ESHEP and Romania

Particle physics is a very, very international field. If you don't consider travel a perk, you will have struggles with this field. CERN's experiments involve physicists from hundreds of countries. So, when it comes time to have a conference or school or something, it isn't too difficult to find a colleague from a very interesting place to host said conference or school. Our conferences can turn up in some cool places to visit.

Oh, and in Paris, because judging from the posters around CERN, Paris hosts a disproportionate number of conferences. But who's complaining about that? To share my current favorite quote about the city of lights, "Paris is always a good idea" (Audrey Hepburn).

CERN also hosts schools for students throughout the year, some based at CERN and some that migrate around a bit. I had the awesome opportunity to be part of the European School of High Energy Physics this year, held in Romania. So I with many other CERN physicists flew out to Romania in September for two weeks of physics lectures, mountains, castles, potatoes, and limited internet access. It was awesome. We were at a resort in the Carpathian mountains in Transylvania. I could see why vampire legends would flourish here The country was wrinkled with little valleys and crevices that you could miss walking over some plateau you thought was the lowest land. It would be easy to miss something there.

Berlin

After France, Germany was second on my list of European countries I wanted to visit. I had intended to check that off last fall, but for various reasons my travel plans had to change. The first time I made it Germany was shortly before New Year's, when a certain large storm rearranged all travel plans in the northeastern United States and after more than eight hours of nail-biting in the airport and another eight hours of sleep deprivation on the plane, I made it back to Europe by way of the Frankfurt airport instead of going straight to Geneva.

I was in no mood to appreciate any part of Germany that day, and declared that the Frankfurt airport could not be representative of the country. My introduction to Germany must be better than that.

That better introduction was completed by way of Berlin this past August. This is why I needed to get my hair cut.

Ah, Bravery . . . and hair

Living in a country where everyone else speaks French and I don't has made me reevaluate what bravery is. I currently have a new contender for bravest thing attempted in France: I got my hair cut.

I find it hard enough to communicate with a hair stylist about what I want done with my hair when we both speak the same language, so attempting that communication in French was intimidating. This is why I had put off getting my hair cut for about . . . oh . . . eight months.

What's a femtobarn?

In case you didn't know, sometimes physicists use some . . . rather odd units. Particle physics can be really odd that way, where we even go so far as to say that the constants h-bar and c equal one, let normal units like meters and kilograms get rearranged accordingly, and therefore mass, momentum, and energy can all be described by the same units. From such lines of thought, we get the unit the barn. Unlike the slug, the outhouse, and the shed, the barn is a common unit despite its name.

Yes, those are real units.

Easter: The Ugly

Contrary to popular belief, most of my cakes don't go according to plan. It is not uncommon for them to dramatically not go according to plan. In fact, from my success rate I don't know how the belief that my cake escapades normally go according to plan got accepted as a popular belief. It could only be held by those who have never, ever, ever joined me in my kitchen while I bake. Nothing goes according to plan. This is why I would never attempt a wedding cake without some serious training first.

Instead, I remain evasive about my plans beforehand and get creative about salvaging things that go wrong. So when my intended cake roll refused to roll nicely, I attempted a layer cake instead. Less fancy, but still decent and tasty, right?

Easter: The Bad

Yea, so this post is late. I spent the month of May working a lot. I do that sometimes. And then I left CERN for a week to do (almost) nothing physics-related for a week. It was awesome.

I could also argue that this baking episode kind of, sort of deserves to be forgotten, and I can't even find the picture I wanted to top this post with. But I will shoulder on anyway. Despite the insanity, I still found a little time to cook.

Way back in Easter-time, I decided I wanted to make myself a special cake. I had the year previously bought a nid de Pacques and quite enjoyed it, and I wanted to make something a little fancier. My intention was to make a small jelly roll cake, and then decorate sections with chocolate frosting and candy to look like eggs. The cake was to be a genoise sponge, and the frosting was to be chocolate ganache.

It's May!

Ah, the first day of May. Apparently, it's a holiday around here, too, though a less formal one than perhaps Easter. Since it fell on a Sunday this year, it seemed to be marked only by people selling little posies of spring flowers.

I approve of this holiday. Of course, I am particularly fond of the month of May. It was also a beautiful Sunday today, and the roses bushes around CERN have started blooming, and I finally got my balcony garden assembled, so celebrating spring has my vote.