The Garden Statement Part II: Shopping in Whippany

Since I've been living in a furnished apartment, I've had a much more detailed introduction into the US shopping experience than I have in countries where I stay in hotels.

It's not that different from South Africa in many respects. There are the same basic advertising media and retail channels that I'm used to, but there are some subtle differences.

I've been to Target, and it's like a typical hypermarket in South Africa. I bought some basic groceries there on my first day, and although in general groceries are more expensive here, it wasn't too bad. I have a few comments, though. First off, the following products:

The Jif-brand faux-Nutella was slightly cheaper than the branded stuff, and not too bad, but I changed back to the Good Stuff when I realised how small the price difference was. The peanut butter did, in all fairness, say "extra chunky", so I can't really take issue with the fact that it was basically a bottle of peanuts with a bit of peanut butter gluing them together, but as for the tub on the left: it's quite serviceable margarine, but anyone who "can't believe it's not butter" has never actually tasted butter. And, Unilever, don't even think of pointing me at the disclaimer "Tastes as good as fresh butter, according to 4 out of 5 butter users"! "as good as" ≠ "I can't believe it's not". C'est magnifique, mais c'est ne pas la buerre!

Ooh, pretty!  Do these make my feet look big?

A bit later, I went shoe shopping at Target, because my takkies needed replacing. While there, I saw some very nice-looking Swissgear hiking boots, and briefly understood what it must be like to enjoy shoe-shopping. Unfortunately, they were not as comfortable as they looked, so I just bought a pair of sneakers for about $30.

King's is a much higher-tone establishment than Target. There is a King's within a few km of my flat: my closest real grocery store. For my South African friends: it's quite similar to Spar. It was a bit more expensive than I preferred, though, so I next went to my second closest grocery store: Stop&Shop. I was impressed by the fact that you can check your own groceries at a self-service counter, but my colleague Deborah pointed out that they have a further level of convenience:

That's right, you can scan and bag your groceries as you go through the shop, and when you're done, you just pay at the self-service counter, hang up your scanner, and go! No human interaction required (yes, even for that green pepper you see there!) I guess the shop has to trust its customers to an extent for this to work, but I'm not sure how their security is set up to detect fraud.

As for the range of products, they have a few interesting items that I wasn't familiar with:

Celery roots: I never knew one ate anything except the stem!

Half-and-Half: it's half milk, half cream.

Another thing I was only vaguely aware of was how bad US chocolate is.  I'd heard rumours, but until I tasted one of these:

I really had no idea.  I thought it had gone bad: it tasted vile! Then colleague Shelly clued me into the history: apparently American consumers had gotten used to the taste of chocolate made with stale milk, to such an extent that butyric acid is added to much American chocolate to satisfy that expectation!


Now I'm going to talk about advertising, so here's some fair warning:

I was amazed at the varying quality of American TV advertising. Some is great: I even enjoy watching some of the TV ads. just like in South Africa. Some is absolutely terrible:

Seriously, what do a CGI-generated general and a penguin have to do with insurance? And then there are thoroughly corny ads featuring a mutilated song from Grease about "summer savings" on Nissans. And then an ad for my local Honda dealership clued me in. The fact that a small-town car dealership can afford to advertise on Cable TV implies that you can target your ad extremely locally: in fact, as colleague Khyati explained, you can target by zip code.  When you're not paying through the nose for placement, there's less incentive to go the extra mile on production values.

Then there's the outdoor advertising. Africa has, if anything, bigger and more in-your-face billboards than here (probably because of the lower penetration of other media? I'm not sure.) but there were some interesting little billboards advertising local businesses:

Yes, that's right: the Honda dealership had a much cornier outdoor campaign than even their TV campaign would have suggested. They win the prize for the least inspiring Olympic tie-in I've ever seen on any product, with an honorable mention for the greengrocer's apostrophe.

I'd always asssumed that freemasonry was a secret society, and in many places they're frankly regarded with suspicion, but here they advertise right on the roadside, and proudly announce their presence. I suppose nowadays they're much like Rotary or the Shriners.

As far as car stuff goes, there are also a few quirks. Because of the law in New Jersey, I don't get to pump my own gas, so that's much like South Africa, but here you have to check to see what the gas station charges per gallon: it's not all one price! Also, whereas in South Africa you'd never find a petrol station without compressed air available for free to fill your tyres, I couldn't find one single gas station along Route 10 which has compressed air! I had to go to the tyre repair place that has a contract with the rental agency when my low-pressure warning light came on.

While waiting for them, I wandered around and found a shop called (and I'm not making this up, I swear!) "Guidolume". They specialize in lights and clocks. They had walls full of clocks, so naturally I went there to kill some time. They had lots of relatively nondescript grandfather clocks,

but their wall clocks finally brought out the snob in me. They had the level of understatement and sophistication that perfectly suit a pretentious South African blue-collar home. Swarovski crystals and Christmas chimes (shudder).

The cable TV was also interesting.  Just as Danielle had noticed in South Africa, I also found that the "naughty" words had been censored from some of the channels.  But while looking for some nerdy entertainment one evening, I found that for those desperate enough, there are … other options:

Let me hasten to add that I have never and will never buy pay-per-view porn!

Anyway, that concludes my biased and incomplete view of the US commercial space. Next episode: México!

The Garden Statement part I: Bathroom User Interfaces and Whippany Wheels

I have been living in Whippany, New Jersey ("The Garden State", according to the license plates and that movie with the guy who played in "Scrubs") since mid July, and every weekend, I vow to update my blog, and then I either just laze around or I get taken out to see even more of my new surroundings by my temporary office-mates (and, I hope, permanent friends!)  So I've decided: Instead of trying to write One Perfect Blog Post, I'm going to go with the series approach.  In the next couple of episodes, I'll catch you all up to the present day.

The first thing that struck me on arriving at our Whippany office, was how everyone took a great interest in making sure I felt welcome and had everything I needed; from a birthday card signed by the whole group, to the way my new boss made sure I had everything I needed, and helped connect me to whomever could help, to the colleagues who helped me find my way in the lab and around the area (more details to follow in future episodes!)

I'm not prone to culture shock, so I didn't expect USA to be a strange place, beyond what I'd already heard about it.  I consume popular culture (TV and Internet), so I figured I'd be pretty much prepared.  As it turns out, the surprise was how little different it was from South Africa.  New Jersey is quite cosmopolitan, very suburban, and quite green at this time of year.  (I hear that winter is a very different story.)

There were a few weird things, though.  For example, on my arrival in Whippany, I stayed in a hotel for one night, and when I left I mentioned that they should check the shower, because it was only giving cold water.  When I arrived in my rented apartment the next day, though, I had the same type of plumbing fitting, and I discovered that I just didn't know how to use the tap.  Consider the following two devices:

Bathroom shower

Bathroom sink

Superficially, they seem to have the same user interface, and they're made by the same company.  However, they work quite differently.  To open the tap in the bathroom sink, you pull the knob towards you, and to set the temperature, you turn it left and right.  It's rather hard to set the flow rate, but it can be done.  The one in the shower, on the other hand, has no independent control of flow rate and temperature.  You turn it anticlockwise to turn it on, and if you want hot water, you turn it further anticlockwise.  Go figure.

Another particularly annoying "feature" in the bathroom user-interface realm is automatic-flush toilets.  The plan is probably that you don't have to touch anything in the stall, and won't forget to flush.  The reality is that the toilet flushes when you walk into the stall, because the sensor isn't properly tuned; flushes again if you happen to lean forward for any reason (very disconcerting!) and once more when you leave.  I just hang some toilet paper over the sensor to avoid surprises.

Lincoln Town Car

For the first few days I spent here, I was taken to work and back by a limo service.  They use Lincoln Town Cars, a brand of car I'd never seen in real life, but which I'd describe as big, ugly, stereotypically American cars.

On the second day, we rounded up a posse of highly qualified R&D scientists to rent a car.  Being the frugal type, I selected an ugly little van that wouldn't have looked out of place as a drug dealer's car, but as it turned out, there were a few bits of red tape that the team wasn't used to dealing with from the previous manager.  Apparently his lax attitude was part of the reason why he was the previous manager.

Yes, the number-plate says "AXE".

This worked out in my favour though.  When we came back the next day, the nasty little van was gone, and I got a Ford Focus instead, which I enjoyed, partly because Surice had driven one before, loved it, and would be envious!  It's not bad, but it's an automatic, and a petrol model, so the best I can achieve is slightly above 30 MPG (about 7.8 L/100 km), while I can easily get 5 L/100 km (47 MPG) out of my sweet little VW Polo diesel back home.

The Whippany team also quickly organised a driving evaluation/lesson so that I'd be allowed to drive my new ride, and got me a GPS so that I'd be able to find my way around.  I almost turned into oncoming traffic at one point, but my teacher corrected me, and I was fine for the rest of the drive, so he cleared me for action.  I haven't repeated that mistake, so I guess I'm OK.

Street signs are a bit different from South Africa: you have to read more over here.  Where we'd have a picture of pedestrians crossing a road, they have a sign saying "PED XING", which is apparently not the name of a local restaurant.  Their speed limit signs are much easier to miss, because they're just rectangular black and white signs, so you have to keep a sharp eye out for them.

Jersey drivers (this is actually a rare sight)

I was quite strongly advised against cycling in New Jersey.  It's supposedly not bike-friendly, the drivers are aggressive, and the consensus was that it would be a bad idea.  I weighed up the pros and cons, and started bike-shopping.  Before I got to the point of actually shelling out cash, though, one of my favourite colleagues from the Halls group came to my rescue and lent me a bike, a helmet, a water-bottle and a pump (Thanks, Khyati!), so I started commuting by bike, and I've become significantly fitter!  A trip that took me almost an hour now takes me about 45 minutes.  A good part of my trip is a designated cycle route, I ride on the sidewalks where possible, and I face traffic if I feel unsafe about any part of the ride.  The cops don't seem to mind any of these behaviours, and I haven't even had a close call yet: so far so good!

The cyclists in our R&D group are friendly and helpful, and they've taken me along on one mountain and one road biking trip so far, and it's been a blast!  I haven't yet had a chance to take pictures, but the views have been picture-postcard great, for example, the view of the George Washington Bridge from the Palisades Park.  For the road biking trip, a colleague whom I'd only ever emailed a few times before coming here lent me a carbon fiber road bike and cycling clothes (Thanks Tony!), and another contributed pedals (because I don't own shoes with cleats for clipless pedals - Thanks Frank!)

This is the view we saw at the start of the bike trip (not my photo, sorry!)

Look out for my next installment: shopping in Jersey!

DC Days

So after meeting my colleague Danielle, handing over as much information as I could muster in one day, and a whirlwind of packing and preparation, I finally left for the USA.  I'd been warned about the TSA and the stringent safety measures in US airports, so I was not really surprised.  They really do slow down the queues, though, and I didn't realise that the screening started in OR Tambo airport.

Airport screening in JHB for a flight to JFK

After landing in JFK, I had about 2 and half hours to make my flight to DC, so I was nervous about missing it, but I made it with plenty of time to spare.  DC was a blur.  I landed, took two buses to the international hostel and then somehow got to the venue - I think I walked the 2.5 km. I definitely did this for the rest of my time there; it was simply less hassle than taking the bus.

We had a choice: get the conference shirt for free, or use the credit for anything else in the conference shop.  I opted to get an "I edit Wikipedia" shirt instead.

When I say DC was a blur, I really mean it. I hardly took any photographs. I did photograph the delicious clam chowder I got at Così, though.

Apart from the amazing, stimulating talks I attended, and the valuable meetings we had about Wikimedia South Africa's upcoming WikiLovesMonuments project, one of the main highlights was the OpenStreetMap mapping party.  This year, the unofficial theme was "I map dead people": a tour through the Congressional cemetery.

Why is the organiser the only one not wearing a cool orange Official Open Street Map Surveyor vest?

While mapping the famous graves, I spotted a few inscriptions that I found amusing in a kind of schoolboy fashion:

I'm guessing this guy didn't die poor.

Another tragic victim of the Spam Wars

Soo, do you come here often?

But there were also some more interesting ones, many of which have Wikipedia articles about their subjects, and some who probably could have, but don't.  One interesting example of the former is Ann Royall, Pioneer Woman Publicist. An example of the latter is A-Moose or Little Bee, a Chippewa chief who died of the "Black Measles" while part of a delegation of chiefs being shown around Washington to put the fear of the US Army into them, so that they would not get all warlike again.

What are those little red flags, anyway?

The major output of all of this is that the Congressional cemetery is no longer just a green blob on the map: it's now a pretty good work in progress, and I had a hand in it!

I like the layout of DC: If you want to be on 11th and K, you walk until you find 11th street, change direction and then walk until you find K street.  Easy!  It's also got an interesting street life: lots of homeless people (probably because of the warm weather?) I even got to play some chess in the park after dark with some strangers.  I have never claimed to be a great chess player, and these guys kicked my butt quite thoroughly.

Look out for the next episode, in which I arrive in New Jersey!

David does Deutschland (OK, well only a little bit of it.)

Wikimedia South Africa was allowed to send two delegates to Berlin for the 2012 Wikimedia Conference, to present our progress and take part in discussions.  I was very glad to take part, partly of course for professional reasons, and partly because I had not been to Europe since I was about 4 years old.

Because Wikimedia Deutschland was paying for my flight to Germany, and because I'd have a Schengen visa, I made the case to my management that it would be worthwhile for me to travel to our R&D facility in Switzerland as well, to meet with the people who thus far had only been names on emails to me.

Just when everything had been properly arranged, it transpired that I had to go to Nigeria to assist with some new product factory trials, so I ended up being on airplanes and in airports for approximately two whole days: Lagos - Johannesburg - Abu Dhabi - Berlin.  Top tip: when you have short hair, if it's really really greasy and you don't have access to a shower, you can get a noticeable improvement by rubbing vigorously with paper towels.  This won't make you smell much better, though.

Quick, strike a pose, it's a motorcade!

The dining room at our venue

Berlin, as seen from our venue

The other side of Berlin, as seen from our venue

So after a few hours at the airport, I met up with Lourie, my Wikimedia ZA colleague, and we took the bus and then the train to within walking distance of the hostel where we would be staying.  On the way there, we met one of the Serbian delegates who was on his way to the conference venue, but he took our appearance as a good reason to go back to the hostel with us to have a few cigarettes and some coffee before proceeding to the venue.  This was my chance to get a shower.

The entrance to Bahnhof Zoo

Suitably refreshed, we woke up one of the organisers to get our travel vouchers (Yay Wikimedia DE!) and went to the venue.  It was really great to finally see some places I'd only ever heard of, notably Bahnhof Zoo.  I was expecting something a lot more disreputable, but they've cleaned it up very well.  On the way back, we took a trip to the Brandenburg Gate, and saw an enormous motorcade.  I asked a cop what was going on, and he explained that it was for the visiting President of Mongolia.

Does South Africa even have an airport the size of Berlin's main train station?

One of the most impressive things to me on this trip was the efficient, user-friendly public transport in Berlin.  It seemed to me that you can get from basically anywhere to anywhere in the city by taking a train or two, and maybe a bus (for example, the new Tegel airport is serviced by a bus route).  To a South African, it's almost like magic - the way our metro trains are supposed to run, except that it's ubiquitous, and the trains are amazingly frequent.  Missed it? Wait five minutes, another one is coming.

On our way to the hostel from the train station, we passed over the Weidammer bridge across the Spree river, and saw lots of padlocks locked onto it.  I vaguely remembered reading about this: It has become a tradition for lovers to engrave their names onto a lock, and lock it onto a bridge - kind of like carving your initials into a tree.  This symbol of undying love lasts until the municipality comes around to cut the locks off.

Apparently the Justin Bieber haircut is very big among German leather-jacket-wearing preschoolers.

One of the best parts of the visit for me was just riding the trains, watching the people.  Berlin mass transit has all types, from down and outs selling copies of the Strassenfeger, and gypsy buskers, through youths with impressive arrays of piercings, to middle-class and professional commuters.

Our smooth-talking Polish-German-British guide on the underworld tour.  Unfortunately Fotos machen was Verboten, so this is all you'll see of the bunker.  For more, check out their website.

Our hosts arranged a tour through Berlin's underworld for us - I chose the Cold War bunker.  It's quite amazing: you open a nondescript-looking door in the wall of a modern subway station, and you're in a repurposed non-bomb-proof WWII bunker (which, by the way, would have been about as useful as a newspaper hat in the event of a nuclear strike on Berlin.)  The second bunker we saw was slightly better thought through, but still a scary place.  The main door leading into the decontamination room was designed to close against the pressure of people trying to get in.  The bunker was deliberately designed so that the pressure on the toilet facilities (each stall had a curtain, not a door) would leave no privacy for suicide.  The body bags, due to concerns about the shelf-life of the plastic, were transparent.  The canteen would have served pea soup and nothing else, in two shifts (you'd have a red bowl or a yellow bowl).  Our guide had the theory that the bunkers, which would have accommodated a bit less than 1% of the population of West Berlin, were mostly a diversion so that people would mill around looking for their bunker instead of fleeing the city and jamming up the roads that the military would need in the event of a war.

After the second day's meetings, the South African delegation took a walk up Oranienburger Straße, and chatted to some of the local (legal) street prostitutes. None of them seemed drunk or high, but I was amazed that they could survive the cold weather wearing as little as they did.  After wishing them good luck and good business, we visited Tacheles, where a surprisingly good band was playing.  It looks severely disreputable, but it is positively dripping with atmosphere.

Still life: Tacheles entrance with cool dude in doorway.

The vibe inside Tacheles.

Showing unusual prudence, I bought my train ticket to Nyon, Switzerland almost a whole day before I had to leave.  It would probably have been a bit faster and cheaper to fly, but where's the fun in that?  So, after finishing up the last meetings and packing my bag, I was off to Berlin Hauptbahnhof again, but this time to catch the City Night Line to Basel.

The seats in the CNL train's 2nd class section are much like economy-class airline seats: you can sleep in them if you're talented.  I would have gotten a bit more sleep, but my neighbour turned out to be chattier than expected, and I took the chance to practice my German.  She was an ER nurse turned remedial social worker, who now works for a religious charity, helping mentally and physically handicapped people.

After getting off at Basel Badischer Bahnhof, I realized my mistake and got back on the train in time to make it to Basel SBB railway station.  Here I had a bit more than an hour to kill, so I walked out into the town and back.  I was impressed by the number of bicycles used for commuting, and the enormous bike parking area under the station.  I was somewhat less impressed by the fact that, although the station is smarter and more modern than some airports I could mention (yes, Murtala Muhammed, we're looking at you...), people smoke everywhere in the station building!

"Do not park bikes" - The Swiss are an unruly bunch!

Basel train station bike parking lot

Basel SBB - RailCity

The train from Basel to Nyon was smart and new.  In the seats behind me, some businessmen were chatting in Schwyzerdütsch, of which I could understand barely a word.

Swiss businessmen.  Living the stereotype!

Public displays of affection?  I don't think they could have been Swiss.

 I guess Switzerland lived up to about half my stereotypes.  Yes, it had cute little villages and old castles and was generally efficient, but the train also went through grimy industrial areas and past some pretty impressive graffiti.  Lake Geneva is beautiful, and the trees around the lake have amazing shapes, which I assume were formed by season upon season of brutal winter.

Dawn breaks over a Swiss farm.  Still, not quite a postcard.

Even Switzerland has graffiti!

The obligatory Little Swiss Village picture

 

The promenade by Lake Geneva.  You might have seen those trees covered with ice in some emails a year or two back.

The view from Nyon castle

My contact in Switzerland was Tom Imison, an English Chemical Engineer who plays in a rock band.  He played some of his previous band's stuff in the car, and if I hadn't been told, I'd have thought it was professionally produced music - it was reminiscent of Radiohead or the Doors, and I quite enjoyed it.

Of course, I'm not posting pictures of the everyday miracles inside the facility itself, but suffice to say that good things will soon be coming to a candy shop near you.

"Tickets please!"

This saved my bacon!

On my journey back to Berlin, I was just nicely asleep when the police came through the train.  I'm not sure whom they were looking for, but they just spoke to a few people (e.g. asking "are you traveling alone?" or "Where are you traveling to?") before moving on.

I had left myself a day for sightseeing in Berlin, so the first question was what to do about transportation.  No-one had ever checked our tickets during the conference, so I was tempted to rob Deutsche Bahn of a few Euros.  In the end, my  better judgement prevailed, and I bought a day pass for €6,30.  This was a very good decision: on that day alone, I had my ticket checked three times!

She is wondering how she's going to pay her €40 fine, and he's protesting his.  The guard is just following orders.

Naturally, one of my first stops as a bona-fide tourist was Checkpoint Charlie.  I decided not to get my passport stamped with a commemorative East German visa stamp, but I did pay to have my picture taken with the "border guards", dressed up as US Military Police.  Then it was on to the last remnants of the Wall, and an exhibition explaining the history that led up to its creation.  Right around the corner from that was Trabi-World, offering the experience of the authentic East-German car.

You are now leaving the American Sector.

The wall

Sometimes a light-saber is just a light-saber.

Someone had suggested I take a walk along Unter den Linden, which I did.  I saw the ZDF building and went inside: their canteen is open to the public, and has stage with lights adjacent to it.  After walking a bit further, I ended up at the Brandenburg Gate again.  This time there were no state visitors, so the photo opportunities were back.  Apart from the historical options (a guy made up to look like a statue of an American GI, and two Soviet soldiers), there was a cartoonish Darth Vader.  While I was watching him do his lightsaber schtick, a German guy next to me me muttered "Luke, ich bin dein Vater!

OK, so why don't we walk into a bar together and start a joke?

At Berlin Tegel airport, I ran into the Australian beatbox champion, who was on his way back from an international championship (he lost to the Bulgarian, who ended up winning the whole thing).  He showed me that the Lufthansa lounge's wifi was open, and we had some fun chatting and discussing strangers.

Normally I expect things to return to normal when I'm on the flight back to South Africa, but things managed to take a turn for the weird this time.  With one hour left before landing, a Pakistani guy with a skullcap and a long white beard walked up to me, stroked my chin (yes, not his, mine!) and asked me about my religion.  Upon hearing that I had none, he urged me to discuss the matter with his colleague, who had thicker glasses and a turban.  Having not much better to do, I complied.  It turned out that he had a PhD in biology, having studied plant-parasitic nematodes.  He had turned to religion in his old age, however. He was convinced that 911 was an inside job.  He also believed that the death sentence for people who left Islam was justified, because Mohammed was the last prophet, and had completed the religion of mankind.  We didn't have time to explore this topic fully, because just then, the descent started and I had to return (not exactly reluctantly) to my seat.

I guess I should have told the guy that Westerners find it creepy when strangers stroke their chins.  But then I'm not responsible for his public image.

I don't know what the rest of Germany's like, but I found the Berliners friendly and very willing to help.  It's an expensive country compared to South Africa, but not extremely so.  I hope I get a chance to go again, because I haven't seen a thousandth of what the city has to offer, let alone the rest of Germany or Europe.

Self-portrait.  I call it "reflecting on Germany."