London skies and bubbly Bath

The re-cap!

After a long and stressful morning of traveling (bike to train to another train to bus to plane to bus...how I love Ryanair and chronically late Netherlands rail), Drew met me at Liverpool St. and we explored the hilariously touristy South Bank.


Parliament really does take your breath away. Big Ben--which, as I've recently discovered, is the name of the bell and not the clock tower itself--is absolutely magnificent. Pictures don't do it justice. It's not as humongous as movies would have you believe, though.


We followed up with a bit of wandering through the North Bank--Leicester Square, Buckingham Palace, Green Park--and stopped at Fortnum & Mason, a magical place that some vulgar Americans might call a department store (I, of course, wouldn't be among them), for some tea, conversation, and a glorious and unexpected run-in with one Caiti Maloney and her family. (YAY! Yay yay yay.) We perused the aisles of such funky items as Darjeeling Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe tea, rose-petal preserves, and towering stacks of chocolate. They are, after all, purveyors of foodstuffs to the Queen herself.




London is in many ways a very bourgeois town...which filled me with a bit of self-loathing before I learned to just shut up and enjoy myself. Never did I think like a place like Harrods, with its food courts filled with £35/100g truffles and LED-lit Egyptian escalator, could exist (and continue to exist for over 100 years).



Drew managed to snag free tickets to a Bollywood version of Wuthering Heights at the Lyric in Hammersmith, which was--wait, what was that noise? Oh, I think it was Emily Bronte turning in her grave.

After a deep and much-needed sleep, I hopped on the Tube and spent the morning at the Tower of London. It's definitely more interesting and less creepy than popular opinion makes it out to be. The Crown Jewels are so seriously blinged-out that it's hard to believe that they're real. The carvings that prisoners made in the walls of their cells were shockingly well-preserved, which seems to be a trend in England.



There was also a fairly awkward and poorly maintained memorial to execution victims on the Tower Green, where many a political enemy and insufficient queen lost their heads.

Speaking of execution: the armory had an extensive collection of Henry VIII's armor from his early twenties until his death. The signs were pretty informative, but accompanied with snarky little signs mapping his path towards obesity and general lethargy based on analysis of his armor. He wasn't the greatest guy, but come on.

We walked through Borough Market's many stands hawking organic fruits and veggies, exotic American beers and other beverages (strawberry-rhubarb juice--YUM!), and even a stand claiming to sell ostrich and zebra (?!) burgers. Couldn't spend too much time, though, because I've been waiting my whole life for the next thing on the agenda...


R&J was done as it should always be done: devilishly funny in parts, with period costumes and bawdy songs and tons of fake blood and some really great ensemble turns. And all with a groundling seat. Glee! I'm sad to say that Heathrow doesn't re-direct their flights around the Globe, so some soliloquies were interrupted by the roar of a 757 overhead. Methinks that they didn't have that problem back in the day.

The production ran about three and a half hours, so we had just enough time to grab dinner before Waiting for Godot. Patrick Stewart. Ian McKellen. I really don't think anything else needs to be said.

But no trip to London is complete without a stroll by Parliament at night. Magic.


Met up with long-lost Manhattanite turned Londoner John Hogan the next morning for a posh brunch at the Wolesley and a guided tour of the nooks and crannies of the city. Some highlights: pints at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (one of the oldest pubs in England, frequented by pretty much everyone who was anyone in the last few centuries), Francis Bacon at the Tate Modern, sneaking into the Temple (where the Inns of Court are located) through a small and nondescript door--




--lovely St. Bartholomew's Church--


--and Covent Garden at night.

Got to bed early, because we hopped on a bus to Bath the next morning briiiight and early to visit Ms. Christina Lepri on her home turf! The Roman baths were really incredible. Never did I think that going through a museum would be so...relaxing.


We also took a sip of the so-called "healing" sulfur spring waters. Warm. Gross. Don't do it.


After a quick trip through the Fashion Museum and chips at the Pig and Fiddle, we took a rainy, beautiful stroll through the home of Jane Austen. The English countryside is really all it's cracked up to be.




Hopped up at six the next morning for the bus back to London--there began the Epic 42 Hours Sans Sleep--and finished up the rest of the Tate Modern as well as a couple quick surveys of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery.

The real showstopper, however, was Westminster Abbey. I looked up in the cavernous arches above the nave and choral pews and felt tears welling up in my eyes. Loyal readers of Carr on a Bike (and, uh, anyone who knows me) know that I'm not a crier, but damn. The tombs! The ancient carvings! The 12th century religious murals! Ahhhh!




And have I mentioned that the audio tour is narrated by Jeremy Irons?

It was weird and frustrating to be back in the Netherlands the next morning, to go from a place where things sort of border on the familiar (Vitamin Water! Reese's! English! Culture!) to a place that still, even after almost 5 months, feels foreign and uncomfortable. I'm still working on accepting the fact that I didn't come here for the Netherlands; I came here for Europe, which has proved to be pretty freakin' awesome.

This room needs cleaning and some overdue library books need reading, so I'm off to do my thing. Forty-one days, ladies and gents.