postkort from norway

I finally put (some) of my pictures from Scandinavia up on facebook! Here's a few samples:

Maybe I'll get the photos from graduation up sometime before our tenth reunion.

Hugh Grant, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Gatwick Airport + North Terminal + EasyJet line + Missed flight = Hugh Grant sighting.

Yep, I saw Hugh Grant at Gatwick Airport going to Emirates. He was even pushing his own trolley. This gives me hope that he's not as much a jerk as he is in some of his movies. It also made up for the near 40 Euro charge I incurred for the missed flight.

In other news, I went to a Dutch bookstore and saw a cool looking book. Remember Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Well, there's apparently also Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Yeah...

Tiffany & Co: Terrorism?

As a small, albeit rather innocent looking Asian girl, I never thought I would be the target of a thorough search traveling through Europe. After paying a rather hefty sum for my checked baggage, I was left with my messenger bag and my rolling carry-on. Going through security at the Pittsburgh airport wasn't too bad. No one stopped me and no one seemed to care as I stopped to try and shove all my stuff back into my bags. No one even noticed I had two bags for liquids rather than the allowed one...

Then came CDG, otherwise known as Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. I took out the usual laptop and liquids and put my stuff through the X-ray scanner. They didn't even want me to take my shoes off! Then came the craziness...

I had about three French TSA agents come and tell me to open my bag and take out "that electronic thing that the machine is picking up." After a rather confusing conversation in French and me removing all wires, cords, and anything else electronic in my bag, I put my bag back through. As I stooped to again put all my things away, another TSA agent came over and told me she needed to search my bag. After searching through all of my things, she finally came to this small light blue felt Tiffany bag. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" she asked, as she opened it. Well, she opened it to find my gift from the Advising Programs Office. A round solid pewter Tiffany box engraved on top with the Harvard crest. As she opened it, she showed it to her TSA compatriots saying "C'est ca. Il n'y a rien." She then smiled a rather apologetic smile and put my things back, calling for another person to help out.

So, for all the things that they could have thought was a bomb in my bag...Tiffany? Really? Seriously, the French need to read up on their high-end pewter boxes...

Wildlife of Harvard Yard

1. Some of you have probably heard about the recent cow-grazing in Harvard Yard. The occasion was the retirement party for Harvey Cox, the Hollis Professor of Divinity. The Hollis Professorship of Divinity dates back to 1722 (apparently it's the oldest endowed chair in the country), and one of the official perks is the right to graze your cows in Harvard Yard. No one has done this since Edward Wigglesworth in the 1700s, but Prof. Cox thought his retirement party would be a good time to bring back the tradition.


(Sadly, I missed this because I had class that afternoon.)

2. There is a hawk living in Harvard Yard this fall. This actually doesn't seem as far-fetched to me as it does to some other people: I saw a red-tailed hawk swooping around in Tercentenary Theater once sophomore year. But it's new to actually have the hawk living in the Yard. Its favorite spot is a tree next to the Phillips Brooks House, but it likes to go all over the place, even up to the Law School, close to my dorm. On the campus tour they gave us, we walked past the hawk sitting in a tree and marking its territory by screaming. It wasn't identical to the clichéd sound effect from Westerns, but it was pretty close.

A few days ago I was walking past Matthews when I saw a bunch of little white feathers floating down from the sky. I was very confused until I looked up into the nearest tree. These feathers had once belonged to a seagull or something. But this particular seagull had wound up as dinner.

The Harvard Hawk strikes again.

Buskers: a Transit Survey

London, Westminster: elderly gentleman playing "My Heart Will Go On." On a harp. That's right, a harp.

London, Piccadilly Circus: older guy playing country-ish music on a guitar. Plus a tourist, posing for photos with him.

London, King's Cross St Pancras (on train): young guy with steel guitar, bemoaning "gangster capitalism" and explaining that if we had full employment, no one would be priced out of the economy.

Paris, Strasbourg-St. Denis: 20-something with a marionette and a stereo. The marionette was "playing" a guitar.

Paris, Passy (on train): 40-something with a violin, playing "Yesterday."

Sadly lacking a European counterpart: Recorder guy from the Harvard T station. Alas.