From Cambridged to Dayton Daze

Still need your 'cambridged' fix? Curious how the intrepid travelers Susie and Wil adjust to life back in America? Will they manage to drive on the right? Will they learn to stop saying cheers and chuffed and crisps? What will Susie eat for lunch when brie and tomato and basil baguettes are no longer available? Can Wil survive without pubs?

The answer to these and other similarly thrilling questions will all be revealed, with time, at my new blog: Dayton Daze (http://daytondaze.blogspot.com/) Thanks for reading 'cambridged' and for taking an interest in our lives these past three years. Now let's see what the American Midwest holds in store for us ...

In the twilight

For nearly two months after our arrival in England three years ago, we lived in various hotel rooms, in various buildings, in and very near the base, waiting for our home in Cambridge to be vacated so we could move in. Long-time readers of this blog may recall my early posts, most of them tapped out from the computer lab of the base library, as I bemoaned our homeless status and made my first tentative steps into what would become a proper life here in England.

My 'homeless' status has returned and yet again I find myself tapping out a blog entry from the base library. This time around, though, I'm blessed with hindsight, casting a gaze behind my shoulder to view the many adventures that Wil and I have shared these past through years. Our misunderstandings of the language, our adjustment to driving on the wrong side of the road, our initiation into English rites such as buying rounds, swearing creatively, and drinking copious amounts of tea. We have travelled to our hearts content, fading the margins of our untraveled world, discovering Norwich and Amsterdam, Comrie and Paris, Cromer and Sienna. We've grown in our knowledge not only of Henry VIII, but also of what it means to be a Yorkshire man or an Essex girl. I think in sterling now, not dollars, and know that Boots is the best place to grab a cheap lunch and that Pret makes one heck of a good avocado sandwich.

That all said, I think at the end of an experience like this, it might be a bit too easy just to think back on all the major journeys and the thematic arc of adapting to a new culture. It's also pleasurable simply to remember all the many ordinary days my hubby and I experienced here, chatting about our jobs over glasses of wine in our kitchen, wrangling for the remote while watching TV at night, and shopping together for items as mundane as a new frying pan. We've gone from newlyweds to a content 'old' couple, still pinching ourselves at our good fortune in spending the first few years of our marriage in a place we have both so thoroughly enjoyed.

Unlike 2006, my 2009 time on base is much briefer: we arrived yesterday (Wednesday) morning and will leave in the wee hours of this Saturday. Due to the kindness of both American and English friends in Cambridge, we've been able to stay in private homes during the past three weeks since our house was packed up. It's gone faster than I expected. Between my final week of work and trips to Belfast, Prague and London, not to mention lots of last minute sight-seeing in Cambridge, I haven't had the chance yet to feel at loose ends. In this twilight phase, I have plenty to keep me busy as my mind darts back and forth on tasks centered both on England and America. I want to post pics from my work leaving drinks on Facebook; I need to research Dayton apartments for our hunt next week. I'm mourning the friendships I have to leave behind; I'm plotting gatherings with old friends in Columbus.

The Ohio-state-of-mind will probably win out soon enough, as we face the challenges next week of yet again buying a car (two this time) and finding a place to live. But I can't see England being very far from my mind either, as I filter my new Ohio experiences through a brain that has become attuned to at least some English sensibilities. There will be life after 'cambridged', and with life, there naturally comes the urge to blog. I'm still mulling over possible names for my Dayton blog, but once I've set it up, I'll post the link here. A Midwesterner having adventures in the Midwest may not be quite as, er, compelling as a Midwesterner having adventures in Europe, but if I can make do, so can you.

The time eater

This September, a memorable, rather unusual clock was installed on an outer corner of Corpus Christi College, facing King's Parade. Designed by Dr John Taylor, it features a giant gold disk with blue LED lights that light up within concentric circles to tell you the hour, minute and second. Above the disk, which is roughly four feet in diameter, is a huge, blinking, grotesque grasshopper, who sways and chomps with a rather sinister abandon, living up to his name of the Chronophage, or "time eater." Indeed, the clock likes to play with time, sometimes speeding up, sometimes going backwards, but in the end, it keeps nearly perfect time.

I'd planned to share a picture of the clock, but that would involve finding my camera cord for uploading pictures, and that cord is packed amongst the other things cluttering up our second bedroom in preparation for our journey back to Ohio. Welcome to my world at this moment in time.

The movers will arrive on Wednesday for the first of three days of packing, so the house is in a, shall we say, state of controlled chaos. We don't actually have to pack anything other than the four bags we plan to live out of for the next two months, but we do have to sort out items for a small shipment which gets flown to Ohio, and need to make sure that everything else is reasonably well organised, cleaned-up and sorted for the movers to make some sense of it when they pack it up for the long passage by sea. Also, given that we're moving back to the States, we're having to sort out homes for all those British-powered items we've accumulated these past three years, including a microwave, television, iron and vacuum cleaner. And Wil yet again has to bid farewell to a bar we never intended to stock quite so well.

If the Corpus Clock were measuring my personal time, its LED lights would be featuring a flash dance. Last book club, last dance class, last Saturday in our home with all of our furniture - the mini-milestones are passing like the blink of a grasshopper's eye. We still have a bit more than three weeks before we board a plane for the US, but it feels like almost no time from now.

Of what we once were, or might have been

We visited the family castle over the weekend. It has an impressive keep, inner courtyards, a couple of corner towers, the remains of a moat, and even a terraced garden. I'm ready to move in, but before I can do so, I'm afraid there are a few small details that need to be ironed out. Although it still bears our last name, it hasn't, technically speaking, been in the family since the mid-17th century. And while I'm perfectly willing to overlook that fact, the Scots living in the apartments that have been carved out of its halls might not look too kindly on a new American Laird and his Lady kicking them out of their homes.

Faced with such realities, Wil and I could do no more on Saturday than enjoy the castle's grounds - open to the public - and trespass on its parking lot and courtyards - most definitely not open to the public. (Nothing like spending a morning skulking around the inner walls of a private castle, dodging flower pots, garden furniture and gas grills.) It's a visit Wil has waited a really long time to enjoy. Although members of his family have previously made the journey to visit the Scottish castle which bears their name, he hadn't managed to go himself until now.

We took the train to Glasgow last weekend expressly for the purpose of paying homage to the castle, which is located in a suburb that isn't typically a tourist destination. We knew we were in the right town when, after a short walk through the city center, we found ourselves face to face with a pub bearing our last name -- although spelled slightly differently -- complete with a sign depicting the family coat of arms. A minute later, we passed a stone-faced school (erected 1884) named for us. Then, visible in the not-too-distant horizon, we had the unusual honor of seeing our name depicted on three sides of a water tower. (The name is probably on the fourth, as well, but since we didn't bother to walk that far to find out, I'm afraid that will have to remain an unconfirmed fact.) And, this time, it was spelled the right way.

The castle itself is also spelled the correct way. It sits on grounds that were originally a Royal Hunting Forest and which belonged to the family from 843 until 1647. When it was still in the family's hands, it would have consisted primarily of just the inner keep - much of what we saw on Saturday was actually the work of later owners. Lest anyone thinks this is treasured family lore, passed down from generation to generation, I should make it clear that I found this information through Google. The Internet age truly helps us to embrace our past, no matter how hazy it has become.

Any titles that Wil's family may have had are long since gone, but a love of their Scottish heritage does remain. This is the family that turned out in large numbers for our wedding, kitted out in ties and trousers in their tartan. The groom himself wore a kilt made of the same tartan. (A fact which greatly pleased his bride.) Naturally, Wil likes the idea of ancestors of his occupying a grand castle and hobnobbing with kings. There was a distinct gust of cold air in my direction on Saturday when I made the mistake of suggesting that perhaps -- just perhaps -- it's possible that his particular ancestors hadn't been the actual ones who held the title to the castle and its grounds. "But it has our name," he insisted, with that level-headed logic which gets me every time. "Of course it was ours."

My own Scottish ancestry is undeniably fuzzy. I think somewhere in my line of great grandfathers was a man who hailed from the Glasgow area, but I don't really hold out much of a fantasy of him, or anyone before him, ever occupying a castle, except perhaps as a servant. The same goes for my English, Irish and German ancestors. I tend to think of my predecessors as more scrappy, probably hard-workers with sharp wits. It's a history I've invented for myself -- whatever the psychology behind it -- which pleases me. For Wil, the idea of a noble past pleases him. And I'll admit, on Saturday, as we gazed up at solid stone walls which have survived centuries of Scottish wind and rain, it wasn't just Wil feeling a bit smug that the impressive pile before us carries a name we both hold dear.

Eating and walking and looking and talking

Last week, I attended a conference at a Cambridge college located on the other side of the city. My original plan had been to brave the Uni 4 bus, but decided at the last minute to make the journey on foot. My walk took me along busy Trumpington Street, where I was able to peek into the extensive grounds of the boarding school, The Leys, as well as take in the full vista of 4-story-high Victorian mansions across the way, whose size is usually lost on me when I'm walking right next to them. I strolled through a section of the low-lying Fenlands that have been maintained within the city, and along the Backs - a stretch of fields that fill the space between the River Cam and the backs of several of the oldest colleges. (King's College Chapel is one of the highlights of that view.) I felt a ping of pride, for taking the time to enjoy the morning, and imagined myself arriving at the conference early, refreshed and alert.

What actually happened is I somehow managed to get lost after taking what I thought would be a shortcut through the University's west campus. I arrived at the conference barely on time, sweaty and flustered. I don't regret taking the walk; I do regret not taking a map.

February is a short month. It feels even shorter when you feel like you're living on borrowed time. I've been making a conscious effort of late to try and enjoy where I am. Cambridge, if you give it the chance, can offer up many small joys. For instance, last week I stopped by the market and purchased a bundle of broccoli. I misjudged the size of the paper bags hanging above the vegetables displayed in the stall, so my broccoli poked out of my bag rather awkwardly, forcing me to carry it back to my office like some sort of very-green bouquet. The smell was rich and earthy, and my 'bouquet' provided quite a few laughs from office mates who paused to check on my flowers only to find a vegetable intended for my evening meal.

The colleges here all have a tradition of formal meals, held generally at least once a week, where the students and Fellows (professors) dine by candlelight in their marvellously beautiful (Harry Potter-like) dining halls. Everyone wears suits and dresses, which the Fellows and students cover with their robes (the same kind that we tend to wear only for graduation). In many cases, the suits are upgraded to tuxes and the dresses to gowns, which is why it isn't the least bit unusual around here to see group of students on the street in black tie, even when it's just an ordinary Tuesday. A friend of mine invited me to tag along with Cambridge's Finnish Society when they attended a formal hall a couple of weeks ago. It was a surreal - yet, very enjoyable - experience to eat a three-course meal by candlelight at a table which stretched almost the length of the room, while my ears took in not only the normal din of dinner time conversation, but also strains of rapidly-spoken Finnish.

Wil was working yesterday, so I had to entertain myself with a wander around the city. In an alley not far from where I work, I spotted a sign I had somehow missed noting before: 'No Thoroughfare for Carriages or Horses, 24th March 1857.' I've become immune to the quaintness of the lane's name - Laundress Lane - as it's the address for several University departments, but I couldn't help but be charmed at the idea of a clearly rather-out-of-date sign still retaining a place of prominence. I used to see horses and carriages from time to time where I went to college in Ohio, thanks to the presence of the Amish in that county, but to the best of my recollection, I've never seen either horse or carriage in Cambridge.

And one last small pleasure. Nearly every day I walk by the wonderful frontage of Fitzbillies bakery, but rarely do I stop in. It's one of those old-world places that displays brightly-colored petit fours and beautifully decorated fondant cakes in two large glass windows that almost always have a few tourists noses pressed against the panes. The bakery is famous for its Chelsea buns (sticky buns), but yesterday, it was something a bit more whimsical I was after. They've been tempting me for several months with a window display of delightful, cupcake-sized green frogs. I went in and purchased one and carried it with me down the street until I found the perfect perching spot on the wall in front of King's College Chapel. The frog was sugary and sweet -- finger-licking good -- and as my mood lightened with the sweetness of its creamy pink filling, I couldn't help but think to myself: Why on earth haven't I bought one of these before?

Gaga for the Guggenheim

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has enticed me ever since I first read about its unusual architecture. I imagine my first introduction to it was in a New York Times story, sometime around its opening, in 1997. A building covered with titanium? And so curvy? Large and meandering and shiny, like something out of science fiction, yet landed here in the real world. Of course, Bilbao didn't exactly seem like the real world - a city with a childlike-name located somewhere in Spain. It wasn't a building I expected to see in person any time soon.

So you can imagine my state of mind when I finally did see it in person, last Saturday, on Valentine's Day. Wil and I made the flight from Stansted to Bilbao and within a minute of our taxi leaving the freeway to enter the city, I spotted the museum off to our left, as shiny and meandering as I'd hoped. Beautiful. Unfortunately, my hubby seated next to me in the cab wasn't feeling up to feeling impressed. He was suffering from a really bad cold, so his first inclination once we checked into our hotel, was to flop out for a proper nap.

Leaving Wil to sleep, I ventured out of the hotel in search of lunch. I was ill-prepared to find myself in a city center -- at 3pm on a Saturday -- which was shuttered and closed. There were plenty of shops around me, but none of them were open. I should have realised that in Spain, that time of afternoon is quiet - by 5:30 the streets would be filling up with people, and by 7, everything would be buzzing, but for my first couple of hours, I had the run of a nearly empty town.

It was the first clue that we were visiting someplace foreign. I realize that sounds a bit silly - we were in Spain, for goodness sake - but for the three days we spent there, Bilbao felt very much off the tourist track. Guggenheim or no Guggenheim, Bilbao in February feels like a Spanish city, occupied by the Spanish, and unhampered by the hoards (or even trickle) of foreign tourists we're used to encountering when we travel. This was not to be one of our best trips. It's not that Bilbao isn't a lovely place. It's not that the Guggenheim Museum isn't gorgeous. It's not that Spain in February isn't someplace you want to go - it is. It's just that sometimes, if you're not feeling entirely healthy, some trips just don't turn out the way you'd like them to.

Seeing the Guggenheim was the highlight of the weekend. On Saturday, I viewed it strictly from the outside, strolling its outer perimeter, impressed with how its many angles and curves shifted into new configurations with each step I took. Given my recent trip to York, I found myself thinking of the building in terms of a modern cathedral, and whether its beauty reflects the ideals of a modern world in much the same way that a cathedral reflects the medieval world view. I don't have an answer, but I can say that the museum has firmly moved into place as one of my favorite buildings. Unlike so much of modern architecture, it doesn't grunt, it sings. For all its size and mass, it sits lightly on the banks of the river Nervion, floating against the solid angles of the city's skyline with surprising harmony.

Wil joined me for a look inside on Sunday. Again, the building did not disappoint, although I was bummed that a good bit of it was closed. There are three levels, and the entire third floor was shut-off, as was at least half of the ground floor, for upcoming exhibitions. No matter, the curves and angles that pleased me from the outside were on full display in the galleries we could wander through. Sunday was bright, so sunshine poured in through the windows and made the white walls gleam even whiter. The art was secondary - modernist paintings by Cy Twombly failed to impress us, although we did really enjoy walking through the massive steel sculptures by Richard Serra and found ourselves somewhat hypnotised by Jenny Holzer's nine-column LED display of flashing words.

Outside, we strolled through a good bit of the city, following the river until we came to Casco Viejo, Bilbao's Old Town, which still has its seven original 14th century streets. By late afternoon, all had gone quiet again, but we rounded a corner to find one street -- just one -- overflowing with Spaniards in their dark coats, drinking cocktails and loudly chattering to one another. We'd overdone it, in terms of walking Wil around town, and by evening he was feeling quite poorly. For the second night in a row, we failed to find any nearby restaurants where we could sit down and consume a proper meal, so in a city renowned for its good tapas, we found ourselves eating room service pizzas that were really more Chef Boyardee pies made with a layer of ham.

On Monday, we tried to venture out to the local bullring, to see its museum, but by the time we found it, in early afternoon, it had shut for its middle-of-the-day break. The only lunch we'd been able to find for ourselves was a sandwich shop of sorts, for a take-away lunch, and it soon became clear that Wil really needed a more substantial rest. We decided it was best to head back to the hotel lobby for the remainder of the afternoon before catching our evening flight. A few hours later, on the taxi ride out of town, I craned my head to the right and caught one last glimpse of the museum we'd come to see. There it sat, beautifully situated right in the middle of an all too real world.

On feelings mixed

Every once and a while, the wind blows so hard here that it knocks tears out of my eyes. It's a little embarrassing. I'll be walking down the street, intent on getting to work, and a stream of liquid pours down my right or left cheek. I find myself either avoiding the eyes of other passersby, or looking at them defiantly, as if to say, 'This isn't about emotion. This is about the wind.'

It had been a windy morning on the day that Wil called me to say we would be moving back to Ohio. I'd arrived at work streaky-faced, and had to head straight to the women's room to scrub myself clean. He called me late in the morning to share that he'd received his call dictating our next move. After we spoke, I put on my coat and went for a walk, taking a slightly early lunch break. The wind had quieted down by that point, and the sun had made an appearance, albeit weak.

I didn't walk anywhere in particular. Just down King's Parade, past the famous chapel, over and through the stalls in the market square. I picked up a chickpea and curry-spiced Cornish pastie at a take-away shop, thinking to myself that I won't be eating such things in Ohio, and continued to stroll, past Sidney Sussex College (where Oliver Cromwell attended), past the Round Church, built by Crusaders, past the medieval gates of St John's and Trinity Colleges, and back to King's Parade. I'd just heard I'd be moving back to my home state, but my mood was melancholy.

I've taken quite a few melancholy walks since then. I'll be hurrying one place or another, glance up, and notice that I've just seen my second tandem bicycle for the day. I'll spy the sky in a heart-rending shade of blue above the Senate House. I'll admire a cobblestone pavement slick with rain. At such moments, I'll lapse into a period of mourning, disappointed that such visions, each specific in their own way to this foreign place, will soon be absent from me. The loveliness of Cambridge has seduced me and I'm reluctant to leave it behind.

I have promised myself I won't spend our final months here moping. I've resisted making a final must-do-before-we-go list, for fear that I'll only end up stressing myself out about it. Even without it, I'm still pushing myself to do and see things I might not otherwise get around to. We saw a student production of Hamlet a few weeks ago. A couple Saturday's ago, I finally knocked on the door at the Kettle's Yard house and spent a fascinating couple of hours enjoying a home -- once private but now opened to the public -- filled with modern art. I'd like to pick a classical concert from one of the laminated fliers that paper the railings around here, buy tickets, and attend. In the city centre alone, there are still museums I haven't visited, a big mound where a castle once stood I haven't climbed, and more buildings than I can count that - believe it or not - I've yet to take a picture of. I'm getting dangerously close to making a list, so I'll stop there.

Wil and I have had three very happy years here. We've loved our city and the travels we've taken. Our jobs have had their share of stressful moments, but also some very rewarding experiences. We've found friends here, people we now count amongst our nearest and dearest. Strong winds may blow, but we've learned how to walk through them, never mind the tears. This place, so far from where we grew up, has become home.

That's a good thing. It's what I wanted to happen. Nearly three years ago, when we packed our bags in Ohio and said a difficult goodbye to our friends and family, I hoped we could build a satisfying life for ourselves at the other end of that journey. But now that we have, I can't help feeling sad when I think of saying, yet again, so soon, more difficult goodbyes.