Olympics!

Fish Update: Last night I found one lone fry swimming around in the top. I guess I could live with one more fish, assuming he manages to make it to adulthood. Of course there's no guarantee I don't have more somewhere in the tank (they really are tiny) but at least the dozens I had last week are gone.

Sports: I really like watching the Olympics. As time goes on, I become more interested in watching sports, in general. If done well, it is real-life drama. I realize a lot of the 'drama' aspect relies on the network/sportscasters, but it can actually be gripping. A particularly good match never fails to capture my complete attention even when I have no emotional connection to either team.

Nothing made the reliance on the network presentation of games more clear to me than the coverage of the women's discus that was on primetime NBC last night. In the finals, each woman had six or so rounds to throw the discus. There were probably somewhere between 6-12 women competing.
I was shown three women throw a discuss five times all together, to somehow represent the 30-70 discus throws for the gold-medal round. One of the throws was shown a second time. There was zero drama, zero anticipation, just a narration of "Here is the representative from America throwing in Round 1. 210 feet, that's not bad. Okay, now in Round 3 the Russian contender's shot goes for 206, short of her standard. Oh look! Round 6, and this is the final throw of the competition. If [Smith] can get this one she's getting the gold. Annnnd, she has it!"

Thanks, NBC.
That is not how sports should be covered. I know there's already a lot of controversy about what sports 'deserve' to be shown in the prime-time coverage, but I feel that if you're going to bother giving these women a slot in the 9 o'clock hour, you might as well give them more than two minutes clearly intended to give a breather for the audience between men's sprinting qualifying rounds.

However, best thing about the Olympics: Volleyball.
I'm not sure that volleyball is ever shown on TV otherwise, and I love watching it. I prefer the beach volleyball, it feels faster paced and requires a different kind (not more, and not less) of teamwork than the indoor six-person teams. And I think it's funny, but volleyball is one of those sports I think is better when women play it, which is hard to find---again---on primetime sports coverage. Men's volleyball is great to watch too, don't get me wrong, but there's a different dynamic when the women pairs play.

I've been enjoying the American Football preseason (that's NFL), too; but rugby??? where is rugby? I miss it.

Scots in DC

Last weekend I met up with my next-door neighbor from Edinburgh (who is American) and two Scots, who were all visiting DC. It was really nice to see them all, but also amusing to see the flip side of my situation in Edinburgh.

Though the week before was some 10 degrees warmer and much more humid, none of them cared for the DC weather at all. I thought it was pleasant, mid-80's and fairly dry considering the season. Boston and Scotland are both much cooler, though I feel Boston can't be much less humid.

Food. We spent a lot of time finding and eating American food. the BBQ pork sandwiches we had downtown were delicious, as was the Mexican we had for dinner. Apparently they've never had Mexican before! (Although after my experience with the Mexican place is Keswick, I can't blame them...) So I got to explain items like guacamole, enchiladas, and why refried beans look the way they do.
Also: these Scots love IHOP. Amazing!

They were pleasantly surprised to find that I could understand what they were saying without any problem. Most people they talked to in America could hardly understand a word, but it sounded perfectly natural to me, a clean---not cluttered---accent.

One of the Scots disappeared in the afternoon to watch the 'football' (soccer) on TV. Priorities.

Edinburgh Capitals

In Condensed Matter yesterday we watched a very informative video, a clip from one of those Pop Science TV programs. Stuff Blowing Up
Sometimes it's nice to know that professors can get just as bored as students, and solve it in the same way--namely, surfing the internet for mindless junk.


Today I watched the end of a British Hockey League game. I think it was Coventry vs. Nottingham.
Who knew they followed hockey here.
To be fair, they don't actually. I guess nothing else was on for the sports channel to play.
Turns out Coventry plays Edinburgh tomorrow. Hrm. Edinburgh has an ice hockey team?
Yes, it does.

Take a look at the other teams in the league, a pretty random assortment, a lot of little cities, then there's Manchester and Belfast.

Also, Edinburgh plays in an ice rink right next to the rugby stadium. I've passed by the skating rink, it's small and looks more like a bowling alley---yet the website claims it's Olympic size and holds 3500 people.

Enough about ice hockey. Point is, it has even smaller following than basketball, which is even worse off than American football.

Amendments

So I guess you shouldn't believe everything you read on my blog.

I did a little research just now about Shrove Tuesday, because it seemed too similar not to be related to Lent... and of course it's the British equivalent of Mardi Gras. Now it's just a very secularised holiday of pancakes. Similarly you could say Mardi Gras festivals in New Orleans bear little as the day before Ash Wednesday.

---
Moving on. Football:

Also today I watched the Super Bowl. Because it was shown on one of the BBC channels, I could stream the entire thing legally, at high quality. As a government-funded institution, BBC channels don't have any commercials ('adverts'). When the US side took a commercial break, they cut back to three sports commentators to explain the game to British viewers. Two were British, and at least one was a rugby commentator; he was the one asking questions like "I don't understand, why did the Giants just do that?" The third was, I believe, once an NFL player himself and he did most of the explaining, though he had the unenviable task of debunking Rugby Guy's babble. I have the distinct feeling he wasn't affiliated with the BBC at all, just some NFL guy they hired for the event.

The explanations the less-confused BBC sports guy gave were pretty bad, but not nearly as confusing as those found on the BBC American Football page.
Highlights include:
-"The attacking team, or offence, needs to move the ball forward in chunks of at least 10 yards, which is why the pitch has yardage markings."
-"[Plays] are the complicated movements involving all 11 players teams use to move the ball downfield."
-"Plays are called by the head coach or quarterback, who is the attacking lynchpin of any team." (The attacking what?)
-I might as well have quoted the whole page. Go read it if you're interested, it's pretty short.

The three BBC sports guys were pretty annoying, I was glad to skip through their talking bits, and the 4.5 hour feed only took me about 2 hours to get through. During the actual gameplay the announcers were the same NFL guys you all had in the States, what a blessing.

I've never been one of those people who watched the Super Bowl just for the commercials, but I must say it was weird not to have them.

It also surprised me that even though I knew the final score, and thus could deduce what would happen for each drive, more or less, I was still pretty emotionally invested in the game. I think it's hard not to be with a game that was close. I knew the Giants would score a touchdown before the end of the game but I was still mentally pushing them through their two-minute drill. Intense.
Also: Tom Petty :)

Drainage.

I did not watch the Superbowl last night.
Kickoff, though a reasonable time for all time zones in America, was at 11:30 last night. I don't know how long the game went, but I imagine I would have been up until about 4 last night, if not later. And I know I would not have been able to watch only part.

I might see if I can find some legal recording online, because it sounds like the game was better than most Superbowls. Also, Tom Petty?


Every time it rains here I am re-impressed with the drainage systems. Walking in the rain, there are of course puddles and sheets of water flowing down the street. But an hour or two after the rain stops, even the low-lying puddles tend to disappear. It is usually wet walking after the rain, but in the way a misted sponge is wet, never slick or splashy. Maybe cobbled streets help in this? Either way, whoever designed the drainage here deserves a posthumous award.

Four Score and Seven Years Ago... oh sorry, wrong one.

Somehow I thought that today's big sporting event would be the Super Bowl, everywhere, even Scotland. Although there was some dialogue in the dining hall today at lunch about American football which, as such conversation seem to do, degenerated into commenting on the slowness/lack of toughness of the game, mostly it's been ignored. As far as I can tell.

I can't remark on the popularity of the Superbowl in other years, but I have the feeling that people would care more if not for another sporting event... the Six Nations rugby games, a tournament between Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, France, and Italy that began yesterday (2 Feb.) to March 15, possibly longer. Today was the match between Scotland and France, and was actually hosted in Edinburgh, so of course the students were more interested in that. (Scotland lost to France, 6-27.)

I went out walking today in the early afternoon, the same time that people were going on their way to the stadium. I saw a few people with French flag facepaint and attire, but mostly the sidewalks were dominated by Scots. It's always interesting, most of the Scotsmen go to matches wearing rugby jerseys of their favorite player and a kilt.

However, my mission for the afternoon was to find the memorial to Scottish soldiers in the American Civil War, which I only found out existed a week ago. I decided the third of February is close enough to Lincoln's birthday, on the 12th, so I went. Minimal research was required to discover where it was, the Old Calton Hill Cemetery, which is on the East End of the Princes St area, right by Waverley train station, but getting in proved a little more difficult. Still, I managed all right. The actual cemetery is tiny, with maybe only 100 grave sites, but to be buried in such a prominent location must have been difficult.

The actual statue of Abraham Lincoln was very easy to find; even if I wasn't looking for it, the fact that it was made of much lighter stone than the other markers makes it stand out quite prominently. Apparently it is the only statue of an American president found outside America? Something, anyway. Abraham Lincoln is holding a copy of the Emancipation Proclaimation on a base inscribed with "Education - Emancipation" around it. Seated below is a freed slave, and below him a dedication to the Scottish soldiers who fought inthe Civil War.

I saw it as soon as I entered the cemetery, and pulled out my camera. A woman came in after me, and asked if I wanted her to take my picture. A little surreal!

Some pictures are posted in the photobucket account, see the links to the right.

Fun & Games

Yesterday it dawned on me that the squash courts we have nearby to my dorm are indoors. And squash is kind of like racquetball. Somehow I thought that a squash court was like a tennis court, only smaller.
So now I wonder when I see people carrying tennis rackets, if they're actually squash rackets.

At the Shop we have this really nice boules set. What is boules? (Pronounced "bowls", also something I didn't know.) Turns out it's rather like bocce, with one small wooden ball that the players try to position larger, heavier balls as close to as possible. Oh.

I've also played British Pool a few times here, which is just like Eight Ball in billiards, only instead of solids and stripes the balls are red and yellow, with one black ball. Unfortunately, British pool can only be played in this fashion, or at least there are no where near as many things you can do with fifteen balls in only two colors. I think "pool" and "billiards" both mean the same thing, and the seven different colors, and solids and stripes, make for a lot of nice variations. Pretty much the same thing though.
Also, British pool tables are smaller, with smaller pockets, lighter balls and cue sticks, untapered sides, and slightly different rules. It reminds me like Eight Ball played by Nine Ball rules. At Teviot, one of two student unions, there are about ten British pool tables and two American ones. Unfortunately they only stock the American pool tables to have seven stripes and seven solids, irrespective of the actual numbers of the ball, so some game variations are impossible to play.

On Tuesday night, Physics Society held a Jenga tournament. I had never actually played Jenga before in my life, so the fact I made it into the semifinals (in a field of just over 20 people) is somewhat impressive, I thought.
It might have been the best evening I've had in Scotland. No joke.
Evidence that this Jenga Tournament actually took place can be found in the very few photos I just added to photobucket.

More on London

Oh yeah... Sunday morning we went to the markets in the East End, where bagels (spelled beigels?) could be procured at 20p each. Tasty, cheap, and delicious.

When it began to rain we dashed into a free admission art exhibition entitled "fake plastic love", by Stuart Semple. It was weird, lots of repeated images like Andy Warhol in landscapes inspired by Dali's later works, with modern pop culture icons and vague words in bold colors. A few were easily decrypted, but for the most part Cory and I were completely mystified.

As we left the exhibit, Cory said, "I think rain is the best thing that ever happened to this exhibit."

But don't take my word for it. You can see what we saw, as "Part One" of a two-gallery exhibit, at http://fakeplasticlove.co.uk/
The text after "enter" is what is written on the back of my map, and all eleven paintings can be seen under the "large paintings" tab. Indeed, they were large---bigger than most walls I've ever seen in my life. Some weird stuff.


Also in London yesterday was an NFL game, New York Giants vs. Miami Dolphins. A little bit weird too. As I stood in King's Cross, waiting in the queue to board our train, a lot of NFL jersey -wearing fans passed through in the other direction. The first one I found odd, the rest caused me to remember, "oh yes! That's right, there's American football here today."

Saturday night/Sunday morning, we set our clocks back an hour, so there is currently only a four-hour time difference between GMT and the east coast. Amazing how much brighter it was outside at 7:30 this morning!

Autumn in Edinburgh

Last Friday was the second-to-last match of the Rugby World Cup, so I was able to watch the entire Argentina vs. France game for bronze. I think I understood the entire match, which is great for it being only the third or so rugby game I've watched all the way through.

Saturday night was the final, England and South Africa. Walking around the streets in the afternoon was interesting, because many of the native Edinburgers were discussing the upcoming game, wearing their Scotland jerseys, stocking up on lager, etc. As you can imagine, most Scots were rooting for South Africa. But there's also enough English in this city that England flags were everywhere. I wasn't planning on watching the final, but I wound up at one of the pubs frequented by students where a huge crowd had amassed. The pub itself is small, but it has a large outdoor area with about forty picnic tables, all completely full of students, then a solid wall of extremely tall guys standing up at the edge. I stood behind a few of these men, and so could see about 10% of the large projection screen. Not very good for following the match.
South Africa won, to the chagrin of the England supporters, and the delight of everyone else. As soon as the match finished, the previously-empty sidewalks were flooded with fans, including my group. Not twenty seconds later, the sound of police and ambulance sirens drowned out the cheering. Not surprised that a rugby match involving England would end in violence.

I think the World Series is going on at home? I only hear vague snippets, mostly overhearing American students talking about it. With the rugby gone, I'm not sure what sport will fill the void. Football (soccer), I guess.

In the past week the weather has changed very suddenly. Trees have turned golden and now the sidewalks are full of crunchy leaves. The early mornings (anything before sunrise which is at about 8 AM) have temperatures hovering just above freezing. It's not the temperatures that are bad, really, it's the wind... Edinburgh has the fortunate nickname "The Windy City", and it is very true.
At the same time, the gardens I pass by on the way to KB are even more colorful than before. A lot of roses, especially, and some gardenias, hydrangeas, some flowering trees that look like azaleas... beautiful!

Also on Saturday I poked around the Archaeology section of the National Museum of Scotland, about a fifteen-minute walk from home. The museum is split into two huge buildings, and probably takes over a day to see everything---something I would like to do eventually, and it is entirely free, so. The Archaeology was extremely interesting, so even if I didn't have to write a short paper on my findings, I would still have enjoyed it. All the artefacts in the collection are from Scottish sites. In Britain, anything dug up must be reported to a government branch dedicated to preserving the cultural and material history, and artefacts belong to the nation as a whole (or maybe the Queen? not sure). A council decides where the artefacts should go after they are analyzed---a local, regional, educational, or national museum, usually, so that they are completely accessible to the public. As a result, the collections of Scottish archaeological finds are impressive, and this exhibit was very well done.

I feel that my Archaeology of Scotland class is teaching me more about Scotland's geography and climate than I would have otherwise learned. I know all about how the Ice Age shaped the Highlands, where waterways are, the quality of the soil in different places. Completely impractical knowledge for me, but fascinating.

Tour Guide

This weekend my friend Sarah, who is also American, was visited by her cousin, who is English. He had never been to Edinburgh before, so we took him out to see the city, or at least parts we were familiar with.

On Sunday night we wanted to see the Rugby World Cup match between Scotland and Argentina. Of course no one really has a TV--there is a television tax in the UK, and it's cumbersome to begin with--and the TV in the common room was in use for a football match. Where do you go to catch an important sports game? The nearest pub, of course. There is one right across the street from our dorm complex that clearly caters to students, plus it has the biggest TV of any of the pubs I've seen yet.

Sadly, Scotland lost by the margin of one score (19-13, a try is 5 and a successful dropkick is another 2, to make it a 20-19 win), but I still very much enjoyed the game. After it ended the place cleared out but we stayed on a little, and were fortunate enough to catch an American football game! SD Chargers and Denver Broncos, teams I don't really care about, but it was still amazing to see an NFL feed from CBS played on Sky Sports.

Apparently Edinburgh has an American football team, comprised of guys from all the city's universities, U. Edinburgh, Heriot Watt, Napier, possibly one or two others. That's how small the interest is, but I'm still impressed there's enough to create a team.

I also had the opportunity to explain to my guy friends the basic rules of American football using analogies to rugby rules. How cool is that.

Set, and Match.

Last night I went to a Rugby World Cup match here in Edinburgh, at Murrayfield stadium. It was Scotland against Romania, and although the game was boring in that the 42-0 score was overwhelming for the Romanian team the experience was still wonderful. Before I had only seen about one and a half games of rugby, and those were at UVA in Mad Bowl. I'm not saying the UVA teams are bad, but it's not the same as watching a world cup match.

The really amazing thing is how much I understood the game. So much is like american football but at a much better pace. I think I asked three questions the entire 80-minute game, and two were clarification. I'm not saying I understand the finer points of the games, and I definitely don't understand what happens when penalties happen, but it was really good to watch and figure out a game I had explained to me at tea.


Today was my last audition, I think. It was for the uni's "alternative theater", Theatre Paradok. This semester they are performing Durrenmatt's "The Visit" the week of Thanksgiving/one of the last weeks of the term, and they're looking for about ten people to fill in, and possibly double up on, small roles.

I think it was one of my favorite auditions. The small group, about fifteen including the directors, did warm-ups and exercises for about 40 minutes, then they passed out scenes to random pairs or groups, and so we performed for a few minutes then watched other scenes while looking over our next assignments. A lot of fun, very interactive, and at the least I am sold on watching the play two months from now