My 25-Day Journey Through England with AncestralVoices
Sep 10th, 2011, 08:18 AM
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My 25-Day Journey Through England with AncestralVoices
DAY 1, technically DAY 2 (after a day-long departure)
LONDON, PART 1
Even our happening upon the Changing of the Guard didn’t yet push into me where I actually was. The old bobby herding the Russians, the Polish, the English of course, the Indians, the Scandinavians and Asians to fashion the proper pathway was just a tourist spectacle to me, distant and valuable only as fodder for our digital camera at the time. We had just spent an entire day and an entire night on a journey from the daily grind of Cincinnati, OH to the utterly unfamiliar world of London. At least for me. My travel companion Kip (whose version of this epic tale you can find and probably have already read on this site) had been here some years ago. I was sort of like a chicken with its head cut off in that I was walking English streets, doing very English things, and it felt like just another day.
We had arrived at Heathrow in the morning, emerged from customs and hopped right into a taxi driven by a hard-bitten older man with a Cockney accent, drove on the left the entire way to Rubens at the Palace. Kip breezed on through the customs gate, but for some inexplicable reason I was interrogated for a good minute or so by some square-jawed young English agent with the most graceful and self-possessed accent I might’ve heard on the entire trip. I think it was because I had a blank passport. This was the first time in my life I ever needed one. This was the first time in my life I’d done any of the things that I was doing from minute to minute. And yet neither Kip nor I had any endurance left in our overindulged Midwestern bodies. We were running on fumes after 24 hours of travel. But we were intractable. We had been anticipating these moments for the better part of a year. So we just kept moving from the second we finally checked our luggage at Rubens at the Palace.
Our room at the Rubens wasn’t ready yet, so we had no choice at first. Waiting for a handful of hours until we were allowed to occupy a room with bed sheets and home-like comfort of any kind, we traversed much more than a handful of yards, from the Changing of the Guard which to my incredulity was right across the street and a block up from the Rubens, to a park where sleeping disheveled vagrants seemed to share the same space as a young students eating sandwiches with a good book, and up and down myriad crowded, bustling streets. The journey ended with perhaps the smallest elevator I’ve ever occupied.
When we’d rejuvenated ourselves, we began a second journey through London. It would’ve been represented by an upward spike if we were to put it on a chart. It started with such disappointment, but then suddenly took off with wonder and thrill at everything we saw and did. We found what looked like a prototypically English pub called Bag O’ Nails just up the block from the Rubens. It was a very centrally located hotel. The Royal Mewes were directly across the street. We were served by an incredibly disorganized Russian. Our stomachs were growling and he had us waiting nearly fifteen minutes before coming to our table. We had fish and chips, a kick-off to the narrative of our English culinary adventures, and my first meal off the continent. And what felt like my first real meal in 12 hours or more.
I dug in. No taste. I thought, Is my American tongue so spoiled that if I don’t have enough food in a day’s time, I lose my sense of taste? I poured a mountain of salt on this fish, and a mountain on my gigantic, rectangular chips, and continued scarfing. Maybe I’ve been smoking too much. I notice my sense of smell hasn’t been too potent recently either. But no, Kip agreed. It was like we were still in Ohio having dinner at TGI Friday’s or Applebee’s. I never thought I’d say an American chain restaurant has more taste than a British pub. Fortunately, I was later to stand overwhelmingly corrected, as I immediately began to hope. I had plenty of time to start doing that as it was a battle getting the waiter’s attention for our bill. We fought this battle, and barely won. It was more like a truce.
Only that night, when we walked through a shockingly lonesome night-time London, did I truly grasp how far and wide we walked after the debut meal. I must’ve just been so starstruck by being in and around Westminster. My actual feet were actually touching the ground of Westminster Abbey. It was made all the more unreal when reality intersected with this exotic but so classically familiar place. Kip’s mother called him, and she got to hear the ubiquitous bells of Big Ben. At that same time, I noticed signs of the strike against the Conservative government’s tax hikes, benefit curbs, and spending cuts I’d heard so much about the day immediately before we left Cincinnati. Yes, both places were real: Home and here. And I applaud that very action and cause no matter where I am, so it was all very exciting.
We then began to spread into the surrounding places. We saw an old bobby bound by duty, and nothing but, to the guard post at a gate. Nothing deterred him, even me standing next to him and having Kip take my picture with him. What’s he going to do? If something actually did happen that was a real security breach, could he still move from his post? And then when it turned out to be nothing and he comes back, a thief or someone got through because he didn’t guard the gate. No amount of effort, I don’t think, could cover all the variables, but I still admired the profound sense of duty and implicit trust instilled in this guy, who could almost be his own metaphor for England on the whole. Those were qualities that seemed to permeate the whole country in all different aspects, from pumping BEFORE you pay, to there evidently being no mandatory tip expected from patrons because the owners pay their staff sufficiently, to various other things that will probably be inherent in the story of my trip if I can allow myself to stop sidetracking.
I can now say I’ve been all over England, literally. I’ve traversed the country, north, south, east and west. Along the way, I’ve taken over a thousand pictures, some good, a few awesome, but I still wish I could’ve gotten this trio of Jamaican guys on that very first day. They were leaning by the Thames, rocking all-black suits, complete with G-man hats, even the one with one leg, resting his stub on his crutch. The middle guy had horn-rimmed glasses. Everyone over there’s got class, but of course leave it to the black guys to set the bar high for coolness.
Anyway, somehow, we ended up approaching Trafalgar Square. I think Kip was intending to find it, but I never had any idea what was next. Kip was the man with the plan, and I was tagging along. This made it all the more disorienting when, passing a McDonalds which was one of myriad shops, restaurants, pubs, ad infinitum on this increasingly bustling street approaching Nelson’s Column in the distance, we heard a shocking cacophony of screaming and crashing dishes. It began to be overlapped by some enraged yelling. Kip and I peered into the McDonald’s warily, and shirtless young man was brandishing something I couldn’t quite distinguish, and a flock of young “chav” girls hustled out onto the sidewalk, shepherded by one of them, who was continually screaming profanity at the top of her lungs. Still inside, it seemed two uniformed servicemen were very calmly ordering their food. One of them was standing in front of the hallways that must’ve led to the bathrooms, perhaps because the shirtless aggressor had followed his rage into one of them. Kip and I carried on, I think feeling like we’d gotten a healthy, refreshing shock to sustain our full wakefulness, but it was only the beginning of what is surely the most concentrated chaos I’ve ever beheld in my entire life.
I’ve been to Times Square. No explanation or comparison required, except that at least on this particular night, Times Square had to have looked like Monument Valley in contrast. We gathered from interactions throughout our travels that the term chav apparently refers to a certain variety of hostile and arrogant teens and young people of underclass background, who occupy their time street drinking, abusing drugs and being rowdy and confrontational. That we had to ask this question after facing hoards of them storming the Square this very night, occasionally offset by drag queens and effeminate gay caricatures. Offset, meaning they were the more normal element to me. That’s something I never expected to see, especially the very first day I set foot on other soil. That an unending procession of teenage mosh pits sharing whole bottles of wine and straight whiskey, wrestling, spraying each other, and pantomiming sex acts covered every inch of the National Gallery’s front lawn is a spectacle all its own I never expected to see in my life.
And this doesn’t even count the literal thousands of pigeons, possibly feral, the incessant traffic pushing and weaving angrily through heaps of j-walkers and curbside loiterers, and of course, the fights! One chav was so incensed by a passing car, she managed to punch the window as it passed. The people occupying the car were so incensed by her being incensed, the car screeched immediately to a halt as a passenger emerged and engaged in a dance of swinging fists, not one of them landing, until their respective companions hustled them away from one another. The elderly couple crossing the street in front us: “Bloody chavs.” Mind you, since the sideshow at McDonalds, this has all transpired in a span of ten, fifteen minutes.
And yet, neither Kip nor I felt even remotely scared or alarmed. Somehow, despite our identities as a vulnerable American tourists, neither of us seemed to sense much in the way of fear about our personal safety. These people didn’t seem dangerous or intent on any malice or harm, just wild and reckless and all in the same place. We even ate dinner at a remarkable pub just around the corner. The names of the place and the indigenous beer we drank have completely escaped us both. But the brilliance of the Ploughman’s Board meal has not. It’s the most perfectly, meticulously balanced meal I’ve ever eaten. So healthy, so quaint.
And indeed (one of the many words I have a newfound enthusiasm for since this epic excursion; most of the other ones I should probably refrain from using here), that walk back to the Rubens was a long and eerily solitary one. Once we were clear of that central vicinity of Trafalgar, people became uncannily scarce. Gradually, the more we walked and the less clear we were on where we were and which direction to go, the more it felt as if we owned the city, like it was just ours and we could roam freely. We did, of course, find the Ruben’s and fell into a deep, practically transcendental sleep after a long double-day of nothing but new things, one after another, and never slowing down in between.
LONDON, PART 1
Even our happening upon the Changing of the Guard didn’t yet push into me where I actually was. The old bobby herding the Russians, the Polish, the English of course, the Indians, the Scandinavians and Asians to fashion the proper pathway was just a tourist spectacle to me, distant and valuable only as fodder for our digital camera at the time. We had just spent an entire day and an entire night on a journey from the daily grind of Cincinnati, OH to the utterly unfamiliar world of London. At least for me. My travel companion Kip (whose version of this epic tale you can find and probably have already read on this site) had been here some years ago. I was sort of like a chicken with its head cut off in that I was walking English streets, doing very English things, and it felt like just another day.
We had arrived at Heathrow in the morning, emerged from customs and hopped right into a taxi driven by a hard-bitten older man with a Cockney accent, drove on the left the entire way to Rubens at the Palace. Kip breezed on through the customs gate, but for some inexplicable reason I was interrogated for a good minute or so by some square-jawed young English agent with the most graceful and self-possessed accent I might’ve heard on the entire trip. I think it was because I had a blank passport. This was the first time in my life I ever needed one. This was the first time in my life I’d done any of the things that I was doing from minute to minute. And yet neither Kip nor I had any endurance left in our overindulged Midwestern bodies. We were running on fumes after 24 hours of travel. But we were intractable. We had been anticipating these moments for the better part of a year. So we just kept moving from the second we finally checked our luggage at Rubens at the Palace.
Our room at the Rubens wasn’t ready yet, so we had no choice at first. Waiting for a handful of hours until we were allowed to occupy a room with bed sheets and home-like comfort of any kind, we traversed much more than a handful of yards, from the Changing of the Guard which to my incredulity was right across the street and a block up from the Rubens, to a park where sleeping disheveled vagrants seemed to share the same space as a young students eating sandwiches with a good book, and up and down myriad crowded, bustling streets. The journey ended with perhaps the smallest elevator I’ve ever occupied.
When we’d rejuvenated ourselves, we began a second journey through London. It would’ve been represented by an upward spike if we were to put it on a chart. It started with such disappointment, but then suddenly took off with wonder and thrill at everything we saw and did. We found what looked like a prototypically English pub called Bag O’ Nails just up the block from the Rubens. It was a very centrally located hotel. The Royal Mewes were directly across the street. We were served by an incredibly disorganized Russian. Our stomachs were growling and he had us waiting nearly fifteen minutes before coming to our table. We had fish and chips, a kick-off to the narrative of our English culinary adventures, and my first meal off the continent. And what felt like my first real meal in 12 hours or more.
I dug in. No taste. I thought, Is my American tongue so spoiled that if I don’t have enough food in a day’s time, I lose my sense of taste? I poured a mountain of salt on this fish, and a mountain on my gigantic, rectangular chips, and continued scarfing. Maybe I’ve been smoking too much. I notice my sense of smell hasn’t been too potent recently either. But no, Kip agreed. It was like we were still in Ohio having dinner at TGI Friday’s or Applebee’s. I never thought I’d say an American chain restaurant has more taste than a British pub. Fortunately, I was later to stand overwhelmingly corrected, as I immediately began to hope. I had plenty of time to start doing that as it was a battle getting the waiter’s attention for our bill. We fought this battle, and barely won. It was more like a truce.
Only that night, when we walked through a shockingly lonesome night-time London, did I truly grasp how far and wide we walked after the debut meal. I must’ve just been so starstruck by being in and around Westminster. My actual feet were actually touching the ground of Westminster Abbey. It was made all the more unreal when reality intersected with this exotic but so classically familiar place. Kip’s mother called him, and she got to hear the ubiquitous bells of Big Ben. At that same time, I noticed signs of the strike against the Conservative government’s tax hikes, benefit curbs, and spending cuts I’d heard so much about the day immediately before we left Cincinnati. Yes, both places were real: Home and here. And I applaud that very action and cause no matter where I am, so it was all very exciting.
We then began to spread into the surrounding places. We saw an old bobby bound by duty, and nothing but, to the guard post at a gate. Nothing deterred him, even me standing next to him and having Kip take my picture with him. What’s he going to do? If something actually did happen that was a real security breach, could he still move from his post? And then when it turned out to be nothing and he comes back, a thief or someone got through because he didn’t guard the gate. No amount of effort, I don’t think, could cover all the variables, but I still admired the profound sense of duty and implicit trust instilled in this guy, who could almost be his own metaphor for England on the whole. Those were qualities that seemed to permeate the whole country in all different aspects, from pumping BEFORE you pay, to there evidently being no mandatory tip expected from patrons because the owners pay their staff sufficiently, to various other things that will probably be inherent in the story of my trip if I can allow myself to stop sidetracking.
I can now say I’ve been all over England, literally. I’ve traversed the country, north, south, east and west. Along the way, I’ve taken over a thousand pictures, some good, a few awesome, but I still wish I could’ve gotten this trio of Jamaican guys on that very first day. They were leaning by the Thames, rocking all-black suits, complete with G-man hats, even the one with one leg, resting his stub on his crutch. The middle guy had horn-rimmed glasses. Everyone over there’s got class, but of course leave it to the black guys to set the bar high for coolness.
Anyway, somehow, we ended up approaching Trafalgar Square. I think Kip was intending to find it, but I never had any idea what was next. Kip was the man with the plan, and I was tagging along. This made it all the more disorienting when, passing a McDonalds which was one of myriad shops, restaurants, pubs, ad infinitum on this increasingly bustling street approaching Nelson’s Column in the distance, we heard a shocking cacophony of screaming and crashing dishes. It began to be overlapped by some enraged yelling. Kip and I peered into the McDonald’s warily, and shirtless young man was brandishing something I couldn’t quite distinguish, and a flock of young “chav” girls hustled out onto the sidewalk, shepherded by one of them, who was continually screaming profanity at the top of her lungs. Still inside, it seemed two uniformed servicemen were very calmly ordering their food. One of them was standing in front of the hallways that must’ve led to the bathrooms, perhaps because the shirtless aggressor had followed his rage into one of them. Kip and I carried on, I think feeling like we’d gotten a healthy, refreshing shock to sustain our full wakefulness, but it was only the beginning of what is surely the most concentrated chaos I’ve ever beheld in my entire life.
I’ve been to Times Square. No explanation or comparison required, except that at least on this particular night, Times Square had to have looked like Monument Valley in contrast. We gathered from interactions throughout our travels that the term chav apparently refers to a certain variety of hostile and arrogant teens and young people of underclass background, who occupy their time street drinking, abusing drugs and being rowdy and confrontational. That we had to ask this question after facing hoards of them storming the Square this very night, occasionally offset by drag queens and effeminate gay caricatures. Offset, meaning they were the more normal element to me. That’s something I never expected to see, especially the very first day I set foot on other soil. That an unending procession of teenage mosh pits sharing whole bottles of wine and straight whiskey, wrestling, spraying each other, and pantomiming sex acts covered every inch of the National Gallery’s front lawn is a spectacle all its own I never expected to see in my life.
And this doesn’t even count the literal thousands of pigeons, possibly feral, the incessant traffic pushing and weaving angrily through heaps of j-walkers and curbside loiterers, and of course, the fights! One chav was so incensed by a passing car, she managed to punch the window as it passed. The people occupying the car were so incensed by her being incensed, the car screeched immediately to a halt as a passenger emerged and engaged in a dance of swinging fists, not one of them landing, until their respective companions hustled them away from one another. The elderly couple crossing the street in front us: “Bloody chavs.” Mind you, since the sideshow at McDonalds, this has all transpired in a span of ten, fifteen minutes.
And yet, neither Kip nor I felt even remotely scared or alarmed. Somehow, despite our identities as a vulnerable American tourists, neither of us seemed to sense much in the way of fear about our personal safety. These people didn’t seem dangerous or intent on any malice or harm, just wild and reckless and all in the same place. We even ate dinner at a remarkable pub just around the corner. The names of the place and the indigenous beer we drank have completely escaped us both. But the brilliance of the Ploughman’s Board meal has not. It’s the most perfectly, meticulously balanced meal I’ve ever eaten. So healthy, so quaint.
And indeed (one of the many words I have a newfound enthusiasm for since this epic excursion; most of the other ones I should probably refrain from using here), that walk back to the Rubens was a long and eerily solitary one. Once we were clear of that central vicinity of Trafalgar, people became uncannily scarce. Gradually, the more we walked and the less clear we were on where we were and which direction to go, the more it felt as if we owned the city, like it was just ours and we could roam freely. We did, of course, find the Ruben’s and fell into a deep, practically transcendental sleep after a long double-day of nothing but new things, one after another, and never slowing down in between.
Sep 11th, 2011, 03:53 PM
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<< Somehow, despite our identities as a vulnerable American tourists, neither of us seemed to sense much in the way of fear about our personal safety. These people didn’t seem dangerous or intent on any malice or harm, just wild and reckless and all in the same place.>>
Sadly, based on my time in London that's not always the case.
Sadly, based on my time in London that's not always the case.
Sep 12th, 2011, 05:51 PM
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Irish--Joey will probably not be very speedy in getting this done, but he will complete it eventually. We are opposites. I would write a day or two of my version of the trip report quickly and without checking it over, and Joey will take perhaps hours with each day. His will be much better written and more descriptive than mine, but it won't come quickly.
Ozarksbill---I am Ancestralvoices(Kip), Joey's travel companion. I had already submitted my trip report of the same name "Our 25 Day Journey..." and so Joey just added my screen name to his title so that anyone who'd read mine may know that this is the same trip but seen through another journeyman's eyes.
Ozarksbill---I am Ancestralvoices(Kip), Joey's travel companion. I had already submitted my trip report of the same name "Our 25 Day Journey..." and so Joey just added my screen name to his title so that anyone who'd read mine may know that this is the same trip but seen through another journeyman's eyes.
Sep 12th, 2011, 10:56 PM
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" Those were qualities that seemed to permeate the whole country...from pumping BEFORE you pay"
How about just straightforward commercial sense?
If a petrol "buyer" drives off without paying, his car plate's photographed anyway, and the owner of the car is legally required to give details of who was driving at that moment. So, since virtually all customers are going to postpay, they'll come into the shop at their leisure, and spend a fortune on sandwiches etc. In virtually all petrol stations, at least from 0600-2100, the incremental profit from the non-fuel sale far, far, far outweighs the cost of the odd thief filling up a stolen car. Which only the dumbest thieves will do anyway, because their photo's then recorded at the wheel of a stolen car
If the oil company's so mismanaged as to obsess, universally, on drive-offs it'll have fewer thieves. But, because every customer is then prepaying, the company (and its franchisee) will forfeit the income from the profitable side of the business. But for the oilheads with MBAs who run US downstream oil businesses, avoiding the humiliation of being stolen from matters more than making money.
Never attribute to moral superiority behaviour that's explicable by common sense.
How about just straightforward commercial sense?
If a petrol "buyer" drives off without paying, his car plate's photographed anyway, and the owner of the car is legally required to give details of who was driving at that moment. So, since virtually all customers are going to postpay, they'll come into the shop at their leisure, and spend a fortune on sandwiches etc. In virtually all petrol stations, at least from 0600-2100, the incremental profit from the non-fuel sale far, far, far outweighs the cost of the odd thief filling up a stolen car. Which only the dumbest thieves will do anyway, because their photo's then recorded at the wheel of a stolen car
If the oil company's so mismanaged as to obsess, universally, on drive-offs it'll have fewer thieves. But, because every customer is then prepaying, the company (and its franchisee) will forfeit the income from the profitable side of the business. But for the oilheads with MBAs who run US downstream oil businesses, avoiding the humiliation of being stolen from matters more than making money.
Never attribute to moral superiority behaviour that's explicable by common sense.
Sep 13th, 2011, 12:48 PM
#11
Yes, paying before pumping is the norm in most cities here.>>
not here - for the reasons flanner gives. we like to browse the shelves of over-priced groceries that we normally would't give a second glance, and buy some chocolate for the kids to smear over the seats. my personal favourite is to use the flea-ridden loo.
we'd much rather do all this for the pleasure of paying after we've fled up, rather than before.
strange but true.
not here - for the reasons flanner gives. we like to browse the shelves of over-priced groceries that we normally would't give a second glance, and buy some chocolate for the kids to smear over the seats. my personal favourite is to use the flea-ridden loo.
we'd much rather do all this for the pleasure of paying after we've fled up, rather than before.
strange but true.
Sep 13th, 2011, 11:38 PM
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Pumping before paying means you can fill up your tank, hence fewer trips to petrol stations, making sense especially in a rural area.
There is a superb chocolate shop three doors down from my house so I have no need for petrol station offerings. This is a boon or a danger depending on whether I am waxing or waning.
There is a superb chocolate shop three doors down from my house so I have no need for petrol station offerings. This is a boon or a danger depending on whether I am waxing or waning.
Sep 14th, 2011, 08:09 AM
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Day 2 RYE
This was like a trip within a trip. London was like the exposition before the action got going, not to say there wasn’t a surprising amount of action in that one evening in London. But this was going to be a day of driving, meaning Kip was going to be driving on the left for the first time in his life. This dread was at the hub of our anxiety bobbing and weaving through hoards of people at the fascinating Victoria Train Station (so it’s like an outside inside? Or an inside outside?) and onto the train which darted to Gatwick, where we collected a car that I’ve never seen or been inside, called a Vauxhall. We sat in the car, and yes, it’s true, Americans. You feel like you’re supposed to be the one driving when you first get in that passenger seat. But that feeling, frankly, quickly dissipated, luckily for me. The issue was unilaterally Kip’s. Dutifully, he deferred to those to whom he never in his life normally allows himself to defer: Anybody. Simon (our computerized English-accented GPS guide who served as Charlie to our Angels) and I could’ve been world-renowned philosophers and it wouldn’t have mattered to Kip, a man whose pride in his self-sufficiency can be perfectly exemplified by his own stories of previous European experiences, as a collegian, stories for which you should pry him (again, screen name AncestralVoices).
The very first thing we experienced as motorists on English roads was a roundabout. Normally, it would’ve been fascinating to experience the company of an individual whose body and mind were so defiantly divided, were I not as tense as he was. However, after the first five minutes and onto the blur of motion that is the Motorway? Those were the last five minutes I ever spent on English roads truly anxious for my safety, even including the brutal accident upon our arrival, of all times, at The Mermaid Inn in the otherworldly village of Rye. Brutality is indeed the word for an explosion of vomit bursting onto my side of the windshield from the pale, fleshy face of an obese stranger upon arrival in an utterly foreign place, driving on roads not only lethally narrow to my naïve American eyes but cobbled as if by a person equal parts blind and indiscriminate, so crude and bumpy was the ground beneath us and the indelibly grotesque woman before us. A long indentation caused a small, temporary panic for Kip the insurance provider, thanks to that entire welcoming committee of a person, obviously drunk and stubbornly in our path to what turned out to be one of the most amazing places I’ve ever spent the night, though not a single deceased smuggler haunted us. I was a little offended to be frank.
It’s a quaint little building of black and white timber and tile, dark oak and carved stone. Squeaky, rasping floors, clandestine staircases that were uneven (very uneven after having been drinking a bit), and a maze of passageways and rooms for lounging, all surrounded by wood aged by centuries. I didn’t have wi-fi in our beam-ceiling room overlooking Mermaid Street on the second floor through diamond-paned windows, but it was uncanny letting my friends in Cincinnati on Facebook know of my whereabouts from an elaborately carved chair in a 600-year-old lounge. Sorry, forgot it was updated. Make that 500 years. However, the cellar, built in the 1100s, remains untouched by such modern amenities.
Being in a town like Rye feels so insulated, but not in the way that an American small town is insulated. We truly felt as if we had genuinely dropped off the face of the earth and into this perfect, long-ago idyllic world of flowers, foliage and rough-edged rock, where we kept more intimate company with wild birds than with people. Henry James’ crib, Ypres Tower, the Church of St. Mary, all kept just the way they left them. We were reassured of our being in satisfactory enough physical shape when squeezing through the untouched staircases leading to the Church’s belfry, where we were given the ultimate reassurance: That this whole town and landscape was utterly real.
At the center of the town, we came upon a cemetery where an elderly woman sat on a bench. Her name was Eddie, as Kip learned after approaching her politely. Eddie opened up about some droll historical facts about the town, and recommended the local pottery shop. I decided to take a picture of the two of them. She asked if we wanted a picture of the two of us. SWOOSH This lady eighty-plus years of age proved herself quite un-self-consciously spry. She looked at the picture I took of her with Kip and remarked upon how short she is. “I should’ve stood up on my toes,” she said, demonstrating with ease! More on old ladies with unexpected physical capabilities further along in the trip.
It was late in the day, but Kip was eager to squeeze in a drive to Beachy Head to climb the Down towards the lighthouse and wade into the sea. Certainly stark in contrast to our wade through Trafalgar Square. What I remember most vividly about that experience, both on the edge of the ocean and as close to the edge of the cliff as it felt safe enough to go, was the texture of the ground. It always felt like it was moving with me, adjusting to my weight and the consistency of my shoes, and in the case of the pebble beach, my bare feet. Later, I read that the cliff was in the opening scene of The Living Daylights, the James Bond film, where 007 parachutes from a jeep which overshoots the top of the cliff. I guess this kinda-sorta maybe compensates for a later disappointment in the removal of the James Bond Museum from Keswick.
When we returned to the medieval parish of Rye, every pub and restaurant was done serving food. I wonder what would’ve happened if that Indian restaurant were not still open. Would we have simply gone to bed with growling stomachs till morning? Does that happen often to people in England who don’t manage their time well enough in accordance with the schedules of other businesses? The Indian restaurant was the complete reward for a truly awe-inspiring day, nonetheless. What seemed to be a father and his loyal team of sons managing and serving this luscious feast might’ve served us the best Indian meal either of us have ever enjoyed. I can’t be sure because I tend to order the same thing every time I eat Indian, so it all runs together. For me, it might’ve simply been the appetite having aggressively mounted after an exceedingly active day of incessant new experiences, but for Kip it was a dream come true, because it was one of a very small handful of times I’ve ever seen him satisfied with the level of spice in an Indian meal.
The only other party at the otherwise tranquil restaurant was a large group of jolly inebriated folks. I remember them colorfully because it was the first time I’d had the opportunity to sit and listen extensively to the accents and idioms. They actually weren’t Sussex accents either. They sounded, frankly, like the East End Londoners I grew up hearing in all the Guy Ritchie and Ray Winstone films. By now, I was veritably starting to comprehend that I was really here, in the United Kingdom. By the end of the trip, it would be the sound of American voices that would have this effect, as I became so very accustomed to hearing the graceful sound of English tongues.
Other than this jolly bunch, Kip and I were once again the only ones awake in the town. It was uncanny. Two nights in a row, the first two on foreign soil for yours truly, and I had the mysterious privilege of closing down two amazing new places.
This was like a trip within a trip. London was like the exposition before the action got going, not to say there wasn’t a surprising amount of action in that one evening in London. But this was going to be a day of driving, meaning Kip was going to be driving on the left for the first time in his life. This dread was at the hub of our anxiety bobbing and weaving through hoards of people at the fascinating Victoria Train Station (so it’s like an outside inside? Or an inside outside?) and onto the train which darted to Gatwick, where we collected a car that I’ve never seen or been inside, called a Vauxhall. We sat in the car, and yes, it’s true, Americans. You feel like you’re supposed to be the one driving when you first get in that passenger seat. But that feeling, frankly, quickly dissipated, luckily for me. The issue was unilaterally Kip’s. Dutifully, he deferred to those to whom he never in his life normally allows himself to defer: Anybody. Simon (our computerized English-accented GPS guide who served as Charlie to our Angels) and I could’ve been world-renowned philosophers and it wouldn’t have mattered to Kip, a man whose pride in his self-sufficiency can be perfectly exemplified by his own stories of previous European experiences, as a collegian, stories for which you should pry him (again, screen name AncestralVoices).
The very first thing we experienced as motorists on English roads was a roundabout. Normally, it would’ve been fascinating to experience the company of an individual whose body and mind were so defiantly divided, were I not as tense as he was. However, after the first five minutes and onto the blur of motion that is the Motorway? Those were the last five minutes I ever spent on English roads truly anxious for my safety, even including the brutal accident upon our arrival, of all times, at The Mermaid Inn in the otherworldly village of Rye. Brutality is indeed the word for an explosion of vomit bursting onto my side of the windshield from the pale, fleshy face of an obese stranger upon arrival in an utterly foreign place, driving on roads not only lethally narrow to my naïve American eyes but cobbled as if by a person equal parts blind and indiscriminate, so crude and bumpy was the ground beneath us and the indelibly grotesque woman before us. A long indentation caused a small, temporary panic for Kip the insurance provider, thanks to that entire welcoming committee of a person, obviously drunk and stubbornly in our path to what turned out to be one of the most amazing places I’ve ever spent the night, though not a single deceased smuggler haunted us. I was a little offended to be frank.
It’s a quaint little building of black and white timber and tile, dark oak and carved stone. Squeaky, rasping floors, clandestine staircases that were uneven (very uneven after having been drinking a bit), and a maze of passageways and rooms for lounging, all surrounded by wood aged by centuries. I didn’t have wi-fi in our beam-ceiling room overlooking Mermaid Street on the second floor through diamond-paned windows, but it was uncanny letting my friends in Cincinnati on Facebook know of my whereabouts from an elaborately carved chair in a 600-year-old lounge. Sorry, forgot it was updated. Make that 500 years. However, the cellar, built in the 1100s, remains untouched by such modern amenities.
Being in a town like Rye feels so insulated, but not in the way that an American small town is insulated. We truly felt as if we had genuinely dropped off the face of the earth and into this perfect, long-ago idyllic world of flowers, foliage and rough-edged rock, where we kept more intimate company with wild birds than with people. Henry James’ crib, Ypres Tower, the Church of St. Mary, all kept just the way they left them. We were reassured of our being in satisfactory enough physical shape when squeezing through the untouched staircases leading to the Church’s belfry, where we were given the ultimate reassurance: That this whole town and landscape was utterly real.
At the center of the town, we came upon a cemetery where an elderly woman sat on a bench. Her name was Eddie, as Kip learned after approaching her politely. Eddie opened up about some droll historical facts about the town, and recommended the local pottery shop. I decided to take a picture of the two of them. She asked if we wanted a picture of the two of us. SWOOSH This lady eighty-plus years of age proved herself quite un-self-consciously spry. She looked at the picture I took of her with Kip and remarked upon how short she is. “I should’ve stood up on my toes,” she said, demonstrating with ease! More on old ladies with unexpected physical capabilities further along in the trip.
It was late in the day, but Kip was eager to squeeze in a drive to Beachy Head to climb the Down towards the lighthouse and wade into the sea. Certainly stark in contrast to our wade through Trafalgar Square. What I remember most vividly about that experience, both on the edge of the ocean and as close to the edge of the cliff as it felt safe enough to go, was the texture of the ground. It always felt like it was moving with me, adjusting to my weight and the consistency of my shoes, and in the case of the pebble beach, my bare feet. Later, I read that the cliff was in the opening scene of The Living Daylights, the James Bond film, where 007 parachutes from a jeep which overshoots the top of the cliff. I guess this kinda-sorta maybe compensates for a later disappointment in the removal of the James Bond Museum from Keswick.
When we returned to the medieval parish of Rye, every pub and restaurant was done serving food. I wonder what would’ve happened if that Indian restaurant were not still open. Would we have simply gone to bed with growling stomachs till morning? Does that happen often to people in England who don’t manage their time well enough in accordance with the schedules of other businesses? The Indian restaurant was the complete reward for a truly awe-inspiring day, nonetheless. What seemed to be a father and his loyal team of sons managing and serving this luscious feast might’ve served us the best Indian meal either of us have ever enjoyed. I can’t be sure because I tend to order the same thing every time I eat Indian, so it all runs together. For me, it might’ve simply been the appetite having aggressively mounted after an exceedingly active day of incessant new experiences, but for Kip it was a dream come true, because it was one of a very small handful of times I’ve ever seen him satisfied with the level of spice in an Indian meal.
The only other party at the otherwise tranquil restaurant was a large group of jolly inebriated folks. I remember them colorfully because it was the first time I’d had the opportunity to sit and listen extensively to the accents and idioms. They actually weren’t Sussex accents either. They sounded, frankly, like the East End Londoners I grew up hearing in all the Guy Ritchie and Ray Winstone films. By now, I was veritably starting to comprehend that I was really here, in the United Kingdom. By the end of the trip, it would be the sound of American voices that would have this effect, as I became so very accustomed to hearing the graceful sound of English tongues.
Other than this jolly bunch, Kip and I were once again the only ones awake in the town. It was uncanny. Two nights in a row, the first two on foreign soil for yours truly, and I had the mysterious privilege of closing down two amazing new places.
Sep 14th, 2011, 08:39 AM
#14
I wonder what would’ve happened if that Indian restaurant were not still open. Would we have simply gone to bed with growling stomachs till morning? Does that happen often to people in England who don’t manage their time well enough in accordance with the schedules of other businesses? >>
Jo - this happened to us last week, on my birthday!
we were rescued by what turned out to be a very good restaurant that enterprisingly was still serving lunch at 2.15.
What recession?
i love your description of Rye and your experiences there.
keep them coming!
Jo - this happened to us last week, on my birthday!
we were rescued by what turned out to be a very good restaurant that enterprisingly was still serving lunch at 2.15.
What recession?
i love your description of Rye and your experiences there.
keep them coming!
Sep 14th, 2011, 09:34 AM
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tarquin...different people do differently. I now hand the attendant (around here most stations pump for you) a twenty and he pumps. Used to use Discover/Master/American Express credit card but scaling back due to possible fraud. Back in Missouri I routinely filled tank myself. Many years ago I had several gas company cards.
Sep 14th, 2011, 09:40 AM
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>>I wonder what would’ve happened if that Indian restaurant were not still open. Would we have simply gone to bed with growling stomachs till morning? Does that happen often to people in England who don’t manage their time well enough in accordance with the schedules of other businesses? >>
In small towns, yes. Most people don't eat out that much, and often the Indian or Chinese restaurant is the only place that opens late - and is known to, so no-one else bothers.
In small towns, yes. Most people don't eat out that much, and often the Indian or Chinese restaurant is the only place that opens late - and is known to, so no-one else bothers.
Sep 21st, 2011, 08:14 PM
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Day 3 BATH
The day began as we roused to a massive Old English breakfast in The Mermaid Inn’s picturesque dining room. This was the inauguration of one of Kip’s many recurring commentaries. The deep, dark orange of the yolk in England’s eggs are definitely a difference from the pallid, supermarket yellow of our corn-fed Stateside eggs. He was certain that this indicated the freshness of the former, and thus the contented lives of the initial hens. Personally, I was stricken by the glorious taste of the sausage and bacon in the Queen’s country. In the States, I’ve never been particular on either, though I’ve never been too terribly honest about that even with myself. I suppose it’s always merely depended on when and where I had a meal that included them. I was finally disabused when I bit into my first link in the United Kingdom, and the bacon isn’t a piece of charcoal over there like it is in America. Instead, it’s juicy, streaky and flavorful, as was the black pudding, about which I knew nothing of the content until near the end of the entire trip. I have a harder time eating tomatoes and mushrooms than congealed pig blood, I guess. There’s also the pleasant surprise of baked beans. The toast is just toast, as I’m sure it is everywhere else on earth, but the butter had a subtle difference that, like the eggs, sausage and bacon, was not a one-off Mermaid Inn thing but a literally national distinction. Though porridge, here and elsewhere, seemed like a redundancy, like a meal in itself, this mammoth bounty allotted us ample protein for lingering, dynamic days. This particular one I’m not confident in my ability to describe. Subjective, interpretive adjectives are frankly impotent regarding the city of Bath. I’ll just focus on the facts and events as best as I can recall.
Simon shepherded us along our lengthiest car ride, I believe. It’s already inexplicably unreal just approaching the World Heritage site, because the slender, long-drawn-out countryside road along which we had to continually evade sheep offered no signal whatsoever of the textile of theatres, museums and several other artistic and sporting venues we reached at the other end of it.
Bath is so purely and uncompromisingly preserved that I can’t recall any other carparks except the one we chanced upon at the anomalous edge of town, where modern buildings humbly sat. Indeed, the host of the Three Abbey Green hotel came to fetch us by foot. We saw her approaching, a smiling, congenial woman whose body was agile and sexy, clearly owing to the amount of walking that is not only the customary means of transport in the country, but in this particular city, we were about to see that cars have always been more or less outcasts completely. It didn’t seem like we were walking from one part of the city to another closeby; it was as if we were marching through a shifting backdrop as suddenly golden-colored stone stretched towards the sky and honey-hued facades beamed at us with elated welcome. In the hundreds of years these churches, houses, archways and countless public buildings have stood, no matter what cafes or shops they’ve become, the warmth and effervescence in their color remained immaculate. Consistent with the distance we were walking from our Vauxhall, one square after another was car-free, just as I imagine it must’ve been in the 18th century.
Quite a bit older still were the arched windows and passionately detailed carvings of the ruddy-complected Bath Abbey cathedral, the beating heart at the center of Bath, and Three Abbey Green was very nearby, in its own intimate square which could always rely on the faithful 200-year-old tree in the center. We followed Friday up several carpeted flights of stairs, at the top of which always seemed to be book cases or chairs settled alongside the guest rooms. How could something so seemingly residential exist in such a bustling inner-city landscape? It was like Bowman’s synthetic fantasy earth abode at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. We reached the top floor, where Friday introduced us to our view overlooking our own little square, which I admired briefly before relinquishing our luggage and bursting back out the door to saunter through this immersive tangle of squares and shuts, stained glass and stone ladders, monasteries and monuments.
I mentioned when I began this trip report that no matter how grand and new everything was, it still hadn’t truly, physically dawned on me that I was actually here. Well, wandering deeper into the city, we were drawn by an enormous tree with various shaded stumps. Like a pinwheel, it was at the center of a perfect, giant circle. You spin yourself 360 degrees around and you see nothing but mind-bogglingly symmetrical townhouses curved to accommodate the exemplary concrete ring, divided into impeccably proportional segments from which cars would slither from one division and out of sight into another. And no matter which one from which it entered this hypnotic architectural tour de force, called The Circus as I’m sure most readers have already guessed, each of the curved segments faces one of those entrances. So no matter where you come in, you’re directly confronting a classical façade. It’s like a Da Vinci creation. It’s hard not to be throttled from your normal paradigm and into another when you’ve never seen anything like this, and were not expecting to even moments before doing so.
The same is true of the Royal Crescent, to Bath dwellers just a residential road of a couple dozen or so houses, seamlessly connected and laid out in a semi-circle. One may think that it’s only half the majesty of the Circus, as it’s only half the circle. But ironically, the Royal Crescent is the best of both worlds, those two worlds being the public frontage facing the sprawling architectural nuances of the town, and the inner façade which makes separate an evenly hedged delta of green that the enviably contented public used as a park. But not so fast! There is a trench slicing geometrically across the green, and the portion of lawn nearest to the townhouses is off limits. We weren’t certain why, though we analyzed. Kip guessed it was to avoid any interruption of the view from a park further ahead. Whatever the reason, no matter what we saw these outdoors people were doing---children playing tag or something similar, teens passing what was presumably a joint, adults of all ages reading and sharing the air with each other---they all implicitly obeyed the understood embargo of the trench.
At some point during this experiential elation, we stopped and had dinner at Riverside Café, the kind of bohemian coffee place you see in all the grungier or collegiate neighborhoods here, except this one just happened to be literally right on the edge above the River Avon. As I relished a brilliant meal---something I happened to be primevally craving for some reason with clams and chips---and tea, we watched the ongoing turf war between the seagulls and the pigeons. The seagulls had the definite upper hand. Frankly, a seagull ruthlessly drowning a frantic pigeon was the most indelible sight we took in on a marginally eventful Avon cruise, arguably more than being encouraged to look in the general direction of Shakespeare’s birth town.
Upon our return to Bath, the town had exploded to life with street theatre, musicians, crowds of all colors, accents and sexual orientations melting together. We didn’t get to close the town all by ourselves like we strangely happened to do in London and Rye so far, but we were alone and yet part of the mishmash. I called my parents from an outdoor pub watching the lavender twilight paint the out-and-out contrast between the promptness of Bath’s streets, squares and terraces with the rural nature adjacent, surrounding and altogether coexisting. The puzzlement of our drive here was ultimately being clarified. I listened to my mom’s eager voice, my dad’s deadpan puns, and for the first time since setting foot in England, that which was familiar to me now felt shockingly fresh. I was now fully “here.”
The day began as we roused to a massive Old English breakfast in The Mermaid Inn’s picturesque dining room. This was the inauguration of one of Kip’s many recurring commentaries. The deep, dark orange of the yolk in England’s eggs are definitely a difference from the pallid, supermarket yellow of our corn-fed Stateside eggs. He was certain that this indicated the freshness of the former, and thus the contented lives of the initial hens. Personally, I was stricken by the glorious taste of the sausage and bacon in the Queen’s country. In the States, I’ve never been particular on either, though I’ve never been too terribly honest about that even with myself. I suppose it’s always merely depended on when and where I had a meal that included them. I was finally disabused when I bit into my first link in the United Kingdom, and the bacon isn’t a piece of charcoal over there like it is in America. Instead, it’s juicy, streaky and flavorful, as was the black pudding, about which I knew nothing of the content until near the end of the entire trip. I have a harder time eating tomatoes and mushrooms than congealed pig blood, I guess. There’s also the pleasant surprise of baked beans. The toast is just toast, as I’m sure it is everywhere else on earth, but the butter had a subtle difference that, like the eggs, sausage and bacon, was not a one-off Mermaid Inn thing but a literally national distinction. Though porridge, here and elsewhere, seemed like a redundancy, like a meal in itself, this mammoth bounty allotted us ample protein for lingering, dynamic days. This particular one I’m not confident in my ability to describe. Subjective, interpretive adjectives are frankly impotent regarding the city of Bath. I’ll just focus on the facts and events as best as I can recall.
Simon shepherded us along our lengthiest car ride, I believe. It’s already inexplicably unreal just approaching the World Heritage site, because the slender, long-drawn-out countryside road along which we had to continually evade sheep offered no signal whatsoever of the textile of theatres, museums and several other artistic and sporting venues we reached at the other end of it.
Bath is so purely and uncompromisingly preserved that I can’t recall any other carparks except the one we chanced upon at the anomalous edge of town, where modern buildings humbly sat. Indeed, the host of the Three Abbey Green hotel came to fetch us by foot. We saw her approaching, a smiling, congenial woman whose body was agile and sexy, clearly owing to the amount of walking that is not only the customary means of transport in the country, but in this particular city, we were about to see that cars have always been more or less outcasts completely. It didn’t seem like we were walking from one part of the city to another closeby; it was as if we were marching through a shifting backdrop as suddenly golden-colored stone stretched towards the sky and honey-hued facades beamed at us with elated welcome. In the hundreds of years these churches, houses, archways and countless public buildings have stood, no matter what cafes or shops they’ve become, the warmth and effervescence in their color remained immaculate. Consistent with the distance we were walking from our Vauxhall, one square after another was car-free, just as I imagine it must’ve been in the 18th century.
Quite a bit older still were the arched windows and passionately detailed carvings of the ruddy-complected Bath Abbey cathedral, the beating heart at the center of Bath, and Three Abbey Green was very nearby, in its own intimate square which could always rely on the faithful 200-year-old tree in the center. We followed Friday up several carpeted flights of stairs, at the top of which always seemed to be book cases or chairs settled alongside the guest rooms. How could something so seemingly residential exist in such a bustling inner-city landscape? It was like Bowman’s synthetic fantasy earth abode at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. We reached the top floor, where Friday introduced us to our view overlooking our own little square, which I admired briefly before relinquishing our luggage and bursting back out the door to saunter through this immersive tangle of squares and shuts, stained glass and stone ladders, monasteries and monuments.
I mentioned when I began this trip report that no matter how grand and new everything was, it still hadn’t truly, physically dawned on me that I was actually here. Well, wandering deeper into the city, we were drawn by an enormous tree with various shaded stumps. Like a pinwheel, it was at the center of a perfect, giant circle. You spin yourself 360 degrees around and you see nothing but mind-bogglingly symmetrical townhouses curved to accommodate the exemplary concrete ring, divided into impeccably proportional segments from which cars would slither from one division and out of sight into another. And no matter which one from which it entered this hypnotic architectural tour de force, called The Circus as I’m sure most readers have already guessed, each of the curved segments faces one of those entrances. So no matter where you come in, you’re directly confronting a classical façade. It’s like a Da Vinci creation. It’s hard not to be throttled from your normal paradigm and into another when you’ve never seen anything like this, and were not expecting to even moments before doing so.
The same is true of the Royal Crescent, to Bath dwellers just a residential road of a couple dozen or so houses, seamlessly connected and laid out in a semi-circle. One may think that it’s only half the majesty of the Circus, as it’s only half the circle. But ironically, the Royal Crescent is the best of both worlds, those two worlds being the public frontage facing the sprawling architectural nuances of the town, and the inner façade which makes separate an evenly hedged delta of green that the enviably contented public used as a park. But not so fast! There is a trench slicing geometrically across the green, and the portion of lawn nearest to the townhouses is off limits. We weren’t certain why, though we analyzed. Kip guessed it was to avoid any interruption of the view from a park further ahead. Whatever the reason, no matter what we saw these outdoors people were doing---children playing tag or something similar, teens passing what was presumably a joint, adults of all ages reading and sharing the air with each other---they all implicitly obeyed the understood embargo of the trench.
At some point during this experiential elation, we stopped and had dinner at Riverside Café, the kind of bohemian coffee place you see in all the grungier or collegiate neighborhoods here, except this one just happened to be literally right on the edge above the River Avon. As I relished a brilliant meal---something I happened to be primevally craving for some reason with clams and chips---and tea, we watched the ongoing turf war between the seagulls and the pigeons. The seagulls had the definite upper hand. Frankly, a seagull ruthlessly drowning a frantic pigeon was the most indelible sight we took in on a marginally eventful Avon cruise, arguably more than being encouraged to look in the general direction of Shakespeare’s birth town.
Upon our return to Bath, the town had exploded to life with street theatre, musicians, crowds of all colors, accents and sexual orientations melting together. We didn’t get to close the town all by ourselves like we strangely happened to do in London and Rye so far, but we were alone and yet part of the mishmash. I called my parents from an outdoor pub watching the lavender twilight paint the out-and-out contrast between the promptness of Bath’s streets, squares and terraces with the rural nature adjacent, surrounding and altogether coexisting. The puzzlement of our drive here was ultimately being clarified. I listened to my mom’s eager voice, my dad’s deadpan puns, and for the first time since setting foot in England, that which was familiar to me now felt shockingly fresh. I was now fully “here.”
Sep 23rd, 2011, 12:01 PM
#20
The deep, dark orange of the yolk in England’s eggs are definitely a difference from the pallid, supermarket yellow of our corn-fed Stateside eggs. He was certain that this indicated the freshness of the former, and thus the contented lives of the initial hens.>>
I don't want to disillusion you, but the colour of the yolks IS due to the feed, [which is sometimes dyed] not to the freshness of the eggs. free-range hens will generally have deeper coloured yolks due to the grass, worms and other protein the hens consume as well as the chicken feed and/or corn they are given.
that aside, great writing. I'm enjoying reading about your trip through your different perspective very much.
keep it coming!
I don't want to disillusion you, but the colour of the yolks IS due to the feed, [which is sometimes dyed] not to the freshness of the eggs. free-range hens will generally have deeper coloured yolks due to the grass, worms and other protein the hens consume as well as the chicken feed and/or corn they are given.
that aside, great writing. I'm enjoying reading about your trip through your different perspective very much.
keep it coming!
