My only time in England previously had been for three days in February of 2011 as I made my way to Salzburg for the semester. There in London, I met my cohort and toured the sights while trying to stave off jet lag in what fulfilled my biggest stereotype - a cold, grey, and ever-rainy city. This time, however, would be markedly different. Alice invited me to stay at her house over an hour west of London in a countryside village named Kintbury (recently ranked the 19th most sought after place to live, I might add!). My flight from Munich landed late afternoon in Gatwick, an airport south of London, and right off the bat, there was some confusion at customs. Because I have a special EU residency permit, my passport was not stamped coming into Germany last year, so the officer was alarmed that I seemed not to have proof of having legally entered the EU. After some major clarification on my end, he passed me, but asked for the address at which I'd be staying for my trip. I searched all my pockets, and realized that I must have left the paper with Alice's address on my desk, and told the officer I couldn't remember. He gave me permission to use my phone to retrieve the message, but, because my phone doesn't work outside of Austria, checking it was a mere formality. I remembered the address being "1 *something* Green," but for the life of me, I couldn't recall it. So, sticking with the first name that came to mind, I am officially listed as having stayed at "1 Downton Green." And, with that, I passed security! I met Alice with a hug at the arrivals gate, and we headed on our way home. Halfway through the trip, we had to change trains at Reading, where we had time to grab a bite to eat. We had Cornish pasties, which are sort of like empanadas - mine was filled with chicken, bacon, vegetables, and a light cream sauce - absolutely amazing! Quickly dispelled some major notions I had of all English cuisine being bland and overcooked! My first big delight came whilst standing on the platform, waiting for our connection. The Royal Ascot, a major horse race, was taking place not too far away, and its attendants were making their way home. Men in smart morning dress, women in cocktail dresses and fanciful hats - uniquely English, and so, so great to witness. That was one of what would become many "We're not in Kansas anymore" moments from my 4 day trip. When we were nearly there, Alice's mom picked us up from the station, and drove the few minutes' drive home. I sat in the front...on the left...and I clutched the door handle a few times, especially driving on the left around a traffic circle - terrifying! We pulled up to terraced houses that brought my childhood rushing back to me - Privet Drive from the first pages of Harry Potter - so cool! As we pulled up into the driveway, I heard who would become a good friend throughout my stay - Madge, the dog. I was licked to death, and periodically sat on, but it was so great to play with a dog again! And with that, as I think we were all exhausted from a long day, it was lights out.
The next morning, Alice's dad drove us back to Reading where we were caught the train up to Oxford for the day. We walked out of the station, and within 5 minutes, we had already passed a castle...a stone and mortar, ancient castle. Through the city we walked, right to the center, the heart of the place, where the famed University's sprawling campus lies. We first made our way to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, which has a tower that boasts arguably the best panoramic view of the city. Up narrow spiral staircases and ladders, we were just above the roofs looking out at what seemed like endless steeples and towers. It was truly impressive. Below, we could see countless courtyards of the many constituent colleges. The architecture is just stunning - when I think about all the Gothic college buildings back home, they just pale in comparison to the place upon which they were based. Ancient stone and pointed window frames, gargoyles and cloisters, perfectly manicured lawns and creeping ivy - unreal. Immediately, the place felt familiar. It felt just like Princeton, especially with the interaction between the University and the city. Also like Princeton, it's a small city, and once you leave, you're in the middle of nature, which I really, really appreciate. After the tower, we just wandered through the tiny streets, passing college after college, and even a cricket pitch, until we came upon the Meadow Building of Christ Church College, one of the oldest and most prestigious of the University's colleges. We took a tour inside, up a staircase that inspired the famous one in Harry Potter's Hogwarts, which lead to another of the film's inspirations, the Great Hall, a dining hall that is probably the furthest thing from Catholic University's dining hall that I've ever seen. A massive room with tall ceilings in pristine Gothic style, hardwood-covered walls adorned with portraits of great intellects, four long tables were being set for dinner with silverware and fine glassware. Dinner takes places here each night, and eating starts with the sound of a gong after prayers are said in Latin. The very thought that college students eat in a place like this every day is just mind boggling. Tradition - the Oxford experience would be nothing without it.
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| Entrance to Christ Church Meadows, Oxford. |
Perhaps taking a cue from the Great Hall, we were hungry ourselves and walked just down the road to the Covered Market, a collection of restaurants, cafés, bakeries, and boutiques along tiny alleys under a roof. There, we had lunch and freshly baked cookies from a corner stall called Ben's. I had peanut butter and chocolate chip, both of which were warm and gooey, and absolutely delicious. After seeing a bit more of the city, we met up with one of Alice's friends, a biochemistry student at Oxford, for coffee. He was explaining to us some of the Oxford traditions, like that for final exams, the guys are required to wear dark suits with a carnation, the color of which, pink, red, white, indicates to which year the student belongs. Naturally, he was also going to a black tie garden ball to mark the end of term, something that I can't imagine would happen in the US, though I hope! On top of that, we saw some school students who must have recently graduated, because they were walking down the streets in their gowns. Again, cue Harry Potter fantasy. After parting with her friend, we made a quick visit in the Ashmolean, which, at nearly 400 years old, is the world's oldest university museum. Feeling a bit drained, we grabbed a water bottle and plopped down under a massive tree in Christ Church Meadow were we chatted for an hour or so. Just to our left, we could see the city, and here we were in a wild field, where two deer ran about 20 feet in front of us through the meadow. The place is beautiful in a way that no place I've ever been to is like. It is so old, so full of tradition, so ingrained in knowledge, and so very uniquely pretty. For me, it was right out of a book, and all the traditions I had ever attached to the idea of English universities were fostered and blossomed in Oxford, and for those reasons, it almost didn't seem real.
We then took the train back to Reading, where Alice's dad gave us a lift to Newbury for dinner with Alice's mom and boyfriend, who I liked right off the bat when he came to visit Austria in October. We had drinks at a nice place before heading down the road to an Indian restaurant. Surprisingly, the English's favorite dish is Indian, and I was keen to try it. The meal was great! We each ordered something different, and shared out dishes, so I got to try a few different things. Everything was really good, and so much flavor compared with Austrian food! Right after dinner, I got a quick tour of Newbury, which is again a very pretty city. A picturesque canal runs through the city, and the old brick buildings give the place a quaint charm. I learned from a mural in front of the library that Newbury was home to an American airbase during World War II that was home to the 101st Airborne Division, and where Gen. Eisenhower took some now-famous pictures with paratroopers right before they embarked upon their "great crusade" into the night sky above Normandy the in the wee hours before the Allied invasion at the beachheads. Then, we went home to watch some TV and drink tea (ha, classic!) before heading to sleep. With dog at (or really, on) my feet, I was truly feeling right at home.
The next morning I was treated to a proper full English breakfast, with eggs, bacon, tomatoes, beans, and homemade bread with marmalade - a delectable start to what would be a great day! We all drove in the car through ancient hedgerows that had probably been there forever, lining the narrow roads of what used to be horse paths, barely wide enough for a car today. That was a really great experience that I would have never had if I had visited by myself, as I would have stuck to public transportation. Here and there we'd pass a stone church with a small, flower-covered churchyard behind some wild shrubs, or a well-kept manor house behind a winding driveway, or English gardens behind battered brick walls. Birds, sheep, and cattle popped up in random fields left and right, and it was on this drive that I felt most removed from everything I had experienced in Europe. It was so different, and yet, I recognized it instantly. Having spent my entire life reading about this Island from the likes of the Bard, Wordsworth, Eliot, Shelley, Coleridge, and the lot, I was now in the place that inspired them to write some of the most profound literary works of our language, the eternal soul of the countryside they loved and adored. After about 20 minutes, we pulled up in front of an old church and started by foot through the woods. After a while, I continued just down the road up to a place I never thought I'd see: Highclere Castle, aka, Downton Abbey! The only person I passed on my way up the familiar white stone path was a young man cutting the grass - I had the whole place to myself, and I didn't miss the opportunity to touch the massive door knocker that's featured so often when welcoming dignified guests in the series. Another life goal checked off!
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| "Carson, we'd like some tea, please." |
We drove a bit further through the countryside, up winding roads to the highest point in Berkshire, the Combe Gibbet, which offered spectacular views of the countryside. Here were the sheep-covered rolling hills, valleys, villages, and wooded patches of the books - a surreal experience seeing it firsthand, and feeling just as invigorated as the authors who were inspired to write of the vast beauty before them. We then made our way back through the hedges towards Kintbury. It was on this short drive that it came to me - the home of Shakespeare and Churchill, of Hitchcock and Nelson, of double-decker buses and red phone boxes, of fish & chips and the Beatles, of castles and the Queen, of legend and history, of fruitful isolation and world domination, of rolling hills and immense pride, of Harry Potter and the BBC - England, for me as an American, is the place that is so familiar in mind and yet a world set apart, unto itself. It evokes so many stereotypes, but further still, those thoughts are a common way of life for most. I stopped dead in my tracks upon seeing passengers actually queuing for the bus in Oxford - one of those, "whoa, they actually do this!" moments. I had moments like this throughout my stay, and they made me smile each time, realizing that the way of life lived here is the fantasy that so many of us back home have of this wonderful place - it's real! Her most famous son to put his pen to paper once wrote of England, "This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war, this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea." And I think he nailed it right on the head. The English have a lot to call their own, a lot to be proud of, and yet, they go about being some of the most polite, kind, and friendly people I've ever encountered.
That was further emphasized later that evening. After recuperating from our long walk through Highclere estate, Alice and I took the train to Reading to meet two of her friends for dinner. This was my first time seeing Reading properly outside the station, and it was a really cool place. We passed down a shopping street where the redbrick façades glowed in the waning sunlight below blue skies. A warm breeze ushered us to a happening Mexican restaurant above the canal where we had a few cocktails and a really yummy meal of a chicken chimichanga with rice and beans, including a terrific dessert of dulce de leche ice cream in espresso with a cinnamon-sugar coated churro. From my normal diet in Austria, the Mexican food made me sweat, but it was so, so delicious! After dinner, we caught the train to Thatcham in between Reading and Newbury where we met a bunch of Alice's friends for drinks at their usual hangout, a place called The Swan. I absolutely loved this place. A low-lying brick building, with two crooked brick chimneys, a few old lanterns separating the patio from the table scattered across the lawn under a massive tree - it had so much character! Alice's friends were a great, friendly bunch who I liked right from the start, and they all lived in the area, which gave the place an authentic neighborhood joint feel. A definite highlight of the trip happened not too long into our first drink of the night. One of Alice's friends gave me the one coin I needed to complete my collection! In honor of the Queen's jubilee, the mint released a series of coins that, when you place all of them together, form the monarch's coat of arms, with each coin having a small portion of it on the reverse. I was highly entertained, and so happy to have been given the last piece of the puzzle! When the sun finally set, it was a bit nippy, so we moved inside, and I just fell in love with the place. Brick walls, heavy wooden cross beams, bookshelves stacked with books no one's ever read. Not too different from an American bar, maybe? But here, it's not an imitation - it was here first! It was a really great time, and maybe my favorite part of the trip, and again, definitely something I would have missed if I were just a tourist passing through.
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| Gorgeous buildings in the village center, Kintbury. |
The next morning was my last, but before I took the train back to Gatwick, Alice and I took Madge for a long walk in and around Kintbury. We walked through a few windy fields and crossed a stone bridge to reach the footpath that ran along the Kennet and Avon Canal that runs through the village. We passed by some sleepy canal boats, and under trees blowing in the breeze, providing a canopy right over the canal, creating its own little world, quiet as can be on a Saturday morning. We crossed a bridge and came up in the churchyard of the village church, a 12th Century (!) Saxon building with a surrounding cemetery that only magnified its character. A few minutes later, through the quaint but pretty village center, we were back home. I packed up my bags, had one last cup of tea with a delicious jam cookie, and then it was off to the station. Alice came with me to Reading, which I actually think was the most visited site of the trip, haha, and it was there were we said our farewells. It hurts, thinking that it will most likely be some time before we get to see each other again, but I'm truly grateful for the experience to have lived in "real" England, in a place where I instantly fell in love with the country before me. Looking back on this year, I feel like I've learned about 2 countries - Austria of course, but also England. Throughout the year, we were learning about each other's culture, way of life, and country. Having great friends who live there makes it that much more enticing, and I hope to visit many more times. I could have spent my last weekend in Europe in a number of places, but I can think of no better way to say "goodbye" to the time I've spent here than in a wonderful place with an especially wonderful friend.
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