Since I had the semester free from classes, it didn't matter much to Southwestern that I was out of town a lot, and I do mean a lot. The previous post covers the time Phil and I were marooned on our mountain cabin in North Georgia.
We got off the mountain in time to celebrate Gwyneth's birthday in Pine Lake, GA before heading back to Texas with the cats.
We even had snow in Texas -- it followed us, I guess.
I had enough time at home to host the SU ACM club's annual belated Christmas party where we had a white elephant and played computer-like board games!
I attended an NSF sponsored meeting on the new funding for computing education and broadening participation in computing in New Orleans. My meeting overlapped my son-in-law's so it gave another excuse for me to be with Gwyneth and the girls who drove in to meet me.
We had a great meal together in a little gem of a restaurant in the French Quarter -- the Green Goddess and I had an extra day in New Orleans with them because snow in Dallas caused my return flight to be canceled.
I was home long enough to wash my clothes and head to Miami for an ACM Education Council meeting. After the cold in Georgia and Texas, the balmy 80 degree Florida weather was fabulous! The meeting was good and I connected with friends from all over the world. I can't remember ever staying in Miami before and I enjoyed walking early in the morning along the waterways. Susannah came home from California for a short visit and we greeted her at the airport with balloons!
For our next adventure, Phil and I went to Carver, Massachusetts, to help his sister with her annual brush burn. There was so much snow, we couldn't see much brush but we certainly saw and shoveled a lot of snow and ice! We did have some grand days to get out and enjoy the beauty of the Plymouth area. While we were there we showed solidarity with my friend from Christchurch New Zealand who survived the quake by wearing the NZ colors of black and red.
Back home for a couple of days before I drove first to Dallas for the annual SIGCSE meeting where I was surprised by an upgrade to a suite where I obviously had to through a little party. I added an interview with the winner of the outstanding computing educator award, Matthias Felleisen, to the Computing Educators Oral History project. I put up more pictures here than anyone wants to see unless you are looking for yourself in them!
From Dallas I drove straight through to our cabin in Blue Ridge, Georgia, to meet with a plumber about a leak we discovered just as we were going out the door for home in January. I had time for a quick overnight in Pine Lake to go with Gwyneth and the girls to see one of my favorite kindie performers, Ralph Covert of Ralph's World. Back to the cabin for a couple more days before heading back to Pine Lake and to home.
I actually stayed home for the rest of March but we had company beginning on Saturday after I returned on Friday. Our first visitors were missionary friends, the Herrins, whose daughter is attending Southwestern.
The next weekend was filled with family. Susannah and Luis came in from California and Gwyneth and Chloe came from Georgia to both celebrate my birthday and to take part in the Capitol 10,000 race. Luis says this is his 10th and the rest of us began running, walking or watching it in 1989 so it is definitely a family tradition.
Now that I have caught up with winter, spring travel will begin when Phil and I take off for New Zealand and Australia on the 16th of April!
The snow fell Sunday night, January 10, 2011. We have been nestled in our cabin at the top of a mountain in Blue Ridge, Georgia for 6 days now. The car is still covered in ice and snow.
But although time goes slowly we both agree that it has been very pleasant. I have worked on catching up with lots of oral history, SIGCSE, Hopper and other tasks on the computer. I have cooked a lot (we had laid in supplies for 10 days). We both have read, watched Netflix movies, and plain relaxed. The cats appear to love having our warm bodies to lie on.
But we have been outside and active as well. I used an old pair of Gwyneth's cross country skis until the sole came off the boot; we tried tubing on storage container lids (bad idea) and rafting tubes (good idea but way too fast for us!), and lots of walking.
What wonder there is in breaking trails in the snow on dense wooded trails or gingerly walking down icy roads!
Yesterday we received a call from the mail carrier (the 70-something wife of the man who built our cabin) that we had a package at the mailbox at the bottom of the mountain. We decided to walk to the nearest restaurant (2.5 miles away) and Phil insisted on carrying the package we retrieved all the way over the next mountain and down again to the restaurant! He with glee forced me to open it -- the computer engineer Barbie. I had earlier exclaimed when my dear colleague Suzanne had received one for Christmas that I was extremely jealous. Mind you, I hate Barbies and forbidden my children from ever owning one, but I had voted for Mattel to produce said Barbie and my name is Barbara, so it seemed necessary to have one!
I look at the weather forecast too often now. I look with longing at my daughter's blog posts about her family's idyll on Ft. Lauderdale's beaches. I think it is time for a thaw and for us to go back to civilization. Soon, I hope.
After breakfast at the hotel I met Sue and we walked to the conference taking a side trip to plant the travel bug in the cache. Once more interesting talks. This time I had my laptop (instead of the iphone which wouldn’t work at the venue because you needed two windows open). I was able to multi-task and get my email down from 406 to 76. Not bad for a mornings work. Another buffet lunch. At the afternoon break, I walked back to the hotel so I could find out how long it would take to get to the airport bus stop. I found that fairly easily after getting lost going back to the hotel! I hadn’t done the walk in that direction before. I took a quick tour inside the Domkirke and was delighted to hear an organist practicing wonderful music.
I decided to walk back to the conference via the botanical gardens and once again got a little lost.
I used the GPS but its compass didn’t seem to work. However, I did make it back for the pizza fabulous) and wine party. Back at the hotel I packed and then joined several folks at the outside café for conversation before going to bed.
I met up with several folks from the ICER conference at breakfast. Some decided to take a bus and I went with the walkers. The university was a little over a mile and a half away (much up hill) but we arrived in plenty of time. Registration yielded yet another backpack – very nice one. All the talks were really good as were the discussions. Lunch was a smorgasbord of typical Danish food and the coffee breaks had super pastries.
The excellent keynote by Moti Ben-Ari was later blogged by Mark Guzdial.
Sue Fitzgerald went with me after the meetings finished to try to find the Women in Science geocache on the Aarhus University campus (we had had no luck with a micro near the venue). I quite easily found the cache whose coordinates were a puzzle about mostly Danish women in science. I had forgotten to bring the travel bug, so it meant another trip for the next day.
I walked Sue back to her hotel (A Best Western called the Ritz) and met her roommate, Beth. Then Sue and I walked to my hotel and we were escorted by Michael Casperson’s daughter Christina and her boyfriend to the restaurant for the banquet. Again it was excellent food with a very entertaining owner.
I sat between Colleen Lewis and Leigh Ann Sudol acting as a buffer between Leigh Ann’s definition of a misconception and Colleen’s. Also talked with Orni Meerbaum-Salant, from the Technicon in Israel and her husband. Back to the hotel where I had an email from ACM about the SGB meeting in New York for which I had booked tickets to Chicago. Yuk!
The plane got to Billund on time and I had to wait around about an hour for the bus to Aarhus.. The bus ride from Billund to Aarhus, although in the rain much of the time was interesting. We drove through rolling wheat fields and old farms built with three buildings forming a courtyard. Lots of farmers were working to bring in their hay (Buchele bales, naturally). There were many windmills, but now of the modern, metal variety.
In Arhus I decided to take a taxi to the hotel. It drove all over (avoiding all the pedestrian streets) including a side trip past the harbor, The ride cost 100 kroner which seemed a lot since the two hour bus ride only cost 200 kroner. (There are about 6 kroner in a USD). The Cab-inn hotel was just as pictured – I had a tiny efficient room but it did over look a canal and cafes. I unpacked and turned on my GPS. Much to my surprise it beeped immediately upon finding satellites and looking for the closest cache.
Although it was right outside my window, I had to walk around the block to get to the canal where I spotted two college age kids who seemed to be looking for the cache. I asked them if they were and I soon joined their search. They were new to caching, so I was able to find the cache – one of the very tiny micro magnetic ones.
I then walked further down the canal and spotted Mark Guzdial and Mike Clancy and his wife Karen, so I joined them for a while. before heading off to the restaurant to join the doctoral consortium folks. I found it easily with the directions I had taken from google maps – including a pleasant walk on a pedestrian shopping street. I was the first one there. It was like a French bistro but with very old rough furniture.
Our table for 13 was made of planks, and the place was decorated with old bottles, etc. The food was fabulous and very French). The owner was entertaining -- he made steak tartar for the woman next to me and made crepe suzettes for the next table telling outlandish stories.
It was fairly expensive, though, and didn’t take credit cards. The owner said not to worry we could come back the next day or next week to settle! Instead several of us went to the ATM and got cash. All in all a lovely evening and good start.
Suze didn’t appreciate our getting up at 7:30 (we didn’t hear the muezzin from the hotel which was remarkable given all the mosques in Istanbul!) The hotel breakfast was served on the enclosed top floor terrace, but since it was raining hard, the view was lost on us. The breakfast was substantial – the largest Suze had ever seen at a hotel!
We took a cab to the Blue Mosque. Phil argued with the driver about the rate, and the cabbie set the meter. However, he clearly added several kilometers by going too far on the Kennedy Boulevard and doubling back! We made our way to the mosque which closes at noon on Friday. It continued to rain as we waited in line. Taking off our shoes at the entrance without getting our socks wet was a challenge! We didn’t take a tour, but listened in on several around us that were given in English. Suze bought a 10 lira clear umbrella from one of the hawkers.
I wanted to find a geocache entitled the Blue Mosque which was supposedly close by, but we ended up in a rather bleak neighborhood and I couldn’t find it. Long trudge back to the Hagia Sophia. On the way we stopped at a shop and bought a bunch of little tapestry purses. The Hagia Sophia Museum cost 20 TL each and had almost nothing in it, though its history of being a Christian church converted to a mosque was extensive. It is undergoing massive restoration and needed it. I ran into Dick and Susan Brown from St. Olaf at the entrance and we chatted.
After the Museum we headed off looking for an ATM and a bite to eat. We stopped at a lovely café where Phil and Suze got mains – Phil had eggplant stuffed with chicken and smothered in yummy cheese and Suze had chicken, both with rice. I shared a bit of theirs and had tea. Suze also got a very rich chocolate baklava which she shared.
Then it was off to Topkapi which we couldn’t afford. I looked for another geocache there (and found it just as Susannah said I wasn’t very good at geocaching.) I took a travel bug and left and English coin. In order to get money, we trudged back to the Hagia Sophia museum where we found the row of ATMS just outside. Back to Topkapi where we headed for the treasury. Suze got bored with the crowded rooms. I loved the sultans’ clothes display, but the room was very hot. Phil and I were rewarded by seeing the Topkapi dagger and even Suze liked the Topkapi diamond. I wanted to see the harem rooms (an extra 15 lira each) so Suze went with me after we all had a soda. It was huge!
Then we set off walking to find the Grand Bazaar. On the way we saw a near collision of a tour bus and a tram that took a lot of maneuvering to untangle. We also walked through a cemetery for important sultans and pashas. The bazaar itself was noisy and full of pushy sales people. We bought a few things, including a nice pair of evil eye protector earrings for me.
On exiting the bazaar we tried to head for the spice bazaar. We wandered for a long time through a crowded shopping area where the locals shopped. Stores full of linens, long coats for religious women, scarves, cheap suits, shirts, underwear and frilly bride dresses --- no tourists. Phil’s sense of direction was good and we ended up in the spice bazaar which we liked much better than the Grand Bazaar. Again we bought a few things and headed for the Galata Bridge.
We walked under it past many restaurants all trying to convince us they had the best deal. We sat at one and all ordered fish meals. Because it threatened rain, and the sun was peaking through, the views on the Bosporus were stunning.
Phil forgot our hats and had to go back. We then made our way after a few false moves to buy jetons for the tram and funicular to go to the hotel. After we got to Taksim, Suze needed to shop so we hit a few stores including getting some snacks. Back to the room for a final pack and check of the internet and bed.
Phil and I packed. I made a big breakfast with the eggs I had bought and found out they were almost all double yolked. While we were eating Susannah decided to not eat and instead swept the house with a handle-less broom! Phil and I walked down to the Isa Bey mosque and were intrigued by huge variety of the prayer rugs. We looked at several of the shops and returned back to the villa where I took a last dip in the pool and had a glass of wine. Rob took the little girls to a water park – Fantasyland. The driver came to take Suze, Phil and me to the airport. We were a little late, but he stopped for gas on the way out of town. He was the same driver we had when we came (and had forgotten in the confusion to tip him) so we gave him 20 TL and thanked him in Turkish when he let us out at the Izmir airport. We had never seen such a big smile! Surprised to see the Turkcell ad in the airport featuring Google, many of whose apps are blocked
Our plane was over an hour late, but we made up time and were only about a half hour late getting into Istanbul. It was a very long walk to the metro and I got confused getting the tokens, but we made it. The train got more and more crowded as we headed in. We stayed at the same hotel the Buteras and Phil had stayed in on the way, the Eresin Taksim Best Western. Our room wasn’t ready when we got there, so I went across the street to get a 5 liter bottle of water. Internet in the lobby was free (Gwyneth had paid something like 30 TL a day for it) so we used it as well. The wait was well worth it. Nice big corner room on largely pedestrian streets.
We decided to explore and walked down the big shopping street that Phil had been on before.
I got tired and cranky on the way back as we looked for a place to eat. I did stop to get some milk for my morning coffee. Finally we decided to eat in the hotel. It was a good thing we stopped just then because it began to pour. We had several mezes before Phil got spicy kebabs and Suze got chicken. I ate a bit of theirs.
Susannah came home from California for a short visit and we greeted her at the airport with balloons!
