Left London this morning, taking the train up to Oxford. I’m glad I splurged for the first-class train pass; the seats are very nice, the tables are great, and there are power outlets everywhere. The trip to Oxford is under an hour, but the trip to York will be longer, and then York to Oban, Oban to Edinburgh, and Edinburgh back to London are quite long trips. The extra perks will really tell on those legs.
I got to Oxford around 12:30 PM – everything fell into place on the trip, with me getting to the tube just in time for the train to Paddington, and then got to Paddington just in time for the train to Oxford. That was nice, but it meant that, by the time I walked to the hotel on Broad Street, I was starving, as I hadn’t eaten yet.
After checking in, I unloaded my bags in my room, and went for a wander to find some lunch. Hunger being what it was, I didn’t look too far before stumbling upon a Burger King. Not a traditional English meal, but man, it was just what I needed then.
Then I took a stroll around the shopping district, just looking at stuff. At around 5:00 PM, I went back to my room to rest and read before the Ghost Walk tour. About a half-hour before the tour, I walked across the street to the start point.
There were only four of us on the Ghost Walk tour1, which is the minimum number for the walk to run. It started raining part way through2, so I didn’t get a lot of pictures.
Tom, our guide, was a great storyteller, and told some interesting stories. One that surprised me was the tale of the St. Scholastica Day riots – where the townies and the students went to war against each other, resulting in 30 dead townspeople and 63 dead students.
My favourite story, though, is about Cuthbert Shields. Now, I can find no record of this tale on the Internet, but that’s why I go on these trips, right? To hear the weird history that doesn’t get reported elsewhere.
Anyway, Shields was an historian at Corpus Christi College. He had previously been known as Robert Laing, but changed his name after his behaviour3 landed him in an asylum, and then forced him to spend many years traveling the world. He came back to Oxford around 1888 or so, and stayed there until he died in 1908.
He left behind a strange bequest to the college: a sealed silver box with a ribbon tied around it, and instructions that it not be opened until 50 years after his death. The college honoured his wishes and, in 1958, the librarian, assistant librarian, and warden of the college opened the box.
Inside were scores of Nostradamus-like predictions, carefully arranged and written, chronicling the years since his death.
They were all dead wrong.
The story goes that the Shields’s ghost attended the opening and seemed very disappointed.
Anyway, that’s my first glimpse of Oxford. Another walking tour tomorrow, where I’ll get to see more of the colleges and stuff.
Got my keyboard working again, so I wanted to get a post up about yesterday’s trip out to Stonehenge, Lacock, and Bath.
Okay. First of all, 3:45 AM is very early to get up, especially on vacation. That said, I made it over to the hotel pick-up point well ahead of 5:00 AM – the pick-up time – so that’s good.
Overall, the trip was fantastic. Our driver and guide seemed to be good friends who worked well together, keeping us informed and entertained and on time. Despite the tyranny of the schedule, they were very flexible and accommodating when they could be, and just generally really good guys.
We made it out to Stonehenge around 8:00 AM – well past the sunrise, but we still had the circle to ourselves1 for an hour, and it was awesome.
After our hour in the circle, it was back to the coach and on to Lacock for breakfast. We had it in a pub called The George, which was established in 1361, and it was a very welcome meal by that time. I spent the meal chatting with a couple of very nice ladies from the US about The Book of Mormon, which they, too, had seen just a couple of nights before.
Then, we went for bit of a stroll around the village on the way back to the coach.
Back on the coach and on to Bath.
Bath was an important city during the Roman era of Britain. There were hot springs bubbling out of the ground, which the Romans took as a divine gift. They named it Aquae Sulis, and2 blended the idea of the local goddess, Sulis, with their own Minerva. They constructed a temple to Sulis Minerva here, and it became a centre for healing and pilgrimage.
The Victorians saw the long-vanished Roman baths rediscovered and rebuilt, turning the city of Bath into a world-famous spa city, where the rich would travel to take the waters.
And then3, it was time to head back. We were back in London around 5:00 PM, and I headed back to the hotel for some dinner and an early bed.
That was my last night in London. I need to go back at some point, because there is so much I didn’t get to: Buckingham Palace, the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Temple Church, SoHo, Chruchill’s War Bunkers, so many other museums and libraries…
I don’t regret my choices of what I did go and see, though. I had a fantastic time. Well, maybe I would have picked a different day to go to Avebury, one that wasn’t quite so cold and windy and wet. But still.
One last closing note on London: I am in awe of the London Underground. I was a little bit intimidated by it at first, but it is so well organized and labeled that it made getting around very simple. And fast. Really, if you’re going to London, get yourself an Oyster Card and take the tube. So fast and easy.
But now, I’m in Oxford, and need to go hunt up some food. Tonight, I have a Ghost Walk, which I am looking forward to. The sky’s bright and clear right now, so I’m hoping it doesn’t turn as wet as the Ripper Walk did.
Not that rain’s gonna stop me.
That is, me, Frank the guide, Malcolm the driver, 29 other tourists, and two security guards to make sure we didn’t touch the stones. [↩]
Today was my first trip outside of London on this vacation. I took the train to Swindon and the bus to Avebury. There’s a stone circle there, the largest in western Europe, and you get to walk right in amongst the stones. Of course, it started raining while I was out there, and really picked up when I started walking the ridge trail.
That, along with the fact that the trail was closed at a couple of places for erosion control, and I didn’t get to see as much of it as I might have liked. But it was still very cool. The site’s almost 5000 years old, and being among the stones – able to go up and touch them – was awesome.
I got a few pictures.
By then, I was soaked. I got the bus back to Swindon, and the train back to London. Now, I’m going to bed, because I’m getting up at 3:45 tomorrow morning for my tour out to Stonehenge.
I started writing this last night, and began falling asleep as the pictures were loading. I couldn’t be bothered to go back and change all the references to “today.” You’ll have to live with it.
Quick update tonight. It’s late and I’m tired((Starting to be a recurring theme, huh?)).
My plan for today was to walk along the riverwalk on the south bank of the Thames, find the giant dead parrot sculpture, see Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare’s Globe, then make my way to Piccadilly Circus and the Prince of Wales Theatre to see The Book of Mormon. As has become traditional, I started at Tower Hill, and took a stroll across the Tower Bridge to the south bank.
Okay. The parrot story. One of the reasons I was walking this way to get to Shakespeare’s Globe was that I had read this story a couple of months ago. I thought it would be very cool to get a picture of the giant parrot, perhaps even a picture of me with the giant parrot. Unfortunately, I hadn’t looked closely at the date of the article.
Then I made it to Shakespeare’s Globe1, and saw Romeo and Juliet.
Now, I’ve said before that Romeo and Juliet isn’t one of my favourite plays. That said, this production was amazing. They did some remarkable things with the staging, the music, and the switching of roles2. Benvolio was not, as is often the case, a crap actor – the actor playing him was also Friar Lawrence, and showed how Benvolio can be an amazing character.
While all the actors were fantastic, I have to single out the woman who played Juliet. It was pretty much the first performance I have seen where Juliet had a perfect mix of spoiled and naive, and really felt like an overly-romantic thirteen-year-old. Just wonderful.
After that, it was time to start heading to Piccadilly Circus, so I decided to walk across the Jubilee footbridge.
From across the footbridge, it was a quick tube ride to Piccadilly Circus. I picked up my tickets, and had my first sit-down dinner in the UK. I went to a place called Scotch Steak House. The food was okay, and the decor was not bad, and the prices were pretty high, but the service was out of this world. My waiter seemed to be everywhere, doing everything, always happy and friendly and helpful.
The Book of Mormon was amazing. It was a much deeper show, talking about truth and belief and right and wrong, and also about colonialism and inclusion. Because it’s by the South Park folks, it also had a lot of toilet humour, which worked, as it always seems to in their hands. If you know something about the LDS church, the humour is extra biting, because you realize that some of the insane stuff said on stage is not made up. Even if you don’t know, though, it’s a funny, funny show. I was laughing so hard I was crying at a couple of points.
On my way back to the tube station, I snapped this picture.
Then it was home and bed. And now, I’m heading off to Paddington station to catch a train to Swindon and a bus to Avebury to see the stone circle there.
Again. I may or may not have bought more DVDs of their performances. If I did, I probably had a good reason to do so. [↩]
By which I mean one actor playing multiple roles. [↩]
I got a bit of a slow start this morning, being very tired from the combination of jetlag and an obscene number of stairs yesterday. When I finally hauled myself out of bed, took some time getting dressed and ready for the day, then took the tube back to the Tower of London.
Why there? Mainly because it’s only one tube stop from my closest tube station1, and the sightseeing bus stops there, and that’s where I got off the tour yesterday. So, I got to ride the rest of the tour and, incidentally, find out where the theatre is for seeing The Book of Mormon tomorrow night.
I got off the bus around Picadilly Circus, with the intention of catching the red tour from the sightseeing company2. I managed to do that, though it took getting lost and finally making my way back to Trafalgar Square. When I got on the red tour, I found that it was the same as the yellow tour, but without a live guide – all commentary was on a recording, and I, not realizing that, neglected to get a set of headphones to listen to it.
By the time I figured this out, we were almost back to the Tower of London, so I figured I’d get off there and figure out what to do next. Turns out I was just in time for the 61-gun salute that the Yeoman Warders were firing in honour of the new princess. I stayed for that but, as a late arrival, I only managed to glimpse the guns themselves as I maneuvered around the edge of the crowd. Easy to hear, though. And to smell – huge clouds of smoke drifted over to us every time the guns fired.
That took about twenty minutes, in all, and I still hadn’t figured out what to do. So, I wandered down to the pier, and saw that there was a river bus service that would take me right to Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. I’m heading there tomorrow for Romeo and Juliet, but I thought it would be nice to take a tour today, and wander around the area.
The tour was awesome, led by an actual cockney named Mick. And he took us into the (mostly) empty Globe to show us the place.
The theatre is constructed in Elizabethan fashion – uncured oak, with lath and plaster between the beams, and a thatched roof. Since the great fire in London, thatched roofs are illegal, but the Globe has special dispensation. Also, a whole lot of sprinklers on the roof.
After a quick stop at the gift shop3, I set out to wander through the area and see what there was to see.
From Monument Station, it was just two underground stops to my home stop of Aldgate East. I had a bit of dinner and a bit of a rest, and uploaded the day’s pictures. While they were uploading, I went for my evening’s planned excursion: a Jack the Ripper walk.
It started getting overcast, and was beginning to sprinkle a bit of rain as the walk started, so I only got a few pictures. Although, to be fair, most of the actual sites we visited were radically changed from history, so there wasn’t much to photograph. That said, our guide, Phil, did an amazing job of painting the picture for us, and did a magnificent balancing act between humourous fun and dignified respect. I did get a few pics, though.
By this time, the rain was coming down pretty hard, so I put the camera away. We finished the tour, and I came home to post this. Pictures loaded very slowly, so I’m running late again.
Moved to my new hotel today. It was raining this morning, and I was still kind of tired, so I decided that, instead of walking the 40 minutes or so back to the tube station1, I’d pay for a cab. This was an important lesson: the money I saved by staying farther away than I had intended was eaten by the cost of the cab. I should have just picked a closer, if more expensive, hotel.
I was, of course, way too early to check in. In fact, I arrived in the middle of what seemed to be half of Germany checking out and storing their bags. But they cleared, and I got my bag stored until later, and then I headed off to the tube station in my rain jacket and very fancy hat to get my sightseeing ticket validated.
That happened to be at Trafalgar Square.
After looking around a bit, I found the place I needed and got my ticket validated. Then, I got on the tour. We saw a whole bunch of cool stuff but, as usual, it’s very hard to get a good picture from the top of a moving tour bus. I did get one that I liked.
I got off the bus at the Tower of London, which is one of the main things I wanted to see on this trip. I spent about four hours there, looking at stuff, and I didn’t even get in to see the Crown Jewels – the lineup for that tower was very, very2 long. The Tower is fascinating; it is actually a tiny little village inside the walls. There are about thirty-five Yeoman Warders3 who live in the Tower with their wives and children, plus the Royal Fusiliers who are garrisoned at the headquarters here. In total, there are about 130 people who live on the site.
If you go to the Tower, make sure that you take one of the Yeoman Warder guided tours. That’ll show you what you want to spend more time on, and give you a bunch of cool history.
There were some other interesting exhibits around, too:
Now, despite the bloody reputation of the Tower of London, only six people were ever executed within the Tower grounds. The other 2000 or so were merely imprisoned there, and were marched out an up Tower Hill for their executions.
Aside from being a royal residence, and a fortress, and a prison, and the royal mint, the Tower was also, for a time, a royal zoo. They had loads of fun stuff, like lions and elephants and a room full of monkeys running around loose that you could go play with4. There are sculptures of a lot of the animals, seemingly made of chicken wire, around the place.
The only living animals still kept at the tower5 are the Tower ravens. Legend says that if the ravens leave the tower, England will fall. The ravens even have a Yeoman Warder Ravenmaster who looks after them.
I walked the walls of the Tower, as well, and got some very nice views of London.
Then, seeing as it was almost five, I went and checked into my hotel for real, and spent a couple of hours getting my photo software working and uploading my pictures, before heading back to the Tower of London for the Ceremony of the Keys.
They don’t allow photographs or recordings for the ceremony, and I can understand why. It’s the oldest military tradition of it’s kind in the world, having been conducted every day for about seven hundred years. It was delayed only once, during WWII, when bombs were dropped on the Tower during the ceremony. After the Warders had helped their injured comrades and put out the fire, they continued with the ceremony, and the next day, sent a letter of apology to the king. The king said he understood, and that the Warders were not to blame because it was enemy action, but that he expected the ceremony to never be late again.
It was kind of moving to be present for the tradition, and everyone was nicely quiet and respectful as the situation warranted. At the end, we were told that all the names of attendees at the ceremony had their names recorded in a big, red book, so that they became part of the history of the ceremony. And that’s just cool.
Then, back home to do up this post, and now, because it’s after midnight, to bed.
Lots to see and do tomorrow.
Assuming I could find my way more easily than I had the night before. [↩]
So, the plane last night didn’t take off until almost two hours late. We made up some time in flight, though, and landed only about an hour late. I had managed to sleep through most of the trip – about five and a half hours. Because I was able to sleep, but not for as long as I wanted, I’m tired today, but not exhausted.
I took full advantage the British Air arrivals lounge1 for their showers and free breakfast. I also got a sim card and set up my phone on the 3 network, and bought an Oyster Card for using the Underground.
I’m really glad I took the tube to my hotel. It was long, and somewhat confusing, and tiring hauling my stuff around, but it really brought home the fact that I’m in a different city, in a different country, in a way that I think the faster trains or a cab wouldn’t have. It also showed me that, intimidating though the tube looks to a barbarian like me, it’s really not that difficult to navigate.
I made it to Liverpool Street, my first destination, because there’s a Lush shop there. I picked up my special soap and cream, and then found a pharmacy, where I bought some toiletries, ibuprofen, and travel sickness pills2. I also got my first chance to stick my head into the actual outside in London. I snapped a couple of pictures, but the photo software on this computer isn’t working right. I’m still going to post them, but once I get things straightened out, I’ll probably come back and update them.
**Edit** I got my picture editor working on my computer, so I have updated the pictures.
Then, it was back on the tube, out to Barking. From the Barking station, I walked to my hotel, navigating via Apple Maps on my phone3. I wound up in the parking lot of a huge Tesco superstore, and decided to give up but, after buying and drinking a very lovely bottle of Fanta4, I was refreshed and found where I had gone wrong reading the map.
So, I made it to my hotel around 5:00, and right at the desk they had a deal for pizza and coke, which I ordered and ate. Now, I’m going to rest up for tomorrow, watch a movie or something, and try to stay awake until 10:00 or so, so that I don’t wake up too early.
I made it!
Okay. I knew Heathrow was very, very big, but they have a high-speed transit train to move people from the arrival gates to the actual Arrivals area within the same terminal. That’s big. [↩]
I found in Ireland that some of the tours – especially the rural ones – made me a little nauseous. Not gonna give in to that. [↩]
This is why I get the new sim card first thing. [↩]
For North American readers: Fanta in Europe is awesome. No, really. For European readers: Fanta in North America is made of fail and sadness. No, really. [↩]
It’s not really the half-way point. But it’s about half-way through my travel-to-London day.
Had a couple of weird moments on the flight here. The guy I sat beside looked like he resented the fact that I was taking the empty seat beside him. Now, I get that – you can get your hopes up about having an empty seat beside you. But the scowl he gave me was… unwelcoming. Then, half-way through the flight, I started coughing. Part of it was the nuts I was eating1, part of it was the fact I’m just over a cold, and part of it was my allergies acting up in the dry airplane air. Anyway, the guy kept frowning over at me, as I struggled to drink some water and get it under control.
And then, about fifteen minutes later, he turns around in his seat and says to the guy behind him, “Stop hitting it! Just stop hitting it! It’s very distracting!” I thought the guy might have been kicking my buddy’s seat, and so I started cutting him some slack – that would be really irritating, and would make me grumpy, too.
Things calmed down then but, as we were standing up getting ready to exit the plane, my buddy pushed in front of me ((I was waiting for the aisle behind me to clear enough that I could go get my bags out of the overhead storage a couple of rows back.)) and started berating the guy seated behind him. There followed a typical angry Canadian confrontation, where both people were trying to be the most reasonable while still being angry.
Turns out that the guy beside me was complaining that the guy behind him had been tapping the touch screen on the entertainment screen too hard.
But the guys started trying to out-rank each other based on how far and how often they traveled, but escalated when the guy behind us said, “You’re from Toronto? Well, that explains everything.”2
Now, I’m sort of the third point in the triangle these two goofs are making, and I see all the other folks standing nearby watching avidly. Fortunately, it didn’t escalate any further, but one of the spectators caught up with me on the jetway and said that his money was on the first punch thrown taking me out by accident. I laughed and told him I had an escape route planned, through the galley and into the bathroom.
Then, because I wasn’t getting enough stress, I came through security here at Toronto to find that the cap of my nice pen and the small notebook it was attached to were no longer in my breast pocket after I had reloaded everything from the security routine. The pen itself was there, but the main thing I was concerned about was the notebook – it contained all the addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, bus numbers, tube routes, and train information for my trip. Most of it is up on the itinerary, but I always carry a pocket-sized hard copy on trips because you can’t always guarantee connectivity.
So, after getting a security supervisor to go back through the security line to help me look I, genius that I am, stuck my hand in my pants pocket and found both the pen cap and the notebook.
That story is for all my friends who like to hear stories about how I make an ass of myself. Enjoy.
After security, I made my way up to the British Airways business class lounge. And then left it about ten minutes later, because Elliot got in touch with me via Facebook to say he was not too far away from me, so I went to spend a half-hour or so with him.
That was nice, because I’m missing his homecoming to Winnipeg.
And then it was back to the lounge to read and have a nice dinner. Now, my plane should start boarding right away, so I’m signing off.
Salty bits of nut stuck in the back of my throat. Are you reading this, Chris? [↩]
For non-Canadians – and for some Torontonians – much of the rest of Canada view Torontonians as self-centred and arrogant. Me, I know self-centred and arrogant people from all over, so I don’t judge. But this might help explain things. [↩]
So, this morning, as every morning, I sit down to check my e-mail while my brain boots up. There was an e-mail from my London hotel, saying they look forward to welcoming me. I was reading through it, thinking, “Only a few more days! Looks like the weather will be fairly nice. Any interesting links to things nearby? Hey, are those dates wrong?”
Sure enough, the e-mail said that I was booked for five nights starting on Sunday night. I had wanted to be booked for five nights starting on Saturday night. I pulled out my previous confirmation1, and found that I had indeed booked five nights starting on Sunday. Obviously, because I had the dumb.
I called the hotel, and they were helpful, but were booked solid on Saturday. Also, because I wanted the lowest rate on the room, I had booked a no-cancellation, no-change reservation, so I was stuck with the extra night. But they gave me some info about another hotel that was2 farther away and3 more expensive, but had rooms available. I’m booked in there for the first night.
It’s not ideal, but at least I found out before arriving. It’ll change the very loose plans I had for my arrival day, and eat up some time on the next day, but nothing too bad. I regret the extra cost, but I’ll get over it.
And I spent an extra half-hour this morning making sure all the rest of my hotel dates are correct.4
I print out all the confirmations and store them so that I can carry them with me as proof of booking and payment, etc. [↩]
Okay, so I thought I was all done with booking stuff for the trip. Then I found out that York is hosting an international Shakespeare festival while I’m there, so I went to take a look at what was playing. I was very pleased to find that there’s a performance of King Lear while I’m in the city1, and I nabbed a ticket for that.
I was really hoping that there would be something fun playing at Stratford-Upon-Avon that I could see, but I’m in the area at a time when there’s nothing that interests me2. I may even skip taking the train out there from Oxford to see the place; it’s going to depend on how I’m feeling and what there I still have left to see in Oxford on the day I have free. We’ll see.
Anyway, I had some free time today, so I started packing. Actually, I’m almost finished packing. And laying out my travel clothes for when I head to the plane. Yes, I realize that it’s still almost two weeks before I leave, but I wanted to start figuring out what I’m taking and how I’m carrying it, so I started fitting things into bags, and one thing led to another…
My trips to Ireland have really encouraged me to pack light. I carried less on my second trip than I did on my first, and I’m carrying less on this trip than I did on either of the first two. Part of that is that I went from an iPad and laptop electronics loadout to a Surface Pro 3. The Surface does everything that I need a laptop for3 in the convenient form-factor of a tablet. So, only one device. Well, two, counting my iPhone.
I’m also only bringing clothes for about a week, expecting to wash things like socks, underwear, and t-shirts in my hotel sink, and get the more cumbersome items – pants, heavier shirts – washed in laundromats or by hotel laundry services.
Everything packs pretty neatly into my trusty Tom Bihn Aeronaut 45 and my new(ish) Tom Bihn Pilot. I say new(ish) for the Pilot because I took it down to GenCon last year, but this is its first big trip. Aside from being a convenient personal item size carry on bag, it’ll make a very nice day pack as I wander the streets and byways of the UK. It’ll easily hold my Surface, my camera, a sweatshirt4, my rain shell, a bottle of water, and a few snacks. And the Surface can stay at the hotel most days, so it’ll have a little extra room for picking things up on my rambles.
And now, I sit, waiting to add the last couple of items to my bags on the day I leave.
Tapping my foot impatiently.
I like King Lear more than I like Romeo and Juliet, which I’m seeing in London at the Globe. What was I really hoping for? The Tempest, or maybe Macbeth. Julius Caesar would have been good, too, or Much Ado About Nothing. Oh, well. [↩]
A week after I’m gone, the Royal Shakespeare Company puts on Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. I would love to see that. [↩]
Processing and storing pictures, keeping the blog up to date, etc. [↩]
Well, really a long-sleeved, light-weight merino wool pullover. [↩]