Our Princeton Weblog

A report on our life in the US wouldn’t be complete without some account of the place where we’ve spent the most time – Princeton – which is of course the location of a famous university but is also a lovely historic town surrounded by a green, semi-rural residential corridor, located in the state of New Jersery. New Jersey is known primarily for its shopping malls and turnpike rather than for it’s scenic beauty. We have found however, that if you get off the highways, it’s actually a lovely place with some historic small towns and villages, green fields, and even some farming areas – though mostly on a small scale

Our ‘home’ is a Residence Inn located about 5 minutes out of old Princeton off one of the major highways – US Route 1. Though we are close to malls, restaurants and business areas we are at the ‘green’ end and look out to trees and a quieter part of town which has been nice for me (’cos I’m the one who spends most time here.)

Our day begins with waking up (remarkable!) and then usually I take Michael into work where he does lots of geeky, secret squirrel things. Not only is that stuff incomprehensible to normal human beings, its classified so that’s enough about that. Except perhaps I should mention that he’s been working again with Art Drisko who spent four years working with Michael in Australia on posting. We’ve also enjoyed a few fab dinners and fine wines with Art and catching up with him has been one of the highlights of our time here.

While Michael works I get to spend my days in whatever manner I choose. Go for walks (even occasionally a run!); sit in my favourite coffee shop and read or type away (usually on this extremely scintillating blog); go shopping…Of course there are also days when I lounge around at the hotel, watch crap TV, read, snooze etc…it’s pretty tough.

One of the special things for me about being here has been reconnecting with one of my literary heroes – F Scott Fitgerald – who was a student here until he enlisted for WW1 in 1917. His first novel is set in Princeton and based on his student days and I’ve had fun re-reading that and walking around the town and university visiting all the spots he mentions.

Which brings me to Princeton University itself – an incredibly beautiful campus of gothic-inspired building (all ’spires and gargoyles’ to quote the fabulous Fitzgerald). It’s been a favourite occupation, walking around and taking it in. Medieval arches and a gothic cathedral all make it easy to believe we’ve stumbled onto the set of the Lion in Winter, until campus security drives past on a little electric car or someone wizzes past on a bike (or you notice the electric lighting, cars passing on the street etc etc).

At the end of day, I collect my geek and we head home to cook (and inevitably deal with smoke alarms), or we visit a local restaurant, or we order ‘take out’ from PF Changs – a chain Chinese restaurant next to the hotel.

So you can see it’s been a trial. Nevertheless we are looking forward to getting home to our bush paradise and seeing everyone and in the fullness of time we know we will look back on our Princeton sojourn and it will all seem like a dream…

So as it all come to an end here are some final thoughts on life in the US of A.

Things we loved: summer, fireflies, Princeton campus, cheap champagne (the real stuff – Veuve, Moet etc at half the Australian price), cheap raspberries, shopping at Marshells, seeing Gettysburg, New York, Annapolis etc…

Things we didn’t love so much: humidity, artificially coloured cheese on everything; strange food combinations generally (like sweet with salty); confusing rules about tipping (surely the wealthiest nation on earth could just pay it’s workers a living wage?), twelve-lane highways that still can’t keep the traffic flowing…

But now the dreamers stir, the eyes flutter, in the dim morning light we can almost see Australia…

Bye, bye America and thanks for the memories.

PS. Final note to brother Paul: 8 pairs!

Last weekend we ventured off on our final east coast trek. Michael had arranged to spend Friday working at Fort Meade in Maryland and so we decided to combine business with leisure. We set off on Thursday, heading for Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, home to the Amish and Mennonite communities. Apart from wanting to see a bit more of the country, I wanted to shop for locally made crafts and in particular for quilts, which many Amish women still make entirely by hand.

After an unscheduled ‘drive through’ tour of Philadelphia (yep, missed the exit) we arrived in Lancaster, land of of green rolling hills and endless corn fields, all dotted with picturesque farmhouses and grain silos straight off the set of ‘Witness’. There were way too many craft and quilt stores everywhere but undaunted we trekked from story to store in search of the best, most authentic quilts.

We found the perfect quilt outside a small store owned by an Amish family and were delighted to find that it was made by the lady who served us. She was very friendly and helpful and very excited to hear that her quilt was going to Australia. She even managed to find something for Michael - a carved, inlaid wooden box with a magnetic puzzle lock - the perfect memento for a classy nerd!

We also enjoyed a delicious lunch at an Amish family owned restaurant, the ‘Stoltzfus Farmhouse’ where we were served home-cooked, German style fare which included an amazing creamy, corn chowder, delicious home-made pork sausage with buttered noodles and a mouth-watering cherry pie. Fabulous!

It was then on to Annapolis where we would stay for the next two nights. Annapolis is where we would live if we were ever to come on posting, so I was rather curious to see it. I’m pleased to say it is delightful. A beautiful, historic harbour town with lots of old buildings, winding lane-ways (some still cobbled), gorgeous shops, great coffee, friendly locals and a picturesque harbour. Of all the places we’ve seen, it’s the one where I think I could live most happily, which is nice to know if ever the day comes when we do come here on posting.

The next day, while Michael was trying to gain access to the NSA (a story way too long to tell here) and spending the day working and catching up with old colleagues, I roamed all around the town and harbour. Had an absolutely lovely time and spent the afternoon relaxing at our gorgeous B&B in a Georgian period house where we were extremely spoiled by our hostess.

That night, when Michael got home, we indulged in a glass of champagne on our private balcony before heading off for dinner at a little place I’d spotted that morning. As you know, Michael and I are pretty adept at finding good food and coffee wherever we are and this was no exception. O my! Cream of clam and langoustine soup, rack of lamb, duck ragout with parpadelle…scrumptious!

The next day, we drove to Washington DC which has a kind of cultured, Parisian vibe (but there is also visible poverty). The central public spaces are impressive and we spent five hours that evening walking around the mall taking in the monuments including the amazing, impressive Lincoln memorial, and the moving Vietnam memorial. We also stopped by the Washington, Jefferson and FDR monuments and the Einstein memorial.

As we walked around the lake, it felt remarkably like walking around Lake BG in Canberra - water, lots of green space, monuments and big public buildings. In fact Washington reminded me a lot of Canberra in may ways just bigger, older and of course, American. It was a beautiful time of day to be there - as we walked, the sun set and the full moon rose over the water - spectacular.

One monument we found quite by accident was to Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko ‘bard of the Ukraine’. Of course we took lots of pics in celebration of our Ukrainian heritage (okay, okay, Michael’s Ukrainian heritage - I’m just a Ukrainian wannabe) though confess we had never before heard of him.

The next day we took in the national Air and Space Museum where we saw the Apollo 11 space command module (cool!), a V2 rocket, the Wright brother’s plane and many, many other cool things.

Then it was off to Arlington National Cemetery which has a breathtaking location, high on a hillside overlooking the Potomac and Washington. We toured laboriously up the hill in intense heat and humidity to see the former home of Robert E Lee (who was the owner of Arlington until he joined the Confederate cause in the Civil War and the estate was confiscated) and finished by visiting the grave sites of John and Robert Kennedy.

On the way home we did a ‘drive through’ (planned this time) of Delaware, the smallest state in the union where we had an incredible bridge experience driving over the Chesapeake Bay.

Then it was back to New Jersey and Princeton for our final week of ‘livin’ in the USA’.

Last week headed north to visit Connecticut and Salem, Ma. Trusting Google directions (which had been pretty reliable till this point) I picked Michael up from work at 4.30 and we headed onto the New Jersey Turnpike - a truly mind boggling maze of connecting roads that leads to and around Jersey City and New York.

Had there been anything - anything! - in the Google directions that suggested they were actually taking us into New York proper, we would have made our printed version into a paper plane, shot it out the window and gone another way but, lo and behold, after buzzing up the turnpike at great speed for an hour we found ourselves grinding to a halt in a maze of overpasses and connecting roads all converging on the George Washington Bridge at the northern edge of the city that never sleeps. Thus our 2.5 hour trip to Connecticut turned into 4.5. At the worst point it took an hour to travel 2 miles. (In fact referring to the photo below, it took 20 minutes to get from the point shown to the second bridge in the background!) Ah well, it’s one way to learn…

Exhausted and a little frayed around the edges, we finally arrived at our B&B in the cute little town of New Milford. Fortunately, we had packed plenty of wine which we unpacked in record time and so were able to toast the Aussies walking into the stadium in Beijing. (Honestly, the American TV coverage of the games is bizarre - the opening ceremony, which began at 8.15am US East Coast time, was not broadcast till 8pm that night and was presented as though it was actually happening at that moment. I had actually watched most of it on-line that morning and enjoyed reading the US bloggers contempt for their TV networks. As one guy wrote - ‘it’s all so 1984′)

The next day we explored New Milford and several other small towns in the area of Washington (there is a street, town, county, whatever, named after George Washington everywhere!). Attention Gilmore Girls fans: this is the area of Connecticut that inspired the fictional town of Stars Hollow in the series and I must say New Milford was delightful and had quite a Gilmore Girls vibe to it.

After a fabulous lunch at a gorgeous inn, set high on a hill overlooking gardens, a river and forest, and named - you guessed it - the George Washington Inn, we set off for Salem which is on the coast, just north of Boston. It proved to be a delightful, historic town with some amazing old buildings and houses and lots of ‘witch’ shops, ghost tours, paranormal happenings and such like for the tourists.

We toured what’s called the ‘Witch house’ built around 1650 and home to one of the judges in the witch trials. Unusually for this town, the house doesn’t claim to be haunted or to have anything to do with witchcraft (apart from the judge connection) just sets out to show what everyday life was like in Salem in the 1600s.

We also visited the ‘Witch Museum’ which related the history of the witch trials - having no idea beforehand just how hokey it would be. We were herded into a darkened, barn-like room. Music and red lights were followed by a recording in which an actor (narrating in his best Vincent Price, 50s acting voice) told the story of the witch trials and various still-life scenes were lit up around the room. The presentation really didn’t seem to know if it wanted to inform you, or try to scare you - but if it was trying to scare it was lamentable - not even worthy of Hammer Horror at its schlockiest and when the final dummy was lit up - a devil with red eyes shining on and off - Michael and I burst out laughing.

Once it was over, we decided to forgo the second half of the tour and wandered down to the harbour instead, followed by a guided tour through the ‘House of Seven Gables’ - another fascinating building dating from around 1650 and inspiration for the novel of the same name by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

It was fairly late in the afternoon when we headed off on our long drive back to Princeton - having enjoyed the history and harbour of Salem very much but quite relieved to escape from the witch museums, paranormal tours etc. Needless to say, as we left we took the print-out of our Google directions, folded it into a paper plane and threw it out the window.

Last week we spent two amazing days in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and had one of the best experiences of our trip so far. Gettysburg of course is the location of the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War (one of the bloodiest wars in history) and is regarded as a critical turning point in that war. It is also the location where one of the most famous speeches in history was delivered.

First a bit of background…

In the summer of 1863, after two years of war, the momentum was with the South. To press home his advantage, Confederate General, Robert E Lee decided to take the war to the northern states and invaded Pennsylvania. The Union and Confederate armies encountered each other northwest of Gettysburg and a three-day battle ensued. The fortunes of each side fluctuated throughout the battle until the high ground occupied by the Union, and a final, fatal infantry charge swung the balance decisively in the Union’s favour and saw the Confederates retreat back to the South.
The American Civil War was the first truly industrialised war ever fought. Advances in weaponry, particularly riflery and the development of handguns, as well as the ability to mass-produce weapons, changed the tactics of war forever and set the scene for the First World War and the mechanised warfare of the 20th Century.

These technological developments also resulted in a horrific casualty rate. New weapons caused terrible injuries that the medical knowledge and equipment of the day could barely deal with. Faced with the results of lead shot that expanded inside a soldiers body, the surgeon’s only option was amputation – without anaesthetics or antibiotics. If the wound was in the stomach, there was no treatment option and the soldier was left to die.

Gettysburg has many stories to tell about what was it like for the soldiers who fought in this war and for their families – from the letters of dying soldiers writing home for the last time, to the hundreds of civilians who came to the town in the days following the battle searching for husbands, brothers and sons, to the terrible aftermath for the townspeople left to deal with thousands of dead and wounded and the need to rebuild their town and community.

Today Gettysburg is a picturesque town of historic buildings at the centre of a national park preserving the scenes of the battle as well as numerous cemeteries and memorials. It’s economy is soundly based on tourism with lots of gift shops, antique shops, and more museums than we’ve ever seen before in one place. People dressed in period costume and civil war uniforms are a common sight.

We stayed for two nights at a gorgeous B&B, the Lightner Farmhouse, which was used as a Union field hospital during and after the battle (as was just about any building of any size at the time). Our plan was to spend Saturday touring in and around the town and battlefield, and then to set off Sunday morning on a leisurely drive back to Princeton, taking in other sites and towns on the way. And so on Saturday morning, after breakfast and a walk through town, we decided to visit the museum at the brand new visitors centre before driving along the standard tour route of the battlefields following a pre-recorded CD audio tour.

Now we don’t know about you but usually two hours is about as long as our stamina holds in a museum. Imagine our surprise when we found ourselves at the end and discovered that four hours – yes four whole hours – had passed! Using static, audio-visual and interactive displays, the museum slowly unfolded the story of the war, the battle of Gettysburg and its aftermath, as well as the often tragic stories of the ordinary people caught up in it. We were staggered by what our watches told us as we got to the end, which indicates how well-designed and engrossing this museum was. One of the best we’ve ever been to anywhere in the world.

So it was rather later in the day than planned when we finally set off in our car for the battlefield tour (after yet another delay picking up urgent supplies in town – namely a bottle of champagne for pre-dinner drinks back at the B&B – I’m sure you can all appreciate the urgency). After visiting the key scenes of the first day of the battle, it was clear that we were going to need another day.

So Sunday was spent following the tour route around and through the town while listening to the unfolding the story of the battle and it’s aftermath. There are incredible stories at Gettysburg of courage, stupidity, mistakes, and sheer good luck. Seeing the terrain helps to make sense of what happened and why. One of the final stops on the tour is at the site of ‘Pickett’s Charge’, the Confederates’ last desperate attack on the centre of the Union line. There we heard how thousands of soldiers marched in formation across almost a mile of open fields under direct Union artillery fire. Wherever the artillery landed, large gaps opened up in their ranks but over and over again they regrouped, closed ranks and kept marching. Those who survived the artillery finally got close to the Union line which was protected by a stone fence. Then they faced rifle-fire at almost point blank range and were finally overwhelmed. Only one in four made it back and afterwards the field was strewn with thousands of dead, dying and injured. It was impossible to hear that story and picture it in front of us and not want to weep at the ugliness and suffering and sheer stupidity of war, or be amazed at the incredible determination and courage people can show in the most terrible of situations.

As we drove home to Princeton on Sunday night we talked about what we’d seen and learned and reflected on why we had found Gettysburg so interesting and so moving. in the end what we decided was that from every perspective – from the point of view of military history, the strategy of warfare, the development of weaponry and military tactics; to countless individual stories of suffering and courage; to the larger historical picture in which the war was fought, the reasons people gave their lives and the lessons that can be learned from that – Gettysburg is a fascinating study.
While all wars are ugly and tragic, sometimes the reasons people fight make a difference and the American Civil War is one of the few wars in history driven by a higher, even noble, cause. While the ostensible reason for going to war was the preservation of ‘the Union’, the driving issue that led the southern states to secede was slavery. Six months before the battle of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln issued the ‘Proclamation of Emancipation’ and established the ending of slavery as the clear cause for which this war was being fought.

We finished our tour of Gettysburg at the cemetery dedicated by Abraham Lincoln four months after the battle and where he gave his famous address. In thirteen sentences Lincoln captured the essence of what the fighting was all about and defined the task facing his nation. Lincoln described the war as a test of whether this nation, or any nation, dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal’ can long endure. You don’t need to be American to appreciate the significance of this test, or realise that in some form or other all countries and people will be tested in their commitment to equality. Lincoln also said it is up to the living to ensure that a noble cause, for which others have given their lives, should not fail. The challenge, he said, was to bring forth ‘a new birth of freedom’ a challenge seems as relevant today as it was in 1863.

Our second venture to New York was a kind of ‘mopping up’ operation - our aim being to get to the places we’d run out of time for on the first visit. Thus we spent a day jumping trains trams and ferries to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

Ellis Island, our first stop, is the place where all third class immigrants to the US were processed between about 1907 and 1950. Now a museum it outlines an incredible history detailing the movement of millions of people desperate to escape poverty and persecution and the reactions, fears, debates that resulted in America (hmmm - sounds sort of familiar). Quick fact: between 1820 and 1920 over 34 million people emigrated to the US.

We suspect the Ellis Island experience has been cunningly designed to give visitors a taste of what it must have been like for the immigrants who came there: we were herded onto a ferry with squillions of hot, sweaty people and standing room only. At the island we were herded off into the huge arrival hall where we queued for everything - tickets, toilets, bad food. We were quite glad to leave really.

Lady Liberty was next. Quick fact: she is made of beaten copper riveted to a steel frame. It’s no longer possible to go inside her so we had to be content with circling her from the outside. She is a remarkable statue (and she is huge!) and it was quite touching to hear some of the recorded stories of immigrants telling of their emotion at their first sight of her as they arrived in New York and all it meant to them and their hopes for a better life.

The whole round trip from the New Jersey ferry terminal took about 5 hours and it was a very hot, humid day. Clearly the heat addled our brains because the next day, which was even more hot and humid, we decided to walk about 3 miles up Broadway, past Times Square (the lights, the colour!) and way on further uptown to the Natural History Museum.

You could easily spend a month inside the NHM - there is so much to see. We had a fabulous time in the Rose Space Centre and planetarium, the human evolution halls, the rocks and minerals halls and of course, the dinosaur halls.

Later we somehow found the energy to drag ourselves across Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we spent a couple of hours gazing at…art! We took in the impressionist collection for which the museum is famous and the collections of ancient art and artifacts - including the most beautiful, amazing collection of pottery from ancient Greece. Now as some people in my family can attest, I am rather keen on the ancient Greeks, particularly their art and pottery which were developed to express their highest aesthetic ideals. I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of this amazing collection (O Attic form, O happy breed of men…truth is beauty etc, etc) that I got quite teary and forgot to take any pics (for which I’m now kicking myself). Anyway, it inspired me to write this poem:

Ode to my brother Joe
(or
Doggerel on a Grecian Urn)

You are for Rome
I am for Greek
You’re clearly wrong
And your argument’s weak.

I am for Greek
You are for Rome
You must have fluff
Inside that dome!

(Next post: Gettysburg)