“I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand, walkin’ through the streets of Soho in the rain… Hooooowl! Werewolves of London!” – Warren Zevon

The past and next few weeks are littered with holidays. Spending them in Britain has been, and hopefully will continue to be, spectacular, if distinctly different.

I celebrated my 19^th birthday three weeks ago, on 18 October. To be in London for my birthday was a phenomenal gift in itself, however it was unlike any birthday I’ve had before. This could very probably be because I was approximately 4, 500 miles away from home and anyone I’ve known for longer than three months, a realisation that could easily be construed as negative and homesick. But it absolutely isn’t. Though it was the first time I’ve celebrated without my family (all of whom I sorely miss), my odd, happenstance family from Palace Court made it one I will remember. We went bowling, ate kebabs, and ended up in a weird shisha (hookah) lounge on Queensway, steeped in strawberry smoke. It was last-minute, but enjoyable.

We went plaid-clad for my 19th.

However, it is the 31^st, not the 18^th, that is my favourite day in October. I have never spent Halloween in a city, and last week, I got to do it twice! My Arcadian friend, Catherine Everett and I traveled to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, on Friday. It is a city I have wanted to visit for some time, in part because of Doctor Who, Torchwood and Chris Need’s Friendly Garden (all TV or radio programmes based in the city) and because of my deepening love of Wales (see other blog). It is a much smaller, quieter, more manageable town than London, though it, too, boasted ghoulishly themed nightclubs and people walking about in fancy dress. Cat and I were, ourselves a bit unprepared for the early Halloween, and spent a few hours perusing the arcades and alleys of Cardiff for the perfect costume. At last we found clip on sheep ears and white, fleecy jackets. We ran into the biggest Boots pharmacy I have seen and put pink lip stain on our noses. We ended up with the perfect lamb outfits.

The Torchwood team in front of their Hub

Oh yeah. The Hub!

Well, not everyone thought they were perfect. As we strolled up St. Mary’s Street, perusing the clubs near our hostel, we were accosted several times. If you want to be mindlessly hit on, go to Cardiff. I found people in the Welsh capital to be much friendlier and also far more forward than the automatons of London. One set of the drunken blokes who tried to pick us up said, “What are you two supposed to be? Pigs?” When we explained that we were sheep, they cackled and said “Don’t you know what people in Wales do to sheep?  We’re sheep shaggers!” Needless to say we didn’t hang around.

Baaaah.

On Halloween proper, a Monday, and one during which I have class from 9:30- 5:30, I went out, again with Cat, and my flatmate Alexa, (dressed as sheep and Little Bo Peep) to a club called Miabella in Soho. I seriously did see a werewolf walking down the streets of Soho in the rain, though the Warren Zevon song fortunately didn’t start playing in my head. The evening was fun, but, once again it struck me how different this Halloween has been to all my others. Up until last year, I’ve gone trick or treating. When the amount of alcohol consumed outweighs the amount of candy consumed on All Hallow’s Eve, I guess you know you’re an adult. I think I’ll go trick or treating next time.

Another holiday, one that is unique to Britain is today! Guy Fawkes Day immortalises the Gunpowder plot of 1605, when a group of conspirators attempted to blow up Parliament. Now it is commemorated by fieworks displays all over the city. I saw a spectacular display in Brixton tonight.

The next big event England is focusing on is, of course Christmas. On Tuesday I went to Oxford Street for the switching on of all the lights. Normally, I can be a bit bahumbug about Christmastime, but the holidays in London just makes me feel even more like I am living inside my favourite movie, Love Actually.

"You must be somewhere in London; you must be lovin' your life in the rain." -- The National

--Here is a prolix and pleading attempt to offer substantial excuses for being so dilatory in updating this blog, as well as a lamenting farewell to my stipend: It’s to do with perfectionist profundity; I feel that everything I post needs to be some insightful social commentary or themed, perceptive anecdote not made dull by over-sharing the pithy details of my life. But, it’s a blog, right?! If you hungered for profundity, you would pick up some Socrates, and my beard isn’t quite that luxuriant. So trifling incidentals abound! Here’s what I’ve been doing since we last spoke.

I suppose I’ve been kind of spoiled, actually. Sure, there are still nights where I tuck into the traditional collegiate meal of ramen and rice or cheesy beans on toast (which I relish, to be honest,  mealsof the independent), but the pasttwo weeks have had me seeing the posher side of London town.

One of my best friends from Florida, Chase, came to stay last weekend (he can do this as his dad is an airline pilot), and in that short space, I enjoyed gourmet Belgian food, two West End shows(Shrek and The 39 Steps, both immensely enjoyable), art galleries and the like. It was so nice to see a familiar face here, though I’m not sure if it broke or heightened the pervading surreality of this whole experience.

Me and Chase on the tippy-top of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Crème Brûlée!

Two weeks ago, at the invitation of a friend that goes to Cass Business School at City University, I got a true peek at the posh superculture of London. We attended a financial networking event at the Mahiki Lounge in Mayfair (a Hawaiian-themed nightclub frequented by Kate Middleton, Emma Watson, Beyonce and Prince Harry, among others), rubbing shoulders, sharing drinks and trading business cards with people who livein Canary Wharf. There was a Jamaican woman in the bathroom with a tear-stained leather face, there only to help me wash my hands. The neat little labyrinth of ritzy cobbled streets surrounding the Mayfair and Green Park area leading up to Piccadilly Circus was a pleasure to traverse in my clicking black pumps. It was a spectacular side of London I never expected  and am thankful to have seen.

Mahiki is right across from the Ritz. I can barely handle the overabundance of 'Notting Hill' moments.

But now, I’m off to the Malvern Hills for the weekend to rough it no-internet style. I hope traversing the hiking trails of western England in my plodding hiking boots will be as enjoyable in its own way as the posh district of western London.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on" -- The Tempest // The Newb of The Tube

We’ve been living in London for exactly a month now, and still I am not yet past the phase of pinching myself to see if this spectacular life is some construct of my too-vivid imagination. If it is, dreaming has never been better. And, in many ways, London is a surreal fantasyland. It’s the chimera of the Underground that has transfixed me particularly of late.

This can't possibly be real life.

People are hurtled through subterranean passages, careening on wild metal carriages that snake beneath famous streets and buildings above, all in the name of getting from A to B. It seems I spend most of my time on the Tube (in reality the ratio is 1/12 of my average day, right between walking up and down stairs and monopolising the toaster). It is fascinating to be a daily part of something so microcosmic as the London Underground.

Business people, travelers, immigrants, party girls (though I don’t enthusiastically suggest taking the train dressed for a neon rave if you’re at all phased by blatant stares), and thieves (no, seriously, a group of men the other day boarded at Tottenham Court Road lugging a flat-screen telly, its wires sticking out in a most hurried, suspicious manner) are ferried every minute to every inch of London.

Me and Casey after attending the neon rave of fresher's week.

However, these are the more colourful, rare instances on the Tube. Otherwise, what shocks me most about the Underground is how utterly silent it is. A single car, about 53 feet in length can be, and often is, stuffed to full capacity (which, legally, is 152 people) and still, I am able to discern which song a passenger several feet away from me is listening to on his iPod. Walking down a crowded corridor, too, I am met, not with the expected chaotic cacophony of hundreds of bustling travellers, but with the solitary ricochet of a chorus of the cool, clicking heels that carry their stone-faced wearers to each platform. There is something to be said about the British “stiff upper lip.”

Yesterday, I sat my first lecture at City University. It is an introduction to sociology. The professor is a bit militant, but our first lesson was thought provoking. He mentioned the Tube, and also remarked upon its detached passengers, from a sociologic perspective. The phenomenon is known as “civic indifference” and stems from a place of customary courtesy. According to Dr. Webster, it’s a well-known fact that if you talk on the Tube you are with a friend or from out of town. And, while it is true that I normally fall into both categories, if your face is six inches from mine and we are grasping the same pole, it would be nice if we acknowledged one another’s existence.

 Therefore, I will make it a goal to strike up a conversation with a random, safe-looking stranger on a Tube journey in the near future. Maybe I’ll get that stiff upper lip to crack a smile.

Voldemort.

Creeping on Ralph Fiennes after seeing him star in The Tempest for my Shakespeare course.

“Sitting in an English garden waiting for this sun; if the sun don’t come, you get a tan from standing in the English rain.” -- The Beatles

We had our first proverbial English rain last week, not that I mind, however. I adore the rain, frizzy hair, cute ‘brellies (of which I am now a proud possessor), soggy green grass and all. The English, as a people through history, are pretty big on their gardens and the gray skies and chilly drizzles that make them as fecund as they are. But what I have found even more interesting, is what seems to be growing in England’s cultural plots. The flora of customs is varied and sometimes indistinguishably entwined. Some of it is carefully cultivated, nurtured from brave green nascence, and tied to the old wooden stakes of tradition, and some of it grows unchecked, the societal weed that bursts through cracks in the once scrupulously tended solid-brick garden walls of London and struggles for a peek at the shy sun.

The beautiful garden at my home stay in Woking

Last week, Arcadia took its students to a Hindu Temple in the plain, outskirts neighbourhood of Neasden. At first, my classmates and I were thoroughly befuddled at the purpose of this particular excursion, traversing tubes and light rails and junky suburban drives, it wasn’t until we rounded a bend on an ordinary lane, watched only by the vapid eyes of brownstone houses and the odd CCTV camera, that we were faced with a magnificent, imposing, marble temple, sprung ivory and intricate out of the drab surroundings. The temple visit was on our agenda, I assume, to illustrate the overwhelming influence Indians have had over England. When we were asked at orientation what the national dish of England was, our responses of bangers and mash or fish ‘n’ chips were incorrect. It is Chicken Tika Curry. The Mandir temple was built in the 90s so that English Hindis could hold on to their faith far away from their cultural home. In the garden of tradition, the temple is well tended by community leaders, fertilized with the adaptations to and acceptance of modern life, and it is thriving. The Mandir, as well as many other religious orders (like the New Apostolic Church, which I attended two Sundays ago at the request of Patrick Elsing, who sought out the local branch of his home faith), has managed to find its niche in London’s multifarious jungle, but only because of prudent planning and nurturing. Some other areas of cultural growth is purely wild, uncultivated, and spawned from ancient, long-forgotten seeds embedded deep in London’s history. And these, too, change the shape of the metaphorical garden path.

Pat's New Apostolic Church

The Mandir Temple

Riding home on the DLR from Neasden’s temple, I witnessed another type of culture entirely. This one was angry, thorny, and seemingly immune to society’s usual weed killer. Two men of African descent sat opposite me and my friends on the afternoon train. They spoke wildly and passionately and we tried to ignore their hateful voices. They preached truculently on racial stereotypes, and in professing that all their misfortunes were based on the colour of their skin, I believe they perpetuate those very stereotypes, an thus, discriminations. The older of the men ranted that all throughout history, blacks have been the group most targeted. However, if 
you look through the annals of time, I believe you will find barbarism is something that confines itself to humans in general, genocide by and of every form and color. It is an abhorrent but very present part of this great thing we call civilisation. It upset me to see these men so indignant and so unhappy to be living in this country that I have come to love and not realise how privileged they are compared to so many others.

Yet this resolute disapproval was slightly shaken this evening when I went to go see the play “Slave: A Question of Freedom” at the Riverside Studios. It follows the true, heart-wrenching, recent story of a Nubian Sudanese girl who was stolen from her village and made to work as a slave for 10 years. Even though Mende’s harrowing and lonely plight is now resolved, she feels that she still suffers knowing there are millions of others in forced labour today who do not have friends, nor memoirs, nor plays to alert the world to what they are going through. Therefore, is it the job of those men on the train to accuse the “white man” of oppressing his darker fellows to remind us that injustice between all people still rages on? Or do they worsen the situation by broadening those cracks in the garden wall that separates two distinct, but seemingly harmonious “English Gardens?” Should I continue to sit dumbly across from them and accept the inculpation for crimes our ancestors committed against each other? Or should I have the courage to speak up and point out that, although what’s growing in our respective gardens may appear vey different, it is the same “English rain” that falls on us all, and whether we use our gnarled, cultural roots as a crutch or a lesson, we are still born of the same earth, and should thus try to achieve the peace that all religions, no matter whom they pray to, seem to be working toward?

Windsor Castle seen through English ivy

"Took my feet to Oxford Street..." and thereafter ran.

I should have worn more deodorant today. Not just because of the relatively hot
weather (described as “cracking” by our enthralling sociology professor at
City), or even because of the thousand or so people cramming themselves into
Primark on Oxford Street, or in an act of camaraderie with the neighborhood
football team Malina and Casey and I stopped to watch during lunch – but
because the cold sweat of fear and panic.

Mom and Dad, the following disclaimer is mainly for you.

Now, please don’t anyone get
excited, because I am perfectly fine, in fact, probably all the wiser for
having experienced my earlier ordeal. I also fully own my specious decisions
and visions of infallibility, and have now vowed never to make similar mistakes
again. I think everyone should and will be faced with moments of equivalent
distress, and will learn a crucial lesson in the great test of growing up when
they challenge themselves to conquer them. The above hype aside, here is the
reason behind the perspiration:

Douglas Adams once wrote, in So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, that, “Hyde Park is stunning. Everything about it is stunning except for the rubbish on Monday mornings. Even the ducks are stunning. Anyone who can go through Hyde Park on a summer's evening and not feel moved by it is probably going through in an ambulance with the sheet pulled over their face. It is a park in which people do more extraordinary things than they do elsewhere.“ It was with this idyll  trouncing around in my Pollyanna mind that I set off down Bayswater Road, my “don’t-screw-with-me” face firmly in place, from the two-story, ultra-cheap fashion bin that isPrimark on Oxford Street, right by Marble Arch (a truly remarkable place,  so chaotic that, besides the unparalleled deals, probably resembles the outer
circles of Hell. And I quite like to shop). Sans map and mobile (really, I am an
absolute fool) I walked for a time within other’s groups as to not stand out as
alone. However when I crossed the street to walk alongside the Park’s wall,
walkers were less concentrated. Armed with only the mental picture of the map
of Kensington that has hung by my bed for the last two years and excessive
viewing of London on Google Earth, I continued along, knowing Bayswater would
eventually connect to home. But, Bayswater is a long street. And just as I was
considering veering off to make that famed stroll through the park, I noticed a
man, late 20’s, walking opposite me. I kept calm, looked bored, and clunked my
Docs steadily in front of each other. He halted 7 feet away from me and said,
“Hey you’re pretty cute, you know?” Oh God. Just keep walking. But I couldn’t,
there was a domed bus stop in my path that would force me to his side of the
pavement. I stopped short. “Umm, no thank you.” “Do you want to go do something with me?” “Really,” I played it jaded and disdainful. “You’re gonna do this? Come on…” He advanced, and,
abandoning all pretense, I hopped up and down, flailed wildly to hail a cab.
There wasn’t one in sight, I realized afterwards, but this public display was
enough to make him scurry off. I pounded down the pavement, and took the next left into Hyde Park. Looking for a way into familiar Kensington Gardens, I
tried a path that eventually led me to the Peter Pan Statue. I stayed there and
asked directions of two Scottish students on holiday to no avail and we snapped
each other’s pictures next to the J.M. Barry memorial, before I turned around
to consult the map where I came in again. I tried catching up to three teens
maybe a year or two younger than I, to ask them directions, but it was they, a
boy and two girls, who sped up and looked scared as if I was the one accosting people creepily in the evening. I finally called after them, defeated, and said, “I’m not trying to get you or anything,I just want directions." They sauntered over and turned out to be as much help as the Scots, and far les friendly. I took an educated guess on which path led to Round Pond in Kensington Gardens and, still spooked, caught up with an older Jamaican lady, walking alone. Joyce, as she introduced herself as, was as trustworthy and informative as I was hoping. I walked with her to Round Pond, offering my profuse thanks, and spied Jeremy Kramer. I ran toward him, arms outstretched with relief and gave him a huge hug. He had come to the park by himself to take some photos and happened to be sitting on the Pond bench directly in front of my path. I was so thankful to see a familiar face and someone who had a key to
Palace Court.


Serendipity, in the end, turned out to be on my side.
But this has taught me I can NOOO longer rely on something so fickle. London is
“monstrous” and monsters hide among its members. And although I fancy myself superior to your average sidewalk lurker, I’ll never take on the city stupid
and singlehanded again. At least not without more deodorant. Promise, Mom and Dad!

“And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountain green?” – William Blake

Sometimes I think they did, these feet, I mean.  Perhaps in some past life they trod across this “green and pleasant land,” a land of Shakespeare, and Doctor Who, and Harry Potter, and Monty Python, and scholarly little tweed coats, and indomitable Queen Elizabeth, and the zany Egremont Crabapple Festival, and that infamous upper lip, a land that so many have coveted, but have failed to be simply cool enough to overtake, and a land so extraordinary that it has caused this anglophile to steep herself as fully in its culture as a soggy bag of PG Tips steeps in Royal Doulton for the perfect cuppa. And if those feet didn’t walk on England’s mountain green… Well, they do now.

             A silver sea of clouds rent itself in two under  too-early rising sun yesterday morning, and revealed below it, to the Arcadia University FYSAE students on board British Airways flight 66, the glittering physiognomy of London’s magnificent face, wrinkles shining with history, and young, playful grin gleaming with millions of uncreated opportunities. And we all smiled back.

            The day was an exhausting, jetlagged whirlwind of eager camera snaps, 81 lbs of luggage hoisted up 85 steps, serene strolls through Kensington Gardens, Marks & Spencer and TK Maxx runs, Arcadia meetings, desperate cappuccino purchases, first British pints (the ale I ordered was quite bitter), and even a spot of singing Sweeny Todd out of my 6^th floor bedroom window.

            This morning, we were all ready by 9:15 for the tube ride to City University, where a lot of us will be taking classes. After another meeting, we were paired off into groups and given a scavenger hunt list that had us scurrying all over London. It was fantastic to navigate the city on our own, without the help of cell phones (which most of us still need to purchase) or internet. Our first stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral, a magnificent building I didn’t get to visit the first time I was here. Then it was off to Covent Garden. We walked everywhere,  instead of going on the Underground, which is a point of pride, I think. On the Strand, we passed what has been my dream school for about 3 years, King’s College London. I was both happy and sad to see it, because, even though I’m not attending there, I made it so close, and stuck as well as I could to the lofty goal I dreamed for myself.

            We never got any further that Covent Garden on the list. If you’ve been there, you know exactly why. It is teeming with theatres (Drury Lane, anyone?), market tents, street performers, multifarious shops (Jeremy and I spent a good while perusing H&M), and pubs. After meeting up with the other parties, I headed back home to Palace Court (which is so wonderful and welcoming) and then out to Tesco to do our weeks grocery shopping. Pat Elsing, Casey McMahon, Malina Bazink and I cooked a delicious Italian meal, and shared our ever-growing excitement for and deep love of being in “this grey, monstrous London of ours."

Red Letter Day

As it turns out, college interviews aren’t as distressing as they are daunting. True, I tripped timidly over my tongue through most of my Yale interview (a formal affair conducted in a bank), but it could have gone far worse. And the interview I was lucky enough to secure for Dartmouth College a few weeks later was positively enjoyable (held by an elderly couple in their beautiful home and complete with chamomile tea).

AHHHHHH!

Interviews only whet my collegiate appetite, however. Like millions of expectant students before me, I checked my mailbox religiously. As it were, my second, and most exciting reply (FSU’s acceptance was the first) came in the wonderfully weighty, scarlet envelope from Arcadia University (my first choice after the Ivy Leaguers). After partaking in a wild celebratory jig, my parents and I began to plan a visit to the Glenside castle that I had already secretly set my heart on. The perfect opportunity arose with the FYSAE and honors reception in March.

Over Spring Break, when the rest of my friends were digging themselves lazily into the sands of Florida’s beaches, I packed my warmest winter clothes and boarded a plane to Philly with my mother, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Philadelphia was delightful. As a person who regularly seeks out culture-shock, I was thrilled with its cold moody skies, framed by barren trees, edgy, historic streets, skirted by impressive architecture, and efficient buses and trains, filled with friendly strangers.

 

We traveled by bus to Arcadia the day after we arrived, and, swaddled in our dusty coats, approached the magnificent school. After an interesting tour given by Faith Bogue (she was really great!) and the truly welcoming (not to mention, delicious) FYSAE/ Honors reception, I hardly even cared that the Ivies would be sending out their decisions the following evening (decisions that despite the aforementioned “good-fortune dancing,” were not in my favor). I found a place that I was looking forward to calling home.