Kyle Banerjee's Blog

The night before last, Shirley and I returned from a 3 week trip to England and Scotland. Both of us had been looking forward to the trip for a long time, but for different reasons. I studied at Leeds 18 years ago and wanted to see how things had changed. Shirley had never been before and just wanted to see what it was like.

England and Scotland are English speaking countries, but they are very different from the US. One thing that immediately jumps out at you is that you get a real sense of history just about anywhere you go. Although it is true that most parts of the United States have been inhabited for thousands of years, practically all traces of the original inhabitants and their lives were wiped out long ago. Besides, today’s dominant culture has little in common with that of the people who were here more than 500 years ago.

In contrast, the culture of today in the United Kingdom descended directly from that of the people that have been there for thousands of years. It’s not hard to take a picture of a skyscraper next to a thousand year old building. For example, this picture is of the Tower of London (a thousand year old fortress) and the “Gherkin,” (a building primarly occupied by an insurance company). Even Windsor Castle — one of the Queen’s official residences — has been occupied continuously for about 1000 years.

Rather than write a post that goes on forever, I’ll add information about this trip and time I’ve spent in other European countries to my travel pages as soon as I find the time. If you want to see pictures of the trip in the meantime, just click on the “Photos” tab above and type in the searches “England 2006″ and “Scotland 2006″ and you’ll see every picture that was taken.

I wanted to make one quick observation before ending this post. As you would expect in a country that has produced many monarchs as well as people who have made great contributions to the arts and the sciences, the United Kingdom is full of monuments, statues, etc honoring various people.

History judges us by our deeds rather than inherited or purchased status. One of the most popular monuments I saw on the entire trip was a statue of a dog named Bobby. Bobby’s claim to fame is that after his owner died, he stayed by the gravesite for 14 years until he also passed away. I passed by his monument many times, and it is clear that Bobby’s loyalty and devotion really touches a lot of people. There was always a line of people waiting to take pictures of him. There were always fresh flowers on his grave even though he died over 100 years ago. The inscription on his grave is one of the more impressive that I have seen — “May we all learn from his example” — an epitaph that few of us can hope to be worthy of.

Bobby may only have been a dog, but he clearly inspires more people than most kings, queens, or nobility. I’ll square with you — I’m not a big fan of the monarchy or hereditary aristocracy. Although there are many good individuals in those groups, my impression is that most of them spent their lives throwing money around to show how important they were. Fortunately, people know the real article when they see it.