What Did I Do in Paris?

I did all this! Photos here, here, and here.

Friday
• Got into Paris Gare du Nord rail station at 8:50 a.m. Paris time
• Got overwhelmed as all hell at the foreign language. If this were Spain, I'd have no trouble.
• Found nearest Metro station and bought a three-day pass
• Rode the Metro to Lamarck-Caulaincourt stop
• Walked up this -> to get to hostel
• Found out we couldn't check in yet, but they would try to find us (me, Caitlin, Katie, Rachel) a room together
• Hammed it up with the statues at the Louvre
• Got ratatouille for lunch. It's not pronounced like it is in the movie, as I could tell by the cashier's confusion-turned-laughter.
• Walked to the Jardin de Tuileries
• Walked down the Champs Elysée
• Watched a popular street performer and gave him a euro
• Walked through the Arc de Triomphe
• Returned to the hostel, where a four-person room with its own shower and bathroom awaited us
• Sat and rested for a bit
• Walked through the Jardin de Luxembourg with Katie & Rachel
• Walked through the Latin Quarter after meeting with Caitlin and Maya, a Canadian whom we had met at the hostel
• Ate at a Tex-Mex place called... Indiana. I know, right?
• Bought two bottles of cheap wine (amongst five of us!) and a baguette
• Spent the midnight hour at the Eiffel Tower in all its lit glory
• Fell asleep... at the hostel... at about 2:45

Saturday
• Woke up at about 8:30
• Ate a breakfast of a roll, a croissant, orange juice, milk, and Cocoa Pebbles
• Saw the Eiffel Tower from the the base
• Saw Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower
• Found an authentic French street full of shops and grocery stores and French people having lunch. Caitlin and I got six bottles of water, two boxes of sweets, and two sandwiches (steak and cheese for me, tuna melt on baguette for Caitlin) for about €8 overall. Maybe the best deal of the trip.
• Went with Caitlin to the Army Museum, with Napoleon's tomb and exhibits on old French war involvement (Middle Ages, Napoleonic Wars, both World Wars)
• Saw the Sacre Coeur (in daylight) and listened in on a Gospel and homily in a chapel on the grounds
• Ate dinner (at a more French place than Indiana!) with Caitlin and Maya
• Bought a bottle of wine & white frosting-covered Oreos and hung out on the hill at Sacre Coeur with Caitlin, Maya, and Rachel
• Fell asleep... in the hostel... at about 2:30

Sunday
• Woke up at about 8:00
• Ate breakfast
• Went to a Gregorian Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral at 10:00. Didn't full-out cry, but felt tears well up five times (Kyrie, Gospel reading of the three questions to Peter, elevation, reception of communion, closing procession).
• Ate a Nutella crepe outside Notre Dame
• Hammed it up with more sculptures at the Musée d'Orsay
• Bought a bottle of wine & a baguette and lay in the grass in the Jardin de Tuileries. (Caitlin was there, so that bottle wasn't just for me!) We made a spot of shade with my umbrella leaning on her backpack, and we entertained a baby learning to walk with her mother. Also saw toddlers running through the hedgerows and sat next to a statue of a naked woman. Also saw the Eiffel Tower in the distance. Also saw the Louvre pyramid. Also realized it was our group's last Sunday overseas and we would be home in a week, which created sad faces.
• Ran out of battery life on my camera when we first sat down. Explains why there are no photos of our shade fort.
• Left for Gare du Nord before the rain started
• Left for London at 7:13 p.m. Paris time

I'm in Paris with No Significance of Name!

We left King's Cross Station this morning at 5:25. Yes, that 5:25. (Because London is high up on the latitude grid, it was bright enough to see everyone on the streets at 4:15, so it didn't seem too weird.) As with Dublin, full updates and photos will come early next week.

Maybe. I have a paper due Monday, a paper due Thursday, and a World Conference of Science Journalists to attend Tuesday through Thursday. I'll try my hardest, but in between all of that and Billy Elliot on Monday evening, I may have to keep you waiting. Whoops.

I'm a College Student, Get Me Out of Debt!

(Okay, I'm not in debt. Play along.)

So, I was cruising around my blog today, wondering whether I should shake up the design, change some colors, add a graphic, or put the font in Comic Sans (kidding!), when I came upon an interesting Blogspot gadget: AdSense. It's a program that allows Google to post ads on your blog that match the content. For example, if I were to put an AdSense space on my "art apology" post, Google would put and ad or two there about the Tate Modern, maybe, or enrolment at an art school. If I were to do the same on my incident in the Tube, Google might feature an ad for Crest or Colgate. ( :P ) Once I built up a certain number of clicks or impressions, Google would send me money for the ad revenue. Hear that? Money!

Now, of course there are dangers in this. I'd be giving my monetary info to Google, albeit mostly securely; and given my limited audience, I might not reach the necessary-for-payment $100 threshold until I graduate from college. (I like to think that tons of people read this blog, but let's face it: it's a personal travel blog, pandering to family comforts and inside jokes. It doesn't have THAT MUCH broad appeal.) (Unless I get famous. Then it could be a wonderful case study for future historians. But again, I'm a dreamer.) There's also the issue of clutter, but as long as I only put the ads in the sidebar or at the bottom of the page, everything should be fine.

I now extend the question to all you guys. Should I put ads on my blog? It'll help me regain the money I've spent on public transit, souvenirs, and (with care) drinks. Those who vote or comment on the question get a free postcard! (It'll just be a postcard, though; I can't afford to buy the stamps. They have cool pictures!) Polling and discussion close at 1 a.m. Friday morning London time (8 p.m. Thursday evening Eastern Daylight Time).

I Belong in Dublin

(Photos here and here.)

Sure, I love London. But it took five weeks to move from enjoying the newness of its quirks, to those quirks becoming flaws and getting old & annoying, to loving it like home. Not so with Dublin. I loved the place so much, it felt like home in three days.

There was a huge chance that I wouldn’t enjoy my time there, because I saw a lot of green. Yes, there were green lights on the River Liffey at night, and painted shamrocks abounded, and half of the items in the gift shop were made of green (as if “green” were a substance!), but the green I’m talking about was all in my nose. And in tissues, eventually.

I was sick, both on the flight there and all day Friday. I went through a travel-size packet of tissues, I stole toilet paper to keep in my pocket, I reused wads because I didn’t have anything fresh on me. It was generally a sorry state of affairs for my nasal cavity. (That, combined with the ibuprofen, Sudafed, and pint of Guinness, made Friday a dense fog.)

Fortunately, I didn’t feel the slightest bit sick during three critical parts of the trip: Thursday night, Kilmainham Jail, and O’Donoghue’s on Saturday night. Those experiences, especially the last one, made my weekend and solidified Dublin as a city I need to visit again. Or live in. Haven’t decided yet.

Thursday night was significant largely because it threw me into the Dublin culture. Right after we registered at Isaacs Hostel, four of us went to Farrington’s pub where Caitlin and I met three Dubliners. I can’t remember what all of them did for a living, but one of them was a fireman. We went with them to Fitzsimon's, which had a dance floor, and we stayed there until about 2 a.m.

They had the thickest Irish accents I had ever heard! At Farrington’s I had to ask Paddy’s name three times and Barry’s name twice, so I was a bit tuckered out and didn’t bother to ask the fireman’s name (largely because we were starting to leave Farrington’s, anyway). Once dance music entered the mix, normal conversation without repeats was hopeless, but on the way to Fitzsimon's (the walk was quieter than anything inside, of course) we established that my name was Alex (“Like the soccer coach!” the fireman said) and that I was from Indianapolis. (“Ah, smoke on the barbie, eh?” We all laughed at him for that. Honestly, Indy is as far as you can get from Australia.) I capped off the night by finding a €5 note on the dance floor, which Caitlin and I used to buy a €5 footlong.

...Okay, so it wasn’t a COMPLETE throw into the Dublin culture, but the pub and people and accents sufficed.

Like I said, I didn’t feel stuffy or sick when I went out Thursday night, but everything came back to me upon waking up. I pretty much felt like crap, but I still soldiered on through the tourist destinations of the day. It was all a blur, and I allowed myself to follow everyone else while I blew my nose on old tissues and spit some crud. (You feeling gross? Well, how do you think I felt?)

Saturday went much better, largely because the Sudafed had started to work. This allowed me to enjoy the two great things about the tour of Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced "jail"): the history and the tour guide. The two worked hand-in-hand, really. The tour guide wouldn't have been as engaging without the fascinating history, and the history wouldn't have been as enthralling as it was without the tour guide's enthusiasm.

...I take that back a little bit. I stand by the latter part (there is a way, however difficult, to make Ireland's fight for independence boring), but I'm wrong about the former. I would have enjoyed our tour guide even if he were describing the history of cheese! His name was Rauiri (pronounced "Rory" but with a killer Gaelic spelling), and I wish I had his accent. And his knowledge of Irish history, which he was more than willing to share. (Outright delighted, even.) Our tour took longer than it should have, but I didn't complain.

After lunch, the rest of the group headed up to Howth (pronounced "oath" with an "h" in front) while I stayed in Dublin city. From the photos I've seen and the stories I've heard I missed a great place, but I had to catch up on the sensations of Dublin that I missed the previous day, or at least walk where we had walked earlier. I added to the experiences, too: I walked toward the east end of the river, checked out St. Patrick's Cathedral, and ate dinner at a favorite place of James Joyce's, Davy Byrne's pub. (I wrote a postcard in there, too. I felt so writerly!) These travels provided a different side of the city that I couldn't have seen with a group, partly for the simple fact that I was making my own plans.

Then came the best part: O'Donoghue's pub. Seriously, this is the reason why I want to go back to Dublin. The music, the people playing it, the people listening to it, the mass of humanity fitting into a small space, everything about it was perfect. I couldn't have asked for anything more. I almost didn't want to ruin it by trying to fit it into words. I'll just say that in between talking to the band members and talking to two women that Caitlin (her photo, by the way) wants to be like when she's 50 'cuz they're THAT cool, I almost cried.

Happy tears, of course. I also almost yelled on a bridge over the river, "I love this city!" Seriously, I want to go back someday.

Without all the green in my nose. The rest I'll keep.

What Did I Do in Dublin?

I did all of this! All times are approximate.

Thursday

• Landed at Dublin Airport at 10:00 p.m. [Corrected 2009.06.23]
• Took a bus to Isaacs Hostel
• Signed in at 10:45 [Corrected 2009.06.23]
• Went to Farrington's pub in Temple Bar with Caitlin, Sam, and Katie H.
• Sam and Katie went home, but Caitlin and I went to Fitzsimon's Hotel and Ballroom with three Dubliners we met at Farrington's
• Bought a €5 footlong from Subway with a bill I found on the dance floor
• Fell asleep in hostel at 2:30 a.m.

Friday

• Woke up at 7:45 a.m.
• Ate free breakfast of bread, jam, butter, orange juice, and apple at hostel
• Went on tour of Dublin Castle at 10:15 [Corrected 2009.06.23]
• Visited the Chester Beatty Library at 11:30
• Had lunch at Copper Alley Bistro at 12:10
• Went to Christchurch Cathedral at 1:00
• Went to the Guinness Storehouse at 2:30
• Got free ice cream at Powerscourt Shopping Centre at 6:00
• Walked around Grafton and Dalton streets looking for an authentic Irish dining experience
• Sam, Katie, Katie, and Sarah ate at Eddie Rocket's (just like Johnny Rocket's) while Caitlin and I ate at Chick King (kinda like Chick-fil-a)
• Went back to hostel at 9:00
• Checked e-mail and Facebook, rested, and watched most of Unfaithful (because it was on)
• Fell asleep at 11:45 p.m.

Saturday

• Woke up at 7:45 a.m.
• Had free breakfast (with a banana, too!)
• Went on tour of Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced "jail") at 10:15
• Had lunch at The Patriot's Inn at 12:45
• Went back to hostel at 1:45 while the rest went to Howth
• Checked e-mail and Facebook, rested, and watched YouTube videos (because they're better than Unfaithful)
• Walked up and down the east end of the River Liffey
• Ate dinner (ham sandwich and a pint of Guinness) at Davy Byrne's pub (James Joyce's hang-out that he references in Ulysses) at 6:00
• Visited St. Patrick's Cathedral at 7:15
• Met the rest of the group at the hostel at 8:00
• Left hostel with Caitlin at 9:20 toward O'Donoghue's pub near St. Stephen's Green to meet fellow IDSer Shannon McEnerney
• Never saw Shannon. We couldn't use our phones for some reason to reach her.
• Stayed at O'Donoghue's. Enjoyed the live Irish band, talked to them and two awesome women who are still kickin' it in their 50s, and generally had a night I couldn't have anywhere else.
• Returned to the hostel and fell asleep at 2:15

Sunday

• Woke up at 8:15
• Had free breakfast (no apple this time)
• Checked out of hostel at 9:15
• Went on tour of Trinity College at 10:15
• Saw the Book of Kells
• Got souvenirs at Carroll's at O'Connell Street
• Got a Royale with Cheese at Burger King (strangely enough, it was not what Pulp Fiction said it was)
• Took at bus to the Dublin Airport
• Walked to God-forsaken platform D74, way at the end of the LONG row of terminals
• Got a massage (in a mechanized chair), which felt great after carrying clothes, a camera, and a laptop in my backpack all weekend
• Left the airport at 3:45 p.m.

Souvenirs

• Guinness sweatshirt (from Carroll's)
• Two Guinness pint glasses (from Carroll's)
• Guinness playing cards (from Carroll's)
• Receipts from tours, restaurants, pubs, etc. (from various)
• More than 200 photos (from various)
• Irish music stuck (gladly!) in my head (from O'Donoghue's)
• Two drink coasters (from Fitzsimon's and Davy Byrne's)

Programming note: A longer blog entry will follow on either Monday or Tuesday. I want to focus on a few specific things, some on the itinerary... and some that transcend it.

I'm in Dublin with That Name!

We (Katie Hagan, Katie Fay, Sarah, Sam Mooney, Caitlin, and I) got into the Isaacs Hostel at about 11:30 local time last night.

Just letting you guys know. I'll have full details either later this weekend or on Monday. Stay tuned! Bragh!

Music to My Ears... and This Whole Time, It's Been British!

I listen to my iPod a lot. I can do without it, especially in such a vibrant city as London (and Bloomington, if you walk through the right parts), but nothing else can make a walk, train ride, or bus trip so effortlessly interesting. ("Effortlessly" rules out reading, which unless you're good at walking blindly makes things difficult. And dangerous, depending on the amount of lightposts and potholes. But I digress.) Given the monotony in such travelling, the music I listen to can bring me to a different place, make me even more aware of my present surroundings (like if passing cars follow the beat of a drum), or turn me off to all external stimuli.

Including the music, if you're listened to it enough. This has happened to me. My music library has undergone major expansion in the two years I've been at IU, but I still don't venture very far outside of my musical comfort zone. Sure, I listen to things now that I wouldn't have paid attention to five years ago (like The Roots), but that doesn't keep me from returning to the old standbys over and over again. And since I do a lot of solo moving (to class, to work, to a photo assignment, etc.), I listen to those personal classics, not just over and over again, but over and over and over and OVER again.

I had no idea how many of my favorite songs and artists were British.

Because the traveling situations over here have been different than usual (they drive on the other side of the road, for Christ's sake!), I've paid more attention to what I'm listening to. What I've found is that I was infected with some British music bug a long time ago, and it's always stayed under the radar. I tell people that I'm more of a song person than an artist or album person, so the sheer amount of British-ness in my music hasn't dawned on me until now.

Hell, I heard The Beatles' "Come Together," Supertramp's "Ain't Nobody But Me," and David Bowie's "Suffragette City" while I wrote this entry! I kept looking through my catalog, and I found Elton John, The Clash, Deep Purple, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Eric Clapton, Gilbert & Sullivan (!), Joe Cocker, The Police, and Queen. There are probably a few others that I missed, as well as artists that are on my laptop but not in my iPod.

I described earlier (on more than one occasion) how Beatles music sounds different here. Now that I've found so much more British music in my iPod, about half of my songs will sound different. I need to pay more attention! I wouldn't want to miss any more of these revelations.

P.S.: At this time tomorrow, I'll be at the Gatwick airport, getting ready for a weekend in Dublin. Sweet!

From One Religious Experience to Another

The Fifth Church of the London Tour

and
Abbey Road!

I carefully planned my route early in the morning. I would get onto the Central Line Tube train at Chancery Lane, change to the Bakerloo Line at Oxford Circus, change to the Overground Line at Queen's Park, and get off at Kilburn High Road. I would make it in time for the 11:00 Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Quex Road, and then go from there. To where? You know.

So far, I had been to two Anglican churches (Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's) and two Catholic churches (St. Peter and Westminster Cathedral). I could describe St. Peter and the cathedral pretty easily if you asked me to (and indeed, I already have described one of them), but Sacred Heart is a little more of a chore. Let me try it.

...

It was familiar, yet foreign.

Yeah, that should do it.

The familiar lay in part of the Mass that I hadn't heard consistently since I was a kid (the short sentence after the Lamb of God invocation, the one that Msgr. Schaedel always says) and that I've gotten used to over only five weeks here (chaos instead of orderly lines for Communion; apparently, it's not just a Colombian thing!). There was also a guest homilist, a missionary from India asking for money to support a seminary program over there (I gave a pound.). That part reminded me of summers at St. Malachy, where every weekend or two we had a guest who shared stories and asked for our time, talent, treasure, or prayers. It unexpectedly brought me home.

The foreign part? No one said anything at the same time. If a visitor were just listening and not participating, he/she would hear jumbled voices instead of, "And also with you," or the Lord's Prayer. (But everyone was together on the after-petitions Hail Mary!) This may have been caused by another characteristic of this service that... well, it's not foreign per se, but really a reminder of the Church's universality.

Everyone was there, it seemed. Europeans, Africans, Indians, Orientals; young and old; suits and t-shirts; nearly every possible type of person was there. The eucharistic ministers were black and white and Asian, the altar servers were black, the visiting homilist was Indian, and the celebrant was Indian. I love St. Malachy, but we're a pretty white parish. I'm glad this was Corpus Christi weekend, because all the parts of the Body of Christ were on full display here. (Or nearly all. Getting every part would be impossible. Just enough to provide a good representation.)

***

From one religious experience to another.

Once Mass was over, I took out my iPod and set it to play... you know... the entire album.

I planned for this specifically. Sacred Heart is on the north end, and the famous zebra crossing is on the south end. So, I had about 30 minutes, to myself, to listen to Abbey Road while I walked down Abbey Road.

Beatles music has never sounded so good. As the address numbers went down from 146 to 103 to 51 to 32 and finally to 3 (the studios), I felt as if I were back in 1969, when the songs were new and fresh. (They're still fresh, but humor me!) Even more strongly, I felt like Iain Macmillan, the guy who took the album cover photo. I felt a part of music history, and every zebra crossing that was not at 3 Abbey Road drew me even more into the magic.

Then I remembered that I was a tourist, going to a tourist destination, with other tourists. I only realized that, fortunately, once I got to the actual crossing, so I at least had the whole walk to indulge my dreams.

I also remembered that it was 2009, and that business is still booming in the area. As is the traffic. Given that I was alone (I planned for that!) I could be a Beatlemaniac on my own schedule, as long as it coincided with the cars and buses going through the three-street intersection.

Let me tell you a little bit about zebra crossings. Pedestrians have the right of way. When someone is walking through such a crossing, cars have to stop for him/her until the pedestrian reaches the other side. People can walk through a zebra crossing whenever they choose, and cars are ready to stop if they need to. Britons (and people who have stayed here for five weeks) know how they work, and both sides of the transaction get along just fine.

Chaos enters the equation when foreigners try to cross the zebra. They don't know how zebra crossings work, so they think they have to wait for the traffic to clear. They don't have to wait; as I said earlier, drivers are prepared to stop. This difficulty was in my head when I saw people trying to recreate the scene; they felt like they had to communicate with the traffic and watch for the exact moment when they could cross.

I forgave them, though, when I remembered that the photographer has to be outside the zebra stripes and in the street. So, yes, Abbey Road crossers have to deal fully with traffic, even given the nature of such crossings.

Anywho, since I was alone, I did some things that a group might not have had the patience for: get perspective photos from each Beatle's spot on the crosswalk, take photos for other people, and write a note & mug for the camera outside the studios. What I couldn't get, of course, was the album-cover shot for myself, so I had someone take a photo of just me crossing.

Given the traffic at that particular time, it didn't turn out too well. I didn't direct the photographer very well, either; I should have told her to get closer to the middle of the street. (I did for her picture with three of her friends.)

Still, this proves that I was there. !!!!!! (I had gotten to "Carry That Weight" at this point, by the way.) Even though the main point of this jaunt was to get something like The Photo, I at least know now how the traffic works so that the next time I go (with at least four other people!) I'll have everything figured out.

And I had the Abbey Road Album Walk! That was worth everything. If anything bad happens in the last three weeks here, I'll say to myself, "At least I heard Abbey Road on Abbey Road."

Synopsis of Friday and Saturday

(Photos here.)

I have some epicness to describe in the next post, so this will just be a summary of the first two days of the weekend. Otherwise, I'll miss these very important parts just because of today's awesomeness.

Friday
Went to Clapton Pond... just for the name of the pond. I sat in the park surrounding it, reading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and I stayed there for longer than I expected. (Good read!) I took photos of the pigeons in the park but missed the one time that the whole lot of them flew off at one time. Then I got pizza on Lower Clapton Road before making my way back to London for the evening.

Saturday
1) Visited Oxford University on graduation day. We couldn't see everything because of the ceremonies, but we saw the campus and the surrounding town come to life because of them, so it was a fair trade-off.

2) C.J., Caitlin, and I went to The Eagle and Child, the pub where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, and the rest of the Inklings met to discuss issues and stories. I could feel the 20th-century literature envelop me! It was the first highlight of the weekend.

3) Zach, the Sams, Katie, and I went to a Roots concert. They (Zach and Sam Leffers) say you can't call a concert "the best ever" until the day after. (Unless it was genuinely bad, it will feel like the best concert ever when you're leaving. No fail.) It's the day after now, and it was the best concert I've ever been to! Sure, I have limited experience with concerts, but still! It's hard to beat a drum routine like the one I heard last night.

Okay, now for Sunday. Next entry to come soon.

H1N1 Virus Has Reached WHO Level Six (Pandemic)

As I write this, I'm listening to Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, announce WHO's elevation of the prevalence of influenza A H1N1 (swine flu) to level six, or pandemic level. The key sentence in the presentation (the one saying that the level is raised to 6) was said at 5:08 p.m. British Summer Time.

Do not panic. Please.

This announcement only recognizes that H1N1 has spread to a global enough level that WHO can call it a pandemic. It does NOT mean that the virus has gotten worse. Indeed, most cases are still mild and not fatal. Basically, it serves as a call to countries to examine their own health systems and make sure that they have the right guidelines and restrictions (and vaccines, if able) in place. It's also, according to Dr Chan and in answer to a journalist's question, "a signal to the international community", and especially developed countries, to help developing countries by donating vaccines and other services.

The press conference in Geneva continues as of right now. It's moved on to journalists' questions. There will probably be more material (and maybe the full text of Dr Chan's statement) here or around there as the day goes on.

...

Sorry, I just felt like putting that out there. Reading through sensational stories in the papers and online over here has gotten to my head.

[8:58 p.m.: Here's the critical part I mentioned earlier:

On the basis of available evidence, and these expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met.

I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 5 to phase 6.

The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic.

We are in the earliest days of the pandemic. The virus is spreading under a close and careful watch.

The full text appears here. The video (with journalists' questions) appears here in .wmv format.

There are a lot of photos of Britain in here.

Eighteen Facebook albums worth, in fact. Check them out right here. Also Dublin, and Paris, too. Oh, man!

(Watch out for "Check". There's nothing offensive in it, unless you don't like Stella Artois.) (Don't worry, I wasn't involved in its creation.)

I can't see what you did there! How do I do it??

American culture (or whatever part of it you choose to take in) ingrains into its participants choice phrases that help them identify with the group. Some such phrases, like questions of age identification (“How old are you?”), simply separate languages or language groups (e.g. Spanish, literally “How many years do you have?”) and include a lot of people in the group it creates.

Others, however, are more selective and tag the speaker as member of a smaller set. Within these groups, everyone knows the phrase, but the group can be quite small based on the relevant phrase. Examples:

Americans of a certain age and awareness- “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

Sufferers of the late 90s-early 2000s- “Who let the dogs out?”

Central Indiana radio listeners- “Hi, Mr. Obvious. Uh, long-time listener, first-time caller.”

YouTube watchers- “We’re on a bridge, Charlie!”

IU fans- “I want them to bury me upside down so my critics can kiss my ass!”

People hopped up on caffeine and writing papers in a dorm room while someone plays Ocarina of Time- “PREPOSTEROUS AMOUNTS OF WASTED TIME! PROCRASTITONE!!!1!” (There might only be three people in this group.)

Depending on your level of involvement in these groups, you might be able to either 1) have these come to mind in almost any conversation (e.g. the popular “That’s what she said!” comment) or 2) change them to apply to random situations. I often twist the above phrases to my will, replacing the “is” with, “It depends on what your definition of the word ‘lunatic’ is,” or describing lots of bold type and CAPS lock as "PREPOSTEROUS AMOUNTS OF WRITTEN STRESS!"

I can’t do that in Britain. I don’t know the well-known British phrases that identify you as part of the group. I’m sure that with time I can make off-the-cuff jokes based on loo-ney bins and Tube vision and other uniquely-England terms, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

I definitely can’t use the phrases I’ve learned in my previous social groups. Every time I want to say, “Hokay, so, here’s de Earth,” I have to remind myself that this might not be a group of people that would understand that reference. I’ve got free reign in my flat and among the other IU students, of course, but if I say out loud that “Charlie bit me!” I won’t get a response. (Or worse, people WILL have seen it and I’ll get a negative response. Like eggs in my face.)

As most of you know, though, I can make a joke, innuendo, or play on words in any situation. (Or at least I try.) My ability to do so in Britain will come in time, and I’ll let you guys know when it happens, because I'll be excited.

A Day in Sudbury

You can find all the photos (or at least all the good photos!) here.

9:35, Saturday 6 June
Okay, so I made up my schedule last night, and I planned to leave from the Liverpool Street station at 10:38. However, the train leaves every hour, so I’ve gotten onto the 9:38 train. It goes to Ipswich, with stops at, among other places. Markes Tey, where I will change to get on the train to Sudbury.

Because I got to the station at 9 a.m. (I thought it would take longer to get here & pick up tickets!), I walked around for a bit. This station is certainly not as big as King’s Cross or Paddington, but as I’m not used to train stations, it still seems big to me. What threw me off a little bit (but only a little bit) were the pigeons inside the station. I tried to snap a photo of one in flight over people’s heads, but it didn’t work too well. I might try again later, but I might not.



9:38
We’re leaving!

9:43
It looks like it’s gonna rain. Not good.

10:01
We’ve stopped in Shenfield. Seven new people have boarded my car.

10:10
We’ve stopped in Chelmsford. Four people got off, and three people got on. I’ve still got five seats to myself, and I don’t feel guilty about it. There’s plenty of room in the car.

10:16
A train passes by going the other way. With the speed at which each of us are going, the windows shake for two seconds as if they’ve been hit by the waves of a sonic boom.

10:21
We’ve stopped at Witham. Four people got off, and two got on.

10:29
We’ve stopped at Marks Tey. (Pronounced “Tay,” of course.) I thought I would have to run to get to the next train within four minutes, but fortunately for my sense of orientation, it was right next to the arriving train I was on. It wasn’t a big station at all, only four platforms for two tracks.

This train isn’t big, either; it has just one car.

10:33
We’ve left Marks Tey. I now have two seats to myself, with two more across the aisle.

10:39
We’ve stopped at Lner. (?) Four people got off, and nobody got on.

10:41
People are much more talkative on National Rail trains than they are on the Tube. My last train had two people talking about evaluations of the higher education system, while this train features a family (with a girl of about three standing on her seat and looking out the window) two older women talking, and three teenagers in the back chatting about their weekend plans. Whereas on the Tube, people glare at you if you say, “Hi!”

10:46
We’ve stopped at Bures. No one got off, and three people got on.

10:55
Welcome to Sudbury! It seems like a bustling town, but that may be because it’s near lunchtime on a weekend. Everyone in town will be out right now.

I see a lot of older people. I wonder if this is an old-person town without a lot of kids.

11:01
I’ve walked into Roys, a grocery store with a coffee shop attached to it. I’ve bought a hot chocolate and have sat down to collect my things. (I had nearly zoned out when we arrived at the station, so I had hurriedly packed everything in my backpack and gotten off the train.)

Because I still have enough food at home for dinner, I only plan to on spending money to buy lunch here. Unless, of course, something comes up, like they have some special WWII stuff to buy here. It has to be a big deal, though, because I paid 20 quid to get out here!

11:15 (still in coffee shop)
In four weeks in Britain, I’ve learned at least this: If you don’t know what to do or how to act or what to say in a certain situation, watch someone first. I’ve applied this to the pronunciation of Lurpak, how to use my Oyster card at each Tube stop, and (just now) where to put my empty hot chocolate mug when I leave. (On the trolley.)

11:20 – 11:35
I’ve walked around town for a bit, looking for someone who might know where the old airfields are. …Wait, I didn’t explain my trip for you guys!

My grandfather, James R. Farris (far left, first row; thanks go to Uncle John), served in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II. He was a navigator under pilot Ralph Clinard in a B-17 called Pursuit of Happiness, and his missions flew off from an airbase north of Sudbury. My goal for this trip is to see that old airbase, no matter what state it’s in now, so I can report back to my family that I’ve been there.

There. Now you’re caught up.

11:56
I’ve just spent 20 minutes in Best Wishes greeting cards shop looking for a good British Father’s Day card. (Found one!) Once I bought the card, I asked the cashier if she knew where the Sudbury airfields were. She asked an older man (the store manager?) to come over and see if he knew. He said that I should go back down the street I was on, pass the market, keep the church and post office on my right, go through a set of traffic lights and two roundabouts, and walk another half-mile to get there. He also said that there isn’t much there, which I had gathered from Internet photos, but he and I agreed (after I mentioned that my grandfather flew there) that it’d be a treasure just to say I was there.

And so begins the 20-minute walk to the Sudbury USAAF fields (at 12:10).

(By the way, I was wrong about the rain. The weather is beautiful here! I need to wear my sunglasses.)

12:13
A guy in… interesting garb crosses the street to tell me about a medieval fair with jousting and the whole bit. It goes from 12 to 5, so I tell him that I might make it. I tuck the flyer he gives me into my pocket to remind me.

12:38
I stopped after the second roundabout to review the directions given me and make sure I was going the right way. (I have a bad history of that.)

I am. I’m fine. Time to keep walking.

Songs I’ve listened to on my iPod up to this point

Fantomen, Frigg
R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A., John Mellencamp
Bulbous Bouffant, The Vestibules
The Best is Yet to Come, Frank Sinatra
Dedicated to You, John Coltrane

Random Observation
I walked by a house with two dogs, and one of them barked at me as I walked by. He didn’t have an accent.

12:57
In the middle of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” I made it.

Honestly, it blends into the surrounding countryside a lot. The only hints I had of coming up to it were signs saying it was Private Property of the Suffolk County Council. Once I walked up to the entrance, though, I found a rock with a plaque commemorating the U.S.A.F. 486th heavy bombardment group, with flowers (though fake) posted next to it on the fence.












I’m here.






















13:34
Time to head out.

Pretty desolate out there. Whereas B-17s and B-24s flew out of here for bombing missions, now a company grows parsnip & grains, and people walk dogs & ride mopeds because they’re too young to drive cars.

That’s okay with me. Though it would have been cool for some of the buildings to be maintained, some of its “airfield qualities” have stuck, thanks to asphalt’s ability to hamper the growth of plants. Like I told the kid I met while walking around, I could imagine an airfield here. And I did.

14:21
With a little detour at the McDonald’s toilet, I’ve made it back to the centre of town. That was much longer than the 20 minutes the store guy said it would take, but he still got me there, and I appreciate him for that.

Now for the jousting fair!

14:32
I just bought three apples for 57p. That’s a pretty good deal, considering my hot chocolate was £1.10.

14:50
Warning: Contains raunchy language from underage kids. Unruly Brits. Tsk.
So, I’m walking to the Delphi Club on Newton Road when I meet this group of kids. There’s a girl and three guys, and they all look about 15 years old. (Except for one kid. He looks about 13.) They say, “Hello!” and I say, “Hello,” back to them. They cross the street to meet me.

“Is that a good apple?” says what seems to be the leader of the group. (You remember how groups of friends worked at that age.)

“Very good,” I reply back. “I’ve had better, but I’ve had much worse.”

“Are you from America?” asks the youngest-looking one.

“How could you tell?” I reply facetiously, knowing that my accent gave me away.

“This country sucks! America is like Skate Heaven, but here…”

“So, what are you here for?” asks the leader before the other three laugh their asses off behind me.

The youngest kid says through his laughter, “Did you know you have a balloon coming out of your ass?”

I raise an eyebrow, and he continues. “No, you literally have a balloon stuck to your ass. I swear we didn’t put it there.”

I feel back there, and sure enough, I pull off an orange balloon from my ass, stuck there with some gooey white substance.

“It’s like you have cum on your ass.”

I sit next to a brick wall, trying to get as much “cum” off my ass as possible, while the four kids walk toward the jousting festival.

“See, that’s why this country sucks!” the youngest one says quite honestly.

…I believe them when they say, “I swear we didn’t put it there.” I didn’t feel them sticking the balloon on my ass. I probably sat on it somewhere.

…Wait, WHERE????? How long have I had a balloon stuck to my ass?!

15:23
I’m at the jousting festival, with most of the white sticky stuff off of my pants. Mary, you would have loved this fair! Although yours were more hands-on and had better attendance. Or maybe it just seemed that way because I was younger.

Either way, I couldn’t stay for long since my train was leaving at 16:00. I did have time to observe some things:

A lot of kids “fought” each other with wooden swords that their parents bought for them.

One kid asked a re-enactor if he knew about video games. Ha ha.

They served beer. …In an indoor bar that was part of the regular Delphi Club. But I still bought a cold pint of Foster’s. (I didn’t buy a sword, because I couldn’t hope to bring it back to the States.)

They weren’t jousting yet. That would only start at 16:00. Dang.

They roasted a HUGE hog. I didn’t buy any of it, since I had already bought a beer, three apples, a hot chocolate, and a train ticket today.

16:01
I missed the train.

You know that direction problem I mentioned earlier? [“(I have a bad history of that.)”] Yep, ‘cept this time is was because of a roundabout. I can’t say this in many places in the U.S., but I took the wrong left. I turned too early.

…Come to think of it, you CAN say that in the U.S. Just not within the same intersection. Basically:













I would have made it if I had turned down the correct road. I ran down here, too!)

16:09
I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided that I won’t go back to the jousting fest. (See “yours… had better attendance” and “I ran down here, too!”)

16:38
I’m back at Roys grocery store/coffee shop for one last time. I’ve been reading the Guardian G2 section from last Thursday, and it has reminded me why I brought it home from work. There’s a great column from Sam Leith about whether sauropods were straight-necked or upright-necked, a long-form story about Ahnold’s political rise and fall, and an assumption-shattering Private Lives piece written by a woman who can’t smile. The stories have taken up my new-found time quite nicely.

16:58
My bladder threatened to derail me (see what I did there?), but I made it back to the station to see the train pull in. As we’re pulling away, I see a kid of about one year walking down the aisle. He stops and looks at a nudie mag open on someone’s seat. (The “someone” is an older guy who bought it as a joke.) The father comes up behind the kid and pushes him along. The funniest part is that the kid hesitates before he starts walking again!

17:00
I’m finally on my way to Marks Tey & Liverpool Street. It’s been a long day of walking and imagining and picking white stuff off the back of my pants, so I’ll take a nap. Or at least listen to music and just sit here.

17:20
I’m at Marks Tey, and the connecting train to London is “delayed by a broken down train.” Ay!

17:49
I’m still in Marks Tey. What gives???

17:56
National Express just issued an apology for a 48-minute delay. Oy.

I ask the info guy what’s up, and he says that a train broke down five hours ago in a place where no other trains could get around it, so everything’s backed up almost an hour.

18:09
It’s here! Now I can truly rest.

18:56
I’ve arrived at Liverpool Street, 40 minutes late. They didn’t even get the delay right!

Final observations

I’ve noticed this before, but the British countryside is beautiful.

I was wrong about the number of older people in Sudbury. There were a lot of kids and middle-agers walking around, and their numbers increased as the day went on. It’s a very vibrant small town, and I wouldn’t mind living there if it weren’t for London.

Blog Traffic Jam, Part 5 of 5: "American" pizza is better than American pizza

I met with some old friends in Westminster last Wednesday (sorry for the late update!), and we were looking for a place to go eat. We walked past Parliament Square (where a group of Tamils were still protesting, though their numbers had greatly decreased since the week before, and we were halfway down the next street when I saw a sight for sore eyes. It was presented in a different way than I was used to, but it still conjured in me the same feelings for taste, goodness, and pepperonis: Pizza Express.

Now, food might be my favorite thing in the whole world. That could be because I only just got out of my teenage years & I’m still young, but the same can be said for a lot of people older than me. (Like Emeril. Or anyone who watches the Food Network.) I think the real reasons are because it’s necessary, so there HAS to be at least some affinity for it, and because it’s everywhere. (That last fact is the result of a lot of luck, grace, and the invention of refrigeration, and I’m eternally grateful for that.)

But just because it’s everywhere doesn’t mean that it’s the same across the world. It doesn’t even mean that foods that fall under the same name are the same. American biscuits are by no means the same as British biscuits, American Chinese food is uniquely American, and Pizza Express (now Pizza X) in Bloomington doesn’t even compare to Pizza Express in Westminster.

In fact, I’m gonna blaspheme. I’ve had a dish called “American Hot” pizza in two places in London: Pizza Express by Westminster on Wednesday, and Soho Pizzeria on Carnaby Street the next day. I believe I can safely say that British “American” pizza is better than pizza in America.

There. I said it. Sue me if you want.

(Say what you will about small sample sizes. I acknowledge that this wouldn’t stand up to peer review under any other name than a case study. But it’s good enough for MY experience.)
Let me describe for you the best (and second-best) “American” pizza I’ve ever had:

It is doughy, but it’s thin, so the bread tastes wonderfully without overpowering the toppings. The sauce works with the bread to keep it soft and doughy, but it stays separate enough that it retains its own quality. The pepperonis are thick, so they keep their entire internal flavor. (And I mean their ENTIRE internal flavor.) The outer crust is a little hard, which, given the flimsiness of the inside, gives the whole pizza structural integrity; it’s not crumbly, though, so it retains some of the doughy qualities of the underbelly bread.

(<- I got halfway through my pizza before I thought of taking its picture. That’s how good it was.)

My pizzas had something hot on them (jalapeños at Pizza Express, green peppers at Soho Pizzeria), but even if they didn’t have that spiciness, I still would have called them the best two pizzas I’ve ever eaten.

So, my rankings for Best Pizza:

1. American (Hot), Pizza Express, Great Britain
2. American (Hot), Soho Pizzeria, Carnaby Street
3. Anything else; they all are far too inferior to the top two for me to rank.

*In the interest of full disclosure, the Pizza Express pizza beat out the Soho pizza because I had gelato with it. Dave, you’re right. I could eat it all day!


Quotes

“I don’t have to eat… anything… ever again.” –Alex Farris
“I’m not sure if my taste buds will accept any other food.” –Emily Ivers

Blog Traffic Jam, Part 4 of 5: Lost in (and Slightly Because of) Evening Prayer

On Saturday we visited Dover & Canterbury. Photos are here, but one incident avoided photography. …Well, lots of stuff avoided photography (conversations, lunch in Canterbury, a stop by an Army surplus store, sleeping on the bus), and for those things that’s good, but one thing stands out. For me, anyway.

After we toured the Canterbury Cathedral, the seat of the Anglican Communion, we could wander around the town as we pleased until 4 p.m. I and a few other people lied outside the church in the grass, taking a quick nap or getting some sun or simply relaxing. I fell into the third group, until I thought of sitting in on evening prayer. It would start at 3:15, but because it was a Saturday night (and the night before Pentecost, even), it would last longer than usual (4:15). I made sure a few people knew where I was in case I returned to the bus late, and I made my way into the church.

I’ve done evening prayer before. Even before a small group of us did evening prayer at St. Paul’s last weekend, I had prayed the Catholic liturgy of the hours off and on for the past three years. (Admittedly, it was more “on” during senior year of high school and more “off” in my first two years at IU, but even now I sneak it in once in a while.) I knew the basic outline of such a service: an invocation, a couple psalms, a New Testament canticle, a reading, intercessions, one of three more special canticles (Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis), and a closing prayer. (Roughly. It depends on what time of day.) I felt pretty prepared.

I’ve never done evening prayer like this. Everyone was ornate and ornamental and… slow. Three things account for my inexperience: I was always by myself and able to control the tempo when doing these prayers, whereas this was in Canter-freakin’-bury Cathedral; I always said the psalms etc. to myself, whereas there was a boys’ choir doing everything (I mean everything. We didn’t sing or say anything at all.); I was always in my room, whereas… this was in Canter-freakin’-bury Cathedral. It was a slightly moving experience, “slightly” because I would have gotten more out of it if I could participate.

Because the group was leaving at 4, however, I resolved to leave at 3:45. That brought me through the entrance (with about 20 boys of the choir and five to ten adult celebrants), four psalms (twice as many as I expected!), two readings, the Magnificat, and the Our Father. I skimmed the rest of the schedule during one of the longer psalms, and I found I was going to miss a full page of intercessions.

Oh, well. Interceding was not as important as making sure the bus didn’t leave me in Canterbury. I slipped out the door at 3:45. That was all well and good, making sure that I left early enough to get to the bus on time…

…Assuming, of course, that I knew where the bus was. Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured that out before heading into the service, so I had to rely on my photographic memory to return me to the group. And that failed me. I started down the right road, but two wrong turns later I texted someone and asked where I was supposed to go. He said the coach parking lot was at the top of the map, so I started my way north after I had been walking south after I had been walking north after I had made the second wrong turn. I made it, fifteen minutes late (even though I ran a little). I walked up to the bus, and I saw the driver waiting outside. I asked, “I guess everyone else is here, right?” He said, “Yah!” I walked onto the bus, and someone said (jokingly), “Boo that man!” Then the group leader asked (jokingly, again), “Was she pretty?”

Well, the church was pretty, I thought. I sat down and slept a bit on the way home, the 150th Psalm running through my head.

Blog Traffic Jam, Part 3 of 5: Three Weeks at the Science Media Centre

I hate to put things into categories before they’re finished. Developments can happen further down the line that paint what has already been processed in a different light; oftentimes, that light is more accurate than the names you had forced events under previously. This is the edge that historians have over journalists: even though journalists keep the advantage of timeliness, historians have the great expanse of other events that provide the right context for the period they study, so their assessments of what happened at a particular point are usually more in-depth, well-rounded, and (sorry, fellow journos!) fact-based.

That said, I’ve begun to categorize my internship time with the Science Media Centre. (Now I'm used to calling it "centre," not "center.") Even though the work is continuous and carries over from week to week, the long “weekends” I have in between stints there serve as fairly reliable bold lines between stages of work. (Due to visa restrictions that everyone in the group has to follow, I can only work three days a week, which means I’m only there on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.) It happened by accident, with little willing on my part, which might lend some credence to the categories as correct representations instead of artificial constructs in my head.

So, without further adieu, this is how my three weeks have been. They’ll just be a paragraph each so I don’t do too much pre-processing.


Week One (12-14 May): Thrown into the Fire

I got to my internship at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 12. There was a press briefing at 10:30. …a.m. There were two press briefings on Wednesday, and another one followed on Thursday. For each one (except one of the Wednesday ones, since it overlapped the other one), I welcomed journalists and panelists, got journalists’ names, and sat in on the briefing. Also, each day I skimmed all the major London newspapers (Guardian, Telegraph, Times, Mail, Independent, Sun, Mirror, Express), found the science stories, and wrote a synopsis of them to send to the other staff members. Along with that, I made up a coverage report of all the press that the first briefing had gotten. (Sadly, none, but still, it was something to do.) By Wednesday afternoon, I also was given the task of aggregating all the press work we had done during a week of swine flu coverage (27-30 April) to send to the scientists who had helped us.

…Wow. Looking back on that, I realize I did a lot. They trusted me! They really trusted me!


Week Two (19-21 May): Little Ado About Nothing

I did considerably less during the second week. There were no press briefings, I finished the daily science news reports quickly, and I finished the swine flu report the first day. The only major thing that happened was a big meeting among all the departments in the Royal Institution, which despite our technical independence from the RI we attended. (Ha, I said “we!”) But apparently, I got there early in the “volunteer season” (my words), because we had another volunteer (who also works at Nature) working during the week, a third one in on Thursday, and a fourth one who had meant to come in for an interview on Thursday but got sick.


Week Three (26-28 May): Much Ado about Something Big

There was another briefing on Tuesday, which started to bring me back into the groove of lots of work. Frankly, I was missing that, because the first week was exhilarating. (And getting journalists’ names at the briefings reminds me of taking photos for the IDS! Except it’s harder to get the names spelled right because “David Derbyshire” sounds like “David Darbishure.” I’ve asked someone’s name four times because of that. Don’t worry, I’ve gotten better.)

On Wednesday, the SMC director asked me to help advertize the World Conference of Science Journalists that a few people in the office are helping to organize. I jumped at the opportunity (internally, of course!) and started sending e-mails that afternoon. I’ll be doing that work until the end, when hopefully the reward will be free entry to some seminars, some free food, and maybe a trip to a science destination. Yay! [← This explains the banner and icon appearing on my blog now. They have them for free on the website.]

Also, the volunteer that got sick the week before came in on Thursday. She’ll be there Thursdays and Fridays, so our schedules will overlap for one day a week. It’s good to get someone closer to my level in the office: She’s 24, and ::gasp:: she’s a journalist!


So that’s what I’ve done so far. The people in the office are pretty laid-back and good at their jobs, and the other volunteers are cool, too. I’m predicting a great next four weeks.