Rosona'sTravelogue: Brief US interlude: Charlottesville, VA (i.e. Monticello)

I was briefly back in the states for a conference. Between actively trying not to sleep in the first half of the week (woke up at 4:30am? Great! Let's go try out the hotel gym) to sleep dep the last half of the week (cause by an awesome math party which also included a green donkey piñata), I don't think I really managed to completely switch over timezone-wise internally. As a result, the first few days back in Hamburg, I was yawning and tired at 20:00 (which is 14:00 Virginia time, for those keeping track) and waking up around 9:00 or 9:45.

Math conferences have learned that the entire week being nonstop math is a good way to melt all of our brains, so in the interest of preserving the future generations of math talent, there's usually an excursion (or just some kind of break) halfway through. This was a week-long conference, so this happened wednesday afternoon. I ended up going to Monticello (Jefferson's home/plantation) with several other gals from the conference.

So, after Jefferson was president of the states, that not being enough, he felt the need to found a university on his buddy's land. And he really did found this university. He designed the buildings, hired the people to build them, hired the faculty and drew up the curriculum. As a side-note, UVA did not admit women to any undergraduate program until around 1970 (they had admitted women to grad programs (such as nursing) a bit earlier).

We got to Monticello and forked over the exorbitant entrance fee of $24, which does, to be fair, entitle one to 3 possible tours of the premises, and a shuttle ride up and/or down the hill between the house proper and the parking area. We were at the house a bit early for our tour, so we first looked around at the gardens:

From Germany 2012-2013

These contained a lot of flowers and plants that were being raised mainly to harvest seeds from (and sell in the giftshop). Here's the part with some grapevines:

From Germany 2012-2013

Also, bizarro onions, which produce the bulb part above-ground (the logical question, which we didn't ask, was do these continue? That is, do they produce more onion clusters further along in a fractal-esque fashion):

From Germany 2012-2013

Pretty, random flowers:

From Germany 2012-2013

Artichokes:

From Germany 2012-2013

Artichokes in bloom (they're thistles!):

From Germany 2012-2013

We weren't allowed to take pictures of the house because a lot of things in the house were loaned out from various museums, and they didn't have the picture-taking rights. When you walk in, on one wall is a (rather garish) collection of Native American artifacts which had been collected as sort of 'peace offers' (mainly during the travels of Lewis and Clark). Above the door and draped over the sides of the room was a weird clock, counter-balanced by some cannon balls hanging on a string.

Jefferson loved ice cream. So, he constructed a giant-normous chamber which his men stored ice in. As soon as the nearby water source (river? lake?) froze over, they'd go cut it into pieces and haul it back. It was maybe 3 stories or so deep. There was room for meltoff to be drained as well. Quite ingenius.

Nearby the top of the ice chamber

From Germany 2012-2013

Looking down into the ice chamber, mainly underground

From Germany 2012-2013

Here's a view from his lawn. That's the house, and the stuff to either side (with the white fence) is the top of the 'dependencies', where the ice chamber was, as well as where he stored beer, cider, and other important things.

Here's a really lovely view of the mountains. Didn't really get a chance to walk around them, but they were really beautiful as a backdrop.

From Germany 2012-2013

Around back was the Jefferson family graveyard, still in use. The original cover to Jefferson's grave was replaced by an obelisk at the insistence of the US gov't at some point. I suppose it does serve to effectively guard the grave, I think it'd be hard to move it and disturb the graves.