kareina

I walked to the Milan Central Station yesterday to meet clovis_t on his arrival. I'd not yet been there, before, so as I like to do on a walk to a new location, I consulted my map frequently while walking. It seemed important at the time to track my progress, since I didn't want to accidentally walk past the station without noticing it. As I neared my destination I looked at the map one final time, closed it, and thought to myself, "ok, that was the last cross street before the maze of streets that are at the station, from here I just need to look and see what I spot". The next second I stepped out from behind a building and beheld the single most impressive train station (and totally impossible to miss)that I have ever seen in my life. I particularly like the pegasi on the roof. (Note: as with so many things in this world, the photos in the links simply do not do the building justice.) It was a pleasure to wander around the grounds and inside the immense halls within whilst I waited for his train to arrive!

His train came in on time, and I led a very sunburned boy with very blistered feet back to my apartment, fed him some dinner (fresh baked bread, which he loved, and some left over lentil/curry stew, which he managed to eat more of than I expected, since he normally politely refuses my vegetarian cuisine--he meant it when he said he was hungry from not eating much while spending the day on trains and in train stations) and sat up talking till the wee hours of the morn. Since he hadn't slept much the night before in anticipation of his early morning departure, I was not surprised when he slept in this morning, and left my guest happily asleep in his bed when I went in to uni to do some work. Well after 1pm I returned home to find that he'd broken his fast and was contemplating a shower before following the directions I'd written for him to join me in my office (my only source of internet, which is why I spend so much time here!).

However, I'd made my way home in search of more food (having long since eaten what I'd brought with me in the morning), and had brought my computer home to enable me to do some work from home, for a change. After I'd eaten and done a bit of work we decided to head to the closest supermarket to get some supplies to make food a bit more to his taste than what I've got in the house. Alas, that plan was thwarted--the supermarket is simply not open on Sunday afternoons. So instead I cooked him some home-made egg noodles and tossed them with butter, cashews, some grated carrot, and some curry powder; a simple meal, but filling and while he would have prefered a bit of cheese in the mix, the cheese I bought at the market last week was so good that I finished it all before he arrived. (Money being tight until I get paid I don't have the well-stocked spice cabinet to which I'm accustomed, but I couldn't live without *something*, so I picked up a curry blend from the local Asian market. It isn't bad, but I do look forward to having enough money to expand the spice collection a bit).

The night is still young, but we are both feeling a bit tired, so I think that as soon as I post this I'll shut the computer off, head home, and get some rest so that we can wake up early for the morning market and stock up on yummy food stuff for the week before I have to come back and do more work.

Speaking of work--after a couple of e-mail exchanges with my advisor I've decided which sub-topic of my research I will try to publish in the Journal of Metamorphic Petrology. We've picked the "hook", and I've started the document. I wrote an introductory paragraph, and have started editing the bits from the thesis which are relevant. I've also done a quick search for papers that I'll need for background reading and to cite on the topic of the effects of metamorphic fluids (and/or the lack thereof) on (mineral) inclusion density in garnet. Alas, I didn't find anything very useful, so I gave up and asked on the Geo-Metamorphic e-mail list if anyone there can recommend one. (I did find 1000s of papers on fluid inclusions, which is different, and handfuls on the manner in which fluids modify pre-existing garnet, which is also not helpful).

I had a window seat on the north side of the plane, which means I got to see the Alps as we flew in. :-) (Have I mentioned recently how very much I love mountains?) The train from the airport runs east-west for the first part, which meant glimpses of the Alps now and again as we went (and there weren't buildings or trees right by the track. Seen from this distance it is kind of reminiscent of the Mat-Su Valley north of Anchorage, the way there is a broad, flat, lush, green valley and then, rising abruptly up from it, beautiful mountains. However, I suspect that these mountains are taller, as I think I'm further from them than the typical Mat-Su vantage point is from their mountains, yet the peaks look about the same. (I've not actually made the time to measure the distance for the Mat-Su valley in Google earth yet, but Milan is 50 km from the Alps.

Took the train to the city center, where I met my boss, who guided me to the correct train line (green) to get to the university (or, rather, the part which does science--humanities are in the city center). We got here on time to have lunch with most of the folk who work on this project, which was a nice opportunity to meet everyone. I'll recognize some of them later, I hope. Then we went over to my apartment. They made arrangements with the University for me to have a "room" (as I was told in advance) as it was a requirement for approval of my visa that they do so. As it turns out, it is more of a shared apartment. There is a small bathroom, with toilet, bidet, sink, and shower, a small kitchen with fridge, stove (no oven! but my boss says he's got one I can use), and sink, and a long room with three beds and three desks in it. The other two beds already have owners. I'm not too keen on sharing a room, but in the short term I'll cope. The up side is it is perhaps two blocks from my office, so I'm here in very little time!

I won't actually get my first pay check till the end of the month, so the small amount of cash I've got in my Australian and US bank accounts will have to do to cover me till then. I'm told that my salary is quite a good one for the area, so at the end of the month I'll be fine. In the mean while. After a long discussion on all of the errands necessary tomorrow (I need the local version of a tax-file number, and once I've got that I can open a bank account and then get the paperwork done that needs to happen as the next step with my visa) one of my colluges took me to the closest supermarket to get a few things I can't live without, and then they turned me loose on my computer to check in with friends and family. I am pretty certain we don't have internet in my room, so I'll probably leave my computer in my office and spend lots of time here.

Still not really clear as to what my duties will be, but they say that they will fill me in on that later...

I think I may head back to my room and try to get some sleep, since I was up very, very early this morning (like 0:30) to check e-mail and stuff before the taxi picked me up at 05:00, and while I'd gone to bed early, it wasn't that early!