If you have read my little article on travelling to Cote d´Azur, you know what I am talking about, when the headline says “all the practice”. Well, if you went through all the pain to practice with the beer, you have to take it up with the greater challenges and in Germany in September, that can only be the Munich Oktoberfest (the most famous beer festival in the world; I do hope you agree).
As for me, I am not an experienced beer-man and therefore was not in possession of any proper garment for this occasion. Thus my friends took me to Loden-Frey and made sure I was able to dress accordingly for the “Wiesn” (the local name for the beer festival). As you can see from the picture, I am not quite used to such traditional clothing, but I did promise to get some practice wearing it – actually there is a bet to wear them for one of the Xmas markets going on…
Arriving at the Oktoberfest on a weekend means cutting your way through an enormous crowd. Finally entering the tent you do feel very odd amongst everyone wearing traditional Bavarian clothes and being fairly happy with standing on the tables dancing. This strange feeling disappears after the second “Mass” – local for one liter of beer; and that beer being specially brewed for the beer festival to be a little stronger than the normal stuff around. Well, for the sake of proper etiquette I will not go into details of how many “Mass” we actually downed. Strangely enough we all managed to get out of the tent walking straight and even went for a night cap in the hotel bar. For now: Same show, next year
… where the girls are so pretty…. Well by reading this article you might come up with an explanation, why the beginning of this traditional Irish song (Molly Malone) comes to me easily. So I finally had the chance to visit Dublin with knowledgeable guidance and have come to the following conclusions:
Ireland really is the green country – rarely have I seen such wonderful nature being wild and calm at the same time.
Dublin has much more history, than one could inhale in as little time and is a picturesque city with an atmosphere of pulsating life.
The Irish really know how to party! Not just the pubs (and the Irish pubs I have seen across the world do not have much in common with pubs in Ireland) are fabulous places, but especially the open and hearty folks in Ireland create this very special atmosphere.
But let me go into some detail – I will try not to be too exuberant, even though I really had a most wonderful time in Dublin and will definitely be back.
Knowing me, you probably guessed that the choice of accommodation was made quite deliberately. We did stay at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin – right across from the Parliament Buildings (actually a lot was going on there. In case you are interested, you may want to catch up on the Irish Times). The Merrion is one of two fine hotels in Dublin´s city center. The second one being the Shelbourne right across from St. Stephen´s Green, but I will come to all these sites and the Shelbourne´s bar later on. Let me say that the Merrion is an exquisite place to lay one´s head. Made up of four houses on Merrion Square up Merrion Street the hotel alone holds some fine historic secrets. Besides the cultural aspects the Hotel also offers one of Dublin´s best restaurants and bars (The Cellar Restaurant and the Cellar Bar) both taking the visitor into beautifully refurbished but still antique basement levels of the old mansions. Of the two competing hotels the Merrion is certainly more low key and discrete, where the Shelbourne is the place to be seen. We were very happy to stay at the Merrion and go to the Shelbourne for the party ;-).
After this long introduction, let I will share the little sightseeing we did. St. Stephen´s Green is Dublin´s “Central Park” and the sunny (not very Irish) weather made a stroll though the Green an inviting experience. Right across from the main entrance to St. Stephen Green we entered Grafton Street. This extensive pedestrian area is home to all major consume temples but also shows off some very Irish experiences. Many street musicians (Buskers) give the street a very special flair. We did stop for some excellent blues played on an antique guitar and a string quartet playing Mozart. The latter was situated in front Dublin´s historic department store – Brown Thomas – which is still the place for in style shopping. At the end of Grafton Street we crossed over into Trinity College. This fine university loaded with history is also the keep for “The Book of Kells”. For the longest time the Roman Catholic church did not appreciate Catholics attending Tinity College. Only in 1970 did the Archbishop of Dublin lift this policy. On the way back to the hotel we did pass the Kilkenny Design Shop which is definitely the place to go shopping the Irish way without being confronted with touristic crap too much. A short trip to the other side of the river Liffey (in search of a place to eat) brought us into the Italian Quarter - definitely the smallest little Italy I had the pleasure of visiting so far. Going back over the river I simply had to stop to take in the smell of the Guinness factory (which I had no time to visit yet). Back across the river we did stroll Temple Bar and visited a famous pub, which you will read about later on.
Before I go into describing my pub and restaurant experience (I did have to lose three kilos after returning), I first want to tell you about a little trip we took outside of Dublin. We went to Skerries – a most beautiful little town on the seaside (see video). We made our way to Skerries with DART and had a great view of the subsiding city of Dublin and the beginning of a wild and wide countryside while on the train ride. Skerries has a beautiful sea front harbor with a nice row of pubs ranging from classical to stylish. From the town of Skerries we went to visit Ardgillan Castle and Estate. This wide terrain on the hillside with an amazing view of the sea holds a huge park, a domain with a wide variety of gardens and Ardgillan castle itself. Within the castle I had a chance to see an exhibition of antique photographs. This collection of pictures effectively demonstrates that catching emotion and atmosphere in a picture is not a question of photographic equipment, but the question of a good photographer. As I saw in the local schedule there are many events at Ardgillan ranging from rock concerts to art exhibitions and gardening courses. Conclusively I can say that the original planner of Ardgilla castle had the best of taste when choosing the location and the architecture.
Now the part you probably were waiting for…. Eating, drinking and all the rest. First of all let me tell you again, that Irish Pubs in Ireland and Irish Pubs in the rest of the world do not have much in common – first of all I never saw any leprechaun while I was in a pub in Ireland. And to make a point right away, the ones in Ireland are at the top of the list. I had the chance to visit Doheny and Nesbitt´sright around the corner from our hotel. This is a place where you can meet politicians just as well as real estate agents and shop clerks. The Guinness was great a little hint for those of us involved in testosterone level maximizing: it is not suitable for a MAN to order a glass of Guinness, you will have to go for a pint! Another great pub experience was The Palace on Fleet Street in Temple Bar. The Palace is a real social gathering place where you can walk in on your own and not be lonely for the rest of the evening. We were there with “the clan” and still had a good chat with everybody else. The Palace is located in the main tourist area of Dublin, yet it is about as traditional as it can get (except that they do not sell cans of sardines or the like, which is supposed to be a trait of classical Irish country pubs (either that or running an undertaker business beside the pouring of ale). The famous O’Neills on Suffolk Street certainly once was a great pub, but is a little sleazy these days. We also went out of the city center and visited Harry Byrnes which is an incredibly huge place but still has this cozy and friendly atmosphere. Besides the pubs we did a little high class mingling at the bar of the Shelbourne hotel, which is definitely the place to be seen in Dublin. Despite all news about recession the Champaign was flowing freely in this place and there were no signs of the sources running dry. A good snack can be found in Bewleys on Grafton Street – definitely worth a visit if you want to see stain glass windows without visiting a church or if you have a sweet tooth. We did have breakfast in several times at a little crepe place right across from Trinity College, which you will definitely not find in any guide to Dublin. If you are into crepes or bagels this place is worth a visit. For the fine food I can recommend a visit to the Merrion´s Cellar Restaurant or – even better - Bentleys Oyster Bar & Grill right beside the Shelbourne. This is the “home” of Richard Corrigan – a chef you will find in many recommendations for fine cuisine today. So I guess you now know how these three extra kilos came into existence…. I ran off two of them so far.
Well guys, all I can say: Dublin definitely is worth a trip (definitely better with people who know their way around) and definitely a city that will see me again.
Holidays are a rare good in these times so when there is more than a long weekend of time available, one has to choose well what to do with it. This summer was one of the best choices of vacation I have made in the last few years. Three boys going out on a luxury holiday could have become a costly expedition, but one of my two friends suggested making the whole experience a little more personal by taking a camping trip. Since we are all beyond the school kind of camping, we enriched our camping experience with as much “boy toys” as possible. I.e. we took along a beer tap, an espresso machine, a Weber barbecue grill and whatever else we could find to make a boy´s life more comfortable. Everything got packed up in a mobile home and we set camp at Port Grimaud – right across the bay from Saint Tropez. As you can see from the pictures, we were very concerned with a healthy diet – starting at breakfast – and loads of exercise (no, not just by holding up glasses full of beer). Besides the cultural and culinary experience (yes, you can believe we did city tours, harbor tours and all the normal touristy things) we discovered our love for jet skiing. Going across the bay at 90 km/h is an experience beyond words. And I can assure you, that there is no more going 90 when you hit the open sea with 6m high waves rolling over, behind and around you; out there the speed is replaced by surfing and jumping the waves. Even though jet skis do produce a lot of noise pollution and certainly are not a good idea close to any coral reefs, they are great fun and great exercise for legs and arms as well. After the third day of jet skiing the three of us had a little walking problem, because our legs would hardly move; I would not want to imagine what a jet ski ride would do to someone who normally does not do any exercise.
After a week of eating, drinking, swimming, running and wandering around beautiful little towns in the south of France, I can definitely recommend a luxury camping vacation as a boy´s week out. If you plan on doing something similar, just be sure to pack the tap (and proper German beer – we did go for Franziskaner which also works fine as an afternoon snack ) and the grill; without these vital pieces of equipment, the whole camping experience would not be complete whatsoever. And then you also need a seven people tent and a mobile home with four sleeping places to ensure the proper level of comfort. This may sound like we were overdoing it just a little, but can you imagine the discomfort of not having a wardrobe cabin in the tent – you would have to live out of a bag all the time… I could find many more examples, but I think you get the point, right?
Obviously I have underestimated Ireland for the longest time. Only being there for some days on a school trip way back, I now found out about the famous “smiling Irish eyes”. They definitely make my head spin.
First Microsoft’s concept to build servers into 40ft containers was tauntet by some people. Now after the industry adapted this concept, the advantages of their idea regarding flexibility and power effectiveness are approved and several companies jumped on the bandwagon:
but wait, why are news from Sun old?. Right - Sun presented their Project Blackbox 2 years ago, but they seemed to be ahead of time, maybe the oilprice wasn’t hight enough and the worldwide crisis was beyond imagination or ….
To give you the full storie, datacenter containers were invented by - guess who - Google. This is really alarming, because they seem to have finger in every pie <LINK>. As I found out, Google patented the concept of having many servers inside a container and stacking multiple containers to a datacenter in 2003 <READ_HERE>. While Sun misinterpreted the concept just for creating a showcase for server hardware, other put more efforts in developing the idea. How the idea evolved, you can see here:
Yes I know, is that special season, where everyone is looking for some charity money and as usual most causes are more annoying than worthy. Most “welfare money” given as foreign aid does not do much good – as many publications and analysis show. Well, maybe it at least makes most doners feel great. If you really want to help someone to become independent and not just help to keep them in their place, supporting entrepreneurial approaches is the only way to go in a world governed by markets.
Some years ago I found kiva.org a micro finance portal on the internet. I have “lent” and “donated” money all of this time now and have found that 90% of all business financed grow and even report back to their original financiers. So far 100% of all money has been repaid. Personally I do believe – and this should be common knowledge at least after Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Prize for setting up Grameen Bank as a micro finance bank. With kiva.org anyone can join in on making the world a better place and pushing entrepreneurs where they are needed most. Is it not much better to fund a fishing-net for a local fisherman than to pour your donations into some anonymous pot where projects like the Aswan Dam are created?
If you feel like supporting entrepreneurs (not much money is required to buy a frying pan in Rawanda) take a look at my lender page at kiva.org and join…
A great destination for sure: Prague. History, Culture, Music and life itself collide in this place. No matter what you are looking for, you – as I did – will probably find it here – that is if you avoid the streets cluttered by tourists in the old town starting from Karl´s Bridge.
As you probably expected, I did take a special trip to Prague and my focus was clearly set on relaxing and music. To relax one needs a good place to stay and if you are searching for one in Prague I can recommend the Pachtuv Palace Hotel. Even though located right in the city center (about 100m from the Karl´s Bridge) it is a place of absolute comfort and excellent service. After finding a place to lay one´s head indulgence into food seems to be the second factor most important to a relaxed mind. Prague now has a very impressive selection of high end restaurants they –just as the touristy dumpling places do – offer good quality food and service. I was a little disappointed by the famous Coffee Houses (I saw Café Imperial). The building is certainly impressive and well restored, but none of the hearty atmosphere I experienced everywhere else was to be found here.
The most extravagant culinary experience we had was definitely in Svat Klara Restaurant (St. Clara´s Restaurant), located in a cave 16m underground. The maitre – straight out of Bram Stoker´s Dracula – had excellent food and wine selections – this place being a cave, it of course is perfectly fitted to hold an exquisite wind cellar. The luxury food cave experience is definitely one worthy of coming back to Prague for. We also visited “Cowboy´s” restaurant right under the castle. Supposed to be the “in place” in Prague for dining, we had expected a little more. But the view over the roofs of Prague and the beautiful roof garden made up for ordinary food at not so ordinary prices.
But as I said, relaxing was not the only reason for visiting Prague. The trip planning started out with the idea of seeing R.E.M. in concert. Tickets were only available in Würzburg and Prague and as Würzburg is just around the corner from here, Prague was the crazy thing to do. The trip was worthwhile just because of the R.E.M. concert. Czech people just have music in their veins and so the atmosphere in the stadium was absolutely fabulous. The concert itself was breathtaking, even though all members of the band have grown a little old, they know how to rock and they do it whole heartedly. R.E.M. is an experience in music, lyrics, show and performance!
To cool things down a little, we also listened to classical music. Prague is one of the few places I have been to that actually can integrate all styles of music. Even the Jazz bars come naturally after listening to Vivaldi´s Four Seasons in Kostel Nejsvětějšího Salvátora (huh? That is St. Salvator´s Church right at the beginning of Karl´s Bridge) arranged for a string quartet. “A very good performance” by four young students, each of them a master of the instrument is the least I can say.
Even though we had to go back to Frankfurt on Tuesday, experiencing great music did not end there. Instead we went to see Eric Clapton in Wiesbaden. This open air concert basically closed down the whole city of Wiesbaden. People set up benches in the streets to listen in so you can imagine, the place was a serious party. As all Clapton fans know the master appeared on the stage, said “Good evening”, played for roughly two hours, said “Thank you” and left. But the voice of his music – as usual – made up for all the speech the concert lacked. Classics, new songs, different guitars and techniques all at a level of absolute perfection was to be seen that night. I sincerely hope rock legends like Eric Clapton are around for a long time, not just with their immortal music, but also to share performances like this one.
All in all a perfect long weekend in and around Prague and in and about music.
There has been so much talk about cloud computing that at least my head is spinning in the clouds right now. The great idea of the “Do What I Mean Program” (to me the original idea of a cloud) is the logical next step from the “Do What I Mean Network” (Tim Berners-Lee´s original idea of the web). Unfortunately too many buzz word hunters have jumped onto the term too quickly, therefore this topic feels a little more like the emulsion resulting from !$%&/ hitting the fan than anything else. Still the idea is worthwhile, and this is why I have decided to put some time in structuring the cloudy talk out there.
In the long version of this article article you will read about the actual cloud – a distributed computation power that solves computer science problems and enables “us” programmers to focus on the actual value added we expect from our software. You will also read about the common cloud – the marketing talk out in many computer papers and on so many consultancy slides. I will try to show some examples of actual cloud implementation of both “kinds of clouds” and I will take you to the problem with the cloud approach – the problem being that only software either written explicitly for a cloud or really well modeled can actually make use of a cloud.
So, if this is your cup of tea, keep on reading and enjoy. Then again, if you want to read about how this great new technology will change your life and how IT drives business and such – do me a favor and consult either your local astrologist or read whatever IT tabloid you are addicted to and fancy.
some of you probably were out wondering where I had disappeared to. Well I can tell you that I was completely under water and finally surfaced again. And I have been writing articles all along that I will share with you in the coming days. Glad so many of you did write to me – thank you very much
So, now I am back and I will give you some interesting perspectives of things happening in technology, crisis times and of course whatever happened during last summer…. Hope you stay tuned and write just as much feedback as you did.
As for me, I am not an experienced beer-man and therefore was not in possession of any proper garment for this occasion. Thus my friends took me to Loden-Frey and made sure I was able to dress accordingly for the “Wiesn” (the local name for the beer festival). As you can see from the picture, I am not quite used to such traditional clothing, but I did promise to get some practice wearing it – actually there is a bet to wear them for one of the Xmas markets going on… 
