Category: Travel

My actual travels, those I aspire to, and those of others

Malta introduction

Doorways in Mellieha

My mother and I have now passed an enjoyable day in Malta. We arrived yesterday evening and met with the group of mostly retirees with whom we will be walking over the course of the week. The first walk was today and, while it was not strenuous, it was nonetheless more challenging than I had expected. We got a couple of quite stunning hilltop views of this part of the island, as well as St. Paul’s Bay. Malta has the overall look of a Mediterranean country, with rough stone walls separating terraces and rows of somewhat parched hills extending down into bays. I expect that it will be a pleasant place to spend a week.

The group doing the harder hike seems to be largely composed of retired scientists and engineers. As such, I spent a good deal of the nine hours of the expedition talking about either engineering or photography. Everything from point and shoot consumer digital cameras to relatively ancient screw-mount Pentax SLRs were represented on the hike. Between the six or so avid photographers, these walks promise to be well documented. Personally, I used both my A510 for more documentary shots and my Elan 7N for the photos that I hope will prove artistic. Examples of both will doubtless find their way online. The vistas are quite nice and the architecture reminds me of Latin America: primarily because of the pastel colours and rectilinear forms.

The climate here is cooler than I expected, but certainly very sunny. After a few straight hours of walking in the sun, my brain felt positively cooked. I will probably need to regulate the temperature with some Maltese lager before I turn to my qualifying test notes. Surprisingly, the main local brew tastes a great deal like Sleeman’s Cream Ale, from back in Canada.

On one of today’s hilltops, we stopped to watch people arriving at a wedding reception. Between the appearance of the building – which declared itself to be a ducal villa – the stream of shiny black Mercedes automobiles, and the security men in suits around the perimeter, the whole affair had quite a godfather feel to it. Aside from some ludicrously dressed trumpeters, who looked as though they came from a bad imitation medieval restaurant in Tallinn, it certainly seemed a very classy affair. My pity goes out to all the foxes that died to adorn the necks of women standing in the hot sun.

With out buffet dinner starting in a few minutes, I should probably turn to academically related emails. Unfortunately, the computer in the hotel is too crippled in its functionality to be used to post images to the blog. That’s a bit surprising, since the place is far more upscale than the kind of accommodation I am accustomed to while travelling. My mother and I, for instance, have a better kitchen than the one in Library Court right in our room, as well as quite a nice view of the bay and the church on the next hill from our balcony.

First familial visit

My mother and I at Kashmir, Cowley Road

My mother arrived in Oxford this evening – the first family member I’ve seen since I left Vancouver in September. We will be in Oxford until early Saturday morning, when we are heading to Gatwick for our flight to Malta.

By the time my mother had deposited bags in my room and the one in college where she is staying, it was already getting dark. We took a quick spin around Wadham – looking into the chapel and gardens – before walking past the Radcliffe and across the Magdalen Bridge for dinner at Kashmir, on the Cowley Road. Fortified with curry, we stopped for a pint at The Turf, sitting outside beside one of the coal fires while something like a bachelor’s party raged within.

Tomorrow, I am planning to give a couple of short walking tours for her. The first will sweep northward, past Rhodes House and the Natural History Museum, stopping at St. Antony’s and the Church Walk flat where I will live for the summer. Heading back through the university parks, we will stop by the department before returning to Wadham via New College. The second, longer, track will go into the Codrington and then University and Magdalen Colleges, before heading to the Christ Church Meadows through the botanical gardens. Stopping at Christ Church itself, we will then go have a look at the main quad of Nuffield. That should constitute a good introduction to Oxford that includes most of the places that are personally important to me.

Along with some new clothes, my mother brought other valuable provisions. Pens – including nine of the four colour pens that are my note taking staple – and bike accessories are both very useful, as I suspect the small sling style pack may prove. She also brought a travel alarm clock, wicking toque, and book by Jeffrey Sachs that was a gift from a family friend. Unpacking it all in my room in Library Court felt like a kind of belated Christmas. Once again, I feel very well equipped.

The upcoming Malta trip is increasingly exciting, even though Claire’s studiousness is making me anxious about the upcoming exam. I will be sure to acquire what books remain at the SSL to accompany me to this small Mediterranean country, though I have no doubts about how many of their pages will get flipped while I am there. The pressure of immanent examinations is good for young minds, anyhow.

PS. Congratulations to my friend Matthew Tindall, who got his iron ring today. In Canada, they are given to new engineers, as a symbol of responsibility, in reference to a bridge in Quebec that collapsed due to miscalculations. More information is here.

Sarah’s wedding

Sarah, Peter, and friends

The whole experience surrounding Sarah’s wedding has been a valuable and enjoyable one. It was a pleasure to have the chance to witness her and Peter getting married. My thanks to them both for inviting me, as well as to Sarah’s parents for their extensive hospitality. I wish Peter and Sarah the most enriching, prosperous, and enjoyable of future lives together.

I arrived in Chichester on Saturday more than three hours before the service began. It had been my intention to ensure that – even if I missed a train or something else went wrong – I will still get to the wedding on time. The early arrival gave me the chance to explore the city a bit, as well as have my suit dry-cleaned, as seemed appropriate. As everyone who attended will surely recall, the day was as cold as it was brilliantly sunny, especially after we emerged from the church for the reception. By the time the professional group photos were being taken, the sunlight had a lovely golden hue that seemed to suit the occassion.

The service was held at St. Richard’s Church and was markedly more religious than the only other wedding I’ve attended. There was a good deal of prayer, Bible reading, and the singing of hymns. I particularly enjoyed those, despite how I had never heard any of them before. Attending the ceremony was a surprisingly moving event. While I had always recognized its significance, I didn’t anticipate the extent that it would affect me personally. The subsequent reception included good food, good wine, entertaining speeches, and a celtic band that played rather more songs that I recognized than were included in the service. It was nice to meet some of Sarah’s other friends, as well as her husband’s.

Sarah and I

I’ve known Sarah for five years now, since we were students together at the University of British Columbia. She was starting her master’s degree at the time, and I was in my first year as an undergraduate. Since then, I have come to very much value and appreciate her friendship, as well as the correspondence we have exchanged. Hopefully, freed of the burdens of wedding planning, she and Peter will have the chance to come visit me in Oxford at some point soon after they return from their preliminary honeymoon in Menorca. Sarah should be finishing her doctorate (making her and her husand into Dr. and Dr. Webster) around the same time as I will be completing my M.Phil. I hope that I will get a few chances to see them both over that period, after which I have no real idea of where in the world I will be.

Arundel

Inside Arundel Cathedral

After spending the night at Sarah’s parents’ house, her father suggested that, instead of spending a few hours in Chichester before my train, he drop me off in Arundel. Very hospitably, he showed me a number of interesting places within what seems to be both a beautiful and quite historic area, and even picked me up to drive me to Chichester in time for my return to Oxford. The day was enormously better spent than it would have been in some coffee shop in Chichester, and I got a chance to get to know Sarah’s father a bit. The wedding was a reminder of how little I know her friends and family.

Arundel itself is quite a stunning place. A river runs past the town and, by following its winding and rush-lined banks, you can get a sweeping exposure to the countryside that ends at a pub called the Black Rabbit, where I had lunch. Additionally, the streets of the town itself are worth exploring: particularly since they contain a number of top-notch outdoor equipment stores. While it was surprising to find them there, it was a nice reminder of Vancouver and the wonders of Mountain Equipment Co-Op.

Both during the reception and in Arundel, where I happened to run into them, I spoke with several members of Sarah’s extended family who live in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver. I remember Sarah visiting them fairly frequently while she was in Vancouver, but I never met them during that period. I expect that their exceptionally photogenic daughter is on several hundred memory cards by now.

  • Unfortunately, the whole weekend was relatively unsuccessful photographically. I didn’t want to make myself obtrusive during the wedding and reception – which were both professionally photographed anyhow – and the tendency of the A510 to blow out highlights is annoyingly and frequently manifest in the outdoor photos I took. Several people have already indicate that they will send me some of their photos, which will hopefully turn out better than mine did.

Ides of March, safely passed

Burdock near the Isis

First Easter break expedition imminent

My train to Chichester – via Basingstoke and Cosham – leaves Oxford at 7:15am on Saturday. Despite the best intentions of shifting my sleep schedule to make the requisite 6:00am wakeup more tolerable, I have been pushed further and further towards the pattern that I can only conclude is natural for me at present. That is to say, going to sleep sometime after 2:00am and then waking up at about the same point after 10:00am. Without classes or lectures in the morning or the burning shame of the scout discovering you still asleep, there is little that is able to propel me into wakefulness before then. Even my best efforts at setting the alarm on my phone and then hiding it across the room with a can of highly caffeinated energy drink have met with no success whatsoever.

In the end, it’s not much of a problem. I will have plenty of time to sleep on the train.

I am meant to arrive in Chichester three hours before the wedding and it seems probable to me that I will be able to walk to St. Richard’s Church, wherever it may be, from the train station in a fairly small fraction of that period of time. After the wedding and the reception, I will have most of Sunday to spend exploring the area, prior to my 4:30pm train back to Oxford. Is anyone familiar with the region? If so, is there anything you would suggest having a look at? The distance to the seashore seems modest, so I may go have a look at that.

Where there’s smoke

After five months of exposure to the social lives of Oxford students, my leather jacket is now thoroughly saturated with the smell of tobacco smoke. Despite efforts to air it out – sometimes even hanging it directly in front of an open window where I induce air flow – the scent seems to have become fairly deeply ingrained. Maybe entombing it in a box with some baking soda or activated charcoal for a while would be more effective.

The psychological impact of wearing the jacket has become odd. My earliest associations with tobacco have to do with somewhat threatening, carpeted places where I wasn’t happy to be. It’s a feeling that lingers whenever the stale smell of absent but infused smoke is present. The odour is certainly not one that I enjoy, or an happy to have lingering around me. It seems to be much more easily and thoroughly integrated into things made of natural substances. My wool and leather clothing has all taken on some measure of the smell, while no article of clothing made from artificial fibers has done so to an overly great extent. It all makes me disappointed about how months still remain before the smoking ban in British pubs comes into effect.

  • I have set up a temporary fix for the Blogger images problem. For the present, I will host the images on the BlogSpot servers, using a different account. Once the bug is fixed, I will repost the images on my FTP server. [19 March: This has now been done.]
  • I got more useful mail today: information on the Malta adventure, from my mother, along with details on the next student loan installment. Once this arrives, I should have this year and about 20% of next year covered. Still waiting on word from the Chevening Scholarship, Armand Bombardier Scholarship, Canadian Centennial Scholarship, and the Oxford Overseas Research Scholarship. The next batch of applications goes out in April.
  • In terms of blogging and being on instant messengers, internet activity among my friends in Canada seems to be markedly down. Is this because nice spring weather is starting to appear?
  • Did you know that light bulbs in England don’t screw into their sockets, like their North American equivalents? Along with running at twice the voltage, they also have somewhat fearsome looking sockets with large bare electrodes spring-loaded to hold the bulb in place.

Ascensions in Bath

The Sacred Pool, Bath

To the east and west of the centre of Bath are hills about 200m high. Both on the coach ridges there and back and while in the town itself, it was largely this topography that struck me. Oxford, you see, is a cracker. Only from south of the Magdalen Bridge can you find any kind of hill, and even those are laughable. Bath, by contrast, is almost perfectly composed to be looked over from above.

Upon arriving with the coach load of Sarah Lawrence students, the first place half of us went was the former Roman baths themselves. There, we atomized, and I didn’t see anyone again until we met for the coach ride home at five. Now built somewhat awkwardly into a museum – encased in black painted walls that look like the backstage area of a theatre – you can see the remains of former saunas and the realities of a collection of still-existent pools. The over-dramatic audio guide will tell you in almost comically reverent tones about the goddess to whom the former temple is dedicated.

The town of Bath reminds me a lot of Victoria, British Columbia. It has a similar pedestrian focus and the same sense of being designed for tourists. Even the residential areas that surround it, such as the one that runs to the top of the first hill I climbed, have a similar look. It’s a much larger place than Oxford and considerably more open. It may have been the brilliant weather, but people also seemed to smile more. The second hill I climbed – the westerly one – is capped by a fairly large park that, by walking around the circumference, offers views of all the surrounding hills and countryside.

Unsurprisingly, between ruins, town, and hills I took quite a number of photos. Rather than post them all at once – which would require editing the dust/mold specks out of the whole collection tonight – I think I will post them one by one until I run out of good ones. It may not represent the place where I am from day to day, but it should be more interesting than perpetuating the parade of Oxford shots.

Expedition destination specified

I am going to Malta between the 25th of March (my mother’s 50th birthday) and the 1st of April. I don’t know whether we’re on a Malta or Gozo walking tour (those two islands making up the Maltese State), but I do know that it’s with HF Holidays. Anyone who has any experience with either the country or the travel provider is encouraged to leave a comment.

In any case, I am very excited to be going.

That said, I should go to sleep so as to wake up early and work on my papers. A generalized exhaustion has convinced me to try and get back on my ideal 1:00am to 9:00am sleep pattern.

On travel, a new project, and thesis planning

Spikes near Christ Church Meadows

Speaking with my parents over Skype today, I was reminded of how difficult it can be to communicate through a speech-only medium. It’s especially frustrating when you are making the attempt with someone who you really do want to speak with, but you are having difficulty doing so with any clarity or skill. The extra fraction of a second of Skype-to-phone lag definitely contributes to the difficulty. So plainly, in fact, that when I use SkypeOut to call people, they frequently suggest going on Skype themselves so as to increase the quality of the connection.

Partly for these reasons, I am especially looking forward to seeing my mother in about a month’s time. It’s still not certain whether we will go to Malta, Portugal, or Greece – though the middle option is increasingly looking the most likely. The kind of trip that is being proposed is a package-deal type hiking trip, with 4-10km walks every day and arranged hotels. While quite different from the kind of travel I have generally done, I find the idea to be an interesting one, and one that is likely to be enjoyable. I found travelling with Meghan Mathieson et al to be especially interesting, precisely because it involved traveling in a group and according to a set itinerary that I didn’t control. Hopefully, this expedition will mimic the best attributes of that one.

Oxford life

At the end of this year, I think I should condense the mass of experience I’ve had here into a trio of short guides: one for people considering coming to Oxford, one for people considering Wadham, and one for people thinking of doing the M.Phil in IR. It would offer me a chance to be both balanced and concise, while offering a perspective that people may find valuable. While the information that would be included is already embedded in blog posts, I don’t think anyone is likely to go through the whole collection of hundreds of entries just to gain insights that might be better expressed in three to five pages on each topic.

Thesis planning

I have been investigating the Oxford Environmental Change Institute and it seems like a resource that could conceivably be extremely helpful for my research topic. Their website quotes Dr. Anna Lawrence, of the Human Ecology Program, as saying: “Researchers must find ways to incorporate the experiences and values of other stakeholders in their research.” This is exactly the kind of thing I want to do: look at the means by which such cooperation and outreach is taking place. If I can find some way to get involved with this organization, it might contribute a great deal to my ability to say something new and important on the subject. While it can be difficult to deal with segregation between different areas of academia, the very lack of connections makes it a really exciting place to do work. There is much to be discovered there.

Day spent examining strings of 26 different shapes, along with gaps and dots

Nuffield tower

I am feeling increasingly as though journalism will be the thing to do once I finish my M.Phil. I want to travel and one of the things that I am fairly good at is writing: especially the kind of writing that must be done quickly and consistently. I am fairly sure that I would be able to get a job in the field, even though I know nothing of its inner workings, and it may serve many of the purposes that I have for myself in the coming years. There is only so much, after all, that can be learned from books. Academia is, in general, somewhat terrified of talking to people – a fear that I have grown to share, outside the narrow confines of fellow students and other members of a close cabal. Even where we deal with outsiders, it’s behind the bulletproof glass of case studies and surveys, interviews with pre-selected questions vetted by ethics committees. My perception of the greater authenticity of journalism is a draw, even if journalistic thought and action is not immune from other forms of criticism.

This is not a thing that I see myself as doing indefinitely. It’s something I would want to do in a roving fashion: out seeing things rather than sitting behind a desk in Manhattan. I don’t think it would be sustainable over the long term, but I do think it would be a really effective counterpoint to what I have done so far. Perhaps it would also be a good lead-up into whatever is to come after.

Talking with Tristan and Meaghan Beattie tonight was really good. One of the oddest things about living in Oxford is my near-total lack of people with whom I have substantive, personal conversations. The closest it comes is discussion of the M.Phil program. It’s something that will come with time, I hope….

I learned today that, since the tour she is going on may already be entirely booked, I may not be going to Greece or Malta after all. That said, the possibility remains and I will have to wait and see. I very much hope it will come together.

…

Scheduling conflicts continue to plague the mooted bloggers’ gathering.