Are you a Michi-can or a Michi-can't?

As I never got around to writing anything about our trip to Washington DC for the Rally to Restore Sanity, I thought I should make more of an effort for our recent trip to Michigan (another work-based trip for Omar, and some more tagging along for me). Before I start, I should probably apologise for the lame use of the 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico' quote above.

Right, apologies out of the way, on to business.

Ann Arbor was our first stop, and very nice it was too. It's a small town, home to the University of Michigan and because of that it was very similar to Athens. Except that there was a lot more to do in Ann Arbor. And by a 'lot more to do', I mostly mean there were more random shops full of stuff that no-one actually buys to browse around. But that was nice. To be fair, there seemed to be a lot more 'happening', i.e. museums, theatres, music, good food, places to drink tea. In fact, such is there love of tea in Michigan that I'm actively campaigning Omar to look for his next job here if we can move somewhere more cosmopolitan.

As it happens, I didn't take any photos of Ann Arbor itself, but I did take some inside the brew pub we went to:

The shakiness of the photo of course doesn't have anything to do with intoxication on Omar's part. Of course.

Next stop on the tour was Detroit. Despite reading lots of bad reviews of the area beforehand, we thought that we'd pop in for a night, seeing as we're unlikely to be visiting again. Alas, some driving snow and howling winds also decided to 'pop in' at the same time, so we didn't get to do much sight-seeing. We did try to see some sights from the top of the GM-owned Renaissance Center, but apparently we're not la-di-da enough, and only people classy enough to eat in their fancy restaurant could go up to the 73rd floor. Pah.

But it's ok, we found pizza instead.....

And what a pizza it was!

And here are the guys making the pizzas (that blurred object is the guy throwing the pizza base onto the shelf)

 

The pizza parlour was in Greektown, so here's a picture of the main street - eerily reminiscent of Bedford Place's Kebab Alley if you ask me...

The next day we went to try some of the hotdogs that Detroit is well-known for...

 Apparently there's a lot of rivalry between these two hotdog vendors - we couldn't possibly choose between them, so we had one hotdog in each :-)

I preferred the 'dog' itself in American Coney Island, but the chilli on top was better in Layfayette Coney Island. So there you have it.

But our trip to Detroit wasn't all about eating (yes it was). We managed to venture out in the snow and went to the Detroit Institute of Arts.

I bet these guys are regretting not putting some socks on before they went out that morning (arf arf)

I didn't pin Detroit for being much of a cultural centre, but the museum had a lot of interesting stuff. Like these Van Gogh's....
 

 

And this Cezanne, amongst other things... and very splendid they were too. 

So that was about it for Michigan, save for a 9-hour hell ride through the snow blizzards back to Ohio. 

So all-in-all I'd give the parts of Michigan we saw a thumbs up, but it definitely lost marks because we didn't see Enimem even once while we were there :-( Maybe next time...

America's Got the Crunch Factor: KFC Edition

In the second instalment of my 'America's Got the Crunch Factor' series, I'm deviating slightly to include a particularly spectacular item from the kitchens of KFC.

You may have heard of the 'Double Down' sandwich (and I wouldn't recommend looking up the phrase in the Urban Dictionary as I've just done), but it really has to be seen to be believed. It's effectively a cheese and bacon sandwich, where the bread roll has been substituted for two pieces of fried chicken. Oh yes.

As you can imagine, my curiosity was well and truly piqued when I heard of such a magical sandwich, so when I saw this sign on our recent drive to Michigan recently (more on that to follow), I could hardly refuse now could I?

So, despite Omar advising that I exercise some sanity over my menu choice I persevered and ended up with this bad boy:

Oh yeah. And here's me, taming the beast:

 

So, my verdict? Well, I have to say that it wasn't quite as greasy and crunch-inducing as I had anticipated. Such a large amount of chicken ended up being quite dry (although that was probably all the salt) and I was disappointed with the cheese, which didn't really melt and the measly amount of bacon. So a bit disappointing on all counts. That being said, I didn't need to eat for quite some time afterwards, so I guess it did well on the calorie count.

It also made me think of John Oliver talking about the Domino's Oreo pizza:

“That is the single most patriotic item I have ever seen in my life. Have that fluttering in the moonlight at Yankees Stadium as a single tear spills down Derek Jeter’s cheek. Because that is the biggest imaginable ‘fuck you’ you could possibly issue to terrorists. By hoisting the Oreo pizza up a flagpole, what you’re essentially saying is, 'There is nothing you can do to us we are not already doing to ourselves'.”

Amen to that.

So in conclusion, the overall crunch factor is: 1 crunch out of 5. 

Not even a sniff of a stomach ache and no other immediate ill effects. Maybe I've been in America too long.

The jury is still out, however, on the number of years this little escapade has shaved off my life. I doubt I'll be trying it again, you know, just in case.

Thanksgiving and other festivals...

One of the things I like about America is the amount of public holidays they have. Admittedly, every day is a public holiday for me, but it's nice for Omar to have some time off :-)

So 25th November was Thanksgiving Day, and we weren't really sure what to make of it all - it felt a bit like Christmas, just without the presents, decorations and festive jumpers. We had the turkey....

...which in true festive fashion didn't defrost properly and was a bugger to cook. I under-estimated how long it would take to defrost the 13 lbs monster, so we had a traditional early evening dinner. Which of course came with all the trimmings....

... I am pleased to report that Brussels sprouts seem to be part of Thanksgiving Dinner traditional, along with some more unusual trimmings - like sweet potato (understandable), macaroni cheese (?), and a green bean and Campbell's mushroom soup casserole, with onion ring topping (??). Apparently Campbell's Soup contributed to Thanksgiving what Coca Cola contributed to Christmas, as I'm pretty sure the Pilgrims didn't have crispy fried onions and mushroom soup.

And speaking of the Pilgrims, I tried to find out a bit more about the 'meaning' of Thanksgiving and what precisely I was supposed to be giving thanks for. Admittedly, most of my information ended up coming from Wikipedia and the History Channel (I was busy cooking, ok!), but the gist of it seems to be that Americans started celebrating the fact that they managed to survive some harsh winters and bad conditions when first colonising the eastern states.

It would appear, however, that the main reason the first colonialists survived was due to the benevolence of the local Native American tribespeople, who provided corn seed for the Pilgrims to plant when their wheat crops failed, and showed them how to live off the land. So perhaps they are giving thanks to Native Americans? And considering how this particular relationship developed, I felt a bit uncomfortable celebrating what is ultimately the exploitation and overthrow of a native culture. By the British.

But I guess that, like Christmas, this holiday is more about eating and shopping these days than anything else. So maybe it's not as tasteless as I think, well not in that way at least :-)

But have no fear, normal service was resumed the next day....

.... courtesy of Buffalo Wild Wings...

   

...and some Mexican buddies.





Bleurgh.





And while we're talking of festivals, I was fortunate enough to experience my first ever Feuerzangenbowle this year (see the wikipedia page for more background), courtesy of Athens' German contingent. For the uninitiated, it's turbo mulled wine, WITH ADDED FIRE!! Oh yes.

The fire comes courtesy of a rum-soaked sugar cone, which is suspended above the mulled wine/gluhwein and set alight. It looks something like this:

(It's on fire, honest - our host Christian has the singed arms to prove it)

And to facilitate ongoing genial Anglo-Deutsch relations, I led the way in consumption of this uber-gluhwein. Alas, my kind gesture back-fired on me the next day.

But it was worth the sacrifice :-)









So November has been pretty festival-tastic - roll on December!

A little moral dilemma for today...

One of the advantages/drawbacks of working from home is that you have the opportunity to watch significant amounts of day-time TV (with only one eye of course, the other eye is, like, totally concentrating on work). My personal preference is for Law & Order, but if I can't find that then I usually drift over to the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, or maybe even the National Geographic Channel.

But anyways.... I was watching a documentary the other day on the Uruguayan plane that crashed in the Andes in 1972.  The survivors of the crash were trapped for over 2 months and became 'famous' because they resorted to eating the bodies of those who died in the crash in order to survive (see the Wikipedia article on plane crash for more info). The film 'Alive' with Ethan Hawke was based on the accident.

So, I think you can guess where I'm going with this moral dilemma thing, and you'd be right.

The mother and sister of one of the survivors died in the crash and this survivor talked in the documentary about his dilemma - as the 'food' became increasingly more scarce, should he allow other people to eat his mum and sister in order to stay alive? Or should he eat them himself to prevent others doing so?

Irritatingly, he didn't say what he chose to do, so I present the dilemma to you. If you were in the same situation, would you:

1) Allow other people to eat your loved ones, but abstain yourself?

2) Chow down on Steak au Famille rather than let others tuck in?

I asked Omar what he would do and he didn't answer - I assume this means that he definitely would eat me :-)

Personally, I haven't decided yet, although all this talk of meat has made me hungry...

Houston....[insert space/'we have a problem'-related joke here]

Very belated I know, but I've finally got around to putting something up on our trip to Houston at the start of October. Omar was sent there for work, so I thought I'd tag along. If it's good enough for Yoko Ono, it's good enough for me.

Although there were nice oases of greenery in the city (like the Japenese Garden in the photo above), to be honest, Houston was pretty underwhelming (and over-heated), or at least the Medical Centre area that our hotel was in (I'm willing to give everyone a second chance). Although being next to a zillion hospitals, did give our hotel the added 'charm' of being full of the sick and the diseased, which was a bit of a bummer. It's difficult to feel super-psyched about a place when everyone looks like they're suffering.  

That said, the highlight of our trip was the food, which was something of a carnivore's paradise. And apparently it's completely normal to have chicken wings and Belgian waffles... for breakfast:

Admittedly, it took a week for my digestive system to return to normal, unfortunately the Atkins diet doesn't agree with me as much as I was hoping.

To take it easy on blogspot, I've put more photos up on facebook. This is a public album link, so you can look at the photos without needing an account/having to sign in:

Houston photos on facebook 

There are also some photos of Galveston and Kemah Broadwalk, on the Gulf of Mexico coast, where we went for a daytrip. It was just like Blackpool, just hotter and with more water pollution.

But in the end, mostly I was just upset about the lack of ten gallon hats and cowboy boots. Such much for stereotypes....

America's Got The Crunch Factor

In the first part of an ongoing series, I've decided to catalogue and rate some of the culinary delights that I encounter during my time here in America. The supermarkets here are a veritable carnival of weird and wonderful (but mostly weird) food items that may appear bewildering to the non-native, so in my commitment to public service,  I'm letting my curiosity get the better of me, to make the gastronomic mistakes so that you don't have to. 

Each delicacy will be rated on a 'crunch scale' of 0 - 5. For those of you who have eaten in Connaught Hall, you'll understand the scoring system, but for those who have not had the 'pleasure', a crunch is a measure of amount of stomach ache suffered post-consumption, ranging from 0 (no crunch - a pleasant eating experience) up to 5 crunches (a foul abomination of a meal, equivalent to eating a full Saturday brunch at Connaught).

So without further ado, like the crunching commence!

First up is something of an American instituition, guaranteed to cause bemusement for all other speakers of the English language:

Biscuits and gravy

After encountering these bad boys on a few occasions, I think I've finally worked out what they are. The 'biscuits' are a bit like heavy croissants, with a bun-like crust. They are quite sweet, but seem to be eaten with bloody anything and everything over here. Nothing too offensive.

The gravy is something else all together, and that something is pretty digusting. I should add the disclaimer that this gravy came out of a packet, so I'm not sure how it compares to the 'gold standard' of gravies, but I'm not optimistic based on this experience. The 'gravy' is a strange savoury porridge-type sauce that may or may not have little bits of sausage in it. I can't really describe the taste, other than 'savoury'. Suffice to say, you'd be hard-pushed to get me to try it again.   

And if that decription wasn't appealing enough, here's a picture of the feast (that's a fried egg on the top left): 

Crunch Factor: 3 crunches out of 5 (it would have been more, but the biscuits weren't too bad. On the otherhand, I'm still having nightmarish flashbacks about the gravy)

1 month in Athens

Following all the excitement of being somewhere sort of near a tornado, things have been quite sedate here in Athens. I've been trying to plug away on my journal article, getting distracted by all day Law & Order marathons, and occasionally whizzing around on my bitchin' new set of bad-ass wheels (or 'bike' as all you squares call it). I've also been snapping away, so what better way to celebrate the end of my first month in Athens with a little photo gallery? (I've put more photos up on facebook for those who'd like an extra Athens hit)

One of the benefits of everything being bigger in America is that we can rent somewhere a bit bigger too.... 

Our flat is one half of the top floor, we get the little balcony too

And this is the view from the balcony - just try and pretend that you can't see the car park, that's what we do :-)

This is a view of the Hocking River from the cycle path to and from University, which makes a nice change (although there is a freeway on the other side of those trees!)

So this rather pleasant view is directly outside the Physics and Astronomy building.... ahhhhh, relaxing :-)

This is a random street round the corner from our flat, with what appears to be some precariously hung traffic lights. It appears that they don't believe in mounting them on posts round this neck of the woods.

And speaking of woods... there area lot of nice local walks through the woods in the hills above Athens

....and here is me on the aforementioned hills, feeling (and looking) a bit hot and bothered. Cloud of irritating flies just out of shot.

And you'll be pleased to hear that Athens certainly doesn't shirk its responsibility for hard-hitting local news (although I'm not sure what the answer is to this pressing question)

Dow's Lake at Stroud's Run Park

Another view of Dow's Lake, with a bit of beach action

More Dow's Lake: Spot the difference (hint: there's a person in the foreground)

And some Dow's Lake. How nice :-)

But if you really want to get a flavour for what it's like in America, check out People of Walmart. It pretty much sums up the sort of people you see around and about. Maybe someone should set up the 'People of Asda' as a comparison?

There's a storm coming.....

There were two questions I asked Omar before I came to America:

1) Does Ohio get tornadoes?

 I was assured that, while the northern parts of Ohio occasionally get tornadoes, the south of the state (where we are) never gets them because it is too hilly. I felt reassured by this seeing as we live on the first floor and don't have a convenient basement/tornado bunker. So imagine my surprise yesterday when, while sitting outside a local coffee shop, confirming to British stereotypes by complaining how difficult it is to get a proper cup of tea here, an air raid siren goes off, followed by:

"THIS IS A TORNADO WARNING. GET INSIDE IMMEDIATELY"

Hmm......

Anyways, after a little bit of mild alarm and general bemusement among the locals who assured us that this was the first tornado warning that Athens had ever had, it was agreed that there were worse places to be stuck than a coffee shop, even if the tea is rubbish. And is it happens, the 'tornado' was something of a non-event, I'm disappointed to report. Apparently some parts of Athens were seriously damaged, in the places where the tornado 'touched down', but all we saw was some heavy rain and a few gusts of wind. I mean, the rain wasn't even horizontal or anything. So that was that....

.....until we got home and found out there had been a power cut in our part of town. It was mildly entertaining at first, but 20 hours later I'm now in exile at the University (which still has electricity fortunately) and feeling a bit peeved. And we've just found out that we might not quite power back until Sunday night/Monday morning. Woohoo! Good job we have that wind-up torch :-)

But I mentioned earlier that I'd asked Omar *two* questions, the second being:

2) Are there bears in Ohio?

I watch tv, I know what bears are like. They look all cute and whatnot, but they like to eat stuff. And people*. Bears very much fall into the 'spider' category of creatures for me, they are a valuable part of the ecosystem and a vital part of natural diversity and therefore should be protected. But surely we don't need to live in the same 10m sq. area of land?

But I was informed that Ohio doesn't have bears any more, thanks to the efforts of farmers and hunters in the 1800s (I guess once they'd finished scaring off the Native Americans it was time to move on to something else). So I was once again surprised to hear that a black bear was spotted a couple of weeks ago in a Halls of Residence where some of Omar's friends live.

Awww..... doesn't it look hungry? :-) Which isn't surprising, as apparently they eat for up to 20 hours a day (Black bears are back in Ohio!)

While I would usually be in favour of bears running amok in a Halls of Residence, on this occasion it just makes me wonder how far they'll go for a snack?

Anyways, after having having two of my core beliefs about Ohio shattered, I'm starting to wonder what else forms part of this web of lies? ;-)

*This is mostly wild, unfounded speculation on my part, fuelled by too much tv and that Herzog film about the crazy guy who was eaten by bears.

Possessions....

...... are something that I don't have a lot of at the moment, which is quite liberating as it happens. It has also made moving into our new flat, sorry apartment (damn all these vocabulary changes), a lot easier and quicker, which is a bonus. There are downsides to our new uncluttered lifestyle, however. It turns out that I'm quite sentimental about random useless stuff so I miss being able to decorate the new place with what I lovingly think of as 'ironic kitsch' and everyone else (or maybe just Omar) thinks of as 'crap'. From a practical perspective, it has also been bloody annoying to have to start again from scratch. I knew this would happen, but it's still frustrating to end most sentences with "we had one of those in England, but we had to get rid of it". All in good time I guess. But I swear, I refuse to move again until we can afford to ship all of our stuff :-) 

And speaking of shipping, I'm going to take this opportunity to voice my disappointment (ok, I mean whinge) about the piss poor service provided by both UPS and ParcelForce. The second shipment of boxes we sent from the UK arrived today and again the box was battered to hell. This time was with ParcelForce and the box didn't even arrive in one piece :-(   Luckily most of the books weren't too damaged, just a bit of scuffing, and at least they didn't get wet as they did with UPS. Boo! 

But enough of all that, I can now luxuriate in my new pile of books, before putting them back on a bookcase and pledging to certainly, definitely, getting around to reading them one day...

Goodbyes

It's day 2 in Athens, Ohio, and while I wouldn't go as far as saying that the dust has settled after the move, it's certainly starting to clear and I have been thinking about all the goodbyes I've said over the last few weeks. I've decided that I feel dissatisfied with them, as if I didn't spend enough time on each one and make it as 'significant' as it should have been. Part of this is my general problem with being sincere, but mostly it was just because I was so busy in the weeks before I left that I didn't have any time. I'm starting to think that being so manic in the run up to big life events, like leaving a job or moving overseas (or both!), is a psychological mechanism to stop you thinking too much about the magnitude of the changes you are making. By the time you have the time to stop and think about what you're doing, it's too late to go back! I know that I'm doing the right thing in moving, but being busy has stopped me about being too sentimental about all the people I will miss while I'm here.         

However, if circumstances had been different, and I had had more time for goodbyes, what would I have said? I guess I just hope that people automatically know what I wanted to say.

But I'm not just looking back, there's a lot of looking forward going on as well, it's just that the future seems a lot more complicated and confusing. So as of tomorrow, the focus moves back to sorting out my new life. I think some sort of list is called for..... :-)

T-minus 7 days......

.......argh!! This time next week I'll be on a plane over the Atlantic and now that the dust is settling from finishing work, the amount of things that are still left to do is starting to dawn on me.

So... argggghhhh.... ehfsodifhavwioeruVOWEURVOWEIUXMSKdgkjh k,sjdgh ae

Ahhh...... that's better, now where was I?

Welcome one, welcome all

I didn't ever think I'd be here, but my narcissism finally got the better of me, so here I am with a blog (or should that be 'blawg'?).

I decided that, as I'm not going to be moving continents everyday, and keeping a paper diary is soooooo 1993, that if I wanted to keep a record of this period of upheaval, that the internet was the way forward. So here it is.

So what to expect? Well, my ramblings really (and if that doesn't put you off, nothing will). When the dust settles from the Big Move West (TM) I wanted a way of looking back on it all, to try and convince myself it wasn't *that* much of a pain in the arse :-). I also wanted an easy way of keeping in touch with all those who want to keep in touch. Finally, I wanted to give an insight into life in small town America and the trials and tribulations of trying to force my way onto the postdoctoral treadmill.

So without further ado, and if we're all sitting comfortably, then I shall began.....