Soundtrack for the City

Woosh woosh (Please Mind the Gap! Doors Closing.)

Hoonk Hoonk! (Beep Beep Beep!)

Shuffle, Click, Shuffle, Click

Deal for you! Only Fi’ poun’!

Can you take a picture?

….

To your left is Buckingham Palace

Oi! Watch it you idiot!

‘scuse me, Pardon me

Which way to the Tower of London?

Good service on all lines!

…

Evening Standard?

Do you need help, love?

I’ll have a pint of Guinness, please!

There’s no business like show business

Life goes on, and on, and on

…

New York is known as the city that never sleeps, but what city ever really sleeps? The sounds of London are unceasing. They ebb and flow like the tide of the Thames, but they’re just as constant and that iconic river.

Cars whiz around the city, engines purring along, punctuated by the occasional horn. People walk by, alone, in twos, threes, fours. During the day, mobs of tourists can be seen shuffling along behind a tour guide, chattering to each other in their mother tongue. Babies cry, toddlers jabber. School children squeal, set free in the parks in their school uniforms. Businessmen and women stride along, barking orders into cell phones, always in a hurry to get from one place to another.

How do people cope with the constant buzz of the hive that is London? The only answer I can seem to find is music. Everywhere you look people have earbuds in, listening to iPods, mp3 players, or whatever device they have. If there’s no one to talk to, music blocks out the noise and allows them to become an island unto themselves. Londoners seem to prefer the isolation personal music devices provide. Books or newspapers leave room for the possibility of conversation. Having little pieces of plastic stuck in your ear, blasting music negates that possibility. Nobody can connect with you and share an experience with you as they can with a book or a newspaper. There’s no cover to inspire conversation. There’s only you and your music.

I’m as guilty as anyone of this, perhaps more so. Not only do I pop in my headphones for a tube ride or a walk by myself, if the tube ride is more than two stops and I have a seat, I’ll pull out my Kindle as well, another tool of anonymity. I often see other islanders and wonder what their soundtrack for the city is. Do they see the city accompanied by classical music, as it might be in a high brow drama? Or do they hear the upbeat strains of Katy Perry or Justin Bieber? Is their city a moody emo-indie band or old-school rock and roll?

My soundtrack for the city is as manic as the city itself. It contains 125 songs, lasting a total of 7.9 hours (I’ve yet to listen to it straight through). Among the many artists it encompasses are: The Cast of Glee, Alanis Morissette, Michael Buble, Blue October, John Mayer, James Taylor, Elton John, and, my favorite, Josh Groban, of course. Needless to say, there is a VERY wide range of music for me to experience the city with. Walking home from class, I might be more inclined to listen to something more mellow, but edgy like Norah Jones or John Mayer. On the way to the theatre, I prefer to listen to songs from musicals like Wicked or Les Miserables. When walking to my particularly early class, I find that I need music from Glee or classic 90s bands like Hootie and the Blowfish or Counting Crows in order to get my system jumpstarted.

Perhaps the other islanders use music as I do. I typically leave one ear empty of headphones in order to experience both the city’s soundtrack for me as well as my soundtrack for the city. I prefer my music to enhance the city, not detract from it. So, while being an island, I am still one with the city and the people around me. 

Scotland the Brave

Scotland. Wow. Just wow.

We spent the past 4 days exploring Scotland and it is just too beautiful for words. The short version of our trip: many, many, many hours spent in a moving vehicle surrounded by gorgeous scenery punctuated by climbing really, really steep inclines in really cold/windy/slightly rainy conditions.

Arthur's Seat aka inactive volcano

The long version:
Day 1: We left London from King's Cross for the almost five hour train ride to Edinburgh (We took the route of the Hogwarts Express!!!). Once we got to Edinburgh, we met our tour guide (little did we know he would be THE most annoying part of our trip) and went on a brief bus tour of the city. Edinburgh is a magnificent city, full of hills. My friend Elise decided we needed to climb the inactive volcano just outside the city.


So, after having lunch at a pub (and being served by a rather attractive waiter) we bundled up and began our trek. And boy, was it a trek. There are sooooo many hills within the city of Edinburgh. You never hear about them, but they are definitely there. Then, we got to climb some more steep inclines (it was a volcano after all). But the view was sooo worth it (as you can see here):

After that, we met up with some friends to have drinks at The Conan Doyle, a pub on the street where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born.

Me in front of the view from the Wallace Monument

Day 2: We got up really early to leave Edinburgh and make our way into the Highlands. Our first stop was the Wallace Monument in Stirling (FREEEEDOM!). Just FYI, he didn't look like Mel Gibson (he probably had red hair and stood at least 6'4) and he didn't wear a kilt. After yet another really steep trek, we reached the top to be rewarded by really picturesque views (and really bracing winds).

Hamish taking a break

On our way to our next stop, we got diverted by a tree in the road. Part of our detour to us past Hamish the Hairy Coo and his girlfriend Heather. Hamish was befriended and saved from slaughter by local school children. He's now 17 years old.

Armed and dangerous :)

After lunch, we went to Fort Augustus on the banks of Loch Ness to the Clansmen Centre for a demonstration of "authentic" Highland life (pre-1745). My friend John and I were dressed in semi-authentic Highland garb (we looked a wee bit ridiculous, but I told myself it was good research). Life in the Highlands was not nearly as romantic and appealing as its made out to be in romance novels :(

Susan and me by the Loch

Loch Ness was quite pretty, but there was no sign of Nessie, although according Chatty McChatterson (our tour guide who would not stop telling stories- very badly I might add- with the bus's microphone up WAY too loud), there is sonar and pictoral evidence enough to hold up in court that she does exist.
We spent the night in Inverness, the only city in the Highlands, in a hostel that could only be described as being in possession of character. Inverness is a very charming little city, although most of us were too tired to fully enjoy it.

Kristi and me in front of the memorial Cairn,
set up by the Victorian to honor the clansmen
who died here.

Day 3: After a quick breakfast at the hostel, we drove just outside of Inverness to Culloden Battlefield, where the Jacobite Rebellion of 1746 made its last stand. I'd only ever really heard the English version of most events in Scottish history, so it was very interesting to hear Chatty McChatterson's Scottish Nationalism POV. I had a few issues with his presentation of facts, but it was still interesting to hear.

After Culloden, we drove to Blair Castle, the hereditary seat of the Dukes of Atholl (the only man legally allowed to have a private army in the world). The castle was very pretty and had a lot of interesting pictures, but it was a bit weird wandering around someone else's house and looking at their family pictures.
When we left the castle, we drove down to the Blair Atholl whisky distillery and learned how they make whisky. I enjoyed hearing about the process of making whisky (and our cute tour guide there- much better than Chatty McChatterson), but I did NOT enjoy the taste (blech!).

Elephant House 

We drove back to Edinburgh that night and my friends and I went to eat at Elephant House, a little cafe overlooking Edinburgh Castle where J.K. Rowling wrote most of the first Harry Potter book. It was very cute and had a great atmosphere. The walls in the Loo (bathroom) were covered with notes to Rowling and quotes from Harry Potter.

Elise and me just outside the castle gates

Day 4: This morning we got to get up and leave the hotel. We went and toured Edinburgh Castle, which is still a working garrison. It reminded me a lot of the Tower of London, except they had a way cooler exhibit for their crown jewels. After that, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and took a really, really, really long train ride back to London.





Overall, it was a very fun trip and one of the most aesthetically pleasing places I've ever been in my life. In a lot of ways (attitude, pride, etc), Scotland reminded me of Texas. Cowboys were really just displaced Highlanders.

Anywho, it is now time for me to go to bed. This is a non-stop, action packed week, so I'll try to update more towards the end of it.

Cheers!

Adventures in and out of London

Good grief, but life around here never stops. So many things to talk about, so little time. Hmmm, what to start with?

Going back to last week, Bath and Stonehenge were fun. Stonehenge is somewhat of a disappointment, as it was the last time I saw it. You just get to walk around in a circle around the rocks, looking at them from 10 feet away, trying really hard not to get blown away by the wind that is an inherent part of the Salisbury Plain (where the stone circle is located). Still, it is a beautiful site, especially in contrast to the agricultural life going on in the fields right beside the location. We did wonder if sheep raised in pastures next to Stonehenge bring a better price than regular sheep…

Me in front of the Pump Rooms

Bath is a gorgeous city. Everything is very close together and, unlike a lot of areas of London, Bath has retained much of its Georgian (last 1700s-early 1800s) architecture and atmosphere. The main attraction of Bath is the supposed healing properties of the water there. Wealthy people would drive down to Bath and go to the Pump Rooms to drink a glass of the water or go next door to the baths and submerge themselves in it in hopes of being cured. (Having tried a sip of the warm, sulphery water, can I just say GAG!)

The Royal Crescent, where all the really, really rich people live :)

Jane Austen's House- Number 13 Queen's Square

Jane Austen Centre

Me in front of one of the Roman Baths-
I wouldn't want to swim in there

We spent a good part of our time in the museum devoted to the Roman Baths, but my favorite part came on the walking tour. We not only got to see the Royal Crescent, where parts of the ITV adaptation of Persuasion were filmed, but we also got to walk by the house on Queen’s Square where Jane Austen lived for a majority of her sojourn in Bath! Personally, I would have rather taken the money they spent on our admission to the Baths and gone to the Jane Austen Centre, but they didn’t give us an option L 

Poor lonely little ruins

On Wednesday, we went on a walking tour of The City with our British Life and Culture teacher, Professor Fosdal. The City is what Londoners call the 1 square mile area that is the original city of Londinium, where the Roman’s set up the first real settlement. It is now the financial center of London. There is very little evidence of the Roman origins of the City now with all of the big (and often ugly) office buildings that house the corporate cogs of London. We did however see a very sad sight. Today, most discoveries of Roman structures unearthed by construction are catalogued, then recovered to preserve them. This has not always been the case. In the 1960s, they discovered the remains of the Temple of Mithras on the site of a new building. Rather than relocating the building or recovering the find after archeologists has examined it, they simply picked up the remains and moved them 30 feet away. Now they sit next to the building, looking very sad and forlorn and out of place.

My view of the stage at the Globe

Thursday night, we saw our first play at Shakespeare’s Globe. The Comedy of Errors is blessedly one of Shakie’s shortest plays because we were groundlings, which meant standing for over 2 hours. The play was very funny and well done. It was the play that went on tour this summer, so the company was much smaller, and many of the actors did double and triple duty in different roles. Despite being sore and ready to collapse at the end, we had fun.

The Royal Pavilion 

Friday, we went to the beach. Brighton, to be specific. Brighton has been one of the favorite resort towns in England since the late 1700s when the Prince of Wales (later George IV) decided he wanted to build a palace there. Ok, not just a palace. A gaudy monstrosity of decadence and indulgence would be a better way to describe the Royal Pavilion. We weren’t allowed to take pictures on the inside, but that’s probably a good thing. So many garish colors and gold opulence might have broken my poor little camera.

Me and my roommates Chanea and Kristi at the beach

Being a resort town, Brighton is primarily centered on the beach. Professor Fosdal made us take off our shoes and wade (or paddle) into the ocean (which was REALLY REALLY COLD!!!!). Unlike nearby beaches, the Brighton beaches are rock beaches. Rock beaches are a lot more painful on little feet than sandy ones, especially feet that were abused the night before by standing up for 2 straight hours.

The pier at Brighton

Along with the beach, there is a pier, much like ones you might find at Coney Island or the Jersey Short, complete with overpriced games, sketchy looking roller coasters, places to consume alcohol, and even a mechanical bull. Despite its somewhat cheesy exterior, I enjoyed the views from and of the pier. It was a really cool place to watch people. Some people were caught up in the frenzy of the games and rides, but others simply sat in these beach chairs and just watched the ocean for hours on end.

Well, I suppose I should probably get back to my homework now.

Cheers!