England with Mother

I woke up about a month ago with the strong feeling that I never wanted to leave England. I had fallen madly in love with it. I loved their strange place names like "Basingstoke" and "Cockfosters." I loved their adherence to tradition at all costs. I loved the brilliant and incomprehensible color of green that comes out when the sun shines on the grass. But most of all, I love the people. British people get bad rap, but they're some of the funniest, kindest people you will encounter (now the Italians, those are some truly unsavory people.) England is in almost all respects, a perfect country. Except for one thing; all of my friends and family live an ocean and a continent away, in California.

Now I love California too. It's the best state in the Union in my opinion, but I've always had an Old World soul. Ask any of my friends. No really. I organized and successfully threw a tea party for my fourth grade teacher. Of course this is undeniably significant of my billboard-sized homosexuality, but I think this also speaks to a love of the eccentricities of Europe. And also a love of cake (it always comes back to food here on my blog, have no doubts about that.)

Up until my epiphany I had alternated between being homesick and being in love with England, the kind of love that they have in the movies, a love to rock the ages. Jack and Rose, Scarlett and Rhett, Adam and the British Isles. But I also had been having recurring dreams where I was able to fly back to California for a weekend and visit all my friends and family (and dogs.) I missed them terribly. But on the morning of my epiphany, I felt like I would be able to live an ocean and a continent away from them.

And then my mother came. I love my mother, everyone does. She's effortlessly lovable and genuine to the core. She taught me to love all things kitsch and camp, something so few appreciate these days. She's a wacky woman. Until she visited me in England, my mom had never had a passport and excepting Hawaii, she had never left the North American continent.

Walking around London with my mom was a different experience. She travels differently than I do. Whereas I often want to get to my destination as quickly as possible, my mother wants to explore every nook and cranny along the way, which makes you find things you didn't see. In Bath she and my cousin found locks along canals. She chatted up one of the other tourists on the walking tour and found out about a restaurant famous for its buns that we later went to and enjoyed.

And as I traveled with her, I remembered all the things I loved about California; the hodge-podge of Los Angeles, the hippie elegance of San Francisco, the poppies that bloom along the five in Spring, the oranges in my hometown of Redlands.

As we took the elevator (that is one word I simply cannot let go of, it is not a "lift" and it never will be) up from the Tube, my mom handed me an orange that she had picked from the tree in our yard. They say that the sense of smell triggers more memories than any other sense, and as I lifted the orange to my nose and dug my nail into it, my love of California came flooding back to me. Earthquakes, Mexican food, driving, traffic, all my friends, all my family, all my dogs! It had been so long since I'd had proper fruit that had been grown and allowed to ripen under legitimate sunlight. How could I even think of living anywhere else?

And now I'm of two minds. There's the part of me that loves California and shorts and oranges and the way the sun turns everything golden early in the morning. And then there's the part of me that loves England and it's ancientness and traditions and vaguely socialist democracy. And it's weird, to feel simultaneously homesick and content with where I am. My alternating feelings I had before my epiphany have now synthesized into some strange alloy and I don't know how I feel anymore.

But what I do know is this; I have two months left here in England, and I'm going to have the most amazing time living in a place that I love and that will have a very large piece of my heart. And then I'm going to go back home to California, a place that I also love, that also takes up a large part of my heart. And so when it comes time to leave England, and give up my overseas address and overseas mobile number and the amazing feeling that come from being international and having an accent, I'm happy to be giving it up for a place that I love just as much.

Back to the Capital!

The strangest things about living in England, is that London is only a two hour train ride away.

It's not a matter of being close to a big city, or even a global city. I live an hour away from Los Angeles, a world city in its own right. It's that Los Angeles,was never the seat of a vast imperial empire that at its height owned nearly two thirds of the planet. It's being two hours away from THE global city.

The National Theatre is an amazing place. We have one in the States, but it's not publicly funded, so the name is a bit of a misnomer. I corralled two of my UC friends into going to see Twelfth Night with me. We had to read it for our class, and the production was going to be good, Sir Peter Hall was directing, and his daughter, Rebecca Hall, was playing Viola. Tickets were sold out but apparently that doesn't mean anything here, because we got obscured-view tickets for £10, and when we got there, people were still buying tickets mere minutes before the show was going to start (of course, as we learned later, not all obscured-view seats are created equal.)

This is Kelsey. She's sassy. We left for London at about eleven, and our friend Ashley left at noon (We weren't sure if Ashley was coming when we bought the train tickets, otherwise we would have waited the hour for her.) I bought a bacon sandwich on the train. And may I just say that, as much as it shames me, English bacon blows American bacon out of the water. And they do not mess around with their bacon sandwiches. Bread, bacon, other bread. Done. Kelsey would have none of it because she's a vegetarian. Everyone's a vegetarian these days. It breaks my heart (or perhaps it's just all the English bacon... or the cake balls... or the cupcake\macaron\donut combination that you will see in a few moments.)

This is a TARDIS. Apparently. They're from Dr. Who, which I don't watch but would like to. Kelsey brought us here because she loves Dr. Who. In doing this, Kelsey has shown that she is more of a nerd than even I am. I will never forgive her for that.

Me being me, we of course had to go to somewhere and get overpriced food. The whole impetus for Harrod's was that you could literally get anything. If you wanted an elephant, they would get you an elephant. I'm almost certain that there are shadowy departments in the basement where you can have people killed, right next to the yacht salesman.

This being the case, Harrod's has a Krispy Kreme. Right next to Laduree. I took Art History in high school, and as such, whenever something so sublime is juxtaposed with something so mundane, I must assume that it is a sign. A sign that I also needed a donut. They don't have them here. Or they do, but not in the quantity or quality that we have them in California. Sure you can get a donut at Tesco, but it's not going to have the luscious airiness or the paradoxically soft crispness that donuts made by Asian immigrants do. Not that Krispy Kreme is in any way a good substitute for these donuts, but nostalgia forced me to do it.

We then made our way to the thee-ay-tah. That's Ashley in front of the London Eye. If there's one thing I love as much as food, it's the thee-ay-tah. I plan my life around my theatre tickets, and expect others to do the same. When I have tickets for a show that I really want to go see, I'll have nightmares where I somehow forget to go. I'll check the tickets daily just to make sure I've made arrangements for the right day. I think this is a healthy way of living.

For nearly as long as I've been obsessed with theatre, I've heard about the National Theatre in London. The History Boys and Amadeus premiered here, Angels in America premiered here before it even made it to Broadway. Just about every great modern director has worked here, Peter Brook, Peter Hall, and of course, Laurence Olivier. This is a theatre-nut's Jerusalem.

We went in, got our tickets, took our seats, and waited. I was nervous. I'm always nervous when I sit down to see something I'm really excited for. Sometimes the cast just isn't feeling it, or your dinner isn't sitting right in your stomach, or the director didn't consider that not everyone will be sitting front row center. It's so hard to get that alchemy that makes the theatre so addicting. But the play started, and it was so magical.

Shakespeare plays are often done with a "concept" in mind. They transpose the action to modern times or to Mussolini's Italy or to Jamaica. The whole point of this is to clarify relationships and situations that sometimes don't hold a lot of weight in our society anymore. But Sir Peter Hall (who used to be the Artistic Director of the National Theatre) did not do this, everyone was in period dress, the sets were minimal; a patterned sheet and the silhouette of a town in the back. And yet every word and every emotion came across with utter clarity. Shakespeare's comedies are filled with such magic and metamorphoses. So many productions try to manufacture this for you, and it's not something that can be made, it can only be summoned. I left the theatre feeling as though I had been cleansed, which is why I go to the capital-T Theatre, for catharsis. It is one of the many necessary functions of art and we so seldom get it.

On the train ride back I pulled out the cupcakes I had bought at Harrod's. In the three times I've gone to Harrod's, I spend a good five minutes ogling the cupcakes. A good cupcake can be almost as hard to find as catharsis. I've grown weary of high-falutin cupcake places. They never live up to their hype (I'm looking at you, Sprinkles.) But I decided to give in and bought two cupcakes, an Oreo one, and the perennial Red Velvet.

Not the best. Too crumbly for my taste. In my opinion, the best cupcakes are found in small, unpretentious places. For my money, Martha Green's in Redlands is about the best cupcake you can get, though I do have a soft spot for Sift up in Ronhert Park.

Our train arrived at 2:00 in the morning. Ashley, Kelsey, and I trudged our way back to our various accommodations. We had class in the morning, but losing a few hours of sleep is worth it when you have London as your pay-off.

The Healing Power of Food

I had possibly the most amazing food experience of my life today. It bordered on religious ecstasy. I don’t believe this is blasphemous to say because when I got up from that park bench in Hyde Park, I felt different than when I had sat down.

When I found out that Laduree had a café at Harrod’s, I knew I had to go. I went to day and got six macarons and an éclair. I walked to Hyde Park, bought a cup of Earl Grey and found a bench. I looked in the bag.

I got Red Fruits, Orange and Ginger, Lemon, Pistachio, and Praline (which I pronounced Praw-lin-ay when I ordered, and was promptly corrected by the woman at the counter.) You may notice that there are six in the bag but I only listed five. The explanation is simple. I don't remember the flavor of that pink one.

I was worried, I had been disappointed by macarons before, and I had just spent an embarrassing amount of money on these ones. But then I tried one.

I have never tasted anything so perfect. The meringue was tender and the filling was so flavorful. It was perfect. I am not a slow eater by nature, but this was the slowest I had ever eaten. I celebrated each bite, letting the various levels of flavor wash over me.

And then they were gone. But I still had the éclair!

It was a little small by my standards, but everything looks small when you’ve grown up in America. Not thinking anything could possibly beat the macarons, I bit into the éclair and my eyes rolled into the back of my head.

It touched on all levels of chocolate, it was bitter but not mediciney, it was sweet but not cloying. And the crème was so smooth. At one point I had to stop myself because I realized I was making out with the éclair.

I finished it off (though I took my time, let me tell you.) I looked around to make sure no one was staring at the American who had been audibly moaning while eating an éclair, cleaned up my trash, and decided to try and make the afternoon service at Westminster Abbey.

I had been feeling low these first two days in London. I missed my family, I missed my friends, I missed my dogs, and I missed being in the accent majority. I had listened to Carole King’s “So Far Away” at least twenty times throughout the day.

But something about the combination of French pastries, English tea, and Hyde Park had caused an alchemical change in me. I was halfway across the world and doing things that I would not be able to do in California or even in the US, and that was exciting. I had fallen in love with London.

And while I still terribly missed my family and my friends and my dogs and being in the accent majority, I was in London, and I had an Evensong at Westminster Abbey to get to.