Memorial Day at the Museum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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!

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

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

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.