Scrabulous

"If our students could see us now," Julia giggled as she adjusted her cardigan.

I had blocked out most external chatter to concentrate on seven little tiles in front of me, but I caught this comment. She was right. Most of the kids forget we have interests outside of entertaining them, but if the odd student or two hoped we led lives of clandestine glamour, they were dead wrong.

Here we were in a fellow resident's flat, wine glasses and fine cheeses forgotten in order that we might focus on the task at hand: a Scrabble board. Across the room, four more of our fellow nerds whittled down the possibilities in a game of Cluedo (identical to American Clue, but with the inexplicable extra syllable).

Backstory: One of the lads had, at long last, acknowledged the reality that beer and a game of pool in the staff bar leave something to be desired if repeated too often as an evening's entertainment. He had thus generously arranged for an evening of which my mother would be proud, not to mention a little envious: Saturday night board games, and we were absorbed.

Even better was how competitive it got. Imagine sulking and caprice of the highest order; if it didn't happen during Scrabble, it had certainly happened three hours later, either during Charades or Guess Who I Am (that game where someone sticks a name on your forehead and you have to ask yes or no questions to figure out your own identity). Abu the Monkey from Disney's Aladdin, if you're wondering.

Scoff if you will. I was in heaven.

Back at UVa, I would occasionally hear khaki-clad fraternity boys remark on their own lives as they sat in front of a lawn room, sipping a beer and skipping afternoon classes to play bocce. This was commonly referred to as "Livin' the Dream." Now, I've done the libations-and-bocce-whilst-playing-hooky-to-a-setting-sun thing, and it is indeed a sweet transgression.


But let's never assume that all good times have to follow this formula. Consider Scrabble on the carpet, warmed by the crackling coal fire, knowing one is in England... for a words-and-literature junkie, that's the good stuff.

Let Wah Gan Yem

When I shared my plans to visit the northeast of England, most peoples' response was simply, "Why?" It was as if I had been in America and said I wanted to vacation in Detroit.

In the case of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (so named because it is situated along the Tyne River), surely I didn't want my wallet nicked, my car vandalized, my clothes covered in soot from the mines? And how would I understand a word of what was being said, what with their only speaking "Geordie" up there? And didn't I know that the women there never wear jackets? Just "bras and belts"?

But because there were apparently things to see besides chilly women and a Dickensian urban landscape, five of us foreigners went up to that supposedly godforsaken region. We trusted a few Bryanston colleagues, Northern men when they're not busy teaching and coaching, to show us the sights (and to occasionally translate).

We saw a few castles, saw the tomb of the venerable Bede and ascended the tower in Durham cathedral, walked along Hadrian's wall, strolled windy beaches in our wellington boots, cavorted through gardens, and cheered ourselves hoarse at a Newcastle football game against Arsenal.

Now, when I was a child on long car trips to Florida, my parents instituted an incentive system. For every hour my sister and I did not complain or ask "how much longer?", we could request either a toy or candy from an unseen stash in the front seat. Little did I know that we were being shamelessly bribed. Whatever. It was a good policy, based as it was on convenience as well as on the principle that travel is tiring. Sitting for a long time is tiring. Walking for a long time is tiring. Taking pictures and marveling at things is tiring. You must keep morale high or the destination won't be worth it.

Plus, you've got to keep fueled so that the sights you seek can retain that lustre of exoticism. My grandmother, a half-century champion of the retail scene, knows full well that the only way to stay strong and happy on a shopping trip is to pop into Starbucks for a treat, what she terms a 'little hit.' I doubt she's entirely aware of the connotations of that word. Or maybe she is. Either way, she knows the morale boost a little caffeine or sugar can provide.

Our group paid considerable homage to this wisdom, or, as my dad says, "folded like a cheap suit" whenever we saw a tea room, coffee shop, or cafe. My favorite meal was at a fish-and-chip shop in a little coastal village called Tynemouth. That's where you go for the good stuff, I was told - right by the sea.

Seated at our table in "The Fryery by the Priory," I looked around the warm, narrow room with dingy tables and plastic chairs to see dozens of people munching contentedly at crispy fried haddock and fresh, hot chips (English for thick-cut french fries). A wizened, rather angular waitress wearing a white cotton dress, green apron, and what looked like a fedora made of fine white netting took our orders.

As we ate, our local guide and respected colleague took up staring around the place himself. He pointed out the details I've mentioned, giving even the plastic chairs and the little metal pots of tea a fond shake of his head. "Proper fish and chip shop. Proper Northern meal," he sighed happily.

He had obligingly supplied us all week with facts about the castles, the football, Hadrian's Wall, and the bridges over the river Tyne. But in the Fryery by the Priory, of all places, he seemed most proudly at home. Food experiences, I've noticed, tend to furnish that fondness for home more so than museums and cool architecture and Sights.

Our last destination was our local guide's home and the privilege of meeting his family. His father's girlfriend had cooked us a huge meal, and the ten of us (foreigners and kin alike) sat around the table that night laughing our socks off. Julia and I discussed it later as the first Big Family Dinner we'd had in a long time, and how at home we had felt because of it.

It was a trip well taken. When the Geordies say, "let's go home," they say something like, "Let wah gan yem." Up to Newcastle, Back to Bryanston. Done and done.