International City Whirlwind
Part One
London, England

By Rick Brown

Originally our friends Joe and Anita invited us to meet them in London, England…on December 11th no less. They were renting a flat from what coincidentally turned out to be the widow of my college advisor…a wonderful world religions professor to whom I owe my degree. Dr. Wilson talked me out of quitting Capital University my sophomore year. And here our new friends were…renting his wife’s flat.

Ordinarily Yvonne and I do not travel with others. At least we are very picky about who that might be. But we made plans to give everyone as much freedom to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. That…and they were going with their well-traveled friend Spencer, so we decided to go for it. Over time the excursion morphed into a London-Paris trip…in only 8 days. That’s a lot of living in a little over a week. And we had never traveled right before Christmas before…at least not to anyplace that isn’t 80 degrees with a beach.

We arrived on a Sunday. The other three got there a day earlier and when they discovered us meandering around the Kensington area looking for our hotel, I knew this vacation was going to be much different than any I’d experienced in the past. The three knew where our hotel was and escorted us there. They had even been there and jumped on the bed in our room! Rascals they are.

The Hotel Vicarage is a charming little establishment in a row of houses and businesses that in many ways is a bed and breakfast. The morning meal is free and helps sooth the pain of how expensive all of London is. (The pound is worth almost twice what the dollar is.) Our room was right on the first floor next to the staircase. First thing I noticed about London…I had never been there before…is that it is charming and bustling. And Londoners were just getting around to putting up Christmas decorations. The same proved true for Paris. And the lack of holiday commercialism was refreshingly wonderful.

Joe and Anita’s friend Spencer proved to be a great traveling companion for all of us. This guy has been everywhere. (I think he even went to the moon once or twice.) Our first evening in England we met another mutual friend Tony…a native Londoner. Never have I shared time together with a group like this in a foreign land…all coming together from different parts of the world. After our late afternoon meal at the flat we strolled by Kensington Palace, through Hyde Park to Royal Albert Hall, and ended up visiting the V & A Museum. All museums are free in London. It’s about the only deal a traveler is going to get, so you might as well visit a lot of them.

Walking back in the dark there was a steady mist yet relatively warm for December…at least by Midwestern America standards. It was what I like to call a Basil Rathbone kind of night. An interesting reality of England in the winter is that it literally is dark by 4:30 in the afternoon. And the sun isn’t up until almost nine. Before retiring for bed Joe, Anita, Yvonne and I visited a pub for a British ale, and although it may have been 7 pm it seemed much later. The little place was packed with soccer fans and while they were nice enough it became obvious to me that people can get obnoxious about sports everywhere you go.

At our first breakfast I decided to take a chance on something called kippers. There on my plate…next to my eggs…was what looked like a couple sardines. I love sardines. Turns out kippers are pickled herring. I really didn’t mind the taste at first…salty and smoky. But belching it up for the next five hours was enough to cool my desire to eat them again. Maybe at ten o’clock at night with a beer. But certainly not at 7:30 in the morning!!

Since our traveling friends had all been to London before, Yvonne and I spent Monday doing some extreme gonzo sight seeing. The Tower of London (which apparently is NOT considered a museum and cost beaucoup bucks to get into) proved interesting, as did a walk along the Thames past the Tower Bridge. We utilized London’s wonderful underground and made it over to Trafalgar Square…past Big Ben (Ben truly is a big dude!) where we paid almost 30 dollars to get into Westminster Abbey! I mean…how can you go to London and not go here? Fortunately, not only do you get to see a magnificent church building …an architectural wonder…but there are dead queens in there!!! Both Elizabeth the First and Mary Queen of Scots claim this as their final resting place. Oliver Cromwell is buried there as well but his site isn’t half as dignified. You can actually walk over his grave if you like. This is something I try not to make a practice of. Seems disrespectful to me somehow…creepy even.

The five of us reunited at Ms. Wilson’s flat again for dinner. This really saved all of us a lot of cash. Kensington is arguably the nicest area in London and has lots of specialty food stores and wine shops. So we could make a nice little dinner…seemingly out of the ordinary…and not have to spend what could easily have been 100 dollars a night PER PERSON for dinner!

Tuesday morning Yvonne and I…Anita and Joe…took a train ride up to Cambridge where Ms. Wilson owns another flat. She met us at the station and told us she had an opportunity to get us tickets for that night’s Kings College Boys Choir Christmas Concert. And apparently this is no small feat. The choir is world renown and the performance was sold out. How could we say no to a once in a lifetime event such as this? We all said “of course!”

Ms. Wilson…or Marti as many know her…is a stick of dynamite!!! This petite gray haired lady…who has lost none of her beauty or charm…drove us all over the countryside before taking us to her flat in Cambridge. Then she proceeded to give us the nickel tour of Cambridge (complete with a fish and chips lunch at the local pub), which is a beautiful collection of some 13 colleges. Doctor Wilson had been very involved with King’s College and the concert was to be in the chapel…which proved to be more of a cathedral really.

But since we were staying a lot longer than originally planned the four of us…while Marti ran errands including the pulling of strings for our tickets…wandered around this quaint village for hours. We even stopped in at a tearoom for afternoon tea. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this ritual. In fact, I’m sitting here participating in late afternoon tea as I write this!! And Cambridge brought back memories of our visit to Heidelberg, Germany.

The concert was incredible! Included were a few songs I had sung in high school choir that I immediately recognized. The experience was quite moving. Although tickets were 60 dollars each…for a little over an hour performance…hey we WERE in England!!! And it worked out about the same as a 3 1/2 hour Rolling Stones concert at 200 bucks a pop!!!

Afterwards we all went back to Marti’s for a light dinner. It was really great to bond with Ms. Wilson. We exchanged stories about Doctor Wilson…Capital University…other faculty…Mr. Maag the library director. This evening will always mean a great deal to me…and I know Yvonne (also a Capital grad) feels the same way.

Not that it was all seriousness. Anita and Marti both attended St. Olaf College in Minnesota…another Lutheran school. And they sang their fight song…which for a fight song was delightfully silly really. And I was waiting for Rose (Betty White) from “The Golden Girls” (she was also a St. Olaf grad) to appear and make it three-part harmony.

Must have been all the wine I consumed earlier.

With all this reveling the four of us didn’t get back to our Kensington homes away from home, until after midnight. Yvonne and I decided to sleep in a little and take in a couple museums the next day.

First we went back to Trafalgar Square and went to the British Museum. Instead of being manic…as we many times are…and try to see this massive collection in one visit…we settled on an exhibit called “The Road from Manet to Picasso”. And what a treat that experience was! I’m quite fond of French Impressionists and this was one of the best collections I’ve ever seen. There is a particularly impressive number of works of Cézanne.

Next we made our way to a smaller museum called The Wallace Collection. And while I enjoyed it I found the building almost as interesting as the artwork. Perhaps I was tiring. I don’t know. But I have always found it draining looking at suits of armor and swords….stuff like that. They do have a few Rembrandts and Van Dyke’s there that I enjoyed.

We did make it a point of riding the double decker buses to the Wallace Collection that afternoon. It was great fun. Between the trains and the buses I had not a thought of driving. It’s one of the many things I love about Europe…the mass transit.

That final evening after dinner we all meandered around looking at Christmas lights. We eventually made our way to Harrods Department Store. I have never seen such opulence in my life. Even the outside of the building more resembles a palace than a store. We wandered around looking at ridiculously expensive items. The food court was most impressive. It was as if the Sistine Chapel put in an oyster bar!!! I found an apron that cost a little more than the first car I bought ($35). I felt the need to buy SOMETHING. Except now I’m afraid to use it for fear of getting tomato paste on it or something.

We made it a relatively early evening. We all had to meet at the train station in the morning for the Aerostar ride to Paris. Our European Cityscape Adventure was only half over!!!

To be continued…