There is only one episode of Lost to go, and these are the questions I have that I would like answered….
1. What is the Source and how does it heal people?
2. What is the nature of the smoke monster? Is it the evil side of the soul? Is it the evil side of the Source?
3. Who was the Fake Mother? Who brought her there?
4. Who built the 4-toed statue?
5. How were the Others, including Widmore, called to the island and are they ultimately serving Jacob or MiB?
6. Who were the people in the temple, including the old Japanese guy, and why is the flight attendant there?
7. What's up with Walt?
8. Who’s in behind the Dharma Initiative and are they on Team Jacob or MiB?
9. What’s makes Desmond special?
10. How has Jack changed now that he is the protector of the island?
11. Why did Desmond have to type in the numbers? What was he doing that was saving the world?
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Iceland 2010
Iceland was really cool.
Shauna and I left Philly around 2 on Friday afternoon. The snow was a little bit of a hassle driving, but we made it to JFK in under 2 hours and had no trouble getting through security. The flight took off at 8 p.m. and it was smooth sailing. It was a 5 hour flight and we slept a lot of the way, but they also had some awesome in-flight movies. I watched Public Enemies with Johnny Depp. When we got close to Reykjavik it was like we were landing on the moon. We could see single lights in the distance and even further away we could see one strip of lights in the middle of complete darkness, like a city on a hill. As we landed it was like we were going straight into the darkness and at the last second the airport's lights were in front of us. The airport is 45 minutes outside of Reykjavik. We landed around 6, got through customs, got our very first stamps on our passports, and by 8 o'clock we were on the road to Reykjavik. The architecture of the buildings was straight out of an IKEA catalogue. The colors, the shapes, everything looked like it got made at IKEA and it also looked like it had just been built recently. We got to the hotel and it was very different from American hotels. Everything was much, much smaller. We got into the room and it was half the size of a regular hotel room. There were two tiny single beds pushed together instead of a huge queen size bed. There was no alarm-clock and the TV station only had 3 channels we could watch. One of the 3 was in Icelandic half the time. As soon as we got in the room we crashed and went to sleep.
We woke up around noon and got out of the hotel around 1. We were staying right off the main strip of stores, restaurants, and bars, so we walked up and down the street. We explored where we were going to go that night and what we should do while we were there. You wouldn't believe the Icelandic girls. Every single girl has platinum blonde hair to the point where it's funny. I later learned that the cool thing for Icelandic girls to do is get their hair bleached, so it wasn't natural. All the clothing stores were boutiques for women and they were as overpriced as here. A lot of the stuff was so cheap because of the economy, but most of it was still expensive. A drinking horn was $60, so we didn't get it. We had booked a glacier trip for Sunday and all I had were sneakers, so I went to a mountaineering store and the cheapest boots they had were $230. I said I would make due with sneakers and kept going on my way. The stores on the main strip closed at 4 on Saturdays (and they didn't open until noon, my kind of working hours), so we thought everything was going to close that early. We were wrong.
We continued walking and exploring the city and went to Reykjavik's flea market. Judging from the amount of T-shirts I will say this about Icelanders: They love Titanic, Leonardo Dicaprio, and Nirvana. The flea market was cool and I found a pair of hiking boots for 4,990 krona. That came out to around $50. We tried some dried fish chips and looked around at all the cool stuff. It was indoors and probably a lot like American flea markets, but with way different stuff. When we looked outside we saw that blizzard had started. The Icelanders said it was the worst storm so far that year. We went out to walk in it.
We braved the blizzard and walked a few blocks along the harbor to a small restaurant called the Seabaron. They are famous for their lobster bisque and it was honestly the best soup I have ever tasted. They also served minke whale meat and we got a whale kabob. It looks like steak and at first it tastes just like steak, too, but better. If they had told me it was steak I would have told them that it was one of the best pieces of steak I've ever had. After a few minutes, as it was going down, I started to taste fish. Hours later, and a few drinks later, I still had the fish taste in my mouth and my hands smelled like fish the rest of the night. We met a few American tourists from Boston in the Seabaron and they taught us how to convert the currency. After the food we left and continued along the harbor until the snow got too bad and we had to turn around and head back. On the way back we stopped at the Seafood Cellar, a restaurant that we had really been looking forward to. They have an exotic menu with all kinds of Icelandic delicacies. It wasn't open yet and we were still full from the lobster and whale so we made plans to come back. Across the street was the famous Icelandic Ice Bar. It is a room in a restaurant that is always kept freezing. The walls and the bar are made out of ice. More about that later.
We continued walking home and stopped in a Mexican restaurant/bar for a drink. The bars and restaurants don't open until 5 or 6, so we were the only people in there. Most of the bars in the country don't serve Miller Lite or Bud Light, they serve Icelandic beers like Viking, Pilsner, Polar Beer, and Thule. With the exception of Pilsner they all taste very similar and resemble Miller and Bud, but they are more alcoholic. The bartender taught us some words in Icelandic (thank you, fuck, etc.) and she told us that nobody tips in Iceland. That was lucky for us because we didn't have any of their currency, the krona. We asked about the bar scene and she said that people start to come out around midnight because alcohol is so expensive there and people pre-game beforehand. She said that everybody really starts partying around 2 and the bars stay open until 8 a.m. After a drink we left the bar and walked back to the hotel. The hotel employee, Emma, told us that our Sunday glacier hike had been cancelled due to snow and we rescheduled for Monday. We were wet, freezing, and tired. We passed out immediately.
We woke up at 10 p.m. (5 p.m. Phila. time), took showers, and got ready to go out. We started at one end of the main drag and went into a bar called Karaoke Sports Bar. All the bars are very small, the biggest ones being slightly smaller than Oh Bryons. This one was a room the size of the front of O'Mare's with bigger ceilings, a bar on the side, a huge Karaoke screen in the front, and a small room with slot machines on the side. They had a drink and shot special and the bartender, Frida, introduced us to Opal Vodka, an Icelandic specialty. It was strong and it was hardcore going down. We brought back a bottle, so you'll be able to do a taste-test with us the next time we see you. We left there and went to a place called (I think) Dillon's. It was a rocker bar and played awesome rock music, with everything from the Rolling Stones to Smells Like Teen Spirit. Like I said, Nirvana is huge there. They supposedly played the largest concert in Icelandic history. I'm not sure if that's true, but it's what Johann at the bar told me. More on Johann later.
We left Dillon's and I fell on the icy stairs on the way out. We were starting to feel it and as we were walking down the main drag a few of the bars started to have lines to get in. We didn't want to wait in line in the cold, so we decided we would go into every bar that didn't have a line. Get this, there is no such thing as a cover charge at any place in Iceland. I heard a song coming out of a bar, "It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine........" so I made Shauna go in so we could dance to Biggie Smalls. We stayed for a few drinks and danced. I loved the dynamic of the bar. It was playing old hip-hop music, it had a bar and a dance floor downstairs, and upstairs it had another bar and places to just chill. After the second Biggie song we continued on our way.
This is where things started to get fuzzy. There were so many bars that there was no way that we could go to all of them so we started to be choosy. We both had to go to the bathroom and this one bar (much bigger than all the rest) had a big dance floor that was near empty but still had techno music and laser lights like the A Lounge used to have. We walked into what we thought was the bathroom area and it took us downstairs to another techno/dance/bar/hangout. No bathrooms. We walked up another flight of stairs and it took us outside to the smoker's area. No bathrooms. We walked into the next room and realized we were back at the beginning and there were still no bathrooms! Amazing.
The next place we hit was an Irish bar. I think it was called Dubliner's. We tried the Opal again and it really started to grow on us. There are Icelandic legends about the "little people," what we call trolls or elves. They take them very seriously and everything we read said that people really believe in them. One building company actually had to pay a "troll finder" to make sure there weren't any "little people" on the building site. I know, it sounds like bullshit, but I kid you not, we saw a little person. He was in an outside smoking area within Dubliner's so we went outside to see him and he started a snowball fight. We quickly made a retreat. The "little people" are feisty.
We went to another bar, but we were starting to slow down and needed some energy. At that point we stopped at a sub stand and had the Best. Drunk Food. Ever. It was called a Pepperoni Boat and I don't know what exactly was on it, but I do know that I will never have anything so greasy and delicious ever again. After we had that we decided to walk to the bars closer to the hotel and stopped at a 24-hour grocery store for some supplies. We got a 2-liter of coke, a nasty sandwich, chocolate chip cookies, paprika chips, and proof that there is a store like Wawa in even the most remote Western cities. We took some pictures on the stumble home, but none of them came out due to our inability to walk straight. We decided to drop off the food, regroup, and then go back out to the bars and rock until 8 in the morning. By the time we actually made it to the hotel, though, it was 4:30 and we collapsed on the bed.
We were really disappointed that the glacier walk got cancelled, but we made the most out of it and did some more exploring in Reykjavik. We left the hotel at noon and did what I consider an urban hike. We walked down to the harbor and now that the storm was over the view was incredible. We could see across the harbor and there was a huge mountain chain. All the mountains were covered in snow and looked amazing. We walked back to the Seabaron to get some horsemeat, but they had run out. I call it horsemeat, but the horses in Iceland aren't real horses. I'm tempted to call them ponies, but it's more like a cross between a horse and a sheep.
We had counted on the horsemeat and were still hungry, so we went to the most famous hot dog stand in Iceland, nay, all of Europe. Iceland is famous for their hot dogs (Pylsas) the way that Philly is famous for its cheesesteaks. I thought, I'm an American, I'm a part of the people that invented and perfected hot dogs, there is nothing that could surprise me or change my feelings towards hot dogs. I was wrong. A Pylsa is a hot dog (that I suspect also has lamb in it) with chili sauce on the roll, raw onions, crunchy fried onions, the hot dog, a crazy Icelandic mustard sauce, and remoulade (a crazy French mustard sauce). I shit you not, it was the best hot dog either of us has ever eaten. Over the course of the trip we had 3 or 4 hot dogs each. In a way it's depressing because I know that I'll never have a hot dog as good as a pylsa.
We continued to walk around Reykjavik and saw some touristy things. We saw a steel frame of a Viking ship, we saw the cathedral, which was one of the tallest buildings in the city, we saw the city hall, and watched a few minutes of the Reykjavik Chess Open (only because we had to go to the bathroom in city hall and accidentally found the tournament going on). There is a huge pond in the middle of the city that is frozen in the winter, but the city officials keep one section warm so that the ducks have somewhere to go. One of the cool things to do is to feed the ducks. The ducks, geese, and other large birds came right up to us looking for food. It scared the crap out of us, but we still went close up to get pictures. Now I know what to tell Holden when he asks where the ducks go in the winter.
Iceland has a system of public pools that are naturally heated by the geothermal properties of the island. It's on the fault line between American and Europe, so there is a lot of volcanic activity. The magma from the volcanoes mixes with the cold Icelandic water and produces a steam that heats everything and that they use for all of their energy, even electricity. I thought that there was a nude geothermal pool, but I was sadly mistaken. I don't know what we expected out of it, but when we got there and were going to go swimming it was just like a large hotel swimming pool. We passed and continued our urban adventure.
It was around 5 o'clock and we made a plan to stop at the liquor store, go make reservations at the Seafood Cellar, the restaurant we really wanted to go to and then go back to the hotel and drink wine and nap until it was time for the Seafood Cellar. Well, the liquor store was closed and the Seafood Cellar had a guest chef for the day that didn't do any of the Icelandic specialties. I was bummed and grumpy. We had been walking all day and now are plans for the night had completely fallen through. We were stuck in Iceland with no plans. The world-famous Ice Bar was right across the street and we had also heard that the restaurant it was connected to was pretty good. The restaurant was called Fish Buffet/Restaurant. Guess what they served.
We were downtrodden, cold, and aching from walking when we opened the door to see if the Fish Buffet would be worth it. As we are about to open the door and walk in, the door opened from the inside by two people dressed as medieval Viking peasants like they were straight out of a Renaissance Fair. We were so surprised we didn't know how to react. We actually both thought, "Is this how the waiters at the restaurant dress?" They told us that they were a part of a comedy show that started at 6 o'clock and they wanted us to come see it for 2,200 krona each ($44 total). We didn't know how to react and said we would think about it. They medieval Vikings said, "If you come to the show you get 10% off your dinner check and you get to go to the Ice Bar for free." The Ice Bar would have cost $40 anyway, but we were still thinking about it so the medieval Vikings said, "How about a free drink before the show starts?" We were sold and each had a Viking beer. As the female medieval Viking walked us down to the theater I asked, "Are you expecting a large turnout?" She said, "Well, it's a Sunday, so it won't be as large as usual." We walked into the theater and we were the only two people in the entire room. It could seat about 40. Before we could say anything they started the show. It was about Icelandic history and the history of Reykjavik. After the initial awkwardness, the show got really good. It was very informative about their history and the two people performing it were hilarious. I expected it to be 30 minutes at the most, but it lasted closer to 2 hours.
After the comedy show we had our Fish Buffet and got a bottle of wine. It was a South African wine and it was really, really good. I am going to get a bottle at home because it was so good. The Fish Buffet lived up to its name and had about 10 different type of fish cooked in a variety of ways. They had minke whale, lungfish, salmon, cod, catfish, and other kinds of fish that I had never heard of but ate anyway. It was a really classy restaurant and is considered high-end. Everything they cooked was gourmet-like. They had a spread of cheese and crackers at the buffet and pasta and vegetable sides. After dinner we went to the Ice Bar and had a delicious drink that I wish I could remember the name of. I don't even remember what was in it and the best way I can describe the delicious taste is to say that it tasted like grape and cinnamon, but nothing at all like grape or cinnamon. There was a girl sitting by herself in the Ice bar and she came over and introduced herself. Her name was Emily and she was in Iceland by herself. She was supposed to come with her boyfriend and another couple but everyone had backed out. Her boyfriend works on films and had to film in Washington state, so he couldn't go with her. We chatted and she took our picture.
We decided not to go back to the hotel yet and to go to the Karaoke Sports Bar to catch the end of the USA-Canada gold medal hockey game. We walked in with only 2 minutes left and I said, "Oh no, we can't win now." Frida the bartender said, "Not with that kind of attitude." A minute later Parise scored for the USA and it went into overtime. The Karaoke Sports Bar might be my favorite bar in the world. It was near empty except for the Frida the bartender, an old drunk guy that didn't talk to anybody and sat in the back, a drunk woman with a headband that looked like a crown, and Johann, the guy sitting next to us. Crosby scored the goal in overtime, but we kept getting drinks with Johann. For 1,000 krona (a little less than $10) you can spin a wheel with different prizes. There is a spot for a loser in which you get nothing, a spot for 2 shots, 1 shot, 2 beers, 3 beers, etc. Johann kept playing and eventually won the motherload: 5 beers and 2 shots. He shared the beers with us and we tried a new shot called Hot'n'Sweet. It was hot, sweet, and delicious so we brought a bottle of that home, too, that you have to taste. Frida and Johann taught us a lot about Icelandic culture that we didn't get from the brochures or official statements. They taught us Icelandic phrases, too, and they asked what their language sounded like to them. I said it sounded like a mixture of German and Russian. I started talking about the Russians in my neighborhood and told them that they make the best pizza in the world. Johann said that Icelanders make the best pizza and gave us the name of a pizzeria we had to try called Elsmidjan. It was sometime around midnight and we once again stumbled back to the hotel and passed out.
We woke up the next morning (Monday morning) at 7:30 to get ready for our glacier hike. We had breakfast at the hotel. They provided breakfast every morning and I expected pancakes, eggs, or bacon, but there was none of that. They had beets, deviled eggs, and a lunchmeat spread, but I didn't recognize any of the lunchmeats. I was skeptical, but as soon as I tried them my skepticism faded. It was like pork roll and just as tasty. The glacier tour picked us up from the hotel and we drove for 2 hours along the southern coast of Iceland in a hummer-like jeep. Once we left the city the whole land was desolate. We drove past huge snow-covered mountains and large stretches of tundra that reached as far as the eye could see. There was only one road going through this part of the country and every so often we would pass a town. We stopped at one to get sandwiches and there were only 600 people living there. It was a 2-hour drive and we slept a lot of the way. It was the 2 of us, our tour guide, and a couple our age from Hong Kong. I stopped to think about that for a second: 2 Americans, 2 Chinese, and an Icelandic mountaineer who spent 7 years in France.
We finally got to the glacier and put on our gear. We had harness belts, ice axes, and crampons. Oddly, crampons aren't what girls get during that time of the month, they are shoes to put over your boots that have spikes on the bottom to dig into the ice. I've heard about glaciers and I've studied glaciers in school, but it didn't prepare me for what a glacier really is. I always pictured a mountain of white, but this glacier was blue, a bright blue that was as blue as the bluest sky. It was the 4th largest glacier in Iceland. We had to be careful and follow our guide because there were huge chasms in the glacier that were lightly covered with snow. If we stepped on the wrong spot we would have fallen 40 feet down in some places. We climbed down into some of the crevasses and it was eery being in there. The crevasses protected us from the wind and it was magnificently silent. The snow and ice captured all of the sound. When we walked back down the glacier the sun reflected off of the ice and sparkled like diamonds. The glacier, however, has been retreating and some of the chasms we were in will be melted by the summertime. 500-year old ice will be gone in just a few short months and we hiked on top of it.
I learned a lot about glaciers. When the Vikings first settled in Iceland the glaciers were only half the size they are today and that was about 1,000 years ago. I asked why they were melting and our tour guide said that some people say it's a natural cycle and some people say it's global warming, but he thinks it's a little of both. There are so many tours going on the glaciers I can't help but think that my tourism has contributed in a way, too. It was sad to think that during this vacation we had eaten animals that are going extinct and then hiked glaciers that are melting. It's weird to think that the world is changing so much that my grandchildren may not be able to take that type of vacation.
On the ride home from the glacier we stopped at 2 waterfalls. They were cool, but what I'll remember is that the first waterfall made an incredible rainbow. It was a complete rainbow, we could see both ends of it, and it was so clear we could pick out every color of the rainbow. After the waterfalls we slept the whole way home. We woke up as our tour guide dropped our new friends from Hong Kong off at the hotel. I asked him how the economic crash had affected his business and he said that a lot fewer people were taking tours, but that the people who were doing tours were spending a lot more money because it became more affordable for people from outside the country.
When we got back to the hotel it was almost 8 o'clock and we were beat. We laid down for a minute and then decided to go get pizza from the place the guy recommended, Elsmidjan. They made an INCREDIBLE pizza, and that means a lot coming from me. We got a lot of toppings, including cream cheese. Even their cheese pizza was really, really good. The next time I hook up the pizza machine I'm going to make pepperoni and cream cheese pizzas. We walked back to the hotel and made plan to wake up at 5 in the morning and follow a path up the mountain near the harbor. Frida and Johann from the Karaoke Sports Bar told us that there was a book up there and that everyone who made it to the top signed their names. They said it should take 3 hours. The only regret we have from the trip is that we didn't make that trip. When 5 o'clock came Monday morning neither of us was able to do it. We told ourselves that we will come back and conquer that mountain. I don't know if it will mean as much without the snow, but that mountain will go down before I do.
On Tuesday morning we woke up and got up at 8:30. A bus picked us up from the hotel to take us to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa and then to the airport. We checked out of the hotel and went to the spa. An example of how nice Icelanders are is that when we checked out of the hotel the clerk asked, "Did you take anything out of the mini bar?" We said, "No," and that was that. It seems that there is an inherent trust among the Icelanders. Nobody is trying to screw over anybody else. When we got to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa it was COLD outside. We had to separate into the men's and women's rooms and were made to take showers. We had to strip naked and the showers were in open rooms. Luckily, we were the first group of people to arrive and we were mostly spared from other naked people.
The pool itself was 98-102 degrees, but the wind was cold and every part of our bodies out of the water was freezing. They had silica gel mud facemasks on the side of the pool that we put them on our faces. I hate to admit it, but my skin felt fresher and rejuvenated after I used it. There was a steam bath that they made to look like a lava tube and it got too hot for me. I thought I could take it, but I was very wrong. We spent 3 hours there, but if we had to do it all over again we would have spent the whole day there.
The bus picked us up from the Blue Lagoon and took us to the airport. We got through customs, bought some duty-free liquor, hung at the airport, got our last pylsas, took the flight home, drove back from JFK, got some Chinese food, and hung out on the couch. We felt cool being in 3 cities, Reykjavik, New York, and Philadelphia, in one day. IcelandAir has a competitor airline opening up this summer, so flight prices are expected to drop even more. Shauna and I are thinking about going for another long weekend in August. And that was Iceland.
Shauna and I left Philly around 2 on Friday afternoon. The snow was a little bit of a hassle driving, but we made it to JFK in under 2 hours and had no trouble getting through security. The flight took off at 8 p.m. and it was smooth sailing. It was a 5 hour flight and we slept a lot of the way, but they also had some awesome in-flight movies. I watched Public Enemies with Johnny Depp. When we got close to Reykjavik it was like we were landing on the moon. We could see single lights in the distance and even further away we could see one strip of lights in the middle of complete darkness, like a city on a hill. As we landed it was like we were going straight into the darkness and at the last second the airport's lights were in front of us. The airport is 45 minutes outside of Reykjavik. We landed around 6, got through customs, got our very first stamps on our passports, and by 8 o'clock we were on the road to Reykjavik. The architecture of the buildings was straight out of an IKEA catalogue. The colors, the shapes, everything looked like it got made at IKEA and it also looked like it had just been built recently. We got to the hotel and it was very different from American hotels. Everything was much, much smaller. We got into the room and it was half the size of a regular hotel room. There were two tiny single beds pushed together instead of a huge queen size bed. There was no alarm-clock and the TV station only had 3 channels we could watch. One of the 3 was in Icelandic half the time. As soon as we got in the room we crashed and went to sleep.
We woke up around noon and got out of the hotel around 1. We were staying right off the main strip of stores, restaurants, and bars, so we walked up and down the street. We explored where we were going to go that night and what we should do while we were there. You wouldn't believe the Icelandic girls. Every single girl has platinum blonde hair to the point where it's funny. I later learned that the cool thing for Icelandic girls to do is get their hair bleached, so it wasn't natural. All the clothing stores were boutiques for women and they were as overpriced as here. A lot of the stuff was so cheap because of the economy, but most of it was still expensive. A drinking horn was $60, so we didn't get it. We had booked a glacier trip for Sunday and all I had were sneakers, so I went to a mountaineering store and the cheapest boots they had were $230. I said I would make due with sneakers and kept going on my way. The stores on the main strip closed at 4 on Saturdays (and they didn't open until noon, my kind of working hours), so we thought everything was going to close that early. We were wrong.
We continued walking and exploring the city and went to Reykjavik's flea market. Judging from the amount of T-shirts I will say this about Icelanders: They love Titanic, Leonardo Dicaprio, and Nirvana. The flea market was cool and I found a pair of hiking boots for 4,990 krona. That came out to around $50. We tried some dried fish chips and looked around at all the cool stuff. It was indoors and probably a lot like American flea markets, but with way different stuff. When we looked outside we saw that blizzard had started. The Icelanders said it was the worst storm so far that year. We went out to walk in it.
We braved the blizzard and walked a few blocks along the harbor to a small restaurant called the Seabaron. They are famous for their lobster bisque and it was honestly the best soup I have ever tasted. They also served minke whale meat and we got a whale kabob. It looks like steak and at first it tastes just like steak, too, but better. If they had told me it was steak I would have told them that it was one of the best pieces of steak I've ever had. After a few minutes, as it was going down, I started to taste fish. Hours later, and a few drinks later, I still had the fish taste in my mouth and my hands smelled like fish the rest of the night. We met a few American tourists from Boston in the Seabaron and they taught us how to convert the currency. After the food we left and continued along the harbor until the snow got too bad and we had to turn around and head back. On the way back we stopped at the Seafood Cellar, a restaurant that we had really been looking forward to. They have an exotic menu with all kinds of Icelandic delicacies. It wasn't open yet and we were still full from the lobster and whale so we made plans to come back. Across the street was the famous Icelandic Ice Bar. It is a room in a restaurant that is always kept freezing. The walls and the bar are made out of ice. More about that later.
We continued walking home and stopped in a Mexican restaurant/bar for a drink. The bars and restaurants don't open until 5 or 6, so we were the only people in there. Most of the bars in the country don't serve Miller Lite or Bud Light, they serve Icelandic beers like Viking, Pilsner, Polar Beer, and Thule. With the exception of Pilsner they all taste very similar and resemble Miller and Bud, but they are more alcoholic. The bartender taught us some words in Icelandic (thank you, fuck, etc.) and she told us that nobody tips in Iceland. That was lucky for us because we didn't have any of their currency, the krona. We asked about the bar scene and she said that people start to come out around midnight because alcohol is so expensive there and people pre-game beforehand. She said that everybody really starts partying around 2 and the bars stay open until 8 a.m. After a drink we left the bar and walked back to the hotel. The hotel employee, Emma, told us that our Sunday glacier hike had been cancelled due to snow and we rescheduled for Monday. We were wet, freezing, and tired. We passed out immediately.
We woke up at 10 p.m. (5 p.m. Phila. time), took showers, and got ready to go out. We started at one end of the main drag and went into a bar called Karaoke Sports Bar. All the bars are very small, the biggest ones being slightly smaller than Oh Bryons. This one was a room the size of the front of O'Mare's with bigger ceilings, a bar on the side, a huge Karaoke screen in the front, and a small room with slot machines on the side. They had a drink and shot special and the bartender, Frida, introduced us to Opal Vodka, an Icelandic specialty. It was strong and it was hardcore going down. We brought back a bottle, so you'll be able to do a taste-test with us the next time we see you. We left there and went to a place called (I think) Dillon's. It was a rocker bar and played awesome rock music, with everything from the Rolling Stones to Smells Like Teen Spirit. Like I said, Nirvana is huge there. They supposedly played the largest concert in Icelandic history. I'm not sure if that's true, but it's what Johann at the bar told me. More on Johann later.
We left Dillon's and I fell on the icy stairs on the way out. We were starting to feel it and as we were walking down the main drag a few of the bars started to have lines to get in. We didn't want to wait in line in the cold, so we decided we would go into every bar that didn't have a line. Get this, there is no such thing as a cover charge at any place in Iceland. I heard a song coming out of a bar, "It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine........" so I made Shauna go in so we could dance to Biggie Smalls. We stayed for a few drinks and danced. I loved the dynamic of the bar. It was playing old hip-hop music, it had a bar and a dance floor downstairs, and upstairs it had another bar and places to just chill. After the second Biggie song we continued on our way.
This is where things started to get fuzzy. There were so many bars that there was no way that we could go to all of them so we started to be choosy. We both had to go to the bathroom and this one bar (much bigger than all the rest) had a big dance floor that was near empty but still had techno music and laser lights like the A Lounge used to have. We walked into what we thought was the bathroom area and it took us downstairs to another techno/dance/bar/hangout. No bathrooms. We walked up another flight of stairs and it took us outside to the smoker's area. No bathrooms. We walked into the next room and realized we were back at the beginning and there were still no bathrooms! Amazing.
The next place we hit was an Irish bar. I think it was called Dubliner's. We tried the Opal again and it really started to grow on us. There are Icelandic legends about the "little people," what we call trolls or elves. They take them very seriously and everything we read said that people really believe in them. One building company actually had to pay a "troll finder" to make sure there weren't any "little people" on the building site. I know, it sounds like bullshit, but I kid you not, we saw a little person. He was in an outside smoking area within Dubliner's so we went outside to see him and he started a snowball fight. We quickly made a retreat. The "little people" are feisty.
We went to another bar, but we were starting to slow down and needed some energy. At that point we stopped at a sub stand and had the Best. Drunk Food. Ever. It was called a Pepperoni Boat and I don't know what exactly was on it, but I do know that I will never have anything so greasy and delicious ever again. After we had that we decided to walk to the bars closer to the hotel and stopped at a 24-hour grocery store for some supplies. We got a 2-liter of coke, a nasty sandwich, chocolate chip cookies, paprika chips, and proof that there is a store like Wawa in even the most remote Western cities. We took some pictures on the stumble home, but none of them came out due to our inability to walk straight. We decided to drop off the food, regroup, and then go back out to the bars and rock until 8 in the morning. By the time we actually made it to the hotel, though, it was 4:30 and we collapsed on the bed.
We were really disappointed that the glacier walk got cancelled, but we made the most out of it and did some more exploring in Reykjavik. We left the hotel at noon and did what I consider an urban hike. We walked down to the harbor and now that the storm was over the view was incredible. We could see across the harbor and there was a huge mountain chain. All the mountains were covered in snow and looked amazing. We walked back to the Seabaron to get some horsemeat, but they had run out. I call it horsemeat, but the horses in Iceland aren't real horses. I'm tempted to call them ponies, but it's more like a cross between a horse and a sheep.
We had counted on the horsemeat and were still hungry, so we went to the most famous hot dog stand in Iceland, nay, all of Europe. Iceland is famous for their hot dogs (Pylsas) the way that Philly is famous for its cheesesteaks. I thought, I'm an American, I'm a part of the people that invented and perfected hot dogs, there is nothing that could surprise me or change my feelings towards hot dogs. I was wrong. A Pylsa is a hot dog (that I suspect also has lamb in it) with chili sauce on the roll, raw onions, crunchy fried onions, the hot dog, a crazy Icelandic mustard sauce, and remoulade (a crazy French mustard sauce). I shit you not, it was the best hot dog either of us has ever eaten. Over the course of the trip we had 3 or 4 hot dogs each. In a way it's depressing because I know that I'll never have a hot dog as good as a pylsa.
We continued to walk around Reykjavik and saw some touristy things. We saw a steel frame of a Viking ship, we saw the cathedral, which was one of the tallest buildings in the city, we saw the city hall, and watched a few minutes of the Reykjavik Chess Open (only because we had to go to the bathroom in city hall and accidentally found the tournament going on). There is a huge pond in the middle of the city that is frozen in the winter, but the city officials keep one section warm so that the ducks have somewhere to go. One of the cool things to do is to feed the ducks. The ducks, geese, and other large birds came right up to us looking for food. It scared the crap out of us, but we still went close up to get pictures. Now I know what to tell Holden when he asks where the ducks go in the winter.
Iceland has a system of public pools that are naturally heated by the geothermal properties of the island. It's on the fault line between American and Europe, so there is a lot of volcanic activity. The magma from the volcanoes mixes with the cold Icelandic water and produces a steam that heats everything and that they use for all of their energy, even electricity. I thought that there was a nude geothermal pool, but I was sadly mistaken. I don't know what we expected out of it, but when we got there and were going to go swimming it was just like a large hotel swimming pool. We passed and continued our urban adventure.
It was around 5 o'clock and we made a plan to stop at the liquor store, go make reservations at the Seafood Cellar, the restaurant we really wanted to go to and then go back to the hotel and drink wine and nap until it was time for the Seafood Cellar. Well, the liquor store was closed and the Seafood Cellar had a guest chef for the day that didn't do any of the Icelandic specialties. I was bummed and grumpy. We had been walking all day and now are plans for the night had completely fallen through. We were stuck in Iceland with no plans. The world-famous Ice Bar was right across the street and we had also heard that the restaurant it was connected to was pretty good. The restaurant was called Fish Buffet/Restaurant. Guess what they served.
We were downtrodden, cold, and aching from walking when we opened the door to see if the Fish Buffet would be worth it. As we are about to open the door and walk in, the door opened from the inside by two people dressed as medieval Viking peasants like they were straight out of a Renaissance Fair. We were so surprised we didn't know how to react. We actually both thought, "Is this how the waiters at the restaurant dress?" They told us that they were a part of a comedy show that started at 6 o'clock and they wanted us to come see it for 2,200 krona each ($44 total). We didn't know how to react and said we would think about it. They medieval Vikings said, "If you come to the show you get 10% off your dinner check and you get to go to the Ice Bar for free." The Ice Bar would have cost $40 anyway, but we were still thinking about it so the medieval Vikings said, "How about a free drink before the show starts?" We were sold and each had a Viking beer. As the female medieval Viking walked us down to the theater I asked, "Are you expecting a large turnout?" She said, "Well, it's a Sunday, so it won't be as large as usual." We walked into the theater and we were the only two people in the entire room. It could seat about 40. Before we could say anything they started the show. It was about Icelandic history and the history of Reykjavik. After the initial awkwardness, the show got really good. It was very informative about their history and the two people performing it were hilarious. I expected it to be 30 minutes at the most, but it lasted closer to 2 hours.
After the comedy show we had our Fish Buffet and got a bottle of wine. It was a South African wine and it was really, really good. I am going to get a bottle at home because it was so good. The Fish Buffet lived up to its name and had about 10 different type of fish cooked in a variety of ways. They had minke whale, lungfish, salmon, cod, catfish, and other kinds of fish that I had never heard of but ate anyway. It was a really classy restaurant and is considered high-end. Everything they cooked was gourmet-like. They had a spread of cheese and crackers at the buffet and pasta and vegetable sides. After dinner we went to the Ice Bar and had a delicious drink that I wish I could remember the name of. I don't even remember what was in it and the best way I can describe the delicious taste is to say that it tasted like grape and cinnamon, but nothing at all like grape or cinnamon. There was a girl sitting by herself in the Ice bar and she came over and introduced herself. Her name was Emily and she was in Iceland by herself. She was supposed to come with her boyfriend and another couple but everyone had backed out. Her boyfriend works on films and had to film in Washington state, so he couldn't go with her. We chatted and she took our picture.
We decided not to go back to the hotel yet and to go to the Karaoke Sports Bar to catch the end of the USA-Canada gold medal hockey game. We walked in with only 2 minutes left and I said, "Oh no, we can't win now." Frida the bartender said, "Not with that kind of attitude." A minute later Parise scored for the USA and it went into overtime. The Karaoke Sports Bar might be my favorite bar in the world. It was near empty except for the Frida the bartender, an old drunk guy that didn't talk to anybody and sat in the back, a drunk woman with a headband that looked like a crown, and Johann, the guy sitting next to us. Crosby scored the goal in overtime, but we kept getting drinks with Johann. For 1,000 krona (a little less than $10) you can spin a wheel with different prizes. There is a spot for a loser in which you get nothing, a spot for 2 shots, 1 shot, 2 beers, 3 beers, etc. Johann kept playing and eventually won the motherload: 5 beers and 2 shots. He shared the beers with us and we tried a new shot called Hot'n'Sweet. It was hot, sweet, and delicious so we brought a bottle of that home, too, that you have to taste. Frida and Johann taught us a lot about Icelandic culture that we didn't get from the brochures or official statements. They taught us Icelandic phrases, too, and they asked what their language sounded like to them. I said it sounded like a mixture of German and Russian. I started talking about the Russians in my neighborhood and told them that they make the best pizza in the world. Johann said that Icelanders make the best pizza and gave us the name of a pizzeria we had to try called Elsmidjan. It was sometime around midnight and we once again stumbled back to the hotel and passed out.
We woke up the next morning (Monday morning) at 7:30 to get ready for our glacier hike. We had breakfast at the hotel. They provided breakfast every morning and I expected pancakes, eggs, or bacon, but there was none of that. They had beets, deviled eggs, and a lunchmeat spread, but I didn't recognize any of the lunchmeats. I was skeptical, but as soon as I tried them my skepticism faded. It was like pork roll and just as tasty. The glacier tour picked us up from the hotel and we drove for 2 hours along the southern coast of Iceland in a hummer-like jeep. Once we left the city the whole land was desolate. We drove past huge snow-covered mountains and large stretches of tundra that reached as far as the eye could see. There was only one road going through this part of the country and every so often we would pass a town. We stopped at one to get sandwiches and there were only 600 people living there. It was a 2-hour drive and we slept a lot of the way. It was the 2 of us, our tour guide, and a couple our age from Hong Kong. I stopped to think about that for a second: 2 Americans, 2 Chinese, and an Icelandic mountaineer who spent 7 years in France.
We finally got to the glacier and put on our gear. We had harness belts, ice axes, and crampons. Oddly, crampons aren't what girls get during that time of the month, they are shoes to put over your boots that have spikes on the bottom to dig into the ice. I've heard about glaciers and I've studied glaciers in school, but it didn't prepare me for what a glacier really is. I always pictured a mountain of white, but this glacier was blue, a bright blue that was as blue as the bluest sky. It was the 4th largest glacier in Iceland. We had to be careful and follow our guide because there were huge chasms in the glacier that were lightly covered with snow. If we stepped on the wrong spot we would have fallen 40 feet down in some places. We climbed down into some of the crevasses and it was eery being in there. The crevasses protected us from the wind and it was magnificently silent. The snow and ice captured all of the sound. When we walked back down the glacier the sun reflected off of the ice and sparkled like diamonds. The glacier, however, has been retreating and some of the chasms we were in will be melted by the summertime. 500-year old ice will be gone in just a few short months and we hiked on top of it.
I learned a lot about glaciers. When the Vikings first settled in Iceland the glaciers were only half the size they are today and that was about 1,000 years ago. I asked why they were melting and our tour guide said that some people say it's a natural cycle and some people say it's global warming, but he thinks it's a little of both. There are so many tours going on the glaciers I can't help but think that my tourism has contributed in a way, too. It was sad to think that during this vacation we had eaten animals that are going extinct and then hiked glaciers that are melting. It's weird to think that the world is changing so much that my grandchildren may not be able to take that type of vacation.
On the ride home from the glacier we stopped at 2 waterfalls. They were cool, but what I'll remember is that the first waterfall made an incredible rainbow. It was a complete rainbow, we could see both ends of it, and it was so clear we could pick out every color of the rainbow. After the waterfalls we slept the whole way home. We woke up as our tour guide dropped our new friends from Hong Kong off at the hotel. I asked him how the economic crash had affected his business and he said that a lot fewer people were taking tours, but that the people who were doing tours were spending a lot more money because it became more affordable for people from outside the country.
When we got back to the hotel it was almost 8 o'clock and we were beat. We laid down for a minute and then decided to go get pizza from the place the guy recommended, Elsmidjan. They made an INCREDIBLE pizza, and that means a lot coming from me. We got a lot of toppings, including cream cheese. Even their cheese pizza was really, really good. The next time I hook up the pizza machine I'm going to make pepperoni and cream cheese pizzas. We walked back to the hotel and made plan to wake up at 5 in the morning and follow a path up the mountain near the harbor. Frida and Johann from the Karaoke Sports Bar told us that there was a book up there and that everyone who made it to the top signed their names. They said it should take 3 hours. The only regret we have from the trip is that we didn't make that trip. When 5 o'clock came Monday morning neither of us was able to do it. We told ourselves that we will come back and conquer that mountain. I don't know if it will mean as much without the snow, but that mountain will go down before I do.
On Tuesday morning we woke up and got up at 8:30. A bus picked us up from the hotel to take us to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa and then to the airport. We checked out of the hotel and went to the spa. An example of how nice Icelanders are is that when we checked out of the hotel the clerk asked, "Did you take anything out of the mini bar?" We said, "No," and that was that. It seems that there is an inherent trust among the Icelanders. Nobody is trying to screw over anybody else. When we got to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa it was COLD outside. We had to separate into the men's and women's rooms and were made to take showers. We had to strip naked and the showers were in open rooms. Luckily, we were the first group of people to arrive and we were mostly spared from other naked people.
The pool itself was 98-102 degrees, but the wind was cold and every part of our bodies out of the water was freezing. They had silica gel mud facemasks on the side of the pool that we put them on our faces. I hate to admit it, but my skin felt fresher and rejuvenated after I used it. There was a steam bath that they made to look like a lava tube and it got too hot for me. I thought I could take it, but I was very wrong. We spent 3 hours there, but if we had to do it all over again we would have spent the whole day there.
The bus picked us up from the Blue Lagoon and took us to the airport. We got through customs, bought some duty-free liquor, hung at the airport, got our last pylsas, took the flight home, drove back from JFK, got some Chinese food, and hung out on the couch. We felt cool being in 3 cities, Reykjavik, New York, and Philadelphia, in one day. IcelandAir has a competitor airline opening up this summer, so flight prices are expected to drop even more. Shauna and I are thinking about going for another long weekend in August. And that was Iceland.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Lost Season 6, Episode 1
I started with 11 questions and now have 12. Some of the questions were answered, but Lost only gives answers that create more questions.
Answered questions:
1. Did the H-Bomb do anything? It sent people back, but that gives me a new question.
2. What is the smoke monster? Now I know that the smoke monster is Locke/Jacob’s Nemesis. But that gives me a new question.
New questions:
1. How can the survivors of Flight 815 be on the plane and on the Island?
2. Who or what is Locke/Jacob’s Nemesis?
3. Who are the people in the temple, including the old Japanese guy, and why is the flight attendant there?
Old questions:
4. What is the Island and why are people healed?
5. Who are the Others?
6. Who or what is Jacob?
7. What's up with Walt?
8. What is the Dharma Initiative?
9. Is Christian Shepard alive?
10. Who's the good guy, Widmore or Ben?
11. What's in the shadow of the statue and are the new people (Ilana and Cesar) on Team Ben, Team Widmore, or something else entirely?
12. What's up with the 4-toed statue?
Answered questions:
1. Did the H-Bomb do anything? It sent people back, but that gives me a new question.
2. What is the smoke monster? Now I know that the smoke monster is Locke/Jacob’s Nemesis. But that gives me a new question.
New questions:
1. How can the survivors of Flight 815 be on the plane and on the Island?
2. Who or what is Locke/Jacob’s Nemesis?
3. Who are the people in the temple, including the old Japanese guy, and why is the flight attendant there?
Old questions:
4. What is the Island and why are people healed?
5. Who are the Others?
6. Who or what is Jacob?
7. What's up with Walt?
8. What is the Dharma Initiative?
9. Is Christian Shepard alive?
10. Who's the good guy, Widmore or Ben?
11. What's in the shadow of the statue and are the new people (Ilana and Cesar) on Team Ben, Team Widmore, or something else entirely?
12. What's up with the 4-toed statue?
Pre-Season 6 of Lost
These are 11 questions that I want Lost to answer before the series ends. I have been waiting for almost 6 years and I want satisfaction.
1. What is the Island and why are people healed?
2. What is the smoke monster?
3. Who are the Others?
4. Who or what is Jacob?
5. What's up with Walt?
6. What is the Dharma Initiative?
7. Did the H-Bomb do anything?
8. Is Christian Shepard alive?
9. Who's the good guy, Widmore or Ben?
10. What's in the shadow of the statue and are the new people (Ilana and Cesar) on Team Ben, Team Widmore, or something else entirely?
11. What's up with the 4-toed statue?
1. What is the Island and why are people healed?
2. What is the smoke monster?
3. Who are the Others?
4. Who or what is Jacob?
5. What's up with Walt?
6. What is the Dharma Initiative?
7. Did the H-Bomb do anything?
8. Is Christian Shepard alive?
9. Who's the good guy, Widmore or Ben?
10. What's in the shadow of the statue and are the new people (Ilana and Cesar) on Team Ben, Team Widmore, or something else entirely?
11. What's up with the 4-toed statue?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Ressurection
The Pastor said that the only way to heaven was to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior and to acknowledge that he rose from the dead. For me, that is not the way to heaven or the correct version of what I think Jesus wants from his Church. The Resurrection is mysterious and I believe that it’s meant to be. Einstein said that there is beauty in mystery and that is where the beauty of the Resurrection appears for me, in its mystery.
The best way I’ve heard the validity of the Resurrection described is that, whether you believe that Jesus rose from the dead or not, you must believe that something happened at his tomb on the Sunday after he was crucified. The vast social changes that Christianity brought to the world and the fact that so many people still believe today is a testament to the fact that something happened at the tomb Easter morning.
I have heard theories that the Resurrection is not meant to be a physical resurrection of the body. It has been described to me as the return of Jesus as a spirit, not as a ghost, but as a living spirit among living people. I do not know if I believe this, but I have thought about it a lot. My conclusion is that I have no conclusion at this point. I don’t know. I chalk it up to the mystery of the Resurrection, and that is where I find the beauty in it.
I personally believe in the Resurrection. Even though I believe, I relate to why it is hard for others to believe. Part of the problem is the reasoning behind the Resurrection that they, and I, have been subjected to. In Catholicism, there is not much else besides an authoritative “Of course he rose from the dead,” with tradition and scripture given as evidence. A Catholic discussion of whether or not the Resurrection was physical or spiritual has guided me, but it has not been the de facto reason I believe.
I have heard one Catholic tell another that they do not believe in the Resurrection and the believer has responded, “That’s okay, it’s hard to make the leap of faith. Jesus still loves you.” This Catholic response is part of the reason why I love the Catholic Church. The Evangelical or Protestant arguments I’ve heard for belief in the Resurrection have not convinced me. Their argument that it’s in the Bible, and God wrote the Bible so it’s true, does not justify the Resurrection for me. I believe that the Bible was divinely inspired, but I do not believe that the whole thing is meant to be taken literally. I believe that parts of the Bible were written as stories to describe God. A Pastor I met told me that his faith would be in vain if Jesus did not rise from the dead. My faith, however, would not be in vain. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, his message would be unchanged and I firmly believe his message made Jesus more divine than any miracle he performed. Love God and love your neighbor. As revolutionary today as it was then.
I have two reasons that have given me the courage to make the leap of faith to say that Jesus rose from the dead. The first is that I believe in miracles. I believe in the big ones and I believe in the small ones. I see the divine and God’s plan unfolding in a myriad of miracles that some may describe as coincidences. If I pray to get a hit while I’m batting in a softball game, is it because I believe in divine intervention, in miracles, or is it because of my own skill. No matter which you believe, the fact that I am praying for the miracle means that I believe in miracles. If I believe in miracles, then I can believe that the miracle of the Resurrection took place. To believe in small miracles, one must also accept that large miracles are possible.
The strongest argument I have for the Resurrection is the loving nature of God. The God that I know in my heart is the type of God that would resurrect Jesus. Rather than viewing the Resurrection as a triumph of God’s goodness over evil, I think of the Resurrection as proof of a God of love. I believe in a God that will vindicate a good man unjustly accused and punished.
The best way I’ve heard the validity of the Resurrection described is that, whether you believe that Jesus rose from the dead or not, you must believe that something happened at his tomb on the Sunday after he was crucified. The vast social changes that Christianity brought to the world and the fact that so many people still believe today is a testament to the fact that something happened at the tomb Easter morning.
I have heard theories that the Resurrection is not meant to be a physical resurrection of the body. It has been described to me as the return of Jesus as a spirit, not as a ghost, but as a living spirit among living people. I do not know if I believe this, but I have thought about it a lot. My conclusion is that I have no conclusion at this point. I don’t know. I chalk it up to the mystery of the Resurrection, and that is where I find the beauty in it.
I personally believe in the Resurrection. Even though I believe, I relate to why it is hard for others to believe. Part of the problem is the reasoning behind the Resurrection that they, and I, have been subjected to. In Catholicism, there is not much else besides an authoritative “Of course he rose from the dead,” with tradition and scripture given as evidence. A Catholic discussion of whether or not the Resurrection was physical or spiritual has guided me, but it has not been the de facto reason I believe.
I have heard one Catholic tell another that they do not believe in the Resurrection and the believer has responded, “That’s okay, it’s hard to make the leap of faith. Jesus still loves you.” This Catholic response is part of the reason why I love the Catholic Church. The Evangelical or Protestant arguments I’ve heard for belief in the Resurrection have not convinced me. Their argument that it’s in the Bible, and God wrote the Bible so it’s true, does not justify the Resurrection for me. I believe that the Bible was divinely inspired, but I do not believe that the whole thing is meant to be taken literally. I believe that parts of the Bible were written as stories to describe God. A Pastor I met told me that his faith would be in vain if Jesus did not rise from the dead. My faith, however, would not be in vain. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, his message would be unchanged and I firmly believe his message made Jesus more divine than any miracle he performed. Love God and love your neighbor. As revolutionary today as it was then.
I have two reasons that have given me the courage to make the leap of faith to say that Jesus rose from the dead. The first is that I believe in miracles. I believe in the big ones and I believe in the small ones. I see the divine and God’s plan unfolding in a myriad of miracles that some may describe as coincidences. If I pray to get a hit while I’m batting in a softball game, is it because I believe in divine intervention, in miracles, or is it because of my own skill. No matter which you believe, the fact that I am praying for the miracle means that I believe in miracles. If I believe in miracles, then I can believe that the miracle of the Resurrection took place. To believe in small miracles, one must also accept that large miracles are possible.
The strongest argument I have for the Resurrection is the loving nature of God. The God that I know in my heart is the type of God that would resurrect Jesus. Rather than viewing the Resurrection as a triumph of God’s goodness over evil, I think of the Resurrection as proof of a God of love. I believe in a God that will vindicate a good man unjustly accused and punished.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
The First Human Tribe
250,000 years ago, deep in the jungles of Africa, or maybe the savannah, a little monkey was born that was not quite like the other little monkeys. This little monkey in particular had defective DNA. The code of life that tells the body’s cells how to work had made a mistake. Instead of the defective DNA hindering our little monkey friend, it gave it an extra edge for survival. We’re not exactly sure which gene or which chromosome was changed, but there is speculation that it had to do with brain size and mental capacity. Whatever it was, it helped our monkey survive and become more attractive to the opposite sex. Our monkey took advantage of the situation, mated, and produced children with the same defective gene that gave the monkey a better chance to survive. These monkey children were different enough from the rest of the monkeys that they became something else entirely. This was the first tribe of humans.
If you’ve ever seen chimpanzees hunting as a group on the Discovery Channel, you have a pretty good mental image of what the first tribe of humans acted like. There are two main differences between the chimps on TV and the first tribe of humans. For starters, they are a lot hairier than we were. Though we were most likely hairier, the first tribe looked distinctively human. If we saw them today we would probably tell them that they looked like cavemen. We would be right.
The second difference is that the first tribe of humans were much better at hunting than the chimps on the discovery channel. There is speculation as to whether this is because of increased mental capacities or better communication skills.
No matter what made that tribe of humans better hunters, they quickly replaced the monkeys they had just evolved from. These monkeys didn’t really look like monkeys, they looked a lot like us. The scientists call them Homo Erectus. They also italicize their name for some reason. I just call them Erectus. And yes, the name has lended itself to numberless jokes. We don’t know whether the first human tribe directly killed Erectus or if they just hunted better and ate all of Erectus’ food and took the best hunting grounds. Either way, Erectus died out shortly after humanity was born.
Here is a brief history of the late great Homo Erectus. Chimpanzees and Humans share a common ancestor from about 3.5 million years ago. We know this because of DNA. DNA changes very slowly, but it also changes very punctually, give or take a few thousand years. Scientists can look at DNA from humans and chimpanzees and tell how many differences exist in DNA’s code. Because the mutations happen punctually, that is, they happen every so often and always at about the same intervals, scientists can determine how long it’s been since chimps and humans have shared a common ancestor. The time of our most recent common ancestor would have marked the time that Chimp’s ancestors and Humanity’s ancestors took different evolutionary paths.
From what can be told, 2.5 million years of evolution later, about 1 million years ago, the monkeys that would eventually become humans evolved into Homo Erectus. Erectus evolved in Africa, but the species migrated and settled throughout the world with the exception of the Americas and Antarctica. It is disputed, but some archaeologists have found evidence that Erectus was the first to control fire and make tools. These were traits that the first tribe of Humans took with them when they became their own distinct species.
Different groups of Erectus lived in different geographical parts of the world. Over hundreds of thousands of years, these different geographical groups evolved differently. Some became Neanderthals, some became Humans, and, though it is disputed, some archaeologists claim to have found Hobbits on islands in East Asia. These groups lived in different parts of the world until they naturally became extinct or until they came into contact with Humans. After contact with the Humans, the Humans either outright killed them all or just took their traditional sources of food. Scientists are fairly sure that there was no interbreeding that has produced mixes of Humans and any other descendants of Erectus, though some scientists have not given up and are still looking for evidence.
Erectus evolved into Humanity and over the course of the next 250,000 years Humanity has become the dominant lifeform on planet Earth. Humans have been writing for less than 6,000 years, so there is a lot that we don’t know about our own Human history between that first Human tribe and the present. We do know that the tribe grew, it separated, and fanned out to every part of the planet Earth and have even visited the Moon. Now, in the present day, for the first time in 250,000 years, the separation that occurred when the first tribe of Humans split is about to be rejoined. Globalization, the accessibility of the internet in the farthest reaches of the globe, and communication among different cultures is bringing humanity together in an unprecedented way. In many ways, we are once again one tribe. For the second time in our history, Humanity is joined as one tribe working together for the same goals.
If you’ve ever seen chimpanzees hunting as a group on the Discovery Channel, you have a pretty good mental image of what the first tribe of humans acted like. There are two main differences between the chimps on TV and the first tribe of humans. For starters, they are a lot hairier than we were. Though we were most likely hairier, the first tribe looked distinctively human. If we saw them today we would probably tell them that they looked like cavemen. We would be right.
The second difference is that the first tribe of humans were much better at hunting than the chimps on the discovery channel. There is speculation as to whether this is because of increased mental capacities or better communication skills.
No matter what made that tribe of humans better hunters, they quickly replaced the monkeys they had just evolved from. These monkeys didn’t really look like monkeys, they looked a lot like us. The scientists call them Homo Erectus. They also italicize their name for some reason. I just call them Erectus. And yes, the name has lended itself to numberless jokes. We don’t know whether the first human tribe directly killed Erectus or if they just hunted better and ate all of Erectus’ food and took the best hunting grounds. Either way, Erectus died out shortly after humanity was born.
Here is a brief history of the late great Homo Erectus. Chimpanzees and Humans share a common ancestor from about 3.5 million years ago. We know this because of DNA. DNA changes very slowly, but it also changes very punctually, give or take a few thousand years. Scientists can look at DNA from humans and chimpanzees and tell how many differences exist in DNA’s code. Because the mutations happen punctually, that is, they happen every so often and always at about the same intervals, scientists can determine how long it’s been since chimps and humans have shared a common ancestor. The time of our most recent common ancestor would have marked the time that Chimp’s ancestors and Humanity’s ancestors took different evolutionary paths.
From what can be told, 2.5 million years of evolution later, about 1 million years ago, the monkeys that would eventually become humans evolved into Homo Erectus. Erectus evolved in Africa, but the species migrated and settled throughout the world with the exception of the Americas and Antarctica. It is disputed, but some archaeologists have found evidence that Erectus was the first to control fire and make tools. These were traits that the first tribe of Humans took with them when they became their own distinct species.
Different groups of Erectus lived in different geographical parts of the world. Over hundreds of thousands of years, these different geographical groups evolved differently. Some became Neanderthals, some became Humans, and, though it is disputed, some archaeologists claim to have found Hobbits on islands in East Asia. These groups lived in different parts of the world until they naturally became extinct or until they came into contact with Humans. After contact with the Humans, the Humans either outright killed them all or just took their traditional sources of food. Scientists are fairly sure that there was no interbreeding that has produced mixes of Humans and any other descendants of Erectus, though some scientists have not given up and are still looking for evidence.
Erectus evolved into Humanity and over the course of the next 250,000 years Humanity has become the dominant lifeform on planet Earth. Humans have been writing for less than 6,000 years, so there is a lot that we don’t know about our own Human history between that first Human tribe and the present. We do know that the tribe grew, it separated, and fanned out to every part of the planet Earth and have even visited the Moon. Now, in the present day, for the first time in 250,000 years, the separation that occurred when the first tribe of Humans split is about to be rejoined. Globalization, the accessibility of the internet in the farthest reaches of the globe, and communication among different cultures is bringing humanity together in an unprecedented way. In many ways, we are once again one tribe. For the second time in our history, Humanity is joined as one tribe working together for the same goals.
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