As November 2008 rolls back into history, a cold spell suddenly hit France, not sparing even the warmest and coziest parts of the Mediterranean coast. For the first time since we arrived here, people are wearing scarves not purely as a fashion statement. I gave in and bought one, too - a black and white thing that keeps you surprisingly warm and immediately adds fifteen European-ness points to whatever else you wear with it. Speaking of buying, however, after having just taken out the money that I'll need to pay as rent for the rest of my time in the apartment, I will need to be as frugal as I can if I'm to stay in the green. There's an incredible supermarket called Carrefour (Crossroads) that's a little far from our house but so cheap that it's still worth going. Just as an example, you can buy a 2L coke bottle for 29 eurocents... A dozen of eggs for one euro... Et cetera.
For my birthday last weekend, there were actually three separate parties. On Friday, we went out with the French girl Chloé, whose birthday was a day ahead of mine, and a whole bunch of (mostly French) friends. On Saturday, some more French people came over to the apartment and brought an Irish movie to watch. Even though the actors all spoke in English, their accents were so bad that after ten minutes or so I suddenly realized that it was much easier to just read the French subtitles than to try and understand what they were saying. That was a little ironic. And then on Sunday we held a low-key Pink Floyd soirée with Brad and Dora, quite a remarkable finish for the already amazing weekend.
All throughout last month, we went to lots of nearby towns and villages, but as these experiences were mostly visual, just look at the freshly uploaded pictures!
Another piece of good news is that the abstract that I submitted to the Biophysical Society was finally accepted, and I was given a time a place to present a poster at the 53rd Annual Meeting in Boston in the beginning of March. Which of course means that now I have to make the poster, but you know, that'll probably get finished the day before, as usual...
Now that it's colder outside, I'm spending a lot more time with the guitar, and some inspiration actually began coming in. I have a nearly finished song, I just have to figure out what it will be about and write the lyrics. All the instrumentals are pretty much down, though, and although the demo recording sounds unbelievably awful with my webcam microphone, I can hear it in my head and I think/hope that it has potential.
I just realized I still haven't written anything about our weekend in Marseille! We spent most of the time walking about the beautiful city (once again, look at the pictures, they're all in a separate album titled Marseille), but by far the most exciting part of the trip was the visit to the castle of If. If the name doesn't ring a bell, you must not have read the 'Count of Monte-Cristo'... Anyways, the castle stands on a small island in the harbor and was originally built to protect the city from a maritime invasion. Or so the king claimed, because the liberty-loving citizens of Marseille were sure that the main purpose of the castle was to keep an eye on them and not let the city get out control. It is rumored that during the more volatile times the cannons of the fortress would every once in a while get rolled over to the other side and faced the harbor rather than the sea - just in case...
The castle is, however, more renowned for its role as a state prison second only to the Bastille. It was not built with this function in mind, but after several military strategists proved to the king that its design was flawed and completely inadequate for warfare, the king decided that the castle would be more useful to the state as a high-security detention facility. It's ironic that the place's most famous prisoner (by far), the Count of Monte-Cristo, is a completely fictitious character. However, Dumas visited the castle prior to writing the novel and described it in such a detailed way that the Count's cell could be easily identified and labeled as such.
As a final note from Marseille, I learned where the word 'quarantine' came from. It originates from the French word for the number forty, and refers to the forty days that all people and goods from incoming ships had to stay in a specific place and were not permitted to enter the city, out of fear that they might be carrying some unkown disease. It was a great idea, but one beautiful day a ship coming in from the East arrived late and was allowed by city authorities to bypass the quarantine, as it was carrying goods that were, at the time, in very high demand. In full accordance with Murphy's law, it so happened that aboard this exact ship lurked several rats carrying fleas infected with the Bubonic Plague, and within a few years nearly 15,000 of Marseille's then-25,000 population had succumbed to the disease.
And, finally, coming back to the blog's title. I watch the sun rise over the Mediterranean every Tuesday morning thanks to my 8am class. I'm still not a fan of waking up that early, but seriously, out of all the possible 8am class experiences, this is definitely not the worst =) One of these Tuesdays I will remember to take my camera with me - of course, it won't look the same on the picture, but you'd at least get a sense of the kind of beauty I see every week...
That's it for now... Leave comments! =)
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Stir it up
Before I begin telling traveler's tales, just putting it out there: Europe was absolutely crazy about who will become the next US president. Between Nice, Amsterdam, and Geneva, this last week was Obama overload - you can see his face in stores, on the streets, even posted on the walls of ancient castles (take a look at the photos on Picasa). And last night, Sara, Dora, David, Brad, and I stayed up until 6:30 in the morning at Brad's house, watching the election progress live on CNN - because of the time difference, he began delivering the victory speech with the first rays of the morning sun. It was a beautiful moment, I can't tell you how proud I am of this country right now... I also can't tell you how much the Europeans' opinion of the US has improved overnight!
Another thing: you can visit me virtually by clicking here. This is the door of my apartment building, you can then drag the image around for a 360 degree view. You can even look up and see my windows on the top floor! Finally, if you really have a lot of free time, feel free to walk up the street... Google is amazing.
So Amsterdam. Nine hundred years ago, this place was a cold and depressing swamp. Then a few fishermen decided to settle there because there was much fish and not very many people, and the rest is history. The name of the city comes from its first major construction project, a dam on the river Amstel, completed sometime before 1204. Following this, the little town very quickly grew into a port of international significance thanks to its location and the incredible natural harbor formed by the mouth of Amstel. The settlers encountered only one minor problem: there was literally no dry land to build upon. Remember, the place was a marsh. What the people ended up doing was digging countless canals in the swamp, piling the extracted mud and peat between the canals, and building upon this foundation. Later on, they added windmills that pumped water out of the canals - in fact, by the 16th century, one in three windmills in the entire country of Holland was dedicated exclusively to pumping, and water in the canals was kept at up to 3 meters below sea level.
Today, the difference is even larger and is maintained by massive pump stations that, in the very unlikely case of complete failure, would submerge not just Amsterdam but a good portion of the entire country up to second-floor windows - this last happened just over 50 years ago, in 1953, killing two thousand people and destroying 3,500 homes and farms. The precious value of dry land is evident everywhere. Almost all staircases are extremely steep to conserve horizontal space. Many houses actually lean out above the street in an effort to increase the area of the top floors (reminder - when you watch pictures in Picasa, click on the Slideshow button - otherwise they're really small!).
The atmosphere in the city could not be more unlike that in Geneva. There are, of course, several important museums - and you can buy a 20-euro museumkaart that grants you year-long access to almost all of them, something we absolutely took advantage of, seeing Anne Frank's house, the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, the science one, the photography one, and a few others. But at night, when Geneva shuts down and sinks in darkness, Amsterdam opens up and becomes Party Central (or, rather, Centraal, since the Dutch absolutely love spelling everything with doubled-up letters). Up until 4 or 5 am, the city is soaked in light, and crowds of young people wander the streets, floating in and out of bars, discos, coffeeshops, and whatnot. We stumbled upon at least three enormous free outdoor concerts, and one of the nights we were there all the museums in the city hosted thematic parties (which we unfortunately could not enjoy because all the performances, games and so on were in Dutch).
Also, the bicyclists in Amsterdam are probably the craziest in the world. First of all, they are innumerable - there are definitely a lot more bicycles on the roads than cars, buses, and trams combined, and every road has a special designated bicycle lane. The cyclists are so self-assured that they would never a) stop for anyone/anything, except traffic lights, b) yield to anyone/anything, and c) reduce their speed. If you accidentally walk onto a busy bicycle lane, you probably WILL get hit - we saw quite a few minor bicycle accidents over the three days we were there.
My overall opinion of Amsterdam: amazing place to go for a few days, NOT a great place to live in... I don't understand how the locals don't go crazy with all the noise and light - I guess one can get used to anything.
Let me just reiterate how cheap one can fly with Europe's two major low-cost airlines, EasyJet and Ryanair. My flight from Geneva to Amsterdam was 15 euro, all taxes and fees included... The only inconvenience was that, on the way back to Nice, we had to spend the night in the Dublin airport. Dublin is VERY MUCH out of the way, but the tickets were surprisingly cheaper like this... I could not believe the amount of people who stay in that airport overnight! Every cushioned horizontal surface (benches, armchairs, some tables) had at least one sleeping person on it. For the sake of travelers' comfort and relaxation, every fifteen minutes the following announcement was broadcast VERY LOUDLY over the PA: "Please keep your baggage with you at all times. Unattended baggage will be removed and may be destroyed". I think I will remember this phrase forever, word for word... Also, we were woken up at least three times by policemen who walked around checking everyone's passports. But you know, given how much cheaper it was to fly this way, I'm not complaining!
Back in Nice, it's been raining for over a week now, and everything is cold and wet. The forecast looks a little better for the weekend, I'm so glad I missed most of the rain thanks to fall break! This coming weekend Mme. Letzter is taking us to Marseille, one of France's largest cities... Therefore, a new blog and new photos will appear in less than a week! Miss you all!
Another thing: you can visit me virtually by clicking here. This is the door of my apartment building, you can then drag the image around for a 360 degree view. You can even look up and see my windows on the top floor! Finally, if you really have a lot of free time, feel free to walk up the street... Google is amazing.
So Amsterdam. Nine hundred years ago, this place was a cold and depressing swamp. Then a few fishermen decided to settle there because there was much fish and not very many people, and the rest is history. The name of the city comes from its first major construction project, a dam on the river Amstel, completed sometime before 1204. Following this, the little town very quickly grew into a port of international significance thanks to its location and the incredible natural harbor formed by the mouth of Amstel. The settlers encountered only one minor problem: there was literally no dry land to build upon. Remember, the place was a marsh. What the people ended up doing was digging countless canals in the swamp, piling the extracted mud and peat between the canals, and building upon this foundation. Later on, they added windmills that pumped water out of the canals - in fact, by the 16th century, one in three windmills in the entire country of Holland was dedicated exclusively to pumping, and water in the canals was kept at up to 3 meters below sea level.
Today, the difference is even larger and is maintained by massive pump stations that, in the very unlikely case of complete failure, would submerge not just Amsterdam but a good portion of the entire country up to second-floor windows - this last happened just over 50 years ago, in 1953, killing two thousand people and destroying 3,500 homes and farms. The precious value of dry land is evident everywhere. Almost all staircases are extremely steep to conserve horizontal space. Many houses actually lean out above the street in an effort to increase the area of the top floors (reminder - when you watch pictures in Picasa, click on the Slideshow button - otherwise they're really small!).
The atmosphere in the city could not be more unlike that in Geneva. There are, of course, several important museums - and you can buy a 20-euro museumkaart that grants you year-long access to almost all of them, something we absolutely took advantage of, seeing Anne Frank's house, the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, the science one, the photography one, and a few others. But at night, when Geneva shuts down and sinks in darkness, Amsterdam opens up and becomes Party Central (or, rather, Centraal, since the Dutch absolutely love spelling everything with doubled-up letters). Up until 4 or 5 am, the city is soaked in light, and crowds of young people wander the streets, floating in and out of bars, discos, coffeeshops, and whatnot. We stumbled upon at least three enormous free outdoor concerts, and one of the nights we were there all the museums in the city hosted thematic parties (which we unfortunately could not enjoy because all the performances, games and so on were in Dutch).
Also, the bicyclists in Amsterdam are probably the craziest in the world. First of all, they are innumerable - there are definitely a lot more bicycles on the roads than cars, buses, and trams combined, and every road has a special designated bicycle lane. The cyclists are so self-assured that they would never a) stop for anyone/anything, except traffic lights, b) yield to anyone/anything, and c) reduce their speed. If you accidentally walk onto a busy bicycle lane, you probably WILL get hit - we saw quite a few minor bicycle accidents over the three days we were there.
My overall opinion of Amsterdam: amazing place to go for a few days, NOT a great place to live in... I don't understand how the locals don't go crazy with all the noise and light - I guess one can get used to anything.
Let me just reiterate how cheap one can fly with Europe's two major low-cost airlines, EasyJet and Ryanair. My flight from Geneva to Amsterdam was 15 euro, all taxes and fees included... The only inconvenience was that, on the way back to Nice, we had to spend the night in the Dublin airport. Dublin is VERY MUCH out of the way, but the tickets were surprisingly cheaper like this... I could not believe the amount of people who stay in that airport overnight! Every cushioned horizontal surface (benches, armchairs, some tables) had at least one sleeping person on it. For the sake of travelers' comfort and relaxation, every fifteen minutes the following announcement was broadcast VERY LOUDLY over the PA: "Please keep your baggage with you at all times. Unattended baggage will be removed and may be destroyed". I think I will remember this phrase forever, word for word... Also, we were woken up at least three times by policemen who walked around checking everyone's passports. But you know, given how much cheaper it was to fly this way, I'm not complaining!
Back in Nice, it's been raining for over a week now, and everything is cold and wet. The forecast looks a little better for the weekend, I'm so glad I missed most of the rain thanks to fall break! This coming weekend Mme. Letzter is taking us to Marseille, one of France's largest cities... Therefore, a new blog and new photos will appear in less than a week! Miss you all!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)