Travelogue: Scotland

Eilean Donan Castle

Having never been to the UK before, I really wanted to see some parts of it that were a bit further afield. So it is important to grab opportunities to travel when they come. Last week, there was a mini nova conference near Manchester, just the local astronomers around the UK which they hold every 6 months or so, kind of informal but a good opportunity to see other astronomers who focus on novae and even some of my collaborators that I rarely see face to face. This was actually held on my birthday -- I made some comments to Benson about this, saying that the ONE DAY I knew I had to work ALL SUMMER without taking off was, of course, the day I'd most want to NOT work and take off and celebrate. So, anyway, the day prior, I rented a car, then woke up at 6:15am on my birthday to drive 3 hours to the conference (with Benson navigating/snoozing in the passenger seat -- he just worked in a nearby library the whole day while I was chatting with folk).

Benson and I at Jodrell Bank

All in all, it was a decent birthday (terrible traffic aside) - I had a lot of good conversations with people, talked about science, got some feedback on my research, and so on. But because we were already going up towards Manchester, Benson and I reasoned it was a good time to just keep going north. Which is why we rented the car for a full week and spent a long weekend in Scotland! So, after spending a chunk of Friday afternoon visiting a collaborator at the Jodrell Bank Observatory (the central hub for the radio telescope array eMERLIN, which is spread over the UK -- we got quite a nice tour of the facility, in fact) we drove up to Edinburgh. Our first night was a simple one -- we just checked into our hostel (which was made entirely of shipping containers and absurdly inexpensive), went into town and walked around old town. There, I lusted over the multitude of plaid clothing that was *everywhere* (if you ever look through my wardrobe, you may notice that I have a fondness for it), and, more importantly, went for dinner and drinks. Naturally, I had to have haggis for my first ever trip to Scotland... followed by four shots of whisky (divided by two, though, since Benson and I split them). You see, we deliberately went to a place called Whiski, which I would highly recommend, which has 300 different whiskies available for tasting. Which is a good selection, I think. We actually went back again on Monday night to get 3 more shots. Benson is a BIG whisky connoisseur, so I pretty much let him chose what we got. Between the 2 tastings, we got one whiskey from each of the regions -- Highlands, Lowlands, Islays, Speyside, Campbeltown, and the Islands, plus an extra Lowlands -- I don't quite recall what we got, honestly, you'd have to ask Benson -- but they were all very good. I tend to prefer whiskies that don't have an overly strong peat taste and that are smoother, but I'm also not that fussy or knowledgable about the whole thing. I know more now than I did at the beginning of the weekend though.

The next morning, we arose from our shipping containers,  bright and shiny early, and drove to the Isle of Skye. Which was a lovely drive across the lowlands and highlands, going through a national park at one point. Now, you'll note that I was driving. Benson hasn't really driven since he got his license 10 years ago, and doesn't really trust himself behind the wheel. Whereas, I actively enjoy driving (assuming no traffic). This was my first experience driving in Britain, however, and it took some getting used to not only DRIVING on the wrong side of the road (and through endless roundabouts), but also shifting gears with my left hand. Manual cars are the norm in the UK, and much cheaper to rent, you see. My dad taught me how to drive stick shift when I was in college -- he kept a manual car around in part for this purpose, and had me drive said car to my camp job over the summer every day, so I'd get used to it. So it's a useful skill! I never finished writing up my last summer's activities (whoops) but this came in handy last year when we were in Italy, as well -- we stayed at a friend of Benson's house, and borrowed his grandfathers car. Which was stick. And I was the only one of the four of us that could drive -- which made me the designated driver throughout the Italian countryside, and enabled us to see much more of it than we would have been able to otherwise. So worth holding back a bit more on those italian wines....

Anyway, the Isle of Skye was GORGEOUS. We did a lot of hiking over the weekend, drove all around the island, had lots of delicious fresh seafood (and were even taught how to shuck oysters by the proprietor of the wonderful Oyster Shed), saw a TON of sheep (sheep EVERYWHERE), visited the Portree harbor, and, naturally, toured the Talisker Whisky Distillery. Talisker is one of Benson's favorite whiskies, so we got to sample a few very nice ones, too. We stayed at a lovely little B&B which overlooked the Eilean Donan Castle in the town of Dornie (not on the Isle of Skye itself, but within driving distance). After we spent a very nice 2 days in Skye, we headed back to Edinburgh, to explore the town a bit more in depth. We still mainly wandered -- I bought myself some plaid items as souvenirs, we had more delicious food, more whisky at Whiski, visited the main castle there, and climbed up Arthur's seat for a gorgeous view of the city. All in all, a good trip! Now, we're back in Cambridge again, which means... we should probably start thinking about buying tickets and planning our trip to Greece for the last week of August. Yeah... things to get on soon...

The view from Arthur's Seat

An American Abroad

So, as I may or may not have mentioned, I'm spending this summer in Cambridge, England, where Benson works as a postdoc. I've been here almost three weeks now, and overall, I'm just very content and happy. I've settled in here pretty well.

I've got official visitor status at the IOA now, and am moving from desk to desk as various astro grad students are on vacation, or working in the library when no desks are available. The people here are friendly and interesting to talk to, I've been having good conversations about science and about non-science things, too. I'm chatting with the grad students at lunch and during coffee and afternoon tea (both of which are daily here... which is good except it makes it overly easy to take breaks and not be working!). My paper is coming along, not as far as I would have liked, but I feel like I'm making progress. After work, Benson and I cook nice dinners together on almost a daily basis, then hang out, watch TV, play games, or even work a bit at home. Or we bike into Cambridge and watch 'football' (aka soccer) at a pub with some of his friends, or go to the market (there is a very nice market in the town square), or watch movies at his department. Watching the world cup has been a lot of fun here -- even if the USA is now out. We watched the USA/Belgium game at the "Isaac Newton Pub," where apparently a bunch of Americans had gathered to watch the game. (Our keen senses picked up on this when people on the other side of the pub started belting out the National Anthem at the beginning of the game -- of course, the Americans at OUR table then joined in as well.) Quite a gripping game, even if we got out at the end. Tomorrow for the 4th, we're going to a pub with a German friend of Benson's to watch the Germany/France game, then are going to wander the town and do *something* vaguely patriotic or celebratory, I suppose -- perhaps we can find other Americans out and about.

Benson's flat has the most gorgeous view out the back of a huge field and trees and whatnot in the distance. I'm biking to work every morning past horses (well, one field of them, anyway), but the town center is like 10 minutes by bike, extremely easy to get to, we go in pretty regularly.  And honestly, the IOA couldn't be closer to the department, it's like an 8 minute walk, which means it is barely even a bike ride. EVERYBODY bikes here, the town is *quite* bike friendly. It's also easy to get into London by train. We've only gone in once so far -- we went to the British Museum and attempted to do the entire thing in a day -- an exhausting and somewhat hopeless task, but we did walk through every room at least, even if we didn't look at most things closely. We then went around town to see all the big landmarks: Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, westminster abbey, the Eye of London, the Tower of London, the famed London Bridge (aka the Tower Bridge). A fun day!  And of course I've been trying to eat all 'typical' English foods -- bangers and mash, meat pies, fish and chips, tikka masala (which is as English as the fortune cookie is American, plus there is a LOT of good Indian food here).

As I mentioned, there is a market in town, so we've been cooking a lot. Mostly simple things -- stir-fry with rice, oven baked chicken, sloppy joes, the most gorgeous and huge artichokes from the market that I have ever seen, a homemade omelet and bacon (the bacon here tastes different, and is a lot leaner, which is fine, I guess, but leaves us without extra bacon grease with which to cook other things... and the bacon doesn't feel quite as *decedent*) -- but we've also done stuff like homemade wonton. And this weekend we're thinking of doing another French Laundry project, we haven't decided quite what to do. In general, I find it's a LOT nicer to cook for two than to cook for one, so I've been eating and cooking more here than I usually do back in NYC, with more variety and fewer leftovers. We're also planning on going back into London next Monday, do another museum (we're deciding between the Tate Modern and the Victoria Albert museum, we'll do them both eventually, it's just a matter of priority), get a nice dinner, and then I managed to get us free tickets to a recording of a radio show I like: John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (basically, a radio sketch comedy show). So that should be fun!

That's all for now, I'll be sure to post a few more status updates while I'm here.