Finding the Familiar

I'll tell you about my first week here...lots to remember! On our second day in the city, everyone studying with API took walking tours of Central London. We walked through Bloomsbury, down Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street (major shopping hubs of London). We made our way to Trafalgar Square via Charing Cross Road.

Trafalgar Square, Nelson's Column, Big Ben

We followed Whitehall down to Big Ben and Parliament. Whitehall was once the largest palace in Europe; also the site of King Charles I's beheading in 1649, which was apparently the inspiration for the great Elvis Costello song "Oliver's Army." All that remains of Whitehall is the dining room, which itself encompasses an entire block! Look into it-really fascinating history.

Seeing Big Ben is magnificent from any vista, but up close it really is incredible. I wonder how locals feel about it. Do they still get a chill at the reverberation of its midnight toll? Or is it just another treat for the tourists? The clock has a great history too-two brothers, Benjamin and Richard Hall were commissioned to design the clock tower and Ben's design was selected. Had it been Richard's design, the clock would have a very different, more suggestive nickname...

Having passed by Westminster Abbey, we strolled through St. James' Park, the Mall (pronounced "mal"), and Green Park. The Queen was not at Buckingham Palace when we walked by-you can tell that she's home if the flag is not raised. From there, we looped around Piccadilly Circus and ended up in Leicester Square. All great places to see, and all relatively close to where I live.

So the big touristy hot-spots became familiar on that day. The next day I visited Tate Modern with a few API friends. I was already familiar with the St. Paul's/Millennium Bridge/Globe Theatre area of London, but had never visited Tate Modern. We saw a few amazing exhibits. One was a selection of the sculptor Louise Bourgeois's sketches. At a very advanced age she did not stop making art, and her sketches are spectacular. She arranged series of sketches around narratives, usually including a brief text, either a poem or a description to offer the spectator something more to imagine. I also saw a sculpture by Giacometti, which thrilled me. He's an artist with whom I am very familiar, but I find his work endlessly captivating.

"Composition (Man and Woman)" by Giacometti
Can you figure out which part is man and which is woman?

Another exhibit I enjoyed was a series of photographs by Henry Wessel called "Incidents." The photographs were organized around the walls of  square-shaped gallery, and the photographer intended that they be viewed in order, by walking around the perimeter of the gallery. He compared the experience to "taking a walk with a friend, who stops on occasion and points to a scene, saying 'take a look at that.'" Cool concept, I think.

We took the tube later, just from St. Paul's to Holborn, which is a really short and uncomplicated ride. The underground is an enormous, labyrinthine transport system that wends through every corner of Greater London and the city proper. I'm still working on figuring it out, but I know the lines that I am close to, more or less. I'll have to figure out the buses soon too!

Another day, I walked to Tavistock Square Gardens, where one of my favorite writers, Virginia Woolf (I'm okay with bestowing her that honor) used to live. I saw the sun for the first time on my walk there, just as it was setting!

Bronze bust of VW in Tavistock Square Gardens...looks a bit like Giacometti made it, but I'm sure he didn't

First glimpse of the sun!

I walked to Regent's Park the next day, which was about two miles each way. It's a simple route: walk through the University of London (Gower Street), then walk westward down Euston Road. Regent's Park is, like everything else in this city seems to be, huge and beautiful. Though it was rainy, windy, and just all around bleak outside, I lingered for a while by the Boating Lake and in Queen Mary's Gardens. Speaking of the Big Bad Woolf, a great scene from her great book, Mrs. Dalloway takes place in Regent's Park on a sunny day in June. I'm looking forward to going back in better weather.

After this four-mile trek, as I was just around the corner from my flat, I noticed that the British Museum was unusually flocked with press photographers and police guards. I asked a guard what the deal was. He told me that the PM and German Chancellor were viewing an exhibit together and would be walking down the front steps in just a few moments. So, I stuck around, of course. I did not, however, wait long enough to see them...they took their sweet time. I did enjoy observing the crowd though; it was a real political spectacle. Here's a link to the BBC story about Merkel's visit with Cameron: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30701604

I did get a photo of the Chancellor's car brigade, which was pretty cool...they travel only in the finest cars:

Audis, Range Rovers, BMWs...is that a Porsche, all the way to the right?

So I had a few adventures in my first week, and became familiar with some major landmarks. As I wrote in my first post, it's really helpful to know where these are in a new city because they make street navigation a bit easier.

At this point in my first week, I still had no luggage. Though this was stressing me out, I did not let it distract from the initial wonder of living in London. I remembered the things I had to be thankful for: the Viber app, which kept me in touch with my mom who was helping me track my luggage; the few outfits I packed in my carry-on; and the whole opportunity of living here. But if I can extract any kind of advice from this experience for future travelers, it's this: FLY DIRECT.

Incidentally - to answer one of my last post's cliffhangers - I have made many trips to the local Sainsbury's without getting lost. And food, as we know, is vital to happiness.

Next time I'll tell you about:
Managing expenses
Travel plans
Cooking in and dining out
Borough Market
Other adventures around the city
Classes

Cheers!

First day in London

Hello everyone! I am Cory and I will be writing here about my semester studying at the University of Westminster in London. First thing: I need to explain the title of the blog. I don't always put titles on my writing, but for this purpose, the title is a.) necessary to get the blog going, and b.) a pretty good one I think. I hate being asked about my favorite books because I can never choose - it feels a bit unfair - but one that has had a great effect on me is Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Here's the quote, in which Pip, our narrator, asks the reader to make a consideration:

Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

I am not exactly sure how to contextualize this in my own life, but I think it offers an insight about transformation and causality. To me, change never seems entirely within my own control and I often wonder about that first link that sets many other things into motion. Though I find it difficult to locate that first link in my own long chain of iron or gold, I am here to write about the formation of many other links.

So I am in London. I arrived on the morning of January 3rd. Immigration went smoothly. The officer who gave me my visa was actually very nice and wanted to know more about my semester than the surface details-a completely unexpected moment that put me at ease. What followed might seem a bit harrowing: I discovered my luggage had been loaded onto the wrong plane! I panicked for a few seconds then hopped in the lost luggage line. Nothing more I could do but wait and hope (to borrow the simple, wise words of the Count of Monte Cristo).

From there I did what I could to orient myself-converted what US dollars I had to pounds, met some people in my program, had a snack, hydrated, etc. Here's something to remember if you're a student going abroad soon: everyone is in a similar position, everyone wants to meet new people, everyone is at least a bit scared. I was worried about making friends, moving to a new place, and finding my luggage. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the last of these concerns continued to haunt my every waking thought for the next six days. I never forgot for one moment that everything I packed could be permanently lost.

Here's a detail I neglected to mention: I have been to London before, recently. I was on a study trip through my home college to study stage adaptations of Shakespeare, and we visited London to see two performances. (My Blogger profile picture was taken at the Globe last summer, actually.) In that time, I maybe walked around one-one billionth of London; with my friend Sean at my side, we walked around Oxford Street, then made our way to the river, and later the West End. This was good knowledge to have in advance, but I have learned so much from studying maps. It's a huge city, so having some sense of where major streets are and how they connect is critical. I have learned the most from getting lost this past week.

And it happened quite a bit. It happened my first night! I went to Sainsbury's (chain grocery store) on (what I didn't then know was) Tottenham Court Road. After I made my purchase - a "festive sausage and cranberry roll" (yes, bizarre name; yes, delicious), which I grabbed in a frantic need to eat something simple and cheap - I realized I had no idea where I was. So I crossed the street, because I definitely had to do that to get to the store. Then I just picked a street and followed it for a while. This can be a really fun activity with friends in broad daylight; however, in a dark and unfamiliar city, it's not my first choice of leisure activity. It's the exact opposite of leisure-it felt like voluntary stress. So I asked a policeman by the British Museum for assistance. He said something like, "Yeah, your street's somewhere in this area, just poke around the neighborhood, see what you find, you'll get there." WHAT?! I thought, that's the worst advice you could give to a new city-dweller! But it was actually really helpful to hear from a figure of authority: things are going to work out, and if you approach a challenge as a possible discovery (a chain of iron or gold?) you might have fun finding your way. Maybe he was really saying that; maybe he was really sick and tired of helping Americans figure out simple directions; maybe he was just tired and ready to finish his shift. Anyway. Rather than worry more, I did just what he advised (in part, because it dawned on me that my festive sausage and cranberry roll might be getting cold, so I quickened my pace). And I found my flat! It was two turns down major roads from the grocery, and just two minutes' walk from the incident with the policeman.

Bloomsbury is a beautiful neighborhood with many parks and rows of stately houses, but it can be a bit confusing to navigate. None of the roads are on a grid here, so it's really important to figure out local landmarks. (I'm lucky-the British Museum is up there with Big Ben, St. Paul's, and the Shard as one of the most recognizable landmarks in the city.)

You might understand by now that there's a significant gap in time I'm trying to negotiate. I probably should have started writing this earlier, but I'll do my best to catch you up on my first week in London! Things to anticipate:

Will my luggage be returned?
Will I make it to the supermarket without getting lost?
What will I see and do with a full week ahead of me in a great and enormous city?

More to come!