Greetings from: SISSINGHURST

People say -- and I have no idea who these people are, other than vague shadows who appear only to spout generalizations -- that relationships are all about compromise. And to whatever extent that’s true, let’s look at it in travel terms: Matthew certainly has spent his fair amount of time waiting inside, outside, and in the general vicinity of music stores; and today, he has a chance to visit Sissinghurst. (On the way there, he tells people that he’s wanted to visit since he was a child. This surprises me. I haven’t wanted to go anywhere since I was a kid except to sleep.) The cab driver explained: the hurst part of Sissinghurst and Staplehurst (the nearest train stop) is an old word for a clearing of trees. Who, then, I wanted to ask, was this Mr. Sissing to name the town after himself?

I’m sure Matthew will wax eloquent about the gardens on his own, but suffice it to say: there were a lot of plants, second only to the number of tourists. Any attempts at scenic, panoramic photographs will result in shaped hedges blighted with elderly tourists, doddering along the pathways. In a few years, of course, that’ll be me, and I’ll have earned the right to say: Screw your shot, I’m going to see what I want to see.

Greetings from: LONDON

Maybe I was too hard on children in my last post. They can also be wonderful, but this comes when they’re older, in my opinion. Case in point: my cousin’s children, 10 and 11, have fully-formed personalities, rather than these little explosions of energy. They’re in their final week in school, in their final week in London (my cousin, married to a Greek Cypriot, is moving to Cyprus), so we don’t see them much of the children, but what we do see of them, we like. S___, the older sister, is gregarious and open-hearted; on the day we arrive, she brings over a friend, Reya, to play. R___, it seems, is more interior, imaginative. His father compares him to me (R___ having just written a poem about the London Eye.) When the scallops Matthew and I prepare for the evening turns out very spicy, R___ describes it as an army in his mouth, shooting hot bullets into his tongue. R___ doesn’t say much at first, but when he gets going, the words come in a deluge.

Matthew and I have been to London before, so we can skip the usual tourist stops (Tower of London, British Museum, Tate Modern, London Eye, Millennium Bridge, Buckingham Palace) and go straight for the shopping. Alas, Matthew’s rather disappointed that he can’t find a nice sports coat at Austin Reed like he did on our last visit two years ago, and when the salesperson suggests Aquascutum across the street (more suited for slender guys like us), we come across a depleted stock. You should have come earlier in the sale, the Mick Jagger-like salesman says. I can barely plan a trip across the street, much less plan a trip to coincide with a certain sale.

What I can manage, however: high tea. This time, at the Wolseley, which is attended by an army of servers, all of whom move about with such crisp efficiency that it seems they have wheels on their feet. High tea is always deceptive: when it comes out on its cute three-tiered tray, you have to remind yourself that tea wasn’t meant to be a meal -- a few finger sandwiches, a sprinkling of pastries. It’s a placeholder meal until dinner comes. But in the stomach, tea interacts with cucumber sandwiches in a strange way: the bread expands to fill up available space, like spray foam, so by the end, you barely manage to cram the last piece of scone into your tea-hole.

Greetings from: DURHAM

I know that people have traveled with young children, and I know that people have blogged about traveling with young children, but for the life of me, I still can’t figure out how people travel with young children.

In Durham, we were fortunate enough stay with friends of Matthew, a lovely couple, with three young boys, who are themselves lovely. But with the boys, however, the levels of rambunctiousness increase seismically: disaster begets disaster, attention demands more attention, and it’s a wonder that mothers don’t go Medea every day.

As we walked to the Durham Cathedral and tour the old town, my head continually whipped back and forth, trying to keep track of all three boys at once: one ran far ahead down the cobblestone path; behind us, another contemplated a walking stick; and a third clung to my leg like the cutest lamprey ever. The boy looking at the stick then chased after the one running ahead, and I wondered: was I this energetic when I was young? How many circles of Hell did I conjure into being?

I hesitate to say that children will cramp “my style,” because this assumes I have a style of travel outside of sitting at cafes and stopping into CD stores. But there’s that extra consideration of making the trip worthwhile not only for yourself, but for your child. And it’s more than a matter of keeping them ‘entertained’ while you do your adult things -- it’s the balance of keeping everyone’s needs met.

My parents, for example, took me on a European tour when I was nine, and while I don’t remember much of the trip, I wonder now how much they had to concern themselves about me. (As I recall, they needn’t have worried; on the tour bus, I found a Canadian boy about my age, and we got along smashingly.)

Matthew’s friend, who’s doing a year’s sabbatical at Durham University, fobbed off her children onto her husband for a few minutes and snuck us into the faculty lounge at Durham Castle. Inside, a wedding was setting up: the wait staff wheeled in kegs of beer and polished glasses; a young man in a kilt made out with a young woman in a flapper dress; flower girls in diaphanous dresses flitted about on the lawn. But the faculty lounge was blessedly quiet, full of old, dark wood and sealed away, it seemed, from the world. There was a sign-up sheet where you could mark where you took a bottle of soda or a pour of gin.

I know why the room (by extension, travel) exists: everyone needs an escape.

Greetings from: NEWCASTLE

For us, Newcastle is a waypoint -- a few hours to kill before we head up to Durham. As we exited the bus from the port, a chipper information guide gave us a route through the town. “It’s a nice bit of time,” she said.

At what point do all ancient keeps, castles and crumbling fort walls begin to look alike? As we travel from one former medieval city to another, I begin to gloss over their individual histories: which cathedral was destroyed when? And by whom? Was this city sacked or merely fallen into disrepair? I enjoy the scenery on an aesthetic level (rib-like arches, stained glass windows) and a conceptual level (how many conquered peoples did it take to build that?), but much of the awe that seems to overtake other tourists regularly escapes me. I’ve been more parsimonious with my photo-taking (you’d think that a digital camera, with its instant gratification, would lead to more pictures, but that’s not the case with me).

It’s not merely the tourist view of history, either; young Newcastletons sit on the medieval walls, dipping their fingers into bags of crisps and drinking lagers. A young couple snog as if they’ve only just discovered their lips. They’ve been exposed to this history so long they no longer realize that it’s there, except when tourists come to gawk and clog the sidewalks, reading historical plaques and signs.

But Newcastle has something that the Netherlands doesn’t have: charity shops. In the Amnesty International bookstore, I pick up a Javier Marias novel, and in another shop, I get a CD that, upon closer inspection, was smeared with maple syrup and rather scratched. But it was cheap, and a quick rinse cleared off the syrup. I’m not sure it’ll play or not, but I’ll just chalk that up as a donation to mental illness abatement.
I’m a giver, I know.