Ok, so it's been absolutely ages since I put anything up on here. The best reason for this is that I've had a certain number of other things to do that have been more urgent than expounding my ill-founded opinions onto the internet... but such if life. Also, I had planned to upload a bunch of photos, but the Blogger photo-uploader is so horrid and slow that I've decided I'm going to post them on Facebook instead, because their uploader tool is much nicer - so if you want to find photos from now on, they'll be on my profile here.
So anyway, this post finds me in Berkeley (just across the bay from San Francisco), which will be 'home' for the next couple of months; I'm here on an environmental technology research fellowship (Brian Robinson Fellowship) from the Banksia Foundation, working with one of the best research groups in the world at putting tiny little pieces of various types of cement and concrete in front of extremely expensive and shiny X-ray machines, and that sort of stuff. I consider this to be really fun - and Berkeley is a really nice place to be at this time of year, the weather has been absolutely stunning so far. I've also done a brief side-trip down to Merida, Mexico for a conference on the durability of concrete under "severe" conditions - which was scientifically really useful, as well as being an extremely well-organised and fun week.
Anyway, no post from me would be complete without a sequence of my vaguely-organised bullet points:
- It's amazing that there can be 100 channels of cable TV in this motel, and nothing worth watching. Or maybe it just means I'm getting pickier... :)
- In a minor miracle, I have found a couple of places here that make drinkably strong coffee - which is a step up from most other US cities I've been to. One of them is even not all that bitter or burnt-tasting..!
- A new Trader Joe's has just opened across the street from where I'm staying here, and is now my favourite food store in the entire country
- Skype video calling is a technological marvel
- I have no idea how they do it, but almost every burger place in the US manages to produce morsels of absolute deliciousness. It's a good challenge for me to try to avoid eating too many of them and getting fat. Ditto the burritos. The pizza isn't quite up to the same standards, though :S
- Why do people design motel rooms with only one electricity socket?
- Berkeley is a very environmentally conscious place - everyone recycles almost everything (more so than I've seen anywhere else outside of Europe), and it's the first time I've ever found myself wondering what is the grammatically correct plural of the word 'Prius'...
- The Bay Area has a brilliant metro system (the BART), but the seats in the carriages could really do with an occasional laundering...
- I still don't get baseball.
Anyway, keep an eye on facebook for photos from the US, Mexico, China, and maybe even some historical(ish) ones if I get excited...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment