Not your typical Tuesday

It started off like any other Tuesday. A quick glance at the snowcapped alps resting vigilantly outside my window, and then a hot bowl of oatmeal with my Japanese roomie. We again stayed at Grenouilles to work on the old greenhouse. It needs a lot of attention, I did some weeding and trench-digging. Later in the afternoon, we had yet another worker show up. His name is Tari, he's a Nice native born to Moroccan parents. As part of his internship with his agriculture school, he is rotating through various local farms for 3-week cycles. He speaks some English, great French, and some Arabic. Over lunch, we discovered that he also speaks a little bit of Japanese, because he is Otaku. He had to explain to me what that was, but Noriko was quite interested to hear a couple phrases in her native tongue.

Lunch conversation centered around Japanese culture, originating with the joke that for lunch we were eating "Nos Haricots", beans that were grown here on the farm. When spoken, it sounds a lot like "Noriko", so everyone laughed (except Noriko, who either laughed nervously because we had just made a joke about eating her, or laughed nervously because she didn't know what was going on and everyone glanced at her and laughed in unison). We explained it to her.

Next, Joelle mentioned that in Japan, you can "rent" a dog for a day. They are well trained, friendly pups that people can rent to walk or play with, without the accompanying responsibility of chronic dog-ownership. Along those same lines are cat-cafes, where you can get your cat-fix if you are lonely, having a rough day, or like cats better than people.

Lastly, we realized that Noriko ate a disproportionately huge amount of food. Usually as much, if not more than me. I am easily twice her size, probably knocking on the door of 2.5x. Thanks to Tari, we were able to uncover the culpable underlying cultural tradition. It is apparently rude to refuse food when offered, and there is no lack of food-offering at the lunch-table. Here, it is essentially rude to take any food without offering to serve everyone else first. One can imagine how this cultural mix would lead to a heavily overfed tiny japanese girl.

After dinner, I saw Noriko typing on her laptop. I asked if I could see her keyboard, and she said "of course?". I was curious because there are three japanese alphabets, totaling literally hundreds of characters (actually thousands, but those aren't really letters in the sense that we understand them). So I reasonably wondered how you could fit all of that onto a keyboard.

How do they do it?

English characters and phonetics. They set their keyboard to the desired alphabet, and then type out the phonetics of the word they want to type. For example, to say good morning in Japan one would say "おはよう". This is pronounced "ohayou" (which is comically similar to "Oh hey you" in english). To type that in an email, Noriko sets her keyboard to a certain alphabet, and then types in (in english) o-h-a-y-o-u. I think that's a little ridiculous, but it does give computer-savvy japanese folk a leg up in learning english, because they need to know the alphabet to type.

I started the fire so Noriko wouldn't freeze, and headed downtown for my weekly salsa lesson. Before I left, I warmed my self by the fire for a couple seconds. Noriko looked at me and said "You have two girlfriends, one for the mountains and one for the city". She was implying that the fire was my girlfriend up here in the cold mountains. She really brings a new and interesting perspective to the table.

This Tuesday was also Jessie's (Maryland student studying abroad) birthday, so Eliza and I bought her a chocolate cake. As I was minding my own business cooking mushroom risotto, I heard a tapping at the chamber door. I was a little confused for a moment, as Eliza was microwaving Chicken Cordon Bleu next to me, and Kelly and Daphnee were out of town.

I hesitantly opened the door and was greeted by a grocery-laden german girl, who was approximately 5'11''. She was the new roommate! She had arrived this morning, and spent the day tooling about Nice. The landlord hadn't bothered to inform us.

She was incredibly nice, she's a 6th year medical school student who is doing a surgery rotation in Nice. She offered us some wine and chatted while we ate.

Then we went out for Jessie's birthday, with our new german friend in tow, but I'll spare you the details. I do recall her saying something exactly like "This is the best birthday ever", so I think it went well.

Wednesday we went up to Broc and spread fertilizer for hours and hours (don't worry it's organic).

I was sleep deprived and fell asleep around my Wednesday bedtime, which is at 5 PM.

Thursday everyone went up to Broc. I worked with Tari all day, collecting radishes and moving cement pillars and ploughing fields. It's starting to look more like a farm now. Tari is great to talk to, he is helping me learn French much more than anyone else here. The Pope's retirement is still all over the radio, which taught me the expression "It's like the H in Hawai'i", followed by the unspoken corollary "which doesn't do anything" (as it's silent in spoken french).

Claire and Kelly are supposed to show up today, they are yet to appear. I'm doing laundry, and since I did such great work today I have tomorrow off!

Have a great weekend! (and remember to subscribe in the "subscribe by e-mail" box in the upper right, so that I don't feel bad about not posting every day).

Fika

First off: Sorry for not posting every day. The weather's getting nicer and there's more to do than stay boxed up in the Caravan all day. So that you don't have to check compulsively for new posts, look over here....---------->

There should be a box that says "follow by e-mail". If you type in your e-mail, you can receive notifications to that address every day there is a new post. Hope it helps!

Love Story:

There is a couple staying in the caravan for a few days while they look for an apartment. Jonathan is a farmer from Colorado, he is looking into starting his own farm somewhere in Europe. He met Maryanna while he was WWOOFing on her parents farm in Italy. Initially, Jonathan only spoke english and Maryanna only spoke italian, but 2.5 years later they are both pretty bilingual and about to start a farm together. So much for french immersion, everyone speaks english.

The Italian girl was also able to help me figure out what was written on the caravan wall. A swedish girl wrote "Je veux un Fika", which translates to "I want a Fika". Fika has different meanings depending on what country you live in. It means coffee break in Sweden, but in Italy, Germany, and France it has a variety of meanings, the least vulgar of which is "pretty girl".

Friday we went to Broc and Noriko and I built a fence. It was fun working with her, we talk 90% in english but even that is a little fractured. She asked if I had brothers or sisters, and I said yes I have both. Noriko was most interested in my sister, because her name (Sarah) is getting very popular with the younger generation in Japan. I also mentioned that she taught elementary school, to which Noriko responded "whooooaaaaa.... physical strength!". Which I think was meant to mean, "props to her, that's a tough job".

We worked rather late into the afternoon, and eventually Noriko started taking a nap. Can't blame her, fence building again involved my favorite french past-time, moving rocks.

It started snowing slightly, and then we started a bonfire to get rid of the accumulating brush that we were cleaning up, and ate lunch. We ate a spaghetti-based frittata, and Jean-Louis jokingly told Noriko that this was french high cuisine. Again, no idea if Noriko got the joke.

Friday evening I headed down to Nice, where the plan was to take the bus to Monaco. The girls took their sweet time getting ready however, so we sprinted to catch the bus. Our track coaches would've been proud, we made it to the bus stop at 10:39 PM, and sighed with relief as we waited for the 10:40 bus. Tragically, we soon realized there was no 10:40 bus, somebody had misread or misremembered the schedule, and the next bus came at around midnight.

We went and ate nachos to pass the time, and then caught the midnight bus to Monaco. We entered the first club we found, and asked for a drink menu. It was one of those drink menus where you can't exactly figure out where the decimal place belongs. 1 glass of champagne costs 200. Is that 2.00 euros? 20.00 euros (because europe is weird)? Surely it can't be 200 euros?

It was 200 euros. I quickly put the menu down, because I felt like I couldn't really even afford to be looking at it.

We found a different bar that was much more lively and much less expensive. On the walk over, we got to take a look at some of the mega-yachts in the port. As we ooohed and ahhhed, a passerby told us that those are just the winter boats, the big ones get here in the summer. I can't really understand having that much money, but now the drink prices make sense.

We caught the 4 AM bus home, and immediately fell asleep. While we were waiting at the bus stop, we got to glance in at the bentley dealership, which is right next to the ferrari dealership.

 And... Noriko made me Dinner! Walnuts and green beans and a rice with a raw egg. It was delicious, but I still don't exactly know the rules of eating raw eggs. In japan, people eat them every day. In Muhrica, the rule is "Don't".

I slept in on Saturday, and spent most of my waking hours cooking, with an eventual excursion to Wayne's pub. We ate bacon hash browns, toast, fried rice, and quesadillas.

Sunday I discovered game of thrones. It was cold and rainy, so I didn't have to feel bad about staying inside and eating chocolate all day while watching TV. I also got an opportunity to skype with the Family, always good to see their faces.

Monday we worked on repairing one of the older greenhouses (made of wood) and I did some general tidying up around the farm. Most of the work left to be done is up at Broc, but it snowed again so there is no way to get work done up there.

Vlogging

Here is the Steam Machine in Action:

So here are some snapshots of Nice Carnival opening ceremonies. 

Then Saturday, there was a parade. You had to buy a ticket to get in however, so we decided to hike up to one of the parks overlooking the parade to get a free view.

Sunday, I needed to pick up Noriko from her Hotel and take her to the farm, because I was downtown anyway.

Noriko is the WWOOFer from Japan that will be staying here for 2 weeks. She was waiting for me outside of her hostel, she is diminutive with a very large suitcase. Her English is not so great, and her French is very basic, so we did need to deal with some communication barriers. I did manage to get that she likes mountain climbing, and she's a painter, who had an exhibition in Paris a few weeks ago, and who will be wwoofing until October, switching farms every few weeks. She has already been WWOOFing for a few months at three different farms, but often she was just taking care of kids rather than doing real farm-work. She is looking for inspiration for her paintings, and trying to learn french language.

She is incredibly nice. Like I thought I was pretty nice but she takes it to the next level. She had gifts for Jean Louis when she showed up (wrapped in wrapping paper). And, in the morning, she offered to let me hold her cup of coffee to warm up my hands because she noticed I wasn't drinking any. She also bows a lot, and always offers to help with anything and makes tea a lot. She's great to have around.

She has not yet cooked for me though. I've made 3 or 4 dinners for her by this point, because every time she tries to cook she just wanders around the kitchen re-checking the cupboards, in the hopes that familiar ingredients will appear. She has complimented my cooking a couple times, my favorite was "your wife is happy". Her english is really fragmented, but I'm pretty sure she was getting at "You will make some girl happy someday with your cooking". She also speaks a lot of Japanese pretty loudly to herself. I think she is thinking out loud essentially but everyone just kind of stares at her. On her way to the caravan, she stopped and started yelling at a dead flower, and then kicked it, and looked at it more closely. I think she mistook it for some kind of animal, but it was a little odd for me to hear japanese shouting directed at an old flower.

On Monday we had an extra worker show up named Frank. He works on a farm nearby, but his boss is on vacation so he need something to do for a few weeks. He is funny, I can speak pretty comfortably with him. He is a couple years older, married, and about to start his own farm in about a year. He also has a gauged earring.

I shoveled manure with him most of the day.

At lunch there were several jokes made at Noriko's expense once everyone realized that she couldn't really understand anything. Joelle was pretty good about defending her, speaking up for those without a voice (in the right language).

The next day, Lucy showed up. She used to work with Jean Louis and Joelle a couple years ago, and now she is back for a few weeks. She lives in her own little van, and has a dalmatian.

This obviously made me miss my dog pretty badly.

We had Lunch at Broc, since everyone was there. There is a picnic table and chairs, and another caravan, so it was a comfortable warm day to eat outside. During lunch, we had walnuts to snack on. Noriko saw Jean Louis and I opening them by hitting them with the flat of our palms, and said "Karate?!". We laughed and said yes you have to karate chop them open. She then tried, and succeeded, in opening a walnut with a karate chop. This led to s flurry of jokes about her being as strong as an ox and a karate master despite her 4'10'' stature, none of which she understood. Joelle told her to stop and asked if she hurt her hand. She said a little.

In an effort to include her in conversation, Joelle asked me to ask Noriko what sound a rooster makes in Japan. I need to serve as the intermediate sometimes because I speak french and english, Joelle speaks french and italian, and Noriko speaks english and japanese. I got my point across, and apparently japanese roosters go "kukoriko".

That night I went down to Nice for Salsa Tuesday. We hang out with some of the UMD study abroad kids and go to a salsa bar in Nice, and then hop around to a couple different bars after.

The next day at Broc we got to use the potato planter.

I also found my future home. 

You sound like you're from London

There is still snow at Broc, so we are working in some of the greenhouses here at home.

Since we are being ultra-organic, Jean-Louis can't use herbicides or pesticides. As an alternative, he treats the soil with hot steam (which I think is about as organic as you can get). Basically we spread out organic fertilizer, till the soil, and then cover it with a huge tarp. We then seal the tarp with sandbags around the edges, and then fire up the steam machine.

It makes a huge amount of steam, it filled up the greenhouse very quickly, so for a minute we had a sauna or indoor clouds. Fumigation with steam for 2 hours kills all of the dormant seeds in the upper layers of the soil, so that the only things left will be what we plant.

We spent 2 full (french) days treating the soil like this.

Thursday was Valentines day, and we found the pinkest rotating sushi bar in Europe for dinner. I've never been to a rotating sushi bar before, I liked it a lot, good job japan. Speaking of Japan, I am picking up the Japanese WWOOFer in town on sunday. She is 31, a painter, and I don't know if she speaks any english or french. I've been sending here e-mails and she responds in what looks like google-translated fractured english.

Friday was kickoff for Carnival. The opening ceremony was free, and we watched it with some english teachers we had just met. They are doing the same program as kelly, where they teach english to french students for a year. They are a pack of about 7 british girls. I can barely talk to them because I'm distracted by their accents, and apparently they are making fun of the american accents at the same time.

One girl knows a lot of trivia and enjoys sharing it, so we learned some facts about koalas, polar bears,  and dinosaur skeletons that I hadn't heard before.

Another girl has a friend that got seasick while whale-watching, and was lucky enough to vomit directly onto a surfacing whale. This spawned the optimistic catch-phrase "at least your not sick on a whale", which can be employed whenever something goes wrong or someone is in a bad mood. Real life example: If you fall over and land in a puddle, a cheery face with a thick british accent will look down at you and say "at least your not sick on a whale", and then grin and stroll off. I guess that is a valuable perspective to have whenever things are looking down.

The opening ceremony was very well done, with aerial acrobatics, floats, fire, fireworks, and a lot of confetti. Photos/videos to come.

There are some more Carnival events happening sporadically throughout the next few weeks, we will see what those entail.

Zen

Since there is still a ton of snow up at Broc, we are cleaning up Les Grenouilles. Moved a bunch of tiles, and then started fixing up some paths by spreading sand on top with a rake. Then we pruned some more trees (I think that's the last of them) which I just discovered to be fig trees. For some reason knowing that made it more fun, I initially thought they were there pretty much only for erosion control.

Then I got to fix up the Caravan, because the Japanese WWOOFer is about to show up. In the process, we found much needed firewood.

Lunch was excellent yet again, but especially so thanks to the slight food and sleep depravation I'd been  suffering through all morning.

I ate a ton and then.... fell asleep accidentally. I recognize that this doesn't make for a particularly exciting read, but from my perspective it was a pretty great day.

Salsa gras

Happy Mardi Gras!

We started a little late this morning because it was too cold early on. We stayed here and pruned trees and moved logs and moved fences, and then I spied as Jean Louis made his pizza (in an effort to steal his recipe). It turned out to be a little pointless, as he eventually pulled up an instructional youtube video. It seems that the key is having a wood-burning oven and letting the dough rise for a long long time. Plenty of pizza making to do when I get home.

Lunch was split pea soup and pizza, and we left the news on. There seems to be a lot going on, between the pope's retirement and north korean missile testing, and, most importantly, the ongoing competition to share the worlds longest kiss. I think the current record is about 50 hours, but competitors need to stand there (quite unhappily after about the first 8 seconds) pushing their face against someone else's while judges watch (I think they are only checking for duration, rather than quality).

Over lunch there were also murmurs of getting a dog, which spurred stories of the last dog they had, who was a menace. She ran about wherever she pleased and stole everything she could find (blankets, food, shoes, axes, etc.) so Joelle concluded that she wouldn't wish a dog on her worst enemy.

After lunch I went downtown, anticipating a little extra activity in recognition of Mardi Gras. There wasn't much, apparently the day itself is not of much note, but opens the door for the celebration of Carnival on Friday. So Friday should be interesting.

While in centre-ville, I had an excellent homemade dinner of Chicken Cordon Bleu and Caprese Salad. After dinner, I started texting the girl I know who is in the Maryland study abroad program. On Tuesdays she usually goes out salsa dancing, so I asked if we could join in. She said sure, and we met up at a pub beforehand. The pub was packed with Maryland students studying abroad, and the ones I associated with were great to talk to.

The pub is ultra-exclusive (you have to ring a doorbell to get in), and we only found it because one of the students studying abroad now was also here last semester.

The experienced study abroad student also showed us the proper way to drink absinthe shots, which involves a lot of fire and coughing.

As I went to the bar to get a pint or three, an elderly woman started speaking to me in french. I asked her to repeat and she said "Oh he doesn't speak french". I said "Wait just a damn minute I do I just didn't hear you". We then got to talking for quite a while about where she's from and what she does (she's retired now, I told her to live it up). After learning that I was from Maryland, she mentioned her step-nephew who is coming to Nice in May, and said that he's 22 and would love to meet me. So I set up a date for a Tuesday in May to meet at this pub with a retired french woman so I could meet her step-nephew. We don't actually have a specific date or time, it's literally just "meet back here on a Tuesday in May". I look forward to it?

After the pub we went salsa-ing. I had no idea what I was doing, and was thus shunned to the side of the dance floor with the other inexperienced dancers. Center stage is for people with experience, and one of the Maryland study abroad students was incredible. Everyone wanted to dance with her, and she had apparently been taking salsa classes since middle school.

The night was danced away, and then I went to bed.

Kidnapped!

I have some catching up to do, I guess we'll begin with Wednesday. We went up to Le Broc to clear another patch of land. Jean Louis felled a forest with his chainsaw and I followed after and stacked the resulting logs. When we took our tea break, we talked about truffles. There's a special kind of fly that can smell truffles, and lays it's eggs right above them. All you have to do is find one of the flies and wave a stick at it so it runs away, and then wait for it to come back. When it returns, it will hone in on the sight of a truffle. Then you can scare it away again and dig up the truffle. You can also smell the dirt, it smells a little funny. Truffles are yummy ectomycorrhizal fungi, and since they are delicious and hard to find, they are expensive. We went truffle hunting in the afternoon, to no avail.

That afternoon I went down to Nice proper to see my girlfriend, who kidnapped me and took me to Venice for Carnival. In the interest of protecting her anonymity, she has requested to be referred to by the pseudonym "Eliza", no doubt inspired by our recent discovery of the full length film My Fair Lady on youtube. Not to be confused with the impostor Eliza Doolittle.

The next morning we hopped on a plane and made it to Venice. It is a particularly interesting time to visit because of Carnival, an annual party that a lot of european countries seem to hold in celebration of the end of winter. According to Joelle it dates back to some pagan festivals of times past, but now involves a lot of masks and loud music.

From the airport, you take a bus to the Piazza del Roma (on the island of Venice) and from there we started exploring. We have a strategy for finding good restaurants called "go to the crowded ones". It is relatively likely that they know something you don't, and have good reason to choose the restaurant that they did. We both wanted pizza (because, ya know, Italy and all) but the most crowded restaurant was a little corner booth crammed with Italians. We forced our way in and looked at some chalk scrawl on the board. It read something like 70 centimes for a glass of merlot and 90 centimes for a sandwich. I don't speak any Italian, so I made Eliza do the talking. I was impressed (but not surprised) as she approached the counter and ordered 2 glasses of wine and 2 sandwiches in perfect Italian.

She isn't fluent, but she can read a menu and knows the word for "2", so I guess that's all you need. We enjoyed our sandwiches and wine along a canal, reveling in the abundance of wine and the low cost of delicious sandwiches. We didn't have a map, or a smart phone, so we headed south-east towards the Rialto bridge (thank you orienteering merit badge). We employed the "go where everyone else goes" strategy again, and were helped along our way by a series of signs. Some of the signs were official-looking, and others were haphazard spray paint scribblings. We miraculously made it to the Rialto bridge over the grand canal.

Everything was flooded with tourists and mask shops. Masks ranged from about 3 euros to 8,000, the latter being quite elegant. Eliza found a mask that she liked, saw the 100 euro price tag, put it down, and found a similar-looking one for 5 euros next door. I spent a much longer time trying to find a mask that would suit me, eventually settling on a nice gold number.

Our hotel was near Piazza San Marco, so we followed a few more spray painted arrows to get there. From there, our hotel was just around the corner. We made it to the hotel, but it was under construction. The proprietor looked confused to see us, and led us to some other hotel nearby. She spoke very little (no?) english. We checked in, and were told we'd been upgraded a star.

We donned our masks and explored, taking photos of some of the people in full costume. They were happy to stop and pose, it's almost like they wanted the attention.

Piazza San Marco was set up with a stage, and scheduled events included a costume contest and a DJ set. We found some bottles of wine, but broke the cheap italian corkscrew trying to open them. The front desk was able to lend a hand though, surely taking the time to mock us for being ignorant americans in the process. For dinner in the crowded restaurant, I had tortellini with ham, which was great but a pretty small portion. I (ironically) began to fantasize about the Macaroni Grill. I ate enough bread and cheese to fill up though. We spent the night getting lost, stumbling upon some other squares with DJ sets, and buying tequila when necessary (I don't think that tradition is native to Italy, they took a very long time to build the mountain of salt and forge the wedges of lemon).

We ran into a pair of elderly french ladies during our wanderings, asking us where to find Piazza San Marco. I said we were headed that way, and struck up a little bit of a conversation. I thought I was pretty eloquent, but I'm pretty sure I slipped into spanish whenever I spoke with Eliza and then filled in the gaps with english. We made sure they made it safely and then kept wandering and dancing.

The next morning we toured around Venice more extensively, most notably finding the Academia bridge. Eliza insisted that we take a gondola at some point, but since I was too afraid we settled on taking a traghetto, which simply crosses the grand canal where bridges aren't convenient. We survived somehow.

We painted some watercolors after being inspired by a street artist selling prints. I'll have to hunt down his website I really liked his work.

We bought some champagne so we didn't have to bother the front desk for a corkscrew, and got kebab for dinner. The sandwiches were great, and we managed to find some gypsies and students to hang out with. We got a little lost on the way to the student-heavy portion of Venice, but a nice man dressed as a scuba diver helped us around. Eliza befriended the bouncer, and tried to impress some students with her Italian last name. They were not particularly moved, first calling her a liar but eventually instructing her to learn italian if she wanted to be Italian.

We had become fond of Spritz, an italian drink that hits a little heavier than we anticipated, but it allowed us to teleport home.

We took a vaporetto to the bus stop, then took the bus to the airport, where we were met with the longest security line I have ever seen. It was 10:15 at this point, so we discreetly skipped to the front of the priority line and made our plane with plenty of time. I needed a nap at this point, but as I awoke for dinner I began to crave macaroni and cheese. After about 3 minutes on foodgawker we were at the grocery store spending all our money on cheese, pasta, and bacon.

Sunday was spent a the market buying more food, and then reading Tintin and catching up on e-mails.

Monday was back to work, but it was not business as usual. It had snowed throughout the night, and a phone call up to Broc informed us that there was about 30 cm of snow up there. We made our way up there outfitted with tire chains to clear the snow off of the greenhouses. Then we went bee-searching, as any bees that leave the hive are slowly paralyzed by the cold and will die if left out overnight.

I was happy to make it back to the warmth of the kitchen fire.

I think that is almost everything of note. There's another big week ahead, Mardi Gras, Valentine's Day, and Nice Carnival!

Day 30: Chauffer

Today, my girlfriend arrived in Nice. Not until 2 PM though, so I got to put another coat of paint on the table we are refurbishing, and prune some trees before going down to the airport to pick her up.

I liked pruning the trees. The view is really that much more spectacular, I just need to try to remember to look up more often. At the airport, waiting in the arrivals terminal, I looked up with anticipation every time the doors opened. She was the very last person out of the gate, lugging a 75 pound suitcase.

We took the bus to her apartment where the landlord was waiting. There is already one american living here, she teaches english to french students so she works a lot. There was another girl here from Luxembourg touring the other room. There is a great view out the window (you can see a waterfall!). We did a little touring around the city, showing her the beach and a couple monuments and the market where I will sell vegetables later in the spring. We ended up choosing to eat at the most crowded restaurant, which turned out to have pretty good prices. As is tradition in america, we ordered cheeseburgers. If it helps, there was french cheese on it (chevre and brie) so it is kind of geographically appropriate.

There was a lot to see, Nice is beautiful at night and I haven't had much of an occasion to wander around at night before now. But my girlfriend's a little jet lagged so she's going to bed, I might as well too.

I did take some pictures, they are beautiful I'll share them soon.

Day 26: Swanky

Wednesday after my interviews I met my roommate Felix. He's from Germany, and just flew over so we are both on the same jet-lag schedule, I don't know if they planned that or not. He's really funny and nice, he has a masters degree and has some more tech experience in neurobiology. He's interested in the molecular basis of behavior, which is a really cool topic.

We had a swanky dinner with cocktails where all the grad students and prospective students mingled. A bunch of the grad students are really great, and I had the same shell of a conversation with about 10 other prospectives (where are you from what are you interested in who are you interviewing etc...)

I didn't eat quite enough, I spent way too much time talking. I guess that's better than the alternative.

After dinner a small group of us went out for hot chocolate. Kristian knew a place where they have orange mint hot chocolate, and it was great getting to talk to everyone in this smaller setting. We swapped some stories about experiences in undergrad, and after a couple hours there I felt pretty close with the group but was pretty ready for bed, as was Felix.

The next day we woke up and saw a bunch of faculty presentations. There is some incredible stuff going on, I'll get into that later.

Lunch was a Chinese food buffet, again encouraging mingling between grad students and undergrads. This was followed by a 3 hour block of one-on-one faculty interviews. One of the faculty who I was scheduled to interview with was the most interesting man in the world.

His name is Florian Engert, he's from Germany and was once of the ping-pong champion of Munich. He still carries a pretty thick accent, and roller-blades almost everywhere. When he gave his talk that morning, he was in roller blades, and no one has beat him at ping pong even when he's wearing roller blades. His interview was nothing like anyone else's. He was trying to test critical thinking and reasoning skills, which he thought was a pretty good indicator of success in grad school. I was asked questions about eclipses, phases of the moon, boats floating down rivers, fighter pilots, HIV testing, dot products, and magical hats. I think the idea was that no one's background would prepare them for this breadth of question, but I think I did quite well.

My other interviews were pretty science-y.

Back to faculty research. There is crazy stuff happening, almost scary. The scariest is probably where they can use direct stimulation of specific neurons to control the activity of lab mice. The stimulation can be either electrical, or, optical. In this video, as they explain, a little transmitter is linked directly to specific neurons that persuade the rat to move around like a remote control car. In this video, the principle is essentially the same, except the mouse has been genetically engineered to have certain neurons respond to a certain light signal (note it runs in circles when the light turns on). This was a little bit scary. In the absence of ethical restrictions, the technology exists to modify mammalian nervous systems and link a particular output to a certain light stimulus.

There was also some microscopy that broke the laws of physics, obtaining higher resolution than is possible with visible light.

And there is something called the "brainbow" fish, which expresses different colored fluorescent proteins in different neural lines, allowing direct visualization.

Thursday night we had another fancy soiree (open bar) and I got to sit next to John Dowelman, who told me all about the history of Harvard. We got in to how the houses are usually named after great university presidents, but this method tragically fails to recognize president Hoar. 

Friday was another round of faculty talks and then a campus tour. The campus tour was incredible, everything they have is top of the line. I was particularly awed by the laser-disection microscope, and the essentially complete sequencing facility. They have a contract with Zeiss (the best microscope company in the world)  called the "evergreen program", where none of their scopes are allowed to get more than 3 years old.

Here is some secular stained glass:

And the most expensive building on campus (per square foot):

 They had to fight a $700,000 lawsuit in order to put up the building that is roughly 15 square feet.

Friday afternoon there were some talks by graduate students that were clearly designed as comedy skits to try to woo us into committing there. This was followed by pizza and beer, which actually does happen every friday afternoon. I then took a nap before going out to the pub for the sendoff party.

I recovered all weekend, and slept for most of the flight home. It's good to be back.