This is actually the first time that I have ever been in the US. I was educated in an American school when I was a kid but I just never managed to get to the States.
I finally had the opportunity when I saw that there were two conferences happening one after the other in late October. The first was the Sixteenth Century Journal Conference, which is probably by far the most important, most prestigious conference in the field of Renaissance and Reformation studies. The other was the PMR (or Patristics, Medieval and Renaissance) Conference held at Villanova University. It is famous in its own little circle and sometimes compared with the Patristics Conference held annually at Oxford.
My paper was accepted by the Villanova Conference but unfortunately not the Sixteenth Century one so I shall try again next year. But this year, I seized the chance to present my paper at the Villanova Conference.
Villanova is a little university town about thirty minutes train ride from Philadelphia so I decided to stay with a friend that used to study in Cambridge about three years ago in Philadelphia and then commute to Villanova. The conference runs about seven parallel sessions and instead of hopping from one talk to the next even in the middle of sessions, the participants at this conference tended to pick one session and stick with it throughout. The conference concentrated on the patristics, especially Augustine, since the conference was held by the Augustine Institute of Villanova University. Nonetheless, I felt that I received some excellent feedback at the conference and had lovely conversations with some of the other scholars over lunch.
However, the big adventure of this huge American trip was not the conference itself but rather Hurricane Sandy, which struck right before I was supposed to head to Chicago.
Since I come from Taiwan, I don't really take much notice of wind and rain. When everyone in town was talking about the hurricane, it just never occurred to me that the hurricane might affect my flight until fairly late on the evening before the flight. By that time, I had moved to a hostel since the friend I was staying with was on a conference trip to Boston. I checked on the airlines website and sure enough, my flight was cancelled.
I immediately booked a place for the following evening and contacted the professor I was staying with at Notre Dame that my flight had been cancelled. What with all the anxiety of meeting up with one of the best scholars in the field of Reformation studies and having dinner with the historians of Notre Dame, I ended up just stuck in a hostel in Philadelphia and could not even get close to South Bend (where Notre Dame is located).
I posted on facebook that I was stuck in Philadelphia. One of my new friends from Cambridge replied my facebook post and said that I could probably stay with her mom in Philadelphia. I was quite surprised and touched by the gesture but felt that I should not intrude on her mother's private space. I replied that I did not mind staying in a hostel but that not having any human interaction was really getting to me. Eventually, her mother called me and asked me to pack my stuff and stay with her.
I turned up at her doorstep two hours later drenched in water and quite windswept. She let me into the house and was the best hostess ever. She decided to take me to a nice restaurant and we set off immediately. The rain had stopped by that time as we were walking around downtown Philadelphia. However, the restaurant she had in mind had already closed due to the hurricane so we continued to walk for half an hour looking for a place to eat until we almost gave up. But suddenly, we came across an Irish pub that was still open! It looked like all of Philadelphia turned up in that pub for it was rather busy and noisy. But we welcomed the noise and the chaos in the midst of all this hurricane business and we were quite glad to be able to get a hot meal.
My friend's mom told me about how in Philadelphia, they still have the proof of the "first treasonous act against Britain" in one of their oldest churches. In the English Prayer Book, the name of the king was crossed out, thus the ancestors of the modern-day Americans demonstrated their unwillingness to submit to the British crown. Since I study religious history, I was hell bent on seeing this church and this damn book with my own eyes the next day. But alas, everything was closed the next day.
I was still intending to one day get to South Bend and see the professor at Notre Dame so the next day I found myself a cafe and sat in it reading the newly published book of this professor. Philadelphia was actually not too affected by the storm but it seemed as if everywhere else on the East Coast, the storm really did some serious damage.
My flight to Chicago was delayed yet again. Also, another friend who also used to study in Cambridge told me that he was moving to Chicago and would like to see me before I left. He was going to drive from Florida to Chicago so that he could hang out with me for a day or half a day before I took off to Boston. I decided that given Boston would probably be ravaged by the storm and I would be sitting in a cafe anyway, I might as well just stay in Chicago and catch up with my friend.
So he started driving from Florida and I promised him I would somehow get to Chicago and that I would push my flight to Boston back by two days. On the third day of the storm, I finally got on that flight to Chicago.
My last night in Philadelphia was definitely quite memorable. I chatted with my hostess for several hours before she finally had to go to bed. It was such an intense conversation. She even gave me suggestions about how to organise my dissertation! I have been worried sick about what to do with the amount of information I am working with -- whether to organise my chapters chronologically or thematically. The last time I spoke to someone about this problem was when I was kind of supervised by the dean of Caius College, who is an expert on the patristic period. She suggested that I should re-organise my notes into themes, which I promptly did but still ended up with a massive amount of information. My hostess in Philadelphia suggested that perhaps I could just pick a few women from the early modern period and then trace each their "elements" back to their predecessors. It was like this lightning strike in the darkness! This is indeed what I am extremely good at! I am not a good organiser either chronologically or thematically and either way, the information will overlap. But if I trace one story at a time and go directly into textual analysis, then I believe I can do a good job at it. I still need to talk to my supervisor about this new approach, and many things still need to be fine-tuned before I put it into practice. However, this American trip has turned out to be an unexpectedly encouraging experience for me. I did not manage to meet up with the Reformation and early Christian historians but I got such great inspiration for my dissertation!
The above photo is of my first meal in America, at Washington D.C. airport. Buffalo wings! Woohoo!
A quaint street in Philadelphia. There was a 13-star colonial American flag there. It was like history textbook come true.
The famous Phiadelphia cheesesteak at Jim's. Cheesesteak is practically a sandwich (like Subway) with beef chopped up and then fried plus some veggies. I got mine with cheese whiz, some disgusting form of American cheese -- it is liquid cheese in a can that the chefs then slop onto your cheesesteak. Ugh.
The riverbank at night.
Several languages on display here. I read the Chinese part. It is from 黃帝內經 I think. But not in the original ancient Chinese form but in modern Chinese form. It sounds ridiculous like that.
A scene of downtown Philadelphia. I think this was probably taken on Walnut Street, one of their main shopping streets.
I had dinner here before the hurricane hit. They had some really healthy meals and lots of olive oil.
The deserted streets of Philadelphia the night before Hurricane Sandy hit.
I have never seen any city so empty before!
It was right before Halloween so many houses were decorated with skeletons and pumpkins and the like. This particular house is very colourful with its bright orange and yellow.
The above photo is of Parc, a French restaurant. Their food was pretty amazing and the atmosphere was very European.
My friend picked me up at Chicago O'Hare Airport in the car that he drove from Florida to Chicago in. We met up with two more of my friends who were also studying in Cambridge and had dinner with them. But for the remaining three days in America, I basically hung out with my Florida friend 24/7. He drove me from place to place and introduced to me all sorts of American fast food -- Five Guys, White Castle, Taco Bell. We went to downtown Chicago and had Chicago pizza. We also took loads of photos at the Millennium Park.
Burrito. A really big burrito, with nachos and lots of cheese.
The American flag everywhere! In pubs, on the streets, hanging from people's houses. The Americans are rather patriotic and really enjoy displaying their flag.
Oyster shooter. Oyster in a shotglass. A bit gross but still tasty. Having oysters in bars is apparently a big thing in the States.
Breakfast: omelette (made from four eggs), hashbrown (enough for two), two pancakes (with more whipped cream than pancake). My friend and I shared our breakfast. There is no way a normal human being can eat all this by himself.
The above are photos taken at the Millennium Park.
I went to a pizza place in Chicago to get the Chicago pizza. My friend got it actually and I just got the normal thin crust pizza. It was delicious. The Chicago pizza was also great, especially loved the cheese. Very chewy and drew up for about a foot.
The river and Trump Tower next to it. Very impressive and definitely not subtle.
This particular building is quite inspiring to me. It looks like a gothic church yet has modern architectural features.
Chicago is big on yellow and orange flowers in the streets. A very autumn-y feel.
Finally, Chicago in the evening as the city's lights come to life.
Five Guys (a fast food restaurant) and its french fries. This is just "regular" size. But it looks like it is enough for three people.
A chicken wrap (also huge) with what they call "chips." I was expecting french fries (as you would in the UK) but what the British call crisps, the American call chips. So I got potato "chips" instead.
Originally, I wanted to stay with the two other friends that I had dinner with. But that was before this Florida friend told me he was coming to see me in Chicago. He was staying with a friend as well and told me that his room would be completely empty with no furniture, nothing. But when I turned up, his room was actually full of all sorts of things -- his things, his friend's things. His friend just never bothered to actually move his things out of the room. My friend made some space on the floor within all that mess and eventually found enough space to place his mattress on it. So I was sleeping in this mountain of miscellaneous things for three nights.
During the three to four days that I was in Chicago, my friend and I did all the typically American things. For example, we drove for about two hours just looking for a cinema in which to see Seven Psychopaths, a new movie. We first went to one that was relatively close to us and they did not have that movie. So we drove for about an hour to get to another cinema (including the time when we were a bit lost -- we were using my iPhone google maps navigation and I was not good at reading maps). The movie was extremely funny though so it was more or less worth the time.
On my last night, I also had a lot of fun just trying to get some stamps and some postcards. But apparently, the Americans are not too big on sending postcards. Their touristy places don't really sell postcards and even when they do, the postcards look like they are from another era. I found some nice Thanksgiving cards in a shopping mall and decided to send them instead. Still extremely American. Orange, with turkeys and fallen leaves and all that. Should do. Then came the problem of the stamps. No one knew how much it would be to send a card to the UK so I just bought about 40 US "forever stamps." They were worth 45 cents each and would be worth a bit more if the price of sending a letter went up. I googled the price of sending a card to the UK and discovered it would be 1.25 dollars. The forever stamps are worth 45 cents each so I stuck three stamps for each card. Hopefully, my friends back in Cambridge will eventually receive my Thanksgiving cards.
On my final day in America, I was deciding between visiting Boston between my flights or just sitting in a cafe in the airport. I went for the latter. I shall just have to visit America again and do New York, plus Princeton plus Columbia plus Boston (Harvard) the next time I am here. For the time being, I think I have achieved what I came to America for -- to get an idea of what America is like and to see if I can do a post-doc here. Well, I think I can. I don't LOVE the country but I think I quite like the Americans. They are very friendly, unlike the British people who tend to be a bit reserved and distant.
