The Globetrotting Geek

Wednesday/Thursday – Day 82/83

October 21, 2012

Today was yet more stress! I had a large programming assignment due for algorithms that I hadn’t yet started! As a result today was a flurry of activity for me. The lecture in the morning was nothing special but until my Ruby on Rails class I worked hard on the project, barely even stopping for lunch at Hillel.

My Ruby class has also improved significantly, largely due to the fact that I have recently put in a good few hours in to learning the first few weeks worth of material that I had only skimmed over previously and now understood it much better.

Evening was a rehearsal again, PGC as per usual, with dancing and the band. Fun as per always,

Following rehearsal I grabbed my laptop and walked over to the engineering quad, where a number of the TAs (teaching assistants) and students were busy on the assignment. To give a brief overview, the task was to write our own implementation of a stack in Java using two queues and then write an Infix to Postfix converter and Postfix calculator using the stack class we had made. At the end were a few analysis questions that also needed to be completed just to ensure we actually understood the task we were completing.

At about 9:23 I received a message from Charlie McClelland, one of my favorite oldmen from PGC whom I was meant to be interviewing this evening. We ended up rushing over to an Indian restaurant, Sitar, to catch a meal before it closed at 10PM. Our meal was delicious and the conversation excellent, though he had the sportsmanship I lacked ( being a past member of the Penn track team). However Sitar was soon to close and our meal was forced to end. Thankfully we didn’t end there, running by the Harnwell Starbucks to find a place to sit. It was all taken up by students busily finishing off the remainders of their work before fall break so we retired to my suite where we shared a little wine and chatted, discussing Australia amongst other things for a few hours. So far this was my favorite interview experience.

Thursday was my day to do errands, the shopping, various forms, the bank and a few other miscellaneous items. Physics was hard as per usual, though I followed along relatively well today. Operating systems was nothing special, as per usual I slept a little, keeping awake just enough to follow along. However, today I received excellent results from several assignments and so was in a dapper state all afternoon.

After a few hours of working in the evening, I received a message from Molly Hutt, a PGC alumna, inviting me out to check out a few bars in center city. So overjoyed to have received an invitation to go out and one that coincided with a downturn in my workload, I immediately replied in the affirmative, dressed myself and, set out to meet her and Patrick, another newman, to adventure in the city.

At the first bar we visited, the atmosphere was not so exciting, the crowd was too dressy and unfriendly and the only redeeming feature was the five dollar champagne. After a creepy guy invaded Molly’s space, we finished our drinks quickly and headed out to explore further.

The next place we found was a bar called Barbuzzo, which was a bit of a dark venue had an inviting feel to it, lively, with a great looking bar and well set tables. The bartender was excellent and the specials menu was terrific too. Patrick went for a pilsner, Molly a wine and I the sangria, all of which were fantastic. A pizza that was shared received top marks as well and the service was great. Highly recommended and we all said we would go back there.

Our final stop for the evening was the dog bar with pictures of puppies on the walls. The place was filled with an older crowd this time and we sat in our own booth discussing life while Patrick sipped yet another beer, Molly a wine, and I some Jacob’s Creek. Good to drink the taste of home.

Thoroughly tired from our night out we all walked back to Penn together before heading to our respective rooms and dropping to the floor.

Friday/Shabbat – Day 17/18

August 6, 2012

This morning I woke up to one of the most exciting emails I have ever received. Ask me about it.

From there it was a good few hours back to Jerusalem!

On arriving I decided to take a walk and ended up getting lost in Jerusalem (a rare occurrence) for a few hours and thus had a good three hour walk in the heat. I bought some rogelach (an Israeli pasty) and more felafel!

Dinner was a quiet affair at my cousins, with Daniella, back from the army for her first weekend at home. Surprisingly she seemed to find basic training a most enjoyable period and was treating it much like summer camp, earning the name ‘Savta’ (Grandmother) for handing out sweets to the other trainees.

Shabbat was peaceful, sleeping and visting family and friends. However, Saturday night was out on the town with Daniella! We visited a few of the less reputable establishments in Jerusalem and I met a few drunken friends of hers who seemed not to be able to stop yammering. Despite this, I enjoyed myself until I collapsed into bed at 3AM.

Kunsthaus Zurich – Day 3

July 22, 2012

This morning as per usual was spent waking up at a leisurely hour, followed by a delicious swiss breakfast. Today I took the ferry into the city, a forty-five minute trip on the lake, with the flag billowing in the wind behind me.  Following that, it was another morning in Zurich! For me, this meant the opportunity to visit the renowned ‘Kunsthaus Zurich’ (art-house), a gallery with many famous and wonderful works. Below I have included a selection of my favorites, famous pieces. Amongst them are works by Dali, Picasso and Chagall.

After lunch I briefly wandered the streets again, stopping to chat with a waitress at ‘Outback’, an Australian themed restaurant. She wanted me to come in and appease the patrons searching for a true blue Aussie experience. Next was a quick stop at Sprungli to buy a thing or two (see later post).

Returning to the Empting family, my afternoon continued in Lucerne/Luzern and the surrounding countryside…