3,350 Miles or 5,390 Kilometres

September 29 — Growing up in a small town in Connecticut did not prepare me for life in London. In fact, I believe nowhere can truly prepare you for London.

My first couple of weeks in the city have been a completely unique experience. This is the first time in my life where I have depended on public transportation to get anywhere. I have only started to learn about the culture that surrounds the Tube, and I know there is much more to come. First of all, when you enter the Underground, the understanding is that you already know where you are headed. If not, prepare to be swept up in the commotion of the other London citizens who depend entirely on the Tube to get them to work, home, stores, school, everywhere! At first, I was very irritated at the rudeness displayed by these people. But, as time has gone on, I am starting to understand the urgency that surrounds it. At home, I can hop in a car and immediately head to my destination. But here, there is a tremendous amount of trust that is put into the Underground and its intricacies. Of course, most of the people riding the Underground are not as nervous as a young woman from the US who has never navigated a city on her own before. But they have their own lives and responsibilities to be worried about. The rush of the Tube has taught me about the layout of London, certainly, but has also given me an extra dose of empathy.

It is not only the problems and complexities of the present day that have surprised me. I have also been struck by the immensity of the history that surrounds the city. My home is also encompassed by history: the Mark Twain house, Nathan Hale Homestead, and Emily Dickinson’s home are all within an hour’s drive. But this city is apart from any in the world due to the proximity and the grandness of its history. In our first International Studies class, we learned about Roman Britain and visited the Museum of London. Just that one period of London’s history was overwhelming. But my favorite moment so far was in the Roman exhibition. It was not an artifact, demonstration, or video. Rather, it was the view of the remnants of the London Wall right beneath the window. I stared at this piece of history for a few moments, when I noticed a woman talking on her cellphone about 10 feet away. I have never seen such an odd juxtaposition of technology before. But it made me laugh. There was nothing wrong about it, but both were a showcase of a period’s top technology. Both impressed me thoroughly.

London has been striking in many ways so far. And I still have a few months to go. I look forward to the rest of my time here and the moments where the merging of history and culture become obvious. Whether it’s taking a trip to the British Museum or just walking down the street, I know these influences of the past and present will make themselves known to me.

—Kaitlyn Moseley

London Revisited

September 26 — On Sunday, September 2nd, the second Lewis & Clark London Humanities Program began in earnest. Fifteen students, representing a wide range of majors, arrived in London to begin a semester at Queen Mary, University of London, in Mile End.  No sooner had we arrived, then we headed north to Edinburgh by train for eight days in the Scottish Highlands with a return by way of Glasgow.  Our Scottish excursion, wonderfully hosted by Eddie and Donna Stiven who have welcomed LC students to Scotland for over two decades, allowed our group to bond amid the rugged beauty, cold rain and warm hospitality of the Highlands.  On September 15th, we returned to London.

By now, the students have settled into the Queen Mary residences, begun their classes, met other students, and are beginning to discover the wonders of the city they will call home for the next three months.  I, too, am settling in to my duties as program leader, preparing lectures and site visits for my course on the history of London, and rediscovering this incredible place that was my home as a graduate student eighteen years ago.  In fact, it was the prospect of returning as a resident, however briefly, to a place that was so formative in my youth that has stoked much of my anticipation about leading Lewis & Clark’s London program.

I first lived in London in 2000 and 2001 while on a research fellowship for my doctoral dissertation. Back then I was much closer to the age of my students than to my present age so I can certainly relate to some of what they must be feeling.  Even those who have spent time in large cities can still be overawed by one as cosmopolitan and dynamic as London.  My time living here those years ago was one of the most important experiences of my life.  It excited my imagination and intellectual curiosity like no other place I have encountered and I continue to think back fondly on the friendships I made when I first lived here.

Last Sunday, on an unusually warm and sunny day, I took advantage of the weather and walked from Westminster, past Buckingham Palace, through Hyde Park and into Bayswater and finally Notting Hill, the neighborhood that was my previous home in London.  It was a route that I had walked countless times before and as I strolled along the streets and turned corners—as much from instinct as conscious memory—it seemed like no time had passed since my student days.  I was pleased to see familiar pubs and stores, though many that I recall are no longer around and there was an air of sadness when I realized that no one I knew then lives there anymore.  It reminded me of the sensation that Charles Ryder, the protagonist in Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited, describes when his wartime service sees him temporarily bivouacked in the commandeered aristocratic country estate that in his youth had had such an enchanting and haunting effect: “…an immense silence followed, empty at first, but gradually full of a multitude of sweet and natural and long forgotten sounds… so familiar to me, a conjuror’s name of such ancient power, that, at its mere sound, the phantoms of those haunted late years began to take flight.”  (I taught this novel last semester so it has lately been on my mind).  A bit like Ryder, I find that my sudden re-immersion in London has me reflecting on the passage of the years and the person I have become as much as taking me back to a time when each day in this city brought new and unexpected discoveries, as my students are surely experiencing now.  I look forward to enjoying that feeling again vicariously through their experiences and observations and to showing them, through my course and related site visits, the historical and cultural richness of this city that will be our home these next few months.

—David Campion

 

At Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire