safe and sound in Torquay

My second day in Berlin was much better than the first. Great weather and I felt rather oriented to the city layout after getting lost constantly the day before. I walked to the Brandenburg Gate and found that there was a huge celebration going on in honor of the opening of the US Embassy. There was a big stage with red white and blue balloons and a big American flag and some people singing sort of old-time classic American tunes. Just beyond the gate, lies Berlin's park, which is rather large, and held booths which lined the main pathway advertising American cars, trips, hamburgers, etc. It all seemed very bizarre to me, especially after feeling so lost, and seemed to hint at the everthing-American aspect infiltrating the entire world.

My favorite part of Berlin was seeing how there seems to be a cafe stuck anywhere and everywhere--underneath the train tracks, on the other side of the Berlin Wall in some of the small spaces along the river, many with beach chairs, sand, and palm trees to boot. All in all, it was a very exciting city and I'd definitely like to go back--it seems to be growing and expanding by the second and it will be interesting to see what it's like in 30 years or even five. The Brits that I spoke to at the hostel all seemed to want to move there and get away from the fast-pace of London where, according to them, it's all work work work go go go where no one has time to just sit in a cafe and sip a cup of tea.

From Berlin I flew into the London Standsted airport (it is actually much cheaper to fly, around 30 euros, rather than take the train or ferry). I've found the trains to be extremely expensive although I much prefer them to any other sort of travel (besides walking). Unfortunately flying on such a discount there's always a catch. My plane was quite delayed (and once aboard it seemed like one long television commercial trying to sell you stuff) and I ended up at the airport rather late. Instead of having a Berlin repeat, I decided to stay at an airport hotel--way too much money but worth my sanity and a good night's sleep.

I got into London the next day and once again showed up in a city with no guidebook, map or reservation. I have found this past week that I had gotten way too comfortable in my routine at home with instant access to everything with the internet, cell phone, a car, etc. I suppose I was beginning to expect that things would be easy with everything at my fingertips all the time. I've traveled extensively around the world, lived in Japan knowing no Japanese--a return visit to the UK seemed like a piece of cake. Not having a working cell phone alone left me feeling extremely lost. (I since have that all figured out, which was quite easy, just went to a phone shop and bought a phone.) So after settling into a hostel (which I was told by a couple of people later that night that it was in the dodgiest part of town, King's Cross, and that I definitely should take a cab at that hour, 10pm) I had some time to ask myself why has this been so hard for me? Did everything just look a lot better on paper? Am I getting too old for this? I think it's a combination, but all in all I feel very fortunate that I've been put in this situation because I've found that I've gotten very rusty at being an adventurous traveller.

So after having a beer at the Lamb and Flag, a pub that's 350 years old and was a hangout of Charles Dickens, where they have live jazz on Sundays, I made it safely back to my hostel in a taxi. The taxi driver warned me to keep my head down when we get into King's Cross, go straight into my hostel, and check out as soon as possible the next day. I was just a little bit freaked out and had to ask myself why was I doing everything so naively and making things so hard for myself?!

The next day I checked out of the hostel and met with the home/pet-owner (a fellow midwesterner from Madison) in Camden for a look at her flat and animals and a nice lunch out in her neighborhood. Everything about the whole situation felt right and I'm really looking forward to taking care of things in August.

Now I've made my way to Torquay for a stopover and visit with friends before I head to Ireland. It is raining out, thus the opportunity to get this lengthy blog in.

One thing I have to say is how impressed I am with the quality of food here, both eating out and in grocery stores. There is organic everything, local, grass-fed beef advertised everywhere. And even with the weak dollar, things do not seem to be that much more expensive than they are at home (even after £4 one-way tube ticket I learned my lesson that you get an Oyster card that allows one to travel for £1 per ride--still not cheap, but manageable). So there are ways to not completely bust your bank, something that I was a bit afraid of. People are also talking about how the UK economy's fall is not far behind the US's, that everything that happens in the US trickles over here as well. I was just reading in the paper earlier the concern with childhood obesity and school/hospital lunches. The world is getting smaller and smaller.