Thoughts on Life Inside and Outside of Room 26
TravelTrace...5/5/2013 Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. Why do I travel to the UK? Books. English. Culture. Heritage. Tea.
Literature When I was growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia [there's a hint there, even] I studied primarily British Literature. All through high school my courses focused on writers from the UK - Wm. Shakespeare, Johnathan Swift, Jane Austin, Charles Dickens, H. G. Wells, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Then, there are the poets: Tennyson, Browning, Chaucer, Milton, Pope, Blake. These were my stories. The only North American writers that I ever encountered were famed Canadian L. M. Montgomery who graciously penned Anne of Green Gables and Margaret Atwood, who wrote my favorite Alias Grace and very popular The Handmaid's Tale. After living in the imaginations of these UK writers, it is always a wonder for me to visit their lands, and walk where they did. I can share this anecdotally: The first time I was in Canterbury Cathedral, I was 17 years old. I knew that St. Thomas Becket was murdered there, and some of the history, and was awed at the size and scope of the place. After teaching Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales for years, I went there with another English teacher and 11 students. I was amazed, silenced, and profoundly thankful for the opportunity to visit once again; what an extraordinary place. Language I really enjoy traveling to Britain because I don't have to worry about not speaking the lanugage. I have a little French - studied through my senior year in Canada - but it gets rough when I don't get to practice it regularly. It takes the edge off of travel like nothing else can. Culture and Heritage, and Tea My parents, my family, are Canadian. My mum was born and raised - for her youngest years - in The Netherlands. Her family fled the war and arrived in Canada when she was a young school girl. My father grew up on a farm in Alberta, Canada. We all share a history in Holland, and on one of our journeys, mum and I went to her childhood home. Although I grew up within five minutes of the US boarder crossing, I never had any strong ties to the US or this history here. I always thought of myself, and still do, as a Canadian: a tea drinking, Britain loving, sonnet knowing, outside dwelling, Union Jack loving, Royal Family watching kinda girl. Why the UK? I love the UK. I love that there is a City of London, inside of London. I love that Henry VIII lived in London, and his daughters, the queens Mary I and Elizabeth I. I love Princess Diana. I love the Thames as an old highway. I love the pinstripes, the tea and shortbread; a pint with some chips and a chat after work, as seen here. I love that the culture is close to what I know, but has evolved so much more, from so long ago. That is why I go.
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I am...A teacher of students of British, World and Contemporary Literature. Archives
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