Oh wait, that wasn't what this whole trip was about? My bad...
Yesterday afternoon I gave my paper at the conference, and all went fine. I think I made sense for the most part answering questions, and people seemed interested! I met one of the musicologists that I cited in my paper since she was the chair of my session, and I liked her so much. She gave me a dissertation idea I'm really excited about, but I haven't had a chance yet to see if it's already been written. We'll see!
Then that evening was the conference speakers' dinner, and I sat across the table from Richard Taruskin, maybe the most famous living musicologist. He thinks my name is Sara McCloy, it's fine. HA! But I met a few fellow young female musicologists and really enjoyed getting to know them a little bit.
Today I played hookie from the last day of the conference to go sight-seeing with Mom and Emma Kay. It's been a full, fun day!
Mom loves the ravens at the Tower of London
the White Tower
mix of old London and new London
17th century sculptures that have been the in Tower ever since!
Tower Bridge
British Museum!
Rosetta Stone!!! So much bigger than I imagined
King Ramesses II
ancient Egyptian paint set
this made me think of Steve's attitude if he had been along... baha
Amenhotep III
a piece of the sphinx's beard
these creatures guarded an Assyrian palace (11th-8th century BC) - features cuneiform script, the first written language!
the Assyrians were awfully fond of killing other people...
statues from the Parthenon
"A chess-set horse's head screams, 'These people are nuts--let me out of here!" -Rick Steves' British Museum tour is so delightfully snarky
on a baton mission for Steve...
there was not a shortage, that's for sure!
a 17th-century copy of Tallis's Spem in Alium at the British Library!!! (Rick didn't even mention the music section, how dare he?! what a delightful surprise)
page from Bach's WTC
Mozart's "musical diary" of his compositional activity 1784-1791
somehow Chopin's meticulous handwriting doesn't surprise me
one of Vaughan Williams' collected folk songs
Debussy was so neat, too!
Gutenberg Bible, I think
very cool codex--one of the earliest manuscripts of the Bible in Greek
and this one is priceless--earliest manuscript of the complete New Testament and some of the best Old Testament as well--mid 4th century! so cool.
