Since finals are approaching, it’s a bit overwhelming to discuss productivity tips and apps to help collegiettes study, so why not remember the good old days (yep, vacation) and maybe share a little bit of my 25 days journey to Great Britain.
It all started with this one person and his name is Charles Dickens. Apparently, I do have a love-hate-love relationship with this Victorian author and all the Victorian period. Most of my time in High School and now in college as a Journalism major, I am constantly drawn to topics related to British culture (Hello, my 2nd year first bimester project about Kate Middleton). The 19th century was always a top five subject for me to pick, but when it came to England, the passion was much greater than words.
When one pretty day I was going through my facebook feed and saw this article about University of Exeter’s summer program and how they were giving scholarships for Brazilian students and bang… one of their courses was about Victorian Literature and Visual Culture (Dickens was of course in their syllabus), I thought it would not hurt to apply, I mean there was no tax and I already had my Toefl test score in hand. Therefore, I sent this terrible essay about how I love “A Tale of Two Cities” and want to work with Cultural Journalism, so a bit more of cultural studies would be fantastic for my academic background. Two weeks later, I received an e-mail saying that I got a scholarship percentage and after a couple of hours convincing mom and dad, my trip was set.
I had the awful idea to take a plane two days before the beginning of my program and spent 10 hours in an airport in the US. Between Washington, Houston and Chicago, I picked Chicago, because I love the city – although I did not have time to leave O’Hare – and I know how to sing both Frank Sinatra songs “Chicago” and “My Kind of Town”, every cheesy, right. I left Sao Paulo on July 2nd at night, spent the 3rd in the Windy City and arrived in London’s Heathrow on the 4th early in the morning (6 am to be more exact).
The first impression I got from England – not considering the pictures I took in the airport, very ‘Mother, I’m here’ style – was humidity. Hot heavy humidity. Coming from a city with a hydric crisis and very little rain this year, Britain’s weather was abnormal for me. Besides that and how expensive my taxi ride to the hotel was, London was amazingly organized, with nice dressed and polite people, many healthy fast-food restaurants (what may sound like a paradox) and lots of shops (but, let’s not forget the currency exchange). I spent three awesome days in London with our university group in a hotel on Drury Lane, Covent Garden and for my surprise most of my colleagues were international as well, so I met people from India, China, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Gana and other 27 nationalities. But, I did make some great friends, some of them from the US, Canada and Australia, what provide me an opportunity to speak, literally, all the time in English.
From Trafalgar Square to the London Tower, from Tower Bridge to three hours standing and watching “Measure by Measure” on Globe Theatre, from Millenium Bridge (really bad dizziness) to St. Paul Cathedral, and finally from the British Museum to King’s Cross (and Platform 9 ¾), I met every place where our feet could take us and our time could be managed. After that, we took a bus to Exeter.
What started as a medieval city and roman territory, Exeter is incredibly old, restored and cozy. You can go everywhere in the city and University Campus with your own two feet and it’s a great form of exercise (hills everywhere and some you may think are especially designed for cardiac exercise). In three weeks, or something like that, we read “Our Mutual Friend” by Dickens, “Villete” by Charlotte Bronte and my favorite “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde, besides the regular readings, such as Foucalt, Edmund Burke, Kipling and Rossetti. But more than discussing books and how their characters were built, we discussed how Victorian England could be placed as a relevant factor for contemporary nations today, including Brazil. It showed me how some aspects of my own nationality and culture are British related. I mean, Machado de Assis is Machado de Assis mostly because Victorian and 18th century British writers influence.
But, I guess much more than discussing academic matters, drinking High Tea, going to mass in a gothic cathedral and being frustrated with the British grading system (apparently a 75% is an A, what doesn’t make any sense), I found out how great it is to be surrounded by new experiences, enjoy the most of your time with friends. and share peculiarities and costumes from every nation. For instance Brazil has this awkward thing called “Good sense” (Bom senso in Portuguese) that would be something similar to Common Sense, but more in the lines of doing the right thing and not being inconvenient. For Americans and Canadians, it’s only Common Sense and even this Common Sense can be different. When our British ambassadors were giving us a few tips they said “Well, it’s mostly Common Sense stuff, like don’t leave your cell-phone in your pocket”, while for my Canadian friend that’s super strange, since her country has a great security system and there is no need for such things. Another example is trying to explain for them Brazilian educational and health system, they couldn’t possibly understand how it works and how contradictorily it was, because it looks confusing, irrational and troublesome, I mean “How come your High School grades doesn’t matter for you to be accepted in a college? You just take a test and depending on how you score, you either get in or not? But, what if you did terrible in school, it doesn’t matter AT ALL?”
Also, it’s kind of awesome seeing how you can make your way through an international and unknown airport, take a local bus at 3 am to the other terminal with three suitcases or simply memorize the central streets in a city so you can know where to go and don’t look like a tourist. Sometimes, we find ourselves inside our own bubble of places to go, people to see, foods to eat and activities to do, that we don’t think we can survive outside of it, so we endure and stick to the comfortable. To step outside for a moment, take a leap of faith, believe in your abilities, speak another language and share small bits from your journey with some outstanding and incredible people – both the ones back in Brazil and the ones I met in Britain – it’s reassuring to see that, no matter where we are, we can always try to make a place our home. Sometimes, for you to find the things you have been looking for, you just have to run straight, cross a wall and perhaps find Platform 9 ¾.