london calling

Heathrow – December 22, 2010

Just ran into my friend Zach from SIT study abroad… he has been living at Heathrow for the past 6 days because his standby flight got canceled the first day and it’s been a disaster ever since. His dad flies for United so he had a free ticket to Europe… but no guarantee that he’d leave on schedule. Pinch me but I think we’ll be able to leave!

The Tube

Riding the Tube and reading the Evening Standard, the Daily Mail, the Metro – all the free papers you get in the underground system – definitely an excellent way to people-watch in London. Dad and I got “Oyster” cards – a week pass on the central London public transit – and, as anyone who knows my dad can imagine – we spent a lot of quality time calculating our cost per tube ride etc. I can’t pretend that I didn’t contribute!

Ferry Ride to Greenwich:

I was still not feeling that healthy on our last day in London so dad and I planned another calmer day – a ferry ride along the river Thames to Greenwich (British pronunciation =Grenitch). One of the crewmembers gave a lively and rather informative narration of the riverside from Westminster Pier down to the Tower Bridge (next to the Tower of London) where we had to change ferries. The tide was so high that many of the larger ferryboats couldn’t make it under any of the bridges further upriver of the Tower Bridge. I had no idea how extreme tide changes are in London – as much as 7 meters difference! Once in Greenwich we had a proper greasy fish’n’chips and then headed off to the Royal observatory. Greenwich was originally a totally separate city from London and though it’s now well within the official boundaries of London proper it very much retains it’s distinct and self-sufficient flavor. In addition to being an all around fun planetarium/astronomy museum the Royal Observatory defines the longitude of 0! So, like any self-respecting tourists we straddled the Eastern and Western hemispheres.

*A note: The Brits do make fun of us Americans for a whole variety of reasons – we seem to be easy, naïve, gregarious targets. One of these reasons pertains to the Tower Bridge. Back in the early 1900s a wealthy man from Arizona bought London Bridge to bring back to his hometown when London was putting in a new one…. but he thought he was getting the Iconic Tower Bridge with the two ancient-looking towers and brilliant blue cables. When the bridge got to Arizona he actually asked…. but where’s the top?

Visiting with Sandra in Brixton

During my gap-year after High School I met a British woman in her early thirties while crossing into Laos from Thailand. We were both traveling on our own and made the snap decision that the other wasn’t too insane so we’d stick together looking for a hotel room that night. As she later put it we had paid to be refugees: we took a slow, slow boats from Thailand to Luang Prabang along the Mekong river for two days. The views were gorgeous but there wasn’t anything to do so we got to be pretty good friends! We ended up traveling together (along with two Irish boys) for a week or so. About a month later we met up in Hoi An, Vietnam while she was moving south to Saigon and I north to Hanoi.

Well – the long story long is that she now works in London and I was able to see her! It was absolutely one of the highlights of London for me. The London underground was touch and go with all the ice and rescu trains heading after rescue trains etc… so it was really generous of my dad to accompany me to the end of the Victoria line and on a bus around Brixton to meet her. I loved seeing a totally random area of London that not even Rick Steves would think to send me to. There’s so much to London that it’s impossible to pretend you’re going to see it all… and I’d rather get some slices of random than all of the classic sites. We had dinner at a batty Brazilian restaurant – I can’t believe that’s the fourth country I’ve seen her in. I highly value maintaining those precious and unpredictable connections so thank you to my dad for helping me do so and thanks to Sandra for caring as well. Also reminds me of getting to know the family of Ann Ollivarius in London– my dad’s college friend. But first:

THE POGUES

While Dad was waiting for Sandra and I at the tube stop after our dinner (and his solo dive into a “real Londoner’s pub” he had about ten minutes to kill chatting up the cop outside the Tube station. This “bobby” (British) was there to keep scalpers at bay who were selling tickets to his beloved POGUES! By the time I got there I don’t think there was any question about the matter – Dad and I were going to see the Pogues. In his own works, “The cop worked me up in such a lather I just had to know what they were like!!” Oh Deane Minor. I was feeling pretty sick but I can’t say no to spontaneity so we started to haggle with the scalpers that Dad’s cop friend recommended. He wanted 160. Pounds. For two tickets, but still – No thank you. It was easy to play hard to get when we truly cared so little. So we watched the price trickle to 100, finally 85 and we were feeling pretty good…. until we realized we didn’t have that much between us. Luckily an ATM was located conveniently next to where the scalpers operate so one of the main man’s minions monitored our cash withdrawal….attempt. Turns out we just had the credit card, not the debit cards. Lame. So we had to say in all honesty that 45 pounds was the best we could do. At this point he had spent a solid ten minutes on us and I think he just liked us – so the guy grinned, shock our hands, said Merry Christmas and told us, “Congratulations – you scalped the scalpers!” I find this all particularly hilarious knowing my Dad… the man is honest to a fault if that’s possible. How he paid 45 pounds for a ace value total of 62 is a complete conundrum to both of us. By the way – the music was excellent! Ireland’s biggest rock band and for good reason. Dad was seriously bringing up the average age in the venue.

Saint Paul’s Cathedral

The Saint Paul’s audio guide tour that you get with entry into the cathedral is a prime example of excellent British museums. Excellent views of the city from the dome as well. Though he wasn’t an architect, Christopher Wren was commissioned to design the Cathedral as well as fifty-odd other churches - after the great London Fire of 1666 (spooky date…) Mr. Wren was simply accomplished at absolutely everything he undertook – math, astronomy – and soon – architecture! The genius move that struck me most in St. Paul’s was how he chose to craft the massive dome (which is a fixture of the London skyline, a symbol of the city). He knew that the dome would be more impressive from a distance if it were huge and elongated – not spherical. However, the same shape from the vantage point of worshippers inside the Cathedral would not be nearly as aesthetically pleasing. Moreover, Wren realized, the paintings on the underside of the dome would be hardly visible from such a distance. He therefore constructed a dome within a dome supported by a complicated scheme of rafters between the two. Wren happily was able to live to see the Cathedral built – in a “mere” 40-odd years. Compared to many European cathedrals that took over 200 years to construct that doesn’t seem too bad! Still, Dad and I found it interesting to compare these epic undertakings to the Mosques of equal complexity and size built in less than 10 years. Funding! The Sultan funded mosques whereas the church was in charge of Cathedral building.

The Tower of London: The building and entire complex is saturated in English history. British people also do a hell of a good museum so I really felt like I learned a lot wandering around through the different rooms and exhibits. Also - we started our Tower trip with a guided tour by one of the Yeoman Warders, the guards of the Tower of London and the official guards of Her Majesty the Queen. To be a Yeoman warder one must serve the British army for 22 years was distinguished awards (I forget the details) and you’ve got to be well versed in 900 years of history. The guards are still locked inside the Tower every night – along with their families! - at 10pm so there needs to be a doctor and chaplain on the grounds at all times. What an example of continued British tradition in a way that really would be unimaginable in the US.

Meeting Ann’s Family and learning about Dad’s past

Dad’s ***ex-girlfriend*** (from his wild college days, oh-la-la) has lived in London for the past 12 years practicing law. We stayed with her while we were in London – both in her city home and in a lovely home in the country. She keeps herself incredibly busy with work and she happened to have family in at the time as well but when we got to see her it was really wonderful. I hit it off with her kids – her two daughters are my age- extremely engaging and intelligent people. People always make the highlights of trips – for me at least.

Dad’s long hike in the country to the home of one of Britain’s most powerful barristers

“Goodbye, God Bless You, Love the Muffers”

On the day that I was feeling most sick Dad and I went to Westminster Abbey for the Evensong performance in attempt to find the lowest impact tourism possible. We did! Evensong is the evening worship that is largely sung – much less gospel, much more choir. It was still cold inside because massive cathedrals weren’t built with heating in mind and it’s been around freezing our whole stay in London. I was therefore wearing my panda earmuffs purchased in Croatia with Danika! On the way out I shook hands with several of the priests one of who said – and oh yes, I wrote “Goodbye, God Bless you, love the muffers!” All in the same measured, chipper voice. It was too good. He even tapped his ears jovially as an indication.

Walk around the City and Westminster and the South Bank!

Daddy took me out to a formal English teatime at The Wollesley. How proper and such. It included a three-tiered silver tray of cute little sandwiches with the crusts cut off, some beautiful tartlets/desserts, and scrumptious crumpets. Oh – and tea. Dad ordered beer (see previous post: ) People called me Madam and doted on me… how weird.

The Tate Modern – LOVED every minute of it. Some very weird stuff, but all stuff that I found thought provoking and/or beautiful.

Memory

Why do I do this? Why “blog”? Well. As much as it’s for my mother it’s for me as well. Someone having on the internet makes me feel like I “need to get a blog post up” in a way that wouldn’t be true if this were just a journal I was keeping on my laptop alone. I’ve really loved it. I don’t think it’s important to remember every little detail… but at the very same time I do find it indescribably important to cling to some details. Because what is life if it’s just done in broad brush strokes of “Went to the Aya Sophia…. saw Greenwich….etc?” I believe that facebook - and even digital cameras pre-social network mania – have changed the way we relate to our memories. It doesn’t really concern me that twenty years from now I will remember studying abroad and I might recall that time that I went on a hike through a vineyard near Lausanne (did I even blog about that? no clue) – maybe I’ll recall a hike along the waterfront when really we just sat there and drank wine and then wandered in the hills because they were gorgeous. What does it matter if I forget which Alpine mountain I went to? I know that the Swiss people are marvelous and terribly anal all at the same time. I’m glad for the impressions these countries and people have left on me. And I’m so glad that I decided to imprint a handful of these memories in my own words at ages 21-22. Italy will never be the same as it was as a 21 year-old about to turn 22 the next week. Now I can have these memories frozen in fall 2010 now and keep making new memories of what my study abroad months meant to me and come to mean to me for the rest of my life.