Author Archives: The Wife of Bath
Danish things
There are charming things about Demark that I wouldn’t have known by staying home and googling UNESCO sites. For example: chocolate milk is a perfectly acceptable and abundantly available beverage for adults. Here are some other Danish things: No need for a truck when you can haul it on your bike: Danish folks will transport […]
Well, of course I went to Hamlet’s castle!
Shakespeare called it Elsinore, but he never actually visited the real life Kronberg Castle in Helsingør. Some actors from his company performed there, then must have told him about it, and he used that for the setting of Hamlet. The dude is King Frederick II and here is is with his bride (and first cousin—eww!) […]
Hot Liver and Honey Cake Picnic at the Moravian Church of Christiansfeld, Denmark
Two parallel streets with a church in the center: that’s plan of Christiansfeld. This is the planned city of the Moravian religion in Southern Denmark. Moravianism is an early form of Protestantism out of Bohemia. You know these Protestants aren’t going for fancy—what you get here in Christiansfeld is symmetry, order and pruned trees. And […]
This night’s for us
In 2016, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, I wrote a post about my grandmother, who—born before women had the right to vote—hadn’t lived to see the first women nominated for president. That post was titled This Night’s for You, Gram. Now in 2024, the DNC is in my city, Chicago, and we […]
The Bendy Pillars of Perfection at the Acropolis
There was a guy who would occasionally drop into my reading group. He was smart but seemingly unfamiliar with the Western canon. We’d read a Shakespeare play and he’d be like “Oh, actually this was quite good—that Shakespeare fellow, I think he was on to something!” It was refreshing and in a way I was […]
The Adonis of the Cell Phone Charging Station: A brief history of free-standing Greek sculpture in Athens
I guess I had a decent understanding of Greek sculpture before visiting Athens, but it helped me a lot to see it in person. So here’s a quick art history lesson from my visits to National Archeological and the Acropolis Museums, broken down into three time periods: The Archaic Period (650 – 480 BC) If […]
Passage of the Merchants, Athens
Just outside of Athens’ Syntagma square, there’s a vacant arcade that must have been quite a hip center of retail in the mid-20th century. In the 21st century it seems to mostly serve as a place for sneaking a smoke (and judging by the smell, a covert bathroom break). Flanking the arcade are vintage-cool stores, […]
Picnic With the (Occasionally Drooling) Cats of Athens
I’m in Athens where I’m having a hard time following my sight-seeing agenda because I just want to walk around and see things like this precious Byzantine church which is between an H&M, a TGI Fridays and a dude pimping energy drinks. What Athens also has is cats. So obviously I have to stop and […]
Dublin’s Georgian Architecture as Social History
Let’s just get the doors over with. Alrighty, here are some Georgian doors in Dublin. Everybody happy? If you’re like me and interested in architectural heritage and planning a trip to Dublin you’re going to encounter a lot of references to these doors, which are nice I guess but being honest I found them sort […]
On the winter solstice, you can touch the light at Newgrange
At dawn on the winter solstice, when the light breaks over the horizon, a beam of light channels through a box above the entry to the prehistoric tomb of Newgrange. Moving inward little by little down a narrow passageway, it reaches the heart of the chamber. This 17 minute-long yearly event is a distillation of so […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 