The Hiker in Kilt

I had my third sailing lesson on the bay today. This time, there was a drizzle as I woke up. I even got wet, just biking out to the aquatic center. The wind was so low that even sailing downwind was challenging. So, it was a good experience. We sailed a lot on the beat and I got a good feeling for how to do that. Today we were practicing beaching. Guess what, once everyone was out in the cove, we practiced beaching - softly - on the beach half of us stranded on on the first day of our class after which we basically spent all morning there. Hey, this time we managed to launch again without problem. Knowing how to go about helped. But even if I had known that during my first class I doubt that would have been enough. The wind was just too strong that time, it was a lost situation.

We then sailed around the little peninsula that houses the yacht club and beached again on the facing beach. Launched again, sailed across the bay on a beam range, into the cove again and docked the boats. I was successful on my third attempt only. There was no wind in the harbor and on the first try I just lost speed completely, about ten yards from the dock. The second time, somebody barred the way for me and I had to turn, go back and tack yet again.

It was very mellow today. Nobody tipped the boat. In fact, it was sort of relaxing, although sometimes I was not quite sure whether I was actually sailing or just drifting. Sometimes, even with a really tight sail I could feel no real traction, but slowly the boat moved in the right direction.

After class, I had to go to the post office to put a letter in registered mail that they wouldn't take on campus. We had brunch at the Café 976, after which we went to Play it Again Sports, the second hand sports equipment store on Garnet. We wanted to look at rollerblades, I found a nice pair, but they didn't have the right size for me. We ended up buying a boogie board though. In the store we met this guy. He has been walking in the memory of his aunt for two years, to raise money for cancer research, or something.

This was all very vague, when we were talking to him and I didn't understand half of what he said. But what I understood was that he had just arrived in California and was going to continue with his walking. First he walked the Appalachian Trail on the East Coast, now he was going to do the Pacific Crest Trail. He did look like a junkie to me at first, especially as he came across as abnormally excited or aroused. He also has a very stout, muscled body, one that tells you you don't wanta mess with this guy. In any case he told us that he liked to tell everybody what he was doing, to spread the word around, because people would call the cops on him all the time, thinking he was dangerous. "Hah, no kidding!", I thought. He also told us, for some reason, that kids used to pick on him when he was young. He told us he had been in the Special Forces and that he had been a firefighter, and he told us he'd served some time in jail. He told us he was divorced, that he had loved his aunt very much and he told us he was gonna go spear-fishing for white sea bass in the afternoon. He didn't tell us about the woman who sent him cookies on the trail, though. But, all this in only five minutes. Americans are very open people ...

Just as we got one block away from the store, after buying our bodyboard, we came across Carlos again. Two policeman in a police car had stopped him at an intersection!

We found out there's a running store in PB, called "Movin' Shoes" and we quickly drove out there to get me a sports top, for once I finally start running again ...

Ben's Farewell

Another party at Pavel's tonight. Pavel is "the other professor" in our bioinformatics group (after my advisor). He has a really nice house on the other side of campus, with wide marble floor salons and high ceilings, large kitchen and nice terrace with pool. In other words, perfect for parties, and tradition is that he throw a party each time a member leaves our group, with lots of wine and catered food. Tonight, Ben was leaving, for Brown University. Ben's a mighty smart guy from MIT who's been doing a post doc with us. He got job offers from virtually everywhere, and he decided to go to Rhode Island, with his wife and brand new tiny little daughter.

The food was excellent, just like we expected. The thing though, when you are invited to a party at your advisor's house, is that people tend to be a little tame and restricted. So, no scandals. And the party had an early end, before eight everyone was rushing to get out before everybody else would ...

Which Wonders of the World?

I remembered this page last night and thought I'd ask C which of these 100 Wonders of the World he covered. He toured the world for almost a year a long time ago, so I figured he would probably have seen the sites I would want to visit in my lifetime.

Here's the sites C has visited:

6. Grand Canyon, U.S.A. (with me last fall!)
9. Bali, Indonesia
34. Borobudur, Indonesia
40. Canals of Venice, Italy (with me)
44. Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
46. Mount Everest, Nepal (didn't climb it of course, but did the Annapurna circle up to first base camp)
52. Prague Old Town, Czech Republic
68. Kremlin, Russia
81. Santorini, Greece
92. Yosemite National Park, U.S.A. (almost lived there for a while)
94. Hermitage Museum, Russia
99. San Fransisco, U.S.A. (many times)

Here are the sites I visited:

6. Grand Canyon, U.S.A. (north rim, last fall)
25. Chichen Itza, Mexico (last summer when in Yucatan)
30. Colosseum of Rome, Italy (Easter trip to Italy, when I was living in France)
32. St. Peter's Basilica, Italy (same Easter trip, we were staying at a guest house in the Vatican)
36. Hong Kong Harbor/Cityscapes, Hong Kong (China) (visit to my brother, October 2002)
37. Sistine Chapel, Italy (again, the Vatican, with my brother)
39. Louvre Museum, France (a few times, I mean, I only lived a few blocks away ...)
40. Canals of Venice, Italy (First time with friends, second time on my Honeymoon!)
41. Versailles, France (visited palace twice, gardens and village a couple more times)
45. Metropolitan Museum, New York, U.S.A. (summer 2001)
52. Prague Old Town, Czech Republic (summer 1997)
56. Chartres Cathedral, France (went down there for a day with my boyfriend, not sure how that came about ...)
60. Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy (only covered half of it before they closed, will have to visit again!)
62. Golden Pavilion, Japan (during my week in Kyoto, 2003)
66. St. Mark's Basilica & Campanile, Venice, Italy (in my first trip there)
67. Florence Cityscape, Italy (still the same Easter trip, best views from Piazzale Michelangelo after visiting Pitti Palace)
73. Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy (same trip, shot load of photos not knowing the camera didn't work ...)
75. Mont St. Michel, Brittany, France (a camping trip)
84. New York Skyline, U.S.A. (I adore NY and I must say I gasped when I first saw the skyline with my own eyes)
86. Eiffel Tower, France (several times, but one of the world's 100 wonders?)
89. British Museum, United Kingdom (try to visit each time I'm through London)
92. Yosemite National Park, U.S.A. (with my hubby, last fall)
95. Chambord Chateau, France (a couple of times; it's big!)

I would say my share of this list was a bit skewed compared to the traveling my husband has done. Granted that when I took him to Paris, I actually deprived him of a visit to two of the sites. A large number of sites are to be found in Italy (7), and in France (6), where I lived for years. Three of the common items on our lists my husband and I visited together. Two more sites on the list (21. Acropolis & its Parthenon and 63. Delphi) would have been on my itinerary two years ago had I taken a trip I was invited to do. I also should have done the Hermitage Museum years ago, it was as good as planned.

Sites I plan to visit very soon are: 7. Machu Pichu, 54. Amalfi Coast and San Fransisco

I also hope in my life time to be able to see: 1. Pyramids of Egypt,
2. Great Wall of China (or more generally to visit China and the Guangxi region) and 3. Taj Mahal. But when, I don't know.

Sailing For the First Time

I started my first sailing class this weekend. We were to learn how to manoeuver the small single-handed Sabot boats, little 8' dinghies with a single main sail. Being nothing of a dare-devil and having only mediocre balance, I was both apprehensive and excited about sailing at all. And the first class on saturday was hard.

First of all we learned to tie a couple of knots: The Figure-Eight knot, a simple stopping knot (and the first climbing knot!), and the Cleat Hitch, to tie our boats up to the dock. We then reviewed the terminology for the different parts of the boat: the hull, mast, main sail, boom, rudder, tiller, traveler, boom-vang, leeboard, main sheet and bow-line, so that we would know how to refer to them. And we learned the basics of the Wind Clock, such as the irons, the beam reach and the runs, and we were taught the principles of tacking.

We were then taken down to the dock where we were shown how to rig the boat, then given each our boat and told to launch off. After that we were basically on our own. The wind was blowing really hard from the dock that day, towards the beach on the other side of the cove. I was impressed at how fast I could sail out of the dock and I dutifully prepared myself for performing my first tack. Now, the first thing to do when tacking is to look and make sure you're not gonna get in somebody elses way! When I came to the flag however where we were supposed to tack, five boats were already clogged up there, blocking the way. I figured I would just sail around them, which I then did, allowing myself ample space before I would try my skills in the art of tacking. But then a motorboat got into my way, I waited for it to pass, but by the time it did, I had almost reached a group of surfers taking a wind surfing class. At this point I could only head back, so now I tacked, found my self upwind and my boat pretty much stopped.

"Now, what do you do?", I thought to myself. I figured that where I was now was probably these irons, they had talked about during our lessons. So far, so good. What they hadn't told us however, was how to get out of these irons once you got there. I looked around me now to see how my class mates were handling the situation. Well, two of them had cap sized close by and were now in the water, clinging to the hull of their boats, a bunch of people still seemed to be stuck by the tack flag, a couple of people seemed to be heading out of the cove, not willfully! And I now saw three boats stranded up on the beach. Which is exactly what was about to happen to me, I now started drifting backwards, I hung on to my main sheet and the tiller and tried to steer away from the beach but in vain, I had come to close to the beach and my leeboard was now up, making me drift whichever way the wind wanted. And now my rudder came off, as my boat hit the ground ...

Well, I got out of the boat, pushed it away from the beach, jumped back in, fixed the rudder ... but before I could put the leeboard down the boat had already drifted in again. I pulled my boat up to another boat that was stranded close by and she offered to push me out but refused to try to launch off herself, saying she had already given up on it. Alright, she now held the boat while I put both the rudder and the leeboard out, then gave me a good push, enough for me almost to take off, but not quite. Instead, I barely made it around a little curve, then stranded again.

About eight people or so were now stranded on the beach where I had landed the first time. Three more people had tipped their boats and were being rescued by our sailing instructors. The rest of my class mates were out of sight. Hey, maybe they just blew out of the cove, into the main bay? I tried once more to get afloat. The wind was really strong and it took all my forces to keep the boat still in the water. I figured the only way would be to point the boat in a direction perpendicular to the wind. I waded the water almost up to my waist and somehow managed to jump into the boat, before I got control of the sail and the tiller though, I had blown inward towards the main beach again, and had very little room for manoeuver this close to the beach. Of course I stranded again.

One of the instructors was now helping my class mates take the sails of their boats down, then tying them up to his motor bows to tow them back. I started doing the same with my boat, when a guy came running towards me, saying he was gonna help. I told him, no, that I was taking the sail down because it was too windy. "No, no, just get in the boat and I'll push you off and you'll catch wind", he said. I was a little suspicious. "Hey, I don't think so. It's way too windy, I'm just struggling to keep the sail from blowing off the boat." "Listen to me, I'm a sailing instructor. I do this for a living", he said, as he pulled the boom out of my hands. "Come on, are you scared?" "Well, yeah! But, as you like", I half heartedly said as I moved to the other side of the boat. As I reached for the rudder inside the boat, I got suddenly hit on my head by the boom. That hurt! That stupid imbecile of a "sailing instructor" had dropped the boom without so much as giving me a warning. I was angry now. "This is not gonna work", I said. "If you really wanta help, then help me take down that sail, now!" "Niah, niah, niah ... ", he mumbled, but he came over and reached for the boom with me. "What is this?", he then said, "this is all different, I don't know how to do this", as he reached for the boom-vang. "Well, get out of my way, then", I said, ready to drop all manners now. He quickly did. As he strided past me, I could suddenly smell the alcohol on his breath. Goodbye, mister know-it-all ...

Thankfully, there was now an instructor in sight. I pulled my boat over to her and she took my sail, packed it up in her motorboat and brought me and my dinghy to dock. I was one of the last people to be towed in, but I learned that I probably got to spend more time in my boat than most of them. "One and a half minutes, is how long I spent in the boat today", one of the older women said. Well, at least I tried to launch the boat again, which was more than most of them did. The instructors said it had been a lost battle from the start, due to the weather conditions. "The worst we've had all summer", they said. They promised next time would be better.

Next time was yesterday, sunday, and it was much better. We learned more about the wind, how to get out of irons, the beat, the close reach, the beam reach and the broad reach. The wind was much calmer, yet ample, and we got some good sailing done. Tacked and jibed and sailed in a triangle, great fun! I even got comfortable sailing in such a tight crowd, but there were 19 of us on only a small patch of water, between the tree flags they had positioned for us. Everything went well, except for a couple of people that cap sized again and a guy who lost his rudder and drifted way out until the instructors realized and went to get him!

I was all excited about my sailing as I biked home to meet up with C. We biked together to the little Olive Café for brunch, then spent the afternoon on the beach. I finished up one more pocket book, Dearest Poona by Karin Fossum, or Calling Out For You, as it's called in english. I don't know if it's because I have been out of reading novels for such a long time, but I get really worked up about every book I read now, and this one was no exception. I felt so for the protagonist and his poor indian bride that I was close to tears many times.

10 minutes from Downtown

Sunday night we suddenly got the absurd idea to go downtown. We wanted to see a movie, there isn't a whole lot to see, I didn't feel like seeing the pirate movie and it was kinda too hot to rent a DVD and watch on the couch. The only option seemed to be the cinemas downtown.

After scooping up our lamb steaks and corn we drove downtown in a lightning. And it only took us ten minutes from when we left the house and until we walked up to the theatre after parking the truck. Downtown was buzzing with live: cars everywhere, tourists, restaurants, late night shops, taxis, bars, the sidewalks filled with scenery, people walking, action.

At the theatre we saw the devil wears Prada with a brilliant Meryl Streep. After movie we went for a drink at La Strada across the street. It suddenly dawned upon how "outlandish" the place felt, sitting there outside on the terrace having a prosecco on a hot summer night in a foreign city. Yet, it's only ten minutes from home and we go there so rarely that it almost feels like going abroad. Well, if it doesn't take more than that we should definitely go there more often.

Which we did again yesterday. Left work early. Went home. Hung out. Then drove downtown for dinner at the indian restaurant Monsoon. Which did in fact send us back home in our thoughts (to our favorite restaurant, the East India Company). In that sense, the meal didn't quite live up to it. But the food we tried was good, even if the servants were kind of frazzled. We ordered one lassi, we got two. We waited a while for our food. When it came, the naan didn't come with it. We started serving ourselves and when I tasted my sauce I was surprised to see that my Moler Murgh had big chunks of mango in it. Even more surprising was to find that C's lamb dish was made of tofu. When I cut up my chicken it came apart like fish. And it was indeed fish. After a while the waitress came with OUR food. What we had on our plates was what the couple sitting across from us had ordered. Only, they had already received their food. "We got it mixed up somehow", the waitress said. "We seem to have made a double order for them." So she took the fish dish and the vegetarian dish away from our table, then appeared again with our bread as she scooped away our plates. We thought our waitress was gonna bring us new plates, since she took away the ones we had already served ourselves on. She didn't though, and as the wait got longer we started nibbling on our bread and I used the naan to dip into my Moler Murgh to try the new sauce. We'd almost finished our naan when we finally got hold of the waitress to remind her about bringing us plates. By that time, I was somehow kind of full. I had of course been drinking the lassi I didn't order and eating my naan bread. The couple sitting next to us got impatient from waiting and they suddenly stood up and walked away. A couple of minutes later the waitress brought the drinks they had ordered and left them at their abandoned table without a clue. All in all the food we got was fine, except that it was cold when they finally brought us plates to eat it off. And I found the naan a bit lacking in flavor. The menu is very enticing. However, we'll probably check out some of the other indian restaurants of San Diego before we'll be back.

After dinner, we wandered into Borders where we spent a while paging through books. I mean, it's not that often we get out of the house to do stuff like that ...

Picnic on the Beach

We had yet another picnic on the beach last night. Went in the water a little bit first, and it was really warm. Then sat on our bamboo mats and snacked on olives, fresh bread with italian dry sausage, french cheese from sheep milk and grapes. Also, galia and cantaloupe melons, pineapple, blueberries, and mango for desert. With this, a cheap bottle of red, which we didn't even finish. Actually, it's strictly forbidden to bring glass on the beach, risking a 50 dollar fine. But, I could see no way around it. Anyway, we have this perfect, padded bag for all our picnic stuff, including the wine bottle. (Thanks, Gogga!) It packs plates, cutlery, wine glasses (plastic), bottle opener, salt and pepper shakers, napkins, cutting board and like I said, a special pocket for the bottle. Nice, uhh?

I like the beach by sunset. It's so peaceful sometimes. And most of the jerks will have left the beach by then too. My beach! Right?

Les Visiteurs ...

The visitors and us wrapped it up with a trip to Coronado Island and a day at Sea World. Also managed to go see a movie at the drive-in in Santee. The beach in Coronado is really nice but Sea World didn't leave me quite as impressed as I expected. The killer whale show Believe, with Shamu and his friends, was good though, although C was a bit annoyed by the religious undertones he sensed in it. The sting rays were pretty cool too. I also like the sea otters, the sharks and the manatees. The rides however were ... well, really crowded for one, and broken for another. I think my little niece was a little let down by that. On the other hand there is something of a rip-off going on in the park with for instance the selling of fry for 5 dollars to feed the sting rays. That makes about 1000 dollars a pound! Seems a bit out of proportion. And this after families had paid an entrance of $54 per person already. Guess they gotta make their money somehow ...

I think our visitors were half glad to leave us finally, after more than ten days of relentless heat. They were not used to that. And neither are we. But we try to live with it.

The Neighbours From Hell

Independence Day brought a few discoveries with it:
1) I'm still as unimpressed with it as I was last year. It's just boozy and rowdy, like some gigantic purposeless college kids party.
2) Try to tell an American that the 4th of July is not celebrated around the world, like for instance in Turkey, and he will be shocked.
3) Our neighbours are much more of a nightmare than I had realized so far. Actually, I'm not even sure if our "transients by the garbage bins" were all that worse. Or the drug addict that was living in our garage last year ... :

12:00 AM - We come home from our drive-in movie. As we step into the house we hear a lot of crying and yelling from a nearby house. A woman keeps screaming "Get OUT of my house! GET out of my house! Get out of my HOUSE!" It echos over the neighbourhood and C decides to walk over to the police squad next street and check if they will do something about this. As he comes back, we hear a man shout "Get the F*** out of her house, man!" There's some banging and then it's quiet!
3:00 AM - Our neighbours to the right (the ones with the fence that's falling apart) receive their first 4th of July guests. They arrive in a car with all the honking and clacking and slamming that goes with and their first comments are about what I great parking space they got this year (yeah, right outside our bedroom window).
3:15 AM - Some more guests arrive to join the first ones that still are standing just by the car, smoking, chatting, drinking, laughing (uhh, right outside our window).
3:30 AM - I turn to C and ask him: "Isn't there a law for this?" He answers, "It's the 4th of July, honey. There's spare earplugs on your nightstand ..."
3:40 AM - I get up and close all our windows facing the north side. I take a glimpse outside and notice that the loudest voice outside belongs to a heavily intoxicated, staggering girl standing outside my window wearing only a skinny bikini. I grab a pair of earplugs and return to bed.
3:45 AM - Even through my earplugs I hear something about going for a dip in the hot tub in the back ... I guess I could have been dreaming.
9:10 AM - I wake up super late. As I take a look outside I notice people arriving at my other neighbour's house (the one to the left who hoses his lawn all day). I think: "I wonder how many cars he's gonna be able to fit on his lawn today?"
10:00 AM - I think our neighbour's party has officially started. They got stacks of beer on their lawn now and between 20 and 30 people are already standing there chatting and drinking. "Hmm, great! I wonder if his party is gonna take place there, right in our driveway?"
10:30 AM - Wow, they're firing up the barbecue already. They've put it in our driveway, so that the smoke blows into our house, instead of over their guests.
11:30 AM - The grill's been going for an hour now, but it looks like they're not grilling anything except for the coals ...
12:00 PM - There's about five ghetto blasters gathered on our neighbours lawn now. They seem to be kind of competing with each other. Or maybe it's just to overpower the noise from the talking and (by now) screaming crowd.
1:00 PM - Some more cars arrive. I don't know where they are going to park. Oh, well, looks like they're gonna park in our driveway. Good thing we got nowhere to go. For the moment. Or until we have to go get P&R from wherever they manage to park their truck in PB. They're carrying some stuff out of one of the trucks though; when I realize it's a drum set my jaw falls off.
1:10 PM - The drum set is up! "Are they really allowed to do that, honey? In OUR driveway?" "Uh", C replies, "I'm sure they're not gonna be loud. They don't want people calling the cops."
1:30 PM - They've been jerking off at the drum set now for a while, and I swear, I'm sure one could almost get used to this. We'll just have to talk louder so that we hear each other ...
1:40 PM - I changed my mind: I can't get used to this. Now, they also got an electric guitar and a bass with an amplifier that can probably broadcast their music all the way to Temecula. And they're pretending to be playing some song and all the guests are cheering them on.
1:45 PM - Okay, I get it: the bigger the noise the better the party.
2:15: PM - I've been trying to keep an open mind for this, but the music they're trying to play is just SO bad! These guys badly need a garage to practice their skills ...
2:30 PM - P&R have arrived, they look somewhat bemused by the scene taking place in front of our house.
3:00 PM - Some of the people next door are so drunk by now, they can not stand up straight.
3:15 PM - The cops arrive. They tell the people next door to pack up and get the drum set and the amplifier out of there. I'm kind of relieved. I wonder who called them. Maybe my landlady, I'm sure she wasn't thrilled by their socalled music ...
3:30 PM - The "guitarist" of the band walks up to our porch. I wonder if he thinks we called the cops on them. He asks C: "Is it okay with you if we just play some more? We're just gonna keep it cool, some jazzy kind'uv stuff, something mellow and quiet." C says "No, it's not okay." "Alright, but how about you don't call the cops?" C says: "We didn't call the cops, but I was thinking about it. Yet, I wouldn't of course, not without talking to you first, okay? But you're being way too loud. We can't even hear our thoughts in there anymore." "Alright, I get it", says the red eyed amateur musician as he walks away ...
3:45 PM - They are at it again. I will say though, that they have turned the amplifier down a little bit. If the police gets called again, they're gonna be in trouble ...
4:00 PM - The amplifier is up to max again, and they're blasting our ears off. There's no detecteble music coming through, but a lot of noise. The guy at the guitar is pulling off some very ingenuous solo stunts. The bass player is however doing his own thing.
4:04 PM - "Geez, they're bad!" says R. They're like school kids who got their hands on electric instruments for the first time in their lifes. Thanks to the crowds that are walking past every minute and all the attention they are getting with their impromptu band out there on the street, the wannabe musicians are probably living the day of their life.
...
6:10 PM - C's been out there a few times now to ask them please to stop, but to no avail. Sometimes they get tired and stop for a little while. Sometimes a new person comes and picks up the drums. I'm starting to really like the drums, they are so much less annoying than the awful squeaking that comes out of that electric guitar. I was hoping we would get some quiet while we ate, but I guess not ...
6:30 PM - The crowd has cleared out quite a bit now and some just passed out on the lawn. Maybe they are getting tired (too) ...
6:40 PM - A few of the guys left from the party next door are now playing football on the street. They just broke the side mirror on one of the cars parked in front of our house. After a brief consternation somebody shouted: "Anybody have some Dragon Glue?", after which they continued playing for two more minutes, then quietly let themselves disappear. Wow! It's really getting quite around here now.
7:00 PM - Gosh, I shouldn't have said that. Now they're out of the house again, jumping up and down on the table tennis table that served as a drink table all day, trying to smash it into pieces. They're also throwing beer bottles on the lawn, but nothing broke yet.
8:00 PM - It's amazingly quiet now. The neighbour's dog has been expressing his bond with our great little rock band by peeing on the electric guitar lying there on the lawn and over the drum set at all possible angles. Sprucing it up a bit.
10:30 PM - The neighbour's lot is now completely abandoned. Besides the drum set, in our driveway and on the neighbour's lawn there's also all this nice plastic patio furniture lying in abandon. Maybe we should pick up a few chairs for our front porch while we got the chance.

Happy Fourth of July (expressed in a broken voice)!