STONEHENGE (and the Jurassic Coast)

Last weekend we spent a lot of days hiking around looking at old rocks.  It was pretty chill.  You can read all my angsty, vaguely academic thoughts on the experience on my other blog for the summer school course I'm taking!! (Shameless plug.)

www.finchesinthechapel.blogspot.com 

One adventure: Swimming in a sports bra and shorts out toward a natural rock arch, which I then climbed upon, nearly bashing my body in the process.  I've got the scratches to prove it. 

Friendz

Thought I'd do a post with some pics of some friends. :)  All these photos are from Edinburgh.

Antonio!

Robert!

Sabrina!

City of Dreams

We took a day trip to London to do a medical history tour, and as we walked along the Thames, I almost wanted to cry with happiness.  Modern meets ancient, speedy meets staid, every language and belief tossed in the mix, and on those rare days with sun, everything shines.  I'd work any job and stay in any flat just to live in this city.

 

The Most Beautiful College Museum in the Whole World

And that's saying something, because I'm a staunch supporter of Harvard's museum coterie.

The Fitzwilliam Museum is the primary art museum for the U. of Cambridge, and its holdings are immense (and intense!).  We're talking Rodin, Seurat, Pissarro, Cezanne, Matisse, Degas, Picasso, Monet, Delacroix, Rossetti, Canaletto, Tintoretto, Titian, Millais, a very important ancient Egyptian collection, and so much more!!

Woolf, Forster, Brooke, and Tea

Some time ago we biked over to a little place called Grantchester to have cream tea at The Orchard, a restaurant with tables in, you guessed it, an orchard.  Rupert Brooke held court here from 1909 to 1914, and many friends visited, like Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Augustus John, and Keynes.  They went on walking tours and canoed along the River Cam into Cambridge.  They were known as the Grantchester Group (Woolf called this gang the "Neo Pagans," contrasting them from London's Bloomsbury Group).  Here are other esteemed visitors to The Orchard:

Pretending we're pioneering early-20th-century intellects:

 

A swan, named either Norbert or Charon.

Lazing by the river with our former group babysitter Ingrida (our lovely TF Myrna has since arrived to fill that role, as well as academic supporter!) and her Portuguese friend Evo.

A bit of poetry to close out a lovely day, with piping hot scones and the smoothest clotted cream ever.  I had elderflower soda and was happy with the world.

"The Old Vicarage, Grantchester" by Rupert Brooke

(excerpt)

I only know that you may lie

Day-long and watch the Cambridge sky, And, flower- lulled in sleepy grass,

Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,

Until the centuries blend and blur

In Grantchester, in Grantchester...

Historical Cambridge

Throwback to a couple weeks ago!  Our class went on a walking tour of Cambridge.

Trinity College.

Where Newton performed his sound experiments!

On the roof of Great St. Mary's Church, overlooking the city.

The Market Square.

Also the Watson, Crick, & Franklin lab!

Cool.

Monument to George Washington's daddy in Little St. Mary's church.

Peterhouse, the oldest college at Cambridge.  (Professor Durant is in the hat!)

York!

A little stop on the way back from Edinburgh to the city where some argue psychiatry was founded (the York Retreat) became a trip through a madhouse when we discovered it was horse-racing day!  Bachelor and bachelorette parties swarmed the place, men wore white shirts, women wore fascinators (those fancy half-hat things) and cocktail dresses, and us surprisingly-outnumbered tourists wedged our way through to the cathedral.

I unintentionally dressed for the occasion!

The lovely cathedral, with huge stained-glass windows.

The Great Affair

"The great affair is to move," said Robert Louis Stevenson, and so after three nights and two full days in Edinburgh, we said adieu to the city.  

Indeed, being here felt very much like an affair -- a dalliance with another time and place, fleeting, dynamic and irresistible, never quite mine.

On the last evening, before a big group outing to get fish and chips, some of us took the Hume Walk up to the top of Calton Hill, where what looks like half of the Parthenon sits.

All around, the city spread out like handfuls of shiny pebbles, swathed by the Forth of Firth, an estuary that leads We sat below the pillars, wind whipping through our hair, catching our clothes.  We spoke of many things, like so many people had done before us in this city, and perhaps in this very place.

Rock of Ages

Yesterday we climbed Arthur's Seat, the peak towering over Edinburgh.

The peak rises up just adjacent to the Queen's official residence in Scotland, Holyrood Palace.  (Arthur's Seat, by the way, is probably a bungling of a Gaelic term, in no way related to King Arthur.)

It took three hours, clambering over the rocks behind a pair of rangers, stopping at places significant to history or geology (or the history of geology), until we reached the summit.

The wind blew fiercely, and it seemed like one could see the whole world.

Strange to have a mountain in the middle of the city. Strange and beautiful.  And difficult, from the sound of it.  Few other national parks in the world, I think, have to balance the needs of community members, hikers, geologists, archeologists, urban planners, teenagers looking for a good time, government officials, fire managers, 5K organizers, ecologists, and the Queen.

"Stories are my refuge."

Or, A Visit to The Writers' Museum.

The quote is from Robert Louis Stevenson, one of three authors featured at the museum.

Edinburgh is the first UNESCO City of Literature, and the tiny yet sincere Writers' Museum celebrates that heritage.  For instance, very much like a reliquary, one can view a lock of Sir Walter Scott's hair.

And did you know the third featured writer, Robert Burns, once wrote a poem to a haggis? 

Though the museum got a bit gimmicky at times, I felt connected to the Scottish concept of "makar," a poet or bard -- a maker of stories.

Enlightened in Edinburgh

"What are you going to see in Edinburgh?" Ingrida, a Cambridge Master's student who was babysitting us until our graduate student assistant arrived, asked.

Thinking she said "study," I proclaimed "The Enlightenment!"

I was a laughingstock, yes -- but these past few days I felt vindicated as we journeyed far into Edinburgh's past.

On Wednesday, we arrived in the afternoon and enjoyed some tasty food (haggis, on my part).  Thursday, though, we woke up bright and early and plunged deep into the 18th century.

First we visited important sites from the Enlightenment.  And Harry Potter.  Yep, J.K. Rowling lore is alive and well in the city where she began the storied series.

Our kilted tour guide, our professors' Gryffindored son, and some fellow students participating in the sordid tale of Deacon Brodie, the cabinet-maker/playboy/thief.

Afterward we made a pit stop at the National Museum of Scotland, chock-a-block with treasures from Scotland's history, alongside cool working models of steam engines and a Deacon Brodie cabinet.

The stunningly beautiful architecture of the National Museum.

In the afternoon, we took a medical Enlightenment tour, seeing the graves of famous anatomists, Edinburgh's storied medical school, and even the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (a simultaneously horrifying and beautiful experience -- I'm not sure I'm ready to put up photos of people's body parts and bones).

A pit stop to see the only pre-Reformation stained glass in Edinburgh.

Our tour guide explaining mortsafes, grates built to keep out body-snatchers, or grave-robbers, who thrived in the medical anatomy hotspot of 18th century Edinburgh.

The beautiful University of Edinburgh.

It was a long, draining day -- information overload on every level.  As Sabrina (below left) said, we didn't so much soak in the city as have it jammed into our pores. And yet I felt I got a sense of this city in a special way -- almost like someone telling me about their childhood .  I was breathing history in Edinburgh, and that I'll treasure.

No better way to celebrate than a meal at The Elephant House, J.K. Rowling's favorite haunt and the birthplace of Harry Potter. :) 

The first night in Edinburgh!

HAGGIS

Clare College Fellows' Garden

My friend Robert and I decided to visit the Clare College Fellows' Garden, which was open one day only. Two acres of the most gorgeous gardens ever.

Jello Shots and Patriotism

The Fourth of July in the U.K. (Note: No, Mom, I didn't take the jello shots!)

Read my summer postcard on The Crimson, Harvard's student newspaper. http://www.thecrimson.com/series/summer-postcards-2013/article/2013/7/10/ostmann-postcard-cambridge-1/

The River Cam -- And Punting!!!!!

On sunny days, it seems like the whole town descends upon the riverbank.

Punting college kids! And colleges!

The group attempts punting on its own. That's Professor Harrington in yellow.

Robert and Josh in our punt!

Sabrina and me.

Professor Durant saves the day with the paddle! (Seriously. I almost fell off about five times while punting...)

My summer school blog!

If you're feeling interested in 19th century religion, natural history, and medicine, you can check out my musings on my blog for class:

finchesinthechapel.blogspot.com

I update it about twice a week!

A little bit of home in a Cambridge bookstore

We met the Archbishop of Canterbury!!!!!!!

Well, former Archbishop -- Rowan Williams, who answered our questions about science and religion most candidly, and even used a rude word!  A very generous, magisterial man.

And hello to Cambridge!

I'm here!!!!!!!!

I'm in Cambridge on a summer school program, studying Science, Medicine, and Religion in an Age of Skepticism.  Two months in one of the world's most quintessential college towns.

I have a beautiful blue room, and class started yesterday.  We have cookies and tea refreshed every day in the classroom. :)

My room!

The other half of my room.

We went to The Eagle, the pub where Watson and Crick announced they'd discovered the "secret of life"! :)