113 Degrees and Humid

The thing about the Alhambra is that it is not only vast, but overwhelmingly detailed. I could probably spend the rest of my life there and not understand it or discover everything there is to know. However, I didn't have the rest of my life; I had an Airbnb reservation in Cordoba to get to in the afternoon, and the drive would be a couple hours.

The "interstate" system in Spain is a bit different to the one in the States. I took the non-toll roads, which wind around a bit more than the direct toll roads. You see more countryside and pretty towns, I suppose, but it takes longer.

Not that I minded countryside. I loved it. True, I didn't love that there were seven roundabouts in a row with six different directions I could choose, according to my GPS. I did not love the fact that one of those six was a dirt road that looked like a Flavius or Julius could conceivably have been the last person to take it. Nor did I love the fact that the next roundabout had a dirt road that didn't make it onto the map, despite it being well-worn and much-traveled.

I found out quickly that it's best to just go with whatever exit you think might be right and make a U-turn if it isn't. After all, it's not like there is anyone around - except for the exact moment you decide to make a U-turn.

So it was a good thing I had my GPS.

Cordoba turned out to be a bustling city with fairly quiet streets. I don't know how that works. Driving in it wasn't a problem, and I seemed to have turned up at the precise moment when there was exactly one parking place open. This was better than I could have hoped!

After a short rest, I felt ready to see the sights. Lupe, my host, had kindly brought me a glass of ice water when I arrived. It melted completely in 10 minutes, with the A/C on. Everyone was dripping sweat. No one was prepared for the heat this early!


I'd heard great things about the Mosque-Cathedral, so I knew I wanted to see it. It used to be a grand mosque when the Moors ruled Cordoba, but ages ago some Catholic architect had asked permission to build a church in the middle. The Holy Building Permit Office (I assume), rather than go to the trouble of going over to look at the proposed site, gave permission sight unseen. Hence why it's called the Mosque-Cathedral: there is a cathedral built in the center of the mosque, incorporating the side aisles but completely removing and rebuilding the very center.

Getting there took some doing. I took the wrong bus twice, ended up I-know-not-where, walked until I got to the river, and figured out my way from there. The heat and humidity pressed down on me and fogged my mind.

After the Alhambra, the Mosque-Cathedral was a disappointment. The ceiling still soared above my head, ancient and mesmerizing, but it was dingy and discolored.

I left, hot, sweaty, sunburned, and feeling like the drive to Cordoba had been a waste. I wandered around a little, looking for the palace of the kings of Cordoba. I found it! It was closed.

Somewhat discouraged, I stopped at a small heladería (ice-cream shop) nearby and decided to eat my dulce de leche ice cream across the street by a large and rather out-of-place monument (to Columbus, I think). The ice cream was melting rapidly in the 113°F heat, and so was I.

Just past the monument, a several-times-rebuilt Roman bridge spanned the Guadalquivir River. When I looked at it and mentally shrugged, I knew I was overly tired. Normally anything with the word "Roman" in it captures my attention. This time it did not.

I stopped to fill my water bottle from a fountain on the street, forgot to take my camera off my wrist, and stuck it directly into the stream of ice-cold water. Getting upset would use too much energy, so I sat on a park bench, took out the batteries, let the thing air-dry for a few minutes (Everything just evaporated. It was scary.) and it was just fine.

I decided to do the smart thing and go back to my room, eat something, and go to bed early. I wandered around, smelling the bitter orange trees that dot the city, glad for the shade.

The "smart thing" involved getting on several buses, not knowing where I was going. Somehow my heat-addled brain deciphered the maps and told my body where to go. Somehow, without knowing what I was doing, I got back to my room with not a single bit of backtracking.

After a short rest, I set out again, this time in search of supper. I found a small store nearby, selling fruit and cheese and bread. The wind was picking up, and the heat was not so bad anymore. Dust was flying everywhere, though, and static electricity crackled in the oppressively humid air. The clouds were black and roiling by this point, the sun either sinking fast or completely obscured.

I hoped desperately for rain.

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.

Ladywell and Fish & Chips

Considering the fact that the Tube was down and all buses took about 4 times as long as the Tube would normally take, the day yesterday went remarkably well. Our 8-hour flight was delayed by about 35 minutes, and we arrived only 15 minutes behind schedule.

You must remember, dear reader, that Heathrow has been called, at least by The Telegraph, the "worst airport in the world." That takes a bit of doing. So we were pleasantly surprised, to say the least, that border control took no longer than 30 minutes. We seemed to be always either on the short end of a long line, or the long end of a short line, for everything. It was nice.

The Tube being as nonexistent as it was, we had to take the Heathrow Express in to Paddington Station, from whence we took a bus to Victoria. (We passed the Wellington Arch on the way, but we were holding on for dear life and couldn't be bothered to take a picture.)




While this was happening, we were still stuck in traffic.

Then, when we got off the bus, we walked past the turning where were supposed to go, got some help from a friendly girl who grew up in Ladywell, and arrived at our hotel safe and sound and utterly overwhelmed.

While all this was happening, everyone was stuck in traffic.

Our hotel is a pleasant sort of place - not much in the way of room service or sheets or shampoo, but that's OK - situated in Belgravia. The neighborhood used to be "fields of no healthy aspect," then "infested by footpads and robbers," then the unsuccessful launching pad of one of the first ballooning expeditions in London (resulting in the accumulation of a great deal of money for the owner of the balloon and great destruction by those who paid for it). It then became the property of the Grosvener family, and then "a convenient place for quiet murder," but is now mainly comprised of hotels and office buildings.

So, after checking in to our hotel, we unpacked our backpacks to make sure we had enough room for food shopping and took ourselves off to Ladywell by bus.

The reason we were in Ladywell was this:

This is my Grandfather when he was a little boy. He lived in Ladywell as a child. I feel like it would be a travesty to come to England and not see where he lived. It's a quiet street, for all that it's a busy thoroughfare, surrounded by spires and old, shrapnel-damaged graveyards.

His house isn't there anymore - after the bombing of the Blitz, the area was rebuilt.

We had fish and chips in a little park near Ladywell, and spent quite a bit of time looking through the cemetery of the church that gave Ladywell its name - according to tradition, Our Lady appeared at a certain church well (hence Ladywell).

We saw the World War I monument dedicated to the brave men and women of Lewisham - the borough where Ladywell is.

Then we went back to our hotel. Still stuck in traffic.

All the same, that was all we could take the first day. It isn't easy to jump right into the flow of life when it's 6 hours different from your own.

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.

Journeying v. Traveling

I've realized that journeys don't have to involve an airplane or any other long trip. In some cases, it only takes a ten-minute drive to enter an entirely different world.

In my case, it involves running down three flights of stairs, hurrying across a busy street, and driving for precisely six-and-one-half minutes down the street. I get out of my car and am literally blown by an increasingly colder wind into the welcoming environment of Budlong Elementary School, which is generally in such a hubbub that I regularly wonder if there isn't a fire drill going on at the moment. (Invariably, it turns out that they're just going to recess.)

My journey means entering into an eighth-grader's world -  seeing algebra through his eyes and hearing it in gibberish, like he does, and needing to explain it in Spanish.

It means squatting down to get the perspective of a kindergartener who wants to know, "Are you a mother or a sister?" and replying, "I'm going to be a teacher," which was exactly what she was asking.

It means being there to assure a poor little first-grader that her nose is fine even though she was clowning around with Andrew and hit it hard on his head - and telling Andrew that "Your forehead is perfectly all right; it's Jenny's nose that is bleeding." It means walking into the class and getting an impromptu hug from Jenny, who seems to remember you from the other day and seems to like you.

Of course, it also means realizing that drawing toucans can rapidly degenerate into a violent free-for-all, and that Julian and Andrew need to be physically removed from each other.

A journey doesn't always mean traveling.

Helicopters and Sunsets

There is simply nothing like a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon. We went on one yesterday - our first helicopter ride ever. It made the Canyon come alive and become 3D. Before that, it looked so much like a painting or real-life photoshop that it was unnerving. (Incidentally, I think that's why people don't mind getting so sickeningly close to the edge: it just doesn't seem real that there's a 4,000 ft. drop beneath them. My mom says that it's a case of "shinny, shinny, shinny, shinny, bump, bump, bump, splat.")

We took off from the Grand Canyon Heliport, flying over Kaibab National Forest on our way to the canyon. A few minutes into the ride, the canyon became just visible over the trees before suddenly unfolding before us in all its glory. We swooped over the South Rim and over the mighty Colorado River, which looked like a shining green ribbon.

Flying over the canyon, we saw many different formations, most of which we hadn't been able to see previously. We saw the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers. The Little Colorado is the bright turquoise.

Then, we flew over the North Rim, seeing how much greener it was than the South Rim. There was a clearing where we could have seen wild buffalo, had they chosen to show themselves. But they didn't.

Finally, we flew right over our hotel, and back to the airfield. It was a wonderful experience, and I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to really experience the canyon. I'll check back in tomorrow and let you know if a rafting/kayak tour is a must as well, or if it's not absolutely necessary.





I wasn't feeling too good after the helicopter ride, and, interestingly enough, it wasn't motion sickness that did me in; it was too much heat the day before. But it turned out for the best, anyway: since we were all tired and took a nap, we could stay out to watch the sunset. It wasn't spectacular, and it wasn't what we thought it would be. However, it was also over the Grand Canyon, so who are we to complain? It was great.

Joy said something interesting yesterday. She compared Solomon's temple to the Grand Canyon. Keep in mind that Solomon's temple was only about 111,650 cubic feet, but a rough estimate of the Grand Canyon is around 386,115,840,000,000 cubic feet. That means it's roughly 3,458,269,950 times larger than Solomon's temple. And then she referenced this verse:

"Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?" Isaiah 66:1.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” Isaiah 6:3.