More crazy travels; Turkey!

I last left you, dear reader, on a BA flight from heathrow. The air is dry, the accents crisp, and the inflight food is completely unsympathetic to one with a lactose allergy.

My carefully selected seat got no view of the old town during landing, but soon enough I had got a visa, crossed the border, passed customs, and taken a series of metros into the city. Alighting at Sultanahmet station I started wading through memories of my trip in the winter of January 2008. The climate was warmer!

I walked through the hippodrome between the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia down into the backpacker district, and eventually located the Bahaus hostel, checked in, and left to search for J. I found him in the next street and together we walked to Eminonu, ate some kebabs for dinner, and soaked up the atmosphere.

The next day we visited a few mosques, Aya Sofia, the basilica cistern, the grand bazaar, the spice bazaar, and the Galata tower. Interspersed were episodes of epic Turkish dessert consumption. Sadly the Topkapi palace museum is closed on Tuesday.

That evening we took a bus to Canakkale, crossing the Dardanelles and meeting our CSer A at about 10:30pm. He took us to a converted inn where we chatted with his friends until midnight, then retires.

Next morning we took a bus to Troy and checked out the remnants of about a dozen cities stacked on top of each other. From the hill there was a clear view of the Scamander river, the dardanelles and Gallipoli. The archaeological remnants were pretty cool too. Returning to Canakkale we took a bus to Izmir, then Cesme after a 2 minute stop! In Cesme we found a Pansiyon, ate sheep stomach for dinner, and soaked up the evening vibe on the main street.

Next morning we woke early to buy tickets, returned to the pansiyon for our last Turkish breakfast, and then mooched through town to the ferry terminal, crossed the border with a quick passport stamp, changed money and waited on the dock for our ferry. The Greek island of Chios waited across the straight, and not long after we were on our way to the birthplace of democracy.

UPDATE: Photos! https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/Turkey2011

F1rst post!

Now, for the first time, I can find myself in front of a computer on which I can type! As some of you know, this trip exists as an experiment in very-light-packing. I have a single 18L backpack, into which I have crammed all my worldly possessions, with some degree of success.

Additionally, my friend T lent me a stuffed cassowary called Bragg to take with me, and whom I'm attempting to photograph in front of every monument of significance between Ankara and Cadiz. So stay tuned. I'm pleased to report that Bragg is far more photogenic than I.

I flew from LAX to Heathrow via JFK. Highlights of the trip included the antiquated 767 across the USA with a hole in the rear bulkhead through which I could see the interior of the pressure hull. I also met half a dozen med students from Leeds on their way back from South America with a variety of interesting stories. Also on that flight were more than a few dogs sleeping curled up in the exit row!!

London greeted me with late-morning fog. I hired a car (Vauxhall Insignia), and proceeded to remember how to drive as I drove the A40 into town. I even managed to find Bloomsbury Square without using the GPS, parked, and spent 3 hours walking down Monopoly named streets to St Pauls and the Thames and back. Curiously, the church of St Vedant alias Foster (quite close to St Pauls) had a very similar lay out to the chapel in St Paul's College in Sydney University. Like most of central London it was designed by Sir Christopher Wren!

Heading back towards Euston Road tube station and UCL I met my friend N. N and I had corresponded ever since I stalked her in connection to an upcoming interview for the Fulbright Scholarship, which she had won the year before. Despite thus knowing each other for about two years, we had never previously met. N was, I'm happy to say, much crazier in person! Despite her initial disappointment that we wouldn't start drinking at 5pm, we spent about 4 hours shooting the breeze in one of the most interesting and charged series of arguments I've ever had!

I decided to get out of London while the going was good, and made it onto the M1 before, at about 11:30pm, I started to experience... fatigue. I checked into a road-side hotel, accepting a steep discount for a defected room, and had 5 glorious hours of sleep before sitting bolt upright at 5am. No idea why - jetlag would put that at about 9pm LA time... I jumped in my car and set off, making it back to the highway after a road-works skirting diversion just as the sun rose over quaint rolling hills with dry stone walls and organic looking cottages. By breakfast time I was in Kendal, and spent most of the day negotiating narrow roads in the Lake District. I even revisited the Lodore Cascades at Derwent, and shot about 15 minutes of them, for unspecified later use. :)

I ate some lunch and got back on the road. Now accustomed to controls and the feel of the car, I felt more comfortable keeping up with the traffic, as it averaged 80mph down the road. Soon enough, however, the lunch kicked in and I ended up pulling over in the town of Lockerbie for a 30 minute siesta. As far as the town goes, there is little sign of the terrible crash that occured there a few decades ago, though it continues to make international news. By 6pm that day I was in Edinburgh, met B, found some cruddy Indian food for dinner, and had plenty of interesting chats.

Next morning we got up earlyish and set out into the Scottish countryside. We stopped first at Loch Leven, site of an aristocratic house and garden, and a few island-bound castles, one of which had imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots back in the day. We ate a loaf of bread for breakfast, and continued on perilously narrow roads to the town of Dollar, where we visited Castle Campbell, the lowlands stronghold of the Campbell clan. It was on the small side, as far as castles go, but surrounded by beautiful mountains, streams, and country side. Only part of it was ruined. Returning to the car park we found one of the tires had gone flat! After changing it, a screw hole was found. We cut out part of our trip and returned to Edinburgh, just in time for B's show for Out of the Blue, which was EXCELLENT! Amazing stuff. Later that afternoon, a tire change guy come out and changed the tire. At that point I found a screw in the rear tire on the same side - so I guess we got lucky. With that repaired, I felt more confident about an 8 hour marathon to Oxford the next day! We still had enough daylight left for a quick jaunt up Arthur's Seat, where we saw the Firth of Forth, a sunset, and the roofs of a rather quaint, lowrise and traditionally architectured town. In short, it was excellent.

When I previously climbed Arther's Seat with my brother M during December 2007, I found the way down quite icy and slippery. This time, however, it was so lovely I did part of it barefoot. We returned to the house for a barbeque with the group and friends, spent a few minutes trying to melt the grill with various kinds of alcohol as accelerants, and eventually went to bed.

The next morning I got on the road at 7am, and to my pleasant surprise found the vibrations at 70mph had all but vanished since I removed the screws from the car tires! The way was fast, and after listening to the latest Out of the Blue CD 7 times (it's that good!), I arrived at the house of my Oxford CSer, L. L was a retired mechanical engineer with a very interesting house. We went for a bike ride around the river and into the town. I saw a playbill for a piano recital that evening by Jack Gibbons, and resolved to see it. He's one of the greatest pianists currently alive, who specialises in Alkan and Gershwin, of all things! Back at L's house, we had pasta for dinner before I jogged 2.6 miles back into town. Unfortunately the show was sold out :(, but then D, a friend from Science Revue turned up, so we went to the Turf (a low-ceilinged pub dating from pre-Roman days, apparently) instead. D, his friend A, and later old Pauline's T and his brother P turned up, so there were Australians EVERYWHERE! It was very fine and jolly. At 10pm I spontaneously passed out, so said my goodbyes and returned to L's place, where not long after I fell asleep.

Up the next morning at 6:30am, drove back to Heathrow. But for a short delay on the M25 (impossible to avoid!), I strode into the rather shiny terminal 5, had a quick breakfast of Okinomiyaki, and boarded a flight to Istanbul. Before long The Island receded behind me and it was time for the next adventure - Istanbul!

Photos will be uploaded eventually. I promise.

EDIT: Photos are uploaded. https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/UK2011

Impending travel!

By this time tomorrow I'll be closer to space, on my way to New York, and then Heathrow, UK for some productive gallivanting around the countryside. Expect quasi-regular updates of this, my last indulgent holiday (?) before PhD-land arrives.

Photos will upload to here: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/EuropeAugSep2011

After Princeton - the way home

With minimal time wastage in transfers, I found myself clambering out of the train in Philadelphia. Unlike a few other US cities, I really knew nothing about Philadelphia. A few of my friends have been before, and recommended some stuff to see, but that's about it. I walked from the station through Rittenhouse Square to my couchsurfer, D. She accepted my couch request despite leaving for Ghana less than 24 hours later. She'd hosted about two dozen people since joining CSing in April, which I thought was impressive. We climbed onto the roof, I washed the dishes, and then we went for a walk to a nearby bridge to look at the skyline, sunset, and contemplate a swim in one of the rivers. Only about half of it was under an oil slick.

On the way back, we were caught in a brief downpour, but it's so warm and humid even at 8pm that it was no big deal. I picked up some kosher chocolate dessert stuff, and we walked to a Jewish university students potluck dinner. I think it's the first time I've been the only non Jewish person in a large roomful, but it wasn't too scary. Good food, and sitting in a circle swapping names, universities, and majors. At length we left a disappointed dog (having eaten all the dinner by ourselves) and walked back to D's place, and collapsed into an inflatable mattress. Next morning it resembled the Schwarzschild metric, but fortunately did not strike the ground. D left for Ghana, I walked into town, scoped out a good vantage point for the Wanamaker organ in the children's clothing section of Macy's, and dozed slightly through a 45 minute recital on the world's largest operational pipe organ. It has about 31000 pipes, 462 ranks, 6 manuals, etc. I picked up some lunch and met the next CSer, W, and we talked our way into the Mutter museum for free.

The Mutter museum was originally a collection of medical samples; skeletons, models, two-headed foetuses in jars, and so on. Nowadays medical pedagogy has stepped forward, so the collection is now in a museum. For me it was closer to fascinating than gross, but there were still a lot of surprises. Highlights included a case full of models of stuff that can go wrong with eyes, skeletons of various bone deformities, including giantism and dwarfism, severe kyphosis (hunchback), and the results of late-stage terminal syphilis. It's hard to believe survival was possible with the degree of damage shown in some cases.

Following that we walked back through the city trying to find W's car, which he had lent to some friends who were moving. We found them at about the same time as they finished moving, so accompanied them to a beer distributor (bottle shops are separate by law in Pennsylvania), which we carried up to their roof. I was wearing one of my nerdy teeshirts, and had a good chat about the foundations of special and general relativity. The sun set and W scoped out a CS potluck for dinner. We dropped the movees off to collect their bikes, then swung past a factory-flat-convo to pick up another person. This place was basically one big room, and there were about half a dozen people present, an eclectic mix of furniture, 5 dogs, and a variety of smoking paraphernalia scattered here and there. I got the feeling that the place was trapped in an eternal present, as both the past and future seemed impossibly remote in that environment. We ate some spaghetti and meatballs, and sat around making references to events and films noone could quite remember. In the nick of time we remembered to meet the moving people at the next place and took our leave, as though evading an impending forest fire.

By the time we arrived at the CS meetup, the eating part had wound up (so I only got one dinner), but about a dozen of us headed down the road to a rather interesting bar for further entertainment. A converted house with all internal walls removed, it had a dance floor upstairs. The DJ stood in the bath with his turntables on the sink, and the floor sagged convincingly with pounding of 'modern' style dancing. W had been up until 6am that morning, so at midnight we took out leave, headed back to his place in Fish town, and after a quick shower/clothes wash, slept through the heat of the morning.

Next day we got up at about 11am, and sat chatting about travel, the various sub-cultures W was familiar with via his work in photography, and the possibility of figurative death and rebirth through life-changing experiences. At about 1pm we realised we hadn't eaten breakfast yet, so went to a local Irish cafe and fed ourselves well. I had a steak, potatoes, mushrooms, tomato, sausages, and toast. Om nom nom!

That day (Sunday) was a street festival near the Piazza (pronounced without a glottal stop, apparently) on 2nd St. Over time the day cooled off, W achieved an extraordinarily tight park between two frighteningly shiny cars, and the crowd came out. There were some of the most colourful clothes I had ever seen. W and I started a game of 'spot the hipster' for 5 points, but eventually had to change the rules to 25 points for slapping a hipster in the face. There were just too many of them! One of the stages had robot legs, so we called it 'rocktimus prime'. At some point I ate a few mini donuts, and the streets exploded with time-travelling wizards, and a rather ironic conversation about astrology was had. The bottom line performance was by a band called 'tuneyards', that used some nifty recording/playback technology to build up a very interesting sound. Despite the heat about 2000 people crowded the Piazza and danced. About half a dozen or so did a double-take on my "Maxwell's equation in differential forms notation", since it wasn't quite ironic enough. One person even recognised me as a physicist! There were free iced-coffee energy drinks being given out. I don't recall the brand, but the can said 'consume no more than 3 daily', which gives you some idea of the kick they delivered. Also in abundance for some peculiar reason was red-heads. About 50% of the people present, as well as being deliriously alternative, had flaming red hair. I felt like I was back in Ireland, though I've never actually visited...

Once more the sun set, and it was time for the next house party! We stopped by a supermarket to buy some ingredients, and once there, prepared (laboriously!) gula melaka for dessert! I had never made it before, but at least stirring it reasonably regularly gave me an excuse to absent myself from the rather smoky balcony at regular intervals. There was also a piano on which I played a few songs. Fortunately the action was not up to a recital of my less socially inclined pieces. The main course was a pretty awesome selection of mainly vegan food. The conversation was, as always, right out of left field. Time-travelling magicians made a reappearance, with a discussion of amphibian transmutation. At some point a passer-by offered to sell us some 'oxys', but we already had enough beer to last us until morning at least. Sadly the tapioca had stuck to the bottom of the pot, so I spent about 20 minutes scratching it off in the sink with my nails, while engaging one of the housies S in a fascinating discussion of late 1960s feminist lit crit on Freud 50 years later. As the evening wore on and I finished off most of the food :) I showed W how to throw a library card down the street. This time we got home and to sleep by 3am.

Next morning I was up at 11am, but packed slowly enough that I had to rush to the train station. I caught the train to Atlantic City with minutes to spare, but as the train pulled out realised I'd done a 19-year-old-me and forgotten to eat again! Fortunately I wasn't yet starved. In Atlantic City I navigated between enormous casino towers to the Irish Pub, one of the cheapest hotels available. I had been unable to find any CSers here, but fortunately the Irish Pub is both atmospheric and 111 years old. AND has a bar/restaurant downstairs, at which I had shepherds pie and steak fries for breakfast/lunch. I'm in a tiny un-airconditioned room with a shared bathroom and shower (one per floor), and it's basically perfect. This is how inns should be! Most of my fellow people are older American men down at the beach from Philly or somewhere, or Irish people gunning for patriotism. At about 5pm I went for a walk and covered about 8 miles of the Atlantic City boardwalk - the world's first. Watching boards zoom beneath my feet caused an odd 'vibration' effect, probably as the eye's saccades were drawn to some critical speed. I scoped out my destination for tomorrow's tour (of the organ in the boardwalk hall!), and went for a walk along the beach. The beach is not particularly nice or clean or anything, but as the sun set it did not particularly matter. Large clouds rolled in and a distant storm began to flash. I saw a nun walking along the beach covered in white, except for a prominent cross and rosaries. An interesting place for a nun - amongst all the casinos and massage parlours. The illusion was shattered somewhat when she winked at me!

In short order the storm blew around and soon lightning crackled everywhere. I stood on the beach experimenting with long exposures (trying to get lucky) as the entire sky lit up with mostly cloud-to-cloud strikes. In the end I got one reasonably good strike, though of course nothing is like cold drops of rain, rumbles of thunder and a distant band, warm breeze, crashing waves, rough sand, and millions of volts of electricity only a few hundred metres overhead.

I returned to the sitting room of the inn and sat between deaf men shouting at each other, snooped some wireless, and uploaded photos. Lightning: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/NewYorkAndPrinceton#5636076774171024258. That evening I stayed up late washing clothes and hair. I'm looking forward to being able to wear a different shirt when I get home!

Next morning, I woke at 8:30am after just over 3 hours of beautiful sleep! I found bacon and eggs for breakfast, then walked down the boardwalk between other 'early' risers to the Convention Hall. This, indeed, was the reason I had trekked all the way to Atlantic City. The convention hall was built between 1929 and 1932 and could originally seat 41000 people. To provide music for the hall, a pipe organ was also commissioned. Designed by Senator Richards (as were 3 others in Atlantic City), it was on a scale never before seen. Built and installed by 80 technicians, it has 449 ranks, ~33000 pipes, and one of only two 64' stops in the world. The other one is in the Sydney Town Hall! Additionally, there are 10 32' stops, 4 ranks on 100" of pressure. One of these, the Grand Ophicleide, produces the loudest musical sound ever built, of around 150dB. The hall itself is enormous, with a 6 second reverb that can be actively exploited to play music at certain tempi.

My photographs: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/ConventionHallOrgan

Other ones from the trip: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/NewYorkAndPrinceton

Organ website (with sound samples): http://www.acchos.org

The tour took about 4 hours, and we visited 4 of the 8 pipe chambers, inspected many varieties of pipes, checked out the relay rooms, 1929 solid state memory devices, and gargantuan 7 manual console! We also got a good look at the operations of the hall and the smaller Kimball pipe organ in the ballroom. One of the tour guides told me a story about how his family had met an girl from Blacktown during a tour in Australia in 1983. She then visited them in upstate New York, and subsequently fell in love with and married one of his sons!

Sadly, both organs are in various states of disrepair. The ballroom organ will probably be fully operational within 6 months. In 1996 the right stage chamber was pushed to 75% operational status and a series of recordings done. These recordings, despite shortcomings of less than a quarter of the organ being available, are still extraordinary! Conservation and restoration continues at a steady pace. The pipework is fine, but many wind chests, blowers, windchests, etc need fixing or replacement. Each pipe has its own electromagnetic valve, and of course the relays need replacement with a modern computerised relay system which is much easier to maintain. Already, fire suppression systems and asbestos removal has taken place. Without a serious infusion of money, however, it will be a decade or more before any part of the organ is functional, tuned, and ready for action. Realistically, the entire thing will probably not work all at the same time without a small army of technicians and tuners! In my opinion, the only valid business model for its continued operation is the donation of time by organ builders and assistants in some sort of monastic tradition. Still, given the opportunity I'd rebuild a few dozen ranks. Then you'd only need a few hundred more people like me and the whole thing would be working again...

After the tour I returned to the Irish Pub, ate lunch (they have the best deals in town), and had a siesta until the evening. At about 9pm I set out and walked up and down the beach looking in curiousity shops and restaurants, and eventually sat down for a 3 course $20 meal. When the bill arrived, I was bemused to see a compulsory 18% gratuity added BEFORE tax was calculated. I walked back down the beach (now without a thunderstorm), completed some internet, and went to sleep.

Next morning I was awoken by a very loud fighter plane flying over head, just in time to check out, eat breakfast, and take a cab to the airport. At security a TSA agent asked about my accent. Are they actually doing the Israeli "how are you, where are you coming from?" security thing now? Somehow I doubt it. Once in the terminal I discovered that my flight was delayed about 90 minutes. Fortunately (for me) the same plane is doing the connecting flight, and there is wifi (of a sort) available in the lounge. Ah... Spirit Airlines. You never exceed expectations!

At length we boarded and taxied out onto the tarmac. One flight attendant gave us the wrong flight duration, so during preflight checks the pilot said "would our wonderful flight attendants and the other one prepare the cabin for take-off". I dozed until a late afternoon landing in Detroit, and confirmed that the same plane would be continuing to LA. In this case I didn't miss my connection, which was lucky. At 8:10pm we pushed back, and during the taxi the sun set over the airport. During take-off we climbed faster than the rise of the terminator, and popped out of clouds back into sunlight, experiencing an evening sunrise. The plane flew west slightly slower than the sunset, meaning the sun took about 3 hours to set from our view. In this way we got two sunrises and two sunsets, one of them rather drawn out. This is one of my favourite things when flying, but it only happened to me once before, during a flight from Warsaw to Vienna on the 20th of December 2006 (or thereabouts).

Eventually the sun set as we crested the Rockies. For a while, the flight got rather bumpy as we zoomed between dozens of enormous storms with lots of excellent lightning. The woman sitting next to me was reading 'Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul 2'. It seemed to consist of a whole bunch of stories of fights against the odds with terrible things happening. The various protagonists unflinching faith in their beliefs seemed to be the only common thread running through the stories, prompting evil me to question correlation vs causation. One is also inclined to wonder just how much chicken soup the christian soul needs, if the original book warranted a sequel. I'd also be interested to know if there's a book of chicken soup for the non-christian or zoroastrian soul or something.

On landing at LAX, I stowed my maths notebook, and saw a long daisy chain of lights leading back from the airstrip into the sky, consisting of a queue of aeroplanes coming down to land. I jumped in a shuttle and made my way back to Pasadena, where future (on FRIDAY!) housie R provided me with some lovely dinner. Borscht, rice pilaf and water. Yum!

Overall, a very interesting 18 days on the road!

After Princeton - the way home

With minimal time wastage in transfers, I found myself clambering out of the train in Philadelphia. Unlike a few other US cities, I really knew nothing about Philadelphia. A few of my friends have been before, and recommended some stuff to see, but that's about it. I walked from the station through Rittenhouse Square to my couchsurfer, D. She accepted my couch request despite leaving for Ghana less than 24 hours later. She'd hosted about two dozen people since joining CSing in April, which I thought was impressive. We climbed onto the roof, I washed the dishes, and then we went for a walk to a nearby bridge to look at the skyline, sunset, and contemplate a swim in one of the rivers. Only about half of it was under an oil slick.

On the way back, we were caught in a brief downpour, but it's so warm and humid even at 8pm that it was no big deal. I picked up some kosher chocolate dessert stuff, and we walked to a Jewish university students potluck dinner. I think it's the first time I've been the only non Jewish person in a large roomful, but it wasn't too scary. Good food, and sitting in a circle swapping names, universities, and majors. At length we left a disappointed dog (having eaten all the dinner by ourselves) and walked back to D's place, and collapsed into an inflatable mattress. Next morning it resembled the Schwarzschild metric, but fortunately did not strike the ground. D left for Ghana, I walked into town, scoped out a good vantage point for the Wanamaker organ in the children's clothing section of Macy's, and dozed slightly through a 45 minute recital on the world's largest operational pipe organ. It has about 31000 pipes, 462 ranks, 6 manuals, etc. I picked up some lunch and met the next CSer, W, and we talked our way into the Mutter museum for free.

The Mutter museum was originally a collection of medical samples; skeletons, models, two-headed foetuses in jars, and so on. Nowadays medical pedagogy has stepped forward, so the collection is now in a museum. For me it was closer to fascinating than gross, but there were still a lot of surprises. Highlights included a case full of models of stuff that can go wrong with eyes, skeletons of various bone deformities, including giantism and dwarfism, severe kyphosis (hunchback), and the results of late-stage terminal syphilis. It's hard to believe survival was possible with the degree of damage shown in some cases.

Following that we walked back through the city trying to find W's car, which he had lent to some friends who were moving. We found them at about the same time as they finished moving, so accompanied them to a beer distributor (bottle shops are separate by law in Pennsylvania), which we carried up to their roof. I was wearing one of my nerdy teeshirts, and had a good chat about the foundations of special and general relativity. The sun set and W scoped out a CS potluck for dinner. We dropped the movees off to collect their bikes, then swung past a factory-flat-convo to pick up another person. This place was basically one big room, and there were about half a dozen people present, an eclectic mix of furniture, 5 dogs, and a variety of smoking paraphernalia scattered here and there. I got the feeling that the place was trapped in an eternal present, as both the past and future seemed impossibly remote in that environment. We ate some spaghetti and meatballs, and sat around making references to events and films noone could quite remember. In the nick of time we remembered to meet the moving people at the next place and took our leave, as though evading an impending forest fire.

By the time we arrived at the CS meetup, the eating part had wound up (so I only got one dinner), but about a dozen of us headed down the road to a rather interesting bar for further entertainment. A converted house with all internal walls removed, it had a dance floor upstairs. The DJ stood in the bath with his turntables on the sink, and the floor sagged convincingly with pounding of 'modern' style dancing. W had been up until 6am that morning, so at midnight we took out leave, headed back to his place in Fish town, and after a quick shower/clothes wash, slept through the heat of the morning.

Next day we got up at about 11am, and sat chatting about travel, the various sub-cultures W was familiar with via his work in photography, and the possibility of figurative death and rebirth through life-changing experiences. At about 1pm we realised we hadn't eaten breakfast yet, so went to a local Irish cafe and fed ourselves well. I had a steak, potatoes, mushrooms, tomato, sausages, and toast. Om nom nom!

That day (Sunday) was a street festival near the Piazza (pronounced without a glottal stop, apparently) on 2nd St. Over time the day cooled off, W achieved an extraordinarily tight park between two frighteningly shiny cars, and the crowd came out. There were some of the most colourful clothes I had ever seen. W and I started a game of 'spot the hipster' for 5 points, but eventually had to change the rules to 25 points for slapping a hipster in the face. There were just too many of them! One of the stages had robot legs, so we called it 'rocktimus prime'. At some point I ate a few mini donuts, and the streets exploded with time-travelling wizards, and a rather ironic conversation about astrology was had. The bottom line performance was by a band called 'tuneyards', that used some nifty recording/playback technology to build up a very interesting sound. Despite the heat about 2000 people crowded the Piazza and danced. About half a dozen or so did a double-take on my "Maxwell's equation in differential forms notation", since it wasn't quite ironic enough. One person even recognised me as a physicist! There were free iced-coffee energy drinks being given out. I don't recall the brand, but the can said 'consume no more than 3 daily', which gives you some idea of the kick they delivered. Also in abundance for some peculiar reason was red-heads. About 50% of the people present, as well as being deliriously alternative, had flaming red hair. I felt like I was back in Ireland, though I've never actually visited...

Once more the sun set, and it was time for the next house party! We stopped by a supermarket to buy some ingredients, and once there, prepared (laboriously!) gula melaka for dessert! I had never made it before, but at least stirring it reasonably regularly gave me an excuse to absent myself from the rather smoky balcony at regular intervals. There was also a piano on which I played a few songs. Fortunately the action was not up to a recital of my less socially inclined pieces. The main course was a pretty awesome selection of mainly vegan food. The conversation was, as always, right out of left field. Time-travelling magicians made a reappearance, with a discussion of amphibian transmutation. At some point a passer-by offered to sell us some 'oxys', but we already had enough beer to last us until morning at least. Sadly the tapioca had stuck to the bottom of the pot, so I spent about 20 minutes scratching it off in the sink with my nails, while engaging one of the housies S in a fascinating discussion of late 1960s feminist lit crit on Freud 50 years later. As the evening wore on and I finished off most of the food :) I showed W how to throw a library card down the street. This time we got home and to sleep by 3am.

Next morning I was up at 11am, but packed slowly enough that I had to rush to the train station. I caught the train to Atlantic City with minutes to spare, but as the train pulled out realised I'd done a 19-year-old-me and forgotten to eat again! Fortunately I wasn't yet starved. In Atlantic City I navigated between enormous casino towers to the Irish Pub, one of the cheapest hotels available. I had been unable to find any CSers here, but fortunately the Irish Pub is both atmospheric and 111 years old. AND has a bar/restaurant downstairs, at which I had shepherds pie and steak fries for breakfast/lunch. I'm in a tiny un-airconditioned room with a shared bathroom and shower (one per floor), and it's basically perfect. This is how inns should be! Most of my fellow people are older American men down at the beach from Philly or somewhere, or Irish people gunning for patriotism. At about 5pm I went for a walk and covered about 8 miles of the Atlantic City boardwalk - the world's first. Watching boards zoom beneath my feet caused an odd 'vibration' effect, probably as the eye's saccades were drawn to some critical speed. I scoped out my destination for tomorrow's tour (of the organ in the boardwalk hall!), and went for a walk along the beach. The beach is not particularly nice or clean or anything, but as the sun set it did not particularly matter. Large clouds rolled in and a distant storm began to flash. I saw a nun walking along the beach covered in white, except for a prominent cross and rosaries. An interesting place for a nun - amongst all the casinos and massage parlours. The illusion was shattered somewhat when she winked at me!

In short order the storm blew around and soon lightning crackled everywhere. I stood on the beach experimenting with long exposures (trying to get lucky) as the entire sky lit up with mostly cloud-to-cloud strikes. In the end I got one reasonably good strike, though of course nothing is like cold drops of rain, rumbles of thunder and a distant band, warm breeze, crashing waves, rough sand, and millions of volts of electricity only a few hundred metres overhead.

I returned to the sitting room of the inn and sat between deaf men shouting at each other, snooped some wireless, and uploaded photos. Lightning: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/NewYorkAndPrinceton#5636076774171024258. That evening I stayed up late washing clothes and hair. I'm looking forward to being able to wear a different shirt when I get home!

Next morning, I woke at 8:30am after just over 3 hours of beautiful sleep! I found bacon and eggs for breakfast, then walked down the boardwalk between other 'early' risers to the Convention Hall. This, indeed, was the reason I had trekked all the way to Atlantic City. The convention hall was built between 1929 and 1932 and could originally seat 41000 people. To provide music for the hall, a pipe organ was also commissioned. Designed by Senator Richards (as were 3 others in Atlantic City), it was on a scale never before seen. Built and installed by 80 technicians, it has 449 ranks, ~33000 pipes, and one of only two 64' stops in the world. The other one is in the Sydney Town Hall! Additionally, there are 10 32' stops, 4 ranks on 100" of pressure. One of these, the Grand Ophicleide, produces the loudest musical sound ever built, of around 150dB. The hall itself is enormous, with a 6 second reverb that can be actively exploited to play music at certain tempi.

My photographs: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/ConventionHallOrgan

Other ones from the trip: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/NewYorkAndPrinceton

Organ website (with sound samples): http://www.acchos.org

The tour took about 4 hours, and we visited 4 of the 8 pipe chambers, inspected many varieties of pipes, checked out the relay rooms, 1929 solid state memory devices, and gargantuan 7 manual console! We also got a good look at the operations of the hall and the smaller Kimball pipe organ in the ballroom. One of the tour guides told me a story about how his family had met an girl from Blacktown during a tour in Australia in 1983. She then visited them in upstate New York, and subsequently fell in love with and married one of his sons!

Sadly, both organs are in various states of disrepair. The ballroom organ will probably be fully operational within 6 months. In 1996 the right stage chamber was pushed to 75% operational status and a series of recordings done. These recordings, despite shortcomings of less than a quarter of the organ being available, are still extraordinary! Conservation and restoration continues at a steady pace. The pipework is fine, but many wind chests, blowers, windchests, etc need fixing or replacement. Each pipe has its own electromagnetic valve, and of course the relays need replacement with a modern computerised relay system which is much easier to maintain. Already, fire suppression systems and asbestos removal has taken place. Without a serious infusion of money, however, it will be a decade or more before any part of the organ is functional, tuned, and ready for action. Realistically, the entire thing will probably not work all at the same time without a small army of technicians and tuners! In my opinion, the only valid business model for its continued operation is the donation of time by organ builders and assistants in some sort of monastic tradition. Still, given the opportunity I'd rebuild a few dozen ranks. Then you'd only need a few hundred more people like me and the whole thing would be working again...

After the tour I returned to the Irish Pub, ate lunch (they have the best deals in town), and had a siesta until the evening. At about 9pm I set out and walked up and down the beach looking in curiousity shops and restaurants, and eventually sat down for a 3 course $20 meal. When the bill arrived, I was bemused to see a compulsory 18% gratuity added BEFORE tax was calculated. I walked back down the beach (now without a thunderstorm), completed some internet, and went to sleep.

Next morning I was awoken by a very loud fighter plane flying over head, just in time to check out, eat breakfast, and take a cab to the airport. At security a TSA agent asked about my accent. Are they actually doing the Israeli "how are you, where are you coming from?" security thing now? Somehow I doubt it. Once in the terminal I discovered that my flight was delayed about 90 minutes. Fortunately (for me) the same plane is doing the connecting flight, and there is wifi (of a sort) available in the lounge. Ah... Spirit Airlines. You never exceed expectations!

At length we boarded and taxied out onto the tarmac. One flight attendant gave us the wrong flight duration, so during preflight checks the pilot said "would our wonderful flight attendants and the other one prepare the cabin for take-off". I dozed until a late afternoon landing in Detroit, and confirmed that the same plane would be continuing to LA. In this case I didn't miss my connection, which was lucky. At 8:10pm we pushed back, and during the taxi the sun set over the airport. During take-off we climbed faster than the rise of the terminator, and popped out of clouds back into sunlight, experiencing an evening sunrise. The plane flew west slightly slower than the sunset, meaning the sun took about 3 hours to set from our view. In this way we got two sunrises and two sunsets, one of them rather drawn out. This is one of my favourite things when flying, but it only happened to me once before, during a flight from Warsaw to Vienna on the 20th of December 2006 (or thereabouts).

Eventually the sun set as we crested the Rockies. For a while, the flight got rather bumpy as we zoomed between dozens of enormous storms with lots of excellent lightning. The woman sitting next to me was reading 'Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul 2'. It seemed to consist of a whole bunch of stories of fights against the odds with terrible things happening. The various protagonists unflinching faith in their beliefs seemed to be the only common thread running through the stories, prompting evil me to question correlation vs causation. One is also inclined to wonder just how much chicken soup the christian soul needs, if the original book warranted a sequel. I'd also be interested to know if there's a book of chicken soup for the non-christian or zoroastrian soul or something.

On landing at LAX, I stowed my maths notebook, and saw a long daisy chain of lights leading back from the airstrip into the sky, consisting of a queue of aeroplanes coming down to land. I jumped in a shuttle and made my way back to Pasadena, where future (on FRIDAY!) housie R provided me with some lovely dinner. Borscht, rice pilaf and water. Yum!

Overall, a very interesting 18 days on the road!