Tuesdays

Come the weekend, my first thought for the past few months has been what to do with Tuesday. Earlier in the semester, I took Tuesday as an occasion to explore parts of London I hadn't yet seen, like Richmond Park, the East End, the markets, and all that. At the beginning of March, I decided to spend a few Tuesdays getting out of the city and exploring the countryside. Despite this ambition, I ultimately went off to see places I had already been last summer: Stratford-Upon-Avon and Oxford. In my defense, I really wanted to see a show at the Royal Shakespeare Company again this semester and I also didn't get to spend as much time in Oxford as I wanted to last time.

So off I went, first to Stratford. Booking tickets on National Rail is really easy, and I was really excited to see that there was a direct train from Marylebone Station to Stratford. When I got to the station early Tuesday morning, I learned that a landslide had closed off a major part of the rail line I was taking (here's proof: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-31081630). So here's how National Rail resolved the crisis: take the train from London to Banbury (where I stayed last summer for two weeks), then a bus from Banbury to Leamington, then a train from Leamington to Stratford.

That sounds like a lot but it didn't add much time to the journey, I think only a half hour extra. It all went smooth until I arrived in Leamington, where they hadn't figured out the situation yet, so I was redirected to a "minibus." My only trouble was that the minibus driver had no idea what I was talking about when I asked "This is going to Stratford, right?" He leaped from the driver's seat and accosted the National Rail staff who redirected me, shouting "You can't keep doing this to me!" After a station manager got involved, the manic minibus moved along to Stratford. (Yes, I was witness to the entire ordeal, having inadvertently caused it...)

It was a bright day and I had a few hours to explore town. I revisited the site of Shakespeare's grave at the Holy Trinity Church. Last time I was there, the place was packed with tourists all tramping around taking selfies with the tomb; this time, I was the only one in the church. I did not go to the grave itself this time since it cost £2, so I just wandered around instead.

I went from there to walk along the River Avon for a bit; there I remembered that I had walked along a different part of the same river in Bath when I visited Shannon a few weeks earlier. I had a quick lunch at the Dirty Duck, the pub in Stratford where companies go after their shows; it's a great place to have a drink (we went a few times last summer) and it's close to the RSC. So I settled into my seat for the matinee of Much Ado About Nothing. I had studied this play with my class on film adaptations of Shakespeare, so it was weird to be watching the show without taking scrupulous mental notes. It was a terrific production, set in a manor turned convalescent home during wartime England.

You might notice a camera crane in that picture. The BBC was recording the production to broadcast in cinemas around the UK; this was their test-run for the final broadcast they would be making the next day. Without making any alterations to the original folio, the wartime motif was executed quite effectively even in this comedy full of wordplay and slapstick humor.

After the show I had a few hours before my three-leg return to London (thankfully, sans minibus). I wandered around the town and the river some more. I had considered dropping by the Shakespeare Institute to take a look at some academic happenings in town, but decided to stay outside since it was such a nice day. I continued meandering around town and along the river until I had to return to the station.

(I haven't quite worked out how to take good quality photos on the iPhone when it's very sunny out; maybe I'll figure it out before I leave.)

I actually enjoyed the ride back because I was able to watch the sunset behind a reel of fields and farms. I did not take any pictures of those moments--the train was going too fast, and there are times when I think a camera can be a bit intrusive on this kind of pseudo-sublime perceptive experience.

The next Tuesday trip was to Oxford; like my trip to Stratford, I traveled alone, however I was lucky enough to be meeting up with a friend, Marina, in Oxford. This is a very easy trip to make from Paddington Station, only an hour-long direct train. I met Marina, my former English Lit compatriot at Saint Michael's, and her boyfriend Sam at the station. They showed me around Worcester College, where Marina studied last year and Sam is still a student. I had toured St. Edmund's (Teddy) Hall last summer with a bursar and its smallness amazed me; Worcester seemed larger but still - like all the colleges there, I think - very intimate and community-oriented.

At Worcester College, Oxford: the archway through which Lewis Carroll first saw Alice Pleasance Liddell

After the tour, we had coffee near Gloucester Green, then ate makeshift Tesco lunches (always a good idea).

Marina and me on St. Michael's Street!

From there, we wandered around Christ Church College, where we got in for free (the power of connections, my friends).

I appreciate all the green space in Oxford; at many of the colleges walking on the grass is forbidden, so there are many open fields beyond the quadrangles. We walked through Christ Church Meadow along the River Cherwell. Sam studies biology at Oxford so he had some interesting knowledge to share on our walk. For instance, we noticed mistletoe in some distant trees; Sam told us that mistletoe is a parasite that infests the host tree through bird excrement. So much for that romantic signifier...

Punting on the River Cherwell

Marina showed me the Sheldonian Theatre, which is an elaborate and beautiful performance space. At the top of the building we had a fantastic view of the city of spires.

We went to Blackwell's to browse the book selection there; naturally, we two English majors spent a while in there. I bought two Penguin Classics there for 80p each, and a postcard with a great picture of the artists Man Ray, Roland Penrose, and Paul Eluard picnicking with their lovers in France-it's actually a very odd photograph but it fascinated me. We also stopped into the Oxfam Shop on St. Giles, where I had some success last summer finding good secondhand books. This time I found a great used copy of Mrs. Dalloway for a pound; it's my favorite book about London and I've been looking for a good copy to carry around with me while I'm here.

Last summer I did not get to visit the Ashmolean Museum, so Marina and I went inside and it is a really impressive collection; the building is enormous and there are artworks there from almost any age you could imagine. The Natural History Museum was really fun too.

Inside the Natural History Museum; the ceiling vault looks a bit like a ribcage, right?

We sat and chatted in University Park until we met up with Sam for dinner at the Three Goats' Heads. I was really excited to go here because they have a full selection of Samuel Smith Ales. When my Dad was in London in the 80's he drank this beer and has told me to look out for it in the UK. I have found it at a few places in London but it is rare; it's brewed in Yorkshire but seems a bit selective about its distribution. Anyway, it is a GREAT beer. I had a pint with a steak and kidney pie. While we waited for our food we played Scrabble--the board was right there and we couldn't resist. It was a children's board but we still had a good round on it.

Interesting thing about kidney in the UK: during the Second World War, nobody could afford steak so most people ate kidney instead; the result was a generation brought up preferring kidney to steak, so I've heard. It's a great pie, but I would recommend any pie here--every single one I've had has hit the spot.

I am so grateful to Marina and Sam for showing me around. I did enjoy Oxford the first time I visited, but walking around with locals can really make a trip. It was a very fun day out.

With friends and family visiting the next couple of weeks, I then spent some time appreciating the wonders of the city.

Sunset on the Thames

Does it all feel right?

The city is now past the pangs of a new season's birth; spring is alive! The parks are crowded at lunch time, every bench and patch of grass inhabited for at least an hour now each day. It is Friday, and I am writing at my desk with the balcony door open. The lyrics from one of Washed Out's trippiest songs are coming into my mind:

"Leaving heading eastbound

Weekend’s almost here now

It’s getting warmer outside

It all feels right

Call your friends, I’ll call mine

We’ll head out for a long ride

Sun is coming out now

It all feels right."

I want to write in this entry about exactly what feels right, and why that feeling seems so contingent to me.

In a bookshop a few weeks ago, I found a new hardcover print of Virginia Woolf's essays on London-which I did not buy because it cost £15. When I opened the book, I found this quote on the first page:

I read this on a day structured only by aimless wandering around West London. I agree, it is restful to amble at my own pace, for nothing more than my will to do so. I do not think this is true for everyone, but I really enjoy taking off with a vague idea of where I will go and finding whatever manifests along the way. 

Woolf's notion of the city attracting narratives reminds me of a concept I have been studying in my cultural criticism course, that everyone who walks in cities engages in the act of writing the space. This idea is attributed to a French philosopher, Michel de Certeau, who writes this, as he looks down on the streets of New York from the 110th floor of the World Trade Center in the early 1980's:

"The ordinary practitioners of the city life 'down below,' below the threshold at which visibility begins... they are walkers, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an urban text they write without being able to read." (from "Walking in the City")

He is saying that the miracle and the frustration of the city is that it produces infinite narratives that are all unreadable. Whenever someone takes a wrong turn, or discovers a shortcut, or recognizes a street name for the first time, or just treads the same tedious way as yesterday, some kind of revelation is brought to the surface of reality from the depths of the imagination.

Often something practical will structure a walk, like this day when I read that quote of Woolf's when my ultimate purpose was to meet a friend at a pub in Kensington. Along the way, other purposes subvert my plans: the levity of aimlessness is burdened by the infinite possibilities of encounters with other people, with historical sites, with fate or contingency. As I made my way to Kensington, I located the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851, now a barren field; I stumbled into a peacock sanctuary; I thought someone behind might be following me; I found Ezra Pound's old flat which a neighbor told me is selling for "much too much" [with the unspoken implication: "for a peasant like you"]. These things happen.

Site of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park

10 Kensington Church Walk

What remains to be considered is the narrative constructed by such incidents. It all seems so random and not at all cohesive. I think this post itself is starting to enact my walks; aimless rambling with no declared purpose.

So I will write about some more concrete happenings. My friend Delaney visited London last weekend. I took her around to some of my favorite spots: Camden Lock, the Regent's Canal, Primrose Hill, then later Borough Market. On the canalside, we saw a soccer ball fly over our heads; it came from a garden nearby where kids began to cry (in the poshest English trills you've ever heard) "Oh no!" We tossed it back over the fence and they carried on playing. On the way back, we walked along the Southbank, where there were a few live musicians playing and a sun setting brilliantly over the river.

At the market I bought Mozzarella di Bufala, made with buffalo's milk, which turned out to be a great decision, and one that I hope to make many more times. I ate it on tomato slices with some balsamic and pepper.

There have been many moments full of wonder in the walks I have taken around London. When I write them out, they seem to me more like individual sketches rather than a continuous experience.

I am always thinking about how contingent an experience walking can seem. This sort of question was on my mind last night, when I read the Evening Standard:

"Locals told today how they rushed to save the life of a man stabbed outside a cocktail bar in Dalston. The victim, 20, was knifed by a suspected lone attacker... A witness said: 'There was a kid bleeding out. People rallied to help'... The man is in critical condition in hospital." (Evening Standard, 12 March 2015, page 6)

Contingency is what determines how we live. While the randomness and arbitrary encounters might seem exciting on the walks I have taken through London, its potential to determine mortality is terrifying.

So the conclusion of Washed Out's song seems especially relevant here-perhaps the best way to paraphrase an answer to the question I posed earlier about how walks construct narratives:

"What’s it all about?

The feeling when it all works out." 

When it does all work out, I am grateful, but I think I have to remind myself that there always remains that possibility that it will not.

But Woolf tells the reader in Mrs. Dalloway:

"Fear no more the heat o' the sun  

Nor the furious winter's rages." (lines from Shakespeare's Cymbeline)

Today, beyond my window there is a city whose heat and furious rages seem more apparent than ever, so I will go for a walk now.

Personifying Places

These past two weeks have been pretty hectic, between writing midterm papers and taking a few trips. I had two major assignments due this past week, and on Friday I celebrated by taking a trip to Berlin, where I met my friend Delaney who lives in Madrid. We planned this trip in January, so it was really surreal to actually leave for the trip; for the past two months it has sort of seemed like something I planned for way in the future. I am really glad we did plan this trip, since it gave me two weeks to enjoy London and focus on some schoolwork after my trip to Amsterdam.

Yeah, everyone loves to talk about how cheap travel is in Europe and how it's really terrific to go to every single city on the continent and it's so easy and why wouldn't you jump at every opportunity that comes your way? What nobody told me - or what I just wasn't paying attention to before - is how tiring it is. Getting to the airports for cheap flights - which usually depart at the crack of dawn or late at night - is a pain. I think I've written here about this whole cycle before, from which emerges the big question: how am I going to have the energy to do everything I want to do in this place? So two weeks for me seems like a good span of time to break up trips during the semester.

Before I tell you about a recent trip I took, I'll share a few quotes I've been thinking about as I try to figure out why I have been choosing to visit certain places.

Rome says: enjoy me. London: survive me. New York: gimme all you got. (Zadie Smith)

Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual. (Angela Carter)

These are two of the wisest London-based writers of the past few decades, I think. It's all imaginable, right? I know I've been putting down Central London a lot for not seeming as authentic a place as I hoped for in London, but really I think the sense of imminent doom pervades the cityscape, i.e. crossing the street at any time, walking with a backpack through a market or down Oxford Street, being watched on the endless reel of observation that is CCTV, etc. So, though I haven't had any significant run in's with mortal fear, "survive me" seems an apt subtitle for London.

Anyway, considering these notions, that we can personify places and imagine them as human, what makes London a man? London I don't entirely understand as a man. The city does have a long history of cultivating young gentlemen, at least up to the First World War; I noticed today in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral that everyone buried there is male; and of course, there's that towering phallic presence, Big Ben right in the heart of Westminster. But it's also the city of Queens Elizabeth I and Victoria, two monumental figures in its history. I'm sure other arguments can be made.

I can add a few: Amsterdam is a quirky uncle who still behaves like a child; Berlin is a brooding teenager. So what exactly qualifies these descriptions?

After the Second World War, Berlin had to be totally reconstructed because of the extensive damages the city suffered. Looking for Old Europe? It's not really much of a motif in Berlin at all. I think Berlin is a brooding teenager because the skyline is relatively young (mostly constructed post-1960) and very chromatic (and thus, overwhelmingly downcast). I say this in jest, but the melancholic energy of Berlin is of course inevitable and tragic; every block bears some reminder of the terrors experienced in the city-monuments and statues in memoriam to oppressed groups in Europe.

The Jewish Memorial

There is an exception to the sense of grayness: the Eastside Gallery, where a span of the Berlin Wall has been transplanted and designed by artists from around the world.

my favorite part of the wall

trying to "be" the wall

This goes on for a while; it's a great walk to take. Walking along the Wall  reminded me how constructive public artistic forums can be and that we need more of them in the world - spaces where anyone can contribute and anyone can enjoy it for free. The project of the Eastside Gallery is to spread messages of peace, freedom, and hope. So there is much light and color in a city that otherwise seemed hopelessly dark and colorless to me.

Another gem in Berlin is the food. Currywurst is a must have in Berlin; I had a small box of it (a long sausage chopped up and served with ketchup and curry spice) near Brandenburg Gate. On our first night, Delaney and I waited for over an hour to buy kebabs at Mustafa's Gemüse Kebap, a small streetside haunt in Kreuzberg with a long line. For a good reason-sure there are lots of great kebab places in London, but none quite this good in my experience. I think the principle is this: if the deliciousness of the kebab justifies how unhealthy it is, it's worth the abject bodily guilt.

inhaling my kebap after the long wait

currywurst

We met up with Delaney's friend Patrick who has been studying in Germany all year; he told us about a lot of the ins and outs of German culture, which was much appreciated; most people in Berlin spoke to me in German, so I felt like I was missing out on a lot of cross-cultural interaction since I don't speak a lick of Deutsche. The streetsigns were really fun to try to pronounce as we walked along, though I did this under my breath since mimicry is never particularly polite.

One of the most fascinating parts of Berlin, in my opinion, is right in the middle of Alexanderplatz, the city's tourist haven. It's a striking contrast that's impossible to miss: the Berliner Dom (consecrated 1454; reconstructed 1975) and the Berliner Fersehturm (constructed 1969). They stand close to each other, but could not be any more disparately designed:

Berliner Dom

Berliner Fersehturm

It's interesting to me that the Dom, which is effectively a reproduction of an Old-European cathedral, and so looks very old, is actually a more recent construction than the TV tower. In the heart of Europe, where for centuries religion and science have spurred conflict, these two representatives of each faction share a block of space. Since Berlin was reconstructed so recently, I feel like I have to question whether or not these choices were deliberate.

So maybe Berlin is a brooding teenager after all - confused and contradictory, characterized by a dark wardrobe and a perpetual look of discontent. The streets were very quiet at night, or at least in the area where we were staying (specifically along Greifswalder Straße), which came as a surprise to me, since I have heard so much about Berlin's vibrant arts scene and its clubs and bars.

We did learn from Patrick that a cultural practice of many Germans is to buy beer and then walk around drinking in public with friends. So we did just that. The beer in Germany is pretty great, and buying it from the convenience stores only costs about €1! So, in Berlin we did as Berliners do. Along the way, walking around the city center at night, we tried to find a statue of Marx and Engels that had popped up on Delaney's Triposo app (which is highly recommended for short trips) and seemed nearby. We searched for it for a while, only to find that the park it is in has been closed off due to the construction of what appeared to be luxury apartments in the area. Can you think of anything more ironic than luxury apartments being built around a statue of Marx and Engels?

On another topic, a running theme in my experience has been minimal interaction with locals, which is disappointing, but inevitable on weekend trips since they are so quick. How can anyone really know a place without knowing its people? How can someone personify a city without understanding the actual persons who live there?

This brings me back to where I started in this post: travel is tough. A weekend is really not enough time in some places; I might sound like I have many convictions about Berlin's personality, but really this is just how I perceived and interpreted what little of it I saw. I've heard people say it can be the funnest or the saddest city on earth. Here's an article that explains all of this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/travel/in-berlin-history-squares-off-against-hip.html

All in all, I am really glad I went; engaging with a new culture is always exciting and interesting, even if only for a few days. Though this post might sound a bit bleak, these are the notes of someone who was totally rapt and thrilled by the opportunity to interpret a new space.  It's the same when I talk about London and maybe sound a bit critical; it's all shared with you in the name of curious excitement!

I will be grounded in London for the next month, so look for new posts on local travel and more urban exploration.