Italy: Milan, Florence & Rome

This April I was able to visit Rome with my good friend Joe from Hillsdale College. Italy is an amazingly beautiful place and has countless ways to entertain a history nerd like me.

The Italian flag in the Galleria

Vittorio Emanuel II in Milan

Sitting on top of the cathedral in Milan

Here is the cathedral in Milan. We spent some time walking on its roof. I was very happy to be there just as the bells of the cathedral and city rang for mid-day.

A view of the architecture at the roof of Milan's cathedral... the spires and buttresses were very beautiful and ornate.

Dante in his home town of Florence...

The AMAZING Sana Maria Fiora in Florence. I've never seen such a colorful building!

Restoration work on the dome of Santa Maria Fiora

A view of Florence from the dome of Santa Maria Fiora

Florence in the distance... This was taken from a monastery outside of the city

The ruins of the old Roman forum

The Colosseum! It was one of my life's goals to see and touch this building!

Inside the Colosseum

St Peter's in Vatican City-- the world's largest Christian basilica and seat of the Catholic church!

Inside St Peter's

A close-up of the ceiling in the Vatican library. This was one of the rooms we could photograph in the Vatican Museums. I did see some people try to sneak photos of the Sistine Chapel, though... Philistines!

Vatican City and the colonnade from the dome of St Peter's

Exhibition

Cradles, Courtship & Coffins: Life's Milestones in Fife

Yesterday I helped tare down my exhibition. It is amazing that it took one day to tare down something that took months to plan. I am very pleased that our exhibition was one of the most successful student exhibitions at St Andrews Museum. I thought that you might like a few photos from the exhibition. In case you didn't know, the exhibition examined rites of passage of people living in this part of Scotland. We mostly looked at births, weddings, graduations, and funerals.

Here I am taking a break during instillation week.

Here's the whole team of student curators for Cradles, Courtship & Coffins during opening night! It was a great time with lots of people, stinky cheese, fudge donuts, and nerdy museum talk.

The student curators are very happy to add their memories to the interactive 'Rites of Passage' tree. The tree was absolutely full of memories when we took it off of the wall yesterday. Some of them were very moving to read!

Here I am with a Bronze-Age burial urn found near St Andrews. I can't believe I was allowed to hold something so old! Who says working in a museum sounds boring?

Here is my recreation of a lower-middle class Victorian parlor from Fife. It is decorated as it might look during a time of mourning. It had some terrific Victorian wall paper, a silk oriental rug, coffin, peacock feathers and all sorts of Victorian gaudiness. I had to use some poster board to cover huge painted flames in the fireplace. They looked a little tacky and inappropriate-- I wish i could have painted over them!

Here I am hanging a wedding flag from a Fife fishing community. Traditionally, the bride made the flag and the youngest member of the groom's party hung it on the groom's boat on the night before the wedding. If it filled with wind, the marriage would be successful.

British Museum and Loch Ness/Scottish Highlands

Hi all! Sorry that it has been so long since I've shared with you. Much has happened since I've last posted, I have some cool pictures from the British Museum and the Scottish Highlands you may enjoy.

The British Museum:
In January I had the opportunity to attend a conference for new museum professionals at the British Museum in London. I had a great time and learned a lot on my very short trip. I took a train from Scotland, spent the next day at the museum, and had to take an overnight train back to Scotland. What a whirlwind!

This is the main hall of the British Museum.

Here is a bad photo of the famous Rosetta Stone! It's really hard to get a good picture of this as there are always so many people standing around it.

Here is a portico from the Parthenon in Athens. Very cool to see!


Loch Ness and the Scottish Highlands:
I was very pleased to have my friend Heidi from South Lyon visit me last month. While she was here, we took a trip to Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. I was very inspired to see God's handiwork in this part of the world. On the train ride, we experienced a snowstorm in the mountains-- how peaceful everything looked!

The Scottish flag flies over the Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness. You can see some snow in the surrounding the hills.

Another amazing Scottish sky! That day we saw a blizzard, sun and a strange fog. We watched this strange mist/fog slowly roll from one side to the other.

Here is another view of Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness.

... and another view of the castle and surrounding landscape.

Oxford and London

Hello everyone! I recently took a weekend trip to London and Oxford where I attended an advent service at St Paul's Cathedral and enjoyed a meal at The Eagle and Child, the favorite pub of CS Lewis. I hope that you enjoy a few pictures from my trip.

St Paul's Cathedral

Lindsey and Brian in front of St Paul's Cathedral

Inside St Paul's Cathedral

Final resting place of Lord Nelson

Me and Big Ben

London's Tower Bridge

New College Dining Hall, Oxford

The Radcliffe Camera and Bodleian Library

An Oxford Christmas tree

Stirling & Wallace

This past week I took a day trip to Stirling at the base of the Scottish Highlands. As you may know, Stirling is where William Wallace defeated the English during the Wars of Independence at the tail-end of the thirteenth century. It is also the seat of a former royal palace and important castle that has been involved in many different conflicts. While there I also visited the Argyll and Sutherland Royal Highlanders Museum. It was amazing to see the history of such an old and notable military unit.

The Stirling landscape...


Stunning Scottish beauty... It is amazing how the dynamic the land and sky are here.

Silhouette of the Wallace Monument-- I was very luck with this shot. I am amazed at how well the sun showed up in this one. This is looking directly south at high noon. The sun is very far south this time of year.

Here we have a cheesy statue of Mel Gibson as William Wallace.

Here is the river that played a huge part in the Scottish victory in 1297. It's funny how it wasn't mentioned in Braveheart. The old bridge that was the focal point of the battle is long-gone, but there is still a very old stone bridge in that crosses the river.

Here we have a statue of William Wallace.

Here is William Wallace's sword.

Here is a statue of Robert the Bruce at Stirling Castle.

And lastly, here is a view from Stirling Castle.

Seashore walk to Crail and Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow

Crail Walk

Last Saturday I went on a 15 mile walk along the North Sea to Crail with some guys from the Christian Union/Christian Boys Breakfast Club. We saw some great scenery on the way. A couple of guys and I went ahead of the main group (one of whom looks looks and acts strangely like Matt Seymour-- its very eerie how similar they are) and decided to take a bus to Anstruther to get the supposed best fish and chips in Britain. I have to say they were very good.

This is a picture of an old abandoned stone house we found on our way. You can see how the forest is reclaiming the space.

This is a picture I took along the way. The rock formations are really neat.

Here is a massive rock some guys and I climbed. I have to give credit to Henry Gratwick for this picture. Well done Henry.

Again-- the massive rock. Once again, great job Henry.

Here I am looking back at St. Andrews from a couple of miles down the trail. Notice how blue the sky is. St. Andrews is one of the driest spots in the UK; not really what you would expect from Scotland, huh?

The Kelvingrove Museum and Museums Association meeting in Glasgow

This past Monday I was able to attend the Museums Association Annual Conference in Glasgow. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet important people in the British/European museum world and learn about the future of museums here. I was very happy to learn that people in the UK are familiar with The Henry Ford and have a good deal of respect for it. People here really like the way we use living history in American museums. Living history is becoming increasingly popular in the UK.

After the conference we were given a private tour of the newly revamped Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow. The collections were amazing and the atmosphere was great. We were greeted with bagpipers, given a wine reception, and saw a living history show. I felt very posh touring such a grand museum this way. Here are a couple of images from the museum. I can't take credit for the photos. I forgot to take my camera and had to rely on the Internet to find these.

Here is a view of the exterior of the museum



And here is the main hall where we had our wine reception