I just set up a filter called "too much information" as a place to put posts that even I, who tend to lead my life on an "open book" policy, understand that the content thereof falls into the category of things which shouldn't be shared with the universe at large.

Thus far the filter contains two type of people--those whom I love, and those who have given me the impression of being understanding and unlikely to twitch if I happen to share something that really does fall under the category of "too much information". If you are on the filter, you can see the test message asking anyone who doesn't wish to be on it to please let me know. If you can't see that message, but would wish to, please let me know. I have enough "friends" on LJ it is possible I missed a few folk who belong on that list when creating it.

I walked to the Milan Central Station yesterday to meet clovis_t on his arrival. I'd not yet been there, before, so as I like to do on a walk to a new location, I consulted my map frequently while walking. It seemed important at the time to track my progress, since I didn't want to accidentally walk past the station without noticing it. As I neared my destination I looked at the map one final time, closed it, and thought to myself, "ok, that was the last cross street before the maze of streets that are at the station, from here I just need to look and see what I spot". The next second I stepped out from behind a building and beheld the single most impressive train station (and totally impossible to miss)that I have ever seen in my life. I particularly like the pegasi on the roof. (Note: as with so many things in this world, the photos in the links simply do not do the building justice.) It was a pleasure to wander around the grounds and inside the immense halls within whilst I waited for his train to arrive!

His train came in on time, and I led a very sunburned boy with very blistered feet back to my apartment, fed him some dinner (fresh baked bread, which he loved, and some left over lentil/curry stew, which he managed to eat more of than I expected, since he normally politely refuses my vegetarian cuisine--he meant it when he said he was hungry from not eating much while spending the day on trains and in train stations) and sat up talking till the wee hours of the morn. Since he hadn't slept much the night before in anticipation of his early morning departure, I was not surprised when he slept in this morning, and left my guest happily asleep in his bed when I went in to uni to do some work. Well after 1pm I returned home to find that he'd broken his fast and was contemplating a shower before following the directions I'd written for him to join me in my office (my only source of internet, which is why I spend so much time here!).

However, I'd made my way home in search of more food (having long since eaten what I'd brought with me in the morning), and had brought my computer home to enable me to do some work from home, for a change. After I'd eaten and done a bit of work we decided to head to the closest supermarket to get some supplies to make food a bit more to his taste than what I've got in the house. Alas, that plan was thwarted--the supermarket is simply not open on Sunday afternoons. So instead I cooked him some home-made egg noodles and tossed them with butter, cashews, some grated carrot, and some curry powder; a simple meal, but filling and while he would have prefered a bit of cheese in the mix, the cheese I bought at the market last week was so good that I finished it all before he arrived. (Money being tight until I get paid I don't have the well-stocked spice cabinet to which I'm accustomed, but I couldn't live without *something*, so I picked up a curry blend from the local Asian market. It isn't bad, but I do look forward to having enough money to expand the spice collection a bit).

The night is still young, but we are both feeling a bit tired, so I think that as soon as I post this I'll shut the computer off, head home, and get some rest so that we can wake up early for the morning market and stock up on yummy food stuff for the week before I have to come back and do more work.

Speaking of work--after a couple of e-mail exchanges with my advisor I've decided which sub-topic of my research I will try to publish in the Journal of Metamorphic Petrology. We've picked the "hook", and I've started the document. I wrote an introductory paragraph, and have started editing the bits from the thesis which are relevant. I've also done a quick search for papers that I'll need for background reading and to cite on the topic of the effects of metamorphic fluids (and/or the lack thereof) on (mineral) inclusion density in garnet. Alas, I didn't find anything very useful, so I gave up and asked on the Geo-Metamorphic e-mail list if anyone there can recommend one. (I did find 1000s of papers on fluid inclusions, which is different, and handfuls on the manner in which fluids modify pre-existing garnet, which is also not helpful).

I had planned to spend the weekend getting in as much progress as possible on the stack of reading my boss has given me. I have been reading, but not uni stuff. You see, blamebrampton went and talked about azkatrazathome in her journal, and I asked questions and then went and joined, so I've been happily reading the various discussions, short stories, and the tag-team longer piece of fiction in progress in between reading other stuff on LJ, Facebook and e-mail. The only progress I've made on uni reading has been while at home, since I've been leaving the computer at the office (there being no internet at home, and I'm only going home to make more food or sleep) and heading back and forth as often as necessary (it is only 0.4 km from one door to the other, though there are also a total of 5 flights of stairs between the two buildings).

I was up late last night with the above reading, which is good because it meant I was in the office at 22:30 when clovis_t called to say he'd changed his plans and was coming to Italy sooner than anticipated. When he told me he'd be here at 22:50 today, I decided I may as well stay up late last night and sleep in today, as I'd likely be up late tonight (though, of course, when I thought that it was in terms of "late tonight and sleep in tomorrow in anticipation of being up late tomorrow...).

Yesterday afternoon I went to a store which sells kitchen toys and picked up a decent steamer pot, figuring that the steaming basket would also make a decent pasta strainer, so it is a multi-purpose tool. I also got a single knife, cutting board, and spatula. Why didn't I make time to reserve one box of useful things I'd need right away and air-mail that ahead? Oh, yah, that's right--too busy trying to finish that thesis. This morning I went to the natural food store I found to pick up a couple of things I needed, and on my way out took some trash down to the cans. While there I discovered a bag next to the cans full of old beat up pots and pans and a thing for squeezing fresh orange juice. Having pretty much nothing in my kitchen, I, of course, took it. Now I've got one nice pot, and a few icky ones to use if I need more than one. They can be passed on when my stuff arrives. Which will take ages, as I'm told it is still sitting in Melbourne and hasn't been loaded onto a ship yet.

This afternoon I celebrated having a cooking pot by cooking up some lentils, rice, tofu, and the last of the fresh veg I'd purchased at the market on Monday (well, save the carrots--they will keep). It was quite nice, and there is enough to last the rest of the weekend, and I'll have the space in the fridge for Monday's fresh fruit/veg. It is now time to head off to the train station to meet clovis_t, my first house-guest since moving to Italy. I wonder who will be next?

I've just spoken with my boss, I am free to attend the Textile Forum the week of 8-13 September 2009. It sounds like much fun--I'll get to camp in an Iron-age style hut! Yay! Anyone want to meet me there? It sounds like a great opportunity for some major Textile geekage, and the things that Katrin has been describing in the way of stuff that she plans to sell at the market (fine silk thread, hand made iron needles, etc...) sound like toys I really want.

The reason I get to go the forum is that by coincidence that happens to be the same week that the rest of my research team are heading off to a national geology conference, and they tell me there is no point in my coming along when I can't speak Italian. I now have a bit of a plan in terms of my work here--basically I've got this month and August to get all of the background reading done and have a *good* understanding of how changes in bulk composition would be expected to change which minerals are present at what temperatures and pressures so that come the first week of September (when my boss will be done with all of his summer travel--both work-related and vacation) I will be ready to start running experiments of my own, using logic when choosing the run parameters rather than just "cook and look". He also tells me that if I want to do any traveling before September that the first 15 days in August would be a good time to do so, as he is away most of that time. So, basically, as soon as I get paid, I'm free to gallivant (so long as I keep up with the reading and learning on my own, of course)!

I blame it on the heat--it is so hot I don't really want to spend longer at the computer than I really need to.

Yesterday was delightful--I spent a good chunk of the day in the microprobe lab with one of my colleagues, who was analysing the minerals grown in one of her experiments. Not only was the work interesting, but the room is so air-conditioned that it was necessary to go home and grab something warm to wear to be in the room. This is a good thing. (Anyone interested in more technical details about the difference between what I shall be doing on this job and what I did for my PhD, check out my other blog.)

Of course a huge down side to not wanting to be near the heat-generating computer is that I'm not making as fast of progress as I would like in reading the background literature that I downloaded. I suppose I could print it, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having obtained them in pdf. Pity I don't have something like a Kindle or Iphone set up to read such things. I suspect that they'd be cooler than the computer is.

I have been enjoying having an apartment to myself since the others moved out last weekend. Alas, I've heard back from the housing office, and they will not rent me the entire flat to myself. Therefore I will need to find a place to move. I'd like it to be at least as close, if not closer than my current flat (which is four blocks from here, but two of them are *very* short blocks). It has been nice being able to run home in the middle of the day to get things without losing time.

I have also heard from the shipping company--my things are still in Melbourne, waiting to board a ship for Europe. They are thinking it will be a couple of weeks before that happens. This means that I will have to do without my stuff for far longer than I wanted to. However, it does mean that I can take my time with the apartment search and wait till I find the perfect one before I move.

Another downside to the heat is that I've not really made any progress in cleaning out my in-boxes and replying to all of the unanswered mail which has been accumulating for months while I first finished up my thesis and then did the travel.

Likewise, I'm not making any progress on papers for publication. If it would only cool off at night, I'd be able to go nocturnal and work then, but while it is cooler, it is still warm enough that being near the computer isn't as nice as being in a different room. This is weird, I'm accustomed to the computer being one of my closest friends, and enjoying snuggling right up to it.

But that is enough on that subject.

The plan for today was to meet another of my colleagues in the research group here (they've been taking turns helping me with all of the necessary errands and paperwork tasks and doing translating)first thing this morning to head to the post office to pick up the forms to transform the visa upon which I entered the country into the visa which will permit me to stay and work here for the full term of the contract, fill them out, and turn them in. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

The morning started very well--when I went out the door it was to discover a market being set up in the street outside of my building. (If I wore my hearing aids in the house, or were more attuned to sound I would have, no doubt, noticed it sooner.) So I hurried to the office, dropped off my computer and went right back out to purchase some fresh food for the week (my boss had mentioned last week that there is a market on Mondays). I got some fruit, veg, and cheese, took it home & put it in the fridge and returned to uni just on time to meet my colleague. She and I walked to the nearest post-office of the sort which carries the forms I needed and waited in line to pick them up. It was eventually our turn, she explained our errand, and the clerk fetched the packet and told us not to ask him how to fill them out! We returned to our office and looked at the forms, looked at the instruction packet they came with (written only in Italian), I found the web page with the English version of the instructions, and we managed to get as far as putting my name in the correct box and wondered what else to do. At this point my boss came in and explained that the woman over in the Uni administration department who took care of the paperwork on this end to get me my visa was willing to help us with the form. So he called her and she suggested that now would be a good time. So we took the two buses into the correct part of the city center to her office. She pulled out the template previously filled in form that she keeps, and proceeded to fill in all 13 pages (in neat block letters, one character per little red box) of form. Then she went and made a copy of the photo page of my passport and the visa page, which she somehow managed to get on a single piece of paper. She then explained to us how to get to the nearest post-office, and where the nearest shop is from which one can obtain the official stamps which must be affixed to all important documents in this country.

Off we went, the first store was out of the stamps, but told us were to find the next. That one had them (they sell for just over 14 euros--near as I can tell they are naught more than a fund-raiser, since the shopkeeper simply sold it to us, didn't look at the form for which we wanted it, and didn't ask us for an ID or anything--so it isn't like notarization), so I bought one and we went on to the post office, where we stood in line for a while. Once it was our turn the clerk looked at the papers we had and explained that the photocopy of my passport is not good enough--that we need to photocopy the entire passport, not just the photo pages. Yes, that includes the blank pages! So we took the buses back to our branch of the university and took a lunch break (it now being after 1pm, and we've been at this since 09:00). After eating I copied the entire passport and we walked back to the local post-office. Which closes at 2pm (it was almost 2:30 before we got there).

So we walked back to the uni and got on line to find another post office of the correct sort that was open later, and found one. We took the bus there, sat in line (they have a ticket machine which gives a number for your turn, and a waiting area), and when it was our turn were told (for the first time today) that we need to include a copy of my contract. I had with me my copy of the contract, but since it had original signatures, they wouldn't let me just give it up. However, we were now close enough to done that she was willing to take my money and put the official stamp upon the receipt, with the understanding that we will include those forms and send everything off as soon as possible. Back to Uni once again, copies made of the contract. Tomorrow morning we will take it all back to the first post office and hope that it is really good to go this time. (The paper they stapled to my passport says that this must be done within 8 days of entering the country.)

After all that I got to spend about 45 minutes watching one of the Master's students welding a capsule for an experiment she will be running soon. Details about what our lab does are available here. The capsule is very small--the inner one is 5 mm long (and much narrower), and the one she made today to encase it is 8mm. The inter one is made of gold-palladium, and the outer one of platinum. I haven't had the full lecture yet (her English was good enough to explain what she was doing, but not much about why), but presumably these metals are chosen to minimize their reactions with the powder inside. I think I will enjoy making these things when it is my turn--it is just the sort of attention to detail, tiny, fussy, project that amuses me.

I then went home and had a nap. When I woke up it was still early enough to venture out, so I thought I'd try the supermarkets I'd scouted the locations of on Sunday evening. Yes, indeed, they are both bigger than the closest supermarket to my flat. However, they still don't have what I'm looking for. I'm running low on muesli, which is what I eat for breakfast every day. They had none. Or, rather, in the boxed cereal section there was a box which claimed to be muesli, but the photo didn't look like what I eat, and squeezing the box reveals that the contents are likely to be Granola. I am so not interested in sweetened, toasted, crunchy breakfast cereal, I want my nice soft oats, and the only crunch from nuts and seeds, please. It may yet be possible to find such a thing locally, or, failing that, once I have an income to take a train over to Switzerland and buy it there. However, in the meantime something has to happen. So I sent a note to a friend in Norway, asking him for a care package, and offering to send back something from Italy that is hard to obtain in Norway. He agreed and said he'd go shopping tomorrow. Yay! (note: I couldn't find oats in the supermarkets at all, so mixing my own wouldn't be an option. Also, the packages of nuts in the supermarket are the little tiny ones they sell in the baking section at very high prices). The walk to both supermarkets and back again (includng looking time took another 1.5 hours!

I had hoped to make some progress on writing papers today, but it so didn't happen. There is a half an hour left to my day, but I think I'd be better to spend it doing yoga and trying to get to bed before midnight, as there is more bureaucracy to deal with tomorrow.

One of my friends posted a blog a while back, and I only just got around to reading it. I don't know if it visible to people who don't know him on MySpace, but I hope that it is, because his point on the difference between accepting an obligation and agreeing to do something unless something of higher priority comes along is a good one.
his thoughts on obligation

I spent most of Friday in my office doing useful things on the computer, including downloading a bunch of papers my advisor wants me to read. He'd given me a stack of them in paper, and told me to photocopy them and give them back. Not wanting to waste paper I checked, and 16 of them were obtainable as pdfs either through my U Milano connection, the UTAS library page, or via my own memberships to Geological Societies (yes, it took all three!).

When I went home afterwards it was to discover that the belongings which were on the bed in the far end of the room, behind a set of shelves, were gone. So I moved my things to that corner, as being a more desirable location than the half of the room with two beds.

Friday evening the PhD student in our research group picked me up and brought me to the bbq at his house, hosted by his flat-mates.

The bbq was a very interesting experiance. Most of the folk there were in their early 20's, celebrating the fact that they had had an exam today (some still have other exams next week, but were at the party nonetheless). Most of the boys had short hair :-( though there was one with hair just long enough to tie into a pony tail, and another with hair a bit past his shoulders. It was explained to me that he is into Metal music, which is why he wears his hair long. The boys far outnumbered the girls, and, for the first hour of the evening I was the only female present. The girls who were present all have shorter hair than mine, but most wore it longer than the boys. Quite a lot of the people present were smoking (it kind of reminded me of being a child of smokers in the 70--I don't think I've seen that many cigarettes in one place since I was a kid). Fortunately, it was generally easy to find a place at the edge of the crowd where I couldn't smell the smoke. Occasionally someone would come into my little smoke-free enclave with a cigarette, and most often when I asked them to take it away they didn't understand me and thought I was either asking for a cigarette or a beer, and looked confused when I said "no thanks" when they brought it back.

The "yard" of this house consists of a driveway along the side of the house, and a small covered car port in back. This space was completely filled with people enjoying the bbq. Unlike bbq's I've attended in the US and Australia, this one was nearly all food from the grill. There was no table of side-dishes provided by the hosts or the guests, but instead a set of shelves containing bread for the meat, some tomatoes, and some condiments. The tiny grill was in *constant* use from 7pm till 11pm, with an amazing amount of meat (and a good variety of them) cooked up, and a few veg as well, provided by my colleague since he knew I don't eat meat.

A reasonable percentage of the guests spoke English, so I had a number of people to talk with over the course of the evening. They were all very surprised to hear that I was at their party two days after arriving in town, and even more surprised to hear that I'm from Alaska and lived in Tasmania most recently. A number of them I spoke with long enough that I'll be able to recognize them if I see them later.

Many of the guests were Spanish-speaking, having come from Catalan. Alas, despite having a Spanish-speaking sibling and nieces etc., I don't understand more than a couple of words in that language, and, honestly, couldn't tell if the conversations I was hearing were in Italian or Spanish. Perhaps if I keep listening to the Italian language CDs I've got, eventually, I'll be able to tell where the breaks between the words are...

Late in the evening the party got ready to head out to a disco. This involved a good hour of people gradually shifting the party away from the bbq area and into small clumps in the house and in the street in front of the house. Some of the boys changed from T-shirts to button up shirts (but others did not, and none of the girls changed). Eventually, the hosts shooed everyone out the door and locked it, and then attempted to herd the cats down the street to catch public transit. The groups moved at different rates, so soon there were only small clumps of 4 to 10 people heading down the street (the nearest station was closed, so we had to walk further). I would have been content to go home much earlier than this, but had no idea how to get there, so had to wait till my colleague was able to guide me home--he said that he'd drop me off on the way to the disco. Our group (and the final one, which was just behind ours) had just missed a bus when we got to the road, so we opted to walk to the metro station, where one can take the underground train. However, when we arrived, we found another two groups from our party waiting at the bus stop--the metro was closed. So we waited a bit, then boarded a bus, transferred to another bus, and then my colleague and I got off at the stop right by my flat, he showed me how to get home, and I went in and he returned to try to catch another bus or taxi to join the others at the disco.

I was pleased to be home, did my yoga, and made it to bed by 02:45. I was not surprised at all to have slept in till 13:00 after that. The person whose stuff was on the bed/desk closest to my first bed had still not put in an appearance when I went to bed, but I did hear someone come in early this morning. I was too sleepy to get up and meet her, and now I never shall--when I woke up her stuff was gone.

Alas, all of the pots/pans/dishes in the house belonged to the people who moved out, so now the only "kitchen toys" I have available are the small plastic honey tub with lid and plastic camping spoon I brought with me to eat my muesli out of while traveling. I've brought home the small oven my advisor said I could borrow--it has been sitting in a very dusty box in the lab for ages. That turns out to come with a couple of baking tray. I also brought home a couple of plastic disposable bowls which were in the lab. This made it possible to start some bread dough today. I put flour water and yeast into the honey tub before leaving to get the oven today, and when I got back it had risen from half full to completely full. I then added some flour to each of the two disposable bowls, added water to each, and then kneaded all three together to get enough volume of bread dough. I'll ask the others on my research team if they have any pots/pans I can borrow till my stuff arrives, because it would be nice to be able to use that nice gas stove top as well as the oven to cook food.

Now it is time to turn off the computer and return to my internet-less room to bake that bread. perhaps I'll do a small pizza with zucchini and spinach, since baking is my only option for cooking this weekend. Pity I didn't think to get some tomato paste while at the store today, but there was one tomato left in the fridge by one of the departing flat mates, so perhaps that will do instead.

I've accomplished several more crucial tasks towards settling into Milano. With luck I'll get them all done soon and can commence doing the work for which I've been hired. I suspect that it will be much more interesting than the bureaucratic stuff I've been dealing with, and I am ever so grateful to my colleagues here who have been running errands with me and translating as needed.

Today's accomplishments:

* paid for the deposit and first month's rent (this involved taking two buses into the city centre, where the other portion of the university is located, going to the housing office, taking forms from there across the street to the bank, depositing the money, and bringing in the stamped forms back to the housing office)

* obtained a local bank account into which my pay check will be deposited, once they start doing that (not before the end of the month, apparently; I'll be living more frugally than usual until then). (This involved walking perhaps two blocks past my apartment--I may not like cities, but there are some advantages.)

* Lunch! (The folk in our research team eat lunch together most days. It was kind of fun to sit there and try to make out where one word stopped and the next begun when they spoke Italian, and it is appreciated how often they switched to English to include myself and the German PhD student in the conversation.)

* obtaining a "numero di dodice fiscale" (works like a tax-file (Australian) or social security (US) number--this involved an early morning trip to the office, arriving five minutes before opening to discover a huge, noisy crowd waiting outside the door. At 9:00 the door opened, and the first 50 names from the sign-in sheet whcih had been outside the door were called in. The person who explained this to us was #68 on the list. The sign-in sheet had disappeared inside, so we left, and returned again an hour before closing, when we were helped fairly promptly surrounded by peace and quiet. Hard to believe it was the same place.)

* put the "numero di dodice fiscale" and the bank account numbers onto the form for the direct-deposit (alas, there are a few questions on the form for which we don't yet know the answer, so it will have to wait till tomorrow).

* learned how to access journals via this library's web page. (This one is actually directly related to work!)

Still to be done:

* acquire a health care card (now that I've got the "numero di dodice fiscale")

* pick up the forms from the post-office to complete my visa paperwork and get it extended for the full term of my contract

* obtain a local ID card

* find out what my e-mail address and password are for the account at this uni.

* find out what I'll be doing for work

I had a window seat on the north side of the plane, which means I got to see the Alps as we flew in. :-) (Have I mentioned recently how very much I love mountains?) The train from the airport runs east-west for the first part, which meant glimpses of the Alps now and again as we went (and there weren't buildings or trees right by the track. Seen from this distance it is kind of reminiscent of the Mat-Su Valley north of Anchorage, the way there is a broad, flat, lush, green valley and then, rising abruptly up from it, beautiful mountains. However, I suspect that these mountains are taller, as I think I'm further from them than the typical Mat-Su vantage point is from their mountains, yet the peaks look about the same. (I've not actually made the time to measure the distance for the Mat-Su valley in Google earth yet, but Milan is 50 km from the Alps.

Took the train to the city center, where I met my boss, who guided me to the correct train line (green) to get to the university (or, rather, the part which does science--humanities are in the city center). We got here on time to have lunch with most of the folk who work on this project, which was a nice opportunity to meet everyone. I'll recognize some of them later, I hope. Then we went over to my apartment. They made arrangements with the University for me to have a "room" (as I was told in advance) as it was a requirement for approval of my visa that they do so. As it turns out, it is more of a shared apartment. There is a small bathroom, with toilet, bidet, sink, and shower, a small kitchen with fridge, stove (no oven! but my boss says he's got one I can use), and sink, and a long room with three beds and three desks in it. The other two beds already have owners. I'm not too keen on sharing a room, but in the short term I'll cope. The up side is it is perhaps two blocks from my office, so I'm here in very little time!

I won't actually get my first pay check till the end of the month, so the small amount of cash I've got in my Australian and US bank accounts will have to do to cover me till then. I'm told that my salary is quite a good one for the area, so at the end of the month I'll be fine. In the mean while. After a long discussion on all of the errands necessary tomorrow (I need the local version of a tax-file number, and once I've got that I can open a bank account and then get the paperwork done that needs to happen as the next step with my visa) one of my colluges took me to the closest supermarket to get a few things I can't live without, and then they turned me loose on my computer to check in with friends and family. I am pretty certain we don't have internet in my room, so I'll probably leave my computer in my office and spend lots of time here.

Still not really clear as to what my duties will be, but they say that they will fill me in on that later...

I think I may head back to my room and try to get some sleep, since I was up very, very early this morning (like 0:30) to check e-mail and stuff before the taxi picked me up at 05:00, and while I'd gone to bed early, it wasn't that early!

After a truly delightful time in Wisconsin visiting with family I'd not seen in many, many years (most of them not since I was 16!) and good friends from An Tir who settled there I boarded a plane for London. Once again my charmed life provides me extra luxury; I had three seats in a row to myself, which meant that I could lift up the arms and lay down across them all to get some good sleep on the flight. And mine was the last row before one of the toilets, making it very easy to make necessary trips. Landed around mid-day (a good hour or more late, so it is good I didn't plan a tight connection to get to Milan) and made my way to an affordable hotel not far from the airport. I spent the day trying to catch up with e-mail LiveJournal FaceBook etc. and did a short walk to a local store to pick up some shampoo and some fruit juice to have with my muesli in the morning. I then went to sleep early and slept till a bit after midnight, when I got up and accomplished a few useful tasks (like mending the skirt I'd ripped the other day) and more on-line tasks. I've got another couple of hours before I need to head back to the airport for my flight to Milan, so now I need to decide if I want another nap, or if I'd rather listen to some of those Italian CDs I was given (thank you blamebrampton!).

I heard from one of my fellow post-docs today--there is a bbq at his house on Friday, so I'll get to meet people and start developing a local social life straight away.

Spent yesterday with the family in Seattle. It was my nephew's 4th birthday, so we went to a berry farm in the morning. I can report that while the raspberries are still very early in the season in the Seattle area, there were enough ripe on the vines to make it worth the effort, thought the largest ones were on the dry side (and so weren't often put into the buckets, but were tasted several times to see if they were any different. This place seems to have several varieties, since there was quite a difference from row to row in the size/shape/taste/level of ripeness of the berries. After picking berries we spent time at their amusement park, which the kids loved. Then back to my sister's house, where I got laundry started, got a nap, and then spent more time with the family before deciding that I would walk up to the store and get some dried fruit and nuts to make hais for travel food (my version uses much less in the way of bread crumbs, and adds other fruits in addition to the dates--it is different every time. This time the store didn't have any pistachios, so I used almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds, and walnuts. It also had very little in the way of dried fruit choices, so I just used dates and dried cranberries, plus two small figs I hadn't yet eaten from the last store I stopped at). I figure it will be good to have while traveling, and when I first get to Milan, since I don't know if my "room" that the Uni has arranged for me has a kitchen or anything. Once the hais was done I had just enough time for a quick shower and putting the last few things into the luggage before heading to the airport. Got to the gate on time to do yoga before boarding, but nothing else. Had a pleasant flight--nice and short (only three hours). Actually watched the in-flight movie while doing sewing--a sci/fi/fantasy/kung fu movie that was kind of cute, and then got a nap.

Landed at 05:00 and was met by my aunt and cousin. I'd last seen her at my step-sister's wedding a number of years ago, but I hadn't seen him since we were 16! Enjoyed the drive back to her house, getting caught up on the news of decades. Stopped along the way for breakfast, an d then took a nap when we got back to the house. Woke up around 1pm when my cousin returned, this time with his wife, a couple of his kids, and his granddaughter. (How can someone younger than I have a granddaughter?! Sure, he's only two months younger, and he did father his first child quite young, but still!) I'd like to compare photos of the little blue-eyed blond granddaughter with pictures of me at that age, I think I see a resemblance. Had a delightful time visiting with them all, and we made home-made pizza for supper. Was challenged a bit with the pizza dough, as the yeast in the house was a bit old, but it is good that we figured it out, because the plan for tomorrow is to bake garlic bread (with little pockets of soft, roasted garlic in it).

After the cousins went home my aunt and I soaked in her hot tub (nice!) and then I did yoga while she watched a movie. I confess to getting sucked in to the movie, and so I fetched my sewing once I'd done with stretching and saw it through to the (predictable) end. Two movies in two days--so not like me.

Tomorrow the rest of my cousins are coming over for a bbq, and a couple of my friends from An Tir who settled out this way will pick me up. I'll spend Monday with them before flying out Monday night.

Several days have slipped by without posting as I've travelled around the greater Seattle area visiting friends.

Monday evening I went to hear Tania perform in Tacoma. This show had a better turn-out than did the Friday show, and she'd had another couple of days to recover from her jet lag from her return from Ireland. She did a fabulous job, as she always does, with a good mix of old favourite songs and things I'd not heard before. (When she did the set list she deliberately selected stuff she hadn't done on Friday, since I'd told her I'd try to catch Monday's show too). The other audience members looked surprised when I actually managed to sing along on the chorus of the Russian song about the birch tree and the rabbits. But then, I bought the tape upon which she has that song recorded many years ago, so I'd have been surprised if I couldn't.

Tuesday morning was spent at my sister's house with family, then Tuesday afternoon I accompanied Tania over the water to the Indian Reservation upon which she lives. This was much fun--we cooked yummy food (including fresh bread) and went for a walk into lovely down town Suquamish, where I saw Chief Seattle's grave. I hadn't known that the city was named after a person before, so the trip was educational as well as fun. This is the first time she and I have had that much time to just hang out together, though we've known one another since I was still in highschool. We've always lived in different cities, so only see one another when one or the other of us is visiting the area. I'm very glad I made the time for it, it was truly a highlight of my trip so far. Tuesday evening I caught the ferry back over the water and went to josiestraka's house for the evening. It was good to get to spend a bit more time with her and her family before leaving town.

Wednesday I returned to my sister's house during the day and enjoyed the chaos which is caused by the houseful (remember that my Australian step-sister, her husband, and their two children are also visiting just now and that my mother, sister, her husband, and two children live here--this adds up to four kids under five years of age in the house). In the evening I went down to Olympia to see maeva00, ariadne3, and Bill. It was a delight to see them, and see how much has changed at their house (I saw it last many, many years ago, soon after he bought the place). They fed me squash blossoms, whcih they coated with fresh egg from their hens and a spiced breading and then cooked over an open fire. Yum!

I stayed the night at their place, and this morning as I finished eating breakfast I received a call from my sister, wondering if I could bring the car back as the other two were in use already, and she wanted to do some grocery shopping today. So I hurried home (only 1.5 hour drive!) and took a moment to look at e-mail while she and the kids were at the store. Then I borrowed the car again and went over the water the other direction to the Microsoft campus to visit with an old friend from highschool on his lunch break. I took the scenic route back from that trip as I'd noticed that the bridge over the lake was completely backed up with parked traffic in the towards-Seattle direction, and I didn't much like the thought of sitting in a hot car on a freeway not moving. So I told Mom's GPS to guide me to Bothell, and then once I was there, asked it to guide me home. It was still hot waiting for the traffic lights, but with lights one is certain that it will change and you will start moving again. There are no such guarantees when traffic stops on a bridge.

In the morning the whole family will be going to a berry farm to pick raspberries and celebrate my oldest nephew's fourth birthday. In the afternoon there will be further birthday celebrations at the house, and at night I board a plane to Chicago, where my cousin from Racine will pick me up and take me to Wisconsin to see family members I've not seen since I was 16. If there is anyone else in Seattle who wants to see me before I go, please let me know ASAP--tomorrow is my last chance. (I'd be ok with missing some of the afternoon birthday stuff to see people, if it comes down to that, but I don't think I'm going to miss the berries in the morning.)

Starting yesterday I started really feeling like I *should* be getting back to doing uni work. Sure, the thesis has been submitted, but there are papers to write, and a talk to organize before I get there. However, all I managed was doing a bit of reading. What did I do instead?

Yesterday:

* walked to the store to get a few things
* baked cookies with my niece
* went for a very short roller blade trip (it turns out that my sister's skates left bruises on the sides of my shins the day before, so that it hurt to try to skate again that soon)
* general social time with the family
* trip to the airport with mom to drop off one of my sisters and our friend who were heading to their homes
* Trivial pursuit game with mom and remaining sisters

Today:

* trip to the fruit/veg market with brother-in-law
* meet my nieces' god-mother
* play a game with niece & my sister
* mixed up & kneaded a traditional Russian style black bread to go with the borscht that my Russian brother-in-law will make for dinner tonight (I used his recipie, which involves ground fennel and instant coffee in addition to rye flour and molasses)
* attempted to download a couple of articles but ran into connection issues


Still to do today:

* Bake the bread
* Enjoy fresh bread and borscht
* head to Tacoma to hear Tania Opland perform (anyone want to come along or meet me there?)

Got up early this morning because my sister had arranged to have a photographer come to commemorate the first time all four of us girls were together since my step dad died six years ago (living on different continents makes for infrequent reunions). That seemed to go well, but I haven't yet seen the photos. I tend to be surprisingly un-photogenic, so it will be interesting to see if I like any of the photos. This afternoon I borrowed my sister's rollerblades and spent more than an hour out on the near-by bike trail. Then I enjoyed a nice nap (Can I tell you how much I'm enjoying holiday mode?) before heading out to hear Tania Opland in concert. She's got another show on Monday in Tacoma, and I'm hoping to get down for that one, too. Tonight's show was long enough to complete a couple of seams in the skirt in progress, so there is a chance that I will have that skirt ready for my arrival in Milan, if I keep making time to work on it.

I *ought* to resume doing my 1000 words a day (reading geologic literature), and I should start papers for publication, and there is a powerpoint presentation to do summarizing my thesis results, but, somehow, I haven't yet made time for these things. Perhaps tomorrow. Now I think I shall get some sleep...

According to the calender on her web page, Tania Opland is performing at the Wayward Coffeehouse in Seattle. Anyone want to join me?

I've had a peasant couple of days of travel. Got a ride from my knight to Longbeach, were we enjoyed the hospitality of a rented beach house with josiestraka and her family/friends. This included several long walks along the beach, much good food, and good company. The drive out to the beach house included such highlights as a stop at "Dismal Niche", which name was truly irresistible. Apparently this was the place that Lewis & Clark's party spent many days trapped due to torrential downpour before they could commence their return journey, having successfully found the Pacific Ocean.

Today I've made the trip up to Seattle, and am at my sister's house. I can be reached on my mother's cell phone (206) 484-5960 for those of you who are local--I'd like to see as many folk as I can before I leave town on the 3rd. My oldest niece is now nearly five years old, and she seems to take more after me than her mother in terms of personality. She helped me bake a loaf of bread tonight (I mean that literally--she was truly helpful). Note, she make take after me, but she looks just like her mother did at that age. You can't fool me, sure the eyes are brown and not blue, and the hair may be brown not blond, but that is my little sister, I am certain of it.

This morning I managed to burn the CDs to accompany my thesis. It turned out to be much easier than I'd anticipated. I've never needed to burn a CD before, so was quite pleased to discover that if one inserts a blank CD into my computer it promptly offers to burn a CD, and the program is completely intuative. They've now been "posted" (Australian term for "sent via snail-mail" for you Americans in my audience) via express mail, and once they arrive and my advisor sticks them into the pockets in the back of the books my thesis will be complete (until and unless the examiners decide they want me to make "corrections" to it, and it will likely be a couple of months before they get back to me on that, one way or the other). It is an odd feeling to be "done". I think I like it. Of course, now I need to start work on papers for publication based upon this research, I need to start listening to the Italian Language CDs that blamebrampton was kind enough to give me, and it might be a good idea to start reading literature related to the work I'll be doing in Italy...

This evening I had a delightful time visiting with corva and her husband (at whose house I'm staying), aleyn256 (an old friend of mine from when I lived in the Summits), and his lovely wife helena_br, and Susan (an old friend from when I lived in the Mists). While chatting I drew threads from the lovely navy blue linen which followed me home from Berkeley, in preparation for cutting nice straight lines so that it can be transformed into a new skirt.

Tomorrow I need to figure out how to get to Longbeach (anyone in the Portland area fancy an adventure?) so that I can meet up with the friend of a friend for the drive to Seattle, where my sisters and I will all be together for the first time since we lost my step dad, more than five years ago.

For weeks my life had revolved around my computer and writing up my thesis. Heck, most of the past few years have centered around my computer and working on my thesis. I found it very easy to keep track of how I was spending my time and what I was eating, as I spent many hours each day at the computer, so it was a simple matter of switching between windows up update the logs. 5pm last Tuesday that all changed. I printed the final page of the thesis, and left it on my advisor's desk to be delivered the next day to the binders (only a half an hour too late to take it to the print shop myself!). Since then I've been in travel mode. Travel mode doesn't include much computer time. Travel mode requires one to either keep one's log on paper, or give up keeping a log. Thus far, I've been stubborn enough to keep maintaining the logs, and have done the data entry to get them into the computer when time permits. I hope that this continues, because I enjoy watching the graphs change with time.

Travel mode has meant a fun day in Sydney, shopping with bamebrampton. It has meant 13.5 hours on a plane across the ocean, landing in LA half an hour before departing. Noting that Quantas planes, unlike the plane I took to Australia four years ago, has not five seats in the middle row for the economy class, but only four. Gone are the days when it is possible to push up the arm rests and stretch out across all of the seats at once (on the rare occasion that there are sufficent vacant seats). Instead the arm rests are extra wide, to hide tray tables and small personal TV screens inside. It will not surprise anyone who knows me to hear that I did not pull out the TV screen I was given. Instead I got some sleep (Yay, sleep!), worked on a new tunic from some lovely wool purchased in Sydney, and read a bit in a book written by my friend Nikki.

Travel mode meant changing planes in LA, with enough time in-between to buy an adaptor so that I'd be able to use my computer in this country, then flying to SFO, the doing a loop around the Bay Area (the massage in Menlo Park made the detour so worth it), followed by seeing a play with hrj and a friend of hers (much fun, and good company!), then driving out to June Crown with duke_flieg.

Crown was much fun! Many thanks to ktmcg, who gave me a corner of her tent to call home, to mamapduck, who provided me with pillow and doona, to western_duchess, who lent me her spare air matress, and to katerit, who had sent me a tent for the weekend, though she couldn't make it to the event herself, and to alessandro_bard and colletteshorses who tried to deliver said tent, but encountered car trouble along the way. I'm so glad they were able to make it anyway, despite the complications with their transport situation.

Spending time at the event felt so normal and natural that it was difficult to believe that it has been six years since I left the West to move to Lochac. Most of the people I care about seemed unchanged, and it felt more like a few weeks than a few years since I've seen them. However, seeing the poised grace of a friend's daughter, who was an awkward pre-teen when last we met, and is now spending the school year away from home at College really brought home the point that, yes, time has elapsed. I didn't make the time to participate in any official activity, other than attending Saturday morning court. I never heard the heraldic announcements (I rarely do, due to my hearing problems, which are tied to attention problems--I tend to assume that any sound that is too faint to hear properly isn't important, though I know, intellectually, that this simply isn't true), so have no idea what all I missed which might have been of interest. I do know that I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to see. While I didn't expect to see the ones who didn't attend the event, I know that there were a few whom I saw only at a distance, that I would have liked to spend time visiting with, and others I saw only briefly, with whom I'd have enjoyed more interaction.

One complication to my making time to see people was the fact that I spent the last half of the event fighting off a cold. The last time I caught a cold badly enough to experiance symptoms was after Estrella war in 2004, so I guess I can't really complain if, after weeks of pushing myself really hard to finish the thesis and shorting things like sleep in the process, I came down with a bit of sniffles. However, battling off that virus did take up some of my energy, and encouraged josiestraka and I to get on the road early on Sunday, to be certain that we'd have time to make our train that night. The down side of leaving early is that I missed vittoriosa's Laurel ceremony (pity I never heard when the Laurel's meeting was--if I'd have attended the meeting, I'd have known that was coming, and so would have planned to stay for it, even feeling under the weather). But the up side of leaving early is that we were able to stop by the fabric store on our way to return the rental car, so I now have a nice blue linen modern skirt (some assembly required). We left site around mid-day, and got to the Amtrack train station with an hour or so to spare before our 23:00 departure. As a result of taking BART from the airport to the train station I managed to complete the remaining quarter of the loop around the Bay Area, so I've now passed through every BART and CalTrain station in the area in one short weekend. I can't say that I recommend it, but there are worse ways to travel.

I slept for the first part of the train ride, but it was dark then anyway, so wouldn't have been able to see anything out the window if I hadn't. I woke up in souhern Oregon, and looked out the window to see Mount Thielsen, a lovely volcano of the Cascade Range, with a very pointy peak. I smiled to see it, remembering the time years ago I climbed that peak with some friends, and then hurried down the mountain, reaching the easy part of the trail just as full dark came on. Fortunately, the easy part of the trail is so good that one can feel if one steps off of it, so we were able to wend our way back to our car that day without mishap, despite the moonless night.

We finally arrived in Portland a bit before 4pm, and were met by the lovely corva, who took us home and made us welcome. josiestraka was picked up shortly thereafter by her husband, who took her to Longbeach, where they are renting a vacation place for the week. I'm to join them there soon, so if anyone in the Portland area fancies a drive to the beach with me, please let me know ASAP! It was a delight to see the Bear again, and fun to see that while he may be 14 already (where has the time gone?), I'm still the taller. He points out that in a few more months this may not be the case, but I counter that while his parents have reasonable height, there is a small chance that he takes his genes from a shorter ancestor. Time will tell, and, no doubt, much faster than I expect it to be moving, if the past few years are any indication.

My plan for tomorrow is to burn that CD of electronic appendices (I think I've gathered together all of the files, and changed the field numbers to catalogue numbers) and post it to my advisor. Then spend time with whatever other friends I can manage to meet up with before heading to the beach for another day or so and then off to Seattle for the weekend, where my sisters and I shall all be under one roof for the first time since we lost my step-dad, five years ago.

My computer thinks it is 4pm on Friday, the local time is 11pm on Thursday. I managed to sleep on the plane, more than once. I landed in LA a half an hour before I took off from Sydney (love that date line!). Then flew to San Francisco and took the train south to meet up with my massage therapist, then continued south on CalTrain from there to San Jose before catching the connector bus to the BART station in Freemont and thence to the home of hrj, my host for the evening. I arrived just after she got home from work, and we went to see a very good outdoor theatre presentation of Romeo and Juliet with a friend of hers. I was sleepy for much of it, but deemed it well worth staying up late up for it.

In the morning I head to Crown with duke_flieg, so I'll be one of the first few on site. Ages ago lj user="katerit"> offered me a tent for the weekend, but I haven't had a chance to check back in, so I've no idea if it is still an option , or if it comes with bedding, and it is kind of late notice to make other plans if it doesn't. However, I'm confidant that something will work out.

Yesterday I had a wonderful time in Sydney with blamebrampton, who helped me find an international driver's licence, some lovely wool for a new tunic (some assembly required--much of which has been accomplished already), and who managed to make me enjoy myself, even though there was shopping involved.

My thesis was left with my advisor before I left the country, to be taken to the binders and submitted to the examiners. All I still need to do for it is burn the electronic appendices to a CD and post them back to him, preferably such that he receives them before the binders finish their work.