The second batch of pictures from my US tour is up for viewing (or at Picasa Web). This batch covers the Los Angeles area, including Hollywood Boulevard, Dodger Stadium, Beverly Hills, Topanga and Malibu Creek State Parks, and Santa Monica.
I’ve put the first batch of pictures from my US tour online, covering Austin and Phoenix. Click here to view them within my website, or here to view them at Picasa Web Albums. I didn’t take any pictures in Ann Arbor, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it has a very handsome campus and downtown area. No pictures from the Grand Canyon either, because today’s tour got cancelled due to all the snow and closed roads around Flagstaff.
Following a beautiful morning in Austin, TX (sunny, 20+ °C), I flew into a major storm in Phoenix, AZ. For a while, it actually looked like I wasn’t flying into Phoenix at all, given the weather conditions. But we did, so I got to experience what it feels to land in 25 mph crosswinds, with gusts up to 35 mph. Not too much fun, I’ll tell you.
From the airport to the hotel, I shared a shuttle with two guys whose flights out of Phoenix got cancelled. Indeed, inbound and outbound flights got cancelled all over the board. Mine was one of the few that still got in this afternoon. The shuttle driver had been watching incoming flights for a while, and had seen many aborted landings. Made me feel good that we touched down on the first attempt.
I’m in my hotel now, comfortably sheltered against the wind and rain, and watching the news on tv. They’re calling it the storm of the century; given that it’s the worst storm since at least 1993, that moniker is correct, albeit a tad premature. Phoenix is getting record amounts of rain, apparently the most in a single day since people started keeping track. Further north, the city of Flagstaff is getting a feet or two of snow. Elsewhere, the abundant precipitation is causing floods, and that’s expected to get worse over the next few days.
I was going to go on a bus tour to the Grand Canyon tomorrow, but it’s exceedingly unlikely that that will still happen. Authorities are strongly advising people not to travel. If the tour company decides to go on with the tour, I’ll assume it’s safe enough and I’ll go. If they cancel, I guess I’ll be stuck in my hotel for a day, because I’m sure as hell not gonna rent a car and go anywhere on my own. It’s too bad I’ll miss out on the Grand Canyon, but that’s the way life is sometimes.
My tradition of visiting the United States in January continues into the new decade. As the years pass, the number of destinations increases. In 2008, the business part of the trip only included Granville, OH. Last year, I also visited Columbus, OH and Ann Arbor, MI. This time, the two Ohio destinations are replaced by four new places: Austin, TX; Pasadena, CA; Cambridge, MA; and Washington, DC. I’ll also have a day and a half in Phoenix, AZ, but no business will be done there – the result of some logistical issues in planning the whole deal.
The purpose of this trip? To present my research at some of the top US astronomy institutes, and to talk about the possibilities for a postdoc position somewhere.
I’m off to a good start, with a pleasant flight from Amsterdam to Detroit (insofar as sitting in a cramped seat for 8.5 hours is ever pleasant), a quick transfer to my hotel in Ann Arbor, and a comfortable room in that hotel. Following the Christmas incident, security prior to boarding was tighter than ever. No body scan yet, but a full pat-down for every passenger, more stringent passport control, and a brief interrogation as to the purpose of the trip. The flight itself was unremarkable, except that it struck me as odd that the window shutters were closed almost the whole time. I don’t recall that being the case in 2008 and 2009.
Once out of the airport in Detroit, it was clear that I was in the US. The half-hour drive from the airport to Ann Arbor runs through the typical urban sprawl, with an overabundance of asphalt, billboards, gas stations and food courts. The hotel (Quality Inn & Suites, just off the US23 highway) is anonymous, but the girl at the reception was friendly, the room looks fine, and there’s free wi-fi.
I’ll be at the University of Michigan for the next day and a half, with a talk scheduled for Tuesday. I had a great time at UMich last year, and I look forward to repeating that experience.
I spent a few days in London earlier this week, attending the annual meeting of the Astrophysical Chemistry Group (APCG) of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Hosted by the University College London, the topic of the meeting was computational astrochemistry. That’s pretty much what I do on a daily basis, and indeed there were a number of talks very relevant to my own research. Unfortunately, the meeting ran a bit chaotically. It was shifted from Leeds to London at the last minute, giving the organizers too little time to get everything properly arranged. Also, it felt like some services at the university were still on a holiday break, a problem that previous APCG meetings also suffered from.
Anyway, despite some organizational problems (and a broken heating system on the first day, with temperatures outside around freezing), the meeting was certainly useful. I met some old friends from the UK and elsewhere and got to make a few new ones. On the second (and final) day I gave a 25-minute presentation of my own research, which was met with enthusiastic reactions from several people.
The meeting ended late Wednesday afternoon, so I had the rest of the day to do some sightseeing. It was over ten years since my last visit to London, and back then I only saw a small part of the city. I took the subway (a.k.a. tube or underground) to Trafelgar Square, where both fountains would have been frozen over if people hadn’t been breaking the ice all the time. Heading south, I passed by Downing Street (with the Prime Minister’s residence at No. 10) to arrive at Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. After a brief stop at Westminster Abbey, I crossed Westminster Bridge and had a quick bite at Waterloo Station. Refueled, I took a ride in the London Eye. This 135-metres tall ferris wheel (the largest in the world) takes about half an hour to complete a full circle. The view from the top across nightly London is truly magnificent.
Back on the ground, I took the tube towards London Bridge and walked along the Thames’ south embankment to the Tower Bridge. Crossing it, I followed the street past the Tower of London and carried on towards the Bank of England. I got back onto the underground for a quick ride to my final destination: St. Paul’s Cathedral. This one was a bit of a disappointment. Beautiful and large though it is, at night from the outside it doesn’t look all that spectactular. So, after a quick walk about, I headed back to the hotel. After all, I did have an early flight to catch the next day.
Pictures can be found here.
My computer clock shows 2:49 as I begin typing this post. That is to say, eleven-to-three on Friday morning (indeed, more like pre-morning) in London. My day started over 21 hours ago, at 5.30, in that city. It is now coming to an end several thousand kilometres to the west, in the small town of Granville, Ohio, where the local time is 21:49. It’s been a day of travelling interspersed with lots of waiting. Perhaps most surprisingly of all, I still don’t really feel tired.
My day ran something like this:
05:30 (GMT): The alarm goes off. I’m instantly awake and ready to get up—a clear sign that today’s a special day, because when my alarm goes off at 07:00 on normal work days, I still very much feel like getting another hour of sleep.
05:55: I check out of the hotel and lug my 25+ kilos of luggage (one suitcase and one backpack) onto a quiet London street for a short walk to the nearest underground station. The London underground is a splendid way of getting around, except when there are power outages or other problems, as has happened already thrice this year. Things are fine today on my line, and I’m soon zipping towards Heathrow.
07:05: Heathrow Airport. I already checked in online the other night, so I’m well on time to check in my suitcase for the 08:50 flight. Security is a breeze, leaving me plenty of time for some breakfast.
08:50: In an unusual case of timeliness, we depart at almost exactly the scheduled moment. The weather is good all the way to Detroit, the captain tells us, and we’re expected to land half an hour early.
11:45 (EST): We must have had some extra push, because we actually arrive forty minutes early. Great! Now I’ll have a layover of almost four hours.
13:40: Almost two hours after arriving in Detroit, I’m finally at the gate where my connecting flight to Columbus is scheduled to depart. Immigration took forever, mostly due to half a dozen Chinese and Arabian people being unable to properly complete the immigration form. The immigration officer looked positively relieved when I got to her counter and had everything in order. Getting my suitcase rechecked and myself through security again also was anything but a quick affair, but it seemed like only a few minutes compared to the infinite slowness at the immigration desk.
14:20: The 15:26 flight to Columbus is delayed because the incoming plane hasn’t arrived yet. The new scheduled departure time is 15:47, with the plane only expected to arrive at four-something. Clearly, that’s not going to work.
16:15: We board the plane. The departure time by now is listed at 16:30. Some red lights go off during pre-flight checks, and our captain informs us it may take some time, as all mechanics are already busy fixing other planes.
17:45: After sitting idly on board for an hour and a half, we are sent back into the terminal building. I’m not sure whether they’re still trying to fix the original problem, or something else came up, but clearly the plane isn’t going to fly to Columbus anytime soon. Back inside the terminal, we are sent off to another gate to be booked onto another plane.
18:30: We’re boarding a slightly larger plane with a different flight number, but with the same destination and the same group of people. By 18:47, we leave the gate to be de-iced and take off for Columbus.
19:52: We hit the tarmac at Columbus Airport, three hours and eighteen minutes after we should have. Steve Doty, my host here for the next three weeks or so, soon arrives to pick me up and bring me to the Bed & Breakfast in Granville.
22:31: After stopping at the local supermarket for some groceries, I check into the B&B and hook up to the wireless internet to check the latest gossip from home and write this post. (You’ll notice that I’m not particularly quick at writing these things. Actually, it’s already 22:32 at this point, and it’ll probably be 22:33 by the time I jot down the final period.) Now that that’s done, let me get some sleep. More stories (including London, and what I was doing there) tomorrow.
I don’t like soccer.
It’s a boring game. After watching twenty-two men chasing a ball for ninety minutes, you’d be lucky if they scored thrice. In 306 games in the Dutch Eredivisie this year, the average was 3.12 goals per game. That’s roughly one goal every half hour, or less if you include the half-time break. Major League Baseball teams managed 9.60 runs per game in the 2007 regular season. Granted, baseball games take longer, but not more than three times as long.
Normally, it’s quite possible to avoid soccer, but every other summer there’s a European Championship or a World Championship. During those three or four weeks, it’s as if there’s nothing but soccer. It’s on every tv channel, in every newspaper, on every website. Homes and bars and stores turn orange. Even people turn orange, and Planet Earth might as well be a giant soccer ball.
Most annoyingly, nobody seems to be allowed not to like soccer for the duration of the tournament. The soccer craze is forced upon you, whether you like it or not. You have to watch the games and talk about them the next day. That’s society’s fault, though, not the game’s.
Indeed, it’s no different this time. The European Championship started last week and it’s everywhere. Just two more weeks, and I’ll be free again until June 11th, 2010.
Still…
I watched the Netherlands’ first game on Monday, against reigning World Champs Italy, and I have to confess I enjoyed it. The score was certainly pleasing enough: 3-0 in our favour. Beforehand, a draw was considered an optimistic prediction. Our squad played their best game in years, Italy their worst. And yes, I watched it in its entirety, and I wasn’t bored. (Well, perhaps a little bit at some point during the second half. I continued to watch with one eye, while reading a magazine with the other.)
Of course, I didn’t have much else to do that night. I was visiting my thesis advisor in Garching this week. That’s a nice little German town. Nice, and very quiet. I thought I might as well watch the game for a while.
Yesterday, during supper, Croatia were beating Germany. That was fun as well, if for a different reason. The German commentator was so terribly desperate that I almost felt sorry for him. It’s only a game!
The Netherlands’ second game is on right now, against France. It’s two thirds through the first half and, much to my surprise, we’ve got a 1-0 lead. Perhaps I should turn on my television. I might enjoy it
again…
[Update: We beat France 4-1 to secure first place in Group C, the "Group of Death" with World Champions Italy and WC runners-up France, and we haven't even played the third and final game yet. Group of Death indeed! It'll be the death of Italy or France, or both if we let Romania win on Tuesday.]
This map shows the countries I’ve visited over the years (click the image for a larger version), colour-coded according to the reason I went there. Gold stands for business, blue for pleasure, and purple for both. In case a country consists of disconnected pieces of land, I only painted the area or areas I actually went. The list currently stands as follows:
Austria
Belgium
Chile
China
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Germany
Italy
Luxembourg
Mauritius
Netherlands (yes, really!)
Norway
Portugal
South Africa
Spain
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland)
United States
I’ve been involved in an online writing community since 2000. Two of the friends I’ve made there live in Ohio: T. some distance south of Columbus, and A. in an eastern suburb of Cleveland. I had the great pleasure of visiting both of them this weekend.
Steve was kind enough to drive me to Newark on Saturday, where I picked up a rental car. I met T. and M., a friend of hers, at the Franklin Park Conservatory. This is a botanical garden, but they also have several indoor biomes. (Given the time of year, there wasn’t anything of interest to see in the outdoors part.) The place is set up really nice and it’s very diverse. I’ll add a few photos to give you an idea:
When we’d seen everything at the conservatory, we drove to the North Market for lunch, and to a Starbucks afterwards for tea. We pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon there, chatting about everything and nothing that’s connected us for the past seven plus years. T., thank you again for the great time we had.
I drove up to Cleveland on Sunday morning to meet A. and her husband R. at a local restaurant. We didn’t have anything specific planned to do in Cleveland, and we didn’t need anything. We had such a great time chatting that we spent several hours at the restaurant (extending lunch into tea), simply talking. A. then invited me over to her place for supper and to watch the Super Bowl. That was an invitation I couldn’t pass up! A. prepared a very tasty meal, which we ate in front of the television. As a bonus, the game turned out to be a very good and exciting one. A., thank you again for your hospitality and a great day.
I spend the night at a nearby hotel and had all of Monday to do some sightseeing and get back to Granville. I started out by driving up to Lake Erie, which brought me past the North Chagrin Reservation. This is one of sixteen parks in the Greater Cleveland area and it has a number of trails set out. At first, it looked a bit tricky to go hiking, as the paths were covered with a thin layer of snow and ice. However, it wasn’t slippery at all, so I did two 1.6-mile walks. The snow and ice made for some beautiful scenery:
I spent the rest of the day driving back to Newark and Granville, avoiding the freeways as much as possible. With its rolling hills, the Ohio countryside between Cleveland and Newark is actually quite beautiful. Of course, it’s also Amish territory, and indeed I encountered several horse-drawn buggies on the road.
After dropping the car off at the rental company, Steve brought me back to Granville for the last night of my stay in Ohio. It’s been a very successful visit scientifically and a wonderful experience overall. Steve’s input on my research was invaluable and his untiring efforts to make sure I enjoyed myself were very much appreciated. I’ll be flying back home tomorrow a very happy person.
The dean of Denison University’s Physics & Astronomy department was so kind as to invite me to give a talk about my research. The audience was a mix of undergraduate students (Denison doesn’t have graduate programs) and faculty members, so I had to include quite a bit of simple introduction (for the undergrads) before diving in deeper (for the faculty). Also, my current project is very much a work in progress, so it was a challenge to make a coherent whole out of all the loose parts. Based on the reactions afterwards, I did quite well. No one fell asleep, there were a few good questions at the end, and I got several compliments on both my research and the talk itself. That’s one to put on my CV!
