I'm um, y'know, famous.

I got my 15 minutes of fame this morning on BBC Radio Bristol, talking to Trevor Fry about my impressions as a "young American in Britain" of the Pope's recent visit to the States. Luckily, I didn't say anything overly stupid, and therefore I don't mind letting you have a listen to a replay of the show if you're interested. Click here to get to the BBC Radio Faith page. Then click on the "listen again" button in the top right corner of the page. Once the broadcast opens, click ahead 15 minutes at a time until your get to the 3 hour 45 minute mark. You'll have to listen to a cheesy oldies song and directions to a garden show for a couple minutes, but then I'll come on. Try to ignore how many times I say "you know." Although I don't think I provided SW England with any particularly profound insight, it was pretty neat to get to see the inside of the BBC building and meet a local radio celeb -- especially cool because I listened to Trevor Fry's morning show all summer before moving to Bristol to get a taste of the local flava. And now I know that he is a very friendly middle-aged guy with long highlighted and straightened hair.


Girls' night out at Po Na Na

Not much else to report for the moment. I'm locked in mortal combat with an essay due Friday, and about to make my opening sallies against another one due the same day. It's a terrible time of year to have to be chained to the computer, as thing are really starting to get springy here in Bristol. I went for a run yesterday afternoon, and when I got to the Downs I found that the whole town had been out playing football, having picnics, and patronizing the ice cream man in the gorgeous 70 degree weather without me...what gives?? Anyway, after this Friday, hopefully I'll be up there right along with them.

You snooze, you lose.

I'm taking a few minutes out from research at the library to post this afternoon, hoping that it will wake me up from a literary-theory induced stupor. Although I would be more productive if I could stay awake, it's been nice to switch gears and get back into the business of essay-writing today after a week of obsessing over a presentation yesterday. All of us MA's have to make a 15-minute presentation this week on our plans for our dissertations. The scary part is that they are in front of the whole classics faculty (well, supposedly -- in practice it's really just the 6 or 8 who can be bothered to show up) and all the other postgrads, and we are, of course, subject to the dreaded Q&A period at the end. Those two aspects have been enough to get all of us suitably stressed, and I'd put everything else pretty much on hold until I got through mine. The title of my paper (and working title for my dissertation) was "Augustine against the Clock: Time, Language and the Economics of Salvation." I think it went about as well as could be expected, and people seemed positive about my ideas.

I had a good excuse to take the night off yesterday because a friend from Edinburgh is in town doing a short course at the uni. We went to a pub I like in Clifton Village and had a lovely time catching up. Not to depreciate all of his other charming personal attributes, I must note that spending a few hours listening to his Aberdeen accent was music to my ears! The posh South of England accent is fine, but it just doesn't stir the soul in the same way, evoking the sound of bagpipes in the distance...a sip of aged single-malt...the low of a hairy coo...OK, I'll cut it out.

In other news, I have another speaking engagement coming up, this one much less stressful! I'm going to be on a faith chat show on Radio 1 on Sunday morning, because they want to hear an American's impression on the Pope's visit to the States. I'm very happy to oblige, and there will be lots to say about such a successful visit and the positive benefits I think we'll see from it. More on that later, if I don't say anything stupid that makes me want to forget the experience entirely, which, knowing myself, is a very distinct possibility!

I'll take what I can get.

On the roof of the Duomo, before the weather went south.

I'm back to work in Bristol this weekend after five days in Italy that were not exactly what I had in mind -- but that wasn't a bad thing, in the end. The staples of my itinerary -- the wheres and whens -- held firm, but the whats and hows evaded my control.

I flew into Milan on Sunday night and after two bus rides and a lot of confused wandering, I eventually found my hostel in the back of an apartment block across the street from the biggest disco in the city. The weather was glorious on my first day in the city -- 60 degrees and brilliantly sunny -- and, having seen the foreboding forecast for the rest of the week, I rearranged my plans in order to make the most of it. After Mass inside the Duomo, I climbed up to the top and walked around on the roof, and got my first and only clear view of the Alps in the distance, complete with snow-capped peaks. then I walked south to Ambrose's Basilica, where in the crypt I found, to my surprise, that the remains of SS. Ambrose, Gervasius and Protasius took the rather surprising form of full skeletons dressed in bishops' robes, exposed to full view. I'd expected little boxes full of bone fragments, bits of skin, etc., as you usually find, so it was a bit of a shock. Continuing the patristic theme of the day, after lunch, I took the train to Pavia, a little town about 30 minutes SW of Milan to find the church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, which houses St. Augustine's remains (imported there from North Africa by officious bishops fleeing the barbarians). Tiny, medieval Pavia was a nice setting for an afternoon wander, and I stopped and had a rest and a gelato before heading over to the church. You would never find the church if you weren't looking for it: it's tucked away in the corner of a little square a block or so behind a main road, and I'm sure doesn't attract much accidental tourist traffic. I spent a while in the church, then wandered around town a bit more and came back for Mass later in the evening before heading back to Milan.

Unfortunately, by the next morning, I couldn't ignore that I actually was sick (it happens so rarely that I had been in denial) and the rain had started that wouldn't end for the rest of the trip. Still, neither of these factors slowed me down much, partly because I am both stubborn and cheap, and partly because really, the experience of travel is always rewarding in itself, even when the run of my days doesn't turn out to be particularly guidebook-worthy.

Accordingly, the next three days are best recollected through highlights. Such as: Roman ruins at the Museo Archeologico. A very pleasant evening with a Canadian hairstylist I met at the hostel, spent over a very fine aperitivo and an appalling Chinese-Italian dinner. The views on the train ride south to La Spezia, although I could hardly stay awake. The hike along the cliffs overlooking the Ligurian Sea from Riomaggiore to Vernazza, mostly in the rain. A solitary happy hour spent writing postcards in Vernazza. A consolation, comfort-food dinner of pesto pasta, red wine and an incredible tiramisu when sprinkles turned to a downpour in Monterosso. A long, hot shower with deliciously strong water pressure on arriving back in my very own hotel room in La Spezia. The sheer black humor of arriving in Lake Como and being unable to see the lake, much less the Alps, for the thick grey clouds enshrouding the entire region. An afternoon wander (in the rain, of course) through town and dinner at a pizzeria with an Australian meteorologist in Menaggio. Seeing Mantegna's Cristo Morto in the Pinacoteca di Brera after abandoning Como as a lost cause and heading back to Milan. Emerging from the metro and walking straight into a six-inch pool of water that left me soaked to the knees, and laughing along with the group of schoolkids who saw me do it. Another consolation meal served by a typically flirtatious young waiter the afternoon I left as the light rain became torrential yet again.


Manarola, gorgeous in any weather.

In short, it was an unexpected, exhausting, very wet, and ultimately very good few days. You can see it in pictures here. And now, I'm home for a good long while. EasyJet, don't even tempt me with your sales.

Have tickets, will travel.

Funny thing about being in possession of plane tickets: I find it extraordinarily difficult to resist the temptation to use them. I know that in my last post I was quite clear that I wanted nothing more than to stay home and become a complete bookworm for the next month or so. Nevertheless, I bought cheap EasyJet tickets to Milan last month for April 6-11, and although just a few days ago I'd resolved to cut my losses and stay home and study, I'm going to be on that plane Sunday evening.

For the record, I've definitely thought through this decision, and I've at least managed to convince myself that it won't actually be irresponsible to jet off to Italy for a week. I've only been home a few days from Liverpool, but I've gotten a lot of work done, mostly because my social life has completely evaporated. The University won't be back in session until April 21, so my coursemates and most my friends from the house are away for quite a while. There's nothing like coming home from the library every day at dinner time and then facing another six or seven hours of solitary time before bed to convince me to get the heck out of my house for a week while I have the chance! I'll be traveling solo, but I always have a big time meeting people in hostels, and I hope the situation will be the same on this trip.

Speaking of which, I have it all planned out: it's going to be a five-day, part classics field trip, part scenic hiking excursion. I'll spend the first two days in Milan, mostly looking at fourth-century goodies -- the Basilica Ambrosiana, containing both Ambrose's remains and those of SS. Gervasius and Protasius (which he placed there), other churches from the same period, and lots of mosaics and other ancient artifacts -- and then go down to the Cinque Terre for a day of hiking between the little villages hanging off the cliffs. Finally, I'll go up to Lake Como for the last couple of days and spend the night in a little town on the centre of the lake called Menaggio and spend some time hiking at the base of the Alps in that area. The pictures I've seen are stunning, and I hope they're true to life!

Although a bit lonely, life is still good in Bristol at the moment, but I'm glad to have a fun week away to look forward to. I should know by now that the travel bug doesn't go into remission for long.