One New York Life

Part One
Part Two

Day Four — 7/7, London
- This would be our earliest morning. We decided to do one all-day bus trip so we could see Stonehenge and cram a couple of other things in to the trip. So, we decided to take the “extremely popular” Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath tour. This was also the first day we had a stereotypical London morning — gray, overcast, and slightly drizzly. We walked from our hotel to the nearest pick-up location. We walked past a small cafe which had grilled cheddar-cheese baguettes for breakfast. Also, we walked past an old-man steakhouse. In London, old-man steakhouses apparently have lit torches out front. Of course they do.

- The bus picked us up and made a few stops at some various other hotels on the way to the central tour location. This was the first time I really got a good look at what rush hour traffic in London is like. I walk to the subway across the West Side Highway where the Battery Tunnel comes in to Manhattan. I cross Lexington Ave to get to my office building. Neither of these compare to the traffic disaster that is London. Take a city whose infrastructure was built before carriages were even invented and put cars on them. I can’t imagine driving there every day… or even once a week… or really ever. Manhattan driving seems like a video game. London driving seems like frustration of stopping and avoiding fender benders and double-decker bus death.

- Windsor Castle: One of the Queen’s three official residences with Buckingham Palace and the Edinburgh Palace. Our tour guide was surprised the queen was there because she had been speaking at the United Nations the day before. We were informed that when the Queen’s standard is flying from the castle’s flagpole, that means the queen is there. Otherwise, the residence flies the flag of the UK. In what would become a running theme at old British places, no photography was allowed inside. We blew through the (probably more interesting) small town that surrounds the palace and were herded through a room containing the Queen’s dollhouse and doll collection and photographs of the royal family. Then we went through the royal apartments. The apartments were interesting — with bedrooms and meeting rooms and such. The coolest part was probably the weapon collection (swords and guns though the years). Really, I like walking around old buildings, but I’m not a huge fan of being herded through velvet rope, one-way mazes designed to just move a bunch of people through. As for the dollhouse — we got a huge story about how this dollhouse had electricity and working sinks and electric outlets (in the 30s) and also that the former Princess’ dolls were outfitted in top-end designer dresses. I found myself thinking more about “royal opulence and waste” than “isn’t this cool”. Thanks, politics and age.

- Stonehenge: By far the most interesting part of the trip and, in retrospect, it sucks we didn’t just do a trip that let us stay here for half the day. The structure itself is surrounded by a footpath and a velvet rope preventing people from getting closer than our pictures suggest. It was also kind of crowded, so getting pictures of the rocks without people on the other side was nearly impossible. The tour guide provided a ton of cool information as we approached on the bus, talking about the period in history in which it was built and pointing out prehistoric burial mounds in the surrounding countryside. Stonehenge would be a place I’d love to somehow be able to visit without a huge crowd of people and just sit in the center and meditate and see what I feel but, sadly, I doubt that will ever happen. I’m glad I got to see it, though.

- Bath: This rather old town is on the tour due to the Roman Baths that were started in 60(!)AD and built for the next couple hundred years. According to the tour guide, these baths were rediscovered in the late 1800s and the town regrew around them. I could have taken or left this portion of the tour also. It was a combination of things: A college graduation going on that day so the town was super packed, a brother and sister pair on the bus sitting behind me who yelled at each other for, literally, the entire two hour ride from Stonehenge, the tour guide being very excited to tell me Bath was cool because celebrities live there, and having almost no time to explore the town because of extra time taken at Windsor Castle that morning. I will say, the Roman Bathhouse itself was really interesting if for no other reason than I was able to get a real life picture of the LOST Glowy Light Cave.

- If I had it to do over again, I’d do the half-day trip to Stonehenge. There wasn’t much to see at Windsor Castle that you couldn’t see in most other old castles and, honestly, a day to walk around the village might have been a little more interesting. As for Bath, it seemed like a fabulously old, slightly uninteresting tourist trap. Potentially, I could see myself wanting to stay at Bath for a few days and maybe get a better sense of the town, but as a two-hour visit while in a murderous rage due to being crammed on a bus with oblivious rudeness, I didn’t enjoy it. At this point, I know it’s Internet cliche to complain about poorly-behaved kids, but five hours of louder-than-my-full-volume-iPod bickering without even a token “shut the f**k up” from (blissfully sleeping) mom, dad, or grandpa was too much. By the time we got back to London, I hated them more than my previous least favorite travel pair — the couple who made out for 4-hours on the NYC-Boston bus — and, of course, they were American. I’m going to pretend they were from Philly.

- After the interminable bus trip, it was time to drink. We had gotten off the bus at the first stop that looked remotely familiar to get away from the Phillies’ Fans. After wandering aimlessly for a few minutes and making use of Google Maps for Blackberry, we went to the Hoop and Toy to watch Spain vs. Germany. People in England like rooting against Germany? Jeez, guys… grudge much? Very similar experience to the previous pub, except this time the Spanish bartender rightly poked fun at the Yanks’ second consecutive World Cup elimination by Ghana. I was sad.

Day Five — 7/8, London
- The last day in London was a rather laid back day. After having a breakfast of glorious crepes we went to meet one of PLR’s high school friends who remains the only person I personally know with a CD. She performed in a band called The Carnies in New York, and eventually moved to London. Currently, she teaches music and has relaunched herself under the stage name Vivien Glass. Coincidentally, she lives near the Abbey Road studio. I didn’t have Abbey Road on the tourist list, but we got to scratch it off anyway. We had lunch at a cafe where she was a regular and, in fact, performing at later in the week. Our waitress was very Spanish and very excited about the events of the previous evening and, since I didn’t see her again, a belated “cheers!” for Spain’s World Cup win.

- Following lunch, we went back to the hotel for a couple hours before heading back out to have dinner with one of PLR’s former bosses who took a 3-year rotation in London. We had a rather nice Italian dinner where PLR and he talked a lot of shop and I ate a lot of bread. Though we did get to walk around a rather, um, glitzy section of London. By glitzy I mean that there were Porsches and Lamborghinis parked on the street. This was not the first time I found myself wondering about people who had six-figures to drop on a car, but not enough leftover to pop for a garage. Seems dumb. I kind of got the sense from the office buildings, small parks, and pubs that this was a business district. It was good Italian dinner and I learned a lot about financial services.

- We ended the night at a small bar across from our hotel named PJ’s. In my most poorly thought out plan of the week, I decided to top the night off with a glass of Port. Pro-tip: one should only do that at a restaurant or a winery. In a bar it’s just dumb.