Life After Grad School

… strawberry shortcake. Or chocolate mint.

I’ve been biking to work. The distance is a measly two miles, so not really a great workout, but not only am I twice as fast as if I were taking the T, I also enjoy pleasant scents along the way. Right outside my door I cycle past a candy factory. I still don’t know what product is made there, but it spreads a wonderful and irresistible aroma of chocolate mint and strawberry shortcake. Please don’t tell me what they make, I’m pretty sure I’d rather live in ignorant bliss on this one.

On the other side of the river I ride down Charles Street and then cross the Boston Common, where the smell of freshly cut grass reminds even the busiest of us that it is in fact summer.

I know I have a pretty good commute by any standard, but who else can claim that their commute smells good as well?!

Who would have thought that it is possible to find authentic Belgian food in the midst of Cambridge? I loved the moules et frites I had at Central Kitchen last night - the mussels served in a delicious sauce along with exquisite fries and, just like in Belgium, with creamy mayonnaise on top. The frites were truly remarkable and tasted just like Europe to me. Don’t ask me how they’re different from American fries - they just are, somehow crisper and fresher. I was in heaven. The tasty meal was complemented by a bottle of French red wine from Cote d’Ore, very attentive and pleasant wait staff and, most importantly, great company.

I’m mad. The US and Canada just approved the use of genetically modified yeast in wine production. As if it isn’t hard enough to avoid genetically modified corn, now I have to stick to European and organic wines. It is inconceivable to me that in a country where obesity, dieting and nutritional science make headlines every day, hardly anybody seems to be concerned about the quality of the food that people ingest and the integrity and safety of the food supply chain. I for my part would like my food to be grown and raised in ways proven successful for millennia as opposed to a way that’s driven by short-term commercial interests (pesticide manufacturers, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, factory farms, food (corn!) processing firms …). Instead of finding a new diet miracle drug, food or surgery, it seems to me that the simple solution would be for people to start eating real food again. Ya know, fruits and vegetables, rice and beans, and meat from animals that aren’t pumped full of meds because they’re being fed corn that they have no way of digesting without getting sick. Just a thought.

… the hour swim, that is! Not that it wasn’t painful, particularly when the Z center folks reset the clocks in the middle of our swim. When I thought I was done, I had five minutes left. Longest 5 minutes of my life ..

So, yes, it was long and not the most exciting thing I can imagine doing on a Sunday morning, but we all survived, did well and a big thanks goes out to our good friends, who are such good friends that they sat on the side of the pool and recorded our splits for an hour - quite possibly the one thing that’s more boring than actually swimming for an hour straight. As predicted in a previous post, I did indeed swim just under 2.5miles (4285 yards), which isn’t bad for somebody whose favorite race lasts about 28 seconds. And as expected I didn’t really find any solutions to mind-boggling puzzles. Instead I must have looked at the clock about 150 times, got very inspired every time one fellow swimmer passed me and tried to keep up for about 15 yards, then dropped back to normal pace until coming close to passing the other fellow swimmer. In the end it seemed like a hare and hedgehog game. I also pondered the fact that the distance I covered was roughly equivalent to the first leg of an Ironman triathlon. How anybody can bike 112 miles and run a marathon after swimming 2.4 miles is truly amazing to me.

Later that day I had my piece of cake - or two. I had baked a Kaesekuchen (a German cheesecake) after discovering that Greek yogurt has a similar taste and consistency as the hard to find Quark (no, not the elementary particle). A great discovery, it turns out, the cake was moist, refreshing and delicious and the perfect post hour swim dessert (we had had brunch at the big table at Toscanini’s earlier, where we polished off a delicious fried egg sandwich in no time and enjoyed the fabulous coffee).

My latest trip to Germany started as a warm fuzzy thought of spending Christmas with my family. I wasn’t going to for a variety of reasons, but changed my mind. A quick conversation with my brothers and next thing you know, we were planning a surprise visit to my parents. The trip developed into a week at my brother and sister-in-law’s in Munich, including a visit from former roommate/dear old friend/geeky Scotsman, before we headed north where my parents were expecting everybody but me to show up for the holidays.

Munich was awesome. Besides the obvious excitement about seeing family and friends, the highlights were:

• A Christmas market at every corner, where mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, endless amounts of sweets, crafts and quite a bit of kitsch is sold
  
• Swimming in one of the oldest indoor pools in Europe - a beautiful pool inside and out
• The Verkehrszentrum of the Deutsche Museum
• Running along the Isar river
• Organic bread and pretzels (real Laugenbrezel!)
• A functioning transit system

The day before Christmas Eve we drove up to our hometown. We turned into our street and, sure enough, there was Dad talking to the neighbor at the corner. I ducked in the back of the car while my brother and his wife greeted him, then casually got out of the car and walked up to him. The look on my father’s face was priceless. Up until that point we weren’t sure that they really didn’t even have a hint of suspicion, but apparently we had managed to keep the secret. We then repeated the surprise when my mother came home a few minutes later - it was such a blast to see their initial surprise and the ensuing joy (thankfully they’re both in good health!). As expected it only took my mother a few short moments to compose herself and turn to practical matters. “Do you like duck?” were the first words she said referring to the planned Christmas menu.

The surprises kept going as we walked around town and more than one of my parents’ neighbors exclaimed that I wasn’t supposed to be there! Had my parents withheld information from them? The nerve of some people!

The holidays were wonderful, lots of excellent food, long walks and a few runs through the woods and meadows around my hometown, visits with friends and games of rummy and trivial pursuit. Time flew by and on 12/30 I was back on an InterCity Express on my way to Frankfurt airport.

New Year’s Eve was spent in New York City with old and new friends. We partied till early in the morning and then decided it was silly to go to sleep before catching an 11am bus and instead stayed up and made reservations for the 7am bus. At that point the good transportation karma I’d had on my Europe trip left me for a brief period: The A train got stuck in a tunnel for at least 20 minutes due to “mumble, mumble, emergency, mumble” (and you thought the T was bad!). When we finally made it to Port Authority hoards of people were sleeping on their luggage waiting for the 7am Greyhound bus to Boston and at that point, we were slightly tired and just a wee bit cranky. There was no way we’d all fit into one bus, which in the end turned out to be completely irrelevant as both the 7am and 8am buses arrived at the same time (at 8am, as you may have guessed). Fortunately transportation luck returned and we made it to Boston in 3 1/2 hours despite pretty lousy weather conditions - complete with a story to tell, a new friend and enough time to spend the afternoon and evening recovering from our New Year’s adventures. Not a bad way to start the year!

Flight to Germany: $610
Train tickets: $120
Christmas presents: $100
Look on parents’ face when unexpectedly showing up on doorstep: Priceless