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Previous experiences with Dan Brown I have read three of Dan Brown’s other books, and had decided a while ago to skip on his most famous book to date. Occasionally there are interesting tidbits of information in them, but then on subjects on which I have some knowledge they are inaccurate: how can I trust [...]

  Previous Overview Next Saturday 2nd August — Sunday 3rd August, 2008 The plane made a dramatic landing at Hahn airport around midnight, with the plane briefly bouncing off the tarmac before settling down on the landing strip. People clapped for the pilot as the plane taxied up to the terminal, something that I find [...]

  Previous Overview Next Saturday 26th July, 2008 My first weekend in Trieste. Last night was the final night that I would have to try and sleep through the loud snores; from tonight on it was going to be blissful sleep. Today I was up early: I was going on a bus tour of the [...]

  Previous Overview No more Monday August 4th – Tuesday August 5th, 2008 (This story continues on directly from the previous story. Even though I have made it home there is one more tale to tell.) Reaching my apartment gave me a second (or perhaps third) wind. I put my suitcase down and started to [...]

  Previous Overview Next Sunday 3rd August, 2008 Bristol, Cambridge, Athens, Trieste, Venice, … The list of places I have been, each with their own memories. Each special in its own way. But like all voyages it is time for this one to end. I am finally heading home. It is odd to think about [...]

  Previous Overview Next Thursday July 17th, 2008 Hydra (`Υδρα, pronounced Ethra) is a small and quiet island, so this will probably be a short entry. I came in not knowing anything about any of the Greek islands but knowing that I should go to at least one, and Hydra was the one that was [...]

  Previous Overview Next Sunday 20th July — Friday 25th July, 2008 My supervisor Nemanja had once told me about a physicist (who shall remain unnamed) who had gone to a physics conference surrounded by some of the most interesting and prominent people in the field. Most physics conferences have an outing or formal dinner [...]

  Previous Overview Next Wednesday, 16th July 2008 [Athens] [First a note to all the language purists: I realise that Greek is a language in its own right, and that writing in Greek requires more than a font change. The title is meant to be humorous, not insulting to Greek culture or language.] The bus [...]

  Overview Physics experiments are designed to test the very frontiers of human knowledge. Sometimes, if you are clever or lucky, you can think of an easy experiment to look for something that is easy and no one else has thought of it yet. But a lot of the time you need to construct expensive [...]

  Previous Overview Next Friday, July 18th 2008 For my last day in Greece I was going to have a nice quiet day. Walking the Acropolis and the other ancient sites on Wednesday, and walking over Hydra yesterday had worn me out. So today I was taking up a traditional Greek past time that goes [...]

  Overview Next Thursday, July 10th 2008 [San Francisco Airport] Airports are very strange places. Not that they are all the same — on Bouganville the airport is a tin shed, barely keeping out the oppressive heat while Changi airport in Singapore is an expansive shopping centre kept at a temperature that would make Eskimos [...]

  Previous Overview Next Cambridge. It was my first true destination in the United Kingdom when I first arrived at the end of June in 2002. I suppose I had technically been in London while at Heathrow, and the bus outside the airport that I caught had taken me across some of the country, Cambridge [...]

Created: 18th July 2008 Last edited: 23rd August 2008 This is my travel journal for my trip to Europe in the summer [July] 2008. While the true purpose of the trip is to attend a summer school in Trieste, Italy on cosmology I left a week early to visit friends in the United Kingdom and [...]

  Previous Overview Next Saturday, July 19th 2008 My goal today was to relax. I was a little weary about this prospect before it even began, as my previous attempt to relax and unwind ended with me been driven around the Acropolis by the police. If you are confused, then you obviously are not reading [...]

  Previous Overview Next Friday, July 11th — Sunday, July 13th 2008 [Bristol] I was taking a budget bus service Megabus to get from London to the UK. The prices are excellent; my trip from London to Bristol cost me £4 (compared to £20 I would have to pay for the train). I realise that [...]

Winston Churchill claimed that “No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.” This message is in stark contrast to the messages we are bombarded with growing up. We are constantly reminded that two wrongs do not make a right, or to never let anyone compromise our principles. The two points of view [...]