Wordle Procrastination

I was inspired by the dual Gavins to make a wordcloud of my PhD proposal…

PS More posts coming soon…

Wales: Conwy Castle & Llandudno

After Birmingham, I went to Wales because I was determined to get my castle back. You see, there is a place called Conwy Castle, and I figured it was time for the Welsh to hand it back to its rightful owner.

Today it is a ruin, but it is a truly spectacular ruin—perhaps the most impressive castle I have ever seen. It was so defensively strong that it only needed 30 troops to hold off an entire army, and it was never conquered militarily. There are eight massive towers, four of which have additional smaller towers on top. When you climb them, you are treated to an outstanding view of the castle town, the surrounding mountains, and the rich fishing bay nearby.

The town itself is completely walled in, with another 29 towers, and they are the most complete remaining town walls in Britain. It is hard to believe that they built the entire castle and all the walls in only four years!

The castle was the largest and most expensive of a series built by the English King Edward I to contain the Welsh. He defeated the Welsh army in 1277 and built some castles around the perimeter of Wales. Then six years later, the Welsh attacked again and burnt down all his castles! So Edward gathered a huge army and defeated them a second time. Then he built even more castles, one of which was Conwy. It was a lynchpin, as it is on the Welsh side of the river Conwy, traditionally a strong defensive position enabling Welsh armies to hold off the English. He also built the walled town, which was only populated with Englishmen—the Welsh we only allowed inside once a week for market.

The Welsh were a fierce people, and even magnificent Conway castle didn’t deter them. Once, when Edward was staying there, they besieged Conway for months. Unfortunately, it was so strong, the couldn’t break it, and even if they did, Edward could have escaped by sea, as there is a seaside entrance and British warships controlled the waves. Eventually, English troops relieved the castle.

But the Welsh weren’t finished with Edward yet. They waited until Good Friday, when the castle garrison were all at prayer. It also happened to be April Fool’s Day. Then a few of them knocked on the door, claiming to be carpenters there to work on the roof. The cook opened the castle door for them—and they promptly burnt it down, and the town as well. Then the couple of them held off a counter-attacking English army for months, until finally they negotiated their freedom. Pretty crazy, right?

I wasn’t able to stay in Conwy because there is only living space for about 300 people inside the town walls, so hotel beds are rare. So I stayed in this little seaside town called Llandudno, which is prononced as if you are coughing up phlegm and then swearing in a foreign language.

Names aside, it is stunningly beautiful… charming hotels spread across a wide beach, flanked by two hills called Great and Little Orme. You can take harbour cruises, hike up the Ormes, and do all sorts of fun little things there. I fully intend to come back to this part of the world.

The Welsh train ride was rather eventful—I was woken from my slumber by a wild bachelorette party. These girls started drinking around noon, and were now on the train talking to me, sitting on my lap, and feeding me beer. It was just awful, I must say. Haha.

Unfortunately, they got off before my stop. Yet, as they had involved nearly everyone on the train in their shenanigans, those of us left over after they were gone continued a (much more civilized) conversation. It turns out that one of the guys they were talking to was gay—I’m talking skin-tight hot pink girls outfit, sings and dances and writes his own films kind of gay. He was complaining about how Wales is such a backward hole and he can’t wait to get out of there and go places with gay-friendly culture… and we realized that he is the living incarnation of the only gay in the village! It was also interesting when the train filled with new people, including a very rough working class father and his young son, who sat within earshot of this gay character as he loudly chronicled his coming out story. The father got progressively more uncomfortable the more he heard, and he kept trying to distract his son to prevent him from hearing anything. But it worked a little too well: the son launched into a loud repetitive song that embarrassed the father further, forcing him to vacillate between shushing his son and having to hear the coming out story. I thought it was fascinating, if sad, to see him squirming around thus. If he could just relax and accept things as they are, it would have been easier on him and his son.

The train ride there was rather eventful—I was woken from my slumber by a wild bachelorette party. These girls started drinking around noon, and were now on the train talking to me, sitting on my lap, and feeding me beer. It was just awful, I must say. Haha.Unfortunately, they got off before my stop. Yet, as they had involved nearly everyone on the train in their shenanigans, those of us left over after they were gone continued a (much more civilized) conversation. It turns out that one of the guys they were talking to was gay—I’m talking skin-tight hot pink girls outfit, sings and dances and writes his own films kind of gay. He was complaining about how Wales is such a backward hole and he can’t wait to get out of there and go places with gay-friendly culture… and we realized that he is the living incarnation of the only gay in the village! It was also interesting when the train filled with new people, including a very rough working class father and his young son, who sat within earshot of this gay character as he loudly chronicled his coming out story. The father got progressively more uncomfortable the more he heard, and he kept trying to distract his son to prevent him from hearing anything. But it worked a little too well: the son launched into a loud repetitive song that embarrassed the father further, forcing him to vacillate between shushing his son and having to hear the coming out story. I thought it was fascinating, if sad, to see him squirming around thus. If he could just relax and accept things as they are, it would have been easier on him and his son.

Stratford-Upon-Avon

Stratford is so close to Birmingham that it’s part of the city transit system, so I decided to check it out. Turns out it looks surprisingly similar to Stratford Ontario—at least, the part with the river and swans and huge Shakespearian theater.

The big thing to do there is to see the various Shakespeare houses… such as the place where he was born…

…The place where he scandalously wooed his much older wife before their shotgun wedding, the place where his daughter lived, the church where he was buried…

…and the site of the huge mansion he built after returning from London as wealthy playwright. They are doing an archeological dig there now, because the place got torn down long ago. Apparently the guy who bought it off of Shakespeare’s descendants was a bit of a jerkbag. First, he got pissed that so many people wanted to see the tree Shakespeare planted in the backyeard, so he chopped it down. Then, he got tired of the high taxes on Shakespeare’s old house, so he had it destroyed “so that no one will have to pay taxes on it again.” Douchbag: 1; History: 0.

At least there are some sweet sculptures there with select Shakespearian verse.

Stratford is tres touristy, and the exhibits are hugely overhyped. There is really not much there to see. “This is a bed similar to the one Shakespeare might have been born in, placed in a room that might possibly have been the room where he was born, we think. Notice that the wallpaper bears resemblance to the type of wallpaper his family most likely had, and that he referred to wallpaper once in King Lear.”

The best thing about Stratford is undoubtedly the Royal Shakespeare Company. I caught a performance of Anthony and Cleopatra that was truly riveting. They crossed the ancient setting with modern dress, so that soldiers wore commando gear and wielded assault rifles, whereas Caesar wore a $4000 suit. You might think this would clash horribly, but they really made it work. Another innovation entailed the use of expertly-timed bells, drums, and tones to underline dramatic moments, almost like an understated soundtrack. It really hammered home the shock and dismay that characters felt when stuff happened.

Oh, and there was a butterfly farm, which I actually enjoyed a lot less than i thought I would… way too many flying and mutating insects everywhere. Ugh.

Birmingham

I flew to Birmingham for a conference. It went well… it was the small, intimate kind of conference where you get the chance to actually meet and talk to most of the people there rather than simply see them from a distance. Some good ideas got batted around, and I got some nice feedback on my presentation. And my academic sister, Kim Quinn, was a very nice host. She took me out for lunch and told me stories about the old days in the department, and gave me stern advice: get WRITING young man!

After the conference, most of us went out to dinner at a French restaurant that the French girl in our group insisted was not really French. After all, she told us, they use PARSNIPS! Apparently real French people have never cooked with parsnips since the war, when they were all there was to eat… Real French or not, I was happy to go there because it was the first decent food I had eaten since crossing the channel. I guess I have been spoiled by the cheap, fresh, and delicious food readily available in Germany… when I came to Britain everything seemed drab, bland, pre-packaged, overcooked, and gross.

I took some time to wander around Birmingham. Hmmm. Definitely lacking the flair of other European cities. Basically Birmingham consists of rows and rows of dirty brick warehouses and factories woven into a maze of narrow streets surrounding the biggest mall in Europe:

Even in the touristy part paved with cobblestones, there were no lovely boutiques or sidewalk cafes—just cell phone shops and discount clothing stores. And they have this marketplace that is supposed to be famous and awesome, but actually its just more cell phone shops and discount clothing stores…

Fortunately, Birmingham does boast a solid science museum. It has the world’s oldest functioning steam engine, from about 1800. It is frikkin’ enormous. They used it to refill the locks with water so that canal traffic could increase tenfold. They also have a car that broke the world land speed record several times during the 60’s. It looks like speed racer.

At the museum, I gained insight into the industrial history of the city. Basically, Birmingham sits in the middle of England, far from any port. But, when canal building became the big thing around 1800, Birmingham suddenly found itself in the center of all the canals, roughly equidistant from the 4 major British ports. Thus, it was an ideal place to import raw material, turn it into stuff, and ship it back out again. And that is what Birmingham did—making furniture, jewelry, metal parts, steam engines, railroad cars, wool cloth, buttons, children’s toys, tires, and basically anything else that is part of modern society.

Unfortunately, all this industrial activity was hard on the working classes—think Dickens, with the soot and the sweatshops and the 10-year-olds with 18-hour work days. That was normal. And Birmingham retains its working class character to this day. There were big advertisements reminding people that cheering for England during the World Cup is fine—but PLEASE don’t get in a fight afterward. And when our conference group went out for a pint, our conversation was interrupted by one lone drunk fool who kept bursting into song at the top of his lungs. Apparently obesity is increasing there at four times the American rate—no doubt due the abundance of fast food… and their breakfast:

Berlin

I took a trip to Berlin to visit my friend Johanna, who was in Germany for a job interview with Thomas Mussweiler in Cologne. Although Johanna did grad school in Canada, she used to live in Berlin, and still has friends there. So, I got to meet her friends, crash at their pad, and experience the city through the eyes of a local.Thats her in the middle, peeking around Francois:

First of all, her friends were awesome. We were joking around within the first minute or so of meeting—it was like they knew me. We ended up watching quirky Austrian comedies together until the wee hours of the morning—the kind of comedies that remind me of trailer park boys or Napoleon dynamite. And their apartment was amazing… spacious and lovely, with 15 foot high ceilings, only costing a couple hundred euro a month. Apparently that is quite standard for Berlin, one of the cheapest big cities in the world.

Johanna took me all over… we walked through street markets and pleasant neighbourhoods, past canals, through parks (I stopped to play on the playground), around the famous Hackesher Martk district, and up and down the Kurfürstendamm, which is a famous shopping district modeled after the Champse-Elyse. She also took me to a play—a German play—and refused to translate anything for me… fortunately, it was a Chekov play, so I was able to surmise that everyone was desperately unhappy, largely through their screaming and fighting and crying. In this case (the Seagull), they were mostly unhappy because they either were famous or wanted to be… so I didn’t feel too sorry for them, just as I don’t much pity Lady Gaga or people who want to be her.

Johanna told me that Berliners LOVE secrets… especially special places that only “insiders” learn about. She took me to one such place. We walked through a gas station, and into a small dead-end alley flanked by unkempt backyards on one side and a crumbling, vine-covered wall on the other. After some searching, she located a small door in the wall. We walked inside, and down some steps… and BOOM! We were in a bustling canal-side café. There must have been 20 people there in the middle of the afternoon. How did they find it? How does the cafe make any money when it hides?

I also visited some requisite attractions—the Reichstag, the TV tower, Brandenburger Tor, and Alexanderplatz. Each was fascinating in its own way. The Richtstag (German Parliment) has a huge glass dome on top so “Dem Volk” can look down on their politicians like overbearing task masters (though if you ask Georg, this is merely a pleasant illusion). The TV tower, although only ¾ as high as the CN Tower, remains the tallest building in Europe.  And considering that the next tallest building in Berlin is maybe 25 stories, it REALLY sticks out and you can see REALLY FAR. It’s great.

Brandenburg Gate has some interesting history… it used to be one of many gates that marked the limit of the city, and is the only one left. Napoleon arrived in Berlin via that gate, and major protests have marched through it, most notably in 1848 when the people demanded democratic reforms. Alexanderplatz was also the site major demonstrations—in fact, the largest German history. Over 10,000 people showed up here in 1989 to demand the opening of the Berlin Wall. There is an excellent exhibit that really evokes the feelings surrounding the wall—the surprise, anger, frustration, defiance, and, ultimately, triumph when the people stood together and demanded that the guards open the gates until they simply had no choice. It actually brought a tear to my eye.

So that was Berlin. I wish I could show you the city, but my camera broke ><. Oh, and Johanna? She got the job! Six year junior prof position! See, it IS possible… granted, she has 7 first-author publications, including a JPSP and 2 PSPBs with 3 more under review… but still. ITS POSSIBLE.

Nürnberg

The next weekend I went to Nürnberg, an important medieval trade hub and the largest city in Franconia (500,000 peeps). It is the second largest city in Bavaria, except the Franconians DO NOT CONSIDER THEMSELVES PART OF BAVARIA much like the Quebecios don’t really consider themselves part of Canada. Might have to do with that whole getting-conquored-200-years-ago thing…

Anyway, Nürnberg is pretty cool because they have a lot of old towers and walls to looks at while eating in an outdoor café…

…some amazing fountains, like this one that surely inspired every Arnold Schwartzenegger movie except Twins and Junior…

…as well as lots of museums, including the German National museum, a toy museum, the deutchbahn museum, and the home of Albrect Durer, a super famous renaissance painter who invented the idea of painting realistically. Of course, he painted lots of religious stuff, but he—Gasp!—ALSO PAINTED NONRELIGOUS STUFF. This constituted a revolution at the time. I must admit he had some serious talent, though.

Nürnberg also boasts a sweet castle called the Kaiserhof where the Kaiser used to live (duh!). Inside the castle they had a really deep well… my tour guide dumped some water into the well and it took 6 seconds before we heard the splash. Imagine drawing up enough water by hand to feed the royal court from that sucker! Handy for sieges though. Also there is huge tower as you can see here:

And here is a view from the tower. I could almost see Canada from there!

The Kaiserhof had a selection of medieval armor, including this piece with a face on, well, the piece…

I went to the Deutschbahn museum to learn about trains. Check out this side-by-side to see how German technology has changed in the past 175 years:

The oldest German train, The Adler, ran on steam and had like 2 handlebars for controls, whereas the new ICE trains look like something that Piccard commands. Ok, first and last Star Trek joke on this blog.

A busy week

Ok, so I have a bunch of posts saved up that I am just gonna throw down in chronological order

Monday I went to Afrikafest—the apparently the biggest African music festival outside, well, Africa. In Wurzburg. Who knew? There were thousands of people there listening to artists on various stages, so I was very fortunate to run into my friend Sabina and her entourage… she promptly taught me how to translate my German phone interface into English so I can actually connect with people as needed. We drank some beer…

…and headed into the main tent, where some bands rocked our friggin socks off. The main act, XXXXXXX, was phenomenal. After the second encore, they launched into this dramatic 20 minute exit song in which each band member performed a flourish and then left, allowing you to really appreciate the element that each of the 13 band members contributed to the overall sonic experience. After the concert, we did the natural thing… we went to the main river and took in the view of the illuminated Marienburg. It is spectacular.

Tuesday I found myself back at the main, this time with Georg, who is an excellent conversation partner… he continues to enlighten me on the state of the political situation in Germany, and together we have solved racism, poverty, the imbalance of power, and most other problems in society. And by “solved,” I mean that we discussed them while drinking beer. Practically the same thing.

We had an interesting moment as we stopped at a falafel place to refresh our beer (see, you can just buy beer and then walk around. Its brilliant). We were talking in English, so the Middle-Eastern shop owner glared at us balefully. “Are you American?” he challenged. We clarified that we were german and Canadian, respectively. But he asked me a second time. When I repeated, a little indignantly, that I was Canadian, he relaxed a little… but then launched into a tirade about US foreign policy, how it was ruining the world, and hoe China was so much better. I conceded his point about US diplomacy, but suggested that there are also some problems with China’s foreign policy (e.g., Darfur). At which point he emphatically replied, “NO! China is helpful. US is FUCKFUL!!” And then proceeded to shout how he FUCKS the US, accompanied by graphic full-body demonstration. It was quite a sight. Fortunately, after 15 minutes or so of conversation, we were able to obtain our beer and leave. He even shook my hand.

Wednesday I engaged in a marathon 15 hour German lesson (sprache-austache) with my Deutsch teacher Johanna. Although we started off somewhat academically, eventually things devolved into café runs, bicycle accidents (who put those rail tracks in the middle of the street??!!), discussions with a random Iraqi guy at a Chicken-for-you shack in the pouring rain, a life-threatening double bicycle ride that Johanna barely survived, free food, lessons about Syrian history, and, finally, Salsa dancing at a Havana-style club until 3 in the morning. And by “Salsa dancing,” I mean Johanna tried to teach me and then bravely tolerated my outstanding Whiteness for the rest of the night. Was fun!

Friday was the start of Weinfest, which is like Oktoberfest, except involving wine and not in October. Or Munich. During this event, vendors set up booths in the normally open market square, covering it with benches and tables and place to buy wine. At any one moment, about 2000 people are carousing there. It was a lot of fun.  Thor and I had quite an epic night that included many notables, such as Sabina, Lisa, and my new friend Mona… we ended up at this place called the Pleasure Hof that was so packed you had to fight for enough space just to stand, let alone dance. I kept trying to go to bed at a decent hour but somehow I kept meeting people and talking to them until suddenly it was light out…