Keychains

Some of you probably already know that I collect keychains as souvenirs. I've accumulated 30 or so at home, from places that I or other family members have visited. This trip, though, has proven particularly keychain-worthy. Today I counted and realized that I have bought no fewer than twelve keychains in the last three months.

From top left: Oxford University, Ashmolean Museum, British Museum (Rosetta Stone), Tower of London, Geneva, Florence, Austria, Spanish Riding School, Paris, Warwick Castle, Bath, Stonehenge. (The Stonehenge keychain is made from the same kind of stone as Stonehenge itself. It cost 8 pounds, which is equally outrageous whether you look at it as a keychain or a piece of polished rock. But hey, it's sort of like being able to touch Stonehenge...)

Done!

(Note: This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but I ran out of time to post it before I had to leave for the concert.)

Today I had my final tutorial, which means that my academic work for this semester is now officially over. As part of the residency requirement for the program, I have to stay in Oxford until the 3rd, but for the next few days I’ll mostly just be able to relax. After that we have time to travel before going home. I’ll be flying back to the US on the 14th, which is almost hard to believe in a way – the time has gone very fast.

Tonight the Wykeham Singers, New College’s informal choir, are having their concert for the term. I’ve had a cold for the last week and a half, so I missed two practice sessions. That means I have literally been over some of the songs we’re singing only once, in rehearsal this afternoon, so I’m a bit nervous. Thankfully there are lots of other altos (five of us total), so I’ll just do my best to follow one of them.

It’s odd to have tenors now. For some reason, we had absolutely no tenors at the beginning of the term. The choir director sent out an email, asking anyone who could sing tenor to please join. Instead we got three new basses (for a total of five), which didn’t help matters much. One of the two student directors can sing tenor, but only when he’s not conducting; the other is a soprano. So now we have a sixth alto singing tenor, and one actual tenor who has been to about two of the practices. It’s a good thing he can sing loudly, and that none of the tenors seem to have been afflicted with whatever nasty cold is going around. Two of the other altos and one of the sopranos are all in the same boat as I am: we can sing, just not very loudly, and we’re all trying as hard as we can not to cough.

We also now have accompanists (apart from the piano, which we’ve been practicing with all term). Some of the songs are a cappella, but others are intended to be accompanied by piano and double bass, and the rest by piano, double bass and drums. The drummer showed up at rehearsal today and discovered that there was no music for him. (We have plenty of extra books, but the composer didn’t actually bother to write out a percussion accompaniment. The instructions pretty much amount to “ad lib, and have fun.”)

So, in other words…should be exciting.

This is impressive... (AKA The Saga of the Pumpkin Bread, part 2)

Quick bread is much more forgiving than I would ever have expected. I stayed up checking on the pumpkin bread periodically until about 3:30 AM (at which point it had been baking, upside down on a cookie sheet, wrapped in foil, at 250 degrees Celsius, for about 90 minutes). The edges of the loaf were beginning to resemble real bread at last, but the inside was still soft and squishy.

At this point, or at any other point in the last approximately four hours, it probably would have been smart to take the whole mess, dump it in the trash, and simply go to bed. At least, that's probably what any normal person would have done. I, being particularly stubborn, decided to try one last thing.

I wrapped the bread back up in the foil. I turned off the oven. Then I put the bread back into the oven and went to bed.

Seven hours later, I came back and took it out of the oven. It didn't burn. It didn't even cook quite all the way in the middle. However, it was (by college student standards) edible. I ate about a slice and a half, and was informed by other members of the household that it was "good" or "very good." Particularly with cream cheese.

Either this proves that pumpkin bread is the single hardest thing on the planet to mess up, or it proves that college students really will eat anything.

I am seriously reconsidering the name "quick" bread.

A while ago, I had the brilliant idea to make pumpkin bread.

It turns out that most grocery stores in Oxford do not carry canned pumpkin, so this threw a monkey wrench into the plan for a while. Then someone informed me that there was one store in Oxford that carried it...but it turned out that it was well over on the east side of the city. (I live well down to the south of the city.)

Still, today I decided to make the long trek to Headington and buy canned pumpkin so that I could make pumpkin bread. It wasn't a trek, strictly speaking, because I took the bus...but calling it a trek makes it sound adventurous and daring. (Which it wasn't.)

When I got to the grocery store, I walked around until I found the canned vegetables, but I didn't see canned pumpkin. I asked a guy who was stocking spices where they had it, and he said that he didn't think they did carry canned pumpkin. Being a nice helpful person, though, he went to ask the store manager, who told him where to find the canned pumpkin, and then he went and found it for me and brought it to me. Turns out they keep it with the canned fruit, which I don't understand, because pumpkin is a squash and I'm pretty sure squash counts as a vegetable.

Regardless, I got the pumpkin, and I decided to make the bread tonight when I got home from choir practice. The bread went into the oven at 10:10, and one hour later, as per the recipe, I pulled it out of the oven and had a look at it.

It wasn't anywhere near done. The top was just starting to bake firm around the edges, and the center still sloshed back and forth a little bit as I pulled it out. So I put it back in for ten more minutes.

It still wasn't done. The top had begun to split down the middle like it was supposed to, but it was gooey and soft. So I put it back in for another ten minutes.

This process repeated itself until I was afraid that it would start to burn around the edges, at which point I took it out of the oven, let it cool for ten minutes, and then tried to remove it from the pan.

Turns out it was not only not quite done in the middle, it also was not at all done around the sides or bottom of the pan. It wasn't batter any longer - it sort of held its shape - but it was soft and doughy and squishy, and about a third of it stuck to the pan. So I put it back in the pan and back into the oven (with a slightly flattened top). About five minutes later, it occurred to me that I should probably put foil over the top to keep it from burning...

Then I discovered what apparently the other people in my house already knew, which is that the bottom heating element in our oven doesn't work (or maybe doesn't exist). Apparently this is also true of the house next door. It is supposed to have two heating elements, at least if the hieroglyphics on the dial are anything to go by, but it effectively only has one. At the top. I suppose on the bright side, this probably means the broiler works...but you can't broil quick bread.

The bread stayed in the pan for another 45 minutes, not making any visible progress except to get slightly less pudding-like around the edges. In desperation, I decided to take it out of the pan and try to flip it over so that the bottom would have a chance to be exposed to the higher heat at the top of the oven. Because I didn't quite trust my ability to get it back into the loaf pan upside down, I dumped it onto aluminum foil, put the foil onto a cookie sheet, and put that in the oven. (I also scraped about a quarter of the loaf out of the bottom of the pan and rearranged it on the new "top.")

30 minutes later, the edges were just beginning to dry out, and it looked like this:

I decided it was time for drastic measures, so I wrapped the loaf in foil, cranked the oven heat up as high as it would go (250 degrees Celsius - yes, I know that's hot!) and put it back in. This might be a bad idea, but it was 2 AM then, and it's 2:30 now, and I'm pretty sure any brain cells dedicated to actual thinking are already asleep.

It's been about 15 minutes, and I'm not really sure what it's going to look like when I check it again...

(For those of you who weren't doing mental math, I believe this loaf of bread has been baking for somewhere around 3 hours so far. And it was still VERY doughy inside 15 minutes ago. Think pumpkin pie consistency, rather than pumpkin bread. The fact that I haven't given up on it probably says more about my stubbornness and my ignorance of baking than it does about the possibility of actually turning this experiment into something edible.)

UPDATE: Half an hour on the wrapped-in-foil stage so far. It's still sticky inside, but it's not as doughy as it was, and it is actually hot enough to give off steam for once. I think this might actually be progress...

Mary Poppins medicine is real

Well...not exactly. It doesn't come out of a bottle, and it doesn't change flavors, but it DOES taste good.

The reason I discovered this is because I seem to have picked up a rather unpleasant cold somewhere. I haven't figured out yet whether this is the two-week cold that some people have gotten, or whether it's something different - but whatever it is, it can't seem to make up its mind. First it was a fever and sore throat, then the next day it was a stuffy nose, and now today it's a horribly runny nose and lots of sneezing. This has resulted (so far) in two pharmacy runs, to get different kinds of medicine.

Some things are similar over here, but others are different. For instance, they have Sudafed - but it's right out on the shelf, not a cardboard thing that you have to take up to the counter. Apart from that, all the brand names are completely different - and so are the flavors. Blackcurrant, lemon, or lemon and honey seem to be the popular ones here. Cough drops are much bigger, and taste worse - the ones I got were about the diameter of a quarter, and twice as thick - but they're VERY effective.

And they have something called LemSip, which is a cold medicine that comes as a powder and dissolves in hot water. (I was miserly and bought the generic version, not that it made a huge difference.) I was expecting it to taste pretty awful, but to my surprise, it's pretty much indistinguishable from hot lemonade. Mind you, I've never had hot lemonade, but I think this is what it would taste like if you heated it...

I love British humor...

For a little while now I've been seeing these bus ads around Oxford:
"There's probably no Dawkins. So stop worrying and enjoy Oct. 25th at the Sheldonian. www.premier.org.uk/craig"

I finally got a chance to read the small print on one of those ads, and realized what it was talking about: William Lane Craig is coming to Oxford to give a lecture on the fallacies in The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins's best-selling book. A little research online turned up the full story behind the ad.

Apparently, Craig offered Dawkins the chance to make a debate of the event, but Dawkins declined. Repeatedly. Even after being encouraged to debate Craig by several other people including a philosopher (and atheist) at Oxford, and after being made familiar with Craig's credentials (two PhD's, in philosophy and theology, and a reputation as one of the foremost modern Christian apologists). The tour website says that the invitation is still open for Dawkins if he should decide to make an appearance - and that if he doesn't, an empty chair will be left standing on the stage for him.

What is most delightful about the bus ad, though, is that it's a parody of a atheist bus ad from 2009: "There's probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life." The ad would have been cheeky enough on its own, but the story behind it is so much more entertaining...

Another interesting point that I came across: Dr. Daniel Came, the Oxford don who encouraged Dawkins to participate made a comment at the end of his letter about the ontological argument for God's existence, which Dawkins mocks in The God Delusion. I read The God Delusion as one of the three books we were assigned for the lecture series and wrote a critique of it, and Dawkins's response to the ontological argument seemed quite weak to me. Dr. Came puts it much better than I could, though, when he says,

"On the basis of your brief discussion of the argument in The God Delusion, it appears you do not understand the logic of this argument. The ontological argument moves from the logical possibility of God’s existence to its actuality. Douglas Gasking’s parody of the argument, which you cite, moves from a logical impossibility to actuality and so is not parallel to the argument. In addition, you do not discuss the more sophisticated modal version of the argument advanced by the American philosopher of religion, Alvin Plantinga. Admittedly, you do say that some philosophers ‘resort to modal logic’ in an attempt to prove the existence of God. But this is a bit like saying ‘some botanists resort to looking at plants’ and so can hardly be said to constitute an objection to the argument." (emphasis added)

(For the full story and the rest of the letter, you can go to http://www.bethinking.org/what-is-apologetics/introductory/dawkins-refuses-god-debate-with-william-lane-craig.htm.)

I am struck by the difference between Dr. Came's attitude (again, as an atheist) and Dawkins's. While Dawkins seems to feel the need to ridicule or make light of opposing viewpoints, and often presents them in the most unfavorable possible light, Came is willing to evaluate an argument honestly, on the basis of its strongest formulation. Unfortunately, the honest and reasonable approach doesn't seem to get much publicity these days.

Freshers Week

Freshers Week at Oxford is the week just before the beginning of the actual term, with lots of activities for all the first-year students who have just arrived. Even though none of the students in our program are first-year students, the program office took advantage of this extra time for several orientation activities, as well as giving us the chance to participate in some of the events.

I met with my academic advisor and one of my tutors on Monday. Both meetings were fairly short and not too eventful, although I did get the reading list for my first tutorial that day as well. The essay isn't due until next week, though, so I have quite a bit of extra time to work on that assignment. On Tuesday, we had our Bodleian Library orientation and got our cards, which are useful for a lot of things besides just getting into the library. (It's a lot like the Library of Congress, where you have to show your card to get in - you can't check out books. The Bodleian is one of three copyright libraries in the UK, which means they get a copy of every book published.) The Bodleian doesn't just have A classics reading room - they have THREE of them. One is all Greek literature...one is almost all Latin literature...and I think the third one was print copies of journals.

On Wednesday we had a tour of the library at New College as well as some of the other areas of the college: the Junior Common Room, the chapel, and the gardens. The New College library also has a classics reading room of its own, and unlike the Bodleian, they let you check books out. I've already taken advantage of that to get one of the books for my first tutorial, although to get access to some of the other books I'll need to go to the Bodleian.

On Thursday, the big event was Fresher's Fair, which is where all the student organizations at the university come and set up a booth and try to reel you in. Even though Oxford is a much smaller university than Mason, I could swear they have three or four times the number of student organizations. It was almost all set up inside the Exam Schools building, which is where a lot of the lectures are held during term, as well as (surprise!) exams. They routed you from one room to another - I think there were seven or eight rooms in all.

I've picked a couple of things to try out - we'll see how they go. One is the Oxford University Fencing Club - fencing is one of those things that has always seemed cool to me, but I've never bothered to try. Well, now I'm going to try it. Hopefully I won't be too awful...I went to their "taster" session on Sunday afternoon, and it seemed like fun.

The other one is a student-run choir at New College. (No, not the famous one - you have to apply to that one as a freshman, you have to be a guy from what I can tell, and it's insanely competitive. This one is a non-auditioning choir called the Wykeham Singers, named after the college's founder.) The first rehearsal was Monday evening, and was a bit harder than I expected - I can sightread music on the piano just fine, but I'm not nearly so good at it when it comes to vocal music. Thankfully there are a bunch of altos (no way I was going to hit the high notes in the soprano parts), so I was able to sort of follow, and they let us take the music home with us.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with my second tutor. My two tutorials are on Seneca the Younger and Virgil & Horace - my fourth choice and my first choice. I didn't get the tutorial I was hoping for in Greek, but at least I got one in prose and one in poetry. I think the term is going to be very interesting, all in all.

Catching up

I've been meaning to post for quite a while, but Fresher's Week has been a constant process of finishing things up only to realize that there's one more after all. Looking back, I can see that I haven't posted since I left Vienna - over a week ago.

Paris was a lot of things, including very hot. The Paris metro also is kind of on the sketchy side - and I'm talking about busy stations near major tourist attractions, like the Louvre. Most of them smell odd, although no two of them seemed to smell the same, and they all looked pretty filthy. The trains themselves seem to predate the invention of air conditioning, or even proper ventilation for that matter. The windows that open are on the sides of the car, high up, and don't seem to do any good at all. I made the mistake of getting on the metro during rush hour once. After that I timed things more carefully - it's not an experience I cared to repeat.

By this point in the week, I was getting pretty tired of all the traveling. It's fun for a little while, but too much of it just gets to be overwhelming. Of course, the fact that it's Paris didn't really help with the overwhelming side of things - the sheer number of people would be a lot to deal with all on its own.

Still, I was hardly going to pass up the opportunity to see the Louvre. I spent about four hours there the day I arrived, mostly in the antiquities section. For the first time in my life, I think I've found a museum that's too much even for me... :) Room after room of statues and pottery and coins and artifacts and...the list could go on almost indefinitely. I saw the Venus de Milo, and I have to say I'm not sure what all the fuss is about over that one - it looks a lot like any other moderately weathered classical sculpture. But, for whatever reason, that particular statue is highly admired...so I made a brief stop to see it.

I also went by the room where the Mona Lisa is exhibited, of course. It was interesting to see it in person, although not all that easy. They have barricades keeping everyone ten feet away from it, set up in a funnel shape so that people can gather and then push forwards and leave to either side. I realized that the way to get the most time in front of it was to come up one side, edge along the front, and then leave through the other side. Worked pretty well. It's really true what they say about her gaze appearing to follow you as you move, too - very creepy.

I went to the Musee d'Orsay the next day, but there wasn't as much to see there as I had thought there would be. The Musee d'Orsay has a substantial collection of Impressionist paintings, including a lot of ones that used to hang in the Louvre, but they're undergoing renovation until the end of the year and the Impressionist collections were all closed. They did have a lovely Van Gogh exhibit open, though, which I enjoyed.

I stopped by the Eiffel Tower that evening just to look at it from the ground. There were massive lines to go up (although the line for the stairs was pretty short, understandably), and I just didn't feel up to the effort of standing in line for so long. So I contented myself with taking pictures of it from the ground.

On Sunday, I took the train back to London, where I went to church at St. Paul's. (I just like being able to say that.) Afterwards, I made my way to the Globe Theatre at a very leisurely pace and sat on the riverbank for a few hours, until it was time for the play.

I have to say, the seating at the Globe is a big improvement over the Yard. The website says that you don't have a good view of all of the action, because the pillars will get in the way, but that's only true from some perspectives - I had a fantastic view from where I was sitting. The play I went to see was Dr. Faustus, by Marlowe. It was really intense (not unexpected) and very well done.

That's about it for travel week. I'll see about getting photos up later, and also a post about Fresher's Week.

"Vienna" is spelled E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E

I'm catching up on posts, finally. Rather than writing this from Paris, I'm tucked away in a quiet (ish) corner of the Frankfurt train station, waiting for the next train to arrive. Thanks to the fact that the first train got in an hour early, and that I wasn't feeling wealthy enough to pay for a couchette, I'm quite short on sleep...but since I have to change trains twice and won't arrive in Paris until nearly noon, hopefully I'll be able to nap some more on the way. We'll see.

Vienna was really neat, although I could do without the 9 euro entrance fees for every single museum. And that's with the student discount! The regular entrance fee is actually higher. Being a bit of a museum person (I know, you probably hadn't noticed), I found that those ticket prices started to add up pretty quickly...and maybe I was just in the overpriced tourist section of the city, but it was nearly impossible to find anywhere to get food for less than 6 or 7 euros. A lot of places started closer to 9 or 10 euros.

On Wednesday, I set out intending to find the Spanish Riding School. I may have sort of gotten distracted by an interesting-looking museum instead. And yes, museums still look interesting after spending the better part of Tuesday inside them. I think that the title of the museum translates as something like "fine arts museum," but that's more of a guess than anything else. All I know is that they had a nice section of Greek and Roman antiquities...so I don't care that much what it was actually called. :)

After that, I actually did tear myself away and go find the Spanish Riding School. Also the palace where the Kaiser used to live. I got a ticket for the Morning Exercise with Music and a guided tour for Thursday - without a ticket basically all you can see is the gift shop. You can sort of crane your neck to see into the stables, because some of the stalls are built facing the central courtyard, but horses in stalls spend about 80% of their time with their butts to the door.

Since there wasn't much to see at the Riding School, I went and toured the Hofburg instead. At least, I think it's called the Hofburg - it seems to be called about six different things as well. But if I remember correctly, Hofburg was one of them. Anyway, they have what has to be one of the world's biggest collections of plates there, all set out on display. As part of that, they have one of the world's largest silver-gilt services - 4500 pieces. And despite it being so massive, it sometimes wasn't big enough, so apparently they would use saffron  to color dishes from their silver service to match when they needed more settings.

There were two other exhibits there. One was the Imperial Apartments - the Emperor's and Empress's rooms - and the other was an occasionally rather cheesy and over-dramatized exhibit on the Empress Elizabeth. The rooms themselves were very impressive, though, and very sumptuous.

After that, I walked around looking for someplace to get cheap food. It's harder than I would have thought - most of the places near the tourist attractions are sit-down restaurants. Still, I eventually found a little bakery and got some kind of sandwich. I don't remember what it was called in German, and the lady behind the counter didn't speak enough English to describe it to me...it definitely had a pickle in it, and some kind of meat which might have been ham, and what looked like egg salad. It was a bit odd, but not all that bad.

On Thursday, I saw the Morning Exercise, then went over to the Neue Burg for a while because I had a couple of hours to kill before the tour of the stables. Yes, the Neue Burg is another museum. Part of it is called the Ephesus Museum, and holds artifacts that were excavated from Ephesus. Apparently Austrian archaeologists have been at work in Ephesus for several decades.

There was also a massive exhibit on antique instruments, although I found myself a bit hampered by my lack of understanding of German. It's frustrating sometimes to be looking at something and see "Ludwig van Beethoven" on the card, but not be able to figure out any of the other words...but I took some pictures of some of the ones that looked like they might be interesting, and I'll see what Google Translate can do for me later. I also wandered through part of the exhibit on arms and armor, which was also fairly interesting.

After that I went back to the Riding School for the guided tour. We weren't allowed to take any photos in the stables, which was frustrating. I can understand the restrictions during the performances, but I'm not sure why they need to be so restrictive in the stables. At one point, while the guide was talking, I "met" one of the stallions, who sort of introduced himself. There was no touching allowed, and the bars were too close-set for him to put his nose through anyway, but he hovered on the other side and watched me quite intently and listened when I talked to him. His name was Pluto Briosa II, and he was four years old and a beautiful dark rose gray...

That's about all there is to tell, really. It's a good thing I haven't had my fill of museums yet, since there's still the Louvre...

Florence (AKA "Cari is too tired to come up with a clever title")

I can't quite seem to catch up on posts - I wrote about Geneva from Florence, and now I'm writing about Florence from Vienna. Part of the problem is the lack of accessible internet - I was under the impression that I would be able to connect to the free wifi at McDonald's, but it turns out that McDonald's in Italy requires you to sign up for an account, and the sign-up process requires you to have an Italian cell phone number so that they can send you a text message with your password. 

Of course, having to buy a SIM card to get access to a hotspot kind of defeats the purpose of "free" internet. Why couldn't they let you choose a password, or show it on the webpage? Or, for that matter, why not simply make you agree to terms and conditions, the way McDonald's does in America? Some things in Europe are much more sensible than they are in America, but others...

Enough about internet, though. Florence itself was very enjoyable. The historical area of the city is a bit of a tourist trap, so it's probably not the most authentic Italian experience. On the other hand, there's a very good reason why Florence draws tourists like a magnet - it has one of the greatest collections of Renaissance art anywhere in the world, and it just happens to also be one of the great cities where the Renaissance took place. There are museums and sculptures and churches at every turn, it seems like.

Unfortunately, pretty much every museum in Florence is closed on Monday, so I wasn't able to see the inside of anything much on the first day. Instead, I took the opportunity to walk around and see more of the city from the outside. I walked from the hostel to the Duomo, which is a massive Renaissance church-and-baptistery-and-belltower complex. All of the buildings have exteriors done in colored marble - the baptistery is green and white, while the cathedral and the belltower are green, white and pink. The church actually was open, but there was such a massive line to go in that I decided to wait and see if I could find a time when there were fewer people around.

From there, I walked to the Palazzo Vecchio, in the Piazza della Signoria. This was the historical center of government in Florence, and the spot where Michelangelo's David used to stand (before it got moved to a museum). There's a replica of the David there now, but it can't even begin to compare to the detail and beauty of the original. More on that later.

The Uffizi Gallery is literally right next to the Palazzo Vecchio, and is the most visited museum in all of Italy. (The second most visited, the Galleria dell'Accademia, is also in Florence, but in the other direction from the Duomo.) It was closed, like all the other museums, but I wandered through the courtyard and admired some of the statues of famous Italians - Machiavelli, several Medicis, Vespucci, and any number of names that I didn't recognize.

The Uffizi, in turn, is next to the Arno River, which flows through Florence. I walked across the Ponte Vecchio, which really ought to be renamed Jewelry Bridge...seriously, both sides of the bridge have shops built on them, and every single shop sells jewelry. The windows upon windows of gold and gems look almost as if they belonged to a single massive store, but they don't. Apparently the story behind that is that one of the Medicis got tired of having to smell the tanneries and other nasty industries that were on the bridge, and ordered them relocated and the goldsmiths put in their place. In his defense, he did live on one side of the bridge and work on the other, so I can see how the smell would have gotten tiresome. 

I walked past the Pitti Palace on the other side of the Arno, which was the Medici private residence. (If you're thinking the Medicis show up a lot, you're right. As far as Renaissance history and art are concerned, the Medici family kind of is Florence.) From there, I walked to San Spirito, which is another church. The piazza by San Spirito is a lot less touristy than some of the more central areas of Florence, so it was a nice break. There's a little outdoor market there, and some shops around the piazza that sell food. I got ciabatta with mozzarella, tomatoes and pesto. In Italian it would be mozzarella, pomodoro e pesto; I'm about 90% certain that pomodoro is a contraction of pomo d'oro, which would mean "golden apple."

After that, I bought my train ticket to Vienna, which in turn raised some issues with my debit card. Since it was terribly hot anyway, I went back to my room to get that straightened out and rest for a while. (Siestas make much more sense now...) I got the debit card issue taken care of, thanks to some tag-team on Skype and the least possible amount of international calling.

Tuesday was the Epic Museum Day. Rather than skip museums or cut back on how much time I spent in them, I decided to go ahead with everything I particularly wanted to see and just cram it all into one day. This is what makes me a nerd instead of a normal person. And for the record, it was most definitely worth it.

The two museums I wanted to do were the Uffizi and the Accademia. These museums are so busy that pretty much every website recommends making reservations two weeks in advance during peak tourist season, and one week in advance at any other time. The end of September is sort of borderline between peak season and the so-called "shoulder" season, or in other words, still very busy. Tuesday is also the busiest weekday - only weekends are worse. People without reservations sometimes stand in line for four or five hours to get inside.

Now, after about an hour online, I couldn't quite understand why anyone was standing in line for any amount of time. The wonders of Google revealed an awful lot of online reviews on tourist sites, and while I wouldn't necessarily trust a single review, when multiple reviews offer the same insight, I think it's a good idea to pay attention. And the one thing that reviewers kept saying was that you could usually make same-day reservations for both museums in person, without standing in line, and go straight inside at a specified time.

It's true, by the way. The Uffizi opens at 8:15. I was there at 8:30. I walked into the reservations office, and there were about five people ahead of me in line. (This despite the fact that the line outside the non-reservation entrance probably already had 150 people in it, and that the sign by the entrance said in English that you could make reservations at door #2, and the next available reservations were that day. You would think the sort of people who visit art museums would be able to read.) I paid extra for a reserved ticket, but I'd rather lay out an extra 4 euros than spend 4 hours in line. And what's more, I got a reservation for just 45 minutes later. As far as I'm concerned, that's a good deal any way you look at it.

I walked up to the Accademia to see if I could do the same thing, but I didn't have the time to make a reservation right then. The tourists there were a bit savvier and there was already a substantial line outside the reservations door - but they appeared to have completely ignored the part of the sign where it said that you could make reservations for the Accademia at three other nearby museums. I tried the closest, but their computer system was down, so I put it off until later.

Back at the Uffizi, there was practically no line in front of the reservation door. Even though my ticket was for 9:15, I actually got in at 9. I then proceeded to spend three and a half very enjoyable hours going through the Uffizi at a nerd's pace. Think "snail's pace," but slower... :) I spent a long time just in the one room with Botticelli's artwork. I suspect the Louvre will compare favorably, but most other art museums will probably seem like a letdown after this. Not many places have the equivalent of the Primavera and the Venus in the same room.

Then, of course, there were paintings by Raphael. Michelangelo. Leonardo da Vinci. Andrea del Sarto. Pick a Renaissance painter of your choice - they quite probably have something by him. One thing the Uffizi does not have is a lot of Renaissance sculpture - it used to house a number of important sculptures, but they have since been moved to other places which I ran out of time to visit.

After leaving the Uffizi, I got lunch. After lunch, I got gelato. Hazelnut gelato, which is the best kind. Then I walked towards the Accademia. The non-reservation line was even longer than it had been in the morning. I don't understand what kind of crazy person stands in line for four hours in the hottest part of a Mediterranean day, even if it is to see the David. I'm not that dedicated, and that's really saying something.

Since I'd already ruled out one of the three other museums, I decided to try the next closest one, which was the Archaeological Museum in Piazza Santissima Annunziata. On the way, I sort of got distracted and went into a convent. I wasn't quite sure what it was, but it looked a lot cooler than the piazza - and it turns out it was also a lot quieter than the piazza. I don't know if it's just because the walls were thick, or what, but it was a nice relief. 

After that, I did find the Archaeological Museum and made a reservation for the Accademia. Unlike at the Uffizi, there was absolutely no line here. I walked up, paid for the ticket, and walked away with a reservation for 45 minutes later. I hung out on the shady side of the piazza for a while, then walked back over to the Accademia and got in the (very short) line for the reservation entrance. Just like at the Uffizi, I actually got in before my reserved time. 

The Accademia is a lot smaller than the Uffizi, but I still spent about an hour and a half there. Probably a good half hour of that was just looking at the David. Even though everyone says that it's bigger in person than they expected it to be - even though I'd already seen a full-scale replica - even though I knew how tall it was - it was STILL bigger than I expected. The workmanship on it is absolutely marvelous, and the detail is stunning. There really isn't much else to say, except...it's the David. And it was worth the 15 euro ticket all by itself.

The Accademia also houses a number of Michelangelo's unfinished statues. One of them is a statue of St. Matthew, four are from a group called "Prigioni" or Prisoners, and the last is a Pieta which may have actually been done by someone else. The Prisoners are especially interesting, and have been the subject of endless academic debate as to why exactly they are unfinished. They were commissioned by the Pope as part of the decorations for his tomb, and were intended to symbolize the struggle of the soul imprisoned in the flesh.

I sort of eavesdropped on a tour guide, who said that there were a bunch of different theories as to why they were left unfinished. Michelangelo couldn't see how to finish them. He decided to leave them unfinished as a "statement." He was traveling so much during that part of his career that he simply didn't have the time...Oddly, the one theory that the guide didn't mention was that he stopped working on them because the commission got canceled (which, according to the placard, it did). It would be perfectly understandable, I think. But I suppose that theory is too boring and sensible...

Anyway, it is interesting to see some of his work unfinished. It calls to mind the saying attributed to him, that he could see the form in the marble and was working to free it. Considering that, the title of "The Prisoners" becomes all the more ironic. In their own way, the sculptures are as individual and personified as the David, even though they're far less detailed. Maybe it's because they're defined enough that even the ordinary eye can see the struggling form in the stone.

Oddly, it's all but impossible to imagine the David half-finished, still only roughly shaped out. I don't know why that should be. Yes, David is finished. But it seems like it shouldn't be quite so hard to picture the process.

Another highlight at the Accademia is their collection of musical instruments. They own a Stradivari cello, a Stradivari viola, and two Stradivari violins. The cello and viola were part of the "Medici Quintet." There were a number of more exotic instruments there, too, including one that I'd seen played at the Globe and hadn't recognized. It turns out it's called a serpentone - it's made out of one long, winding piece of black wood and gets progressively wider towards the end. They also had hurdy-gurdies and some rather exotic-looking wind instruments, and a zither made of marble - apparently it's actually playable, although it doesn't sound quite as good as the wooden kind.

In a separate room, they had an exhibit of several harpsichords made from various valuable woods and a very early pianoforte. One of the harpsichords is extremely rare because it survived to the present completely unaltered, unlike most of the harpsichords the maker built. It is the only one in the collection that hasn't been restored, because it's currently undergoing extensive research in the hopes of revealing more about its maker's techniques.

After I left the Accademia, I walked back towards the Duomo and got more food. The sandwich wasn't all that good, and it was overpriced, but I didn't feel like walking far enough to find someplace cheaper. I also had a little tart (tortine) with a rice custard filling, which was quite good. The cafe where I was eating looked straight out towards the line for the Duomo, and right as I was finishing up, I noticed that the line had practically evaporated. Turns out it was 15 minutes to closing time, and most of the people who had been waiting just gave up...

So, as it turned out, I got to go inside the Duomo after all. It's absolutely massive inside, and the dome that is the source of its nickname is covered with intricate frescoes. If you pay extra, you can climb the 400-odd steps to the top of the dome, but it was a bit late for that, and I was tired enough that I was pretty sure I wouldn't be up to the climb anyway. 

Basically, in the space of a single day, I managed to see three of Florence's biggest sights without standing in line for any of them and without any real advance planning. And all of them are notorious for their long lines, too. I guess the moral of the story is, research pays off...

The other St. Peter's - and Swiss chocolate

I'm posting this from Florence, even though it's about Geneva. The hotel where I stayed in Geneva was supposed to have free internet, but it wasn't working properly. Internet here is working, but it's too slow for me to upload photos just yet.

My flight landed in Geneva around 5pm. The Geneva airport has a very nice system where you can get a free voucher for public transportation that's valid for 80 minutes, so the train ride from the airport into the city didn't cost me anything. From the main train station, I walked to the hotel. I had reserved a room at a 1-star hotel (they actually have those in Europe), but when I got there, they told me there had been a problem with my room and they were sending me to their other hotel, which was a 3-star hotel, for the same price. Talk about a nice surprise.

Most things were closed that evening, but I did go out and walk down to the lake for a while after I'd gotten settled in. There's a massive fountain there called the Jet d'Eau which is one of the largest fountains in the world - Wikipedia says it's 229 feet high. I walked partway out onto the jetty where it's built, but the wind was blowing spray in that direction, and I decided that I would rather not get too wet. It was hard to get good photos because it was growing dark, but I did my best, and hopefully some of them will come out well.

The next morning, I went to the Cathedral St. Pierre de Geneve, or the Cathedral of St. Peter in Geneva. I find it a bit ironic that the Vatican cathedral is also St. Peter's, especially considering that John Calvin dubbed Geneva the "Protestant Rome." (St. Pierre's is where Calvin preached his sermons.) The two cathedrals are very different. I visited the Vatican when I went to Rome back in January, and found it strangely oppressive, whereas St. Pierre is mostly just dignified. It's interesting to me how old buildings seem to have moods of a sort - I think the architecture contributes to it somewhat, and probably a lot of it is just my subjective impressions. Maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of history...

I spent most of the morning at St. Pierre's, because there's a lot to see nearby. The church itself wasn't open to visitors in the morning, so first I visited the excavations under the church. There has been some sort of Christian building on the site dating back to at least the year 350 AD, although that building was an oratory rather than a church. The first church was built in 380 AD. Since then, it has been a process of adding, demolishing, and rebuilding to reach the present church, which was built gradually between the 12th and 16th centuries. Many of the ruins under the present building have been carefully excavated, and the archaeological site has been turned into a museum open to the public. The excavations in some places have reached the first layer with indications of human habitation, several centuries before the birth of Christ. In one place, archaeologists found the grave of a Merovingian chieftain, and nearby the partial skeleton of an adult horse.

I spent just about an hour in there, which is not bad for me. That left me with about 45 minutes until the cathedral itself opened, though, so I spent some time in the International Museum of the Reformation, which is housed in a building next door to the church. Most of the exhibits were only in French, and the audio guide wasn't working very well, so I felt like I didn't get as much out of it as I could have. Still, it was very interesting. They had one room with replicas of early printing press equipment showing how the process would have worked, and a lot of old books. Most were (again) in French, but there was one that was a catechism printed in Greek and Latin, so I could actually understand that. Admittedly, all I could see was the title page.

There isn't a whole lot to see within the cathedral itself, although it was lovely. The style in the main cathedral is much simpler than a lot of the cathedrals I saw in Rome, but I prefer that to the heavily adorned churches, especially those done in the Baroque style. Interestingly, though, there was a small chapel on one side which was decorated much more ornately, in a Neo-Gothic style. It's called the Chapel of the Maccabees, and it was initially built as a crypt for a private family. It now has pews and a pulpit and its own organ, separate from the one in the main cathedral.

The last thing I did was to climb one of the two towers. The cathedral has a north tower, a south tower, and a steeple in between them which houses the bells. It's quite a climb up a very steep and narrow spiral staircase to reach the top of the north tower, which is the one I chose. That tower overlooks the lake and most of the city, although the south tower apparently gives you a good view of the cathedral bells. Before I started up that staircase, I thought I might climb both of them, but the climb up to the north tower changed my mind. The view was fantastic, though.

It's funny, but no one ever talks about it being difficult to climb down a spiral staircase. Going up is tiring, but going down is actually a lot more intimidating if it's steep enough. Add to that the need to carefully control each step, as well. It may not be as physically difficult as climbing up, but it's a lot more difficult psychologically. And the spiral staircase up to the north tower is so narrow that they've actually installed a red light/green light system to let people know whether or not they can start, because it's literally only wide enough for one person at a time. Each step was probably about 10" high, and not more than 10" deep at the very outer edge. In the center it narrowed to about 2" deep, and it narrowed so quickly that you basically had to put your feet as close to the outside of the staircase as possible, one in front of the other. It was enough to make me a little bit dizzy, and I'm not usually too bothered by things like that.

After that, I looked for someplace where I could buy Swiss chocolate. Unfortunately, it seems like all the stores in Geneva are ferme a dimanche - closed on Sunday. That's one French phrase that I think I'll be able to remember, after seeing it so many times... I finally found a little stand that was selling a lot of touristy junk and some Swiss chocolate. It was probably a ripoff, but the chocolate is excellent, so I don't really care. I got one bar that was milk chocolate and one that was milk chocolate with hazelnuts, and I'm eating it very slowly. Well, comparatively slowly. With luck, it'll last until I get back to Oxford... The hazelnut chocolate is probably the best chocolate I've ever tasted, so the fact that I've only eaten three of the ten little squares counts as positively miserly. Right?

After that, I picked up my backpack from the hotel and went to the train station. It's a good thing that I left extra time to pick up my ticket (I'd made a reservation online), because Cornavin Station is in the middle of extensive construction, and the regular ticketing office was all boarded up. I don't know why, but no one thought it worthwhile to put up any signs to point hapless tourists in the right direction...so I wandered around the station for almost 45 minutes, asking people if they knew where it was. Most of them didn't. One sent me back to the main area, saying that surely there would be signs there (there weren't - and I did check again). No one appeared to obviously be a railway employee, and the signs for police took me down a dead end. In the end, though, I got on the train with nearly 20 minutes to spare. At least the trains were easy to find.

In all that hurry, though, I forgot to get lunch. Once I was settled on the train, I didn't really want to go off and buy food, so I had two squares of chocolate and the water left in my water bottle for lunch. Chocolate may not be the healthiest meal, but this chocolate at least was comparatively filling. It held me over until I reached the station in Milan, where I had to change trains. I got...something...for dinner there. I sort of just pointed at a thing that looked good and paid for it. It had some sort of meat and cheese in it, I know that much. Whatever it was, it tasted good.

As one final and slightly random side note, whoever came up with the idea of charging for restrooms ought to be dumped in a strange country with no change after six hours on a train...a euro to use the restroom is outrageous. Or at least I think so. There was at least one Tube station in London where they charged for the restrooms, but it was more like 30 pence, which isn't quite as bad.

I got to Florence without further incident, and the hostel where I'm staying is just a few minutes' walk from the train station. It was dark by the time I got in, so I didn't see much of anything on the way and my sightseeing in Florence didn't really start until this morning. But that's a subject for another post.

The best-laid plans...

As luck (or Murphy's Law) would have it, Greece is in a bit of a turmoil again. Public transit workers have been striking over new austerity measures, which would make it exceedingly difficult for me to get around.

So instead, I'll be using the first half of my plane ticket but not making my connection, which will put me in Geneva. From there, I'll be taking trains to Florence, Vienna and Paris. It's not Greece, but still, it's not so bad. And this way I'll be able to get Swiss chocolate...
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Just a couple of random photos...

On New College Lane, looking towards...some building that is south-ish of New College. It might be the University Church of St. Mary...but I can't tell.

This is the one of the entrances to New College (the one on New College Lane). There is another entrance on Holywell (pronounced Holly-well) Street, which is much more imposing, but I happened to be close to this one. It's very quiet back here, to the extent that you can really almost forget you're in a city. The very occasional car does come down the lane, but it's quite rare - mostly just bikes and pedestrians. It's far enough from the main streets of the city center that the whir of bicycle wheels sounds almost noisy.

And this is just a fortuitous good shot of Christ Church College, or at least one of its buildings. I walk past Christ Church almost every day, and it's always pretty, but the light this evening was just spectacular.

London: Photos

The Tube.

The Imperial War Museum.

This bus was converted into a troop transport vehicle during World War I. Afterwards, it served as a bus for several more years before being retired.

The "Tamzine" was the smallest boat used in the evacuation from Dunkirk. It was used to ferry men from shallow water out to the larger boats.

This is a shell from the largest gun ever built.

A German V-2 rocket.

Speaking of Dunkirk, this accordion has a neat story with it. One of the soldiers, Alexander King, was offered a chance to evacuate in one of the earliest boats. He refused, and stayed on the beach playing his accordion to keep up the spirits of the other soldiers until everyone else was evacuated. His exploits earned him the nickname "The Mad Hatter."

There was a whole exhibit dedicated to the merchant navy, which suffered higher casualty rates than the actual navy during the two World Wars. This display was about one particular ship that was sunk by a U-boat during World War 2. Most of the crew drowned, but 14 men escaped on a raft. Unfortunately, they had no way to steer it, so they were left drifting in the Atlantic waiting for rescue. 12 of the 14 men died before they were found, and the two survivors had been adrift for 50 days by the time a rescue team reached them. The scraps in the display are pieces of sailcloth that they used to keep a log on the raft.

The British Museum.

The Rosetta Stone.

And of course, me with the Rosetta Stone.

This is either the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus or a different mausoleum that was also in the museum. I don't remember which. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Speaking of ancient wonders, although it's not one of the seven...this is a section of the frieze from the south side of the Parthenon.

This is one of the metopes which was placed around the outside of the Parthenon. All of the metopes in the British museum are from the south side, and depict the mythical battle between the Lapiths and the centaurs. Most of the figures on the metopes are missing their heads - the heads that belong to these two are currently in Denmark, having been appropriated by a Danish naval officer for his own private collection several hundred years ago.

This is a computer-generated reconstruction of the same metope, based on laser scans of the heads and the metope and a couple of artistic sketches made when the metope was in better condition. There are indications that all of the metopes were painted, especially because they were high on the building and the additional contrast would have helped the viewer see more detail. However, the color scheme here is just a guess - we don't know what the actual colors were because the chemical traces aren't strong enough.

Another metope. This one used to have two figures on it, but the Lapith was carved in such high relief that it was broken off at some point. We do have an older sketch showing the Lapith still in place.

These fragments of statues used to stand on one of the two pediments - the triangular sections on the short ends of the Parthenon. This pediment showed the contest for Athens between Athena and Poseidon. Poseidon is second from the right, and Athena is third from the right. The figures on either side of them are probably Poseidon's wife Amphitrite (on the right) and Hermes (on the left).

Finally, a metope that still has the heads attached. Actually, this metope is astonishingly well-preserved, and the display didn't say why.

These are the statues from the other pediment, which showed the birth of Athena. Legend had it that she sprang fully clothed and armored from Zeus' head. Even though most of the statues are relatively complete, the two central figures of Zeus and Athena are missing.

Lord Elgin didn't take all of the Parthenon's carvings, but he made plaster casts of the ones he left behind. As it happens, this is fortunate for researchers today - these casts show the friezes in a much better condition than they are today.

It's strange, but I didn't enjoy seeing the Elgin Marbles as much as I thought I would. Maybe it has something to do with them being at eye level, or being so removed from their original surroundings - I don't know. I can't help but appreciate how much better-preserved they are than they would have been otherwise, but at the same time, they seem completely out of their element.

This is a vase in the Geometric style, which was characterized by highly intricate (you guessed it) geometric patterns. The picture doesn't capture a lot of the tiny, precise details which are visible in person.

These are Cycladic figurines. Most of them were found in graves, but because the civilizations of the Cycladic islands left no written records, we don't actually know very much about them. However, the style influenced later artists such as Picasso.

From the Assyrian section: a replica of a wood and bronze gate built by one of the Assyrian kings. The doors are made of wood and fastened together by intricately detailed strips of bronze. The original bronze pieces are displayed on either side of the gate.

This is London Bridge. It was pretty boring, really.

The Globe!

A view of the stage from where I was standing. The girl in the front of the picture is actually leaning on the edge of the stage, which gives you an idea of how close I was.

The seating around the edge of the theater. When it started raining, I couldn't help but think how nice it must be to not have to stand in the rain...but then again, the stage isn't completely covered either, so the actors got wet as well.

The Tower of London, from the outside. It's actually a lot of towers. The tall part that you can see towards the right side of the photo is the White Tower, I think.

The White Tower as seen from inside the walls. Oh, and me.

There were Yeoman Warders all over the place. The front of their uniforms says E II R, which I assume means Elizabeth II Regina (Latin for Queen).

This monument stands near the original scaffold site, where a variety of interesting historical characters were executed. The top layer has some of their names, including Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Gray; the lower layer has a poem inscribed on it.

This is Traitors Gate, the water entrance to the Tower.

I didn't stay for the whole "raree show," but I did take a couple of pictures. This was before the guy started extolling the benefits of warm crocodile dung as an anti-aging cream...

"You're MAD!" (Actually, I kind of agree with her.)

I don't think I would have even noticed this monument if it hadn't been for the exhibit at the Imperial War Museum...I saw it as I was leaving the Tower to find lunch.

St. Paul's Cathedral. No photos from inside, unfortunately, because photography is prohibited.

"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag..."

I took this photo from inside the churchyard, which was lovely but rather crowded.

And this is a view from the street as I was leaving. It almost looks surreal in the photo...

The London Eye.

Westminster Abbey.

More Westminster Abbey.

Some other building.

Big Ben.

The end!