Dogs and a Cat

I don’t suggest trying to see the entire city of Toledo and the Prado Museum (for free!) in one day. Like a bunch of dogs and one cat in the bed of a pick-up truck, it might all fit, but it won’t be best. At least, it wasn’t best for my feet.

I had bought a ticket for a train to Toledo that left at 6:50, but I got a bit turned around (as always) and arrived at the station two minutes after it had left. There is a reason this blog is called the misadventures of Jewel! So I got a different ticket, ate breakfast, and left for Toledo at 7:50 instead.

This turned out to be a good thing, because nothing opens until 10AM anyway.

Do you know the feeling of centuries of history weighing down on you? It’s a weird feeling for a Chicagoan, but it’s unavoidable –

staring up at the Alcazar, the fortress of Toledo

looking out from a Jesuit church tower

finding an antique shop where I got 6 coins from Roman Hispania until the late 1800s for 12€.

Over the course of my day in Toledo, I walked from the Alcazar to the Iglesia de San Ildefonso, to the Cathedral, to the church of Santo Tomé, and to the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, running down my iPod battery to wend my way through medieval streets and alleys. 

Ahem – wend is too nice a word. I struggled my way up and down cobblestone streets, bumpy with age, smooth from wear, and slick with the water from air conditioners (I hope). They were narrow, from the days when all traffic was by foot or horse, cool from the shade and dusky from the high walls.

I ate my lunch in the church tower before realizing that I couldn’t,
but at least I didn't make a mess.

I sweated my way down steep staircases, through dusty alleys, up steel stairs, through pristine marble halls and echoing stone corridors. 

I also saw a well-preserved human skeleton over a door, but that’s par for the course.

Kudos to the people who manage to drive through medieval streets with five corners in one place and none of them marked. And to the people who manage to avoid getting run over.

By the time I left Toledo (passing the sign that said any sharp souvenirs had to be packaged and wrapped), it was 3:30. I had just enough time to arrive in Madrid, rest a bit, and set off for the Prado Museum – walking, of course. It was only twenty minutes from the apartment.

Every day, the Prado is free from 6-8 PM. This is the time to visit the Prado for Madrileños and idiotic tourists who would rather take their chances than plan ahead. I fell into the latter category because I didn’t want to pay twice, just in case.

Having taught art in Spanish 3 last year, I had a rudimentary knowledge of what I was looking for. Of course I had to see Las Meninas, but for some reason I was looking forward to seeing Gaspar de Guzmán, conde-duque de Olivares, a caballo far more. For those of you for whom that title makes about as much sense as why aliens wear hats, here’s the painting: 

Nice, isn't it?

I also saw a Mona Lisa that had been painted simultaneously with DaVinci’s more famous, more polished one. It was painted by one of his pupils, and I personally think that for all they say it isn’t perfect, it’s far closer than I would ever be in a million lifetimes. After all, my drawing of a bus in Spanish class ended up looking like a Cardinal’s logo, beak and all. 

Cardinal buses aside, I don’t recommend walking through the Prado in high heels when your feet are already blistering. It’s worth it; don’t get me wrong. It just isn’t smart.

On my way home, I stopped by a phone store to buy a cheap phone. My $10 Tracfone doesn’t work in Europe, so if I wanted to be able to communicate, I had to have a Spanish phone. 29€ and forty minutes talking with the employees later, my phone was all set. It will only work without roaming charges in Spain and Romania. Don’t know who chose that combination; I personally would have chosen Spain and Italy. But it’s nice to be able to plug it in directly to the wall without using my converter.

I finished up my packing, while Susana went to a picnic at 9 PM. When she returned at 11:30, we each enjoyed a glass of ice-cold water, because it was still crazy hot.

Hot

Hot, hot, hot. As far as I can recall, those were my first thoughts as I stepped through the airplane door and felt the air of Madrid, air-conditioned though it was, rise to meet me. It had been a long flight – 8 hours. I had reached the gate right at boarding time, though it was another twenty minutes before boarding began. Through some weird fluke of checking in, my seat had been moved to 44J, which was right above the wing. This proved providential as my seatmate didn’t arrive. I therefore had the row to myself in an otherwise crowded plane.

If you’ve taken a trans-Atlantic flight before, you know that for all you may plan to sleep on the plane, you rarely get your beauty sleep. This was one of those not-so-rare times. To begin, I had lost my neck pillow within three minutes of arriving at O’Hare. I must have dropped it, and of course airline employees are very good about removing anything that might possibly prove a potential threat. 

Across the aisle from me was a little Spanish family who looked like they had some gypsy blood to them. The little girl was tiny and busy, playing with her little toys and wanting to watch movies on either Mom’s or Dad’s entertainment system, but never her own. Her face was a miniature Spanish version of my Pastor’s littlest girl’s right down to the nose shape. She finally went to sleep in the final two or so hours of the flight.

In front of me was a sea of mainly blonde American students, who must have been going on a study abroad trip. They were fairly quiet, but did an astounding amount of texting as testified by the amount of flashing from their phones getting notifications.

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.