Of engelond to caunterbury they wende

It must have been the spring of 1983 when on the North side of the second floor of Fairmont Senior High School, overlooking the campus walkway which winds up to the school, that I had to memorize and recite a portion of the prologue to The Canterbury Tales. We had to learn our "Whan that's..."  The class was Phase Four English with Linda Morgan, who at the time mentioned that when we learned this Olde English verse, we would never forget it. And, I guess she was about right...I can get through most of it. 

Yesterday the memory could not escape me as I listened to The Beatles while training trough the English countryside on my way to Canterbury. 

Besides the connection to 11th grade English class, a connection to Canterbury runs through me due to the fact that I grew up Episcopalian and the head of the Anglican Church is the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

I also directed an original adaptation of five of the tales with our theatre company, written by Reiner Prochaska, in 2011. The play was published (http://www.plays4theatre.com/bookdetails.php?pr=912), and you can see a teaser online (http://youtu.be/hr0v9kgk0_g) and, of course, we started the whole thing off with the prologue! (http://youtu.be/55JNwvMiTuM)

My original intention of writing this blog was purely academic, however, it seems that for the next 18 days it will be hijacked by a travel blog. So, my family and friends can keep up to date on my travels for the first part, and the academics who want to see the "documentation of my process" can skip ahead. 

I arrived at the Canterbury West train station at Noon yesterday, stepped off the train, and was greeted by Tricia (pictures to follow) who has a converted garage apartment that I'm renting. She and her husband built the apartment for their daughter some time back who now has a family and lives elsewhere. The parallel does not escape me as I have been renovating our carriage house/garage into a studio space...so, this is research from a renovation perspective. 

Tricia and husband Ian (imagine- a British guy named Ian) live just a few clicks from the University of Kent campus. When we arrived at the house, she showed me around then asked if I'd rather get settled or "come 'round to tea." "When in Rome."  I drank tea and got to know Tricia. 

I then headed to registration where I got put in the line for international students and waited and commiserated with a couple students from Canada. 

After, I finished my registration process and got my student ID, I hopped a bus into Canterbury. 

The city is an ancient walled city that, in the 1st century AD the Romans called Durovernum Cantiacorum. The town is laid out in a circle, due to its walled fortification, and it's interior is a combination of historic sites, of course the Cathedral, and a section that was renovated into a fairly massive pedestrian shopping center.

I explored the town a bit and found that on Sundays you can enter the Cathedral free of charge to roam around. The Cathedral has, on average, three services a day, so, I hope to attend a service this week. 

Here are the obligatory tourist photos:

This is one of the gates into the "walled city."

From my trip into the Cathedral. 

In the center of the shopping section of town there is a clock tower that is the remains of and old church. Pix:

And on the clock tower, the plaque to my fallen theatre comrade:

The "Mile" theme continues to run through my life; in college in Morgantown there was The Mileground- in Chicago, the Magnificent Mile- in Frederick, The Golden Mile- in Edinburgh, The Royal Mile- and in Canterbury, King's Mile. 

When we were in Edinburgh five years ago, we ate breakfast at a place called Chocolate Soup, so, Lena, this one's for you: