Late

On Tuesday morning, we woke up to bright sunlight and a messy hotel room. Having got in late, we had pretty much fallen into bed, still aching from London, drained from our travels, and grateful to have a room for the night.


Joy still wouldn't say she wasn't mad at me for making her drive, though a restful night in a quiet country inn, surrounded by thatched roofs and chirping birds, seemed to lift her spirits.


We gathered up the laundry that had accumulated over the course of our trip, and my mom took £5 with her to do our laundry. Apparently, laundry is free. While she was doing the laundry, my mom told the owner a condensed version of something Joy had mentioned.


Joy said, referencing Pilgrim's Progress,


It doesn't matter what time you get to the Celestial City, or how long and hard the road is, or how much difficulty you had getting there. As long as you have a roll, a confirmed reservation, if you will, signed and sealed by Christ, the owner of the Celestial city, you will be welcomed and greeted. This reminded me of it.


It is true that we were not greeted by a detachment of angels, and that the comparison really did stop right there, but it was a great thought, nonetheless.


While our laundry was getting clean, we had breakfast - a welcome sight since we had had nothing to eat but apples and cheese sandwiches on Monday. The food was served in a low room supported by old oak beams.


We'd had a couple full English breakfasts by this point, but they were both in London. The addition of a teapot, milk, and sugar lumps, served in the country, made a wonderful meal even better.


After breakfast, I took off to take pictures around the area while waiting for the laundry to dry. Then we packed and checked out. I was sorry to leave. It was such a homey little cozy place.

We were still behind schedule, but we determined to do everything we could to get where we wanted to go. We still hadn't had our afternoon tea, but we figured we could do that somewhere between Anne Hathaway's cottage and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool.


It took us a while to get to Anne Hathaway's cottage. It seemed that everything took longer, especially since we were still getting used to the fact that right was our left and left was our right. But the car no longer told us to take tea breaks, and people no longer honked at us, and traffic circles were no longer so much of a problem, and we didn't get turned around at all. (That last in itself was lovely.)





Anne Hathaway's Cottage was absolutely lovely. The grounds were delightful, and the house itself was beautiful and well-preserved. To be sure, Anne Hathaway did not live in any rooms but the kitchen and dining room (the rest were added later). This, however, did nothing to detract from the pure charm of a wattle-and-daub thatched cottage.




We set off toward Liverpool next, realizing that we would not, in fact, have time for tea this day. Traveling took longer than we anticipated - Joy was not exactly ready to fly through the countryside at a staggering 70 mph around curves on two-lane roads with no shoulders. So we arrived at the tunnel that ran under the Mersey River not long before the International Slavery Museum closed.


This was, incidentally, our only toll for the entire trip. Fun fact: at £1.70 both directions, we paid the same fare as a motorcycle with a sidecar or a three-wheeled vehicle.


Liverpool is an interesting old place, an odd mixture of history and trendiness. We stuck mainly by the Albert Docks, since we were there to see the International Slavery Museum, which had closed by that time.


It was still interesting to see all the ships in the docks, many of which were restored. One is used to teach the troubled youth of Liverpool a trade, as well as important characteristics such as respect, promptness, and initiative.



We left Liverpool behind, went back through the tunnel, and tried to get to the little place where I'd planned to have dinner. It's a darling little country pub, and I really wanted to get there.


But our directions were wrong. I don't know how, but we had to get lost in order to find it. I finally said, "Well, let's just go down this wrong turn and see where we end up." (Joy thought this a really bad idea, especially as it was getting dark, but she still went with it. This is how tired she was.)




And there it was: the Stamford Bridge Inn. I was looking forward to bangers and mash, or just a bit of nice, warm comfort food. This was not to be: it was Italian night at the English country pub.




We were greeted at the door by a charming and somewhat bashful centurion, who told us that we were welcome to stay but that it wouldn't be traditional English fare.

I hadn't realized until that moment how much I had wanted an evening like this. Never are the English more English than when they are pretending to be something else; finally I would get to see what that meant.

The fare was nothing like what Americans think is Italian. It was probably nothing like what Italians think is Italian, either.

What made the evening spectacular indeed was the music. Someone we had never heard of, Jon Christos, sang Italian songs, old love songs, and a wonderful rendition of "To Dream the Impossible Dream". We had not expected to find opera-quality talent in a small country pub. The patrons were encouraged to dance, but the only ones who did were two of the waitresses (both of whom were convinced it was the other who couldn't dance) and a very determined lady who danced by herself because her husband refused. Being the type of person who knocks paintings off walls just by standing up, I didn't try.

Jon Christos was apparently in town to perform with the Liverpool Philharmonic. How we managed to miss that small detail when planning our trip to the Stamford Bridge Inn I will never know, but at the time, we were only delighted that the evening had turned out so well, especially after our disappointment at Liverpool.

Since the Inn is not, in fact, an inn but a pub, we ventured forth into the dark once more to find our hotel for the night. It was a Day's Inn, thankfully not too far from the roadway, with three beds and an electric tea kettle. Having shared a bed with Joy since our trip began, I was glad to have my own again!

Of Tea Breaks and Driving

A while back, I had made the decision to get our car close to our hotel, because "it would save us an hour of travel to Heathrow to pick it up, and I have detailed directions to get out of London."

Yeah, right. Never do that.

When we actually got to London, we decided that it would be awesome to leave our luggage at the hotel, pick up the car, drive back to our hotel, have breakfast, check out, get our stuff in the car, and then leave London.

Again, never do that.

All went well until we left the parking garage to return to our hotel. It would have been fine, even then, had the way back to our hotel not been one-way streets all pointing in the wrong direction. But they were one-way streets, and so we had to go round the other way. This also would have been fine, had we not somehow ended up in the other direction of where we wanted to go.

And if the check-engine light had not gone on.

So, there we were, at the mercy of traffic lights and one-way streets, still getting used to the fact that right was our left and left was our right. An hour later, after much effort and several arguments, we arrived back at the car hire place, explained the situation, and exchanged our Ford Focus - which Joy was terrified of hurting or crashing - for a Mercedes Benz. Oh, if that isn't irony, I don't know what is.

At this point, I called our hotel using Budget's phone, explained the situation, and begged about half an hour's leniency on checking out. Silly me, I figured that an hour and a half would be plenty of time to return to our hotel (which was still only three blocks away), especially since the nice lady at the desk had given me directions and marked it on our map.

Well, it wasn't enough time. We tried our hardest to get out of that awful city, but nothing would work. Finally we just turned down a little street and parked in the "you will be towed if you do not have a permit" area. Then I got out, looked around, spotted two men in a doorway, and went to ask for directions.

They were deep in conversation, but as I approached (saying, of course, how terribly sorry I was to trouble them, but might I bother them for a bit of directions?), they stopped talking and the one left in his car. How I envied the easy way he drove off! But the other looked at my map, turned it every which way until he figured out where we were, and said,

"You just need to go straight from here. Straight, straight, straight. You don't turn left; you don't turn right. Just straight, straight, straight." (Sounds like the Christian life!) While I was processing this startling bit of information, he said, "I'm going that way anyway. You follow me."

What were the odds? Well, our doors locked, and we could always just gun the engine and get out of whatever trap he led us into. So, with not a whole lot of trepidation - we were far too tired for that - we followed him. He brought us very close to the hotel, waved us on - "Straight, straight, straight!" - and we never saw him or his van again.

We parked a little ways from our hotel - Joy absolutely refused to go any farther, which made me unreasonably miffed. My mom and I went to collect our bags and check out. The guy at the front desk was glad to hear that we no longer had car trouble, but he was horrified to hear that we were still actually driving.

Well, what else could we do? We didn't want to rely on trains, especially with the threat of a national railway strike.

It took a bit for us to actually leave London. The roads were dreadfully narrow, and absolutely everyone drove like maniacs. Motorcycles especially tended to think that no rules applied to them. But we didn't get horribly turned around anymore, and we successfully left London behind us. We left our schedule two hours behind us, too, but it didn't really matter at this point.

After Joy had been driving for about four hours straight, almost ending up at Heathrow due to a confusing construction configuration, our car told us to take a tea break.

That's right; our car had a screen pop up. It even had a little picture of a steaming cup of tea.

Our car was a bit more commanding than this one.

At that point, we knew full well that we were in England.

We stopped by Stonehenge on the way to Bath. By this, of course, I mean that we were in stop-and-go traffic by Stonehenge on the way to Bath, and had an excellent view of an overappreciated tourist attraction. (By the way, I understand and support the need for conservation. But so many people know about Stonehenge, and I prefer to support conservation on a less-known place. Compare the amount of people at Stonehenge with the amount of people at Castlerigg Stone Circle, and you'll see why we went to the one and not to the other.)


We had to skip Nether Wallop, a little town we'd planned on seeing, but that didn't matter. After all, we were driving through some of the prettiest little towns I've ever seen. Joy, it is true, didn't like the sharp turns or the steep hills or any of the myriads of roundabouts (traffic circles) that we encountered on our way to Bath, but even she was able to see and enjoy some of the towns.

 

We arrived at Bath at about 4:00, thinking that everything closed at 5. Lo and behold, they were open until 9 pm. So we didn't have to worry about taking too long. I still wanted to get to Oxford, but we managed to enjoy Bath plenty. When my mom went to England, technology was non-existent and all the various interactive displays were not there. So she really enjoyed seeing all the reconstructions. I, myself, just enjoyed all the history. I had already read everything I could about Rome in sixth grade, I think, so I knew well how the baths worked.


We tasted the water, of course, and were just as unimpressed as I thought we would be, but in the opposite direction. It was not even nasty; it just tasted like lukewarm Chicago tap water. (Maybe we could set up a spa in our back yard and convince everyone that it's the fountain of youth...)



We peeked into the famed Pump Room of Jane Austen and Amazing Grace.

 

 And then we left for Oxford. Regrettably, we did get a bit turned around and lost about 45 minutes, but we still arrived in Oxford only a couple blocks from where I meant to be: the Martyrs' Memorial. We parked right across the street from the Eagle and Child, the pub which the Inklings, including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien called "the Bird and Baby." We threaded our way through the bar crowd to take a look at the Rabbit Room, where the Inklings met.

Martyr's Memorial looks much like a sunken church spire - the stuff of Oxford legend, in fact. It honors Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer, martyrs of the Inquisition. These three men were burnt to death in 1555 for refusing to believe and practice "the errors of the church of Rome." They were put to death near the spot of Martyrs' Memorial by Bloody Mary.



All in all, we saw everything we really wanted to see in Oxford, though we didn't get all the time we would have wanted to spend.


And then we got to find our way to our hotel for the night. It was a little country place, called the Brasenose Arms, located in Cropredy, a small town near Banbury. We had thought we'd be able to see the statue of the fine lady upon the white horse that's mentioned in the child's nursery rhyme, but we weren't able to.

Ride a cock horse to Banbury cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse.
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes.

A strange thing to put on an itinerary, to be sure, but we thought that since we were in the area anyway, we might as well try.

We arrived at the Brasenose Arms 13 minutes past check-in time. I had asked for late check-in, in the event that anything happened and we needed to use it. But the place was dark and no one was up. We knocked on the door in vain. No one seemed to be there.

I broke down crying. It had been a very long day, and I had been looking forward to staying at one of the six rooms in the little country inn for quite some time. I had paid for it, planned for it, and set my heart on it. Joy suggested that we sleep in the car, which I did not want to do. But there was nothing for it, and after knocking once again, we turned toward the car.

Unbeknownst to me, my mom was reminding God that anything that happened must be for our good and His glory. Joy was reminding Him that He had always come through for us before, and she didn't see why He wasn't now. But I was struggling with trusting Him at all, and finally I just told God that I trusted Him to make a way for us before I got to the car. I then walked toward it.

"Hello?" we heard from the back of the hotel. It was the owners, key in hand, ready to let us in. They gave us our room, ensured that we were fine with it, and left us to settle in.

I broke down crying yet again. Mercy isn't always seen in such a short amount of time, but this time it was, and I was very grateful.

Morality in Photos

It's an interesting thing that I've noticed about England: photography isn't allowed in churches or chapels. Photography might be considered fine in most other places, or even the rest of the building, including Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London, the Roman Baths, or ancient stone circles.

The reason given on the signs in front of these churches and chapels is that these places are places of worship. They're not just considered pretty places utterly devoid of any real value. There are signs to say, "This is a place of worship. Please do not use cameras or electronics here."

There are plaques, memorials, signs, churches everywhere. Regardless of what it is, the name of Jesus, while maybe not put on much anymore, is just kept there if it's already there. Church history and English history are inextricably intertwined, and it seems that the majority of the lay population is perfectly contented to leave it that way.

I think that it's mainly a symbolic gesture, more than any real devotion, but it's still an interesting contrast from what we see in America.

Pray God We May Make Haste, and Come Too Late

I blame Shakespeare for the title. We finished off Saturday with Richard II at the Globe Theater.

But we started the day with Westminster Abbey. We went through the entire thing and wrote down every name we recognized - page upon page. We saw Milton, Shelley, Keats, Shakespeare, Churchill, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Oliver Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots; Henries the III, IV, V, VI, VII, LCXYZIIVZX (just kidding); William Wilberforce, William Pitt the Younger, Isaac Newton, etc.

There were a whole lot of people there. Most of them we didn't even know; had never heard about. A lot were in Latin, which didn't help us a bit, but I am so glad we went.

After Westminster Abbey, we went to the Churchill War Rooms, the extensive basement where Churchill directed the war. I had thought that the war was directed from a bunker system, but it was actually just a semi-reinforced basement. It is surprising that the Germans never bombed the place. But they didn't, and the war went on, and finally the war ended.

In keeping with the war idea, we went to the RAF museum next.

This was not the highlight of our trip, as I snapped under the pressure of trying to see everything we wanted to see in London and spending a great deal of time (I thought) in an exhibit geared mostly for kids and not seeing the RAF planes and history I wanted to. We had made it all the way back to the road when we decided that we really wanted to finish out the museum, regardless of time constraints.

It was a good thing we did; they had an entire hangar filled with planes and objects from World War II. We were able to go inside the flying boat (which is, essentially, the bottom of a boat with the top of a plane). There were medals and uniforms - including a manequin of Goering wearing his uniform. We even saw the remains of a crashed Hawker Hurricane (a British plane only in service for 12 days during the Battle of Britain). It was a fascinating place.

By this time, we were hungry and tired, so we went back to our hotel via Tube (the strike was only for Thursday). We minded the gap between the train and the platform, changed at Embankment for the Victoria lines, and arrived at our hotel again, footsore and looking forward to taking off our heavy backpacks. We walked around the block to the Queen's Arms, a small pub nearby.

In the interest of having the whole British pub experience, we had no alcohol. But we had bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes), fish, a cheese platter, and something called "Sticky Toffee Pudding with Honeycomb Ice Cream." You can imagine the deliciousness of that last one.




We'd already seen Richard II at home on DVD to prepare for coming here, so we didn't feel rushed to get to the Globe and spend 3 hours standing on blistered feet. We managed to get there right when Bolingbroke overthrows Richard - about 10 minutes before the intermission. We were groundlings - people who stand in the yard, the space around the base of the stage. The people who stood in front of us left at the intermission and never came back, so we got front-row "seats." In fact, I put my arms on the stage and rested my chin there.

 After Richard was killed and Bolingbroke did his spiel about how much he loved him though he wished him dead, the play ended with a curtain call. We left before the mad rush of the thundering hordes out the doors of the theater. We took a picture of St. Paul's and Tower Bridge all lit up at night, stopped off at Westminster Station to run up the stairs and take a picture of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and went back to our hotel.

 

Second Day of London

I woke up with a start on Friday morning. It was two minutes past when my alarm should have gone off. Considering the fact that it was also six hours behind (or ahead of - my sister and I never could agree on that) the time that my alarm normally went off, I apparently have adjusted to the time difference rather quickly.

To misquote A.A. Milne, it was a blistery day in the (several thousand) acre city. We walked. And we walked. And we walked. Despite the blisters and the soreness, it was a wonderful day.

We saw the Tower of London, something that both Joy and I have dreamed about for years.

My mom went to England years ago for her high school senior trip, so she has some memories of a lot of the places we've been going. But even for her the Crown Jewels were a surprise and a delight - they had changed the display, and installed conveyor belts for viewers!

Photography not being permitted, this is not my picture.

Something I thought was fascinating about the whole display was the care taken to explain what each piece stands for. I may not be able to give a recital of their meanings off the top of my head, but it was great to know what I was looking at when I was looking at it.

After the Crown Jewels, we had to go see the White Tower. Built in the eleventh century by good old William the Conqueror, the Norman Keep has survived the Blitz, Henry VIII, and even the tourists. Much of the space is dedicated to the Line of the Kings - a wonderful display detailing the armor, weapons, kings, and battles of various times in the history of England. Nooks and crannies were particularly photograph-able. 

You can't go to the Tower of London and see all these wonderful things without feeling a good deal of the weight of history.

Then, of course, we had to see Tower Bridge, as well as its inner workings. It was covered under the London Pass, which we got before we came (less money for what we want to see). Anyway, the bridge was incredibly complicated. We went up on the top and walked across, even over the glass overlooking the Thames and the lines of traffic on the bridge. This particular part of the exhibit was not ideal for a person as scared of heights as me. I can only imagine what it would do to a person with a real phobia of heights.




From there we went to the HMS Belfast, a cruiser that saw duty in WWII, the Korean War, and several other wars since. It is now a museum. I regret to say that we did indeed get lost - in the boiler room. I think it had less to do with us and more to do with the only exit being cordoned off. The ship is enormous. From the top of Tower Bridge it looked tiny; up close and personal it seemed endless.

By this time we were very hungry, so we stopped in a courtyard with a metal tree and for-hire ping pong tables and had our packed sandwiches. I don't get the whole metal-tree thing. It seems to me that real trees help provide more oxygen, but I just might be wrong.

Westminster Abbey was next on the agenda, but we got there just before 3:30 and they had already let in the last group. Apparently promptness can be retroactive. So we hung around, took a picture in front of Churchill's statue, paid for public toilets and refilled our water bottles from the sink (it's clean water), took pictures of absolutely everything, and took a selfie in front of the Houses of Parliament.

We returned to Westminster Abbey for Evensong, one of the highlights of our visit. It was beautiful, and worshipful as well. It was a sung Evensong, which means that it's pretty much all sung except the Scripture readings and some prayers. On the way in to Evensong, we passed the monument to William Wilberforce, the driving force behind the abolition of slavery in the 1800s.

While there will inevitably be major differences, I do want my epitaph or obituary to speak of me in the same tone. The epitaph is long; there can be no denying that. But it is worth the read.

TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM WILBERFORCE (BORN IN HULL AUGUST 24th 1759, DIED IN LONDON JULY 29th 1833;) FOR NEARLY HALF A CENTURY A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, AND, FOR SIX PARLIAMENTS DURING THAT PERIOD, ONE OF THE TWO REPRESENTATIVES FOR YORKSHIRE. IN AN AGE AND COUNTRY FERTILE IN GREAT AND GOOD MEN, HE WAS AMONG THE FOREMOST OF THOSE WHO FIXED THE CHARACTER OF THEIR TIMES; BECAUSE TO HIGH AND VARIOUS TALENTS, TO WARM BENEVOLENCE, AND TO UNIVERSAL CANDOUR, HE ADDED THE ABIDING ELOQUENCE OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE. EMINENT AS HE WAS IN EVERY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC LABOUR, AND A LEADER IN EVERY WORK OF CHARITY, WHETHER TO RELIEVE THE TEMPORAL OR THE SPIRITUAL WANTS OF HIS FELLOW-MEN, HIS NAME WILL EVER BE SPECIALLY IDENTIFIED WITH THOSE EXERTIONS WHICH, BY THE BLESSING OF GOD, REMOVED FROM ENGLAND THE GUILT OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE, AND PREPARED THE WAY FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN EVERY COLONY OF THE EMPIRE: IN THE PROSECUTION OF THESE OBJECTS HE RELIED, NOT IN VAIN, ON GOD; BUT IN THE PROGRESS HE WAS CALLED TO ENDURE GREAT OBLOQUY AND GREAT OPPOSITION: HE OUTLIVED, HOWEVER, ALL ENMITY; AND IN THE EVENING OF HIS DAYS, WITHDREW FROM PUBLIC LIFE AND PUBLIC OBSERVATION TO THE BOSOM OF HIS FAMILY. YET HE DIED NOT UNNOTICED OR FORGOTTEN BY HIS COUNTRY: THE PEERS AND COMMONS OF ENGLAND, WITH THE LORD CHANCELLOR AND THE SPEAKER AT THEIR HEAD, IN SOLEMN PROCESSION FROM THEIR RESPECTIVE HOUSES, CARRIED HIM TO HIS FITTING PLACE AMONG THE MIGHTY DEAD AROUND, HERE TO REPOSE: TILL, THROUGH THE MERITS OF JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY REDEEMER AND SAVIOUR, (WHOM, IN HIS LIFE AND IN HIS WRITINGS HE HAD DESIRED TO GLORIFY,) HE SHALL RISE IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.

Talk about a glowing report! Considering the bitter opposition he faced in Parliament, to be thus honored is quite remarkable.

After Westminster Abbey, we went to the British Museum for about an hour and a half. That is not enough time to see the history of humankind. We did manage, however, to see the exhibition about Roman and Saxon Britain, as well as some other things.

Like the Rosetta Stone:

 And a bust of some Pharaoh before Rameses that was appropriated and changed to reflect Rameses (isn't that violating copyright laws? Oh, wait...):

And the friezes of the Parthenon:

And the entrance statues (AKA guardsthingies) of Tiglath-Pileser:

By this time we were "exhaustificated" (Beckett speak for "a lot more exhausted than exhaustified, which in itself means a lot more exhausted than just 'exhausted.'"), so we just went to our hotel as quickly as possible. Of course we had to look in the gift shop first, but we didn't think anyone back at home would really want an eyeglass cleaner cloth shaped like the Rosetta Stone.