[travel] Welcome to Belarus

The Lonely Planet guide to Belarus advises you to hide the Lonely Planet guide to Belarus when entering Belarus because the Belarussian government considers it subversive material and will confiscate it.  Ah, Animal Farm is alive and well.

The government is of course taking this action on behalf of the people. 

I'm planning out my itinerary for the next couple of weeks.  It's looking like:

- Finish Greece (a couple more islands, plus some trips inland from Athens)
- Fly from Athens to Riga (Latvia) for under 100 euros. 
- Hit the Baltic states (Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia), then go down to Krakow by bus or train.
- Spend a few days seeing some of the stunning sights there (the underground salt mines, concentration camps, and the city itself)
- Hop a train to Lviv in the Ukraine, which is supposed to be beautiful.
- Spend a few days in and around Lviv, then go to Budapest and Prague. 

[travel] Yup, this thing checks out (The Santorini version)

One day I took this:


Then I saw a familiar-looking postcard for sale, so I bought it and went back.  Sadly I was leaving that day, so I couldn't match the lighting too.  The funny part was trying to hold it still and in exactly the right place in intermittent 40mph winds.

[travel] Glorious Santorini

I have such fond memories of my two days there. Some to share:

Houses in Fira:



A dog on a very windy day:



The hippie / dancer / poi spinner girl I met, and the view we saw at sunset:



Some dilapidated areas in Oia... even they were beautiful:



Fira sky:






( And lots more... )

Complete Santorini set on Flickr

I've taken gobs and gobs of pictures on this trip.  If the worth of the trip is measured in pictures, I'm spending about $1.80 per picture.  It's probably around $10-$20 per good picture.  If I do measure the worth of my trip entirely in pictures, I'll be missing out, but pictures are a very useful way of triggering less tangible memories.

[tavel] The allure of the sea...

... also known as "how to use large-scale dedicated hardware to solve a differential equation for a particular set of initial conditions that yields results that have hypnotic effects on the human brain"



Watching the various waves interfere with one another from such a height and distance was incredibly beautiful.  I could have watched it for quite a long time without getting bored.

Some more: