Ok you whiners, here's your new post ;)

I went to Cannes on one of my days off last week. Just off the coast of Cannes lies the Ile de Sainte-Marguerite. There's a cool old fort on the island, along with the prison where the "Man in the Iron Mask" (Leonardo DiCaprio) was held captive. I couldn't take pictures inside the cell, but here's a shot of the outside:



His cell was the 2nd or 3rd window from the left.

Here are some more pictures of Cannes:







On Monday I left Nice (and the sea) for Turin. I'm here in order to see a little baby Neandertal frontal bone & a collection of modern human crania. This collection is absolutely amazing. But first, I've got to tell you how wonderful the people in the Dipartimento di Anatomia are.





Everyone here is really great and unbelievably helpful. They all get along really well with each other & go out for lunch together every day. The director of the department actually made my hotel reservation for me, met me at my hotel my first morning here & dragged the shapecam over to the department himself. He has treated me to lunch twice already this week, and offered to contact other people in Italy in order to help me get permission to see other fossil skulls in the country. Oh yeah -- and he's offered me copies of some French dissertations that he thinks may be helpful for my project. So great.

The collection is also fabulous. They have over 1 thousand skulls that were collected in the 19th century from the med school & local prisons. They know the age at death and sex of each skull, and in some cases they also know the birth date & name of the individual. They also have the brains from a great majority of them too (hint, hint, Melissa...) You all need to come here & see this collection. Even if your work has nothing whatsoever to do with human crania, you should still come here. Even if just for the frequent espresso breaks & the great restaurant just down the street where the owner's mother makes all the pasta herself at home.

I don't have many photos of Turin yet, unfortunately. I've been working all day, every day, and I may not get to see much of the city at all. I guess the purpose of this trip is research, so I shouldn't really complain (it's not like I haven't had much time to explore any of the other places I've been to, right?)