When I was a kid,
my family used to send me away to the Blue Ridge Mountains
in North Carolina for weeklong retreats with my church youth
group. Six days of morning “energizer” dances,
tissue-using small-group discussions, and campfires with
s’mores and acoustic guitars. The last day of every
retreat centered on one theme: how to bring the high we experienced
in the mountains back down to our everyday lives.
Returning home always induced hangover-like symptoms. Back
to excessive yawning after a storm of serotonin. I imagine
the return to America might produce similar effects. An exchange
student carries such a different mentality while abroad:
a use-your-time, soak-it-in, get-off-your-butt mentality.
The end of my days here brings an exquisite exhaustion, a
satisfaction of hours well spent. I hope I can bring the
high of this retreat back home, too.
I haven’t written in a while because I haven’t
stayed in one place long enough. I’ve been looking
out of train or plane windows, looking up at humbling architecture
or looking down at food I’ve never tried before. I’m
in the process of making the most of an almost-two-month “Semesterferien” (semester
break) that comes with being a German university student,
and that means trying to enjoy as much of Europe that my
time (or my Visa) will allow.
My first destination was London. I had been invited by a
fellow Uni-Bamberg student, Thomas, who was traveling there
to help celebrate the 21st birthday of his long-time friend,
Sara. He and Sara had met through a high school band exchange,
and both had spent a couple weeks each year in the other’s
country through the program.
Thomas and I decided to fly with discount airline Ryanair,
which initially made us think we were the most brilliant
travelers in the world, as we clicked “add to cart” beside
the ONE-EURO tickets from Frankfurt-Hahn to London. Of course,
each ticket ended up being more than one euro after fees
and taxes, but overall a single cost us about 35 euros roundtrip,
which was still genius-qualifying.
The problem wasn’t with the price of the plane tickets,
per se; it was with the other ticket costs that were required
to get to and from Ryanair’s warehouse, boondocks airports.
First we had to buy train tickets from Bamberg to Frankfurt.
No wait, Frankfurt-Hahn. Sounds a lot like Frankfurt, doesn’t
it? Strangely similar. However, Frankfurt-Hahn is, in fact,
195 miles from Frankfurt city. But someone (Ryanair) thought
it made a cute little prefix for the airport.
From Frankfurt, we had to pay about 12 euros for a bus ride
to the airport itself, and once we arrived in London’s
Stansted Airport, we had to pay another 15 euros a piece
to ride a train into the city. Moral of the story (I don’t
want to type this, but Ryanair made me): When something looks
too good to be true, it often is.
Once we had finally taken every possible transportation
medium to arrive in London, we leisured around until Sara,
who is interning for a year at Morgan Stanley, met us during
her lunch break. The first night we went out with her work
buddies, most of which were full-time 20-somethings, to a
couple bars in London’s ritzy corporate district. Thomas
and I felt like the youngest, poorest, most unimportant people
every place we went, but the fact that our new full-salary
friends kept buying us drinks made the situation a bit less
uncomfortable.
The second day we set on a sightseeing mission, first heading
to Big Ben and then the London Eye, a Ferris wheel with large
enclosed cabins that offer a prime view of the city. One rotation
lasts about 30 minutes and costs 12 pounds, almost $21, but
worthwhile. As we walked away from our ride, Sara pointed out
London’s former town hall, a towering semi-circle building
that had been renovated into a McDonald’s. |
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We walked past the
Prime Minister’s House, which was
guarded by soldiers on horses with funny hats, and then we
reached Trafalgar Square, a great spot to take a breather
and people-watch. It offers various statues of note, including
Nelson’s Column with its huge, playground-like lion
sculptures.
As I walked through the London streets, I appreciated what
I had already seen almost more than what I hadn’t:
T.G.I. Friday’s, American Outfitters, KFC, The Gap,
Subway – corporate America. Maybe I shouldn’t
have been wallowing in my reunion with these global conglomerates,
but after not seeing my country for the past five months,
this superficial representation of it was, at the least,
comfortably familiar.
The next day we went to the London Dungeon, a tourist-guide
staple and a Venus flytrap for visitors who don’t like
to waste their time. If you ever go to London, don’t
go there. Unless you have small children who are easily scared
or you happen to enjoy bad acting. The attraction is supposed
to highlight the history of torture practices, the Plague,
Jack the Ripper, the London Fire and more. It would be interesting
if there were more history presented instead of plastic corpses
and fake blood.
That evening was the birthday bash, which included Sara’s
friends from across England, a few from Germany and a single
American named Mary. I found myself strangely positioned
between two semi-familiar cultures, often relating more to
the one with a different native tongue. Though the Brits
supposedly spoke my language, I frequently had more trouble
understanding them the Germans. The moment you find yourself
identifying to people more on personality than common language
dumbfounds you in a most beautiful way.
Our final day in London we visited the small charming shops
and a colorful covered market in Greenwich Village, the Prime
Meridian, Chinatown and (the female favorite) Oxford Circus’ huge
shopping district. Finally, for a second time, we rode every
transportation means ever invented to make it back to Bamberg.
Mary Pinckney Waters welcomes your
comments and feedback: marypwaters@yahoo.com |
