My bus from London arrived a little early, about 20 minutes before the scheduled 6 am. It was still dark, and as I walked into the wet, deserted streets, part of me wondered what I was doing here in Newcastle, an industrial, gritty port city in the north of England and birth place of the railroad.

For one, it was also the birth place of my grandfather, Cecil Benjamin Chicken, and I wanted to look up some of the relatives my father had met a couple years before. I didn’t know how, exactly, just that it would involve my appearing on their doorstep and being taken in with the warmth and generosity one affords a prodigal child or lost kitten.

However, it was too early to call, and no stores or restaurants were open. Here, obviously, was nothing. But to the north—to the north lay Scotland. I’ve had a curious emotional attachment to that land for some time, probably since I started to interest myself in my roots, whence I come. My father would reference the Stewarts, Scots further back in the family tree.

I’d never been there, but films like Braveheart and Rob Roy—about men so tough they are compelled to wear skirts—encouraged my Scotiaphilia. And here I was, probably only 100 miles from her southern border!

Like Kerouac, I’d thumb my way north and try my hand at the life of a tramp. I’d appear on rustic rocky farms like those in Herriot’s dales and acquire work from a gruff, pipe-smoking sheep farmer. Maybe he’d even have a pretty daughter. I’d drink ale in smoky village pubs and discourse on politics and rugby with wool-wrapped codgers. This On the Road-style adventure was, after all, what I’d come here for.

But as I walked across the soggy moor, the reality of the existence I proposed began to dawn on me like the day that was just beginning to break. What if I got stuck in the middle of nowhere? Could I really depend on the kindness of strangers to put me up in the lofts of their barns, or feed me a sandwich in return for a pile of wood chopped and stacked? Apart from these concerns, it was November, and cold and dark and wet. Surely it would be a miserable time to be ‘on the road.’ And besides, my feet were starting to hurt. Newcastle was beginning to look a little better as the light of day chased away its shadows.

I ate the hardboiled eggs and orange I’d packed in London as provisions, and headed back the way I’d come. I saw a couple of other people—diehard joggers, folks walking their small, shaggy, English dogs. One man was going the same way as I. I must have looked lost, tromping around on the moor in my big rucksack and mountain boots at 6:30 in the morning, because he stopped and asked me if I knew where I was going.

"Newcastle," I said tritely.

Obviously, I had no idea.

He invited me to his office at the university, where he was a professor, to use his phone to call my cousins, and in case that failed, employ the internet to locate a hostel.

It turned out my cousins’ house had been struck by lightning and gutted by the consequent fire; they were in no position to offer any hospitality, and in retrospect it was rude of me to ask without any warning. I don’t know what I was thinking; I suppose I was influenced by stories of long-lost relatives appearing from the dust of the road and being taken in without hesitation—like the AT&T commercial in which that guy traveling on business in Ireland calls his father’s cousin—and winds up the guest of honor at a party of Irish dancing and festive fiddling in a stone cottage on a cliff above the sea.

My cousin wasn’t eager to chat long. I took this to mean she wasn’t interested in talking to a far-removed relation she’d never heard of, though later somebody told me it may have simply been because even local calls are very expensive in England.

So Rob, my rescuer, and I found a hostel, on Jesmond Street, not too far away, and he sent me forth, though not before he mentioned being a Christian, in an evident attempt to witness to me. I don’t remember exactly what brought it up; maybe I commented on a poster or something.

"Oh, you’re one of them, huh?" I said, feigning skepticism. "Me too."

Delighted, he invited me to his church a few nights later, though seemed almost to regret his hastiness when I divulged that I was Presbyterian.

"Oh dear," he said. I would find out why later.

The Jesmond Street hostel was a nice place, though largely deserted at this November time. The proprietor, when I asked if there was anything to see in that area besides cranes and ugly brick buildings, suggested I check out Hadrian’s Wall, which that Roman guy had built 1500 years ago to keep out the nasty Celts and druids. The fact that one of my favorite movies, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, had filmed there, only made the deal sweeter.

Next day, I took a train to Hartwhistle, about 45 minutes away, and set out across the countryside in the direction the wall lay like the molt of a snake long gone. Hilly rolling country, not terribly green as it was November, but populated by sheep and transected by stone walls in confirmation of my simplistic expectations of English landscape. It possessed a sort of stark, dreary beauty.

I found the wall—or what was left of it. Though once high and broad, impenetrable, this formerly great symbol of Roman security and power rarely rose above 3 feet; at other places, just the foundation was visible. In the centuries since the withdrawal of the Roman Empire from the isles, Hadrian’s Wall had been plundered to construct other fences and homes.

Nonetheless I was elated. It was going to be as nice a day as one might ask of a British fall, overcast, but dry and not dreary, and I followed the wall eastward, up and down the hills and valleys it crossed like a great, decrepit serpent. My greatest elation, however, was upon finding Kevin Costner’s tree, under which he wastes six soldiers single handedly while Azeem prays on his rug up on the hill. I don’t know why an imaginary landmark had such an effect on me. The only remarkable thing about the tree was that it was in a movie, a movie about a fictionalized character performing fictionalized deeds. Maybe my whole life is a fiction, and so dissatisfied with it am I that I have to draw grandeur from pop culture. Maybe I just watch too many movies.

At the time I did not reflect on my susceptibility to poison in the form of media but rather continued on, pausing occasionally to appreciate the day. I felt alive, vital. I breathed in the air of the land and became part of it. I sang praises to my maker and the land’s and beamed at the sun even while it lost its struggle for purchase in the sky.

After 9 miles along the wall I came to the ruins of a Roman fort, and its requisite museum. It was interesting enough, and after checking those out I headed to the shuttle which would take me back to Hartwhistle, where I’d catch a train back to Newcastle.

The evening of the next day was that to which Rob had invited me to church. I took the metro to a certain stop and walked from there, following the directions Rob had given me.

This was the most interesting experience in my church-going life. In fact, it was bizarre. Pretty much all I remember was everybody praying at once, laying hands on each other. I heard a couple people apparently speaking in tongues. I doubted God could hear me above the ruckus, so I just kept my eyes closed and hoped for the touching to stop. Having been raised Presbyterian, I was used to very ordered services following a very detailed program (complete with asterisks indicating appropriate times to stand), and led by elders who severely disapproved of surprises and were suspicious of the new. This is what Rob had meant back in his office when he’d said ‘oh dear’. Indeed, I was slightly mortified by all the charisma.

The next few days were spent wandering around Newcastle waiting for my ferry to sail. Looking back, I did a lot of waiting, instead of making it happen.

I went to an Irish bar, where the young guy behind the bar told me about American football. I took the metro to Southshields, past rows of shabby brick houses with trashy yards, places similar to those in which my grandfather might have lived for the first two years of this life before sailing to America.

From the metro station I followed the river to the beach, a wet, windy stretch of sodden sand, one of many I would peruse in the coming months of my trip, always drawn to the sea, perhaps by a mystical pull on some vestigial member of my person, a mariner remnant left over from the days of my mother’s Viking ancestors. Drawn to look over the sea, and imagine what lay out of sight, what strange lands it held apart; the secrets it kept; imagine my self on it, on the open sea, perhaps taking passage with a freighter in return for labor. But alas, those days seem to be over, those Jack London days, and if not, I seem forever cursed to simply gaze and dream, and turn back to the security of my somedays, while behind me the sea laps my footprints hungrily away.

Where this adventure-lust comes from, I can’t say for sure, although it probably has something to do with books. In my younger days, The Hardy Boys and Tom Clancy regaled me with tales of derring-do and intrigue, and always left me hungry for more. Later, it was Jack London and Edward Abbey and books like Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer that imbued my soft head with fancies of freight trains, wilderness snowshoeing, tramping and sea voyages. It’s as if I try to shape my reality based on fictionalized accounts of national heroes and a story of a stupidly idealistic kid’s quest which ends with his agonized death In the Alaskan wilderness, far from any who love him. I let these tales carry me away to a fantasy level, perhaps, from which I can still access this side to execute the tasks necessary to exist while actually residing, hoping and dreaming in a fantasy world in which I am the tragic hero and the hard realities are romanticized away. Maybe that’s just it—I’m a romantic.

Yet all the dreaming and aspirations of the heart are useless and a waste of time if one lacks the guts, can’t gather the gumption to jump that train, or walk down to the freeway and stick out his thumb, his mind possessed of the monolithic thought ‘south,’ home and comfort forgotten, at least for awhile. So far I haven’t found the gumption.

Another overcast day in Newcastle. I was sitting along the river on a park bench eating my curds and whey when along came a wino and sat down beside me.

"Down on your luck mate?" he asked. I guess I looked homeless, scruffy faced and eating from a knapsack.

"No, just eating," I said.

He declined my offer of bread and cheese but launched into a diatribe lamenting the perplexing disappearance of the cider in this tattooed hand (‘how’s that s’posed to git me through the night, mate? Why, tha’s nary a mouthful!’) and the rocky dynamic of his family of vagrants, ending with a mooch for a few pence, which I gave him without compunction.

This incident, along with others similar during my trip, caused me to wonder what it was about me that seemed to attract vagrants and crooks (hooligans in Italy; pickpockets and junkie in Barcelona, false guides in Rabat and that cab driver in Marrakech). Did I really appear so clueless, so vulnerable? Do my glasses make me appear too bookish, utterly devoid of street smarts? Maybe I’m too tall. The frequency of such incidents would indicate there is something. I know guys whom I can’t imagine being ripped off, or bothered by bums while sitting in a park, though they travel all over.

That night, my last in the gloomy coal town, my bed at the hostel was taken by one of several dozen Swedish school kids who’d come over on a ferry much like the one I’d ride to Bergen. Calls to other hostels and the YMCA proved fruitless; the weekend’s football match (i.e. soccer game) had flooded them with rabid fans. Remembering Rob had said I could stay with him and his wife if I found my self in dire need, I called them up and explained my situation. They invited me over that evening.

It turned out their younger son was having a sleepover with a friend he’d been dying to have over for ages—thus, any room that would have otherwise been available for me was no longer. Immediately I regretted my presumptuous request, especially since she had gone through the trouble to call around and find a reasonable place for me, which would have run me 25 pounds or so. When I turned this offer down (I’d been enjoying hostel rates of 12-13 pounds) I made it clear I’d just been being cheap. I said I’d just sleep on the moor, at which foolery they were mortified but helpless to intercede.

They fed me hot cocoa and chocolate, and I told them about what I’d been doing and planned to do. Then Rob read a verse from the Bible and we prayed, and they sent me on my way. Very fine people. I was sorry I’d put them in a position where they’d had to turn me down.

My bulky pack saddle and strapped, I set off into the damp, foggy night.

I tied my sheet of visqueen plastic to a fence behind the railroad museum on the moor, shook out my sleeping bag and read by flashlight awhile. The problem with camping by yourself in November is a) you’re lonely b) because it’s dark for so long you can only read or lay there for hours till you can finally fall asleep, if you even can due to the cold.

The half-measure, pathetic show of tramphood! I was really roughing it! What a mockery. Self-styled hardship, even as I lay there freezing, wishing I’d sprung for the 25 pounds, I knew this venture had the authenticity of an episode of Big Brother. Kerouac, indeed. The contrived, self-imposed nature of this little camping trip, along with my failure to connect with any family or find the house my grandfather was born in left me with a feeling of futility, of disappointment. I’d spent a week in the city, and had accomplished exactly nothing or worth. I still feel the pull for some great adventure, yet know somehow that to seek it for its own sake could very well garner the same results.

The next evening my ferry sailed for Norway.