London & Downe

This morning's side dish was baked beans. John opted to stay in bed a little longer and grab breakfast at Starbucks. (Starbucks seems to be almost as ubiquitous here as it is at home.)

Our first destination today was Down House, Charles Darwin's home. At Victoria Rail Station, we bought our train tickets from a machine, then settled in for the sixteen-minute trip to Bromley South. There, we caught a bus to Downe. The other two people going to Downe were psychologists from London--apparently Darwin is also known for his work on behavior.

The bus was a few minutes late, but eventually it arrived and took us to Downe, a cute little village. The last part of the trip was a walk down a country lane.



Down House has been restored to look as it did when the Darwins lived there.



This is Charles Darwin's study:



and one small part of the extensive gardens:



After catching the bus and train back to London, we headed to Regent Street. We had lunch at a Pret a Manger (another chain that seems to be everywhere). John had a chicken club sandwich, and I had tuna with cucumber on a baguette. I had forgotten to fill my water bottle this morning, so the Diet Coke tasted extra good. (Why do they have Diet Coke in England instead of Coke Light?)

Regent Street is full of expensive shops.



We eventually ended up at Waterstone's book store, where we had a snack in the cafe. John had chocolate ice cream, and I had an Eton mess: chunks of meringue with fruit purée and chunks of fruit.

We looked around at St James' Church (designed by Christopher Wren),



Fortnum and Masons department store, Christies, and St. James' Palace, before going to Baker Street to check out a pub recommended to us. We arrived at The Duke of Wellington Pub about an hour before they started serving dinner, so we sat down with our drinks and relaxed for a bit.

Once they started serving, John had sirloin steak with bearnaise sauce and chips,



and I had grilled lamb chop with anchovy & potato gratin, greens, and baked tomato.

London: The City

Today's breakfast featured pineapple instead of mushrooms. We met a couple in the dining room who said they'd been traveling with Rick Steves guides for twenty-five years--we're only on our second trip!

The first stop this morning was Shakespeare's Globe. It's not exactly "Shakespeare's," having been constructed in 1997, but it's a pretty close replica of the original, including the thatched roof. We went on the guided tour, and then returned to view the exhibition, which was quite interesting.



We walked back over the Millenium Bridge, and headed into the financial district for lunch. Lots and lots of people in suits--I think at one point we were the only people in view wearing jeans! We had lunch at The Counting House, a pub in a building that was originally a bank:



The food was excellent! We ate downstairs at bar, as the restaurant was full. The bar was full of people in suits (mostly men, a couple of women), all drinking beer at lunchtime.

I had the Counting House Special House Pie (steak, onions, & bacon):



and John had the steak burger with bacon and smoked cheddar:



On the way to our next stop, we happened across the Leadenhall Market. The market itself dates back to the 14th century (according to Wikipedia), and the elaborate roof was built in 1881:



Once we made it to the Tower of London (I highly recommend buying tickets online!), it was so interesting that we spent more time there than we had planned. The Beefeaters give great one-hour tours, telling us all about the executions that happened there, and the torture. Beefeaters are all retired from the army with at least 22 years of distinguished service, and they have to agree to live on the grounds of the Tower with their families. I wonder what it would be like to be a child growing up there--coming home every day from school to hordes of tourists.



John's favorite part of the Tower was the White Tower, with the Royal Armoury (lots of guns, swords, and armour):



I liked the Crown Jewels, housed in this building:





By the time we finished walking around the Tower, it was time to start thinking about dinner. We decided to go to our planned evening stop, Harrods, and find something to eat around there. We ended up at the Terrace Bar, where I introduced John to truffle fries:

(We did eat other stuff for dinner, too, but it paled in comparison to the "truffle chips." John had a steak, and I had a club sandwich with turkey, lettuce, tomato, and poached egg.)

London: Westminster

We had another English breakfast today: bacon, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomato, and toast, all served in the basement dining room (another 16 steps).

Our first foray into the Tube went smoothly: we managed to get on the correct train to Leicester Square, where we got in line for the TKTS booth. We decided to buy tickets for tonight's performance of Chicago.

Next stop was Trafalgar Square. Since we had plenty of time before our next scheduled event, we stopped at St. Martin in the Fields and were rewarded with a lovely organ concert. We found our way up into the choir loft, and once the organist was done, a bunch of other people started sitting down and each playing a piece. It seems they are all organists from the US and Canada, taking a tour together.



Instead of braving the crowds at Buckingham Palace, we opted this time to see the Changing of the Horse Guards, a smaller event:





After visiting the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms, we backtracked to St. Martin-in-the-Fields so that we could dine at the Cafe in the Crypt. John had the "Fish Main Dish": Pan-fried breaded tilapia with onion fried baby potatoes, buttered fresh broccoli, and tomato sauce. I had the "Vegetarian Main Dish": Sun blushed tomato, black olive, and basil macaroni.



At the next stop, we walked around the Houses of Parliament for a bit:



As we walked to Westminster Abbey, we saw a bunch of cameras and news crews set up in a little park across the street from Parliament:




Westminster Abbey is one of the only sights we repeated from our previous visit to London in 1998, and I'm sure we'll visit it again next time we come here. No photos allowed, but we did buy some postcards to scan when we get home.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant recommended by some friends who just returned from London. Galvin Bistrot de Luxe was very nice, and they were able to squeeze us in when we arrived at 6:00 without a reservation. John and I both had the prix fixe menu, but chose opposite things so that we could sample everything.

I had leek & onion vichysoisse, wild salmon with herb risotto & pickled courgettes, and raspberry parfait with summer berry compote. John had poached duck egg & lyonnaise salad, fricasee chicken & fondant potato with beans & mushrooms, and Brie au Meaux. Photos are of our main dishes:




For Chicago, we ended up sitting in the second row of the Cambridge Theater. Earlier in the day, we had seen posters in the Underground advertising the fact that Christie Brinkley (yes, THAT Christie Brinkley) was starring in this show for the next couple of weeks, and we immediately wondered if we had made an expensive mistake by choosing Chicago for tonight. I'm happy to report that she was not bad. Certainly not as strong a singer as the other members of the cast, and her dancing was not as crisp, but overall she did a pretty good job.



On the way home, we boarded the Tube at Covent Garden, which may have been a mistake (we arrived by getting off at Leicester Square). First of all, there were a lot of people trying to get into the station after the shows let out. Secondly, we took the stairs, which is something we frequently do at Tube stations. This was a spiral staircase that went on and on and on for what turned out to be 193 steps!

Historic Oxford

We had breakfast this morning with Jeya at St. Hugh's: a typical English breakfast of bacon, eggs (fried), tomato, mushrooms, hash browns, and toast.

After breakfast our first stop was the Bodleian Library, to buy tickets for a tour. While waiting for the tour to begin, we stopped at Blackwell's to pick up some light reading



The Bodleian Library tour started at the Divinity School:





Duke Humphrey's Library was the most interesting part, and of course the one that didn't permit photography.

Next stop was Christ Church College. Unfortunately, the Hall was closed for lunch, but we did see the cathedral:



For lunch, we stopped at The Eagle & Child, the place where Tolkien and C.S Lewis used to hang out:



John had fish and chips, and I had Cumberland sausages and mashed potatoes:




After lunch, we hiked back to St. Hugh's to collect our luggage.



We took a cab back to the bus station. We seem to be 0/2 in terms of Oxford cab drivers: this one tried to take us to the train station instead of the bus station! Fortunately, we were paying attention, and once he realized his mistake he turned the meter off and apologized profusely.

John sat with our bags at the bus station while I dashed back to Christ Church College to see the Hall. There were a lot more people there than there had been at lunch time.



We finally made it onto the bus, and headed for London. We are staying at the Cartref House, a cute little B&B in Belgravia. We're in Room 8 on the top floor (52 steps to the lobby, then five more down to the street.) For dinner, we went down the street and dined at the Ebury Wine Bar. I forgot the camera, but John had pork and green peppercorn terrine and chips with mayonnaise. I had a roasted-vegetable tart with salad. Delicious!

Long, Long Road to Oxford

Yesterday we left our house around 8:30 am, were dropped off at the BART station by a friend, and took BART all the way to SFO. I don't think I've done that before, although John is quite familiar with that route.

The wait at the airport and the flight (direct to Heathrow) were uneventful. I managed about three hours of sleep on the flight, so if this post is more incoherent than usual, you know why.

When we landed at Heathrow, we proceeded through border control and got on a bus to Oxford. "The Airline" bus is a nice enough way to travel--free wifi on the bus.

Once we reached the Oxford bus station, we climbed in a cab for the ride to St. Hugh's College. Apparently not all of the cab drivers in Oxford know where everything is--we were delivered instead to Wolfson College, which is fortunately only a few blocks from St. Hugh's. Once we hiked to St. Hugh's, we discovered that our rooms wouldn't be ready until 2:00 (it was shortly after 10:00 at this time). We left our luggage there and went out to get something to eat, since "breakfast" on the plane had been five hours ago.

Next stop was the Zoology department, where we met up with John's colleague Jeya (who arranged the housing for us). After chatting for a bit, John and I spent some time walking around Oxford:







We had lunch at St. Hugh's with Jeya, then split up for a while. While John talked with some of his colleagues, Jeya's husband Malcolm took me on an inside tour of St. John's College:





Next stop was a tour of the Museum of Natural History.



After the behind-the-scenes tour we had last year in Florence, we were looking forward to seeing this museum, too. Let's just say that this tour was a bit of a disappointment: the curator who took us around was an entomologist who clearly loves his job, but the four of us on the tour did not share his interest in drawer after drawer of insects... (It didn't help that jet lag was most definitely catching up with me, and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open even while I was standing upright.)

A quick nap and a shower at St. Hugh's managed to restore both of us enough to get through the rest of the day. Jeya had originally invited us to dine at St. John's college, but since it's not term time there were not enough people signed up for dinner to be served. Instead, she cooked us a fabulous meal at her house.

London Bound

John's parents decided last summer that they wanted to take all of their grandchildren on a cruise to Alaska, so we have just returned from dropping everyone off at the cruise ship terminal and running some errands. The two of us are taking advantage of this opportunity and heading out tomorrow for a week in London.

Today we took all of the travel backpacks out of the box. It was interesting to see what detritus was left in them from the previous trip--I was able to identify the owners of the packs by what I found. Mine has all the organizers (I'm a sucker for cute little organizers!), Beth's contained a candy wrapper and an earplug, Matt's contained the instructions for using his pack (which he never bothered to discard), and John's contained his travel pouch and some medication labeled in Chinese (he's taken his pack on some other trips, too).

Au Revoir

We are home, safe and sound. I'm almost done unpacking and editing photos (we took over 1500, and are printing about 2/3 of those) and tying up a few loose ends from our trip.

Lessons learned for future trips:

1. Honda Odysseys should be started and driven more often than every three weeks. It's a good thing we were picked up at the airport, rather than parking our car in long-term parking, as we had to call AAA for a jump start. Our Saturn, on the other hand, started up with no problems this morning, despite having been parked for probably four to five weeks.

2. Bank of America is very fussy about travel. Apparently contacting them directly through their secure e-mail system is not enough to prevent them from cutting off access to your debit card while traveling overseas--you have to call a special phone number (NOT the one listed on the back of the card) to make this happen. It would have been nice if they had mentioned this when I sent them the initial e-mail, rather than suddenly blocking my card halfway through our trip. And it would also have been even nicer if their phone system hadn't hung up on me the first two times I tried to call today.

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This will be the last post for a couple of years, until the next time we travel overseas. Our kids have been bitten by the travel bug, so there are many options for the next trip. China, Germany, and Greece are some of the countries being discussed, plus we all loved Venice and Paris and would like to return sometime. Au revoir!