The trip from Amsterdam to the United Kingdom was an adventure in itself. In my effort to save money I bought one round trip ticket from KLM between Almaty and Amsterdam and another roundtrip ticket from Ryanair between Amsterdam and Great Britain. This money saving tactic worked like a charm, but there was the downside that Ryanair flights do not fly out of the Amsterdam Airport, they fly out of Eindhoven, which is almost on the other side of the Netherlands. This was not a huge problem though because given how small the Netherlands, Eindhoven was still only two hours away by train. Unfortunately, my plane left at nine, and given the fact that the trams did not start until 6:30 and the first train was at 7:15, I decided to leave for Eindhoven the night before and try to sleep at the airport. However, when I got to Eindhoven at 11:30 that night, it turned out that the airport was already closed and that they did not let you sleep stay the night inside anyway. I was then told that I was not allowed to sleep inside the train station, but that it would be perfectly fine for me to sleep outside. The benches outside the station were hardly sleeping material, and it was actually pretty cold even though it was late June, so I prepared myself for a long night. As luck would have it though, the Netherlands gives out lots of free newspapers and I was able to bunker down in one of those little metal boxes. It wasn’t the best night sleep I have ever had, but I still managed to get about four hours of sleep, and I was ready to go when the first bus to the airport pulled up at six. After the adventures of getting to the airport, the actual flight and getting into London was a piece of cake. Still, a new hiccup presented itself upon my arrival in London. My mother had booked us a room at the Royal National Hotel, which was part of a string of hotels that all had a similar name and were all located in the general area of Russell Square. Luckily, I found the correct hotel on the first try, and I actually beat my mother there by several hours. I decided to make good use of this time and quickly headed to my own personal Mecca, the Oxford Street Apple Store. I was in dire need of a Macintosh Holiday, not only because there are no Apple Stores in Kazakhstan, but also because my computer battery and charger were about to totally give up the ghost. Finally, my mom arrived at around twelve and after checking into our room zipped to a nearby pub for a pint and some authentic fish and chips before jetlag totally overcame us.
The next morning was pretty busy because we had to run a few errands around London before we got on the train headed to Newcastle, but we still managed to easily make the 1:30 northbound train. Now, before anyone asks, “why the hell did go to Newcastle?” the answer is simple, Hadrian’s Wall. I hiked about a quarter of Hadrian’s Wall when I was studying abroad in London, and I had wanted to do more of it for quite awhile, and my mother decided that she would like to join me on this excursion. Even though Hadrian’s Wall was the main reason we went to Newcastle, we did not head out on the hike right away. Our delay to get to the wall was kind of an accident, but it worked out well just the same. It turned out that there was only one daily bus that left from Newcastle to go to Hadrian’s Wall, and by the time we got to the city from our rather distant bed and breakfast on the first day it had already left! Not to be discouraged, we quickly decided that if we could not go west that day, then we would go east. Thus, we headed out to Segedunum, the ruins of an old Roman fort and the easternmost point on Hadrian’s Wall.
The museum at Segedunum was a little kid-focused for my taste, but all of the exhibits were entertaining, informative, and accurate. We walked around the ruins for a bit, but the wall line had long since been covered up by Newcastle’s development and there was little to see or follow. It was this point that my mother looked at my shoes, said that they would not do at all, and decided that we should head to an outdoor store posthaste. In my defense, I thought my running shoes were perfectly fine seeing as how I had been running around the steppe in them for the last two years, but my mother was on the warpath. As usual, her concerns were well founded. My running shoes were not waterproof, and when the weather turned grey and misty the next day I was glad to have the Gortex hiking shoes that we bought.
Properly kitted out, we got up early the next day so to catch the bus. We decided to hike the section of the Wall between Housesteads and Hillcastle because I had previously hiked the section between Hexam and Housesteads, and also because has some of the best ruins of the whole trail. Of course, there is a very good reason that the ruins on that section of the wall are in such good condition; it is extremely hilly. In fact, in some areas between Housesteads and Hillcastle, it would seem that the wall was built strictly to mark the border of Roman Territory, as the hills are so steep that it would have been impossible for enemy armies to even approach the wall, much less attempt to scale it. We set off at a good pace, but at lunch time it turned out that we still had five miles to go until the Roman Army Museum where we could catch the bus back to Newcastle. Mom decided that she would walk along the road or else she would never make it on time, but I decided I would finish this section on the wall. It was hard going, and I was running in many places, but I managed to get to bus stop just a few minutes after my mom and just in time to catch the bus.
The next day we were a little sore for a lot of walking, and we decided that Newcastle was not the best base of operations anyway, so we decided to head to Carlisle. Like Newcastle, Carlisle was an interesting city in its own right, with very nice cathedral and a castle that is also a current military base that is built from stones that used to be part of Hadrian’s Wall. The day after, we headed back to the Wall, this time planning to take the bus out to the very end of the Wall at Bowness and walk back to Carlisle. In many ways this walk was much easier than the one from Housesteads. Unlike the other section, the wall path between Bowness and Carlisle was rather flat, but the walk was also five miles longer than our last one, and it was also pretty buggy in some places. We were able to gather a second wind and third wind with some ice cream and then with a couple of pints and tuna fish sandwiches, but even with that by the time we got back to Carlisle at six were dragging. We had walked 17 miles in about seven hours.
The 17 miles took a lot of both of us, especially my mother, so the next day when we were considering our options we decided on a lark to head up to Edinburgh. It turned out to be the perfect time to make a visit. Edinburgh was having a “heat wave” so the weather was actually very nice, and it did not rain once while we were there. Let me digress for the moment on the idea of a British heat wave. For the British, anything above 35 degrees Celsius is the summer is somehow intolerably painful and the only relief is drinking gallons of water, walking around in as little clothing as possible, and generally just lounging around. This is fine, I enjoy hanging around at the park in board shorts and flip-flops as much as the next guy, and I carry my water bottle wherever I go, but they really need to put their pain into perspective. No offense guys, but until you spend go to Kyzylorda Kazakhstan in the summer where the temperature is regularly over 40 and cultural expectations dictate you wear long pants whenever you leave the house, I really do not think you can complain that much about the heat. To be totally honest, the heat wave in Scotland felt like a beautiful Kyzylorda spring. I loved it. Anyway, the weather was not the only nice surprise about our trip to Scotland. It turned out that we had arrived right in the middle of graduation exercises for the University of Edinburgh and the Queen was currently staying at Hollyrood House. Thus, we had the privilege of seeing for two whole days, thousands of Scots walking around in their best Highland gear. There were kilts everywhere! We spent our time in Edinburgh productively, visiting Edinburgh Castle, the national galleries, and even the Scotch Whiskey Tour. The Scotch Whiskey tour, besides being delicious was absolutely fascinating. For example, I had no idea that Scotch Whiskey production was divided into four different regions, each with its own distinct smell and flavor. Still, I think the most fun thing I did while I was on summer vacation, was go back to school. Even though I still I have a year left in my Peace Corps service, I have begun to think about what I will do after I leave Kazakhstan, and one of the options I had been looking at was the Cultural Studies Department at the University of Edinburgh. I decided that since I was in the city it would make sense to try to track down the person in charge of the program in order to ask a few more questions and possibly snag an impromptu interview. It took some doing because the department was moving from one building to another and no one knew where the department actually was, but I eventually tracked down the head of the department. She was very nice, and we had a great conversation. It turned out that we had esoteric artistic interests in common. While I am obsessed with comic books, she is an expert in graffiti. She really sparked my interest in the program and at the end she said, “I look forward to seeing you in 2010.” Needless to say, I have spent the rest of the summer working my butt off to get into that program.
As much fun as we had in the north of England and in Scotland, it was eventually time to head back to London. My mother was not the only relative who had traveled thousands of miles to see me. My aunt, only recently recovered from hip surgery, had also decided to come to England for a visit. She was already in the hotel and rested up by the time we got back to London, so as soon as we got ourselves cleaned up, it was time to head out again. After dinner, Tia decided, even though I warned her about it, that she wanted to go see the London Eye. Now I know that it looks absolutely stunning in all of those photographs, and maybe if you have 10 people and cocktails with you, it might be a good time, but otherwise I do not see why anyone would want to spend forty dollars for a ferris wheel ride that takes forever and only goes around once. Still, we headed down to Westminster to check it out, and to her credit, Tia realized that it was not worth it as soon as she saw how lame it was. The next day, our first full day in London we headed back down to the river to go to the Tate Britain and the Tate Modern. The Tate Britain was just as much fun as the last time I went, although they had moved several things around. Among the changes, they had moved several works by JMW Turner into a different hall in order to compare it with the work of a more modern artist. I could see what they were trying to do, but it just did not work. The modern artist was working with color and light and was not trying to evoke a certain subject or form. On the other hand, even though Turner’s work, especially the work made toward the end of his career was increasingly impressionistic and abstract, he was still trying to evoke certain subjects and forms. After the Tate Britain we got on the ferryboat that took us to the Tate Modern. We looked around for a while, but all of us were worn out by a full morning at the Tate Britain so we spent most of the afternoon relaxing with lots of other Londoners in the sunshine just outside. The other art museums we tackled on this trip were the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. I had already been to both before, too, but both are so full of art you would probably need to spend a full week in each one to properly see everything. While I like both museums a lot, I think my favorite is the National Portrait Gallery, if only because it is much easier to get around. In both museums, paintings are organized in chronological order, but in the National gallery, the floor plan is so convoluted that you can be looking at 16th century art and then step into the next room and suddenly be looking at 18th century art. It is a good thing they give you a map.
Of course, even after 233 years of independence, no American can go to Britain without going to as many castles and palaces and possible, and we were no exception. In fact, we went had to split our royal excursions into two days. On the first day, we headed down to Buckingham Palace, and even though you can only visit the main part of the palace in the autumn, we still got a chance to see the apartments that contains much of the royal family’s china and art, as well as the royal stables. There were no horses on display that day, but there were certainly plenty of carriages and cars for whatever the occasion. The second “royal day” was just for Tia and me because mom decided had not seen quite enough of the Tate Modern the first time. With the day to ourselves, Tia and I decided to head to Windsor Castle, another of the royal residences that I had never been to before. My aunt still does not walk very well, so we planned a reasonably light day for ourselves, just the royal apartments and St. George’s Chapel. The tour of the Royal Apartments was one of the stranger touring experiences I have ever had. Unlike in other museums, or castles for that matter, you cannot just wander from room to room as you please, you have to stay on a set course, and you have to move at a pretty quick pace because there are 500 people right behind you. Even though we felt like mice in a crowded maze, we had a great time in the Apartments. Every room was special and unique and had seen some pivotal moment in history. My favorite room was the King’s Apartment. The King’s apartment was fascinating not because of what it was, but because of what it was not. Although there was a bed, night table, etc, the King never actually slept there. Rather, it was where he held meetings with his closest advisors while getting dressed. In the olden days access to the King was fairly straightforward. The closer you were to the King, the more privy you were to even his most private affairs. Thus, it was considered a real privilege to be able to watch the King get dressed or use the bathroom. I also enjoyed the hall dedicated to the defeat of Napoleon which was filled with portraits of the various world leaders of the time, including a couple of popes, who had come together to defeat Napoleon. After going through the apartments we had a short break where we treated ourselves to Prince Charles’ ice cream. It was quite delicious if a little expensive, but I was pleased to read that Prince Charles only uses fresh fruit for flavoring, and his dairy cows are not fed any antibiotics animal byproducts. After ice cream we headed down the hill to St. George’s Chapel. The chapel is apparently still used for formal services of the Knights of the order of St. George, but more importantly, it is also the final resting place of several Kings and Queens, including Charles I, the Royal Martyr, and George the VI and Elizabeth, the parents of the current monarch.
On the third to last day of our trip, my mother and aunt went to Brighton, but I stayed in London in order to track down the Fulbright Commission and to go to the British Museum. I admit that I was a bit bummed to miss Brighton, but I just had to do those two things. The hunt for the Fulbright commission ended somewhat anticlimactically. It was a Friday morning, but apparently everyone was at some meeting, and so though it had taken me 45 minutes to find the place, I was only there for 15 minutes. Still, it was not a total loss. They had left a young American woman there, and she was very helpful in answering all of my questions and helping me to navigate their rather confusing website. After the Fulbright adventure I headed to the British Museum. I zipped by the Elgin Marbles again, but then headed to a new show they had up about Commemorative Coins. Unlike most commemorative coins though, these coins were no made to celebrate but to denigrate. The coins dated from the 1600s and made fun of people as diverse as the Lord Protector, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair. The last couple of days in Britain I must admit were not the most fun. First off, Tia left to head back to the U.S., and then the fresh air of London finally got to me and I developed an allergy infection. I had left my antibiotics in Kazakhstan, and when I went to try to get some at NHS they said that it sounded as if I had Swine Flu and kicked me out the door. That night, mom’s old friend Pru came down from Oxford for dinner. We had a great time, but I felt kind of bad because I had been under the weather the last time I saw her as well. Just like last time however, a good meal and her company got me feeling better, although I was still a little a little under the weather when I headed back to Kazakhstan. The last day in London was hard. Our planes did not leave till almost five in the afternoon so we had plenty of time to pack and have a good lunch, but all too soon it was time to head to the airport. We were flying out of different airports, Mom out of Heathrow and myself out of Stanstead, so we had to awkwardly say our goodbyes on the tube. I do not know about Mom, but saying good-bye was almost as hard that time as when I left for Kazakhstan the first time. At least this time, I know that I will probably see her again in six months rather than two years. I have to say that this summer vacation was probably one of the best ever. I know that I might have gone somewhere a little more exotic like India or Turkey, but I am glad that I went to Europe instead. This summer I really needed to reconnect with my folks and figure out my future, especially since I am staying for a third year. That said, three weeks just was not enough time, but with any luck I will be back in Britain by next September! I hope everyone else had a great summer and good luck on the coming school year. We are going to need it.
