I See London...

English author Samuel Johnson* once noted "When one is tired of London, he is tired of life." England's capitol is a very large city and was once the center of the largest empire in the world, though the country has come down a ways from 19th century imperial glory. It's still big - I had a forty minute train ride and a fifteen minute walk to get from the center of London to my friend G's house in one of the suburbs.

I left Cardiff on Wednesday at the crack of 9am and traveled three hours by bus back to London. Once there, the first stop was my absolute favorite musical, Les Miserables, at the Queen's Theatre in the West End.

My heart, it aches.

In additional to be a stage favorite, Les Mis is a very long book by Victor Hugo, of “Hunchback of Notre Dame” fame. It’s a beautiful story of redemption, with questions of grace, justice, and goodness, as well as pretty pretty songs. My seat partner, an Australia post-doc on his way to Duke University to start a job studying vision in lizards, noted that multiple scenes gave him shivers up his spine. I quite agree. If you haven’t seen it, I can’t recommend it highly enough. (There’s a Les Mis movie coming out at Christmastime, for which I am cautiously optimistic. No matter how it turns out, I’ll likely buy it. Just doing my part to support the film industry.)

I also got to talk with the tech people because I was sitting in the back – their board is very high-tech and the number of different faders and pages they have to keep track of is dizzying. There was a little bobble with one character’s mic coming on a few seconds late, but otherwise the sound was great, even with such a large number of mics on stage. That’s a tricky balance.

Wednesday evening I made the aforementioned journey to my friend's house outside of London, where his family was very kind and welcoming. Thursday morning we made the forty minute trip back into London to go to the British Museum. I’d been to the museum two or three times before, but it’s so large I’d only ever gotten to a few of the bottom floors. This time I went up to the special exhibition to learn about “Drinking in Asia” – rituals and beliefs associated with alcohol, tea, and water in various Asian countries. The similarities between India, Nepal, Mongolia, China, Japan, Korea, and the Phillipines were interesting, but the differences especially so, because I’m guilty of lumping all of Asia together and assuming their cultures are basically the same. Even when they did trade ideas, materials, religions, and ceremonies, each has their own distinct cultural mark. India has a very distinctive liquid-carrier made out of a hollow gourd (and later metal in the shape of said gourd) that is vaguely pear-shaped, where Korea’s liquid carrier is much more round. Both, however, have spouts out of which you can drink. I don’t recall if one gave it to the other. Tea ceremonies in China and Japan are totally different – China traditionally used a powdered tea whipped into a frothy drink in a specially shaped glass, while Japan developed an elaborate tea ceremony. Things like that.

A man making a funny face/"In intense religious devotion"

Very shiny 12th century sword that will kill you.

London is known for its architecture, both modern and ancient. I don’t particularly like the more modern buildings and I really dislike the height of their newest one, but I know the city has to grow upwards now that it has no further room to grow out.

A building I don't like so much. It's called the Shard.

A building I do like very much. It's called the Gherkin.

On Friday I went to Greenwich, home of the median line that marks the center of the world for time.

Greenwich is also home to part of the Olympic stadium and several lovely houses. The town of Greenwich boasts a lovely little market, the Royal Navel College, and the restored tea-ship the “Cutty Sark.”

Center of time, right here.

This little thing made the crossing from England to India and was one of the fastest ships in its day. I can’t fathom that trip in such a small vessel.

The Cutty Sark

Former Royal Naval College, now a museum.

On the grounds of the formal college, I saw the lovely “Painted Hall” as well as a very Baroque-style chapel.

Very ornate.

And to finish, one of my pictures from the Doctor Who Experience:

Saving all of time and space. That's right!

*(Samuel Johnson's quote comes to me by way of a friend from college back in the States. J is witty and very intelligent and studying at Princeton, so I would be be doing her a disservice if I didn't cite my source material.)

Cardiff, Day One

I arrived in Cardiff Sunday night after five hours of travel (whine whine) and explored several highlights of the city yesterday with a friend yesterday. I realize that names are more helpful than “my friend” in these kinds of stories, but a mix of paranoia and privacy means I’m loathe to put up very many details about other people. I’ve settled on initials, so "B" took me around Cardiff and showed me some favorite spots. This post will be particularly picture-heavy, so be warned.

First up was Cardiff Castle, originally built even before the Normans showed up in the 11^th century. Most of the original castle looks a bit crumbly, but the area is still lovely and typically British (or specifically Welsh, in this case).

Outside the gates

Inside. You can see the gate straight ahead.

What remains of the inner keep atop an earthen mound

The view from the top of the inner keep

View towards Cardiff itself

In addition to promenades and fortifications, the castle boasts some gorgeous rooms inside and a terrifically cheesy film recounting the history of the area in a series of ridiculous shots, including a group of rugby players turning into Norman (or perhaps Roman or something else) warriors.

Inside the "Arab Room"

Inside the banquet hall

The ceiling inside one of the rooms. I don't remember which one.

The castle also keeps falcons and owls. Their signage assured us that they have been bred in captivity and are accustomed to being tethered, but I’m not sure I could keep a falcon. They are beautiful, though.

I think a peacock, wandering the ground.

Falcons

Cute little owl

Another cute little owl. Or maybe a falcon.

A falcon, I think

And a big owl. He kept squawking.

After the castle we went down to Cardiff Bay and the Mermaid Quay. Regrettably, no mermaids to be found. Finally, we went to the Doctor Who museum to fan-squee-out over the glory that is Gallifrey and the TARDIS. Or maybe that was just me. We walked through an exhibition of the Whovian worlds – Daleks, the TARDIS, the Weeping Angels, and nods to Spaceship UK, The End of Time, and The Big Bang. It was fabulous. I was glad to have a friend along because the Weeping Angels forest – with strobe lighting and darkness – was truly frightening.

Squee!

Then came the museum exhibition, featuring props and costumes from fifty years of Doctor Who. It was very interesting to see how the Doctor’s clothing changed over the years, from the very formal almost-tux of the late 1950s through the leather jacket of the 2005 reboot. Also on display were various monster costumes – most Who villans are played by actors in costume instead of computer-generated effects. I got to hide inside a Dalek and move it around. I also learned how to walk like a Cyberman and a Scarecrow. We finished up the day by posing for pictures with the TARDIS as the background and I hope to get those pictures in my email sometime tomorrow morning. I’ll share them once I do.

A Dalek made of Legos!

Me and the TARDIS. No big deal.

Number Ten!!

That wraps up most of my pictures, but I will share the ridiculous "floating Jessica with a sonic screwdriver" pictures as soon as I have them.

City of Dreaming Spires

I spent a year in Oxford during college studying British literature, and I have some friends from the States on the same program now. There's only one thing to do when my past and present collide: go and visit!

A friend's picture. Breath, stolen. Every time.

Oxford was just as lovely as I remember, though it was a bit odd not to see the same people in all the places I remember. I got cream tea, ate at a pub, and explored Magdalene College. It is, in my opinion, the prettiest college in Oxford, though I'm not really qualified to give that opinion (and a friend from Balliol may disagree).

The obligatory RadCam shot.

Inside Magdalene

With shared crests over the chapel door

Glorious glorious books in English

Visiting a Castle

Thanks to my kind upstairs neighbor and her generous parents, I got to visit some particularly Romantic parts of Germany: the town of Colchem and the castle of Burg Eltz. Which is actually like saying “castle castle Eltz” because “burg” means “castle.” Anyways. 

We started off with Colchem, a cute little German town about an hour’s drive down the Rhine. It has all the required aspects of being a cute little German town, including a lovely old city, buildings from the 15^th century and earlier, churches, and tiny shops. Also tiny streets, down which buses somehow drove.

This bit of gate was from the 17th century, or something like that.

A lovely house in the main market square.

The entire market plaza, with a number of wine shops selling local wine.

All towns (and cities) along the rivers have problems with flooding, and Colchem was no exception.

Flood levels from the eighteenth century

After visiting around the town we went to a weingut – a sort of restaurant connected to a winery that serves simple food and excellent wine. There I actually enjoyed a rather dry Riesling (as a true American, I usually only like foods that are sweet) and had a nice conversation with a man from Maine who came over to Germany in the seventies and never left. His German was very accented – I wonder if I sound like him to native Germans?

We ended the day with a visit to Burg Eltz, a castle with centuries of history and a lovely treasury to show for it. I got the chance to look at the various gold and silver objects as well as take a tour of the living area of the castle. During this tour we saw things like chests from the 16^th century and a bed from the mid-1400s. It sometimes just takes my breath away to think of being almost close enough to touch something so old, that has seen so much life lived around it.

A picture from the walk to the castle.

A castle. A real castle, with turrets and stuff!

See, turrets. And stone walls.

Burg Eltz is nicely situated on something of a mini-mountain, fairly inaccessible from all sides. This is doubtlessly wonderful for its defense but did mean that we had a thirty-minute walk from the car to the castle. The way there was mostly downhill but the way back was uphill and slightly rainy. It turns out that there are two parking lots. One is for those who wish to hike and one is for those who want to use the shuttle. Guess which one we accidentally picked…

It's starting to be fall.

So pretty!

Very windswept gothic. Verdant windswept gothic, at any rate.

The views were lovely, though, and the entire day was great fun.

Fortress and Federweißer

I enjoyed my time as a tourist on Sunday so much that I kept going for the next few days. On Monday I visited the fortress, a common landmark for larger German cities recalling a time when a heavily-defended castle on a hill was the difference between life and death for a number of hapless pre-German peasantry. On the way to the fortress, I stopped by a monument called “Das Deutsches Eck” – the German corner. This corner commemorates German unification in the late 1800s, when the various principalities and city-states of Prussia decided to throw their lots in together and form a new country. I like the symbolism of this monument, since it makes a point of having German symbolism (the German flag and the coat of arms of Germany) as well as symbolism from each individual state. Around the back of the monument is a row of columns, each of which have the coat of arms of all sixteen German states.

State flags along the side, with the German flag at the tip.

And the coats of arms for all sixteen German states

While I was there some military something-or-other was setting up a tent of some sort. They wouldn’t talk to me when I asked what it was.

There was a great deal of clattering, though.

After das Deutsches Eck I took an enclosed-gondola ride up to the fortress. I had a goofy smile on my face the whole time because it was so much fun and gave me a fabulous view of the city. The trip was less than 5 minutes, but allowed me plenty of time to enjoy the Rhine and Mosel, the city, and the countryside from way up high.

This is from before the gondola.

And a closer shot from in the gondola. We got to ride almost right up to the fortress.

 

After arriving on the fortress plateau I headed for the fortress itself to take a tour. Unfortunately the museum aspect of the fortress wasn’t very impressive: there was no discernible order and most of the exhibits were models or replicas. I did enjoy the little models charting the progress of the fortress from a little tower to a sprawling defense mechanism.

Thoroughly disappointed by the lack of ancient artifacts (people have lived here for 5000 years), I wandered into the fortress restaurant where I enjoyed a bowl of tomato soup and more breathtaking views of Germany from on high. I could have sat there for hours just looking down, it was so beautiful.

My view while slurping down soup. I am so spoiled.

The Rhineland-Paletinate has a number of traditional foods for various times in the year. During the fall we have Zweibelkuchen (potato-onion “cake”) and Federweißer, (sweet new wine), and every café worth its name makes its own. If you recall, I first thought Zweibelkuchen was sweet and tried to order it as a dessert only to get a second lunch. I hadn’t tried Federweißer, though, and went to try some. It’s delicious. Unlike real wine, it’s very sweet because it’s only been fermented for a few days or a week rather than months. It’s usually cloudy and un-strained, and can give you a stomachache if you drink too much. I was warned against this and only had one glass. Unfortunately, due to its short fermentation period and small amount of carbonation, you can’t store it for very long. I’m in England for a week’s visit as I type this, and have to plan on buying more yummy almost-wine when I return to Germany.

Not my picture. I've never gotten into photographing my food, although I do like other people's pictures of it.

Post script: there are some funny formatting issues with some of my posts. And the white space around the pictures bothers me. My sense of aesthetics is rebelling and I'm going to try to fix it. Just not tonight.

Sunday Amusements

Nearly every business in Germany is closed on Sundays and this week is the beginning of fall break, meaning that the city was all but deserted this morning. I got to play tourist after church and run around snapping pictures because I didn't have to worry about avoiding the usual crowds of people downtown. A few highlights:

The fog this morning outside my window was lovely. And this was 9 in the morning!

My current apartment is right on the river, which means that fog is more common than in the middle of the city. Unfortunately being right on the river means that sometimes the river is right on the building - they have a flood every couple of years and the bottom floor apartment gets soaked. Plus, a regular river bath isn't great for the building foundations. Therefore, the city is constructing a wall to hold back the river, much like the levees in New Orleans (though we hope these ones actually work...) to keep the waterfront property un-flooded. Instead of having the river right at eye-level outside my window, I have a lovely view of the construction crew.

I also dodge backhoes on my way home from the store.

But this isn't just about me! Let me introduce you to a corner of Germany.

This fountain commemorates 150 years of a particular industry in the city.

First Forever 18, and now T.K.Maxx. I wonder if German copyright laws aren't very strict...

And of course this would not be Europe without a number of lovely old churches. I know of at least three, but unfortunately my pictures of two of them had terrible sun glare and don't look like much of anything. Digital cameras: I should learn how to use them.

The front of Liebfrauenkirche - the Church of the Blessed Virgin.

The back of Liebfrauenkirche

Two statues with a poem in between.

The little plaque between these two is a poem written in older German, that goes something along the lines of "The market woman said to the policeman 'it is so silly/colorful to me, he has peed on my husband, that nuisance your dog!'" I think. I couldn't find any translations online either into modern German or English, so there's my attempt at being a Renaissance Germanic scholar.

Up next: I discovered mineral water at the store with two different labels denoting how bubbly they are, and I want to see which is bubblier! That experiment will probably happen sometime this evening.