Behind Already

Yes, yes, I have fallen woefully behind on chronicling my adventures abroad. I hope to have an account of my weekend adventures by tomorrow, but for now I hope anyone looking for some reassurance that I am alive and conscious can be satiated by this, the first essay for my travel writing class.

It's not like I've never seen pigeons before. Many summers spent whiling away my lunch break at theater camp in downtown Portsmouth at home in New Hampshire have left me no stranger to the fat, gray lumps of bird that fill London in throngs. But the pigeons here are different.

At home when out with my family, I've often stalked pigeons. I've raised my arms in front of me in the warm summer air countless times, crouching lower to the ground and inching behind the pigeons. My fingers twitch.

“No need to buy dinner, Ma,” I've said menacingly as I approached my prey. I have not pursued London pigeons, though I've been tempted. Their sheer numbers are such an invitation that it seems a waste to let them walk confidently on sidewalks, park greens, and alleys, undisturbed by what I will call my hunting instinct that is really just a childlike longing to see the fear in their beady, orange eyes before I make them fly off and get the fuck out of my way. But I have not chased the pigeons in London. Somehow, I doubt they'd mind as much.

No, the pigeons here seem fearless. Their fearlessness might be common of all big city pigeons, but I haven't spent enough time in cities to know. The pictures I've seen from my parents' honeymoon in Venice lead me to believe that the pigeons there are overflowing with a hubris tied to their sense of mortality. That's not true of Portsmouth pigeons. And I've spent a few days in New York City and scattered time in Boston, but I never noticed pigeons like these. They wander inches from me and call out to each other in little stuttering hums that make them sound like miniature lawnmowers. They strut towards me, mocking me with their pigeon chests puffed out under the ruffle of gray and white feathers. They glare at me with one eye, reminding me that they could peck out my eyes if they wanted to and give Hitchcock a sequel.

Of course, they walk the same. Their heads bob as they walk, making them look like deranged windup toys. They peck at the same sorts of trash left behind. They still all flock to bread as though it was the body of Christ. That is, of course, all the same. Their general habits are unaltered across the Atlantic, but their attitude is different. They have an audacity unmatched by any American pigeon I have ever chased down the street. Here in London, the pigeons seem unperturbed by the proximity of people, which is, perhaps, not biologically beneficial.

And certainly these pigeons have little to fear from me, despite my chasing habits. Were I to catch a pigeon, I would not know what to do with it. I assume breaking its neck would work, but I would then be left bewildered and holding the body of a bird. I could probably find instructions on how to pluck the feathers, roast the bird, and eat the spongey little legs – if they're even edible – but the idea of actually doing so is unappealing. But others may not balk at bird carcasses. I have a rather weak stomach, after all.

But the fact remains that the pigeons here, in their boldness, seem stupider than the ones I have known at home. I am no biologist, but their lack of fear seems like a distinct disadvantage when confronted with the perils of pigeon life in a city. The other day, I was waiting to cross a street and there were, as there so often are, pigeons milling about near pedestrians' feet. Near me, a well-dressed woman in a dress and boots was impatiently waiting to cross the street. Perhaps it was her fashion sense that attracted the pigeons to her, but whatever it was, two pigeons were wandering quite close to her feet. One edged closer to the leather of her boots. The woman twitched her foot to the side to kick the pigeon.

I let a vague sound slip from me into the air as the pigeon fluttered away, now of its own accord. The people around me, all waiting to cross the street, seemed unimpressed. Perhaps pigeon kicking is common when waiting for the light to change or perhaps the people of London are more used to someone using any and all action required to remove over-invasive birds from their personal space. I can't say I have done enough research on the matter to offer conclusive results.

But perhaps, with time, I too will shrug my shoulders when I see legs lash away from bodies to send pigeons flying. Perhaps when I return home, I will see a pigeon fluttering away from a toddler stumbling towards it while the child is still yards away and hiss “pussy!” at the bird under my breath. Maybe the next time one of these bold London birds lifts off the sidewalk and flies directly at my face, I will not leap back and cry out, but will swiftly lift my leg above my head and deliver a perfectly executed roundhouse kick. But for now, as they strut past on the sidewalk with just one of their orange eyes peering at me out the side of their head, I'll leer back with both of my eyes and mutter, “You're just like the rest of them. I could fucking eat you for dinner.”

I Mustache You This Question...

Where did you find that ring?

Why, I found it in London, vaguely near St. Paul's! I didn't actually get the mustache ring because I am cheap and have found that mustache rings can very rarely be worn on formal occasions. And I only wear rings on formal occasions because who needs fancy fingers on a regular basis? Not me.

My dressed-down appendages did come in handy for the ridiculous amount of walking accomplished today. My class had to meet at the Temple tube station for the first walking tour we had as part of our London History class. We walked up to Fleet Street and saw the Royal Court of Justice. As a nerd of the courts in the US, I was more than a little excited to see the huge ass court.

The rest of the walking tour was spent walking up Fleet Street into the City of London (which funnily enough is not the same thing as straight up London... go figure). We stopped by the Temple Church, walked down the street that was where Shakespeare lived when he was residing in London, and ended up where Blackfriars Theatre used to be.

Some friends and I then spent the next few hours mucking around, wandering in and out of shops, and accidentally finding historic sites, which isn't hard to do when they're everywhere, I suppose. At one point we found a small playground, which I took delight in playing on for a few minutes. We also ended up in some luxury shopping building surrounded by men and women in suits. Awkwardly underdressed, we didn't stay too long and I was left wondering if perhaps I should have gotten that mustache ring.

Monster Adventure!

Today marked the first day of classes in London, and though it was more of an intro day than a learning day, I am delighted to add a new quote to my "Awesome Shit Teachers Have Said Collection." My London History professor told us she was a bit left wing and didn't make a secret of it and gave us a bit of proof when she said this: "We'll go from the Romans up to Mrs. Thatcher, so not exactly progress but change."

In other news, I made my first visit to the British Museum, which is only a block or two from my flat. While I could spend many entries writing about all the crazy shit the British have stolen from other cultures over the years, I'll save that for a later visit. The museum itself is free, which I guess makes up for how expensive everything else is. Since it's close and costs nothing, I could go there all the time, so you can likely look forward to posts about penisless Grecian statues. Oh, the excitement!

But for now, I'll focus on a favorite adventure I have had so far. It begins, as so many things do, with my slightly strange personal fashion decisions.

As my mother is a seamstress, I often pester her to make me awesome clothes, some of which normal people might wear, but most of which the general public is not cool enough to pull off. I have dinosaur pajamas, my own superhero cape, and two monster hats. The hats are the most important for this particular adventure.

After yet another supermarket visit, I was traveling down what I believe to be Tottenham Court Road (though my sense of geography is still not refined enough to be sure) when I happened upon some stilt walkers. It was cool out so I had put on my newest home-sewn masterpiece: a black fleece hat with the eyes, ears, and arms of a monster. The man on stilts teetered in my direction.

"I don't mean to alarm you, but you've got some sort of a creature on the top of your head. It looks pretty dangerous, too."

I looked up at the stilt man towering above and laughed. "Yes, he has fangs," I answered.

"How's your shopping going then?" he asked as his female stilt walking companion approached. The pair peered into my grocery bags, complimented my yogurt selection, and noted that I was ready to do some scrubbing with my new sponges. We chatted for a few more minutes until one of the stilt walkers asked me if I was German.

"Uh, no," I answered, "I'm Swiss actually."

"But you must be from the German part."

"Yeah..." I answered because my family is, though I've spent only about two weeks there in the last ten years of my life. It's easier just to say I'm all Swiss rather than trying to explain my awkward half duel citizenship, especially to people who are several feet taller than me thanks to the wooden pegs in their pant legs.

One of the companions of the stilt walkers told me she had friends in Basel and if I ever happened to meet them, I should give them a hello from her. I agreed and made my way down the street, wondering where they had picked up the idea that I was German. Perhaps Germans (or Swiss from the German part of Switzerland) often purchase yogurt and sponges. Or perhaps I have acquired a German accent since leaving New England. Or maybe speakers of German often have impressive monster hats. It remains a mystery.

Heathrow to Cockfosters

I managed the plane, dazzled the border agent, and met one of my flatmate's at her terminal yesterday despite my zombie-like state after flying through the night. The tube I took was going from Heathrow to Cockfosters, which I managed to only giggle at once. After the tube ride, my flatmate and I struggled the few blocks to our flat with our luggage, though I did have a bit of help from a very nice Brit who carried my heavy suitcase down a set of stairs for me. I spent most of the rest of the day longing for bed, but managed to make it to Sainsbury's for a few groceries and the orientation meeting for the classroom building and the flats. Then, thoroughly exhausted, I was in bed by eight.

Today, I was up for a bit more adventure. A few classmates and I went out to get them UK cellphones and to find more groceries for all of us. After lunch we wandered back out in search of bookstores and ended up walking around for the better part of the afternoon until we were a bit lost and had sore feet. I have no idea where we were, which I suppose does not make for the most informative entry for today, but we at least found our way back to the flats. Newly armed with my very own copy of London A to Z, I hope to provide more exciting tales than supermarket visits soon, although I did get some “All Butter Cheese Twists” today that are thankfully not actually all butter.

Farewell, New Hampshire

With just two hours left until I need to be in the car and on the road to catch my flight, I am finally mostly packed and vaguely prepared for my adventures abroad. I still have a few odds and ends to throw in my backpack, time to kill, and as a future cat lady long emotional goodbyes to be said to the family pets, but for now, I'm saying goodbye to my state. I wrote the following essay about a year ago for the creative writing class I was taking at the time. As I'll soon throw myself into my travel writing class abroad and the essay below is about New Hampshire, it seems a fitting way to say my temporary farewell to my home state.

The bare rock face staggered out of the dimming late winter light as I slid my hands along the rippling steering wheel of my mother's car. My mother's voice reading off the trivia card and the sound of “Sister Golden Hair” sunk into the seat cushion beyond my ears. The sounds plunged past me as we turned the curve and the backside of the mountain came into view.

I could see cars parked in the lot below us and the vastness of the dirt and gravel lot in between the splotches of trees. The sheer cliffs on the mountainside above had been worn down by years of rainfall. The wrinkles in the rock dripped down the mountain. Thousands of years had come to this, from the glaciers that had carved the landscape to small crowds gathered beneath the mountain, slush and gravel clinging to their shoes as their faces peered upward, impossibly locating the face that once reigned over these New Hampshire hills. I thought about pulling over.

* 

He was the one thing we found to set us apart, our state's one certifiable claim to fame: the Old Man of the Mountain, a formation of rock hanging out the side of a mountain that one day someone decided looked like a face. The white blobs that surround route numbers on our highway signs are intended to reflect his shape. Our license plates proudly feature him in between the green numbers and letters. The state quarter displays his countenance with the “Old Man of the Mountain” etched into the metal underneath his face so those unfamiliar with New Hampshire's odd obsession with a mountainside man may have a slight chance at understanding. We have little else to boast about.

People forget New Hampshire, and then when they remember it, they realize they know nothing about it. Perhaps this is a marketing flaw. I read an article a few summers ago in the Boston Globe that said New Hampshire had no standout feature to offer, nothing to lure people in. New Hampshire tourism officials tried to counter the statement by saying we had the best of everything, but really, if we're being honest with ourselves, we have nothing to set us apart.

We have eighteen measly miles of coast. We have Mount Washington, which holds the world record for strongest recorded wind speed. Of course, strongest recorded wind speed isn't likely to bring throngs of vacationers trundling in, although we do also have bumper stickers that say “This car climbed Mt. Washington!” which I have always found to be unimpressive. Our first in the nation primary does bring in a fair amount of attention, but then it's mostly from politicians hoping to woo our voters who are nothing if not consistently unpredictable. We have no seat belt laws for those over the age of eighteen, so that's a big draw for the lamely reckless I suppose. Also, our tax free, highway-side state liquor stores are highly celebrated, but are hardly something to put on the state quarter. So we are the Granite State, and the Old Man was ours.

* 

After a long day of skiing, my family would bundle into the car, shedding the winter coats and letting our eyes wander out the windows. Our car wound its way down the pass in Franconia Notch, the road twisting and turning between the trees on either side. After the van turned around another corner, we could see the Old Man's face jutting out the side of Cannon Mountain, his mouth slightly open as if in mid-speech, proclaiming some unheard statement to the surrounding hills. My brother and I would peer out the window in awe, our bodies worn out from skiing but our eyes still eagerly peeled for the geological feat that towered over us.

My parents would sometimes pull the car into the dirt lot beneath him. Our sneakers would pound out footprints in the wet ground as we gazed up at the Old Man. We would stand there for a few minutes, wondering at the implausibility of a man's face in a mountain. I always thought he bore a resemblance to Abraham Lincoln. I do not think Abraham Lincoln would be particularly flattered by that comparison, but as he has often been called the ugliest president, I will make no apologies for merely finding a trace of his looks in a giant rock face.

After our moments of reflection beneath the Old Man, we would climb back into the van and ready ourselves for the hours remaining on the drive home. I am not sure what we got from standing beneath him. We had seen him many times before, and honestly, there wasn't much to do in his shadow. Because we had nothing else, the Old Man was our symbol, and he became part of an odd sort of ritual. We wouldn't always stop beneath him, but he was always there, gazing out over the state. There was always a cluster of cars parked in that lot beneath his countenance, cameras flashing, families gazing, visitors to the state perhaps meeting him for the first time, perhaps wondering what the hell the fuss was all about, perhaps joining in our own genuflection. Whether or not it made any sense, there we were.

* 

I was eating breakfast in the kitchen one morning when I was twelve, the dull sounds of the radio thumping out, when the words fell into the air. “Sad news for the Granite State today, the Old Man has fallen...” Years of water freezing and unfreezing in the cracks of the granite cliffs had reduced New Hampshire's symbol to a pile of rubble hundreds of feet below. I kept eating my breakfast, an odd stirring in the depths of my stomach.

In math class Monday afternoon, we fidgeted in our chairs as Mr. Witmer settled himself behind the table at the front of the room. He rubbed his hands through his sparse beard. He and his wife had gotten married on top of the Old Man, he told us. We let his voice fall into the silence that so rarely hung in the air of a sixth grade classroom.

* 

There were options, sure, modes of recourse. Some people wanted to reconstruct him on the side of the mountain. Others spoke of a memorial at the base. We wanted something for the idolized symbol we were unwilling to let go, and after we got past the question of how to keep the Old Man in a reduced, ghostlike form, what would happen to all our state route signs? Would the Old Man's image remain? Our license plates? We couldn't very well change the state quarter, minted three years before his face took a nose dive off Cannon Mountain.

We kept him. There was nothing else for us to do but hang on to the memory of the cliffs that had inexplicably come to mean so much to a state.

* 

I remember hearing once on the radio that it's natural for people to take odd shapes and turn them into some familiar form like an animal or the face of a person. The idea of seeing faces in random objects explained why I thought the weird blotch of stain in the molding in the corner of my bedroom looked like a woolly mammoth. It explained the person who thought she had found the Virgin Mary's face in her grilled cheese. It seemed to mean the Old Man was just another trick of the mind, just a stack of cliffs that seemed to be Abraham Lincoln rising out of the rock. It seemed to mean he was just an illusion. I was okay with a reasonable semi-scientific explanation that explained away Jesus burgers and Mary mold as merely natural assuagements of the obsessively faithful, but I was unwilling to admit that the Old Man of the Mountain was just another clump of rocks that we felt the need to find a face in.

* 

I thought about pulling over. My mom was still finishing the trivia question about some 70's TV show I had never heard of beside me. I checked in the rear-view mirror. I could see my dad and my brother cramped up despite the short time we had been in the car, their legs skewed at odd angles among our ski gear. I drove the car past the dirt lot beneath the cliff where the Old Man used to be, but as the noises of the car washed over me, I looked up once more at the blank mountainside where the Old Man had once been, his lips slightly parted as if calling me home.

Oh, Why Hello!

In just over 72 hours, I'll be boarding a plane bound for London. I'll shrug off the cold-snap that has hit New Hampshire, polish off my English to English dictionary, and try to sleep away the six-hour flight. But for now, I'll put off packing, applying for jobs, and everything else I should have already done over my winter break by starting this obligatory travel blog. I can guarantee neither quantity nor quality in the entries that will follow, but I hope that this brief exercise in long form narcissism will be at the very least a way to keep the people who I normally surround myself with vaguely informed of my continuing survival. Hopefully it will also be vaguely entertaining, but again I make no promises as far as that is concerned. So that's the plan: chart my adventures – past and present. Of course, sometimes crazy shit happens and things don't go according to plan. Today, there were chickens in the street, so anything goes I guess.