Boston

Next on schedule: the International Mechanical engineering Congress & Exposition in Boston. My degree is in Mechanical Engineering, so you would say it's right up my alley. Mechanical engineering however is such a large discipline that one conference can never really fit all of us. I prefer my conferences small with a minimum of parallel tracks and a high level of specialization of topics to assure that your audience actually understands what your saying. This one has 20 parallel tracks with each several (up to 8) parallel sessions. Hence my high level of anticipation...

First I have to get to Boston though. I booked this flight with some of my leftover frequent flyer miles a month ago in Auckland. When I arrived at the desk however, my reservation number did not exist. A small search showed that someone with my name and reservation number was soon to fly off from Rochester, New York to Boston via Chicago. That's a good 1000 km from Rochester Minnesota. Aware of this potential problem I repeatedly asked the lady in Auckland to make sure I was flying from Minnesota. Apparently in one ear, out another. The ticket wasn't very clear either, as the airports have the same name, just different airport codes...

A long story short: my flights were rebooked now from Minnesota, and all free of charge as it was not my stupidity that caused this. It actually led to a much better schedule, arriving 3 hours earlier in Boston.

In Boston a good subway system brings me close to the prebooked YWCA hostel (the W is not taken that seriously nowadays). It's one of the most basic accommodations I have ever stayed at, at a cost of 60 USD. With the second cheapest option being 110 USD, the choice was easy. Luckily the place is clean and seems secure, though it was filled with people of questionable mental abilities and employability. My mattress is of the plastic variety to protect against bed wetters, and the communal showers reach just below the shoulder blades. I am glad it's only for 5 days...

The First day is filled with exploring Boston. The city pretty much looks like Amsterdam minus old monuments. The YWCA lies at the edge of a richer area around Newbury Road, a more trendy version of the PC Hooftstraat, with all your Sex in the City brands ( Is this where Sarah Palin shops? ). The houses here look a lot like the houses in the Jordaan, hence its yupification. North of the neighborhood is the main river through Boston, which is fringed with a beautiful park, especially now that all trees are in full autumn colors.

I make my way to the center of town to start a walk called “the freedom trail” in good American tradition. The route is said to go past all the main attractions in central Boston, and is neatly signposted with a red line on the pavement (now that's an idea other cities should follow, what a breeze!). The path brings me to some typical sightseer monuments, though any European from outside the polder might want to skip that part and go for the more entertaining bits. Two hundred years old is just not worth monument status. The Quincy markets, a food and souvenirs shopping area, is quite interesting if not expensive. It contains a rebuild of the set of Cheers, which was based on a bar a bit further away which we visited the last day of my stay.

The most interesting bit of the walk was the part through the Italian quarter, which is stuffed with Al Pacinos and Marlon Brandos in their Godfather accents. Italian restaurants everywhere, a lively atmosphere and gelato. A small visit to the Paul Revere statue and Church was reserved for the last day. I finished the walk with a climb to the top of an obelisk on the North side of the river, with a nice view of town after a mere 300 steps.

After walking from 9am till 5pm on dress shoes (I had only one pair of shoes with me, as checked in bags cost 15 dollars each way) I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. A day well spent.

The next day was the first day of the conference, with for me the most important talk of all from a Harvard professor who's work coincides with mine. He is the Keynote speaker of our track, which I pushed for with my professor, both because of the significance of his work for our research, as well as for his very interesting and understandable talks. My professor had arranged for us to have lunch together afterwards and visit Harvard school of public Health to see the experiment set-up. For me it is fascinating to spend time with the two absolute leaders in the field of Airway Smooth Muscle physiology (Professor Sieck at the Mayo) and Airway smooth muscle mechanics (Professor Fredberg from Harvard) all within these few months. It's also soothing that the Harvard lab doesn't look much different from your average lab at any other university. I had a good conversation with one of the students doing similar work to my project, with both of us finding out some gaps in each others work worth investigating at a later date. A very productive day.

The next day contained all our presentations (I am here with two fellow students) which all passed without any hick-ups. An average audience of about ten people for each presentation and one or two questions, though nothing worth noting. It was all quite hectic, as I was co organizing one session, and speaking in two. Indicative of the value of these sessions to me is that the most eventful part of my day was during the lunch break, when I finally got the chance to see the worlds first OLED TV, one of those weird obsessions of mine. At 2500 USD and 12 inch it's not worth buying now, but it's picture quality makes me salivate. The walk back through the most expansive mall I've ever seen rated much lower, but still more interesting than the rest of this day.

The last day was reserved for further sight seeing, now with my fellow students. The Boston Museum of fine arts is your typical American museum, with a collection of several top European paintings, all crammed next to each other in a few rooms, literally two to three rows of masterpieces with hardly any level of organization. Is their attention span that short, or is this a typical case of condescending underestimation of the audience? Nice Assyrian collection from the British museum though.

That evening we planned to witness the historic election night in style. In Newbury street we sought a bar with TV's on a news channel. I thought a few beers, a receptive audience cheering at any bit of election news, people dancing on the streets when Obama gets elected, all that would be worth being part of. Reality was much different. I did not notice the slightest sign of elation or even anticipation on any of the faces in the bar. We stayed until 8 when the first results came in when we decided this was not going to be what we expected of it. We took a quick dinner in the food court (I am starting to like the burritos from the better Mexican bars) and went to the Lobby of my professors hotel where we set the TV to CNN and waited for the results to come in. around 10:30 it was clear that Obama had won, though CNN hadn't called it yet. In anticipation of a celebratory street scene we started heading back to the hotel straight through Newbury Road. Apart from 2 or 3 Obama shouts in the distance nothing happened. We tried to spice things up by shouting a few times ourselves, but to no avail. Apparently foreigners are more enthusiastic about this election than Americans themselves.

For those of you who haven't followed it that well, some small indicative statistics. Firstly, a paltry 60% of eligible voters showed up to vote. While Obama got 53% of the vote vs McCain's 46%, he only got 44% of the white vote but 92% of the black vote. Yet the election is hailed as the end of race divide in the US. It has caused a renewed burst of national pride on the illusion that the US is the first country to elect a minority president. I have heard this comment on many news channels here, which shows ignorance and arrogance at several levels. Many, many countries have voted for minority presidents. The US themselves have had a minority president in John F Kennedy (though large, the catholics were an undisputed minority). You could add several south American and Asian countries to that list. Secondly, if they would have paid attention to Obama's speeches they would have known he is not part of a minority. He's not a descendant of African slaves and he's got a white mother. If he belongs to any minority it is the minority consisting of him only. And that background (combined with some quality time in Indonesia) has given him a unique insight into the issue of race, which he showed in the way he silenced the entire race issue in this election with one speech . I don't know if this guy is going to come close to doing anything he is promising or what is expected of him (I doubt it) but anyone who can write a speech like that (no speech writers involved here) surely knows his place in the world, which is not something you can say of any American president in recent history, if any at all.

Sorry to sound all preachy on you, I need some venting once in a while. I see this post has become way too long already, so I'll finish with just a few remarkable things I've noticed since my arrival:

• Popcorn is considered part of a daily diet for many people, and can in some cases replace lunch or dinner when flavored with cheese, chocolate, coffee or plain.
  
• So far it is three out of three with Airport security intensive checks for me. I have been picked out of the line every time I pass security, though nothing has ever been found. And all customs officers persist it is a random process.
  
• Yogurt does not come in unsweetened form
  
• Coca Cola tastes like caramel with extra sugar when from a bottle (it was not a fluke, I tested several), but in bars the taste is the same as in Europe or New Zealand
  
• The US is about 30-40% more expensive as New Zealand, unless you buy crap, which is cheap. Also, board games are cheap and everywhere. Catan anyone?
  
• -14 degrees and windy is cold, without scarf, hat or gloves.
  
• Even when in the north of the US there is always more snow in neighboring states, like Michigan and Wisconsin (up to 1 meter, here 1 cm and melting)
  
• Working until 10pm is more fun than spending the evening in a hotel (and to be honest, working that late 6 days a week is not that fun all together).

Here I am again!

As you might have noticed I am not very good at keeping the weekly schedule. As a result you might have to suffer through a long post once in a while. Here's one.

After a good three weeks at the Mayo I have settled in quite well, got my equipment running and aside from some small hurdles on the biochemical side I should be ready to do my experiments. With a bit of luck I'll manage to finish this thing in time. Contact at work is going quite well, I am lucky to be in Minnesota and not somewhere on the west coast, as I am meeting quite a lot of friendly people. It gets tiring at some point explaining why I am here, what I am doing, and how the hell my name is pronounced, but at least people show some interest. I do still get lost on a regular basis in the maze that is the Mayo clinic, but I am getting used to sticking to the signs with the building names on them, and ignore the contradicting signs. I've also found out there is such a thing as an employee shuttle bus instead of just a patient shuttle. Useful, as the employee shuttle goes three times more often and you don't have to wait for all the wheel chairs to hop in.

a few days after I left you the last post I got invited to a wine tasting after casually meeting some people in the employee lunch room. I in turn invited the Kahler Hotel clan through my regular contacts and waited for a response. As the wine tasting started at 6 and I did not hear anything by that time I assumed it all lost and went for a pizza. To my surprise upon my return the whole crew decided to go wine tasting after all. A bit disappointed that I just ate, the tasting includes food according to website, I joined the group in the taxi. The wine tasting itself was set oddly in a furniture and floor tile store, though clearly the upper end kind. A good 30 stalls with all kinds of wines were spread over the store and of course the inevitable TV's with Football and baseball were present. We were more than an hour late, so the food was all gone, which didn't bother me to much, but the rest of the group was now tasting serious quantities of wine on an empty stomach. Anyone who knows me can attest that I don't know much about wine, and it had been more than 6 months since my last glass. Nevertheless I could easily judge that if the US makes good wines, they were not present here. I had three good tastes, one from New Zealand, one from France and one from Chile.
The more interesting part of the evening came from a long chat with a local older American, which went with wine from wine to politics, the hot button issue of course. On good advise from Lee-Yan I do not express my opinion on politics here before I know the other party is on my side, but oddly enough I have not yet met a conservative interested in speaking politics. Might it be that a lot of them have trouble defending themselves in the current climate? A long story short, this guy and his friend had such fun talking to us (a fellow Dutchmen, slightly intoxicated, had joined in) that they offered us a ride back.to Rochester. Strangely, the two of them were not worried about driving with a bit of wine in them (they seemed to have been quite careful in that respect) but were terrified of happing opened bottles of wine with them. The only option then was for us to finish the bottles that were still left from the tasting. For lack of glasses it became an interesting bottle slurping fiesta, all in front of a furniture store.

The ride back to Rochester was interesting mostly for the fact that this was my first ride ever in a pick-up truck. Not one of those rusty Midwest barking-dog-in-the-back mud trawlers, more the kind with more features than the terminator. And clearly less than a few months old. I didn't bring up climate change, for peace's sake.

That evening went on until about 2 am, finishing off wine with beer, which of course led to severe headaches the next morning. Luckily I did not go full out like some of the others, saving me the worst. We did get offered a tour along the Mississippi and Minneapolis by one of the American guys.

The next day I was double indirectly invited for a pumpkin carving party. Apparently the people that originally invited me for the wine tasting knew the dutch girl from the Kahler, which in a town with 40000 Mayo employee is quite a coincidence. The evening itself was not too eventful, but for my first Halloween you deserve some pictures of the results (see picasaweb).

A few days later in this rather eventful phase of my stay here, my professor from Auckland arrived here as part of a short stopover before going to Boston, where I am now. The details of that visit are irrelevant for this blog, but I'll share with you that it resulted in a nice dinner with the three professors and another high up researcher in the field and some of the partners as well. Another nice evening and the first good meal (duck breast) in more than 3 weeks. In case I haven't said it yet the cooking facilities do not allow much creativity, so I am eating mostly pastas, curry's and soups, though the majority is at least made on the spot and not from cans and jars like the majority does here. I long for a kitchen...

I notice you're getting bored already so I'll spare you the last few days, which involve my trip to Boston to speak at a conference for mechanical engineers. That'll be my cliffhanger. Talk to you soon!

one week later

Slowly but surely I am starting to get the hang of this place. Although not much happens here, there are some nice surroundings and I have even sipped a bit on rochester night life. I interestingly discovered that beer only comes in 3.5% alcohol and no one is ashamed of buying light beer, though that refers to calories only. All food is sweetened several degrees more than in the Netherlands or New Zealand, even bread has extra sugar in it. Basic food items like yoghurt can only be found in diet form, yet have the chemical flavour of antibiotics syrup. Meat has a bit of an after taste, though I haven't been able to place it yet. it is cheap though, even at the more luxurious supermarkets. Pizza is served with mountains of cheese or whatever that plasticky white substance is supposed to be. Even my endless pizza appetite did not manage to get through more than half of one.
During a night out I was treated to a good example of american graciousness. While waiting in line for a mixed bathroom at the local bar, two women rush to the front of the line, pull their pants down showing some significant behind, and shout "We're first" followed by "I know it's not nice but frankly I don't give a shit". You gotta love them.

As I am bound to all kinds of confidentiality rules I won't be able to discuss the comings and goings of my work here. I can say that one benefit of this place is that they are very straight forward. when you do something stupid, or just provide some unfound ideas, the supervisors/professors are not afraid of telling you so. Some people might hate it, but after many years of mostly getting positive feedback only, it's a relief. The equipment and expertise here are brilliant, and I am lucky to be working with some very smart and friendly people. From what I have heard from students at other parts of the Mayo Clinic this is not necessarily standard, many people have run into chaos and disrespect as well. I'll count myself lucky.

Thursday I had to take the bus up and down to Minneapolis (90 minutes) as my visa had some issues that needed to be resolved at the minneapolis airport customs. It did provide me with an opportunity to see a bit of minneapolis, for about 2 hours. It's a pretty town, though I didn't see much in such a short time, and the city centre is missing the character of your average european or australian larger city. there is a pretty sculpture garden at the other side of town, which I could just reach, watch and come back from. as one of the few cities in the US minneapolis actually has a very decent train connection with the airport that brings you straight into the city centre. other towns here have train tracks, but only carry freight trains. as not to offend the holy car. on this ride, as well during my walk towards the sculpture garden I did notice that minneapolis has the same kind of park abundance of auckland, so I would expect that lots of prettyness can be found when you have the time to explore. People are very friendly, it is one of those cities where I would expect if you leave your wallet on a bench you'll find it back in you mailbox the next day. If the hundreds of squirrels don't get to it first that is...

Today I rented a bike for a few days and went out cycling with a fellow Dutchy, who's been here before so she knows the area. Autumn here only lasts a few weeks at best, so it was essential to go out hunting for foliage. we got some pretty pictures, which can all be found at www.picasaweb.com/priegel80. As it is a lot easier to upload pictures there I'll do that from now on. The bike also finally gives me a chance to get some food without having to walk 3 miles up and down with heavy groceries.

For tomorrow I'll have to do something against my principles, which I have sworn of for the time being out of convenience and to avoid weekend boredom: I will work on sunday. My apologies...

Some pictures

This is St Mary's hospital, where the lab is based. For size reference, the total building is roughly a square... This hospital is one of a few here, I'll put pictures of the city center up later.

For the Fall colors and accompanying animals:




Some pumpkins for coming halloween:

Day two & three: USA, first impressions

After seeing the very sorry state of the LA airport, the MSP airport was a welcome change. Not only is it as clean and well maintained as the billion dollar airports in south-east asia, sign posting and facilities are logically placed. After a fast baggage reclaim I made my way to the covered Taxi/shuttle bus area, without hustlers or religious fanatics. I called for free by touch screen for a hotel shuttle, and while waiting I actually had a chat with some locals, a far cry from the stereotype confirming people at LA airport.
My optimism quickly evaporated when I opened my bags. The rain apparently managed to soak all clothes on one side of the bag, though it luckily left my suit (Yes I have a suit these days, only for conference presentations) unharmed. With air conditioning on, the clothes were relatively dry in the morning and the jet lag messed up rhythm made me feel awake despite only one hour of sleep. I shouldn't have booked a hotel room next to the highway...

That morning I finally arrived in Rochester, after a quite pleasant ride through countryside Minnesota. The marks of three decades of tax cuts were clearly visible on the road, but still the only support from farmers along the route was for McCain.

Rochester itself is a place of roughly a hundred thousand people, of which about forty thousand work at the Mayo Clinic, and another ten thousand at IBM. As a purely purpose built town there is little in the form of entertainment beyond gift shops for the sick and some restaurants. The streets are impeccably clean, the buildings well maintained and looming, and the entire city is clearly set-up to cater the families of the sick. All major buildings are either hospitals or hotels. The inner city shops are all located on the bottom floor of hotel buildings and a pedestrian subway system connects all the buildings with each other. A lot of effort is placed in creating a cheerful but not to in your-face-environment, with little fountains here and there, some patches of grass and benches all around. Maybe I have just never been sick enough to appreciate this kind of excessive cleanliness and order, especially the older people seem to enjoy it.
My hotel, the Kahler Grand Hotel, is nothing too special, it has the usual you'll-be-treated- like-a-king atmosphere of the larger hotels with people in funny outfits dragging your stuff around in the lobby, while the rooms are pretty much the same as any chain hotel below 200 dollars. As I am not a big fan of all that theater I am quite satisfied with my room and leave the lobby for what it is.

Next up was the quest for shops. I am not a shopper, but I came without any fluids to avoid airport trouble or luggage leaks, and some food and drinks for the coming few days was needed as well. That's when it doomed on me that the US is indeed built for cars only. The city center has no supermarkets or even small dairies, and the nearest mall was a 3 kilometer walk, and still no useful stores. Wal-mart and equivalent stores are more than 6 km from the hotel, and buses only go a few times a day. An extensive internet search (guide books point to wal mart and declare you crazy for not having a car) gave me Hy-ve, a supermarket with lots of organic funky stuff, but also basics. After walking 15km trough town not finding anything I was more than happy to add a few more miles for some food. On my way I saw my first american squirrel and rabbit and encountered the first Amish.

That night I get my first load of american television. 80 channels, of which about twenty non stop news channels, All talking about either the election, the financial crisis or the influence of the financial crisis on the election. I saw the tail of the debate as well, which after 2 years of campaign news didn't deliver anything new. I did finally get a chance to actually see those ads the campaigns put out, and it seems obvious to me now why McCain is loosing. His personal attack ads just sound pathetic and cornered. Obama's ads are nothing special, it wouldn't get me an inch closer to voting for him if I had the right, but at least it doesn't sound whiny and lost. It also becomes clear to me now how such a divided country could come to be. Before yesterday I had never seen such partisan reporting as here. Depending on which channel you watch, either Obama is a terrorist communist into voter fraud or McCain a dementing corrupt fool. Even non-political advertising is blatantly negative on the competition: Burger King just compared Wendy's to Russia because of its baked potatoes. Another interesting ad: a local congresman used his daughter, probably around 13 years old, to praise her dad, as she did 4 years ago at age 9. Can I call social services and have this man jailed?

Day one: Delays and a drug search

Is there some unwritten law that states that any major travel undertaking has to have a rough start? As I am currently on the plane from LA to Minneapolis on schedule and being given the chance to spend 5 extra hours with Lee-Yan, I can not complain, but is it really necessary to have a 6 hour delay on the first leg of the flight? With 6 hours transit time scheduled in Nadi, Fiji, you could forgive a little rumble of distress. With everything meticulously planned I did not feel for missed connections, leading to a missed and payed for hotel booking and bus ride the next day to my final destination. Luckily the following plane to LA was delayed as well, allowing me about 30 minutes to transfer.
Arrival in LA I saw firsthand what americans (or more specific, new york times columnists) complain about: the worst maintained airport in the long list of airports I've visited. Bad tarmac, 1950s building with clearly no maintenance since then, and cordoned off areas without any sign of actual work taking place. La customs requires checking out of all luggage even for connecting flights, where I found out some damp spots on the outside of my suitcase. It must have had a good hosing in the Auckland rain before it got loaded onto the plane. Transfer to the domestic terminal of northwest airways I naively made use of some friendly personnel outside to point me in the right direction. Sadly this was a clear case of conditional friendliness as they were providing the information on condition of financial support to some kind of religious pro-life issue. Only later I heard the message that 'LA airport does not have any connections with religious groups on the outside of the building'. Hello America...

Of course I had to be the singled out Dutchman at customs, though it seemed to be a quiet day, and full cavity search was not needed. My carry on bags were thoroughly checked for traces of drugs with a swipey cloth and some fancy analysis machine. The much rumored LA customs I found quite pleasant, though 5 security checks seems a bit overkill. Each check is rather efficient, and the personnel seemed either friendly or mentally absent. No shouting, no vigorous frisking or impatient looks of death. Instead it's the passengers who seem to dread the ground they stand on. None of the friendly 'Thank you', 'no worries' treatment the average Kiwi gives to personnel, even when the bus shows up 15 minutes late, again.

All in all I arrived an hour early for my flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul, which has actually left on schedule. Quite unexpectedly the North-West flight is quite comfortable. There is no in flight entertainment and one drink is apparently all they can spare on a 3 ½ hour flight, but I stocked up in LA and those tiny screens and horrible head phones are more a nuisance than a joy after all the hours of flying. There is a higher than usual number of very overweight passengers, but not to the scary degree you might expect. The flight is far from full giving me the third flight in a row with no passengers next to me. A joy in the leg space department.

For entertainment I got myself an LA times. It being election season and economic crisis means that 3 quarters of the paper focuses on how bad the average American is doing right now. Funnily enough when it gets to the inevitable Main street example, poverty is ignored in favor of middle class tighten-your-belt stories. Should I care more for the family that lost 30.000 USD on the stock market or confesses to dine out less/expensively, than the 20% of Americans who have no health care, underpaying or no jobs and debts up over their ears? It contrasts quite strongly with New Zealand news, where being active in the stock market automatically disqualifies you for recession pity. Even the right wing in NZ doesn't dare talk about taking away (universal) health care benefits or reducing public housing (they are proposing selling off the most valuable ones, which currently go for well over a million NZD in favor of more cheaper housing).

Gijs at the Mayo

Hi all,

Travel awakens my writing instincts, especially when i am travelling alone. This blog is dedicated to my research trip to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, where I will be doing some experiments to conclude my PhD research. And I'll promise to spare you the Mayonnaise jokes...