Oxford Envy

I have been in Oxford for almost a week now visiting my friend Sam who is a resident of University College, studying International Relations. Originally my plan was to spend three days here, then three days in Bath, and then one additional night in Cambridge. Pressure from Sam to stay turned the Bath sojourn into a day trip and Cambridge was eliminated all together (this was a shame since I had a great desire to visit E.M. Forster's College, but the weather was awful, so I'm saving it for my next trip).

My first afternoon I spent wandering in the grounds of Christchurch College, which has a large field home to a number of cows whose perimeter one can take a picturesque walk around. A windy path, accompanied by a little stream led me past trees that were at least several hundred years old they were so thick and gnarled. It was impossible not to think about Lewis Carroll strolling arm and arm with Alice Liddel (whose father was the head of the College in his day), telling stories about white rabbits, irate Queens, and hookah smoking caterpillars.

The next day Sam and I roused ourselves early to catch the Oxford Tube (a bus), which took us into London. In the morning we visited the Tate Modern and both fell in love with Louise Bourgeois's work (some of which I had studied in school). After a couple of hours there we dashed off to the Parliament buildings to meet up with Sam's friend Tom who works there as an assistant to an MP. We got a personalised tour of the inside and, best of all, had a drink in the bar. Sitting on the patio you can stare out over the Thames, or look up in awe behind you at the splendour of the neo-gothic walls of Parliament.

We had such a good time with Tom, that we tailed him to London Bridge, and there met up with a friend of his from Oxford named Luke. The four of us settled into a cozy bar, far enough off the beaten track that no tourist would dare venture in, and had a night of childish fun. The bar was stocked with a number of games. We indulged in dominoes, Connect Four, Jenga (a dangerous game to play with idle wine glasses), and finally created our own version of that game where you stick a piece of paper to your forehead and then have to guess who you are. We licked pieces of newspaper, which stuck quite nicely to our foreheads, but gave us terrible tattoos afterwards that took diligent scrubbing to get off. Mine was "Australian" - very tricky, but not as bad as Sam's which was "cult membership". I don't know the last time I had so much fun at a bar, and with relative strangers no less.

Right at Home in Edinburgh

I stepped out of the train station, and was greeted by the sound of bagpipes. Rounding the corner I saw him, the piper, replete with a kilt and jaunty tam. Every Scottish gene in my body reverberated, and cried out, "we're home lass!" Man, do I ever love Scotland!

Edinburgh is somewhere I've long desired to travel to. It is a literary place, the home of many fine authors, and the location of a number of fine novels. I have imagined it many times, but oddly enough it looked nothing like I thought. It did however enchant me, and I happily spent three days wandering, shopping, getting rained on, and baked potato sampling.

I have heard Edinburgh described as "dank", which I suppose I could give some credit to. I prefer adjectives like moody, or atmospheric. I've said I liked Rome because of the accessibility of its history. Walking through Rome is like walking through time. I liked Edinburgh for the same reasons. Many times I felt like I had been taken back in time, a fantasy easier to live out in a city where my ancestors lived than in Rome where I am unequivocally a foreigner. Again, like I wrote about the Scottish countryside, I have perhaps seen more "awesome" (in the biblical sense) landscapes, or cities, but my aesthetic seems to have found a resting place here. Edinburgh is just dark (not dank) enough to make it interesting, classy enough to give it an edge, and old enough looking to give it a distinct romance.

Some of my best highlights were: visiting St. Giles and getting teary (of course) in the thistle chapel, then placating myself with coconut ice (florescent pink) from the gift shop, going to see a screening of To Have and Have Not (Bogart and Bacall), and eavesdropping on two women discussing their love of The Philadelphia Story, and the widespread availability of baked potatoes.

More than any other place I have visited I thought, I could just pack up my life and move here without any hesitation. Hmmm, you may wonder, are you going to loose me to the UK?

So I'm staying in an ecovillage right now. What does that actually mean? Well, it's a community of people dedicated to finding more sustainable ways to live, which they practice in their own lives, and try to teach to others like Emma.

In some ways it probably is what you think: "hippieville" complete with people who wear blankets as clothing, build houses out of recycled whisky barrels, talk to vegetables, sprinkle toasted nuts on all of their food, and do interpretive dances of the five elements. However, it is also an incredibly warm, generous, and caring community of people who are working in all of our interests without nearly as much praise as they deserve. Emma loves it here, and it's not hard to see why, although even she sometimes has to take a step back and laugh at Findhorn's more cliched attributes.

I came to the right place for some R&R, and have slept soundly for the first time in months. I've spent my time walking around, meeting Emma's other program members, eating delicious vegetarian food, and writing. Today I realized just how loose all my muscles were, and how clean the air felt in my chest. On a walk this morning with Emma I stood at the edge of the ocean on a sand dune, hair wildly whipping around my face and thought how hard it is going to be to leave tomorrow.

Even though, for the most part, I haven't done anything extraordinary I will relate the events of my Friday night to you. Every Friday night there is a jam session called at a place called studio 9. Anyone is welcome to come and play, sing, or dance - no matter the level of talent. Six of us got a lift from a guy named Nicky in his monstrous bio-diesel van. Emma and I had to sit at the back amidst buckets of compost. We drove along heavily forested back roads until we arrived at what looked like an old manor in the middle a clearing in the trees. It was a house right out of Daphne du Maurier novel, very atmospheric. At the door we were escorted in by a man taking a "smoke" break outside, and we stepped into my imaginary high school boyfriend's band practice. The studio 9 space is all plywood, recycled couches, old blankets, and rickety chairs amidst thousands of dollars worth of sound equipment and instruments. There were a couple of guys with some real talent, including one who called himself a "failed pop star" who used to jam with Aerosmith. Anyway, never had the outside of a house so clashed with its inside, and I had to laugh again at my current surroundings. Who would have ever thought that my travels would bring me here?

A Real Canadian Girl

Would you like to hear something shocking? I, Jessica Hall-Cummings, lover of fine art, traveler of glorious European cities, has come to an unexpected realisation: I have a thing for nature. Apparently, I'm more Canadian than I thought.

One of the most interesting parts of traveling is not only the outward voyage, but also the inward, exploring the dark recesses of my own personality, testing my strength and courage, and discovering what it really means for me to be a Canadian abroad. Looking out my window on the train ride from Glasgow to Inverness, I had perhaps my only pang of real homesickness as my eyes ran over the unending expanse of fields, forests, rivers, craggy hilltops, and meadows. This is so beautiful, I thought, I love all that space. Suddenly, the once picturesque narrow medieval streets I had wandered in Paris seemed cramped and airless, and I longed to take a deep breath under a big blue sky, and wade into a meadow of deep, scented grasses (possibly wearing a bonnet like a Jane Austen character...hopefully that doesn't take away from my assertion of my Canadian identity here).

I tried to stay awake as much as I could to take it all in, but the truth was that I was a little tired, and feeling the effects of my night out in Glasgow a little acutely for comfort, so I slept a lot. When I was awake though I marveled at the wild, and unpredictable nature of Scotland's weather that I had heard so much about. One minute it would be sunny, turn a corner and the sky's gone gray and your view obscured by misty rain. The next minute the sky's clear again, and then an hour later it's snowing. Depending on the the quality of the light, the rivers I passed over could be deep blue (the bluest blue I've ever seen), gray, or jet black. It felt a little dream-like, because in a way it reminded me so much of home, but then it was so much wilder. It seemed much more like a Lewis, or Tolkien inspired place with a little hint of other worldliness about it.

With a train, and two bus rides under my belt I arrived at Findhorn where my friend Emma Dines is living in an eco-village. She was worried that I would be bored here, I just smiled at her and thought, there's nowhere else on earth I'd rather be than here.

I Love Paris in the Fall

I’m not sure I will ever be able to get over the dramatic changes that accompany my life as a “traveler”. Two days ago I was in Paris, eating small jam cookies in the Swiss Embassy (more on that later), today I’m in the north of Scotland lying on the floor of a yurt. I’m currently staying with my beautiful, wonderful, inspiring friend Emma Dines who is doing a program in an eco-village outside of the village of Findhorn. I have a lot to say about Scotland already, but I have to pace myself and return to my thoughts on Paris.

Many of you will know that I was in Paris last march visiting my sister Amy while she was studying there. As a result I didn’t feel a great urge to spend my time and money in Paris on this trip. Of course, art won me over in the end. I kept returning to the amazing experience I had in Musee d’Orsay on my last visit and I came to the conclusion that that was as good a reason as any to go back to Paris.

What I didn’t know was that Paris was a much-needed dose of medicine for me, in my sort of burned out state. I know my way around a lot of Paris, I understand the metro system, I have favourite bars and restaurants, and I speak enough French to function. I needed that familiarity, and, as such, I was able to regenerate a bit.

When I arrived I had to do laundry right away, which proved to be more difficult than it should have been probably because I was tired, and discouraged I felt like maybe it had been the wrong decision to come. After that I collapsed in bed, feeling the first prickings of a sore throat, and slept away the afternoon. I probably would have stayed in bed all night if I hadn’t been interrupted by the arrival of Jade, an Australian traveler who immediately perked me up with her enthusiasm and easy conversation. She made me come out with her for a coffee, and after that I felt inspired to go out and embrace Paris. Jade was already going out with a friend of her’s from Melbourne now living in Paris, but I rounded up another girl in our room, Elvira, and she and I went out for a drink at a bar that looks on Notre Dame. From there on in I had non-stop fun.

Jade introduced me to her friend Kate, and Kate’s Parisian boyfriend Issam, and together the four of us went out into the “real Paris”, where we sat in thickly clouded bars drinking Ricard and Beer trying to blend in with the locals. On my last evening we had “Champagne Night” in honour of Jade who had never tasted it before, and I learned that one can buy what would be incredibly pricey champagne in Canada for next to nothing here. Although I have met lots of interesting people along the way, Jade is the first friend I have made, and Paris just wouldn't have been Paris without her.

Some of the other parts of my Paris stay that made it so enjoyable were seeing my friend Emily from Toronto who was visiting friends, having breakfast at the Swiss Embassy with my Dad’s friend and then having his driver take me to meet my Airport Shuttle, and the fact that it was sunny and clear for the first time in weeks.

Walking through the city I remembered how charmed I was by it when I first traveled there at age 16, and I left with a bit of that old Paris magic stuck in my back pocket.

Holding my Breath in Sainte-Chapelle

So, I will get to a more general report of my time in Paris, which was wonderful, but I wrote this little piece on Sainte-Chapelle in the moment, so I'll give it to you to read while I work on synthesizing my other thoughts.

I almost didn't come back to Sainte-Chapelle because, like I wrote about Michelangelo's David, the wonderful shock value it commands upon a first time encounter is almost totally lost after that. This is not to say that the church isn't beautiful on subsequent visits, it is just that you can never regain that first exclamatory "ahhhh" as you round the narrow medieval staircase, and enter into a space that on first glance appears to be made entirely out of stained glass. Even though I didn't have that experience this time, sitting near the door I got to witness the effects of other people's premiere experience with the chapel. A group of Japanese tourists came through and every single woman let out a little yell as they stepped inside.

What I like about Sainte-Chapelle is that it illustrates so clearly the intricacies of the design of the Gothic cathedral. It was once explained to me in class that the Gothic cathedral is supposed to be like a living organism,  with the pillars and lattice work acting as a skeleton, and the glass as the organs. Sainte-Chapelle's long delicate pilasters really do look skeletal, like a rib cage that holds the glass in place. On a day like today, when the sun passes from behind a cloud, and fills the whole space with light, the effect is like the church breathing, swelling with light and then exhaling as the sun fades away again.

Berlin on My Mind

Last night in Glasgow I met a very pleasant girl named Kristina from Vancouver, who I went out for too many drinks with. In the process of drinking our way through the city she told me an interesting story about her German boyfriend's father.

One of the first things that you would notice about this man upon meeting him, apparently, is that he has two tattoos. One on each forearm. Both are of women's names, but one is crossed out. It seems that the night the wall went up this man and his then girlfriend were on opposite sides of town. He was at home and she was at work in a restaurant. They never saw each other again. Separated by the wall for so many years, the man eventually met his wife, crossed out the one name and added the new one. When the wall came down it had been so long that the man had no way of knowing how to get in contact with his old girlfriend. Clearly it is safe to say that even if he is happily married he will never forget her. I wonder if they will ever meet again?

Ricard is always a safe choice in Paris

Here's a little shout out to my Dad and D for teaching me about Ricard.

Many of you may already know me as a Ricard drinker. The clear, licorice based liqueur is my party going/giving staple. I always have a bottle in reserve at home. Often when I pour out my tumbler full, and delicately add a bit of water, so that the liquid in my glass turns a perplexing opaque white, I have people ask, "what is that?" I explain, they taste, then gag, and leave me to my poison. Here's what happens when I order Ricard in Paris.

Last night I went out with a new found friend Jade from Melbourne and Kate (a friend of her's also from Melbourne). They ordered beer, nothing wrong with that, and then the waiter turned to me and I asked for a Ricard, careful to roll my rrrrr, say the i as "ee", and forget the d at the end (otherwise an Americanised "Ricard" will get you a blank stare). My waiter smiled and gave me a little nod. Kate's French boyfriend also smiled at me. "Ah ha, very good," he said. We then explained to Kate and Jade the marvels of Ricard.

Sometimes there are a lot of rules to remember in France, but this is one skill set that has, and will, I hope, serve me well in the future. A rule not to forget: don't tip your formerly smiling bartender, he and his friends will laugh at you.

Everybody Loves a Girl with a Backpack Part 4

(Thursday November 1st)
Today the backpack and I had a proud moment. On a very crowded train, filled with a disproportionate number of children and the elderly, I managed to slide the backpack down off a tall ledge, and onto my back (channeling the grace of Audrey Hepburn who might not have even been as graceful as me since I'm pretty sure she could have fit inside the backpack) without destroying the laptop of the man sitting next to me, crushing a baby strapped to her father's back behind me, or knocking an unsteady looking man off his crutches just in front of me.

My growing pride lasted about five minutes until I caught sight of myself in a store window. Oh well, I thought to myself, if you're going to look stupid at least you've achieved an element of grace in that.

Explaining My Absence

You have have noticed that I dropped off the radar a bit in the past week. You might have been wondering, has she been swept up in some wild European adventure? - scaling the alps, cruising the Mediterranean on a large yacht, roaming the streets of Prague in an absinthe stupor? The truth, I'm afraid, is so boring that I can hardly own up to it - I'm exhausted. That's right you're hearing this from me, Europe's # 1 gallery going, junior-league art historian can barely bring herself to go out of doors let alone to a museum. Having said that, I am writing from Rouen (in a delightful cafe playing great jazz) where I have journeyed solely because the Musse des Beaux-Arts here possesses a Caravaggio. But, other than that, I have simply been taking time off, and appreciating in a rare moment that I am on vacation, even if most of the time it feels more like a mission. I've been in some exceptionally pretty places - Prague, Strasbourg, and Colmar (where come to think of it I went to see a Grunewald altarpiece, but never mind) just walking around, treating myself to some nicer meals, and sleeping late in the mornings.

Three things stick out particularly about this last week that are worth mentioning here. One was an impromptu brush with nature behind the Prague castle. I took the wrong road down, and ended up on a tree lined path offering up views of the castle through autumn leaves. I won't deny that I didn't for a moment imagine myself as Belle from Beauty and the Beast discovering the castle in the woods. Two was the very pleasant day in Strasbourg I spent with a fellow Canadian, Haylie from Hanover, Ontario, walking around Strasbourg. We discussed among many things a mutual love for Joni Mitchell, which made me long for my ipod. Three was the wonderful shock of realizing that there was a small group of children in my hostel in Colmar on the 31st and they all dressed up for Halloween.

I'm off to Paris soon and then I will return to my usual habits, get ready for some enthusiastic thoughts about the genius of Manet.

ALSO blogger seems to be out of sorts lately and I can't add pictures OR use spell check. Sorry!

Werner

Werner is another old acquaintance from my Dad's Nixdorf days, and, more importantly, a very old and dear friend of our family friend Frank. It was arranged that while in Berlin we would have lunch with Werner, who picked up at at the Jewish museum and took us to a place adjacent to the Brandenburg gate. On the way there, he gave us an impromptu tour of Berlin from an architect's perspective, which got us all talking about Berlin's complex history.

The Jewish Museum is a very impressive building designed by a now well turned over name in Toronto: Daniel Liebskind (architect of the heatedly controversial ROM revamp). Werner, as an architect, is a fan of the Jewish Museum, recounting for us a powerful experience he had there with his then 14 year old son. Together they stood before a photo of a boy exactly the same age as Werner' s son, and had that thought that so many of us have looking at the lives of Holocaust victims - they are no different than me. After looking at the photo they both walked into what is called the Holocaust tower, but what Werner chillingly referred to as "The Chimney". It is a very narrow, tall room unlit except for a little opening at the top, which lets in a tiny bit of natural light. It is designed to make you feel cold, utterly alone and afraid. Werner said in that space he held onto his son tightly, and felt that panic associated with loosing a child. No one would want a child to be lost in the chimney.

Over lunch we began to talk about the wall again, and I got a very different side of Werner. Where I had seen resentment in the taxi driver, I saw anger in Werner. He was so blunt about the stupidity he saw in the Soviet regime that had cheated, deceived, and even killed some of his friends. He spoke so passionately that in a heated moment he knocked over my glass of wine. He told us that even today when he hears a Saxon accent (the boarder guards were predominantly from that region) he still shivers. He asked me what I thought of Berlin and I told him what I have already expressed in this blog - that for me it is a great modern city, perhaps the greatest. He smiled at that and I think he really liked that I said that. That is, I think, what I liked best about him - that for all his anger and sadness he still loves Berlin and retains a prideful hope about its future.

He is such a lovely man, he has the kindest eyes I have ever seen, but so sad at the same time, and a little tired too. For me he epitomises the German trauma the best, marked indelibly by this anger and sadness, but tempered by hope. He is the kind of Berliner that makes Berlin truly great, and I feel privileged to have met him.