An American Dandy in Sussex

Chapter Three: London, England

2006-01-08T18:06:00.000Z

The London Eye, constructed only a few years ago to celebrate the new millenium, has quickly become a part of the architecture of the landscape south of the Thames, as recognizable as the Big Ben on the north side. It's tenancy has been extended from 2012 to 2032 (check?), and so will still be slowly carrying visitors to boggling heights twenty-odd years from now. On New Year's Eve, it became the launching pad for thousands of massive, spectacular bombs. These were fireworks, of course, and have attracted crowds that number perhaps into the millions.

Into this fray of music, explosions, choreographies of light and, always, drinking to the very bounds of 'excess,' Steve, Jon and I ventured. We wandered through Trafalgar Square (on this evening only, the equivalent of New York City's Times Square) where a large TV screen was showing BBC News, and where much conga line dancing was to be had. At this point we could still move around on our own volition. This would not be so as we reached the Strand.

As we slowly moved, sloping downwards towards the waterfront, the people increased in number just as the crowd increased in tenacity. We passed rows and rows of bobbies (cops), most of whom were cheerfully amused at the spectacle and concerned only for safety (bag checks, a cautious eye for excessive drunkenness, etc.). Even the authorities were in the spirit of celbration! What a city!

At the Strand the crowd became so thick it became fluid. We swayed along with everyone, no longert in control of out movement. The fireworks were grand. It took hours to get home.

--

Instead of apologizing for my severe lack of communication here, I defiantly point you all to http://benfonz.fotopages.com, where I have been better at documenting the various events of Brighton and its surrounding areas.

Chapter Two: London, England (Ben gapes around wide-eyed, with a big plastic map)

2006-01-04T10:55:00.000Z

Well Ashlee House was pretty great--for 20 pounds, anyway. It was a four-story hostel with many small dorm rooms, a kitchen and a couple showers. I napped in the dormitory that afternoon and got advice from the staff on where to have dinner. I then spent the evening walking around Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Covent Gardens (tourest-y areas, but fun for a first night alone in London). Late into the evening I treated myself a true English ale (not a lager or a stout) in a true English pub and took in a film.

Incidentally, The Procuders is simply awful. I'd like to have at the "producers" who let this bomb out. And no, I didn't see the first film or the musical. Nothing could excuse this garbage.

Anyway, I slept in a dorm room at the hostel with five others (none American, surprisingly. There was a French couple who walked in on me during my afternoon nap. I didn't have my contacts in so I never found out what they looked like. And because of my natural blindness, I can only imagine the awkward glances they exchanged while I, having just awakened to meet them, got out of bed and groped around for my pants.)

I awoke after as fitfut, jet-lagged sleep and trudged to the basement where a big flamboyant Brit cooked breakfast for all the guests in a big mess hall. "'Ey, 'ave another boul o' muesli boy! An' th' coufee's pipin' hot!" (slaps Ben on back).

On the television was news of the Tube strike (which apparently made news in the States, as well). It would begin at noon. So I had to call Paula's uncle Steve and get to his house before then.

The phoning was easy enough. Public phonebooths, despite their virtual extinction stateside, are everywhere in London. On every streetcorner. And they're delightfully round, red and ugly. So I phoned Steve, who assured me the trip would be painless. Hah! I got on the wrong train because the District Line splits off like an octopus's cervix, into eight different, slithering tubes. When I finally did find the right train, I took it right past Steve's stop to the end of the line, having misunderstood the difference between the stop name and line name (what an 3ngl4nd n00b!). The end result of all this was I endned up in Wimbledon (yeah, the tennis place) with only minutes to go before noon and, I suspected, a massive halting of all trains. In keeping with my type A personality I had a panic attack and took an expensive cab back to meet Steve at the right station. He had been for about two hours at this point.

Regardless, he and his partner Jon were only too generous and happy to have me, and they left me the house to go catch a matinee. As for myself, I felt weird about being in a nice London house by myself, so I went to the Portobello Market (which was a lot like the outdoor markets in New York's SOHO, except more ethnically varied). See photos at my photopage.

That night, Jon and Steve took me out to the "best crispy duck restaurant in London" (any attempt at vegetarianism here would be met with awkward conversations and unpleasant cabbage), which was a small nook with about 30 people crowded around outside, waiting to get in. The service was a mixture between the surly Joe at Tastee and that lady landlord from "Kung Fu Hustle." She ran a tight ship but made a mean duck, too. Just don't ask her where your place is in queue. After dinner we went out to celebrate New Year's.

Next: New Year's Eve in Trafalgar, London recovers on Jan 1, and Ben's week of adventures.

Interchapter Dialogue: Richard "Hail Brittania" Attenborough and Steve "Yankee Doodle Dandy" McQueen

2006-01-01T15:58:00.000Z

Scene: A London Pub. Our two archetypal patriots are sitting on adjacent stools, drinks in hand. Football is on the telly.

Richard "Hail Brittania" Attenborough (lifting pint of bitter ale): Cheers, mate.
Steve "Yankee Doodle Dandy" McQueen (downing a bottle of sudsy lager): Bottom's up.
HB: Say, 'aven't seen you around 'ere much, 'ow've you been? 'Appy 'ornets 'elp 'arvest 'oney 'onorifically.
YDD: I Hhave been Hhopping mad about the latest football game, in which my favorite Hhalfback was injured by a misHhandled Hhelmet., Also, happy hornets help harvest honey honorifically.
HB: 'alfback? Not in football, you've got the wrong sport.
YDD: Well, never mind anyway. Let's order some grub.
HB: Brilliant. Should we get the sit-in price or the take-out price?
YDD: Huh?
HB: We'll sit-in. More expensive, but I want another pint.
YDD: OK...Do they have french fries?
HB: What?
YDD: Potatos, fried.
HB: Ah, chips. Or else, skinny little potato crisps.
YDD: Christ, I'll just have a coffee.
HB: White or black?
YDD: Wha? Oh, black.
HB: One black American, waiter!
YDD: Don't be rude, I'm sure our waiter knows he's black, and how do you know he's American?
HB: Not "One black American waiter"! Rather, "one Black American, waiter"! It's the name of your drink.
YDD: Ah. I thought you were being racist.
HB: Not in England. Just look at our large Asian population.
YDD: I hadn't noticed many Asians.
HB: You must've! Come on, all the Bollywood film shops, kebab stations...
YDD: But those are Indians!
HB: Hah! I daresay not!
YDD: Then what do you call people from China and Japan?
HB: Why, Orientals of course.
YDD: *gulp* Right...how about Native Americans?
HB: Who? Oh, you mean the bead-trading suckers.
YDD: Indians, right. If you come to the states you can visit their casinos, if you're of age.
HB: Of age? Why, you can drink and gamble at 16 here. You can smoke if you're 12 or so.
YDD: But don't you have more drunk driving problems?
HB: Drinking and driving? We all do it!
YDD: No!
HB: Sure! Or at least, it's legal to drink in cars. And on the tube as well. And in the streets, if you're not smashed.
YDD: Wild! Say, I'm out of matches. Can you spare one?
HB: Sorry, just ran out mate. I'll have to go buy more.
YDD: Agrhoow?!! Buy matches?
HB: Sure, 50p.
YDD: Well I'll go. I'm going outside to smoke a cigarette?
HB: Why not smoke your tab in here?
YDD: Tab? I can smoke in here?
HB: Sure.
YDD: Not without matches. Do you have 50p on you? Everything seems to cost money here.
HB: Not the museums. They're all free.
YDD: Ah, there's a nice place to take your little bugger.
HB punches YDD in face.

*Apologies to The Great Escape

Chapter One: BWI -> Heathrow; London, England

2005-12-30T12:59:00.000Z

You arrive at BWI and check, for the third time in ten minutes, that you still have your passport. You do. You panic at the thought of having forgotten your boarding pass, which, of course, you have not. You exchange some $ for £, remove your shoes, walk through security, put your shoes back on, and all of a sudden you are on your own.

You sit in the little international flight cafe and read a book. You contemplate being alone for the next several weeks, never running into a familiar face. You casually scan the other tables. Sitting two chairs away from you is your professor from freshman year English 202. She is sipping a mixed drink. What the fuck is her name? Your brain is trying to do a 3-point-turn from England, to Maryland, to upstate New York. You say hi anyway, hoping she won't remember your name either. She doesn't.

"Hello! I thought you looked familiar."
"How have you been?"
"Fine. Are you still studying at Cornell?" Oh, her accent. You always thought she was a stuck-up English professor. As it turns out, she's just British. Not that the two are mutually exclusive...

"You'll be at Sussex? That's great."
"Yeah. So...are you going home for the holidays?"
"No, my sister is having a baby. My husband and I are going to see her. We'll probably make it in time to see the birth."
"Oh...congratulations."
"Yes, thanks."
"Um. Good for her."
"...yes."

You flex your conversational blunder muscles for a little while longer and then awkwardly sit back down at your table, two chairs away. The boarding area starts to fill up with varied and humorous travelers. You flirt with a table of girls across the cafe from you. (They do not end up on your flight, of course.) You see an aging badass sporting the Hell's Angels colors, Maryland chapter. You see a crazy, unkempt black woman toting five dozen neon plastic roses--green, purple, blue, red. She asks you to help her put her back pack on, which she cannot manage by herself because of her short arms and wide berth. You know for a fact that you will end up sitting next to both these people on the flight.

As it turns out, you only end up next to the flower woman. She is actually a total sweetheart--the scariest-looking teddy bear you've ever seen. She is from Kenya, a country smaller than the state of Maryland, which she just visited to see her daughter who is in nursing school. (Which school? "I don't know." You think she does know, but you also think she only understands about every third word you say to her.)

After three glasses of free wine (you only asked for one, but they insisted. When in Rome...or international air space...) you really start to bond with flower woman:

"So what do they speak in Kenya?"
"English."
"Hah hah!!"
"Wha wha wha!" (how she laughs)
"Do they speak Wolof at all?"
"Qua?"
"Hah hah."
"Wha wha wha!"

and you also really start to enjoy the Jack Nicholson/Diane Keaton romantic comedy that's on, featuring Keanu Reeves as the charismatic doctor. Jesus Christ, thank god, you fall asleep.

---

So I get to Heathrow without a hitch, and am still exhausted while getting my luggage, so much so that I watch my bag go around the turnstile about seven times before realizing that it's mine. It's 3:00am Maryland time but it's 9:00am in England.

I won't go through the rest of my trip, as it mostly involves getting lost and depending on people who now think I'm an idiot. Two highlights for Sean, though:

1) The hostel directs me to a nearby cafe for lunch. I'm not there five minutes when I hear "My Humps" on the radio. So America isn't entirely to blame, after all.
2) When I sit down at the internet cafe, OGame is open on the browser. So Sean isn't entirely to blame, after all.

Also in the cafe, me not understanding accents, or Brit-speak:

"I'll have the breakfast number 3, please."
"Coffee or tea?"
"Tea, please."
"Mmph or bmpth?"
"Um. Yes."
(Annoyed, slower) "Black or white?"
Black or white? "Um. Whiahmumble."
"Do you want milk?"
"Oh. No."
"So black."
"Yes, black...dumb bitch."

Shit, internet time gone.

Preface - Laurel, Maryland, USA

2005-12-26T18:28:00.000Z

The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
-John Milton, Paradise Lost

Of John Milton, T.S. Eliot and the other entombed alabaster pillars of English literature (read: dead white guys) I know very little, and for that reason I am travelling to Brighton, England, where I will study for six months at the University of Sussex.

At least, that is the pure and simple lie that passes as my reason for travelling to Brighton, England. And if the little familiarity with English literature I have picked up over five semesters as an English major at Cornell has taught me anything, it is that "the truth is rarely pure and never simple," but the best lies are both. So don't believe for a second that I expect to get any sort of traditional schooling out of this excursion of expatriation, no matter what I tell family members or the various busybodies one always seems to encounter at my age. To speak truthfully to any of these people would be to insult them--it would belie both their interests and mine. For this reason you may have heard me offer the absurd suggestion that I would ever travel anywhere to learn anything.

The term "study" to me implies an ignored book propped open on my lap and a "Mythbusters" marathon on the television. The notion of my going to some fount of literary knowledge in the heart of Britain (Sussex is actually nearer the coccyx) is laughable. I've had enough with academic work and with literature. The real studying I expect to get done while in England concerns chiefly the eating of fish n' chips, the intemperate consumption of alcohol, and the ogling of local birds. Of course, I may pick up a fact or two accidentally, as one picks up discarded gum on one's shoe, but hopefully the intemperate consumption of alcohol will take care of those.

Before I head to Brighton, though, I have 6 days to spend in London, including New Year's Eve. I'll update my plans later, but here is what I know now:

(1) Hop on the 8:45 pm to Heathrow from BWI, score an upgrade to first class and immediately begin downing free drinks.
(2) Arrive in Heathrow around 9 am, Greenwich time. Blaze my way through customs with astounding charm.
(3) Train to London, where I will unload my bags at the reportedly delightful Ashlee House in Kings Cross (the veritable nexus of London), where I will spend my first night.
(4) The following day, make my way to the home of Paula's uncles, who will be putting me up for the rest of my stay until I leave for the University (on the 5th).

That's about all I know of my first week in England. But as I experience London and Brighton I will periodically update this space with text and pictures to share with the world (i.e. Columbums in CP or elsewhere on the East Coast, and perhaps some Cornellions too). In delightfully English-major fashion:

Now must I pack; I'll post post-Heathrow.
But when I do expect "ou's" where once I wrote "o".