Journey to the Center of Europe

A few weeks back, our lovely little fishing village hosted a very big golf tournament, and our usually reasonable population of 25,000 (during the semesters) swelled to 250,000, so Isaac and I left town. After some deliberation, we settled upon Prague (Praha to the residents) as a suitable destination, by merits of its being off this briefly golf-crazed island and also for the relatively cheap deals we got on airline tickets and hotels.

Prague as a city is pretty well known for four things, or so, I think.

Coffee,


Beer,


Modern art,
(The top image is a pretty awesome sculpture near the stare mesto (old town) square, made entirely of keys, as might be evident from the close-up on the right; the bottom one of my favourite buildings, which we passed every day).



And jazz, which is everywhere but difficult to capture in a photo.

Isaac and I arrived around noon on Monday only to discover that Prague is a veritable sauna in the summer. We had booked an afternoon boat cruise, and so made our way to the river (hoping it would be cooler) to enjoy some water views of the city. This is the famous Charles Bridge:

And this a whimsical photograph I snapped of a cyclist on the riverside walkway, a little later.


We meandered a lot on our first night, and suddenly realised we were in Bohemia, land of green fairies and, well, Absintheries.


We spent most of the second day wandering through the older section of town, trying desperately to follow a "walk" in a five-year-old tour book we had borrowed from the library. We think some of the alleyways have been closed off since then, so I was distracted from taking photos by the fact that neither of us could figure out the author's directions. We lunched in a lovely restaurant (vegetarian, we later discovered!)that may or may not have been in the oldest street in Prague, and continued meandering. In the evening, we stumbled upon a jazz festival in the stare mesto, and amused ourselves by listening to the music, eating enormous sausages, and watching small children frighten pigeons.


On Wednesday, again unbearably hot, we visited Hradcany Castle (also called Prague Castle), which sits atop a high hill on the west side of the river.

Hradcany has some lovely gardens:

And a pretty stunning church in the middle of the castle grounds.

Too warm from the beating sun, we ventured even further up the hill to visit the Strahov Monastery (my one must-see destination from this trip). In addition to its charming restaurant, in which we were fed grilled meat, amazing plum dumplings, and some monastery-brewed beer (Isaac had a yellow wheat beer which he loved immensely), the monastery also hosts an amazing library. Photography rights cost as much as admission, so here's a picture of the outside:

We had supper at a highly recommended restaurant called Kolkovna. They fed Isaac a very lovely goulash with a soft pretzel, then took more than an hour to bring us our meals (which were very nice when they finally arrived). I had sauerkraut and pork pancakes with sour cream, and they were marvelous (facilitated, I am sure, by my extreme hunger).


We finished our evening by returning to the Absintherie we'd seen on Monday. We tried Absinthe straight on ice and also Absinthe poured over sugar and set on fire. After our fire Absinthe was prepared, we were given a moody little table with water and peanuts at which we could sip our drinks and ponder the bohemian lifestyle. (I suggested to Isaac that we begin singing songs from The Sound of Music, a la Moulin Rouge but we elected to walk home along the river in relative silence instead).


Given the oppressive heat, we tried a different approach on Thursday, and left the hotel at a little past six in the morning. We walked across the Charles Bridge, which is decorated with lovely statues of mostly biblical scenes, watched the sun rise, and had coffee together at a little cafe before walking back to the hotel for breakfast.



In the afternoon we visited the Jewish Quarter, which has mostly been taken over by street vendors and the high fashion shops of Pariska Street. The New and Old Synagogues stand side by side, separated by a narrow alleyway. (Attempts to take a wider photo of both together might have ended with an unfortunate car accident, so here they are separately).

Prague is also, supposedly, the birthplace of the marionette theatre, so we finished our day with an evening spent watching a puppet production of Mozart's Don Giovanni,.


Hoping for a quieter day, we spent a great deal of Friday morning exploring Vysehrad (Castle?), conveniently located up a hill just behind our hotel. Vysehrad, across the river and a bit south of Hradcany, is the historic "outpost" for Prague, and the views were stunning, as were the gardens. Vysehrad is also home to the Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius.






We spent our last full day quietly, wandering through the stare mesto again and sipping coffee in various locations throughout the city. The square surrounds this enormous statue of Jan Hus.

On the far side of the square is the astronomical clock. On the hour, each hour, various figures appear at the open doors near the top of the clock. One, I think, is supposed to be the Devil letting a little sand seep from an hourglass. The square fills up with crowds of tourists for about fifteen minutes every hour, so this is the best photo I could manage.

We concluded our trip as we began it: with a boat tour of the city. We saw our lovely Vysehrad in the evening light:

We also had a stunning view of the sunset reflected in the aforementioned dancing buildings.

We walked home along the river after dark.

I went to Durham afterwards, but that's a subject for another blog post.

Crazy Daze

Our last few weeks have been a bit wild. In the past fifteen days, we've had three visitors from the States, journeyed across and around Scotland by car and by train, hiked the tallest mountain in the UK (Ben Nevis), moved to a new flat, and kept up a pretty decent work flow regardless (Isaac took two days off during our adventures and I've taken a few more but still managed to write a conference paper and compile a slide show for it). Exciting but crazy.

Our new address will be emailed out soon to interested parties, but as we don't yet have internet access in our new flat, it might take a little longer than expected. In the meantime, here's a photo of my handsome husband taken on the side of Ben Nevis and looking out over Loch Lochy and the Atlantic (click for a larger version).



Hope you are all well! Take care!

June Bugs

I realised that I prepped photos for this post two weeks ago and then never posted. This, then, will be brief, but a post.

About two weekends ago, Isaac surprised me in the morning by suggesting we hike to the lovely town of Crail. Crail is a fishing village a little south of St. Andrews, and can be reached by walking along the edge of the North Sea on the Fife Coastal Path. We packed a hearty lunch and headed up the cliffs beside our house, anticipating about nine miles of good walking before we stopped for ice cream and headed home again.

This is the view from the top of the cliffs that loom above and near our house, overlooking St. Andrews:

We passed a rock formation known as the Rock and Spindle (which, some of you may remember, Isaac climbed last fall), and did a little scrambling to reach the lovely view shown below. Note how much smaller St. Andrews has become! We were still only about two miles down the path at this point:

Eventually we reached another rock formation known as Buddo's Rock. This one is known for the huge cleft down the middle of the rock. We stopped here to eat lunch, which was delicious and much needed.

Here's a view from the top of the hill just past Buddo's rock. It was our last view of St. Andrews before the path turned inland and crossed a peninsula that would block our view of St. Andrews. There's also a golfer somewhere on the top of the cliff here.

Around this point, we started to get tired (3 miles in!) and eventually discovered that it was actually twelve miles to Crail, so I snapped only a few more photos, choosing to conserve my energy and plod dully ahead instead. We did arrive after about six hours of good hiking (and one more snack break) and feasted on fish & chips before getting the bus back to St. Andrews. All in all, a very good time.
Last weekend, in between preparations for the visit of some friends from Albuquerque and other Western USA destinations, Isaac and I cycled up a formidable hill located just beside our home and had tea and scones at a strawberry farm atop the hill, overlooking the North Sea. Here's the view (and food!) we enjoyed that afternoon:

That's all for now, folks.

Darling Buds of May

When last we, the daring explorers, posted, we had shortly returned from jaunts across all parts of the UK. The intervening month, however, has been far simpler: Isaac and I have been staying close to home, trying to get used to the concept of a "normal" schedule once again, and enjoying the loveliness of Scotland in the Spring.

The first weekend in May is always marked, here, by a tremendous and glorious affair: the Castle Ceilidh. The University's Celtic Society rents out the castle grounds on the day in question, and a large crowd of interested individuals flock for a chance to dance the evening away. This is followed by a torchlight procession as dusk falls (around 9.00 in the evening). As it rained heavily on the first weekend of May when I was first here, this was my first Castle Ceilidh, and a glorious evening it was!

This is from a dance, the name of which I have forgotten, that allows lovely young ladies to choose various men as partners throughout the dance:



When not dancing, we've spent the weekdays busily working (I've met my first word-count deadline, which is terrific) and the weekends relaxing. Last weekend, my wonderful husband made hummous for us to eat during a picnic at the edge of the sea. It was high tide, so we sat on the grass instead. (This photo was taken less than a hundred yards away from our front door).



And finally, because it is turning into summer and the days are stretching on into all hours of what we would normally consider nighttime (this morning it was bright by five and last night the sun set around half past nine), we've been getting into the practice of taking evening walks on the beach near our house. Here's last night's sunset, with the cathedral ruins in the distance:



And, as it is a weekday, I must now get back to work!

Home is Where the Sea Is . . .

Of travels and travails we have had many, thus far . . .

Two weeks ago, Isaac and I set our clocks the requisite hour forward (thus officially entering into my least favourite season of the year). On the morning following (that being Palm Sunday) we made our way (via bus) to the nearby city of Dundee and began a two-week marathon of busses, trains, hotels, homes, footpaths, libraries, pubs, and other assorted modes of conveyance and destinations. (Busses, incidentally, is apparently the incorrect plural form of the form "bus," but "buses," though correct, is ugly. Then again, so is Birmingham).

Our first stop was the miserable and unfortunate city of Birmingham, UK, an industrial city that has become in many ways the un-deodorized armpit of the British Isles, where dreamers go to die in poverty and disgrace. The city centre is not the heart, but the entrails, of this place: a mess of shopping malls and department stores spilling forth their putrid materialistic wares for at least five blocks in every direction. Brick streets confuse would-be tourists, or the unfortunates who must dash between train stations hidden behind discount warehouses and overpriced jewellery shops, and "pedestrian districts" are filled with lorries delivering goods to the dens of materialist oppression. Petitioners stand on numerous corners and badger the miserable unfortunates who have come to Birmingham. Finally, the city is overrun with poverty. Some of the poorer individuals have jobs selling magazines to pedestrians (a respectable job, and one that is quite common in the UK these days) and others simply accost anyone who crosses their path. One woman in particular asked us for lunch money, but turned down our offer of a lunch. Another pair of magazine sellers crept up behind us in a dark alley (but an alley filled with storefronts), and, irate when we did not buy their magazines, followed us back to our hotel, howling catcalls and insults at us for several blocks. Despite the recurring misery that is Birmingham, this city has somehow managed to gain a place on the shortlist for British "City of Culture 2010," which proves, beyond all doubt, that the "City of Culture" competition is, in every respect, a magnificent practical joke Britain is playing upon its tourists and inhabitants. [Isaac, upon reading my description of Birmingham, suggested that I may have been unjustly harsh, but could not think of any positive features to add to my summary. He was so fond of the city that he spent four days lurking in the hotel, venturing out only to escort me to and from the library).

Despite this, I managed to see some lovely and rare eighteenth-century Shakespearean editions during my visit, in their quite informal and enormous public library. Below, in the photo, you will see the library (it looks like a car park), some "cultured" restaurants, a Gothic-esque fountain, the endless construction that is initiated in Birmingham every day but never completed, and (of course) a sign about the city's potential "culture."



From Birmingham, we ventured to the nearby city of Derby (pronounced Darby), which is home to a large shopping mall, several churches, and a railway station. We enjoyed an extravagant supper of Chinese food while there, and had breakfast at a charming pub in the local Wetherspoon's pub, particularly notable for its booths with built-in bookcases (these were all full, so we sat at a normal table instead). Here's the Derby library, which is conveniently located across the street from the Chinese restaurant in which we procured supper.



On to Kegworth!

Sadly, circumstances and other complications made it difficult for us to really celebrate our first anniversary, so we took advantage of the fact that the libraries of the UK were closed for the Easter Holidays to sneak away for a short romantic jaunt in between my library visits. Isaac found an unexpected discounted price on the Yew Lodge Hotel in a remote village called Kegworth. Although I was skeptical at first ("Best Western" isn't exactly synonymous with "luxury" in the States) and slightly dreading the long journey with many changes that was required to reach the city, we managed to lessen the number of journey legs, and the hotel itself was glorious! Our room was enormous (though the view wasn't spectacular) and although the shower was feeble, the bath had lovely jets. Best of all, our room came inclusive of the public parts of the on-site Reed Spa (this entailed, I think, a swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, ice bath, little foot tubs, and three "themed showers" (including a Glacier Blast of ice water that Isaac discovered, a little to his chagrin)). Though the meal prices at the on-site restaurant were daunting, breakfast was included, and the porter recommended some nearby restaurants that seemed a little more manageable. We feasted on Indian food the first night (a favourite) and then had our official "anniversary dinner" the second night: we walked about a mile to a lovely and elegant pub called The Otter, where we feasted on partridge, venison, and duck till we were far too full for dessert. We also has time on Saturday to visit the local library, enjoy a local art gallery, and eat Hot Cross Buns (Isaac's first). Other than that, we really merely relaxed (a much-needed respite from the stresses of travel and life in general)/

We spent Easter Sunday at St. Andrew's church in Kegworth. The congregation was small, but the hymns were pretty and the people friendly. Here's the church:



After church, we returned to our hotel to finish our library books (and film) and enjoy some afternoon tea. From there, we ventured back out of quiet and rural Kegworth to the much larger city of Leicester, a destination chosen only for its proximity to a rail station from which we could take a direct train to Cambridge. Oh, and the body of Richard III likely spent a night in Leicester after he was defeated by Henry VII, which is pretty amazing.

Our stay in Leicester was fairly uneventful. We stayed in a hotel that had recently been bought from the Days' Inn corporation, which allowed us to play an enjoyable little game called "Spot the Days' Inn Logo." The fire escape plan bore an unabashed reference to the chain in question, and many other signs simply featured stickers bearing the hotel's new logo pasted over the old. In other places, the old logo had simply been sliced from the top of signs (such as those bearing room numbers), a fact made all the more obvious by the new (and less geometrically flexible) logo adopted by the hotel's current owners. The hotel itself was pretty shoddy, but had an exciting aroma of skunk and marijuana, which we defeated by leaving the window open and bringing lovely spiced food in from a nearby chain restaurant. Perhaps the highlight of our evening in Leicester was the walk around the town centre and particularly around the grounds of Leicester Cathedral, which is very pretty:



On Easter Monday, bright and early, Isaac and I made it to our train on time and ventured to Cambridge, one of my least favourite British Cities, but a necessary evil, as I needed to visit the Wren Library and was also planning to attend a conference on the material aspects of texts. Isaac and I parted ways at the Cambridge Rail Station: he hauled our luggage several miles to our hotel (Cambridge is, I think, the very most expensive city in the entire UK, by a lot) and I struck out in the other direction to attend my conference.

Two things here: the conference was amazing, far more so than I had expected, and also I really hate Cambridge--and have for some time.

I walked more than a mile north and west to reach my conference, and arrived just on time and a tiny bit exhausted. I attended some amazing panels and met some very fun individuals, including a few eminent Shakespearean scholars and a number of other graduate students from around the UK. We had the best conference lunch I've ever eaten, bar none. My enjoyment of the day was slightly shattered as the conference adjourned for the night, mostly because I then had to walk through the (very creepy) streets of Cambridge and find our hotel. What should have been a 3.4-mile walk became, due to Cambridge's lack of maps and the vast number of people in the city who had never heard of the (quite major) road upon which our B&B was located, a trek of more than five miles, and I don't exaggerate. I arrived at the B&B confused, exhausted, footsore, and (dare I say) very very grumpy, and my mood was not improved by the B&B owner who cheerily informed me that I couldn't have walked more than two miles, and intimated that if I couldn't handle such a thing, I should have taken the bus (busses in Cambridge, I should add, don't really run on Easter Monday). I had left the conference at 7.00 and did not find the B&B until about 9.00. Long day. Of course, after this, we still had yet to find supper (and, I soon learned, our B&B didn't allow food in the guest rooms, which negated the possibility of boiling noodles in our kettle, as we had attempted in Birmingham). Tired, hungry, and footsore, Isaac and I stumbled back out into the dark and gloomy streets of Cambridge, hoping to find a nearby Chinese place our hosts had recommended. Alas, on Easter Monday, all is closed in Cambridge. Eventually we stumbled upon a pub called the Queen Edith, which was just closing, but in which we asked for directions to any local eatery. A local off-duty cab driver enjoying a pint suggested a few places, then noted that we wouldn't be able to reach any of them on foot, and wasn't sure whether they'd be serving on the bank holiday anyway. Finally, the wonderful bar tender offered to make us a pizza, and Isaac and I were able to sip a few pints of cider and chat with a few locals before enjoying what may have been the most desperately needed pizza I've ever consumed. At any rate, Cambridge is pretty miserable, but if you ever find yourself there, visit the Queen Edith Pub (on the road of the same name): there are good people there.

The second day of my conference was equally rewarding and enjoyable. We spent another evening at the B&B, alas, but packed up in the morning and headed to the home of two friends who live in Cambridge and had offered us their Very Comfortable spare bed for the latter half of the stay. What a joy it was to be in a proper home today! C. and P. took very good care of us, feeding us amazing delicacies and letting us share their home and conversation (and completely downplaying C.'s birthday, which, we were chagrined to realise, had been in the very middle of our trip). Isaac spent his daytimes playing tourist, drinking coffee, reading, and (on Thursday) taking a quick jaunt to London to return some library books, while I ventured forth into the lovely Wren Library at Trinity College. There I had a chance to look at some wonderful rare Shakespearean manuscripts from the eighteenth century, which was perhaps the highlight of my research trip. Here's the outside of the library:



As you can see, it's a pretty impressive building. The windows let in a wonderful amount of light when it's sunny outside, and the shouts from punters boating on the River Cam are only mildly distracting. I enjoyed lunch in the Cambridge Farmers' Market on both Wednesday and Thursday, which was a real treat. (Thai food and hot dogs the first day, and a pseudo-Ploughman's lunch of fresh bread, cheese, and fruit on the second). We also attended, on Thursday night, a really lovely concert by a group called Britten Sinfonia. They played some Bach and Part, and also several pieces by a composer I'd not heard before, named Eriks Esenvalds. (For anyone interested, the concert notes are available on the website under the date of April 8th or the title Passion and Resurrection).

N.B. I'd hoped to add a link to my favourite Esenvalds piece, but it appears he's not very well known on mainstream music sites: so here's another of his pieces on YouTube, which we also heard on Thursday evening).

On Friday, I took a half day to do my research and then we headed with our hostess C. to the nearby town of Grantchester, where we had tea with an old friend from Belhaven and her family. This tea room, called The Orchard, was apparently frequented by a number of famous twentieth-century poets, and a swimming hole once used by Lord Byron, I believe, was also located in this town. After tea, we enjoyed a long stroll along the River Cam back to Cambridge, and had our last Cambridge supper with our very generous hosts.

Here's a photo of the Grantchester tea room, although I believe there are better ones on their website:



Saturday morning, we hopped onto the train, headed North, and finally relaxed with great joy into the comforts of our wonderful little house by the sea.

It is good to be home. :)

On Some Points with Slow Return . . .

One of the exciting things about my life as a research student is the opportunity to actually do research. Given the comparably small collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century books owned by my home institution, my research has often and will often take me to some of the most amazing libraries in the world. My current task involves examining and cataloging every extant eighteenth-century edition of Shakespeare's works. Sometimes tedious but always exciting!

At any rate, Isaac and I spent last week in London city. We found a marvelous hotel near Finsbury Park, whose promised studio apartment with kitchenette was rather obviously missing the kitchenette, but we enjoyed our room (en suite, even! . . . which, over here, means that occupants don't have to share bathrooms with other guests). Most days, I visited the reading rooms of the library (whose resources were slightly limited during the first two days of our trip due to a city-wide civil employee strike) and Isaac roamed the streets, drinking coffee and reading novels.

Here's the line of researchers outside the library shortly before opening time (actually taken in the summer of 2008).



For a particular treat and chance to unwind near the close of our trip, Isaac bought us tickets to see Phantom! The below photo, of Her Majesty's Theatre (where Phantom has been playing for a very long time) is actually from my 2004 trip to London, when my very generous father bought me the very last available seat in the house as a birthday present, so that I enjoyed the play (immensely) from behind a pillar and with no companions. After seeing Phantom for the first time, I decided it was the best of the three musicals we saw in London that winter, but parental opinion, memory, and a purchase of the Les Miserables CD eventually persuaded me otherwise. After seeing Phantom again in even better seats with an enthusiastic husband beside me, I am even more thoroughly convinced that this musical is amazing beyond almost all compare.

(Incidentally, while we were in London the sequel to Phantom premiered, to mixed reviews. Whether I'll make a point of seeing it or not remains to be determined).

Anyway, the elegance that is Her Majesty's Theatre.



Isaac and I had originally hoped to take a short holiday this week to celebrate Pi Day and give me a break from work, but such was not, apparently, meant to be. Instead, we've been lazing about the house, occasionally trying to be domestic, and occasionally venturing out into the wider world of tea rooms and chip shops. Today we visited the lovely nearby fishing village of Anstruther, well renowned for having the best Fish and Chips in Scotland, to stroll along the docks and, well, eat fish and chips. Here's a photo my wonderful husband took of the sky and shore.



Wishing many blessings to you all!

A Wild Wild Winter Wonderland

I'd like to say that nothing has really happened in the last month and a half, but that would be sightly inaccurate. Isaac has found a new job and is now working as a (he says) "Cafeteria lady" for one of the dormitories here. He likes this much better than the cafe job, for many reasons, including more hours, consistent hours, and better benefits (including a University library card with which he can check out more books than I can. Lucky guy). My main news is that I've signed up for Italian classes. It's a little early to say that I'm "learning" Italian, but I am enjoying the courses and trying to pick up as much as possible.

One of the perks of Isaac's schedule is that he now has a lovely Saturday morning shift (okay, I find this more lovely than he does) that ends in the early afternoon, with enough time remaining to actually enjoy part of the Saturday itself. This was the glorious sunrise we saw last Saturday morning, as we walked to our respective "jobs."



Oh, but it gets better: After the sunrise, I spent several hours reading for my thesis, then Isaac stopped by to take me on a lovely and romantic walk a little west of town. It had recently been snowing, so all was beautiful, and (in other news) it's SPRING here, as evidenced by the snowdrops we saw in some of the less-snowy patches.




(As you may notice, we saw ducks as well).

I'm madly in love with the North Sea here. We live quite close to the sea, and frequently (i.e. whenever we're not running behind schedule) walk to town along the beach, which is a gorgeous stroll. The sea looks different every day, and watching the waves and water is one of the most peaceful and joy-inducing experiences I've ever had (and I get to enjoy it almost every day).

This morning, I walked out of our house into a bitter cold and violently strong wind (it was actually difficult to walk). I dashed back indoors for another layer (Scotland, my friends, is not the land of warm winter coats, but of many, many layers, because walking for a mile or two usually makes me too warm for my down coat). On the way back out, I grabbed my camera--for reasons that will shortly become apparent. I have never seen the waves as beautiful as they were today. I wanted to walk out on the pier, but as the waves were actually crashing over top it, and the wind was all but knocking me over (and a friend in the English department here was badly injured two years ago after falling from the same pier), I elected for sensibility.

In lieu of a tremendous views of water-soaked waves collapsing atop me with the cathedral and castle in the background, here are two views from the top of St. Rule's Tower, the highest part of the Cathedral.

View looking over the North Sea (and pier):



View of St. Andrews proper:



I left these a little larger than most blog photos I post, so they should get larger if you click upon them.

Arrivederci!