If this thought process seems naive or insulting, consider that for my whole trip, I had drifted in cultural and geographic waters I’d never seen or tasted before. (Tasted?! Who tastes seawater? It’s a metaphor, but I hope you see how new this all was to me.) Back home, I could tell the difference between a raging storm and a tiny ripple. So far in my modern Odyssey, I had had to rely on the wisdom and predictions of others to educate me on what was important and what was unremarkable (although I honestly found everything remarkable), what was beneficial and what was dangerous. As fate steered me toward the UK, I began to fear that this territory would be like, or at least feel like, home. I worried that I would lose my spirit of exploration.
Thames River, looking south. Taken near Christ Church Meadow
I simply didn’t know what I would encounter, so I determined to keep my eyes and arms open and forward, in a posture of optimism and curiosity.
Thus I boarded an airplane for a long hop across Europe. Because I sat on the aisle I missed the glorious scenery and was unable to take many mental snapshots. Regrettably, I only have a vague recollection of crossing the Alps, and the rest of the journey is a view of seat backs and tray tables.
We landed in London, and I was greeted by a comically long walk from the arrival gate to customs. Proceeding into a Kafkaesque labyrinth of passages, I traversed what might have been a mile of deserted hallway, turning, passing through doors, encouraged that I was moving in the right direction by the fellow fliers wandering with me. I was also joined by anxiety - that restless companion which had hectored me several times during my trip and which now shadowed me to customs, whispering in my ear that I might miss my GWR train connection to Oxford.
I stood in the customs line for about 45 minutes, weaving back and forth in a painfully slow line before being cleared to proceed into the UK proper. I paced another 100-200 yards before reaching the baggage claim. How long did I wait to collect my larger backpack? I no longer recall. Next I had to locate the GWR kiosk, provide my code, collect my tickets, then hurry to the terminal where I successfully boarded my train with perhaps 15 minutes to spare.
It was a warm day in London, but mercifully not nearly so warm as Crete had been. I smiled to myself at complaints I overheard about how exceptionally hot England was at the moment. I quite believed them, but I had thankfully been tempered to endure worse.
As these snatches of conversation sank into my brain, along with people talking about the weather, train connections, jobs and university studies, culture shock washed over me for the first time since I had departed the States for Spain so long ago.
My thoughts were no longer alone. My ears digested almost all sounds into recognizable information. My brain struggled to keep up! I chatted with my seatmates as if I was myself a newcomer to English. For 6 weeks I had adjusted to a whole different pace for communication, spoken from a carefully-selected vocabulary of words. Suddenly my mouth could be as wasteful as it wanted to be again. This would take me a couple of days to grow used to.
Exceedingly pleasant seatmates offered a fun, gracious reintroduction into an English-primary culture. I shared space with a professional man in glasses, a young English instructor, and a recently-graduated physics student who had also just secured a teaching position. The train was stifling. Switch failures at a station farther north were creating connection challenges for all three of them. Somehow, perhaps due to the renowned pleasantness of the English, everyone was in high spirits and happy to chat (between urgent phone calls). The UK chapter of my sojourn was off to a happy, colorful start.
Had it been me trying to untangle a transportation knot, would I have made time to be pleasant to others? Would I have bothered to help them figure out the timing of their connection, as two of them did for me? My self-absorption stuns me sometimes, and puts the lie to my wishful thinking that I am a generous person.
We reached a transfer station where we all went our separate ways. I wished them all good luck and a pleasant evening and boarded my second train. Shortly thereafter I alit in Oxford. As had been previously arranged, I here let my local hosts know that I had landed and would soon arrive.
This led to a bit of comic misunderstanding. You see, my hosts, a lovely, domestic couple with a large home and hearts, had provided instructions to call them, then board a particular bus. This bus would bring me to a precise intersection, from which they would retrieve me by auto. However, when I told the wife of the duo who’d lodge me that I was at Oxford U and would meet the bus shortly, her response was, essentially, “huh?”
What I learned on that bus, from a kind, middle-aged woman who helped me identify where to get out, was that I had taken an unnecessarily long-legged route from Gatwick to Oxford. Indeed, not only could I have avoided a two-leg train trip - I could have avoided the train altogether, and simply taken an express bus that ran routinely between these two destinations! Alas, no harm done. In fact, the train trip had been such a pleasant first immersion in British culture that I was glad for the ignorance that had led me on that winding, merry chase.
Of course I met with my hostess at the bus stop - we got that part correct, at least - and she drove me to her home. We were near the end of an archetypal lane of three-storey, shoulder-to-shoulder brick homes. I was given the run of the upper floor, with a bedroom that granted a glorious view of trees, a green church spire, and other rows of tall, red brick homes, as well as a sitting room with skylights that let in sun by day and neighborly pub noise by night.
That first night, before I even unloaded my belongings, my hostess escorted me to this pub personally, introduced me to its owner, and helped me order a meal. Once I had installed my bags in my room, I returned and took up my dinner, immersing myself in the first repast in almost two months that had surrounded me with my native language. I sat in a rear courtyard that centered around a grand, sheltering tree which enjoyed reciprocal, I believe historic, protection from ever being chopped down.
I awoke the next morning raring to go. My host (recall they were a pair, a married couple), a cricket and cooking enthusiast who had been occupied at a match the prior evening, greeted me and ensured I was fueled for my wanderings with a generous (if unusual, due to my dietary habits) English breakfast of juice, tea, fresh fruit, and soft-boiled eggs. He also taught me how to open and eat such an egg properly after I made quite a mess of the first one.
Half the pleasure of this stay was the couple who lodged me. They were amiable, chatty, and generous, providing tour and photo books to find inspiration with and a weekend newspaper to read and keep as a memento. One evening their neighbor, who conducted an amateur choir in her home, had a gathering to eat and sing. My hostess asked this neighbor whether I could attend, despite the fact that she and her husband would not themselves be present. The equally kind neighbor said yes! Alas, my shyness overcame me, but I did eat my dinner in my hosts’ beautiful backyard garden, concealed by hedges from the crowd at the neighbor’s, and listened to both rehearsal and, later, a bit of the performance. Another day I enjoyed meeting some of their family. By the time I departed, this lovely couple had invited me to return someday, free of charge.
The rest of the time, I wandered and breathed deeply the bookish air. Before I had even started my trip I had resolved to indulge an “academic tour” somewhere along the way. What better place than here, in Oxford, one of the renowned educational establishments of the English world?
My hostess put me onto a foot and bike path just behind their home, which cut a trail north and south between rows of houses. If I went a little bit south, I could cross to the west side of the Thames and then follow this trail alongside the peaceful (few to no rowers - it was summer, after all) waters all the way into Oxford proper. And so I did, each morning and evening of my time there. A sweeping lawn, a field of horses, numerous locked boathouses and launches, and the river itself soothed and saturated my senses at the start and close of each day.
Horses by the Thames River
I witnessed the Christ Church War Memorial Garden, wandered bending streets, sidled down foot roads, craned to observe towers and parapets, passed beneath arches, basked in countless other architectural treasures, and everywhere witnessed prestigious colleges whose entrances were gated and guarded to protect students’ serenity from throngs of tourists such as myself. I spent a stifling afternoon in the fantastic, free Museum of Natural History, poring over fossils and minerals. On a tour of the Bodleian Library, I learned part of the long history of our race’s efforts to collect and preserve human knowledge - along with the neglect and defilement that this effort faces from foes such as time, money, and politics. One whole morning I took a book-guided walking tour of notable literary locations (of which there are a seemingly inexhaustible number in Oxford). Of course, as I discussed in another post (Flip the Pyramid), I had a delightful adventure immersed in A Midsummer Night’s Eve.
Bodleian Library
Christ Church, view from inner courtyard
Radcliffe Camera and glimpse of All Souls' College
Queen's Lane
Museum of Natural History
A couple of stand-out moments:
1) To see, to stand inside, the famed Eagle and Child where writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis once flattened their bottoms, upended beers and brainstormed unforgettable fantasy worlds fulfilled one unknown dream. This was one of the few times in my trip I made a phone call: Dad, guess where I am right now?
Orcs and talking lions might be encountered here...
2) If I am completely honest, one of my favorite landmarks was Blackwell’s Books. I have seen few bookstores that compete with the size and selection of Blackwell’s. With no shame or regret, I spent the better part of a day losing myself in aisle after aisle of books...and I had already passed several hours here before I discovered the inverted-pyramid basement!
My fear about the UK being somehow mundane was a distant, laughable memory by the time I departed Oxford. I was downright eager now to visit Cardiff, my next destination.
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