot of free public toilets.

Vom Christival in Bremen

This store for bags and similar accessoires is terrible: They sold us an umbrella that broke after 30 minutes and refused to take it back.

Since the employee only spoke French and we only spoke German or English, we were unable to get anywhere. The only thing he could say in English was "no guarantee".

Maybe he thought people who don't speak French don't deserve their legal rights, let alone customer service.