Back in Africa

Finally, 14 months after leaving Madagascar, I find myself standing on
the dark red African soil again. It is an amazing feeling being back
here, and my heart started beating a little faster as my plane started
descending over Lake Victoria, toward Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Lake
Victoria from the air is an incredible sight, and seems to stretch
forever. It is a deceptive view, especially knowing that most of
Africa is struggling to find fresh water. I guess that is one thing
you always have to remember in Africa-- things aren't always what they
seem.
I had remembered the poverty, filth, and challenging conditions in
Madagascar, but being away from it for over a year, I found myself
still surprised by the conditions in the surrounding areas driving
from the airport to Kampala, Uganda's capital. The straw and wooden
boxes that serve as people's homes dotted the roadsides, reminding me
that life here is a different life than most of us know, and in fact, a life
most people do not wish to know.
I have been staying with a guy I met through some other contacts.
He lives with his sister, niece, and their maid on the outskirts of
Kampala, in a little village. The village is very poor and most people
live in the small shacks I wrote about above. The house where I am
staying is simple, but pretty nice for this area. The family has been
extremely nice to me, showing me the generous hospitality and
friendliness Ugandans are known for. Electricity is sporadic, hot
water is non-existent, the nights are hot, the mosquitoes are
plentiful, and the food is a little redundant, but I am loving every
minute of it. The family has also been teaching me Lugandan, the local
language! It is a lot of fun, and many people in the village are happy
to hear me speaking a little Lugandan to them when I go to buy some
mangoes or bananas. I have also been able to visit many areas where
tourists never venture. This is the best part, and you can imagine
that I receive a lot of glances walking through the little village
markets and gathering areas at night, when my white face can easily be
seen in the firelight.
Kampala is a pretty typical African capital, although it seems much
safer than many others. Like the other cities, it seems totally
unorganized and chaotic, but it is also very interesting. There are
many different areas of the city (the rich area where the ex-pats
live, the poor slum areas, the villages, the wealthy area full of
Ugandans who have been working abroad, etc.). Although I haven't quite
figured out the taxi system yet, I have managed to see a lot of the
city, mostly by getting lost and then having to find my way back:)
One beautiful thing that I really missed after leaving Madagascar,
although I hadn't really realized it, is the beautiful singing of the
African people. Every morning, I wake up to the girls in the house
singing beautiful Lugandan songs, while preparing breakfast, washing
dishes, cleaning the floors, and burning the garbage (all at the same
time!). Their voices resonate through the house and display their joy
of life, always bringing a smile to my face.
One cool thing that happened to me during the last two weeks here is that I got the opportunity to attend two Ugandan weddings. The receptions were very fun, with traditional Ugandan dances performed by several girls, and a great deal of African songs and boys playing the congo drums. I was popular, especially with the kids, because I was the only mzungu (white person) at either wedding. The costumes worn by some of the guests and family members were great, and now I need to find out how I can get ahold of one of those men's outfits, called kanzus, for myself!
Every day here is a new adventure. Another cool new thing that I have experienced is a boda-boda ride. The boda-bodas are guys and young boys on motorcycles and scooters, who weave in and out of the jam-packed traffic here, ferrying passengers around town. Although
they are probably about a -4 on a safety scale of 0-10, they are definitely cool and a lot of fun, in a dangerous sort of way!
I really don't feel like a typical tourist here, since I have been living in a village with a family, eaten only local food, learned some of the local language, and also seen many areas tourists never see. The other day, I walked through one of the poorest slums in Kampala with one of my friends. I can definitely say that I saw the "real Africa." I can't really describe what I saw because I still have trouble thinking about it. Poverty is a huge understatement. My
friend, who lives there, told me that I am one of the first white people to walk through that slum, so that is why I received so many stares and looks of amazement. The kids absolutely loved me (except for the little girl who ran to her mom, screaming that the white man was going to eat her), and by the time my walk ended, I had around thirty children following me. Unfortunately, my friend also told me that many of the adults were hoping that I was there to try to improve their village in some way, by building a school, fixing their water supply (they get water out of a filthy little canal, that probably is not even safe to touch, let alone drink), or providing more land. I felt bad that I couldn't help them, besides providing a brief distraction from their daily struggles.
I also took a stroll through the largest outdoor market in Africa. The Owino Market has everything you can possibly imagine, from second-hand clothes and shoes, to fruits, vegetables, old appliances, and a fish market. It is a huge maze of alleys, each lined to the max with sellers and their goods. I could tell that not many tourists visit the market by the attention that I received. The market is a very interesting, but very dirty place, so most tourists stick to the nicer supermarkets, where prices are fixed and they are safe. Every seller I passed tried to shake my hand and welcome me to look at his merchandise, either as his "brother" or "friend." It was pretty amusing. I even saw a huge 150lb. Nile perch being cut up for sale. They definitely don't have these back home!
The last thing I will mention is that I was invited by the maid of the place where I am staying, to go with her and visit her mother and family in their village. It was incredible! The village is about 2 hours outside Kampala, in the forested hills. I received a huge welcome from her mother, who was so happy to see me and make sure I remembered my visit fondly. I met the 12 or 14 children she has (most were orphans from the village or children of other family members who had died), and ate some awesome food. After eating, they took me around their land and showed me how they grow their mangoes, jackfruits, papayas, coffee, pineapple, guava, and everything else, which was really interesting. We then strolled to the "main street," where the village was. The village consisted of two little shops and about 10 little mud houses. The whole village came out to greet me, and my friend explained that her mom had told her that I was the first white person to visit her village. I shook hands with over 100 people and several more children. I even tasted two of the local alcoholic drinks, called "tonto" and "quete." They were very good, and everyone watched me as I sipped them, laughing and smiling at this strange person drinking and eating their food. My visit to the village was something I will never forget, and a great break from the rush of Kampala. Life cannot get much simpler than the lives those people lead.
Well, there is a summary of my first two weeks in real Africa. It has been great, and hopefully will only get better. Every day here is a gift. Every night, I take a moment to look up at the stars and say, "Wow, I'm in Uganda!"

A few pictures I have managed to upload so far can be found at http://www.photoworks.com/members/Nathan_Owens under the Uganda folder.

My brother

Hey Everyone,
I just wanted to point this out to you all. My brother, Dan, just graduated from the San Francisco Police Academy two days ago. Not only did he graduate, but he was the top academic student out of over 40 graduates! Way to go Dan! You are making the Owens family very proud.

On the Road

Hello from Dubai! I have spent the last week and a half in Cairo, Egypt, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. It has been quite an experience and the differences between the two places are striking.
Once arriving in Cairo, I was immediately overwhelmed by the size of the city and the number of people there. Cairo is the second largest city in the world, with around 22 million people! It is a very dirty city with people everywhere, and what seems like mass chaos all day, every day, except on Fridays (Muslim holy days). It was cool seeing Arabic writing all over the city and hearing only Arabic as I walked through the streets. I was very surprised by the lack of English spoken in Cairo, with very few people able to speak any more than a simple greeting.
My trip started off well with my bag actually arriving on the same plane as myself. I should have known that something bad was about to happen, and it did. My second day in Cairo, I withdrew money from an ATM machine. However, the machine refused to give my card back. To make a long story short, I ended up having to cancel my card, and now I will have to hope that a new card arrives in Uganda pronto. Unfortunately, this setback prevented me from traveling down to Luxor to see more pyramids and the Valley of the Kings. I did see the Pyramids of Giza and the Pyramids at Saqqara, which were incredible and something that I have wanted to see my whole life. I got the chance to ride a camel through the desert around the pyramids, and that was a lot of fun. I polished up my bargaining skills and by the end of my trip, was receiving items for almost the cost that a local Egyptian would pay. I also befriended a kid from Cairo who took me around some of the areas of Old and Islamic Cairo, including entrance to several mosques. Since nearly 80% of the Cairo population is Muslim, at five different times each day, a person can hear the entire city praying out loud throughout the thousands of mosques of the city. It really is a beautiful sound. On the contrary, the rest of the days are filled with the nonstop honking of car horns (I named this "Egyptian music":). If you think drivers where we live are bad, just spend an hour in Cairo, and I can guarantee you that your perspective will change. To give you a better idea, as far as I could tell, there are absolutely no traffic laws in Cairo. This is shown on a three-lane highway when there are five or six cars spread across it, and also by the fact that my taxi drivers rarely spent time driving below 120km/h, while simultaneously passing a "60 km/h speed limit" sign and waving to the police on the side of the road. When bored, or just when the mood strikes, the drivers begin honking and don't stop until both hands are required for driving while talking on their cellphones. Cairo was absolutely crazy, and although seeing the pyramids was the fulfillment of a life-long dream, I couldn't wait to escape the chaotic hustle-and-bustle of that huge city.

Dubai is an absolutely incredible place. There is so much money here that it is a little mind-blowing. Dubai is over-the-top in every way you can imagine. This city alone has the tallest and most luxurious (7 stars) hotel in the world, the largest shopping mall in the world, and the tallest building in the world. Everything is brand new and the amount of building going on here is insane. This city reminds me a lot of Las Vegas without the casinos. All the cars here are new Mercedes, BMWs, LandRovers, Ferraris, and Porsches. It is kind of funny seeing a Muslim man in his headdress and robes, speeding down the highway in a Ferrari while talking on his new iphone.
I stayed with a friend in his apartment, a sweet place up on the top floor of a tall building near the water. I'll just say that it is a little different than staying at the hostel in Cairo. I'm afraid that I've been spoiled now before going to Uganda. We'll see.
So tomorrow morning I will catch a taxi to the airport and hop on a plane to Uganda. I can't wait! I wish you all the best and will report next from Kampala!

One Chapter Ending, Another Beginning

This last week or so has been a very emotional one for me. I took my last hikes in the mountains of southern Poland, said goodbye to the wolves that I have been following through the forest all these months, always a step or two behind, and also closed an important chapter in my life. I have done a lot of reflecting over the past week, about some of the experiences I have had here, about where I started and how far I have come, and of the subtle changes that my experiences here have brought about in me. There has been a lot of laughter and a lot of tears. This has been one long rollercoaster ride, but every climb and every drop, every turn and every redirection, every increase in speed and every slowdown, they have all been worth it.

So I won’t bore you with all the things that have happened this last week, but I will mention some of the more important things, and also some of the more humorous happenings and thoughts. So when it came time to leave my worksite for the last time, I was looking out the window of the place I have essentially called home for the past 11 months, up at the mountains that I have befriended during my numerous hikes. As I was looking out the window, only a few minutes from catching a bus and leaving that place for good, I saw a small dog run up to the fence of the yard. I immediately recognized this dog, a Labrador mix. I first saw this dog when I arrived here in February, and quickly named him the “Marking Machine.” He literally pees on every single thing he comes across, and he takes such pride in it and puts forth such an effort! Every time he lifts his leg to pee, he lifts it so high that he looks like he will fall over backward. It is hilarious! I fell in love with him and looked for him every morning as I would wake up and look out the window to see what the weather was doing in the mountains. Since returning here in September, I had only seen him once, at the very beginning of my return. I was starting to worry that maybe something had happened to him, but as other things started piling up, I also began to forget about him. However, this day, the last time I looked out this window, he decided to make his presence known and come say goodbye. He looked up at me through the window as he was doing his best to make sure all the dogs in the neighborhood knew whose fencepost that was. I hope he goes on to mark those fenceposts for years to come.

After saying my goodbyes to the mountains, to the place where I have been calling home, my hosts, and to my biologist friends, it finally came time to say goodbye to the wolves. It is always hard working to protect something that you never see, but I have learned that you just need to trust that your efforts are making a difference. I will miss these wolves and always trying to solve the puzzles that they leave behind. I hope that they have a future in this region and slowly gain more acceptance among the people here.

I then traveled up to Krakow, my home away from home for nearly the last year. Among all the cities I have been to in Europe, Krakow is right near the top. Not even considering how my life has changed during my time here, Krakow is an unbelievably beautiful city with a lot of character and history. Walking through the streets that I have come to know so well, memories rushed into my head without abandon. Every street corner, every tram and bus stop, every little shop, they all had memories tied to them. It was pretty emotional, especially the last walk I took through Market Square. On the way there, I stopped by the good old Orange Hostel, where I had spent every weekend for five months. I had become their first VIP member, received my own special discount there, had a bed reserved just for me, and had also made friends with the girls that worked there. Luckily, this time, as I stepped through the door, I saw one of the coolest girls I have befriended there. She knew right then that I had come to say goodbye. She showed me around the hostel, which has undergone some significant changes in the last two months. It was almost a completely different place, but not quite. I think the Orange Hostel and I both grew up together over the last several months. If anyone gets a chance to visit Krakow, please stay at the Orange Hostel, but please stay away from bed number 10 in room 6. That bed is special:)

So getting back to Market Square, I remember first arriving in Krakow and taking my first walk to the square. I was overwhelmed by its size and by Mariacki Church towering over the rest of the square. It is remarkably beautiful, particularly at night. Although it is overrun with tourists at certain times of the year, it still had a beauty that cannot be touched by any amount of people packed in there, and no matter what languages they are speaking.

I said goodbye to my friends in Krakow, who have been incredible and more generous and nice than I could have ever asked for. I hope to see them again, either in Poland, the U.S., or somewhere in between. The world is a big place while you are traveling, but a small place for meeting people. Life is funny, and you never know what your path will lead you to, and who may be traveling along a path to the same place. Life is beautiful that way.

After wishing Krakow a goodbye and giving it my thanks, I traveled to Warsaw. I only spent about a day and a half in Warsaw, so didn’t get to see much. The Old Town was pretty cool, while other areas had their own charm. I definitely noticed the difference between Krakow and Warsaw immediately—Warsaw is much bigger and is the commercial center. Warsaw was also mostly destroyed in World War II, so the old buildings found throughout Krakow are almost non-existent in Warsaw. That being said, Warsaw has areas where the Communist-era only seems like a few years ago. The square, dull, concrete buildings left behind are not esthetically pleasing, but they do add some character to the area.

After leaving Warsaw, I arrived in Berlin. Berlin is a really cool city. It is a little run down and shows some age, but there are awesome little cafes and shops all over the place, and there are also really cool, green parks scattered throughout the city. I really enjoyed just walking around and getting lost, completely without an agenda and no plans at all. I did see some of the remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall, particularly the section known as the “East Side Gallery,” with all its cool drawings and works of art giving the wall a special effect. I mostly just relaxed in Berlin and soaked in the atmosphere, preparing myself for the real adventure about to come my way.

So that is that in a nutshell. Tonight I am headed to Cairo, where I will be spending a few days, before heading off to Dubai. I will try to post another blog entry after Dubai, just before arriving in Uganda. I wish you all well and look forward to hearing what all of you have been up to as well. See you in Africa!

Pictures of my Christmas trip in Italy, and also pics of Warsaw and Berlin, can be viewed at

http://www.photoworks.com/members/Nathan_Owens

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a very nice and joyful Christmas and got to share it with the people that matter most to you. I hope Santa also brought you everything that was on your Christmas lists. I spent my Christmas in Torino, Italy. It was nice seeing some places in Italy that I had never visited before, but it was definitely not a normal Christmas for me. This year, without my family and those I care about around me, the 25^th of December was just another day. I spent the day walking around Torino taking pictures. The weather was beautiful, so that made walking pretty pleasant. I definitely had a cool experience on Christmas Eve. The friend I was staying with drove me up to a small village in the Alps, on the Italian-French border. At this village, we followed a live nativity scene, as it ascended up the mountain, through the old village. I think every person living in that village (probably about 200) was following the procession, and there was singing and dancing the entire way. We all stopped frequently for some mulled wine, punch, and other goodies being distributed by “innkeepers” and other people from the village. At midnight, we arrived at a small church high up the mountain, where we attended mass. It was really special and an experience I will never forget.

After Torino, I traveled to Aosta, where I spent a few days. Aosta is a unique region that borders France, Italy, and Switzerland, and is probably most famous for being in the shadow of Mont Blanc. The area is beautiful and there are castles everywhere you look. I visited three castles while I was there and also visited the ski village of Courmayeur, which was really nice, but also made me a little homesick.

After Aosta, I went back to Torino and spent New Year's Eve there. Unfortunately, I got sick a few days before that and didn't really feel like celebrating too much, so I mostly just reflected on the last year. This last year has been a year of firsts for me. Right before last New Year’s, I caught malaria for the first time (and hopefully the last!), I had to fly for almost 34 straight hours back to the U.S. from Madagascar, but then I got to spend Christmas at home, which is all I could ever want. I traveled to Poland for the first time and spent an extended period in Europe for the first time. I learned my first words in Polish, German, Czech, Norwegian, and Austrian. I fell deeply in love for the first time (and hopefully not the last time!), but then had my heart completely broken for the first time also (hopefully the last time, but I doubt it!). I met the wonderful people at Holy Cross Ministries and got the incredible opportunity to work as a teacher over the summer with the cute (most of the time) Hispanic children in Park City. I received my first recognition of “Scary Story Master” (sorry Mark, maybe next time:). I saw Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Prague, Vienna, Torino, and Aosta for the first time. I went hiking in the awesome Tatra Mountains for the first time and also had my first wolf reply to one of my howls! On a lighter side, I did my laundry in a cereal bowl for the first time (it took a looooong time), opened my first wine bottle with an axe (don’t ask me how, because I don’t know, and definitely don't ask me to try it again), and bought my first $12 beer (thanks Oslo). I saw my first live performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in a 12^th century church in Stockholm (I get chills just thinking about it!), ate rabbit for the first time in a Prague restaurant, visited my first European Christmas markets in Vienna, where I also tasted mulled wine for the first time. I drank coffee with honey in it for the first time (those crazy Italians!), bought and wore my first scarf (I am still unsure of how I look in it), saw Mont Blanc for the first time, and spent my first Christmas away from my family. I saw my brother move away from home for the first time and become the first member of our family to kick butt in the San Francisco Police Academy.

I met some incredible people this last year: the people at HCM, including Sister Mary Ann, Alma, Magali, Jesus, Miriam, Laura, and Molly, the biologists I have been working with in Poland, Robert and Sabina, my ex-girlfriend Ania (I know, but I was still lucky to have met her), Krystyna and Łucaś, whose home I normally stay in while working in Poland, Michael in Stockholm, Magnus and his roommates in Oslo, Kevin and Bashar in Bergen, Andrew on the train in Norway, Claude in Geneva, Alicja and Sabina in Krakow, Slaven in Prague, Lija in Vienna, and Andrea in Torino. Thinking back on it, I guess quite a bit happened this last year. Some times were incredibly happy, and other times were incredibly sad. But without sadness, we wouldn’t know what happiness is. Those sad times help us to really appreciate and savor those happy times.

So what do I hope for this next year? Well, I think it will be hard to top this last year, but it may happen. I would like to see my first wolf in Poland, but unfortunately time is running out. I would like to see my brother in a SFPD uniform. I would like to meet my new cousin (Congrats Tim and Alli!). I would like to visit Raphelle and Tim in their new house, reinforce my position as the “Scary Story Master,” finally graduate with my master's degree, visit Yellowstone numerous times, where my soul is renewed and my spirit is at peace, fall in love again, see everyone in my family filled with happiness, maintain and strengthen the relationships I have made this last year, and constantly be reminded of how lucky I am and of what is truly important in life. If all of those things happen, I will be one very happy guy. In fact, I will be very happy if just those last three things come true. I know I am forgetting a few things, but they will remind me in their own good time.

I wish all of you the happiest year imaginable, and may all that you wish and hope for come to pass. Thank you for making this last year one that I will never forget and that I will always look back on fondly.

Merry Christmas!

So the big day is almost here! I hope you have all at least started your Christmas shopping by now! I love Christmas time—not because of all the shopping and buying of all these things we don’t need, but because of the fact that it is one of the few times of the year where families make that extra effort to be together. It is sad that we need an event like Christmas to do that, but if that’s the way it is, I am glad Christmas comes every year.

Well, not much has happened since my last blog post. I have managed to get out on a few snowshoe hikes and still have my feet intact, so I am pretty happy about that. It has been well below freezing here for the past week or so, and it has been pretty cold up on tops of the mountains where I have been hiking. At least that means that I have had the mountains all to myself lately. It has been incredibly peaceful hiking and snowshoeing these past few days. It has snowed almost nonstop for the past 5 days or so, with just periods of a few hours here and there when it let up. The mountains have been hit really hard, and therefore, I haven’t had much luck tracking lately. When I went hiking today, even my snowshoe tracks from yesterday could not be seen, and yesterday I was sinking into the snow a good 6 inches or more! It seems that all the tracks are being covered in a few hours after they are left, making my job difficult. However, it has been great getting up in the mountains and breathing the fresh air. The valleys are full of smoke from all the furnaces and heaters running in the houses down there, so up high is an escape from all that junk. It has been so silent hiking lately. It seems that the only sound I can hear is the snow crunching under the weight of my boots or snowshoes, and the occasional tree unloading the snow off its branches. It has been great and I have enjoyed every minute of these last few hikes, and even the moments when I was totally lost because of the poor visibility, or because of my decision to take some random path through the mountains that I had never taken before, but felt like exploring:) I have been trying to do this much more lately, since I see my time in Poland soon coming to an end. I have been choosing ways up the mountains that I have never taken before, just to see what’s there. It has been kind of fun and has added a little more adventure to each day.

I have also been running each morning in the dark and snow. It has been incredible too and a great way to get the day started. The first few minutes are very cold, but then it becomes tolerable after that and actually rather enjoyable toward the end. The other day, as I was waiting for a car to go by before crossing the street, a perfectly-shaped snowflake fell on my shirt! It was the first “perfect” snowflake I have ever seen, just like all the ornaments and decorations. It only lasted about ten seconds before it started to melt. I guess that means that perfection never lasts, but we all have our moments of perfection. It is funny how sometimes we are more aware of small things like this than at other times.

As for my Christmas, it will be spent in Torino, Italy. I am flying to Milan in a few days and will then travel to Torino by train for Christmas, and then over to a region called Aosta, which borders France and Switzerland, in the Alps. It should be fun and I am looking forward to seeing some parts of Italy that I have never seen.

So here is what I want to say about Christmas. Let us remember two important things this holiday season: (1) Remember the less fortunate and the people that need a little love and friendship this holiday season, and (2) let's be extremely grateful for having each other and let's realize how truly lucky we are. We should really treasure the moments we have together and not take them for granted.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to attend to another Christmas tradition, courtesy of Clark W. Griswold. Merry Christmas everyone!

Taking in a few more sights

Hello everyone! I have been trying to work hard lately, but it seems to be a little difficult for me at the moment. I managed to fit in a few weekend trips to two cities that I have wanted to visit for a long time—Prague and Vienna. I traveled by train to Prague, where I stayed for three days. I met up with an American kid I actually met in Norway and we met a few other people there too, so it was a lot of fun to have a group of us there to hang out and see some sights. It was a little cold and we did see some snow, but we managed to get out and see the sights anyway. Among the sites we saw were Prague Castle, which is the largest castle in the world and took over 600 years to complete, as well as the oldest synagogue in the world. Prague is a really cool city and reminded me a lot of Krakow, particularly Old Town Square. There was a huge church called Tyn Church that served as the landmark for the Old Town, just as Mariacki Church serves as the landmark in Market Square in Krakow. The castle was incredible and the cathedral built within the castle complex, called St. Vitus Cathedral, is one of the most amazing cathedrals I have seen anywhere. I took some pictures inside, hoping to be able to give you an idea of how spectacular it was, but I know that my pictures will not do the beauty of the cathedral justice. We also walked across the famous Charles Bridge at night. It is pretty cool, walking along the bridge and being surrounded by two rows of saints hovering above you, almost like they are leading you on to something better. Another unique thing that we were able to see was the largest book in the world, called the “Devil’s Bible.” When they say that it is large, they are definitely not kidding. The book weighs 165 pounds and is approximately 1 meter long. The book includes writings on everything you could possibly imagine, such as philosophy, religion, morality, law, medicine, nature, physics, etc. Legend has it that it was written by a Benedictine monk in the early 13^th century who had agreed to write the world’s largest book glorifying the Benedictine monastery, as a way of avoiding being imprisoned for life for breaking his monastic duties. However, around midnight, he realized that he was not going to be able to accomplish this feat, and sold his soul to the Devil, who helped him finish the book in one night. The book was opened up to its two most well-known pages, one page showing the City of God, while the facing page is a drawing of the Devil. The fact that these two pages were facing one another is supposedly to represent the duality and constant battles between good and evil, between God and the Devil. The “Devil’s Bible” is normally only displayed in Sweden, since the Swedish army stole the book from Prague Castle just before the treaty ending the Thirty Years’ War was signed. It was pretty amazing to see and I can’t believe that one person wrote that entire thing! He must have had a seriously sore hand after all that!

Prague was great and I made some new friends there that I hope to see again during my travels. Once I got back to Poland, I only had a few days there before leaving for a few days to Vienna. Unfortunately, I came down with a pretty nasty cold just after arriving back in Poland. Just my luck! I took it easy and basically didn’t do anything except relax for the few days I had there, hoping to recover enough to be able to enjoy Vienna.

I did end up going to Vienna and stayed with this sweet girl that lives in the outskirts of the city. The airlines actually did not lose my checked bag this time, which was kind of a pleasant surprise for me, since that now makes 7 out of the last 10 times I have flown that my bags have been lost. I guess the ratio is starting to even out a bit. Vienna was great and since it was the beginning of December, all of the Christmas markets were going. They are pretty awesome and I wish we had something similar to these back in the States. Maybe we do, but I don’t know of any and definitely not to the scale over in Europe. In Vienna, Lija (the girl I stayed with) took me to at least three different Christmas markets, each with its own little character. They were beautiful and definitely helped remind me that Christmas is around the corner. We sampled all kinds of punch and other drinks, and I ate some Austrian-famous weiner schnitzel. It was a great time.

Vienna itself is also a beautiful city. Sights are a little bit more spread out than in cities like Prague or Krakow, but they have a metro system that is really efficient and makes getting around pretty easy. I did manage to get lost a few times, but that was just part of the fun. I did see the graves of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Strauss, which were all really cool. It was even raining when I saw them, so I was the only person there. There seemed to be a beautiful, soft melody playing in the background, or maybe it was just inside my head, as I sat there and paid my respects. Other sights I saw in Vienna included St. Stephen’s Cathedral, which was pretty magnificent also, the Hofsburg (Imperial Palace), and the Schonnbrunn (summer palace of the Habsburgs). The state opera house is an amazing building, displaying the elaborate architecture that makes Vienna famous. The Rathaus, or City Hall building, is also incredible, particularly at night when it is lit up, towering over the Christmas market in the square below, the purple and gold lights radiating through the crowds and casting a magical glow over the market. Vienna definitely has many sights that should be seen, and I only managed to see a few of them. I had hoped to make it to a performance of a Beethoven symphony, but ran out of time and figured my time would be better spent getting to know Lija (this was a good decision, because she is awesome), just relaxing and soaking up the atmosphere, and wondering around aimlessly (which I now consider myself an expert at!). There is a pretty good possibility that I may return to Vienna for New Year’s. There are some concerts of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, as well as a Viennese tradition of dancing the waltz! I have never actually danced the waltz, but have always wanted to try, and I think that it would be incredible to try it in Vienna, after seeing a heart-pumping performance of “Ode to Joy” in Beethoven’s own hometown (well, kind of his hometown). I’ll see what I can do, but it sounds exciting to me!

I must say that although seeing these new places is absolutely incredible, even more incredible are the people that I have met along the way. From Magnus in Oslo, to Andrew on the train from Bergen to Oslo, to Slaven in Prague, and then Lija in Vienna, I have definitely been lucky to find new friends everywhere I have traveled. I thank all of you guys for enriching my experiences and giving me memories that I will never forget. As far as I am concerned, just meeting you has made these trips worthwhile, and I thank you for being the people and the friends that you are.

So now I am back in Poland, trying to fit in some hard work before leaving for Italy for Christmas. I still have this damn cold that won’t seem to go away. It is more annoying than anything, but I do hope I can finally shake it in the next few days. I am really in the Christmas mood after wondering through all those Christmas markets, and my thoughts always turn to family and friends when I think about the holidays. I don’t want to write so much about that now because I want to write another blog post before Christmas, but I am so thankful for all of you and I just want you to know that. Okay, work is calling, so I best answer, at least for a little while. I hope this finds you all well, and I look forward to talking to you as the holidays draw nearer. Oh, before I end this, I want to send out a quick congratulations to my buddies Stephen and Kylie, who both passed their master’s defenses these last few weeks—way to go! I am jealous of both of you. Also, I want to point out that my brother, Dan, passed a major physical exam in the San Francisco Police Academy that would have left most of us crying out for mercy. He is one bad dude and it is always nice to have someone like him in the family! Good job bro! Okay, I do need to get to work now. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and wish you all an even better few weeks leading up to Christmas. This is Nate the Skate signing off for now. Ciao!

Pictures from Prague and Vienna can be seen at: http://www.photoworks.com/members/Nathan_Owens

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