“Penny Lane” by the Beatles was the band’s way of paying homage to the port town of Liverpool, as well as the surrounding suburbs where all four of them grew up and eventually met to form what is now known as the biggest band of all time. It paints a charming scene of a small but busy suburban street; unique characters characters such as the barber showing “every head he’s had the pleasure to have known,” a fireman “rushing in from the pouring rain”, and so on, are sung about with great affection for the humble beginnings of the four.
The Beatles certainly weren’t singing about Norwich; Liverpool is about a 5 hour trip across England by bus from Norwich. Still, as I take the bus from UEA’s campus into the city centre (center city), it’s the song that plays over and over in my head. I believe it perfectly encapsulates the brightness and charm of Norwich as a city. Pudding Lane is a small pedestrian street just above the famous marketplace found in the city centre. It is just one of the many quirky street names one can find in Norwich (and across England for that matter!). Outside the marketplace there is always someone with an instrument making music for the afternoon’s shoppers. In every direction there is a charming building or street with a long and interesting history behind it.
Norwich is a city, but not in the sense that I’ve always thought of a city. It has a very quaint and cozy feeling about it. The city centre is bustling on the weekends and on the weekdays, with locals and visitors alike taking advantage of the shops and shopping centers. However, by about 8p.m., the streets are all but dead it seems. Physically, they are very narrow; there are many smaller streets and alleyways reminiscent (practically identical even) to Diagon Alley from Harry Potter. The city centre is not large at all when you compare it to Philadelphia’s center city.
Admittedly, I often find myself falling victim to comparing Norwich to Philadelphia. In reality, Norwich is fundamentally different from Philadelphia in many ways. The most obvious difference is that Norwich is significantly smaller in size than Philadelphia. Second, though both cities have a rich history behind their streets, Norwich is around a whopping 800 years older than Philadelphia. I often joke with friends about how if I were to point at any random building with my eyes closed, I would have a very good chance at pointing towards a structure that out-dates the United States itself.
I’ve heard of students coming to UEA and never leaving Norwich because of the sheer amount of things there are to do in this city. At first I found that unbelievable, and something I couldn’t imagine myself doing. How could one city, smaller than my city city for that matter, hold so much? Even though I’ve traveled so far and will to continue to travel across England, I can now understand how one can spend their entire semester just in Norwich, and this is after having lived here for only about a month now. I’ve learned not to be fooled by the size of a city; sure it’s not as big and bustling as Philadelphia or London, but in the small amount of space it does have, there lie streets with amazing stories behind them, plenty to see, and plenty to do. A fine city indeed.
