(no subject)
10 April
Wow. I definitely walked at least twenty five miles yesterday, and I suspect that it was in excess of thirty. My feet were getting pretty lumpy by the end, and my shins aren't thanking me this morning: but it's okay, because I have now "done" Princeton. I allotted myself two days for it, but the remoteness of the hotel spurred me into attempting it in a single day: and I actually managed it.
I managed to get a free shuttle from the hotel into town -- only it doesn't operate at weekends -- and it dropped me where I requested, by the Harrison Street bridge over Lake Carnegie. And then, at about ten in the morning, I started my walk. And I began by going home. Sweet home.
I spent four years in that apartment. The two windows to the right of the (left-hand) porch were my bedroom, and the one to the left of it was the living room. Yup, I was pretty much trailer trash! But they're going to be pulling these things down soon. They were constructed in 1948 with the firm promise that they would only be there for five years, and then they'd build something more permanent. And, now in 2009, it looks like they're actually going to be honouring that promise. Which will, I'm sure, be nicer for the future residents: but that place holds many memories for me. Many, many memories. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. And I twice climbed to the very tip-top of that tree.
Anyway, I then wandered around the campus, and around the town. Visited the folks in the graveyard, like Jonathan Edwards (eighteenth century philosopher), Sylvia Beach (James Joyce's publisher), and Kurt Gödel (superstar mathematical logician). And then I carried on walking. Got a few $1.99 CDs from the Princeton Record Exchange, albums by The Sundays, Elastica, Television Personalities and Avril Lavigne. That place is not quite what it once was, but it's still one of the finest record stores you're ever likely to experience, and the greatest asset that the town of Princeton -- as opposed to the university -- has to offer. And then I carried on walking. Went along the canal tow-path for two or three miles, and found my way to Marketfair (one of the malls we have around here). And there, to take the weight off my feet (having walked for about six hours by this point), I watched 'Hannah Montana: The Movie'. I guess it must have been the first day of release, because it was really rather full. Full of excited little girls, applauding, laughing and sighing at all the right moments, and even getting up and dancing in the aisles. It's nice to see happy people. And I pretty much loved the movie. It's not quite as good as 'High School Musical', but it's definitely better than 'High School Musical 3'. And then I carried on walking, along the tow-path again.
I visited some more malls. I guess I went to six or seven altogether, depending on how one does the counting. New Jersey is mall country, and it is definitely not built for pedestrians. Walking back along Quaker Road was... well, not scary or anything like that, but just kind of tedious. I would walk for, say, fifty yards along the side of the road, and then I'd see a car coming (it was completely dark by this point, so I had the benefit of spotting headlights at long distances). And so I would stop and do my best to nestle into the brambles -- no chance of a sidewalk, nor even what you could really call a verge on these country roads -- until it passed. And then I'd walk another fifty yards. Eventually, I did get to a field, where I could walk at a safe distance away from the road itself. I did rather disapprove of the occasional spots of rain that we were getting (though I quite enjoyed the distant lightning), but luckily it came to nothing. And finally I reached the battlefield (from the revolutionary war -- did you know that Princeton was once the capital of the United States, for a period of about two weeks in the 1780s? True fact). And then I proceeded (this in my darkest Nick Cave growl) deep in the woooooods! And I found it! Somewhere or other, about a mile into those woods, there lies a bridge. Just a rickety and bouncy suspended wooden footbridge, like the one in that Indiana Jones movie. But, if one is going to stand a chance of actually finding it, one either has to know the woods intimately (as I do, or certainly once did), and be able to find one's way through them in pitch darkness (as I can), or else one just has to be lucky (as I was). For find it I did! And it's not that there's anything terribly special about that bridge: it's just the achievement of finding it, that's all. And maybe it was the endorphins (after some ten hours of walking by now, even discounting the movie), or maybe it was the vodka, but I was spontaneously moved to utter a line from a Hefner song: I'm so fucking happy it hurts!
And, with that achievement, my work in Princeton was done. I made my way back out of the woods, past the Institute, through the Graduate College, and as far as the Dinky station where, now at about a quarter past eleven at night, I got a taxi back to my hotel.
Wow. I definitely walked at least twenty five miles yesterday, and I suspect that it was in excess of thirty. My feet were getting pretty lumpy by the end, and my shins aren't thanking me this morning: but it's okay, because I have now "done" Princeton. I allotted myself two days for it, but the remoteness of the hotel spurred me into attempting it in a single day: and I actually managed it.
I managed to get a free shuttle from the hotel into town -- only it doesn't operate at weekends -- and it dropped me where I requested, by the Harrison Street bridge over Lake Carnegie. And then, at about ten in the morning, I started my walk. And I began by going home. Sweet home.
I spent four years in that apartment. The two windows to the right of the (left-hand) porch were my bedroom, and the one to the left of it was the living room. Yup, I was pretty much trailer trash! But they're going to be pulling these things down soon. They were constructed in 1948 with the firm promise that they would only be there for five years, and then they'd build something more permanent. And, now in 2009, it looks like they're actually going to be honouring that promise. Which will, I'm sure, be nicer for the future residents: but that place holds many memories for me. Many, many memories. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. And I twice climbed to the very tip-top of that tree.
Anyway, I then wandered around the campus, and around the town. Visited the folks in the graveyard, like Jonathan Edwards (eighteenth century philosopher), Sylvia Beach (James Joyce's publisher), and Kurt Gödel (superstar mathematical logician). And then I carried on walking. Got a few $1.99 CDs from the Princeton Record Exchange, albums by The Sundays, Elastica, Television Personalities and Avril Lavigne. That place is not quite what it once was, but it's still one of the finest record stores you're ever likely to experience, and the greatest asset that the town of Princeton -- as opposed to the university -- has to offer. And then I carried on walking. Went along the canal tow-path for two or three miles, and found my way to Marketfair (one of the malls we have around here). And there, to take the weight off my feet (having walked for about six hours by this point), I watched 'Hannah Montana: The Movie'. I guess it must have been the first day of release, because it was really rather full. Full of excited little girls, applauding, laughing and sighing at all the right moments, and even getting up and dancing in the aisles. It's nice to see happy people. And I pretty much loved the movie. It's not quite as good as 'High School Musical', but it's definitely better than 'High School Musical 3'. And then I carried on walking, along the tow-path again.
I visited some more malls. I guess I went to six or seven altogether, depending on how one does the counting. New Jersey is mall country, and it is definitely not built for pedestrians. Walking back along Quaker Road was... well, not scary or anything like that, but just kind of tedious. I would walk for, say, fifty yards along the side of the road, and then I'd see a car coming (it was completely dark by this point, so I had the benefit of spotting headlights at long distances). And so I would stop and do my best to nestle into the brambles -- no chance of a sidewalk, nor even what you could really call a verge on these country roads -- until it passed. And then I'd walk another fifty yards. Eventually, I did get to a field, where I could walk at a safe distance away from the road itself. I did rather disapprove of the occasional spots of rain that we were getting (though I quite enjoyed the distant lightning), but luckily it came to nothing. And finally I reached the battlefield (from the revolutionary war -- did you know that Princeton was once the capital of the United States, for a period of about two weeks in the 1780s? True fact). And then I proceeded (this in my darkest Nick Cave growl) deep in the woooooods! And I found it! Somewhere or other, about a mile into those woods, there lies a bridge. Just a rickety and bouncy suspended wooden footbridge, like the one in that Indiana Jones movie. But, if one is going to stand a chance of actually finding it, one either has to know the woods intimately (as I do, or certainly once did), and be able to find one's way through them in pitch darkness (as I can), or else one just has to be lucky (as I was). For find it I did! And it's not that there's anything terribly special about that bridge: it's just the achievement of finding it, that's all. And maybe it was the endorphins (after some ten hours of walking by now, even discounting the movie), or maybe it was the vodka, but I was spontaneously moved to utter a line from a Hefner song: I'm so fucking happy it hurts!
And, with that achievement, my work in Princeton was done. I made my way back out of the woods, past the Institute, through the Graduate College, and as far as the Dinky station where, now at about a quarter past eleven at night, I got a taxi back to my hotel.