Fond Memories of London Weather: A Reflection on the Carleton English Theater and Literature in London Program, Winter 2014
Written by: Ellen Currier ‘15
As Carleton students slog through a whole week of gray, dreary weather, some individuals are more prepared for the rain than others. Twenty-one students, in fact, just arrived back from a particularly damp winter in London, England. I’m one of those students, and I’ll get the study abroad clichés out of the way right away. It was, in fact, an amazing experience. I learned plenty about myself, my classmates, and about Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. I’m extremely lucky to have the experience of traveling during my college years, and I know I won’t have as much time to do so when I am an adult.
Generally, people don’t like to listen to other people rave about their latest vacation or travel experience. I’m not going to do that, although there was plenty to rave about. Instead, I’ll describe the particulars of British weather that occurred while Minnesota was experiencing its winter of polar vortexes.
We began in Oxford, which was a great introduction to British life and history. The rain, however, was abominable. My legs were dyed blue from the second day onwards, as a result of rainwater seeping into my jeans rubbing off on my shins. We would change out of our wet clothes, only to make our hostel room damp and humid with the sheer amount of moisture that had permeated our very existence.
After Oxford, we moved to the Pickwick Hostel, our home for the following three months. Being in a more permanent setting was nice; we were more able to stay dry that way. London is a big city, though, and walking outdoors is inevitable. Through group tours, public transportation, and running errands, we slowly discovered the minutiae of London rain. There’s the sooty kind, as a result of too many cars in the area; the thin, sprinkling kind, more threatening than harmful; the heavy raindrops that signal a big storm; and the worst: windy rain. Our umbrellas could not withstand the gusts of wind that funneled through the streets, making the air colder and the raindrops splashier. It pummeled our face and got into our most water-resistant outerwear. In short, London rain was diverse and utterly unbeatable. We never knew which type of rain it would be that day…until it was too late.
Speaking of wind, we spent a day on an excursion to Avesbury and Bath. Avesbury is lesser-known, resembling a spread-out Stonehenge. We pulled up in our tour bus to these massive Neolithic rocks that stretch out into the green fields and hills, seemingly at random. As soon as we leave our shelter behind, however, the Druidic ancestors unveiled their fury at our mortal disturbance of their sacred site. The wind picked up, the rain became ice, and the rocks were no protection. We wheeled across the field of monoliths, shrieking and covering our heads, for an hour. It was Valentine’s Day, by the way, so I was wearing a dress. You can guess how that turned out.
Reading these descriptions, you might think, “Who needs London? I’d rather go to Orlando!” That’s up to you, of course. But before you rule out a vacation or a study abroad program in the United Kingdom, let me tell you one thing: each time I stepped into the rain this week to go to class, I thought of London, and I smiled.