Missives from the 6th Floor

The Beginning...

A couple of months back I realized that the only way we were going to actually go on the trip to the UK we'd been talking about on and off for a while was if I took unilateral action. So I checked our shared calendar, asked Dawnise if she believed it to be up-to-date, and got on the phone to Alaska Airlines.

My intent was to use some of our stock-pile of miles to get one of us to and from the UK, and after a few minutes on the phone with a very helpful customer service agent I had traded about 80 thousand miles, and a couple hundred dollars in tax and fees, for two round trip coach seats on American Airlines from Seattle to Heathrow on the 20th of April, returning the 5th of May.

As the date got closer, we started planning - booking hotels for the first and last few nights in London, and reserving a car for days in between. We bought two Great British Heritage Passes, deciding that since we were going where the history comes from, we should see some of it while we were there.

We looked at our luggage situation and decided (Dawnise really championed this one, and she was totally right) to buy some travel packs, which we managed to snag during REI's annual sale.

As the date of departure approached, we were growing increasingly excited.

And then, a bit more than a week before we were scheduled to leave, this volcano erupted in Iceland...

Antici....

So we waited, and we watched, and we wondered if we'd be able to get on a plane. And if we'd be able to get home. And if we'd be able to cancel the non-refundable hotel reservations we'd made.

And the night before we were to leave, we were still wondering, until I called Alaska and rescheduled our trip.

I should take a moment to say that through this chaos, the folks at Alaska Air were awesome - and in nearly perfect contrast to the folks at American, who were abrasive, combative, and generally unpleasant. Similarly, the folks at Priceline ensured my continued patronage by their handling of the event when they, without argument of any kind, undid our non-refundable hotel reservations, asking only for the particulars of our canceled flight.

So, fast-forward a couple weeks. The volcano had quiesced, and we boarded our flight for an on-time departure.

London

We arrived in London, collected our one bag each, cleared customs, and headed for the tube. 40 minutes later, we were checking in to our hotel a few blocks from Piccadilly Circus. We dropped our bags, freshened up, and starting what would turn out to be a nearly non-stop schedule for the next two weeks.

We spent Saturday and Sunday exploring the center of London. All the stuff Dawnise had seen pictures of, she got to see in person. We walked - and we walked - from Westminster to Knightsbridge, with no particular plan, and no constraints on our schedule.

We had some amazing food (Indian, of course) and some disappointing pub fair (nearly all of it), and I had some of the best beers I've had since the last time I was in the UK, over fifteen years ago. About the only black mark on the first two days was when Dawnise took a bad step outside the houses of parliament and banged up her knee.

Saturday and Sunday passed far too quickly, and by the time Monday morning came, and we were checking out of the hotel, we had already decided to add a couple more days in London on the tail-end of the trip. We tubed back to Heathrow, to the Hertz compound, and after an hour or so delay (apparently Hertz is unclear on what it means to issue a "reservation" - they thought it meant they could give me any car they happened to have on hand, as opposed to the automatic I had reserved) we got setup with possibly the smallest Mercedes-Benz ever made.

Driving

After a few minutes orienting myself (ahem, psyching myself out to drive on the wrong side of the road), we punched the postcode for our first destination into the GPS SatNav and started team-driving. As we made the first left out of the rental lot, nav announced "drive point one miles, then enter round-a-bout." Clearly, the UK wasn't going to go easy on the foreign driver.

Our basic plan was to head south west, then up into Wales, then up to Scotland, then back down the eastern side of England, returning to London in eight days. We had the Heritage Pass map and site book, the GPS, and my phone.

The first stop, we decided, would be Stonehenge. As we're driving down A303, we started wondering how we'd find it when we got there. Not yet realizing exactly how much location information is encoded in a UK "postcode," we figured (like a zipcode) it would get us into the neighborhood. We figured, being a popular destination, there surely be signs pointing the way.

As we're chatting about this, and concentrating on not crossing the center line, we came over a rise to see Stonehenge, right there, along the A-road, on our right. Well, we said, I guess we found it.

Oh crap.

It's on our right.

That means I was about to make an unprotected right turn across on-coming traffic.

For those of you who've not driven on the left, I don't think I can possibly explain exactly how wrong that maneuver feels. Every instinct you have is screaming that you're about to die - that you've done something horribly wrong to be turning such that oncoming traffic is barreling down at you.

And then you're across the traffic, and everything's fine, but your heart will take a few minutes to realize that and stop trying to escape your chest.

Stonehenge

And then we were at Stonehenge. And it was blustery...

and cold...

and amazing.

We walked around, we stared, we took pictures, and when it really started getting wet, we escaped into the gift shop where I bought a hat embroidered with the logo of the English Heritage Society (we would totally be members if we lived there), and Dawnise bought a Stonehenge jute shopping bag, which seemed like a practical and space efficient souvenir.

From Stonehenge, we set our sights, and our GPS, on Bath. Specifically, on The Roman Baths at Bath, and we started driving, not realizing that the ruins were literally in the center of the city, and that the GPS was going to lead us into it's one-way system at nearly peak commute time.

Bath

We narrowly (seriously, the roads were barely wider than the tiny car) escaped into a residential area and started scouting for a place to stay. We found a guest house run by an elderly dutch lady with a room available, it wasn't fancy, but it was a bed, and access to a shared bath, within walking distance of town.

We parked the car, and walked back into Bath. The ruins by this time were closed, so we wandered the town a bit and found an acceptable if not inspiring dinner at a local eatery. Walking back to the room we decided to walk back to the ruins for opening in the morning, and that we'd come check out the Abby as well.

The next morning the Abby opened before the Baths so took in the building and ended up on a private (we were the only two early risers) tour of the building, including climbing the several hundred steps to the top of the clock tower for some great views, and fascinating history.

Everything about the baths was awe-inspiring - and by late afternoon it became clear that our rough plan of "leave just after lunch" wasn't going to work. We decided to have what turned out to be a positively wonderful tea in The Pump Room before heading back to the car and striking out for Wales.

The drive to Cardiff was beautiful, and with each outing driving was becoming less white-knuckle-inducing. I had started realizing how different driving is in the UK compared to everywhere I've driven in the US. More on that later.

Cardiff

We arrived in Cardiff and checked into the hotel I had booked for us before leaving Bath. On the advice of the hotel staff we walked down the block to a local Indian eatery and had a solid meal, with a very interesting (not bad, just not what we were expecting) interpretation of Paneer Masalla and a couple pints of Brains (just me, Dawnise didn't suddenly learn to love beer when she landed in the UK).

The next morning we were up and out, to wander the city, and see what there was to see. We saw Cardiff Castle, which was sort of an odd place. I still can't quite put my finger on why, but both Dawnise and I were sorta put off by it. It was as if some part of my brain couldn't reconcile the idea of a real castle existing smack in the middle of a modern city and decided that it must have been constructed as a tourist attraction.

We walked to the Dr. Who exhibit and the Torchwood Hub Millennium Center. The exibit was as cheesy as the source material, and good fun, though sadly lacking in good swag in the gift shop. Dawnise really wanted to come home with a set of Dr. Who bedsheets, or something, but most of the merchandise featured the bad guys, specifically the Daleks.

Earlier in the day, we had decided to do the "touristy" thing and book ourselves for the Welsh Banquet at the castle that evening. We got back to the hotel in time to freshen up and head to the (closed) castle gates at the appointed time.

We weren't sure what to expect, and it ended up being a good time. Good food, good entertainment, and moments that probably indelibly linked Gosford Park (on of our favorite shared films) to our time in Wales.

The next morning we got up, got a light breakfast, and wandered the CBD a bit before retrieving the car and heading north through Wales...

To Be Continued...