30.06.12 - Cooking for the Barlas'

30.06.12 (Cambridge, UK) - Cooking for the Barlas'. 

Today, I am cooking for my host family. I make a point to find out when everyone will be home before I make a last-minute trip to Tesco's. I'm making pesto-crusted Salmon with stuffed mushrooms, garlic bread, and slices of apples. Nurten helps me out a little finding the things I need in the kitchen, but I get what I'm looking for and go at it.

There's not much to narrate here, but enjoy the pics. The family said it turned out great, and I was pleased with everything except for the garlic bread, on which one half I forgot to put any garlic. 

29.06.12 (Cambridge, UK)

29.06.12 (Cambridge, UK) - At around two in the am, I'm up ironing my clothes in the living room and watching Total Recall. I was planning on sleeping in and having a relaxed Friday, so I'm in no rush. My Thursday was uneventfully spent at the Cambridge University Library accessing digital images of manuscripts. (Nothing much to report there, but I have photos at the end.) The Barlases are up except for Berfin, who had been nervous for her prom and decided to call it a day. When the movie is over, Bayram sits on the couch and tells me,

"I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like to hear first?"

I set the iron down and probably make a stupid smile.

"The bad news."

"Ok, the bad news." He stops and takes a deep inevitable breath. "In about two weeks.... Fifteenth of July, my sister and her family come. They didn't tell us before, we just find out last night. Therefore... we will help you find another place. You are a very good friend, but they are family and we cannot say no."

"Chris. We are sorry, Chris," says Nurten.

I start ironing my clothes.

"How long are they staying?" I ask.

Bayram says, "One month."

This is one of those moments any traveler abroad dreads. You read of horror stories on the internet on blogs much like this one, or see them editorialized in magazines about exotic destinations like Colombia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka.

But this is not one of those blogs and this is not going to be one of those stories.

"The good news," says Bayram, "that we have talked to the woman across the street, our friend, and she says you can stay with her for one month. And before the fifteenth, if that does not work for you, we can help you find another place somewhere else that is better."

I can't say there's a rush of relief. No breeze comes in and lifts my spirits, no stress lifted up from my shoulders. The good news, certainly is good, but no bad news would of course be better than having to have good news.

I think about the woman across the street. I've met her once. She's an older lady, short stature with sleek silver hair, English. The initial disappointment is not that I won't have a place to stay, but that I'll be no longer staying with the Barlas's. They've been very kind and very hospitable, and I've become fond of the family and my current routine. Waking up early and walking the thirty minutes into the City Centre, coming back for lunches, using the George Foreman style toaster... They'd requested of me on the first day in which I arrived that I treat their home like it is my home, that I make myself comfortable and that doing so would make them very happy. This sentiment would be repeated a few times before I had actually started feeling comfortable. How difficult is it to make an unfamiliar place feel familiar and comfortable? How quickly can one dispossess themselves of usual comfort, to understand the basic needs and to appreciate the small comforts? For me, it's taken about a week and a day. And it's this day that I unfortunately have to make plans to move on.

When I wake up later that day, the discussion doesn't seem to bother me as much as I thought it would. I head to the Cambridge Zoological Museum but miss connecting with Ahron so he can meet me there. On the way, I snap a few photos of a McLaren that's just parked off Chesterton, in front of the Old Spring.

How often do you see a McLaren parked in front of a pub? Not on football nights, that's for sure.

I make my way to the Zoological Museum and take a lot of pictures there. Here are a few of them:

A whale of an exhibit.

The cast of a leg from the extinct Moa.

I think this guy had a guest-starring role in Prometheus...

That moth featured on the one-sheet poster for Silence of the Lambs

Melissa Tominaga, this one is for you.

Rawwr

I come home and watch The Cube and bits of Wimbledon, have some food and a few Boddington's, and read about Robert Bruce in Arthur Bryant's The Age of Chivalry. Very entertaining book, I must say. Thanks to Ahron for it.

Starbucks tastes the same everywhere

28.06.12 - Yesterday I also went into a Starbucks in the Cambridge City Centre. It was a pound twenty, if I recall correctly. Basically, Starbucks tastes the same everywhere. It's like caffeinated dirt.

The view of Corpus courtyard
from the Parker Library

27.06.12 (Cambridge, UK) - I spend most of the day at the Parker Library, collating MS 100, examining MS 92, or the Chronicon ex chronicis of Florence (or John)of Worcester, a long chronicle that incorporates bits of the Vita Afredi alongside Frankish chronicle material.



At lunch time, I walk back to the Barlas' house. Along Victoria Avenue, the park is quiet, the caravans are gone, and amusement rides at Midsummer Common that towered into the brooding English skyline dismantled, the travelers having moved on momentarily from this East Anglican town leaving the scars of fleeting entertainment etched into the perennial grassland. Rented bikes with handlebar baskets roll along the route toward Chesterton while daily walkers and picnickers can be seen in their work attire coming from or going toward distant shops in the heart of Cambridge City.

When I arrive at the Barlas' home, I say hello but that I'm not staying long. I'm only planning on eating and then dealing with some business with a room deposit for my stay near Oxford. I make some leftover chicken and rice dish, swallow a few glasses of apple juice, and I'm back out the door. I must walk over four miles each day. It's approximately thirty minutes to Corpus Christi by foot, and then sometimes I get lost (and take longer). I do that walk two or four times a day, too... I swing into a post office and try to figure out a Giro Bank Transaction, but I am unsuccessful. I tell the clerk that I will try again tomorrow with a Money Gram.

Back at the Parker Library, I talk to Suzanne about this Giro Bank thing, and she says she can take care of it. She guides me through Corpus, through two gardens, and then out the back door of the College, a secret entrance that is so innocuous that when I turned around to see the door it vanished before my eyes. The clever passage put us right near the market. Once at a Barclays Bank, we easily make the money transaction and that sets my mind at ease.

When we return to the Parker Library, I ask to see the old Parker reading room, and Suzanne obliges me.

The Parker Library reading room, once used often, now it's a tourist destination. The new reading room is just downstairs.

The room is about thirty yards deep, smelling of used leather and parchment, of old age and wisdom. The vaulted ceilings are gold and crimson, on the far wall is a portrait of Archbishop Matthew Parker. Under each of those green tarps are rare books or manuscripts on display. Suzanne takes the tarps off and shows me manuscripts from as early as the 8th century. The manuscripts are gorgeous (and I wish I could have shown you them all!). A great many are illuminated with stark red and green inked images and designs. Some have flawless gold leaf still decorating their pages. 


That evening, I meet up with Ahron at the Portland Arms. When he arrives, he hands me a weighted white plastic bag.


"I got something for you," he says. 

I look and there are three books inside. There's one on the legendary King Arthur by Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd, there's a faux leather book by Arthur Bryant on the English nation, and a more elementary book called "The Medieval Scene" by R. J. Unstead that has some cool pictures and summaries of many of the development of the English nation. Ahron tells me that I might find something to like in each of them. We have a few beers and some chili fries. Ahron is a former gamer, and so we have a lot to talk about. Throughout the discussion, he tells me of the virtues of Dark Souls for the Xbox 360: that it's really difficult, not like those hand-holding borefest games that companies usually put out, it's mature and expects you to be, and that it's really damn good fun.

(Photo taken later that evening)

After we finish the fries, we head into the pub and watch some of the game. Ahron leaves after 8pm, and I stay to watch the Spain v. Portugal game. It's a fierce contest and the game is level at 0-0 at full time. It's still level after two periods of extra time. The shootout is close, but Spain goes through on a mistake by Bruno Alves (he looked REALLY tired). Ronaldo doesn't even get to shoot; for some reason they were saving him for kick taker number five.

Quite the day. Until tomorrow... 

Heading home.

26.06.12 (Becoming a Groupie, Cambridge, UK)

26.06.12 (recap: Cambridge, UK) - Here are five things that I've learned during the week I've been in England.

1) Working with manuscripts can be brutally difficult. Today at the Parker Library, while working with MS 139, I discovered that one essay I've written and presented at a conference back in 2011 was based on an edition of the Historia Regum attributed to Simeon of Durham that wasn't worth its salt; my argument, however thoughtful, was completely wrong, and Arnold's edition is rubbish. My suggestion to students who want to work with manuscripts? Don't trust editions alone: look at the manuscripts for yourselves. Hard lessons learned are really hard lessons sometimes.

2) Cambridge has one of the best bookstores anywhere.

While sitting and working in the Parker Library, I met James, a researcher who studies at Oxford and is in Cambridge for a few weeks. He's researching the polychronicon, a manuscript by Ranulf Higden composed it in the early fourteenth century. At 12:30, James has me as his guest in the Corpus Christi Dining Hall, a large chapel-like room with hanging chandeliers that serves some pretty terrible cafeteria food.

The dining hall looks like this, but with people (this is not my image, they don't let you take photos in there):

We eat and chat about medieval literature and books, and then James says he's going to the bookstore. I decide to tag along.

G. David Bookseller's is hidden down the narrow St. Edward's Passage. I come so very close to spending seventy-five quid on a first-edition copy of Lolita. As much as it pains me to say this: it's not worth it. I need my money to survive. Browsing their copies of basically everything from the Oxford University Press and then at a fine collection of first editions, this bookstore gives me some serious nerd-chills. If you go, check out their antiquarian books section. It's marvelous! They have an excellent selection of reduced-price books too.

This is James, who I met at the Parker Library and he showed me David's. Here he is looking scholarly.

3) If you sit in a pub in England long enough, people will start to talk to you.

After the somewhat disparaging day at Parker Library (minus the pretty cool side-trip to the bookstore), I decide to go to the Portland Arms and have a few pints. I was there maybe half an hour sipping on the cheapest, wateriest three-percent alcohol by volume ale I could get my hands on (actually they were basically out of everything, so my choice was made for me) when a group of fellows start talking to me about where I'm from. Since I've arrived in the UK, I've been going it solo, and I guess there's a part of me that worries about being taken for granted by someone eager to get the best of an American. Fortunately for me, I happen to run into some quality people who are here to support their friends' band.

It's five quid to get into the venue. Here are some photographs...

Not sure what this band's name was, but they were pretty good.

Bev Killers, killing.

4) As far as the US goes people from the UK think Seattle's alright. Suzanne Paul at the Parker Library half-seriously called it "that civilized part of America."  We chat for a pretty long time after the show. As the night grows dark, the group of friends congregate in a small thoroughfare out the back of the Portland Arms. Johnny Caribou (who makes the point that he's fifty-two and still awesome) and I talk about the groups he's seen live, the Clash, Sex Pistols, Bowie... The man is a living legend who has experienced all of this great music during the golden age of rock and roll.

Everyone's a bit sloshed in this photograph. The woman in the bottom right was the drummer of Bev Kills, and the snapping young fellow in the blazer and glasses is Johnny Caribou. Johnny Caribou knows everyone, and was introducing me to each person in the pub. The woman with the red hair is Ashley and that's her beau behind her in the white tee. 

This is Ahron, self-proclaimed advocate of the States. He's spent some time in New Jersey, Houston, and Seattle.

This is Matt, he's engaged to the drummer of Bev Kills. He  proposed to his lady on-stage at this very pub.

Ahron and Ashley were clearly having a counting contest, but only got to 'one.'

Didn't catch this bloke's name, but everyone seemed to think he had a third nipple. He's showing me against his will. I hope he's not sorry that this pic made it onto the internet.

I'm told that there will be another gig here on the 6th of July. I might have become a groupie.

5) It only takes a week to get into the swing of things.

25.06.12 (Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)

25.06.12 (Day 1 at the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) -

"For every man must say what he says and do what he does according 

to the capacity of his intellect and the 

amount of time available to him" 

-- (From King Alfred's prose preface in his translation 

of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, trans. Lapidge and Keynes)

My phone's alarm goes off at 8am on the dot. I go downstairs and shower. Pour a bowl of Crispy Minis and eat it in the quiet house. It's always quiet in the mornings here. Bayram has a noon-to-midnight schedule running the restaurant, and the rest of the family seems to plan around him. I'm usually the first one up and the first one to bed. This morning is no exception. I self-pressure myself to be as quiet as I can as I scurry through the kitchen and living room like some sort of lost dog. I attempt to ninja upstairs, but he twelve or so creaky steps to my bedroom are indifferent to my efforts. I manage, and once in my room I gather my gear and put on my nice clothes and head down the creaky steps and out the door.

Today is my first visit to the Parker Library. I head to the City Centre through the market area. My pack is full of equipment, my camera and camera stand, a notebook, lead pencils, netbook and miscellany.

The goal of this trip is to take photos of several manuscripts at Corpus Christi. Each of these manuscripts are related, in some manner, to the no longer extant Cotton Otho A.xii manuscript, which was destroyed in the Ashburnham House fire of 1731. The manuscript is so named because it was for many years in the possession of Sir Robert Cotton. His famous collection at the Cotton Library (at the aforementioned House) was where the Beowulf Manuscript was also damaged, which contained Beowulf, Judith, and many other important literature from the Anglo-Saxon period. My interest is in a work of the late 9th century called the Vita Alfredi (The Life of King Alfred) which was written by Asser (pronounced Asher) a Welshman from St. David's in the kingdom of Dyfed. He and several other theologians and thinkers were summoned to Alfred's court (born 849; reign 871-899; Asser is summoned in 885) in an effort to rejuvenate the educational system of England, which had due to the ravages of Vikings and internal dispute been reduced to a remember-when. In his prose preface to his translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care, Alfred writes, tellingly, "And I would have it known that very often it has come to my mind what men of learning there were formerly throughout England, both in religious and secular orders; and how there were happy times then throughout England." The king was so struck by the disaster of the learning of England (actually, mainly Wessex, East Anglia, and Northumbria, but most of England shared a similar lacking of learning in letters). 


Alfred, mainly known for his prowess in battle and the establishing of a system of burhs (fortified areas) that neighboring villages could flee to in case of Viking attack, is also known personally in Asser's biography of the king. The biography, which was begun some time around 893, toward the tail-end of Alfred's reign, is arguably the first biography of an English king--arguable due to some outstanding debates over the text's authenticity (It's my professional opinion that it's authentic but problematical). Remember when I said we don't have this regal biography anymore? That's true. The version that Sir Robert Cotton once owned was destroyed, but several copies had been made before it's destruction. Basically, I'm here to collate and take notes on every one of these copies. 

Some of the copies are more useful than others, but each represents a witness to the Vita before it was destroyed. The most valuable manuscript, MS 100, is the one I am going to examine today.

Unfortunately, they don't allow photography of the manuscripts, but I can download the digital images from a University computer (right...). But anyhoo, here are my helpful archivists posing innocuously with some new acquisitions to the library:

Ms. Gill Cannell and Dr. Suzanne Paul

I spend from 10am to 12:30, and from 2:30 to 4:30 working with my manuscript. Sitting in a chair, staring at Latin words that had been copied out by Archbishop Parker's scribe in the 16th century. The manuscript I'm looking at is called "Co" in William H. Stevenson's 1904 edition of the Life, and he has called it the most valuable as it marks a version before it had been interpolated by Parker. I take care and a great deal of time to copy out the Latin; I get a few pages in before I have to leave. Holy crap, copying out Latin takes longer than I expected (granted I spent a lot of time with the rest of the codex as well, but still...). If you're interested in what the codex looks like and want to browse it, here's a link.

Here's the beginning of the transcription of the Vita. The red underlines are in chalk by Parker.

On to lunch...

My return to the Eagle Pub

Ale and meat pie, chips, and peas: tastes better than it looks.

I find a footbridge across the Cam

I meander through secret West Chesterton footpaths