A Weekend in Norwich

When even the London friends I see every couple of days have told me it's time to update my blog, it must be seriously overdue. And because it's a rainy Wednesday morning when I should be at the library (but it's raining and windy and cold...so I don't want to go), now is the time.

(Yes, mom, I'll go to the library this afternoon. I promise.)

Photo courtesy of Floor Mulder

I've done a reasonably decent job of getting around to the different parts of London since I've been here. Central London, anyway--I may have become a bit of a snob about that, but I'm working on broadening the boundaries of my wanderings. What I hadn't done, however, was get to the rest of England. I've been outside London before, several times, but always to the same few touristy destinations with my students. Oxford, Stonehenge, Bath, Windsor Castle...these are tours I could probably give myself now. On my first trip to the UK I ventured to Wales and Canterbury and Edinburgh, but that's been about a decade, so it was time to add a new destination to the list. For the latest jaunt outside London: Norwich.

Norwich Castle

I'll be honest, all I knew about Norwich before going there was Julian of Norwich; I read her book Revelations of Divine Love in college. What I learned is that (a) St. Julian's Church is quite difficult to get to, a classic case of "you can't get there from here", and (b) Norwich is kind of a big deal. It also looks a bit like the storybook version of European cities that lives in my imagination: cobbled streets, narrow alleys, close-set houses, lots of church steeples, and a castle on the hill.

Norwich Cathedral

We only stayed a couple of days, but we did a lot of wandering, including two visits to the castle and the cathedral. The best deal in town: Norwich Castle. Admission is £6, but if you go an hour before closing (4:30 in the winter months), you can "Pop in for a pound." This is a great way to decide if you want to go back. And, I'll tell you right now, you do. Aside from the super fun costumes and puzzles and models of the castle and dragons, there's a pretty cool collection of art, wildlife, and other various items representing England's history. Even though we went two days in a row, we didn't get to see everything and I'd be delighted to get the chance to go back.

Inside Norwich Cathedral

Extra bonus to the trip (besides my friend Stephanie's fabulous cooking): the train takes you past the construction for the Olympics. (If we've met, you probably know of my deep and abiding love for the Olympics.)

Extra-Extra bonus for the blog entry: I have a new favourite Englishy linguistic construction. Yep, favourite with a u. There is a tendency here to end sentences with the word "do" in a way that Americans ... don't. It makes me giggle every time. Example: 

"Can I write my essay on Toni Morrison's novel Paradise?"

"Yes, I suppose you can do."

OR

"Would it have been OK for me to write about Don DeLillo instead?"

"Yes, you could have done."

Americans either say "Yes, you can" or "Yes, you can do that." We don't stop in the middle. 

Perhaps President Obama should make his campaign slogan "Yes, we still can do."