Main Street today

One thing I really appreciated about Haworth was that although busloads of tourists descend there every day to visit the parsonage museum, it isn't at all kitschy. The main street has cafes and pubs and guest houses but no souvenir shops. You can't buy a Brontë sisters t-shirt or a Heathcliff refrigerator magnet or a mug that says, Reader, I married him. There's a bookstore, but it mostly sells—books.

The museum gift shop does have some souvenirs, but they're all very tasteful; the only refrigerator magnet just says Brontë Parsonage Museum. (I did buy a button that said Team Anne but sadly it was stolen with my purse.)

The non-Potter Shambles

There are actually only a few Harry Potter-oriented businesses on the street, and it is authentically medieval, with some of the buildings dating from the 14th century. It was once known as the Great Flesh Shambles (shambles meaning stall or bench) because it was where all the butchers had their businesses. The jettied floors overhanging the street kept it cool and shady, better for keeping the meat fresh.

The Society of Alchemists

I avoided The Shop That Must Not Be Named and The Potions Cauldron, but did go into this shop, thinking I might find a suitably New Age-y gift for a friend of mine. It seemed more Halloween than New Age, with skull candles and jars of sweets with ghoulish names, but I did like the giant dragon guarding the door.

More Shambles reflections

Just because there isn't any real connection between the Shambles and Diagon Alley is no reason not to sell all the Harry Potter merchandise you can. There are at least two Harry Potter stores in Oxford and tourists can't even visit most of the locations where scenes were filmed.

Saturday reflections

A shop window in the Shambles, a medieval street in York that was reportedly the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter, although J.K. Rowling said she'd never been there.

Anyway, it looks like it could have been.

I wasn't kidding about the guns

There was an entire wall of these guns. They also had quite a few bow and arrow sets—I guess for a game of Cowboys and Indians. And for a mere $15, you could buy a rope that had been used by a genuine cowboy.

Guns and meat

I marveled at all the new varieties of junk food I saw on this trip, and while Wall Drug seemed to be lacking in the chips category, there was an impressive selection of flavored processed meats for sale.

And toy guns. I'm an out of touch coastal elite, of course, so I did find this a little shocking. Not surprising, sadly.

Wall Drug

What started as a small drugstore offering free ice water to travelers in Wall, South Dakota is now a huge shopping complex offering Western clothes, a playground with an 80-foot dinosaur, a chapel, an art gallery, and excellent homemade donuts.

I think it was probably the strangest place we visited on our road trip and this was an itinerary that included the Corn Palace and the Spam Museum.

Travel Flashback: Tehran reflections

Saturday reflections

This appears to be a defunct handicrafts shop on the main street in Faringdon, seen this past summer. The reflections are mostly in the shop name, though I do like how the window reflections and that rusty grate below them make a face.

But the sign on the door says that G & L Evans is in attendance during business hours, and available by phone 24 hours a day. Google tells me that this is a funeral provider, which explains their availability, but not why they are operating out of this rundown storefront.

For the serious fan

You can have your very own official Packers helmet encrusted in Swarovski crystal for a mere $10,000. If that is too expensive—or perhaps, not sufficient as a sign of your devotion—there's also a crystal football for $5000.

The Packers

The official grill of the Green Bay Packers, along with associated official accessories, plus a few of the obligatory foam cheeseheads. (Sadly I did not think to take a picture of the official pickup truck of the GBP, with an entire truckload of cheeseheads.)

I do love that statue of Vince Lombardi outside the stadium in the picture on the right.

Random things I saw in Aqaba

I thought I published this before I left for Minnesota, but didn't. Oops.

Turkish delights

One more picture from the day at Ephesus—I took this picture at a souvenir shop I passed on the way back to the ship in Kuşadasi. I wasn't tempted to buy anything; I'm trying to have less junk in my life. But I do love all that color and pattern.

And for the men

Most of the men I saw in Saudi Arabia weren't wearing Western-style clothing either. They wear a long robe called a thobe or thawb, usually white but sometimes gray or brown, and some, but not all, of them also wear a head covering, either white or the familiar red and white pattern.

Abayas for sale

The windows in a women's clothing store in the shopping district. I assume the abayas on the left are for something like a wedding, when you might also wear some of that elaborate gold jewelry. I don't know why anyone would wear the ones on the right—I assume they're also for special occasions, like maybe being a wedding guest rather than a bride, but I'd rather just wear black.

Speaking of wealth

After visiting the Corniche on the first day's tour, we were dropped in what the guide referred to as the “old town,” but it was more of a shopping district and nothing like the real old town, Al Balad, which we visited yesterday.

These are a few of the many jewelry shops; the small sign in the window in the picture on the right advises that they also sell 24K gold bars in addition to gold jewelry.

I did not inquire about the prices.

Saturday reflections

Reflections from 34th Street across from Macy's, a few weeks ago.

I survived the first day of classes. My students are of course delightful, but there are more than thirty of them—twice as many as I started with last semester—and just keeping track of the flow of forms across my desk was daunting.

I am tired. It's a good tired, but I am so, so tired.

Aguas Calientes

I like the old name Aguas Calientes better, but calling the town Machu Picchu Pueblo makes it clear it's definitely a tourist town—hotels, restaurants, shops—but also that it's a place that only exists as a waystation to Machu Picchu. There are no cars in town, only the buses that go up the mountain. And since you're only allowed to bring one carry-on sized piece of luggage on the train in, nobody is staying for long. (Many people actually do Machu Picchu as a day trip from Cusco.)

Saturday reflections

A store window in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan.

I taught my first class as a genuine English teacher today. Well, it was the first class of the semester so there was very little teaching involved; it was mostly orientations and introductions and paperwork and assessments. These students are low intermediate, much more proficient than the students I had last semester.

However, as part of a discussion about how it's hard to understand spoken Engish because of the way we smoosh words together, I taught them Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. It's not exactly literature, but they loved it.