Ocean (Sans Ponies)

Most of you know that three years ago I did the Semester at Sea program – studied on a cruise ship while it sailed places and wandered those places when we got there and there were no diamond ponies in the ocean.

*brief skirmish*

(and I got my computer back from Chelsea…)

I blather about it often, so I beg your indulgence if I go back to it briefly.

Before Semester at Sea I was hugely excited about spending so much time close to the ocean. I’ve been relatively close to Lake Erie most of my life, but it isn’t quite the same thing. The oceans, the seven seas, have inspired so much. Poets and explorers alike have been captivated by the sea for thousands of years. And I admit, I was looking to be impressed.

And I wasn’t, really. It was vast, incomprehensibly so – I remember realizing that it would take me an hour or so walking straight down to reach the earth beneath my feet – but not what I was looking for. It also gave me horrific motion sickness.

I found the ocean fascinating in the way a screensaver can be, or the DVD symbol bouncing ever closer to the corners of a TV. While diverting, it was not the stuff of poetry.

And thus it remained for the first week or so. Then we hit rough water between Hawaii and Japan. The waves were double my height, and the forbidding storm grey, steel gray that is the province of poets. The sun set on this ocean, unobstructed save for the horizon and I leaned out on the slick rail. Sea spray hit my face and I tasted salt. And I have loved the ocean since.

And I have missed her for three years.

So getting to spend time in places near the various oceans and seas has been important, like running into an old friend. Who still makes me queasy if I’m not careful.

We’ve skimmed over our ocean voyages so far on the blog – mostly because the first few we slept through, and our last was governed by incredibly rough water and our gloom at having departed the Englands and England.

I would like to put in a good word for the Irish Sea, as providing a gorgeous backdrop for Wicklow and a sunrise I had not intended to see over it. The residents insisted that it was possible to swim, but Chelsea and I declined.

In Barcelona and Nice we actually went and fluttered about in the ocean. In Nice especially the waves had a kick to them, enough to knock the knees from under you if you weren’t paying attention. And I find it strangely comforting to be so very small and to play, carefully, with something so very big.

In Nice too we got to see jellyfish. Chelsea noticed them first – small black leaf-like critters – and decided it was best to evacuate the area.

She did not tell me what led to her haste. I chilled in the water for another moment and upon perceiving that Chelsea was done with the water I too climbed out. Then she explained why she retreated to dry land. To her credit, she was not sure they were jellyfish, they might just as easily have been leaves and paranoia.

A minute later an older man came towards us, holding out a Pringles can. As Chelsea and I tried to politely decline his offer of chips he showed us a tiny captive jellyfish. He had mistaken it for a condom until he noticed there were lots of them.

We have since learned that these were velella velella and they are Chelsea’s new favorite jellyfish. We have also learned that they are harmless to humans, although one should wash ones hands before touching ones eyes and face after handling them. And nudibranchs eat them.

Now we are on the way to Geneva, and away from the ocean. For now.

(ps. the ponies will make sense next time. Promise)

Finding Sherwood

So as I was planning our itinerary I realized that in going north we would have to cross through Nottinghamshire, and in doing so would find ourselves close to Nottingham and therefore Sherwood Forest.

My senior seminar this past year was on Robin Hood and it has become a minor obsession of mine. I went to Rochester, NY for the annual Robin Hood conference and found myself, slightly disturbingly, laughing at jokes about medieval lit and Robin Hood made by Robin Hood scholars. It was a disconcerting but pleasant experience.

Aside from that, who can fail to love Robin Hood and his many incarnations? From the Disney fox to Ivanhoe’s shadowy companion, Errol Flynn to Cary Elwes. We won’t go into Russell Crowe at the moment, but only because I still haven’t seen it and could not do justice with my comments. I also choose to pass over Kevin Costner. (Feel free to ask me about that if you want to hear a rant).

Now as it turns out Sherwood is not in fact very close to Nottingham. The nearest train station is Mansfield Woodhouse, about an hour ride north-ish, and from there you have to catch a bus to Edwinstowe and the Sherwood Visitor’s Center.

So our first day of serious travel within England consisted of the train to Nottingham (fairly relaxing) and then another to Mansfield Woodhouse.

I doubt any of you will ever get to Mansfield Woodhouse.


It is a small station. No one, in fact, works there. One cannot buy tickets, obtain any information about the surrounding area, and nor, to my chagrin, could you find a convenient locker in which to leave a few large and heavy packs.

And so Chelsea and I wandered forth from this station with our packs and into the town of Mansfield Woodhouse. Which was empty. It was a Sunday. Nothing was open, and the stares from the few of the populous driving by were alarmed.

By following signs to the town center we did find a bus station, the appropriate bus, and it did show up. When we told the driver we were going to the Sherwood Forest Visitor’s Center his bemused expression changed to one of bored understanding. Of course. We were here for Robin Hood.

There are several different theories on how Robin Hood began, no one has been able to find a likely historical figure to base him on. One theory runs that he is a continuation of a pagan king of summer, a forest spirit. I did not have a particular predilection to this theory, but walking in Sherwood Forest, looking at trees too big for three people to put their arms around, at a woods that is not as vast as it was but still feels deep, I can understand that more.

It was the last day of the Robin Hood festival, and there were kids running around with miniature bows and arrows with suction cups on the tips, there were bright green hats and swordswallowers, a woman dancing to the Korobushka and an alchemist. And of course there was Robin and Tuck, John and the Sheriff.

I tried to stay out of earshot from the actors because while they looked the part, I doubt they were staying much in character. And I wanted to believe in them for a bit, to believe in Robin who walks through the forest, who blows his horn and summons the merry men, who always escapes to annoy the Sheriff one more time.

Mind the Gap

So after spending a week in Britain one does get to notice the differences. Cars driving on the other side takes some getting used to. The impulse to jerk your head warily in the wrong direction is astounding, like it’s all been a joke and this time the car will come from the other direction. Fortunately, in London at least, many of the main streets had useful notes saying “<--look left” or “look right -->” painted onto the asphalt. I wish I could say that after a day or two we no longer needed these, but they continued to be a relief and I miss them in Scotland.

During the intermission of “Warhorse” (a very cool show with massive horse puppets) the snack of choice was ice cream. Now certainly some American theater snacks are messy, but I would dare to say that other than sitting on your chocolate bar so that it melts none is as hazardous as melted ice cream. It was vaguely wonderful to see the older gentleman next to us delicately eating a tiny ice cream with a small spoon.

And lemonade is carbonated.

Now onto language – starting with “concession” which in American theaters makes me think of food and here refers to an elderly person. One can buy concession tickets rather than have a senior discount. “What’s on” is the phrase for events at a certain venue, and “take away” means “carry out” or “to go”.

Our host in the first hostel explained that Oxford St. was where we should go if we needed the “bits and bobs” and he was amused by Chelsea and my insistence on taking multivitamins (third syllable pronounced as in “it” rather than “ite”).

“To let” meaning “to lease” or “rent” gave Chelsea some pause and I have been grateful to my BritComs. They have been useful.

And of course there is the ever popular “mind the gap”, dutifully repeated by the many mechanical voices of the underground and train systems. I will also admit that hearing a very proper and refined woman’s voice inform us that the Piccadilly line terminates at Cockfosters nearly made me giggle at every stop.

As I find/remember more we might get a “Mind the Gap II” but that’s it for now.

Cheers, man.

Tower

So today we spent our morning at the Tower of London.

Now this is tricky. The Tower is a major historical site, a huge tourist trap, a checkmark on the superficial list of must sees in London. It has guards in red coats and black hats who march five paces in each direction in front of a little wooden structure about the size of a telephone booth with absolutely nothing in it. People take pictures of their children smiling in front of these guards.

And yet. It is the Tower.

We walked through rooms where prisoners had carved their names into the stone, a man who was part of the Gunpowder Plot. Some carved symbols of faith. One carved an astronomical chart. Towers and rooms were marked to show which monarch constructed them, right back to William the Conqueror. Traitor’s gate still rests in shallow water, and the ravens prance and cackle. And the jewels. You can’t forget the jewels.

And in the end, no amount of Henry VIII collectible dolls, no amount of fellow tourists exclaiming “It’s a unicorn!” in derision and disbelief, can really destroy the power that lives in that place.

The reason that I wanted to see the Tower was Lady Jane Grey.

For those of you who haven’t heard me babble about Jane Grey, she was Queen of England for nine days between Edward VI and Mary Tudor. She was seventeen when she was crowned, deposed and beheaded. And she was imprisoned and beheaded in the Tower.

It is not strange to encounter a historical figure who enchants you, and Jane Grey has always been one of mine. I’m not remotely alone in that. If you want a dramatized version there is a movie called “Lady Jane” with Helena Bohnam Carter and Cary Elwes which I adore and my family is sick of. Or you can read her letters.

One in particular. A letter to Thomas Hardy, written in the Tower, extolling him not to break with his faith, with Protestantism, for the sake of his immortal soul. It is beautifully written. And it was written when a conversion to Catholicism would probably have saved her own life.

At the Tower is a monument, two glass circles with the names of those given the honor of an execution within the Tower grounds. It is an unremarkable space, a field off a walkway, the walls are far away and it is open to the sky. Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard are there, and Countess Rochford who was Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law and survived that queen only to be taken down in Katherine Howard’s fall.

And there is Jane Grey, the nine days queen.

I heard someone remark that it was too modern an object, out of place with the rest of the Tower.

Perhaps. But we are out of place, voyeurs who half understand what we are seeing. We don’t have time to really know this place, we who have a morning to spend glimpsing the behemoth that is history. I stood over Jane Grey’s name and mourned for her a little. Because I think she was brave. Because seventeen is too young. Because there was a person who walked from the Tower to this patch of ground and who, blind-folded, could not find the block.

That’s it really. I went looking for that moment and I found it, created it maybe. But I think that is what you have to do. It’s easy to forget the human beings involved in light of little paper dolls demonstrating how the rack worked.



“The soul takes flight into the world which is invisible, and there arriving she is sure of bliss and forever dwells in paradise.” – Plato, translated by Jane Grey for John Feckenham, who, bless him, wrote it down.