dubious.biz(ness)

So today I woke up and got the hell out of the ghetto hostel I was in, conveniently located near the highway, singing frenchmen with no concept of time and a police station which accepted new guests with sirens blazing. I went to Perpignan train station, which according to Dali is the center of the universe. I suppose that the center of the universe would look pretty much like the rest of the universe, but calling it “la cathédrale d’intuitions” is a bit excessive. I got a ticket and parked myself on an outside table in a cafe down the street and started the day’s work.

An hour of time passes and the cafe goes from empty to busy, seems that between the 9am start of work and the 12:30 dejeuner (Lunch with a capital L), there is an 11am demi-baguette and cafe. So I left my post and got on the train to Montpellier. The space between Perpignan and Montpellier is marshy and flat Mediterrean land that made me want to get out and walk the land myself. If I got to rural France again I will do it by motorcycle.

The girl across from me was pedestrian yet beautiful, she had absolutely no feature about her that stood out and yet she was. Every time I looked over at her she blinked, but her window steamed over about half way through the trip and I no longer had an excuse to look her way, but then she looked toward me. I tried conciously blinking when she looked, like a game, but I don’t know if she noticed.

When the train arrived at Montpellier it wasn’t until I got out that I realized how different things were. First of all, everywhere in Montpellier is teaming with people, especially when compared to desolate Perpignan. Montpellier is a lot like Cambridge with a good public transport system, lots of students, and a pedestrianized downtown. There are tons of French African immigrants, but they are so well integrated that there is no immigrant community.

At perhaps four or five places in the city there are public squares (”places”) edged all the way around with cafes which populate the squares with tables, if you sit at a red plastic table with black chairs, that’s one cafe, while a glass table is a different one. The cafes are so many and the spaces are so big that the different tables turn into slivers of cafe shooting into the centre of the square. I tried to figure out which cafe had which chairs (which is important if you’re eating as each cafe usually only has one or two plats per day) but gave up reading and guessing and sat where other people were sitting with food that looked good.

I sat at every square in Montpellier, had three coffees, two meals, and a glass of wine. I know, the things I’m willing to do. As for the meals I would say this: France is an epicurean paradise, you cannot go wrong. At first I was disappointed by the lack of information in the guidebook about restaurants, but every restaurant is great. It’s not even a function of price. Well, as long as you are paying more than €10 (which for an American meal is a lot but for a French meal in America, it’s not bad). I had ham crudites for lunch and duck breast with goat cheese for dinner, both excellent.

Also in my ventures through the city, I saw some hardcore petanque, a huge aquaduct stretching away from the city, some bizarre french “modern” architecture (the french were absolutely stupid during the period from WWII-1980), some great 18th and 19th century architecture, in fact all of Montpellier is done in the same napoleanic style, I don’t know what to call it other than that.

I am not incredibly happy yet with the photos, it takes time for me to get in the groove. Sitting in a cafe is probably not the best way to try to take photos but its so enjoyable to sit around all day I can’t refuse.

Tomorrow I am off to Nimes, I don’t yet know what’s there but I’m sure it will be interesting… It has come to my attention that my current itinerary puts me in Marseille, the biggest city I’m going to, on a Sunday. From the looks of it, absolutely nothing is open on a Sunday so I may try to adjust around so that I am in Marseille two days and skip Nimes or Arles. Unfortunately I have already paid for accomodation in both places, so if I do change I will forfeit my money. The Executive Decisions continue.

First of all, the keyboards in France are not friendly to US typists. And to think I was complaining about British keyboards, this is just painful. All the keys are funny and I can’t even type in a password… Although in the end this layout is probably actually more efficent. That’s how to mess with your head.

As for how to miss your flight… that’s more difficult. First I woke up and went to weights circuits, which in retrospect was not a wise idea; my legs feel like dried twigs. I finished only about 5 minutes later than intended and was out the door on time to catch the 9:45 bus to Stansted. I have never taken the bus from Cambridge and I was cutting it a bit close arriving at 9:35. While looking for the proper bus lane bay, it turns out my bus departed early, pulling away as I discovered its existence. Early, at 9:40. So, I waited for the next bus which was scheduled to depart at 10:30 and arrive at Stansted at 11:20, which would give me a slight chance of making the flight. The next bus arrived at 10:45 and departed at 10:55. I knew I had missed the flight.

At the airport, I find the only planes to France today are to Lyon and Perpignan, or I could wait until tomorrow. Perpignan is sort close to Montpellier, as in 2h by train, and all the options cost the same so Quick Thinking Kenny Makes an Executive Decision, off to Perpignan he says (goddammit a and q are swapped on this keyboard and it’s really frustrating!!!). So thats where he is. Err, I am.

Perpignan is a little place near the border of France and Spain. Obviously technically French, but it shares a lot in common with Catalan Spain, though Catalan is less common than French in speech. At the edge of the city you can see the Pyrennes mountains and it’s only a few km from the Mediterrean, so you might say it has the best of both worlds. Without a car, I’m stuck in the city so I wouldn’t go that far, but it certainly has a nice mild climate and easygoing nature.

I only arrived at 5:00 and got into the city after being driven by a shady taxi that overcharged me I got a room at the Hostel, dropped off the nonvaluables and headed into the centre of the city to try to have a look before dark. The centre, unfortunately is empty of people. Considering that I arrived at closing time for most shops, that may be an unfair assessment but for my experience it was true. Most of the restaurants and bars were also devoid of life, though the staff all seemed kind and gracious.

I walked around a bit, grabbed a few photos, but was overall feeling very depressed by the emptiness of the city combined with the considerable language barrier. The alleyways are all narrow and filled with shops, clearly designed to shelter their clientele from the summer heat, but empty they feel crowding and depressing, the charm of the place could be described as sunbaked and in need of a coat of paint but that also borders on deserted resort town.

I ended up eating at a restaurant called Le France. I know, corny name, but the decor, food, and service more than exceed what one would expect with such a pretentious and lame name. I refused the English menu and ordered the sole with a bunch of french words after it. Turns out the french words translated to “plain old” so I got basically a whole broiled fish with no sauce, well presented with some various small portions of complimentary vegetables. And… it was excellent. Simple, fresh, and well cooked, what more could you ask for (considering it did say “simplement”)? Desert! So I read the menu again and my eye was caught by some desert called something like moelleaux with the oe stuck together, which was not in my french phrasebook. So I asked the waiter to recommend something, and to my surprise he recommended that thing so I threw caution to the wind for the hundredth time today and ordered it. It too was gorgeous, some sort of baked chocolate mousse with orange sorbet and pockies sticking out. I didn’t mention the decor yet but it is a great mix of the original stone arches and high cathedral ceilings and new glass and metal curving around the place very tastefully.

So that’s day one. Tomorrow I think I shall go straight to Montepellier and get back on track with the plan, Perpignan doesn’t have much to offer the carless traveller except hints of better places like the Pyrennes, the beach, and Barcelona. Of course there is the Carcasonne as well but I’ve been to the Excalibur hotel in Vegas and I’m willing to pretend they’re the same.

Postscript: Because I may get used to it, the language barrier is tremendous when travelling alone. I’m in a small town and I have had some French but I absolutely should have practiced more. The expectation of the French is that everyone is fluent (as is the expectation of most English speakers) and fortunately I am in a community kind enough to tolerate poor French. There is an immense feeling of isolation when you are alone in a place where you can’t communicate. I am not suggesting that anyone be fluent in the language of the nation, but it is difficult to take it in stride when you are expected to understand what is being said and you can’t. If anything I will definitely come out of this knowing a hell of a lot more French than I did before.

One last blog for today, I swear. I’m going to France tomorrow. The final itinerary is: Wednesday to Friday morn in Montpellier, Friday to Saturday morn in Nimes, Saturday to Sunday morn in Arles, and Sunday to Monday in Marseille, taking the train to Toulon just to depart from the airport. I’d really like to spend more time in Marseille but considering that I’m only spending 6 days and 5 nights, I can’t be picky. There are even more things that I’d like to do, like visit the Camargue which is the Rhone delta and nearby Arles, but time simply does not permit it. I’m not sure whether the best approach to visiting places for the first time, particularly foreign ones, is to take a whirlwind tour and then make notes on what to come back to, but it is certainly worth trying and I will always be able to come back and visit these places again later. I certainly will if I intend to go to Morocco for what would Morocco be without a visit to Provence anyway?

The intent of the trip is to keep a quick pace and move quickly, I don’t plan on hitting many museums or anything like that, I should be mostly outside and hunting for photos or inside and eating. I don’t think I’ll find any little towns like the sort in Chocolat (a movie I should really watch again) particularly because I’ll be in at least somewhat large towns the whole time. The best bet for photos is likely to be Arles followed by Montpellier. Marseille seems to have a spotty reputation but it is very big so I’m hopeful that it will turn out to be a beautiful place as well.

As for the food, I’m pretty sure I’ll be off the veggie diet for this one, with the possibility of bouillabaisse in Marseille and the unique surf and turf cooking of Languedoc, I’d be a fool not to eat it up. In fact I’d say I’m really going to try to find food and restaurants within a reasonable budget that typify the city’s style since I’ll only be there for a day each. As well Languedoc produces most of the country’s wine, though mostly table wines and not the cultured Burgundy and Bordeaux, so at least I’ll have quantity if not quality.

I haven’t set a real itinerary of sights I’d like to see as I really would rather be than see so hopefully the lenses like it there and I don’t get bored.

I should have put this up a while ago but it didn’t occur to me. One of my friends here is Max, actually Massimo, but he calls himself Max so we follow suit. He’s Sicilian and here for his PhD. Like all Italians he has an amazing way with women, however Max’s style is a bit more subtle than the typical Italian caveman and certainly doesn’t remind me of the Sicilian mafioso. I’d call it goofy-suave. If I could pull it off, god knows I’d try because I’m already goofy so it would just be suave that I’d have to work on. Perhaps I will learn but for now I stand in the shadow of the master.

Max, for whatever reason started a web page for the 3rd Men’s boat, and when they didn’t get on in bumps he switched to chronicling the adventures of the 2nd Women’s boat in bumps. Each day he wrote a little blurb about the outing, and on Friday, the one day the girls rowed over (missing blades by that rowover) because the crew ahead of them, Kings II, bumped very early in the race. Max PREVIOUSLY suggested somewhere around this page that the King’s W2 cheated because they had a sub in from a higher boat.

Of course, suggesting people cheat on the internet is nothing special, and it probably would have never been an issue considering that the internet is a big scary place and no one reads most of the crap (including this). But, Max had the idea of promoting his photos (when someone asked for photos) on a messageboard which absolutely everyone reads during bumps. And guess who read it? The ENTIRE King’s W2. This elicited numerous angry responses.

Max, wise in the ways of the goofy-suave style decided that rather than backpedal, he should raise the stakes. He offered to make them dinner. A full women’s crew of 8, which actually turned out to be even bigger. Talk about balls. The women responded, surprisingly, and agreed to dinner. I had been quietly watching Max dig himself a huge hole and then dig himself out of it just as quickly in total amazement. So I talked to him over lunch and offered my services as sous-chef, not just because I wanted to have dinner, but because I wanted to bear witness to the amazement which was pissing off girls and then getting 8 of them to eat with you. You’ve got to respect that, no matter what you think about Sicilians (grandma).

We ended up cooking for 8 hungry King’s girls and 7 hungry Wolfson guys. Max honestly did most of the work, cooking homemade pesto, several kilos of pasta, and homemade tiramisu. I contributed caprese and came up with a neat way to present them and assisted on the rest. With the help of some of the guys we expressed it all to the Old Combination Room, which has a surprising dollop of atmosphere and had a lovely dinner. Amazing, Max had pulled it off, and the two of us had provided dinner for 15 out of a crappy dorm room kitchen. Perhaps the only thing we were short of were plates, though we did alright in the end.

Afterward, we had made such a lovely impression on the ladies that they promised to make us food (and we will make them keep it!). And I gained a new recipe for tiramisu, and some insight into the mind of an purebred Italian lady’s man. With a few more occasions of this nature, I may actually be ready to practice goofy-suave style on my own. And the laydez will luv me.

So what are the two things girls can’t say no to? Food and Massimo.

Got back that I didn’t get the NGO job. I think that they want someone who is planning on a career in development work and aid, and I wasn’t even willing to lie and tell them I was going to do that. It would have been a great opportunity, but considering the competition (250 apps for that position alone) and the lack of places (2 technical, 1 non-technical) it was a long shot for everyone involved. Going to have to invoke plan B and hope for better options but I haven’t heard back from most of the places I’ve applied. My goal is to get a position in London or Cambridge but at this point I think I may end up in some nasty place like Ipswitch.

Yesterday I woke up early to catch the train to london for the Head of River Race on the River Thames. It’s the largest and most well known head (meaning timed) race in the world and runs over the same course as the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race in reverse which is a bit west of the center of London between Putney and Mortlake. 420 boats entered this year’s race, most from the UK but a huge number of European crews enter as well.

The race takes place on the Thames tideway whose current is heavily influenced by the tides, and it starts at high tide so that the first crews have the advantage of the tide and the stream together. We drew 400th out of 420, so we were nearly last to start and had little tide advantage. The race itself is longer than any race on the Cam at 6.8km and the river is wide and choppy like a proper river rather than relatively smooth and narrow like the Cam.

The crew itself comprised (bow to stern) Aaron, Me, Ulrich, Werner, Jon, Matt, John, and Chris. 4 of us (Aaron, John, Chris and I) were from the first Lents boat, and the crew got put together just for this race with lots of people dropping out due to being tired of rowing, leaving, etc. We only had the final crew together for three outings this week, but things were working fairly well considering the lack of crew training on the Cam.

When we arrived, the scene of the race was total madness. This section of the Thames has a lot of boathouses for London clubs and every street was covered with rowers and boats for miles. VIIIs come apart into two pieces to travel and we had to reassemble the boat in the street, which turned out to be quite a challenge considering that all 420 crews had the same idea. Cars and joggers were nearly skewered by crews trying to move their boats around and lycra covered the streets for miles. When it came time to put in, carrying the boats down to the water resulted in gridlock and when we finally reached the water (about two blocks away) we tossed the boat, our oars and ourselves in and pushed off as quickly as possible.

You have to row all the way up to the start from the finish and we sat about 1km from the start for an hour while all the other crews ahead of us came down. Unfortunately the stream was so strong that Aaron and I had to row continually to keep the boat in place and after an hour or so it got a bit tiring.

When we actually started I think I had no clue of how hard it would be. I was already a bit tired from having to continually row the boat to stay in position, but when we turned I started to really push and within about 1km I felt in the rhythm and everything felt pretty good (despite the pictures). We started to pass a few boats which is pretty appreciable because passing a boat means making up 3 or 4 lengths at least. Of course, I had never raced the course and had no idea how to pace myself for such a long race at a high rating. At about half way, I really felt dead. The longest races I have done was probably 3.0km and this already exceeded that. From about 3.0km-5.0km I think the whole boat was dead, it felt very sluggish and out of time, but near the finish I actually recovered a bit as did the rest of the boat and pulled it together a lot better for the 1.2km. We could have easily made up several lengths over the course if we had rowed harder in the 3.0km-5.0km length, but I don’t know how we would have done it.

At the finish, everyone was pretty much dead, and fortunately it was a short row to the takeout and then we disassembled the boat and we to the pub. Racing and then alcohol is the best thing ever invented if you want to get drunk cheap but I was so starving so then we went off for food. At some place in Putney, then started to head home.

When we got on the train we happened to find none other than our normal stroke Gerhard, who raced with Goldie the reserve men’s crew for the University. On the train I was so tired I fell asleep and dropped the cup of coffee on an old lady next to me. By the time we got back to Cambridge I just wanted to go to sleep, trains make me really sleepy anyway.

Anyway the result of the race was that we placed 322/420. That’s pretty good, we could have certainly done better though. We had very little crew training and considering all that the row itself was good. I don’t think that I could have done better unless I could have dug deeper and found a way to pull a bit more out between 3km and 5km, but it seemed to be the entire boat that couldn’t keep it together, so we really should have trained harder and more frequently and that just wasn’t possible. Either way, we beat 1/4 of the field and I’m happy with the result. If I do it again next year, I’ll be a lot more prepared for the race and we can build on this year’s place (places carry over year to year so next year we’ll start around 322nd) and hopefully take another 100 boats.

Photos:
I look like an idiot
I still look like an idiot
Covered up by a watermark
I think every picture of me is a look of extreme pain
Yep, every single one
We can definitely conclude this hurt
Most of us in sync
Not at all in sync
Pretty good cover
The crew chasing us eventually passed us late in the race, they were quite a strong crew
One last photo of us disappearing in the distance (we’re #400)

I had my interview for the NGO job today. On every point save one I did incredible. Of course, I’m very lucky to have had the experience I have from QX because they’re making a global Internet service. They have created a service already called loband which sounds a lot like a dialup accelerator and proxies web pages, cutting out images and things like that. Now they want to make an email service which can be deployed globally.

A lot of the interview was about my background and I had to make it pretty clear that I don’t have a lot of volunteer experience. I know that this is probably the biggest down side to be as I don’t want to lie and say I want to dedicate the rest of my life to community service and volunteering work. I’m sure a lot of people do say that but it seems really superficial. I love helping people and working with people but I think that save a few really crappy jobs, no matter what you are going to be helping people in any job.

The other slight down side was my relative lack of travel in developing countries. In particular they said something like “surely you must have travelled to loads of places” and to that you have to say something like “uhh not really”. But I insisted on my desire to do field work was true and that I had a plan on how to transistion into that.

Another interesting question they asked was “how do you see ICTs (Information and Communications Technologies) working to help improve the quality of people’s lives?” My answer was something like, ICT is usually a service that you’re providing, it isn’t the same as building a clean water source or teaching agricultural techniques. The things that developing countries need are really those things, and it’s hard to say that in the poorest countries you’re going to give out a thousand computers because they need food, not computers. So I think that other aid organizations need ICT services, and they should be provided by an NGO, but it’s a hard argument to suggest that they need ICT more than renewable energy, agriculture, healthcare, clean water, etc.

Anyway, the interview went very well. It was a bit long, it was supposed to be 45 minutes long and ended up being 55 minutes, which is always a good sign, and I should know their decision by the end of the week. I still haven’t heard back from google, which is a bit disappointing, but I think that were I given the choice I would rather work for the NGO this year.

I knew my strengths and background coming into it and overall the interview reflected exactly those strengths. It would have been a bit more intelligent of me to have anticipated their questions about my development-reated shortcomings and try to find some more crafty answers, but overall everything went really really well, and I’ll have my fingers crossed for the next week.

I got a kite. It seems like a total waste to have all this great wind blowing over the fens and not take advantage of it. I went out today and flew it for the first time. It’s a yellow, black, and clear Jumping Jack Flash from a German company called Level One. The kite is amazing. The last time I bought a kite this would have been called a “radical” kite, and it really is radical, any movement is transmitted to the kite and it’s very sensitive and twitchy in the air.

Of course that’s a good thing, I’m trying to learn more tricks than just an axel, which was about all you could do with my other “radical” kite. I think I got a half axel today and perhaps a few more are on the way, I need to find a good place get a list of the current tricks. While I was away from kiting, the french took over stunt kites and now all the cool tricks have french names. I can already tell that the kite is more than capable of doing every trick, which means I need to git learnin.

I took it out to the Ditton Common next to the Cam, which is about a 15 minute ride from college. In retrospect since the lines are so short (25m) I could fly it at a closer park if winds are high, but the nice thing is that near the river the winds pick up and straighten out. The only problem is that winds here are normally from the east and I fly in the afternoon which means the sun is continually in my eyes. I still haven’t bought new prescription sunglasses, so I guess I’ll buy some nerdy clip-on or something to handle the occasional English sun. The other mild difficulty is that grass in the commons is really long and catches the kite on the ground, so a lot of the cool ground moves that one could do, I can’t because the kite gets stuck.

If you’re interested in seeing the kite in the hands of someone far more skilled than me, check this out this video of it in action, and here’s a photo of someone else’s.

The break is shaping up well. I’m training for the Head of River Race which will be early in the break on March 25th on the River Thames a bit west of the center of London. It’s a much longer race than the races we’ve done thus far on the Cam, so we’re training by doing 20km outings three times a week plus hour long ergos. Ouch. I’m sore in places I didn’t know I had muscles in (probably because I don’t :-) ).

After the Head I’ll be leaving to go to the South of France on the 29th of March. I’m flying into Montpellier and the current plan is to from Montepellier to Nimes, Avignon, Arles, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, and finally to Toulon, all in the space of 6 days. I don’t expect to actually stay in Toulon very long, but that is where my flight is leaving from. Amazingly the tickets are only US$61.17 total. There are several airlines in the europe that make Southwest look like American Airlines, but their tickets are dirty cheap, sometimes a pence before taxes and fees.

Of course accomodation will cost a bit more (it’s france) but it’s been nearly a year since I’ve gone anywhere and I’m getting sick of staying in the same place. Plus, it’s warmish there and Provence and Languedoc are beautiful places. Unfortunately, I’m going it alone, I haven’t found anyone to go with me and as much as I hate to travel alone I think it might be an interesting experience.

And in case you were wondering, no I won’t be going to the French Riveria (don’t have time) so no nude beaches, in fact it’s not likely that I’ll be at a beach at all, though there is apparently an island of nudists off Toulon.

Of course the only thing to panic about is the fact that mon francais es tres mal et je dois l’etudier. Speaking of etudier, of course the whole point of break is to revise for the upcoming exams at the beginning of June. I haven’t started organizing everything but I’m going to try to take the subjects in rotation for three days each, going from compsci 25%, physics, and then maths. Unfortunately I’ve really had a hard time keeping up with maths and discrete (they’re the hardest subjects though) so I’ll probably spend most of the time revising them.

Anyway, france here I come!

An ode to my main boy James Joyce:

I have to say that of all authors I have every read, none astound me the way that Joyce does. His command of language is completely beyond that of any author I have ever read. In a single sentence, he does more than most can do in pages, and without feeling weighty, wordy, or dense. All hail Joyce.

I’m only two thirds of the way through Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, and I’m reading it at three or four pages at a time. If I could read it faster I wouldn’t, it’s wonderful to savor it slowly and get engrossed in just two pages, then put it down, come back and have the same experience all over again. I should have read this book years ago, but the only other Joyce experience I have had was Finnegans Wake, and that should have turned me off forever.

Triple big ups to my main dog James, I loves him so. If you haven’t read anything by him, do it before you die. It is something you won’t regret. People tend to throw around superlatives like best and I am loathe to do so myself, but he is certainly one of perhaps two or three authors I would feel comfortable calling the best I have ever read.