London

Table of Contents

February 28, 2000

At Sea-Tac before our flight.

In London, at the Durrants Hotel. I was fighting jetlag all day, now I can't get to sleep. Perhaps it has something to do with all the double mochas I drank today.

We arrived at Heathrow just before 11 am. Our 747 played tag with a nearby taxiing Concorde, as we made our way to the designated spot on the tarmac. The Concorde was smaller than we remembered, dwarfed by our 747.

We spent almost 2 hours getting from Heathrow to our hotel. I decided against hopping in a taxi, and opted for the Tube instead. Due to scheduling and other connections, we had to change trains four times, dragging our heavy bags up and down stairs each time.

When we finally arrived at the Marble Arch station, we still had several blocks to traverse to the hotel. I guessed wrong at a critical intersection, and added several more blocks to our trip.

[Written 29 Feb 00]

The whole time we were hopping tubes, we were each carrying an empty Starbucks cup. I guess they removed all of the rubbish bins again with the renewed IRA tension.

The hotel is very nice, definitely the best place I've stayed in England. A bit pricey, but we figured we'd splurge while in London.

After checking into our hotel (and watching the bellboy drag both of our heavy bags through the narrow hallways), we wandered out again, in a desperate attempt to stay awake. We hit Leicester Square and looked around for a few minutes before diving into a small Turkish deli for dinner.

Later, we walked down to Trafalgar Square. I've been there before, but not since I read about Admiral Nelson, the one-armed naval tactical genius who decimated a larger French and Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, close to Gibraltar.

Nelson's column at Trafalgar Square.

Nelson now stands on his tall pillar, facing the Houses of Parliament, with a proud if slightly smug visage that says "Oh yeah, I kicked some ass."

Looking from Nelson's Column to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

Chris, just after he took a picture of 10 Downing Street (the Prime Minister's residence).

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

We wandered down to the waterfront, figuring that a walk in the brisk air would keep jetlag from knocking us over. We caught some nice views of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament silhouetted against the setting sun. Then we crossed the river again, had sickly-sweet mochas at a posh coffeehouse by the bridge, and skirted around Covent Garden. I didn't see many buskers--perhaps they only come out for the weekend.

Chris in front of Big Ben.

A silhouette from across the river.

Looking down the river at St. Paul's.

It was getting dark, and we were incredibly tired, so we headed back to the hotel. We stopped off at the hotel bar for some vodka martinis. The bar was a warm, dark, smoky little room with a lot of comfortable leather chairs and wood paneling on the walls, decorated with 18th century firearms.

February 29, 2000

[Written 29 Feb 00]

This morning we've decided to see the National Gallery. Of course, nothing opens until 10, so we've been walking through the rain looking for a coffeehouse. Finally we found this one, a Coffee Republic nestled beside a hip and appropriately vulgar Virgin megastore.

Chris and Madonna.

After that we found a cybercafe, the Webshack, where we could get cheap Internet connections and decent coffee.

We connected with our Web personas, then headed down to the National Gallery. The special exhibit was "Images of Christ." While there's nothing I enjoy more than room after room of religious icons, fortunately some 17th century Dutch painters had skipped the manger scenes and had painted some beautiful landscapes and sailing ships. They had wonderful light, where alternating patches of illumination and shadow would play on the textures of the ground and sea.

After the museum, we ran across the street to St. Martin in the Fields, a beautiful old church with no fields in sight. We ate at the immaculate cafe in its crypt, then spent a fruitless half-hour looking for a woolen cap for Chris before walking to the Cabinet War Rooms.

The long underground corridor of the Cabinet War Rooms.

The Cabinet War Rooms are where Churchill and his staff spent World War II, safe from German bombs under 3+ feet of concrete and steel. There, isolated from the modern street noise and bustle of London, it wasn't too difficult to transport yourself back in time. The CWR exhibit focused on the dark year of 1940, after France had fallen and before the US had entered the war, so Britain stood alone against the growing might of Hitler's forces, menacing the island nation across the narrow channel. Reading history I had always been impressed with Britain's stand at the time, but not until I walked the claustrophobic corridors of the CWR did I realize how imminent the British considered a Nazi invasion. I've always loved Churchill's speech about "the finest hour", it was good to see the original copy.

How the rooms looked in 1940.

Churchill's speech.

Emerging from the CWR into the driving London rain, we headed back into the city, still looking for the elusive wool hat for Christopher. After wandering through Covent Garden and Leicester Square for a while, we retreated back to the Webshack to feed our Internet addiction, and to catch up with friends.

The Webshack is a weird place. You're in a room with some of London's very hip residents, but everyone is glued to the computer monitors embedded in the walls. A few people were engaged in idle conversation at a nearby table, but I suspect they were just waiting for an available terminal.

After our caffeine and Internet fix, we walked down the road to a bar, where we've been nursing expensive bottled beers while catching up on our writing.

[Written 1 Mar 00]

After the drinks at the bar, we met a friend of mine from Oxford (Matt) who now works in London. We had dinner at an excellent asian restaurant where we were never really sure if the waiters understood what we were saying (or vice versa), then finished the night with a few pints of Guiness at a nearby pub.

March 1, 2000

[Written 2 Mar 00]

We got up somewhat later on the 1st - jetlag is obviously wearing off. We had breakfast in the stuffy breakfast room at the Durrants. All the staff seem to be French, their accents and slightly hauty attitudes are all part of the hotel's atmosphere. It's very cute, in a charming oh-how-delightfully-posh sort of way. It's also fiendishly expensive. I'll probably stay here again, but not until my yearly income has a few more zeroes tacked on to the end of it.

After breakfast, we hopped on the tube to the Tower of London.

I went to the Tower the last time I was in London (97?), it was a cold and cloudy Saturday then. This time it was also cold, but the skies were (mostly) clear, and it was a Wednesday so it wasn't too crowded.

We wnet to see the Jewels right away. There was no line at, so we were standing on the motorized walkway, gawking at the Crown Jewels, in no time at all. There were several cases of intricate gold serving dishes, including a spectacular large punchbowl shaped like an oyster's shell, with gold cherubs frolicking on the rim.

But by far teh most impressive sights were the crowns and scepters of the Imperial Kings and Queens. The crowns were appropriately regal, each with thousands of diamonds and other jewels, topped with an absurdly large gem (including a 530 carat diamond).

Two ravens at the tower. One of them started talking to us.

Chris in front of the tower.

After marvelling at the relics (and the large bomb-proof doors which secure the jewels at night), we emerged back into the sunlight. We popped into the Jewels Shop briefly (where, among other things, you could buy a gold tiara for only 150 pounds), then walked to the White Tower, the old castle in the middle of the complex.

The Tower was at various times in its history a palace, an armory, and now a museum. We walked through the tower as streams of shouting schoolchildren ran around us.

The first room in the tower was its chapel, its whitewashed stone glowing in the morning sun. After that was the Great Hall, where Kings received ambassadors and knights in the tower's days as a palace.

The chapel at morning.

After that began the displays of armor and weaponry. The first room held some of the oldest weapons and armor, including a fine set of plate mail owned by Henry VIII, with a ridiculously oversized codpiece. There were also fine swords and pikes, with beatiful and intricate blades which must have had quite gruesome effects in combat.

Helmets and arms for man and horse.

Henry VIII's armor. Check out that codpiece.

As we walked through the Tower, the weapons progressed up to the rifles and cannon used as Britain cemented her position as the world's premier Imperial power.

One room had some remnants of a late Victorian-era display of rifles, handguns, and sabres. It reminded me of an ornate Catholic church, only here the objects of worship were the cold steel and gunpowder which were the instruments of conquest and rule.

A shrine to gunpowder.

Following that was a room of some of the cannon and mortars used in the mid-19th century, including some 24-pounders which must have been the staple of a Napoleonic War-era warship's armament.

Don't shoot!

There was much more to see after the tower. The new armory was closed for renovation, which was disappointing but I've been there before. And there were bits of the old medieval palace and wall ramparts which you could explore.

deBeers was hosting an exhibit about the diamonds which were so crucial for the nobility's displays of opulence. Amid displays which informed us of how deBeers had improved safety and beauty in the diamond industry, there were also some impressive replicas of the largest diamonds ever found, and the techniques and patterns used to cut them.

Chris in front of the Tower complex.

We left the Tower just after noon, and hopped on the light rail to Greenwhich. After a quick lunch in Greenwich market, we walked up to the Maritime Museum, and through the serene museum grounds, up to the Old Royal Observatory.

Staring into the sun at the lightrail station.

Looking across the Maritime Museum's grounds, up to the Royal Observatory.

I had just read Dava Sobel's "Longitude" on the flight over, so I was keen to see the Prime Meridian and Harrison's famous clocks.

I was not disappointed (although I wasn't allowed to take any pictures). Christopher Wren's architecture was awesome, what a priviledge to be a royal astronomer in those days (although it appears the pay was no better than that of post-docs today). They had a good display of the longitude problem, crowned with three of Harrison's amazing clocks, including his final H4.

We hurried down to the Maritime museum, hoping to see a few of the exhibits (it was just before 5 o'clock). I finally found the exhibit about Nelson, but the museum staff wouldn't let me in so close to closing time. So there are definite downsides to an obsession with time.

We hopped on the lightrail and then to tube, on our way to meet a friend of mine (Steve) for dinner. I mis-remembered the meeting time, so we spent a half-hour at an Internet cafe before trying to find Steve. At least it gave us a chance to connect with Vasee and book a room in Oxford.

We finally found Steve (he had given up on us and was about to head home), and went for a pizza.

Talking to friends in the city has given me a taste of what it's like to be a young professional in London. Although my experiences in England as a poor graduate student had led me to decide against ever living here, the standard of living of a skilled professional plus access to the world's most cosmopolitan city have made me reconsider. I could live in London.