Or, an Ignorant American's thoughts on Britain
Back at the end of March in 1999 I was able to actually enjoy, for the first time in my life, an actual paid vacation -- two weeks roaming the countryside of the British mainland, taking in sights. Now, my partners on this trip -- Jules and the everpopular Mer -- have already written on the subject extensively (both here and here); however, the difference between my outlook on the whole thing is probably very much different than theirs for several reasons. Most of this hinges on gender differences, of course, but other things to to keep in mind is that Jules is a stone circles/anthro-archeo-artifice freak, and that Mer has a Victorian/Bronte/anthro-socio-literary jones, while I was just a dopey American looking to see some stuff he'd never seen before. So keep that in mind.
So, with that all straightened out, onward and upward.
March 20-21
Our flight was a DC-10 out of Detroit Metro, arguably the worst major airport in the United States, so we were glad to actually get up off the ground without problems. We took off at 9pm on the 20th, and we learned that we'd be in the air for seven hours. Luckily, I got an aisle seat with an adjustable armrest, which let me enjoy the flight in some measure of moderate comfort.
Ill omen #1 -- the in-flight movie was What Dreams May Come, one of those Robin Williams movies where he's both annoying and not funny, co-starring Cuba Gooding Jr. in a role where he was both annoying and not funny. The movie actually wasn't that bad, but I'm certain the novel, written by the excellent Richard Matheson, must be much, much better.
So, seven hours later, about 4AM my time, the plane hits ground at Gatwick airport just outside of London. Julie has snoozed a bit on the plane, but I could not, and I was dismayed to find sunny skies and a local time of 9AM, March 21. We waded through customs and all of bullcrap that goes along with entering a foreign country -- "Do you have any fruit to declare?" -- and finally escaped to waiting area that, with its molded plastic bubble-chairs and garish colors -- made me think our plane had traveled back 25 years in time. About this time jetlag started kicking in something fierce, and we parked it and waited... and waited... and waited... No sign of Mer, who had been here for a week prior, and who had promised barring disaster to greet us.
Twenty or so more minutes rolled on before we got antsy, and Jules and I split up to poke our noses around the complex. Incredibly we found that while our waiting area was nice, the one down a stairwell and behind a door was much, much nicer -- and it had Mer in it, who thought we'd never gotten on the plane in the first place. She filled us in on her exploits as we went to pick up the rent-a-wreck. Everyone in England drives a hatchback -- it must be a federal law. We piled in the Fiat Bravo (luckily I was able to claim the back seat for ALL our sakes) and we drove off for Nottingham, our first stop.
That's when the Jetlag was combined with nausea.
On the way there, I dozed on and off, but in moments of lucidity, I saw some very strange things. One was a pig farm that had a sign asking consumers to "Put Some British Pork On Your Fork!" -- and right next to it were two pigs that were DOING IT. Then I saw a three-legged dog -- a three legged dog! Then a sheep farm, where a baby lamb was standing on his mother's back while the mother laid on the ground.
Nottingham -- the name conjures images of a medieval town, maybe a castle in the distance. WRONG. It's an industrial area now, so Jules and Mer thought it was a pit, but I was fascinated by it. Britain has nowhere near the space that America has, so there's no malls or giant Kroger-like supermarkets with expansive parking lots. Think about Main Street in a small town, or if you're a local, Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor. Notice how all of the shops are squished one after another? EVERY store in Nottingham was like this -- even appliance stores and CAR DEALERSHIPS. How crazy is that? The streets are mottled cobblestone, patched every which way to Tuesday. These streets are probably hundreds of years old. (Note -- this relates to something witnessed later that will blow this realization away.) All the streets look the same, and they wind around the town like silly string.
We found somewhere on the street to park -- I noticed the lack of meters on the streets -- I wonder if this is because so few people drive? -- and we walked down to the nearest open Pub (whose name escapes me) for some food. I picked at something called "ham ploughboys", which is like glorified ham sandwich components -- thin ham, giant hunks of bread, and (ugh) relish -- but I swiped some of Jules' mayonaisse (which they give to you in great gouts for "chips" -- that's "french fries" to you and me) and I ate about maybe half. (Too much bread!). Oh, if you order "lemonade" here you get a 7up-like product. Or you can drink Britain's leading soft drink, "Tango!" available in orange, lemon, black current, or other crazy-ass flavours (notice the "u" -- it stands for "unique"). What I thought was cool was that the England national soccer team was beginning to play, and the pub was getting PACKED. I watched a little bit of the opening before we left -- it was worth it just so I could say I saw the game in a English pub. We then made our way to "the Igloo", the hostel we'd being staying in.
(Let me digress for a second about hostels. The theory is excellent -- a hostel being a hotel-like structure where travelers can stay for short periods of time much cheaper than actual hotels. Now, you have to stay in rooms with anywhere between 4-12 other people, like a dormatory, but hey. The problem I discovered, and you'll see through the upcoming summaries, is that the hostels can only range between "adequate" to "God-forsaken shithole".)
Passing an old cemetery with those cool tall/thin headstones, we walked into the Igloo, which was painted up all funky, to find about 5 people huddled around a television in a room with all of the shades pulled, the stench of cigarette smoke overpowering. I'd thought we'd made a wrong turn into an opium den, but they had indeed been expect our party to come, and we were led upstairs to a room with six bunkbeds.
We dropped our things, and that was the moment that everything caught up with me. I was afraid of seeming, to Mer and Julie, like a stick in the mud on our first day in England here; but I was equal parts exhausted, sleep-deprived, sore from the contortions my body was put through in the plane, and sick to my stomach. (Mer assures me nowadays that she didn't feel that way, and Jules, I think, was jetlagged too. Mer's a good person; sometimes I don't think I could put up with myself on some of our adventures.) I fell asleep, and I think the ladies did as well.
Next time I woke, it was early evening, and I couldn't under good conscience spend all this day in the bed, so we wandered around Nottingham, taking in this city's life. It was no London, but it was slightly urban. One annoying thing about England that we'd skipped here by sleeping late was that between about the hours of 4 and 7, places like restaurants and such (the kinds of places in the states that are open until like 9 or 10) actually close for a while -- I guess it's like the siesta type thing in Spanish countries.
We found a cafe, "The Max", and I sipped on a lemonade while Jules and Mer ate dinner; nothing more notable happened here that I remember other than they seemed to have one CD (Eagle-Eye Cherry) on loop. We made the l-o-n-g walk back to the Igloo and I collapsed yet again. I was utterly wiped, and slept long and hard.
March 22
I woke at like 7AM the next morning feeling strangely awake -- at home, if I have to get up at 9, I'm bumming. While I felt awake, my feets were hurting -- even the double layer of padding in my boots were not going to prevent blisters. Ah well. Mer seemed to have been up already, and Julie was working on waking also, and it was not long before we abandoned the Igloo. One plus is that no one else showed up to co-inhabit our room.
The first stop would be something we were all geeked for -- Sherwood Forest! Robin Hood! Expanses of trees, hundreds of years old, filled my head as we zipped along in the Bravo, friendly brown signs pointing the way. Geeked and Early we were -- the visitor center had not yet opened, but we could still walk the trails into the wood. The morning chill combined with morning sun set the stage.
Unfortunately, dreams of Sherwood were just that. It turns out that in the Twentieth Century the Forest was depleted by about 75% for both wood and charcoal. So we kept walking and walking, hoping we'd get to the big trees -- and we never made it. There were a few remnants -- a huge tree called something like "Old Major" that was about 400 years old. Sadly, the inside had rotted out, and the tree was being propped up by giant 2x4's and coated with some kind of plastic cap on certain spots along the trunk.
When we got over the slight disappointment, I came to appreciate the forest that was left -- there were many thin birch trees that bent sideways and then up again (giving the feel of that cool "infinite forest" effect from Mortal Kombat -- and enough time had passed for the visitor center to open, so we made our way back. The Visitor Centre was cheeseball, but we could appreciate that, especially the "Automatic Bandit" machine just inside of the gate. You put in some pence and you got a sticker with the picture of someone from the Robin Hood legend. I believe I got Friar Tuck.
There was a film about Robin Hood, and we then hit the gift shoppe. Thus began my plan for souvenirs, which was simple -- to spend as little money as possible. Not because I was cheap, but because I didn't want to get in a habit of buying overpriced crap. On this trip, a couple of postcards and a pin saying "I've been to Sherwood Forest" was my haul. Total cost = less than two pounds.
We piled in the Bravo again and made our way towards the next stop -- Fountain's Abbey. Until this point, I'd been mildly impressed with the sights I'd seen. Fountain's Abbey -- now this was what the point of this trip was all about. We went into the visitor complex, which seemed to just be a building in a field, and after paying a few pounds we went out the back door for a half-mile walk -- which took us to the edge of a small valley in the back. A stream/river ran through the center, straight into the ruins.
Fountain's Abbey was exactly that -- an abbey. We walked down into the valley, taking in the sights of this ancient complex. It really is the epitome of "ruins" -- spiral stairwells that you can see wind up through holes in the walls, broken cobblestone floors with plush green grass filling in the holes... The atmosphere was incredible. If I were making some kind of fantasy movie this would be the first place I'd try to get to film at.
We did not have forever to wander around there, so we returned to the Visitor's Center to grab some lunch before making the long drive up to Durham.
Durham was a traditional English town with a large cathedral and castle. The B&B was nice and cozy; we dropped off our bags and the Fiat and headed downtown for some food. It was only Mer's crazy bus luck that allowed us to get downtown and back home again without killing ourselves; we ate at Emilio's, an Italian joint. They tried hard, but like most British food, it was pretty bland. I welcomed the bus ride home as my feet were still hurting.
March 23
The first of a series of English Breakfasts was eaten this morning. I thought it was great -- you get eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, and cereal (and tea of course) -- and it fills you for the day you're going to have. First things first -- we headed down to the cathedral and it was spectacular. The enormity of the fact that this church, which was having services the very day we were there, was over a thousand years old was truly overwhelming. The States have so little monuments of that age. We saw the tombs of St. Cuthbert and the venerable Bede, historian of the Roman Empire. Truly astounding.
The castle... well, that was another story. Over the years it had been renovated inside so that it was not very... medieval? The outside was still imposing though.
We drove for Hadrian's Wall and saw the remnants running along the road we were on. Not much is left, save a few areas protected by the English heritage; we decided to turn back before dark and actually walk along the Wall tomorrow.
Searching for creature comforts of home, we ate in a Pizza Hut in Durham, noting the differences between American and British 'za, toasting our Orange Tango soda to a year of Julie and I being together.
March 24
We bid the Fowler's B&B farewell. They had been excellent and funny hosts, actually arranging one room so that Jules and I could stay together. We enjoyed another smashing English Breakfast, then packed up. We'd decided to travel along the same road as before, running along Hadrian's Wall, and we actually found an area where we could walk atop it. It was a wonder that there was even this much of the Wall left. I was only about 5 feet high, but you had to marvel that this structure, 5 feet by 5 feet, ran along the entire width of the northern part of England.
We raced on to Gretna Green, Scotland, just so we could say we had been in Scotland. Gretna Green has a history of being a town where lovers would run away to elope, ala Vegas or Niagara Falls. We did some souvenir shopping; I would have liked to have bought a haggis for my younger brother but unfortunately US trade law makes that illegal. Oh well.
Time was running short, and we had to zip down the length of the country to get into Glastonbury for our B& B there. I slept in the back seat for most of the trip, but I did recall the storm through the mountains that are east of Wales; that was very cool. Unfortunately, that slowed us up enough that we were a bit late getting to the Bolt Hole, where we'd be staying the next few nights. So we had to wait, in the Fiat, in the dark, for a couple of hours before the owner came back from the theatre. Luckily, she still had our rooms available and we were more than happy to collapse into bed.
March 25
Glastonbury was pure resort town. Apparently this place had become the mecca for new age spiritual types, and that was written all over the place. What did that mean for me? Well, I both loathed and liked the place. There were plenty of neat shoppes; Jules and Mer had no problem losing themselves in the mystical excess. I was actually able to get some original British prints of books I'd enjoyed as a boy. I think it was this day that I'd coined the phrase "mystic turds" -- as in some shifty crap that could be sold here to unwitting new age-ers who didn't know any better.
We drove off to bath a little late. I believe I disliked Bath much more than Glastonbury. We went purely to see the Roman Baths which gave the city its name. The Baths were cool, yes, but they got old after a while; I think I was most disappointed that the Baths were stuck in the middle of a marketing nightmare. What did you see as soon as you stepped out of the Baths? Baskin Robbins. Ugh.
We returned to Glastonbury for dinner, and the chip shop where we ate had the real deal -- fish and chips, wrapped in newsprint. Unlike Big Boy, these were not going to make me ill. However, when we returned to the Bolt Hole, the efforts of the last few days caught up with me, and I zonked out.
March 26
The English Breakfast was scarfed down to the last crumbs, because we'd need all the fuel we could get our hands on. Today, we climbed the Tor.
The Glastonbury Tor is a large hill; at the top is the remnant of a church/cathedral that used to be there. This is the monument which draws the new age-ers -- this is the spirtual Eiffel Tower around here. On their last trip Julie and Mer had climbed th Tor all day, taking the long way around; this time we'd charge up the beaten path. We walked first through sheep pasture, watching the sheep run from us if when got too close, and trying not to step in their offal; then the path wove up along the hill. It was a pretty strenuous climb for office-types such as ourselves, but we finally made it to the top.
The view was tremendous. Green pastures as far as the eye could see in all directions, separated by a maze of stone fences. Glastonbury spread out below us, the Bolt-Hole a tiny model-railroad structure below, the skies clear and sun shining down for the first time during the trip. Sheep mere balls of cotton tumbling about the pastures.
I can't adequately describe the structure left at the top of the tor -- it looks like an entrance tower or spire of a large structure -- but it is a most unique object sitting atop that hill. We sat inside, outside, watching the world spin around us. If for no other reason, this is why we came -- just a very palpable sense of something that could not be found where we were from.
After a while, we knew we had to get back down if we were going to make the rest of the sights we needed to get to, and so we bid goodbye to the Bolt-Hole and Glastonbury, driving on for Longleat Castle.
Now Longleat was beyond any of our expectations. Turns out that the Marquis who owned the property was this weird hippie-type who'd painted all of these "erotic murals" (we passed). The estate was quite hoity-toity, but it was the other things that truly made this a bizarre experience. We stumbled our way in and out of the World's Longest Hedge maze and watched rhinos and other exotic animals wander the grounds all the while wondering if there wasn't a lot of inbreeding in the Maquis' family. We laughed about it then and still do now, on reflection, how wonderfully strange the experience was.
We pushed on to Stonehenge, the Rose Bowl of British tourist sites. Because of all of the pedestrian traffic the land around the stones was being eroded away, and that couple with the fact that hoodlums and malcontents had a tendency to abuse the rocks was the reason we were roped about twenty feet from the standing stones themselves. You actually have to park on the opposite side of the road and go through a tunnel bored into the ground below to get to the stones proper. I got a cool picture of the moon above the stones on one side as the sun still shone from the rear, but the overall experience was a bit... muted? Overhyped? I dunno. Getting closer the stones may have helped, plus less of a crowd. We hung out for a while and then left, stopping to check out the kitschy souvenir shop.
By this time it was late and we had no arrangements for a place to stay -- I hesitate to call it fighting but we bickered. We'd been here a long time now, Mer a week longer than that. Little did we know that we'd end up in a great place -- the owners of a pub and restaurant had rooms above the establishment that they rented out, and there we where. We had the best food of the trip in their restaurant, and the beds were like sleeping in marshmallow fluff. Ask any of us, and we'll express a desire to stay there again.
The only problem is that we can't remember where it is or what it was called.
March 27
Strangely, my journal for this day doesn't have much to it. Looks like the plight of my poor feet finally caught up with me. I remember having two gel liners in my boots, as well as wearing two pairs of socks, yet by this time in things it would take only about an hour of walking before each step was like walking on hot coals.
We drove to Avebury -- a village that was totally enclosed within a stone circle. Each stone was a huge boulder, oblong, that had been rolled on edge. There was a lot of land erosion here as well, but we were able to lap the ring and then enter the town. Most of the buildings still had thatched roofs, for Christ's sake. After looking through some knickknacks, we were off again.
We found Woodhenge, which has to classify as the Least Worthy Tourist Site Ever. Basically, none of the original material of the site was preserved, just cements nubs in the ground to note where the markers used to sit. It looked like some kind of giant weird croquet match gone wrong, and we blew out of the there after only a few moments. We drove on to Old Sarum, site of a Roman fort. The mortar that held the stone together in the ruins had wedged into it sharp slivers -- all over this thing. Very cool-looking. I remember lying on the side of the hill and watching the town below.
We drove on and found a great B & B in Chichingham, where we packed it in for the evening.
March 28
After leaving the wonderful B & B we made our way east to the town of Battle, where we visited the Abbey and battlefield where the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. It was really cool to wander around the battlefield knowing that thousands of soldiers fought there. Both the Abbey and the surrounding area was impressive in its own right.
The trip over to Dover was a nightmare -- it took hours to get to Dover on the road which we'd mapped out, and then when we got there we were subjected to a hostel that made Shawshank Prison look like the Four Seasons. We went into town and had some pseudo-Indian food. The end, for today. Blegh...
March 29
The morning was eaten up with the White Cliffs of Dover and Dover Castle. The cliffs were a very cool site -- we sat upon them and watched the boats come from across the English Channel from France.
Dover Castle was cool in that the castle had been modified over time to fit the needs of the British armed forces. During the war they used the tunnels under the castle to house ultra-sensitive war effort office and such. On the tour they actually had sight, sound and SMELL effects! Smell that ether! Hey, isn't that the stench of death?
Afterwards, we got the hell out of town via the expressway, which, even though it was a longer route than the way into Dover, got us back to the Battle area faster than it took to get their originally. We finally ended up in Brighton.
Brighton's on the Atlantic -- I guess it's the English Channel here as well -- and we spent some time walking along the boardwalk and on the beach, picking shells, rocks, and weathered glass from the pounding surf. I touched the water -- 2 oceans touched (the other being the Pacific when I went to Los Angeles), two to go. Even tho the day was grey, windy, and drizzly, I sat on a rock looking over the waves and considered that moment, and everything around, to be exactly what I'd suspected that England would be like.
We walked through a rather gaudy palace in the middle of the city and then decided that we'd see a movie that evening. Brighton was a larger city than the villages we'd been through over the last week, and thus had most of the amenities that we Americans were familiar with -- movies, Baskin-Robbins, etc. We ended up seeing Waking Ned (Devine), which felt equal parts odd yet right -- Americans seeing a movie about Irish people in England. The greatest thing about the experience was that British theatres not only see popcorn with butter and salt, but they also sell "sweet corn" -- hot popcorn coated with sugar. Why can't we import that here (other than when Art Fair rolls into town)?
On the way out, it was pouring, and we ran back to the B & B and collapsed.
March 30
We took care of business in Brighton this morning -- I shipped some excess stuff from my backpack home at the post office, and then we said goodbye to the Fiat Bravo. We'd ended up putting over 1400 miles on her. We'd returned her at Gatwick and caught the train into London.
London... It's all you think it would be, but it also has all of the problems of any other urban center. While all of the landmarks and such were about, and the Underground is cool, there's still dirt and filthy and coal dust in the air, coating the insides of your nostrils. There's also the mass of humanity, but that may have been prompted by this being the weekend of Easter coming up.
The hostel we were staying at was right next to the British Museum, which was good. Unfortunately it was a god-forsaken HOLE. We were very lucky in that the three of us were put in a room with two bunkbeds, and the other person in our room was also from the States. We chatted for a bit, then dumped our stuff and wandered through the Museum for most of the afternoon.
We decided to take in London at night -- It was very cool, but mitigated by the fact that we (okay, probably mostly I) were tired -- just plain tired. We caught another movie -- Gods and Monsters -- which was very good. I think this film basically gave Ian McKellen the Magneto role in X-Men. Anyways, that was all for this day.
March 31
Out of the hell-hole and on to the East Side of London, where we found the Rotherhithe hostel. This place had been remodeled and looked like a big dorm, so things were okay, except that they had triple-bunks and put twenty people in a room. The bottom bunk I got made me feel like I was in a torpedo tube, but I survived.
We took off for the Tower of London, checking out the bridge, the Crown Jewels, the Beefeater guards with the automatic weapons -- all very cool, just overly crowded. Also, London decided to perk up to about 75 degrees for some reason. All of this took up most of the afternoon, and we were wiped right out. I remember eating at a nearby KFC and noticing that they'd slathered my chicken sandwich with ketchup -- yikes.
We decided to take it easy that night and hang at the hostel, watching British TV interspersed with American shows (like ER), playing Boggle, reading, and resting. Tomorrow would be a big day.
April 1
We woke and ate a cheerless breakfast in the hostel cafeteria, then headed for the tube. To hit all of the things we wanted to see in London without having to sit through things we did not like, we took The Original London Bus Tour in a double-decker bus.
So the day was spent tooling around London, getting off at whatever landmark we wanted to see. "Hey look kids, Parliament, Big Ben!" We saw Westminster Cathedral, London Bridge, Trafalgar Square... The bus trip also provided the funniest moment of the trip -- as we got off our bus, a overly helpful asian gentleman who was part of the tour company asked us where we were going. We were a block from Big Ben, and so we said that was our destination.
The man yelled "NO! YOU GOT OFF AT THE WRONG STOP! YOU WILL HAVE TO WALK VERY FAR!" Now, this wasn't mad-yelling, but it was yelling nonetheless. We ran in fear, laughing after getting a ways away.
We did make it to 221B Baker Street, home of Sherlock Holmes. Check the final "I must see these things in England" item off the list. Time to go home, right? Well, one more night...
April 2
We got the hell out of Rotherhithe, London, England, and the Eastern Hemisphere. America welcomes us home with open arms.