Wednesday, July 29-On Time

Whoa. I was tired. Tried to sleep in this morning, but that is Sally's
talent, not mine. London time I got to bed at 5am and woke up at 11.
Local that was midnight and 6am. Laid around the hotel this morning
enjoying the cellular connection I had been without for 5 weeks.
Cruised the web, checked stock prospects, texted. Used the workout
room to lift weights and use the stair master, then showered,
breakfast and back to the room at 10AM. I picked up a good book in
London so we read for a while, took a nap and then caught the airport
shuttle to Newark airport about noon. Our flight is not until 5:30pm,
so it is a lazy day at the airport reading. It actually feels good
after the Europe trip. We were on the move everyday and really had no
time (gave ourselves no time) to sit around. So it felt good to sit
and read. About two the skies opened up and torrential rains
accompanied by intense lightning and thunder signaled impending flight
delays. Sure enough, by 4:20 we were bumped to 7:30. Then 8:30. 9:30.
10:00. Four intense thunder storms have pounded the field since 2,
each causing further delays, not because planes can't take off, but
planes can't land so there are no planes left to carry us away. So,
here we sit. We have been in the airport for 9 hours so far. How many
to go? Two at best, with no upper end in sight. For some perverse
reason I am enjoying it. I don't have anything really pressing, my
book is great, I have the Internet, texting and email to occupy me and
most importantly extreme temperature records are being set back home,
102 in Seattle, 106 in Toledo and high humidity. This air conditioned
airport with padded chairs and comfy carpet are just fine with us.

Chuck

Tuesday, July 28 - Close Out

It is hard to ignore an approaching change. For the last three days
Sally and I have been saying we have all day Tuesday to continue our
exploration of London. But now that the day is here it isn't free. The
trip has changed tenor. We don't have an open ended agenda. We don't
have unreserved days in front of us. The end of the day sees us
winging home and because of that all has changed. We must be
responsible again. We must meet someone else's time table. However
small, freedom has been deminished.
We started the day on a lazier note. It took us till 10 to get out of
the hotel. We could have left our packs at the hotel for a two pound
per bag fee, but that meant we would have to walk the three blocks
back to the hotel to retrieve our bags before riding the tube to the
airport. Instead, we opted to lock them in lockers at the train
station, as we did in Munich. When we arrived at the train station we
found the lockers were considered a terroist threat and in their place
a bag check stood. You turn over your bag like you would check your
coat at a hotel, take a ticket and reclaim it when you are done. One
difference. They X-Ray your bag before they place it on the racks to
make sure no bombs exist. Price? 8 pounds per bag. Rather than lug
them back to the hotel to get the cheaper price, we checked our bags.
Rode the tube to Notting Hill stop and walked to check out a street
side market called Portobello. It was a nice walk, and the shops were
interesting.
We walked back, took the tube to Hyde Park, walked through it and
caught the bus on the opposite side to Trafalgar Square with the
intention of walking to the Eye of London for a ride, a 400+ foot high
Ferris Wheel like viewing machine. We hoofed it to the base, looked at
the hour and a half line and decided it could wait for our next visit
and an early morning crowd beating start.
So, we found a place for lunch on Whitehall Street with a cute,
energetic, young Italian waitress (yes, she caught my eye). We
decided that anything else we pursued would be non productive, so we
returned to retrieve our packs and headed for the airport.
A little tenative after our last experience at the Virgin Atlantic
Airline desk, this time our reservation was confirmed and we were
issued boarding passes. The only hitch; Orbitz still had us booked on
tomorrow's flight as well as today's. To the end they could not get it
right.
I am writing this somewhere over the Atlantic. I have watched one
movie, started another, and have slept about half an hour. It is
12:50AM according to my body and London, but we will land in Newark at
11:00PM Newark time. I hope to get some sleep then.
It has been fun to record this trip each day. It afforded me a chance
to review each day and relive the main events. I hope those of you
that have plowed through all the episodes have not suffered any blunt
trama injuries from suddenly falling asleep at your monitors. No
cracked keyboards. No shattered mice.
One more day to go. Should be a lazy day waiting for a flight then six
hours across the country.

Chuck

Monday, July 27-Showtime

Ssssshhhh! The show is about to start. I am sitting in row Y, seat 6
reporting live from the show "Wicked" in downtown London. We are just
a few minutes from curtain draw. You can feel the anticipation of the
crowd as they find their seats. Speaking of the curtain, there is a
map of Oz on the curtain with the Emerald City in the middle and
important places like Munchkindland and such scattered around. A huge
dragon hovers at the top of the stage over the orchestra pit.
Sally and I returned to the half price ticket place about noon today
and found 2 tickets that someone returned. I don"t really believe the
"just returned" story, but the price was within our limit, so we got
them.
What else did we do today? Sally did not sleep well last night, so
she slept in this morning. I fought the morning rush hour traffic on
the tube to go to the Globe theatre for a tour while she slept. The
Virginia Street Station was blocked off when I arrived at quarter past
8, and like a pile up on a freeway, men and women in business attire
with concerned looks to their time pieces were piling up against the
barrier. There was no explanation on the reader boards, just a transit
worker at the top of the stairs blocking access. I tried another entry
around on the other side of the block, but it too was blocked. I
decided to catch a bus and was waiting for the correct number to
arrive when I noticed people were entering the tube station again, so
I headed down.
The pile up of people that had accumulated over the past half hour was
now making it's way to the platforms. It was sardines in a can. I
stood back as the first train came, figuring their appointments were
more important than mine. Through the windows it was apparent the
train was packed full as it came to a stop. Only a few got off and the
hoards on the platform began filling every nook and cranny on the
train. The last woman squeezing on had to stand pigeon toed to get her
toes out of the way of the door and was leaning in against the crowd
to avoid the door clobbering her as it shut. I wish I had the presence
of mind to video the whole scene, it was amazing.
The next train pulled in with more room and we all crowded in for the
ride.
The Globe Theatre is a perfect recreation of the original from
Shakespeare's time, complete with thatched roof (although there is a
sprinkler head every five feet along the peak of the roof incase of
fire).
I paid 10£ to tour the theatre, yet to watch a play as a groundling
standing in front of the stage would only have cost 5£. But, every
play was sold out, so a tour would have to suffice. I found the place
enchanting and if I ever return to London, getting tickets in advance
for a play there would be a top priority.
Sally was up when I returned at 11:30, so we headed out to the half
priced ticket kiosks and purchased the aforementioned Wicked tickets.
Mussels and fries at a Rick recommended restaurant lived up to
expectation and we were off to the British Museum. Wow! Talk about
looting the world of it's treasures! Mummies, whole friezes from the
Parthanon, Greek Urns and a million more pieces of ancient priceless
artifacts in a Louvre sized complex. It was impressive to say the
least. We rented the overview audio guide so we could sample
everything and not get overwhelmed trying to see everything, which
would be a multiple lifetimes task.
By 5:30, closing time, our brains were full and our eyes buggy. We
walked and tubed back to our room by 6:30, showered and dressed and
were out the door by 6:50 on our way to Wicked which was a 10 minute
walk away.
The story was fun, the stage props and costuming amazing, the theatre
great and the two leading ladies excellent. Now, I am no play critic
and I can count the stage productions I have seen on one hand, but at
times I felt the quality was equal to a Toledo High production. In
comparison, this speaks highly of Toledo's various directors and
actors over the years, because Tracy McFarlane and crew's portrail of
"The Butler Did It" and Marshall Hughes and Tessa Buswell's
performance in "Christmas Night" were just as compelling or fun. I
guess I expected more from a London production of a major play.
Still, we had a great time and enjoyed ourselves.
On the walk back food was on my mind. We stopped at a grocery for
bagels, cheese, custard and milk. Half a block from our hotel the Fish
and Chips hole in the wall shop we had been walking by for days was
still open. This seemed a sign to us, so we stopped in and got an
order to go. While waiting for the fish to come out of the grease we
got talking to a kid in his twenties with such a thick regional accent
from somewhere in London that we could only make out half of what he
was saying. We just shook our heads yes and laughed when he did and we
had a great . . . conversation?
The proprietor was from Croatia and his helper was from Iraq. We
discussed politics and life in England before we took our Fish and
Chips, now wrapped in paper and slowly staining from the grease and
headed for the hotel.
Our late night snack, our first TV watching in five weeks, a show
about the history of air travel in Brittain and zonk-our last full day
abroad was over.

Chuck

Sunday, July 26-The Clocks

Where in the hell are we? Does anybody know? My GPS says I am in
London. My map says I am in London. The TV says I am in London. The
Internet says I am in London. But, what if there were no GPS, map, TV,
or Internet? What if I were floating in a boat on the middle of the
sea 300 years ago. Now the question becomes impossible to answer.
Latitude, how far north or south of the equator? No problem. The
sextant can accurately tell us that, day or night providing the sky is
clear. Longitude, how far around the globe we are from a set
position? Not a clue. An accurate clock is needed to tell us that,
and 300 years ago none existed that could keep accurate time on a
rocking ship. That was, until John Harrison entered the scene. He
created masterful clocks, masterpieces of mechanics and art that kept
time perfectly while lookin' good. He built his first, the H1 in the
1720s and it is still running today.
Why the history lesson? You guessed it. Today we went to Greenwich to
see the H1, H2, H3 and H4, the clocks Harrison built. The first 3 are
still running, nearly 300 years now. He created a frictionless
escapement he called the grasshopper that reduced friction to the
point no oil was needed, therefore no wearing and no wearing out. So,
I stood outside the glass enclosure watching this magnificent brass
machine keeping accurate time 300 years after his maker first put it
in action. Looking at the clock was like looking into Harrison's mind.
You could see how he thought the problem through, how he solved it and
how he tried to improve with each new clock. You coulld even see tiny
holes he drilled, and then decided he didn't need. Very, very cool.
We had taken the boat down the Thames to Greenwich, the cockney
accented tour guide pointing out all the locations of interest along
the banks. The tide was out, so lots of beach was visible all down
this famous watercourse. We rode the boat on the way back as well, and
got off at Westminister, intent on visiting Churchill's WWII bunker,
but the $20 a piece admission price was too steep for the cursory walk
through we had planned. Instead, we headed for the bus and rode to
Leichester square to scope out discount play ticket vendors more
thouroughly, took a walk to Picadilly Circus, then tubed back to
Westminister to catch the organ concert at 5. Got there 15 minutes
early only to discover it was at 5:45, so we took a walk, returned,
waited in line and entered this grand, historic church. We were
interested in hearing this organ after listening to St. Paul's. We
also had an alterior motive, to see the abbey without having to pay
the $22 each admission fee. The concert was free. I was a little
disappointed I was not going to see Newton's tomb, but the price was a
lttle steep. So in we went and what should be sitting right in front
of me as I sat down? Newton's Tomb. I had thought it was in the
basement but there it was right in the middle of the abbey.
The recital was great. Midevil church with 1950ish Kavaleski on
steroids echoing nonharmonic dischords throughout the grand structure.
As we were walking into the church a somewhat elderly male usher
angrily told Sally that this was not a tour and to put her guide book
away. She had been looking for a place for dinner while standing in
line. After the recital he was shooing everyone out of the church
using the word please a lot, but neither his tone nor the words
wrapped around the please showed he meant it.
We took the tube to a restaurant recommended by our guide, Rick
Steve's and it was excellent. Meat pies, fries and vegetables and free
WiFi to boot.
While we dined the rain settled in for the night, so we donned our
ever present raincoats and walked the half mile to our hotel.
Am I getting old? By the end of the day I am whooped! That overall
body ache tires to the bone tired. Or is it the long days? 6:30 to 11
most days. It is not the clean, fresh air! Europeans have not
discovered that smoking is the cause of their high lung cancer rates,
yet. The air is awash with the smell that is now mostly gone from the
US. You would think with socialized medicine they would make an effort
to lower the costs by initiating an anti smoking campaign and reduce
the number of cancer cases, but I have seen no evidence of such. So,
the stink continues.

Chuck

Saturday, July 25-Murder and Mayhem

Showered and down to the basement for breakfast. The proprietor of
this Hotel is as kind and conciencious as a person could be as she
sees to our meal.
Out to the tube and off to the Tower of London. It is a beautiful
sunny day and the lines are only one person deep. We walk right into
the tower and wait on the bridge over the moat for our Beefeater to
begin his tour.
Dressed in their signature black and red uniforms, these guys provide
a very funny and entertaining review of the history of events in the
tower. Generally, they focus on beheadings, murders and aristocratic
misdeeds, painting a sorry picture of midevil England.
We wandered through the tower after the tour, checking out the crown
jewels, bloody tower and Henry VIII exhibit, then exited and tubed our
way to St. Paul's Cathedral, arriving about one. We used the audio
tour to familiarize ourselves with the history and architecture, then
popped out to the cafe across the street for a shared lunch of Lasagna
and salad.
We walked across the river for a look at the Globe Theatre and a quick
walk through of the Modern Tate Art Museum, then back to St. Paul's
for evensong, a 45 minutes church service with two short sermons and
lots of choral and organ music. We wanyed to hear the organ play in
this massive arena of marble and stone We walked to the front of the
church to get a good seat where we could enjoy the music and before I
knew it Sally had taken a Hymn book and we were walking up into the
nave and alter area heading for the choir seats. We were not going to
watch the Evensong prayer session, we were now a part of it. The padre
(got that from Clint Eastwood in Grand Torino) came in leading the
choir. For 45 minutes the church echoed in glorious song and pipe
organ and we were completely enveloped in it. We had a cheat sheet
telling us when to stand and when to sit, and we even sang along (I
mumbled along) with the organ and choir at the end. Why watch when you
can participate? We walked out of the nave back into the rest of the
church and resumed out normal, humble lives.
We caught the tube to the Leichester area. This is where they sell
half price tickets to the shows on the day of the show. There were
about 10-15 store fronts set up claiming to sell half price tickets in
bold glowing signs, so we picked the one with no line. It was now 7
o'clock with shows starting at 7:30. We had been discussing all day
what to see from the 20 or more shows to chose from. Our top choice
was Wicked, but our ticket vendor consulted his computer and told us
it was sold out (it is Saturday night). Sister Act, the new adaption
of the Whopi Goldberg movie was getting rave reviews and two seats
were available, so for 39.50£ each we bought the tickets. Now, with 25
minutes to showtime we were about a mile from the theatre. The Tube to
the rescue! Take the Northern Line one stop to Tottenham Court Road,
then the Central Line one stop to Oxford Circle and tada! In the door
with 10 minutes to spare.
The show? Fantastic. High energy and very fun.
Out at 10:30, two Tube lines, a short walk and a stop for a chocolate
bar and we were back at the hotel.

Chuck

Friday, July 24-London Bound

The alarm pokes us alive at 6:30 to catch an 8:30 train from Sterling
to Edinburgh. Caroline is up with tea ready. A quick bowl of cheerios
and we say cheerio to Laurel Cottage, throw our packs in Caroline's
Volvo and make the 25 minute drive to the train station.
We are early enough to catch the 8:05, so we climb aboard. Sally
sleeps the hour long ride. I am freed from the steering wheel for the
first time in a week and go to work on catching up on blogs.
We arrive in Edinburgh almost two hours before our train to London
leaves so we seek out a coffee shop in which to plan our London
adventures. Over a bagette and a Pepsi we contemplate our 4 1/2 days.
I wander down the street with iPhone in hand like a man on a beach
with a metal detector looking for an open WiFi which I find about 5
shoppes down. Standing like a street prostitute with my back against
the wall I pull up maps and facts about London, then report my
findings back to Sally in the coffee shop pouring over guide books and
making notes.
Did I mention it is cold? It is the 24th of July and we are sitting
on the platform with long pants, fleece coats and hats and freezing
our butts off. The wind is cold. Thankfully, our train arrives on time
and we are whisked away.
This is the first time we have had reserved seats since our inaugural
train ride from Paris to Laussagne so we have to walk the length of
the train to our assigned seats, banging our stuffed backpacks against
the seated travelers as we navigate the narrow aisle. Once there I
return to blogging while Sally researches and sleeps. It is the first
time I have Internet service on a train, so I take full advantage
researching tidbits of info. It would be nice to skype some calls, but
everyone back home is asleep with the eight hour time difference.
We pull into London's King's Crossing Station at 3:45 as advertised
and make our way to the tube, Victoria Line for a short ride to
Victoria Station. We purchase "Oyster" cards (I don't know where they
got that name) which are underground multiple trip passes that allow
you to just swip your card as you enter and leave the tube. Very
efficient, and handy.
We find our hotel, the Morgan, and are quickly shown to our ground
floor room. A quick shower, and we are hoofing it to Westminister
Abbey, Parliment, Number 10 West Downing Street and Trafalgar Square.
The early evening sun is shinning brilliantly as we approach Big Ben
from the west, affording magnificent photos. It is amzing hpw many
people there are! So this is where they have all been hiding. Our
travels have been remarkably uncrowded, until now.
A dinner of fish and chips (when in London, do as the Londoners do?)
along the way and a tube ride from Charring Cross back to the hotel
and day one of London comes to a close about 11PM.

Chuck

Thursday, July 24-Closing Off Scotland

All good things must end. I suppose this is true, although my personal
opinion is one good thing just blends into the next one. With this
thought in mind it is our last day in Scotland.
We enjoyed our breakfast of cereal and pancakes with bacon and eggs
courtesy of Lorna, then boarded our mighty fuel efficient vehicles for
a tour of Fyvie Castle, about 10 minutes from Geoff and Lorna's,
another one held in the national trust. Four families have occupied
this place since the 1400's, obviously many generations of each
family. In each room of the castle is an expert to explain the history
of the room and it's furnishings. Rich, fabulous, as we have come to
see. At one point we noticed a fourth of a rounded turret with a
radius of about 10 ft nestled in an open book corner between two wings
of the castle spanning the second and third floors. Inside it was a
bathroom obviously outfitted in the last 50 years. We tried to decide
what you would call such an architechural feature as the name turret
implied an outside corner rather than an inside corner such as this
one. The bathroom inside inspired such suggestions as a turd-it or an
addition with relief.
With the end of the tour came the ever present gift shop in which
Lorna bought Sally a Scottish version of the ABCs. We coudna a read
it, so we recorded Geoff reading and interpreting the text to all our
delights.
Our time with the Reid family had come to an end. Sadly, but with
great memories to treasure we said goodbye and headed down the road.
We puttered along these narrow, twisting roads and soon stopped at
Balmarrow Castle in the Dee side, the summer home of the Queen in the
highlands. 7£ each let us on the grounds to see how the currently rich
and connected live, for 6 weeks each summer. A quick tour of the
ballroom, then out to the grounds and the gardens, a historical video
and we were back on the road through Cairngoran National Park on our
way to Caroline's for the night. We got stuck behind a very irratic
driver, obviously not used to the narrow roads nor left side driving.
We suffered behind him for 20 minutes before a straight section let us
pass. Umeventfully, we traversed the last 30 miles and arrived at
Catoline's doorstep at about 7:30, nearly 2 hours later than we
thought we would be. Dave works offshore and had to leave for work on
Thursday. She had been waiting dinner, so I don't think we earned any
points with Magnus and Mae. A great dinner, clean out the car, a
beautiful walk through the local woods with Harvey, their Greyhound
and the evening and day were spent. We set our alarms for 6:30 to
catch a train from Stirling (hey Braveheart fans, this is where the
battle of Bannochburn was fought and won against the English) to
Edinburgh, then on to London.
Because we were out traveling, driving the countryside it felt like we
did not see Caroline and Dave much, although looking back we spent
three nights with them and toured Edinburgh together. Next time some
cycling and hiking to the top of nearby a "ben" are in order.

Chuck