We stayed this weekend in a major settlement for the last two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans.
No?
Adam & I went this weekend to a leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism and transport all contributing to its prominence. It is the world's largest financial centre (alongside New York City) and has the largest city GDP in Europe. We fit in well, as it has the most international visitors of any city in the world.
Still no? Okay, I’ll get there in a minute.
Somewhere along the way, I told someone in my office that one of my goals while over here was to travel. I meant that I wanted to take lots of vacation time with Adam and we wanted to see Europe. What they heard was that I don’t mind working out of town. So, for the last three weeks, I’ve been in Aylesbury and London. If I were to compare the two, I’d say there are slightly more than a billion more things going on in London than in Aylesbury. Aylesbury is mostly a commuting city. It is 57 minutes on the train from Aylesbury to London Marylebone Station. Based on the time I made the mistake of trying to catch the 5:55 train out of Marylebone, with the exception of the 200 people who work at my client in Aylesbury, the entire town takes the train in daily. Aylesbury is a bit sleepy, but a charming stereotypical British town while London is fast paced, lively, a people-watching mecca, and expensive.
Colleagues in my office here often ask why I came to Bristol rather than London. The criteria we had when selecting locations were 1) somewhere predominately English-speaking – I have a fear of not being able to go the grocery store & understand what I’m purchasing (which incidentally does still occasionally happen over here) 2) somewhere that was good for my career (ie had clients that fit with my experience and where I eventually want to end up) and had an University to give Adam the opportunity to go back to school and 3) wasn’t a mondo city (I still tell people I’m from Fort Worth not Dallas because Dallas is too big for me to live in!).
Though Bristol is slightly larger than I thought, it’s probably the size of Dallas proper, but without all the Frisco, Plano, Arlington added bits to it, we live in the suburbs and that’s an okay fit for me. Can I complain for a moment? Thanks. The traffic. I will never again whine about 121 through the mid-cities (okay, I might...but not for the next 20 months). Our house is 7.4 miles from my parking lot (which is another 15 minute walk uphill to the office, but that’s a bellyache for another day). I have to be in the office by 9am. If I leave the house by 7:45, I can get to the parking lot by about 8:30. If Daisy is being particularly cute or Ginger throws a fit and won’t go in her crate and I don’t leave the house until 7:55, no chance I’ll make it in until 9:30. Insanity! I don’t know that I’ll ever understand the highway (or motorway, as they call it) system. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that the motorway ends at a stoplight. (Remember 121 from Coppell to Frisco before the Rayburn extension? Add another 3 lanes on each side and about 2,000 more cars plus busses – oh I hate buses these days! – and you’ll have the M32 south.) Okay, I’m done...for now.
So, back to last week. In my tour of the UK office buildings, they decided I needed to see one in London last Thursday & Friday and that the big boss who I needed to present the results to couldn’t meet with me until Monday morning. I took the train in Thursday morning and as Adam doesn’t have class on Fridays, he followed me Thursday night and we spent the weekend in the city then he came home Sunday evening to pick up the dogs from the kennel before his class on Monday and I came back Monday evening after my meetings. One thing is for certain, I am going to be good at reading a train schedule by the time I get back to Texas – a skill that I don’t see benefiting me long-term.
Thursday evening, Adam & I decided to be adventurous in the culinary world – anyone who knows us understands what a big deal this is. You see the British are not known for their food (well, maybe they are, just not in a positive way). What they are known for is conquering a civilization and taking all the parts they like of it, then calling it their own. Cuisine is no exception to this statement. You will see Indian restaurants all over the country. They’ve very much taken curry as their own recipes now. Not dissimilar to Texans feeling that Mexican food is theirs. Anyhow, when I was walking back to the hotel from my client’s office, I saw a poster in a restaurant window for ‘Moroccan Meatballs’. I’d never had anything Moroccan before, but the picture looked good – you know me, very visual! So after Adam got to town, we headed down to explore. We ate tapas style because we were afraid we’d order something we didn’t like and then be disappointed. After Googling several of the items on the menu (how did people order dinner before the iPhone – we’ll miss your genius Steve Jobs!), we settled on 3 dishes. Every single one was amazing. It has been by far one of my favourite meals in the UK. If you’re going to be in London, let me know & I’ll tell you where to find them. Apparently, I like Moroccan food?
Friday morning, I headed back to the office and Adam went off to see two museums that I have no desire to go to: the National Army Museum and the Churchill War Rooms. He thoroughly enjoyed both. I’m glad he went without me. I will let him share the story (and photo he took) of Napoleon’s horse – the PG version, not the NC-17 for graphic violence and gore that he told me.
Friday evening, we did one of my favourite things – we went to a musical. I can’t sing. AT. ALL. Infact, after about 3 months of attending church services in Bedford, the lovely older couple who had been sitting in front of us every week started sitting behind us. She sang beautifully, by the way. I can’t sing, but I admire those who can – those who understand words like rhythm and tone and range. And I love musicals. We’d kinda wanted to see Shrek the Musical, but when I got to the half price ticket booth Friday afternoon, there were only obstructed view seats remaining. Even at half-price I wasn’t paying for an obstructed view seat! So, I asked the ticket agent what else he had in that price range. He said he had Billy Elliot tickets. Thought I’d heard of Billy Elliot, I had no idea what it was about or what the reviews had been like. Then the ticket agent said, the seats are on the floor 11 rows back 6 seats off center (I’m sure he thought he said ‘centre’). I was sold. So back to the hotel I went, we changed & went to the show. It was really good. I’m glad we saw it. And I loved my date night. Adam was a bit disappointed that I’d forgotten that London theatres sell ice cream in the isles during intermission and he was not properly prepared with cash to be able to partake. Next time, we’ll know.
Saturday morning, we had some great hot chocolate then went to the Tower of London.
Adam would like me to point out that the tower of London isn’t exactly a tower in the way that you would call the Leaning Tower of Pisa a tower. Something akin to the mythical standalone tower that Rapunzel was trapped in. It never occurred to him that people referred to the Norman castle and surrounding fortifications as “the Tower”. For future visitors, the place is huge. The sheer magnitude of the grounds make it interesting. There is the original Norman castle commissioned by William the Conqueror and known as the “White Tower” due to the pale white stones that make up its façade. Throughout the centuries, it has been used as a royal house, an armoury, bunkers during the war and now a museum. I’ll give the Brits one thing; they never tear down a building that they might use again in another 100 years or so.
Directly across from the White Tower is the Jewel House – where the crown jewels are kept on public display when not in use by a member of the royal family. Among the jewels on display is the Coronation Ring and the world’s largest absolute clear cut diamond “The Star of Africa” at a whopping 530.4 carats. It is at this point in the story that I’d like to point out that my 7th anniversary is in less than 3 months. I’ll pause for a moment to let everyone fully consider that statement and email Adam.
When you go to the Tower, make sure to take one of the Yeomen Warders tours. They are hilarious. One of my favourite anecdotes from the day came when our guide was talking about a set of housing buildings that King Henry VIII commissioned for Anne Boleyn while they were dating and he was busy trying to get rid of wife #1. They were intended to be her private quarters once they were married. The only problem was the speed at which they were built. During construction, she went from mistress, to girlfriend, to wife to woman that couldn’t have a son and by the time the buildings were completed so was she.
In the interest of full disclosure of our time over here, I should say I’ve been having a bit of homesickness the last couple of weeks. I love fall in Texas. That time that you finally break the 100 degree days and get a chance to be outside again. Work is usually a bit slower during this time of year and the State Fair is in town (I’m seriously missing a corney dog with ketchup!) and for the second year in a row, the Rangers are in the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change what we’re doing for a millisecond, but if another person tries to convince me that corn is an appropriate item to accompany chicken and spinach on a sandwich, I might scream! So when we left the Tower of London and saw a restaurant advertising Kansas City BBQ, I jumped on it. It wasn’t Smoke Stack (which I will always contend is better than Haywards – but my family will continue to debate), but it was good. And, they were showing the ESPN Game Day (Texas / OU at the Cotton Bowl) on TV. It was a very surreal experience. We were sitting within ½ a mile of the Tower of London eating a brisket sandwich served by an Argentinean waitress and watching College Game Day.
We capped our evening by attending Evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral. This was another one of those things that I read about in a tourist book, thought it sounded fun and then made Adam go to. Evensong is a completely sung Anglican worship service. We got there just as they were starting, so we missed the processional in, but we were able to sit near the front and watch as the choir lined the Quire and sang everything from the opening hymn to the prayers to the Bible verses. Not that I would want to have this type of service every week, but I thought it was something different and thoroughly enjoyed it. Adam’s comment was that the organ sounded a bit like a car screeching to a halt. For an organ installed in 1694, I thought it sounded pretty good.
I came to a realization about 5 years ago that I no longer saw my Mother on a daily basis and therefore she wouldn’t know if I didn’t have a vegetable with dinner every night. You might note that I’ve been married for nearly 7 years and was in college for 4 more leading up to that; why it took me 6 years of not living at home to come to this epiphany, I will never figure out. Anyway, with this freedom I also concluded that if I wanted a piece of chocolate cake and a glass of Merlot for dinner, I could have that. We’d eaten our lunch about 3pm and didn’t really want dinner, but I needed a snack. So, after the service, we found a restaurant and asked for the dessert menu. British dessert menus have a cheese platter on them. Always seemed odd to me, but today sounded good. So we ordered it...and a decadent Chocolate Mousse.
Sunday we went to the British Museum and the Tate Britain. Both boast large collections of British artwork and relics. Back to my earlier comment of the British conquering a civilization and taking all the parts they like of it, then calling it their own. Their art museums are full of Egyptian, Roman, French, Italian, American, Australian, and Asian items, but not a room we walked into did I say, oh – that looks British. I guess you can’t bottle grey skies and roundabouts.
I did find the medals for the Olympic games interesting. Apparently they're being manufactured at the Royal Mint about an hour from us. I checked, they don't do tours :(
The British Museum houses the Rosetta Stone. It, as you can see from the photos, is the most popular attraction there. (It's the chunk of rock inside the glass case that you can barely see becuase of all the people).
That’s it for this adventure. I’m home for a couple of weeks, then there are rumors (or rumours depending on your perspective) that I might be heading to Leeds for a few days. Leeds, I’ve been told by Wikipedia, is the cultural, financial and commercial heart of the West Yorkshire Urban Area. Doesn’t that sound impressive? Adam has started at school. He has 4 courses this semester and 5 more next. Those who knew him through our college years would see a completely different student today than the one 10 years ago. He studies without being prompted (or forced or threatened). He’s taking an accounting class and asked me for help on one of his homework questions. I had to double check the answer before I could walk him through it. This doesn’t bode well for my career.
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