Articles
San Antonio
Thursday 13 August 2009
Tourists today come to San Antonio for two principal reasons: to see the Alamo, and the River Walk. San Antonio was a distinct relief after hot and dreary Austin—here finally was a city which was much more hospitable to the tourist on foot.
The Alamo
The Alamo is the site of a show of brave Texan spirit. In 1836 about 200 people fighting for Texan independence were besieged by the Mexican president, General Santa Anna. After thirteen days, they were driven out and slaughtered by columns of Mexican soldiers. The Alamo is thus firmly lodged in the Texan state consciousness, as it symbolizes the Texan spirit of independence, being an example of great courage in the face of adversity. The only thing is, it would have been considerably more remarkable if they had in
Austin: stupid statistics and many museums
Thursday 13 August 2009
‘Austin is the city of the U.S. with the most restaurants per capita and the most museums per capita,’ I heard a man telling his tour group as they went around the city. These are of course almost meaningless statistics: as for the restaurants, I was left scratching my head since I could find very few restaurants worth going to in the downtown area save numerous sandwich shops which only open for lunch. As for the museums aspect, ‘most museums per capita’ doesn’t take into account the size and quality of those museums, and depends very much on the old ‘it depends what you mean by a museum’. A village of 100 people might conceivably have a one-room ‘history of our village’ museum: that would then be an example of a massive number of museums per
That’s All, Folks
Thursday 25 June 2009
My final exams finished nearly three weeks ago, and thus also my Oxford career. Something which occurred to me as I prepared for Schools was how most of my various papers were linked chronologically. So, after I finished, for want of much else to do, I sat down and made a timeline of the things I studied. This is probably of no interest to anyone other than me, but there you are.
My final exams finished nearly three weeks ago, and thus also my Oxford career. Something which occurred to me as I prepared for Schools was how most of my various papers were linked chronologically. So, after I finished, for want of much else to do, I sat down and made a timeline of the things I studied. This is probably of no interest to anyone other than me, but there you are.
Something is rotten in the airport of Heathrow
Tuesday 1 April 2008
The recent chaos at Heathrow brought about when the new Terminal 5 opened to passengers last Thursday has shot the airport to people’s attention across much of the world. Many people have been saying for years that the world’s most busy international airport is a nightmare to deal with, and hitherto I mostly haven’t agreed. I’ve used the airport frequently enough—several times a year—that I got to know it (Terminals 1 & 4 in particular) fairly well. However, I think that because I was comfortable using those terminals I didn’t realize quite how unfriendly Heathrow is to less-frequent travellers.1
All that changed for me last week. On Friday I was due to fly from Heathrow back to Geneva after the short university Easter holiday. I would be flying from
A tale of Swiss bureaucracy
Tuesday 30 October 2007
In case you didn’t know, I am spending this academic year as an ‘étudiant libre’ at the University of Geneva. Since I am studying Modern Languages (French, in particular!), I have to spend the third year of my four-year degree course in a country where the language is spoken. Geneva was recommended to my friend Isobel and me by our Latin tutor.
I am living in a flat in Geneva, going to classes in the university. However, I had to wade through an awful lot of red tape to get here. I’m not going to go into details of the process of applying to the university, which was further complicated by the fact that both Issy and I were initially rejected to come and study here for a year. 1 Nor will I bore you with the details of my seemingly interminable flat-hunt,