uk: stratford, then london

I looked forward to Stratford-upon-Avon (for obvious reasons), but I was disappointed by the level of tourism that had taken over the town. Trinket shops were on every corner, and tourists invaded the streets! I had hoped that I would find some wonderful bookshops, but the only stores I happened upon, at least in my limited free time, were corporate.

Visiting Shakespeare's grave, however, was truly a transcendental experience. I was overwhelmed by the idea that the dust of Shakespeare lay closer than the letters of his sacrosanct name on the cover of an indispensable play. The nebulous idea of the playwright became flesh and bone! (Well… bone.)

That night I had the honor of attending King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The production incorporated set and costume design from the nineteenth century and even World War I, displacing the conventional vision of the play so that its themes of cold power-grabbing and dark chaos made fine impressions.

The next day we made our way to London - our final destination. I'm sad to say, though, that I became sicker than I can remember ever feeling (food poisoning!) and consequently lost out on the London experience! I could've been devastated, but I was so exhausted by then that I could not have enjoyed the city to the fullest anyway, and I'm very confident that I will return.

Nonetheless, I did manage to take these pictures at Windsor and then the Tower of London (just hours before I became officially bed-ridden).

Kara, with whom I sat in many-a-pub!

And finally, a picture from my hotel room.

(Victoria Plaza Room 350, your ceiling will forever be burned in my memory!)

This trip was with my university's history department, but I look forward to a future visit in which I'll make the plans! To show for this adventure, I have a healthy stack of books (so that by Stratford others were placing bets on whether a newly acquired book was tucked in my bag).

So here's to my first experience of the fair British Isles! (May there be many more to come!)

uk: lake district

Lord Tennyson, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Southey, Beatrix Potter, Thomas Coleridge, William Wordsworth: these writers cherished the Lake District - a region dubbed by many as the most beautiful place on Earth. Unlike the shocking raw beauty of Scotland, the pastoral beauty of this land inspired a placid spiritual peace.

18 May 2010 - Today in Grasmere I visited Dove Cottage, the greenery and flowers visible outside every window. The garden behind the cottage was lovely – the lake visible between cobblestone buildings from the top of the rise that was carpeted with flowers. At two I began a hike through the path that Wordsworth himself walked more than two hundred years ago. There was an opening in the trees that looked upon a pasture dotted with sheep, twisted trees scattered in the perfect arrangement. The romantic art that I’d assumed to be exaggerations of beauty became absolutely appropriate to what I saw today.

19 May 2010 - I’m sitting on a boulder beside the lake, an icy wind that’s freezing my fingers and ears into numbness also blowing the water into choppy crests, lapping jagged, black rocks at the shore. Nature is a most direct communiqué of God, which is why if we listen to nature we just might hear Him.

These pictures are from Keswick. As my only camera was a dysfunctional SLR, I left it behind for the Grasmere hike. Keswick was certainly beautiful, but Grasmere made me want to sit in the grass dedicate my life to Lyrical Ballads!

“And from the blessed power that rolls

About, below, above,

We’ll frame the measure of our souls,

They shall be tuned to love.”

(Wm. Wordsworth)

a new series

In May I spent three weeks traipsing throughout the United Kingdom, exploring medieval castles, ancient ruins, quaint pubs, centuries-old cities and falling very much in love with it all!

The cathartic atmosphere of Celtic art became real through the epic beauty of the Scottish Highlands and the sacred isolation at the Isle of Iona; the stories that to me had seemed entirely fantastical - such as Rowling's parallel magical world and even Doyle's rainy conundrums - became well-founded as I walked under the dark architecture in Edinburgh and sat in the yellow warmth of its pubs. In England the poetry and the paintings of Romantics became absolutely appropriate to the pastoral beauty in the Lake District, and a balance of modernism and old-world mystery created the sense of endless potential in London.

The next few posts will concern these adventures, including snippets from my journals and (of course!) a sampling of photos!