Fare thee well, London Town

Last day, perfect weather and off to the Tower for us.  We took the short cut and just walked around on our own.  We're just not guided tour folk. 

I think they spiffied up the Tower for the Olympics and the Queen's Jubilee celebration.  A lot of it looked new, but there was enough old stuff to remind you that they really did cut off heads there.  Surprisingly, about 12 people were executed in the 20th century at the Tower.  !!!! 

The coolest thing I found about the Tower was this:

This is a wooden bust of Queen Elizabeth, made in 1779 and I figure it's what she looked like.  I always thought she looked like Betty Davis, or Cate Blanchett, or Luisa Puig (inside joke).  But this apparently is it. 

And later on, in the Tower Store, there was this for sale:

And it can be yours for only 2000 pounds.  A steal!  (a steel?)

Our energy level ran out on us early on and it was time to pack, but I'll leave with a few observations about London:

In Madrid, we looked around and just fell in love with the old old buildings that were just everywhere.  In London, it seems like they're intent on put up silly buildings.  For example

This one is called "The Shard".  Can't imagine why, but it sure looks scary to me:

All I know is that our London hostess hates it with a passion because there used to be an underground with  clubs & shops and this building totally wiped it out. 

Then of course there is this now-iconic building that you always see any time there is a show based in London.  It is about 5 miles from the center of town, by the way.  I don't know if it's called "The Egg" by the locals, but seriously, how could it not be?

It's really the headquarters of some Swedish company.  Everywhere I looked there was yet another silly building going up.

I'm so tired of seeing girls walk around, having forgotten to put on their pants.  They stop at tights and call themselves dressed for the day.  Ugh.  Make it stop.  And if they don't wear tights and call it slacks, they'll put on a flimsy summery dress and then put thick black tights on with it. 

And one last thing:  Kate Middleton isn't preggers, regardless of what the tabloids, like US Magazine say.  How do I know?  Because there is not word one in any British tabloid, newspaper, magazine, what-have-you.  And our hostess says they don't DARE print any rumor about anyone in the Royal family unless they want to deal with the Royal family.  And if the Royal family ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

London has given me many fun memories and in return, I leave it with 116,996 of my footsteps.  Oh hell, let's call it an even 117,000

Paris, here I come.

So much for storms

So after the weather people predicted general fire & brimstone for today -- half a month's rainfall in an hour, the biggest sized hail in 143 years, flooding, everything except locusts & the taking of your first-born -- we got........ sun.  And lots of it.

It was rainy for about an hour, heavy at times, this morning.  So we visited Stanfords Map Store, which has lots of maps, but also travel books, travel gifts and cool stuff like a shower curtain of the London Underground (which Gene plans to hang in his bathroom).  Then as the rain let up, we walked to the Covent Gardens Markets & had a little mid-morning snack.  And by the time we got out of there, not only had the rain stopped, but there were big patches of blue sky, which stayed the whole day.

Gene needed to take a nap and I needed to keep shopping, so we parted ways and I went off to Harrods! 

This is a behemoth of a department store:  on a 5-acre site, 5 floors up, with over a million square feet of selling space in over 330 departments.  Other high-end department stores have, maybe, a nice restaurant inside the store somewhere.  Here's what Harrods has:

That's right -- 19 different places where you can get food and 1 where you can get frozen yogurt. 

The "Egyptian" escalators will take you up and down all the floors, but they don't want you to bring a baby stroller on there.  We have the same problem at Sky Harbor Airport and we're always trying to stop people from taking their strollers, often complete with baby on board on the moving steps.  At Harrods, no means no: 

and they make sure you can't by placing these in front of the entry of every escalator on every floor.  You have to turn a little sideways to just get on those things, let alone bring a baby stroller with you.  Got a baby?  Take the elevator.  Loved it.

Harrods motto is Omnia Omnibus Ubique—All Things for All People, Everywhere.  But sometimes, I couldn't help but wonder which people these things were for:
                                                          

 

The piano is on sale for 220,000 pounds

 

 



There was no price on the clock.  I should have had Gene stand next to it; it's as tall as he is -- about 6 feet.

On the bottom floor, Harrods there is a permanent shrine to Princess Diana & Dodi Al-Fayed.  Got Mixed feelings on this one.  I can't decide if it's touching or tacky:

The pyramid in front of their photos holds a wine glass smudged with lipstick from Diana's last dinner and a ring, allegedly the engagement ring Dodi purchased the day before they died.  Any money thrown in the fountain is given over to the charity that was established to help injured children.  Okay, the glass gives me a little of the chills; don't you think it might have been washed before they realized its significance?  Did the restaurant just keep it because it was Diana?  Did they "recreate" a glass?  Not gonna go there.  Opposite this memorial is this:

This is a a bronze statue of the Diana and Dodi dancing on a beach beneath the wings of an albatross, a bird said to symbolize the "Holy Spirit".  On the base of the sculpture is written "Innocent Victims".  Dodi's shirt is open and Diana's dress appears to be of a very flowy & gossamery (did I just make up a word?) material. 

People take turns standing in front of this and smiling and lifting up their arms in various model-type poses like they're holding up the albatross.   One woman poked her head between the two from the back.  Like I said, touching?  tacky?  Couldn't decide (and still can't). 

So I took my lavender honey and went back to our apartment & woke Gene up, so we could visit the fabulous British Museum.  Free to get in, with a 5 pound donation requested, but not required.  We didn't have that much time, so we limited our visit to the Rosetta Stone, the mummies & the Greek antiquities.  But the highlight of the visit, and perhaps even the highlight of the trip to date was this.

Here is a sculpture of an ancient cat.  Notice he has the paw from his right side crossed over the paw in the front..  They are broken, but you can see his paws are crossed.  Kinda cool.

Now here is our kitty, Buddy, in a photo taken just after we got him (and I'm noticing that his face looks so much more relaxed these days.  That's kinda cool as well):

That's right!   We have found Buddy's ancestors and will start to worship him in the manner that the ancient Egyptians worshipped kittehs.  And probably in that manner that he's wondering why we're not worshipping him now.  And we won't tell him he might end up like this:

You know it's time to leave when you see kitty mummies.

Gene, the ever driven bicyclist still could not get the possibility of biking in Hyde Park out of his head, so off he went to have a turn around the park and off I went to sit and have a beer and wait for him to return (I promised that if he got injured, I would come back for him after I visited Paris.  Really, I promised). 

While there, all the people at the outdoor seating area of the restaurant were treated to this big beauty who sat on the post for a while and posed for photos, then flew away when he got bored apparently.

Another way-too-active day:  21,419 steps.  Am I out of my mind?
Total = 105,174

Tomorrow:  The Tower of London (along with a gazillion other tourists) and packing!  I'm finishing up this blog on Sunday morning and again the day is perfect.  I'm looking at blue sky, no clouds and a nice breeze coming through the window. Outstanding!

Some more observations, including Cambridge

In no particular order: 

*  As we entered the town from the train station and walked through the construction zone that will eventually produce student housing, shops and what-have-you, a friendly gentleman came up to us and said "Is this your first time in Cambridge?"  "yes"  "Great.  It gets better.  Honestly, it does."  And off he went, satisfied that he had done well by Cambridge.

*  I'd sell my cats right now for a glass of ice cubes.  Seriously.

*  The train we took from London to Cambridge clocked out at 102 miles per hour.  The ride was soooo smooth and took only 46 minutes.

*  Gene, being the bicycling crazy man that he is, is enthralled with the bicycling community here.  The streets are always full of people biking to wherever -- of all ages even little gray-haired grannies.  And they live in peaceful coexistence with the autos.  Gene spent the first few days taking those action shots with his camera where you hold the button down and get a million shots that are only a nano-second different from the one before it.  Whenever he can, he engages a bicyclist in conversation, starting with "I really love this country's biking mentality" and goes on to discuss the sad state of affairs of Arizona, even as the bicyclist inches away because, after all, they were biking somewhere.  When they are passing him by on their bikes, he just yells "RIDE ON!!!" at them.

*  The horrifying trend of wearing tights and calling them "pants" is in full bloom here in London and it is, indeed, just as horrifying here as it is in the states.  How I long to go up to one of the girls and say "Excuse me, but I think you need to go home.  You forgot to put on your pants."

*  The Tour de France will be starting in Cambridge on July 7.  They are giddy with anticipation.  It'll make some passes in other cities, including London before it eventually gets to France (will they make them keep pedaling on the Chunnel Train?)

Impressions of Cambridge:

The gentleman was correct.  It did get better.  Just what you'd expect.  There are about 31 different colleges in the town.  And they are all quaint and lovely looking.  We took a bike tour of the city, aka, my 3 hours of terror as I dodged pedestrians, other bicyclists, and rode through tall grass which made my bike very wobbly.  My palms were red from the death grip I had on the handle bars when I was done.   I did eventually do a face-plant as Gene had to stop fast to avoid hitting a woman walking directly in front of him and I had to stop fast to avoid hitting Gene.  I stopped but then lost my balance and fell over sideways onto concrete.  So much fun.  A bunch of teens were vey concerned and kept saying "are you all right?... are you SURE you're all right?"  until I finally said "OKAY, I'M FINE, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ON.

And here I am, ready to gather up Wife Points by biking all over Cambridge for 2 - 2 1/2 hours.

Our meeting point: 



This is "Reality Checkpoint" in a green area known as "Parker Piece", where the tour group met prior to the bike ride.  There are several theories why it's so named.  One is because it is between a popular pub and the campus and as students cross the park, perhaps a couple of sheets to the wind, they are reminded of the difference between Cambridge undergrads and the “normal folk” of Cambridge.  Reality Checkpoint is also reputed to have been a place of pilgrimage where generations of Cambridge LSD trippers have paid homage.  Pink Floyd also played gigs in Cambridge in their before-fame days and there's a theory that they mention this pole in a song.  To me, it means the last time I was terror-free for 3 hours.
 

Our guide told us that the rules for modern soccer were developed using the rules played in Parker Piece and so the town fathers wanted to erect a statue commemorating the 150th anniversary of soccer.  But then came all the controversy of having just a white-guy statue and what about the women and what about the black population and so the arguments went back and forth so long, they ran out of time to commission and erect the statue.  And so there's a little plaque on one of the garbage cans in the park commemorating the 150th anniversary of soccer (aka football).

One of the more illustrious students at Trinity College was Lord Byron.  He got a dog and brought it into his dorm room.  The powers that be at the college pointed showed him the specific regulation in the rule book that clearly said "no dogs allowed".  And so Byron went out and got a bear.  And the powers that be at the college said he couldn't have a bear.  And he said "why?  there's nothing in the rule book that says I can't."  because the rule book only specified dogs.  And so an emergency meeting was called, bears were added and Byron was shown the specific rule.  So he housed the bear off campus and periodically, he could be seen walking the bear around.  No, I don't know if it's really a true story, but the rule book does specify "dogs, bears and pets of any kind".  Perhaps he just threatened.  It is a great story.

Byron was also what's know as a "night wall climber" -- students who sneak out at night, climb the walls of the various colleges and place items at the top.  Here is the entry to Trinity College.  Notice the statue of Henry VIII. 

The gold-plated orb he's holding has been stolen several times.  So has the scepter.  It was replaced with a variety of items.  The administration finally gave up and kept the one he holds to this day -- a table leg:

The top of King's College has had many an item placed up there.  Once Christmas morning, there were Santa hats atop of each spire.

One time, an orange traffic cone was placed up there overnight.  The administration had to build a scaffold to go get it at a cost of 3500 pounds.  It took several weeks to erect the scaffolding and the night before the crew was go up and fetch the cone, the culprits moved it to the other side. 

This is the courtyard of one of the colleges (they all started to blend together.  When you're focused on not dying on a bicycle, you tend to lose attention).  It's rather beautiful.  A scene from "Chariots of Fire" was filmed here. 

Here is King's College from a distance.  It's magnificent.  There are always 4 cows, we were told, roaming in the grassy area in front.  Today there were only 2, hidden from view.  When our guide asked the guard why, he was told "because the bull isn't done with 2 of them yet."

And a typical center-city Cambridge street:

And finally, a pendulum clock erected in the former doorway of what used to be a bank.  Couldn't get a good photo of it from across the street, but if you look closely, you will see that it is a monster-type grasshopper that pulls the mechanism clockwise with its front claws as its jaw snaps open and shut.  No one knows how it manages to keep time, since periodically the pendulum will stick for several seconds.  We saw it happen while we stood there.  Strange and ugly but fascinating.

And again, a perfect weather day.  You would think it was Phoenix in October, rather than the UK in June.  Tomorrow is still predicted to be rainy with a thunderstorm, but since all I really want to do is visit the British Museum & Harrods, it shouldn't slow me down any.

An ambitious day.  Steps taken, including 2 hours on the bike = 17,658 give or take.  That's because there were some left over from yesterday, since my FitBit seems to be on US time, but there was about an hour or so when I was walking around and didn't have it with me.  And when you get up over 15,000, what's the difference, really.

Total = 83,755

Continuation of Thursday - Bath

Bath reminded me quite a lot of Toledo in Spain in that it's a quaint town, with narrow streets, a beautiful church in the middle of town and wonderful local shops and restaurants. 

It also contains the remnants of Roman Baths. 

The Cathedral in town has a beautiful stained glass window.....

...and an even more magnificent ceiling!

The ceiling above the main altar has added colored inserts

A park near the center of town, where you can just sit and relax and see part of the town & environs from a distance

Stonehenge Photos

As you can see, you're not up close and personal to Stonehenge, but close enough to take in their mystery.  It's still hard to figure out how the stones  were transported from some 40 miles away and an even bigger question -- how the heck the creators got those top cross-wise ones up there. 

When we were back on the bus, our tour guide asked us "So were they smaller than you thought they'd be?"  And most people said yes (although still pretty darned impressive).  And then he added "Yes.  Kind of like Tom Cruise". 

So here are my photos.  I took lots more because it seemed like as you walked around, each angle was more impressive than the one you just passed.

As you can see, it is still pretty impressive even from the distance they keep you at.  And as you can also see, the day was quite perfect.

These little guys came up from the ground and started noshing on the grass.  They were fearless and could care less that there was a rather large group of tourists standing around them taking photos like crazy.  Then I noticed that there were many such holes all around the place.  I would guess the underground houses a bajillion of these critters.

Stonehenge

The last time I visited Stonehenge was in 1972.  You could walk right up to a stone and sit on it.  I think somewhere there's a photo of Gene the Lesser putting his arms out as he stands between two large stones like he's holding them up.  oh har har har.

Anyway, now you must keep your distance.  I was told the area was fenced off and you're herded through after being crammed on a bus to get there.  I expected to be disappointed in the new set up, but I'm not.  I'm glad that people can't go right up to the stones.  I have visions of people with spray cans of whatever color their particular gang is and they are determined to make a statement. 

Some of the "herding" on a bus reporting is true:  you arrive on a bus (note to self:  remember from now on how god-awful escorted tours can be, especially those one-day tours.  Crowded buses, no leg room, lots of Americans, regardless of country you're visiting) and then you get on another shuttle bus and are taken to the actual site.

There you find a de-construction zone.  They are removing the original visitors' center & parking lot and putting up a huge stretch of pristine meadow land -- just like it was back in the day.  So good on them.  Anyway, when the 2nd bus drops you off, you walk a bit and then you have a totally unobstructed view of the stones.  You can walk as slow or as fast as you want from a nice distance behind a 18" (can't be more than that) fence.  It's very tasteful; it's very accessible. 

As you walk around, you note that each view of it is nicer than the one you notice the previous 5 footsteps.  It's really something to see. 

Right now, I'm falling asleep as I'm typing.  I need to go to bed.  Photos tomorrow.

Random Observations

In the UK, they drive on the left, pass on the right.  But when you're walking in a train station, everyone passes on the left and walks on the right, just like in the US.  Hell, just like in the rest of the world.  They even have signs that said "Walk on the Right".  I suggested that every 3rd sign or so, they should have another one that says "Yes. We know. Shut Up".  It's obviously because there are so many tourists around and we all walk on the right.

The escalators in the Underground are very long and angled rather steeply.  Even more than those in Washington, DC, which I thought were pretty long & steep.  Everyone is very organized.  None of this standing all over the stairs.  There is a clear line of people on the right not moving and a clear line of people on the left moving like gangbusters.   And those people who are REALLY obsessed walk quickly down the escalator pitched backwards at about 20 degree angle.  I was watching this evening and people were pitched back a bit.  They almost looked like any minute they were going to do an imitation of Monty Python's Minister of Silly Walks (was that his title?).   I imagine it helps them go down those very angled stairs a whole lot faster and prevents many a face-plant.

If you really want to meet Americans, go on an escorted tour in Europe.  We went to Stonehenge today and I think we had 2/3 American, 1/3 Japanese. 

We went to an Indian restaurant this evening and all we wanted was a coupla bowls of soup and a samosa appetizer to share.  The restaurant insisted that we HAD TO have a main course.  It was the minimum order and they even showed us the small print on the menu where it said "minimum order is one main entrée per person".  I said "are you serious?" and they said "yes, we are" and I said "then bring us our check; we're leaving" and they said "since this is your first time, we will serve you, but in the future you must order a main course."  No problem, buddy.  I guarantee, you'll never have to worry about me not ordering enough food from you guys again.  I've never heard of such a thing as being forced to order a lot of food.

Gene has taken to calling my beige raincoat "the tent" because it's big on me and bellows out a bit.  It will be left behind in England when we depart for Paris, along with a couple of blouses, shirt and a sweater.  Gotta make room for some hand-painted plates that our hostess creates at a local shop, all my mustard & my purchase today, which disobeys my promise of not buying anything that isn't made I the country I'm visiting -- a small Queen Elizabeth II doll that is solar-powered.  She dances the twist when sun hits her energy source.  She will be perfect for my kitchen window.

Forgot to mention that when you go into the room where QE I's tomb is, Jeremy Irons' beautiful voice is the one on the portable tape telling you the scoop about her crypt.  Sweet and somehow fitting.

Okay, I'm beat.  I'm almost looking forward to a forced rest on Saturday.  Watch it be beautiful weather. 

Slacked off today.  ha ha.  Total steps  =  12,999

Total steps for the vacay =  66,097

I'll talk about Stonehenge in another post and put up some photos.  I have to get ready now.  Tomorrow is bike ride in Cambridge Day.  Pray for me.