A few weekends ago, to the scandal of several of our Oxonian friends, we took a trip to that unmentionable rival university town, Cambridge. We had high hopes – we had heard that it was even more beautiful than Oxford, and certainly those glamorous shots of punters on the river Cam with King’s College and its perfect green lawn made Cambridge seem like a lovely place to visit. I must say, however, that we were a bit disappointed…

I suppose that living in Oxford has turned us a little bit into Oxford snobs, but even with open minds, we were not as impressed with the city as we had hoped to be. We had a full day to spend there, and it was spent walking through the city centre streets, seeing the main University buildings and other landmarks that Kyle had researched. Early on, we made several observations, all favouring Oxford over Cambridge. First, Cambridge didn’t have the same feeling of a city centre, or medieval town, that Oxford does. True, the main colleges and churches are all on the same main street, but as a city, it felt much more spread out. The one benefit of this was there is space for some nice green parks, but at the same time, we prefer the dense buildings of the Oxford city centre (and being able to see the countryside from many spots in Oxford).

Surprisingly, Cambridge was also a lot more touristy than Oxford (at least, at this time of year). For example, while punting in Oxford finished at the end of autumn, Cambridge still had large tourist-geared punts in action on the River Cam. And it seemed that the city was more oriented to this industry than Oxford – Cambridge’s city centre seemed way more densely populated with boutique stores and big shopping malls. We visited several of the colleges (the ones that didn’t charge admission), and although they were very nice, they were exactly like those in Oxford. The Fitzwilliam Museum (which, as the University museum, I consider to be the rival of the Ashmolean!) was a beautiful building, but its collections and especially displays left something to be desired.

I realize this sounds horribly snobby! But I think what we realized is that once you have seen one of either Oxford or Cambridge, there is not much new to see in the other. And we do think Oxford is the nicer town of the two.

One special highlight of Cambridge, however, was our time in the King’s College. We attended an Evensong service (the clever way to see the college and chapel for free!), and it was quite incredible. The chapel is all the more magnificent from the inside, with beautiful stained glass that spanned all the walls. The choir was magnificent as well – and the reverb in that church!! Wow! I was especially glad when they sang my favourite setting of In Dulci Jubilo by Michael Praetorius. We were also lucky to be in Cambridge that day as it was the grand finale of the 800th anniversary celebrations of the University. There was an interesting light show of projections on various University buildings, including King’s College (see the pictures for an idea).

After spending a day in Cambridge, we took a small regional train to Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk. I had wanted to visit this town because it was the site of one of the most powerful Benedictine monasteries of medieval England, and it often came up in my studies in Toronto. Although the train let us off in a dodgy part of the town, we were delighted to eventually find a quaint little old town centre, with many neat things to see. We visited Moyse’s Hall, a medieval merchant’s house on the market square, now turned into a local history museum. There we saw many neat pieces of stonework and artifacts from the now ruined monastery.

Kyle was sad when the Greene King Brewery (which now owns many pubs all over the country) was closed for renovation. However, the situation redeemed itself somewhat when we were able to have a pint at Britain’s smallest pub, the Nutshell (also owned by Greene King), which had seating for just five people on benches around a tiny bar. Of course, my favourite part of the trip was visiting the abbey ruins, which were really neat. It is quite amazing to see just how much area the monastery’s grounds covered. The gardens surrounding the ruins had beautiful walking paths, and I could have spent many more hours than we had simply trying to imagine what the buildings would have looked like in their prime. I love being in England, where I can actually see these things!!

You can see all of the photos from the trip here. All in all, it was a fun weekend, and we hope to take more little trips around England when our schedules allow. The next trip will be to Bristol to visit friends from St Paul’s back in Halifax.

The subject line for this post is the entirety of the first text message Ori ever sent, when, after arriving in Oxford in September, she got her first cell phone and wanted to tell me she was on her way home from work. I still chuckle when I picture her labouriously trying to type it out.

Anyway, I’m just posting something quick to say that we are currently “on bus,” on our way to Cambridge for a little vacation, and that I think being able to get internet on buses is pretty neat. In fact, on seemingly all of the coach services from Oxford to London/airports/Cambridge (and probably elsewhere), you can take free wifi for granted.

I also want to mention that, in addition to the Germany photos, I’ve posted and captioned some recent images of the big snowstorm (now completely melted and gone), my belated birthday celebrations (a day of events around Oxford with Ori), Christ Church’s dining hall, and Balliol College.

I also came up with the following image of the Radcliffe Camera (“Rad Cam” in Oxford-speak), which I think is pretty cool:

A few weeks ago, I said Ori and I were going to be spending Christmas in Germany. Well, we’re back in Oxford now, and I’ve finally finished editing and captioning the photos from the trip. So here’s a little post to sum up our very nice Christmas abroad.

After a very early start (4am – all of our best trips so far seem to have involved early departures), we made our way from Oxford to Heathrow to Frankfurt with no problems. Ori’s aunt Angie and cousin Emily were waiting for us at the airport, and they took us back to Deutschhof, a small farming village in the Rheinland-Pfalz area of Germany.


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We didn’t have much to do, which was the perfect way to really have a vacation, spending time around family and helping around the house and thinking Christmassy thoughts. We did discover, though, that the Heidelberg Christmas market was going on for one more day, so on day 2 we hopped on a train to Heidelberg and enjoyed the day there with Emily, who was the perfect bilingual guide. I enjoyed several bratwursts, and we had a nice hike up to the ruined Schloss Heidelberg, which provided lovely views of the town.

The next day, we went with Angie to Klingenmünster and, while she had her hair done, climbed a big hill to see the local castle, Burg Landeck. It was closed and locked, but after walking around its circumference to enjoy the panoramic views its hilltop position afforded, we found ourselves inside the castle, having stumbled across an open service entrance around the back. We took a quick look around before departing, not wanting to have to explain ourselves to any kind of German authorities.

That evening, we went with the family to the giant Metro in Karlsruhe, where 6 weeks’ worth of shopping were done in one fell swoop. Ori and I bought ourselves (in addition to lots of Haribo gummies and Pocket Coffees) a Ravensburger puzzle depicting the route and scenes from the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, which Ori prompty assembled when we got back to Oxford.

When we arrived in Germany, there was enough snow on the ground to cause delays at the Frankfurt airport and necessitated the use of a mobile staircase to unload the plane. By the end of our trip, however, the snow had entirely melted, revealing the countless fields in the surrounding countryside and making it possible for us to bike to Bad Bergzabern, the nearest city of note.

On our final night, we went to go hear Angie sing in a concert at a medieval church in a nearby town. The concert was a fundraiser to help restore wall paintings in the church, and Ori and I spent some time in the reception afterwards examining the paintings and trying to guess which Bible stories they illustrated.

The trip was just a really nice break from life in Oxford, and while we weren’t home for Christmas with our immediate families, it was wonderful to be able to spend the holidays with relatives who made us feel right at home. We were especially astonished by how well all of Ori’s cousins spoke English. And although we might have been back in Canada, for all of the things that weren’t unfamiliar to us, we still managed to have a few cross-cultural experiences. For instance, we celebrated Christmas with a service at the Deutschhof Mennonite church, we purchased a bottle of “secret recipe” monastic liqueur, and we even drove 170 km/h on the autobahn to Frankfurt!

I had a wonderful time, and I’m very thankful to Angie and her family for having me as their guest this Christmas. If you’d like help visualizing the things we saw on our trip to Germany, you can see photos here

Starting yesterday afternoon, Oxford was hit by a large snowstorm that has deposited more than ten inches of snow all over the city. As Canadians, we’re not too impressed, and we’re used to snow storms like this. Oxford, however, is not. Back home, there exists the infrastructure to clear snow – from shovels and sand to salt and snowplows. Of course, it snows enough that things like that are a worthwhile investment. But here in the UK, it only snows once or twice a winter (and hasn’t snowed like this in anyone’s recent memory, apparently), and the snow goes away on its own within a day or two.

This storm, which the media have named “Whiteout Wednesday,” seems like it will be a bit more problematic. For one, it’s going to stay cold for the next few days, and is supposed to go down to -10°C tonight, which is almost unheard of. According to this Daily Info page, the coldest it has ever been in Oxford is -16.6°C (in 1982). If the cold keeps the snow from melting, I think it will be many days before things go back to normal in Oxford. Of course, the rest of the country has been hit by the same storm, so the few snowplows that must exist somewhere in the UK are probably either stranded or already spoken for.

We awoke this morning to a very quiet city, with few people bothering to get up to go into work (and probably not being able to, even if they wanted to). In fact, we’ve heard it said several times that snow in any amount is a perfectly acceptable reason to not go into work in the UK. Most buses weren’t running, especially not on hilly routes. In the middle of the street in front of a house, pranksters had left a giant snowball, probably rolled all the way down the hill from central Headington.

In the end, we both went to work. I took the long way in, stopping through Headington and South Park to get some nice photos of the snow. I went downtown (to the “city centre,” as they say) to take some more photos during my lunch hour, and will be posting them soon. South Park was full of kids who had the day off from school, and there were easily 40 or 50 more giant snowballs scattered around the park’s hillside, too.

Everybody at ecoVeritas made it into work today, which, we agreed, was quite an achievement. At the Ashmolean, they were severely short-staffed, and had to keep parts of the museum closed.

During my photo expedition at lunch, I noticed that almost everybody had a camera and was taking photos of the snow. Unlike most days, when the camera-toters one sees around town are tourists, these were all Oxonians, who will be talking about this storm for many years, I’m sure. As I crossed Magdalen Bridge, I had to dodge snowballs being thrown, during the breaks in traffic, by impromptu teams on either side of the road.

While the snow is indisputably inconvenient, spirits were certainly high in Oxford today! I think it’s partially a sense of helplessness (“well, we might as well make the most of this”), but also because it provides a chance for people to act like kids again. Ori and I saw so many snowmen all over town today. When it snows in the UK, they enjoy it as much as they can!

I’ll post photos of the snow as soon as I finish editing the ones I took in Germany over Christmas.

This message may be a day late, but Kyle and I want to wish all of our family and friends (and especially our faithful readers!) a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

As most of you know, we are spending Christmas in Germany, with my Aunt Angie and her family. This is our first Christmas away from home, but we have felt so wonderfully at home here that it has made the separation from our families back in Halifax quite bearable.

Being in a rural community has also let us escape the hectic and unnatural consumer atmosphere that surrounds Christmas in most cities, including Oxford. Here, we have spent most of our time enjoying the company of family, delicious home-cooked meals, intimate church services, and wonderful views of the countryside. It has certainly been a Christmas that we will remember fondly.

Merry Christmas once again, and best wishes for the New Year! Look for Kyle’s photos and thoughts on Germany in a week or so.

The other night, Ori and I attended our first UK “pub quiz,” at the Cape of Good Hope on The Plain. Our attendance was instigated by Sam Hampton, one of my coworkers at ecoVeritas, and we had a great time. The questions were really obscure, though, especially if you weren’t particularly familiar with who DJs on this or that major UK radio station and so on, but we nevertheless managed to come third. I think my only contribution was to identify the theme songs to “Jeopardy” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and that’s not saying much.

Before the quiz, it was announced that prizes would go to the teams with the top score and the best name. Racking our brains, we came up with “Unite Against Christmas,” a play on the 12-day (for the twelve days of Christmas) strike announced by British Airways’ cabin crew union, Unite, to start on December 22.

The news had been very upsetting for us, as we were to travel with BA to Germany and back over the holidays. Fortunately, the airline selflessly realized that “a million Christmasses” would be ruined by the union’s actions, and immediately took them to court in an effort to have the strike declared illegal. Well, as of this afternoon, the strike was blocked by a High Court ruling in London, and it looks like our holiday will go ahead as planned!

We’re very relieved. With our Christmas shopping done and presents and cards in the mail to all of our friends and family, we’re just about ready to take some time off and spend a relaxing few days contemplating the true meaning of Christmas, as well as what it means to be spending our first Christmas away from home. It’s quite sad, but also a significant step in our new life together.

All I can say is, I hope British Airways’ cabin crew isn’t really grumpy during our travels; I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded not having to work during the holidays. And even though that strike has been put off, it looks like there might be other trouble on the horizon. Oh dear…

Yesterday, December 2, 2009, the Ashmolean was officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. I was absolutely thrilled when I heard that she was coming, much to the amusement of many of my colleagues (who, being British, are much more used to royal comings and goings than this Canadian).

Being a staff member, I was invited to this VIP event. Some of my colleagues were working, but I was fortunate to not be on the shift (which meant better Queen-spotting opportunities!). The guests were divided into groups and placed in various gallaries in the museum, all with a view of the atrium, where the Queen would be ascending the stairs. Her route was mapped out for her: she visited the Ancient Far East Gallery, the Islamic Middle East Gallery, the Mediterranean World Gallery, the Conservation Studios, the roof-top Restaurant, the atrium (to unveil a plaque), and then the Randolph Sculpture Gallery to sign the guest book before leaving. I was sent with a group of guests to the top floor, which unfortunately did not offer the best view. We could see her walk up the atrium stairs far below us, and we caught a few glimpses of her in the Islamic Gallery through its glass wall. That was enough to at least satisfy me (as I could clearly see her face at one point). But then our group was whisked down to the Randolph Gallery, and a fellow VSA and I quickly took our places across from the desk where she would be signing the guestbook.

I got a great look at her then! I was probably no more than eight feet away from her. I heard her speak to her companion while she signed the book, and she flipped to the page where her mother had signed years ago, and paused to look at that for a moment (which made her smile). I must say, for an 83-year-old woman, she looks great. She wore a lovely blue hat, a beige coat, and short heels. She looked very healthy and stately. It was a rather strange sensation for me to see her – one second she seemed like any little old lady that might come into the museum, and then the next it hit me that this was the face on my money back home (and here!), the face of the Queen who has been reigning for almost 60 years. What an experience!

If you’re interested, there is an article about the event here, and some photos on NPR’s site here.

In her last post, Ori told you about her new job. Well, now it’s my turn! In the space of only a few days, my month and a half of job searching suddenly became fruitful. I suppose I should count myself lucky, actually, because Ori has told me stories about how several of her coworkers at the Ashmolean spent six or more months searching for a job before finding that one. Personally, I had begun to wonder if I’d ever find anything, especially given that Oxford probably has one of the highest concentrations of highly qualified people anywhere in the English-speaking world, and that they all seem to be competing for a small number of available posts.

We were beginning to fret a bit about finances and whether or not we could continue to enjoy such luxury goods as wine with dinner most nights, so it was reassuring when, following rejections from various places, I was granted two interviews in quick succession. The first served as useful practice and an introduction to UK interviewing procedures, while the second was for a job that was the perfect match to what I was looking for.

The critical interview went extremely well, and I was offered the job. Coincidentally, the same thing had happened to Ori: interview #1 served as excellent preparation for interview #2, which both times resulted in being hired for the jobs we really wanted.

What is the job?, you might ask. Well, the place is called ecoVeritas, and they’re a small firm made up of scientifically minded people (100% graduates of Oxford and Cambridge Universities). As the name implies, they do work in the environmental field, primarily advising clients (e.g., department stores) on the amount of product packaging that they’re responsible for seeing recycled each year. It all has to do with UK Environment Agency regulations, and ecoVeritas has developed sophisticated calculation tools and product databases to make calculating the packaging weights for half a million products possible. The information is eventually submitted to the government to ensure that client companies are meeting the requirements.

I started the day following their offer, and have now just completed my first week of work. It’s great! The work is interesting, challenging and varied. The office is close to home, about ten minutes by bike. Everybody is friendly and easygoing, and I am thrilled to have found something so relevant to my needs – I had resigned myself to answering phones or managing others’ schedules, which wouldn’t have been the end of the world, but it’s much better to keep my analytical faculties sharp while I’m “taking time off” abroad.

My work week is 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Unfortunately, Ori’s changes each week, with the only certainty being that she has Mondays off. As a result, we can only count on seeing each other in the evenings now, but such is life. At least our future in Oxford seems reasonably secure for the duration of our visas, now that we’re both happily employed and otherwise settled in. Finally, real life! It isn’t that bad…

I was going to post something about my new job, but I just discovered the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time, and it definitely takes precedence. So what is it? Well, Venice has finally been comprehensively photographically mapped, allowing you to walk through its streets from the comfort of your internet browser. Check it out! (click anywhere on the map to get a 360° panorama)


Not only did they do the streets, however – they also did all the canals! You can see the boat they used if you rotate the panorama to the proper position.




All of this was accomplished by Italy-based Geomondo S.r.L., and they deserve tremendous credit for solving this difficult problem so effectively. It’s also nice to see Google beaten to the punch by a small company, especially when the product is so nicely done and complete. You can explore Venice and its canals, portions of the lagoon, the Giudecca, Lido, Pellestrina, Murano, and Burano, seeing them all as they looked in the summer of 2009.

Now, you may remember that I blogged about seeing the pictures being taken this summer. Of course, I checked to see if I appeared in any of the photos, and sure enough, I do! For instance, when I took this picture of the Geomondo guy in the Campiello San Tomà…


…he was taking this picture of me:


(click to zoom in). All in all, I appear in eight or so shots, camera in hand, taken near the church of San Tomà. I’ve assembled them here:


Later in the summer, Alberto and I encountered the same Geomondo guy right outside our office:


Of course, I had my camera ready, allowing me to take the above picture. Sure enough, we appear in Geomondo’s image from the same location:


I guess it remains to be seen how useful Geomondo’s efforts will be in the end. Let’s hope for at least an API that, who knows, maybe some creative WPI computer scientists could use to see their assorted Venice map-based projects (e.g., providing directions throughout the city for those with mobility impairments, or assistance with locating specific pieces of public art) through to fruition.

In the meantime, take a few minutes and explore Venice virtually. You can stand on the Rialto Bridge and look down at the Grand Canal…


…or you can look up at the Rialto from the Grand Canal itself!


And don’t forget to visit Saint Mark’s Square.


P.S. All of this reminds me of something else I learned about this summer, Aerosoft’s Venice scenery pack for Microsoft Flight Simulator X. For an excellent taste of it in action (and in HD), watch this video on Youtube. If I had a computer good enough to run FSX, I’d buy it in an instant. Here’s one screenshot (from Aerosoft’s site):

This past weekend, the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum (of Art and Archeology) reopened to the public. The museum had been closed for the past 10 months, which were spent demolishing previous additions to the back of the historical Cockerell building (1845), and constructing an adjoining building that adds 39 new galleries to the museum (doubling the previously available amount of display space), an education centre, conservation studios, and Oxford’s first rooftop restaurant. For those who don’t know, I have been hired at the museum as member of the new team of VSAs (Visitor Services Assistants), who serve as the museum’s front-of-house representatives.

The new building is very modern, and large glass windows and walls feature heavily in its design. At first, I was not convinced by the layout and design. Standing in many places in the museum, you can see up or down into other galleries through big glass windows and walls – I found this confusing when trying to familiarize myself with the layout of the building, because so often I could see where I wanted to go, but had no idea how to do so (this was especially frustrating when, during training, a group of us could see our team gathering for a meeting in a room across the atrium, but we couldn’t for the life of us find the way there). However, after having the new concept of the building and displays explained to us, it all made perfect sense. The new display strategy for the museum’s various collections is called “Crossing Cultures Crossing Time,” and it seeks to examine artefacts not only in their immediate cultural context, but also to connect them with other cultures (from various times) that influenced their making or purpose. The architecture of the new building greatly enhances this concept – collections are not confined to their immediate gallery surroundings, but rather connections are made visually between collections on different floors. A clever example can be found in the galleries of artefacts from Cyprus – the Medieval Cyprus gallery has a large glass wall that overlooks the Ancient Cyprus gallery a floor below. The “Crossing Cultures Crossing Time” concept is again emphasized in the orientation galleries for each floor, which explore the themes found in other nearby galleries. I think it is a fantastic and engaging new display strategy that really draws together the (sometimes disparate) collections.

We were all nervous when we first opened the doors to the public on Saturday, November 7, because we knew how the old Ashmolean had held a very dear place in the hearts of many citizens of Oxford (and from abroad, even). I am very pleased to say, however, that the overwhelming majority were thrilled with the new building and how the new galleries looked. I was told by quite a few people that they were nervous to come, fearing that they would be let down, but that they were surprised by how much they loved the new Ashmolean. One woman said to me that it was just thrilling to see her “old friends” again (the paintings and artefacts), and that it was fun to find them in new displays with new “friends” beside them in the cases. So many people walked through the main entrance into the new atrium staircase (which offers a view of all five floors) and simply said, “wow.”

I think I was most excited by the number of children I saw on the opening weekend, and by their enthusiasm for everything in the museum. Toddlers were thrilled by the huge statues in the atrium, seven-year-olds were excitedly searching for lions, horses, and dogs on Greek vases (to cross them off their official museum animal scavenger hunt) and asking me if I knew where a rabbit was, and older kids visited to sketch various sculptures and artefacts. I must say, my favourite kids were two five-year-old boys who exclaimed with joy, “wow, look at the huge carpet!!” when they saw a large tapestry hanging on a two-storey wall. I was also chatting with a mother and daughter on the weekend, and the daughter told me that the old Ashmolean was “boring,” but that now it is really fun and that she wants to come back again.

In short, it is just a really thrilling place to work, not only because it’s a world-class museum (and it is!), but also because of the enthusiasm for history and for learning that exudes from all visitors and staff. I couldn’t have been looking for a job in Oxford at a better time!