Winter travels part 4: Hawai'i

If you're counting, yes, this is my fifth trip this winter, the third trip that involves crossing the Atlantic. I've seen a lot of films on aeroplanes now. This wasn't a trip I had anticipated making, but I got a call inviting me out to Hawai'i for a job interview! (All travel costs covered, of course.) This wasn't totally out of the blue -- I'd applied for the job, and I'd had a preliminary Skype interview, but there are usually so many applicants that the odds of being invited for an in-person interview are very low. So, it was time to pack my bags!

As you may know, my contract here in Paris ends at the end of August, so I've been looking for new opportunities. As I explained in my post "What is a postdoc?", my goal is to get a permanent position in teaching and research. That'd be a "lecturer" in the UK, an "assistant professor" in the US, and a "maître de conferences" in France. The Hawai'i job is an assistant professor job, so it's a big deal if I can do it right.

It's nearly 7,500 miles from Paris to Hawai'i (that's nearly 12,000km), and that's plotting a straight line. There are no direct flights from Europe, so you have to fly via some major hub in the US (or in Asia, which is slightly longer but doesn't make that much difference). All told, it was about 24 hours from takeoff in Paris to landing in Honolulu. The time difference from Hawai'i to Paris is 11 hours.

The Sans Souci State Recreational Park. Yep, sans souci is French for "no worry".

Given all of that, I decided to arrive in Honolulu on Monday evening, which gave me a couple of days to adjust my internal clock before my visit formally began on Thursday. Academic job interview visits in the US are fairly intense. In this case, it involved meeting one-on-one with each faculty member in the department (for 30 minutes to an hour), presenting a research talk to the whole department (faculty and postgraduate students, plus any other interested parties), teaching a (real!) class as a demonstration of my pedagogical methods, being formally interviewed by the entire faculty of the department, meeting with the dean of the college, meeting (and being interviewed by) the postgraduate students, and then also going to dinners with various faculty members in the evening. It's a real marathon, designed to test your skill and aptitude as a researcher and educator, and also your collegiality and ability to get on well with others. Those extra days were crucial for me in de-fogging my jetlagged brain, and also in allowing me time to explore the island and investigate what it'd be like to live there. This last part was especially important as it's not a temporary position, so any relocation to Hawai'i has the potential to be permanent.

Of course, you don't want to know the details of the interview process -- you want to know what was Hawai'i like?

A view of Honolulu. The hilly crater in the distance is Diamond Head. Buildings on the left are part of the university campus.

Well, it was quite lovely, especially in contrast to Paris in February (rainy, cold, dreary). It was apparently a little colder than usual when I visited, but I didn't notice. Since records began in 1877, Honolulu has never been colder than 11C (52F) or warmer than 35C (95F). It's usually between 23C and 27C year round (73F to 81F), so it's extremely pleasant.

A lovely tree at Kailua beach. Hawai'i has lots of lovely trees.

Some miscellaneous observations:

• Everyone wears flip flops.
• No-one is in a hurry.
• Apparently there are centipedes and flying cockroaches. (I didn't see any myself.) They lurk.
• I had been in Hawai'i for three days before I heard a car sounding its horn. (You might get three minutes in Paris if you're lucky.)
• A quick scan through some radio stations while driving revealed chamber music, reggae, Japanese punk rock, Korean slow jams, and surf rock.
• This will sound strange, but the closest point of reference I have is New Zealand. Hawai'i is like New Zealand, but tropical and American rather than temperate and British.

There are several dramatic cliffs with secluded beaches below.

The island of O'ahu, where Honolulu is located, is about the size of the isle of Skye in Scotland, and is home to about 950,000 people. (Skye has 9,000 people.) This means that it can be pretty crowded, especially in the city; but it also means that you can find most goods and products that you need, like any major city. You will pay a lot of money for them, though. Most cost of living indices put Honolulu at about the same level as San Francisco or London, just behind New York. It's not cheap to live in paradise.

Part of this is because most goods must be shipped in on planes or container ships. At more than 3,000km from the closest continent, Hawai'i is by some measures the most isolated archipelago in the world. Unlike the isle of Skye, there is no convenient bridge connecting you to the mainland.

A panorama of the Mānoa valley, the neighbourhood where the university is located.

Even with the extra time I built in, it was a whirlwind trip. I was able to tour around Honolulu and some nearby places, but there's only so much you can do and see, especially when you're fighting an 11-hour jetlag! The 11 hour time difference also made it difficult to stay in touch with Talia. We'd talk in the mornings and evenings while we were both awake, me sharing stories of banana trees and mangos and her sharing stories of baby poops and interrupted sleeping. Before I knew it I was on a plane back to Europe and home in sunny Paris.

PS, I got the job! I start in August.

New Zealand, part 3

We're back in Paris safe and sound now, but we still have a lot of pictures and New Zealand-related stories to share. Here are a few of them.

(See parts 1 and 2 of our journey to New Zealand, and Talia's writing.)

In case you forgot the backstory, I was invited to the University of Canterbury by a former colleague to finish up a linguistics project we've had going for several years. It had stalled and delayed, but setting aside some time to work together intensely on the project was a fantastic idea. This arrangement meant that I was working at the university most of the time, with free weekends to travel, while Talia amused herself around Christchurch and other places.

You may have heard of Christchurch as being the location of a devastating series of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. Around 185 people died, and the historic centre of the city lost over a third of its buildings. The effects of the earthquake still loom large in the city. The centre of the town was basically closed for over a year, while workers destroyed the damaged and dangerous buildings. Many of the eastern suburbs, built on marshland, underwent liquefaction and became uninhabitable. The consequent loss of homes, plus the influx of aid and construction workers, lead to a housing crisis. The city is still rebuilding, and even now there is construction all over the place.

The current state of the Christchurch Cathedral.

One of the first weekend trips we took was out to Akaroa, a beautiful seaside town on the Banks peninsula. Akaroa has a curious history - it was originally settled by French colonists. In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, which established all of New Zealand as being under British sovereignty. A few weeks later, with news of the treaty not having reached Europe, a group of French colonists (and a few Germans) set sail for New Zealand, hoping to establish an outcrop of the French Empire. When they arrived, 5 months later(!), they learned the islands were now British. They decided to stay anyway, and form a little French village.

The local butcher's shop.

Today, the village is very proud of its French heritage, with the French tricolour flying all over the place. I think they also play up the French connection as a tourist attraction, a quaint little slice of France on the other side of the world. We actually heard a lot of French being spoken, too, but it was all from tourists. The main vestige of the French origins of the town is in the street names.

It's like we're back in Paris!

The Banks peninsula, where Akaroa is, was formed by a series of volcanoes, and has very dramatic hills right beside the sea, leading to a beautiful landscape. The gentle turquoise colour of the sea also adds a lot. It's easy to see why this is a popular holiday destination for Kiwis, and why so many people have second homes here!

The view from the top of the Akaroa lighthouse.

After our trip to Akaroa, Talia went to visit Dunedin, the south island's second largest city, often called "the Edinburgh of the South" for its strong Scottish connections. I'll let her write that post in the future.

Finally, we took a trip out to the west coast. This involves driving through the Southern Alps to emerge at the rainforested area on the other side. The mountains act as a rain trap, apparently, keeping the west coast very wet and the area east of the mountains relatively dry. Our first stop, in the foothills of the mountain range, was Castle Hill, a set of large limestone boulders arrayed around some hills, which from a distance resemble a ruined castle. The area of is of spiritual significance to the Maori, and apparently the Dalai Lama referred to it as the "spiritual centre of the universe".

Limestone rocks.

On our way through the mountains, we were lucky to spot a wild Kea. These endangered birds, unique to New Zealand's south island, are the world's only alpine parrot.

You can't see it in this picture, but it's actually perched atop an informative sign saying "Protect our Keas!" with information on their habitat and instructions not to feed or disturb them.

We finally reached the west coast, greeted by roaring waves (really really big waves) and a beautiful sunset.

Getting close as we are to the southern hemisphere summer solstice, this picture was taken at about 9:40pm.

The next day, we visited the Pancake Rocks, named because they look like stacks of pancakes. The ocean runs around and through these rocks, leading to some "blowholes" where water just bursts up into the air from a surging wave. It's really very spectacular.

No maple syrup, unfortunately.

 Later that day we made our way back to Christchurch. The rain prevented us from getting good pictures of the mountains, but I'm fairly sure they were still there.

The pictures we've shown here have been mainly of the landscape, but the people and culture of New Zealand are very agreeable too. They're very friendly and in no danger of taking themselves too seriously, which I think is by virtue of being rather a sparsely populated country, like Scotland. There also appears to be a lack of regard for traditional barriers like class and religion - people are people - that reminded me of some of the attributes I like about the USA. Still, it's not reducible down to simply attributes of other cultures; New Zealand culture is fiercely unique and it's clear that they are proud to be who they are, living in a beautiful country in the south Pacific.