Indonesia has enjoyed a lot of developmental successes over the past 50 years. Yet sometimes you realize just how far the country has to go. Here is one example, using Google Maps to illustrate how hard it is to drive…
Here is a question for academic families. How does an extended visiting gig work when there’s a family? Some background and context: This is the time of year during which I’m starting to receive notices of interesting and professionally valuable…
Short observations composed in the ultra-modern, ultra-clean, ultra-efficient Zurich airport. I can see the point now of the Reinheitsgebot. Give me the “bio-bier” from the Hausbrauerei Feierling over the Dogfish Head Whateverthehell any day of the week. Intercity train travel:…
Guten Tag from Freiburg, where I am here for two purposes: debating methodology in Southeast Asian studies, and consuming Schweinefleish in various forms (so far: Speck, Knoblauchsalami, Bratwurst, and I’ve only been here for 16 hours). As I posted previously,…
Indolaysia took a break from frigid upstate NY for a beach vacation in Punta Cana, D.R., last week. This is a new vacation concept to us: going somewhere without any intention of doing anything except for sitting around, getting sun, and…
I’m in Toronto for AAS 2012. The vast majority of the people here are either Americans, or live in the U.S. A fun game is to watch people inadvertently insult all Canadians in the course of regular conversations. “Do you…
Greetings from Jakarta, where I am visiting for a whirlwind 7 days of presentations, meetings, and the grand opening of the Jakarta office of the American Institute for Indonesian Studies. While I’m here, I will be doing a presentation for…
Today we depart back to LA. Our hotel last night gave us a perfect view of the Sydney Airport’s departure path, which delighted EP. And we write now from the Air New Zealand lounge, which gives us a perfect view…
In our experience, there has been one frustrating thing about this trip: Australian tourist spots are not really set up for young children. As anyone with a kid knows, there are some basic things that are critical for making travel…
Our time here is quickly drawing to a close: today’s our last business day in Canberra, and we leave on Monday afternoon to head home. I (TP) celebrated the last day with a final presentation (which you can watch online…
