Case in point: that smile.

I saw this image this morning and thought that I’d put this recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico into perspective for myself and for whoever wants to know.

British Petroleum, the company that is cleaning up the mess has estimated that the oil is leaking at a rate of one thousand barrels per day. The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates it at five thousand. Other, supposedly more authoritative estimates by geologists and satellite data put it at a more realistic 25 000 barrels per day.

It was on April 20th, a month ago today, that the leak began. So that gives us some data to work with.

Assuming the satellite data and independent geologists are correct, this gives us a leak rate of 25 000 barrels per day. This gives us 3 975 000 litres of oil per day. Assuming that the 25 000 barrel figure is a result of rounding up, let’s (for the sake of subjective fairness) round our number down to 3 750 000 litres.

Multiply this by 30 days, and we have an oil spill that is projected to contain 119 250 000 litres of crude oil. Now let’s put that in perspective.

I don’t know about you, but every time I hear something large being described in relative terms, the reference point is always a football field. For example:

“How tall is the CN Tower?”

“Five and a half football fields stacked end-to-end!”

So let’s take an American football field (I know, I know… it’s too small) as our reference point. An American football field is , rounded to the nearest meter, 110 meters long and 49 meters wide. This gives us a surface area of 5390 square meters. Cover that with oil a meter deep, and that’s 5390 cubit meters.

But that’s still under 34 000 barrels of oil, just over a day’s production. To account for all 30 previous days, we’d have to cover that football field to a depth of over 22 meters (72 feet for our friends South of the border). And add another meter tomorrow, and the day after…

That’s a lot of oil.

To show this another way, let’s see how long all this oil would run my car.

To date, in the 4+ years that I’ve driven my car, I’ve put 5841 L of gasoline into the tank (Yes, I record my gasoline consumption. Don’t you?) This gives us an average of 1460 L per year. Let’s assume again that the estimates are correct, and there are 119 250 000 L of spilled oil. Since our cars don’t run on pure oil, there is a refinement process, by which just under half the volume of oil is converted to gasoline. The exact number is around 45%. So, that gives us around 53 662 500 L of fuel for my car, allowing me to drive for another 36 755 years. Or… allowing almost thirty seven thousand people to drive similar cars for four years.  Each day of estimated leakage wastes us enough crude oil to run my car for over twelve hundred years or for over twelve hundred people to drive for four years.

That’s a lot of oil.

For example, why has the mint flavour perceived as clean? Why not curry? What is it about our perception of mint that seems to indicate refreshment? Is it as simple as its presence in things we associate with hygiene, such as gum and toothpaste, or is it something deeper? Is it objectively cleaner?

Why is mint the cultural norm for ‘good smell’ or ‘refreshing’?

The same can be asked for cleaning products. Apparently lemon is the gold standard for squeaky-clean. Why not… vinegar, for example? Are we all that culturally brainwashed, or is there some objective advantage to mint and lemon over curry and vinegar?

Hmmm…

I’d like to thank and apologise to all my professors: over the course of this last year of classes, I handed in 559 pages to them for marking. That doesn’t include my notes or rough copies. That’s a lot of work, and that’s a lot of marking.

Thanks to all.

We then walked up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe. We marvelled at the traffic chaos at its base (being the centre of a 12-street roundabout!)

We then went souvenir hunting, and Ruth-Anne got a crêpe with chocolate and strawberry jam. She described it as delightful. We walked along the south bank of the Seine as the sun set, then we walked back to the church, packed up our stuff (no more pictures!), bought breakfast for tomorrow morning and verified the opening time of the Metro, as we would need to take the earliest train. Afterwards, we went out for our last cultural-specific dessert:  Ruth-Anne got profiteroles, which she enjoyed immensely, and I had crème brûlèe. We packed up and slept, anticipating a long day tomorrow.

Our iPod alarm woke us up at 4:30, and we packed a quick breakfast, cinched down our bags and headed off for the Duroc station of the Metro. We only had to wait a few minutes before the first train came by, and we boarded. We transferred to the RER going to the airport, and we were at Charles de Gaulle by 5:30 AM. We found the shuttle to terminal 3, and waited. I thoughtlessly had a full nalgene of water, so when waiting to check in, I guzzled the whole litre. Yeah. Once we were on the plane, we were offered the window seat by the lady who was assigned it, and we happily obliged her fear of heights. The meals were passable, and the inflight movies were… diverting.

We landed in Toronto, and got home easily enough, but promptly had a nap, since we were rather tired.

It was a great trip.

Today, we purchased baguettes and butter for breakfast. Wow; I could eat fresh French baguettes and butter for the rest of my life and die happy.

We spent a large portion of the day in the Louvre, and saw every room except one before it closed.  We spent most of our time marvelling at the marble and bronze sculptures as well as the historic treasures:

Afterward, we visited Notre Dame and explored its inside and outside.

We walked back to our room with the plan of heading back out after supper, but we were just too tired, and went to bed after eating.

The next morning, we woke up late (the advantage of not travelling!) and ate fresh croissants for breakfast. We toured around the city on the Metro and saw the site of the Bastille, Victor Hugo’s house, St. Chapelle, the banks of the Seine, and then went to Musée D’Orsay, which houses many of the impressionist masters’ works, such as Renoir, Money, Manet, Pisarro, etc. It was really neat to see the originals of some of those famous paintings.

We headed back and I did some sink-laundry. Ah, the joys of backpacking across Europe.

Staying in a church building certainly has its advantages. However, there are a few things that we needed to get used to. Almost every night that we stayed there, there was a group using the building. Some were rather friendly, so when one nice guy introduced himself to Ruth-Anne, she tried to shake his hand, but for those who know, most Europeans don’t shake hands; they do the cheek-kiss. So that surprised her a bit. I wish I was there to see her go beet red!

After an early supper, we went out to see the Eiffel Tower. We climbed its stairs (cheaper than the elevator and quicker than waiting in line for it) and watched the sun set over Paris.

Very nice.

The train system in Europe is incredible. It’s absolutely nothing like the VIA here in Canada. There, the trains leave precisely on time and arrive on time. They are fast, quiet, and smooth. For example: the train we transferred to in Lille to take us to Paris, when it got up to speed, was travelling at 300 km/h. It was smooth, and the corners were cambered so that you barely felt when the train was turning. Incredible.

Once we arrived in Paris (Gare de l’Est), we booked a hotel for the night and dropped our packs there. We then took a walk through Montmartre, a nearby neighbourhood, one which contains Sacre-Cour, the immense white cathedral which overlooks Paris from a hill. This building is unique in our trip, since the interior is white as well, which really makes it brighter inside. All the other churches were dark inside.

We found a nice restaurant to eat in (which had free water—a rarity in Europe) and for dessert, I had cheese. This is something I wish would catch on in Canada-cheese for dessert. Yum.

We headed back to the hotel and slept.

In the morning, we slept in because we were very tired. After a continental breakfast (you have to love them!) we took the Metro to Les Invalides.

We explored the chapel, and peeked in the great doors to catch a glimpse of Napoleon’s sarcophagus. From there, we meandered our way through the 7th arrondissement of Paris to the church where we would stay the rest of our time in Paris.

We met the pastor, and he showed us around. We bought some groceries and made lunch. Afterward, we set off for Versailles Palace, where we saw the palace chapel, the royal residences, and the gardens. It’s a beautiful place.

We headed back, ate dinner, and then went to bed.

That afternoon, we travelled to nearby Brugge, and wandered around. For those who don’t know, it’s a city that has been in existence since at least the medieval times, and is particularly noteworthy for being virtually untouched in the World Wars. As such, it is in an excellent state of preservation, and the old part of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Perhaps you can see why. It has a bit of history. Brugge is a canal city, so it’s sometimes called “the Venice of the North”.

And it’s got some churches too. With big organs.

We headed back to the church, and, for part of the trip, walked along the beach of the North Sea. It certainly wasn’t swimming weather, but the sea was beautiful, and Ruth-Anne enjoyed this time immensely. We collected some seashells and saw a number of jellyfish.

That night we did some laundry in the church, and headed to bed.

The next morning, we woke up early to catch the 6:39 tram back to Oostende. From there, we took a train to Brussels, then another train to the nearby airport, where we picked up our rental car. It was a manual-transmission Skoda Fabia. I loved it.

What I didn’t love was the fact that the previous person had obviously been a heavy smoker. Ah well.

Navigating the roads with unfamiliar signs in a different country might seem simple, but they’re not. We headed out onto the obvious road out of the airport and it took us three tries on their version of a 400-series freeway to get going the right direction. I really can’t blame my navigator, since the aforementioned road signs were admittedly confusing, and some ramps were closed due to construction. I wasn’t much of a help because I was a little busy not hitting the other cars. Man, if you think we speed here in Canada, drive in Europe in a small car!

Once we found our way out of Brussels, we headed for the French border. After a bit of meandering in a small town looking for gas, we got ourselves an intricately detailed map of northern France, and some lunch. Our next stop was Vimy Ridge.

We saw the memorial monument, went into the preserved trench lines, and the supply tunnels, and walked through a war cemetery. Visiting a place such as this and seeing the names of the thousands and thousands of dead certainly gives you a new understanding of what was going on over there less than a hundred years ago.

The numbers we hear in the text books—11 000 dead here, 15 000 dead there—don’t seem to make an impression, but when you see all their names inscribed at the base of a monument, it really drives it home that that is a lot of killed people.

The weather in Europe is funny compared to here. It typically rains once a day, but only for five or ten minutes. Rain comes up very quickly, and when walking around (by the way, it’s actually Canadian soil—the French government ceded 100 hectares of the battle site to Canada, hence the Canadian flags), we got absolutely drenched. We dried out a bit in the interpretive centre, and then left when the site closed. From there, we travelled to Ypres in order to attend the daily 8pm memorial service.

Ever since the end of the First World War, there has been a remembrance service. It takes place under the Meninpoorte in Ypres, on which is inscribed the nearly 55 000 names of those who were killed in the area around Ypres, but, for whatever reason, “denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”

Afterwards, we visited the Essex Farm Cemetery, which is situated at the forward dressing station where John McRae wrote the famous poem, “In Flanders Fields”.

We drove back to Lombardsijde and went to bed.

It’s a typical little town in central Germany, which means that very few people speak English, and our German was rather limited. However, we blundered our way into purchasing bus tickets to Schloß Wartburg. (Wartburg Castle) Although we could have walked, I’m glad we took the bus, since it’s on quite a hill. This is the place where Martin Luther hid for ten months while translating the New Testament into German. But it’s history goes back further. We saw some of the original beams of the castle, which were hewn in the 1100s. That’s old. Nine hundred year old timbers. Still being used to hold up a castle.

We walked down the mountain back to town, and realized (my first duh-moment [historically speaking] of the trip) that J. S. Bach was born in Eisenach. So we saw the elementary school where both Luther and Bach attended as students (albeit a couple hundred years apart), as well as the house where Bach was born.

We took the train to Frankfurt, and then Köln (Cologne). When we arrived in Cologne, (getting dark) it was quickly ascertained that there was a festival on in town and there were no rooms to be had. Great. So we jumped on the train to the nearby city of Bonn. Once there, we located a hotel (in the rain) and called it a night.

My second duh-moment (again, related to historical facts that I should have known) was that Beethoven was born in Bonn. So on our way to the train station, we went and saw the Beethovenhaus.

And we wandered around Bonn for a couple minutes because we liked it.

From there, we returned to Cologne, because we wanted to experience the Kölner Dom. Wow. I walked around this thing with my mouth open, just amazed by the sheer mass of it. It’s just gigundous. I offer a small comparison. Do you see the peaks of those towers?

This is their actual size:

It’s a humbling experience being near to something that grand.

We walked along the Rhine for a little while, Ruth-Anne had her apple streusel. We boarded the train to Brussels and enjoyed Wasabi peanuts (huh?), compliments of the Deutsche Bahn.

Once in Brussels, we found a tourist office and booked ourselves a cheap hotel. Walking around, we saw the Grand Palais, the Palais de Justice, the Grand Place and many other old and beautiful buildings. For dinner, we decided to eat at a more… interesting place than we typically frequent, so we found a Congolese restaurant, and were quite glad we did. The atmosphere was very, very relaxed (the regulars were great friends with the owners, they talked on the phone while cooking, and so on.) Ruth-Anne ordered tilapia thinking she’d get a filet, but surprise! She got a whole fish. To her credit, she ate until she was stuffed.

The next morning was going to be an early one, so we went right to bed after dinner.

Dinner was sausage for Ruth-Anne (yes, the Germans are nuts for sausage) and currywurst. That’s a sausage with curry powder, basically. Bot bad, but not that great, either. Oh… and as a larger side note, you may notice that I seem to dwell on the food aspect of our trip. That’s partially because of, unbeknownst to me, Ruth-Anne was apparently on some sort of food scavenger hunt. When in France, she had to have éclair. When in Swizerland, she had to have chocolate. When in Germany, she had to have schnitzel, when in Belgium, she had to have waffles. Undoubtably, you notice a trend. It was perhaps more obvious in person.

Anyway, we travelled back to Munich via bus then train, then boarded our night train to Berlin.

Night trains are something that have to admit that I was a little worried about. The two of us decided to go for the couchette option. Turns out that was a good choice. When travelling on a night train, or a sleeper train, you’re given three options:

1. Private, actual beds
2. Couchette
3. Semi-reclining chair

The beds were rather expensive, and neither of us particularly looked forward to sleeping on a chair, so we found a happy medium. The couchette setup takes up the space of two seats facing each other. The two seats slide together and form one bed; another bed folds out from the wall a little higher up, so you functionally have bunk beds. It’s neat to try and change in this area. Harder, compounded by the fact that you know a whole train car’s worth of people are probably doing the exact same thing.

Anyhow, we went to bed and slept surprisingly well.

zzz

We woke up around seven hours later, about an hour outside Berlin. We got ready for our day-long walking tour of the city.

We visited:

• The Reichstag
• The Brandenburg Gate
• Die Führerbunker
• The Sony Centre
• Symphony Hall
• Potsdamer Platz
• Checkpoint Charlie
• Berliner Dom (which really deserves its own picture:

• Pergamom Museum (which holds an amazing array of ancient artefacts from Babylonian, Assyrian, Greek and Roman periods—I submit to you the Ishtar Gates, the main entrance to Babylon.)

• Tiergarten
• Mendellsohn-Bartholdy Park

It was a rather busy day.