Ye Olde Vikings

Did you know that ancient Viking rulers had names like Eirik Bloodaxe, Gorm the Old, and Harald Bluetooth? How about (wait for it) Hardruler and Forkbeard?

Neither did I! (Aren't such things just a fantasy? Apparently not. The Vikings were real, and so were such names, which seem to belong in a novel that J.R.R. Tolkien would cook up.) This tidbit is among the things I learned at the popular Viking exhibit now taking place at the British Museum, which I visited with a friend in London today. This friend, who's currently finishing her PhD in English at Stanford, is in the UK for the week while her husband attends a work-related conference, and lunch and museum-browsing provided the perfect excuse to catch up.

As a result of the aforementioned sightseeing, I took the day off anything academic, but will now be finishing up the last few tidbits of thesis reading/writing that I can before I head off to Greece later this weekend! A friend and I will be island-hopping and sightseeing in and around Athens for several days before I join another mass Rhodie excursion from Oxford, this one a group trip to the beaches of Corfu. The only reading I'll do then, if all goes according to plan, is pleasure reading.

As with my last bout of travels, I am not planning on blogging until I'm back in Oxford at the end of April -- so stay tuned and look for more updates then!