Missives from the 6th Floor

London, redeux

We checked into our penultimate hotel a bit late, and wandered around with some small sense of glee that it was an easy thing to find dinner after 9pm.

The plan for the next morning was to explore Westminster Abbey, which we hadn't managed to do on our arrival owing to it being opened for worship on the Sunday and not for tours. I mean I know it's a church and all, but surely they could allow us to look around while they pray, right?

We took the verger tour, which was quite good (Dawnise even got to be "queen for the moment" after being the only one in the group to answer a question correctly), and then wandered around the building. The sheer number of notables either buried there or with memorials there is hard to grasp. We were both touched by the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, especially the idea that even the monarchs procession, when entering the Abbey, walks around that particular memorial.

We rounded out the day with an expedition to Harrods, before our planned meeting with our friend Courtney for dinner that night. It was worth the trek, despite Harrods being something of a disappointment (especially as compared to Fortnum & Mason, and suddenly it was time to catch the Tube to South Kensington to meet Courtney.

We hadn't really taken the Tube much in the city, and I was surprised to see how much a Zone 1 trip cost when purchased by paper ticket (£4). A bit of math determined it was more cost-effective to pick up an Oyster Card for the next couple days.

It turned out there was derailment on the Piccadilly line that morning, so what should have been a couple-stop trip turned into a bit of an adventure, and we managed to only arrive 10 or so minutes late.

We walked to a nice Tuscan restaurant recommended by Robin and had a good meal and conversation, though in retrospect Dawnise and I must have chatted too much, as I feel like I hardly know anything about how life's been for Courtney and know precious little about Robin.

After dinner, we caught the tube back, and Dawnise and I made plans for the next morning.

In the morning we packed up, checked out, and tubed under the Thames to our last hotel, planning to drop our bags and wander 'till we could check in later that night.

To our pleasant surprise, they checked us in directly, and we were able to take our bags to our (unexpectedly large and super-swank) room.

We spent a few minutes in the room, and decided to walk toward our next destination. We needed to see a lady about some crumbs, so we made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral.

We toured the Cathedral and climbed the thousand-plus steps to the top of the dome to be treated with some spectacular views of London around us.

In the afternoon, on the advice of Courtney, I dragged Dawnise to the Bravissimo store in Oxford Circus, and made myself scarce for a couple hours while she looked around and had a fitting. I wandered the neighborhood, popped into a pub for a pint, and got back just as the store was closing so Dawnise could show me her spoils of war. (Is that what they're calling them now days...)

In what was a first for Dawnise, she bought the little dress in the window, and it actually fit, and as I sit here, typing this, the memory of the smile on her face is bringing one to mine.

Friday we had set aside to finish a visit that I had to skip on my last trip to the UK some 16 years ago. The last time I was in London - for only 48 hours - I didn't have time to actually go into The Tower, so I satisfied myself with walking around it, and buying a souvenir of a place I hadn't really visited in the gift shop.

This time, we were definitely goin' in.

We got a light breakfast at EAT, and got tickets to The Tower. We discovered we only had a short time to kill before the first Beefeater Tour, so we curtailed our wandering and were at the appointed spot at the appointed time.

The tour was fabulous - all owing to the guide, who was exactly the right person to show us (and probably fifty other folks) around. We saw the crown jewels (as the guide put it - "each one gifted to England by a grateful nation... at gunpoint"), the newly opened exhibit of royal arms and armor, and generally drank it all in.

Of all the castles we'd seen on the trip, Cardiff Castle and The Tower are probably the ones I'd be least likely to go back to. It's not that they were bad, in any way, just that the others felt more "real" and less "touristy."

We spent most of the day there, and when we were done we wandered off to find dinner, which turned into something of an adventure. We waved off our first destination, and ended up wandering into yet another pub in a train station (The Liverpool Street Station, perhaps? My memory fails me at the moment). The food was the best pub food we'd had on the trip, but that still wasn't saying that much, I'm afraid.

We got back to the hotel a bit late, did most of our packing, and turned in, a bit sad to know that we'd be leaving the next morning.

The Voyage Home

Due to planned engineering on the Piccadilly line, and a delay in our flight, we ended up tubing to Paddington station and catching the Heathrow express to the airport. We got checked in, checked our bags, and boarded the long-haul flight home.

Our connection in Chicago was tight, due to the delay in leaving London, but we made it without too much stress, and the flight back to Seattle was uneventful and on-time. We caught a cab home from the airport, dropped our stuff, and made an effort at staying up 'till a normal time to minimize jet-lag (which only sorta worked).

Coda

Looking back on it, and discussing it, the only thing either of us would change was that we needed more time. We had an awesome trip, and after spending a week in London, I think I'd jump at the chance to live there for a while.

I'd like to head back, see Ireland - which we decided to skip entirely on this trip - and Scotland (which we barely nicked the southern edge of), as well as spending a bit more time in Wales, which we saw mostly through the bug-spattered windscreen.

Traveling, as it always has in the past, made both of us think a lot about where we live, the choices "our country" makes, and how it's perceived by the world. It was especially interesting to be in the UK during what turned out to be a very unusual election, as it provided interesting contrast to how things work here in the States.

We got asked lots of questions - some of them disturbing ("do you actually have separation of church and state? 'cause your politicians are always invoking god..."), some embarrassing ("why are you still debating if you should provide health care for your citizens?") and some confounding ("what does this health care bill you've passed actually do?"), had a couple animated discussions, and tried to learn and teach, in even measure.

I also had the thought, several times, while absorbing some bit of British history, that had the colonies had their disagreement about representation while England was ruled by someone other than George (the mad one), the world we live in today might be very, very different.

If you've read this far, and you're looking for some sort of neat and tidy conclusion to the whole thing, the best I can offer is this.

Travel if you can, while you can, to wherever you haven't been. And when you do, go off the beaten path a bit - don't get carted 'round by a tour company, showing you what all the other tourists have seen.

See that stuff, sure, but also hang out in local coffee shops, stay in little B&Bs, talk to people, listen to people, and let that help inform how you view the world you live in.

I'm not sure where we're going next... Paris? Madrid? Dublin?

But we're going.

And hopefully we're going soon.