Stuff, stuff, stuff

So, we're here in Nice. It's gone a lot better than I figured it would, all things considered...

Street 2

After being able to get out and walk around a bit, I can tell you that Nice and area is a beautiful, beautiful place. Before we left, I thought I would be kind of choked about not being able to see Paris. I mean, Paris has the Eiffel Tower... and Le Louvre! Nice has... what does Nice have? I've never even heard of Nice.

It's amazing, though. We pretty much kept today's excursion to 'anything within walking distance', and we're actually a little bit outside of the main town, so we didn't see much. But everything we saw was just gorgeous. I do have pictures, an absolutely mind-boggling number of pictures, but I'm about 80% positive that the Berlin wall was still standing when these computers were put in to commission, and there's not a USB port to be found. So it looks like we're out of luck on the picture front until either Rome, or until I can find a cheap cybercafe.

Different Cokes

And before I forget... we actually saw the craziest thing in Amsterdam. I guess this is mostly directed at our geekier readers, and my dad.

As we were exiting a train station, we saw a congregation of people just milling about, it looked like they were meeting for the rest of their group to meet them so they could start a game plan. But they were all wearing masks... Most of them were actually wearing Guy Fawkes masks, stylized after the V character from V for Vendetta. I recognized them almost immediately.

The were Anon protesters.

I don't know how many of you, if any, have been following the ongoing 'war' between The Church of Scientology and an online hacker group calling themselves 'Anonymous'. Basically, Anonymous had decided that the CoS was a cult/institution/religion/corporation/evil empire that needed to be dismantled, and they've been carrying out their mission primarily via leaks of Scientology's super-secret documents over the internet that are... well, we'll just say they're incriminating. There've also been some pretty heavy organized protests at places like Scientologist churches and town squares. (There was actually one in Edmonton about a month ago.)

Lemon tree!!!

ANYWAY

The fact that they were there just... blew my mind. This little war started MONTHS ago after Anon had leaked a promotional video starring Tom Cruise, and it snowballed from there. The reason this is so extraordinary is that it's actually gone on this long and with such a heavy following. When this started, I followed it, but I had no doubt in my mind that it would go on for maybe, MAYBE a week and then they'd all get bored and go back to playing Counter-Strike or World of Warcraft or something. But now I'm seeing the protests, in the real world, with my own eyes, first in my home town and then in Amsterdam!? Incredible.

I got a lot of pictures of the protest, too. I promise they'll go up as soon as I can find a computer that wasn't cobbled together during the Cold War.

Old building

UPDATE:

Oh. Lookit that. Sitting right beside me was a computer with USB ports, and a state-of-the-art CD-ROM drive. Pictures going up right now.

Tyler

View through the trees

Anon Protestors

Crazy

Time lapse through the window

Bike

Bridge view

Spring

Street

The Football Stadium