The Globetrotting Geek

Friday/Shabbat/Sunday – Day 54/55/56

September 19, 2012

After arriving in on Friday I was forced to begin a mad rush to complete all of my work that was due before my arrival back at Penn. So out of my bag I grabbed my notes, grabbed my laptop and… rifling through my bag I couldn’t find my charger! This was particularly worrisome as my laptop contained all the most recent source code from my programming assignments (they were yet to be uploaded to the cloud).

This necessitated a trip to Best Buy to purchase a charger so that I could complete my urgent work. This turned out not to be a huge issue a Robin, Sarah’s mother, was going to Costco, opposite the tech store, to shop for Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year). I purchased the cheapest universal laptop charger in the store, checking for plug and power compatibility beforehand and returned with Robin back home to Sarah’s. Unfortunately when I plugged in the charger, my laptop still refused to boot! Oy Gevalt!

By this time it was well past midday and thus there was a mandatory stop for lunch before trying to figure out my next move. Luckily, Robin had forgotten to buy meat, so on our way back to Costco I took the non-functional charger with me and went to return it and buy a new HP branded one. However, despite my best efforts, I had left a piece of the packaging back home and thus was required to work out yet another seventy dollars in order to get myself back up and running. A return visit to Best Buy with the extra piece was then put on my ‘to-do’ list.

At that point, Sarah and her brother Zack, returned home from college and after a brief spell chatting, Sarah and I headed to the living room to put in some hours working before Shabbat.

Shabbat dinner was a peaceful family affair and soon after I was fast asleep. The sleep in fact continued till around midday the next, and meant that I woke up just in time for lunch. After that, it was time for a good hour and half walk around the area to get myself acquainted and to enjoy the pleasant weather. A shluf (sleep) in the afternoon rounded off the day. When Shabbat came out Sarah and I drove to see ‘Premium Rush’, a decent film with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, about bicycle messengers in NYC and we both enjoyed it, though it was nothing to rave about. Though I did think Joseph looked an awful lot like the properties manager from the PGC (Penn Glee Club) a lovely well dressed guy by the name of Devin. Returning home, Sarah and I talked till the early hours of the morning, while busily trying to get a little work done. Finally at about 2AM we called it in and headed to sleep.

Sunday was another trip to Best Buy to return the charge. After that, a good hour on the piano to relax a little and then again, a mad rush to try and complete all my work. Unfortunately I didn’t manage it all on time and now needed to talk to professors to try and obtain limited extensions to hand in my work Wednesday on my return to the states.

Rosh Hashana first night dinner was with Sarah’s Mother’s family. I was slightly overwhelming being introduced to so many new people at once, however, the food was delicious and, I had a great time entertaining and being entertained by her younger cousins. To them I exposed the fact that Sarah has an encyclopaedic geographic knowledge that includes every country in the world and their capitals. I also introduced to them a scoring system by which you could earn a point for finding a capital Sarah didn’t know. The sum of all our points by the end of the evening was a measly one. Trinidad and Tobago she had forgotten.

After a delicious dessert, it was time to go, however Sarah’s little cousin wasn’t too happy over the fact and made me promise to come back for Shabbat dinner another time. An evening well spent.

 

 

Friday/Shabbat – Day 49 / Day 50

September 12, 2012

Nothing significant about my morning course today, algorithms, except for a few new friends. However, and for this I’m sorry I didn’t bring my camera, was the student society fair. This was my opportunity to sign up to EVERYTHING. The groups were ordered by type eg; religious, sports etc. and this gave me the opportunity to join as many conflicting groups as possible. It was also in plain sight of their competitors and also led to a few interesting conversations. I joined the more right wing ‘Friends of Israel’ group whose table was directly next to the ‘Friends of Palestine’ group who I joined as well. I’m now a proud member of pretty much everything but the Pro-life coalition. I collected thirty-eight flyers and signed up to over thirty groups (I didn’t have the time to write my name down on everyone’s forms!)

The afternoon was all work, finishing up my coding assignment and getting ready for Shabbat with Penn Hillel, what will probably be a regular occurrence.

After the service and dinner it was off to the Rabbi’s roof, a fifteen minute walk away, for a bit of a party. Climbing through the maze of corridors, up three separates flights of stairs we passed a somewhat confused security guard we came to the roof. Surrounded there by air conditioning vents and with a view of construction sites, it was hardly picturesque.

However, turning the corner we came to a little ‘rooftop oasis’ filled with plants, deck chairs, a cooler full of Budweiser beer, and a good forty plus Orthodox Jews. After meeting the crew and chatting for a good while, our party was finally shut down by the Rabbi’s doorman, who closed the roof at 12PM, sending us down and back home to sleep.

Shabbat was a relaxed affair again with an accidental sleep in till past midday. At that point I went down to Rodin Jew (Rodin Two), the second floor of the building, home to the Jewish Engagement Program for lunch with Ariella and her friends. After a good few hours of schmoozing over a delicious shabbos lunch, it was time for a short shluf.

Shluf complete, I walked in the rain to F/Penn – Freshman Performing Arts Night, to which I had previously arranged a ticket for myself. There I spent a good four hours listening to oodles of acapella music and discovered that yes, there is in fact such a thing as too much acapella. Alongside that there were performances from numerous dance groups and a fine selection of theatre and comedy as well. Inspired by the performances to audition, I hurriedly wrote down the names of a good many of them in order to audition in later days.

Monday – Day 46

September 7, 2012

Today was pouring with rain and as per usual, I had a bit of a frolic in it getting various things done in the morning and though the student clubs fair was cancelled due to the inclement weather, I made the most of my early hours. I made a mad dash for breakfast was Thea Walton, a fellow aussie, and we munched ferociously outside on the benches during a break in the storm before we were soon overwhelming by battering winds and refreshed rains.

After returning to my room to dry off, I headed out on a trolley tour of the city. The photos that follow are still from my phone but, I am pleased to report that after the end of this day, I soon had my camera charger back!

First up on the tour was a visit to the White House that was established in Philadelphia before the relocation to Washington D.C. It was interesting as at least for our tour guide it represented the forming of ‘a more perfect union’ of the states however, black slaves still toiled under its roof, representing an imperfect freedom.

Just across the road was the line to enter to see the Liberty Bell. Suddenly it began to pour and we made a beeline for the limited shelter provided by the pavilion housing the bell.

After a short wait in the queue and a brief discussion over its significance as a symbol of liberation and freedom, I stood before the bell with its hallmark crack (actually formed during attempted repairs of a hairline split) and had the requisite photo in front of it.

Just opposite the pavilion was the first full court-house of the United States and also stood a building that I recognized; Independence Hall, featured in National Treasure and quite a well known monument, though no longer in use.

After that the rest of the group needed lunch and so they headed to yet another location for a cheesesteak. By this point in my trip I was quite tiring of the whole cheesesteak thing yet, dutifully followed them to wait in the queue at a supposedly famous location ‘Joe’s’ or something of that ilk.

After a good twenty minute wait, it was back on the trolley to see Reading Terminal Market and the railroad station above it. Unfortunately due to labor day, on our arrival we found it closed and so were forced to see the remnants of the train terminal from behind bars up at the Philadelphia Convention Center, a half of the repurposed terminal.

Next was a trip inside a neighboring hotel where atop it we could see a grand view of the city’s skyline.

From there we could also see the large statue of William Penn standing on top of city hall.

Our guide then told to us the story of “The Curse of William Penn”, a tale by now familiar to me. The statues of Penn atop the City Hall stood above every building in the city, watching over the welfare of Philadelphia and the success of its sporting teams. After hundreds of years, in the mid eighties, skyscrapers were built that surpassed Penn’s height. From that moment onwards, no local sports team was able to secure a major title. Loss after loss, year after year, the cities teams were destitute of victory.

Finally, in 2008, a new tallest building in the city was under construction: the Comcast Tower. A disgruntled engineer, upset by the curse hatched a plan. While working on the top of the tower he relieved himself of duty to go down to City Hall to purchase a mini souvenir William Penn statue. Having done that he returned to the top of the tower and welded it on to the top so that once more William Penn and his hat were again above all in the city. That very year ‘The Phillies’, the local baseball team, took out the national title.

A fascinating note about Philly is that all major building projects must contribute 1%  of their budget to public art. Comcast being a media firm running cable TV channels spent over three hundred million dollars building its skyscraper and so we headed over to the building to see how they reinvested into the city.

In typical American fashion, they had spent three million dollars on the installation of the world’s largest LED television with a resolution far surpassing that of any other television in existence. When we walked into the building to see it on display this is what we saw.

A regular wall with not much of interest on it. However, moments later the scene changed abruptly.

The wall darkened to reveal itself as the multi-million dollar screen in question. We stayed to watch for a few minutes, oohing and ahhing at the amazing pictures. However, I still felt that all that money could’ve been better invested.

After returning home to Rodin House, it was a quick change to get ready for the last social event of NSO: A Night At the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Transported on school buses, the entire crowd of exchange, transfer and freshman students, all dressed up in their best and finest headed to the gallery for dinner, a dance and, a chance to view the exhibition privately. Rumours flowed freely as to the cost of the event and none of them were below six figures.

The atmosphere in the gallery was rather odd, as in the main atrium loud dance music was playing between the people dancing next to marble pillars and a sumptuous buffet. I personally took this as a great opportunity to learn from the curators and guides within the museum and was soon exploring all it had to offer.

Inside I met a few Art History majors and also gleaned a little more knowledge from them, albeit laughing at their description of a fauvist painting as ‘pokemon-esque’. Later I met up with a lovely japanese girl Saya and her friend Royston to explore the Asian and Indian sections of the gallery before heading back home.

However, that wasn’t it for the night! The office of alumni programs was hosted a ‘host your own murder mystery’ game and I headed out to that, narrowly missing the first session to start. And so, in typical Shaanan fashion, I had a little play around on the grand piano in the waiting area. Soon a number of people were gathered round and I was fielding song requests. Just before leaving into the next session I was recommended by the head of the office to apply to play in a band and music competition for homecoming, the largest gathering of the year wherein alumni return to join with students in watching the Penn football team play a home game.

After that it was a round of the murder mystery and then quickly to sleep, before dropping from what was a seriously busy day.