7 drinks in a week

You cannot live without alcohol in Europe, it is part of the culture here.

In the past week, I have had precisely one drink per day:
Tuesday: a beer with colleagues.
Wednesday: a beer before the dinner with colleagues.
Thursday: a glass of wine during filmavond watching Dutch film 'Turkish Delight'.
Friday: a beer at home with Weihua.
Saturday: a beer in The Hague with Weihua.
Sunday: a beer with Stefan and Christian in Amsterdam.
Monday: a beer with colleagues in Delft.

This is the highest concentration of alcohol I ever had I guess.

Jokes only physicists understand

During the poker night today, Stefan's friend told us a nice joke.

Why Heisenberg's wife has problem with her husband? Because whenever he has energy he has no time, and whenever he has position he has no momentum.

We extended this joke to Einstein. Why Einstein's wife has problem with her husband? Because whenever he gets speed he gets shorter, which also explains why his first wife divorced him.

Global meeting

A global meeting is hold among leo and his new born son (Toronto), Song (Hong Kong), Lei (Tokyo), and me (Delft).

Where Eagles Dare (1968)

Since I came back from Auschwitz last month, I am obsessed about the history of World War II. I remember there was a WWII movie I watched on TV when I was in high school. I don't remember what's the title of the movie, but I remember there were following ingredients in the movie: castle, cable car. Probably many people already know what movie I am talking about. 

Google helped me to find what I want: the 1968 World War II spy movie Where Eagles Dare. It is one of the greatest movies about World War II, although it is not based on real story. One thing I would emphasize is the main theme for the movie, which is played at the beginning of the movie and throughout.

Flight missing log

11/25/2001, missed the connection flight from Richmond to Atlanta.
Reason: because of the delay of the previous flight from NYC (La Guardia) to Richmond due to bad weather.
Solution: changed to a later flight.

12/29/2002, missed the connection flight from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Reason: because of the delay of the previous flight from Atlanta to Chicago due to bad weather.
Solution: changed to a flight next early morning: Chicago -> Orange County -> Los Angeles.

12/17/2004, missed the flight from Atlanta to Mexico City via Dallas.
Reason: arrived at the airport 2 hours earlier, but there was long check-in and security check line due to the Christmas holiday.
Solution: changed to later flights via Miami.

12/27/2004, missed the flight from Cancun to Miami.
Reason: Mexicana Airlines refused to take us because we did not have valid US visa, although we did have the valid I-20 which is sufficient to enter US from Mexico.
Solution: changed to an American Airlines flight to Miami.

12/27/2004, missed the connection flight from Miami to NYC (JFK).
Reason: we still had enough time even we were delayed at Cancun, but we missed our connection because we were checked at immigration.
Solution: changed to a later flight.

01/27/2008, canceled flight from Shanghai to Jinggangshan.
Reason: bad weather, the icy storm.
Solution: went to the train station.

05/04/2009, missed the flight from Prague to Paris then to Amsterdam.
Reason: my train from Kutna Hora to Prague was 15 minutes late, and I had to go back to hotel to pick up my bag before heading to the airport. I was able to arrive at the check-in counter 20 minutes before the departure, but I was refused to check-in because the the flight already started boarding.
Solution: It turned out my ticket was not permited to change, so I had to buy another one-way ticket back to Amsterdam from Sky Europe airlines.

Easter: April 14, Bratislava

[An interesting menu in '1. Slovak pub' restaurant]

On the night of April 13, we arrived at our hotel in the center of Bratislava. The first feeling that Xun and I shared was the receptionist was cold, no smiling (typical Eastern Europe Socialism style?).

I have to say there is not much to see in Bratislava. We actually visited two 'museums' on the Bratislava castle, they shouldn't be called museum at all in my standards.

Perhaps, one thing I would like to recommend was a restaurant called '1. Slovak pub' on the Obchodna street. The food was nice, we ordered the Slovakia version of Coca Cola, the Kofola, and the Slovakia garlic soup. It is said that Coca Cola was the #1 soft drink in all countries except Slovakia, just because of Kofola. If you do visit the restaurant, do not miss the last page on the menu (see the pic on the right), there were several interesting items:

item 254: free soup + small Kofola for A mark from exam,
item 256: poor student lunch
item 257: lunch of student after pay day
item 258: lunch of student who want to disport himself to his girlfriend.

After the lunch, we drove back to Vienna airport, and flew back home.

The End.

Easter: April 12, Auschwitz

[Panoramic view of Auschwitz II - Birkenau Extermination Camp]

Auschwitz looks just like any other beautiful European country side if it wasn't because of the largest Death camp built some 70 years ago. It is believed that there were about 2.5 - 4 million people were killed in Auschwitz during the Second World War, which should make this place top in terms of either total death toll or death density in area.

Although the weather on the day we visited was so nice and sunny, although the grass and trees were so green, although the birds were singing in this nicest spring time, I could still feel this was the hell that millions had suffered because all of those had been absorbed into the soil. 

For the museum now in Auschwitz I, I would rate it R because I don't think it is a good idea to bring kids to this place seeing all the darkest side of human history. It is really hard to imagine how human being could do such things to other human beings. Not just were the bones and flesh perished, the souls and the lives behind this picture wall too.