England

I love to travel. I do not get to do it as often as I like, but I love going to new places and experiencing new things. For me, travel is like education. You cannot put a price on something that will change you the way travel does. So it is something that I sacrifice for and go with less in my day to day living in order to gain this experience. What I love most about this investment, is that afterwards I have never regretted the money I have spent creating a memory.

I have just returned from one of my most memorable trips. This time I was able to experience it with my beautiful and (I say with a bit of pride) very well read 17 year old daughter, Kaitlyn. We have talked about a trip to Europe for at least 10 years. We had discussed different countries, but we finally settled on England. Kaitlyn has finished a four year study of the Great Books. For those not familiar with that term, Great Books are the canon of the major books that have stood the test of time and been an influence on literature in general. Many of the greatest authors the world has ever know happen to have come from the United Kingdom. So England was a natural choice for a literary vacation.

We have returned from England and I will try to briefly share some of our adventure here in this blog. I cannot believe we packed so much into 10 days, so I will try to stick with the highlights. Just blogging about the trip feels daunting as I am not sure where to start. I suppose I shall do it chronologically.

So Thursday night, I entered my last grade for the spring semester and went home to do some final packing. Needless to say, I did not sleep much and on Friday morning Steve drove Kait and I to the airport. He also packed bikes for the rest of the family because they would enjoy a day biking in Golden Gate Park. Everything went according to plan and it was an easy arrival at SFO. The lines were sparse and we checked in with no problem at all. Steve and the kids waited around for the next couple hours and I tried to enjoy them before we had to separate.

The trip over was great with only a brief layover in Ontario. We arrived at Heathrow at 8:30 am, grabbed our backpacks, and went underground to the tube station. We immediately purchased our “oyster” card, which would allow us to travel by tube and bus in London for the next week. Since there had just been the big wedding, the card was commerative of that event.

We got off the tube at Paddington Station and found our hotel right away. We left our stuff and were ready to get an overview of the city. One of my first surprises about London was the size. It is far bigger than I had imagined and yet with the tube with was remarakebly easy to navigate. It had a very international feel, like most of the major cities of the world. We went straight to Westminster and saw the icons that most associate with London. While I knew we would be Big Ben’s Tower and Westminster Abbey, there is nothing like seeing these landmarks first hand. The beauty of Big Ben’s tower with its ornate details and the intricacy of Westminster Abbey were both something that needed to be seen first hand.

I think perhaps what I loved about Westminster was the limitless details and angles. While, I have seen the building in pictures many times before, I loved being able to examine it in small pieces. As an American, especially a Californian, it was amazing to see a church that has been in existence for over 1,ooo years. In California, we get all excited when something hits the century mark. This church also has entombed the bodies of Charles Dickens, Samuel Johnson, Isaac Newton, George Handel, Robert Browning, Geoffrey Chaucer, Rupyard Kipling, Edmund Spenser and Alfred Lord Tennyson. There are more, but those are the ones that were pertinent to me and my interests.

Here is one of our first views of this famous Thames River. We were jet lagged and exhausted. We had spent 13 hours in planes and another 2 hours in public transit, but when Kait and I walked over the bridge and saw this view, we knew our trip would be wonderful. I think we both fell in love with London at this exact moment.

Here is Kaitlyn on the bridge.

One of our many attempts at a photo of both of us.

The next six days were spent covering, what felt like every inch, of this famous city. Kaitlyn quickly figured out the Tube and I relied on her for pointing us in the right direction. I was pretty impressed with her skills and her adaptability really shined on the trip. We saw so much, that I will hold back to the highlights. For me, the entire trip was amazing. As an English Literature major, it was mind blowing to know I was walking on the streets where Dicken’s Oliver Twist was written about, or seeing Cheapside where Shakespeare spent his career, or stopping at the Cheese Tavern which was a favorite of Dickens and even Mark Twain’s when he visited. It was just amazing. It was also great having a daughter who loved seeing it all as well. So the highlights of those days in London were:

The British Museum….Here we saw so many amazing Egyptian artifacts and Greek sculptures. I honestly had no idea that England had stripped the Greek ruins so much. As much as we enjoyed seeing it all, I did have a nagging feeling that they did not belong there. I know it was done in the age of  ”Empire”, but I kept thinking they should be returned to the country they belong to.

The National Gallery….Here was an amazing collection of art. Kaitlyn fell in love with an entire wing dedicated to Christian Icons. She especially loved an artist named Barnaba de Modena.

It was beautiful. I saw a gorgeous “cartoon” done by Leonardo da Vinci. I spent 15 minutes just enjoying the beauty of his work.  I also loved an artist I was not familiar with before by the name of Pontormo and his paintings were done around 1515. He had a beautiful set of paintings depicting the story of Joseph from the Old Testament. The colors were unusual for the period. They were very bright. Unfortunately, the image below does not do justice to seeing the original.

Walking Tour through London….This tour led us through London and showed us parts of the city that had survived the great fire. We also were able to enjoy many of the churches that were designed by Christopher Wren. His architecture was amazing. In the tour, we made a stop at Twining Tea shop. The cute little shop has been selling tea since the 1600′s. I think the tea we bought here was our favorite souvenir.

The tour left us in front of the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. It was an amazing sight, although on a dark note, all I could not help remembering from history the two young princes who were locked in the tower and left to die some four hundred years ago.

The National Library…While we have no photos from this stop, it was one of our favorites. To be able to see words penned from the hand of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte was amazing. There was also original folios from Shakespeare, the Guttenberg Bible, the Magna Carta and even lyrics hand written from the Beatles. It was a treat to see them firsthand.

We also saw the usual sights, like the changing of the guard, we had a high tea at a very nice hotel on the Thames in Chelsea, and, of course, had to take a peak at Harrod’s. On a side note, I expected Harrod’s to be high class, but I was simply not prepared for that store. I told Kait, it made me feel like I was from a third world country. Wow. While in England, we bought  souvenirs for the two little girls at home: a teddy bear with a pink hoody from Harrod’s and a jersey from Manchester United. Anyone who knows my girls can guess which gift went to who. Sophie would have adored Harrod’s and quickly realized she was born to the wrong family

During our stay, we spent a day in Oxford. For me, this was my favorite day. We did a walking tour and retraced CS Lewis’ life in the town. It was wonderful to read words he had written in different locations. We started the day off at the world famous Blackwell’s Bookstore. Kait and I could have spent the entire day there, but we dragged ourselves out of the store and started our tour. We saw Lewis first house where he stayed when he came to Oxford as a student, the graveyard where his fellow Inkling Charles Williams was buried, and we stood outside Magdalene College. His office was in the “New” building, dated 1735. Here was the place that Lewis converted to Christianity. He wrote, “You must picture me alone in that room on Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. In Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night the most dejected convert in all of England.”

We also saw the College chapel were he worshipped during the week and also the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin. It was here that he delivered his famous sermon, “The Weight of Glory”. What I found interesting about this church, was that it has two pulpits. Apparently, they liked to have debates on moral issues here. It was interesting. Our last stop, was one of Lewis’ favorite spots. We stopped at the Eagle and Child Pub. It was here that the Inklings, which included JRR Tolkien, met Tuesday mornings to discuss the books they were reading and writing. It was almost surreal to be sitting in a place where Lewis had processed over his Narnia and Tolkien and shared his concepts of Middle Earth. They had been so much greatness in a small, dark little room. I loved it.

Kaitlyn and I spent the last few nights of our trip in Stratford Upon Avon. For those who do not know, it is the hometown of William Shakespeare. We loved London, but it had a very international feel and this small village felt very English to us. We saw the Bard’s birthplace and his grave inside a church. It had the beautiful Avon river and we loved the change of pace. We had tickets to see MacBeth on Friday night. It was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and it was amazing. Kaitlyn and I had great seats and the theatre was perfect. Seeing Shakespeare performed in England was also a bucket list item for me, but the performance exceeded all my expectations. It was magnificent.

Moo Moo’s is this amazing milkshake place in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Kait calls it her favorite English Pub.

Saturday night, we stayed at a hotel in Heathrow because our flight the next day was early. We had loved every single minute of the trip, but we were ready to go home and see the rest of the family. I was grateful not only for the trip, but to have 10 days with my daughter. I know times are changing very quickly for her and she is getting ready to spread her wings.This trip was something for which I will always remember and be grateful.

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