I'm minutes away from hopping out the door and heading to the airport to go back to the US. The end of this trip crept up shockingly quickly, and I'm not entirely ready for it.
Last week I was a bit tired of traveling and feeling ready to keep my stuff in the same place for more than a few nights in a row. Now, though, my mood has picked up. I spent my last two days in London, staying at my friend Joy's flat but only seeing her in the last evening due to some pre-existing commitments of hers. Sometimes London exhausts and annoys me, as all large cities do, but these past two days I've been feeling very positive toward this city. I took a walking tour of "eccentric London," which was great fun. I discovered some amazing, dangerous bookshops. I rode the tube and felt a bit like a blood cell, coursing through the arteries of this marvelous living city. There's a blue police call box parked outside Earl's Court tube station (for real!), and this city is a little bit magical. When I visited the prime meridian in Grenwich, I was struck by the hubris of Londoners basically declaring themselves the center of the world (longitude-wise, at least), but you know, they're not entirely wrong.
Still, I'm homeward bound. Perhaps it's best to leave while it's fun (and while I still have any money in my bank account). I may do a few retrospective blog updates about things I didn't have a chance to write about.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
brief post
The entirety of Europe appears to be on holiday in Ireland and filling up all the beds at the hostels where I am trying to stay. Planning is a huge pain. Half the hostels only book by phone and not online, some of the others only book online. I have wasted too much of my time just trying to find a place to be next.
On the plus side, Irish weather is great! That's not sarcasm. So far, all sun (aside from one ten-minute sprinkle) and pleasant temperatures.
On the plus side, Irish weather is great! That's not sarcasm. So far, all sun (aside from one ten-minute sprinkle) and pleasant temperatures.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Older and in another country
Since I last updated, I have been to Oxford, back to London, and as of this afternoon, Dublin, Ireland.
I'd been expecting to love Oxford, where nerds have gathered knowledge for centuries. Sadly, I was not in love. Partly I got out on the wrong foot just after arriving, misreading my map while attempting to walk from my hostel into town for dinner and walking 20 minutes in the wrong direction. However, when I finally did locate the town center, Oxford redeemed itself by providing the first proper burrito I'd had since arriving in the UK. Yay!!! I've eaten decently over here, but there is a (perfectly understandable) shortage of Mexican food. The next day I set out to tour the city. Unfortunately, I was sort of doomed to have a less than excellent day because I woke up with a hideously painful crick in my neck (still not 100% gone). Still, I determined to enjoy myself as much as possible while not turning my head to the left. There are some really lovely buildings and tons of history in Oxford, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way. The colleges that form the university all have their own mini-campuses in the city, and each is surrounded by a wall. Most of them are only open to the public for a few hours in the afternoon. Some charge for admittance. Some aren't open to the public at all. While I respect the need to create an academic space and not have the students and scholars treated like zoo exhibits by the tourists, the result felt way too exclusionary. I am fine with colleges that are exclusive about who gets to be a student and take classes (I went to one), but when other people can't even roam the grounds and see the outside of the buildings, it creates too much of an us vs. them atmosphere. When you are actually inside the walls, they have these impeccably manicured lawns with signs all over warning you not to walk on them. It seemed a sad contrast to Parish Beach, the big, friendly lawn at Swarthmore where students lounged around doing (or pretending to do) their reading on nice days, playing frisbee, chatting with each other, and generally enjoying ourselves. In the evening I saw a community theatre production of Twelfth Night that I enjoyed quite a bit. I think I might have liked Oxford better if I'd visited during term time, when a better student to tourist ratio and the usual university postings about exciting goings-on would hopefully make it feel more like a living community of learning and less of a museum to very smart dead white guys. Still, Oxford has one major insurmountable problem: it isn't Swarthmore, my much-missed alma mater.
Onward to London, where I met with my friend Joy, remarkably energetic after her long flight from Cape Town that morning. It turned out that Joy wasn't going to be able to come with Ireland to me as planned, which I'm pretty bummed about, as she is a truly wonderful person and a great adventure buddy. I delayed going to Ireland so I could spend my birthday with Joy in London rather than alone and in transit. Yep, folks, I'm now officially older.
My birthday was the best one I've had in a while. Joy and I went to the British museum (or a tiny part of it), where the highlight was two rooms of gorgeous and fascinating antique clocks and watches, many still working. We ate Indian food for lunch, then met up with one of Joy's theatre friends and another Swarthmore alum who randomly happened to be in London. We sat around in a park outside Buckingham palace, walked to the science museum and caught a tiny bit of it before closing, then went to a pub for dinner and quiz night. Our team won the pub quiz! We won actual money. (About enough to pay for dinner, but still! We won money!) It was an excellent birthday.
Then it was on to Holyhead, Wales, for the ferry connection to Dublin. I didn't manage to get a train early enough for a same-day ferry, so I booked into a guesthouse in Holyhead. I got really lost while trying to find it on foot with all my luggage. In the rain, of course. It sucked. I was so tired out by all the walking with luggage in the rain that I couldn't bear the idea of going out again to look for dinner, so I ate a bunch of trail mix, two granola bars, and some chocolate digestive biscuits that I had with me. It sounds grim, but it filled me up adequately and was much less grim than walking around in the rain for goodness knows how long trying to find anything open in Holyhead (I don't think there was much, and no, I couldn't find any ideas for delivery places).
After a good night's sleep, I took the ferry to Dublin. To my disappointment, the ferry didn't have a top deck. Everyone rode in the interior, which greatly resembled an airport that swayed slightly and had sea-view windows. As we got to Ireland, the sun came out. I found my hostel with minimal getting lost: go me! Dublin's a large city with a cosmopolitan feel, and I will describe it more later as I have just noticed that if I'm not off this computer in a moment the counter will click over and charge me another euro.
I'd been expecting to love Oxford, where nerds have gathered knowledge for centuries. Sadly, I was not in love. Partly I got out on the wrong foot just after arriving, misreading my map while attempting to walk from my hostel into town for dinner and walking 20 minutes in the wrong direction. However, when I finally did locate the town center, Oxford redeemed itself by providing the first proper burrito I'd had since arriving in the UK. Yay!!! I've eaten decently over here, but there is a (perfectly understandable) shortage of Mexican food. The next day I set out to tour the city. Unfortunately, I was sort of doomed to have a less than excellent day because I woke up with a hideously painful crick in my neck (still not 100% gone). Still, I determined to enjoy myself as much as possible while not turning my head to the left. There are some really lovely buildings and tons of history in Oxford, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way. The colleges that form the university all have their own mini-campuses in the city, and each is surrounded by a wall. Most of them are only open to the public for a few hours in the afternoon. Some charge for admittance. Some aren't open to the public at all. While I respect the need to create an academic space and not have the students and scholars treated like zoo exhibits by the tourists, the result felt way too exclusionary. I am fine with colleges that are exclusive about who gets to be a student and take classes (I went to one), but when other people can't even roam the grounds and see the outside of the buildings, it creates too much of an us vs. them atmosphere. When you are actually inside the walls, they have these impeccably manicured lawns with signs all over warning you not to walk on them. It seemed a sad contrast to Parish Beach, the big, friendly lawn at Swarthmore where students lounged around doing (or pretending to do) their reading on nice days, playing frisbee, chatting with each other, and generally enjoying ourselves. In the evening I saw a community theatre production of Twelfth Night that I enjoyed quite a bit. I think I might have liked Oxford better if I'd visited during term time, when a better student to tourist ratio and the usual university postings about exciting goings-on would hopefully make it feel more like a living community of learning and less of a museum to very smart dead white guys. Still, Oxford has one major insurmountable problem: it isn't Swarthmore, my much-missed alma mater.
Onward to London, where I met with my friend Joy, remarkably energetic after her long flight from Cape Town that morning. It turned out that Joy wasn't going to be able to come with Ireland to me as planned, which I'm pretty bummed about, as she is a truly wonderful person and a great adventure buddy. I delayed going to Ireland so I could spend my birthday with Joy in London rather than alone and in transit. Yep, folks, I'm now officially older.
My birthday was the best one I've had in a while. Joy and I went to the British museum (or a tiny part of it), where the highlight was two rooms of gorgeous and fascinating antique clocks and watches, many still working. We ate Indian food for lunch, then met up with one of Joy's theatre friends and another Swarthmore alum who randomly happened to be in London. We sat around in a park outside Buckingham palace, walked to the science museum and caught a tiny bit of it before closing, then went to a pub for dinner and quiz night. Our team won the pub quiz! We won actual money. (About enough to pay for dinner, but still! We won money!) It was an excellent birthday.
Then it was on to Holyhead, Wales, for the ferry connection to Dublin. I didn't manage to get a train early enough for a same-day ferry, so I booked into a guesthouse in Holyhead. I got really lost while trying to find it on foot with all my luggage. In the rain, of course. It sucked. I was so tired out by all the walking with luggage in the rain that I couldn't bear the idea of going out again to look for dinner, so I ate a bunch of trail mix, two granola bars, and some chocolate digestive biscuits that I had with me. It sounds grim, but it filled me up adequately and was much less grim than walking around in the rain for goodness knows how long trying to find anything open in Holyhead (I don't think there was much, and no, I couldn't find any ideas for delivery places).
After a good night's sleep, I took the ferry to Dublin. To my disappointment, the ferry didn't have a top deck. Everyone rode in the interior, which greatly resembled an airport that swayed slightly and had sea-view windows. As we got to Ireland, the sun came out. I found my hostel with minimal getting lost: go me! Dublin's a large city with a cosmopolitan feel, and I will describe it more later as I have just noticed that if I'm not off this computer in a moment the counter will click over and charge me another euro.
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