So, during our road trip to Oregon, Lisa and I listened to the 5th Harry Potter book on tape, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was the first direct exposure I’ve had to anything Harry Potter. I haven’t read any of the books and I haven’t seen any of the movies. I’ve sort of avoided them. Not so much because I dislike them, but more because I’m not so interested in them either. Because of the mania associated with the product, I’ve just stayed away. But, we had a long drive and it seemed like a good idea to listen to something, and Harry Potter was as good as anything.
First, I must say, I guess I do understand what people see in the Harry Potter world. The story is pretty captivating, though it does seem to dwell on details and side plots that don’t advance the story much. Though, in the end, most of those seemingly tangential story lines do end up coming back into the main narrative and making a difference. And, I did want to listen to the whole story, all the way to the end, which tells you something about how interesting the story was.
I read some reviews on this book on Wikipedia. There were a lot of interesting and odd analyses of the story and the Harry Potter universe in general. There are some saying that since the main characters are all men, the universe is anti-feminist, especially when considering that some loathesome characters, such as Umbridge, are female. Others say that the books are subversive, celebrating youthful rebellion and the bucking of authority.
I didn’t see that much at all. In fact, I took the opposite from the story. Almost everything that happened in Order of the Phoenix was the direct result of Harry bucking authority, but in a bad way. Much of the story concerns his punishment at the hands of Umbridge, but he is punished because he can’t keep his mouth shut. In the end, the climax of the story is the direct result of Harry’s impatience at his situation. He feels like he knows everything and doesn’t trust or believe the adults around him. That is fine, but it is his defiance of those adults that lead to most of the events of the plot, events that often turn out disasterously. If Harry were just a bit more patient and didn’t mouth off and just relaxed, not much would have happened in the story. In short, it seemed to me that the whole story was driven by Harry’s short temper. If he was even keeled, there would have been no story. The story seems to be a lesson against the impetuousness of youth.
Even so, I enjoyed the story. I’m not going to go out of my way to read more, but I won’t avoid the opportunities to see a movie or listen to another chapter of the Harry saga.
The ferry was very nice (on the way out, anyways). It wasn’t too crowded and, while it was a slow mode of transport, it was nice to be able to walk around, get some food and drink (there was a bar on board) and play ping pong. I pretty much sucked at ping pong, but the last game I played, I eeked out a victory (more due to my opponent choking than any real skill on my part). The photo is the sunset from the boat over the water.
Speaking of enjoying ourselves, the food overall was very good. Not only the cafeteria, but also the local restaurants. One night, we went to a Basque Bistro. While no one there was Basque (except me, perhaps), the food was very good. I had squid in its own ink, another guy had grilled sardines, and everyone was happy. Another night, we went out to the B&B that Kurt was staying at and had a very nice meal. I had a special local menu in which every course was paired with a local cider (the region, Normandy, is known for its ciders). It started off with duck meatballs, went on to pork filets, had an intermediate course of local cheeses, and ended with dessert (which I can’t remember at this moment).
The most notable thing about Caen is the church steeples that fill the city line. And they are all nearly identical, again, a consequence of the bombing: all of the churches were rebuilt after the war. William the Conquerer, who conquered much of Britain from Normandy, is buried in one of the churches, the Men’s Abbey. His wife is buried on the other side of town in the Women’s Abbey. Interesting how the sexes were separated like that.
Caen is very close to the D-Day beaches and, after the conference finished, we spent an afternoon exploring the American Cemetary. It would have been nice to have more time to see the others, but even that much was worth it. Around 9000 Americans died during the Normandy invasion, and you get a sense of that cost in human life by visiting the cemetary. It is amazing to think that almost 3 times as many Americans died during that invasion than have died in Iraq. Maybe that says something about war becoming just a little bit humane (though, that doesn’t consider the cost in Iraqi life). There is a little museum there too, trying to give a sense of how difficult the task of taking those beaches was. Not that I’m in any kind of shape, but just hiking around the hills surrounding the beach winded me slightly. I can’t imagine trying to take the beach and the hills, carrying a bunch of equipment and being shot at.
to stop screaming. But, we survived and made it back to London, where there was a metro strike, so we had to deal with that. The next day, we had some meetings with collaborators at Imperial College. That night, we were all exhausted from the travel, so we just grabbed some dinner at a local pub and called it a night. The next day, we flew home.
This year, Lisa and I decided to drive instead of fly. We put the Prius to the test on a very long road trip — nearly 2000 miles each way. On the way there, we passed through the Vegas area, driving across the Hoover Dam. I’d never been there before and it was a pretty impressive site. Unfortunately, it was too hot for us to linger much, so we didn’t visit the visitor’s center or anything, but just stopped and looked around. It is an amazing engineering marvel. The water line was significantly lower than normal, as we could see the normal water line etched in the rocks. We could also see that they were building a new bridge to bypass the entire dam. We figured it was so people couldn’t just drive up to the dam as the dam is likely considered a terrorist target. But, the bridge they are working on looks to be pretty damn amazing itself. It is high above the dam, seemingly just coming out the side of the mountain. It will be cool to see the dam from the bridge once it is finished.
We stopped at the Paris Hotel that night. We got in a bit later than we wanted (partially because it took us forever to crawl down the strip to our hotel), so we didn’t do too much site seeing. We did look around the hotel itself. It was made up to look like a small French village, with the slot machines, of course. There were some things you might expect from anything French that was missing. There wasn’t a simple creperie. The only thing available served humongous Americanized crepes rather than the simple lemon ones you would get in Paris. And there weren’t any clothing shops, something you see in Paris a lot. These were all things Lisa noticed while we wandered around. But, overall, it was alright. We had a nice view of the Eiffel Tower outside our bedroom window.
