Capital-Hopping: Almost Existential London
I have quite a few pictures and quite a lot to write about from my most recent adventures, so I'm going to do it in city-specific installments. Here is the first.
Two weeks ago today, I left the capital of my "residence" for the capital of England, and in a little over a week, I made my way through two other capitals, eventually landing Stateside in the Capital of My Childhood Dreams, New York City before making my way down to this ex-capital of sorts, that place I call Home.
From the start, I was reluctant to leave Edinburgh; I had had nine great Scottish months -- in fact, (as you should have inferred from my content as of late which changed from this inane, Emo, dissatisfied bullshit to something a LITTLE less insane from someone who is obviously enjoying her day-to-day existence ) better than great, better perhaps, than I ever could have imagined. Yet, when each day throughout the entire week of my departure, I lamented my homeland-bound fate, I did so with the knowledge that such a fate was inevitable and that when it came, i would have to get on my plane and make the best of it. So, on that Tuesday morning, after many protests that I did not, in fact, want to leave, I was ready bid Edinburgh a very sad goodbye as I sat in the airport waiting for my 9:25 flight to London. The World At Large, however, seemed to have taken my whining and sarcasm at face value and, in an ironic (yet not, for those of you who have been following my travels, unexpected) twist decided to give me a few extra hours in my beloved city; my plane had a flat tire, and it took them FIVE HOURS to get it fixed and on its proper route again. Annoying? Yes. Disastrous? Not exactly. Except that my cousin was already on her way to London, then had already arrived in London, then was waiting for me for hours in the train station where we agreed to meet, and I had no means by which to contact her. Eventually, however, I got there, dragged my suitcases to our hotel (only a £10 cab ride this time) and collapsed; we lost the day, but we would make up for it.
And by "make up for it" I obviously meant, "eat LOTS of pastry."
On Wednesday, we had a typical touristy London day. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral:
Laura had wanted to feed tuppence to the pigeons Mary Poppins style, but she fed them to the Tate Modern instead.
On our way across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate, we saw these women who were either part of a piece of performance art or members of a Super Chic Spy Army; we prefer to believe they were the latter.
And we finished up the day by seeing Titus at the Globe with all the other Americans in the city, literary geeks that we are.
We got to lean on the side of the stage like peasants, and let me tell you, it was awe-inspiringly FANTASTIC -- all of the blood and drama right up close; I felt like I'd been training for it all semester with my Shakespeare endurance marathons (including the week before my final in which I read three Shakespeares in the space of two days), and the payoff was worth it.
At intermission, we even had a walnut picnic on the floor of The Globe to rest our weary legs because we are all about the CLASS.
Throughout the day, I came to realize that traveling with my cousin is a lot like traveling with the sibling I don't have. And no, I haven't been gone from the country so long that I've forgotten I have a brother (I fully well remember that he exists, and I love him - I even watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with him last night and I hope to have had equally as Excellent adventures as they before summer's end - but I never DO anything with him; he's not human enough for us to be friends yet). I wouldn't go to a movie with him let alone a foreign country or a bar.
Speaking of bars, on our way home from The Globe, I saw this sign outside of one and I nearly cried to think that I would be missing prime Pimm's Season in Britain. (Alcoholic? What are you talking about? It's a CULTURAL thing.)
I loathe to say this, but i don't think I GET London as a city. I know I was scarcely there two days and maybe I didn't frequent the right parts, but I just don't see what it is about this city that makes it the Mecca of Britain. I mean, New York, I can see why someone would want to drop everything and pin all of his dreams upon it. And Paris, I understand why it's a place where things happen. But I do not understand why everyone from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales (not to mention the rest of the world) has been migrating to this city for hundreds of years. I mean, just to cite some of my own topics of concern as references, Oscar Wilde chose to live there, as did T. S. Eliot, and it was the place where the whole 60s mod thing happened, and it is the centre of Britain, this concept which (if for no sensible reason) I love. But I just don't see it; every bit I visited was just another of Edinburgh's Prince's Street, on a larger scale, maybe, but still, each section of the city had the same chains of High Street stores, and each park and picturesque white building looked the same. I went to Piccadilly Circus, hoping to find some of the whimsy inherent in the name, and what I found was a lesser version of Times Square, all bustle and no spectacle. This is not to say that I didn't like London, that I'm sorry I went, or that I didn't enjoy my time there, because I did, I'm glad, and I enjoyed it, respectively, but throughout most of my last day there, i found myself wondering "WHY?" Why London? Why are we meant to go to Harrods, not Harvey Nick's? What exactly are we doing here?
Well these pseudo-existential questions are not easy ones to answer, and the closest we came to a conclusion was this: shoes. We had just finished our $40 french toast at Harvey Nick's, and we were feeling a bit disillusioned with the whole city, dissatisfied, and completely unable to find the Victoria and Albert Museum (another eventual disappointment); I had received a barrage (okay TWO) text messages insisting that we visit Harrods, and though neither messenger was able to cite a reason to go other than its being THE place to go, we were walking past, so we went in. Though it wasn't really to our taste, and we found it to be overly garish and a bit "disneyfied," if you will, we did, find its shoe department to be quite agreeable and reasonably within our price range (as compared to Harvey Nick's, land of the fabled Marc Jacobs and Jimmy Choos). I ended up finding the red shoes I'd been craving for months in the form of the perfect wedges (not too think a heel, no wicker, cork or hay-like material in sight) I'd been searching for. Though such a material find is perhaps trivial in light of greater questions, their purchase certainly made my last day in London, leading me to believe that perhaps, I had been too quick to judge her and that there are reasons behind things afterall.
Two weeks ago today, I left the capital of my "residence" for the capital of England, and in a little over a week, I made my way through two other capitals, eventually landing Stateside in the Capital of My Childhood Dreams, New York City before making my way down to this ex-capital of sorts, that place I call Home.
From the start, I was reluctant to leave Edinburgh; I had had nine great Scottish months -- in fact, (as you should have inferred from my content as of late which changed from this inane, Emo, dissatisfied bullshit to something a LITTLE less insane from someone who is obviously enjoying her day-to-day existence ) better than great, better perhaps, than I ever could have imagined. Yet, when each day throughout the entire week of my departure, I lamented my homeland-bound fate, I did so with the knowledge that such a fate was inevitable and that when it came, i would have to get on my plane and make the best of it. So, on that Tuesday morning, after many protests that I did not, in fact, want to leave, I was ready bid Edinburgh a very sad goodbye as I sat in the airport waiting for my 9:25 flight to London. The World At Large, however, seemed to have taken my whining and sarcasm at face value and, in an ironic (yet not, for those of you who have been following my travels, unexpected) twist decided to give me a few extra hours in my beloved city; my plane had a flat tire, and it took them FIVE HOURS to get it fixed and on its proper route again. Annoying? Yes. Disastrous? Not exactly. Except that my cousin was already on her way to London, then had already arrived in London, then was waiting for me for hours in the train station where we agreed to meet, and I had no means by which to contact her. Eventually, however, I got there, dragged my suitcases to our hotel (only a £10 cab ride this time) and collapsed; we lost the day, but we would make up for it.
And by "make up for it" I obviously meant, "eat LOTS of pastry."
On Wednesday, we had a typical touristy London day. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral:
Laura had wanted to feed tuppence to the pigeons Mary Poppins style, but she fed them to the Tate Modern instead.
On our way across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate, we saw these women who were either part of a piece of performance art or members of a Super Chic Spy Army; we prefer to believe they were the latter.
And we finished up the day by seeing Titus at the Globe with all the other Americans in the city, literary geeks that we are.
We got to lean on the side of the stage like peasants, and let me tell you, it was awe-inspiringly FANTASTIC -- all of the blood and drama right up close; I felt like I'd been training for it all semester with my Shakespeare endurance marathons (including the week before my final in which I read three Shakespeares in the space of two days), and the payoff was worth it.
At intermission, we even had a walnut picnic on the floor of The Globe to rest our weary legs because we are all about the CLASS.
Throughout the day, I came to realize that traveling with my cousin is a lot like traveling with the sibling I don't have. And no, I haven't been gone from the country so long that I've forgotten I have a brother (I fully well remember that he exists, and I love him - I even watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with him last night and I hope to have had equally as Excellent adventures as they before summer's end - but I never DO anything with him; he's not human enough for us to be friends yet). I wouldn't go to a movie with him let alone a foreign country or a bar.
Speaking of bars, on our way home from The Globe, I saw this sign outside of one and I nearly cried to think that I would be missing prime Pimm's Season in Britain. (Alcoholic? What are you talking about? It's a CULTURAL thing.)
I loathe to say this, but i don't think I GET London as a city. I know I was scarcely there two days and maybe I didn't frequent the right parts, but I just don't see what it is about this city that makes it the Mecca of Britain. I mean, New York, I can see why someone would want to drop everything and pin all of his dreams upon it. And Paris, I understand why it's a place where things happen. But I do not understand why everyone from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales (not to mention the rest of the world) has been migrating to this city for hundreds of years. I mean, just to cite some of my own topics of concern as references, Oscar Wilde chose to live there, as did T. S. Eliot, and it was the place where the whole 60s mod thing happened, and it is the centre of Britain, this concept which (if for no sensible reason) I love. But I just don't see it; every bit I visited was just another of Edinburgh's Prince's Street, on a larger scale, maybe, but still, each section of the city had the same chains of High Street stores, and each park and picturesque white building looked the same. I went to Piccadilly Circus, hoping to find some of the whimsy inherent in the name, and what I found was a lesser version of Times Square, all bustle and no spectacle. This is not to say that I didn't like London, that I'm sorry I went, or that I didn't enjoy my time there, because I did, I'm glad, and I enjoyed it, respectively, but throughout most of my last day there, i found myself wondering "WHY?" Why London? Why are we meant to go to Harrods, not Harvey Nick's? What exactly are we doing here?
Well these pseudo-existential questions are not easy ones to answer, and the closest we came to a conclusion was this: shoes. We had just finished our $40 french toast at Harvey Nick's, and we were feeling a bit disillusioned with the whole city, dissatisfied, and completely unable to find the Victoria and Albert Museum (another eventual disappointment); I had received a barrage (okay TWO) text messages insisting that we visit Harrods, and though neither messenger was able to cite a reason to go other than its being THE place to go, we were walking past, so we went in. Though it wasn't really to our taste, and we found it to be overly garish and a bit "disneyfied," if you will, we did, find its shoe department to be quite agreeable and reasonably within our price range (as compared to Harvey Nick's, land of the fabled Marc Jacobs and Jimmy Choos). I ended up finding the red shoes I'd been craving for months in the form of the perfect wedges (not too think a heel, no wicker, cork or hay-like material in sight) I'd been searching for. Though such a material find is perhaps trivial in light of greater questions, their purchase certainly made my last day in London, leading me to believe that perhaps, I had been too quick to judge her and that there are reasons behind things afterall.