Weeks 6,7,8,9,9.5: Travelling around, but no wheels, Duncan comes

I am writing this post by my bedroom window which, despite the airconditioning in my flat, is wide open, so that I can hear and enjoy the outside summer noises. I have now been here for almost eight weeks and I am settling in here well, getting used to living in the USA. My research on the other hand, is going a bit pear-shaped. Duncan is coming on Tuesday and I will be heading off in two weeks time!
...time passes...
I am now writing this post on Wednesday evening, and Duncan has come. Things are speeding along and here is an overview of what I have been up to!

New York + Visiting Jutta
The week before last I headed off from work early on Friday, to Union Station in DC, took the "Washington Deluxe", a pretty standard but otherwise good bus, straight to New York. In New Jersey, as the sun set, the Big Apple started to loom in the distance, with my bus gliding towards the city, marked by the towers which, planted in the city, extended high into the night sky. After going through the tunnel to Manhattan, stepping out of the bus, I found myself on the corner of 36th St and 7th Ave, and made a dash to the Port Authority bus station. On the way I was impressed by the atmosphere of the old, brick Manhattan buildings, with modern cafés in between, and the eclectic business of 8th Avenue. I jumped into my commuter bus, swooping me out of the city, to Demarest, New Jersey, on the other side of the Hudson River, to see Jutta, my lovely host. As soon as I saw the sign "Demarest", I pressed the stop button, confirmed with the bus driver this was Demarest, and jumped out.

I discovered that although this was definitely Demarest, I was nowhere near the Duck Pond bus stop, where I was meeting Jutta-I had jumped out way too early. Some walking and guessing remedied this and soon I found her and we headed off to her place. Jutta is an old family friend. I last met her in 2010, when I travelled to New York for the first and last time since I was born there! She is from Westfalen, in Germany and emigrated to the USA in 1960, and has known my grandparents for a long, long time. My father was even sent to stay with her in 1978 as a fifteen-year old! She made some lovely dinner-sandwiches for me and supplied me with ample dessert. After having a lovely post-dinner chat with her, I headed to bed, and slept like a log.

This bowl I came across just comes to demonstrate that drawing technique has not changed
much over the course of 3000 years.

On Saturday I headed into town, sauntered around on the busy 7th avenue, took a subway to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accidentally went 50 streets too far, made my way back, traversed Central Park, and entered this museum with a member's ticket under the guise of Jutta Greweldinger, a patroness of the Met since 1978. Apparently very convincing, because I got in! They had many interesting things to mention, a vast collection, but two things I remember well was their section with Cypriot artifacts from pre-hellenic times, which I was very fond of, and their portraits and landscapes from Dutch artists in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. Even though the Dutch golden age was in the 17th century, these paintings were already very refined and impressive.

View from Brooklyn Bridge

After this, I headed down to southern Manhattan, to where the Staten Island Ferry leaves, and had a good look across the sound bay, then went on, marched across the Brooklyn bridge, and went to a small little barge by the water, which was currently being shouted over by some extremely loud concert nearby. There I attended the a chamber music performance at Bargemusic, with the performers being the director of the place, Peskov himself, a Ukrainian violinst, and a piano player. Together the played various duets. Peskov had quite an informal, jokey manner, and even needed to check the program to see what he was going to play 'Let's see what I will play today...'. I then headed off to Port Authority, got very lost in the metro along the way, and came back to Jutta.

Sunday
That morning I got up and watched the football world cup final with Jutta. Good game, pity France won, we were both routing for Croatia! Afterwards I said goodbye, went back to NY, and thoroughly investigated Times Square, which turned out to be quite a small square, with way too many tourists. Not much there, definitely not the center of the world. I then visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was quite stunning. St. Patrick's Cathedral is where I was baptised in 1998! It was really cool being there. They happened to be playing an organ concert at that moment.

St. Patrick's Cathedral from the inside

After this I passed the Empire State Building, got some reeeally cheap pizza slices, scoffed it down, and bussed back down to DC. 't Was a good weekend. I much prefer NY to DC. The people are more warm there, although they can also be outright. Better to show what you feel, than be cold I think! I could imagine returning to work in the future! On top this, I also think that the New Yorker accent is adorable. Once back at home I said farewell to John, my good flatmate, who was off to Alaska and finishing up in DC. He was thrilled to hear about the huge buildings in NY and even more thrilled to go shoot guns and see his girlfriend again!

Farewell to the Empire State of Mind

Disaster strikes: Bicycle Dismembered

Things were going all well the following week...until Tuesday morning I discovered someone had taken my bleeding bike wheels!! Both bloody wheels!! Parked right outside my bleeding bloody door! I took it as it came and the next day, I found myself doing the walk of shame with my considerably lighter bike across campus to the bike shop to explain what happened. They replaced my bike and only charged 80$ so good on them, thanks for the kindness!

The last thing you want to see on your Tuesday morning

Weekend with Verwiel Family
The weekend after this, I headed off to Baltimore Airport, where I met Frank Verwiel, an old friend of my father's, who was picking up his daughter Laurine. Together we headed off to their stunning weekend house at the east shore of Chesapeake Bay in Royal Oak, MD. Over there I met his wife Francine. Unfortunately, it was rainy the whole weekend and so we weren't able to enjoy the outdoors too much. I had a pleasant time talking to them. Even though Frank and Francine emigrated to the USA a long time ago, they have managed to completely raise their children in Dutch and so I actually only spoke Dutch the whole weekend!

Seeing Cecil
I have an old friend. Quite an old friend. To be exactly, I met Cecil in Brazil when I was 7 :-p. Since then we have seen each other a few times. He happens to study at Georgetown University in DC and was in the area, and so we met up, we met up twice! We had a good conversation, caught up, reminded each other of our parents' names etc. and generally had a good time inspecting Georgetown during my first visit, and DC monuments the second time.

Some people stand on shoulders of giants.......I sit on their lap [Einstein Monument]

Cecil-Francis and I at the WWII monument

Cycle to DC and Greek cooking
Next weekend I cycled to Washington DC on my proud refitted bike which had wheels again! I took a long bicycle trail which leads all the way from where I live to the East of DC and from there, headed on to the capitol. There I hung around, had a pleasant time, got a milk shake, ascertained that I was satisfied, and headed back. It's an 11.8 mile cycle there. At home, I baked Cypriot Halloumi bread according to the recipe that my friend Christos Kourris from Edinburgh gave me: mix halloumi cheese with dough and onions, and bake it. It was pretty good, although there is space for improvement, which is a good thing!

Ma' dow

Ma' loaf

On Sunday I also went to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC, which is a long name for the biggest Cathedral in North America! It was a very impressive church and the organ so loud, and the setup so overwhelming, that mass almost felt like a movie, or a show!

Outside

Inside

Chapel dedicated by Irish to St. Patrick

Duncan visits
Last week Tuesday, Duncan came to visit me! My phone had just broken down, and so all the coordination from then on had to be done with old fashioned e-mail and co-ordination. We looked at monuments in DC, went swimming at the pool, enjoyed diving, in the weekend looked at DC again, swam and dove more, and had a good time in each other's company. I even took him to an astronomy talk and he saw my lab and met some of my research mates! Monday morning he left off and I will be seeing him Sunday, when I return to Ireland, which I am really looking forward to. Since my phone broke down, I have no pictures as evidence. Duncan came just at the right moment because that weekend, my good flatmates Nishad (from Caltech) and Josh (Alaska/Arizona) left off, as well as Jessie (Alaska/Washington). Now it's just Kwazi and me camping out in our flat.

How have I been lately
I have been pretty good. On the one hand I am settling in here and finding my rhythm even better, on the other hand I am really looking forward to having some holiday and seeing family & friends again. I suppose that is double good! My work has been progressing steadily and I have pretty much rounded it up by now. I will be presenting on Friday at a Symposium with the other REU's.

Last Friday I started thinking about how symmetries in dynamical networks induce symmetries in their statistics, and how looking at the statistics allows us to infer symmetries! I have been thinking about it and I think it is pretty exciting. It needs a lot more work but it would be a new way of finding something out about the shapes of a network by looking at the nodes. I am not sure if other people have done this before though, I need to verify that. My professor seemed to be pretty interested. I have also made a research poster about my work, find it below. I posted it on a separate website so you can zoom in.

Also I just found a gem of a music video. It is the song "Freight Train", written and played by Elizabeth Cotton. This song has been covered many times by country music players. She wrote it around 1906 and in this video she is actually 90+ and performing in her own home! Take note of the fact that she is left-handed and so is playing this right-handed guitar upside down, plucking the basses with her fingers!