Book Review!

The House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III

I started this book on Sunday afternoon. I went to a local used book store since I had gone through all of my books, perused their cheap table, and came home with four books to tide me over.

Like I said, I started on Sunday afternoon, and by the evening rolled around, I hadn't moved and had read 150 pages. It was completely engrossing. Dubus was able to put the reader in an impossible position: to chose sides in a deeply fraught problem about race, class, and the Bay area.

As you can see by the image, a movie came out a few years back with Ben Kingsley in one of the main roles. I'm sure he would be perfect in this role, and he received an Oscar nod for his role. Jennifer Connelly plays injured souls well (she did a superb job in Reqiuem for a Dream in much the same type of role).

Anyway, this and Donna Tart's Secret History, are my favorite books of the summer thus far. 4.5/5: Shanti!

Realization of the Day:

It sucks to be sick in a foreign country without minions.

Okay, not minions, but someone to go get ginger ale and advil. I woke up last night with a really awful sore throat and a fever, complete with aches and pains. Me thinks I have the flu. So what do I do? I call Kevin and my dad and mom so I can whine about my sorry state. I haven't cried about missing anyone since I got here, but last night, as I hoped I wouldn't have to bust out my health insurance cards at foreign urgent care centers, I was sniffling a lot.

I know it's 'just England' and I don't have to mime my maladies to a doctor that doesn't speak my language, but it takes a good fifteen minutes of staring at a map to figure out how to get to a bookstore that's down the street, so finding some kind of doctor wasn't high on my list of things I wanted to do whilst I was here. (Oh, and just as an example of how things are different here: yeast infections. (close your eyes, boys.) If you go to a pharmacist and tell him/her that you have a yeast infection, they will think you have an STD. One must say they need medication for...wait for it... thrush instead. What did a hapless bird do to these people?)

I'm very glad that I decided to buy a can of rice pudding, since it was the perfect thing for my throat along with some tasty ginger beer. (See, I just use being sick as a way to try new foods!) So I've slept all day; hopefully I'll make it to work tomorrow since my boss comes back from her 2-week holiday and I want to make sure that I'm there when she gets in.

Realization of the Day:

Dickens lived in a pretty small world!

On Sunday I went down near Rochester, past the castle where Kevin proposed to me, and to a kitschy theme park called Dickens' World. Frankly, I would be much more excited in Bede's World, but that's just because I'm a sucker for medieval kitsch much more than I am for faux Victorian.

Dickens' World has only been open for 6 months, so some of the sites were still under construction. There was a 3-D animated movie on Dickens' life, a classroom where one could play snakes and ladders whilst answering Dickens' trivia questions, and a haunted house where you saw 'ghostly' stories from Dickens' novels projected onto the walls. Basically it's set up in a big warehouse that is made up to look like Victorian England. It's very dark though, so even the fake ooze on the walls was hard to see. And, as Shana pointed out, it wasn't so much a glimpse into Victorian England, but a snippet of the seedier side of things, minus the prostitutes.

Then there was the boat ride. The people who made it had obviously been on Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean. The boat ride meandered around a river (maybe the Thames?) and ended up in an 'underground' sewer, complete with smell-o-vision (basically a sewer-like scent was sprayed in the air to make the experience more authentic). After one drop and a wet butt later, the ride was finished.

Thing is, I can go see Victorian England by looking out my window. Many of the buildings that are part of everyday life here were made by the Victorians, so the World seemed a little anticlimactic. Besides, there wasn't even a rotting wedding cake in sight, and Mrs. Havisham is certainly one of the coolest characters that Dickens' made up. Bede's World seems like it would be a little more fun simply because the year 700 is much more difficult to imagine than the 19th century.

Realization of the Day:

I finally understand this whole "Cheers!" thing.

I've made it a personal goal to get people to smile here. My colleagues at WBL tell me that people only say hello to each other in the country. Perhaps that's why I really like the friendliness of the little villages in the UK. People here make fun of the super nice American wait staff at restaurants, something that I usually don't enjoy if I'm served by a complete tool, but when a person smiles a little, it brightens my day. When I walk down the road to work people walk very fast, look straight ahead with a stony face, and even when they almost run into someone they don't say a word. Granted I'm walking right by King's Cross a lot, one of the biggest tube/train stops in London, but still.

There's nothing better to a person abroad than a local giving that person a smile. I've had the most luck with the Waitrose checkout people. I think they probably get tired of the usual grim Londoner not even looking them in the eye. The wait staff in the British Library canteen just think I'm completely hapless, so they take pity on me and smile when they see me.

Today I experimented a little. Instead of saying "have a nice day," my usual mantra after purchasing something, I tried the much more colloquial, "cheers!" I almost fell over when the man at the video store smiled and said it as well. Now I'm trying to define this pesky word. It's not "thanks," because I hear people saying "thanks! cheers!" It's an innocuous phrase that many a pretentious American appends to the end of his/her email to sound...I don't know...smarmy? When I see cheers in that context, it almost always makes me think mean thoughts. But here, it's a powerful little word. It's a combination of 'have a nice day, thanks for your help' and a general acknowledgment that someone did something for you.

In the right context, (i.e. whilst I'm here) this is a powerful little word that I plan to use more often!

Realization of the Day:

My world this summer, in a picture. Behind World's Biggest Library is St. Pancras Station, which incidentally are being turned into luxury apartments. The road in front is Euston Road, one of the busier streets in London.

I had a post all planned out yesterday, but I was rudely interrupted by an internet outage in my dorm. I had a very worried husband calling me when I woke up this morning since I didn't make my usual goodnight call to him.

Truthfully, I went to bed early last night. I met a friend from school at WBL, and we headed off on the Northern Line tube to the north of London to visit Hampstead Heath, a famous 791 acre park in London. It's not so much of a park, but an area left to its own devices. There are bogs, meadows, a few giant manor houses, Romantic-era follies, bathing ponds, and heaven only knows what else. It's bordered by Hampstead, a rather posh area of London full of boutiques, beautiful houses (a few with crooked chimneys), and the best crepe stand EVER.

We walked through a forest with the scariest tree I've seen. At the top of a meadowy hill one can see the entire city of London, including Big Ben. I could have walked around here for hours. It was windy and cold on the top of the hill, but the views were certainly worth it! There were tons of birds flitting about. I managed to get a great view of a beautiful Green Woodpecker.

Afterwards, we walked down to La Creperie de Hampstead (that's right, a crepe stand with a website) for a Belgium milk and dark-chocolate crepe. I've only had crepes in California. After tasting this giant slice of heaven, I don't think I'll ever settle again. K. and I are going here the minute he gets to London. And yes, the crepe was my dinner. After tasting such unadulterated goodness, I didn't want to sully my taste buds with my usual PB&J.

The Travellin' Kind, Part III

I've loved books since I was crawling. I would toss cardboard books in front of me as I crawled towards my mother so she could read them to me. I am called "The Book Baby" for a reason. Books were always much better friends than people were when I was growing up, which is why I know that I would have loved the Harry Potter books as a child and why I like them as an adult as well.

It was electric to walk down the streets of Oxford at 11pm last Friday night and to see an ever-growing line in front of the bookstore (see the photo to the right). My lovely host for the eventful weekend has already written about our adventures that Friday night, but I will recap and rehash a little bit.

The children reminded me of the way I would have been if I was a little kid at the big event: awkward and nerdy, but very excited that all this fuss was about a book! My favorite image of the night was a woman, in academic regalia, leading her son (wearing a cape, round glasses, and a wizard's hat) to his father, also in academic regalia. I hope one day Kevin and I can have a moment like that -- to become kids again with our own children. I also loved watching the children after they had their book in hand; parents leading them on as the children read their new books whilst walking home.There were so many children out, even though it was late. Many of the children looked like me when I was. Now for a few pictures of the big children:


Trust me. It's not a duvet cover, it's a cape.

The bookshop set up a platform that everyone walked through on the way to their book!

Realization of the Day:

The frustration stage has begun.

Jasmine, one of my best friends back home, wrote me today about the phases of cultural acclimation. Even though she was joking, boy do these things sound familiar to me right now.

1. The Honeymoon Stage
2. The Frustration Stage
3. The Understanding Stage
4. The Acclimation Stage

Obviously one experiences various stages depending on one's mood, but it seems that today I've definitely hit the Frustration Stage of my trip. The newness of England and of my job is wearing off a little day-by-day. I still love my job and being in England, but it's hard to be in a tiny (really, it's basically as wide as my arm span) dorm room, and live in a world that puts custard on every dessert and corn in its tuna salad. It feels great to be here, but it's also uncomfortable because I'm not at home.

Most of my frustration is exacted on myself for feeling whiny when I'm in an amazing situation. But even awesome situations aren't all polka-dots and moonbeams. I'm settling down in London, and I guess things have just become more normal, including my moods (which, as those of you who know me well realize, swing on a pretty wide arc).

It's time for me to go to bed, and I can only hope that tomorrow will be a much cheerier day.

The Travellin' Kind, Part II

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent a large part of Saturday hiking in the Cotswolds. I hadn't been to this part of England before -- it has a certain bucolic beauty that I've only found a few times in my life. We started our journey by following some of Oxford's canals. After seeing all the narrow boats up and down the canals in Camden and in Oxford I've decided that Kevin and I have to rent one for a few weeks and travel up the Thames. What a wonderful way to see England! Don't you think my parents would enjoy a trip on a narrow boat? Mom could have a stack of books and drop Dad off in the morning to hike and the meander up the canal to get him in the evening! Many people live in narrow boats, so it was wonderful to see herb gardens (and even a tomato plant) on top of the boats. My favorite sight was of an older gent reading Harry Potter on his boat the day after it had come out!

After walking along the canals, we walked through Port Meadow which is a 440 acre common grazing area that is on the outskirts of Oxford. Since it had rained so much, most of the meadow had flooded. Uncle Dennis and Aunt Kathy would have loved it since wading birds, ducks, and terns had already taken residence. Without my binoculars I spotted: Great Blue Herons, Terns, what I think may have been a Great Crested Grebe, Mergansers, Mute Swans, Grey Geese, Coots, and a large number of ducks and other birds I've forgotten to mention. We saw one bird of note on our walk: a Water Rail let us watch him for a while, which was a definite treat.

Probably the neatest part about Port Meadow was the fact that it's common grazing land. We walked through herds of cattle; a group of horses with little colts ran through; and many, many people were out walking with their dogs, even though it was raining. I've noticed that the rain really doesn't stop anyone here. Umbrellas are just part of the normal wardrobe!

After a four mile walk, we arrived at The Trout, a lovely restaurant that served up some of the best grub I've had while I've been here. We sampled some wonderful cider and I had Innis &Gunn's Oak-Aged Beer, which was really yummy. Our table shared a tart of carmelized onions with a layer of stilton on top that was to die for. I will be recreating it for Kevin the minute I get home! I had the fish and chips since I hadn't tried any since I got here -- amazing! We split a crumble and a sticky toffee pudding for dessert and then began the 4 mile walk home after a wonderfully slow meal. It was truly one of the best days I've had in recent memory!

(Photo Credit for the lovely image of Port Meadow)

The Travellin' Kind

I've been away on a research trip to Oxford's Bodleian Library since Thursday and didn't have access to the internet, so apologies for the radio silence as it were. It was nice to stay in a small town for a while, even if it did coincide with the giant flood of rain that overtook most of England this weekend. There's too much I want to post about right now, so I'm going to divide my travels into a series of smaller posts throughout the next few days.

The main reason for me to visit Oxford was for me to see manuscripts that I need to consult to finish my dissertation. Oxford has one of the best libraries in Britain, called the Bodleian Library (The link goes to a good wikipedia article about the history of the library). The medieval manuscripts are housed in Duke Humfrey's Library, a picture of which is on the right. On the left side of the picture, you can just see some chairs for readers consulting their manuscripts. It's an amazing building and really the perfect place to consult old books.

Really, going to the library was like living a scholarly dream for me. I've been reading books and watching movies about libraries like this place since I was a kid, and here I sat, rain beating down the entire time, with a stack of 15th century manuscripts on my desk, just waiting for me to open them! Apparently I'm not the only one that thinks Duke Humfrey's is the perfect library, it's been featured as the school library in all of the Harry Potter movies! The city of Oxford as well as many of its buildings are the setting for most of the film, so next time you see one of the movies, look for Oxford in the background.

The city itself was wonderful. It was friendly, safe, and just the right size for walking. It goes along the Thames canal walk, so many people hike along the canals from London to Oxford and on up into the Cotswolds. We saw many hikers during the weekend. I've uploaded a few pictures to my flickr page for those that want to see the area of Oxford I stayed in this weekend. My camera ran out of batteries on Thursday evening (of course) so my lovely host will be sending me more pictures that I'll upload to flickr once she's able!

Realization of the Day:

Sometimes slower is better!

I had a leisurely dinner this evening at Cigala's with Dr. V before she heads back to the States. We had some of the tastiest sangria I've had in a while -- it had a great cinnamon and fruit tang that reminded me of gluhwein. We sat out on the patio since it was such a lovely night and watched everyone walk past us. There was only one waiter for the outdoor section of the restaurant, so the service was slow, but it really was okay. Cigala is on a street that's very pedestrian and bike friendly; there's room enough for a car to pass, but not many did while we were there. It's filled with restaurants, pubs, and shops, and has a really nice feel about the place.

We each ordered three tapas and shared everything. It was the perfect amount of food, and the right choices too! We ordered bleu cheese and candied figs, lamb meatballs, spanish ham with tomato toast and olives, marinated anchovies, sautéed chicken livers, and sautéed spinach. All was wonderful. I especially enjoyed the marinated anchovies and the chicken livers. The livers were mixed with caramelized onions and were the best I've had in a long time! After dinner we basked in the twilight as the pubs around us filled up and ordered dessert. I got rice pudding, which is one of my favorite desserts. There were little bits of orange zest in the pudding, which gave it a really wonderful flavor. Dr. V had a meringue with strawberries and cream on the side. I'd never had a homemade meringue before, and it was one of the best confections! Light and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside...Kevin and I will have to experiment with these.

All in all, dinner probably took over 2 hours, but the pace seemed just right for the mood I was in. It wasn't a cheap meal, but it was perhaps one of the nicest I've had in a very long time!

(Thanks to someone on Flickr for taking the exact picture I wanted to!)

Take a Little Trip, Take a Little Trip with Me!

I've been meaning to post about my horrors over British potato chips (called 'crisps' here). After speaking with Kevin's mom, I think I would try the prawn crisps. The Indonesian's have a fish cracker called krupuk that is all kinds of tasty. Besides, many of you know of my fondness for dried kuddlefish. (Yes, that's right, I like squid jerky...so does my cat.) And everyone has tried Chicken in a Biscuit crackers, right? (Maybe my mother was the only person to buy them.)

Let's look at the other flavors of potato crisps are available for me to try while I'm here. Who knows, perhaps I'll try one every time I go to the market.

So this seems normal. Others that fall into the normal category: Salt and Vinegar, Salted.











These seem like they might need a little more marketing (but I'd bet that Kevin would try the ketchup one):

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY. I'm bringing the Lamb one home for mom! They also come in bacon, marmite, and everyone's favorite, Worcestershire Sauce.

Realization of the Day:

Maybe I am Carmen SanDiego!

So a lot of my day is spent doing detective work, which I love. There's nothing that will get my mind spinning like a good mystery, and thankfully that's what makes up a large part of my cataloguing work at WBL. I had a hard time waking up today, so I decided to reward myself with a really pretty manuscript, and one I'm planning on writing about in my dissertation! It was just as beautiful as I had hoped. A full-page illustration with lots of gold leaf as well as pretty borders, much like the image on the right.

I always look at the front pages and back pages of manuscripts first, especially on the blank pages to see if owners left any inscriptions. Medieval and Early Modern owners write the funniest things in their books, but a lot of times it's much like we would write today. Sometimes it's as simple as a bookplate, but other times someone gets a little chatty and says things like "Mary is a shrew!" complete with a mean drawing (and yes, there's a manuscript in the Huntington Library in Los Angeles that has just such an inscription).

Well, today my inscription read (and please add the ye olde englisshe for yourself): "On December 4, 1532 John Smith was taken to the Tower Hill and beheaded. His loyal servant William was drawn throughout London and hanged for treason." I think my eyes almost popped out of my head! I managed to research who John Smith (whose real name is much less common) was and why Henry VIII decided to kill him as well as his poor servant. I also found another inscription by a relative written about 50 years later, so I now know the family had this book for at least a span of 50 years. Since the manuscript was written between 1425-1475 and the first writing comes from around 1532, this means the family could be the original owners, but I have no way of knowing other than to do some more research. What's more, there's a record of one of the women in the family reading another manuscript by the same author as the one on which I'm working!

Anyway, I just had to share since I'm such a happy camper!!

Realization of the Day:

Jalapeños are not chiles.
Well, they are, but I was looking for a can of Ortega chiles for my dinner of Chicken and White Bean Chili. Needless to say, the random jar of 'marinated peppers' from Old El Paso (apparently the only brand of Latin American food to cross the pond) made my chili rather spicy. Grrrr. Another perfect meal ruined (or at least made less palpable) by the differences between British and American English.

Here are some other things I've noticed about British grocery stores:

• Umm, yes Virginia, apparently beans come in Curry.
• The eggs are not refrigerated. They can be found next to the bread on a normal shelf. This is all kinds of bizarre.
• It took me about 20 minutes to find chicken stock today. It doesn't come in cans. The only brand is Knorr's and it's in what resembles a big capri-sun container.
  
• Grapes are in the 'exotic' fruit section. That's right Dad, you worked with exotic fruit!
  
• There are two giant aisles for pre-made dinners. Think Trader Joe's, but somehow less appealing. Apparently one can pick up a date if one browses long enough.
• The fresh-pickled beets have become a staple of my weekly diet. They're pickled whole and are the perfect size!
• Iceberg lettuce is the only lettuce that isn't pre-bagged. The other Americans on my floor have been bemoaning the lack of salads, and now I understand completely. What I wouldn't give for a giant American salad right about now.
  
• The sliced cheese here is....real. No really. No Sargento's or 'American' cheese crap. There's sharp English Farmhouse Cheddar that's pre-sliced! (Incidentally, it goes really well in a tuna melt.)
• Butter comes in different shapes here. It's much more square and it doesn't have the handy 'cut here' measurements.

I know these are little changes, but this coupled with every package looking different makes grocery shopping a daunting task. I've been making a big pot of XXX at the beginning of the week and working through it. Filling in nutritional gaps with yogurt with grape-nuts, apples, beets, and the occasional tuna melt.

I Can Read Good

Summers have always been a time for me to keep up with reading all those books that everyone else has read but I haven't. Periodically, I'll post the books I've read, mostly so I don't forget the titles and what I thought of them.

Now I know why everyone told me to read this book! This was one of the best books I've read in a long time. It's about a group of friends at a tiny liberal art college on the East Coast. Inter-personal relations rule in this book, as do personal quirks, but even though the main characters seem far-fetched at times, the way Tartt constructs her characters is down right breathtaking. I was hooked on this book after the first chapter. I almost didn't pack for England because of it! Now Kevin just finished with it, and he also loves it. It takes a while to get used to Tartt's prose, but once you do, it's almost impossible to stop reading.
4.5/5: Shanti!

I read this book on the plane. It's about a working-class teen-aged boy in West Pennsylvania who has to take care of his family after a tragedy. It was a very quick and easy read -- good plane reading. O'Dell actually grew up in a small Western Pennsylvania town, and you could feel her love and angst about her own past circulating throughout this book. It was a very fatalistic book, especially about the opportunities in a once-big mining town, but it had really good character development and kept me turning the pages.
3.5/5: Me Likey

This book reminds me a lot of Marc Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This book also takes on an autistic boy as its subject, but it isn't told from his eyes, but rather his mother's. It's also a character-driven mystery, and the author did a great job at stringing together pretty complicated plot lines. The author has an autistic child, and the book dealt with a lot of the emotions involved at having someone so close to you be different. I really liked this book a lot. It was a quick book to get through, the author dealt with her topic really well, and I learned a lot in the process.
4/5: Really Enjoyable

I love me some non fiction, and a lot of my friends enjoyed this book, so I thought I'd really dig it. Eh. The stories are pretty fascinating. Sacks talks about different patients and they're neurological issues. And yes, one story is about a man who looked at his wife and saw a hat in her place. The sheer oddity of the stories keeps one reading this book, but for me the book is too episodic. The vignettes are too small for me to really get involved with Sacks' story. Right now I'm reading one of the stories before bed every night, and in that way it's a fine book, it's just not good for sustained reading.
3/5: good

Right now I'm reading Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, of fatwa fame. I'm only a little way in, but right now I'm completely hooked.

Realization of the Day:

The food is great here.

It's really a misnomer that the food in England is bad. When American's are on vacation here, or at least when I have been, they tend to gravitate towards very Englishy looking pubs with names like Ye Olde Colonel Potter, or the Pig and Thistle or something like that. Pub fare is pub fare. You'll get one type of breakfast (the full English), which is a giant plate with fried eggs, bacon, sausage and an array of stewed tomatoes, beans, and mushrooms (all of which I can't abide, but Kevin swears they're good). For lunch or dinner in pubs, fried stuff rules. Occasionally a pub will have a carvery and on Sundays bring out a giant chunk of roast beef with all the fixin's, which I heartily recommend.

When I'm in London I avoid eating at pubs. There are a few, like Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (no, I'm not making the name up) that have been around since the 17th century and serve up some yummy jacket potatoes (a baked potato with various toppings) and Ploughman's Lunch (an assortment of cheeses and breads with pickle and mustard). I go to pubs for the beer. There is nothing like walking around London all day and then sitting down in a darkened room with a pint of ale or cider. I try and go for local beers, especially when I'm in smaller villages. Last week I tried Bishop's Finger Ale, which was one of the best I've ever tried.

That said, when you go to small English villages, I think pubs are the way to go. Chances are you might get local game (my favorite meal I've ever had in London was in the village of Piddlehinton in the south of England. I ordered the local cider and the game pie, complete with rabbit, peasant, and venison. I picked out the buckshot while I ate. Kevin and I came back the next night and got the exact same thing it was so good!!). A lot of the smaller towns have local or regional dishes that are amazing. When you're near the ocean, ask if they're serving local fish, and you might be treated to special fish soup (Scotland has a fish soup that is amazing) or to freshly steamed mussels.

Get Indian food. Seriously, even if you don't eat Indian food on a daily basis, here is the place to try it. There are fixed course dinners for those that are scared of all the strange names, but don't be! Most of the places I've been to have had great service. Kevin and I still remember our waiter from an Indian place we went to in a little village in the north of England!

Try smaller places over the large. The first two times I went to London I didn't do this and consequently I had some pretty crappy food. I eat at local restaurants in Los Angeles because I've found that places that are run by actual people instead of big companies care a lot more about how their food is. London is a lot closer to continental Europe than California is, so often times Italian restaurants will be run by (gasp!) Italians. (Again, K. and I had one of our best meals in Northern England at a local Italian place run by an old Italian guy who wore cowboy boots and played country music in his restaurant. He hand made the best cheesecakes I've ever had that have inspired my husband to make some pretty yummy ones himself!)

That said, there are a few chain places in London that I really like, mainly Wagamama's (wonderful noodles), Nando's, and Pizza Express.

As for the price. Things are awfully expensive here. One ends up treating 1 Pound as if it was 1 Dollar, even though the exchange rate is 2:1. When one leaves London, prices get a little better, but the dollar is weak right now compared to the Euro as well as the Pound, so things will just be more expensive here.

Alcohol is the cheapest thing here, so drinking until the food looks good is always an option!

Date Night?

K. and I have this thing we call date night. It happens spontaneously, when we make a yummy-looking dinner and have a movie to watch. We get all the pillows we can find and put them on the floor to make a 'nest' and have our leisurely dinner in quiet comfort while we watch a movie and Gus-the-Cat looks at us like we're crazy.

Sadly, this is not that kind of date night. My dinner at Nando's (my favorite chicken restaurant in London) was very tasty. My movie starts in 45 minutes. Cheap Italian wine and two different types of chocolate? Priceless.

Realization of the Day:

Every day isn't sunshine and moonbeams.

I woke up early this morning and took a train to Cambridge. I've never been there, but as a little girl I used to dream about attending Oxford or Cambridge and getting swept away by the intellectual fervor of their hallowed halls. Part of me wanted that same magical feeling today as well. I arrive in Cambridge to be confronted with a city that felt like a big fight between the bustling population of people on bicycles and the bus drivers who were constantly dodging them. After a few false starts, I managed to get turned around in the right direction, made it to the charming city centre (really, it was very cute), and managed to work my way to the older colleges.

Cambridge is set up much like my alma mater was. I went to the Claremont Colleges, but within them, there were individual institutions that had their own personality, faculty, and campuses. One could take classes at other colleges, but really felt a belonging to just one. Cambridge is divided up into a crazy number of tiny colleges, some as old as the fifteenth century.

When one begins to walk through the medieval portions of town, passages get smaller, the alleyways become walkways, and the gargoyle-bedecked buildings seem to swallow passersby. I was loving this -- soaking it in. I could picture myself in this place (granted it would take me at least a year to figure out where I was going). On the down side, if you doesn't know where you are going in this town, you're basically screwed. Walk through an archway? You may have just entered a college. Duck into a tiny door in the middle of a medieval gate? You enter the library or your professor's office. It's awesome, but only if you're amongst those who know where everything is. All the while, college members are flitting about in their robes (yes, readers, they look like graduation robes, but one wears them during certain functions and the like).

After asking many, many groundspeople where the library was, a kind gentleman directed me to correct door. It was there that my day deteriorated. To make a long story short, and also not to whine at you, Trinity College Library had misplaced my reservation, were overbooked, and one person in particular was a royal ass to me. In 5 minutes, my girlish dreams of reading medieval manuscripts at a medieval college were dashed and replaced with a strong desire to jump over the reception area and strangle the man who was doing his college no favors as a welcome squad. I managed to look at some manuscripts for a few hours, including a kick ass medieval roll (really, a scroll.

I was supposed to spend the weekend at Cambridge, but honestly, I was in no mood to wander around the city anymore. I hopped on a train and came back to London. I am treating myself to a date tonight. I'm going to my favorite chicken joint, Nando's for some spicy, spicy chicken and then I'm going to see Ne Le Dis a Personne / Tell No One, a French thriller. Hopefully, my day will end better than it began!

Realization of the Day:

I really like my job.

I had my first 'sit down with the boss and talk about one's progress' talks. I couldn't really tell what she thought of my progress since, quite frankly, I've basically taken the tasks that people suggested during one of my first days and run with them. There's hasn't been a lot of guidance from anyone, but I haven't really wanted any. I like creating my own work patterns to fit my moods.

First off, let me tell you what it is that I do. Yes, the WBL is a library, but not in the sense that you go and check out books, but instead that it's a museum for books, papers, sounds recordings, manuscripts, and much more. It's only recently that WBL separated from World's Biggest Museum and became its own entity. So basically, it's a museum for books that has special departments for conserving books, putting on museum exhibitions with books, and cataloguing books.

Most of my job involves cataloguing, but my boss is letting me help pick some manuscripts that will go on display for the general public, as well as to write the description about the manuscript that everyone will read. But back to the main part of my job...

My job this summer is to catalogue books for a giant online database of illuminated manuscripts from the medieval and renaissance periods. This involves looking at each manuscript, figuring out basic information about it (e.g. what's inside, when it was made, where it was made), describing it (e.g. binding, illuminations, illustrations), and researching its provenance.

a. When a cataloguer researches the basic information about a manuscript, she basically creates a table of contents that other people can consult. Since each of these manuscripts was written by hand, they could have mistakes, unique changes, and since so much time has passed, pages can be missing. It's the cataloguer's job to record this.

b. Describing a manuscript is my favorite part, especially figuring out the place (usually France, Italy, Germany, England, Spain, or the Netherlands) and the century (usually anywhere between the 9th century to the 16th century). Since some of the texts written in these manuscripts exist in only a single copy, or perhaps two or three, figuring out where/when a manuscript is produced can be really important. This is also the time when a cataloguer examines the manuscript to see if a scribe or artist was associated with the book.

c. Provenance research is particularly interesting. Basically, a cataloguer tries to figure out every person who has owned the book since it was 'born.' One does this through finding signatures in the books and figuring out information about them and trying to figure out if others have talked about the manuscript before. Old owners cross out information, erase, and change things, so sometimes one has to look under a UV lamp to see if anything has been erased. This is where cataloguing becomes like an episode of Alias for me. Basically, one is trying to solve a giant puzzle!!

Realization of the Day:

A river runs through England!!?

Yes silly girl, there is. Today I crossed the Thames for the first time since I arrived. A professor of mine, who happens to be on my doctoral committee, invited me to dinner at a restaurant that overlooks the Thames. During lunch today I stared up at the glassy, grey sky and sighed. The chances for blue skies and a nice view were rather dim.

When we got to the restaurant at around 8pm the sun hadn't even set and the sky was mostly blue! The sun set as we ate our wonderful meal and talked about London, films, and giggled at our very hapless French waitress. It was a wonderful view, and an ever-changing one since the shadows were constantly changing. We rode the bus home and I actually made it back to my dorm-hovel without getting lost once! I've been very lucky to have so many friends and colleagues passing through London whilst I'm here.

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Blog Posts

Dr. Virago has graciously sent me some of the lovely pictures she took during our trip to Camden town this weekend. My sidebar should show that new pictures are available at the usual location! As you can see by this image, it was a lovely day on Saturday.

Other images in the gallery include: cauldrons of curry, African Wild Dogs, public dressing rooms, and beautiful shots of the canals!

Realization of the Day:

The British work day rocks!

The work week at WBL is perfect for me. I'm really bad at working at one thing for a long time; I'm much better when I have multiple things to work on for shorter periods. First off, everyone gets in at 9:30am, I'm sure this is partly because the museum itself doesn't open until half-past, but still, it's awfully late, especially since I've switched my sleeping schedule to an 'early to bed, early to rise' one. Here's a breakdown of my typical day:

9am-10:30am: Work on crap tasks that everyone has given me. This usually involves messing around with databases and images. I don't mind this work at all, especially since it's a little mindless and can easily be done before one has enough caffeine. (Everyone else in the office gets in at 9:30am.)

10:30am-11am: Coffee break. I thought that only a few people did this until I realized that at about 10:30am, everyone starts peeking above their cubicles and motioning towards the door. Since the WBL is a big place, there's a dedicated staff cafeteria (that serves breakfast and lunch) with an espresso machine.

11am-1pm: Usually I get the manuscript out that I'm working with that day and finish up the 'crap' tasks that everyone has given me.

1pm-1:30 or 1:45pm: Lunch in the cafeteria. Usually I have the soup, but today I branched out and tried the hot meal (cous cous with a vegetable tagine) and it wasn't that bad!

1:45pm-4pm: Work. This is the hardest part of the day for me. Afternoons are always bad. Usually I just want to take a nap. When I'm working on something fun (like a neat manuscript) the afternoon flies by.

4pm-4:30pm: Tea. Seriously. Everyone breaks for tea.

4:30pm-5:30pm: Finish up.

I understand how this schedule could be bad for someone who works well for long stretches of time, but for me, it works perfectly. I find myself much less likely to check email and news sites since I'm usually busy at work. My internal clock responds to this workday much more than it does an 8am-5pm schedule with one break for lunch. I especially like the communal breaks that everyone takes -- it makes the office feel very friendly and laid back, which is not at all what I expected.

Realization of the Day (A Two-Parter):

I've come to rely on my cellphone far too much.

I don't have a cellphone whilst I'm here. I decided that since I really don't know anyone here who isn't easily accessible by email that it was pretty much worthless to spend $60 on something I didn't need. Besides, I have a phone in my dorm-hovel that has voice-mail and an automated wakeup call.

I also forgot my watch, which has proven to be more problematic. I've started to use my cellphone as my watch, as I think most people have, so since I've gotten here I've had no idea what time it was unless I was near my laptop or my work computer.

I broke down yesterday and bought a watch on amazon.co.uk. It's one of the cheapest ones I found that still looked half-way decent and something that I'd choose to wear on a regular basis.

American English and British English are funny.

(Watch my brilliant segue into my next topic!) Amazon just emailed me telling me: "Your Amazon.co.uk order has dispatched." Dispatched? I usually only use the verb in its past perfect tense, and then usually in the sense that a person was dispatched, not an object.

Another grammatic oddity I've noticed came from the ATM machine that Dr. Virago and I were using. While we waited for our respective money the machine said: "Please wait while we deal with your request." In American English, 'dealing with' something definitely has pejorative connotations.

It's definitely hard to get my meaning across here. It's not that the words that the Brits use aren't in my lexicon, it's just that they're not the first words I would choose in most cases. I'm getting more fluent in British English, but it's definitely taking some getting used to!

Realization of the Day:

Today, I start making London my home.

This was a hard thing to admit to myself this morning on my way to the market to buy dinner supplies for tonight: that I need to make London my home for the next three months. This week consisted of me sullenly watching Dead Wood on my computer, taking too many naps and only eating peanut butter sandwiches and an occasional apple for dinner. Obviously I can't do this for three months, not only because I'd end up like the Labrador retriever from one of the first Got Milk Ads (which, incidentally, never gets old), but also because I refuse to look back on this experience as one of those 'I should have' moments.



Yes, I miss my partner-in-crime terribly--I think everyone knows this. We are much better at adventuring together, which is why we make the amazing crime-fighting duo that we do. But I'm learning so much that one doesn't as a tourist on a whirlwind trip through town, even if I am doing it without K's help. (And for once, I'll know a place better than he will, and I'll get to play tour guide when he comes to visit me!) I'm learning about quiet, tree-filled streets with yummy-looking pubs and Italian eateries; about the ever present square filled with pigeons, old ladies, and barking dogs; about the little corner markets filled with fresh produces and managers that constantly sweep away dust from their sidewalk all day.

On my way to Waitrose this morning, I stopped at Patisserie Deux Amis and had a lovely cafe au lait and flaky plum pastry. And for tonight's dinner, I'm making one of my favorite pasta dishes, complete with a bottle of French chardonnay and dark chocolate for dessert.

To the right (on the sidebar of this page), you'll now find links to restaurants that I want to try while I'm here, and places I want to see.

Realization of Yesterday:

London and Los Angeles are Two Very Different Cities.

I think I walked around 8 miles yesterday--something I can't imagine doing on the streets of Los Angeles. (In fact, I walked so much that at 8:30pm, I was quite happy going to sleep and ignoring my sore feet.) Sure, the London public transportation system is worlds' above L.A.'s, but the layout of the city is also much friendlier to pedestrians. At home in Los Angeles, there's no real reason why I couldn't walk down to Culver City on the weekends, or up to the University every day, but I can't imagine doing it at all. Steve Martin was right: "A walk??? In L.A.??? It just doesn't happen.

The day started with a trek from my room up to the Camden Market with Dr. Virago. We got there early enough to beat the crowds and went into the rows and rows of stalls without it being too crowded. In the middle of all the knock-off designer clothing and fake pashminas, we stumbled on a local designer who had an array of her own appliquéd skirts. Her name was Nicola Quilter, and she was such a cool woman! (Beware, her website will play music on opening.) I ended up getting the skirt on the left, which will look super-cute with black tights and boots. The picture really doesn't do it justice. Dr. Virago and I also really liked the skirt on the right as well. (You can, of course, go visit her blog for a picture of her skirt!

We walked around the food booths at the Market as well. We settled on West African food, after noticing the sign for Goat Curry, and we were not disappointed at all (although I was almost tempted away by the Bavarian booth, which featured some Swabian dishes that looked really interesting). The Goat Curry was cooked in a giant wok-like pan, of which Dr. V snapped some photos and I'll upload them to Flickr once she gives them to me.

We walked along the Camden canals for a mile or so, looking at the 'long boats,' and wishing that we had thought to spend a week on one, slowing meandering up and down the canals. There was one moment as we were walking under a bridge that made me realize with some clarity that I was no longer in Los Angeles. A beautiful steeple rose over the willow trees and reflected on the water; an accordionist was playing and the sun (yes, the sun!!) was beating down on us. We walked by the London Zoo and saw African Wild Dogs and Warthogs basking in the sun as well.

After that, we walked to Leicester Square to meet the friends with whom we supped earlier this week at a pub. I had my first Pimm's Cup, which was just the thing I needed after walking another 2 miles. After my pint of cider, I was happily chatting with friends!

Realization of the Day:

The Brits Can Barbecue!

Last night I went out with a group of Brits, Canadians, and Americans to SohoBodean's, for a lovely meal. I was very incredulous that the barbecue was going to be good, but I was happily mistaken! I had the Sampler, which included pulled pork, ribs, chicken, and sausage, along with coleslaw and fries. Everything was a little dry, but they provided extra sauce to go with the meat, which made all the difference! I almost didn't get dessert, but since everyone else was, I couldn't let the waitress down, so I ordered Sweet Potato Bread Pudding. Mmmmmm. It was the highlight of my meal and something that I'm definitely going to try and make in the autumn for Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow, I'm off with Dr. Virago to explore the Camden Lock Market and then go to a pub meet-up in the afternoon.

It looks to be a fun weekend! I can't forget, though, that I have a paper I need to send off to my editors soon. Sunday, I'll be writing up a storm.

The Scholarly Zoo

W.B.L. is a scholarly zoo in the summer! I was having a meeting with my coworkers and saw one of my committee members pass by. I've run into another professor who happened to be the moderator of my first-ever paper panel. After greeting my committee member (who's taking me out for dinner! Yum!), I had an email from one of my good friends from school who was in the Reading Room looking at manuscripts asking whether I wanted to have lunch!

I'm having a hard time being lonely when so many people I know are around me! Tonight I'm celebrating a belated July 4th with a group of medievalist friends, all of whom I met through blogging and have since become friends with. We're going to a London barbecue joint, which should be pretty interesting, especially for a barbecue aficionado such as myself.

Realization of the Day:

There is a definite etiquette to using an umbrella on a crowded sidewalk.

People in Southern California definitely don't have this down. When I'm walking to classes, short people with umbrellas have nearly taken out my eye on numerous occasions. Californians hold there umbrellas very close to the tops of their heads, so most of their view is obstructed. Today, while walking home in a drizzle, I noticed that everyone held their umbrella at least a foot above their head as to be aware of who was walking towards them on the sidewalk.

No eyes were poked out in the writing of this post!

(The new picture, by the way, was taken on my walk to work this morning. The background building is amazing -- it just comes out of nowhere. I'm amazed by its spires and red color every morning.)

Realization of the Day:

Now I remember why I'm here.

Yes, it's to tour London and to live somewhere other than California, but it's also because I love what I do so heartily. I walked into the manuscript vault today, smelled the vellum-filled air, and almost started crying. Shelves and shelves of medieval manuscripts. Down one aisle, the Cotton Collection, down another the Sloane. Walking down the aisles, the other cataloguer with me leafed through a book:. "Maybe I'll do this one next," she smiled as she gingerly put the book back on the shelf.

I know at times many of you think what I do is arcane and a little impractical. But when one is confronted with centuries upon centuries of the world's knowledge at one's fingertips, it becomes clear to me why it is so important for people to continue to understand, to examine, and to appreciate what has been handed down to us.

Realization of the Day:

I am still really afraid of thunder and lightning.

My windows just shook with the loudest clap of thunder I've ever heard. This even tops the summer storm I witnessed in Minnesota, which really freaked me out. The weather here is bizarrely changeable, which is something that is very new for me. It's definitely not the "70 degrees and sunny" I've come to expect. Earlier today I basked in the sun on the W.B.L.'s piazza; walking home I was caught in the rain. Even the rain here is different: giant, heavy drops that immediately saturate one's clothing and hair.

The clouds are always moving here as well, which gives the landscape around me an ever-changing feel. Certain buildings look different when wet. So do cafes. It must be a never-ending battle for the cafes that try and have some kind of outdoor seating.

Tomorrow, provided I can escape my boss, I'm going to meet with an internet friend for lunch! It will be nice to talk with someone who knows me, if only from my usual web-log.

Realization of Yesterday:

Talking to my husband is awesome.

Yesterday was my first day at work. Instead of a normal day, which is probably pretty slow-moving in the grand scheme of things (trust me, the medieval manuscripts aren't going anywhere), my first day was the beginning of a big conference for scholars of manuscripts. My boss was running this 100 person affair, and as she's new to the job, this was her 'coming out party' for her new position. She didn't handle her stress very well at all, I realized, after emailing my mom. I also had a migraine yesterday, so my day really didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped.

When I got back to my room, I immediately opened my laptop, logged onto Skype, plugged in my camera, and had a free face-to-face call with my husband and Leslie, a good friend and neighbor.

I heartily recommend Skype for those of you who want to talk to your loved ones who aren't close by. Cameras are relatively inexpensive, and talking over your internet connection is completely free. Yay for modern technology!

Realization of the Day

British yogurt is so much better than American yogurt.

Sure, we can go to Whole Foods and by the expensive Greek yogurt, but most of us load up on the 10 for $4 deal at the local supermarket and call it a day. There are many more choices for plain yogurt here instead of the high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden nastiness that dwells at the bottom of most American yogurts. Although I've been noticing more and more of the 'good bacteria-filled' yogurts starting to show up in major U.S. grocery stores.

All in all, these yogurts taste like Greek yogurt, which K. and I discovered can be turned into an amazing array of yumminess. Thumbs up for plain yogurt! I bought Yeo Valley's Nonfat Plain Yogurt, which was in the lower to middle price range of the yogurts I saw -- it was great with grape nuts!

Poisoning Pigeons...

I've managed to shake off the last bits of jet lag with multiple naps and general laziness. It always takes me a few days to get comfortable in my surroundings, so I'm just now starting to explore the neighborhood. Yesterday's grocery trip was my first stint outside the dorm room, and I followed it today with a stroll. I ended up at Tavistock Square. I had forgotten that one of the buses exploded at Tavistock Square during the London bombings on 7/7. It's troubling that a park dedicated to nonviolence and conscientious objectors is now remembered as a site of violence.

I sat in the square and watched the squirrels and pigeons play in the grass. The ubiquitous tour groups of Italian pre-teens filtered through, as did people walking through the park on their way to Sunday activities. One man stayed in front of the Ghandi statue for a long while, intently staring at the statue as if he asked it a question. The man's moment with Ghandi says more than I can about the relevance of such a place, especially in times like these.

I managed not to get lost coming home, although I did have to retrace my route so I didn't get terribly lost. Since the streets aren't laid out in any kind of grid, it's easy for me to get turned around. The rapidly changing street names are also hard on the mind, especially when one is in an unfamiliar locale.

Tomorrow is my first day working at W.B.L. (World's Biggest Library)!