UK03 – Monday, 10 Feb 03

Slept pretty well, all things considered. Did wake up about 3:00a, local time (as I found out the next morning, everyone else had, too). Had a hard time falling back off after that — little squirrels whispering of the wonders we’d see and do the next day kept chattering in my ear, and, besides, it was only 8:00p back home. For a bright shiny nickel, had I known where my Palm keyboard was, I would have gone downstairs and used it. As it was, I would have run into Doyce down there. But I didn’t, so I didn’t, and drifted off about an hour later.

Showers in Britain are more like light sprinkles. If they are part of the bathtub, rarely is an entire bath walled in; instead, a stall two or three feet long is usually enough to keep the slight bit of trickle from splashing onto the floor. Taking vigorous showers is a joy of returning home.

It turned out we were the only couple not to have alarm problems that morning. DaveG had set his Palm timer the night before, since he didn’t want to deal with the time conversion; it rang okay, but only with a light, single beep, that DaveG, fortunately, heard.

Doyce and Jackie, on the other hand, didn’t get an alarm from Doyce’s Palm — a pending alarm from the night before kept the next one from going off, he found out later. So we were about halfway through our breakfast (which we’d scheduled at 8), when the proprietress asked if we wanted to give them a call. We did, and they showed up a short time later (after a muffled “Oh, shit!” from Jackie on the phone when Lori told her what time it was).

All in all, we were a bit late in starting out, around 10a. We were further delayed at Vic Stn., where travel alarm clocks were sought after, and Doyce ordered a cell phone rental.

We set off walking, passing first Westminster Cathedral. This is a late 19th Century Catholic cathedral, rather nice to look at out front. Supposedly it is done inside in an unusual basilica style. We didn’t go in because Mass was being said in a few minutes. Most of the Catholic cathedrals in the UK were built starting in the 1890s, since it was only around then that the Catholics (and others) got full rights in this Anglican land.

From there, we wandered up to Westminster Abbey, the one across the street from Parliament (which is, properly, Westminster Palace). After a wander through the gift shoppe, we went inside, and marveled at the tombs and monuments and memorials stacked chock-a-block in every possible nook and cranny. Moving, interesting, and almost overwhelming; the cathedral there has become almost more of a necropolis and museum than a church, though the little brochures strenuously assert otherwise.

Went through various other museumy bits (including the very interesting charter house from the old abbey days, with scenes from the Book of Revelations still barely visible on the wall), circled back into the Nave to see the Tomb of the Unknown, then headed on out.

Things went a bit downhill from there. The next stop; was to be the London Eye, a humongous Ferris/Observation Wheel on the south side of the Thames. It hadn’t been around when Margie and I were in London last (1999), and it was interesting how it transformed the Thames skyline. We tubed to Waterloo Station, then walked to it, only to find that there were umpteen zillion school kids queued up. “Oh, we can come back later.” we decided, and headed off to the Tate Modern.

This is a new modern art museum, also on the south bank of the Thames, also part of the Millennium redevelopment of that area. It came highly recommended by DaveG’s sister. We took a bus there (more delays, but feet were already getting tired), chomping on the gorp that Margie had brought with us. We wandered a bit trying to find the Tate entrance, then went in.

Well, it was lunch time by then, and Doyce’s travel guide suggested the cafe on the 7th floor as having a fabulous view, as well as having good food. Both were true, but the wait was about 20 minutes, and then the service was horribly slow while we were seated. And it was, to say the least, quite pricey. Result: many pictures across the river, full tummies, emptier wallets, and a growing grumpiness.

The latter was not alleviated by touring the collection. DaveG’s sister had raved about the Tate Modern. We spent a lot of time raving, too, but for the opposite reason, I suspect. For the most part, with the exception of some of the “classics” like Picasso and Degas, etc., (and a review of Soviet propaganda art that I found interesting) pretty much all of us were quite, well, put off by what passed as contemporary art these days. Call us bourgeois Visigoths, but, damn, what a load of crapola.

Observation #1 — when the story behind the art, or the explanation of what it means, is more interesting than the art itself, that’s a problem.

Observation #2 — When art’s purpose is primarily to comment about art, it’s a very short slope to self-indulgent tripe.

We skipped the special exhibits, and exited the building.

Our plan to visit St Paul’s (which Doyce kept calling St John’s or St Jame’s) was tossed out because, well, it was 4:00p at this point, and the place closed at 5:00p. Ditto for the Globe Theatre. We considered various other alternatives, including going to the National Gallery, which is open to 8:00p with some special (Titian) exhibits.

In the end, we went to Chinatown, off Leicester Square (walking across the wind-tossed Millennium Bridge in the process). Chinatown is just a couple of streets long, filled with various shops, but mostly restaurants. We ate at Aroma, which Zagat’s rated as pretty good, and it was, albeit with not wildly friendly wait-staff and moderately high prices.

We headed back down to the Eye again (with me doing various Christopher Lee imitations intoning about how the Eye of London sees all). This time, no crowds. It was £10.50 a pop to ride, which is pretty hefty, but I do agree that the view was spectacular, with Big Ben and Parliament close by across the river on one side, and St Paul’s, etc., down the other side, not to mention this and that north and south.

A side note on cameras. We brought each of our “good” cameras, 35mm SLRs with various lenses, with us, mine loaded with black & white, Margie’s with color. We also had, though, the digital camera, which was often a lot more flexible (and light-tolerant); if we had a zoom lens that did more than 2x (optic), we could have skipped everything else.

If we go back in another four years, I suspect the problem will have corrected itself.

The ride over, we wandered back, footsore, to Vic Stn and the B&B (eventually finding alarm clocks for the other couples). We took a break for 15 or 20 minutes, then gathered down in Testerroom, the largest of the three. There, once Doyce got back from blogging at the Internet Cafe near Vic Stn, we played a parlor game from a book that Mary gave us some years back. Each person puts ten names (fictional, famous, or personal) into a hat (or, in the title of the game, a collander), then each person gets to have a minute to pull names out and try to get one of the other people in the room to guess them, using various clues, imitations, etc. It was quite a bit of fun, even if some of the names chosen were a bit … difficult.

And then back to our respective rooms, a bit of typing for the evening, and to bed.

UPDATE: For the Doyce version of these events, go here.
For our pictures related to these events, go here.