![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onefixedstarOn the drive back from Quebec City yesterday, I started thinking of late summer and early fall and all of the wonderful food they bring, in particular tomatoes and winter squash. So tonight I made tomato salsa, which was delicious, and pumpkin muffins, which were okay but not great. I think I'll try a different recipe next time; I'm hoping for something a little moister with a stronger flavour. There's lots of pumpkin left over, so if I get sick of muffins, I may have to try making pumpkin curry with pumpkin instead of pumpkin pie filling and see if I can manage to spice it appropriately. Mmm, pumpkin.
Oh yeah, and I'm back from my trip, alive and intact and completely recovered from the cold that plagued both B and me for nearly the entire two weeks. Well, I think B actually was sick the entire time--yesterday was really the first day he seemed to be completely well--but I had a few days on either end when I was pretty much healthy.
I already posted about Philadelphia, but I'll give you a slightly expanded version.
The days were spent conferencing, more or less, which was less exciting than I had hoped after hearing stories of the previous years. There simply weren't all that many sessions that interested me. I think the problem is that it's just too general: at the Association of Internet Researchers conference two years ago, I couldn't choose between sessions there were so many I wanted to attend. The ASAs, however, were just a larger and not necessarily better version of the CSAAs.
We spent a large part of our first night wandering through the city with a couple of my fellow grad students. We managed to get a glimpse of the Liberty Bell, but we were there fairly late, and everything was pretty well roped off. I was amazed by the amount of security they had there, in particular the police officers whose main job was to tell people to stay away from the side of the road where the Big Historic Buildings were, and to whistle at cars that slowed down and yell at the drivers to keep going. I suppose I can understand the paranoia, but it makes me grateful to live in a country where we still feel that we can allow citizens to wander up to the parliament buildings any time of the day or night. Maybe we'll regret that freedom one day, but I hope not.
We ended up spending so much time wandering around the city that we stayed out past restaurant closing so B and I, after consulting the desk staff at the hotel, decided to try the 24-hour diner down the street. It was a cool place that served us decent eggs the first night, and decent ice cream the second night when we decided to indulge a midnight craving. It was fairly busy both nights, and both nights we ended up sitting near a table full of earnest college students engaged in the sorts of intense conversations that smart undergrads often have, about the withdrawal from the Gaza strip and whether the inaccessibility of classical music would spell its death. The cool part, of course, was on that the second night, the waitress remembered us and what we had ordered the previous night. That's the fastest I've ever become a regular anywhere. I think she may have been disappointed when we changed our orders.
Our evening pre-ice cream was spent with some friends of B's from various universities. They heard a rumour that there was free jazz by the water, so we wandered that way and found out that the rumour was false. We also found out, after walking quite a bit further*, that we had also been misled about the locations of local restaurants. We did eventually find a lovely Japanese steakhouse that faced out over the water, and we were served great food whose preparation was a source of much entertainment to us. And then B and I took a cab back, while everyone else walked.
* It may not have actually been that far, but I was in sandals not meant for long distance walking because I hadn't had time to change from my conference wear, and blisters were starting to form. It felt far to me.
Oh yeah, and I'm back from my trip, alive and intact and completely recovered from the cold that plagued both B and me for nearly the entire two weeks. Well, I think B actually was sick the entire time--yesterday was really the first day he seemed to be completely well--but I had a few days on either end when I was pretty much healthy.
I already posted about Philadelphia, but I'll give you a slightly expanded version.
The days were spent conferencing, more or less, which was less exciting than I had hoped after hearing stories of the previous years. There simply weren't all that many sessions that interested me. I think the problem is that it's just too general: at the Association of Internet Researchers conference two years ago, I couldn't choose between sessions there were so many I wanted to attend. The ASAs, however, were just a larger and not necessarily better version of the CSAAs.
We spent a large part of our first night wandering through the city with a couple of my fellow grad students. We managed to get a glimpse of the Liberty Bell, but we were there fairly late, and everything was pretty well roped off. I was amazed by the amount of security they had there, in particular the police officers whose main job was to tell people to stay away from the side of the road where the Big Historic Buildings were, and to whistle at cars that slowed down and yell at the drivers to keep going. I suppose I can understand the paranoia, but it makes me grateful to live in a country where we still feel that we can allow citizens to wander up to the parliament buildings any time of the day or night. Maybe we'll regret that freedom one day, but I hope not.
We ended up spending so much time wandering around the city that we stayed out past restaurant closing so B and I, after consulting the desk staff at the hotel, decided to try the 24-hour diner down the street. It was a cool place that served us decent eggs the first night, and decent ice cream the second night when we decided to indulge a midnight craving. It was fairly busy both nights, and both nights we ended up sitting near a table full of earnest college students engaged in the sorts of intense conversations that smart undergrads often have, about the withdrawal from the Gaza strip and whether the inaccessibility of classical music would spell its death. The cool part, of course, was on that the second night, the waitress remembered us and what we had ordered the previous night. That's the fastest I've ever become a regular anywhere. I think she may have been disappointed when we changed our orders.
Our evening pre-ice cream was spent with some friends of B's from various universities. They heard a rumour that there was free jazz by the water, so we wandered that way and found out that the rumour was false. We also found out, after walking quite a bit further*, that we had also been misled about the locations of local restaurants. We did eventually find a lovely Japanese steakhouse that faced out over the water, and we were served great food whose preparation was a source of much entertainment to us. And then B and I took a cab back, while everyone else walked.
* It may not have actually been that far, but I was in sandals not meant for long distance walking because I hadn't had time to change from my conference wear, and blisters were starting to form. It felt far to me.
