Romania and Switzerland

My vacation was quite nice (photos here), but I returned to an apartment that still lacks internet. I blame Clara. Even now that I've taken charge of the problem it's still taking a remarkably long time to sort out. Without internet at home I've been slow updating this blog, instead using the time to read a few non-technical leisure books. It had been quite some time since I'd sat down with anything that wasn't math or science.

Romania was quite interesting and beautiful. I was particularly intrigued to see the bizarre mixture of classical beauty, modern developments, and derelict neighborhoods. Many Bucharest buildings once had grand facades, on par with anything you would have found in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. Today most of those facades are dilapidated. Some of the buildings have been fixed up, and there is ongoing work to improve other sections of the city. Unfortunately there is still a long way to go. Stray dogs roam city streets, and there are stretches of road lined with run-down communist block apartment buildings. My friend from Caltech, Alex, lives near the (in)famous People's Palace. Her parents are artists, and have been beautifully renovating their home. Let's hope some more people follow their lead.

Alex's Home

After a day and a half in Bucharest, we went to the town of Sinaia to the Royal Castle called Peleş. Peleş was gorgeous and is arguably the prettiest castle I've ever seen.

Peleş (the ş makes an "sh" sound)

That night I caught a ride with Dan, one of Alex's friends (and a current Caltech grad student), to the town of Sibiu in the heart of Transylvania. Romania notoriously has difficulties developing their roads, so I was surprised and impressed when we hit stretches of modern highway lined with the occasional glowing gas station. It was virtually indistinguishable from roads through the middle of Missouri. Other roads matched the reputation a little better, especially the ones with horse-drawn wooden carriages (complete with wooden spokeless wheels). I did some sightseeing in Sibiu then train hopped to the town of Braşov. Not far from Braşov is a town called Bran, which boasts an old castle on a mountain. This castle was commandeered by Hollywood, making it "Dracula's Castle" despite virtually no link to the historical dracula (Vlad Ţepeş). While nowhere near as impressive as Peleş, I felt compelled to pay the castle a visit.

After a little more Romanian sightseeing I caught a flight to Geneva, where I rendezvoused with an Oxford friend, Jessica, and her undergrad friend, Doug. Doug's now a physics grad student working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. My couple of days in Switzerland were great fun, but quite a bit pricier than my Eastern European adventure. Doug hooked us up with a tour of the accelerator, an outing to Gruyère, and a hike in the Jura Mountains.

A chamois in the Juras

I'm back, briefly

After dropping off the face of the internet for a month, I decided to finally update things. My parents, grandparents and I went on a great Mediterranean vacation a few weeks ago. I decided to cram one more little vacation in this summer since I still want to see a few more things in Europe. I head to Romania tomorrow, followed by two days in Geneva (to see the LHC!). Additionally, I just moved into a new place in Oxford that I'm sharing with three buddies. It's pretty nice, though the moving process is always a bit of a hassle. I spent the morning on the phone with utilities, praising the great 0845 and 0870 phone numbers. These prefixes are about as costly as a 900 number, but not quite as exhilarating (so I'm told).

The New Place

Stow-in-the-Wold

Last Saturday I rode my bike to Stow-in-the-Wold. I wound through a series of villages on my way there. Most of these villages were quiet and beautiful, but Eynsham was a little more lively. I actually had to take a detour because the roads were being used for a local "shirt race," which was basically part pub crawl, part parade, part soap box derby, and part costume party. I had my point and shoot with me so I shot a few photos of the ridiculousness before turning around and finding a new path.


The rest of the scenery was a little more stereotypically British.

White Horse Photo

You can just barely make out part of the white horse at the top of the photo.

White Horse

I was thinking about camping out Friday night for Saturday Wimbledon tickets, but the forecast was rain Friday night and all day Saturday. I should know better than to change my plans for forecasts. Saturday turned out to be sunny and gorgeous. All was not lost because I got to take a nice little bike ride. Clara and I rode to the White Horse Hill about 22 miles away from Oxford. It has a doozie of a climb at the end of the route.



The hill is very chalky, so long ago people would dig ditches and make chalk pictures. The National Trust now keeps some of these preserved. The Uffington White Horse is one of the largest, but there are many of these hill figures across the English Countryside. Clara (the geologist) tried to tell me something about the hills, but I just heard "blah blah blah strike and dip blah blah blah." Some people need to learn how to not talk about technical stuff when others clearly aren't following and aren't interested. [edit: (sarcasm)]

Pembrokeshire

I've failed to update for a while, so to appease the family I'll link to lots of photos this time. Over the weekend I went with some friends to the Pembrokeshire Coast in Wales. My walking trip to Wales made me think pretty highly of the region. After this trip I think it's fair to say I'm officially in love with Wales. We stayed at a youth hostel right on the coast in a little town called Broad Haven, giving us great access to the beach and the coastal walking path. I even took a dip in the ocean and didn't get hypothermia. More photos of the adventures are available here .

Lazy Weekend

In order to finally kill the rumor that I'm just lounging around in England, I planned a busy weekend. Saturday and Sunday in Oxford were gorgeous - sunny and ~70 degrees (in American units), so I soaked up about 14 hours of sun thanks to a picnic, punting, tennis, and an ultimate (frisbee) tournament.

Punting is a silly tradition wherein people pile in long flat boats as one poor guy has to propel the boat in the most inefficient possible manner. It's usually fun because people have pretty poor control over their boats ("punts"), leading to amusing situations. Unfortunately I was so good at guiding our punt that my friends just got bored.



After a disappointing second place finish in the spring league, the ChUniv ultimate team showed up to the "Cuppers" tournament ready for redemption. The tourney was on small pitches with just 5 on a side, or, in the case of ChUniv, 4 on a side until the others finally showed up. It was an exhausting day of 7 games. We were just too knackered by the semifinals to keep up with the slightly more organized, uniformed, practiced teams. At least I connected on my first successful hammer to the end zone.

Our Motley Crew