Mexican Hospitality

Posted by Charlie Zien (Tecnológico de Monterrey – Cuernavaca, Mexico)

Hi all,

I wrote a post on the MISTI blog earlier in the summer but since then I have been focusing exclusively on my personal blog chronicling my trip to Mexico (it’s tough to maintain two blogs simultaneously).  If you want to know more, or if any part of this post makes no sense to you, you can take a look at the other blog.  Here’s the original post (from July 28):

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As I’m sure you’re all aware, the US soccer team had a, how shall I put this, less-than-satisfactory performance when they came here to play Mexico. They put the game on in our house, and at halftime, the score being 0-0, a friend and I decided to head out to a bar downtown to catch the rest of the game. Once we got to the bar the score was already 2-0 Mexico. At that point we decided it would be a waste of time to watch the rest of the game as soccer games rarely score above two, especially with less than a half remaining.

So we walked back to the bus. On our way to the bus we walked through the town square. There were TVs everywhere and I noticed the score had changed to 3-0. While we walked through the artisans’ market on the way to the bus stop, Mexico scored another point. By the time we got back the game was over, Mexico having beaten the US by an astonishing five points.

Of course, before the game we had been sure to talk plenty to our host family about how the US was for sure going to win and Mexico had no chance (after all, we did beat Spain). And as you can imagine, when we showed up for dinner we were subjected to all sorts of ridicule. Whatever; who cares about soccer, anyway?

Today, Dr. Ramos (my boss) took me to la Universidad Nacional Autónomo de México (UNAM), one of the most prestigious universities in Mexico, along with one of my coworkers, one of our collaborators from another university, and another professor from Tec. Initially, I was under the impression that we were to attend a conference there, so I was all set to put on my “I’m totally not bored right now” face that I have gradually perfected after viewing Powerpoint after Powerpoint of biological tedium.

But there was no conference (I must have misunderstood; apparently, my understanding of Spanish is even poorer than I had originally thought). The actual reason we went was because Dr. Ramos wanted me to see UNAM and the surrounding neighborhood, Ciudad Universitaria (CU). He devoted his entire workday to this end.

So this is basically a repeat of the last post on Mexico City. Once more I was shuttled about town, wined and dined, again without paying a penny. And once again I had a great time. The team and I bonded, talking about everything from Taco Bell to US and Mexican politics to Canada and its merits as a country (i.e. I made fun of Canada a lot).

I still am in awe of the incredible hospitality and kindness of the Mexican people. People here have consistently gone out of their way for me. I’m sure going to miss Mexico when I’m back in Boston being treated like an average Joe.

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I’m also going to throw in a picture, because everybody seems to like those.  This is just one of many great pictures I’ve taken during my time in Mexico.  If you’d like to see more (or you just want to stalk me), check out my main blog.

Jaywalking in Berlin

Posted by Kesavan Yogeswaran (Siemens–Berlin, Germany)

What’s wrong with this picture?

Hint: Notice how there are no cars in the road within 100 m

Answer: My coworkers are not moving. Germans absolutely refuse to jaywalk no matter what the situation. It doesn’t matter if they’re going to lunch at noon or if it’s 4 am with not a single car in sight. An easy way to distinguish tourists from native Germans is to watch people’s crossing techniques. I’ve noticed people who venture a few steps into the street before dutifully returning back to the sidewalk. I like to imagine that these are immigrants that haven’t completely become Germanized yet.

My coworkers noticed the picture on my screen as I was writing this post and (thankfully) found it hilarious. To their credit, Siemens apparently forbids them to jaywalk on the way to lunch for insurance reasons, but that still doesn’t explain why this happens all over Berlin.

Salzburg, Fussen, Munich

Posted by Tina Srivastava (BMW-Munich, Germany)

I am in Munich this summer working at BMW.

Last weekend Alex W., Ploy, and Alex P. visited me in Munich. We went to Salzburg and did a Sound of Music tour. Then we returned to Munich and everyone crashed at my apartment. In the morning Ian joined us on our trip to Fussen. We visited the castles and learned about King Ludwig II’s mysterious death. It was a lot of fun.

Next weekend we are driving from Munich to Berlin. If anyone else wants to join in, let us know! My email is tinaps@mit.edu.

A presentation at the Medialab-Prado

Posted by Madeleine Clare Elish (Medialab-Prado–Madrid, Spain)

Pues, it’s been a real pleasure reading all these entries! This afternoon I thought I’d share a bit about one of my own recent experiences…

Here in Madrid I’ve been working with an organization called the Medialab Prado. And no, it isn’t related to MIT’s Medialab or the Prado. However it does share the mission of both of these institutions.

Funded by the city council of Madrid, the Medialab Prado is a production-oriented cultural space that explores the intersection of art, science and technology. Through workshops, conferences, lectures, events and exhibitions, the Medialab Prado, like MIT’s Medialab is kind of laboratory for experimentation with new technologies, new ways of collaboration, and new ways to think about the production of art. Needless to say, it has been a truly exhilarating experience thus far.

After graduating college (I’m currently a graduate student in the CMS department), I worked for a prominent contemporary art gallery in New York, called Gavin Brown’s enterprise. In the gallery, a great deal of my work involved public relations. I wrote press releases, contacted journalists, maintained press archives for the gallery and each artist, made information packets for potential collectors and museum curators, and an array of other activities involved in documenting and shaping the image of the gallery and its artists. I think these kinds of activities are the norm for American galleries and for international art galleries whose aim is to be part of the international art market. However, these kinds of activities don’t quite fit with the content and –- more importantly –- ethos of the Medialab Prado. They’re not trying to sell anything to anyone. Here, it is very much about action and production and discussion. Part of my work here is to contribute documentation of what’s going on, to contribute to the collection of materials that informs the public about what the Medialab does.

It is interesting that “marketing” has become a word in Spanish, an anglicismo. Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to agree with an off-hand comment my Spanish roommate made: “You guys [Americans] are just really good at selling stuff.” Of course, this is a generalized observation that will disintegrate upon further inspection. Of course, there are brilliant marketing and PR people in Spain. However, I can only speak about my immediate experience here at the Medialab Prado and what my colleagues tell me. And it’s clear that they admire (although sometimes disdain) how Americans give presentations, how they seem to effortlessly sell themselves, their ideas, their products. (I’ve been asked by handful of people I’ve met here in Madrid if I might have time to coach them in making presentations.) What I’ve realized, is that the idea that it — selling an idea, having an elevator pitch — is normal is perhaps part of my own American-ness.

This came to my immediate attention recently when I spent a week developing a presentation with the directors of the Medialab Prado for a presentation that Marcos, one of the directors, was going to be giving at LIFT. LIFT, this year held in Marseilles, France, has been called the TED of Europe. The style of presentation is more or less the same, and so is the concept: interesting people come give short talks and lots of discussion and networking occurs. Marcos, who speaks English very well, was nevertheless very nervous about the presentation. He’d never been before such a large and important audience. His theory about why Americans tend to be better at presentations is because we are taught the skills from an early age. Not until college, Marcos explained, are Spanish students really required to present ideas or projects before the class. The lack of “interactivity” in the Spanish education is something I’ve been hearing a lot about this summer.

In any case, Marcos asked me to help him, and I happily accepted. We refined the text, added phrases he didn’t usually use and worked on diction. At first, I think I was coming on too strong, too “marketing” orientated. I kept repeating “Tell them why this is the most important thing in the world and convince them of it!” But Marcos’ was goal was to explain, to present,  — and really, — to share what he and his colleagues do at the Medialab. He wasn’t as interested as I seemed to be in convincing anyone. Besides the fact that we were speaking in English, (usually, we speak Spanish at the lab) I felt very American. Like an interpreter who didn’t quite get it. Over the course of the week, though, I came to understand better what exactly the Medialab was, and how it really is a unique space run by amazing people. The process itself was fascinating; he’d propose a sentence in English and/or Spanish, then I’d propose a more precise/strong/sophisticated way of saying it in English, then he’d propose a new sentence in English, based on my words but still definitely his own. It was a complex dance of negotiating meaning that we performed each day.

To a great extent, the questioning and reassertion of meaning is a part of living here in Madrid, not just helping Marcos with a presentation. Even in a European culture relatively similar to the US, sometimes common sense gets turned upside down. And those moments of disorientation and subsequent mind-expansion are why I love living and working abroad.

¡Viva San Fermín! aka “Running with the Bulls”

Posted by Vibin Kundukulam (IMDEA Materiales—Madrid, Spain)

“¡Loco!”

That was the reply I got from most of my co-workers when I told them about my plans for the weekend. That Sunday (now a few weeks ago), I was headed to Pamplona (northeast Spain) for the festival of San Fermín.  Sounds innocuous to those who think San Fermín is just another Spanish fiesta. Well it is, for the most part—except every morning, thousands of revelers, or mozos, charge down the streets of the city amidst a pack of monstrous fighting bulls. And I was going to run with them.

Sounds loco? There’s a reason the event is known as “The Goring of the Idiots” to locals who leave the city to get away from the filth and noise that saturates Pamplona during the weeklong festivities. Although there are rarely any fatalities, hundreds of runners get hurt every year. However, most of the injuries are not from the bulls’ horns, but from being elbowed, pushed around, and trampled by other frantic runners.

Before going, I watched every bull run video I could find online, studied the route, and read pages after pages online about “stupid-things-foreigners-like-to-do-during-the-bull-runs-but-really-should-know-better.” Then Saturday night, I took a late-night bus from Madrid to Pamplona with two friends from Georgia Tech who were in town, Dean and Jessie.

We got to Pamplona a few hours before Sunday morning’s run, and took the extra time to walk part of the course and take note of a few notoriously dangerous spots. After decking ourselves out in the traditional red and white attire, we made our way over broken bottles and empty boxes of sangría to the start of the course.

Dean and I before the run, around 6:00 AM. (pics from Jessie)

The run:

At about 7:55 AM, all the runners crowded together near an image of San Fermín at the start of the race.  Hands in the air, we struck up a chant that went something like:

“La-dee-da, la-dee-da, la-dee-da, la-dee-da…”

La-dee-da, la-dee-da, la-dee-da, la-dee-da…

La-dee-da, la-dee-da, la-dee-da, la-dee-da…

¡Viva! ¡Gora!

OK, so there were actually words to that first part there, but half of it was in Basque and the other half a mix of grumbling from young Brits, Americans, and other foreigners, so I could only understand the last verse. After the chant, most of the runners jogged up further down the street, so they won’t be found alone at one of the more dangerous turns when the bulls caught up with them. My friend Dean and I found a good place on the last straightaway, right after the bulls take a sharp right turn onto C/ Estafeta.

Waiting…waiting…waiting… bang! All of a sudden, the first rocket goes off, signaling the release of six 1,000+ pound bulls and accompanying oxen. No turning back now (except of course, to watch out for the bulls). Soon another rocket goes off to signal that the last animal has left the corral.

Since I had to wait for the bulls to catch up, my run started out as a nice jog with many, many frequent looks over my shoulder. Slowly, the shouts of the runners got louder and louder, and the people around me began picking up the pace. Then came the haunting sound: the sound of the herd, 12 animals, 48 hooves stampeding down the narrow street towards me. It was possibly the most nightmarish sound I’d ever heard in my life, my personal “O Fortuna”. By the time I saw the head of the pack charging in my direction, I had already broken out into a full sprint. At this point I wasn’t sure whether Dean was with me or not; honestly, I didn’t really care.  I was working on keeping my footing—one misstep on my part could cause me to trip up and fall, risking being trampled by other runners, or worse, the bulls. As the bulls neared, I slowly moved to the side of the street so I would allow room for them to pass without being in the path of their horns.

NOTE: Contrary to popular belief, people don’t really try to outrun the bulls. It’s physically impossible. The bulls can cover the 825m of the path in under two minutes. That’s roughly the pace of the fastest 800m runner on the world, who runs on a specially designed track with little or no obstacles, not the packed, slick streets of Pamplona. Instead, most of themozos run ahead of the bulls, pull to the side as close to the bulls as they feel is safe, then chase the bulls from behind into the arena.

Back to the story. The herd passed by close enough that I could just barely reach out and touch them (I didn’t, of course). And before I knew it, the bulls had passed me quite anticlimactically, and the terror was over. Or so I thought.

I continued to chase the bulls towards the end of the street with the rest of the crowd. All of a sudden, the flow of people began to reverse, and everyone was fighting to move backwards. I instinctively neared one of the safety fences, ready to duck under at any moment. Through the crowd, I could see the reason for the disturbance: one of the bulls had separated from the pack near the stadium entrance. Upon seeing this, I dive-rolled under a fence into relative safety—no matter how crazy I was feeling, I still wasn’t keen on going one-on-one with a raging bull. I watched the bull as it began charging at something on the ground, until experienced runners could attract its attention and lead it the rest of the way into the stadium.

The stadium, with the runners below.

Once the toro was safely locked up, I hopped back over the fence and dashed into the stadium, which was packed with over 20,000 spectators who wanted to watch the end of the run. On one of the huge screens, they were replaying the incident that had just occurred with the lone bull. It turns out the thing it was charging on the ground was actually…well, see for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJig8fZkA2Y (Warning: a tad graphic after 4:30. He ended up OK, fortunately.)

The rest of my trip to Pamplona consisted of playing tag with a heifer (a young cow they let into the stadium after the run is over, just to toss mozos around for the spectators’ amusement) and a nearby carnival. I went into work the next day (something I promise I’ll write about in my next post) feeling pretty awesome. Another thing on my “100 things to do before I die” list crossed off.

Boss: “Oh, so you made it back alive.”

Me: “Yep. Not even a scratch on me.”

Boss: “Good, because we have a lot of work to do. And you’re still crazy.”

I’m running with the bulls one day, writing code the next.

Bienvenidos a España.

The hole between Jessie and me is from a bull that had crashed into this barrier a few hours before.

They’re not as scary when they’re not real.

A foolish man provokes a lone bull.

Saludos desde Sevilla!

Posted by Irena Hwang (Universidad de Sevilla–Sevilla, Spain)

DID YOU KNOW: The ubiquitous, fun-filled classic La Macarena originated in Spain!  In fact, the original performer, Los del Río, is from Sevilla…much to the shame and chagrin of my Sevillian coworker (who is now still grumbling under her breath about how awful that song is and forbidding me from practicing my Macarena moves in lab.  Qué triste.).

Hola fellow MISTI travellers!  I’m Irena, a rising junior in courses 6-1 and 8 and I have been in Sevilla since May 23rd (that’s right, I hightailed it out here as soon as finals were over) and will be here until the end of July. So what’s Sevilla like?  According to Wikipedia:

“Seville (Spanish: Sevilla [seˈβiʎa], see also different names) is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of Andalusia and of the province of Seville.”

After over a month here, I’ve found that short description to be very fitting.  Sevilla is chock full of history manifested in its beautiful monuments, cathedrals, parks, museums and lifestyle.  A few of the main attractions are the Catedral de Sevilla (almost every city in Spain has its own cathedral, so if you ever go to _____ make sure you visit the Catedral de _____.  Trust me, it’s a must-see.  I think.  I’m sure.) where among other things Christopher Columbus’ remains are interred (gasp!), the Real Alcázar which was a breathtaking residence of Moorish and then Spanish rulers of the days of yore, el Museo de Bellas Artes, the Plaza de Toros de La Maestranza bullring, and the Torre de Oro which doubles as a really convenient landmark.  The interesting thing about Spanish architecture and art is the hybridization between Moorish and Islamic influences and the European gothic and classic styles.  Almost all the cathedrals are part mosque.  La Catedral de Sevilla houses la Giralda, a bell tower that contains a mosque.  La Catedral de Cordoba is housed in the Mezquita; it’s so interesting to see the red and white arches suddenly give way to the lofty gilded ceilings of the cathedral.  The palaces are almost all ex-residences of Moorish rulers, and are all intricately decorated with geometric patterns and excerpts from the Koran.  Also, the cathedrals tend to have interesting dead people buried in them.  I’ve paid homage to Columbus in Sevilla’s cathedral, and stopped by the sarcophaguses of Isabel and Ferdinand and Juana (La Loca) and Felipe (El Hermoso), all in the Real Capilla de Granada.

I think the most interesting thing about being here in Spain is how different the lifestyle is.  It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.  As an American (and a punctual one at that), I’ve only ever lived in a 9-5esque schedule where you grab breakfast on the run, then have an hour of lunch in the middle (if you’re lucky) and bedtime is at a reasonable hour like midnight (fine, maybe like 1 or 2 AM or worse at MIT but we can all dream, can’t we?).  On the other hand, this is the general Spanish lifestyle:

1. Arrive at work circa 9:30 AM

2. Work work work work…

3. ¡DESAYUNO (breakfast)! at 11 AM.  Chat with coworkers in a bar for about half an hour while chomping on tostada con mantequilla (toast with butter).

4. Work work work work…

5. ¡ALMUERZO (lunch)! at 1:30 PM.  Go to the cafeteria for a three-course lunch (I’m counting the fruit/dessert as the third thing).  Attempt to carry a conversation in a public Spanish dining area–nigh impossible.  It’s like talking to a jet engine.

6. ¡TOMAR CAFE (let’s grab coffee)! whenever lunch is over.  Hang out in an outdoor bar sipping an espresso or tea.  Watch students drink, sing bawdily and riot in a neighboring bar.  Enjoy the sunshine and the doves cooing in an overhead tree.  Develop a strong urge to nap in the sunshine instead of returning to the lab in order to…

7. …Work work work work…

8. ¡TOMAR OTRO CAFE (let’s grab another coffee)! at, say, 5 or 6 PM.  Take a breather.  Then:

9. Work work work work…

10. Go home around 7:30, 8, whatever.

However, my lab (electromagnetics and fluid mechanics) is a little more rigorous.  Generally we only break for lunch.  But the electrohydrodynamics lab…the beasts over there are taking 2, 3 coffees per day!  Rawr! Speaking of lab, I’m working in a fluid mechanics lab.  The current project is observing the effects of sinusoidal electronic stimulation to a capillary jet stream.  I basically apply a sinusoidal voltage across a metal/dielectric material sandwich, shoot water through a hole in the plate and observe.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Hopefully, my supervisor will soon have me build a circuit for a strobe LED, something more up my 6-1 alley.  But folks, the lab isn’t all business, all the time!  My supervisor is a man of many talents, and every Thursday he and a postdoc have acoustic guitar jam sessions right here in the lab.  It’s pretty epic.

Life outside the lab is wonderful if you’re in Andalucía (okay, fine, if you’re anywhere, but I’m quite biased towards Andalucía right now).  I’ve spent my weekends exploring all the nooks and crannies of Sevilla, been to Cordoba to see among other things the fabulous Mezquita, Granada to see La Alhambra, Cádiz to frolic on the beach, salsa dancing and frisbee chucking.  The landscape is gorgeous.  From a train window you’ll see fields and fields of sunflowers, olive groves and shimmering golden wheat.

Sevilla is composed of a many little barrios.  I’m renting an apartment with other international (and one MIT ) students in Los Remedios which is a lovely little barrio just 10 minutes walking across the Guadalquivir River from all those lovely landmarks I just mentioned.  In fact, my current living situation bears an uncanny resemblance to living in MacGregor (GO C-ENTRY!) and being able to hop across the Charles to get to central Boston where all the livin’ happens; makes me feel right at home!  I’m really enjoying Los Remedios; there are magnificent parks half a mile away in either direction, a supermarket about 50 meters from my apartment door and a family composed of screaming children upstairs.  It just doesn’t get any better.  Naw, naw, it is a lovely little place indeed.  So one thing about la vida Española is that instead of having giant general stores that sell everything (i.e. you can go pick up pool-cleaning supplies, a sewing kit, hot dog buns, and a blow torch at Shaws if you really wanted to), they have little stores for each thing.  Food is at supermarkets, sewing supplies are at mercerías, appliances and tools are in ferreterías, freshly-baked goods are in panaderías and shoes are in zapaterías.  There are tapas bars on almost every corner and heladerías where one can get frosty ice cream cones–perfect in this 102 degree weather!

Highlights:

Naboo! Aka Plaza de España, Sevilla

Plaza de Toros, La Maestranza

from the Real Alcázar

Puerta de Triana

Catedral de Sevilla

You know it!

There you have it, Sevilla in the summer!

In the land of red wine

Posted by Greg Durrett (INRIA–Bordeaux, France)

Hi everyone! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Greg, a rising senior in CS (6-3) and math (18). I am participating in the MISTI-France program. My internship is at the INRIA Sud-Ouest research center in Bordeaux. INRIA is France’s national computer science research institute, affiliated with a number of different universities in different parts of France. This one is affiliated with the University of Bordeaux 1, so I’m actually working in the Institut de Mathématiques de Bordeaux (IMB) at the university. What I’m doing is essentially analogous to a UROP, and the academic setting in France is actually quite similar to that of America. My project is on using certain statistical methods to analyze the dynamics of disease propagation during epidemics. It’s really interesting stuff and I could go on all day about it, but I imagine that anyone reading this would rather I didn’t, so I’ll stop there…

There was a small conference my second week here, with our research group hosting an associated team from China working on similar problems. Most of the talks were way over my head (as they mostly over the heads of the masters and PhD students as well), so the main benefit to me was a series of free lunches and a final conference dinner at a fairly nice restaurant. The meal followed the French “prix fixe” model. You have three choices for your entrée (appetizer), plat (main dish), and dessert, all for a fixed price, and the restaurant changes all of these daily. Dinner starts with an apéritif (a before-dinner cocktail) and dessert is followed by coffee, so dinner is pretty protracted; the whole affair took around three hours. And, of course, no dinner in Bordeaux would be complete without one of the region’s world-famous red wines. Unfortunately, having no taste for fine red wine, I was more or less unable to drink it.

I’ve managed to find time to do a little traveling around the area as well. Last weekend, I went with some people from work to Arcachon, a beach resort about forty miles from Bordeaux or so. It’s not directly on the ocean, so the water is warm enough to swim in, and the beaches are pretty fantastic. The picture is of me and Peng, a friend from work who’s originally from China. We’re sitting on the Dune du Pilat, a gigantic natural sand dune a few miles from Arcachon. As you can see, the view of the basin that it overlooks is pretty spectacular.

A few random observations:

• Around the university, I have not seen men exchanging cheek kisses as a greeting, and I myself have so far only exchanged the cheek kisses with girls. However, around the city, I have seen male-male cheek kisses (including between two tough-looking kids in baggy clothes, which was somewhat striking).
• While I guess Mexicans take a siesta, the French prefer to deal with the post-lunch food coma a different way. Our lunch group typically goes to a café near the university to have coffee before heading back to work, and I gather that this is very common in France.
• Europe is very linguistically diverse. Our small conference included only the researchers from the IMB (including me) and the visiting Chinese researchers. French and Chinese were spoken within each group, and English was a sort of least common denominator for communication. However, my advisor is originally Spanish, so he and another girl spoke in Spanish, and another group of researchers spoke in Italian. So in the end, French and English only got me so far at the dinner table…
• Europeans like American media a lot. Cinemas play all of the big American movies, video game stores sell predominately American video games, and apparently American music has become so popular that radio stations are forced to play a certain amount of French music. Michael Jackson’s death was a huge front page headline in “Le Monde,” and everyone at work was talking about it the next day.

Like Emily in Toulouse, I have found myself essentially immersed in French, as I am the only MISTI-France person in Bordeaux, and I only briefly met one other native English speaker as he was leaving for summer vacation. I interact with my advisor in English, as he spent some time in the United States and his English is quite good, but I speak French to all of my friends at work and everyone else I talk with in day-to-day-life. I’ve found that talking with people for a long time in another language can be mentally exhausting, and it’s a bit harder to just “chill out” with friends when you’re struggling with a bit of a language barrier. But above all, it feels great to finally be putting six-and-a-half years of French education to good use!