Milan

Off to Italy, the land of free water!

Following our trip to Greece, we were home for only about four days to take care of some work responsibilities and to attend a nice going-away lunch that our department threw for us and our other American colleague, Andrew. We all received some lovely parting gifts, too - a CD of piano music by a Breton composer and sheet music for the recording for me; a Breton bowl, a Breton cookbook, and a kid's book about a Breton girl who moves to Paris for Lisa; and a lot of French movies on DVD for Andrew.

Then it was off for another trip, this time to northern Italy. Although I'd visited Florence when I studied in Rome in 2003, I'd never seen other parts of northern Italy, nor had Lisa, so we put together a trip to Milan, Bologna, Florence, and Venice. We got a good deal on plane tickets on a discount airline, EasyJet, that's similar to Southwest in the US in that you pay for all the food and there are no assigned seats. We flew from Paris to Milan and spent two nights and one full day there.

Galleria Vittore Emmanuele.

Milan is the financial and fashion capital of Italy and while we weren't staying near the main high-fashion shopping street, we did see plenty of well-dressed, clearly wealthy individuals. It was also quite chilly in Milan, colder (upper 60s, top) than we expected and had packed for. This meant we spent part of the day shopping for leggings for Lisa to wear under the skirt she brought. This improved our time quite drastically. Speaking of shopping, we saw the Galleria Vittore Emmanuele, one of the first "shopping malls," a huge multistory 19th-century covered arcade of stores.

The galleria is right next to the Duomo, or cathedral of Milan. It's the fourth biggest cathedral in the world and while it was started in the 14th century, the final touches were only added in the 20th century. This means it's a hodge-podge of different styles, which can either be ugly or fascinating depending on your point of view. The outside is full of spires and the inside seemed, to us at least, to be pretty similar to the Gothic churches we've seen in northern France.

Milan's Duomo (cathedral).

Duomo interior.

Sforza Castle.

The other huge sight in Milan is the Sforza Castle, residence of the Dukes of the Milan during the Renaissance. We wandered through the courtyards several times on our way to and from other parts of the city. It's a very impressive fortress with some of the thickest walls and biggest towers we've yet seen. We didn't pay to go to the museum inside the building so we can't tell you what that's like.

Unique angle of a busker.

Busker and float.

Outside of the castle was a busker. Lisa was quite fascinated because he took advantage of the spot by being in front of a float advertising for the Canary Islands. This made it look like he had a HUGE costume with him. We realized after a minute or two (well, Aaron just realized this after reading this paragraph that Lisa authored) that this was separate, but we were still impressed because he stood very still and regal. Lisa wanted a picture and refuses to photograph buskers without giving them some money, so we gave a euro. He then invited her to stand on the podium with him. This caused confusion because he indicated that she could have a picture taken, but she had the camera around her neck and (obviously to you readers) wasn't with the other guys in the crowd taking pictures. She thus took this close-up picture of him before hopping down, having her hand kissed, and scampered off slightly embarrassed because of the confusion. It was quite an enjoyable scene to witness.

Wedding at Saint Ambrose Basilica.

We also visited several smaller, off-the-beaten track places, too, that were more interesting to us than the Galleria, Duomo and castle. One was the Basilica of Saint Ambrose which houses the relics of Ambrose, a very influential church father and bishop of Milan in the fourth century. We couldn't really walk around because there was a big Italian wedding going on (it was a Saturday morning). All the tourists like us who had inadvertently stumbled into the church were crowded into the side aisle by the door watching the wedding! It seemed like quite a lovely ceremony (we still like ours better, though).

Nave of San Maurizio Church.

Choir of San Maurizio Church.

We also went to a fantastic church, San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore. From the outside, it looked like a non-descript Italian church, but inside every available inch of the wall and ceiling was covered in frescoes, most from the 14th and 15th centuries of landscapes and saints and scenes from the last of Christ. It was beautiful. It used to be a convent church so the whole place is divided in to - the main church for normal parishioners and a rear part behind a wall behind the altar for the nuns, connected by a small door. There were a couple grilles in the wall for the nuns to be able to see the officiating priest and receive the host during communion. We'd never seen anything like it.

A better idea of the San Maurizio frescoes (with Aaron in contemplation).

Another cool church we went to was Santa Maria presso San Satiro. It's a very small church and the cool thing about it is an optical effect done by the Renaissance architect Bramante in the late 15th century (he also designed St. Peter's in Rome). You see, the wall behind the altar is about three feet deep but he painted it in a perspectival way to make it look like there was a 30-foot long choir behind the altar. (Unfortunately, we couldn't take any pictures in the church, but here's one on Wikipedia.) There was an evening prayer service going on when we visited, so we stood at the back and stared at the wall and one of the guards noticed. He asked if we wanted to get up close, we said sure, and he lead us behind some columns where we could stand at the front of the church out of view of the worshipers. It was very nice of him to do that! Seeing the wall up close gave me a sense of vertigo; my eyes and brain couldn't process the disjunct between the reality of the wall and the perspective effect. That's when we knew it was time to leave!

Fantastic old car as we walked between sites.

We visited the main art museum in Milan, which has a few nice things, but the best part was the special exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. The Milan museum owns a 12-volume, 1100 page set of his notes and they're in the process of unbinding the pages and cleaning them all for conservation. As part of that process, the museum is displaying 30 pages at a time, all dealing with a similar topic, for a period of three months each for the next five years. Right now, the topic is da Vinci's hypothetical flying machines and his notes on bird flight. It was pretty cool to see his original sketches for a parachute and mechanical wings for humans to wear. (Again, we couldn't take pictures, given the sensitive nature of the ink and paper - sorry we can't show them to you!)

Old style trams in Milan!

The last thing about Milan - we felt a 5.9 magnitude earthquake on our second night there. It happened at about four AM and woke us up. Only the bed really shook; we didn't see anything else move. When I woke up, I thought Lisa was shaking the bed for some reason! It was only when we got up in the morning and checked the internet that we discovered there'd been an earthquake centered about 150 miles away! Fortunately, there was no damage in Milan and we were fine. It was the first earthquake I've felt in quite a while - and I didn't even know it was one!

Our Week with Chris

Our egg guy's new truck.

We arrived home Friday night and Saturday was kind of a rest and recovery day after three jam-packed days in Paris. Lisa and I went to the Saturday market, though, and it was nice to see all our favorite vendors. We had a nice chat with the people we buy apples from (they both held up the rest of the line just to talk to us!) and the guy we buy eggs from had purchased a new truck in our absence. He was very proud of this truck.

Free water outside the Franco-American Institute.
That's the American part.

Sundays are pretty slow days around here since most everything is closed. In the afternoon, though, I took Chris into central Rennes to show him around the city a little bit. We saw many of the same things as when Sarah was here (the cathedral, the tourist office, the outside of the city hall and the opera) but we also went into two churches I'd never seen before: Saint Sauveur (which was small and dark, but had several worshipers inside) and Saint Aubin (a modern, late 19th/early 20th century neo-Gothic church which was smaller on the inside than I expected).

Vegetarian Haggis for Tuesday's dinner!

On Monday, I went with Chris to Mont-Saint-Michel, an obvious must-see for anyone who comes to visit us. Unfortunately, Lisa had to stay home and tutor as well as practice her French with some locals. I thought it was supposed to rain, but it turned into a surprisingly nice day as we ate our picnic lunch outside. It was very crowded, too, much more so than when we went in December or with Jimmy and Jenny in January. There were lots of families with little kids there; I guess that's what you do on your two-week Easter vacation - take your kids to Mont-Saint-Michel! Other than that, though, there wasn't much new for me. On my fourth visit, it all seemed like old hat. Changes are coming, though. April 28th was the last day that cars could drive out on the causeway and park at the foot of the mount. Now you have to park some distance away on the mainland and take a shuttle. This is all part of the plan to remove the causeway by 2014. After we returned to Rennes that afternoon, we met Lisa and went to English Club, which was rather sparsely attended, what with it still being Easter vacation and all.

Parliament tour with Gobelin tapestry in the background.

Tuesday, we went to a lunch-time piano concert. Chris really likes classical concerts and this was the only one we could find in Rennes during his week here. There were plenty advertised for the week after he left, though, and all I can figure is that Easter vacation means the art scene in Rennes shuts down, too! Anyway, it was a benefit concert for Rennes' sister city in Japan and it was put on at the International House of Rennes (which always sounds to me like "International House of Pancakes"). Lunch was included in the price, which was nice, and the pianist was pretty good. He played Beethoven, Schumann, and Chopin and he got better as he went along - there were several missed notes in the Beethoven, but the Chopin sounded near-perfect. After the concert, Lisa and Chris took the tour of the parliament building (the same one we did with Sarah, but with a different tour guide, so Lisa learned a few new facts) while I came home to get groceries and start on dinner. We re-created the vegetarian haggis we had at Henderson's in Edinburgh (recipe here), and rather successfully, too, I might add!

Stained-glass window in Dinan.

On Wednesday, I went with Chris to Normandy to see the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach while Lisa stayed home to tutor and missed out on yet another opportunity to visit her favorite region of France. Turns out, it's much harder to get to without a car! We took a train to Bayeux, then waited half an hour for a bus that took us to the cemetery, about a half-hour ride. Again, it was supposed to be a cold, windy, rainy day, but we managed to avoid most of the rain and it was actually partly sunny most of the time we were there. It was very windy, though, which dampened the experience a bit! Since I'd seen the cemetery and the beach in January with Jimmy and Jenny, I wasn't expecting much new. But Chris and I joined a free guided tour, led by a retired British history teacher who now works at the cemetery, and I learned a few more things about the site. He showed us the "wall of the missing," the grave of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. who landed at Utah Beach at age 56 and died of a heart attack a month later, and the graves of two brothers who inspired "Saving Private Ryan." It was very interesting and I'm glad we did. Unfortunately, though, we were on a tight schedule because there was only one bus back to Bayeux and the train station all afternoon!

Us in Dinan.

Chris left Thursday afternoon to spend the night in Paris before flying home early Friday morning. Before he did, though, we all took the bus to Dinan Thursday morning. I had been there with Sarah, but Lisa hadn't been back since our first trip there way back in September. It was another cloudy, rainy spring day in Brittany (although there were some occasional breaks in the rain). We saw quite a bit of the town - the ramparts, the churches (in one of which the organist was practicing), and the stores.

Hurdy gurdy player in Dinan.

Plus, we discovered that Thursday is market day in Dinan, so we enjoyed that for a bit. It's different from our Saturday market in Cesson in that there were more vendors of clothes and jewelry and crafts than food (which is the opposite of our market). We also were serenaded by a guy playing a hurdy gurdy.

Where Aaron got his Baedeker.

The best part of the trip for me, though, was that I happened to see a Baedaker guidebook in the window of an antique store and we went in for a look. This one was in French, from 1903 and for Paris. We saw that the price inside the front cover was "650" so we asked the proprietor, is it six hundred and fifty euros? To which he replied, "No, no six euros and fifty cents!" That's about a quarter of the price of the one I bought in Cambridge, so we snapped it up for my ever-increasing collection! After walking around, we went to a little tea shop to get out of the rain, before heading back to the bus stop to make sure Chris got back to Rennes to collect his bags and get to the train station on time.

Chris on his way.

It was an all-around good visit from Chris (and we hope had a good time, too!). Even though we're now repeating a lot of things with our visitors, it seems like there are always a few new things to discover at these places, keeping them interesting for us, too.  We look forward to seeing Chris again soon stateside.

UK Trip: Cambridge

Entrance to King's College

This past week, we've been on our mid-term break and we spent much of that time in the United Kingdom. The primary reason for going was that Lisa was invited by a colleague, Bill Burgwinkle, to present a paper at St. Catherine's College in Cambridge University. Because of that and because we had the week off, we decided to spend some time traveling around the UK to Canterbury, Cardiff, and Edinburgh after we left Cambridge.

To get to Britain, we flew directly from Rennes to Southampton, about an hour flight. Now, the Rennes airport is pretty small. It doesn't own any of the standard bridgeways to the aircraft, so we had to walk out of the airport, across the tarmac, and board the plane through the old-fashioned stairways. We sort of felt like we were in a 1950s movie or something! Plus, the discount airline we flew (Flybe) only owns a few actual jets. The rest of their fleet is turbo-prop planes and that's what we took to Britain. I don't think I've been on a turbo-prop plane in 15 years!

Guest room at St. Catherine's College

Once in Southampton, it took us a little bit of time to get through passport control, I think because 1) unlike everyone else on the plane, we're not EU citizens; 2) the woman who checked our passports was in training and wasn't entirely sure what questions she should be asking; and 3) the UK immigration service has been under political fire lately for being overly lax at border control points. So we were asked a lot of questions about who we were, where we going, how long we were staying, why we were in France, how long we'd be in France, etc. Anyway, after getting through passport control, we took the train from the airport train stop to London, transferred across town on the Tube to another train station, and took an express train to Cambridge. We got a cab from the station there to St. Catherine's College where we stayed in a very nice guest room (although the porter on duty at the college gate wasn't terribly friendly!). After we dropped our bags off, we had dinner with Lisa's colleagues and hosts then she presented her paper to a small group of graduate students, faculty, and undergraduates. It was a rousing success, if I do say so myself!

Richard Lloyd Morgan, 

standing in triumph on 

the roof of King's 

College Chapel

The next morning, we moved our stuff to King's College, where Lisa's colleague had arranged a guest room for us, and dealt with much friendlier porters. We then met Richard Lloyd Morgan, chaplain of King's College, who's a friend of a friend of Lisa's mom. Even though he had e-mailed us the week before to tell us he would be happy to talk to us and show us around, once we met him, he didn't seem to have any idea who we were. Still, he was very pleasant and we had a lovely cup of tea in his office while getting to know each other. Near the end of our conversation, he told us that at 10 am, he was leading a tour of newcomers to Cambridge on the roof of King's College Chapel and would we like to join it? Naturally, we said yes!

On top of the ceiling of the King's
College Chapel

The tour was great. We got to meet some of the people in the group, including two younger American women whose husbands are getting degrees at Cambridge and an elderly American woman who lives in Cambridge and volunteers to help with this newcomers' group. Anyway, we started by climbing 85 steps to the vault between the top of the chapel's ceiling and the beams of the roof. Richard walked us along on top of the ceiling while telling us a little about the chapel's construction history, then we climbed more steps in a corner tower to come out on the roof of the building, several stories up. We walked along the edge of the roof (fortunately, the parapet was tall and thick so there was little danger of falling over the side!), climbed over the top gable, walked along the other side,

The roof of King's College Chapel

then climbed back over the roof to the first side to get back to the stairs and the exit. Climbing over a pitched roof with nothing to hold on to was a little nerve-wracking, but everyone survived! It was also an overcast day with a kind of misty rain, which meant that, unfortunately, the views from the top of the chapel weren't as dramatic as they might have been on a clear day. At the end of the climb, we learned that there was a 93-year-old woman who was with us that day and had wanted to go on the roof her whole life.  Life goal: accomplished!

Cambridge from the roof of King's College Chapel

Scaling the roof of King's College Chapel

Once we got back to the floor of the chapel, the tour continued with one of the women who organizes this newcomers' group (whatever it is). She led us through the chapel proper, explaining more of the construction history and some of the iconography of the decorative carvings and the stained glass. It was very informative and the chapel is a truly beautiful space.

At the conclusion of the tour, we thanked Richard and headed off to meet Bill in his office for lunch. His office is exactly like the offices of

Bill's office is the window to the right of Henry VIII!

Cambridge/Oxford professors I've seen on British TV shows - big, with tall windows, comfy couches, and stacked to the ceiling with books. He took us for lunch to the Fellows' Room in King's College, a sort of private lounge where Cambridge professors can sit and order lunch from the kitchen. It was very nice and a little awe-inspiring to know we were surrounded by some of the most prestigious intellectuals in the world. The lunch was delicious, too, including the pea and mint soup, which is not a combination you'd think would be good, but it was. It was very kind of Bill to take us there and after we finished, we thanked him and headed out to explore more of Cambridge.

Interior of King's College Chapel

Like any good academic town, Cambridge if full of used book stores and Lisa and I went to a couple because used book stores are one of my favorite things in life. We found a lot of good treasures at G. David's, including a guidebook to Edinburgh from the 1950s for 50p. We also happened to be in Cambridge the weekend of a large used-book fair, which we saw advertised in banners hanging over the street. It cost a pound a piece to get in, but it was worth it. There were all kinds of antiquarian books, many from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I was on the hunt for two kinds of books in particular that I collect - either Macmillan commentaries (little red classical texts and commentaries published from the 1880s through the 1930s) or old Baedekers (little guidebooks to Europe published from the 1860s to the 1920s). I found many Baedekers, although they weren't very cheap. But I decided to splurge and buy a 1909 guide to northern France in remarkably good condition.

This is where we sat for the evensong service.

Following the book fair, we walked to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge's art and classical archaeology museum. Unfortunately, we got there only about an hour before closing, so we didn't have time to see much more than the Greek, Roman, medieval and Renaissance stuff. It was all very nice, but it wasn't anything spectacular. After, that, we walked back to King's College to go to the 5:30 evensong service, led by Richard. We saw him on the way in and he told us to tell the usher that we were guests of the college, because that would mean we could sit in the fancy wooden choir stalls with any of the college fellows who were present, rather than in the regular pews with the tourists. It was nice of him to suggest that and it was really cool to sit in the choir stalls, closer to the amazing King's College boys' choir. The service was very lovely and the choir sang beautifully. It was also very cool to be in the chapel at the end of the day; that meant that when the service started, the stained glass windows were still well-illuminated, but by the end of the service, they were completely black. On the way out, we thanked Richard (once again) for his generosity and hospitality.

King's College guestroom: not as fancy schmancy as
St. Catherine's, but still quite nice.

After the service, we went back to our room at King's College (which wasn't nearly as fancy as the one in St. Catherine's College) then headed out for dinner at an ethnic restaurant that somehow served Greek, Indian, Italian, and Czech food all at the same time!

The next morning, before we left, we got some more pictures of King's College chapel and, on the way from our room to the chapel, we were stopped by a porter wanting to know why were in the college (since it was closed to visitors). We explained that we were guests and had spent the night. He then asked what room we were in so we pulled out the key to show him. That was proof enough and he let us go on our way, but at least he was amazingly pleasant and not rude about it! We then walked across town to the park where the coach buses stop ready for the next stop on our trip: Canterbury.

Tarte Tatin aux Poires

Translation: upside-down caramel pear pie.

We've been quiet on here for about a week since we started our "full-time" jobs, and we thought we'd wait to share what those are like with you.  However, we realized we already did that a few entries ago, and there's not a whole lot to add yet.  We have mostly pleasant students both in class and in the interviews, and we're learning a lot about the French educational system.  This week, we also designed scenarios for the students to enact later this semester--one about genetically modified food, one about immigration in the UK, one about binge-drinking, and one about renewable energy.  We'll let you know how they go once they start!

What we did do was make a Tarte Tatin aux Poires, and it was fantastic!  Unlike in the US where pears take at least a week to ripen, pears here are ripe in two days and MUST be used.  The best use for almost any fruit is of course to make an upside down caramel pie.  How could anything be better?

Think about caramel for a minute.  Think how simple it is.  It can be just one ingredient even: sugar.  You heat it until it melts and then continue until it's just at the point where it would start to burn, and voilà!  Caramel.  Now, let's add an ingredient to that, sea salt perhaps.  If you like chocolate-covered pretzels, then you know how wonderful salty-sweet is as a flavor.  Let's go ahead and add one more ingredient: butter.  Oh, now that's just mouth-wateringly delicious.  Butter, sugar, salt, all cooked together until you have one thick, gooey mixture.  You can even choose from a variety of textures!  Sauce, chewy candy, harder candy.  Ingredient four: pears.  We're on our way to having a pie.  Ingredient five (and six): flour (and water).

Dismantled frying pan.

With these five simple ingredients, you are ready to make your pie.  We were certainly ready to make ours!  We talked a bit about the overly sugar apple version earlier.  This time, I was not going to fail.  I examined the frying pan, saw the screw that held on the handle, and I realized that if I ruined the pan, that would most certainly NOT be the worst thing that ever happened!  I dismantled it with no problem at all (I even got it back together, too).

Tarte pre-flip.

Following Brad's instructions, I melted salted butter in the pan (just a couple tablespoons), and then I sprinkled that with white sugar.  I let that cook until it all melted together, and then circled slices of pears (three pears in all) on top of the sugar.  This cooked for over an hour before everything started to caramelize.  Oh, the heavenly smell!  Then I put the pie crust I'd made on top and put it in the oven for another hour.  After letting it cool a bit, I turned the pie onto a plate.  For those of you looking forward to making this yourself, here's the best part.  You, the baker, get to take your spatula and scrape the best caramel that forms out of the whole process and eat it all yourself (there's only about a teaspoon, so it would be hard to share).  Pear-infused caramel with sea salt.  This is good.

Then you get to share it!  It was fantastic, and made a wonderful beginning to the fall season.

Finished pie, complete with crispy, caramel crust.

Next time, we'll tell you all about the biggest yard/garage sale/flea market we've ever seen!

Work

What are we doing here?  We are teaching English to students at the Université de Rennes 1.  The Université de Rennes is the big, public university in Brétagne, and it has campuses all over the city.  The "1" means that it is for science students--physics, math, chemistry, biology, economics, computer science, law, philosophy, etc.  Medical students are separate and attend a different sort of university straight out of high school.  There are about 22,000 students at UR1, with 1600 faculty members.  The founding of the whole academy dates back to the fifteenth century, but the university as it is known today only dates back to the late 1960s.  There are twelve sites in the whole UR system, including eight campuses, three research centers, and a museum.

Library at Sciences Éco, housed in
a former monastery.  Photo courtesy
of Wikipedia.com.  

I teach my classes at the Sciences Économiques campus (known as Sciences Éco), which is for the business students.  It is in the heart of the city, and the oldest of the buildings is very pretty; it used to be a monastery for the Carmelites.  I have three classes: one for second-year business students in the normal track and two for second-year business students in the advanced, international section for students planning to work abroad for at least part of their careers.  The students are most definitely quieter than those in the US, but overall they are pleasant and interested in English.  We make all our own curriculum here, so we can choose subjects in which the students are particularly interested.

Beaulieu campus.  Photo courtesy
of ICOM.

Aaron is teaching L2 (second-year) science students and second-year master's students in the mathematics track at the Beaulieu campus.  The math class has not started yet, but he thinks the science students have fairly good English.  Since he's only taught one class, he says it's hard to make any other judgments except that it's strange to teach a language without a textbook.  (Note strange=different, not wrong or bad.)

Next week, we will begin the other part of our job, which is interviewing students who are taking the online version of classes (This semester, these students are L1 and L3, first- and third-year.  Next semester, it will be the L2 students' turn to study at home).  What we have been told (unofficially, mind you, so please feel free to correct us) is that the university budget cannot cover the cost of having all the students in the classroom all year.  We'll let you know how that goes once it begins!

Sometimes at Beaulieu, the instructors ask us to come to their classes to help out.  Aaron is visiting a class for future high school science teachers and has to be taught to give a presentation on volcanoes; then he has to give the presentation to the class and compete with the other American lecturer, Andrew!  I, unfortunately, do not get to participate because I am teaching during the class period.

The other part of our job (and this is the really hard part!) is that we have to lead English Club in the Irish Pub in the city every Monday night.  We even get a special Happy Hour for our participants.  We, the leaders, buy our first drink, and last night they gave us our second free!  Aaron enjoys a good pint, so that was fun for him.  I chose Irish whiskey (Bushmills) and then they gave me their favorite Scotch (I have no idea what it was) for free as my second.  They were very nice, and we had about thirty people there speaking English!  (Aaron adds that many of them were American, either from Andrew's college in New York or other expats from around town).  We even met someone from Madison, Wisconsin, and it was her twenty-second birthday!

Tomorrow, we are planning on taking a trip to Dinan, a walled, Medieval city between Rennes and Saint Malo.  We'll let you know about that soon!

Orientation at the University

Todd of Ohio State treated us to orientation, a first for the Universite de Rennes 1!  We are very grateful for the introduction to the university and our responsibilities there.  It is also good to have yet another friendly face.  We will be conducting interviews for students taking independent study courses online, and Aaron and I will also be teaching classes that meet once a week.  We are teaching science students who need English for their professional life.

We bought lunch both days at the Cafèt on campus, and the sandwiches from there beat almost any sandwich in the States.  We hope to bring our lunch in the future, but we know we will eat well if we don’t. 

Thursday and Friday we went to the bank for our renter’s insurance policy (it took two days because she forgot to check the box that said we were renters and not owners the first time).  There are no deductibles in France, and there is even a “responsabilité civile” with no deductible!  That means if you come and visit, and we break your glasses, they are replaced with no out-of-pocket costs for anyone.  (Why we’d break your glasses, I’m not really sure, but it’s the example the banker gave).

With Todd’s generous offer to use his cell phone, I was able to have electricity connected to our apartment, and it was indeed connected on Friday when we got the keys from the realtor!  Because there was no other option as to when we could get the keys, we got to skip out early on the big staff meeting where some bruhaha is happening among the administrators.  I’m not sure if we’ll ever be clear on exactly what is going on there.