London - II

This picture barely begins to give you a sense of how immense the Great Court at the British Museum really is...

What trip to this museum is complete without a picture of (seemingly) their most popular artefact, the Rosetta Stone. I say most popular, because, as you can see from the people around me, my abiliity to take a nice photo of it was limited by the crowds surrounding it, and this was the closest I could get to it.

London - I

The British Museum... free since 1753! Enormous museum - as I found out after spending an hour in just one wing before I stepped into the Grand Court...

I mainly saw the Egyptian, Greek, and other Bronze - Iron age exhibits. Started off with the Egyptians - because, hey, who doesn't like mummies? Of course, as we all know, the Egyptians most important contribution to modern culture is... beer! Shown here on the left, this statue was found in a tomb.
 
 
 
Iron-Age Saxon King's helmet, reconstructed from dozens of pieces of iron, discovered at Sutton Hoo
  

First trip to London

I am now officially able to bank in the United Kingdom! It only took five weeks, but I now have a bank account, a debit card, and a pin number for the debit card. I list these separately because apparently, in the U.K., it is physically impossible for them to give you all three at the same time. Heaven forbid. That might actually be, like, efficient or something. It took three weeks to get the account, another week to get the card, and another week (once I'd 'activated' the card) to get the default PIN number mailed to me. Keep in mind - I'm one of the lucky ones. If you can't prove you have the right (i.e., a work visa) to stay in the U.K. for at least 12 months, most banks won't even give you an account! It's only through the miracle of the 'corporate client' account that I was able to even get one! They've tightened the banking laws to ridiculous levels - what with their constant fear of money launderers, terrorists, and Eastern European immigrants - all of whom apparently wish to defraud the banking system of thousands of pounds... (no no - seriously...)

So, to celebrate my newfound wealth (I'd gotten paid on the 26th, but couldn't actually access the money until I had my debit card!), I was finally able to take a trip to London this past Saturday. Organised, and I use the term loosely, by my fellow summer interns working in the Big Blue Tent, we were originally going to stay the weekend, but were not able to find a hostel with 10 beds on such short notice. Just as well.

Actually, if you don't mind leaving London before midnight (and unless you're going clubbing, you're kicked out of most pubs at 11:30 pm anyways...), it's almost cheaper to take the train from Cambridge and back both days than to stay the night - 'offpeak,' single day return fares are only 13 GBP. Add another 5 for unlimited tube fare within the central zones, and you're all good for travel costs.

The day, however, did not start off well. At least I wasn't quite as hungover as I should have been - went to Bullard Labs "happy hour" again, and the beer flowed... Oddly, enough no pictures - decided not to bring my camera out and tempt fate.

Anyways - woke up at 7 on Saturday for an attempt at an early run before our 9:30 scheduled meeting time to catch a train - no point booking in advance - they run every 12 min or so. So I got dressed, started putting my socks on... and felt a sharp stabbing pain in my foot, which I initially thought was a pulled muscle or something... but it got worse, and worse... and started to throb. I leave my windows open for air - turned out a bee had flown in, landed on my sock, and somehow stayed there even when I turned them inside-out by hand. I don't think I've been stung by a bee in at least 10 years - it really freakin' hurts! And it was right on the fleshy part of my arch, so as soon as it started to swell I couldn't very well go for a run. Oh well, I told myself, I'll just try to not drink so much beer this weekend.

Anyways, after 45 min of keeping a bag of frozen veggies on my foot, the swelling had pretty much gone, and I was just left with a dull ache and occasional shooting pains. Didn't make the 9:30 meet-up though - Norway decided to sleep in a bit - he called El Jefe and myself, we delayed until 9:45. Turned out the others had gotten there at 9:30 (on time), but it turned out ok - because we didn't travel with them we decided to attempt some culture before descending into depravity...

Seemed like a good idea at the time...

You know what seems like a good idea?

Having a cookie.

So you're in the grocery store, and you buy a cookie. Well, a bag of cookies, because you've just gotten paid finally and you feel slightly rich, and you can't buy just one. So as I said - you buy a bag of cookies.

Then you go home, make dinner, do some reading.

Then you eat the entire bag of cookies.

The whole thing.

Gone.

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Happy Birthday, Bro!

My middle brother is also in grad school, studying philosophy at York. Specifically... well, he'd have to tell you himself. In any case, today's his birthday and in his honour I made a trip yesterday to Ascension Burial Ground, just north of Cambridge, where one of the main philosophers he studies, Ludwig Wittgenstein, is buried:
So... yep. He's dead. Still. Apparently, the grave is something of a pilgrimage, and "offerings" are occasionally left. I chipped in a pence, for good measure. Can't figure out what the ladder is for though. Maybe The Tractatus is so hard to understand, you may as well just climb over it and get on with it?

Hey man, I'm tired - it's 34 degC here.
 
It's a fairly overgrown place, and I'm sure would look quite creepy in the dark:
 
The church to the right is actually an artist's studio/gallery now, and there are quite a few other Cambridge luminaries buried about. Some of the founders of the newer colleges, and some famous scientists. For all you evolutionary biologists / and paleontologists out there (you know who you are) I give you...
...one of Charles' Darwin's sons! Actually, the other one is buried here too - but I couldn't find the grave.  

At the movies...

Went to see a bunch o' movies on the weekend. The Cambridge Film Festival was on, and I bought tickets to a few shows online. Two "classics," Leon (aka The Professional) and Taxi Driver, and two new films. The two new films were "A Scanner Darkly," the latest adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel (he also wrote the source material for Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report, among others), directed by Richard Linklater.

This movie is wicked cool. Wicked hard to understand, but wicked cool nonetheless. Robert Downey Jr. is the man.

Also saw "Superman Returns" on Saturday, since it took two weeks longer for it to be released in the UK than in North America. Pretty good, though quite cheesey at times. In the washroom, however, was the real treat: possibly the most shameless marketing device ever conceived:

You... can't... avoid... looking... at it! 

Sunday, I was able to get tickets to the closing film of the festival, Terry Gilliam's latest film, "Tideland." Filmed entirely in Saskatchewan, I'd heard of it, but hadn't heard much about until the day before, when I read an article saying it was quite strange. Of course, from the director of "Fear and Loathing," "Twelve Monkeys," and "A Fisher King," what else do you expect?

This movie is f$#cked up. Think "Alice in Wonderland," crossed with Hitchcock's "Psycho." Bizarre. However - the added bonus was that the director was in the audience to answer questions afterwards! Coolness...

 
 

No amazing revelations from the Q & A, except that I think he half expected the reception the movie is getting. Mixed at best, with the most common statement being that it's an ego film, with Gilliam showing just how messed up he can be if he wants to. 

Punting with the Interns on the Cam

What better way to spend a Friday evening? Right after work, 16 of the summer students working in the Big Tent decided to rent some punts for an hour or so and spend
some time attempting to steer down the crowded river. For the uninitiated, this is how to get a close up view the "backs" of the colleges - the best way, IMHO, to view the architecture you can't otherwise easily see.

It has the added factor of being a right good piss up.
Just starting out here - Cedric is punting in the background, Jeff in the foreground. 
This is a great picture - just coming into St. John's College - the Bridge of Sighs is visible off his right shoulder. 
A view of the other two punts of our intrepid group - made up predominantly of French students, oddly enough, but also Irish, Scottish, English, and, of course, Canadians. 
A view of the aforementioned bridge with me facing the other way in the boat. Bastian is demonstrating his superior skills, having been here for almost a year now.   

More of St. John's College - I've found the public entryway to this area finally, so I can get some better photos of the structure you can just barely see above the banks.

At this point, the batteries in my camera decided to die. So I missed Laures losing her pole - not once, but twice - in the mud, and others having to rescue it for her. No one fell in, oddly enough, and we all made it back to Henry's bar at Quayside, where we'd rented hired the punts.


All I can say for this night is that somedays, I'm very thankful that the draconian British liquor laws require most pubs to stop serving at 11:30 pm...

Weekends in Cambridge

Kings College Gate - the entrance to the Chapel and College grounds is nearby, the market is around the corner, the opposite street is lined with shops...

a.k.a. tourist magnet. It's hard enough to walk around here on the weekends, much less bike!  
Still getting a hang of this new-fangled camera and it's fancy lighting settings. This way, it gets the sky, but the rest of the town looks positively medieval, 
whereas here, it's the sky that disappears.
 
  
Believe it or not - this is actually quite a slow day for Cambridge - the crowd has started to thin somewhat. This is looking down Saint John's Street - Trinity Street. They all merge into one after awhile. Here there are some examples of Tudor, Victorian, and Gothic (?) architecture mixed about on the same street. This is common.
The "back" gate to St. John's College. This actually leads to the Porter's lodge (a.k.a, the person who keeps the riff-raff and assorted other unwashed masses from disturbing the privileged few), and not the college proper - I'll try to get some better pictures of this when I do a little tour around the colleges.
Nothing like a nice, quiet punt down the river...

...oh wait - there's the tourists.






The Round Church. They really put a lot of thought into naming these things, eh?

World Cup at the Maypole

Mario and Vincent would like you to know...
you can buy it here, and take it anywhere! Ah.... Britain...

Italia! Italia! Italia! Italia!

The crowd was... packed like sardines. Never has a metaphor been more appropo, IMHO.  
I'm not sure if I'm relieved it's over, or still confused over the fuss of the whole thing...

By the way, the guy on my left is Jeff Shragge, a fellow intern and Queen's Physics alumnus. It's a small, small, world...  

Home is where you hang your hat

Home is where you hang your hat - that's what I always say. Actually, I never say that. Maybe if I started to where hats...

Anyways, here's where I live - a residence room inWolfson College, Cambridge. Thanks to Colin Thomson, one of my former professors and currently a colleague at the Big Blue, I was able to get a room here for the summer term. 67.3 GBP per week - not bad, for a functional, clean, well located room. I share a bathroom and kitchen with a few other people, and have access to most of the college facilities. Except the tennis court. Booooo - and I was so looking forward to taking up tennis ...
 
 
 
And look - even the birds are friendly in England. This one came and sat in my window for a few hours. I looked back at him once after I'd shut the curtain, and found that he'd fallen asleep!   

Obligatory Cambridge Shots

I feel dirty posting these. Like a dirty, dirty tourist. And not from a 'hot' country, like Iceland, but from a former member of the Eastern Bloc. Oh well. It's obligatory, I suppose.


The river Cam, with barges, at sunset:

The 'Mathematical Bridge' (with bonus punting action!):

The Fitzwilliam Museum, (somewhat notorius, thanks to this guy:

And, of course, King's College chapel: