I travelled from Fairbanks Alaska to the Czech Republic 2008-02-02 through 2008-02-10 for the Winter School in Computer Graphics (WSCG), Vaclav Skala's cool graphics conference.

I'm always amused by how much alien stuff there is in Europe:
	- The AC plug is two little round rods.  This looks like a simpler-to-fabricate design than the US version, and the recessed plugs look safer too.
	- The radio dial is quite different.  Their "DV" AM range is way lower than US, "SV" is basically US AM, "KV" is a funky 6-10MHz shortwave band, and the FM dial is split, with a few missing frequencies between "VKV 1" and "VKV 2".
	- You sometimes are supposed to park by hopping the curb and pulling two or four wheels up onto the sidewalk.  The signs clearly illustrate this is what you're supposed to do.
	- They have the cutest little tiny construction vehicles.  They've got dump trucks that are smaller than my car!
	- They have a *very* Home Depot-like home improvement store called "OBI".  It's even orange.
	- Europe is jammed with vertically-stretched vehicles.  The narrow-but-high citroen-style vans are very common there.
	- Even dumpsters are mini size.
	- Police vans are made by VW.  Mercedes-Benz makes garbage trucks.
	- Courtyards in the guts of city blocks are sometimes used for parking, which you access by driving through a little paved hallway.
	- Money is in Czech Crowns (CZK), with coins for 1,2,5,10,20, and 50 crowns.  50 crowns is about $3.
	- Potato chips are advertised as containing real Proscuito (sliced ham).
	- They've got these cool auto-changing billboards.


Pilsner beers were perfected in Plzen, and Pilsner Urquell is *the* local beer.  The academics from the conference went on a tour of the museum, which dates back to the middle ages.  The most impressive demo was cooperage, building barrels by hand from raw wood planks.  The underground beer storage was cool too.

The final day Gunter Wallner and I hiked around Prague.  It's a pretty city, with the old stone castle, bridges, and cobblestone streets.  Many of these structures actually look defensible--they're not just for decoration!

I liked the square of the Illuminati, with the golden all-seeing eye on a column.

Some sort of VIP-only event was going on at the castle, so we couldn't go in.  The ruthless beatings happening in the stone carvings were rather disturbing.

Building seem to be constructed from a weird pastiche of bricks and randomly-shaped rocks, all glued together with sandy mortar.

We took the 26 line out into the suburbs, hoping to find cheap food far from the tourists.  We ended up huddling in a bisto at the end of the line, but we did get fed for cheap!

We came back into town, and hiked through the Jewish quarter.  Hebrew clocks run anticlockwise.  Franz Kafka is from this town, and has various bizarre statues dedicated to him.

We then stopped by the National Museum, which is full of awesomely bizarre art.  I'd never seen a Mignon-style typewriter, where you point a stylus at the appropriate letter rather than pressing a key.

As we came back in the dark through the city, we saw they were setting off fireworks.  We saw what I thought was a homeless guy tending a garbage fire, but must have been a restaurant employee making charcoal for the next day's grilling.

The subways were clean and well-tended.