Oxford

It's been awhile, but there hasn't really been anything to write about. Mostly because I'm working on final papers, and also because I'm being extremely cheap, which is usually boring.

I've been wanting to go to Oxford for a while - a) to see the colleges, and b) to track down Radiohead. But I had realized that with my current financial situation, and only a week left, it wasn't really an option.

But then last night I found a guide to "Radiohead's Oxford", outlining all the different points of interest, like where they formed, where they played, where Thom worked, etc. Kind of like the Beatles with Liverpool, except not as cool, yet. Give it time. So that was exciting. Then I went to the train website, and found a super cheap ticket for the very next day (today) - it was about 6 quid, which is 12 bucks or so. So I jumped on it.

I left the house at about 7:15 this morning, to get the 8:03 train out of Paddington. I walked there, to save money on the Tube, and because it's a nice walk through Kensington Gardens, and only takes about 40 minutes or so.

The train was about an hour and 20 minutes, and then I was alive and free in Oxford. I first tried to find the Jericho tavern - the website said this about it:

"This is where it all began. The Jericho used to be the premier live music venue in Oxford until it was turned into a theme pub a few years ago. In November of 1991, the band played to 25 A&R people while still going under the name "On a Friday." It went well. They signed to Parlophone a few days later.

Radiohead's first ever interview was spawned from that performance and was printed in the now defunct Curfew Magazine. If you'd like to read it, click here.

It changed it's name to the Philanderer & Firkin a few years ago but is still referred to as the Jericho, even though most of what made up the Jericho is now gone."

And after following signs which lead me to completely loop back almost to where I started the search, I found it:

After that I wondered back into the city center, and found a few colleges, and their impressively large buildings:

Oxford in general is a very old town. That's very obvious, yes, but I liked it because it LOOKED old. They had a McDonald's, and a KFC, yes, but I thought the city did better than some others in incorporating the modern things while keeping the 'ancient' look to it. Brownstone everywhere. There were tons of tourists, it felt like everyone I saw was a tourist, which is good in the sense that it doesn't make you feel as bad for touristing up the place, but bad for obvious reasons, there are people everywhere, and it's harder to pretend you're just a normal citizen.

Other Radiohead things that I found: this music store, which the website said the band frequents. I stood outside of it for 5 minutes, didn't see any of them. Much disappointment.

Exeter College, where Radiohead (then known as On a Friday) played in 1988:

That was about it. There's really not too much exciting as far as Radiohead goes. They met at a school in Abingdon, which is a little suburb a few miles (and too many $$$) away, which is also where their "Oxford studio" is. But the main excitement was the very prospect that, around any corner or inside any store, I might run into my #1 heroes. I might see Thom on the train. Or I might bump into Ed, and get into a long conversation which ends with him inviting me to the studio, where I hang out for the next couple of days, before the band gives me a VIP pass for the Paris concert, and I get to watch the show from the side of the stage (this was the scenario that was running through my head all day. I figured it would be Ed, because we're both tall, so that'd be a conversation starter right there). I may have possibly seen Phil, the drummer, but all I'm basing that off of is that I saw a bald cyclist go by, and his head looked very similar to Phil's, although I don't know if I've ever seen the back of Phil's head, so who knows.

My return ticket wasn't until almost 9 pm, and that was a little too long of a day, I think. It's hard to spend an entire day in a non-huge city, with less than $10 or so to spend, it doesn't lead to much more than wondering around the streets, looking at things from the outside. Which is great, it just doesn't take up a whole lot of time. So I spent lots of time sitting, wondering why Japanese tourists have a knack for being interested in the strangest things, like the man who was taking pictures from many angles of a standard bench by the side of the road, and the whole group that stopped to pose in front of a tree. Alas.

At 6 I went to the Christ Church Cathedral, of the Christ Church College, for Evensong, which I also did at Cambridge, and recently at Westminster Abbey -- it's a free way to get inside of the church, and the service is shorter, around 45 minutes, with mostly singing, so it's really cool. Christ Church College has gotten a huge influx of tourists in the past few years, because its Dining Hall is the basis of the Hogwarts Dining Hall in the Harry Potter movies (the Great Hall where the Sorting Ceremonies take place). It wasn't actually filmed there, but it was rebuilt based on the Christ Church College hall. I almost, almost paid 4 pounds to get into the college and see it, but the Hall was closed today, so I was saved.

Overall, I think I'd rank Cambridge above Oxford, just because I loved the residential areas of Cambridge, and the King's College Chapel service was the only one that gave me constant, never-ending chills. But Oxford is close, very close.

More pictures of the day:

Best concert week ever + Cambridge

So on Tuesday night, I had the Bon Iver + Jens Lekman concert. Anyone who hasn't heard of either of these two should check them out immediately. Bon Iver is a guy named Justin Vernon who is from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He recorded an album up there in a cabin out in the middle of the woods, called For Emma, Forever Ago. This hit the internet and became a huge story, Pitchfork gave it a great score, many blogs took notice. Since then he's become quite famous, his music has been on Grey's Anatomy, House, he performed on Later...With Jools Holland, a big British entertainment show, and he's been touring for a few months now, getting huge crowds.

Anyways, my friend Mike from Lawrence was invited by Justin, his old guitar teacher, to join him for the tour. He plays guitar, bass, hits a drum, sings. So he got me a free ticket to this show, and the one in Eau Claire back in February. The show was fantastic, and Jens Lekman, who is now one of my new role models, was incredible as well. Afterwards Mike took me backstage -- backstage, people. We were sitting in a little room next to the dressing room. All the time, I was thinking "Come on Jens, just come in here for some reason, I have to see someone, being backstage and all". And sure enough, he did - he came in, nodded politely and went out the other way. It was...awesome.

So that was a great night. Then Wednesday night we went to Feist at the Royal Albert Hall, a huge concert hall, and that was also incredible. She has such great stage presence, and the whole stage show was very artsy, they had a projection screen where people on stage put various things throughout the show. Huge crowd.



Then yesterday I went to Cambridge for the Urban Anthro field trip. Really cool town -- if I were to move to the UK, I'd definitely live there, rather than London. Way quieter, and much more of a "charming English town."

The University of Cambridge is there, obviously, including King's College. On the recommendation of the professor, I went to the King's College Chapel at 5:30, and it was a "Sung Requiem" service. The choir is all-male, and 8-9 year olds, unchanged voices, sing soprano parts. I felt like I was in a movie, huge cathedral, perfect choir sounds, clergy walking down the aisle with a big wooden cross, it was just what I imagined it'd be like. The acoustics of the cathedral were incredible, there was like 4-5 seconds of reverberation, so once the choir stopped singing a note, you'd hear it for another 4-5 seconds, it was amazing.

I couldn't take pictures, but I got these off the internet:

France!

Just got back from a weekend in Caen, France. I was visiting my friend Megan, who graduated from the same highschool as me, a few years ahead of me though. She's staying with a host woman and her son, and going to a university in Caen with a bunch of other Wisconsin students, in a series of French classes designed for international students.

I took the ferry there and back, which was very exciting. It was basically a cruise ship -- restaurants, shops, movie theaters (got to see all of Iron Man, finally (it's actually really good)), etc. On Friday morning, I had to catch a train to Portsmouth at 5 am in order to get the 8:45 am ferry. So that meant I had to leave the house at 3:30 a.m. and walk about an hour to the train station at Waterloo. So I basically stayed up from Thursday morning until Friday night, that was a little taxing. But walking through London at 4 in the morning was actually pretty cool.

When I got to Caen, I met Megan, and we went to the apartment where she's staying. Her host is extremely nice, and she has the cutest little 7 year-old, they were a lot of fun. A couple of Megan's friends joined us and we went out to eat at this pasta/pizza place, then we went out for drinks at a couple different places.

The next day Megan took me on a walk around Caen, just seeing what there was to see. The main sight is a castle built by William the Conqueror, that was neato. Then we went shopping and got all we needed for a classic French meal, and made it that night. It consisted of: these little bready things that we ate with this pink fish eggs spread (not caviar). Then we had chicken parmesan, followed by goat cheese/another cheese on bread, then finished with chocolate ice cream. It was extremely filling (can't say I've had a filling meal in a long time) and delicious.

Yesterday we went to this big outdoors market, it was pretty interesting, lots of people yelling at you to buy things. Then we came back and watched this old French movie with Marlon Brando. After that we went out to eat, but since everything in France seems to be closed on Sundays we ate at Subway. Then I had to catch the last bus of the day at 6 p.m. to the ferry station, where I had to wait until midnight for the ferry home. I actually slept a little on the ferry this morning, then took the train back to London and here I am, tired, but drinking this delicious coffee I got in Caen.

Stray observations: While the general perception (mostly from Paris) is that the French are not exactly polite towards foreigners, the few people I encountered here were actually incredible nice. Megan's host was top-notch, and another guy at the coffee shop took a few minutes to explain all the different coffees, in English to us. So far, so good, France.

I realized how easy I have it studying in an English-speaking country. I was so lucky Megan knew French so well, otherwise I surely would have been lost.

I didn't take too many pictures, but I'll try to get them up soon.

Pictures

Mountains from Reykjavik


Hallgrimskirkja, the big church in Reykjavik


Reykjavik, from the top of the church.


Mountains!


The 'house' where I stayed in Reykjavik.


Gullfoss.


The geyser eruption.


Thingvellir park.


The house where I stayed at with Ivar in Talknafjordur for a week.


The small, 200-pop. village of Talknafjordur.


Piles of rocks during my big hike on Monday -- these marked the path.


Looking back towards the village a couple hours into my hike.





The Latrabjarg peninsula.

Alright

I've realized that I have so much work to catch up on, and laundry to do, and other countries to visit, that I'm not going to do as in-depth a recap as I was planning. So I'll just do a brief rundown, and then post lots of pictures in a following post. If you can't live with that, then get out of my blog. Immediately.

SATURDAY MAY 3:

Today I went on the "Golden Circle" bus tour, which goes to the three main tourist attractions of Iceland: Gullfoss, this huge waterfall, Geysir, a geothermal area home of the original Geysir, the one that gave us the word "geyser", and Thingvellir, a National Park that has a lot of Icelandic government history in it.

Gullfoss was awesome, just a huge, huge waterfall. We could walk up right on the rocks next to the falls, kind of dangerous, but I guess if no one has fallen off yet, what's the worry! Then we went to Geysir, which was pretty cool, nothing too awesome but it was interesting seeing the geothermal energy of the land in full force. Iceland gets almost all of its energy from the geothermal sources -- in the village I was in, a hot spring gave energy to the swimming pool and the hot tubs, with no needed electricity. The Geysir area was full of hot springs, with water just boiling out of the ground at random points, you had to stay on the paths because the ground was so hot. And a geyser is there, not Geysir, that's retired, but this other one erupts every 5-6 minutes, so I saw it go off a couple times.

Then we went to Thingvellir, which is a great park, it is where the tectonic plates of the American side and the European side of the world are pulling apart from each other, creating a great, rugged looking place.

At night I walked along the rocks by the ocean, very scenic. Then I went home, met some new Couchsurfers from California, we hung out a bit.

On Sunday I went to a big flea market in town, didn't get anything but there was a lot of interesting stuff. Then I went to the Reykjavik domestic airport to get my flight to Isafjordur, where my next Couchsurfer, Ivar, was going to pick me up. After a bit of confusion and weather delays, I got on the plane and had a nice 45 minute trip to Isafjordur. Ivar was there and so were his two pit bull boxer dogs in the back of his jeep. We had about a 2.5 hour drive to his village of Talknafjordur, and it was one of the best drives I've ever experienced -- driving on dirt roads, winding in and out of mountains (actually going THROUGH a mountain at one point, a huge tunnel was built through it) and just the most beautiful scenery possible, even though it was raining.

Got to his house, went to sleep after a long day of travel. Ivar was a super nice guy, I got my own room, and he cooked for me all week and drove me to a few different places. He was kind of a loner, sat at home and watched his downloaded tv shows/movies all day long, but he was really nice. His dogs were super, super hyper, and so hard to turn down -- they had perfected the "puppy eyes" look. But once you petted them even the tiniest of bits, they were so happy that they'd promptly climb on top of you (I'm talking BIG boxers here) and slobber all over you. Gallons of slobber.

Took a big hike on Monday, my "hike" of the trip. A long, slowly climbing trail up a mountain. It was very frustrating because I kept thinking I was finally getting to the top, only to see another layer appear. Towards the top it was mostly all snow, which led to some very cold and wet feet. But after 3 hours or so, I had almost given up, but then put in my iPod and put on some Sigur Ros and decided to go at least to the next "peak." I then had one of The Greatest Moments of My Life -- listening to Sigur Ros as I hit the top of the mountain and see a beautiful bay framed by rugged cliffs on the other side below -- I was beyond happy, it was so, so amazing.

Ivar had a barbeque at his house Monday night, where I met a couple of his friends, so that was fun.

On Tuesday I just took a little walk and sat by the ocean. Then Ivar drove me and we went to the Latrabjarg peninsula, which is the westernmost point of Iceland, and therefore Europe. Absolutely beautiful place, cliffs full of birds and the mist created great views. We also went to Raudisandur, a huge huge sand beach.

Wednesday I tried to find another trail, but ended up just walking a long way down the road and not finding the trail. But it was good exercise anyways. At night I took Ivar's canoe out, that was awesome to be out on the water and see things from a different view. The water was so calm and peaceful, it was amazing.

On Thursday I found that trail, but just walked a little ways into it, spent a lot of time just sitting and looking at the ocean, it was very soothing.

Friday was pretty quiet, it snowed in the evening, which was odd after the week of great weather. We went to the hot tubs at night, so relaxing.

Saturday was my last full day -- I spent the evening with Ivar's friends, thinking I was going to a film festival, but ended up just going out to the hot tubs again, and having a barbeque. I met a lot of other people, so that was great. Talked to someone who knew people on Sigur Ros's tech crew, and someone who had been asked to be their drummer but turned them down. The guy I was talking to was a sound engineer/tech guy in Reykjavik so that was cool.

On Sunday I flew out of Bildadular, a little town by Talknafjordur, to Reykjavik where I caught my flight back to London. BUT in Bildadular, I had my first celebrity spotting. A tiny, tiny airport with only a couple people in the waiting room, and one of them was Brian Cox, a prolific charactor actor, who has been in Supertroopers, X-Men, the Bourne movies, and a ton more. If you look him up on imdb.com, you might recognize him. So that was exciting.

A stray thought: The nightlife in Reykjavik is crazy -- I didn't go out, mostly due to price, (Iceland is also extremely expensive -- a beer would cost about 12 bucks, everything was about triple or quadruple what it was in the U.S.) but anyways, people there don't go out until around 2 a.m., and stay out until 6 a.m. Crazy people, I swear.

Sorry I sort of glossed over the rest of my trip, but the pictures might help, and I have so much to do, not mentioning keeping up my blog on the rest of my trip. I just saw an amazing concert tonight, Man Man, and I'm going to France this weekend, so I'll have plenty to update.

Back "home"

Alright, I'm back, and I will try to document the trip as best as I can -- it will take a while though, so I'll go day by day. In short, it was amazing.

Day 0: Thursday - I flew out of Heathrow into Kevlavik, and then took a bus the 45 minutes into Reykjavik. I had a Couchsurfer lined up for this night, but I was going to be getting in so late that I told him I'd just stay at a hostel that night. The bus got into Reykjavik at about 1 am. I was excited for the bus ride, my first Iceland experience, but I was not impressed. Granted, it was dark out, but the landscape between Kevlavik and Reykjavik is a lot of lava flow grounds, just rocks and not much else. But I got to the hostel, paid for it and got to sleep right away.

Day 1: Friday. Got up around 8, went and had breakfast in the hostel. Then I left, found an ATM (withdrew 3000 kr? I think...that's about 40 bucks or so). Then I had to get the bus into the city centre, which I realized later I could have just walked, but it was easier at the time to get the bus. I planned on walking around the city until midday when I'd go over to my Couchsurfer's place. So I got into the city and walked through the streets. It's a relatively small capitol city, about 200,000 or so I think. And it's very compact so you can walk through the whole city in a matter of a few hours. The main landmark is the church Hallgrimskirkja:



I went in there, and you can take an elevator to the top, so I did that, and got great views of the city:




Then I came down, and headed for the mountains. You can see the mountains outside of the city on one side, across the bay, so I headed for the water. Got down there and sat on the rocks by the water, just stared at the mountains for a while. Mountains are amazing. I don't know that I've ever really seen mountains before then, so that was pretty sweet. My journal just says "Oh God mountains" for that experience.





After that I walked to the bus terminal to get a ticket for the Golden Circle bus tour the following day. Got some food at the cafe there. At noon I headed to my Couchsurfer's house. He had given me directions, to get off the bus here and look for the yellow building with "Grandi" on the front of it. So...I found that building...but it was this big warehouse in the middle of an industrial park. Very, very confused. But I asked someone outside if they knew Snorri, my host, and he said "oh yeah, just come on in."




So it was the "house." Inside was just two big rooms, one with lots and lots of beds, just with handmade lofts and sheets drawn to indicate a "bedroom." About 6-7 people live there, and they were hosting 6 other Couchsurfers while I was there. Basically, it was crazy. And really cool. They were what you could call hippies, but just in the environmental sense - Snorri and a couple others came back one night with loads of fruits and vegetables. Which they got from "dumpster diving." I thought it was just a way of saving money, but actually they get food from the supermarket's dumpster, that is deemed "bad" but in actuality isn't that bad, and they give the food away to poor people/charities. So they were pretty cool.


This is where I slept. Under the white sheet.
After that, I went to the harbor to check out whale-watching, but it was a little expensive, so I just looked for them from where I was. No such luck. But then I went to 12 Tonar, this really sweet music shop downtown. Apparently it's a favorite of Sigur Ros, but they weren't there because they were IN LONDON RECORDING THEIR NEXT ALBUM. Perfect timing, Sigur Ros, perfect timing. I got a lot of good Icelandic bands that I need to check out.

I hit up a couple souvenir places after that, went to the National Museum which was really cool, told the history of Iceland from its beginning (700 AD or so) to the present. At night I went to this Volcano Show, which is a guy that made a semi-famous documentary about volcanoes, who then built his own mini-theater to show his movie in over and over. There were 6-7 other people that I got to talk to there, so that was good. The weird part about that night, was that I came back outside at 10:30 p.m., and it was still light out. Iceland was getting about 16 hours of sunlight, it didn't get dark until after midnight, and got light really early. It was crazy.

Then I went back to the house. At first, the house was pretty awkward, because every time I came in, the people that I had met the last time were no longer there, and the new people looked like they had no idea who I was. But then I met everyone, so it was all good. Snorri is from Iceland, Jason lived there who was originally from the States, then there was a Czech girl, three Lithuanian couchsurfers who were really cool, a girl from Sweden and a few others. I played cards with the Lithuanians, and then we just sat around the table, talking about politics, Couchsurfing, etc. Really fun night, got to bed around 2:30.

Day 2 in a little bit, I have to go shower.

THE DAY HAS COME

Goodbye world, I'm going to Iceland in a matter of minutes. I fly in tonight, I'm going to stay at a hostel in Reykjavik tonight (the lower left hand side of the map above), then go to my couchsurfer's house tomorrow. Then on Sunday I fly to Isafjordur in the westfjords (top left of the map) and Ivar is picking me up, he's hosting me for a week in a small village on the western coast, like in a SW direction from Isafjordur on that map.

See you in 10 days!