Return to Cleveland
Friday, December 30, 2005–London – Newark – Cleveland. The alarm went off at 7:15, although I was not ready to get up. After a quick shower and finishing packing, we had breakfast in the Hotel Montana “breakfast salon”–you can’t go too far wrong with rice crispies and white toast and jam. We left the hotel a little after 9:00 for Thameslink, and were at Gatwick a little after 10:00. Check-in and security were surprisingly expeditious (unlike our experiences later in the day in Newark.)
There is a huge passenger waiting lounge in Gatwick–a sort of “holding pen” until the flight is ready to board, so when the sign lights up, you can pretty much be assured of just getting right on the plane. Although our flight to London had been on a wide-body 777, this was a 757, in the 3 + 3 configuration, packed with people, so I knew it would be obnoxious. That was confirmed when the Indian mother behind us with two small boys asked the flight attendant to be re-seated near the bathroom, because the boys get airsick. The flight attendant couldn’t get anyone to trade, so she handed the woman a big stack of airsick bags. The idea of eight hours in the air with puking kids behind me set off my neuroses, and a felt myself getting a bit woozy. I did apparently pass out for a bit, because (although I don’t remember this), the next thing I knew, George was telling me to wake up, asking me if I was okay. Once I came to, I was just fine. But I gave him a scare.
After everyone was more or less loaded, some woman decided that she couldn’t travel on the flight (claustrophobia?), so she got off, which mean that her luggage had to be removed from the plane for security reasons. That slowed the departure by a good forty-five minutes, because they had to re-open the cargo hold and go through the bags.
The flight was long and miserable–crowded, turbulence, you name it. (Don’t know about the kids behind us–I kept my iPod headphones on for most of the flight.) Despite the late departure, we were not too late getting into Newark; however, we then did wait for an hour to collect our luggage so that we could go through U.S. Customs. By the time we did that, and went through TSA security again (Was it really necessary to check out ID and boarding passes three times within 10 yards?), we ran to the gate for our connecting flight, but the door was already closed. The gate agent was completely rude and unhelpful–there were five people from connecting international flights who arrived all at the same time. She wouldn’t even look at us–she just said, “You’ll have to go to Customer Service.” It was only after coaxing that we got her to tell us where it was. When we got there, they were equally rude. Not once from any Continental Airline employee’s lips pass the words, “I’m sorry for your inconvenience.” We got re-booked on the 8:30 PM flight to Cleveland. Not that it mattered too much–we didn’t have to be anywhere when we got home, but it had been a long day, and the fact that it took an hour to get the backs off of the London flight seemed excessive, especially since they dribbled out over a 45 minute period. We had dinner in a quasi-Portuguese restaurant in the Newark airport. (I think it was about as Portuguese as I am.) The eventual flight to Cleveland was unremarkable. Our luggage had made the 6:00 flight, so we just had to pick it up at the Continental baggage office. We caught a cab home, put our stuff down and collapsed in bed.
It’s too bad that the flight home was inconvenient, but we’d had a fantastic, memorable Christmas trips. It will be one of the highlights of the rest of my life. I’m glad we were able to do it.
Last full day–a social whirl
Thursday, December 29, 2005–London. This was our last full day in London, and turned out to be a very full day socially–seeing all of the people that we hadn’t yet seen during the trip. After breakfast, we took the Tube to Paddington Station and caught the train to Oxford. We were met by George’s friend (from a previous holiday vacation in France in 2000) Michael, who has with his partner Douglas, a home in the Cotswolds. He drove us around Oxford a little bit (since neither George nor I had been there before), and then we headed to their house in Ascot-under-Wychwood, in the Oxfordshire countryside. We passed through Woodstock and past Blenheim Palace (where, among other things, Winston Churchill was born) on the way. It is countryside such as one sees in the movies, and in many respects reminded me of the farm territory where I grew up in Iowa (minus the British hedgerows).
Douglas and Michael, who are documentary TV producers and writers, were gracious hosts (It was the first time I’d met either of them), and prepared a lovely lunch–roast beef, mash, braised cabbage, still-crisp carrots and green beans. Certainly a bit more lavish than George and I would have had if on our own, but beautifully prepared and presented and very tasty.
After lunch Douglas and Michael drove us to a nearby town, Burford, where we explored the local church and its churchyard cemetary. We also drove a bit more out in the countryside–beautiful. They dropped us back at the Oxford train station and we headed back to London at 5:00.
We had a 6:30 drinks date with our friends Paul and Daniel (to meet at the Covent Garden Tube stop). We were a bit late, but Paul was waiting for us, and Daniel was holding a table down for us until we arrived. It was good to see them, even briefly. Of all of the U.K. “connections” they are the ones I know the best, and I always enjoy spending time with them. (They had been out of town and incommunicado during the holidays, so we thought we might not see them on this trip, so I’m glad it worked out.)
We did have to rush off to a dinner engagement at 8:30 with two more friends, Michael (also one of the Christmas Day King’s guests) and his partner Sam, friends of Derek and Rory’s whom George had met at a party in Washington last year. They chose the restaurant–a very extraordinary place called Archipelago, which specializes in game and other more bizarre world dishes. (There was indeed a chocolate covered scorpion on the dessert menu.) Michael is a lawyer and Sam (a very handsome Indian man) is a singer (former choral scholar at St. John’s College, Cambridge) as well as a fundraiser. I had a chance to pick his brain about the music scene in London, and hear a little gossip about it as well. Quite entertaining for me. I’m not sure that George and Michael found it to be so. After such a large lunch, and not much activity, I confess that I wasn’t up to a large dinner, but I did my best. I had a kind of Ethiopian “sloppy joe” dish–very spicy ground lamb served with flatbread. It was delicious, but rich. We passed up the chocolate covered scorpions. We stayed until after the restaurant closed–finally leaving about 10:30–then walked back to the hotel, where I still had to pack up all my stuff so that we could take off first thing in the morning. It was 12:45 by the time I turned out the light.
A trip to Kew Gardens
Wednesday, December 28, 2005–London. The morning was leisurely. To our distress, we discovered that the Patisserie deux amis was closed for the whole we, so we had to settle for a decidedly lower-market coffee shop up the street.
We took the Tube to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, especially so that I could see the large exhibition of glass sculptures by the American artist Dale Chihuly interspersed with the plantings in the glass houses of Kew (particularly the Palm Court, the Temperate Building, and the Princess of Wales Conservatory). George had seen the show when he was in London in October, but he knew that I would like it. We took the “old lady tram ride” around the whole Kew Gardens facility, so that I could get a glimpse of the whole thing, but in late December, in the cold, there was not a whole lot to see outside of the buildings.
Chihuly’s work is amazing (although I’m told that the Brits find it contrived and don’t like it on the whole). It is as if alien brightly colored creatures are growing next to the plants. I think it is really quite organic and well-conceived.
By mid-afternoon we were cold, and ready to catch the Tube back to the city. We got off at Oxford Street and made our way among the immense crowds out shopping the sales. We made a stop at the John Lewis Stores (one of the large department stores on Oxford St.) It was really too crowded to be fun, but interesting to see the place in full array. We headed back to the hotel, changed clothes and went to dinner at a restaurant called Bank in Aldwych. Apparently a few years ago it was very trendy–the place to be seen. It’s now gotten past that, but is still an attractive place, with good service and excellent food–some of it re-inventions of traditional English cooking. I had Cumberland sausages and mash for my main course. For dessert it was a “sticky toffee pudding with caramel sauce.” I could have eaten three helpings. The restaurant was not too busy, which was a blessing, because even though we had a corner table, I think that the place would have been extremely loud and annoying had it been clear full.
It was quite cold outside after we walked back to the hotel, and the room was chilly, so it was a good excuse to go to bed.
Back to London
Tuesday, December 27, 2005–Cambridge to London. On Monday night, Tessa had told us that six inches of snow were expected overnight. When we got up on Tuesday morning, we had not had six inches, but there was a light dusting on Jesus Green and it was snowing steadily. Such beauty to look out the door and see it coming down, knowing that I did not have to drive in any of it. (Europeans don’t know how lucky they are to have workable train systems.)
After breakfast I went out to do a few errands. On Christmas Eve I had bought a U.K. SIM chip for my T-Mobile phone, so that I could more economically make local phone calls, pay-as-you-go. Well, somehow in the process I had ended up losing my USA T-Mobile SIM, which would mean that I would have to get a new one for my phone when I got home. I thought it was worth going back to the T-Mobile store to see if it had turned up there. I am sometimes an extremely lucky person, because the SIM had fallen out onto the floor of the shop and was still there three days later. As it turned out, I ended up going to a stand in the farmer’s market and getting my mobile unlocked and I bought an O2 mobile SIM, which is what George has. They have a plan that allows for cheap international calls. I also needed to exchange some underwear I’d bought at Marks & Spencer. After my weight loss in the last year, I definitely do NOT need extra-large. The exchange was painless.
At noon George and I went to the Fitzwilliam Museum to see a fabulous special exhibition of illuminated manuscripts. I think that every library in the city had been emptied of their treasures to put on display. One book went back to the 7th century. The highlight of the show was the Macclesfield Psalter, which had come onto the market a few years ago and been bought by the Getty Museum; however, the British authorities halted the purchase and invoked a law that allowed a British consortium to match the price to keep the volume in the U.K. It is a book native to East Anglia, so there is good reason for it to be in Cambridge. It is in the process of restoration, and has been disbound, so a large number of the leaves had been mounted a framed. It was therefore possible to see much more of the volume than had it been bound and just open to a couple of facing pages. It is a remarkable volume.
We came back to the flat for a bite of lunch, then got packed up to take the train back to London. Tessa gave us a ride in her car to the train station, and we got there just in time for a 6:00 train. We were at King’s Cross shortly after 7:00. We put our things down in our room at the Montana, then walked to Covent Garden for dinner at a French bistro on Wellington Street (across from Penhaligon’s) that we had tried last week, but it had been packed. Not busy at all this night. Among other things, I had some real, quality French onion soup–not the nasty stuff you get in most restaurants in the States. We were able to walk back to the hotel. (“What did you do on your trip, Tim?” “Spent the whole time walking back and forth to Argyle Square.”)
Moving on to Cambridge
Thursday, December 22, 2005 — London – Cambridge. I hadn’t slept well, so it was a struggle to get out of bed, but we needed to get packed up and checked out of the hotel, so that we could go on to Cambridge. We left our luggage in the hotel’s closet and went out for a walk. Upon seeing a sign directing us toward it, on a whim we went to the Charles Dickens House Museum in Bloomsbury. It was a house that Dickens had lived fairly early in his writing career. Not a great museum, but the sitting room was decorated for Christmas in Victorian style, so it was mildly entertaining.
We retrieved our luggage at the Montana and walked the block to King’s Cross station. We caught the 2:15 fast train (i.e., non-stop) to Cambridge and were there by 3:30. We picked up a taxi to Park Parade to our friend Derek’s flat, lent to us for the next few days. It is a charming place in a wonderful and convenient location overlooking Jesus Green.
I wanted to visit my favorite music store, Brian Jordan Music, and I was afraid they might be closed, so we walked over there late in the afternoon. George left me to browse while he made a trip to Sainsbury’s (supermarket) for food supplies for the next few days.
Dinner was considerably less glamorous than in London–a trip to Pizza Express (although several steps above the usual pizza restaurant in the U.S.) I spent the rest of the evening on my Christmas card writing project.
The weather is cloudy, relatively mild temperatures, but with a damp, chilly breeze. Glad I have a warm woolen coat and a scarf. (Earlier in the week I had insisted on a trip to Marks and Spencer in London so that I could buy a stocking cap to keep my head warm.)
Off to England (Cleveland – Newark – London)
Monday and Tuesday, December 18 & 19, 2005 — This turned into one very long day that blended into itself. I still had my packing to do, but had already planned in my mind what I was going to take, so I managed to get it done in the morning. George had already mostly completed his preparations. We decided to leave my car in the University Circle garage near the Kelvin Smith Library, so that George could put his Volvo in our garage at home. I called my colleague at the library, Nathan Lambert, and asked him to take us to the Rapid Transit stop, but when it came time to do so, he just took us out directly to the airport.
As usual these days, our flight was put on a ground hold because of air traffic in Newark. We were scheduled for departure at 3:30, but didn’t actually leave until 4:15. The schedules are padded so much these days, that we basically still got to Newark “on time.” (Whatever that is.) We had about an hour and a half layover before the flight (Continental) to London Gatwick.
We had checked in online earlier in the morning and managed to score bulkhead seats, so there was a bit more legroom than usual in economy. It was a Boeing 777, so was a wide body. We did have a single mom with an infant next to us, but the child was relatively well-behaved. The flight was about 5 1/2 hours. I never really sleep on planes, but I think I did doze a bit. We got in to Gatwick about 7:00. Baggage claim, immigration and customs were all expeditious, and we caught a Thameslink train to King’s Cross. By shortly after 9:00 AM we were at the Hotel Montana in Argyle Square, just south of King’s Cross Station, where George was greeted by name and handed the key to his favorite room (No. 7).
After putting our things down, we made our way around the corner (sort of) to our favorite pastry/coffee shop, the Patisserie deux amis, where they have excellent bread, croissants, coffee and hot chocolate.
We spent the day walking around the city: through Bloomsbury to Oxford Street (a stop at the Virgin Megastore), down Bond Street to Trafalgar Square, and lunch at the Crypt at St.-Martin-in-the-Field. It was soup (celery and watercress), a piece of bread, and apple crumble with custard sauce ladled over the top. The soup was a bit bland, but the lunch is still a bargain by London standards. I was also able to buy Christmas cards at the charity “card aid” stand at the church. Since I had done nothing whatsoever about Christmas cards before we left, this was my practical task for the trip.
After lunch we started walking back towards the hotel, with a detour through Foyle’s Bookshop. We came back to the hotel, relaxed a bit, showered and changed clothes and went for dinner.
George had made reservations through a restaurant booking site toptable for dinner at Marcus Wareing at the Savoy Grill. The food and service were brilliant. We both started with a terrine of foie gras and vall vegetables. For my main course I had sea bass over a bed of braised spinach, surrounded by sliced small waxy potatoes with tiny bits of pancetta crumbled on top. The sauce was creamy, mildly flavored with horseradish. I had a chocolate dessert. The restaurant is very elegant, somewhat retro in design, with warm wood paneling, banquettes around the edge and tables in the center of the room. The service was superb. It was well worth the (considerable) cost.
After dinner satisfaction, we walked along the Strand to Somerset House, where there was an ice skating rink set up for the season. There was music, Christmas decor and general merriment.
The caffeine at dinner had overcome the fact that I was dead tired, so we walked all the way back to the hotel. I read for a bit before I turned out the light. I was sound asleep almost instantly.
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