Note to Self: Limit Outdoor activities in 90F temps

Today, I decided to head off to the gym in an attempt to start shedding those extra pounds I gained while on vacation. My "brilliant" plan went like this: get Aviva to drop me off at the gym around 10am, spend about 45 minutes doing some abdominal exercises, upper-body free weights, and stretching, then run home. So after finishing with the weights etc, I started off running along the Bausch and Lomb river valley path, a well- shaded asphalt trail that snakes through campus. I then continued along Mount Hope and onto Elmwood Avenue. What I hadn't counted on were the nasty effects of the oppressive heat and humidity. To make matters worse, that last leg of the run was in full sun and I eventually had to stop due to the heat. I felt dizzy, my fingers were swelling up like sausages, and I was drenched in sweat. I was forced to walk the remainder of the route, which turned a 45 minute run into a 90 minute walk. Lesson learned. As long as the heat persists, I'll either run at the crack of dawn or stick to the boring but air-conditioned indoor track.

Hiking through La Palma's Fuentes y Nacientes de Corderos y Marcos

June 12th, 2005: About six days into our La Palma stay, we went on a real hiking adventure through a series of tunnels and along a winding path that culminated in a small, steep waterfall.

Arriving at the hike location was an adventure in itself. After driving for about 2 hours along La Palma's beautifully maintained but steep and windy main road, we were jostled and tossed around for about another 45 minutes along a 12km path that was unpaved, rocky, steep, and very rough. Once we finally arrived at our destination, we began the 5km hike along the narrow path. Although the path was relatively flat and not too physically demanding, the real challenge was navigating the 13 dark, damp tunnels and keeping your eyes on the narrow rocky path. I had to fend off attacks of vertigo as I looked down at the 1000m+ drops into the forest that greeted me from every angle.

In this shot, you can see Fred gleefully taking pictures from the rather make-shift bridge, while I look down with obvious apprehension. What happened to the girl who was once comfortable enough with heights to jump out of an airplane?

Here we are successfully exiting our first tunnel, one of the shortest, driest, and most well-lit of the thirteen. Eventually, things got more difficult to negotiate. Although we had thoughtfully brought flashlights to help us move through the tunnels, mine died half-way through the second tunnel and Aviva's died a few minutes later. That left us feeling the walls and trying to catch a glimpse from others' lamps as we wiggled our way through the dark

Here, I follow close behind Aviva, who still had a working flashlight. Unfortunately, she too would soon be left in the dark.

In this shot you can see the system of tunnels we have just exited. Because there had been so much rain recently, the water was streaming into the tunnels at a fairly fast rate. We were well-prepared, wearing ponchos or rain slickers. Some hikers resort to using one of the plastic bags that are left on either side of the tunnel. If you click on the image to enlarge it, you can see both the water cascading down the second tunnel hole and a few cast-off bags lying on the ground.

At frequent intervals, we could see the far side of the path, sometimes with other hikers walking along it.

And this shot shows the amazing view that greeted us from every angle.

We also saw some fascinating flora along the way. Aviva took this photo of an amazing "rock rose." Officially named the "bejeque rojo," these succulents cling to the bare rock, like some sort of beautiful accident.

We celebrated arriving at our little waterfall by having a small picnic of cinnamon rolls, juice, crackers, and Smarties. We needed something to nourish us for the return trek.

Miscellaneous Shots

June 11, 2005: Although La Palma is a very small island, with a surface area of 706 square kilometres and a population of only 80,000, it's windy roads and sizeable mountains mean it takes a long time to get anywhere. One day, we went on a drive, intending to visit the northwestern tip of the island, and possible drive up to the observatories. Unfortunately, we gave up before reaching either of those destinations. The long windy roads became too much for us. And I felt motion sickness kicking in at several points, though my handy "sea bands" helped me stave off nausea. In fact, in some shots you can see the little grey bands on my wrist. No, those aren't retro sweat band fashion statements.

Here I am smelling the flowers in some small La Palma town. Note the sea band on my left wrist!

Fred took this rather striking shot as Aviva, Rita, and I explored the plaza in this small town. You can see us in the distance.

In this shot, Aviva bravely approaches the edge of a rather impressive viewpoint. Rita and I admire the view from a distance.

From this viewpoint, we could see the unusually straight main street of Los Llanos de Aridane. We went shopping in Los Llanos on two different occasions, buying some really unique jewelry and a few souvenirs for friends and family.

Here, Aviva humors me by posing along Los Llanos' shopping district. We spent the afternoon wandering through the town, eating a few pastries, and buying postcards and souvenirs.

Just one of the many spectacular views we enjoyed at various stops along the roadside.

Las Manchas Plaza: La Glorieta

June 9th, 2005: On our third day in La Palma, we went on an extensive drive that took us to several of the island's most impressive sitesd. One of our stops included the plaza La Glorieta in the town of Las Manchas. This beautiful plaza is full of amazing mosaics, prehistoric-looking succulents, and vibrant bougainvillea.

The Teneguia Volcano and Other La Palma Sites

June 9th, 2005: On our second full day in La Palma, we went on a drive through the southern part of the island. Because it was a fairly overcast day, we sometimes found ourselves above the clouds during our drive. Aviva is responsible for taking most of these photos so I can't take credit for many of these pictures, though I occassionally stole the camera from her so I could take a few pictures of her. In many of my other entries from the trip I've included a mixture of photos taken by both Aviva and Fred.

After a long drive that left me feeling pretty queazy, we arrived the site of the island's most recent volcanic eruption, which occurred in 1971 at Teneguia.

In this shot, you can see the "pillows" of lava that remain around the site. Although it's obviously more abundant close to the eruption sites, lava rock can be found throughout the island. Just outside of the town of Las Manchas, there is a veritable lava river cutting a swath from high up the mountain down to the water's edge.

Teneguia is also now home to a winery that produces some very fine white and red wines. It's quite amazing to see the vineyards growing in the midst of black lava rock.

Here, we are searching for pockets of heat within the rocks. In some places, you can stick your hands into crevices and feel the heat from deep inside the volcano.

Teneguia is also known for its salt works. Sea salt is traditionally used to cook the papas arugadas that we ate at most La Palma restaurants. The salt pans used to process the salt had to be re-made after the 1971 volcanic eruption covered them. Unfortunately, the salt works aren't open to the public--though I did buy a big bag of the stuff to take home with me. In this shot you can see piles of sea salt in the distance.

Just past the salt works is a small fishing community, home to a fish restaurant of considerable repute. Unfortunately, it was closed. Although we didn't get to taste the fish, we did get to enjoy the lovely view.

La Isla Bonita

June 7th-14th, 2005: Our recent vacation started off in La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago of seven volcanic islands located off the northwest coast of Africa. Strangely enough, La Palma is less popular with the tourists, due in large part to its black sandy beaches, which can become scorchingly hot. Madonna, however, recognized the merits of "la isla bonita" when she wrote her 1987 song of the same name. We loved La Palma's relative quite and managed to sucessfully navigate its black sand beaches. We stayed at Aviva's Aunt and Uncle's apartment in Puerto Naos, which was a stone's throw away from the beach and provided us with a wonderful homebase during our stay.

We also spent many evenings and afternoons at their lovely house in El Paso where we ate wonderful smoked goat cheese, drank lots of champagne and wine, swam in the pool, played with their adorable dogs, two Spanish Podencos named Fina and Benny, and raided the garden for "caped gooseberries" and sour cherries.

Although I attempted to do a bit of suntanning, my SPF 50 prevented me from losing my ghostly glow. My new freckles, however, stand as testament to my time in the sun.

The flowers in Doris and Horst's garden were amazing, full of birds of paradise, palm trees, and tons of colourful flowers.

Fred, Rita, Aviva, Me, Doris, Fina, and Horst: the only one missing from this group shot is Benny. He prefers hunting lizards to posing for pictures.

Fina and Benny greeted us warmly every time we arrived. Such lovely affectionate dogs. Aviva and I became so enamored with the breed that we contemplated adopting a Podenco puppy from the local shelter. We thought that a dog breed for the tropics might not appreciate the Rochester winter, however.

Back in Rochester

We returned from our whirlwind vacation on Sunday evening and I've spent the last few days trying to recover from horrible jetlag and coping with the heat and humidity that has hit Rochester. Temperatures will be above 90F again today and it's making it difficult to accomplish much of anything. Even the cats and dog are just lolling around looking miserable. In any case, once my energy returns, I will post some entries about our trip to La Palma and Germany. In the mean time, here are a few teaser photos from La Palma.

This photo was taken while we ate at a restaurant in the town of Tazacorte. As at most La Palma restaurants, we enjoyed lovely fish, salt potatoes, mojo, and salad. As you can see, I gained many new freckles during the course of my vacation.

This shot was taken close to Porto Naos, the small beach town where we stayed while in La Palma. If you look closely you can see the black sand beaches where we spent a few afternoons reading, relaxing, and catching a few rays.

Dunkin' Donuts: Berlin

I don't know whether to be apologetic about deserting my blog for several weeks while I'm on vacation or to be embarrassed for actually bothering to post an entry when I should be exploring the sites of Berlin. In fact, I'm in Dunkin Donuts of all places, checking my email before we head off to other parts of Germany. But, given that I had a few extra minutes on my Donut internet card, I thought I'd check in with my own tiny part of the blogosphere. So far, our trip has been fantastic and I'll be sure to post pictures later. We spent about a week taking in the sites of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands: we basked in the sun at Porte Naos and I managed to avoid sunburning by slathering on the spf 50 sunblock, visited volcanic craters, hiked through mountainous caves, and ate smoked Spanish goat cheese, papas arrugadas--tasty little "wrinkly" salt potatoes--and red and green mojo, a garlic, cilantro, and pepper sauce eaten with fish and meat. What a wonderful place. Aviva and I are determined to return again and complete some of the many extremely challenging hikes the island has to offer the adventurous traveler.

We're now about to leave Berlin, where we've visited various attractions, eaten more tasty food, done some shopping, and watched a rather crazy pantomime theatre production (no mimes, thank god! just people wearing rather large, big-nosed masks). Now we're off to spend some time with Aviva's grandmother in a small town outside of Cologne. The intrepid travelers will return on June 26th, at which time I'll post photos and return to my boring life of dissertation writing.

Written by Monkeys. Monkeys, I Tell You

I posted this response on a friend's blog but thought I'd also add it here so that more people can hear me rant about the final installment in the the Star Wars prequels. Last night, Aviva and I finally got a chance to see Revenge of The Sith. As countless other viewers have noted, the acting was often more wooden than Pinocchio, the plot tied up all the lose ends like a Christmas package wrapped by Macy's, the love scenes were more sacrine than a Hallmark movie, and the only female character was reduced to a doe-eyed and helpless waif. And yet, even after that diatribe I am willing to admit that I enjoyed the film. I didn't expect it to be a good film. I didn't expect the acting or script to inspire talk of Oscars and Golden Globes. I expected a fun, mindless ride that paralells a journey on the Coney Island Cyclone. And that's exactly what I got: spectacle, a sense of closure, lovely costumes, spectacular digitial animation, and a satisfiying final battle. Even so, one must question Lucas's decision to hire monkeys to write the script. I mean, really, the wookies and R2D2 had the best lines in the entire film.

It's Not Like Law & Order

Yesterday, I came home from doing some tutoring to find a subpoena in my mailbox, demanding that I appear before the Grand Jury to testify in the robbery case on Monday at 1:29pm, which creates a bit of a problem because I'm leaving for Spain at 12:55pm. I exchanged multiple phone calls with the assistant DA and she's made arrangements for me to give my testimony before the judge at 9:00am. That testimony will then be shared with the jurors and used in the case against the robber. Apparently, they are recommending prison time for the man as he was out on parole when he committed the crime. From what they tell me, he has a long history of robbery, drug charges, etc. Although it's going to make my Monday morning incredibly hectic, I wanted to try my best to appear so I'm pleased that the DA found a way for me to give my testimony. Although I'm sure they wouldn't have forced me to appear and thus miss my flight, it was strange to get a subpoena demanding that I show up in court. In any case, the whole process is most certainly not like on Law & Order where suited detectives personally deliver a very serious document in an official-looking envelope, and warn you that you must stay in the country. My subpoena came in the form of a wrinkled, half-sheet of paper stuffed haphazardly in my mailbox. It really had none of the authoritative vibe one expects after watching way too much court T.V. And where's my police protection? Where's my practice testimony and coaching from the DA? Oh, right, this isn't an NBC drama and the case involves a stolen purse, not the dealings of an international drug cartel or human smuggling ring.

The Media Loves a Damsel in Distress

Yesterday, one of my friends sent me an email with a link to a very brief write-up in the local paper, the Democrat and Chronicle, that reported (I use that term loosely) on Wednesday night's robbery. When I clicked on the link and read the paragraph, I felt a pretty serious degree of anger. According to the Democrat and Chronicle, the police officer retrieved my purse after "he spotted a man pulling a purse from a female victim." The newspaper also reported that "The man saw [Officer] Perez and tried to escape on a bicycle." In fact, the police officer didn't see the man steal my purse and he didn't arrive on the scene until after I had chased after the man for a half-block and I had retrieved my purse. I'm not sure who is responsible for the misrepresentation of the facts. The reporter? The police officer? Misrepresentation of facts aside, I found the report insulting for its problematic representation of the female "victim." The report paints me as a damsel in distress who stood by and waited for my male police-hero to apprehend the criminal and retrieve my stolen property. Screw the damsel-in-distress bullshit. Many women refuse to be passive victims, choosing instead to defend themselves and stand up to the men who try to victimize them. Media sources like the D & C need to recognize and represent this other image of women's response to crime.

I was angry enough to write a letter to the editor offering several corrections to their report. I'm guessing they won't print it. In fact, I anticipate them reading my letter and labeling me a crazy ranting feminist. Well, as I tell my students, we still need feminist rants to challenge such conservative representations: I will only become a post-feminist in the post-patriarchy. It seems to me that we still have a long way to go.

Graduate student by day, crime fighter by night

This evening, I went out for dinner with my friend Marty. Because it was such a lovely evening, I suggested we go to this little place called CK Tea & Noodle on Park Avenue. It's nothing fancy, but they serve good noodle soup, a great cashew tofu dish, and tasty bubble tea, though I'm a bit freaked out by the large tapioca bubbles working their way through the oversized straws. Anyway, as our meal was coming to an end, I volunteered to pay the modest tab if Marty promised to buy me dinner some other time after I return from vacation. I took my credit card out of my purse, set the card on the table, and put my purse back on the ground beside my chair. Only minutes later, I noticed a guy riding very slowly along the sidewalk on his bicycle. As he approached our table, he started to bend over, as though he were reaching for a water bottle or about to adjust something on his bike. Instead, he reached for my purse, plucked it off the ground and tucked it under his arm. I jumped out of my chair and started to run after him.

Luckily, his progress was slowed down a bit by a group of girls who were standing at the corner waiting to cross the street. It gave me the opportunity to grab the purse strap and give it a good yank. The man shook the purse and kept on biking. I refused to let go and yanked back. He lost his hold on the purse and then took off at full speed. I, rather foolishly, continued to run after him for about a half a block, yelling obscenities and calling him a coward the whole way. Perhaps because I was running in flip flops, I stumbled and had to give up the chase but at least I made it back with my purse. I got a small round of applause from another table of people when I returned holding my purse like some sort of trophy. Marty told me later that he'd been sitting there wondering, "why the hell is April running after that strange man." It all happened so quickly. Luckily, I saw a police cruiser just as I returned to the restaurant so I gave the cop a quick description and sent him after the purse snatcher. Not more than fifteen minutes later, a detective showed up at the restaurant and informed me that they'd captured someone who they believe tried to steal my purse. Before I could blink, there were another four cop cars, about five officers and four detectives around the restaurant, leading me and Marty to a car, asking other people for statements, etc. I eventually was asked to give a description of the guy and then ID him. Several other people from the restaurant also identified him. Afterwards, we were asked to go to the downtown police station to give a deposition. Apparently, the guy was out on parole so it's uncertain whether I'll have to testify in court. In any case, I couldn't help but be a bit proud of myself for not letting the jerk get away with stealing my purse, though I suppose it's not wise to chase after someone. Trying to replace everything days before my trip would have been a total nightmare!! Marty had to call his girfriend as we were leaving the police station, saying only "April and I are leaving the police station. We're fine. I'll call you back in an hour" What a provocateur. He totally did that for dramatic impact. Wow. It's been a rather eventful day.

My lipth are numb and I'm thalking funny

I just returned from the dentist and I'm contending with that horrible numb sensation one experiences after having huge needles full of Novocaine injected into your face. Hopefully it will wear off soon. I had to have a cavity repaired, which developed as a result of a botched repair of a damaged tooth that broke in two after I was in a car accident five years ago. As many of my friends know, I was hit by a car while jogging around campus at the University of Alberta, only a week after my physical therapist had given me the go-ahead to start running again due to shoulder and neck injuries sustained when I was rear-ended ten months earlier. Anyway, I hit my face on the hood of the woman's car and it broke two of my teeth in half. The dentist repaired them, but apparently failed to repair a small cavity before doing so. The result: a cavity got to develop, completely undisturbed, under all that filling material. Today, my dentist took it all apart and did his best to fix it. He's concerned that due to the size of the cavity and its proximity to the nerve, it may require a root canal at some point in the future. Still, he felt it was worth trying to preserve the tooth without the root canal first. Only time will tell whether the root canal will be necessary.

I'm a big ol' chicken when it comes to dentists so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed. My dentist has been very good so far. I must admit, I was more than a bit skeptical when I started going to see him in December. I bought into this student dental plan that allows you to go see one of the dentists at Strong Medical School's dentistry program. So, it means all the procedures are done in this big, round room full of about twenty cubicles (I kid you not!) where twenty different dental procedures are being performed at any given moment. It's very industrial and I was uncertain about having a dental student drilling into my mouth. However, my dentist has been very good so far. The down side--he's graduating and will be leaving in about a month. Sigh. The other problem is that it sometimes takes weeks and weeks to get appointments. I've been scheduling cleanings, x-rays, check-ups, and fillings since December and only now am I coming to the end of my treatment plan. I did have three fillings, but considering I'd not been to a dentist in several years and I've always been prone to cavitites, that's not as bad as I expected things to turn out. I'm hoping that my dentist will fix my two remaining small cavities in one appointment once I get back from Europe. I really don't want to have to worry about getting used to someone new. And I've heard from other students that some of the dentists who work out of there are a bit sketchy!