Travel and Learning

While travelling through England, Ireland and Scotland the past two weeks, I had a lot of time to reflect on the historical density that seems to be part of the European experience. It isn't that other places lack such historical density, but rather that our/my particular prejudices and cultural legacy reflected in my education has predisposed me to notice things that I've studied in books, heard talked about in lectures and discussed with friends and colleagues.

Having written academically on 5th-7th century Ireland, it was particularly compelling to see and even pick up artifacts at the British Museum from this era and to see in tangible forms what I had mostly encountered through words or pictures. Holding a stone axe head or a small carved figurine somehow folded time in a way that erased a strictly linear accounting of passing years. Later, while touring Edinburgh Castle, I was fortunate enough to be able to weild a claymore, something that wasn't on any official bucket list but which, when opportunity presented itself, seemed like something I'd always wanted to do. Artifacts fire the imagination. The more we know about what surrounds those artifacts, the richer the imaginative ponderings. I was also struck by the reasonable cost of galleries and museums in the UK - usually free. The only barrier to visiting and taking part in the mezmerizing collections is personal initiative. I like that.