Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Over and Out

I'm going to shut this down for a while...back in Boston now, and life is much less exciting. The world doesn't need the musings of another underemployed 20-something...

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Pints and Drams

Done a bunch of extremely British - and Scottish - cultural things in the past week. Among them, going to two Oxford Formal Halls with my friend at LMH(one of the Oxford colleges). Those were fun - an excuse to get dressed up and have a nice dinner in one of the those big, grand old Harry Potter-esque halls with portraits and rafters. Incidentally, I did get to see the real Harry Potter main hall...it's not that big! And the staircase in front is positively tiny. Funny tricks of perspective.

We also went to pubs/bars like "The Duke of Cambridge" and "The Eagle and Child." That latter was frequented, or so I heard, by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein. I got to see all the students finishing their exams, walking around in sub-fusc covered in eggs and feathers and such, or sometimes riding bikes. I've never seen so many formally dressed people on bikes in my life!

In London, I did all the sorts of things you might expect - visited the British Museum, which is really a great place, totally free, well-lit and designed, and generally just an excellent museum. I used to think they ought to return the Rosetta Stone and the head of Ramses II - no more. The Egyptian museum was a disaster. I think most things are better off in London, where they will be seen, safe, and clean.

I took the bus from Oxford to Edinburgh last night - almost 11 hours, all told, and they dropped us off in Milton Keynes for an hour to change lines. What a dismally bizarre place. It's some kind of strange English planned city, and it was all weird mall architecture, highways like landing strips and nobody to be seen. There were about 15 rabbits on every corner - it was like Watership Down or something. And as I sat waiting in coachstation, just a little turn-off from the highway with a closed coffee stand, I saw some really weird stuff. A white unmarked van pulled up and idled, and then about 15 minutes later a really nice Audi station wagon. An older white dude in white tie climbs out, goes into the back of the van, emerges 10 minutes later next to some Indian guy in jeans with a bunch of suits in drycleaner bags, and they both speed off. Bizarre. And then there was another station wagon parked nearby, and 3 separate cars pulled up, people got into the wagon, talked for a bit, and then left. Weirdest thing...I guess Milton Keynes coachway is where you buy drugs.

Now I'm in Scotland, and I've walked up to the Edinburgh Castle, hiked through the moors of Holyrood Park, and tried the scotch at the Dome, a grand old Victorian bank converted into a cool bar with a soaring dome roof.

Oh, and I had a haggis.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Rule Brittania

Been in England for about 2 1/2 days now...what an incredible change. From the bustling, crowded, hot, dusty, vibrant, chaotic, overflowing streets of Cairo to the cool, shaded, verdant lanes of Oxford town and university. The first day I was here it was almost as if I had died and gone to heaven, coming from the sprawling desert heat into rolling fields, parks, grand stone buildings and overgrown gardens. Instead of diesel fuel I smelled flowers and growing things; instead of car horns I heard birds.

Oxford is really everything I imagined England to be, which makes sense - so many of the classic English writers were educated here. It's almost a fantasy of a town, and I could just get lost in the arches and vaults of the University for days or weeks or years. Cairo was the sort of place where everytime you turned a corner, you saw something that was bizarre or fascinating or ancient. Oxford is sort of the same way, but in a welcoming, comforting sense.

It's also funny because looking at England you kind of figure out how Boston came to look and feel the way it does. Obviously, that's simplifying, but the similarities in England and New England architecture, landscape, and layout are striking. I feel like I am in a reflection of home sometimes - or that home is a reflection of here.