Letters from Pemberley

In the words of Chuck, here are some things you might need to know.

Suave 24 Hour Protection anti-perspirant deodorant may work fine as a back-up travel deodorant for women whose vacations consist of sitting around in cold places, but it is totally worthless for those whose idea of a getaway involves copious amounts of walking in hot weather while toting messenger bags weighed down by 8 pound cameras, Rick Steves guidebooks, water bottles, hand sanitizer, extra sweaters, Power bars, and sundry other necessities for 12-13 hours away from one’s hotel in a large city. Such ladies may find themselves giving the lie to the old adage, “Horses sweat, men perspire, but women merely glow.”

Speaking of messenger bags, there is perhaps a reason that photographers with multiple lenses weighing several pounds don’t just tote their equipment around in any old backpack made by the Gap circa 2001. While my old college messenger bag served me well for a dozen years and my past three visits to Europe, it wasn’t up to toting around my new lens, 8 boxes of tea, and half a dozen books. RIP, bag strap. Now it’s time to save up my pennies for that Epiphanie camera bag I’ve had my eye on as a new purse/camera bag/diaper bag combo!  (Since I also need to save my pennies for a new double stroller to replace the $800 one I ran over and for a new mixer to replace my junky $500 Kitchenaid which I gave away for parts after it burned out a second time, it’s going to be awhile…)

Here’s how things stood on Saturday evening. We nursed it through Sunday by carrying it under our arm to church and tea, but it broke Monday morning in Victoria Station.

And while we’re on the subject of lugging around heavy cameras with gigantic lenses, it will perhaps benefit others to know that it is not wise to toss one’s plastic sunglasses into a large void also inhabited by a large Sigma 24-105 mm lens. In a head-to-head battle, the cheap plastic sunglasses will always lose. Unless one is looking for an excuse to pop into Marks and Spencer and buy something. Then the 5 pounds one has to spend for some British made-in-China sunglasses might be money well spent.

When traveling without children, lunch is overrated. If scones with clotted cream and/or cake and/or Power Bars are readily available, why waste the calories on lunch? It is entirely possible to spend a whole week abroad without consuming a formal “lunch” meal. Indeed, if one gorges oneself on an unlimited afternoon tea at one of London’s finest establishments, one needn’t eat lunch or dinner…

Feet that have walked long distances, stood in cathedrals or museums, and climbed four flights of stairs multiple times in one day tend to have a distinct odor. I won’t go into further detail but shall leave it to the discriminating reader’s imagination.

Jet lag has been brutal, and the 13 hour drive down to Columbia probably didn’t help matters.  And I’ve been madly preparing for Cammy’s baby shower, which went off swimmingly this afternoon.  But I have a few more pictures from our last night in London!

After the Tower of London, we took advantage of our London Passes to do a river cruise down the Thames.  As fun as it was, we had far too much contact with ToaCAs, or Tourists of a Certain Age.  These persons are easily identified by their fanny packs, white tennis shoes, London Pass lanyards around their necks, and general air of invitation to any pickpocket in the vicinity.  Usually at least 50-100 pounds overweight, their conversation proceeds along these lines: “So how would you like to eat at the Hard Rock Café tonight?” “I’ve never eaten at a Hard Rock.  Do they serve hamburgers?”  In previous trips to Europe, it’s even been our misfortune to travel directly with ToaCAs.  In Switzerland, our comrades had a homing beacon for the nearest McDonalds and Starbucks.  In Italy, we’d whisper, “Touristas!” and head a different direction.  Despite the ToaCAs on the boat with us, we enjoyed great views of Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, London Bridge, Millennium Bridge, the Globe, the Houses of Parliament, and the London Eyesore.

Tower Bridge

Tower of London from the Thames

London Bridge is pretty ho-hum looking these days

Millenium Bridge. I get dizzy just looking at it, and we opted not to cross it coming back from the Globe.

The Globe from the outside!

You can see that Millenium Bridge kinda ruins the view of St Pauls from the river, too.

Cleopatra’s Needle

The London Eye. We opted not to join the hordes of ToaCAs there because we had planned on climbing to the top of Westminster Abbey to look out on the city. Oh well.

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben! Can’t convey how cool this was, just coming up to it like this.

And we hightailed it back to Kensington to get into Kensington Palace before it closed.  Obviously Will and Kate’s private apartment wasn’t open to the public, but many of the rooms were.  Besides Prince George and William and Harry, Queen Victoria grew up there.

Kensington Palace! I assume we came in the back way, because this wasn’t as impressive as I’d imagined.  But this is only a small part of it–it just goes on and on…

Queen Victoria’s wedding dress

View of Kensington Gardens from William and Mary’s little private dining parlor. The signs in the room said they liked to sit in there and look out at the park when they weren’t entertaining guests. Notice how dead the grass looks? It felt like we were back in Cali.

This is what I imagined it would be like. The Victoria wing is all modernized, but I believe these are all the original paintings and such.

And the next morning we got up at 4 am and came home!

What do you know, both Heathrow and Frankfort airports have free Wifi!  I got most of my pictures resized before our first flight and am taking advantage of our layover to get this up.

Our feet are still aching from yesterday.  After much research, many graphs comparing admissions to various sites, and lots of second guessing, I opted to buy London passes for the greatest savings.  I plotted out our day down to half hour increments, mapping out all the transport directions in order to maximize our sightseeing time.  It all should have gone smoothly.  But Westminster Abbey was closed for the day due to the memorial service scheduled that evening.  I cannot even begin to express how devastated I was when we walked up and read that sign.  I am still kicking myself for not making Saturday our London Pass day.  I’m not sure why I didn’t, other than I guess I thought Saturday would be busier at the big tourist sites.  We were surrounded by thousands of tourists everywhere we went yesterday, so I’m not sure it would have made a difference.  Oh well.

We started the day on the tube, riding to the Churchill War Rooms for a really fascinating look at the secret bunker in which the war was essentially run.  We stayed two hours and could have stretched it to more, but we had places to go!  I definitely want to take the kids back there someday.

Houses of Parliament

Big Ben

Then after a 5 minute detour into the Jewel Tower, we decided to go up and see Charles Dickens’ house and then hit the Tower of London.  Since I hadn’t planned on going there, we ended up being there at the worst time of day and did not care to stand in line for four hours to see the Crown Jewels.  They did have a WWI memorial of poppies to commemorate the anniversary.

Boarding call.  Will finish when we’re back in the US!

We just had a long, exhausting day of sightseeing today, and we’re getting up at 4 am to take a taxi up to the airport and fly home.  Since we only have internet access down in the lobby, I’m just quickly going to post a picture from the very beginning of our crazy day.

This little cottage was built for a groundskeeper in St James’ Park.  Just across the street from the Imperial War Museums, Whitehall, etc, and just across the park from Buckingham Palace, it’s so charmingly different from everything else we saw.  Next time I come to England, I want to see the countryside.  Today this was my only taste of peace.

Tomorrow–if I can get wifi in the airport–I’ll put up our pictures of the big tourist sites.  I miss the kids so much and can’t wait to get back to hug and kiss them tomorrow!!

Today was our calm day–just two church services, and afternoon tea, a park, and a couple of museums.  But somehow our feet are still sore!

We attended All Soul’s for morning services and found it to be a thoroughly Evangelical church, complete with the drum set providing a rock beat to accompany the organ.  The second mini-sermon featured a former chaplain for royal marine commandos units who talked about what we can learn from Christians serving in the armed forces.  Several good points, and very politically incorrect.  We briefly strolled up to Regent’s Park (which was so much prettier than Hyde Park) before heading down Wimpole Street (I picked that route because it sounded so familiar but I couldn’t remember why, other than Arthur Conan Doyle and Elizabeth Barrett Browning whose residences were marked–turns out I was thinking of Henry Higgins–and apparently wikipedia informs me Paul McCartney also lived there).  Then we strolled into to a super fancy part of town for afternoon tea at Brown’s Hotel.  I stared at Tiffany’s out the window as we stuffed ourselves (very elegantly) on finger sandwiches (okay, we might have had thirds on the coronation chicken ones), scones, pastries, and cake.  I took pictures of every course so that the girls and I can reproduce it at home!  And the tea was scrumptious, too.  I’d been saving up my craigslist and garage sale earnings for months to fund a really fancy afternoon tea to celebrate our anniversary, and this did not disappoint.

Then I totally wore Derek out by dragging him through not only the National Portrait Gallery (which we found pretty fascinating–and we agree the Kate portrait is dreadful) but also the National Gallery.  It was next door!  They were both free!  So convenient!  So foolish!  Um, yeah, my husband’s art museum limit is about two hours total.  Even my feet were aching and my eyes glazing over by the end.  Next time we’ll visit them on different days.  The National Gallery is.really.big.

We ended our crazy day by attending St Paul’s Cathedral for an evening service commemorating the centennial of Britain’s entry into WWI.  We agreed that worshiping in a grand cathedral is sometimes preferable to just going in to sightsee.

Tomorrow is our really busy day–we’re hoping to make every minute of our last day count!

We got home so late from Antony and Cleopatra last night that we had a considerably later start this morning.  After a hearty English breakfast here at the hotel, we rode the bus up to the British Library (though I stupidly had us ride a mile too far, instead of getting up at the stop directly at the library steps).

(THIS PARAGRAPH PROBABLY BORING TO ALL BUT FELLOW ENGLISH MAJORS–THE KIDS CAN SKIP)  In the treasures room, the music manuscripts were exciting (interesting to note how sloppy some composers were in their notation), and the Magna Carta was cool, and the Gutenburg Bible, and Charlotte Bronte’s draft of Jane Eyre, and Beowulf, etc.  Amazing, all lined up in one room.  But as I stood in front of Jane Austen’s writing desk and leaned in to read her draft of Persuasion (opened near the end), I absolutely had chills.  I just stood there, completely overwhelmed.  And then the Library had a special exhibit of WWI items, including Wilfred Owens’ draft of “Anthem for Doomed Youth” with edits by Siegfried Sassoon.  It was untitled until Sassoon suggested “Anthem for Dead Youth”, then crossed out Dead and added Doomed.  Such a significance choice!  And he was the one who suggested “patient” in lieu of Own’s “peaceful” in line 13 (and a couple other suggestions–the word choice was giving him a lot of difficulty).  Anyway, it was one of those really amazing, geeky experiences where I felt like I could follow the composition process of a sonnet I’ve studied and taught enough times to feel that I know quite well.  Pretty amazing.  Other highlights of the exhibit included Arthur Conan Doyle’s letter about his son on the front (claiming he wasn’t worried about death now that he had fully embraced spiritualism) and a handwritten copy of Rupert Brooke’s “The Soldier,” copied down for a friend shortly before he died of blood poisoning on his way to Gallipoli.  Having just watched “Gallipoli” with Derek a couple weeks ago, it felt extra trite.  But we were super excited to get to see the whole exhibit, and we had a quick summer salad and scone snack while gazing at the huge tower of George III’s library through the middle of the Library.  Would love to go back.  Repeatedly.

Okay, enough literary nerdiness!  Next we headed to the British Museum, where we and 5,000 close friends looked at the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles stolen from the Parthenon, lots of cool Egyptian stuff looted from Egypt, and the treasures of the Sutton Hoo burial mound.  We also looked at hundreds of pieces of Greek pottery, trying to find the urn that inspired Keats, only to find out from the information desk on the way out that Keats’ grecian urn is currently out on loan.

Below: Ramses.  Mariel, this one is for you.  Thank you for brightening my life through our favorite family of fictional Egyptologists…it made this room so much more exciting!  And I kept thinking, “That idiot Budge.  This stuff belongs in Egypt!”

Oops, didn’t get any pictures of the Elgin marbles. They were just as described by some of my favorite Heyer characters: “None of ’em have any heads or hands or feet!”

I liked this boxing story on this pot so much that I took a picture of it.  Too bad the glass created a glare.  I love how he’s pulling his hand wrapping tight with his teeth as he waits to fight the winner of the current bout.  I thought the kids would like this one!

And here’s a mummy, to prove to the kids that we saw some.  Can’t wait to study ancient Egypt for history this fall!

After the Museum, we browsed and had tea and cake at the London Review Bookshop, browsed our way down the used bookstores of Charing Cross Road, and scrambled over to St. Paul’s for Evensong, only to discover that I had gotten the time wrong and we’d missed it.  I was so mad at myself, but we noticed that there’s a Sunday evening service commemorating WWI (England entered the war 100 years ago this coming Monday), so we’ll go attend that, instead.  Sigh.  I’m still mad at myself, but not mad enough to skip the real church service we have planned tomorrow morning (at All Soul’s, John Stott’s old church).  Anyway, we rode the bus all the way from St Paul’s across town to Chelsea, where we had amazing pizza at a restaurant recommended by a colleague who used to live here.

Note for the kids: Mommy and Daddy had a very unhealthy day of eating:  no fruit for breakfast, scones and a tiny salad for tea, tea and cake for another tea, no lunch, then pizza and chocolate souffle for dessert.  Ulf!  I hope you guys ate healthier food today than we did!  Of course, we also walked about 5 miles today, so it kindof evens out.

Two churches, National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery, and our super fancy afternoon tea tomorrow…stay tuned!

We are in London, and oh, do we miss the gentle pace of life in Bath.  We had trouble with getting our Oyster cards (the machines wouldn’t take American credit cards), I stupidly decided we had time to see the end of the Changing of the Guard so we rushed straight down to St James’ Park and then lugged our suitcases all over the place before checking in to our hotel, our hotel makes the Bath B&B look luxurious and doesn’t have in-room wifi, and then we kept second guessing our use of the tube or busses afterwards.

On a positive note, we got to see Apsley House, home of the Duke of Wellington, with an excellent audio guide and worth twice as long as the guidebooks allot to it, Dr. Johnson’s House (in and out in 30 minutes, but interesting), the Twinings flagship store (I’m in good company with Jane Austen and Dr. Johnson), ate a decent traditional pub meal (Derek got fish and chips and mushy peas with cider, I got bangers and mash) on Fleet Street, and walked down to the Globe Theatre to see an excellent production of Antony and Cleopatra.

Guard marching on parade

Derek in front of the Royal Courts of Justice

At the Globe before “Antony and Cleopatra”

We awoke on our 10th anniversary morning feeling much more refreshed than we had in days (vomiting babies and overnight flights not being conducive to good shut-eye).  So we decided to hit the ground running with a walking tour of Jane Austen’s Bath, following the audio tour the Mayor’s office put together.  We walked up and down and all around and saw pretty much every place the Austens lived and most everywhere that any of the characters are mentioned as visiting.  I was absolutely giddy!

Milsom Street still is the fashionable shopping hub of the city, with a few traces of older times.

The Lower Rooms!  Where Catherine met Henry Tilney!

Pulteney Bridge, which we had to cross to get to Laura Place.   Jane’s daily route into town!

And Catherine and the Allens stayed here, along Great Pulteney Street, alongside all sorts of real life celebrities such as Hannah More and William Wilberforce.

The Austens, of course, lived at Number 4 Sydney Place, around the end of Great Pulteney Street.

Jane wrote to Cassandra how much she enjoyed walking through Sydney Gardens.  We did, too.

Then across town and up the gravel walk (where Anne and Captain Wentworth strolled after reconciling) to the Royal Crescent, as magnificent as all the descriptions make it out to be!

We toured the Georgian house at No. 1 Royal Crescent (the big house behind us in the picture above), but no photos were allowed inside.  It was a neat reproduction of how life would have been in Georgian England, but only a few rooms were open and decorated, so I found the admission a bit steep for what we got to see.

Then past the Circus to the Assembly Rooms (Upper Rooms), now hosting the Fashion Museum with a special exhibit on WWI clothes, with several costumes from Downton Abbey on display.  And we stopped in their tea rooms for hot chocolate and Bath Buns.

The Octagon Room!

When Captain Wentworth told Anne he had nothing left to stay for, he would have fled the concert this way.  Serious fangirl heart flutterings.

The costume pictures would take too long for me to edit with the slower internet connection at the hotel, so I just made a big album of them on facebook.  I especially wished the girls could have been with me for that part.  Lizzie would have been in heaven.

This is where they danced!

Then up a steep hill to Camden Place, where Sir Walter and Elizabeth and Mrs. Clay could look down on everyone else (literally–it’s a great outlook over lower Bath)!

Looking down Milsom Street.  And that’s Beecham Cliffs (where Catherine told Henry, “I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible”) in the distance.

Finally, on our way to dinner, we found St Swithin’s Church, where George and Cassandra Austen were married and where he died and is buried (a stone’s throw away from Fanny Burney, of all people).

(We also attended Evensong services at Bath Abbey, a beautiful church.  Took some pictures of the outside, but they don’t seem to fit with the theme.  Suffice to say that English church music is amazing, especially when performed in medieval cathedrals!)  We’re on our way to London tomorrow morning…

Dinner found me giddy as can be, imagining Catherine and Miss Tilney promenading around the very room in which we were sitting and eating!  And knowing that Jane herself must have taken the waters from that very fountain!  Derek occasionally reminds me that most of the people I’m talking about are fictional, but he’s been pretty good about my fangirlishness.

The entrance to the Pump Room

The Pump Room is beautiful!  I love Georgian architecture!  So clean and lovely.  

We were delighted to discover the tourists gone as soon as we came out from dinner.  Bath is so lovely without the crowds!

And the Roman Baths are delightful by night.  The museum is quite an extensive one on the history of the Roman settlement in Bath.  Definitely one we want to bring the kids to someday!

At the end, we had to take the waters, of course.  Derek: “Well, it’s not as bad as the water in the Mauck drinking fountain!”  (True.  I have yet to taste anything as vile as our dorm water.)

I could definitely taste those 43 minerals.  It was very, um, heavy tasting.

We landed half an hour early after an easy flight during which Derek slept some and I did a very little.  We walked right through customs and all and were able to get on the bus leaving 2 hours earlier for Bath!  Despite the heat being on and baking everyone (I was literally drenched in sweat), the bus ride was a pretty easy way to ease into the new time zone.  We’re staying at Three Abbey Green, just a block and a half south of the Bath Abbey, Roman Baths, and Pump Room.

Our room, the Elinor Dashwood Suite, is small but clean and cozy, with a nice view into the quiet square below.

After some much needed changes of clothes, we headed straight out, up Milsom Street (eek!)…

…to the Jane Austen Centre to get our bearings.

Had to get Mr. Darcy’s Tea.  The tea rooms are totally a Janeite tourist trap–waitresses in regency dresses, JA movie soundtracks playing in the background, and all the menu choices with appropriately themed names.  Yep, I was totally a groupie tourist.  It was great!  I tried the Jane Austen blend, just China teas because Indian teas were not readily available in England during her lifetime (?!).  It was nice, but I think we liked Derek’s Assam blend a bit more.

Trying on hats for the kids’ sake…

and “met” the brand new wax figure of Jane Austen, just completed this month based on the portrait by Cassandra and contemporary descriptions of Jane by her friends and family.

And off to the Pump Room for dinner and to take the waters!