london & dublin

HELLO. IS ANYONE STILL OUT THERE READING MY BLOG?

I hope so. 

Let's talk about London. My biggest exposure to London prior to this mainly involved the Friends season 4 finale, The One With Ross's Wedding, as well as reading Harry Potter. (And let's face it, the odds of me finding The Leaky Cauldron were slim to none. London's a big city and I don't have a wand. SO ANYWAY.) Beyond that, I didn't know what to expect.

We flew in on the bumpiest Ryanair flight I've taken yet - and that's saying something. It felt like were were flying in the rattle of a very energetic and colossal baby. But we made it, and coasted through back streets past billboards and storefronts until we pulled up in front of the County Hotel. If you've been to the castle before, you know the deal with this hotel. The lobby is sparsely furnished, with crumbly wooden tables and padded chairs; the concierge desk is large, wide and unfriendly - which nine times out of ten could also go for the concierge sitting behind the desk. The rooms, for their part, are tiny and cramped like shoeboxes, brown bunk beds that are about as tall as I am. There's no bathroom attached to your room, just a sink that sticks haphazardly out of the wall; you have to turn the handle four, five times before a feeble stream of water will trickle out. One late night, a fire alarm rang through the halls at four AM - eighty bleary-eyed, VERY unhappy Emerson students crowded together on the sidewalk outside the hotel, puffing anger in our breaths.

The streets of London are both familiar - bright lights, loud noise and brick sidewalks - and unfamiliar - bright red double-decker buses teeter along on their four wheels, and they look do delicately balanced on the road that half the time, I expect them to tip and tumble like toddlers taking their first steps. People kept comparing London to New York or Boston, and I disagree. It's certainly not New York - the buildings are too small, the lights aren't as glaring, and the streets wind and coil. It has Bostonlike qualities, to be sure, but there are too many people, too much happening, and it is just so uniquely London - so old and new at the same time, a city of white stone, so much brighter than Boston, the buildings firm and strong.

We were led on tour after tour after tour in London. Big Ben clambers into the sky and glimmers like gold during the day, bathed in the sun. Trafalgar Square, made of endless white stone, features fountains with statues of stone and bronze that spew water like geysers. The fountains sparkle, the water a crisp and serene blue; white patches glow on the top of the water as evidence of the sun that glows overhead. The entire square seems to glow with an ethereal light, the stones themselves shining bright. Westminster Abbey - sprawling stone floors and soaring vaulted ceilings, with windows that stretch from floor to ceiling, shards of rainbow glass fitted together to create a dazzling display illuminated from the outside in. It was loud in there, surprisingly loud; everyone talks at full volume, and their voices clamber and bounce like restless children through the halls and paths of the Abbey. Tower of London - stone towers connected with winding white paths, the crown jewels sparkling behind thick glass, a field populated by cackling ravens with clipped wings and bills like knives.

I spent time in more museums than I can count over this break; British Museum, National Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum - all in London.  One thing I notice - they all smell the same: old and musty, like a book with yellowing pages. I think my favorite museum was the British Museum: cascading tile floors, with an ocean of a ceiling made up of interlocking white triangles. The artifacts found in these museums are insane - ancient jewels and jars, statues older than the city they live in. I feel like it's redundant to say everything, but the sheer amount of beauty sculpted in white marble still blows me away.

Katherine and I went to see Billy Elliot the Musical one night in London; it was hands down the most wonderful show I have seen in a very long time. I'm by no means a good theater critic, but god, almost everything about Billy Elliot was absolutely astounding - the music, the dancing - I was left with chills and a permanent slackjaw. So beautiful. Wow.

We went to Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford upon Avon, and it was a refreshingly quaint little town, bathed by the sun with buildings of white and brown wood. Shakespeare's garden was very nice, with a gnarled and knotted tree at the center, grown from a cutting of Shakespeare's tree. A calm brown canal slithered around the town, with boats floating on the surface that functioned as ice cream stands and restaurants.

The next stop after Emerson released us was Dublin - it was unimpressively dank, to be honest. Very urban, very modern, very dirty. Trash was scattered on the sidewalks, and the entire city smelled of car exhaust and bacon. One long canal filled with brown water that sluggishly lurked through the city - a chair and an old shopping cart stuck sorely out of the water like miniature Titanics sinking into the murk. Gray clouds smeared themselves across the sky almost the entire time we were there, allowing almost no light to shine through except at the horizon, where a few strings occasionally peered through, feeble and small.

In Dublin, we met up with a girl from Chicago named Brittany who was bright and cheery to match her bright complexion and shiny blonde hair, with a twang to her speech. She was traveling on her own, and joined our group for the two nights we spent in Dublin. We went to the Jameson Distillery and sampled whiskey at eleven in the morning; we stopped by the Guinness Storehouse - the rest of our time was spent wandering through Dublin's winding streets and hopping from pub to pub. The pubs were wonderful, even if the city itself was dank -

stretching wooden floors and walls and ceilings, all of it illuminated by bright lights. There was music in every pub, high-pitched and cheerful, infectious; it put us all in good moods.

The thing about both England and Ireland is this - they speak English. I should have no problem understanding them when they speak.

Yeah. Right.

A combination of different inflection, different accents, and different speeds makes the language I allegedly am fluent in sound like a foreign tongue. It is only when someone articulates that I can understand them if they're simply in passing. If they talk directly to me, so long as they don't speak at the speed of light, I understand them.

We thankfully didn't spend a long time in Dublin - we flew out after two nights. We'd barely gotten into the air, when an announcement crackled into our ears:

"We apologize for any inconvenience, but we've got a warning light on in here, so we've been asked to return to Dublin so we can check this out - we'll alert you when we're about to land."

PERFECT. About five minutes later...

"Folks, the warning light has gone off, but we're still going to 

We rolled to a stop back in the Dublin airport, and had to switch airplanes after about ten minutes on the ground - we trudged from one blue tube to another, the Ryanair airplanes crunched, looking like midget planes in comparison to full-sized airplanes that land and launch around them.

I love flying - especially the first few minutes, right after you've launched into the air. The ground lies down beneath, green and patchy; you can gape at the view for just a moment, before it's gone, washed away by a white blanket that obscures the windows entirely, and you feel yourself moving up, up, up, and the plane bursts like a volcano out of the clouds and you find yourself above them. They spread out in all directions, father than the eye can see - like any classic depiction of heaven. The only things missing are winged babies and gold halos. The sky is blue again, and more clouds hover far from you, just out of reach. Peer down through a break in the clouds, and the ground is so far away - a deep ocean of white, not blue, and it's a long way down. The sun is nothing but a hazy yellow blur, and you feel like Icarus - don't want to get too close. 

We rolled to a smooth stop in Paris - but that's a blog for a little bit later.

I don't know if it's at all interesting, but my first assignment for my ridiculous Travel Writing class was to combine word and image in some way, so I went and made a website from which a lot of this blog was ripped directly. You can see it here if you're at all interested, but the words might be similar to you, and if you've seen my facebook, so are the pictures. But consider it a preview for the Paris blog, if anything. Yeah. ANYWAY.

We're swathed in midterms here at the castle, and next weekend I'm off to Germany to meet up with the one and only Bonnie - should be interesting.

For the record - unlike Mallory, I did not discover famous ancestry in London - but the trip is young.

:)

arrival

It is 2:55 pm, Netherlands time. I have been awake for a good day, but 24 hours and 3444 miles later, we are here and it is wonderful. I warn you – this is going to be a long one.

Yesterday began with a frenzy of activity, as halfway through the pre-departure orientation, I realized – I don’t have my passport.

I was like – SERIOUSLY? First my ATM card, now my passport? But luckily, it was safely at home, and Billy drove it in to Boston for me. I spotted him looking confused, wearing the black track suit he wears every day (it’s the only thing that fits him – he refuses to buy bigger pants) on Boylston street around noon.

The rest of the day was harried goodbyes, chicken pesto paninis and a lecture on Anne Frank in a warm Emerson classroom. The air was hot and heavy and a good half of us were asleep.

Traipsing onto the buses that would ferry us all to the airport, I realized how surreal this all was. There were my friends, standing outside the bus, waving goodbye. I felt – just for a second – like I was on a different bus entirely, a big yellow one with green seats and a bunch of screaming children. It felt, quite honestly, as though I was just leaving for a really long field trip.

The buses peeled away, and, as is typical of Emerson College, they peeled off in two completely different directions. We all arrived at the airport, though, so it worked out in the end.

For the record, the last time I was ever really in an airport was when I was five years old, so my mental picture of airports came mainly from episodes of Friends – like the first season finale, or the series finale, where Ross chases Rachel to the gate with remarkable ease. My reentry to Logan Airport after fifteen years, then, came with images both extremely familiar and extremely foreign.

For instance, airports (or, you know, Logan, at the very least) really does have those floor to ceiling windows that those bidding farewell to someone can press themselves up against in passion, breath fogging up the glass. The architecture is very epic – square pillars and circular beams and fans that shine lights and cast shadows that move and are honestly kind of creepy. Thanks, Kevin Bright and Marta Kaufman. What I didn’t expect, and perhaps what I should have expected, was the cacophony. There were TVs blaring CNN reports on the Holocaust, and at the same time, male and female voices blared over the speakers announcing flights and delays and other assorted information.

Our flight began, naturally, with me seated smack in the middle of a row, and there were two crying children a few rows ahead. Yes. Two. I mean - really? I like children, you all know I do, but my god.

Then, a genius Emerson College student started playing with the remotes built into our seats, and this flight attendant with a bubble of red hair came over and said that she’d better explain how the remotes worked.

"This button calls me," said the flight attendant, gently reprimanding. "This one doesn't call me."

I guess you have to have a good sense of humor to be a flight attendant.

Airplanes boggle my mind. I mean - think about it. They are large cylinders with wings, and they float in the sky carrying people inside them. HOW DO THEY DO THAT.

Honestly. We were, at the highest, FORTY THOUSAND FEET UP IN THE AIR. THAT IS VERY HIGH AND I AM WRITING THIS IN ALL CAPS FOR EMPHASIS. HOW INSANE IS THAT. FORTY THOUSAND FEET.

I’d pee myself if I ever had to be a pilot. Because airplanes seem so flimsy. Metal and people, hanging out up in the sky. You rise, rise, rise, and the air pressure rattles your teeth and blankets the air so that when you speak, it’s muffled, the sound losing its luster, muted.

The flight itself was, on the whole, pretty boring. I watched Cars (cute movie), ate some chicken that was this milky shade of white and I was really concerned before taking a bite, but it was warm and solid and tasted like chicken, so I figured that was a good thing.

I’d like to share with you something I wrote on the flight, which I think sums it up very nicely:

“It’s 4:35, Netherlands time, which makes it 10:30 in Boston. I am sitting here on a plane over the Atlantic Ocean, listening to Hannah Montana. We’ve got the party with us.”

I love myself.

So we rattled to a landing at around 7:45 am over here, wandered into a hazy Amsterdam morning, only to be greeted by an H&M, Loreal and Heineken ads, and an elderly bus driver named Jacques. Three drowsy hours passed us by, with green expanses and black sheep and windmills and McDonalds flying by the windows, and I must have fallen asleep because before I knew it, here we were at the castle, red brick and troll bridges.

“Let’s be rebels and hang out under the bridge,” Katherine said, until she noticed the moat. It figures.

I have to go have a life. More to follow.

We’ve got the party with us.