Getting personal

“Gin Lane” by William Hogarth, depicting the evils of liquor. Please notice that the only businesses that are thriving are the liquor sellers and coffin makers. You can tell because theirs are the only buildings not in disrepair.

We just got back from seeing a couple of original Hogarth prints, which were awesome for being original Hogarth prints, but even cooler for the circumstances under which we examined them. We did have to go to the British Museum, into the prints gallery, but we went into the secret door leading to the archives and storage areas. These prints were pulled out just for us.

This isn’t the only special treatment we’ve had during the course. When we traveled to Castle Acre and Norwich, a retired archeologist, Helen, gave us personal tours of the abbey and castle ruins. When we went to Parliament and Westminster Abbey, a former tour guide Freda took us through, also on a personal tour. These experiences were so much better because we had guides who love the subject matter and have a relationship with Professor Olmert.

I had been wondering how Olmert meets all these wonderful people and creates such great relationships with them. Yesterday, I had the chance to find out. We were walking around and came upon the Brevis Marks Synagogue. That experience alone constitutes a blog post which will be written next, but I digress. We asked the kind gentleman at the door if we could have a look inside and he allowed it, for a fee of course. But as we were staring at the amazing structure from within, a nice gentleman came out and greeted us. He kindly gave us impromptu lecture on the Jewish history of London and thus the synagogue. We were so attentive and Olmert was so enthusiastic about it that they ended up exchanging contact information so he could schedule tours for this course in the future. It was satounding how easily he could start these relationships with people “in the know” and he does it all for our benefit. I feel so lucky to be Olmert’s student and to be on this amazing trip because of the wonderful we meet and the beautiful things we see, thanks to him.