Greetings from Cambridge

As you can conclude from the title, my days of sleep and dog-walking are finally over, and I have taken residence elsewhere. To be fair, I just got back from a four-day trip to Edinburgh (4 hrs of sleep and 8 hrs of coach is a pretty tiring combination, so I am struggling to stay awake).

I am currently sitting in the Pembroke College library, enjoying the warm breeze from the open window (who would have thought the concept of summer is more than just a dream in England?) and procrastinating, hence the blogging. While it is hard for myself to believe I am anything but a tourist, I am here for a purpose. I am taking courses at the Pembroke-King's Programme:

Drug Actions and Reactions (July)

Film and Theatre Journalism (July + August)

The Behavioural Ecology of Animals and Humans (August)

I got here a week ago, and will be leaving at the end of August to spend one more week at home before heading back to the other Cambridge and French House!

I am also watching the Wimbledon men's final (go Federer!), and tomorrow is a day off for us due to road closures because of le Tour de France. Apparently this is the fourth time the tour has come to England. I will have a view to the race from my dorm room window, which is pretty impressive considering I'm in England and it's le Tour de France. 

While the Americans celebrated 4 July (or 3 July in Boston?), over 10% of the Estonians have gathered to one place to celebrate the Song and Dance Festival. The festival takes place every 5 years. Our laulupidu (literally: song party) is one of the largest amateur choral events in the world. 

The President of Estonia taking a selfie (source: his Facebook page)

Pembroke College library

Undergraduate dorms at Pembroke

Edinburgh from Arthur's Seat

More Edinburgh from the top of another hill

Liquid nitrogen sorbet, port cities, and reggae La Marseillaise

I am writing this blog about thirty minutes after coming back from a BBQ I had with my lab at a grassy area near the lab buildings. Like true nerds, we made some liquid nitrogen sorbet just from LN2 and lots and lots of peaches. People also had a lot of fun blowing up LN2 in bottles. They handled the LN2 without gloves, and goggles are also overrated. Well, this is France, I guess. ;)

BBQ stuffs is ready!

Our LN2 sorbet in the making!

Everyone screams for ice cream!

Anyway, last weekend I decided to get away from rainy Grenoble and went to Marseille on another impromptu trip - the second largest city in France and the hometown of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. I have heard many stories about how Marseille is not the safest city (especially after Algeria won a match in the World Cup, and people started burning cars). I hoped everything would be all right. 

For reference, this is where Marseille is relative to some other stuff:

After a two-hour train ride from Grenoble through places I want to visit (Aix-en-Province, Avignon...) we arrived at the Gare Saint-Charles and were greeted warmly by the Mediterranean sunshine.

Me and the tiiiny Notre Dame in the background!

Soon, after walking down a large road through Haussman-esque architecture, we arrived at the famous Marseille side streets and cute outdoor markets like this.

Some of the interns who went with me bought 10 bars of soap each at this market. It smelled really good, but I decided to not leave with an overweight luggage, knowing how difficult it was for me to leave with an under 50 lb last year.

Opera

After having some homemade lunch in a privately owned restaraunt called "Grumpy Cakes" (I asked the owner why she named it that, and she said because she was grumpy and it's also from the Grumpy Cafe in the show "Girls"), we explored the port itself. 

 

Me and some summer interns from LSU

At one point we were lazy and took the boat from one end of the port to the other, seeing it from a new perspective:

 

We headed to the closest beach we could find, and even though it was quite populated, it was great finally being in the water. However, it was pretty cold still, and one of my friends commented that she was getting frostbite staying there too long. I hope she wasn't completely serious, because it was such a sunny 85 degree F day. 

After swimming and playing cards on the beach, we headed to a Lebanese place for some snack for the road, and saw a really awesome monument to Jeanne d'Arc (one of my heroes) near this amazing cathedral: 

 

 The city turned out to be pretty safe with a lot of tourists as well as locals: but maybe it is because we left before it was dark. I loved that it was also a port town, because that gave it a more authentic feel than some of the seaside towns which have become solely beach destinations. 

Next destinations? On my list I have Lyon (definitely going there for Fete de la Musique!), Avignon (it's actually not that far!), Geneva (sneaking into CERN?), Annecy (lake and cute streets!), and who knows what else...

Finally, here is a reggae version of the Marseillaise for you to check out: it is quite different from the original and Gainsburg, an eccentric French songwriter, wrote it in 1979 as social rebellion. Granted, the nationalist party and probably many conservatives were not pleased. I first encountered it in my French Film class when we watched a movie on Gainsburg's life.

Hope everyone is having agreat summer, and blog!

À bientot!

Culture shock

salut mes chers amis!

life is pretty quiet here.  I arrived in London on five days ago, and while I did a little leisurely exploring over the weekend, this week I've gone on campus around 9, come home around 6, and wiled away my evenings via the internet, TV, or lounging in my hall common room with some other summer students.

I very much feel as if I'm fully relaxed for the first time in four years.  I'm only just realizing how fully wound up I was the entire time I was at MIT.  In some ways it's unnerving.

various tidbits from life here:

• I was taught to try to blend in when traveling in a foreign country, but there's not much you can do when you're carrying a plug adapter home from the electronics store.
• pear cidre is intriguing, but I prefer the apple version.
• I think "haemodynamics" looks and feels cooler than "hemodynamics".
• we had a Dept. of Aeronautics BBQ this afternoon on the roof of the physics building.  I met guys from France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Spain, and San Francisco.  it was pretty cool.
• this department appears to be <10% women.  it makes me sad.

no particular plans for the weekend yet since it looks like rain.  I've gotten a few restaurant/pub recommendations, and most of the museums here are free so there are lots of options.  I've also contemplated going to the London Wetland Centre - if I'm going to get wet, may as well be at a wetland, right?  if the weather looks up I may try to get to Stonehenge.  I'm debating with myself whether it's worth trying to go to Wales/Scotland/Ireland.  My supervisor's leaving the country for two weeks while I'm here, so maybe I can even scoot off somewhere for longer if I feel like it.  

feeling rather purposeless - in a good way.  I can do whatever I want, and it doesn't really matter.  it's very emancipating. :)

Love,
Zizz

Anniversary weekend (aka: moar hiking)

Raphael's nephew Milo is a little over two years old. Apparently he's a clone of two-year-old Raphael, so whenever I look at Milo I get this weird "woah, I'm looking at two-year-old Raphael" thought floating through my head. Here are some of Milo's favorite expressions:

"Where'd Uncle Raphie go?"
"I love Anna!" (<3 <3 <3)
"What is that?"
And when you respond with "that's ____":
"What's ____ doing?"

He's also proficient at waving bye-bye and making the correct animal sound when you show him a picture. Ex. if he sees a cow, he says "mooooooooooooo."

COULD NOT BE CUTER

anyway,

last weekend was Raphael and my anniversary! (Counting from our first date, even though at the time I was still panicking and calling Sumin and Sophie asking whether this was in fact a date and what should I do and is it really a good idea to get involved with somebody over the summer and what if he's a creep.)

Sine our first date was a brunch (Raphael had eggs benedict, I have noo idea what I ate, and half the time we were distracted because the table next door had an ADORABLE tiny black labrador puppy that was rolling around on the ground) we decided to get brunch before heading out for a hiking/camping adventure. Here I am with our meal:

After stuffing ourselves with French toast and Dungeness crab eggs benedict, we drove to the trailhead of the path to Heart Lake.

It was pouring. So, we sat in the car and read our books (I'm reading Carl Sagan's Contact and he's reading Isaac Asimov short stories) until the clouds cleared and the sun came out. Then we hit the trail.

At first, the snow appeared in clumps.

That seemed harmless enough, since it was a good distance from our trail. But with only those distant clumps as a warning, the trail suddenly turned into this:

SNOW EVERYWHERE. Snow up to our waists! In one particularly amusing incident, Raphael was standing on top of a snow pile talking to me when - WHOOSH - he sank down to his chest. That was unusual, though, since most of the snow was firmly packed (these were the remnants from what used to be something like 60 feet of snow earlier in the spring):

Finally, by following footprints and Raphael's internal compass, we found the lake.

We set up our backpacking hammock between two trees. We didn't pick strong enough trees, though, and by the next morning the trees had bent over so much that our bodies were awkwardly bent at something like a 40º angle. Oh well. At least we had this to greet us: