Ruby Slippers

Christmas time brings with it the realization that there is no place like home. And no cure for homesickness but to visit it. For me, this is very bad news at the moment...this being my current location
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England and this being the approximate location of home http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Munnar_hillstation_kerala.jpg  .

It is not that I mind England. Besides the weather, (and the masochism ;) it is a place that thrills me. From the Hound of the Baskervilles moors to the James Herriot Yorkshire downs, to others I haven't even been. It's in my bones, much of my immediate ancestors having migrated from here. It's just that home is in my heartblood.

Home, where it's always, always warm. Unless it's those couple of weeks in December when the sun's closest to the equator, hurting your eyes through searing crisp sky blue skies, by glinting off the palm trees (really tough to do. The fronds aren't smooth enough). With the leaves on the almond trees, the only deciduous ones stubborn enough to stick around in the tropics, having turned blood red and carpeted the oddly dry ground. And by blood, I mean the color that it comes out when it's forcibly drawn out, still holding its warmth, deep shocking crimson.

Unless it's those few weeks in the lunar month of October-November, when the monsoon turns around and hits us a second time, cause we're lucky enough to be on its return path. When the frogs go crazy and sing all night, lovesick not with each other so much as with the torrents, that pool and freeze your feet when you go jump in them, and splash and soak you halfway up, no matter how far under your tiled roof and wooden beams and brick, whitewashed walls you try to curl up. When the snakes (the four poisonous kinds and a host of as gentle yet less venomous ones) decide they're tired of hiding in personal underground swimming pools and would like to go associate with some tasty frogs, and avoid the flashlights that so carefully look out for them in the darkness caused by another power outage. When the lightning shows them anyway as it flashes so dangerously down from the underbellies of the darkest blue-gray clouds, that the papers are full of the near misses and direct hits the next day, never bored of reporting burnt treetops or more melted televisions their sleepy owners forgot to unplug before the nightly thunderstorm. When the flood adds to the days allotted for annual holidays, already excessive, and the mosquitoes try to outdo the frogs as they hover outside the window screens, wishing they could reach the candlelit or inverter-lit life indoors.

Unless you visit a hill station. Where instead of bright red hibiscus, dragonflies, coconut and cacao trees, peacocks, tree dogs (aka night weasels), cormorants, purple-and-black-and-occasionally-yellow- hummingbirds, kept elephants, green backwater canals, paddy fields and coffee and pepper vines, there are deer, birds-of-paradise, wild and kept bees that make wild honey, cinnamon and pine trees, wild elephants, and tigers. And thick white mists that vanish instantly and make you catch your breath as you round the curve into the valley, tea gardens that cut a uniform light green symmetrical chessboard through the hills among the darker forests, orchids and waterfalls, wild endangered ox-goats-something or others, and icicle blue mountain lakes.

Unless you swim in the river at dawn. When it's still chilly from the night's rainfall, the last stubborn star is still dancing and the moon isn't quite done with the night to give over yet to the sun. When the fish are still too sleepy to move fast enough to get out of your way as you gingerly step a bare foot down into their territory. And the people are still too sleepy to have started the daily sounds of slapping wet clothes on the wash rocks, or gossiping snatches that carry across from the other bank, or honking across the bridge downstream, or running their early morning water pumps before the daily power grid possibly overloads. Except for that one temple far down the river, too far beyond the bend to see, which has started its morning music early enough to faintly drift up like fairy snatches beyond the distorting grasp of its illegal spec loudspeakers. And the cows are too sleepy to do more than sigh contentment from their bankside stalls with the best scenic view in town. And the terns wintering at the river are still asleep on the overhead electric wires.  Except for that one who can never get quite to sleep and keeps swooping down, twittering in the moonlight, pretending it's a bat winging home before it gets too light.

Unless you sit in the sand at night under the almond tree. Watching the fireflies and waiting for the shooting stars to start and meanwhile making do with satellites. Along with the cats waiting patiently for the termites to decide it's time to leave their underground nests and take flight en masse, desperately hoping no one will notice their (apparent) deliciousness. And the crickets, growing louder as the sand grows cooler, and it is deemed late enough for the dusk-time lamp to be put out. And the sweet smell of the jasmine as it opens at night, that pierces because it is too intimate to be so public. And the intoxicating whiff of the coffee blossoms that the neighbor can't keep contained inside their iron gated, granite wall.

Unless you lie at noon in the paddy field, stained with grass and damp with the dew that shouldn't be lingering, watching the water buffaloes and tadpoles and hopefully not the watersnakes. Waiting for the schoolchildren to come home and get their uniforms dirty, who pick fruit and throw it to not at you, and to eat too much sugarcane as usual. Trying not prick your hands on the bamboo as you play hide and seek in its shade, forgetting again how strong it is.

Unless you stuff into an auto rickshaw at night during the first monsoon, the wind whipping your scarves into the opposite, oncoming lane as the driver swerves to avoid the frogs bursting out in the rain from their hot-season beds, swarming across the streets along with slashed bits of palm fronds and improvised newly launched paper boats. With the smells of roasting roadside peanuts and banana chips whistling through the many gaps, in its plastic side sheeting protectors that are no match for the monsoon wind. With the water splashing up into its innards making the engine stutter as the driver reaches politely back under your feet to switch over to the spare tank. With the post, the newspaper, the milk bags and the cat arriving wet on your doorstep, caught unawares at various points along their journey to sheltering relative dryness.

Unless you stay awake all night at a Kathakali, sitting crosslegged on the ancient outdoor stone floor as the gods, kings, warriors, and demons slowly take over your imagination, an overthrow as subtly lingering as the giant lamp flames that burn down the special sugarcane wicks that last through the night. A coolness that doesn't make its presence felt immediately, creeping as slowly as the action. Until the drum crescendoes in the second act of the second story, when the second coffee has worn off and the second sons are wide awake in their sleepy mother's laps, and the unflappable gentle giant tethered nearby has started on his second palm leaf.

Unless you swing under a palm leaf pantal shed, for as long as your friends deem is your turn, in a summer dress and bare feet, watching the black beetles drill holes in the beams just beyond your toes as the bamboo dust drops down into your eyes. And the millipedes that decide to see if your playhouse is slightly cooler than theirs, and curl into balls when you try to befriend them. And the ant lions that hide when you try to entice them out of their Star-Wars type sand whorls. And the squirrels that scold you for trying to find them on the other side of the poles.

For there's no place like home. 

The Masochism of the English

I fear I have sadly neglected this blog of late. My excuse being that I have been writing posts on scraps of paper, during inappropriate moments such as mid-academic conference, and then losing them, and then finding them at further inappropriate moments. Meanwhile having started my (hopefully) final degree today, I have decided enough is enough and I am going to further contribute to the ramblings by stooping to...yes...recycling. The post that follows was written in 2004, shortly after one of my first extended trips to England. It is an accurate and faithful description of my experience -- which, apparently, I haven't yet learned from :D please enjoy, then, 

The Masochism of the English

Much has been written about the character of the English speaking peoples.  The stiff upper lip, the British bulldog…in my opinion, however, the English character can be summed up in a single word: masochist.

Take the French, for instance.  Their national monument is a work of grace, a wrought iron tower in the center of their most beautiful city.  The English?  The symbol of their proud heritage is a toppling ring of stones in the center of an isolated plain.  The purpose is still obscure, but everyone agrees on one thing: the unimaginable pain and effort it must have taken to drag those stones, each weighing more than six elephants, for miles inland and hoist them on to one another.  Backbreaking labor.

Another revealing example of the national character is the national Olympic hope, Paula Radcliffe.  Before I tell you what her specialty is, take a moment to think about it…what sport takes the longest, hardest, most exhausting toll on the human body?  I’ll give you a hint – the first man to complete it died in his successful attempt several thousand years ago.  That’s right, she’s a marathon runner.  The only French Olympic champion I’ve seen so far has been a dainty sixteen-year-old.  And her winning action?  Swinging nimbly from a couple of bars – it was the first French gymnastics gold in eighty years.

What makes the English people so self-denying, so self-inflicting?  Is it stubbornness, stupidity, or sheer insensitivity?  I believe the answer can be found in the national climate; the English character has been shaped through revelling in weather so bad that the only way to salvage national pride is to convert the pain into pleasure. 

I achieved this personal insight during my recent visit to the UK.  Used to a tropical climate, I was prepared when told that August was the hottest British summer month.  I packed my tank tops, sunglasses and lotion.  That’s when I found out that ‘summer’ in British English means ‘the brief season where the sun actually shines.’ 

To better explain what constitutes heat in England, I will start by examining the evidence for its absence.  Take the hop-on-hop-off tour of London.  The double-decker bus is open-roofed, prey to the elements.  Assailed by cold, wind and rain, the buffeted bus drives around the national capital, over every London bridge to give you a better chance to get the full force of the experience.  The cheerful guide, his glasses dripping with water, hands out raincoats the size of saran wrap, for the tourists, of course, as he is too (fool)hardy to wear one.  And if by some reason you have a death wish to sit on the unprotected upper level?  Sorry, you’ll have to wait -- it’s too full. 

Heat is so scarce in England that they actually have a monument to mark the site of the start of the great fire of 1666 which burned ¾ of London down – the only time in history the entire city was actually warm.

  

The devotion to the worst elements of weather extends across the country, uniting the English like no other factor, as I found on my extended journey into its innards.  Our first stop was the national monument, Stonehenge.  Rising in the centre of the vast Salisbury plain, the sheer gritty magnificence of the place is astounding.  Rather than allowing visitors access to the shelter of the sacred inner circle, however, you are guided in a circle that widely skirts the windbreak, giving you no chance at all.  A friend had warned me against the cheesy audio commentary that automatically popped up at each point.  She needn’t have worried; the shriek of the wind masked any modern conveniences.  And the cause of those tears in my eyes as I circled the ancient stones, that feeling of awesome power sinking into my very bones?  Don’t tell my hosts, but it was actually the Salisbury breeze. 

Our next stop, as we continued through Wiltshire to the county of Devon was a stately house, Stour Head.  Unfortunately, the house was closed for the day, but the gardens were open – to anyone who wished to trudge two miles through a cold rain.  A group of people passed us, wearing padded raincoats – as we gaped in disbelief at this uncharacteristically sensible protection, the mystery was solved as they gabbled fluent German.

Driving on to the nearby harbour, we considered going out in one of the boats knocking into each other in the wind.  Apparently, though, the breeze wasn’t stiff enough…we had to wait until the next morning, when we were told experienced mariners considered it too rough to set to sea, to set out on our voyage, the wind ripping off my elastic-banded straw hat (the one I had packed with the sunglasses, which were now coming in handy as a windbreak).

Still unsatisfied, we then travelled to the Devon coast. Down at the beach we all admired the barnacles, soon realizing that they have evolved the wisest way of life in British coastal conditions. Rupert, our host and guide, calmly emulated their grasp as he read his newspaper, ignoring the fact that the wind was trying to stake exclusive claim, which it later won when the paper, passed to us, was ripped out of our inexperienced non-English hands and soon decorated the beach with its pages like a wreath of victory.

The next stop on our journey west was the setting of the haunting tale of the Hound of the Baskervilles, the bleak site of Britain’s most isolated prison: in short, the English national park of Dartmoor.  Designated a protected area, the restricted building code is, in reality, to keep out all the people clamouring to get in.  The park is, however, legal home to the Dartmoor ponies, one of the few tribes of wild horses left on earth, obviously patriots who have chosen the spot for its merits.  Such include the Dartmoor mists that can lose the most experienced hiker in seconds beneath their curtain.  The moor also boasts the tors, fantastic natural rock formations that writhe upward like a giant child’s heap of building blocks.  The only living beings visibly taking advantage of this shelter were some sheep, supposedly stupid animals… In addition to these natural structures, the area also bears evidence of prehistoric settlements – the first masochistic Englishmen. 

The day’s sightseeing was wound up with a visit to the town of Plymouth, from which the pilgrims departed for the New World.  Why, I asked myself, in a country surrounded by the sea, did our forefathers select this very spot from which to sail?  Despite time spent studying the substantial granite World War memorials, inspecting the iron statue of Sir Francis Drake, and admiring the picturesque thick brick lighthouse, the answer only came to me with Rupert’s revealing description of the sea air: “Bracing!”  With gusts so fierce we had to brace ourselves to avoid being blown off the promontory, Plymouth obviously would have been the best launching spot on the whole island for any wishing to undertake a one-way voyage to a new world.

Continuing on to the county of Cornwall, the next day’s delights began with a trip to another stately home, Pencarrow.  Here, the house was closed, too, so we decided to take advantage of the weather to explore the gardens.  As we hiked in the gardens, it began to rain, right about the time I noticed a distinct lack of flowers, odd for August, when in most English yards they were running riot.  My hunch was confirmed when we reached a sign saying “American Gardens,” that went on to describe it as not actually a garden at all, but a collection of trees from the Americas, including every known conifer save ten.  As water dripped from the other hundred and twenty-two, and Rupert and his wife remarked on the beauty of our surroundings, it finally dawned on me why walking is the national pastime of the English: in order to survive in the wind, rain, and cold, it is necessary to keep one’s blood constantly circulating.  This was confirmed when, upon returning to the tea room, chilled and dripping, Rupert, English to the bone, cheerfully ordered...ice cream. 

Our final destination of the day, Constantine Beach, was a tourist hotspot on the (comparatively) milder Cornwall coast.  Here at last was a chance to use my beach gear.  Wearing my swimsuit under my street clothes, I smeared myself with suntan lotion, donned straw hat and sunglasses, and headed for the beach.  When we reached it, however, the area was deserted.  A large red sign read, “Warning – Dangerous Currents.”  We soon realized that the currents referred to were not water but air.  Wind whipped around us as we stoically stalked the deserted beach.  To shelter from the gale, we finally stretched ourselves full length on the sand, I with my straw hat over my face, grains whistling through the cracks in the shrieking windstorm.  At last we retreated, past a sign that said the water was 15 degrees Celsius, assured by our hosts that the next day would prove better swimming weather. 

Truly, the following day dawned fine, and I hopefully donned my beach outfit for the third time.  The sun shone brightly as a gentle breeze played over the placid waves.  Despite the red reminder, the beach was crowded, with a small area marked off for bathing.  At last.

  

As we prepared to strip to our suits, a strange unease settled over me, although I could not pinpoint the source.  It might have been that my neighbor and co-tropical-traveler was the only person out of roughly one thousand dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and trousers (our host was in shorts).  But it was as we plunged into the waves, crystal clear and shining oddly in the sunshine, that it hit me: we were the only ones in the water not wearing wetsuits.  Gasping in the shock of the liquid ice, I began to scream, and heard an answering shriek from Rupert.  Turning, I beheld him laughing aloud, as he yelled again joyously: “Invigorating!” Escaping from the beach, we promptly made for the golf course, it being another flat, unprotected plain, before finally calling it a day, lulled asleep by the singsong howl of the English wind.

The following day, for a change we visited the ruined castle of Tintagel, situated a mere three miles from the recently devastating Bostcastle floods.  Tintagel, the legendary birthplace of King Arthur, is another English Heritage site.  The visitors’ centre includes a video documentary obviously written by a non-native, as it questions why a king would want to build a castle on such a deserted, weatherbeaten spot.  The answer became apparent as we climbed the steep steps of the cliff path, gripping the railing hand over hand, the wind ripping at us from three sides and then with full force as we reached the top of the granite promontory, where we were greeted by the sight of an English seagull comfortably nesting at the edge, hoping to hatch a sturdy brood at this bare and lonely meeting place of earth, sea and sky. If King Arthur, legendary hero, was the mightiest of the English, he must have logically been equivalent to their champion masochist.

On our final day, forgoing a visit to the renowned Eden Project, that giant dome enclosing an entire tropical ecosystem, since it would ‘be too warm on a summer day like this,’ we drove instead to the harbour village of St. Mawes, and explored St. Mawes Castle.  This English Heritage site was built by Henry the VIII upon realizing that St. Mawes Harbour was open to invasion by the Spanish Armada, being one of the weakest spots along the entire coast as it was comparatively sheltered from the elements.  The fort, used by England’s rulers in every war since, stands as the symbol of a lesser protective power -- for the true, unacknowledged, reason England remains unconquered is its secret strength: the natural forces of its wind and water. 

That evening, as I took tea upon the seaside terrace of our aptly named Driftwood Hotel, a dripping Rupert appeared, shivering in the breeze, having just returned from a dip in the sea. “How’s the water?” I enquired. “Fresh!” came his enthusiastic reply.  Forewarned, I relaxed in the strangely gentle breeze.  As I sat there in the tenuous sunlight, enjoying the view of the sea from afar, the hotel doors opened and my co-traveler emerged, tea in hand.  I invited him to join me, and as he opened his mouth to reply, I noticed with surprise that his teeth were chattering.  When he asked politely but pleadingly if I wouldn’t like to have tea inside instead, and I started to decline, I had a moment of epiphany – although I was freezing, I was actually enjoying myself.

Something had happened to me.  Without realizing it, in the time I had spent suffering in the land of Shakespeare, this “royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle…this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war…this precious stone set in the silver sea, which serves it in the office of a wall…this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,” had worked its spell upon me as well. Perhaps I was becoming English, too. 

Postscript, or Why I am, Apparently, No Longer in the Running as a Candidate for the WWR (World's Worst Roommate)

My cooking smells good. All of it.

I’m not the only one who sets off smoke alarms. And when I do, it’s the smoke alarm’s fault  for registering steam.

My bookshelf half arrangement looks nice.

The fashion magazines I bring back are interesting, whether Hungarian or English.

When my roommate’s mother scares me, it’s understandable I thought she was out of the country.

I randomly pick some of my roommate’s favorite fruit to give her.

The extra teapot I brought with me is cute.

In my roommate's absence, I snag the very couple of items from an extra stuff giveaway that she was hoping to get to complete our new house setup.

I detect the presence of cellar moisture that may ruin matching stylish suitcases, in time enough to prevent said destruction.

My room selection compromises are great ideas.

So are my financial routing solutions to our letting agency's bureaucratic international red tape nightmares.

So are my househunting skills. And my perseverance *cough hardheadedness cough* at convincing the agents that they can show us the house, that students can pay rent, and that they can move us in only 2 instead of 4 days late.

I do not crack when, after finally getting the keys from the agents and trying them in the new front door, they turn out to be the wrong set, with 10 minutes till closing time on the weekend.

I can discuss tricolored rubbish bins on the phone to the landlord for 30 minutes without hanging up.

I can navigate the council regulations on bins, sacks, plastic receptacles and caddies.

I can procure the necessary council forms for both house sharers, with only 3 back and forth runs.

I befriend neighbors who decode the council regulations and give us gratuitous correct receptacles. And gift notebooks. And wave their new flowers at me through the window.

I can connect someone who actually wants them, with most of our moving boxes, and recycle the rest to avoid clutter.

I can locate and destroy the previous tenants’ 3 month old rubbish without flinching, much.

I rake leaves.

I am not scared of spiders, or evicting them, and I do not report their past or present presence unless strictly unnecessary.

I keep my word about not feeding the neighbor's cat. Or whomever's. He has no tag and his name shall be Sgt. Pepper. I agree to be held responsible for the purring.

I can figure out boiler thermostats and power switches.

I can track down former tenants' household junk and junk mail, and know where to forward it. Including that really shiny lucky penny.

I can deal with detailed but not detailed enough inventories and find nicer curtains in closets.

I also locate fridge power switches and come bearing screwdrivers and can openers.

I tie up the sole bathroom at the most convenient time of day, daily. And, do not mind it being tied up at others.

My washing day schedules are a good idea.

My wringing out unspun clothes is helpful, and I can correctly guess the relevant washing machine problem, and arrange for and supervise its repair.

I have guides and travel schedules to the very holiday places my roommate is going.

My get well soup is a nice idea (even though the electric stove didn’t cook it exactly as planned…).

My cookies are my roommate's mother’s favorite flavor.

I am good to my new roommate. Who can't have too many friends.

It is funny when I leave the keys in the door and can't find them.

I switch off the lights on the way out to save electricity, and am amenable to extending this to power switches.

I not only support the replacement of the sitting room mirror with a flat screen TV but suggest starting a savings fund for the purchase of a shared TV, and license.

My new DVDs are cool.

My ginger lemon sicktime tea is a new favorite.

I also like the Beatles.

I also like the plastic seahorse above the bathroom mirror, and the name Stan for him.

I discover a matching, plaster, seahorse in the garden.

I also hate horror movies.

I do not disdain girly posters; I tolerate pink bathmats.

I am silent enough in the mornings and when I come back late at night.

I can not only hum, but hum away.

There Are No Alarm Clocks in Prague

I am not really allowed to be posting this month. I am deep in dissertation. But I know I will regret it if I fail to record my recent impressions of Prague. 


Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It has sweeping vistas and old character buildings. It has gorgeous weather and gorgeous people. It has beautiful trees and an even more beautiful river. It has delicious food and fascinating art. One of the safest cities in the world, it even has an efficient mass transport system...It has the Vltava, Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, cathedrals with concerts, synagogues, Gold Lane, the Kafka Museum, the largest music club in central Europe, and the giant Horologue clock tower. But, despite these riches, Prague lacks one vital life necessity: it has no alarm clocks. For sale, at least. 


A google search on 'ebay Czech clock' will turn up wall clocks, Bakelite clocks, miniature replicas, cuckoo clocks, and even a pocket watch...with not a bedside alarm clock among them. However, I testify to the dearth of Czech alarm clocks from personal experience. Till recently, my association with the city remained restricted to having an ancestor who immigrated from Prague in the 1800s. I'm sure he would have been horrified to learn that his on his great-granddaughter's visit the only clocks available to her in his city were miniature expensive replicas of its gigantic horologue. But I get ahead of my story.


Some time ago, I'd discovered there was going to be an academic conference in one of the very cities I'd always wanted to visit. There was even a university bursary offered towards expenses. Dissuaded by my roommate that they probably wouldn't give it to me, I persisted, and was thrilled to receive precisely enough to cover my budget flight via Hungarian airlines. That is, until, in the wee hours of the morning, in the process of reserving my ticket, I hit the back button on the airline web site, and its auto reset flipped the tiny letters from JUL to JUN without my noticing. By the time I got through fixing the flight date, I had been charged half of it again through change penalties. Settling for a forlorn email instead of calling the exorbitant airline hotline, I then booked all my train tickets, to get it over all at once and put my ailing wallet out of its misery.


It is thus that I encountered my first ever Starbucks without Internet, at Luton Airport, foiling my purposeful purchase of their 'rewards card'. This sort of dimmed my pleasure -- I had been extra pleased to fly through Luton because they do not have invasive body scanners, which cross ALL of my boundaries. I had also been extra pleased to get there early by taking the cheapest train, but now I had nothing more exciting to do than to wait for my flight status to change to 'check in', drink Signature hot chocolate, and read pages which grudgingly loaded on my elderly mobile. After a while I finally decided to mosey over to check in and was rewarded with the sight of multiple queues longer than those at a premier football match. The crowd were all Central/Eastern European, and I already felt the culture shock.


The queue inched forward. The three open counters became four, five, six, seven, eight, nine...and still the crowd grew. Apparently everyone but me was going back home on holiday. Three people pulled up behind me and sighed. In-jokes started flying across the crowd in unfamiliar languages. A checkin clerk stood on the desk, looked out helplessly over the sea of bored humanity and yelled "Anyone for Gdansk? gDANsk? Warsaw? WARsava?!" The sea rumbled with laughter at his pronunciation. Someone rejoined the queue with a pizza box. I pulled out my spaghetti supper and ate it as we moved several feet forward. Not one of us wanted to go to Gdansk despite the small official's frantic wooings. A friend texted me wishing me luck and I texted back 'now I know what happened to the dinosaurs - they tried to fly out of Luton and never got any further.' The children in the crowd grew a little. I texted my friend that the Eastern European crowd was a nice lot to be stuck with forever. My friend texted back 'Just don't come back married'.


Just as I finally reached the counter, a teenage girl wandered by heading the wrong way mumbling  'Gdansk'. I let her cut in front before I finally produced my pre-printed boarding pass from my tickets folder, and weighed the checked bag that I had decided to add to my flight charge after realizing I  would not be able to attend a conference supper in jeans and a choice of three T-shirts. And then, after a huge scrum for identical self-choose seats, all without legroom, we were aloft. 


Most of the flight was cloudy, but still interesting because of the cute Czech baby being dandled half the time by his grandma in the seat one over. There was an empty seat in between us, probably vacant because of the baby. I'm not sure whether it was this cherub or gravity that caused some of my belongings to work themselves out of my pockets in the hour I had curled myself over it, but when I woke up we were skimming the darkened hills in descent, alit with city light pinpricks and a moon whose refection dashed across the river, picking each curve out in pearl as we flashed over it.


And then we were down, and out into a world without English, except for one helpful Starbucks teen who changed his tips for my cash so I could have coins for the bus tickets, one surly tour bus driver who said, 'no' and one kind stranger who pointed out the little yellow ticket box for the public bus, which was very late, because it ran less on Sundays. Which we couldn't tell, because we couldn't read Czech.


I will spare you details of the academic meetings. They went on and on; some were interesting, some were fascinating, some were confusing, and some were fall asleep boring. After several days the conference/culture shock wore off and I started to enjoy the quirkiness of it all. Like the paper presenters who practised beforehand in a whisper in the ladies' cubicle. Or the participant who took a tumble down the main staircase, scattering papers all the way after him, sat up unharmed, and proceeded to hijack the next session with a song and dance (I'm serious). Or the 12 different kinds of snack sandwiches -- rye and tuna, white and tuna, wheat and ham,  wheat and cheese and ham, white and cheese and lettuce and ham, etc., not one of which was vegetarian (a vegetarian friend had warned me about Prague, but I stubbornly refused to give up hope. To recreate the scene from my visit to one restaurant, in the 'Top 10 for local cuisine'. 


Me: Hi, could you please help me? 
Waiter: (handing me a menu) YES :D 
Me: Yes, I'm vegetarian
Waiter: Noooooooo (smile fading) -- this is CZECH cuisine!!!" 
Me: I know...that's why I need your help :D scanning menu..
Waiter...(thoughtfully) you like cabbage?
I ate a lot of potato pancakes during the trip, but those were my first, with sauerkraut and pepper sauce... yum).


Or the student superhero helpers, who were performers by night, tour guides in the afternoon and tea-servers in the morning (been there, done that!). Or, the bumping into strangers around the city wearing identical academic passes around their necks, like mine. Or: the Kafka museum with the hilarious mechanized statues outside, and its heart-wrenching interior. The weird faceless giant baby statues along the river. The horse carts and cathedrals. Tourist shops and turrets. People in socks, people in shorts. Elusive yellow ticket machines. Retro auto parades. Umpteen Thai massage signs (apparently a Czech craze. ouch but still worth it). Millions of pet dogs and not a single cat. And still no clocks. 


It was really mostly my fault. Waking up from my airplane nap, I had gathered up everything that had snuck out of my pockets, except, apparently, my cell phone. By the time I realized it was missing, I was in a discount but luxury ladies hostel room (a/c and attached bathroom, wooden floor and moulded ceiling.  With two other girls, nervous Oxford students awaiting imminent results). The truth is, I tend to mislay things, when stressed. Or tired. Or, alive. I faithfully recall the last place I saw them...like the map of Prague I retraced my steps to find, lying where it had slipped out, on the sweeping staircase in front of the National Gallery.


Another forlorn email to my Hungarian airline returned an actual response, which pointed me in the direction of the airport lost and found, which I decided to follow up on my departure. Meanwhile, I was bereft of my only alarm-clock-type device, which would not have been a problem if I had only been on vacation. Let's gloss over my attendance at the morning meetings during the rest of the week, and focus on the things I got to see in between the rest: synagogues. The river. The outside of the largest music club in Central Europe, with 5 floors and 3 bouncers (I'm not a public clubber...see past post why). The city at night, with miles of roadworks through which I was escorted by one kind student in the rain till we found where the public transport resumed. The amazing public transport, with buses/trams/trains/metro for which one cheap ticket fits all and the fantastic 20x fines for which there is nary a ticket checker seen. The metros, which close at midnight.


Theatres, plays, mimes, stilt walkers, art indoors and out. A classical music concert in a cathedral by a chamber ensemble, among the best I've ever attended. Babies on the bus whose fathers held them up to see out the window just because they had just enough time to take them out of their strollers. Families eating gelato in the windy streets. Couples under the trees along the river. A cityline full of towers dominated by a huge castle. Museums. Preserved buildings with stupidly small doors and recreated contents. Gargoyles spitting real rain. The giant 'horologue' and a real antique clock shop with 1000s of expensive miniature replicas. And not one battery operated, affordable plastic alarm clock among them.


I tried the corner shop near my hostel. The one open 24 hours and the windows of which were ringed with alchohol bottles of all shapes, colors and sizes, and food I had to guess at with Czech ingredients. And boxes of juice with blurry pictures of unidentifiable fruit. And bong pipes. And bread, pasta, rice and mleko (milk), along with lots of chocolate, which I lived on -- hey, it's vegetarian :D but alas, no clocks. 
Me: Do you have, clock?
Vietnamese Czech-speaking staff: Huh?
Me: points at watch
Staff: looks at cash register calculator
Me: Beep beep!! beep beep!!!
Staff: Haha! NO.
Me: clock! clock! clock? 
Staff: noooo..
Me: yes, yes!! look, there's one!!
Staff. no-o
Me: (Seizing a rickety plastic expensive clock. Realizing it is on the counter and not the shelf) Can I have this one? or is it the shop's? or is it not battery operated? what's wrong with it? I realize you have no idea what I'm saying here. Ple-ase?
Staff: no, no.
Me: oh darn, there's no alarm. (makes alarm sound). no. thanks. 
Staff: Battery?
Me: Noo. thanks :) :(




Thus ended day one of the great Prague clock search. Day 2 also passed largely without incident. It began by me flummoxing the hostel breakfast chef when their coupon for an extra hot breakfast covered nothing I could eat. After I declined ham, eggs (I'm allergic and squeamish besides), bacon, omlettes, et. al, even the charm of my relating the tale of my ancestor with a Czech name didn't fully satisfy her, nor did my requesting the rare bottle of maple syrup behind her, until she discovered the one hot, vegetarian thing she could serve me: cocoa.


On the way to the round of meetings (we won't mention the time) I made another attempt to locate an alarm clock in Prague. I started at the scene of my recent failure, the corner shop and my faithful starch supplier.


Me: good day - I mean, dobry den :D
Corner store staff: dobry den.
Me: (buying pasta) clock? (points at clock.) where? (raising eyebrows). beep beep! (cursing self for forgetting picture dictionary. to teens in store) Please ask, where I can find an alarm clock in town?
Staff: aah, Tesco!!
Me: Drat. Of course. Why did I pack 3 pairs of shoes, and NOT my clubcard. 


I rode trams, I basked in the glorious sun, I had conference tea, I had bits of 12 kinds of non-vegetarian conference sandwiches, the parts that didn't touch the meat. I absorbed more erudite knowledge. I went sightseeing with the student crowd and had lunch with an editor, i.e., risotto, salad, and more hot chocolate (did you know that in Prague, cocoa is cocoa and hot chocolate is delicious silty sludge?) That evening, I took the opportunity of the pre-play break to continue my quest for a reliable morning wake-up call, which neither hostel mates nor staff could provide. So that evening:


Tesco staff: HELlo!
Me: Hi, I would like to take this rice and bread. And apricots. And could you tell me  where your alarm clocks are?
Staff: hello? hello! :)
Me: Dobry den!
STaff :D dobry den! (packing bread and dried fruit)
Me: (Pointing to watch. Drawing clock shape in the air). buzzzz...beepbeepBEEPbeep? :D
Staff: Yes, yes! Tesco!
Me: But this IS Tesco!
Staff: Tesco, Express.
Me: Sigh. thank you.
Staff: :) (handing me a free catalogue) dobry den!


The main Tesco, naturally, was closed by then. It didn't help that I was doing all my clock-shopping at the end of the day.


Day 3 was slightly more eventful. Although apparently, I missed the main adventure, involving much of the student crowd, absinthe, rain, a vanishing student who took shelter under a bridge, lots of bridges, over-consumption, and lots of confusion. No, I was merely searching for a clock in Tesco, in between tangling with the transport police.


I arrived at the 4 floored-Tesco with 15 minutes to spare before closing time. 
(you may want to stop reading, if this is getting tiresome, because it just gets worse)
Me: Do you have a clock?
Clerk: 2nd floor. (I look at the sign which IS IN ENGLISH. Glory be. this is Tesco's, after all. It says 2nd floor, electronics)
Clerk: hurry, closing.
Me: (running up escalator. bravely ignoring children's sale clothing, giant fluffy toys, fluorescent pencil cases and other such unnecessary items of interest. Gasping slightly) Do you have alarm clocks?
Clerk: Hmm. no.
Me: But they told me...ok thank you! (running down to the 1st floor). 
At this point, there are only 7 minutes left and people are still wandering in, and riding up the escalator, as the security guard tries to route them back down and herd them out through the door on the other side. I bravely make my way to the counter ignoring the Czech chocolate section, only to be told to check the 4th floor, but that we are closing so please come back tomorrow. (I look again at the signs. they say 4th floor, housewares) 
Me: (pleading desperately and becoming irrationally set on finding a gosh darn plastic clock and attending one morning meeting). But I've been looking for a clock for THREE DAYS. I have to wake up in the mornings! They told me Tesco's had everything...
Clerk (recognizing my franticness despite the language barrier) OK. Try.
I ride the escalators till they run out. The store is starting to make Czech announcements over the loudspeaker
Me: (puffing, and having learned the value of brevity) Clock?
Clerk...?
Me: (the whole rigamarole)
Clerk: Floor 1!
Me: But I was just there...!!


I realize I am on floor 3 and decide to quickly search for floor 4, which I find via partly hidden stairs. I avoid giant bargain bins of shoes and reach my destination to realize there seems to be no-one up there to sell me potential clocks, and there are too many hot pink backpacks to make my way through to double check. I ride ALL the escalators back down. On floor 1, I am told by someone who translates, that there are no clocks on the 1st floor, but there may be clocks on the 4th floor, or the 2nd, or the 3rd, but they are not sure, and they really think they do not carry clocks at all. The closing announcements are growing more insistent as I spy a sign that says 'watches' in the distance on the far side of the shop floor.  I hide from the security guard behind the cosmetic aisles as I dash through them in the darkening store, towards the watch section. With 1 minute to go, I reach it to discover the fateful truth. They may have a Tesco, but there are no alarm clocks in it nor in all of Prague.  


I blink in disbelief. I refuse to admit defeat. I think logically and conclude the city  cannot function without alarm clocks. Surely, not everyone except me has a mobile? I decide the security guard watching over the luxury watches must know the truth, and in the guise of going out his door, pause to point at the watches.
Guard: 9pm.
Me: um, no, I know what the time is, I just want a...
Guard: We are OPEN! No. (opens door to help me leave)
Me: I know, you're closing (pointing at my watch again and starting to draw a box in the air)
Guard: (starts to shake head) Me: tick-tick! 
Guard: squinting at me
Me: Clock! alarm clock?
Guard: (shrugging) No angrezi...
Me: (losing it and not caring any longer for my dignity, convinced I can make the guard understand that I need a clock, badly) beep beep b-beep! dee dee dee-deet!! tinglingLINNNGGG
Guard: Sorry (smiles) tomorrow?
Me: (sigh) There goes another morning lecture. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a clock in your city.
Guard: OK :)


On my way back across the city, which I usually did on foot to save the transport charge, I stopped by the theatre at which we had seen the student play the previous evening. In exiting the dark theatre, I had managed to leave my food bag there, with my apricots, bread, and the hostel fork I felt responsible for retrieving (the hostel was very understanding, possibly because they'd thrown out my last Indian travel towel. It wasn't totally their fault - I'd left it to dry, moved rooms, and then gone back to get it. This was that kind of a trip. It was the last of three I brought from home - my other two having also succumbed to the drying curse in foreign countries, one in my aunt's dryer in the US, and the other in the porthole of an Irish ferry. I told you I always know where they are.)


I did not get the bag back, although they claimed they had found one with bananas (apparently dark theatres attract fruit. or maybe mangled English). But I did get to spend time hanging around backstage with the student actors in between their cues, while waiting for the play to finish so I could search the theatre. And one of the kind student guides offered to walk me to the nearest public transport (people were very nice about that), as she was taking it home, too. At 5 past midnight, however, the metro was shut, along with its ticket machines. And it started to rain (we didn't have a bridge to hide under, either). And with aching feet I started to feel exactly like Cinderella after the ball, only with one too many professional shoes.


It was about this time my student guide started to talk about taking the late night trams, to the nearest ticket station so we could buy one for the rest of the ride home. 'Veel reesk it' she breathed. Charmed by her broken but enthusiastic English, warm smile, and sense of adventure in the face of mutual but temporary (and negligible) danger, I agreed. We boarded the tram, feeling guilty despite our pure intentions, but relieved to get out of the cold rain (which lasted 48 hours), and off our aching feet. The tram hopped forward, and a gravelly voice said 'Ticketz'.


He was big. He was burly. He was no-nonsense. He was a Czech public transport ticket inspector. He busted both of us, except that my distraughtly apologetic companion turned out to have a month pass - so apparently I was the only one 'risking it'. We all got off at the next stop. The inspector glowered, trying to decide if we were criminals or just stupid. The student guide wrung her hands. I comforted her. The inspector huffed. The guide threw up her hands and talked a mile a minute in very distraught Czech. I sat down on the kerb to search for ID. The inspector disdained my student ID and gruffed something at the guide. The guide smacked her head and said tearfully 'I forget! Mobile-phone orders tickets!' I comforted her some more and assured her we shouldn't feel bad since we had good intentions, and asked her to explain that if we could go to an ATM it wouldn't be a problem for me to pay the fine on the spot.


The inspector hulked and started throwing out vocabulary like passport, and police. The guide started going through her purse and offering me all the cash she had on her towards the fine, which was still insufficient, still wailing "I sorry! I SORRRYYY!" Waving away her offer, I searched for my passport. The inspector looked abashed and, to cover it up, started to bluster about embassies. The guide told him we were delegates, pointing at our badges, and translated my request to see his ID (I declined to mention our upcoming conference drinks at the ambassador's). The inspector flashed his badge, looking shocked and satisfied at the same time, and jogged across the road to a parked police car. The guide sank to her knees on the kerb. I found my passport. 


A policeman ambled across looking very bored, and resigned, and very faintly amused. The guide apologized all over again. The policeman did stuff to my passport, while the inspector muttered triumphantly "USA". I was allowed to proceed to the ATM and pay the ticket fine, and given a receipt cum ticket for an exorbitant amount. Meanwhile, the horrified guide called her grandma and tearfully recounted the entire story. The inspector started to look uncomfortable. I assured the guide the inspector was just doing his job, and it was good they were actually checking tickets cause I had been starting to get worried about their laxity costing the Czech government money. I produced my morning's crumpled (and now expired) ticket as proof I was not one of the fare evaders.


The inspector relaxed, all danger now past, and muttered sheepishly "Eets my job." We said our goodbyes and got out of the rain back on the next tram. We started to giggle. The guide examined my fine fare and said "luxury ticket!" She called her grandma again under pretext of telling her she would be home late, and told her the whole story all over again, in front of the entire avidly eavesdropping tram. Recovered, she offered to buy me a drink and I accepted, and heard her life story over cocoa. And thus passed my first transport fine. The next day, in the wonderful Museum of Communism, I read in the guest book "Fantastic experience. However, we bought the wrong ticket and were disappointed to be charged an exorbitant sum by the Prague transport police".


I would love to recount that my run of bad penalties luck stopped there, but it continued. Killing time by checking my library account online at the conference computer terminals, while waiting to network with the academic at the next one over, I discovered that my library books, that had last helpfully been renewed en masse by the librarian, earlier than my usual end of the month 
schedule, were suddenly overdue earlier than I'd expected. All 11 of them. And thus came to pass my first ever library book fine.


The last day dawned bright and sunny. My flight was in the evening, so I was in no danger of missing it by oversleeping. Besides, by now I had made friends with a hostel mate who was the exact opposite of me - born in India, raised in Texas. And she'd brought with her a printout that she lent me from the 'Happy Cow' web site, listing every vegetarian and vegan restaurant in the city. I saw Mozart's house. I drank more milk and ate more rice. I bought souvenirs for my classmates (chocolate) and my family. I posted postcards. I bought more transport tickets, even for my luggage (seriously. they charge for bags, too. and I've always been a ticket stickler). I saw displays on antibiotics and rusty swords in the National Museum. I said goodbye to the corner store, the hostel, the bridges, castles, and clockless shops, and the latest city I'd fallen in love with (fortunately my monogamous leanings are confined to people). And then I boarded the bus to the airport. Which is where my ticket folder disappeared. With my boarding pass. And train tickets. I told you it was that kind of a trip -- it was the best of times, it was the worst of times in two cities, just with a difference.


I think it fell between the seats, and when I discovered it missing at the airport, it was a choice of using my extra time in chasing the bus, or following up on my lost phone as I had planned it for. I got the phone back, aided by a charming airport security policeman who was in the process of rescuing a baby bird that was stuck inside the large glass windows. After being briefly disappointed by a Russian mobile, produced amidst great rustling from the lost luggage room, mine turned up. The checkin counter ignored my slightly overweight luggage and reprinted my boarding pass for free, since I'd already checked in online. I even still had time to use up my spare Czech change in their vending machine on...yes, hot chocolate.


In London, I bought replacement train tickets. The first ticket inspector, naturally, never showed up. I switched stations via the Underground, but not before fooling around at platform 9 3/4. And asking the Lost and Found people if they had seen my thermos. It vanished on my last London trip, after the Tube. I was surprised anyone would want such a strange object until I asked the Lost and Found poeple what their most unusual finds were. Answer: a radiator, a wheelchair, and a 6-foot long toy stuffed white tiger. Apparently I hadn't learnt from my first Tube mishap. For when I arrived at the final train station, and reached in my pocket for the three-part ticket to slip through the gate with a few minutes to spare, only two were still there.


I searched for the third, the 'valid' ticket part. There was little time left to make sure it was truly gone, and even less to buy another. I asked the gate officer for help, and explained I thought it had been pickpocketed, but he told me to buy another ticket, or I could be fined, and turned away. I balked. I sulked. I grew ornery and unreasonable and decided they could fine me if they wanted but I inwardly refused to buy ticket #3 for THE SAME TRAIN. When he wasn't looking, I swiped my Oyster card to pass through the gate, and boarded the train. 


For the next hour and a half, there was no sign of the ticket inspector. Till with 10 minutes to go till my stop, I heard him coming. I had evidence on my computer of my latest ticket and the original. And was carrying the credit card I bought them both with. And the railcard they went with. And despite this overwhelming proof of my legality my nerve failed me and I sheepishly admit I fled to and hid in the ticket-evader's sanctuary until he had passed by, disembarking at my stop before he returned. 


The final train was the ticket part I'd lost, but there was no time to buy a replacement as I had come around to and intended, since the train change was too quick and across multiple platforms, with heavy bags, for the last train of the night. I dashed up to the train with several other strangers, gasping to the conductor that I'd lost part 1 of my ticket, and gentlemanlike he not only waved it off and let me board, but refused to even examine the part on my computer, and further helped one fellow dasher to buy a ticket once aboard. We then had a lovely conversation all together, about animation, European travel, and people who fall asleep on the train and miss their stops. 


When I got back home, there was a letter waiting on the stairs, and an email waiting in my inbox.


The letter read: 
Dear Student, The following books are overdue...


The email read: 
Please accept our sincere apologies for the belated response. Fault of the online reservation program is absolutely excluded, consequently refund is not possible. However, since you changed the booking online 30 minutes after finalising, we would like to offer Change Fee in Reservation credits by fairness. If you decide so, we can put the credit under your  Account which means that the next time you are making a reservation online, you simply use the credited amount. Please note that the credit is available for you and 4 other passengers for our Hungary flights, within a year.


That's right. An intrepid friend and I are already booked. Post-dissertation, the next post may aptly be called Prague 2: Be Alarmed.

The Happiest Day

June 17th is statistically the UK's 'happiest day of the year', my host informed me this morning. We were trying to figure it out -- what we came up with is that it's a Friday at the start of summer and the weekend with the most sunshine of the year.  Well, the date also comes pretty close to the average for me. So I warn you in advance, this post may get a little soppy :) it deserves to, having resisted being totally killed off by grad school.


Last night I had gone to a music concert by the (in)famous Ravi Shankar, inspiration for both Indian musicians and the Beatles, who I'd been dying to hear ever since, well, I'd heard of him. He was utterly brilliant as a performer, and not so bad at comic timing either, being equally respectful and informal -- 'Hello, Namaste (wild applause). (deadpan, mildly): I hope you recognize me, I'm not wearing my makeup tonight'... or 'I'm going to play this song. (strum strum. stop. accompanists stop. audience pauses. then, as if making a discovery:) Actually, I have changed my mind. I'm going to play _this_ song...' (I figured something was up when they were smart enough to put on the brochure 'the programme will be announced from the stage' :D) Hearing him play, to use the cliche, all my troubles seemed so far away. Like all real master musicians I've had the privilege to hear, and I count them on one hand, he let the music do the talking, and it was magical.  


It was the perfect end to a rather bumpy day (dragging overnight bag + last-year's-roommate's-left-behind, unstable-wheeled-luggage + her handbag + my backpack, up and down trains, past the ticket officer who kindly let me print out my train+bus ticket at the destination station since the other's machine was taking too long for me to get both it and the train; across buses (including walking when I missed one, standing on the wrong side), past construction (including a sandcrow, or a sand pile with buried hard hat, gloves & shoes!), up hills, in the rain, to give to said roommate's relative, who was an unannounced hour late and thus unfortunately made zip impression when he tried to invite me to join his family for supper, which I couldn't attend anyway. This was followed by: student finance office #1...student finance office #2...and concluded with the library, where I tried to find a missing 1st edition and then settled for trying to reserve on return the checked-out 2nd edition, to find out it was checked out to...me).  I did also manage to fit in some Asian grocery shopping + dining, and not to leave my precious Indian groceries locked in the library this time.


After the concert, which was so good I really am at a loss to describe it, but left the audience of 1,000 walking away with huge smiles on their faces, mine only grew when it turned out my classmate (who was putting me up for the night at her family's house) and car were at a pub which happened to be only about a minute's walk away. And one that was next to a canal, and fountain, with fairy lights in the trees. And I will skip over the brief pub (not remotely, really a bar) scene, which was one I'm resigned to not getting used to, with people falling over, loud thumping distorted music, etc. and just cut to her family home of 30+ years, which was wonderful. It had a cat, who liked me. And her father's old-fashioned looking radio that was really digital. And framed graduation photographs, a cross-eyed stuffed toy moose to keep the cat company/be hid behind, a fireplace with Lladro figurines, a drop-leaf table, butterfly cut-outs, old-fashioned tea/coffee/sugar containers, a garden swing, her mother's snacks laid out for the (other) adult daughter who had to get up super early in the morning, and a kitchen sofa that turned into a bed for me. Which her parents put so many mattress pads on to make it soft enough, that I might as well have been the princess and the pea (they are that rare breed of parents who perfectly marry adult-worthy respect and child-worthy affection). So that is why I started off the 'happiest day of the year' by lying in bed at midnight, with a few happy tears at the warmth of my surroundings.


For the rest of the 364.25 days of the year, there are always these (reminiscent of the expression on the stuffed moose): www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/basset-hounds-running   I would, really, like this post to be about all of the happiest things. Like the look I'll see on my Japanese classmate's face when I present her with 'Hello Kitty Pocky' sticks (the KitKat cup failed to arrive :(). Or, the parade I got to march in, bearing a small bouquet of flowers (did I post about that? I was one of those who got elected by default, in my case being in a double major stream with a few others,  who didn't care enough to apply. It was fun). Or, attending the Royal Wedding events (for which my Japanese classmate was apparently just around the corner from me, with her visiting mom, both shrinking from what she called a mini-riot of people leaping the park wall. That was a real adventure - they shut off concentric sections of the viewing areas for crowd control, so I snuck through a hotel into the park to cross the first, and then around through the grass to climb one of the waist-high barriers in between the crowd officers for the 2nd, and then was the last person to nip through the 3rd when they opened it a crack to let some of us in to see the balcony part. That was before the crowd went crazy and leaped the rest and flooded it. I think I earned my ninja stripes. And a possible chance at one day being able to boast of a remotely illegal, wild youth). 


Or, India winning the World Cricket Cup at last (did I leave that out too? summary: a giant projection screen, shared snacks, the all day nervous vigil,  pizza, the Sri Lankan students finally going home to watch the end with family while the Indian students face painted each other with the flag (we ran out of green and used marker - my fair (pale) face was the especially green spotted one for the next day or two!), concluded with lots and lots of screaming and street dancing and calls home and air horns and candy throwing). 


Or, the amazing English spring gardens. Or, the absolutely gigantic ('guyjantic' as my French friend used to say) peppermint stick I bought (about as long as my arm, seriously) so I can have homemade peppermint hot chocolate. Or, the theatre productions I've been privileged to see (kid afterwards: But mum, why did Hamlet live in Denmark? Mum (stumped for a minute): Well, why not?!') 


Or, the London trips I've recently made (apparently breaking a 7 month streak of sleeping at home results in a domino effect) which all blend into each other...visiting the Jewel Tower, finally getting to see St. Paul's on my 3rd try (did I mention that? anyway it's been a six-year effort), and adventures at the US Embassy entrance security ('please remove all your electronics before passing through security. I said, all your electronics...here's a mini torch(?!) (it was for the hostel) 'now, please drink a bit of each liquid in your possession for me...just how many liquids did you bring, ma'am?' (all my juice odds and ends that wouldn't last till my return, from my home fridge to see me through a hostel visit!). 'thank you. ma'am, you have a lock in here?' (hostel again!). Followed by nearly crashing a peer's party at the Houses of Parliament (apparently the man I followed was not a tourist but a guest, and the policeman nearly didn't notice till I asked) and finally being directed into the courtyard of one of the oldest and most exclusive schools in England (trying to exit Westminster Abbey. Apparently I cannot turn these infiltration skills to my advantage at will, however, as I failed to convince the apologetic guard at the British Museum to let me in to the Afghanistan exhibition after the last group had gone in, and that he would not have to worry about me lingering since I would be leaving to catch my train before closing).


Or...actually making it in on the second try another visit!! 5 minutes before entry closed, on a 2-for-1 ticket to boot, straight off the train with my classmate.  It was so worth it, to see the peacetime side of an amazing country. I was also just so ignorant of the amazing artistry that existed B.C., I simply had no idea. It was also the only thing in the museum that didn't make me angry, that and the Rosetta Stone. All I could see everywhere else was plunder -- I was unprepared for the depth of my reaction. (I should have known; injustice always makes me furious. The time this year I lost my temper and yelled, and shocked a classmate, was at the swans pecking at and picking on each other and the ducks.)


Or, the play I saw at the Globe (As You Like It - very much :) and the one at Wyndham's (Much Ado). Or eating real Mexican food in the restaurant my classmate & I stumbled upon, and introducing her to carob at Whole Foods (I used to go to their very first store, as a little girl with a health food nut mom who tried to buy me chocolate substitutes. It had awesomely opposite repercussions). Or, browsing in the Lladro store, whose figurines my grandmother used to collect..buying the last copy of a textbook at Waterstone's...seeing the British Library and joking with the security guy (they have a scanner at the entrance, like the US embassy...!). Wallace House, with china and suits of armor. Keats House, which also made me cry, with his love letter I respected too much to read the rest of, his invalid sofa bed, and the garden where he wrote Ode to a Nightingale. 


The honeysuckle in Hampstead Heath, and the host who shared the honey chamomile tea I brought him. Kensington Garden's seven princesses, merry-go-round, cello-over-the-shoulder toting passerby, and garden pond with floating duck nest. Leading my classmate in a complete circle and still remaining friends (it's not my fault she's the one with the GPS phone). Chips in McDonald's and ice cream in Baskin Robbins. Ancient London fountains, the City of London (?) Museum, the Tate Gallery (ancient not modern). Bendy buses, a Johnny Depp remarkable lookalike, and a big black limousine going down the private road of Kensington Palace, followed by an overheard walkie talkie conversation about the 'delivery of the Prince's drawing table'. Malta schoolchildren in the hostel on their first trip ever, and a smiling young teacher who says she just 'switches off' their bickering! Hyde Park, Green Park, (?) Park, Covent Garden. Dreaming Tube buskers. A discreet Malaysian couple holding hands and locking sidelong glances on the subway. The Thames in the soft evening breeze, with the couples and lights and rollerbladers and live music and boat horns and some very determined ducks. 


Or, the local 9 black and 1 golden ducklings, and six fuzzy grey cygnets. The floating tea party with ginger biscuits, scones with dandelion jam, and wildflower cake.  Amateur playacting before an elderly group who gave us their lottery-won paperback novels.  Rain in the sunshine (foxes' wedding!  http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/584329.html) 


Or, the ducks in the canals of Manchester, and the geese at dusk in the one outside my hostel. The Man City victory parade crowds in blue & white, from the oldest women in their scarf-wrapped wrinkles to the tiniest infants in their bootie-clad toes. The People's History Museum, a testament to the human spirit; MOSI with its ancient steam engines and Chinese exhibition, modern electric displays and flight simulator, and excited school tours experiencing it all. The hostel with the same excited children, and for my three roommates, two old ladies who had been around the world, one born in India, and a young one for whom it was her first overseas trip. Last but not least, Old Trafford stadium and a (victorious) ManU match, viewed from the front row, with scarves, cheers, chants, and fan songs. 


Or, very bad shared jokes including this one at our last 5 day stretch of classes: 

A funeral procession is going up a steep hill when the door of the hearse flies open. The coffin falls out and speeds down the street, into a pharmacy and crashes into the counter. The lids pops open and the deceased says to the astonished pharmacist, "Have you got anything to stop this coffin?"

The thing is, I would really like this post to be about the happiest things of the year, only. Except that would leave out some very important parts of it, in lives from the royal to the ordinary, and real to imaginary. Like that of the Afghani princess, whose intricately intact golden crown survived the Taliban in the grave of its wearer, and is displayed alongside the smashed statue of the youth which didn't. The hard-hitting story of Lost Princess in Tangled, who took years of her life to escape from her tower. The fourth anniversary of another kidnapped, Madeleine. Witnessing the lives frozen in time in Kensington Palace - like the one of the seven princesses in the Room of Flight, who fled an arranged marriage for one of love, then died in childbirth. The quotes of the royal children in the Room of Lost Childhood, that cover the pedestals holding their tiny lace gloves shoes, saying things like 'I am all alone'. 

The Room of Tears in Kensington Palace, the bedroom of the princess who never produced an heir. It has tiny tags tied on the railings for people to write why they last cried. I don't remember what I wrote on mine, although it might have been when saying goodbye on the phone to a friend from home, after hearing her voice for the first time in almost two years. But the one tag I read, tied next to mine, said, "Today, at the funeral of a young girl who took her own life." Lives that blessed others, like the sister of my colleague, herself still recovering from a car crash, whom she just lost to a chronic illness, a cheerful mother, wife, friend and sister to the last. The obviously much-beloved alumna from my home town I never met, chronically diabetic since birth, who graduated from our college less than two years ago and whose bright celebration of her brief life I attended last week, the day her memorial rose bush first bloomed. My friend's two batchmates, who he doesn't know I know lost their young lives this year in a car crash. My classmate's young brother, last year in action, serving in Iraq. My classmate's elderly neighbor, one of the last WWII spitfire pilots in Great Britain, who peacefully passed away in his sleep last night. 

The summer solstice owes half its sweetness to its triumphing once again over those days of the year whose darkness is longer than light. I can tell you though, that, as Ravi Shankar's also brilliant disciples sing, whether it rains or shines, it's not statistics but the state of mind that makes the day the happiest.