camping

It's been a while since I posted, hasn't it?

Today's photo is from a camping trip we went on while we were in Hawaii over Christmastime. Casey's friend Sage got permits for the three of us to camp for two nights in Kokee, the state forest up in the mountains in the central part of the island. It was a very nice camping trip, actually. Casey's sister loaned us a bunch of her supplies (tent, sleeping bags, chairs, propane grill), and we ate very well, hiked around some trails I'd never seen, and generally amused ourselves without electricity for a few days.

Our camp site was in a grove of tall pine trees (I'm sure I should know the type of tree, but I don't), overlooking a river, which was easy to climb down to if we wanted to bathe (which I didn't really). (In my defense, it was cold.)

The photo for today was taken while standing at our camp site, looking out at the hillside across the river. (Elevation! How I've missed you!)

It. Is. Defended! (Doctor Who, anyone?)

About six weeks ago, Casey emailed a copy of his written PhD thesis (all 280-something pages) to his committee, so that they could read it before the defense (which was scheduled for Thursday, December 7). To his amusement but not surprise, on December 6, the two committee members who were not his advisor heavily implied that they had not read the thesis yet.

The defense ostensibly has three distinct parts: Casey's ~45 minute public presentation, questions from the committee after the audience leaves, and then some amount of time for the committee to confer amongst themselves in private. In practice, the questions were mostly all asked during the presentation, and the audience was permitted to ask questions, too, instead of just the committee. And the questions were not particularly confrontational; most of them were for clarification.

In the end, Casey successfully defended, and he is now a doctor. He still goes by Casey, though, but if you must address him with a title, he'd prefer "Doctor Claw."

Sinterklaas!

Today is Saint Nicholas Day (Sinterklaas in Dutch)!

The picture I'm using for today is of the Sinterklaas's arrival in Amsterdam, about two weeks ago. The story is that Sinterklaas arrives from Spain on a steam ship. This steam ship actually comes in along the Amstel, so we could see the entrance from our apartment. We went outside early and took in the atmosphere.. tons of kids dressed up as the Sint or as Zwarte Piets (his small black-faced assistants).. There were Zwarte Piets on rollerblades appearing on bridges and such (causing the kids to shout and point sporadically) for a few minutes before the boat parade.. which consisted of several decked-out boats full of Zwarte Piets and bands, and then finally Sinterklaas's boat.

The boat parade went downtown, and Sinterklaas alighted at the Maritime Museum, where he got onto a white horse and rode around the city in a three-hour parade. I met up with the parade at the end point, in Leidseplein. The parade on land was even more impressive than by boat. It took at least an hour to go by, possibly more like two hours, and there were tons of floats and Zwarte Piets handing out spiced cookies and candies. Sinterklaas rode up in his white horse and then dismounted and went up to the balcony of a theater in the square, and he gave an address to all the children gathered. And this is where I took today's picture.

Of course the whole point of Sinterklaas is to get presents, right? To that end, Dutch children put out shoes by the chimney on the night of December 5th, and they wake up on December 6th with gifts (each with a poem to the recipient, from Sinterklaas) in the shoes. Casey's department had a Sinterklaas party last week. In this instance, the gifts were the slightly minor side effect of some very funny poems and bizarre wrapping.

Also, on Saturday, I saw our neighbor's kids dressed up and parading around the sidewalk.. The oldest one was dressed as Sinterklaas, and he had a trail of five or six Zwarte Piets. I think these kids were not actually wearing black face, but there definitely were some at the parade who were. People seem to be trying to make it more PC these days, by saying that they're just black from all the soot in the chimneys, but it's pretty clear that those are not the real roots of the legend. It is interesting to see this -- I can't imagine parents putting their children in black face in the states. Obviously when the US adopted Sinterklaas as Santa Claus, they changed the Piets to ethnically generic elves. I'm curious to see how the legend evolves in the Netherlands.

Thanksgiving

Almost every year of my life, I have spent Thanksgiving with the Andersons. So when I found out that the daughter of the family (who is between my brother and me in age) would be in Heidelberg, Germany, for the year, I knew it was fated that we would spend Thanksgiving together.

Thursday morning, Casey and I loaded ourselves and our assorted food products onto the train and headed off for a four-day weekend in Germany.

The photo for today is taken from the Philosophers' Way in Heidelberg, looking down on the medeival part of the city and the castle (the Romans settled on the other side of the river, where we were standing). As always, you can click on the photo to see a larger version. We spent all day Friday walking around Heidelberg. The city is very picturesque, and it also has what I think is my favorite pedestrian street yet--Hauptstrasse, with the perfect amount of bustle and noise without actual crowding or blockage of store windows to look in. Excellent!

The aquaduct-looking structure to the left is actually the base of a public park, which used to be the castle's former gardens. The weather was perfect for us to walk around, enjoying the hillsides (quite a change from flat Amsterdam).

Saturday we took a train to two nearby smaller towns along the Neckar River in what is sometimes called the "castle district" of Germany. I'll try to post photos from there soon.

Martinmas

Today was Saint Martin's Day, when Dutch children make paper lanterns and walk around to their neighbors singing songs in exchange for candy. It's like Halloween (which is not celebrated here), only sweeter. Unfortunately, we were under the impression that it was a tradition only in the northern part of the country, so we were unprepared when kids rang our doorbell expecting candy. So we closed our curtains and hid from them. Then later I snuck out to the balcony and took a few pictures.

The photo for today is of three celebrants with their lanterns and parents. One of the parents has a bike. I brightened the photo a bit and changed the contrast, which introduced a graininess, but I actually kind of like the graininess with the surreal point of view and the very long shadows. Like for all photos on this blog, clicking on the photo will take you to a larger version.

Next year, I will be prepared for Saint Martin's Day. A candy-buying reminder is already on my Google calendar.