July 4 Is Not a Holiday

Right, what I really need to be doing is finishing my pre-term reading, but I’m going to break down and write a blog post. There’s a lot to tell, after all, so I’m just saving time, and saving you a mega-post that would be intimidating.

So, I’m in London! By far the most stressful part of Friday’s journey here was in Boston, the check-in (lines of sweaty people, bags not made much lighter by your mother’s forcing you to take Middlemarch out), the security business. Am I the only one who’s a total mess after security? I always have to sit down on the floor and put my shoes back on which takes much longer than getting them off because I have to untie them and tie them, and then I have to put my computer back in its case and it never fits right, and stuff all the odds and ends like contact fluid and change back into my carry-on bag – and I am the only one I see doing this! Does everyone else have a little travel elf who pulls everything together again after the X-rays? I swear, I’ve never seen anyone else squatting in a skirt in a semicircle of disorganized possessions. I always worry that while I’m dealing with all this they’re going to decide I’m suspicious after all and make me go through it all again, and this time confiscate my Ganesha statue or something. Last year I didn’t have any security problems on my flight from China to the U.S., and then when I landed at Newark and went to get my connecting flight to Boston, they took away my Water Babies sunblock, which made me sad because it was historically significant Water Babies sunblock in that it had come with me on other fun trips and been used by a number of people I had crushes on. This left me, I should point out, still in possession of several arguably more dangerous and sharp things, including my United Nations button, my pointy-headed Thai Buddha, and the safety pin of my peace ribbon. All of which could have done damage, had I been so inclined.

But I’m sorry, none of that has anything to do with this. The flight was nice. Reykjavik was peripherally included. I gave my chicken dinner to a hungry Spain-bound boy a few seats down from me. How do I always miss the vegetarian memo? You have to book it in advance. I slept a lot on the flight, which is unusual for me, but I was up all the previous night (why, WHY do you do these silly things? I don’t know. It never feels good. It’s like these roasted mushrooms they have at this 24-hour grocery store in New Haven, and all of spring 2007 I’d be up late writing papers and go, hm, those mushrooms look so good, and I’d load up on them, and then I’d roll around on the floor feeling like I’d been kicked by a horse, and then the next night I’d go back and go, those mushrooms look so good, another $8 worth, please.) so it wasn’t hard. We landed a little earlier than expected, around 6:30. We followed a lot of signs to customs and baggage claim. Customs was a long sweaty line if you weren’t a British national, so I guess there’s some nice travel symmetry there. There’s some sort of fast-lane iris-scanning thing you can sign up for, which sounds appealing, though the idea of them having your iris on record is unnerving. Needless to say, they don’t have mine (yet) so I had to head for the All Other Countries line. The All Other Countries sign subtitle: This includes U.S. citizens. Love it. And I am not going to pretend I didn’t need it to say that, because much as it hurts my soul to admit this, I totally saw “All Other Countries” and thought, does this mean U.S. citizens too?

The customs man actually spent a long time looking at my papers – I’ve heard from other people that theirs weren’t scrutinized at all. He read the letter we were issued and then asked me if there was any “placement” involved in my studies, which I guess meant would I be working, and I said no, just a lecture course, and then he said, Well, it doesn’t say that here. So I awkwardly ducked down in front of the counter and pulled some more random papers out – course descriptions and things – and he stamped my passport and let me through, and then on the other side I squatted on the grungy floor and stuffed all of it back into my luggage, how’s that for symmetrical?

Here comes the part I’m proudest of, so beware. You may think this is unimpressive. If so, don’t tell me, because it makes me really happy. Transportation from Heathrow to the dorm was, of course, foremost in my mind the entire trip, as it turned out the two other students I thought would be on my flight weren’t. So, first things first, I went anxiously to the baggage claim (it’s called the “baggage reclaim” here, actually, whatevs) – I say anxiously because earlier one of the program coordinators had sent us an email talking about how recent changes at Heathrow have led to loss of luggage – and located the proper conveyor for my flight (airports make me feel so competent, I’ve said it before) and immediately my bag came rolling out. So I shouldered it with much grunting and wrinkling of clothes and went trudging out past the lines of people waiting with signs, and suppressed the urge to pretend to be one of the passengers they were looking for. I’d seen a lot of advertisements in the airport for shuttles to Paddington Station (“Smart Londoners use HeathrowConnect”, said the ads, and I believed them) so I bought a ticket from a nice woman (6 pounds 90 pence, which is better, shall we say, than 65 pounds for a taxi) and took a nice train from the nondescript outskirts into the city of London. Paddington, when I got there and hauled my stuff off, was huge, high-ceilinged and airy, and actually wide-open – there was a truck driving into the main lobby when I arrived. I considered a taxi from there but decided, no. The adventure starts now. Buses are cheaper, cheaper even than the Tube, and apparently a great way to see the city. Seeing the city is first on my goal list this time around (given my buckle-down study existence in Beijing last year), so I lugged everything over to a map of the routes and pulled out the map they’d given us of the dorm neighborhood and figured out I wanted the 205 bus, and then I tottered out of the station, bought a 2 pound ticket at the stop, and didn’t have to wait very long before it came careening up.

I noticed that one of the passengers, an English guy, asked the driver
to let him know when we got to a certain street, and since the stops weren’t marked too clearly with names, I decided to ask the driver to announce my stop too. Maybe this made me look kind of like a dork since I was getting off at an official stop that was probably obvious to everyone else, but hey, I got there, so whatever. At Euston Station, the bus stop that appeared on the map to be closest to my destination, I took a little while to orient the map properly, but I’ve oriented maps with only mountains to go by so it wasn’t as difficult as it could have been, and I eventually lurched my way down Euston Street to Judd Street, where I passed the first major landmark that told me I was on track – the British Library! So close to us! And huge. And then I figured out the smaller streets – I was almost there and kind of wandering and this nice English guy called, “Excuse me, are you lost?” in his nice English accent, so I told him the name of the street I was looking for and he pointed it out to me, straight ahead. And okay, I kind of knew where it was anyway but I thought it was sweet. So far the people have been extremely friendly. I got into the dorm at around 9:30 A.M. and technically we weren’t supposed to be allowed into our rooms until 12 noon but the man at the desk let me in, which was a major relief as I was pretty exhausted. I put everything down, I called my parents thinking it was like 6 in America when it was actually more like 4 (sorry, Mom), and then I went to sleep. I intended it to be a 2-hour nap, something like that. And then I woke up at 8 P.M. Whoops. Anyway, a little disoriented but still riding the high of having got myself to the dorm alone, on public transportation, for about 9 pounds (VERY, VERY impressive, you may congratulate me through the Comments section or in person, greeting cards preferred), I went out to get the lay of the land*. I found a supermarket where I got apples. Apples, and access thereto, are important to me, as those who know me will attest. And then I walked about some more and stood awkwardly in front of restaurants trying to decide whether or not to go in – it felt weird to go alone. But then – THEN! – I realized that this neighborhood is full of other amazing dining options. Including lots of Chinese and Indian restaurants that offer, as the British call it, “take-away”. So I got me some garlic vegetables and I was very happy. I did Chinese for dinner again tonight from another place (I think tomorrow our group is going to get together and go out) and it was really good. Reminds me of China, actually.

I’m struck by what a diverse city London seems to be. I mean, obviously you can’t tell by looking where everyone’s from, but there seem to be a lot of people from the Middle East, and from the Far East as well, and I’ve heard all kinds of European languages spoken today. I woke up fairly late this morning and went for my inaugural run, employing my usual foreign-city navigational technique of only turning left for the first forty minutes, thus having only to remember to turn right during the second forty minutes on the way back. My father pointed out that, if I were to keep turning in only one direction, I would eventually end up going in a square, and while I have no concrete explanation for why this doesn’t happen to me, I can say that it doesn’t. It was a beautiful day and I even found some hills to run up. I also avoided getting hit by cars, because some municipal official wisely decided to paint each crosswalk with a bold LOOK LEFT or LOOK RIGHT, a practice which perhaps cheats natural selection (and this is a country with Charles Darwin on their ten-pound note, have I said that? how cool? we could never do that here.) but for which I am nonetheless grateful as the proper direction to look in is never the one in which I naturally look.

Also had this conversation today, while walking along sidewalk.

Sketchy English Guy in Car Stopped at Light: Excuse me, how old are you?

Me: (after momentarily forgetting – nineteen? Twenty?) I’m twenty-one.

SEGICSAL: (to friends) See, that makes it all right.

And then they kept going. I think I just got semi-hit on. To be honest, felt kind of like a compliment. We take what we can get.

Anyway, we’re now preparing for our first day, which is tomorrow at 10 A.M. I walked over to Bedford Square today to make sure I knew how to get to the Paul Mellon Center so I think I’ll be okay. Okay if I can finish Pride and Prejudice. I will admit that I am liking it better. The confessional scene with Darcy at Hunsford is nice. Okay? My heart is not made of ice. And Elizabeth’s relationship with her father seems interesting and unusual. And now I have to go finish it. I will post photographs soon. More to follow.

*I just reread that sentence and I’ve been using that expression for ages and for the first time ever, in rereading, it suddenly sounded weird and vaguely suggestive to me. I went out to explore. Period.