Travel

Alan at the Colosseum in Rome
Alan at the Colosseum in Rome

While in Italy for a workshop I spent a few hours in Rome. The weather was beautiful and I managed to see some of the famous, old monuments.

It’s pretty amazing that some of the old monuments were standing before Jesus’ time (ie, the Colosseum was built in 80 AD), and there’s no doubt that the Colosseum existed/exists. We can’t say the same for Jesus! The only “proof” we have that Jesus ever existed are a bunch of second-hand accounts which were written decades after his death.

In other news, Rome’s cool. A few things that stood out to me:

  • Tall pine trees
  • Pizza by the kilo: cheap, greasy and delicious
  • Old buildings
Rants, Travel

Note: originally posted on mjanja.ch! Posted here for exposure and posterity.

I flew from Portland (PDX) to San Diego (SAN) this week. I was greeted by one of the controversial full-body millimeter wave scanners. Unsure of the privacy and health implications of the scanners, I decided to opt out and get a manual pat down instead. I was somewhat surprised when my mom whipped out her iPhone and started filming it… good instinct!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgzn6yXLDA4&rel=0

She filmed it until they told her to turn it off. At one point I had seen on the TSA website that it was legal to film the pat downs, but I didn’t contest it at the time as I hadn’t done my homework properly.

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Travel

I’ve been in Switzerland visiting Cassandra (she’s finishing her PhD, and has been away from Kenya for a few months). We came to Zürich to get out of Basel for a few days.

I don’t usually read guide books, but I happened to be flipping through the Rough Guide to Switzerland and I saw it said “Zürich isn’t a flashy town…”. Later, wandering around town we were taking a picture on a bridge and BAM, a Lamborghini drove by.

Lambo in Zürich
Lambo in Zürich

LOL. Apparently there is a lot of gold and precious metal trading here. I’ve seen BMWs, Audis, Mercedes, Ferraris, Lambos, etc… maybe Rough Guide should revisit Zürich?