Category Archives: goldeneagle

If reincarnation were a thing, and you got a choice about how you wanted to come back in your next life, I would seriously consider being a cat who lives in a fish market. I mean, choice #1 would be being a sea otter, floating around all day cracking open oysters on my chest andContinue reading “Athens Day Four: Aegina”

Technically this was Day Four of Athens, but we spent Day Three almost entirely at the conference. The presentations were interesting overall: my favorite was by Kent Chan, who works on Euro-American ideas of “The Tropics” and considers stereotypes about heat in his video installation for Weather Engines, “Heat Waves.” Sightseeing Day Three started offContinue reading “Athens Day Three: Aristotle, Dough Balls, and Lots of Vases”

After a quick breakfast at our corner taverna, Taia, we hopped on the tram for a winding trip from Kassomouli to Syntagma through the National Botanical Garden. From there, we walked through Plaka–both really touristy and really beautiful, with jewel-box Byzantine chapels and crumbling villas tucked at the end of alleys–to the Roman Agora. WeContinue reading “Day Two in Athens: The Agora and Ancient Greek Technology”

I’m here in Athens tagging along with my colleague Birgit, who’s presenting at a really cool project called Weather Engines at the Onassis Stegi art center. The exhibition collects various interpretations by multimedia artists of the factors that drive weather–human and nonhuman, and Birgit is one of the scholars making presentations that help put theContinue reading “First Day in Athens: Anchovies and the Acropolis”

We finished up our retreat in Spreewald yesterday, so I’m at last posting the pics I took with my real camera. Friday night we paid a final visit to Schloss Lübbenau, built in the 19th century on the site of the family seat of one Count von Lynar or another since the 17th century. MostContinue reading “Field-Trip Fridays: End of Spreewald Week”

The Zorbish folks here get seriously into Easter. They have a tradition of making beautiful Easter eggs using techniques including batik-dying, etching, and embossing. Back in the day, these used to be presented to feudal landlords as tribute–decorated on Good Friday to be eaten on Easter Sunday. But now they’re blown out and kept asContinue reading “Ostereier, etc.”

Yesterday afternoon we kayaked about 4 km to Wotschofska for some Hefeplinsen (yummy yeast-risen German pancakes, served at Wotschofska either with applesauce or cinnamon/butter/sugar). Sadly, they were closed for spring renovations! On the way back, though, we got to go through two of these cool self-service Schleusen (locks) that allow kayaks to navigate small rapidsContinue reading “Paddling the Lehder Graben”