With the long week done, a hundred trenches dug and paths laid, we had earned a break. So with Friday turning into a very wet and rainy day, we departed after work for Oxford. There we would be reunited with ubiquitous Whitney Turley and the wonderful Katherine Skingsley (who is attending Oxford University's Keble College), Whitney's best friend, who has visited California. But before we could see them we had to make the journey, which is another long one. We saw two interesting things at Paddington Station in London (we realized that between Grand Central, Gare du Nord, and Paddington, we have seen some of the greatest Train stations in the world). One was a bit upsetting: they charge you to go to the bathroom!! What? That cannot be legal. i am fairly sure that urinating is a human right. Apparently not. Apparently it is just another commodity. Disgusting. The next was more exciting. A massive orchestra of wind and brass instruments called the Paddington Station Band, made up of very old professional musicians, who gather regularly to sight read and perform incredible music. We listened to Handel's Water Music and Fiddler on the Roof, and I met the conductor, and then we had to depart. Very, very cool group.
Oxford was a bizarre place to drop into. Over the course of the night, we walked all over the town and were introduced to hundreds of people, none of whose names we could hear over the surging bass of the club we were in. It was a serious college scene, unlike any we have ever seen (oh yeah, we have never been to college). But ultimately it was a great party and we had a great time, stayed up into the small hours and ended up crashing in Katherine's dorm, apparently the social grand central of the whole University. The next morning Whitney gave us a tour of the college, where she had been several days, and it was incredible. It is hard to unstate the beauty and power of a school so established, with such rich history, tradition, and stunning architecture. Walking around it felt like an incredible privilege, although the people there are utterly normal.
And then, before we had really begun to feel the ground under our feet, we were on the train again, grabbing a few minutes sleep before arriving in London.
OH LONDON! A brilliant city! A place I feel so inadequate even attempting to capture in words. People! Culture! Theater! History! Food! This is the best I can do in lieu of a real description. Exclamation points!!
This city, we realized as we wandered, is the city of everything. Now, although that may sound like a ludicrously vague description, it was, in fact, our overwhelming impression after seeing various Shock and Awe elements of this great city.
Saturday, arriving on the train we went straight to Portobello Road, a famous street market north of Hyde Park. We wandered for several hours up the long winding street, never reaching it's end. To either side were rows of brilliant shops bursting at the seams with trinkets and treasures, and flowingn out onto the streets were stalls selling even more. Every few blocks would be a massive self-contained market, a dark cave into which we dove, only to be surrounded by more brilliant oddities. We were surrounded by throngs of people, in themselves fascinating and exciting, but there was simply too much to look at. We saw more strange and wonderful treasures in a few hours on that narrow London street than we had seen in any market across the world before. Any attempt to sum up what we saw seems futile, but the wonders included more vintage records than Casey had ever seen (that's saying something), dazzling clothes and furniture, venetian masks, a Scottish or Scotch shop, old-fashioned leather soccer balls, maps, beautiful art, ancient leather-bound copies of Dickens and Shakespeare, knives and coins and truly everything that you can imagine and many things you cannot. And the food section was a maelstrom of overpowering scents, paella, roast pig, pizza, foccaccia, chickens turning on the spit, cheeses and bread and fresh vegetables and all mouth-wateringly presented. And the street-performers we mgnificent and bizarre, ranging from two Scottish blokes reminiscent of the Proclaimers, and a very cool indie guy playing Somewhere over the Rainbow on the Ukelele.
But eventually, tragically, we had to tear ourselves away, hop back on the Underground, and zip over to Covent Gardens and the West End, where after a delicious baguette enjoyed sitting on a fountain in the center of a wild crossroads, we collapsed into the red-velvet seats of the Cambridge Theater to watch Chicago. We had seen it before, on the screen, but there is no comparison. It was hot. Red-hot, sexy, wild and overpowering. Lustful, bloody, and beautiful. The dancing was breathtaking, gorgeous choreography, stunning musical numbers,great acting and singing, tragedy and trauma and victory and hilarity and
All. That. Jaaaaaaaaazzzzzzz!
When we emerged London was dark but still buzzing. We had bite to eat at a funny little Bento Box place and then went to Foyles Bookstore, a place Whitney had discovered and which has forever altered the course of my life. The place was massive, a temple of literature and knowledge and art. Four stories, shelves overflowing with every book I ever knew existed and hundreds of thousands I cannot even conceptualize. There were whole wings of the bookstore dedicated to sub-sub-subjects like Late 20th Century Comedic Theater Critisism. My head was spinning and I could barely see straight. The site of so many people in such bliss surrounded by books was exhilarating. There were millions of places to read. So we spent hours there, Whitney launched off to the Coffee and Culinary sections, Casey to Architecture and Art and Tolkein, and me to Music and Theater and Shakespeare and Dickens. Finally, after endless wandering we regrouped in the children's section, where Whitney read out-loud Charlie and Lola, and then I read Dr. Seuss and a brilliant bok (courtesy of Kate Detrick) called Instructions. Exhausted but exalted, heads spinning, we merged again onto the street, secretly wishing we could spend the rest of our lives within that brilliant temple.
We wandered past St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tate Modern, Shakespeares Globe, and across the Millenium Bridge. We settled down in a warm pub on the Thames and had a beer, as the city glittered before us. By the time we decided to head home (home was a brilliant little hostel in Chelsea called the Boka Hotel), the underground had closed (I didn't even know that happened) and so we had to walk home. Seven miles, down the twisting and winding roads of London, past Buckingham Palace and St. James Park, Sloane Square and down Kings Road. Navigating a strange city where all the streets are curving and street names change every two blocks was not easy, but eventually we made it (with the help of some rejuvenating ice cream) and stumbled exhausted (REALLY EXHAUSTED) down Eardley Court Road, into the hostel and onto our beds. We lay down to momentarily take the weight off our feet before getting ready for bed, and woke up hours later. An Odyssey, and a brilliant way to see the city.
Our second day in London started bright and beautiful. I woke up rejuvenated and walked around the endlessly stately and elegant avenues and private parks of Chelsea (Aston Martin parked on every corner) before meeting up with Casey and Whitney. We walked over to Hyde Park, past the Albert Memorial and Royal Albert Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum (God damn Victoria really did have a major crush on that guy didn't she?) and arrived at one of my favorite places the world over: The London Natural History Museum. The entrance into the ornate victorian building is shocking, a massive hall of stone and glass with a full skeleton of a Brachiosaurus dominating the space with it's archaic majesty. We then wandered endless halls of dinosaurs (including live Velociraptors and a T-Rex) and incredible skeletons, and stuffed birds and animals, full scale models of whales and dolphins and creepy crawlies, an incredible wildlife photography exhibit, and basically every wonder of the natural world, astoundingly showcased in a gorgeous old building. Best Museum Ever.
Afterwards we had lunch (wierdly at another Bento Box place, very suspicious) and wandered up one of London's main shopping drag. Continuing our Shock and Awe tour, we went into Harrods, the most vast and lavish excessively opulent Departmet Store Complex in the world. Harrods was a vast maze, a beehive of jaw-dropping clothing and perfume, furniture and electronics. The selections were vast and the prices were even greater. Luxury and wealth (or an aspiration at both) dripped from the people elegantly wandering and inelegantly grabbing from the overloaded shelves. Christmas music played seductively in the background, sneaking into subconscious minds to increase the need to purchase (Now! Presents! For everyone!). We wandered in exuberant wonder into the Toys sections, streaming down memory lane with nostalgic shelves of Playmobil, Legos, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and the Gruffalo. The old favorites and the new creations were equally delightful and we all would have given anything to be transported back in time to the days where we could point and cry and within a month the desired treasure would appear under the christmas tree. We left in a daze and dragged now exhausted feet down the street to Victoria Station as evening fell rapidly over London.
On the bus back to Thorpe, listening to Vampire Weekend, my sense of awe at the vastness and variety of the city only grew. I have been there a hundred times, but this time the incredible scale of it was thrust upon me, having seen the wilderness of Portobello Road, the temple of Foyles Bookstore, the catacombs of the Natural History Museum, and the decadent palace of Harrods, as well as our midnight romp through seven miles of Belgravia and Mayfair. Stunned, but satisfied. Everywhere we went we saw more quantity, more quality, and more beauty in the vast and flawless collections of everything from dinosaur skeletons to vintage records, clothes, books, food, and people.
No comments:
Post a Comment