The Metaphorical Resonances of the London Underground

My last day in London was pretty wonderful. I didn't do anything dramatic or expensive or crazy. I just
hit up all the old familiar places. I walked around the city that I'd come to think of as mine. I said goodbye to the wonderful host family that put up with me for several months. I had a last drink at our favorite pub with all my favorite London people. I said a tearful goodbye to my roommate who literally could not have been a more perfect match for me.

On Hampstead Heath

I spent my last day with my friends Katie and Jessica. We did things that we never took the time to do usually, like stand in the incredibly long line at King's Cross to get our picture taken at Platform 9 3/4 (totally worth it). We wandered around our lovely city, enjoying the fact that we knew our way around without a map and that we could navigate the tube with little stress. We looked out over Hampstead Heath at the iconic view of London.

Last selfie with my roommate

The fourteen of us who were part of the program got together at The Junction, our standard meeting
place throughout the semester for one last hurrah. We were minus a few people who had to leave early-I witnessed the saddest goodbye of all, when my friends Jessica and Megan said goodbye in the Harrow on the Hill tubes station. To say there were tears is an understatement. Later, after our night at the Junction in which there were many toasts and an impromptu piano sing along (piano performance by Denae McGaha), the rest of us said goodbye at that same tube station.

Goodbyes at The Junction

To say goodbye at a Tube station was pretty metaphorically resonant of us. Trains taking us to other places. The Metropolitan line-the first train line that we took together and the last. The train line that meant we were headed home.

I know London has been there for hundreds of years and will, in all likelihood, be there for hundreds more. But I won't ever be able to recapture those specific four months spent in a place I loved with people I grew to love. That's okay. I was lucky.

I'm Alive!

I am, in fact, still alive and home safely! I've been a little lax on the blogging because I had to say goodbye to England, spent some time in Italy, went home very briefly and then started my new job for the summer. So it's been kind of crazy! I have a whole bunch of stuff still to say about Europe and my trip in general, so I'll be doing some blogging about the past from the future.  Keep an eye out for it!

It was just hard to write blog posts when I was chillin' with Mount Vesuvius.  

Daily Commute

A short photo essay about my daily commute in to school, as it's such an essentially London experience. There are a dozen ways for me to get in to the city, but this is the route I take most often! (note: this was taken on a good day. A bad day involves signal failure, train delays and a lot of really fast walking)

                        8:45 am                                                             8:46 am                                                             8:55 am
      Leaving the house (right on time)                 My street on a rainy day                                The footpath to the station

9:00 am
My home station: Northwick Park

                        9:04 am                                                              9:05 am                                                             9:07 am
Just in time for the all stations to Aldgate           The best line is the Met line                   Free newspaper (learn, America)

9:35 am
King's Cross/St. Pancras station - The majesty of St. Pancras never fails to make me pause

                                              9:40 am                                                                                                  9:42 am
                                Beautiful tree lined street                                                Sometimes on nice days I stroll through the
                                                                                                                                              public park on my way in
      

                                           9:47 am                                                                                                  9:50 am
       No unsupervised adults allowed in Coram's Fields                                              Best street in London! 

9:51 am
Home, sweet home, with nine minutes to spare!

All the World's a Stage...

Do not get in the Ophelia boat

…and everything in Stratford-Upon-Avon is named after Shakespeare. Everything. Pubs, shops, these boats, everything. We spent two days there for class and I think I saw every Shakespeare pun ever invented. It's an adorable town, with great countryside a short walk away, but I have to imagine that the residents might find it less so. After all, there's not really much to do, aside from go to the pub or the theater (which is why I am going to retire there in an adorable cottage and do nothing but attend the theater, go to the pub, hike, and work in my garden). Or visit the numerous Shakespeare museums and locations, but then you'd have to join in the swarms of tourists. I'm sure it's a love-hate relationship.

Gorgeous sunshine trail

Burial site of the Bard himself

Of the many Shakespeare-related places we visited (Shakespeare's birthplace, grave, Halls' Croft, Shakespeare's school, ect), Anne Hathaway's cottage was definitely my favorite, if only for the spectacular speech given by our guide, who was wonderfully enthusiastic. It also just has these beautiful gardens that are worth the price of admission. Of course, we had to partake of the theater while we were there. Our play of choice (our teacher's choice, technically) was King Henry IV, Part 1, which featured the COOLEST SWORD FIGHT I've ever seen. Not that I've seen many. But it was spectacular.

The castle itself

On the way home from The Land of Shakespeare we stopped to visit Warwick Castle, which is kind of half theme park, half museum. I'm a sucker for castles regardless of their level of tourism, and Warwick did not disappoint. Apart from the minority terrifying wax figurines, it was great. I wish I could go back in the summer though, because there's jousting and a fireball display with their replica trebuchet. What's not to like about that?

I also wish I had appropriate contrasting photos to show how wonderful the weather was the first day and how terrible it was the second day (way to be typical, England), but this is the best I can come up with:

Day 1

Day 2

We managed to snap a great group shot at Shakespeare's birthplace while the sun was still out, however, so I present to you AHA International Spring Semester 2014, complete with Mary, our assistant director on the right.

Tea-ventures and Abbey Road

Sometimes it's fun to just spend a weekend doing tourist things. I spend so much of my time here actively resisting looking or acting like a tourist that going into the tourist "zones" is sometimes a relief. I can pull my camera out without furtively checking over my shoulder to make sure I'm not ruining my Londoner facade.

Our host mum graciously bought Jordanne and I a voucher for a full afternoon tea in Maida Vale, which was delicious. A full tea, for the uneducated, typically means sandwiches, scones, dessert, and of course, tea. Sometimes the fancier ones have more food, plus alcohol. Our was perfect and delicious and I felt very fancy and proper eating it.

Afterwards we meandered over to Abbey Road, which is one very posh neighborhood away from Maida Vale. Like, seriously, I now have about six different dream houses in that area. It was incredible. I want to go back just to drool over the beautiful architecture. The Brits do fancy houses better than us Americans-they go for history rather than size and newness. The best houses are the old ones, not the McMansions.

Once on Abbey Road Jordanne and I stopped at every zebra crossing (that's crosswalk to you uninitiated) and were like, "Is this it? It can't be it. There has to be more fanfare." Eventually we found it, right outside the famed studios. People have left tributes on the wall outside which were alternately touching and hilarious. The studio is still a work space (we saw a guy with a trombone go in), which makes me happy as I know it's suffered some financial troubles.

And yes, I did the walk.

Spring Breakers 2: Escape From Spain

So my roommate and I had a little adventure trying to get out of Spain after break. I'm going to preface this with the fact that I'm sure y'all have had way worse travel stories than this. This is a mild situation, like Travel War Story Level 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. But still. It was rough at the time.

The sun sets on our last day in Granada

I was somewhat shocked when, on our way into Spain, we descended directly from the plane onto the tarmac at the Madrid airport like some kind of rockstar or diplomat (although I doubt rockstars have to ride crowded buses to the terminal-I think they get limos). I was even more surprised when the Granada airport turned out to be a small building with four gates and minimal security. We could basically walk straight off the plan and cross the tarmac to our bus into town.

This was great coming in and less so leaving, because there were NO OFFICIAL LOOKING PEOPLE around to ask why our plane was mysteriously delayed for 45 minutes. I still don't know. It was like the staff turned up to scan boarding passes when it was time and then apparated back home until the next flight. Needless to say, the delay severely cut into our 55 minute layover at Madrid (booking a flight with only a 55 minute layover was mistake #1). When we touched down (again, straight onto the tarmac), we had about ten minutes to find our gate and catch our flight.

The risen sun was too bright in our losing eyes
 (10 points if you get the reference)

Now, this is the thing about the Madrid airport. I have a deep seated dislike for it based on both my incoming and outgoing experiences, and I know others who share my feelings. Instead of being laid out in some sensible way, it's just stretched, like as long as they could possibly make it, which makes getting from one gate to another (inevitably at the opposite end) just awful. The ceiling rafters are painted in a rainbow and you just spend the walk looking at the ceiling and desperately hoping the colors will shift from orange to yellow soon.

Back to the story. Ten minutes. Terrible airport. Jordanne and I started booking it towards the gate ASAP, with our huge backpacks on our backs. We ran towards our gate until we hit a train, at which point we realized the gate was in the other terminal, a 20 minute train ride and passport check away. At this point we had a minor breakdown on the train, much to the other passenger's enjoyment, I'm sure. We did the only thing we could-trudged to our gate in time to see the plane pulling away. Luckily, the next flight to Heathrow was only an hour away, we had no checked luggage, and they just printed us new boarding passes. Unfortunately, the gate was back in the terminal we'd just sprinted through.

So. We went. Back on the train, back through passport control, back through security (only to realize we'd filled up our water bottles in Granada and had to basically drown ourselves to drink it all in two minutes), and then through passport control again. Judging by my passport, I entered, exited, and reentered Spain all within the space of about twenty minutes. By the time we made it to the new gate, the flight was already boarding and all thoughts of bathroom use or food gathering were lost.

The point here is, of course, that we made it home. Had an adventure, have a story to tell. And that's one of the great reasons for traveling, isn't it? To have stories to tell.

Titanic Tip and Daring Dash, Adventurers Slash Explorers
(It's like a contest to see how many pop culture references I can make in one blog post.
Another 10 points for getting this one)

In Which I Make You Incredibly Jealous

Transcript of a Facebook chat prior to spring break:

Maylen: Do you have a swimsuit?

Me: Um. Yes? Why?

Maylen: I have a surprise for you once you get to Spain. 

But it requires 25 euros. And a swimsuit.

Me: Is it worth 25 euros?

Maylen: It's worth it.

She was right. It was worth it. Maylen had been holding this secret over Jordanne and my heads for over a week. We kept quizzing her about it, "Is it like, active swimming? No?" We figured out that it wasn't a regular swimming pool and it wasn't a water park, but we had no idea what else it could be. Finally, about an hour before we went to whatever it was going to be, she told us. We were going to the baths. Like, traditional Islamic baths. The kind that involves a cycle involving three different kind of bath and a sauna. It was, needless to say, heavenly.

We were greeted at the baths by a handsome Spanish man named Fernando who explained to us that there were three baths: a huge, swimming pool type bath of warm water, a long shallow bath of hot water, and a deep, square pool of cold water. The point was to circulate throughout the three types (with occasional breaks for the sauna or tea), starting with the warm and ending with the cold. Naturally, this meant that when you jump in the cool pool you have about three minutes of complete temperature shock where you're sure you are going to die before your body adjusts. It was perfect. Our 25 euro also covered a ten minute, full body, hot oil massage, which is something I think every student should have a legal right to at least once a month.

 The best thing about the baths (after the massage, obviously) was that it's a really communal experience. Everyone is in the little groups they came in, of course, but we found ourselves going round and round the cycle with the same group of people and doing what communication we could without really sharing a language. Shrieks of surprise at the shock of cold water translate into every language.

Slightly damp but happy

Spain Recap

So I'm sitting here at the tail end of spring break, having spent the last six and a half days in Granada, Spain, trying to think about what I want to say in this blog post. As usual, I don't think I'll be able to keep it to just one blog post. It's going to be another week of me blabbing on about Spain. I would say I'm sorry…but I'm not.


So, to recap. My lovely roommate Jordanne and I flew out to Granada via Madrid last Friday to meet my friend Maylen who is studying there. Maylen served as tour guide during our stay, showing us her city. We visited the Alhambra, Albayzín, walked along the river, went to a traditional Islamic bathhouse, met (and were fed by) Maylen's host family, and ate more churros than is probably legal. I'll get more specific about certain things (the ones that I feel like writing about extensively) later in the week, in other posts.

Needless to say, the whole experience was rather spectacular. Granada is so different from London, which seems like an obvious statement, but I found that the real difference were much more subtle than I expected. It goes way beyond the fact that we speak different languages (side note: I feel like my many years of Spanish language education were somehow leading up to this, and I have to say, I performed credibly well, except teachers have lied to me my entire life about the words for "juice" and "bathroom"). Spain has a whole different pace of life. Everything is later, lunch at 2 pm, dinner at 10 pm. From 3 to 5 pm or so hardly anything is open due to siesta time. I can't imagine anyone in Spain sprinting to catch the Tube like Londoners do on a regular basis. It was great for about three days, and then I started struggling with it. First of all, I'm a morning person, so when dinner doesn't even start until I'm basically asleep, its a problem. Secondly, I don't do "slow paced" very well. I walk fast. I work hard. I'm not into taking two hours out of every day to do nothing. It was great for vacation, but not for forever.

That's a fairly vague recap, but keep a weather eye on the horizon (or this blog, whichever) for more detailed Spain posts later this week!

Bath (Not that kind of bath)

Friday our group went on a lovely day trip to Bath, a town about an hour and a half from London made famous by some Romans and Jane Austen. You can tell which one I'm more interested in. The day threatened to be miserable but managed to pull itself together and become rather beautiful instead. I have to pause a moment in this narrative to talk about how much I love trains, which we take to get everywhere. They are so much more relaxed and comfortable than airplanes. Train stations are prettier and so much nicer than airports. Abolish airports. Up with trains.

Anyway. Once in Bath we toured the beautiful ancient Bath Abbey that featured incredible high

ceilings, gorgeous stained glass, and an organ that I could actually take a photo of (PLU students will understand that joke).  As always, it was difficult to fully comprehend the age and history of the place. After the abbey we went on a miniature Jane Austen tour past the house where she (probably) lived, the royal crescent where rich people would parade themselves, and the assembly rooms that JANE HERSELF PROBABLY WENT TO BALLS IN. Needless to day, I enjoyed myself.

After a Cornish pasty break (delicious) and a trip to the river, we got to tour the actual Roman baths. I love the way the museum was designed. It was built around the baths rather than over the top of them, so you can still see how everything worked and where the water flowed to and from in the Roman days. They don't actually let you in the baths anymore (they aren't what you would call clean), but you can try to drink some of the water at the end. It isn't great. Imagine you accidentally swallowed some warm, slightly shampoo-flavored (flavoured, I guess, because England) water. That's about what it tastes like. However, I am now apparently cured of all ailments, so I guess it was worth it.

All in all a charming way to spend a day. If you think I didn't read Persuasion on the train on the way back, you are wrong. 

More pictures: 

Drinking the, um, lovely water

BATHS!

Me not going in the baths

Reading Austen in the Assembly Rooms

The Royal Crescent

Bath Abbey

My Weekend With Maylen

There was (unfortunately) significantly less Eddie Redmayne in my weekend with Maylen than in his week with Marilyn, but it was spectacular nonetheless. Maylen is currently studying away in Grenada, Spain, and we decided to do a little inter country exchange. So she came down for the weekend and I'm headed to Spain with my roommate Jordanne for spring break.

I made sure that Maylen got the English essentials: fish and chips, tea, and a visit to a pub (the Sherlock Holmes pub, so even better). We also got up earlier than should really be technically allowed for a weekend to wait in line to get tickets to Matilda. IT WAS WORTH IT. First of all, the tickets only cost £5, so that's a steal considering the usual rate of £30+. Seeing the musical just made me remember what an important story Matilda is for children to read and see, because Roald Dahl doesn't sugar coat it. He tells it like it is. Sometimes school sucks and parents suck and people are mean. But equally, sometimes we have friends and teachers and experiences that are wonderful. Not to mention the fact that the 10 year olds in the cast were more talented than I'll ever be.

Her being here also made me really think about what I like about London, what I want to do with people when they come here, what I want to show them. Because living here it just becomes home. I go to work, I got to class, go about my daily routine without really thinking about the parts that I like or hate about London. But seeing through Maylen's eyes made me appreciate the city again, from a whole new angle than I used to. My initial love was based on wide eyed awe and the newness of being here. Now I have favorite places and don't have to look at a map and love it because it feels like home.

Scotland Week Part 3: Arthur's Seat

In Edinburgh, you basically have two ends to the city. At one end is Edinburgh castle, high on a hill above the city. At the other end, connected by a road called The Royal Mile, is Holyrood Palace and the Scottish Parliament building, backed by the dramatic scenery of Arthur's Seat. On our free afternoon in Edinburg a few of my friends and I casually decided to climb Arthur's Seat. It was nice out, we were in Scotland, why not?  We clearly had no idea what we were doing.

It started out so civilized

Halfway up. I didn't know what was coming, clearly.

First of all, we were confused as to which mountain was actually Arthur's Seat. There's a really distinctive one that we all thought was the Seat, but it turns out it's an entirely different hill. Arthur's Seat is behind it, and about twice as high. Secondly, none of us were particularly dressed for hiking. We were wearing boots of the non-hiking variety, and Denae was in a dress. Lastly, we had't read the weather very well at all. 

The tippy top!

At first it seemed like everything would be fine. The path, while not paved per say, was graveled and fairly flat. Then it started to slope up. And up. And up. It finally got the point where we were basically rock climbing without a rope. It felt that way to me, at least. Now, I realize that Scottish "mountains" are little tiny babies when compared with, like, Mt. Hood, but tell that to me when I'm clinging to the side of one. Then, predictably, as soon as we hit the top it started storming. Incredible wind combined with moderate rain and the exposed face of a mountaintop makes for uncomfortable hikers. We didn't even stay at the top long enough to eat the celebratory fudge we'd bought ahead of time.

All worth it for the spectacular view

So then we had to crawl down, now with the additional challenge of inclement weather that had turned the solid dirt to muddy slip n slides. Through an act of God, none of us really fell over, though I did end up with a sizable bruise on my thigh. It was dark and windy and cold and wet and we were miserable. By the time we hit the bottom, we still had a twenty plus minute walk to our hostel. Dripping and freezing, we burst through the doors like we'd found the gates to Heaven. 

Wet and cold but still happy

As crazy and miserable as it was, all any of us could talk about afterwards was the story. Now we have a story, a conversation we can start with "Remember that time we climbed a volcano in Scotland in a storm?" That's what living life is all about, right? Having shared experiences we can talk and laugh about for the rest of our lives.

The mountain that did not beat us