england keep my bones

exterior of the victoria & albert museum

brompton

inside the v&a

artwork at the v&a

the natural history museum

peter pan

j.m. barrie's house on hyde park

whitley bay playhouse for the frank turner show

storm rolling in over whitley bay

guinness

firefighter memorial for those who died in the blitz

st. paul's cathedral

st. paul's over the thames

london bus

classic

kensington creperie

dark chocolate & banana crepe with cafe au lait

buckingham palace

hi feet. 

inside st. paul's

"will you light my candle?"

st. paul's dome

went ALL the way to the top 

yes. i do. 

view of the globe theatre & tate modern from the top of st. paul's

85 metres up at the top!

champagne & pate after the st. paul's climb

frank. turner.

view of london from the plane... wow

my favorite picture of frank form the show

There is an old English saying that says,

Heaven take thy soul, but England keep my bones.

I found it inspiring not only that this saying exists but also that it finds itself the title of Frank Turner's most recent album (the album destined to become the soundtrack of my sojourn to the land of my ancestors). I don't think there could be anything more appropriate to perfectly sum up the last two weeks of my life.

Though my adventures in London officially began in 2004 when I ventured across the pond at 17, I did not truly find my London until the following autumn when in 2005, along with thirty-six other students, I found myself living in one of the poshest neighborhoods the city has in a six-story Hyde Park mansion along the famous Prince's Gate. I made peace long ago with the fact that I would never again live in South Kensington unless I found myself married to a Duke or a Lord or something like that... Of course, I would live there again in 2007, but after that certainly only a monarch or member of court could get me back there. 

Anyway, the reasons for yet another return journey this year were numerous. The simplest explanation was that with everything that had been happening in-and-to my life the last three months, I desperately needed to find the place where I first found myself and London was my only option. It was there that I had first found my heart, my own center of gravity those years ago and with no other option panning out I realized the one place I needed to be was away. 

London. 

Just the word - London - has a magic to it. And I needed that magic because my life was dangerously close to taking on a shade of grey that didn't resemble anything I'd known before. It wasn't a depression but it was the simple sadness of losing something so dear that it may well have been one of my vital signs. My heart was not broken, but the bruising was significant and it was taking over. 

J. M. Barrie  was a man who wrote extensively of magic and, having lived on the edge of Hyde Park himself, knew of the magic of London. Especially when it came to feeding the mind. The beloved Peter Pan statue in the park is tribute to such beliefs (legend has it that he had it placed in the park during the night so that come morning, the children on their way to school would find it there as if by magic!) And so of course, I made a my usual pilgrimage to the spot there along the Serpentine to visit with Peter. 

But I digress.

I went to England to make myself right with the world again and the trip very quickly became exactly what I needed it to be. More even. This was the first time I have ever made the trans-Atlantic crossing on my own and that inandofitself was phenomenal. It was also the first time I have broken up the flight into two parts and I will say I definitely prefer it, even in the hassle of changing planes in Dallas. One 3-hour and one 8-hour flight is by far superior to one solid 11-hour headache (I can't sit still for that long, I get a little wound up and need to bounce around). 

Arriving at Heathrow will always be a spectacular homecoming for me but this time, God decided to give me an even more impressive entrance: clear skies! Never, in all of my landings in the Motherland, have I been able to so clearly trace the river Thames through the city and see the many landmarks along the banks. Aerial views of Big Ben, Westminster, and the London Bridge -- oh! Oh my! I was in heaven upon landing. 

Crawling through border control and boarding the Tube took me straight to the city center - Piccadilly Circus. Because Rachel and Benita were both working that day, I picked up a set of house keys at Rachel's building, hopped a cab to their flat and dropped off my bag (yes, bag, singular... one piece of hand-luggage was all I took for nearly two weeks) (of course, I came home with one more, but let's not tangle with little details like that).

Then? Then I dissolved into the city. 

I walked the streets that for so many may seen foreign, but for me are simply home. For a city of 7 million, it seems startlingly small and cozy, albeit easy to wander aimlessly and anonymously if you so desire. Perhaps it is because I know it so well and have no fear of losing my way within its streets, needing only to find the nearest Tube station to right myself once again within the grid. 

That first day was delicious. I was famishingly hungry but first things first: I had some paintings to visit. That the Bakerloo line took me directly from the girls' flat in Kensal Rise back to Piccadilly meant for day one I would settle into the National Gallery which is virtually just around the corner in Trafalgar Square. I paid respects to Caravaggio and Giordano, Michelangelo and Da Vinci. I will never tire of staring down these works of art. 

Wandering meanderings then took me to a quick nosh at Pret before heading back out for a bit longer until it was time to meet back up with my girls. Our reunion that evening was wonderful! Seeing Rachel and Benita again after two years was yet another addition to "exactly what I needed". This, to me, is a mark of true friendship - picking up exactly where you left off. We caught up over a dinner of hamburgers and hotdogs (hey, it was the 5th of July... We had to pay tribute to our homeland, even if we were a day late!)

The days that followed were  a continued stroll down that memory lane. Revisiting old haunts throughout the city. Stopping at the Pepperdine House was a must, of course. Though the whole of Exhibition Road is torn apart for the 2012 Olympic-inspired renovation, it was still the beautiful home turf I remember. From the South Ken station, past the creperie, the V&A and the mews, I made my way to the place I called home so long ago. It was wonderful to pass through those enormous doors again and plop down in the leather chairs of Professor Vos Strache's office. I caught her up on the goings-on of all the past Londoners and she filled me in on the happenings of the house. We talked of how sweetly poetic it was that the sadness of Thomasina's passing somehow coincided with the renovations to the house itself being done, so that the heart of the house that once was closed with that chapter of history.

Leaving the house I returned to my walk through the eternal city and wove myself back into the mews. This not-so-secret passage just off Exhibition - and nearly every main drag in this part of London because when the mansion homes were first built these same mews, which are now pricey homes themselves, served as stables for the horses of the wealthy - always served as a Narnia shortcut between our house and the church I so often attended while there, Holy Trinity Brompton. It's also my favorite walk to Knightsbridge.

Dodging through the crowds at Harrod's, I decided to make a quick stop in the food halls to seek out what remains to this day, the best dried mango I've ever had (yes, I know, I'm having a moment here over dried mango... But trust me... There is no dried mango like the Harrod's dried mango in the world... I've done the research). I still remember going to that city-block-sized monstrosity for the first time and the echoes of some old movie where the character references "spending the afternoon getting lost in Harrod's..." Folks, it's funny because it's true. Even after all these years I still manage to need a trail of breadcrumbs whenever i delve into its hallowed halls. Will that stop me though? Hell no. Dehydrated fruit is at stake here.

Mango in hand, I was finally ready to put the finishing touches on my impending trip to Whitley Bay for the Frank Turner concert. When traveling in the UK I found that the best travel snacks are found at the train stations themselves but this time I made an exception with my mango. Still, I had to grab a treat at Cafe Nero before boarding my train to Newcastle,up in northeast England. Keep in mind, this is the first time I've really done the whole travel thing entirely on my own (the only other time I had traversed the globe solo was flying from London to Florence in 2008 to visit Blake). And it was entirely liberating! I've long loved flying by myself and now I can add train travel to that (short) list.

The option of buying a roundtrip ticket was there but I opted for a BritRail pass to make my adventure a little more fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants in nature. In doing so, I had the freedom to take any train at any time which, in my opinion, is the way to do it. So up north I went, arriving in Newcastle three short hours later. Hindsight, I should have spent a lot more time in that city itself. Everywhere I looked there was history waiting to be discovered. Coming from California (hell, America in general) I'm more accustomed to the government finding something that's been around for fifty years, slapping a "historic landmark" sticker on it and calling it a day. But Newcastle was just teeming with an aura of eons gone by and it was all I had to not launch out of the cab and worry about meeting up with Frank another day.

Blessedly though, I controlled my urges and poured myself into a cab bound for Whitley Bay, a small, seaside town about 15 miles from Newcastle city center. After getting lost circling a single block, the cabbie dropped me at my lodging for the night, the Esplanade Lodge. It was a sweet little guesthouse run by a man named Neil and his wife (I never got her name) and between the simple hospitality shown to me and the sheer location of the place (um, three blocks from the coast of the North Sea? Done.)

Timing is apparently not my strong-point so I realized (too late) that I arrived hours before the show so I toured myself through the town, along the coast and back to my room within about three hours. Theoretically I could have stayed out but it's a small town and I was exhausted... And I had some serious Frank Turner-ing in my future so I spent the last couple hours before the show lounging in bed, drinking tea and watching English comedies.

And then... Then it was time. Time for Frank.

Oh. My. God. 


Though seeing him without my friends there to throw my arms around and sing along with by definition sucked, it was easily the best show I've ever seen. And certainly one of the most moving, soul-awakening experiences. My feelings about Frank Turner are well-documented. Much as I could go on for pages about this concert, I'll spare you. Use your imaginations. Photos will touch on it, I'll post some videos that will drive the point closer to home, but nothing - and I mean nothing - can do justice. So I won't try and let that night live on in my mind as a perfect, poetic, epiphany in my search for the person I always was, but who got lost a little along the way. Frank helped bring me back to me and for that, I will be forever grateful.

To be honest, the same can be said for this trip as a whole. I want to write on for the next two weeks, documenting each moment, each point second by second in order to recreate those nine days for you all but... In the interest of saving time and protecting the sanctity of what I accomplished for myself, I think I'll just leave it at that.

Returning to London will never be just any other vacation, any other plane ride, any other place I happen to find myself in. The actor Gael Garcia Bernal actually said it best in a quote I stumbled upon reading an old issue of The Guardian back in 2005,

But for me, London sends you down a route of introspection in a way that no other city does… The city confronts you and exploits the most creative side of you.

How can I best describe what London is for me? What London does for me? I'm going to defer to Samuel Johnson here...

Why sir, you find no man at all intellectual who is willing to leave London. No sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life for there is in London all that life can afford.

I'm going to make a promise here... I will never tire of life.