Month: January 2009

When in Rome…

We’re watching the Rome mini series and it’s amazing. I am certainly not an historian of the ancient world, but I’ve got an understanding of what it was supposed to be like. Sure, I’ve devoured every Asterix story (in more than one language too), read some historical stories and watched a few documentaries of the epoc. From what I’ve learned, I have to say that this TV-series is amazing in its portrayal of life in ancient Rome. Certainly, at times it’s like watching Dallas (political intrigue, families vs each other, matriachs wanting to kill each other, etc) and the British accents can be grating at times, but damn it’s good.

If you have the chance, I totally recommend watching both seasons of this show. It’s got sex, violence and historical accuracy. Run, don’t walk, to get your hands on the DVDs.

A New Year, a Birthday and a surprise Museum visit

Our New Years Eve was pretty quiet as Kitt wasn’t feeling too well, so we stayed at home and relaxed, watching some movies while eating cheeses, olives & crackers. Not a bad way to see in the new year.

Probably a good thing we didn’t go and push it too hard as January 1st is Nykolai’s birthday so once again we had a quiet day of gifts, family and relaxation. Given most of his mates are away on holiday, we save the real birthday party for February when school’s back.

Today found Nykolai and I out at Williamstown so we decided to go and check out the HMAS Castlemaine museum. The Castlemaine is an Australian Navy Corvette (minesweeper) from World War II that’s being preserved as a floating museum. It’s pretty cheap to get on board and check it out and worth it to check out some very old technology. The scariest part for me was that they used to have a crew of about 90 people on board a relatively small vessel. Talk about cramped quarters…