My Track Record

I spent this past week at the 12th International Congress of Parasitology (ICOPA XII) in Melbourne, Australia.

When I’m on trips such as this one, I want to get around the host city easily, I want to eat recognizable food, and I want convenient Internet access. I’m not especially keen to immerse myself in the local culture or geography. I’m basically a bad tourist.

As a modern, English-speaking city, Melbourne fulfilled my focused, unimaginative desires quite well. Its differences vis-a-vis Seattle were sufficient to provide some intrigue without being so large as to cause confusion.

The local unit of currency is the dollar. The bills are more colorful than American ones and worth a bit less. I can handle that.

The ubiquity of expressions like “no worries, mate” suggests that Melbourners are somewhat friendlier than Seattlites. I can handle that, too.

My hotel was a cross between a youth hostel and an American hotel, with private rooms but shared toilets and showers. No problem.

The grocery store near my hotel stocked blueberries and dates, two of the only fruits that I eat, as well as fresh pancakes and crumpets in sealed bags. I ate a lot of Nutella-topped pancakes and crumpets this week — a fine substitute for my usual peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I suppose I could have stuck with PB&J, but, being in the Commonwealth, I would have been foolish not to take advantage of the crumpets.

In short, Melbourne is an ideal destination for uptight, unadventurous Americans like me. Should another visit be necessary in the future, I won’t be upset.

I’m in New Orleans, attending the annual conference of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

My son’s middle-of-the-night visits to our bed have cost me many hours of sleep lately, so I saw this trip as a chance to get some good, uninterrupted shut-eye. Last night I turned my hotel room lights off at 10 PM. I didn’t set the alarm on the clock radio because I didn’t need to be awake at any particular time in the morning.

At 4 AM the clock radio — the one I hadn’t set — turned on. Apparently the previous guest in my room had needed to be up at 4. Argh! Well, I thought, at least it’s still early enough that I should be able to fall sleep again. And I did.

At 4:15 my TV — silent and dark up to this point — began showing a cartoon on the Disney channel. This was really galling. How was I supposed to know that the TV had been programmed to be a time bomb? I angrily turned it off, went to the bathroom, and returned to bed.

At 6:15 the TV came to life again, and so did I, incredulous and bitter. I was now involuntarily watching a program that, at first blush, appeared to be an adaptation of The Flight of the Conchords designed for 3-year-olds. It turned out to be the The Wiggles.

The Wiggles have a wide following among young children and their parents, but at that moment, I would have preferred my son’s screaming.

4. Posters for the movie 10,000 B.C. give the title as “10.000 A.C.”

3. Every time I go out for a run, I wind up in some dead-end alley amongst free-roaming dogs and boys playing soccer.

2. If you dine out and order a main course of beef, the waiter brings you a giant plate of it … followed by another giant plate of it.

1. Some bathrooms have soap dispensers like the one shown here. (Image copied from picasaweb.google.com/leahrimkus/BuenosAiresArgentina.)

Getting soap out of this dispenser was not easy. I tried everything: pushing it toward the wall, pulling it away from the wall, moving it left and right, moving it up and down, pressing on the white base…. After about a minute of this, I realized that my hands were getting kind of slippery. The yellow “soap dispenser” was made of soap.

Up at 6 a.m. to catch a flight to London. Soon I’ll be back in the States, ready to return to life in the lab. What is it that I do again? I think I study glycolysis or something like that….

In conclusion, a list of quintessentially Spanish things I did not do on this trip:

(1) Watch a bullfight.

(2) Take a mid-day siesta.

(3) Get my wallet stolen.

(4) Drink sangria.

(5) Smoke.

(6) Pray.

Decorative skull, Isla Magica theme park, Seville.