BFA Fairfax Goes To England

BFA Fairfax English Department Trip to London

April 15th- April 24th 2009

A Reflection by Fred Griffin

April 15 2009 Dorval Airport 3:30pm

Hurry up and wait.

We hustled out of the school at 12:30 and piled onto the bus, fifteen strong, bristling with eagerness and unmasked enthusiasm. When the school bus pulled in front of the Departures sign at Dorval Airport in Montreal at 2:30 we scrambled off, and unloaded packs and luggage in assembly line. From there we walked toe to heel into the terminal, moved out at a vigorous pace to the Air Canada International baggage check, and ground to a halt. Ever so politely the uniformed man let us know that we would not be able to check our bags until 4:30, and perhaps we could find some place to go until then. Behind Eve and I the kids milled and churned.

“What’s going on? What are we going to do for two hours?”

Sensing it was the moment for decisive action, I shouldered Wally, my 40 lb backpack, and headed toward where, on the way in, I had seen signs for a food court and lounge. Lambs to shepherd they followed, bleating quietly.

There were no solutions but there were new problems awaiting us at the services court. Our gaggle of fifteen somewhat bewildered would-be travelers circled the crowded oval of fast food outlets and gift shops in hopes of finding an alcove, or possibly a series of benches where we could make a safe compound for ourselves and our possessions. The place was jammed. Someone, maybe Justin, saw the sign for a lounge upstairs. Two-thirds of the group queued at the elevator, while Rebecca, myself, and Justin tackled the stairs. We found precisely what we needed: forty empty bench seats, and some square café-style tables next to a window wall at the deserted end of the terminal where we could hunker down and gather ourselves.

We had finished the hurrying part and had entered the wait mode.

Each dealt with the down time in his or her fashion. I volunteered to babysit the bags and journalize while Eve and Rebecca returned downstairs to parley with the ticketing and boarding-pass machines, a highly unenviable task in my opinion. Michelle and Zaide went downstairs to canvas the stores in the services court. Lukas and Cory were presumably there as well. Elizabeth, Sheilagh, Hope, Justin, and Jessica played a card game whose name I pretended not to hear. Adam read an article at a nearby table and Sam wrote in a spiral notebook while Casey read a few benches down.

Our adventure to England had begun, sort of.

4/17 Holland House Hostel 5:00 am

It was the most exciting part of a long, long day of arrival that stretched, sleepless, through Wednesday night and across all of Thursday. We had just emerged from the Notting Hill Gate underground station ten minutes prior. I was seated on the substantial edge of a pentagonal concrete planter encircling a newly-leafed birch-like tree, resting my aching feet and watching the kids sort things out.

Lukas informally presided over one small group.

“Adam,” he said, handing him a map. “You take this; now look—we’re here, right where my thumb is. We go here. What do you think?”

“I don’t have any opinion. I don’t want any opinion. Then I can blame whoever ends up wrong.”

Under Lukas‘s prodding, Adam grudgingly accepted the map. His brow wrinkled.

“Yeah. Yeah, looks good, Lukas,” then added the disclaimer, ”but what do I know?”

Okay, then,” said Lukas, “We’re going this way.” He pointed down Holland Avenue. “Right, Fred?”

At the same time, Sheilagh, exuberant as ever despite having been awake for forty hours, crossed five time zones, and walked ten miles, came up to me beaming brightly

“It’s this way, isn’t it?”

She was pointing up Holland Avenue, opposite Lukas’s choice.

“Yes!” I said to both of them forcing the remaining ten kids to choose sides in the exhaustion-fueled quest to find ‘home’, our hostel in Holland Park.

It was an impromptu gamble on my part. Having spent the day periodically reminding them of the imperative to know where they were, where they were going, and how to get back to the hostel (pay attention, dammit!), I had nonetheless watched them plod along, blissful but confused, behind their bellwether chaperones. On the long climb up and out of the tube at Notting Hill Gate, I decided it was time to shake things up. I counseled Ms Thorsen and Rebecca Baczewski, both far more nurturing in nature than I, on the austere side of experiential education. They were properly dismayed, but yielded. Then I turned to the lads and lasses.

“We’re switching roles, folks. You are going to take us back. We’re going to follow you.”

Wide-eyed stares were followed by a chorus of disgruntled murmurs, sprinkled with a few “oh no’s!” – but in no time they had maps out and were struggling with the issue. Now things had come down to an irreconcilable division.

A number of our corps, who shall remain nameless, was too stupefied by fatigue to think; they sidled towards Sheilagh’s decidedly more reassuring nature. Adam re-considered his early support of Lukas, looked left, right, left, and bailed. Ms Thorsen and Rebecca fell to the rear of this group while I, with a heavy-heart, followed Zaide and Lukas, who I knew were going exactly opposite the desired course. To my surprise, they walked one block, promptly took a right and then another right until unbeknown to themselves, they were precisely paralleling the progress of the others, only one block to their North. We arrived at hostel within minutes of the others, all parties triumphant.

The flight over was numbing at best, and miserable at worst. Some turned it into a movie marathon, others plugged into their I-pods or hand-held games, a few read, and all tried to find comfort in a crowded and cramped and comfortless world. All that is, except Adam. Standing and rubbing his bleary eyes after our Heathrow landing, Adam informed his fraying peers that he had “slept all the way over.”

We emerged from the belly of the metal beast at 8:00AM without incident, then migrated under Ms Thorsen’s gentle and confident leadership to the underground. Three minutes en route we decided on a simple plan for staying together we followed for eight days. Ms. Thorsen at the front, Ms Baczewski at the back, and me moving up and down the line offering parched witticisms and depressingly good cheer.

Make no mistake, the underground was a source of high anxiety. Not only were we caught in the morning rush but we were laden like sherpas and my oft-repeated reminders rang in the kid’s heads: “The London underground is the most crowded subway in the world.” This last is in keeping with my overall methodology: always prepare people for the worst possible outcome and then they will be pleasantly surprised when things only turn out to be bad. Works like a charm.

Initially we took heart in that we were the first passengers on the train, an entire car ours—this because the Blue Line begins at Heathrow. Anticipating the crowds to come, I kept Wally on my shoulders and supported his weight on a small padded ledge at front of the car, the exit door at hand. The kids took seats, their baggage throttling the aisle. Sheilagh looked at them, looked at the door, then stood next to me. We acquired passengers at each of the nine stops and in a short time the kids were sealed from the doors behind a barricade of pressed English flesh.

Sheilagh timed the opening and closing of the doors. “Fifteen seconds,” she said, smiling. “we have fifteen seconds to work our way out.”

I took a moment to lean past the fence of heads and speak a few words of encouragement to Hope, Jessica, and Michelle, who were closest to me.

“Sheilagh and I have been thinking. We figure seven out of the ten of you make it in time. Three will be trapped.” I paused and smiled. “And we know who you are…”

Jessica fidgeted briefly, then took matters in hand. When we were one stop away from disembarking, she left her seat and bit-by-bit edged her way closer to the door. Lukas, however, demonstrated admirable finesse.

“Excuse me, ma’am, would you like my seat?” he asked a business-suited woman in her mid-twenties. “I’m getting off at the next stop.”

The others saw which way the wind was blowing and did the same, setting up a chain reaction wherein within moments the standing became seated and the seated were positioned to make their escape.

As we hurtled toward our stop I smile inwardly—one thing had become very, very apparent during these thirty minutes on the train: we would blend in nowhere. Our seated mates giggled, whooped, made jokes, chortled, while the packed file of regulars stared at them with the same impassive curiosity they would summon viewing a new school of fish in the aquarium.

The hostel was a ten-minute walk from the Kensington station. Sitting atop a rise amidst a thirty-acre park filled with playing fields and walking paths, it is accessible only by foot and by service vehicle. The compound is locked at night and the residents are squirreled away by gender in cubicles of varying sizes. There is not much sense in talking about the quality of accommodations beyond saying we all have beds, some of the toilets work most of the time, and we are fed healthy, if marginally palatable food. Hey, it is a hostel! It is what we can afford. As my father-in-law was fond of saying, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. “ We eat and sleep here and it will serve us well in this capacity.

We encamped briefly, freshened our clothes and sink-bathed travel residues from our skin, then returned to the tube, crossing to the other side of the park down a long hill to the Holland Way Station. There we picked up the Piccadilly Line to the area around magnificent St. Paul’s Cathedral, old London’s centerpoint and still amongst the tallest structures in this city of over twelve million. Before we could begin our day’s tour, however, we had to deal with our bellies. It was nearing noon and I could feel my stomach starting to digest itself.

Succumbing the pull of the familiar, Cory, Zaide, Sam, Jessica, and others lunched at a Subway, while the rest of us found excellent fare at an adjacent EAT, a health-conscious sandwich shop and part of a chain we spotted about London in almost as great a frequency as Starbucks. I tried to convince everyone who would listen that this was the perfect time to drink a large coffee and get jacked for the next few hours, but sadly, there were no takers. I let them know that youth is wasted on the young.

We assembled on the sidewalk after lunch and Eve spoke to the group about the great fire of London in 1666, how this entire area had been reduced to smoking embers. She led us a short distance S, downhill towards the Thames River to Christopher Wren’s Monument Tower, built around 1700 in memory of the disaster. It is a rounded, unadorned spire with a compact golden dome. Once it commanded a view of the entire city but now it barely peeks over the modern buildings looming in this aggressively commercial area. We climbed the 800? 1000? winding stairs to the top, enjoyed our first perspective of the city proper, then descended the same many hundreds of stairs to the bottom. For me it was a wondrous first stop: a chance to position ourselves in greater London and an opportunity for healthsome exercise to stir blood turned viscous from hours and hours of sitting. Some in the group however, were stair-challenged, which did not bode well given that St Paul’s was next on our agenda.

Following a photo session we began to migrate helter-skelter towards St Paul’s, our main event on this first day. At first every street corner was an adventure. Too much of an adventure. We stopped and circled the kids for lessons.

“See the green man on the traffic light, boys and girls? He means GO! See the red man, boys and girls? He means STOP!” Lesson done, I stepped out and was nearly mashed by a cab. You see, the real secret to surviving London traffic lies not with the little men of color, but in holding in mind the small but critical fact that traffic comes from the unexpected direction. It is very poor form to look to the left, and assure oneself that the lane is clear and proceed; it is the bus approaching from the right that will flatten you. The kids and Eve and Rebecca mastered this concept immediately, but it required a half-dozen near-death experiences over several days before I could say the same.

We spent close to three hours in St. Paul’s Cathedral, built under the direction of the great architect Christopher Wren in the early decades of the 18th century. It is a masterpiece of neo-classical architecture. The kids were still sufficiently awake and malleable at this point for the wealth of sensory data visited upon them at St Paul’s to suitably impress. We walked the subterranean crypt, listened to a heavenly youth choir, marveled at the perfect acoustics, gasped at the aerial expansion beneath the dome, and were stunned by the variety and intricacy of carvings and sculpture. I reflected inwardly that despite religious wars and intolerance and infighting that have dogged Christianity through the millennium, much of what is most beautiful, most inspiring in man’s handiwork was created to the glory of their God. St Paul’s Cathedral is a magnificent case in point.

While Eve kindly stayed below with a few foot-weary, exhausted travelers, I took most of the group many more hundreds of stairs aloft to the Whispering Gallery, the railed ring around the interior of the dome, hundreds of feet above the cathedral floor. I, of course, told them they must whisper here and was pleased by their cooperation. Only when we returned to Eve in the nave below did I learn that it is called the Whispering Gallery because a subdued whisper on one side can be heard 180 degrees away on the other side. Next time….

So it was that instead of playing in this huge sounding chamber, we circumnavigated flagstones dished smooth by the passing of feet, where we found a door. The stairs beyond the threshold climbed even higher to the balcony outside the dome where we spent thirty minutes locating landmarks on our map; at one point I passed by Adam trying to convince Zaide and Michelle that the communication tower just visible in the SE was in fact the Eiffel Tower. We moseyed 360 degrees, taking in the city new and the city old. No matter where we turned the views were staggering: Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Globe Theater, the myriad architectures in one of the world’s greatest cities, cleft by the long brown coil of the mighty Thames River.

On exit we took various posed shots on the front steps of the Cathedral, all of which had no redeeming social value but were great fun, then lugged our tired bodies along London streets toward Samuel Johnson’s house in Gough Court. Just beyond St Paul’s we explored the Temple Court, a newly cobbled plaza with a spire and a puzzling modern sculpture called “Angel”, made of sweeping accordion folds of stainless steel. It was only on looking back after passing that we saw a bent form, robes, and wings. Besides, if the truth be known, Zaide and Cory were transfixed by more traditional statuary of a kneeling shepherd and four sheep entitled “Pater Noster.” Much of their attention was focused on comparing the respective genitalia of ram and master. Kids, go figure…

Samuel Johnson’s house was a living museum from top to bottom. The fact that it exists as perhaps the only intact 18th residential dwelling in London is significant, even had the Great Lexicographer, and subject of Boswell’s remarkable biography not lived there. For all its enormity London is a new city rebuilt from the fire, rebuilt from the devastation of WWII, rebuilt by modern commerce. Johnson’s four story modest brick home was virtually unchanged from 1780, from the hardware on the doors to the wooden paneling, to the 4th floor garret where the first English dictionary was written- though the ceiling and roof here had been rebuilt using original materials insofar as possible, following a WWII fire bombing.

Our guide, Elizabeth, gave a wonderful presentation, describing this gargantuan-- both in frame and intellect-- man of English letters. Alas, it was here in Sam Johnson’s house that enough turned into too much. Johnson was unknown to the kids. The talk lasted nearly an hour. All tried valiantly to absorb what was being said, but by this time sitting was an invitation to sleeping. In fact, in any lack of movement was an irresistible beacon wafering them into slumber. I’ve heard it said that horses sleep standing up. I can’t say that I’ve witnessed this, but I have seen Hope, Justin, Jessica, and Zaide drift off while standing. As presiding adults, as agenda makers, we had asked too much of them. What had seemed like a fine idea in planning failed in execution.

From Johnson’s house on Gough court we moved in resuscitating cool air by foot to the nearest underground to Notting Hill station and our street-wise exploration home. Following a unmemorable but filling dinner, we met to discuss Friday and plot our course. I-net time, showers, bedtime followed for most but one last outing was waiting for a few of us.

I took Michelle, Zaide, Cory, Justin, Sheilagh, Lukas, out from 7:00-8:30. With the assistance of Cory and Lukas, Michele and Zaide shopped lingerie in the few stores still open at that hour. London, we found, goes to bed early! Sheilagh and Justin and I completed a three-mile loop in a failed search for a view of Kensington Palace, Princess Diana’s residence and still home to nobility. All gates were closed and three-story houses which lined the walled perimeter screened us. We marked it down as “unfinished business”.

I remember my head hitting the bed at 8:30, but nothing afterwards.

4/17. Holland House 5:00 am

Yesterday we lost Lukas. First, we misplaced Adam, then we lost Lukas. Well, technically, since I was the presiding chaperone, first I misplaced Adam and then I lost Lukas. Not intentionally, mind you.

We were at the Oxford Circus on our post-prandial outing. I need to explain that “Circus” is a term with Roman origins and it simply means a plaza, more-or-less circular, where many streets converge. No animals, no acrobats, no midway. Just stores and people. In the case of Oxford Circus, lots of stores and many, many people.

Eve was visiting her sister and Sam was spending the evening with her sister Jenn, leaving us thirteen in number.

On the whole, we were led, or driven, by the insatiable shopping instincts of Zaide and Michelle. The rest of us came along because were curious to return to this jumble of shops and theatres and cinemas we had observed earlier in the day on our Big Bus Tour. Souvenirs for friends and family back home were also on everyone’s mind.

Disappointment came quickly. We were on the streets by 7:30 but alas, even in this throbbing retail mecca, most stores closed at 8:00--- something Zaide and Michelle and most of the others found bewildering. The group quickly proved unwieldy at thirteen. With the fateful hour of 8:00 rapidly approaching, kids were in a foment deciding which stores to enter. It was also unsettling to store staff when we descended en masse and began combing shelves, handling everything. Rebecca and I decided to split into two groups. She stayed with Hope, Jessica, Casey, Sheilagh in the Oxford area, mining those few stores that stayed open to 9:00. Michelle, Zaide, Elizabeth, Adam, Lukas, Cory, Justin, and I prospected down increasingly busy Regent Street, generally moving toward the busy theatre district around Piccadilly Circus in hopes of finding more fertile ground.

Two stores from our parting, in the very same block, my group ground to a halt in front of an upscale, youth-oriented, Gap-like store compellingly called Fcuk, a name the kids loved to let roll off their tongues. Again and again and again. We went inside, trolled for tee shirts, gave up after a few minutes, emerged onto the drizzle-slickened sidewalks, and resumed the trek along Regent.

At this point I have to assume some responsibility for the events that followed. Even though, as I pointed out frequently to my charges, it was their night out, and I was only tagging along, it has to be recognized that part of my duties was to count heads. I can find excuses by the handful. It was past my bedtime—almost, anyway. I was dulled by fatigue; it was after all, their outing—but any way one chooses to look at it was my responsibility to count heads. I failed to do so. Three, perhaps four long city blocks and ten minutes later Cory, or Zaide, or maybe even the intrepid Lukas noticed that Adam was no longer with us. We stepped to one side of the busy sidewalk and discussed the matter. Fingers were pointed. Blame was assigned. Debate ensued.

Should we all go back and get him? This was the core issue. I pointed out that it was highly unlikely that Adam was still in Fcuk. That he would have noticed we were gone and would catch us in a moment or two if he followed—or he would retrace his steps 100 feet and join the others. They chewed on this logic for a bit and agreed, except for Lukas.

“I’m going back to get him.”

“But Lukas, he isn’t going to be there and you might not find the other group.”

My reasoning caused hesitation. Lukas’ eyes blinked rapidly as he processed it. He started back. He stopped and faced us. Indecision hung fire.

“Lukas, he won’t be there.”

“I’m going to get him.”

He was off. Our noble knight, the bold Lukas of La Riviere strode down the damp sidewalk and disappeared in the crowded darkness on his mission of rescue.

“We might as well keep going,” one of our remaining group murmured.

I agreed and propelled by the lure of souvenirs, geegaws, watchamacallits, and lingerie we moved S on Regent Street. Showers came and went while foot and vehicle traffic swelled as we reached one of the great nightspots of one of the world’s great cities. Huge video screens wrapped around buildings touting theatre shows, clothes, booze, and the promise of associated carnal pleasures—this was Piccadilly Circus on Friday night. Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum immediately caught their eye.

We looked through the windows at pictures touting eight feet tall grotesques while a bizarre, scantily clad twosome, one a bear-like man and the other female and equally hirsute, promenaded on a mini-stage to one side. In the middle of this showroom of the abnormal, where ticket booths fronted chutes lined with posters promising a cornucopia of weird eye candy, tunnels led invitingly downward to the land of benighted marvels beneath the storefront.

“Wow! Look at that! Let’s go in!”

“Hey-hey.” I counseled, “It’s going to cost big bucks and you won’t have time to see it all. We’ve got to head back soon and I thought you wanted to shop.” To my way of thinking the tour of Ripley’s dungeon was only slightly more engaging than a tour of the London sewers. In fact, they had a great deal in common.

“I think there’s a souvenir shop across the street,” said Elizabeth.

Bless you, dear, I thought, as heads swiveled and bodies bolted and my multi-legged many-armed ADD organism swarmed across the street and into the souvenir store. I have to commend them for their discretion. They did not buy the women’s underwear overlaid with a map of the underground and inscribed with the oft-repeated phrase issued from the loud speaker at every stop, ”Mind the Gap”. In fact, I am proud to say that they passed on all the gaudy garbage. I know Justin bought a key chain and some other small items, and Michelle found an “I Love London” hooded sweatshirt. When we exited it was drawing near to 9:00, the witching hour when we would turn for home. We meandered through the theatre crowds and found an arcade of small stores. We mapped it with our feet, then found the nearest underground and made our way towards Holland Park Hostel. When we stepped out of the train we were astonished to see the remainder of our entourage, including Adam, emerge from the same train three cars down, except— wait. No Lukas!

Lukas, the street-smart navigator of the tube, the Theseus of London’s labyrinthal lanes, Lukas the savvy, Lukas the Lion-Hearted, was not with them! Rebecca and I conferred— as I suspected, her group had picked up Adam before we even missed him, but they had never seen Lukas. We decided he had probably preceded us to the hostel. We walked the mile home, up the dark, tree-shrouded lane, buzzed security to let us into the gated compound, which locks at 8:30, fully expecting to find Lukas in the lobby—No! … or in his room—Not!

When we came up empty-handed, Rebecca and I talked it out. Calling the police at 10:00 PM on a Friday night in a city of twelve million to report a missing seventeen year old was at best, fruitless. We would wait up for him and, if necessary, send out the scent-sniffing dogs in the morning. I retired to my room and lay on my bed, contemplating the phone call I would have to make home.

“Mrs. LaRiviere?”

“Yes?”

“This is Fred Griffin. I am calling you from England about Lukas.”

“Lukas! What’s wrong? Is he hurt?”

“Oh no—no. I’m calling to let you know we’ve lost him. I’m sure—“

“You what!”

“I’m sure he’s fine—“

“You what??”

“Lost him. I’m—“

“You lost my son??”

“I-“

“What kind of Monsters are you!?!”

I was running this and similar scenarios through my head, some of which involved doing hard time, when a somewhat buoyant Lukas returned at 10:30, mystified as to why we were upset. I told him we would talk in the morning. And we will, in about an hour after I am done journalizing and they arise for breakfast.

Day Two may have lacked the excitement of Night Two described above, but it was packed with rewards. We left the compound at 9:00, traveling S and E from the High Bridge Kensington underground and emerging on the S shore of the Thames in front of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abby. Immediately, I realized that my choice of clothes could have been better. My shorts, long-sleeved shirt, and gortex jacket were appropriate to the forecast of 58-60 degrees and sunshine, but not the conditions, which were cloudy, significantly cooler, and edged with a stiff breeze. Except for a few interludes inside buildings, I spent next five hours in several various stages of self-inflicted discomfort: chilled, cold, or quivering miserably with cold.

Our troop was joined at this point by Sam Schraven’s sister, Jenn, and Ms. Thorsen’s sister, Noni, who is a teacher in a suburb of London. We spent ten minutes in the area immediate to the underground taking pictures of the lance-like Gothic spires of Parliament. We were beneath Big Ben when the hour tolled but we were not allowed inside security-wrapped, camera-bristling fence which enclosed the lawns and fabled clock-tower and Houses of Parliament. Only slightly disappointed, we set off for Westminster Abbey, our second miscalculation on an itinerary conceived at home but executed in London.

Westminster Abbey proved equal parts pleasure and pain. Because we were a pre-registered group we entered the Abbey from the cloisters, which were stirring: worn flagstones beneath a pillared walkway squaring a spring-green lawn. We came into the church from an uncrowded rear entrance and began the regimented clockwise tour they required of us. When we entered the church proper some of the kids were hesitant to walk over the tombstones embedded face up in the floor.

“Are there bones under these stones?”

“Yes, there are, Casey.”

“Eeeww…”

At first we chafed under the requirement that our group stay together at all times. Our attitude would soon change. We saw the caskets of kings and queens, nobles and saints, warriors and politicians, scientists and philosophers. The resting places of Elizabeth I and Edward III were notably impressive. We trod the Poet’s Corner graves of T. S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Samuel Johnson (our new friend), Lord Byron, and more. We marveled at the statuary and the 1000 year old mosaic floor under restoration in front of the High Altar, and at the grace and power of the fluted columns holding up the preponderant weight of the stone roof—but did all of these things under considerable duress.

As soon as we swept around the first corner and moved into the central nave the crowds thickened and clotted. The entire transept was a tight airless pack shuffling forward inches at a time, a choking snake of humanity. Our group was separated at the outset although from time to time the random stirring of the masses turned up a familiar face. I remember seeing Cory and rolling my eyes.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. I couldn’t agree more.

We were spit out in the cloisters, impressed with what we had seen, but overwhelmingly relieved to be done. The day was fleeing from us with distressing speed, but we knew that before we boarded our Big Bus tour we had to eat. At any rate, I knew I had to eat. I don’t get many miles to the gallon and my dairy-free breakfast at the hostel left me running on empty early on. Thankfully, the majority concurred and we fled Westminster’s huddled masses through crowded rainy streets to Victoria Station, a major hub where all underground lines converge, and where we found a double dozen eateries. Michelle and Sheilagh and I had a bagel sandwich. We headed upstairs to find seats and stumbled on six of our kind gorging on comfort food fresh from RonnieMacs. “Two-double-cheeseburgers-fries-and-a-coke-six-pounds-thank-you-come-again.”

Post lunch we boarded the double-decker Big Bus for our tour of the city. The kids, of course, scrambled for roof seats, and I joined them but as far forward and close to the windscreen as possible. Ms. Thorsen kindly lent me her rain jacket, which reduced my shivering, but for me the ride was grueling. The kids loved it!

The tour guide was seated in mid-bus, only ten rows of seats behind us, but we scarcely heard his amplified voice. Zaide, Shelaigh, Cory, and Lukas among others, kept their own running commentary on the sights and sounds around them. I didn’t miss not hearing the guide—I kept my map in my lap and identified landmarks as best as I could on my own. I was having too much fun observing our kids observe London, then translate what they were seeing and hearing into their idiom from their northern Vermont perspective. What a hoot!

At 3:00 we again broke into smaller groups. Differentiation is beginning to emerge as a successful strategy—groups formed by interest, a buffet of activities, as much freedom as is prudent. Rebecca, Casey, Adam, and Sam and Jenn Schraven stayed aboard the bus for the entirety of the three-hour tour, while the rest of the kids broke off with me to tour the Museum of Science.

We arrived at the right station but were unsure which portal to exit. When we hit sidewalk I took out a map to identify streets. This would not do. Fired up yesterday’s success Michelle, Lukas, Justin took charge, or tried to, all at once. Lukas prevailed, and we lanced off in the wrong direction on an extended walkabout. Justin finally righted ship, but as we neared the huge complex I succumbed to his insistence that we needed to go left to find the entrance and took an additional kilometer detour. Ah yes, the miles do add up by the end of the day!

The museum was crawling with largely unsupervised primary school kids on field trips. They were not unlike packs and packs of small dogs roving freely off their leashes, knocking about, getting underfoot, racing, yipping the entire time we were there and yet, amazingly, they did not make a dent in our enjoyment.

We identified our meeting place and time and went our own way. I traced the industrial development of the steam engine via picture, model, artifact, and giant re-construction, then moved to the agricultural section and followed the mechanization of farming from 1800-1950. The little time remaining I lost myself in the space exhibit where Hope spent much of her time. Michelle, Zaide and Cory ended up in the medical practices area and observed the progression of technology over 300 years. Elizabeth spoke incoherently about a crystal bridge. She seemed happy though, so I did not follow up. I am unable to account for Justin, but all were chirruping happily when we met at 5:15 to set out for the hostel.

This was our first experience with the underground during evening rush hours. We now understand why the London tube is called the busiest in the world. Mind you, it was the most civil, unemotional, packing of humanity into small spaces I’ve ever witnessed, but in the end bulling and jamming is still bulling and jamming, no matter how pretty you make it. Our party was separated in the confusion. What can I say? The train came in, the door opened, a few folks spilled out, Sheilagh, Hope and I bulled into the jam. Unfortunately when we turned back toward the platform as the train was pulling out we saw the distressed faces of the rest of our group, heads on a swivel tracking our departure.

“Don’t worry, Sheilagh—they have training. They’re all comfortable with where we live and how to get there. They’ll make it back.”

“Mind the gap between the train and the platform,” she returned in perfect English English.

Sure enough, all arrived in good spirits for our 6:00 PM dinner, though I was soundly chastised for leaving them. After dinner, which was late because of a host of new arrivals on the grounds, a number of kids wanted to use I-net or read and relax. Since I can’t wrap my head around how to chew gum or relax, I took eight other kids down to Kensington with Rebecca for a walk. We ended up having excellent hot chocolate in a small cafe. It was a nice moment I liked to savor when on later days our amiable companionship became strained. When we returned to the hostel we noted the crowd of newbie’s had swelled yet again. For our remaining days we experienced a full hive of 200 guests.

I retired on returning, visions of tube travel dancing in my head.

4/18 Holland Hostel 5:00 am.

In the back of my mind I have always been a bit skeptical about Stonehenge. In five previous trips to England I’ve always found something else to do, someplace else to go rather then make what I felt was the obligatory trip to share a view of a broken circle of stacked stones with many hundreds others.

I had part of it right. There were hundreds of people on the windswept treeless hill. Worse, a busy highway ran no more than a quarter mile away. But there was much more, so much more. Stonehenge was an unexpectedly moving experience. On the way in we touched two man-sized stones standing on the edge of the parking lot. The Saracen stone was quarried at nineteen km distant Marlborough Down. It was cool to the palm on this windy cloudy day. The Blue stone, quarried from a hill in Wales, over 350 km away, was almost warm to the touch. It was considered sacred by the ancients for this reason.

Our bus guide gave us little time to puzzle this anomaly before ushering us into a line where we received an audio guide. We walked through a tunnel under the entrance driveway and emerged on a path, cordoned by plastic rope, which circled the stones at a distance of 100- 150 feet. “Henges”, the audio guide told me at station #1, were the paired upright stones, weighing in the neighborhood of forty-five tons. The figure is completed when adjacent henges are capped by a common stone, creating a “stonehenge”. Our 100’ remove from the stonehenges was made necessary by the despoliation of countless generations of visitors of prior centuries, some of whom tried to knock the henges down, many of whom came armed with stone chisels and hammers and carried souvenirs away. “Come on,” the voice inside the head persists, “It’s just one small piece. No one will know or care…and I’ll have my very own bit of Stonehenge on my desk!”

It took thirty-five minutes of pacing, pausing, and listening to the tape to complete my circuit. Near the end of the loop, I was startled by noises behind me. I had company. Fifteen feet away on the other side of the plastic rope, three strands of electric fence contained a meadow of unshorn sheep, many of whom were pressing close to inspect the visitors. Robin-sized blue-black birds scattered about them, sometimes hopping on the ground at their hooves, other times jumping onto the backs of oblivious sheep. I turned back to the henges.

In front of me was this formidable shaped-stone formation, built in 4000 BC. I don’t know if it was scale, or location, or the wind or the bleak sky, or even the sheep, but in me, the most logical of beasts, the attraction of the blunt monoliths grew powerfully. At the risk of sounding like a soft-headed mystic there was, for me anyway, a mystique in their silent grandeur that had nothing to do the mystery of their construction. It was a quality both ineffable and moving. No, I don’t know why. But yes, I would go to see them again.

So it was that on my way back to the bus I was not surprised to see a modern day Druid staging a protest. He was dressed in an ankle-length grey trenchcoat that flapped and fluttered in the breeze. His shoulder-length white hair was streaked with grey and black. He smoked a cigarette and gazed across the rolling meadows as he leaned on the corral fencing that marked the boundary of the Heritage Site, and to which he had tied banners stating that Stonehenge was sacred ground and asking it be restored once again as a site of worship. The Druids, of course, were short-timers who came along several thousands of years after Stonehenge was constructed, but somehow it seemed fitting that he was laying claim, giving testimony that there was something important about this broken circle, this crafted ruin of preponderant boulders.

This, our third day, began in a bit of a rush. We were told to report to the courtyard of a hotel a mile and a half away to be picked up by our tour bus. The children were dilatory, showing up precisely at the 7:15 leave time. Apparently there was some disgruntlement with Rebecca’s wake-up. I had no time for it. I hustled them out the door, most with their sack breakfast and lunches, some without. Such is the fruit of tardiness.

Prior to leaving I had the private talk I sought with Lukas. It was not a teachable moment. He truly is a good lad, eager, forthcoming, smart and quick, but at 7:00 am he was defensive and could not see why his peers and chaperones were distressed by his solo adventure and late arrival home. He readily agreed, however, that there would be no subsequent performances. I will approach him later to tease this out. Hard feelings harbored make for troubled times down the road.

We moved at military pace down Holland Park Hill and along Kensington Avenue, the imperative of the tour company fixed in my mind: “Don’t be late! Ten minutes before pick-up time be at the site!”

Eve made the arrangements, just as she artfully made all our pre-trip arrangements, but she was spending this day with her family so I had nothing to fall back on. Not that she hadn’t tried to pass the information to me, but it was early morning, I had finished a cup of coffee in the process of journalizing and my attention span was, at best, fleeting. Think of flat stones skipping across a wind-ruffled pond. That was my relationship with the data Eve offered. Anything that broke the surface, dropped out of sight, a phenomena I was to observe frequently in our kids in coming days.

At any rate, we arrived precisely on time, then waited thirty-five minutes for the bus! It was cool, breezy, and the kids grumbled, rightfully so, at the delay. Rebecca Baczewski, a wonder in such matters, had listened far more carefully to Eve’s directions than I, found the number and called the company. They assured her that we had not been forgotten. When the bus finally pulled in, the kids were embarrassed when I bluntly confronted the driver and asked if our tour was going to be extended by the thirty-five minutes we had just lost on this end. He told me that his was merely the bus that picked people up from various locations and drove them to Evan Evans terminal from whence the actual charters left. Our tour bus would leave on its scheduled time from the terminal.

We arrived with no time to spare. A tall, proud, bullet-headed man with a slight Spanish accent was stalking the lobby of the terminal trying to locate us. We were hastily greeted and hustled onto the bus. “We must hurry. We will leave on time and not a minute late,” he said, sweeping us before his widespread arms as if he were herding chickens. I liked him immediately.

“Victor,” as he announced himself, was our bus guide for the day. He was fiftyish, swarthy, bald, entertaining, knowledgeable, fluent in six languages, and claimed he could get by in two more well enough to order a beer. He insisted from the get-go that he would set a leave time from each site and would not deviate. When we departed the bus to tour Windsor and again at Stonehenge he gave us information on how to return to London should we fail to be timely. The bus, Victor emphasized, would wait for no one.

I loved this guy!

He maintained an on-and-off discourse during the five hours we shared time on the bus. He knew how to work a crowd. Give him your name and Victor had it forever. In between necessary logistical information he worked in English history from Stonehenge to the modern monarchy, positioning Oxford, The Restoration, Windsor, and the present in a colloquial relation.

Our kids attended as best they could, but they are frail and all but Elizabeth and Adam nodded off from time to time. I could see no reason to waste valuable time in sleep so I maintained loops of chatter among the conscious, pointing out the ”picturesque” nature of the English landscape. Its manicured quality of the land allowed for the controlled appearance so valued in the 18th century. Nature, but nature harnessed by man, and thereby improved. At this point, only Sheilagh, Cory, Adam, and Rebecca ruled the realm of the waking.

Windsor Village and Windsor Castle deserved a full day or more, but we understood the constraints of the bus tour and we managed as best we could with what time we had. I fell into a group with Adam, Michelle, Justin, and Elizabeth. We spent the majority of our time touring the State Apartments, which consisted of lavish drawing rooms, dining rooms, meeting rooms. I was stunned when one of the security guards told us many days no tours were allowed because of state functions and that many evenings each month meetings and ceremonies took place in the very chamber where we were standing. It was hard to conceive that these be-jeweled, be-weaponed, ornate beyond imagining, sumptuous in decoration from carpet to wall to ceiling to furniture “apartments” were not merely ceremonial museums, but working space for weekly, monthly, functions. It cast a new light on the term, “living history”.

On our way out of the castle we were treated to the changing of the guards. The music from the military band swelled, rose, resounded through the many-acre walled courtyard. The guards who had been relieved marched away in tight formation at a frenetic pace, very close to the limit at which one can pick up and place feet.

The clock was ticking and we managed only passing glances at the 15th century village, bustling with pubs and eateries and shops. Some buildings were tilted, askew, as if the falling down process had been arrested some centuries back. I assured the kids that Oxford would have more of the same later in the day, after we saw Stonehenge, and we pushed back to the bus mindful of Uncle Victor’s stern instructions.

By the time we reached Oxford most of the kids didn’t want the formal tour Victor offered us when we threaded our way into town. They were too tired or too distracted or both to focus on the genesis of the storied university whose origin lay in the middle ages. They pretended to listen while first Victor, then I, tried to explain that the University was made up of a series of ‘colleges’ i.e. Jesus College, Christ College. Each one had a faculty, up to 200 students, a completely private courtyard with a greensward and a chapel. But their minds were riveted on one thing and one thing only: shopping. How could I blame them? They had toured mercilessly for four days and now were hard up against their third information pelting of the day. From their viewpoint, it was time to have fun.

As a consequence, only Rebecca, Hope, Elizabeth, and Sheilagh followed Victor on his half-hour tour. The others’ time was not wasted. The stores they sought were embedded in 15th-17th century buildings. Tudor upper stories perched, as if grafted, atop modern storefronts. Streets were cobbled, closed college gateways and aged churches and chapels punctuated rows of stores. Street entertainers added to the show.

By chance someone had left the gate open to the inner courtyard of Jesus College. Sheilagh and I stepped as far inside as we dared and in doing so stepped back in time 500 years: a compact courtyard with immaculately groomed green grass, five stores of weathered stone buildings rising in a tight conclave above the grass and containing dorms, dining, and classroom facilities, and a chapel. Once you passed through the gate, you were sequestered in a rare world.

Afterwards, Sheilagh and I broke free of the bus group, crossed a cobbled square and entered St. Mary’s, a 600 year-old gothic church with a towering square steeple. As we approached we saw people looking down at us from atop the steeple’s catwalk balcony and we decided we wanted to be like them. The church was a wonder. The choir boxes in the altar area had been carved in 1490, replacing older seating! A sense of aged and honored service, of grace, was everywhere about us.

Our climb to the tower balcony was labrynthine. Wooden stairs followed by slatted metal stairs followed by1.5 person-wide stone spiral steps navigable only with the aid of an old, dangling sisal rope capable of anchoring an oil tanker in heaving seas. The balcony itself was no more than twenty-eight inches wide and we edged rather than walked our way around its four sides, taking in views of aged but ageless Oxford from all points of the compass.

From our vantage we were able to look down into the college courtyards, boxes of gray stone stained dark by time, bottomed in green, green grass. W e gave up counting how many church spires reached to the sky across the sweep of the town, observed the medieval village streets relieved from the tyranny of geometry, saw everywhere the architecture of the gothic age. Slowly our vision moved from far to near and we began examining St Mary’s. We realized that above us and below us was an amazing multitude of gargoyles extending from every level, cornice, and column of the church and steeple. Men in pain, gloating toad-ish creations, evil burros, devilish imps, and dyspeptic youths, slattern women—the detail and variety was astounding. All the way down the multiple staircases we took note of these creatures we had neglected on our flight to the top.

On our way back to the bus Sheilagh and I did some shopping, observed fire jugglers and other street entertainers, and bought some presents. After we parted ways to tend to our final needs, I realized how lucky this group was to have Sheilagh along. There can be no more smiling, positive, openly gracious, traveling companion than Sheilagh Smith.

Instead of returning the bus to the distant Evans terminal, Victor dropped us at the base of Holland Hill, securing a well-earned tip for himself in process. We were at the hostel by 6:30 in time for showers and internet obligations. We dined at 7:30, and afterwards planning for our trip to Camden Market and our reunion with Eve. Rebecca and I took half the party for another postprandial perambulation on Kensington Street. We returned at 9:30 and I retired directly.

I’m not really sleeping here. It is more akin to passing out and coming to.

4/19 Camden Market, 12:00 noon

“Give ground anywhere and you lose territory all across the board.”

This maxim, which gives voice to my innermost need to batter, batter, batter until I drop, has infallibly provided me with direction and purpose over the years. The direction may have been suspect and the purpose questionable, but I’ve always found traction and moved forward. This is why I am chafing while I rest my aching feet at a picnic table at Camden Lock on Regent Canal, buying time to allow some life to creep back into these soon-to-be fifty-nine year old bones. But I am gnawed by mental rats because while I am caving in here by the canal, the kids and other chaperones are out and about, continuing to explore the shopping paradise known as Camden Market. I’ve tried telling myself that shopping is not a competitive forum, but nonetheless I still feel like I’m giving up territory, losing critical positioning on the board.

The old industrial buildings along Camden Lock and the courtyards and stables behind them have been converted to merchant’s stores and flea market stalls selling everything from jewelry to vintage clothing to vinyl records—and food, my god, yes, food at long last! Ethnic food: Korean, Moroccan, Chinese, Italian, Irish, Spanish, Mid-Eastern, Armenian and more. You name the ethnicity and they will provide you sources of salivation. Ah, it is wonderful to see and to smell, especially to a lactose-allergenic vegetarian like me who has been losing weight since arrival. I’m down to bone and gristle. So it was at 10:30 I was summoned by the nutty-grainy effluvium emanating from a falafel vendor. I followed my nose to a Mideast vendor beside the canal. The kids shop, I eat!

My tour through the marketplace has again reminded me that London is a city of color. All complexions congregate here in Camden in numbers. Himalayan sweaters sell beside Cuban jewelry beside Goth clothes beside a leather merchant beside a hat store. It is a many-acre, multi-level maze of shops, hundreds of them. I was suffering post-falafel depression when I was drawn to a sign that read “Hot Stuff.” I had no intention of buying anything, but after three samples of a synapse-scorching Habanero concoction I found myself handing over ten pounds in turn for what could well be a lifetime supply of sinus-searing, colon-cleansing emolument. Have I lost my mind?

I can only hope that Zaide and Michelle and the other shopping afficionados have their way today. If they can’t find what they want here, they won’t find it anywhere. And because the merchants are craftsmen, and the businesses by and large amateur or semi-professional, the prices are reasonable—by English standards at any rate.

This was the right adventure at the right time. Eve’s pre-planning seems at times to have been prescient. The kids logged four days of museums. They’ve stretched and strained their brains until they can expand them no more. This Camden interlude of cultural immersion is perfect time-out time. My interest in shopping is less than seismic, so I will catch up on my journal while they are riding their purchasing waves . Besides, it is an atonement of sorts for falling off the back of the shopping pack.

The Origin of Publick Houses, or Pubs, in England (according to Victor)

The reputation of England having a pub at every corner has more truth behind it than many may believe. Pubs are the brainchild of Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert. In the 1840’s industrialization had rooted deeply in England, and there were costs to society. Villages emptied as country folk moved to cities for better paying jobs in mills, mines, factories. Row-housing was built everywhere. Rooms were small. Common rooms, or living rooms as we call them, were tiny, marginally able to accommodate the family in residence. There was simply no place for people to socialize. Albert was concerned about the changes this might create in the national character and asked contractors to designate one corner in every block as a Publick House, where people could go to read, play cards, chat, and have a pint of beer. To put it mildly, the idea was well-received, and for better or for worse, the tradition of the corner Publick House, or pub, is now well-rooted in English culture. I confess there are times when we walk past one when my body engine feels a pint low.

I re-joined the group at the designated time, 12:20, at the designated spot, Camden Canal Bridge. By this time the sidewalks were teeming with literally thousands of people and the market walkways were jammed—the city manswarm afoot on a sunny Sunday morning in spring. The group arrived in timely fashion. Hope and Jessica and Elizabeth were all smiles. Apparently everyone has a long list of people to whom they have promised souvenirs and at last they had found suitable gifts at affordable prices! Lukas, Adam, Michelle, and Zaide were proud to have haggled merchants over sticker prices and driven them lower.

Eve had us scheduled for a pub lunch of traditional English fare at this point, but the first two places at which we stopped were unwilling to give seats to anyone under the age of eighteen. A third was welcoming but did not have enough space to accommodate us. Persistence paid off at our fourth stop, The Oxford, which offered both seats and hospitality. In past visits to England I’ve always found pub food to be of high quality and less expensive than restaurants. Such was the case with the Oxford, though Eve mourned the absence of a traditional English cuisine. I was happy with my hummus and baked pita bread, however, and the kids divided themselves between fish-and-chips and burgers the size of small mammals.

After lunch I broke off from the group with Sheilagh and Elzabeth to visit the National Gallery of Art. Eve and Rebecca took the others to King’s Cross, the underground station featured in Harry Potter movies. Afterwards they were to journey to Abbey Road in search of Beatle-esque photo opportunities and follow their muses from there. My group was interested in the Picasso exhibit we had seen touted on posters and billboards since our arrival: “Picasso and his Influences.” It turned out to be a thoughtful exhibit detailing the connections between Picasso and a handful of famous predecessors. He readily acknowledged the relationships: “Good artists copy tradition, but great artists steal from it!” was the Picasso quote emblazoned on brochures, programs, and above the door leading to the first room of work.

Picasso was greatly enamored of Van Gogh. “Van Gogh is I!” and this is clearly seen in the application of oils and broad-stroke forcefulness of images in the canvasses on display. Other influences were even more direct. Between 1954 and 1962, Picasso went about deliberately translating the works of old masters such as Velasquez, Monet, Manet into his own, Cubist, idiom. He did no less than fifty-two takes of Velasquez “Le Meinieres (sp). When he succeeded the feeling, the heart, of Velasquez’s work was captured in his deconstructed images. It is a peculiar and fascinating way to pay homage.

Time was running short when we completed the show and at Sheilagh’s request we used it to see the Van Gogh collection—and in it one of the four extant “Sunflowers”! I left beaming. Art makes me think. Art helps me feel. I indulge myself whenever I can.

Reflections on Midway Point at Day’s End

We have one travel day and four London days behind us with four London days and one travel day to step into.. In no special order I offer up the following reflections:

The dominant species of tree in London looks very much like a sycamore—tan and green mottled trunk, deciduous, trees as tall as 150 feet. They are found on sidewalks, in parks, along the river, on greenswards large and small, and frequently are quite large in girth. I’ve seen any number four feet or more in diameter. I am told that the English call them Planetrees. I googled the name at the hostel and found they are hybrid varieties of the sycamore.

Camden Lock, about which much of Camden Market is clustered, dates back to 1816. It is part of the Regent Canal, one of the first of many canals used to bring goods into and out of London prior to the advent of railroads. They continued to be used commercially until WWII. Now there seems to be a thriving business in recreational boating tours.

Lawns in England are to be looked at, not walked on, with the exception of designated areas in public parks. Public parks—at least Holland Park, close promptly at 8:30. Young people out past 8:30, even those in the company of an older man, walking on a park road and throwing a frisbee as they return to their hostel will be accosted by police in short order. I have first-hand experience in this matter.

The Holland House Youth Hostel rates 5 of 5 stars in my book for convenience and security and safety, 3 stars for food, and 2 stars for hygiene. Its best quality is the location in the middle of a 40-acre public park created from a 17th century country estate. Holland House continued as private residence with grounds intact until the 1940’s when a devastating WWII fire-bombing destroyed the manor. Some of the original gardens remain. A heron of some sort spent several hours in the splash pond in front of my ground floor room locked in a stare with a plastic heron of similar ilk staked to the grassy verge. Springtime is for lovers….

The social dynamics of our travelers is of increasing interest to me. With a few notable exceptions: Sheliagh and Hope, Zaide and Michelle, and possibly Adam and Casey, these kids do not interact socially in Fairfax. They are not with their chosen leisure-time companions. If this were a classroom setting one would say they are grouped by interest. The classroom analogy becomes strained when one realizes that they are stuck in group all day every day, breakfast to bedtime. They have very little opportunity go somewhere else if they are bored, frustrated, irritated, angry, or disappointed. I note that the friendly banter of pre-trip or on the bus ride to Montreal, has an edge at times now. Defensiveness grows. Patience shrinks. There have been a few spats, now forgotten, but no major episodes to date. I note small groups tend to talk now about others not present—nothing savage as yet, but the groundwork for a pecking order is clearly in place.

Fatigue and stress are huge factors, impossible to overestimate. Each and every day the kids complain of being tired. Some are being subjected to far more exercise than they have experienced at any time of their life. Others make social decisions to stay up late, chatting until after midnight. Our pace is relentless day on day. So much to see, so little time! Stress comes from being away from home without friends and family, eating unusual food in a strange city while living a rigorously charted life.

Yet Eve and Rebecca seem to be doing well. I know I am rarely tired despite functioning on roughly six hours sleep per night. Maybe being forced to rise above petty discomforts and perform socially and intellectually to a high standard is a learned activity. Gosh knows there is accelerated learning going on among our flock. Simply put, these kids are growing before our eyes, some more so than others. Wonderment, smiles, spontaneous glee are part of every day. I have heard Elizabeth and Hope and Lukas and Cory vow to return. Sheilagh has made it clear she doesn’t want to go home! Jessica, who confessed before leaving to being challenged navigating Burlington, returned from a solo excursion through the packed, Byzantine streets of Oxford smiling with new confidence.

Perhaps the most important lesson for me is something that in all the months of planning I forgot to remember: different things interest different people! This is not a day trip to Montreal to see the botanical gardens or the Museum of Technology where we put the students in file and pass them through. This is a ten-day adventure in a place impossibly rich with opportunities. Eve asked them repeatedly to come up with things they wanted to do and places they wanted to go—she was relentless in seeking their opinions. But they were busy, and London was for them an abstract concept, and whatever we proposed in advance all seemed good. Now that reality has raised its head in greater downtown London, Eve and I must begin to create options in addition to what we’ve charted from which they can select— or better, push them to come up with their own preferred activities. Thus far, this latter course has been unproductive. They have a far better grasp on what they don’t want to do, as opposed what they want to do. This is the human condition? Almost half of each day is planned, and we are wed by pre-payments to these activities, but almost half our remaining days are open. The challenge is to have the kids fill them with structured or semi-structured activities meaningful to them. If they fail to do so then we will end up with disappointed warriors, the last thing I want to see. Have fun! Be happy!

Zaide and Michelle can shop for hours, buy nothing, and be delighted. Adam is attuned to all things musical. He alternates time between the emergent Zaide, Michelle, Cory group or the Casey, Samantha, Rebecca group. Justin is a fact hound—hear it, see it, and internalize it forever. There is never a need to repeat directions to Justin. Criminal justice is a consuming interest and he passes many things through this paradigm. If we do not get this lad to Scotland Yard he will surely suffer a seizure. Sheilagh and Elizabeth love the arts as much as I do and have been fully invested in every thing we do. Jessica and Hope seem open to all things in all forms and nothing escapes their eyes. Cory can be found on the fringes of every group in every activity, a free agent taking in absolutely everything. He is proving to be a great traveler, easy-going and unflappable, a ballast of watchful calm for all of us. Lukas thrives in social context. He needs to be able to verbalize everything he sees, hears, does, then bounce it off others. He is also a “toucher”. Communication works best for Lukas when he can poke and prod his listener. Michelle and Zaide recoil at this. Elizabeth is intensely attentive. She is going to make every minute here count. She never gives an inch to fatigue. Sheilagh is always buoyant, always laughing, always mimicking the English accent, rolling it over her tongue in a liquid way. Hope seldom talks, but her eyes say it all. Adam is generally tooling around somewhere in his head, thinking, measuring, storing, lining up cards for hands he will play at a future date. Beware lest he hold a trump with your name on it. Jessica is thoroughly game and non-complaining and also more than a trifle homesick. Samantha is always energetic, bouncy, in motion. I have seen less of her than the others because of the time she is spending with her sister. Casey wants to extract something from everything. She wants things to make sense, is happy when they do, and impatient, or intently puzzled, when they do not. Michelle holds nothing back. She is quick to voice displeasure but equally quick to let us know when she likes something. Her smile lights up the world. Zaide delights in the people she spends time with as much as anything she has seen or done. Being here is not enough. Being here with friends is vital. She is always ready for adventure, or for camera games.

Random thoughts:

I like beans for breakfast—good thing, too, as they are all I am able to eat some mornings in this meat and dairy-obsessed hostel. The bread is toxic!

The underground is a godsend. Without it we’d spend half of every day in transit.

Soccer has supplanted religion for many in England.

It is virtually impossible to find a newspaper that prints news in London. Tawdry tabloid journalism rules the day. I am getting by on the Telegraph, which has some merit.

I, we, am stunned by how many people still smoke cigarettes in England.

The English love their gardens, no matter how tiny, and their dogs, and their cars.

I miss my wife

Holland House Hostel, Tuesday 4/21 5:00 am

Monday night our kids stood and applauded and cheered as loudly as anyone in the audience when the cast of “We Will Rock You” came to the front of the stage in waves and bowed. It made me feel very good to see them uniformly happy. It reminded me yet again of the incredible job Eve Thorsen has done in organizing the complex web of activities in this thing we call The England Trip. She occasionally used me as a sounding board but worked pretty much in isolation, given that our charges uniformly accepted whatever was proposed to them in our bi-weekly meetings. Tonight’s rock musical gave each of them, all of them, a huge morale boost at a time when they most needed it.

You see, some fundamental problems have surfaced. Because the kids were not forthcoming, the itinerary Eve put together is consonant with the things that fascinate her, and me: the cultural history of London and by extension, of England. As the days proceed and the luster of London seen in fresh eyes has dimmed a bit, we are increasingly finding that our cultural agenda does not always mesh with their youth agenda. Put simply, there are times when they are tired of being students abroad. There are times when they don’t want to learn about culture—they want to be part of it!

In her wisdom, Eve inserted a number of purely recreational activities: Camden Market, The London Eye, The London Dungeons, Covent Gardens, the Jack-the-Ripper walk, the rock musical. But as the days pass, many of our lads and lasses just want to be free to follow where their hearts lead them. They don’t mind in the least having us accompanying them, they just want to be off the leash, tracking interesting scents wherever they lead.

I want no misunderstandings: these are bright, motivated, eager, cooperative kids. I very much like them all. I am proud of them. There is no rebellion, meanness, animosity, or rude behavior. What I observe though, is a growing frustration with being moved here, then being moved there, then back here again, during a day. I see the strain on faces. Mostly however I see the disinterest. I feel like I am in front of a classroom giving directions on how to write a Works Cited for a research paper on Figures of Speech in Shakespeare’ sonnets, when directions about coming and going in London, necessary directions, mind you, are being dispensed.

“Look at the their eyes!” is the advice I give every young coach or young teacher. “You’ll know when you’re boring them.”

We are boring them, plain and simple. Their attention is fugitive, their eyes wander or lose luster, their heads turn. How much of this is related to their chronic fatigue I can’t say. I do know their frustration with standing around when we ask them what they want to do, grows and grows. After we give them directions we must give them again in clusters and still there are some who let them slip away. All of which is why I am grateful for the success of last night’s “We Will Rock You” show. Maybe we have re-vitalized them.

It is very clear to Eve and I that should this trip be done again, and I assume it will be, pre-trip assessments canvassing knowledge and interest areas will be completed. Kids will be thoroughly introduced to the possibilities accessible to them in eight days, then cajoled, coaxed, wheedled, forced, into taking an active part in planning their trip within The Trip. Once here, they will take an active part in acquiring and retaining the logistic information needed to make their day work. There should be student-led meetings where chaperones are consultants. Engagement works hand-in-hand with empowerment.

We fumbled about on Monday morning in an unsatisfactory way. There was confusion over a changed breakfast time. Hard feelings ensued over what some felt was an unnecessarily harsh and peremptory wake-up. Sheilagh, who was operating by the initial schedule and had risen early to take a walk in the parks, felt unfairly accused of straggling. Other girls had similar complaints when they had not immediately jumped out of bed, bright-eyed and tails wagging, when suddenly summoned from the sleep they had counted on.

“The big issues we handle with courage and character—it’s the little stuff that makes or breaks your day,” is a favorite maxim of mine, and the small disturbances of morning did indeed carry over into the day.

We were traveling to fabled Hampton Court Palace. At 9:00 we took the underground to Waterloo Station where we boarded a train for the thirty minute ride to this fabled royal residence of a seminal figure in English history, that larger-than-life man of prodigious energies and equally prodigious appetites, King Henry the VIII.

When we entered onto the platform in Waterloo, Eve told us that departure times were tight, but that if we really hurried, we might just make the 10:00 to Hampton rather than having to wait for half an hour for the 10:30. This jolted the crew into an extended sprint through tunnels, up escalators, down winding hallways. What was she thinking? We made it by a (whew!) full four minutes!

Almost no one was on the train and the kids kicked back into their respective travel modes. Cory, Zaide, Michele, and Adam like to chat, share music headphones, take pictures of each other, dance while seated, and laugh. Elizabeth is always watchful, never dozes, and mentally sponges in everything possible. Casey and Jessica put on their headphones and allow music to envelope them. Sheilagh engages whoever is around her. Everyone else, including Rebecca and Eve, seem to withdraw into a holding pattern, sinking deep in their seats and dozing when possible. I amuse myself by watching all of them, and by talking occasionally to the alert. All right, maybe more than occasionally. I am soothed by the sound of my own voice.

Hampton Court was built in the wooded countryside in the early 1500’s upriver from London, on the banks of the Thames, by Cardinal Woolsey. Woolsey was Henry’s closest advisor and a powerbroker in England and on the continent until, as was the case with all who came close to Henry, eventually fell out of favor and was killed. At any rate, Henry decided early on that he liked what Woolsey was putting together at Hampton and claimed it for his own, all the while delegating the construction details to Woolsey. The size and scope of their collaboration is impressive.

Hampton features the last of the Great Halls, hearkening back to a time long gone even in the 1500’s, when the lord of the manor gathered together all of his guests, retainers, and servants to dine each evening. Not that Henry didn’t entertain nightly, and in inordinant extravagance. The list of provisions Henry and his retainers consumed beggars the brain. One annual accounting reveals the following: 1800 pigs, 2330 deer, 1200 oxen, and 8200 sheep. That’s a lot of mammals. 700 barrels of wine are also on the list. Beer and ale are conspicuous in their absence. A series of fireplaces twenty feet in width boasted two sets of double spits fully capable of impaling all of the dainties mentioned above. Large rooms were devoted to making solely stews, or just pastries, or only soups. It was a monumental culinary operation, nay, industry, that went on daily when the king was residence. Henry liked to party on a large scale and what Henry wanted, Henry had.

Eve and I, Hope, Sheilagh, Elizabeth, and Justin stuck more-or-less together as a group and moved from kitchens to Great Hall to an exhibit on Henry’s wives, to the Royal Chapel. Our movements were halted briefly by the funeral procession of a secretary of Queen Elizabeth. It drove home once more that these great historical buildings are not mausoleums—the English still use these places! It turns out that a number of the royal employees are housed at Hampton.

The others in our group combined a quick historical overview with a self-guided tour of the magnificent gardens, just now starting to bloom at the sides and rear of the estate. When Henry was in residence there were thousands of acres of woodland attached to the palace and stocked with game. He used the tract as royal hunting grounds. Set’em up, knock’em down.

Envious of what was going on in France, Henry’s 18th century successors cleared the forests and turned the land into gardens to rival those of the French court. Geometrically-ordered, topiary-rich, planned, prepared, and planted in tree, shrub, flower, and maze, dotted with ponds and fountains, these gardens can devour a day. What’s more, this was our finest day, with 65 degree temperatures under a blazing sun, a perfect time to be out on the skin of the planet. Some of our kids spent more time in the gardens than in the buildings. We finished our time at Hampton with a walk through the maze, just now greening up.

Once back in London, Eve unerringly threaded her way around buildings on twisting streets to bring us to the S bank of the Thames, and the London Eye. This modern 300’? foot high Ferris wheel equipped with transparent pods rather than seats, provides comprehensive views of the city. While Eve queued for our reservations (we never had long lines, we never had long waits!) we moved among the street performers assembled along the Thames in the park at the base of the Eye. A man coated in silver spray paint—wizard’s hat, staff, robe, shoes, gloves and exposed skin, all glistening in toxic silver—danced slowly, mechanically, to a loop of techno music coming from a music box at his feet. Twenty-five feet away a pirate decked out in full regalia provided a backdrop for tourists who wished to have their pictures taken in front of a pirate decked out in full regalia. There were no shortage of takers. Another twenty-five away Mickey Mouse courted tourists for the same reasons. All three buskers had placed an open hat on the grass at their feet in which the amused dropped unwanted coins.

We filled a pod nicely and slowly rose into the air, stopping for a minute or so at measured positions of ascent. Some of us had maps out and all of us busied ourselves identifying the many places we had visited in the prior five days. Hope and I wrestled with balky stomachs— Hope because of issues with heights, me because of the distortion in vision created by the curving walls of the bubble through which we gazed. I am pleased to say we both survived without soiling ourselves or the pod.

Kids were dragging noticeably when we spilled back onto the streets. Decisions involving our twelve independent thinkers have proven hard at any time, but when fatigue is an underlying issue I have learned that even the simplest things can become distressingly complicated. The clutch of kids who had vowed to take on the Aquarium, only a block from the Eye, lost heart either because of ticket prices or ennui. The rest were uncertain about any of the entrees placed before them. We took a break from stressful thinking and meandered along the waterfront looking at the thirty foot high statues created from Salvador Dali’s best known surrealistic paintings—my favorite was the stilt-legged elephant from “The Temptation of St Anthony.” All liked the drooping timepiece.

At this point we all knew we needed to move on to something, anything. A tug of war ensued in our charges between desire and exhaustion. A nap at the hostel or just some down time there might have been just the thing, but it was pushing towards 4:00. We needed to be at the theater at 6:45 and we had to dine. In the end they collapsed in on themselves and followed Eve, who proposed some sightseeing around Oxford Circus, then Carnaby street, then Covent Gardens.

Eve took us down Oxford Circus to the remarkable, Tudor-styled, seven-story department store, Liberty. We moseyed in twos and threes through many of those floors looking for a bathroom. The interior was exposed, very old, post-and-beam, much of it ornately carved and aged to a deep agate. All seven floors were filled with utterly unaffordable items.

“Look children—don’t touch!”

We continued to follow Eve several blocks E, around a corner to Carnaby Street, the hot spot in London for the “Mods” of the mid-sixties. How clearly I remember those days—outrageously flamboyant bell-bottom pants, mini-skirts, scarves, stacked heels, the firstlings of psychedelic music, and the poster art of Peter Max and others. This of course was lost on our sixteen and seventeen year olds and a quick scan of their drawn faces made it clear that this was not the moment to be floating out information irrelevant to their immediate needs.

Samantha and Adam went into a Nike store and bought some small items, a process that seemed to last forever, while the remainder of us waited outside. I did my best to stem the tide of rising impatience but everywhere faces were pulled tight. You see, they had at last achieved a focus. It was to go to Covent Garden, according to Eve, a place somewhat like Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market. After Adam and Sam emerged and endured the wrath of the majority, we found an underground portal and were whisked in crowded cars to Covent Garden.

We divided at 5:00 into small groups and agreed to meet in Leicester (pronounced “lester”) Square at the Dominion Theater, where “We Will Rock You” was playing at 6:45. Somewhat apologetically, I promptly peeled away from the others. I was desperate for food. My dairy allergies limited me to juice and dry cereal for breakfast. I bought a peanut butter sandwich at Hampton Court only to find both slices of spread slathered in poisonous butter--- these English and their dairy! I kept myself going all day with the snacks I brought from home in my daypack and some fruit cups purchased on the run. My world was beginning to curl up at the edges. I moved to the nearest pub and ate myself into a taut stomach.

When I emerged, no one was to be found. The truth is I didn’t look very far. I entered Covent Garden and along with no less than a hundred others found myself captivated by two street performers who kept up a non-stop patter. One rode a 10’ unicycle and juggled long, flashing knives; one balanced a bicycle on his head while moving his body through an elaborate range of motion. Actually, the acrobatics were less entertaining than their spiel. The lead artist worked the crowd relentlessly but adroitly, making eye contact with virtually everyone, coaxing us clap rhythmically, making us laugh, targeting anyone who started to slide away. Their show went on for nearly an hour in an open space in the outer courtyard. They worked very hard and my guess is their hats were brimming at day’s end. I hope so.

We had no problems making our rendezvous at 6:45. The kids have uniformly become comfortable in navigating London via the tube. The show, as I said, was a great success. We returned weary but happy to our hostel at 11:00 and repaired to our cubicles, at peace at least for now, with the world and our companions.

4/22 Holland Park Hostel 5:00 am

“Actually, it was surprising,” remarked our tour guide at the restored Globe Theater, a garrulous woman in her early sixties whose stuff was hanging out, “how well men do playing the parts of women.” She was referring to Shakespearean era theater when it was considered immoral for women to appear on stage.

“You, there on the end,” she continued, pointing at Lukas, “With your dark hair, dark eyes, you’d make a lovely Juliet. You really would.”

Our kids howled while Lukas, who is generally up to any challenge, made dimples and preened.

The Globe was our first stop yesterday and a pleasant surprise. I feared a hack-job mock-up, a literary tourist trap where tired kids would grow anarchic. I could not have been more wrong. The re-building of Shakespeare’s Globe came only after meticulous research and worldwide funding. Actors, universities, philanthropists from all over the planet have their names etched in donor flagstones in the courtyard outside the building.

Nothing was done on the cheap. The same variety of English oak used in the original Globe was cut and milled for the current building. The distances to the three balconies, their height and breadth, the size of the stage, and the “Heavens” or canopy above the stage, were built to specifications. Even the area belonging the groundlings, the cheap tickets who stood around the stage for the duration of a performance, conformed precisely to the dimensions of the original Globe. What’s more, the folks in charge follow the protocols of Shakespeare’s theater as much as possible. Modern day groundlings pay but $10.00 admission and are allowed to eat food and drink beer and lean on the apron of the stage much as were their predecessors. In short everything possible has been done to recreate the sights, the acoustics, the ambience of plays performed during the time of Shakespeare. It is a fascinating experiment.

We found that “Romeo and Juliet “ opens Thursday, our last full day here. Eve was able to get the last two tickets—center seats under the balcony in the bottom tier! Sheilagh is taking one and I am trying to talk Eve into taking the other in appreciation for all her labors to make this venture a success.

The kids were still fresh, excitable, looking for adventure when we left the Globe. Our next stop was the walled Tower of London, Henry the VIII’s secure town home, and the seat of power for the monarchy and the symbol of military might since the 11th century. Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, and other luminaries in disagreement the powers-that-be were beheaded there. Sir Walter Raleigh spent eleven years imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth in one of the towers. The incomparable and priceless Crown Jewels are currently stored inside the walls. The Armory’s current exhibit featured weapons of war from the era of Henry VIII, including his personal armor. Put simply, history survives in every nook and cranny. To the minds of Eve and I, this would be the centerpiece of our England trip.

In the outer courtyard of the Globe, we placed the choice before them: we could retrace our steps to the tube and be transported to the Tower, or we could walk and sightsee for an hour along the S bank of the Thames via boardwalk and city streets. I saw in their eyes the familiar wince and cringe that goes hand-in-hand with group decisions, so I gallantly proposed we hoof it. Possibly out of relief, all quickly agreed.

Some things have not changed since Day I. It is always a challenge when our group goes anywhere en masse. I tend to surge ahead and fall back to the irregular pulse of my rogue energies. Eve is either at the front navigating, or pausing to point out a landmark or reflect on some changing aspect of the city. Sheilagh vaults to the lead pack. Cory, Michelle, Zaide and Jessica fall to the back, chatting non-stop, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. Poor Rebecca always seems to be stuck at sweeper. The remainder float toward the front or drift toward the back depending on their level of camera activity. We reached a photo frenzy on this morning, with kids taking pictures of buildings, the river, boats on the river, street signs, and of course, themselves. Casey has stored over a thousand shots in seven days and Hope, the proud owner of a new digital camera purchased yesterday, walks about with a soft smile and glazed eyes. Elizabeth is more reserved, a stealth photographer. I always see her putting her camera away but never see her using it. I’m not sure Adam even has a camera, which puts him in the company of Eve and I.

“People take pictures to prove they really exist,” goes the line of a Ray Davies song, and I hold it dear. My pictures come in words that frame moments and trigger memories for me as well as any photograph.

The walk to the Tower turned out to be rousing good fun. This very same S shore, Southwick, pronounced “Sutt-ick”, was a post-industrial ghetto in Eve’s youth, abandoned warehouses mixing in with slum housing. In the 21st century it has been reborn as a trendy spot with modern pubs, plazas, shops and a walkway along the Thames. Soon after setting out we came by a small quay wherein floated the restored “Golden Hind”, Sir Francis Drake’s privateer (read, “pirate ship”). He used this light craft to harass and plunder the sluggish Spanish galleons that plied the ocean between gold-and-silver rich Meso-and-South America.

Many photos later we reached Tower Bridge, with its two huge, blocky towers and suspending cables as thick as my leg. It is often referred to as the most famous bridge in the world. It is certainly the most recognizable. It is immediately identifiable with London, so much so that many incorrectly call it London Bridge.

We crossed and walked upriver a few hundred yards to reach the gated entrance to the assemblage of walls, towers, military barracks and ancient palace that is the Tower of London. Here we turned the kids loose. It was 12:15 and we asked that they meet us at the front gate at 2:45. I wanted time to see this monumental complex from one end to the other—the first walls were constructed by the Romans in the 1st century AD, William the Conqueror made it the headquarters for his newly conquered realm following his 1066 victory over Harold of Hastings, while successive kings added on, fortified and re-fortified, made it part palace, part prison, part mint, part weapons storehouse.

The highpoints for me were the Crown Jewels, some of the largest diamonds and coveted gemstones in the world. They are literally priceless. Rooms were darkened as we passed in a fluid line by multiple be-studded crowns, the coronation chair and sceptre, and a variety of orbs, swords, rings, robes, and spurs. We were never out of view of more than one camera and more than one armed guard. The prison towers bore the names some of their inhabitants had carved crudely into the stone. And as for Henry VIII’s armor, well, let’s just say the codpiece—the metal cup protective of his personal jewels—was outlandish in size.

“Looks like he had an ego problem to me,” quoth Lukas.

“Yeah, sure, “ came a skeptical remark from one of the girls, possible Michelle. “He wishes.”

Two and one half hours seemed to be the right amount of time to see all the wonders contained within. Ah, but what was the right time for myself, and some of the others, was sensory overload for many of our crew. I understand well. As much as I love viewing art after a period of time nothing I see finds purchase in my mind. I walk, I look, and I am overwhelmed. I remember well the first time I visited the British Museum.

After an hour spent with the Elgin Marbles—the friezes that once adorned the Parthenon, I boldly took on the Egyptology exhibit. After a relatively short time I grew dazed. “Oh, look, another mummy…oh, look, another mummy…” There comes a point where the mind reels before more art, more data. After successive days of touring historical sights and museums, that point of sensory overload tends to come sooner and sooner. Many of our group were beaten down by the welter of history at the Tower of London after an hour, while others, marvels of absorption, held on throughout. These few walked out of the Tower at 3:00. The others fled in a scorched state, done for the day.

We fought our way back across the Tower Bridge in the swelling crowds we have come to expect in the afternoons. We had 5:00 reservations at the London Dungeons, very near the Globe Theater, so we were essentially retracing our steps. I was intrigued by the prospect of the Dungeons. From Eve’s description, it was a sort of a history-based shock event, and supposedly a great favorite among the young. Our young needed a shock. They were seized once again by a late afternoon sag. Most were tired, many were tired of walking, a number harbored Tower resentment, and some brooded over a hidden angst that would emerge later that evening.

We stopped for tea and biscuits at Café Rouge to rest tired legs, recharge depleted bodies, minister to battered souls—and to allow Lukas to have the afternoon English tea he had been seeking since we landed. We were somewhat refreshed when we arrived at the entrance to the Dungeon, although when the kids spotted a long queue they set to grumbling. As always, however, Eve returned with our reserved tickets and we jumped to the head of the line. Her advance planning is a thing of beauty.

The London Dungeons filled the same role for our kids as had “We will Rock You”, an attitude adjustment at precisely the time when their attitudes badly needed a tune-up. The Dungeon was a wildly endocrinal hour and a half, as far removed from the intellectual, cognitive experience of the Tower, and of the Globe, as is conceivable. Justin and Jessica had a look around and decided that voluntarily induced fear wasn’t for them, and took one of our travel phones and the underground to Piccadilly Circus. The rest of us, some eagerly, some gingerly, some skeptically (me) entered into the realm of the bizarre.

We were clumped with a group of French students who did not speak English, and moved through with them in a bubble of twenty-five. We viewed the “performance” by migrating through winding Stygnian corridors which opened into little chambers where “scenes” were staged. The experience translated into a series of episodes, like beads on a string. We entered, or were ushered into a chamber, doors slid closed and locked loudly, actors spoke, and there was inevitably a climax, a startling climax. Early on we were trapped inside a mirror maze in a darkened room. Orientation was impossible. For five? minutes twenty-five people wandered into and around their mirrored images and no one found the way out. It occurred to me after a door suddenly opened and we were silently beckoned, that there was no way out.

Other episodes featured a sonic disturbance, a fire, a Sweeny Todd moment where the lights went out and chairs in which we were seated fell back alarmingly just as a man advanced on us with a razor. There was a spinning, disorienting walkway and a boat ride in the dark highlighted by a ghoulish man dropping into a seat beside Sheilagh. After a spastic response, she was reduced to a quivering panic—a symptoms shared by Hope after a close encounter with something ghoulish in a darkened hallway. At the very end we were buckled into a row of seats which slowly lifted into the air. The free fall drop that followed paralyzed all us-- despite advance notice of what was to happen. All in all, cleverness reigned, and despite my pre-entry cynicism, I fully admit to having had a great time.

We used the phones to contact Justin and Jessica and met up with them following our exit from the Dungeons. The plan was to dine on fish and chips, the de facto English national dish, but the first several places we stopped were over-flowing. Most of us were chewing our tongue when we came upon a pub with a second story terrace with enough tables to handle our ravening numbers. I think all of us ordered fish and chips except Cory, who went with a sirloin steak so tough it had to be gnawed.

“As a general rule in England,” Eve offered when she saw him engaged in mortal combat with his meal, “eat the roast but stay away from the steak.”

A good deal of anxiety arose during mealtime, much of which I missed because I was seated on the far side of the terrace. My understanding is that concern was expressed over whether the kitchen would be able to deliver our meals in time for us to finish and still make the Jack The Ripper walk. Eve dismissed the anxieties as unnecessary, but Rebecca’s level of concern remained so high she strongly cautioned Cory against ordering anything but fish and chips, presumably the faster meal. The more she pushed, the more some kids, tired and a wee cranky, resisted. The collision of adamant feelings resulted in a bailout from the Ripper walk by Cory, Zaide, Michelle, and Adam. After dinner I agreed to take this group back to the hostel while the others got Ripped. Jessica was footsore and joined us.

I had an earful from the disgruntled all the way back home and afterwards on the green behind the hostel. I let them vent. They had concerns about “organization” and also their relationship with our game and energetic parent chaperone, Rebecca. They perceived that the milling about we did after every event reflected poorly on trip organization. I tried to help them to see that Eve and I were diligently trying to empower them. This why we asked daily for them to have a plan for the free time we allotted them, yet when we came to the time to separate into groups they inevitably melted into indecision. I shared our frustration with their lack of daily preparation.

I pointed out that Eve had pre-planned a group event each day and that we waited in no lines and had saved many hundreds of dollars with the advance sale group fares she procured. I found her organization admirable. There were also problems endemic to doing any activities or traveling anywhere in a group of our size. Some moved fast, others more slowly. Some were decisive, others less so. I told them I felt their perceived lack of organization was the cost of doing business in a elective environment with fifteen strong personalities—and they owned a piece of the problem.

It was harder to reconcile their differences with Rebecca. Their perception was that she was abrupt and impatient and flashed to judgments critical of them. I listened without taking sides for almost an hour. When they were done I expressed my hope that the air was now clear. That we had only two days left in England and I didn’t feel a head-to-head meeting at this late date would be necessary. I suggested that they keep their distance, let ruffled feathers on all sides smooth, and deal as best they could “for the good of the trip.” They agreed and we threw my Frisbee until it was too dark to see.

While all of this seemed like sound advice I was shortly to rue having given it. I know now that I should have taken Rebecca aside the next morning, sounded her, and shared with her the kids’ perspective on their differences—and from there moved both parties to some sort of reconciliation, or failing in that, at least some shared understandings. I did not. I hoped we would weather forty-eight hours without mishap. This was a miscalculation. The rift I thought to have patched would split wide open the following day.

4/22 High Speed Train to Bath 11:15

We detached ourselves from our home of six days at 9:30. We made quite a picture, I am sure, beasts of burden laden with daypacks, hauling out-sized wheeled luggage, and straggling out of the compound. We slogged up the short hill from Holland House and down the long descent to Holland Station. Some suffered mightily. Poor Jessica’s rolling suitcase had lost the extended T-grip handle that provides important leverage. She struggled to move forward via a small loop strap attached to the jaws of the luggage, putting exceptional strain on her arm and shoulder. Eve worked out a devilish arrangement with Sheilagh wherein she carried several handbags and the phones while Sheilagh propped Eve’s balloon duffel on top of her own rolling luggage. In theory this seemed like it might work but in fact Eve’s formless duffel slewed every which way and Sheilagh was forced to stop frequently to center it, or to try to walk while reaching back with one arm to hold it in place. At intervals eruptive noises emerged from her mouth.

We moved in a long weave, stopping to make adjustments or to catch our breath or to curse our fate. Even though we had waited until 9:30 to leave the hostel to avoid the morning rush, we still had to pack like cattle into the busy train cars. I kept my backpack shouldered, which created ample space for me as I lurched to and fro in response to the stops and starts of the train. I’m sure those unfortunates who shared that area of the car with me wished I had died at birth.

We filed out of the Tottenham Court station facing a fifteen-minute walk to the Arosfa Hotel. Travel to this point had mostly consisted of jockeying unwieldy objects in tight spaces, a lark compared to this last long trek. Some hunkered down and gutted it out silently. Others thrashed and swore under their breaths. A few teared up. As for me—well, I am sorry to say that I was close to invincible. My backpack is an old friend, a companion on close to 500 miles of Eastern mountain trails. We were as one. I tried to jolly those who struggled, and stayed back with the slowest. Meantime, I marked the buildings in this part of central London. We filed along a quiet residential street, although one block over traffic hummed and retail stores abounded. The rowhouses here were mostly of white stone and well-appointed—perhaps not posh, but still upscale housing. To the relief of everyone we found the Arosfa without any casting about. The only thing to distinguish it from the other four story, elegant white houses, however, was a tiny sign. Clearly they were not looking for walk-in trade.

We sprawled in a modern and tastefully furnished sitting room until two rooms were cleared in which we could leave our bags while we went out for the day. When the boys saw how tight accommodations were going to be—two double beds and a cot in the high-ceiling early-20th century room reserved for the five of us—an undercurrent of discontent swept through their ranks. All four of my roommates muttered in close order that they weren’t going to share a bed with anyone else. I pulled them together and briefly mentioned that I had housed twenty or more male athletes in motels on regional ski trips dozens of times in the past fifteen years, and they always had to share double beds. It was standard operational procedure, done in the name of affordability.

“Who gets the twin?” Lukas asked, eying the white-sheeted cot set up at the foot of the two doubles.

“I will sleep on the cot. I’m am old man. My flesh is corrupt and I smell badly.”

“What if one of us is sleeping on it when you come in?”

“I’m an old man, easily confused. I may well lose my way to the bathroom and urinate all over you.”

They laughed but wanted more.

“Hey, enough of the homophobia, guys. You’ll make it! Lay a towel or a book down the middle of the bed to mark your territory. No one crosses the boundary line. Everyone sleeps like a rock.”

They averted their eyes and said nothing more, but I saw they remained unconvinced. What I did not see was that by nighttime this was to develop into a major issue.

Guarded Reflections While Traveling on the High Speed Train

Our small society has subdivided into several smaller groups. The most obvious division is by interest. The heavy feeders on art, education, and history are Sheilagh and Elizabeth, who are frequently joined by Hope. This is not to say the others are disinterested, only that these girls are never filled. A second set is constituted of those whose strongest interest at this stage of our journey is to immerse themselves in English culture, to participate in it rather than viewing it from a clinical distance—all the while documenting their progress via photo. Michelle, Zaide, Adam, and Cory are invested in this approach. Lukas, Jessica, Justin float in and out of either camp, depending on the day, depending on the activity. A third group consists of Rebecca, Sam, and Casey. They seem pretty much inseparable. Because I spend my time heading up one of the other two groups, I have little contact with them. How much they owe their insularity to friction that has developed, I don’t know. I do know there are only two days left so it seems a good idea for people to spend time with who they are comfortable and to avoid those with whom they feud. I check in with everyone several times each day and Casey and Sam say they are having a great time.

There is one thing I say with absolute certainty: all of the kids in all of the groups continue to behave in an exemplary manner. Discipline has not been in issue in any regard, and there is no reason to think it will become one. They have shown again and again that they can be trusted. I truly enjoy spending time with all of them.

We left our baggage at the Arosfa and light-footed our way to nearby Goodge Street Station. Had we been more certain about the location of the Arosfa we would have exited the tube here rather than Tottenham! We traveled from Goodge to Paddington Station where someone snapped a photo of a bronzed bear with a floppy hat. We dispersed for a light lunch of our choice, rendezvousing for the train to Bath. It was an hour forty-five minute ride and while a few read, most attached themselves to their Ipods and slept. This is now a constant—everyone is tired all the time, except me, mostly anyway. Why sleep when there were views of the incredible, storied, English countryside? Green pastures, brilliantly yellow mustard fields, alfalfa meadows, freshly turned soil, all in plots and patches of various shapes and sizes separated by hedgerows of mixed vegetation bound together by spiny gnarled hawthorne. Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, “Pied Beauty” came to me:

Glory be to God for dappled things— 
…..

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

At intervals there was a brick farmhouse and stone or brick barn, or a cluster of old houses at a crossroads marking a village. It was so very English, so very lovely and I wanted to shake everyone awake to see it, to share it. Sleep is such a waste of time!

Bath Spa

I have just completed my tour of the Roman baths and am waiting the return train to London. I parted ways with the group for the first and only time of our ten days. I am meeting my daughter, Rebecca, and her husband David, on the front steps of St Paul’s at 7:30. They both teach in private schools in the countryside near London and are returning from a holiday in Venice to see me. While I am in the train they will be on a plane. Rebecca Daughter will join us tomorrow.

Should I be concerned leaving the kids at this time of fragile relationships? I am uneasy but there is no way to contact Rebecca and she will be at St Paul’s waiting for me at 7:30. What can go wrong in the five hours before we meet again back at the Arosfa? The stay-away policy seems to be working fine.

The baths were nothing short of spectacular! I marvel at the quality of life the Romans created for themselves in an outpost of civilization in a marshy valley in SE England. They came, found steam and hot waters percolating though mud, built a reservoir into which they drained the swamps, channeled the hot spring into an extravagant circulatory system of sluice, conduit, pipe leading to and from an enormous roofed complex which housed a common bath and numerous smaller bathing chambers in an area roughly the size of a soccer field. Inside the floors were patterned in colorful mosaic tiles. Furnace rooms heated some of the water into steam, which was then circulated beneath the floors to keep them warm. Statuary was ever-present.

The Roman bathed daily but believed in the healing properties of the warm springs as well. The mineral-rich, 120 degree water was regarded as sacred, thus across the courtyard from the bathhouse was a temple to Minerva. Streets with markets, craftspeople, and houses branched out from the courtyard to outlying agricultural estates. This large town of Aquae Sulis was a prosperous bustling enterprise in 400 AD when the failure of the Empire prompted Rome to pull its citizens back from the boundaries. As the decades passed, it all came apart.

The city of modern-day Bath was built in the 18th century Georgian era and Georgian architecture still dominates. The downtown area, however, is highly commercial and cleverly dedicated to separating the tourist from the contents of his wallet. Trendy stores, posh and posh-aspirant eateries choked the area around the bathhouse. I was too pressed for time to look beyond the baths. At some point I will spend a day here, exploring both the Roman and Georgian presences.

I discovered, painfully, another reason to applaud Eve’s advance planning. She obtained our train tickets for 12.00 each. The going rate, however, is 80.00 which I found out when I exchanged my Eve ticket for a ticket on an train leaving earlier. My pleas for mercy were futile. The ticket agent went beyond being unmoved. I am certain that behind her mask she enjoyed watching me writhe.

Reflections on the Return Train

I am my mother’s child and want everyone to be happy all of the time. The growing discontent worries me. I am looking beyond the issue of personality collision now, and at the boredom and frustration I see in some kids with aspects of our planned agenda. Could we, should we, have handled things differently?

“One size does not fit all.”

I know from classroom experience if I try to force the same text, the same lessons, the same assessments on my students an unhealthy dynamic is created. Some are bored, some are receptive, and some are in over their heads. Humans simply do not learn in the same way at the same speed with the same level of interest. As a coach of running teams, skiing teams, and countless camps, I offer four, five different workouts each day based on the athletes’ experience, fitness, and age. Some things we do together but the rest we choose.

So why did I, we, not transfer this knowledge from classroom to England trip? The answer is evident: I hadn’t thought of myself as a teacher. I hadn’t thought of the trip as a classroom. It didn’t occur to me until these last days that sound teaching or sound coaching practices should be applied. Oh, what we have happening here is by no means a failure, but right now we undeniably have some kids frustrated and turned off by learning activities. But is this as good as it gets? Am I expecting too much? I think not.

If I am involved in another England venture, and I fully expect to be, certain things have to happen. First and foremost, before leaving, we have to empower kids to acquire the background information that they need to make informed decisions after we arrive. The critical part of advisor preparation then, is to prepare the kids! Set out certain “untouchables”, mandatory activities that we must complete, but then require the kids to work out where they fall and what fills in around them. Once we are in England, there must be formal evening or morning meetings attended by chaperones but led by the kids. Here adjustments can be made as the subsequent twenty-four hour agenda is finalized. This is the second time I’ve noted this, so it must be important!

Steps of St Paul’s

Sunshine blasts down the street chasm. Rebecca and David are due shortly, but I am not alone. Thirty or more clusters of two-three people are spread out across the great apron of stairs leading from the cathedral to the city streets. They talk, read, a few surreptitiously sip beer or wine, all enjoy the dazzling sunlight on this serene evening

This is an aspect of city life I never see. I have always regarded cities with a measure of distrust. Population pressure drives animals to bizarre behaviors and humans as well—or such is my theory. Cities for me have always been great places to visit to access museums, stores, architecture, but not where I linger. Plan a lightning assault, plunge in to execute the business at hand, slip deftly back to the countryside. But have I been missing something all these years? There is an undeniable comfort, an ease, a grace to this scene.

Rebecca approaches! Long, lean young woman, striding stairs by twos. So much brown hair and a smile for me! Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, always and forever daughter-mine! All is good with the world…

4/23 Arosfa Hotel. 5:15 am

I walked into the entry hallway of the Arosfa last night at 9:30 and was besieged by Zaide.

“You’ve got to do something! She made Michelle cry. Three times!”

I still don’t know why or how or over what tears were shed. I do know that during those hours I was separated from the group the contest of personalities broke into an open conflict. I had not talked to Rebecca— and I knew now I must. From my current vantage on these carpeted stairs (the common room was not yet open and everyone in the world was still asleep!) I felt strongly that Rebecca desired nothing but the best for all and was well-intentioned through and through. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way she developed an authoritative and confrontational relationship with many kids. Some accepted it, others chafed, others acted out. I suspect that Zaide, Michelle, and Cory do not move fast enough, or respond in a manner sufficiently agreeable to her. I forget the context but Rebecca had mentioned unnamed “complainers” a few days before. My response was that they were all tired and all missing home. Yes, I missed my cue- I should have drawn her out.

I know well the spiral of escalating tensions. How disapproval towards a person who feels blameless leads him or her to provide more of those behaviors deemed offensive, which in turn leads to greater disapproval: So you disapprove of my wearing my MP3 player wile walking? Well, fine—I’ll wear it and what’s more, I’ll dance to the tune while I’m walking!

This is easy to see now, at trip’s end as I analyze and reflect, but was much harder on site where every day was a whirlwind and every dispute heard about in retrospect. But the bottom line was we ended up with good kids, excellent students, trustworthy and hard-working and responsible teenagers who have “A” averages, play multiple sports, work, have never seen the inside of the Planning room, being deemed “bad kids” – and they in turn reacting with behaviors to underscore it. This drove Rebecca, a good woman with a good heart, to circle her wagons and become a leader of a group of two: Casey and Samantha—which provoked the other side to accuse her of not being a chaperone, of only being “Casey’s Mom”. As I say, easier to sort out on this side of the Atlantic.

I knew after talking to Zaide that the situation had become untenable. A deep dislike and worse, a distrust, now existed on both sides of the relationship. This placed Adam, among others, in a sensitive position. He had spent the best part of the trip moving back and forth between Rebecca’s group and the Zaide, Michelle, Cory clan. Perhaps this helps to account for his performance in the hotel room that very evening.

We retired to quarters at 11:00. The shared beds had everyone edgy, but Adam became insulting and threatening.

“Wait until my parents see the trip-ending report I give them,”

“ I always encourage complete honesty, Adam. You know that. And I want to know what everyone thinks and feels so that the next time we take a trip like this it can be better. I can handle criticism.”

“But can you handle Julie (Adam’s mother)?”

“ I think I’m up to it.”

“Yeah…we’ll see.”

Lights soon went out but my brain kept working. We had not planned this trip for ourselves, but for these kids. This trip was not about Eve or me or Rebecca. It was about them. All of them! The sad thing was that right now, on day nine, if the success of the trip depended on how well we had served the needs of ALL the kids, we had failed.

4/24 Heathrow Airport

We are waiting for our flight and it is past time to catch up. Yesterday provided no journalizing opportunities save the brief stairwell reflection above. It was interrupted when Rebecca arrived for the morning run we had set up the night before. Casey joined us and we set out at an easy pace on a 55 degree sunny morning, a perfect forum for us to talk.

I hate to digress, but this penchant of runners for exercising and talking is something non-runners don’t understand. The “team” sport types always say that running and skiing are individual sports and they would miss their team. Not so. 95% of the times we run we are engaged in long conversations about everything under the sun. Running is the most social of activities! Boyfriends/girlfriends, movies, school—you name it. If we are together twelve hours a week, eleven of them are spent in a social context, building bonds. Ball sports’ practices on the other hand provide precious little opportunity for the earnest small talk which is the glue of relationship.

During our run I was able to turn our conversation to what I called the “troubled group dynamic.” I addressed the complainers and disaffected, but tried to explain that they were not isolated phenomena. Their behaviors were reactions to a host of stressful environmental circumstances from strange food to forced interactions to a lack of sleep to non-elective activities-- and were also their response to other’s actions toward them. I talked about the effects on the psyche of being labeled a “bad kid” and the subtext that was being sent some kids’s way. Rebecca listened and understood. Whether she agreed, I cannot say, but she did promise not to be confrontational for the rest of the trip.

I took this information to Cory, Zaide, and Michelle and asked them what their “part” in all of this was. Discussion ensued and what came out at the other end was that they had to stop being automatically negative and knee-jerk oppositional. If they gave the relationship with Rebecca just one more chance then there was the possibility that it might get better.

So began our last full day in England.

Our only group activity was the British Museum, arguably the most comprehensive collection of antiquities on the planet. More full exhibits and rare pieces are stored in their cellars than most world-class museums have on display. It is an amazing repository of world culture.

Rebecca Daughter arrived, breathless, endearingly disheveled, on the front steps just as we were preparing to enter at 10:00. Kids scattered when the doors opened to the exhibits but Rebecca Chaperone, Casey, Sam and Adam joined my daughter and I as we moved through an entrancing Mesopotamian study of lions in various stages of death at the hands of hunters. The men’s faces were frozen, stiff and expressionless, but the lions’ visages were flushed with fear, ferocity, confusion, and pain. If these ancient artists had the skill and sensibility to convey emotions of animals, why not the emotions of people? It isn’t until we come to classic Greeks that the human face achieves realism, is given feeling. And yet these Mesopotamian sculptors had the artistry…

We then moved through the Elgin marbles, the remains of the Parthenon frieze. A frieze is the border strip around the top of Greek and Roman structures, just below the flat roof on the outside walls. The Parthenon frieze was a series of myths or myths in combination with history carved in bas relief. Greece and England have engaged in a battle of words over the ownership of these sculptures almost since they were removed from Athens in the early 19th century. Greece wants them returned while England says the friezes were given free and clear by the government of Greece at that time. There are no signs of resolution in the near future.

Rebecca Daughter and I parted ways from the rest and moseyed through a history of Britain from 1066 backwards in time to the Stone Age. I am always drawn to things Roman and I learned here that the Romans (84Ad – 400AD_) came to a well-developed agrarian society which had established consistent trade with the continent. The indigenous peoples however, were no match for the Roman fighting forces with 5000 battle-hardened men per legion, professional soldiers all.

Noon was our sign-off from the Museum. Kids had earned their freedom through responsible behavior and were given it until our 5:00 rendezvous at the original Hard Rock Café. I talked to each one, extracted a promise of perfect behavior, made note of respective destinations, and turned them loose. Eve and Sheilagh, Hope, Elizabeth, Rebecca Daughter and I headed for a walking tour of Bloomsbury in the company of a “literary guide” hired to provide escort and soundtrack. “Fedora” as she insisted we call her, was a slight, grey-blond, well-dressed woman in her mid-sixties whose make-up was as overdone as her presentation.

After introductions we requested that she hold her tour to an hour.

“This is possible,” she replied, lifting eyes to the top of the building behind us and blinking rapidly.

“Possible, but over my dead body,” should have been her response. Rather than a tour guide Fedora was an aging performer who refused to leave the stage. She went on and on and on, immersing herself in such trifles as the rare shade of blue on the walls in the cottage in Sainsworth in Dorset that the Stracheys visited with their cadre of special friends one summer vacation in 1929. There was more, much much more that I am blissfully unable to retain. If she had an Off button I never found it. As a group we learned more about nothing than we had time for or interest in.

I fell a respectful distance to the rear and talked about everything but Bloomsbury with my delightful daughter. Later, Elizabeth termed the walk, “Deadly boring.” Hope said it was a waste of time. Eve, ever polite, said,” I thought she was never going to stop.” Fedora would still be talking if, after an hour and a half, I had not spotted her pause to draw breath and jumped in, thanked her profusely, and explained we had other appointments to make. I am sure she wrote us off as hopeless Philistines.

Freed, we tubed to the S bank of the Thames and walked along the river until we came to Tate Britain. This visit I had anticipated since Eve and I conceived of this trip eighteen months before. The Tate has the largest store of William Blake paintings and engravings in the world. Blake is the iconoclastic thinker, poet, painter, engraver, and mystic of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. On the only other occasion I visited the Tate, the Blake works had been taken down for cleaning. Today I would finally see first hand a full range of his unique work.

Alas! Only six pieces were up, and these were a reprise of his failed 1809 show, the only time his works came before the public in his lifetime. What makes Blake an essential, revolutionary artist is his eccentric, stubborn, but inspired insistence on seeing things and painting things his way. Before us now was his one and only attempt to appeal to a larger audience. “Blake sells out!” It could have been called. Disappointed-- I should say I was disappointed.

The visit was redeemed by our visit to the JMR Turner rooms. From 1800 – 1840 Turner was the most popular painter in the world. He is known historically for his seascapes, and landscapes. We see now that they were pre-Impressionistic in their use of “atmospherics”, the interplay of light, clouds, and weather which soften and sometimes occlude ships, terrain, figures. Turner has been re-evaluated in the last twenty-five years and it is clear now that he not only led the way to Impressionists like Monet, but he also anticipates the work of modern abstract painters like Rothko. The watercolors on display were as delicate as butterflies in a fog—abstract yet naturalistically evocative. The flutter of black paint on a near featureless canvas resolves itself a ship and its reflection on becalmed waters.

All the while we were touring the exhibit I kept looking for Sheilagh, the one true artist among us. She was nowhere to be seen. I spotted her in the giftshop on our way out.

“Did you see those Turner watercolors?”

“No. There was a fee to get in.”

“What do you mean? It’s free. We just saw the whole exhibit. Come here.”

Sure enough the sign posted outside the double doors read: Exhibition Free.

Oh, no! Sheilagh cried. “I thought it said, “Exhibition Fee!”

The London Hard Rock Café was indistinguishable from the Montreal or New York Hard Rock cafes, which was good in a sense because it prepared the kids for re-entry to their home culture. This was also the first time some of the group had seen my daughter or talked to her. I could see them studying her. Today they talked to me.

“She looks like your wife but she acts like you!”

“What do you mean?”

“The way she talks and her facial expressions and her hands.”

“She’s taller than you!” True enough. I’m 5’ 8” and she is a solid inch taller.

While Rebecca-Daughter and Eve compared notes on England, the loss of traditional English culture, the decline of English schools, the rampant American-style materialism, the kids talked about where they wanted to go on this, their last night. Rebecca Daughter and I offered to take them to Soho, a somewhat avant-guarde, somewhat jaded entertainment district, if they agreed to stay with us while there. No free-lancing. They seemed excited by the prospect but when we returned to the Arosfa at 7:30 to drop our daypacks they sagged, lost force, and milled about the sitting room in their familiar indecisiveness. Only Lukas was game but one child does not an outing make so I left with Rebecca Daughter and son-in-law David for an precious hour of conversation at a café around the corner. Our charges went to their rooms to pack.

I woke this morning convinced that after the rents in social fabric of the last three or four days we needed something to bring us together, something to remind us of the cohesion we had experienced when we launched this venture: a little scared, a lot excited, and united in a common purpose. Eve and I walked for half an hour, discussing the successes and difficulties and puzzlements and challenges and joys of the last ten days. We created an evaluation form for the kids to assess their visit in all its many dimensions.

We walked them on yet another splendid spring morning to Russell Park, a stop on the Fedora marathon, without telling them where or why they were going. I sat them down on the grass and explained what I called the Enduring Understandings of this trip.

“You will learn and grow, and you will grow and learn while you are in England.”

Then I told them they were all perfect, waited out their jaded chuckling, and recited to them a passage from Bernard Malamud’s “The Silver Crown”. A rabbi has a developmentally disabled daughter, Rifkle. She is obese, her clothes are ill-fitting and food-stained, she drools, blubbers, and her eyes don’t track.

“What is wrong with her?” a visitor asks.

“Nothing,” responds the rabbi. “She is perfect!”

“Perfect?”

“God made the world and He is perfect.” The rabbi gestures towards Rifkle. “So she too is perfect—in her own way. “

There were gentle smiles sans cynicism now, and all eyes on me. They were engaged.

I told them that the success of the trip was entirely based on whether they learned, grew, and had fun. Peeves, fatigue, spats, bad food, would be forgotten in ten years time. What they learned and how they grew was going to be theirs forever.

They filled out the forms we had prepared. When they were done I brought out a frisbee and for fifteen minutes kids and chaperones (excepting Casey and Sam who watched) threw the disk around an amoebic circle. It was a symbolic act, but a significant one, lost on no one.

We returned to the Arosfa as a single group, shouldered our packs and set out for Heathrow. We were weary but confident travelers on a homebound mission. There were no nerves among our grizzled veterans as we endured the waits, the custom checks, the delay between boarding and takeoff. The flight home was uneventful. Movies, Ipods, quiet conversation and catnaps occupied the group. I pulled out the trip evaluation forms and braced myself, prepared for the worst. We had failed them. They were scarred. We had wasted their money and their time. It had been ten days of torture, broken by periods of misery.

I was shocked to find that we had virtually universal approval, and gratitude, from the kids on assessment after assessment. It made me realize what I knew somewhere inside all along, what I had told the kids midway through the trip: It’s the little things that make or break or our days—a lousy breakfast, an untimely harsh word, wet feet in the morning—but it is the big things we value, the big things we remember. We got the big things right. Most of them, anyhow. One very large one slipped by.

In my final talk with Eve early this morning we talked a huge omission in our pre-trip organization—who was to lead once we hit ground. I spend most of the trip deferring to her. After all this was her home turf, she had done 90% of pre-trip organization, she was, is, amazingly competent. But I knew the kids. I had coached some of them for five and six years in multiple sports. I had all of them in my classroom. I was often their confident, their counselor back home and things were no different in England. Our lack of a clear division of labor once we were in England translated into a lack of clear leadership to the kids.

When I stopped kicking myself I explained to Eve the way sports trips work in region, nationally, and internationally. There is a Trip Leader whose role is to do the planning prior to the trip and to tend to the logistics—timetable, meals, etc once there. The Trip Leader works hand in hand with the Head Coach on arrival. The Head Coach takes charge of athletes on site. Personal dynamics, morale, team-building, serendipitous fun, and if necessary discipline. And this is precisely what I do best in life—motivate, foster enthusiasm, build communities in classroom and on sports teams from an aggregate of disparate individuals.

How had I missed so obvious a thing? Why had I not stepped up until the very last day? It is so simple a model and one I have worked with for years. I can blame it on many things. Eve and I were so busy prior to leaving we never sat down for that vital hour or so to walk our way through this grand adventure we were undertaking. We marked the trees but forgot about the forest. In the end, Eve didn’t know the model and I didn’t make the connection. I think had we followed this template the little upsets that plagued us, and the kids, and Rebecca Chaperone, might have been averted. But there is a larger view.

Eve and I, just as the kids, are works in progress. This is a fundamental blessing in life. Although we change and grow a slower rate than our adolescent companions, we nevertheless change and grow. We went to England with the same Enduring Understandings as did they— we went to learn and to grow. If we are to base our trip evaluation on these criteria then, just as our charges, we have had an amazingly successful adventure abroad. As for the things that could have been done differently, we’ve noted them and will in time act on them. Hey, the best thing about the past is that we get to keep making more of it!

But this adventure is not about Eve or Rebecca or me. It is about the twelve brave and visionary young people who dreamed and planned and worked and scrimped and saved to take themselves to England. They will never forget what they saw and what they did. They came back with their memories more full than their cameras. They learned and they grew. They grew and they learned. I know that I am honored to have shared this time with them.

Fred Griffin

6/20/09