Running the Gamut of Sleeping Arrangements in England

This is the last installment from our Europe 2009 trip. Pardon my failure to keep up with it. This final post prbably seems odd coming after Jenny's post about "Chicagoland and Thanksgiving," but I want to get the last bit of our trip down in writing, regardless of whether it is chronological on the blog.

Our B&B set us up with a great "British" breakfast each day we were there. It was particularly appreciated on our last morning, as we had a 10-12 hour drive ahead of us. In addition to ham, sauteed mushrooms, eggs, and a cooked tomato, we had oatmeal, yogurt, juice and milk. Awesome. Couldn't fit it all in the picture.

Just to give you an idea of how remote the Isle of Skye is, this is the two-way road in and out of Portree the largest city.

Just across the bridge from Skye, on the mainland (the main island anyway), is Eilean Donan Castle. It is one of the most recognizable castles in Scotland, and has been used in multiple movies, including, most recently, "The Made of Honor," a chick-flick starring Patrick Dempsey.

Also on the drive down to England, is Glencoe, a beautiful glen (or canyon) that was the site of a brutal massacre back in the day between the Campbells and MacDonalds (if I'm not mistaken). My Mom always likes to point out that we have both Campbell and MacDonald blood in our line. I don't know what kind of symbolism she is alluding to (diplomacy? familial strife?).

On the outskirts of Glascow, we stopped at LethamHill Golf Course. Jenny's ancestors came from the area and the golf course was apparently created on the site of Letham Manor. There's nothing like mixing a little ancestory into the trip. However, as Jenny and I were leaving the golf course, we had an unfortunate experience with a driver (a person, not a golf club), who exhibited some profound road rage. When the incident calmed over, I suggested to Jenny that all the good Leathams had left.

After the long day, we stopped in Preston, England. I had prepaid $65 for a night at the Preston Marriott, which which turned out to be a wise move considering that the exchange rate at the time of booking was about $1.40 to the pound - the lowest in 23 years. I still couldn't believe we got such a steal. The hotel was awesome, particularly considering that we had done the hostel/B&B thing for over a month (with a couple of exceptions). Hostels and B&Bs are great, but there is just something about the consistency that a good chain hotel offers.

After we checked in, Jenny and I drove into town, parked at a Bingo hall, and walked into the center of town. I was impressed by how quaint the place was. Lots of little shops and pubs, and plenty of people going out to eat together. Jenny and I ate at a gourmet pizza restaurant, called home for the first time in a couple weeks, and then called it a night.

The next morning, we stopped briefly at the Preston Temple; got a horrible tip on a place to eat lunch from a temple patron (watery broccoli and leek casserole?); and then booked it down to London. We dropped the car off at the airport; filed a complaint about the gas prices we had been quoted; and then defended ourselves from allegations that marks on the hubcaps were our fault. I'm sure that the marks on the hubcaps weren't ours in the first place, but I'm guessing that our complaint about the gas prices kept Alamo from pushing the marks too far. The lesson to be learned: Renter Beware in England.

The train from Luton took us to Paddington Station (?) where we transferred to the "Tube," which dropped us off in the happenin' South Kensington neighborhood. After checking into the hotel which I will shortly describe, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at a Thai restaurant around the corner and called it a night.

When we were putting our trip together, it was clear that London was going to present a formidable financial obstacle. You cannot get a bona-fide hotel room in London for under $150 a night. But what you can get for 24 pounds a night is 36 square feet and an airplane toilet. At the prevailing exchange rate, I was able to book 7 nights in London for $238. And we're not talking 17 miles outside of London on the M5. We're talking heart of the capital, hip neighborhood, Marriott Marquis across the street. It was a combination of luck, foresight, and a horrible economy in which "cash is king."

The room consisted of a bed (the best one we slept on in Europe, by the way), two hooks on the wall, a toilet, a sink, and a showerhead. I honestly don't think we could have done it for another day, but it was perfect for our circumstances.

The nice thing about having a week in a city, is that you can take things nice and slow. On our first day, we did a few of the obligatory things (ride the double decker bus, etc.). We also checked out the Tate Modern. We decided that we're not really modern art people. There were a few "scope" pieces that caught our attention - one in which hundreds of bright red items (like a wagon, a lawnmower, a toolset, a sled, etc.) were arranged in a red room; and another which had an enormous dining room set arranged, through which we walked, giving the feeling that we were babies under the table. Another piece that caught my attention was by a famous dude, whose name escapes me at the moment. He wanted to capture the idea of chance, so he dropped three long, thin wires onto three different pieces of wood. However the wires fell, the artist cut the wood to the right of the wire, preserving the idea that chance had been present at that particular moment in that particular experiment, and suggesting how chance occurs in our lives. Below is a view from the Tate Modern of St. Paul's (?) Cathedral and the Millenium Pedestrian Bridge.

Near the Tate Modern is the 20th century replication of the Globe Theater. One of the three plays we saw while in London was Romeo and Juliet at the Globe. While pictures were not allowed during the play, I was able to snap a few shops beforehand. The Globe is very similar to the one in Cedar City, but it has two balconies, and plenty of space between the stage and the seats, where "groundlings" can stand for the duration of the play. We decided to pay the extra $60 for actual seats. The usher told us that the King of Denmark had sat in our seats a week earlier, which made me feel a little better about the premium we had paid. I felt better yet when I saw groundlings collapse to the ground prior to intermission, after standing for 2 hours.

I think we ate dinner at a grocery store after the play, before hitting the sack. We briefly entertained the idea of going out to Wimbledon and camping to see the 4th round of action the next day, but we decided that we probably wouldn't be close enough to the front of the line to get decent seats. We would take an exploratory trip out to Wimbledon the following morning (Monday?) to ask around about waiting for tickets...

Monday morning came, and we were up early, riding the train out to Wimbledon. We chatted with people who were also on their way out, trying to determine how we could most easily get Center Court tickets for Wednesday's quarterfinal matches. "You should be out here tomorrow morning at the latest. If Andy Murray [the third ranked, British tennis star] wins today though, the line will be full tonight. In that case, you would want to be here by 5 this afternoon." We decided to go for it. First, however, we had to finish off sightseeing that wouldn't be available on other days - most notably, the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We raced back to the train, and high tailed it to Buckingham Palace to snap a few shots of the Queen's Guards with their Bearskins. It turned out to be extremely touristy, but more or less worth our time.

It was high noon. We decided that we would play it safe. We went from Buckingham Palace to the Sainsbury's grocer near our EasyHotel. We stocked up on supplies: drinks, oranges, couscous, croissants, and a bunch of magazines to pass the time. The larger predicament was that we had no tent, no sleeping bag, and nothing to really keep warm with. I had brought a rain slicker, jenny had purchased a sweatshirt in Amsterdam, and we had bought a towel with anchors on it at a gay resort in Spain. That was about the extent of protection we had from the elements, for two nights. We decided that was enough, and we would figure it out.

When we arrived at Wimbledon, there was a line several thousand people long. Fortunately, they were lined up to get in for Monday's matches. There was another line, about 40 people long, waiting to get in for Tuesday's, and in some cases Wednesday's matches. That was the line we joined.

I could get used to the British version of "queing". There were concession stands, bathrooms, ping pong tables, and other diversions. The people next to us were from South Africa and the Czech Republic, and we quickly became friends. Around 6 p.m., the line was about 400 people long, and only 500 people get into center court. The thing was, many of those people were camping for Tuesday's matches. We were waiting for Wednesday's. As the sun started to go down, the stewards came around and had everybody measure how much space they would need for their tents.People then began setting up their stuff...

Jenny and I got a good laugh out of people when we laid our camping stuff out...

"You two don't know a lot about British weather do you?"

In retrospect, we would have absolutely frozen if we were left to our towel. Our neighbors insisted that we would sleep in their tent if it came down to that, but fortunately it didn't...

One person in line had an extra pup tent and lent it to us. Fortunately, she was going to be in line for both nights, so we didn't have to bum a tent of somebody for the second night. As you can see, I'm smiling almost obnoxiously. This picture was taken shortly after we got the tent. While the tent provided a certain amount of protection, we still had to use wilderness survival tactics to stay warm through the night. Jenny's wilderness survival tactic was to take the towel for herself. I resorted to other measures, including wrapping myself in empty garbage bags that I found on the far side of the field.

The stewards, managing the "queue"

One view of the queue. Over 2000 people camped out for Wednesday's matches, and we were 15th and 16th in line - the first Americans in line as well.

As a result of our place in line, we were interviewed twice by the BBC (once by the normal news, and once by BBC Breakfast) and once by the London Evening Standard. We also got a little shwag in the form of stickers that read "I've Queued for Wimbledon 2009".

Everything played out perfectly, and we were able to see Roger Federer (#1 in the world) play against Ivo Karlovic, and the British star, Andy Murray (#3), play against Juan Carlos Fererro. Both matches were on center court.

These were our friends from South Africa and the Czech Republic...

The All England Tennis and Lawn Club reeks of pretenstion, but it's all good...

We caught a doubles match between an American pair (including James Blake) and a German pair.

(I was trying to pick up pointers so that I could beat Shelley back home, but that still hasn't happened)

Center Court...

Federer. Jenny said I wasn't getting close-enough pictures, so she took matters into her own hands...

The obligatory Wimbledon strawberries and cream. The stir fried noodles at the concessions were better...

Andy Murray won, which pleased the crowd...

All in all, Wimbledon was one of the absolute highlights of our trip. The queuing, Center Court, Federer and Murray, etc. It all came together nicely. My only concern throughout the day was that we had a play scheduled for that night. If any of the matches were too good (i.e. went into a fifth set), we would have to either leave Wimbledon early or arrive late to the play. Fortunately everything worked out, and we made it to Les Miserables on time. Never a dull moment. That play was also awesome, and tied into a lot of the things we had seen in France.

The next day, Thursday, we did a lot of the traditional sightseeing: First we went to the British Museum:

There was an exhibited that showed all of the pills that two separate people had taken throughout their lives. It had everything from the first doses of medication taken as children, to the birth control that the woman took, to the nicotine pills that the man took, etc. There was some crazy figure like, "the number of pills you take in the last twenty years of your life is more than all the previous years put together." It was awesome. Much better than the Tate Modern.

Along with the cool, contemporary stuff, the British Museum has the staple artifacts that everybody should see. Like mummies...

From the British Museum, we walked to the British Library, ironically passing this sign on the way...

The British Library has the coolest "rare books section" in all of written word. The Magna Carta, the Gutenburg Bible, all of Shakespeare's stuff, Leonardo da Vinci's works, Lewis Carroll's Alice and Wonderland, the original jottings of John Lennon and Paul McCartney that led to their hits, etc...

Other things we did in London (in no particular order at this point) included a stop at Madame Tussaud's...

...visits to the mainstays such as the Big Ben...

...and Westminster Abbey...

...and the Imperial War Museum.

We also took a Jack the Ripper walking tour (just okay this time), and walked through Notting Hill where we had nachos at a pub and watched Andy Roddick defeat Andy Murray to advance to the Wimbledon Finals. When Murray lost, a guy at the bar, after yelling at the TV, said, "Well, he's only Scottish. He's British if he wins."

On our last night in London, we saw Peter Pan performed in Kensington Gardens. We then took the Tube out to Heathrow, but, after a mix up with our hotel, ended up spending the night at the airport. The terminal was being remodeled, and, at 1:30 a.m. there were literally no people inside but Jenny, myself, and a nice Indian janitor. She led us into a utility closet where we slept on a bench for 5 hours before catching our flight home.