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More pictures

Marcel — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:00:44 +0000

Here are a couple of more pictures from the Harvard University and Boston.

Harvard

Out with the guys from Infrared5

The most honest guy I’ve met

Beautiful Boston Skyline

Doing the Freedom Trail

Marcel — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:25:25 +0000

When you ever come to Boston, the Freedom Trail is one of the top attractions. This mostly bricked path winds its way through downtown Boston and connects 16 historic sights. The 4km (2.5 mile) long path starts at the Boston Common and ends up in Charlestown, at the Bunker Hill Monument, right across the Charles River.
We did the whole thing and had a lot of fun during this sunny day. Here are some pictures:

André hunting Squirrels in Boston Common, the oldest public park in the USA

Massachusetts State House

Granary Burying Ground

Old South Meeting House, the organization point for the Boston Tea Party

The Old State House, the oldest surviving public building in Boston

Sam Adams, on f the founding fathers of the USA and the Boston counterpart of Bochum’s Moritz Fiege

Us, enjoying Sam Adams and Harpoon beer

Paul Revere House

The freedom Trail

Streetview near Old North Church

Streets in Charlestown

Bunker Hill Monument

Warren Tavern, opened it’s doors in 1780 - pretty old for a pub, even for us europeans

Travelbert in Harvard University

Marcel — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:49:13 +0000

On Tuesday my good old friends from Powerflasher did run a little programmers conference regarding their product, called FDT. I had to do two presentations on that event, that was why I’m actually here in Boston. The auditorium could be a little busier at this time, but the live stream I did setup for my company, Slot3, was a huge success. Besides all of that, it was a great honor to speak in Harvard.

Me in the auditorium, prepping the presos

André Michelle during his Audio Tool presentation

Rodizio at Midwest Grill

Marcel — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:26:55 +0000

Tonight we had an awesome dinner in Cambridge, at the Midwest Grill. Again I trusted the Lonely Planet to recommend us this beautiful brazilian restaurant on Cambridge St. Of course all of us took the excellent rodizio-style brazilian BBQ, where you’ll get variations of grilled meat served to your table until you can’t take no more. It was the first time for me in a brazilian restaurant and I can definitely recommend. Here are a few pictures, basicly just for my buddy Sven who would feel like in seventh heaven in a place like this

Bought US cellphone

Marcel — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:36:09 +0000

We’ve been at a Radio Shack today, and there I saw some damn cheap prepaid phones. Cheap like reeeal cheap, like $14.99 cheap. So I thought it would be a good idea to buy one of those so that it will be cheaper to do US calls and stay connected with my US friends. I now have a brand new US cellphone number and, well, another phone.. Haha, I just can’t have enough of those. Here’s my current collection I’m carrying with me:

Needless to say that the new US SIM-Card is now ticking in an iPhone

Something huuuuge is going on

Marcel — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:26:38 +0000

Long time I was not traveling for joy, this is why there were no news or travel stories in the last couple of months. I did a lot of busines trips to the US during this times but nothing real noteworthy. Anyway, I just started another adventure, something way bigger then all the other travels. I’m moving to the United States and I will tell all my stories related to this huge step here on travelbert.com. The move is divided into two parts. Right now I’m on my way to spend my first month over there to take care of an apartment and all that kind of other stuff. During this time I’ll live in my friends Steve’s house in Columbus, Ohio - you know, the city with the huge Kraut village. Then I’ll go back to germany for a maximum of two weeks to finally take care of my visa stuff (I’ll start with B-1), before then finally heading back and stay there.
But why am I moving? Well, there a couple of small reasons, mostly business related but if you would ask me directly, I would tell you that my main motivation why I did this so fast and forceul, is something else. Something like the follow your heart kind of thing where I’ll probably talk more about in a later post.
Anyway, I already safely arrived at my first destination, Boston, Massachusetts where I have to take care of some business stuff before heading down to Ohio. Here are some pictures from the first 12 hours or so.

My stuff

Me at Dusseldorf International - apparently little tired

Arrived in Boston

With the boys in some Piano bar

My office 2.0 - I’m a fucking nerd!

Hotel room, Best Western, avg price per night $232

Our car

El camino del Ray

Marcel — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:13:21 +0000

I just found an amazing video in twitter.com/hessendscher’s Tweets. Enjoy!

The Egyptian Museum + Trip Conclusion

Marcel — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:54:44 +0000

On our last day in Cairo we went to the Egyptian Museum, right around the corner of our Hotel. It was full of people but not as busy as expected. We followed the Museums Guide in our Lonely Planet and made our way through several rooms of this huge museum.
We liked especially the ground floor very much, with all its giant sculptures and sarkophags. It was so impressive. It got really wild in the Mummy room, where you need an extra ticket which doubles the price of the museums entrance. But it was worth it. Kept at a constant 20 degrees, we saw the bodies of 4000 year old egyptian kings and pharaos. Wow!

Another highlight of the museum was the Tutankhamon exhibition with his world-famous death mask. That was killer! But even the other stuff around fascinated us a lot.

So, if you get the chance to visit Cairo, be sure not to miss this museum. Definitely one of our highlights of that trip (along with Mr. Kugelschreiber of course).

After that we took some sandwiches in the nearby egyptian fast-food store and went back to the hotel to get our stuff packed. Right now we’re sitting at the airport, waiting for our plane to depart. Our conclusion of that trip is, that we definitely wanna come back. It is a so fascinating country with fascinating people and we wanna see more of that. Sure, there are a lot of hassles in such a trip, but it’s worth it anyway. If you know how to deal with all that touts and scams, it’s kinda entertaining.

So, see you next time Egypt / Cairo!

Pictures of the day:

Egyptian Museum

Last Sheesha on the trip

Sheesha Mania

It’s belly dance time

Marcel — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:08:43 +0000

Tonight we wanted to check out some Belly-dance. For this we’ve chosen the Seramiris InterContinental, where the famous Dina is dancing (one of the top belly dancers in Egypt). But before we went to Abu El-Sid restaurant, in Zamalek for a nice dinner and, of course, another sheesha (love that stuff).
There we enjoyed a nice bottle of wine together with Molokheya (me), and Circesian Chicken in Walnut Sauce (Fatima) in a really nice beduin-like atmosphere. That was absolutely great, we love egyptian food.

After our dinner we took a taxi to the InterContinental to see the dancing Dina. Downside of that was the miniumm charge of the nightclub, of 400LE each (around 50 bucks) and we were close to skip that. But then we said, „Hey, when do we have to chance to see one of Egypts most famous belly dancers?“. So we jumped in, and odered a fruit plate and a bottle of 2005 Pouilly Fumé (Steve?). After 90 minutes or so listening to live music and some singers, the famous Dina hit the stage and showed us a great performance over the next 60 minutes. When we first saw her, both Ewa and me were like „Holy Shit!“. But see the photos and the upcoming video for yourself, you’ll know what we mean
(By the way, talking about the interior of the nightclub, we now know where german table dance bars gather their inspiration from :))

We really enjoyed the show and left at around 3am and walked back to the hotel. We must say, that even in the middle of he night, we feel very safe in the streets of Cairo so far.

Pictures:

At Abu El-Sid

Mezze

Circesian Chicken

Molokheya

Abu El-Sid

Fatima smoking a sheesha

Dancing Dina

Very good, very cheap and very Cairo

Marcel — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:04:14 +0000

After our visit of Al-Azhar Mosque, we took the underground shortcut over to Midan Hussein, the place in front of the Mosque of Sayyidna al-Hussein and where the craziness of the Khan al-Khalili starts. Right behind the restaurants with outdoor seating, are a couple of alleys to enter the Khan. We took that one on the southern-west corner of the Mosque to get a coffee and a beer at
Mahfouz Coffee Shop. Wow, the 200 to the coffeeshop meters were really crazy.. All the vendors in the tiny alley are standing in the line, every half-meter or so, and try to talk to you and sell you their stuff. They always try to start a conversation with you and call you by all kinds of nicknames. Me for instance, they called most of the time „Rambo“, but I heard „Michael Jackson“ and „Hulk Hogan“ as well. Very charming It’s getting funny, when they’re honest with you and ask you „Hey, do you want to spend all your money in here?“. And believe me, if you don’t speak english, talk to them in your prefered language - they’re the most talented language artists I’ve ever seen. Oh, and again they take every currency you can think of.

Fatima was already pissed after 50 meters or so, but I liked it somehow. It looks stressful a first, but if you know how to deal with it, and keep smiling, it’s kind of entertaining. Seriously.

Anyway, behind the wooden door in Mahfouz Coffeehouse we had a few Kofte Sandwiches with fries and a non-alcoholic beer (!). The Lonely Planet says that they’re selling Stella (the main local beer) as well in there, but when we’ve been there they just had non-alcohol beer. And of course, it was german beer - Clausthaler. The can said „Germany’s #1“ - That’s ridiculous.

After our light lunch, we walked a bit around and made our way to nearby Fishawi’s Coffehouse, an institution in that area. In this very busy place, I had my first sheesha (water-pipe) and a nice mint-tea, while sitting outside and watching the people trying to sell all kind of stuff. Especialy in this place it was very entertaining because, they’re very easy to get rid of, but try it all the time in a gentle way. I had great fun and liked my sheesha very much. That was one highlight today.

We stayed in that place for an hour or so, and walked a little bit more around in the Khan, before taking a taxi back to the hotel to take our obligatory nap.

Pictures: