A Week in the UK

I was fortunate enough to spend spring break in the UK, and though I spent most of my time in Wales, I did get to experience some of the London we've encountered this semester. Upon flying into Heathrow, my fiance and I were faced with the task of navigating "the tube" we read about in Lonely Londoners. It was confusing as hell! I couldn't imagine an immigrant from the West Indies, especially an old lady, attempting to make her way around London on the tube. While an efficient way to travel, it is also extremely hectic and you could easily end up in the wrong place.

While we didn't get to experience the eastern-London boroughs encountered in The Satanic Verses, some of you might've had the chance to read up on the G20 anti-globalization protests. The summit was in The Docklands where much of Thatcher's urban reclamation projects, which created the housing squeeze that benefitted the Shandaar Cafe in The Satanic Verses, were carried out. Indeed, there were something like 150 groups of protesters, many of them race-based and immigrant groups. The coverage of BBC was interesting.

While multicultural England was mostly on the periphery of my trip, I did enjoy a Bengali curry restaurant in Wales. It was mostly very interesting to try and get a feel for the city we read about so much in Selvon and Rushdie's work.