Arts as Astra

I'm having a wonderful time here in Paris. I have decided that I could eat crêpes for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day and not get tired of them. Come to think of it, that's exactly what I did today. Of course, it helps that there are a seemingly endless variety of fillings for them.

There's apparently a big strike planned for tomorrow. I guess the strike was on hiatus for a few days for school holidays or something. There was some debate as to whether the students would barricade the doors and prevent the conference from happening, or whether they'd sleep in and miss the chance to do so. My bet is that they'll barricade the doors, but only after the conference has started, and we will be all trapped inside rather than outside. Whatever, it's all kind of surreal, and makes me want to burst out into, "Do You Hear The People Sing."

Found a nice pedestrian walkway to go running on, which is good because it's still dark out at 8am and I dislike having to dodge traffic in the dark. Keeping up with the running is good, because then I can justify having a pain au chocolat during the coffee break. Yum.

The sun finally came out today. I realized that there are mountains to the north, dominating the horizon. They were hidden by clouds before. Still, USA Today tells me that it will be warmer at home than it will be here.

I am running critically low on yarn. Anyone know of a yarn store near Old Pasadena?

There's a film crew in the plaza of the shopping center across the street from where the conference is taking place. This being Pasadena, this isn't entirely out of the ordinary, I guess.

So if you see a movie or TV show featuring the IT guy from The Office (whoever that is, I have never seen The Office) and a woman with a seeing eye dog, and a scene involving a line at a food truck serving hot dogs, I was there gawking at them. (And no, I won't show up in it, so don't look for me.)

I am coming down with a cold. Good thing I gave my talk already.

Sun Sep 5 02:30:38 EDT 2010

I'm writing this over "breakfast" at Heathrow Airport. Although defining
meals as breakfast/lunch/dinner seems kind of futile when you are traveling
across multiple time zones. I thought about having sushi for breakfast,
but thought better of it and went for a good old fashioned hot English
breakfast. But with coffee instead of tea. Mmmmmmm.

Did you know that Heathrow has a curfew that doesn't allow planes to land
until after 6am? We got in early and had to sit in a holding pattern for
a bit.

The plane ride was fine for the most part, although I continue to be unable
to sleep on planes. I dozed off for a couple of hours at best. I have
had moderate success with medicating with booze to help me sleep, but
they aggravate the dehydration I already experience, so I'm avoiding that.
I remain convinced that airplane seats are designed to be maximally
uncomfortable. Really, whose back is comfortable curved like that anyway?

The next leg of my journey will take me to Gothenborg (or perhaps Göteborg),
Sweden. This is the first time I am traveling to a foreign country as
an adult without any working knowledge of the language. I don't even know
how to say, "do you speak English?" in Swedish. Heck, I don't even do a
good Swedish chef impression, nor have any møøse bytten my sister.

I have a good three hours to kill here. Let's hope my laptop bettery
holds out, because while I brought the US-to-European power adapter,
I failed to bring the one for Britain.

This might be a good time to make a note of my upcoming travel plans.

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Anyway, if you want to make plans to get together with me, comment here or email me at [first name] AT alum DOT [undergraduate institution] DOT edu.