So, it is early September. INSEAD has wrapped up, and, after 18 months on the side lines, I find myself staring at a very imminent return to the working world. Much as I am exited about a new job, new city and new life, I have to admit I am currently enduring a very extended and particularly intense dose of the Sunday night blues, lasting not just Sunday but for an entire fortnight before the real world kicks off again.
What better way to cling on to the last remnants of this amazing year and a half than to update the blog one last time. I’ve been putting off this final entry for over a month, because it seems like no written account that I can come up with could possibly do justice to such an experience. Summarizing 18 months that started with an emergency landing in El Salvador and finished with a top notch MBA and a new job on a new continent seems like a monumental task, even for someone who enjoys listening to his inner monologue as much as I do. And really, what is the point of a summary? If I ever manage to put all these scribblings into a book that I bore my grandchildren with, I hardly want to make life so easy for them that they can just skip to the summary.
So, remembering also that discretion is the better part of valour, I have decided to shirk the challenge of trying to put the whole year into one amazing, insightful and entertaining finale, and instead just try to get a few final reflections on the year down on paper, and get a few random highlights that I never managed to put in the blog along the way in as well.
INSEAD is nothing if not unique, and one of the things I’ve enjoyed most this year is a chance to do many things that I had never done before and will almost certainly not do again. Some of the new experiences were the sorts of things I never got round to doing at university, and honestly thought had passed me by. They included going on a sports tour, acting as a bartender and serving proper tapped beers, dabbling, ever so briefly in the politics of student government, and getting on stage in the INSEAD cabaret, once dressed once as a ballerina, and once not really dressed at all.
Others were things that that you just can’t do anywhere else. INSEAD parties have to top that list. We’ve all been to a house party, but an INSEAD party is like a house party on steroids. Firstly, there are the chateaus. Many students at INSEAD live in old converted chateaus. There may be twelve of them crammed into one small wing of the building, so its not quite the lifestyle of the rich and famous that the chateau name conjures, but they still make incredible venues for parties; even if most of the parties are actually in the garden or the barn or the stables. It won’t be until half my class are retired squillionaires that we’ll have so many friends living in castles again, and by then I am sure the parties will not be as good. And of course, there is the fact that you can host one of the parties on a Wednesday night, start it at 11pm, party through the night and know you will all share the same pain in class the next morning.
Just as enjoyable as the parties, for me, were some of the epic dinner parties. Some of the aforementioned chateaus have traditions whereby they host a dinner on one specific night. In particular the Monday night dinner at Le Vivier, able to draw on professional cooks from amongst the house’s residents, was always a memorable evening. Again, its an experience that you just can’t repeat when everyone lives in two bedroom shoeboxes in south west London.
INSEAD was also, for me anyway, a chance to do some things I never really considered in the past. One thing I particularly enjoyed about INSEAD is that you arrive completely unknown, unburdened by the preconceptions and expectations your friends and family at home may have of you. That is particularly useful if you have a history of expressing opinions loudly and forcefully, and don’t want to admit you may have changed some of those opinions. It gives you a chance to try things that are quite out of character, without anyone questioning why. For me, the biggest example of that was the Rugby Club.
Reading back over this blog recently, I was reminded that I once included the following words:
“being Australian, I've been unlucky enough to watch a lot of rugby, and quite frankly, it's a close call between rugby and accounting lectures”
That is actually the sort of opinion I’d been expressing for years, having found myself rather stuck in the tedious old debate that rages in Australia between soccer and rugby, and always siding with soccer. Joining a rugby club in Australia would have been quite a difficult thing for me to do, because it would have required me to admit to quite a few people that I might have been wrong about something. At INSEAD, no one had read the blog, so I was welcomed with open arms to the undefeated INSEAD Rugby Football Club when I decided to give it a go (though I fully expect to be harshly fined at any IRFC reunion if anyone reads it now). And that turned out to be the best decision I made at INSEAD. Not only did I discover a completely unexpected love of actually playing the game, I met many of the best friends I made at INSEAD, and went on two memorable tours, one to London, the other all the way Virginia, for the MBA rugby world championships. What goes on tour stays on tour, but I think I will have few prouder or fonder memories than running out on the fields of glory in Danville, Virginia, with my fellow warriors of the IRFC, and coming home with the undefeatedness of the club very much in tact.
There are too many other highlights to mention them all. Weekend trips to Budapest, Amsterdam, Burgundy and beyond, national weeks, playing word bingo in lectures, beers in the sunny courtyard, the magnificent cafeteria, finding 300 new facebook friends, road trips through Europe, a week in Provence, champagne power hours, every dinner at Bistro 9, Le Glasgow, the day Fonty was covered in a centimeter thick layer of ice, damaged cars with red number plates, music videos, breathtaking cabaret performances (by others, not me!) and, of course, so much wine and cheese. I will miss all of it. A particular standout was a weekend trip to the nearby Loire Valley. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about the sights, sounds, even tastes of that weekend will leave it in my mind forever. Probably something I will never be able to recapture, though I haven’t given up yet, it somehow marked the culmination of everything good about the year.
At the end of all these highlights, it is also time to reflect. An MBA is, after all, meant to be a learning experience, and it would be a poor investment if I didn’t give some serious thought to what lessons I have actually learned from the year.
Academically, there is no doubt a recovering lawyer cum junior consultant has plenty to learn about business where an MBA can provide a start. From deconstructing a perfume marketing campaign to assessing the role of innovation at Mercedes-Benz to discussing the future of the Euro, at one point with Paul Volcker, INSEAD has taught me plenty of new concepts in business. A good teacher makes a tremendous difference, and for me that teacher was in the finance department. Having previously never had an interest in nor an aptitude for finance, finding a professor that was able to make corporate financial policy both engaging and clear was certainly a true ‘value add’ of the program (more so than endless discussions about the meaning of ‘value add’).
INSEAD prides itself on diversity. “Why INSEAD? Because of the diversity.” It is the ironically homogenous response to the most commonly asked questions of aspiring students and other outsiders. And there is plenty of diversity. Only at INSEAD is the question ‘where are you from?’ usually met with a response of: ‘well… have you got a few minutes…’
It has taken me a year at INSEAD to figure out what the real benefit of all this diversity is. One of the first things you realize at INSEAD is that measuring diversity by passports is an incomplete measure at best. There may be 70 or more nationalities at INSEAD, but is a Bain consultant from Mexico really that different to a McKinsey consultant from Germany? They do, surely, have more in common with each other than with many people from different educational and socio-economic backgrounds in their own countries. However, and this may seem obvious in hindsight, at INSEAD I came to appreciate that each person carries several identities – they may have a professional and educational identity in common with many other MBAs, but each carries a unique family, cultural and social background as well, and to understand people, you have to try and understand all those identities.
The benefits of studying with people from such a diverse set of backgrounds has been two-fold. Firstly, it highlighted to me that there is a real challenge is communicating with people from different cultures which goes beyond language. Learning to get my meaning across to a study group that included French, Japanese, German, Nigerian and Uruguayan members without offending or confusing anyone was not straightforward, regardless of the fact they all spoke very good English. Whether I got any better at it is something I’ll leave to the judgment of others, but I certainly came to a better appreciation of the challenge. Secondly, it has been immense fun. From National Weeks on campus to holidays visiting students in their home countries, it has simply been an eye opening, enriching experience to learn so much about so many people and places in one year.
There is a tinge of sadness associated with the diversity factor right now too though. Once INSEAD finishes, the inevitable result of all that diversity is that your formerly tightly knit peer group is suddenly dispersed all over the world. While its great to think that I have a couch to stay on in every major city in the world, I also find it sad to think how many truly wonderful people I might never see again, sprinkled as they are everywhere from New York to Hong Kong to Sao Paulo to Dubai to Cape Town to Berlin and beyond.
Maybe the most important lesson I took from INSEAD came from having a chance to assess my career and life goals, and the paths most likely to lead me to those goals. Being full of ex-consultants, bankers, lawyers and other busy professionals, INSEAD has its share of students who come from so called ‘work hard, play hard’ cultures. These have been, in my experience, the same people who speak the most about wanting to find the elusive ‘work life balance’, and many, including me, came to INSEAD with the express aim of improving that balance.
INSEAD is also a place that people describe as ‘work-hard play-hard’, but it has turned out to be a very different culture to the corporate world. It is not about working hard at a job you hate all day and then trying to forget about it by consuming copious amounts of alcohol in overpriced and pretentious bars at night, as I found it to be in Sydney’s corporate world. Rather, it is about finding the energy, day in, day out, to do everything, from studying to traveling to sports to parties to job-hunting, with full commitment. Study may be work to some, but given the range of elective choices, to others it is very much play, representing a chance to develop your own business idea for the future or change your entire style of communication and leadership. Travel at INSEAD frequently combines job hunting, networking and tourism. Even the parties that are all too much play for some inevitably represent the culmination of weeks of work by others. Everything at INSEAD is done with a high level of intensity - it has to be to fit into a ten month MBA - and the line between work and play is impossible to define. Sleep falls by the wayside, not because of work deadlines and stress, but because it just seems a waste to be sleeping when there is so much else on offer. For the same reason, I basically haven’t watched television for a year (a big change for me). Everyone wants to make the most out of every day, because everyone is aware that their time at INSEAD is so limited. It is a lesson in living life to the fullest, and despite the sometimes exhausting nature of the experience, I found it not just fun, but deeply satisfying.
While it is not possible to extend the INSEAD experience, it is, hopefully, possible to find a similar level of engagement and satisfaction in a future life. It is thus one of the key learnings that I will take from INSEAD that finding a satisfying career and work life balance will not come from changing the balance between work and play, but by finding work that blurs the boundary between the two. That may sound like an ironic realisation from someone going back to management consulting, and whether my next step, to Bain in London, can provide that, remains to be seen. I am quietly optimistic, otherwise I would not have accepted the offer, but even if it does not, at least now I know what I’m looking for.
Before I wrap up this blog, I have to say a very important ‘Thank you’ to my parents, without whom this entire year would have been impossible. It is not just financial support, though that too was important. I would never have made it to INSEAD, or to our amazing road trip in the US before that, if not for the values and education my parents instilled in me, and all the support and guidance that they have given me throughout my entire life. So, Mum, Dad, (who are also probably the only people still reading at this point), THANK YOU.
When I started this blog I came up with the title ‘The Great Escape’ because I had just seen a repeat of the classic movie by the same name. I gave no thought to the fact that the famous escape actually ended in failure. I couldn’t call anything about the last 18 months a failure, but the title gave away what I knew deep down: that there was only one place where this adventure could end, firmly back in the real world. And that is where I now return.
P.S. I hope some people have enjoyed reading this blog somewhere near as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Please, if you’ve read this far, and followed the blog this year, let me know, either by leaving a comment below or dropping me an email.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
Summer, and life slows down
I’m enjoying my morning coffee and croissant, contemplating one of the great mysteries of life in France. How does one eat a croissant without getting flakes of pastry all over one’s keyboard? You can try to catch the crumbs in the bag it comes in, but the flaking is so much that you virtually have to eat it out of the bag, and inevitably end up with a mouthful of brown paper to go with your croissant. My mother always told me to make sure I close my lips before I bite, but a fresh pain chocolat starts to disintegrate on touch, long before it reaches your mouth.
I appreciate that the croissant and its puff pastry cousins have been with us much longer than the idea of eating breakfast with a macbook on your lap, but my point stands – it is impossible to eat breakfast in France without blanketing yourself and a perimeter around you with buttery flakes. The true mystery is not so much how to eat a croissant in style, which I have long since concluded is actually impossible, but why the French, a people who put such emphasis on style, persist with such a hard to eat bake good as their only real breakfast food.
The fact that I have time over breakfast to contemplate such inane matters might give you a clue to the new nature of life in Fonty. There are 5 periods in the year here, and each has its own flavour. We are now in P5, which is marked by a distinct divergence between two groups of people. Classes have slowed down to a crawl, and for those students who took the simple route and went into consulting, or have otherwise secured their next job, the recruiting season is over too. Life is good – the long French days are spent soaking up the sun in the INSEAD ‘Biergarten’ (a gift of the German Alumni association, but nothing more than a few chairs and tables outside), making an occasional foray to the gym and debating the appropriate time to switch from coffee to beer.
If, on the other hand, you are taking the hard road, declining the consultant bandwagon to look for your dream job in industry, start ups, venture capital or other glamour areas, or even start your own business, P5 is a time of increasingly intense job hunting, and not a little stress. Where the future consultants are deciding between Heineken and Leffe, petite ou grande, the job seekers are deciding between Eurostar and Air France, fly-in fly-out or stay overnight, as they travel everywhere from London and Paris to Africa and Sao Paulo for endless meetings with recruiters, headhunters, potential investors and anyone else who might be able to put their talents to good use.
There is a little mutual envy between the groups. Life is sweet for us future consultants, but it’s hard to escape from the fact that we’ve taken a safe job and stable income in exchange for a few more years at least firmly in the rat race. The job seekers look stressed now, but the pay-offs, in the form of job satisfaction and long-term happiness, or even total independence for the entrepreneurs, might be so much higher. On the other hand, in their more pessimistic moments, the job seekers must look over at the sign-on bonuses and guaranteed post summer start dates of the consultants and wonder if it’s all worth it.
Job seeking aside, summer has hit France, and Fontainebleau has come alive. In winter, one could walk down Rue Montebello, the small pedestrian strip of restaurants that Fonty students all know and love, and see only a few hardy souls huddled inside. Today, even on a Monday, the restaurants are not only full inside, but have taken over the pavement, doubling their capacity and letting diners enjoy the endless dusk of a place where the sun does not truly set until 10.30. To pass Bistro Neuf and Cote Sud (two favourite INSEAD hangouts) in summer feels like walking down our very own miniature quartier latin, with the added bonus that instead of tourists, the tables are packed with your close friends.
We’ve been exceedingly lucky, in that France is, apparently, in drought. I don’t think this is drought in the Australian style; the Seine looks to be flowing pretty healthily, from what I can see. But, until the current rain set in about three days ago, it had been warm and sunny for about eight weeks in Fonty, and in Paris. This is a hardship for the garden staff of the chateau’s, but a boon for just about everyone else.
A European drought does seem like a rare event, so I’ve been trying to make the best of it by seeing some more of Paris and other parts of France. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a friends place in Provence, in the small town of Fayence, for a few days. If you’ve ever been faced with a grimy, crowded part of Paris and a seemingly obnoxious waiter / shop assistant / person on the street, and wondered where all the romantic images of France come from, I strongly suggest a trip to Provence, in the South. The coastal places, like Cannes and Nice, are well known, but it’s a little inland that the magic happens. Fayence, like the surrounding villages, is built into a hillside, so each beautiful brown brick house gazes over a valley and onto the next rolling hillside town, again of all stone houses and terracotta roofs, and which turns positively orange in the glow of a sunset. In May, when we were there, the lavender is in full bloom, adding a bright streak of purple to every scenic view. The houses and villages are joined together by impossibly steep and narrow alleys, which, while they take cars, are generally used by ambling locals indulging the French passion for walking slowly (which is much less annoying here than in Gare de Lyon). The alleys take cars too, but you can hardly call them roads. It sounds clichéd, but it could easily be taken straight from a movie. Take the setting and the beautiful house, and add good company, copious amounts of Provence’s signature Rosé and multiple games of petanque, and you have a memorable trip. My thanks to Come, my French friend, for hosting us.
Since then Parisian outings have been on the cards. I couldn’t pass up a chance to visit Roland Garros during the French open, and I finally managed to tick Versailles off the list. The French open was great, and another beautiful French day in the sun. Versailles – well, its impressive, but really just a scaled up version of every other Chateau in France, or Schloss in Germany for that matter. I realise Versailles is the original that all the others are based on, but I saw the others first. All I really wanted to know was where they signed the treaty, but that was not on the audio guide. Still, it was another day with good company – Sandy, a friend from Australia who has moved to France, and is French, kindly agreed to be my tour guide.
Well, the gentle rhythm of INSEAD in P5 is calling me to the restaurant. It’s lunchtime here... (yes, it took me from breakfast to lunch to write this - but breakfast is pretty late these days)
I appreciate that the croissant and its puff pastry cousins have been with us much longer than the idea of eating breakfast with a macbook on your lap, but my point stands – it is impossible to eat breakfast in France without blanketing yourself and a perimeter around you with buttery flakes. The true mystery is not so much how to eat a croissant in style, which I have long since concluded is actually impossible, but why the French, a people who put such emphasis on style, persist with such a hard to eat bake good as their only real breakfast food.
The fact that I have time over breakfast to contemplate such inane matters might give you a clue to the new nature of life in Fonty. There are 5 periods in the year here, and each has its own flavour. We are now in P5, which is marked by a distinct divergence between two groups of people. Classes have slowed down to a crawl, and for those students who took the simple route and went into consulting, or have otherwise secured their next job, the recruiting season is over too. Life is good – the long French days are spent soaking up the sun in the INSEAD ‘Biergarten’ (a gift of the German Alumni association, but nothing more than a few chairs and tables outside), making an occasional foray to the gym and debating the appropriate time to switch from coffee to beer.
If, on the other hand, you are taking the hard road, declining the consultant bandwagon to look for your dream job in industry, start ups, venture capital or other glamour areas, or even start your own business, P5 is a time of increasingly intense job hunting, and not a little stress. Where the future consultants are deciding between Heineken and Leffe, petite ou grande, the job seekers are deciding between Eurostar and Air France, fly-in fly-out or stay overnight, as they travel everywhere from London and Paris to Africa and Sao Paulo for endless meetings with recruiters, headhunters, potential investors and anyone else who might be able to put their talents to good use.
There is a little mutual envy between the groups. Life is sweet for us future consultants, but it’s hard to escape from the fact that we’ve taken a safe job and stable income in exchange for a few more years at least firmly in the rat race. The job seekers look stressed now, but the pay-offs, in the form of job satisfaction and long-term happiness, or even total independence for the entrepreneurs, might be so much higher. On the other hand, in their more pessimistic moments, the job seekers must look over at the sign-on bonuses and guaranteed post summer start dates of the consultants and wonder if it’s all worth it.
Job seeking aside, summer has hit France, and Fontainebleau has come alive. In winter, one could walk down Rue Montebello, the small pedestrian strip of restaurants that Fonty students all know and love, and see only a few hardy souls huddled inside. Today, even on a Monday, the restaurants are not only full inside, but have taken over the pavement, doubling their capacity and letting diners enjoy the endless dusk of a place where the sun does not truly set until 10.30. To pass Bistro Neuf and Cote Sud (two favourite INSEAD hangouts) in summer feels like walking down our very own miniature quartier latin, with the added bonus that instead of tourists, the tables are packed with your close friends.
We’ve been exceedingly lucky, in that France is, apparently, in drought. I don’t think this is drought in the Australian style; the Seine looks to be flowing pretty healthily, from what I can see. But, until the current rain set in about three days ago, it had been warm and sunny for about eight weeks in Fonty, and in Paris. This is a hardship for the garden staff of the chateau’s, but a boon for just about everyone else.
A European drought does seem like a rare event, so I’ve been trying to make the best of it by seeing some more of Paris and other parts of France. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a friends place in Provence, in the small town of Fayence, for a few days. If you’ve ever been faced with a grimy, crowded part of Paris and a seemingly obnoxious waiter / shop assistant / person on the street, and wondered where all the romantic images of France come from, I strongly suggest a trip to Provence, in the South. The coastal places, like Cannes and Nice, are well known, but it’s a little inland that the magic happens. Fayence, like the surrounding villages, is built into a hillside, so each beautiful brown brick house gazes over a valley and onto the next rolling hillside town, again of all stone houses and terracotta roofs, and which turns positively orange in the glow of a sunset. In May, when we were there, the lavender is in full bloom, adding a bright streak of purple to every scenic view. The houses and villages are joined together by impossibly steep and narrow alleys, which, while they take cars, are generally used by ambling locals indulging the French passion for walking slowly (which is much less annoying here than in Gare de Lyon). The alleys take cars too, but you can hardly call them roads. It sounds clichéd, but it could easily be taken straight from a movie. Take the setting and the beautiful house, and add good company, copious amounts of Provence’s signature Rosé and multiple games of petanque, and you have a memorable trip. My thanks to Come, my French friend, for hosting us.
Since then Parisian outings have been on the cards. I couldn’t pass up a chance to visit Roland Garros during the French open, and I finally managed to tick Versailles off the list. The French open was great, and another beautiful French day in the sun. Versailles – well, its impressive, but really just a scaled up version of every other Chateau in France, or Schloss in Germany for that matter. I realise Versailles is the original that all the others are based on, but I saw the others first. All I really wanted to know was where they signed the treaty, but that was not on the audio guide. Still, it was another day with good company – Sandy, a friend from Australia who has moved to France, and is French, kindly agreed to be my tour guide.
Well, the gentle rhythm of INSEAD in P5 is calling me to the restaurant. It’s lunchtime here... (yes, it took me from breakfast to lunch to write this - but breakfast is pretty late these days)
Friday, March 25, 2011
Spring is in the air
Spring has arrived in Fontainebleau, and, like the birds and flowers and sun, my blog is re-emerging. It has been such a long time since I last updated my personal patch of cyberspace that I can't even remember what I last wrote. My intention was that this blog would serve as a regular diary of my INSEAD activities, and thus make a nice souvenir to look back on a few years from now. Clearly, failing to update it for 4 months of a 10 month program somewhat undermines that aim. Unfortunately I don't have it in me to go back and recap the last 4 months, so I'll have to simply take up from the present, and rely on the oldest form of media, the human memory, for the intervening period.
So to the present. As I said, Spring has arrived in Fontainebleau. In Australia we don't have much of a winter, which is nice, but it denies us the soul restoring pleasure of a true spring. A few weeks ago it was dark, dreary and cold here, the forest was little more than a haunting collection of bare trees and sickly looking pines. On the rare occasion the sun came out it arrived late and left again with the population still indoors, struggling through lectures or work. Then, one day, the sun came up, and the thermometer broke into double figures. And now, suddenly, everything has changed. Seemingly out of nowhere the sun has not only returned, but seems to have set up permanent camp alone in the sky, unbothered by clouds for days on end. The footpaths are suddenly adorned with yellow and purple as once dead nature strips turn into flower beds, and slowly but surely green is returning to the forest. At the same time wintercoats have disappeared and t-shirts are re-emerging. A few brave souls have ventured to shorts and flip-flops, and its impossible to deny the enjoyment provided by the natural shortening of skirts and lowering of neck lines that accompanies the rise in temperatures.
While Spring is wholly welcomed, there is another season in full swing at Fonty, and it has a more bittersweet flavour. It's recruitment time for our class, and while it's a time that offers plenty of excitement for the myriad opportunities that seem just over the horizon, it is also a time that drives home the sad fact that, sooner or later, the INSEAD sleep must end. Recruitment is the real world, rudely knocking on the door while we try to grasp the last, fleeting moments of a pleasant dream.
An upside of recruiting at INSEAD is that it is accompanied by much less of the soul searching moralizing that marks an undergrad law student's job search. Few people indeed are wracking themselves with guilt over whether to the sell their souls in the corporate world or instead try and change the world working in low paid but meaningful non-profit or public service roles. Being older, and I think a little wiser makes the average MBA quite comfortable with selling his or her soul. The question is who is the highest bidder for that soul, and how can one ensure a good resale value for said soul a few years from now.
The downside is The Fear. Other than the lucky sponsored few, all students are haunted, to some extent at least, by The Fear, in a way that an undergraduate student, particularly in 2006, never worries. The Fear is that the job will not come. That one could invest all this time and money and effort into an MBA and then freeze when asked to figure out how many ping pong balls fit into a 747. Or that one's CV will only be compared to other INSEAD students, each one of which seems to have a more amazing previous career than the next one. And that in July, when the real world takes your classmates back into its well paid embrace, you will be left with a debt hangover to match the Greek budget, and the employment prospects of an Irish property developer, and your international outlook and diverse class mates will be of little consolation. No one talks about The Fear, but it's there. And the only way to deal with the fear is to ignore it steadfastly, and listen to the warm and fuzzy promises of the real world as potential future employers line up to dangle promises before you.
The consultants have made their pitch, all slick presentations and fancy dinners. Intriguingly, each of the consulting firms informs us that what differentiates them from the others is 'the people' and the focus on results/impact/solutions (choose your synonym). A natural cynicism aside, they did make compelling arguments, and consulting fever has hit INSEAD, sweeping all in its path. Barely a break out room can be found that isn't occupied by eager students practicing their case interview skills, gripped by excitement at the glamorous 'Up in the Air' lifestyle and the promise of 'a new challenge every day', and of course, gripped also by The Fear. It would be dishonest to leave you with the impression I was above all this, so I openly admit that mine is also one of the annoying voices floating around the west wing, distracting all those trying to study, reasoning its way to the annual income of a taxi driver, or the feasibility of entering the Norwegian broadband market.
In the next few weeks industry will strike back, seeking to lure back the seduced aspiring consultants with promises of fast career progression, real responsibility and a more friendly work-life balance. One of the major energy companies presented a few days ago, and arguably got industry off to a bad start, with one of the stranger openings to a recruitment presentations I have seen. "At our company, we take safety very seriously, so I'd like to begin our presentation by pointing out that this room has two emergency exits, one here and one there" she said, as pointed out, to a bemused looking group of MBAs, the locations of the doors to their own lecture theatre. The same doors through which they had just entered.
Recruitment aside, INSEAD continues at its usual fast pace and somewhat surreal rhythm. National Weeks have come and gone. Heart of Europe week, where I donned my German face for a week, was a great success, and ran with impressive, and distinctly cliched, efficiency. The beer was plentiful, and the fun was had by all. Following the Heart of Europe week was always going to be tough, and it fell to the Russian and Eastern Europe crowd to organise the next one, with the interestingly titled 'Iron Curtain Week'. It's not for me to tell people what to call their national weeks, but I have to admit I was surprised that the Poles, Czechs and Hungarians wanted anything to do with an Iron Curtain week, or the Friday party and its Red Army theme. True to its name, the Red Army party left carnage in its wake. For reasons unknown (but quite possibly connected to the name of the week), Iron Curtain had a hard time attracting sponsorship, and in the end Russian Standard Vodka was the lone sponsor. But they sponsored in kind, not cash.
As it turns out, even at a party where the average age is approaching 30, and the guests are amongst the most expensively educated people on the planet, serving free, unlimited and unmeasured shots of straight vodka for an evening is a bad idea. The full repercussions are still emerging, but while a nasty hang over was all that most people had to overcome, others were left with more long term damage. Of course, it would be indiscreet to recount that here.
It's hard to believe, but I think I may even be getting sun burnt out here, and my laptop is running out of juice. Aside from that, I still haven't tired of the INSEAD cafeteria, and lunch is calling.
So to the present. As I said, Spring has arrived in Fontainebleau. In Australia we don't have much of a winter, which is nice, but it denies us the soul restoring pleasure of a true spring. A few weeks ago it was dark, dreary and cold here, the forest was little more than a haunting collection of bare trees and sickly looking pines. On the rare occasion the sun came out it arrived late and left again with the population still indoors, struggling through lectures or work. Then, one day, the sun came up, and the thermometer broke into double figures. And now, suddenly, everything has changed. Seemingly out of nowhere the sun has not only returned, but seems to have set up permanent camp alone in the sky, unbothered by clouds for days on end. The footpaths are suddenly adorned with yellow and purple as once dead nature strips turn into flower beds, and slowly but surely green is returning to the forest. At the same time wintercoats have disappeared and t-shirts are re-emerging. A few brave souls have ventured to shorts and flip-flops, and its impossible to deny the enjoyment provided by the natural shortening of skirts and lowering of neck lines that accompanies the rise in temperatures.
While Spring is wholly welcomed, there is another season in full swing at Fonty, and it has a more bittersweet flavour. It's recruitment time for our class, and while it's a time that offers plenty of excitement for the myriad opportunities that seem just over the horizon, it is also a time that drives home the sad fact that, sooner or later, the INSEAD sleep must end. Recruitment is the real world, rudely knocking on the door while we try to grasp the last, fleeting moments of a pleasant dream.
An upside of recruiting at INSEAD is that it is accompanied by much less of the soul searching moralizing that marks an undergrad law student's job search. Few people indeed are wracking themselves with guilt over whether to the sell their souls in the corporate world or instead try and change the world working in low paid but meaningful non-profit or public service roles. Being older, and I think a little wiser makes the average MBA quite comfortable with selling his or her soul. The question is who is the highest bidder for that soul, and how can one ensure a good resale value for said soul a few years from now.
The downside is The Fear. Other than the lucky sponsored few, all students are haunted, to some extent at least, by The Fear, in a way that an undergraduate student, particularly in 2006, never worries. The Fear is that the job will not come. That one could invest all this time and money and effort into an MBA and then freeze when asked to figure out how many ping pong balls fit into a 747. Or that one's CV will only be compared to other INSEAD students, each one of which seems to have a more amazing previous career than the next one. And that in July, when the real world takes your classmates back into its well paid embrace, you will be left with a debt hangover to match the Greek budget, and the employment prospects of an Irish property developer, and your international outlook and diverse class mates will be of little consolation. No one talks about The Fear, but it's there. And the only way to deal with the fear is to ignore it steadfastly, and listen to the warm and fuzzy promises of the real world as potential future employers line up to dangle promises before you.
The consultants have made their pitch, all slick presentations and fancy dinners. Intriguingly, each of the consulting firms informs us that what differentiates them from the others is 'the people' and the focus on results/impact/solutions (choose your synonym). A natural cynicism aside, they did make compelling arguments, and consulting fever has hit INSEAD, sweeping all in its path. Barely a break out room can be found that isn't occupied by eager students practicing their case interview skills, gripped by excitement at the glamorous 'Up in the Air' lifestyle and the promise of 'a new challenge every day', and of course, gripped also by The Fear. It would be dishonest to leave you with the impression I was above all this, so I openly admit that mine is also one of the annoying voices floating around the west wing, distracting all those trying to study, reasoning its way to the annual income of a taxi driver, or the feasibility of entering the Norwegian broadband market.
In the next few weeks industry will strike back, seeking to lure back the seduced aspiring consultants with promises of fast career progression, real responsibility and a more friendly work-life balance. One of the major energy companies presented a few days ago, and arguably got industry off to a bad start, with one of the stranger openings to a recruitment presentations I have seen. "At our company, we take safety very seriously, so I'd like to begin our presentation by pointing out that this room has two emergency exits, one here and one there" she said, as pointed out, to a bemused looking group of MBAs, the locations of the doors to their own lecture theatre. The same doors through which they had just entered.
Recruitment aside, INSEAD continues at its usual fast pace and somewhat surreal rhythm. National Weeks have come and gone. Heart of Europe week, where I donned my German face for a week, was a great success, and ran with impressive, and distinctly cliched, efficiency. The beer was plentiful, and the fun was had by all. Following the Heart of Europe week was always going to be tough, and it fell to the Russian and Eastern Europe crowd to organise the next one, with the interestingly titled 'Iron Curtain Week'. It's not for me to tell people what to call their national weeks, but I have to admit I was surprised that the Poles, Czechs and Hungarians wanted anything to do with an Iron Curtain week, or the Friday party and its Red Army theme. True to its name, the Red Army party left carnage in its wake. For reasons unknown (but quite possibly connected to the name of the week), Iron Curtain had a hard time attracting sponsorship, and in the end Russian Standard Vodka was the lone sponsor. But they sponsored in kind, not cash.
As it turns out, even at a party where the average age is approaching 30, and the guests are amongst the most expensively educated people on the planet, serving free, unlimited and unmeasured shots of straight vodka for an evening is a bad idea. The full repercussions are still emerging, but while a nasty hang over was all that most people had to overcome, others were left with more long term damage. Of course, it would be indiscreet to recount that here.
It's hard to believe, but I think I may even be getting sun burnt out here, and my laptop is running out of juice. Aside from that, I still haven't tired of the INSEAD cafeteria, and lunch is calling.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Rugby and National Weeks
It has been over a month since my last post. An indication that things have been a little quiet on the western front recently? Quite the opposite, actually. It is one of the truisms of keeping a blog that the more time you spend doing things that might warrant a blog entry, the less time you have to actually write that entry.
The last month has been, by any measure, a genuinely intense time. The first set of exams came and went. Exams here start as soon as classes finish - so study time is limited to late nights and a single weekend. To an extent that actually reduces the stress they cause, because it is over quickly.
Exams were followed by the 'break' which was actually nothing more than a long weekend, from Thursday to Sunday. I spent the weekend visiting the other half in Oxford, which gave me an interesting chance to compare the two towns. Oxford certainly has Fonty beaten for pubs and going out opportunities, and probably edges the history stakes, with the Oxford Colleges offering something unique which the Fonty Chateau can't match. France is France though, and the 70 pounds we spent on crap sushi in Oxford reminded me that the French have a few things going for them too.
After the relative calm of the break the second period (P2) got underway - and its been hectic ever since. The academic workload has increased, but even more demanding has been the increase in social activities and the beginnings of the career hunt that accompanies an MBA.
In the midst of all this I must have been feeling a bit overwhelmed, or drunk (probably a combination of the two) because something convinced me to join, of all things, the undefeated INSEAD Rugby Club. I'd been asked by a lot of the players to come down and have a go, based on a misplaced assumption that being Australian somehow qualified me as a rugby player. While I have recounted the phantom try incident already, and can still say I wouldn't have fallen for that one, I'm afraid that beyond that I still can't contribute all that much to a rugby team. Presumably it was on realising this that they stuck me at fullback. Its been 15 years since I last played a competitive game of rugby union, and I can safely say that little has changed in that time. Playing on the outside of the back line (I used to be a winger) still involves more standing around and hoping than actual play, as the chances of the ball passing through four sets of hands without falling remain pretty low, and when you do get the ball, its still mainly a matter of running a few steps before someone pulls you to the ground and 10 overweight people come and step all over you in search of the ball. The only minor change in France is that all this happens at a very wet 2 degrees celsius.
The game may not have changed, but the post match rituals certainly have. We played a club team here a few weeks ago, and were all treated to the French version of post match beers. Being in France, the beer is supplemented by wine (as well as some guys rancid home brew) and the usual party pies and sausage rolls are replaced by baguettes, cheese and pate. Then, and this is not a typo, people start standing on chairs and singing about crocodiles. I haven't entirely mastered the ritual yet, because other than 'crocodile' and some numbers I don't understand any of the words, but the number of crocodiles increases over the course of the song, and with each increase, the number of people standing on chairs or tables also increases, until, eventually, 'tout crocodile' is the cue for everyone to be up on a chair. There are hand gestures all the way through, which make me think the song probably also involved an elephant and something else with a tail. A quick look at Youtube suggest 'Ah les Crocodiles' is popular with drunken social gatherings and pre school children alike. Here is one sample INSEAD's own favourite post rugby song, about a Chicago department store, does not have that sort of cross demographic appeal.
Outside of rugby, I managed to squeeze in two weekends away as well. Kate and I hit up Amsterdam, with all that Amsterdam entails. I always thought the Dutch were probably a bit like the Germans, but judging by the hour long wait associated with ordering any form of food or beverage, they take more closely after the French. It is a beautiful city though, even after you find out that the many canals also form the city's only sewage system.
Last weekend I went to London for a reunion. Before the blog there were group emails. If you happened to be one of the people whose inbox I cluttered up back in 2004 with much exaggerated tales of my intrepidness in travelling around South America, you might remember I spent some time teaching English in Peru. In London the Calca crew from 2004 had a reunion - for most of them it was the first time I'd seen them since my last day in Peru almost 7 years ago. I won't bore you with the details, but it was a great night, and fantastic to see them all again.
Finally, this week one of INSEAD's great traditions took place - National Week Bidding. Over the course of the year there are six national weeks, in which one nationality gets to take over the campus and stage events, dinners and parties relating to that culture. To decide which weeks take place there is an election process.
This year the candidates were: Russia and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Israel, Iberia, Canada, Dragon Week (China), Japan and Korea, Heart of Europe (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), USA and Italy. The multi nation combinations are common, and in fact a crucial tactical move. For smaller nations like Austria or Korea, it gives them a chance to get involved, as they probably wouldn't have the numbers to organise a week alone, while for others its crucial not to split your regional vote. Each person gets six votes, and most people want a mix of regions, so its important not to compete with a rival from your own region head on. This year for example Latin America combined and romped home in first place. The USA and Canada decided to run separate campaigns, and predictably, split the North American vote and found themselves both out of the running. I asked a Canadian about this and was told that it just couldn't happen because of the rivalry between the countries. Apparently Japan and Korea and Russia and Eastern Europe can all put aside a few centuries of warfare to cooperate, but the USA and Canada simply can't get past differences in opinion about the correct way to pronounce 'about'. Its a shame, because they both put on fantastic bids, with the US girls donning cheerleader outfits for the ocassion, and the Canadians offering everyone a Canadian passport.
Voting took place on Monday, but before the vote, everyone gets a chance to make their pitch. The afternoon starts with all the competing weeks setting up a stand in the bar to promote their plans. The tactics here are pretty simple - offer as much free alcohol as possible and try to convince everyone that your nation throws the best parties. A little bit of behind the scenes diplomacy doesn't go astray either. In scenes even FIFA would be proud of, there are plenty of blatant exchanges along the lines of 'I can get the Germans to vote for Canada if you can get the Canadians to vote for us'. Of course, in the end the ballot is secret, and the absence of a credible commitment mechanism (thank you Professor Bennedson) makes all the talk fairly meaningless.
Without an Australian bid I got involved in the Heart of Europe bid. It took a while to convince some people that I was in fact a German, because they had always seen me as the typical Australian struggling to stay awake in half the lectures. In fact, in one of the stranger coincidences of my life, we found the Heart of Europe stand was manned, for most of the afternoon by two Albrechts, one dressed in a German soccer uniform, the other in lederhosen, conversing in broad Australian accents. Yes, there is another Australian named Albrecht at INSEAD. For most of the afternoon my job was simply to hand out shots of jaegermeister and supervise rides on our star attraction, a life size cow. If that sounds odd, there are some photos on facebook that might explain it.
After the party each team gets to show an eight minute video. Here the tactics really are predictable. INSEAD is about 60% male, and it appears that teams have long since figured out that it is wise to target the largest group. Most of the videos spend considerable effort highlighting the beautiful women of their country. That strikes me as strange, because, regardless of which nations win, the people at each party will be the same - INSEAD students. Latin America simply will not be able to deliver Gisele Buendchen to Fonty, so her existence seems a poor reason to vote for them. You can't argue with success though - the only bid without significant emphasis on female beauties was the HoE bid (our only naked appearance came from a young Arnold Schwarzenegger), and we only scraped into sixth place, while the Russians stormed into second place on the back of (not literally) many blondes.
This weekend the action continues - I'm off to Val d'isere for the opening weekend of ski season, with 60 of my closest friends, then back to work for a few weeks before exams roll around again, then finally a christmas break. Right now it is 12.40am, probably snowing outside again (it did this morning) and I am about to go and find an online stream to watch Katich and Watson start to chase down the poms' poor total at the Gabba - thank you Peter Siddle (to most people at INSEAD, this sentence makes no sense, so I'm glad I can write it here and know that at least some people share my joy)
The last month has been, by any measure, a genuinely intense time. The first set of exams came and went. Exams here start as soon as classes finish - so study time is limited to late nights and a single weekend. To an extent that actually reduces the stress they cause, because it is over quickly.
Exams were followed by the 'break' which was actually nothing more than a long weekend, from Thursday to Sunday. I spent the weekend visiting the other half in Oxford, which gave me an interesting chance to compare the two towns. Oxford certainly has Fonty beaten for pubs and going out opportunities, and probably edges the history stakes, with the Oxford Colleges offering something unique which the Fonty Chateau can't match. France is France though, and the 70 pounds we spent on crap sushi in Oxford reminded me that the French have a few things going for them too.
After the relative calm of the break the second period (P2) got underway - and its been hectic ever since. The academic workload has increased, but even more demanding has been the increase in social activities and the beginnings of the career hunt that accompanies an MBA.
In the midst of all this I must have been feeling a bit overwhelmed, or drunk (probably a combination of the two) because something convinced me to join, of all things, the undefeated INSEAD Rugby Club. I'd been asked by a lot of the players to come down and have a go, based on a misplaced assumption that being Australian somehow qualified me as a rugby player. While I have recounted the phantom try incident already, and can still say I wouldn't have fallen for that one, I'm afraid that beyond that I still can't contribute all that much to a rugby team. Presumably it was on realising this that they stuck me at fullback. Its been 15 years since I last played a competitive game of rugby union, and I can safely say that little has changed in that time. Playing on the outside of the back line (I used to be a winger) still involves more standing around and hoping than actual play, as the chances of the ball passing through four sets of hands without falling remain pretty low, and when you do get the ball, its still mainly a matter of running a few steps before someone pulls you to the ground and 10 overweight people come and step all over you in search of the ball. The only minor change in France is that all this happens at a very wet 2 degrees celsius.
The game may not have changed, but the post match rituals certainly have. We played a club team here a few weeks ago, and were all treated to the French version of post match beers. Being in France, the beer is supplemented by wine (as well as some guys rancid home brew) and the usual party pies and sausage rolls are replaced by baguettes, cheese and pate. Then, and this is not a typo, people start standing on chairs and singing about crocodiles. I haven't entirely mastered the ritual yet, because other than 'crocodile' and some numbers I don't understand any of the words, but the number of crocodiles increases over the course of the song, and with each increase, the number of people standing on chairs or tables also increases, until, eventually, 'tout crocodile' is the cue for everyone to be up on a chair. There are hand gestures all the way through, which make me think the song probably also involved an elephant and something else with a tail. A quick look at Youtube suggest 'Ah les Crocodiles' is popular with drunken social gatherings and pre school children alike. Here is one sample INSEAD's own favourite post rugby song, about a Chicago department store, does not have that sort of cross demographic appeal.
Outside of rugby, I managed to squeeze in two weekends away as well. Kate and I hit up Amsterdam, with all that Amsterdam entails. I always thought the Dutch were probably a bit like the Germans, but judging by the hour long wait associated with ordering any form of food or beverage, they take more closely after the French. It is a beautiful city though, even after you find out that the many canals also form the city's only sewage system.
Last weekend I went to London for a reunion. Before the blog there were group emails. If you happened to be one of the people whose inbox I cluttered up back in 2004 with much exaggerated tales of my intrepidness in travelling around South America, you might remember I spent some time teaching English in Peru. In London the Calca crew from 2004 had a reunion - for most of them it was the first time I'd seen them since my last day in Peru almost 7 years ago. I won't bore you with the details, but it was a great night, and fantastic to see them all again.
Finally, this week one of INSEAD's great traditions took place - National Week Bidding. Over the course of the year there are six national weeks, in which one nationality gets to take over the campus and stage events, dinners and parties relating to that culture. To decide which weeks take place there is an election process.
This year the candidates were: Russia and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Israel, Iberia, Canada, Dragon Week (China), Japan and Korea, Heart of Europe (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), USA and Italy. The multi nation combinations are common, and in fact a crucial tactical move. For smaller nations like Austria or Korea, it gives them a chance to get involved, as they probably wouldn't have the numbers to organise a week alone, while for others its crucial not to split your regional vote. Each person gets six votes, and most people want a mix of regions, so its important not to compete with a rival from your own region head on. This year for example Latin America combined and romped home in first place. The USA and Canada decided to run separate campaigns, and predictably, split the North American vote and found themselves both out of the running. I asked a Canadian about this and was told that it just couldn't happen because of the rivalry between the countries. Apparently Japan and Korea and Russia and Eastern Europe can all put aside a few centuries of warfare to cooperate, but the USA and Canada simply can't get past differences in opinion about the correct way to pronounce 'about'. Its a shame, because they both put on fantastic bids, with the US girls donning cheerleader outfits for the ocassion, and the Canadians offering everyone a Canadian passport.
Voting took place on Monday, but before the vote, everyone gets a chance to make their pitch. The afternoon starts with all the competing weeks setting up a stand in the bar to promote their plans. The tactics here are pretty simple - offer as much free alcohol as possible and try to convince everyone that your nation throws the best parties. A little bit of behind the scenes diplomacy doesn't go astray either. In scenes even FIFA would be proud of, there are plenty of blatant exchanges along the lines of 'I can get the Germans to vote for Canada if you can get the Canadians to vote for us'. Of course, in the end the ballot is secret, and the absence of a credible commitment mechanism (thank you Professor Bennedson) makes all the talk fairly meaningless.
Without an Australian bid I got involved in the Heart of Europe bid. It took a while to convince some people that I was in fact a German, because they had always seen me as the typical Australian struggling to stay awake in half the lectures. In fact, in one of the stranger coincidences of my life, we found the Heart of Europe stand was manned, for most of the afternoon by two Albrechts, one dressed in a German soccer uniform, the other in lederhosen, conversing in broad Australian accents. Yes, there is another Australian named Albrecht at INSEAD. For most of the afternoon my job was simply to hand out shots of jaegermeister and supervise rides on our star attraction, a life size cow. If that sounds odd, there are some photos on facebook that might explain it.
After the party each team gets to show an eight minute video. Here the tactics really are predictable. INSEAD is about 60% male, and it appears that teams have long since figured out that it is wise to target the largest group. Most of the videos spend considerable effort highlighting the beautiful women of their country. That strikes me as strange, because, regardless of which nations win, the people at each party will be the same - INSEAD students. Latin America simply will not be able to deliver Gisele Buendchen to Fonty, so her existence seems a poor reason to vote for them. You can't argue with success though - the only bid without significant emphasis on female beauties was the HoE bid (our only naked appearance came from a young Arnold Schwarzenegger), and we only scraped into sixth place, while the Russians stormed into second place on the back of (not literally) many blondes.
This weekend the action continues - I'm off to Val d'isere for the opening weekend of ski season, with 60 of my closest friends, then back to work for a few weeks before exams roll around again, then finally a christmas break. Right now it is 12.40am, probably snowing outside again (it did this morning) and I am about to go and find an online stream to watch Katich and Watson start to chase down the poms' poor total at the Gabba - thank you Peter Siddle (to most people at INSEAD, this sentence makes no sense, so I'm glad I can write it here and know that at least some people share my joy)
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Happy Birthday to me
I turn 28 today. I feel like this is a bit of a nothing birthday - much like 26 and 27. 25 was kind of a big deal for being a quarter of a century, the point where any decent batsman has made a start and should go on to have a good innings, and I imagine 29 will start feeling like a countdown to the big three O. But 28? What really happens? I feel much like I did last night (only no longer tipsy).
But I am always given to overthinking things, and I couldn't help but spend some time reflecting on the merits, or lack thereof, of turning 28. On the downside, I am no longer eligible to go on Australian Idol. On the upside, there is no longer any risk of me ever going on Australian Idol. It's an unusual birthday this one, planted as I am on the other side of the planet, where October is when it gets cold instead of the usual introduction to the looming summer, surrounded by about 500 new acquaintances, very few of whom, with the exception of the facebook (ab)users, have any idea that it is my birthday. I would imagine that this year, we will not consume entire cartons of beer, cut holes in them and use them as pretend Ned Kelly helmets while throwing coins at each other, nor will we be getting out the BBQ, then catching the ferry in to the city, only to be ejected for drinking too much mango juice. Even a night of headbanging in a Czech night club seems out of the question. So it won't be like previous birthdays.
I might go out and eat some unspeakable part of an animal, then wait an hour for my main course, and then sit around waiting for the waitress to come and take a dessert order, which I don't want but was already included in the price, and then wait another thirty minutes to get served. By the time the bill comes, it won't even by my birthday anymore. Or I might have birthday drinks at a bar somewhere and start them off at 11pm, to keep in time with the locals.
Of course, a birthday is always a good time to reflect on that whole 'what am I doing with my life' question. For the first time in four birthdays that question doesn't start with 'should I quit my job', which is a good thing. Unfortunately it starts with 'OMG I don't have a job', which is not so good. But the advantage of being back in full time education is that I feel justified in not thinking about being unemployed for a while, so I've turned my mind to other things.
I said that I don't feel like the countdown to 30 really begins until 29, but even at 28 I couldn't help but start thinking about one of those 'things to do before I turn 30' lists. I started with the inevitable comparing to people of my age who seem to have achieved a lot more. Fortunately, looking at the sports stars is not as depressing as it used to be. While its still a little weird that at 28, sports stars are considered to be on the downhill (anyone heard from Ian Thorpe lately?), at least I am confidant that I didn't run the risk of peaking too early. I am fairly sure that 4 years oat the bottom of the pecking order in a couple of mid tier professional services firms does not represent the peak. Less good is the fact that, at INSEAD, there seem to be quite a few people running around who have started companies or done other impressive things by my age. I started a company once too of course, but I don't think Sydney BBQ Boats will go down in the annals of good decisions ever made.
So its best to leave work related achievements aside for a while and concentrate on other things I'd like to do before I turn 30. During another interminable accounting lecture last week (how you can devote eight weeks to the difference between cash, income and assets remains a mystery to me) I made a list of all the countries I'd been to. I was mildly annoyed at the confederates for losing the Civil War and depriving me of a couple of extra countries (who knows how many we could have ended up with), but still surprised that the count came in at 37, with the criteria of spending more than just a few hours transit in the country (so a boat ride to the Argentine side of Iguazu Falls didn't make it, but a day trip to Tijuana was enough to count Mexico).
It is of course completely absurd to aim to visit countries for the simple sake of racking up numbers, but being in Europe does provide a chance to start boosting that number quite efficiently. A weekend trip will easily be enough to tick off Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg (I will have to find a reason to stop in Luxembourg) in one go. I still want to check out both Denmark and Norway, and when things warm up again, Krakow, Budapest and St Petersburg should be doable in a weekend each. That would be 45, and a quick trip to Eastern Africa, where I still want to see Kilimanjaro, gorillas and the massai, and I'd be getting pretty close to 50. Then I could become the ultimate travelling dickhead, regaling backpackers, who are secretly wondering why a 30 year old is in a hostel, with stories about how all those 50 countries were better when I was there because they were unspoiled by tourists - I hate when those tourists get to countries before me.
In completely unrelated news, I had to share the funniest sporting moment I have been witness to since the incident of the Nick Tragoustis bow. Last weekend the INSEAD v LBS rugby game was played here in Fonty. I've been fielding a lot of questions about why I don't play, given that I am Australian and know the rules. I had stuck to the line that knowing the rules doesn't really compensate for being crap at rugby, and that also, being Australian, I've been unlucky enough to watch a lot of rugby, and quite frankly, it's a close call between rugby and accounting lectures. As it turns out though, simply knowing the rules can be quite helpful. Late in the game INSEAD were leading by a single point, when they completed by far the best play of the day. A long kick from deep inside their own half, followed by a crunching tackle that caused the LBS full back to drop the ball, and an INSEAD breakaway for a length of the field try. The crowd were celebrating, the team were celebrating, and especially the player who ran the ball in was celebrating. So much so that he kept running, arms in the air, well past the dead ball line, without ever making one essential move - putting the ball down. He was American, and figured if a touch down doesn't require you to touch the ball down, why would a try? Five minutes later, and with the last play of the game, LBS scored the winning try.
But I am always given to overthinking things, and I couldn't help but spend some time reflecting on the merits, or lack thereof, of turning 28. On the downside, I am no longer eligible to go on Australian Idol. On the upside, there is no longer any risk of me ever going on Australian Idol. It's an unusual birthday this one, planted as I am on the other side of the planet, where October is when it gets cold instead of the usual introduction to the looming summer, surrounded by about 500 new acquaintances, very few of whom, with the exception of the facebook (ab)users, have any idea that it is my birthday. I would imagine that this year, we will not consume entire cartons of beer, cut holes in them and use them as pretend Ned Kelly helmets while throwing coins at each other, nor will we be getting out the BBQ, then catching the ferry in to the city, only to be ejected for drinking too much mango juice. Even a night of headbanging in a Czech night club seems out of the question. So it won't be like previous birthdays.
I might go out and eat some unspeakable part of an animal, then wait an hour for my main course, and then sit around waiting for the waitress to come and take a dessert order, which I don't want but was already included in the price, and then wait another thirty minutes to get served. By the time the bill comes, it won't even by my birthday anymore. Or I might have birthday drinks at a bar somewhere and start them off at 11pm, to keep in time with the locals.
Of course, a birthday is always a good time to reflect on that whole 'what am I doing with my life' question. For the first time in four birthdays that question doesn't start with 'should I quit my job', which is a good thing. Unfortunately it starts with 'OMG I don't have a job', which is not so good. But the advantage of being back in full time education is that I feel justified in not thinking about being unemployed for a while, so I've turned my mind to other things.
I said that I don't feel like the countdown to 30 really begins until 29, but even at 28 I couldn't help but start thinking about one of those 'things to do before I turn 30' lists. I started with the inevitable comparing to people of my age who seem to have achieved a lot more. Fortunately, looking at the sports stars is not as depressing as it used to be. While its still a little weird that at 28, sports stars are considered to be on the downhill (anyone heard from Ian Thorpe lately?), at least I am confidant that I didn't run the risk of peaking too early. I am fairly sure that 4 years oat the bottom of the pecking order in a couple of mid tier professional services firms does not represent the peak. Less good is the fact that, at INSEAD, there seem to be quite a few people running around who have started companies or done other impressive things by my age. I started a company once too of course, but I don't think Sydney BBQ Boats will go down in the annals of good decisions ever made.
So its best to leave work related achievements aside for a while and concentrate on other things I'd like to do before I turn 30. During another interminable accounting lecture last week (how you can devote eight weeks to the difference between cash, income and assets remains a mystery to me) I made a list of all the countries I'd been to. I was mildly annoyed at the confederates for losing the Civil War and depriving me of a couple of extra countries (who knows how many we could have ended up with), but still surprised that the count came in at 37, with the criteria of spending more than just a few hours transit in the country (so a boat ride to the Argentine side of Iguazu Falls didn't make it, but a day trip to Tijuana was enough to count Mexico).
It is of course completely absurd to aim to visit countries for the simple sake of racking up numbers, but being in Europe does provide a chance to start boosting that number quite efficiently. A weekend trip will easily be enough to tick off Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg (I will have to find a reason to stop in Luxembourg) in one go. I still want to check out both Denmark and Norway, and when things warm up again, Krakow, Budapest and St Petersburg should be doable in a weekend each. That would be 45, and a quick trip to Eastern Africa, where I still want to see Kilimanjaro, gorillas and the massai, and I'd be getting pretty close to 50. Then I could become the ultimate travelling dickhead, regaling backpackers, who are secretly wondering why a 30 year old is in a hostel, with stories about how all those 50 countries were better when I was there because they were unspoiled by tourists - I hate when those tourists get to countries before me.
In completely unrelated news, I had to share the funniest sporting moment I have been witness to since the incident of the Nick Tragoustis bow. Last weekend the INSEAD v LBS rugby game was played here in Fonty. I've been fielding a lot of questions about why I don't play, given that I am Australian and know the rules. I had stuck to the line that knowing the rules doesn't really compensate for being crap at rugby, and that also, being Australian, I've been unlucky enough to watch a lot of rugby, and quite frankly, it's a close call between rugby and accounting lectures. As it turns out though, simply knowing the rules can be quite helpful. Late in the game INSEAD were leading by a single point, when they completed by far the best play of the day. A long kick from deep inside their own half, followed by a crunching tackle that caused the LBS full back to drop the ball, and an INSEAD breakaway for a length of the field try. The crowd were celebrating, the team were celebrating, and especially the player who ran the ball in was celebrating. So much so that he kept running, arms in the air, well past the dead ball line, without ever making one essential move - putting the ball down. He was American, and figured if a touch down doesn't require you to touch the ball down, why would a try? Five minutes later, and with the last play of the game, LBS scored the winning try.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Le Blog
Another Friday afternoon, and for the first time in two weeks I have time to do something unproductive - which in this case is updating my blog. Or le Blog, as I will now call it. It could be la Blog though, I'm not sure.
I've been trying to learn French for a month now, and progress is slow. The French still harbour a bit of a hope that their language can be seen as a world language, harking back to their glory days as the world's cultural leaders. I understand that desire, but I have to say that it might help if they made their language just a little bit less impenetrable to the outsider.
The basic problem with learning French is that somewhere along the line the French people seem to have lost that essential connection between the alphabet and the language, because there appears to be no true relationship between the letters on a page and the word that is spoken. The common theme is that the last syllable of a word just drops away, but not in any systematic way - just about two thirds of the time, and for no reason related to what those letters might be.
Then you get to French numbers. Up to 60, its ok, but after that it gets a little strange - to say seventy you say sixty ten. 75 is sixty fifteen. At 80 it gets better - four twenties. And if you want to get to 99, try four twenties nineteen. I suspect the reason the French are having so much trouble containing their budget deficits may be that, with such a number system, they just don't count all that well.
Trouble with the language has also led to me developing a somewhat inaccurate reputation in French class, to the great amusement of my teacher and class mates. In one of the first lessons we were asked whether we knew any french verbs. At that point the only french I knew was 'voulez vous couche avec moi', which I knew was not appropriate for a French class. However, I assumed I could use a literal translation, and 'coucher' would simply mean 'to sleep' - a perfectly innocent verb to contribute to the conversation in the right context. Not so - the verb does not mean to sleep (dormir) and does not have an innocent meaning. So in my first French class, the only thing I was able to contribute to class was a verb that basically translates as 'to shag'.
Since that point its been assumed that I regularly use this verb, and every time verbs come up, coucher is repeated as 'max's verb'. This week we learned about meals, and the French teacher specifically pointed out that I might like to use the phrase 'would you like to have breakfast with me', which I am told can only be taken one way in France.
Language aside, its been an intense couple of weeks here. Think about how much work you would have had to do at uni if you actually had to read every assigned reading for every class. Then imagine you were doing a degree compressed into half its usual length (MBAs in most of the world take two years). It makes for very busy days. My days at law school were basically spent not learning a thing for 13 weeks of semester and then studying like a mad man for two weeks before exams. Here that is not an option, as the exams start as soon as classes finish, so you have to stay on top of things as you go.
Then there is the group work. All assignments here are done in a group - the international bunch that I mentioned in the last post. Groups, I have to admit, pose a new challenge. Most of you will know that admitting I am wrong, or even entertaining the notion, is not something that comes naturally to me. Yet my group seems strangely unconvinced that I am always right. Maybe they just need to spend more time with me ;-)
Finally some favourite quotes from some of my lecturers. I should mention that one thing about this place that shows is that it takes teaching very seriously. I remember well the many research focused professors at Sydney Uni that had very little interest in teaching, and did a very poor job of it. While research is a big thing here too, the lecturers are all very good, which makes a great change. But they are all European, and while they all speak near perfect English, they still manage to drop some great quotes to liven up their classes once in a while:
Economics lecturer, as his phone started ringing mid lecture: "Oh, its my mum" - hangs up the call. He laughs - "Doesn't matter, she is half dead anyway" Realising that the class is in shocked, awkward silence: "oh, I mean deaf, not dead"
Finance lecturer (with a thick German accent): "vot iz a cashflow?" - "vell, cash flow is ven it makes ring ring, ja?" (referring to an old till)
Same finance lecturer: "But vot iz the differenz betveen Bernie Madoff and Sarkozy? Madoff goes to jail for his ponzy scheme, ja, but ze french government continues, ja?"
On a totally unrelated note, and in a move of blatant cross promotion, INSEAD have asked us to help them publicize the official blog, where I am one of quite a few contributors. It's aimed at potential MBAs, so probably of more interest to some than to others, but here is the link:
http://the-insead-mba-experience.insead.edu/
Scroll down a few entries to find the last one by yours truly.
I've been trying to learn French for a month now, and progress is slow. The French still harbour a bit of a hope that their language can be seen as a world language, harking back to their glory days as the world's cultural leaders. I understand that desire, but I have to say that it might help if they made their language just a little bit less impenetrable to the outsider.
The basic problem with learning French is that somewhere along the line the French people seem to have lost that essential connection between the alphabet and the language, because there appears to be no true relationship between the letters on a page and the word that is spoken. The common theme is that the last syllable of a word just drops away, but not in any systematic way - just about two thirds of the time, and for no reason related to what those letters might be.
Then you get to French numbers. Up to 60, its ok, but after that it gets a little strange - to say seventy you say sixty ten. 75 is sixty fifteen. At 80 it gets better - four twenties. And if you want to get to 99, try four twenties nineteen. I suspect the reason the French are having so much trouble containing their budget deficits may be that, with such a number system, they just don't count all that well.
Trouble with the language has also led to me developing a somewhat inaccurate reputation in French class, to the great amusement of my teacher and class mates. In one of the first lessons we were asked whether we knew any french verbs. At that point the only french I knew was 'voulez vous couche avec moi', which I knew was not appropriate for a French class. However, I assumed I could use a literal translation, and 'coucher' would simply mean 'to sleep' - a perfectly innocent verb to contribute to the conversation in the right context. Not so - the verb does not mean to sleep (dormir) and does not have an innocent meaning. So in my first French class, the only thing I was able to contribute to class was a verb that basically translates as 'to shag'.
Since that point its been assumed that I regularly use this verb, and every time verbs come up, coucher is repeated as 'max's verb'. This week we learned about meals, and the French teacher specifically pointed out that I might like to use the phrase 'would you like to have breakfast with me', which I am told can only be taken one way in France.
Language aside, its been an intense couple of weeks here. Think about how much work you would have had to do at uni if you actually had to read every assigned reading for every class. Then imagine you were doing a degree compressed into half its usual length (MBAs in most of the world take two years). It makes for very busy days. My days at law school were basically spent not learning a thing for 13 weeks of semester and then studying like a mad man for two weeks before exams. Here that is not an option, as the exams start as soon as classes finish, so you have to stay on top of things as you go.
Then there is the group work. All assignments here are done in a group - the international bunch that I mentioned in the last post. Groups, I have to admit, pose a new challenge. Most of you will know that admitting I am wrong, or even entertaining the notion, is not something that comes naturally to me. Yet my group seems strangely unconvinced that I am always right. Maybe they just need to spend more time with me ;-)
Finally some favourite quotes from some of my lecturers. I should mention that one thing about this place that shows is that it takes teaching very seriously. I remember well the many research focused professors at Sydney Uni that had very little interest in teaching, and did a very poor job of it. While research is a big thing here too, the lecturers are all very good, which makes a great change. But they are all European, and while they all speak near perfect English, they still manage to drop some great quotes to liven up their classes once in a while:
Economics lecturer, as his phone started ringing mid lecture: "Oh, its my mum" - hangs up the call. He laughs - "Doesn't matter, she is half dead anyway" Realising that the class is in shocked, awkward silence: "oh, I mean deaf, not dead"
Finance lecturer (with a thick German accent): "vot iz a cashflow?" - "vell, cash flow is ven it makes ring ring, ja?" (referring to an old till)
Same finance lecturer: "But vot iz the differenz betveen Bernie Madoff and Sarkozy? Madoff goes to jail for his ponzy scheme, ja, but ze french government continues, ja?"
On a totally unrelated note, and in a move of blatant cross promotion, INSEAD have asked us to help them publicize the official blog, where I am one of quite a few contributors. It's aimed at potential MBAs, so probably of more interest to some than to others, but here is the link:
http://the-insead-mba-experience.insead.edu/
Scroll down a few entries to find the last one by yours truly.
Friday, September 10, 2010
First weeks in France
My first blog entry from INSEAD, brought to you from the sunny surrounds of Fontainebleau, France.
I am sitting in the sun, enjoying the mild autumn temperatures of France in early September, basking in sunshine, listening to the gentle buzz of Friday afternoon conversations, as people celebrate the end of the first week of classes with a quiet (and subsidized) beer or wine in the INSEAD courtyard area. The chatter is quiet, partly because people are tired from a long week, partly because there is no reason to expend much energy now, with the INSEAD social scene set to come to life at another chateau party tomorrow night. Until then its all about fitting in to the French way of life, where, as I've discovered, nothing is rushed, and everything is a little subdued.
The volume may be in keeping with French custom, but the language of these conversations is certainly not. If I strain my ears I can hear a German conversation and a Spanish one, drowned out in the main by many, many different accents of English, all trying to make themselves understood. This is the first place I've ever been in my life where having fluent command of two languages is unusual for the fact that its not three or four. INSEAD make a big deal out of their internationalism, but that does not make the end result any less impressive. There are 73 different nationalities represented in my class, including seven Australians and about 25 Germans. India contributes the largest group, with 56 (of 500) students), while many smaller nations deliver only one. On arrival I was put in a small study group - the group in which I will do most of my assignments for the first two periods (ie until Christmas). Our group covers 5 of the world's 6 continents - A Frenchman, a Nigerian, a woman from Japan, a Uruguayan and an Australian.
It's promising to be a very busy year. Classes may only involve about 16 contact hours per week, but each class requires homework, pre readings and group assignments. I've been at school until about 9pm on most days that I've been here so far - quite a shock for the first week.
When the weekend rolls around though its party time here. Quite a few of the students here live in large old chateaus in groups of up to 15 or 16 students. With summer fast coming to an end, every house seems to keen to host at least one party before time runs out. On my first Saturday here I went to one my first party. The following Wednesday was a 'traffic light' party in town - just to get everyone's cards out on the table early, I guess. One feature of parties here is that they generally don't start before 10, and end equivalently late in the night / early in the morning.
Last Saturday was the Bain party. The consulting firms put a lot of time and effort into recruiting here - I've gotten letters from McKinsey and Booz, a USB stick from Bain, and my locker is secured with a BCG lock - not bad for a weeks work. But Bain have hatched a plan to get into everyone's mind early, by putting up the cash for a huge party in the first week of term. Fortunately no one from Bain actually attends, but the thousands of Euros they put up pay for 500 people to party the night away in the grounds of a French chateau, with a dance floor, marquis, professional lights and copious amounts of (real) champagne.
The parties do provide one dilemma though - most of these houses are on their own grounds, quite a long way from anywhere. There was, apparently, a time when the French didn't worry too much about drink driving, and getting home from these parties was simply a matter of dodging a few wild boar as you steered your rental car home. These days (fortunately) that has changed, and drink driving is a definite no, in France and especially at INSEAD, where just about every communication about a social event is signed off with the phrase "At INSEAD, we don't drink and drive".
The French police may do a lot more breath testing now, but there is definitely one thing they could do which would be far more effective in reducing drink driving, I think. Taxis. The French seem to take not working on a Sunday very seriously, but the fact that this extends to taxis just seems absurd. As it happened, after the Bain party, when the last bus back to town decided he could not take a single standing passenger, a good thirty of us were left standing outside said chateau, with very little idea how to get home. Calling a taxi at that time only leads to waking someone up, as most of the taxi's are private operations with their own numbers, as being told something in French. Whatever that something is, it is not "I'll be there in 15 minutes".
In the end I slept at the chateau, and could only get a lift to within about 5km of my house. In case you were wondering, ending a party by waiting for 2 hours for a bus that doesn't come, then waking up to see the aftermath of a 500 person party, and then walking 5 km to get home, is not ideal.
There is a lot more to tell about French life, but for now, the wine calls.
I am sitting in the sun, enjoying the mild autumn temperatures of France in early September, basking in sunshine, listening to the gentle buzz of Friday afternoon conversations, as people celebrate the end of the first week of classes with a quiet (and subsidized) beer or wine in the INSEAD courtyard area. The chatter is quiet, partly because people are tired from a long week, partly because there is no reason to expend much energy now, with the INSEAD social scene set to come to life at another chateau party tomorrow night. Until then its all about fitting in to the French way of life, where, as I've discovered, nothing is rushed, and everything is a little subdued.
The volume may be in keeping with French custom, but the language of these conversations is certainly not. If I strain my ears I can hear a German conversation and a Spanish one, drowned out in the main by many, many different accents of English, all trying to make themselves understood. This is the first place I've ever been in my life where having fluent command of two languages is unusual for the fact that its not three or four. INSEAD make a big deal out of their internationalism, but that does not make the end result any less impressive. There are 73 different nationalities represented in my class, including seven Australians and about 25 Germans. India contributes the largest group, with 56 (of 500) students), while many smaller nations deliver only one. On arrival I was put in a small study group - the group in which I will do most of my assignments for the first two periods (ie until Christmas). Our group covers 5 of the world's 6 continents - A Frenchman, a Nigerian, a woman from Japan, a Uruguayan and an Australian.
It's promising to be a very busy year. Classes may only involve about 16 contact hours per week, but each class requires homework, pre readings and group assignments. I've been at school until about 9pm on most days that I've been here so far - quite a shock for the first week.
When the weekend rolls around though its party time here. Quite a few of the students here live in large old chateaus in groups of up to 15 or 16 students. With summer fast coming to an end, every house seems to keen to host at least one party before time runs out. On my first Saturday here I went to one my first party. The following Wednesday was a 'traffic light' party in town - just to get everyone's cards out on the table early, I guess. One feature of parties here is that they generally don't start before 10, and end equivalently late in the night / early in the morning.
Last Saturday was the Bain party. The consulting firms put a lot of time and effort into recruiting here - I've gotten letters from McKinsey and Booz, a USB stick from Bain, and my locker is secured with a BCG lock - not bad for a weeks work. But Bain have hatched a plan to get into everyone's mind early, by putting up the cash for a huge party in the first week of term. Fortunately no one from Bain actually attends, but the thousands of Euros they put up pay for 500 people to party the night away in the grounds of a French chateau, with a dance floor, marquis, professional lights and copious amounts of (real) champagne.
The parties do provide one dilemma though - most of these houses are on their own grounds, quite a long way from anywhere. There was, apparently, a time when the French didn't worry too much about drink driving, and getting home from these parties was simply a matter of dodging a few wild boar as you steered your rental car home. These days (fortunately) that has changed, and drink driving is a definite no, in France and especially at INSEAD, where just about every communication about a social event is signed off with the phrase "At INSEAD, we don't drink and drive".
The French police may do a lot more breath testing now, but there is definitely one thing they could do which would be far more effective in reducing drink driving, I think. Taxis. The French seem to take not working on a Sunday very seriously, but the fact that this extends to taxis just seems absurd. As it happened, after the Bain party, when the last bus back to town decided he could not take a single standing passenger, a good thirty of us were left standing outside said chateau, with very little idea how to get home. Calling a taxi at that time only leads to waking someone up, as most of the taxi's are private operations with their own numbers, as being told something in French. Whatever that something is, it is not "I'll be there in 15 minutes".
In the end I slept at the chateau, and could only get a lift to within about 5km of my house. In case you were wondering, ending a party by waiting for 2 hours for a bus that doesn't come, then waking up to see the aftermath of a 500 person party, and then walking 5 km to get home, is not ideal.
There is a lot more to tell about French life, but for now, the wine calls.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
From Sea to Shining Sea
Four months ago we were swimming with the turtles and dolphins of the Bay Islands, in the improbably warm, luminescent turquoise waters of the Caribbean, trying with little success to escape the scorching heat and stifling humidity of Honduras. A month later it was cold and rain that we wanted to escape, with even less success, as we watched the thunderous surf of the Pacific Ocean crashing into the Western coast of Vancouver Island. In Cape Cod we'd found a pleasant balance in the elements, dipping our feet in the chilly waters of the Atlantic and soaking up the moderate warmth of a New England Summer. It made a fine place for the climax of our Great Escape, putting us perfectly in tune with the national anthem of this nation, which we've now explored from sea to shining sea.
The road trip itself started 88 days ago, in a rainy, dreary, but ever so cool Seattle. Since that day in May we've travelled a little over 10,000 miles, or 181 km per day, crossing mountain ranges and deep canyons, deserts and swamps, forests and praries. At the moment I'm left reflecting on the great contradiction of time - that it flies when you are having fun, so the more you do, the shorter the time seems to get. On the one hand, waking up in the snow in Jasper seems like a distant memory, so entirely removed from the groan of a humid New York City as to feel like another life. On the other hand I can barely believe that a trip that was even longer in the planning than the execution is already over. But over it is - continuing the theme of writing in travel time, I'm writing this one from a rather cramped and turbulent plane over the Atlantic ocean, en route to a reunion with my parents and wider family, and to a life in Paris that allows me to draw on more than the contents of a single backpack. For the final map of our journey click here
It is a much recited, though I suspect not entirely accurate, statistic that only five percent of Americans own a passport; something invariably voiced as a criticism. I would be the first person to extol the delights and virtues of international travel, but I find it easy to understand why Americans don't travel the world in the same numbers that Australians, Brits or Germans do - there is just so much to see in this country. In the aforementioned 10,000 miles we've covered only 27 of 50 states (plus two Canadian provinces). Even with the luxury of a three month trip we have had to bypass huge swathes of land and some very famous attractions - there is surely no other country where, after a three month journey, a visitor can still look forward to places like the Californian coast, Florida, Alaska and Colorado for future visits. There is so much to visit in this country, if you are American, why fly to Europe or Australia when for the cost of a flight you can hire a camper van that is a palace on wheels and explore your own backyard.
Despite the vast territory that we haven't reached, I think we've come to understand Americans a little better than when we started - to the extent that it is even possible to 'understand' a country and its people. I mentioned in a recent post how walking around New York feels familiar even to a first timer because of its dominant position in pop culture. The same, in fact, can be said of the entire country. There are so many prejudices and stereotypes associated with America that we inevitably, and almost involuntarily, spent a significant amount of our time looking to either confirm of dispel our own preconceived images of the 'Land of the Free.'
There are too many of these images to mention them all, but I've been meaning to record at least of few of those that have surprised me the most, either by the confirmation or the evidence of their errors. I'll start with an easy one - American's have crap beer. It tastes like water, it's weak, it's all mass produced by Budweiser, Miller and Coors. Interestingly, this one seems to be true for just a few parts of the country - and not those parts I would have expected. If you limit a trip to the USA to New York, Chicago and other big North Eastern cities, then you will indeed find that American beer is pretty poor - you get the choice between the big brands, and the world's standard import beers - Heineken, Corona, Stella etc. But get outside these cities, and the picture changes dramatically, as each region, and even individual towns, proudly serve their own local brews. From Seattle to Mississippi, I rarely ordered a particular type of beer. In every restaurant I would simply ask for a local beer, and the response would almost always be the same. After asking for i.d. (which they never fail to do here) the waiter would ask whether you prefer light or dark beers, and then promise to bring you his or her favorite. And it was almost always very good. In Utah, home of the teetotaling Mormons, every town and every national park had a different drop to offer.
So the beer is not as bad as we thought, but what about the food? Well, if you had a mind to, you certainly could travel through the whole country and subsist on fast food, not only from McDonalds and Burger King, but from quite a few local competitors, such as Arby's, Sonic, A&W Burger and IHOP. They all have their own variations on the theme, but fries, burgers and buns made more of sugar than flour are de riguer at all - even IHOP, which stands for International House of Pancakes - which I love for the irony of the fact that no other country in the world actually thinks of pancakes as a meal. But that would be pointless, and probably deadly. Behind the junk food each region offers its own food, and some of it is really very good. From Texas all the way to Ohio BBQ is the name of the game, with each state offering its own variations on cooking style, sauce and even the kind of meats to be used, from ribs and beef briquet in Texas to pulled pork loin in Memphis. The South does indeed enjoy a good serving of fried chicken, but we ate escargot and drank fine wine in a restaurant owned by Morgan Freeman in rural Mississippi. In Chicago the hotdog may be heart attack inducing, but it has been refined to an art form. Not to be forgotten is that classic American dish - warm apple pie, which, when made by sleepy road side diners in rural Utah or Texas, is one of the best things you'll ever eat. And this is all before you get to New York, where you could eat well for a month and never eat the same cuisine, let alone at the same restaurant. The serving sizes are indeed very generous, and the evidence of the obesity problem is very much there to see. I'll be happy not to see a french fry for a while, but overall we ate pretty well - and we capped it off in Cape Cod with some amazing New England lobster.
Given that the beer and the food are ok, why are they a bunch of gun toting, angry, religious nuts? This is the one where the public image of Americans diverges furthest from my experience of them. Unfortunately, I think the rest of the world sees a great deal of Fox News, and judges America accordingly. But outside of the idiots that pass for conservatives on that channel, and the well funded interest groups that pay for billboards deriding Darwinism on the highways, very few Americans seem to actually stay up at night worrying that their guns might be taken away from them, or that homosexuals might be allowed to marry in a state on the other side of the country. Not one person we met could have been put in that bracket, and we spent quite a lot of time talking to strangers. Most of them are far more concerned to hear your thoughts on America, and share their own stories of friends and family that have visited Australia (just about everyone seems to have a niece or daughter studying in Australia).
Having said that, American's are vastly patriotic, or at least great fans of the outward signs of patriotism. The American flag is everywhere. It is not unusual for a small town to have adorned every lamp post on main street with a flag, while any house with a front lawn generally flies the flag with pride. Car dealers in particular seem to compete to hoist the largest possible flag in their yards, and retailers are not far behind - it seems the flag is thought to help get people to open their wallets in tough times. One reason I suspect the World Cup is not as popular here as in Europe is that in Europe the success of the national side kicks off a patriotic fervor - in America that fervor is a state of being.
When we first arrived in the USA, the only thing that actually did seemed to concern Americans was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For the first half or so of our trip oil was gushing into the Gulf, and it seemed that no news bulletin could start with anything else. I was actually impressed to see a country's national attention span focused on one thing for so long, given that very little was actually happening. Once the oil was stopped though, America was free to turn to lighter entertainment - the greatest sporting story of the past five years. There may have been a bunch of socialists kicking a ball around in South Africa, but the real story in America was LeBron's decision day. For those who don't know, LeBron James is generally considered the best basketballer on the planet; he is one of those sports stars that is so famous over here he only needs a first name, like Tiger or Venus and Serena (though apparently he does need two capital letters). Last season his contract with Cleveland expired, leaving him free to choose a new team. Like most American sports, basketball parades itself as a team sport when in fact one outstanding individual can deliver entire championships - so fans everywhere thought LeBron would be the answer to their prayers. A national bidding war ensued as every city in the country chased LeBron. Cleveland begged him to stay, talk show hosts implored him to pick their town and just about everywhere we stayed, the local news would run an analysis of that city's chances of landing LeBron. The farce culminated in an hour long, live ESPN event, billed Decision Day, where LeBron announced he was going to Miami, for the princely sum of $130 million over 5 years. I'm not sure to what the other 59 minutes of the broadcast were devoted.
The other ever present in the USA right now is the recession. To the traveler the signs are everywhere. In small towns boarded up shop fronts are a regular sight. There are stories in the news of towns switching off their street lights because they cannot pay the electricity bills, or cutting the school week to 4 days because they can't pay the teachers. In many cases its obvious that road maintenance and simple tasks like clearing stormwater drains have been abandoned, as short rain showers leave knee deep puddles beside even deeper pot holes. Where federal money is available the opposite is the case, with many of the interstates and major highways being currently or recently resurfaced, adorned with signs advertising the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" which is the name for Obama's controversial stimulus package. There are signs in mid sized cities offering off the plan three bedroom apartments for 80 or 90 thousand dollars, while last minute hotel websites allowed us to stay in business oriented 4 star hotels for as little as a third of their frontline price. Unquestionably, the recession is causing a national sense of gloom - mainly because, despite the hoarse screaming of both sides of politics, its pretty clear that nobody really knows what to do next. Everyone knows the deficit is out of control and needs to be cut, but they don't dare cut spending or raise taxes until the economy recovers, which it flatly refuses to do, in part because everyone is so worried about the deficit that consumer spending won't rebound. There are elections coming up in November, and, while the Democrats look like they are in for a bad day, the general feeling seems to be that any incumbent, regardless of party, is in danger of losing his/her seat in Congress - it's a reflection of the level of anger that currently pervades the American mood.
Much as I might try, I can't record everything we saw and did (in fact, only a small proportion of it), and while I'm agonizing over the appropriate way to finish this blog, it seems it might just be time to let it go and move on. I have to save a few stories to tell at the pub too, after all. So to the next steps. We are in Germany now (I couldn't finish on the plane) and in a few days Kate and I will go our separate ways (for now). I'll be off to INSEAD, just outside Paris, while Kate heads to Oxford to do her MBA as well - after a pleasant week of sailing around Croatia, of course. I suspect the adventures of an MBA student might be of slightly less interest to a lot of people than our holiday was, but I will try to keep this blog going once I get to INSEAD. INSEAD have also asked me to keep an official blog (chosen out of a huge pool of applicants, no doubt!), so if you really want to keep up with what I'm doing, or you prefer to read the sanitized, official version of my year, you can always check out www.insead.edu.
In the meantime, I am interested to know who has been reading the blog. I know some people have because I spam their email with it, but beyond that I don't really know - and if only for the sake of avoiding repeating too many of my stories when I get home, I'm interested. So if you have been reading and enjoying this blog, please, leave a comment below or drop me an email. Also - check out the latest and final photos of our trip on facebook.
The road trip itself started 88 days ago, in a rainy, dreary, but ever so cool Seattle. Since that day in May we've travelled a little over 10,000 miles, or 181 km per day, crossing mountain ranges and deep canyons, deserts and swamps, forests and praries. At the moment I'm left reflecting on the great contradiction of time - that it flies when you are having fun, so the more you do, the shorter the time seems to get. On the one hand, waking up in the snow in Jasper seems like a distant memory, so entirely removed from the groan of a humid New York City as to feel like another life. On the other hand I can barely believe that a trip that was even longer in the planning than the execution is already over. But over it is - continuing the theme of writing in travel time, I'm writing this one from a rather cramped and turbulent plane over the Atlantic ocean, en route to a reunion with my parents and wider family, and to a life in Paris that allows me to draw on more than the contents of a single backpack. For the final map of our journey click here
It is a much recited, though I suspect not entirely accurate, statistic that only five percent of Americans own a passport; something invariably voiced as a criticism. I would be the first person to extol the delights and virtues of international travel, but I find it easy to understand why Americans don't travel the world in the same numbers that Australians, Brits or Germans do - there is just so much to see in this country. In the aforementioned 10,000 miles we've covered only 27 of 50 states (plus two Canadian provinces). Even with the luxury of a three month trip we have had to bypass huge swathes of land and some very famous attractions - there is surely no other country where, after a three month journey, a visitor can still look forward to places like the Californian coast, Florida, Alaska and Colorado for future visits. There is so much to visit in this country, if you are American, why fly to Europe or Australia when for the cost of a flight you can hire a camper van that is a palace on wheels and explore your own backyard.
Despite the vast territory that we haven't reached, I think we've come to understand Americans a little better than when we started - to the extent that it is even possible to 'understand' a country and its people. I mentioned in a recent post how walking around New York feels familiar even to a first timer because of its dominant position in pop culture. The same, in fact, can be said of the entire country. There are so many prejudices and stereotypes associated with America that we inevitably, and almost involuntarily, spent a significant amount of our time looking to either confirm of dispel our own preconceived images of the 'Land of the Free.'
There are too many of these images to mention them all, but I've been meaning to record at least of few of those that have surprised me the most, either by the confirmation or the evidence of their errors. I'll start with an easy one - American's have crap beer. It tastes like water, it's weak, it's all mass produced by Budweiser, Miller and Coors. Interestingly, this one seems to be true for just a few parts of the country - and not those parts I would have expected. If you limit a trip to the USA to New York, Chicago and other big North Eastern cities, then you will indeed find that American beer is pretty poor - you get the choice between the big brands, and the world's standard import beers - Heineken, Corona, Stella etc. But get outside these cities, and the picture changes dramatically, as each region, and even individual towns, proudly serve their own local brews. From Seattle to Mississippi, I rarely ordered a particular type of beer. In every restaurant I would simply ask for a local beer, and the response would almost always be the same. After asking for i.d. (which they never fail to do here) the waiter would ask whether you prefer light or dark beers, and then promise to bring you his or her favorite. And it was almost always very good. In Utah, home of the teetotaling Mormons, every town and every national park had a different drop to offer.
So the beer is not as bad as we thought, but what about the food? Well, if you had a mind to, you certainly could travel through the whole country and subsist on fast food, not only from McDonalds and Burger King, but from quite a few local competitors, such as Arby's, Sonic, A&W Burger and IHOP. They all have their own variations on the theme, but fries, burgers and buns made more of sugar than flour are de riguer at all - even IHOP, which stands for International House of Pancakes - which I love for the irony of the fact that no other country in the world actually thinks of pancakes as a meal. But that would be pointless, and probably deadly. Behind the junk food each region offers its own food, and some of it is really very good. From Texas all the way to Ohio BBQ is the name of the game, with each state offering its own variations on cooking style, sauce and even the kind of meats to be used, from ribs and beef briquet in Texas to pulled pork loin in Memphis. The South does indeed enjoy a good serving of fried chicken, but we ate escargot and drank fine wine in a restaurant owned by Morgan Freeman in rural Mississippi. In Chicago the hotdog may be heart attack inducing, but it has been refined to an art form. Not to be forgotten is that classic American dish - warm apple pie, which, when made by sleepy road side diners in rural Utah or Texas, is one of the best things you'll ever eat. And this is all before you get to New York, where you could eat well for a month and never eat the same cuisine, let alone at the same restaurant. The serving sizes are indeed very generous, and the evidence of the obesity problem is very much there to see. I'll be happy not to see a french fry for a while, but overall we ate pretty well - and we capped it off in Cape Cod with some amazing New England lobster.
Given that the beer and the food are ok, why are they a bunch of gun toting, angry, religious nuts? This is the one where the public image of Americans diverges furthest from my experience of them. Unfortunately, I think the rest of the world sees a great deal of Fox News, and judges America accordingly. But outside of the idiots that pass for conservatives on that channel, and the well funded interest groups that pay for billboards deriding Darwinism on the highways, very few Americans seem to actually stay up at night worrying that their guns might be taken away from them, or that homosexuals might be allowed to marry in a state on the other side of the country. Not one person we met could have been put in that bracket, and we spent quite a lot of time talking to strangers. Most of them are far more concerned to hear your thoughts on America, and share their own stories of friends and family that have visited Australia (just about everyone seems to have a niece or daughter studying in Australia).
Having said that, American's are vastly patriotic, or at least great fans of the outward signs of patriotism. The American flag is everywhere. It is not unusual for a small town to have adorned every lamp post on main street with a flag, while any house with a front lawn generally flies the flag with pride. Car dealers in particular seem to compete to hoist the largest possible flag in their yards, and retailers are not far behind - it seems the flag is thought to help get people to open their wallets in tough times. One reason I suspect the World Cup is not as popular here as in Europe is that in Europe the success of the national side kicks off a patriotic fervor - in America that fervor is a state of being.
When we first arrived in the USA, the only thing that actually did seemed to concern Americans was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For the first half or so of our trip oil was gushing into the Gulf, and it seemed that no news bulletin could start with anything else. I was actually impressed to see a country's national attention span focused on one thing for so long, given that very little was actually happening. Once the oil was stopped though, America was free to turn to lighter entertainment - the greatest sporting story of the past five years. There may have been a bunch of socialists kicking a ball around in South Africa, but the real story in America was LeBron's decision day. For those who don't know, LeBron James is generally considered the best basketballer on the planet; he is one of those sports stars that is so famous over here he only needs a first name, like Tiger or Venus and Serena (though apparently he does need two capital letters). Last season his contract with Cleveland expired, leaving him free to choose a new team. Like most American sports, basketball parades itself as a team sport when in fact one outstanding individual can deliver entire championships - so fans everywhere thought LeBron would be the answer to their prayers. A national bidding war ensued as every city in the country chased LeBron. Cleveland begged him to stay, talk show hosts implored him to pick their town and just about everywhere we stayed, the local news would run an analysis of that city's chances of landing LeBron. The farce culminated in an hour long, live ESPN event, billed Decision Day, where LeBron announced he was going to Miami, for the princely sum of $130 million over 5 years. I'm not sure to what the other 59 minutes of the broadcast were devoted.
The other ever present in the USA right now is the recession. To the traveler the signs are everywhere. In small towns boarded up shop fronts are a regular sight. There are stories in the news of towns switching off their street lights because they cannot pay the electricity bills, or cutting the school week to 4 days because they can't pay the teachers. In many cases its obvious that road maintenance and simple tasks like clearing stormwater drains have been abandoned, as short rain showers leave knee deep puddles beside even deeper pot holes. Where federal money is available the opposite is the case, with many of the interstates and major highways being currently or recently resurfaced, adorned with signs advertising the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" which is the name for Obama's controversial stimulus package. There are signs in mid sized cities offering off the plan three bedroom apartments for 80 or 90 thousand dollars, while last minute hotel websites allowed us to stay in business oriented 4 star hotels for as little as a third of their frontline price. Unquestionably, the recession is causing a national sense of gloom - mainly because, despite the hoarse screaming of both sides of politics, its pretty clear that nobody really knows what to do next. Everyone knows the deficit is out of control and needs to be cut, but they don't dare cut spending or raise taxes until the economy recovers, which it flatly refuses to do, in part because everyone is so worried about the deficit that consumer spending won't rebound. There are elections coming up in November, and, while the Democrats look like they are in for a bad day, the general feeling seems to be that any incumbent, regardless of party, is in danger of losing his/her seat in Congress - it's a reflection of the level of anger that currently pervades the American mood.
Much as I might try, I can't record everything we saw and did (in fact, only a small proportion of it), and while I'm agonizing over the appropriate way to finish this blog, it seems it might just be time to let it go and move on. I have to save a few stories to tell at the pub too, after all. So to the next steps. We are in Germany now (I couldn't finish on the plane) and in a few days Kate and I will go our separate ways (for now). I'll be off to INSEAD, just outside Paris, while Kate heads to Oxford to do her MBA as well - after a pleasant week of sailing around Croatia, of course. I suspect the adventures of an MBA student might be of slightly less interest to a lot of people than our holiday was, but I will try to keep this blog going once I get to INSEAD. INSEAD have also asked me to keep an official blog (chosen out of a huge pool of applicants, no doubt!), so if you really want to keep up with what I'm doing, or you prefer to read the sanitized, official version of my year, you can always check out www.insead.edu.
In the meantime, I am interested to know who has been reading the blog. I know some people have because I spam their email with it, but beyond that I don't really know - and if only for the sake of avoiding repeating too many of my stories when I get home, I'm interested. So if you have been reading and enjoying this blog, please, leave a comment below or drop me an email. Also - check out the latest and final photos of our trip on facebook.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Boston
Wifi on a bus is a wonderful invention. It allows me to be completing what will be one of my last blog entries of the Great Escape, Part II, Road Trip, from the bus that it taking us from Boston back to New York. A bus? I hear you say. Not only is that unamerican, but don't you have a car?
It has in fact reached that point in our journey where the car had to be sold. Our original plan was always to buy the car in Seattle and sell it on the East Coast, and hopefully in the process beat the prohibitively expensive system of one way fees that are charged on rental cars. For the plan to work out, we needed to get a decent price for the car on resale, and so we found ourselves driving around the outer suburbs of Boston, trekking from car dealer to car dealer to compare offers.
It would have been a long day anyway, but it was made longer by the fact that, after not losing anything for the entire trip, which those of you who know me will realise is an impressive effort, I had a difficult couple of days as far as keeping track of my personal possessions goes. In the space of two days I managed to leave my iphone in New York, then leave my wallet at the first car dealer, and then leave my bag containing my laptop in the car we had just sold. The wallet and the laptop have been recovered, but the phone seems to be a lost cause (on that note, if you receive any bizarre or offensive emails from me in the next few weeks, please assume they came from the person who now has unfettered access to my hotmail and facebook accounts, courtesy of my phone)
Back to the car. The first dealer we went to offered us $2000 for the car, which was less than we had hoped. The second dealer offered us $2500, then took the car for a quick drive. He returned to tell us the transmission was gone, and that he could only offer us $1500. At that point we hurried the car back to the first dealer and took the $2000. With the disappointing resale price, I'm not sure whether we beat the expense of renting a car, especially once you take into account the $900 spent fixing the radiator. But we joined the great American dream of owning a big, inefficient sedan, and had the convenience of having our own car, that could go wherever we wanted it to. Despite his poor resale value, I was pretty sad to see Yes Man go - without him, after all, the great adventure would never have been possible. For nostalgia's sake, we kept the number plates (as it was being registered in a new state, it needed new plates anyway).
Having sold the car, we had the opportunity to turn our attention to Boston itself. It is the first time in America that I have been surprised by how small something is. Given its status as the home of the world's best universities, and one of America's original and most famous cities, I was expecting a big place. Not so. The population of Boston is around 600,000, and you can easily walk the city's most famous sites, and its central business district, in under an hour.
After Philadelphia and Washington, Boston is the final stop for someone who wants to take a history of the American Revolution tour of North East America. It is a city dripping in history, as the place where the 'patriots' as they are universally called, first refused to pay British taxes, and where the first battles of the war of independence broke out. The names of the founding fathers, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, are everywhere, including on the city's most famous beer.
My final point on the American revolution: Taking the 'Freedom Trail' around Boston, which goes from one significant site of the revolution to another over a two mile loop, you get a good sense of what sparked the whole conflict, amongst other things by participating in a town meeting that re enacts events of 1775. Really, it seems it all started because a few wealthy merchants, such as John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin, didn't want to pay taxes levied on them by the British. In the aftermath there was a great deal of talk about liberty and equality of all, the pursuit of happiness and all that, but that, while it might have been a good rallying call to get people more involved, doesn't seem to have been what really kickstarted the revolution. And to judge by the state of the US deficit today, the anti-taxation principles of the revolution seem to have been amongst its most enduring.
Aside from the revolutionary stuff, Boston's other great historic claim is that it is a city of firsts. First public park in America, first subway station (though not first subway system, because by the time the second station was built New York's system was up and running), first university (Harvard), first primary school etc. This is all very impressive, but after a while it becomes obvious that, really, its all the same trick. It was one of the first cities, so much of what it built happened to be the first such thing in America. I would probably offend a few people in Boston if I pointed out that all these things were old news in Europe.
We managed to catch up with some more friends from back home, both working in the Boston office of LEK. We even crashed on the couch of one of them for the full 5 nights, thereby defraying at least some of the cost of our vehicles failed resale. If you are reading this Neil, thanks again.
A chat with Neil and Jono certainly did nothing to make me regret leaving work. Fortunately they both managed to get out of the office on Saturday night, and we went to a concert starring none other than the Bare Naked Ladies. Now, I have to admit, it has been more than one week since I looked at, or heard of, the Bare Naked Ladies, but I have to give them credit. For a quartet of clearly fast ageing rockers, they still put on a pretty good show. Someone near the front even through some underwear at them.
My final observation about Boston has to be the accent. Accents in America have changed with the regions, but never so clearly as in Boston, where they have a striking way of saying any word with an 'ar' sound in it, dropping the r and dragging out the a with a twang that somewhere between 'eh' and 'aw'. It's a little like a New Zealand accent in that it can sound normal for a couple of sentences, but then a give away word like car comes up and the secret is out. They are very proud of their accents in Boston, and their favourite saying is that a Bostonian will 'Pahk the cah in Hahved yahd'. Although a tour guide informed me that no one actually does this anymore, because you get a ticket.
We also visited Cape Cod before coming back to New York - that will get covered off in what will probably be the final post of this this trip. Once again, check back soon.
It has in fact reached that point in our journey where the car had to be sold. Our original plan was always to buy the car in Seattle and sell it on the East Coast, and hopefully in the process beat the prohibitively expensive system of one way fees that are charged on rental cars. For the plan to work out, we needed to get a decent price for the car on resale, and so we found ourselves driving around the outer suburbs of Boston, trekking from car dealer to car dealer to compare offers.
It would have been a long day anyway, but it was made longer by the fact that, after not losing anything for the entire trip, which those of you who know me will realise is an impressive effort, I had a difficult couple of days as far as keeping track of my personal possessions goes. In the space of two days I managed to leave my iphone in New York, then leave my wallet at the first car dealer, and then leave my bag containing my laptop in the car we had just sold. The wallet and the laptop have been recovered, but the phone seems to be a lost cause (on that note, if you receive any bizarre or offensive emails from me in the next few weeks, please assume they came from the person who now has unfettered access to my hotmail and facebook accounts, courtesy of my phone)
Back to the car. The first dealer we went to offered us $2000 for the car, which was less than we had hoped. The second dealer offered us $2500, then took the car for a quick drive. He returned to tell us the transmission was gone, and that he could only offer us $1500. At that point we hurried the car back to the first dealer and took the $2000. With the disappointing resale price, I'm not sure whether we beat the expense of renting a car, especially once you take into account the $900 spent fixing the radiator. But we joined the great American dream of owning a big, inefficient sedan, and had the convenience of having our own car, that could go wherever we wanted it to. Despite his poor resale value, I was pretty sad to see Yes Man go - without him, after all, the great adventure would never have been possible. For nostalgia's sake, we kept the number plates (as it was being registered in a new state, it needed new plates anyway).
Having sold the car, we had the opportunity to turn our attention to Boston itself. It is the first time in America that I have been surprised by how small something is. Given its status as the home of the world's best universities, and one of America's original and most famous cities, I was expecting a big place. Not so. The population of Boston is around 600,000, and you can easily walk the city's most famous sites, and its central business district, in under an hour.
After Philadelphia and Washington, Boston is the final stop for someone who wants to take a history of the American Revolution tour of North East America. It is a city dripping in history, as the place where the 'patriots' as they are universally called, first refused to pay British taxes, and where the first battles of the war of independence broke out. The names of the founding fathers, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, are everywhere, including on the city's most famous beer.
My final point on the American revolution: Taking the 'Freedom Trail' around Boston, which goes from one significant site of the revolution to another over a two mile loop, you get a good sense of what sparked the whole conflict, amongst other things by participating in a town meeting that re enacts events of 1775. Really, it seems it all started because a few wealthy merchants, such as John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin, didn't want to pay taxes levied on them by the British. In the aftermath there was a great deal of talk about liberty and equality of all, the pursuit of happiness and all that, but that, while it might have been a good rallying call to get people more involved, doesn't seem to have been what really kickstarted the revolution. And to judge by the state of the US deficit today, the anti-taxation principles of the revolution seem to have been amongst its most enduring.
Aside from the revolutionary stuff, Boston's other great historic claim is that it is a city of firsts. First public park in America, first subway station (though not first subway system, because by the time the second station was built New York's system was up and running), first university (Harvard), first primary school etc. This is all very impressive, but after a while it becomes obvious that, really, its all the same trick. It was one of the first cities, so much of what it built happened to be the first such thing in America. I would probably offend a few people in Boston if I pointed out that all these things were old news in Europe.
We managed to catch up with some more friends from back home, both working in the Boston office of LEK. We even crashed on the couch of one of them for the full 5 nights, thereby defraying at least some of the cost of our vehicles failed resale. If you are reading this Neil, thanks again.
A chat with Neil and Jono certainly did nothing to make me regret leaving work. Fortunately they both managed to get out of the office on Saturday night, and we went to a concert starring none other than the Bare Naked Ladies. Now, I have to admit, it has been more than one week since I looked at, or heard of, the Bare Naked Ladies, but I have to give them credit. For a quartet of clearly fast ageing rockers, they still put on a pretty good show. Someone near the front even through some underwear at them.
My final observation about Boston has to be the accent. Accents in America have changed with the regions, but never so clearly as in Boston, where they have a striking way of saying any word with an 'ar' sound in it, dropping the r and dragging out the a with a twang that somewhere between 'eh' and 'aw'. It's a little like a New Zealand accent in that it can sound normal for a couple of sentences, but then a give away word like car comes up and the secret is out. They are very proud of their accents in Boston, and their favourite saying is that a Bostonian will 'Pahk the cah in Hahved yahd'. Although a tour guide informed me that no one actually does this anymore, because you get a ticket.
We also visited Cape Cod before coming back to New York - that will get covered off in what will probably be the final post of this this trip. Once again, check back soon.
Monday, August 9, 2010
I heart NY
"New York New York it's a helluva town". So goes the song, and its hard to argue with something so catchy. We spent five days in the Big Apple and didn't even get close to seeing the whole town. In fact, this was my second visit, and even adding the sights of the seven days I spent there last time, I still don't feel I can say I've ticked that box.
One of the most entertaining things about walking around New York is that, even though you've never been in this particular neighbourhood before, its all so familiar. We are all so used to seeing New York on television and in movies that walking around it feels like walking around a town you've lived in for years. There are the obvious sights, like Times Square, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, and then the less obvious, but in some ways equally famous sights. A few blocks from our hotel was a diner called Tom's restaurant - familiar to anyone who has seen an episode of Seinfeld. Continuing the Seinfeld theme I also managed to get a bowl of soup from the stand that inspired the famous Soup Nazi episode. It was excellent soup, and there is indeed a sign above the counter demanding that patrons have their money and order ready before they get to the counter, and immediately move the the extreme (which is underlined and in capitals) left after placing their order. There are even footprints painted on the pavement to show you where to go.
Then there is also just the familiar feel of the buildings and streets. Rows and rows of terrace houses with steps up to the front door, the green stairs and railing leading down to the subway stations, and of course, the iconic yellow taxis. Arriving in New York is the opposite of culture shock - instead of being overwhelmed by how different the place is, it all feels shockingly familiar - like traveller's deja vu.
There is one facet of New York life that I wasn't quite familiar with - lining up. The inevitable result of a city that is both a major tourist attraction and immensely densely populated is that just about any activity will be preceded by a long wait. Want to see the Statue of Liberty - join the 60 minute queue to get through security. Want to get tickets to a show, any show at all - there is a nice line on Times Square that stretches a few blocks that might act as an excellent curtain raiser. Want to have dinner on the lower east side - that table will be ready for you at at 11pm, sir, so perhaps you'd like to have a 2 hour drink first.
One thing I will say about New York is that, due to the scale and diversity of the place, it really helps to have someone local to show you around. Luckily we were able to tap into a network of friends from home that have succumbed to the lure of the city in recent years. Rico, who's been in New York studying law at Columbia for the past year, showed us some great bars and restaurants, and even took us over to Brooklyn for some drinks. Tessa, who's working in the New York office of our former employer, took us to a restaurant on the Lower East Side that served only variations on meatballs. It took a two hour wait to get a table, but was well worth it.
Getting shown around by the locals was great, but we did have to play the part of tourists too. There are actually families that come to New York and dress the whole clan in those "I love NY" t-shirts, and that just seemed like an excellent idea. So we started our trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island by purchasing some high quality $5 t-shirts. Kate wasn't willing to wear them all day, so in the end we just put them on for the photos, but even that got us some disdainful looks from the locals (and other tourists for that matter).
While Manhattan was great, one of the more memorable experiences of the trip came from a trip to the Bronx. Back in Sydney Rico and I both like to play a bit of golf, and we couldn't pass up the chance to renew a long standing rivalry on a new continent - and as it turns out you can get to an affordable golf course in the Bronx with a $30 taxi ride from the Upper West Side.
I noticed that my sister-in-law was recently on Facebook wondering why all the taxi drivers in Sydney are crazy. I have no answer to this question, but I can report that New York cab drivers are no different. When we jumped in the taxi he seemed to indicate that he knew where we were going. As it turned out however his knowledge went only as far as knowing how to get to the Bronx. From there the plan was apparently to drive around in circles until the golf course magically appeared. When it became apparent that this plan was not working, he decided to simply pull over the taxi and ask people. That would be ok, except for the fact that, whatever language he did speak, it was not English, and his real plan was to pull over, yell at someone, and then indicate to me that a I should ask the person for directions.
Now, I have to admit that I don't like asking for directions at the best of times, but leaning out of the window of a taxi, in my best Tommy Hilfiger polo shirt, and asking a black guy with no teeth, who is dragging a garbage bag full of empty bottles behind him, where I might find the local country club does was a new level of uncomfortable. Unsurprisingly, this tactic did not yield instant success. Apparently not many of the people sitting idly by the street in the Bronx at 11 am on a Tuesday are avid users of the Split Rock Golf Club.
A regular New Yorker might have spotted a flaw in this story by now. You see, NY taxis are in fact equipped with a GPS system in the back seat (I was in the front - Rico and Pete, another friend from Australia, were in the back). Despite having been in New York for a year, this fact apparently escaped Rico until we'd stooped to stopping other taxis to ask them for directions. For that reason alone I think his subsequent victory on the golf course is tainted.
On the return we had a very different, but similarly memorable taxi driver - but I think one story about cab drivers per blog entry is enough.
I did eventually make it back to Manhattan, and from there, a few days later, on to Boston. Our trip is winding down fast now, so I'll try and get Boston posted ASAP - check back soon.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
History Lessons and chicken
There has been a lot happening in the last week or so here - and, inevitably, the blog has suffered as a result. It is like an (un)virtuous circle - the more you do, the less time you have to blog, but the more you have to write about, and so the further you fall behind.
Washington and Philadelphia are but distant memories now, but I need to cover them off; if only for my own piece of mind. The thought of missing cities out entirely keeps me up at night. As a reader though, you might benefit from my slacking, because the number of irrelevant details that I can remember shrinks with each passing day, hopefully making for a more concise, but still entertaining blog.
We couldn't do the USA without visiting the nation's Capital, Washington, D.C., a city that seems to be almost entirely composed of monuments, museums and municipal buildings. We had two days in Washington, and divided them up in what I would guess to be the same way as almost every other tourist that visits this city. One day for the Smithsonians, one day for the monuments and famous buildings.
Before we had even started the tourist itinerary we realized that we were being joined in Washington by some sort of national boy scout gathering. Everywhere we looked were groups of 10 year old boys wearing khaki uniforms with badges and designations like 'Wisconsin 5th division', all being followed around by exhausted looking parents.
The Smithsonian is not one museum but rather a whole suburb of them. You can choose between modern and classical art, air and space, natural history, American history, sculpture and more. Kate's tastes in museums - planes, spaceships and dinosaurs - coincides just about with that of every 10 year old boy, so we shared our visit to these museums with what seemed to be half the prepubescent population of the United States. The other half apparently weren't allowed to choose their museum, and were waiting for us in the American History Museum.
There are some great exhibitions - the Wright Brothers plane is a favourite, while the space exhibit kept me entertained with mind boggling questions about the age of the universe, and the inevitable question of what there was before that. American History has an entire floor devoted to America's wars, which can't help but give the impression that they really don't mind a scrap over here, but don't spend an excessive amount of time contemplating the rights and wrongs of their decisions in retrospect - a great deal more floor space was devoted to the repressive English of the 1770s than the unfortunate South East Asians of the 1970s. The exhibitions on slavery and civil rights were much better, with a great mix of information and remembrance.
To see the monuments the next day we took a bike tour - a wise decision, because, as quickly become clear, there is an astonishing amount of space in Washington devoted to monuments and memorials. The centrepiece is the Washington Monument, the giant obelisk we've all seen on TV a thousand times. The National Mall stretches for out for a mile either side of the Washington, with the Capitol at one end and the Lincoln Memorial at the other. Forming a cross with these points are the White House and the Jefferson Memorial, which was placed so that it is precisely in view from the White House, so that the President may look out of his window and draw inspiration from the third President, and the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Franklin Roosevelt has also qualified for a monument, sitting just off the National Mall, in view of Lincoln.
Then there are the War Memorials - one for each foreign war the USA has been involved in. The Korean War memorial contains 19 larger than life steel soldiers, prowling through scrubs and bushes. When reflected in the adjoining wall there are 38 figures, representing the 38th parallel, where the border was eventually drawn. Vietnam takes a subtler approach, with the names of all 58 000 soldiers killed in the war inscribed in reflective granite blocks; reflective so that you can see yourself amongst the casualties. An interesting sight here is the people who come with a pencil and a piece of paper and take a rubbing image of a name they find on the memorial.
The other interesting fact we learned about the Vietnam memorial was that it was designed by a 21 year old architecture student, who won a national contest. The conditions of the contest said that the design could not make any political statement about the war. It is a simple wall, with the dead listed in chronological order, starting in the middle, going out to the right, then continuing on the far left of the wall back to the middle, so the last casualty is just before the first one. It was only after it was built that someone noticed that it looked suspiciously like there were 58 000 names on the board leading you right back to where you started.
In case we hadn't had enough history (can you ever have enough history? Kate certainly thinks so), we headed to Philadelphia next, where quite a lot of important stuff happened in the 1770s. Philadelphia was briefly the capital of the United States, and it was here that the Declaration of Independence was written and proclaimed, and the constitution was framed. The old part of the city, where the founding fathers met and worked, makes up the Independence National Park, which was worth a visit too.
Philadelphia was, in a sense, where it all went wrong for the British back then, and, 220 years later, it wasn't all good for a couple of antipodeans either. The sightseeing was great, but a few hours after eating in what seemed like a cute old tavern, the buffalo wings we had shared returned with their very own quest for freedom from the oppressive yoke of our stomachs, and apparently unwilling to follow the usual peaceful path to such liberty.
Things were complicated the next day by the fact that we had a hotel reservation in New York to get to, so we tried to brave it out in the car. This was not an excellent time to hit the first serious traffic of our journey. From Philadelphia through New Jersey to Manhattan is basically one urban megapolis, and the highways look just as you would expect - crawling at a snail's pace. There were pros and cons about this. A pro was that, when you pull over to throw up, you barely lose your spot in the queue. A con was that, as the traffic is not moving, instead of hundreds of motorists catching a fleeting glance of someone hunched over by the road, a select group of five or six cars gets the opportunity to carry out an in-depth analysis of your last couple of meals.
Reprising this memory is making me feel queasy all over again, so I will leave it there for now. We've only a week or so left, and I have plenty that I still wanted to get into this blog, so I'll try and post a couple of pieces in the next few days.
Washington and Philadelphia are but distant memories now, but I need to cover them off; if only for my own piece of mind. The thought of missing cities out entirely keeps me up at night. As a reader though, you might benefit from my slacking, because the number of irrelevant details that I can remember shrinks with each passing day, hopefully making for a more concise, but still entertaining blog.
We couldn't do the USA without visiting the nation's Capital, Washington, D.C., a city that seems to be almost entirely composed of monuments, museums and municipal buildings. We had two days in Washington, and divided them up in what I would guess to be the same way as almost every other tourist that visits this city. One day for the Smithsonians, one day for the monuments and famous buildings.
Before we had even started the tourist itinerary we realized that we were being joined in Washington by some sort of national boy scout gathering. Everywhere we looked were groups of 10 year old boys wearing khaki uniforms with badges and designations like 'Wisconsin 5th division', all being followed around by exhausted looking parents.
The Smithsonian is not one museum but rather a whole suburb of them. You can choose between modern and classical art, air and space, natural history, American history, sculpture and more. Kate's tastes in museums - planes, spaceships and dinosaurs - coincides just about with that of every 10 year old boy, so we shared our visit to these museums with what seemed to be half the prepubescent population of the United States. The other half apparently weren't allowed to choose their museum, and were waiting for us in the American History Museum.
There are some great exhibitions - the Wright Brothers plane is a favourite, while the space exhibit kept me entertained with mind boggling questions about the age of the universe, and the inevitable question of what there was before that. American History has an entire floor devoted to America's wars, which can't help but give the impression that they really don't mind a scrap over here, but don't spend an excessive amount of time contemplating the rights and wrongs of their decisions in retrospect - a great deal more floor space was devoted to the repressive English of the 1770s than the unfortunate South East Asians of the 1970s. The exhibitions on slavery and civil rights were much better, with a great mix of information and remembrance.
To see the monuments the next day we took a bike tour - a wise decision, because, as quickly become clear, there is an astonishing amount of space in Washington devoted to monuments and memorials. The centrepiece is the Washington Monument, the giant obelisk we've all seen on TV a thousand times. The National Mall stretches for out for a mile either side of the Washington, with the Capitol at one end and the Lincoln Memorial at the other. Forming a cross with these points are the White House and the Jefferson Memorial, which was placed so that it is precisely in view from the White House, so that the President may look out of his window and draw inspiration from the third President, and the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Franklin Roosevelt has also qualified for a monument, sitting just off the National Mall, in view of Lincoln.
Then there are the War Memorials - one for each foreign war the USA has been involved in. The Korean War memorial contains 19 larger than life steel soldiers, prowling through scrubs and bushes. When reflected in the adjoining wall there are 38 figures, representing the 38th parallel, where the border was eventually drawn. Vietnam takes a subtler approach, with the names of all 58 000 soldiers killed in the war inscribed in reflective granite blocks; reflective so that you can see yourself amongst the casualties. An interesting sight here is the people who come with a pencil and a piece of paper and take a rubbing image of a name they find on the memorial.
The other interesting fact we learned about the Vietnam memorial was that it was designed by a 21 year old architecture student, who won a national contest. The conditions of the contest said that the design could not make any political statement about the war. It is a simple wall, with the dead listed in chronological order, starting in the middle, going out to the right, then continuing on the far left of the wall back to the middle, so the last casualty is just before the first one. It was only after it was built that someone noticed that it looked suspiciously like there were 58 000 names on the board leading you right back to where you started.
In case we hadn't had enough history (can you ever have enough history? Kate certainly thinks so), we headed to Philadelphia next, where quite a lot of important stuff happened in the 1770s. Philadelphia was briefly the capital of the United States, and it was here that the Declaration of Independence was written and proclaimed, and the constitution was framed. The old part of the city, where the founding fathers met and worked, makes up the Independence National Park, which was worth a visit too.
Philadelphia was, in a sense, where it all went wrong for the British back then, and, 220 years later, it wasn't all good for a couple of antipodeans either. The sightseeing was great, but a few hours after eating in what seemed like a cute old tavern, the buffalo wings we had shared returned with their very own quest for freedom from the oppressive yoke of our stomachs, and apparently unwilling to follow the usual peaceful path to such liberty.
Things were complicated the next day by the fact that we had a hotel reservation in New York to get to, so we tried to brave it out in the car. This was not an excellent time to hit the first serious traffic of our journey. From Philadelphia through New Jersey to Manhattan is basically one urban megapolis, and the highways look just as you would expect - crawling at a snail's pace. There were pros and cons about this. A pro was that, when you pull over to throw up, you barely lose your spot in the queue. A con was that, as the traffic is not moving, instead of hundreds of motorists catching a fleeting glance of someone hunched over by the road, a select group of five or six cars gets the opportunity to carry out an in-depth analysis of your last couple of meals.
Reprising this memory is making me feel queasy all over again, so I will leave it there for now. We've only a week or so left, and I have plenty that I still wanted to get into this blog, so I'll try and post a couple of pieces in the next few days.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Skyscrapers, roller coasters and a horse and cart
It's been another week, and, because my last blog post was one of general observations instead of following the trip, I'm once again behind my travels. This blogging is a bit like keeping my room tidy - if I did a little each day it would be no problem at all, but I always let it heap up until there is lots to do in one big session. On the other hand, this highlights exactly why people who keep their room excessively tidy are boring - if I published a couple of sentences each day, I'm pretty sure no one would read this blog.
We left off on in Chicago, I think, after a long day of driving up from the South. Chicago is one of those cities - world famous, a big city even in a country of big cities, setting for many movies and tv shows - yet I didn't really have any preconceived image of Chicago. That is in part, I think, because Chicago lacks an iconic image - it doesn't have that one post card picture that everybody knows is Chicago, the way New York has the Statue of Liberty, LA has the Hollywood sign, Paris the Eiffel tower, et cetera.
It does have the bean, which may in time become that image. Officially known as Cloudgate, you've probably seen it movies. The Bean is a large, rounded metal structure shaped like a bean, that reflects the surrounding skyline, as well as the hundreds of tourists standing around its base gawking at their distorted reflections and trying to take tricky photographs of themselves and the buildings behind them. Well, when in Rome, as they say, and Kate and I couldn't resist visiting the bean more than once to join the gawkers and tourists marveling at this brilliant piece of public art.
Crucial to the success of the Bean is the city's architecture, which is so roundly reflected in the silver. Architecture, as it turns out, is something Chicago fancies itself as rather good at, and the amazing array of skyscrapers that make up America's most impressive skyline is in fact Chicago's true highlight.
It is a vast skyline. To walk from the 110 floor Sears tower to the 96 floor John Hancock Centre would take close to an hour, and those two giants are well inside the boundaries of downtown. On either side, and for all the ground in between, the skyscrapers continue, most rising a more reasonable 50 or 60 floors, but with several bigger ones than that jumping around the place.
Chicago, in fact, claims to have invented the skyscraper, and was the first city where high rise, steel skeleton buildings took off. The reason for this was, truth be told, largely one of timing - one of those periods where everything came together at the right time to transform a city.
With Lake Michigan to the East and rivers to the North and South, Chicago has always been pressed for space. In 1871 the city was beginning to feel the constraints of its geography. At the time the city was built almost entirely of wood, and the engineering techniques of the day meant that buildings were supported by their walls, and the higher they went, the thicker the walls had to be. Then, on the outskirts of the city, a cow kicked over a lantern and its barn caught fire, and the fire spread to neighbouring houses. Two days later and just about the entire city had burnt down. (As it turns out the cow story is still told, but apparently not true - the actual cause of the fire is unknown).
Chicago was faced with rebuilding the entire city, and at that exact time in history, a number of other things were happening. Steel was becoming a viable form of construction material, allowing Chicago to rebuild without the wood that, understandably, was considered too dangerous now. By using an internal skeleton, builders had found a way to increase the height of a building without wasting half the footprint on ever thicker walls. That allowed for a tall structure, but several things still had to come before buildings could practically be more than four of five stories. At various places in the world people developed the elevator, modern plumbing and electric lighting, all of which are essential to a skyscraper. So just as the technology to build skyscrapers emerged, Chicago was rebuilding, in an area where up was the only sensible place to go for more space. And so the huge urban canopy that now puts Chicago into permanent shade and wind began to take shape.
THe rivers have long since been passed as geographic boundaries. All that steel also allowed for the building of bridges, and Chicago boasts of having more opening steel bridges (32, I think) than any other city in the world. A cruise along the river system is today the best way to see much of the amazing architecture of Chicago. The other way is to see it from the top, from the observation platforms atop some of the tallest buildings. Sears Tower, at 110 stories, is the tallest building in the USA (it lost the World title to Petronas Towers in Malaysia, which has since been surpassed by buildings in Taipei and Dubai), but we choose to view the city from level 96 of the John Hancock centre. The reason for this was simple. You can pay $14 to go to the top of Sears, or you can go to level 96 at John Hancock for free, on the proviso you buy at least one $14 cocktail. Its not a very good cocktail, but still a cocktail. I should thank Jules for this tip.
Next stop from Chicago was Sandusky, Ohio, home of the Cedar Point theme park. Cedar Point bills itself as America's roller coaster capital, and it fully lives up to that hype. As I think most people know, and my blog may have made clear, Americans don't really do understatement. If they are going to build a roller coaster park here, you can bet your life that its going to be big - really big. Remember the days of visiting Wonderland in Sydney, or even Luna Park - after you'd ridden the roller coaster it always seemed there weren't that many exciting things left to do? Well, Cedar Point has solved this problem - with more roller coasters than any normal person could ride in a day. Throw in log rides, the classic tower drop ride, giant swings and more, and you have almost infinite ways of simulating the feeling of being dropped from a great height and then being hurled around at high speed. Flagship attractions include the Millennium Force Coaster, which, at 310 feet tall, was the tallest coaster in the world when it was built (2001), and the Magnum Coaster, which was also the tallest coaster in the world when it was built in 1989. Taller than both of them now is the Dragster Thrill Racer, which is unlike any roller coaster in the world, in that it reaches its top speed at the start, before climbing a 400 foot, vertical arch and plunging back down the other side. Powered by magnets in the same way as high speed rail lines, it reaches 120 mph in just 4 seconds at take off. Its a 22 second ride - after a 1 hour wait - but its worth it. I've tried to attach a video to the bottom of this blog, but it is giving me some technical difficulties, so apologies if it isn't working.
On more sedate lines Cedar Point also offered mini golf, which was a good chance to give churning stomachs a rest, and play the latest installment of the Great Escape Mini Golf Challenge, in which O'Brien held a 2-1 lead going into the game. It wasn't O'Brien's day however, as the accurate short range putting that had served her so well in Washington back in May deserted her, and Albrecht managed to play a 1 under par 42 to win by 7 shots. It's two all now, and the decider looks likely to be played on my old home course, the Seehausen mini golf course.
You probably couldn't find a bigger change in pace than from the Dragster Thrill Racer of Cedar Point to the horse and buggy of Amish country, but that was where we headed next. The Amish are spread around a few rural areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania. They are known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, but they came from Switzerland - because they spoke German they become known as Deutsch, which at some point morphed into Dutch. The Amish are committed to maintaining their traditional farming lifestyle - they reject technology such as cars and mobile phones and dress like something out of Little House on the Prairie. Ironically their determination to isolate themselves from the modern world has made them a major tourist attraction, and it seems that the Amish are more engaged in running restaurants and bed and breakfasts than farms these days. I noticed the ban on technology didn't extend to electronic cash registers. That was emblematic of Amish country as a whole. It is pretty scenery, and the people riding around in their horse and buggy and sporting chest length beards provide a curious spectacle, but that's about it.
We have arrived in Washington, DC now, but that again warrants a post to itself, so I reluctantly leave the blog still not quite up to date. Look out for the Philadelphia and Washington entry in a couple of days.
We left off on in Chicago, I think, after a long day of driving up from the South. Chicago is one of those cities - world famous, a big city even in a country of big cities, setting for many movies and tv shows - yet I didn't really have any preconceived image of Chicago. That is in part, I think, because Chicago lacks an iconic image - it doesn't have that one post card picture that everybody knows is Chicago, the way New York has the Statue of Liberty, LA has the Hollywood sign, Paris the Eiffel tower, et cetera.
It does have the bean, which may in time become that image. Officially known as Cloudgate, you've probably seen it movies. The Bean is a large, rounded metal structure shaped like a bean, that reflects the surrounding skyline, as well as the hundreds of tourists standing around its base gawking at their distorted reflections and trying to take tricky photographs of themselves and the buildings behind them. Well, when in Rome, as they say, and Kate and I couldn't resist visiting the bean more than once to join the gawkers and tourists marveling at this brilliant piece of public art.
Crucial to the success of the Bean is the city's architecture, which is so roundly reflected in the silver. Architecture, as it turns out, is something Chicago fancies itself as rather good at, and the amazing array of skyscrapers that make up America's most impressive skyline is in fact Chicago's true highlight.
It is a vast skyline. To walk from the 110 floor Sears tower to the 96 floor John Hancock Centre would take close to an hour, and those two giants are well inside the boundaries of downtown. On either side, and for all the ground in between, the skyscrapers continue, most rising a more reasonable 50 or 60 floors, but with several bigger ones than that jumping around the place.
Chicago, in fact, claims to have invented the skyscraper, and was the first city where high rise, steel skeleton buildings took off. The reason for this was, truth be told, largely one of timing - one of those periods where everything came together at the right time to transform a city.
With Lake Michigan to the East and rivers to the North and South, Chicago has always been pressed for space. In 1871 the city was beginning to feel the constraints of its geography. At the time the city was built almost entirely of wood, and the engineering techniques of the day meant that buildings were supported by their walls, and the higher they went, the thicker the walls had to be. Then, on the outskirts of the city, a cow kicked over a lantern and its barn caught fire, and the fire spread to neighbouring houses. Two days later and just about the entire city had burnt down. (As it turns out the cow story is still told, but apparently not true - the actual cause of the fire is unknown).
Chicago was faced with rebuilding the entire city, and at that exact time in history, a number of other things were happening. Steel was becoming a viable form of construction material, allowing Chicago to rebuild without the wood that, understandably, was considered too dangerous now. By using an internal skeleton, builders had found a way to increase the height of a building without wasting half the footprint on ever thicker walls. That allowed for a tall structure, but several things still had to come before buildings could practically be more than four of five stories. At various places in the world people developed the elevator, modern plumbing and electric lighting, all of which are essential to a skyscraper. So just as the technology to build skyscrapers emerged, Chicago was rebuilding, in an area where up was the only sensible place to go for more space. And so the huge urban canopy that now puts Chicago into permanent shade and wind began to take shape.
THe rivers have long since been passed as geographic boundaries. All that steel also allowed for the building of bridges, and Chicago boasts of having more opening steel bridges (32, I think) than any other city in the world. A cruise along the river system is today the best way to see much of the amazing architecture of Chicago. The other way is to see it from the top, from the observation platforms atop some of the tallest buildings. Sears Tower, at 110 stories, is the tallest building in the USA (it lost the World title to Petronas Towers in Malaysia, which has since been surpassed by buildings in Taipei and Dubai), but we choose to view the city from level 96 of the John Hancock centre. The reason for this was simple. You can pay $14 to go to the top of Sears, or you can go to level 96 at John Hancock for free, on the proviso you buy at least one $14 cocktail. Its not a very good cocktail, but still a cocktail. I should thank Jules for this tip.
Next stop from Chicago was Sandusky, Ohio, home of the Cedar Point theme park. Cedar Point bills itself as America's roller coaster capital, and it fully lives up to that hype. As I think most people know, and my blog may have made clear, Americans don't really do understatement. If they are going to build a roller coaster park here, you can bet your life that its going to be big - really big. Remember the days of visiting Wonderland in Sydney, or even Luna Park - after you'd ridden the roller coaster it always seemed there weren't that many exciting things left to do? Well, Cedar Point has solved this problem - with more roller coasters than any normal person could ride in a day. Throw in log rides, the classic tower drop ride, giant swings and more, and you have almost infinite ways of simulating the feeling of being dropped from a great height and then being hurled around at high speed. Flagship attractions include the Millennium Force Coaster, which, at 310 feet tall, was the tallest coaster in the world when it was built (2001), and the Magnum Coaster, which was also the tallest coaster in the world when it was built in 1989. Taller than both of them now is the Dragster Thrill Racer, which is unlike any roller coaster in the world, in that it reaches its top speed at the start, before climbing a 400 foot, vertical arch and plunging back down the other side. Powered by magnets in the same way as high speed rail lines, it reaches 120 mph in just 4 seconds at take off. Its a 22 second ride - after a 1 hour wait - but its worth it. I've tried to attach a video to the bottom of this blog, but it is giving me some technical difficulties, so apologies if it isn't working.
On more sedate lines Cedar Point also offered mini golf, which was a good chance to give churning stomachs a rest, and play the latest installment of the Great Escape Mini Golf Challenge, in which O'Brien held a 2-1 lead going into the game. It wasn't O'Brien's day however, as the accurate short range putting that had served her so well in Washington back in May deserted her, and Albrecht managed to play a 1 under par 42 to win by 7 shots. It's two all now, and the decider looks likely to be played on my old home course, the Seehausen mini golf course.
You probably couldn't find a bigger change in pace than from the Dragster Thrill Racer of Cedar Point to the horse and buggy of Amish country, but that was where we headed next. The Amish are spread around a few rural areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania. They are known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, but they came from Switzerland - because they spoke German they become known as Deutsch, which at some point morphed into Dutch. The Amish are committed to maintaining their traditional farming lifestyle - they reject technology such as cars and mobile phones and dress like something out of Little House on the Prairie. Ironically their determination to isolate themselves from the modern world has made them a major tourist attraction, and it seems that the Amish are more engaged in running restaurants and bed and breakfasts than farms these days. I noticed the ban on technology didn't extend to electronic cash registers. That was emblematic of Amish country as a whole. It is pretty scenery, and the people riding around in their horse and buggy and sporting chest length beards provide a curious spectacle, but that's about it.
We have arrived in Washington, DC now, but that again warrants a post to itself, so I reluctantly leave the blog still not quite up to date. Look out for the Philadelphia and Washington entry in a couple of days.
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