Life update - I returned from Germany (and have lots of pictures and places that I saw, and I guess at this point I should just admit that I'm not going to post them - at least not yet). And I took a job in Blacksburg, Virginia, home of the Virginia Tech Hokies! I guess my wandering phase is officially over!
In the two months between leaving Berlin (in early April) and starting my job (June 1st), I finally did all that thinking about life that I was supposed to be doing during my wanderings. I guess a better way to put it is that I let all my subconscious wandering-thinkings bubble up to the surface - I feel like the decision to move back to the Blue Ridge Mountains had already been made, I just needed to find a way to make it happen and give myself some concrete options. I came to a point where I had several potential jobs in front of me, one in Virginia and the rest in San Francisco. My brothers listened to my rambles, Barney let me mooch as much as I needed, Mom showed me how to make cherry jam, and Dad put me on a tractor to bale hay while I thought. I realised that while San Fran will always have jobs, right now this area, with its rolling mountains, hot summers, and hayfields, is where I want to be.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The Streets of Berlin
Today's theme is the sights on the streets of Berlin. Not the big famous ones, but more just a few of the small everyday things that stand out to me as slightly different and unexpected. Let's start out with my morning walk to work. Here's a picture of a street:
Note that it is paved with cobblestones! That seems to be really common - most non-major streets are cobblestone, and almost all sidewalks are paved with even smaller stones, with different tiles or colors separating the "bike lane" sidewalk from the "pedestrian" sidewalk. It took me a while to figure that out - bicyclists were always coming up behind me and angrily ringing their little bells (trust me, that cute little ring-ring-ring noise can sound angry) because I was walking on the wrong sidewalk. While I'm sure the cobbles are a pain for pushing strollers and rolling grocery carts, I really like them. They give the city a slightly older, more permanent feel.
At the corner of every street there is a street sign. They all look the same, like this:
They have little numbers hanging below (this one says 16-23) to tell you which number buildings are on the next block. This is needed, because the streets are numbered using two different methods - either all the odds are on one side and evens are on the other, or they go in order, starting from one end of the street, going up one side, then going back down the other. That makes it a little difficult to find an address - first you have to know how this particular street was numbered.
Street signs also have a funny letter in them: the ß in the word "Straße" or "street" - this actually a double s, as in "Strasse" - the normal German "s" sounds almost like an "sh" in English, while the "ß " sounds more like the English "ss" in "class." Using the Greek Beta symbol seems to be a compromise on the older form of the letter, which doesn't appear on the normal keyboard. If you've ever seen a copy of the US Declaration of Independence, you've seen a similar letter that has now disappeared from English:
See the "s" in "self-evident"? That's not a capital letter, or an "f", but a different letter. I don't understand the rules for when it is used versus the normal "s," but you can see the funny "s" in "necessary" as well as "secure" and "happiness". The German "ß" would be used in "necessary" and "happiness" - where the first "s" is written like an "f" and the second, like a normal "s". Cool, huh?
Another common sight on the streets of Berlin are the crosswalk lights. Here are the "walk" and "don't walk" lights:
Apparently when Germany was split in two and the Wall ran through Berlin, the East used these symbols for their crosswalks, while the West used something a little more boring and standard. When the Wall came down and Berlin was unified again, this was one of the cultural icons from the East that really survived and spread. I personally really like this cute little man in his cute little hat.
Note that it is paved with cobblestones! That seems to be really common - most non-major streets are cobblestone, and almost all sidewalks are paved with even smaller stones, with different tiles or colors separating the "bike lane" sidewalk from the "pedestrian" sidewalk. It took me a while to figure that out - bicyclists were always coming up behind me and angrily ringing their little bells (trust me, that cute little ring-ring-ring noise can sound angry) because I was walking on the wrong sidewalk. While I'm sure the cobbles are a pain for pushing strollers and rolling grocery carts, I really like them. They give the city a slightly older, more permanent feel.
At the corner of every street there is a street sign. They all look the same, like this:
They have little numbers hanging below (this one says 16-23) to tell you which number buildings are on the next block. This is needed, because the streets are numbered using two different methods - either all the odds are on one side and evens are on the other, or they go in order, starting from one end of the street, going up one side, then going back down the other. That makes it a little difficult to find an address - first you have to know how this particular street was numbered.
Street signs also have a funny letter in them: the ß in the word "Straße" or "street" - this actually a double s, as in "Strasse" - the normal German "s" sounds almost like an "sh" in English, while the "ß " sounds more like the English "ss" in "class." Using the Greek Beta symbol seems to be a compromise on the older form of the letter, which doesn't appear on the normal keyboard. If you've ever seen a copy of the US Declaration of Independence, you've seen a similar letter that has now disappeared from English:
See the "s" in "self-evident"? That's not a capital letter, or an "f", but a different letter. I don't understand the rules for when it is used versus the normal "s," but you can see the funny "s" in "necessary" as well as "secure" and "happiness". The German "ß" would be used in "necessary" and "happiness" - where the first "s" is written like an "f" and the second, like a normal "s". Cool, huh?
Another common sight on the streets of Berlin are the crosswalk lights. Here are the "walk" and "don't walk" lights:
Apparently when Germany was split in two and the Wall ran through Berlin, the East used these symbols for their crosswalks, while the West used something a little more boring and standard. When the Wall came down and Berlin was unified again, this was one of the cultural icons from the East that really survived and spread. I personally really like this cute little man in his cute little hat.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Spätzle (it's yummy)
Today's post is about unexpectedly good food. One of my work buddies asked me how I like my new neighborhood. Turns out she lives close by, so I asked her for tips on where to eat. She got very excited and rattled off about 5 restaurants in 5 seconds. I've now got quite a list of places to try. Tonight I went for the "traditional German food" place on her list. I was a little hesitant, given her description: crumbly, messy noodles with cheese sauce and other things on top (English is not her first language, and my German is non-existent). But I figured that I'm in Berlin, and I should expand my horizons beyond pastries, Indian, and Turkish food.
What I ate was something called Spätzle. Here's a picture from the internet:
It's not exactly what I ate, but close enough to give the basic idea. Spätzle is a kind of fresh pasta. Dough is squished through a strainer into boiling water, and when it boils it is done. I suspect that my Spätzle was then lightly fried - it had a certain crunchiness to it.
Next comes the sauce. The picture above shows dry noodles and some meat with gravy on the side. My meal had a mushroom cream sauce poured over the noodles, and someone at the table next to me had something like home-made mac-n-cheese sauce on his. Another girl had bits of ham and some kind of gravy and a poached egg on hers. It all looked delicious, I'll have to go back to try other options!
I was also proud of myself for successfully ordering in German. Not that it's hard when it's a picture menu, but hey, I still said the words, understood the amount, counted out correct change, and then pretended to read a German magazine while I waited. No one was fooled, but it was fun to try, and to not have to ask if anyone spoke English.
What I ate was something called Spätzle. Here's a picture from the internet:
It's not exactly what I ate, but close enough to give the basic idea. Spätzle is a kind of fresh pasta. Dough is squished through a strainer into boiling water, and when it boils it is done. I suspect that my Spätzle was then lightly fried - it had a certain crunchiness to it.
Next comes the sauce. The picture above shows dry noodles and some meat with gravy on the side. My meal had a mushroom cream sauce poured over the noodles, and someone at the table next to me had something like home-made mac-n-cheese sauce on his. Another girl had bits of ham and some kind of gravy and a poached egg on hers. It all looked delicious, I'll have to go back to try other options!
I was also proud of myself for successfully ordering in German. Not that it's hard when it's a picture menu, but hey, I still said the words, understood the amount, counted out correct change, and then pretended to read a German magazine while I waited. No one was fooled, but it was fun to try, and to not have to ask if anyone spoke English.
I'm in Berlin! (and have been for almost a month)
It's embarrassing that I haven't posted from Berlin yet. My only excuse is that in the beginning I was really busy, and then there was so much to write about that it was overwhelming. So I put my head in the sand and hoped that the problem would solve itself. In the mean time, I kept having little adventures and thinking "that would be fun to write about... too bad I need to write a big catch-up post first" - and here we are, almost a month later, with no posts. Today I decided to just skip the catch-up post and get to the fun stuff. So here's the really short version of my first month in Berlin.
I arrived on Jan 7, and stayed for the first three weeks with Dubi, who I knew from my years at UMASS. He is a PhD student, and when his advisor (now my temporary employer) took a faculty position in Berlin, Dubi and his family followed. Gili (Dubi's wife) and the kids were gone to visit the grandparents for three weeks, so I stayed in the baby's room. When they returned, I had to get serious about finding an apartment. Now I'm in a three-room flat across town, in Kreuzberg, one of the artsy, hip, up and coming parts of town. My flatmates are a French musician and an American painter. I have a long commute, but since part of it involves walking along a cobblestone street beside a canal, and the other part involves me reading or knitting while riding the train, I don't mind.
My job has been pretty good so far. I'm in a robotics lab, with robots that I remember from UMASS. So far nothing major has broken, and I'm designing a few hardware fixes for students in the lab - a timed camera trigger for one project, a camera mount for another, etc. My big project is a compliant (soft and squishy, but not too soft and squishy) tool to hold a paintbrush or crayon or marker, for experiments into robotic art. The first prototype has been designed, and we'll get parts back from the shop sometime next week!
Outside of work and finding housing and doing all of the administrative stuff needed for working in a foreign country, I have been pretty low key. I've made some new friends in the lab and found a women's football (soccer) team. I've walked all around the city and explored the different neighborhoods. I've visited museums and markets and churches. And I've eaten. A lot. Chocolate croissants, snitzels, Turkish Swarmas, Indian food, potatoes in every form imaginable, curry wurst, yum yum yum!
So that's the short version, and now I'm going to feel free to post on little details that I find interesting, and not sweat the big picture anymore!
I arrived on Jan 7, and stayed for the first three weeks with Dubi, who I knew from my years at UMASS. He is a PhD student, and when his advisor (now my temporary employer) took a faculty position in Berlin, Dubi and his family followed. Gili (Dubi's wife) and the kids were gone to visit the grandparents for three weeks, so I stayed in the baby's room. When they returned, I had to get serious about finding an apartment. Now I'm in a three-room flat across town, in Kreuzberg, one of the artsy, hip, up and coming parts of town. My flatmates are a French musician and an American painter. I have a long commute, but since part of it involves walking along a cobblestone street beside a canal, and the other part involves me reading or knitting while riding the train, I don't mind.
My job has been pretty good so far. I'm in a robotics lab, with robots that I remember from UMASS. So far nothing major has broken, and I'm designing a few hardware fixes for students in the lab - a timed camera trigger for one project, a camera mount for another, etc. My big project is a compliant (soft and squishy, but not too soft and squishy) tool to hold a paintbrush or crayon or marker, for experiments into robotic art. The first prototype has been designed, and we'll get parts back from the shop sometime next week!
Outside of work and finding housing and doing all of the administrative stuff needed for working in a foreign country, I have been pretty low key. I've made some new friends in the lab and found a women's football (soccer) team. I've walked all around the city and explored the different neighborhoods. I've visited museums and markets and churches. And I've eaten. A lot. Chocolate croissants, snitzels, Turkish Swarmas, Indian food, potatoes in every form imaginable, curry wurst, yum yum yum!
So that's the short version, and now I'm going to feel free to post on little details that I find interesting, and not sweat the big picture anymore!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The End of Moochfest 2010
I set out on this adventure in the hope that I would figure out what I want to do and where I want to live. I quit a decent job and moved out a decent city and left a lot of more-than-decent friends to go drive around the country for a few months, thinking about life. I'd like to say that I found answers, but I can't really say that's true. I don't really know where I want to live - several places quickly started to feel like home, but maybe that's just because I was in traveling mode, so any place where I had a chance to do laundry felt like home. And I didn't find my dream career - I heard of a few interesting opportunities, and met lots of people doing fascinating things, but nothing reached out and grabbed me as my life's purpose. So in some respects I'm back where I was a few months ago, except now I have no home, no job, and a pile of pictures. But that's only one way of looking at things. I also have new and renewed friends scattered all around the country. I have my memories of my travels alone, deciding what to see, where to go, what to do every day. And more than pictures, I feel like I've started to really see the country, realize how big and open and beautiful it is, how vast and varied, with plains and mountains and deserts, canyons and rivers and oceans, farms and forests and cities. This trip has made me want to travel more, see more, share more. I also have a general feeling of happiness. It wasn't so much that I was unhappy when I left Boston, but I was somehow not settled, not right. Now I feel much more centered and balanced. Maybe the word is content. I'm content. I find it odd, especially since I'm so much more in flux and unsettled than I was before, but somehow, that's the way it is.
So what's next? The driving is done, but I still need a place to live and a job. Luckily, I've found a way to delay making a real decision. I've found an opportunity to work for a few months in Germany, in Berlin. How exciting is that?!? I'll have a job in an exciting place, and I'll gain a little more time to keep thinking about the meaning of life. I've got my bags all packed, and I'm hopping on a plane later today! Berlin is cold in winter, a lot like Boston, but I'm hoping to brave the weather and spend most weekends traveling around, seeing Germany and its neighbors. I'm hoping to do a keep up the blog, posting pictures of my weekend adventures and life in Germany. Moochfest 2010 is over, but Em's wanderings through life will continue.
So what's next? The driving is done, but I still need a place to live and a job. Luckily, I've found a way to delay making a real decision. I've found an opportunity to work for a few months in Germany, in Berlin. How exciting is that?!? I'll have a job in an exciting place, and I'll gain a little more time to keep thinking about the meaning of life. I've got my bags all packed, and I'm hopping on a plane later today! Berlin is cold in winter, a lot like Boston, but I'm hoping to brave the weather and spend most weekends traveling around, seeing Germany and its neighbors. I'm hoping to do a keep up the blog, posting pictures of my weekend adventures and life in Germany. Moochfest 2010 is over, but Em's wanderings through life will continue.
Driving East
After Laramie, my trip around the US really sped up. I spent two days in Boulder visiting Erin again, then took the interstate across Kansas and Missouri. I stayed one night in the Annie Oakley Motel in Oakley KS:
For the next two nights, I was in St. Louis visiting family. Then another long day in the car took me all the way to my brother's house in Virginia. All that time on interstate highways made me realize just how nice it was to be able to drive the small roads earlier in the fall. It took me about ten days to get from Boston to Boulder in September, but less than four days to go back, Boulder to Salem, VA. I have many more pictures, memories, and stories from the leisurely trip west. But the nights were getting long and cold, and it was time wrap up this round of adventures.
I ended up only spending a day in Virginia before heading down to my parents' house in NC. After a short side-trip up to Boston to visit friends I settled down to help get ready for a big holiday family reunion. My mom's entire extended family arrived from all over the country, and we hosted 22 people. There were people sleeping in every corner, including the attic! We had the usual family adventures: cutting firewood, driving tractors, lighting bonfires, sledding, long walks through the woods, and huge meals. It was a good way to conclude my trip.
For the next two nights, I was in St. Louis visiting family. Then another long day in the car took me all the way to my brother's house in Virginia. All that time on interstate highways made me realize just how nice it was to be able to drive the small roads earlier in the fall. It took me about ten days to get from Boston to Boulder in September, but less than four days to go back, Boulder to Salem, VA. I have many more pictures, memories, and stories from the leisurely trip west. But the nights were getting long and cold, and it was time wrap up this round of adventures.
I ended up only spending a day in Virginia before heading down to my parents' house in NC. After a short side-trip up to Boston to visit friends I settled down to help get ready for a big holiday family reunion. My mom's entire extended family arrived from all over the country, and we hosted 22 people. There were people sleeping in every corner, including the attic! We had the usual family adventures: cutting firewood, driving tractors, lighting bonfires, sledding, long walks through the woods, and huge meals. It was a good way to conclude my trip.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Thanksgiving in Wyoming
Yikes! I'm very behind on the blog updates, so here's a brief version of my time in Wyoming. It stayed cold the entire week - lows in the -5F range, highs in the low teens. I stayed with my aunt Joy and her dog Wallaby. Wallaby reminds me of a much smarter version of the dog I had as a kid, so I liked her immediately. Here's a picture of Joy and Wallaby at their house:
And a quick picture of the Wyoming winter landscape:
It was bitterly cold, but people in Wyoming don't let cold slow them down. Joy took me cross-country skiing on Wednesday, and on Thanksgiving morning a whole group of people met at the Laramie Greenbelt for some brisk pre-turkey exercise. With the wind-chill it was about -30F, so we bundled up, hiked around, and then stood in a tight circle chatting and drinking hot chocolate. Some years it's quite a picnic, but this year it was just too cold and too windy, so after dancing around for a while, people hustled back to their cars. Back at Joy's friend's house, thanksgiving cooking plans were interrupted when we discovered that the pipes were frozen, not under the house, but somewhere under the kitchen sink. We cranked up the thermostat, opened the sink cabinet, and skillfully applied a hairdryer, and continued with the cooking.
Friday we went downhill skiing in Colorado. It was a great day! Colorado was slightly warmer than Wyoming, and there was already several feet of good powder snow. On Saturday Joy took me to visit another set of friends on their farm outside of town. With lots of animals and two small kids, their house was quite exciting! They are also trying to grow their own vegetables, which is difficult with the short growing season. They built a big greenhouse, and have added a seedling area just off their living room. They asked us to take their family picture for the annual Christmas Card, and I snuck a shot with my own camera as well:
I think this is a great shot! It reminds me of the picture my family took a few years ago for the annual Christmas letter, with us all holding axes and chainsaws, taking a break from cutting firewood.
And a quick picture of the Wyoming winter landscape:
It was bitterly cold, but people in Wyoming don't let cold slow them down. Joy took me cross-country skiing on Wednesday, and on Thanksgiving morning a whole group of people met at the Laramie Greenbelt for some brisk pre-turkey exercise. With the wind-chill it was about -30F, so we bundled up, hiked around, and then stood in a tight circle chatting and drinking hot chocolate. Some years it's quite a picnic, but this year it was just too cold and too windy, so after dancing around for a while, people hustled back to their cars. Back at Joy's friend's house, thanksgiving cooking plans were interrupted when we discovered that the pipes were frozen, not under the house, but somewhere under the kitchen sink. We cranked up the thermostat, opened the sink cabinet, and skillfully applied a hairdryer, and continued with the cooking.
Friday we went downhill skiing in Colorado. It was a great day! Colorado was slightly warmer than Wyoming, and there was already several feet of good powder snow. On Saturday Joy took me to visit another set of friends on their farm outside of town. With lots of animals and two small kids, their house was quite exciting! They are also trying to grow their own vegetables, which is difficult with the short growing season. They built a big greenhouse, and have added a seedling area just off their living room. They asked us to take their family picture for the annual Christmas Card, and I snuck a shot with my own camera as well:
I think this is a great shot! It reminds me of the picture my family took a few years ago for the annual Christmas letter, with us all holding axes and chainsaws, taking a break from cutting firewood.
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