A mix of the buildings, statues, scenery and some macros:

The rest are here

Yes, it's a bit creepy to be surrounded by untold thousands of human skeletons:

The rest are here

I went a bit overboard taking photos of and on the Eiffel Tower, but hey, what good is 14GB of CompactFlash cards if you're not going to be occasionally gluttonous? So here's some highlights from what's been uploaded so far:

That last photo is the first of a few taken standing in the chilly reflecting pool

OpenLeft has a fascinating look into the means through which Obama - who almost everyone finally acknowledges is the presumptive nominee, a fact which hasn't been in much doubt for months - has consolidated and transformed the base of money and power within the Democratic party, and what the future holds

There's certainly an "all the eggs in one basket" sense to this, but I can't help but allow hope to overwhelm skepticism. Once Obama is elected - which barring a major scandal or some sort of dramatic 9/11-type event I think is a near-certainty - we'll find out for sure. We could again end up with Clinton-style pandering, more "don't ask don't tell", COPA, AUMF, etc. But Obama has shown a surprising willingness to not just passively resist but actively attack this style of politics. He took a stand against the utter buffoonery of the gas-tax holiday and the faux-toughness of Clinton's "we won't talk to dictators" rhetoric, and has consistently used suprisingly nuanced and measured language in discussing policy, a refreshing change from the soundbite platitudes that have dominated for as long as I can remember

All of this gives me hope that if the political winds continue to blow in his direction (and at this point Obama is as much creating those winds as he is riding them) that we could have a real sea-change in American politics. As I said before, I think Obama's actual beliefs are far to the left of the mainstream discourse in the US. Whether he will have (or be able to create) the political capital to enact those beliefs remains to be seen, but I think there's a good chance that he will. Squeaking in with 51% of the vote and facing a GOP Congress, I'd have little hope of seeing major initiatives on our energy use, drug policy, or the Cuban embargo. But with 55% and a Democratic Congress, it might be a very different story

As I said, my extended stay in Bordeaux happened by accident, but it wound up being quite a happy three day layover before the journey to Barcelona. I briefly mentioned Ulisses in the Paris post, figuring I'd explain more here. Ulisses was one of a handful of really friendly, cool backpackers I met at St Christopher's in Paris. We wound up hanging out a few times in Paris for food and the two walking tours, and the Musee d'Orsay. He's from Brazil, where he worked before quitting to do a one-year round the world trip - he's already about six months in, and has been all over the place. Whether or not you read Portuguese, his blog is worth checking out just for the pictures

Anyway we hit it off in Paris, and figured we'd hang out for the night I was on layover in Bordeaux. I arrived and found the screwed up train situation, but it worked out for the best as Bordeaux was a nicer place than I'd assumed, and Ulisses and I were able to spend a few days working our way through the city and having a couple adventures along the way. We parted ways as he went on to Nice and Cannes and I to Barcelona, but hopefully we'll run into each other again later on

Good

Bordeaux was simply a great place to be. The weather was generally good, the public transportation (trams) are cheap and efficient, and the central area of the city is pedestrian only, and has an excellent variety of shops and endless assortment of places selling delicious and reasonably priced food. Even the typical French unpleasantness seemed lessened compared to the awful Parisians - we ran into a number of helpful locals

We bought and drank copious amounts of the local Bordeaux wine, which was cheap and delicious, and of course more cheese. At one point I accidently bought some super-processed cheese from the market and felt almost sick eating it, it was so poor in comparison to the real thing

Bad

Being away from the coast, Bordeaux got uncomfortably hot during the day, but there were good areas to cool down around the lake or by the estuary (not a river, I looked this up)

Ugly

Not much - Bordeaux was a great little city. Some of the areas close to the train station were a little run-down and unpleasant compared to the central area, but I never felt unsafe

Places

We didn't do too much traditional sight-seeing around Bordeaux, choosing instead to soak up the atmosphere and stuff ourselves silly on the local cuisine

Rue Sainte-Catherine

It's well worth walking the length of this street and the surrounding pedestrian-only areas in the central city - be sure to stop and sample some food every 50 feet or so, or until you burst

Baud et Millet

A cheese-lover's paradise, I found the recommendation for this restaurant from my tourist guide, and it was an amazing experience. Upon entering the place seems fancy and decorative, but otherwise fairly typical. But the real treat is the food, specifically the buffet, which you can order with or without a main course (I recommend with). You won't notice the buffet as you walk in because it isn't near the upstairs seating

Instead downstairs, in an atmospheric stone cellar, is the most amazing collection of cheeses you've ever seen. And you can take as many and as much as you can possibly eat - and believe me, I tested the limits of the possible that night. With the meal comes a glass of wine and as much bread and water as you need to accompany the cheese - i.e., a lot. The variety and quality of the cheese was far beyond what I'd imagined, and easily worth the somewhat steep price of admission

Lacanau-Ocean

This was a tangent on a tangent, an unexpected visit to the ocean during an unexpected stay in Bordeaux. It started when Ulisses and I were walking along the estuary and found an impromptu outdoor restaurant serving a decently priced meal of raw oysters and white wine. The raw part freaked me out a bit, but I was eventually convinced to just go with it. The oysters and wine were both delicious, and our server was kind enough to give us free extra glasses of wine, I think in part because they were packing up to leave

Shortly afterwards, a young French woman (Lynn) who apparently knew the restaurant owners came over to chat a little, and offer us even more of the white wine. We chatted for a little while by the river with her and her friend (Alex), who was visiting from Toulouse (if I remember correctly). Then, on a whim, Lynn mentioned that they'd been planning a quick trip to the ocean, and asked whether we'd like to come along. I was confused on the geography, not realizing how close Bordeaux was to the coast

Alex drove like a mad woman, I guess because she'd spent most of her time in Paris. At speeds up to 145 km/hr we got the ocean pretty quickly. The weather at the ocean wasn't great, and the water was freezing, but I loved the spontaineity of the whole excursion, and somehow wound up taking a very brief swim in the large, cold waves (Lacanau is a surfer's haven), to everyone else's shock

It turned out Lynn & Alex were old childhood friends who hadn't seen each other in three years, and wanted some time to catch up before the weekend ended, so Ulisses and I got ditched back in Bordeaux after returning from the ocean. Nonetheless, it was quite the spontaneous, hilarious adventure

Accomodations - Barbey Hostel

The hostel was probably the worst aspect of the city - the interior decor was like something from Soviet Russia, they had all sorts of odd and spottily-enforced rules, and some of the staff were downright rude. They also kept putting "full" signs on the door even though the hostel seemed deserted, and two out of three nights even our room wasn't full. Still, it was mainly just a place to stay, and the computers and kitchen were decent

few more Notre Dame pics that I've got uploaded:

More of the interior:

There was this awesome bum who just fed the birds (sparrows?) around Notre Dame. He would feed them bread right out of his hand, but they wouldn't go near anyone else until he signalled it was OK. He would get people to hold bread out, and the instant he touched their hand the birds would swarm to it to grab the bread. It was quite the sight. A few highlights:

Right now I have a haphazard mess of photos still on my iTouch and various camera cards, and uploaded up to my VPS. So while there's still a good deal of Dublin photos still waiting to get to Flickr, I'm putting some Paris ones up as well (and in a somewhat random order), and they'll end up here. Highlights so far:

Couple photos from the top of Sacre Coeur:

Notre Dame:

and another:

and another:

inside:

More to come...at some point

After a few worrying moments, I'm now safe and sound in Barcelona. Next stop looks like it may be Portugal - I think because of a holiday in France all the Spain hostels are booked for the upcoming weekend

Anyway, more Dublin pics are being uploaded as I type. Many of them will need some Photoshop work - I'm shooting in RAW to make it easier to recover a decent picture from these eventually, but the downside is the auto RAW->JPG converter I'm using for now doesn't always do such a good job, so for now they are what they are. Some highlights:

Christ Church Cathedral:

and at night:

St Patrick's at night:

I've finally found a working way to get photos auto-uploaded to Flickr. This is after doing the RAW->JPG conversion with UFRaw on my VPS, and then I've got this python script working to do the uploading. I still need to sort through the photos, rename & tag them and nuke the duplicates and mistakes, but if anyone wants to see some they'll be streaming in there from now on, fingers crossed

I'll post some highlights in the blog when I have a chance, but for now go here

Even while still in Paris, refectling on the trip was a mix of emotions and opinions that varied day-by-day and hour-by-hour. The city stands in total contrast to Dublin, being far larger and more impressive, and yet simultaneously far more unfriendly and unpleasant

At some point later I'll go through all the gory details, which would fill a novella if done properly, but suffice it to say the Irish Ferry ride and subsequent journey from Cherbourg to Paris was filled with adventure and mayhem, culminating in the theft of my Canon XTi camera, so much of the first few days in Paris were spent recovering from the ride and finally finding a used replacement camera (the price for a new model was much too high)

Even the delay and disappointment resulting from that episode couldn't put too much of a dent in the Paris experience though

Good

At times Paris was so grand and awe-inspiring it barely felt real. Being an old city in Western Europe, for some reason I had the impression that everything would be cramped and compressed. While that held true for the city in a functional sense, many of the sights were simply shocking in their size and grandeur. The Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Versailles - all had an almost Hollywood sense of absurd disproportion

Even beyond the obvious landmarks, it was hard not to be continually impressed with the beauty and artistry of everything from the streets and canals to some metro stops. Some of the food was absolutely divine - my favorite being a fresh cooked nutella + banana crepe, which tasted so good it was nearly intoxicating

Bad

For all the good in Paris, there was a lot of unpleasantness as well. The language barrier was worse than I'd expected, with many of the French not knowing (or claiming not to know) English at all. "parley-voo anglay?" and a half-dozen other phrases only get you so far, and while my poorly remembered Spanish classes help a bit with reading French, they've been of barely any assistance hearing or speaking it

And yes, many of the French are rude, unpleasant and unhelpful. This was a stark contrast to Dublin and an impression I confirmed from talking with a number of other backpackers. Almost everyone on the metro and the streets look miserable all the time, and almost everyone who doesn't you eventually realize isn't French. It finally got to the point where I wound just smile at people on the metro simply to annoy them - the French seem to look down their noses at anyone displaying genuine happiness, as if they misunderstood the phrase "ignorance is bliss" to mean "joy comes from uncultured stupidity"

There were also unfathomable masses of tourists, partly a result of the poor weather for much of the week, and the odd hours kept by many of the Paris sights. For instance on Tuesday the only major museum open is the Musee d'Orsay, and the Tuesday I was in Paris it was also raining, which funnelled huge number of tourists into that museum

Ugly

The conventional wisdom isn't wrong - some of the Parisian smell absolutely awful, as do many of their metro stations. One of the stations in particular - maybe Chalet - smelled of month-old fermented urine and sweat, so strong I nearly gagged when I first arrived

Paris also hosts a simply absurd number of "bums", a term I'll use describe a broad spectrum of people who feed in an unpleasantly forceful way off the size of the city and it's tourist population. These range from the relatively pleasant street musicians at the top, and then spirals down into non-pushy nomadic street vendors, metro musicians, pushy street vendors(seriously, how many damn Eiffel Tower keychains do I need?), and metro bums begging for money, finally ending with the endless "speak english?" scam artists and the guys who need your social security number to bring about world piece. I understand any big city is going to have these social parasites, but after being asked "speak english" by a beggar for the 30th time in a day I was quite close to saying "yes: fuck off!"

Places

Louvre

I knew before entering that the Louvre was enormous, impressive, maybe the world's greatest museum, etc. I was still completely shocked by the size and quality of their collections as well as the museum itself, which is beautiful inside and out, and the size of a small town. The Egyptian & Babylonian exhibits, the huge collection of sculptures, and of course the paintings - any of them could have filled a worthwhile museum by itself. All of them together weren't half the collection in the Louvre

I'm not a huge museum person, and the language barrier meant I got less out of the museum than I might have, but it was impossible not to be awe-struck by the experience. When I saw "Code of Hammurabi" on the museum map, it was like "wait... THE Code of Hammurabi??"

I went for the first time on Sunday and had a great experience, but when I went back on Wednesday (to spend more time in some areas, and to take pictures - I hadn't had a camera for round 1) the crowd inside was at least triple what it had been before, and the stay was much less pleasant. You're there viewing many of the greatest works of mankind to the backdrop of rude, pushy, disrespectful throngs of tourists - it can't but lessen the experience

Prize for worst disgregard of treasures of human history is a tie:

• the people who wrapped their arms around an ancient egyptian statue to pose for a picture
• the girl who placed her head on top of a headless greek sculpture, again for what I'm sure will be a great snapshot on facebook

Yeah....

Central Paris walking tour

A handful of the backpackers from my hostel went to a "free" (tips expected) walking tour through the central area of Paris. While I nearly froze to death in the 50 degree weather in shorts and a t-shirt, the tour was a pleasant and efficient way to quickly see - sometimes from a distance - many of the major sites. Afterwards you'll certainly need to go back and revist many of the areas in more detail, but it provided a good outsider's overview of the city, and helped to plan return visits to the sights. The guide, George, was quite a character and made a good show of re-enacting some excerpts of famous Parisian speeches

Musee d'Orsay

The museum had a number of very impressive art pieces, especially the Monet and Van Gogh. I'm fairly clueless about art, but I visited with Ulisses (more on that later), who gave me a very helpful abridged overview of the impressionist movement. The museum's building itself, in and old train station, is also quite impressive

Monmarte walking tour

The late-afternoon tour of the Monmarte area of Paris, which we joined partly because George was again the guide, was similarly informative and amusing, but the sights were less worthwhile. Still worth the time during a week-long Paris stay, but wouldn't have been I was trying to do the city quickly

Arc de Triomphe

The Arc is worth the visit if only for the shock of its size - taking the long walk down Champs-Elysees Ave and watching as the Arc grows larger and larger before your eyes is quite the experience. I didn't take the ride to the top for the view, instead opting to walk to the Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

The experience of the Eiffel Tower was much more impressive than I expected. The way it's constructed, letting you walk under it and essentially through it as you climb - it's just very cool. Upon first arriving at the base I was disappointed to find more huge lines waiting to enter, but I realized the two lines I was seeing were for the elevator lifts up. Well, that's for chumps - there was no line at either of the stair entrances, and that was what I wanted anyway. Of course, by the time I was at the second level(out of three) I felt like I was having a heart attack, but I still say it's the only way to go

Unfortunately the elevator was the only way to get to the third and highest level, so I swallowed my pride and crammed into the lift to the top. It's well worth spending time on each of the three levels though - they're designed differently and offer unique views of both the city and the tower itself

By the time I'd satisfied my picture lust from the tower it was late in the day, so I stuck around the area to watch the sunset and the tower at night - it was well worth it. As it gets dark they turn on pleasant orange-ish lighting for the tower, and I took a fair number of pictures from the surrounding area during and after sunset. Just as I was about to leave though, they switched on a truly stunning light show, illuminating the entire tower in bright-white blinking lights. Apparently this is done 10 minutes per hour, on the hour - starting around 10PM, I think - it's a must-see

There's a reflecting pool opposite the tower that offers a great shot for photos. Unfortunately the best spot to take them is in the pool itself, which wouldn't have been much trouble except for the knee-deep water and 45-degree weather. I originally thought it wasn't that bad until I realized my feet were going numb within seconds - hence the lack of discomfort. I went in 4-5 different times, the last couple being the worst, because instead of hand-holding the shots I needed to setup the gorilla-pod and kneel in the water to check the framing. Let's just say I hope the pictures came out, because that experience may well have sterilized me

Pere-Lachaise Cemetary

I had only a short time at the cemetary before the heavy-handed security started kicking people out, so the only famous grave I saw was Oscar Wilde, whose gravestone had all sorts of devotional thoughts written on it. The cemetary was OK as a change of pace, but a little too out of the way, pedestrian and morbid to feel like time well spent in a city like Paris

Catacombs

I almost skipped the catacombs, after hearing one person call them "just a bunch of bones." Well, yes. If by that you mean the artistically arranged skeletal remains of hundreds of thousands of Parisians. Although not for anyone with a weak stomach, this really shouldn't be missed. Like everything else in Paris though, it's worth arriving early

Chateau de Versailles

I spent most of my last full day in Paris on a trip to Versailles - it's a cheap RER ride there and back. I was initially horrified by the huge masses of people - the line to get inside was in the thousands, and I nearly just turned around to leave. Luckily I instead took a walk around the side of the Chateau and saw the sprawling gardens surrounding it. While still fairly packed with tourists in some areas, the gardens are enormous, and I spent the entire day just walking around scenic and relatively vacant canals, flower gardens, animal farms, etc.

It was without a doubt the most pleasant day spent in Paris, even though(or because) I never bothered to try to get inside the buildings. The entire complex has the feel of a giant royal park, I suppose because it was. It's not hard to understand the peasants guillotining the people who would build such a sight and then wall it off from the public

Accomodations

St Christopher's

A modern, commercial hostel, Saint Christopher's was overall a very positive experience. I met quite a lot of other backpackers there from all over the world, and had a lot of good times. They have a bar downstairs, which is both a plus and minus. On the plus side it's a nice - if pricey - place to hang out with other backpackers after a long night walking. On the downside it attracts an older and louder crowd on Fridays and Saturdays, and encouraged the hostel not to provide kitchen facilities (so you'll be more likely to buy their expensive food and drinks)

Although it was located well outside the central area of Paris, the area felt fairly safe and was right on the waterfront of a canal. One night walking around I ran into some young people playing improv music on the canal at 2AM, met a French guy and Algerian, shared some wine - good times. The backpackers at the hostel were also very friendly, and I spent a fair amount of time in Paris travelling with around with a few of them, which was a nice break from solo-style

Square Caulaincourt

As usual I left plans until the last minute and wound up needing to jump to another Paris hostel after St Christopher's filled up nearing the weekend. Sq Caluaincort was in the Monmarte are of Paris, a bit seedier but more interesting than the north-east where St Christopher's was located

The crowd was much more eclectic - I met a turkish girl and a couple London emigrees who'd become street musicians. While an interesting experience the hostel was overall a less pleasant stay than St Chris - it seemed to be a converted cheap hotel, and had cramped rooms and barely any water pressure in the shower, although the staff were quite friendly

While I'm waiting for my 10MB-a-piece pictures to upload, I figured I'd do some blogging before I forget the details. It's amazing to think I left Delaware barely more than 2-weeks ago, it feels like it's been months. I tried to think about some sort of format for these posts on a city, and I'm going to try out a good/bad/ugly/random + places, but I may shorten it if that takes too long

Good

Dublin was a genuinely enjoyable city. As I said in my previous post, it's very small and sort of rectangular, with most of the worthwhile sights being arranged around the Liffey River. It was my first introduction to the word "quay", a term also used in France ("quai") to approximately mean a 1-2 block area running parallel to the river, one on each side. So Dublin is around 8-10 quays on either side of the river, and then more city/pedestrian areas expanding out around the central quays

Almost all the people I encountered in Dublin were very friendly and helpful, and though I struggled at times with the thick Irish accents, especially among older residents, once I came to France I found a new appreciation for the lack of any serious language barrier or tourist resentment

Although it was a bustling and lively town, it seldom felt crowded or overly touristic

Bad

Dublin was very expensive, but I think that's standard fare for many of the large cities in Western Europe, and certainly in part due to the horrendous USD->EUR exchange rate. None of the food looked all that appealing, but that made it easier to live off some oatmeal and snacks that I packed

Ugly

There were a handful of drunk or mentally ill people walking around the city acting out, and some clearly drug-addicted homeless, but for the most part Dublin seemed very safe

Random

The Dublin equivelant of the US "dollar store" was the "2 euro store" - i.e. 3x as much. Guinness ran a similar premium, which was especially bizarre when considering it's so cheap in the US after being shipped 6000 miles away

Places

General Walkabout

I really enjoyed just walking around Dublin at all hours of the day and night. I never felt very unsafe, even carrying my camera late into the night, and there were always at least a handful of kebab shops and fast food places open. The Temple Bar area and the streets around the Millenium Spire were especially good at night

Dublin Castle

The castle tour was fairly interesting, if a bit long. Like elsewhere in Europe I've been surprised how they've continued to use ancient historical sites for contemporary purposes, in this case as an active government building

National Gallery

I'm not much of a an art enthusiast, but the Gallery had free admission and was a welcome break from the cold weather. The pieces weren't overly impressive compared to others I've seen so far, but was still worth a visit

Trinity College

I ran into Trinity college while still walking around trying to find my first hostel. I believe there's a famous library you can visit, but I was still carrying 40lbs of crap on my back so I passed, instead just opting to take some pictures of the small but impressive campus

National Museum

Again, it's not really fair to compare a Dublin Museum to something like the Louvre. Taken on its own the museum was interesting for the Irish history and their contemporary perspectives on controversial events of the past. They were a bit heavy-handed about preventing even non-flash photography, which I didn't understand

Saint Patrick's Cathedral

I'm not sure there's that many worthwhile things to say about a cathedral, but St Patrick's was certainly impressive both inside and out. It amuses me how like Notre Dame in Paris the cathedral is used both as a tourist spot, complete with gift shop, and an active site of worship

Jameson Tour

Although not originally on my agenda, I ran into the old Jameson Whiskey distillery during on of my long walks. The tour began with a campy, hagiographic film about the company's founder, but after that consisted of an unimpressive but quite enjoyable walk through real and recreated portions of the distillery, led by a very friendly Irish tour guide. At the end I was lucky to be part of a whiskey tasting between 6 whiskeys from Ireland, Scotland and America, and can now actually say something intelligent about a whiskey's taste. Aside from the tasting, the highlight was the story of the pet cat Jameson used to keep mice away from the grains, complete with the old cat itself, which they'd had stuffed

Guinness Brewery

Although a more commercial and touristy feel than the Jameson tour, it was also much more elaborate and impressive. The "Gravity Bar" at the end of the tour was excellent, offering a perfectly poured Guinness and terrific view of the city

War Memorial

There's a nice park and war memorial on the western side of Dublin, near the Museum. It's a very pleasant place to walk, and you can climb fairly high up on the memorial for a nice place to relax and take in the view

I also walked through a couple other small parks in Dublinm the names of which I can't recall, but generally you can just get a map and walk around to any points of interest on it. The city's small enough and most sights cheap enough that you seldom will feel disappointed for giving something a shot

Chester Beatty Library

This hadn't been on my itinerary, but I ran into it by chance while walking around near Dublin Castle. It turned out to be a nice quick museum-like experience, and free to boot. Basically it's a small collection primarily consisting of religious manuscripts, although with informative and objective descriptions of the pieces and their importance to the religious faith, as well as some general information on the various faiths and sects and their evolution over time

Accomodations

I stayed in two hostels in Dublin, the first was the Four Corners, in Merchant's Quay. The staff were generally friendly and bathroom in the room was acceptable. Most of the crowd seemed to be long-term travellers who were working and staying in Dublin was an extended time, so it felt a little tough to join in. Still, they had an excellent kitchen and all the areas were open 24-hours, which was a great jet-lag remedy. There was no wifi and you had to pay to use the lobby computers, which were locked down for web-only (i.e. no photo uploading)

The second hostel was Isacc's, right next-door to the bus station. The crowd was quite different, a mix of "traditional" backpackers, some younger tour groups and older solo/couple travellers, and very oddly even some business people who I guess just wanted the cheap room. The breakfast was minimal but decent, the staff was friendly, and the lobby wifi was weak and slow(but better than nothing). They closed off the lobby area after 11PM, which made wifi impossible except from the stairwell, but I had a better time meeting some other travellers

I'm writing this from a hostel computer in Bordeaux(which the french pronounce like boor-doo), where I've been since Saturday. Around Wedsnesday of last week I got a sense that I'd be ready to leave Paris within a few days, and so started planning where to go next. My general direction was south towards Spain, so I chose Barcelona. However because hostel bookings are always tough on Saturdays, I was too late to find any sort of decent place for Friday/Saturday

Instead I figured I would hang out in Bordeaux for a day or two, where the main hostel always has vacancies, and then travel on to Spain on Sunday. Well, I arrived in Bordeaux early afternoon Saturday, and quickly went to the ticket office to get my reservation (with the Eurail pass train rides are theoretically free, but you still need to reserve a seat and pay a generally nominal fee). Unfortunately trains to Barcelona were completely booked for Sunday. After a few changes in plans, I'm now on a early morning train to Narbonne, near the Spanish border, where the French have helpfully told me "good luck" on getting a train to Barcelona

After a week or more without a decent computer or internet connection and computer, I finally realized I can hack up the Ubuntu machine in the hostel to get an QWERTY keyboard layout and a terminal, so I'm hoping to stick around and do some blogging and upload pictures. Maybe I can finally get some on Flickr as well

More posts to come, maybe

This is the beginning of day five in Dublin. Originally I'd planned to go to Galway next, but after some reading decided it wouldn't be my thing. I'm still planning to visit some other areas in Ireland and Britain, but for the sake of nice weather I decided to switch things around a bit and hit the mainland(and more southern areas) first. After a hellish time trying to book a Ryanair flight to Porto(their website & hidden fees suck), I decided instead to take a long "cruise ferry" to Cherbourg, and from there hopefully rail to Paris

Dublin has been a lot of fun, my only real complaint has been weather a bit colder than I expected. The main city is very compact, and other than the bus from the airport, my feet are the only transportation I've used. Six days in the city would probably normally be two more than necessary, but the extra time has been a lifesaver in allowing me to decompress and do some shopping & planning that I never finished in the US

Pictures will be coming at some point - the fact that I'm shooting in RAW mode and trying to use an iPod Touch in place of a laptop is making the upload -> convert -> flickr process a bit more complicated than it otherwise would be

The WSJ hops on the bad-news bandwagon:

Russia's stumbling production growth highlights a troubling reality: Despite soaring oil prices in the past five years, crude output from nations outside the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries has remained essentially flat since 2005, defying the normal link between high prices and increased production....

The economic downturn in the U.S., by far the world's largest oil consumer, has taken some steam out of oil demand. But fast-growing Asia and other places are still adding to demand, and many analysts worry that a global supply pinch later this year could send prices higher.

"There isn't a lot of supply coming on right now, so this [lack of non-OPEC growth] is framing the whole narrative of the market," said Roger Diwan, a financial energy adviser at consulting firm PFC Energy in Washington.

Russia's rising affluence, leading to greater domestic consumption, is also reducing the amount it can export to the rest of the world. Driven by Russia, demand from the former Soviet Union is expected to rise 1.6% this year to 4.2 million barrels a day.

Most forecasts predict that liquid-fuel demand world-wide will hit 100 million barrels a day by 2015. To meet that, producers will first have to make up for steep declines in existing fields. That decline rate now subtracts an estimated 4.5 million barrels a day from annual output.

Former big producers like the U.K., Norway and Mexico are also fighting to squeeze oil from once mighty but now increasingly old and tired fields. In Canada, where output is increasing thanks to massive investments in Alberta's oil sands, production costs now top $65 a barrel by some estimates. Mexico last week pushed a plan to allow its state oil company to enter into service agreements with foreign oil companies, but observers said it may not be enough to attract big investment.

Supply drying up? - check
Global recession? - check
Demand destruction? - check
High prices make oil exporters rich, meaning they consume more of their own oil and export less? - check

Plus remember, shale isn't magic. If it costs $65/barrel to get the oil out, that cost is ultimately paid in energy. Essentially there's a number of real-world factors that limit the "cost" you can pay for a barrel of oil - in theory it could go infinitely high, but ultimately there needs to be a primary energy source used for extracting the oil. Once you hit a certain energy cost(and I would guess $65/barrel when oil is selling for $110 is already close to it), the oil is more of a battery than a source of energy

Oil is used heavily as both an energy source and energy store, and we're nowhere near replacing its role as either

April 15th is my last day at work. I've been there nearly five years, and while I've learned and hopefully accomplished a lot, over the past year I've become increasingly less enthused about the overall direction of the company and my department. I'm not going to go into more detail in a public blog, but suffice it to say it was time to move on

I've always been fairly frugal, and so having decided to quit I also decided not to hop to a new job. Instead I bought a 65L backpack and a one-way plane ticket to Europe. My plan is.... not to have much of a plan. I've cobbled together a fairly modest list of things to see and do, and beyond that I'm just going to try to wing it. Americans aren't allowed to stay in the Schengen area longer than 90 days, but I'm not yet sure whether I want to end the trip at that point or continue on to somewhere new. Not a problem though - I have three months to figure it out

As you'd imagine, blog posting will be erratic to non-existent while I'm away (not too much of a change). If anyone has travel tips or suggestions of places to see, I'd be happy to hear them. Just email me: crayz [at] crayz [dot] org

Bye!