Seriously, Chamonix is the sort of place that makes you realize why skiers typically use phrases in conversation that otherwise are reserved for drug addicts.  Flying high through the air with light dancing all around!  Deep bowls of white powder everywhere!  It’s all you can think about and it’s going to kill you eventually!

The most interesting phenomenon I noticed at Chamonix while skiing by the way happened on the first day due to the curious detail of skiing above snow clouds.  It turns out if it’s not windy then snowflakes which are basically flat ice crystals will orient themselves parallel to the Earth’s surface as they fall (like a feather), and this will result in a glowing spot the same degrees below the horizon as the sun is above the horizon called a sub-sun when looking at the cloud below you.  Hey, for me this is exciting!  The sub-sun would also be visible right when you skied into the snow-cloud from above- a slightly disturbing thing each time, as your instinct is to question whether your vision is going when sparkly points abruptly begin swimming all around you.

But that wasn’t the coolest thing in general I found in Chamonix- that honor was reserved for the discovery that they have both a piste and a chairlift named after me here! As someone who spent many years of her childhood forlorn that she couldn’t find any vanity items in crappy gift shops with her name on them, a whole section of a major ski resort is like hitting the jackpot.  Pity they made a typo though as I would expect the French of all people to know how to spell my name properly, but then these are the guys who gave us good ol’ Mount White so I guess one can’t demand too much from naming around here.

So yep, the skiing was grand- I was a little disappointed in the town of Chamonix itself though.  Pretty, sure, but not that much too it and one of those parts of France where you can’t help but feel like everyone’s trying to rip you off and I guess I prefer the Wild West feel of American ski towns.  To be honest though with only three days I was too busy being one of the first out in the morning, one of the last off the mountain, and sleeping at least 10 hours a night to do the same thing the next day.  So a great escape to go skiing after all- certainly enough to starve off my white powder obsession for a little while longer…

It’s been a rather crazy winter in the Netherlands this year.  Two weeks ago I distinctly recall photographing daffodils along the Amstel River, today we’re one week into the longest cold stretch in a decade and people are walking and skating on the canal outside my apartment!

Things kicked off yesterday, when I rolled out of bed to discover that there were people skating where water used to be! (This is a bit of luck actually because the city decrees that boats aren’t allowed to go on some canals in winter, such as my stretch of the Keizersgracht. The next canal over is filled with broken up ice from the tour boats.) Not too crowded as yet, but that’ll change once the word gets out…

It should be noted that these pictures were taken on Monday as today was far sunnier.  The Dutch basically take the afternoon off when there’s natural ice to be had, and there’s even a word for it, ijsvrij.  I mean how could you not?!  Natural ice just doesn’t happen every year, certainly not within the city of Amsterdam.

By the way, as a friend pointed out there’s definitely something a little forlorn about parents dragging their offspring around on sleds in a country with no hills.  The Dutch will promptly tell you this is silly of you to note as there are canal bridges to be had, but this is just basically them revealing that they don’t know what they’re missing.

I have to admit that this looks really fun if you’re a kid though-

Sneller, mama, sneller!!!

Another rather interesting thing spotted on the ice is the hot chocolate stand set up by some enterprising teenagers! The most amusing detail to me though is the kids had a bottle of rum and they’d give you a shot in your drink for 2 Euro extra.  After all no one’s getting hurt and there’s money to be made, so who would let a pesky thing like liquor laws get in the way of that?

So anyway, this winter wonderland the Netherlands has fallen into is definitely lekker and I feel rather fortunate to have seen it.  The good news is there isn’t a real thaw in sight for the next week or so, meaning more and more sections of canal are becoming skateable- the problem is it’s usually weaker under bridges, but the first bridge is now skateable next to me so more are sure to follow (yep, I took this picture under the bridge!).  What everyone’s really hoping for with bated breath however is the Elfstedentocht will happen, which is a giant 200km-long race in the eastern Netherlands that was last held in 1997.  In fact, the committee that decides these things met today for the first time in 15 years with plans to meet again in two days, so fingers are crossed around the country! (Though, mind, mine are doubly crossed that they do it after this weekend because I’m going skiing!)

So hey, good times had on the ice by all!  And if you are in or near Amsterdam at all the next few days you really have to check this out, the longest stretch right now starts on the Keizersgracht not too far from the Anne Frank museum.

Now imagine the following for a second.  It’s Saturday night in Amsterdam, and due to my birthday party the night before I’m too tired to do anything crazy but a low-key drink sounds like a good idea sort of thing.  No worries, there are a bunch of little cafes around here that I haven’t checked out yet and one is hosting a CouchSurfing get-together, so I head to said cafe to see what I see.

The place is busy, but there’s a spot next to a cute fellow with a German accent who is asking intelligent questions about my research, and it turns out he’s a Physics PhD student in a town in Lower Saxony six hours away from Amsterdam, in town for the first time this weekend to help a friend move.  A geek running into another geek unexpectedly is always a relatively rare occurrence so we spend ten minutes discussing our respective areas of study, and then he mentions offhand that he used to study in Auckland.

“Wait, New Zealand?”  I am momentarily confused, then have a flash of recognition.  “Johannes!  Professor LW’s E&M class, the first half of 2007!!!”  He in turn recognizes me and much hugging and squealing ensues, not all of it coming from me, and we chat nonstop into the wee hours to catch up. (So much for a low-key night!) Because you see it wasn’t just that we were in the same class, we actually did problem sets together- which Johannes recalled in much greater detail and fondness than me, he’s the theorist after all- but I never grabbed his contact information before leaving, so I hadn’t heard a thing about or from him in five years.

Let me repeat this again so we are clear on this: I went into a random bar and sat next to a random guy who was randomly in town… and it was one I last met five years ago, half a world away!  I believe we have now passed from “it’s a small world” to The Twilight Zone- or as another friend put it, I have now officially traveled enough that the entire world is my neighborhood.

What’s the strangest coincidence that ever happened to you?  I’m sure I’m not the only one with such a strange story!

The University of Auckland- taken February 15, 2007

My only comment (beyond thanks again guys!) is geez, nothing like the Mercator projection to make a girl consider traveling to Russia, Greenland, and Antarctica!  When that happens, I’ll be sure to take the towel.

Yee-haw, I am off to the biggest astronomy conference in the whole wide world!  This year it is in Austin, Texas, which is so far from the Netherlands I have to fly hours and hours to get there.  I’m glad that gives me lots of time to look out the window!

Finally we are in Texas!  When I get to the hotel room I am mesmerized by the view- we are on the 12th story “corner penthouse” room of the hotel looking right down Congress Avenue straight to the Texas Capitol in the distance. (Yvette says it never hurts to ask!) I want to go exploring but that will have to wait, there is work to do and we have to go to the convention center.

First we stop at the press room where journalists file stories to all corners of the globe!  Yvette has a press pass in addition to her astronomer one, so while she checks up on the schedule it gives me time to catch up on my reading…

… but not for too long because on the very first day there is a LOFAR press conference to attend!  My friends here are gearing up to tell the world that our radio telescope is up and running, and they did such a good job that Nature and Science picked up the story!  Hooray!

The next day there was special session at the conference all about the first science results with LOFAR!  There is lots to pay attention to during the talks, from pulsars to cosmic rays, and it is cool to see all the kinds of science you can do with a radio telescope.

I should mention that AAS is a huge conference with about three thousand astronomers attending this year, and it feels like there are hundreds and hundreds of posters and sessions.  Even if you could never do it all though it makes me a little giddy to realize how you could learn about anything in the universe if you wanted to.  I might not know a thing about interstellar dust, for example, but it is nice to see a session for it listed and know someone out there is interested and discussing it!

Special session done, it is now time to help out at the ASTRON booth in the exhibit hall a bit.  My role is drawing people in when they ask “what is that animal?” about me, though because we are in Texas many mistakenly assume I am an armadillo.  Hmph!

There are of course lots of other booths and posters to look at in the exhibit hall, so eventually it is time to go exploring!  One booth I just had to visit was the one behind the Australian Square Kilometer Array (SKA) initiative, where I made friends with a kookaburra and a man who had a very strange accent.  He told me that the decision to build the SKA will be made in just a few months time, between Australia and South Africa.  As I mentioned before I’m crossing my paws for South Africa, of course, but wouldn’t mind making new friends in Oz either!

Finally it is the last day of the conference and time for the most important work of all- Yvette’s poster about AARTFAAC!  Yvette fielded a bunch of complicated questions quite brilliantly (and Artie wouldn’t lie to you, would he? -Y), and more than one person paused to give me a back scratch.  So quite a success all around!  The only thing that was not enjoyable was having the poster on the very last day of the conference, as there were lots of people Yvette hadn’t seen in years who stopped by but there wasn’t enough time to catch up properly.  Oh well, next time!

Work done, it’s finally time to walk down Congress Avenue to the Texas Capitol and take advantage of those 2nd Amendment rights I’ve heard so much about!  I also learned a lot about Texas history while here, like the War of Northern Aggression where people in the South, animated by the spirit of 1776, died for state rights guaranteed under the Constitution when the North resorted to coercion.  Well that’s what the memorial plaque on the grounds says anyway, Yvette says it was mysteriously missing a few key details about the whole affair.

After all that, it is time to return to Holland.  I really enjoyed Austin and AAS though as I got to meet lots of cool people, learn a lot of new things, and enjoy a lot of good food. (They have fire ants here! So much tastier than bland Dutch ones! Though Yvette preferred the Mexican, steak, and BBQ).  It was so much fun to see so many astronomers and what they do!

No I’d never been to East Africa before, but when did such details stop me?  About a month of wandering through Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda ensued after this, first recovering from thesis work on the Zanzibar beaches, then heading inland for a safari and to meet up with my brother in Nairobi.  From there we went on some more safari-ing in Kenya, then up to Uganda where we paddled the mighty source of the Nile and got to track wild mountain gorillas… and I infamously got punched by one of them.  2011: year of the gorilla punch.

After that, because Patrick wanted to explore China, I was game, and it was a dirt cheap flight, we headed to Hong Kong and started slowly, methodically working our way westward to Tibet and Nepal.  I’m honestly still not certain what I think of China- the history and culture are incredible, the pandas are adorable, and the terra-cotta warriors alone made it worth our while, but I have a hard time believing that a country where people go to the bathroom on the side of the road and bans Facebook will become the leader of the world.  Perhaps someday, but it’s not exactly a straight line to that end goal is my point… though in a few years when more of it resembles Hong Kong perhaps I will change my mind…

Plus there was the matter of Tibet.  I will never forget Tibet, from the epic 48 hour train ride to Lhasa where there are military guards with weapons on every street corner, to the palaces and temples that had more gold than I’d imagined could exist, to the tears of pride in my eyes as I surveyed Mount Everest Base Camp.  Tibet was decidedly not China in every way your mind tells you you’re in a different country… until you’d see another Chinese flag flapping in the breeze or reach another roadblock and be reminded of this fact.  It’s not realistic to think Tibet will become its own country someday (as there are now more eight times more Chinese living there than Tibetans), but the Tibetans we met along the way are determined to hold onto their culture.  I hope they do.

After Tibet, late April found us going down to the low-to-us elevation of Kathmandu where I said goodbye to Patrick as he flew back to the USA.  I spent almost all of the following month in Nepal recuperating my strength by (I evidently have a strange sense of the word) learning to whitewater kayak, canyoning, paragliding… and doing an interview via Skype that led to my acceptance to graduate school in astronomy at the University of Amsterdam!  For someone who’d dreamed of what Nepal must be like as a girl it was certainly great to see that it was just as lovely and adventurous a place as I’d imagined, even if general strikes occasionally meant you had to walk to the airport because there were no motor vehicles to be had.

But anyway, after three months of the 3rd world it was time to return to the USA by way of Europe so I could admire how cool potable tap water is.  I visited Amsterdam for the first time with which I got smitten (still am), along with Hungary, Germany, and Ireland before landing in the USA in June.  Summer was spent doing various things such as helping my parents clear out my childhood home which was put on the market, getting my first article published in Astronomy magazine, and wandering a bit around New England and Quebec.  You know, fairly normal stuff for a change, plus getting ready to move to Holland…

My European life began just a few days before September, first picking up my citizenship papers in Hungary (I am an official dual citizen now!) and then doing all the frantic finding an apartment/ buying a bicycle/ settling into a new workplace things that all moves tend to entail, but this time with more Dutch.  While some of the process was a little frustrating (it took me almost a month to get a cell phone for example), I won’t dwell on this because I love my life in Amsterdam too much to do so.  You can do anything in Amsterdam that you’d want to do- admire some masterpieces, head to the beach, eat sushi at 2am, play around with RFI data for radio telescopes, learn improv, hop on a train and be in a different country in two hours… the choices are endless, and I love the city so much I already feel like my program length of four years is too short!

So after all that, what’s in store for 2012?  Well there will be some more wandering but on a smaller scale- I’m currently writing this from Florida where I’m visiting family for the holidays, and will visit Austin, Texas before heading back for the 2012 American Astronomical Society conference (yes, Artie Aardvark will be there!).  Then after that, well, nothing definite- I am looking forward to spending 2012 exploring Europe, but I’m mainly looking forward to just living life in Amsterdam.  They say you are soon immune of the beauty and charm of a place when you live there but I’m happy to confirm this is not the case- if anything, I’m becoming a bit of an Amsterdam snob as on a recent trip to Paris I found myself thinking “Paris is nice, but it’s no Amsterdam…”  Yes, there is clearly no hope for me, but it’s rather nice to live in what you’re convinced is the prettiest city in the world right?

It’s been a helluva year.  Here’s to wishing the very best to you and yours in 2012- and if you find yourself passing through Amsterdam at any point, be sure to let me know.

Zwarte Piet is a little black boy who these days is played by Dutchmen who dresses up in blackface and a curly wig, making this the only country I know of that seems to think this is still acceptable since, say, the 1920s.  Dutch people will tell you that it’s not racist though because it’s a tradition and everyone loves Zwarte Piet, but don’t bother pointing out that everyone loves Uncle Remus too- it’s like shooting fish in a barrel in terms of how hard it is to start a heated dialogue about this.

Anyway, once we’re done with the Dutch national pastime of arguing about controversial issues it’s time for a much more important one: poking fun at the annual Sinterklaas party!  Sinterklaas arrives each year on December 5 (meaning Dutch kids get their presents then, not at Christmas), but for bigger kids a bit of a Secret Santa ensues with a twist.  Instead of only pulling someone’s name for a present exchange, the present itself is immaterial and what matters instead is the poem and wrapping that goes into the gift which should be a bit of a roast about the person.  So for example a soccer player had to shoot a few goals, one fellow who’s had bad luck with the ladies had to undergo a speed dating course, a pianist got a miniature piano of construction paper… and I got a personalized pop-up book that you can see above (the cover is modeled after Sinterklaas’s book which holds the names of the good kids).

Now for the present I had to prepare, for those of you who don’t know me in the real world I happen to enjoy writing epic poems.  So when I pulled Thijs, a fellow PhD who also works for our mutual adviser Ralph (who recently became department head and got rather busy as a result), there was only one option in my mind…

Thijs’s Saga

Many a great tale has been said
About those who watch the sky,
Of their great tribulations
When Sinterklaas comes by-
But of all these tales big and small
No greater story has been told
Than that of our valiant hero:
A man named Thijs the Bold.

It all began not long ago
On a day of pouring rain
And Thijs was sitting at his desk
Thinking hard, but in vain
He’d been a PhD for months
But was still none the wiser
Because he didn’t know what to do
Thanks to an absentee adviser.

“Where’s Ralph gone to?”
Thijs muttered, as he let out a sigh
“Oooh I know! Pick me!”
He heard a very small voice cry.
He looked about- no one in
But then he caught the creature’s stare
And said a pleasant hello
To Artie Aardvark sitting there.

You all know those in Ralph’s group
Get a stuffed aardvark when new
But I bet you didn’t know that
These creatures can speak too!
In fact they’re quite intelligent
Although a little shy
So you have to gain their trust
Before they’ll give talk a try.

“Oh noble aardvark,” our hero said
“Do you know where Ralph has gone?
Because ever since I’ve started here
He’s been awf’ly withdrawn.”
“I know Thijs! But it’s awful
Perhaps the worst case I’ve seen
Ralph’s been lured into a trap
By none other than the Dean!

“Deep within Old Amsterdam
Where the whores and tourists roam
That evil creature called the Dean
Has made his office home
He’ll book meetings with advisers
From that base of his reign,
But it’s a trap! Once they enter
No adviser’s seen again.”

“That’s not so bad,” said Thijs
But the aardvark shook his head-
“Alas if he’s not rescued soon
Ralph will surely be dead!
And then you’ll just keep sitting here
And leave without a degree
Because without Ralph you won’t know how
To get a PhD…”

“Well then,” said Thijs, “I’ll go at once
And spring him from this trap!
I’d like to graduate, and besides
He seems like a nice chap.
There’s just one problem Artie
I’m really still quite new
And saving Ralph from the Dean
Isn’t a thing I know how to do…”

Thijs sat there and pondered
For he’s a theorist obsessive
Who knows a lot of hard maths
That sound awfully impressive
“Of course!” he finally shouted out
When the wheels fin’ly clicked
To save Ralph I’ll resort to
A quantum mechanics trick!”

You know those stuffed aardvarks?
Each is exactly the same
And in quantum mechanics
Is a theoretician’s claim
That two particles, though separate
Can exchange information
So long as someone works out
The waveform’s calculation.

And if he knew one aardvark’s waveform, why
It would be the same as another’s
And then Artie could see instantly
What was seen by his brothers
And years ago, Thijs the Bold knew
Ralph gave an aardvark to the Dean
So he just needed to calculate a waveform
And then know what that fellow’s seen!

So Thijs the Bold got busy
And began scribbling on his paper
He worked all night furiously
To follow through with this caper
Then finally at the break of dawn
It was clear he was in the right vocation
For the paper on his desk contained
The Aardvark Waveform Equation.

“Oh! I can see the room!” Thijs heard
From the aardvark by his side
“But this trial won’t be easy
Based on what I see inside-
There are all sorts of traps and tricks
In a complicated scene
Plus at the end, of course
You’ll have to fight the Dean…

“Oh Thijs! I fear you’re not prepared
For what trials lie ahead
And you can’t exactly rescue Ralph
If you yourself are dead
If only there was someone to ask
Who could help us in our cause…
Wait! There’s one man who might help
Let’s go ask Sinterklaas!”

There was a good stroke of luck
For Artie’s friends with Amerigo
So to find Sinterklaas himself
The aardvark knew the way to go
So they set off for Old Amsterdam
Through the canals and winding streets
And found the horse and man swiftly
In a huge crowd of Zwarte Piets.

“Ah Thijs, it’s you!” Sinterklaas said
“I hear you’ve been good this year
So I can help and outfit you
With your quest’s needed gear
But first, a test! Beside me-
A magic sword mired in stone.
Can you pull it out? A worthy man
Can yank it out alone.”

[At this point Thijs found his present was a sword in a stone, and had to pull it out.]

“Hurrah!” said Thijs, “let’s go now!
And dank u, Sinterklaas!”
And our heroes ran into the night
On their respective feet and paws
And they ran into Old Amsterdam
To find the evil Dean’s lair
They found it quickly thanks to Artie
Whose brother told him where.

They came to a tall canal house
And snuck into the ground floor
But once inside their eyes opened wide
At terror to great to ignore
For at their presence stone gargoyles
Which had been silently watching sentry
Awoke, growled, and attacked
When our heroes made their entry!

“Look out!” the little aardvark cried
But Thijs the Bold was not afraid
He swung at those evil sentries
With his magic sword’s blade
He swooped and parried like a pro
And then with a final thrust
Each gargoyle was speared in the heart
And crumbled into dust!

So Thijs the Bold and Artie
Ran forward up the stair
And down the hall that they’d heard
Was the way to the Dean’s lair
And finally they found it:
A great door of polished wood
And when Thijs wrestled it aside
What he saw wasn’t good.

Here lurked the evil Dean creature
With sinister eyes shining bright
A lesser man under its stare
Would have surely died of fright
But not Thijs the Bold! He looked about
And knew what had to be done
He drew his blade as it attacked:
The battle had begun!

To describe the Battle of Thijs and Dean
Would go on for many pages
But it will suffice to just say this:
It was a battle of the ages
And in the end our victor
Hit the evil creature’s head
And the magic sword worked! The Dean fell
And was most definitely dead!

“Hoorah!” was Artie Aardvark’s shout
As Thijs ran and set Ralph free
And they ran back to Science Park
With great thanks from the detainee
But as they returned Ralph soon showed
The effects of the Dean’s last spell
For he forgot all that had happened
Which was probably just as well.

“Ah Thijs! I was looking for you!”
Was Ralph’s happy cry,
“I need some new calculations
That you ought to give a try
“I want those by tomorrow, please
And when you’re finished with that caper
By this time next week
I’d like to see the first draft of a paper…”

Our hero gave a huge sigh
For a present adviser’s a mixed blessing:
You’re on track to someday graduate
But your work is much more pressing
But this PhD took solace
In that he’d averted disaster
And Thijs the Bold, I have been told
Lived happily ever after.

Anyway, the poem went over rather well as I suspect it’s a rare guy who wouldn’t want to be in the center of a saga where he’s the hero, but I couldn’t post it until now because one spends the next few weeks after a Sinterklaas party trying to work out who did what.  Things have all been worked out by now though, and my adviser quite enjoyed the poem too (although I might have an interesting time if I ever meet the Dean someday…).

Dutch Sinterklaas-time has certainly been an interesting one.  I’m definitely looking forward to next year!

Luxembourg City is a rather nice little town today and pretty perfect for a daytrip if you ask me- we got a nice walking tour map from the tourist office which we combined with some geocaches in the area, and wandered all about.  As in seriously, while I don’t say this often by the end of the day I’m confident that both of us felt like we’d “done” Luxembourg, which isn’t to say it wasn’t nice so much as that it was very small!

So anyway, during the typical wanderings about it was all quite pretty- it’s one of those never bombed or modernized lovely old cities of Europe- complete with the requisite castle ruins, fort, church, etc.  I will say that they definitely had some lovely details and examples of public art around here-

Public art is actually one of those things that has impressed me since I moved to Europe by the way- I won’t say I didn’t notice it on previous trips, but it certainly adds a lot more to a place when there’s a carving on the side of a building exposed to the elements which would be stowed away inside a museum back at home.  Life is just that much nicer when you just have to go out into the street to see beautiful things!

By the end of the day when we were waiting for our train back to Paris the both of us were worn out from all the walking, but filled with the quiet satisfaction one gets from having explored a previously unknown corner of the world (or was that just the wine for the ride back?).  My thanks to Nick for suggesting this daytrip in the first place, as I don’t know if or when I would have thought to head to Luxembourg myself!  I guess that’s what travel friends are for.

The December 2011 issue of Astronomy is currently out at all major newsstands and bookstores, and you should check it out because my second article for them appears in it!  Specifically the article is “Visit Southern California’s Top Astronomy Sites” on p. 61, and is a sequel to my article in the July 2011 issue.  And I’d say more, but I’m currently busily writing my third article that is due next week (my first feature, on cosmic rays!) and 2,200 words don’t write themselves!

In other news, I’ve been taking an improv comedy course of late and my first set is this Friday, November 25!   In short it’s at the Crea at 11:30pm after the regular show and will last a half hour or so, and is FREE!  It should be a good time- there is also a “proper” show starting at 10:30pm, and that will cost you 5 Euro (and an 8:30pm show that runs an hour that’s 10 Euro, but you can see both for 12 Euro).  Details are here.

Mind this set is primarily practice for my class’s “real” Improv show that will be on Dec 9 at 10:30pm and run an hour, also at the Crea.  If you can only make one that will be the one to see- I’m not saying this Friday will be awful or anything, it’s just shorter and later obviously.  It’s 5 Euro to go to this show and reservations are recommended.

It should be super fun times, and I hope to see you all there!  And if you’ll excuse me, my code’s done running…

Now time for a spoiler alert: the final score was 1-0, and if you know anything about the sport you know it wasn’t the Americans who scored the goal.  But it was my first big live national soccer match, and how you not have a good time with awesome seats like these-

Before you ask, these seats cost 10 Euros.  Really!  The reason is it’s not exactly like the American section is going to fill up at a soccer match in Paris, even when it’s a super tiny sliver of maybe 2% of all the seats in the stadium, so they were trying rather hard to get rid of them.  So hey that’s really awesome, except I am probably now spoiled for any future games I’ll attend.

The other thing to note is that even when you’re seriously outnumbered in the USA section that doesn’t mean the security is anything less than insane (and overall much more heightened even for the general crowd than any sports match would be in the USA, as the yellow jacket guards above show).  Not only were we in our own little gated area with a fence separating us from the rest of the crowd with tickets thoroughly checked to make sure no Frenchies snuck in, we had our own security detail!
Two of said security detail looking bored as hell, and the press photographers for good measure as they were kinda cool to watch.  The thing about all the security was I never quite worked out whether they were there to protect us from the French or to protect the French from the Americans in case we all brought our guns to the game or something.  All I know is it just seemed a little excessive to worry so much about the American presence inducing soccer hooliganism on either side because dude, it’s the American team.  In soccer.  Plus we were all patted down upon entering the stadium so not like we smuggled in our automatic weapons.
Anyway, it was definitely a fun game though my only wish was that it would’ve been nice for the Americans to score a goal so we could all go crazy a bit like the French are in the above picture when they scored their goal.  But alas it was a rather lopsided match in talent and refereeing- I know the losing side often invokes the latter, but I suspect soccer hasn’t caught on much in the USA yet because referees miss so many fouls- so there we are.  But hey, the beauty of Europe is it’s not like going to a big soccer match will be all that hard to do in the future!