Indiana Nick and the Philosophy Degree

Black Friday 2011

2011-11-25T11:08:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, which makes today Black Friday.

Last night I had dinner at the home of a professor with whom I've worked (he invited one other international student). They bought two deboned rolled turkeys of 10lb each -- the six of us got through less than three quarters of the first one! (So we students were sent home with leftovers.)

I got home just before midnight and realised that it was just in time for me to go to the Black Friday sales. Every year the shops open early on the Friday after Thanksgiving and usually people camp out in the cold waiting. But this year a number of shops, including the electronics giant BestBuy, announced that they would open at midnight. I arrived at 20 min past but the queue was still outside, snaking around the corner about 150m. I brought a warm jacket and my earphones so I joined them. The queue moved slowly but when I got in I quickly found the hard drive I was looking for (and was happy that they hadn't yet sold out). But then I had to find the queue for the checkout. After wasting a few minutes in a line for something else, I was told that the end to that queue could be found by looking for a pink helium ballon. I did find it but had no idea how long it was, snaking through the aisles. About an hour and a half later I got to the checkout! I didn't get back to the car until two hours after I arrived!

It wasn't all that pleasant having to be there so long but my experience was nothing like the twenty people who got capsicum-sprayed by a psycho shopper in L.A. And elsewhere people have been robbed on the way back to their car and shot. I guess my experience was fine, compared to all that.

More Things You Can Get in America

2011-10-30T19:43:00.006-04:00

Today I noticed that Bed Bath and Beyond had a surprising number of interesting products that I didn't know existed:

This one came from a plain old supermarket. If it's not clear, that's a home s'mores maker:

Crazy flavours extend to alcohol

2011-08-27T23:36:00.002-04:00

A friend of our had a big housewarming party tonight. She's a well-paid full professor so her parties always have a well-stocked bar. But tonight, I noticed a couple of bottles that I'd never seen before:
Whipped cream vodka

"Cotton candy" (i.e. fairy floss) vodka

In America, you can get anything!

2011-07-27T23:55:00.002-04:00

When I first arrived in America, I really liked to go shopping. I'd spend a lot of time browsing the supermarket and even Target seeing what was available. These Poms feel the same way:

While the novelty has worn off for me now, there are still occasions when I'm amazed that a certain product exists, and Cindy will exclaim, "You can get an-y-thing in America!" This happens mainly around Xmas.

Satellite TV is not as glamorous as it sounds

2011-07-27T16:46:00.000-04:00

We've had some intermittent problems with the TV lately. Apparently it was the heat -- it's been in the mid-30s all week. A serviceman came today and found that one of the switches had melted.

It's fixed now but there's still nothing good on.

Bacon Ice-Cream

2011-06-19T23:19:00.002-04:00

I had dinner tonight with some friends at a well-known local brasserie. One thing they have on the menu is a diabolical sounding seitan tenderloin, so I thought that if Cameron ever visited, I'd take him there.

But one other thing they have on the menu is bacon ice-cream! That's a chocolate-coated rasher on the left!

It had little chunks of real bacon through it, as you see in the photo and the rest of the ice-cream tasted of bacon too. It was as nauseating as it sounds.

Bilingualism

2011-04-18T23:19:00.002-04:00

Tonight at the play I saw someone whom I was supposed to know but didn't recognise. I knew him from French Table (he came a few times a couple of years ago, I remembered his name when he told me) and he thought it was funny that we had never spoken in English before. In fact, I had failed to recognise him last week when he was at the meeting with Kim Beazley. That was the first time he had heard me speak English and so tonight he said to me, "I didn't know you had an accent in English."
"I don't. You do!" I replied.
"Well, I didn't know that you were Australian until then," he corrected himself.

Let Newton Be!

2011-04-17T23:03:00.000-04:00

I went to see a play tonight. My department and a few others sponsored a showing of "Let Newton Be!", about the life of Isaac Newton. It was a very small production, just three actors and not many props, but they made excellent use of what they had. The actors represent three stages of Newton's life but they also change into other characters occasionally, like Leibniz. The most impressive thing is how they managed to keep it under an hour and a half and include so much material without dumbing it down.

What can't be flavoured like bacon?

2011-03-25T23:14:00.001-04:00

I think this speaks for itself:

I'll just add that the picture on the box looks like that because Americans usually eat streaky bacon (rarely "Canadian" back bacon and never middle rashers).

Family Reunion

2010-12-22T00:28:00.003-05:00

Today Mum, Dad and Erin arrived. Their hotel, the Outrigger on the Beach, is just on the other side of the market from us, only a few hundred metres away. We went there just a little before they arrived so that we could greet them with leis. They were tired but Erin was surprisingly perky, thanks to her travelling drugs, and insisted that we eat lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. I had a Hawaiian pizza and we all struggled to share a piece of Kahlúa cheesecake. (I didn't really need dessert but you can't go to The Cheesecake Factory and not order cheesecake!)

Cindy and I spent the afternoon showing them around the market and getting them oriented. Then we went out to dinner at The Hard Rock Café. Erin and Cindy ordered drinks that came with free hurricane glasses (they actually give you clean ones) and we had vouchers for a free gift, which just turned out to be a lanyard and pin but we received two.

Waikiki Beach

2010-12-21T04:01:00.003-05:00

Today we shopped. We explored the market in front of our hotel and got some cheap souvenirs then caught a "trolley" (shaped like an old wooden tram but with bus wheels) over to the Ala Moana shopping centre. That was like most other American malls but have a couple of interesting shops like Hilo Hattie and As Seen on TV!
This evening we went down to the beach bar at the Hilton for a drink with my friend Matt who was coïncidentally in Waikiki for a chemistry conference and his wife. After a nice Hurricane we went to a tropical hamburger restaurant where all the waitresses were dressed in grass skirts.

Hawaii

2010-12-15T03:42:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I went in to uni and marked a big stack of my students' final essays along with the professor and the other assistant instructors. I got home a little after lunch time and Cindy and I went to get the hire car that we planned to take to the airport the next morning. I had made the reservation a few weeks before and the car was ready for us (the guy started telling us aboutthe seat warmers) but when it came time to pay we discovered that Hertz does a full credit check on anyone paying with a debit card. After we ran around and got our social security numbers, it turned out that they would not let us hire the car at all. Our flight would leave too early for the Bloomington-Airport shuttle so we had to ask our friend Charly to take us. He's an early riser but it was still very kind of him to come pick us up at 3.30 am and drive an hour each way. The crazy part was that in the queue for security Cindy saw someone from her lab who had driven himself up - if only we had known!

We flew with US Airways because their flights to Hawaii go through Phoenix, Arizona and we didn't want a repeat of the Xmas before last when we spent a night in Chicago and our bags were lost. Because both legs of the trip were domestic, we didn't get any food, we had to buy it at the airport. That's not good for a 6-7 h flight to Hawaii because the food gets cold. US Airways was even worse than United in some ways, like trying to charge us $5 for headphones to watch the movie. But the trip itself was pretty uneventfull.

We got to the hotel around dinner time and went straight out for a cheap meal in a Chinese-Hawaiian takeaway.
I was feeling dizzy from exhaustion by that time because it was well after midnight in Indiana and I had had only a couple of hours sleep the night before and a couple more on the plane. But Cindy insisted that we couldn't go to sleep at 7 pm localtime so we wandered around a little touristy market for a bit before retiring for the night.

The hotel is quite nice, even the cheapest of Waikiki is pretty luxurious for us - I think it's the nicest hotel I've ever paid for.

Christmas Fare

2010-12-04T23:35:00.004-05:00

I know I've mentioned pumpkin pie ice-cream before but an update is required: I've discovered that a luxury ice-cream brand here is making pumpkin ice-cream with cheesecake chunks in it!

I was going to take a photo of the fridge full of different egg-nogs, including Jack Daniels and pumpkin, but the shelves were a bit bare. Still, you'll be relieved to know that there's not one, but two varieties of egg-nog ice-cream (the slow-churned one is low fat):

That sounds like it could be good for Xmas in Hawaii!

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-25T12:55:00.002-05:00

Today's Thanksgiving. This year I'm not cooking a turkey (Cindy's out of town) and didn't get invited anywhere. But my friend Larry heard that Bloomington's best pizzeria was hosting a free Thanksgiving lunch, so we went.

Believe it or not, they were serving turkey pizza: mashed potato, turkey slices and stuffing, with gravy and cranberry sauce on the side! We thought we were arriving early but the place was already packed, so we had to sit in the waiting area and eat off our laps but I was grateful for a free meal.

The Turducken of Cakes

2010-10-13T21:10:00.003-04:00

So you all remember what a turducken is? Well this, my friends, is the cake equivalent.

You take a pumpkin pie, place it in a cake tin, pour chocolate cake batter on top and bake it into a cake. Then you bake an apple pie into a vanilla cake. The two layers are stuck together and iced all over with American-style butter-cream frosting. Voilà:

Apparently they're actually selling this in Philadelphia, from a café in Reading Terminal Market. I left town too soon!

Concert

2010-09-14T23:46:00.004-04:00

Tonight Cindy and I drove up to Indianapolis to see a show. The headline act was Billy Bragg. He's getting a bit long in the tooth but still knows how to play a mean guitar. It was a great performance, he changed a couple of lyrics just to make the better-known songs more interesting.

When I was buying the tickets I was surprised to see that the warm-up act was Australian Darren Hanlon. He's completely unknown here, which might explain the supporting role.
I've liked his music for a while so it was nice that I actually got to have a chat with him and bought a CD, which he signed.

Oh, what's that? Yes, we went to IHOP on the way.

Automotive Decoration

2010-09-13T11:45:00.001-04:00

This car is parked outside my building. I wonder what the occasion is.

Ice Cream Flavors

2010-09-07T22:07:00.000-04:00

The latest in our ongoing series of crazy American food:

Fancy Frozen Fruity Flavours

2010-07-23T12:30:00.005-04:00

Last night on my way home I stopped at a gelateria that's apparently very famous around Philly. Knowing it was expensive I chose the two most obscure flavours on offer -- blueberry and thyme, and rockmelon and absinthe. Both combinations were surprisingly good. The blueberry and thyme got a bit gritty by the end of the scoop, what with the berry seeds and dried thyme leaves, so I might not order it again. But I'd think about infusing a little next time I make blueberry crêpes. I think the other combination might be more easy to accomplish. All it would take is a blender, chunks of rockmelon, crushed ice or sorbet and a dash of pastis (which I already have a bottle of).

Update - 31st July
The champagne and mango is not bad. There's plenty of real mango in it but I think they were not completely ripe when they made the batch I got.
It's not a weird flavour but their hazelnut is fantastic, the best I've had in many years.

West Philly

2010-07-21T17:48:00.007-04:00

Philadelphia has a bad reputation in America; the crime in some parts of town is seen as a symptom of the city's age, it's a city past its prime. That does seem to be true of the part of town where I'm staying, too far west to benefit from the gentrification happening around the universities.

Still, vestiges of earlier investment in the area remain. The main high school is in a very nice crenellated castle, there's a big domed insurance building on the other side of the tracks and down the road there's a nice old sandstone church.

Coffee

2010-07-12T21:43:00.005-04:00

Apparently I haven't discussed American attitudes to coffee before. You probably already know that Americans in general drink a lot more coffee than tea (except at the CHF, where I was surprised to find a lot of tea drinkers). The problem is, drinking more of it doesn't mean they're any better at making coffee. For one thing, they over-roast it; so if you try to brew it strong it's too bitter and the only way to make it less bitter is for it to come out watery.

They're so obsessed with drip filter coffee that they're yet to embrace espresso. I don't mean in homes, I mean restaurants and even cafés serve filter coffee and only fancier places also have espresso coffee, which they charge more for. They've even started combining frothed milk with drip coffee, which is what you get if you ask for a café au lait (only by using the Italian name, caffè latte, do you get espresso and steamed milk). So strange that two foreign terms would get you the same thing in different parts of Europe but get you different things here.

Here's the weirdest thing: the rarity of espresso coffee makes some Americans think that it's not a type of coffee. A couple of times before I've heard them say things like, "espresso or coffee" and when I call them out on it they always say, "Oh, I meant normal coffee!" which doesn't change the fact that espresso is clearly a type of coffee.
Today Cindy told me that when she went to Dunkin' Donuts there was a poster that had two options that looked identical: iced coffee or iced latte. When she asked what the difference was, she was told, 'The iced coffee is made with coffee; the iced latte is made with espresso and milk, so there is no coffee in the iced latte'! Her response being, 'Instead of my daily dose of caffeine from the Coffea arabica coffee beans I'm going to get my daily dose of espresseine from espresso beans, growing on the espresso tree, Espressoa arabica (someone needs to tell Wikipedia to create a new page for this new species!)'

Bastille Day

2010-07-11T09:33:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I went to the Philadelphia French conversation club, like most Saturdays, but this time we heard that there would be Bastille Day celebrations at an historic prison, so we headed over there afterwards.

The star was Marie-Antoinette, who was up on the ramparts yelling abuse at the sans culottes below. The scripted exchange was extremely hammy, consisting mainly of topical banter but when Marie-Antoinette said her famous line, they all started throwing free cakes into the crowd (a brand I had not seen before, which is apparently only available in the Philadelphia area). They had an impressively large guillotine set up in the street, which made short work of a watermelon.

It's a bit ironic that this sort of thing doesn't happen in France. They don't even call it Bastille Day, it's La Fête Nationale or simply le quatorze juillet. They don't do anything historical, instead they have military parades through Paris including tanks and fly-overs. It's funny that the 4th July parade we saw in Washington last weekend had only one or two military bands with only about a dozen armed soldiers. I guess the American armed forces are a bit too busy overseas whereas the French have nothing better to do.

Sandwiches

2010-07-07T12:14:00.004-04:00

Americans have a reputation for preferring to eat with their hands, whether it be hamburgers or pizza etc. This is quite true but people in other countries probably don't realise just how far this goes.

Americans consider hamburgers a type of sandwich (where I would reserve that word for something between slices of bread, 'Do you want a sandwich or a roll?') and it's sandwiches more generally that they worship. They prefer to eat with they're hands so they put all manner of nice things on rolls and pretend it's haute cuisine. It took a few years of living here to realise just how pervasive this phenomenon is - it's not just cheap lunch shops that sell fancy sandwiches, it's family restaurants (like Applebees and, my favourite, TGI Friday's) and even semi-fancy restaurants with nice décor. The other night when we were at an Italian restaurant Cindy was disappointed to see a kid at the next table eating his pizza with his hands, she thought it was too nice a place for that sort of behaviour. Then I pointed out that she had ordered a hamburger and I a fancy sandwich.

I don't know if it has more to do with the tough economic times of the last couple of years or just a willingness to consider sandwiches civilised but there's also a neglect of real food. I read an article a little while ago about a group of people who go around New York reviewing the hamburgers (this might be it). The thing is, if you're going to appoint yourself a connoisseur of beef, at least compare steaks!

Having spent some time in Philly, I've come to see their famous cheesesteak as a decent compromise. It's made with shaved or finely sliced steak (and they don't have döner kebabs here) and I've found that if you go somewhere decent (without a long queue of tourists), then a provolone cheesesteak with "sweet peppers" can be very nice.

Washington

2010-07-05T23:59:00.001-04:00

For the Independence Day long weekend Cindy and I met up in Washington. I caught a dirt-cheap coach ($17.50 return) and Cindy flew. We stayed in a motel at the end of the metro line in Huntington, just south of Alexandria, Virginia.

Saturday we walked until our feet were sore, seeing all the monuments, memorials and museums. I got to see a couple that I hadn't seen the first time, like the Jefferson and FDR memorials. It was stinking hot but there were plenty of bubblers for us to refill our bottles with tepid water. I have a new appreciation for the Smithsonian Institution now; all their museums are free and air-conditioned, they provide a great place to cool down and sit, where there happens to be some art to look at while you're relaxing.

Sunday we watched the big parade. Before it started a couple of cyclists rode down the cleared street dressed in bright pink and waving signs saying "Peace is patriotic", declaring that they were part of the parade; the police soon moved them along. There were a few military groups marching but mainly brass bands. It was a bit strange to hear them playing God Save the Queen and The British Grenadiers but this wasn't an inappropriate gesture, those tunes have been given American lyrics, which everyone else was humming.
The assortment of random characters was a bit second rate (Paddington Bear, Madeline, Strawberry Shortcake all as balloons), a real Lone Ranger made it a little more American. What made it all worthwhile was that I got to see a real DeLorean!
We tried to stay out of the heat that afternoon while we waited for the fireworks. There were a lot of people but there was plenty of space on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial so we got a decent view without being too crowded.

Monday we spent the day looking around the old quarter of Alexandria, Virginia. It's a nice old port town on the Potomac with lots of little shops, a few good restaurants and two ice-creameries.

Chemical Heritage Foundation

2010-06-09T22:29:00.005-04:00

This week I started my fellowship at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. They've given me an office near the library with the other fellows. They all back onto a big atrium and we get natural light through large windows. Occasionally someone will stop by and talk to someone else through the window opening but generally we don't feel too much like monkeys at the zoo.

Everyone has a computer in the office with a personalised account on a central server but it's all Windows. After a couple of days of fiddling around, hitting the wrong keys and not having my files with me, I decided to just bring my own laptop and only use their computer to print. I've managed to get the PC's keyboard and mouse working with it (and, although the CHF email won't work with the Mac for some reason, it does work with my iPod Touch).

There is a kitchenette and this leads to a lot of social activities. Every day around 10.30 people stand around there drinking tea and coffee (the folks here drink a lot more tea than your average American) and on Tuesday afternoons at 3 there's biscuits or cake in the atrium (which they call a "public square"). And today I noticed a lot of people walking around with rolled up rubber mats -- apparently it's yoga day.

Delaware

2010-06-01T19:52:00.004-04:00

My current fellowship is for visiting institutions in the Philadelphia area, apparently that extends down to Wilmington, Delaware. Today I went there for the first time, that's another state off my list!

I went to the Hagley library to look at some of their Lavoisier stuff. I was lucky enough to get a ride down with one of the CHF fellows so we didn't stop for souvenirs but I did save the money it would have cost to hire a car or catch a train and taxi.

The library and archives are spread across a couple of buildings on a few acres, which used to be the DuPont gunpowder factory. Now it's a nice park with an industrial museum.

Memorial Day at the Museum

2010-05-31T19:21:00.001-04:00

Today I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's an impressive looking building that you've probably seen before - those are the steps Rocky ran up. I didn't run up them because I was wearing things but I did have to walk up. Apparently the building's famous for the movie even among the locals so they put up a statue.

It's an enormous museum with quite a few famous paintings (Monets, Renoirs, a couple of van Goghs) but it was laid out a bit strangely with paintings, statues and antique furniture all together in a room without anything tying them together.

Olde Philadelphia

2010-05-27T19:51:00.005-04:00

Today I went to the American Philosophical Society to use their library. It was a bit stricter than archives I had used before. After I introduced myself as a PACHS fellow they asked for two forms of ID and had me create a username and password for a library user account then gave me a magnetic card to hang around my neck for the day, so I could beep open the doors. Once in the reading room, books had to be requested electronically. But one librarian was very nice and, when I told him that my research intersected with Ben Franklin's stay in France he relished the opportunity to wax lyrical about Franklin's dalliances with aristocratic French ladies. It must be true, I saw for myself in his correspondence that they all addressed him as "Papa". He's very well thought of in Philadelphia too. That statue on the building is Franklin as a Roman and there's a life-sized statue of him seated on a bench at UPenn as well as busts everywhere.

I also went to the mint (because it is closed weekends). I don't have any photos of that to post because taking photos is banned, they even threaten to prosecute any caught trying! Actually, this didn't surprise me so much because a couple of days ago I heard someone discussing how it's illegal to have images of US currency. She was complaining that she tried to scan a dollar bill to use on a poster or something but Photoshop refused to abet her! The mint wasn't that interesting and you couldn't see much happening in the machines but it was free.

Another thing you see in that part of town is horse-drawn carriages. Unlike New York, there's no Central Park so I figure they must be doing historical tours of the buildings etc. (that would explain why some of the female drivers are dressed up like Betsy Ross). Last time I was there I noticed someone holding a sign in protest against the carriage rides, it said something about it being an archaic and cruel practice to make animals pull vehicles. But there was someone else holding another sign explaining that these horses had been rescued from slaughter (it didn't explain why they were destined for slaughter in the first place). I wished I had Cindy with me so she could tell them that sending horses to an abattoir is not a waste if they end up on her plate!

Fringe Benefits

2010-05-26T20:28:00.002-04:00

Tonight the CHF took all the fellows out to dinner. Actually, I'm not a CHF fellow yet but they were generous enough to shout the PACHS fellows too. (The other PACHS fellow compared this to treating step-children well, which raises interesting questions about her childhood.)

We went to a nice Italian restaurant in the old part of town, Penn's Landing. The set menu had four courses and one of the choices for the main was saltimbocca, so it wasn't hard for me to choose. But I overheard some of the others muttering about the veal option; for some reason many Americans think that it's less humane to eat animals when they're young. Actually, when I gave it a little thought, I realised that it's probably been a few years since I've eaten veal because I never see it in the supermarket or on menus (we don't really go to Italian restaurants and pubs here don't sell schnitzels). I guess that makes it rarer than lamb even!

The other good thing about the dinner was that wine was included. In America it's pretty common for diners to offer bottomless cups of coffee and fast food places to have free refills on fountain soft-drinks but this was the first time I'd heard of a restaurant offering bottomless glasses of wine! Just like at a diner, the waitresses came around topping up our glasses whenever the level dropped.

South Philly

2010-05-22T18:33:00.004-04:00

Today I caught the bus (for the first time; it takes the same tokens as the subway, so it was easy) to the "Italian Market" district of South Philly. I've started going to a French table here to keep up my speaking skills and this week they met in a little café run by an eccentric Frenchman. This café reminded me a little of the Runcible Spoon, it's decorated very eccelectically with French and international posters and the toilet has photos all over the walls. Worse, it's under the stairs, which means you run the risk of hitting your head if you get too close.

While I was in that part of town I managed to cross something off my Philly to-do list - a Philly cheesesteak from Pat's Steaks. The queue went right around the block but it only took about 20 mins or so. The sandwich itself was ok but not great; it was a bit like a roast beef roll from an Australian carvery but without any real gravy. I got it with provolone cheese and "peppers" but it didn't add all that much to the taste, I think they're meant to be just bland and meaty. Apparently there's an ongoing rivalry between Pat's and Geno's across the street so when I got to the French group I asked some locals their opinion. Instead of telling me to go to one or the other, three of them rattled off a list of a dozen other places all over Philadelphia where you can get better cheesesteaks.

And, being in the Italian quarter, I was lucky enough to find an Italian grocer that stocked chinotto, one of the things I miss living in Bloomington.

Philanthropy

2010-05-21T16:50:00.006-04:00

American Universities rely on philanthropy more than Australian ones. In Australia there's plenty of named scholarships and prizes as well as a few named chairs. At IU there's tons of named professorships and a number of "schools" (more like faculties) that are named after generous donors, e.g. the Kelley School of Business, the Maurer School of Law, and John Cougar Mellencamp donated enough money for a pavilion.

For some reason many of the donations come from "the class of..." At IU there's a few stone gateways and the like with years written on them but here at the University of Pennsylvania (an Ivy League university) the alumni can afford to buy nicer things. In the library there's a very plush reading room with slate-topped desks, reading lamps, a grandfather clock, sofas, armchairs and ottomans; all donated by the class of 1937 on their 50th reunion. And the class of 1920 donated a "commons", which seems to be a building with a food court and open spaces.

But it's funny the little things that get donated. Today when I was taking a leak I looked up and, instead of an ad, a little silver plaque saying:

The relief you are now experiencing is made possible by a gift from Michael Zinman.

I didn't have a camera on me but apparently someone else did:

The City of Brotherly Love

2010-05-07T20:37:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I left Bloomington and came to Philadelphia. I'll be here for 3 months this summer on fellowships from the Philadelphia Area Centre for the History of Science and the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

It was planes, trains and automobiles yesterday: car to Indianapolis, plane to Philadelphia, a train downtown, then a metro. We were a bit rushed getting from IHOP to the airport. I rushed to check my bags, there was a bit of a delay getting to security and after I passed the metal detector I was randomly selected for an extra scan. Then they had to search my bag because a stack of papers in there was thick enough to stop the x-rays, while in there the guy got suspicious of my tin of teabags and decided to swab it to test for explosives. But, naturally, the plane didn't board on time so I had 10 min to spare.

I'm staying in a share-house on the west side of town, near the University of Pennsylvania. It's very close to metro, which will be convenient when I need to go into the city for the CHF. It must be a very multi-cultural neighbourhood because even the normal mainstream supermarket stocks lots more exotic food than in Bloomington, especially West Indian and Middle-Eastern food.

Today I took a walk around the UPenn campus. It's like a cross between Sydney Uni and UTS, it has busy roads running through, lots of private shops etc. But there is some parkland interspersed. In one park I saw a guy had brought his own hammock and strung it between two trees so he could lie back and read his Kindle. And there's another university, Drexel, just across the road. No wonder they call it university city.

The Dunny

2010-04-24T10:54:00.003-04:00

I accidentally said "toilet" to some Americans on Thursday. I was explaining to the secretaries that my students were having a break in the middle of our two hour class. One of them repeated, "Oh, you give your students a potty-break?"
And on Tuesday I tried to convince an American planning a trip that she should say les toilettes when in France because it's so much easier to remember than les vé cé or les wat-air. She wasn't sure that she could bring herself to say toilettes (and yet pé cu didn't faze her)!

You see, in America the word "toilet" always refers specifically to the porcelain throne. That means they need other euphemisms (not that "toilet" itself isn't a euphemism, it was originally). Here's a discussion from a professional linguist, based on personal experience:

I heard the following exchange a couple of years ago in the National Gallery (London) between a couple of American tourists and a cruel (and probably bored) security guard:
Tourist: Could you tell us where the restroom is?
Guard: Do you need a rest?
Tourist: Oh no--I mean the bathroom.
Guard: Why? Do you want to have a bath?
Tourists: *gasping for another word*
Guard: I can direct you to the ladies' toilets?

This difference seems to be driven by the fact that America houses have long had toilets in the bathroom, a trend which is far more recent in Australia. So they're not used to the smallest room in the house being called "the toilet" and think of water closets as a continental convention.

I must have been off my guard linguistically this week because when I first got here I was always carefully to say "bathroom" and I think I still do when talking to strangers. I refuse to say "restroom" as that word makes no sense (see joke above). Canadians say "washroom", which is kinda what it is but I can't just start using Canadian words. At least when we're at The Runcible Spoon there's nothing inaccurate about calling it a bathroom.

And, while we're on the subject, one of the things I explain to the American student teachers headed for Australia is dual-flush toilets, and the fact that it's usually a button. This is because the flush is always some sort of lever here and dual-flush toilets are almost non-existent. I say almost because they've just built a new energy-efficient building on campus. Cindy works there and has discovered that they have dual flush toilets there. She particularly likes the fact that it's labelled "number 1" and "number 2"!

Cornbread

2010-04-17T19:22:00.004-04:00

Cornbread is an American dish that's not completely crazy but still ain't quite right. It tastes very good; it has a sweet flavour and a texture like a friand (because it's made from corn meal rather than flour. If you made it into a muffin it would go great with afternoon tea.

The problem is that they serve it as a side to the main meal, especially barbecued things. I just can't imagine using anything so sweet to mop up gravy or BBQ sauce. And it's too crumbly for that anyway.

Chez ze Locksmiss

2010-04-17T15:28:00.002-04:00

Our car is now slightly less dodgy than before. We took it back to the locksmith and left it with them long enough for a more senior employee to take a look at it. The younger guy had tried twice to no avail but the expert took only a few minutes. We were happy to discover that the door key now also starts the ignition.

Comical Transport Day

2010-04-16T00:04:00.002-04:00

Today on my way to class I saw two interesting things:

An asian guy with a longish blond mohawk (but black sides) wearing a pinstripe navy suit, riding a skateboard.

A girl on a Segway wearing a fully enclosed motorcycle helmet.

And there I was on foot!

Preparing Americans for Australia

2010-04-10T13:52:00.003-04:00

Today I gave my Australia talk again to a new batch of American student teachers. I told them about Australian schools, wildlife, culture, cuisine and that if they were staying with host families, they should try to learn to use their knives and forks correctly.

None of the questions were particularly stupid this time. Taking me for Emily Post, one girl asked me whether she would have to eat whatever her host family served; I said she should just talk about her likes and dislikes at the start. One mother asked a good question about what sort of meat we eat. I told her to imagine the American diet but replace 1/3 of the beef with lamb. That elicited some mutters from Americans not used to the taste of lamb!

I recommended that they watch Kenny and Summer Heights High to get to understand the Australian sense of humour. I warned that these might be a little harder for Americans as they don't have laugh tracks etc. but that this was good practice for when they'd be subtly mocked by their hosts. It turns out that the organiser who asked me for suggestions actually labelled Kenny as "highly recommended by an Australian national". It's available at Blockbuster Video and one girl said that she watched it for class but thought that it was some sort of low-brow stupidity. Obviously she was taking it the wrong way so I told her to watch it again when she gets back from Australia.

I showed them a promo for Summer Heights High that maybe I shouldn't have. I immediately remembered that there's almost no swearing on American TV and some of the shocking parts reminded me of the "don't ask, don't tell" style of political correctness you often get here. One of the students said that she had asked specifically for an outback school so over lunch I told her to find out a little about teaching aboriginal students and explained some of the things that my grandfather had discovered teaching his aboriginal student teachers.

Sumer is icumen in

2010-04-02T11:13:00.002-04:00

When I was walking to campus yesterday I realised that I shouldn't have worn jeans. It got up to 28˙. I changed into shorts as soon as I got home. After dinner last night I put on some thongs and Cindy and I took a walk and bought some "small" (12 oz) ice creams.

Today it's going to get up to 28˙ again, they predict. And there's a bushfire warning, which they call a "red flag".

Easter Cooking

2010-03-27T21:42:00.004-04:00

I saw some hot cross buns at the supermarket today; the scabby little American ones with the icing cross. No, I wasn't even tempted to buy some. I'm making the chocolate sort again this year. I'm using the same recipe as last year except this time I added some orange zest.

They're not all that pretty as I just scored the tops and drizzled a cornflour mix over them. (It was only after I'd done this that I remembered that I actually had a piping bag and could have done it neatly! Oh, well; next batch.)

American Illness

2010-03-17T00:50:00.003-04:00

I'm just getting over a cold so I thought I'd give some more info on what Americans call things:

American	English
acetaminophen	paracetamol
Tylenol	Panadol (i.e. the most popular brand of paracetamol)
Advil	Nurofen (i.e. most popular brand of ibuprofen)
analgesics (even in the supermarket they use the technical term)	pain killers
allergies	hayfever
mono(nucleosis)	glandular fever
sinus infection	sinusitus
pink eye	conjunctivitis?
strep throat	tonsillitis?

I think I mentioned before that they have nothing here as good as butter menthols. Luckily I had some on the days I had to teach.

My cold's almost gone now. Just a bit of a cough so I'm taking expectorant tablets to try to clear that up before the end of the week.

Sink the Bismark

2010-03-05T22:33:00.002-05:00

Tonight Cindy and I had a free dinner at one of Bloomington's most famous pubs, Nick's English Hut. (No, there's nothing English about it.) It was free because Chevron has sent recruiters to the geology department and they're trying to soften up the students. I don't mind eating and drinking their dirty money!

While we were there we noticed that many of the other tables were drinking their beer in a very strange way. They had small galvanised buckets in the middle of their tables and were pouring beer from their cups into the centre. The buckets were almost full of beer (about 1.5L) with a small glass floating in it. When they'd poured enough beer into this floating glass, whoever had sunk it had to drink it. Ah, American College students!

It turns out this game is called "Sink the Bismark" and it's quite a tradition at Nick's, you can even buy sets so that you can play the game at home.

What annoys an oyster more

2010-02-28T18:56:00.001-05:00

Cindy and I were awoken at about 3.30 am Saturday by our favourite neighbours and their subwoofers. Then, while still half asleep I heard someone yell, "Hey, turn it down!" and the reply, "Fuck you!" There was a bit more shouting that I couldn't make out but the music didn't stop. After a couple more minutes I decided to phone in a noise complaint but the number they give is for an office that isn't open at 3.30 am. I didn't really want to call 911 so we just went back to sleep.

The next morning we were still annoyed so we printed a copy of the city's noise laws and highlighted the bits that said "Night time limits for non-stationary noise are from 11:00 p.m. - 6:00 a.m." and "A simple rule of thumb is that a noise is excessive if it can be heard in the public right of way or in another resident's home." I could have just slipped in under their door but I felt more like sticking it to their door with a dagger. I found that there was already a nail there so I compromised by just sticking the note on that. The only problem is, 24 hours later the note is still there. I don't think they've left their apartment in that time!

It's Slushing!

2010-02-05T12:10:00.003-05:00

Yesterday afternoon a secretary from the philosophy dept sent out an email warning of an oncoming blizzard and warning that, because they live outside of the centre of town, the office might not be staffed today. Last night on the tele there was a little warning in the corner of the screen, warning the counties of south-central Indiana to be on the alert.

When we woke up this morning there was no snow. Another email was sent out saying that they were there but couldn't promise to stay the whole day. There was a mix of rain and snow when I walked to campus for a 10 am lecture but coming back at 11.30 it was snowing properly but turning to slush on contact. Which makes things a bit slippery; you have to waddle to keep your balance.

And I'm going to have to go back out today to get the car from the mechanic's. Luckily it will have two new tyres that will help me drive back through the slippery slush.

Adieu, Fenry!

2010-01-31T20:35:00.005-05:00

A week after buying a new car, I managed to sell the old one. Eventually someone responded to the ad who was actually serious enough to come look at the car (rather than ask me to drive it to Indianapolis) and he came back to buy it the next day. I asked for $700, he offered $500, we settled at $600. I'm happy and I think he will be too (because there's no other cars for sale in that price range!).

In the 3 years since I bought it, I put about 4,615 miles on it but no extra dings. The switch back to automatic hasn't been too hard; only a few times have I reached down to change gears. I think Cindy will miss the sound of metal scraping on metal every time she opens or closes the passenger door and the way the glove box comes off in your hands if you open it...

The Annual Robert Burns Party

2010-01-30T23:31:00.001-05:00

We went to a Robert Burns Supper last night, hosted by the same friend who threw one last year. This year there was about 30 people! The piper from last year came and deafened us once again. Again, there was an ode to the haggis. But Cindy found it not offal-ly enough (she prefers her liver as pure pâté).

Dodgy Bros

2010-01-29T11:41:00.004-05:00

When we bought the new car we were only given one pair of keys. A long one for the door and a short, stumpy one for the ignition. So, worried that we might get locked out, we decided to get another set cut straight away.* The first problem we had was finding a key cutter. There had been one in the mall but he'd been replaced by a shop selling musical instruments and knives.** I put a question on Facebook and it turns out that Americans get their keys cut in hardware stores.

The second problem we had was extreme cold. The last couple of days it's been around -10 ° and apparently this doesn't agree with door locks. Central locking was struggling and after Cindy opened her door, it wouldn't latch closed again until we'd locked and unlocked it several times.

So off to the hardware store we went for new keys and some silicone grease.*** When we got there the guy said that he might not have a blank to match the stumpy ignition key. Then he looked more closely and explained that the ignition key was identical to the door key but broken off half way. Turns out there's a fragment of key stuck in the ignition which allows us to start the car with any old key or screwdriver. (Cindy's not too happy about having paid good money for such a vehicle.)

The folks at the hardware store suggested pulling the fragment out with a magnet. But the rest of the key is brass, so I doubt there'd be enough nickel plating left for that to work. And even if we can get it out with a pair of tweezers, there's always the risk that the door key really is a different cut and we won't be able to start the car to drive to a locksmith. We're going to have to think over our options.

* Yes, we have AAA but it's easier not to have to wait. I've only ever called them for flat batteries before; I've never locked my keys in the car in America.
** Including a shiv disguised as a Zippo lighter. The last time I was there for a new watch battery he didn't put the seal back properly. Water got in but when I went back to complain, the shop had disappeared.
*** I read online that WD40 is only good for releasing joints that are rusted solid. Silicone, white lithium or teflon grease is best to keep joints moving.

Two Car Family

2010-01-24T23:34:00.007-05:00

A little while ago I took Fenry in for some minor repairs and asked them to have a look at the brakes while they were at it. Turned out that new drums, shoes, cylinders, pyramids and tetrahedra were needed for both the rear wheels, which was going to cost $380. Given that I paid $400 for the car, I had to think this over a little... Knowing that rego time was coming up soon was an added incentive to make the decision quickly.

Today Cindy and I went and bought a new car, a '98 Hyundai Sonata GLS. It's an automatic so she'll be happier about driving it more often and we'll both be less worried about it breaking down. The 3L V6 means that we'll be able to get to Indianapolis quicker but it might also be more expensive to run. Luckily insurance is not much more.

The guy selling it had posted two ads, the second explained that he'd already dropped the asking price from $1700 to $1400 and insisted on "no low-ballers". So I wasn't sure whether I should haggle but when I offered him $1300 to take it then and there he jumped at it. (Maybe I should have started lower.)

Now I'm just trying to sell off Fenry to re-coup some money. I've put up a few ads on online classifieds and have already had a bit of interest so I'm confident that it won't take too long to sell. Actually, I've learnt a bit about Craig's List* in the process. I had heard that it was full of weirdos so I wasn't too surprised when the Nigerian scammer asked me to send him my details so he could pay me in advance. One told me that my car was underpriced because he wanted me to use a certain trade-in site; another told me that he'd previously bought a newer mint-condition Civic for less than I was asking and offered me about half the asking price, if he can get cars that cheap, good luck to him. The strangest was one who told me that he had $500 cash and could come around if I'd accept that much; it sounded like something a dealer would say, to put the pressure on but he also told a story about it being for his son. But there's been a couple of more normal sounding inquiries so I'm confident.

* Most Americans pronounce the name Craig as "creg" but not all do. I haven't yet worked out which ones.

Sane American Products

2010-01-22T16:06:00.004-05:00

Here's something you won't see in Australia - not because it's crazy, because it's sane. Pepsi is tapping into a demand for boutique soft drinks by making versions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Such a thing would be unnecessary in Australia because cane sugar is so cheap! I doubt that they'll win over those people who believe that New Coke was a big conspiracy but it's always good to see people rejecting HFCS.

We saw these bottles with their retro labels in the supermarket yesterday so I bought a bottle of Mountain Dew (I hate Pepsi so I doubt that real sugar would make me like it). Yeah, and apparently in the 60s Mountain Dew was sold with a bumpkin as their mascot. I now discover that the bottle I bought was not the original recipe, which I missed by a few months. Well I've never had the original recipe anyway so I'm not too bothered.

This may sound silly but if you've never lived in America you won't realise how, because of huge subsidies to corn farmers, high fructose corn syrup is the basis of all sweet things and is even added to things that shouldn't be sweet (like bread). Actually, there are also differences when you buy bags of plain old sugar. All the no frills brands are beet sugar and the expensive ones advertise that they're cane sugar. Because beet sugar doesn't go through the same refining process, you can't find big cheap bags of raw sugar, you have to buy demarara or turbinado or some other fancy name.

iPod Touch

2010-01-11T10:03:00.006-05:00

Apart from the free upgrades, I've also been redeeming my frequent flyer points for toys - a 32 GB iPod Touch!

For those who don't know, it's much more than a normal iPod - it doesn't just play music and movies, it's also a mini computer for web browsing and games. It has pseudo-GPS by knowing the location of the Wi-Fi network you're connected to (not very accurate but I think it might improve once SkyHook has gathered enough info). I've been filling it with other useful applications like dictionaries, a toilet locator, a unit converter, an ebook reader, movie times and a fart machine.

It's not a phone but it has Skype so, with the new headset that includes a mic, I can use it as a phone wherever there's wi-fi. And in Bloomington there's free wi-fi everywhere - campus, cafés, restaurants and everyone's apartments.

I'm very happy with it so far. The only disappointment is that it doesn't work with my old Firewire iPod charger so I'll have to by a cheap compact USB charger from eBay. (Which is easier said than done. It's great to see the chargers getting so much smaller but the first batch of Apple chargers were recalled. These old ones and new fakes are being sold on eBay and apparently most of the fakes are not compatible with my model of iPod. But I didn't even get a chance to try to the first one I bought, that seller's gone out of business, luckily before I could pay him. Now I've bought a pair of cheap $1.37 chargers that don't try to mimic Apple's style but say explicitly that they work with the 3rd generation iPod Touch.)

I am really looking forward to taking it to campus on days when I don't feel like carrying the laptop and bringing it out at French table when we need to look something up.

Flying

2010-01-11T08:37:00.003-05:00

I was a bit worried when I heard about the attempted bombing in Detroit and the new security measures. This wasn't actually a problem for us. On the way to Morocco I bought a small bottle of calvados (because it was cheap and I wasn't sure if I could get it later) with the intention of bringing it back to France. Then I remembered that we weren't planning to check any bags (cheap airline) and a 200mL bottle wouldn't be allowed on board; I decided to try anyway. I needn't have worried, the security leaving Marrakech didn't put any limit on the amount of liquids... but they did segregate men and women into separate queues for the screening!

Things were a bit more serious leaving Paris. The Spanish Inquisition started before we even checked our suitcases. After my cabin bag was x-rayed a guard asked me to open it. I asked him, "Did you see something inside?" but he replied, "No, just checking." They were in a very curious mood that day, he wanted to know what was inside every box and what everything was. He even asked about the TimTams, whether there was liquid inside, "No, they might be a little wet in the middle but it's not liquid." But the thing is, it wasn't just him, everyone was curious about what we'd been up to. Less than 100m further along, we were stopped again, asked more questions about our bags and what we'd done since we checked them, "Well, I had a cup of coffee..." and most passengers had their hand luggage opened and checked manually a second time.

Naturally we hoped to get upgraded to Business again but that didn't happen. As we sat in Economy Plus we reminisced about our time in Business, looked at the high prices of alcohol and calculated that between us we'd had about $50 worth of alcohol last time. The plane was late taking off because there were not enough de-icing machines to go around, so we got in to Washington a couple of hours late. Our trip through Customs was made a bit quicker by a blasé officer who let us take our 15L of cider through without paying duty. Then we saw that the next plane was delayed by two and a half hours so we had plenty of time.

Now Cindy, having flown more United miles than me, had been given some credits for domestic upgrades. Last time she wasn't able to use it because First Class was full but this time she was upgraded to First at check in. I wasn't all that jealous about a one hour flight but she was talking about sharing the seat, having half an hour each in First. Then, as we were waiting at the gate, my name was called over the PA and I received a First class boarding pass too! The seats were no better than Business but the stewardess took drink orders before take off and brought us snack boxes with chips, salami, Oreos and jelly beans. Not as much fun as 8 hours of Business but it was a nice treat.

The World's Classiest Strip Club

2010-01-08T21:42:00.002-05:00

A while ago we were watching a doco on the Crazy Horse Cabaret of Paris; it followed some new dancers through their training. I was a little surprised when they interviewed some of the parents who described how proud they were. Then I remembered that the thing about French people being more open about nudity is not just a stereotype, e.g. topless bathing is more common than in English-speaking countries (but they do, in fact, shave their armpits; the French claim that it's German women who don't).

Then it went one step further - Cindy's mum thought that it would be good for us to have a cultural experience and decided to shout us tickets to see the show. It was excellent, very artistic:

Apart from the erotic dancers, there was a pair of male tap dancers to prove that it was a real cabaret and not just a strip club. They had quite a funny routine and were obviously talented. It must be hard competing with all those boobs.

Ouarzazate

2010-01-05T13:27:00.002-05:00

From Morocco

After yesterday's trip to Casablanca we decided to take a bus trip to Ouarzazate.

We travelled over the Atlas Mountains, taking the highest pass in Morocco, 2,200 m. It was quite cold up there and the air was quite thin (water bottles opened in the mountains were flattened on the other side). We made plenty of stops to photograph the picturesque views.

From Morocco

On the other side we saw rocky desert with little towns built around casbahs. We had lunch at a nice little place in Ouarzazate overlooking the casbah. We only had time for a quick tour of the medina (the old city) before heading back over those windy mountain passes to Marrakech.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world...

2010-01-04T21:18:00.003-05:00

From Morocco

Yesterday we saw so much in Marrakech that we decided to go up to Casablanca for the day.

The train ride takes more than 3 hours so we only had the afternoon. Casablanca is a big commercial city with less touristy stuff. We managed to find Rick's Café but it was closed and we didn't have time to come back.

The other attraction was the biggest mosque in the country and one of the few that non-Muslims are allowed to enter. However, we arrived too late for the tour and only saw the outside.

From Morocco

Riding on the Marrakech Express

2010-01-03T19:58:00.001-05:00

From Morocco

Cindy and I decided to get away from the winter weather with a short side-trip down to Morocco.

We flew down Sunday night and checked into our hotel just outside the medina, the old city. We ventured in looking for dinner and found it a bit overwhelming. It smelt of burning charcoal and two-stroke and scooters were constantly trying to run us down but we managed to find a decent dinner and some bottled water.

The next day we found the touristy part of town and spent the whole day in the souks, the traditional markets. There is an amazing range of things for sale: spices, clothes, ceramics, woodwork, metal crafts and leather goods. It had been a while since I'd been in a market where haggling is a must so at first I didn't understand that there were no prices. They all wanted you to make an offer and some sellers would even refuse to put a figure on an item until you chose a couple of other things to buy at the same time. This was a bit frustrating when we wanted just one thing from that stall.

I noticed a couple of things about business in the souks. No one has change, they're always wanting you to pay with a smaller note; in fact, this is true even in bigger shops. The traders can get anything for you, even if it's not in their stall.

From Morocco

So hungry I could eat a horse!

2009-12-30T17:04:00.002-05:00

Cindy's father normally does most of the cooking in their household but he's been unwell so her mother has had to step up to the task. Cindy and I thought it'd me nice for us to contribute by cooking at least one meal so Cindy nominated Pachista, one of her favourites from my repertoire. Google comes up with nothing when I search for it so I guess it must be an Allan family recipe. It's just mince, capsicum, noodles, béchamel sauce and paprika in a casserole. (You dirty a lot of different vessels but if you know how to make white sauce it's not that hard.)

This time was slightly different. As we were buying the ingredients, Cindy said to me, "We always have it with beef mince. Why don't we make a French version this time and make it with horse!?" (Actually, it might not have even been phrased as a question. I was informed that it would be a horse pachista and the next thing I knew Cindy's mum was back from the market with a packet of horse mince.) Actually, horse is not difficult to cook, it looks and smells just like beef. The taste is not much different; less than the difference between beef and kangaroo. So I made the rest as I normally do, mixing the paprika into the white sauce and putting some Parmesan on top.

Cindy tucked in, hoping the horse would make it better than usual; I just pretended it was beef. But Cindy's parents reacted with trepidation. I don't know how I managed to scare French people who I constantly see eating all manner of liver derivatives. But after they realised that it was in fact a good combination they liked it.

Now I can say that not only have I had horse meat served to me, I've also served it to others.

My Amygdales are Killing Me!

2009-12-29T05:57:00.005-05:00

When I need to guess a French translation of a technical word, I usually just say the English word with a French accent and change the ending a bit. That doesn't work with "tonsillitis", tonsille is only used by doctors.

They don't have anything like Betadine gargle or butter-menthols (these don't exist in America either, so I had no reason to expect them). Not every home has aspirin, for the same reason that you can't get iodine gargle, it's gone out of fashion. Apparently they're "not allowed" ready access to aspirin any more because of the side effects. I don't know whether this means a prescription or just behind the counter but it strikes me as weird having just come from America where they really do sell it in bottles like in the movies. At least paracetamol is called that here (unlike the US where it's "acetaminophen").

What they do have is pine sap lollies; yes, pine sap. Well, they do have a medicinal taste. They also have a strange lozenge that is made from Vichy water minerals. I dunno, that name just shocks me whenever I see it.

The Haul

2009-12-25T16:04:00.004-05:00

Last night we stayed up until after midnight so we could open our Christmas presents ASAP, as Cindy's family always do. I had already picked out for myself a nice Bluetooth mouse and the first two seasons of my new favourite comedy.

But there were also a few surprises that had some cultural significance. Cindy's parents got me, among other things, a napkin ring with my name on it. The French still use cloth napkins more often than we do so they usually have their own named napkin rings and, for anyone who spends any time in the South, it'll be made of olive wood.

Cindy's brother lives in the east of France, not far from the headquarters of Lacoste. They came in laden with very chic crocodile-emblazoned boxes for everyone. I got a nice pair of socks and a cap (which I might need on our trip down to Morocco).

When we were in Belgium earlier this year we had a few meals with a couple of Cindy's cousins. Well apparently they remembered what we were drinking because I also received a boxed set of Belgian lambic beers. I don't normally like beer but this brand, Mort Subite was very good when I tried it in Belgium. As well as a fancy balloon glass, the set has two different cherry beers, a raspberry and a gueuze.

Noël vs Christmas

2009-12-23T08:46:00.006-05:00

Some of the things the French do differently at Christmas:

This is the nativity inside Notre Dame cathedral. Look at that surprised look to see no baby in the manger. That's because the French don't put baby Jesus in there until midnight Christmas eve. But that just leaves us asking why Mary would be staring at an empty manger full of hay...

Similarly, the three wise men (always "three kings" in French) are not placed too close to the stable as they don't arrive until 6th January. That date is the Epiphany and the French mark it with a special pastry cake filled with almond paste. There's a trinket baked inside this Galette des Rois, some little ceramic figurine that some people collect. Whoever gets that prize gets to wear a cardboard crown (it's nicer than the paper crowns we get in our crackers).

And, in Cindy's family at least, they don't put the presents under the tree until Christmas eve. For them all the presents are supposed to be from Father Christmas, so there's no reason for them to be there any earlier nor do they put a "from" name on the tag. This is bad news for me because it means I don't get an opportunity to poke, prod, rattle and sniff my presents before the day!

It's not stockings here, it's clogs. Under Cindy's tree there's two pairs of clogs and four boots. The point is the same, that's where the presents were left, traditionally. They do have the occasional stocking, particularly in the touristy shops but Cindy insists that this is an exotic Anglo-Saxonism.

There are no Christmas cards. But there are end of year cards. So you get an extra week before they count as late.

Marché de Noël

2009-12-20T16:41:00.006-05:00

This afternoon Cindy and I went into Paris to go to a Marché de Noël. I got to cross a few things off my list.

On the way we stopped to pick up a few things and while Cindy was queuing I saw that that department store that we were in sold Pierre Hermé macarons. I had heard all about this particular chef who puts inspired combinations of flavours into his macarons but was worried when I heard about the crowds at his shop. You've already guessed that they're expensive, so I only bought two: white truffle and hazelnut; and milk chocolate and passionfruit. They were very good but I'm not going out to spend €24 on a dozen.

Then we walked down the Champs Elysée, fighting our way through crazy crowds to get to the Christmas market. Every tree on the Champs Elysée from the Arc de Triomphe down to the Place de la Concorde was lit up with fairy lights and fluorescent tubes with moving lights inside. There was also a ferris wheel in the Place de la Concorde but we didn't go on it.

I was a little surprised that it wasn't just Christmassy stuff. Of course, some stalls specialised in Christmas decorations etc. One was selling just santons. While all these figurines are meant to go into your nativity, only about 10% of the ones on display were Christmas related. I still haven't worked out why you need a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker to fill out the scene; maybe it's because the three wise are arranged somewhere else, they don't arrive until 6th January. I looked for but could find a caganer, which is a shame because Mum's nativity really needs one.

But there was also all sorts of arts and crafts, and regular commercial products from French companies, like art deco bidets!

Of course there was the usual French street food like crêpes and waffles for sale as well as winter foods like mulled wine. While Cindy was pigging out on roasted chestnuts I tried a canelé, something else I'd heard about but never tried. It was pretty good too.

It's going to be a White Christmas

2009-12-17T13:23:00.004-05:00

When we arrived in Paris it was snowing a little. Not enough to stop the plane from landing but enough to slow the cars on the highways. Cindy's parents were there before us so we left as soon as we got our bags but it took us about 3 hours to drive back to their place.

The Jet Set

2009-12-17T08:33:00.009-05:00

Abstract:
Cindy and I were upgraded to Business Class between Washington and Paris. It was fantastic!

Long version:
Cindy and I have been doing a lot of travelling and were pleased when we earnt Premier status with United earlier this year. This doesn't change much but it means that you get to board the plane sooner and if there's space in Economy Plus, you get upgraded for free. I was a bit excited about this the first time we got it coming back from Australia. Then we realised that Economy Plus just means 2cm extra room. It's imperceptible sitting up but when everyone pushes their seats back that little bit does make a difference.

Then we found out about domestic upgrade credits. Because Cindy had flown enough miles after earning Premier status, she had a number of credits on her account with which she could request an upgrade on a domestic flight. We were kicking ourselves that we hadn't used this last time on the flight from LA to Indy but we figured that we'd try to use one for the Indiana to Washington leg of this flight. There was a bit of mucking around trying to get her to sponsor an upgrade for me (we paid separately so we were on separate itineraries) but it turned out that only she was on the waiting list.

We were even more disappointed when we reserved our seats for the long trans-Atlantic leg and couldn't get any in Economy Plus. I mentioned this when we checked in our bags and she had a look but said that it was full, leaving us at the very back of the plane. There were enough paying First Class passengers on the flight to Washington that Cindy didn't get off the waitlist. But that didn't matter because on a flight of one and a half hours they don't feed you so it makes no real difference.

When we got to Washington we had to rush a bit to find the gate. They were still using those bizarre shuttles to get between terminals. They started boarding just after we got there. We went up but when Cindy handed over her boarding pass there was a negative-sounding beep and a red light. But they didn't stop her, they just handed her a different boarding pass that had already been printed. The same thing happened to me. As we walked down the ramp checking to see if we were still seated together, we realised that they'd put us both in Business!!

The first thing you notice is the size of the chairs. As you can see from the pic, there's a leg-rest. We spent the first 15 min working out what all the buttons did. There was electric lumbar support and under that button another with a cycle symbol. That slowly hardens and softens the back, forcing you to change your position slightly and stopping you from getting bed sores. The only problem is that it's a bit too strong, I could only take it for a few minutes at a time. Every seat has its own screen but on a 777 there's only a 8 or 9 film channels to choose from.

We also got a pencil-case sized pouch with: an eye mask, socks, ear plugs, toothbrush and toothpaste, a pen, tissues and a moisturiser.

Yes, they do bring you a glass of champagne before take off and offer you a choice of newspapers (French and American). Then for the aperitif after take-off, alcohol is free, including things that can't even be bought in Economy, like Glenlivet single malt, which I ordered. Cindy had a Kahlua and milk; when she asked to keep the little bottle, the stewardess replied, 'This one's empty now. Here, have a full one.' The same thing happened later when she ordered a Baileys! Yes, all drinks come in real glass glasses. And instead of little sachets of peanuts, we got little ceramic bowls of warm mixed nuts. They tasted much better warm, or maybe everything just tastes better when you're sitting in Business!

For dinner, it was much better quality and there was more of it. They gave us a big printed menu and took our orders well before; then they laid out white linen tablecloths on every tray and gave us real metal cutlery wrapped in linen napkin. There was salad (Cindy got my cherry tomatoes and olives) and a smallgoods and raw vege entrée. For main I had braised beef and potatoes gratin while Cindy had a spinach lasagne. For dessert we both had tiramisu, which they served with port.

Here's a picture of the breakfast. A raspberry yoghurt came soon after.
Cindy said that it was the best day of our lives. But maybe when we go back to Economy we'll think that it was the worst day of our lives!

More Ice Cream Flavours

2009-12-11T13:25:00.000-05:00

And I thought pumpkin scones were bad! Well, the name says pumpkin but the pic suggests that it's actually pumpkin pie flavour. Now that I'm getting used to pumpkin pies I find this a little less shocking. But, still, pumpkin in ice cream!?

Snow

2009-12-07T11:50:00.001-05:00

Woke up this morning to see a thin layer of snow outside. We're expecting a high of +4˙C today.

American Ice-Cream

2009-12-05T12:22:00.003-05:00

When I was preparing to come to America my friend Lisa, who had lived in New Jersey for a year, told me that one of the things that America does better than Australia is ice-cream. That's partly true; I certainly wasn't disappointed when I came here and discovered such ingredients as chunks of cookie (sic.) dough and mini peanut butter cups. The only flavour I miss is boysenberry (which is ironic, given that boysenberries were first cultivated at Knott's Berry Farm in California).

Then I saw this at the supermarket:

I'm not sure what to think. Americans seem to like crunch in their ice cream. They have a lot of nuts and occasionally chunks of cone mixed in (or even chocolate-coated ice cream cone fragments). But popcorn!?

Crazy American Food -- Thanksgiving Special

2009-11-26T11:01:00.005-05:00

Americans eat a lot more Turkey than other countries (it is native to North America, after all). When they cook it themselves, they like to get it right; they always use meat thermometers and have a paranoid fear that stuffing will give them salmonella. This leads them to cook their turkeys for a long time but they hate when it comes out dry so they're big in to basting. Still, there's only so much you can accomplish by taking pan drippings and squirting them over the top of the bird. If only there were a way to make sure the meat inside stayed moist...

Yes, that lump on the side is a syringe. It's a bottle of buttery marinade that comes with a syringe to inject the fat into your turkey. Yum!

In other news, we're having Thanksgiving dinner with some friends from Cindy's department, other international students. Should be an interesting mix: one Chinese, two Columbians and a heap of Serbs, who've been sending us emails in Cyrillic. (So I'm looking for a joke that starts, "A Serb, a Croat and a Bosniak walk into a bar...")

Baconnaise

2009-11-22T22:53:00.005-05:00

Not much has been happening for me lately but I'm always learning little things about America. Many of these encounters happen in the supermarket, so I decided to start taking photos. This will be part of an ongoing series.

Episode 1 - Baconnaise:

Actually, this one can't be found in normal supermarkets, we had to get it from Amazon. No, we don't really want to eat it but we've seen it on The Daily Show so many times that it seemed we just had to take some to France to shock those Continental Epicureans. We haven't even tried it but I'm quite disappointed with the description - it's kosher and vegetarian! What's the point?

But I do like the blurb on the jar, the creators used their prize money from America's Funniest Home Video to make "everything taste like bacon".

I've been to cities that never close down...

2009-11-11T11:36:00.002-05:00

Cindy and I spent this afternoon with my new friends, the Australasian Association of IU. The international centre here put on a World's Fair and we had a stall. They were still looking for decorations when I went to my first meeting with the group last week so I volunteered Cindy's stuffed toys. We ended up taking a huge number of toy marsupials as well as a full-size didgeridoo and a very classy beach towel with a map of Australia on it. The group president declared proudly that our stall looked like a gift shop and I reiterated that it belonged to Cindy, not me.

Each stall was giving out food from their home country but I shouldn't have got my hopes up on hearing that our group had given the caterers a recipe for sausage rolls. The recipe we gave them was too vague so we ended up with American "Italian" sausage (i.e. pork with lots of fennel or aniseed) cut into discs. It wasn't bad, the Americans liked it. But maybe that was just by comparison with the Vegemite that we were also forcing them to try! So there was a few hours of passing out food and we got to try some food from the other stalls too.

Most of those international student groups are quite big and some gave musical performances. There was an interesting central-Asian drum group and an Afro-Cuban ensemble that gave me bad tinnitus. The highlight was troupe of Indian dancers. They were wearing bright costumes, holding batons, dancing in circles weaving in and out and generally having a fun time. I don't know whether it was the good rhythm of the music or the super-animated dancing but they had us all mesmerised and got fantastic applause at the end.

Talking Bob Dylan Blues #3

2009-11-03T10:27:00.006-05:00

Bob Dylan was in town again so Cindy and I went to see him last night, the third time for each of us. This is what he played. (Including five songs from his most recent album, which is about three too many seeing as it's his worst since Under the Red Sky. But I suppose when you tour as often as he does, you have to keep updating the set list.)

What's more, Tom Waits was in town too. Bob invited him on stage to sing a song. Unfortunately Tom sang just one verse by himself, no gravelly duets. Still, it was enough to remind me of this video:

J'aime bien Tarzhé

2009-11-01T19:33:00.002-05:00

We changed the clocks back last night so this morning Cindy and I went to Target bright and early to stock up on cheap Halloween lollies. (We also noticed that TIm Tams were on sale, so we ended up buying a ton of chocolate!)

But the best bit was at the check-out when I asked her to put them in a reusable shopping bag and I got a 5c discount! Apparently now Target gives you 5c off the total for every bag you bring yourself. It obviously doesn't cost them that much to give out plastic bags so I'm impressed with a PR exercise that might actually help the environment. I doubt that this carrot will work as quickly as the Australian stick approach but it's less likely to produce a revolt from liberalist Americans.

Cîndy the Activist

2009-10-31T10:14:00.002-04:00

One of the things I had to give up when I came to America was political activism. When I was working and had spare time I quite enjoyed talking to pollies: letting the baddies know that they're voting the wrong way and getting the goodies to table petitions in parliament. But I can't get involved in American politics, not being a citizen and not having the time.

However, Cindy has stepped up to the mark and become involved in campus affairs. For a long time we've both been bothered by the fact that the campus's smoking ban is being flouted regularly. After contacting campus police, various deans and the provost (≈vice-chancellor) Cindy was invited to be on the IU Tobacco- and Smoke-Free Campus Committee. She's been going around taking photos of people smoking in front of signs and asked them questions (it turns out that some international students with poor English just haven't read or haven't understood the little "Tobacco Free Campus" signs on every door).

So when she was at the first committee meeting (in a very formal boardroom, with big high-back chairs) it was Cindy who said, "Let's not wait for reports on the state of things. Let's start talking about what we've already seen on campus and plan a course of action." She's very happy that the provost is enthusiastic about the problem too and not likely to dither. E.g. we've been asked to report any professors seen smoking on campus to the provost!

They're Back!

2009-10-19T19:10:00.002-04:00

As promised in their countdown, Pepperidge Farms have brought Tim Tams back to America! Cindy and I went to Target today and bought a couple of packets of Original and Caramel but they didn't have any Dark Chocolate in yet. Still, there was a spot on the shelf for the dark ones so we'll have to check back later.

23rd October
I can now confirm that the port-based Tim Tam Slam works best with dark chocolate ones.

Strangely, it's being reported that Pepperidge Farms employees are not allowed to publicly discuss the Tim Tam Slam. We already told our friends about it (including the Brazilian guy who'd already encountered Tim Tams).

More Hayfever

2009-10-15T18:49:00.002-04:00

Last week I had another couple of bad hayfever days so today I went to the doctor to get some advice. I'd been to the university Health Center a few times before but this time I noticed something different - most of the people in the waiting room were wearing masks! The weirdest thing is that this didn't surprise me all that much. Indiana has become a bit paranoid about swine flu, to the extent that they're telling students not to go to the doctor and spread the disease if it's a flu and telling teachers not to demand proof of illness when they miss class. But the people wearing masks didn't seem all that sick, some were playing board games while they waited!

It was only then I discovered that they have a full pharmacy (not just prescriptions) which is run not-for-profit so my anti-histamines and decongestants cost me only $3 all up.

21st October
Those anti-histamines don't actually work that well for me, so I guess it's not such good value.

Mooncake Festival

2009-10-04T17:45:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was the Chinese Mooncake Festival. I'd heard about it before in Australia (lots of signs up around UNSW every year) but it was only when I moved to the northern hemisphere that I realised that it's an autumn harvest festival.

So one of our Chinese friends invited us to her place for a little get together. (Actually, being poor penurious students we first went to campus and scored a free Chinese feed courtesy of the Chinese Students Association.) We took along a bottle of French cider (sounds autumny) and a packet of TimTams. Before we even got inside a Brazilian guy who was joining us said, "TimTams! I know what those are. I ate tons of them when I was in Sydney and brought back many packets to share with friends." So he was very pleased to hear that they will be coming to Target in the near future.

But the thing that attracted the most attention was the hat I wore. Yes, I wore the Chinese cap Mum and Dad bought in Hong Kong, the one with a queue. When they gave it to me I had no idea how much Chinese people would love it! I got a great reaction last time I brought it out, photos were taken. And this time we got similar enthusiasm from another couple of Chinese and other assorted international students.

Noise

2009-09-26T11:34:00.003-04:00

We've been disturbed by our new neighbours' music for a few weeks now. They must have fantastic subwoofers because we can feel the bass through the floor. Sometimes it continues after midnight when we're just going to bed so I've been meaning to have a talk to the landlord, ask what they think is a reasonable hour.

Then last night we were awoken at 2.30 am by bass coming through the floor. It was enough to wake us both up but I really didn't feel like getting out of bed, so I rolled over and eventually managed to get back to sleep. But then it happened again at 3.30! That was enough to get me up. At first I had trouble believing that anyone would have the audacity to try that in an apartment building so I looked out the windows to see if it was coming from one of the party houses, but the bass was clearly coming through the floor of the bedroom. So I put on some clothes and went downstairs.

I rang the doorbell and heard conversation inside, "Hey, did you hear the doorbell?"
"No, there couldn't be anyone calling." I rang again repeatedly. After more discussion a young guy opens the door and asks, "Is the music loud?"
"No, I'm selling magazine subscriptions!" is what I should have said but I was too tired for sarcasm. I explained to him that I didn't want to call the police because I know that they don't give warnings, just fines, and asked him politely to look at the time in future.

I wonder how long the contrition will last.

Unfair Privileges

2009-09-02T18:55:00.002-04:00

Remember when school mothers' and fathers' day stalls sold books of vouchers for kids to give their parents? There would be vouchers for "one free car wash" and "one free massage". I think there might have also been things like "one day of no arguing with siblings".

I recently signed up for a rewards program at our favourite restaurant, TGI Friday's. As a welcome gift they sent me a few vouchers. There were normal ones like "free dessert with purchase" but there was one that struck me as a bit strange -- "One time jump the line pass". (Incidentally, although American computers send documents to be printed to a queue on a server, they never use the word "queue" for people, it's always "line".)

It's true that there is often a wait to get a table there on Friday or Saturday nights, so I understand what motivates this. But there's still something about this offer that strikes me as wrong. It's like saying, "one free evening of inconsiderateness." We won't be using that one; I wouldn't want everyone else staring daggers at me while I eat.

Censorship in America

2009-08-30T23:50:00.004-04:00

There's something a little strange about America being a bastion of free speech and simultaneously a nation of prudes. Before getting pay TV here I never realised that this irony plays out in the fact that their movies are full of swearing but TV is censored. (I also see a big problem with the fact that depictions of violence are fine any time but swearing and sex are not. But that's not just America, that's the West in general.)

The thing is, you don't notice how much swearing there is in a movie until you watch it on TV and find that half a sentence is hushed out and you can't follow the plot. (Yes, swear words are sometime key-words in action movies.) Unlike Australia, it has nothing to do with the time it's shown, swearing is hushed even after midnight! I looked into this and what I found was even more surprising: 1. Profanity laws only apply before 9 p.m. and 2. They don't apply at all for pay-TV. So why do (almost) all networks stop swearing all the time? Because apparently the advertisers demand it. (I think the only exception is HBO. Maybe some other premium channels.)

Here comes the funny bit - there are certain words that are ok by themselves but not in longer forms; "damn" is ok but "god-damn" has to be censored, "ass" is ok but "asshole" has to be censored. Guess what they do! They don't bleep or hush the whole word, they make it "***damn" and "ass****"! One word they don't bleep but over-dub comes out as "mother-lover"!

And they blur out raised middle fingers. I kid you not.

13th September
Apparently they even cut out foreign swearing. We're watching Matrix Reloaded and they cut out the best bit. Here it is:

I have sampled every language, French is my favourite - fantastic language, especially to curse with. Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperies de connards d'enculés de ta mère. You see, it's like wiping your arse with silk, I love it.

The Rhythm of Life

2009-08-27T14:48:00.002-04:00

The days are getting shorter and everyone in Bloomington is gearing up for a new academic year.

About a week ago people started moving back into town. The streets were filled with moving trucks and the dumpsters overflowed with empty boxes and junk. Yesterday there was something called a "freshman induction" ceremony. (I dunno, I guess it's the opposite of a graduation? I'm not sure why they need it when those students just had a high-school "graduation" with full academic regalia.) The town was so full of parents that the police put out a notice saying that we should treat it like snowy weather and only leave the house if absolutely necessary!

I was a bit worried when I saw someone moving into the apartment below us with a pair of guitars and an amp. I think he set up the bass in the room below our study because my desk trembles when he plays.

Allergies

2009-08-21T13:44:00.003-04:00

After four years living in Bloomington, my allergies have finally caught up with me.

When I lived in Sydney I used to get debilitating allergies a few times a year. So bad that most antihistamines would barely make a dent in the sneezing, weeping and runny nose. I think it was some sort of pollen allergy because it was worse in the suburbs than in the city and it was seasonal.

Coming to a town called "Bloomington" worried me a little. There are a lot of blossoming trees here but somehow they never bothered me. Not until this year. A few months ago I had a couple of days of sneezing but was able to chase it away with an antihistamine. But today is worse, two antihistamines and I'm still excreting copious amounts of mucus.

I'm not too sure how allergies work but I suppose I've become sensitised to something here that wasn't around in Australia. What I have to wonder is whether I'm still allergic to whatever it was in Australia or if by not being exposed I've been desensitised. I'd be great if I were now only allergic to North American flora and could just go somewhere my new allergies can't find me. But if my old allergies were still waiting for me where ever I had been, I would soon run out of places to run.

Sometimes abuse does get you places

2009-08-11T16:13:00.006-04:00

It seems that someone at Pepperidge Farms read my abusive letter, or at least added my email address to a list. I just received an email telling me that they'll be back as soon as October (but for some reason they'll remain seasonal, available Oct-March every year). I guess this means we'll be able to eat the stash we brought back from Australia.

But we'll have to continue rationing the fancy-schmanzy varieties. This year they're going to introduce a dark chocolate variety to the US (as well as the plain and caramel) but I have to assume that Black Forest and honeycomb flavours will remain scarce for a few years yet.

Humidity

2009-08-10T13:40:00.003-04:00

It was hot and muggy when I woke up this morning so the "air conditioning" has being going all day.

I'm just about to step outside so I checked the weather. It's currently 29°C - a bit hot - but the "real feel" is 40! That's how it feels when the humidity is 79%. It's going to get up to 32°, at which point it will feel like 42.

There'll surely be a big thunderstorm this arvo, hopefully not when I'm trying to walk home.

(Still, this doesn't mean that I'm looking forward to winter!)

Satellite TV

2009-08-04T19:32:00.003-04:00

We now have over 150 channels. (Most of them are rubbish, but there's about 10 good ones. Much more than I had before!)

Since moving to this apartment we haven't had any TV reception because the little indoor area couldn't pick up anything. But then when we renewed our lease the landlord explained that the rent increase would include cable TV. Being economical uni students we asked if we could just opt out of the TV and save a few bucks. She replied that we don't have to use the TV connection if we don't want it but the price is the same. Well, if I'm paying for it!

So we now have a very fancy digital decoder that gives us hundreds of channels. They wouldn't give me a second box for the bedroom but this one has both RCA and coax outlets so I've set it up so I can watch the little TV in the kitchen while I cook.

I was all excited to be getting BBC America; I had seen it advertised in the intro to various DVDs I'd seen here. But now that I have it I see that, apart from BBC World News, there's just hours and hours of Gordon Ramsay. I did enjoy his shows for a while, it made me reminisce about when I worked in a restaurant, but there's only so much you can watch a chef yelling and swearing at people before it gets boring.

Indianapolis

2009-08-01T16:48:00.005-04:00

Cindy wanted to see Harry Potter again in 3D, so yesterday we took a drive up to Indianapolis to see it at the IMAX.

Having gone all that way we had to do a few other things while we were there. There was our usual trip to IHOP:

It was a tropical theme this month. We had a choice between pineapple upside-down, banana macadamia or strawberry passionfruit pancakes.

But we also went to a couple of interesting grocery shops. We had been to Trader Joe's before. They have really good quality food for much cheaper than from a normal supermarket.

This was the first time we had been to Cost Plus World Market. They stock a range of foods from other countries including Australia and the UK. There's still plenty of TimTams left from our recent trip to Australia so we only bought one packet. I was looking forward to getting some Bundaberg Ginger Beer but they had run out (apparently it's quite popular and they run out often). I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had Robertson's Golden Shred marmalade - the same sort that was confiscated from me at Glasgow airport! They also had 250g blocks of Cadbury's but were charging $6 each - not worth it.

Car Troubles

2009-07-31T12:07:00.000-04:00

The switch for Fenry's brake lights has broken. Instead of the lights not working, they're on all the time. I guess on is safer than off, but it also discharges the battery.

We got a jump start from AAA at about 6 pm last night but when I thought about getting it fixed today I realised that the battery would just go flat again overnight. So I had to drive the car to charge it, turn it off, then unhook the cable from the terminal. It's not very convenient having to carry a spanner everywhere but it makes a decent kill-switch.

But it seems I got off lightly. Only $40 for the repair and I used one of my $10 oil-change vouchers at the same time.

La vie française

2009-07-30T21:55:00.004-04:00

One of the ways I've been spending my summer is continuing my French.

I've been getting together with some other students from HPS and Philosophy to read some philosophical texts in the original French. (We had done something similar last summer but it's a bigger group this year and we're sticking to the task at hand much more this time.) Most of the others are beginners who are just learning to read (not write or speak) French. It's good for me to be forced to go through the text properly, where I might have just skimmed it and misunderstood the tricky bits if I were reading it on my own.

Also, the guy who organised our French table has moved overseas and left me the job of sending out the weekly announcements. (Cindy had done it before in his absence but when he critiqued her verbose messages she told him to give the job to someone else - me.) Last summer there were a few weeks when very few people turned up (maybe only one apart from me and Cindy). So this year I've started advertising through the university's online classifieds. It's been pretty successful, there's be a few new people come as well as enough of the regulars to keep things going.

Potter Madness

2009-07-13T16:14:00.007-04:00

Yesterday Cindy and I bought our tickets to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We had heard that there would be a midnight session Tuesday so that we could watch it the day of its release (Wednesday) but when we went to buy our tickets there were none left for the 12.01 am, we had to get tickets for 12.13 am. In fact, that one has since sold out and now we see that the first six sessions are already full and they're selling tickets to a seventh midnight showing.

By the way, don't tell Cindy what happens in the movie, she hasn't read the book yet.

Update 1 - 7 pm, Monday night
The seventh screening is now sold out. They haven't added any more; I suppose they don't have any more prints to show.

Update 2 - Wednesday
The movie earnt $22.2 million in midnight sessions alone! That's a new record for midnight screenings, The Dark Knight only took $18.5M.

American Names

2009-07-07T10:15:00.005-04:00

No, I don't mean names like Randy, Larry, Grover or all those misspelt Stevens. I mean "How do names work in America?" It seems a silly question as their names would seem to work the same way as ours - they don't have patronymics or surnames first - but by talking to Americans I've come to realise that they think about names differently.

The most common custom, which most people would have noticed:

Rather than Hillary Clinton née Rodham, Americans prefer Hillary Rodham Clinton

I had assumed that this was a double-barrel surname without a hyphen. But I recently discovered that this is not always the way. Apparently many married women move their maiden name into the middle name field on forms. That's good to know. If that's the case, I guess that means I should put books by Mary Boas Hall next to her husband Rupert Hall in my bibliography. (But where does that leave things she wrote before she was married?) Still, I'm not certain that that's always the case.

Hearing that ~~a friend of mine had~~ two friends have done just that with her name, I started wondering how they can just shift a surname into a given name field. Apparently the distinction is less clear here. I think it might stem from the fact that use of the mother's maiden name as a middle name is more common here. But here's the strange thing, they both gave up their existing middle names in order to make room for her maiden name in the middle name box. I asked why she didn't just keep both but she didn't really understand because:

Americans don't have given names, they have first name and middle name (and ne'er the twain shall meet)

When I mentioned the given names box on forms, they said they had never seen that. I think most of them have heard of multiple given names but don't really understand it. (Not that I love the idea either; it strikes me as a bit of an affectation but the concept is not foreign to me.)

I think that this is partly the cause of another phenomenon that I noticed early on:

Americans are rarely interested in the whole middle name but they do want to know your middle initial

It seems a little strange that they don't care about the letters that come after. But this leads to another phenomenon peculiarly American:

Some Americans have no middle name, just a middle initial

The most famous example being Harry S. Truman; Herman B Wells is another. (This leads to all sorts of debates about whether to use a full stop, as there's nothing to abbreviate. Truman usually added one so the punctuation is considered part of his name.)

Oh, oh and I must say something about ordinals. It's not just Jr and Sr! We've all heard of these Americans with "comma Jr" because they're named after their father. (I don't think I've ever met an Australian who used "Junior" in such a formal way, just one who used it as a nickname. It always seemed to me that most Australians named after their fathers use their middle name, which some Americans do too.) But here's the real difference:

Junior and Senior can be part of your legal name (will appear on government-issued ID)
They also use Roman numerals. You can be John Thomas Smith IV in America.

That last one always makes me laugh. "Where are you king of? Or are you a pope?" I'm not sure why they feel the need to give the exact same name or keep a track of how many there have been but forms allow for it so Americans take advantage of the opportunity. (H.L. Mencken already remarked on this but apparently the practice was just starting when he was writing in the '20s.)

Happy 5th of July!

2009-07-05T22:44:00.001-04:00

Our plans for an Independence Day BBQ got rained out so we did it today instead.

I've mentioned before that fireworks manufacturers in America try to stir up patriotism for 4th of July celebrations. This results in some of the most ridiculous fireworks, like a tank that rolls (a short distance) and an "Exploding Bin Laden Noggin". Naturally I had to buy these two. My American friends don't buy into the jingoism but seeing me get excited about this made them want to enjoy them ironically. So we used the tank to set off Bin Laden. I didn't capture the moment but here's a video of someone else who bought the exact same sort:

Exploding Bin Laden Noggin Firework - The funniest movie is here. Find it

Minnesota

2009-06-28T17:31:00.002-04:00

I spent the last week at a workshop/conference at the University of Minnesota (a Big 10 rival of IU).

All US airlines are charging to check luggage on domestic flights so I travelled light, only taking a cabin bag. That meant I didn't take a camera but here are some photos that I would have taken:
Minneapolis is on the Mississippi River. This is one of the nicer bridges, just for pedestrians and bikes now.

The river was strong enough for mills to be built here. One of the flour companies is still going strong, Pillsbury. This building on campus is named for them:

Folwell Hall is where our sessions were.

Bob Dylan started his musical career in "Dinkytown", the student quarter of Minneapolis before moving to NYC. He lived in this building when the ground floor was a pharmacy and upstairs was flats:

Grand Marnier

2009-05-28T11:36:00.006-04:00

Today we went to the Grand Marnier factory. (They don't normally let small groups take the tour but they put the four of us with a bigger group of oldies. So it was enough, and it was free.)

First we heard about their products and the basics of the production process before taking a tour of the factory. We saw the bitter orange rinds they use for the flavour, the machines for processing them and the vats for maceration. They showed us the stills for extracting the orange flavour (and cherry, for their other liqueur) and had us smell the different fractions of the distillation. Apparently the good fraction is 90-92˙C (cooler than that is the orange oil they sell off as cleaning product).

We got to see all the huge oak barrels for first ageing the cognac, then ageing the mixed liqueur. That cellar smelt really good!

And finally they gave us free taste tests! We got to try their Cherry Marnier and vanilla Navarn liqueurs; they were ok but not worth the price. Then they gave us some of the Louis-Alexandre Grand Marnier; it tasted not much different from the standard Cordon Rouge, so not worth the extra money (30€64 /700mL vs 19€21 for Cordon Rouge). But lastly they even let us try the super-expensive Centenaire Grand Marnier (41€41); I could taste the difference with that one but I'm not prepared to pay twice as much for it, I think I'd rather have twice as much of the Cordon Rouge!

The only one we didn't get to try was the hyper-expensive Cent-Cinquantenaire (84€06). Cindy wants to go back next time we're here so maybe they'll offer us one then.

Belgium

2009-05-21T15:50:00.003-04:00

We arrived in Brussels Tuesday night where we stayed with Cindy’s aunt.

The next day her cousin took us on a tour of the city. We went first to see the Mannekin Piss, a fountain of a little boy urinating. I had heard about it before but didn’t realise that he’s usually dressed for some occasion. When we saw him he was wearing the uniform of the Barcelona soccer team because of an upcoming match. They must have just dressed him because there was a crowd standing in front, holding a banner, singing something. After lunch Cindy’s other cousin took us to see the lesser-known counterpart to the Mannekin Piss, the Jeannkin Piss -- a more recent fountain of a little girl squatting. Freud would have a field day with Brussels!

We went to the building of the European Parliament but you can’t go into the chamber. There was an info office providing literature on the EU in all its languages so Cindy took a copy of the EU charter of rights in each language.

Cindy insisted on having lunch at Quick, a European version of Maccas, mainly because it’s so famous in France for being Belgian. It was slightly less greasy than Maccas and the burgers came on whole grain buns but it was still fast food. That evening Cindy’s cousin’s boyfriend asked me (in French that sounded like Dutch) if I had tried real Belgian pommes frites yet. He was horrified when I said, “Not really, unless you count Quick,” and proceeded to tell me about his friends who own a friterie and do it all by hand. I asked him about the mayonnaise thing and he replied that you can have ketchup or any number of other sauces and rattled off a list of creamy sauces, “Tartare, andalouse...”

He seemed to know what he was talking about so when he suggested we have dinner in Leuven we let him lead us there. Leuven is a very beautiful city, reminiscent of Florence with its restaurant-filled piazzas connected by cobbled streets.

Polyglot Families

2009-05-21T15:49:00.000-04:00

After leaving Germany we went to stay with Cindy’s cousins in Holland, on the Meuse, near Nijmegen. In fact their house is on a flood plain surrounded by dykes. They have a big gate in the middle of the front dyke so they can drive up to the house so, when they hear that a big flood is coming, they install in that gap huge bars of aluminium with rubber in between, which apparently keeps the water out.

Cindy’s cousin is French but married a Dutchman so the whole family is bilingual. And because both of them work jobs that require some English and the kids also learn English at school, so they’re almost trilingual. Then the eldest daughter (20ish) explained -- in perfect English -- that she’d picked up German by having a German room-mate and spending time with her friends. Then I really started to feel that my language skills pale in comparison to people who grow up in northern Europe.

I found it a bit strange to be in this environment with so many choices of language. It was perfectly normal to hear the kids switching between French and English to talk to me (as this is what happens at French table all the time) but I also had an experience that I had heard bilingual people talk about. At one point Cindy’s cousin came up to me and asked, “Did you succeed in getting your computer onto the network?” I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong with this question. It was obvious what she meant because it was not long before we had been talking about it but then I realised that she’d asked me the question in English whereas I had only ever heard her speak French up to that point!

Aix-la-Chapelle

2009-05-21T15:48:00.002-04:00

After leaving Luxembourg we crossed (through a little bit of Belgium) into Germany where we stayed in the town that the Krauts call Aachen and the Frogs call Aix-la-Chapelle. I don't know what to call it but it was a nice town.

I thought we were going to see Charlemagne's grave but it turned out to be his relics. They had a stone sarcophagus where he was originally buried but it was empty. Apparently he was canonised a couple of hundred years after he died (news to me) and so they opened up his tomb and pulled his body to bits. That's reverence for you! His arm and his leg were in special boxes with crystal sides so you could see them. Apparently his skull was inside the big gold bust. And it wasn’t just bits of Charlemagne and his personal effects, they had quite a collection of reliquaries. They had a piece of Jesus’ sweat-rag, Mary’s belt and rib bones from famous saints (Peter, Paul, Stephen). I found the whole thing a bit macabre but that's mediaeval Catholicism.

I was a bit worried about travelling in a country where I didn’t speak a word of the language (except what I’ve learnt from Hogan’s Heroes). Cindy took German in high school for a couple of years (but has forgotten almost all of it) so I had her teach me the numbers at least. She was able to read the days of the week on a few signs but apart from that we were without any knowledge of the language. We found that, even though we were very close to the French border, the Germans of Aachen were not very good at French, most of them preferred to speak English.

After an abortive attempt to get an authentic German meal at a pub with a frazzled barmaid, we found a restaurant that had lots of flags in the window. There we were even able to ask questions about the dishes as the waiter knew the words for most things in English if he didn’t know the French word. I had the Nuremburg sausages with saurkraut and it was pretty good (there were caraway seeds in the saurkraut). I’ve realised that cabbage can be edible if it’s cooked in beer or wine or something nice.

Luxembourg

2009-05-20T11:54:00.007-04:00

On the 15th we left Paris and drove to Metz (pronounced "mess") in Lorraine, on the Moselle. We had a walk through the park there and saw their canals.

We then moved on to Luxembourg, where we spent the night. There we saw the grand-ducal palace and some old caves where people would hide in war time. I started off thinking that it would be some tiny micro-state because I had only ever heard of it in conjunction with the BeNeLux confederacy and had heard something about there still being a Grand Duke. (It’s anachronistic enough to still have a king or queen but dukes-regnant are far more exotic!) Yet I found that it’s a bit bigger than it sounds: there are actually a few separate cities there with some space in between and it takes a few hours to drive across the whole country (that’s normal; it is Europe, after all!).

We ate a couple of meals at a fête that seemed semi-permanent; it seems they eat quite a lot of sausages and the Luxembourg speciality is potato pancakes with apple sauce, just like those Ashkenazi ones that I forget the name of.

Summer Travel

2009-05-13T13:24:00.004-04:00

Cindy and I are in France visiting her parents again this summer. We arrived yesterday morning and will be here until the 29th.

Our trip here went quite smoothly. A friend drove us up to Indianapolis and we stopped at IHOP for a late lunch. This month's special is strawberries, as you can see from the crêpe.

Our short connection time at Cincinnati was no problem. We had an Air France flight number but it was actually a Delta flight. Cindy complained about the French announcements over the PA but I thought they were lucky to get any announcements in French on a Delta flight. Like most US airlines they don't serve alcohol for free any more, even on international flights. Except, I assume because they were carrying Air France passengers, that you could request wine with dinner for free.

We didn't see anyone wearing surgical masks but there was mention of swine flu. When we got on the plane they explained that the French government wouldn't let anyone disembark until everyone on the flight had filled in a certain form. The strange thing was that the form didn't ask where we'd been, just where we were going, so that they could get in touch with us if someone else came down with swine flu. (And at the airport I noticed that the gendarmes were carrying automatic rifles, presumably to shoot anyone they see cough.)

After a siesta we went shopping and picked up all the things on Cindy's list, including huge quantities of dairy products and some cider to try before we commit to buying a case of anything.

This morning we went to the market at Houilles, the neighbouring suburb. Cindy and her mum left before me because I got up late and was still eating breakfast (French style). I wandered over there, not really remembering the best route but seeing familiar landmarks. I promptly stumbled upon the market and started wandering through. Before long I saw Cindy and her mum walking towards me. They seemed slightly relieved because they didn't know where I'd been, telling me that I should have taken a mobile phone. I had told Cindy's dad where I was going and he had called them to tell them to keep a look out. I wasn't worried because I'd left my trail of bread crumbs but they weren't so confident.

Career Change

2009-05-08T21:38:00.002-04:00

So for almost a year now I've been enrolled in a master's program through the Philosophy dept at the same time as the PhD though HPS. I had the opportunity to apply for a teaching position with philosophy this semester but I was already booked to teach my own undergrad class in HPS, so I didn't. But then yesterday I got an unsolicited offer to lead the discussion sections for an ethics class in the fall semester (September – December) this year. Again this time I'm already scheduled to teach my HPS class (for the third time) but for some reason the specific offer got me thinking that I should consider it.

I had a meeting with my committee yesterday afternoon and so I asked them, just at the end, what they thought of the idea. They both immediately yelled, "Take it!" I continued speaking, saying how I had already made a commitment to teach in this dept and they said again, "Take it!" Apparently HPS is very happy whenever anyone gets work somewhere else because it means they'll be able to offer my position to someone else who needs it. The only hurdle was that my class has been advertised because it's about Darwin and the university has been running a "Themester" for his bicentennary/sesquicentennary. But I derived no benefit from it being advertised like that and the Director of Graduate Studies was certain that they'd find a replacement.

In one way this other job might seem like a demotion - leading discussion instead of lecturing. But in every other way it'll be better. It will be a good career move to get a little experience teaching something different in another dept, particularly philosophy (I like to teach both philosophical and historical classes but had I done the Darwin class again it would just be more history, when it's philosophy experience I need more of). It will be about the same number of hours work but it'll be less stressful. And it pays about 25% more! In fact, I might even be earning a little more than Cindy next semester!

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

2009-05-02T22:27:00.004-04:00

A few months ago Cindy and I were at a used book sale (the annual Monroe County Red Cross book fair) on flat rate per bag day. I noticed a number of textbooks that I recognised from taking French for reading knowledge classes. As it was a flat rate for as many books as I could fit in the bag, I picked up some of these books, thinking it would be worth trying to sell them on to the campus bookstore. They didn't want to buy them a few weeks ago but told me to come back during exam week. When I did they still didn't want one title and another had actually dropped in value. Still, I've managed to sell three to people in my dept. I charged them less than I would other students but I've still made back almost what I paid for all of them. I still have 3 left but I've contacted the instructor for the first half of the summer French class, asking her to tell the students that I'm selling books cheap.

Hopefully the next project will work out even better. Cindy and I were talking about how she loves French cider but not American cider very much. We managed to find some French cider at the international grocers but it was the one she likes less (brut, she prefers doux; I'll drink either) and it was selling for around $12. Cindy's parents found this surprising as there it retails for €1.25 for the cheap brand or €1.40 for the good stuff. So I said something like, "If it's so much cheaper in France, we should bring some back duty free. It's just a shame that we can only bring 2L into the USA between us, which is only two 750mL bottles." But then I started wondering, "What happens if we exceed our duty-free limit? How much would the duty cost?" It's a little complicated because you have to pay a percentage of the value as duty but also federal and state excise taxes on alcohol. But to bring a case of cider back to Indiana should cost less than $5 in duty and taxes. So our plan is to buy a case, check it like a suitcase (with "Fragile" stickers) and pay the duty. If all goes according to plan, we'll get a dozen 750mL bottles of Cindy's favourite cider for about $25. Fingers crossed.

Summer Work

2009-04-25T22:24:00.003-04:00

Good news: I've found some work for this summer and next.

June this year I'm going to a workshop in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We'll be developing history of science teaching modules for high school science teachers.

Next summer I'll be going to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I've won a fellowship with the Chemical Heritage Foundation and will be working there for two months, using their library and writing a paper (which should also be useful for my thesis).

Update - 7th May
More good news! Along with my Chemical Heritage Fellowship, I've just been offered another fellowship from the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science. In fact, the Chem Heritage Foundation is a member institution, so I'll be spending a little more time as well as visiting libraries at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton. They say that this one 'may be held sequentially with fellowships offered separately by PACHS member institutions but may not be held concurrently.' So I guess that means staying in Philadelphia for three months. I've heard that it's a nice city; I hope so.

Serving Sizes

2009-04-24T22:25:00.003-04:00

Tonight we had dinner out with a few people from HPS and Philosophy. We took advantage of the nice weather eating outside at a little place without undergrads where the food's not too dear. After dinner someone suggested that we go to an icecream place called the Chocolate Moose, a Bloomington institution. Knowing that it was close, most of us walked and enjoyed the summer evening.

The Chocolate Moose is a small, free-standing kiosk, about 5 meters square with a high pointed roof with a sign with a moose on it. There's always quite a queue because the locals love it. It's not the best ice cream I've ever had but I don't mind going there because it's good value. Because of this I knew I wanted a small but I while waiting looked up at the cups they had on display. I thought that the largest looked like a pretty big soft drink but then I realised that the cup wasn't for soft drinks, it was for sundaes, "blizzards" and milkshakes. I read the sign and it said "32 oz"; that's 950 mL! (For only $4.20 when made with softserve.) And my "small" was 16 oz, 470 mL! I was quite satisfied.

Humble Pie

2009-04-23T15:02:00.002-04:00

This week is my week for being told what to do.

Tuesday I had a class inspection for the first time. About a year ago they told the associate instructors that we would have to be observed at some stage. I was proactive and went to the professor who I thought was in charge of the course I was teaching but he said he didn't know anything about it. Then we hear again that we'd have to be inspected before the end of the semester, just two weeks away. I had already passed the fun part of the semester but managed to turn Tuesday's class into a pretty comprehensive lesson. I haven't received the report yet but he seemed happy enough with my performance.

Tomorrow I have to present my qualifying paper in front of the whole department. I've already heard from my two advisors that it has gaps and will need more work before it's accepted; I'm sure I'll get plenty more people wanting to pick holes in it tomorrow. My plan is to go in there describing it as a draft; hopefully that way they'll try to make most of the criticisms constructive.

Taxing Times

2009-04-07T19:02:00.002-04:00

I just did my US tax return. Because Australia has a lousy tax treaty with the states I get no special treatment as a student (Cindy, e.g., gets to earn the first $5000 tax free). And worst of all, international students can't claim anything much as deductions (not books, fees or anything; not if you worked for the money).

So I have to send the federal government a cheque for $265.20. (Cindy has to send them 32c!) I'm going to get back $48 from the state of Indiana but that doesn't help much. I suppose it was the US government that paid me in the first place so I can't be too annoyed about having to give some of it back.