Being Overwhelmed at the British Museum

A mosaic from ancient Babylon.

There's nothing like wandering through the remains of ancient civilizations to make one realize both how transient we are and how little civilization changes. War, lust, betrayal, glory: they are with us today.
There are numerous tales of barbarians conquering more advanced civilizations.  The collapse of the Akkadian by a mountain tribe the Guti in 2150 BCE makes you realize how tenous an advanced civilization can be.

In terms of amount of goods from the ancient world the British Museum is the Met on steroids.  

An Oxford Education

                                                 Photo from Jim Jaffe

Oxford University dates back to around 1056 making it the oldest institution of higher learning I've ever visited.  The huge stone piles of buildings some dating back to medieval times are impressive.  Less impressive is the fact that there is charge of a few pounds to walk through the quads of most colleges.  And there are around forty colleges so that can add up.  Still, one can see quite a bit of the campus by just strolling around which is what we did.  We also found a lovely little church and graveyard with most of the headstones indicating deaths in the 1600's.  The old Bodlieian Library is impressive but the book collection is not open to the public.  The newer library is modern and had a nice little coffee shop in its atrium where we took a brief rest.  The university has served as a training ground for 26 prime ministers of England as well as heads of state of many other coutries.  It is the quintessential extablishment institution.  Even today the students there look as if they are in training to become future world leaders.  The town itself is full of shops and restaurants.  Oxford is about sixty miles outside London and we had an easy train ride up and back.  It was a full day.  Although most of the restaurants and pubs had typical British treats like "plougman's lunch and fish and chips" we opted for a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant that had great dim sum.  Then back to London where we took a walk around Covent Garden.

Going to Shakespeare's Globe Theater

Like all good English majors I had to go to the Globe Theater.  Although the original Globe from Shakespeare's time has been destroyed this reconstruction on ground close to the original was good enough for me to get goosebumps over being in the spiritual home of one of my heroes.  We saw The Taming of the Shrew.  Like any good plebian in Elizabethan England we were groundlings, i.e. we stood in the area just in front of stage.  This is not as much of a sacrifice as it sounds.  Even if you buy seats they are hard backless benches and although you can rent a cushion they still looked pretty uncomfortable.  By standing I was able to do some modified Yoga stretches during the performance and kept reasonably comfortable.  The perfomance was incredibly good even though "Kate" was a last minute replacement as the actor scheduled broke her foot.  (Something Jim could relate to.)  To get to the Globe we took a boat up the Thames. Not exactly like Henry VIII, but still fun.

There Will Always Be An England

Going from the pristine, tidy and very white cities of Scandinavia to the sprawling, diverse and messy city of London involves a cultural whiplash effect.  London is wonderful, frustrating and huge.  The tube makes getting around easy and is definitely more user friendly that either New York City of Washington, DC.  The stations are clearly marked and the announcements are understandable.  In addition many lines have electronic information boards telling the upcoming station.  On the other hand the city is the opposite of a grid and the thoughroufares that wind about, change names on a whim and then disappear are difficult to deal with.  Fortunately we have pretty good maps.  Our cell phones don't work here and not having GPS is definitely a minus.  Our first day here we were invited to dinner with a young couple.  We had befriended the man, Manuel, when he was a Medill Northwestern journalism student doing a Washington semester and stayed with us.  He's originally from Spain, but now working in London.  He met his girlfriend Cecile at work.  She's French although went to school in the US and has lived a number of places overseas.  They are truly part of the global economy; smart, funny and terribly interesting.  We had a great time with them.  Didn't finish dinner until almost midnight and then found our way back to our hotel.

Visiting Hamlet's Elsinore

Shakespeare appropriated a myth set in the this castle in Elsinore, Denmark.  Although Hamlet never actually lived in this castle it has become the center of a Hamlet centered fastival where each year impressive performances are held.  The castle is huge and ornate with a hundred meter ballroom that looks like a terrific venue for a party with a thousand of your closest friends.  We took a train from Copenhagen on a beautiful day.  Again we relied on the kindness of strangers.  Since none of the trains are marked we weren't sure which one to take.  A young German man who had actually grown up in Denmark got us on the right train and told us about his childhood being raised by a Danish step-father, not such a happy story.  He spoke five languages and spent his time moving from country to country and teaching English.

The Little Mermaid and the Chinese Tourists

We were not going to see her.  Friends had told us it was disapointing and we were going to skip it.  We were on our way to the northern part of the city to catch a ferry boat that would take us all along the harbor so we could view the city from the water.  On the A1 bus getting there were a group of older Chinese tourists led by a young men.  They were all agitated and the leader was saying in English I think we missed our stop.  We asked where they were going and it turned out they were going to the same stop we were so we said "follow us."  They were all reading information sheets with Chinese characters so we assumed they were from China.  Like many travel assumptions this was wrong.  When we asked where they were from they shouted "USA."  Then one of the men piped up and told us they had all been born in Shanghai but had come to the US many years ago and were now all American citizens.  He asked if we had been to Shanghai and when we replied that we had and was one of our favorite cities, they all beamed and we compared notes.  When we arrived at our stop they started on the path to the Little Mermaid and we headed the other way, but  one of them ran over.  "No, no.  The Little Mermaid this way."  They were insistent so we went along.  Their enthusiasm was catching.  It seemed The Little Mermaid was one of their main reasons for being in Copenhagen.  When we arrived they swarmed down the rocks to the statue and took many pictures.   The statue is small so not the imposing sight of say the Statue of LIberty, but in its own quiet way it is impressive.  I'm glad we saw it.

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen

In this city of monuments, statues and fountains the air is redolent of salt air and herring.  Bicycles outnumber cars (by a lot) and everyone looks tall and blonde and fit.  We had travel snafus too numerous to mention getting the short distance from Malmo to Copenhagen.  Suffice it to say when the train breaks down and and you try to load hundreds of people onto buses it is not a smooth process.  We arrived late but still managed to rendevous with our airB&B host and are in a charming apartment looking out over red tiled roofs and cobblestone streets.  It's nice to have a kitchen and laundry facilities after a week in hotel rooms.
It was also lovely to have dinner last night at our friend Eva's house.  A home cooked spring meal of lamb, potatoes and new peas was a treat.  We talked and talked and finally took a bus and subway back to our place.  Public transportation here is awesome.  Today we did a lot of tourist sites; Tivoli, the Little Mermaid and walked past a lot of museums.  The high point though was taking a ferry boat down the Baltic  inlet that runs along the east coast of the city and were able to see many of the impressive architechtural sights both old and new.  The new ones include the national library and the new opera house, both stunning.

Visiting the Malmo synagogue

Exploring geneological roots is not something that has had a great deal of appeal.  Nevertheless while in Sweden I felt it was important to try to track down something of my family.  Thanks to my cousin Michael I learned that our great grandfather had lived in Malmo and played a significant role in the Jewish community there in the nineteenth century.
Today was a very emotional one.  We visited the synagogue in Malmo, Sweden that my great grandfather Isaac Frank helped to found in 1871 before he emigrated to the United States.  This building was constructed in 1903 after he left for America so he would not have worshiped here, but I felt his spirit here in the richly carved wood, the elaborate bima and the ark with three elaborately dressed Torahs.  In Isaac's day the congregation met in homes or other places.  We were warmly greeted by the director who showed us all around the building, opened the ark for us so we could see the Torahs and told us a lot about the history of the Jews in Sweden.  He also showed us the Jewish cemetery which is a short walk down the street.  The Jewish community in Malmo has been shrinking and this congregation is having financial problems but they seem pretty feisty.  While we were there a high school group came for a tour and Daniel, the director led them around and answered questions.  He said he does this several times a week and there is a great interest in the synagogue. There have been a number of anti-semitic attacks on the synagogue and the cemetery recently but the community still seems strong.  The city, which has a history of tolerance is now nearly one third Muslim.  Nevertheless the people we met at the synagogue said they did not feel unduly threatened.  Sweden, of course, has a long history of treating the Jews well.  It was one of the first European countries to allow Jews to freely practice their religion and to be part of general civil society.  Many Jews prospered here, particularly in international trade al such items as sugar.

Stockholm redux

Back in Stockholm where it is easy to believe you're in another century.   The past is another country here that co-exists comfortably with the present.  The history of the Vikings, the great feats of battle and loss of territory are all here.  And so is the present of immigration and poverty.  Despite the fairy tale facade one sees the urban problems of homelessness and want.  Like any modern city homeless people walk through the streets carrying their lives on their backs. Beggars approach in the subway.  Groups of Muslim families gather on street corners gossiping and talking, looking simultaneously at home and alien:  the women dark eyed and beautiful, the men hovering protectively around.  One is reminded that all fairy tales have their dark sides, murderous parents and siblings who destroy each other.

A Seventeenth Century Viking Ship

In 1628 the massive Viking war ship Vasa sank in Stockholm harbor.  Like the Titanic this was her maiden voyage but unlike the Titanic she never made it out of the harbor.  The huge ship with state of the art cannons and elaborate carvings and art work was top heavy and listed and sank on her first attempt to sail. The ship was constructed under the sponsorship of King Gustavus Adolphus as part of his military expansion into Poland and Lithuania.  The ship was designed to intimidate his enemies with its huge cannons and imposing red and gold appearance.  The hubris of this calls to mind Shelley's poem Ozymandias about a great ruler brought to ruin.  "Look on my works ye mighty and despair."  In 1961 a salvage team brought the ship up.  It was largely intact; the cold water in the harbor preserved much of it.  It has been painstakingly restored and is housed in a museum that was specially constructed to hold it.  Although we're not great museum goers we were told not to miss this and it was worth the trip.  The statues above are just part of the decorative elements that were part of the ship.  They have been lovingly restored.  Using modern techniques the original paint colors were found and restored to the carving.  The pieces represent kings and heroes of Swedish history as well as biblical characters including King David.
After visiting the museum we took a ferry ride around Stockholm harbor and passed the point where the Vasa sank.  The municipal ferries connect many of the islands of the Stockholm archipelago and are part of the city transportation so we were able to use our transit passes to ride them.  Stockholm has a wonderful mass transit system as well as many bike paths so it is easy to get around.
We walked miles today and also found a wonderful market, similar to the Chelsea Market in NYC.  It had beautiful produce, deli, meats and fish.  No prices posted so I guess if you have to ask you can't afford it.  

Uppsala

We traveled north to the University town of Uppsala.  The town has one of the oldest universities in northern Europe and one of the oldest cathedrals.  It's built on a lovely small river.  The architecture is different from Stockholm, less monumental but in the same tones of rose and ocher.  The University was the home of Carl Linneaus, the botanist and zoologist who invented the system for naming plants and animals.  It's also been the home of much other scholarly research.  The was a bike race through the town while we were there so parts were roped off as incredibly good looking and toned bikers went whizzing by at high speed.  There were also lots of students walking and biking.  Uppsala is about an hour outside of Stockholm and we took the train there.  Once we got past the suburbs farms with horses and sheep dotted the land.  The fields are now a lush springtime green, verdant and fresh.  This part of Sweden was home to the Vikings; one must have had to be hardy to survive here.

Vegan Demonstration at Stockholm Central Station

This group of students were demonstrating for animal rights and eating vegan.  They were very serious.

Saturday Night in Stockholm

After a rest at the hotel we set out to explore more.  We found a virtual underground city under the central train station.  Shops and restaurants galore as well as the central area for the three main train lines:  the subway, the commuter trains and the regional trains.  They each have their own ticketing systems and we spent a fair amount of time trying to figure them out.  We met a lovely couple from California trying to do the same and had fun figuring it out together.  Although it was now Saturday night we were not up to night on the town in spite of some wonderful offerings in the Old Town area.  We had seen signs for bands, everything from blues, to jazz to hip hop and rock and roll.  Maybe some other night.  We found this amazing grocery store,  organic, local produce, great bakery and bought some stuff.  Then back to the hotel where we drank cups of Earl Grey tea and ate yummy cinnamon buns while watching Swedish TV.  They were showing a full length ballet called Tatiana based on Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.  Modern staging and music.  It was fantastic.

A moody day in Stockholm

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My first impressions of this beautiful city are the architectural beauty.  From our hotel it is a short walk to the Gamla Stam, the medieval Old Town.  It is filled with crenulated building topped with cupolas, spires, and decorative details of all kinds in tones of ocher, rose and palest grey.  The buildings mostly date from the 1700's to the 1900's.  The streets are narrow and cobblestone.  Many of the buildings that were originally houses are now shops and trendy restaurants.  We found one serving reindeer meat and another specializing in herring.  We plan to try them out later.  We had lunch today in a little restaurant in the basement of one of the old houses.  It looked like a catacomb but was furnished in cozy, cast off furnishings that looked like they came from your great aunts attic.  We had excellent sandwiches made with local cheese.   Then we had coffee at a little place where you order everything on line and then pick it up.  Great fun but we're still a bit jet lagged.

Leaving NYC (again)

Waiting at JFK for our Norwegian Air nonstop flight to Stockholm.  Norwegian Air is a somewhat sparse budget airline but everything went well.  The seats were comfortable and the service very friendly.  We slept most of the way and would have slept more except for the obnoxious guy behind us who recounted in a loud voice intimate details of his five marriages.  The flight attendants plied him with enough whisky that he finally fell asleep and so did we.  Arrived safely in Stockholm the following morning.   We took the high speed train to the city and checked into our lovely hotel the Nordic Light.