The Long and Winding Road

May 11
Although London offers limitless possibilities for adventure, I had to take the opportunity to explore the rest of England. On this Sunday I went to see the dreaming spires of Oxford. I got myself some delightful, hot porridge at Paddington Station and got on the train to Oxford. I pulled into Oxford at 11:30, by which time the weather had turned blazingly hot. I had a specific mission in Oxford: to pay my respects to Professor Tolkien. J.R.R. Tolkien spent much of his adult life among the medieval bricks of Oxford as a Don teaching Anglo-Saxon. He produced most of his work in Oxford. I decided that in honor of my favorite Professor, I had to go on a pilgrimage.
I started at the Eagle and Child pub, a.k.a. the Bird and Baby, which is one amoungst many pubs in Oxford. This pub hosted weekly meetings of a group calling themselves the Inklings, which comprised Tolkien, his best friend and fellow professor C.S. Lewis, and a few others who have not reached the heights of literary glory. The best part of my day happened here. I went in all of the rooms searching for the commemorative plaque I knew existed. The plaque was there, as was a framed piece of paper with comments about the pub by Tolkien, Lewis, and the others. Photographs of the authors also adorned the walls. I a traditional English Sunday pub lunch of roast lamb and a pint of bitter.
As I sat next to the fireplace, under the plaque waiting for my lunch, an old man approached my table. He looked positively ancient and moved gingerly. He had the whole package—white hair, tweed coat, bad teeth. He actually looked quite a bit like Tolkien. He asked if I spoke English. I said yes, and he said that he had seen me looking around the pub, and asked if I was there for Tolkien. I answered yes, and he said that he thought he would tell me about the place. He sat down slowly across the wooden table from me. He informed me that I sat in the exact spot where the Inklings met—that the room I sat in had originally been the back room before they converted the back garden into another room. The fireplace had of course once crackled merrily with real fire, but now sat quiet. The old man explained that the place dated back to the 1600s when some King Charles came to college. He talked briefly about Tolkien and Lewis and which colleges they taught at.
This man was just absolutely precious. He said he was glad that I had finally sat down—he had wanted to get my attention before but couldn’t. He said that he had trouble with his walking so he couldn’t move fast enough to stop me. He was so sweet! He did ask me where I was from but did not ask me why I liked Tolkien. He looked very, very old—old enough to have shared a pint with the real Tolkien back in the day. He said he’d leave me to my lunch, which by that time had arrived. I should have asked him to stay, but he had to get on his way. He had lived his entire life in Oxford, which I would have loved to hear about. In retrospect, I should have asked him some questions of my own, but his mere presence delighted me so much that I didn’t even think of anything else to say. I bet he would have had some amazing stories to tell. But he has given me a story of my own to tell, for which I am grateful.
I thanked him many times. I said, “Thank you for talking to me” multiple times. I felt as if the spirit of Tolkien himself had touched me—that this man represented the spirit of Tolkien here on earth. I am so glad that I got to have even the brief experience I did with such a wonderful old gentleman. It also proved yet again that I have a special gift with elderly gentlemen—I have a unique ability to attract and make friends with honorable old men.
I finished my lunch and my beer, which made me surprisingly tipsy. I walked around the colleges and quads of Oxford. But it confused me a great deal. Unfortunately, I had gone on a Sunday, which meant that the crowds of students were mostly gone. Oxford is essentially decentralized—all the individual colleges have their own buildings and quads, spread throughout the city. I could not get a cohesive feelings for Oxford—I could not pick up on a particular vibe at any time. A colorfully decorated archway in the gray brick walls leads into the grassy quad of each college. At these archways, wardens or keepers of the keys/doors watched over, collecting admission. Somehow, I found my way into Exeter College without paying anything. And then somehow I also got into Christ Church, also illegally I believe. I inserted myself into a tour group in the Great Hall dining hall of Christ Church college, which served as the model for the Great Hall of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies. I wish—absolutely wish—that I could have a dining hall like that, which long tables lit by candles and portraits of illustrious people looking down upon you.
For the most part, I could only see the exteriors of the buildings, which were undeniably beautiful, but on the whole I just couldn’t feel it—somehow Oxford did not translate for me. So I then decided to try to find Tolkien’s grave. I had heard a wonderful story about Tolkien’s grave. The central story of his Silmarillion collection of myths is “The Tale of Beren and Luthien,” which tells the story of a pair of star-crossed lovers. Luthien, an immortal elf, gives up her immortality for the chance of meeting Beren again in some kind of afterlife. Tolkien’s gravestone bears the inscription “Beren” while his beloved wife Edith’s says “Luthien.” So I started walking. And walking. And walking. I could not find the darn cemetery. I walked a very long way, and I had grown very tired, hot, hungry, and thirsty. So for the first and only time in England, I had to give up. But I had reached a neighborhood that looked like a tiny and quaint English village. I could see cows grazing in a field. People rode bicycles around. Even this unfortunate detour proved fortunate, because I had found true hobbit country. I now understood the environment from which Tolkien drew his inspiration. I could imagine hobbits walking around, living their simple but honorable lives.
Both there and watching the gorgeous English countryside from the train, I understood on a deeper level from where hobbits come. The little village of Wolvercote, for that was its name, looked like something out of a PBS miniseries. I caught a bus back to Oxford and then caught the train back to London. I did enjoy immensely the views from the train—classic English countryside, punctuated occasionally by yellow fields—whole fields completely covered in yellow flowers. In between the green hills and dales, the forests and hedges, I could see little villages with church steeples. I felt like I was time-traveling—journeying back to a time of innocence, back to the Shires of the hobbits, full of good-hearted little people. Of course, I myself am an Elf, and while this was not quite elf country, I still enjoyed seeing it.

May 12
As the last week of my London journey started, I decided to finally make some purchases. I first went to Covent Garden, which had a very large branch of one of my favorite stores that I had discovered. I bought some tea things at the tea store and then an eggcup and a watch at the store Octopus. I then went on a picnic with my class in Hyde Park. It felt great to have a proper English picnic with English delicacies: Scotch eggs, pork pies, sausage rolls, egg and cress sandwiches, and jam donuts. It was really a lovely picnic. I then read my newspaper in the park. For the first and only time in England, I had run out of energy and felt tired and lethargic. I did not attempt to do too much.

May 13
On this day, I first went to the Café in the Crypt in St. Martin-in-the-Fields church, where I had a huge bowl of pea soup (I had never before, or ever since, liked pea soup) and bread pudding with custard. I then went to a gallery in Savile Row that had an exhibition of Linda McCartney’s (Paul’s late wife) photographs. This gallery was mere metres away from the Beatles’ office building, the site of their famous rooftop concert. The exhibition included an introduction from Paul, and it somehow made me feel very close to him. He seemed like a real person and a personal friend of mine. Linda happened to take one of my favorite Beatle pictures—Paul and John looking over something that Paul had written. The original print hung on the wall in the gallery.
I then went to Regent’s Park, the only London park which I had not yet visited. As usual, it was lovely and beautiful and made me very happy. In Regent’s Park I climbed Primrose Hill, which is a very large hill that affords some marvelous views of London. There I listened to the Beatles song “Fool on the Hill,” because an encounter with a strange gentleman on Primrose Hill had inspired Paul to write that song. The roses were just beginning to come out, and I did my best to look at all the newly formed buds.
Remember my day in Shepherd’s Bush and the fabulously retro diner? Well, I went back there for dinner. I had a steak and kidney pie at the Zippy Diner. The woman called me “dear” when she served me my pie, peas, chips, and tea. It was disgusting. But that was in fact the point of the exercise. I went in there fully intending to be disgusted.