Last Hurrah Part 5: Tah rah

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In which I mooch off several people, go to a science festival, pretend to graduate, FINALLY visit Bamburgh castle, and say goodbye to Greggs' pasties.

So. Here we are. In the interest of full disclosure, I am writing this from Medford, Massachusetts, where I've been living for a couple weeks. This entry is definitely overdue. Sorry about that. Anyway, here is how my final two weeks in the Toon went:

After York, I took the train to Newcastle where I stayed with different coursemates and a housemate for a few nights each. In my first week back, Newcastle hosted the British Science festival, a huge, annual event that takes place in a different city every year and involves special exhibits in the major museums (and the library), math/logic puzzles on the sidewalks, and a variety of lectures open to the public.



Like this one, a scientific photography exhibit in the Hancock Museum. Even though I lived so close to this (free!) museum for so long - literally across the street from it in my first year - I had never actually been. It's a cool natural history museum, and this special exhibit was my favorite one from the festival.

We also went to see a hilarious show by a married couple called Domestic Science, a science-meets-modern-art exhibit at the Baltic (art museum) that made no sense, and a cool but somewhat terrifying darkroom that translated the movements of the solar system into a collection of sounds. Later, I also went to a talk on gender violence in the UK (social science is a science too) and another one on epilepsy. Overall, fun and fascinating and I would definitely recommend it in the future.

While we were on the Quayside, we came across a smaller independent art exhibit that didn't have anything to do with the festival, but it amused the crap out of me. What resulted is one of my favorite pictures of me of all time:



Oh Britain.

My (now former) housemate and I were discussing this at one point during the year, that there are a few nationalities against whom open racism is perfectly acceptable. In the UK (and I suspect everywhere else) we are definitely one. Italians are another, as evidenced by the painfully-but-hilariously-racist pasta ad that sparked the conversation in the first place (Brits, you know the one I'm talking about; Americans, we do this too). In the UK, France and Ireland make the list as well*. I'm probably not supposed to find it funny, but I really do.

*In the U.S., you could argue that this is true for Ireland, but ours is more rooted in blissful, loving ignorance than anything else. It's not that we have anything against Irish people, just that we honestly believe their population is made up of leprechauns and people related to us.

The following weekend was the Great North Run, a famous annual half-marathon from Newcastle to South Shields with something like 52,000 participants. It's intense, hugely celebrated and horrendously crowded at the finish line.



But Mile 2 was a pretty good spot to watch. My favorite part was looking out for the costumes. We spotted multiple superheros (including several people as the Flash, which seemed appropriate), the Super Mario brothers, many people in tutus, quite a few animals, and a pair of bananas.

There was also a guy with a refrigerator on his back, but that wasn't particularly novel because he does that every year. I am not joking. How do you train for that? Do you start small, like with a toaster oven, and work your way up?



A famous British runner named Mo Farah was running in the 'elite' race. Here, coursemate does his signature...gesture? Lots of runners made this sign for the camera.



He is one of these runners here, but I couldn't tell you which one (sorry, British people). Apparently he came in second. According to the pamphlet, a British person hasn't come first in the Great North Run in years. And a British man hasn't come first in decades. Aw.



The Red Arrow does their famous flyover every year on the day of the race, as well as putting on a show over the finish line. It was very impressive. Funny story about that: my very first day in Newcastle (literally the day I landed) was the 2011 Great North Run. As I was walking across the pavement from the plane to the terminal, these planes flew overhead. It was strange and confusing, and I was pretty muddled as it was.

By the way, during this week I was staying with a coursemate in her flat, which has this view of the Tyne River:



I did spend a large portion of my time there just staring out the window.

In the following week, another coursemate and I spent our afternoons making fake graduation hats out of paper bowls, black card, and gray yarn.



I think they came out pretty well.

Why did we do this? One of many things that is different about American and British education systems is the amount of time between the end of a degree program and the graduation ceremony. At Hamilton (undergrad) this was about two weeks. At Newcastle, for graduate students it's about 4 months. Our ceremony will be in December, so for obvious reasons, I won't be there.



So we had our own. Since the University granted me £12 of printing credit the day after I handed in my Master's thesis, I also made and printed elaborate and colorful fake diplomas for everyone from the University Library.



For all I complain about Newcastle University admin being a complete clusterjob, it was really thoughtful of them to fund part of our fake graduation for us. Thanks, guys.

(And my plane ticket, which I printed in full color even though I technically didn't need a paper copy. Can't be too careful, right?)

The next day, yet another coursemate and boyfriend were kind enough to bring me to Bamburgh Castle, a famous site on the northeast coast (not far from Holy Island) that I have mentioned a few times but not actually visited.



The castle from town. I love that a game was happening here and no one paid attention to the giant castle behind them. Because whatever, right?



A nice castle in a beautiful area.



With some excellent views of the coastline and the Farne Islands (not to be confused with Lindisfarne/Holy Island to the north).



And a museum inside the main building. The north is very proud of its cultural history, and Bamburgh shows it off as much as anyone. Also, as evidenced by the woman who was delighted to give us a long and detailed description of Lord Armstrong and his bloodline, they are very proud of their cultural present as well.



The impressive and beautiful great hall.



Later, coursemate and boyfriend were put in the stocks. A nearby plaque gave a list of crimes that people could be punished for. Some of them were understandable (petty theft), some of them were understandable for the Middle Ages (missing church, being a 'vagabond'😉, and some of them were just ridiculous (being drunk, talking loudly).



This was the last big English thing I did before I left, besides have one final cheese-and-onion pasty at the Greggs in Newcastle Airport. Changing planes in Amsterdam, I suddenly found myself surrounded by people with familiar accents (related question: Do I really sound like that?). Then after 7 hours of plane food, solitaire, awkward bathroom trips, and a shameless back-to-back viewing of The Avengers and Iron Man 3 (I know, I know), we touched down in Logan Airport and here I am.

So. That's that then.

There is no single word to describe how spectacularly, life-alteringly incredible these past two years have been. Sometimes it feels like it's not really over; other times I feel like it never happened at all. As many of you know or will have figured out, the UK holds a very special place in my heart (even though I moan about them just as much as they moan about us), and it was very difficult to admit that staying past my degree was not in the cards.



I think one of the biggest problems about being an expat is that whenever you are in one place, you get homesick for the other. England - especially the northeast - will always have a special hold on me, and I will never let go of the idea that someday I will go back, even if it's just for a vacation many years from now. I'll never stop wishing the SLT job market was a little bit better, or the immigration policy a little less conservative, or that I'd found a British person willing to marry me for a visa (just kidding, mom and dad, just kidding).

Are there things I missed about the US? Yes. Am I glad to be living in Boston again? Definitely. Exciting things are happening for me right now, and of course I'm thrilled about them. But there's this wonderfully dynamic little country full of history and culture and the proudest self-deprecating people I've ever met. There's this amazing place where bare mountains are covered in purple flowers, where buildings are hundreds - even thousands - of years old, where people put french fries in sandwiches but are horrified by the concept of a PBJ, where people actually understand how traffic circles are supposed to work, where public bathrooms have two doors even before you reach the stalls, where people two hours apart can have completely different accents, where people can name the capitals of small European countries most Americans haven't heard of yet don't understand that the Republic of Ireland is a country of its own, where healthcare is free for everyone, where you are offered tea at interviews and hair appointments (seriously, how am I supposed to reach the cup from under a tarp?), and the pubs are filled with people from about 10a.m. to well after midnight. The UK is wonderful and eccentric and self-contradictory and awkward and beautiful and and even though Boston is my city, part of me will always hate that I'm not there. And maybe someday I will be again. I certainly hope so.

As usual, thanks. Thanks to everyone who followed and commented (on or off the website). Thanks for putting up with me and my awkward humor for two years. With any luck, you'll hear from me again someday.



Best wishes until then.

~Peacock

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Comments

[Lauren]

'Heard' you reading this the whole way through, it made me smile from ear to ear but miss you loads too. WHY do we have two doors in public toilets before getting into the room? I have never noticed this before and now it's going to confuse me every time I go. An excellent read, as ever, you'll be hugely missed, Sarah. Glad you got back to Boston safely. Wishing you a very successful next chapter. See you soon chick xx Mo Farrah is coming in third in the picture *face-palm* x