Category Archives: Travel

A great and terrible beauty, and: why we visit graves

Posted on by under Chronicled Adventures, Observations and Reflections, Travel

I have visited cities where it is great fun to be a capital-“T” Tourist.

Here I am eating pizza on Wall Street in New York City, wearing a dumb Statue of Liberty headpiece. (about as touristy as it gets)

Paris, however, is not one of those cities. Being a solo female tourist in Paris is daunting. Walking down boulevard de Rochechouart, where my hostel is, I found that eyes tended to linger on me—something I’m not accustomed to—and I figured that I must either be very beautiful or very strange to the Parisians, neither of those being particularly reassuring. I am lucky in that I generally don’t live/work in a place frequented by catcallers, so until being in Paris, I never had to learn how to deal with them.

On the British isles, I could fake being a local. I could pass off as one: I even got asked for directions a few times, and I could even give it. But Paris was impenetrable to me. It was partly the language, partly the solitude, the timidity that makes me stick out like a sore thumb.

I dreamt of Paris for so long, and I was so determined to crack it. I was determined to find some kind of home in Paris, like I found in all the other cities I visited. I kept remembering the conversation I had with my flatmate Alex in Edinburgh, when I shared my travel plans post-Scotland. When she found out I was going to Paris, she asked me, “Do you idealize Paris?” Such an oddly phrased question and it rang in my head the whole time I toured the city, once I finally got there. I began to realize that my idealization of Paris was preventing me from truly knowing it: there was  Paris in my head, and it was different from the Paris I was experiencing.

I never thought of Paris as being hot and humid, or smelly and crowded. I never thought of the way scammers are quick to spot tourists and take advantage of them. I never imagined being in Paris with hardly a euro to spend, so sick that I could hardly walk in the heat without getting lightheaded, getting up in the middle of the night in my hostel bed because I couldn’t stop coughing.

All this being said, I still want to and believe I can feel at home in Paris. I’d love to wake up in a little Parisian apartment, with the doors open to a Juliet balcony with flowers blooming on the railing. I’d love to ride a bike down to la boulangerie ou la fleuriste and carry a bag of baguettes or bouquet of cut flowers in my arms. I would love to be able to talk to the locals fearlessly in French. Paris was still beautiful to me, and thinking about it now that I am home, I know that when I go back to Paris, I will be ready for her.

On my last full day in Europe, I visited the Père Lachaise cemetery and mused on how quickly the last two months went by. I had seen and done so much, met so many people, that the 7 and a half weeks somehow also managed to seem like it wasn’t a long enough time. And yet the trip that I’d been dreaming about for more than year had come and gone so quickly.

At the cemetery, I visited Oscar Wilde’s grave and memorial, and I kept thinking about a class I had taken with Dr. Miranda Burgess in second year, where she shared pictures of Oscar Wilde’s memorial on her own visit to Paris. I remember her asking the class why we thought people visited graves. I don’t remember the conclusion of that discussion except that it seemed like Miranda was never satisfied with our suggestions.

It occurred to me that day that the whole trip had been structured around exploring a big graveyard of European history, art, culture, and literature. All the places I’d visited were rich with past lives, past moments, and memories.

But in between visiting Shakespeare’s grave in late May and Oscar Wilde’s in early July, I’d managed to also live, and find life. I’d met so many cool people with interesting, funny things to say about places they had come from, had been, and will go to. I had reached my own conclusions about how to live my own life, to make my own art, to write and tell my own story.

So, Dr. Burgess, maybe that’s why we visit graves. A reason to go to a place, but with the hope—and expectation—that we discover something entirely different from the reason we came. I know that’s what happened for me.

Dublin, where solo travel became social travel

Posted on by under Books, Chronicled Adventures, Travel

Every blog post I’ve written for every destination was first written in my journal. Because I was only in Dublin for three days and was very social for all three of those days, I never actually had time to write about Dublin in my journal. Now, two weeks later, I have to write about it from scratch, because it certainly won’t do to not have a blog post on Dublin. I think, had I not come straight from Edinburgh, Dublin probably would have been my favourite city on my trip to Europe.

If you know me, you know I am not a drinker. I am highly suspicious of what alcohol does to me (and have in fact never explored that fully), and for that reason I only like to drink with people I know, and then especially people I trust. Now, combine that with what you know about Dublin and the Irish, and what should have happened is that I spent my days in Dublin being extremely uncomfortable. That’s what I would have thought, anyway, and because that’s kind of what drinking in Vancouver is like: if everyone else is drinking and you’re not, it’s a little harder to have a good time.

But while the Dubliners certainly appreciated their drink (I found a number of posters throughout my hostel about the best ways to get over a hangover), the drinking culture seemed different from what I’m used to in Canada. It seemed as though the Irish didn’t need to be drunk to have a good time—which was lucky for me, because as it turned out, my experience in Dublin turned out to be all about the people. I was never lonely, which explains why there was never a journal entry written in that lovely city.

My new friend Grace (hi, Grace!) is American, but you wouldn’t have thought so as we ran all over Dublin together. I wasn’t sure if I was going to write about her in this blog post, but as I say, my experience in Dublin was all about people, and since I spent a good chunk of my time in Dublin with Grace, it seems right that I talk about her a little. Extremely social and extraverted, unafraid of the drink, and redheaded to boot, travelling with Grace felt like exploring Dublin with a local.

She also enriched my visit to the Guinness Storehouse, a place I probably wouldn’t have been so keen to visit had Grace not been with me. If it turned out I didn’t have enough funds to do everything I wanted, Guinness probably would have been the first to go, but boy, am I glad I went. Other than having a fantastic view of Dublin, the Storehouse truly felt like Disneyland for beer lovers, and you don’t have to be a beer lover to recognize it.

A friend spent some time in Dublin shortly before I arrived there (hi, Xandrina!) and she said to me that the Irish were so nice, and that it seemed much more genuine than the Canadian nice. Now, I love Canada, and I had only been in England and Scotland during that point in my trip, so I didn’t like the idea that the Irish were nicer than Canadians, but the Irish are truly some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met, in addition to being some of the funniest. The Irish seem to have truly mastered the art of socializing.

What I discovered in Dublin is that there is a verifiable Irishness to the people; it was something I picked up on reading W.B. Yeats’ poetry and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest but could not quite put my finger on until I had experienced Dublin for myself. There is truly this incredible sense of belonging to a people and to a place which has not been home to the happiest of histories, but has fostered a sharp wit and easy humour. These people are as quick to laugh as they are quick to drink, and their hospitality is almost excessive and yet somehow so genuine. As I left Dublin, and eventually Europe, I read Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (a book I picked up at a bookstore by the River Liffey after having visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral, of which Swift was a dean) and was struck, again, by how strikingly Irish these writers are. I bought a book each from England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, to act as a souvenir of the place that I had visited, to help me remember the sense of Stratford-upon-Avon, Edinburgh, Dublin, or Paris. Although I didn’t get much of a sense of Dublin from Gulliver’s Travels, I got so much of a sense of the Irish people, and rightly so, because the Irish people truly are what made Dublin so great for me.

A love letter to Edinburgh

Posted on by under Travel

I hardly know where to start with Edinburgh. It’s silly, but honestly: I had to redo my Instagram captions so many times because there was just so many things I wanted to say about the city that could not be condensed into a single caption. Even though I have a full blog post to rave about it, I still don’t know where to start.

I worry about taking Nate to Edinburgh, because I love Edinburgh, and I want him to understand why I love it so much, but I feel like I cannot quite put into words why I love the city so much. I loved London for its culture—art, theatre, literature, all displayed for you to fully appreciate. But I can’t quite distill Edinburgh like that. Here is my best effort:

I told Asa that I think Edinburgh is a young person’s city. I’m sure people who live there all their lives are content, but I can’t see myself doing that. It’s a place to be inspired… to write, travel, make art, think deeply, walk for hours, try different kinds of food, meet different kinds of people, learn different languages, read more books. And then you leave, and you’re a better person for it. And you’re obliged to share your Edinburgh with the world.

It is a city that is somehow quiet yet lively. When the city is awake, it is filled with life, but it is also a city that sleeps peacefully. You can have a good time, but you won’t worry about finding quiet places, either.

It is a people’s city, free from big corporations and instead littered with shops that seem to mostly be a circulation of possessions, a sharing of lives and experiences. Locals own and run coffee shops and restaurants, but “local” has a fluid meaning in Edinburgh.

The Scottish accent in Edinburgh is hardly discernible because it almost always isn’t just Scottish. It’s mixed with French, British English, American English, Middle Eastern, Asian, and as a result you can’t really be sure what “local” means. Edinburgh is a city of more than just Lothian, or Scotland, or Europe: it is verifiably a city of the world.

And yet, Edinburgh manages to be so proud of its Scottish history, of its position with regard to British and world history. It embraces its geniuses: Hume, Rowling, Scott, Stevenson, Burns. It remembers them.

And it is so, so beautiful. Edinburgh is a city that aged so gracefully it wants you to know how old it really is. (Very.) It’s a city of big windows, old faded brick, beautiful skies, rippling blades of grass, cobblestone roads, narrow closes, and garden squares on every block. It is no surprise to me that it was the first UNESCO City of Literature, because how could it not be?

How could you not be inspired to write by its highs and lows, changing vistas, and tapestry of people—of different colours, backgrounds, cultures? In Edinburgh, one is almost duty-bound to write.

When I told Alex I couldn’t quite put my love for Edinburgh into words, she pointed out—and I agree—that you have to breathe Edinburgh. You have to breathe that Scottish air.

Dear, stunning, magical Edinburgh.

Arthur’s Seat, or: reasons why I’d like to be a seagull

Posted on by under Chronicled Adventures, Travel

After spending some time sitting on the very top of the Arthur’s Seat, my flatmates and I began the walk back down to the city and mused on the types of birds we’d like to be. A pelican, a vulture, an owl, and me, a seagull.

The more I see of Edinburgh, the more I love it. I have never known a city so widely loved, and I knew that it would be wonderful before I even arrived. Whenever I told people who’d lived in Edinburgh before that I was going to be in Edinburgh for the summer, their eyes lit up. I’d met friends who could talk and talk and talk about the city, about places to see and eat and drink and enjoy. Los Angeles, Paris, New York City, and London do not even receive that response. Imagine: here is this humble Scottish city, so loved, obscuring such metropolitan giants.

I continued to fall in love with Edinburgh as my view of it became more and more panoramic approaching the top of Arthur’s Seat. The day that we went was about as perfect a day as you can get in Edinburgh to hike up Arthur’s Seat. It’s a very rewarding hike because you can see your destination from every point along the trail, and on that day, it was very windy and quite sunny, but with very fast-moving clouds, so just when we felt like we were exerting ourselves, there would be some wind to cool us off.

And, of course, the view was… almost unbeatable. Anyone who knows me knows that I swear by the beauty of Vancouver, that nothing can beat it, but Edinburgh made a good case for itself that day. Already out of breath from hoofing it up the hill, the view of Edinburgh from almost-the-top took my breath away. I know people tend to take that phrase for granted—”take your breath away”—but I learned on that day that there are such views that can actually do that.

The winds were incredibly strong. Even in the streets of the city, it was very windy. At the top, the winds were strong that I would have to get my balance every time I stood up or took a step. A person generally only has two hands at their disposal: one to hold their hair back as they take a selfie, the other to take a selfie! However those winds were so strong that my selfie ended up looking like this:

But hey, it isn’t about my face, it’s about that amazing view.

The only times I took a bus out of Edinburgh were to leave it; I arrived by train and walked everywhere I went in the city. Anyone will tell you that it is a very walkable city, which gives the illusion that Edinburgh is quite a small city, but from up there, you could see the city truly sprawling, radiating around Arthur’s Seat out into the green Scottish countryside and out into the North Sea.

At the top of Arthur’s Seat, birds with their wings outspread seemed not to be able to get anywhere unless the wind was also going that direction. Crows trembled midair, as if on some kind of windy treadmill, and smaller birds were nowhere in sight that high up. But seagulls… seagulls rode the wind with ease, and for that I envy them.

In Berwick-upon-Tweed, a seaside town occupying the northeastern-most corner of England, there were these tiny birds that flew in circles because they would fly away from the beach and be forced back toward the water by the wind. I felt like a Disney princess, because they were basically flying in circles around me. At the same time, I felt distinctly that it must be rather frightening to be so weightless that you cannot control your own direction.

Seeing seagulls when I first arrived in Edinburgh reminded me that I was close to the water again, just like at home in Vancouver. I love that you can see seagulls in the city, but they also—by their very name—belong to the sea. And yet, they are birds before anything else. I envy and admire a creature that can belong to the earth, wind, and sea; it’s also a creature that, like me, finds home by the water.

Everywhere I’ve gone in Scotland where I’ve been struck by incredible beauty—the cliffs on the Isle of Skye, Glen Coe in the highlands, and of course, Arthur’s Seat—I’ve found seagulls. Feet (and tour guides who make you stop looking at Glen Coe so that you can move onto your next stop) seem to be such an inconvenience whenever I watch seagulls. As we made our way back down from Arthur’s Seat, they continued circling the peak. On another day, as I forced myself back to the tour bus, a seagull flew over the pathway deeper into the glen. Couldn’t I just be a seagull and weave between mountains and rivers and fairy falls forever?

I could literally see my house from here!

Dealing with language barriers

Posted on by under Observations and Reflections, Travel

My relationship with the English language is complicated. For one thing, I love it: I study English language and literature and enjoy doing so, and I also speak, think, and dream in English. However, I also speak English because my parents brought me to a land colonized by people who spoke English and forced English upon the peoples indigenous to that land. Furthermore, I myself was born and spent much of my childhood in a colonized country where many different languages and dialects are spoken, where speaking English is attached to a certain kind of person, and being “inglesera” is usually not said with fondness.

I find myself confronting every facet of my complicated relationship with the English language while I am abroad, despite the fact that I am visiting not only an English-speaking country, but England itself. In every corner of Britain that I have visited so far, I have been forced to face the fact that the way I speak and the words I use betray me as a foreigner.

Something an American tourist told me in Glasgow about an interaction she’d had with a native Scot:

“Accent? I don’t have an accent, you have an accent!”

My philosophy about being a tourist is that I enjoy being a tourist: I don’t shy away from big tourist spots like Buckingham Palace or the Brooklyn Bridge, and I bristle when people complain that these places are “flooded with tourists” and complaining while they are tourists themselves, but I also dislike looking like a tourist, especially as a solo traveller. So, I do not dress like a backpacker, I don’t carry around a camera, and I avoid paper maps like the plague, but I find that my accent betrays me. I am not usually shy when interacting with strangers, but I found myself suddenly speaking quietly whenever I had to interact with native Londoners, because I was so aware that my rhotic dialect makes me stand out in conversation.

Something I overheard in London, said by someone with a North American accent:

“The French could speak English, but they choose not to.”

Collectively, my flat-mates have a working understanding of upwards of eight languages. Having grown up somewhat bilingual, but never having learned a language to a working proficiency (we’ll find out how functional my French is when I visit Paris in July), I have so much admiration for people who learn languages in their adulthood. I have especial admiration for people who learn English, which has rules that even I am still learning, and—as my flat-mate aptly put it—is “so idiomatic”.

The problem with English being so widely spoken, so dominant, is that it does not give native speakers much reason to learn other languages. My multilingual European flat-mates, upon listening to me and my American dialect pine for the knowledge of other languages, say: “But you speak English!” as if it’s enough, and I suppose it is, and yet I know that it isn’t.

More things I’ve heard:

  • From a Spaniard working in Glasgow hoping to work in Canada someday: “I came to Scotland to improve my English for when I move to Canada, but the Scottish accents… … whenever I meet an American or a Canadian I love listening to them talk!”
  • From my mom, to her goddaughter raised in England: “Do you have an accent?! Jia says you have an accent.”
  • From an American tourist in Glasgow: “Now… I mean… I hope this doesn’t offend you, but… I’m sorry, I don’t think you have a Canadian accent at all!”
  • And finally, on an episode of Rick and Morty, which I was watching thanks to my flatmates: “As they say in Canada, peace oot!”

A blog post written by nostalgia, gratefulness, and wanderlust

Posted on by under Observations and Reflections, Travel

This was written on the day of, but hours before, the recent terror attacks in London, in particular at Borough Market.

Over the past few days, I have had a lot about big moments, seen a lot of impressive sights, and been to many meaningful places, and certainly when I think back on my first time in London, I will probably remember seeing the Rosetta Stone, or the incredible way that Westminster Abbey and its stunning architecture made me feel (i.e., very religious, more than I’ve felt in my life), or sitting in the Palace Theatre watching a show that I never imagined being able to get tickets to see.

But when I tell you that I love London, I want you to know that I fell in love with London in the moments of solitude and quiet found between those big moments as much as I fell in love in those big moments. I loved learning the art of navigating the tube, finding home in the ability to traverse London’s underground maze. I loved sitting atop a double decker bus and watching people and black cabs hurry by modern shops housed in old buildings. I fell in love with London sitting with food from Pret in the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral, leaning against the trunk of an oak in Hyde Park with my journal in my lap, or sitting on the banks of the Thames with a “butty” from Borough Market and a view of Tower Bridge.

It was hard to be alone, but London was undoubtedly one of the best places for me to learn how to be alone. Leading up to this trip, I made a point to spend time with all of my favourite people, and after each of those times, I reflected on how much I valued each of them, and how sorry I was to be leaving them, how grateful I was for their genuine excitement for me. Now that I am away from my friends and family, however, I find the feelings and thoughts I directed towards them being reflected back onto myself. I am learning how to spend time with myself and how to value myself.

The solitude also gave me ample room to meet new people, to accept the friendliness of strangers. My first hostel experience was certainly not luxurious comfort, and I did not expect it to be. I am excited to have my own room again, and I will not miss having to open so many doors just to use the toilet, or having to fish my belongings not only out of a suitcase but unlock it from a locker. Despite the many things I didn’t like about staying in a hostel, however, I cannot imagine staying anywhere else anytime soon—not only for the economic benefits of staying in a hostel, but for the people I was able to meet and the conversations I was able to have with them. I am grateful for those people—a local from Kent, a seasoned traveller from Australia, girls from South Carolina studying abroad, a man from Virginia finishing a doctorate in Britain with good things to say about the UC system, and a fellow Canadian (albeit from the opposite coast) beginning a new chapter of her life in London.

Being surrounded by people from all over in a new place also gave me appreciation for the ability to truthfully say, “I am from Canada.” I’ve found that it’s a privilege to be able to make that claim; saying it never failed to bring delight to the people I met. I am so lucky to be able to pack Canada’s international reputation with me on my travels. Interestingly, however, one morning I braided my hair and the cafeteria lady at the hostel asked me how I did it, and commented that she has to ask a relative to braid her hair for her. When she said that the relative was from the Philippines, I said, “Oh, that’s where I’m from!” I didn’t think anything of it at the time when I said it, but later I mulled over this gift of mine, to be from two places.

As I get closer and closer to Scotland, and the plains are becoming increasingly hillier and mountainous, I realized that despite my bouts of loneliness in London, I will miss that city. Around three or four days into my London adventure, I found that I wasn’t sure what to do with my time, but now that I’m gone, I can’t help feeling like I’ve only barely scratched the surface, that I desperately need more time, even with the six days I spent there—a longer stay than those of many of the travellers I met.

What I’m discovering with travel is that I rarely visit a place, and then leave it feeling finished. I am never finished in Los Angeles; on top of visiting my family, I always find there are a number of reasons to go back. There will always be shows to see and food to eat in New York City, and we still haven’t been up the Empire State Building. I haven’t visited the Strand bookstore in the City, either. I still have to see all the parks in Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando. And now, as I leave London, I am leaving with a to do list to be put on hold until I’m able to go back.

Still, in the event that I am never able to go back to these places, I know that I loved each of those cities as fully as I could while I was in them. I will surely remember all the big moments—climbing to the Hollywood sign, watching Wicked for the first time, seeing Hogwarts from the back of a fish in Seussland—but I have left these places knowing that I relished in the little moments, too. Those, I don’t need to remember. They exist fully and completely in their own present, and I am grateful that I lived in those moments.

Brush strokes and spit

Posted on by under Books, Chronicled Adventures, Travel

Looking upon Vincent van Gogh’s paintings for the first time, I found myself incredibly moved. In a gallery of paintings and portraits featuring naked babies or figures from myth and legend, I was so drawn—perhaps inexplicably—to van Gogh’s Long Grass with Butterflies, Van Gogh’s Chair, or (my favourite) Sunflowers.

In Nottingham, I watched my new friend (a visual artist) peer closely at the paintings in the museums at Oxford. When I asked her why, she explained that she was interested in the brush strokes and how smooth they were. With that being said, and upon closer inspection, I realized that what I was looking at was actually manufactured light and shadow, that brush strokes should be evident, though they weren’t unless you looked closely.

Among other reasons, perhaps exceptionally thick brush strokes were why I was so drawn to van Gogh’s paintings. My first thought, almost exactly, was “Like a child.” Looking at van Gogh’s art, I found myself thinking of children finger painting with reckless abandon. I felt like the paintings evoked a sense of desperate aliveness, in contrast to what I knew about van Gogh’s life. (Thanks, Doctor Who.) More than that, van Gogh’s attention to colour was nothing else like I’d seen: I tired of the chiaroscuro style I saw in the previous gallery with Rembrandt, where I couldn’t see certain parts of the painting depending on the gallery light and where I was standing (and I liked to stand close to paintings now, to see brushstrokes, as you know). With van Gogh, everything is bright no matter where you stand… even the darkness, somehow.

I truly appreciated that everyone was drawn to Sunflowers. For a man with such a turbulent life to be remembered for the sunniest of paintings… I was so moved, so grateful that I got to be one of those people drawn to the simple vase of flora, to look so closely that I can see his brush strokes.

I wasn’t expecting to love Shakespeare’s Globe as much as I do. Watching Twelfth Night was not as I expected—for one thing, the show was quite a diversion from the original text—but I was delighted nonetheless, and watching the play was certainly worth standing for hours. (Although I might splurge on a ticket with a seat next time.)

The experience was a marriage of my top interests during my grade 12 year of high school, which was composed of late nights at the theatre and taking as many English courses as my school allowed. Because of this, my younger self was having a grand ol’ time at the Globe, although my current self certainly was, too. The Globe’s production of Twelfth Night turns the play into somewhat of a triple threat exhibition, and I was happy to be able to marvel at the amazing dance and song as much as their acting.

Anyone who knows me knows that my favourite thing, in general, comes in any form of top-notch storytelling, which Twelfth Night certainly was. You don’t have to understand Elizabethan or Shakespearean English to laugh at the jokes, to cry when the characters cry, to feel the sense of dramatic urgency or irony that the play creates. So the production was a success in my books.

I’ve discovered that the experience of art at its best is necessarily intimate. Leaning against the Globe stage, I could look into Orsino’s eyes, see Malvolio’s feet shuffle with every stressed syllable, hear Maria’s voice from her mouth rather than the speakers, even see Feste spit out his words on every bilabial stop. (Thanks, ENGL 330, for teaching me about bilabial stops.) These moments were when I forgot how tired I was, how much I wanted to sit down. Being so close to see eyeliner, or nylon stockings, for only £5!

Although I can’t believe I come across toilets that cost (only 20p, but still!) to use, or that some restaurants charge more for sitting down at one of their tables, I love London for the culture it shares so generously. I didn’t have to pay a penny to see van Gogh, and I’ve paid more for some meals than I did to see such an excellent production of a Shakespeare play on the very site where Shakespeare himself once stood. And for that, I may have to forgive London for charging to use toilets or eat in at restaurants.

All of these towns I’ve never heard of, racing past

Posted on by under Books, Observations and Reflections, Travel

Inside the train, up through the glass
My finger tracing
All of these towns I’ve never heard of racing past

– Amelie, “Times Are Hard for Dreamers”

Sitting alone, waiting for my train at Nottingham Station to depart for London St. Pancras, I find myself feeling rather anxious again. The comfort that I found in Nottingham with family friends, while reassuring when I was there, now produces an opposing effect as I leave them behind. I am finding that the freedom of travel—which I longed for so much a month ago while my mom was planning the family trip to Los Angeles—is overwhelming and frightening.

If home is found in the crevices of human experience, homesickness is most certainly found in the expanses of suitcase living: sharing a room, having to take toiletries with you to the bathroom and back, not being able to leave your belongings lying about. (Mommy, if you’re reading this: I leave my room messy because that’s just part of the experience of being at home!) I am excited to be able to leave my toothbrush on the bathroom counter, to unpack my clothes from my suitcase. (Maybe long-term solo travel isn’t for me after all. How distressing.)

For the first time since landing in England, it is dark and gloomy today, which reminds me of home and certainly helps me feel less anxious. With the greenery of the English countryside dampened by rainfall, England looks more and more familiar to my beloved Pacific Northwest.

Speaking of the English countryside, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’ve never really felt like calling Vancouver the big city before, but having spent some time in Nottingham, I suddenly feel like quite a city girl. I love the outdoors, the open sky, seeing farm animals, and narrow, winding dirt roads, but I am excited to be in the city again—thus confirming for me once again that Vancouver, a city in between city and country, is truly the most perfect place for me.

Having said that, though, I don’t think I can stress enough how much the English midlands and the English countryside felt like home to me. As we drove back from Chatsworth House, widely believed to be the inspiration for Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (one of my favourite books), I looked around at the grids of farmland separated by stone walls and hedges and I found myself thinking about Dr. Dalziel’s Honours seminar on storytelling, and Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd.

When I visited New York City, I was in the middle of reading Edward Rutherfurd’s monster book New York, and I felt familiar with NYC because of that book (and, of course, all of the movies and clichés), but what I feel in England is a truly different level. So many of the works that I’ve loved for so long, or have studied intensely—Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, Far from the Madding Crowd, Shakespeare’s plays and poetry—were set in England. British authors seem to have truly taken the advice “write what you know” to heart, and with this beautiful place, they had good reason to.

What I’ve found in the crevices of human experience

Posted on by under Observations and Reflections, Travel

Before I left, whenever I told people I was worried about possibly feeling homesick, almost every single person told me that I would be having way too much fun to be homesick.

I am not writing to say that those people are wrong, exactly… though I’ve been quite busy exploring, and having fun doing so, there are still other moments. When I am visiting tourist attractions, I am certainly not homesick, but during other moments, I still find myself at home, quite unexpectedly.

I have found home here, on the other side of the world, within the crevices of human experience. I have tasted home and the cooking of mom at home in the familiar Filipino dishes of Tita Ma’an’s making. While waiting for buses at bus stops on the wrong side of the street or standing on moving trains, I am transported to Lougheed Town Centre, to a moving sky train on the Millennium Line. Walking into Waterstones, even with my allergies (or “hay fever”) stuffing my nose, I find that all bookstores manage to smell exactly the same. At a public session at an ice rink, there is always that one guy on hockey skates going recklessly fast, cutting me off.

There are moments when I think about the comfort of my own bed at home, of the freedom to waste time or to watch Netflix or wander into a pantry and eat whatever’s in there, and during those moments I feel a little sad. Still, I find that I am reassured by the commonalities of living; I am so grateful for these commonalities, and to Tita Ma’an and her family for making me feel at home here in Britain, and I think it will help me through my own adventures, by making Britain feel far less foreign to me.

This must be what Tinder dating feels like

Posted on by under Observations and Reflections, Travel

Being in England for me is like coming across a creature you’ve only seen in dreams, or perhaps only online. Everything feels vaguely familiar. The hills and plant life look like those of home, so when I don’t look far into the distance as we roll along the motorways of the English countryside, I feel like I am home. I’ve also lived certain aspects of British living from books I’ve read, as many of us probably have: “loos” and “lifts”, great halls, double decker buses, trains rolling across British fields.

But of course, “visions are seldom all they seem”. I think that when visions manifest themselves in reality, the small details reveal themselves—even the ugly details. Much like how I imagine Tinder dating is like, places, like people, are rarely encapsulated sufficiently in photos and lines of text.

I came to the motherland of my academic discipline and my strongest language fully aware of the men (and, I suppose, women) who left this very land to conquer, collect, and colonize lands like the home from which I came. From my first glimpse at English land from above, as my plane landed at Gatwick airport, I looked down at the parcelled grid of farmland, remembering instantly that British colonizers forced that method of farming upon the Indigenous peoples of North America, whose method of farming the settlers ignored or disregarded.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling excited about finally being in the Old World. I was excited to touchdown on a continent I’d never been to, to get to know a country and culture I’ve only known secondhand, represented with purpose (à la Tinder). With the nagging thought that I was arriving in the region of the world from which North America’s original colonizers came, I continued on my British adventures anyway.

This feeling of dissonance didn’t go away; in fact, as we explored the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (already a problematic label on its own) and the Pitt Rivers Museum within it, I found myself and my experiences at odds with my values. Spanning all floors of the Pitt Rivers Museum—a large room with upper level floors overlooking the main floor below—was a Haida Gwaii totem pole, overlooking the maze of glass cases housing all kinds of archaeological artifacts, including masks, clothing, toys, weapons, and so on, of the Haida Gwaii people.

I wondered at a sign overlooking the room describing the totem pole as something that was “discouraged” by the missionaries who settled in North America, and sent totem poles and other similar meaningful pieces to be ogled at in the Old World—as I myself was doing at that moment—where the impression of Indigenous peoples becomes that of the Dead or Vanishing Indian. As I admired cases of various dolls, coins, or bows and arrows, I felt distinctly uncomfortable at the placement of cultural artifacts from the distant past beside the cultural treasures of the strong, living peoples of today.

At this point in the Tinder date, England seems to be saying somewhat problematic things, but not so offensive that it ruins the whole date; given the fact that England is so aesthetically pleasing, some potentially dubious comments can be disregarded at this point.

But then, England doesn’t hold the door open. As my awed eyes looked up at buildings from the past, admiring the unique architecture, my tired legs strolled along Oxford’s narrow walkways and unevenly paved streets, climbed up and down stairs or superfluous steps. All this difficulty, for those in wheelchairs and such, for the purpose of preserving old beauty.

Despite all this, I am captivated by the old beauty. This world is resilient, built by brick and stone and weathered by time. I am intrigued by its longevity, tradition, and I hunger for the thoughts born into people who walked these streets.

Despite its faults, England is still beautiful. England is very human. Stunning, awe inspiring, but equally fallible, and simultaneously so… containing multitudes, as humans do, and in more ways than one.

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