Phew, this post has a lot to say and not enough energy to say it all. I just got back from my first trip to the UK (certainly not my last), and I’ll try to hit the highlights.
First: the coach ride I mentioned in my last post from Trier to Frankfurt Hahn Airport? Words cannot truly describe how breathtaking the countryside en route was. And is. And always will be. It’s simply amazing that such beauty can exist in the most industrialized country in the EU, not to mention the fact that the nation has been inhabited practically since the dawn of humanity.
Sheer beauty is profound throughout the rolling hills, inviting lush and aged timber, and the quaint windmills speckling the rolling skyline outlining occasional villages.
I had brought a book with me to read for the ride, which I supposed would be quite boring, but could not even get past the first page. Seriously, I felt like I was filming Julie Andrews as she sang “The hills are alive… with the sound of music!”
When I say “village,” I actually mean it. Often, it seems to me that people say they are from a village to denote a quaint (albeit often useless) place of habitation. However, whomever lives in these I saw on my ride from Trier, Germany’s oldest city, to Frankfurt Hahn (a key RyanAir hub), as absolute sovereignty in my mind to say village. A small cluster of houses, a church or two, and sometimes a windmill… and that’s IT. Farmland dominates the country, something I am used to in America but not in such quantities of beauty.
It was seriously surreal, being on a state-of-the-art bus coach driving along state-of-the-art two-lane roads (as Germany is famous for its wonderful roads), surrounded by the lushness of farming tradition. Think of history as we conceptualize it in America, then try to think of something ten times older. There are thus two different definitions of history: there’s old, and then there’s REALLY old. I could go on forever of this portion of my journey, which was equally beautiful during my return, but for now I will let it go.
Wait- one more thing: this wonderful bus was a stick-shift. I’ve never seen a stick shift bus before… random side note.
Upon reaching the Frankfurt Hahn Airport, I realized why these airlines can fly for so cheaply: for those who have been to the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, imagine a smaller, far less ritzy airport and then throw a bunch of Germans in it… and you have Frankfurt Hahn. But hey, considering I paid something like $75 for a round trip ticket to and from London, I have no complaints.
And remember: Frankfurt Hahn is not Frankfurt’s primary airport; each city typically has a “main” airport and one or two satellites where the “nobody” airlines serve. So, just because RyanAir says you’re flying into Venice, for example, don’t for a minute think that you’re actually in the heart of the city. Likely, you’ll be twenty kilometers or so out. Again, remember the price!
RyanAir itself, Europe’s leading “discount carrier,” has truly hilarious in-flight experiences. First, upon boarding you literally take a seat on a first-come, first-serve basis. I think it’s brilliant. The cabin itself is quite cramped, as you would expect on a cheap and short flight, but otherwise a solid aircraft. And, aside from constant announcements and advertising from RyanAir during the flight to buy random articles including scratch-off lottery tickets, the flight is just as you would expect on a Delta flight.
The funniest part of the whole flight is the way in which they advertise the articles they want patrons to buy. Drinks, for example: the punch line of the intercom advertisement? “So refresh yourself with one of our delicious beverages. Chillax.” I was amused.
The next funniest part: upon landing, they literally play the military-styled Bugle Call as you would hear waking up in the army. Hilarious.
London Stansted Airport is far superior to Frankfurt Hahn, but then again… it serves probably three times more airlines, even though they’re all discount airlines as well. STansted makes it easy to catch the cheap British trains virtually anywhere, being that the airport literally sits on top of the train station. I think I paid something like 13 pounds round trip from Stansted Airport to Leicester and back, which is roughly 2 hours each way. Not too shabby!
On the train, once again I was dumbfounded by the abundance of rural farmland; I just cannot fathom how Europeans have managed not to develop every square inch of land in urban sprawl as seems to be the intention of Americans. The particular train ride I took went through England’s East Midlands, which is very flat country; apparently, until relatively recently the entire area flooded each year, and only a handful of small towns dotted the landscape due to this. They called these towns, such as Ely (more on that later), “islands.” Literally, half of the year you could not get to the towns without a boat.
That being said, the countryside was beautiful, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say spectacular as the ride through Germany. However, I didn’t get to see much of the UK, so this is an uneducated argument on my part.
During this entire trip, I did something totally out of character for me: I read a book. Not just part of a book, an ENTIRE book. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 was my victim, and as you can imagine by someone such as myself who has barely the attention span to blink reading the entire novel, it was quite good! It’s good that I read it, too, being that I have a presentation on the class I’m taking on Vonnegut in Trier. How about that… I’ll actually do a report on something I’ve read for once!
England… well, it was amazing. That’s all I can really say. The weather was lacking, though; I left Trier in shorts and flip flops, and arrived in England to rain and cold which lingered almost my entire visit. I certainly couldn’t live in England, as neat as it is; gloomy weather is apparently quite common throughout much of the country, as is chilliness. Not my cup of tea, but great to visit!
Leicester, the town I stayed with my friend in, is a lovely little city of about 300,000 people. Shopping is EVERYWHERE; I felt as though I was in an old version of Atlanta. It still has history, as does most of England, but none compared to Cambridge, which I visited Saturday the 14th.
Funny story, that: my intention was to visit Turville, a small village in the district of Birminghamshire, but I made a mistake with the train stop to go to… and ended up literally in the middle of nowhere. It never occurred to me that there would be cities named the same thing in the UK, even though it’s quite common… everywhere. So, I went to the city which I thought was closest to Turville… only to find myself in a small small small village, smaller than Brooklet, Georgia, for those of you who have been there… literally two hours from my intended destination. Oops.
I called several taxis from the train station on a pay phone I found using my credit card (bad idea), but none of the companies had even heard of Turville. That’s when I realized my lurking feeling was true: I was in the totally wrong place. It was quite difficult to understand the taxi operators, too; this particular part of England hosts accents that are quite heavy.
I wanted to visit Turville because it is the village in which the British series “The Vicar of Dibley” and the 1968 film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” were filmed, and it would truly make my entire life to see it. Yes, I’m a materialistic American tourist, but hey… don’t judge. In any event, after my mistake I found the true location of it, and will visit when I go to London in August; it’s only an hour train ride from London, apparently.
So, in keeping with my spontaneous nature, I decided to take the advice of the couple standing in this random town I ended up in and return to the nearby “island city” of Ely. When I got there and realized I wouldn’t find a way to the real “Turville,” I noticed Cambridge was about 30 minutes train ride away and said… well, what the hell. So I went to Cambridge.
Excellent choice! I managed to strike luck and hit the city on the Saturday of the University’s graduation, so there were thousands of people walking about in traditional British graduation garb… quite lovely! I’ve never seen so many top hats in my life.
The city itself, as one would expect, was gorgeous; old architecture, a quaint river/stream, shops, and churches of all forms inhabit every corner of sight. I even visited the Cambridge Folk Museum, which was quite amusing in its relation of various witch hunts that had occurred in the area in years past, as well as the general historical points of Cambridge.
For example, apparently the University of Cambridge itself, in times far past, acted almost as the notorious controlling Catholic Church of the Middle Ages; the University controlled everything in the city until King Henry VIII decided it was not the right way to be. Imagine that.
Cambridge, like Birmingham which I visited the next day, showed me the predictability of English culture; everything is well preserved (well, mostly everything), and tradition overshadows the modernization of the nation. History and modernism are mixed exquisitely to the tune of a lovely city!
Although the cities themselves are predictable and tame, English weather is far from it. I’d go so far as to say the weather in that part of the country is truly bipolar; one minute, the sun would barely shine out from behind the clouds, and it would be quite warm. Thirty seconds later, the sun would hide again and it would seem to drop ten degrees. A minute later, it would start raining… and then the process would repeat. No one save me seemed to notice…
On the way back, I decided to actually get off the train and explore Ely, the city whose train station I had already visited three times that day. I could see a massive cathedral from the train station, and decided it was worth a look. Oh, am I glad I did! It was absolutely spectacular. Whereas I expected great things from Cambridge, I had no inclination of seeing anything better than a well-built church as it usually is in a small town. Ely, however, hosted this massive cathedral as a surprise, far larger than any cathedral I have seen in Europe thus. Another surprise lurking in the city, literally right next to the cathedral (about a 20 minute walk from the train station), was a home of Oliver Cromwell, leader of the short-lived Commonwealth of England. Who would have thought!
More specifically on Birmingham: it is only an hour-ish from Leicester, so it was an excellent day trip. It is the most American-feeling city I have visited thus, giving me the notion of New York City business mixed with the newness of Atlantian shopping. It also is host to several AWESOME concerts, which makes me quite jealous.
While in Leicester each evening, I pursued the usual University student activities: partying. One specific note on this: I went in what is likely the largest club I’ve ever seen in Leicester named Republic. It holds 4,000 people, almost exclusively students. It was insane! However, some random blonde girl stole my beloved hat, of which I am quite unhappy. Oh well, that just means I’ll have to go to Key West upon my return to America to get another one. J
All in all, England was lovely. Because I did not have time to visit London (a must as I am told), I am now planning to fly to London before flying home in August… likely somewhere around August 8. Tickets, although still absolutely ridiculous, are cheaper flying from London to Atlanta, than any others I can find presently, so I think it will be worth the trip.
As of about 30 minutes ago, I have decided to join a small group of people going to Belgium this weekend. We are splitting the cost of renting a car and riving to Brussels and Bruges, then staying a few nights in a cabin literally on the beach… I can’t think of a much better thing to do! It will be my first road trip, so we shall see how it goes…
I’m sure I’ve forgotten much, but in the event I remember any more I’ll try to update in subsequent posts. For now, my battery is about to die and I have about 1,200 pictures to sort through. I’ll post links to some from my Facebook albums soon!
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