I have had a very busy couple of weeks. After returning from Zurich, I took a sudden trip to Philadelphia to see my grandfather, who is not doing so well. We had a nice visit, but the trip there and back was sort of awful. I had to connect in Detroit, and it was problematic at both ends. I got into Philadelphia at 1:00 AM, after several hours of delays. But the way back was much worse. My flight to Detroit sat on a runway in Philadelphia for two and a half hours. When we landed in Detroit, I had missed my connection to Paris by four minutes. So had four other people. The airline was unconcerned, and wasn't going to pay for hotel rooms because the delay was due to weather. So I found flights to London and Frankfurt, and asked about those. There were no seats on the Frankfurt flight. They couldn't get me from London to Paris. I decided to just go to London and take the Chunnel, which turned out to be the right decision. They told me my bag would go to Paris, but never told me I had to file a claim when I landed in London. It seemed illogical to me to file a lost luggage report with British Airways, since they had probably never touched my bag. But that's what I eventually did. It's been a week, and I still don't have my bag. If I never get it, I will only really miss my dress shoes. In any case, I will never fly Northwest again, unless my final destination is Detroit.

On the bright side, I did get to spend a lovely afternoon in London. I went to the exhibit at Shakespeare's Globe, and the price of admission included a tour of the archeological site of the Rose theatre. Our guide had pink hair and a fascinating ideological perspective: Shakespeare's company was better than Henslowe's because it was an artistic collective, rather than a top-down business model.

Laura left last Friday. I miss her. But now Jesse is here visiting. We have been going non-stop since she got here. I have managed to spend some time in the library, though.

I turned in my Paris Program report and got a nice email back from the program administrator, thanking me for my "great" report and saying that it sounded like I had had a wonderful year. Which is true, and it's also a very supportive and encouraging thing to say. Sometimes it is nice to get some encouragement.