bird feet

2011-06-01T22:40:00.003-04:00

San Juan

Tracking back a couple months:

Spring break this year bore the traits of classic spring break. Tropical weather, beaches, palm trees, good food, sweat, some tromping in the rain forest, and complete removal from the daily grind. It was amazing. I love San Juan.

The old town was perhaps more picturesque than I even imagined it would be. Near to the center was this sort of drug-infested yet colorful neighborhood called, I believe, La Perla. We were about to descend into it when a very tall, very conscientious and possibly very high man muttered something about "only drugs down there" and we decided to change direction. It was quite lovely from afar, however.

It was bordered on one side by this extraordinarily pristine cemetery, in which I took many, many pictures. I've never seen a cemetery right on the sea like this, let alone one that sparkled with such marble and melancholy. Imagine stifling heat as you look at these, because it heightens the surreal quality of the scene.

The old town was very small, but we spent much time there. The people were friendly (and surprisingly good-looking! Seriously, there was an extraordinarily high percentage of attractive folks), the streets were sweet and enticing, and there were little squares and markets everywhere that made dawdling not only easy but practically necessary. However:

Yeesh! I don't think I've ever noticed how scary-big cruise ships are. They're like little cities on the water that could be disbursed to troubled islands in need but instead are full of masseuses and comedians and yoga teachers and I don't know what else. (I am referring, of course, to the ship on the right). I am serious about these ships going on rescue missions. Do they do that already and I have simply not noticed?

We spent some time outside of the city, as well, most notably on the eastern edge of the island. There we found a national park and even embarked on a fantastically magical nighttime kayak trip through a mangrove channel that ended in a lagoon full of bioluminescent water. The rain forest, true to its name, was rainy for much of the day, but it wasn't much of a deterrent.

It did, however, make the rocks a bit slippery.

I was quite unhappy to leave San Juan, honestly. I have been practicing my vacation state of mind in my more everyday and humdrum life, however, and it has been going swimmingly. Without the balmy and unscheduled days it's a bit of a strain, but I've averted quite a bit of stress just by willing it away, which has been somewhat miraculous. I highly recommend it.

Next up: my midwestern vacation!

2011-03-25T23:05:00.002-04:00

Birthday

This is how I celebrate:

Friends from out of town, a momentary whim that caused me to take a bunch of jumping photos (thanks in part to this blog) and the trusty and fantastic camera that was given to me by my father a few years ago made for a perfectly lovely day hunting in vain for the tombstone of H.P. Lovecraft. Navigating by rare, unusual or otherwise notable trees, we found our way to his supposed location, to no avail. We did not let this bring us down.

It's as if that picture makes a sound, maybe of popping or of a spring being sprung. Weirdly, when I look at this, I am continuously afraid that he'll come crashing to the ground. I am fairly certain that that will not actually happen. I'll let you know if it does.

Speaking of spring: welcome to it. It's still a bit shy to emerge around here - it's currently about 29°F and we had a few snow showers in the last week - but winter is somehow, intangibly, definitely over. Maybe by the end of this next extra-fantastic-no-school-week, there will be some other flowers joining the sturdy little crocuses that are scattered about. I cannot wait for flora.
Until then, I'll enjoy my time off.

This is how I act my age.

2011-03-04T11:48:00.002-05:00

South County

I guess I should say, however, "South County"; it's actually Washington County. Rhode Island has a whopping Five! Whole! Counties!, and the southernmost of those is most often referred to by its nickname. I don't know why.

(Other counties: Newport, Kent, Bristol, Providence. If I ever get picked up by Cash Cab, I hope this is one of the questions they ask me).

Geographical digression aside, there is some beautiful land in the southern part of the state. We went, specifically, to Arcadia Management Area, which holds the tallest waterfall in Rhode Island. The rain and swiftly melting snow made the waterfall swell, so it was quite monumental:

It is currently, apparently, twice the size that it was in summer. I can say, at least, that it sounded really big, and it was made a bit more exciting because of the snow and ice on the ground; the slight chance that the ground would give way to freezing, rushing water did give the experience an extra tinge of adventure. (Yes, of course, the location of the trees helped to indicate where the true banks were, but I played at adventure nevertheless). Thrill was totally superfluous, though. I mean really, check this out:

There was nobody else out there, and it was beautiful and silent except for the water, and despite the fact that I am beyond ready for winter to sink into spring, this was like a fairy tale landscape after the previous night's few inches of snow. Time-wise, I couldn't totally afford to take this hike; everything-else-wise, I couldn't afford not to. Five and a half miles took about two and a half hours, so we were moving at just over two miles an hour; with the snow a foot deep in some places, that's actually not so bad. I was sore and exhausted in the best way.

And today, though it's still very cold, the sun is shining and the snow is melting, and I actually caught the smell of grass and earth on the walk home. Spring officially begins in about three weeks, which reminds me: Brad says that once, in grade school, his teacher told the class that it was officially the first day of spring, so he asked her if that meant he should start wearing shorts. I laughed when I heard that story, but I am beginning to see some merit in it. Maybe if I start wearing springy clothes, spring will move in to accommodate me. Might as well give it a shot.

And a final unrelated note: every single teacher in Providence has been pink-slipped. Ultimately, the mayor expects only ("only") about forty percent of them will actually lose their jobs. "Only" = 800 teachers? So I guess approximately 24,000 students will have to fend for themselves from now on? File this under "Education: Who Needs It?"

Send luck. Until next time.

2011-02-26T13:33:00.002-05:00

Whoops!

I have so far managed to stick to all the rest of my New Year's resolutions, but the resolution regarding blogging more has somehow eluded me. There are a few reasons for that, mostly too boring to mention, but the basic gist of it is: lots of catching up has made the first few weeks of this semester a bit more stressful than it ought to have been. I have only myself to blame.

Now that I have finally "caught up" (tentatively placed between quotation marks because of the extreme temporality of this state), I thought I would sit down and report back. And so:

I don't have much to report. Whoops again! All my talk about keeping an eye out for interesting things has also been backseated. Yes, I've had some delicious dinners with friends, played plenty with my hopelessly adolescent cats, and put a lot more active thought into eating (which, I should mention, has a lot to do with a part of my resolution with which I have been successful), but I have had practically no time for Actual Wandering. My one real jaunt during the month of February took me to Northampton for a concert, which was perhaps the first time I have seen live music in about, oh, two years or some similarly too-long amount of time. The train across Massachusetts whipped me by trees that convinced me that "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" was in fact based on real experiences of the Brothers Grimm:

I was, unfortunately, unable to get a decent picture of a phenomenon which I have not actually seen before, in which the sun was refracted through small bits of ice held to the crooks and ends of every branch of every tree, which gave the impression of trees with diamonds growing in place of leaves. Because of the growing heat of the sun, there was a very small window of time in which this combination was possible, and the trees, flashing, flashed past and were gone. You'll just have to take my word for it: it was extraordinary.

Northampton, too, was quite beautiful:

See how delightfully snow-covered everything is? No, really:

Maybe for the owner of that car, snow-covered does not equal delight. Similarly, the heavy, stubborn icicles hanging from roofs and eaves were most likely not entirely pleasing to the residents of the houses to which the roofs and eaves belonged. Structural damage was clearly occurring in a variety of ways; for instance: a particularly thick and angry sheet of ice was melting into the wall of the friend I went to visit. She was none too happy. We had, however, a lovely time.

As February deepened, however, and the snow refused to melt, winter began to seriously wear out its welcome. Here it is, almost March, and there is still snow on the ground, some of which has been there since the middle of December and is unbelievably filthy. I haven't been suffering from the same seasonable blahs as some others, but I am ready for the first blossom of spring, I'll tell ya. My California blood has grown tired of this.

I said it before and I'll say it again: I'll be back more often. This time, however, blank passing weeks will not prove me wrong. See you soon.

2011-01-23T23:42:00.003-05:00

It Begins Again

In a couple short days, the semester commences. So ends the blissfully lazy days of the last few weeks, in which my brain was allowed to wander where it pleased and my hours were divided between Something and Nothing pretty evenly. Without a schedule, I lost, for a few days, the ability to structure my time, and I reveled in it. I'm sure it'll come back to me pretty quickly as soon as every hour is once again reserved for some task or another.

Of the Something: shoveling snow, and shoveling snow, and shoveling snow; various university-related tasks whose doing was neither unpleasant nor stressful; getting to know my environs a bit better, with the help of Actual Friends; cat-sitting for an old and persnickety but lovable and goofy old cat; and devising plans to instate my resolutions for the new year, which involves, of all things, a pedometer. I've never used one before, but apparently there are about 2000 steps in a mile, and so my goal to begin with is to walk a cumulative and approximate four miles a day, which may be difficult in the ice and snow that has been covering the ground for well over a month now. Some images of Something:

Similarly, images of Nothing:

Of the Nothing: it's hard to describe nothing. Reading and writing and thinking back, thinking forward; short trips and snow-filled shoes; cat naps, complete with cats; recounting and describing things in my head that I would at one point have recounted and described out loud; commiserating with friends on endless subjects, both personal and public; and wandering. Oh, the wandering. A semester's worth of hurrying makes the afternoons of wandering like an unattainable dream come to life, especially with the brisk winter air and the crunch of dehydrated snow underfoot (and yes, dehydrated snow seems like an oxymoron, but I'm sure you catch my meaning). The holidays were, once again, spent far from family, but at least this time we share a continent.

And so it all begins again. One of my resolutions this year is to allocate time for decompression, which means that my blog will not be quite so neglected, and I assure you, I have a good track record with resolutions, so this is not an empty promise. The fact that I will be around these parts more often means that I will have to constantly be on the lookout for new and interesting things to write about, which will probably also help me avoid the extreme tunnel-vision that is inadvertently appended to my academic program. I have high hopes and good boots, so I'm off on the right proverbial foot, excited for my two more days of Nothing.

2011-01-03T00:04:00.004-05:00

January, 2011

I have just now decided that one of my New Year's resolutions is to write on my blog more often. I'm not sure that it will take, but I'll give it a shot. (I wonder how many people are making this same resolution right now, with the same wariness regarding its realization).

I am finally settling into having some time to be myself again. It occurred to me recently that the subversion of every aspect of the personality (except, of course, for coping behavior and survival skills) is one of the most traumatic elements of graduate school. I'm not knocking it - I knew what I was in for - but it's definitely a visible side effect.

Hence, it takes a little while to work back into the personality one uses during periods of relaxation. You know, the personality that listens to music, does things for fun, socializes, reads books without making notations. For instance: I am reading Günter Grass's Cat and Mouse right now (tr. Ralph Manheim), for absolutely no reason except that I feel like it. It was difficult at first, though. I took a lot of naps, watched an awful lot of movies, and walked face-first through a mini-blizzard over the last few weeks just to shake my brain out of its steady and high-pitched frequency.

(The movies I watched: Together by Lukas Moodysson, a beautiful and surprising film whether it's the first viewing or the fifth; Dolores Claiborne, a dark and lovely old nightmare in which Kathy Bates is seriously captivating; Dead Snow, a Norwegian slasher flick about Nazi zombies which was satisfactorily bloody but fairly flat; Rudo y Cursi, better the second time around; The Baader Meinhof Complex , which is about the Red Army Faction in West Germany in the 1970's and amazingly doesn't draw any heroes where there really weren't any; and some comfort-movies that only come out around the holidays, like Big and Moonstruck. Only joking! I'll watch Moonstruck anywhere, anytime).

Looking back, I see that I sort of abandoned my narrative of Petersburg in a cloud of discombobulation. I am soon going to pick it up, though it's long overdue, and I'll even wind my way up to the present. For now, though, Happy New Year to all y'all. Here's to a productive 2011.

2010-10-19T22:57:00.009-04:00

Summer Number One

Lickety split: here I am again.

First Summer took place in St. Petersburg. A bizarre and disruptive paradox occurred, namely a heat wave that curdled every single person in the city, turning all of us into bleary, irritable dysfunctionates (which, yes, is not a word, but is most certainly a state of being). A strange phenomenon: that far north, the sun pretty much doesn't set for a month or so, which means that neither the earth nor the buildings have a chance to cool down after hours of unnaturally intense heat. An almost total lack of air-conditioned spaces aggravated the situation; my worry was mainly for the books in the libraries and the priceless works of art being exposed to a range of harmful elements. For instance:

On the banks of the Neva, windows wide open, wet sunlight everywhere; trauma for woodwork.

The improbable weather was inescapable and pervasive; to be honest, it coated everything I did during my time at GMT+3. I'll not mention it anymore, so just remember - it was there.

St. Petersburg is not much at all like Moscow. I spent a quick couple of nights in Petersburg in 2006, but this is the first time that I was actually able to get to know the city a little. I won't toss about the debits and credits of coolness in one city or another; they're just different. People have a tendency to take sides on the issue, and when it comes down to it, I don't feel qualified to judge. I have no empirical evidence that one is better and another worse, and my opinion is neither based on scientific method nor relevant. It's like comparing New York City to Portland; they're entirely different animals, philosophically and aesthetically.

Aesthetically:

OK, this type of crazy one-off design is common to both cities. Petersburg seemed to have an unusually high ratio of them, however; it began to get a little exhausting after a while, as if I simply couldn't take any more luxurious facades or opulent interiors. In fact, I originally thought that I would visit the Hermitage twice, maybe three times during my two months there, and I suffered from museum burnout and only ended up going once. I don't regret it; the crowds and the direct sunlight on, say, Caravaggio made it somewhat less savory than I'd hoped. A relief from that brand of amazing:

Pushkinskaya 10 is an art collective that occupies several flights of a staircase and a small number of flats; they seem to like the Beatles and they put on an incredible exhibition. Petersburg, in general, has a very laid-back type vibe, dismissively friendly and busy without being in an irritable hurry. I imagine my impression would have been very different had I been there in winter; maybe someday.

I was only there for two months, so with both temporal and financial restraints, I remained in the city pretty much the whole time. I took a couple excursions, sure, but nothing too monumental; I opted not, for instance, to take the overnight train to Moscow for the weekend, which, yes, I would have thoroughly enjoyed, but which did not and does not seem entirely necessarily. I did, however, go to Repino, to the homestead called Penaty, which belonged to the artist Ilya Repin. After the heat and grime of a canal-bound city, the proverbial fresh country air was unbelievable, as was Repin's house (which is not totally apparent in the picture; use your most fantastic imagination).

I went, also, to Pushkin, or Tsarskoe Selo, depending on who you ask. It was rather strange, actually. Catherine had a palace there, now aptly named the Catherine Palace, and Nicholas II had a palace there, called, of course, the Aleksandr Palace. The Palaces' interiors I skipped - I couldn't help it - but the Gardens were lovely. A question, though:

What's up with that? There was a distinctly faux-Asian motif going on in the Aleksandr Gardens, complete with some porcelain figures at the gate that are doomed to have tourists stand next to or below them, doing lighthearted yet racially suspicious gestures, throughout the foreseeable future.

I have to say: it seems like all of this is a world away, like I am only just skimming the surface. The experience of getting on a plane, crossing many time zones, and ending up somewhere that in all other cases is absolutely inaccessible, often seems to take on a dreamlike quality after any length of time has passed, like a figment of the imagination, a memory possibly completely made up. The combination of that with the fact that I have been up to the neck of a much taller person in work means that I have a disconnect with Summer Number One, which hopefully will pass as my brain processes the backlog of information and can simply relax again. I relish the expectation of that hypothetical day. And when it gets here, I'll let you know.

2010-10-16T00:10:00.006-04:00

Working Backwards

From now until before:

The semester has begun; stress abounds. Let's begin on a more positive note, though, shall we?

The past month has been extremely productive; also: overwhelming, exhausting, trial by fire. I am, as they say, holding up. I am careful to focus on the big picture; if I don't, I will surely become confused by the unfinished projects floating in the foreground. Sorry; that was only slightly more positive.

With an almost total lack of free time, I decided to go camping in New Hampshire. The White Mountain National Forest, to be exact. On Russell Pond:

And then later:

I wanted a night away from asphalt and light pollution, and the White Mountains did not let me down. Superhot campfire whose scent caught a ride from me for several days; brave little chipmunks; a hike that took me by surprise and that I would love to repeat with more accurate expectations: overall, great success.

Just before the weekend in New Hampshire, I spent ten or so days in Washington: State, not District. It was a surprise trip. Not a "surprise!" trip, but a trip that I had hoped would not be necessary for quite some time. Suffice it to say, I'll not go into it. I will say that it redefined for me the hardest work that we as humans have to do. There was, however, this:

That sunflower (and several other things, such as kale, peppers, carrots) will be let to run wild.

Prior to the trip back west, a month passed in which I got to visit me at 29, at 27, at 22; friends came a-callin', and it was awesome. Sure, it was bookended by a little nervous exhaustion and a telephone call like a punch in the face, but otherwise it was splendid. Folks from all over darkened my doorway; maybe you'll be next.

It was a whole summer packed into a month and a half, and it followed another summer, somewhere else. The first summer I'll describe at another time; it deserves its own narrative. The second can be described like so:

Don't be fooled: I don't mean that Second Summer was the limbo stage before reaching our ultimate destination (though who are we kidding, really?), I only mean to show that I trolled up and down Rhode Island with visitors, seeing some things that I hadn't seen yet and finally feeling marginally at home at this coordinate. First Summer precluded any deeper exploration of my current environs, since it occurred approximately 4500 miles away. That's for next time, but here's a hint:

("Everything you know is a lie")

Done for now, but soon will continue. This is not the end of history.

2010-09-22T00:53:00.002-04:00

What a Summer

There are many things that I've meant to write about over the last few months, such as finishing the first year of my PhD program, spending two months in St. Petersburg during the worst heat wave they've experienced in perhaps a thousand years, and the landscape of New England, with which I'm becoming a bit more familiar.

However.

The last couple months have been Real Life. That means that I've experienced the worst grief that I've ever had to come up against, thought as a result of that grief about my beliefs on human and earthly experience, and become completely backlogged with deadlines and duties, and my time has been used for everything but writing on this here blog. And so, my dear handful of readers, I'll have to just promise to return when I have the time, which I'm hoping will be sooner than later. I do indeed have much to share, so my stories will be worth the wait. Rest assured.

A few quick notes, however:
1) I have successfully kicked my internet addiction. I realize that by calling it an "addiction," I am blowing it out of proportion; many people spend their whole day on the interweb, and I am not that type, but my fascination with gossip/fashion/news blogs has been happily curbed, and I am much better for it. Spending the summer abroad and then being confronted with What's Really Important takes the credit for my new, improved, minimal-internet-use existence. (And yes, I realize that declaring that particular thing on a blog is somewhat ironic. It's unavoidable).
2) My love for the Pacific Northwest has been renewed with a vengeance. More on that later.
3) I have found my dissertation topic! Joy! Drinks on me! (I'll have seltzer water with lemon, please).
4) The White Mountain National Forest is beautiful. Good camping, good hiking; I plan on many future trips to New Hampshire to visit the forest and the variety of other state and regional parks up there. I will definitely take my camera along. And finally,
5) Boy, I have lots and lots of pictures to share with you. Mostly Russia, with a smattering of other things.

That's all for now. I plan on forcing myself to relax this weekend, so maybe I'll relax by whipping up a post or two. In the meantime, easy does it...

2010-06-02T23:30:00.004-04:00

Summer/Heat/Rain/Time Off

Yes, technically it's still spring.

Nevermind that.

I am officially experiencing a summer break. It's pretty wonderful, I have to say. I have finished what needed finished, and now I am left with...

Hmm.

That's a problem. I am not good at free time. I used to be fantastic with free time, sometimes wrangling it and sometimes letting it float by unnoticed, and now I am so conscious of my excess of free time that I am almost unable to relax. I cannot do 'nothing'. It's a strange affliction. Here is how I treat it:

1. Spend time with friends who visit from out of town. Go to a museum that I have been meaning to visit for several months now; this is a good way to do 'nothing' while still doing 'something'.

2. Take said friends on a day trip. Show them historically significant monuments. This is not exactly 'nothing'. Well, it is neither passive nor idle, but it is not 'productive', and productivity is what I'm trying to shake (for a few days at least), so this is a good balance.

3. Take pictures of places I simply happen to be. This is a low-impact remedy.

4. Go places specifically to take pictures of things like birds, which I would not otherwise think to photograph. This is quite enjoyable and has the added benefit of sneakily feeling productive.

5. Listen to music. Music really gets shortchanged when I'm in the thick of it. A few minutes here and there, on the bus, walking, but no real quality time. There are a couple of things that I have been listening to frequently. One is a relatively new discovery, the other a re-energized familiar.

6. Write. I'm sorry; I have no proof so far. Unless you count this. Any good ideas for fun writing exercises to start this cold engine gladly accepted.

7. Read. The Country Where No One Ever Dies by Ornela Vorpsi, translated by Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck. It is: quiet; Albanian; delicate. Communities of Dissent, by Stephen J. Stein. Turns out Roger Williams was a pretty awesome guy.

8. Walk in the heat; walk in the rain. Appreciate the chance to set aside the laptop-tether.
8a. Wonder idly if we as a nation/species are being improved or eroded by excessive computer use.

9. Plan to revisit my blog more often. This is a directive for both me (me) and you (my reader); there will be more action here. I give you my word(s).

Now, back to 'nothing', which is full of possibility.

2010-04-24T15:01:00.005-04:00

Modern Perceptions

I put this question to a bunch of people:

What do you think of when you think of Russia?

These are some of the answers I got, in no particular order:

Dostoevsky's jail cell, Nabokov's butterflies, the Bol'shoi Ballet, Peter and the Wolf, vodka, James Bond villains, hell, children's picture books and fairy tales, family, nuclear fear in the 80s, "tear down this wall", vodka, borsch, Tolstoy, xenophobia, skinheads, fur hats, confusing house music, Pushkin, the Disney movie Anastasia, cabbage, hard work, expressionless military men, beautiful women, vodka, the Beatles' "Back in the USSR", secrets, space exploration, Gogol, distance, the Metro, provincialism, Soviet war pins, gymnasts, angular architecture, 10 time zones*, Gorbachev and his birthmark, The Master and Margarita, sour cream, the death of reason, Solzhenitsyn, bent old women working fields of wheat, bad teeth, vodka, the Gulag, onion domes, matryoshka dolls, potatoes, tsars, propaganda posters, danger and drunkenness, Red Square, revolution after revolution...

It's a fuzzy picture: still bearing marks of the Soviet age, relying heavily on food and literature. Though neither overwhelmingly negative nor positive, the overall tone is closer to dark than light. Soon I'll pose the question about a different country and see what returns, to offer a point of comparison. I want to know about our current view of Russia, if it's been updated much since 1991 or the Putin presidency, but in order to come to any conclusion about that, I need to know if our perceptions of, say, France or Egypt or China or Cuba are based on today, ten years ago, WWII or the Bay of Pigs, Hollywood movies or commerce. Even then, I won't have any conclusions, per se; I'll only have a better grasp of how and how quickly our perceptions shift.

Better get back to work...

*As of March, 2010, there are officially nine time zones in Russia: eight contiguous, plus Kaliningrad.

2010-04-06T21:39:00.004-04:00

Whoa, It's Been a Long Time

Three months since I've posted! Unbelievable. What have I been doing all this time? Oh, right...

Stressing out.

Academically, 2010 has been fairly brutal. I won't go into the gritty details, but I will say that up until now, I have not understood fully the hellish graduate school experience of myth. I can say with certainty that I now understand it. I could work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and still have unfinished business. Part of the crunch was due to the fact that I presented a paper at a conference for the very first time - it was a paper titled "Enlisting the Memory of Memory: Anna Akhmatova's Requiem," at the Mid-Atlantic Slavic Conference, and it went fine (despite the horrible worst-case scenarios that were rolling around in my head beforehand). On top of that, I have been busily getting summer plans in order, saying goodbye to my expired (*sniffle*) California Driver's License, exchanging it for a (*gulp*) Rhode Island one, and also, finally, managing to find some time to relax (to the best of my abilities, that is). Resultingly, the last few months have been a revolving blur of deadlines and deep breaths.

My studies in a nutshell: Symbolism, negative aesthetics and the location of music, early 20th century Russian woodworking and the folk art revival, čeština, русский язык, creating communicative language tasks, etc. That is, of course, just a sampling. And thankfully, I'm generally enjoying it all*.

My time off has been gratifying as well. See?

(And thanks to Ken, for taking that lovely first picture up there).

Those photos came from a trip along Cape Cod; it was off-season, so we were practically the only people wandering around out there. The rain and wind actually suited the Cape, but it didn't treat Rhode Island very well - as you may have read, we had some pretty intense flooding around here, but our neighborhood went fairly unscathed; some soggy basements here and there, but that was about all.

The rest of the semester will be busy busy busy, so I can't promise that I'll write much in the next month, but my blog will be rolling again soon. In the meantime, keep yourself busy over here. 'Night, all.

*A sort of cross-section of things that I've enjoyed that I can share: Stilyagi, a Russian musical which may not be subtitled in English yet but is fairly fantastic, so keep an eye out; Degeneration, a hysterical but entertaining reaction to Decadence during the fin de siecle, by Max Nordau; Jan Svankmajer's Sílení (but beware! That one's a bit perverse); Vrubel'.

2010-01-06T12:37:00.005-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, 2010

Well, here we are. Two thousand ten. Twenty ten? How to say it? And how to refer to the preceding years? The aughts? Is that too early-twentieth-century for the kids nowadays? I guess it remains to be seen.

We started the year off in Washington D.C., visiting friends and generally seeing our nation's capital. Despite the months that I spent driving around the United States when I was 19 (which now seems quite a long time ago because, ahem, it was), I have never been to D.C., which I attribute to a normal teenage rejection of patriotism and what not. As I recall, during that trip in 1998, we went from Baltimore, which is a mere hour or so north of the capital, straight west into West Virginia. It all works out in the end, though - visiting the actual Capitol building on the days surrounding New Year is ideal. Smaller crowds, less traffic, and generally less mayhem. At points, it felt that we were the only ones wandering through the cold to see the sights. A case in point: the Vietnam War Memorial.

I suspect that, had we visited in, say, July, there would have been throngs of people, and a picture as gray and serene as that would not have been possible. Likewise the Korean War Memorial:

This one, unlike the Vietnam Memorial, had etchings of soldiers on it, rather than names, and the shadowy figures seen in the background are reflections of a smattering of soldier's statues. It's quite lovely, actually.

We did basically all the proper tourist things to do - the White House, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the Library of Congress, Georgetown - but we missed the museums. We can visit them next time, I guess, because though the drive from here to D.C. is quite irritating, it's not incredibly far. The interstate system around here is bizarre - so many turnpikes and parkways with their variously regulated toll systems that seem designed to frustrate both locals and out-of-towners alike.

And now - 2010. Any fantastic New Year's resolutions? I know, usually resolutions fall by the wayside in the first months of the year, but I'm resolving to get my life cleaned up; rid my cupboards and my diet of curious chemicals, etc. It'll take a little research, and a bit of adjustment to my routine, but I'm willing to take it on as a project, because it's the type of project that I can handle while in the grip of grad school. My general goal, I guess, is to make my life more *gulp* sustainable. My years in the Bay Area have made me leery of fuzzy hippie terminology, so I guess part of the goal is also to loosen up and embrace the concept, while not necessarily embracing the flakiness that I tend to associate with it. Wish me luck on that front - it might be the hardest part.

So, onward and upward. Happy New Year, folks. Make the most of it.

2009-12-25T22:17:00.006-05:00

Holidays Upon Us

Happy Holidays, folks! After two years spent out of the country and away from family, it's fun to be back stateside to experience the all-encompassing blanket of holiday decorations and Christmas music that jams the airwaves through December. I'm a bit out of practice regarding the consumer frenzy and angry traffic jams that seem to grow exponentially in the days leading up to Christmas, but I've been greatly enjoying myself nonetheless. We've kept our shopping to a minimum - in fact, last week we ventured into the Providence Place Mall, which is, I suppose, a fairly impressive mall as malls go, and after wandering about for an hour or so, left empty-handed. I simply couldn't think of anything I wanted. Maybe it's because I'm just getting older and gifts are no longer the thrill that they used to be, but more likely it's due to the fact that, for a while now, we've gone out of our way not to acquire anything that couldn't easily fit into suitcases. Whatever the reason, it's difficult to think of anything to buy that isn't for the continuous furnishing of the house. Am I crazy, or are housewares unduly expensive? I think my concept of how much things are supposed to cost dates back to 1999 or something.

So, in lieu of buying things, I've just been cleaning and eating and basking in the rosy glow of being (mostly) done with my schoolwork for this semester. I've only got about one and a half projects to complete, both of them highly enjoyable, so I can finally breathe again after the intensive first term. (On a sidenote, at long last I found out the results of my MA program - graduation with distinction! Success!). I can finally enjoy relaxing without the nagging feeling of More To Do, just in time for the holidays.

Despite the fact that we don't know too many people in the area yet, we were able to go to a couple gatherings in the last few days, and the eating - oy, the eating. There were some intense spreads at both of the small parties that we attended. I've eaten, in no particular order, beef wellington, deep fried octopus, clams, oysters, brie baked in puff pastry, catfish dumplings, shrimp empanadas, crepes full of porcini mushrooms and pancetta and cream, and a whole array of debilitating desserts - chocolate ganache, pumpkin cheese cake, and rice pudding, to name just a few. Though I'll be making a resolution to myself at the beginning of the year to seriously minimize my meat and dairy consumption (no easy task, residing with a chef and all that), I figured I would allow myself this final week of gluttony. It's been delicious; it'll be difficult to part ways.

Also eventful - our first New England snow storm. It was, as they say, a real doozy.

I've never had to shovel my own driveway or front walk, but 18 inches of snow in a 24-hour period is a good time to start. Locals assure us that it isn't usually this extreme, which is good - though I like the look of the snow and I'm not particularly bothered by the cold, road conditions get pretty treacherous, even with the city doing their best to plow and salt the main thoroughfares. This is the sort of thing that I never gave much thought to in Oakland, or even in Berlin or Norwich, where we relied on public transportation to get around - backing out of a driveway on an inch-thick patch of ice is less than ideal. I basically beat the same path from my door to the campus every day; nevertheless, clear roads are fairly important.

That's all I have to report, for now. I'll be heading down to DC for New Year's, a city that I have incredibly never seen. I'm very excited, and I'm sure I'll return with a bunch of generic pictures of Washington landmarks, but I'll try to weed out the most interesting ones to share with you here. In the meantime, stay warm and well, and enjoy all the leftovers of any holiday feasts.

2009-12-06T22:42:00.003-05:00

Last Week of Classes

Things have been somewhat hectic, folks. This first semester has been very intense, but incredibly gratifying, and the end is officially in sight. One more week of classes and then, thankfully, a break. I will, of course, still have some papers to write over the next few weeks (one on the Bolshevik thinker Aleksandr Bogdanov, one on Nabokov's translations of Blok, and one on Akhmatova's Poem Without a Hero, which brings me to tears nearly every time I read it - so that'll be a fun one to write, yeah?), but at least I won't have any pesky classes to distract from the matter/s at hand.

Thanksgiving provided a break, for sure. There was quite a feast here - ham and sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie from scratch, among other things; very American fare, to bask in our location. I took the chance to actually enjoy a couple days off, pushing down the feeling of guilt that I get when my attention turns to anything but schoolwork, and it was wonderful. Thanksgiving visitor invited sightseeing.

Downtown PVD. Rhode Island seems to be a state that's been plagued with more than its fair share of corruption (like most states, I guess), but it seems that things are slowly starting to shape up (despite the Crippling Unemployment and General Economic Malaise...). We've found a couple of excellent little movie theaters and some very delicious restaurants, and the central public library is fantastic. I need to get to know the area - I can't let the fact that I'll be here for a few years lull me into ignoring the surrounding cities and states.

In the meantime, though, our tree is up, I'm still hard at work, and we've acquired these little companions:

That's Lucy and Charlie. They're about 5 months old or so, and they're amazing. They're siblings - they were found abandoned by a friend of a friend, and we got them a couple of months ago. One of the major perks of moving back to the States was the ability to get animals.

Expect a little more out of me over the next month - despite all the work I have to do, there are some fun little travels planned for December and January, and I can't wait. Hope everyone's holiday season is well and warm...

2009-10-24T02:01:00.007-04:00

California to Rhode Island: Five Days in August

After an incredibly truncated visit in California (less than two weeks to visit both Northern and Southern and umpteen friends and relatives), we set off for Rhode Island. I've driven cross-country before, in 1998, but at the time I had no schedule, no deadline, and no real destination - it was a sort of the-journey-is-the-destination-type trip. This time, however, there was a very definite deadline, and an equally definite destination. It was somewhat frustrating to have to hurry through the drive - with the exception of northern Nevada, which I would prefer to spend, oh, NO time in. I can't imagine how any pioneers managed to make it across that stretch without the help of at least an SPF 30 sunblock.

While the climate in Utah was just as hot and arid as the climate in Nevada, the landscape in Utah was a bit more interesting. I mean, have you seen this?

The Bonneville Salt Flats. I've been to Utah before, but I've never really seen the Salt Flats. It's like the surface of the moon or something (note: I've never seen the surface of the moon). Brad picked up some of the damp clumps of solidified salt, but I chose not to - it had a strange smell, and there was something very alien about it. It was desolate, but not in the same way that Nevada was desolate. In Utah, the land still had an air of life about it, an air of activity. Maybe that's why the Mormons chose it to be their promised land.

Speaking of Mormons:

There's the Temple! Salt Lake City is a very strange place. Here's a weird thing about SLC, for those that haven't been there. A couple blocks northwest of the temple, the street will be called something along the lines of West 300 North Street. Southwest of the temple, the street would be West 200 South Street. Southeast of the temple....but you get the idea. It makes navigation very easy and strangely creepy. And despite the startling cleanliness of the streets, there was a much larger homeless population than I thought there would be. The city, incidentally, has changed a lot since I was there in 1998. Mormonism has grown since then, though, so I guess growth in the city is to be expected. (The interweb tells me that in April 2008, there were about 13.5 million Mormons, up from 12.8 million the year before - and there were supposedly approximately 10 million Mormons when I visited there the last time. I actually thought the growth would have been greater, but maybe I just think that because Mormonism has been so much more noticeable lately, what with Mitt Romney and Big Love. That was a long digression).

We didn't stay in Utah for the night; we continued on to Wyoming for our first night on the road. I breathed a little easier as soon as we got over the WY line, and when we woke up just after dawn the next morning, we found that the land had gotten much more varied. Trees, hills, wind power; it was a nice change from the rock rock rock of Utah. Wyoming was actually a beautiful state to drive through, and there was this incredibly hilarious landmark that I'd never heard of:

There were signs for this all along I-80 in Wyoming; it was less impressive than I'd hoped it would be, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

Continuing along. I hate to say it, but we didn't take barely any pictures through Nebraska or Iowa (which was very strange, considering we stopped in Iowa to see two different sections of Brad's family. They took pictures, but we somehow didn't manage. Immediately upon leaving, I wondered how we did that...). I managed to take one picture that might've been Nebraska...or Iowa...or Illinois...or Indiana...or Ohio...oh, disgraceful. Sorry about that. But the picture is at least interesting:

That's how they transport turbines. There were lines of these dotted all along I-80 through the Midwest, and I have to say - those drivers were hauling ass. I was shocked at the way they were bombing down the highway, pushing past drivers already well over the speed limit. It's like an extremely gigantic shark's tooth.

We did stop at the Iowa capitol building in Des Moines, where Brad talked to me about the Iowa Caucasus or something like that. Caucus - Iowa Caucus. The Caucasus are the mountain range separating Russia from Georgia. Apparently the Iowa Caucus "decides everything." There are some qualifications on that statement, but you get the gist.

Despite the fact that I didn't take many pictures through the Midwest, it was actually very pretty. I do have one question, though: why so much corn? Corn corn corn. I was astounded at the corn. Who is eating all that corn? I know, corn syrup requires a lot of corn, and the corn-based ethanol uses up a lot of corn, but sheesh - I really like corn, but I don't eat it that often. Not often enough to devote about 125,000 square miles to corn, at least. Corn plants are sort of lovely, though - nice for movies and hiding from crop dusters, etc. It was calming. And I listened to the album Nebraska while we were driving through Nebraska at dusk; as cliche as it sounds, it really worked.

We pushed our way through Pennsylvania and upstate New York so that we could make it to New England by the evening of the 31st of August, and we actually met our goal. So here we are! The seat of the original 13 colonies! The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, officially, but there's some hubbub about that going on at the moment, apparently. When I get a break from my studies, I'll read up on the founding fathers and all that. It's not really my subject. B really loves this stuff, though. This was very exciting for him:

That's Newport. Rhode Island was actually the last state to ratify the Constitution, making it the 13th state, and this is where they did it. Rhode Island, however, despite being the last state to sign, was the first colony to declare independence from the British, so it's all swings and roundabouts, really.

So here we are in Providence! We've got a great flat, and my program is incredibly rigorous but wonderful. The leaves are changing, the air is getting crisper, and I'm sure we'll be appalled by the New England winter. It was nice for our first few weeks here, though.

And I think that you, dear reader, are all caught up. As things stand at this moment, I'm working on a presentation on Aleksandr Blok and his drama, and will soon dive into an (incredibly harsh) critique of Nabokov's translations of Blok. (I am against Nabokov. I am willing to take a stand on this). I love (most of) what I'm studying, so be prepared to hear about it in the future. Hope autumn is treating everyone well...

2009-10-18T00:50:00.003-04:00

Leaving England

Admittedly, it has been two months and approximately 4 days since our departure from England, but somehow it seems much more recent, as if I could just walk out my front door, hop on the bus, and catch the train to London. It was the circumstances of leaving, I believe, that have me a bit confused. The final weeks of my time in Norwich were spent buried in my Master's thesis, so my finish line, rather than being at Heathrow airport, was in the Taught Programs Office at the university. A scant three days before leaving Norwich for one final night in London, I handed in my thesis, and my relief overshadowed my awareness that we would soon be back in the U.S. And then, all of a sudden, we were gone.

Before we left, though, we managed to visit some museums that I had been wanting to visit the whole time that we were in the UK. For instance, the Tate Modern.

Now, I actually like modern art. I estimate that approximately 90 percent of it is gimmick, and the other 10 percent is brilliant, and the Tate Modern didn't let me down. 90 percent of their collection was head-scratching, brow-furrowing, money-making curiosities, while the rest was absolutely compelling and fabulous. It was interesting to see the differences between a modern art museum in London and one in, say, Berlin, or San Francisco. Some cities seem to lean towards more ebullient, dramatic works, while others seem to prefer a drier, more sterile style, while still others seem to be struggling to push boundaries that I believe were pushed to breaking several years ago. My thoughts on which cities bear which traits, though, may be controversial and/or disagreeable to some, so I'll keep the specifics to myself...

We also visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was incredible and so far-reaching that I had a hard time knowing which way to go, which hallway to walk down. Sculpture, fashion, stamps, props and opera garb, textiles, 80s appliances, antiquarian books, 15th-century Chinese furniture, contemporary photography, Middle Eastern tapestries - it was all there. It was a shocking variety, really. B couldn't help but try on some costumery.

He is standing in front of what I believe is an exact replica of Kylie Minogue's dressing room from a tour a few years back, which was, I thought, an odd exhibit. It's quite the dreamcoat, though, and flattering, don't you think?

And dear readers, I have a request. I took a picture of this amazing bust, and I cannot for the life of me remember the artist or the name of the piece, so if anyone has any ideas, please share them. I love it:

I am, apparently, a bad museum-goer. I should have written it down.

In addition to the museums, we spent a final day walking through the city, eating delicious dim sum, visiting various sites, and generally acting like tourists. I'll be honest: in our final weeks there, I was ready to leave, and I was convinced that I wouldn't need to return to England for quite a while, and a short two months after leaving, I already miss it a little bit. I'm surprised - I didn't think that I would get sentimental about the UK, and pleasantly, I've proved myself wrong. It's such a quirky, paradoxical place, power and Primark side by side, imperial history running right up to Big Brother and council housing. It's fascinating.

Really, it was quite a year. England was never a place that I saw myself living, and now that it's over, I can't imagine not having done it. Though I didn't look back while I was leaving, I'm looking back now, and it's pretty from here.

2009-10-09T23:10:00.006-04:00

Paris. A Little Over Two Months Ago.

This is perhaps the longest hiatus that I've taken from blogging in a long time. The story is this: I simply couldn't help it! Finishing my MA thesis, leaving England, spending a measly two weeks in California, driving across the country, and then looking for and moving into a new apartment and beginning school = no time for blogging! It has been, in a word, completelyhectic.

I finally have some breathing room, though, so I thought I'd sit down and do a little catching up. Truthfully, I could be doing work for my program around the clock, but I'm fairly sure my mental health would suffer from it, so here I am. And I present to you: Paris!

We spent a week in Paris at the end of July, which is a humid and sweltering time to visit, and it was glorious.

That's a perfect example of how glorious it was. At the risk of sounding a bit maudlin, it was everything that I'd hoped it would be. Ever since studying French in junior high (more than 15 years ago! yikes.), I have wanted to visit Paris, and ta-dah! I finally did it. We really tried to make the most of it, too - we battled the heat and humidity and made it to nearly every landmark that I've been dreaming of for all this time.

We started, obviously, here:

My head was hurting; the day was boiling; but it was fantastic. Somehow I managed to get a picture that isn't crushed by the crowd, which was a minor miracle. Paris in July is a crowded place; I suppose that, by being tourists, we were only adding to it, but at least we're a fairly unobtrusive pair.

We actually went back to the Eiffel Tower a couple days later, this time at night, so that we could climb it. Little did I know: I guess I'm afraid of heights. I've never really experienced it before, but on our way up the 300+ stairs to the first platform, I found myself believing that somehow this steel structure of approximately 10,000 tons would miraculously fall apart. Clearly, it didn't, but that didn't stop my nerves from jangling. I sucked it up, though, when a random stranger asked if we wanted our picture taken:

(Because a second before that, I looked like this: ).

Another incredibly famous Paris landmark: The Arc de Triomphe. It turns out that the Arc itself is, indeed, quite pretty, but the real attraction was the traffic surrounding it. It is possibly the worst roundabout that I have ever laid eyes, eight cars deep with absolutely no organization and death-defying cyclists cutting through it. We stood watching it for maybe twenty minutes. The picture doesn't do the madness justice.

We also, of course, went to the Louvre. We spent, in fact, the entire day there, so by the time we left at seven in the evening, my head was spinning from all the staring and elbowing. The elbowing was limited to only a few wings housing the most famous pieces in their collection, and the most intense clutch was right here:

The Mona Lisa. Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code craze really ruined it for people who want to see the Mona Lisa, I have to say. Leonardo isn't particularly one of my favorites, but I would have liked to have seen this painting in a less frenzied environment. Though there were a handful of other pieces in the museum that attracted large crowds, none of them were as bad as this. People were really flouting the rules of museum etiquette, which is one set of rules that I actually really appreciate.

Other areas of the museum, though, were a bit more easy to move through. One of my favorite areas was Napoleon's chambers and the furniture of the various royal families. It was truly opulent.

We spent maybe 10 hours in the museum, all in all, with a short break for lunch. But, as amazing as it was, I think I enjoyed the Rodin museum just a little bit more. I love sculpture, and Rodin is my favorite sculptor, and to see his work up close was absolutely amazing.

I'm not posting the large size photo here, but if you click through to the actual photo page, you can see the large one, and you may be able to better see the incredible detail in this, which is called the Gates of Hell. It's so intricate and full of so many subtleties that a picture can't really capture. His ability to infuse emotion into sculpture is simply incredible to me, beyond my comprehension.

It was a lovely day to be in the garden, too; the Rodin museum is actually made up of a garden and then a more formal museum, and the garden is the perfect setting in which to see his work.

We visited Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge; we walked along the Seine; we window-shopped on the Champs-Elysees; and we went to the bizarrely futuristic area called La Defense, which is apparently considered by some to be a blight on the otherwise austere and historic Parisian landscape. I, however, thought it was incredible and strange, full of curious buildings and an even more curious marriage of new and old.

I'm not sure of the purpose of the rainbow column. It was just that; a rainbow column. The whole district seemed to be full of mostly superfluous artwork, which I thought gave a surreal edge to the otherwise sterile and business-based area. Post-modern finance, I guess.

It's funny to think back on Paris from here. At the time, we were seeing it in the context of Not England, which surely had an effect on our perception of the place. We were so happy to be in a place that was, well, more European, so now it seems somehow twice-removed. Twice-removed in a good way, though; the distance makes it seem that much more magical.

Phew! That was a long post. I'll be back soon, with 1) tales of our final days in England, 2) a quick narration of our trip across the country, and 3) the beginnings of Rhode Island. Before I go, though, a little more Paris, because there are a couple things so quintessentially Parisian that I cannot finish without them. Thanks for reading.

2009-06-27T16:05:00.004-04:00

More of the East of England

I've been on the move! It's wonderful and also vaguely unfortunate, as I really should be working on my thesis and not galavanting around the countryside. Ah well. The warm weather gives me no choice, really.

A couple weeks ago I visited the city of Colchester, which is not only the central city in the county of Essex, but also the oldest recorded town in England. (It was also the site of the uprising of Boudica, who is apparently very well-known. I am parenthesizing this because I had no idea who she was, and I'm still not clear enough on her or her legacy to feel like I'm qualified to explain to others. She apparently revolted against the Romans back in the first century A.D. People around here are shocked that I've never heard of her. Have you heard of her, dear reader? I honestly want to know.)

We spent quite a bit of time roaming the streets of Colchester, looking at their various churches and landmarks, but we spent the majority of our time there in the Colchester Castle Museum. It was interactive, and some of the activities were really very curious.

Oh. Sorry, I'm not interested in putting that collar on. Thanks.

Colchester also had a pretty intense witch-hunting period, and the Castle had part of the original jail preserved, so that visitors could get spooked, basically. Due to a hilarious narration playing from hidden speakers detailing the trial of one suspected witch, I didn't find it all that creepy, but it had a nice musty smell and it was sufficiently deep and dark to qualify as a dungeon that I would prefer to leave as I please. My favorite part of the museum, however, was this door:

I don't know what was behind the door, but I imagined that it was some kind of Alice in Wonderland riddle, in which the young heroine needs to put the door together before she can open it and get to the other side.

Colchester seemed a bit more urban than Norwich; I think it must be because it's halfway between here and London, so their proximity to the city probably makes a difference. A total of two crazy street-people talked to us while we were there, and I found it sort of refreshing; it was like being back in the Bay Area! I had sort of forgotten what it was like to deal with people who aren't constantly following the rules. Oh, and speaking of people who don't customarily follow the rules:

That's right; that's Iggy Pop. Iggy Pop! Doing an insurance campaign! The first time I saw one of these billboards I couldn't believe my eyes. I guess punk rock is responsible now. Or maybe not! - maybe they're crashing their cars a lot, and that's why they need insurance! That could be it too.

My second adventure in the East of England was taking a boat out on the Broads in Wroxham. The Broads are wetlands, a national park full of little lakes formed by the river as it makes its way out to the North Sea. It was extraordinarily beautiful out there, and we were able to rent the boat for four whole hours. It was amazing. It was a welcome break from the small world comprised of myself, my laptop, and my thesis. Even the sun came out to cooperate!

It was lovely. There was an ice cream boat floating around, selling ice cream cones to anyone who wanted one, and there were kitschy riverboats and even strange old sailboats sailing down the river and through the Broads. For example:

There were Canada geese and swans, and some other strange birds standing by the side of the river that I didn't recognize, but that were awfully stately. Maybe I'll show you one, in hopes that you can name it for me:

What is it?

And now, I can't help but get back to work. There are some fun things on the horizon, most obviously a trip to Paris coming up at the end of July; there are, however, little trips here and there that we'll take on mutual days off - well, I guess I have only days off, so I have to fight hard to structure them. In the meantime, wish me luck with my thesis, and good luck with any various summer heatwaves that may come your way.

2009-06-17T16:34:00.002-04:00

Great Yarmouth. "Great" Yarmouth. Great!...Yarmouth.

So we went to Great Yarmouth. I have nothing more eloquent to say than...hmm. What a weird town.

This is the first thing we saw as we walked to the center from the train station:

Operation Claw: Knives Destroy Lives. I suppose the idea behind this is to get people to throw their unused knives and shanks into the bin, but there's some faulty logic at work here. First of all: what if the knife has already stabbed somebody, and this is where the perpetrator throws the evidence? Also: what's the impetus for someone to throw their knife in the bin? If you're the type of person who carries a knife as a weapon, what wave of good will and pacifistic emotion is likely to spring up when passing the weapons bin? I wonder how many knives they get every week. My guess is not many.

Moving on, though, Yarmouth turned out to be, well, very weird. A little history: it used to be a lively little fishing town, and then when they overfished the waters and could no longer sustain a whole town on the fishing industry, they put some energy-generating windmills in the sea, erected some oil platforms, and the "casinos," previously booming, started to decline. Now they're just shells of good times past, though they still give it the old college try.

That's Caesar's Palace and The Flamingo. You could get it mixed up with Las Vegas, huh? So lush. Hilariously, all the machines take either 2 or 5 pence pieces, usually no more. They're generally filled with these penny-pusher machines that keep you hooked by spitting out pennies every now and again, just enough so that you don't walk away, because you're sure that even with slow progress, you might get that tin of mints or fishy keychain that teeters precariously near the edge! It's really very manipulative. There is also, however, ski ball, video games, air hockey, and this bizarre type of bowling, in which the pins hang on strings, and it's a recipe for disaster. Someone has even made a short video to really illustrate how strange this is.

The bowling is not the only thing for kids to do though - there are all kinds of fun things for little ones. For instance, Joyland:

Yes, that's all it is. And yes, it looks a little deserted in the picture; that's only because it's pretty much totally deserted. Brad claims that the first time he went to Yarmouth, Joyland was roped off because there was a dead body parked outside. I've opted not to share the picture. But really, for a town that sells itself as a shiny, family-fun destination, there were surprisingly few people about, and more often than not they had no children. There were a few children riding some sad-looking burros around the beach, and that's about it. Other than them, the "children" were mostly teenagers who roamed around as if, shockingly, they had nothing else to do.

Oh, kids could also do this:

Mini-golf! This course wasn't too bad, though just down the street was a course called The Arnold Palmer, which was basically a cement plot about the size of my living room, a few strips of astroturf with 2x4s between them, and a foam rock here and there. It was, in a word, depressing.

There were also fun rides for the kids!

See, look at all those kids! The ride with the tipi in the foreground of that picture was a very dreary log-ride that went in one very short zig-zag; I don't know how many times around a kid would get to go for one token, because there wasn't a kid within a hundred feet of this thing.

A coworker of Brad's who actually hails from Yarmouth describes it as "dying", which seems about right. Come 6 p.m., almost every business closed its shutters, and the streets might as well have been overtaken by tumbleweeds. On our walk back to the train station, I imagined that the seagulls were probably killer birds who fed at dusk, and that's why everyone retreated into their homes. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

All in all, though, it was fun, and a sliver of England that not many people see. There was a beach, I had some chips and ice cream, and I got to put my head into those weird wooden cutouts, and that's a good day in my book. Until next time.

2009-05-25T09:11:00.003-04:00

Scattered in bookstores, greyed by dust and time

I'm writing my Master's thesis.

Here they call it a dissertation, but I choose to call it a thesis anyway. It's been taking up the majority of my time and brain power, so this poor blog has been sadly neglected. So, to show it some love and attention, here I am. Sadly, I have no fun travels to report (though we've planned a vacation at the end of July to Paris!). The result: you're going to hear about my work.

That's Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941). She was a poet, a dissident, a sometimes-expatriate, and a mother. Despite being one of Russia's greatest poets of the 20th century, she had the unbelievably difficult life common to nearly all of Russia's most prominent and revolutionary writers that were working from the beginning of the century to the death of Stalin. She wrote poetry, essays and drama, though her prose and plays are largely untranslated.

That, I suppose, is where I come in. Though the constraints of my thesis will prevent me from translating the whole of her play Phaedra, I will be translating the second act, with plans to go on and translate the entire play during the first couple years of my program at Brown. Only small parts of the play have been published in English; my eventual goal is to see the play performed on an American stage - though I doubt the stage will be a large one.

My thesis, of course, will not be just the translation. About half of my project will be a critical examination of the logistical and theoretical aspects of the translation, and I'll be focusing on two specific elements. The first is the difficulties of translating Tsvetaeva's language, as she uses endless neologisms, archaisms, and even fabricated archaisms in the play, which is written in verse. As a non-native speaker of Russian, the linguistic translation will be pretty painstaking, but her use of language is so deliberate and nuanced that there is no way to translate the particularities out of Russian, so I'll be establishing my own rhythm, rhyme scheme and invented or manipulated language. Bored yet? If no, read the next paragraph. If yes, skip it.

The second element I'll be focusing on is what some would call "gendered language", which is a sort of controversial, generic, and meaningless term. Tsvetaeva wasn't focusing on a woman's language, per se, but she was focusing on what she thought of as a maternal language, a style of speaking and operating that's more dominant in the creation of a person's language than their so-called "mother tongue" - a term which doesn't translate well into Russian. These two elements will be more than enough for me to deal with in the thesis, so at least I won't have to worry about running out of material!

Anyway, enough of that. Or, at least, enough of that for you - it's not even enough to qualify as the tip of the iceberg for me. This post, by the way, is a taste of what's to come - when I finally settle in Rhode Island, this blog will slowly evolve into a mainly literary one. There will, of course, be the occasional picture of the trips we're planning on taking around New England and the Eastern half of the United States in general, but be prepared for a new and casually academic character here. What can I say? I get the feeling it'll take over my whole life, so it stands to reason that it'll infiltrate the blog too...

That's all for now, dear readers. A great big pile of books is staring at me.

2009-04-26T06:42:00.007-04:00

Spring / Food / Oof

And so begins another post in which I apologize for being remiss with my blogging duties. A variety of factors kept me away. And here's a few of them...

Spring is finally, finally here. I almost can't believe it; I leave the house with plenty of warm clothes, as if the temperature could suddenly plummet 20 degrees and shove me right back into winter. But the flowers are blooming, the clouds are puffy and white as opposed to cloying and grey, and the birds and bugs are out in droves. Oh, the bugs. This place is awfully buggy, really. And spidery. It's a small price, though, and I pay it gladly - the nice weather is completely worth it.

With spring came the end of the semester and a visit from family (Hi Mom! Hi Ken!). Both of those things were long awaited, and both lived up to my expectations. Well, actually, the end of the semester was sort of anticlimactic. Perhaps that's because it didn't really signal the end. I'll get into that later, though.

It was wonderful to have visitors. I realized that no one has visited us since we've been in England, which is a change from Berlin. We had several guests there - maybe it was a more dazzling destination? At any rate, it's fine - there's not so much to do in Norwich with visitors, I have to say. A couple days of roaming around, picking at things in the market and generally taking in the pastoral surroundings and medieval architecture and you're pretty much done, really. So we took our visitors away, to all kinds of places. First we went north, to a couple of seaside towns that are popular through East Anglia for their piers and amusements. Aside from the chill and heavy fog, they were lovely!

That's Sheringham. The shore was rocky and freezing, and yet there were lots of people who looked like they were dressed for the 4th of July in Monterey, seriously. Short skirts? Tank tops? I was shivering in my jacket, scarf and hat! I know, I know, it's all in what you're used to, but it was painful watching those people walk around. The harsh chill was really only by the water, though, and once we were a couple hundred meters from the water it warmed up considerably. It was your typical perfect seaside town, all in all.

We went next to Cromer. Cromer's pier is apparently very well known on the North Norfolk coast - have you heard of it? No? Well, it was adorable. There were kids fishing for crabs off the pier, and several different American country songs coming from I don't know where. And then, of course, the "gambling". It's not gambling, really, it's just arcade games, strange contraptions that push pennies around and eat your 2p coins at a rate just slow enough to keep you standing there for hours. The amusements are a big attraction, as are the Cromer crabs and various other seafood concoctions. Like this:

A funny story about that seafood cup:
Me: Is that warm?
Brad (slightly grimacing): I don't know.
Me: What do you mean you don't know? You're eating it.
Brad: Wait - what did you ask?
Me: IS THAT WARM?
Brad: Oh. I thought you said is that a worm. And no, it's not warm. (Continues to eat)
But hey, just because it's not my kind of thing doesn't mean it's not delicious, right? There were lots of people eating it. Well, maybe not this particular thing, but various types of (mostly cooked) seafood. I guess I don't like mostly raw unless it's wrapped up in rice and seaweed. Sorry.

But this brings me to my next topic: food. Oh, the food. For the most part, I think English food is a lot more edible than its stereotype, or at least a little more edible. A proper English breakfast isn't so bad, really, though I usually avoid the "large, flat mushroom" (and yes, that's exactly how it's often billed in the menu). There are, however, a few weird food practices here that I just can't get used to. Exhibit A:

Okay, you might need to click on those pictures to see them larger in order to really appreciate what's going on here, but I'll explain a little. On the right: yes, that says Oriental. And yes, the Oriental section is primarily composed of Uncle Ben stir-fry packets. Oy. (The Mexican section of the same store is mostly some brand called Discovery: Discovery Fajita Kits! Discovery Taco Sets! It's better than the Mexican restaurants around here though -- chili con carne, anyone?) And on the left: that's egg friend rice, and if you only see off-white rice with peas in it, your eyes are not deceiving you; that's what it is. And it's 2£! What?! Who would pay that much for a little tub of soggy rice with a sprinkling of MSG on top?

Oh:

Well, it's the same price, but it's more rice, so...I guess that's better? The pre-prepared food here is much more prevalent than it is the US, even, which is hard to believe. For some reason I thought there would be more cooking from scratch here, but I'm not sure why I thought that; the chain "Fresh and Easy", which is arriving in the US, is actually a British company (and here's a pretty interesting article about their genesis, by the way). On top of that, though, here's some evidence that cooking from scratch may not necessarily be better for you:

Lard and Beef Dripping. I'm not even sure what I would do with those things. Those cubes are rock-hard, too, which I find curious. I know that it's possible to find this stuff in the US, also, but it doesn't take up that much display space (and how nicely displayed they are, too!). The grocery stores here are endless entertainment for me, and that's saying a lot, because my threshold for grocery shopping is pretty low.

Last food thing: some classic British fare, just right for neatly slamming arteries shut:

I just couldn't force myself to get one of those Mars bars, despite my curiosity. I did, however, eat a hefty portion of the fish and chips, though I avoided the battered burger (that hunk of deep-fry on the left). I just couldn't deal with that.

It's not all bad, though. OK, Norwich isn't top of the line for any type of Asian food, but we went back to London Chinatown, and this time we actually sat and ate dim sum, and lemme tell ya - it was awesome. It was almost euphoric.

If I hadn't been so busy eating, I would've been crying or singing for the sheer glory of eating delicious, delicious dim sum! It filled a hole in my soul. This is not hyperbole.

But now, sadly, our visitors are gone, and that means back to real life for me. Real life = essay writing and translating, and I'm excited about both of those things. My excitement for taking a stroll in the nice weather is putting up a pretty heroic battle, though, so wish me luck. I've got one short term paper to write, in which I'll debate the merits of 3 different translations of Anna Akhmatova, and then I'll continue on to my "dissertation" (we'd call it a thesis in the States), which will be a translation of a play by Marina Tsvetaeva, followed by a lengthy and theoretical justification for my choices in the translation. I'm both eager and terrified. (This, if you can't tell, is the "Oof" in the title of this post. Because, really - oof).

So here I go. (Do I mean here I go into the sunshine, or here I go into the depths of Sexual/Textual Politics by Toril Moi? I haven't decided yet). Thanks for reading, and I'll be back soon.

2009-03-16T17:09:00.003-04:00

This Is The Week I Turn 30

And you know what? I don't mind! There are much more momentous happenings this year than my little birthday. Moving on...

I had another nice venture into London this week, and my opinion on the city is improving, little by little. I went with a friend, ostensibly to see a show in the in/famous neighborhood of Camden, which I have decided is sort of like Haight Street without all the hippies and activists. There you can find tie-dye, dreadlocks, Mexican food (though I can't vouch for its authenticity or deliciousness), punk rockers, probably a variety of illegal substances, hundreds of Doc Martens, even Western shirts!

Before the show, however, we headed over to the British Library, which was in a shockingly new building and held some fairly amazing documents and manuscripts. Aside from the usual suspects (some Bronte or other, Darwin, Thomas Hardy, etc.) and some ill-gotten gains (Hindu and Muslim scrolls and illuminated manuscripts), they had a few leafs of the Magna Carta, which is sort of like their Constitution (though I'm sure they would take issue with that, somehow). However, I spent most of my time hovering in front of the glass case that held, among other things, handwritten lyrics of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "In My Life", and several others. They had messy handwriting!

I don't think we were welcome in the stacks without a membership, but I am sure they would've been amazing.

This was as close as we could get to actual books, and they were housed in a tall column surrounded by two-inch thick glass. I suppose they were just decoration.

This fellow was crouched outside, playing with what I think was a compass, but I couldn't tell what he was working on.

By the time we got to the show, it had been a wonderful day already, and the music just made it better. I believe I mentioned this already, but the band was Rupa and the April Fishes, and I highly recommend them. They're a San Francisco band; needless to say, it made me a bit homesick.

And this week, to celebrate my birthday, I'll be seeing a bluegrass/Americana show (brought to us by an Australian band, oddly enough) and working on a couple projects: comparing several translations of Anna Akhmatova's "Poem Without A Hero", and translating a poem by absurdist poet Aleksandr Vvedensky. Good times.

2009-03-06T15:41:00.004-05:00

Up All Night: Parts I and II

I feel that I'm getting a bit too old for all-nighters, and yet in the last two weeks, I have done it not once but twice, with varying results. Surprisingly, I found on both occasions that it wasn't as bad as I'd feared; unsurprisingly, I prefer sleeping at night.

Part I: The Netherlands

At the end of February, I went to the Netherlands with two classmates, to celebrate Carnaval (and yes, that's the way they spell it there). Our flight flew out just before 7 in the morning, from London, which is approximately 2.5 hours from Norwich by bus. Factoring in the time needed at the airport, we ended up getting on the bus to the airport at about 1:30 in the morning, which basically rendered sleep impossible. I've done many airport overnights, but this night was different because it was broken up into pieces, and though I was able to snooze a little on the bus the airport, it just wasn't very meaningful sleep, you know?

By the time our plane touched down in Eindhoven, I felt like my eyes were about a foot apart, and don't ask me to explain what I mean by that. It was just exhaustion. Our ultimate destination was the town of Tilburg, a small city in the south of the country. The land wasn't what I'd expected; then again, I'm not sure what I was expecting. Was I expecting some ideal pastoral landscape? Green hills and valleys despite the edge of winter? All I can say is that the landscape was comprised of more greys, browns and warehouses than I'd imagined. (See that? "Grey" with an "e"? English English is taking its toll on me). The neighborhood we ended up in is sort of a suburb of Tilburg, and it was interesting to see a bona fide suburb in another country. One of my traveling companions was Irish, and I suppose they don't have the classic American suburb in Ireland, because her reaction to the neighborhood was so clean and plain: "It's like you can be born, grow up and die here, without ever having to leave the neighborhood - everything from a preschool to a nursing home!"

Here was their cute little church:

It was fascinating to see a European suburb. It was much more pedestrian-friendly than most American suburbs, and there were many (man-made?) canals running through it, which apparently they're able to skate on in particularly cold winters. All in all, it was very charming.

We also visited Utrecht, which is about an hour north of Tilburg. I've never visited Amsterdam, but Utrecht is supposedly nearly as lovely as Amsterdam. It was full of bookstores and cafes with wrought-iron chairs and the canals so prominent in Dutch cities, and it was somewhat of a relief to be back in Europe again (as England is not really Europe - but don't get me started on that).

See? Cute.

It was also sort of refreshing and fun to be somewhere where I don't speak the language. My knowledge of German helped with certain things, like navigation and menus, but otherwise I was blissfully ignorant, and reveled in it. (And contrary to popular belief, Dutch is not a dialect of German...). There's something very relaxing about listening to people speak a language that's unknown - it's as if it absolves you of any responsibility to pay attention, so your mind can wander wherever it pleases.

Part II: London

On Tuesday evening, Brad and I went to see Carmen at Royal Albert Hall! Can you believe it? The Beatles played there! It was far from a ball-gown and tuxedo evening, but I felt very saucy and elegant nonetheless.

Yes, our seats were quite high up, but the view was excellent. It was presented in the round, and for my first opera, it wasn't too shabby at all. One little problem - it was translated into English. I know I study translation and everything, but the line must be drawn somewhere. Translating songs is one thing (this video is a perfect example of when translating a song is simply brilliant), but opera? A woman behind me in the endless line to the bathroom kept saying that she "loved it and loathed it in equal measures", and I am nicking her words to share them here. The music was beautiful, the English libretto not so much.

Before the show, we walked through Notting Hill, where we saw the old home of George Orwell. Didn't they make a movie about Notting Hill? I'm not sure it merits such attention - it seemed like a bunch of antique stores and upscale clothing shops. Okay, I suppose the houses there were gigantic, and if one had tons of money to burn, it's right next to Kensington Park, where Charles and Diana lived once-upon-a-time. Also, the houses there had actual space around them, rather than being shimmied up against each other like the rest of the houses in the city (much like the Victorians in San Francisco). And the children in the neighborhood were all dressed like Jane and Michael Banks, for real - the schools around there have an adorable uniform. OK, I guess it wasn't all bad.

The show itself was beautiful, but when it was over, our long night began. See, the last train back to Norwich leaves London at 11:30, and the first train in the morning leaves at 6 a.m. Add to this the fact that we are both cheapskates and sometimes impetuous, and you get a whole night of wandering around London in the rain. I have to say, London is not the hardest city in which to stay awake all night, nor is it the easiest. I suppose I am used to 24-hour diners, which there seem to be none of in London. Well, there actually was one (American-style, no less!), but it had a very sketchy door guy who had a headset and a bad attitude screening people before they even walked in the door; we went somewhere else.

We ended up in Leicester Square, which is where all the big theatres are, and we luckily found a couple places that were open all night. Leicester Square was kind of a last-minute decision, and I was shocked to discover that the Tube stops running between midnight and 1 a.m., and doesn't start up again until after 5 in the morning. What about all the people that have to be at work at 6? I feel bad enough for those people as it is!

We walked from Leicester Square to Liverpool Street, which is where we caught the train back to Norwich. It was a walk of approximately 3 miles, and it was raining a bit, but it was actually a good time, one of the best of the night. There was no one out (which makes sense - it was about 4 in the morning), so we were free to take our time, looking in windows and just generally strolling. It was a much more relaxed environment than that of a couple hours earlier, which was full of shouters and bleeders. It was very pleasant.

That board was looking pretty bleak. Brad was hypnotized by it, despite its constant flow of bad news.

Overall, the middle-of-the-night experience really improved my (somewhat lackluster) perception of London. I'll be going back this week, to see a friend's band (Rupa and the April Fishes- they are excellent) and perhaps that'll improve things even more. I'm feeling fairly optimistic.

Another reason for optimism: I've been accepted to Brown University's doctoral program in Slavic Languages and Literatures! It's all very exciting...

2009-02-14T21:04:00.004-05:00

This is England

The title of this post does not have to do with the quietly brutal film titled This is England. It is simply a statement of fact. This is England.

I haven't been as mobile this year as I was last year, for a variety of reasons. The primary reason is, of course, school and work, with the expected secondary reason of trying to save money. Although we have not been hit too noticeably hard by the global recession, it is still good to be prudent. The upshot of this is that I have a bit less to report on this here blog; so, I thought I would simply share. Some good things, some bad things, but all with the same theme: This is England.

So here's something, and some of you may have already heard some bits of this rant: I am...confused...by the treatment of feminism in the UK. Wait, strike that. I am confused by the treatment of women in general in the UK. I know that the fact that I carry the baggage of northern California on my back can skew my perception of women's issues (always to the liberal side), but I have commiserated with other North American women on this topic. I could tell stories of witnessing poor relations between romantically entangled men and women in public; or I could regale you with stories of how bankers, clerks and waitstaff prefer to address Brad, even when they're answering a question I've asked; or I could wonder aloud at the sheer ridiculousness of 3-year-old girls wearing high heels in public, but I know all of these things could be seen as purely subjective. So, instead, I'll share some pieces of the media with you. I'll share the "science" of how careers have ruined women's figures. I'll show you how "being a free woman isn't all it's cracked up to be" (and, by the way, many of these articles come from a section of the "news"paper The Daily Mail called "Femail Today"). I'll impart to you the business savvy of the head honchos of the Bank of England, who have shown their fashion sense to be more than a little outdated. Or, finally, I could explain that feminism and reckless promiscuity are practically the same thing. I can do all these things with the support of the popular media.

Don't get me wrong - it is not all bad. Why, the English boast some very incredible women. Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth, Margaret Thatcher, Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Kate Winslet...and they are proud and supportive of these women - or are they?

Amidst the scarily young fathers and the mushy peas and the recent bizarre and terrible failure on the part of the child protective services, there are certainly a lot of eyebrow-raisers going on. But I digress.

There are also some wonderful things about living here. For instance, I love my program, and I am enjoying very much being one of the editors of our translation studies journal. I spend quite a bit of time on campus even when I don't have class, either rummaging through the library or attending any number of fascinating research seminars, and though I haven't really explored the Sainsbury Centre, I fully intend to, not too long from now. They are having an exhibition called "China China China!!!", and I wonder how the exhibition would be received differently were it called "China China China?" or "China China China..."

For a town (or I suppose I should say small city) its size, Norwich has a very wonderful gallery/show space, called the Norwich Arts Centre. The last time I was in there they played Tom Waits and Johnny Cash on the stereo, so I left happy. They have many many shows every month, and next month I will try to fill my Americana gap by seeing (an Australian band play) some bluegrass there, on St. Patrick's Day. I am quite excited.

I got to have a taste of some good ol' fashioned grassroots activity this last week, when some students from my school occupied one of the buildings on campus to show support to the people of Gaza, and though I thought that their tactics would make the Berkeley activists shake their heads, I appreciated the effort, at least. They eventually gave up their fight because the school refused to protect them from forcible eviction, which makes me wonder: what did they expect? It isn't a public building, after all, and the nature of protests is that, peaceful or not, there are bound to be some unpleasant altercations. Oh well. It's the thought that counts.

There are some generally entertaining things going on here, too. For instance, a person from North America chuckles sometimes at the language differences; even the road signs* bring with them a sort of hilarity (for a variety of reasons). In short, it is easy to stay reasonably happy, despite some of the cultural differences.

On the subject of cultural differences (and pardon this meandering train of thought - it is the verbal equivalent of listening to a hair band noodle for a while), I wonder if Americans would judge the UK so harshly, or vice versa, if we spoke different languages. In other words, would I marvel at the societal differences as much if I had to look across a foreign language, or would I simply write off the differences as coming with the territory? I believe the shared language is a hindrance, sometimes, as if I am using more false friends than I am aware of. Perhaps they have, in the words of Steve Martin, "a different word for everything".

Well, that's it for me tonight, folks. Except for this! I am very excited about this! It is one of my top choices and I feel ready for it, and Brad and I are very extremely excited at the prospect of returning to the U.S., finding a place where we can buy things bigger than a suitcase, and maybe getting a small pet of some sort. After spending the better part of 3 years abroad, I think I am ready for a break. The time to return is not here yet, though, so in the meantime, I'll work on some translations, eat some fish 'n' chips, and take a little trip here and there.

*Thanks to Bay for this.

2009-01-13T16:35:00.002-05:00

2009

Ooh, it has been a long time since I've blogged. Sorry about that. The holidays were fairly uneventful, or at least uneventful enough to not merit a blog post on my part, and I was engaged in writing a paper, anyway, so I was using all my brain cells on academic matters. Now, however, my brain cells are freed up (though soon to be once again occupied with school) and I am here to tell you all about our lovely New Year travels.

Last year, we headed to colder climes than Berlin for the New Year; we went to Poland. This year, we followed the same pattern. We headed north to Scotland, where (I thought) it would be colder than Norwich. It didn't actually turn out to be colder, but it was definitely darker for more of the day. That didn't stop us from seeing as much as we could for the days that we were there, though.

We spent the bulk of our time in Edinburgh. It was, to put it simply, very beautiful. It's not a very large city, as capitol cities go, but it was full of character. The main focal point of the city is Edinburgh Castle, which both of us were very excited to tour. I discovered that I am a huge fan of the guided tour. It's kind of like a field trip, except you don't have to take a test later on what you learned.

One of the highest windows in that first picture is looking out from the room in which Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to her son, James VI of Scotland, later to become James I of England when Queen Elizabeth died in 1603. It was very strange to breathe in the semi-stale air of that room and think that a king was born in there. The second picture was taken inside the Great Hall of the Castle, which was completely majestic and had a fascinating roof held together by more than 1000 wooden pegs and no nails. If you look closely, you can see that the decorations on the walls are made of guns and swords. It was, all in all, a very awesome castle. In addition, you could see the whole city from that vantage point (which made it a successful castle during times of war), and I have no pictures to document the fact that I have never in my life seen clearer air than I saw up there. The day had been painfully, terribly windy, but the night air made up for it completely.

There was another point that offered a view over the whole city, a gigantic rock (maybe you could call it a hill?) that was created by a glacier thousands of years ago, called Arthur's Seat. Here's me at the bottom:

and Brad at the top:

You can see the Castle way in the background there; from this angle you can easily see that the Castle is situated in a strategically excellent place. We saw at the Castle, incidentally, the Crown Jewels of Scotland, and they were incredible. They were so opulent that I had a hard time conceiving of them as real, and not simply a stage decoration or a prop. Next to the Crown Jewels was something called the Stone of Destiny, which I had never heard of but is at the center of a very dramatic story. It's worth a moment of your time to read about it. The long and complicated relationship between Scotland and England is illustrated in the story of the Stone, and it's fascinating.

There was, of course, a lot to Edinburgh aside from the Castle. The Royal Mile, which is the road that leads to the Castle, is full of historic buildings, and at the end of it opposite the Castle is the Scottish home of Queen Elizabeth II. Her palace, though, is somewhat overshadowed by the amazing new Parliament building built in the city, which is a strangely Gaudi-esque. There were also large and lush Georgian neighborhoods that were (and are) mainly for the rich folks of Edinburgh, funky little neighborhoods full of bookstores and strip joints (reminded me of San Francisco), and whisky. So much whisky. I don't really drink, but I appreciated the way that whisky was looked upon as a national treasure, their most precious and historical export. We did not, unfortunately, get to tour a distillery, though we plan to later in the year. We did, however, do a whisky tasting, and I was so charmed by the culture of it.

Okay, those bottles are full of different kinds of liqueurs and vodkas and generally not whisky, but it's a good example of the esteem afforded to liquor. I found it quite wonderful.

We also visited Stirling, a town only about 30 or 40 miles from Edinburgh. Stirling, too, had a Castle, where we took a very hilarious and animated guided tour. (Did I mention that I love guided tours?) Stirling and the land surrounding it was a very pivotal area during the Scottish wars for independence during the 12th century, so the Castle was quite important for centuries. The aforementioned James VI lived there for quite a while, and apparently the only time Stirling Castle was ever taken was by Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army. The Castle itself was not as imposing as the one in Edinburgh, but it was quite beautiful, and set in the middle of some lovely (and misty) countryside.

Stirling was a fairly small town, but our trip there convinced me that we must go back to Scotland while we are still in the UK, so that we can see the highlands and the islands and all the hidden pockets. Maybe in the spring.

We also took a little trip here in England, to London and Windsor, where we saw - you guessed it! - Windsor Castle. Windsor was the only one we saw which is still a working Castle, and it was amazing. So amazing.

That's Queen Victoria. I don't know much more about her than that she ruled over England for 64 years. Longest monarch in English history! We couldn't take pictures inside the Castle, which was understandable, but oy, it was incredible in there. What I had a hard time fathoming was that many of the rooms that took my breath away are still used by Queen Elizabeth when she stays at Windsor. To me it's a museum; to her it's real life. Or maybe I should say "real life". To quote Eddie Izzard: " 'God Save the Queen.' Now the Queen lives in a very big house, she has barbed wire outside, and people with guns in front of that. That's one saved f*&!% queen, I'll tell you!" There are still about 260 workers living at Windsor Castle, some of whom have only one job - raising the flag, say - and I'm sure there is a large number of unseen security workers all throughout. And also - it's a fortress!

The town of Windsor was very cute, and across the Thames is the town of Eton. Both Prince William and Prince Harry were educated at Eton, and I wonder what it must be like for a) them, and b) their fellow students. The most fame I've ever had at one of my schools was that the girl who played the princess in The Neverending Story went to my junior high several years before I did. How do you deal with sitting behind Prince William?

And finally, we went to London. London is a very big city, and difficult to see all in one go, but we walked for hours, through Soho and Camden and from Piccadilly Circus to Trafalger Square. Also, there were a couple things that we were determined to see during our first excursion to the city. Obviously:

Parliament as seen over the Thames! Classic! And the other thing:

London Chinatown. We walked for hours to get to London Chinatown, which is about three square blocks and only restaurants. I suppose I was expecting the weird little knick-knack stores that are so abundant in SF or Oakland Chinatown, or tanks full of living turtles and ducks and chickens with the feathers still attached hanging in the windows. Mostly it was buffet-style Chinese restaurants, but we found a bakery that had excellent cha siu bao and coconut buns, so I was happy. The lady working at the bakery was just as abrupt and rude as the ladies that work the bakeries in Oakland, too, so I felt right at home. There are other things we need to see, of course, like Buckingham Palace and Royal Albert Hall (where we have tickets to see Carmen in March!), so I'm sure we'll go back a few more times.

And now the semester has begun, so I believe we'll be, once again, stationed here in Norwich. There are many places in England that we are determined to visit, though, some of them not too far away, so I hope to be seeing you here on my blog in the extremely near future. Welcome to 2009.

2008-12-20T06:44:00.003-05:00

The Last Leg of 2008

Remember me? I know, I know.... it's been a long time. I blame the condition of being a graduate student. The course work this semester ate up nearly all of my time, but I have hopes that next term will be just as invigorating while being a little less rigorous. It's an irrational hope, I know. I'll be starting my thesis during the semester, so the realistic view from here is a pile of books and wall-eye from staring at my computer for so long. I'm excited!

It's fairly uncharacteristic of us to stay put for so long without taking any trips, but one's coming up soon. Just after the New Year, we'll head up to Scotland for a few days, and then, to balance things out, we'll spend a couple days seeing London and then Windsor Castle. I'm surprisingly excited about Windsor Castle! It's so gigantic! The Queen still spends time there! It's in all the movies! They'll be showing a special exhibition in honor of His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales! Okay, that one didn't deserve an exclamation point. It was just a statement. However, I'm sure we'll tour the exhibition.

In all seriousness, though, I've wanted to see Edinburgh for a long time.... much more than I've wanted to see any parts of England. I think it's because of their underdog status - Scotland and Ireland have always been the poor relatives of England, and I don't know even know what to say about Wales. Wales is its own country, yes, but, well, Charles is the Prince of Wales, so... well, I don't know what conclusion to draw from that. I suppose Wales is simply the lesser-known entity in the British Isles. I'd very much like to see it, though the Norfolk folk seem to have a disdain for Wales (perhaps a testament to that same poor relative status?), and they tend to spit the word out like an olive pit, much as they do with the word Scotland (that one's a much larger olive pit). I suppose that all these countries have been rubbing up against each other for a millenium, and they have a little sibling rivalry. At any rate, I will surely post many pictures of various places around the island when we return from our little trip, so keep an eye out.

Norwich has been an easy place to be, though, and as the weather gets colder and Christmas gets closer, it's been a bit more festive and beautiful outside.

They've erected an ice rink in front of the town forum (where one can find the city library, the tourist information center, and BBC Norwich), and it is the smallest ice rink I have ever seen. If I weren't the most terrible ice skater of all time, I would probably give it a whirl, because it's sandwiched by the Forum and the St. Peter Mancroft Church, which is quite beautiful. The Forum is very modern, while the Church was built in the 1400s.

The ice rink, though, is much less of a local attraction than the sheer number of places to shop in Norwich. The slim lanes and the market square are full of holiday shoppers pushing buggies and toting bags from the Primark and the Topshop (the former being the absolute cheapest place to buy non-secondhand clothes that I have ever seen - it's truly incredible). I would think that with the economy tanking the way it is, the shopping would be curbed a bit - or kerbed, as they sometimes spell it here. (The spelling differences are numerous and sometimes hilarious. The slang, too, sometimes leaves me guessing.) However, the shoppers are out in droves, though they are noticeably less rabid than many American Christmas shoppers. The people here, for instance, would probably not trample anyone to death. I have to give them that.

Brad will probably have to work way too many hours over the holidays, but both of us know that our real celebration will be getting on the train and traveling for a few days, so it isn't too bad. As for myself, I have an essay to write (yes, still) and I'll be thinking of family and friends. By this time next year, we'll surely be back in the contiguous United States, and we'll be able to celebrate with you in person, not just in thought. In the meantime, don't make fun of our little tree.

So Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope the New Year is full of cheer and good luck...

2008-11-18T17:27:00.003-05:00

Norwich at Night

This is probably the first in a series of posts about Norwich at night, since nighttime has extended itself to massive proportions. It's difficult to feel motivated to do anything but drink hot cocoa (or Horlick's soothing warm malt beverages, as the case may be). I'm sure that as the retail world begins to push Christmas a little harder, things will get more festive and the dark will be dressed up a bit more. In fact, there's going to be a NORWICHRISTMAS Fayre! (Yes, that's how it's spelled - click the link, you'll see). Local goods, minstrels, outdoor ice rink, and most likely some roasted cashews and mulled wine - what more could you ask for? The town sort of begs for that sort of environment, anyway.

See? That lane will definitely benefit from a minstrel and a rolling cart selling hot mince pies...though I think the cobblestones might be a bit hazardous. They look very picturesque but I don't care to walk on them any more than is absolutely necessary!

One of the things that Norwich is most famous for is its Cathedral. It has the second-tallest spire in England (Salisbury has the tallest) and some amazing windows and an even more amazing ceiling, but as it gets darker and more wintry, it's really the surrounding walls that are the more intense spectacle.

I am daily discovering new and beautiful things about this town, and the dark seems to amplify some of the more beautiful buildings. Tonight all I had to do was get a little lost to stumble on something stately and awesome that I'd never seen before, and I am constantly marveling at how eerily lit the Castle is at night. It's lucky that Norwich is so pretty at night, since it will be mostly night for the next few months. And speaking of night...I believe I'll go to sleep. Sweet dreams, everyone.

2008-11-05T15:14:00.002-05:00

And There You Have It

Brad and I stayed up until just after 6 am, long enough to watch both the concession and the victory speech. Though we felt a bit remote, thousands of miles away from American soil and connected to our friends and trusted news sources through our greatly overloaded internet, it was an incredibly momentous day. You will all be glad to know that it did not go unnoticed in the United Kingdom; BBC ran continuous coverage of the election from 11 pm to 6 am, and my classmates and Brad's coworkers all stayed up all night, doing the long haul from Greenwich Mean Time. While I'm sure there is news available in the U.S. regarding the international reaction to the new American President, I'm here to tell you first hand that some Brits found themselves lightheaded and shaky at 11 pm EST, just as I did (and it was only partially due to the fact that I'd been awake for about 24 hours), and I hear Berlin was also up til dawn, waiting. There was no shortage of election night events happening in London, and they were clearly hoping for a particular result (see England for Obama, complete with Inauguration countdown ticker at the top of the page). Every daily print newspaper had epic front pages and special editions, and the television news today, November 5, is feeling very familiar (interview with Alice Walker live from Berkeley! Maya Angelou! Footage from Eyes on the Prize!), and though I'm having a helluva time trying to concentrate on schoolwork (hence this very interesting blog post), I'm allowing myself a day to revel in the fact that I might not sound so apologetic when I tell people I'm American anymore. OK, the Russians are still a bit chilly, but I'm not sure there's anything that could change that anytime soon. Meanwhile, it's Guy Fawkes night here in England, so I'm pretending that the thousands of firecrackers and fireworks going off in my neighborhood are in honor of the U.S. elections, because I'm not particularly Guy-Fawkesy.

So this leg of the journey is over. Now I just have to listen to BBC commentators repeatedly use the term "post-racial" and bury my nose in books until the end of the term. And so begins the 21st century, previously put on hold...

2008-11-02T17:53:00.003-05:00

We Finally Went to Cambridge

Brad and I finally tore ourselves away from our warm house and all the election coverage (with which I have been driving myself crazy) and finally, finally took a little excursion. We have been in Norwich since the day we arrived in England, September 9, and nearly two months later, we finally stumbled our way to the train station and made our way to Cambridge.

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting; actually, I was expecting a sort of medieval rural township where people still ride horses as a viable means of transportation and "take" tea, which I realize now was a terrible idealization partially based on the BBC series of Tess of the D'Urbervilles that played here a few weeks ago (which I highly recommend, to anyone interested in that sort of thing). Once we arrived in Cambridge, it dawned on me that of course it would be a compact town full of walls and turrets, since it's been there for centuries and at some point has most likely had to keep a steady defense against invaders, right? I'm not sure why the University buildings were so reinforced, however. I know that they've been there for about 800 years and perhaps the best way to really cripple a society is to knock out their best minds, but it was a little imposing.

Trinity College is behind that wall, and I know I come from UC Berkeley, where everything is ostensibly all trees and peace, but this seems like an awfully severe learning environment. Actually, despite having a vast collection of beautiful buildings and a river on which to go punting, Cambridge was, in general, sort of severe. I blame it partially on the weather, though; it's been getting a bit grey and blustery lately. The fall colors, however, lightened things up.

Alright, it still looks a little dreary, but it was pretty in person. That was the courtyard of Clare College - see, Cambridge University is actually comprised of about 30 colleges spread all throughout the town, some of them bigger and more famous than others. There was one that we didn't see, called Magdalene College, that didn't allow women in until 1988. What?

The biggest and arguably most famous is King's College, and I admit that it was quite impressive. Even with the crush of sightseers, I stopped to snap some pictures.

Aside from the various Colleges, the town was very charming and laid out with the same twisty, discombobulating street plan as Norwich. I never knew which way we were pointed. There were plenty of shops and restaurants and charming alleyways and an outdoor market where one could buy candles or ponchos or books or fresh vegetables or ostrich burgers... what's that you say? Ostrich burgers? Yes. Brad sampled it. I couldn't bring myself to do it. And, in keeping with the overtly intellectual attitude of the city, there was very little graffiti, and the graffiti that was present was, well, very intellectual. For example:

π=Milton
Blake

I don't understand it either. There was another one that said E = MC² = Beethoven Construct, and around it there were comments and responses that were equally obtuse. It was very exciting.

We spent most of the day roaming through the courtyards of the various colleges and visiting museums and looking in at all the confectioners and window-shopping, and in the end, I'd say it was a much-needed break from the breakneck speed of the last month and a half. It also took my mind off the proximity of November 4, a date which is currently bringing me much trepidation. There are a few dates like this coming up - due dates of papers and applications, mostly, but the 4th is the real doozy. It's difficult being so far away from the U.S. at a time like this, despite my general joy at being out of the country for the time being. Hopefully by the next time I sit down to write on this blog, everything will have worked out famously.

So, good luck to all of us. Remember - never give up! Never surrender!*

*That's from the movie Galaxy Quest, which is brilliant. Credit where credit is due.

2008-10-24T16:35:00.006-04:00

Norwich

We've settled in. Our apartment is lovely, albeit a little far from Brad's job and my university. It's very comfortable, though, and Brad has taken control of the kitchen, while I spend most of my time sitting in the living room, alternately reading and getting tired of reading. As it gets darker earlier and earlier, I have an easier time concentrating.

Our neighborhood is lovely and quiet and our location in Old Catton means we're a bit closer to that picturesque English countryside that we all know from Jane Austen and Merchant Ivory. There are some cows and horses, some farms, and some parks that will look lovely when (or if) it snows this winter.

There's an eerie sort of low-hanging fog that blows in and out, and that combined with all the pastures and foliage makes for a nice walk. There are a few large grocery stores within a couple miles of us - Tesco's, Somerfield's, and the Walmart-owned Asda - and these lovely surroundings make the walk almost entirely bearable. The grocery stores here are as massive and busy as the supermarkets in the States, and they are chock-full of frozen cornish pasties and chicken tikka masala in cans. The abundance of pre-prepared food in this country helps me to understand why someone like Jamie Oliver feels like this country's relationship with food needs to be reevaluated.

But on to the cheerier stuff. This town is beautiful.

The center of town is all twisty lanes that meet at odd angles and we've finally gotten a handle on how to get around. There are small family-owned shops and gigantic corporate stores side-by-side, though all of them are probably getting slammed by the recession that just hit England like a tidal wave. The pound is weaker than it's been in many years, and if the American economy wasn't also crawling along at rock-bottom, it'd be a great time to come visit. Any takers?

Brad and I live pretty much on the cheap, though. The most that we may spend money on is perhaps a shirt or a pan from the multitude of charity shops in town, through which I paw hoping for some hidden treasure. My access to the amazing library at the University helps with my generally uncontrolled book addiction - not that I would have time to read for pleasure these days, anyway. Aside from the theoretical and academic books, I only read the occasional piece of fiction, or maybe one of the books in the poetry series that my professor edits. For anyone interested, the book titled Camp Notebook by Hungarian poet Miklos Radnoti is wonderful. Distressing, but incredible.

Contrary to how we normally operate, we haven't had any little excursions. Too much school, too much work, not enough motivation. We will, though...and you'll be the first to know about it. In the meantime, autumn is here, and I'm happy enough to watch the leaves change and wander through town when I have the time.

Now I'll get back to watching that wacky UK television and chewing my nails over the upcoming presidential election. Remember - vote early and often! Good luck, everyone.

2008-10-05T06:10:00.003-04:00

2.5 Months Later

We've left Berlin; we spent some time in CA; some time in WA; some time in NV; and here we are in Norwich, UK. Today's weather forecast: rain.

We are lucky enough to have landed in a beautiful town, more specifically in a roomy, lovely flat in the north end of the city. Our neighborhood smells like woodburning, soil and fish'n'chips. It's not a stereotype about an abundance of fish'n'chips here...they are all over. There's one right down the block from us, though I haven't tried it yet. The reason for that isn't that I don't have a burning love for fried fish and french fries...rather, things here are quite expensive, almost prohibitively so. Luckily, Brad got a job.

So let's have a look at our place, shall we?

There are some differences now: we have a dish drainer, so imagine those drying dishes in less disarray; the bookshelf is now abundant with books on stylistics, translation, linguistics and Russian Symbolism; usually, I am on the couch, reading. Incidentally, I love my program.

The campus, however, while being situated on an extremely beautiful piece of land, looks, well, sort of Soviet. It is a mass of concrete, heavy and grey, harshly dropped next to the river Yare. It's on what is referred to as the University Broad, which is a sizable lake bordered by marsh. The land is really quite lovely.

There are thousands of bunny rabbits on campus, but they hide from the students, sadly. They are much more endearing than the rude little squirrels that ran wild on the Berkeley campus. From that picture, you can't really see the hulking mass of the Uni...

That's more like it. The whole thing was built slightly raised off the ground, with all the buildings connected by walkways; the idea behind the design was that it would force students from different fields to intermingle. "Say, I was popping out for a sandwich and bumped into a physicist!" Like that. The idea is more compelling than the execution, however. Mostly it results in bottlenecks.
Though I haven't yet gone inside, there is also a pretty big museum on campus, the Sainsbury Center for the Arts. It's very modern and sometimes free for students, which recommends it highly.

We haven't spent very much time sightseeing since we arrived here. Mostly we've been taking care of things. We've been fairly successful at that so far, you'll be pleased to know. We have been here for less than a month and are already fully entrenched in what will be our lives for the next year. I have a bus pass! I have a cell phone! We have a place to live! We even have the internet! It's pretty amazing. With Bradley's new job (at Rare Grill & Steakhouse), we may not have as much time to travel as we had in Berlin, but I think that bodes well for my studies.
The city itself is very endearing. The town center has one of the oldest outdoor markets in England and the city mostly retains its medieval plan, which means I get turned around trying to get from one end of the city to the other. The streets in the center, mostly pedestrian-only, are very twisty and sometimes cobblestoned. There is a castle (and the mall beneath it is hidden very well) and Norwich Cathedral has the second-tallest spire in England and is exceedingly beautiful inside.

Soon we'll spend a day somewhere - somewhere in the East of England, maybe Cambridge, maybe Oxford, maybe Great Yarmouth. What? Never heard of it, you say? I never had either. I get the feeling it's like a less-urban Coney Island. We hear there are gypsies there.
In the meantime, I'll be studying. The rainy weather is conducive to reading. As I compile random observations about the English way of life (for instance, bus drivers telling people that the bus is full when it is clearly not), I'll pop back and share them. See that? "Pop back?" Stuff like that. Be back soon.

2008-07-10T15:08:00.002-04:00

Hamburg

was actually a pretty strange city. We spent the last weekend there; it was our first venture into a Big Western City here in Germany, and I’m not sure what I was expecting. I knew some facts about Hamburg, for example: it is the wealthiest city in Germany due to its gigantic port, and it has the biggest red-light district in all of Europe, but other than that, I didn’t know much about its character or its history. And I have to say: spending a couple of days there didn’t quite change that. I am still confused.

There were parts of it that were truly picturesque, parts of it that were grimy and full of broken glass and prostitutes, and parts of it that were so wealthy I didn’t dare go into some of the shops. I’ll begin with the picturesque…

In the south of the city lies the port, and it was expansive and at times a bit rank, as if they were transporting in a thousand heads of cattle, but it was quite beautiful. In addition to the barges and Stevedores, they had the requisite tourist-trap boats, most of them attempting to replicate, oh, the Pequod or that one famous Ark, but traps or not, they provided a pretty backdrop.

Mostly, though, it resembled the pier or shore district of many cities that have piers and shore districts, complete with randomly placed sculptures of fish jumping and little stands selling fish and chips or ice cream. The rough side of Hamburg was all but invisible around this upscale part of the city, and anyplace that the hooligans and punks reared their ugly heads (or slingshots) it didn’t really ruin the view.

And I have to say, once the red-light district finally spread out before us, I wasn’t that impressed. It wasn’t as skeezy as I thought it would be…but perhaps we were just there at the wrong time. There weren’t any scantily clad women standing on the streets in front of strip clubs trying to lure in men with wallets busting with dollar bills with Someone’s Thigh written all over them (because, actually, the one-Euro piece is a coin, as is the two-Euro piece. Paper money begins with fives, so the strippers probably clean up!), and the signs were mostly not as neon as I’d imagined. There were a couple good things about it, however.

I suppose they figure that the men will be urinating wherever they please anyway, so they’ve provided these handy urinals with no doors and nothing but a long filthy trough inside, so that hopefully the drunkards will be persuaded by the ease of it to use this and not the stairs to the metro station or the corners of buildings. And look: it worked! He wasn’t drunk, though, no worries.

And, of course, the other awesome thing about it was this:
)
That means Big Freedom, basically, and one of the most well-known…scratch that, The Most Well-Known band in history began their musical careers here, before they had the famous shaggy bowl-cuts or decided that they were bigger than Jesus, before they went on Ed Sullivan or persuaded a whole generation to somehow play their records backwards. Ironically, Paul is still alive.

To the southeast of the Reeperbahn (the main drag of all the smut), there is a very odd, very empty neighborhood called Speicherstadt, and it seemed like something out of a futuristic film in which everything is very tidy. It’s all brick, and it is surrounded and bisected by water, and so all the buildings sort of float about ravines, with their balconies hanging off into no-man’s land and strange raised walkways that lead from building to building. I imagine that the new rich of the city live in this area, while the more established wealth is on the western edge of the city. In the Speicherstadt, I imagine we would have seen women wearing Anne Klein tailored suits and men wearing those handsome three-pieces where the jacket buttons to just above their sternum. I love those.

Since we didn’t see anybody, though, we just took pictures of each other.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and a fabulous way to celebrate our anniversary. Walking through the city, getting caught in their weird 15-minute torrential downpours, riding in their strangely arranged U-Bahns, watching the landscape of the city move from pulp-board siding to glass and chrome, it was all a good time.

Incidentally, I took a picture of an anti-smoking campaign ad that appeared in some of their metro stations that I thought was one of the more ingenious campaign images I’ve ever seen; in the interest of propriety, I’m not putting the picture up here, but if you click on any of the pictures above, you can see it on my flickr page. It’s really amazing.

And, amazingly, we are leaving Germany in two weeks, and I have mixed feelings about it. We still haven’t seen a couple things in this city that I am still itching to see, so I’m sure I’ll be back to the blogosphere at least once before we leave. In the meantime, wish us luck. To some of you, but not enough of you: see you soon.

2008-07-04T18:59:00.000-04:00

Happy 1st, Happy 4th

2008-06-28T14:25:00.002-04:00

Disconnected

So our internet connection has bitten the proverbial dust, and without it, my blogging has been seriously curbed. However, I feel the need to share and show some of the things that we’ve been seeing and doing during this, the last two months of our stay in Berlin. It’s been strange coming to the realization that we actually have to leave, especially with the beautiful weather and all the German pride of the national football team going to the European Meisterschaft! With our return to California coming nearer, we’ve been venturing into previously unseen territory, namely the eastern pockets of Berlin that we’ve been lightly warned against (poor = angry and dangerous, but that occurs all over the world, really). We live on the eastern edge of the Ring, and to the east of us is an area not frequented by tourists or Westerners, and we’ve normally been the non-frequenters I speak of. However, we headed that direction, to look at the hulking mass of the old Stasi headquarters and the Plattenbau so quickly thrown up in the satellite neighborhoods of the DDR. Visions of Moscow danced in my eyes.

This expanse is not one kilometer from our house, but I’d never seen it up close. I look a little foreign, and coming from a place such as Oakland, where I tend to try to avoid any clear and present danger, I was always tentative to head this direction. Notice how the multi-colored stripes dress up the buildings. Pretty, isn’t it?

Just across the street from these quirky monstrosities is the former headquarters of the Staatssicherheit – Stasi to most. It’s been mostly untouched since it lost its power in 1990, and since then it’s been converted to a museum documenting the various nefarious workings of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Most of the original buildings still stand, and their centers of surveillance and record-keeping still bear the serious facades of DDR days, while some buildings seem newer, desperately attempting to lift themselves from their sad infamy.

Elsewhere, the East seems to be much like American suburbs: lots of trees, lots of strollers and elderly benchwarmers, McDonald’s, freeway entrances lined with billboards. If it weren’t for the tram and train tracks cutting through, I would believe it were some outlying suburban sprawl nudged up against any American city.

And now, as work wraps up and I have more time to explore the neighborhoods and alleyways of the city, I’m sure to find more bizarre scenes of an uncomfortable morph into the 21st century. However, this weekend will be devoted to Euro 08. Wanna see?

Deutschland beat Portugal, formerly favorites and now out of the championship. Tomorrow night it’s Deutschland v Spain… if I could add in the sound of firecrackers and shouting, the experience would really come across, but as it is, you’ll have to settle for this lo-fi screenshot to imagine the fervor. I’m tentative when it comes to the packs of raging, semi-nude celebrators dancing in the streets, but it’s quite a sight. Better than the anti-Scientology demonstration; better than the loud and tangled Pride Parade that we accidentally stumbled upon; better than the bright and tedious Sex and the City premiere that we accidentally stumbled upon; but the sum is always greater than its parts, and all of it has been amazing. Does it sound like I’m wrapping things up here? In a way, I am, focused on the details of our upcoming year in the UK, dreaming of saltwater taffy and Bay Area breeze, but I love Berlin; walks through the city inevitably leave me pleased and appreciative. Especially when the weather is nice.

I’ll be back with more before we leave this great city, but in the meantime, I and all the German football hooligans share the same sentiment: FINALE. Everyone cross your fingers. See you soon.

2008-05-18T17:31:00.003-04:00

West Germany, East Germany, Germany 1945

1. West Germany
Last weekend, we went to Lübeck. Lübeck was the capital of the Hanseatic empire of the 10th century. It was immediately and overpoweringly charming, what with the sunshine, the amazing architecture, and the shockingly carefree population. It's in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, which means it's in the (cue the drums) former West. This was our first venture into what was West Germany, and while I was expecting a noticeable difference, I wasn't prepared for how poignant the differences would be. Keep in mind that Lübeck is only a few kilometers west of the old border, but what a difference a few kilometers make. There were laughing sunbathers, fresh-smelling lines of laundry fluttering at the river's edge, and a surprising lack of liquor stores. I don't mean to imply that the Eastern side of the nation is dour, foul-smelling and drunken; I only mean to point out the idyllic aspects of the particular town that we visited in the West. It was crooked, but it it was beautiful.

See how this looks a bit crooked? This is the main entrance to the town, built in the 13th century, and it, like many of the town's red-brick buildings, was simply off-kilter. One end seems to dive into the ground, and the spires of the buildings in the background don't seem quite parallel. The whole town was like that. The theory is that the buildings weren't built all at once, but rather floor-by-floor over a number of decades, so they tended to lean one way or the other. However they turned out that way, they were so charming. The town was full of small passages that led to courtyards and gardens, and many of them were just my size.

(This passageway also illustrates their somewhat liberal interpretation of straight lines).

The other striking thing about the town was the churches. Granted, I'm no churchgoer, but I was particularly enthralled with the mixture of sacred and irreverent in the churches in this town. They were nearly all Lutheran or Protestant, but they still bore the dramatic marks of Catholic churches, and they wore them well. There was an excess of skulls in their paintings and sculptures, and mixed with the crumble of post-WWII reconstructions, they seemed to have personalities that were distinct, independent of their particular sect or creed. For instance, the Marienkirche in the center of the town.

I found it so sweet that these two pieces were part of the same operation. All in all, I found the town to be absolutely delightful. Later that day...

2. East Germany
...we returned to the East. We didn't go straight into the plattenbau of Berlin or the abandonment of Brandenburg an der Havel; instead, we went to Schwerin, the capital of the state of Mecklenburg-Pomerania. It was also generally very charming, albeit in a much more dusty, attic-y way. Many of the buildings were in various states of disrepair, and all but the most main streets seemed a bit abandoned, but there was one spectacular structure there.

It was so beautiful, and though it was surrounded by mosquitoes and flies, it smelled of lilacs and had its own island. I have to admit, I was keeping an eye out for the more downtrodden views of the East because I was fresh off the buzz of being in the West, but Schloss Schwerin really rubbed my eyes for me, even made me happy. See?

I didn't know what to expect, but I'll advise all who ask: don't shake a stick at Schwerin.

3. Germany 1945
OK, I obviously didn't visit Germany 1945. That's not what this is about. I think I would turn down that offer, as a matter of fact. Instead, I visited an exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau here in Berlin, a collection of photographs by the Soviet photographer Yevgeny Khaldei, and I have to say, it was one of the most amazing photo exhibitions I've ever seen. He was a Red Army photographer, and he was witness to some of the greatest and worst moments ever captured on film. I disappeared while I was looking at those photos. Highly recommended.

We're going to stick with the theme of WWII and visit Schloss Cecilienhof (the birthplace of the divided Germany) in the next week or so. All you war history buffs, it's your lucky day! For everyone else, I'll try to take pretty pictures...

2008-05-08T12:46:00.008-04:00

Spring!

It happened overnight. I woke up one morning and it was warm and sunny, the flowers were blooming, there were leaves on the trees, the cafes whipped out their sidewalk tables, and that was that. Now it's spring.

So, following the change of season, we decided to take a little trip up to the northeast coast of Germany, to the shores of the Ostsee (or East Sea, if you prefer). I'm not sure what I was expecting; I'd say that our experiences in other small towns of the former GDR have been varied, what with all the crumbling infrastructure and depopulation following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Many towns have really pulled themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps, but it's a lengthy process. However.

The towns that we visited were gorgeous. Everything you'd want from a small seaside community. Lots of ice cream and sunshine and little kids and people in visors; pretty standard fare in most of the Western world, I guess. I was pleasantly surprised to see some old GDR towns turning themselves into breezy, carefree villages. That's not to say there weren't some broken buildings lying around, but they were by no means prevalent. They were easy to ignore, at least.

Brad had fun, too. See?

I'll explain the story of the triumphant bridge pose: we arrived in a town called Greifswald to find it sleepy and Sunday-like (everything is always closed on Sundays), but no matter; our real destination was the bay. So we followed the river, hoping that eventually it would lead us to the sea. Brad kept insisting that there was a Dutch-style drawbridge, and that when we found it, the harbor wouldn't be far off. My disbelief lasted right up until the drawbridge came into sight. Hence the triumph.

We spent about half the day in Greifswald and then moved on, to an even more wonderful little town called Stralsund. Aside from the fact that the town was nearly 100% German and not adverse to looking at me strangely, it was a sweet little seaside haven. We even took a touristy little picture of ourselves to really drive the point home.

In the end, it was so pleasant that we'll be returning to the north part of the country this upcoming weekend, to a couple of towns that I've only heard some strange and mystical stories about. Lübeck and Schwerin, to be precise. I'm quite excited, actually. I'll let you know all about it.

2008-04-15T16:49:00.002-04:00

Budapest, Part Two

As promised, I return to regale you more with tales of how positively amazing I found Budapest to be. I've talked to people that have loved it and people that have hated it; obviously, I am one among the former. We spent a good amount of time in both halves of the city - it's actually two cities joined together: Buda (the quiet one) and Pest (the wild one) - and there wasn't one place we went to that didn't completely fascinate and delight me. Okay, one place - the underground around Nyugati train station was your typical seedy city scene, so I felt fairly ambivalent about that.

When we first arrived in the city, I was prepared to feel on guard in the same way that I have in, say, Warsaw (which apparently boasts neo-Nazis so plentiful that their football team is often not welcome to play with the other European teams) and Moscow (enough said). However, Budapest was an incredibly friendly and optimistic city. They had the same war-torn buildings and frost-broken sidewalks as many other cities, but the people themselves behaved as if they were living in a metropolitan Eden. They had such pride in their city and their history, and they exhibited it in a way that I've not seen anywhere else. For instance:

There was a lovely sculpture (an art form that is in abundance in the streets of Budapest, by the way) of Imre Nagy, leader of several uprisings in the 1950s who was eventually killed by the Soviet regime. The sculpture itself is sort of haunting and serene, standing in the street the way it does:

but what was most compelling about this figure was the fact that every night, a small crowd would convene around it with lit candles and flags and song. Being the skeptic that I am, when we first stumbled across this vigil, I thought it best to steer clear, in case there was a riot on the way. However, as we discovered that it was a nightly ritual, it became clear that they are simply still honoring the spirit of independence that Hungarians so pride themselves on. Not far from the Imre Nagy statue was this, a sight that would alarm and enrage most Americans:

Yes, it's the Hungarian flag with an enormous hole cut in it. This flagpole is directly in front of the amazingly beautiful Parliament building (see the last post for that one), and it has an explanation in bronze in front of it. In 1956, the Hungarians put up a stubborn and vicious fight, trying to drive the Soviets out, but the uprising was brutally put down. Of course, that didn't happen until the Hungarians had sawed Stalin off at the ankles (or a bronze likeness of him, at least) and cut the Soviet emblem out of the middle of their flag. The flag (and the dismembered feet of Stalin) are both on display in Budapest, as a little reminder that they still relish their independence.
There is a park not far outside of Budapest where they've collected some larger-than-life old Soviet monuments, erected generally by the Russians. While I don't want to glorify the Soviet past, some of the monuments were amazing.

That one I like because of the added surreal thing in the background. What is that? A water tower? It's a nice juxtaposition of history and...well, I don't know. As far as I know, that "water tower" has been there for decades.

And that one I like because, simply, it's awesome art. I'm actually not sure who the artist is, but I suspect it was done by the sculptor and painter Imre Varga, who was sometimes Soviet and sometimes not. If it was truly him, this must have been during his Soviet times. We visited the Varga museum, actually, and it was mesmerizing. Despite the fact that we were followed around by the attendants (we were the only ones there, strangely), I was rapt the whole time.

But aside from the marks of 20th century history throughout Budapest, remnants of several centuries were all throughout the city. There was, of course, the epic St. Stephens Basilica, several beautiful small chapels, some imposing and ethereal synagogues, the Danube, a castle, a citadel, some Roman ruins casually scattered throughout metro stations on the Buda side of the river (and not too covered in graffiti) and delicate, intricate turn-of-the-century moldings hidden on the roofs of buildings all through the city. In short, I loved it. Highly recommended.

The near future looks a little slim on extra-Berlin adventures, but I'm sure I'll be able to find adventure within Berlin, as the weather is getting a little nicer. I suppose spring is coming, but I sense that mostly from the blooming flowers and not so much from my sniffles and rain-soaked socks. These continental weather patterns leave me sweating in the rain and shivering in the sun. Or, in the words of Imre Varga:

2008-04-13T18:48:00.002-04:00

Hello! Welcome back to my blog. The very strange computer-to-computer internet connection that we use failed us for the last month, so I wasn't able to regale you, dear readers, with stories of March. March was an eventful month full of 1) my birthday, 2) Budapest, and 3) a visit from my mother and her husband! Much to their chagrin, I'll most likely post a photo of them, but first things first. In the middle of March, Brad and I went to Budapest.

We spent 5 days in Budapest, so I'm not sure that I'll be able to successfully recount how amazing and beautiful the city was. I have to be honest - I thought that Budapest would bear the bleak marks of the other post-Soviet countries I've visited, but that was not the case in the slightest. Okay, the buildings were often brown or grey (or a combination of the two), but the people were the farthest thing from drab. They weren't offended or irritated when we slaughtered our way through the Hungarian language, they didn't seem to have the same population of shaved-heads as I've seen in some other Eastern countries, and the city itself was so lovely. Their parliament building didn't conform to the otherwise earth-tone color-scheme of the city, and from across the Danube, the ever-present construction that seems to be going on in this part of the world wasn't so noticeable.

If you try to ignore the scaffolding and miniature crane on the right-hand side (and notice the bird in the foreground, which I particularly enjoy), you can almost see how beautiful this building is in real-life. Cranes are so ever-present.

I'm going to make this post a short one, mostly because I'm exhausted, but before I go, I'll leave you with another image that is outfitted partly in scaffolding, this time looking across the river from the other side.

The very tall church in the foreground is beautiful but not what I'd like to direct your attention to. Mostly, I'm taken by the church on the hill and the stone fortress that surrounds it (called, for some reason, the Fisherman's Bastion, even though it's quite a hike from the water). This city was very well-lit; they must know how beautiful it is.

I'll be back in the blogosphere tomorrow. Goodnight all.

2008-03-06T11:00:00.007-05:00

Oy, Berlin...

Things have been slow here, with some small exceptions. Notably, I got into the graduate program that I've been dreaming about! Enough about me, though. I'd like to talk about Berlin.
It's gotten cold again, sadly. We had some days of nearly warm weather, which was lovely. Now it's back down to about 0 or 2 degrees Celsius, which is not truly that bad; it's only that I'd been so happy with the warmish weather and random sunshine, and now I'm shocked back into scarves, hats and underthings. To any Canadian readers, please excuse my weatherly disposition. Canada would scoff at my shiverings.
The cold here, though, is amplified by the fact that we're in the throes of a transportation strike that threatens to spread and worsen; the trains generally offer a temporary respite from the brutal winds, but they're currently unavailable. It hasn't been too awfully disruptive so far, but come Monday, the whole city may be at a complete standstill. I'm sure the Berliners won't riot like the French seem to when they have mass transit strikes, but I'm also sure it'll be a real pain. Berlin is fairly expansive, and the metro system is very effective. Its absence is alarming.
There are two separate companies that run the public transport in Berlin. One is called Ver.di, and that's the one that's currently on strike. That means all the underground trains and the buses and trams are out of commission. The other group controls the above-ground trains; they're called S-Bahn Berlin GmbH, and they're not striking yet, though they went on strike a few times last year and seem to be leaning towards a strike beginning on Monday. If they decide to go on strike, well, I'll be alternately taking very long walks and sitting at home. I like the idea of city- or state-owned public transit; it seems like this sort of mini-crisis would occur with less frequency.
Finding a bright side, though: I'm seeing more of the city that normal, as I'm forced to walk routes that I would normally be zipping by on the U-Bahn. It's allowing me to take pictures of some building-sized murals that I usually see flying by out the window. For example, the paintings along the U1 line, such as my personal favorite, the astronaut.

There is also a 5-story technicolor character that I really appreciate, mainly for the extreme detail in his pants and scarf. I'd like to know how people get up the sides of these exceedingly flat buildings to paint their pieces.

And finally, there's this strange skull-made-of-babies (or skull-made-of-nude-bald-men, I can't tell) that I stare at every time the train passes it, and I still can't decide if I love it or if I hate it. I suppose I'm ambivalent. However, according to a couple websites, it's one of the best murals in Europe. I don't get it.

I'm trying to make the best of the bahn strike by taking the time to appreciate the city, and I have to say, despite the frustration about transport and the chill in the air, Berlin is a pretty easy city to appreciate. My next task for myself is to have West-Berlin-Appreciation-Hour. I don't get over there much, and my interest was piqued after venturing to that side of the city for a friend's dance performance. It's like another world on the other side of the invisible wall. Although, you wouldn't always know it by the architecture or the monuments. I find myself roaming the old American sector, shocked at how Soviet everything looks. Like this, the memorial to the Berlin Airlift of, oh, 1947 or so.

That is not an attractive monument. I sort of like how stark it is, but I still feel that it should be a little more triumphant.
Before I wrap up here, I'd like to acknowledge the blogging hiatus I've taken and promise that it won't happen again. I'm planning on having much more of interest to bring to the table, rather than the grey days of work and February that I'm still waking up from. Spring will be welcome.

2008-02-03T10:18:00.001-05:00

Relaxation

Being that I've finally put together all my applications for graduate school, I thought I'd get out of the house and take some pictures of the street art that covers our neighborhood. For the most part, the graffiti is just bad tagging and little craftsmanship, but there are some things that I think actually qualify as good decoration.

They don't seem to have the same stigma about graffiti here as they do in the States; it's not a sign of a bad neighborhood, nor does its presence lower rents in the area. It's just the norm. I like it - it dresses up the streets even when the weather is grey and gloomy.
Everyone looking forward to Super Tuesday? I know I am. I can't wait to see what happens. I'll definitely be up all night waiting for that...hopefully I'll be able to stay awake for the class I have to teach the next morning! In the meantime, I'll just do a bunch of crosswords kindly sent to us by Brad's grandma and revel in the fact that I finished my applications. I figure I've got a couple weeks before I start stressing out about the results, so I'll enjoy the peace while I can. Everybody wish me luck...

2008-01-25T17:45:00.000-05:00

My Second "I'm Sort of Homesick" Post

Hey folks! It's not so bad, really. Here are the things I miss the most:

1. Family (obviously). This applies both in California and Washington. The Chinese extended family is a really comfortable thing, and stabilizing (even if the family itself isn't the most stable!). Our Sunday night dinners are something that I feel the lack of really strongly, which brings me to something else I miss so so much:

2. King Wah. This is the best Chinese food place in the Bay Area, in my opinion, and for all who are in the neighborhood and don't go there often, please visit King Wah on 9th Street between Webster and Franklin and give them my love. Especially give them my love by eating the chow mein and the won ton soup. In general, I miss Chinese food, Thai food, Mexican food, Indian food, and many other cuisines that are based heavily on vegetables and spice. There is not so much of that here. Salt and pork, anyone?

3. My friends. Oh, how sad to be so far away from my friends. Admittedly, many of them no longer reside in the Bay Area, but somehow being on the same continent, even 3,000 miles away, seems so much closer, doesn't it?

4. Movies and television in English for when I'm feeling brain dead. The only thing I can really relax to here is CNN International and the German show Quiz Taxi, which is sort of like that show Cash Cab they play on I-don't-know-what channel in the States. On a side note to this, I just watched the movie The Pianist for the first time, and I know I'm behind the curve on that one. I don't know if I'm glad I waited until after our trip to Warsaw to watch it or not. On the one hand, it was terribly sad, and maybe it would've cast a dark shadow over our time in Warsaw, but on the other hand...actually, I think the two hands are the same in this scenario. I think the dark shadow would be fitting, no matter how sad.

Those are the main things that are really driving me crazy right now. Of course, there are other, smaller nagging desires, like bookstores stocked with books I can read, the ocean, the ability to get out in the wide empty space between the Bay Area and Sacramento, things priced in US Dollars, etc. Those things are not so hard to deal with, though. There are many things I don't miss though, such as the mud-slinging political commercials that run at all hours in these months of primaries and the hours spent sitting in traffic. I can do without those things quite well, thank you very much.

Berlin is still pleasing, though, despite all the griping. We've been having pretty constant rain and some intense wind that makes me look like a mime when I walk down the street sometimes, and I'm surprised that I actually miss sunshine, but the weather has gotten warmer since the beginning of the month, thankfully. All my various jobs are actually sort of pleasing and interesting, especially when I get to tutor people that were living in East Germany and have all sorts of stories to tell. We've been cooking a lot to stay out of the cold, and my phobia of kitchens has somewhat abated. And, perhaps most importantly, I've been writing a lot. Enough said about that.
I have no pictures to share because we've been boring boring boring homebodies for the last couple of weeks. As soon as I get the gumption to go out wandering again, I'm going to snap some of the street art in this city. There are some amazing pieces spread all over Berlin, and I feel the need to share them with you.
That's all for tonight. I'll probably stay up very very late tomorrow night waiting for the results of the South Carolina primaries, so maybe I'll blog deliriously at 3 in the morning, but I hope not, because the chances that I'll ramble uncontrollably are directly proportionate to how exhausted I am. With that said, I'll be back again soon.

2008-01-20T11:51:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone. Just a quick post to let you know that this blog may be experiencing technical difficulties in the next few days because I'll be, insanely, posting and reposting an essay for my grad school applications and then taking it down again. It's sort of a long story; all I can say is that it's a real pain to email a document that contains cyrillic letters. Especially when one doesn't have Word, as I don't. I know, I know, "how could you not have Word? Doesn't that make it impossible to send and receive documents from, I don't know, ANYONE in the world?" And yes, it does. Hold tight. And anytime now there'll be some beautiful springtime photos up, but I'm waiting for the rain to pass. I'll be back soon, and thanks for your understanding...

2008-01-03T09:46:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2008! Here we are.
We spent our New Year's in freezing Poland, and despite the harsh weather, the strange accomodations, the packed and dirty trains, and my increasingly drying skin, it was a lovely time. We left a few days before the New Year, very early in the morning, and headed to the fairly large city Poznan, in the region of Wielkopolska in western Poland. I don't have much to say about Poznan - we left about 3 hours earlier than expected and were pretty excited to get out of there. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't the worst city of all time. It just wasn't really charming. There were some decently attractive shopping promenades, and the main market square was quaint and lovely, but other than that, it was a very Soviet cross-hatch of grimy trams, icy and muddy streets, fake fur and more camouflage clothes than I'm usually happy about, and a generally unpleasant train station. The aforementioned main square, however, was, by all definitions, very pretty.

Right? There's nothing unpleasant about that, not in the slightest. It was just that when one left the very small confines of the Old Town, there was nothing to see except American fast food joints and discount clothiers. Though both of us hedged around saying so, we just didn't really care for it at all.
On the other hand, though I'd heard many negative things about Warsaw, from the moment we stepped out of the train station it was pretty much perfect. Adjacent to the station is the Palace of Culture and Science, a museum that towers above the city with the weird glory one would find in one of Moscow's Seven Sisters buildings.

Here, the streets were wide, the shop windows were adorned with pictures of Pierce Brosnan (whom they seem to love all over Eastern Europe - I'm watching a dubbed episode of Remington Steele right now!) and our hostel was in a neighborhood that straddled both the Old Town and the former Warsaw Ghetto, which allowed us to see pretty much everything we wanted to see without having to figure out the tram system. As a sidebar - knowing Russian doesn't help in Poland, despite their common linguistic family. Okay, carrying on.
The Old Town in Warsaw was so much more picturesque than I'd expected. It suffered an incredible amount of damage during WWII, much of it completely irreparable, but there is a lot of reconstruction going on, and they've obviously done an unbelievable amount of work since working their way out of the Soviet Bloc and into the European Union. Aside from the tourist trap of the Old Town, the financial and shopping districts, along with the theater quarter, have really pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

See? That's the theater of a world-class city. We took a large handful of very pretty pictures of Warsaw, and I won't post them all here; just click one of the pictures to look at the rest of them.
The Old Town, though, isn't the only noteworthy part of Warsaw. It may be the place most frequented by tourists, but we walked a few kilometers outside it to visit the former Warsaw Ghetto. There is basically nothing left of it, as it was bombed to pieces by Germany in the closing days of the War, but what's left is pretty stark and chilling. We visited the Pawiak Prison Museum, where some of the original cells and lots of documents and artifacts are open to the public. Without going into any of the extremely awful details of the prison, it was either the final stop or a waystation to the final stop for thousands and thousands of Warsaw's Jews. Outside of the museum, along with a small section of the original front gate, stands a tree; it's not a real tree; rather, it's a bronze copy of the original tree that stood there in the front yard. The original tree became too diseased to continue standing, but it was, famously, the only survivor of the prison, and it was cut down just a few years ago.

A couple kilometers from the prison, there is but one synagogue that survived the war; it survived it with many wounds, and now a greatly renovated version stands in its place, but at least it's still there. And just across a small park from the synagogue, there's an apartment-lined street, the last street of the Ghetto left standing. It's a small block on Ul Prozna, and I didn't take a picture of the remnants of the red-brick homes. Instead, I took a picture of this completely insane little corner of a building. I'm afraid I'm having one of those moments that people have when they see Jesus on piece of toast or the Virgin Mary on the side of Camaro, but I swear there's a little pudgy image of Hitler on this bit of surviving building.

Maybe that was a bad comparison. Jesus and the Virgin Mary are generally positive characters, while Hitler is, well, Hitler, but I still see his likeness on these smudges. Anyone who sees it too, please leave me a little comment, so that I can feel a little less delusional.
We were genuinely sad to be leaving Warsaw. People that I know who've travelled there haven't said many good things to me about it, perhaps because it's too Eastern or too torn up (as I said, the reconstruction is everywhere), but I really loved it. I recommend it to anyone that's not afraid of the Polish language.
From Warsaw, we took a train to Krakow, where we spent about 10 minutes wandering down a dark and deserted street, trying to locate the hostel we'd made a reservation at, before a woman drove up and escorted us into the not-yet-open hostel, which was so not-yet-open that the power had gone out. We waited with her in the dark until someone came to fix it, and then she wandered off, leaving us alone. The only other guests at the hostel were a couple of Japanese men, and when the power went out again the next night, I learned that there are Never Power Outages in Japan.
Krakow, aside from the infant hostel, was a generally appealing town, but not as much to my liking as Warsaw. Krakow has the requisite castles and cathedrals to really scoop up all the tourists, us among them, but it seemed much more like a small wonderland ushering in visitors than a real town with regular people living in it. Of course, we didn't venture out into the suburbs, we didn't see the blue-collar workers in the pollution-factories on the edge of town; we ate at the cute little restaurants and cut through the crowds to see Krakow's extremely famous and apparently extremely holy Wawel Cathedral.

This castle complex sits on a hill, and medieval Krakow culture centered around it. The Old Town of Krakow was down the hill to the north, while the newer (and relatively untouched) Jewish quarter was down the hill to the south. Several synagogues were left standing in Krakow, though they're now surrounded by Turkish fast-food restaurants and, again, cheap clothiers with fake fur hanging in their front windows.
Krakow's Old Town was, to me, pretty basic, replete with cobblestoned streets and a central square full of pedestrians and those people that are covered in metallic paint and stand really still in order to be given money by tourists. When we were there, they were preparing for the New Year's Eve celebration, so the stage and the hundreds of waiting partiers were taking up quite a lot of space, but we still got this picture of the Town Hall tower with a strange, enormous metal head in front of it.

The city was full, of course, of fireworks and M80s, like any sizable city probably was on New Year's. We stayed away from the central square for midnight, as I'm not too keen on being in a crush of tall, drunk Poles, and the next morning we got on the train to Wroclaw.
Wroclaw is a university town, but I saw more churches than university buildings or students. It was the smallest of the towns we visited, but it had the most beautiful market square of all of them.

Just outside the frame of this picture was a commemorative whipping post. What?!
Wroclaw was beautiful and cut by a river, and one of the small islands was so full of churches that I don't know how they filled them all! Of course, it's Poland. They're devoutly Catholic, and though there were plenty of statues of Pope John Paul II around, I was expecting more. Even in Krakow there weren't a large number of them; surprising, since he was a local boy.
Wroclaw was charming, but the most interesting sight in the city was located just a few blocks from the train station, and on our way out, Brad snapped a shot of it.

Especially take note of the baby carriage in the background, falling into the crumbling sidewalk. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out if this was a monument of hope or commemorating something awful. I still don't know.
And now, we're back in Berlin, where I feel like my German must be getting better because I was so relieved to see German on the signs and hear it in the trains. Polish is so difficult. It has a completely phonetic alphabet and yet I still can't pronounce anything correctly. If the attendant at the Wroclaw train station hadn't spoken Russian, we may still have been sitting in Wroclaw right now.
So, welcome back to my blog in Berlin and to the New Year! Hope the holidays treated everyone well, and that anyone living in sub-zero temperatures has a nice warm house to go back to. Happy New Year.

2007-12-23T09:27:00.000-05:00

The Holidays: Not Over Yet

In my comparisons between the way Christmas is celebrated in the States and in Germany, I've been watching the crowds in the stores and the streets. As you all know, Christmas in the States is a consumer frenzy, with fights breaking out over toys and electronics, elbowing crowds of cranky last-minute shoppers, and traffic traffic traffic. Here, there are no fights, there are laughing, benevolent crowds, and still traffic traffic traffic. I suppose the screeching tires and angry shouts out driver's side windows could count as fights, as I imagine they could come to blows eventually, but for the most part, it is still a joyous occasion here, even if one has to wait in line at the department store for thirty minutes. They really keep the people entertained in the malls and stores here, with fairy tales being told for the little ones, live music (even if it's a sad rendition of You Are the Sunshine of My Life, at least they're trying), and bizarre circus characters, wandering around to ensure a continued contentment even if the bill comes out to six hundred Euros.

Yes, those people are on stilts. And, yes, they are in front of a pillar emblazoned with the image of, of all things, St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. This picture was taken in the infamous KaDeWe, which stands for Kaufhaus des Westens, or Department Store of the West. It's sort of like Nordstrom's or Bloomingdale's, but bigger and more expensive.
The crowds, though, are not only in the stores. They are also still in the streets, despite the below freezing weather, putting their kids on rides and then standing there watching them and drinking warm liquor. In the area around KaDeWe, along the street called Kurfurstendamm and the towering Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, the Weihnachts Markt is in full swing.

Tonight is most likely the last night of these markets, as the Germans celebrate their gift-giving and church-going Christmas on the 24th of December, with the 25th being a day of feasting and the 26th being a day of family and recuperation. Therefore, the next three days will be pretty quiet here in Berlin, so I'm just sitting here in our toasty apartment, writing my blog and wearing these little pink gloves that are supposed to keep my hands hydrated. It's really very dry here. If it rained, it would be snow, but it's extremely arid. My poor sinuses. The consistently wrong weather report tells me that tonight and tomorrow it'll snow, but I'm not so sure.
And soon, we'll be off to Poland. I'll most likely add another small message to my blog before we go, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, but in prelude to that, here's a Chrismas greeting from Brad and Santa Claus (or Weihnachts Mann, if you'd prefer his German name).

2007-12-18T14:14:00.000-05:00

Finally!

Finally! I'm back in the land of blog.

Finally! I'm officially and legally able to work for regular paychecks in Deutschland. I spent a few hours waiting at the ausländerbehörde and procured my work permit. It was our umpteenth trip to that place (Brad, though he didn't need anything from the immigration office, went with me, and Thank Goodness! They don't speak any English there). I imagine that the immigration office in any city is a nightmare, but it was my first experience with the dreary waiting rooms and severe German officials, and to say I'm glad it's over is something of an understatement.

Finally! We figured out what we're going to do for our holiday. I believe I told you previously that we were planning a trip to Sweden and Denmark, but after a lot of deliberating, we decided it would be too dark, and too expensive. We then decided to go to Munich, but somehow, we simply couldn't get excited about that. I think both of us are eager to go to a different country. So, after much hemming and hawing, we decided to go to Poland; it's inexpensive, it's close, and I've always wanted to go there. I'm quite excited! We'll visit Poznan, Warsaw, Krakow and Wroclaw, pronounced, apparently, Vrots-waff. I'll be really leaning on my phrasebook there, but hopefully our combined knowledge of German and Russian will help us navigate. Anyone want anything from Poland?

Finally! I have pictures to share, and they are quite lovely, if I do say so myself. We went this weekend to Dresden, and though I'd heard it was a beautiful city, it was even more beautiful than I'd imagined. The Deutsche Bahn offers a special fare to Dresden around the holidays, as Dresden has what is supposedly the most wonderful Weihnachts Markt in Germany (Christmas Market, that is). I thought to myself before we left that I would take advantage of the fare to get a cheap trip to Dresden and not spend too much time at the market, but once we got there, the outdoor stands offering wooden toys, delicious snacks, candles and sweets were nearly hypnotizing. Behold:

There were many of those wooden carousels spread throughout the city, as the market filled every square and wide-open space (and even some cramped spaces!). This one was the most magnificent, probably twenty-five feet tall, if you can't tell by the picture. The city was full of holiday cheer, and though it was about 25 degrees outside, the Glühwein kept everyone warm. Glühwein, for those who don't know, is a warm, spicy wine, sometimes with a shot of rum in it. It's delicious, but I generally forego alcohol, so I made do with hot cocoa. The streets were overflowing, sometimes nearly impossible to walk through, but it was so lovely that I didn't mind toddling along, surrounded by people much taller than me. The background of amazing architecture didn't hurt, either.

Looking down that slim lane of Christmas, you can see the Frauenkirche at the end. It was bombed during the war and collapsed, so it's been arduous to rebuild, but they've done a wonderful job. Nearly the whole city was destroyed during WWII, but these days it's hard to tell, what with the forests of Soviet buildings and the gothic, looming stone buildings that survived. When we got away from the old town's Weihnachts Markt and across the bridge to the newer section of town, the landscape of the city was almost unbelievable.

As we crossed the bridge back to these buildings, there were hundreds of birds circling the belltower. It was dusk, and people were stopped all along the bridge, standing in the freezing wind and staring at the lights. I felt so lucky. Brad took a picture of me earlier in the day, looking very much like I felt lucky. I tried to smile at the camera, and for a couple of moments, I think I did, but my eyes kept veering off in other directions, unable to separate themselves from the amazing landscape. I was awestruck the whole day.

I highly recommend Dresden to visitors. There is some talk of Dresden being a city of a high concentration of, ahem, white supremacists, but that aspect of it was shrouded when I was there, covered up by warm crepes, warm drinks, various smells of roasted pork and the constant presence of Christmas music, both in English and in German. The night before, we had spent a few hours battling the crowds in Berlin's Christmas markets, but nothing could've prepared me for the pure, unadulterated celebration we found in Dresden. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend.
I'll leave you with a final image, one which I think shows both the baroque beauty of Dresden and the very contemporary machinations of a modern-day festival. Happy holidays indeed.

2007-11-03T11:08:00.000-04:00

Dear Reader

I have no fun excursions to report on, nor do I have any beautiful photos of the last few days of work and relaxation, I am simply saying hello, and that things are coming along quite nicely, thank you very much. I find myself strangely very content today. Recovered from a few days of a mild common cold and ready to go to work this evening (as a kindermädchen, of course), watching the rain outside, I feel pretty happy. I've got some language-exchanges set for the next few days, in Russian and in German, and my brain thanks me for this workout. Brad and I are planning our winter vacation; we have pretty much settled on Denmark and Sweden as our destinations, and though it will be frightfully sad to be apart from my family for the holidays, it will be, surely, a winter wonderland in Northern Europe, the likes of which are not available on the west coast of the United States. It may be a winter wonderland of unforgiving sleet and ice, but will be lovely nonetheless. New Year's on the Baltic Sea!
It's autumn here in Berlin, to the extreme. The leaves rain through the air in a way that most Californians are pretty much unfamiliar with, and I must look like a crazy person as I stare at the cascades as I stumble down the sidewalk; the Germans, after all, are used to the seasons.
All in all, all is well. Welcome to November.

2007-10-28T09:31:00.000-04:00

Lazy Sunday

Unbeknownst to either Brad or me, daylight savings hit Berlin today. Were it not for the inexplicable talents of my computer, I would probably still think it was an hour later than it "actually" is (what is actual, anyway?). That, however, is not very important, as it is a sleepy Sunday of laundry and cranked-up radiators. It's as good a day as any for an extra hour.
The last week was busy with work and friends in town (both of which are still current events). A strange fog moved into the city and riled up my sinuses, so I'm glad for a couple days of home-bound tasks and reading. (I've been reading the Pulitzer-Prize winning book Middlesex, which, despite my misgivings, is very well-written). And, of course, now I have time for you.
I've got a couple weeks to tell you about, don't I? Alright then.
Two weekends ago, Brad and I went to a town called Leipzig. Anyone been there? I see some hands.
It was a small town, at least compared to Berlin. A university town, I couldn't tell if their "Stamp out White Power" march (or whatever it was called) was for or against the aforementioned Power. I almost thought it was a party of soccer houligans. That aside, though, it was a very picturesque little community with an obsession with Bach and shopping.

Leipzig's Stasi Museum occupied the building that was formerly the Stasi headquarters. Though I have no photos of it, it smelled funny in there. It was cold, white and cubic. Aside from that, though, Leipzig was grand and friendly. The narrow cobblestone streets almost always gave way to unexpected and lovely structures, and the people were jolly. The "new" parliament building was storybook-worthy (except for the modern rust of electricity and gas in the foreground).

We only spent two days there, but that was pretty much enough. It was very charming, but I was glad to return to Berlin. The longer I'm here, the more at home I feel, and there's nothing to emphasize that like going away and coming back. To amplify that sensation even more, the bizarre but awesome October Lights festival went on here for two weeks, and it was worth fighting the cold for. Crowds of people roamed the city with tripods and friends and snapped pictures of already-eerie building with even more eerie lights cast on them. Here is the Berliner Dom with the TV Tower in the background:

And the Brandenburger Tor:

While I'm not always impressed by the Brandenburger Gate's appearance, I am impressed by the fact that Napoleon dragged the chariot on top all the way to France, and that it was then dragged all the way back. There is a distracting amount of construction going on around the Gate, and that sort of dampens its magnificence, as well. All of Berlin is a construction zone.
We took the opportunity, given the nighttime sight-seeing, to actually go into the Reichstag. It only took a half an hour waiting in the cold, rather than two or more hours like it can sometimes take, and I suppose it was worth it. The inside of it has been well-documented by any and all travel books about Berlin and/or current German parliament, but it's irresistible, once you're inside. It's like every person thinks "I can take THE defining picture of this, I just know it". Here was my attempt:

OK, it's a little blurry, and the eagle is visible but not detailed, and the flag is present but a little stick-like, but hey. I gave it a shot. The walk to the top had made me a little woozy, anyway. Not usually afraid of heights, there was something about the spiral march to the top of the dome that gave me a touch of vertigo. It was awesome.
And now, it'll be a pretty standard week. Maybe a couple hours of struggling to get a tax-id number, a sum of a few hours on the train to various works and back, and, with any luck, sufficient sleep. Should be pretty uneventful. The constantly-running CNN International being broadcast into my living room will bring me excitement enough - you know, fires in California, flooding in the Congo, Putin, the frenzy of hopeful Democratic presidential candidates. (It turns out that CNN International is much better than its domestic counterpart, thank heavens). Hope all is well elsewhere.

2007-10-23T19:04:00.000-04:00

Just a Little Hello

It's the middle of what is proving to be a fairly long week. With a friend in town and work continuing (thankfully), I haven't had much time to sit and call forth any interesting vignettes, nor have I had the time to find my way to the internet cafe to post any pictures. However, I thought it best to check in.
What's in store for next time:
a. Some lovely pictures and lovely tales from a wonderful weekend in the university town of Leipzig, about two hours from Berlin by car. I know the distance by car because that's how we got there. We don't have a car; rather, we caught a ride there and back with strangers, and it was a very odd and somewhat un-American experience (Americans, as some may know, are wary of long car rides with strangers). Leipzig was beautiful and quite lively, except for a few hours on Sunday afternoon when all the stores were closed.
b. Some images from the still-continuing October Lights festival that's going on here in Berlin. All the major monuments are eerily lit with different colors and flashing lights. I believe they do this because it's beginning to get a little chilly out and it keeps the people still feeling happy. I've never seen so many people with tripods. The Brandenburger Tor and the TV Tower, among other things, are decorated with strange images. It was quite beautiful, and also quite cold.
c. I went into the Reichstag, finally. The wait was thirty or so minutes, though we went at night. During the day, the wait can take hours. It was fairly beautiful on the inside.
I'm sure that by the time I get around to sharing words and images about these things, I will have even more fun times to report on. However, it being past one in the morning, I'll leave it for later. And happy birthday to my Uncle Billy!

2007-10-09T16:46:00.001-04:00

This'll Be a Long One

As I sit listening to the strains of Family Guy in German (not as funny as the original, I'll tell ya), I'm feeling a little longing for home. All is well, though; a little homesickness is to be expected. (The voice on the tv shrieks "Luke Perry ist schwul?")
I've been passing the time working, going to museums, and sometimes venturing outside the city limits to see the ruins of former DDR towns. These ventures have been very interesting, educational, and sometimes frustrating, as I find out that the famed Deutsche Bahn, supposedly the most efficient and punctual rail system in Europe, is not so ideal. We went, last weekend, to a small town about an hour outside Berlin called Brandenburg an der Havel. We sort of structure our lives around the advice of the writers of Lonely Planet guidebooks (a shameless plug but well-deserved) and the lack of information about Brandenburg should've been a sign. However, lovers of desolate Soviet wastelands that we are, we thought we'd take a day trip there. As a town, it's sort of beautiful in a dusty way, a grimy way; there were truly, really cobwebs flying from everything; from signposts, from the corners of buildings, from cars. It was a sign, I think, of abandonment. The streets were nearly empty, and though there were pretty churches, it wasn't very picturesque, all in all. It was obvious that everyone had moved to the West or the city as soon as they could when the wall came down. But, for the most part, it was very quaint and pretty, despite the remnants of a former Russian presence. Well, this can't be called a "remnant", really. It's a little too big.

This tower was on top of a hill and offered a view of the whole town. We didn't go up in it. It seemed, somehow, out of place amidst the town's red brick architecture and generally pastoral attitude. And then, returning to Berlin from humble Brandenburg, we weren't able to simply the board the train, due to a collision on the tracks, so we had to stand around with about a hundred and fifty surly Germans who didn't know any more than we did about how to get where we are all going. After about an hour and a half of waiting, a single bus pulled up to save us, which seemed a little meager. We got on it, amidst a lot less pushing than I was expecting, considering the circumstances. The only benefit of this ersatzverkehr was that we were able to see much more of the countryside than we would have otherwise. All in all, it was tiring and frustrating but maybe...and only just maybe...redeemed itself with pretty scenery.
Speaking of pretty scenery... I feel obligated to include this, for the viewers at home.

It's the Reichstag! Berlin debates and legislates here! I stayed far away from the throngs of tourists! And I went to the museum...
The longer I'm here, the more I am discovering that Berlin is hiding in her vast expanse a multitude of museums and galleries, some so hidden that the only trace of them is a bell at ground level. They are really quite wonderful. Touring these galleries, I'm beginning to see the Berlin that I thought I would find when I arrived here; the modern art, the minimalism and brilliantly ironic design, the freakish photography and video art that leaves me staring for literally minutes at a time (I know, that doesn't seem like a long time, but...it just is). Even the metro stations hang striking, sometimes disturbing art on their greasy, blackened walls. Particularly compelling is this series by Turkish artist Nezaket Ekici, housed in the U2 station at Alexanderplatz.

The pictures don't do justice to the surreal moment one finds oneself in when one is simply waiting for the train and begins to wonder, what are these pictures doing here? Are they ads? No. They are art.
But I'll close this rather long and rambling episode with a bit of art made by Bradley.

What's that, you ask? That's a dinner that he made for us while I was teaching English to a small but loud group of kindergarteners on Monday. It's couscous with a little cinnamon, wraps full of fresh veggies and bierwurst and cheese, and some amazingly fluffy meatballs full of walnuts, onions, cinnamon and coriander. It was a very lovely dinner.
And so, until next time. I'm happy that I get to share, thanks to the wonder of the internet, of which I am still suspicious. It makes me feel a little closer to home.

2007-10-04T17:03:00.000-04:00

Oakland, Flashback

I had a dream.
Yesterday I talked to my friend Josh (who, shamefully, doesn't read my blog much) and he told me Oakland was the same ol', same ol'. People getting shot, mattresses in the street, etc. And then, last night, I had this dream.
In the dream, I was living in an apartment on College Avenue, not far from the bookstore where I used to work. Except this version of College was a bit darker and seedier than the affluent wonderland that is Rockridge. In my version, there were dog fights, people getting stabbed, people fighting, trash everywhere. And try as we, the tenants, might, we simply couldn't get the area cleaned up. Call the BPD, they'd say it was the OPD's responsibility. Call the OPD, they'd say Berkeley. Keep in mind this is somewhere around 60th and Telegraph, where the geography is a bit split up like that. That's pretty much all I have to say about that; I just thought it was interesting. Like home reaching out to me with a little bit of irony.
Another version of home reaching out to me (and one much more friendly) is that I went to see Jonathan Lethem read tonight. It was at a gallery called Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt (The House of World Cultures) and it wasn't the sort of intimate, folding-chair reading that I'm used to. It was an auditorium, and complete with very serious commentary by two women in black, who debated and reacted and got into the problems of copyright and influence. I was pleased. Jon Lethem was, actually, wonderful. I think so many stacks of so many copies of his books over the last few years caused me to turn away from him (though some very dear friends of mine endorsed him fervently). He was humble and well-spoken and truly interested in things other than himself (which is not always the case with Very Popular Writers) and so I come away with both thumbs firmly up. Unfortunately, a paperback copy of his new book cost almost 18 Euros, which is about 24 or 25 dollars, and I simply couldn't justify the expense. A shame, that, because the excerpts he read from his newest book, You Don't Love Me Yet, were wonderful.
And so, I had a 24 hour period of little bits of the Bay, and now I'll go back into Berlin, into tandem language partners and tax numbers. Stories from that to follow shortly.

2007-10-01T15:52:00.000-04:00

Histories, Personal and Public

As I was saying in my last post, I spent the last week with an old dear friend, and so in tandem with the picture I posted of the two of us as children, here is one from more recent days.

In addition to being a very complimentary photo of our small kitchen table, it's tangible evidence of something going right. Thank goodness. Now she's gone home but it was very special. Years and years ago, we were friends in a pretty foreign land, and that's the situation once again. I take it to mean that Taiwan 1984 was meant to be, as is Berlin 2007.
She came to Berlin with her longtime boyfriend, and while they were here we traipsed all over the city, in sun and in showers. We went to a Very Huge art opening, Art Forum Berlin, which we were able to get into because one of Efrat's professors had some work in the exhibition. It was a place to see and be seen, for sure, a place where skinny goth women slipped past wealthy fat men smoking cigars, trying to impress their Dynasty-era dates with names and numbers. There were hundreds of people there. It was distracting. I wasn't able to look at the art at all, actually...too much in my periphery. It was, though, fascinating to see such a ground-zero affair.
We went, too, to the Jewish Museum, and I have to say, I was a little disappointed with the permanent collection. The special exhibitions were works by Charlotte Salomon and Chantal Akerman, and both of them were beautiful. A picture of the Akerman installation:

I was proud that I could even make this picture come out properly. It was an awesome installation, and I didn't do it justice, but I tried.
Other than these visiting shows, though, the permanent museum was a bit - how should I say - pandering? Thousands of years of Jewish history in Fun! Interactive! Multicolored! displays. It was as if they were trying to make it digestible. It looked like a children's museum. The design of the building is supposed to be groundbreaking, and I suppose the fact that the only entrance or exit to the building is underground is fairly interesting, but the whole thing was a bit pat. The only piece of interest was the clanging, ghostly Memory Void.

There, you had to walk over all these iron faces, mouths agape, and each of them made a horrible, sharp noise, ringing against all the other screaming faces. It was quite haunting, but it was the only part of the museum that evoked any emotion in me whatsoever. Try as I might, I couldn't walk quietly.
And now, in two days, we'll celebrate German Unity. I'll have two whole days blissfully free, and I'll go to museums, be a tourist/artist as I stop in the middle of sidewalk to get lost/take a picture, and I'll try and relax a little after a couple weeks of endless running around. I'll be in touch.

2007-09-30T17:12:00.000-04:00

An Excused Absence

I have had this reason for not putting up a post in the last few days: a friend of mine whom I haven't seen for, oh, about 23 years has been in town! And we've seen each other! And now it's been only a few hours since we've seen each other. It's quite miraculous, actually, and owes a lot to the wonders of the internet, which I choose to boil down to human tenacity and ingenuity. It was quite amazing and now she's gone and I have to say that I'm a little sad about it. But check out her photos - I've added a link to her Flickr page to the right-hand side of this page, so that everyone can enjoy her pictures and appreciate the fact that we are once again in touch. For anyone interested, here's what we looked like the last time we saw one another:

As you can see, things have changed quite a bit.
In other news, though, thanks to all who sent me good wishes regarding finding work - things went swimmingly and I find myself with three definite weekly engagements and more surely on the way! What luck! Or perhaps it was hard work, I don't know. What I do know is that it is very exciting that I feel that my life here in Berlin is becoming more established, that I'm actually a part of the city now and not just a visitor. In honor of that, I've finally followed through with my promise to show a little more of the sights one would see when just living in Berlin, rather than snapping sightseeing shots. Here's one now.

That one is Brad on a really big swing at Mauerpark, which is a park that still has part of the Berlin wall up. To the right is a large field and a very large flea market, which the following picture does only so much justice.

To the left is the standing part of the wall, which is being liberally painted on by quite a lot of people. The American perception of graffiti as a sign of a bad neighborhood doesn't really exist here. Here, it's still a viable form of expression. See?

But that's enough of that. That's really only one panoramic scene of one place in Berlin (in a district called Prenzlauer Berg). There is plenty of art to be seen all over the city, not just in this one place. However, I still haven't captured enough of that art to show a good cross-section of styles and forms. This one building caught my eye - wonder why?...

That building is found in our district, called Friedrichshain. There are so many more things I will show you...
I'm getting more settled here, partially due to finding various forms of work, and also because in the pursuit of these various jobs, I've really been all over the city, so I feel that I'm getting my bearings in a sort of accelerated way. There are days that I spend at least two hours on public transport, and that's a lower limit. It's giving me a chance to see the outskirts, the less urban parts of the city, the rich places, the poor places, the extremely quiet and residential places, and the clogged places. I've gone in plenty of bookstores, several clothing stores, a few museums and a few churches and synagogues in various levels of glory or disrepair. Things are coming along...

2007-09-23T14:38:00.000-04:00

There's something about new German films

As far as a good travel narrative, this forthcoming ramble may be a little dissatisfying. However, some film buffs that read my blog may take interest. There's something about new German films.
OK, it's not an across-the-board issue I have, it's pretty half-and-half. However, the bad half is, well, horrid. Here's the issue: the non-ending.
Now, there seems to be a stereotype here about how Germans like non-endings and Americans can't stand them; we want more of a fist-in-the-air closure at the end of our films, apparently. And, maybe, I'm a little guilty of that myself. But I also consider myself a fan of the slow, silent European film, and my tolerance for dangling is quite high. However.
We watched some very good movies, don't get me wrong. We watched a movie that was half German and half Romanian called Offset that was excellent, the kind of movie that you think about the next day without meaning to. We watched Elementarteilchen (Elementary Particles), a film based on a Michel Houellebecq novel, and a movie about anarchism in East Germany called Was Tun, Wenn's Brennt (What To Do In Case Of Fire), both of which sometimes wandered, but both worth watching. And, of course, we watched Goodbye, Lenin and Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Princess and the Warrior), which are both wonderful. We haven't yet watched Lola Rennt again, but we probably will. The Berliners seem particularly taken with that film, as they are with Goodbye, Lenin, and I think I know why. They have endings!
Here are some movies we watched that had no ending: Milchwald, Montag Kommen die Fenster, and, to a lesser degree, Berlin is in Germany. That last, though it had a rather soft ending, still left me feeling sort of satisfied in an "I just watched a movie" kind of way. The previous two, however, left me feeling like I was staring at a blank wall for two hours, with not even the shadows changing. They both had pretty cinematic moments, but for the most part didn't work hard enough to leave off as emptily as they did.
On a positive note, watching all these German movies has helped with my language acquisition! I've refused to watch anything in the English language, and we always watch the films with subtitles on, either English if the dialogue is particulary fast or difficult, or German if the language is simpler and we're feeling a little more exuberant. It's very helpful.
This weekend we wandered through a large chunk of the city, but I'll save my tales of that until I can put the pictures up, too. It occured to me that I've only been really showing images of sort of touristy places with castles and churches and happy clouds, so lately I've been trying to get pictures of what's more like the real Berlin, pictures of places that real people go and not just the sightseeing crowd. It'll be a whole new side of Berlin for the home audience. And also for me.

2007-09-17T17:46:00.000-04:00

I've Had a Little Hiatus

I took a little break from blogging because I took a little break from doing interesting things. I spent a few days being a bit stressed out and wondering what I should be doing. Brad says, "Just think of it like time off! Relax!" and I say, "I'm not really good at time off. I like to have places to go and schedules and such" and I don't particularly like not speaking the language and only being able to 1) walk around, and 2) clean the house. Sense some stir-craziness? Part of the frustration is that in many situations, were I without something to do, I would go to a bookstore and browse for hours, but here the books are mainly in German, which is sort of prohibitive, to say the least.
However, we spent the weekend going places and doing things and I didn't feel the least bit stir-crazy. We went to the expansive Treptower Park and walked along the river, lost and looking for the market and some sausages. The weather was beautiful and the Soviet monuments plentiful.

We finally found the fabulously grungy flea market (it was full of Americans, strangely - I guess we love bargains). We walked along the Spree River, and somewhat impossible to miss is this huge, curious, shiny trio rising out of the water. I'd only seen it from a bridge far off, so I wasn't fully aware that it was Quite So Huge. I'm not sure what it's purpose is. It's very playful, and surely isn't stamping out fascism like the towering figure we'd just seen.

The previous day we went to a suburb of Berlin called Spandau, which was quaint and sweet and had a cute little market going on, with many laughing children and jolly adults. In the center of this market was a church, called Nikolaikirche. Both inside and outside were modest and austere, and it was quite lovely. Apparently, people from Spandau are more loyal to Spandau than they are to Berlin, and it was obvious when we were there. Very precious, you know? Spandau also has a citadel, though, a real citadel! Complete with moat! It had a nice monument, too. Lots of exuberance and triumph in the monuments around here...

Finally, we just walked around the old town, and it was a simple, peaceful afternoon. I didn't want to take this picture because I thought it would be, like Spandau, very precious, but here you have it anyway.

That's gonna be it for now. My German is improving and my familiarity with the layout of the city is growing, and next time I blog I'll be more organized and hopefully have some good news about work! In the meantime, I've discovered a passionate love for sauerkraut...

2007-09-13T18:59:00.000-04:00

I've Got Two Job Interviews Tomorrow

Wish me luck.

2007-09-08T16:52:00.001-04:00

Gone to the West Side

Today was a quiet day, a stay-in day, but we've been mostly roaming as much as possible. We went to the requisite tourist attraction that is the square kilometer that holds the Brandenburg Gate (of "Tear this wall down" Reagan fame) and the Reichstag.* There were the requisite tourists, the expected crowds. Hilariously enough, we forgot the camera that day. No worries. We'll go back, many times I'm sure.
We did, thankfully, not forget the camera when we visited the Schloss Charlottenburg in the western district of Charlottenburg. Brad took this amazing picture.

Just look at it. Let it soak in. In the expansive gardens surrounding this palace, there were people practicing martial arts, people speaking Russian, old women sitting on benches, and tons of banana slugs. Actually there are banana slugs everywhere here.
We saw, too, the broken and burned Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche. It was built in the last decade of the 19th century and almost destroyed in the middle of the 20th. Now it stands in the midst of a commercial district full of street vendors, designer stores and flashing cameras, kitty corner from the infamous Erotic Museum (which was very interesting to visit but not particularly erotic to the non-trench-coat crowd). Despite the tawdry surrounding, though, the church still looms with austerity.

Later that day we saw a different sort of monument, one about which I was less than delighted.

Germany recently had a tussle with the Scientologists, so I'm surprised that they would have such a huge building in the center of Berlin. They're nothing if not stubborn.
And, as I said, today was a quiet day. I did, however, manage to go to a bakery all by myself and order some pastries and pay, all without saying "Wie, bitte?" (Rough translation: I'm sorry, I'm stunted). That was quite satisfying. Mostly I allow Brad to do the talking because, a) he speaks more German than I do, and b) he looks more German than I do. This has resulted in generally clean interactions, with the occasional compliment to his accent and one strange instance of someone accusing him of being Austrian, and therefore slow. It was both an insult and a compliment, I suppose.
Finally, on a personal and domestic note, I have killed absolutely none of the plants that we are now living with. My involvement with them has been limited but ten days in my company usually converts plants to compost, at best. I'm on a roll.

*We went to the Berlin Airlift Museum the other day, which is where I learned about how apparently important that Reagan speech was. It was being played on a continuous loop; it didn't bring tears to my eyes. It was, however, a fascinating museum.

2007-09-07T15:58:00.000-04:00

So I'm Getting a Bit More Comfortable

It's our ninth day here, and I'm beginning to not feel like such a foreigner. Learning the language would probably help. I've been attempting to speak it and have generally not made a fool of myself, and maybe I'm learning more of it than I think I am, what with the immersion and all, but it's still a struggle. But really - when you order a coffee to go in the States, do they ask if you want a lid with it? No, they assume you'll just need one. This was one of the problems. So for further reference - Deckel means lid.
Today we went to two distinctly different neighborhoods. One was populated mainly by Turks, the other mainly by hipsters. And when I say hipsters, I mean Chuck Taylor- wearin, dyed hair-havin, studded belt-sportin hipsters. I felt like I was in the Mission district, except it was populated with Europeans and not North Americans. Lots of record stores and trendy shoes and locked hair in topknots. One thing missing: tasty burritos.
And now for some non-sequiters:
Just watched the movie Charade for the umpteenth time. Still good.
According to the two-screened TV that plays in the U-Bahn, 31% of kids ages 13-17 in our district smoke cigarettes. What is going on there?
I'd like to get a job.
Stay tuned for pictures of the inside of the Kuhlschrank.
Today we ate at a Russian stand - an Imbiss. I had some awesome pelmeni with dill on it. My Russian came back easily. I consider it a personal triumph that I was relieved to hear someone say "Надо еше?"

2007-09-03T13:57:00.001-04:00

It's Only Been Five Days

I estimate that we've walked perhaps twenty miles or more since we've arrived here. It's nice but sort of a shock to legs grown lazy from cars and couches. A very helpful source tells me that calcium and potassium are necessary for muscle contraction and relaxation (hi mom!). We are eating helpful vitamins. Additionally, they are coming to us in the form of vegetables that are a bit more tasty than those back home. The tomatoes and the cucumbers have flavor! The eggs are delicious! Today we made pelmeni from scratch! Other funny food things: the wrappers at McDonald's have nutrition information, all based on a 2000-calorie diet; popular here is currywurst, a sausage with ketchup and curry powder all over it; there is practically no Russian food.
As for the sights around the city:

That's the Soviet TV tower.

That's a very Soviet statue. Recognize a theme?

That is an old sort of concentration camp. It wasn't a fatal place to be, and the people concentrated there were apparently politicians, held so they wouldn't interfere with the actions of Hitler. Now it's a pleasant sight in the middle of a leafy, upscale 'hood called Prenzlauer Berg, a district for which I have a distinct liking.
We ventured a bit east and went to a smaller city called Potsdam, which was the relaxation grounds for Kaiser Wilhelm. It was quite beautiful, and the countryside getting there was not blistered by the century as Berlin was. The more I walk through the city, the more the fact of war sets in. There are so many buildings in disrepair, so many memorials and preserved centers of fallen powers. It's really quite staggering.

2007-08-31T08:07:00.000-04:00

And Here We Are

This is our apartment.
This is also our apartment:

If you look closely at the bathroom, you'll see that it is sort of funny. It is, however, a fabulous aparment and just the right size for the two of us and the apartment is in a section of the city that resembles Moscow in a way that, frankly, took my by surprise. We live in what used to be East Berlin, so it's not surprising that the architecture and grid system is sort of Soviet, but I wasn't expecting it. The East, though, has done a good job of preserving some of the more grandiose, fourteenth-century buildings, too, though; it's not a black and white distinction between East and West. And despite the Soviet-style aesthetic, the palpable air of casual intolerance and violence of Moscow is not here, of course. Moscow was an Olympic-grade hater.
It's only been two days, so I haven't much else to say, except that we've probably walked about ten miles so far (or fifteen or so kilometers - I don't get the metric system yet, nor do I have a realistic grasp on the dollar-to-euro conversion). We've seen about a half mile of the Berlin wall, we've walked on Pushkinskaya - excuse me, Puschkin Allee - and we've been through at least enough of the city to see astounding postmodern design adorning the buildings, about a hundred hair salons and a statue of Lenin, neatly tucked into a little parking lot. People here have lots of dogs and kids. It's all very lovely.

2007-07-22T03:55:00.000-04:00

Things I've Learned From Selling Harry Potter

1. People who are into it are suspicious of those who are not. They shut down and back away; won't look you in the eye.

2. I began to think to myself by the end of the night that maybe I should buy one. It's not because I would read it right away, and it's not because I think it'll become a collector's edition anytime soon - they printed so many millions of them. It's because they became a commodity like a cell phone or an ipod - you simply must have one! What, you don't have one yet? You're a holdout.

3. Only one person asked for it by its full name. "Hi, do you have a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?" I laughed. He said, "why are you laughing?" I told him that most others truncated it. "The new Harry Potter book?" "Harry Potter?" "Harry?" These were the timid ones.

4. People from every fashion, age- and income-range of the Anglo-Saxon diaspora are seeking out this book.

5. I wish I lived in a big, spooky castle where I could creep through damp hallways with a candelabrum and then arrive at a stony, tapestried room, where I would then sit and read James and the Giant Peach.

6. As a bookseller, there has been and is no other thing in the store that is sold with the same ferocity as This. (Well, one thing - but I won't go into that). This becomes the opposite of the "forest for the trees" thing.

7. Many people deny themselves sleep.

2007-07-19T03:18:00.000-04:00

I Don't Usually Do This

I am generally quite against blog posts that are comprised of nothing but diatribes about this or that, but I am disgusted with Scholastic. I can't believe how lawsuit-crazy they have become. Remember when you were in elementary school and you'd get those thin little newspapers that invited you into the Weekly Reader Book Club, and many of those books were Scholastic books, struggling to get noticed and bought for the totally reasonable price of a dollar ninety-nine? Now Scholastic is pretty much giving the finger to any little kid on a budget that can't afford a thirty-five dollar book. It's a cash cow, but it's a book for kids, so it's ethically sound - this renders its makers untouchable. It lives again, reincarnated by the wonder of film. It's a bit Augustus Gloop.

2007-06-30T01:57:00.000-04:00

Here I Am Again.

I've been remiss in my blogging because
a) I've been in school and really boring,
b) I sort of forgot I had a blog, and
c) I've not been taking pictures that are interesting in the slightest and people really like pictures and don't so much want to read about how boring a class on Modern Art might be or how many people ask a bookseller where the nonfiction section is.
However:
I am moving to Berlin. This means lots of pictures! And also a great distance between you, dear reader, and I. For that reason you will need to see my face only through virtual means, and in doing so you will see pictures of interesting Germany! And Poland! and France! and Pompeii!
Stay tuned!

Also:

2006-12-14T16:48:00.002-05:00

Hello I'm Home

Hello all! I've returned to the balmy Bay Area. I'm not sure how I feel about being home again quite yet. I think that I may go insane in just a little while; what's the opposite of seasickness? That's how I feel. Too stationary.
No, not really. But I do think that I was expecting home to be a bit more exciting than it's turned out to be. So what do I do now? I go through the pictures I took during my travels, realize that there are not very many of them, and decide which of them I will put up here to try to indicate to you, dear readers, what it is that I miss and don't miss about Moscow and the other spots in Russia that I visited.

Here are some things that I do miss:

The ghostly nature of the provinces really gets under one's skin. This picture was taken in Vladimir, once upon a time the capital of Rus' and now a fairly deserted, snow-covered wonderland. There's not a lot of places I can go in the Sacramento area that rival the austerity of this.

This was taken in Novgorod, also an old capital. It was every bit as spooky as it looks in the photo. Tilden is spooky sometimes, but not in this way. My imagination is the spookiest part of Tilden; i can't say that about Novgorod.

This is Masha! She's the three-year-old I lived with, along with her brother and parents and the grandparents who were usually absent and their three cats. Masha spoke much better Russian than I do.

I really really miss being able to walk across the Moscow River and go to Red Square whenever I want to.

Here are some things I don't miss:

Cookie-cutter Soviet style apartment buildings look like good places to waste away in, silently waiting for death. They're just as awful on the inside.

What do you mean I can't take my ice cream in there? But it's so creamy and delicious!

As you can see, there are more things that I miss than things that I don't. If I had some pictures of myself commuting through hellish Kievskaya station every morning, that would be under the "things I don't miss" column. However, give me a little time, and I may even be missing that.

Stay tuned for more pictures from more places. I'm still getting caught up. Glad to be home. I think.

2006-12-11T12:40:00.001-05:00

Hello once more

Prague is quite beautiful but certain circumstances are preventing me from enjoying it to it's fullest. First, the cold. Second, it is sort of awkward to take pictures of one's self gazing out at lovely panoramas. Third, tonight I will sit at the Prague Ruzyne airport all night waiting for an early morning flight. I do not trust either myself, cab companies, or customs to make sure I am on time for takeoff. Therefore, I will be reading a James Ellroy novel that I paid a few too many dollars for while I sit and sit. And then, I am coming home.
My trip to Moscow was safe and almost completely without violence or theft. I feel alright saying that now that I am out of the city; I was a bit too superstitious to make that bold claim before my outbound plane was safely out of Russian airspace. It's hard for me to believe that I no longer have the choice to walk, on a whim, to the Moscow River or Red Square. I've been somewhat distracted from my exit from Moscow by my time in Prague, but it's beginning to dawn on me that I am no longer staying at 59 Kutuzovskii Prospect, and I will no longer see statues of Lenin everywhere. I won't have to be crushed as I file, head down, into the Metro, and I won't have to wonder every time I pass a police officer if he is going to ask me for my documents. It is quite an adventure, Moscow. I'm still processing; will be for a while yet. Retrospect is much more orderly than the thick of it.
So, I am signing off, exhausted but jubilant. I will come up with some sort of buzzers-and-lights system to alert you all when I post more pictures from the former USSR. Thank you for your time.

2006-11-18T18:06:00.002-05:00

3 Things That Say Moscow

This is the metro sign. It's everywhere. It means "You're About to be Packed in Like Clowns in a Volkswagen But You'll Get Where You Need to Go".

This is St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square. It's not quite as impressive in person but the inside is delicate and beautiful and somewhat eerie.

This is Cara and Steve. The woman behind them is hunting for treasure. I appreciate a country where even adults still believe in treasure.

All in all, all is well. Right now I'm in Tallinn, Estonia. It's quite beautiful and right on the Baltic Sea, in which I skipped stones.

2006-10-19T18:57:00.000-04:00

Hello all.
So it's currently ten minutes to three in the middle of the night where I am. Wanna know why I'm still awake? I'm sure you do. It's because at five fifty five in the morning I'm flying to Milan for my second (much-needed) vacation. I know, I know, I was just on vacation, but I'll tell you, freezing weather and a bunch of grumpy Russians really put you in the mood to head for greener, more pasta-laden pastures. Don't get me wrong, Moscow is a wonder and as extreme as I was hoping for, but it is so extremely exhausting that I can't even explain it in words. The people are constantly scowling, and it's fairly impossible to get anything done in a timely fashion. Additionally, I'm pretty sure that as winter gets more biting, we're all going to be seeing some people frozen to death in the streets. Already the old babushkas that stand asking for money everywhere are getting more and more frail, lost in their folds of scarves and fifty-year old housecoats. The young women here are extraordinarily tall, so I wonder how they get so short later in life. It's a nastoyashii mystery.
I'm sort of just killing time right now and I don't have so much to report, except that it'll probably be snowing when I return from Italy on the 28th of this month. Oh, to go from 70 degrees and sunny to zero degrees and sleet is going to be quite a shock to my little system. All will be fine, though. Now's the time that we start going directly home from school and talking with our babushkas and looking at their ancient household appliances, for the first time actually taking the time to wonder how they work. I've not yet wondered how the people themselves work, though. It's too complicated a question to grapple with. If I think of anything amazing, I'll be sure to let you know. Vnimatel'no.

2006-10-14T20:25:00.002-04:00

Moscow: Metro.

Moscow: at Bilingua.

Vienna: Schloss Schönbrunn.

Spot the difference.

2006-10-14T19:16:00.000-04:00

Strange that My Moscow Diary is actually beginning with My Vienna Diary, isn't it?

Hey folks. I'll tell you something...it's hard to stay on a computer in Moscow for long enough to download pictures and even "blog", as they say, so instead, I came to Vienna. I came to Vienna for a variety of reasons. 1) It's beautiful. 2) Moscow is exhausting. 3) I've never seen figure skating up close and personal. And of course, 4) I can now write something for you, dear readers, to peruse at your leisure. So where exactly does that leave us? Okay.
I've been in Moscow almost exactly two months. I've surely learned a lot of Russian but it doesn't feel like it because I still constantly struggle to have interactions more complicated than ordering coffee and food and fetching things for my three year old host sister. She's adorable. Her name is Masha. There's also an eleven year old boy called Zhenya, and their parents, Irina and Viktor. And Irina's parents, but I can't totally remember their names and they're still at the dacha anyways. Soon they'll be back with cats two and three and a dachsund. It's a four room apartment, people. Welcome to Moscow! Here are other fun facts about my life:
I am consistently jostled on the metro. No, I am consistently sweating and squished on the metro. The people running to get on the train sort of just run at the crowd as hard as they can and hope the doors don't close on them. That's fun.
A cup of non-instant coffee costs about four dollars. However, a delicious baked potato or khatchapuri costs about ninety cents. Getting into Dostoevsky's boyhood home costs approximately forty cents. Go figure.
I live in a really ritzy neighborhood. All my neighbors have German automobiles.
No one stops for pedestrians.
There are more monasteries here than you can shake a sin at. It's strange because it's one of the more sinful cities in the world, I think. Plus orthodox Russians cross themselves backwards. Like up, down, right shoulder, left shoulder, rather than left then right. It's bizarre. It looks scary, for some reason.
If I never see dill again, it'll be too soon. They are crazy for dill.
On Saturdays, people get married and then drive through the city partying in different places. All the brides get their dresses muddy and sometimes brass bands follow them. It's completely amazing.
The phone system is willfully inefficient. It's controlled by the mobile phone company Megafon. Megafon is apparently owned by Putin. Go figure. He's a smooth talker, that one.
That's about all I got for now. Really there's so much more but I'm not sure how much I can fit into digital expression. You're all just going to have to see my metro face to understand what's going on. It looks like this:

See, that doesn't tell you much, does it?
So tomorrow I return to Moscow from this ideal place, Vienna, where the streets are clean, the people smile, and around every corner is the most beautiful building you've ever seen until you turn the next corner. At the end of the month I'm going to Italy. I vow to be a more faithful blogger from here on out. Keep me to my word, dear readers, by acknowledging this Very First Entry with thoughts, comments, questions, non-sequiters, what have you. Thank you and good night.

2006-07-31T02:54:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone.
This post is experimental. It is not experimental poetry nor is it poetry nor is it entirely experimental. It is a picture of my very cute grandmother.

You see, soon I will be going to Moscow. From there I plan on maintaining a blog, and this is step one toward that end. And beside that, I really love my grandma.