Some news
from the other other side of the
world. I successfully arrived in the US of A last Friday. And when I say “successfully”
I mean that after only 1 hour in line for border control (“we are the face of
our nation”), I was immediately, and rightly, recognized as a soil scientist. This
led to the question “have you been in soil lately?” which I hesitantly answered
with “ehm, no?” When he then asked “you’re here to see colleagues?” and I said “ehm,
yes?” I thought I was in for trouble, but he scribbled in my passport and said “I’ll
just put you in as a tourist. But you do have to go through agricultural check”.
Well, I never thought they would let me in that easily, but apparently they
also know basically everything about me already anyway. When it was my turn to
speak with the agricultural check-person, he said, with my passport in hand and
rummaging through my bags “Hi Nina, do you have any plant material, flowers,
zaadjes, aarde, bladeren, bloemetjes?” Now, this was after a 12 hour flight,
and I was back in time, so I wasn’t sure whether I was hallucinating or he was
really talking Dutch to me. But then (in Dutch) “You live in New Zealand? Nice!
Lots of Dutch people there too, he?”. So he was Dutch, and I am sure it helped
me get through the control a bit faster.
Anyway, I
landed in San Francisco on a stop-over to spend the weekend with my friend
Renske, and her other half, Ate. So I took the eventless journey to Berkeley
and managed to find Renske’s lab there without any problems. Rensie moved to the
US shortly after I moved to NZ, and we hadn’t seen each other in
a too long time.
 |
| You know it's a good friend when she bakes you rugby shaped pancakes for breakfast |
We spent
the weekend relaxed: I had a relentless jetlag that however mostly meant I
could not sleep at any time of the day or night, but I also didn’t really feel
tired. We cycled along the highlights of Oakland, most notably I think half the cabin in which Jack London
spent a winter in Alaska. And a
fantastic cinnamon roll.
We had a
true Australian barbeque (barbie) with Australian friends where it turned out
that we partially knew the same people in Canada. Science is a small world.
Sunday we
conquered a local mountain (mostly by car …) and in the last few meters (yards,
whatever) encountered a rattlesnake. On the trail. Rattling. I wasn’t very
impressed, in the sense that I wouldn’t have minded to not have had the
experience, but on the other hand, it proved that one can survive. And at least
it wasn’t a tarantula (Renske “It’s not the season for tarantula’s” which
somehow did not reassure me very
much).
And on
Monday I gave a talk at Renske’s lab and then had to catch my plane. It was a
great visit, but definitely too short.
I flew on
to Detroit and there, around 2 in the night, took a taxi to Prof Joel and Cindy’s
house in Ann Arbor. The taxi driver was definitely strange. I didn’t mind so much because I was pretty dazed, but looking
back I should have noted his license plate. He was of indeterminable Asian
descent, which is fine, I am of indeterminable Asian descent, sort of, but he
seemed to be seeing things that I didn’t. So he was constantly waving at
invisible people and shooing invisible ghosts away and/or tipping the ash of an
invisible cigarette. This was all not too bad, but he also drove rather random.
Now, it was the middle of the night, AND I have made judgmental errors on
American driving in the past, but he was all over the place on the - empty –
highway. When we entered Ann Arbor, at some point his gps said “1.4 miles to
destination” and he turned into a gas station mumbling “need gas”. There was
around 50 security cameras and actual people in the gas station, so I wasn’t
worried about being killed in the least, but I did find it odd … couldn’t it
wait for another 3 miles?! And then the gps said “turn right in 1 mile” and he
turned on his indicator for the whole 1 mile. Anyway, finally we arrived at the
house, and he asked “are you sure this is your house?”. Well … it isn’t MY
house, but I have stayed there before, and I was pretty sure. Anyway, gave him
an undeserved tip and let him drive off.
Nevermind.
I went to bed, slept maybe 1.5 hours and then decided that was it, got up and
went to the uni. It’s a bit like being “home” again here: I know everything and
everybody, I have my bike, my house, my lab, it’s good. It was great to see Prof
Jamie again and I just set to work straight away. Resubmitted the stupid plant
paper (did I ever say? It got rejected but with strong recommendation to
resubmit. I worked on it the past weeks and it was ready to go), started
messing around with acids in the lab. Had lunch in the sun and ordered a dirty
chai. Aaahh…
There is
lots going on here but that’s for another post. I am cured of my jetlag and it’s
time to go to bed.
