Merry Chrimbo

 

Baker the Giant

This tree was  a gift from the Americans recognizing the France's commitment to human rights with their Bill of Rights. It was planted twenty years ago, on the year we were born.  It was very small when Erin (in brown jacket) last visited Paris. Its a California redwood.

 

 

My boys! 

Our tiny Parisian apartment, cozy, packed, and full of Christmas cheer.

And one from Amsterdam to prove that I was there! I'm absolutely freezing right there, but I was just pretty much a frozen fish stick all week. My poor southern californian soul....

Happy Boxing Day.

By the Sea

As evidenced by the following pictures, I spent my weekend in the proximity of the sea. 

Brighton has a famous pier and boardwalk, which was designed in the typical Brighton architectural fashion: white, ornate, and and very unique.  The pier reminded me of the Great White City of the Chicago World Fair.  There is another building in the city that was built is the Royal Pavilion, built as a seaside resort for Prince (and future king) George IV to benefit his gout (thanks Wikipedia!). Anyways, its even more ornate, even more eccentric, and even more over the top. It was built to mimic Indian design. 

This is not my photo, but yes, there are palm trees in front. Exotic.

Brighton is bigger than I expected.  Its about 500,00 people (or so I'm told), and holds a number of festivals, shows, and other signs of a cultural big city.  Yeah, the high street just looks the same as every other city, but the small lanes (tiny narrow winding streets) are full of eclectic shops.

One night, we ventured down to the city for a good old-fashioned Fish Fry, a dancing night where they only played music from the 40's.  White people can actually dance to that stuff, which is nice.

The University of Sussex is located about 10 minutes from the city, tucked up in the hills. If you have started to have that inkling that Brighton sounds similar to Santa Cruz, you're on to something. The physical set up is similar, with a detached campus. The campus itself is pretty forward-thinking, and its favorite sports are field hockey and hackey sack.

I went to see my friends Emily and Aaron, who will be studying there for a year (for a year! I won't see them....)  They live in these funny multi-storied housing units that are terraced into the hillside and house 12 people each. That's a lot of people to share one kitchen.  But Emily's flatmates are quite nice, and would be good friends if I were living there.

Emily celebrated a 21st birthday while I was there.  It was medieval royalty/peasantry themed. I was a peasant, and found my "husband" in a girl who dressed as Rasputin

It was an awesome evening, with a live performance by Aaron and Emily's band, which includes guitar, cello, viola, and melodica.

One of the afternoons, we took a walk in the Downs, the open, preserved area surrounding the school. Its characterised by gently rolling hills, pastures, and small woods; all in all, very English. 

One of the quaintest parts of the walk was the small hamlet that was just over the hill. It consisted of a church, a pond, a tea house, and about a dozen cottages. And a small mansion. And a communal stable it seems?  Looks fit for a Christmasy setting.

We had high tea in the tea room. Large cups of tea, fresh scones, and fresh, handwhipped cream for the top.  So good.  It sounds fancy, but it wasn't; at least, it wasn't stuffy. It was more rustic cute, with country couples coming tromping in in their wellies and dogs.

The village, where supposedly people live year-round, and is not a holiday place.  It seemed almost fictitious to me, but very cute. 

Transform and Rollout

Happy December!

  I found the last advent calendar (or should I say 'Autobot Calendar'?) in all of Edinburgh. Check it out below. Its pretty snazzy. 

Saw some nice (free) fireworks on Monday from the castle. The castle looks appropriate with an orange glow and lots of smoke.

Fretting about exams, but revising away. Revising is the British word for studying.  Strange.  I would think that revising would refer to fixing something, not reviewing it. O, cultural differences.

With a little bad judgment on timing, I'm leaving Edinburgh tonight to go see a few Santa Cruz friends in Brighton-by-the-sea. The name practically begs to be said in a sing-song voice.  It will a wonderfully refreshing trip, but it means that I am going to have to be twice as efficient in revising.

In other words, my two very good pals are having their last show on Fresh Air, the University of Edinburgh's radio station.  It was a great run guys, and thanks for enjoyable Wednesday nights.

 

So many things....
  Thursday, my friends and I celebrated a traditional thanksgiving. I was in charge of pies, and made an apple and pumpkin--the pumpkin puree was sold in exactly one store. I also made some bread from this interesting recipe: its no knead, five-minute bread, but tastes fine. Check it out. http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/cookbook/2009/artisan-bread/boule.html . Note about the pie:  the recipe for the pastry crust called for shortening; Britain does not know what that is, but have the ever-interesting suet, usually rendered beef or lamb fat, but also available in vegetable form. It is essential for traditional British pies. But check out what it looks like in dehydrated form--

It was strange to have to go to school on Thanksgiving, and the day after. Think about it--I have never gone to school on Thanksgiving in my life.  

On Saturday, we went to the rugby game!  It was an international game, Scotland vs Argentina. We walked to the field, joining in the multitude.  When we were about halfway there, people started to come out of the woodwork, and slipped into the stream of fans.

The field is called Murrayfield, and hosts both rugby and football. The food vendors consist solely of booths that sell fish and chips, hamburgers, and beer.  Josh and Devin enjoyed a bit of this lovely tradition by getting some hot fish and chips to eat during the game. They gave me their best fighting faces.

The day was immensely cold, as one can see from the fog on the field. When the players were all in the scrum (the huddle that restarts a game), a cloud of breath condensation emanated from the players.

Despite the avid fans, Scotland lost 6-9.  

On Sunday, I went to a ceilidh that was hosted for free because of St. Andrews Day.  Kicked up my heels to some traditional music.

Tomorrow is St. Andrew's day. He is the patron saint of Scotland. Happy St. Andrew's day everyone.  

Emmm.

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/back-to-the-land/?em

Siccar Point

So this is the famous "Hutton's Unconformity", where sediments of ages millions of years apart are deposited right on top of each other. This was a perfect example of time can be represented by gaps in the geologic record. He is famous as saying "The present is the key to the past", that is, processes happening right now, wave action on beaches, eroding mountain sides, have been happening for millions of years, and can be seen in paleoenvironments (rocks). 

The rocks were at the bottom of a very steep cliff.

If you can make them out, there are some people at the bottom, near the center of the photo. Our class was about 60 kids, and it was a ridiculous site to see us all tramping and slipping down the hillside.

But it was cool to be there. This image is looking southwards down the coast. 

Our last stop for the weekend was on a beach near a golf course.  That is the club house. 

Only in Edinburgh...

On a jog last night, I stumbled upon a pipe band giving a performance to (seemingly) important people in suits and a few top hats.  There was even flame torches and red velvet ropes. It was just on a little side street, and there were some fancy lights illuminating them.  Listened to Amazing Grace and another classic before I headed off again. 

Lahndan

yo, i'm back. I'm sorry it took ages, I was at some concerts the last two nights.  But first, sit down and let me tell you about London. 
 
We took the overnight bus from Edinburgh, a ghastly 12 hour ride aboard a stuffy bus that I swear smelled like toilet the entire time (ah, my sensitive nose).  Sleep on a bus should not be labeled as sleep, but rather as  butt-aching numbness. But we arrived in Victoria Station nice and early, hopped onto the Tube and popped up under Big Ben, drizzled in rain.

We walked over to the Westminster Abbey, but it was closed. It was pretty impressive from the outside though.

We walked across the Thames, and of course when you look back, you see this postcard image (including grey sky). It actually looked a bit differently than what I had imagined. I think I was disoriented a bit from coming up from the Tube station, but it looked less significant than I had thought.

We saw some public art--it consisted of umbrellas. Reminiscent of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's yellow umbrellas?

We walked over to Hyde Park (the largest park in the city), and as soon as we crossed the gates we ran into a cavalry brigade just taking a serious stroll through the park....

There was such a juxtaposition of the traditional processional against the hustle and bustle of car traffic flowing around the park. They both tolerated each other.

A stop to Harrod's was mandatory, and so indescribable. It was like my eyes were gorging on the sights. The fanciest watches and purses and jewelry, right next door to this incredible, expansive food market that had rooms just for meat, just for wine, just for fruit, just for chocolate, etc. It was so over-the-top, but in an acceptable way, for it was unique in its extravagance.  The fish market....

London has a lot of free museums, and the first one we went to was the Natural History Museum. It wasn't huge, and of course there were a lot of little school kids there, but it was fun to go and see skeletons of dodo birds and stuffed, dusty lions. It was a cool building too.

The other museum we went to that day was the Tate Modern. It is an excellent museum, a large, free modern art museum with many exhibitions spanning many ideas.  I would recommend it to anyone going to London.

Picadilly Circus is as ridiculous as its name.  Just look at Josh's reaction to the utter scene that is Picadilly.

It is essentially the Times Square of London. Tons of ads up on screens, a giant Ripley's Believe It Or Not, kids who took day jobs handing out fliers shoving deals into your face, garish Christmas lights hanging between the buildings.  But.....it is the theater district (and the adult movie theater district, a literary neighborhood, and Chinatown. Quite the mix), and we got tickets to go see Avenue Q. It was good to see a proper show, although I thought the ending could have been better; most of the show is in the first half, and it would have been just the perfect length and funniness if they stopped there. But it was funny, and the puppets were neat.  It was a mixed show, with puppets and people, and the puppetmasters were completely visible. 

We were staying at a friend's parents' house off of Warwick Ave (a tube stop), and got to sleep in comfy beds for the weekend. 

The next morning, we headed over to Brixton to see the Jamaican market. It reminded me a bit of Chinatown, with stores that sell everything you could need in your house and beyond. The most impressive thing was the food though--fresh fruit and vegetables and meat and fish, all plentiful and beautiful and absolutely fresh. 

Do you know what that white round vegetable is in the center? It was labeled as "garden egg" (in quotes).  Lots of yams, chiles, and okra.  Whole chickens with feet still on, and a motley array of fish. 

Then, we went to Camden. Camden Market and Lock is a giant permanent swap meet of sorts that is situated in old horse stables in these crazy old brick buildings. Its awash with alternative culture, from tattoo shops to goth clothing to and entire store devoted to glow-in-the-dark rave ware with live dancers in the store.  But it also has a lot of cool second hand stores with books and clothes and records and its worth a look around. We spent a lot of time there (getting our rave clothes, what else?) because it was like a never ending maze of things to see. Good food stalls too. 

We ventured over to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, but couldn't be compelled to pay for the tour inside. Instead, I contented myself by climbing the Roman wall that protected Londinium (Roman London).

We spent some time hanging out with friends, and then caught the overnight bus to Edinburgh on Sunday. Got back right in time for my 9AM class. 

One last little reminder of a friendly bear in a funny hat who happens to love marmalade.....

I miss my bike

Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh

 

Remember Remember!

Guy Fawkes Day, 2009
 
Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

This is THE fireworks day of the year in Britain. Hop on over to your local Lidl's or Tesco's or Edinburgh Bargain Store, grab yourself some fireworks (really quite mild ones, like we have in California), head on up to Arthur's Seat, the big ancient volcano in the middle of town, join a bunch of friends, and practically the entire youth population of Edinburgh, who have all congregated on the Crags and rocks that overlook the city, fall in line with the slow-moving train of people that is heading up the hill, slip and fall a few times because its a wet night, and rather dark even though its clear and the moon looks amazing.  When you get to the top, pause on the flatter heathery section, light off a few fireworks, join a bonfire (or pathetic fire, as we did), throw in the requisite homemade 'guy' (a newspaper man, in our case), continue up the rocks to the very tip top, pose for a great group portrait, light off the remaining fireworks, and then head down, not enjoying the slippery walk , but reveling in the view of 360degrees of Edinburgh at night and the outlines of people on the crags watching the fireworks.  

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

This has been my first real fall. The leaves changed color a few weeks ago, and now are starting to fall off.  They get soaked from the rain, mold, and make the pavement really slippery.  Cobblestones are hard enought to walk on without the added obstacle.  Everyone is talking of mulled cider, and apples of all forms are arriving in the markets.  Bramley apple pies (a British staple. Supposedly planted by a little girl 200+ years ago, the tree is still bearing fruit today. They are the main variety of apple used in cooking pies and tarts and whatnot), caramel apples, roasted apples, etc. 

  Its raining everyday now, but it comes in the form of episodic sprinkles more often than not. Its nothing like the rain of the Louisiana and the rest of the south and their loads of rain that get you wet in a matter of seconds, or like the rain of New Mexico, which comes from impressive clouds and will continue until they run out of water.  Here, the rain is epemeral, and has no smell (maybe the town smells like rain permanently?), and does not make sound. The cobblestones and old stone buildings seem to swallow up the lovely sound of rain, and the only way you can hear the rain is indirectly through the squelch of tires through puddles. 

It is a consensus among us visiting Americans that Edinburgh is a fine, fine city, and that we've fallen in love with it.  Its small size, and the magic of the architecture exudes a kind of warmth, which seems quite contradictory for anyone who hasn't been here.  Its not as exciting as other big cities, and kids from London seem to miss the full force. But it is more homey than say, Glasgow. Its a great city to come back from a trip to.  You know how sometimes its disappointing coming back from a vacation, and just wanting to go back because the homecoming wasn't as satisfying as it could've been?  The homecoming is great in Edinburgh. Walking back from the train or bus station, usually at night, looking up at the Old Town, which sits on a hill above the rest of the city, the big fancy buildings are tastefully lit with nice yellow-orange lights, the air is cool and wet, there are significantly less people walking around, and the idea of walking back to your flat by way of cobblestone streets and small staired closes makes you really grateful for where you live. 

Halloween in Berlin

Man.  Josh and I were invited to Berlin for the weekend by our friend (and one of my roommates last year) Josh, who is studying there for a year.  We figured Berlin would be more interesting than Edinburgh for Halloween (which would just end by going to a crappy club and having to listen to drunk people singing in the streets all night), so we hopped on a plane that left at 6:40 AM Friday (we had to get up at 4 to get there) and arrived at the Schoenfeld Airport at 10 in the morning.

 Schoenfeld is the lesser-used, lower quality airport of Berlin, which we had flown into because we had used RyanAir, a notoriously cheap European airline.  Its on the Eastern outskirts of town; Berlin is divided into 3 concentric circles: A is the center of the city, B is the surrounding suburbs, and C is the neighboring state (yes state.  Berlin is a city-state.  It is its own city, in its own state. All of the other states are similar to ours). The airport was right outside the limits in C, so it was a ways from the city.
  The transportation in Berlin is incredible. S-bahns connect the outskirts and suburbs to the inner city.  The Ringbahn is a giant circle surrounding the A section of the city, connecting all of the S-bahns together.  In the middle are more S-bahns (they crisscross the city from end to end) and U-bahns, the subway. One day ticket will get you on any train, so we hopped all around the city. Germans, as Josh Miller (the friend) explained to us, are very efficient and timely, and all of these trains were perfectly on time. The drivers supposedly have to explain themselves if they are more than ten seconds late.  There is some drama going on right now because the S-bahn was cut to 20% running (instead of every 3 minutes, its every 10-20), and the Germans were up in arms about it.  From the airport, we took the S-bahn into the city, passing through a big chunk of East Berlin.

    There are still so much evidence of socialist power in East Berlin. Its a decrepit state, looking much like the poorest and shabbiest parts of LA.  Except that many of the buildings are abandoned and are now home to squatters.  There is a huge squatting population in Berlin (and there is a lot of space for it), and there are even things such as the Squatting Club, which is a secret underground club that travels from abandoned building to abandoned building, setting up a regular weekend dance club in each.  The buildings are tall and square without any architectural beauty. Very utilitarian. But much of the blank wall space is covered in graffiti, and adds color to the otherwise barren landscape.

    Street art is very popular in Berlin, and has been an integral part of the city for decades (the Wall is the biggest example).  Josh M took us to the Eastside Gallery, which is a section of the Berlin Wall that has been covered with many famous murals.   

These murals have been around since the fall of the wall, so it takes some work to keep them from being defaced. If they are, they are restored, or repainted.  At least two sections were being painted while we were there.

We walked around the the eastern side of the city.  Much in the city center has been redeveloped in the last 20 years, and it shows.  Alexanderplatz was the center of East Berlin, and was developed much in that style, as seen in these lovely office buildings. There is a club in that middle building that occupies an entire floor.

Marking Alexanderplatz for the rest of the world to see is the TV tower.  It was erected in the 60's when East Berlin started to rebuild the city after the war. It was a completely secular structure, used to broadcast television, but in a twist of fate called "The pope's revenge", when sunlight hits the tower, it forms the shape of a cross.  The atheist government was very much peeved by this phenomenon, and tried to cover it, paint it, get rid of it in any way, but the sun persisted.  The tower is one of the tallest in Europe, and can be seen all around the city.

Surrounding the area are museums and parks and statues and other things of cultural interest. Good friends Marx and Engels, seen on the left.

The Berliner Dom, with the two Joshes in the foreground.

This is a square close to Humboldt University (an East Berlin Uni that is supposed to be pretty good, but is discounted in West Berlin's eyes because of the supposed brain drain from East Berlin).  Josh M has seen an outdoor opera here.  It started to rain in the middle of the opera, but the show went on. That picture isn't that interesting besides the fact that it is a false front. They are doing construction on the building behind it, and instead of plastic, they put up a trompe-l'oeil.

Walking around, we came across Checkpoint Charlie, a former West/East checkpoint in the city. It was the border between the Allied west and the soviet east.  Near Checkpoint Charlie a kid was killed trying to cross the wall. He was shot as he was climbing over the wall, and lay bleeding to death for an hour while many people watched. He fell just beyond the wall, and neither side was willing to go and save him.

One of my favorite parts of Berlin was in Merringdamm, a neighborhood in the city.  Straight from the train from the airport, Josh M took us for an early lunch at a street food vendor. We grabbed a cold Berlin beer from the katranka (spelling? German liquor stores)--it was 10 AM after all, and in germany, beer is cheaper than bottled water, and popped up from the U-bahn (subway) to eat a döner kebab.  This has got to be some of the best street food around--a döner kebab is a Turkish kebab sandwich of sorts. The meat is cooked vertically on a spit, sliced off, and mixed with lots of spices and cooked vegetables.  The döner kebab is assembled like so: a slightly toasted soft bun is split in two, slathered with a combo of white, garlic, and hot sauces, the meat is stuffed in; cabbage, lettuce and onions are added, as well as a tomato and cucumber salad. Crumbly white Turkish cheese is sprinkled on top, and a squeeze of lemon caps everything.  A picture: Warm and spicy, flavorful with contrasting textures, filling but not greasy;  I could eat this every day.  We also tried another Berlin staple, Currywurst. Currywurst is a bratwurst sliced up and topped with a ketchupy-curry sauce doused over. Eaten with a little fork, its a decent snack, but was way too saucy (Germans like their sauce), and would get really old if you had to eat it a lot.

Speaking of food though, I must tell of the grocery store.  Josh M lived in the suburbs, a 30 minute train ride from the city. He actually lived in a really nice area, full of rich, settled families. So the grocery store was a reflection of the area.  But it had the most FANTASTIC bakery.  The best looking and tasting German pastries; fresh, warm, sweet. I don't have a picture of it, but it was impressive. The whole display looked like a treasure chest of shining gold.  They also made fresh bread, and we had a great loaf of brown crusty onion bread.  I don't know the name of it, but it seemed very German.  The store also had a huge deli.  One whole side of the store was devoted to fresh meat--so many sausages and pork products.  It looked good though.  They are also big fans of paprika chips.  Just potato chips flavored with paprika.  Mild, but pretty good.

On Halloween night, we went to two house (apartment really) parties.  We had plans to go to the supposedly fantastic night clubs of Berlin (huge night life there), but the time passed too quickly, and never made it.  We had to stay up all night because of flight was leaving at 10 AM, which meant that we had to be at the airport at 8:30.  Josh's apartment was about 1.5 hours away by train to the airport, and it made more sense to stay in the city.  We watched the sun rise in Berlin, along with a good portion of the population (there were a lot of people out all hours of the night).

*Note on Germans--they are very literal, and when someone says to dress up for Halloween, they dress in blood and gore and black.  Vampires, dead things, all dark and serious.  If you dressed like a glass of milk and cookies, they wouldn't understand it at all.*

Train station

Sunrise