We’re back. I think I have enough stuff to write about for the next month or so. Maybe I should just travel permanently and write about it. Elizabeth might like that—she seemed to enjoy having her say. Next week we’ll get down to the basics of what we did and what we learned but today I want to tell you about our Easter.
When we signed up for this trip we never realized it would place us in Italy for Easter. When I figured this out I sent out a request to my brain trust for their ideas of the best place to celebrate the Resurrection. I got replies suggesting about 8 or 10 places with a couple of duplications. Assisi was a popular suggestion. But I don’t think anyone knew the best Easter celebration would be a five-minute walk from our hotel in Florence.
I started asking around Florence about a good place in town for Easter services. The answer came back enthusiastic and unanimous: We must see the Scoppio del Carro. Translated, this means “Explosion of the Cart”.
Huh? They blow up things for Easter around here? Wouldn’t a simple Hallelujah be enough? Or maybe some chocolate bunnies?
Florence Italy is pure Renaissance. It’s a very old town. The tradition of Scoppio del Carro goes back to around the year 1,000. Wrap that one around your brain for a minute. A thousand year old tradition. Consequently, it’s hard to know exactly what happened and when. The story goes that it started during the First Crusade when a guy from Florence went to Jerusalem and was the first man to climb the city walls. In exchange for his bravery (They don’t say why this was a brave thing to do; maybe it was a high wall or maybe somebody was shooting arrows at him) they gave him pieces of stone from the site where Jesus is believed to have been buried.
So far so good. Burial and Easter. OK. When the guy got back to Florence he started using the stones to start a ‘holy fire’ that would be carried throughout the city as a religious symbol for all of Florence, Italy.
Then the story gets complicated, the way all traditions do after people start gussying it up. Around 1300 they started building an ornately decorated cart (carro) to transport the flame. The procession starts at a another church where the original stones from Jerusalem are housed. The procession ends in Florence at the Piazza del Duomo. There at the plaza the cart waits for a dove to fly out of the cathedral and ignite the fireworks inside the cart. According to the tradition if the cart explodes without a hitch, peace and prosperity would reign over Florence for the next year.
Don’t ask me when or why they started including explosions and birds and predictions of a good year ahead but it definitely makes for great excitement. Sort of like what you would get if you combined the Fourth of July with Groundhog Day.
We decided to go watch them blow up the cart on Easter.
We were about an hour and a half early and there was already such a crowd in the plaza that I knew we wouldn’t be able to see much. Beaven and I are both more the size of Zacheus and there weren’t any trees handy to climb. Then I saw a few people walking into the side door of the cathedral. I thought since we wouldn’t be able to see any of the action outside we could at least go inside to worship God and might even be able to sit down. Inside there was a pretty respectable group of folks, mostly lined on either side of the main aisle of the cathedral. They had sturdy crowd barricades lining the center aisle; the kind you see on parade routes in New York City. We picked a couple of seats close to the front and on the aisle. Sitting there I felt pretty good. We had seats, which was more than the folks outside had. We could see the altar by leaning toward the main aisle. We had chosen wisely. There are two main centers of action for the event. Part happens inside the cathedral and part outside. We had ringside seats for the inside part.
The first thing I noticed inside the church was a green wood pillar about 20 feet high. Our tour group had already visited this church on our quest for every single piece of renaissance art ever created by humanity but the pillar wasn’t in the church then so I figure this was added for today’s events. Leaning against the pillar in the midst of this ornate renaissance chancel was a very simple brown wooden ladder, the most ordinary kind of ladder you could ever see—all it lacked was paint splatters. Coming out of the top of the pillar was a wire that fell to the ground and extended on the floor down the main aisle and out the door of the cathedral. Periodically a workman would climb the ladder and check on something at the top. At the top of the pillar sitting on this wire was a white wooden bird, I guess it was supposed to be a dove, about 6 inches high with tiny black eyes looking very afraid and intimidated. This bird, according to the tradition, was to swoop down the wire to the cart waiting outside and ignite the explosions. Now you can see why the bird looked a little uncertain about all of this.
We settled in for the service. At 11 am the cathedral was full and we heard a loud commotion outside the church. People looked down the aisle toward the open front door. The sound got louder. The choir in black robes processed into the cathedral and up the aisle right past us. Then about 30 priests. The older ones wore white with gold trimmed brocade robes and the younger ones simply black. Then came a similar contingent of nuns. The church bells started ringing. I had heard them all week from all parts of the town These are serious bells with a loud but beautiful deep, mellow sound. The wire connecting the bird inside the chancel to the cart outside began to taut. More trumpet music. Outside on the plaza it sounded just like Friday night football in a small Texas town. Inside, the church choir began singing, making a contest between the choir inside and the football game music outside. The organ music swelled and suddenly, everyone knew to stand. A group of acolytes entered with one of them, a priest, carrying a candle that had to be ten feet tall and about a foot thick. Then a huge cross. Then a flag. Then the greatest feast for the eyes: the Vatican Swiss Guard with their brilliant red and gold uniforms and ornate helmets, carrying long trumpets. But the parade wasn’t over: still more priests and a couple of uniformed police (The police here wear really snazzy uniforms with huge white hats.) followed by a couple of flags and a few city officials. By this time the chancel was crammed with clergy. Did I mention the archbishop wearing his magnificent tall white and gold mitre? Or the team of oxen outside who carried the 30 ft high cart into the plaza? We didn’t actually see the oxen but evidence of them were left behind all over the plaza if you get my drift. I had no doubt they were there.
Worship began in a rather quiet and dignified way. There was liturgy in Italian or Latin--since I can’t speak either, I couldn’t tell you. But I guess God speaks all languages and it doesn’t matter. After about five minutes I could make out the one important word said with great drama: “Espiritu Santo.” Holy Spirit seemed to be the cue because the priest holding the tall candle walked up to the bird and lit her tail. This was the fuse that would ignite the fireworks outside.
The bird straightened up for just a second then whizzed down the wire, tail feathers twirling in a merry dance. It was just fast enough to excite me and just slow enough to allow me to see it clearly. I got a funny feeling in my throat that I couldn’t tell if it was a laugh or a sob. Within mere seconds the bird was out the door and the fireworks started in the plaza.
That’s pretty much when the ceremony inside paused for a while. I heard the lady next to me say to her family that the bird eventually comes back up the wire inside the church. I passed this information along to Beaven and we waited. There was so much fireworks that smoke filled the doorway and we couldn’t really see anything. Once in a while we would see huge flames that I didn’t remember from any fireworks show I had ever seen. It made me worry that something had gone wrong. The object of this tradition is for the cart to explode but to still be able to use it for the following year. They’ve used the same cart for over 400 years now. Don’t ask me how they achieve this—exploding something without destroying it. But apparently the cart came out good to go for next year. After about 20 minutes of constant explosions the noise stopped.
Then, amid every gorgeous clergy garment in the Catholic Church, one man wearing blue jeans and a work shirt climbed up the ladder to the pedestal in the chancel. Once at the top, he pulled a pair of wire cutters from his back pocket and with no ceremony, cut the wire and climbed down. Beaven turned to me and said, “I hate to tell you this but I don’t think your bird is coming back.” The wire was pulled back out to the plaza.
The focus returned to the worship service and after a while we found ourselves listening to a sermon in Italian for about 20 minutes. Being neither Roman Catholic nor Italian I sat and prayed my own private little Presbyterian prayer, ending with “God, you’ve got to get me out of this place, I gotta have a gelato.”
Thus ended our Italian Easter. It wasn’t the Vatican and it wasn’t First Presbyterian. But it was the stuff the church does best, no matter where they are, especially when they do it to the glory of God.
About Me
- Jane
- I'm pretty much a typist for the Holy Spirit. I try to put those things into words in a blog called Jane's Journey. I have another blog for recipes called My Life in Food. Also Really Cool Stuff features Labyrinths and other things like how to fry an egg on the sidewalk.(first step: don't do it on the sidewalk, use a skillet) Come along with me as I careen through life.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Just Visiting
Greetings, all. This is Elizabeth here - Jane’s eldest daughter. I’m happy to report that Mom and Dad survived their adventures in Europe and are very happy to be back in the U.S. of A. Home of cheeseburgers and the English language. They are headed back to Dallas this morning, so while they’re flying through the air with the greatest of ease (let’s hope), I’m filling in as Mom’s first ever guest blogger. She’ll be back next week and I’m sure you’ll hear all about her recent travels then. But to give you a taste – an appetizer, if you will – of what’s to come, I thought I’d dig back into the ol’ memory banks and share some stories of my own travels with those two. (After all those somewhat “truthy” stories of my childhood, this is my chance for revenge! HA!)
My sister and I agree that we always had great vacations while we were kids. Now, our family never had the money to go anywhere fancy or far away; so our Spring Breaks and Summer Vacations were always determined by how far we could get via automobile in one day. There was the trip to our state’s capital the summer before I started my class in Texas History. There was the trip to San Antonio after Mom and Dad went by themselves once and had so much fun they couldn’t wait to go back and bring us along. And for my 18th birthday, we headed to Galveston Beach. We ventured outside our lovely state to Oklahoma a few times, but our all time favorite vacation spot has to be Arkansas. After a while, there wasn’t even any discussion about it. The only real decision to be made was which Arkansas state park to call home for a week or so.
All our trips began the same way. The day before our departure, Mom began the “breakdown countdown”. I don’t remember how many nervous breakdowns we were each allotted, but I do remember that the biggest breakdown always took place at the end of our street – mere moments after leaving the house. In the midst of all the arguing and the yelling, Dad would bring the car to an abrupt stop and proclaim (very loudly), “Fine! We just won’t go, then!” As Emily and I got older, the breakdowns became fewer. But we still insisted that Dad begin each trip by threatening to call it off.
One memorable trip, we had to go without Mom. At the last minute, she was unable to get the time off of work, so Dad and Emily and I packed up the tent trailer and went on as planned. Dad was a REALLY good sport to take two adolescent girls with him and spend a week sleeping in close quarters. And speaking of quarters, there’s no telling how many of those Dad spent calling Mom from various pay phones all over Arkansas for help in dealing with two bickering daughters.
The one thing all of our trips had in common is that we always had a sense of humor about things. When things went wrong, we were always able to make each other laugh. One trip we arrived at our destination to find some grocery bags had spilled over and tossed a carton of raw eggs all over dad’s new company car. But did Dad blow up in frustration? No. We figured we’d better laugh about it rather than let it ruin our vacation. And when Emily and I hit the age where we found Mom & Dad too embarrassing to be in the room with, we developed a running joke about our position as the “Nerd Family”. We joked about that right up until the moment we spotted the family that out-nerded us.
But perhaps the hardest we have ever laughed had to be the trip to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This was during the aforementioned trip to Galveston for my 18th birthday. After spending the morning and early afternoon playing on the beach, we packed up our great big blue station wagon, with our ice coolers and lawn chairs stacked in the back, and headed to the one and only place Dad had wanted to go on this entire trip. Did I mention what a good sport my father is? Dad is always going along with whatever us gals want to do, so every now and then, we humor Dad and do something he wants to do. And he waited ever so patiently for his chance to visit NASA. So, how could we possibly say no? Anyway, as we pulled up to the parking attendant – our big blue station wagon loaded with beach gear and one very sunburned and very tired family of four – my father looked the parking attendant right in the eyes and said, “We’re just visiting.” I immediately broke into uncontrollable laughter. Since no one else saw the humor, as soon as I could catch my breath, I said, “Well, I don’t think he thought we were going to the moon, Dad.” At which point, the rest of them burst into laughter as well, and I don’t think it stopped for about two weeks. We still laugh about that to this day.
Yes sir, my sister and I have many fond memories of our family vacations. And as a result, we still travel from time to time with our parents. Of course, now that we’re adults, it is a completely different experience. But I’ll have to save those stories for another time. Probably when Mom and Dad leave the country again.
My sister and I agree that we always had great vacations while we were kids. Now, our family never had the money to go anywhere fancy or far away; so our Spring Breaks and Summer Vacations were always determined by how far we could get via automobile in one day. There was the trip to our state’s capital the summer before I started my class in Texas History. There was the trip to San Antonio after Mom and Dad went by themselves once and had so much fun they couldn’t wait to go back and bring us along. And for my 18th birthday, we headed to Galveston Beach. We ventured outside our lovely state to Oklahoma a few times, but our all time favorite vacation spot has to be Arkansas. After a while, there wasn’t even any discussion about it. The only real decision to be made was which Arkansas state park to call home for a week or so.
All our trips began the same way. The day before our departure, Mom began the “breakdown countdown”. I don’t remember how many nervous breakdowns we were each allotted, but I do remember that the biggest breakdown always took place at the end of our street – mere moments after leaving the house. In the midst of all the arguing and the yelling, Dad would bring the car to an abrupt stop and proclaim (very loudly), “Fine! We just won’t go, then!” As Emily and I got older, the breakdowns became fewer. But we still insisted that Dad begin each trip by threatening to call it off.
One memorable trip, we had to go without Mom. At the last minute, she was unable to get the time off of work, so Dad and Emily and I packed up the tent trailer and went on as planned. Dad was a REALLY good sport to take two adolescent girls with him and spend a week sleeping in close quarters. And speaking of quarters, there’s no telling how many of those Dad spent calling Mom from various pay phones all over Arkansas for help in dealing with two bickering daughters.
The one thing all of our trips had in common is that we always had a sense of humor about things. When things went wrong, we were always able to make each other laugh. One trip we arrived at our destination to find some grocery bags had spilled over and tossed a carton of raw eggs all over dad’s new company car. But did Dad blow up in frustration? No. We figured we’d better laugh about it rather than let it ruin our vacation. And when Emily and I hit the age where we found Mom & Dad too embarrassing to be in the room with, we developed a running joke about our position as the “Nerd Family”. We joked about that right up until the moment we spotted the family that out-nerded us.
But perhaps the hardest we have ever laughed had to be the trip to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This was during the aforementioned trip to Galveston for my 18th birthday. After spending the morning and early afternoon playing on the beach, we packed up our great big blue station wagon, with our ice coolers and lawn chairs stacked in the back, and headed to the one and only place Dad had wanted to go on this entire trip. Did I mention what a good sport my father is? Dad is always going along with whatever us gals want to do, so every now and then, we humor Dad and do something he wants to do. And he waited ever so patiently for his chance to visit NASA. So, how could we possibly say no? Anyway, as we pulled up to the parking attendant – our big blue station wagon loaded with beach gear and one very sunburned and very tired family of four – my father looked the parking attendant right in the eyes and said, “We’re just visiting.” I immediately broke into uncontrollable laughter. Since no one else saw the humor, as soon as I could catch my breath, I said, “Well, I don’t think he thought we were going to the moon, Dad.” At which point, the rest of them burst into laughter as well, and I don’t think it stopped for about two weeks. We still laugh about that to this day.
Yes sir, my sister and I have many fond memories of our family vacations. And as a result, we still travel from time to time with our parents. Of course, now that we’re adults, it is a completely different experience. But I’ll have to save those stories for another time. Probably when Mom and Dad leave the country again.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Autumn in Paris, 2002
While you are reading this, we should be in Florence, Italy as the third part of our Trifecta of Travel. Last week I wrote about a trip we took to London in the spring of 2002. The following autumn we went to Paris with a few days in London at the start of the trip to see some of the things we missed the first time or repeat our favorites.
One of the first things we did was go to the British Museum. I had no idea how many famous pieces from history and art were here; things I’ve seen in pictures all my life and never thought much more about. Of course, they were all stolen from another civilization and that kind of grated on me. Most of the stuff in this museum was “discovered and claimed” from Egypt, Greece, Turkey and other places that the early British Empire felt they could supervise or whatever you want to call stealing. I reconcile myself with the excuse that they have been protected all these years in a safer environment than the host country could have provided. But none of this stuff was “purchased” or originated in England.
If I had to single out my favorite it would be the Rosetta Stone. It was discovered in Egypt around 1800. This is the tool that unlocked communication to understand the Egyptian hieroglyphics. It has the same message in three different languages: the discoverers understood two and knew this would help them learn the third. Scientists were able to take the royal decree from 196 B.C. and develop the ability to read Egyptian hieroglyphics. Beaven had never heard of it before but once he understood, it became his favorite, too.
One of the concepts this trip helped me solidify was the idea that communication and invention are the two greatest tools a civilization can have. You don’t have any kind of progress without both of these working hand in hand. You can have an invention but it doesn’t go anywhere without communication. And civilization goes nowhere without invention.
We went to hear the Brandenburg Concertos at St. Martin in the Fields Church. Whenever I’m in a new city I like to pick out my temporary “home church” and SMIF is mine in London. I went to Sunday worship there in April. Consequently, I am able to truthfully say that I have sung with the Choir of St Martin In the Fields. Sure, I wasn’t in the choir loft or wore a robe, but I sang while they sang. Doesn’t that count? But, even though the church is well known for their outstanding acoustics, choir and organ (and sell their CD’s in the basement) this is a real church with a real congregation and a real ministry . They do a lot of work with the homeless.
All the churches have basements except they call them crypts. And a lot of people are buried in their crypts--you can be standing in line in the coffee shop and notice you are standing on top of a stone with the engraving of something like “Edwin Martin, 1755-1814” They’ve got people buried in buildings all over this country. I would find out that Paris has a problem with dog poop and you have to be careful of where you step. But in England, it’s dead people.
In exchange for the artsy fartsy stuff I had to go with Beaven to visit the Tower Bridge. I never really paid attention to it until we actually got there and I realized it’s one of the icons you associate with London. It was built around the same time as the Brooklyn Bridge so it used the same construction methods. They had a really neat tour of the tower that appealed to Beaven’s engineering soul. We got to climb all through the innards, and see pumps and pistons and motors and all sorts of metal things. The real highlight of the tour for me came when we realized we had fallen into the line to meet and greet none other than Bob the Builder. Don’t ask me why he was there that day; it was some kind of special appearance. All I knew was that my granddaughter would bust a gut to think her Granny knows Bob the Builder. We stood in line for almost an hour to get our picture taken with him. When we got home and showed her the picture of us with Bob she wasn’t impressed in the slightest.
I found these things to be absolutely true about the English people: They really ARE incredibly polite and they do love their lines. We sat across a couple of women in a restaurant once who couldn’t get their food. They kept waiting and waiting for their order. We ordered, got ours, ate and were ready to leave and they still didn’t have their order. And as we left, they were saying for the fifth time “We’ll just give them five more minutes.” I heard more apologies for bumping into or otherwise invading my space than I’ve heard in my entire lifetime here in the US. And the other thing about them is their obsession with ques, or lining up for things. They absolutely love to line up for things. And woe be unto anyone who tries to break in line. Beaven and I were standing at a bus stop in Cambridge. We were the only people at the stop. An elderly couple came up to settle in for their own wait for the bus and, I swear to God, the lady asked me “Are we a que?” I got the impression she was making sure we both understood that she was behind me in whatever line might form.
I guess if you hang around enough places, eventually you will see everything. We ate at Wagamama Noodle Parlor, one of those trendy, yuppie-type Oriental restaurants that has communal seating. This was the kind of place that automatically gives you chop sticks and you have to beg for a fork. I loved the place. Beaven hated it. But what this kind of seating did was make one big family of us all, privy to individual conversations of all sorts. The couple of women across from us were talking just loud enough that I could hear them if I really tried but could tune them out if I wanted also. I could hear bits and pieces, enough to hear that somebody had brought their parents to meet her and her boyfriend because “we’re just about the only normal people they know.” But soon after this comment I sensed a commotion and they called the waitress over. In a very forceful but dignified voice she proclaimed: “I ordered a vegetarian dish and if I’m not mistaken that is a SHRIMP here in this bowl!!” I thought the lady was going to have a cow. Even after the waitress took the bowl away and promised to rectify the situation she kept going on and on. I started to wonder if she might barf or something. She kept moaning, “I ate it. I ate it” and “I’ve been a vegetarian for 16 years.” Then “Maybe just that one bite won’t hurt me.” I thought of engaging Beaven in a loud conversation about things like deer hunting just to make things livelier. I even thought of standing up and screaming, “Get a life, lady!” but knew this might cause an international incident and I had left my passport back in the room.
We then went through the Chunnel under the English Channel and started our organized tour of Paris. This was our second ride on what I call the biggest non-event you can witness but Beaven loves the trains.
The first day in Paris we had quite an orientation to the Paris Metro system. Our tour group, all 22 of us, gathered at the station for a lesson in how to use the system. Then heard a long announcement on the PA system in French. Our guide told us there was a sort of a strike that day which meant that the service had been severely curtailed. The first train that came was so crowded you couldn’t get on. By the time the next one came our guide told us we would have to get on it, no matter what. Which we did. I’ve never been on anything that crowded in my life. We didn’t worry about pickpockets. Nobody could move their arms.
We survived our first strike in Paris. There would be one on our last day by the garbage collectors. I think going on strikes is a hobby of sorts in Paris.
We proceeded to spend a week of visiting about a billion churches and museums—far more than the couple of things I wanted to see. When you see three once-in-a-lifetime things in one afternoon they all kind of blend together. Sainte-Chapelle stood out for the beautiful windows, which were not nearly as dramatic as they could have been because it was a really cloudy and rainy day. They had a really cool circular staircase. I loved that part. I enjoyed the flying buttresses at Notre Dame but have to be honest and say I can’t remember much more than the walk around it outside. I know we saw lots of stuff inside, I just can’t remember it all. The Cluny Museum I will always remember but only because it was the most boring place I’ve ever been. I guess I shouldn’t admit that. Beaven, on the other hand, loved this place. It had a bunch of really old, medieval stuff. Maybe I was just tired. One thing I learned on this trip was what a low threshold I have for getting bored when I’m tired.
In the middle of this day we had lunch at a tiny restaurant that our group of 22 filled completely. The owner did all the cooking and waiting on tables himself. It made for a really intimate and homey atmosphere. And the food was delicious.
My favorite museum of the week was the Orsay where the majority of the Impressionists are displayed. I just like the looks of this art better; things are brighter and ‘cheerier.’ Of course we saw the Louvre and Mona Lisa. What struck me at the Louvre was seeing Whistler’s Mother in one of the rooms. You never think you’re going to see a classic American painting at the Louvre.
We stayed in the Rue Cler area of Paris, a very residential part of town. The one-lane streets were all cobblestone. Our hotel was as small as they come. The shops are tiny and very specific. One store sold only cheese, one only meat, one fish, chocolate, bread, etc. There was even a store devoted solely to olive oil. It was a small store, how many kinds of olive oil can there be? I went to the chocolate store and was a little worried at first when the shop lady didn’t speak English. Then I realized “All women speak Chocolate,” and we got along famously.
One of the things I was very aware of in visiting these two cities was that London was bombed during the war and Paris wasn’t. I’m not sure how many great buildings London lost but Paris lost none. A huge chunk of St Paul’s Cathedral in London was blown up and rebuilt. Consequently, there are more “new” buildings in London. “New” would mean built in the 50’s and 60’s after recovering from the war. Paris doesn’t have any new buildings, and here “new” means anything built since the turn of the century. There’s one exception: there is a single skyscraper at the edge of the city. Almost as soon as they had built the Montparnasse Tower they regretted what it did to the city’s skyline and passed a law against anything over six floors within Paris. Consequently, the Paris skyline showcases the great churches and monuments since they are the only things over six stories
Beaven loves trains. I think I may have already mentioned that. He loves the ability to be able to get somewhere on his own. He loves moving around. I particularly enjoyed being up close and personal with the average citizen of the city we were in. We traveled at all times of the day including the rush hours when people were just trying to get to work. I loved watching them read their morning paper or novels. I loved the variety of people I saw: just about every country on the planet.
We never attended a concert while we were in Paris but that didn’t mean we lacked for entertainment. Paris’ best entertainment is found in the metro stations. I’ve heard that musicians have to audition for the right to play in the hallways and on the trains. The underground passageways provide such great acoustics that you would be walking through the connecting passageway and hear them in advance so you could be ready to toss them a coin if you enjoyed them. On the train they might jump on at a stop, play their guts out and jump off at the next stop. We heard several different guitars, saxophones and accordions. But there were also a Marimba band, an electronic synthesizer that sounded like a grand piano and a three-piece jazz band complete with a string bass. And the fascinating thing about the three-piece jazz combo is that they were ON our train. When you think of how much space this must have taken up and how much is available on a train, you can see how interesting a sight this was. I heard a lot of guys singing Beatles’ songs and more than one saxophone playing “Midnight in Moscow”…. in Paris.
We were in a different world for these two weeks. We became temporary citizens of Europe whether we wanted to or not. There were NO magazines or newspapers from the US. Especially in Paris it was hard to even find anything written in English so anything from Britain was received with gratitude. We read the British newspapers and watched TV in our room. In Paris there was only two channels that had programming in English: CNN and BBC. Both of these had a very limited array of stories they covered. There were only about three stories they reported and they did it in a loop so the same stories were reported over and over and over. We heard about the Washington DC sniper, the hostages in Moscow and the vote on enlarging the European Union. Enlarging the EU? I’ll bet this was stuck on page three of the Dallas papers. I tried to look it up in the Dallas Morning News when we got home. I couldn’t find any coverage on this at all. It was a HUGE deal over there. They were voting to enlarge from 10 to 25 countries, I think, and waiting for the key Irish vote.
I need to mention the facilities. There are a lot of pay toilets in Europe. I paid everything from 20 pence at an automated turnstile in London’s Victoria Station to a whole Euro at one of the Paris Museums. At one (I think it was a 40 cent one), I was given a ticket with a number on it like I was going to the theatre or something. At Sacre Coeur the charge was 41 cents and I couldn’t help wonder why the odd amount. They also had a kind of public urinal for the men that only cost 30 cents. The guys deposited their coins and walked behind a waist high wall to do their business – both men and women used the same area so I could see this set up. But the women got their very own stall with a door.
The way you flush the toilet was also different. When we moved into our hotel room in Paris I saw this square of white plastic mounted against the wall behind the toilet. I couldn’t figure out what it was and set to exploring it. Was it a shelf, a door, did it hold something inside? I tapped and pushed and pulled felt all around it. Suddenly the toilet flushed.
On our last day there I was checking my e-mail at a kiosk in London’s Easy Access. Out of the blue a guy started screaming in French and I could hear people trying to drag him out of the building. Everyone stood up at once to watch. I couldn’t understand anything he said but the tone of voice was a plaintive wail. He could have been a pickpocket that got caught. He could have been a distraction for other pickpockets. He could have been having a really bad day. It freaked me out and I was ready to come home.
One other unusual thing on our last day was the gale winds that blew into London. It killed five people (by falling trees). I can honestly say I have never been in weather like that. The wind literally blew me across the sidewalk, thankfully away from the street. When we got back home the TV said the gales reached 95 mph. I saw one family holding their five year old between them while the mother held a baby in her arms. The five year old was in tears from fear.
Europe was getting weird and I was ready to come home.
Jet lag is real and it’s sneaky. On our first morning in London we slept until 11 and took the train to Cambridge. Then we missed the last scheduled bus back to the train station for the return trip because our concept of time was so distorted; we thought it was lunchtime. We had no idea what time it was. We finally started setting the alarm to wake up. It was just the opposite once we got home. Our first day home we woke at 4 am just as alert and awake as though it was mid-day. We had chili for breakfast that day. It took a whole week to re-set our body clocks.
SPECIAL NOTE: Attention fans! Elizabeth here. Stay tuned next week for a special column written by yours truly. But don't worry - Mom will be back and ready to dish about her Italy trip the week after next.
One of the first things we did was go to the British Museum. I had no idea how many famous pieces from history and art were here; things I’ve seen in pictures all my life and never thought much more about. Of course, they were all stolen from another civilization and that kind of grated on me. Most of the stuff in this museum was “discovered and claimed” from Egypt, Greece, Turkey and other places that the early British Empire felt they could supervise or whatever you want to call stealing. I reconcile myself with the excuse that they have been protected all these years in a safer environment than the host country could have provided. But none of this stuff was “purchased” or originated in England.
If I had to single out my favorite it would be the Rosetta Stone. It was discovered in Egypt around 1800. This is the tool that unlocked communication to understand the Egyptian hieroglyphics. It has the same message in three different languages: the discoverers understood two and knew this would help them learn the third. Scientists were able to take the royal decree from 196 B.C. and develop the ability to read Egyptian hieroglyphics. Beaven had never heard of it before but once he understood, it became his favorite, too.
One of the concepts this trip helped me solidify was the idea that communication and invention are the two greatest tools a civilization can have. You don’t have any kind of progress without both of these working hand in hand. You can have an invention but it doesn’t go anywhere without communication. And civilization goes nowhere without invention.
We went to hear the Brandenburg Concertos at St. Martin in the Fields Church. Whenever I’m in a new city I like to pick out my temporary “home church” and SMIF is mine in London. I went to Sunday worship there in April. Consequently, I am able to truthfully say that I have sung with the Choir of St Martin In the Fields. Sure, I wasn’t in the choir loft or wore a robe, but I sang while they sang. Doesn’t that count? But, even though the church is well known for their outstanding acoustics, choir and organ (and sell their CD’s in the basement) this is a real church with a real congregation and a real ministry . They do a lot of work with the homeless.
All the churches have basements except they call them crypts. And a lot of people are buried in their crypts--you can be standing in line in the coffee shop and notice you are standing on top of a stone with the engraving of something like “Edwin Martin, 1755-1814” They’ve got people buried in buildings all over this country. I would find out that Paris has a problem with dog poop and you have to be careful of where you step. But in England, it’s dead people.
In exchange for the artsy fartsy stuff I had to go with Beaven to visit the Tower Bridge. I never really paid attention to it until we actually got there and I realized it’s one of the icons you associate with London. It was built around the same time as the Brooklyn Bridge so it used the same construction methods. They had a really neat tour of the tower that appealed to Beaven’s engineering soul. We got to climb all through the innards, and see pumps and pistons and motors and all sorts of metal things. The real highlight of the tour for me came when we realized we had fallen into the line to meet and greet none other than Bob the Builder. Don’t ask me why he was there that day; it was some kind of special appearance. All I knew was that my granddaughter would bust a gut to think her Granny knows Bob the Builder. We stood in line for almost an hour to get our picture taken with him. When we got home and showed her the picture of us with Bob she wasn’t impressed in the slightest.
I found these things to be absolutely true about the English people: They really ARE incredibly polite and they do love their lines. We sat across a couple of women in a restaurant once who couldn’t get their food. They kept waiting and waiting for their order. We ordered, got ours, ate and were ready to leave and they still didn’t have their order. And as we left, they were saying for the fifth time “We’ll just give them five more minutes.” I heard more apologies for bumping into or otherwise invading my space than I’ve heard in my entire lifetime here in the US. And the other thing about them is their obsession with ques, or lining up for things. They absolutely love to line up for things. And woe be unto anyone who tries to break in line. Beaven and I were standing at a bus stop in Cambridge. We were the only people at the stop. An elderly couple came up to settle in for their own wait for the bus and, I swear to God, the lady asked me “Are we a que?” I got the impression she was making sure we both understood that she was behind me in whatever line might form.
I guess if you hang around enough places, eventually you will see everything. We ate at Wagamama Noodle Parlor, one of those trendy, yuppie-type Oriental restaurants that has communal seating. This was the kind of place that automatically gives you chop sticks and you have to beg for a fork. I loved the place. Beaven hated it. But what this kind of seating did was make one big family of us all, privy to individual conversations of all sorts. The couple of women across from us were talking just loud enough that I could hear them if I really tried but could tune them out if I wanted also. I could hear bits and pieces, enough to hear that somebody had brought their parents to meet her and her boyfriend because “we’re just about the only normal people they know.” But soon after this comment I sensed a commotion and they called the waitress over. In a very forceful but dignified voice she proclaimed: “I ordered a vegetarian dish and if I’m not mistaken that is a SHRIMP here in this bowl!!” I thought the lady was going to have a cow. Even after the waitress took the bowl away and promised to rectify the situation she kept going on and on. I started to wonder if she might barf or something. She kept moaning, “I ate it. I ate it” and “I’ve been a vegetarian for 16 years.” Then “Maybe just that one bite won’t hurt me.” I thought of engaging Beaven in a loud conversation about things like deer hunting just to make things livelier. I even thought of standing up and screaming, “Get a life, lady!” but knew this might cause an international incident and I had left my passport back in the room.
We then went through the Chunnel under the English Channel and started our organized tour of Paris. This was our second ride on what I call the biggest non-event you can witness but Beaven loves the trains.
The first day in Paris we had quite an orientation to the Paris Metro system. Our tour group, all 22 of us, gathered at the station for a lesson in how to use the system. Then heard a long announcement on the PA system in French. Our guide told us there was a sort of a strike that day which meant that the service had been severely curtailed. The first train that came was so crowded you couldn’t get on. By the time the next one came our guide told us we would have to get on it, no matter what. Which we did. I’ve never been on anything that crowded in my life. We didn’t worry about pickpockets. Nobody could move their arms.
We survived our first strike in Paris. There would be one on our last day by the garbage collectors. I think going on strikes is a hobby of sorts in Paris.
We proceeded to spend a week of visiting about a billion churches and museums—far more than the couple of things I wanted to see. When you see three once-in-a-lifetime things in one afternoon they all kind of blend together. Sainte-Chapelle stood out for the beautiful windows, which were not nearly as dramatic as they could have been because it was a really cloudy and rainy day. They had a really cool circular staircase. I loved that part. I enjoyed the flying buttresses at Notre Dame but have to be honest and say I can’t remember much more than the walk around it outside. I know we saw lots of stuff inside, I just can’t remember it all. The Cluny Museum I will always remember but only because it was the most boring place I’ve ever been. I guess I shouldn’t admit that. Beaven, on the other hand, loved this place. It had a bunch of really old, medieval stuff. Maybe I was just tired. One thing I learned on this trip was what a low threshold I have for getting bored when I’m tired.
In the middle of this day we had lunch at a tiny restaurant that our group of 22 filled completely. The owner did all the cooking and waiting on tables himself. It made for a really intimate and homey atmosphere. And the food was delicious.
My favorite museum of the week was the Orsay where the majority of the Impressionists are displayed. I just like the looks of this art better; things are brighter and ‘cheerier.’ Of course we saw the Louvre and Mona Lisa. What struck me at the Louvre was seeing Whistler’s Mother in one of the rooms. You never think you’re going to see a classic American painting at the Louvre.
We stayed in the Rue Cler area of Paris, a very residential part of town. The one-lane streets were all cobblestone. Our hotel was as small as they come. The shops are tiny and very specific. One store sold only cheese, one only meat, one fish, chocolate, bread, etc. There was even a store devoted solely to olive oil. It was a small store, how many kinds of olive oil can there be? I went to the chocolate store and was a little worried at first when the shop lady didn’t speak English. Then I realized “All women speak Chocolate,” and we got along famously.
One of the things I was very aware of in visiting these two cities was that London was bombed during the war and Paris wasn’t. I’m not sure how many great buildings London lost but Paris lost none. A huge chunk of St Paul’s Cathedral in London was blown up and rebuilt. Consequently, there are more “new” buildings in London. “New” would mean built in the 50’s and 60’s after recovering from the war. Paris doesn’t have any new buildings, and here “new” means anything built since the turn of the century. There’s one exception: there is a single skyscraper at the edge of the city. Almost as soon as they had built the Montparnasse Tower they regretted what it did to the city’s skyline and passed a law against anything over six floors within Paris. Consequently, the Paris skyline showcases the great churches and monuments since they are the only things over six stories
Beaven loves trains. I think I may have already mentioned that. He loves the ability to be able to get somewhere on his own. He loves moving around. I particularly enjoyed being up close and personal with the average citizen of the city we were in. We traveled at all times of the day including the rush hours when people were just trying to get to work. I loved watching them read their morning paper or novels. I loved the variety of people I saw: just about every country on the planet.
We never attended a concert while we were in Paris but that didn’t mean we lacked for entertainment. Paris’ best entertainment is found in the metro stations. I’ve heard that musicians have to audition for the right to play in the hallways and on the trains. The underground passageways provide such great acoustics that you would be walking through the connecting passageway and hear them in advance so you could be ready to toss them a coin if you enjoyed them. On the train they might jump on at a stop, play their guts out and jump off at the next stop. We heard several different guitars, saxophones and accordions. But there were also a Marimba band, an electronic synthesizer that sounded like a grand piano and a three-piece jazz band complete with a string bass. And the fascinating thing about the three-piece jazz combo is that they were ON our train. When you think of how much space this must have taken up and how much is available on a train, you can see how interesting a sight this was. I heard a lot of guys singing Beatles’ songs and more than one saxophone playing “Midnight in Moscow”…. in Paris.
We were in a different world for these two weeks. We became temporary citizens of Europe whether we wanted to or not. There were NO magazines or newspapers from the US. Especially in Paris it was hard to even find anything written in English so anything from Britain was received with gratitude. We read the British newspapers and watched TV in our room. In Paris there was only two channels that had programming in English: CNN and BBC. Both of these had a very limited array of stories they covered. There were only about three stories they reported and they did it in a loop so the same stories were reported over and over and over. We heard about the Washington DC sniper, the hostages in Moscow and the vote on enlarging the European Union. Enlarging the EU? I’ll bet this was stuck on page three of the Dallas papers. I tried to look it up in the Dallas Morning News when we got home. I couldn’t find any coverage on this at all. It was a HUGE deal over there. They were voting to enlarge from 10 to 25 countries, I think, and waiting for the key Irish vote.
I need to mention the facilities. There are a lot of pay toilets in Europe. I paid everything from 20 pence at an automated turnstile in London’s Victoria Station to a whole Euro at one of the Paris Museums. At one (I think it was a 40 cent one), I was given a ticket with a number on it like I was going to the theatre or something. At Sacre Coeur the charge was 41 cents and I couldn’t help wonder why the odd amount. They also had a kind of public urinal for the men that only cost 30 cents. The guys deposited their coins and walked behind a waist high wall to do their business – both men and women used the same area so I could see this set up. But the women got their very own stall with a door.
The way you flush the toilet was also different. When we moved into our hotel room in Paris I saw this square of white plastic mounted against the wall behind the toilet. I couldn’t figure out what it was and set to exploring it. Was it a shelf, a door, did it hold something inside? I tapped and pushed and pulled felt all around it. Suddenly the toilet flushed.
On our last day there I was checking my e-mail at a kiosk in London’s Easy Access. Out of the blue a guy started screaming in French and I could hear people trying to drag him out of the building. Everyone stood up at once to watch. I couldn’t understand anything he said but the tone of voice was a plaintive wail. He could have been a pickpocket that got caught. He could have been a distraction for other pickpockets. He could have been having a really bad day. It freaked me out and I was ready to come home.
One other unusual thing on our last day was the gale winds that blew into London. It killed five people (by falling trees). I can honestly say I have never been in weather like that. The wind literally blew me across the sidewalk, thankfully away from the street. When we got back home the TV said the gales reached 95 mph. I saw one family holding their five year old between them while the mother held a baby in her arms. The five year old was in tears from fear.
Europe was getting weird and I was ready to come home.
Jet lag is real and it’s sneaky. On our first morning in London we slept until 11 and took the train to Cambridge. Then we missed the last scheduled bus back to the train station for the return trip because our concept of time was so distorted; we thought it was lunchtime. We had no idea what time it was. We finally started setting the alarm to wake up. It was just the opposite once we got home. Our first day home we woke at 4 am just as alert and awake as though it was mid-day. We had chili for breakfast that day. It took a whole week to re-set our body clocks.
SPECIAL NOTE: Attention fans! Elizabeth here. Stay tuned next week for a special column written by yours truly. But don't worry - Mom will be back and ready to dish about her Italy trip the week after next.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Spring in London, 2002
If you’re reading this it means that Elizabeth figured out how to post to my blog, which is no surprise since their generation is so vastly more technically competent than mine. I was on a youth retreat last weekend and learned a lot about Ipods but that’s not what you’re here for today. I want to tell you about traveling in Europe. Right now we’re in Boston on our way to London and eventually to Italy where we will celebrate Easter. How cool is that?
The first time we visited London was 2002. We had never been outside the country before unless you count our honeymoon in Mexico City in 1969. We weren’t exactly paying attention on that trip. I suspect we could have gone to Grand Prairie, Texas for our honeymoon and wouldn’t have noticed any difference.
The first thing we noticed about flying to Europe is how long it takes to get there. We were in the air long enough to watch two movies and read half a book. We had studied how to books on travel. Beaven had researched all the smart things to do to avoid having his pocket picked. He had money belts and hidden pockets with zippers. He was prepared. But when we checked in at the hotel he couldn’t find his wallet. He knew he had it in the cab because he had paid the driver out of it. We both went out to the street and there it was lying on the sidewalk. After all his preparation he lost his wallet all by himself right off the bat, without help from anyone. What an overachiever he is.
I guess the next startling discovery was to see in person how old the European countries are. There are many buildings in London built in the 1700 and still in use, and not as historical monuments, either. The floor of our room was carpeted but you could hear the wooden floor creak underneath the carpet. The floor was buckled in places, giving it a slope at times. The plumbing had been added after the building was built and there was cabinetry built around the pipes on the wall. There had been a fireplace in the room, now covered up. The building was three or four floors with no elevator. Fortunately, we were only on the second floor. The bathroom was the most remarkable. Most hotels are converted old houses and bathrooms had to be added to each room-- so, in the give and take of life, they had to be necessarily as small as they could be in order to still have room for a bed. This bathroom saved room by having the smallest shower I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how Beaven did it. He dropped the soap once and had to open the door in order to bend down to pick it up. The toilet was angled off in the corner between the sink and shower.
The stairs in this hotel were delightful. I love stairs, the older the better. Don’t get me started on stairs. Anyway, these stairs were perfect: my size, smallish and with low handrails. And they gave the most delicious creak when you walked. Everything in London creaked: the wood is so old that it is worn loose and rubs against itself. Musical stairs. Don’t get me started on creaking noises, either. More about creaking floors when I describe Windsor Castle.
The first thing I liked about London was the law they have that anyone who rents out a room has to offer breakfast. So all I had to do in the morning was dress and go downstairs. The waitress would bring me coffee and everything else. They had really good toast in those cute little toast racks you see in the movies. The toast doesn’t stay hot but it does stay crisp that way. I understood for the first time what I had heard about the food in England. Their “cuisine” is not what we call tasty. In fact, people and books had all said that the best food in London is “Ethnic”, meaning anything not from there.
Beaven has fairly earned the title in our family of “Mister Transportation.” Any time we travel he wants to ride every available form of transportation. On our first morning, he got us tube, bus and train passes. Then, at Trafalgar Square we found an Internet Café called Easy Access. They had branches all over London and for a pound you could get about an hour’s worth of Internet use. This turned out to be the biggest bargain of the whole trip. We can’t figure out how they make any money for this price, except that they’re open 24 hours a day and were always full. Once we had our transportation and cyber life taken care of, we were ready to experience London.
Trafalgar Square is kind of the town square. It’s a solid block of plaza with a huge statue in the middle of Lord Nelson. The guide told us during the week that all you had to do to get a statue of yourself erected in England was “beat the French” and the worse you beat them, the bigger your statue. Lord Nelson beat the French in a big way and I think his is the tallest statue. I think it was a victory at sea and I think he may have died in the battle; he fought the French a bunch of times—once he lost an arm, once an eye and finally, his life. I had to wonder what the French had done to deserve this but I was scared to ask At any rate, Lord Nelson’s statue is huge and it’s surrounded by four gigantic lions so big that children climb on their paws.
The plaza hosts 600 pigeons on a normal day. The mayor of London has decided that this is a health hazard. He is quoted as referring to pigeons as “flying rats.” The city recently passed a law against feeding the pigeons. There were still 600 pigeons in the plaza, along with what else you would expect to have with 600 pigeons. And there was also a woman sitting beside the “Do Not Feed the Pigeons” sign holding a sack of birdseed. She had pigeons perched on her head, shoulders and arms. I took her picture.
I wanted to attend worship at St. Martin in the Fields. The church got this name because when it was built it was so far on the outskirts of town that it was literally “in the fields.” I’ve heard their choir all my life and loved their soft gentle sound. This was going to be my “church” while in London. About the only differences I noticed was the Church of England Eucharist with going to the rail for tasteless wafers and a sip of real wine. But the biggest difference that jumped out at me was the concept of a state supported church. The congregation at St. Martins in the Fields is very small, maybe 200 (said the preacher) but with tourists there, the sanctuary was full and held about 500 worshippers. The sermon was geared to their annual stewardship drive and the preacher pointed out that, while the church does get money from the government, it is still appropriate for the congregation to kick in their fair share. What a foreign concept to me. Later, at St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, this was echoed by the fact that there are very small “congregations”, if any at all, in London. Mostly because no one lives in London. Like other big business cities, everyone lives elsewhere and commutes. The big historical churches get all their money from the state.
I visited the gift shop in the basement (they’re called crypts here) and bought a tape of the choir. The crypt was a reminder of the building’s age. I think it was built in the 1700’s. Mostly stone. The pews were out of that old, old wood that creaks and moves when you sit. I feel like the pew is wrapping its arms around me.
For dinner we went to Wagamama Noodle Parlor. We had heard the best food in England was ethnic. And it’s true. We went all the way to London to eat Chinese food. The food was great and I had a lesson on Beaven’s comfort level. Let’s just be gracious and say that it is not the same as mine and that he hates crowded communal tables in noisy restaurants. We also had a glimpse of the notorious politeness of the British. The couple sitting next to us had ordered when we got there. Since we were sitting so close we noticed they had trouble getting their order. They brought one lady’s food but not the other. We ordered and got our food. The other lady told the waiter very politely that she hadn’t gotten her food. The waiter apologized all over the place. We ate and, after three times of asking the waiter for her food without success, she was still saying “Let’s just give them five more minutes.” When we left she was still sitting without food and saying she would give them another five minutes.
We went to see Phantom of the Opera that night and got the worst seats in the house. I didn’t think it was possible to get seats this bad. We were the next to the last row of the highest balcony—we could have touched the ceiling. If I sat in my chair normally I literally could not see the stage. In order to see the stage at all I had to lean forward. In order to see actors I had to lean forward and bend my body to the left and tilt my head. Watch the cheap seats in London.
At 3 p.m. Sunday the tour started. There were 20 of us, including the guide. The orientation reinforced our hopes for the trip and we felt that it was a good fit for our travel style. We could participate in as much or as little as we wanted. We would be using public transportation and the guide knew what he was talking about. We heard a lot of good stories from him, too.
We walked to Buckingham Palace and Martin, our Welsh guide, told us the story of the guy who broke into the palace and made it all the way to the Queen’s bedroom. We heard about it here years ago. But the things the folks in the U.S. didn’t pay much attention to was how and why he did it and whatever happened to the guy. He did it on a bet that he could “kiss the Queen” because “somebody needed to”. And he just climbed over the wall and walked into the palace and by some miracle out of all the hundreds of rooms, managed to walk into hers. Supposedly he said, “Give us a little kiss.” Other footnotes we never heard in the USA are that she sleeps with a black eye mask and without Prince Phillip. The poor sap served time in jail briefly but they had to let him go because, strangely enough, he had not broken any laws. He didn’t “break--.” he just “entered” and that’s not against any law in Britain. He eventually died of alcoholism. Everybody in the pubs wanted to hear his story and would buy him a drink.
We started out the morning with a group walking tour that ended with a little time to shop. This was when I managed to get lost and separated from the group on almost my first opportunity. Getting lost is no big deal with me, I do it all the time and am very accomplished at it, meaning it doesn’t usually fill me with panic. But this time we were on such a tight time schedule I did panic. We all separated to look around a bit at the shopping opportunities. Even Beaven and I split up, with me going into Fortnam and Masons while he went somewhere else. This is supposedly where the Queen buys her groceries. In case you’re getting a picture of the Queen pushing a cart around and putting things in it, forget it. It’s not that kind of store. But they do sell a lot of cool stuff. I got lost in the store and went out the wrong door and lost my bearings. This could have happened to anyone. Beaven eventually found me.
When we visited Westminster Abbey it was exactly a week after the Queen Mother’s death and the funeral had been at the Abbey. There were still flowers on the lawn. The funeral bouquet from her coffin had been placed on the grave of the Unknown Soldier.
This grave is inside the church. They all were. I’m not used to burying people inside buildings. I wouldn’t want anybody buried inside my house. Nor my church, either, for that matter and the flowers were still there and were still fairly fresh. I know because I leaned way down and got up eyeball to petal to make sure they weren’t fake. But they looked very real to me; I finally found a slightly brown edge to one petal that told me I was looking at a real flower.
We visited the British Library and saw the Magna Carta. The writing was so small I couldn’t read it. I wondered if they were rationing paper or something.
We visited Windsor Castle. We had to take a train out of town to get there. Yes, the Queen lives in the suburbs. It’s kind of built on this huge hill and everything around it is at the bottom of the hill. It’s surrounded by this quaint little village desperately trying, but ultimately failing, to keep the franchises at bay. There was a McDonalds and a Hagen Daz among the shops. We took a tour of the castle but wisely decided to forego the side trip to St George’s Chapel inside. Good thing, the line on a normal day took an hour but today it was even longer because of the recent death of the Queen Mum. St. George’s Chapel is where all the royalty is buried. Inside again, what is it with these people that they bury everybody inside buildings? Are they afraid of the rain? It was a nice visit and I got to hear more creaky floors.
Here’s the deal on floors that creak: There is only one way to get a really creaky floor-- time. Time for the wood to shrink and loosen so it rubs against the next plank. And here’s what proved it to me: about ten years ago there was a huge, devastating fire at Windsor Castle. Part of the building was destroyed and had to be totally rebuilt. They did such an excellent job of restoration that the only way you can tell the old and new sections apart is that the floor doesn’t creak in the rebuilt part. I heard it with my own ears. See, I told you not to get me started on creaky floors.
We went to a Mozart Concert at St Martin in the Fields. I read in one of the guidebooks that this was the church where Richard Burton’s funeral was held. I told Beaven how exciting it was that we might be sitting in the same pew as Elizabeth Taylor sat. His reply was that he doubted they made Elizabeth Taylor sit in the cheap seats. But it didn’t matter which seats we had here since the acoustics were so great and the church sanctuary so small; every seat could hear equally well. And the sound was awesome. .
We took the Chunnel to Paris to depart Europe from Paris, not knowing if we would ever have another chance to visit France. Beaven loves trains so much that I knew I could get him to Paris if I made a train part of the deal. And it worked. The underground train to Paris was definitely a different train that any we had been on. All the announcements were in both French and English. The scenery was like a postcard picture (once you got outside the city): green grass and quaint houses—even some with real thatched roofs. The 20-minute trip under the English Channel was kind of a non-event: dark outside the windows but the lights in side the train made it not noticeable. A very smooth and gentle ride. Once we were up on land again and in the outside world, it was again beautiful countryside but France. We had made it to France.
One thing that surprised us is that there is graffiti near every train station in the world and they all seem to be in a separate language of its own. The same style of writing and symbols in England and in France, as well as the USA. I couldn’t tell any difference at all. It wasn’t either English or French; it was a totally unique language.
We also had minor excitement when one fellow confused tourist walked off and left his bag. It was interesting to watch everyone’s reaction to an abandoned suitcase in a train station. People were talking about it and pointing at it while they backed off from it. Train stations and airports are very different places post-9/11. Then when we went through security in Paris they questioned us extensively because I think we triggered a lot of extra questions: Why were we flying out of Paris when we came to Europe via London? What had we seen in Paris? Why were we leaving without seeing anything? Why come to Paris at all? And, of course, the crowning question asked of Beaven was “Did he pack his bag himself?” I had to resist the urge to shout indignantly that “No, indeed, he did not, I had. How many husbands pack their own bags?” But I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.
The first time we visited London was 2002. We had never been outside the country before unless you count our honeymoon in Mexico City in 1969. We weren’t exactly paying attention on that trip. I suspect we could have gone to Grand Prairie, Texas for our honeymoon and wouldn’t have noticed any difference.
The first thing we noticed about flying to Europe is how long it takes to get there. We were in the air long enough to watch two movies and read half a book. We had studied how to books on travel. Beaven had researched all the smart things to do to avoid having his pocket picked. He had money belts and hidden pockets with zippers. He was prepared. But when we checked in at the hotel he couldn’t find his wallet. He knew he had it in the cab because he had paid the driver out of it. We both went out to the street and there it was lying on the sidewalk. After all his preparation he lost his wallet all by himself right off the bat, without help from anyone. What an overachiever he is.
I guess the next startling discovery was to see in person how old the European countries are. There are many buildings in London built in the 1700 and still in use, and not as historical monuments, either. The floor of our room was carpeted but you could hear the wooden floor creak underneath the carpet. The floor was buckled in places, giving it a slope at times. The plumbing had been added after the building was built and there was cabinetry built around the pipes on the wall. There had been a fireplace in the room, now covered up. The building was three or four floors with no elevator. Fortunately, we were only on the second floor. The bathroom was the most remarkable. Most hotels are converted old houses and bathrooms had to be added to each room-- so, in the give and take of life, they had to be necessarily as small as they could be in order to still have room for a bed. This bathroom saved room by having the smallest shower I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how Beaven did it. He dropped the soap once and had to open the door in order to bend down to pick it up. The toilet was angled off in the corner between the sink and shower.
The stairs in this hotel were delightful. I love stairs, the older the better. Don’t get me started on stairs. Anyway, these stairs were perfect: my size, smallish and with low handrails. And they gave the most delicious creak when you walked. Everything in London creaked: the wood is so old that it is worn loose and rubs against itself. Musical stairs. Don’t get me started on creaking noises, either. More about creaking floors when I describe Windsor Castle.
The first thing I liked about London was the law they have that anyone who rents out a room has to offer breakfast. So all I had to do in the morning was dress and go downstairs. The waitress would bring me coffee and everything else. They had really good toast in those cute little toast racks you see in the movies. The toast doesn’t stay hot but it does stay crisp that way. I understood for the first time what I had heard about the food in England. Their “cuisine” is not what we call tasty. In fact, people and books had all said that the best food in London is “Ethnic”, meaning anything not from there.
Beaven has fairly earned the title in our family of “Mister Transportation.” Any time we travel he wants to ride every available form of transportation. On our first morning, he got us tube, bus and train passes. Then, at Trafalgar Square we found an Internet Café called Easy Access. They had branches all over London and for a pound you could get about an hour’s worth of Internet use. This turned out to be the biggest bargain of the whole trip. We can’t figure out how they make any money for this price, except that they’re open 24 hours a day and were always full. Once we had our transportation and cyber life taken care of, we were ready to experience London.
Trafalgar Square is kind of the town square. It’s a solid block of plaza with a huge statue in the middle of Lord Nelson. The guide told us during the week that all you had to do to get a statue of yourself erected in England was “beat the French” and the worse you beat them, the bigger your statue. Lord Nelson beat the French in a big way and I think his is the tallest statue. I think it was a victory at sea and I think he may have died in the battle; he fought the French a bunch of times—once he lost an arm, once an eye and finally, his life. I had to wonder what the French had done to deserve this but I was scared to ask At any rate, Lord Nelson’s statue is huge and it’s surrounded by four gigantic lions so big that children climb on their paws.
The plaza hosts 600 pigeons on a normal day. The mayor of London has decided that this is a health hazard. He is quoted as referring to pigeons as “flying rats.” The city recently passed a law against feeding the pigeons. There were still 600 pigeons in the plaza, along with what else you would expect to have with 600 pigeons. And there was also a woman sitting beside the “Do Not Feed the Pigeons” sign holding a sack of birdseed. She had pigeons perched on her head, shoulders and arms. I took her picture.
I wanted to attend worship at St. Martin in the Fields. The church got this name because when it was built it was so far on the outskirts of town that it was literally “in the fields.” I’ve heard their choir all my life and loved their soft gentle sound. This was going to be my “church” while in London. About the only differences I noticed was the Church of England Eucharist with going to the rail for tasteless wafers and a sip of real wine. But the biggest difference that jumped out at me was the concept of a state supported church. The congregation at St. Martins in the Fields is very small, maybe 200 (said the preacher) but with tourists there, the sanctuary was full and held about 500 worshippers. The sermon was geared to their annual stewardship drive and the preacher pointed out that, while the church does get money from the government, it is still appropriate for the congregation to kick in their fair share. What a foreign concept to me. Later, at St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, this was echoed by the fact that there are very small “congregations”, if any at all, in London. Mostly because no one lives in London. Like other big business cities, everyone lives elsewhere and commutes. The big historical churches get all their money from the state.
I visited the gift shop in the basement (they’re called crypts here) and bought a tape of the choir. The crypt was a reminder of the building’s age. I think it was built in the 1700’s. Mostly stone. The pews were out of that old, old wood that creaks and moves when you sit. I feel like the pew is wrapping its arms around me.
For dinner we went to Wagamama Noodle Parlor. We had heard the best food in England was ethnic. And it’s true. We went all the way to London to eat Chinese food. The food was great and I had a lesson on Beaven’s comfort level. Let’s just be gracious and say that it is not the same as mine and that he hates crowded communal tables in noisy restaurants. We also had a glimpse of the notorious politeness of the British. The couple sitting next to us had ordered when we got there. Since we were sitting so close we noticed they had trouble getting their order. They brought one lady’s food but not the other. We ordered and got our food. The other lady told the waiter very politely that she hadn’t gotten her food. The waiter apologized all over the place. We ate and, after three times of asking the waiter for her food without success, she was still saying “Let’s just give them five more minutes.” When we left she was still sitting without food and saying she would give them another five minutes.
We went to see Phantom of the Opera that night and got the worst seats in the house. I didn’t think it was possible to get seats this bad. We were the next to the last row of the highest balcony—we could have touched the ceiling. If I sat in my chair normally I literally could not see the stage. In order to see the stage at all I had to lean forward. In order to see actors I had to lean forward and bend my body to the left and tilt my head. Watch the cheap seats in London.
At 3 p.m. Sunday the tour started. There were 20 of us, including the guide. The orientation reinforced our hopes for the trip and we felt that it was a good fit for our travel style. We could participate in as much or as little as we wanted. We would be using public transportation and the guide knew what he was talking about. We heard a lot of good stories from him, too.
We walked to Buckingham Palace and Martin, our Welsh guide, told us the story of the guy who broke into the palace and made it all the way to the Queen’s bedroom. We heard about it here years ago. But the things the folks in the U.S. didn’t pay much attention to was how and why he did it and whatever happened to the guy. He did it on a bet that he could “kiss the Queen” because “somebody needed to”. And he just climbed over the wall and walked into the palace and by some miracle out of all the hundreds of rooms, managed to walk into hers. Supposedly he said, “Give us a little kiss.” Other footnotes we never heard in the USA are that she sleeps with a black eye mask and without Prince Phillip. The poor sap served time in jail briefly but they had to let him go because, strangely enough, he had not broken any laws. He didn’t “break--.” he just “entered” and that’s not against any law in Britain. He eventually died of alcoholism. Everybody in the pubs wanted to hear his story and would buy him a drink.
We started out the morning with a group walking tour that ended with a little time to shop. This was when I managed to get lost and separated from the group on almost my first opportunity. Getting lost is no big deal with me, I do it all the time and am very accomplished at it, meaning it doesn’t usually fill me with panic. But this time we were on such a tight time schedule I did panic. We all separated to look around a bit at the shopping opportunities. Even Beaven and I split up, with me going into Fortnam and Masons while he went somewhere else. This is supposedly where the Queen buys her groceries. In case you’re getting a picture of the Queen pushing a cart around and putting things in it, forget it. It’s not that kind of store. But they do sell a lot of cool stuff. I got lost in the store and went out the wrong door and lost my bearings. This could have happened to anyone. Beaven eventually found me.
When we visited Westminster Abbey it was exactly a week after the Queen Mother’s death and the funeral had been at the Abbey. There were still flowers on the lawn. The funeral bouquet from her coffin had been placed on the grave of the Unknown Soldier.
This grave is inside the church. They all were. I’m not used to burying people inside buildings. I wouldn’t want anybody buried inside my house. Nor my church, either, for that matter and the flowers were still there and were still fairly fresh. I know because I leaned way down and got up eyeball to petal to make sure they weren’t fake. But they looked very real to me; I finally found a slightly brown edge to one petal that told me I was looking at a real flower.
We visited the British Library and saw the Magna Carta. The writing was so small I couldn’t read it. I wondered if they were rationing paper or something.
We visited Windsor Castle. We had to take a train out of town to get there. Yes, the Queen lives in the suburbs. It’s kind of built on this huge hill and everything around it is at the bottom of the hill. It’s surrounded by this quaint little village desperately trying, but ultimately failing, to keep the franchises at bay. There was a McDonalds and a Hagen Daz among the shops. We took a tour of the castle but wisely decided to forego the side trip to St George’s Chapel inside. Good thing, the line on a normal day took an hour but today it was even longer because of the recent death of the Queen Mum. St. George’s Chapel is where all the royalty is buried. Inside again, what is it with these people that they bury everybody inside buildings? Are they afraid of the rain? It was a nice visit and I got to hear more creaky floors.
Here’s the deal on floors that creak: There is only one way to get a really creaky floor-- time. Time for the wood to shrink and loosen so it rubs against the next plank. And here’s what proved it to me: about ten years ago there was a huge, devastating fire at Windsor Castle. Part of the building was destroyed and had to be totally rebuilt. They did such an excellent job of restoration that the only way you can tell the old and new sections apart is that the floor doesn’t creak in the rebuilt part. I heard it with my own ears. See, I told you not to get me started on creaky floors.
We went to a Mozart Concert at St Martin in the Fields. I read in one of the guidebooks that this was the church where Richard Burton’s funeral was held. I told Beaven how exciting it was that we might be sitting in the same pew as Elizabeth Taylor sat. His reply was that he doubted they made Elizabeth Taylor sit in the cheap seats. But it didn’t matter which seats we had here since the acoustics were so great and the church sanctuary so small; every seat could hear equally well. And the sound was awesome. .
We took the Chunnel to Paris to depart Europe from Paris, not knowing if we would ever have another chance to visit France. Beaven loves trains so much that I knew I could get him to Paris if I made a train part of the deal. And it worked. The underground train to Paris was definitely a different train that any we had been on. All the announcements were in both French and English. The scenery was like a postcard picture (once you got outside the city): green grass and quaint houses—even some with real thatched roofs. The 20-minute trip under the English Channel was kind of a non-event: dark outside the windows but the lights in side the train made it not noticeable. A very smooth and gentle ride. Once we were up on land again and in the outside world, it was again beautiful countryside but France. We had made it to France.
One thing that surprised us is that there is graffiti near every train station in the world and they all seem to be in a separate language of its own. The same style of writing and symbols in England and in France, as well as the USA. I couldn’t tell any difference at all. It wasn’t either English or French; it was a totally unique language.
We also had minor excitement when one fellow confused tourist walked off and left his bag. It was interesting to watch everyone’s reaction to an abandoned suitcase in a train station. People were talking about it and pointing at it while they backed off from it. Train stations and airports are very different places post-9/11. Then when we went through security in Paris they questioned us extensively because I think we triggered a lot of extra questions: Why were we flying out of Paris when we came to Europe via London? What had we seen in Paris? Why were we leaving without seeing anything? Why come to Paris at all? And, of course, the crowning question asked of Beaven was “Did he pack his bag himself?” I had to resist the urge to shout indignantly that “No, indeed, he did not, I had. How many husbands pack their own bags?” But I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.
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