pogoism

I’d actually forgotten about this, seeing as it happened a while back, but a few weeks ago I was on the Greyhound coming back from San Francisco to Reno.

The bus stopped in Truckee, CA, which it doesn’t normally do, and a disheveled looking woman boards. Despite there being loads of other free seats, she comes and sits next to me.

I did my best to ignore her, shoved my iPod earphones in and glared out of the window, but she insisted on talking to me.

It all started off pleasantly enough, she picked up on my accent and we talked for a bit about Europe. Then I made the foolish mistake of asking her why she got on at Truckee, something people rarely do.

Here was her story.

She was on the Amtrak train (a fairly useless service that runs once a day from Emeryville to Chicago). She had started in Emeryville, just across the bay from San Francisco. Just before Truckee, apparently, is a rather long tunnel. While she was in this tunnel she claimed that she could smell rotting flesh. The poor lady had managed to convince herself that the government was killing illegal aliens by giving them AIDS, waiting for them to die, and then transporting their bodies to the middle of the desert to bury them, so that no-one would notice.

Ridiculous.

I nodded a long, put in a few, well-placed “mmhmms” and wished to myself that she’d shut up.

Seriously, how could anyone believe that?! And AIDS of all things. It takes years to kill someone with AIDS. Ugh, so many holes in this stupid theory.

Anyway, yes, the Greyhound. So many stories.

Let’s try this. Anyone who knows me should try and think of someone who is the complete opposite of me. Then ask that person where he’d like to go on vacation.

He’d probably say Las Vegas.

Oh look! Photos!

I’m sitting in Reno SLASH Tahoe airport, waiting for my first flight of the day to Salt Lake City.

Leaving here has been horrendous. Other than the difficult practical aspects, like leaving the apartment, packing, and figuring out places to stay for the nights I’ve been in Reno, I’ve had to say bye to some of the greatest people I’ve met. People who have changed me for the better.

Yesterday I went into work for one last time. I said bye and thanks to my boss – a man who has taught me and shown me that science is what I want to do with my life. That was, after all, the reason I came here.

Lauren, my best mate here. I’m gonna miss her loads. We randomly met at a Halloween party in October where both of us had been brought by friends and neither of us knew anyone else. And from there we became really close. I’m going miss her so frickin’ much. Melissa too. Some fantastic memories with them both, and I’ll miss them both very much.

Alonso. We dated for 7 months before breaking up, mostly because we figured it would be easier in the long run. I’ve done the whole breaking-up-with-someone-at-the-airport thing, and it ain’t pretty. When we did break up, I was annoyed, but looking back, I’m glad we did. He made this year what it was for me. And I’ll never forget him.

The people at work, who made this year what it was for us placement students. They’re awesome.

And, finally, all the people I don’t know all that well. Cory, Adagio, Joey, Vincent, AJ. All people I met near the end of my time here, and I really wish I had the time to get to know better.

Ahh. I hate leaving.

So, in the voice of the annoying guy on the Mor commercial…

BYE, RENO.

The Reno Rodeo was in town a few weeks ago. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it was actually a really enjoyable night – great atmosphere, fun, family feel, and all round good entertainment. Here’s some pictures…

Last weekend was Independence weekend, and our last three-day weekend of our time here.

Emily, Peter and I headed to Pyramid Lake for some camping on Friday afternoon. After a mad scramble trying to find exactly what beach everyone else was on, we luckily bumped into Katie on the road, who directed us to the right one. We lugged all our stuff (which, as usual, was far too much) down the steep, sandy hill, and added it to the pile of food. The tent we needed to erect was the same one as last time – the tent which has a pole which has split. Not too much of a problem you might think, but if your hand goes anywhere near this pole, immediately 30 teeny-tiny bits of bamboo implant themselves in your skin. Most unpleasant. especially when you have to camp for 2 days.

So, wonky tent erected, and hoping to God that the thing wouldn’t collapse on top of us in the middle of the night, we set about putting up the volleyball net. Someone had the genius idea of doing this in the lake, so we spent a good chunk of the afternoon attempting that. Eventually, we gave up, and did it on the dry sand instead, by which point no-one had the energy to play anyway.

Then came car-getting-stuck-in-the-sand no. 1. It wasn’t so much stuck in the sand, as raised off the ground from the middle. It took a while to get it out, but we did it in the end. After that, we all had some well deserved drinks, and sat around chatting for the evening and watched some of the (illegal) fireworks over the lake.

Next day we got up, packed up, and left before it got too hit. We were all dirty and tired anyway. After a quick shower and food-buying, we set off to Zephyr Cove at Lake Tahoe. It was fun, we hung out on the (private) beach where we could see the two sets of fireworks. The ones from South Lake Tahoe were probably the best I’ve ever seen. Oh, and btw, Lake Tahoe is seriously one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, even with it covered with white, jock, rich kids.

Today was the first nice day in a while, so Emily, Amy and I decided to go for a hike.

We chose to go explore Hunter’s Creek, north of Reno, out through Cauglin Ranch. We couldn’t find the beginning of the trail, thanks to the useless guide we downloaded from the internet, so we decided instead to go our own way. We didn’t make it all the way though, we weren’t really prepared, and we were told along the way that it was an all day hike to the top of the creek and the waterfall. We shall no doubt return.

Here’s some photos! (more over on my flickr)

P.S. My Flickr Pro account lapsed, and I’m a poor student. If you want to be really, really nice, and help me out, feel free to gift me a Pro account.

Firstly, sorry for not posting all week. It’s been an odd week, where I’ve had to do some teenager-style thinking and stuff. But I’m back! So yay :)

This weekend in the US is Memorial Weekend, probably one of the biggest public holidays, and a three-day weekend.

Last night, we spent the night camping by the beautiful Pyramid Lake, about 35 miles northeast of Reno. The lake is situated in the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe’s reservation. The lake itself, with a max length of 48km, and a max depth of 109m is big (at least by my measly UK comparisons).

We arrived at Sand Hole beach at about 6, and began to put up our tents. As soon as we began, the skies clouded over and the sun disappeared, something I’m not all that used to any more. Anyway, we erected our tents (quite a tricky task in sand) and then the wind started blowing. We had to move all our tents to the far side of the beach, to avoid them flying into the lake. Then came the next challenge – trying to get the bar-be-ques lit. You would think this kind of problem-solving stuff would be no trouble for a group of scientists, but alas, it was. After a few attempts, and half a bottle of lighter fluid, we got them lit, and started cooking our food. And we made a campfire. Well, we didn’t, we left it to the new Spanish guy who assured us that he did it all the time back home.

Now that all that was done, it was time to settle down to some drinking and chilling. It was nice to hang out with mates from work (and not the annoying mopey ones, either), and make some new ones. It made me realize another big reason why I love working in science (other than actual science, of course). Because of the nature of science, where its international, and transcends nations and language, I work within an incredibly varied department, probably at least one person from each continent. Its fascinating talking to people about where they’re from. For instance, Fran, from Spain came with us to the lake, and I was chatting to him quite a lot. It’s so surreal talking to someone who, comparatively, isn’t from that far from where I hail from, but how different their culture is. There’s also a lot of young (ie, <35) people who do science, which makes for a dynamic working environment, with new people coming in all the time.

A few awkward moments through the night, however. Some random guy came up to our camp, naked, with his wife, and started blabbing on about the war. I’ve learnt never to bring this up, as a lot of people here are in the military, but one girl we were with insisted on carrying on the conversation…

Didn’t end up getting to sleep until about 5am, stayed up to watch the sunrise over the mountains at the other side of the lake, and then I slept by the fire. I have no idea how much smoke I inhaled over the night, but the next day I lost my voice.

Right, that’s all I want to write right now, I’m off out to enjoy the Memorial weekend sunshine.

Reno is great for 2 things – eating out and drinking. There’s not a whole lot else to do, other than snowboarding in the winter and kayaking in the summer, so in the last few months I’ve been to a lot of restaurants. But in my 9 months here, I haven’t found anywhere that has totally satisfied me, until yesterday.

I (foolishly) walked home from work yesterday, all the way up McCarran, on the hottest day of the year, so by the time I got home, I didn’t really fancy cooking. After looking up Bavarian World, and discovering they had very little in the way of non-carnivore food, I remembered Naan and Kabab. It advertises itself as a Mediterranean restaurant, but the name and the font on their signs is a give away that it isn’t.

It’s Middle Eastern food. I can see why they wouldn’t want to market themselves in this way, this is America, after all. But don’t let that put you off, this place is delicious. Alonso and I started with the veggie combo, which was dolmades (rice stuffed vine leaf), falafel, hummus and baba ganoush (mashed eggplant). For main course, I had the prawn kabab, and Alonso had the salmon kabab. The prawn was delicious, perfectly cooked and flavoured. The salmon one… not so much. We finished all that off with baklava. Amazing food, and all for less than the price of sushi too! The service here is fantastic, even for American standards – at one point the chef (Chef “Maurice” – not his real name…) came round, and asked us how our meal was. “Good enough to tell your friends?” before thrusting some business cards in our hands!

Go try this place if you haven’t already. You won’t be disappointed.

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I got my list of possible final year projects this week. Out of a list of 90, I have to somehow whittle them down to 10, and rank them in order of preference. That’s going to be a long task, as I have do at least a little bit of background reading for each project I’m interested in. I’ve got until August 10th to do it though, so it’s not so bad.

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As I’m sure didn’t pass you by (unless you’re in America), Eurovision was today. I love Eurovision. It’s camp, it’s ridiculous, it’s trashy, and it’s over the top. Yet, bizarrely, it makes me proud to be European. My national identity is something that I’ve been thinking about for the past few weeks. I’m thinking about coming back to the US to do a PhD program, and after that probably settle here, but in order to do that, at some point I’d have to become a US citizen, and possibly surrender my UK citizenship. After some though, I decided I didn’t really want to do that. I’m proud to be from the UK. Yep, it certainly has it’s faults, but being a UK citizen also makes me a citizen of Europe. Being from Europe is something I’m extremely proud of – it’s such a vast place, full of different cultures, people, languages and opportunities, something America will never be, no matter how hard it tries.

Oh, and by the way, how did Germany do so badly in Eurovision? They had Dita von Teese for heaven’s sake! And why did the UK give Turkey 12 points?! Am I missing something? Those water things from the roof were amazing too.

Last Sunday, Lauren and I went to Animal Ark, near Reno. Animal Ark takes in animals that cannot be released back into the wild for whatever reason, and gives them as realistic an environment as possible. It’s located in the middle of the desert, about 12 miles from Reno.

They house a variety of animals – mountain lions, coyotes, cheetahs, foxes, owls, falcons and badgers, and all the electricity the site uses comes from green sources such as solar and wind.

So, without any further ado… some pictures.

It’s April, and I’ve only got 5 months left in Reno before I have to head back to the UK. I feel like I haven’t really seen much since I’ve been here – I’ve been to San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Monica and some smaller places, so I’m in the process of planning some road trips…

The first one I’m going to do with Melissa before she heads off to Turkey in May. We’re going to try and do it for little money as possible, so here’s the plan… We’re starting in Reno, and driving down to Yosemite. I’ve been wanting to go to Yosemite since I got here, and it’s still the only place I really want to go before I leave. We’re going to spend a few nights there camping, eating bad food and hiking around. Then after that it’s off to Los Angeles. When I was there before, it was the weekend of the wild fires, so I hardly got to see any of LA, just Santa Monica. This time we’re planning to stay with one of Melissa’s friends and do the whole LA experience. When we’re LA-ed out, we’re going to drive up to Big Sur, on parts of the Highway Costal route, and camp there for a few nights. There are some great places within an hour of Big Sur – Monterey, Hearst Castle, whale watching and Big Sur. Depending on how far we think our money goes, we may go to San Diego too…

The second road trip won’t really be a road trip at all, as most of it will be by public transport. My brother is coming over for a month in June/July, and whilst I won’t be able to spend the whole time with him, we are planning to go north of Reno. First stop will be San Francisco, my favorite city. We’ll spend a few days there, probably not long as I’m sure we’ll be there again, but enough time for him to get a feel of the place. Then it’ll be onto the train and on our way to Portland, OR. I know absolutely nothing about Portland, but I’ve been told many times that it’s a great city. Then, after a few days there, back on the train, and off to the the rainy city of Seattle, WA. After a couple of days drinking Starbucks and getting wet, we’ll start on the final leg – Vancouver. I’m really looking forward to this, I’ve never been to Canada, and I haven’t been out of the US since I’ve been here, so it’ll be great fun.

Now just to figure out how I’m going to fund these trips…