Yep, it's really right by the highway - this was taken from the back of the bus as we departed.
My first (and, as it turned out, only) recognizable London landmark was not one I expected. Any Pink Floyd fans out there might remember the large building on the cover of their "Animals" LP - it's the Battersea Power Station. I shook Bonnie's shoulder (she was zoning out a bit on the train ride) - "Look! It's the Battersea Power Station!" "Huh?" "From the 'Animals' cover!" "Oh. Right. That's nice." Hey, one could've expected maybe a bit more enthusiasm - she's the bigger PF fan, after all. Oh, and we crossed over the Thames, too - guess we're really in London, then.
About this time we started noticing something strange - the weather. It was hot. And humid. Downright icky, to us wimpy northern Californians. What is this - it's not supposed to be hot and muggy in England! I could have gone straight to Istanbul if I wanted hot and muggy! (one of our native friends gently explained to us later on that, in fact, England does have actual summer weather, much to many outlanders' surprise)
The terminus of the Gatwick Express train is Victoria Station - from our perusal of the map, only a short tube ride from our hotel. If we thought it was hot outside - the tube was even worse; hotter, muggy, stuffy, and crowded (and this was non-peak time, the middle of the morning! I can only imagine how crowded it gets in rush hour). And stairs everywhere - I guess we were spoiled by life in the disability-conscious bay area, where all the transit has elevators and ramps and everything's accessible. How do folks in wheelchairs get around in London? It was about this time that we realized the wisdom our housemate Gesine imparted as we were leaving on the trip, when she told us we had way too much luggage. After hauling two suitcases each up and down all those stairs, we came to the same conclusion.
Adding to the fun of the Underground was the fact that one of the main lines was closed for refurbishment - sadly, the line that was the most direct way from Victoria to Paddington (where our hotel was). Eventually, we figured this out, and figured out an alternate, multi-line route (that involved yet more stairs).
It's said that England and the U.S. are two nations separated by a common language. I had thought that a lifetime of watching BBC shows on PBS would prepare me for the language differences, but there were still lots of things that just sounded so much more quaint and interesting in Brit-speak. In the Underground, for example - they've very conscientious about telling you to "mind the gap" - that is, to notice the gap (both horizontal *and* vertical) between the platform and the train. In fact, in some of the stations, it was rather hard to ignore, since as soon as a train pulled up, this stentorian robo-voice kept shouting MIND THE GAP over and over, till you were ridiculously grateful when the doors shut and the train went on its way. (The California-speak version, by the way, on the BART system, is "watch the gap," which, thankfully, they don't blare at you every time the train stops. Now isn't that a much less quaint phrase?) Once you're on a tube train, a different, soft-spoken female robo-voice takes over, telling you helpful things like what line you're on, what station you're approaching, and, of course, to mind the gap when disembarking.
So eventually we made it out of the Underground and onto hot muggy London streets, and set off in search of the Grosvenor Court Hotel. I gathered that this part of the city gets lots of tourists, since they'd helpfully painted large "LOOK RIGHT" warnings on the streets in crosswalks so that clueless tourists from right-hand-drive countries wouldn't get creamed by left-hand-driving Londoners. They came in handy more than once, before I got used to cars coming at me from the wrong side of the street :-)
The Grosvenor Court Hotel is a very nice quaint Edwardian hotel - unfortunately that meant it had lots of nice quaint narrow hallways, narrow doorways, and lots and lots of stairs. Once again, Gesine's words of wisdom about taking way too much luggage were proved correct.
Safely ensconced in our room, the many hours with very little sleep caught up with me, and I fell asleep. So deeply asleep, Bonnie couldn't wake me up, even after trying numerous tried-and-true methods. So deeply asleep, Bonnie and Bena finally gave up, went out to get Indian takeaway (that's takeout to you Yanks), brought it back, thereby perfuming the room with the scent of chicken tikka masala, and I *still* didn't wake up (definitely a first). (the aforementioned native friend informed us later that bringing in takeaway to a hotel room is a big faux pas - oh well...) A few hours later I finally edged towards consciousness, ate what was left of the chicken tikka, and we made our way back out in search of large ancient stone monuments.
Yep, one of our missions on this trip was to see Stonehenge, and due to the tight timing, it had to be that day. We caught the train out to Salisbury and arrived just in time to catch the last bus to Stonehenge. It's a truly amazing thing to be riding on a bus down a very average-looking country highway, and to suddenly see Stonehenge out the window, coming up on your left. Turns out the last bus back to Salisbury left only 45 minutes later, so it was the Stonehenge blitz tour for us, unfortunately.
Yep, it's really right by the highway - this was taken from the back of the bus
as we departed.
It's an awe-inspiring sight - no matter the hordes of tourists, no matter the silly audio tour, no matter the tacky gift shop (I did succumb and buy Gesine a Stonehenge refrigerator magnet, though). It's still awe-inspiring - the stones standing as they've stood for thousands of years; the power just flowing out of them and into you and through you and out over the countryside. I could have just stood there watching them for hours, but sadly we had to leave all too quickly.
Back on the bus, and back into Salisbury to check out the cathedral - an awe-inspiring sight in a very different way; all Gothic arches and incense and your eyes just almost forcibly drawn heavenward by the skills of those medieval architects. As we left, the heat and humidity finally gave way to a good old English downpour - we were totally soaked by the time we finished walking back to the train station, despite our raincoats.
The picture on the right is of a bizarre art installation - 30,000 small clay figures!
Last updated 12/8/99 by Jean Richter, richter@eecs.Berkeley.EDU