The Perennial Philosophy

I recently read Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy, and it gets a wow. Subtitled "An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West," the book examines the common thread that runs between the philosophical systems of Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, mystic Christianity, and other worldviews.

Huxley asks, just what is this indescribable essence that has inspired human beings for aeons to seek spiritual satisfaction? To be saved, to become enlightened, to return to the "ground of Being"-- what does that mean? Because in the end it is indescribable, in some sense Huxley is only adding more words to the reams and reams of published mateiral on this weighty topic, but The Perennial Philosophy treads lightly over the weight. I have never read such a glorious comparison across the world's great religions.

Huxley also devotes considerable effort to explaining what The Perennial Philosophy is not. In particular, it is not the fanaticism of modern radical religious groups. Somewhat surprisingly, Huxley also comes down in pretty sharp criticism of mainstream Protestanism, viewing the Reformation as a "fall" from devotion to the true "Ultimate." When religion became tied to common worldly issues, it ceased to approach the spiritual Ground. It deviated from Truth, he says.

The Perennial Philosophy is also separate from the scientific search for Truth, despite innuendos of similarity in modern quantum mechanics and cosmology-- recall all those popular physics books with "God" in the title. Of course Huxley doesn't talk much about quantum mechanics (the book was written in the 40s, when QM was hardly a household word). But he lays out the ways in which intellectual knowledge, even of deep Nature, cannot be compared to true spiritual knowledge.

I find it heartening that when you really look at the deep philosophical details, there are few, if any, fundamental differences between the great religions. Jesus Christ said essentially the same thing as the Buddha, with only some variation in how many times you get to come back. The Upanishads of ancient India have correlations in the Mahayana Buddhist texts of China, and in the writings of the Gnostic Christians even later. Ecumenism is real.

Religion is just the human manifestation of the spiritual Truth-- hence, it must have flaws. It can even get seriously off track, or veer off into "evil," for no other reason than that humans can do these things. But underneath, there is Reality, and there will always be humans who strive to touch it directly. Such is the quest of the followers of The Perennial Philosophy.

Very intriguing, especially for a physics ex-pat who is finally starting to appreciate the value of the spiritual dimension of life, and is starting to be able to differentiate among various forms of that dimension.

Brain training

Remember the quote about how everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten? It turns out to apply to movement and posture too.

Watch a child move sometime. They really use their whole body, integrating their arms and legs with their torso to move in holistic ways. Now look at an adult. Stiff, awkward, and self-limited. We train ourselves to hold back, to isolate parts of our bodies. This comes about from all kinds of things in our history-- sedentary lifestyle, injury, fear, etc.

Enter the Feldenkrais Method. It is a way to retrain your neuromuscular system to "remember" how to move holistically. One of the programs is actually called "As Flexible as a Child." Don't laugh-- these things are possible.

Moshe Feldenkrais was a physicist, and also a black belt in judo. He sustained a severe knee injury and used the opportunity to develop a new way of seeing the body from the inside out. His "Awareness Through Movement" training is a way to develop neural pathways that connect the body together into a coherent whole. One reason our bodies get stiff and sore is that we have learned poor neuromuscular habits. We are smart creatures-- we can relearn better habits.

I am currently going through some Feldenkrais tapes at home. After each 30-45-minute lesson, I can feel an improvement in how I move or sit. It's amazing. It does require some focus: I really have to concentrate on doing the movements along with the tape, but if I do that, I can feel the difference immediately. I really did have a lot of poor habits that were contributing to body pain.

These are not exercises. It has nothing to do with stretching or achieving or "working out." Feldenkrais movements are done slowly and in a barely perceptible way-- someone across the room might not even be able to tell you are moving. But you are creating the neural pathways for that movement in your brain. Apparently studies have shown that even if people only imagine the movements without actually doing them (say, if they are fresh out of surgery), the pathways are strengthened. This can greatly ease recovery from injury or surgery.

Deep relaxation is so difficult in this rush-rush modern world. But it brings a wealth of psychological and physical benefits. If your neck is stiff while reading this post, or if you look longingly at your 4-year-old doing sommersaults and think you can't do that anymore, open your mind to Feldenkrais.

By any other name

I strolled through the local nursery yesterday and got intrigued by the roses. Dozens of varieties of all shapes, colors, and sizes. But what struck me were the little tags describing the scent of each one's blooms.

Ever read those, er, flowery descriptions of how wines taste? It was the same! Rose scent falls into a variety of categories, including "spice," "tea," "fruit," and, perhaps not surprisingly, "rose." Each of these can be light, mild, moderate, or heavy.

At first I gathered data by smelling each one after reading the tag. Then I started smelling before reading the tag, and trying to guess. Some (OK, most) were not so easy! Well, I take it back-- they were perfectly easy to smell, I just wasn't adept at categorizing them according to this intriguing system.

Clearly this is some art form. I wasn't aware of it before!

Hop across the Pond

Off to the UK today. When I went through airport security at SFO, I was behind a group of teenagers—young ones, like 15 or so— heading home to Europe after an adventure with friends in the US. One boy looked very much like Frodo, with the dark curls and round, sweet eyes. His face was tear-streaked and sad, and he didn’t wave goodbye enthusiastically to his friends as the others were.

Unfamiliar with the new American nearly-strip-search security procedures, they took a long time getting through the line. I, on the other hand, efficiently took out my laptop, removed my jacket and shoes, neatly lined up the grey security bins with my belongings, and held my ticket and passport in hand.

“At last, someone who knows how to travel!” said the TSA agent with approval when I approached. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

In the waiting lounge, I had one of those moments of seeing someone I knew, but feeling unsure of the context. Then I remembered—it was a guy I used to see in my Japanese classes a few years ago. How odd that we would meet on a plane to Britain. He, like me, had lapsed in his studies, but he had a better excuse—a newborn child.

I had never taken British Airways. Of course, among first-class travelers, this is the Rolls Royce of airlines. They have 180-degree reclining bed-seats! But for us schlocks in coach, it was pretty standard, meaning a couple notches above United.

Going this way, it’s good to sleep, and I caught about 5 hours. That made the flight go fast. I also watched “Trading Places,” the 1983 film about a (black) panhandler being made to swap places with a (white) Wall Street trader to settle a bet between billionaires about nature vs nurture. The review praised the film for “not falling for the obvious racial stereotypes,” which is like praising Napolean for his equitable treatment of short people, missing the rest. The movie fell instead, and shamelessly, for class stereotypes, promulgating the very 80s view that money and the material trappings of wealth are unquestionably desirable, but those who got them by inheritance are too soft to properly defend them. Thus, there are plenty of chances for lower- and middle-class people to get The Good Life by essentially swindling the vapid rich out of it.

You’ll pardon me if I found myself uninspired by this message. (And of course it still exists today—you just have to be a smart entrepreneur or geeky programmer, employing the latest marketing fad to dupe VCs into giving you millions. Same values, different players).

When we arrived at Heathrow, I stopped in the bathroom (er, the loo), where there was a line. A woman behind me piped up cheerily to her friend, “Yup, we’re back in England! We’ve got to queue.”

I also took the opportunity to buy my favorite kind of candy bar—a Yorkie, which has printed in bold letters on the wrapper, “It’s NOT for girls!” It’s so blunt, it’s not even offensive.

Coming home to Old Europe

It was 2.5-hour bus ride on the National Express service to get to Cambridge. Mostly I slept, until we entered the little roads winding through the towns. There, the bus rocked so much I couldn’t stay asleep, especially on the roundabouts. Those narrow cow-trail roads are scary in a huge bus! The buildings would go by close enough to touch in some cases; not a good place for pedestrians.

I decided to walk to the Moeller Centre, where the conference would be held. Cambridge has multiple “colleges,” like King’s College and Trinity College, which are analogous to "schools" at US universities-- the school of architecture, the school of law, etc. Anyway, the Moeller Centre is at Churchill College, but I didn’t know how to get there, and initially (in my jet-lag fog) I couldn’t even remember that it was Churchill College I was looking for.

But I happened across the Radisson Hotel, and figured I’d get directions. Except that the first thing I did was get my arm stuck in the revolving door. It was too narrow for me and my pull-along suitcase, and it caught my arm behind me. Now I know that revolving doors aren’t dangerous for arms; it just held me there until the doorman came and rescued me. He said helpfully, “It’s usually easier to go in the standard door with luggage.”

I went to the reception desk to ask directions, and could not for the life of me understand what the guy said to me. He turned out to be French speaking with a British accent, and had merely said, “Good afternoon,” but I swear it was a foreign language. Now I have a bit of sympathy for the French, who always claim that Americans speaking French are incomprehensible. At least he gave me a map.

Then I found the Tourist Information Center, which was closing as I arrived, but I squeaked in, and they actually knew where the Moeller Center was. They said it would be a 20-minute walk, and I set off, although I was getting pretty fatigued. It was worth it, though. I crossed the River Cam, where I watched the punting boats steering tourists along. There was a lovely pair of mated swans with nine cygnets! Very cute. And all around, the buildings expressed that curiously wonderful European quality of mixing medieval stonework, gingerbread, and cobblestone with hip restaurants, art shops, and high-tech stores.

This is what Cambridge, Massachusetts was modeled on! And Cornell (where I went), and many other Eastern Ivy-league and quasi-Ivy-league institutions. And for the most part, the imitation is sound. But the original speaks for itself. Ah, Europe. Land of my forebears (Scottish, British, and some German). Perhaps there is some genetic memory of this part of the world that stirs up within me when I visit. Can it really seem like coming home if the last time my family was here was in the 17th century?

The Moeller Centre is a nice little conference center. It’s out a ways from campus, and has simple, pleasant accommodations, a refreshing change from the sometimes-overdone business hotels I usually stay in. My favorite part was the heated towel rack. No kidding, it was plugged into the wall, and it kept the towels toasty warm!

Just outside my window were the Churchill College playing fields, and I was treated to front-row seats on a cricket game that afternoon. I don’t really understand the rules (I’m not sure how many Britons do either, to be honest), but it’s fun to watch for a while. The batters are the same no matter which team is fielding, and it’s very unclear to me when a good play has been made. Of course, they all had on their “cricket whites”—what else would you wear when playing sports on a green field but white pants and a white cotton sweater? Actually, two guys seemed to be referees, standing behind the wickets and watching whether the batter and pitcher were obeying some unknown rules. These guys had on flip-flops (so they obviously weren’t going to be running) and had substituted white lab coats over shorts for the standard whites. I guess they got a break and were allowed to dress more appropriately for the warm weather.

Then my boss arrived and we walked back into town to find food. The restaurant choices were quite diverse—lots of Italian, French, and Middle Eastern, with a smattering of Spanish, Turkish, Indian, and Asian choices. And of course plenty of places offering good British ale—I hope to get some before departing the Isles! We ended up at an Italian place overlooking the river.

The most amusing sight was the “rising bollards.” What might those be? There is a pedestrian zone in the city center (er, centre), but buses are also allowed to drive there. The bollards are posts in the middle of the street that block vehicles. But they are equipped with some kind of RFID system such that when a bus approaches, and presumably emits the right signal, the bollards lower down into the street so the bus can drive over, and then they come up again. I was thinking that in the US, cars might hit them all the time trying to get through anyway, or some clever hacker would figure out the signal to lower the bollards and allow people to download the application onto their iPods.

Anyway, Cambridge is a jolly-good city. It would be fun to live here for a spell. By the way, I am a verbal chameleon. I predict that by tomorrow, my accent will begin to change, or at least the cadence and word choices that I use will sound more British. The most substantial difference between British and American English is actually the meter—the length of words and pauses, and the syllables with emphasis. It turns out I am quite sensitive to meter, and can intuitively mimic it. This is why people say I have a good accent when I speak foreign languages.

European flavor

I am attending a conference devoted to the future of the European OLED industry (don’t worry about the details of what that means). I am learning something very interesting: Europe does not yet realize that it is no longer a manufacturing center. Oh sure, people here know perfectly well that much of it has shifted to Asia, but they only know it in their heads. At some deeper level, they figure Europe ought to get it back, could get it back, and indeed will get it back if they have meetings like this to collectively affirm this view.

So there is a vigorous debate about how “we” (meaning European countries) can build new infrastructure that “they” (meaning Asian companies) cannot imitate. The debate missing is whether manufacturing is actually desirable for Europe, much less possible. I am not asserting a particular opinion, just noticing what comes into the argument as a tacit assumption (manufacturing = good) rather than a point to be considered openly.

Finally, it hit me. These concerns over the transformation of society away from manufacturing are also going on right now in Japan, which is rapidly losing (in fact, has already lost, for the most part) manufacturing strength to Korea, Taiwan, and China. For Japan, it is actually an appropriate concern because it is a current issue. For Europe, it is not a current issue. It has already happened, like it has already happened in much of America. Perhaps from this, we can infer that Japan will be continuing these thought patterns for many years/decades to come.

Change is painful. The West (and increasingly, Japan also) is dealing with very fundamental economic shifts from manufacturing to service to who-knows-what. Some desirable aspects of society are dying, replaced by less desirable ones. And it’s happening on a rapid timescale, which can be jarring, and inevitably ends up hurting some people. The pain shows up in odd forms, from national pride to cynicism to self-criticism.

This conference, though technical, is far from rational. It is propelled from below, from poorly-defined emotional depths, which gives it a collage-like quality: tragic beauty, amusing pathos, and perhaps a streak of danger (for whom? That’s an exercise for the reader). I feel unable to integrate all these issues that are happening on so many levels, but am kept busy watching them and noticing the currents they evoke in my own mind. (I, too, am from a country tied up in powerful economic and cultural shifts of a similar nature).

Other European flavors abounded. Like this new fruit I had never tried—a maracuya. It’s about lime-sized with a dark, rough exterior. But the inside is filled with orange goop sort of like a pumpkin, mixed with green seeds that resemble large grape seeds but are edible. I suppose that description doesn’t make it sound very appealing, but really, the goopy part had a lush, sweet-and-sour flavor. I also noticed intriguing flavors of yogurt for breakfast—peach-maracuya, and raspberry-cranberry.

This conference center has an open bar every night, and one option is locally brewed ale. I tried a pale, unfiltered ale called Hobson’s Choice, and it was quite tasty. I was pleased to have gotten some good beer in England; it’s something they can really do right.

Harry Potter dinner

For the conference banquet, we went to the King’s College banquet hall. Immediately several people exclaimed that it looked just like the dining hall in Harry Potter. Indeed it did! Long wooden tables running the length of the stone hall with a domed ceiling. The walls were lined with somber portraits of good old boys—deans, deacons, provosts, professors, and the like. The stained-glass windows depicted various college crests and university symbols, and some were labeled with important dates. The earliest I spotted was 1555. Wow! That’s tradition.

The food was pretty good, but perhaps only pretty good. The appetizer was an amusing attempt at nouveau: fish presented with salsa. It was tasty, but the description read, “Smoked salmon with chili salsa and pea guacamole.” No kidding—the pea guacamole was mashed peas with some kind of mildly Southwest spices. The salsa was good, but it was standard tomato-onion-cilantro salsa, with nary a chili. The Europeans called the cilantro coriander (that is indeed the plant—perhaps they just don’t have a different name for the leaves), and one guy identified it as “that spice used very often in Thai cooking.”

The main course was less impressive—either chicken breast or a portabella mushroom stuffed with brie and leeks. The chicken came with a sweet-potato dumpling, and the veggie option with a baked apple, and both had butter-drenched pea pods and green beans. But impressively, the vegetables were cooked crisp-tender, not boiled until totally dead, which can happen to veggies in Britain.

Strawberries and clotted cream for dessert—I think that refers to what happens in your arteries! Anyway, it was fun. The conference hosts regaled us with Latin blessings said before each course. I could just catch a word here and there-- gaudeamus igatur, for instance. I thought maybe we’d get a magic demonstration or see some members of Gryffendor House, but no luck.

When I visited the bathroom, there was a sticker with various emergency phone numbers for things you need in college: suicide hotline, AA, drug counseling, pregnancy tests. One interesting item noted that the morning-after pill could be purchased at most chemist’s shops for 20 pounds, and could be taken up to 72 hours after sex. You don’t see that in America.

When we emerged to go back at 10 pm, the sky was still light, although the sun had set. I always forget how far north Europe is, and this is almost the summer solstice. When I woke up around 3:30 am, the sky was beginning to lighten into pre-dawn!

Czech it out

The next day I left the conference a bit early to get myself to Prague. I flew out of Stansted airport, which is a bit outside Cambridge. You can take a cab there for 46 pounds (about $100!!), or the train for 7 pounds. Easy choice. And it’s so civilized to have a train that runs straight from town to the terminal. I flew Czech Air. It seemed to be a simple, decent airline. The flight was nearly empty. We flew an old-style 737, which means the seats and legroom were actually larger than they are on modern planes! I had forgotten how comfortable flying used to be about a decade ago.

[My British colleague told me later that flights on these smaller European airlines are increasingly empty. They are getting hit hard by the new economy options, EasyJet and RyanAir. These are the Southwests of Europe, and are likely to really shake things up.]

I had never heard Czech! It is a beautiful language, of which I understand absolutely nothing. It’s clearly related to Russian, but more melodic.

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which is not in the Old City (see below). The architecture is stark Soviet realist, with imposing columns, lots of gold, and other stately, stuffy crap. But it was an interesting place to stay. The surrounding neighborhood is the semi-diplomatic part of town, so the buildings were largely square and boring. For contrast, check out the descriptions of the Old City.

I was there to speak at a conference my company was running for its clients, and all of that went pretty smoothly. We had decent attendance despite the rapidly approaching European vacation season, which occupies most of July and August.

Of Jews, Gingerbread, and Jesus

Before dinner, I took a couple of hours with two colleagues to stroll the streets of the Old City in Prague. The buildings just made me smile. They have decorations all over them, put there just to look pretty, and are often brightly painted. Little gargoyles, little curlicues, swirly carving, and geometric architecture beckon wherever the eye lands. I had learned to call this sort of thing “gingerbread,” but was surprised that some of my colleagues hadn’t heard the term. Anyway, it was fabulous. [Later, after seeing lots of written Czech, I realized that their very alphabet is bedecked with gingerbread, too. Many letters look Roman, but have some kind of decoration on them. Perhaps ornament is embedded in their national character].

Amazingly, Prague was not destroyed in WWII or in the subsequent Soviet era, so many buildings stand in their original form from centuries ago. Wow!!

I had no free day to look around, but did sneak in about two hours before dinner on the only evening I was there. I went with two work colleagues, and we started in the main square, which features a huge clock tower, the Tyn Church, and other architectural sights. The clock tower is like a large version of those clunky wristwatches that have astronomical time, depth, world time zones, etc. It's got lots of painting and statues around it. Apparently it's quite a show when it opens up and chimes the hour, but alas, we didn't manage to catch it in action.

Then we headed up to the Jewish Quarter, where we strolled narrow cobblestone streets and viewed synagogues. It harked back to the time of the Inquisition, when the Jews of Prague were (as often happens) reviled as moneylenders and shunned from mainstream society. The myth of the Golem originates here, with the Rabbi Joseph (indeed, this section of town is now called Josefov). If you have ever read Marge Piercy's He, She, and It-- and if you haven't, you should; it's great sci fi-- you might recognize some of the names and locations around the area. We wanted to go in the Jewish cemetary, but it was closed because it was late in the day.

So we headed down the river and crossed the Charles Bridge. This is an amazing pedestrian bridge lined with a couple dozen large statues. I wished for more background knowledge, because I'm sure there is much history contained in these images. But I contented myself with admiring the workmanship and the artistic beauty. One that caught my eye was a statue of Jesus on the cross, surrounded by.... Hebrew lettering! This is, of course, historically accurate, but it is not common to see Jesus linked with Hebrew in modern times. Sometimes he is shown with a few characters meaning something like "Jesus, King of the Jews," but this was a whole phrase arched over his body. And without a camera, I couldn't bring back a picture of it to be read by my friend who knows Hebrew. Does anyone out in cyberspace know what the Hebrew on the Charles Bridge Jesus says?

If you look up from the Charles Bridge, you see a fine view of Prague Castle. I was instantly reminded of Dracula. The castle is huge and imposing, and mildly sinister-looking with its dark stonework and high towers. I would love to poke around the museums and gardens on its premises-- I hear you can get a tour of the torture chamber!-- but that will have to wait for another trip.

It was quite a chilly evening, despite being mid-June. The wind was really whipping on the bridge, so we settled down at a cafe with heat lamps to sip wine on the river. After some time, I mosied on from my colleagues since I was meeting other people for dinner. We did well for two hours. We saw a lot, but didn't try to pack in so much that we were rushed and missed the details.

Kampa Park

We (five people from my company and two clients) had dinner at Kampa Park, a swank restaurant just off the Charles Bridge. It had photos of the famous people who had dined there, including Hilary Rodham Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The décor was nouveau, with rich, earth-tone paint, funky lighting, and many archways. Intriguingly, the arched ceilings turned it into a whispering gallery at certain moments, so that I would suddenly catch a few words of a conversation across the room, right out of the blue, as if they were sitting next to me. Then the sound oscillations would change, and I would just hear the background din again.

We had a feast. The menu was international and had a modern flair to it, and the wine list was equally cosmopolitan. Although we ordered Italian, French, Japanese, and California fare, I pushed to get a wine from the Czech Republic. We chose a white that was a blend of chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and two other grapes, and it was decent. I doubt Czech wine will be winning the competitions anytime soon, but it was very drinkable and went nicely with the fish dishes that the majority of us ordered.

By the way, I really enjoy doing the wine ritual, where I get to see the bottle, then taste the first taste and approve it. It was fun to do that at a table full of businessmen.

I started a pear salad with rocket, balsamic vinaigrette, brie, and nuts. Then I got the grilled sea bass with caramelized onions, risotto, “vegetable foam,” and walnut glaze. The foam seemed to be a reduced sauce of some type. We shared a few desserts, of which the menu descriptions were hard to understand. They said things like “cloudberry foam with caramel sorbet and almond softcake,” which meant it had a marzipan-like cake, a very light mousse of what I think we would call gooseberries, topped with sorbet. The “strawberry cappuccino” had no coffee in it, but was a layered strawberry puree with cream and cinnamon and other rich spices. The poached apricot was advertised as coming with basil ice cream, and indeed, it was strongly basil-flavored! Imagine pesto without the garlic, and with sugar so it was sweet. OK, it was better than makes it sound…

Anyway, the bill was impressive too—about $85/person. We paused about paying the tip. It seems that you are supposed to tip in the Czech Republic, but the consensus was that it should be in cash, not added to the credit card bill. Apparently it is far from clear that the server would ever see the tip if you put it in with the bill, so better to get it right into his pocket. We gave 10%, which nearly cleaned one of us out of cash.

Then we got to the subway to go back to the hotel, but found that the machines only take coins, and we didn’t have enough for all of us to pay 12 kronas. So we bought 8-krona tickets, which weren’t really legal for the route we were taking, but we hoped not to get caught. Indeed we didn’t! Thankfully, Prague doesn’t have those ticket machines where you have to turn it in at the end, and if it doesn’t match what you were supposed to pay, alarms go off. Two stops on the street tram, and we were safely home in bed.

Briefly in Brussels

The next day, it was off to a meeting in Brussels. Just the meeting, nothing else! We departed on a noon flight, went to the company for a 2.5-hour meeting, and went back to the airport. Oy. I had never been to Brussels, and I can honestly say that I still haven’t.

But first we had the adventure of changing my plane tickets. We were originally booked on an earlier flight from Prague to Brussels, and I was planning on going on to London that evening so I could leave for the US straight from Heathrow. But nooooooo. British Airways wouldn’t let me change an earlier leg I had booked from Prague to Heathrow, so I had to return from Brussels to Prague just to spend one night. So I wanted two changes: the later Prague-Brussels flight, and a flight back to Prague instead of on to London.

And I wasn’t even making the change itself—that had already been done by phone to our British travel agent. All I had to do was get them to look up this change on their computer screens and print me out a new paper ticket.

You’d think this wouldn’t be hard. Europeans hop all over the place all the time, especially business people. But the people at Czech Air did their best to imitate the customer service they had learned to give during the Soviet era. This apparently simple process took more than 30 minutes and included a period when they told us we had to cancel the whole ticket and rebook, for a cost of an additional $600. We got out British travel agent on the phone, who told the Czech Air people that we had already paid the (modest) penalty to change our flights, and did not need to pay another $600, thank you very much.

Finally it worked, but I still had to officially check in at the check-in counter. For some reason, this is not possible at the ticket purchase counter. And even though my colleagues were able to check in for their later flights out of Brussels at the same time, I was told I couldn’t do that “because the flight is closed right now,” and would have to do it in Brussels. OK, whatever.

The little I saw of Brussels was lovely. At this time of year, it is lushly green, and in general it has lots of forest surrounding the city. We drove through gently rolling hills and open spaces. The roads were not too crowded, although they were more busy at rush hour when we went back to the airport. One thing I noticed was a terminal for private jets. After all the hopping around, I can see that a rich European would certainly want her own plane!

I was disappointed not to see the subway. My friend tells me that there is gorgeous street art there, like used to exist on the Berlin Wall. I guess that will be something to see next time.

I like the sound of Flemish. Belgium has two official languages, French and Flemish. On the plane, they made announcements in those two plus English. Some of the people I heard were speaking French, others Flemish, which sounds more like German in that I can pick up half the words or so.

Sweet ending

My flight back to Prague was delayed, so we didn't land until 10:30 pm. Then I schlepped back to the hotel, slept briefly, and got up at 5 am to pack my stuff, check out, and and go back to the airport to make the 7:45 flight to London. Oy.

The connection process at Heathrow is ridiculous. All the incoming international flights dump into the same place, where you have to squeeze through a small passage into a room with twisty, Disneyland-like lines in order to have your hand luggage scanned. (I think it might actually be faster to fill out the arrival card and go through normal immigration, then re-check in from the main terminal-- I'll try that next time). Anyway, it took about 40 minutes to get through the line, so I was grateful for a 1.5-hour layover time.

The British even know that the Heathrow system does not work. There are signs on the walls saying that any threats, verbal abuse, or physical violence toward airport workers will be severely punished. They must need those signs for a reason!

On the long flight to San Fran, I sat next to a couple from Marin who were returning from Morocco. It sounded like they had had a great time cruising around some of the interior portions, not just the coast where most tourists go. To pass the time (it's not good to sleep too much going west), I watched "Million Dollar Baby," the Clint Eastwood movie about the female boxer, and found it quite riveting.

Upon reintegration to my California life, I found two things. First, I had collected an insane amount of sweets on this trip! It seems like every time you turn around in Europe, someone is handing you a free piece of chocolate or a cookie. I stashed most of these in my bag as I went along since it was rarely convenient to eat them at the time. When I unpacked, here is what I found:

5 mini candy bars, like Halloween candy
1 small Cadbury bar
3 King's College mint chocolate squares
2 Belgian dark chocolate squares
2 Czech milk chocolate drops
1 Czech cookie-- wafers dipped in chocolate
2 individual packs of English tea cookies
1 English cookie called a "flapjack," which was billed as being "nobbly and oatey"

In addition, I had a few sweets I had bought in the Prague airport upon departure, to use up my kronas. These included a honey-gingerbread bear, some hazelnut wafer cookies, a dark chocolate bar filled with pistacio cream, and a dark chocolate bar filled with bananas. I have the feeling I'll be giving a lot of this away; I am getting nauseous just thinking about eating it all.

The second thing I noticed was how dark it got in the evening, and how dark it was the following morning! Just one week up north and I had gotten used to the (almost) midnight sun.

Europe blitz

I spent the last week in Europe, but was not able to post from the road. So the next series of entries will be a document of the whole trip, written in real time, but posted en masse.....

Oscillating specs

Do you hate it when your cat wants to come in, but then immediately wants to go back out? And back in, and out.

I just ate some grapes that had really thick, tough skin. In fact, I've never had grapes with skin this thick, and I've suddenly passed some point where I can see they're a far cry from what I remember as a kid. The same thing has happened with tomatoes. Does anyone actually like those grocery-store abominations with skin like a pomegranate and no flavor? (FlavrSavr-- hah. Never trust the word of marketing agents who use incorrect spelling as a feature).

We do this so the darn things will survive flying and trucking, of course. Because we want fresh tomatoes 12 months a year, we will happily accept tomatoes that taste like nothing and chew like meat. 12 months a year. (Thank goodness for local farmer's markets-- at least for people who can get to them).

But the point I really want to make is this: When humans found fruits and vegetables in the wild, they sometimes had very tough skins to protect themselves from animals and other elements of nature. One of the great accomplishments of early agriculture was to increase the size and tenderness of wild fruits so they were more palatable and nutritious for people. Big, succulent, thin-skinned corn kernels, squash, beans, berries, and oats. Yum.

12,000 years later, we are ready to reverse course. Just like my cat wanting to go back out.

It happens in technology too, of course. For years, people complained bitterly that LCDs had narrow viewing angle. They looked dark or had color reversals when viewed from even a bit off of center.

"We can't stand around a laptop and share the information!" customers complained.

A few tens of millions of dollars' worth of R&D later, we have laptops with nearly 180-degree viewability. Same for cell phones and desktop monitors. But now what do you hear?

"People on the airplane will look at our proprietary data! I need a laptop with a narrow viewing angle to protect our business!"

And so, you can now buy laptops with "custom" narrower viewing angle. Shame on you if you don't realize they are just selling you an old-style panel, but charging you for the extra "feature"!

Think about that next time you buy a FlavrSavr tomato or tough-skinned grape.