Issue date: 9/29/05 Section: editor's picks

Versus Magazine Online [Image based format]

Hello, my name is Zach and I am an Anglophile. That is to say, I admire nearly all facets of British, Anglo-Saxon culture, popular or otherwise. After getting hooked on authors like C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, George Orwell, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare as a teenager, I found myself jonesing for harder doses of Britannia. I started slow with episodes of "Monty Python's Flying Circus", "Doctor Who", "Spaced", and soon worked myself into a frenzy with Hammer horror films and Royal Shakespeare Company performances. My family's seasonal visits to the U.K. made matters worse by cementing my obsession and instilling wanderlust in me to boot. My fixation on travel and British culture led me to pursue an English Literature degree at Vanderbilt. More importantly, it coerced me to sign up for this past summer's Humanities in London program.

I landed in London two days early via British Airways and checked into a Marriott hotel on the edge of Hyde Park. The booming Live 8 concert just outside my window seemed an auspicious welcome as I planned my itinerary. I spent those first two days exploring London's West End with neither anxiety nor hesitation, wandering aimlessly through a maze of alleys and side streets overshadowed by impressive Georgian architecture. Let my confusion serve as warning for all would-be London travelers - never explore the city without an accurate map and compass. I'm still surprised by how easily signs pointing towards Piccadilly Circus led me into Soho's red light district.

In spite of all my confusion, I relished the freedom that my aimless tour of London granted me; the tight shackles of parental mandate, impending adulthood, and adolescent drama became hula-hoops while I myself started to feel like a potent mixture of Bacchus, Samothrace Nike, and Jack Kerouac; the whole of London was my oyster. But all it takes for an illusion to shatter is a little bit of chaos and I got my first big dose of pandemonium a little more than a week into the HIL classes. I can proudly say that I never feared for my life after the four suicide-bombs rattled London - Vanderbilt's administration was capable and helpful throughout the crisis - but I did get queasy. My stomach churned whenever I thought of London's reaction and of the scathing xenophobia that would inevitably possess every non-Muslim denizen.

Continued...

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