flaschenpost

Dear reader

I'll be away for the next three weeks. On my annual trip to old Europe. I won't have internet access for the first two weeks of my trip, so I won't be able to post until after Easter. Have a good time without me.

Kitchen science

In German we call it "abschrecken," the shocking of the eggs, rinsing them in cold water after they've been boiled. People in Sweden have a similar name for it, I hear. The story is that it makes the eggs easier to peel. In Germany, if an egg is hard to peel, you can accuse the cook of not having scared them enough. Not true, I read. Peelability is a function of the egg white's pH balance. After being laid, an egg's pH value usually rises from 7 to 9 as carbon dioxide slowly escapes through small pores in the shell. So, eggs are hardest to peel immediately after being laid, and easier after they've been stored for a few days.

Where did cupcakes come from? Asks the most recent Fine Cooking magazine. Indeed, I've wondered about this myself. Not exactly where they came from, but why Marge and Lisa make cupcakes all the time, instead of muffins, and if that's an American thing. Seems that it is. Fine Cooking says that in the late 19th century, Americans started measuring ingredients in cups instead of by weight. (Which is how we still do it in Germany--none of this cups and spoons thingy, only grams and litres.) I concede, though, that measuring with cups is faster than weighing everything. A busy housewife can just dig the cup in the big sack of flour and sugar, as Fine Cooking says. Originally, recipes for "cup cakes" referred to cakes baked with cup measures. About the same time muffin tins became popular, and people started baking their regular cake batter in the tins, also calling them cupcakes.

Ha, so then . . . we could say that the Spinal Tappers somewhat betrayed their Americaness by singing "Cups and Cakes," couldn't we.

Pacific Rim geology

I did a little bit of research into the geology of Vancouver Island, and it looks like I was way off with my speculation about glaciation the other day. Browsing through the UBC library catalogue, I found two slim books with some information about my question: Yorath and Nasmith, The Geology of Southern Vancouver Island: A Field Guide (1995), and Lang and Muller, The Geology of Long Beach Segment: Pacific Rim National Park and Its Approaches (1975). I'm sure there are also lots of scientific articles which I wouldn't understand, so I didn't even look for those.
In the process I realized that it sure is easier to try to figure out the basic geology of the Rockies, as opposed to any of the mountains along the West Coast. In the Rockies everything seems to be nicely folded up, and all around the same age. Then glaciation carved across the whole range in a somewhat systematic manner. The story is a very different one on the West Coast, in the vicinity of oceans and rims of tectonic plates. Things get mixed up all the time; they move up and down and left and right at different times and in different places.
A shortened geological history of Vancouver Island might look something like this (summarized from Lang and Muller 26). Check here for a table of the geological time periods.

You can see, there's no easy answer as to the origin of the rocks along Long Beach near Tofino. Long Beach, by the way, is the long, even bay in the picture above; the smaller bay to the south is Florencia Bay. The little headland between the two bays (Quisitis Pt), and the bigger one north of Long Beach (Cox Pt and Portland Pt) are exposures of early mesozoic volcanic and late mesozoic sedimentary rock. Probably, there once was an oceanic trench along the coast which collected material from underwater slides and mudflows. The sediments in the trench then turned into sedimentary rock and were lifted above the water. The Cox/Portland Pt headland is mostly sedimentary, whereas Quisitis Pt and the Ucluelet peninsula are mostly volcanic and thus older. So, yes there are some volcanic rocks cropping out into the ocean. But not so much where we were, at Cox Pt.

And what about the ice age glaciers, you ask? Well, I learned that during the pleistocene, the area around Tofino was submerged below the water. Because of the weight of all that ice, Vancouver Island was pushed down and the water level was much higher. Around Tofino, only the higher hills (e.g. Radar Hill and Vargas Cone) stood out as islands. The sea reached all the way up into Alberni Valley, where pleistocene marine sediments were found at 90 metres above today's sea level. This might explain why all the fjords behind Long Beach and Florencia Bay are inland, and, oddly, don't actually reach into the sea.

This and that

Apparently, Berlin wasn't the only city divided by the Cold War. There was also Gorizia/Nova Gorica on the border between Italy and Yugoslavia, writes Michael at The Glory of Carniola. At the end of the Second World War, Yugoslavia came out on the winning side and qualified for reparations from Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria. But Tito didn't get the cities he wanted to incorporate, among them Klagenfurt and Villach in Austria, and Trieste and Gorizia in Italy. Instead, he created his own divided city:

Ever since Slovenia's independence in 1991, the two cities have grown together. In a symbolic gesture, the mayors of the two cities recently tore part of the divisive fence down.

Onto another story about trade-offs along borders, this time between Asia and Europe. A few days ago, Patrick Findler posted this entry to Living in Europe. For more than a year he lived east of Lake Baikal, in the small town of Aginskoe. He writes about the Buryat people in that area, descendents of Mongolians. Having their culture and language supressed during the Soviet regime, they are now in the process of revitalizing it. Patrick points out that there are benefits to being part of two worlds--when the discussion turns to Mongolia and China, Buryatians emphasize that they are more European, but in relation to Russians, they rather point out their Asianess.

Watch out for missing manhole covers

Ever since I read that BBC piece about train theft in Ukraine, I noticed that there are more and more stories about metal thievery. Not just in Eastern Europe, but also in Gloucester, Milwaukee, and South Korea. And who knows where else. It's a function of China buying up so much metal for its expanding steel markets.
Manhole covers and sewer grates are apparently the target of choice. On March 11, police in Gloucester were puzzled when more than 40 manhole covers went missing. Since then they have arrested two suspects, and found a number of the covers in a smelting plant. In Milwaukee, more than 160 grates have been stolen since January 1. Causing the city a loss of about $16,000 (US), while each of the covers probably fetched the thieves less than $22. This number of stolen grates is an all time high; in less steel-needy times, Milwaukee loses only about 80 grates per year.
In South Korea, thieves have already gone further than just stealing manhole covers, of which hundreds went missing this year in different parts of the country (in some places, up to 200 are stolen in just a week). Street signs, steel containers, steel plates, H-beams, and machinery at construction sites have also disappeared.

Twists and metamorphoses

We're back from a trip to Tofino, where we attended a lovely wedding. During our several walks along the beach we had time to ponder a few questions of natural history.
For instance, I learned just a week ago that sail boats don't usually visit the area around Tofino because it's so difficult and risky to navigate the myriad of rocks along the coastline. Looking at those rocks from the beach, we realized that they're probably volcanic. Black, rugged, with criss-crossing layers, but no discernible sedimentary lines. I also thought that if the rock was sedimentary, and had been folded up with the Coast Mountains, then big u-shaped valleys would have been scraped out between, and there wouldn't be as many conical islands, no? You see, we're trying to learn about rocks. But since we don't know much yet, we've got to go with creative guesswork. And even though we've been looking for some time, we haven't yet found a good book about rocks. Suggestions are welcome.
We also wondered what makes some tree stems twist up like corkscrews. Some of the stems of shorepines were twisted so severely that the lines on their bark were horizontal rather than vertical. Some were twisted pretty evenly, some weren't, and others weren't twisted at all. And often a twisted one stood right beside a relatively straight one. It'd be nice to know what causes the twisting.
And finally, I realized that unlike at many other sandy beaches, your feet don't at all sink into the sand in Tofino. The sand is tightly packed and very flat. So much so that a girl can go for a walk in dainty dress shoes without getting sand in them, and without getting specks of mud kicked up at festive bright nylons.

Bits and pieces

Since a few people have said to me they were interested in reading about Eastern Europe, maybe I should make this into a sort of easteurophile mission. It helps that I've recently been invited to contribute to a new community blog about Living in Europe (see also the sisterblogs on China and India).
There I found Aleks's informative blog about Latvia (he now lives in the US).
Or, check out Andy's entertaining writings on Russia (he lives in the UK, I think). On voting patterns in Siberia, for instance. He also dug up this interesting Guardian article on the Russian tradition of writing letters to your tsar or president.

Internationaler Frauentag

How could I forget (almost). Happy International Women's Day to all my female readers.
This is an old East German poster for International Women's Day, which was duly celebrated every year. We didn't have Mother's Day. Because that was a bourgeois concoction. No, good socialists didn't just praise mothers, they praised every working woman. As children, we used to give little self-made presents to our mothers (often produced in an organized fashion during workshop classes or in after-school care). We also brought a small bouquet, package of coffee, or chocolates to school for our female teachers. And then we pondered how important working women were for socialist progress.
The top of the poster reads: International Women's Day, 8 March 1954. The red logo to the left says FDGB which stands for Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, the East German mono-union. And the slogan at the bottom: "In the year of the great initiative for peace, unity, and prosperity." Poetic words.

Bridge debacle

I've always wondered how one determines the mysterious sea level which is the basis for all measurements of geographical heights. What with tides, differing tide levels throughout the year(s), and the earth's uneven distribution of mass in general. Here's a story of how the calculations for evening out these differences can go wrong.
Switzerland and Germany are together building a bridge, the Hochrheinbrücke, across the Rhein at Laufenburg. Both countries measure geographical height according to a mark that was once determined to be a certain height, and relative to which all other heights are measured. The German one of these marks takes its sea level measure from the North Sea, and is located somewhere in Hoppegarten, east of Berlin. The Swiss mark is somewhere in Marseille and goes by the sea level of the Mediterranean. The difference between both is 27cm.
Of course, the bridge engineers knew that. And they tried to correct it. Only, they corrected it in the wrong direction. On the Swiss side, the level of the bridge should have been raised by 27cm. Instead, it was lowered by that amount, resulting in a difference of 54cm. Now, the road at the end of the German side of the bridge will have to be lowered to make the project work.

Another train story

Now that I know that there's a place where one doesn't need to be a train engineer to run a passenger steam train, I really can't wait to test my locomotive operating skill. All you need is a strong arm to pull the stiff throttle. And money to pay for the course.
Wolsztyn, a small Polish town 60 kilometres south-west of Poznan, has one of the few remaining steam train depots, maintaining trains for a mainline route. Poland's state-run railway company (PKP) is deep into debt, and couldn't afford to run the old locomotives if it weren't for Wolsztyn Experience. Founded by Howard Jones, a British businessman and railway buff, Wolsztyn Experience runs week-long train-driving courses throughout the year. These courses provide some of the money necessary to maintain the locomotives, and keep the Polish steam train crews employed. Since it came into existence six years ago, Wolsztyn Experience has taught more than 1,500 people to operate the trains. After a few days of lessons, one can actually drive the regular mainline service, transporting hundreds of commuters between Wolsztyn and Poznan. Under careful guidance by real train engineers, of course. It all comes at a price. About $1,200 (US), says the website. But considering the uniqueness of the experience, it's really not that much. I'll start saving.