So the holiday has truly started! I'm done with the guest lectures and finished most of the other things that were on my list. The lectures went well and it was interesting to see how the energy changed from group to group, which made it fun, mostly, to give the same presentation five times in three days. But now the quest for ‘otium' can really begin!

It started with a vist to the Getty Villa in Malibu, a replica of the Pompeiian Villa dei Papiri which oil magnate J. Paul Getty built to house the art he had acquired. Our tour guide explained that Romans used to go to their villa to find 'otium' - freedom from obligations, to do whatever they wanted to do. I thought that nicely captured the goal of my trip, so my new motto is: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Otium!

In between work my hosts kindly took me on some nice trips in the surroundings of Thousand Oaks, the city where they live, which is about a hour from LA. On one trip I learned how to distinguish Poison Oak (and consequently had to wash my legs with a special kind of soap because I trudged on through the bushes before being stopped by my host...) and sat on one of the - presumably - thousand oaks, which look a lot different from the oaks that I know. On another I learned more about Ronald Reagan in his Presidential Library, saw what the first American president George Washington really looked like (as compared to the image on the dollar bill), and walked through the former Airforce One, used by six presidents from 1973 until 2001 - Reagan was the one who won in terms of airmiles (> 660.000).

We also did some walks - up the hills nearby, which are beautifully covered with yellow mustard and prickly cactusses with views over the valleys on either side, or in a river canyon ten minutes away which gave some nice shelter from the hot sun. We also saw some caves which were used by the native Americans and I learned some more about their early presence in this area. This morning my hosts had to leave early to drive to Utah - the next state - so I took Mickey, their dog, out by myself at 8am. How lovely to go for a walk that early in the day, because then the sun is still bearable - and come back about 1,5 hours later, pick an orange from the tree, savour it and finish off with some freshly made lemonade (made with lemons I helped pick)!

One final note on the weather - I don't know about you, but I had the distinct impression (or stereotype) that it was always sunny in California. Well, that was not quite the case last week. We had some rain, lots of clouds, and even a storm which according to my host came close to a tornadoe. That doesn't usually happen here, so they may have exaggerated a little bit - but the tree of the neighbours was blown over and the topmost branches of a tree in the garden came down in the middle of the night - it was good that we were not (any more) sitting on the swing beneath it... Happily the weather has now cleared up - steady blue skies and lots of sun with a nice touch of wind. That's more like it!