Helen FieldsScience Writer

After a very long time on an airplane, a much-longer-than-planned time at the Newark airport, and a very short time on another airplane, I am home from Berlin! Hooray! Now I have to think of something to do on my blog other than make mildly amusing observations about the German workplace.

This weekend the Burns Fellows had our official almost-end-of-fellowship meeting in Munich (or, if you prefer, München). There’s this little festival you may have heard of in Munich. Happens once a year? Lots of beer and lederhosen? Yeah, Oktoberfest, that’s right. It started on Saturday. Many of my smart friends have pointed out that it’s actually September, so here you go, fact of the day: Oktoberfest always runs for 16 days and ends on the first Sunday in October, so the latest it’s ever going to go is October 7, and it can start as early as mid-September.

Oktoberfest is the kind of thing I should hate. I don’t like beer. I really, really don’t like cigarette smoke. Loud boisterous rooms aren’t really my scene. And it was really hot in there.

But, holy cow, it was fun. Soon after we got to the Augustiner beer tent and ingratiated ourselves with a partly-full table of Swedes and Germans (you have to have a table or you can’t order beer), the band started playing, and we learned that what you actually do at Oktoberfest is dance on benches. That’s it. That’s the whole activity. Wave your one-liter mug of beer and dance on benches and sing along with the band. Note that you do not dance on tables. You’re not supposed to step on the tables. Everybody just stands on the benches. It’s easier than standing on the floor, really. (This may vary in other tents at other times. But in that tent on Saturday evening, it was all about the bench-dancing.)

I would totally go again. Heck, I have a dirndl now, I have to find another occasion to wear it.

Sorry the picture’s shaky. Blame one of my new Swedish friends.

The most annoying thing about Europe is the trouble it takes to get here. My flying experience, I must say, was really not that nice. The first flight, from Dulles to Newark, was in a turboprop, and it started out just fine – I fell asleep, which is my measure of a good flight, and was dozing peacefully when suddenly the plane started jumping up and down. We hit three patches in a row of serious unexpected turbulence. A coke went flying (and not onto the person who’d ordered it) and there was some minor shrieking. Also, the temperature inside the plane was about 300 degrees. I think we were all pretty happy to make it out alive.

I had a much worse moment on the second flight, though, the one from Newark to Berlin. We had to sit for two hours on the runway in Newark because of a storm, but that wasn’t the bad part – they turned on the entertainment system and brought around water and snacks, and the time went very fast. No, the problem was Atul Gawande’s book Complications, about learning to be a surgeon. When I bought this book at the airport, I forgot that I am totally squeamish. After I woke up Monday morning, I opened it up and got to about the fifth page, where he describes his first attempt to put in a central line. (It didn’t go well.) By the time I had the sense to close the book, I had broken into a full-fledged cold sweat and I thought I was going to throw up. Whoops. I really want to read this book, though – maybe I can get through if I take it a few pages at a time, and also avoid reading it in the window seat of a 757 after two hours of bad sleep.

Despite the moments of misery, I would recommend Continental – it wasn’t their fault I made a bad choice of reading material, and the pilot on the second flight was really good about keeping us updated and informed during the two hours of waiting.

Landing in Dutch Harbor is exciting. As you can see from this picture, Unalaska Island mostly just kind of shoots straight up out of the water. But there are some flat bits, and the airport is on one of them. We were apparently quite lucky that it wasn’t too windy or foggy to land on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Chris the photographer and I flew from Seattle to Anchorage. At Anchorage we were following the signs to the “L1″ gate and the signs led us out of security. And I was like, aw, dang, we have to go through security again? I have to empty my water bottle! And I did. And then we got to the gate. And it turns out, not so much with the security. Apparently on these really dinky flights, they just don’t bother.

That’s the plane that left before ours. (And Chris taking a picture of it.) Our flight had exactly three passengers. While we were waiting, the gate agent asked for our weights, then gave us new boarding passes with different seat assignments to balance the plane. It was a three-hour flight – I knitted most of the way. The flight attendant kept coming back to point out landmarks, including various volcanoes, Alaska’s third-largest lake, and her hometown. I have a picture of Mt Redoubt, but Chris’s is so much better you should just wait for our first daily dispatch, appearing here tomorrow.

I’m on the road, people! Well, actually I’m on the ship, but I’m a few days behind on blogging. So can you just humor me and pretend like I’m on the road? You’ll hear so much about the ship you will get sick of it, I promise.

Lookit:

Doesn’t look like the Bering Sea, does it? That’s because it’s Seattle! Hello, Seattle! Seattle was green and lovely and 50 degrees. I stayed up til 2:15 Monday night getting ready for the trip – then got up at 4:45 to catch my flight – so I spent a good chunk of my time in Seattle asleep.

But don’t worry. After a few hours, I managed to rouse myself to walk to the local yarn store and buy some yarn. Because that’s what this expedition needs: more yarn. I stayed overnight with Chris the photographer’s family, which consists of a lovely wife, an adorable daughter, and a giant schnauzer who gets anxiety attacks when Chris gets out the suitcases.

In the summer of 1998, I spent a few weeks traveling around Turkey with my mom. It’s really easy traveling in Turkey – the intercity bus system is very reliable. Western Turkey is full of ancient Greek ruins, and my mom had planned our route to hit the maximum number. We went to Pergamon and Ephesus and even Troy – it’s not known as the most exciting ruin to visit, but we had to take this picture. (Caption: Helen in Troy. Get it? Get it?)

So it was pretty cool to learn more about the region from Deborah Carlson, a National Geographic grantee who does underwater archaeology. There were two things her parents made her do as a kid: take Latin and learn to scuba dive. And now she’s studying a huge ancient marble column in 150 feet of water, in a shipwreck off the west coast of Turkey.

The story is pretty darn interesting, if I do say so myself. Read it here. Check out that beautiful picture – archaeologists have to move big things underwater very, very gently. How do they do it? They inflate a balloon with air. So clever!

photo credit: my mom, 1998

Here’s a follow-up to my Munch post:

I visited the Munch Museum on my February 2007 trip to Norway, and just didn’t feel like I could pass up a piece of Scream cake. (Norwegian lesson of the day: skrik = scream; kake = cake. You’re welcome.)