BaLtiMoRe RoLL

BaLtiMoRe RoLL

I'm sorry Baltimore, but it's time to say good bye. As I said in my previous post, I'll be back in Baltimore a few times over the summer, so you may still see me yet. But it's silly for me to keep a blog called Baltimore Roll now that I've moved. So... I'm moving my blog as well. I hope many of you will follow me, and I'll still be reading your blogs as well!

My new blog is still at seadragon.typepad.com, but unless you type in seadragon.typepad.com/baltimore_roll, you're going to be redirected to my new blog: PhiLLy RoLL. Same blog, different colors, new city. :)

AsPartAMe

I knew there was a reason I always felt really uncomfortable about aspartame. I remember back in high school I once read the side of a package of Carefree gum and noticed a little box saying that when aspartame was given to rats (in large doses) it caused cancer. Now I know that almost anything in large doses given to lab animals usually results in something horrible (yay, medical research ethics) and that supposedly we are eating much lower doses so we aren't supposed to worry, but I don't know... it seems to me that if you're eating a little bit here and there, it probably adds up.

I don't know if my worry about aspartame possibly causing cancer was what made me dislike the taste, or whether I just dislike the taste to begin with, but I usually find myself choosing real soda over diet soda (of course, it helps that I rarely drink soda), real yogurt over diet yogurt, etc. I pretty much assume that the more "substitutes" food has, the less it ends up being actual food.

Just a little health warning for the day. :)

I think blogging is going to be light for the next few days, at the very least. When we get to Philly we may not have internet access for a couple of weeks (I know, it's almost unthinkable), and there is still this festering dissertation that I need to attend to...

MovIng

I thought that by I might be done with posting pictures from our trip to Germany, but I'm far from done. (Lucky you!)

But I thought I should take a break from writing about our trip because there is a burning issue I need to write about.

We are moving. On WEDNESDAY. That's in, like, three days!!! Oh Baltimore, I hardly knew ye. And now we are parting so quickly and with such little fanfare.

No worries though, I'll be back several times before I'm really gone for good. In fact, I might even be back in about a week. And then a couple weeks after that. At the very least. So I haven't really been writing about moving because there's been so much else going on.

No really, it's true.

You should see our apartment. It hardly looks like we're moving because until tonight, we had hardly packed anything. The next two days are going to be rather exhausting.

The other major thing I've been occupied with, besides the wedding which certainly took its fair share of time, is my dissertation. I need to finish it up asap, and I'm making progress. But it's painful. In fact, the past couple years have been really painful, and ... well, maybe I'll write about it sometime. But not until I'm done with it and can sit back and think about it without totally falling apart.

So I am looking forward to moving. And to the new job. And new city. Hopefully all these recent and upcoming life changes will emphatically mark a new and healthier outlook on life.

Starting with the little things, here's an issue that I've been mulling over for a while now and haven't come to any decisions about... what should I do about the name of my blog??? I am not sure I am ready to rename it! But at the same time, isn't it strange (and misleading) to keep calling it BaLtiMoRe RoLL? I thought about changing it to PhiLLy RoLL, and then if (or more likely, when) I move again, I could name it after the next city. I kind of like that idea, and I think the only reason I'm resisting PhiLLy RoLL is because that's pretty much the one sushi roll I actually don't like (smoked salmon and cream cheese). Anyway, if I do change the name of the blog, I would still keep the name "seadragon" (you know, to maintain my tiny shred of anonymity).

What do you think? Any suggestions?

BeRliN, 3

On our last day in Berlin, we saw the things you are supposed to see in Berlin - Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin wall.

On the way to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, we passed by this crazy sculpture. It made me think of James and the Giant Peach, but I have no idea what it really is. I looked around, but couldn't find a plaque or anything explaining it. Anyone know? (Jenny P, maybe?)

Just inside the Checkpoint Charlie museum, I found by taking this picture of the passport display that cameras were not allowed. Oh well. I probably would have been too tired and hot to take pictures anyway - there was no air conditioning in the museum and it was HOT. They have big glass windows and the sun was streaming in, so I was left to wander around limply as I read every placard and looked at every picture. I hated to find myself losing interest, but I was just so hot. (It is a good museum though. Definitely full of lots and lots of information, and I think it's really well presented.)

Eventually the museum ended (that place is deceptively huge), and we went to go see the wall.

    

As you can see by the last picture, life goes on around the wall. For some reason, beach bars are a big thing in Berlin, and I thought it was just a crazy image to see a beach chair and banners through this crack in the wall.

Next post... the US-Italy game in Kaiserslautern.

Kaiser-what?

Exactly.