Updates have been hard to come by, mainly because internet access in Lebanon has been really poor. The country is really suffering and trying to rebuild the broken infrastructure since the war, and many of the places I visited had either no electricity, no internet, no water, or all three. But the country has been magical for me, and I look forward to returning one day.

Right now, I am in Petra, near Wadi Rum, in Jordan. It has been a crazy few days. I arrived in the capital of Amman yesterday morning and today I took a local bus first to Mount Nebo, a high spot in the geography where you can see the Dead Sea, Palestine, Jerusalem, Jerico (the oldest walled city in the world), and the river Jordan. It is a crucible of religion and civilization. It it also a poignant reminder of why things need to get worked out in the middle east if any of these countries have a chance to grow. The owner of my hotel in Amman lamented the fact that his country, Jordan, had some of the oldest ruins in the world, was the birthplace of society, and today it struggles to stay afloat amid a sea of extremism, ecological disaster, and political turmoil.

Anyway. I am now in Petra, near one of the new wonders of the world, Wadi Rum. I plan to spend the day in there tomorrow, getting there early, before it gets too hot or too crowded. It will be a highlight of this trip, I am sure.

Doing this trip, with a little less than a month to go made me realize that there is a quote that perhaps defines my life. “The desire to attain something decreases as the difficulty to attain that something also decreases.” I like going after the hard things, I think. This trip is bound to push me to my limits, in terms of my mental endurance, my physical endurance (it was over 40C when I visited a 6th century crusader fortress today), and my ability to bend and glide around obstacles. So, I make this promise to myself. Yield more. Be more flexible. In Buddhist terms, I need to be like the water. Water is one of the most powerful forces in the world, and yet it has no shape. It moulds itself to fit in any spot, in any space, and I need to do that as well.

Two photos for you. The first is a shot of the village of Becharre, in Lebanon, taken at sunset. The second shot is a photo of a section of the ruins at Biblos, one of the oldest Roman ruins in the world.

More to come, I am sure.

The last 72 hours have been wild. Internet availability is almost impossible to find (I’m doing this by hunting and pecking on a borrowed laptop with a Lebanese keyboard), not so much because there is no connectivity available but because just about every wifi access point is locked down. Which is good.

Anyway, incredible flight from Berlin to Dubai, which was a pretty mind bending city. It is the opposite to what I’d consider my lifestyle to be. It would be impossible to live there without a car. Utterly impossible. The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, and you can see it from the airport, which is 50 miles away. It defies the curvature of the Earth.

Anyway, the main attraction so far has been Beirut. I have been here for almost three days now, and a lot of assumptions I’ve had have been flipped on their heads. Well, maybe not assumptions, but definitely preconceived notions. The city is an incredible mix of new and old, ultra modern and broken down, rich and poor. The discrepancy between the really rich (mostly immigrants or business folks from oil countries like Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, or Lebanese living in Dubai), versus locals who live here all the time is shocking. The minimum wage here is less than $400 US a month and yet an apartment in the downtown section of Beirut can cost more than 20 million dollars. I’ve spent the last few days talking to local business owners who express their frustration with many things — the inability to create change, the corruption in the government, and the length of time it takes to get anything done. On that last point, smoking is banned in restaurants and public places now. But the Ministry of Health wants a year to implement the law. People smoke everywhere, they don’t care, or don’t know about the law.

But anyway. The city itself is fantastic. The people are really friendly. I spent one day the other day visiting several members of ReefCentral who live here, looking at their aquariums. At every stop, their wives would immediately ask us what we would like to eat. Lebanese coffee, dates, cookies, crackers, juices, everything. By the last house, I had to say no, and the wife of my friend at that point looked at me, put her hands on her hip, and gave me the “Why not?” look. I had to tell her that it was because I’d had 10 cups of coffee in four hours. She laughed and made me decaf. I am serious.

Anyway, today I drive south to Siwa. It is an old UNESCO heritage site, and I will probably be completely off line for the next few days. I have much more to say about Beirut and Lebanon in general. More to come, when I get online again.

Well, Berlin, it’s been fun. I’ve had the pleasure of wandering your streets now for two and a half weeks, and during that time I’ve visited different neighbourhoods, parks, gardens, museums, restaurants, clubs, universities, churches, and many coffee shops. I’ve had a good time. And today, I move on. I fly to Dubai tonight, and then on to Lebanon.

I don’t really have any parting thoughts on the city. I’ve tried to see as many things as possible, but I still have a laundry list a mile long and could easily see myself coming back here. The weather has been fantastic, which is such a nice departure from the way my last visit to Eastern Europe went. No rain, no cold — just sun and warm.

Wanted to include one final image, which is of the TV Tower and West Berlin, at Sunset.

Next post will be from somewhere significantly warmer!

Hectic pace the last few days, so no updates here. The PKP conference started on Monday, and it’s been busy until today, the last day. My presentation today went well, although now my throat is raw because I was speaking way louder than I normally do. We had a pretty wicked conference dinner last night, lots of great conversation, and those sorts of things are often excellent incubators for new ideas. Very interesting meeting today with Anurag Acharya, the head of Google Scholar. He has all sorts of suggestions for improvements in the PKP software suite to make the sort of data that GS can index better. His enthusiasm is infectious.

I am in Dahlem for two more days, and on Friday I switch hotels again, moving back to the centre of town. I have a few things left to do, things I purposely saved, since a friend of mine is sticking around after the conference too. I would like to get up the TV Tower, and perhaps do the inside of the Reichstag.

I did manage to visit the Botanical Garden the other day. Incredible.

Today I’m moving to the Western side of Berlin, to the Dahlem area, in order to be ready for the conference that starts tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the ‘work’ part of this trip now, and the change of scenery. Dahlem is one of the greenest parts of Berlin, quite far from the wall. I’m not sure if this means that it was less affected by the cold war.

I spent yesterday up in Mitte again, inside of Berliner Tor. Amazing cathedral. I’ll put up some photos I managed to get in there at some point. I was shocked to find out that the Cathedral needs to raise 10,000€ a day to keep the place maintained. They get very little help from the government. That’s an incredible amount of money.

Also hung out with Alec a bit, one of the co-PKP folks who is attending the conference. He and I attended an impromptu flashmob where folks were attempting to set a world record for a running limbo. I am serious. I have no idea if the attempt was successful. There was beer and balloons after.

Here’s a self photo of me standing in front of the Berliner Dom.

No music for this post — it’s early and I need to check out of this hotel and move onto the other one. I want to visit the Botanical Garden this afternoon (one of the best in the world, apparently) and will post more later.

Berlin keeps rolling along. I’ve had a busy couple of days, and have been making the rounds. Yesterday I did an early morning photo run down to the Reichstag and Brandenburger Tor, mainly to get photos with less people to deal with. I have a technique for getting clean shots with no people, but it requires a bit of time and patience and it helps if there are fewer people to start with. I was also in the Gendarmenmarkt, which has some incredibly cool court yards and old cathedrals with large domes. It’s important to go early — the courtyards are virtually empty really early, but by 9 am they are jammed with people and getting photos is much harder.

I hadn’t counted on the Pope visiting Berlin yesterday, though, which meant that there was tons of security, and many areas were fenced off. This was both good and bad, since I could get photos of areas with no crowds, but it meant that getting close to a few spots was impossible. That is okay, and I will try again. Tomorrow is the Berlin Marathon, which may make for some interesting shots there as well. The finish is at the Tor, I believe. I should probably make sure.

Today I went up to the North East of the city, near Alexanderplatz in order to get some photos of Berliner Dom, the main cathedral, which sits on the bank of the Spree river. The light was pretty good, and I am happy with the shots so far. I also took a quick peek at Humboldt-Universität, and walked down all of Dirksenstraße, a pretty funky part near the TV Tower. It’s near my last hotel on this trip, after the conference so it was nice to scout out the area. I also went down to Schøneburg and visited the Deutsches Technikmuseum, which was pretty cool.

I’ve noticed something about Berlin. It is true what they say, about how bike-friendly the city is. There are thousands of cyclists on the streets all the time, and most streets have dedicated bike lanes. I’ve also noticed that lots of people smoke. Like, tons. What I haven’t determined if their are lots of cyclists who smoke. Maybe they are exclusive groups. I doubt it, though.

Also, the city has two “smells”. In the morning, it’s all about coffee and fresh bread. Holy, does this place ever smell awesome at 8 am. By noon, it’s all about currywürst and ketchup and cigarettes though. It’s like East Germany takes over again, the city transitions with the noon-time sun.

Lots of free wi-fi here. Based on past travel experiences, I had thought it might be hard to find good spots, but that is not the case. Berlin is much more like Eastern Europe than Western Europe in that regard. Finding a hotspot in London or Helsinki or Stockholm is freaking hard. Here? Everything is open. Most coffee shops, like this one, offer it. Technically, you need a login, but the info is written on the chalkboard behind the cash.

Track for the post is the classic Judas Priest combo of The Hellion and Electric Eye, made especially relevant because I was down at Halfords the other night, to catch a Sabaton show. Blew my mind. Enjoy.

Well, I get to head to Germany a week earlier than I thought I would. Since there is a strong chance that Air Canada will be going on strike, I’ve preemptively moved my flight and I fly tomorrow instead of later in the week.

This isn’t a bad thing! You know, 90% of travel is making last minute changes and rolling with it. I am relishing the opportunity to have more time in Germany, a chance to see more of the city, and perhaps take some side trips into the country to see more of everything. Awesome.

Anyway, since I need to race home and pack, this will be a short post! The track for this mad scramble is one of my favourite tunes by Agalloch, an atmospheric metal band from Oregon. Please enjoy Falling Snow.

Over and out.