Finally, Wi-Fi, at our hotel in Dresden.
On Friday, August 5th we had dinner with Mary Joy’s brother at a restaurant near our house, then he took us to the airport. An uneventful flight on Delta from MSP to Heathrow. It was at an unusual time, 9:45 p.m., and arrived ahead of schedule, around 11:40 a.m. Not until the last minute did we decide what we would do from there. One alternative was to take the bus straight to Gatwick, check into our hotel there, then visit Brighton. Instead, after picking up some pounds at an airport ATM (one pound cost $1.71), we went to the Underground station. We took the Piccadilly line to Hammersmith, where we crossed to the District line for Victoria Station (five pounds apiece). There, we left our big bags at Left Luggage (8.5 pounds apiece) and went out to see what we could see of London in a few hours.
First, we bought some pasties at a stand in the station and a couple of coffees from Costa Coffee, and had a sort of lunch in a nearby park. One thing that travel across time zones disrupts is one’s meal schedule. We had had a light dinner around 6:30 p.m., before going to the airport. We had another dinner on the plane around 10:30. We had a small breakfast (a sort of egg sandwich) about an hour before landing. Most of the day, my digestive system felt vaguely grumpy, and not really hungry. We walked the few
blocks to Buckingham Palace, but tickets to get in, we were told, sell out early in the day, so we took some pictures of the outside and headed down to the Tate Britain. Since J.M.W. Turner is one of my favorite painters and this museum has the largest Turner collection on Earth, I was very happy. We also saw some of their Constable paintings and William Blake illustrations. The café didn’t have any soup left, so Mary Joy had some berry juice and I had a bottle of ginger beer—a special recipe brand containing lemon juice and a lot of ginger—it nearly burned my mouth out.
Then we walked up past the Houses of Parliament and around Westminster Abbey. They had just finished the 5:00 Saturday evensong there and there was no entry for tourists. Last time we were in London we had heard Anglican evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral and liked it very much. When we come back to London, we’ll try evensong at Westminster Abbey.
We continued on down Victoria Street, ending up at Westminster Cathedral. The difference between the Abbey and the Cathedral is about 800 years and one Reformation—Westminster Cathedral is the seat of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster, primate of the Catholic Church in England. It was built early in the twentieth century and has an Italianate brick
campanile (off of which a spy falls in Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent). We arrived during their version of evensong, in the elaborately mosaiced Lady Chapel, and stayed for the beginning of 6:00 mass. A guest choir was there (the Cathedral Singers from Sidney, Australia, singing Palestrina’s Sicut Cervis at the offertory. Barely awake by now, we left after the Sanctus, interestingly Scottish-tinged, by the well-known modernist (and very Catholic—sort of kind of a Scottish Messiaen) composer James MacMillan, who had a piano concerto premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra last spring.
We walked the few blocks to Victoria Station, picked up our luggage, and instead of standing in line at the Gatwick Express ticket booth, went straight to the train and bought our tickets (17.50 pounds apiece) from the conductor. After a half-hour ride, we arrived at the airport and found our way through a maze of passageways and new construction to the Hilton. This hotel is a little worn around the edges, and pricey, and, unforgivably, charges fifteen pounds (around $26) for in-room internet access (which we declined to buy). It is a very large hotel and there was a crowd of people checking in. When we finally got up to the desk, we were checked in by a nice Spanish woman from Valencia (her mother makes great paella), who, unlike any native-born British person who would have heard us speak, assumed that we were English when she was telling us how to fill in our check-in card. After settling our luggage in room 2117, we went back to the airport and, with some misgivings went to a chain restaurant there called Giraffe, where we had a very good Moroccan-style soup. The couple at the next table was there in spite of having reserved a flight out for 3:00 that afternoon. They had left their home on the south coast an hour-and-a-half ahead of time, as usual, but when they got on the expressway M25, they discovered, too late, that there had been an accident that had damaged the highway. They went seven miles in seven hours, and had to change their flight to 6:00 the next morning at Stansted airport, which was in the far north London suburbs. After many hours with nothing to eat or drink, they finally got to Gatwick, and now were having dinner at 9:00. They now had one particular problem: they had to leave their car there, because that’s where their return flight would come in, but they had to somehow find their way up north to the Stansted area (near Cambridge), get a hotel room, and be up in time to catch their 6 a.m. flight. They would have a long and very expensive taxi ride, because it would be too late for trains or buses.
First, we bought some pasties at a stand in the station and a couple of coffees from Costa Coffee, and had a sort of lunch in a nearby park. One thing that travel across time zones disrupts is one’s meal schedule. We had had a light dinner around 6:30 p.m., before going to the airport. We had another dinner on the plane around 10:30. We had a small breakfast (a sort of egg sandwich) about an hour before landing. Most of the day, my digestive system felt vaguely grumpy, and not really hungry. We walked the few
blocks to Buckingham Palace, but tickets to get in, we were told, sell out early in the day, so we took some pictures of the outside and headed down to the Tate Britain. Since J.M.W. Turner is one of my favorite painters and this museum has the largest Turner collection on Earth, I was very happy. We also saw some of their Constable paintings and William Blake illustrations. The café didn’t have any soup left, so Mary Joy had some berry juice and I had a bottle of ginger beer—a special recipe brand containing lemon juice and a lot of ginger—it nearly burned my mouth out.
Then we walked up past the Houses of Parliament and around Westminster Abbey. They had just finished the 5:00 Saturday evensong there and there was no entry for tourists. Last time we were in London we had heard Anglican evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral and liked it very much. When we come back to London, we’ll try evensong at Westminster Abbey.
We continued on down Victoria Street, ending up at Westminster Cathedral. The difference between the Abbey and the Cathedral is about 800 years and one Reformation—Westminster Cathedral is the seat of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster, primate of the Catholic Church in England. It was built early in the twentieth century and has an Italianate brick
campanile (off of which a spy falls in Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent). We arrived during their version of evensong, in the elaborately mosaiced Lady Chapel, and stayed for the beginning of 6:00 mass. A guest choir was there (the Cathedral Singers from Sidney, Australia, singing Palestrina’s Sicut Cervis at the offertory. Barely awake by now, we left after the Sanctus, interestingly Scottish-tinged, by the well-known modernist (and very Catholic—sort of kind of a Scottish Messiaen) composer James MacMillan, who had a piano concerto premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra last spring.
We walked the few blocks to Victoria Station, picked up our luggage, and instead of standing in line at the Gatwick Express ticket booth, went straight to the train and bought our tickets (17.50 pounds apiece) from the conductor. After a half-hour ride, we arrived at the airport and found our way through a maze of passageways and new construction to the Hilton. This hotel is a little worn around the edges, and pricey, and, unforgivably, charges fifteen pounds (around $26) for in-room internet access (which we declined to buy). It is a very large hotel and there was a crowd of people checking in. When we finally got up to the desk, we were checked in by a nice Spanish woman from Valencia (her mother makes great paella), who, unlike any native-born British person who would have heard us speak, assumed that we were English when she was telling us how to fill in our check-in card. After settling our luggage in room 2117, we went back to the airport and, with some misgivings went to a chain restaurant there called Giraffe, where we had a very good Moroccan-style soup. The couple at the next table was there in spite of having reserved a flight out for 3:00 that afternoon. They had left their home on the south coast an hour-and-a-half ahead of time, as usual, but when they got on the expressway M25, they discovered, too late, that there had been an accident that had damaged the highway. They went seven miles in seven hours, and had to change their flight to 6:00 the next morning at Stansted airport, which was in the far north London suburbs. After many hours with nothing to eat or drink, they finally got to Gatwick, and now were having dinner at 9:00. They now had one particular problem: they had to leave their car there, because that’s where their return flight would come in, but they had to somehow find their way up north to the Stansted area (near Cambridge), get a hotel room, and be up in time to catch their 6 a.m. flight. They would have a long and very expensive taxi ride, because it would be too late for trains or buses.
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