Baby we were born to run

Woo hoo!!!!! I'm getting my beret and baguettes because I'm seeing Bruce in Brest!

I got tickets for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band at this summer's Festival des Vieilles Charrues, in Brest, France (NW). It looks to be like Glastonbury or Lollapalooza and such. 6 of us from work are going so the camping out part should be interesting.

"Snow Day"

Today is what I'm calling my first official French "snow day". But there's no snow (just the same drab, grey skies). Instead, there are strikes (protests) all over France today, which means public transportation is affected. What I find fascinating is that these protests, and potential disruptions, were announced a week in advance, and everyone is ok with it. You just plan ahead for getting to work (book a taxi, work from home, walk, etc.) I'm calling it my "snow day" because it's like when I first moved to Boston - the first big snow, I stayed home - partly because I had never really driven in that much snow before and partly because I just wanted to experience it, watching the news, walking outside, etc. The next big snow, I was ready to go to work and comiserate about my commute with my coworkers (the other aspect of a 'snow day' - the 'survivor' mentality in the office environment, everyone patting themselves on their backs for braving it out and making it in). So, my first French strike - I'm staying home. The next one, maybe I'll walk to work.

You can read about it in English on the BBC or Intl Herald Tribune. (Although their coverage is buried on their websites and minmal.)

If you are adventurous, or want to see more news, or see photos, you can read in French on Le Monde and Le Figaro. For more leftist, go to La Liberation.

What have I learned from this strike, and it's only 8 a.m.? (1) Always have travel insurance (Air France flights are cancelled) ; (2) working from home is much more pleasant and productive for me these days ; (3) I know just enough French to be dangerous (in trying to understand the news on the radio) ; and, (4) This entire strike thing (manifestation) is just so beyond my comprehension. I think "strike" is the wrong translation - it's more like a protest. But, a protest in which many unions take part. I mean, imagine if people in the States went on strike for a day to protest that the government do more to protect their wages and jobs? The rest of the country would likely call them greedy and look upon them unfavorably. Here, it's just another day.

French Megativity

You know me, glass-is-half-full, so it’s time for some “megativity”. Where to begin….I’ll just do this in random fashion…

--I am sick of eating in the “canteen” for lunch (aka cafeteria). It reminds me of high school all over again. Remember : when it was nearly impossible to find a table to sit with your friends, or if you didn’t get to the table with them, there was never room for you (which, btw, just prompted me to then eat lunch nearly every day in the student newspaper office by myself)? Remember : the choices of food, while mildly palatable, lost their allure after one week? Remember : you could predict the menu choices for the rest of the week on Monday because (a) the menu was always the same every day of the week (i.e. chicken Tuesday, fish Wednesday…) or (b) you knew the meat on Monday would merge with the pasta on Tuesday to become some combined dish on Wednesday…

--My heel caught on the hem of my pants Monday (the hem is like a cuff, on the outside) and ripped – not bad, only ripped on the seam. But, now I have to try to find a seamstress or tailor or whatever they have here to get it fixed. And since nothing is open by the time I get home (7 p.m.) and there is NOTHING by the office, this means it has to wait until a Saturday when I’m sure the rest of the world is waiting in line.

--I got my Paris office BlackBerry, so now I have two of them, and until I’ve merged everything to my French computer/email, I get to carry both of them around – my guess is that I won’t be fully merged and converted for about 6 months. The added bonus? The French BlackBerry is an azerty keyboard, not a qwerty one.

--Why is it in hotels, or now in my temporary housing, when the cleaning person comes in, does this person find it necessary to move, thus touch, my toothbrush. Gross. And if I move the trashcan from one location to another every day, why do you move it back? And if I always leave the same light on, why do you turn it off and turn another on? I obviously have things set up how I like them, so don’t move them!

--And speaking of hotels, does anyone else also check to see if the Gideons have placed a Bible in the bedside drawer? I’m beginning to think I should donate money to them because I’d say 85% of the time I take it out and read it. I have noticed however that the French boutique hotels have not been visited by the Gideons.

--Also in hotels, why are the light switches always so screwy? I mean, is it the main switch by the door you have to flip for everything else to work ; or in some fun cases, you have to insert your door key card in this switch and then everything works. Or the switch in the entryway turns on two lamps, but then if you want to turn one of them off good luck. And using the switches by the bedside is inevitably its own version of “who’s on first” when you’re trying to get the lights off, or just one on.

--Lastly, what do you know about Paris in winter? Nothing, I’m guessing. No wonder people don’t talk about it, and no wonder why Paris comes “alive” in the spring with people outside, at cafes, at parks, etc. It’s because winter is depressingly grey, drab, cold and windy, and overall annoying. It is just not pretty here now.

Ok, a lot of complaints, I know. So I take the advice of a colleague (friend) who is also glass-is-half-full-feeling right now, and ask myself “What do I have the power to change?”. That will take a few days to contemplate.

Crazy church coincidence

Monday night I went to the new member meeting at the American Church in Paris. It was it good to learn more about the "inner workings" of ACP, and it was interesting to hear the journeys everyone has taken to arrive at ACP's doorstep. While I like what I've seen, heard and felt at ACP, at this point, I'm only ready to be an "associate member" - basically, I am not ready nor willing to "cancel" my membership at Old South!!

(Note: being a "member" basically gives you the right to vote on the budget, the church council and such. You can still be involved in the church without being a member).

When I got home after the meeting and checked my email, I had the daily devotional update from the UCC. I just couldn't believe the connection between the devotional, titled "Not another moving day", and the new member meeting :

"The Bible is full of stories of people who move. Usually, they are not choosing to move. They are compelled to move, to flee for their lives, or to follow a divine calling. This is still why most people move. They flee political oppression, or they long to improve their lives. Immigrants are daring people. They do not play it safe. In my own life, all that chaos had within it one steady stream, and that was the church. While we couldn't always attend the same church, wherever we moved, we found a spiritual home. Church was my one constant in a changing world. ... I never doubted that God was with me in my latest home and that together, we were on a great adventure." (by Lillian Daniel, First Congregational Church, UCC, Glen Ellyn, IL)

Wow - Church was my one constant in a changing world - how true! God is good. All the time!

Frustrated (part 2)

I should have added to my previous post that while holding a dictionary in one hand and the food packaging in the other to translate, where does one put one's glass of wine?

I don't know how the French cook their food, seriously. In the 7 flats I saw last week, they either had ovens 1/2 the size of a US one or a microwave that somehow also can double as an oven. How do they do roasts and stuff?

And another thing, I haven't really seen "French cuisine" at a lot of places unless you count chicken-and-french fries ; croque monsieurs ; or just random duck things. Just go to Pierrot Bistro or Petite Robert in Boston and you've seen the extent of French cuisine.

On a semi-related food note...I had meetings scheduled for 11:00 and 13:00 today, giving me an hour for lunch. But, in what I've disocovered is typical here, the 11:00 started at 11:30, thus giving me only 20 minutes for lunch. As the 13:00 meeting included my boss (American), I knew we would at least start on time. So I skipped lunch and just a little madeleine cake (smaller than my palm). Of course, the meeting didn't start until 13:20...gggrrrrrr.......... the completely amazing part (to me at least) was that I still don't have a hunger headache, grumbling stomach, or the overall "mean Megan mood" I usually have after skipping a meal. And it's 20:11 right now! Bizarre.

Frustrating

It's really annoying to have to cook dinner holding the instructions from the food packaging in one hand and a French dictionary in the other. And it doesn't help that I really don't know how to use microwave ovens, how to gauge cooking temps, what types of containers can/cannot go in, etc. I think I should just stick to cheese, bread, and fresh veggies!

Flat hunting in Paris

Well, today I spent about 8 hours looking at 7 different apartments and setting up a bank account and I really have nothing to show for it.

The bank account is being processed, but I won't have the card or anything until next week; and besides, I don't have any money in the account so it doesn't help me out much now. I just have to figure out how to transfer money from London to Paris without being in London and without having set up any transfer papers with my London bank. Ugh. And of course, the US Government knows everything about me and it was required to sign a W9 form or something so the bank in Paris must report this account of mine to the IRS. Joys.

As for the flats...the first 2 were ok, but both have +/-. I'm not crazy about either of them. Sure, I could choose one of them if I had to, but I think I might exercise my right to go out a 2nd day and look at more flats. I really hate doing that though because I don't like being troublesome or picky or come across as another 'ugly American' expat/tourist.

But, I think I just need to deal with it, too. I don't think I'm going to like apartment in Paris in general for several reasons. (1) the kitchens are all separate rooms, very removed from the rest of the flat - what is it? some holdover from when people had servants or when the woman was in the kitchen and that was it? (2) closets - why are they all in the hallways and why are they all ginormously tall? I will need to have about 8 step stools in whatever flat I choose! (3) Paris is just compact so everything is near some busy place and lots of people, which I really don't like.

It was difficult to get a good feel for anything today really since almost all of them were being renovated and completely redone - so there were dropcloths, torn out bathrooms, etc. It was hard to tell what would be put in and what would be left out (i.e. some included a dishwasher, but no fridge).

Anyway, it's late. I should sleep on it and figure it out tomorrow.

She went to Paris

My first day in Paris...I'm sitting in my temporary accommodations, waiting for the movers to delivery my temporary things... A friend/colleague sent me this link from the NYT for the article In the Lap of Luxury, Paris Squirms.

It's a great read - some interesting points raised, and insight into French/Paris culture (culture in which, I can assure you, I never have nor never will take part!). From the article, this really says it all - "Only in France is the recession lauded for posing a crisis in value."

London Recap

Sitting here waiting for the movers, I have a little bit of time to reflect on my past 9-1/2 months in London. I heard a great line, I think from a radio advertisement yesterday, “When does a place become a part of you ? … When you walk in the steps of history? …”

I think that is true for me for any city. Once I’ve seen some of the history, I feel like I understand everything better – the conditions people had to live in, how far things were, how the city expanded, the class struggles, etc. I can do without the shopping in any city, and when I go to a place, I don’t hunt out “the” restaurants or night clubs (unless it’s Cincinnati and it’s Greater’s for ice cream ; Price Hill Chili for goetta ; etc.). I want to see the museums, the historic sites and such. I want to know what the city used to be like and how it got to be in its current state.

So, as I say goodbye to London (so sad!), below is my recap, for what it’s worth :

Megan’s Top 5 Things to do in London
0) Whitechapel Bell Foundry
I put this as “zero”, above the top 5, because for me it was the absolute best thing I saw/did here, but for those of you who have only a passing appreciation for handbells as music or works of art (i.e. you only like them at Christmas) this doesn’t apply to you. Plus, you have to book months in advance for a spot in a tour, so it’s not likely to be on most tourist’s agendas.

1) Westminster Abbey

2) Tower of London
Get here when it opens and take your time – see everything, read everything. You learn about London / England from the beginning. What “The City” was, the early royalty, really the birth of the nation.

3) Buckingham Palace Tour (summer months)
Just because it is what it is! And, it’s summer, so you can tack on a walk through one of the nearby parks.

4) National Portrait Gallery
If you take the time to read the descriptive plaques next to each photo, you really learn a lot about British history.

5) British Library
Magna Carta. Handwritten drafts by Handel, Mozart, Austen, Beatles, and the like (musicians and writers). And just a heck of a lot more great historic stuff. Plus, the King’s library.

--If you have 2 extra days – Greenwich is a MUST for GMT, Maritime Museum, and more. And for a day trip outside the city – I thoroughly enjoyed Bath.

--If I had done the Parliament Tour (summer months) I am sure that would’ve made the list!


Parks
1) Regent’s Park
And the Open Air Theatre in summer months.

2) Kew Gardens
Winter obviously not the most beautiful time (when I went), but quieter. I imagine spring and summer are just breathtaking. You could make this a day trip and either explore Richmond and the pubs that overlook the quieter, more serene, parts of the Thames. Or take the Tube back toward the city and stop in Chiswick or somewhere to see a neighborhood.

3) The rest of the parks are all fabulously wonderful, but didn’t strike me as those two did


Walks
1) South side : Get off Tube at London Bridge (Jubilee Line) and walk through Borough Market (Thurs-Sat) and then wind up to the Globe Theatre, admire the views across the Thames, go to the Tate Modern ; take the footbridge across the Thames and go to St. Paul’s

2) Royal Albert Hall : Start at Trafalgar Square and then walk down the Mall to Buckingham, through St. James’s Park. Then you can either walk through Knightsbridge (Harrod’s and more shopping) or continue up to Hyde Park and the Serpentine and the wonderful café on the edge of it (stopping between St. James and Hyde Park to go to Hard Rock for merchandise if you must ; also Apsley House is there and supposedly nice to visit). Then, you can go to a show at Royal Albert Hall ; or, tours are available.
-Note, RAH could be the end destination for a walk starting east over in Notting Hill

3) Not a walk, but take a regular bus and see what you want to see – 15 goes east/west past everything cool.


Honorable Mention
1) London Transport Museum
You have to pay for this, but a great place for kids. If you’re not interested in transportation or how London grew/expanded, this wouldn’t be for you. But since it is in the old Flower Market in Covent Garden, when you are visiting the latter, at least check out the gift shop.

2) Sir John Soane
Just because it is kooky how much stuff this guy collected! Centrally located and free.

3) Tate Britain
Although “out of the way”, in the SE area (Belgravia), it is smaller so manageable and not overwhelming. I really enjoyed the art here. Because of the smaller size, you could spend your time and appreciate the progression of artistic styles. And M16 is across the river for a good photo op.

4) Cabinet War Rooms / Churchill Museum
You have to pay for this, but worth it if you are interested in WW2 history. The War Rooms are a bit kitschy, but the Churchill Museum part gives you a ton of detail about him, and you can really learn more about the war.

5) Canary Wharf
It’s “new” and has a US-style shopping mall, green space, a tons of restaurants/bars on the Thames and the waterways that flow in. Plus, you can get a good view of the O2 Arena (aka Millennium Dome)


What I could do without – i.e. see it once and that’s it
1) Covent Garden – too many people

2) Piccadilly – too many people, nothing to do but stare at the lights and shop at chain stores

3) Borough Market – too many people

4) Kensington Palace (unless they do something more with the royal dress exhibit)


To Do
1) Tour of Parliament (summer months)

2) More time in The City – tour Bank of England ; Barbican ; City of London museum ; Royal Courts of Justice ; etc.

Now I ask you …

If you found out you had to move away from your current city, not to return, what would you want to see or do? And, of course I know you’ll say “spend times with friends and family”, I get that, everyone does. But if you had to name your top 5 favorite ‘hang outs’ (restaurants, bars, coffee shops, parks, etc.) or your top 5 cultural places to visit (even if you’ve never been but have always said ‘I’ll go next year’) or your top 5 places just to walk and meander in your city, what would they be? (Basically, this could also be the “must do/see” list you would give to someone visiting your city for five days.)

So, what would you do?

Image vs Reality

Why is it that Piccadilly always looks one thousand times better in photographs than it does in person but Big Ben looks one thousand times better in person than it does in photographs?

Whitechapel Bell Foundry

Photos are posted to Flickr of the tour I took of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry Saturday.

I uploaded quite a bit of photos, but I see this as my own little revenge to all those people out there who post waaaaayyyy too many pictures of their children or vacations (you know, you can edit them out – I don’t need to see 8 versions of the same thing). But, tit-for-tat, now you get to look at my 50+ pictures of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. I think each one is uniquely interesting ; and, if you're a bell geek like me, you'll love them!

NFL UK

Woooooo Hoooooooo!!!!

I got tickets today for the Oct 25th Buccs vs Pats game at Wembley Stadium. 11 of us from work will be going - what a blast!

Science Quiz

I was listening a recent podcast of BBC Radio 4's "Now" show (hilarious recap of the week's event) and they were commenting on the story that UK students aren't that good at science. They asked three questions and gave funny answers, so if you didn't know the answers (as I didn't to 2 of them), you have to look them up.

1) What are the five characteristics shared by all animals?
2) What is a benzene ring?
3) What is Brownian motion?

Answers :
1) http://www.coolschool.ca/lor/BI11/unit10/U10L01.htm
2) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/benzene+ring
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion

Kensington Palace

Today, I went to tour Kensington Palace. (but no photos allowed, so none uploaded to Flickr)

What I learned....

1) This isn't a "must see" - Buckingham (in the summer months when it is open for tours) and Windsor are, but this is not.

2) It has rotating special exhibits, currently on display is about Debutantes, and the year of the last Debs 1958. It was pretty interesting, especially the 30 minute video interviewing some of the women. I couldn't believe that in current dollars, a "shoestring budget" Deb would spend about 11,000 GBP and a "all out" budget would be about 122,000 GBP!!! "The Season" was several months long and was basically all parties; as one woman said, obviously they weren't studying for their A-level exams, focusing on studies, etc.

3) The first part of the tour is about Royal Dress and what was entailed in the garments. It was itneresting and I think more could be done with it. Also on display were about eight dresses of Diana's.

4) The palace rooms are very nice and oddly tastefully done, yet somewhat sparse in terms of decorations.

5) The tour only took me two hours I think, and I watched the 30 minute video and listened to every minute of the audio commentary and read all the things on the walls.

Tower of London

Yesterday I went to tour the Tower of London. Thank goodness I decided to go when it opened (9 a.m.) as by the time I left just after 1 p.m., it was packed with lines everywhere!

Things I learned ....
1) This is a "weather permitting" event as it involves a lot of walking outside on the grounds and along the walls, and most of the inner rooms aren't heated (they didn't build in central heating back in the 1060s!)

2) Go early. Lines become crazy long later on.

3) Take one of the 45 min tours given by a Yeoman Warder.

4) The crown jewel exhibit is more "touristy" than I remember it being (when I saw it 11 years ago). The cases with the 10 or so crowns and orbs and rings and such are actually flanked by two moving walkways (front and back side). You cannot stop and look, it is difficult to go back for a second look, etc. This isn't Disney World!

5) You had better be in good shape and able to do stairs. You have to climb the spiral staircases up to each tower if you want to see all the information on exhibit.

6) You had better have four hours to be here - especially if you want to go up into the towers. There is one stretch that once you start, you cannot exit until you follow the path which includes 4+ towers.

7) Just because this is part of the "Historical Royal Palaces" group, the items in the gift shop here are different from the other HRP shops - so if you see something you like, you'd better buy it.

8) And probably most importantly, the Tower of London was NOT built as a prison. Rather it was THE royal palace, the center of London, the storehouse for arms and gunpowder, the site of the Royal Mint, etc...

Probably only interesting to me...

In church today, the pastor started off the sermon with some story about his friends in Southern California and the weather and the temperature. He then said the weather there was around 20 degrees Centigrade. I cocked my head, puzzled. Centigrade? I'd always heard it called Celsius. So then I wondered - what's the difference?

Dan Berger, MadSci Adminstrator, writes :
The difference between degrees Celsius and degrees centigrade is that one is the name of the person who invented the scale (in which water freezes at 0° and boils at 100°), and the other describes the scale ("centigrade" means "100 divisions"). ... Because we call the Fahrenheit scale after its inventor, to be consistent we should refer to the Celsius scale after its inventor.

Back Where I Come From

No joke, this is a real advertisement. It is from a bench at a bus stop on the way from my parents’ house to the highway. Whenever we drove past it, I couldn’t help but laugh. This has to be the best, most unbelievable, yet sadly believable, ad I’ve seen in a long time.

Besides this, my 12 days in Ohio were pretty standard and uneventful. Lunches and dinners with friends and family, jigsaw puzzles (almost 5000 pieces worth), etc.

We all went to the Cincinnati Zoo Festival of Lights and my 19-month old niece was enthralled by the lights. (I’ll get all the pictures posted soon.) I hadn’t been to the zoo since I don’t remember when. I remember everything being bigger and better and more exotic – but I guess that is how every child sees things. Now, I just see poor animals penned up, the lines, the fussy kids, etc. Still, despite all my cynicism, it was nice to see so many families and young children at the zoo and interested in the animals.

As for Christmas, I didn’t get much as I didn’t ask for much – which was fine by me. I got the usual Snoopy calendar, Swarovski annual Christmas ornament, two jigsaw puzzles, and travel books. But, I did enough shopping of my own that I got everything I wanted and needed.

Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On

What would you do if you lost everything on your computer – downloaded emails, photos, music, documents – everything ? Would it matter to you, or is everything on your computer “not essential” to your everyday life and mental well-being? Well, if anything on your computer is worth anything to you – BACK UP NOW.

I am speaking from experience as I “lost” everything on my laptop last week.

Background – My laptop is from 2002 and I haven't really used it the last 2-3 years except for watching DVDs because I had no internet in Allston. Therefore, I hadn't done any tech updates for 2-3 years. So, this summer, I thought I would get upgraded with all the Microsoft software updates, etc. When I did, I got the "blue screen of death." Couldn't get past it, even in 'safe mode.'

My last backup was probably in 2004 or 2005, so everything since then is gone forever. However, since I didn't use my laptop for much, rather saving everything on my work computer, and since I didn't have a digital camera, and since I didn't buy music online, etc... it's not much of a headache. Sure, I know I lost some things - I just cannot think of what besides a handful of documents - nothing major that I can remember now (I don't know if that's good or bad!).

The biggest pain will be restoring everything from the backup CDs and uploading all my music (provided, that is, that my laptop works - I haven't restarted it since I got it back).

For only $100 you can buy 320 GB of memory on an external hard drive. So answer me this : You go to the dentist annually, you take your car in for regular check-ups, you call friends and family to check-in, you pay your insurance premiums and update your policy and safe-deposit box, you have alarm systems on your cars and homes, you might even go to church on “C&E” to save your soul – so why don’t you take your computer in for a check-up and why don’t you back up your data?

Back up your data now. Make it a 2009 resolution. Back up now, back up in July (or after you’ve uploaded your summer vacation photos) and back up at the end of the year. Do it now.

Happy New Year - 2009!!!

It's the new year already here in London - this is the view from my flat - cold, foggy and cloudy. There was an Elton John concert at the O2 Dome (aka Millennium Dome), but no fireworks outside that I could see; could certainly hear a lot. And the ones at the London Eye / Parliament looked great on TV.