Don’t hate me for making this another tiresome photoblog post.

The night we arrived in Hong Kong, we caught a late train home from the airport and spent a long time walking through the city, trying to find our hotel. There were many latenight street shot opportunities.

I think I took some of my best pictures while just moseying around the streets, far too late at night, in this ghost town. There is no life in Hong Kong, it seemed to me during my all-too-brief stay, at night. But maybe I traditionally look for the wrong signs of life.

And then there are the mandatory skyline shots. Can’t go to Hong Kong and not take pictures of all the tall buildings, right? I particularly like this one, because it’s taken from up on the mountain, and shows how snugly the dense city hugs the hillside. There isn’t much wasted space in Hong Kong, at least not on Central Island.

And then, a staple of any tourist in Hong Kong: we had to stick around the bay one evening to see the Symphony of Lights. It was underwhelming, to be nice. But then, I’ve been craving some caving paintings as of late.

It sounds odd, but I think what I got most out of this trip was that I finally learned how to use a camera. Beginning on the second day or so of the trip, I got the balls to put my camera on manual. I don’t think I would have gotten a lot of the shots I did had I not had the courage to try this out.

So, looking good into the future!

Many more pictures here and here.

Image source: Wikipedia

On a whim, I bought a plane ticket to Hong Kong. Alcohol may or may not have played a role in the decision.

Originally the plan was to use Hong Kong as a gateway to China, and travel onward to Guangzhou, Shanghai, Kaifeng, and the Shaolin temple in Zhengzhou, but from what it looks like, visas for American citizens are at this time in my life prohibitively expensive. Maybe next time!

So I’ll be going to Hong Kong with three friends from here, all Americans—our Taiwanese friends are not exactly doing backflips about our desire to go to China—one of whom lived in China for 3 years (in Kaifeng, actually).

We’ll make sure to hit up Macau, too, as Hong Kong might not be enough to entertain us for 5 days. Although I’m really looking forward to seeing the Tian Tan Buddha in all its monstrous glory.

Image source: Tian Tan Buddha by Oye-sensei

It will be a marvellous time.

For the coming weekend my university here has organized a trip to Taipei for all the international students. I should get to meet a fair number of people. I hear there are some Dutch and French people, as well as lots from various Southeast Asian countries, so it should be a pleasant time.

I’ve saved many Taipei activities for this trip, as at least some of it will be on the school’s tab. That said, here are a few things I was lucky enough to see on my last trip.

Upon arriving to the city, I was able to bear witness to a gorgeous sunset.

I love the motion of the bicyclist in this picture.

The plan was originally to make it to Taipei 101 in time to photograph the mountains in sunset, but it took a while to get to that part of town. By the time I did get to it, it was fully dark, so I just took pictures of the outside of the building, rather than paying to go all the way to the time.

There was a splendid foot court in the basement complex, though. I wasn’t as adventuresome as I usually am in terms of food, because I saw fried rice and noodles and went wild, and everything was about US$1 a plate. Hell, yeah!

Nighttime is a great time to wander around and snap pics of things and places I can’t identify, but are pretty.

Sorry I’ve been tossing together only photo posts with very little narrative or speculative content. Things are fun here and there is much beauty of all kinds. Still sorting through all of that.

]]> http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/02/a-small-taste-of-taipei/feed/ 4 http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/09/27/typhoon-season-aint-over-yet/ http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/09/27/typhoon-season-aint-over-yet/#comments Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:55:45 +0000 Conor http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/?p=617 Despite the assurances of the Taiwanese students I’ve spoken with here that no more storms would find us this year, there’s another typhoon coming. This one looks substantially scarier than the last one, Hagupit, which didn’t even bring rain to the northern part of the island. Meet Super Typhoon Jangmi. (All pictures from Wunderground.)

As you can see, it’s already a Category 5, although it’s supposed to be losing some strength along the way to Taiwan. We’re gonna get bulldozed by this thing.

CNN already reports:

The Central Weather Bureau urged residents in eastern and northern Taiwan on Saturday to beware of strong winds and heavy rains being whipped up by Typhoon Jangmi.

[...]

It says the typhoon is packing winds of 118 miles per hour (191 kilometers per hour) and moving northwest at 12 mph (20 kph).

Based on the stats in the Wunderground pic above, Jangmi has obviously gotten stronger since the CNN article was written. It can’t go above a Category 5, so in some sense that’s comforting.

I stepped on my umbrella the other day and snapped it in half. Great timing, eh? I’m thinking I should run out in the morning tomorrow and buy one, if there are any left in town. And stock up on soup and tea, as well—again, if there’re any left.

Sundays are great days to read.

There are mountains around town, mountains which I will be visiting tomorrow, actually.

Most of the city, at least the small section of it where I am, is small alleys. Finding new restaurants (and, I’ll be honest, photo opportunities) is a perpetual quest.

The streets are full of character, everywhere.

I think it’s clear that this place is beautiful, but I hope to make it clear that it’s really beautiful. Always.

That’s about all that should reasonably be stuffed into a single post, in my opinion. I plan on making many more, but that’s all for tonight, I think.

I got in about 10:30pm on Tuesday night. This means I’ve had three days’ worth of classes, and had my ass handed to me in every one of them. The instructors really are great, but I have a lot of studying to do to bring my Mandarin up to par.

Upon getting to the dormitory where I’ll be staying and meeting my roommates, I realized I wouldn’t be able to sleep. It took 23 hours to get from Philadelphia to Taipei, and I’d slept for most of it. Also, given the timezone difference (GMT +7 or EST +12), my body just wasn’t feeling it needed a nap.

So I decided to go for a walk around campus and the city. One of my roommates with whom I had a good vibe offered to tag along, and it seemed genuine, so I accepted. I reasoned that I would be able to wander much farther if I had a guide, and hopefully he could point out some places of interest which I could revisit later in the week.

The plan worked marvellously. Max and I walked and talked for an hour or two, I overstimulated myself, and even snapped some great pics.

There are many more great pictures to come. The upstream bandwidth I’m allotted here is abysmal, so I’ll have to start uploads before I go to bed, and make posts in the morning. I’ll try to do that soon.

On Sunday I’ll be going to Taipei by train.

More details to come.

Now I can pay off that $1,400+ ticket I charged to my credit card with a $1,500 limit.

I shall also buy lots of cocaine.

=D

]]> http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/08/22/calloo-callay-im-going-to-taiwan/feed/ 5 http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/07/15/robot-hand-captures-students/ http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/07/15/robot-hand-captures-students/#comments Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:49:28 +0000 Conor http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/?p=584 The other day in class, I was logging into my campus portal in order to download some datasets for a class, and I noticed this wondrous parity of photo and caption.

I’m glad to see that my university is going all 2.0 in order to get me to use its dilapidated portal service. I’m even gladder to say it’s working.

But know we have further insight into his brainchild, ReiserFS. Behold. (Click for large version.)

Full credit for the snapshot goes to my buddy Carl.

We met Jesus freaks. We feasted upon pizza and cheesesteaks. We didn’t check our receipts until it was too late.

We swam in the ocean and got harassed by lifeguards. Built sandcastles competitively and gaped in wounded awe when the tide calmly ravaged them. Makeshift chin towers did little to curb the sense of loss.

At night we headed home in time to try to catch fireworks in Philadelphia. It rained, so we stayed home and got drunk. We watched movies and told stories and slapped each others’ sunburnt backs and appendages.

Two friends practiced poi late into the morning.

And that’s about it. It was a wonderful time. I love my friends.

photo by bcnbits on flickr

Sounds grand, no?

photo by salat fresser on flickr

I’m looking forward to it. Have a wonderful weekend.

There’s nothing I have to do today. Tons of things I should, of course, but screw them.

There’s even a medieval festival in Munich this week, and I might not even attend it tonight. I’m that interested in doing absolutely nothing.

So, we’ll see how the evening plays out. Good luck enjoying life as much as I am.

Update:

A friend uploaded this picture of me today. Life is good, no?

When I find a higher resolution version, I’ll replace it with that.

Last night was Paganfest, easily the best metal festival I’ve ever attended (which, to be honest, isn’t saying very much, as the U.S. isn’t exactly big on festivals). It was a good time. As the venue website declares:

HEIDENFEST

* Nur fürs Paganfest: Met- Ausschank (Trinkhörner sind erlaubt)

[translation]

PAGANFEST

* Only for Paganfest: Mead bar (drinking horns allowed)

That’s got to be the greatest exception ever. Drinking horns were indeed allowed, and how. I was only of the only people there without one, and also without full pelt garb.

Step one: get into a sold-out show

I arrived late to the show, with my Finnish comrade, due to a minor mishap. Having heard from everyone multiple times that there was no way in hell we were getting in without tickets, as the festival had been sold out for weeks, we decided to give it a go anyway. First we tried the back entrance, and acted ignorant when asked for tickets. “Well, we thought the line out front was for people with them, so we figured we’d come back here to buy them. No? Go back out front? OK, no problem, man.” The whole time we were scoping out places to hop the fence, but security was quite heavy, especially around the easily hoppable sections of fencing.

Tuomas isn’t very confident with his German—although his English puts my German to shame—so I decided to do the talking with the security guard at the main gate. She said, “No. No way in hell, without a ticket. This has been sold out for weeks. Yes, I know you guys really want to see these bands, but my job is to make sure that no one without a ticket gets in. Sorry.”

Fortunately, I’m majoring in making friends. I talked with her for a little bit, and spun some bullshit like, “I know it’s completely out of the question for us to get in, but is there anyway we can at least just buy a T-shirt for the festival? We love these bands so much and we just want to be able to have something from the show, even if we don’t get to see them.” That definitely struck a chord of empathy with the guard, and I let it resonate for a bit before trying anything else. She said that maybe if we came back in an hour, there would be merch outside that we could pick up, possibly even at a discount. She recommended another club, with a beer garden, where we could go to kill time.

I of course said this was a wonderful idea, and thanked her profusely. Then Tuomas and I fell back a little bit and discussed our options. I translated my conversation with the guard (into English, not Finnish!) and also explained that I thought there was hope. We were already a little buzzed from the beers we’d had at my place before heading out, so we figured what the hell, let’s hang out and see what happens. Several minutes later, the same security guard comes up to me and says in a low voice, “Leave now. Come back in 10 minutes. Perhaps my colleague can help you.”

We booked it. I set an alarm on my phone for 8 minutes so that we’d be back in just the right amount of time, and Tuomas and I started talking about the bands playing. We were laughing that I hadn’t understood who was playing, because I’d always pronounced the bandname Týr as teer instead of the proper toorr. While joking around and taking stupid pictures of each other, the security guard came up to me again and said, “There, that’s my coworker. Talk to him. He’s on the phone now but when he’s off he’ll help you.”

We hovered so close to the guy we were practically hugging him. As soon as he snapped his cell phone shut, he looked us up and down, then gestured for us to follow him—quietly. We get in through the Guest List Only door, and he introduces us to a colleague of his, who wants money. She says, “That’ll be 28.” Not bad at all! I hand her 40. The guy says, “No, that won’t do. It has to be exact.” Well, shit. I didn’t know what to do about that, and I figured I was just about to get ripped off 12 bucks. Funny thing is, I didn’t really have a problem with this. But a suggestion is made that the woman break my bills, giving me a 20, a 10, and then another 10 in coins. Then I paid the 28 exactly. I still fail to see the point of this, but who the hell cares, because it got me in. Tuomas gets the same deal, we tip the nice man 5 bucks, and we’re on our way to forging through the crowd, trying to get near the stage.

Finding a place in the crowd

The people at this show were all-out diehard fans of folk metal, and it showed.

I think my favorite was this dude, whom I headbanged with throughout most of the show, until I was elected to crowdsurf and thrown over the front rail. (That was during Ensiferum, so I’d gotten a lot of pictures by that point, and it was OK by me. Plus, I loved those guys.)

While still standing near the back upon arriving, Tuomas treated me to a few beers as a thank-you for my rapport-building prowess. Again, as we’d arrived late, we’d already missed Equilibrium and Eluvietie (about whom I’ve heard great things), but we were able to catch Týr setting up, and their set in full force.

The bands

Týr

I love these guys. Their Ragnarok album blows me away every time I put it on, and it’s one of those epics discs that you have to listen to in its entirety, the whole way through, every time. The crowd dug them, hard.

Absolutely epic. I’ve also thrown up a video of the last part of Hail To The Hammer, in which the sound quality is even lower than above, but the crowd’s enthusiasm is even greater.

Moonsorrow

I’ve been dying to see these guys live. I haven’t listened to any Moonsorrow for years, and so as soon as they started playing, opening with Raunioilla (which Tuomas kindly informed me means “Upon The Ruins,” a freaking killer songtitle), I was taken back about 4 years, to the time I used to spin that CD every morning, walking to classes.

As is to be expected from these guys, they were only able to play about 3 or 4 songs during their 45-minute set, but that worked beautifully. Each song has such flowing dynamic contrast that they really worked the crowd, shifting from headbanging to clapping to singing and then back again.

Here’s a brief clip from Raunioilla, by far my favorite song of theirs. I say “brief” when it’s actually the first 3 minutes of a 13-minute song, so beware.

[audio:raunioilla-intro.mp3]

For the record, I freaking love bands who give a mic to everyone in the band. (Yes, even the drummer is wearing a headset.)

Korpiklaani

I was so not ready for these guys. I’ve called them “fratboy folk” before, because pretty much every one of their songs is about drinking, rather than fighting, but I’d failed to realize what this was going to mean to a crowd in Munich. Singing about beer is without a doubt the best way to win the hearts of a crowd in this city, and Korpiklaani wielded the crowd like the gods they are.

To get a good idea of their sound, check out this quip from their Wiki page.

The music of Korpiklaani ranges from the violin-and-guitar paean to the Finnish god of fermentation Pellonpekko, to the “typical” trollish metal “Wooden Pints”, to “Crows Bring The Spring”.

Yeah, that’s about right. Dancing galore. Wannabe vikings, arm-in-arm, spinning round and round and shouting at the top of their lungs things like, “Beer, beer! Beer, beer!”

And, of course, they’re not afraid to get down and folky. I wasn’t expecting it, but the bastards went ahead and did a live rendition of Shaman Drum, of which I only caught the end on camera.

It was far more haunting live than it seems here. As I was making the video, I wanted to make sure to cut off the explosion of cheers from the crowd as the song ended, which I thought it would make for better resonance on video, but I was completely wrong. The crowd reaction would only add to the experience. Ah, well.

Ensiferum

I finally, finally got to see Ensiferum live. It’s a damn shame Jari Mäenpää wasn’t with them, but the dude from Norther did a pretty damn good job on vocals. The opened, of course, with Iron, and the crowd went nuts. Unfortunately for Ensiferum, Korpiklaani had absolutely drained the audience with all the dancing, so the first few Ensiferum songs were met with relatively tame enthusiasm. Still, Ensiferum cleaned up.

My sole complaint regarding the new vocalist was that during the solo for Iron, he didn’t play the original. He referenced it in his sweeps, but he brought in too much of his own technique. I’m still torn as to whether this was a shameless appropriation of a classic song by a newcomer who can’t fill Jari’s shoes, or a reverant reticence to mar a beautiful, untouchable thing with his own playing. In my opinion, it’s more appropriate to lay insufficient offerings at the altar of a metal god than to build a new altar, which it seemed to me like he was doing.

This was partly made up for, though, by one of my favorite moments from the whole night, when Ensiferum fulfilled their duty as headliners and played part of a classic metal song. Being from the North, it would have been completely inappropriate to toss yet another tribute onto Dimebag Darrell’s burial mound. I’m glad they didn’t. They went the extra mile and played the main riff from the father of all battle metal songs, The Trooper.

While the band did play a stellar setlist, they left off Treacherous Gods, which thrilled me—because they did it as an encore. I made a video of the whole song, but it’s pretty poor quality, so I won’t embed it. I’ll see how it turns out upon YouTubeification, and might throw up a link to it later after it’s finished processing.

Probably the highlight of their set was the crowd singing along to the bridge of “Lai Lai Hei,” but sadly I don’t have video of it. Take my word for it, though: it was awesome.

The land of hope and glory

I know this was a disastrously protracted post, but I couldn’t help but gush about this show. I encourage you to listen to all the bands’ material at length, as everyone who played (well, I can’t vouch for Equilibrium) offers absolutely stellar folk metal.

Stay folk.

Give me some time to recuperate from all the awesome, and I’ll throw up a lengthy post, replete with fawning and photos.

Until then, fuck kvlt, stay folk.

Toward the end of the tour—at least, I think it was toward the end—we cruised through Bavaria and the tip of Austria. The pictures I took down there, with an old, rather beaten-up 35mm which my girlfriend at the time had lent me for the trip, are still the iconic pictures of Bavaria for me.

Years later, but still years in the past, I went to Bavaria again, this time just for a week-long stay. I had been offered a scholarship to study in Munich for a year (one which I declined—later, the scholarship I’m now taking advantage of fell into my lap, and I couldn’t say no again), and this brief stay was meant to be an introduction and a tease for what was to come.

We of course took a trip to the Alps, my second.

Even now, after having actually lived here for the better part of a year, these pictures still come to mind whenever I need to think abstractly about Bavaria. Nothing helps more to understand the Bavarian people than to take a look at these few glimpses of the landscapes. As I mused in an earlier post,

I’ve often noticed that Bavarians aren’t always looking over their shoulders at the revenant of the war, that they remember instead the cobalt blue of the Alps in the distance on that one day when autumn came so quickly.

I’m no de Tocqueville, but I stand by those words all these months (and Maßes) later.

I hope you now know at least a little better what it feels like to live here. The weather is changing. It now rains for two days and then is sunny for one. More pictures to come, I hope.

I know I’ve mentioned this doppelganger thing before, but i thought this bore repeating. It really is kind of odd.

A friend, Matt, has a little brother visiting at the moment, and the little bro arrived in Munich while Matt was still traveling over break. I—among others—made sure to treat the little bro right, and got him right drunk. The next morning, he was describing to Matt the hospitality of a certain lanky fellow with long hair and glasses, and who’s funny as hell. Matt said, “But wait, I thought Alex was working last night.”

Upon hearing this story, I considered terminating my friendship with Matt, but then realized that one of the listed qualities was not “ravishingly handsome,” so it’s understandable that he thought of Alex first.

Yes, I realize that as doppelgangers, people perceive us as pretty much identical. But give me a break here, we’re freaking gorgeous, and I’m funny as hell.

The date of the feast is occasionally moved by church authorities when March 17 falls during Holy Week; this happened in 1940 when Saint Patrick’s Day was observed on 3 April in order to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and is happening again in 2008, being observed on 15 March. March 17 will not fall during Holy Week again until 2160.

What the hell do I know? Munich is a weird place, and apparently the German-Irish here don’t give much of a damn about Palm Sunday, because St. Patty’s Day here happened on Sunday, March 16. So it goes.

I myself was working most of the evening, and didn’t end up getting home till around 11:30pm. I checked my phone and had some missed calls from friends out drinking, but since I’m a little strapped for cash at the moment, I figured screw it. But then I read a text from a Scotsman I’d met on Saturday, and borrow a friend’s phone to call him and check up on him.

I learn that Monk, as his friends call him, is of course completely wasted and got separated from all his bros at the Hofbräuhaus. He didn’t know where anyone was, but had made it back to his hostel, which has a bar on the ground floor. He was, in typical Celtic fashion, drowning his sorrow with strong beer. Seeing as this was his last night in Munich, I couldn’t leave him hanging like that. Cue Team America.

I rally Jesse and Alex to come out with me for just a single beer, just to bid farewell to Monk. I really hit it off with Monk on Saturday, when I met him while I was working, and I know figured he’d really get a kick out of our coming out to treat him to a round.

Things did not go as planned, however. It turns out Monk was so grateful that we came, he bought us all a round. And then another. All the way to five. Apparently the pound sterling is doing damn fine against the already rather spunky euro, and to Monk it was like buying candy—in more ways than one, I suppose. By about the fourth round or so, a few of his band of Scots come stumbling back to the hostel, and drinks are once again liberally distributed.

So Jesse, Alex, and I ended up limping back through the doorway to our own place at 6am. I had to be up at 9am to head to work today. To Scots!

For the record, that’s Jesse on the left.

Now, that’s all well and good, but the thing that really amazed me about this St. Patty’s Day was the augur I saw in the sky, after hearing that I had off work due to heavy rainfall. Behold.

Is that not the most gorgeous freaking rainbow you’ve ever seen? That sucker appeared and remained vibrant for about 20 minutes, I’m sure long enough for someone to snag the pot of gold or keg or Guinness or whatever the hell lives at the end of a rainbow.

I’ll be completely honest and say that I spent the rest of the day in a state of extreme anxiety, half-expecting to hear the Gjallerhorn ring out across Munich. I didn’t hear it, though.

Today I awoke to birds chirping so loudly I could hear them through the shut balcony doors. I braced myself for a gust of cold wind, telling myself the chill would be worth it, to hear those birds better, and jerked open the door. The air outside was warmer than that in my room, and I’d left the heat on overnight.

It was quickly decided amongst those present in the building that a trip to the Englischer Garten was in order. So we gathered up the necessary supplies: a frisbee, an American football, empty soda bottles filled with tap water, and a few blankets. Then we were on our way.

After many hours of cavorting across the rather muddy fields, leaping and slipping and wheezing from a lazy winter, we took a break to see off the few people who had to head home and shower before going to work. The day winded down as the sun lolled about before setting, and we washed the mud off our bare feet in the river running through the Garden.

On the way home, I came across a painted rock and it captivated me.

I hope this rock imparted to you but a fragment of the joy it did to me. I was thoroughly mocked for bothering to stop to take this picture, but I’ve just founded a religion under whose tenets anyone who doesn’t appreciate this rock goes straight to hell. And by “hell” I mean they don’t get to see any cool painted rocks while they’re just walking around.

Other things later. Today was too much fun. Take a look at the full, albeit brief, album.

Honestly, I spend so much time in front of my computer that it’s really important to me that it be a visually pleasant experience for me. So understandably, I was quite thrilled when I found this masterpiece, which now graces the altar of volume icons that is my desktop.

Epic or what? It seems this is a portrait prepared by Todd Lockwood for a World Of Warcraft card game. Something tells me we’ll never see it implemented.

(As always, click images to see a larger version.)

That’s a building at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. I took the pic when I was visiting Cihan.

A much more recent pic. I took this one just the other day, while I was walking around waiting for my new glasses to be made. It’s the EU Patent Office in Munich. Kind of angers me that such a cool looking building could harbor an ideological horror like the modern patent system, but hey, I’m speaking from the perspective of a disgruntled American.

A much older pic, I think I took this one back near the beginning of October. That’s from Olympia Park, and pretty much all the buildings are that bizarre there.

Just the other night I went for a stroll in the rain and wound up there around midnight. I was stunned at how beautiful it was. The fog was so thick it was lying on top of the spires of the building picture, stretched out across the lake, rubbing its back upon the windowpanes, all that.

The structure above is lit up at night, with yellow and blue lights, and it looked just like a Protoss building.

I intend to go back soon with a camera and see what I can do. It’s been raining softly all week long, so it shouldn’t be difficult to get a picture of the cloak of fog and Close Encounters-ish buildings together.

It’s a little ridiculous because it’s not actually a whole tree. I think we just bought the very top of an absolutely huge pine tree. But hey, that’s adorable in its own special way. Like Jukka, pictured, who’s breaking fast after a brutal night at Rockstudio. Apparently yesterday was Independence Day in Finland!

We all tossed in an extra euro and got some really ghetto lights and ornaments. We’re kind of counting on everyone to add an ornament of their own (I’ll find something very metal, fret not), but I don’t know whether that’ll actually happen. I accept our wiggly-topped Tannenbaum for what it is, though: awesome.

Many posts to come today.

Isn’t that beautiful? Grumble.

Although, I have a nagging suspicion that Carl’s actually still chilling in his room downstairs, and just Google Image Searched this, then Photoshopped it a bit to make it even prettier.

He can’t fool me.

Last night my mother was being my mother and finding pictures of animals on the internet, I presume because the ones in her life were being boring. Maybe she ran out of catnip or something.

I figured I’d share what she inflicted upon me, as the photos are pretty badass. I wish I could take pics like this.

Pretty intense, no? The guy has a 471-photo set of the dog, who evidently is named Titan.

According to my mother, the dog looks rather like an seamonster in the third pic there. I tend to agree.

Three cheers for contentless blogging.

The best part about the whole damn night? Since it was a Finnish party, the Finns picked the music.

Not only that, but the Finns also like to get wasted and air guitar themselves into oblivion.

I think that pic was from when we were playing Behind Space. Yes, that’s right. We listened to tons of In Flames, all night long. They even asked me to go get my MP3 player, so we could hook it up to the sound system there, as Joonas’s aging laptop kept crapping out on us. It’s sure never happened to me that at a party I had people asking me to put my music on. “Turn that the fuck off,” yes, I’ve heard that, but this was different somehow.

Then we duct taped Joonas into a shopping cart.

This next picture I can’t figure out for the life of me, so I’m going to assume they were doing the wall of death while we were listening to Lamb of God.

Not too many other anecdotes to relate. I mean, the evening wasn’t exactly complicated. Jukka cheers’d Jesse so hard he shattered Jesse’s bottle and cut his own hand, which I thought was pretty badass.

\m/

All pics here.

I myself made only Stove Top, because it was there and I can’t cook anything else. But it sure is nice to know a ton of people who can make awesome Thanksgiving food. I’m thinking maybe we should do this every Thursday.

The above shot is just one of the three tables we’d set up. There was a fourth, too, but it never filled up, so I don’t think it should count. We had the tables set up around intersections in the hallway, broken up despite my frantic requests for a single Viking long table. Apparently a single table would have blocked access to the bathrooms and such. Suffice to say, these people know nothing of priorities.

After most of the food was plowed through, a few of the Germans herded people out of the kitchen and back to the tables, then rendered a touching thank-you speech in their adorable English. They were quite taken aback by how awesome “Team America” (yes, they really call us that) was to go to these lengths, and they expressed their gratitude at being able to live with us for the year. Then it was onto dessert.

I give thanks for Germans, German beer, stuffing, and all the people back in the States whom I love. You know who you are.

All pictures here.