DC Editors in Cambridge

On Christmas Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:46:00 +0000

John's family bakes Christmas cookies. Specifically, John's mom bakes Christmas cookies. It's not Christmas without a tray of a half a dozen or more types of cookies, each with its own provenance. In recent years, Kay has scaled back, and now doesn't make any at all unless she knows the whole family will be assembling for Christmas.

Last year, John wanted to make sure he wasn't without one of his favorite cookies, Greek Twists. So, he asked his mom to show him how to make them.

And the only camera I had on me was my cell phone camera. Still, though, I observed and documented; John mixed and baked. This was no small feat, as the recipe calls for 5 pounds of cake flour, and Kay mixes it by hand. And by that I mean, with her hands.

"What kind of Christmas cookies do you bake?" Kay asked me. This feels like a loaded question when it comes from your mother-in-law. John and I were already married, so it's not like my answer would be a deal-breaker.

Quite a few people in my family bake, but when it comes to Christmas cookies, what springs to mind is the Christmas cookie tray at my Grandma Arnold's house: chocolate chip cookies spiked with a little peppermint to make them extra Christmasy, the chewy cookies with the Hershey's Kiss pressed into the middle, and what I have thought for my entire life were buckyballs but Google now tells me are actually called buckeye balls.

I described these to my mother-in-law, and all was good.

This year, since my Christmas tradition is really more to eat cookies than to make them, I hadn't given Christmas cookies a second thought. But John offhandedly mentioned Greek twists one day, and that stuck in the back of my mind. After wandering the baking aisle at the grocery store looking for something resembling "Velvet cake flour" (found: grade 00 pastry flour), I offhandedly mentioned that I thought we could get all the ingredients we needed for the Greek twists. "OK, then - let's bake!" he says.

A couple of days and about 15 stores later (for a comprehensive/frantic search for: Crisco, molasses, Hershey's Kisses; of those, only found molasses), we were making Greek twists; the peanut butter cookies with the Hershey's Kiss (substituted a square of Cadbury's chocolate); and ginger snaps, an excellent recipe from my mom's sister's husband's family.

And while I definitely enjoy eating cookies, I also enjoy giving them away. So John headed off to work with little trays for the people in the office who make everyone else's lives easier, and we gave trays to our neighbors. But don't worry, we saved plenty for ourselves.

But I'm not telling how many are left.

So, it seems that we're carrying on the tradition of making Greek twists. If you'd like to try your hand at them, the recipe is below. They come out tasting like a light(ish) shortbread with a bit of a citrus zing. And, the recipe makes about 12 million cookies.

Greek twist recipe, as it appears in my mother-in-law's well-worn, well-loved cookbook.

Greek Twists
(from the Travis Family, via Great Aunt Rita on John's Dad's side of the family, which came to Detroit from Bitola, Macedonia, near the Greek border)

1 pound Blue Bonnet Oleo [margarine]
1/2 pound sweet butter
1 1/2 to 2 cups sugar
juice from 1 orange
zest from one orange
6 Tbsp coffee cream (light cream, or half-and-half)
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
Velvet cake flour (Kay gets 5 pounds; you don't always need all of it)

Cream together margarine, butter, and sugar. Add baking soda to the orange juice. Add it to the batter, then add the rest of the ingredients in sequence. Add enough sifted flour to make a smooth dough. [We used about 4 pounds for our most recent batch.] Roll out a small gob until it's pencil thin, fold it in half, and twist. Glaze with egg white. Sprinkle with ground walnuts if you like such thing. Bake in a 350 degree oven until they're light brown. The Travis kids like these sprinkled with some powdered sugar.

Watch Out, It's a Dragon (Boat)

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:31:00 +0000

On the 4th day of blogging, my true love gave to me...a dragon boat race.

September often turns out to be one of the best months in Cambridge weather-wise and this year was no exception. I convinced KT to take a stroll down the river for a short look at the annual dragon boat races I had heard about. A bright sun and a warm day meant she was soon chiding me not bringing newspapers and chairs as we could have happily stayed there all day. The races involved mini-dragon boats, not the full-sized one, and the crews were mainly first-timers who signed up with their company or academic department for the fundraising event. A drummer on each boat beat out the rowing rhthym. It was clearly a lot of fun, with one boat crew decked out in kimonos and another in pirate costumes. As the day wore on, it even got competitive. I've vowed to sign Science magazine up for a spot next year. --J.T.

Meet Wooly the Alpaca

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:47:00 +0000

On the 3rd day of blogging, my true love gave to me...an alpaca?

One of our best unblogged trips of the year so far has to be a long weekend trip in late March/Early April to Cornwall on the west coast of southern England. We had heard how spectacular the coastal walks were and we weren’t disappointed. In the course of our 6 hour drive there, Katie found an unusual pub stop—the Eliot Arms was full of old clocks, and served delicious food.

We stayed at Caradoc on Tregardock, a renovated building on a working farm that was right on the coast—there’s a hidden surfing beach below the cliff the farm is on so crazy surfers in dry/wetsuits occasionally came through. Besides amazing views, the farm had sheep about to lamb, and a cute alpaca named Woolly who guards the sheep. What it did not have that first night there, when a biting wind swept the clifftop, was much heat. We couldn't get the wood fire going and the heat didn't kick on.

Thankfully, Sunday turned out to be sunny and relatively warm for so early in spring. We headed down the coast to Wadebridge, a village in the middle of a well-known bike route called the Camel Trail. We rented bikes and headed off to the coastal town of Padstow, which has largely been made famous as the home and inspiration of celebrity chef Rick Stein. To us, it was simply a cute fishing village, much like Bar Harbor in Maine, with great ice cream and a beautiful sandy estuary at low tide. After biking back to Wadebridge, it was so pretty we kept going the opposite way on the former railroad track, following a pretty stream through lovely woods and even passing a small vineyard. Best of all, when we got home exhausted, the heat was on and the farm owner had the fire blazing.

On Monday, we ventured north up the coast to the evocative ruins of Tintagel, a castle on rocky peninsula that, according to legend and the marketing forces of the nearby village, is the legendary home of King Arthur. From there we went someplace much more modern, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's Fifteen restaurant, which overlooks one of the most popular surfing beaches in all of Cornwall. As the sun set and the surfers took their last rides, we enjoyed a nice meal prepared and served by some of the disadvantaged youth that Oliver trains at several of his restaurants.

Tuesday, we snuck in one final walk along the cliffside before heading home. We made a delightful pub stop in the village of Boscastle, which has recovered nicely it appears from a devastating flash flood in 2004. The short trip was without a doubt one of the nicest weekends we had in 2009--and we're already plotting to visit another part of Cornwall next year.--JT

Our Best of Cornwall photoalbum has some more great pictures here.

First Stop, Vienna

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:04:00 +0000

As I try to catch up on our year, perhaps I will shoot for the 12 days of blogging...

November was a whirlwind. Early in the month, we made a trip back to the U.S., visiting both DC for work, friends, and KT's parents and Detroit for my family. We had a great time in both places, although we as usual ran out of time to see everyone and eat everywhere we wanted. We did finally make a trip to the new location of our favorite steakhouse, had a fun happy hour at local DC brewpub, and celebrated an early Thanksgiving at my brother's house. I also got to mow a lawn for the first time in more than 2 decades, helping out my father-in-law who is on crutches due to a broken foot.

But the U.S. was just a precursor for our European adventure, which started about a day after we got back from America. I had been asked to talk on a panel at a science communication conference in Vienna so KT decided to join me, and then she and our friend AW came up with the idea of going from Vienna to Budapest to Prague and finally Munich! Work prevented me from doing the whole trip but I made most of it (more blogs to follow?!)

But beautiful (and remarkably warm and sunny) Vienna was the starting point and our hotel turned out to be in a perfect location with the cutest, best Christmas market in the city just around the corner. We had amazing potato pancakes, smothered in a salty garlic sauce, from one of the stalls. We also were near 7SternBrau, a nice brew hall that makes some tasty brews. There we got our first taste of goulash, although it would be far from our last. Vienna was also full of beautiful shops and art galleries, many with great window displays. I liked the art gallery full of "birds"(right)

My panel talk went well and I found the other talks interesting, even if they were in German--my session was one of the few in English,so I had to wear headphones for translation. The most amusing talk was from the host of an incredibly popular German children's show called The Program with the Mouse. This educational show has been on since 1971, explaining difficult topics in easy ways. From the way the audience listened and laughed to the host, and peppered him with 30 minutes of questions, it was clear the show was Germany's version of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood or Captain Kangaroo.

So what of Vienna itself. Gorgeous and grand--much more so that its current status would suggest. But Vienna used to be at the heart of Europe so it has some of the most impressive buildings anywhere (Pictures at the top is the cathedral and part of the Imperial Palace). We had a lovely dinner with friends in the very chic restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art so Vienna isn't all old stuff either. Sadly, I had to go home, leaving KT and AW on their own for further adventures...

--JT

A Vintage Year for a Cheese Angel

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:46:00 +0000

In the early evening about two weeks’ ago, KT and I biked over to Jesus College for what turned out to be a delicious and entertaining event. It was a port tasting dinner organized by a local wine shop we like. As you may recall from our trip to Porto, we quite enjoy this strong, sweet fortified wine but even we weren’t prepared to drink as many ports as we did that night. In the end, we tried (I think—the memory is hazy) 11 ports and 3 wines—and KT had a new job (more on that later).

The host of the evening was a chap representing Graham, one of the biggest sellers of premium port (It's also the port company whose lodge we stayed behin in Porto--see picture on the old blog post). Most port is red but as people straggled into the hall, we started off with Dow’s Fine White port (Dow is one of Graham’s labels and unsurprisingly given the speaker, all the ports we had were from the company). With the host providing some background, we then sped through about 6 different red ports, including the varieties known as tawny, ruby, crusted, late bottle, and vintage. Vintage ports are produced from the grapes of a single year and a committee in Portugal, home of port, determines whether a particular year earns that honor (which skyrockets the price).

Next, after a mint julep made with white port, we moved onto dinner--by then everyone was in a good mood. To be honest, the food wasn’t that memorable. But we had 3 wines from Portugal (while it’s best known for port, its normal wines have improved a lot recently) and got to know those sitting next to us, which included two professors who were “wine stewards” at local colleges. This delightful-sounding job means that they buy the wine for the students and professors associated with the college—for use at dinners and for purchase at cheap prices. One of those stewards says his college’s cellar contained more than 3000 bottles—and he noted that Trinity College, the biggest here, has 14,000 bottles and spends around £3 million (around $5million) annually on wine! The other person of note we met was Dave, the chap who runs the cheese stall in the city centre market. Dave provided the cheese course for the night (picture at top) and the 3 he picked were spectacular, particularly the Glastonbury cheddar.

Some more ports followed with dessert, including the grand finale: Grahams 1977 vintage port. Unfortunately, to the dismay of the real connoisseurs, the magnum was slightly corked—the cork in the bottle had gone bad, subtly spoiling the taste. I have to admit I didn’t think it was bad—just not great.

What about KT’s new job? Well, she jokingly asked Dave if needed any holiday help at the cheese stall and he said sure, he could use another “cheese angel”. Given the amount of alcohol consume that evening, KT wasn’t sure if he was serious but she emailed him the next day and a week later had a “training” session to prepare her to work yesterday. Unfortunately, a rare snow storm struck here and Dave called to say business would be so slow he didn’t need her to stand out in the freezing cold for 8-plus hours. Oh well, perhaps another day my cheese angel will earn her wings. --JT

A Nobel Prize Made of Chocolate? (My Amazing Race to Stockholm)

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:43:00 +0000

It began Thursday morning with an email labeled "Urgent". By Saturday afternoon, I was eating reindeer mousse and deer pate in Stockholm at a private lunch with the 3 biologists who won this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine.

Let's back up a bit. Science magazine and GE sponsor an essay contest for young biologists and every year the grand prize and regional winners get their award in Stockholm during Nobel Prize week, so that they get to meet the biology Nobel winners (Here's a description of the award and a video of last year's festivities -- there may be one of this year's ceremony posted later). This year, a colleague here in Cambridge who was supposed to host the ceremony hurt his foot Wednesday night so we were desperate Thursday to find someone to find someone for the Friday night ceremony. While I was looking forward to a quiet weekend, how could I pass this up? The only sad thing was Katie couldn't come as she had no passport--it was getting renewed as it's about to expire.

I spent Thursday racing around madly, booking my flight, bicycling over to the hurt colleague's home to get his Swedish crowns, and packing. KT was a Godsend, washing and ironing my good dress shirts even with hosting friends for a dinner. Friday morning I caught a 6:30am cab to Heathrow airport for a 10:30am flight. The whole cab ride was in heavy fog but I assumed it would burn off. Nope. I was fogged in at the airport--flights were canceled or delayed allover the place. As I impatiently waited, it became clear I might not make the 7pm ceremony in Stockholm. It didn't help that the airline rarely updated the information on the flight. Finally, however, the plane arrived and after a quick gas-up, we took off more than 4 hours late at 2:30pm (3:30pm Stockholm time). As I landed at 6:05pm, I felt like I was in an episode of Amazing race. I dashed through Customs, waited with annoyance for my checked-in luggage(checking the bag was stupid, I chided myself), and then ran to catch the high speed train that makes the 20 minute trip to the city centre train station, where I hopped into a cab to the hotel where the ceremony was taking place. I left my bags at the door and dashed upstairs...to be handed a glass of champagne at 7:10pm.

Fortunately, there was a cocktail party before the ceremony so I had about 30 minutes to cool down and learn what I was supposed to do! The dinner ceremony went splendidly. We were in the Hall of Mirrors at the Grand Hotel, the impressive ballroom where the Nobel prizes were given out for the first few decades. Albert Einstein and Marie Curie got their prizes in that room, which was modeled after one in the Palace of Versailles, and all the Nobel prize winners and their families still stay at the hotel (Nobel factoid: winner get to bring 16 other people to Stockholm). I introduced the CEO of GE Healthcare, made a little speech about encouraging young scientists, gave a little story about the work of each winner, and handed out the awards. At my table, I had the winner from Japan, Japan's ambassador to Sweden and several prominent Swedish scientists. The night's entertainment were 8 members of a famed 100-plus men's choir from Sweden called Orphei Drangar.

The next day was equally fun. The kids and I were transported to the Nobel Forum, the building at the Karolinska Institute where the Physiology/Medicine prize is decided by 50 faculty members. After meeting with the president of the Karolinska, we and the faculty got to ask questions of this year's winners (Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak) who had made a fundamental discovery on how cells protect their chromosomes, one that may be relevant to aging. Afterward, about 40 of us had a private lunch with the Nobel prize winners. We ate on special gold-plated china that is only used when Nobel laureates are dining at the Forum. The Nobel laureates by that point were relaxing (pictured above with GE essay winners and the Nobel Forum's attendants). They had already received their prize earlier in the week, attended the big concert, and given their Nobel lecture. Blackburn apparently amused everyone by being the first Laureate to thank her driver--the prize winners get whisked around Stockholm the whole week by special limo drivers. She also got laughs at the lunch by expressing her disappointment that the Nobel prize wasn't made of chocolate--gold foil-covered chocolate "medals" (top picture) were handed out at the Forum and we all stuffed many in our pockets.

That whirlwind was the end of my work duties--less than 24 hours of craziness!--but I then spent a delightful Saturday afternoon roaming Stockholm's Old Town. All the Christmas decorations were out and since it starts getting dark there by 3 pm, the lights were all glittering by the time the snow started falling on the Royal Palace and Christmas markets. Sunday, the weather remained nice and I walked to the Vasamuseum, which houses a 17th century warship that had sunk and been raised in the 1960s (KT went to it alsp on her trip last year to Stockholm) and took a boat tour through the canals of Stockholm. Before heading back to the airport, I went to 2 more Christmas markets, one with an ice rink and carolers singing Rudolph in Swedish and the second where I bought 7 kinds of smoked sausage to bring home to KT. Aren't I the best husband in the world--Who needs diamonds or perfume? --JT

Here's a short photoalbum of the trip (I only had my camera phone)

10 Things to Do with the DC Editors in Cambridge

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:33:00 +0000

This post is brought to you by our friend Sarah, who visited in September. She's far more on top of things than we are; she wrote months ago about seeing Darwin everywhere, and about our trip to the British Cheese Festival. And, well, I haven't written much of anything lately. Sorry about that, with particular apologies to the 1-7 of you who still check weekly to see if we've updated. The good news is, I'm about to start working on our year in review book, which means I'll be writing some stuff up retroactively. Anyway, enough of that. Let's get on to Sarah's ....

10 Things to Do with the DC Editors in Cambridge

1. Let KT and JT tell you where to go. They live there and have seen enough of Cambridge (and enough of their friends being tourists in Cambridge) to have a good idea of what's good, what you might not know about and what will probably let you down.

2. Go on an official Cambridge tour. Yes, it costs money (always a downside when I'm traveling), but it will give you some history of the town and university and help you to better find your way around.

3. Shop in the market square. Sure, most of the items for sale aren't unique, but the market has been there for hundreds of years, and the food can be really yummy.

4. Visit Trinity College Library. They have a 1st edition of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia with Newton's own notes for the 2nd edition, A. A. Milne's handwritten manuscript for Winnie-the-Pooh, and plenty of other treasures tucked away in glass-topped cases in the cavernous Wren Library.

5. Check out Cambridge's museums. I only made it to two--the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. I count at least six more to choose from the next time I'm in town.

6. Punting on the Cam. Much of the university, and the river Cam, are tucked away behind college walls. By punting--with beer or cider in hand--you can see some of the hidden bits.

7. Visit the Cambridge Botanic Garden. The garden was begun in 1831 by Charles Darwin's mentor, Professor John Stevens Henslow. Even in late fall, it was beautiful.

8. Go to evensong in King's College chapel. Even the nonreligious can appreciate the amazing architecture in the dim of candlelight as they listen to the choir.

9. Let KT cook for you. I'm still salivating over the apple chicken.

10. Pet Cambridge's kitty cats. They're everywhere.

Trip Report: Berlin

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:03:00 +0000

There are some similarities among the big cities of Europe. Settled/invaded by the Romans; experienced a period of rapid growth/decline; crippled by plague/fire; divided/united over Catholicism/Protestantism; partially/completely destroyed during the war and later rebuilt/not rebuilt with traditional/modern buildings. Of course that's an overgeneralization, but you get the idea.

Berlin's story is a little different.

You see a strip of undeveloped area and wonder why. It's because until 20 years ago there were two parallel walls in Berlin, 100 meters apart, with a trench between them that was regularly raked so they could see if anyone had tried to escape. It was called the Death Strip.

You see bricks in the road, through neighborhoods. Until 20 years ago, that's where the Berlin Wall stood.

We were in front of the Brandenburg Gate on a gorgeous, sunny Saturday afternoon; runners in the Berlin Marathon would cross the finish line here the next day. Until 20 years ago, the Berlin Wall cut right in front of the Gate. Ronald Reagan gave his "tear down this wall" speech here 22 years ago.

We walked on to the Holocaust Memorial -- officially named the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe - a full city block of 2,711 concrete columns of varying heights. It's rather abstract, and I heard a few different interpretations, many of which make sense. In the center of it, where the the concrete towers over you, it's cold and dark, and gravity - figuratively, and what feels like literally - weighs heavy. On the walls of the information center is a quote that comes with its own gravity: "It happened, therefore it can happen again."

We had plans to go to Rosh Hashanah services at the 19th century Neue Synagoge; I went along, naively thinking it would be neat to attend my first synagogue in such an old, historic building. Of course, the original synagoge was completely destroyed before and during WWII; the facade and domes are a reconstruction, and the original 3,000-seat main hall exists only as an outline. Instead, we went through a chain fence, past armed soldiers, through metal detectors, up two flights of stairs, and through narrow hallways to reach a 75-seat synagogue. There, the rabbi -- a woman -- welcomed us herself and offered us English translations of the German and Hebrew service, and we watched as the small, close-knit congregation came and went throughout our two hours there. The cantor sung the Psalms in a melodic tenor voice that I could have listened to all day. I was wrong, it turned out: It was absolutely amazing to celebrate the new year in such an old, historic building.

I expected to see mohawks and black clothes and rebels and piercings. I didn't expect to go to an artists' community that developed when squatters took over an old, half-destroyed department store after the wall came down; see an artists' premiere in a former public toilet; and attend an opera, Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

The reason for the trip was a ladies' weekend -- part of a group of us that started in DC and has now spread out, to Berlin, Paris, Zurich, Cambridge, and more. All of us are in our mid-30s in fairly similar genres of jobs. I expected to have a good time; I didn't expect how much I needed some bonding with peers. What a positively fantastic group of ladies.

Everything about Berlin, from the place to the people I met there, defied and exceeded my expectations. What a fantastic surprise.

"You're Not Singing Anymore"

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:55:00 +0000

I only started to worry when the police helicopter showed up.

But that's getting ahead of myself, let's start a few hours earlier. We woke up early Saturday because KT had to to pick up a friend at Heathrow airport and then head for Cardiff in Wales. Why? Well, it's where Dr Who and Torchwood, two of their favorite TV shows, are filmed. Equally important there's the Great British Cheese festival in Cardiff castle, I expect them back tonite with lots of cheese!

It was supposed to be another warm, sunny weekend day so after Kate left, I planned a long bike ride, hooking together several routes I had already done. Though the cloudy start never burned off, the ride was great until about 12 miles out from the house my mobile phone rings--a researcher based in Spain that I needed to talk to happens to be in England and coming to Cambridge. Did I want to meet him in at the Eagle pub in a bit? Uh, yes. I biked about fast as I can go to get home--I did 26 miles in 2 hours (Sadly, I realized marathoners run that distance in the same time!) and met the source for a 90 minute interview.

From there I biked to a Cambridge United game against the big neighboring town of Luton. Luton was a league above us last year but dropped because they were penalized for shady financial dealings. Their fans are not happy about that and a thousand or more made the short trip to Cambridge.

Wild game--United went up 2-0, and seemed in control as the ref ejected a Luton player leaving them a man down and enraging their fans, who were on the verge of rioting. Away fans are segregated from home fans but Luton fans were taunting Cambridge fans with obscene chants and tried to break by the police to "our" side (left).

But after halftime, Luton stormed back, quickly scoring 3 goals. Delirious Luton fans started chanting to Cambridge fans "You're not Singing Anymore" and "We have only 10, We have only 10". A few rows from me a fight almost started between Luton team members sitting in "our" stands and a Cambridge fan. By that point, police reinforcements ringed the field. Cambridge tied the game, but Luton scored another to win the crazy game 4-3. As I walked out of the stadium, police vans and ambulances were lined up, officers were wearing riot gear and a helicopter buzzed overhead--and the Luton fans weren't being allowed to leave until the home fans had departed.

After that true taste of English football, I needless to say biked out of the area fast and came home to watch American college footbal with their passionate, but largely peaceful, crowds!

-JT

Below are some pictures from the much more peaceful bike ride, including one from the backside of the Cambridge American Cemetary.

The Official Fringe Tally

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:08:00 +0000

Our 7 days in Edinburgh are drawing to a close. I'm not sure we've hit all the major highlights of Edinburgh tourism, but we sure did see a lot of shows. The final tally: 33 34 between the two of us (18 19 for JT, 15 for KT).

JT:
Manolibera: an Italian group doing sketch comedy using background cartoons drawn with an old-fashioned overhead projector. Light and whimsical and family friendly. This video provides a taste.
Breakfast@Bedlam: a solid morning sketch show with coffee/tea and pastries. Favorite may have been two backpackers trying to outboast each other with tales of their travels and the poor they've helped.
Yianni: a decent standup comic telling his romance woes to mp3 music snips he played by remote control.
Pythonesque: a comical history of the Monty Python group, mixing biographies and their sketches. Fun but not as brilliant as hoped--only 3 out of 5 cocounuts.
Janis: a one-act play depicting the life of Janis Joplin, focusing more on her sexual and drug exploits than her music unfortunately. Didn't like the actress.
Not Spain: a powerful play of a western female journalist interviewing a man caught in the Balkan wars.
Aint that a Kick in the Head: the life and music of Dean Martin, performed by a 6 piece band in an Italian deli! Learned how big a star Dino was.
After the Bomb: Clunker #2, farce about Cold War spies, a crazy professor with a lust for toasters, and an alien planning a world invasion. Actors couldn't even keep a straight face at times.
The Gravediggers: Clunker #1, a well-intentioned but painful comedy about 3 gravediggers in rural Yorkshire, written and acted by 17-18 year olds.
Trapped: a really impressive, professionally choreagraphed dance depicting a totalitarian state. Here's a trailer for the show.
Forgotten Things: odd, one-act play about a suicidal teenage boy, a grandma with dementia, two unattentive parents and a pyschiatrist played by a puppet. Had its moments.
Flhip Flhop: a comedic dance/hip-hop music group. Two painters goof around, making amusing sounds and tunes with their bodies and whatever else is around. Ok, but not great. Here's a trailer for the show.

KT:
Flying Forward: A modern dance performance from a dance troupe in Liverpool.
Why Do All Catherines Call Themselves Kate: A three-character, one-act play by Mwewa Sumbwanyambe, a student at Leeds University. (I got in for free because my name is Kate.)
Trilogy: A nearly three-hour play-slash-performance art piece about what it means to be a young woman today. Involved rather a lot of naked women. Website for the writer's project is here: http://www.makeyourownherstory.org/
Malaje, the Flamenco Circus: An OK performance of music, flamenco, juggling, and acrobatics from a Spanish group.
Out of the Blue: An absolutely phenomenal a cappella group of guys from Oxford.
Tap Kids: Cute musical with very talented young tap dancers -- like High School Musical, but with tap dancing. Here's some video.
Shappi Khorsandi: A hilarious London comedienne from Iran read from her new book, A Beginner's Guide to Acting English, which is largely about her experience of moving from Iran to London as a child, then living through an assassination attempt ordered by the Ayatollah on her outspoken journalist father.
Jazz A Cappella: Another Oxford group, called the Oxford Gargoyles, who sang some standards, some new stuff.

Both:
The Last Witch: This was part of the real International Festival (i.e., not Fringe) and was a drama about the last witch burned at the stake in Scotland.
The Military Tatoo: Grand military review that includes bands from around the world, and many hundreds of bagpipes. It was absolutely brilliant, and ended with a spectacular fireworks display. Here's an old video of one of our favorite performances from the Swiss Top Secret Drum Corps.
Borges and I: A really neat performance -- a one-act play/physical theatre centered around the life and works of Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges.
Sarah Millican: excellent comedienne who appeals because she's just so normal -- and at times, absolutely filthy, but usually in a clever way, not the cheap-laugh way. Here's a video interview with her.
Axis of Awesome: Hysterical comedy rock band from Australia. Here's their 4-chord song.
Lewis Schaffer: I'm so glad we didn't pay anything to see this comedian. Ugh.
Rebel Cell: two hip-hop artists rapping intelligently about changing a totalitarian system by anarchy or by democracy. (JT wrote about co-star Baba Brinkman earlier this year for work and for this blog, and Baba also performed his Rap Guide to Evolution here at the Fringe (It won an award!). We chatted with him before and after the show -- in his last week of doing two shows a day for 3 weeks. His voice was more than a little worn.)

Phew. Now it's off to the Highlands to be entertained by nothing but the rural countryside.

Greetings from Edinburgh!

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:25:00 +0000

We took the train up here yesterday -- a 350-mile, 5 hour affair. The first hour or two I couldn't shake the observation that East Anglia (the, let's say, "state" we live in) looks like Illinois. Flat-as-a-pancake farmland. After that, the scenery got more dramatic:

We're here in August -- indeed, most people are here in August -- because it's festival time in Edinburgh -- nine festivals to be exact: Art, Fringe, Book, International, Jazz & Blues, Media, Military Tatoo, Mela, Film & Television. We arrived to gorgeous weather yesterday so set out on foot to get the layout of the city. We "accidentally" ended up at the book festival, where they have artists' readings and signings, writing workshops, and of course a tea garden and bar.

I was there for the bookstore, but so enjoyed the atmosphere that I may have to go back -- maybe even for an event.

But the bulk of the reason we're here is for the Fringe Festival. How to describe the Fringe? Well, let's start with this: John is disappointed we missed Chomp: The Zombie Musical, and that we're here too late to take in Much Ado About Nothing (as performed by a dance troupe from Mexico), Much Ado About Nothing (as performed by hand puppets), and Much Ado About Nothing (as retold by the constable Dogberry) all in the same day.

But we're making our list for potential shows we can see, and it includes a play about eco-scam artists out to make money off the Obama administration; A-Team: The Musical; Kursk, a drama about a Russian submarine crew; various and assorted comedians; and the Taiko Dojo Drumfest.

We haven't seen any shows yet - just taken in the street performances, of which there are many.

And, Edinburgh itself is a pretty place.

That's all for now -- we're off to the show!

Latest Skirmish in the Punt Wars

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:16:00 +0000

The Guardian notes the latest casualty--two boats sawn in half--in the war among punting companies here in Cambridge. Here's an excerpt.

Sam Matthews of The Punting Company was angry. "It's provocative," he said. "It's somebody hoping to start a war to get rid of us. It's the competition, but which competition? I have my suspicions, but the best thing is not to retaliate."

Matthews is the latest victim of what locals call the "punt wars", a series of disputes between rival operators in the £2.5m punt industry in Cambridge. The battles have reached new heights after two of Matthews's boats were found sawn through from top to bottom.

The nighttime attack is the most audacious in the spate of clashes that have disrupted the tranquillity of the Cam and prompted calls for a cap on the number of boats competing for custom from the four million people who visit the city each year. Observers say punting is now in danger of becoming a tawdry industry that will lower the city's reputation.

The panoply of weapons used in the punting wars is said to include stink bombs thrown from bridges to render a rival's boat inoperable, washing up liquid squirted to make it too slippery for the punter to stand, and bolt-cutters to snap mooring chains. But never, until now, an electric jig saw.

And here's an look an upcoming documentary on the punt wars:

-JT

And yet, summer marches on

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:10:00 +0000

It's funny how nice weather can erase any memory of bad weather. Since the Met Office retracted the barbecue summer, it's actually been pretty nice. Above is an outdoor production of The Tempest we went to this week in the Trinity College Fellows Garden.

And here's a rest stop on our 20-mile ride today, for which it was sunny and 80 degrees F, around the villages north of Cambridge. That's a giant chestnut tree in front of St. Michael's Church in Longstanton. The church dates from the 13th century.

Last weekend, we took a 12-mile walk with our local Ramblers group along the River Ouse. We both wore shorts and short sleeves. We stopped under this tree for lunch.

Those walks almost always involve cutting through pasture. Our encounters with livestock vary.

The walks also always involve a pub stop. This is in the one-pub town of Holywell. You can see what kind of weather we had to contend with.

We also encounter a lot of churches.

All in all, when the weather's not crap, it's really gorgeous -- the most gorgeous summer we've had here, by far.

Where's Cakes and Ale?

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:45:00 +0000

To continue with the cycling theme of my Tour de France blog post...This Sunday, with KT off in the U.S., I woke at the crack of dawn, loaded my bike onto the car and sped out to the Suffolk countryside, driving through dense fog most of the way. Fortunately, it had cleared into a gorgeous day by the time I arrived at Glemham Hall (not that I saw it) for the start of the charity ride organized by Bike Events. One of the best things about this group is the announcer who is very English and very witty--at a recent ride we just did (blog to appear later) he sent us off quoting what I think was a Wordsworth poem. This morning, he was amused by a local group wearing shirts that said "Suffolk & Tired".

The day was sunny, with just a wisp of a breeze--perfect cycling weather. And the route was excellent, with hardly a big hill and a nice variety of scenery. We rolled through farms, small villages, a nature reserve, forest, and sandy heath on the way to a stop at a beach. I soon reached a decision point where I had to chose between the 35 mile route (map here) and the 60 mile route--all had been delightful to that point but I fearfully recalled my last planned 50 mile bike ride, where leg cramps hit at the 35 mile mark. This was a much easier but I still wimped out and went the short way. Oh well--turns out it was actually 40 miles in the end.

The rest of the ride was equally pleasant. The beach stop was Dunwich, a once vibrant port town noted in the Doomsday book and "lost" to the sea hundreds of years ago. At one point I sped by a sign that caused me to quickly brake--yes, it indeed said "Cakes & Ale". I looked down the side-road and saw nothing so I reluctantly rejoined the bike ride route. Turns out it's just a caravan site with an odd name. But the sign had gotten me thirsty, so I had to stop at the last refreshment break--a pub that thankfully had already opened. Fueled with a pint of ale--but no cake--I made it the next few miles to the finish line (just a bit after some who had done the whole 60 mile trip!). --JT

Bruce Springsteen, Lance Armstrong, and Me

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:16:00 +0000

My view of the Tour de France while in Barcelona

I'm so far behind on blogging it's slightly pathetic but I won't let that stop me from trying to catch up. The themes of this entry are fun work trips and sporting events. Let's roll.

Several weeks ago now, KT and I had a big London trip. The primary reason was the World Conference of Science Journalists, an event I had helped plan in a small way--I organized a session called "Advocacy Science Journalism" and participated as a panelist in 3 other sessions. Just a few months ago, the organizing committee was worried the meeting would lose money or even be derailed by swine flu, but following their habit of just making deadlines, tons of journalists registered at the last minute. The meeting was a huge success--we had nearly 1000 people attend, far more than previous world conferences. But before the meeting started, KT and I headed down to London on Sunday for a belated anniversary date: Bruce Springsteen and the Dave Matthews band doing an outdoor concert in Hyde Park. DMB was great as usual and the Boss rocked the park for 3 straight hours, opening with "London Calling", of course. Bruuuuuuce!

While we stayed at a hotel the night of the concert, the rest of the trip was in a swanky house just around the block from the Abbey Studios made famous by the Beatles. We shared the house with my colleagues Rich, his wife and their two boys--who for some reason liked to call me GorillaJohn. Rich lives in China and when the family traveled back after the meeting, Chinese health officials boarded the flight to check for swine flu symptoms--one of Rich's sons had a slight temperature so he was whisked away to a hospital with Rich for further testing. He wasn't infected but not a fun way to end a long trip.

The conference itself was exciting and depressing. Exciting because we saw people who inspired us and technologies that can help us. Depressing because everyone was wondering how to make money reporting news when so much is available for free--there was a lot of grim humor about how many of us would have jobs at the next world conference. Still, we got to party at the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum so one can't complain too much.

That same week on Friday, as Americans everywhere were starting their July 4th weekend early, we finally had a cricket rematch with our rival Nature. You may recall my poor showing in 2007. I didn't fare much better this time, but the team did. We batted first and scored a decent amount until the Yanks came out--I went out to bat and survived for a while, without scoring runs, until Rich was also called into action. He's a baseball player so I warned him to watch his backswing--I didn't want him to knock the wickets off himself. So, on the first pitch/bowl, he did exactly that! Off the field he trudged with a mix of anger and incredulity on his face. I had my own embarrassing moment soon after. In a silly attempt to replicate Babe Ruth's called home run, I pointed my cricket bat out to "center field" and then proceeded to whiff on the ball that slammed into the wickets--OUT! It wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't make a close match of the contest. Nature scored fast when they first batted, but we started getting outs and at the end it became a tense affair--one that would have been helped if Rich or I had scored any runs! In the end sadly, we lost. But we drowned our sorrows with an impromptu beer and grilled burgers at Chez Travis--so it was a nice "july 4th" after all.

The following week I headed off to Barcelona, my first trip to a continental Europe city without KT in a long time. And she's the one who speaks Spanish! Oh well, I love Barcelona--it's so easy to get around by subway or walking, there's a wild mix of old and aggressively modern architecture, there's churros and freshly made potato chips and great pastries, and beaches on the edge of the city. I stayed in an intriguing neighborhood that used to be Barcelona's industrial center--the factories and warehouse are now turned over to TV and movie studios and high-tech telecom and computer companies. So it looks like somewhat like a rundown factory area, but has an unexpected vibrancy and coolness--lots of bars and restaurants that visually compete with the hippest areas London and NewYork.

When I'm on my own at meetings I tend to eat early and just relax in the hotel room after a long day. But Barcelona eats late and well, so I joined the mood. Some websufing suggested a local pizzeria and a restaurant called 22alph@ (amazing "food porn" pictures on their website). I figured I would look at 22alp@ and head for pizza if it was too intimidating. It was. But I went in anyway--and I'm glad I did. Despite it being 8:30pm, the restaurant was empty and stayed that way--which didn't bode well. Nor did my 5 minutes of struggling to figure out a single dish on the menu despite consulting my Spanish language guidebook! The kind waitress eventually pointed out the menu was in Catalan not Spanish! Still, even when I looked at the Spanish menu in the back, most dishes were a mystery.

But I finally worked up the nerve to order and here's what I had (Yes mom, I ate it all): An amuse bouche of gazpacho and some local fish wrapped around an olive, then shredded whitebait fish on fried egg, entree of Iberica pork filet in wine sauce, and a decadent crema Catalana covered with a lemon-flavored foam for dessert. All that for $35! And it was amazing. I can't understand why the place was empty--highly recommended! (I did make it to pizzeria the following night and it was outstanding too).

To justify all the good food, I needed some exercise--so I went to watch the Tour de France. The famous race was coincidentally detouring into Spain and into Barcelona during my meeting and it was going close to the convention center right when there were no talks (honest!). So I dashed out to the road lined with thousands of people and after about 15 minutes of police cars racing past with sirens blaring, a lone cyclist sped by (left pictture), followed 30 seconds later but another small group, and then a bit later, the massive main group (the peleton). All in all, my glimpse of the racers last about 4 minutes--and I didn't spot Lance buried within the peleton. Indeed, watching the replay of the day's race on TV that night was more dramatic as the lead cyclist was caught at the very end and there was an exciting sprint finish. Still, I was able to be part of this year's race. Whew, I'm still tired.--JT

Comic Book Hero

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:32:00 +0000

I've been immortalized in comic strip form

Jorge Cham, the author of the comic PHD (Piled Higher and Deeper), stopped by the office months ago and was interviewed by myself and a colleague Sara, who eventually wrote a profile of how the engineering student had swapped an academic career for penning a comic strip about academic careers. I could tell Jorge was interviewing us as well and he's now doing a strip on the Science vs Nature rivalry, including this one (go to link for a large copy of image below) featuring yours truly.

--JT

Hopes Dashed for 'Barbecue Summer'

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:22:00 +0000

The first summer we were in England, people actually apologized to us for how crap the weather was. (That's actually appropriate spoken British usage of 'crap.' You can also insert 'rubbish' or ... well, other words for similar effect.) "It's not usually like this," they'd say, as we put on another jumper (British for sweater). Our first summer was marked by floods and cool weather that led us to take a moderately spontaneous trip to Spain because we missed the sensation of being hot.

The next summer, we were prepared: JT had a conference in Florence in late August, so we planned to go together and then spend another week on the beach. That? Brilliant idea. Especially since we had two weeks of summer (80+ degree days) in May, then it was back to business as usual -- temps in the 60s and 70s for most of the summer. Seventeen hours of daylight is only so exciting when you need to spend most of it wearing long sleeves and long trousers.

So, imagine our delight this year when the Met Office (equivalent to the US National Weather Service) came out with a statement that we should expect a 'barbecue summer.' Met Office Chief Meteorologist Ewen McCallum said: "After two disappointingly-wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year. We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30 °C [86°F] , something we hardly saw at all last year."

And, for a while it was pretty darn nice. I got my summer shorts out to actually wear here for the first time, rather than to take to another country. May was lovely, and June was downright hot at times. We spent the hottest week of the entire summer staying in London attending the World Conference of Science Journalists -- in an unairconditioned convention hall. With temperatures of 85 to 90 degrees outside and close quarters--and 900 journalists--inside, well, it was warm.

Then came July.

So far, we've had twice the average rainfall for July and average temp of 15.3 C (about 59 degrees), and if we're lucky, the temperature hits 22 degrees (about 72 F). It was 56 degrees F at 9 this morning -- and it still is a 1:30 in the afternoon. It's been so cool and so rainy that the Met Office has been put on the defensive about their 'barbecue summer' statement, issuing another statement yesterday in which they note: "We acknowledge that the weather we have seen through the last month has been disappointing, especially after the fine weather through June and the heatwave at the end of June and beginning of July."

Well, as we've said all along, no one moves to England for the weather. It's a bit disappointing, though, because on a gorgeous summer day, there's just no better place in the world than Cambridge. I'm very much looking forward to our Labor Day holiday this year, but a tiny part of me wishes we were going to the beach. Where are we going instead? Scotland.

I think I can probably leave the swimming costume (British for swimsuit) at home.

At the Dave Matthews/Bruce Springsteen concert in London on 28 June -- when it hit a lovely 26 degrees C (79 F).

Dining Out, Cambridge Style

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:37:00 +0000

One of the true Cambridge experiences is attending a dinner, called a formal hall, at one of the colleges. John and I attended a black-tie dinner in 2007, but it was at one of the new colleges and so didn't have the grandeur of dining in one of the more Harry-Potter-esque halls. John has been to a couple of formal dinners, but also in the relatively new colleges.

On Thursday, I got to attend a formal dinner at King's College -- which by Cambridge standards is a "new" dining hall -- built in the early 19th century. The occasion was the Darwin Festival, and the guest of honor was TV presenter David Attenborough. Perhaps you've caught some of his specials on PBS. Here in the U.K., David Attenborough is a major celebrity. He also happens to be a big Darwin enthusiast, so who better to give the dinner speech than Attenborough himself? (I wrote about the dinner for my day job here.)

We started with drinks on the back lawn of King's College, with a lovely view of the majestic Chapel. Everyone was then escorted into the dining hall. We (meaning the 8 editors from The Magazine in attendance) were supposed to be spread out among the tables, but I was quite happy to see from the placecards that I was seated right next to one of the new editors, a young American who has been in Cambridge for less than a week. That made it a little easier for both of us act like giddy schoolchildren at the majesty and grandeur of our surroundings. The pictures don't really do it justice. Huge vaulted ceilings; long, immaculate banquet tables; placecards for everyone.

The menu -- a three-course affair -- contained dishes from the recipe book of Charles Darwin's wife Emma. How cool is that?! It was:

Baked Cambridge Bleat (a cheese), Aubergine (eggplant) and Sultana pickle, local honey, wild leaf & chervil Salad, baked Crostino

Roast Guinea Fowl, Savoy cabbage, celeriac dauphinois, quince jelly, baby carrots, thyme jus

Gooseberry cream, elderflower sorbet, & shortbread biscuit.

With coffee they served a date & stilton eclair (a date split open and Stilton cheese shoved in it) with pickled walnut. As at most college dinners, port was served to finish.

Attenborough's brief talk was wonderful and definitely an experience I'll remember.

One more thing: You'll see from the photos that it wasn't black tie, but "smart casual," as the invitation said. I was in a skirt and heels. How does one get to and from a Cambridge event all dressed up? By bicycle, of course -- and that's what I did.

I posted some more photos here.

Trip Report: Madeira

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:58:00 +0000

I've made three business trips to the U.S. in the last five months, and frankly, that long-haul flight zaps any interest I might have in flying for fun. But we looked at the June calendar and discovered much to our surprise that we had very little planned. Clearly we needed to go somewhere.

Madeira is an island way (WAY) southwest of Portugal, closer to the Canary Islands and Morocco. It's an autonomous region of Portugal. It's got both coastline and mountains, lots of walking alongside its intricate man-made canal system (called levadas), and Madeira wine -- a sweet dessert wine. This seemed like a place we needed to visit.

We arrived pretty late on a Saturday night, but we knew we wanted to get into town quickly -- there were going to be fireworks at 10:30 that night. We made the walk from the hotel district to the marina, where thousands of other people were also heading to watch the fireworks. After seeing that most cafes were overflowing with people, we wandered into a fancier looking place that turned out to be a yacht formerly owned by the Beatles called The Vagrant, now docked in Funchal. My guidebook listed it as super-touristy, but we had a nice meal here, had a delicious bottle of vinho verde, and had a fabulous perch for people-watching -- and, it turned out, for the fireworks.

Sunday we checked out the pool at our swanky hotel, and JT even took a dip in the ocean. Later that afternoon we wandered around Funchal a bit, and took the cable car from Funchal up to Monte. It's a 10-minute ride and about a 500m elevation gain. Monte is pretty, but definitely very small! If we had more time, we would have then taken the cable car to the botanic garden, which is supposed to be phenomenal. There's also an orchid garden I would have loved to go to if we had one more day.

Monday we wanted to go up into the mountains and take a walk. I mentioned the levadas; we would have loved to take one of these walks, but many of them tended to be hours long and involved a fair amount of planning. Since we had such a short time there and didn't want to spend eons doing research, we did this walk. We missed the bus we were supposed to take, so we took a taxi up Up UP to about 1100 m above sea level to Eira do Serrado. The views were breathtaking! We admired the villages below that seemed so small. We then set off on an hour-and-a-half walk down Down DOWN to the village of Curral das Freiras. It was nice to get out, get moving, and breathe some fresh air in the gorgeous scenery. We admired the people who were walking UP. Good for them -- we'll stick to downhill.

We caught the bus back home, which was an experience in itself. Drivers here seem to hurtle down narrow mountain roads with abandon. It's a workout in itself to keep yourself from flying out of your seat. After grabbing some cold drinks and freshening up a bit, we visited Blandy's, one of the big Madeira wine producers. We enjoyed the tour, but decided we'd hold off on buying any of their wine.

Tuesday was our last day there (aside: we kept getting asked, "are you here one week or two? They were really surprised to hear us say "3 ½ days." That's not typical, I gather.), and we didn't really feel like spending it wandering Funchal again, so we took a bus to the fishing village of Camara de Lobos. It was definitely a change of pace from Funchal! The fishermen were already done with their day's work and were spilling out of the bars that line the waterfront. We walked along the water and got a great view of the 580-m cliffs of Cabo Girao. We visited a beautiful church, and the Madeira wine lodge of Henrique e Henrique. We liked the wine here better than that at Blandy's, so we picked up a couple of bottles.

We headed back into Funchal and paid the obligatory visit to the market, a must-do in any city we visit. The most impressive part was the fish market -- huge tuna, tons of espada (black scabbardfish, a local specialty), and dozens of other kinds of fish. It all looked so good! We wanted one last Madeiran meal before we left, so we headed to a restaurant recommended to us by a local, called Restaurante Jaquet. Seafood only -- and no menu! The proprietor will tell you what he has that day, and his sister will cook it for you. Delightful! We had the local specialty, espada, battered and pan-fried for two, with plenty of boiled vegetables and some cold beers.

(Just to round out the food situation, I can tell you that bolo do caco, a type of bread spread with garlic butter, is fantastic, and is served in almost every restaurant. There are street vendors who make it along the water with chorizo baked right in, and this is heavenly. We had delicious steaks at a restaurant called Paradise in the hotel district, and a perfectly fine (but not out-of-this-world) dinner at a restaurant called O Jango in old town Funchal.)

We then headed up the hill to look for one last Madeira wine lodge. We got to where we thought it should be, and there stood a slick-looking operation (well, not as slick as Blandy's, but not what we were expecting, either), Perreira D’Oliveira. Sure enough, we were one number off -- just one door over was Artur Barros e Sousa, a family business that has shunned any technology in their production process and doesn't export their wine. In fact, we stood and watched the bottling process for a few minutes -- one of the brothers was filling glass bottles with a hose and spigot directly from the barrel! We spent quite a while here and brought home a couple of bottles of their delicious wine.

The wine lodge visit was a great way to round out our last day -- it made us feel like we saw the real Madeira rather than just tourist Madeira. After one last swim in our hotel's pool (speaking of tourist Madeira ...), we left for the airport. It was a lovely trip -- and a great way to get our travel bug back.

Full photo album here. If there aren't captions, check back later.

Catching Up--May's Wonderful Weekends

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Sat, 30 May 2009 18:17:00 +0000

Cambridge, indeed most of England, is on roll--there's been weekend after weekend of nice weather, even two sunny and warm 3-day bank holiday weekends, which the locals were just amazed to see. We've been taking advantage. Several weekends ago, we went on a looooong walk from Waterbeach, a village just north of Cambridge (more on it below), to Ely. We were with the local Ramblers group and the walk along the river was around 12 miles--our blistered feet were very happy to reach the Ely riverfront and relax on a train ride home. Then on the Monday we went again on the bike ride to reach for its annual fair--more than 300 Cambridge residents made the 10 mile journey. The fair was marked by some rain, but it still had Morris dancers (top picture) and the exciting game of kicking a soccer ball into a tire to win a coconut!

Ely Walk/Reach Fair Photoalbum here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ktindc/EarlyMayHolidayWeekend?authkey=Gv1sRgCMDA0qDroZPKRA#

Then, it was my birthday weekend, in a delayed sort of way. In April,KT got me Eric Clapton tickets in May at Royal Albert Hall, and it just so happened Cambridge United was playing at Wembley the day after, in another play off final. So we decided to make a London weekend of it. We trained down to South Kensington neighborhood we like so much--tons of museums, shops and great food. We were starving so we quickly headed to La Cave A' Fromage, where we asked one of the sellers to select some cheeses,meats and wine for us. The 6 cheeses were amazing and we sampled French cooked ham, prosciutto, venison, bresaola (air-dried, salted beef), chorizo and some great bread. After checking in the hotel, we strolled to and through the flower-laden Kensington Gardens. After that, it was time for Clapton, who put on an amazing concert--2 hours of making his guitars sing. He barely talked at all the whole night, KT noted--shy? Royal Albert Hall was an amazing venue--we were up high, looking down steeply but the sound was great and we could see Clapton easily. Afterward, we raced around the neighborhood trying to find an open restaurant--London is no Barcelona, it shuts down earlier than you would guess--and lucked upon a pizzeria still open for a last meal.

Sunday started with sprinkles so KT indulged me with seeing the new Star Trek Movie--but we had some time to kill and there just so happened to be a nice little Sunday marker near the cinema. The sun poked out and we enjoyed a sausage and some tasty sandwiches before boldly going where 10 movies and 4 TV series had gone before--we both really liked the movie. And the the climax of the weekend--or, as it turned out, the anti-climax. I haven't bored you much with Cambridge United tales, in part because we've seen few games. But the U's just narrowly missed out first place,which would have automatically promoted them to the next league, and won the semi-final 2 game series with a thrilling 3-goal rally in the 2nd game. Again, more than 20,000 Cambridge fans traveled to London, versus 8,000 for the much more distant Torquay, and United started off playing really well, yet it just couldn't score. Yet Torquay didn't waste any chances, scoring twice, and sending the Cambridge masses home sad once again. Oh well, next year.

[[Clapton pictures tk]

Last weekend was a highly anticipated event: the 2009 Cambridge Beer Festival. Like last year, Katie made it over during the week for lunch, and we had a week-night work gathering--where I met an English postman who is a baseball nut, having played in the small nationwide league--but Saturday was the day I awaited. I was there not much after noon,when it opened, and we didn't leave til around 7pm. The weather was gorgeous and the beer tasty--what was left of it. The Festival sold a record 90,000 pints and was running out of so many beers by late afternoon that they stopped charging people admission. But we had more than enough as we read our newspapers and watched the happy crowds. Sunday was even prettier and after sending KT off to the airport, I packed up the Sunday papers, rode along the River Cam alongside racing crew boats, laid out a picnic blanket in a nearby park and read under a shady tree for hours.

So this weekend couldn't be any better, could it? Well, this Saturday put up a good battle. The weather was equally warm and sunny and just as I was pondering what to do, I was reminded that Waterbeach was having its own,much more modest beer festival. We've been here more than 2 years and I still hadn't explored Waterbeach--I take the river bike path out to its train station all the time,but then turn around and head back home. Well, the village is delightful--I saw 3 nice pubs, a butcher and baker, and the local Army barracks, which was having an open house. Regiments from Iraq and Afghanistan regiments had just returned and had a parade on Friday in the village--the town gave the soldiers free tokens to the beer festival for that night. After biking around the town, I made my way to the local recreation grounds where a kids soccer tournament was just over (trophies were being handed out) and the village cricket team was getting ready to start its match. Right next to this wholesome scene was the beer tent! Instead of 300+ beers, Waterbeach had just 16--but that was more than enough to keep me occupied for several hours. It was a decidedly family affair, as kids raced around and families stared up whenever the Army airplanes, including a massive Spitfire, buzzed the village as part of the barracks' open house. And in between, the fathers snuck off into the darkened nearby garage where a large-screen TV was showing the important FA Cup soccer final.--J.T.

Our Garden of Eden

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:28:00 +0000

We're just back from a long trip to the U.S. and as we recover from friend, family and food-overload, I'll borrow a post from a local Cambridge picture of the day blog. See this entry for a pretty picture of some houses near us and a nice explanation for the biblical themes of streets in our neighborhood (We live on Paradise St and a colleague used to live on Eden St).

In case you don't want to see the picture and just want the info, here's the main point:

Orchard Street is one of several in the my area that have either botanical or biblical names such as Elm Street, Adam and Eve Street, Eden Street and Paradise Street. This is because they are all in an area that used to be the Garden of Eden allotments - small vegetable gardens and orchards grown by locals.

--JT

Birthday cake, lambs, punting and more

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:26:00 +0000

My college friend Karlin, her two boys John and Thomas, and her husband Todd just paid us a visit during their long vacation in England and Wales. The three days went by fast but we crammed in a lot--walks through the city, fun on the local playgrounds, a fiercely contested soccer match in the park, a tour of King's College Chapel, a sunny punting trip on the river Cam, a double birthday celebration (amazingly Karlin and I were both 39--again!) complete with yummy toffee cake and a candle blowout, delicious visits to Hotel Chocolat, and a nice afternoon at the Wimpole Hall estate and farm, where we saw lots of newborn lambs and piglets. And did I mention the stroll through the cemetary to the pub and lots of SpongeBob Squarepants? Whew, I'm still tired. See what you all are missing? Come visit!--JT

Spring in Full Swing

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:37:00 +0000

We're having a fairly low-key spring, spending our weekends relaxing and staying in England rather than zipping off for weekends away on The Continent -- hence the lack of many updates. We went on another walk with the local Ramblers group in and around Grafham Water, a huge reservoir about 20 miles west of Cambridge.

We've been enjoying spring by visiting some old haunts, such as Milton Country Park, and some new ones, including the Darwin Farm Shop, which even has its own farm.

And we've discovered you can look at our house on Google Street View, which launched last week in the U.K. While I'm a bit creeped about by the fact that you can see my car parked in front of my house on my street, I don't consider it the privacy invasion that several others do, and today an organization issued a formal complaint against it. So, if you've got my address, enjoy looking around my neighborhood while you can. Or, better yet, come visit: Airfares are lower than they have been in years. The pound remains weak against the dollar and euro, so we're staying put. But it's a great time to spend your US dollars in Britain -- the exchange rate continues to hover under 1.5 (it was $2 to £1 for much of last year).

That's about it for today. I'm off to enjoy the spring sunshine.

A Nano-Break in the English Countryside

noreply@blogger.com (KT&JT) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:36:00 +0000

It did not escape our notice that we passed the two-year anniversary of our arrival in Cambridge last month. At the same time, it certainly wasn't as notable an occasion as last year's anniversary. We've become even more comfortable in our home on Paradise St and we continue to struggle to reconcile our desire to be home in America with friends and family and our gut that says "It's going too fast. We still have a lot to do here." How that war of emotions will play out remains a mystery to both of us, but it's one we'll have to figure out sooner rather than later.

The Stour River Valley

In the meantime, we're trying to make good on our vow to see more of England rather than gallivanting across Europe as we have in the past. To than end, we loaded up the car last weekend and drove...about 45 miles away. Whose bright idea was that? Well, before my wife throws something at me, let me quickly say it was a brilliant idea. KT and I were apart for Valentine's day so she plotted a weekend in the Suffolk countryside for us to escape our Cambridge metropolis (These one-night dashes from home are the trendy economical vacations dubbed nano-breaks, I'm told by the papers). The idea was to visit small villages, walk the countryside, see old churches, houses and castles, drink good beer in cute pubs, and have a nice dinner out. Our 30 hour adventure met all those goals. We had a great Saturday lunch at a pub that smokes its own cheese, fish, and meat, and ended the night at our hotel/restaurant that had great food and 30 wines by the glass--fortunately our room was a short walk away. KT has created a trip photoalbum with captions but above and below are a few of the pictures--she's getting good with her new camera!

Much of our trip was spent near the Stour River Valley, a place many call "Constable country" in honor of the famous British landscape painter John Constable. We started the day in Claire, where we found affectionate swans (top picture) and a bakery serving a caramel iced cake almost identical to my favorite cake from Sanders. Later that afternoon, just as the sun came out, we took a several mile walk along the river to Flatford mills (bridge in the middle picture above). Katie even snapped a picture (below left) from the same vantage point Constable used for his famous "Hay Wain" that is on view in the National Gallery in London. In another village, we found curiously sized doorways (below right)--hmm, perhaps where the hobbits live? Our final stop was in Lavenham, an adorable town best known for its many surviving half-timbered house (above right). We stopped at a local pub and read the Sunday papers as watched families finish their Sunday roasts--a very British afternoon and nice end to our nano-break.

A Ramblin'

noreply@blogger.com (KTinDC) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:00:00 +0000

The Ramblers are a national organization for walking. U.K. landowners by law have to provide walkers the right of passage across their land (there are a few exceptions), so there are a LOT of places to walk. There are local chapters all over that have organized walks every weekend.

Apparently, the Ramblers have gotten a reputation for being an organization for retirees (or pensioners, as the Brits say), so earlier this decade they started groups around the country for people in their 20s and 30s as a way to revitalize the organization. As it happens, there's one of these groups in Cambridge, called Walk Cambridge.

This weekend, we decided to try the group out by joining them for a walk about 45 minutes north of Cambridge. It was a 6-mile walk between the villages of Folksworth and Stilton, which is where Stilton cheese gets its name from but isn't where it's made. It was pleasant enough, but the real treat was the people -- everyone was *so* nice. I chatted with probably 8 different people along the way, none of them JT, because he was busy chatting, too. One of the original members of the group told us, "I'm not sure if we're a walking group that talks or a talking group that walks."

We walked through fields, mostly, saw the occasional cow, and only one flock of sheep. We stopped for lunch in a farmer's field next to a giant pile of manure. Fortunately the wind was (mostly) blowing the other way. We also came upon a couple of horses that came over and greeted us, and when I fed one of them my apple core, she decided she wanted to be a Rambler, too. She looked at us rather mournfully over the kissing gate when she realized we weren't going to stay and play with her.

The whole walk took us about 4 hours, plus we stopped at a pub for 20-30 minutes for a break. We walked through a lot of mud -- a LOT of mud. When we got back to the car we both took our boots off and put them in the trunk -- we didn't even want to get in the car with them on. My jeans were covered in mud, too -- I'm going to need a pair of gaiters if we keep this up.

We had a great time, and the walk served the dual purpose of providing a way for us to meet more people in the area that aren't work colleagues, and seeing more of the greater Cambridge area. I think we'll be back.

More photos here.