London GBU
Except for one very ugly, all good.
Ugly
Three nights of rioting that spread out from London to various other areas of England. I did not see any riots and none of my sightseeing activities were affected by them, but I am not ashamed to say that I was scared. This was the most "interesting" of times that I have ever found myself in and I hope it stays that way.
Good
Family
My parents are well and in good spirits. My cousins are all well and in good spirits. My cousins' dogs are well-behaved but high-spirited. And I am not biased or anything but baby cousins V (24 months) and R (3 weeks) are the cutest babies in the world. V has grown tremendously since I saw him last and is toddling around all over the place. He is also now talking and has several words in English, Greek, and even Gallifreyan ("wibbly-wobbly!")
Major Sights
London is full of extremely cheesy sights (Madame Tussaud's, the "London Dungeon Experience") and more or less cheesy sights (the Tower of London, the London Eye). We saw none of them. We did go to:
- Westminster Abbey: pricey, with "no foto" policy, but greatly enhanced by humorous and knowledgeable Verger* tour guide, who took us through some public and some closed-to-public areas, the latter including the tombs of many of the early kings and queens of England
- British Museum: so full of stuff you could spend an entire career here
- V&A: ditto; although textile gallery closed for restorations. I was first at the V&A in 1997, when stuff was closed for restorations. I am now beginning to think that the museum is so vast that by the time they are finished updating one section, another has gone out of date in a never-ending cycle of changing trends in historiography and museum curation.
- Museum of London: fascinating and informative, though there were an incomprehensible number of flint hand axes.
- Natural History Museum: wound up getting bogged down in all of the old-fashioned Victorian style exhibits of mounted bugs, dinosaur skeletons and taxidermied extinct birds and animals and leaving not enough time for much more interactive and up-to-date "Cocoon" segment, showing current techniques in natural history. My Mom and I did work through a big touch-screen display where first you had to "touch" a whole lot of buzzing mosquitos to take samples. There was then a lab section where you "analyzed" the mosquitos' DNA to see which ones you had caught, and then it gave you properties of the mosquitos (breeding territory, whether they carry malaria etc.) and had you choose from among several techniques for controlling the population of that mosquito.
- Greenwich: stand at the centre of time and space, the Prime Meridian of the World!
Not-So-Major Sights
My Mom found a book of "Hidden London" walking tours or something like that, which took us well off the beaten path to fascinating sights that most tourists to London (and perhaps even most Londoners) may never see. Having now done my fair share of travel, I think I have decided that I get more out of a self-guided walking tour of a particular neighbourhood than I do fighting through crowds in a museum, so these were neat days for me. Of most interest to me was the Inns of Court district, where law students have studied and barristers have kept their chambers since the infancy of the common law. This was much more extensive than I expected, with four large complexes of nice old buildings, chapels and parks. My parents' professions were also represented - we went to the British Library, where I spent way too much money in the bookstore, and also various sciencey locations including a building associated with King's College Cambridge where Rosalind Franklin** did her pioneering work photographing DNA molecules. Another place that we went that was cool was a National Trust house in Hampstead with a large collection of early keyboard instruments from Ruckers to Broadwood with many things in between. I was ready to submit my proposal to be a costumed interpreter at the house and play period-appropriate music on each of the keyboards for the visitors.
Accommodations
For a 79-pound-a-night hotel with no air conditioning a block from Paddington Station, I really didn't expect that much. The F Hotel exceeded my expectations by a fair margin. Sure, it was a bit amusingly run down, but it was clean, there was hot running water at all times of day or night, the breakfast was tasty and plentiful, and the landlady was extremely friendly and helpful. The location was that rare and valuable combination of quiet side street near public transit, all-night grocery stores, several tasty restaurants, and Hyde Park.
The Great Outdoors
The F Hotel was only about 5 minutes' walk from London's famous Hyde Park, where we wound up going for a stroll most evenings after dinner. There are some manicured parts, like the elegantly decaying "Italian Fountain", and other parts that seem quite wild but are probably carefully manicured to look wild. There was a much, much wider variety of waterfowl than I expected and we were privileged with some really excellent bird-watching opportunities. As well as perfectly ordinary ducks, coots, grey geese, perfectly ordinary Canada geese, and so many swans and cygnets that they started to seem perfectly ordinary, there were some cormorants and even a heron, who we were able to get so close to that we were able to watch him fishing - he caught two fish and gobbled them down whole before a family of rowdy children scared him off by loudly chasing a flock of geese***.
We also went out and spent a day at Kew Gardens, which was pretty cool. As well as various wilderness sections it has a whole bunch of themed greenhouses with plants from tropical zones, temperate zones, deserts, carnivorous plants, and many more.
Finally, one of the days with the cousins was at the national sheep dog trials, which I watched about as assiduously as I usually watch heavy fighting. It was in a nice field just underneath Box Hill****, so the dogs had to run most of the way up the hill to even start herding their sheep. It really is fascinating to watch sheep dog trials (you can also watch them at the Stampede, I recommend it) but it was more fun to stroll around a nice piece of English countryside, visiting with cousins, petting cute sheep dog puppies and gorging myself on homemade hot cross buns with fresh dairy butter. Afterwards, we took a stroll around the picturesque village of Dorking.
*no, I don't know what a Verger is either.
**I know, you thought some guys named Watson and Crick discovered DNA. I don't know the whole story here, you'd have to ask my Dad, but what it looked like to me was a story unfortunately common in the history of science, where someone labors away generating important preliminary results only to have someone else publish the first person's results without their permission, thus becoming the person that everybody else remembers for the discovery.
***far from teaching them any better about how vicious geese can get, their parents were actively encouraging them to chase the geese.
****apparently the site of a pivotal scene in Jane Austen's Emma, so my Mom was pretty excited about being there. Cousin A was trying to gently let her know that "It's not real."
Ugly
Three nights of rioting that spread out from London to various other areas of England. I did not see any riots and none of my sightseeing activities were affected by them, but I am not ashamed to say that I was scared. This was the most "interesting" of times that I have ever found myself in and I hope it stays that way.
Good
Family
My parents are well and in good spirits. My cousins are all well and in good spirits. My cousins' dogs are well-behaved but high-spirited. And I am not biased or anything but baby cousins V (24 months) and R (3 weeks) are the cutest babies in the world. V has grown tremendously since I saw him last and is toddling around all over the place. He is also now talking and has several words in English, Greek, and even Gallifreyan ("wibbly-wobbly!")
Major Sights
London is full of extremely cheesy sights (Madame Tussaud's, the "London Dungeon Experience") and more or less cheesy sights (the Tower of London, the London Eye). We saw none of them. We did go to:
- Westminster Abbey: pricey, with "no foto" policy, but greatly enhanced by humorous and knowledgeable Verger* tour guide, who took us through some public and some closed-to-public areas, the latter including the tombs of many of the early kings and queens of England
- British Museum: so full of stuff you could spend an entire career here
- V&A: ditto; although textile gallery closed for restorations. I was first at the V&A in 1997, when stuff was closed for restorations. I am now beginning to think that the museum is so vast that by the time they are finished updating one section, another has gone out of date in a never-ending cycle of changing trends in historiography and museum curation.
- Museum of London: fascinating and informative, though there were an incomprehensible number of flint hand axes.
- Natural History Museum: wound up getting bogged down in all of the old-fashioned Victorian style exhibits of mounted bugs, dinosaur skeletons and taxidermied extinct birds and animals and leaving not enough time for much more interactive and up-to-date "Cocoon" segment, showing current techniques in natural history. My Mom and I did work through a big touch-screen display where first you had to "touch" a whole lot of buzzing mosquitos to take samples. There was then a lab section where you "analyzed" the mosquitos' DNA to see which ones you had caught, and then it gave you properties of the mosquitos (breeding territory, whether they carry malaria etc.) and had you choose from among several techniques for controlling the population of that mosquito.
- Greenwich: stand at the centre of time and space, the Prime Meridian of the World!
Not-So-Major Sights
My Mom found a book of "Hidden London" walking tours or something like that, which took us well off the beaten path to fascinating sights that most tourists to London (and perhaps even most Londoners) may never see. Having now done my fair share of travel, I think I have decided that I get more out of a self-guided walking tour of a particular neighbourhood than I do fighting through crowds in a museum, so these were neat days for me. Of most interest to me was the Inns of Court district, where law students have studied and barristers have kept their chambers since the infancy of the common law. This was much more extensive than I expected, with four large complexes of nice old buildings, chapels and parks. My parents' professions were also represented - we went to the British Library, where I spent way too much money in the bookstore, and also various sciencey locations including a building associated with King's College Cambridge where Rosalind Franklin** did her pioneering work photographing DNA molecules. Another place that we went that was cool was a National Trust house in Hampstead with a large collection of early keyboard instruments from Ruckers to Broadwood with many things in between. I was ready to submit my proposal to be a costumed interpreter at the house and play period-appropriate music on each of the keyboards for the visitors.
Accommodations
For a 79-pound-a-night hotel with no air conditioning a block from Paddington Station, I really didn't expect that much. The F Hotel exceeded my expectations by a fair margin. Sure, it was a bit amusingly run down, but it was clean, there was hot running water at all times of day or night, the breakfast was tasty and plentiful, and the landlady was extremely friendly and helpful. The location was that rare and valuable combination of quiet side street near public transit, all-night grocery stores, several tasty restaurants, and Hyde Park.
The Great Outdoors
The F Hotel was only about 5 minutes' walk from London's famous Hyde Park, where we wound up going for a stroll most evenings after dinner. There are some manicured parts, like the elegantly decaying "Italian Fountain", and other parts that seem quite wild but are probably carefully manicured to look wild. There was a much, much wider variety of waterfowl than I expected and we were privileged with some really excellent bird-watching opportunities. As well as perfectly ordinary ducks, coots, grey geese, perfectly ordinary Canada geese, and so many swans and cygnets that they started to seem perfectly ordinary, there were some cormorants and even a heron, who we were able to get so close to that we were able to watch him fishing - he caught two fish and gobbled them down whole before a family of rowdy children scared him off by loudly chasing a flock of geese***.
We also went out and spent a day at Kew Gardens, which was pretty cool. As well as various wilderness sections it has a whole bunch of themed greenhouses with plants from tropical zones, temperate zones, deserts, carnivorous plants, and many more.
Finally, one of the days with the cousins was at the national sheep dog trials, which I watched about as assiduously as I usually watch heavy fighting. It was in a nice field just underneath Box Hill****, so the dogs had to run most of the way up the hill to even start herding their sheep. It really is fascinating to watch sheep dog trials (you can also watch them at the Stampede, I recommend it) but it was more fun to stroll around a nice piece of English countryside, visiting with cousins, petting cute sheep dog puppies and gorging myself on homemade hot cross buns with fresh dairy butter. Afterwards, we took a stroll around the picturesque village of Dorking.
*no, I don't know what a Verger is either.
**I know, you thought some guys named Watson and Crick discovered DNA. I don't know the whole story here, you'd have to ask my Dad, but what it looked like to me was a story unfortunately common in the history of science, where someone labors away generating important preliminary results only to have someone else publish the first person's results without their permission, thus becoming the person that everybody else remembers for the discovery.
***far from teaching them any better about how vicious geese can get, their parents were actively encouraging them to chase the geese.
****apparently the site of a pivotal scene in Jane Austen's Emma, so my Mom was pretty excited about being there. Cousin A was trying to gently let her know that "It's not real."