Edinburgh

Settling in to the hotel in Edinburgh, after a lovely train trip through the English and Scottish countryside. For once, procrastination paid off for me, and the cheapest way from London to Edinburgh was a first class train ticket. (Hmm...thirty pounds less than the cheapest flight and I don't have to get to the airport and go through Heathrow security; no brainer.) I grabbed the chance, since I've never gone first class on any method of transportation. Totally worth it. Nice comfy seats on a nearly empty train, and lots of feeding. We got a (surprisingly good) breakfast and lunch included, and near constant coffee/tea service. Since I didn't realize we'd be fed, I passed on lunch and enjoyed the sandwich and basalmic vinegar and sea salt crisps (so good, one of the things I'll miss most) I picked up at the station with my very civilized glass of wine. I arrived very relaxed (did I mention the refills on the wine?) and well fed.

So far, I've been hitting the highlights, which for me includes the Impressionist Gardens exhibit at the National Gallery, and theAnother World exhibit of surrealist art at the Dean Gallery, I've seen a couple of shows, and I've just been enjoying exploring the city, which is great with the Fringe and other festivals on. There's music on every block, street performers everywhere, and tons of people walking around in costume promoting the plays they're in (well, mostly anyway). The city architecture itself is also so wonderfully dark and dramatic. There's a quote up on a poster here from Henry James describing the downtown skyline here as "operatic." Unfortunately, to call the wifi in the hotel spotty would be overly kind, so you probably won't hear more from me until I'm back home.

I'll leave you with a little bit of England--while we were in Oxford, we visited Christ Church and our guide there showed us the places that inspired Alice in Wonderland. Since Alice was my favorite book as a child, this was a real treat for me. (Note: The music in the peice was generated by Photo Story 3).

A little bit of luck

A little reminder of how lucky I am today on our last class trip to Buckingham Palace. This has been a great experience, and I will truly miss the people I met here. But the world is smaller than you think it is, so I'm sure we'll all keep crossing paths. There have also been some surprises, big and small, for me on this trip.

I've been surprised at just how Americanized London has become in some ways. Way too many of the gorgeous buildings here house Starbucks, McDonald's, KFC, etc now; I think even more than did during my last trip here just 5 or 6 years ago. It's sad to see local color go from places. I didn't notice this as much in Paris, though there is a Subway right across the river from the Notre Dame, which was a little disconcerting. I've also been surprised at how very, very busy London is. I think the lesson here is don't travel to London during the end of July, when all of the schools of America, Europe, and Asia are having their summer holiday break. Every single day walking down Oxford Street is like hitting the Grove or the Santa Monica Prominade on the day after Thanksgiving times ten. It's hard to believe that there's a recession (or, as they call it here a "credit crunch") on in Europe as packed as the shops and resturants are. Also, depsite a little forewarning (if you're reading this, thanks Michelle!), it's thrown me just how warm London has been, and how miserably hot and stuffy the Tube is. I felt very sorry for people commuting packed in with all us tourists.

Most surprising for me, though, is how much I've missed LA; this trip has made me appreciate it more. Honestly, that's the last thing I expected. Somewhere along the way that behemoth of a city has become home for me on a more meaningful level than I realized. Like London, the whole world comes to LA and contributes their cultures to make it a richer place. Unlike London, history treads lightly in LA, and so those cultures get mixed up in strange and magnificent ways. As dazzled as I've been to walk in the same halls and cathedrals as hundreds of years worth of royalty, artists, warriors, and intellectuals, I think that there can be as many dangers in being too attached to the past as there are in ignoring it. I've come to really love the freedoms and flexibilities of LA, and the sense of constant reinvention there.

It's not quite home for me yet, though. I'm on to Edinburgh, Scotland tomorrow for a few days before I go back to LA. It should be great, since there are going to be about a half dozen festivals going on while I'm there. (The Fringe Festival, the Art Festival, the Mela, the Jazz and Blues Festival, and the Military Tattoo--probably not what you think.) I'm betting it will crazily busy up there, too, but at least I've been assured that it's about 20 degrees cooler than London. The hotel has wifi, so I'll touch in from there when I'm not running around like crazy!

Last Days

So this hectic, wonderful time is nearing its end. At this point, I really just have a few random thoughts that I couldn't squeeze in other places floating around in my head as I try to make sure everything still fits in my bags. Here are a couple.

It's amazing how quickly you can pick up new habits. I spent the first couple of days here looking the wrong way when I crossed the street, and quickly became grateful for the "look left" or "look right" markings at crosswalks. But when we want to Paris last weekend, I found myself looking the wrong way again since continental Europe drives on the same side of the street as the US. Basically, what I'm saying is that I'll need someone to help me across the street for a couple of days when I get home and have to readjust to traffic coming the other way and jaywalking law, which don't exist here.

This trip has made me resolve to start exploiting the art and architecture available to me in Los Angeles more. All the museum hopping here has reminded me that I haven't been to Los Angeles County Museum of Art or the Getty in years, and there are several museums in LA that I haven't been to at all, but want to. We've visited five cathedrals here, but I've never been in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in LA; it was controversial when it was built, but it would be interesting to see a modern version of the cathedral.

Since you've put up with me rambling for so long, here's what you've really been waiting for, pictures! I promise, other than the cover page, no words, so you can just enjoy the images (Note: The excerpts of artworks in here should be in the public domain; the latest work was created in 1921.):

The Bodleian at Oxford

Today we went to Oxford and toured the Bodleian Library; in addition to containing some amazingly rare items (including an Egyptian papyrus from 965 BC!), and now being somewhat well known as set for the Harry Potter movies, it is a working academic library. It was really jarring to see corkboards with the exact same fliers for stress management sessions, apartment rentals, and upcoming concerts that you would see at any college hanging in the 400 year old stairwells of the magnificent building. But, in a way, since I work at an academic library, it did also make me feel at home, as did the more or less ordered chaos behind the scenes when we went through the tunnel under the library where a lot of the books are stored.

One thing that amazed me was the Bodleian's system for getting books out of underground storage and up to readers. Put in during the 1930's, there is a system of continuously running machinery that delivers boxes containing books to particular rooms throughout the library. Up until a couple of years ago, requests were made by dropping notes in containers through vacuum tubes. Now it's by computer. The whole system reminded me a little of the University of California's Southern Regional Library Facility (SRLF); a storage facility for library materials across the campuses, but the Bodleian's system pre-dates SRLF by about 50 years.

While there is a fairly complex admissions policy to be a reader there, non-Oxford users are eligible to be readers and use the materials, though most non-Oxford users have to pay a fee. And everyone has to take the oath, started by Thomas Bodley himself, not to damage the materials or bring fire into the library before they can use the materials. I'm not sure how patron oaths would fly back home, but since the Bodleian credits it to some degree for a relatively low level of damage and loss it's kind of tempting. You have to use the materials in the library itself, as well; they are not allowed to leave with readers. Like the British Library, they are serious about the rules--if King Charles I had to come into the library and take the oath to use the books he wanted, no one is getting out of the requirements.

Paris

I, along with most of the class, just spent the weekend in Paris. What can I possibly say about Paris that you haven't already heard a million times? More or less every cliché you've heard is true. The city is beautiful and overwhelming. There are dogs (mostly tiny) everywhere. The food is fabulous. The pastries alone would be enough to make me want to move there if I'd been able to find a decent cup of coffee while we were there, and any city where you can expect to find mimoletta and a couple of varieties of blood orange juice in almost every grocery, no matter how small, has my number.

Fortunately, one cliché that I didn't find to be true is the rude Parisians. I actually found people to be nice, polite, and helpful. I'd been told by a number of friends that if you try to speak French, people will generally be nicer, and, contrary to rumor, they won't make fun of your awful accent. This is only logical; if you had people coming up to you all day, every day simply expecting you to know a foreign language without asking, it would probably get pretty old pretty fast. And, thanks to my classmate Alesha, I found out that you should always start with a bonjour (or bonsoir) to be polite in service situations--basically, the rule is that you are expected to be a good guest if you want a good host.

So, I tried my level best to conduct every transaction I could in French, and to at least ask if the other person knew English if my question was too complicated for my limited French. I was rewarded for this with friendly responses, and luckily, it truns out that my French is a little better than I thought it was. More or less, everything went smoothly, though I often got responses in English (my French isn't that good.); to the gendarme in front of the Assembly Nationale who did give me directions to the Museé d'Orsee in French, merci, and I swear I did understand every word. Oh, and I'm trying to embrace the fact that I am, for sure madame rather than madmoiselle now, but I haven't quite gotten there.

I will say that I did get the feeling that Paris is, currently, a rougher city than London. I saw a lot more graffitti, there were more beggars, and the Eiffel Tower area is thick with scam artists preying on the tourists. The Marche au Puces (supposedly the world's largest flea market, though this is a bit of misnomer since a lot of the "stalls" are permanent indoor stores) is in a neighborhood I didn't feel entirely comfortable in, and I've worked for Legal Aid in some of the rougher parts of Los Angeles. I wouldn't be in Saint-Ouen at night for sure.

Still, the city is lovely, and full of art and life, even in a place meant to commemorate death, like Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.

The British Library

Today we visited the magnificent British Library, England's national library. The closest analogue in the US is the Library of Congress, but having had the privilege of using the Library of Congress, I'd have to say that the British Library is a less imposing institution--I mean that in a good way! The Library's lobby is open to anyone, and while there are bag inspections, both for security and loss prevention, there aren't metal detectors like there are at Library of Congress. I was also a little surprised that you can take bags and laptops in to the reading rooms, though some items are limited. Last time I was at the Library of Congress a couple of years ago, you had to leave everything but a notepad and pencil outside before you could go into the reading area. The Library has made a real effort to be integrated into the community it sits in as well. I can't image the Library of Congress allowing ping pong in front of the building, or outdoor concerts. On the other hand, the Library of Congress' neighbors are other government buildings, so there's really no neighborhood to speak of.

Our guide was very emphatic that the Library is a working library, not a "museum of books." (Though the King's Library, which was the personal collection of King George III, that lies at the heart of the Library is so gorgeous it seems like a work of art. The spines of all those magnificent old books look out at you through glass.) The reading rooms are generally close to full, with humanities reading rooms at 96-98% of capacity most of the time. The Library adds about 250-350 new reader's cards a day. You have to show proof of address (anywhere in the world) and an ID with a signature, and there are really, really no exceptions; the Queen's grandniece and the Mayor of London had to show their IDs, so don't think you can get out of it! Unfortunately, like libraries everywhere, the Library is concerned that its funding will cut in the upcoming wave of belt tightening that's expected from the British government. Fortunately, publishers are required by law to deposit one copy of every book they publish in the UK at the Library, so the Library will at least continue to acquire British books. The acquisitions budget of the Library is devoted to foreign works and special purchases that add value to the collection, and I imagine that will likely be trimmed.

One thing I didn't expect was the Library's Business and Intellectual Property (IP) Centre, probably a big part of how it generates value added services. About 17% of the Library's user base come to the Library to use these services, and the Library has an impressive array of databases and other materials to help them. The Library also has free in person and online courses in understanding IP and searching IP databases. (I'm super-excited about the online courses, and I know that's kind of sad. Who gets excited about the thought of learning how to search British patents?)

I did know about the magnificent collection of printed materials that the Library has, but I didn't realize how much they have on display. You can see both a Gutenberg Bible and handwritten lyrics by the Beatles. (As an aside, I loved the fact that the display explained that we know so much about how the Gutenberg Bible was printed because of court documents generated when Gutenberg and his partner fell out immediately after the books was printed and sued each other. So, right from the start the publishing business was litigious.) As the Library is a working library, even the extremely rare works on display can be used under special circumstances. An original Jane Austen manuscript was pulled from display for use by an Austen scholar a few years back.

A final note is this sculpted bench sitting in the lobby of the library, a reference to many things, including medieval chained manuscripts. The guide explained that the sculpture is called "Sitting on the Past," because the artist believes that we don't learn from our past, even when we learn about it. I'd add a slightly more optimistic note that it's only when we have institutions like the British Library and other major libraries and archives available to anyone that wants to use the materials that we have any hope of learning from the past at all.

A darker side of London

Today was clearly my day to be morbid. We went to the Tower of London in the morning, and I ended the day with a Jack the Ripper tour. Basically, nothing but murder and mayhem all day. London is a beautiful, vibrant city, but like any city it's had its dark moments. I got to learn a little bit about them at both ends of the economic spectrum today.

The Tower of London has a long and bloody history both as a place royalty has holed up during battle and a place where inconvenient nobles were executed, or simply murdered, with one of the most infamous set of murders being those of the boy princes who were in the way of Richard III's path to the throne in (probably) 1483; their skeletons were found during Tower renovations. The exploits of Richard III, and his use of the Tower as a place of murder inspired both Shakespeare's tragedy, and, um, Richard Corman's schlocky horror movie. Although not very many executions have actually taken place at the Tower itself, it is where both Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were executed. It was amusing to see how toned down the Tower is today. While there is mention of the darker history of the Tower, most people come to see the Crown Jewels (themselves kind of dark, if you think too hard about where those enormous rocks have come from), and you can take your picture with a man-sized teddy bear in a beefeater costume. Even the Tower ravens have their wings clipped, so they don't abandon the Tower; superstition holds that if they do the Tower will fall, and England with it. (This rather seems like cheating to me.)

At the other end of things, in the bleak and extremely impoverished East End of 1888 London were theJack the Ripper killings. The tour a few of us took was not watered down. In fact, I'll spare you the worst of the worst, but life was pretty terrible for the working class of London then, especially for women, who had extremely limited opportunities, and the murders, as you probably know, are utterly gruesome. I think they still loom large in the popular imagination both because they're the earliest set of murders that we think of as the stereotypical serial killer, and because the person who did the killings was never caught. Most of the famous modern theories revolve around a number of the rich and famous, including painter Walter Sickert, and even Prince Albert. I think in some way the conviction that it was one of the upper crust is symbolic of how the rich treated the poor then. Our guide had an interesting theory that it was simply one of the local butchers. That makes sense on one level, and does explain the ability to get to organs quickly in the dark. (I know, ick.) It's just not as exciting as thinking it could have been a member of the royal family. We'll never know, given the primitive level of forensics at the time, but I suspect people will never stop theorizing about it.