Don’t take it serious. Life’s too…mysterious… / Fosse
So, life. Or something like it. Let’s see how many cultural references I can include in this post that promises to be epic. I’ve been up to a great many things lately, few of which I’ve imparted to you. Sadness, I know, but I’ll give it a go (rhyme!).
Saturday 8 November
Today, I took a day trip with Jill, Missy, and 13 other people from Queen Mary on a chartered Dorset Tour that took us to Stonehenge, Salisbury, and the New Forest. I woke up early, made myself lunch, and headed to the meeting place–Queen’s Building–happily walking under blue skies. That didn’t last long, for as soon as our tour guide Steve showed up in the zebra-striped mini-bus, 15 minutes late, the clouds were rolling in and he was asking us if we knew how to get out of London from the East End. Um, negative. We ended up driving down to the Billingsgate Fish Market, and then I guess that plan went down the tubes, because we headed back up to Whitechapel, into The City, across London Bridge, down into Southwick (past the Cathedral, which is beautiful!) to sketchy Elephant and Castle, and then did a nice tour of South London, from the East all the way west through the beautiful suburbs of Richmond, then up through Ealing and finally onto the M3. Or M4. One of the two.
It began to rain when we got onto the highway, letting up thankfully when we got to the service station, which very much resembled a US rest stop, though perhaps cleaner and sans Starbucks. Then it was back on the road and down to Wessex, and on to Stonehenge. It’s such an odd site. You can see it from the highway; just this huge circle of massive rocks. We entered the National Heritage Site, paid for our entrance, and, audio tour in one hand and camera in the other (made for interesting finagling as we took pictures and listened), walked up the hill to Stone Henge.
I wish I could say that I felt an earthly power radiating from the stones, but I didn’t. Not that I was disappointed, mind you, it was just something I had in the back of my mind. The site really is awe-inspiring. I’ve heard people say that it’s really not worth the trip out there, that it isn’t that great, but I thought it was incredible to see these majestic stones, some of which were hauled hundreds of miles in the days before the wheel, and then hear about how the people of the time probably constructed the circle. The history is incredible, knowing that so long ago, people created this perfect circle that told time, piecing the stones together using primitive (but obviously effective) building techniques.
I found a bit of humor in the site, too, largely because this wonder of the world is surrounded by thousands of grazing sheep that the National Heritage Site workers have to chase away from the roped off viewing area every so often. In the surrounding hills there’s also a number of bronze age burial mounds. AFter viewing the stone circle, Jill and Missy and I hiked all the way up to where the mounds are cordoned off with barbed wire. They, too, are kind of funny, because they look like massive lumps of dirt with grass and weeds growing on them and cows grazing in close proximity. All the way up on those hills, though, we had an incredible view of the English countryside. It was very peaceful, even with all the cars flying down the highway and the people milling about Stonehenge. Nice to breathe in fresh air and see cows and sheep.
After our hour at Stonehenge, the 16 of us and Steve piled back into the minibus and drove to Salisbury, a medieval city with a highly esteemed gothic cathedral, often called the most beautiful in England. It’s a pretty cathedral. Gothic. Gothic cathedrals are usually rather lovely. We went in and wandered around a bit, then walked to the city center, stopping in a local cafe type place to eat our lunch and sip some lovely hot chocolate (or mocha, in Jill’s case), then wandered through the streets, which I found surprisingly grid like. We talk all the time in my history class and representing london class about how the twisting streets of London are remnants of its medieval origins, so I had expected Salisbury, as a medieval city, to have streets rather twisty, kind of like Siena. Not so much, no. We walked under St. Ann’s Gate, saw the House of John a’Porte (c. 1425), The Guildhall, The College of Matrons, The Pheasant Inn, Mompesson house, The Town Mill, The Old George, and the Poultry Cross (all handily explained in our walk-around guide and map. Central Salisbury is historic-building central, with tons of Tudor-style, timberframed buildings precariously perched all over the place. We also explored St. Thomas’ Church, which was completely empty. It’s fairly small, but quite a lovely gothic specimen. Most of it is 15th century, but some of it dates to the 13th. Now, it’s kind of hidden behind a tea shop, unfortunately, so it’s hard to get a good front view, and easy to walk right on past it. We also found a real, live bakery (haven’t found one yet in London!), and walked through the market. It was a bit more commercialized than we’d hoped, so we did that quickly–although they had some uber cheap cheese and meat, and had we been going straight home or armed with a cooler, we would so have enjoyed ourselves at that one stall. /sigh
After our wanderings, we went back to the bus. It was about three o’clock, and it starts getting dark around four, completely black around five. We drove for probably another half hour–which direction, I couldn’t tell you–but somehow, we emerged in the New Forest, which isn’t all forest, I was surprised to find. The New Forest was establed by William the Conquerer hundreds of years ago as his own personal park. Peasants couldn’t graze their animals there, couldn’t hunt, couldn’t even gather fallen wood. On pain of death. Nice guy, eh? Nowadays, most of what we drove through resembled what I imagined heath would like like, as in Wuthering Heights-esque lonely moors, all damp and full of brambles and tones of grey and muted reds and eggplants, with evergreens scattered across the open hills and into the forests. Ever heard of the New Forest Pony? Well, they live here. There are several thousand of them at the moment, and they are wild horses…though somewhat dulled to the intrusions of the modern world, thanks to tourists and random visitors invading their territory and trying to pet them. As it’s gotten quite a bit colder, they’re growing in their fluffy winter coats, which makes them quite cute and cuddly looking. It was actually rather nice, though this was the part of the trip that I didn’t really care for, initially. I wandered away from the group, who were steadfastly stalking the poor ponies, who kept trying to walk away nonchalantly. I found two ponies hidden by a bushy bit of evergreen, and sort of crouched down and watched them, talking under my breath quietly. They were interested in me for a moment, then went back to eating. It was really peaceful, just watching them eat and go about their business, not caring that I was there since I didn’t try to pet them. One girl came up behind me though and tried to get closer, and they walked away… Shortly after that, I found a very chubby little guy, a paint pony with splashes of white and chestnut, who greatly resembled dear devious Dandelion, but fatter. I got within a foot of him before he turned his bum towards me and sort of looked over his shoulder like he was saying, ‘do you doubt I will kick you?’ At that moment, I noticed everyone had gone back to the bus, so I ran back, and we went home. Well, almost.
Traffic was bad when we got back to West London, and so by the time I recognized that we were in Kensington/Knightsbridge, we all got off the bus to take the tube back to Mile End. We got off and walked to Harrods, where the Knightsbridge stop is, and found it closed. Bummer. But, Harrods was beautifully, classily lit for the holidays! I’m going to have to go back and get pictures soon. We ended up walking to the South Kensington station, then taking the District line back to Mile End, where we all stopped at Budgens to get some supplies for dinner before retiring.
Sunday and Monday were homework/lazy days, and Tuesday was my first day back in class. It was a really longgg day, as I had an hour of lecture followed by lunch, and then three more hours of nonstop class. I really am coming to love my Narrative Fiction seminar group. It’s probably the one school-related thing I’ll miss back in Richmond. Everyone comes in and is so merry and chatty and friendly, and Rosemary leads such fun discussions and people talk, and it’s really rather nice. That night, as proposed by Elizabeth who I suppose was feeling rather homesick for America, the troup (Elizabeth, Liz, Jill, Missy, and I) went to TGI Fridays in Picadilly Circus. The menu was the same. The decor was the same. The only thing that burst my American bubble was the British waiter. Oh well. Can’t win them all!
Wednesday was English Society, which was fine, as always. Kirsten, my fellow American classmate and friend, received her grade for her presentation. She got a 72, which is a really good A here. We were surprised because the professor had added a lot to her presentation, and disagreed with pieces of it. Hopefully, the way she was graded will bode well for my own presentation in two weeks.
Wednesday night was a rather frantic one, as I ended up spending a lot longer than expected editing down my walking journal (ended up around 1700 words, which was far better than 2400!), trying to figure out how to cite poetry and reprinted material in the very-limited MHRA style that the English Department uses, then trying to get my receipt and cover sheet forms together, then making it over to the library, waiting ten minutes for the computer to boot up and log me on, then trying to get my pictures to look decent in a word doc (ended up using power point, since word kept freezing!), and printing them on the uber slow printers. I was so frustrated by the end of it, so done with everything and completely fried. It was half past eight when I returned to my flat, so I had a cereal dinner rather than the roasted chicken I had intended to make, and then chilled out with some Pride and Prejudice fanfiction, since I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Thursday was d-day, deadline day, the day I handed in my Representing London walking journal, the first assignment I’ve had to submit at Queen Mary. It went well, I think. I was much more put together then my fellow (QM) classmates, stapled and coversheeted and everything. Score! Class was so dull and boring, all based on the theory of the city, and so few people attended lecture, I guess because they were still doing their walking journals, which we handed in during Seminar. Ah well. After class was over for the day, and the week, I went back to Budgens for food stuffs (ham and cheese and crackers and milk!), had lunch, and then passed out around 3. I woke up at 8:30, which is why I’m stil up now, as it nears 4 a.m. I’m just a teensy bit tired, so hopefuly I’ll be able to go to sleep soon.
Happy Friday, now that we’re all caught up!
