Forget every time you've been told that you don't have an accent

I was re-remembering today an observation: Indians talk with an Indian accent, but from their perspective, you talk with a really ridiculous American accent! Sure, some people here have American family or have themselves spent a lot of time in American or watch Friends and so they think you sound like Chandler or whatever, but that's sure not everybody, and it's definitely not the guy you're trying to get your 50 cent (!!!) breakfast from. Also, while it's an overgeneralization Americans tend to be pretty comfortable with the various ways English pronunciation gets mangled from Texas to Quebec to New Hampshire to Cancun, so it's likely that the person you're talking to has an even harder time than you with their conversation partner's accent. It's just a reminder that America, and even what we usually think of as the "English-speaking world," doesn't own English.

Four years ago when I was here I worked with Nels Beckman, a recent CMU grad, and Aditya, the full time employee I'm also working with this time. Nels got there first and we tried to have a Skype conversation, and Aditya and I could.not.understand.each.other at all. Nels could understand Aditya becasue they were in the same room, and Nels and I could understand each other over the finicky Skype connection because we both speak Globalized Southern American English or whatever, but my mentor and I were hopeless - Nels almost repeated everything either one of us said for the benefit of the other. Anyway, this was all prompted by a five minute conversation I had with Aditya explaining what a "thing-a-ma-jig" is.

Bangalore World 10K

Today I was a spectator at a race for the first time since I watched the Pittsburgh Marathon in 2009. Two friends from the lab, Ted and Sam, were running, and I decided to be a lazy bum (and a cheap bum, as I'm still in a suboptimal cash flow position while the slow gears of Indian bureaucracy get around to opening my bank account). My 10K was on Thursday, when Ted and Sam tried to get to the late registration and I showed them how to get to the starting line with a minimum of street crossings: getting familiar with the area is paying off!

I walked down to the race course at 7am and was able to cheer on the Microsofties at three different points in the race course. Ted and Sam are skinny fast track runners (if I'd run, they would have beat me by about 10 minutes), so the pack was pretty thin even after they'd passed my last cheering point around the 8K mark. I walked to the finish line, but then decided that was a zoo, so I walked back to the grand avenue. Cubbon Park's grand avenue isn't the most photogenic part of the park, but it's easily the prettiest if you ask me, and it's a great way to start the race's homestretch. I watched the race at a spot a few meters before the point where this photo was taken.

So, if you ever find yourself - an American who is, to a first approximation, extroverted - in a foreign country that is, to a first approximation, English speaking, and you find yourself watching a 10K, I strongly suggest you scream your voice out cheering on the runners. Because, hey, sometimes it's fun to spend a Sunday playing to stereotypes, and I the "we are loud and possibly crazy, but usually not in a scary way" is a stereotype of Americans that I'm generally happy to encourage. My spot was where I'd bother a minimal number of the quietly watching Indians, and I just yelled and clapped and cheered for about 20 minutes until my voice gave out completely. It was a ton of fun, and the runners really responded positively to the possibly crazy white guy who was soaked in sweat from the effort of jumping around and cheering. (I'm a sweaty man!) I got a great reaction for the running crowd: lots of cheers back, lots of people going from a walk to a run, dozens and dozens of high fives, and a half dozen requests for me to join the race.

As I walked home, I passed the corporate charity runners, who started later and were in big packs. Basically, the Bangalore World 10K is a 10K race followed by a 10K parade. Weird.

Sunday afternoon I was going to work on a tech report for a collaboration with CMU folks, but I cooked (man, I need to get some spices. lentils without spices are mad boring) and watched TV shows on the internet instead. Oops!

Hike on a hot day!

Did a ton of walking today, and took some pictures too; will probably try to integrate the pictures into a project later on.

Had my my first moment of feeling on-edge and vulnerable; having drained my pantry from the previous shopping trip, I needed to convert some money (America-style) into money (India-style) in order to eat! However, once I got to MG road, the main currency exchange places were all closed for Sunday. I was really planning to head back and try to rustle up something to survive on from the snack kitchens at Microsoft or something,* but then I passed a handbag shop (!) that did exchanges, and traded money. Then I went to Empire Hotel, a nearby Indian place that I remembered from last visit, and ate delicious food ravenously.

On the way back, I was walking down Infantry Road and realized I was pretty confident that that road leading off to the right was a shortcut (I did not have my GPS). I was very excited when I was right; I really feel like I'm getting a feel for the "neighborhood." I have no aspirations to do any sort of "pac tom" project, but I'd informally just like to know where I am and how to get home from anywhere within a three or four mile radius of my apartment, which would be a fair portion of Bangalore and would probably put me ahead of most residents and many autorickshaw drivers. I think I'm well on the way there.

By the way, my cousin is currently in Uganda, and has a blog of his own. He posted a video with the comment "the traffic is insane." This has maybe made me just a little bit competitive, so expect some crazy traffic videos next week. Until then I leave you with these pictures from last time.

Windsor Manor Road Bridge Accident

* In reality, I probably would have just broken down and tried to use a credit card; my cards should presumably work here, but in case "oh hi, I'm in bangalore" trips an alarm and the card is denied, I've been avoiding this when I don't have a backup of paying in cash.

Saturday run, Saturday walk

Failed to do any running this week, so this morning I got up early and ran for a bit around Cubbon Park, and then after piddling around the office for a bit, took the scenic route home from work today; I'll have to do that again with a camera to actually give people a sense of the place.

My priority for tomorrow is to walk down to MG road and try to trade some U.S. dollars for some rupees so I can re-stock my kitchen. It is an inevitable complication of working in a foreign country that you always start out with an inconveniently small amount of foreign currency and end up with an inconveniently large amount of the same.

Happy Memorial Day!

2 Runs

Yesterday I talked about my walk, but Saturday (2 days ago) and today I went on some runs; these are likely to be more frequent.

Saturday's run was just around the block, I'm still recovering from the Pittsburgh Marathon and mostly just wanted to stretch my legs. This morning (Monday) I ran this route, which more-or-less went around the cricket stadium. I had plans to run the length of Cubbon Road and back, but those plans were not to be: in the confusion of construction in Minsk Square, I took Queen's Road towards MG Road instead of Cubbon, and then overshot MG Road, circled the stadium, and made my way back on Infantry Road, a path I'd thought though a little bit after the walk yesterday.

Having a GPS watch was absolutely a godsend for this run: I didn't have a clear idea where I was at any point between Minsk Square and Infantry Road, but I knew whether I was more-or-less running towards or away from familiar areas.

Bangalore, Take II

I'm back in Bangalore! I'm not planning on traveling as much as last time, but I am going to try to get to know the city better through running and walking. Right now, the only part of Bangalore where I am confident that I know where I am is on the route between my hotel and Bashyam Circle, which I walked almost daily the last time I was here, (the office is right before Bashyam Circle).

Today I tried to walk to Commercial Street and/or MG road, but kind of failed: once I got to the bus station I was confused and thought I may have gotten off track: I had not, and if I'd kept going straight I would have ended up at Kamaraj Road as I intended. Instead, I turned right at the bus station, but then needed to go one block further than I actually went in order to get to Cubbon Road. I did, however, recognize the intersection of Infantry and Central as a hazy landmark, so I may try to pass that intersection again from another direction to reinforce that.

Anyway, after I bailed and found my way back to familiar relatively-familiar Cunningham Road, I went to the new Au Bon Pain (right across the street from the McDonald's that didn't get the memo about Indian Independence Day), where I got a delicious cappuchino that cost me $0.90. If those guys had WiFi I'd probably move in! Back at the apartment I was able to reconstruct my path with high confidence.

Photos from trip

Finally got the photos up on Picasa:

Italy

Happy Birthday To Me (or: Go West, Old Man!)

Happy Birthday in the local time zone happy birthday to me.

I get a thirty-hour birthday this year, thanks to flying West across six time zones starting at 10:30 local time (2:30 AM eastern USA time).

More blogging on Venice flooding

As I said before, Venice was flooded (again) in the morning, so we took a train out about 4 hours earlier than we had planned. I'm not terribly surprised, but CNN did a pretty bad job of explaining what was going on - this website gives context to the information I linked to before. I'm writing this on the train to Venice, because I actually downloaded this in the hotel room but didn't realize what I've downloaded:

Centro Maree forecasts the level day by day, summarized by tables and graphs. Here is how to read them:

* if the water level in St.Mark's basin is 65-68 cms., expect to find some water on the ground in front of St.Marks' church entrance. Important: do not think you'll see water 65 cms. high in St.Mark's square: this measure refers to the sea level.
* if the level is up to 85, expect some big puddles in St.Mark's square and in some "calli" (streets) in Venice. The middle area of St.Mark's square will be dry, as it is not perfectly flat. Wear water-proof boots!
* at 90 cms., St.Mark's square will be a lake of salty water. Some vaporettos (public boats) routes will be cancelled and alternative routes will be used. This is because they won't be able to pass under some bridges. Quite a confusion at boat stops. Lower areas in Venice can be accessed via special "walkways"
* at 110 cms, you'll hear sirens: this informs population to get ready. Most shops and warehouse at ground floors are likely to be flooded.
* from 120 cms to 140 cms, Venetians will get worried. Important: again, do not think you'll see water 120 cms. high all around in the streets: this measure refers to the sea level. Acqua alta can result in a 50 cms. water in the streets: which is not little anyway.

The point is that there is a "tide" in Venice that is about a third "regular old lunar" tide, half atmospheric effects, and some grab bag other issues like how much Antarctica's been melting this week. While we were there, the composition of the various sine waves meant that the tide was lowest at dinnertime.

If we read that chart backwards into the past (I couldn't find a "recent history of water levels" when I looked) then we get this story: when Rachel arrived at about 10:30, the water was near it's "second peak," about 100 cm - the high air pressure probably kept it lower the first day than it might otherwise have been. While she waited for me to show up in the train station, it peaked at 110/120 cm and then started going down. This, practically, meant that the plaza in front of the hotel and train station had one spot about a foot or so underwater, and that St. Mark's square was probably a foot underwater, maybe a bit more. The water went down about a foot while Rachel napped off some jet lag and by the time we took the "slow bus" (vaporetto) to St. Mark's square the square was above water, barely, and it kept getting lower while we were inside the chapel up until dinnertime. The air pressure then dropped in the evening and overnight, and that goofy siren about 8 AM was when the water passed 110cm again. When we went to get a train at 11, the water in front of the train station/hotel was back where it had been when I arrived the day before, or maybe an inch higher.

Now we're in Florence!

Venice was just a little flooded when we got there, and got increasingly less flooded over the course of last night, so while all the streets were pretty wet, we were able to wander through the city without going through puddles. Rachel believes that we are spoiled by good mozzarella cheese in America because mozzarella cheese doesn't taste much different here.

iPhoto is acting up and I'm having trouble uploading pictures as a result. Slept late this morning, but I today it's flooded again. Found this which is interesting.

Crazy Pills

There's something sublime about having a conversation where it is totally clear that you and someone else both think the other one is crazy. I walk into the music store that sells some electronics, maybe they have an adapter so I can plug my MacBook into the Italian output using either my American or Central European plug. The European plugs are slightly closer together and fatter, but they look superficially the same. The Mac World adapter set comes with both, and I picked up the wrong one. A lot of people at the conference have the same problem - the university only has Italian sockets, and lots of Europeans didn't realize they needed something different. Understandable.

"Que parle Englese?" (I ask in awful Italian)
"Si. Yes." (I should have noticed she did not, in fact, speak English with an Italian accent, so is probably here from somewhere else herself.)
"I need an adapter" (shows the business end of a MacBook power supply - E.U. style) "because this is European."
"Um... Italy is in Europe. That is an Italian plug."

It's not, for the record. I bought a universal American/European to Italian adapter in the Rome airport but left it stuck in the plug (arg).

"It doesn't fit in my hotel..."
"That's a problem with your hotel."

Well, sure. Most real hotels and tourist places use a compatible socket that works for both European and Italian plugs, but I'm staying in a dorm and hanging out at a university, which are not overtly tourist-friendly. So technically she's right, but clearly she has no clue what's going on. I try a different strategy:

"Okay. Are there American adapters?"
"Not within the city, maybe outside."
"Okay, thanks."

Then I walk down another block, find an electronics store, and buy a two-euro European to Italian adapter. I debated going back in and correcting her, but my inner don't-be-annoying censor won out.

To Udine (or: Validate your Tickets and Hotels) (or: Expensive Mistakes)

I tried to collect thoughts before in the Rome airport, but those darn thoughts were not collecting. I will try to do so now.

Pittsburgh to Atlanta
The sun "rose" as a result of our taking off, which was pretty wicked - it was clearly dusk when we lifted off and then the sun was glaring in my eyes, and after a second I realized it was because we were going up. This is really cool if you can pull it off.

Atlanta
If you're flying to your home city, a seven hour layover is really preferable to a shorter layover because you can meet your family, actually leave the airport in an unhurried manner, and maybe have a meal. I went to church and then lunch with my family, and visited with the pastor (Dad's former assistant pastor and a family friend) and my AP Government teacher. Both Ms. Chambers and I can't go to the inauguration - me because I have a conference in Savannah that day, her because her oldest daughter (who I was in youth group with, eeps) is due to have a baby girl eight days later. She mentioned that her husband had gone to a wedding but she had stayed home because of the pregnancy. I resisted the temptation to mention Sarah Palin.

Atlanta to Rome
In Pittsburgh I got window exit seats on both of the Delta flights, which was good. There was a really big guy in the aisle seat next to me on the flight from Hartsfield-Jackson to Rome - he could put on a seatbelt without the seatbelt extender, but it was clearly uncomfortable for him to do so (you can't use a seatbelt extender and sit in an exit row - which is airlinespeak for "no fat people blocking the exits"). At first I was like "oh, crap, big guy," and it probably would have been uncomfortable if it hadn't been an exit row, but it was actually fine. I clearly amused one flight attendant because I was asleep two times they went by for food and it took me about thirty seconds to get my bearings and speak coherently about what I wanted or didn't want to eat/drink both times.

Rome
Had to go through security inside the airport (never understood why that worked like that). Had water in my red metal water bottle. Was told to go downstairs to pour it out and then "go through security, not line." Didn't really understand how that would work without getting yelled at at minimum, so I threw away the water bottle. Quickly realized I should have just chugged the contents, since, you know, I can drink a half quart of water if I need to.

Rome cannot decide what to call their airport, which leads to the impression they have like three airports.

Rome to Venice
This was the flight that somewhat goofy Alitalia decided to cancel and so Delta re-arranged for a later flight. Slept the whole time - woke up to pop my ears and as we were landing - the view landing in Venice on a clear day is pretty awesome, though.

Venice to Udine
The cancelled/rebooked flight meant that I lost the ticket I'd bought from Venice Mestre Station to Udine, however, after I bought the first ticket the conference organizers mentioned that taking local rail was the easiest way to do things anyway. Commuter rail has been a significant part of my life in two places - New Jersey and Bangalore. In New Jersey, you would never think to get a ticket in advance - NJ Transit is a walk up, buy your ticket, be on your way kind of deal. In Bangalore, even traveling similar distances you would never imagine not buying your ticket in advance, because the trains were usually full and because you didn't want to deal with the ticket window person who spoke a different language, and because you needed to always work under the assumption that Indians were generally benevolent but always trying to rip you off in order to simultaneously retain control of your credit cards and your sanity.

Italy is much more a New Jersey type deal - they had machines which talked English to me and sold me second class tickets to Udine on the next available Trenitalia train. Thank heavens that worked, because, Trenitalia and my credit cards had a brief falling out two weeks ago when I first tried to reserve tickets, but they appear to have made amends since.

So, I lost the equivalent of a $40 Amtrack ticket from Philadelphia to NYC and got a $10 NJ Transit ticket instead. Unfortuantely, I then got hit with a 50 euro fine because I didn't validate my ticket. Rick Steves tells me that there was a yellow box near the platform where I was supposed to do this - I guess I will have to look for where said yellow box is in Udine. Also, apparently if I had sought out the conductor immediately I could have potentially avoided the fine. So, this is a damned expensive trip to Udine.

Udine
I was planning to stay in the CISM dorms, but when I got to the place where the map said CISM was, it was dark and locked, so I was in Udine with, apparently, no hotel. Assuming the conference organizers actually reserved me a room at CISM as they claim they did, I'll probably still have to pay for the room I had reserved tonight, but I'm in a different place. And the internet doesn't work, of course, though there is supposed to be both wired and wireless the latter doesn't work my mac and the former just doesn't work at all so I won't be able to post this tonight - so that's great.

I'm pretty frustrated. Tomorrow better go better.

(Update from the future: tomorrow did go better! And we got the Best Student Paper award. I wasn't able to post this before because I didn't have internet access, but that's a rant for a different place.)

Hveragerði, Abbreviated

I woke up Tuesday to learn that my boots were gone. I left them in the dormitory (Hotel Domus) all day monday and didn't especially glance at them more than once or twice. When I went to pick them up today they were not the same boots - a pair of size 9 sneakers had been left in place of a pair of nice size 10 boots.

So, instead of all day hiking around Hveragerði, I went to Hveragerði for about four hours - leaving a bit later and coming back a bit earlier - and still got to see most of the interesting sights. Now I'm back in Reykjavik and thinking about going to bed early...

Hike 6 - Reykjavik Parks & Gardens

So much for taking it easy today. It didn't feel like quite so far because my foot didn't hurt. Somewhere along the line my boots started aggravating the Achilles tendon (I think) of my left foot, so that it hurt to take a step. I've been walking through it for days, but today, despite walking seven miles, was a "break" in that I haven't put on my boots today. I went by Hotel Fron where my duffel is living and switched out my Crocs for a pair of actual shoes - not seven-mile-hiking shoes, perhaps, but it did the trick. My feet are tired but my heel feels better.

Tomorrow I go to Hveragerði and actually attempt to walk around in boots with a pack, which may or may not go well. However, there's plenty close to the city so I won't be disappointed even if I can't walk quite as much as I might want to (note that "as far as I might want to" is pretty relative here - obviously I walked eight miles or so in Vík).

Side note: I cannot seem to remember how to pronounce Hveragerði. Part of this is because the pronunciation is weird, but a lot of it is that the tour guide for our Golden Circle tour explained that it meant "steam garden," which resulted in me filing away the town under "steam garden" and never needing to have some rough notion of how it was pronounced in order to remember the place.

Hike 4 & 5: Vík and West of Vík

Google Maps doesn't give me enough resolution to chart the probably 3-4 mile hike that I did on Sunday, wandering about Vik from the bus stop to the black sand beach to the hostel, to the church, the cemetery and then through some fields that were more 4-wheeler friendly than hiker-friendly back to the hostel.

Hike 5 is was incredible - the hike pedometer says 7.75 miles - I think if I could see the route better it would be closer to 8. I hiked up out of the glacial valley Vik is in into... well, basically into a cloud, which was depressing - that cloud wasn't there when I started! However, right as I got to Mile 3 the cloud ceiling lifted and I got this dramatic view off the end of the cliff to the ocean, and I could also see the area west of the plateau - the next glacial valley over - and I decided to check it out. Walked off of the plateau to an unnamed town that didn't have the good fortune of being on the Ring Road, but was otherwise apparently similar to Vik. There was a really neat cave-like thing by the ocean, and I met a Swiss tourist whose parents had gotten married in the cave.

In Vík

It is nice, but very wet. I walked around for about two hours on the beaches and through the glacial valley uphill from the city and took some great pictures and met a couple of German tourists.

And wireless is seriously in existence everywhere.

Clouds and oceans

I'm at the Reykjavik Hostel and am a member of Hosteling International. I'll be back here Tuesday night, tomorrow night I'll be staying at the hostel in Vík, and Sunday and Monday I believe I'll be in the Skógar hostel, though this is not yet certain I'll either stay in Skógar on Sunday or (this is more likely) return to Reykjavik on Sunday night so that I can go on another overnight trip Monday-Tuesday. This is good from a blogging perspective, as I don't expect to necessarily be able to get convenient access to the 'tubes in Vík.

Now that the conference is over and I'm free it has become rainy for the first time since my arrival in Iceland. Oh well.

Talk

I gave my talk today. It went reasonably well! No hiking to report today, though I did go to a bar called Boston. Alas, no Sam Adams.

Hike 3: Straight to RU

Also, I walked to the conference on Wednesday, attempting to take the shortest path instead of the longest, as usually appears to be my goal, I know. Just for kicks, here it is.

Conference photos

I'm told that there are a bunch of official conference photos. If you find me in any of them, let me know!