July 4 Is Not a Holiday

O – o – o -oh, what do I want to do? I don’t know.

I’ve been enjoying a little downtime during this, our first weekend of the term. Today completed my first week in London – it’s gone fast, but it’s been full, so I’m left with the conflicting “Already? That’s all?” feelings that seem to be typical to situations like this. Yesterday, Friday (yes, the weekend is 3 days long and it’s super. Not that that’s new to me, since this past spring I didn’t have any classes on Friday either, but I can still appreciate it.), I got up a little late (but nowhere near as late as I’ve been known to get up; let’s say 10:30, which is usually predawn for me at home), ran, showered, and then decided to strike out on my own in the city, with the help of the London Planner, a periodical featuring notices of events around the city and, crucially, a few pages with maps of the city that one can examine discreetly while walking without having to unfold and hold it with arms spread wide (yoga instructors call this Tourist Pose). Maps are fantastic, as I later told my father. If you have one, you can go anywhere. Including Regent’s Park, which was where I went.

It’s incredible; it’s been a while since I’ve seen Central Park but I don’t remember it being like this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this in a city. It’s huge: expanses of grass, lush trees and flowers, fountains. It alternates between more French-ish, carefully manicured plants and walks and then more free-form woodsy grounds. I went up a hill and found a bench in a copse where I sat and finished Pride and Prejudice. I was there for more than two hours; I spent the second half of my time there wandering. You can walk out into the center and feel as if you’re out in the countryside. And, I add as both my parents were hasty to question me about it, it’s not isolated. There are people everywhere – young couples, families, soccer-playing youths – lying on the grass or strolling through or talking. It seemed like there were more than you’d ever see in an American park of the kind, though I don’t know what it’s like on weekdays – I was reminded of the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. Regent’s Park is far larger than that, and different in design, but what seemed familiar were the people, everyone so relaxed. I went back again today and found an excellent willow tree. It bends over so far that it almost lies along the ground, though its branches still extend high into the air, and you can walk up along the trunk. There are plenty of well-shaped depressions for sitting, and I sat. Unfortunately, when I opened my backpack I discovered that I had forgotten Nicholas Nickleby, the next on my reading list – I could have sworn I’d packed it!
So I just sat. Which wasn’t bad in itself.

I’m back in the room now – there’s been talk of going to a pub in about half an hour, which I would be down with, but there’s also been talk of going to a nightclub in the far north of the city with the British Bulldogs kids (Yale students doing internships in London). I mean, I haven’t completely written off clubs, but they’re not really my scene, and it sounds like maybe the Bulldogs are made of stronger stuff than I – an email from one of them inviting us out promised that the sender would stay “until the club closes at 6 am”. I don’t think I’ve got the stamina for that. All-night arguments with the improv group yes, all-night papers yes, all-night Harry Potter reading yes, all-night standing in dark room with throbbing music not so much. Just sounds kind of…boring? We’ll see. The truth is, I’m a little anxious about the workload, and I’m eager to make a dent in Nickleby, which, I should mention, is quite compelling so far. Interesting echoes of Cervantes, in my opinion, though that may be totally off the wall – the little interpolated stories of travelers on the road, the narrative that so far follows a literal journey. My edition includes a preface by Dickens wherein he notes that, at the time he wrote the book, the grim “Yorkshire schools”, one of which is unflatteringly drawn in the novel, were quite common, and now have dwindled to “very few” as a result of his damning portrayal. Would it have happened like that nowadays? Almost an impossible question to answer, of course, given that the work of reformers like Dickens has ensured that a whiff of treatment an eighth as bad as that endured by the boys of Squeers’ school brings on an investigation and a lawsuit. But I don’t know…are people less affected by art now? We don’t have riots in the theaters anymore. Even as recently as Miller’s Death of a Salesman, according to my theater history professor, disillusioned businessmen were wandering dazed out of the theater, having to be corralled by policemen. I can’t see it happening now. Counterexamples solicited.

Whatevs. I eat too much dried fruit. If someone is monitoring my behavior, which, if not probable, is certainly technically possible given the ubiquitous closed-circuit television cameras in the street, they are undoubtedly mystified by my store-going habits. Today I went to 5 or 6 grocery stores, some little corner marts, some many-aisled supermarkets. I went looking for dried fruit, of which they are many varieties to be had but only certain varieties to be desired. Across the street and down a little from where I live is the first establishment that ever I visited, a week ago today, wherein I procured my first little box of dried fruit. On that day, they had in stock the Tropical Mix, which is my favorite kind because it includes banana chips, my absolute favorite type of dried fruit, though the fruit in its natural condition doesn’t do much for me. They stock Tropical Mix sporadically (maybe everyone else prefers it too) but can be counted on to have Calypso Mix, which contains dried cantaloupe, an ingredient coming up fast in my estimation behind banana chips. I now also go to Tesco, the budget chain supermarket of the UK, because I have found that they offer a dried fruit mix generous in banana chips. You might say to me, so, abandon the Calypso Mixes of the world and just go to Tesco. But the thing is that the Tesco coconut shavings – coconut shavings being almost as important as banana chips – are markedly inferior to the across-the-street Calypso Mix coconut, thus making it necessary for me to buy both and mix them together. Moreover, actual dinner-ish food can only be purchased at Waitrose, the more upscale (though reasonably priced) grocery store farther down the street, which boasts much better produce than Tesco or any of the smaller markets. I mean, you can pay 99 pence for bruised, shriveling mushrooms or you can walk an extra few hundred yards and pay 99 pence for spherical white ones, what are you going to do? Meanwhile I continue to investigate every market I pass for Tropical Mix, the Dulcinea to my Don Quixote.

So you see, I’m a busy person. Pubs? I’ll check my planner.

Update: Pubbed it!  Because I’m trying to be brave, it’s this new thing I’ve been doing for about a year, off and on, with mixed results.  This time it was a good, if mild, reward, for a mild risk.  We went to the Marquis Cornwallis, a pub right down the street from us, very convenient.  They carded me for my diet Coke, which I guess makes sense since it is a pub and even if you’re not drinking it’s reasonable that they require that you be of age if you’re in there.  Then again, when I consider that the drinking age here is like 16, I am maybe a little offended.  Not that it’s anything I’m not used to.  Like my brother’s friends moms at his prom: Oh, I didn’t know Sam had a sister!  And what grade are you in?  Fourth, lady, but I’m big for my age.

Anyway, pub quite pleasant.  Now for some Nickleby.