Where is the time going, my friends? Things are getting busier and busier, but it's all very exciting. The one class I'm teaching this semester is wrapping up soon, and I'm preparing to start teaching two classes per semester starting in January. Next semester, I'll be teaching one class on Russia up to 1917, and another on Modern Turkey.

I've been doing some traveling. Last week I was in Boston, where I gave a talk at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, which was fun. While I was out there I visited Providence, where I hadn't been in about eighteen months. It was a quick trip-I had planned to just stay for dinner, but ended up crashing at the apartment of one of my old housemates. On Friday morning before heading back to Boston I walked up and down Thayer Street, and bought a few pairs of sunglasses at Shades Plus, one of my favorite shops in town.

I'm giving another talk on Monday, December 7, this time at Princeton. The talk is part of the Brown Bag Series of the Program in Near Eastern Studies, and takes place at lunchtime while people are eating. I haven't decided for sure what I'll be talking about, but right now I think the topic will relate to Muslim-state relations in late imperial Russia. Or maybe I'll just talk about food. 

A couple of weeks ago a friend came out to visit and we went down to Yellowstone Park together. We saw elk, buffalo, deer, wolves, and went swimming in an amazing spot at the confluence of a cold river and a hot spring. It was a really interesting combination of warm and cold, and was kind of like swimming in a giant Irish coffee.

Anyway, the trip was a blast, and I've posted below a number of the photos that we took:

On the ride down to Yellowstone we stayed at a hot spring near Chico. This was the view from our room.

This is inside Yellowstone, as we're approaching the 'Boiling River,' where we would encounter the aforementioned Irish Coffee swimming experience.

Um...pretty stunning, don't you think?

Frankly, I'm trying to cure myself of the habit of describing a new place in terms of a place I've already been. Nevertheless, the scenery did remind me a lot of my trip out to Kars last Spring.

Do you see the steam rising to the right? That's where the hot water running down from the spring (which is further up the hill) hits the cold river. Over to the right there are little caves under which waterfalls of warm water run. As you sit there with the warm water running down your back, you look out at amazing mountains. It's really, really cool.

These travertine-like mineral steps reminded me a bit of Pamukkale, in Turkey.

Here some buffalo were crossing the road

Can buffalo stampede? These animals moved at a very slow pace.

This shot was taken in the morning sometime this week. Last week, when I was in Boston, there was a tremendous snowfall in Bozeman (at least, I'm told. 1.5 feet overnight). It's been pretty frosty, which I'm told is unusually early.