ABOUT ME

I'm a pretty solid character. A good older brother and son, up for adventures but also comfortable and easy going.

Interests

I'm living in Switzerland as a well-educated ski bum. I also love traveling to Kassel for avant-garde art festivals (I just joined CouchSurfing for dOCUMENTA (13)).

• arts
• avant-garde art
• festivals
• traveling
• skiing
• art history
• teaching
• history

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

The Tower of the Winds is the highest point in the Vatican Archives. It is not open to the public, but through my art history professor, I was able to visit it while living in Rome. The room at the top of the tower was commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1578 to measure the correct length of the year. The previous Julian calendar had slightly overestimated the length of the year, which in the centuries since Julius Caesar had added up to ten extra days. The top room in the Tower is 4-sided, lavishly frescoed, and on each side are characters of the North, South, East and West winds. The mouth of the South Wind has a small hole in it. The sun shines through this hole, and on the spring equinox strikes a bronze meridian in the floor. The Vatican astronomers used this experiment to recalculate the length of the year, which is why we now use the Gregorian calendar.

Countries I’ve Visited

Cambodia

Countries I’ve Lived In

Denmark, Ecuador, Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States