Wednesday, November 4 2009. We woke up at our own pace this morning, and I was up at 8am like usual and Larry was up at 6am trying not to be awake himself. We got up and took our time with everything, eventually getting down to the hotel breakfast (the bran flakes are not bad!) at 9ish am. We sat on our respective computers for a while, before Larry called his childhood friend, Keith, who lives in Cambridge and he'd had some contact with before the trip, wanting to see if they could get together. I was not jazzed about either going to Cambridge or hanging out as a third wheel with an old high school pal, but I relented when Larry finally made plans to take the train and see Keith tonight. It seemed to be Wednesday or never, at least not on this trip. So we went.
In the morning we got up and went to Buckingham palace, and Hyde Park. We were there a few minutes and were about to cross the street to get over to St. James' park when through traffic went a couple of horse-drawn carriages in royal red, with a police escort and the royal crest on the door! It was a bit shocking! The palace is pretty gorgeous- a romanesque building in the middle of a very busy city complete with green space and grounds. It's kind of astounding, really. We saw, we drank hot chocolate from a local cart, and walked around in the park in the fall with the leaves all brown and orange, and most of them fallen under our feet. It made me love fall, and miss the pug, who would have had a heyday running around in all those leaves like a total maniac. I miss my little man.. lots.
After the palace, we were walking back to Hyde Park when the royal carriage passed us by another TWO times, this time with one and then the other top down on the carriages, revealing ladies inside with hats on. I had no idea who they were, but that isn't to say I'm literate in any kind of British who's-who. We walked along through the fall color in Hyde Park until we passed through the Marble Arch into what I can only describe as Lebanon Land. We walked in Lebanon Land for a mile at least, before we turned off to Paddington Tube station, following a sign, so that we could check on when trains were leaving for Cambridge. My feet were sore and my back was starting to ache a bit when we came across a pub in Paddington that was truly local, we parked it for an hour, ate lunch with a couple of pints (i had a really tasty jacket potato with beans and cheese and Larry opted for the fish and chips) before we got to the station. No tourists in this neighborhood at all, and across the street was St. Mary's hospital. We were jazzed to be there, and it was a place in the london labyrinth that I have certainly never been to before, so that was very cool.
We stood in line in the middle of very busy Paddington railway station and the agent told us no, there are no trains from there to Cambridge, we needed to leave from Kings Cross. Ugh. We had time, so we went back to the hotel, got changed into our cold weather gear and got provisions for what we anticipated was a 2 hour train ride in each direction, and departed for King's Cross. We left the hotel and tubed up to King's Cross, where we found the train ticket booths after standing in line accidentally for 15 minutes in the Oyster line that does metro passes. We actually had to exit the tube station, cross the street and head into the railroad station. There are a lot of trains going to Cambridge, including a few express trains that didn't stop but went right there from London, so in 45 short minutes we were ready- and the best part, we got there and an express was leaving in 10 minutes. After you bought tickets, you got to stand in front of this huge monitor where as the trains came into the station, it tells you which rail they're leaving from, so when they put the number 7 next to the Cambridge train, this mass of 150 people all standing in front of this gigantic monitor all went running (seriously, some people were running) to rail 7 to get on the train. I'm not sure why there was so much hurry, as we got seats right next to each other without any difficulty. We settled in for a very nice, quiet train ride for 45 minutes. I got some typing done on this page, as the London bustle receeded into rolling green pastures with lines of hedgerow and cows and sheep grazing. It was really lovely. At just before 5 pm, we were off the train and on the Cambridge platform. We got some coffees and queued up for the taxis outside. This little snot who was a seat in front of us on the train decided to skip everyone in the line and jump into her own taxi. Typically English, nobody actually said anything to her about it. When our taxi came, I was royally pissed as the driver rolls his window down and says "no coffee." I left to go throw out the coffee and the people behind us already were jumping into the cab. Bastards. Not only did i have to throw out my coffee, but then we had to wait again. I needed that coffee, 45 minutes of lull on a moving train is a guarantee to put me to sleep in most circumstances. This was no exception, so that coffee was a very sore spot!
Finally in a taxi, we spent a short ride into downtown which
has more bicycles per capita than any other place on earth- i'm serious, I've
never seen so many bicycles in my life. It was insane. Like swarms of flies,
people on bikes. The town is unreal- gorgeous. I liked it so much more than
Oxford, it's tiny, winy, medieval feeling and everything is very, very old and
the architecture is absolutely astounding. Shops and shops and restaurants and
great "stuff" everywhere, and everywhere you turn a wildly charming
picturesque little cobblestoned alley brimming with painted signs advertising
its shops and restaurants. I was in love. I mean, officially and truly in love.
The sun set and it was already fully dark at only 5pm when we got to his place
of work- a movie house near a pub right in the downtown. Keith met us out on
the street and Larry recognized him right away. They were best friends in junior
high school, and somebody Larry describes as "saving my life in junior
high." Apparently, Larry's parents decided to move when he was 11 years
old to a new school and a new town and Larry was uprooted, plunged into an entirely
new place and had a hard enough time making friends to begin with, but everything
is worse at that age. So Keith seemed to find him, and they hit it off like
kismet. Larry's parents decided to move again when he was 15, which is even
more damaging for children. It sounds like he saw Keith when he was back in
the US for a wedding some years back, but it's been at least 8 now since they
met up. After a tour of the movie house, keith took us to this pub that is very
ancient feeling down this series of twisting, moonlight cobbled cambridge alleys
and felt like you just walked back into the 14th century. We got beers and sat
down- Larry and I on a tapestry-covered mahogany medieval stule bench which
was recessed a little way into this huge hearth made of stone. Apparently this
was the pub that Watson and Crick went to after discovering DNA. I was sold.
Perfect. We had a drink, and Larry and Keith did some catching up, then we went
for dinner at a place called "pizza Express" which sounded a little
hokey, but turned out to be what Keith called "cheap and cheerful."
His wife, Rebecca, who appears to be about 25, met us at the restaurant- she's
really, really lovely, totally English. I liked her immediately. The Pizza Express
is an English chain, but they are in different types of spaces, and the one
here in Cambridge is in this great old building tucked back into another alley
in a Romanesque facade that looked a bit like a museum front to me. The tables
covered with a candle and white linens behind a mahogany grand piano in the
front lobby made me instantly feel underdressed, then you turn into the main
dining room which is all open seating, totally packed, in this light blue decor
with frosted mirrors all over the walls. Keith recommended we use the restroom
just to walk into the building and walk past the "library" room which
is all wood paneled- Keith said it "wasn't a proper library"
as it really only had one shelf of books running around the top of the room.
But I loved it anyways. The wood was a little light in color, but it was really
cool that you can eat pizza in a library. We ordered a couple bottles of wine,
red for me and Larry, white for Keith and Rebecca, and 4 pizzas. What I notced
when the pizzas came was that they were also uncut. It is extremely convenient
to have a local around to explain some of our quandries: the pizza always arrives
uncut in England. Rebecca let us know that when you're a little kiddie they
cut it for you- but as an adult you get the pie in its natural, pre-surgical
state. It's cut it yourself pizza as a rule. This explains why we had no idea
what to do when the pizza we ordered at Zizzi came uncut. I was glad, in retrospect,
that we didn't ask the waiter what happened and instead decided to forge ahead
on our own and cut it ourselves. Like big kids, as it turns out. I also was
keen to ask both Rebecca and Keither about the tipping snafu- I felt horrible
about not tipping the barstaff at the B@1 last night after Larry reminded me
that we forgot to do this- Keith gave us the skinny on tipping in England. You
never tip in pubs. You order at the bar, the keep pulls your beer, you take
it to your table. If you want food, you order at the bar, at most they may bring
you a little basket with katsup and cutlery and vinegar in it to your table,
then your food, but that's it. You don't tip them. Pretty much never. You also
don't tip in bars. I asked specifically since the bar was pretty schwanky and
I wasn't sure if we were supposed to, and it's not actually a pub, but Keith
still insisted that you don't tip. Rebecca backed him up all the way. Mystery
solved and consciences abated, we were now free to eat our meal in absolved
peace. Reastaurants you tip about 10%, not like we do in the states. Cabbies
get a little extra over the bill, but again, not much more than a pound or a
few pence. Who knew!? We had a really nice time. At just before 9pm, Keith called
a cab for us to get back to the train station, they actually call your cell
phone back when they're outside the location. So about 5 minutes later, we were
packed into a Lobster Cab, back to the rail station. We sat about 20 minutes
there before the train came and brought us back "home." I was glad
we went, and Larry was really, really glad. Back at the hotel, it was collapse
into sleep until I woke up at 8 the following morning. And at the end we didn't
tip the cabbie too much. Because now we know. :)
Thursday, November 5, 2009. In one of my guide books, it has a list of events in London that happen annually, and I happened to notice we were going to be here for something called "Founder's Day" which is November 5th. All the book said was that they celebrate with fireworks, so we had long planned to get out and see them for this "founder's day." When Lina told us about the outdoor pub across the Thames, we immediately knew this was going to be the go-to spot for the fireworks. We planned on this the whole week, and today was the day. We got onto the tube to go to the Barbican and I sat down across from this very greasy looking man who I believe was English, and a young well-dressed Frenchman who was no more than 25 who was with Greasy, reading a paper and went about picking his nose the whole time he was on the train. I'm not talking about demure tip of digit in nostril, we're talking full on, all the way up there to the joint, digging around and he was definitely finding things because when he came out, he'd be rolling the snot around on his fingers and flicking it on the floor. Then he went right back to it. One nostril, then the other. Then a minute to read the paper and he'd be back at it again. Totally shamelessly, nobody seemed to notice this but me- at one point he even had both thumb and index finger in each nostril, rooting around in there like some kind of truffle-hunting animal to make sure he got it all. They got off at King's Cross and I wanted to tell the nice young man and his girlfriend who sat in the seats as soon as he vacated his that they probably didn't want to sit there as I suspect it was covered with snot.
(Below: the hospital, to the left and the covered Smithfield's market, to the right- the building is the size of Grand Central Station).
I had a slice of my leftover pizza for breakfast and some blackberries I bought at Sainsbury's and joined Larry in the dining room for coffee. We headed up north near the Barbican station to St. Bartholomew the Great church, which used to be a medieval priory, a monastery. St. Bart was a court jester named Rahere and somehow went on a pilgrimage and had some kind of experience with God, who told him to start this church, and I'm so glad he did. It's still dating back to 1135. He is still buried in the church. When we alighted the tube, we were in yet another area of London which I have never seen before, although I did stay out at the new Barbican hotel once for a night. The church is down this maze of tightly packed windy streets with lots and lots of shops and businesses and a large covered market called Smithfields market. We found it without too much trouble. Next to it, also started by Rahere, is St. Bartholomew's hospital which is still in operation as a hospital today. And a plaque in front of that letting us know that it was adjacent to the hospital that William Wallace was put to death.
Above: left, Wallace's plaque only placed there 50 years ago. Middle is the Tudor Gatehouse which is the entrance to St. Bartholomew the Great, and right is once you've stepped through the entrance, there is the door of the church. Before the reformation tore it down, we would have just walked into the nave. Today there is a small courtyard. I know, Steve, I know. This is the English here.
To get to the church, you go through a 13th century Tudor gatehouse that is amazing- this used to get you straight into the Nave, but during the reformation, Henry stripped the churches and this one was only partly saved by a man who purchased it for his private residence at the time, before the church bought it back. Apparently it was an extremely wealthy priory with a great deal of land belonging to it. Henry did have to pay for all that war with France somehow... The church itself is absolutely amazing. It's like you stepped back into the 12th century with its original stone walls and floors. It's amazing. Pictures weren't allowed, and I tried to snap a couple but God must look out for us heathens without reverence because all of them were too blurry to post. It's too bad, you don't know what you're missing in that church. Just awesome.
Left:
a door as you walk through the gatehouse, and right, inside the church. Yes,
those are all 12th century stones and 12th century floor tiles and 16th century
wooden screen, and 16th century electric light.... just kidding. The rest is
true, though. Larry opeted out of paying the 4£ and waited for me in the
little courtyard, where he leanred much the same information that I did on the
inside, as there was a small tour group that cmae through and their guide gave
them the historical schpeal in the courtyard where he was able to hear the whole
thing. I got mine from a very enthusiastic docent who looked very proper walking
around the insterior of the church, offering to answer any questions. In the
courtyard Larry was excited to show me his discoveries when I emerged from inside:
numerous headstones, bits of writing could still be seen on several of them,
one dating in the 1700s. He also noted a felled pillar which was likely some
kind of column that was once inside of the nave (I'm guessing, of course) but
it was stone, definitely was a pillar, and was now half-burried in the dirt
and covered with lichen.
Exiting St. Bartholomew, we didn't go back to the tube but
followed the signs and walked back to the soho area where I wanted to look for
the wine shop and the wine experience we saw the first night in town. It was
quite a walk, but worth it. We saw some really cool things, and I've never seen
them before. There are pubs at every turn, all with the same signs and the same
marketing and the same food and beers, and shops and busses and crazy traffic.
We wandered along a main road, stopped into what is now a modern business complex
but is this inredible medieval building of massive size- mullioned windows,
gothic arches, stone, cobblestone courtyard, and this floating bridge between
one wing and another that was covered with gothic arches and these huge, gorgeous
windows in a million little panes that was breathtaking. There was a small palque
on the wall letting us know that Charles Dickens once lived in this building.
An interesting historical fact, but I still hate Dickens.
Just at the corner of that block, adjacent to a tube station, was this elizabethan
era house that was also once massive, and is now cut into several business fronts
that was similarly breathtaking, mostly at how it was still standing in the
middle of all that crazy wild traffic and bustle.
At this point I gave up the idea of a cheap sandwich on the go for a pub lunch, so we tucked into a pub on the street that seemed fine and ordered a lunch. We had a pint of ale and I got a brie and salami sandwich with salad and "chips" (curly fries actually) and Larry got a sandwich with brie and ham. And just to keep up the tradition of photographing Larry in pubs eating and drinking, I snapped a photo of him in our lunch pub once again.
We walked through the city of london back to Soho, where I was on a quest to find the shop with the sign advertising the First Annual London Wine Festival, positive that we were going to attend this and all I really wanted was the souvenir glass that says "London Wine Experience." We walked around and around and around Soho, Covent Garden, everywhere, to absolutely no avail. We didn't even succeed in finding Zizzi again. Larry was tired, a bit quiet and not very happy to be aimlessly wandering around the West End with very tired feet for hours like this, so I eventually decided it was time to abandon the quest. I even stopped at 2 wine shops and asked, but nobody knew what the heck I was talking about.
After wandering around SoHo for a couple of hours without success, we went back to the room to rest our tired feet before we went back out to find the Founder's Arms and see some Founders Day Fireworks. This was on the south side of the Thames, and I've also never been there before (a recurring theme on this vacation for sure). We took the train in the middle of rush hour across the river to the waterloo station where we had to elbow our way into the car with an almost unbelievable crush of people. Getting off on the other side at Waterloo was even more insane, never seen so many people in my life in one station, all hurrying like life depended on it. We finally got out of the station, into the street and onto the lovely boardwalk called the Thames Path. Oh_my_god. Never in my years have I been here, and it's a crazy, shocking shame. This is pure magic. The big attraction is the Eye, loads of tourists were getting on it, there are buskers singing, the lights of the sparkly blue tiny christmas bulbs in the trees were casting this blue hue on us, you can see the London skyline across the rippling black waves of the river. Magic. Pure magic. We took about 600 pictures and of mine, only *one* turned out really great- but this folks, is the money shot right here:
Larry got better pictures than I did, we walked along the path to the Founder's Arms pub where there was a very lively scene, all locals having beers and some food, many outside on a very lovely night next to the tall, flaming pillars of gas heat for the patio, with gorgeous views of St. Paul's and at least two bridges. There is both a restaurant and a pub/cafe in the FOunder's Arms, and we walked around back and ended up in the pub section, which is much better because the food is cheaper and the views are better out back. It's a very lively scene. We were probably the only non-locals in there. We found a table inside and ordered food and ale after we sat down. I got another pint of the Winter Warmer which was wonderful again while Larry opted for the Bombadier again and ordered the bangers and mash (this is English National Susage Week, FYI) and I went for the "bean and lentil hotpot." The scene was lively inside as well as out, but the food didn't take long. Larry's bangers and mash turned out to be fantastic and my "hotpot" was a big soup bowl of what appeared to be chopped up sauteed potatoes. With a little stirring, it was topping a lentil stew type thing with yellow lentils and tomatos, the beans in my "bean and lentil" hotpot were noticeably missing. It was okay, not great, but I loaded it with salt and pepper and it was better. It came with a couple slices of thick, wheat bread with oats and nuts which was good in itself, but was too dry with the stewy mixture to eat them together. So instead I used the bread to sop up the leftover gravy on Larry's plate. What happened to the beans?? We got finished with the food and went outside onto the patio to finish the rest of our beers in the patio ambiance. What a great night- the weather was perfect- not too cold, and the views were just fantastic. We Had black friar's bridge to the right and behind us, the pedestrian bridge in front of us, and a view of the cuppola of St. Paul's lit up on the north shore right in front of us. Oh, and a full moon. Amazing.
We heard the fireworks of what I assume was the city of Westminster going off in the distance, but to my chagrin, we were unable to see them. truthfully, I was a little upset at not seeing them with this amazing view and all the hype of seeing them all week. Below are some of Larry's pictures, some of which I've modified just a little. We walked back across the Thames via a pedestrian-only footbridge that crosses the river- very cool, and lets you out steps from the side door of St. Paul's cathedral! It was wonderful. The photo of me is on the bridge with the cathedral dome in the back ground. We took some more photos, walked back along our side of the Thames to the Temple tube station and on the way, just before we hit the tube, we got to see some fireworks for about 2 minutes going off on the south side. Fireworks afterall.
Above row: left, the Founder's Arms pub, patio side. Middle: Larry and Big Ben in the background. Right, one of the newer London bridges across the Thames.
Below row: Blackfriar's Bridge with St. Pauls and the moon, middle is me on the pedestrian bridge walking straight at St. Paul's, and right is an arty shot Larry got of the fireworks we spotted once we were back on the north side of the river.
After we watched an HG Wells in San Francisco time machine version of the Jack the Ripper story, we went to sleep. What a great secret place in London we found, thanks to Lina. And we finally got to see fireworks :)