Serguei Alleko Blog

It was a great time before 9/11 and the whole “War against terror” thing. We all believed traveling will be easier and easier, Intra-European flights were almost the same as their Intra-American analogs – an expensive bus ride. Easy to check in, easy to fly.

Of course everything changed after we realized we live in a dangerous world with a number of hostile civilisations. Airport security was tightened to (sometimes) ridiculuis levels. You can not take water into the airport, you need to turn on your notebook (just to show that battery is a battery and not an explosive I guess) and so on. I remember once  I had to show my passport 3 times just to leave Switzerland.

Nowadays it looks like the security is starting to easy up:

• 8 years passed sins 9/11 and we didn’t have any new terrorist attacks
• Global Economic crisis dictates cost reduction, also on security personnel
• Technology is advancing

This Friday I’ve managed to get to the plane in Munich without even showing passport to any person. This is how it looked:

1. Automatic check in. It’s mandatory now for Lufthansa, they’re pushing to to use the devices instead of real persons. You can even check in your luggage. But this device I had to use my passport, because I didn’t have ticket or Lufthansa card. But not to an actual person
2. Security check, where I didn’t have to show my passport or boarding pass
3. At the plane there was still a girl, checking the boarding passes, but as an alternative to a machine. You can just swipe your pass and go forward

Nice and easy, plenty of time to enjoy Bavarian beer in the airport without standing in the queues.

Just posted an article on the site of Dmitry “Goblin” Puchkov with some pictures and story about 60-km cycling trip along the North Sea.

Link to the article (in russian)

Google map shows >37.000 hits in just 2 days, wow!

Although a number of comments was not that huge. I should add more controversial topics next time.

These are the pictures from the flickr

Auggen is a small village on the German bank of Rein. It’s a part of famous white wine region. This region is divided by the Rein river to French and German parts. Before the second world war it was a part of Germany, but after Germany’s defeat western part become France. This part is world-famous Alsace region, very nice and making (allegedly) best white wine in the world.

German part of the same region is called Baden and is, of course, less known to wine-lovers. But the quality is the also very high.

Villages on the hills near Rein are very small, clean, full of “gasthaus“  (German type of bed-and-breakfasts hotels). They often have big wine factories where you can taste and buy some wine. The prices are very cheap and quality is superb! The most important that you’re sure about the temperature, at which the wine was stored. Which is crusual for the quality of the wine.

Here are some pictures from Auggen:

During our long weekend in Baden we’ve come to our friend in Basel. On Saturday we wanted to have a walk in a nice city for the whole day. Unfortunately Basel is not the best choice – the old part is to small, so we went to Zurich.

Actually Bern was our first choice, because the weather was not very sunny. And in Bern you can walk on the streets even if it’s raining. But on the highway right outside of Basel we’ve seen scary messages on big light panels: “Traffic jam to Bern due to an accident – waiting time 260 minutes!”. And they’re not kidding, Switzerland has just a few highways and when one of them is blocked  - the whole country has a problem.

So Zurich it was. The last time I didn’t like it much. Too Black-and-white center, to few bars, very snobbish. But it was >5 years ago and I can say Zurich improved a lot. The walking part is much bigger now. Zurich has enormous amount of restaurants and (looks like) night life is booming. I was never fun of night clubs, but representation is so good, that I wanted to try.

But we had just one day and went back to Basel the same evening.

Here are some pictures on my Flikr account:

Last weekend we were visiting Amsterdam with our friend. The last time I’ve visited in the Red Light District may be 3-4 years ago. There are definitely some changes. The number of windows with girls  is greatly reduced. There is almost no windows left on the main canal streets, only on a small ones.

Dutch authorities are actively trying to reduce the size of RLD in Amsterdam. They basically want to make the city cleaner and nicer.

But what the dutch are going to do without hookers? I’ll tell you: they’ll be just fine. Prostitution doesn’t have any deep roots in Dutch society, tolerance does. In every coutry of Europe there will be some small percentage of males with special needs. In the Netherlands they can fulfill their needs legally, that’s it.

Red Light District and coffeeshops are not even in the list of things Dutch are proud of. (I’ll try to recall the whole list in several days)

But back to what’s left from the Amsterdam RLD. It looks like quantity was replaced by quality. There are much more nice young girls with great bodies. This may be due to:

• Marketing reasons: demand for better quality.
• Just because last times I was walking there, the most girls were older than me. And now, years later, most of them are younger then me. And this changes my perception!

For people wishes to learn more about the black bottom of  Amsterdam, I recommend this website – Amsterdam XXX The walletjes ([R]-content) they have a nice FAQ section.

I just came back from the long weekend (4 days) near Basel.

Just north of Basel lays Baden - the most known region for german white wine

And this is Basel itself (they do understand what BIG cappuchino means)

Soon more photo’s and not from telephone