Chapman Conference: Fundamental Properties of Magnetotails
Iceland was absolutely beautiful. It was exotic, and yet strangely felt like home. I think the latter may have resulted from the fact that it was “end of winter” season so there was brown grasses and sleeping trees; there was a large fjord and a harbor; there was snow; the clouds looked more like the clouds from home; and the people look more familiar to my home city than the diverse population in Los Angeles. But then there was the exotic element which made my heart soar. Mountains everywhere-it wasn’t like the mountains I’ve experienced which tend to be in a range, so you are either in the flatlands looking towards mountains, or you are driving within them. In Iceland, everywhere you drive there are mountains in the distance covered with snow. Then, in the countryside (again, like home, there are actual countrysides unlike Los Angeles), it looked much like how I’d imagine a moor to appear, only less marsh and grasses and more rock and moss. Wide open, but instead of being completely wide open (like eastern Colorado) or open but with a horizon closed by trees (like Wisconsin), here the horizon was closed by mountains.
Another thing I liked a lot was how friendly the people all were. I never ran into a rude Icelander (except maybe the tax refund ladies at the airport, and they were more just grumpy). They were all very friendly and helpful, and didn’t at all convey the attitude I’ve found in Europe before that says, “I don’t like foreigners. Go away.” In fact the shop keepers would ask how we were enjoying our stay, and seemed genuinely happy when we said we were having a wonderful time. I suppose, tourism is a great source of revenue for the country.
I didn’t sleep at all on the flight over, which went from LAX to Seattle to Reykjavik. We landed about 6:30am UT, took the shuttle bus and arrived at our hotel about 8:30am. Unfortunately, check-in wasn’t until 2pm, so we couldn’t take a nap. Jenni arrived shortly after I did, so we stored our luggage and walked about the city, taking pictures of the harbor and walking up to Hallgrimskirkja. It was Sunday, and we happened to be fortunate enough to arrive while the service was going on, so we joined. While we couldn’t understand anything, we could tell when the Lord’s prayer began because the cadence was the same as when we pray in English! Some things cross cultures and languages. J Right, before we walked we explored until we found an open coffee shop where we could put a bit into our stomachs.
After we finished walking, we went back to the hotel and used the internet for about 30 minutes before we could get into our room. I showered off and then we went to the 5pm reception where we met some people, ate some food, and took more pictures from the hotel’s 8th floor (Panorama Restaurant). We were exhausted, so we went to bed around 8pm.
At about 11:45pm, we got a phone call from the front desk to notify us that there was visible aurora! They said we had to hurry because it was moving fast, so I just threw my glasses on along with my warm outerwear and sprinted outside. I crossed the street and stood in the shadow of the Harpa building, where we would hold our conference the following week. There was a lot of harbor lights, but one could still see a green arc across the northern sky stretching from east to west. I saw some dancing rays and some great dynamics. After a while of quiet, I walked around to see if there was a better spot. When there wasn’t, I returned, just in time to see a substorm break-up! A large explosion of green lights swirling in the east started expanding both northward and southward while traveling westward towards my longitude…the auroral bulge/westward traveling surge! After arriving, there was a magnificent display of greens and even violets as the very energetic particles made it to lower altitudes in the ionosphere. It was beautiful! Even after it died down, I sat for awhile, because I knew that it was possible I wouldn’t have a chance to watch the aurora again that week. Soon coldness started seeping in, so I headed back. Unfortunately at this point, the cold and jetlag had woken me up, and I had a hard time falling asleep again.
Each breakfast was provided by the hotel, so the next morning Jenni and I went back up to the Panorama Restaurant where they served scrambled eggs and delicious bacon, fruit, cereals, and more. I was pretty hungry from not eating much over the weird travel time, so I scarfed down eggs and bacon. The rest of the week I craved the cereals more, because I was often thirsty and the milk sounded more appetizing.
The Harpa building, where we had the conference, was uniquely engineered to look like this particular rock formation-the same as Hallgrimskirkja. It served AMAZING lunches. The entire building had glass for walls, so anywhere you were (except within the conference room), you could see the outdoors. I wish all buildings were like that! ;) We wondered aloud about what the heating bill must be for a building made of glass…But someone pointed out that Iceland uses its own geothermal energy to power everything, and uses the hot water of the land to heat buildings, so something like 90% of its energy is completely renewable.
The conference itself was stupendous. The underlying commonality between the presented work was “Magnetotails”, so that meant not just Earth’s but also Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and even Uranus and Neptune made an appearance! I have to admit that I had no previous interest in the Jovian planets…Since I study Earth’s magnetotail, I didn’t see as much relevance and didn’t expect to enjoy the talks about the other planets as much. Much to my surprise, I was very interested by the majority of the talks all week long! It was really neat to get such a global…I mean…”solar systemal” view of space physics. It was cool to see that some of the problems and questions we ask about Earth’s magnetic system are the same questions we are asking at the other planets, while other processes are completely different and thus completely different questions arise! But this puts everything into perspective, as studying different systems than Earth’s can give us different situations to study the same physics and further our understanding about processes that we would otherwise have a very one-dimensional view about. For instance, I didn’t know why Jupiter had such a funny dayside. I found out it’s because it has a current disk which extends around the planet, pushing the magnetic field outwards at the dayside (instead of like Earth’s current sheet which is only in the tail). I also learned that the main plasma source for the Jovian (and I think Saturnian) systems are the moons, not the solar wind (like at Earth). I learned they don’t know how the plasma dissipates though, as they observe substantially less plasmoids exiting the system than is predicted if plasmoids were the main loss of plasma to the system. I learned the Mercury, like Earth, has a neutral line; however it’s super close to the planet at about 2 Hermian radii. I learned that they observe electron acceleration events, but not ions, so they want to know what is the acceleration method since the dipolarizations observed there aren’t accelerating the ions.
Monday night, Jenni and I joined Stein (my instructor when I took the substorm class in Iceland), a well-known Japanese scientist, Stefan (who I’ve known about as long as I’ve been in grad school, as he’s been involved with THEMIS all along and came to work at UCLA for about two years-was it really that long?!), and another grad student who we had just met at the poster session. We went to a SUPER nice restaurant where the food couldn’t have been better….Since it was so nice it was obviously expensive, and since I didn’t want to spend too much I got an appetizer of blue ling (a fish) and lobster. It was SO GOOD! The grad student ordered minke whale, puffin, and arctic char. He let us try it, so I tried the puffin and the whale. They were both to die for! Stefan was mocking us for eating the whale and told us we’d go to hell for it…I have to admit, after I ate it I did feel like I had just eaten a talking beast from Narnia. Stein couldn’t understand our discomfort eating it, because he (growing up in Norway) had grown up eating it. I guess it’s all in how you were brought up.
Which reminds me…I learned a bit of Icelandic history. In 1000 A.D., there was division among the peoples living there over paganism vs. Christianity. The head chieftan at the time who, although he was pagan, decided that for the country’s good that they would need to choose one religion and he chose Christianity. But he gave the people three provisos: They were allowed to keep the icons (idols) as long as they did so privately; they were allowed to continue putting unwanted children outside to die; and they were allowed to continue eating horse meat. Most of us shudder at the thought of eating horse meat, and we usually think it’s because they are so beautiful and graceful, and we build relationships with them. However, I have another theory. The reason eating horse meat was in contention anyway was because horses were sacrificed to the gods and then eaten…And, as I recall reading in the New Testament, Christians were allowed to break the Jewish eating laws and eat anything as long as it wasn’t sacrificed to gods. So that makes me wonder if the taboo on eating horse meat actually stems from that, since horse meat would have been outlawed in any other European nation for that reason!
On Tuesday, after the morning sessions, we took an afternoon walking tour of Reykjavik. Reykjavik is the capital of Iceland, and about 1/3 of the countries population of 320,000 live in the city proper while another 1/3 live in the general vicinity. We were matched up with a tour guide holding a balloon named “Sif”, the name of Thor’s wife from Nordic mythology. The guide looked uncannily like Josh Holte’s dad! We went by the president’s house, which used to be a prison, and had a statue of the Danish king from when Iceland was a colony of Denmark. We then went to the Parliament building, which is an extension into modern days of the original Althingy (I know, what a name!), which makes it something like the oldest system of government in the world. A thousand years ago, chieftans from around the country would travel and meet together to decide on laws and carry out judgments. A man who had memorized the entire law would stand up and read 1/3rd of it each year, so the entire law was read over the span of 3 years. It made me think of the ancient Jews, who also recited the law aloud. We saw the place where people think this speaking of the law took place. There were mounds that were up against the rift from where the two plates (American and Eurasian) are separating, so that the sound would carry well. But I’m getting ahead of myself, as that was another day.
We learned about how during the crisis, the people banged on pots for a year outside of parliament until they allowed the people to vote in new leaders. It was a peaceful revolution known as the Kitchen Utensil Revolution or something like that. We saw the 1st building constructed in Reykjavik, then went to a museum with a HUGE map of the country. This was right by a big pond filled with swans and other water foul. Following this we walked through the neighborhoods towards Hallgrimskirkja, where we were allowed to go in, take pictures, and even take an elevator ride up to the clock tower to see the city below. Jenni and I separated for dinner that night and went to a place our guide had recommended. I got the catch of the day over sweet potato which was delicious!
Wednesday was a full day of science followed by a banquet at the Perlan (Pearl), a rotating restaurant that is a main feature of Reykjavik and has lots of hot water cylinders around it. The views here were amazing, so we took lots of pictures. We sat at a table with the Thomsens and Ted and Sally (forget their last name) as well as two Russian ladies and another new grad student. Here we were served wine, an appetizer of salmon sushi, a main course of lamb which fell off the bone it was so tender, and a delicious dessert of cheesecake and fruit I think…But it was softer than normal cheesecake, so I liked it a lot better.
Thursday was a half day of science after a trip along Iceland’s Golden Circle. This tour began by getting out and looking where the two continental plates-the American and Eurasian-were splitting apart 2cm each year. The result is that the ground between them is lowering, so there is a ridge on either side. The vista was absolutely gorgeous!!! Snow-covered plains densely spotted with mirror still ponds and rivers with snow-covered mountains surrounding the entire area. After this we went to Gloss Falls (spelling?) which in English is Golden Falls. These were the largest water falls I have ever seen! Something like Niagra, I would guess. It was very windy and cold, and the water spray was being caught up in the winds and turned into snow! It was amazing.
After taking pictures until our fingers froze, we returned to the bus and headed off to see a live geyser called Strukkor. This guy goes off every 4-7 minutes, so thankfully the wait time is short to see him go off! It was so cool…You could see the water “breathing” as the pressure was changing inside, and it was first start overflowing the top, and then finally explode up into the air! It was neat seeing all of the steam coming out of the ground…It felt like we were on another planet! Fran was saying it was like we were on the moon Io, since we also smelled a lot of sulfur. Our one Icelandic participant explained to us how geysers work. He said Bunsen (as in, the Bunsen burner), a German scientist, visited Iceland and took temperatures of the water in the geyser at different depths. He discovered that it grew hotter at deeper depths, meaning that the water was also less dense. This makes for an unstable system, since less dense water wants to be on top and float. So it would sit in this precarious balance until something broke the instability, allowing the hot water to push past the denser, cooler water and also pushing it up and creating the explosion! (That’s a very simple explanation.) That original geyser is no longer alive, but is still there. In fact, it’s name is Geysir, and since it was the first geyser ever known to the Western world, it is the source of the term that we call all geysers today! I missed it at first, but when I found out where it was during dinner, I ran back outside in the dark (with the headlamp I had decided to bring along) so I could see it! It was huge, much bigger than Strukker. I could see the deep hole in the middle where water used to shoot out of. It was explained to us that the water depth is about 10 or 30 (I cant remember which) meters less than originally because people used to throw rocks into it to make it spout. The rocks would cause the perturbation that would allow the instability to go crazy.
We had dinner with the Icelander so we got a chance to pick his brain about Icelandic culture and history. He said they normally have a hot dinner of chicken, lamb, fish, beef, or pork during the week. Lamb isn’t a delicacy, but they eat it about once a week. Fish they used to eat almost daily, but no longer. I asked why did Iceland become Lutheran after the Reformation-I was curious because, as an isolated country, I wondered why they would go along with the Reformation. He said that it was mostly political and about money. Since under the Protestant church the king was given possession of the church’s land and belongings, the king wanted the people to leave Catholicism for Lutheranism. Sadly, the remaining bishop and his two sons were beheaded over it. It’s an awful reminder of how religion-which, at the heart of what it teaches is beautiful and if lived out would give us “abundant life”-can be, as with anything else precious and pure, twisted for use to gain power. You see it nowadays too, with people using religion to push their political agendas…But this post isn’t meant to go into that rant. The dinner at the Geysir Hotel was chicken, potato, and an unknown delicious vegetable.
But before the dinner and after the tour, we had the afternoon science session in the Geysir hotel. This was the session that both Jenni and I gave our 15 minute presentations, and we both rocked it!! We had SO MANY people approach us to tell us what an awesome job we did! Someone thanked me for making it such a clear talk that they could easily follow. A student told me if I was a professor, he would take my class. I had been so anxious and practiced the talk a lot the day before…It always takes me going over it several times before I have the ‘acting” down. Once I was up there I wasn’t nervous anymore (well, only at first so I mispronounced Xianzhe’s name, doh!) I was my usual animated self, and I could tell I had the entire room’s attention as everywhere I looked, I saw attentive eyes and not blank faces or faces looking into laptops. I went overtime, but it was okay…I had lots of questions afterwards, but I was able to acknowledge them all and either say “Yes! We are planning to do that!” or explain it better. There was one time I didn’t know what M. Hesse was asking me, but Vassilis understood and was able to interject just enough information that I was able to understand the question and easily explain. Basically, I had forgotten to mention that we gave the pulse a velocity of 425km/s and allowed it to move in towards the spacecraft, so he didn’t know how the injections could see a time-dependent situation thinking that the pulse was just on all the time. G. Reeves pointed out that he and V. Sergeev had seen similar depletions in eflux and called them “electron holes”. He suggested if I looked at pitch angles I could resolve the cause, which I agreed with and told him I wanted to do that in the future. He was really interested in my work though, and came up to me later to discuss it more. Don also approached me and gave me an awkward praise…He said that because I was so enthusiastic, that he felt he had to pay attention and that he thought it would end up being a cover-up for bad science…But that he was pleasantly surprised that in fact it was very good science! Because I had an embarrassed look on my face he followed up by saying, “No no no, that’s a good thing! Because it was quite good science!” I think he was trying to pay me a nice compliment but it just came out a little funny. He had asked me a question about how particle trajectories would be altered if I included the dipolarization, so I acknowledged this fact and told him I planned to include that in my thesis. M. Hesse also told me it was a very good talk…V (my adviser) also, and the next day he even said it was the best talk! So after so many years of not being allowed to present, I feel I was finally able to shine and get the attention of a lot of influential people in the field. Yay!
On Friday, I have to admit it was hard to pay attention. I was tired from not sleeping well all week, I was done with my presentation, and the content of the talks wasn’t as interesting to me. But, after all the science was over, we took a group trip to the Blue Lagoon to relax and enjoy the geothermally heated pools! We learned that it was the “waste” water of the geothermal power plant that people began swimming in during the 70s, so they turned it into a resort! We started out by viewing the Lagoon from on high, had some appetizers and blue champagne, and then changed into our suits! It was cold outside, so I was thankful that there was a way to enter the Lagoon from the inside of the building. You could enter the warm water inside, and then there was a door that led to the outside. Jenni and I floated around with Shabit (an undergrad from UCLA who works for Vahe), Stefan, and Robert M. who joined us for a bit. At one end of the Lagoon, there was a box of white mud you could put on your face as a mask! So we all did that, and I think that my face really did feel smoother afterwards. Jenni and I found a man-made waterfall which is meant to stand under so you get a shoulder massage. The water is very full of minerals, so it’s supposed to have a healing quality, although it really dries out your hair. We had to use lots of conditioner before and after to try and protect our hair!
We bought sandwiches to eat on the bus ride home, had a relaxing bus ride back, and then chilled out in our hotel in hopes to catch the aurora since the sky was finally clear. Near midnight, we heard our neighbors get a phone call. Then we heard several doors open and slam…and we started suspecting that the aurora might be going on! Sure enough, we got the phone call, so we bundled up and ran outside. It was a meeker show than on Sunday, but we were happy to see some arcs. They generally would appear in the west and propagate eastward. The coolest part was probably that at one point there were three east-west arcs, and the middle arc started propagating equatorward (towards us) and was enveloped into the equatorward arc. We thought this might initiate a substorm, but no such luck. We were alone except for James W., and Mike W. and his wife were out there for a bit as well as Larry K. Everyone else was apparently hanging out at the Viking ship sculpture, which we started walking towards but then turned back from because we didn’t want to miss any possible show.
We had mostly packed up our suitcases after we got back but before the aurora, so we went to bed. It was a good night’s sleep for me…I think I was finally getting over jetlag on Thursday and Friday nights. :P In the morning we got up and had one last breakfast at the Panorama Restaurant. We then checked out and stored our luggage so we could do a bit of shopping before we took the shuttle to the airport. I found some small thank you gifts for the guys who drove me to/from the airport in LA, and also found a nice fleece for myself and postcards for family. Jenni got a pretty wool blanket, since Iceland is so well-known for its wool. We got a lunch of “lamb, mint, and sweet potato pastie” and then went back to the hotel to catch our shuttle.
A lot of conference participants were on one of our flights (there was one going to JFK (Jenni’s), one to Denver (mine), and another to Seattle, all about the same time). Jenni’s flight was overbooked, but thankfully she was able to get on by being upgraded to business class! Unfortunately for Xienzhe, who was after her in line, he was put on standby list. So, now I am on the flight heading to Denver. I tried “happy marriage cake”, which I thought would be fresh but it was packaged. It was a cake with like, raison or prune paste or something. I watched several episodes of Bing Bang Theory, and then I watched Prometheus. I forgot until afterwards that it’s supposed to be a prequel to the Alien movies, so I was pretty confused and also grossed out by it. I think you have to watch the Alien movies to understand what is going on, because I didn’t know why David poisoned Elizabeth’s love/husband, which was very sad. I also didn’t know why Aliens were being birthed out of people.
Anyways, so after that I started listening to “Icelandic music” provided by the plane and then wrote this journal entry, since I knew I would never do it once I got home. But it appears I have managed to do it on the flight with 2 hours and 17 minutes to spare! The total flight to Denver is 7 hours 40 minutes. I am kind of hungry, as I only had the small “happy wedding cake” for dinner and now it is 10:23pm Iceland time…I saw some pretty icebergs as we flew over the Hudson Bay and took some video and pictures. Now either I’ll eat (though I feel awkward calling a stewardess) or take a nap. I could work…but I’m feeling pretty tired. We’ll see!
As they say in Icelandic for goodbye, Bless!
Another thing I liked a lot was how friendly the people all were. I never ran into a rude Icelander (except maybe the tax refund ladies at the airport, and they were more just grumpy). They were all very friendly and helpful, and didn’t at all convey the attitude I’ve found in Europe before that says, “I don’t like foreigners. Go away.” In fact the shop keepers would ask how we were enjoying our stay, and seemed genuinely happy when we said we were having a wonderful time. I suppose, tourism is a great source of revenue for the country.
I didn’t sleep at all on the flight over, which went from LAX to Seattle to Reykjavik. We landed about 6:30am UT, took the shuttle bus and arrived at our hotel about 8:30am. Unfortunately, check-in wasn’t until 2pm, so we couldn’t take a nap. Jenni arrived shortly after I did, so we stored our luggage and walked about the city, taking pictures of the harbor and walking up to Hallgrimskirkja. It was Sunday, and we happened to be fortunate enough to arrive while the service was going on, so we joined. While we couldn’t understand anything, we could tell when the Lord’s prayer began because the cadence was the same as when we pray in English! Some things cross cultures and languages. J Right, before we walked we explored until we found an open coffee shop where we could put a bit into our stomachs.
After we finished walking, we went back to the hotel and used the internet for about 30 minutes before we could get into our room. I showered off and then we went to the 5pm reception where we met some people, ate some food, and took more pictures from the hotel’s 8th floor (Panorama Restaurant). We were exhausted, so we went to bed around 8pm.
At about 11:45pm, we got a phone call from the front desk to notify us that there was visible aurora! They said we had to hurry because it was moving fast, so I just threw my glasses on along with my warm outerwear and sprinted outside. I crossed the street and stood in the shadow of the Harpa building, where we would hold our conference the following week. There was a lot of harbor lights, but one could still see a green arc across the northern sky stretching from east to west. I saw some dancing rays and some great dynamics. After a while of quiet, I walked around to see if there was a better spot. When there wasn’t, I returned, just in time to see a substorm break-up! A large explosion of green lights swirling in the east started expanding both northward and southward while traveling westward towards my longitude…the auroral bulge/westward traveling surge! After arriving, there was a magnificent display of greens and even violets as the very energetic particles made it to lower altitudes in the ionosphere. It was beautiful! Even after it died down, I sat for awhile, because I knew that it was possible I wouldn’t have a chance to watch the aurora again that week. Soon coldness started seeping in, so I headed back. Unfortunately at this point, the cold and jetlag had woken me up, and I had a hard time falling asleep again.
Each breakfast was provided by the hotel, so the next morning Jenni and I went back up to the Panorama Restaurant where they served scrambled eggs and delicious bacon, fruit, cereals, and more. I was pretty hungry from not eating much over the weird travel time, so I scarfed down eggs and bacon. The rest of the week I craved the cereals more, because I was often thirsty and the milk sounded more appetizing.
The Harpa building, where we had the conference, was uniquely engineered to look like this particular rock formation-the same as Hallgrimskirkja. It served AMAZING lunches. The entire building had glass for walls, so anywhere you were (except within the conference room), you could see the outdoors. I wish all buildings were like that! ;) We wondered aloud about what the heating bill must be for a building made of glass…But someone pointed out that Iceland uses its own geothermal energy to power everything, and uses the hot water of the land to heat buildings, so something like 90% of its energy is completely renewable.
The conference itself was stupendous. The underlying commonality between the presented work was “Magnetotails”, so that meant not just Earth’s but also Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and even Uranus and Neptune made an appearance! I have to admit that I had no previous interest in the Jovian planets…Since I study Earth’s magnetotail, I didn’t see as much relevance and didn’t expect to enjoy the talks about the other planets as much. Much to my surprise, I was very interested by the majority of the talks all week long! It was really neat to get such a global…I mean…”solar systemal” view of space physics. It was cool to see that some of the problems and questions we ask about Earth’s magnetic system are the same questions we are asking at the other planets, while other processes are completely different and thus completely different questions arise! But this puts everything into perspective, as studying different systems than Earth’s can give us different situations to study the same physics and further our understanding about processes that we would otherwise have a very one-dimensional view about. For instance, I didn’t know why Jupiter had such a funny dayside. I found out it’s because it has a current disk which extends around the planet, pushing the magnetic field outwards at the dayside (instead of like Earth’s current sheet which is only in the tail). I also learned that the main plasma source for the Jovian (and I think Saturnian) systems are the moons, not the solar wind (like at Earth). I learned they don’t know how the plasma dissipates though, as they observe substantially less plasmoids exiting the system than is predicted if plasmoids were the main loss of plasma to the system. I learned the Mercury, like Earth, has a neutral line; however it’s super close to the planet at about 2 Hermian radii. I learned that they observe electron acceleration events, but not ions, so they want to know what is the acceleration method since the dipolarizations observed there aren’t accelerating the ions.
Monday night, Jenni and I joined Stein (my instructor when I took the substorm class in Iceland), a well-known Japanese scientist, Stefan (who I’ve known about as long as I’ve been in grad school, as he’s been involved with THEMIS all along and came to work at UCLA for about two years-was it really that long?!), and another grad student who we had just met at the poster session. We went to a SUPER nice restaurant where the food couldn’t have been better….Since it was so nice it was obviously expensive, and since I didn’t want to spend too much I got an appetizer of blue ling (a fish) and lobster. It was SO GOOD! The grad student ordered minke whale, puffin, and arctic char. He let us try it, so I tried the puffin and the whale. They were both to die for! Stefan was mocking us for eating the whale and told us we’d go to hell for it…I have to admit, after I ate it I did feel like I had just eaten a talking beast from Narnia. Stein couldn’t understand our discomfort eating it, because he (growing up in Norway) had grown up eating it. I guess it’s all in how you were brought up.
Which reminds me…I learned a bit of Icelandic history. In 1000 A.D., there was division among the peoples living there over paganism vs. Christianity. The head chieftan at the time who, although he was pagan, decided that for the country’s good that they would need to choose one religion and he chose Christianity. But he gave the people three provisos: They were allowed to keep the icons (idols) as long as they did so privately; they were allowed to continue putting unwanted children outside to die; and they were allowed to continue eating horse meat. Most of us shudder at the thought of eating horse meat, and we usually think it’s because they are so beautiful and graceful, and we build relationships with them. However, I have another theory. The reason eating horse meat was in contention anyway was because horses were sacrificed to the gods and then eaten…And, as I recall reading in the New Testament, Christians were allowed to break the Jewish eating laws and eat anything as long as it wasn’t sacrificed to gods. So that makes me wonder if the taboo on eating horse meat actually stems from that, since horse meat would have been outlawed in any other European nation for that reason!
On Tuesday, after the morning sessions, we took an afternoon walking tour of Reykjavik. Reykjavik is the capital of Iceland, and about 1/3 of the countries population of 320,000 live in the city proper while another 1/3 live in the general vicinity. We were matched up with a tour guide holding a balloon named “Sif”, the name of Thor’s wife from Nordic mythology. The guide looked uncannily like Josh Holte’s dad! We went by the president’s house, which used to be a prison, and had a statue of the Danish king from when Iceland was a colony of Denmark. We then went to the Parliament building, which is an extension into modern days of the original Althingy (I know, what a name!), which makes it something like the oldest system of government in the world. A thousand years ago, chieftans from around the country would travel and meet together to decide on laws and carry out judgments. A man who had memorized the entire law would stand up and read 1/3rd of it each year, so the entire law was read over the span of 3 years. It made me think of the ancient Jews, who also recited the law aloud. We saw the place where people think this speaking of the law took place. There were mounds that were up against the rift from where the two plates (American and Eurasian) are separating, so that the sound would carry well. But I’m getting ahead of myself, as that was another day.
We learned about how during the crisis, the people banged on pots for a year outside of parliament until they allowed the people to vote in new leaders. It was a peaceful revolution known as the Kitchen Utensil Revolution or something like that. We saw the 1st building constructed in Reykjavik, then went to a museum with a HUGE map of the country. This was right by a big pond filled with swans and other water foul. Following this we walked through the neighborhoods towards Hallgrimskirkja, where we were allowed to go in, take pictures, and even take an elevator ride up to the clock tower to see the city below. Jenni and I separated for dinner that night and went to a place our guide had recommended. I got the catch of the day over sweet potato which was delicious!
Wednesday was a full day of science followed by a banquet at the Perlan (Pearl), a rotating restaurant that is a main feature of Reykjavik and has lots of hot water cylinders around it. The views here were amazing, so we took lots of pictures. We sat at a table with the Thomsens and Ted and Sally (forget their last name) as well as two Russian ladies and another new grad student. Here we were served wine, an appetizer of salmon sushi, a main course of lamb which fell off the bone it was so tender, and a delicious dessert of cheesecake and fruit I think…But it was softer than normal cheesecake, so I liked it a lot better.
Thursday was a half day of science after a trip along Iceland’s Golden Circle. This tour began by getting out and looking where the two continental plates-the American and Eurasian-were splitting apart 2cm each year. The result is that the ground between them is lowering, so there is a ridge on either side. The vista was absolutely gorgeous!!! Snow-covered plains densely spotted with mirror still ponds and rivers with snow-covered mountains surrounding the entire area. After this we went to Gloss Falls (spelling?) which in English is Golden Falls. These were the largest water falls I have ever seen! Something like Niagra, I would guess. It was very windy and cold, and the water spray was being caught up in the winds and turned into snow! It was amazing.
After taking pictures until our fingers froze, we returned to the bus and headed off to see a live geyser called Strukkor. This guy goes off every 4-7 minutes, so thankfully the wait time is short to see him go off! It was so cool…You could see the water “breathing” as the pressure was changing inside, and it was first start overflowing the top, and then finally explode up into the air! It was neat seeing all of the steam coming out of the ground…It felt like we were on another planet! Fran was saying it was like we were on the moon Io, since we also smelled a lot of sulfur. Our one Icelandic participant explained to us how geysers work. He said Bunsen (as in, the Bunsen burner), a German scientist, visited Iceland and took temperatures of the water in the geyser at different depths. He discovered that it grew hotter at deeper depths, meaning that the water was also less dense. This makes for an unstable system, since less dense water wants to be on top and float. So it would sit in this precarious balance until something broke the instability, allowing the hot water to push past the denser, cooler water and also pushing it up and creating the explosion! (That’s a very simple explanation.) That original geyser is no longer alive, but is still there. In fact, it’s name is Geysir, and since it was the first geyser ever known to the Western world, it is the source of the term that we call all geysers today! I missed it at first, but when I found out where it was during dinner, I ran back outside in the dark (with the headlamp I had decided to bring along) so I could see it! It was huge, much bigger than Strukker. I could see the deep hole in the middle where water used to shoot out of. It was explained to us that the water depth is about 10 or 30 (I cant remember which) meters less than originally because people used to throw rocks into it to make it spout. The rocks would cause the perturbation that would allow the instability to go crazy.
We had dinner with the Icelander so we got a chance to pick his brain about Icelandic culture and history. He said they normally have a hot dinner of chicken, lamb, fish, beef, or pork during the week. Lamb isn’t a delicacy, but they eat it about once a week. Fish they used to eat almost daily, but no longer. I asked why did Iceland become Lutheran after the Reformation-I was curious because, as an isolated country, I wondered why they would go along with the Reformation. He said that it was mostly political and about money. Since under the Protestant church the king was given possession of the church’s land and belongings, the king wanted the people to leave Catholicism for Lutheranism. Sadly, the remaining bishop and his two sons were beheaded over it. It’s an awful reminder of how religion-which, at the heart of what it teaches is beautiful and if lived out would give us “abundant life”-can be, as with anything else precious and pure, twisted for use to gain power. You see it nowadays too, with people using religion to push their political agendas…But this post isn’t meant to go into that rant. The dinner at the Geysir Hotel was chicken, potato, and an unknown delicious vegetable.
But before the dinner and after the tour, we had the afternoon science session in the Geysir hotel. This was the session that both Jenni and I gave our 15 minute presentations, and we both rocked it!! We had SO MANY people approach us to tell us what an awesome job we did! Someone thanked me for making it such a clear talk that they could easily follow. A student told me if I was a professor, he would take my class. I had been so anxious and practiced the talk a lot the day before…It always takes me going over it several times before I have the ‘acting” down. Once I was up there I wasn’t nervous anymore (well, only at first so I mispronounced Xianzhe’s name, doh!) I was my usual animated self, and I could tell I had the entire room’s attention as everywhere I looked, I saw attentive eyes and not blank faces or faces looking into laptops. I went overtime, but it was okay…I had lots of questions afterwards, but I was able to acknowledge them all and either say “Yes! We are planning to do that!” or explain it better. There was one time I didn’t know what M. Hesse was asking me, but Vassilis understood and was able to interject just enough information that I was able to understand the question and easily explain. Basically, I had forgotten to mention that we gave the pulse a velocity of 425km/s and allowed it to move in towards the spacecraft, so he didn’t know how the injections could see a time-dependent situation thinking that the pulse was just on all the time. G. Reeves pointed out that he and V. Sergeev had seen similar depletions in eflux and called them “electron holes”. He suggested if I looked at pitch angles I could resolve the cause, which I agreed with and told him I wanted to do that in the future. He was really interested in my work though, and came up to me later to discuss it more. Don also approached me and gave me an awkward praise…He said that because I was so enthusiastic, that he felt he had to pay attention and that he thought it would end up being a cover-up for bad science…But that he was pleasantly surprised that in fact it was very good science! Because I had an embarrassed look on my face he followed up by saying, “No no no, that’s a good thing! Because it was quite good science!” I think he was trying to pay me a nice compliment but it just came out a little funny. He had asked me a question about how particle trajectories would be altered if I included the dipolarization, so I acknowledged this fact and told him I planned to include that in my thesis. M. Hesse also told me it was a very good talk…V (my adviser) also, and the next day he even said it was the best talk! So after so many years of not being allowed to present, I feel I was finally able to shine and get the attention of a lot of influential people in the field. Yay!
On Friday, I have to admit it was hard to pay attention. I was tired from not sleeping well all week, I was done with my presentation, and the content of the talks wasn’t as interesting to me. But, after all the science was over, we took a group trip to the Blue Lagoon to relax and enjoy the geothermally heated pools! We learned that it was the “waste” water of the geothermal power plant that people began swimming in during the 70s, so they turned it into a resort! We started out by viewing the Lagoon from on high, had some appetizers and blue champagne, and then changed into our suits! It was cold outside, so I was thankful that there was a way to enter the Lagoon from the inside of the building. You could enter the warm water inside, and then there was a door that led to the outside. Jenni and I floated around with Shabit (an undergrad from UCLA who works for Vahe), Stefan, and Robert M. who joined us for a bit. At one end of the Lagoon, there was a box of white mud you could put on your face as a mask! So we all did that, and I think that my face really did feel smoother afterwards. Jenni and I found a man-made waterfall which is meant to stand under so you get a shoulder massage. The water is very full of minerals, so it’s supposed to have a healing quality, although it really dries out your hair. We had to use lots of conditioner before and after to try and protect our hair!
We bought sandwiches to eat on the bus ride home, had a relaxing bus ride back, and then chilled out in our hotel in hopes to catch the aurora since the sky was finally clear. Near midnight, we heard our neighbors get a phone call. Then we heard several doors open and slam…and we started suspecting that the aurora might be going on! Sure enough, we got the phone call, so we bundled up and ran outside. It was a meeker show than on Sunday, but we were happy to see some arcs. They generally would appear in the west and propagate eastward. The coolest part was probably that at one point there were three east-west arcs, and the middle arc started propagating equatorward (towards us) and was enveloped into the equatorward arc. We thought this might initiate a substorm, but no such luck. We were alone except for James W., and Mike W. and his wife were out there for a bit as well as Larry K. Everyone else was apparently hanging out at the Viking ship sculpture, which we started walking towards but then turned back from because we didn’t want to miss any possible show.
We had mostly packed up our suitcases after we got back but before the aurora, so we went to bed. It was a good night’s sleep for me…I think I was finally getting over jetlag on Thursday and Friday nights. :P In the morning we got up and had one last breakfast at the Panorama Restaurant. We then checked out and stored our luggage so we could do a bit of shopping before we took the shuttle to the airport. I found some small thank you gifts for the guys who drove me to/from the airport in LA, and also found a nice fleece for myself and postcards for family. Jenni got a pretty wool blanket, since Iceland is so well-known for its wool. We got a lunch of “lamb, mint, and sweet potato pastie” and then went back to the hotel to catch our shuttle.
A lot of conference participants were on one of our flights (there was one going to JFK (Jenni’s), one to Denver (mine), and another to Seattle, all about the same time). Jenni’s flight was overbooked, but thankfully she was able to get on by being upgraded to business class! Unfortunately for Xienzhe, who was after her in line, he was put on standby list. So, now I am on the flight heading to Denver. I tried “happy marriage cake”, which I thought would be fresh but it was packaged. It was a cake with like, raison or prune paste or something. I watched several episodes of Bing Bang Theory, and then I watched Prometheus. I forgot until afterwards that it’s supposed to be a prequel to the Alien movies, so I was pretty confused and also grossed out by it. I think you have to watch the Alien movies to understand what is going on, because I didn’t know why David poisoned Elizabeth’s love/husband, which was very sad. I also didn’t know why Aliens were being birthed out of people.
Anyways, so after that I started listening to “Icelandic music” provided by the plane and then wrote this journal entry, since I knew I would never do it once I got home. But it appears I have managed to do it on the flight with 2 hours and 17 minutes to spare! The total flight to Denver is 7 hours 40 minutes. I am kind of hungry, as I only had the small “happy wedding cake” for dinner and now it is 10:23pm Iceland time…I saw some pretty icebergs as we flew over the Hudson Bay and took some video and pictures. Now either I’ll eat (though I feel awkward calling a stewardess) or take a nap. I could work…but I’m feeling pretty tired. We’ll see!
As they say in Icelandic for goodbye, Bless!