Town of trees, and potholes

Last weekend I drove a 10-foot rental truck carrying all of my belongings from Pasadena, MD to Ann Arbor, MI. This was my first "serious housing move" since I was bringing large unwieldy furniture to an apartment I'll have all to myself. The drive was uneventful except for a nasty thunderstorm in western Pennsylvania. I arrived in the evening after driving all day, and since my apartment wouldn't be ready until the following morning, I stayed in my favorite inn, the Motel 6 on the outskirts of town. That night I found that Chipotle had opened a store in downtown, which was not there three years ago! This was a bittersweet find, however, because I have fond memories of stuffing myself with "Giant" burritos from the famous BTB (formerly Big Ten Burrito, sued for copyright infringement), an Ann Arbor icon. Fortunately the burrito market here is substantial enough that BTB remains in business.

The next day I took advantage of the four-day truck rental period to drive to Target to buy miscellaneous household items. There are some things you take for granted and are slightly taken aback when they're not there in your new apartment. Toilet paper, shower curtain, and dishwashing soap come to mind. In the afternoon the new MSTP fellows met together for the first time. The main purpose of this meeting was to inform us that as first-year MSTPers we were responsible for performing a skit at the upcoming MSTP retreat. This would be our only formal commitment for the first week, during which we were receiving $500, so apparently they want a very funny skit.

On Wednesday we had another MSTP social at Dominick's pizza restaurant. There I learned that the state of the roads around Ann Arbor is a hot issue, which I was encouraged to hear after a bone-rattling ride the day before. The nicest cycling road in town, Huron River Drive, is nearly unrideable, and repairs are way behind schedule due to town and state budget shortfalls. Ann Arbor cyclists are taking matters into their own hands, working to raise funds themselves to pay the construction crews. The hope is that they'll start repaving in a few months.

Here are a few pictures from my new apartment, located in the "White Coat Ghetto" a short walk across the Huron River from the Michigan Medical Center.

I'm in the basement, so the view I have from one small window is obscured by the big bush on the left. It is a little cooler down here though.

What's behind door number 6? The suspense is killing me.

Already busy with logistical items.
Bicycle workshop.
The "den."
The kitchen, with tiny but mighty oven and spectacular knife set. (Not shown: four beautiful new wine glasses)
The kitchen table. A real newspaper, other than the Ann Arbor 3-page biweekly less-than-rag, would be great but delivery of the NYTimes is very expensive.

This afternoon Nobel Laureate (Chemistry) Ada Yonath is speaking here. She's worked on the structure of the ribosome. Should be an awesome talk!

Pilgrimage to Napa Valley

I'm currently visiting my dad in Sacramento, California for a couple weeks and yesterday I made a pilgrimage to the wine capital of the United States, Napa Valley. To get in the mood I started the day with a visit to the Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine Science at the University of California Davis. Robert Mondavi was largely responsible for dissemination of Napa Valley wines around the world and passed away two years ago. On the inside, the Mondavi Institute looks like any other laboratory building for biology or chemistry, with labs full of scientists in white coats holding pipettes at long benches covered by reagent bottles and fancy equipment. The labs are connected by boring white hallways lined with scientific posters. The only way you would know it's a Food and Wine Institute is by reading the names of the labs (might say "Sierra Nevada Brewing Laboratory"), by finding the usual waiting room news mags replaced by Wine Spectator and The California Dairy Dispatch, or by noticing the abnormally large number of offices with signs saying "Closed from 12 to 1 for lunch." On the ground floor there was a wine marketing conference going on. As I walked by I heard the presenter insist that you might really like your dog, but it doesn't belong on your wine label.

From Davis it was about an hour drive to Napa; the town didn't look too exciting so I headed up the Silverado Trail through the heart of the valley. Just about every acre of land was covered in grapes. Napa Valley is a good place to grow wine grapes due to its unique geography and climate. In some spots the soil contains volcanic lava, and in others it contains maritime sediments from when the San Pablo Bay reached into the valley. Thin and rocky soils cover the hillsides, which decrease overall yield but lead to grapes with concentrated flavors and sugars. Napa Valley's climate isn't too cold or hot, and it has a long growing season with warm sunny days and cool nights, allowing the grapes to ripen slowly over time.

I stopped at the Honig Winery in the Rutherford American Viticultural Area. I had read that Rutherford soil is a unique combination of gravel, sand, loam, and volcanic deposits that provides especially good conditions for Cabernet Sauvignon. I tasted four wines--first a Sauvignon Blanc in which some of the grapes had been left in contact with the skins for a few hours before pressing, presumably enhancing a grapefruit flavor. The second was a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon with grapes from the Honig vineyard that had been aged in American oak for 18 months. Third was a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon with grapes from a nearby vineyard that was aged in French oak. Last was a late harvest dessert wine made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes that were infected with Botrytis fungus, which dehydrated the grapes and concentrated the sugars. All the wines were good but at $40 to $75 per bottle they were outside my budget.

I finished off the day with a very hot but enjoyable walk on a trail up Cold Canyon near Lake Berryessa.

Today Alex and I went sailing on Lake Natoma near Sacramento, reviving an old hobby of mine. As I was reviewing sailing terms and techniques, I was reminded of the various points of sail, the possible orientations of a sailboat relative to the wind direction. Sailboats can't sail directly into the wind, but they can sail about 35 degrees to either side, called "close hauled." If the wind direction is perpendicular to the sailboat, that's called a "reach," and if the wind is coming from behind the boat, that's a "run." What is the fastest point of sail? At first it seems obvious that a run would be fastest--that's when the wind is squarely hitting your sails from behind. But the fastest you can go on a run is the speed of the wind. In fact, the fastest point of sail is usually a broad reach. This can be explained by considering two points. First, for all points of sail except a run, forward movement is caused by sails acting as airfoils, like airplane wings generating forward lift. Second, the wind direction experienced aboard a moving sailboat, the apparent wind, is different than the wind experience by a stationary object, the true wind.

Let's say you're on a broad reach, with the wind coming over the corner of the stern at a 135 degree angle to the direction the boat is pointed. The wind will flow over the sails and accelerate the boat forward. As the boat accelerates, the apparent wind direction shifts forward. It's the same thing that happens when you're driving in a car on a rainy day and the rain is pelting your windshield from ahead. When you get out of the car though, the rain is falling vertically.

When the boat has accelerated to the point at which the apparent wind is 45 degrees off the direction of travel, a comfortable close haul for most boats, the boat is going 1.41 times the speed of the true wind. Racing boats that can sail closer to the wind than 45 degrees can travel significantly faster--at 29 degrees off the apparent wind, the boat is going twice as fast as the true wind.

I found this wikipedia page helpful for visualizing with vector diagrams.

According to Wikipedia, "in 2009 the world land speed record for a wind powered vehicle was set by a sand yacht sailing at about 3 times the speed of the wind."

Greatest Survival Stories

I recently read South by Ernest Shackleton, an incredible story of survival in the Antarctic. In 1914 Shackleton and a team of 28 scientists and sailors embarked on an expedition to cross Antarctica, which Shackleton judged as the last important polar mission after Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole in 1912. Their boat, the Endurance, became trapped in ice in the Weddell Sea, drifted helplessly for months and was finally crushed at 69 degrees latitude, forcing the crew to abandon ship. They drifted further on ice floes for hundreds of miles until their floe broke up beneath them and they scrambled into lifeboats. They landed on mountainous, ice-covered Elephant Island, 550 miles southeast of Cape Horn. From there, Shackleton took a crew of five others in the lifeboat James Caird for a fifteen-day journey to South Georgia. They weren't done once they landed on the south side of the island, however, because the whaling stations were on the north side. After regaining their strength, Shackleton's team walked for 36 sleepless hours over glaciers and through dense fog to the whalers, who would help the expedition rescue the remaining crew on Elephant Island.

Shackleton's story has been billed as the greatest survival story of all time, and I don't doubt it. What makes it so impressive is the length of time spent away from civilization (21 months for those left on Elephant Island) and the harsh conditions endured (hurricane-force winds and blowing snow were common, and temperatures were typically tens of degrees below zero Fahrenheit). What really makes the story, however, are the navigation, leadership, and decision-making skills of Shackleton and his lieutenants. Every member of Shackleton's Weddell Sea Party survived the ordeal, not by luck or fate, but by always keeping their wits and positive attitude despite unimaginable physical challenges.

This got me thinking about whether other survival stories could rival Shackleton's. Here are snippets of a few more incredible tales, most of which have associated books that I intend to read at some point:

1) Joe Simpson's "hop and crawl" back to base camp in the Peruvian Andes, recounted in Touching the Void. Simpson broke his leg descending from the nearly 21,000 foot Siula Grande. His partner Simon Yates proceeded to belay Simpson down the mountain, but Simpson went over a cliff and Yates was forced to cut the three-hundred foot rope separating the pair. Simpson fell into a crevasse and was presumed dead by Yates. Miraculously, however, Simpson survived by landing on an ice shelf and over three days struggled back to base camp.

2) Alexander Selkirk survived for four years on the Juan Fernández islands off the coast of Chile. He was left there in 1704 by his boss Thomas Stradling after he starting causing trouble on their ship Cinque Ports. Selkirk's story was the likely inspiration for Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which I also recently read.

3) Antarctica is not surprisingly a survival adventure hotspot. In 1911, a few years before Shackleton's cross-Antarctica attempt, Douglas Mawson and two colleagues Xavier Mertz and Belgrave Ninnis were sledding over the icy continent when Ninnis along with most of the group's provisions and dogs fell through into a huge crevasse, killing all but one dog that managed to hang on to a shelf 50 m down. Mawson and Mertz continued back to their base, eating dog meat and liver to survive. Mertz went crazy, fell into a coma, and died. Mawson made it back to the base to find that their ship had departed hours before, forcing him and a few companions left behind to spend the winter in the Antarctic. The experience is recounted in Mawson's Home of the Blizzard.

4) In 1971 Juliane Koepcke was aboard a flight from Lima, Peru to Pucallpa in the Amazon rainforest. The plane encountered a storm and a fuel tank was hit by a bolt of lightning, tearing the right wing off the plane. Ninety one people on the plane were killed except Koepcke, who was somehow ejected from the plane as it broke up 2 miles over the forest canopy. Still sitting in her row of seats, she spun through the air like a helicopter blade and suffered only minor injuries upon landing. She walked down crocodile and piranha-infested streams for 10 days, finally being rescued by Peruvian lumberjacks. Koepcke's story has been made into two films including Werner Herzog's Wings of Hope.

5) The following year another plane crash miracle happened in the Andes. A flight carrying 45 rugby team members crashed in the mountains when a strong headwind and clouds caused the pilot to miscalculate his position. Twenty-seven people survived, but the search for the white plane in white snow was called off after eleven days, as the survivors heard on a radio. There were no animals or vegetation on the mountain, so after the few chocolate bars they had were gone, the only option was to eat flesh from those killed in the crash. Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa hiked for 12 days across the mountains to alert a Chilean cowboy. Fourteen remaining survivors at the crash site were rescued by helicopter, two and half months after the crash. Alive: The story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read tells the story. In 2006 Nando Parrado published his personal account Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home.

Interesting that all of these occur in the southern hemisphere and 4 out of 5 in South America. Anyway, some exciting and inspiring reading material for the next few months.

Europe Favorites

Out of approximately 1600 total pictures taken during my trip to Europe with sister Liz, here are some of my favorites.

This is the center of the 1992 Olympics complex in Barcelona, on the hill of Montjuïc. On the left is the Montjuïc Telecommunications Tower, designed by Santiago Calatrava to represent a kneeling figure making an offering. The central vertical needle casts a shadow on the brick plaza below and can be used as a sundial of sorts.














Bicycling along the Mediterranean in Barcelona was definitely a highlight of the trip. This was my first time riding on a tandem bike. Liz and I got the hang of it right away. The person in front stirring has to be cognizant of the larger turning radius and greater distance required for braking. The person in back just has to trust the person in front because she has no control whatsoever. Pedaling together at the same cadence is a minor incovenience.















Gaudi's Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona is one of my favorite works of architecture. Construction was begun in 1882 and is expected to be completed in 2026. The magnificent towers and facades are unlike any other church I've seen. While Liz and I decided not to pay the entry fee, we spent a good amount of time looking at the Passion facade, which features Jesus crucified on an I-beam (not shown).





















This is the Pont d'Avignon in southern France, from the popular nursery rhyme "Sur le Pont d'Avignon." The bridge over the Rhône river was constructed in the 12th century but took a beating from floods and only four arches out of the original 22 remain today. According to the song people danced on top of the bridge, which I could definitely see possible on a warm pleasant summer evening such as the one of our visit.

Pardon me for liking bridges, but this is not a conventional bridge--it's the Pont du Gard and part of a Roman aqueduct 50 km long near Nîmes, France. The downward slope of the aqueduct was just 0.4%, meaning in descended only 12 meters along its entire length. Although it's a profoundly beautiful structure, it was rationally constructed with one specific funtion: carry water from point A to point B.














I'm not much of a beach person, but this is the kind of beach I like (it would be even better without all the other people). This is Calanque d'En-Vau near Cassis in the south of France. The water was blue and chilly, there were big cliffs all around, and you had to hike 1.5 hours, or kayak, to get there...perfect.
















This picture was taken during our hike in the Apuan Alps in Italy, not too far from Pisa.














Florence was probably our favorite city. It has some of the finest art in the world (Michelangelo's David is only the start), and a view of the city at sunset from Piazza Michelangelo is awe-inspiring.






















Venice is swarming with tourists and prices are outrageous, but it's also sinking and turned out to be a must-see for us on this trip. Cities on a body of water, whether it be a river or the ocean, have a worldly and often romantic ambiance, and Venice takes this to the next level. There's no other place in the world where the ambulances are boats.














This is a very nice mosaic, 2000 years old, from Pompeii. It's one thing to see ancient temples and stadiums. In Pompeii, one has the opportunity to see well-preserved houses, restaurants, baths, and a brothel, to actually go back in time and imagine oneself as a Roman.















This is the Roman Forum, the main marketplace in the ancient city. The best preserved buildings here are the ones that were lucky enough to be converted into churches. I like this picture because it made me imagine what a large modern city, like New York, would look like if it was abandoned, looted, and left to the elements for 2,000 years. I think there'd be a lot more asphalt and concrete and fewer elegant columns. By the way, the white building in the background of this photo is the magnificent monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of unified Italy.














The Pantheon in Rome was another of our favorite architectural wonders. It is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.















This is my sister Liz sitting on the face of a 3,000-year-old statue of Dionysus on the Greek island of Naxos.














The Parthenon, taken from nearby Hill of the Muses. I always find it fascinating that the Greek style of architecture is essentially the same we use today for any important building.

Vexillology

With the United States' nail-biting World Cup victory over Algeria, capped by a goal in the 91st minute, it feels great to be an American today. Watching the World Cup has rekindled in me an interest in world flags, the study of which is called vexillology. A country's flag is its most important visual symbol in the media, international diplomacy, war, and sports competitions. While every country is entitled to choose whatever colors and images they want for their flag, it's obvious to me that some flags are better than others.

Here is the Saudi Arabia flag.
This is a poor flag because it has writing on it. Flags should be comprehensible by all people and writing in any language excludes those who are unfamiliar with the language. To make matters worse, there's a sword underneath the writing and so for all non-Arabic speakers know, the writing says "Saudi Arabia kills all non-Muslims." In fact, the inscription reads "There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God."

Here is one of my favorite flags.
The Japanese flag portrays the rising sun, an incredibly powerful symbol. It contains just two colors and is simple enough for a child to recall and draw it. The color red has been repeatedly associated with victory in human psychology, and so is a good choice to include in a national flag. Another benefit of its simplicity is that it can be recognized even when partially unfurled on a calm day.

Unfortunately the New Zealand flag is pathetic.
You never want the flag of another sovereign nation in the upper left-hand corner of your flag. There is a long-stading movement to replace this flag, but nothing seems to ever come of it.

I also take issue with the Canadian flag.
Sure, it's simple, uses two colors, and there's a lot of winning red there. But a maple leaf? It's hardly a symbol of a thriving, powerful democracy.

I actually don't think the Israeli flag is all that bad.
The star of David is a simple and unique symbol of Israel's establishment as a Jewish state, and with the blue stripes the flag looks like a Jewish tallit.

Complicated coats of arms and multi-colored patterns are definitely flag no-nos, such as in the flags of Serbia
and Turkmenistan.

And now for the United States flag.
The U.S. flag is really a fantastic flag. It is extremely unique and far from the boring tri-colors of European nations like France, Italy, and Germany. In some ways there's a lot going on, with 13 stripes representing 13 colonies and 50 stars for 50 states, but really there are just two symbols repeated 13 and 50 times. There's no problem with a partially unfurled U.S. flag because even the 13 red and white stripes are enough to identify it.

Interesting fact: What is the only world country not to have a rectangular flag?


Nepal.

Backpacking in Europe, Part II

Highlights from second half of backpacking trip in Europe with my sister Liz:

Florence, Italy:

• Ufizzi Gallery, where we saw Francesca's Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Leonardo's Annunciation, Titian's Venus of Urbino, and Rembrandt's self portraits
• Beautiful view of the city with sunset from Piazza Michelangelo
• Michelangelo's David sculpture in the Accademia
• Second largest synagogue in the world, built in the late 1800s. It has a magnificent copper dome that holds its own against the Duomo. We received an excellent tour and learned how the synagogue was used as a garage by the Nazis and was severely damaged in a 1966 flood, which destroyed many sacred Torah texts.
• Two walking tours of town (free with stay at our hostel) that included stops at Palazzo Vecchio (city hall) and Palazzos Medici and Strozzi, home of rival wealthy families
  
• Tasty wine at Le Volpi e l'Uva
• Best meal of the trip at a restaurant showed to us by an American woman who had lived in Florence. There was no set menu, and we were unsure how much the meal would cost, so we explained that we just wanted 20 euros worth per person. That got us prosciutto with melon appetizer, hearty bean soup, and four different types of pasta including delicious cheese ravioli. Did I mention unlimited red wine?

Venice, Italy

• Stepping outside the train station, hearing a siren, and seeing an ambulance speed past. Except the ambulance was a boat. Soon we saw police-boats and fire-boats.
• Visiting Piazza San Marco for as little time as possible due to extreme numbers of tourists.
• Taking tour of Doge's Palace, which rivals Versailles in its elaborate gold decorations, colorful frescos and columned facade.
• Going to top of the belltower to get panaromic view of the city.
• Walking through town with British exchange student Alex, who took us to see the Jewish ghetto. Synagogues were identifiable only by a pattern of five horizontal windows.
• Running on La Giudecca, dodging drunk ladies and hitting dead ends at dirty dark alleys and hotel courtyards equally often.

All night train ride from Venice to Naples.

Naples, Italy

• Stepping of the train to unbearable heat and horrible traffic. We found our hostel on a street where men were selling stolen goods and in the process of getting busted by police as we arrived.
• Nearly getting run over several times by reckless moped drivers.
• Eating pizza at its birthplace.
  
• Running in a hilltop park, only refuge from the madness on the streets.
• Taking a bus to and then hiking the last fifteen minutes to the rim of Mt. Vesuvius. It looks pretty tame now. Had excellent views of the city and Bay of Naples.
• Spending the afternoon strolling around Pompeii in intense heat. We saw temples, baths, marketplaces, private homes, a theater, a stadium, and a brothel. There were piles of artifacts that had just been thrown into sheds; archaeologists didn't know what to do with it all.

Rome, Italy

• Taking tour of the Colosseum, site of thousands of gladiator battles and man vs. beast contests. Beneath the sandy stage we saw ruins of the complicated trap door network used to add and take away props.
• Walking through the Roman forum, the center marketplace of ancient Rome. The best preserved ruins had been converted into churches.
• Seeing the Palatino, the living quarters of the Roman emperor. He had his own personal stadium where he could watch gladiator fights and plays.
• Fontana di Trevi, where 3000 euros are thrown away every day. Liz and I contributed 2 cents.
  
• Lots and lots of churches. Can't beat St. Peter's Cathedral for size, though.
• Spending the better part of a day at the Vatican Museum, where we saw the Apollo Belvedere, Laocoon, Leonardo's St. Jerome, Raphael's School of Athens and Disputa, and some incredible tapestries including one of Jesus's resurrection.

We flew from Rome to Athens, then took a ferry to the island of Naxos, the largest in the Cyclades group.

Naxos

• Hanging out on the beach for a day. Good to relax after non-stop traveling for a month. The water was pleasantly warm.
• Renting a car and driving around the northern half of the island. We saw many Greek ruins older than those in Athens, including the Temple of Demeter (6th century B.C.) and a statue of Dionysus. We climbed up to the cave of Zas where Zeus was born. In the tiny village of Apollon we watched the U.S. come back from 2-0 to tie Slovenia! Our drive down the west coast cliffs of the island as the sun set was incredible.
• I rented a bike and retraced our route in the car the day before. I stopped for lunch in the village of Koronos, where a friendly cafe owner was very excited I was American. The cycle was challenging but rewarding.

Athens

• We saw the main sights on the Acropolis including the Parthenon and the Erechtheum. We also saw the Temple of Zeus, of which only a handful of columns remain, and Hadrian's Arch.
• We visited the Greek parliament building and saw the changing of the guard. Also took a stroll through the city gardens.

More later, pictures and further comments.

Backpacking in Europe: Part I

My sister Liz and I are currently backpacking in Europe. We arrived in Barcelona, Spain on May 18 and are departing from Athens, Greece on June 21. Here are highlights of our tour so far:

Barcelona:

• Tandem bicycle ride along the Mediterranean Sea.
• Visiting Olympic Park and Botanical Gardens
• Eating tapas, drinking sangria
• Walking through twisting streets of old city
• Seeing Gaudi's Sagrada Familia basilica
• Happening across the Madrid Fan Zone for a championsip soccer match being played in Barcelona. Thousands of fans dressed in red and white striped jerseys partying in the afternoon in preparation for a 9:30 pm match, creating a Where's Waldo-type scene.
• Searching for the Barcelona fan zone.
• Discovering the Barcelona fan zone is in fact the Sevilla fan zone, as Barcelona was chosen as a neutral site for the Sevilla-Madrid match.
• Watching the soccer match in a bar called The Obama, complete with a life size statue of the American president.

France/Provence

• Visiting Chateau d'If, prison on an island off the coast of Marseilles and setting for Alexander Dumas's Count of Montecristo.
• Strolling through open air markets and munching on delicious fresh fruit and veggies, croissants, pain au chocolat, warm baguettes, amazing cheeses.
• Spending three nights in Cassis, resort town in Provence. We went hiking on cliffside tracks and spent the day on a beach that required a challenging walk to get to (this didn't stop the French, as the beach was packed).
• Driving through cute French towns with friends Charlotte and Stephan.
• Visiting Pont du Gard (Roman aqueduct) and a couple Roman stadiums. In one stadium we attended a bullfight, in the Spanish style ending in the killing of the bull.
• Swimming in the Mediterranean and watching kite surfers.

Italy

• Staying in Riomaggiore, one of five villages in the Cinque Terre.
• Hiking the breathtaking coastal track between the villages of the Cinque Terre.
• Going on a couple runs on very steep tracks in the Cinque Terre.
• Kayaking on the Mediterranean, during fairly rough seas.
• Eating focacia with pesto and mozzarella
• Cooking our own pasta with walnut sauce (decent).
• Strolling through non-tourist towns of La Spezia and Massa.
• Three day walk with challenging ascents in the Apuan Alps from Resceto to Castelpoggio. These mountains are known for marble mining, which we witnessed in abundance. Marble for Michelangelo's David was mined here. Mining didn't ruin the walk, as we had some tremendous vistas and were led for an hour by an Italian couple who showed us trenches used by soldiers in WWI and pointed out native flora. We were treated well in two rifugios, where we received filling and cheap meals and had comfortable beds to sleep in.
• Walking around the Leaning Tower of Pisa and taking the obligatory tourist pictures, followed by gourmet gelato.
• Spending the day at il Ciocco, an Italian resort where Liz's friend Nick is working. We were treated like kings to free four-course meals and spent hours lounging by the pool.

We arrived today in Florence and walked a bit around the Duomo, a massive Gothic cathedral. We plan to spend a couple days here and then travel to Venice, Rome, Naples, and a Greek island. It has been a very epic trip so far and I'm super excited to begin the art history portion of our tour.