Norway

This past weekend I caught a flight to Stavanger to visit my friend Sam. We caught a ferry Saturday morning heading up the Lysefjorden towards Lysebotn. Don't worry, I don't understand what I just typed either. In Scandanavia, it's not as easy to translate the language as in other parts of Europe. I'm used to being able to detect similarities with the English counterparts, but I've found that with words like Fartt and Slutt that rule of thumb doesn't apply. But I digress... Heading up the fjord, we witnessed some incredible views of the cliffs thousands of feet above us. The most noteworthy of these was pulpit rock--a large flat diving board shaped schist (ask Sam if you want to know more about the metamorphic features of this rock) where people congregate to peer over the edge at the chasm below. Unbelievable. We finally reached the end of the Fjord and decided to look around for a shop that might be selling maps. As it turned out, there was only one shop open that was selling some type of outdoors equipment. Curious, I peeked in the window and recognized the familiar shape of parachute rigs hanging on the wall. In disbelief, I proceeded to venture into the shop where there was a list of prices for lessons and rentals. I'm not making this up. Base jumping is LEGAL in Norway. After further inquiry, I discovered that I am currently about 100 freefall airplane jumps shy of being eligible for the course.

We then proceeded to venture up about 30 switchbacks until we reached the base of the hike toward Kjeragbolten. This four hour hike quickly found a place on my High Fidelity Top Five Hikes list for reasons that will become clear if you continue reading. The hike combined the verticle incline of Square Butte, the longevity of Baldy (almost), and the adventure of the Ice Caves. After nearly rapelling down several rock faces, hurdling over chasms that were about a foot wide and 1000 feet down, and stopping to pet the sheep along the way, we made it to the last plateau before reaching the summit. As we were chatting it up with some of the locals who passed us on their way down, we learned that there were some jumpers preparing for liftoff just a short distance ahead. We quiickly scampered to the top, exhausted from the journey but determined to get there in time. Finally, we scurried over the last boulder and stopped in our tracks. There in front of us was a kid that couldn't have been more than 17, perched on the edge of the cliff. The look of sheer terror and fear in his eyes was something I had never witnessed, even during my years as a jumpmaster. As I reached down for my camera, he leaned forward, stretched out his arms, and was gone. Several seconds later we could hear the distinctive sound of opening shock. He was followed by four more jumpers. As we were waiting for the last two guys to make their tandem plunge, one of them encouraged us to come stand next to the place where they would be jumping off. Turns out you can get better pictures if you're actually hanging over the edge of the cliff. During the 20 minutes we spent waiting for them to dive, Sam and I asked about 10,000 questions about base jumping. Finally, our new friend announced that he would be doing a gainer. Specifically, this one would be a "Jesus Gainer." This of course prompted the question: What is a Jesus Gainer? He replied: "A Jesus Gainer is when you slowly rotate backwards with your arms oustretched like Jesus...and hope that you don't meet him at the bottom."



After there were no more jumpers to talk with (all of them having taken the plunge) we made our way toward our target destination: Kjeragbolten. We were almost there when we noticed a group of people standing at the edge of the cliff across the Fjord from where we were climbing. Sure enough, within seconds three of them went airborne and we witnessed their entire free fall. I was convinced that one of them was going to ride it in until at the last second I caught the faint glimpse of his pilot chute from behind his rig. Finally, we kept pushing on until we reached our destination. There are some other details to the story, but since my mother might be reading this blog and I know she already has a pretty lengthy list of things to pray about, I'll just leave you with a picture.

Dublin

"Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age."
--James Joyce

This past weekend I finally made it across the Irish Sea to Dublin. Although my air travel experiences could fill an entire blog, I will simply mention that I was very close to pulling a Ben Stiller at several points--I'm not raising my voice. THIS WOULD BE RAISING MY VOICE TO YOU, okay? I don't want to check my bag, okay? And, by the way, your airline? You SUCK at checking bags, okay, because I already did that once and you lost it, and then I had everything screwed up very badly for me, okay?

I was picked up from the airport by my Hopkins counterpart, Chris, who is paralleling my overseas experience at the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin. It was great to finally have a chance to reflect on my experiences abroad so far with the one person in the world who understands exactly what I've been going through. We exchanged horror stories from our first nights on take, and I was reminded of how lucky I am to have a classmate at Hopkins who is such a "brick" (or solid guy in American terms). If I stay at Hopkins for cardiothoracic, Chris and I will share the distinction of spending the 2008-2009 season as the "1109." (When you become a fellow, they strip you of your identity. Since "24601" was already taken, they had to come up with a new number for the paging system.)

I was delighted to learn that Chris's twin 3-year-old boys have the same favorite movie as me, and so I spent most of Saturday morning under the alias of "Darth Maul." After being chopped in half about 743 times by the two young Jedi, Chris and I took off for a tour of the city. We started out at the James Joyce Centre, where we arrived just in time to catch the walking tour. I have to digress for a minute and tell you that one of my goals has been to read all 100 of the top literary works of the 20th century during my lifetime. Since Laura challenged me with the list in 1999, I've made pretty good progress, but have always been intimidated by the book at the #1 spot: Ulysses. I always figured that until I could master Faulkner, I didn't have any business delving into the work of my distant relative. After this weekend, though, I can tell you that it is next on my list. The book was set in 1904 and was an attempt to paint a portrait that would allow the city to be reconstructed from the ground up just from the words in the text. The walking tour essentially followed the path of this odyssey, and despite my ignorance on the subject matter it was a fascinating stroll.

Our next stop was the Guiness factory--site of the best aerial view of the city. Of course to get to the top of the building you have to take the company tour. Even though I've tasted horse urine that was more appetizing than beer, I enjoyed learning about the business model that had propelled this company forward from a family run business to a multinational enterprise. Overlooking the city with Joyce quotes scrawled on the window glass to point out the major landmarks, people drinking Guiness all around me, and "With or Without You" playing in the background, I realized that you just can't get any more Irish than this.

We had dinner at the Johnnie Fox Pub, which is probably the most authentic joint in the UK. After a delicious 4 course meal, we were entertained by Hooley dancing, card tricks, and of course Celtic music. Although I don't have enough time to elaborate on all the details of the performance, I will say this: Probably the reason the Devil went down to Georgia is that he knew he couldn't cut it in Ireland.

Sunday I visited the Powerscourt estate in the Wicklow mountains. The land surrounding this monument rivals anything I have seen from Versailles to Busch Gardens in Florida. We also had the opportunity to hike around the waterfall, which is just a short car ride from the estate. Since I didn't have time to drive the ring of Kerry or peer over the cliffs of Mohr, I was thankful for this opportunity to see some of the beautiful scenery the country has to offer.

Stratford Upon Avon

Just declaim a few lines from "Othella"
And they think you're a heckuva fella.
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer,
And if still, to be shocked, she pretends well,
Just remind her that "All's Well That Ends Well."
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kowtow.

--Cole Porter

I had to make a slight change in my weekend plans Friday morning when reports from the BBC showed people lined up all the way to Birmingham trying to get on their outbound flights from London after the alert level was raised. Ryan Air, desperate to contain this chaos, was more than happy to postpone my flight to Dublin one week at no extra charge.

Having a ticket for four more attractions at Stratford to cash in on, I immediately made plans to return for a second dose of Shakespeare. This time I visited the Nash House/New Place. The building that remains is the former home of Shakespeare’s granddaughter. However, the site holds more significance as the grounds on which Shakespeare’s home once stood (before being torn down by one of its owners who didn’t want to pay taxes on it). The thing that impressed me the most about this visit was learning that at the age of 30, Shakespeare was a multimillionaire (by today’s standards) when he built the New Place. Of course it’s not the fact that he was wealthy at such an early age that impresses me. It’s the realization that this guy was probably younger than me when he penned verses like: “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!” I can pretty much guarantee that if you read all of my publications in their entirety you won’t come across anything that even remotely resembles this kind of beauty. And this in spite of the fact that I’ve probably spent twice as many years in school as Shakespeare did. Clearly the man was a genius.

I spent the remainder of the day enjoying two more performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company. There is truly nothing that can compare to hearing history’s best use of the English language read by members of the world’s most prestigious acting company (having produced the likes of Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh, Dustin Hoffman, Ian McKellen, and Alan Rickman). I think the best part about Shakespeare is how real his characters are. When you go see a Hollywood production, what you usually get is a protagonist character played by someone like Kevin Costner whose character combines the charisma of Henry V, the sense of humor of Falstaff, the thoughtfulness of Hamlet, and the courage of Julius Ceasar. With Shakespeare, you see humanity revealed in its truest form. Henry VI is a character that portrays unquestioned moral virtue. But Shakespeare reminds us that in the real world, this quality is not a free pass for never-ending happiness. Queen Margaret (played spectacularly by Katy Stephens) is one of the clearest examples of evil that the stage has ever seen. But I can tell you that in comparison to some of the women I’ve dated, she’s pretty normal by today’s standards. It is this complexity that makes his work so brilliant and keeps me coming back for more.

Literary Legends

If you have ever learned how to read, it is impossible not to be impressed by the unparalleled depth of literary talent that has existed in England during the past 1500 years or so. As an English major drop-out, this was one of the things I looked forward to most about coming over here. When I lived in Boston, I used to think it was great that you could visit Walden Pond and Louisa May Alcott's house in the same afternoon. You can imagine the chills I get walking around Headington and realizing that I'm probably following the same path as some of the world's greatest writers. Although it's hard to know where to begin exploring with so many options to choose from, this weekend I decided to focus on the two personalities that have probably had the greatest influence on me: C.S. Lewis and the incomparable William Shakespeare.

I started out the morning in Oxford on a guided tour of C.S. Lewis's world, given by a man who was a childhood friend of Douglas Gresham (Lewis's stepson) and knew the Lewis family well. Our first stop was the Eagle and Child pub (a building I probably walked past 50 times before realizing its siginificance. This was of course the site where a group of 19 writers (including Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams) gathered every Tuesday morning between 1940 and 1963 for reading and criticism of their literary works.



As we were making our way around Oxford, our guide made several comments about how most people living around here don't have any idea who Lewis was. There is no shrine or memorial to any of the Inklings to be found in all of England. At first I found this unfathomable, until I realized that there is probably a good reason for it. As an alumnus of a school who graduated its first class in 1959, it's hard to appreciate the sheer magnitude of the contrubutions made here during the last 800+ years. As a case in point, we were just rounding the corner on our way up to Headington when our guide said, "Oh yeah--that building right there is the pathology lab where Fleming discovered penicillin."

We drove up to Headington and stopped the van to get out and walk around a quaint neighborhood that looked a lot like something you might read about in a storybook. As we came up to one of the houses, I noticed a plaque on the front that read: J.R.R. Tolkien Lived Here. I stepped back, took a deep breath, and smiled at the realization that this was as close as any human being has ever gotten to The Shire. It was at this point that our guide began telling stories of how he used to run around the Lewis residence (the Kilns) playing with Doug as a child. He started telling us about the gardener that was almost like a part of the family to them. It turned out this gentleman was the inspiration for the character Puddleglum--hands down the most fascinating character in the Chronicles of Narnia (actually Thornbutt the dwarf was a close second). Along with Lee (East of Eden--based off Steinbeck's housekeeper) and Tom Bombadil (Lord of the Rings--based off a children's toy), Puddleglum lives on as one of my favorite characters in all of fiction literature. I asked our guide about the liklihood that the wardrobe purchased by Wheaton College was the genuine article. Turns out it's a total fraud. The wardrobe existed only in Lewis's imagination. In fact, the idea originated one day as Lewis was visiting the Brasenose church in Oxford. He evidently didn't care for the preacher, and in order to avoid greeting him after the service, Lewis exited the church from the opposite side of the sanctuary. There were several coats obstructing the passage to the back door, and after brushing past them Lewis found himself in the snow-covered ground of an Oxford winter. The lamp-post still survives in this location.

We then visited the Holy Trinity church, where Lewis and his brother worshiped for over 30 years. I sat down in the pew that he used to sit in and contemplated the fact that it was in this very spot that Lewis first got the idea for "The Screwtape Letters." We left the sanctuary and made our way to the cemetary outside the church--Lewis's final resting place. The inscription on his gravestone reads "Men must endure their going hence," which is of course taken from King Lear.

It was on this note that I departed from the Lewis tour and made my way up to Stratford Upon Avon to explore the world of William Shakespeare. It was already getting late by the time I arrived, so I only had time to see his birthplace. The small room where the Bard was born represents a Mecca for writers, having been visited by the likes of Emerson, Scott, Hawthorne, Dickens, and Mark Twain. After a brief visit, I headed back towards the theatres, where I had tickets for Henry VI. I can honestly tell you that I had no idea of what I was in for as I climbed the stairs to the gallery seating section of the Courtyard theatre. I had read Richard III and Henry V during one of my speech classes at the Academy, but I'll readily admit that I have always been confused by the history of the English Monarchs. Since it was only during the past week that I figured out that Prince Charles was next in line to the throne and that the War of the Roses was not just a Danny DeVito movie that I never saw, I was a little nervous about my ability to follow what was going on. I should also mention that this was Henry VI Part 3, and I can still remember how difficult it was to follow Die Hard 3 having not seen the first 2 at the time. As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. From the opening scene of the play, I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next. The RSC does such an amazing job of bringing the story to life, that you don't really even need a program to follow it. In fact, in some ways it was even more fun that way. It wasn't until the end of the first Act that I realized that Gloucester (played by an actor who looked almost identical to a younger version of Ian McDiarmid) would later become Richard III and that I was actually watching a prequel to a show I had already seen and loved. I am now completely addicted and have vowed not to leave the UK without having watched the entire historical works on stage. At 5 quid, how can you NOT take advantage of this kind of opportunity?