my passport was falling apart, it was issued when I was 16 and it did not look like me-my face has thinned out considerably. Since it was issued the style of the US passport, at least on the inside, has changed a few times. On top of that it went through the wash because I left it in my pants 5 years ago in France.
Consequently it was falling apart, the cover had separated. When I went to Poland the other weekend the border agent made me show another form of ID and barely let me in. So when I got back I went to the US Embassy in Dublin but I went at night and it was closed but the guard told me to come back on Thursday at 8am. The US Embassy is sort of an odd-looking compound down the street and around the corner from me in Ballsbridge. The Embassy is straight out of the 1960s with its kitschy circular design. A very recently built guardhouse is the only point of entry for citizens and non-Americans can't even get inside without having a visa. The person processing the visa application line at the Guardhouse said since she could read my passport I could wait until I got a new one but if I wanted a second opinion I could go inside to see an embassy agent. I did. I had to leave my cell phone at the Guardhouse. I had worn a suit because I wasn't really sure what the embassy would be like and I wanted the best service. The passport window was more like the DMV than anything else. A spartan room with low ceilings, white walls and chairs in rows face windows with speaking vents in them where embassy agents communicate with nationals. I put my name on the clipboard and waited. Their collection of magazines was interesting, the State Department magazine was an obvious choice but with it were a right wing magazine (American Conservative, maybe?), a magazine for a heritage organization, and some strange ones I don't remember.
The agent told me I needed a new passport and they could issue a temporary one if I got a travel itinerary & a passport photo. So I left and walked back to the house and printed out my next flight and went to a drug store and got my photo taken. The emergency passport was $100 but it was done within an hour. So now at least I have a passport that looks like me.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
on language
It's funny how English in America and English in the rest of the English speaking world parted ways a few hundred years ago but minus a few spelling reforms undertaken in the US the language is nearly completely the same.
One of the most prominent differences that can be noticed is the differences in words for clothing (jumper, trainers, parka, suspenders, braces, ...). This I presume is because what we wear is radically different than the people in the 18th century.
One of the most prominent differences that can be noticed is the differences in words for clothing (jumper, trainers, parka, suspenders, braces, ...). This I presume is because what we wear is radically different than the people in the 18th century.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
the disco
...very tight jeans are a lot less popular than I thought they would be and I left my loose fitting ones back in the New World
...I've gone out dancing at a club twice and every time they play Rappers Delight and everyone goes crazy.
meanwhile. Philadelphia's new mayor, Michael Nutter is vicious on the mike while the Roots' ?uestlove messes up on the turntable:
...Europeans are only now learning about Soulja Boy, I am teaching them. My horn-rimmed glasses already make me a Clark Kent look-alike and the Italians at the house have bought me a Superman shirt.
...I've gone out dancing at a club twice and every time they play Rappers Delight and everyone goes crazy.
meanwhile. Philadelphia's new mayor, Michael Nutter is vicious on the mike while the Roots' ?uestlove messes up on the turntable:
...Europeans are only now learning about Soulja Boy, I am teaching them. My horn-rimmed glasses already make me a Clark Kent look-alike and the Italians at the house have bought me a Superman shirt.
the thing is...
so I stuffed four suits (two three piece) and a blazer into a a garment bag, and mostly bunch of french double-cuffed shirts and lugged them Philadelphia to Texas, Texas to New York, New York to Dublin.
...I arrive at the confirmation interview for my interview and I find out that the office attire is business casual.
...I arrive at the confirmation interview for my interview and I find out that the office attire is business casual.
My Trip to Dublin
Leaving Jackson Heights for the Airport I initially intended to take the subway. After walking to the station with a ~50lbs backpack and a packed full garment bag strapped to a wheeled suitcase one of the wheels gave out on the suitcase and I took a Town Car.
While on the way to the airport the driver got in a fight with a couple in an Audi. The man in the Audi rolled down his window and told the driver off and then the driver in turn caught up and passed the Audi with the window down yelling "now f* you" in a Pakistani accent with his finger out the window.
The Aer Lingus check-in at JFK was rather long and my backpack barely made the 50lbs weight limit. At the ticket counter I was told that there was a change of planes in Shannon and that I would not get a separate ticket for that and I would have to just follow everyone else and change planes The security line was even longer and slower. A recent study found the TSA the most hated public institution, more hated than the IRS. The line was kept lively by the TSA manager who told everybody in his hard-boild New York accent to have their passports out with their boarding passes or face spending some time with him, which he assured us we did not want to do.
The airport bar at the gate was an irish-themed pub, I was going to order an hamburger but I found out that they don't actually grill them so I couldn't get one rare so I had a pizza with a Harp Beer.
The Air Lingus flight was on an Aerobus A330-300, one of 6 they are currently opperating. It probably hadden't been refitted since it was built, because it had drop-down CRT monitors rather than the behind the seat flat panels that have been the industry norm for the past decade. The services and the meal offered was a bit austere but nevertheless better than Southwest.
When we reached Shannon we went inside their terminal and its plush red carpets and older furniture reminded me nostalgically of the airports before the days of the sterile grey-white-black polished-tile-floors and blank-white-walled airport interior design of today. The Shannon Stopover is sort of relic of protectionist economics and unintended consequences that is being phased out. It was originally built as a legitmately needed refueling station for transatlantic flights before the Jet Age, when it lost its reason d'etre it became a dinosaur and an inconvience but a political football with a powerfull lobby behind it. As Ireland's economy grew so did the demand and the political support for direct flights to Dublin, but Aer Lingus, formerly the state airline, started phasing it out only in 2006, 41 years after they started conversion to jet aircraft and concurrent with the flotation of over half of the company on the stock market (the state still owns 28% and the employees own 15%)
While on the way to the airport the driver got in a fight with a couple in an Audi. The man in the Audi rolled down his window and told the driver off and then the driver in turn caught up and passed the Audi with the window down yelling "now f* you" in a Pakistani accent with his finger out the window.
The Aer Lingus check-in at JFK was rather long and my backpack barely made the 50lbs weight limit. At the ticket counter I was told that there was a change of planes in Shannon and that I would not get a separate ticket for that and I would have to just follow everyone else and change planes The security line was even longer and slower. A recent study found the TSA the most hated public institution, more hated than the IRS. The line was kept lively by the TSA manager who told everybody in his hard-boild New York accent to have their passports out with their boarding passes or face spending some time with him, which he assured us we did not want to do.
The airport bar at the gate was an irish-themed pub, I was going to order an hamburger but I found out that they don't actually grill them so I couldn't get one rare so I had a pizza with a Harp Beer.
The Air Lingus flight was on an Aerobus A330-300, one of 6 they are currently opperating. It probably hadden't been refitted since it was built, because it had drop-down CRT monitors rather than the behind the seat flat panels that have been the industry norm for the past decade. The services and the meal offered was a bit austere but nevertheless better than Southwest.
When we reached Shannon we went inside their terminal and its plush red carpets and older furniture reminded me nostalgically of the airports before the days of the sterile grey-white-black polished-tile-floors and blank-white-walled airport interior design of today. The Shannon Stopover is sort of relic of protectionist economics and unintended consequences that is being phased out. It was originally built as a legitmately needed refueling station for transatlantic flights before the Jet Age, when it lost its reason d'etre it became a dinosaur and an inconvience but a political football with a powerfull lobby behind it. As Ireland's economy grew so did the demand and the political support for direct flights to Dublin, but Aer Lingus, formerly the state airline, started phasing it out only in 2006, 41 years after they started conversion to jet aircraft and concurrent with the flotation of over half of the company on the stock market (the state still owns 28% and the employees own 15%)
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Fredericksburg, Texas
Fredericksburg is a very pretty and tourist little town. It's in the middle of the Hill Country of Texas and is more or less the capital of German Texas. There are enclaves of Texas where German was spoken at home up to a generation ago, with its own unique dialog, like Pennsylvania Dutch. Many of the Germans who emigrated to Central Texas were Fourty-Eighters, mostly educated and liberal Europeans who left after that tumultious year of 1848.
From Wikipedia:
"Fredericksburg (German: Friedrichsburg) was founded in 1846 by Baron Otfried Hans von Meusebach, new Commissioner General of the "Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas", also known as the "Noblemen's Society" (in German: Mainzer Adelsverein), and named in honor of Prince Frederick of Prussia, nephew of Prussia's King Frederick William III, and highest ranking member of the Mainzer Adelsverein. Baron von Meusebach renounced his noble title and became known in Texas as John O. Meusebach. Settled largely by liberal, educated Germans fleeing the failed Revolution of 1848, Gillespie County voted against secession prior to the American Civil War."
One might think it odd that the most famous WWII admiral is from a remote small town in Central Texas, hundreds of miles from the ocean. Nimitz was raised by his grandfather after his father died sometime around his birth. His grandfather was a merchant sailor and when Chester Nimitz wanted to go to the Army Academy at West Point however his congressman already made his appointment so he went to Annapolis, which Nimitz had never heard of. Nimitz is also one of the few people who survived running a ship aground under his command and susbsquent court marshal and continued to have an (extremely successful) Naval Career.
We had a lunch at a very German restaurant whose name escapes me and they had some good beers, I think I had a Franziskaner.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
in ireland
I am in Ireland and my laptop's network card is still on the fritz. I went out with some people I am living with and it is cold, very rainy, and very windy.
The TSA stole the umbrella strapped to my backpack.
The TSA stole the umbrella strapped to my backpack.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Keep Austin Wierd
Austin is a unique city, it tries to be a unique city, I was impressed by places such as the Alamo Drafthouse, a movie theatre that serves hamburgers and cold draft beers inside the theaters, interactive movie, themed viewings, and other events that keep the cinema interesting and competitive in this age of video rental and general ambivalence.
I rode their bus system from the exurbs in the North to downtown expecting the worst and it really is quite the opposite. Austin's buses are clean, comfortable, and nice. Best of all, Google Maps has a 'take public transit' mode in the directions feature that has yet to make it into bigger cities such as Philadelphia and New York.
Austin's unofficial motto is Keep Austin Wierd. Perhaps I didn't stay long enough, but Austin was not nearly as weird as I expected it to be. The city has a lot of hype and a lot of 'indie-cred', it has a lot of independent shops like the ones pictured below, but it's a lot less dense and the downtown is a little less busy than I thought it would be, particularly for a city that calls itself the Live Music Capital of the World and wins sustainability and urban planning awards. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and I always thought about transferring/going to grad school/getting another degree at University of Texas. Austin looks like a great city and a lot of fun.
Wheatsville co-op
I rode their bus system from the exurbs in the North to downtown expecting the worst and it really is quite the opposite. Austin's buses are clean, comfortable, and nice. Best of all, Google Maps has a 'take public transit' mode in the directions feature that has yet to make it into bigger cities such as Philadelphia and New York.
Austin's unofficial motto is Keep Austin Wierd. Perhaps I didn't stay long enough, but Austin was not nearly as weird as I expected it to be. The city has a lot of hype and a lot of 'indie-cred', it has a lot of independent shops like the ones pictured below, but it's a lot less dense and the downtown is a little less busy than I thought it would be, particularly for a city that calls itself the Live Music Capital of the World and wins sustainability and urban planning awards. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and I always thought about transferring/going to grad school/getting another degree at University of Texas. Austin looks like a great city and a lot of fun.
Wheatsville co-op
An environmentally-friendly laundro-mat and a video store
Even major national banks try to be cool with their retail branches in Austin
Texadelphia, I suppose that means "brother of Texas", which is next to "Pipes Plus"
Austin: rating - B+
Austin's institutions
Austin is home to the beautiful Texas State Capitol. It is very beautiful and ornate inside and was actually built (1888) over a decade before oil was discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas (1901) , unlike Pennsylvania's similar and perhaps more ornate state capitol(1906), which was built over a decade after the peak of Pennsylvania's oil production (1891).
Austin is also home to the University of Texas, with is own very handsome 305-foot restrained-Beaux-Arts "Texas Tower", which is a part of their Main Building. Other Universities with towers include Moscow State University with an imposing 787-foot Socialist Classicist/Stalin's Empire Style tower, the tallest building in Europe until 1990, and the University of Pittsburgh's 535-foot gothic Cathedral of Learning. I can attest that the Cathedral of Learning is really quite beautiful inside.
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