Intro, and London

(Warning: this is the UNABRIDGED addition of my travel log. It will be very lengthy, and very detailed. I will be sending out a very abridged addition in an e-mail sometime very, very soon).

Bonjour, my friends, family, and loved ones,

Let me first begin by apologizing for the preposterous length of my silence. My first weeks in Europe have been frenzied, confused, and just a healthy dose of surreal. The experience of plunging oneself into a country with only the most basic sense of the language has certainly been a humbling experience. Since I arrived in London just about 3 weeks ago, I have spent the subsequent time in something of daze as I have struggled to overcome jetlag, homesickness, and cultural confusion, shivering all along the way.

I will do the best that I can to briefly summarize my adventures to date. Like I said before, these first couple of weeks have been slightly surreal and just a tad overwhelming for me. Now that I have really begun my adjustment to Alpine life, I will do my best to update my blog frequently, chronically my many voyages within France. Please forgive me if these first blog posts are excessively long. This blog post also will serve as my own personal record of these first few weeks, so I'd like to write down as many impressions as I can fit in. Feel free to skim/ignore any sections that don't pique your interest.

I arrived in London on Thursday, January 23rd. My flight over to Europe was painless, excluding the fact that I had to make 2 connections. I actually made some friends on the trips over. From Asheville to Charlotte, I sat next to this girl in her late 20s who was en route to Chicago. Although I almost never do this, I struck up a conversation with her. She told me about her own experiences in Europe, and how "ridiculous" (her words) the city of Paris is. On my ride from Philadelphia to Heathrow, I sat next to this very quirky man in his 30s. Originally from Texas, he moved to Wales to teach math in a community college. He had this very odd accent, and had he not told me, I would have had no idea that he was an expatriate. It was actually kind of remarkable to meet an American who was so ingrained into European culture; for a couple of moments, as far as I knew, he was a European. I wondered to myself what kind of person could completely immerse themselves in another culture like he had, and I wondered if I was that kind of person. We had a bit of a laugh about the Welsh separatist movement (apparently it exists?), before I found an empty seat to sleep in.

Upon my arrival in London, I hurried to meet my friend Ben, who is studying for the year at the London School of Economics. Arriving in Heathrow, I was strangely intimidated by the British and their accents, despite speaking the same language. At the kiosk to buy my tube ticket into the city, I felt very confused and discombobulated, like I couldn't get my bearings. I think a lot of it had to do with my exhaustion from the ride over, but also the really powerful feeling of being an outsider. I was not in the least anticipated feeling intimidated in London. However, once I got on the Tube and took off on the Piccadilly line towards Ben, I started to regain my bearings. The tube ride from Heathrow to the city of London was a surprisingly enlightening moment. Since I was young, I have always had this somewhat mythical idea of Europe as this great green continent dotted with castles, always spring and always beautiful. Even though I knew this could not be possible, I still found myself slightly surprised when I arrived to bitter cold and consistently grey weather. The ride on the Piccadilly Line was not pretty, at all. It was dirty, run-down, and extremely impoverished. As odd as it may sound, the fact that Europe is not a land of fairies, cobblers and knights was my first great study-abroad surprise. This would later be reinforced my Eurostar train ride from London to Paris, but more on that in a bit.

My trip in London was very action packed, and quiet amazing. It was really amazing to see Ben. He has been one of my best friends from high school, and since we've both gone to college, we've been able to see each other exponentially less. However, it seems as though every time we get a chance to see one another, no time has passed. It always puts me right back into Wilmington, Delaware, and my very happy high school years.

When I arrived in downtown London, I did not have a cell phone, so I was left to fend for my own. I had two extremely large bags (I WAY overpacked), and per usual, London was rainy. Again, I felt pretty lost. I managed to get directions from some very friendly Brits, who directed me to Ben's dorm. The thing is, streets in London make absolutely no sense whatsoever. I had been warned about this, but you sort of have to see it to believe it. There is no grid pattern, and streets seem to meander aimlessly. When I finally found Ben, he was just a couple minutes from going to class. We chatted for a bit, and he left me to collapse for a really amazing one hour nap. I wouldn't let myself sleep any longer, for fear of prolonging jetlag. After my nap, I wandered outside Ben's dorm in search of some food, since I was extremely hungry. I remembered having passed a couple of pubs on the way from the tube station to the dorm, and I was determined to have an authentic British meal. One pub that particularly caught my attention was the "Lord Nelson." Of all the Pubs, it had the most amazingly Anglo name, so I opted for that pub. Walking in, I felt like a complete dolt, having no idea whether I needed to wait to be seated or to seat myself. To make things worse, the hostess had an EXTREMELY strong accent. I sat a table, looked down, and much to surprise saw this huge poster of Barack Obama starring right at me. It was a satirical movie poster which had such cheesey phrases as "Coming to the United States this Fall, Starring Hope and Change." It was pretty incredible, all the way across the Atlantic, just two days after his inauguration as President, to see a poster of Obama. I thought how odd it would be if in America, bars had posters with Gordon Brown or Tony Blair's face on it. I ordered a really delicious steak sandwich, very quintessentially British and a coke. I asked the pub owner if refills were free in Britain (I felt SO American at that moment), and he said no, but since I had chosen to go the Lord Nelson's, he'd give it to me for free. While at the pub, I occupied my time by eavesdropping on the group of Britons sitting to my right (who had seemingly been there for hours), and reading through previews of theater plays in London. One of the plays, which I actually really want to see, was about four waves of immigrations to Britain, the French Protestants, the Irish, the Jews, and the Sri Lankans. It was at that very moment that it finally dawned on me that I was back in the home of my grandmother and great-grandmother. Our family had come to England as Jews fleeing from who-knows, and had arrived in London. My grandmother grew up in London, and lived through the Battle of Britain. It was a really remarkable and heartwarming revelation when I realized that my grandma may have wandered some of the very streets I was wondering when she was a little girl in England. I felt spiritually connected to the country I was visiting.

After lunch, I wandered into a Starbucks in dire need of some coffee. I was seriously on the verge of collapsing. It was about 4 o'clock by that time, and I was amazed to learn that Starbucks closed at 6. I walked in an started a conversation with a really nice Barista, who was Polish but living in England. I slurped down my coffee, and went back to Ben's dorm and waited for him to return.

That night, we walked into London proper for a bit, just to see the city at night. We walked St. Paul's Cathedral, which I later learned was designed by Christopher Wren. It made me very proud to think that this was the same architect that purportedly designed the building in Williamsburg that I give tours of. Ben took me to LSE's campus, and also into the oldest pub in England. I forgot the name of this pub, but I think it has been opened since 1607, although I suspect that it was shut down during the Interregnum by Oli Cromwell. The pub was PACKED, and seemed to me exactly how English pubs should be. Old, sort of dirty, and very lively. We walked around London for awhile longer, and we saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and Parliament, and Westminster. It was a very beautiful city at night. Something that really struck me about Westminster Abbey, though, was one of it's walls which contained statues of the "20th Century Martyrs." Shamefully, I couldn't recognize most of them. However, one martyr in particular was extremely meaningful to me as an American. There, on the facade of the church that houses the Kings and Queens of England, was a statue of Martin Luther King, with little African American boy next to him. It was something of an emotional and proud moment for me, to see one of my finest countrymen glorified across the Atlantic.

The next day, Friday, Ben didn't have class so we were free to explore the city. This would be my only full in London, so I was determined to make the most of it. My number one thing that I wanted to do was Westminster Abbey, and Ben decided to go with me for just awhile. In my 3 weeks in Europe, Westminster is currently the coolest place that I've been. Ben stayed with me for an hour, but I ended up spending 3 to 3 and a half hours absorbing the place. I took my sweet time, using an audio tour to soak up every piece of information I could find. It is an unreal place, I have never been anywhere like it before. All the Kings and Queens are coronated in Westminster, and many are buried there as well. The Abbey was built sometime in the 11th century, and is the burial place for many, many famous Britons, including Elizabeth I, Oliver Cromwell (before his political detractors exhumed him), Mary Queen of Scots, Edward the Confessor, and Chaucer (to name some of the highlights). One of the coolest parts of the building is the part is the old medieval cloisters, where you can see the very earliest incarnation of the Abbey. They have these really wild wall paintings of scenes from the Book of Revelation, as well as a lower panel with pictures of animals like alligators and giraffes. The floor was also original from the medieval period, with characteristic geometric shapes. What was really neat about this one room was on one side, where the stain glass had been damaged from World War II, new stained glass was put it that depicted scenes from that War. This very striking mixing of medieval, early modern, and modern history is extremely characteristic of Europe, I've come to realize. Some other highlights of Westminster were seeing Queen Elizabeth's grave (without the throngs of tourists that are usually there), and seeing where Oliver Cromwell was briefly buried, as well as seeing all the very early graves, with statues of knights and ladies bent in prayer. I have a minor obsession with Cromwell, so I was scouring the entire day for hints of his complicated legacy in London. In Westminster, I was sort of like a kid in a candy shop.

After Westminster, I walked around the area right outside of it, snagging some pictures of Whitehall, Big Ben, and statues of Churchill and Cromwell. I trekked on home to Ben's dorm, where he was waiting for me. We rested very briefly, before heading out for our next excursion. We took a quick trip to the Tate Modern (which is literally a stones throw from Ben's apartment), where we saw an exhibit of old Communist propaganda posters. This was a fantastic exhibit; the most striking one for me personally was one in Hebrew. After our quick trip to the Tate, we headed to the Globe Theater. Ben lives EXTREMELY close to the location of the new Globe Theater (which is in turn located very close to the spot of the Old Globe), on Southbank, across the Thames from the main part of London. We took a tour, which was interesting but not as amazing as I had anticipated. Its really cool to see how theater was done in Elizabethan England (with an open roof), and the theater was a lot smaller than I had anticipated. The fact that the theater isn't even on the same spot as the old one takes a way a bit of the magic, but it was still cool nonetheless.

After the Globe, Ben and I grabbed a really quick dinner at this pub right next to the theater. I forget the name of this pub, which is a pity, because I would highly recommend it to anyone in Britain. They are known especially for their traditional British pies. I got this amazing beef pie, and devoured it. It was nice to have two genuine British pub experiences during my short stay.

After dinner, we rushed over to Trafalgar Square to see the National Portrait Gallery. This was amazing. The photography exhibits were fantastic; most interestingly to me were the photos taken by British photographers trying to make sense of American culture and values. One picture in particular that really struck me was of a man in a cowboy hat, outside a church, with a small gun in his belt. This photo, rather than caricaturing America, was surprisingly sympathetic. The photographer was trying to capture the differing manifestations of individual liberty in the American south. This photo was not a mockery, but a genuine attempt at learning something of different values systems in the USA. The other highlight of the gallery were the Holbein paintings of Henry VIII and Thomas Moore, and other paintings of Tudors, Stuarts, and Interregnum characters. Having taken two classes with Professor Hoak, I knew this photos very well, and so to see them up close was really neat.

After finishing at the Portrait Gallery, we walked around Piccadilly Circus, which is essentially London's equivalent of Times Square, New York. It wasn't anything special, just a bunch of theaters, and other touristy attractions. Nothing you couldn't find in a big American city. We only stayed out for a little while. Ben and I were exhausted, and I had a very, very early train for Paris the next morning. We got back to the room and arranged for a cab to pick me up to take me to the train station the next morning. I set my alarm for 6:00 am, my head hit the pillow, and next thing I knew was awoken to the sound of my alarm.

(Paris and Grenoble later, probably tonight or tomorrow)