Monday, January 26, 2009

Happy New Year Version 2

My life has been fairly boring so I haven't really reported anything for a while, but tonight I took a break from my renormalization group reading to celebrate the lunar new year with friends. We made lots of tasty dumplings. I think I ate enough of them to guarantee myself a good luck in the new year.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

I work sometimes too

I realized that my blog suggests that I just hang out and travel. While this is a fairly good approximation for reality, from time to time I do a little work. I just figured I should clear that up so that any little kids reading my blog can realize that they still have to do their math(s) homework if they want to be as cool as me (yes, I'm talking to you, Amanda).

I'm finally close to understanding Feynman diagrams. Naturally I'm excited, even if it is a little pathetic that I haven't covered them yet.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Paris Without Photos

My little jaunt to Paris turned out to be slightly more expensive than I'd anticipated. Concerned about the safety of my camera in a hostel, I'd booked a Parisian hotel. Sure enough, the first time I was foolish enough to briefly leave the camera in my locked room was also the last. A slick inside job or another guest with decent lock picking skills means I no longer have my great photos of Paris ... or my 40D. Until I splurge on a new one (the new 50 D is so tempting now), I'll have to beef up my rhetorical skills as I rely less on photos.

Before going to Paris I'd heard plenty of rumors about Parisians who are rude to Americans and refuse to speak English even when they can. I discounted these rumors as a few isolated situations, but unfortunately my experiences matched the rumors much better than the romanticized images of Paris. This certainly was not Copenhagen where anybody on the street will happily speak to you in flawless English. Perhaps I was just foolish to go to a country where the extent of my language knowledge was a very poorly pronounced "Je ne parle pas Francais." After all, my American countrymen are not exactly kind to the foreigner who walks into a random store without speaking a word of English. Luckily, on Monday I met up with some French-speaking Rhodes friends. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see Andrew Hammond's cheery face. The only thing better was seeing his face after I'd refer to walking down Avenue des Champs-Élysées as the "Champs walk."

Despite Paris's old subway trains, cold subways, disagreeable people, and camera thiefs, there actually are a few (mildly) redeeming things the city has to offer. Most notable are the banana and nutella crepes. If some genius were to introduce the idea of also loading these things up with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, France could be almost as cool as the US. The second most notable thing in Paris might be the Louvre if those jerks would have been open on Tuesdays as the 2006 Frommer's "Paris Day By Day" guide claims. Since the Louvre was out, the Musee d'Orsay, a giant train station turned art museum, wins the prize. I think in the matter of about an hour here I saw more impressionist masterpieces than I had in my whole life in London, New York, DC, Chicago, and St. Louis combined.

This is where I would enter tons of awesome photos.

Now I'm going to completely mess up the flow of this whole story since I just recalled the photo of West End London that I intended to post. I had a really early train to Paris on Sunday, so I spent Saturday in London with several Caltech friends. I managed to snag us all half-price Avenue Q tickets. Yet another reason London is much cooler than Paris. Sorry Andrew.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Paris

I have a friend named Vivek who lived in Lloyd House with me. He is at Cambridge studying for a year. I called him today proposing that we go to Paris in two days. It's going to be awesome. The end.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Edinburgh

I've returned from about four days in Edinburgh. I met up with Jake and Chantal (two friends from Caltech) who were kind enough to show me around. Highlights were

Haggis, neeps, and tatties

Harry Potter's Birthplace

New Years Fireworks over the Castle

Arthur's Seat

Spending time with Jake and Chantal

I spent my last night in Edinburgh with Roko, another (non-intersecting) friend from Caltech. Roko was a Cambridge student who spent a summer doing a SURF research project at Tech. I hadn't realized it, but he is now a graduate student at Edinburgh. Thanks to the wonders of the Facebook, he saw that I was coming to town and we were able to reconnect.