Flashback

I have good London flashbacks all the time, like any time the Tower Bridge is in a commercial, or when I hear the "news music" on BBC America (which I watch more than I used to!).

But going to and from Buffalo, New York, for a librarians' conference this week, I had flashbacks of another kind, triggered by many hours spent in the Newark airport. Some of my faithful readers might remember our somewhat nightmarish return to the states in December, 2008, which involved an uncomfortable overnight in good ol' EWR.

This year I wasn't there any longer than I was supposed to be, but just happened to have long layovers there both coming and going. No food vouchers this time around, though, and I swear the recurring security announcement that I came to loathe when trying to sleep is broadcast in the same voice! If I ever meet that woman, I won't be responsible for my actions!

In addition to the familiarity of the security voice, an uncanny thing happened when my Houston-Newark flight unloaded, and I stepped into the terminal for the first time. For just a split second, the smell of the place triggered a rather sharp Proustian response. It didn't last, and, I hasten to add, the smell isn't unpleasant, but it was a very strange and unexpected little jolt from the primitive wiring 'way down in the reptilian brain.

There's no avoiding airport layovers, I guess, especially when traveling somewhere as out-of-the-way as Buffalo, but next time I might try to find a flight with layovers somewhere else. I've had enough of Newark.

Closing a chapter

I will never forget my semester in London; in fact, it's never far from my thoughts. But I have now set it behind me in a major way.

I have finally finished getting my photos all organized and displayed, along with reminiscences, links to blog posts and voluminous Flickr sets, as well as appropriate maps.

Whew! What a job, but what fun! I was able to relive such great times while working on this project. And I hope you enjoy perusing My Dream Season: Living in London, 2008.

Westminster Abbey & the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament

I'm going to give you some more details about the project, scattering some selected photos along the way, to whet your appetite, I hope, for more.

The Serpentine in Hyde Park

As I discussed in an earlier post, I've divided up the London photos into several areas like Museums, the River, Churches, Architecture, Everyday Life, etc. Each section has at least one corresponding Flickr set that includes many more photos thanwhat's included on the web pages. The master Dream Season Flickr collection is here. Warning! There are a lot of photos in this collection!

All Souls College, Oxford

Within the web pages, I have embedded links to appropriate blog posts, so I hope they will serve as a sort of index to supplement my labels, should I, or anyone else, be looking for a particular posting.

part of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum

I also have sections for other places I visited in the U.K., such as Oxford, Wales, and Scotland, and for Germany and Italy.

Wood of the Waterfalls in Wales

Candles in Santa Maria della Salute, Venice

Me & Henry at the Sans Souci Palace, Potsdam

A late-inning addition to the pages is a series of google maps, showing where the sights are located, and places that we visited. These maps were particularly challenging to make for the places outside of London, since I didn't spend as much time there and didn't become as familiar with these locales. But making them helped put all of these trips more firmly in my memory. And the maps might be of use to others planning brief excursions to these great destinations.

Avebury stone circle

And my giant "London Rambles" map is still available, showing every place I could think of that I experienced in London. Let me know if you see any I left out!

Window of St. Margaret Chapel, Edinburgh Castle

I still plan to post occasionally to this blog, when something particularly reminds me of London, on anniversaries, and at other times when the mood strikes me.

Memorial cairn at the Culloden Battlefield

But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy looking at the photos and reading about my wonderful adventure!

Brompton Cemetery

Norwich connections

Recommendation: if you want to read a really good book about airmen in World War II, read Wings of Morning: the story of the last American bomber shot down over Germany in World War II, by Thomas Childers. I just finished it and found it mesmerizing from beginning to tragic end.

The Norwich connection?

In November, 2008, while on his second visit to me in London, Henry took a train (by himself!) to Norwich to do some family history research and had a wonderful time. In addition to the family stuff there, he enjoyed seeing the general sights, including their very impressive cathedral. He wants to go back and do more family history touring, and I'll accompany him this time.


It will have a special meaning for me after reading the book. The airmen featured in this marvelously detailed history were stationed near Norwich at the end of the war.

Mr. Childers is a professional historian whose area of expertise is the German side of World War II. But in Wings of Morning he tells the story of his uncle's B-24 crew. Using large collections of letters, painstaking research into official documents, and interviews with veterans from the same bomb group, he paints a richly detailed, and inevitably heartbreaking, picture of his uncle's time in England and of his final mission.

Reading the tragic story of Mr. Childers' family's loss, I was reminded yet again how lucky I am that my father survived his service (his missions were undertaken in a smaller bomber, but he lived much the same life, and in the same area of England, that was described in Wings of Morning). And also how wonderful that our mother saved Dad's journal, letters and papers, so that I could have the satisfaction of undertaking the same kind of research, on a much smaller scale, that consumed Mr. Childers.

I don't really need another reason to want to re-visit the U.K., but now I have one.

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I actually have read Mr. Childers' books in the wrong order. Some months ago we got a new book of his in at the library and I was intrigued enough to take it home to read. It's called Soldier from the War Returning: the Greatest Generation's Troubled Homecoming from World War II. Since it's also about, to some extent, his family's experiences, I knew a bit of what to expect when I checked out Wings of Morning. I also knew I was in for a good read—although he's not a novelist by trade, Mr. Childers really knows how to tell a story.

The newest book is a very sobering look at the costs paid by soldiers who fought in this "good war." And how there can really never be any such thing.

Good God, Holmes! I've been there!

When I heard that the new Sherlock Holmes movie had scenes showing the Tower Bridge under construction, I knew I had to go see it.

And though those scenes are cool, the biggest thrill for me came when I recognized the cemetery setting for an important moment—it was my own neighborhood Brompton Cemetery! Just a block from my flat! How exciting! It was almost like seeing someone I knew up on the big screen.


It brought back a half-remembered [or half-imagined?] London memory. Did I see a film crew in the crypt area during one of my walks? I think that would have merited a blog mention, so probably not. Perhaps a notice was posted in the area telling of it being closed on some future date for filming? Or I heard someone mention that such activities were going on? One of these events seems more likely, but I can't be sure.

At any rate, the cemetery is in the movie and you can catch a brief glimpse of it in the trailer above, about 1/3 of the way through. If you want to see more, check out this Flickr set of London parks photos. The ones from the cemetery start, again, about 1/3 of the way into it. A few of the best are here for your enjoyment.

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The movie was a total delight. And not only because of the cemetery and Tower Bridge scenes, the movie as a whole had me feeling like I'd been back to London for a couple of hours by the time it was finished.

Holmes purists who are put off by the slam-bang action in the trailers should still see it. Behind the action-hero stuff, the essential Holmes and Watson are there, probably moreso than in the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce incarnations that I grew up watching, nostalgically amusing as those are. Try it! You'll like it!

And for London-philes like myself, it's really a must-see.

A bit behind schedule

I had a goal to have my London photos website up by the end of the year. Weeeellllllll, it's not happening. But, I have been very busy on the project the last couple of weeks and have made a great deal of progress. I think I can say, with some confidence, that the UK portion of the web pages (that is, excluding Germany and Italy) will be ready before 2010 is too much older.

However, I do have something for you to look at, should you feel inclined. I have chosen only selected photos for the web pages (otherwise they'd be monstrously long) but have loaded almost all of them onto Flickr, where I've organized them into the heirarchy of sets and collections that you see below.

Since this activity doesn't involve much writing to be edited or photos to be positioned on the page, they are ready for prime time viewing now, unlike their companion web pages that need to be polished a bit more. Although it's very likely that I'll come across photos I've missed, or mis-classified, as I finish up, so some of the sets might be modified from time to time.

So, if you want to see some London (and other UK) photos, help yourself to these links. For the sets, where the photos actually reside, the number in parentheses after the title tells you how many photos there are (so you can decide how much time you want to spend on this).

• the whole Dream Season collection
  
• the London sub-collection segment, which includes the following sets:
  


• Churches (81)
• St. Paul's (51)
• Architecture (91)
• Memorials & Statues (81)
• War Memorials (50)
• Street Scenes (114)
• Central London Parks (61)
• Hampstead Heath (35)
• other parks (including Brompton Cemetery, 83)
• River Thames & bridges (90)
• Tower Bridge (32)
  
• Great River Race, Sept. 13, 2008 (56)
  


• Museums collection, which includes the following sets:
  


• British Museum: Greek, Roman, etc. (43)
• British Museum: other exhibits (65)
• Victoria & Albert Museum (72)
• London Science Museum (50)
• other London area science museums (60)
• other London museums (53)
  


• British history collection, which includes the following sets:
  


• Houses of Parliament (77)
• Tower of London (90)
• History elsewhere in London (17)
  


• Scottish highlands collection, which includes these sets:


• Scenery (62)
• History (45)


• Cambridge (78)
• East Anglia (other, 88)
  
• Edinburgh (141)
  

The photos are taken by myself and my husband (he makes up for in quality the fact that my quantity is much larger), but all of the photos "say" they're taken by hjameniii, which is his paid Flickr handle. And the dates given might be the dates the photos were taken (if they're 2008 dates) or they might be when the photos were cropped or otherwise edited (if they're 2009). Wish there was a way to tell Flickr not to change the dates...

I hope you enjoy looking at the photos. And I hope to have the web pages, which will tell about my experiences and serve as a sort of index to these blog posts, too, ready for viewing before long. Happy New Year, everyone!

Merrie Christmas!

While working on my London photos webpages and Flickr collections (look for an update on this project in the next week or so) I came across this Christmas e-card from King's College, Cambridge. I hope you enjoy it, and have a peaceful and happy holiday.

This is a photo Henry took at Kings College just before we went
to the Chapel for evensong there last November.

P.S. Our local NPR station is broadcasting Lessons and Carols from Kings College this Christmas Eve at 9 a.m. Check your local station for when you might be able to hear more music from this wonderful place.

Divided loyalties

One of the most exciting days on the world's sports calendar passed with hardly a whisper here in the benighted USA [I must admit that, absent media prompting, I forgot the date ahead of time myself]. But the World Cup 2010 draw was made on Friday and I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

My two favorite teams—USA by reason of birth [not hope that they could actually do well in the tournament] and England [for obvious reasons]—are in the same group! I don't think this has happened since 1950, when the US stunned the football world by beating England 1-0 in group play. Since I have been following international football, certainly, the only times I've seen them play each other was in friendlies that don't count for anything but bragging rights.

Now they'll be meeting on the biggest stage. And it's the first game of the group, too! What fun!

But, who to root for? Of course, I can't root for my country to lose, but it would feel very strange to root against England*. A tie, at this point in the tournament, would be most acceptable. It wouldn't keep either team from advancing, at least we wouldn't know at the time that it wouldn't, and it would actually be a good result for the USA, playing powerhouse England evenly.

Further along the line, when places in the group are being determined, though, things might get sticky. What if, in order for the US to advance, England has to lose to one of the other Group C members? Or vice versa? Now that will give me problems.

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*Why the cross of St. George instead of the Union Jack, you might ask? I'm so glad you did because it's one of my favorite examples of sports geography trivia.

In the top-level football world, there is no United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, rather separate "countries" of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. This arrangement, which gives the UK as a whole a great deal more power within soccer politics than it would as a single country, is considered to be, I assume, a reward for having invented the sport in the first place and for having spread it all around the world with its once quite-extensive empire.

There are periodically discussions about fielding an all-UK team, for example in the Olympics, but the entrenched power of the individual FA's (Football Associations) for these separate "countries" would never allow consolidation on the level of "real" football. Besides, I think it's kind of cool.