Thinking Plaid

moving on out

2007-12-12T01:28:00.000Z

Hi all (or those who are left),

So I guess writing about my life at Brown wasn't as exciting as writing about my life in Europe. But I have big news: I'm going to be bicycling from Jacksonville to San Francisco this summer with Bike & Build, a great organization which raised money and awareness for affordable housing causes.

You can check out my route here .
There's more information about the Bike & Build organization here.

And, my new blog for all biking related thoughts (and anything else that happens along the way) is here

As for me, my semester was good but busy. The dark and cold has put me into hibernation mode -- i feel like all I do is study and nap. In two weeks I'm going to Southern Spain with my parents and then back to Edinburgh for a few days (and London too).

Thanks for reading,
Em

update!

2007-09-11T22:42:00.000+01:00

Hi,

I'm sorry I haven't posted in such a long time. Things in my life started happening very quickly in Germany and much of it was too personal for a public blog. But, I survived Germany and made it back to the US. I spent a week at home in Santa Monica and then took a roadtrip up north to San Francisco including a few days of camping in a beautiful place called Henry Coe State Park south of San Jose. Then I flew to Providence, stopping in Chicago for a few days to visit another friend. I guess I've turned into a travel addict. Adapting back to the US was fairly simple; adapting back to Brown has been harder. So I bought myself a bike to pedal around campus as if I was in Germany and I rejoined the Capoeira club to bring back a bit of Scotland.

And I have good news:

I submitted a cleaned up version my entry 'Getting to Taormina' to an advanced 'lifewriting' class and I got in! I've never taken a writing class at Brown before so I'm really excited. I might post some of my work for the course here, so keep tuned in.

Scotland in the news

2007-07-09T20:49:00.000+01:00

Not to neglect my other adopted country:

Terror in Glasgow? Scots are Perplexed

Cologne in the News

2007-07-09T08:43:00.000+01:00

I'm sure most of you have already read this article but here it is:

Germans Split Over a Mosque

The mosque will be built in Ehrenfeld, the neighborhood in between where I live and the center city. As I take the ubahn towards the institute, more and more women in headscarves get on. I often see groups of women, some with headscarves and conservative dress and others without scarves wearing more revealing clothing, chatting away as if they were no difference between them. I think it's funny that some in the article complain that a mosque would be a problem because it shows that the muslim immigrants have not integrated in German society. Do they expect all immigrants to convert to Christianity just because they are in Germany? I was also surprised that one of the main critics interviewed is Jewish.

I went to Dusseldorf this weekend so I should have some pictures up soon.

some photos

2007-07-04T10:01:00.001+01:00

The field I live in
The Dom

Daily German Lessons

2007-07-02T17:50:00.000+01:00

So I came to Germany knowing a some German. But my German skills were pretty limited to basic conversations like booking train tickets and discussing the weather. I did amazingly at discussing various types of sunscreen with a pharmacist in Halle (Fünfzig SPF? Das würde am besten, weil ich so weiß ist). But beyond that, I'm pretty hopeless.

Luckily, the Germans I have met here are really patient when I try to speak German to them. They listen, suggest words, and even correct grammatical errors. I mentioned to a lab tech I work with that I wanted to improve my German, and now whenever I see her she asks me questions, and if I don't know how to answer in German, she tells me. And then she makes me repeat it back to her. Twice. It's amazing.

Language isn't the only way I've delved into German culture. When I came to Germany, I didn't know how to ride a bicycle. Now I do. Learning was a pretty painful process, figuratively and literally. I think I've managed to convince the entire MPIZed that I am absolutely nuts. An old German man, most likely some prestigious plant biologist I will run into for the rest of my life, tried to push me on the bicycle for a bit. It didn't work.

But I now have a rust-covered older-than-I-am bicycle to ride around on. Luckily, the citizens of Köln are not only patient language teachers, but patient drivers. I haven't hurt myself too badly yet because I am very good at finding objects to gracefully break my fall (like thorn bushes. ouch). Having a bicycle has allowed me to ride local health food store and buy wonderful things like tofu, soy burgers, organic carrots, and organic curry paste. And I get to interact with friendly health food store shop clerks who point out that there's blood dripping down my arm. If only I knew how to say 'I bicycled into a thorn bush' in German.

Meine Damen und Herren

2007-06-24T15:51:00.000+01:00

It's been almost two weeks since I got to Germany. Here's what's happened.

Last Thursday I went to Halle to help out at our field site there. It was pretty exciting to go to east Germany although I hadn't really seen west Germany that much. Halle looked a lot like a mini-Prague, with older paint. While Halle is the birthplace of Handel and the location of the continent's only Beatle museum, there are few tourists and no one spoke English. I didn't speak in English for the two days I was there. I'll post some pictures when I finally get my computer hooked up to the internet.

Living at the MPIZed has been interesting. It's like a resort: there's a pool, tennis courts, a patio next to a pond, etc. I even have people hoover my room and give me clean sheets and towels. However everyone at the resort is a plant biologist. Even though we're in Germany, all the scientists and most of the staff speak in English. Unfortunately, the copiers are all in German, which makes life a bit difficult. I spend much of my time out in the field site, measuring and counting leaves or putting dead Arabidopsis in paper bags. Despite my religious devotion to hats and sunscreen, I'm getting a wicked farmer's tan. Tomorrow I will start my own project. The first step will be going through the 6000 or so plant-containing paper bags sent here from Valencia to pick out the ones whose seeds I want. Should be a party.

The city of Köln itself seems really nice. Today I went to the Ludwig Museum, which is devoted to modern and contemporary art. Some was nice and much was very strange. Then I walked along the Rhine a bit, through a flea market and then a park. It's funny, it feels really normal to be here. I say 'Tschüss' to the guards when I leave the MPIZed, get on the U-Bahn, wander around the streets of Köln, etc. Maybe my normal-meter's been reset with all the travel. I wonder if it will feel really strange to get back to the US, or whether it will be fine?

moving on

2007-06-11T19:38:00.000+01:00

Hey, so Im in Germany. The z is where the y should be and who knows where the apostrophe is. However I can make lots of ööös and äääs. Even the blogger menus have morphed into German. This should be fun.

The Max Planck (hereafter referred to as the MPIZ, said M P I Zed) is a white walled well-gardened oasis in the middle of a bunch of wheatfields. Of course, since its Europe, theres a subwaz (u-bahn) not too far away. My room is very pristine with complicated windows and the tiniest fridge I have ever seen. Once I get a login to the wireless up there, Ill post some photos (and regain the skills to apostrophe)

All i really have done since I got here is unpack and go grocery shopping with a coworker, also new to Germanz. The supermarket has the most complicated shopping cart system I have ever encountered. First, to get a cart, you have to stick a coin in the handle and yank hard to detatch your cart from all the others. But, if you dont do this quite right, these big plastic appendages on the wheels will lock up and you have to scout out an employee to unlock them with a big black plastic key. All this is complicated by the fact that the only way to enter the actual store is through a one-way shopping cart turnstile. So when you get stuck with the cart with locked wheels on the wrong side of the turnstile... it gets sticky. And thats before we got to the shoppingcart escalator. Luckily we made it out of the store without looking like complete nuts.

Another country means another hunt for tofu. I think vegetarianism and world-travel are becoming less and less compatible. I was able to ask for tofu in german though and I discovered that while the stock-guy didnät know if they carried tofu, if they did, it would be next to the quark.

Tschüss!

A conversation

2007-06-04T22:12:00.000+01:00

Setting: Oxford Street, London. A busy Sunday afternoon.

Characters:
Me - A tired, sweaty looking tourist with backpack
Promoter - well-dressed, perky looking, english 20-something woman trying to promote a london salon.

Scene:

Promoter (perkily): Hi, can I ask you where you usually get your hair cut?
Me: Umm...
Pause
Me: Some salon in Rhode Island?
Promoter: Oh, really?
Me: But the last time was in Edinburgh.
Promoter: Oh... how long will you be in London?
Me: Only until tonight.
Promoter (losing hope): Where are you going next?
Me: Um, Norwich? And then Germany in a week.
Promoter: Um, ok then (backs away looking confused).

more sicily photos

2007-06-04T22:11:00.000+01:00

Getting to Taormina

2007-05-26T08:48:00.000+01:00

Taking a bus in Sicily is a bit different than it is in the states or the uk. There are no labeled bus stops, just curbs, where everyone seems to know the bus will arrive. Our ferry lands in Milazzo and Neha spots a bus in a parking lot 200 meters away, We dash towards it, calling 'Messina? Messina?" The driver nods and replies "tre Euro" holding up three fingers. We pay, playing with change. Both of us have 5 Euro notes but the driver refuses to part with 4 precious Euro coins. Finally, I hand the driver the 5er and one of my own Euro coins, Neha promising to repay me later. We climb onboard.

Sicilians seem to like to sit in the front of the bus, chatting with eachother and the driver. We arrive in Messina. The bus leaves us on the side of a wide avenue lined with apartment buildings and shops. We look around. No other buses in sight. Neha asks the driver "Taormina?" where we are going, "Interbus?" the bus company. He replies, a string of incomprehensible Italian. Between Neha and I, we can speak English, Hindi, German, and some Japanese, but we can't muster up a single romance language. Finally, the driver points straight ahead and then to the left. Ok. Twenty minutes later, after meandering through a sea of pastel-colored tenement blocks and shady piazzas, we find a cluster of blue Interbus busses in a hidden parking lot. We wander through them, peering up at the empty drivers' seats. Finally, we find one with a driver.
"Taormina?" we ask. He leans his large bald smiling head out the window and cries "Taormina!" We smile back and clamour onto the bus. Sicily gives the impression of being constantly disorganized -- yet, everything always seems to work out as if the island basks in perpetual good karma.

Neha and I join the other passengers, a few middle aged men and woman, an older man with a glowing white halo of hair, a nun who sits in the front row. The bus pulls out into the street and then stops suddenly. The driver leans out the window, yelling angrily. A woman's voice replies. They argue back and forth for another minute until the driver opens the door and a young woman with spiky short hair gets on. She carries 3 huge clear plastic bags full of food boxes and bottles. It takes her two trips to get them down the narrow bus aisle. On a third trip she carries a 4 or 5 year old child. The entire time she chats cheerfully, almost flirtingly, with the again-smiling bus driver. She plops down across the aisle, somehow managing to squeeze everything into two seats.

The bus begins again, winding its way out of Messina and long the coast. The main route along the coast is barely 2 lanes wide, including a row of parked cars. Crumbling row houses and apartment blocks, all with flowers growing in the balconies, line the road on either side. The ocean fronts one side of these buildings, and the cliffs, the other. If not for the narrow road and disrepair, we could be driving down PCH. The bus lumbers down the tiny road, forcing approaching cars to duck into the parking lane or onto the sidewalk. We rumble along until we stop. A red truck sits in front of us blocking the road. Our driver begins to yell and the truck driver replies. Their voices continue to rise and the other passengers in the bus join in and the spiky haired woman moves up next to the nun to get a better view of the show. People emerge on the street, standing on sidewalks or leaning out of balconies. They also start yelling. It seems like the whole world is comprised of yelling Sicilians.

After about 15 minutes of this, the voices ebb. A woman appears from one of the apartments, gets into a green sedan parked on the side of the road, and pulls away. The red truck pulls into her spot, clearing some room for our bus. We begin to move. The road is still too narrow, our right tires drive up onto the sidewalk. Everyone on te bus begins to laugh, even as our right mirror scrapes one of the crumbly buildings alongside. And the bus continues to lumber towards Taormina...

leaving scotland

2007-05-20T22:06:00.000+01:00

Hi, sorry I've been down on the job of blogging. After Beltane I had an "I'm not really leaving Edinburgh" phase. And then I found myself in Waverley Station with Amy and Colin, dragging my broken-wheeled suitcase onto a train. Now I'm in Norwich, England, by way of Oxford and Sicily. I loved Sicily. I'll post all about it in the next few days. Here are some photos:

The Palermo Duomo

Taormina
A ruin in Agrigento

beltane fire festival

2007-05-01T10:24:00.000+01:00

Wow, two posts in two days. I must really need to procrastinate from studying.

Last night I went to Beltane. Beltane is a Gaelic fire festival which celebrates the coming of spring. Before I went, it was described to me as 'lots of fire, dancers, drums and body paint' which was pretty much what it was.The main story involves the relationship between a white-painted woman and a green-painted man. But there were also blue people with sticks and red people with fire running around. Only, there were also a lot of spectators, making seeing often difficult. Here are some photos my friend Melissa took (check out her own Scotland blog:

france

2007-04-30T15:19:00.000+01:00

I've been putting off the France post because I don't really have that much to say. I had a great time with my friends. I went to Paris, Strasbourg, and Nantes, and I liked all three cities. I think Paris was my favorite city of the whole spring break trip. It was just very pretty and relaxed and I felt like people actually lived there. I really liked the Louvre too. I didn't realize how colorful all of the renaissance art actually was. I did find the number of people methodically taking digital photos of every piece of art pretty funny though. It was worse at Musee D'Orsay.

Anyway, this is going to be a mostly photographic post:

A lot of my travel in France consisted in climbing to the top of things and looking at the view. First, Notre Dame, which had lots of gargoyles on it.

Another gargoyle.

There's also lots of stained glass in France. Here's a window in Sainte-Chapelle. Check out the other person in front of me taking the same exact photo.
My friend Sam had his heart set on seeing sunset from Sacre Coeur. So we we climbed up the hill to see. Only, there's a huge building east of the church, making it impossible to watch the sunset. Nice views though.

Hey, here's Strasbourg. Strasbourg was really cute. There were lots of half timber buildings and canals and German tourists. Also, Strasbourg has this specialty dish called 'Tarte Flambee' which is kind of like a thin pizza on a more crepe-like crust. It was delicious.

Strasbourg also has one amazing cathedral.

Here it is up close. Pretty cool, huh? I bet you'll be surprised to hear that we climbed to the top of this one too.

Here's Nantes. I have two good friends studying abroad here. Didn't spend much time here though, except to visit the cathedral (very pretty and light inside) and visit the very extensive Nantes city museum. We didn't even climb to the top of anything (excpet our room on the 6th floor of an elevatorless hotel). Also, Nantes is historically in Brittany, home of the crepe. Yum.

Then back to Paris. Here's a photo from the Louvre.

And here's Sacre Coeur at night. Doesn't it look like a toy? It's open from 6am to 11pm. Our hostel was nearby so I went twice, once at 10pm and once at 7am. It was much prettier at night.

So, that's the end. My mom's coming to visit on Wednesday, my last final is Thursday, and I'm leaving Edinburgh on May 14th. I start my summer job on May 21, and before then, I'm going to Sicily with my friend Neha. Crazy, huh?

venice, not the one in california

2007-04-27T19:09:00.001+01:00

Sorry it's been taking me so long to post about spring break. I'm in the midst of final exams and spending lots of time staring at lecture slides trying to learn what I slept throught the first time. One of my professors seems to think in the most disorganized way -- trying to piece together what points he's attempting to make in the lectures is impossible.

So Venice. I didn't really want to go to Venice. I thought it would be swarming with tourists, inauthentic, and seedy. I'd already seen the canals in Amsterdam, so it wouldn't even be exciting. But I was wrong. It was one of the most interesting cities I've ever been in. Imagine building a city with every building in the same style, without a grid system and without a single road. Then, plunk it in the middle of a calm aqua lagoon and cover it in wisteria. That was Venice. While I'm not sure how successful the plan has been, since only 65,000 people actually live there, it was pretty interesting to see.

Sure there were tourists. And crowds in the touristy areas. Rude crowds that would bump into you without apology, especially on the lumbering water buses. And all the food I ate was pretty terrible. Venice's idea of vegetarian food seems to be gnocchi, gnocchi, and more gnocchi. Sometimes with Kraft macaroni and cheese sauce. Sometimes with wierd mushroom gravy. Though, being a vegetarian, I can't really complain that much. But when you got away from San Marco square, into some of the quieter canals and courtyards, it was beautiful.

My dad left Venice for home. I spent a day with a friend from Brown, Neha, whom I hadn't seen since August. And then I headed to Paris for the next leg of my trip...

Looking for Praha

2007-04-22T12:26:00.000+01:00

I've been back in Edinburgh for a few days but it's taking me a while to unpack everything that happened on my spring break. Going to three different countries in 2 weeks was pretty overwhelming and by the time I got to Paris, Prague seemed like a distant memory. Luckily for my faithful readers, I kept my first ever travel journal on the trip, so I can at least remember something about the beginning of the trip.

First stop was Prague, where I met my dad. I landed on the Prague Airport and took a taxi into the city. It was funny, Prague's outskirts reminded me so much of Southern California. It was sunny, with wide roads, and colorful stucco buildings. I remember being startled by the fact that every building in Edinburgh is gray, bu by March it just seemed normal and Prague, with all its color, was a surprise.

My dad loved Prague. Well, actually, everyone loves Prague. I remember that at Passover last year my cousin Eliza spent a good deal of time trying to convince me to study in Prague instead of the UK. Everytime I told someone I was going to Prague over break, they would get very excited about it. So maybe I just got so much hype about the city that no matter what it was, it would be a bit of a let down.

Not to say that Prague wasn't beautiful. It's full of gorgeous colorful buildings with intricate carvings, lined on cobblestone roads. Every corner has a beautiful church or synagogue. And there are street musicians everywhere, which was maybe my favorite part. There were brass bands, violinists, guitarists, and more. We saw a man playing water glasses on the Charles Bridge one night and it was so beautiful. But also, there were soooo many tourists in Prague. The center of the city felt like Disneyland, being pushed and shoved by masses of people trying to get to Splash Mountain, or in this case, the Spanish Synagogue or something. It didn't seem like any Czechs actually lived there.

I decided to get out of town. My dad and I took a day trip to Konopiste, the residence of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand before his assasination, which set off World War I. Our train was definitely from the communist era, with graffiti and rust. But there were Czechs on it, which was a good start. The town itself was very bleak and empty. But Konopiste castle itself was fun. It turns out the Franz Ferdinand was really really wierd. He has one of the largest armory collections in Europe. And he liked the hunt. A lot. He shot 300,000 animals while he lived in Konopiste. And how do we know this? Because he kept diaries with the species, date, and location of his kill. 100,000 of these animals are mounted on his walls. There were entire hallways of antlers and fans made out of feathers. All dated and located. I wonder how he felt when he was shot himself?

So that was Prague. It was very lovely, filled with music, but also with tourists.

excuse me, is that ben nevis?

2007-03-30T11:54:00.000+01:00

Hey, so I just got back from spending 5 days touring the highlands with a bunch of friends from home. I think I'm in love with Scotland. The highlands looked nothing like what I'd expected. I guess cause I've spent so much time in England, i figured Scotland would look the same, but colder. But I was wrong.

First, we went to Inverness, the largest city in the Highlands. Which is pretty funny, because it was a really boring town. When we got there we kept asking people what to do, and everyone told us to walk along the river. So that's what we did. Here's a picture.

Inverness is also home to the world's ugliest castle. When we went a bunch of the town kids were hanging out in back, drinking cider out of two liter bottles. For some reason a police man sat out front, napping.

The next morning we went on a cruise through Loch Ness. The lake's pretty but not nearly as pretty as anything else we saw. Urqhardt castle was nice though. My friend Caitlin thought she saw Nessie, but it turned out to be a log.

That afternoon we returned to Inverness and realized that there was still nothing to do. So we took the bus to a small fishing town, and wandered around the beach for a bit.

The next day we took a bus to the Isle of Skye. That road must be the most gorgeous road in the world. Here's a photo from the bus window.

Isle of Skye was amazing. It lived up to all the hype. Portree was also much nicer than Inverness. We went on a couple hikes. The night we were there we went to the big hotel to hear some 'local music' which turned out to be a Chinese man playing guitar and singing country songs with ammended lyrics. 'Take me home country roads, to the place where I belong, to Kirkaldy, Loch Lomond..."

We left Skye to spend a night in Fort William. Well really, we stayed in a deserted, unlockable, bunk house 3 miles outside Fort William in the middle of a sheep pasture. It was very pretty though. The next day we failed at the bus system, but ended up hiking around Glencoe, and took a train back to Edinburgh in the evening.

Whew. Tomorrow, to Prague!

em visits the parliament

2007-03-22T11:28:00.000Z

So I only have two days of classes left and then it's spring break. Here's the plan
First week: Liz, Liz, and Caitlin are visiting from Brown, and we're all going on a whirlwind highland tour. I haven't been anywhere in Scotland except for Glasgow and things in between Edinburgh and Glasgow, so it should be really cool.
Second week: Meeting my dad in Prague! Making our way through Vienna to Venice.
Third week: Meeting up with Amy and Sam in Paris. Then going to Strasbourg, Nantes, and back to Paris. Then flying back to Edinburgh.

I'm pretty excited. 5 countries in three weeks. I hope it's not too exhausting.

What have I been up to recently?
There's a group of americans here interning at Scottish Parliament so Amy and I got our own personal tour. The building is very wierd. It's not grand or stately, but rambling and wooden. Anyway, here's what the building looks like from the outside:

The main debating hall:

Another view of the building:

One cool thing though is the actual offices. They're kind of like little pods, with very sleek cabinets and furniture. They have these incredibly uncomfortable built in window seats that are supposed to be where the MSPs sit and think. Here's Ben the intern in the thinking seat.

Not that they have much to think about, since the party decides how everyone will vote.

Anyway, I have my last lit lecture, which I should actually go to.

change of plan

2007-03-18T20:30:00.000Z

So I'm going to be spending my summer in Koeln, Germany instead of Norwich. My prof. thinks the lab there will be a better place to work and also, she will be there all summer. I'm really excited but also a bit nervous.

plant-blogging

2007-03-15T17:09:00.000Z

Here are two members of the Ericales order from a recent trip to the Royal Botanical Gardens.

Darlingtonia californica.
Yes these are from california. And they eat bugs.

Napoleona cupsidata
Or as I like to call it, the jellyfish flower.

this is crap

2007-03-05T19:22:00.000Z

Official report says US CO2 to rise by 20%

Differences Between the US and Scotland (part 1)

2007-03-01T19:12:00.000Z

1. Three weeks before the end of the term, it's crunch time. Everyone has papers to write. During midday, that libraries are packed. The main library has enourmous computer labs that make the Brown clusters look tiny in comparison. And it's a challenge to find an open terminal at 1pm or so. But at 7pm, right when Brown kids might start thinking about studying, the library's a wasteland. Late night studying? Don't even think about it, the library closes at 10pm or earlier. However, no matter what time of day it is, half the people in the lab are on facebook.

Maybe I should learn from the example. It's 7:30 pm the day before a I have a paper due and I still have 500 words to go...

weekend in the land of wooden shoes

2007-02-28T00:05:00.000Z

Amsterdam was amazing. I was surprised both at how beautiful it was, and how different it was from Edinburgh. There really are a lot of canals there. There were also a gazillion tourists everywhere. It was really cool to see my friend Kristen too.

Here's what I did that I really liked:
- My favorite thing was a boat cruise we went on my last night. I'd been seeing these long sleek glass-covered tourist boats around the city. When it rained (which wass often), the windows would fog up, and watching the tourists rubbing the windows in a vain attempt to see some of the city. My boat cruise was not like that. My boat cruise was in a little white dinghy driven by a friendly dutch sometimes-musician, sometimes-computer-repairman. When it rained he would park us under a bridge until it cleared up. But the city looked so beautiful at night, with all the lights reflected in the water. It was cool getting to see all the places I'd been trudging around all weeekend from a completely different perspective. And I got to hear lots of stories about everything we saw. Such as, Boatdriver: "see that cool looking tower? They used to make coins there. Now it's a really terrible tourist shop." Me: "I bought a post card there!"
- I dragged everyone to the botanical gardens. The outside parts were a bit sad and wintery, but they had a few greenhouses that were pretty impressive. A really old cycad too. Most of the labels were in dutch unfortunately.
- Also, the museums! Those dutch know how to paint. Seeing paintings in real person after walking past the prints in my hallway at home was really cool too.
- Strong coffee, yay.

I will go back sometime. Part of me wants to buy a houseboat and live on a canal and own a cat. Maybe.

Here are some pictures:

2007-02-17T18:56:00.000Z

I haven't been having a lot of adventures recently, besides say getting lost in Hollyrood park or experimenting with how little sleep I can survive on. Even though I'm abroad, I still have college, with lots of reading and papers. Two of my friends from Brown are visiting this week: Sam, who's showing up tonight, and Lian, who will be here on Tuesday. And then, Amsterdam. So keep reading, more exciting things should be happening soon.

guess what I bought...

2007-02-14T23:54:00.000Z

Yes, that toothpaste is called Maclean's, and yes I do love Scotland.
Also, here's a picture from a walk/adventure I took/had today in Holyrood park.