I just realized this morning that I retired from the Navy 20 years ago. Janis and I then went to bum around Europe for several months. This was before the interwebs were big and people had discovered blogs. So we kept up a string of emails to friends and family to let them know (a) we were still alive and (b) what we were up to.
So through the end of the year, I'll periodically be posting these old notes. We had a good time and I think a lot of our experiences are worth sharing. So here we go:
CHAPTER 10: LONDON, ENGLAND
Saturday, September 25
We're getting to be quite proficient at using the London Tube. That’s their term for their subway system. Once you get the hang of it, it's fairly simple. Some of the trains are modern, while others look like rolling antiques. Our phrase of the day is "MIND ... THE GAP". Imagine it in a very loud, very stern British public school headmaster voice. You hear it in a lot of Tube stations where they're telling you to be careful of the gap between the train and the platform. "MIND ... THE GAP", over and over again. I always figured that Hell would like being trapped in Disney's "It's A Small Small World" ride, where you're stuck in a little boat with no steering control and have to listen to thousands of saccharine kids voices endlessly singing "It's A Small Small World". Now I picture it as the same thing, only punctuated occasionally with the ear-splitting screech of ancient London subway trains and an angry Voice of God telling me to MIND ... THE GAP.
Last Saturday we walked for miles. We found the shopping districts of Oxford Street and Regent Street. Then we followed them down to Piccadilly Circus and found huge crowds roaming around. We wandered into Leicester Square (pronounced "Lester") and it was awesome. There were quite a number of live bands on the street vying for attention, dozens of street artists, jugglers, Bible-belters, families, people on their way to the theater, homeless panhandlers, and chippies dressed to kill (or just show off as much skin as legally permissible). We got some ice cream cones and sat and people-watched for an hour. Fabulous! Sunday we went to a local movie theater for a matinee performance and were practically the only ones in there. Unfortunately, the movie (Hollywood’s "The General's Daughter") was a waste of perfectly good celluloid. Monday we went exploring in London again. I swear, Janis can find an exclusive shopping district with her eyes closed. This time we stumbled onto Bond Street, with shops like Cartier, Tiffany's, and tons of others. I was looking for the good art galleries, but they're evidently in another part of town.
We've alternated between touring and getting business/chores done. Touring is easy ... getting the business/chores done can be a bit more difficult. Once you're away from your familiar American stores and have to conduct all your business affairs on the local foreign economy, things can get difficult. Not impossible, just more complicated. Things that can be done with one or two quick phone calls in the States now require six to eight calls plus an office visit or two. And since we don't have a phone in the room, we have to use pay phones which might not let us make the call, or we may not have the change .... you get the idea. It all takes a bit of extra work, but we think this experience is worth it.
Diana Ross got arrested at Heathrow the other day. The Brits loved it, and the news was all over London within minutes (literally). Janis and I are not Diana Ross fans at all, and we found both Ross’s predicament and the British reactions highly amusing.
A couple of days ago we took a tour of Buckingham Palace. I tell you what, ol' Liz knows how to live! We didn't see a thing in there from Wal-Mart. My favorite room was the Gallery, where many old master paintings by some of the most important artists that ever lived were hanging: Rembrandt, Van Dyke, Vermeer, Franz Hals, and Rubens, to name a few. Gold, gold leaf, silver, marble, and bronze were everywhere, and everything was ORNATE (in capital letters). I also visited the Queen's Gallery, where they had a showing of some (just some) of her collection of drawings by Raphael, his teachers, and his students. This was a very interesting show which highlighted Raphael’s background, development, and influences.
We passed by a place advertising itself as "The American Cafe and Bistro" yesterday. A big chunk of its menu advertised no less than six different kinds of fish and chips. They only had one kind of burger and it was advertised in little letters over in a corner of the menu. I ask you, what do they think constitutes an"American Cafe"? The only fish and chips I ever saw in America were in the Arthur Treacher's fast-food restaurants and they went bankrupt many years ago. I guess the Brits never got the word. They probably think we still drink tea, for chrissakes!
Last night we went to our first theater show in London: Les Miserables. We thought it was a good, but not great, show. The songs weren't as memorable as those in some other shows we've seen, but the presentation was super. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
So through the end of the year, I'll periodically be posting these old notes. We had a good time and I think a lot of our experiences are worth sharing. So here we go:
CHAPTER 10: LONDON, ENGLAND
Saturday, September 25
We're getting to be quite proficient at using the London Tube. That’s their term for their subway system. Once you get the hang of it, it's fairly simple. Some of the trains are modern, while others look like rolling antiques. Our phrase of the day is "MIND ... THE GAP". Imagine it in a very loud, very stern British public school headmaster voice. You hear it in a lot of Tube stations where they're telling you to be careful of the gap between the train and the platform. "MIND ... THE GAP", over and over again. I always figured that Hell would like being trapped in Disney's "It's A Small Small World" ride, where you're stuck in a little boat with no steering control and have to listen to thousands of saccharine kids voices endlessly singing "It's A Small Small World". Now I picture it as the same thing, only punctuated occasionally with the ear-splitting screech of ancient London subway trains and an angry Voice of God telling me to MIND ... THE GAP.
Last Saturday we walked for miles. We found the shopping districts of Oxford Street and Regent Street. Then we followed them down to Piccadilly Circus and found huge crowds roaming around. We wandered into Leicester Square (pronounced "Lester") and it was awesome. There were quite a number of live bands on the street vying for attention, dozens of street artists, jugglers, Bible-belters, families, people on their way to the theater, homeless panhandlers, and chippies dressed to kill (or just show off as much skin as legally permissible). We got some ice cream cones and sat and people-watched for an hour. Fabulous! Sunday we went to a local movie theater for a matinee performance and were practically the only ones in there. Unfortunately, the movie (Hollywood’s "The General's Daughter") was a waste of perfectly good celluloid. Monday we went exploring in London again. I swear, Janis can find an exclusive shopping district with her eyes closed. This time we stumbled onto Bond Street, with shops like Cartier, Tiffany's, and tons of others. I was looking for the good art galleries, but they're evidently in another part of town.
We've alternated between touring and getting business/chores done. Touring is easy ... getting the business/chores done can be a bit more difficult. Once you're away from your familiar American stores and have to conduct all your business affairs on the local foreign economy, things can get difficult. Not impossible, just more complicated. Things that can be done with one or two quick phone calls in the States now require six to eight calls plus an office visit or two. And since we don't have a phone in the room, we have to use pay phones which might not let us make the call, or we may not have the change .... you get the idea. It all takes a bit of extra work, but we think this experience is worth it.
Diana Ross got arrested at Heathrow the other day. The Brits loved it, and the news was all over London within minutes (literally). Janis and I are not Diana Ross fans at all, and we found both Ross’s predicament and the British reactions highly amusing.
A couple of days ago we took a tour of Buckingham Palace. I tell you what, ol' Liz knows how to live! We didn't see a thing in there from Wal-Mart. My favorite room was the Gallery, where many old master paintings by some of the most important artists that ever lived were hanging: Rembrandt, Van Dyke, Vermeer, Franz Hals, and Rubens, to name a few. Gold, gold leaf, silver, marble, and bronze were everywhere, and everything was ORNATE (in capital letters). I also visited the Queen's Gallery, where they had a showing of some (just some) of her collection of drawings by Raphael, his teachers, and his students. This was a very interesting show which highlighted Raphael’s background, development, and influences.
We passed by a place advertising itself as "The American Cafe and Bistro" yesterday. A big chunk of its menu advertised no less than six different kinds of fish and chips. They only had one kind of burger and it was advertised in little letters over in a corner of the menu. I ask you, what do they think constitutes an"American Cafe"? The only fish and chips I ever saw in America were in the Arthur Treacher's fast-food restaurants and they went bankrupt many years ago. I guess the Brits never got the word. They probably think we still drink tea, for chrissakes!
Last night we went to our first theater show in London: Les Miserables. We thought it was a good, but not great, show. The songs weren't as memorable as those in some other shows we've seen, but the presentation was super. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
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