Virginia

We road-tripped up to Nora and Adrian's for the holiday weekend, and then road-tripped with them up to Charlottesville for a day. Charlottesville is a great little college town tucked away in the mountains. (Before we moved here, it was very high on our list of places we would have liked to move to -- but alas, UVa was never hiring at the right time.) The campus, or the Grounds (as they call it) is beautiful, all colonial-style brick buildings, some of them designed by Thomas Jefferson.

The photo here is of the Rotunda, one of the most famous campus buildings. The painting on the bricks is the symbol of one of the secret societies (the Seven society, appropriately enough). We took a guided tour of it. One highlight were the story of how, back in the day, a building near the Rotunda was burning, and to save the Rotunda itself, one of the profs had the "brilliant" idea to throw some dynamite on the nearby building (so that the fire would then burn itself out.) Instead, he blew up most of the Rotunda itself. (Way to go, Poindexter.) The other highlight was an exhibit they had in the upper gallery of all kinds of unusually-constructed books. They had waterproof books (including one called "AquaErotica"), books in unusual shapes (including a bathroom book in the shape of a toilet), books made out of plastic, books made out of metal, a book printed in landscape rather than portrait orientation, and so on.

We also saw Edgar Allen Poe's old dorm room, which they have preserved, complete with period furniture, raven sculpture, and a creepy out-of-nowhere voice that comes on to talk about Poe's time at the university. It seems out of place, though, since I always associate Poe with Baltimore!

And speaking of books, one of Charlottesville's other claims to fame is that they have several very nice used bookstores. Now, I don't actually need any more books (in fact, we seem to be out of space in the bookshelves we have), but it's still fun to go browse. (Indeed, the only book I ended up getting was a book that recommended other books! But I was inoculated a bit because I went to the Durham Library Book sale a couple weeks ago, and got some great books for only a dollar apiece. That makes everything else seem too expensive! I don't much like driving in Durham -- it's really confusing to find your way around -- but it was totally worth it.)

We did some sightseeing back in Richmond as well. We drove around some of the old Victorian neighborhoods (which made Mike long for Philly), and took a tour of St. John's Episcopal Church, the site of Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death" speech. Had we been there a day later, we would have gotten to see the re-enactment of it! Our guide, an elderly woman in colonial dress, gave it her best shot, though. She was a little shaky at the start of the tour, as if she wasn't sure she was going to be able to remember everything she was supposed to tell us, but when it came time for the speech (or at least the famous last lines of it), she busted out with it at full volume! We were startled, and then impressed.

(Left: I'm guessing this particular sublet isn't much in demand.)