Almost done...

Published at home, but written in Boston.

________________


I know it's hard to believe, but I am actually writing this. Not typing, writing. Like, with a pen and everything. This is by way of me sitting in the food court of Boston Logan Airport Terminal B without a laptop but with four hours to spare before my flight. I guess I could use this time/this entry to do a summing up of my time in the States, but I think it would be more effective to do so once I'm home and have had a proper chance to look back. Plus, I woke up at 6:30 this morning and have done nothing but pack, stagger with bags and sit on my behind today, so I'm not in the most reflective of moods. Have got a cup of tea though.

Instead, I guess I should update you some more about what I've been up to. If I remember correctly, last time I updated I finished with what happened last time I left Boston. Well, since then I've sat doing nothing in Newark, gone drinking/playing pool in Newark, though about going to DC, gone to DC, come back, gone drinking some more in Newark and come to Boston. DC was as DC was before: bright, shiny and full of interesting things. This time round found me at the American Indian Museum* and the Natural History Museum, with a tour of some inspiring (and less inspiring) memorials in between. The Indian museum was fascinating, although slightly uncomfortable at times. The museum's purpose is not to look at native cultures from the outside, but to present the beliefs and lifestyles of a section of the world's population. The contrast in approach was something I hadn't appreciated before, and the pretty callous way that Indian culture has been presented before was very obvious and a little disturbing. For example, the tour guide told us how one visitor, herself a Native American, had a grandfather whose skull was one of the exhibits at the Natural History Museum. The thought that someone's remains could be presented (without their consent, obviously) along with rocks and dinosaurs and butterflies pinned to card makes me slightly uncomfortable, if nothing else.

Newark was not quite as Newark was before, mainly due to the extra 14, 000 inhabitants (pesky undergrads) but it was a close enough approximation. I'm not going to talk too much about Newark because if I do that I'm going to upset myself and that would be highly embarrassing in front of a Starbucks. I will just say that I am extremely grateful to Mark and Kenny (and Trogdor) for kindly giving me room and board, and that there are a number of people who will be greatly missed. Hopefully they're coming to see me next year though. Come on folks, it's only fair that you should have to sit for hours at the airport too.

Last step on the way home was Boston. I have to say, I do like Boston. A lot. It has a great vibe and friendly people with the most fantastic accents. I've only really had two days here but I managed to pack a fair amount in, including a walk around the town with a bloke in a tri-cornered hat, a special preview of the new Gael Garcia Bernal movie and sharks. I also got to see MIT, which was interesting. I've heard Imperial called the British version of MIT, and I can definitely see the connection, although I would say MIT is more what Imperial would like to be when it grows up, when it has real money and doesn't have to share a room with the Science Museum. Also found out that if you feel close to a heart attack then cough: it's like giving yourself chest compressions. So that's good to know.



*Yes, I know the name doesn't appear very PC, but someone from the Canadian First Nations would not be too impressed at being referred to as a Native American.

My Mount Washington weekend

This post is perhaps a little overdue, given the number of noteworthy things that have happened in the past week or so. I shall attempt to get everything down here, but I apologise in advance if I have to break off midway. I'm not doing it for dramatic tension, I'm just not sure when Mark is going to wake up*.

Anyway, when I last updated I was sitting in a cafe waiting, something that set the scene for most of the day. I pretty much spent the day waiting for something to happen (perhaps this is why we had such an eventful weekend, if so I apologise profusely), waiting in Vineyard Haven, Woods Hole, Boston South Station and finally Worcester Bus Station. I have to admit I looked like a tramp, if a well packed tramp with an mp3 player, lying for three hours on a bus station bench while the Greyhounds came and went. Eventually Mark et al turned up (I will not bore you/embarrass him by going into exactly why they left so late) and we piled into the car to continue the journey up to New Hampshire.

Six people altogether, turning into eight after we picked up a couple of ladies from University of New Hampshire, strangely (for me) located in Durham**. If I had been writing this on Saturday night I would imagine that at this point I'd go more into detail about the great amusement to be had in getting lost in New Hampshire at one in the morning, or indeed about the hilarity that ensued when, between the two cars, we got three speeding tickets in the space of about twenty minutes. But as it turned out much more eventful things ended up happening, so I shall have to devote more words to those.

As a result of the getting lost, as well as the obsessive obeying of the speed limits that occurred after the tickets, we ended up getting to the hotel in Gorham at around four in the morning. This was not particularly helpful, given that we were supposed to be climbing a mountain the following day, but at least the rooms were nice and the two beds in the girls room could (extremely) comfortably accommodate the five of us. Needless to say we started hiking later than we'd have preferred.

Mount Washington, the highest peak in the eastern US. It's kind of big. The climb was from just over 2000ft to 6288ft in 4.2 miles. I admit that I found going up pretty difficult, and ended up dragging behind the others, who all appear to be much fitter than I am. It was worth it, though, to get to the top. Even though a thick band of cloud had formed around the summit (and I, being the Physicist/geek that I am, occupied my thoughts for many minutes about exactly how this had occurred) and we couldn't see a thing, the sense of acheivement when I got to the top was greater than any I've experienced while out walking. The cup of tea in the cafeteria at the top didn't hurt either.

Mount Washington is truly a beautiful place. Despite the cloud at the top we did get some magnificent views of some most impressive geography further down the mountain. It was great, on the way down, to have some proper conversation with the people who had been putting up with my slowness on the way up, and I believe I have made yet more friends, even if they're only Facebook ones. Despite everything that followed, I truly am grateful that I was invited along and that I got to see some more of this beautiful country. Even if it's not as pretty as the Lake District :-p

After we got down the mountain (by the light of a mobile phone, it should be said. Sunset doesn't wait because you didn't get to bed before 4am the previous night) we were all a bit knackered. Back to the hotel and more importantly to the jacuzzi. Aaahhhhhhh... That truly was wonderful. Went next-door-but-one for dinner, as next door had to close for a couple of days because they ran out of food, and had a pretty good pizza and a very good beer. Not quite the same as a pub, and not quite as satifying, but the company was excellent if nothing else. Back to the hotel after, introduced a couple more yanks to Coupling, time for (freakishly large) bed.

The following day consisted purely of the drive back to Delaware, and should not have been eventful. After taking advantage of the all-you-can-eat breakfast and nursing our aching limbs we all got back into the cars and started on the journey back. All started pretty uneventfully. We stopped for maple syrup at a stand on the side of the road, where this old guy was selling the sugar he makes himself out of trees. Dropped the two NH ladies back at their dorm and continued along the road. After a little while we decide that, given we have a Californian and a Brit with us, we should take a quick detour through Boston. In retrospect this may have been a bad move.

We were on the Mass Pike, the main highway out of Boston, at 5:30pm on Sunday of Labor Day weekend. We had just passed Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox and (apparently) one of the most famous sporting grounds in the States. We had slowed down to take photos/hurl abuse (Mark is a Yankees fan, apparently they're not friendly with the Red Sox) when Mark noticed that we were drifting slightly out of the second fastest lane. This was the point at which the steering wheel apparently stopped communicating with the car***. Bad thing. We fishtailed into the righthand lane, veered back across the ouside lane and hit the central reservation, spun across four lanes of evening freeway traffic and hit the barrier on the other side (fortunately not hard enough to go through, as there was a 25ft drop on the other side), ending up in the righthandmost lane facing the oncoming traffic. A lorry driver was just behind us and, thankfully, was paying attention enough to stop behind us, blocking the lane and ensuring that noone hit us. Scott, Mark's brother, was in the car behind and stopped in front, along with a very nice lady whose husband called 911.

The weirdest thing was that everyone was fine. Absolutely fine. No broken bones, cuts, whiplash, anything. Thinking about it afterwards, I cannot honestly think of any combination of circumstances or events that would not have led to serious injury, or worse. If we'd have been going even a little faster, if anyone behind had been going faster or not been paying attention (especially the lorry driver), if the road had been a bit wetter, or especially if Mark had not stayed calm and started to panic, then things could have been much worse. Apperently it looked very Hollywood though.

As it was, we all ended up getting out of Mark's car (totalled) and into Scott's, and drove down the nearest exit to a very swish hotel, where we proceeded to completely take advantage of the hotel staff's goodwill. After many frantic calls to various parents, Mark and Scott went off to try (and try being the operative word) and find the towing yard to get the rest of our stuff out of the wrecked car, while the rest of us sat in the lobby, playing cards and eating takeaway pizza that we'd had delivered. Mark's parents extremely kindly came up from Long Island with their minivan (people carrier) and again extremely kindly checked us into the hotel, which was quite possibly the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in (not that I've stayed in many). Got up the following day, went to IHOP for breakfast and then drove back down to Newark in the minivan with Mark's extremely kind father.

*Yup, it's 12:20pm and I am not the last one up :-D
**A couple of ladies that we, or rather Curt, knew, not just random ones.
***I apologise in advance if any of this is not quite described right, I wasn't in the best position to see what was going on.

A timewastey kind of day

This one was actually published in Coffee Obsession, Woods Hole, MA. Ahhh...the wonder of free wireless.

__________

I feel that today will be a day of wasting time. I am currently in the Beetlebung café, Vineyard Haven, Martha’s Vineyard, waiting for a couple of hours to go by before I get on the ferry. The original plan was that I would get the 12 o’clock ferry, get the bus from Woods Hole and be in Worcester by about half five, at just the right time to get picked up on the way to section three of my east coast tour. However, it would appear that this is not going to be the case; I’ll have to wait a couple of hours in Worcester this evening even if I get the last bus, so I guess there’s no rush. Now, I know that certain people read my blog so I will not go deeply into my feelings about this latest change of plan. I’ll just have to go with the flow, use the time to catch up on some blogging and be grateful that anyone’s picking me up at all.

So, New Haven, Connecticut and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Very, very different places. New Haven, for the Brits, has been the home of Yale University for a few hundred years and the home of Emma Llanso for the past few weeks. Emma didn’t have anything to do, bar getting a library card and unpacking her stuff, before her orientation* to Yale Law School on Wednesday, so I took the opportunity to steal a couple of nights free accommodation and sample the delights of 30c Dunkin’ Donuts. New Haven is a strange place. The Yale buildings are all extremely Oxbridgey**, with quads, gargoyles and fancy gates, but New Haven itself is a much bigger and generally much taller city. The juxtaposition of the two feels very strange to someone who’s been to Oxford so often; it feels like someone took Balliol and dumped it in the centre of Sheffield or Newcastle. Bizarre. But nice. Plus I got to spend time with Emma, who is possibly the only person I know who appreciates Doctor Who in the same way I do***.

Martha’s Vineyard is very different again, but possibly the most English place I’ve been to in this country. It is a lot, LOT like East Anglia; flat with a mixture of woods, reed marshes, ponds and beaches. Even the towns feel a lot like English seaside towns. It was even raining and/or grey for a good portion of the time. This, combined with being on my own for most of the day, contributed to the first real homesickness I’ve felt here. Please, family members, do not get uppity about this. I have been missing people all the time I’ve been here, but there’s always been so much going on and it’s been so much fun that it’s been easy to get distracted. This week, though, is probably the first time I’ve thought “I want to go home now” without any qualifiers. I guess that sounds a little selfish, still wanting to be here and leave people coping with Nana being ill and such, but it’s been true.

The Vineyard is a lovely place though. It’s been nice to get out of the town/city for a while and I’ve been able to get a fair amount of walking in in preparation for the hike up Mount Washington this weekend. Staying at the hostel has also been an eye-opening experience. I don’t know whether it’s just the Vineyard or whether all hostels are similar, but the people here have been very, very different from the sort of people I’ve been hanging around with all summer, and indeed the sort of people I’d normally choose to hang around with. Lot’s of people seem be vegetarian/vegan, in touch with their “souls”, practicing meditation/yoga/both, into “circles” (the gratitude circle, the deep thought circle) and/or Buddhist. Now, there’s nothing wrong with deep conversation, there’s nothing wrong with being aware of how you feel about things, but when people start saying things like “I started kite surfing because I felt that my soul was telling me to fly” I feel that perhaps my usual casual conversation topics (Physics, sci-fi, football, cups of tea etc) might not be appropriate. That isn’t to say that there weren’t some nice people there, on the contrary, everyone there was very friendly and I even managed to find people to go out for a few pints with. It’s just been a reminder that slightly geeky, usually science students are not the only people in the world, which I guess can only be a good thing.

*where she will be “oriented”. Sounds like she’ll be taken to South East Asia, but I guess it really means she’ll be orientated. Ah, the English language.
**I’m guessing this was the point really
***I could mention the fact that we had a bit of a mini-marathon, watching all of the second half of the Christopher Ecclestone series in one go, but I’d probably get mocked

They've all gone to look for America...

This one is a bit late, I wrote it on Friday but have only had the chance to actually post it now. Keep your eyes peeled for more about New Haven and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts...

________

At the moment I am sitting on the Greyhound looking out over a freeway to a grim sky that looks like it’s about to fall at any moment. And it’s great.

I know there’s been a delay in updating recently. I was going to wait until I had a proper moment to blog about New York, as I promised I would. It’s only now really that I’ve had the time and/or inclination to actually update, and I don’t think I could do NYC justice now. The delay may have something to do with the fact that before now I have not been sitting with nothing to do but watch the world go by. There have been times when I have been sitting doing nothing but watch the world go by, but usually I have actually had something I have supposed to have been doing, and shamelessly blogging for an hour is a little more blatant a method of procrastination than even I can handle.

As you may or may not know by now, I’m done at the University of Delaware now and am off on my American Adventure. It was my last day yesterday and I received both a free lunch and a free oversized teacup from people in my lab, which was very pleasant and has led me to resolve to leave jobs more often. I have enjoyed working in the lab; everyone has been very friendly and, despite experiments not working, hours of data analysis/making pretty graphs and lots of little fiddly bits that are rather dull but require attention, the work itself has been pretty interesting. I should perhaps admit that I don’t feel I have done nearly as much work as I should have done (lack of sleep, complete absence of self discipline and a 60 second attention span may all have contributed to this), and I do wonder how much help I have actually been. But oh well, I’ve liked me working in the lab even if noone else has.

Having a much more accurate view of PhD life has not made it any easier to decide what to do after graduating. I really enjoyed the atmosphere both at UD and at the OU. Everyone is a bit of a geek (a bit more than a bit of a geek in many cases) and I like that; I am among my own kind. I don’t honestly know, however, whether I could hack life as a PhD student. As I said earlier, I do not have the greatest motivation or attention span at the best of times and being honest I know I’m not one of the obscenely bright people who will have a glittering career in academia. It seems like a long time and an awful lot of money to spend on something I won’t ultimately be that good at. But oh well, something to think about I suppose.

As I (think I) said in my last post, I’ve spent the last two weeks staying in a Typical American Family Home, in this case the home of Chris, Skip, Ben and Caroline Cook. Although I was a bit apprehensive about it before I went, I don’t honestly think it could have turned out better. I don’t want to gush for fear of embarrassing them in front of the whole interweb, but I will say that they are lovely lovely people who are very kind and accommodating who are good fun to be around. Plus they introduced me to steamed blue crabs, meatloaf and the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. It should be mentioned that ever since I was little watching Sesame Street, I had never seen the point of a sandwich with peanut butter and jam on it. But now I do. Seriously. In return I introduced them to Marmite, so I’m not sure they got the better of the deal there (although I did have to watch High School Musical*) They also experienced the HP sauce bacon sarnie and jelly babies, so I wasn’t completely evil.

Eep I think I have finally arrived in New Haven, Connecticut, where I shall be staying with Emma. I was going to write about other stuff I did with the Cooks, but I shall have to leave you with pool party, Rita’s, Baltimore, barbecue and Blue Rocks game.

*Just don’t ask. To know about High School Musical is to become part of it, and have it’s squeaky clean songs branded onto your brain.

Another faintly maudlin one

I realise that I haven't yet blogged about New York, or indeed about anything for a while. I thought that maybe I would do so today, but thinking about it I'm not in the most "New York, New York" kind of mood. We moved out of the dorm yesterday evening and, although my host family are really very lovely people (and please don't get me wrong about that. They are very nice, very friendly and very tolerant and accommodating), they are not my Ray Street folks. I have had the most "awesome" time in the dorm. It has been magical, truly fantastic, and I have made some wonderful friends. Real ones, not just random acquaintances, people who I very, very much hope to stay in touch with and to have come impose themselves upon me in London some time very soon. Even ignoring the nacho nights, salsa sessions (both in Timothy's and beyond), various birthdays, multiple trips further afield, evenings out and film/Doctor Who nights in, just being able to knock on someone's door or sit chatting in the lounge til 3am has made this Summer probably the best two months I've ever had. Now all the American folks have gone home (or to Hawaii, which is frankly rude) and I'm not going to see most of them for many months, if at all.

Having said that though, this has been one of the best times of my life. Ever. And I do really miss all my people at home, especially now I'm in a family home rather than the dorm. I've got friends now from all over the States and I intend to keep them (the people in question have no choice in the matter). We have MSN/AIM, Facebook and email, and I'd like to think that, even if they don't want to see me, that the opportunity to get free accommodation in London would attract some people to come and stay. I have photos and video and memories (and a chicken trophy) to remind me of how fantastic it has been, and I wouldn't swap them for anything.

You meet some strange people in this country...

New York last weekend: more about that in a dedicated post (after I've emailed Toria, who is apparently feeling neglected). Before that though, I thought maybe people who don't/can't fully appreciate the timewasting wonder that is Facebook would like to meet a few of the dodgy characters that I've gotten to know over the past weeks:

From left to right, Priyan (well part of him anyway), Steven and Adamsan. All from Imperial, although some more officially than others.

Matt, another Imperial person and a Physicist, so he must be cool. He also juggles at random moments, such as here on the subway platform waiting for the train.

Barbara and Emma, computer science major from Ohio and future Yale Law School student from Newark respectively. Emma is one of the two lovely ladies who have been looking after all of us in the dorm, and is possibly the only other person I've met who appreciates Doctor Who in the same way that I do. Barbara is visiting Delaware from Xavier University, Cincinnati and has Mad Foozball Skills.

This is Mark, who is from Long Island. I don't know whether he normally does this on the subway or whether it's just for our benefit, but it would be interesting to see him try and do so on the tube. Mark thinks that he has Mad Foozball Skills, but he is mistaken.
Matt, Adam and Priyan again, with Mike, Ilana and Cecilia. Mike I only met at the weekend, so I don't know much about him but he appears to be cool. Ilana (in the middle) is my roommate, who is very nice, gives me sweetcorn and milks cows. Cecilia is the other Imperial student and the only one of us Brits who wasn't 21 when she got here, although this doesn't appear to have been a problem as she just hands over her passport, looks innocently at the barman and gets served.

I'll upload some more interesting photos at some point as well as update about New York New York. I'll leave you with the view from the top of the Empire State Building at midnight:

DC part deux

Ok, in a better mood now. In the lab again with West Side Story on the mp3 player, so cannot help but be in a good mood. So, more about DC. Well, we've been twice now, once a few weeks ago and once a few days ago. I may even have to go again at some point; there is so much to see and it is all so interesting. I could happily spend a day in each of the Smithsonian museums, and that's without starting on all the monuments, parks and interesting governmental buildings that are everywhere in Washington. So far I've only managed four half-Smithsonians, the outside of the Capitol and the White House, a couple of memorials and the Mall*. I have to be honest: the White House was, well, just a big white house with a pillock in it, nothing particularly special really. You can only see from a fairly long distance away and, as I say, it's just a big white house. The Capitol now, that looked impressive. A bit like Saint Paul's and not at all like Westminster. At all. All shiny white, on top of a hill and looking out over a huge green space. As I said yesterday, it's all very noble and very impressive. Unfortunately there were only four tickets between about ten people for the tour when we got there on Saturday so I didn't get to see it, but hey I haven't been round the Houses of Parliament either.

The four Smithsonians I've been half-round, together with some of the highlights are:

• The National Gallery of Art - probably the only time I've spent three hours going round a quarter of an art gallery. Some wonderful pieces of artwork in here, not because they were done by famous people or are particularly iconic in themselves, just that they manage to convey a feeling or a moment spectacularly well. One of my favourites was a painting of two women framed, as it were, by a window. Both were looking straight out at all the people looking at them, one gazing rather dreamily and the other laughing behind her hand. It captured the characters of the girls fantastically and left me and Barbara at least wondering about who it is they were looking at. There was also a picture of Jesus by a Venetian painter (can't remember who but it was in the "Development of Venetian Art" exhibition). It was nothing like a lot of the other iconographic paintings that we'd seen so many of. It was just a close up of a man in pain and sadness looking back over his shoulder. It wasn't until you had a closer look that you realised he was carrying a cross. It was very different from any other picture of Jesus that I'd even seen, and it was very moving. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see a good proportion of the museum because I had to meet Adam to go to...
  
• The National Air and Space Museum** - this is possibly one of the coolest museums I have ever been to. When you consider that a goodly proportion of the advances in aerospace engineering have happened in the States, they're in a pretty good position to have the definitive aerospace museum. Full scale models of Skylab, the original moon lander***, and the Voyager spacecraft and the authentic versions of the Spirit of St. Louis, one of Amelia Earhart's planes and the honest-to-God original Apollo 11 command module. Suffice to say I had a good time. And I got a cool key ring.
  
• The Freer Gallery - this was also pretty wonderful, although in a slightly different way. Rather than being a specific era/movement/style of art, this gallery consists pretty much of the personal collection of Mr. (Arthur, possibly) Freer. It's not a huge place, and so is the only museum I saw the majority of, but it has a huge range of extremely interesting artwork. Freer was apparently very interested in Asian and Islamic art, so there are works from all over the world being presented in a way that you don't normally see. Ancient Arab caligraphy, for example, has always been presented (at least in my experience) as an interesting archeological curiosity rather than the beautiful artwork that it is. It was very interesting to see painting, poetry, sculpture and artifacts on display together, being appreciated for their aesthetic rather than historical value. Plus, there was loads of Japanese art, which anyone who knows me will know I think is cool.
  
• The American History Museum - Dorothy's ruby slippers, Skeksis, Kermit the frog and Deep Blue****. I don't need to say any more. Oh, and the original Star-Spangled Banner, although I admit that probably meant less to me than it did to Mark and Barbara.
  

I do have to admit though, that the whole museum experience was slightly dented by the completely ridiculous amount of security in some places, and this hasn't just been in DC. Ok, so checking big backpacks is probably understandable if you're going somewhere that would be missed if it got blown up. But really, I swear I had to jump through more hoops security-wise to get into the Ronald Reagan building for lunch than I did at Heathrow. Metal detectors, x-ray scanners, ID checks and big blokes with even less sense of humour than immigration officials. Honestly. If you didn't want to blow up a museum beforehand, you certainly did afterwards.

Gar. I am in shout-at-the-radio mood again now. Stupid bloody paranoid Americans. I'm going to go back to the dorm now and have a cup of tea. Probably microwaved.




Bleugh.


*how many points do I get for that? And no, not the shopping one and not the one in London either.
**see what I did there?
***yes, I know there's the same thing in the Science Museum in London, but this was an American version.
****if you don't understand any of those then I'm not going to enlighten you