Two Things

Today on my way in to work, I was crossing Michigan Ave., looking at my feet or at passersby. I slowly noticed something weird: the closer I got to my building, the more isolated I was. This is because there were thousands of twins standing around: short ones, tall ones, white ones, black ones, old ones, young ones (but not The Young Ones), all of them in pairs. Because that's how twins work, you see. There are usually two of them. Anyway, they were gathered in the plaza outside my building for a DoubleMint contest to find the next spokestwins for that fine chewing gum flavor (although I prefer spearmint). Twins on their own are interesting; gangs of twins are weird, almost grotesque. They made me feel strange: by the time I made it to the building, I felt like there was something wrong with me, that I was deficient because I didn't have a duplicate standing next to me.

And this from an instant message conversation with an old friend from college: "Dude, it is sick of you to sing a Tesla song at me, even if I used to like Tesla." Make of it what you will.

Day 6: Back in London

After surviving the train trip with the chavs, I arrived in London at around 5. I found my hotel easily enough, then set out for an adventure. It started out pretty well, with a walk through Hyde Park (the real one, not the fake one where I currently live). It was a long walk. I learned early in my trip that I had worn the wrong shoes. I had a choice between sensible brown shoes and my tennis shoes. I picked the sensible brown ones, thinking that there was an outside chance that I might need to wear something nice; besides, they seemed comfortable enough. Well, it turns out that they are intensely uncomfortable on long walks. The bottoms of my feet ached, for most of my trip, like I had just run a marathon barefoot. Plus, they gave absolutely no support to my ankles, and when I get tired my feet start to flop around like I'm wearing clown shoes. I was constantly twisting my ankles on the cobblestones.

But Hyde Park was beautiful. It had started to cloud over and then to rain—back to normal for London. I was in desperate need of a cash station, so I walked along Kensington Road, past Queen's Gate, the Albert Memorial, and various other gates. I got on the tube at Knightsbridge, which made me think, as did just about every tube station in the whole of London, of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which takes place in a mystical London Underground where the tube station names are taken literally.

I got off at Picadilly Circus. Later on, I scribbled this in my little travel notebook/journal:

I'm sitting in a coffee shop a block north of Picadilly Circus—north, or east, or west, I don't know. Even with a map of this city, I'm lost. I stood in PC for 10 mins. staring quizzically around at the multitude of streets veering off in every direction. I started down four of them before I found my street, and I only hope I can find my way back.

I decided to go to a movie because of several reasons. First, my feet and legs are killing me. Second, I like to see things I won't be able to see in the states. Third, I'm feeling incredibly lonely. I discovered that I hate traveling alone. It's just not as much fun when you don't have someone to nudge and say "look at that!" I might just go back to the hotel.

Which I did. Poor little Mike, you're thinking (and so am I). But I really don't like traveling alone in a place where I'm a stranger. If it had been somewhere familiar, it wouldn't have been bad. But I was tired and sore and lonely. It may come as a surprise to some of you, but I can be a little moody sometimes. (No, really. Honestly.) I was moody that night, so I went back to the hotel for an early bedtime.

The next day I was a total idiot. I glanced at my itinerary and thought it said my flight departed at 14:35, which is 2:35, right? So I headed out to the tube station for a train to Heathrow. I got there at around noon, hoping against hope to be able to get an exit-row seat. When I arrived at the check-in counter, the nice British woman informed me that my flight was actually at 4:35, not 14:35. So I spent four hours in Heathrow Airport, reading the autobiography of an intrepid British war correspondent, Max Hastings's Going to the Wars. He wrote, among other things, about how important it is to take a good pair of shoes with you, wherever you go. Good advice.

Update: Here's a picture of the gang in Edinburgh. L-R: Duncan, Lemont, Andrew, Matt, Duncan's wife Kendra, and me.

Meet the New Pope

He was a member of the Hitler Youth, manned an antiaircraft battery for the German army, and spent time as a POW after the fall of the Nazis. He said that he had no option but to be a Nazi, but a hell of a lot of Germans managed just fine. But, he was just 14, and youthful indiscretions can be forgiven, although the last guy managed to be anti-Nazi. (More info on the Hitler Youth thing that makes him sound better.)

But this guy helped stamp out liberation theology and spearheaded the Catholic Church's whitewashing of the priestly pedophilia scandal. This sounds like a step backward for the church.

Day 5: Edinburgh

Edinburgh has a lot of hills. A lot of hills. Steep ones. In the course of our five hours of pub crawling, we walked up and down and back up again. I doubt there's a flat spot in the entire city. Lemont and I arrived by train from York at 3:30, and Duncan (grad-school friend) and his friend Simon (new to me) picked us up. We met Matt and Andrew (grad-school friends) at a pub.

We hit six pubs, I think. (Things got a little foggy toward the end.) I wish I had kept track of the names, but by the third one, I likely wouldn't have been able to remember anyway. Being a lightweight, I didn't drink as much as everyone else (save Andrew, who wasn't drinking), but I still had more than my share. I just let Duncan pick the beers for me, since he knows more about such things. I had ales of all sorts, including one really cool one made with heather instead of hops. It was great until it started to get warm, whereupon it started to taste like perfume. All I can say is that it's a good thing for me that pubs close at 11 in the UK, because they would have had to carry me home.

Matt lives in Milwaukee, but I had to fly to England to see him. He's busy with a dissertation and a two-year-old. Andrew and I weren't really close—I always thought he looked at me like I was a bug—but it was nice to see him. Duncan was still all rakish smiles and bad puns, in a fashionably retro leather jacket and new Converse All-Stars. Lemont was not much different for three years in England, except that he pronounces his "got" and "not" like a Brit.

Some things had changed in the three or four years since I'd seen some of them. I was the only one to remain unmarried; I was the only one not working on a PhD. (We made a rule early on that anyone complaining about his dissertation had to buy the next round.) But a lot of things were exactly the same; if not for the hills and the good beer and the accents around us, we could have been at The Bird in Mt. Pleasant. We had some of the same conversations. Matt and Andrew and Lemont talked about God; Duncan and Simon talked about beer. I did a lot of listening to other people's conversations. The evening was the perfect length; any longer, and I would have had to make the choice between drinking too much, and thus getting sick, and being bored.

The next day, before our train left, Lemont and I dropped in on Liz, another friend. She had been the assistant department secretary the entire time I was at Central. She had dated Duncan, but they broke up and married other people. She lives and works in Edinburgh, and we stopped by her office. It was really great to see her.

Then it was time for the five-hour train ride back to London. Lemont and I brainstormed on a movie we want to write until he got off the train at York, and I was left to attempt to sleep on the train. Good thing: I was in the so-called quiet car, where cell phones are supposed to remain off and conversations quiet. Bad thing: there were a bunch of "chavs," which is British slang for asinine thugs in knockoff track suits and gold chains. They were loud and obnoxious, and they even yelled at an old woman who asked them to be quiet. There are assholes in every country, I guess.

Merrie Olde Englande

I don't have a lot of time to write, but here's an update. It was cold and drizzly when I arrived, which is exactly as it should be. I saw sheep and lambs cavorting in a hilly pasture from my train to Cambridge. I even saw hedgerows, which permanently stuck "Stairway to Heaven" in my head ("If there's a bustle in your hedgerow..."). Hedgerows! You can't get more English than that!

Yesterday we met up with my old grad school friend Lemont, walked through Soho, and sat down for a pint at a pub called St. Andrew's or something suitably British. We had Indian food, which is sort of like eating the local cuisine, since Indian food here is supposed to be the best in the world (outside of India, I presume). I saved my favorite art historian from being run down by a London taxi—we both looked the wrong way before crossing, but she was a few feet ahead, and I heroically grabbed her sleeve and pulled her back. I haven't heard yet whether the Queen will award me a knighthood for my bravery.

Today we walked to Trafalgar Square, went to the National Gallery to look at a Caravaggio exhibition, then walked down to the houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. We saw the narrow street leading to Tony Blair's house, but we couldn't go in to chat with him because of the huge metal gate and craggy policemen (I can't call them bobbies because they're not wearing those cute hats).

My feet are killing me, but I wouldn't trade this for the world. Tomorrow I go to York to hang out with Lemont, then it's on to Edinburgh for pub crawling. This will probably be my last update until I get back. Until then, cheerio, and various other British sayings.

Travels with Goatdog

I'm going on a week-long trip—my first—to the UK on Thursday. I arrive in London on Friday morning, and then I take a train to Cambridge, where Rebecca has a conference. We're staying there until Saturday, when we get on a train to London. We hope to meet up with my friends Lemont and Jackie in London on Saturday or Sunday. Monday, Rebecca comes back to the US, and I get on a train to York, where Lemont lives. Tuesday, Lemont and I get on a train to Edinburgh for an evening of pub-crawling with three other grad school friends, who happen to be there doing research. Wednesday, after I crawl out of bed with my hangover, I get on a train back to London, and then Thursday evening I fly back to Chicago.

Wow. That's a lot of trains. I'm bringing half of my library to keep me occupied, and I assume that there will be nice scenery to look at as well. I wish I could stay longer in any given spot, but seeing old friends is more important right now than sightseeing.

I just received my $300 Britrail pass, which, sadly, is the cheapest way to pay for all of my trains. It's a combination of the high price of travel in Britain and the sad state of the US dollar. I'm used to traveling to other countries and receiving a bounty of oddly shaped and colored money in exchange for a pittance in US funds. Going to England, though, makes me feel like I live in a third-world country (for a lot of reasons, actually).