Vancouver

My non-stop flight from London to Vancouver actually did end up stopping in Toronto because we had to divert south to avoid the volcanic ash. I ended the long flight with a fun welcome back to Canada in which I was suspected of trafficking in child pornography. See, when I went through customs the investigating officer of Canada's equivalent to the TSA (understandably) thought I looked nothing like any of my identification. I helpfully suggested that she look at the eyes since that part of my face looks the same despite the dramatic differences in my hair and facial hair. She asked if I had ever worked in customs, and when I replied that I had not she said she had never had anyone tell her how to do her job before. I was too taken aback by her touchiness to say anything, or I would have apologized and clarified that I simply meant that with my particular face and those particular pictures of me, my eyes are the most consistent factor. I wasn't trying to make a statement about how to identify people in pictures in general. She then started asking me about my recent employment and didn't believe that I'd earned enough from teaching to travel for as long as I had been doing so. My inadvertent insult was rewarded by me being taken into a back room, along with all of the obviously Muslim men, where my belongings and laptop were searched for drugs or child pornography. Oh, profiling. Good times. In her defense, I do look super sketchy with my travel beard. 

Once the airport security determined that I am in fact not a threat, I was able to head out into the city. That day I mostly just trudged out to the hostel and ate some Thai food. I considered signing up for one of their day trips before realizing I could just spend bus fare to get to the same places. 

The next day I went out to the art museum, which had an exhibit titled Visceral Bodies. The main section held a collection of da Vinci anatomy sketches that were mostly instructions on how to make an anatomy book. The sketches were mostly correct, but because they were never published, most of da Vinci's insights wouldn't be reconstructed for another 200 years. Other highlights included the drawing of a torso with its organs exposed that Kati used for poster in Tis Pity, sculptures that including vocal cords and innards on display and others that employed the use of medical tech to make art.

When I finished my long tour of the museum, I wandered China town before checking into by far the sketchiest hostel I have ever slept in (which, if you're a regular reader, you know is saying quite a lot). It turns out that while West  End of downtown Vancouver is a beautiful neighborhood full of trendy shops, well-designed and maintained parks, and delicious restaurants, whereas downtown Eastside is a junky-infested shithole where there's an open drug market a block away from the police station. My hostels in each part of town reflected their locations. In the west end, a couple blocks from the bay, the slightly overpriced hostel was clean, modern, and full of clean modern young people. The hostel in the eastside only cost $60 for seven nights, and was also overpriced for what it was. The dilapidated building was full of falling apart beds with filthy mattresses that were regularly sprayed for bug beds out of necessity, lockers that had been crow-barred open, and a lot of older junkies who were let in despite the sign saying that no one over the age of thirty-five could stay there. A hand-scrawled sign in the common room warned not to bring your laptop into the hostel since it would be stolen: don't sleep with it under your pillow or anything, and when it is stolen don't bother reporting it, just buy one that was stolen from someone else at a pawn shop. Had I seen that sign and the rooms before buying a room for the week I definitely would have gone back to the other hostel, despite my obsessive need to not spend money. I got out of the room to go watch How to Train Your Dragon, which was fucking fantastic. 

I spent a good part of the next day walking the twelve kilometer perimeter of the forest covered peninsula that is Stanley Park. A sign told a First Nations legend about how a particularly impressive stone just off the coast was a man made immortal in stone as a reward for 'unselfishness.' By the way, I love the Canadian term for what Americans call Native Americans or Indians. First Nations is more accurate (humans are not native to the Americas and have never been a singular unified people -- hence nations, plural) and sounds way more badass. Stanley Park was home to giant basalt cliffs and a great deal of wildlife, notably numerous herons and some bald eagles. 

The end of the park closest to downtown had a number of totem poles. 

On the city side of the short bridge was a more modern art in a small park: 

I enjoyed a late lunch at a Mongolian barbecue buffet. I filled up several bowls with vegetables, raw meat, and marinades to be grilled for a couple minutes in a huge swirling metal bowl. Afterwards, I relaxed in the large city library for the rest of the day.

The following morning I finished reading Jack Kerouac's On the Road on a bus out to Lynn Canyon. As soon as I arrived I felt at home in a way I hadn't in over a year. The flora and terrain just looks and smells right in the Pacific Northwest. 

I would be terrified of riding down this mountain bike trail, but it makes me happy that some people can fly down it. 

The forest rang with the concussive sounds of woodpeckers pecking. Gods, I love the Pacific Northwest!

The view of the waterfall is courtesy of the fifty meter high and forty-eight meter long suspension bridge in the park. Had there been fewer people about, I doubt I could have resisted my urge to jump up and down to make it bounce. 

I spent the next few days just relaxing in the library, buying a new book (H.P. Lovecraft short stories) and reading it in  various parks, and wandering around to look at parks and street art. I particularly liked a sculpture of a head whose face was cracked like a desiccated river bed, and which had cool resonance when I stood inside it. 

I attempted to go to Grouse Grind, a mountain overlooking the city, but the trail was closed for restoration. Instead, I managed to walk my way to Lynn Canyon and explored some more trails there. 

After a slow paced week in Vancouver, I took a bus down across the border to Seattle. 

Update: I originally got some of the place names wrong in this post. Thanks to Brook for helping me fix it.

London and Windsor

I arrived in London to find that my couchsurf hosts had not received my message confirming that I would be staying with them. Thankfully, they were fine with me staying nonetheless. They served a lovely roast to me and another couch surfer. 

In London I had noticed that election advertising was in full swing. I was confident that the Tory party would win because its ad campaign was far superior and was everywhere. While I laughed at the truly ironic "Vote for Change. Vote Conservative," the negative ads towards Gordan Brown were clever in how they distanced the negativity from the attacker by making it seem like Brown was attacking himself with billboards showing the prime minister say: "I doubled the dept. Let me do it again." Even better were the "I've never voted Tory before, but ___" ads that addressed issues and seemed to be honestly reaching out to new voters. I don't agree with Tory policies, but I respect their ideas. I wish America had an intelligent sane party that opposed my beliefs and liberal party that agreed with them. Then I'd be challenged to think about issues differently but sometimes get my way. I think the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition that prevailed in the election was great, though of course I'd want majority power tipped the other way. 

Anyway, the next day I started out by going to the half price theatre ticket booth and checking out the fourth plinth statue that frequently changes in Trafalgar Square. This time it was a New Zealander WWI flying ace and Royal Air Force commander in WWII, Kieth Park.

I had spent two half weeks in London in 2006, but was at the time too cheap to pay the overpriced entrance to Westminster Abbey. I'm glad I did this time around, though to be fair to my past self, the outside is just as impressive.

Inside, there were tons of stone effigies and monuments, including the tombs of Newton, Darwin, Chaucer, and numerous monarchs. My favorite was of a couple's futile effort to hold back Death, which I felt compelled to photograph despite the omnipresent signage telling me not to do so.

Nearby was Westminster Cathedral, which was a huge brick monstrosity that wasn't all that appealing. 

Next I viewed the Tate Britain, which houses loads of portraits and  landscapes. My favorite painting in the collection was Herbert James Draper's The Lament for Icarus. 

I had enough daylight after the museum to head out to Windsor. Britain's largest castle isn't really my style since it's more lavish than defensible, but it is impressive nonetheless. I wasn't concerned about being too late for the tours since modern royal accouterments don't interest me as much as medieval squalor, but I did walk around much of the perimeter. 

It was odd to see a castle so heavily guarded. I don't even think the royal family was there.

That night I attended a showing of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Tom Stoppard is always fucking brilliant, and this was no exception, though it sure is depressing when his brilliance highlights dysfunctional and ending relationships. Somehow he made it hilarious as well as gut-churning.

I think it says something about the way I travel that an inordinate percentage of my notes are about what I ate, even when it was nothing special. I guess it all starts to seem special if you skip a ton of meals in order to see more sights. "I actually ate something," becomes noteworthy. Anyway, besides eating a salad, I spent the next morning I visiting the Tower of London. The whole place ought to be drenched in blood, judging by the number of tales of murder and execution told by the guide. The smaller tower will forever be known for the murder of the two young princes there. The pleasant green with lovely timber framed apartments behind it is known for being the spot where Anne Boleyn and others were beheaded by order of Henry VIII. 

The tower grounds have an excellent view of the Tower Bridge. Funny that. 

The area is dominated by the White Tower keep.

Inside, there were numerous suits of armor once owned by royalty on display. I only took pictures of the ones that were amusing due to their size...

...implication...

... or unexpected origin.

On the second floor of the tower is the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, the oldest church in London. 

The Tower's walls also surround buildings that house the crown jewels. They were so ornate and over the top that they looked more like stage jewelry that real gems. My favorite bit of architecture was the timber house over the water gate. 

I spent the rest of the day exploring bits of London by foot. I started with Lonely Planet's walking tour of churches, guildhalls, Roman ruins, and other buildings old and new. I took a break in Postman's Park to pig out on an unreasonable amount of cake and ice cream for one sitting. Postman's Park is wonderful for its Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, a wall of plaques in honor of ordinary people who gave their lives to save others and who might otherwise be forgotten.

After the hiatus, I proceeded to wander around the Woolwich neighborhood for three hours. My favorite building of the day was squeezed between two more modern ones. It's hard to imagine how whatever originally surrounded it was replaced without toppling it over.

While in the neighborhood I of course checked out St. Paul's Cathedral.

I returned to meet up with my hosts for dinner only to find their home empty and their phones off, which I later learned was due to an emergency. In the meanwhile, I wandered their neighborhood in Greenwich and watched the sun set over London.

I finally met up with my hosts after I'd choked down some truly terrible goat and yam mash at an African restaurant. They were kind enough to let me stay that night despite the family emergency. Later that evening I realized that I had misread the date of my tickets to Les Miserables, and hence had missed it. There went more money than I'd care to admit. So it goes.

The next morning I went back to the half price tickets booth to acquire replacements. I wandered past St. Paul's again and crossed the new London Bridge on the way to an old operating theater. It was delightfully creepy with seats overlooking a table with restraints and crude looking medicinal weaponry. The entire collection of medical 'curatives', tools, and oddities was fascinating. 

Despite the heated argument I'd had out front of the Tate Modern the last time I was in London in which I protested that modern art was shit, I returned to see the museum's new exhibits. This time I simply skipped past works that didn't interest me and focused on the ones I liked. Among my favorites were intricate illustrations by Jake and Dinos Chapman that had layers of alterations of the original images, a Picasso painting that - to quote my notes - "wasn't total shit since it captured some of the poser's personality," a fake room "being set up for display" that was actually entirely made of plastic despite its contents looking like various ordinary tools, and Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus, which displayed as much genius as the rest of the museum combined. 

I walked back across the river to Leicester Square and gorged myself at a Chinese buffet before going to see Les Miserables. The American man sitting next to me happened to have lived in Oregon, Colorado Springs, and had been stationed in Korea from '68 - '70. After comparing notes on how these coincidental places of inhabitance had changed over the decades, I thoroughly enjoyed the show. 

For the rest of the night I killed time playing video games since the internet cafe was open late into the night. The Age of Empires' William Wallace campaign was far more interesting after having visited many of the major battlegrounds. The rest of the night was spent on public transit and in the airport waiting for my flight.

I was on the last plane out of London as the airspace became impassible due to ash from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland. I actually wouldn't have minded another week in Britain since I missed most of East Anglia and I bet a week would have been just about right to visit all I wanted to see there. On the other hand, I was happy to be heading back to the Pacific Northwest. 

Canterbury

I took a comparatively lazy day for once while in Canterbury. In the international house where I'd couchsurfed, I talked with a Polish couple over breakfast. We mostly discussed the recent plane crash that had killed the Polish president and 95 others the day before. 

I started my tour of the city by walking along part of the old wall and viewing its impressive gates.

I was mostly in Canterbury to see three religious buildings that compose the Caterbury World Heritage site. The first was St. Martins, which is historically important as the oldest parish church in Britain in continuous use. It was founded nearly 1500 years ago, and interesting because of that, but despite medieval updates it wasn't much to look at. In fact, I walked right past it and on for an extra kilometer before realizing I'd missed gone too far.

Next up was the ruins of St. Augustine's Abbey. An excellent audio tour discussed the architectural and historical significance of the site as abbey and royal palace. 

The crowning jewel was, of course, Canterbury cathedral, the center of British Christiandom and a major site of pilgrimage. 

A modern artwork commemorates the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket that occurred here. 

The Normans knew the secret to keeping people subdued with a sense of awe: high ceilings.

The gardens contain ruins.

The grounds also connect with the prep academy King's School, which has an attached Norman staircase nearly a thousand years old. 

I had a pleasant stroll through the rest of the city and an excellent Lebanese buffet before striding onward.

After the leisurely tour, I boarded a train to London.