I was just looking through pictures from a trip to England exactly one year ago, so you get these random observations:
1. London is the only city I’ve ever seen that gives New York a run for its money in the “greatest city in the world” department. I’m still loyal to my once & future hometown, but if someone tells me they prefer London I think “well, we disagree” rather than “well you’re wrong, of course.”
2. Thanks to recently acquired British relatives, I am now a fan of Arsenal. I don’t follow as closely as I should, but I do know the difference between the Premiership and the F.A. Cup. (I think). In typical liberal, un-American fashion, I have gone and picked the team whose best players are French. Also, Osama bin Laden is apparently a fan.
I only discovered the bin Laden connection last night. In my defense, they’ve banned him from their stadium. And what am I supposed to do now? Root for Manchester United, the Yankees of England? I don’t think so.
3. Another thing I discovered last night: Though I’ve never seen it in person, Salisbury Cathedral may be the most beautiful church in the world.
4. I was amazed to find out that you can drive three hours and a half from the middle of London and be in the countryside, with hedgerows, stone walls and cottages, and sheep everywhere.
5. The food was not as much of a problem as I’d been led to believe. I had the best Indian, Chinese, and Turkish meals I’ve ever eaten in London, and even the small towns tend to have a decent curry place. The freshly baked bread and amazingly good cheese at the supermarket were nice touches, and I’ve been addicted to the tea ever since.
but, on the Anglophobia front:
6. Those puddings. My God, the humanity. What is wrong with you people?
Frankly, Katherine, I figured you for Man City fan. (Manchester United is to the Yankees as Manchester City is to the Mets.)
One-nil to the Arsenal, one-nil to the Arsenal… Personally, I became a fan after reading Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch.
I got the Hornby book for my stepfather (the recently acquired British relative) last Christmas. And von, I’ve never been to Manchester and family’s family. I’m trying to make a baseball fan out of him in return.
Which is the team whose motto is “nobody likes us”?
Used to live near Arsenal’s home stadium…even attended a few matches…best team outside ManU to be affiliated with in terms of headbangers and and lager louts…only time I ever saw a supporter fight fellow supporters just because the opposing team hadn’t brought any supporters…nutjobs the lot of ’em. Come on you Reds!!!
With plans to retire in London, I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment, K. It’s a close race between NYC and London for greatest city in the world.
Everytime I visit (and I lived there three years, so I know it rather well), I find a new wonder, a new favorite, a new reason to return as soon as I can. I also always reach this place each time where I realize I’m incredibly content. As much as I love NYC, that almost never happens here.
I like English puddings… Well, I like Christmas Pudding. And Spotted Dick. I could live without the blood puddings…
I don’t like liquor-soaked fruits, especially if the liquor is brandy. It’s like vaguely gelatinous fruitcake, with that heavy sauce–but fruitcake is sort of a joke in the U.S., while English people really seem to like the “Christmas pud”.
I should’ve made an exception for sticky toffee pudding though. That one is good.
Based on a quick google, the “nobody likes us” team is Millwall.
It’s also part of the unofficial fight song of Girton College, Cambridge, but that’s neither here nor there.
So, Katherine, you’re a Gooner. If you want to be as anti-Bin Laden as possible, support Tottenham Hotspur; the clubs are arch-rivals. North London foes.
So sorry you don’t like Brandy Butter. There’s a great tradition with Christmas pudding where the pudding has brandy poured onto the top, and then the lights of the room are switched off, the brandy lit, and it pours down over the pudding.
It’s a visual thing.
Oh, and Mark – I was at Girton.
We are Girton, Mighty Girton,
No one likes us, we don’t care.
Better than Churchill College, anyway.
Ah, yes. (Though according to the current version, it’s “super Girton,” not “mighty Girton 😉 ).
Well, of _course_ Girton is better than Churchill…have you looked at the scarves that those poor people have to wear? (someone needs to explain to them that pink and brown do _not_ go well together…). On the other hand, Churchill’s nowhere near so bad as John’s, right? 😉
well, I didn’t know fire could be involved with Christmas pudding/brandy butter. That might change things. I could learn to view it as a centerpiece rather than a desert.
My favorite spectacle of that sort might be Spanish coffee.
My residential college’s motto was “J.E. sucks”. But spelled with an x for some reason.
d’oh. dessert.
Katherine, bad Christmas Puddings are a desert… but I’ve stayed in homes where the flaming Christmas Pudding is a fabulous centerpiece to the traditional dinner, and is then eaten in very small helpings with brandy butter – and hey, I like it.
1. London is the only city I’ve ever seen that gives New York a run for its money in the “greatest city in the world” department.
Paris. Tokyo is a contender if you can deal with the relentlessly ugly architecture; but definitely Paris is in there.
It’s just so damn livable.
3. Another thing I discovered last night: Though I’ve never seen it in person, Salisbury Cathedral may be the most beautiful church in the world.
Yes, it is. And what’s more: like many British cathedrals (but few Continental ones), it’s surrounded by a wide, soft, friendly lawn. That you can freely walk, play Frisbee, or lie down on.
That’s just so… civilized.
Doug M.
4. I was amazed to find out that you can drive three hours and a half from the middle of London and be in the countryside, with hedgerows, stone walls and cottages, and sheep everywhere.
Um. You can find stone wilderness, with eagles and bears, a lot closer to NYC than that.
Turn the key in your ignition in a parking lot on Columbia’s Manhattan campus at noon sharp on a Tuesday, and by 3:30 you can be bathing nude in a clear mountain stream with (probably) no other human within half a mile. Three hours to the trailhead, 30 minutes hiking.
What’s amazing is not that there’s so much wilderness within a couple of hundred miles of NYC, but how underused a lot of it is. I used to hike around Storm King and Bear Mountain regularly, and that’s 2.5 hours from Manhattan, tops.
5. The food was not as much of a problem as I’d been led to believe.
The food has VASTLY improved in the last 15 years or so. When I was an exchange kid in London (c. 1985) I lost 22 lbs in one semester; only sambosas kept body and soul together. Today you can eat as well in London as in most large US cities — though not, I must add, as well as in Paris, never mind NY.
Doug M.
and by 3:30 you can be bathing nude in a clear mountain stream
Thanks for that, Doug.