an unusual experiance

I spent most of Friday in my office doing useful things on the computer, including downloading a bunch of papers my advisor wants me to read. He'd given me a stack of them in paper, and told me to photocopy them and give them back. Not wanting to waste paper I checked, and 16 of them were obtainable as pdfs either through my U Milano connection, the UTAS library page, or via my own memberships to Geological Societies (yes, it took all three!).

When I went home afterwards it was to discover that the belongings which were on the bed in the far end of the room, behind a set of shelves, were gone. So I moved my things to that corner, as being a more desirable location than the half of the room with two beds.

Friday evening the PhD student in our research group picked me up and brought me to the bbq at his house, hosted by his flat-mates.

The bbq was a very interesting experiance. Most of the folk there were in their early 20's, celebrating the fact that they had had an exam today (some still have other exams next week, but were at the party nonetheless). Most of the boys had short hair :-( though there was one with hair just long enough to tie into a pony tail, and another with hair a bit past his shoulders. It was explained to me that he is into Metal music, which is why he wears his hair long. The boys far outnumbered the girls, and, for the first hour of the evening I was the only female present. The girls who were present all have shorter hair than mine, but most wore it longer than the boys. Quite a lot of the people present were smoking (it kind of reminded me of being a child of smokers in the 70--I don't think I've seen that many cigarettes in one place since I was a kid). Fortunately, it was generally easy to find a place at the edge of the crowd where I couldn't smell the smoke. Occasionally someone would come into my little smoke-free enclave with a cigarette, and most often when I asked them to take it away they didn't understand me and thought I was either asking for a cigarette or a beer, and looked confused when I said "no thanks" when they brought it back.

The "yard" of this house consists of a driveway along the side of the house, and a small covered car port in back. This space was completely filled with people enjoying the bbq. Unlike bbq's I've attended in the US and Australia, this one was nearly all food from the grill. There was no table of side-dishes provided by the hosts or the guests, but instead a set of shelves containing bread for the meat, some tomatoes, and some condiments. The tiny grill was in *constant* use from 7pm till 11pm, with an amazing amount of meat (and a good variety of them) cooked up, and a few veg as well, provided by my colleague since he knew I don't eat meat.

A reasonable percentage of the guests spoke English, so I had a number of people to talk with over the course of the evening. They were all very surprised to hear that I was at their party two days after arriving in town, and even more surprised to hear that I'm from Alaska and lived in Tasmania most recently. A number of them I spoke with long enough that I'll be able to recognize them if I see them later.

Many of the guests were Spanish-speaking, having come from Catalan. Alas, despite having a Spanish-speaking sibling and nieces etc., I don't understand more than a couple of words in that language, and, honestly, couldn't tell if the conversations I was hearing were in Italian or Spanish. Perhaps if I keep listening to the Italian language CDs I've got, eventually, I'll be able to tell where the breaks between the words are...

Late in the evening the party got ready to head out to a disco. This involved a good hour of people gradually shifting the party away from the bbq area and into small clumps in the house and in the street in front of the house. Some of the boys changed from T-shirts to button up shirts (but others did not, and none of the girls changed). Eventually, the hosts shooed everyone out the door and locked it, and then attempted to herd the cats down the street to catch public transit. The groups moved at different rates, so soon there were only small clumps of 4 to 10 people heading down the street (the nearest station was closed, so we had to walk further). I would have been content to go home much earlier than this, but had no idea how to get there, so had to wait till my colleague was able to guide me home--he said that he'd drop me off on the way to the disco. Our group (and the final one, which was just behind ours) had just missed a bus when we got to the road, so we opted to walk to the metro station, where one can take the underground train. However, when we arrived, we found another two groups from our party waiting at the bus stop--the metro was closed. So we waited a bit, then boarded a bus, transferred to another bus, and then my colleague and I got off at the stop right by my flat, he showed me how to get home, and I went in and he returned to try to catch another bus or taxi to join the others at the disco.

I was pleased to be home, did my yoga, and made it to bed by 02:45. I was not surprised at all to have slept in till 13:00 after that. The person whose stuff was on the bed/desk closest to my first bed had still not put in an appearance when I went to bed, but I did hear someone come in early this morning. I was too sleepy to get up and meet her, and now I never shall--when I woke up her stuff was gone.

Alas, all of the pots/pans/dishes in the house belonged to the people who moved out, so now the only "kitchen toys" I have available are the small plastic honey tub with lid and plastic camping spoon I brought with me to eat my muesli out of while traveling. I've brought home the small oven my advisor said I could borrow--it has been sitting in a very dusty box in the lab for ages. That turns out to come with a couple of baking tray. I also brought home a couple of plastic disposable bowls which were in the lab. This made it possible to start some bread dough today. I put flour water and yeast into the honey tub before leaving to get the oven today, and when I got back it had risen from half full to completely full. I then added some flour to each of the two disposable bowls, added water to each, and then kneaded all three together to get enough volume of bread dough. I'll ask the others on my research team if they have any pots/pans I can borrow till my stuff arrives, because it would be nice to be able to use that nice gas stove top as well as the oven to cook food.

Now it is time to turn off the computer and return to my internet-less room to bake that bread. perhaps I'll do a small pizza with zucchini and spinach, since baking is my only option for cooking this weekend. Pity I didn't think to get some tomato paste while at the store today, but there was one tomato left in the fridge by one of the departing flat mates, so perhaps that will do instead.

an unusual experiance

I spent most of Friday in my office doing useful things on the computer, including downloading a bunch of papers my advisor wants me to read. He'd given me a stack of them in paper, and told me to photocopy them and give them back. Not wanting to waste paper I checked, and 16 of them were obtainable as pdfs either through my U Milano connection, the UTAS library page, or via my own memberships to Geological Societies (yes, it took all three!).

When I went home afterwards it was to discover that the belongings which were on the bed in the far end of the room, behind a set of shelves, were gone. So I moved my things to that corner, as being a more desirable location than the half of the room with two beds.

Friday evening the PhD student in our research group picked me up and brought me to the bbq at his house, hosted by his flat-mates.

The bbq was a very interesting experiance. Most of the folk there were in their early 20's, celebrating the fact that they had had an exam today (some still have other exams next week, but were at the party nonetheless). Most of the boys had short hair :-( though there was one with hair just long enough to tie into a pony tail, and another with hair a bit past his shoulders. It was explained to me that he is into Metal music, which is why he wears his hair long. The boys far outnumbered the girls, and, for the first hour of the evening I was the only female present. The girls who were present all have shorter hair than mine, but most wore it longer than the boys. Quite a lot of the people present were smoking (it kind of reminded me of being a child of smokers in the 70--I don't think I've seen that many cigarettes in one place since I was a kid). Fortunately, it was generally easy to find a place at the edge of the crowd where I couldn't smell the smoke. Occasionally someone would come into my little smoke-free enclave with a cigarette, and most often when I asked them to take it away they didn't understand me and thought I was either asking for a cigarette or a beer, and looked confused when I said "no thanks" when they brought it back.

The "yard" of this house consists of a driveway along the side of the house, and a small covered car port in back. This space was completely filled with people enjoying the bbq. Unlike bbq's I've attended in the US and Australia, this one was nearly all food from the grill. There was no table of side-dishes provided by the hosts or the guests, but instead a set of shelves containing bread for the meat, some tomatoes, and some condiments. The tiny grill was in *constant* use from 7pm till 11pm, with an amazing amount of meat (and a good variety of them) cooked up, and a few veg as well, provided by my colleague since he knew I don't eat meat.

A reasonable percentage of the guests spoke English, so I had a number of people to talk with over the course of the evening. They were all very surprised to hear that I was at their party two days after arriving in town, and even more surprised to hear that I'm from Alaska and lived in Tasmania most recently. A number of them I spoke with long enough that I'll be able to recognize them if I see them later.

Many of the guests were Spanish-speaking, having come from Catalan. Alas, despite having a Spanish-speaking sibling and nieces etc., I don't understand more than a couple of words in that language, and, honestly, couldn't tell if the conversations I was hearing were in Italian or Spanish. Perhaps if I keep listening to the Italian language CDs I've got, eventually, I'll be able to tell where the breaks between the words are...

Late in the evening the party got ready to head out to a disco. This involved a good hour of people gradually shifting the party away from the bbq area and into small clumps in the house and in the street in front of the house. Some of the boys changed from T-shirts to button up shirts (but others did not, and none of the girls changed). Eventually, the hosts shooed everyone out the door and locked it, and then attempted to herd the cats down the street to catch public transit. The groups moved at different rates, so soon there were only small clumps of 4 to 10 people heading down the street (the nearest station was closed, so we had to walk further). I would have been content to go home much earlier than this, but had no idea how to get there, so had to wait till my colleague was able to guide me home--he said that he'd drop me off on the way to the disco. Our group (and the final one, which was just behind ours) had just missed a bus when we got to the road, so we opted to walk to the metro station, where one can take the underground train. However, when we arrived, we found another two groups from our party waiting at the bus stop--the metro was closed. So we waited a bit, then boarded a bus, transferred to another bus, and then my colleague and I got off at the stop right by my flat, he showed me how to get home, and I went in and he returned to try to catch another bus or taxi to join the others at the disco.

I was pleased to be home, did my yoga, and made it to bed by 02:45. I was not surprised at all to have slept in till 13:00 after that. The person whose stuff was on the bed/desk closest to my first bed had still not put in an appearance when I went to bed, but I did hear someone come in early this morning. I was too sleepy to get up and meet her, and now I never shall--when I woke up her stuff was gone.

Alas, all of the pots/pans/dishes in the house belonged to the people who moved out, so now the only "kitchen toys" I have available are the small plastic honey tub with lid and plastic camping spoon I brought with me to eat my muesli out of while traveling. I've brought home the small oven my advisor said I could borrow--it has been sitting in a very dusty box in the lab for ages. That turns out to come with a couple of baking tray. I also brought home a couple of plastic disposable bowls which were in the lab. This made it possible to start some bread dough today. I put flour water and yeast into the honey tub before leaving to get the oven today, and when I got back it had risen from half full to completely full. I then added some flour to each of the two disposable bowls, added water to each, and then kneaded all three together to get enough volume of bread dough. I'll ask the others on my research team if they have any pots/pans I can borrow till my stuff arrives, because it would be nice to be able to use that nice gas stove top as well as the oven to cook food.

Now it is time to turn off the computer and return to my internet-less room to bake that bread. perhaps I'll do a small pizza with zucchini and spinach, since baking is my only option for cooking this weekend. Pity I didn't think to get some tomato paste while at the store today, but there was one tomato left in the fridge by one of the departing flat mates, so perhaps that will do instead.