It's photo day today. So get excited to see where Virginia and I have been living! Let me set the scene: Our apartment is literally two rooms big. A living room and bedroom with a deck attached.
Let's start our virtual tour at the front door.
This is the door to our building. Bill Wilson tells me that the steps are made from real marble. And I believe him.Next up is a BEFORE picture of our kitchen.
And an AFTER picture.
Here is a BEFORE picture of the living room.
And the AFTER.
Our couch area (still in the same room).
Here is our bedroom (as seen from the couch)...
...which leads to our awesome deck!
Apparently, decks are a big deal in the city and we count ourselves lucky to have one. It's a nice place to sit out on Sunday mornings, and Ruby loves it compared to the narrow window she used to have connecting her to the outside world in Newport.Here is a picture of Virginia, on the deck, modeling the latest in fashionable bike gear.
These helmets look so good, we sometimes wear them around the house. Just to turn each other on.
I have been in school for four weeks now and have learned TONS. I will be organizing my thoughts and blogging about it soon.
However, I have learned one interesting thing I can share right now.
I am researching the play Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlow, written during the Renaissance in England, and my research has uncovered something that I did not know: It was standard for people living during that time to believe in magic. Straight up call-upon-demons-to-turn-your-horse-into-a-dragon-and-destroy-your-enemies magic. There were many books out about how to practice it, the most popular being written by a man named Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (what a great name). If you were especially well educated in languages and chemistry it was a very real option for you to study magic, instead of say... medicine. And you had your choice to study white or black. But beware! Studying magic was frowned upon by the church because you were attempting to alter your reality instead of accepting the reality assigned to you by God. This is the same reason the church disapproved of acting. Poor Christopher Marlow wrote a play about using magic to call upon the devil. Needless to say, he was branded an atheist.
I suppose I should not be surprised by this information. Witch hunts happened in America after the Renaissance so clearly a belief in magic was already established. However, I feel like this fact has been glossed over my whole life regarding this period in European History. It makes me wonder - did DaVinci also study magic? Did Shakespeare regularly visit with a sorcerer? Did Michelangelo try to have "the shade" of his mother brought back from beyond the veil?
It's interesting for me to think about the greatest period of intellectual transformation in European history also containing a large growth in the study and practice of magic.
