My first paper will be accepted!

Yesterday was marked by one more exciting event--I was notified that my first paper will be accepted for publication in the journal Behaviour, with some minor revisions, of course. This is really meaningful to me. Theoretically, having original research accepted by a credible, peer-reviewed journal means you have made a significant contribution to your field. In my opinion, a thesis doesn't amount to much (besides the author's personal experiences in writing it) unless its findings are published for anyone to read, criticise, and potentially use for further research. Woohoo :o) Hopefully it won't take another full year to churn out the second one...

A quick summer-time holiday in NY

The trip to New York was really pleasant--Seth managed to get a tiny bit of work done at the public library and I went for a few day trips with his parents. We drove around Seneca Lake one day then Canandaigua Lake another and stopped at a few points along the way; we visited a few wineries, took a walk around Watkins Glen (a rather impressive gorge type thing at the southern tip of Seneca Lake), spotted one of the special white deer at Sampson State Park (there is a herd of about 200 pure white deer trapped inside this old army depot--intriguingly they are not albino but are totally white due to some mutation), and did a bit of shopping, too.

Strawberry picking with Seth's mom at the farm down the road

Watkins Glen State Park

Yesterday was rather eventful. The day started off with finding Dolly, the family's 23-25 year old gray cat who had wandered off in the rain the night before, sitting out on the front steps with a scratched face and a broken jaw, most likely swiped by a car on the busy road. Poor Dolly, showing off her nine lives :o( After our morning run, which was not incredibly nice feeling due to the cresting in the road (which is good in the winter because it helps drain water from the streets but is bad for running because the slanted surface does some real damage to the knees), Seth and I loaded the car and pulled out of the driveway to head back to Waltham. We stopped at the intersection about 100m from the house only to witness an SUV crossing the intersection get slammed by a car it had pulled in front of (the driver did not look left when crossing the street). Not the best way to start a 6 hour drive, but thankfully no one was hurt and everyone kept in good spirits, and we were reminded to drive carefully.

To top it off, yesterday was also the summer solstice, though it really didn't seem like it with the cool, rainy, humid weather the past two weeks. Not being a big fan of heat and UV light, I'd much rather have this than feel the full force of the sun. In fact, so far I have absolutely loved this northern weather--it is late June and still in the 70s. Heaven. Now that the days are getting shorter, it will only get better from here for the next six months :o)

Back in (and out) of the groove

This past week Seth and I have been busy getting back to work--Seth has taken full advantage of the summer break to comb through the data he collected from the libraries in Italy and has been making some good progress. I have been auditing a summer session class called Human Origins. Little did I know when I joined in that there would be only four other people in the class, or that the class is for non-majors. Let's just say I haven't actually learned anything new yet--however it is always good to be presented with old material to help bring back what I had forgotten in past years. Plus, we have watched some PBS documentary every day so far (though the first video I had already seen...).

This weekend Bo and Natalie came over for dinner (they just moved here from New York City a couple weeks ago). It is so great to have such a good friend close by, if you consider an hour-long bus ride between here and downtown Cambridge/Boston 'close by'. Yesterday, Sunday, was exciting in that we bought a comfy Craigslist chair (a old-fashioned wingback ) then spent the evening over at Mark and Gina's. It's nice to have them close by, too!

Now that we are getting in a good routine, tomorrow we head to Seth's parents' place in Geneva! :o) Hopefully we can get keep up the productivity momentum while we are visiting.

Our route

(click on the map for a close-up)

The last leg

Friday, June 5th 2009
Day 17
Written en route to Philadelphia, USA at 8:45am (EST)

Yesterday (Thursday) we woke up tired but with a great view of the mountains and excited about our run. This was going to be the best, most memorable run of the trip, through the winding valley between rolling hills and glacier-carved mountains. We did not have a map and did not know where the best trails awaited us, so we spoke with two people at the hotel's front desk. Both agreed the road leading north out of town would provide beautiful views and even though it was a national road, traffic would be slow and it was of course suitable for running. We took their advice and headed north. Right away there was no side walk, and leading up a long gradual hill there was hardly even a shoulder. Being about 7am traffic was beginning to pick up, but it was slow if only due to the fact that the road was so narrow and winding. We kept assuring ourselves that we would find a quiet side street or at least a shoulder or sidewalk, but their was neither. In a beautiful area surely we were surrounded by endless trails and unmarked paths but here we were running along a highway, being passed by honking cars, John Deere tractors, mothers taking their children to their bilingual school, city buses, and trucks. Seven miles later I was back at the hostel and the most interesting thing we saw was a farm of Valdostan cows that produced the Fontina cheese we had bought from the guy in Turin. The rest of Seth's run sounded even more horrible than this first portion--he decided to head for a running path along the river, crossing through the busy, bustling town to get there only to spend his entire time on unshaded pavement alongside other runners who were brown and leathered from the sun. Needless to say, it was not the run we had fantasized about. After checking out of the hotel we checked out the visitor center for trail advice to find out what we missed out on. Though they gave us a walking guide, it seemed like the best trails were far from Aosta and the local walks were not much better than the path along the river. I guess we didn't miss much.

We woke up to this view from the hotel

Running along a national road

Seth and his John Deere tractor (Seth is actually hidden behind it)

A cute little school along the busy road

View on the way back down

Sun weary, we ate yogurt and cherries under the large Porto Praetoria (built by the Romans when they took the region from the Celtic-ligurians back in the first century), then wandered around the 2000-year-old Roman Theatre and 1000-year-old Gothic church, Chiesa di Saint'Orso. After a long relaxing lunch of a bit more bread, sauce and cheese in the Piazza Chanoux--indeed, we are always eating--we hoped to take the nearby cable car up one of the peaks but it was closed and wouldn't open until the summer. Instead we lolled around town and eventually found ourselves at the library for an hour or two to read (or in my case, sleep). One thing I finally got to try while we were here was one of the library's distributore autimatico (vending machines). I had spotted these around Italy and always wanted to try one, so for 25 cents I got to select from over two dozen hot chocolate and coffee beverages, served scalding hot in a small plastic cup with a tiny plastic stir-stick. I wish they had such extravagant drink machines in the US.

I guess this is what happens when Germans discover gelato (be glad I didn't get a closer picture)

Lunch under the Porto Praetoria

Roman Theatre

The bell tower of Chiesa di Saint'Orso

Serving 26 different hot drinks (I loved this machine)

Since we had been so good eating on the cheap for the duration of the trip we agreed to have a nice dinner to commemorate our last night in Italy. However, we had to eat early at 5:30pm in order to catch our 7:30 train to Milan. In Italy, only drinks are served in the afternoon and early evening and most restaurants don't even open until 7 or 7:30pm (as we found in Bologna), so it was impossible for us to eat at a nice place. We decided on an inexpensive take away pizza place down the road, and split a marinara pizza, a large calzone, and grabbed a chocolate and Nutella crepe to go. Even though it was not the lavish dinner we were hoping for, it was certainly Italian and satisfying, and even more importantly, it was fast--we absolutely would have missed our train had we gone to a restaurant. We still ended up walking briskly back to the hotel to grab our bags, then Seth took off for the train station to secure tickets while I bought a few last-minute items for the flight at the grocery store. After getting held up behind a slow check-out person, I frantically ran to the train station and hopped aboard, dripping with sweat--definitely not the best way to begin a 30-hour journey back home with no shower.

Our last real meal in Italy. How fancy.

The hotel

We said good bye to the Valle d'Aosta, watching the castles, glaciers and grassy hills pass by in the sunset, and split a 500ml tub of gelato I had 'somehow' managed to grab in my frenzy at the market. I had discovered the secret to how Italians can eat soooo much gelato and never gain weight, and that is that most of it seems to be made with skim milk. Our tub, even though it was 10 servings, only had 30 grams of fat (of which 15 grams were saturated). This means a normal person could easily eat an entire half liter tub a day if they are careful about their saturated fat intake. Sugar and calories, however, are another story. To top this off we had our crepe, oozing with nutella and chocolate. Throughout the course of the trip we would buy whole wheat bread (integrale) when possible, but 75% of the time we were spoiled by flaky white bread, white pasta, and white rice. In addition, we had been eating generous amounts of cheese and of course gelato. Even though milk and fresh fruit were plentiful, not having a kitchen to cook reduced our veggie consumption to canned tomatoes. Ironically I think we both lost some weight the past couple weeks, but we still decided early on to go on detox as soon as we return to Waltham.

Could one of these be the Matterhorn?

The train ride to Milan led to a 60min shuttle to Malpensa airport. We arrived around midnight and staked our claim in Terminal 1: a nice quiet patch of hard tile floor located at a corner so we would be covered at two sides. We slept on our travel towels with our hats covering our heads, which really wasn't a bad arrangement. Four and a half hours later Seth was up and running (literally), and by 10am we were flying out of Italy and over the Alps we had admired for the past 17 days.

As promised, pictures from the plane (unnervingly, the peaks seemed awfully close...)

Alpine valley

Thursday, June 4th 2009
Day 16
Written en route to Milan, Italy at 10:00pm

The train ride (yesterday, Wednesday) once again was a nice experience. Like the other rides, there was lots of room to move about and walk around, and of course the scenery was spectacular--steep snow capped mountains shot up from the perfectly flat valley and eventually castles and fortresses began to speckle the cliffs. In Turin we could just barely discern the peaks in the distance, though we saw one that looked particularly foreboding, shaped like a large hooked tooth. We joked that it must be the Matterhorn, like from the Disney Land ride. I later read that the Matterhorn actually does overlook the Valle d'Aosta, so during the commute we guessed at which peak it could be (we continued to guess our entire time in the valley but could never find confirmation).

A train station near Aosta (that's not an Italian name on that station sign).

See those funky old buildings and the vineyards on the hills?

When we arrived in Aosta (pop. 34,000) it was quickly apparent that we were somewhere totally different. Nestled in the Italian Alps near the border of both France and Switzerland, Aosta has a culture of its own. For example, school children are required to be fluent in both Italian and French. Many signs are written in both languages and sometimes in Swiss German, too (English was rarely included, another indication we were off the beaten track). The buildings became less bright and colourful and more brown and Gothic.

We arrived around 6:45pm, just in time to miss the tourist information office, so we just checked in to the Hotel Mignon in the north of town. We didn't find any hostels nearby, so staying in a budget hotel was a real treat for us--we enjoyed our own room, bathroom, balcony with a view of the mountains, mini fridge to store our cheese and chill our boxed milk, towels, and soap! It was the best two star hotel you could ask for. Too bad we couldn't stay longer.

We had our bread/sauce/fontina cheese dinner out in one of the quiet piazzas in the center of town then walked around for a while, taking in the spectacular view and the appealing, aging streets. We noticed right away that the town has a much bigger proportion of anguished 'punk' kids than the other cities we had visited. Perhaps there isn't enough in town for youth to do except to stare at mountains and wear black? Many of the locals, too, seemed to be a bit more on edge, verging on icy and standoff-ish, though clearly this was not always the case as there were quite a few friendly people as well. Also, the population is not nearly as well dressed--in fact, there were large numbers of dumpy-looking people. Until then Italians had really impressed me by the way they dress; tourists could usually be picked out right away by their inferior fashion and I felt like I screamed 'foreigner' with my rather basic apparel. In Aosta, however, I felt a bit less obvious. We finished off the day with a walk around an ancient Roman arch (Archo di Augusto), watched the gushing glacial water of the River Buthier, and shared a couple cones of gelato, due gusti.

To market

Wednesday, June 3rd 2009
Day 15
Written en route to Aosta, Italy at 5:00pm

The last time I wrote we were travelling to Turin--the train was very slow and stopped every few minutes, for about seven and a half hours. We didn't mind the long ride, though, since it was a drizzly day and would have been miserable to walk around outside. In addition, when the sun came out we were moving along the coast, through La Cinque Terre, which we were considering visiting ourselves. This region is known for its five medieval villages clinging to cliffs above the sea. Through the other window of the train we watched large mountains emerge, dotted with villas overlooking the distant ocean. It really was quite dramatic.

Quick glimpses from the train ride (Florence to Turin):

Some demonstration in Genoa

A typical lunch

We arrived in Turin late and checked into our hostel outside the city center. Here, unlike the other cities we stayed in, we would have to take the bus to get into town, since there really were no hostels or budget hotels in town. This seemed odd but after not too long we discovered that Turin, despite being the biggest city we have stayed in so far (pop. 921,000), is not the hot destination that Florence, Venice, and even Bologna are, which was extremely refreshing. For me, it was hard to really appreciate Florence and Venice because of their crowded, narrow streets and the throngs of tourists. It really distracted me from the appeal and culture of the city. Turin, however, was clean, wide, and no less grand.

The hostel was pretty nice and extremely clean, provided fresh towels, and the owner (at the least the man) was very helpful and had a nice attitude (the lady was a bit harsh). Besides being outside the city center, the main problem with the accommodation was it had no kitchen facilities. For every lunch and dinner we made do with mixing canned beans, canned tomatoes, and a small jar of pasta sauce and served that at room temperature with bread and cheese. However, the cheese of course gradually became more elaborate, the bread more artisan, and the drink went from water to boxed wine (only 0.85 euros at the cheap Aldi-style EuroSpin supermarket down the road; cheaper than milk, cheaper than bottled water). Our evening snack consisted of a 1 litre box of long-life milk and cornflakes. We were also able to experiment with how long we could keep food items unrefrigerated--we ate our sealed yogurt containers after about 48 hours and kept gorgonzola for about 30 (the man who sold us the cheese said you could keep it up to 10 days unchilled if it is kept wrapped. I suppose it is already molded and the addition of more mold could only enhance the flavour). We never did feel ill or get upset stomachs.

On Monday morning after our not too inspiring run along a somewhat dangerously busy residential street leading up a long hill, we took the bus into town. As Seth worked at the library I walked around and explored the numerous piazzas which seemed to be hidden around every other corner.

The National University Library in the Piazza Carlo Alberto

Turin has very different architecture--perhaps a little French-influenced?

The massive Piazza Vittorio Veneto

After meeting back with Seth (the library closed early, at 2pm), we had our typical lunch of cheese, bread, and sauce, then visited the Duomo di San Giovanni, the home of the Shroud of Turin. The church was not unlike the others we had seen, but it did have a nice reproduction of the shroud (the real thing will not be exposed for public viewing again until 2025), and we were surprised to find the real deal hidden under a covering behind a glass wall. I'm not catholic and don't put faith in religious relics, but I must admit it was pretty neat.

Duomo di San Giovanni, home of the Shroud

Seth with Jesus (a reproduction of the shroud and the negative image of its photograph)

We then headed north of the city center, past old Roman ruins, and into Porta Palazzo, Europe's largest outdoor market. It seemed to go on and on--flowers, clothing, odd-and-ends, and of course amazingly cheap produce: Kiwis for 0.50€/kilo (about 35 cents per pound), cherries 1.50€/kilo, apples and bananas 0.50€/kilo, nectarines 1.00€/kilo, and all types of bread for 1.25€/kilo (about 75 cents per pound). We didn't bother even looking at the veggies because we would have no way to cook them, but I am sure they were cheap, too. It kinda makes you wonder why you would buy produce at the grocery store for three times as much? There were also several large buildings surrounding the market, each filled with meat, cheese, and bread vendors. Seth insisted on buying cheese from an older fellow with long kinky hair who operated a small stand off to the side. They got chatting and we bought a nice slab of gorgonzola from him, with a special discount. Loaded down with fruit, bread, and cheese, we headed back to the hostel for a great big dinner followed by dessert of fresh pear and gorgonzola.

Porta Palazzo, the largest outdoor market in Europe

Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, where everyone seems to congregate beginning at 4:30pm

Political concert at Piazza San Carlo. Elections are coming soon. Vote Communist.

The view from our suburban hostel overlooks a park and a shady modern art museum. Notice the suspicious guitar player on the bench.

Pear + gorgonzola + boxed wine + old yogurt = delicious

The next morning (yesterday, Tuesday), was a public holiday so we were treated with very light traffic on our run towards the city greenway, which trails off from the Po River at the east of town. The greenway thankfully was dirt and took off uphill leading to a nice view of the city from someone's private property. On our way back down we rounded a corner and came face to face (almost literally) with a German Shepherd off its leash. It came towards us barking, and though at first we both thought it was a friendly or excited bark, it definitely was aggressive. The dog didn't snarl or bare its teeth, but it did charge us and put its mouth on Seth's leg, then mine, the Seth's again. Seth shouted at it and tried to kick at it--I was unsure if I should join in and curse at it and try to hit it with a stick, but in my uncertainty (I didn't want the dog to totally lose it and actually attack us), I just stood my ground and let Seth do the yelling. All the while its owner, a middle-age woman holding a long stick, called and shouted at the dog, but kept a comfortable distance of maybe 15 metres. Why did she not come over and pull it off of us? Why did she not hit it? After several lunges and lots of barking, the dog finally backed off. Why do people let their aggressive dogs off leashes? Why do they not discipline their animals? Though I think some dogs are dangerous and are hazards, I put most of my blame on their owners. I'm just glad this one didn't actually decide to bite down on us--we walked away with slobber and a light scratch on Seth, though nothing like the dog bite he received in Vietnam.

The view from the greenway

The birds in the park. I wish I saw (or heard) the Cuculo.

The rest of the day was not nearly as eventful--because of the holiday quite a few stores were closed, but in the afternoon while we were enjoying nice big gelatos a parade came marching down the street. Like Ferrara, it had a historical theme, though unlike Ferrara, they didn't seem to take it very seriously; many of the participants were chewing gum, looking around, and chatting with each other. Maybe in a few hundred more years they will get it right.

Piazza___?

Po River

Big man, tiny cup, cute chocolates

The afternoon ritual

Watching the Republic Day parade

We spent the evening trying to decide between staying in Turin the rest of our time in Italy or if we should try to move on to another city for our last night; moving would risk Seth not finishing in the library, as well as require train and hotel booking, packing and unpacking, and of course, physically moving, all for just 24 hours in a new city. We decided to just sleep on it.

This morning we still hadn't decided on what to do--even after our run we were still torn between going or staying. We eventually came to the conclusion to try to leave town in the afternoon, if Seth could finish his work in the library. He managed to wrap things up just as the library was closing (2pm again), so after making one more round at the gigantic outdoor market (unbelievably held every weekday) for bread rolls and more cheese from the quirky old fellow (little did I know that the cheese I selected, Fontina, has its own Designation of Protected Origin and is produced in the Valle d'Aosta, where we were headed), we had our typical lunch, took the bus back to the hostel to grab our stuff and book a hotel for tonight (with the help of the hotel owner), went back to the train station and hopped on the next train to Aosta.

The regional train to Valle d'Aosta