I know you're probably getting sick of the nerdy manuscripts talk

But I just keep getting to look at the COOLEST stuff.

Like this:


It's actually really illegal for me to be taking pictures in this room. Or in the library at all. But while they don't allow cameras in, they do allow laptops with integrated webcams in, so I think that gross oversight on their part means I have license to fudge the rules a wee bit.

So you can't really get a sense of it from the picture, but this is the biggest book I have ever seen. It's probably two feet long, one and a half feet wide, and weighs a good twenty pounds if not more. It's a lavish copy of Le Roman du Saint-Graal and Le Roman de Mort d'Artu, complete with gold-foiled illustrated letters and miniatures and that oh-so-good medieval manuscript smell. They smell so good! Okay, I'm weird for liking the smell of old books, but I'm a geek. What do you want?

I hate that this is one of my last days in the library for a while. I'm glad to be going back to Holland and then to Venice (!), but I really have grown to love this library and all the things I can do in it. It's frustrating when you can't find what you want, but it's so exhilarating when you connect the dots and make a discovery. I could come look at these manuscripts every day for a month and not get sick of it. I don't know how much of this will actually get into my thesis, but what a learning experience! Being able to see these things almost makes the apartment fiasco worth it. Aw hell, it does make it worth it. I never in a million years would have thought, at the beginning of freshman year, that by this time I'd be sitting in a silent room full of musty books and having the time of my life. Funny how that works.

It's exciting, and at the same time almost disheartening to see all these amazing things. I can't read Old French well enough to really take it all in, and reading the manuscripts is really difficult. I understand maybe every third word. Where do you go to learn Old French? For that matter, what does one do to improve one's modern French super fast? Le sigh. (which is all the French I feel like I know right now...)

Enough of being a downer. This is a really cool experience, there is a big smelly book in front of me, the weather is beautiful and I'm going to be in Holland in four days and Venice in six days. I am so lucky.

I love you all, hope your summers are awesome as well.


Olivia