The traveling feet were itchy, and the plan to soothe them was a road trip to North Dakota. We'd add a state to the "what states we've been to" list, hopefully see some wild horses, check out the big Crazy Horse monument, and more. For some reason, we ended up in England instead. We'd been talking in a vague way for years about leaving the country, and the time just seemed right. This is the written account of the journey; there are also photos.
We flew out of O'Hare Monday evening with only minor wrinkles, and our flying experience with Virgin was positive. Aside from being on the plane for the unavoidable eight hours, we were made reasonably comfortable with vegetarian dinners (though apparently eating vegetarian means you'd rather have cantaloupe than cookies for dessert) and two dozen channels of televised entertainment through the screens in the backs of the seats ahead of us. The entertainment system included several terrible games, including an absolutely impossible trivia game. After dark, we even managed to get a few hours of sleep.
Tuesday, our first day in London, we caught the tail end of a spell of unseasonably warm weather—sunny and in the 70s (or should we say 20s?). We took the Tube to West Hampstead, hoping to check in at the Charlotte Guest House and take a nap in our room. Unfortunately, our room "hadn't been Hoovered" yet and they didn't seem interested in accommodating us with an early check-in. Left with no other choice, we dropped off our bags and ventured back into the sunshine.
We headed first to Hampstead Heath via bus. (Actually, we headed first in the opposite direction of Hampstead Heath; we got on a bus in the wrong direction.) Many of the buses in London are double-decker, and we had a lot of fun sitting on the top level as we wobbled and weaved down the narrow, heavily trafficked streets. One thing we'll say: road rage seemed to be at very low levels in London. Drivers are clearly used to making accommodations for each other, double-parked utility vehicles, cyclists, delivery scooters, and pedestrians. We rarely heard a horn.
Hampstead Heath was romantic poet John Keats' old stomping grounds, nearly 200 years ago when it was considered "remote" instead of just a northwesterly part of London. It's a lush, hilly park, part woods, part lawn, part pond. (All of England seems to be quite lush this time of year. From the plane, everything below was green and more green, except for the dazzling yellow fields of rape.) We stopped in Kenwood House, an impressive old mansion that belonged to an art collector, and so was full of paintings, antique furniture, and other ephemera. Even more impressive was the garden of towering rhododendrons outside. The bushes were ten or more feet high and blossomed in just about every color imaginable.
In late afternoon, we rode back to the B&B and finally checked in, collapsing for about an hour. We went out again and walked the neighborhood, stopping in the Hampstead Cemetery, which we'd seen from the bus. It was in another lush, green spot and had many beautiful old stones and monuments. We also seemed to hit doggy social hour; as we went out, there were half a dozen pooches running around as their owners kibbitzed. One of the dogs looked remarkably like Carly, except its ears flopped. Thus we had our first bout of homesickness for our dog, who was staying with our friend Bryan for the week.
We finished the day with dinner at a small Indian restaurant near the B&B. The food was decent, though since it was our first dining experience in England it left us with a few questions: Do restaurants always have the TV and music playing simultaneously? Did we commit a major faux pas by asking for water with our meals? When you have no prior experience to compare it to, anything seems possible.
We woke Wednesday to another sunny day, though a bit cooler. Joe had his first experience with the "full English breakfast" of fried eggs, sausage, bacon, baked beans, toast, and cereal, while Lisa went for the toasted cheese and tomato sandwich. Whatever people say about English food, both meals were quite satisfactory. We both partook of tea as well. At home, we usually drink plain herbal tea, but here we went for the English breakfast tea with cream and sugar—an interesting change of pace, and the caffeine probably didn't hurt in perking us up, either.
We spent the day exploring London via the Tube and on foot. We stopped in the British Museum (which is free, like many of London's museums) and took a look at the Rosetta Stone and other Ancient Egyptian artifacts, the contentious Elgin marbles from the Parthenon, and some more contemporary works from the Bay of Bengal. Joe hadn't previously realized why the Rosetta Stone was such a big deal, until he saw how the passage of text on it was repeated in hieroglyphics, Demotic script, and classical Greek, allowing modern scholars to decipher the hieroglyphics on all that old stuff they were digging up. It's a very modest slab of rock, for how important it's been.
Next, we walked to the British Library. Right up front, they have a four-story glassed-in display of King George III's library. They also have a gallery of rare manuscripts, which includes an original Gutenberg Bible and one of the four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta. (The Library owns two, and the one currently on display is too badly burned to read, unfortunately, but it does include the original seal of King John.) Also in the collection are original, handwritten manuscripts by such greats as Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and Oscar Wilde. It was awing to see these works written out longhand, with neat lines crossed through lines that needed to be rewritten—and in such beautiful handwriting! Another display case includes original Beatles lyrics sheets, including "A Hard Day's Night" scrawled on the back of Paul McCartney's son's birthday card.
We took the Tube from King's Cross (making a quick pause at Platform 9 3/4, of Harry Potter fame) down to the Buckingham Palace area. The Palace is not particularly picturesque; apparently its architect, Edward Blore, was nicknamed "Edward Bore." We weren't there for the changing of the guard, though we did see a few of them marching around, doing their thing. The most impressive thing about the Palace is probably the towering, black and gold-painted iron bars fencing it in.
Walking toward the Thames, we saw the iconic Big Ben Clock Tower (technically, only the bell is named Big Ben; the tower is just the Clock Tower). It was much more beautiful in person than you can see in the movies or photographs; it's covered with glittery detailing. We learned the hard way that Westminster Abbey closes early on Wednesdays, but we did take in a view of the outside. (Main impression: it's large.)
This part of London was definitely dominated by government buildings. We saw the Houses of Parliament and a great many other giant, stone edifices. On one block, we passed the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, the Institution of Civil Engineers, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. If Joe's dad were an Englishman, that's where he'd spend all his time.
Friends had recommended we visit St. Paul's Cathedral, so we went there next. The Cathedral is absolutely massive. We were late enough that they charged us a reduced admission, the downside being that we couldn't climb into the huge dome over the nave. It's a spectacular piece of architecture, with beautiful mosaics, statues, you name it. We stayed for Evensong, and were surprised that the sound of the choir does not, in fact, fill the nave. Instead, the sound is trapped in the boxy Quire, making the psalms resonate and bleed together in an eerie but beautiful way. There is certainly no other music we know with that particular aesthetic.
Before returning to the B&B, we headed to Leicester Square, picking up some food on the way. We'd seen it at ten in the morning, and the park, which is in the heart of the theatre district, was pretty much dead. Now, at seven PM, the place was packed with people lounging on the grass, eating and talking. The area seemed to us like a cross between Times Square and Washington Square Park in New York. We felt a part of the scene as we ate our food, even though we'd decided not to take in a show that night.
Thursday morning, already impressed with the complex but smoothly running Tube system, we boarded a National Rail train to St. Ives, Cornwall. In spite of having two transfers, it was a smooth and pleasant journey.
The most difficult part was finding Glanmor Guest House, whose address had been listed online simply as "The Belyars." We easily found a lane called such, but there was no B&B on it. (Though it's a bit hard to tell B&Bs from private homes in St. Ives; nearly every house has a name.) After a failed phone call to Glanmor and several failed attempts to ask directions from neighbors, one tip finally led us in the right direction. For the record, everyone, Glanmor Guest House is on Trewidden Lane. ("Tre" means house in Cornish.)
Our luck had run out, weather-wise, and we were back to Chicago-like temperatures (in the 50s, when we left) and drizzle. After six hours on a train, however, a bit of rain would hardly keep us indoors. We wandered through town, and though it was now early evening and many of the businesses closed at five o'clock. St. Ives is a very hilly town with narrow, oddly-angled, cobblestone streets and houses and storefronts crammed close together. It's small enough that you can walk from one end to the other, though the hills start wearing you down after a while. The natural geography was very reminiscent of the California coast we know and love: hills, rocky cliffs, sandy beaches, everything a bit wild-looking, especially in the uninviting weather.
We bought our only souvenir of the trip at the St. Ives Library: a burlap tote bag that says, "Choughed with libraries." Lisa was delighted (perhaps overly so) by this beautifully British pun. To be "chuffed" means to be delighted, in British slang, and the chough (pronounced "chuff") is the iconic, red-legged blackbird of Cornwall. Did we say Lisa was delighted by this find? Better we say she was choughed.
We found a shop to buy a brie-cranberry baguette (apparently a popular combination in England) and a vegetable pasty. Pasties are the quintessential Cornish food. Traditionally, they're a flaky pastry containing steak and vegetables, but fortunately for us there are quite a number of vegetarian offerings these days.
The other popular food item in Cornwall is ice cream, made with Cornish clotted cream. We found a shop called Jus' Desserts which, in spite of its distressingly cheesy name, offered a tantalizing array of flavors. As soon as we saw bins labeled Rhubarb-Ginger and Raspberry Pavlova, we were sold. The ice cream was deeelicious—very rich, with a heavy consistency reminiscent of gelato—and both flavors were amazing. We now know that Pavlova is a Russian meringue, but at the time all we could think of was Pavlov's drooling dog, which was appropriate enough.
Before retiring, we also witnessed the most magnificent display of bird defecation ever. As we sat by the beach, looking out at the boats left grounded as the tide went out, a seagull bombed another man and managed to splatter everything in a ten-foot radius, including us. An auspicious end to the day!
After our full English breakfasts (minus the meat, plus grilled tomatoes and mushrooms), we walked down to the tourist office to plan our day. We saw a brochure for a neat tour that would have taken us to a number of ancient monuments and folklorish spots, but we we would have had to book it the night before, alas! We'll just have to go back sometime. There was still one site we could get to by bus, so we meandered around until the bus came, zigzagging through the hilly, residential streets and a cemetery by the sea.
The bus ride through Cornwall was even more fun (read: adventurous) than those through London. The bus sped along the curving, narrow, hilly roads. The countryside was lush and green, and we got nice close-ups of cows and sheep as we hurtled by. The bus, for all its speed, was considerably slower than the train, so we got a much better view of our surroundings. The roads were so narrow, though, that at times the bus had to stop while another car went by (partly off the road, it was so narrow), and another time we paused as a farmer hurried his cattle from a pasture on one side to the other.
We alighted (as the British say) in the "town" of Newmill. We say "town" because although there were a few houses near the stop, we were basically in the middle of nowhere. We commenced walking the mile and a half toward the ancient ruins of Chysauster, having basically no idea where we were going and wondering if the directions we'd gotten had been a dirty trick. Finally, after passing many cow and horse pastures, we saw the signs we needed. If we'd been driving, it would have been much simpler—except that, of course, we'd have been driving on these scary, twisty Cornish roads.
Chysauster was a village "briefly occupied" about 2000 years ago. "Chy" means town in Cornish, and "sauster" is thought to be a shortening of the name Sylvester (go figure). We paid our admission at the very U.S. National Park-like shop, pausing for snacks and a Fentiman's soda. We've had Fentiman's before, but we'd never seen Dandelion & Burdock before—so of course that's what we bought. It was interesting, tasting like just what it was: a flowery root beer.
Chysauster was excavated in the 1930s, at which point the archaeologists (bless their antiquated souls) may or may not have rearranged some of the rocks they found. It makes little difference to the average visitor, however, as all the houses are basically piles of rocks at this point. The village contains the remains of nine sizable, multi-room houses. It's believed that in addition to the stone walls, parts of which are all that remain, the houses once had conical thatched roofs. Each house had a main courtyard area, in which animals might have been kept at night, with several smaller rooms coming off it.
Overall, Chysauster didn't present an overwhelming sense of the area's history, but it was pretty and reasonably interesting. We're not sure we'd want to live there, much less 2000 years ago, but certainly the surroundings are idyllic. Up on its hill, we had extensive views of the countryside and the sea near Penzance (where the pirates come from; also, "pen" means headland in Cornish).
The unfortunate thing about our sojourn was that the bus ran only every two hours, and, what with the long walk to and from Newmill, we missed the next one going back by half an hour. We hung around the "town" as the rain forecast became a reality (though fortunately not the heavy showers we'd been warned about) and tried not to think of the Torchwood "Countrycide" episode.
Finally, we returned to St. Ives. We bought a delicious tomato-basil pasty to warm us up, then decided to try another ice cream place. It was good, but not as good as that from the night before. So after another pasty (mushroom) and some more wandering through the town (the rain had finally passed over, for the most part), we returned to Jus' Desserts for more Rhubarb-Ginger and Raspberry Pavlova ice cream. It's such fun to be grown-ups.
The scariest—and most hilarious—thing we saw in Cornwall was the shooting range in the arcade by the shore. It was called—wait for it, folks—Hillbilly Moonshine. That's right: Hillbilly Moonshine. Let's say it again: Hillbilly Moonshine. Pictures speak louder than words, so we'll let them do the rest of the talking.
We spent most of Saturday on various trains from St. Ives to Nottingham, where Lisa's old camp friend Michelle lives. Once there, we walked the mile and a half to our next B&B Lindum House. Note to selves: a mile and a half feels much, much longer when you are carrying luggage, even if it's only two backpacks each.
Lindum House is an enormous Victorian with many of its (apparently) original fixtures, including a towering wooden door with "Lindvm Hovse" chiseled above it. Our room was huge—it would have made a respectable studio apartment—and the bathroom alone was as big as our bedroom at home, with a stained glass door and a clawfoot tub. The accommodations themselves were basic, but the place had oodles of character, if you're into vintage buildings (which we are).
Calling Michelle was an adventure. Our B&B didn't have a phone, so we went to the call box on the corner. Ostensibly a call costs 40p, but for some reason the price is higher if you're calling a mobile phone. We inserted 50p, and Lisa got to talk to Michelle's voicemail approximately 5 seconds (this is not an exaggeration) before she was cut off. We repeated the experience a couple hours later, though this time Michelle picked up. 70p got us about 15 seconds of talk time before we were cut off; basically, the phone demanded money faster than we could insert it. Fortunately, Michelle called back using caller ID.
We walked into the City Centre and bought some Indian take-away, where, in spite of Joe's demurrals, the proprietor practically shoved a Coke down his shirt to get him to take it. Finally, he said, "I don't like Coke! I won't drink it!" The proprietor relented once we agreed to take a mango soda instead.
It was all-important that we return to our B&B by 7:00, to engage in the all-important, Saturday-evening British telly ritual: Doctor Who. We imagine only certain football games are more popular. It was great fun to see one of our favorite shows at its actual broadcast time, knowing millions of other people were doing the same. Yes, we're nerds. It was a good show, too, though fortunately not too scary; we had no couch behind which to hide.
Sunday morning, we walked to Nottingham "So-called" Castle—"so-called" because it no longer has royal status and is just an historical site and museum. The first castle at the site was built by William the Conqueror as his first outpost outside of London. Subsequent castles on site were the favored homes of certain British royalty, including Prince-then-King John of Magna Carta fame.
Nottingham is built on sandstone, and hundreds of years ago many caves were dug into the earth for climate-controlled storage and tanning rooms as well as passageways. The most notorious is Mortimer's Hole, which we toured with a gentleman of the civic society. During the reign of King Edward II, who apparently was (a) a lousy military leader and (b) gay, his wife Queen Isabella became involved with a man named Mortimer. Together, Isabella and Mortimer murdered Edward II (by very grisly means involving a cow's horn, a red hot poker, and Ed's arsehole) and commenced ruling England from Nottingham. They were lousy rulers as well, and one night Edward III paid off some guards, entered Nottingham Castle, arrested Mortimer as a traitor, and cloistered Isabella in another castle for the rest of her life. The passageway Ed III used to enter the castle that fateful night is now known as Mortimer's Hole.
Our guide had many additional tasty historical tidbits to offer. Apparently in the Middle Ages, poor parents slathered their children with goose fat and then wrapped them in rags to give them an extra layer of warmth during the winter. But rats liked the fat, and the rats had fleas, and the fleas carried the Black Plague—so that didn't work out so well. People who bathed often, particularly the clergy and police, were least likely to contract the plague.
After an unexpected (for us) change in the train schedule and further adventures in British pay phones, we arranged to meet Michelle and her fiance, Matt, in their home suburb of Beeston. We stopped first at The Victoria, Matt's favorite pub, where he treated us each to a half-pint of scrumpy, a/k/a British farm cider. We'd been lusting after it based on the name alone, but it's better to the imagination. (Joe thought it tasted like olive.) (Also, so far as we know, scrumpy is not made of scrumped apples—at least, not exclusively.)
We wandered around Beeston much of the afternoon. Michelle took us on a tour of the medical center where her research lab is; she studies archaeal DNA. We bought soft-serve ice cream in the park, had tea and tiffin cake at their house, and attempted to play an extremely complicated card game called Killer Bunnies. They took us to their favorite Italian restaurant, the same one where they got engaged. We found much to talk about and had a really lovely time—definitely worth the special trip to Nottingham. We were only sorry they hadn't been able to get tickets to see QI in London with us the next night.
Monday morning, we took the train back down to London, eventually making our way to the Ealing Broadway stop and again walking far too long with our luggage to find our next B&B. Joe had arranged for a room in a private house, but put it this way: we'll think twice before doing that again.
No one was home when we arrived, but the proprietress had left a note with her phone number. Joe braved the pay phone yet again, and she told him where she'd hidden the key and told us to make ourselves at home in the "very messy kitchen." In other words, we were warned. And yet, we were still unprepared by the towering mounds of videos, books, housewares, food items, dishes, and furniture packing the place. It smelled vaguely of spoiled food. Even the bathroom seemed to teeter with *stuff*, the bidet overflowing with Harry Potter books and Wii games. It was so oppressively cluttered as to make us tense just sitting there. Joe went so far as to go back to the pay phone and call two other B&Bs to see if we could make alternative arrangements, but neither had vacancies for the night. We decided to get the heck out of there until nightfall and hope for the best.
We had a couple hours free before we needed to be at the London Studios to line up for the QI taping. We wandered the South Bank, checking out Shakespeare's Globe (the replica of the original Globe Theater that stages Shakespeare's work every day), the Thames, Tower Bridge, and London Bridge. After a dinner of sandwiches from a shop at Gabriel's Wharf, we located the studio, observed the already growing lines of people (the shorter one for people with priority tickets like ours), and went into a convenience store to stay warm and look for Jaffa Cakes, which got a mention in another British comedy show we enjoy, Spaced. They're spongy cookies coated with chocolate on one side, with an orange jelly filling—basically identical to the French-made Pims you buy at American grocery stores. Yum!
The wait to enter the studio was longer than advertised, but well worth it. The studio itself wasn't much to look at; the set looked fake and boring without the lights or anyone on it. After half an hour or so—giving everyone who'd been waiting the two hours in line ample time to use the toilet—the "warm-up man," comedian Stephen Grant, came out and got everyone laughing. Finally, the big moment came when Stephen Fry walked onto the stage in his gray suit and pink tie, to great applause.
The night's guests were Pam Ayres (English poet and broadcaster, on the show for the first time), Sean Lock (comedian, frequent guest), Alan Davies (every-time panelist), and finally Johnny Vegas (insane English comedian). We were a bit terrified when Johnny Vegas was announced, as the only other time he was on the show, he was basically incomprehensible—even to his fellow Brits.
But things turned out just fine. Johnny Vegas did steal the show at times, but we could actually understand him about 80% of the time; moreover, he was funny. Pam Ayres, unlike many first-time QI guests, was not at all shy and offered up quite a number of interesting tidbits. Sean Lock and Alan Davies were in usual fine form, and Stephen Fry was his usual inimitable self. At one point, he totally lost it laughing, which is always a joy to see—assuming you're not already crying with laughter yourself.
The show went about 90 minutes, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves the whole time. We can't wait to see how Series F, Episode 5, comes out—what stays in and what is cut. The only retake was Stephen Fry's closing statement and, therefore, the audience's applause, but we were happy to do the extra clapping. The magic of television.
As for the B&B, it turned out all right, too. Our bed was clean, comfortable, and quiet, and we were in too good of a mood to complain, anyway.
Tuesday morning, after a breakfast of toast and crumpets (sort of like super spongy English muffins), we went back to the TKTS booth Leicester Square and bought tickets for a matinee of The 39 Steps at the Criterion. In the meantime, we decided to visit the Tower of London.
As it turns out, the Tower of London actually consists of something like 17 towers, and while not a residence for anyone but the Yeoman Warders (a/k/a Beefeaters) it continues to have royal palace status. We joined a tour led by one such Yeoman, a former member of the British Army with a droll sense of humor and a voice that could successfully reach all of us in the 60-80 strong group. (When news helicopters weren't hovering overhead, that is; unfortunately, a deadly bus crash had occurred not far away.) We walked through the White Tower, which now contains a museum of English armory, and the Jewel Tower, which contains—of all things—the crown jewels! They were shiny.
The 39 Steps was a stage comedy based on the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name. A four-person cast played allegedly over 100 roles among them, mostly by two actors whose last gig was playing Timon and Pumba in London's The Lion King—so you can imagine they were quite funny. The Criterion is immediately next to the Piccadilly Underground stop, so periodically the theatre shook as trains rumbled by.
Afterward, we walked our way to the London Eye. It's like a giantic, slow-moving Ferris wheel, rising as high as 500 feet over London. Even Joe, with his fear of heights, agreed it was well worth it, affording beautiful views of the entire city. The Eye was originally supposed to run from 2000 through 2005, but it has proved so popular that it will continue to operate at least through 2025.
Worn out, we headed back to our B&B, packed for the next morning's start, and crashed.
Wednesday, we rose before 7 AM, or about 1 AM Chicago time, and made our way to the airport. We'd been warned about horrendous waits at Heathrow, but it was actually very quick and easy; we made it through security before our gate had even opened.
Our flight back was just as smooth as the one out. Used to the meager offerings on U.S. flights, we'd brought snacks for the flight, but we needn't have bothered; no sooner had we eaten a snack from our bag than Virgin brought us another. All in all, they brought us an entree (vegetables and rice, roll with butter, cheese, and dessert—melon for Joe, chocolate orange "puds" for Lisa, for some reason), a fudge-coated ice cream bar, apple slices and grapes, pretzels, and as many drinks as we wanted. The staff were friendly as well.
We made it back to our apartment at 3 PM local time, then drove to our friend Bryan's to pick up a very happy Carly. We pinned up our eyelids to stay up until our regular bedtimes, though Joe missed his usual 2 AM by about four hours.
Thanks for reading! There were a few things that didn't really fit into a narrative that we wanted to mention. Amusing trivialities, perhaps.
