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.

Tube Strike

Ordinarily the news that the London Tube is going to have a strike from 6:30 Wednesday night to 6:30 Thursday night would not be alarming.

However.

We're arriving in London around 10:30 on Thursday morning, and of course they're having a strike that day. We're Becketts. This stuff happens to us. We should be used to it by now, but we aren't.

Yes, we're going to England. We're even - overambitious, never-learning souls that we are - going to Scotland. It's a graduation trip/birthday trip/everything-for-the-rest-of-our-lives trip. My sister is most excited about Scotland. My mom is, as she says, "along for the ride." I'm most excited about England, seeing as how most books I've read (and movies I've seen) take place there or are simply English to their very core.

We'll wander through Westminster Abbey and see William Wilberforce's grave. We'll doff our caps to John Knox in Edinburgh, just like the real Eric Liddell probably did not. We will sleep in an old inn in Cropredy, miles - if that - from a famous battle of the English Civil War. We'll be unimpressed by the famous waters of Bath. We'll breathe history.

 I can't wait.