July 2006 Archives

Not such a happy couple days for me sports-wise. First, I went to cheer on the local women's soccer team, the New Jersey Wildcats, as they played their rivals the Ottawa Fury for in the Eastern Conference championship. Unfortunately for the unbeaten Wildcats, before the day even started they lost two of their better players to Canadian National Team Duty and one more to injury. But devastation occurred in the 30th minute when a hard tackle took our Brazilian star, Formiga, out of the game. But those 30 minutes were practically worth the price of admission. That women can do amazing feats with the soccer ball -- she was literally two cuts above anyone else on the field. She had the assist on NJ's first goal (the game's opener), but then Ottawa came back with three unanswered to bring us into halftime down 3-1. We got one more back after the break, but it wasn't enough, and the Wildcats' (formerly-) perfect season came to a close.

Today's A-league softball playoff game was even more disappointing. We were up the whole game and led 11-6 going into the final inning. Our opponents then proceeded to score 7 runs and take the lead. With one out in our half of the inning, I got on base, but the top of the lineup (I hit last) just couldn't get it done, and I was stranded on second to end the game. The only silver lining is that the tourney is double-elimination. The team just has to win four straight, including a double-header tomorrow.

I actually won't be able to play tomorrow night, as I'm attending "An Evening With Harry, Carrie and Garp." But more on that in tomorrow's post.

And lest I forget, as fashiongrrl mentioned: CONGRATS to "Enjaborg and Enjaboi." (Update: Enjanerd's post is up.)

So, the conference was fine. Made some good contacts. Presented my poster. Got some good ideas (possibly even my first "new, good idea" that's so crucial for research.) Oh, yeah, and it was 110°F...and the A/C broke. Ick. But enough of that, let's reminisce about the good old days of Spain. Who needs Lonely Planet when you've got:

How to Survive in Spain on 20 Euros a Day

• Breakfast should be served by your youth hostel in the common area and be free, provided that you wake up before 10am. Seems like all the hostels collude are serve exactly the same thing: orange juice, one non-sugared flaky cereal, one sugared chocolate rice crispie-ish cereal, and bread. Enjoy!
  
• During the day you'll want to tour whichever city you are in, and visit some museums. The museums are usually dirt cheap (if not free), assuming that you haven't left your international student ID card home. Spend about 2.50€ on site-seeing. Make sure you're indoors for the dreaded noon-2pm period: trust me, you don't want to be in the sun then.
  
• While walking around, invest in a large bottled water for you and your companion: 0.80€.
  
• Lunch should be around 3pm. I hope you're hungry, because lunches in Spain are huge. Get the "Menu del Dia," which consists of a drink, bread, two courses, and dessert. Walk around the city, surveying the restaurants until you find a meal from a nice place for 7€. (You'll find deals from disreputable places for 6€ or 6.50€ -- avoid.) Eat up as dinner won't be until late in the evening.
  
• Walk around some more in the afternoon, visiting a nice garden to relax in. Grab some ice cream (or "helado") for 1.50€ and then head back to the hostel for your daily siesta.
  
• Dinner is around 8pm or, more likely, 9pm and should consist of tapas. The more you ate for lunch, the less you'll have to spend on dinner. One tapas serving, plus drink and a shared dessert should cost you at most 8€.
  
• Head over to the main part of the city and start collecting the special invites to clubs. Tons of poorly-paid street workers will be handing out these coupons. They'll get you in free to a mediocre place (that's guaranteed to be filled, since everyone is doing the same thing you are). If you're lucky, your coupon will also get you a drink. Dance the night away.
  
• Sleepwalk back to the hostel and crash. But wake up before 10am so that breakfast is free!
  

Had (/am having) some flight adventures today as I slowly make my way toward UC-Davis for the Political Methodology Conference. It started when I slept through my New Jersey Transit airport stop. I've been sleeping on buses, subways, and trains ever since I was a kid, and I believe the last time I failed to wake up for my stop was in elementary school. (In that case, I woke up as the bus doors were closing on my corner, and I alerted the bus driver halfway up the next street.) Back in 2000, I woke up suddenly thinking that the Metro was at my stop, hurriedly jumped out, only to realize that it was the stop before mine. But today my streak ended as I fell victim to a confluence of unfortunate events: I had to hurry to catch the train so I was tired; I didn't intend to fall asleep so I didn't prepare my body to wake up when the train stopped; they weren't announcing stops over the PA; the train was running early so when I woke up and looked at my watch I thought my stop was next, when in fact we were at the stop after mine; the stop after mine was Newark Penn Station, and I failed to realize that Newark Airport comes before Newark Penn Station. Thus, when I finally realized my predicament, the plan was a relatively simple one: get off at Secaucus Junction and take the short cab ride. That plan was foiled when the train zoomed past Secaucus--I had somehow picked one of two off-peak trains that don't stop at Secaucus. Instead, I found myself in Manhattan. Thankfully, since the train was still ahead of schedule, I was able to hop on the first train leaving NYC in the opposite direction, and I arrived at the airport in time to get on the stand-by list, and then finally grab a seat. (My professor, it turned out, was on the same flight--in first class of course!)

My adventures didn't stop there, however. Though we arrived in Minneapolis with plenty of time to make our connection, the flight to Sacramento was cancelled due to mechanical problems. So we scurried over to a counter as asked if there was anyway to get to either Sac., San Fran, or Oakland. The answer was initially "no" (weather problems in Minn. exacerbated the issue), but the friendly woman found a flight to SF through Vegas. San Fran is a good two hours away from Davis, so I enlisted the help of Chicklet as we tried to find suitable ground transport.

Several calls to van services resulted in nothing. And the rental call companies wouldn't let us pick up the car in SF and leave in elsewhere. So we went back to a Northwest counter to turn in our tickets and resign ourselves for an overnight stay in MN. But, the woman checked again, and *now* there were seats available on a later flight to Sacramento! What luck (kind of). So now I'm killing three hours in the twin cities (or, the airport thereof)...if we had stayed overnight I would have tried to get in contact with DogNewTricks, but there's really no point now.

And thus, hopefully (!), ends our saga.

Haven't blogged since I returned from Spain (via London and DC). I blame the bad cold/mild fever I caught on my last day in Barcelona. Thanks to Janeite and Rupa for taking care of me in London. To wrap up the goings-ons of the trip: Saturday we went to Figueres (Salvador Dali museum) and then Girona (Roman ruins and Jewish museum), both of which were a Train ride from Barca. The Dali museum had some very inventive "art". For instance, you would look through this pair of reverse-binoculars and the room which you had been walking through all of a sudden turned into a face. Girona's Jewish museum had gravestones from the 13th Century and other ancient artifacts (e.g., Passover Haggadahs).

Sunday, we met up with the Utes and headed off to the beach. As with most beaches in Europe, the women were not nearly as modest as they are in the States. A fully naked guy was told to move to the nude beaches around the bend -- though there was some "disagreement" on that point. He managed to gain a few followers who also dropped trou in a display of civil liberties solidarity. Coincidentally, we later saw Naked Guy walking the streets of Barcelona in his usual outfit! No cops harassing him there though.

Then, one French head-butt later, Italy WON THE WORLD CUP, and the streets of Barca went nuts. A couple of flash mobs sparked in the vicinity of our hostel -- see pics for visuals, and note the guy who has climbed the lamppost. Obviously there were bigger celebrations in Italy (Elf traveled to Rome just in time for the parade the next day), but it was still a cool sight.

Monday, my rhinovirus and I traveled back to London, where Janeite, Rupa, and I swapped stories for the previous week before heading to the Royal Opera House for a performance of Turnadot. The plot outline promised riddles, but they weren't very good ones...though I guess the whole point of Opera is the music and singing. Both of those features were impressive, but to be honest, I wouldn't really know.

And now I'm back, working (and procrastinating) on projects before the methods conference in California (UC-Davis) at the end of this week.

I feel as though I'm only able to blog a third to a half of my experiences, hopefully I can fill in some of the gaps when I'm back in the States. Today we toured all of Gaudí's works, starting with the huge Sagrada Familia. It's this amazing church (not a cathedral) still under construction about 100 years after work was started on it. Those in charge of construction estimate that the project will be completed by around 2020. I truly cannot express how incredible the architecture is. Please do a google search and check it out for yourself. Gaudí's other creations that we visited weren't as impressive, but were still quite creative.

This evening we met up with Utes (amazingly we had the same schedule: Madrid, Sevilla, Barcelona) and traveled up to Montjuic, a hill that overlooks the city. The elevated area includes a national palace, a castle, gardens, and the "Magic Fountain," which I described as the Epcot fountains on 'roids, and put to music. Elf's better digital camera was more able to capture the fluorescent colors of the light on the water: she´ll post her pics after her Italy trip and hopefully you'll get a sense of the "magic" then.

Tonight we're hitting the clubs of Las Ramblas again. Last night we successfully found a free club with decent music. Hopefully we'll be able to repeat or improve upon that experience. Tomorrow, the Utes and us are off to Girona (ancient Roman city) and the Salvador Dali museum a few towns further west.

anI don´t have nearly as much time to blog as I did in London or my first day in Madrid, but suffice it to say that the trip is going fabulusly. I´m in Sevilla, with Elf and the Utes, plus their Brazilian friends who have been studyind Spanish at the local University for the past month. In Madrid, we checked out the night life (which rivals NYC´s), the Royal Palace, and the Modern Art Museum. Here in Sevilla, we´ve seen the huge Cathedral, the Royal fort/palace, Flamenco Dancing, and the old Jewish quarter (lots of small alleys, but no synagogues left). We´ve also been eating a lot of Tapas and Paella.

Hasta Luego!

Well, my Spanish still sucks. Turns out that three years of HS Spanish doesn´t exactly cut it in Madrid. The good news is that most people who sell goods or services know a little English. The true test will be on Tuesday when Elf and I travel to the smaller city of Sevilla. I think we´re less likely to run into English speakers there.

Madrid is a wonderful city, despite cautions to the contrary by former travelers. The streets are very pedestrian friendly and fabulous cafes dot the main plazas. We´re staying downtown in a youth hostel (Elf arrives tomorrow) and I´ve already made some good friends from teh University of Utah. The only big thing on the agenda today was going to the Prado. We (the Utes and I) saw paintings by El Greco, El Busco, and Picasso -- they also had the Adam & Eve pair of paintings, recently made more famous by the cartoon intro to Desperate Housewives.

My time´s almost up at this Internet Cafe -- I´m off to explore Madrid´s clubbing scene :)

Quick blog since I have to take a 5:30am cab to the airport for my flight to Madrid.

Janeite and I volunteered to EuroPride 2006. The parade was much fun, and it was great to see so many companies (e.g., Shell gas) and government organizations (e.g., the people who run the Tube) supporting GLBT issues. No counter protesters were present, though as we found out shortly, England is not even close to a tolerant society yet.

After helping people find their way on the parade route and adding bodies to the small security force at the "Women's (music) stage," we headed over to a local pub to watch the World Cup match between England and Portugal. The crowd was cheerful, drunk, and funny, at least for the start of the game. At one point at the second half, a man waving a Portuguese flag walked by. Ten seconds after I uttered the words "he's taking his life into his own hands," to Janeite, did one of the hooligans (against his g/f's protest) throw his glass beer bottle at the Portugal fan. Thankfully, his drunken aim was well off.

But then things got really ugly as gay couples from the parade and festivities started walking by. Plastic bottles were thrown, obscenities were shouted, and generally rude and offensive remarks were bandied about as if this sort of behaviour was appropriate and to be encouraged. Well, Janeite and I had had enough of that, and we left the pub to find a small, quiet cafe at which to watch the rest of the match. The hooligans got their comeuppance anyway, as England lost in penalties -- again.

I've been crash-coursing on Spanish verb conjugation for the past half-hour, so I don't have a whole lot of time to blog before I'm off to bed. Today I dutifully played the role of "tourist in London." Stops included Hyde park, Buckingham Palace, the changing of the guard, 10 Downing St, the Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and all the random statues along the way. We had lunch in grassy Russell Sq, before touring the British Museum search. We did our best to simulate the eponymous computer science algorithm, but didn't quite see all the exhibits. Given how many of the pieces were plundered in some way or another, I invite Howard Zinn to pen "A People's History of the British Museum." I think the work could be a great companion piece to the floor guide.

This evening, we attended Titus Andronicus at the Globe theatre. The play is both incredibly gory and funny at the same time. I was pleased with all the acting, except for the young woman who played Lauinia. The staging (or blocking, or whatever the proper term may be) was fabulous -- we were in the "standing only" section right up front, and the actors moved through us (as though we were a crowd) constantly throughout the acts. Thankfully, they did not spurt fake blood on us, though water, confetti, and feathers were strewn about.

Tomorrow is EuroPride, football match, and something fun in the evening yet to be determined. Then I'm off to Spain!