that volcano thing.

email to department from prof. M.M.:
Subject Seminars and volcanos
Dear Colleagues,
This week's seminar has been cancelled due to the lack of flights from
Germany to the UK.
It may be re-scheduled for early May.

from facebook (via dr. D. S.): Can you see the ash cloud from Eyjafjallajokull? Can you pronounce Eyjafjallajokull?

text message from G. C.: Due 2 a volcanic eruption in iceland my dads flight has been cancelled,so he's crashing here another night.I'm sorry,i can't make the cinema. U around tomorrow?

final note. iceland owns the UK lots of money. the joke here is that instead of paying with cash, they decided to pay with ash.

Riding into the sunset

We woke up from our nicely hidden camping site between a canal and the river connecting the many lochs. I remember Lyonell asking me about farts. Asking how I was reacting to the food of the previous night. What do you mean I am not supposed to be writing stuff like this in a blog? So you don’t want to know my answer? Fine. I’ll skip it.
The second day included a lot of of-roading. Some serious of-roading in fact, to the point that a road bike would not be able to make this trip.

Of course the shocks on the front of Escriptius Robustus were quite handy. The trailer squeaked and sure made it sound as if it wasn’t so happy. We had to deal with quite a few obstacles on this day. First, fallen trees made us feel, hmmm, welcome on the forrest trails.

And of course, that would be ok – if it wasn’t immediately proceeded by the world famous dangerous lambs!


And I am not even mentioning the fact that we had to drive, scratch that, ride on the left side of the road! Pssh. How is one supposed to hand signal in this situation???
From the area of the lakes we eventually made it to the Highlands. This is where a Scottish national park stands along with the highest peak in Britain, a towering snow capped of a beast peaking above the clouds at 1300 meters. Yes, that is Ben Nevis. You could see it in the background…

The highlands were quite different. this almost felt like desert meet far north meet lots of water. I mean, it was desolate, very little fauna and very few types. Yet there were streams everywhere and the land was drenched to the point that it was hard to find a spot to camp. The water was drinkable. And by that I mean, we drank it. But not so showerable.
Damn that Scottish cold water.

The final day of the trip included finishing the climb into the highland eventually, completing the descent from the highlands… quite quite beautiful. Glen Coe is the main village, I guess the best known one in the area. And Glen, it turns out is not just a popular name, it also means valley, in Scottish that is. I did see a sign for Rob Roy’s grave from the train station where we boarded back on our way towards Edinburgh.





Beautiful weather was our lot. I might be the first ever person to return from Scotland with a tan…
142 miles total. Two nights out. Pretty lakes. Lots of hills. And so so many sheep.
Fun way to travel, by bike.

Scotland on two wheels

Inverness is the northern most Scottish city (so described to me by a Scot, so I’ll take it for truth). And this is where our trip begins. Let me clarify this ambiguous ‘our’. Well, I guess I am clear, relatively. The other main protagonist is Lyonell Boulton is a math professor at Hariet-Watt university. A Venezuelan who has decided to leave his homeland, and his faculty position there, to escape an uncomfortable political climate, and take a postdoc position in the UK. Eventually, he landed this faculty position. Of more importance to this story, he is the route planner. This means well folded pieces of 8 by 11 with hybrid pictures of maps and terrain courtesy of our friends at google maps.




From Inverness, the route goes up hill. Well that’s not accurate. Up many hills is more like it. And they seemed to not end. Of course the wind which was blowing according to reports at 6 mph, but felt much stronger and in my stories will definitely be stronger. Oh wait. I mean, the wind was blowing at least at 15 mph and really impeded our climb. Add to that H being out of shape worsened by three weeks of lots of food which included family time and conference time, and the extra baggage up the hill was tough. Lyonell was riding in very low gear (something he called ‘cadence’) and I thought he was doing this to allow me time to catch up. Eventually I found out that this is a system developed by Lance Arm-o-strong which is supposed to be the most efficient way to ride. I on the other hand usually begin at higher gears, especially up hill, and slowly move down my gear ladder. Lyonell said that this is not so good for the bike. Ok, I need to be educated about this. Internet – I am coming to you!




Meanwhile, after all of the uphills we reached a nice downhill, which was rudely interrupted by another uphill, but then was followed by a beautiful downhill to the southern end of Loch Ness. This is of course the famed monster lake of Scotland. Well, I wasn’t impressed. I mean the lake is beautiful and the setting is stunning, but Nessy, the monster? Our cat has meaner streaks. She was tame and sweet, made no fuss about my hiking-boots-pretending-to-be-biking-shoes or about our lack of powerbars or gels. Simply nodded, and with a thick Scottish accent (roll the r’s and pretend you are speaking with a giant gum ball in your mouth) ‘chop chop chop, drink drink drink.’

Some tidbits about Israel and my life here so far

The intersections in Israel are named. This means that when you are given driving directions, you are not told take this exit and turn right – but rather – at this intersection, turn right. It’s a different perspective for sure.
Uzy was denied his work visa for the U.K. a couple of weeks ago.
I have moved into my new apartment which is nice and simple. It has come completely stocked, that is dishes, blankets, towels, internet, etc. the kitchen stuff is subpar and I get angry every time I cut with the knife. Anger management my friends, anger management.
Chocolate milk, shoko, comes in little bags at the store. Milk does as well. Now you may ask what do you do with the milk once you have opened it since? No worries, great minds have solved this problem.

My social life has not been what I had expected or hoped. It’s more starting from scratch with bits of pieces of seeing old friends every now and then. It has been disappointing and difficult at times.
Uzy spoke to the British counsel and expressed his displeasure (probably loudly and strongly) with the entire visa thing (I imagine the counsel was quite scared). Actually, its quite ridiculous, he travels a lot hence couldn’t send his passport to them but rather a copy. Further, he is required to take an English exam even though he has over 70 publications (some solo) in English. Finally, any question he has costs him money to ask (i.e. a 1-900 number). He appealed his visa denial.
While the rest of the world seems to be enjoying extremely cold weather, it has been amazingly spring-like here. My favorite childhood flowers (kalaniot כלניות) are out in bloom from the little rain they did receive.

I begin my mornings with an orange I pick from the orchards near the physics building. I have recently discovered a new path from my apartment to the building which passes under a bunch of pecan trees (very tall pecan trees). This has created an interesting competition between me, old Russian ladies that come by and collect and random eclectic birds (any other way to describe birds that pick unshelled pecans of the concrete?).
Last week Uzy received an answer to his visa appeal.
I joined a dating site, to see what its like and to have fun after Rami told me of the girl he is seeing and how he met her (this site…). I had some lady friends browse around and look at guys’ profile on the site so that they could help me shape my own profile well. I was then surprised when the site kept on suggesting different guys for me to look at…
It snowed in Cardiff.
My mom took me to buy shoes, nice shoes. I got two pairs. I get complements about the pair I wear. I think my mom took me because of the sandals blog…
My roommate is Austrian and kind of weird. He is spending his second year here as a visiting researcher. (this is the apartment building, my room is top left)

It turns out I have a relative in the office diagonally from me (she hasn’t been there so far). She is my mom’s second cousin (is that right? My mom’s aunt’s daughter’s daughter). I also have another relative of sorts essentially in the office below mine – he is my aunt’s (mom’s sister) husband’s brother’s son. The connection to this relation was, of course, made by my grandmother. Granma power!! Yoav is amazingly nice and had me over to his house for dinner and more importantly, to meet his wife and two beautiful daughters. Their story is amazing – they were pen-pals when they were 12 and then again when they were 16 and have been together since 16 ½!!! (pen-pals??? Talk about extinct social behaviors!)
The entire family (mom, dad, sister from States) was here for a while. It was magical and so nice. Now its, again, just my brother and I. With the rest of the fam of course…

shiduchim - שידוכים

mathchmake matchmaker, make me a match. find me a find, catch me a catch...

i haven't been learning the fiddle, nor standing on the roof, and definitely not doing both of them at the same time (though i do walk around playing my harmonica, gathering many a strange looks from passerbys yet garnering much impressed respect from the drunk), but the matchmakers of the country have come out in full force. they come from both sides of the family, they come young and young at heart, they come with numbers, they come with titles, they come with offers. not quite fiddler on the roof style, but maybe fitting for the (now) second decade of the 21st.

after a week in israel i have a number with promises of more coming (and they came, and are still coming). my brother is entitled to a number as well and he sets up his blind date before me. i on the other hand have a bit of hard time catching mine. my aunt who supplied the numbers asks if i called, and i say i have but that i haven't been able to catch the lady. a couple of days later, i get a phone call, from the lady. the chain of events went as follows - my aunt told her aunt (whom i have never met, or at least don't remember meeting - but i am related to, pssssssheeeeeeew) that i tried and couldn't get a hold of the girl, then this aunt told her best friend who is the mom of the lady. the point of this is null. or maybe... that i didn't know the person making the connection and that my aunt never saw, nor even talked to the girl.

the phone conversations flow, flow well even. the girl, shelly (means mine), is a social worker and likes asking questions. this was good. the first question i asked? where do you live? and yes, she made fun of me for it... naturally there had to be a small goofed up moment. so after the conversation, which went through a variety of topics, ended 40 minutes or so later, i hadn't made a plan with her, but was left with - call me when you are ready to make a plan.

oy.

tov, i called two days later and we met friday night. and it went all right, nothing exciting, and nothing particularly negative stood out. these things are awkward, that's all i know. and i also know that its really hard to know afterwards. at least for me. we met at a cafe/pub and ordered, well, yes, beer. after my second, and her finishing her first, about an hour and a half later, she left pretty quickly. there was no 'summary' of the evening, or a window for the future. i think more than anything, this is what discouraged me at the end. she kind of had to go - to sleep or something, or maybe to avoid the strange moment of how do we say goodbye at the end. the ending was amazingly quick. and well, i didn't feel a particular click, but maybe i would have tried another meeting? i don't know.

spoke to my brother about his date. of course i spoke, he was questioned through and through by everyone, including my grandma's plants. he said that it was all right - except that she kept on reminding him of his roommate. looked just like his roommate the intention was. now if his roommate was bar refaely or zooey deschanel then you'd say sababa. but his roommate, while very good looking, is his male roommate... is there a point? i am not sure. maybe that there is very little filtering with this blind date stuff.

i essentially decided that i wasn't interested in doing blind any longer. first reason is i am looking but not that actively. i am interested in laying the framework myself in a way. second, well, if someone knew me, knew the girl and said - hey, good matchup, that's a different story. but just random numbers? i know enough peeps in the math/physics world that can generate me many a random number...

my cousin's wife's mom though is a very good matchmaker i hear. and she spoke to my mom a week or so ago and came back to her with a number and some theory about how these things work and completely convinced my mom, who then spoke to me, and then yesterday i saw my cousin's wife who urged me that her mom is good and has a place guaranteed in heaven (three matches which come into fruit, i.e. vows) and well, at this point i am just trying to continue this run on sentence as long as i can as i don't really have anything to add... but this girl just came back from a phd program in the u.s. so in a sense there are some commonalities there and while she probably left for the u.s. for her grad program, maybe her b.a., and i left a bit earlier, you know, the time preceding the deepening of my voice, and some other changes that happen during junior high taht are not appropriate for this kind of blog... maybe we'll have some things to talk about returning to this holycrazy place. so maybe this will make sense.

was there ever a point???

the hottest place in tel aviv

going to a club with people you don't know is always fun. you meet new people, can have crazy adventures - you don't know the people, so you don't know what to expect in any way. the thing is, its good to be well prepared for it, and by that i mean swiss army knife survival pack packed with some good protein which is light to carry and matches that can't get wet. oh wait - i mean well dressed. and as everyone knows - i love dressing up! you know, nice button down shirt with the collar that sits just right and the perfect shade of colors (hmm, light purple?) along with a good pair of jeans. and of course, of course, the shoes. so important.
by the way - its still me writing this blog - there hasn't been a transformation nor a kidnapping of the main blogger (yet anyways...).
so i met keren (the camel-loving baker from davis) and in order to go out with her and a few of her friends, and as it turned out a few of her friends friends. we headed out to a place called gossip that her brother who is a barman, called one of the hottest places in tel aviv. we get there and everyone is extremely well dressed and there is a huge line. and of course israeli lines are more like clusters of cells rapidly increasing and in intense competition for every resource, constantly pushing and moving fluidly, yet the steady state equilibrium is somewhat maintained with the cluster blocking the entrance and moving in uniform. seriously, if red blood cells learned to do this - there would be very little bleeding.
anyway, keren's friend says - no problem, hadas is joining us and she knows one of the bouncers. then hadas arrives, very well dressed like everyone else all around us. and you know the moment when you meet someone who is your friend's friend's friend - and they wonder what kind of person you are? a clubber? a serious dancer? will they enjoy the night drinking with you or is it going to be an intellectual philosophical type of evening that will go into the next morning in discourse of hume kafka and maoism? and by all of that i mean, they check out how you are dressed. well that moment occurred (more than once on this night) and the eyes travelled up and down. then they, the eyes, whatever color they were, whatever makeup was decorating their ambience, saw my sandals. my shoresh (teva-like), outdoorsy, kibutz/moshav-like, definitely not tel aviv-clubbing, sandals. and the verdict was passed.
i was quite amused, quite a few times (this happened on more than one occasion) .
on my defense - i didn't know we were going to a club. i mean, i would have at least worn socks! (not with sandals.. com'on!)
this lady really did get us through the line in no time. she is a mini celeb i was told, participated in israel's equivalence of the amazing race. many people came up to her and chatted with her through the night. the girls had very positive things to say about her afterwards, which was nice as usually celebs, or min celebs, really get the run through... she is the one on the right (huh, this is my effort on competing with TMZ!)

can read about them here a bit also (you might have to use google translator...)

some impressions from the club - cool place, though extremely packed and difficult to move around in - hence dance... they put on the black eyed peas tonight's going to be a good night, and as you know, in the song at some point they say 'mazal tov'. in that part, the dj silenced the song and let the entire bar yell in unison - mazel tov! (in american pronounciation rather than israeli mazel vs. mazal). finally, israelis love to clap, and not in order to say thank you at the end (but that also) but rather in the middle of a song to show excitement. so every now and then you would see a bunch of hands go up in the air and clap, clap, clap in rhythm to the song.

clap clap. clap.

hamachon - המכון

so, did you know what the top academic institution to work at, worldwide, is according to the-scientist? so number 1 is in dresden germany (the sister city of coventry...), a place pretty well known - the max planck institute. number 3? university of bristol - the place that right now i feel is my most likely location for next year. cambridge is in the top ten as is the university of toronto! but the second best place in the world? the weitzmann instittuion!!! (hamachon - the institute - is what the cool kids call it...) and i totally see it. its just so nice, so peaceful, i guess the salary is good (well, i know nothing of professor's salaries, but students get paid around 1700 USD per month, tax free and expenses are much lower than say, davis...) there is no undergrads around (that's gotta push it to the top :) ) and hence if there is any teaching, its at the grad level, which typically (at least in physics) means teaching master students. i already wrote a little bit about how green it is and how there are so many fruit trees (all citrus) adorning the institute (i picked lemons the other day, man, they smelled soooo sweet! i love lemons. first tree i plant in my yard.). on top of that the buildings are modern but a bit warm, some are brick-laced, especially those that are more social sciences (archaeology...), lots of statues, lots of open grassy areas. three decent, quite decent cafeterias - one meat, two milk/fish - kosher reasons, one restaurant/coffee place which is very good... its a really nice place.


also the dynamics with people is very different. a really simple example. uzy' wife's mom passed away last tuesday. the funeral was the next day (in jewish tradition you are not supposed to wait with this) and was quite far away (ok, in israel terms. this means two hours north - near the sea of galilee). uzy's group includes four phd students, one masters student, a postdoc from switzerland and myself. we all went to the funeral. all of us.

we made it a bit more of a day, did very little sight seeing, a short hike to a spring and made tea there - hence the picture. but still, that's pretty unique situation. i mean in the states, i didn't even know for a while of deaths in my advisor's family. those intra-personal distances in israel, if they exist at all, are very short...

from left to right, rami, yehonatan, me, idan, amit, fabien, amit