Year 10 English Enrichment
5th of July 2022
It was around 6:00 AM, UK time, when our plane touched down at London Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3. A glance at my still un-updated phone told me it was 3:00 PM back in Sydney. My weary eyes and tangled hair did little to dampen my enthusiasm – after all, I hadn’t landed in a different country for more than two and a half years. I was far more awake
than the four hours of upright, uncomfortable, interrupted sleep in the last twenty-four loud hours should have allowed.
Nevertheless, a slow transit from the terminal to the comfortable, if admittedly somewhat unimpressive airport hotel, led to the beginnings of the inevitable jet lag, creeping into my mind like water soaks into a sponge.
My youngest brother, who, as soon as he sat down, relieved, on the hotel bed, had been slammed by a wave of tiredness, decided to retire to the hotel room. My father stayed with him. Empty commitments to meet us were made, but it was clear they wouldn’t eventuate.
The rest of us, feeling optimistic about the day ahead of us, decided to head into town.
The tube ride, for that was the method of transportation we had chosen to make the cross-town trip, figuring the other, far more expensive options, would not prove to be of value (a mistake we would not repeat when we visited later that year), was loud and bumpy, the Piccadilly line train barrelling through tunnels and viaducts in the western suburbs of the English capital.
My mother and brother dozing off, the train ever so gradually filling up with commuters, teenagers and retirees, talking, reading the newspaper, on their phones, I found myself gazing out the cloudy train window, enticed by the gridded rows of terraces, hypnotised by their striking familiarity and yet put off by their distinctly un-Australian surroundings. Too-green grass, aspens and oaks so starkly different from the brown shrubby ground and towering eucalypts I knew so well.
And yet, intermittently, I would catch a glimpse of a plane tree and that distinct feeling of familiarity would return, as if I was peering straight at those same plane trees growing mere metres from my house in Sydney.
Forty-five such minutes after our departure from Heathrow Airport (a trip that, although decidedly shorter than the last, felt, in a certain way, just as long), our now-crowded train pulled into Knightsbridge station. We had resolved, in an attempt not to overwhelm ourselves with the commotion of central London, to get off a few stops before. This resolution, although we were unaware of it at the time, would prove to have been wise – when we visited later that year, there wasn’t a spot of footpath unoccupied across the various boroughs making up the city’s centre.
Besides, the location of the station, directly adjacent to Harrods and a short walk from Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace, allowed for at least some of the sightseeing almost a requisite when visiting London. The rest, or most of it, we were able to complete upon visiting six months later.
Following a brief shopping trip to Harrods ( my mother was determined to find some baby clothes for her soon-to-be-born niece), most of which was spent attempting to navigate the labyrinth-like escalators and stairwells in search of a food hall (a search which, although successful, only led us to high tea houses and upscale restaurants), we set off, somewhat aimlessly, through the streets of Knightsbridge and Belgravia.
School children in excessively formal uniforms and caps, accompanied by posh-looking parents, emerged from ornate red brick buildings which revealed themselves, upon further inspection, to be schools. Some of the most expensive schools not only in the country, but in the world. The excited atmosphere, streets buzzing with laughter and chatter, divulged that it was, in fact, the last day of school in London.
The animated energy drew us in, engulfing us as we meandered past rows of embellished brick buildings, fascinated, and somewhat incredulous of the private parks breaking up the adorned street walls. One such park, Cadogan Square Garden, is particularly ingrained in my memory, with its almost tropical thick foliage, trees foreign and familiar, teeming with birdsong and insects buzzing, dogs barking and children shouting, running around on a paddock of perfectly trimmed grass, and yet all behind locked gates, completely restricted from public access. The price for the keys to the park? A 17 million pound flat in one of the buildings fronting onto the square.
Such a prospect was bemusing and almost romantic at the time, but with the clarity of hindsight (and lack of jetlag) was actually rather sad more than anything else. Nevertheless, the red brick buildings with their white ornaments, window frames and cast iron railings tugged my family further, seducing and alluring us as we bathed in the warm midday heat.
Presently, we found ourselves nearing Buckingham Palace, the streets widening and that strange charm evaporating as emerged from the strange, detached microcosm we had so recently become acquainted with. Loud buses and cars whizzed past as pedestrians crowded along the footpaths, for the afternoon peak was now well and truly underway, commuters descending into Victoria Station and cramming onto buses, making their way home on what, to them, was a day like any other.
As we rounded a tree-lined corner, the aforementioned palace came into view, safely preserved from onlookers by adorned gates, 30 metres of gravel and the famous guards, tourist attractions in themselves. We spent little time lingering, the welcoming shade offered by trees in the adjacent park doing more to allure us than the glamour of the palace.
A stroll down The Mall, lined with meadows and towering plane trees led to a turn onto St James Street, past the decidedly less popular but no less significant Friary Court and St James’s Palace, which was followed by a fascinating walk through London’s West End, with its white marble buildings and statues, each somehow more intricate than the last, and, ultimately, to the Green Park underground station.
Entering the station, its entrance unsurprisingly located in a park (named The Green Park, and stretching back to Buckingham Palace), the noise of the street doubled as the light level halved in turn. Footsteps and discussions echoed off the tiled walls, commuters crowded around tube maps and ticket gates. And yet, the feeling that this station, despite its blank utility and crowded passageways, contained just as much history as the buildings on street level made it no less intriguing than the world above.
Boarding the crowded train from the equally bustling platform, I found myself, at last, acutely aware of my arrival, thrilled by the anticipation of a further seven months abroad.
Looking back, that first day in London still stands out as one of the most exciting, not because of its eventfulness (the opposite was true) but rather the excitement itself. The promise of the day, the lack of pressure to do anything as, after all, it was simply a layover, the anticipation, regardless of whether it was ultimately met, the familiarity and juxtaposed novelty combined for a unique, memorable experience I have not encountered since.
Basel
3rd of November 2022
The door closed on our small rental flat in central Basel, the Swiss city straddling the banks of the Rhine, its suburbs creeping into the neighbouring countries of Germany and France. We set out, a party of four consisting of my father, my two younger brothers and myself, to walk to the Dreiländereck – the point at which the three countries meet. Our decision to walk, spiting the convenient, nearly-direct tram ride from our apartment to our destination, was bold – the journey, largely on the riverbank, braved industrial estates, squats and decrepit warehouses, their crumbling walls framed by graffiti.
We were centrally located in Basel’s Clara district, hardly a block from the city’s main exhibition place, the epicentre of the scents of toasted almonds and chestnuts radiating from the city’s extravagant autumn fair. The energetic air dissipated as we descended the stairs towards the river bank, excited children replaced by elderly couples, festival stands making
way for linden trees and a miscellany of buildings – half-timbered houses, brutalist flats and modernist offices forming an adorned frame of the turbulent river-portrait. A red brick repurposed brewery bore an arch opening to a courtyard of restaurants and cafes, tables and chairs spilling out onto the main promenade.
Moving north along the Rhine, the houses, now detached, gained gardens, the pedestrian promenade narrowing to a footpath as a single-lane road took over and grassy slopes submerged the brick quays on both banks. Passing under an arterial road bridge, freight trains obscured the view to the river on one side, while 20-storey office towers behind a barbed-wire and concrete fence dispelled any attraction on the other side. We took a path which, briefly crossing the freight yard, continued down to the river, snaked its way through graffitied warehouses and dodged an abandoned-looking building we later established to be a squat. The riverbank, now eerily empty and quiet, was lined with docked freight vessels.
The road veered right as a canal cut its way from the river into an artificial harbour, leaving us no option but to cross an active freight railway bridge. Warily, the four of us hurried across. Our unease grew as we approached vacant restaurants and party boats, all fairly modern but strangely empty. It was clear the area failed to attract tourists staying in the city
centre.
Upon finally reaching the Dreiländereck, a number of people huddled around the flat metal pylon marking the location, the agitated atmosphere lifted, the path emerging from the huddle of buildings and opening up onto a stunning portrait of the Rhine and the landscape beyond.
The day in Basel was, in hindsight, an ideal encapsulation of my time abroad. Its slight inconvenience, unease and pressure, built up and finally released, was perfectly reflective of numerous other instances I experienced; the hurried bike rides to school through stunning parks; the uncomfortable airport experiences necessary to reach incredible destinations; the forced transfers at neglected train stations, overbooked trains trundling through charming vistas. What Basel did best, however, was that emergence onto a beautiful landscape, the ecstatic relief and the overwhelming feeling that, as was hoped, it was all worth it.
Berlin
29th of January 2023
If in London I felt excitement, and in Basel I felt unease, then the sight of the suitcase on the bed in Berlin, the apartment as tidy as it had ever been, invoked in me something far more ambiguous. I had taken a final tour of the flat, deliberating as I passed from room to room, observing the familiar furnishing for, quite possibly, the last time. The layout of the living space was strange; two late 19th century apartments renovated and joined following the second world war; bright rooms with high ceilings and open spaces linked by narrow, windowless hallways. An out-of-tune grand piano, which we had planned to tune ourselves, was largely unused – noise complaints from the insistent upstairs neighbours had, from early on, put a stop to our emphatic playing.
The neighbours who, on a number of occasions, had scolded both my parents and my younger brothers, were surely happy to see us leave. We had opted against knocking on their door to say goodbye.
Our previous trips to the Berlin airport, as there were a number, had largely consisted of a ride on the city’s S-Bahn network, fast but less capacious than the taxi we had ultimately opted for on that day. The airport, although new, was, to our family, notoriously “typisch Berlin” – typically Berlin.
Its convoluted security system, as we had discovered on previous visits, involved frequent redirections between bag checks, conveniently located in separate terminals, check-in kiosks with queues spanning the length of the building, often raising concerns from other disgruntled passengers, unfriendly staff who seemed reluctant to help with each request and gates seemingly as far from the terminal as possible.
Needless to say, discussion in the taxi, perhaps in an attempt to distract from the fact our stay was coming to an end, maybe just out of sheer anticipation, was centred on how best to approach the dreaded trip through the airport.
A contrary experience awaited us when we ultimately did arrive at the airport. Despite our having to check our baggage, pass through security and find our gate, only an hour after the taxi doors closed my family was sitting, waiting for the automated announcement calling our flight, the text reading “BOARDING” or “GO TO GATE” to appear on the departure board, the hour and minute hands of the clock to slot into place and indicate, decisively, that it was time to depart.
Sitting, finally, in my seat on the plane, my mother to my left and brothers to my right, I concluded the ambiguity would not disappear. A certain untameable excitement rose within while its wistful counterpart lodged itself in my mind, a gladness to return warring with a reluctance to acknowledge the conclusion of my time overseas.
By the time the last day in Berlin had arrived, I was mentally all but back in Sydney. After intensified contact with friends in Australia following a long period of minimal interaction, plans for how to best fashion the first few days back, including much deliberation over how quickly I could eat all the food I had been craving for 6 months, and preparation for the transition back into the Australian school system, I was giving little thought to savouring what Berlin had left to offer me before my return. And while I will no doubt be taking the city up on those offers upon my next visit, a lingering regret will undeniably remain, the inevitable feeling that if I was re-gifted that time, whose worth I could not perceive, I would spend it differently.