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Oct. 16th, 2003
Heading homeward
Oct. 16th, 2003 11:00 amI'm nearly packed, and am leaving within an hour for Madrid. I won't have net access there, so I'll probably be offline until I get home late Friday.
If I'm lucky, I'll get to Madrid in time to go to the Reina Sophia museum before it closes, so I can see ":Guernica" and other Picassos... and have churros con chocolate one more time. Signing off from Nerva... it has been a good field season. And the second borehole is underway.
If I'm lucky, I'll get to Madrid in time to go to the Reina Sophia museum before it closes, so I can see ":Guernica" and other Picassos... and have churros con chocolate one more time. Signing off from Nerva... it has been a good field season. And the second borehole is underway.
Surreal bookends
Oct. 16th, 2003 09:21 pmI´m briefly in an Internet cafe in Madrid, near the Reina Sophia museum. Having just seen ¨Guernica¨... I didn´t expect the power... or the sense of movement. And I saw other works by Picasso and Dali... 17 days ago, this trip started with 500 year old surreality by Bosch, so it is only fitting to finish it with Dali (smile).
Another surreal moment... drilling was delayed due to rain and a lack of core containers (late). I decided to spend my last hour in Rio Tinto actually looking at the museum where we´d been working. The surreal moment came when I walked into the room housing Roman artifacts (there´s been mining in the area for 3K years). Two of the staff were there alone, cleaning the display case that held Roman glassware. One of them waved me over, and to my shock handed me one of the tall, fluted vials. ¨Romana¨ he said, and gestured. The glass had imperfections, felt slightly oily and was a bit wavy in spots... but the form was exquisite, and it was intact. It was from the nearby necropolis, he said... a tear-collection vial. Professional mounrners were paid to attend funerals -- tears were collected and sealed and placed in the tomb. I didn´t drop it.
On to dinner... tapas and churros :-).
Another surreal moment... drilling was delayed due to rain and a lack of core containers (late). I decided to spend my last hour in Rio Tinto actually looking at the museum where we´d been working. The surreal moment came when I walked into the room housing Roman artifacts (there´s been mining in the area for 3K years). Two of the staff were there alone, cleaning the display case that held Roman glassware. One of them waved me over, and to my shock handed me one of the tall, fluted vials. ¨Romana¨ he said, and gestured. The glass had imperfections, felt slightly oily and was a bit wavy in spots... but the form was exquisite, and it was intact. It was from the nearby necropolis, he said... a tear-collection vial. Professional mounrners were paid to attend funerals -- tears were collected and sealed and placed in the tomb. I didn´t drop it.
On to dinner... tapas and churros :-).
