so guess what

I’m in London.

It’s awesome.

Culture whaaaaat?

These are (summer) squash.

Zucchini, aka courgettes.

In England, this is also squash.

Condensed juice, essentially.

Dan was over last night for dinner and Doctor Who, and a bottle of the latter was next to the cutting board where I had just chopped up some of the former. “What’s that?” Dan said, pointing at the bottle.

“That’s squash,” I said.

“No, I know that’s squash,” he said. “But what’s that?”

“Yeah, that’s squash.”

“What?”

“Oh—oh! No, I know you’re not stupid! I don’t mean the zucchini!”

Thanks a lot, England!

excerpted #13

Duration, whether of centuries in the case of civilizations and decades for individuals, has the Darwinian function of eliminating the unfit. That which is fitted for all things is eternal. In this alone lies the value of what we call experience. But falsehood is an armour by means of which man often enables what is unfit in him to survive events which, were it not for such armour, would destroy it (thus pride manages to survive humiliations), and this armour is as it were secreted by what is unfit in order to ward off the danger (in humiliation, pride makes thicker the inner falsehood which covers it). There is as it were a phagocytosis in the soul: everything which is threatened by time secretes falsehood in order not to die, and in proportion to the danger it is in of dying. That is why there is not any love of truth without an unconditional acceptance of death. The cross of Christ is the only gateway to knowledge.

–Simone Weil, “Illusions” in Gravity and Grace (trans Emma Craufurd, 1952)

I love the range of things I am getting to read for my dissertation.

it is that time when I pretend to like soccer

Oh, look, I am resurfacing after a long time of not posting. Between travel, deadlines, and a dash of burnout, I have been sorely lacking in impetus for anything besides reading for my dissertation and watching Justified (which none of my other friends are watching. Except Dan. Thanks, Dan!).

But today I’m off to Stockton to go see the England vs USA World Cup match. The last time I was in the UK, it was for Euro 2004, and I managed to care about soccer a little bit for a couple weeks. (I even remember that Greece won!)  Here’s seeing if I can manage the same for World Cup 2010. Today, another American friend and I will be in a pub full of drunk English fans. The person who invited us sent her this email:

Just confirming what is happening tomorrow. C. and his wife will come around 18:30 hrs to collect yourself and your friend to take you both to the pub where we will be able to watch the match if this is okay.

I hope you don’t mind spending the evening with quite a few drunken English fans as every pub in England is going to be quite packed with them I should think. I had thought of trying to get to Scotland and watching the match with you and your friend as you will find the pubs there very crowded also but they would all be cheering for your team as they really hate us English to win anything.

Oh Scotland.

It’s going to be so fun! Hopefully I will have some photographic documentation of the evening for everyone’s amusement later on. And the rest of the backlog of photos I need to post will also go up soon. I promise!

Now, pray that drunk English fans don’t haze us too much.

a sidenote on politics

Oh boy, it’s been fascinating to watch the the election play out here in England. Being strictly an observer is a little strange, I’ll admit, but also a bit entertaining: prevented from participating, one is free to just gawk to one’s heart’s content.

And politics came to Durham! So I got to gawk plenty!

The Lib Dems held an event here the day before the election. Nick Clegg came! Cue the swooning fans! Or, you know, the loads of people with signs and loud opinions. The weather very obligingly did not rain all over everything. (Sidenote: when you live in England you become morally obligated to talk about the weather whenever you talk about anything.)

About half an hour before the supposed start time, this was the size of the crowd. (I say supposed start, because Clegg showed up about half an hour after the start.)

Obligatory person engaging in head-scratching behavior for attention. Oh politics. (One bystander response: "Why the rabbit costume? It's FOX-hunting.")

As soon as the crowd realized the press was recording them from the upper windows, they obligingly began mugging for them.

I will say, it was overall a very polite and cheerful crowd. Security presence was pretty slight: the police were mostly concerned about keeping the road clear so that the approaching vehicles didn’t mow anybody down.

Carol Woods, the Lib Dem candidate.

The crowd had increased considerably in size by the time Clegg arrived.

OMG, it's Nick('s bus)!

Somewhere in this mess of people, Clegg is getting off the bus. If I were eight feet tall I'd have a better photo.

And Nick swept–or was swept–into the building, and that was that, and people started dispersing and going home. There were plenty of people just there to spectate like me, including a nice lady from Sunderland, a Conservative supporter, who cheerfully said, “Oh, I figured, why not,” when explaining why she’d come.

Carol Woods, the candidate above, did not win; Roberta Blackman-Woods, the Labour incumbent, retained the majority, despite some fairly hilarious (to me) campaigning by the Lib Dems. This included materials put through our mailbox whose arguments for electing the Lib Dems included the following argument: if you want change, don’t vote Conservative, because bookies have them as 100-1 outsiders in this riding.

Bookies’ odds! Why do we not use this evidence in America? Why? Hop to it, politicians!

storing up memories and sunshine

At the Alhambra this morning.

Look at that blue sky! We had such gorgeous weather today. I want to bottle it up and take it back to England with me.

So this was our last full day in Granada: we went to La Alhambra in the morning, took naps in the afternoon (comfy hotel or not, I slept hideously last night), and then took a stroll around Barrio Albaicin early this evening.  Tomorrow we catch a bus to Malaga, and I’ll have a couple hours to kill there before heading to the airport and hopping on my flight back to England.

The Alhambra was pretty astonishing. Originally built by the Moors, then added to by Charles V, with parts of it destroyed by the Napoleonic invasions. So, so gorgeous. Wildly rich with detail. There’s a point where one gives up on the idea of trying to catch it all in photographs, because it’s impossible.

Stunning or not, though, I am ready to go home. Travel exhaustion does eventually hit, and so does the language barrier; you take for granted the sheer number of people you have conversations with on a daily basis until, suddenly, you don’t have those anymore. And I’m just ready to unpack, and go through photos, and sleep in a familiar place.

But what a trip! Between this and Sweden I feel right spoiled with delights.

Hopefully I will make headway on getting pictures edited and uploaded to Flickr and Facebook this weekend, as Wednesday I’ve got a Rotary talk in Tynedale and then of course there are essays I must tackle. Until then, though, here’s a few.

A view of Sacramonte from the Alhambra.

Alabaster wall details.

Tiling and chairs.

St Jerome's Monastery

and now Granada

At Park Guell, on the last day in Barcelona.

Another day, another absurdly truncated account of the happenings.

Rather than take a 13 hour bus ride from Barcelona to Granada, we hopped on a flight between the two cities for the same price. It took up the latter part of our afternoon and early evening, rather than, you know, all damn day, and our bus from the airport to the city arrived while it was still daylight. Beautiful!

First impressions: Our bus driver, while willing to give passengers directions as to what stop they should take, was also willing to scare the hell out of passengers who stepped into the crosswalk late. And then he laughed about it. But our hostel was in a blissfully quiet neighborhood. But then when we were looking for a place to have dinner there was a brawl just in front of us and the loser ended up unconscious on the sidewalk. Welcome to Saturday night in Granada!

But Sunday has been peaceful. We did our usual routine of walking all over the place and I took an utterly absurd amount of pictures, and it is a good thing this trip is nearly over because I suspect tomorrow is the last day my camera battery is going to play along with my behavior.

Tomorrow we are taking a tour of the Alhambra, which will hopefully be awesome. And then Tuesday it’s a bus to Malaga, a flight to London, and a train to Durham. How has it already almost been a week?

Granada Cathedral

The Alhambra, from Albaicin.

footsore and satisfied

Cathedral, Sagrada Familia, La Rambla, that market just off La Rambla, Parc Ciutadella, strolling along the marina, Picasso Museum, MNAC (National Museum of Catalonian Art), the Font Juic at night, a movie at a nearby theatre (The Ghostwriter, subtitled in Spanish), getting mistaken for a local and asked for directions twice (“Lo siento, no hablo espanol!”).

It’s been a full time.

More to come later: we’ve got half a day left in Barcelona tomorrow, and an early evening flight to Granada.

Sitting by the lamp to watch the fountains way down below, MNAC in the background.

Roses for Sant Jordi's Day

Font Juic at dusk.

take that, icelandic volcano

So we made it to Spain. Whatever chaos was going on down in, say, London, or other really major hubs, was not happening at all in Newcastle: we walked right up, checked in, and strolled through security. And then we had an hour and a half to kill before our plane boarded.

Madness! Chaos! ...or a few people having pints with breakfast at a stupidly early hour of the morning.

This is a trip that had been in the works for a while, and unfortunately, the third member of the party couldn’t make it, since she was coming over from America. So it’s down to just the two of us. Anyway, thanks to the last-minute nature of all the decisions being made by airlines/airports/regulatory bodies, we had just the night before to settle important details like, oh, a place to stay once we arrived. I got about three hours of sleep, and my traveling buddy got even less. We arrived in Barcelona already drop-dead exhausted, but I have to say, the balmy weather was a definite pick-me-up. Also, the sight of palm trees.

It’s pretty lovely here. Easy to get around, between walking and the metro, too. We have no idea what we’re going to do today, but our hostel is about a five-minute walk from La Rambla, so we’re right in the thick of things, and can get pretty quickly to whatever we want. I can’t wait to go back to the market on La Rambla to pick up some things to cook for dinner tonight. It all looks delicious. And there is also the Gaudi Cathedral, and the Picasso Museum, and so, so much more…it might be hard to stick to our resolve to keep this a restful sort of vacation.

Today we’re definitely walking down to the sea, though. And in the meantime, I leave a few photos.

From Plaza de Espanya

The course of NOTHING ever did run smooth.

I just have to start this by saying, I think I am not meant to travel easy, not if I’m traveling by air. First there was all the passport wackiness around my trip home in December. Then the madness detailed below for my trip to Sweden. And then this past week, the Icelandic volcano causing loads of upheaval for travel in Europe. Tomorrow morning I am supposed to go to Spain, and at this point, I can say two things:

1. Although the airports have opened, we aren’t sure if our flight is still on (thanks for the timely communication, EasyJet).
2. After living in pure uncertainty for the past three days, and facing the possibility of being stranded if things go nuts again, we aren’t even sure we want to go.

So that’s fun. Anyway, we’ve got another seven hours or so to make a decision. (I’m not referring to myself in the plural; I’m traveling with a friend.) But let’s live in the past for a little bit.

So I spent Easter in Sweden.

Why? Well, in summer of 2008, in Vancouver, we had a Swedish roommate, Olof. (Olof reads this blog. HI OLOF.) And since I’m in Europe, it was strongly suggested I come visit, and when I asked when was good, he said Easter. One RyanAir flight sale later and it was a done deal.

Well, until the day I had to travel.

I’m a pretty jittery traveler, so I booked a fairly early train to get me up to Edinburgh, my flight’s place of departure. It should’ve given me two and a half hours of cushion between my arrival at the airport and the departure of my flight. I joked with a friend the night before traveling (HI DAVE) about the silliness of my nerves, because everything was under control.

You know what wasn’t under my control? The terrible weather that caused a landslide that had all northbound trains terminating in Newcastle.

This is BBC North at Newcastle Central on March 31, asking, "How has your travel been affected today?"

I learned this after I’d gotten on the train. Panicking is what I do best, so I panicked. For a minute. Then I texted two friends in Durham and begged them to look up buses and flights for me. As they say here: no joy.

Fortunately, enough people were hideously disrupted that the rail operators had hired buses to take us all up to Scotland. Good, right? I asked how long it would take, and they said breezily, “Oh, three hours at the most.” Okay. Tight, but doable. Flight at four, should theoretically get to the airport around 2, 2:30.

Well, the weather was hideous, the bus driver stopped twice at unplanned locations, and quickly, the remaining time dwindled. I was sitting at the front staring at the clock on my phone like that would make us go faster. It, of course, didn’t. Wishful thinking at its best, and posting status updates to Facebook all the way. In the end, I got to the airport as they started boarding my plane, which took off, mercifully, about 20 minutes late. I collapsed into a seat once I boarded, and the man next to me looked over sympathetically and said, “It’ll be all right now.”

And it was all right.

Best of all was getting to Sweden, and there was Olof, and as though to prove that everything was all right, he had sandwiches and coffee in the car. And then we drove to Mariestad. And that, perhaps, is a matter I’ll continue later. Perhaps from Spain. We’ll just have to see.