Trip Reports - You can go home again: Alum weekend and anniversary in U.K.

Today, God willing, the wife and I leave for England. Twenty-four years ago almost to the day, Joanne and I met as exchange students. We were both on the University of California Education Abroad Program going to the Red Brick splendor of Birmingham University in England. Commenting to Joanne that it sure felt longer than 24 years, I decided to upgrade us one year and cash a Marriott 713 award. We will celebrate our quarter century anniversary by spending the better part of a week in London before I head off to Cambridge (where I had returned in 1981 for my graduate work) for an alumni weekend.

With our youth-hostelling days well behind us, I booked at the County Hall Marriott near Parliament. I’m hopeful for an “anniversary” upgrade to overlook the Thames, but will throw a few quid at the beast if need be.

Our fateful initial meeting in 1977 actually took place at LAX on our way to England (although Joanne and I didn’t start dating till the year was almost up). The charter flight (London via Bangor and Paris) was horribly delayed. My (soon to be ex-) girlfriend had made an appearance against my wishes and was crying her eyes out. It was an ugly scene and Joanne later told me that she was fighting not to laugh hysterically. Luckily, my best friend Matt and I had previously snuck off to partake of some, er, relaxing herbs, so I was mostly inured to the drama. As we got on the plane my (soon to be ex-) girlfriend said, “Remember me” and handed me some homemade chocolate chip cookies. Having just met my future bride, and seeing her again as I made my way to my seat, I invited her back to have a chocolate chip cookie. The fact that when she strolled over a few hours later there was a fellow exchange student, Jane, sitting on my lap being hand fed cookies caused Joanne to return to her seat in disgust. Joanne still busts by chops over that. But, I digress.

One might think that Joanne would accompany me to Cambridge. But, complex negotiations only yielded a 5 days’ hostage exchange with friends to watch our one-year old in trade for our watching their three year old at a date to be named later. This, coupled with our 11 year-old’s babysitter going down with an ovarian cyst and the resulting surgery, made the machinations for this trip eclipse the preparation for D-Day.

I had promised Joanne that if she cut, labeled, and mailed the 150 Kellogg’s certificates (that I nabbed from kitchen services) then we would travel business. So,...I was looking forward to seeing if there really was more room in AA coach. (OK, upgrades weren’t available, and now the flight is oversold, but it makes for a good story). BTW, this AA trip represents the second leg of my AA Platinum Challenge. Las Vegas down, Chicago and Hawaii to go.

This ends my traditional “pre-trip” trip report. Usually, I leave with a light heart brimming with expectation. But, the events of the last week and the talk of war takes the spring out of anyone’s step. While it is tempting to cancel, we feel a need to exert control in the midst of horror. We anticipate getting to the airport three hours early and, as we only have carryon, checking in at the Admiral’s Club. Last night’s flight went out only 50 minutes late, so we are optimistic. But if we get wretchedly delayed, we will just punt and try again another time, another month. With all the misery many people are suffering, I’d hardly be put out if our little adventure gets waylaid. Well, we will hope for the best and see if future brings anything interesting worth writing about.

Jailer,

1982-83 UC EAP in Grenoble, France. Also departed on a charter flight from LAX (Air Florida!) on a direct flight to CDG. Although my plane ride over sounds a bit less eventful than yours, I do remember downing several of Air Florida's house cocktails ("Miami Whammies"). The Miami Whammie is now an obligatory drink at any of our reunions.

Happy anniversary. I hope your trip goes well.



[This message has been edited by blairvanhorn (edited 09-17-2001).]

Jailer,

I hope you are well on your way by now, but if you check in during your trip, I highly recommend visiting the Imperial War Museum collection at Duxford airbase outside of Cambridge. It is by far the best collection of civil and military aircraft (as well as armored vehicles) that I have seen. You likely have seen it before having lived in Cambridge, but it is just super. I believe free buses run at 20 minutes to each hour from the Cambridge railway station. Cost is 7.70 pounds per adult. Getting to walk through a Concorde, touch a SR-71 or look at a Comet 4 is special to me no matter how many times I get the chance. You could spent all day there, but even if you have two free hours, it is well worth the effort. Be sure to visit the restoration hangers where one can watch craftsmen restoring and repairing Spitfires, Hurricanes, etc. Check out the web page at www.iwm.org.uk, (http://www.iwm.org.uk/,) then click on the Duxford link. Have a great trip.

[This message has been edited by Shinkansen (edited 09-17-2001).]

Strange to be in LAX with no cars. The check in line was minimal; security was nil, not one person before us going thru the metal detectors. The only change was having to match a Driver’s License to a ticket. Everything very subdued. I’m merely two gin and tonics from normal, so back to the bar.

If, as a number of talking heads have suggested, the cycle of violence in the Mid East has hardened them to terrorism, the Blitz and the Troubles have left the British very simpathetic to New York. George Washington in Trafalger and St Paul's Monument to the American war dead are both festooned with flowers. 10 Downing Street is being lightly picketed with "An eye for an eye causes blindness."

I just realized that a couple of Brits have referred to the WTC bombing as the New York troubles.

Is it possible that in the 8 or 9 trips over I have only stayed once in a London hotel? Have I really been mooching off friends for over 20 years? The FT consensus of the Marriott County Inn proved to be very correct. Perfect location, and with a great view of Parliament over the Thames it occured to me that it would not take much in the way of gymnastics to get frisky under the gaze of Big Ben. Yet, how could anyone compete with Ben? Another of life's great puzzlements.

The hotel is fairly empty, as has been the theatre. Half price tickets appear to be available to almost everything. Stones in His Pockets was superb, although you have to go to New York to see the original two-man cast.

A quarter of a century ago I made a stand and refused to eat at London McDonalds. 24 years later I find that no similar prohibition exists with Starbucks. And, Starbucks should just be opening.

You went to Las Vegas without me?

Jailer, are you stuck in Cambridge? I am hoping for another installation of your fine reporting.

I’m long back, SD1k, but had somehow lost momentum on this. I’m enough of a whore for attention that any curtain call would likely get me back to my keyboard, but a request from you, dear SD, and I’m right on it. (BTW, thanks for your recommendation for the trendy Indian Restaurant off Oxford Circus, it was quite good).

Also, I truly experienced some cognitive dissidence going back to Cambridge, and concluded that maybe you can’t go home again. Perhaps that is the main reason I never finished my report. Here goes:

The train from King’s Cross stoically chugged along right on time at a non-French speed. I grabbed a cab from the Cambridge RR station instead of walking because I just had enough time to get my room, and then register for the seminars. The room in (Darwin) College was the same, but I was different. Did I really use to live in a 120 sq. foot Monk’s cell with a bathroom down the hall? Have I been Starwooded past the ability to do so again? Just one night left me convinced that I couldn’t live like a student ever again.

Just under 1,000 Cambridge alums had come to sit and listen on a wide range on subjects. The oldest participant graduated in 1929, so I make him to be about 91. I must admit how rare and nourishing it is to spend a couple days outside of your discipline. The “big ticket” lecture was by the Royal Astronomer (Steven Hawkins did it last year) who talked on how the Universe began and when and how it will end. “If”, he lectured, “a walk across America west to east was the life of the sun, then one would be in the Arizonian desert about now, not the highlight” he beamed, “of American culture.” (Apologies to S.T.I.F.F.S., OneFreeman, and the rest).

The next day I liberated one of the College punts for a quick trip up the River Cam. I punted under Queen’s geometrical, also called mathematical, wooden bridge that was originally built without nails or pegs, but when someone took it apart to see how it was accomplished, they needed nails to put it back together. I turned back at Clare College Bridge and was reminded of how some Clare undergraduates painted a Styrofoam ball to look like one of the huge ornamental stone balls that rest on the bridge. They pushed the fake gruntingly off the bridge into a boatload of French tourist, all of whom jumped into the river rather than getting hit. The offending students were expelled, folklore has it.

I was crestfallen that I didn’t bring running, or at least tennis, shoes, as Sunday was the recreation of the race from Chariots of Fire (like, one of my all time favorite movies). Had I only known! The actual filming mostly took place, I think, at Eton because the Master of Trinity would not let the film crew use the College to recreate the race. I spent the rest of my time before catching a return train walking through some of the old Colleges, which in my day were free, but now there is an admission fee to non-students, staff and alums.


In London, both before and after Cambridge, I focused on things that weren’t available or open when I lived in England. Shotgun reviews:

The new Tate Modern has the most spectacular gallery space and views, but the collection left me cold. I was again left with the sad realization that I wouldn’t have been the lone wolf who bought a Van Gogh in the 1880’s.

As if anyone needs a reason to go back to the British Museum, the new glass dome (larger than St. Peter’s) that encloses the Great Hall is an awesome architectural marvel. There is a very good restaurant upstairs, and even on a gloomy day, you will get enough sun to fire up your endorphins.

Somerset House, just up The Strand from St. Martin in the Fields, is a remarkable public space, with almost a hundred million U.S. gone into refurbishing this late 18th century palace. It is the nearest thing to a country estate in central London. Contiguous to Somerset is the new Courtauld Gallery, with a nice, accessible group of Old Masters and Impressionists, not to mention a Botticelli that I’ve wanted to see for 25 years.

I didn’t get the London Eye. 15 quid to wait in line for an hour to get on a big, slow Ferris wheel. Big deal, I passed.

Most surprising tourist spot was a recreated Globe Theater on the Southbank not far from the original theater in the round. The tour provided some really interesting tidbits of life in Elizabethan England. For example, while the Groundlings paid the least for the best view, the expensive seats were out of sight of the stage so the prostitutes could do a lively trade. This new Globe was the vision and life’s work of an American minor stage actor, who died before it was completed.

My wife insisted on going to the Museum of London, and if your spouse really, really insists, you too should go.

Even if not Canadian, there is a very moving, monument in St. James to the Canadian war dead that encompasses a fallen maple leaf motif.

For the jet-lagged, Smithfield Market, London’s main meat market, is a happening place at 5 a.m., and one of the few places to get breakfast that early.

Guilty Pleasure, even for anti-Monarchists: The Buckingham Palace tour. You will be pleased to see that Queenie is living large (don’t miss her Vermeer). Admission apparently does not include tea with Her Majesty.


Forewarned to get to the airport three hours early, I grabbed a taxi outside of the County Inn to take the link from Paddington. “You got your ticket yet, mate?” queried the cabbie, “If not, I’ll take you all the way to Heathrow for 30 quid.” Sounded fine to me. There was not one person in front of me for AA business check in, and security took less than five minutes. Almost missed the plane, anyway, by over-catnapping at the Admiral’s.

Uneventful flight, one-third empty. Yet, it is almost as if everyone is eyeing everyone else seeing if it’s business as usual. I did meet a young woman who said that she spent an extra few days with her boyfriend, and then became trapped, in Cyprus, although she was originally ticketed to have been on one of the planes that crashed in the WTC. While I have no reason to doubt her, I’m guessing it’s going to be like the home run that Babe Ruth pointed and called before he hit...about 250,000 people claimed to have been in Yankee Stadium that day.

Postscript: The kids hardly noticed that we were gone, so keeping with the Darwin theme, the wife and I are eyeing a Galapagos cruise and Ecuador this summer and would probably take Emily. Out

The Cambridge connection certainly explains your erudition on numerous subjects, Jailer.

A little sad to read about your cognitively dissonant experience, though... perhaps the autumn of your discontent? But most of us who have tried to go home again simply learn that Thomas Wolfe was right.

By the way, the "minor American stage actor" who died before his vision of a rebuilt Globe Theatre was completed, was Sam Wanamaker. Richard Burton he wasn't, but you could have been more charitable. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Ouchie, Ouch, Rich, I stand corrected. What I meant to say was that Wanamaker was a minor actor in the way that his place in history will be in theater architecture, not theater arts. You know, minor in the way that Giorgio Vasari, a fine artist in his own right, is best known as the author of the bestseller he wrote in 1550, Lives of the Artists. Minor in the way that the fact that Paul Revere was a renowned silversmith is secondary. Like, weren’t Harrison Ford and Jesus carpenters?

An aside to Q.L.: the Gods punished me for going to Las Vegas without you. Apparently, Talisman, talesman and tailsman are interchangeable good luck charms.

...much the same as people forget that Shakespeare was first known as an actor.