Summer Travel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Warm Angry Rabbits

You can't get decent hot cross buns in America. They do have a couple of packets at the local supermarket but they've got a strange custard-coloured icing cross on top and they don't look too promising. And they certainly don't have chocolate one like in Australia.

So, last year I found a good recipe and had some success making them myself (having a bread machine helps a lot). Here's the recipe I use:

1 1/3 cups milk
1 egg (beaten)
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons yeast
4 tablespoons cocoa
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Put all ingredients except choc chips into bread machine on dough setting. (Add choc chips when machine beeps.) When cycle has finished, shape into buns and allow to rise in warm place. Mix a couple of tablespoons of cornflour with milk. Score buns with serrated knife and drizzle cornflour mix over buns. Bake at 190˙C for 20 min. Serve warm.

That's what I did last year. I'm finding other recipes on line that are telling me to glaze them. I'm not sure that's necessary for chocolate ones but I might try it.

Australia Studies 101

Today I gave a talk to some American student teachers about Australia. They are participating in a Cultural Immersion Project where they travel to another country for eight weeks where they teach in a local school. I knew one of the past participants who got a lot out of it (she wants to go back to Australia eventually) so when I met the coördinator and she asked me I was happy to help.

There were more parents in the audience than students (they're about 21 years old but American university students get babied) and the parents asked at least half of the questions. Maybe the preparatory course the students are taking is working because the only very stupid question I got was from a mother. She asked, "Do you need to get your money exchanged or do they accept US dollars?" As I was picking up my jaw from the floor she continued, "Because they're very happy to accept US dollars in Mexico."

Well, I've got nothing in particular against Mexico but I had thought that Australia was in a better economic relationship with the US than they are.

Bloomington Stinks!

Spring is finally coming to Bloomington. The town does live up to its name - the streets are lined with various flowering trees.

The first to bloom are tall trees covered in little white blossoms. The only problem is that these blossoms stink, really bad! Apparently they're called Bradford pears and they smell putrid, like something between rotting flesh and bodily secretions. If you're ever considering a tree to plant for blossoms, go for a prunus or a cherry, avoid the Bradford pear at all costs!

Success!

I read a review saying that the American ones aren't as good but apparently they're imported from Australia. I won't be able to do proper comparisons because I only have original ones from Australia and caramel ones from America - incommensurable.

At least they are giving Australia full credit for the recipe, which should lend it some cachet with an American audience. (Nevertheless, Cindy and I both strongly disapprove of their use of the word "crème". Yes, accents make words look prettier and more exotic. But if you're going to put the accent there, you can't pronounce it like "cream"; crème is pronounced "crem".)

An Open Letter to Pepperidge Farms

I was so excited to hear that your company had decided to market TIm Tams here in the US that I immediately told everyone I knew who had any connection to Australia, posted news on my Facebook profile for all the world to see and then rushed out to buy some from my nearest Target. But when I arrived there I was greeted with only an empty shelf where Tim Tams had been and apologetic staff. They told me that they had sold out and there would be no more shipments of Tim Tams to replace them. But it's only the 16th March, you're not meant to stop making them until the end of March!

Where are my Tim Tams, you bastards!?

I asked the stockist to ask his distributor again for Tim Tams and he said he would but he didn't sound too hopeful. Now I'm thinking of driving an hour to Indianapolis to buy out the supply of the nearest SuperTarget.

I think your promotion was a bit too focussed. I only heard about them at the end of the promotional period. If only you'd released them to normal supermarkets I would have noticed them (Target is not the first place people think of when they want cookies). A word of mouth campaign will only work if you give people longer than a few months to learn where they are or if you distribute the product more widely. Still, my Target sold out their supply quite early so I guess you could call that a success.

Please keep Tim Tams as a permanent item! Once Australians have realised that there is a steady supply and that they don't have to hoard them, there'll be no more secrets and they'll start telling their American friends to go out and buy Tim Tams too, then you'll see the sales shoot up. I'm sure they'll end up more popular than plenty of your current niche cookies.

Update - 18th March, 2009
Good news! The grocery manager at Target asked the distributor and will be getting me a few packets of "car-mel" TimTams this Friday (there's no plain chocolate ones left). With the double-pack from Xmas that I still haven't opened, this should last me a while. I won't be driving to Indianapolis for biscuits, although Cindy thought it was a good idea.

Better news! The distributor said that TimTams will be coming back to America in November. Mark your calendars!

My present's not present

Cindy thought it would be fun to hide my birthday present. She knows how bad I am at finding things but apparently she doesn't care if I receive it on my actual birthday. Hopefully I'll find it before Easter.

No ear horn for me just yet!

Created by Train Horns

Erin can use this as evidence when she tries to tell Dad to turn off the speakers and he thinks she's hallucinating.

Medicines

Last night at French Table we talked about some of the medicinal products that you can't get here in the US. For example, I stocked up on butter menthols, Irish moss and Betadine gargle, after being frustrated not to have them during my last bout of tonsillitis.

Cindy said she was quite content with Canada Dry brand ginger-ale flavoured lozenges. But one Frenchwoman said that she misses a certain product for sore throats. But you only take this one when it's really bad, deep down in the throat, because it's not a lozenge or a syrup but a suppository!

Krazy Kookie Kapers

I figure it must have been Cindy who bought these biscuits, I can't remember them going in the trolley. I noticed before we opened them the words "double stuffed" on the packet but didn't think much of it until we opened them.

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!

Today is Darwin's birthday, he'd be 200 years old.

To commemorate the occasion, I went to uni and taught my class on the history of evolution. (Of course I do this every Thursday but it's nice that it fell on this date.) I didn't bake a cake; there's 33 students in my class so I thought it'd be too hard.

Snow Day!

Last night we didn't go to the Runcible Spoon (as we do most Tuesdays) because there had been snow and there was a lot of slush on the roads.

This morning I received this email:

Indiana University's Bloomington campus is closed until noon today (Jan. 28) because of icy roads creating hazardous travel conditions. A decision on whether to reopen after 12:00 p.m. will be made late in the morning based on updated road conditions.

Here's why:That's the view from our bedroom window.


That's the carpark of our building.

And this is Fess Ave facing north, the way I walk to get to campus.

A new record - the most snow I've ever seen in one place.

Addendum - Noon
Classes have been cancelled for the whole day. I just received an automated phone call explaining that the only people expected to turn up are those whose jobs involve moving snow or cooking in the residence halls. Even then, it's only if they're able to make it.

Even more surprising, Monroe county has declared a snow emergency! Only essential emergency and public safety travel is permitted. Luckily we have enough food for a few days.

Bitching about the weather again

A week or so ago we had a record cold snap - the record broken was "the coldest it's been in Bloomington since I moved here": And it's not just that it hits a low overnight, that -21˙ above was after 9 a.m., the lowest temperature recorded that day was -23˙C!

And it wasn't much warmer in the middle of the day, when the wind-chill took it down to -28!

And now I'm having students ask if I'm going to cancel class because there's a winter storm forecast. They're predicting a lot of snow!It's the ice I really hate; you can walk on snow ok but when the asphalt get icy you just slip straight over.

Happy Birthday Rabbie Burns!

Robert Burns was born 250 years ago today,

Last night Cindy and I went to a Burns supper where we ate haggis, drank scotch and heard some poetry. I was asked to give a speech "long-winded enough to remind the guests that this isn't the office Christmas party, yet not so long as to induce cramping, dry-mouth, or ringing in the ears". This gave me a good excuse to wear the Henderson tartan tie I bought in Edinburgh last summer.

It was a good night. The haggis was surprisingly edible; there was enough oatmeal and the meat was cut finely enough that it didn't feel too offally.

Back

We arrived back in Bloomington without incident. We made all our flights, the only delay was the flight from Chicago to Indy. I had phone the friend who was picking us up to tell him we were running on time, then United promptly made a liar out of me, forcing him to wait for us for an hour.

A Literary Meme

I've been tagged by Lara.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE
4) Reprint this list in your blog. The premise of this exercise is that the (American) National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte.
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy.
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare. Well, quite a few during and since high school. No one needs to read them all!
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams. The first one was hilarious, the second quite amusing, but the third just got too silly.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens..
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis. Wait, wasn't #33 the whole Narnia series?
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan.
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare. But #14 asked us if we'd read his complete works!
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I'm not going to tag anyone. Most people I know are too lazy with their blogs. But if you want to do it, knock yourself out.

The Travel Saga

So, our trip to Sydney did not go quite according to the original itinerary. Flying in late December is not good in the northern hemisphere, not only is everyone else doing it too, but there's also a lot of snow around. They really should move Xmas to July here!

Well we started out ok, we got to the airport nice and early. We were so proud of ourselves for checking in our bags on time when all the people queueing with us were running late. Our flight was a bit slow taking off but we landed at Chicago with enough time to make our connection. Or so we thought - the real delay was getting off that plane and onto the next. It had been snowing at Chicago (the tarmac was covered and planes were guided by lights) and the plane at the gate needed to be de-iced before it would get out of our way. By the time we got into the terminal and found the right gate we'd missed out flight by about five minutes!

Just getting an answer was hell, there was no-one staffing the info desk so we had to go out of security and get a new flight from the ticketing counter. We were hoping to get the next flight to LA to make our connection but the woman there informed us in no uncertain terms, "You won't be flying out of Chicago tonight." She put us on a plane for the next afternoon (via San Francisco AND Auckland!) but refused to pay for a hotel for the night. They blamed air traffic control.

They offered us a voucher but we found another motel cheaply enough and waited for their airport shuttle to pick us up. It was freezing cold and snowing heavily but we had to keep going outside to check if it had arrived. When we got to the motel we saw that the only food was a Maccas. It was only next door but we had to walk over snowdrifts to get there and we were only wearing summer clothes!

The next day we went back to O'Hare airport well before our departure time only to find that they were already predicting delays for our flight to San Francisco. We saw that we would miss our connection so we went to the help desk to ask whether we should even bother getting on that plane and to hopefully get a third itinerary. That's when I realised just how many people are travelling that time of year. The queue stretched about 100m and it took over an hour to get to the front. Behind us were a middle aged Kiwi couple who heard that we were going to Auckland and told us they would be missing the same flight. But that wait actually paid off, after much checking and fiddling, the woman at the desk managed to get us on a flight leaving San Fran later that night and going straight to Sydney. (Cindy was disappointed that she wouldn't get to see Hobbits but I was glad that it would be a shorter flight.) I wondered why we hadn't been put on that flight the night before and then I realised that we were only confirmed for that flight, not checked in yet. I wondered what that meant and we got a bit worried.

When we arrived at San Fran, we had to check in with all the others who had just rocked up at the airport. The queue wasn't long but it moved very slowly with just one person serving. When we were being checked in I enquired about my suitcase, as I had realised that the first woman at Chicago had stolen my claim check, which was stuck to an itinerary I handed her. When she looked it up in San Fran, she saw that our bags had actually made the connection from Chicago to LA on the first day. She explained that they couldn't fly with us and would only come after I had filled in the form explaining that they were missing. I said, "Well give me the form now and they can start moving them while we're on our way there." She replied that that was impossible, I had to request them from the final destination. So for 14 hours while we were in the air, our bags were at LAX with no one doing anything about it.

The stress didn't end there, even. For some reason we couldn't get a seat allocation at check-in so we had to go through with just boarding passes and get seats at the gate. Right up to the last minute we thought something else was going to happen to keep us off that flight but luckily they had seats for us. I can only assume that someone else must not have made the connection and we benefited from their misfortune!

And that's about it. We requested our bags upon arrival in Sydney and they only took a day and a half to deliver them to Penrith. In the mean time we had to go shopping for summer clothes and underwear but you can never have too many of those!

World Tour of Australia, 2008

Here are our tour dates:

20th December - Depart Indianapolis 5.32 pm
Miss plane in Chicago, stay in Chicago until 21st
Miss second plane
Lose suitcases
23rd December - Arrive Sydney, 8 am; pm go shopping for clothes
25th December - Xmas dinner chez Best
27th December - EtOH sampling with UNSW chemists
28th December - Picnic at Euroka Clearing
30th December - pm Visit Lisa
31st December - 4pm-Midnight, Fireworks on Sydney Harbour
1st January - Canberra
2nd-4th January - Mollymook
6th January - City
7th January - Bushwalk at Wentworth Falls; dinner at Aunty Kath's
10th January - Depart Sydney 3.15 pm (via LA and Chicago); Arrive Indianapolis 11.36 pm

I'll keep updating this post, so leave a message to book an appearance at your venue.

Thanksgiving 2008

This year, was my 4th Thanksgiving and the 3rd that I cooked myself. And this Thanksgiving had a "when in Rome..." theme.

That is to say I relented. Not only did I make the stuffing in a casserole dish, I also made that abominable mashed sweet-potato and marshmallow casserole. Actually, it wasn't all that bad. The nutmeg goes as well with sweet potato as it does with pumpkin. It just doesn't belong with the main course. After some umming and erring I decided to serve it with the turkey, à l'americain, but I wished I'd saved it for dessert. But I think the pumpkin pie my Canadian friend brought was better.

Apart from my own Thanksgiving Dinner at lunchtime, I was invited for a pot-luck Thanksgiving Dinner that night with various students from the HPS dept. When I saw that there was no time overlap I was sorely tempted to try to make both but then I remembered how it worked out for the Vicar of Dibley and I thought better of it. (This is a whole episode, don't click if you have download limits to worry about.)

Thanksgiving Traditions

I know I've mentioned some American Thanksgiving traditions before but I keep learning more.

I did describe in some detail the combination of sweet potatoes and marshmallows. It's common enough here in Indiana that the supermarkets put out marshmallows and brown sugar in the vege section next to the sweet potatoes for everyone's convenience. A friend of mine who's lived in LA and Boston assures me that this in not just a Mid-West novelty dish, it can be found all over the states. I'm considering making that recipe this year, just to see what it's like. We'll have people over so if it's disgusting, Cindy and I won't have to eat it all ourselves.

I've also mentioned turduckens. Looking back to my first Thanksgiving, what's more interesting is Cameron's comment:

I want to try some turducken! If and when I come over to Indiana, I have to try it out. It's like baconated grapefruit or some other 'antichrist' of vegetarians. I can see them crossing themselves right now.

I might just hold him to that! (Cameron, the rule is that vegans are allowed to eat meat if they're in a different area code.)

But I don't think I've ever mentioned just how Americans cook their turkeys. This photo was taken at our local K-Mart but turkey deep-friers can also be bought in supermarkets along with 4 US gallon (15 L) bottles of oil. They put them out a few weeks before, next to the turkeys.

Now the New York Times is reporting that this might not be such a good idea. If the fat doesn't kill you through a heart-attack, it might just burn you to death:

The turkey fryers — which combine gallons of boiling oil, open propane gas fires and often unstable frames — can easily become flame throwers, fire safety experts say.

Because of the number of fires and burns, national fire safety groups essentially urge people not to fry turkeys. The city’s Fire Department has issued a warning about turkey fryers. And Underwriters Laboratories, a nonprofit group that gives safety certifications for everything from hair dryers to space heaters, has refused to put its UL safety mark on any turkey deep fryer.

I think I'll stick to the oven when I cook mine this Thursday.

And my anecdote for this week isn't picking on United Statesians (for a change) but a different breed of North American. I was discussing Thanksgiving with a pair of Canadians. They have an earlier date for their Thanksgiving up there, because the climate is colder so the harvest comes earlier but everything else is the same. So one of them asked me, 'What do you do for Thanksgiving in Australia?'
'We cook an emu,' I replied, straight-faced. And they believed me!

But when I mentioned this to Cindy, she asked, 'Well, why don't you?' In France they always eat exotic birds at Xmas (pheasant, goose, capon etc.) and everyone knows about emu farming, so it just seemed logical to her that we should at least eat emus at Xmas. I prefer the light meat of the turkey so I think I'd rather stick to tradition than eat patriotically.

Addendum
Tonight at French table I asked a couple of Americans what their favourite Thanksgiving dishes were.
One (West Virginia) replied that she loves stuffing, particularly with lots of dried fruit. So I checked and she confirmed that her stuffing never actually goes in the bird. (It's not sheer laziness, apparently they're all terrified of salmonella poisoning.) In fact, I think I'm yet to meet an American who does stuff their stuffing; in another generation no one will know why it's called "stuffing"!

The other (Michigan) said it was sweet potatoes. So I asked her about the marshmallow abomination. She said she didn't like them with marshmallows herself because she doesn't have much of a sweet tooth. Instead, she likes them sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon! No, that's not a sweet tooth at all! On the other hand, this same girl told us that her grandmother's recipe for apple pie called for a cheddar crust. At first I thought I had misheard but, no, in that family at least they really put cheese in the crusts of their apple pies.

Snow

It's definitely cold here now. On Monday I put on my big coat before leaving for class and when I got outside I realised it was snowing. Just a few grains, which melted as soon as they hit the ground. But it was definitely snow. I phoned Cindy to tell her to look out the window, so she'd think to take a beanie, as I hadn't. That wasn't really necessary as she puts on mittens and a warm hat at the drop of one.

I'm about to leave for class now. I see that it's snowing again today. Lighter feathery flakes today. I guess they'll be prettier to walk through but I doubt they'll be any less cold.

Labyrinthitis

Monday I woke up feeling strange. The night before I felt a bit dizzy before going to bed. I assumed it was over-tiredness but I woke up still dizzy. Assuming it was a middle ear infection I went to the doctor. He couldn't see anything and my eustation tubes were clear so apparently it was a mild case of labyrinthitis. (He also tested to see if I'd had a stroke, which I hadn't, and the nurse said I had excellent blood pressure.)

It went away completely later that afternoon so I wasn't too worried. But then it came back again for a few hours today. It's not serious (nothing like what Erin had) but I'm hoping that it's not going to keep recurring because it's difficult to teach when every turn of the head makes you feel like you're on a rollercoaster.

Pushing the Envelope

Not as many interesting interesting misunderstandings from the Americans in my French class this week. We were translating a play from English into French. First they read through it in awful English accents while our English lecturer grinned and bore the mockery. When we got to translating the word "bloody" the American presenting said, "And I know from talking to English people that that's a very strong swear-word."
I contradicted him, "Not really. It is a swear word - unlike "damn" - but it's not a strong one."
The lecturer half backed me up, "Well my brother once got his mouth washed out with soap for saying 'bloody' but it's not the worst of words."
I can't wait to tell them about how Australians use the word "bugger"!

Then later in the class I noticed that the lecturer was disagreeing with all the students' ideas on how to translate "quite". Seeing the problem I gently explained to her why she wasn't getting through to them, "In American, 'quite' is always as an intensifier, even if in normal English we use it to tone down a claim."
People started muttering and the teacher chuckled at my choice of words. I just said, "Sorry, Standard English."
To which she cautioned, "We need to be a little careful here."
I don't think any Americans heard me ask, "What, I'm not supposed to call it patois americain?"

The only other thing of note was the use of a French word - chiant. I was a little proud of being able to incorporate some slang that I had learnt in passing, without having to look it up. But when it came time to discuss the translation in class, the teacher said, "You definitely couldn't use chiant there. It's far too vulgar."
I felt like exclaiming, "Then why does my girlfriend always say it to me?"

Itinerary

Cindy and I bought our tickets for Australia a few months ago. We wanted to get in early before prices shot up too much further (we've been stung a couple of times in the past, buying our tickets too late). We managed to find some for a not too horrendous price (from STA) and we stopped thinking about it.

Then we received emails from the travel agent telling us that there had been schedule changes for our flights, could we please phone to confirm. But when we looked at the new itinerary, we saw that one of the changes had us getting to Chicago at 12.04 am and leaving for Indianapolis at 9.30 pm the day before! It took about a week for them to sort it out with the airline (United). We now have a temporally possible itinerary; we're just hoping they won't change it again!

Here 'tis:

20th December: Depart Indianapolis 5.32 pm (via Chicago and LA)
22nd December: Arrive Sydney

10th January: Depart Sydney 3.15 pm (via LA and Chicago)
Arrive Indianapolis 11.36 pm

So start marking your calendars!

Knowing one's own language

For the first week of my French class the teacher gave us a number of sentences to translate from English into French. One of them struck us all as a little strange and poetic: "The house smelt of size and new paint." When we were all suggesting French words like grandeur for "size", she asked us, 'Who looked up "size" in an English dictionary?' Of course none of us had, but apparently we should have because here it referred to sizing glue.

Despite having learnt my lesson, I still felt a bit sorry for the two American girls presenting their translations in French class this week. They made a big dialectical mistake with the word "semi".

The phrase was, "The houses were much larger than Wilt's semi." The first thing that came to their American minds was a semi-trailer. I must admit, that thought occurred to me too, but I dismissed it when I realised that it had to be a type of house and inferred that "semi" must be slang for semi-detached. (Thanks, Richard Thompson!) Not these two. They had the word "trailer" stuck in their heads and - because Americans call caravans "trailers" - they inferred that the character in question lived in a caravan park.

I must admit, "semi-detached" is not a term I would use, I'd probably use "duplex" in the broader (apparently American) sense. But seeing their embarrassing mistake has reminded me to keep looking beyond my own natural vocabulary.

Translating Foodstuffs

Today the Americans in my French class learnt another thing that I was surprised they couldn't work out for themselves. The text we were translating from English mentioned "bread and butter pudding". All the Americans were asking, 'What's that? Is it like bread pudding?'
So I asked, 'Does bread pudding have butter in it?'
'Yes'
'Voilà!'

The Frenchies in the class got to speculating on how one might translate the word pudding by itself. 'Crème,' one suggested.
So I had to explain that this was not one of those American puddings, those pseudo-mousses. That it was was starchy etc. 'C'est un gâteau, en fait,' the teacher interjected.
'Oh,' one of the Americans suddenly realised, 'Like a Christmas pudding?' Yes, bravo, it's a very enlightened American who knows what a Christmas pudding is.

Then we continued translating and got to "cheese and chutney sandwich". So an American girl had to ask, 'What's chutney?' These people have been living in caves!!

Cosmopolitanism

I've probably complained about the little things in the past but I need to explain to people about Americans' insularity. They're not ignorant in the way they are stereotyped but they are insular. This comes out not as a lack of knowledge but more in their attitudes to foreign things.

The most blatant example was when the secretary in my dept was organising a restaurant dinner for a guest speaker that I was to attend and she asked, "Do you like ethnic food?" Implying: (a) that there are two classes of food - American and ethnic; and (b) that it's perfectly reasonable to reply, "No, I don't like any ethnic food."

The next most confusing attitude is the opposite one. I had a classmate who had spent a year at Oxford. She was quite proud of the fact that she occasionally spelt words the proper way. Not because she saw that American spellings are merely common childish mistakes that no one bothered to correct. No, she felt that there was something romantic about that sort of thing. Likewise the occasional use of "British" words: again, not because it's good to have a broad and varied vocabulary but more because those particular words carry an exotic cachet. I've since met other Anglophiles but I still can't quite work out how you can be in love with English culture. I mean, it's just normal, the default. It's Continental, Asian and African cultures that are foreign!

And that's the thing. For these people who find England exotic, anything more foreign will always be foreign. The foreign foods section of the supermarket (which I've mentioned before) is the best example. Certainly various styles of cooking belong together but the thing I noticed more recently is that it's not just ingredients for certain dishes - the one Italian brand of coffee that they carry is in the Italian food section! All the other brands of everything are American brands.

The reason why I'm writing about this now is because this semester I'm taking a course in the French dept on translating. The teacher made it clear from the start that we needed to produce translations that are readily understood and, if that means translating aspects of culture, so be it. A number of students objected when she said that the correct translation for "15 miles from here" was "à 25 km d'ici". They started to say that there might be a situation where miles would be understood. Where? Louisiana? They must have no idea that the only other countries that don't use metric are Liberia and Burma. (Although, for some reason the UK still uses miles on the roads, but you pay for litres of petrol.)

And to compound the issue, the lecturer for this class is English. I was a bit surprised to hear the other students muttering when we read a passage full of correct spellings like "learnt" and "burnt". I don't know what their problem is; you'd think that in academia you'd have been exposed to enough different styles that it all seems normal. There's no reason at all for the lecturer to refrain from assigning that. But then again, when she uses British slang in class (e.g. "on his uppers") I think that she just might be trying to stir them up.

Still, I was surprised at how difficult they found the cultural context. I wasn't sure what to think when I heard a student comment on the passage we were translating, "He must be really angry to use the word 'damnit'. We'll need to find a strong curse in French." Realising where I was, I gently reminded him, "England is not a religious country." No one understood what I was getting at, so I said more clearly, "'Damn' is the least offensive word. Children are allowed to say it." Well that set the whole class chattering but the teacher confirmed that it's common enough and they eventually believed us.

I'll probably learn a fair bit of French and a little about French culture (as I always am) but my American classmates will be learning a lot more, it seems.

An Eventful Evening

Yesterday Cindy went to Oregon to collect samples so I'm home alone at the moment. She had to get up at 3.30 am, meet her colleagues at the geology building then head up to Indianapolis for a 6 am flight.

Last night I had to pick up a friend from the airport to return the favour for her having taken Cindy and me to the airport in May. All day I was reminding myself to keep an eye on the clock knowing I had no one to remind me when it was time to leave. I knew I'd have to leave a little after 9 pm so at about 9.05 I got ready to make the trip (collected my iPod and its car tape adaptor) and went downstairs to the carpark... But I couldn't find my car!

Then I remembered that I had told Cindy to take my car. Not all the way to the airport, but I did insist that it would be much better for her to drive to the geology building than walking across campus at 4 am. I did say that it would be no trouble for me to stroll up there later to collect the car, which I had forgotten to do. So it was entirely my fault that I had to run from our place on 2nd St up to 11th before getting in the car to drive to the airport. Luckily traffic was good and I still got to the airport before my friend arrived. Best of all she brought me 500g of Cadbury chocolate from Canada!

But the excitement didn't end there. When I got back, as I was letting myself in, I heard a voice behind me call, "Hey, neighbour!" Seems the newly moved-in residents of the basement apartment were having some trouble with their lock (they had the key but the lock was broken, it just kept turning and turning). The emergency number was posted in the hall but, having just arrived in town, they didn't have a phone.

So I lent them mine (local calls are free in America). The landlord wasn't all that prompt to respond, it being almost midnight. After some waiting I suggested that they call a 24-hour locksmith themselves but the handyman eventually arrived. He found that they had left a window unlocked (very dangerous on their level), cut the screen, jumped through and opened the door from the inside. I hate to how difficult it would have been had they locked up properly; the handyman reckons he would have taken a hammer to the door (a locksmith he wasn't)!

Fraud!

I just checked my account balances and got the fright of my life when I found myself overdrawn by more than $200. At first I thought that I hadn't left enough money for the rent check cheque but then I saw several transactions that I never made. Over the last two days someone stole $642.92 from me! Most of it was at service stations where you can pay without a pin or a signature. There was another at a supermarket where they usually ask for a signature.

I've already called the hotline to cancel the card. Tomorrow I'll have to go to the credit union to get my money back. (This shouldn't be too hard, Visa has a "zero liability" guarantee on their debit cards.) I might even have to file a fraud report with the police as well. They'll need to investigate who it was and maybe how they got my number. The only time the card has been far from me recently was at a restaurant when the waitress took quite a while to bring it back. But that seems unlikely. And I can't imagine skimming devices on Bloomington ATMs.

Luckily I keep most of my money at another bank so it couldn't be swept into my checking chequing account, so I'll still have something to live off while they do the paperwork.

Update
So I went to the credit union and they sent me to the police to file a report and get a case number. The police said that there had been a spate of card-number stealing a few months ago but that this was the first in a while. After I took them the case number the people at the credit union assured me that I'd get my money back in a few days; but I'll have to wait about a week until they send me a new card. (Luckily the grocery money is on a store card.)

13th August - I got the money back today.

16th August - And now another fraudulent transaction! Another $87.98 backdated to the 9th, again at Louisville.
So I went back to the credit union to sign another form and let the police know.

20th August - Finally I've got a new credit card and PIN. The last of the money has been returned and life is back to normal.

BBQs

Last night I learnt another little American thing that I never noticed myself. For once it was an American who pointed it out to me!

The party last night was both for Cindy's birthday and also because our friend Katie is leaving town. So Katie brought a couple of her other friends whom we've met but don't know well. One started trying to ingratiate himself by asking Cindy, "Which part of Australia are you from?" It's quite amusing for me to watch this sort of exchange in which Cindy has to pause to wonder whether she's understood the question correctly and then try to find a polite way of responding to a question that doesn't really have a correct answer. (Last time one of my classmates, upon hearing that we were going there asked Cindy, "Have you ever been to France before?")

After the Australia questions were redirected to myself, this guy started commenting on how we prefer to barbecue on hot plates, rather than grills. My first reaction was to think to myself, "Well, it's a lot easier when the meat's not falling into the fire. We only use the grill side of the gas barbie if there's so much meat that it won't fit on the plate or you want pretty lines on your steak." And then I realised that all those times I've been to barbecues here, I'd never seen a plain barbecue plate. We've been forced to use a metal grill (and have the burger patties break and fall in the fire) not because the Bloomington parks are too cheap to install decent barbecues, it's because the plate style just doesn't exist here. Our guest then proceeded to tell us about an Australian friend of his who had actually built a brick barbecue for his family so that they could cook more easily on a plate.

Cindy Hates Hugging

Apparently the French never learn to hug Platonically. The whole cheek kissing business makes it completely unnecessary.
(As an aside, there's a very complicated system of cheek-kissing in France. The number varies from region to region, e.g. it's two on each cheek for Parisians but less in most other places. This leads to one French person wanting to continue kissing the other and having to explain, "C'est quatre chez moi.")

Yesterday was Cindy's birthday so last night we had a few friends over for a little get together (featuring a Toblerone cheesecake, a punch bowl full of sangria and many empty bottles). The other reason for the party was that a friend was leaving town. So at the end of the night there were a few goodbye hugs. That's when Cindy remembered that she didn't know how to hug. One friend, as she was preparing to leave, went and hugged Cindy goodbye/happy birthday and in response Cindy placed her hands on the friend's bum! (I did see this and wondered a little but, you know, girls will be girls!)

Coming to her senses and realising that she might be sending the wrong message, she had to observe others hugging and note how the arms are held (above the waist).

Now it's causing her a bit of concern but she can't go around refusing people's affections or she'll offend people (like some Jews and Muslims do when they won't shake hand with the opposite sex). So I have advised her to just avoid the hugs altogether and surprise the Americans by greeting them with kisses on the cheek. I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes over.

Entropy

Cindy's computer has had a hard disk crash, again. (So, if you try to talk to me on MSN, it might actually be her using my computer.)

The guy at the computer shop reckons it's because of the current price war, that all this competition leads the hard disk manufacturers to lower their quality control standards. That makes it pretty cheap for us to buy external hard drives for backups but unfortunately that could be contributing to the original problem.

I can't wait until solid-state technology improves.

Goin' where the weather suits my clothes

I think I've worked out why all the buildings here are over-airconditioned. It's because Americans wear jeans all year around. Even in the heat of summer, when it's 35˙C here in Bloomington, half of the people are wearing jeans. There is a slightly negative attitude to shorts in general but for some reason they prefer denim to even light cotton trousers.

I can't help but think that they need to do the opposite of Jimmy Carter's famous, "Put on a sweater and turn down the heat." by just dressing for the weather. They'd be much more comfortable too.

Monroe County Fair '08

Last night we went to this year's Monroe County Fair. It was very similar to last year's where we saw a rodeo.

This time we started off looking at all the animals. There were exhibits of all sorts of poultry, horses, cows, sheep etc. (In keeping with the rural theme, the ketchup and mustard for the hot dogs was dispensed from cow's udders.) We noticed that, just like last year, at the rabbit exhibition there were different breeds of rabbit, including some labelled as "single fryer", "roaster" and "stew". So I encouraged Cindy to go to the horse pavilion and ask, "If these are all riding horses, do you have separate exhibits for the draught- and meat-horses?" But she didn't want to offend anyone so she refused to do it.

This year we we a little more adventurous with the American carnival food. Last year we tried a funnel cake, which Cindy ordered again this year and we also tried a similar item known as an elephant ear.

But that wasn't the most interesting part. The most disgusting American delicacy that we tried was the deep-fried Oreos (sic.). That wasn't all, there were also deep-fried pickles and deep-fried Snickers on the menu (but we didn't try those)! Suffice it to say, last night we consumed enough saturated fat for the next year.

The scariest food ever

I noticed it for sale in our local boutique grocer. I was looking at the various fancy international chocolates when my eyes fell upon this American abomination -- baconised chocolate.

No, your eyes do not deceive you. This product really exists! I couldn't believe it either so I checked the ingredients on the back; it's not bacon-flavoured bits, it's chunks of real bacon in there!

Here's the rationale:

I began experimenting with bacon + chocolate at the tender age of 6, while eating chocolate chip pancakes drenched in Aunt Jemima syrup, as children often do. Beside my chocolate-laden cakes laid three strips of sizzlin' bacon, just barely touching a sweet pool of maple syrup. And then, the magic—just a bite of the bacon was too salty and I yearned for the sweet kiss of chocolate and syrup, so I combined the two. In retrospect, perhaps this was a turning point; for on that plate something magical happened, the beginnings of a combination so ethereal and delicious that it would haunt my thoughts until I found the medium to express it—chocolate.

From there, it was just a matter of time…and what began as a love of salt and sweet quickly unraveled into an obsession. No sooner could I wait to unveil the royal coupling in solid bar form, a deep milk chocolate with bits and pieces of applewood smoked bacon and just a sprinkling of Alder salt. Really, what doesn't taste better with bacon?

It never occurred to me before that bacon might fall into Dr Nick's chocotastic food group.

Teaching

It's summer break here now and the university doesn't pay me for this time so I've found myself a summer job. I'm teaching forensic science to high school kids through a program called Upward Bound. It's specifically for students from disadvantaged backgrounds: 2/3 both come from low income families and neither of their parents have a tertiary education; the remaining 1/3 either come from low income families or neither parent has had tertiary education. The kids all stay on campus and have lessons and other activities.

This means that they have some very... creative given names. "Kahlúa" gets double points for being both a registered trademark and alcoholic (makes me thing that Cointreau or Drambuie might be good names for a boy, or Sambucca for a girl!). "Xotchil" is the most difficult to pronounce. There's also a couple of names with capital letters in the middle but, believe it or not, that's not so rare here in Bloomington, e.g. Cindy has taken classes with a TreVor.

So far it's been a bit of a challenge, behaviour-wise. Lots of talking and quite a bit of sleeping in class. There was also one incident with a student following his class-mate around the room while discreetly holding a retort-stand by his side. When I approached they both sat down and pretended nothing was going on. When I took the retort-stand from him and let him know how serious the situation was, he explained, "But that's my cousin!" Well, I must admit, I have a cousin who I've tried to kill before but I'm glad I didn't.

Anyway, as part of this program (which is federally funded) they are given a weekly allowance of $20. But if they do anything wrong, the teachers deduct money, e.g. late to class is $2 and disrespect is $5. And there is a tutor assigned to the class who keeps track of all misbehaviour and reports it. Luckily she's a no-nonsense sort of person who let's them know when they're out of line.

French Food

Cindy's been working through a list of meals we can't get in America to eat while we're hear here in France. We've had quite a few crêpes, French-style calzones, pains au chocolat (we call 'em "chocolate croissants" but they're not a type of croissant here because they're not crescent-shaped), rillettes, pâté de lapin and choucroute. (As for choucroute, normally I don't like cabbage but I've found that cooked with enough bacon, ham and pork it can be good.)

Tonight we're having a special, complicated-looking dish - raclette. It's like a fondue only it's poured, not dipped. (It comes from the region of France near the Swiss border.) There's this certain meat that they pour it on, grisons, which is now made from beef but traditionally was made from donkey! Apparently it's almost impossible to find the donkey version anymore but old people will sometimes search for it at their local boucheries chevaline. That's right, they have specialised horse butchers. That's how they do things in France, a charcuterie sells pork (and sausages, like a delicatessen), fish comes from a fish-monger and horse from a specialised butcher. The real surprise is that the market near Cindy's house has three such horse shops!

Last time I commented on French food I forgot to mention that they never drink fresh milk, it's always UHT. Cindy claims that this is because of the strong influence Pasteur had on the nation. I find this ironic given the state of their cheeses, and how they refuse to pasteurise the milk for most traditional cheeses. "That," she explains, "Is good contamination."

On a positive note, I think I've finally learnt to tell the difference between brie and camembert. But I still doubt I'd be able to pick out coulommiers in a blind taste test as it's about half-way between those two.

Catacombs

I knew Paris was an old city and I had supposed that there would be all sorts of planning and infrastructure issues involved with keeping such a city running. The question that hadn't really crossed my mind before is, "What happens when all the cemeteries fill up?" (Being a mainly Catholic country they wouldn't want to turn to cremation.)

Apparently this was a serious problem towards the end of the 18th century so they dug up all the bones and packed them densely into catacombs. In front of each pile a sign was placed stating from which cemetery the bones were taken; but of course no identification of individual skeletons. It's a little strange when the signs say something like, "Mixed in with everyone else are the bones of such famous people as Robespierre and Lavoisier."

Since the 19th century they've been a tourist attraction so this afternoon we went and took a tour (something Cindy hadn't seen before). There were signs at the entrance warning people that the ossuary was a bit intense so I was a little surprised to see quite a few children down there. At first I thought it was good that they weren't hyper-sensitised to mere bones but then I noticed an English woman forcing her kids to pose in front of the various piles of skulls. I thought that was a bit macabre.

Champagne

Today was Mothers' Day in France so we drove with Cindy's parents to visit her brother and his family in R(h)eims. The first thing we did there was take a tour of a champagne cellar at the Pommery winery. In fact, it was quite busy so we had to wait for a tour to start and the next tour in French was so far off that they actually decided to take the next tour in English. Which was easier for me and fine for Cindy but the other six of us had little idea what was going on. The cellars were all converted from Roman-era chalk mines so they were quite deep and a little chilly. As we walked through the guide gave us a little info on the production of champagne and constantly reminded us that it was Louise Pommery who first marketed brut champagne at a time when champagnes were much sweeter. (They're almost all brut now.) This all sounded very classy until a couple of weeks later at the airport I saw bottles of Pommery's newest blend, POP, which comes in small, brightly coloured bottles with a straw attached!

After lunch we went to see Rheims cathedral, where many of the French kings were crowned. It was pretty but they didn't give us a glass of champagne at the end of that tour.

Scotland

We really enjoyed Scotland. Our advice was to spend as much time in Edinburgh as possible and don't worry about Glasgow; we're glad we followed it. Edinburgh is a lovely city to walk around and having a castle in the centre just tops it all off nicely. Having a guided tour made it worthwhile. Seeing the Scottish crown jewels was interesting but while we were there we were lucky enough to see a re-enactment. It was a military policeman arresting a soldier from the Black Watch, which gave them the opportunity to discuss the military lifestyle at the end of the Victorian period. The best bit for the tourists (something I'd heard about but wasn't too sure of) was when the MP decided to inspect the soldier's uniform. He took out a mirror on the end of a stick and stuck it under his kilt then asked a lady in the audience to have a look. Well, the actor was wearing underpants, which mean he was out of uniform (apparently they were allowed but only for mixed highland dancing or highland games) so he made up a medical excuse.

There were a lot of tartan shops but not many touristy things to see apart from the castle. (We didn't see the royal yacht Britannia that was recommended.) But we did visit Greyfriars Kirkyard and saw the statue of Bobby.

After a day and a half in Edinburgh we caught a train through Glasgow to Prestwick (a RyanAir hub; it works out cheaper to buy the train ticket just to get on the cheapest airline) to fly back to Paris. Cindy didn't try to bring any knives on board this time but they did insist on confiscating my jar of English marmalade, despite the fact it seemed quite solid to me. Still, I managed to get a fair bit of Cadbury chocolate (which Pat insists is better in England than in Australia).

The North

So after eventually getting the car we drove east to see Stonehenge, where we only stopped for a little while before turning north.

On the plane from America to France we watched (half of) a new French comedy called "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis". Basically the whole movie is a series of jokes about someone from the south of France not wanting to move to the cold north where people are backward and talk with a funny accent.

All that made me worry a little about visiting my cousins in Yorkshire. Likewise, on their side they were worried about having a French girl stay with them. "Park your Citroën out in the driveway so she feels welcome," they told their grandmother. But all went well. I've heard enough Yorkshire to cope well with the accent. The only thing for me is that, with no definite articles, every noun sounds like a proper noun; "go to fish shop" sounds like there's a town called 'Fish Shop'. But Cindy found it easier without all those superfluous little words getting in the way of the meaningful part of the sentence. And of course our hostess (my third cousin, twenty-eight times removed) was very welcoming and fed us well so I was very happy that I got in touch with her.

The next day we went to York with her and a grandson. The best part of that town was a mediaeval street called "The Shambles".
And we also went to a Viking history centre to learn about the North's Norse heritage. It was quite an elaborate animatronic ride with commentary in several languages and even smells piped in. The smell was a novelty at first but it soon wore off when they showed us a mediaeval toilet. The straining animatronic face was going a bit too far.

We had dinner at the local pub with plenty of family that night and generally felt like we got a good taste of England.

The last thing we saw in England was Hadrian's Wall. For such a long wall it was hard to find! And once we found it we were a little underwhelmed.

London

Like our visit to Italy last year, we're taking a short side trip from our stay in France, this time Britain.

We had a bit of bad luck with the underground. We chose a motel out in the suburbs of north London but near a metro line. Yet when we arrived that line was closed for repairs. (The same thing that happened to us in Rome!) So we had to walk a couple of kilometres from another station, but we made it.

We had two full days there and managed to see plenty - the Tower of London, with a Beefeater-guided tour; Houses of Parliament; Trafalgar Square; St Paul's Cathedral. We didn't get time to go inside Westminster Abbey but I did get a chance to cross Abbey Road.

On the third day we went to pick up the hire car only to find that Google maps had sent us on a wild goose chase. We wasted an hour or two looking for something else. But at least we got to ride some double-decker buses.

Paris

So I'm in Paris with Cindy's family for a few weeks again this summer. I think I'm getting used to French culture; I'm not so surprised now when I see them dipping bread into their bowls of coffee and eating their mouldy cheese.

This time I'll be doing some work while I'm here, some research in the archives of the Académie des Sciences. In the period I'm working on it was called the Académie Royale des Sciences but Cindy tells me I mustn't ever call it that in front of French people, "We behead our royals," she explains proudly. It's going to be interesting when I take her to London to visit the Queen.

Earthquake!

Apparently there was an earthquake last night. I slept through it. It was 5.2 on the Richter scale; that sounds big but I guess I am a heavy sleeper.

The epicentre was not that far from Bloomington:

They say it was felt widely - all the way south to Atlanta and north to Michigan. But not in my bedroom.

I kind of wish I felt it, I've never experienced an earthquake before.

P.S.
Please, Cameron, no bragging about the size of earthquakes in Japan. Or, if you can't help yourself, at least spare us the numbers - no one really understands the Richter scale, it's just something that geologists tell newspapers so that they can sound scientific.

More things Americans don't have

I have tonsilitis. So I went to the pharmacy, that is to say, to the supermarket. Every supermarket has a small pharmacy built in with a proper pharmacist on duty for prescriptions and a small range of non-prescription medicines etc. Conversely, there are stand-alone pharmacies, not usually shop-fronts in malls but free-standing buildings. Having so much floor space, they are led to stock all manner of snack foods, cleaning products, alcohol, you name it! One of the rare occasions I was in one of those, I overheard someone ask if they sold ping-pong balls, and the shop assistant told them which aisle! Anyway, maybe I should have gone to a huge pharmacy because my supermarket pharmacist had never even heard of Betadine gargle. The only iodine he had was for cuts etc. and I don't feel like risking that. And they don't have anything like Butter Menthols either, so I have to make do with honey-lemon flavoured stuff.

In other news, yesterday Cindy's professor made fun of her for saying "poo"; he seemed to think that "poop" is the only acceptable variation in these parts. A quick Google search confirmed that "poop" is far more common in America but the only site that had these under dialect comparisons said that both are acceptable anywhere. I'll have to run it past my friends next time we're down at the pub.

Cricket

The weather is getting warmer here now so yesterday we went for a picnic in a local park. It was a big open space so I took along a little cricket set I bought when I was in Australia.

The Americans all found it a great novelty. They couldn't quite get the point of bowling (they kept saying "pitching") and I had to keep telling them to hold the bat below the waist but the funniest thing was the way in which they all dropped the bat and ran in an arc to the other end of the pitch!