Praha is Smokin'
As the Brits prepare for the recently approved ban on smoking in English pubs and restaurants, (following varying degrees of prohibition in Ireland, Italy, New York, and of course California, among many others), you might think there are no remaining black lung bastions in the world. Not true. This past spring, Czech voters struck down a bill that would have eliminated restaurant smoking, and in the process sent a very clear message: Prague is for smokers.

"What do you think the rate of lung cancer is here," Heather asked this morning as a woman stood outside the tiny paneria where we were eating breakfast and blew a cloud through the open door and onto our table. Whatever it is, it's gotta be on the rise. As of 2004, about 40 percent of all Czech men and 30 percent of Czech women smoked, and those numbers have been rising steadily since 2000. Narrow that survey to Czechs who live in Prague and eat out, and I bet the number would go as high as 75 percent. I've never seen smokers so emboldened. They walk into restaurants with lit cigarettes and puff away as they order food, throughout the meal and before during and after espresso. The city center consists almost entirely of (elaborately decorated) cobblestone streets -- with cigarette butts wedged between the blocks. I saw my first no-smoking sign last night. It was taped on the door of a storage closet in a restaurant basement.

Smoking isn't the only cultural clash we've experienced here. It's been almost 20 years since Czechoslovakia underwent its Velvet Revolution, peacefully abolishing communism and, not long after, splintering into two countries. Since then Prague has fallen to another significant revolution: consumerism. Within walking distance of where we're staying in Old Town are thousands of restaurants, cafes, cinemas, shopping malls, "massage" parlors, glass shops, vinotecas, beer halls, sausage vendors, and row after row after row of makeshift tchotchke stands. If you're in the market for gaudy crystalware and "Prague Drinking Team" t-shirts, welcome to nirvana. What saves Prague from Coney Island cliche is its history and arresting architecture. I'm not a huge fan of the Gothic and Baroque styles that predominate the city -- it's all just so pointy, dark, and dripping with detail -- but nevertheless can't stop marveling at it and wondering how the city managed to escape the WWII bombing that decimated so many other parts of Europe. Everywhere you look, there's a cathedral, synagogue or palace that's older and more garish than the one you just came out of. I don't mean that in a bad way. This is Disneyland for Cure heads.

Dining has been an interesting experience. Sausage, goulash, and beer are the staples. You know about at least a couple of the Czech beers -- the original Budweiser Budvar and Pilsner Urquell. I've had some terrific Staropramen, which brews a dark ale right here in Prague. All the beer sells in restaurants for about 25 korunas (crowns), or a little more than $1, for a pint. Finding good Czech wine is more of a challenge. The local red grape, Frankovka, is, as far as I'm concerned, Czech for "Robitussin." But there's a decent selection of Italian varietals, and I've had some nice Montepulciano and Valpolicella. As for the eating, well, I wouldn't exactly call the town vegetarian friendly. Heather and I have walked by countless beer halls and sausage stands in search of the lonely baguette with mozerella and tomato. But it's good to go hungry every once in a while. It keeps you alert. And it's not like we're starving. We've had a few very good meals (we've spent anywhere from $30-$50ish on a nice meal for two, including wine...not dirt cheap, but not San Francisco), including one last night at a restaurant called No Stress. It aptly described the service. And my mood -- save for the angst I was feeling about all the cigarette smoke.

Has Anyone Seen This Dog?
I'd love to hear of his whereabouts. If you are in contact, please tell him I miss him and give him a treat for being such a good boy.

Why Am I Here?
It's a big question that we all ask ourselves pretty regularly, a question that can lead down a rabbit hole of subsequent questions -- about purpose, free will, the human mind, the nature of consciousness. But I'm asking the lower-cased version. As in, why am I doing this fellowship? And, what do I hope to accomplish? Think of this as question number one in a SoGFAQ.

The day I announced that I was leaving Wired for good -- the same day I actually left Wired -- a colleague congratulated me and said, "The only reason anyone ever applies for a fellowship is because they're looking for a change." It's true. I needed a break. I had to clear my cluttered head. My first inkling to apply for the fellowship came late last year when I received an email from the selection committee at Very Rich Foundation notifying me about the program. When I read the email, I thought 'two months in Europe!' I've long dreamed of moving to Europe, but have never been able to swing more than a couple weeks at a time. But science & religion?

I have a complicated religious history. At least it's complicated in my own mind. Here's the road I've traveled over the last dozen or so years: Roman Catholic --> Cafeteria Catholic --> Lapsed Catholic --> Religiously Indifferent --> Agnostic --> Catholic Antagonist --> Religion Antagonist --> Atheist --> Curious about Religion (and, I hope, religiously curious). If that sounds like I might be coming around the bend and that some day I'll end up back at all the wisdom that I started with, well, I suppose that could happen. But I doubt it. I've traveled a long way, and I'm no longer even all that intrigued about the existence of God. But I am intrigued by the near-universal human need to believe in such a Being, and am fascinated at how religions have evolved over the centuries to reward, reinforce, and foster faith. And that's part of the reason I'm here.

A British evolutionary psychologist named Robin Dunbar compares religious practice to being in a pot circle. Every aspect of the experience reinforces the experience itself -- the actual drug, the laughing, storytelling, camraderie, the smells, the music -- and makes you want to come back for more. I think religion is like a Wonderbra -- it elevates and separates. Let me explain (not about the bra; you know how that works). I agree with Dunbar that nearly every action you make in church is crafted to bind you closer to the people around you. Shaking hands with the neighbors in your pew, singing verse, chanting, dancing (in some cases), praying, kneeling on cue...it's all very rhythmic. When in church, we look around, think about what everyone's wearing or what they're thinking or what they're like or how we should invite them over for dinner even while almost automatically performing our regimen. We don't actually need to like the people around us (though often we will) to feel close to them. Our neighbors are just like us. All of this makes us feel part of a group, part of a community, comfortable. Humans need to belong. Church gives us this. In return, we give church our time, energy, money, and most of all, our faith. And the more money, time, energy, and faith we give, the greater a sense of community there is. That's the elevation.

Then comes the separation -- the part where we come to think of ourselves as special for being part of our adopted community, the part where we're being told repeatedly that we're the 'chosen ones' or, in many cases, that anyone not part of the community should be pitied or converted or, worse, punished. Islam has taken a lot of slack recently for the way the Koran tolerates or even prescribes hatred and violence toward nonbelievers, and it is particularly nasty...especially given how literally Muslims regard the Koran. But Islam isn't unique. Most religions have the potential to foster violent divisiveness. What is a community if not a haven from intruders, a place where we feel welcome, among people who make us feel safe? Would you fight to protect your safety, your family's? Of course. Taken to an extreme, any sense of community can do damage. Religions often do. (So does nationalism, but that's another topic.) I'm not saying religion is all bad. There are beneficient effects. Chief among them, I've always thought, is that religion helps us live to a higher moral standard than we otherwise would. Being part of a community makes you act better toward the people around you. And then there are all those rules that every religion has about morality, and the notion that if you do the right thing, you'll be rewarded in the afterlife. It's an undeniable formula for goodness.

The pictures on this page are of a 17th century thatch cottage (the thatch roof lasts 40 years but is extremely expensive to replace) about 5 miles outside of Cambridge. It belongs to Kevin Dutton, a Cambridge University neuroscience/psychology professor who's on leave to write a book about psychopaths, and his wife Elaine, a PhD in emotional psychology. Together with their friend, Louise, a Phd in moral philosophy and a Cambridge professor, we gathered to drink several bottles of Australian shiraz, eat a home-cooked meal, and talk about the nature of morality. It's a subject I've become increasingly interested in over the last few years because while I've fallen out of religion and faith I don't think I've become less moral. In fact, I'd argue that I'm a better person now than I was ten years ago, and, I think, less selfish. Being irreligious means I choose my actions not for the consequences they may bring in an afterlife, but rather, solely because I know my actions affect the people around me. If we all live by a similar code, my reasoning goes, the world is a better place to live. So, I've been wondering, if I can simultaneously live a moral and irreligious life, what does religion really have to do with morality?

You might suggest that my moral code was established in my youth by my religous upbringing and by my parents' religious beliefs and by the laws put in place by our government, which were influenced by religious mores and convictions. And that may be true. But is it necessarily true? Could morality be a dominant property that has been naturally selected in humans for the larger good of the species? A related question: Can we create/construct morality -- artificial morality, you might say -- without religion? Can we make ethical machines? (This is what I'll be writing about while in Paris.) Kevin was sufficiently intrigued by these questions to invite me over for dinner on one of my final nights in Cambridge. And we had a great conversation into the wee hours...not to mention all the food and wine.

I'll tell you more about it in part two of this post -- but I owe some news from Prague, where Heather and I are now. That'll come next. Na shledanou for now.

Heather in da House!
We had a fool-proof plan. Heather would call when she landed, and I'd either already be on the train or would take the next one in. London's Kings Cross station is about halfway between Cambridge and Heathrow. I should have no problem getting to the station before her. What could go wrong?

The day before I left for Reykjavik, we decided it was time for a new cell phone. Remember that brick that Fox Mulder would use to call Sculley from behind the yellow tape in some random field? That was basically Heather's phone. Big, no texting, no Web...and no international coverage. So, we spent our final few hours together in Best Buy, buying a Razr with European coverage.

I caught an early train and arrived in Kings Cross as Heather's plane was touching down. I gave her 15 minutes and called. Straight to voicemail. So I left a message and set out to find FedEx, about a mile from the station, to ship some books home. By the time I was done, it was 90 minutes after Heather's flight had touched down. Two more voicemails, and still no word.

As I walked out of FedEx, it hit me. I never called Cingular to activate her international service (a ridiculous but necessary step). And I never bothered to tell Heather the address of my bed & breakfast in Cambridge -- so it's not like she could just go there and crash. I wasn't exactly panicking. I mean, I was carrying two mobiles. She'd find a pay phone. But why hadn't she done that already? Halfway back to the station, I started having all kinds of crazy thoughts about what could have happened and broke into a trot. I knew she'd at least remember to find the main station where Cambridge trains depart. I'd get there and plant myself by the door, making sure I had four bars of cell service, and wait.

As I approached the station, my legs were moving as quickly as my mind. I ran into the main entrance with a fleeting thought that maybe she would be there, waiting for me. That hope was crushed when I crossed the threshold of the station into a sea of humanity and luggage. If she was in the station, I would never find her. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a slight jump and a faint wave of a hand. No way.

It was her. I ran to her. We hugged; we kissed, I teared up, and we just stood there and held each other for a long, long time. Eventually, I took her bags and loaded everything onto the train. On the hourlong ride back up to Cambridge, her head on my shoulder, spent, I felt relief and joy and a bit of awe at what just transpired. That moment, that split-second when I flipped from panic to elation, when Heather did a little hop in a nondescript train station halfway around the world and waved at me from the middle of hundreds of random strangers, and we both realized that there was no one else we'd rather be seeing at that moment and nowhere in the world that we'd rather be...that scene, one day, when my life runs before my eyes, could be the kicker on the entire reel.

We spend so much time micro-managing all the special occasions in our lives. And with good reason. We're planners. But isn't it weird how the truly special moments are the ones that catch you completely off-guard, or when that best-laid plan completely falls to shit?

I knew there was a reason I never called Cingular.

Ballad of the Union Jack
Quick: Picture the English flag in your mind. That’s it – the one with the blue background and red lines in every which direction. Right? That’s what I thought. The Union Jack was as much a part of England for me as warm bitter, fish & chips, and the Queen Mum.

Except that the Union Jack isn’t the flag of England at all. I learned this a couple weekends ago when I took the train to London to spend a few days, catch England’s first World Cup match, against Paraguay, and take advantage of the type of sunshine London rarely sees.

Everywhere I looked, there was a flag I had never encountered -- white with a red cross – in shop windows, wedged into car doors, in the hands of young children. I can be slow, but it hit me immediately, huh, this is the English flag. (Actually, it was more like, “This is the English flag?”) I can’t say it turned my world upside down; the Union Jack has never played a huge role in my life. But it was kind of like hearing that, oh, I don’t know, that Tunisia is actually in Africa when the whole time you thought it was somewhere near Singapore. Or that no actual milk was used to make this milkshake. Let’s call it mildly disconcerting.

Then last night, I flipped on the telly (notice my newfound Britishisms. You should hear my accent) to catch some World Cup highlights and instead got caught up in a BBC special on this very subject. I tuned in about halfway through and tuned out 20 minutes later, but I learned some interesting factoids along the way. The Union Jack was originally conceived as a melding of the English and Scottish flags. There was much back and forth about whether the Scottish X should overlay the English + or vice versa. Of course the English won, and the cross of St Patrick was later added to represent the Irish – making up the United Kingdom.

What about Wales? Good question. The Welsh are still pissed about this fiasco. They’re not even represented. And besides, this stupid Union Jack is a banner to oppression and Imperialism. (The English, who don’t seem to like the Union Jack much, either, were nonetheless quick to tell the Welsh to shut the bloody hell up, because Wales isn’t even a real country; they’re lucky the English even let them have their own rugby team!) The only one who seemed content with the status quo was this guy from Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has no flag other than the Union Jack, nor do they see the need for one. How's that for a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome?

I guess the whole thing is pretty analogous to the Confederate flag controversy that was raging in South Carolina and Georgia a few years ago. Except for the boiled peanuts.

Go England!

Library of Progress
As far as I can tell, Syracuse University’s Bird Library is best known for two things: 1) When the architect filed the design plans, he didn’t account for the weight of the 2.3 million books that the building would inevitably house, and so, with every passing year the weight of those books causes Bird’s foundation to sink into the ground by a centimeter or two. (Given how the world’s oceans are rising, I fully expect Bird to be underwater at some point in my lifetime.); and 2) the fifth floor. In a scientific study published by Playboy during my undergrad years, Bird’s fifth floor was recognized as one of the top 10 places in the country to pick up women. No shit. Top 10.

Let’s not kid ourselves. As an undergrad, I was perfectly happy for those two dubious achievements to serve as the calling cards for my university’s library. On the one hand, I had a cute story to tell visitors. On the other, a place to look for cute co-eds. What more could a guy ask for from a library? Well, as it turns out …

A few days into the fellowship, a program administrator escorted several interested fellows to the basement of the Cambridge library with letters that recognized us as temporary members of the university. On the other side of an enormous oak door sat a frumpy middle-aged English woman with chains dangling off the frames of her horn-rims. I’ll call her Mary. There are two kinds of female librarians. Mary was the other kind.

With all the enthusiasm of a DMV clerk, she showed me to a chair. As as she typed my information into her PC, I gazed around the room and noticed a sign: "In order to access the University’s manuscript and rare book archives, applications must include explicit authorization from a sponsoring college." I had no such authorization. Think, O’Brien. “Um, would it be possible to include access to the manuscript room?” I asked sheepishly. So charming. Mary craned her neck around the monitor, glared at me without answering, and redirected her attention back to the screen. “I don’t see anything on your letter saying you can view manuscripts,” she advised without looking up from her keyboard.

A reporter has one loyal friend at times like this: silence. She looked at me; I widened my eyes. “Are you the only person in your group who wants access to the manuscripts?” she asked.

We were alone in the room. “Yes,” I lied.

Truth be told, there’s only one real reason why I wanted to get into the library, and that’s to see Charles Darwin’s original papers. The university has been undergoing an impressive indexing of the letters Darwin wrote and received while traveling the Galapagos on the HMS Beagle, before the publication of On The Origin of Species, and afterward, when he was roundly attacked by peers, friends, enemies, and religious zealots alike for publishing his theories on natural selection. You can see the contents of some of these letters here, and most of them are available in 15 bound volumes that sell for about $130 each (I hope to ship a few home with the help of my $1,200 book stipend). But I wanted to pore over the actual letters, to see Darwin’s stationery, his inkblots, his penmanship. I thought it might provide a window into the mind of the man who had what may be the single greatest insight in the history of insights. Mary probably thought I was just going up there to pick up chicks. But she gave me authorization anyway. She hrmphed and 30 seconds later issued me a card with a magic letter on it. M for manuscripts.

It took me two days to figure out how to actually get my hands on the letters. I’m not kidding when I say I had to walk through probably a dozen sets of double doors before I reached the manuscript room, which is lined with everything from 400-year-old middle-English dictionaries to early Greek translations of the Bible (and that’s just the off-the-shelf stuff). I handed a request form to the youngest person at the desk. She looked up from the box where I wrote “Darwin papers,” and told me I needed a particular classmark. Damn these Brits. Why can't they just speak English? I don't think I have a classmark. Next thing you know, I’m in the office of Adam Perkins, the bespectacled caretaker of the entire Darwin project, and I’m playing the journalist card.

He tells me about the exhaustive nature of the correspondence and says I'm going to have to narrow my interests. I tell him I’m particularly interested in seeing any letters in which Darwin addresses his emerging problems with organized religion and the notion of God. Bonus points for antagonism directed at him from the religious community. Adam tilts his head, licks the tip of his pencil and tells me I’m in luck. Just last week, an Oxford scholar sent an email with a similar request. It outlined all the letters where Darwin addresses these subjects. “Perfect,” I say, and Adam prints a list of a few dozen classmarks. I leave the library for a previously scheduled meeting with a psych professor at the Eagle Pub, careful to stay along the left hand side of the sidewalk.

After a morning of email and surreptitious photography around the library, I re-emerge in the manuscript room today at 2p. I fill out a request form with an official classmark: DAR 115.189 (volume 115, covering correspondence between Darwin and his friend and confidante, a botanist named J.D. Hooker), and the librarian hands me a large green volume about the size of an atlas containing all correspondence between the two men between 1863-1864. I have two years of Darwin’s letters in my hands. I lay the book on a pillow and flip open to a random page. There, on stationery about the size of the scratch pad near my cordless phone at home, is Charles Darwin’s handwriting.

It begins with a dateline:

July night

My dear Hooker

It is very good of you to think of William;

And then something about an invitation and sea-sickness, and regret. More humps and dotted I’s interspersed with an occasional recognizable word: Southhampton, 1 Carlton Terrace. It’s like he’s writing with his toes.

I flip the page. And another. And another. I’m having trouble making much of any of it. And yet am mesmerized. He’s mainly discussing family issues. Little things, cordialities and odd observations on, for example, the quizzical nature of stamp-collectors. But when he breaks into his career, it becomes clear that he’s exasperated and exhausted. He uses words like indignation and disagreeable when talking about the church's interpretation of his work. He mentions how Origin half-killed him. I request another volume, this one mainly between his wife, Emma, and various others. She jokes about Darwin’s handwriting. Much of the papers are in another language. French? Italian? Latin? Some appear to be early taxonomy grids.

At this point, it’s 5p. I’ve been looking at these papers for nearly three hours. My entire nourishment for the day: 1 banana, 3 cups of coffee, and a “fruit” scone. I’m woozy. I turn in the final volume, collect my belongings, and excuse myself.

Stop now if you’re not one for melodrama.

As I walk from the university toward my bed & breakfast, I begin to think about what I just saw. I’m not going to belabor this, but I will say that today I learned something about the difference between education and inspiration. I’ll be 37 years old in about an hour. I live in a hyper-networked world, work in an industry of information overload, and am never more than a few keystrokes away from the answer to almost any question I can imagine. And yet I'm not sure I've ever felt as close to actual knowledge.

You might say it's like I went to church today. Except that church never made me feel this way.

Roman (mini) Holiday
Europeans know how to holiday...and never miss an opportunity to practice their skill. I was excited to hear that my new employer starts everyone with four weeks of vacation. By American standards, it's a liberal allotment, which I intend to do my damndest to exploit. Europeans, on the other hand, would scoff at the horror of only having 20 vacation days per year. "You mean 20 days plus all of August?" they might ask. To understand this sense of relaxation entitlement and get some hints on how to use my four weeks, I decided to visit the heart of European R&R, Italy -- where the average worker gets more than seven weeks vacation -- on what turned out to be the first great beach weekend of the year.

Have you ever been to a city twice and experienced it completely differently the second time? Heather and I traveled to Rome a handful of years ago. We gaped at the Colliseum, craned our necks in the Sistine Chapel, strolled around the fountains of the Campo di Fiore, marveled at how every piece of architecture was more than a thousand years old, and watched an ailing Pope struggle to lift his chin off his chest while presiding over mass at St Peter's. We were Americans in a foreign land, hiding our Rick Steves' guide while treading lightly in anything but the sort of sneakers that shout, "Americans coming!" And it was great. But this time, I saw a Rome that doesn't know Rick Steves, the Rome that Romans call home -- courtesy of two of the city's adopted citizens, my old pal Bernhard, a gravelly-voiced, quick-with-a-smile Italophile from Jersey and his charming bride-to-be, Christina, who hails from Perugia.

I traveled on Ryanair from a small airport in the general proximity of London to its equivalent on the outskirts of the Italian capital. That's what Ryanair does. They fly you for dirt-cheap from somewhere in the vicinity of where you are to somewhere in the vicinity of where you want to be. You're only allowed one bag, the seats don't recline, and the flight attendants try to sell you everything short of their own mothers ("Ladies, do you want your man to smell like David Beckham? Then buy him David Beckham's INSTINCT from the Ryanair saver cart for only 17 pounds sterling!"). It's not the sort of treatment anyone could handle for more than a couple hours at a time. But that's the beauty of Europe -- everything is within a few hours by air of wherever you happen to be.

Bernie and Xtina (as she's affectionately referred to on the Internet) picked me up at the airport and gave me a Roman's tour of the city -- which is to say, perpetually lost, heart-stoppingly close to a car on every side, always in danger of ramming a scooter that just ran a red light, and waving it all off with a hand gesture that, conveniently, doubles for Mangia! First stop, an amazing little restaurant where no one speaks English, everyone goes "off the menu" (because there isn't one), and the fresh pasta only just covers a bowl full of off-the-boat muscles, clams, calamari, and fresh tomatoes. We awoke the next morning early to make the trek to Saubadia, a Meditteranean beachtown about halfway to Naples, where we met up with Stefano, Lara, and Davide. Davide loves gelato and has a 3-year-old's preternatural ability to repeat everything, such as the time he recently said to his shocked grandmother, "Grandma, today is a good day to die" (from "Little Big Man"). We retired to Stefano's parents' beach house, where Bernhard stoked the fire and grilled a couple of sea bass and we watched the Italy-US world cup match on a TV about the size of a video ipod. The US team refused to lose and Bernhard, Xtina and I barely managed to escape the tiny town of Italian flags and airhorns.

Day three brought bikes in the park, a trip to the largest of the city's catacombs (the dead cities beneath Rome), where 500,000 Christians were buried, a few bottles of wine at casa Bernie/Xtina and another wonderful meal, over which we debated the merits of French cuisine (great sauce designed to merely cover up an inattention to the actual ingredients, Bernie argued, while Xtina nodded approvingly), versus an Italian's religious attention to the actual ingredients and active avoidance of any sort of sauce that would detract from the flavor of the dish itself. (With a sidebar on the curious notion of truffle-covered sushi.) I'm not wholly convinced of the argument, and fully intend to empirically test it over the next few weeks. But for now, I was happy to go along for the rhetorical ride -- and it's not like I could have argued with all that fresh pasta and Italian wine in my mouth. When in Rome...

Bridging the Cam
It's a three-hour hop from Reykjavik to Heathrow and another 90 minutes to Cambridge by chauffer-driven Volvo (or, for the commons, 50 minutes by train). Ask the locals upon arrival, "Where's the University of Cambridge?", and you're bound to get a confused look. I know this first-hand. It's not because the university has a small presence. It basically is the town. But rather, because nobody really speaks of Cambridge as a university. Instead, it's a loose collection of colleges, each with its own admissions requirements, governing body, storied tradition, and distinguished faculty. Americans are obviously familiar with the rivalry between the two oldest universities in the English-speaking world, Oxford and Cambridge. And that rivalry stands to reason: Cambridge was founded early in the 13th century by protesting Oxford scholars. But there seems to be greater angst among the Cambridge colleges themselves – Trinity, Queens', King's, Peterhouse, St John's, and Clare, among many others – which plays itself out in the form of weird, funny, and sometimes cruel pranks, often administered by students on unwitting and hopelessly outnumbered porters (more on that wackiness and the very British notion of porters in a subsequent post, perhaps).

It's humbling to walk the cobblestone streets and narrow alleyways of the same intellectual breeding ground that gave the world Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Stephen Hawking -- not to mention C.S. Lewis, Sylvia Plathe, E.M. Forster, Salman Rushdie, and Vladimir Nabokov. (I've left out so many accomplished alumni and Nobel winners, it's absurd.) Studying here is doubly so. Just walking through a door that says, PRIVATE NO ENTRY, in a place like this is pretty intimidating. But, of course, in real life I'm paid to trek in the footsteps of those far smarter than me and even confront them on occasion. There's the rationalization I've used to keep myself from paralysis. Couple it with the surprising realization that some of the scientists addressing the fellows seem more nervous than we do, and I've so far been getting through the days just fine.

Why would they be nervous? Maybe it's because we have them all to ourselves -- that in any given session we outnumber the presenting scientist like so many students on a hapless porter. Or maybe the scientists feel like they're under pressure to perform, that they have to earn their speaker's fee, or that they're after something more from the Very Rich Foundation (almost like they're auditioning). Maybe it's because the other journalists I'm with have incredible resumes -- each one more accomplished than the next, all incredibly bright and perceptive. (I'm intimidated, and I only have to sit near them.) Or maybe it's just because journalists just plain make people uncomfortable. But now I'm just speculating, and clearly getting ahead of myself. Let me back up and say a bit about the mission, the itinerary, and all the bad food that the English caterers have been jamming down our throats like corn pellets into the gullets of a flock of Sonoma County ducks.

Sir John Templeton made billions on Wall Street (you know his name from what's now called the Franklin-Templeton family of mutual funds). He is, from what I've read, an open-minded, 93-year-old Christian who has made it his mission late in life to encourage the scientific study of religion -- its ramifications, manifestations, basis, evolution, etc. -- which he's funding through the auspices of the Templeton Foundation. The foundation puts $1 million a year into the program I'm part of, along with another $2 million+ that goes every year to the one scientist deemed to be making the greatest contribution to the study of religion (the award is deliberately adjusted upward to keep it just slightly grander than the prize given by the Nobel committee). On top of all that, the foundation offers many grants and doesn't seem to censor the findings. Witness last spring's collosal study on intercessory prayer, which found that praying for the ailing may, in fact, hinder the chances of recovery from a terminal illness. Gah! Of course, there's a harsher take on the foundation, and in that view, it looks something like this: a Christian-centric, anti-Semitic, male-dominated organization run by Sir John's evangelical son, Jack, a man with a clear directive to promote faith and little patience for his father's more altruistic quest for truth.

It's early to tell if there's a real agenda that goes beyond the stated one -- to get journalists to think critically about whether science and religion are a) inherently at odds, or b) in the words of Stephen Jay Gould, 'non-overlapping magesteria' that have little to do with each other, or c) complementary. So far, I haven't felt any pressure to move away from my pre-existing conceptions about religion. We've had atheists speak to us about the weaknesses of the religious argument -- including the brilliant English director Jonathan Miller and FSU professor and author Michael Ruse (Richard Dawkins was scheduled, but bowed out, we were told, because he was unhappy about how one of the fellows criticized his recent TV series on religion. Another speculation was that he was afraid to debate one of the theologian speakers, Keith Ward). Likewise, there have been several devout believers, most of whom subscribe to a malleable type of sci-ligion that's uncommon in the U.S. -- where the religion cedes to scientific evidence, and yet refuses to ever give way entirely. We've had several women speakers and a few Jews. Tomorrow is Islam day (albeit a half day), and in late July, upon our return, Buddhism. We've also had two Templeton Prize winners, John Barrow, an accomplished (but rather boring) cosmologist and theoretical physicist, and John Polkinghorn, president emeritus of Queens' College, where we're studying, as well as a professor of mathematical physics and an ordained minister (and a knight). To their credit, the speakers haven't blanched at exhanges that go something like this:

Polkinghorn: When it comes down to it, theism just has more answers than atheism.
Me: That's a tautological argument. Theism is always going to have one more answer, because when theists come upon a question they can't answer, they just say 'God did it.' Why don't you apply the scientific method to your faith?

More on the fellows, the speakers, the topics, the bad food, that exchange -- and anything else you're interested in -- in subsequent logs. It's late here, and I have to turn in. But my last thought before I do: The mission of this program is to examine whether it's possible to build bridges between two intractable, antagonistic masses. I have real doubts about whether this is possible without one body destroying -- or completely colonizing -- the other. And yet, I can't think of a better place to sequester a dozen journalists in the name of figuring it all out. I mean that in both an intellectual and methaphorical sense. Clearly, this place is steeped in a history of conceptual giants connecting disciplines that once seemed worlds apart. But it's also steeped in physical structures spanning the River Cam. Cambridge is about bridges.

A Sunny Perspective
You know that dreariness I first spoke of in an early reference to Reykjavik? I think I take it back. I think it was the jet lag, and the rain, and that I didn't have a proper coat, and that I saddled myself into subpar accomodtions, and, well, that I was a bit sad to be alone. In short, I was kinda grumpy -- and stressed. I needed the sun to come out. Not just light. Actual sun. It did. And when it did, it really changed the city's perspective.

I don't mean my perspective, although that's certainly true. (A good night of sleep also improved my mood.) And I'm not talking about the normal way that sunshine brings people out of their homes and onto the streets -- although that's also true. What I mean is, when the sun came out, it changed the way the city appeared. Reykjavik actually blossomed in the sunshine. I've never been to the Parthenon, but I've heard that some of the sculptures there were deliberately crafted to take advantage of the movement of the sun and the resulting shadows. That is, when the light approaches the statue from different angles, it creates the impression that the fabric of a robe, for example, is flowing. I think there's more than a bit of that going on here.

Have a look at the Solfar sculture at the top of this post. Solfar means "sun voyager," and the sculpture, in case you can't easily tell, is of a viking ship. There's much celebration here of Iceland's viking heritage, including monuments to Leifur Eiriksson (who, as people are quick to say, almost certainly discovered North America hundreds of years before Columbus), and, I'm sure, Viking Festivals. This is a beautiful sculpture on a few levels. It's elegant and understated and evocative. (reminds me of someone I know well, in fact.) I walked up to it -- actually, down to it, from the elevated centre of town. Two locals sat on the bench by the water. One barked Icelandic into his mobile while the other drank a Viking beer out of a paper bag. I sat down, popped in my earphones, and just looked. The most obvious thing about the sculpture's placement is the way that it almost seems to float on the water. That's very cool. And you can see the snow-capped Mount Esja in the background, which makes for an amazing backdrop. In guidebooks, you often see the Solfar with the sun setting behind it... a stunning photo. I was there at probably 4 o'clock. The sun was still, give or take, overhead, and it beamed off the sculpture in many directions. There's a lot to see in the piece: viking hats, viking shoulders, legs, oars -- or aliens, or any number of other things. But almost as interesting as the sculpture itself, I found, was the shadow beneath it, cast upon a white marble slab. It offered another dimension, evoking other images entirely. The shadow seems to have a head and the legs look more like a ribcage. It seems to have a different form and, in a weird way, as much life as the scultpure itself.

I won't go on about every photo I've put here. But indulge me another couple quick examples. City Hall, in the second photo, is generally noted for the way it seems to be almost emerging from the water. But it also attracts the light that's bouncing off the water. From the outside, it reflects and deflects sunshine -- back onto the lake, into the sky, at onlookers. From the inside, it absorbs it, incorporates it. Now look at the photo on the left. It's a pretty unremarkable shot of rooftops from the steeple of Reykjavik's prized volcano-shaped cathedral, Hallgrimskirkja. But look at the colors. Walking the streets, looking at the houses of the city, you see bright yellows and deep greens and aqua blues. Every color seems to be a statement, a tasteful, thoughtful expression. That sounds strange or pretentious, even. But it wasn't. It just gave me a sense that people thought about what they were doing and how they were fitting into -- and complementing -- their environment. Look at the rooftops. Clearly, there's little functional value in having a red rooftop, and yet they're dotted all over, contrasting and complementing green and blue and white and turquoise rooftops. It's not something you'd really notice unless you were standing at the top of Hallgrimskirkja, and then only if the sun is shining.

I've read that everyone in Iceland is either an artist or a musician or yearning to be one of the above. My visit hasn't been long enough to empirically test that statement, but it does certainly seem to be a place that's heavy on creativity. And not just artistic expression; true creativity. That kind of thing doesn't happen by chance. It comes through exposure and education (and funding of the arts, of course) and by, in all other ways, fostering a culture that rewards such a thing. The country hasn't had much of an economy to rely on over the years. There's been fishing and, well, anything they can figure out a way to export, like wool. Usually when that's true of a place, political leaders decide to develop a service-based economy to attract tourist dollars. Which usually translates to importing all the comforts of home -- starbucks, 14 oz steaks, four-star hotels. Iceland has definitely been pushing itself to international visitors recently, and as a result has increased tourism by something like 75 percent in the last four years. They do this through some of the usual methods, taking out ads, and writing literature about how, yes, Iceland may go dark in the winter, but in fact, if you work it all out, the average day in Reykjavik gets more sunshine than the average day in Miami Beach. All that -- and the fact that Iceland Air allows you to stop over in Reykjavik for as long as you want, at no additional fare -- worked on me. But what's different about Iceland from other places of stunning natural beauty like, oh, the Bahamas, is that it actually has something to offer beyond its place in the world. There are no Starbucks here. And more importantly, you get a sense when you're here that Icelanders aren't exploiting their natural resoures as much as they're flourishing in them. You come here and you feel like you're somewhere else. And that's the kind of thing that makes a tourist like me want to come back.