So…here’s the deal…I didn’t blog right away after a very big, important trip. I don’t know why. I think somewhere in the back of my head I just wanted to enjoy it all and then process it later. Or maybe I was just being lazy. Maybe a combo of both. But now I’m putting down what I recollect as best as I can remember. So take a trip back in time with me to a few months ago, won’t you…?
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“Hey, Raspberry Bun Surprise?”
“Yes, my sultry slice of Sex Lime Pie?”
(Tiffany and I may or may not actually have dessert-based pet names.)
“London. Scotland. We’ve always wanted to go. Carpe Vacationum. Virgin Atlantic.”
“When?”
“Thanksgiving. One hitch, what about those we usually eat bird with—”
“—We can do Turkey Day early or after we get back. They’ll understand. Hell, we’d understand if the script were flipped. Shall we bring the kids?”
“I think we shall.”
“But…they’re expensive.”
“I know, however, there’s all that love stuff that we feel for them.”
“Good point. Okay, then. Let’s go big or stay home.”
“Done.”
The next thing I know I’m on a Virgin Atlantic flight bound for London. I’m not the most relaxed flyer. Usually, I try my best to throw back a quick drinky-poo before I pop my magic relaxer pill and get on board, but LAX’s International layout has changed since I last dragged myself through there and the terminal’s bar was this crazy, roped off bullshit with a line— as if it were an exclusive club. Fact is, me and most lines aren’t friends to begin with so that wasn’t going to happen. I was worried. I was excited. I’ve wanted to take this trip my entire fuckin’ life.
From the moment we set the U.K. plan in motion I had promised myself I’d lose some weight. Airline seats were becoming a tighter and tighter fit for my rear thruster as of late, and over the last year or so I’ve experienced some gloriously searing humiliation with my fattiness, being kicked off of rollercoasters and go-carts in front of family and friends and such. I really didn’t want something as horrifying as me being escorted off the plane with my family bitterly in tow simply because I just couldn’t seem to get my shit together and pull my ass out of its terminal velocity. So I started to work out…as it turns out, barely. Tiffany made the mistake of telling me that our Premium Economy seats were wider than what the common folk has in the back, so I did some measuring of my foundation and let life seep back into distracting me from losing weight — which I am very very good at. Funny enough, I still fretted about it every single day leading up our departure, as if I had no control over it. Hopefully, soon I’ll get that aspect of my personality in order…but there was a trip to the U.K. to be had and I needed that drink before the flight, not only because of my usual flight-time jitters, but also because I was trying to fight back the visions of not fitting on a go-cart times a billion. But no drink. I gulped my numb numb pill bare-throated as soon as our section was called over the PA and into the plane we all shuffled.
And good news! No walk of shame was required. If my ass were a hand and the seat was a glove…Gosh bless Premium Economy! And Gosh bless Premium Economy even more because we were served champagne before take-off. I was surprised the flight attendant even offered me any because when she approached I was in the midst of a Santa Claus impression using the oddly shaped airline pillow as a beard for my seat partner Chase, bellowing out hearty Ho Ho Ho’s as if I were already under some sort of influence…maybe I’m not the first person to make an ass out of himself for his teenage kid’s amusement/horror. And off we flew, and we drank, and watched bad movies, and ate, and tried to sleep and watched more movies, and snacked, and then watched more movies as the land and ocean passed underneath us.
Our flight was a redeye, so we landed in Heathrow in the afternoon…where our driver Nathan was waiting for us, holding up an iPad that read “THAI.” Nathan was a stout, soft-spoken, pleasant man— imagine if James Corden played rugby. We stepped out of the airport elevator into the parking structure and the cold braced us. Then, Nathan hauled us from Heathrow to Bath…
It should be pointed out here that back when Tiffany was planning the trip, for a good spell we were planning on just renting a car and having me drive us from London to Bath, but every time I shared this idea with friends who had been to London it was greeted with a wide-eyed, “Bad idea. Bad fuckin’ idea.” So, we opted for a driver. And let me tell you, I truly feel it was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made in our lives.
My first impression of London…well, the UK in general, is that it’s like entering what the U.S. would be like in another dimension. Things are similar, yet so completely different. Traffic, for example, there’s the obvious bit, driving on the opposite side of the road, but that’s not really what I’m talking about. There are just a million little nuances in style and technique that I’m sure are gained by the British driving public that I wouldn’t be able to grasp merely by watching some youtube instructionals…which would have ultimately led to some sort of disaster…ESPECIALLY when I was completely knackered from a cross-Atlantic redeye flight. It would have been a bad idea, indeed. I’m not sure I could have even gotten us out of London, let alone all the way to Bath.
Nathan conducted some friendly small talk as we looked out the window at this new, old world, at the traffic going in the wrong direction, at the buildings and billboards selling products we aren’t used to. After a while, as the sun started going down at around four, I passed out. When I awoke Nathan was already coursing through narrow country roads with no shoulder, tackling roundabout after roundabout, passing by houses that everyday people lived in which were older than America herself. Then we pulled up to our castle.
I’m telling you the truth…we stayed in a castle.
Imagine Sir Richard Attenborough: “Step into the world of 19th-century nobility with a stay at Bath Lodge Castle, a protected historic building dating back to 1806. The regal castle, complete with towers, battlements and an imposing iron gate, is set amid three and a half acres of landscaped gardens outside the city of Bath, in southwest England.”
As we dragged our luggage into the castle we were greeted by a mild-mannered German man who, unfortunately for him, ended up being on call the entire time we were there because the other employees had called in sick…he pleasantly got us to our rooms.
The castle was cozy inside, replete with old, thick red carpet and white walls painted over and over again for generations. The room required an antique key, weighted down with a heavy brass keychain baring our room number. Our hotel room had two bedrooms. In the side room, twin beds awaited Charlie and Chase on opposite sides of the wall, while a cushy queen welcomed Tiffany and I. The decor of the room was cozy. Thick red velvet curtains hung to keep out the bitter cold near the windows. The linens smelled musty but clean. Maybe it was because they don’t wash with as much perfumed detergent as we do in America but I found that wherever we went the sheets smelled that way. The toilet, small and round, demanded priming before a flush was possible. The sink had a separate faucet for hot and a faucet for cold— what we would later learn is a common thing in the UK – which made warm water an impossibility, because the hot was from hell and the cold practically frozen. The shower had zero water pressure, merely drooling out when turned on in full, making soaping up and rinsing off comical and full of prayer. Our window glass was crisscrossed with metalwork and constantly condensed with moisture due to the country chill on the outside contesting with the room’s warmth on the inside. The whole thing was utterly comfortable and delightful.
One of the first things I did was turn on the TV to watch commercials. It was November, and since there is no Thanksgiving in the UK, they were already lobbying hard for Christmas. Ironically, Turkey is a Christmas staple there…so the commercials all had turkeys in them. Can’t escape the turkeys. As it turns out the UK public every year seems to rate the commercial for which one is the best of the season…
We ate dinner downstairs, then came back up and got comfy in bed. I watched some Graham Norton and some Black Adder and I was happy.
The next morning our adventure would finally begin. As we were finishing breakfast Nathan arrived with our Blue Badge tour guide, Mike.
I want to point out that this is the way to take tours. Piling into buses with a platoon of assholes you don’t know is something that I’ve always detested. But having a guide personally talking to you and only you makes the experience personal and meaningful. It’s less of a wholesale presentation and more of a conversation. And Mike was a splendid English conversationalist. A retired police officer, Mike stood erect, was direct, charming, dry-witted and opinionated, and knew a lot about a lot.
Our first stop was, of course, Stonehenge.
The thing I love most about Stonehenge is that nobody knows what the fuck it is. There is an entire museum dedicated to how they don’t really know the what or the why of it all. It could be a calendar. It could have been a BBQ joint. It could have been a religious site. But who really knows? It’s brilliant. Walking around the stones themselves is far more impressive than I ever imagined it would be. Ropes kept us from walking right up to it, but we were a lot closer than I thought we’d be able to get. During the solstice, park services are obligated to open up Stonehenge to let the public congregate within it. Early on, Mike kept talking about how this is a problem because all the “druggies would leave their needles and trash lying about.” I assumed that he was just being a bit of an old fella who was exaggerating. But alas, when we were walking around the structure itself, the park rangers were saying the same thing. Apparently, it’s a problem that they endure to let the public exercise their freedom of religion. People camp nearby and then go and shoot up within Stonehenge! Of course, not everyone does that— not even the majority of the people. But enough that it’s a problem. Which is nuts.
And speaking of nuts…
When we first started our loop walk around Stonehenge, a wild-eyed woman stepped over the ropes with her seven-year-old boy and made a break for the stones as if they were the Beatles…all the rangers politely yelled at her, telling her she had to come back…and she quipped, get this, “WHAT ABOUT MY HUMAN RIGHTS?” She came back, completely irate, snapping at the rangers, yanking her kid by the hand…but they politely kept talking to her as she walked around on the path. They didn’t give up on her the entire way, to the point whereby the halfway point this one female ranger had won her over and they were politely conversing…ONLY IN THE U.K., MAN!!! In the U.S. they would have just beaten the shit out of her and kicked her out while everyone around them filmed it to put up on youtube. To be honest that interaction confused me. I haven’t seen figures of authority act with such professionalism, grace, and patience…maybe ever. Then again, maybe that’s what the stones actually do…they broadcast energy that bring out the best in people. Hocus Pocus Alakazoo.
After our walk around Stonehenge, we toured the museum and gift shop, and Chase got a meat pie called a Pasty. As she was eating it she declared that if all she ate were Pasties during the trip she’d be happy. By the time she was done she was so full she was already swearing them off for the rest of the trip.
After Stonehenge, Nathan and Mike took us to Salisbury Cathedral, where we milled about a bit. Mike pointed out the world’s oldest working clock (from about 1386) within the cathedral. Hey you can see Mike here in the corner of this pic:
Charlie marveled at buildings right across from the cathedral, which served as an all-boys school where William Golding taught before he wrote Lord of the Flies. Think he enjoyed his job? You do the math.
We lunched in the ancient town of Salisbury and Mike walked us through its open air market, which was really no different than any farmer’s market here in the States — with the exception that it was surrounded by buildings older than all of us combined — where we bought a few more pasties to go.
I guess this is an American tourist rite of passage but I just couldn’t get over the fact that everything is so god damned old! The castle where we were staying at was the youngest structure we visited and it was built in 1806! As we were being shown around that was one thing that always popped out, when Mike would remark, “This wasn’t built so long ago, maybe about 1780 blah blah…” I just kept wondering if that sort of ancient continuity serves as a settling effect on one’s cultural identity. To be associated with such solid, lasting things around you gives you a patience and perspective. Eh, maybe not, but that’s what I kept thinking.
After a quick lunch in Salisbury, we were on our way to Lacock Village and Abbey — the site of a few Harry Potter filming locations. Again, here is this ancient, small village that hasn’t changed in forever and we are just strolling around in it. It was just absolutely lovely. And Mike would fill us in on every little detail of everywhere that we went as we walked up one street and down another, so by the end of the day, we really had a solid idea of what life was like in that area.
By evening, Nathan and Mike gave us a quick driving tour around Bath to orient us for our solo exploration the following day, and then they said their goodbyes to us as they dropped us off at Bath near Pulteney Bridge. We were exhausted and overwhelmed, and this was just Day One. We dined at a wonderful steak joint in Bath and then Ubered back to the castle. But our time in Bath wasn’t over.
The next morning we said farewell to the castle and made our way back to Bath for a full day. We checked our luggage into a Chinese snack shop/internet cafe. (That’s a thing there: you pay them money, they throw your luggage into a back corner of the shop and you return for your stuff later…)
At this point, Tiffany realized that one of her shoes was falling apart. So we went to a shop called SCHUH and she bought a swanky pair of Timberlands. Bath was already teeming with Christmas shoppers, so we fit right in. I tried to coax her into letting me take a photo of her doing the flying splits in front of the store with her new shoes on, but she declined.
Then we hit Roman Baths…which, if you haven’t guessed by now…is how…this city…got its…yeah…
Still an active hot spring, the Roman Baths are now a museum — a museum like I’ve never experienced before. They encourage people to touch the ancients artifacts. They used projections layered over artifacts to show what they looked like back in the Roman times…in certain rooms they used projections of Roman bathers to show what it must have been like in those rooms…nudity and all. Imagine that in America. There’d be protesters at the entrance every day. But here it was just no big deal.
People from all around the world mulled about, touching ruins and taking in this experience. And at the end you got to sample some of the water. Not quite delicious, to be honest. But I did it, anyway! Glug. Glug. It tasted of ancient history.
After a quick look at Bath Abbey (I’m not much of a chapel/abbey person…they are kind of like gardens for me…just usually filled with a lot of old people and I can’t relate to anything I’m looking at.) we made our way to the Jane Austen Center, where after a brief introduction by a costumed and quite nervous first-time tour guide holding note cards and sweetly apologizing over and over again…we made our way upstairs and had a legitimate tea time up in the “Darcy Room.”
But time was getting tight and we needed to get to the train station. On our way back to our luggage we stumbled through quite a pleasant shopping area, with hordes of happy Christmas shoppers…let me tell you Christmas in the U.K. really gets you in the mood for the holidays…and then we waited for our train to London.
Okay, the train to London…
At first, we were the only ones waiting. No problem, we thought. Then a few more people showed up. Then more. Then even more. By the time the train was about to arrive it felt like we were in a crowd waiting for a Disneyland ride…but that’s not the bad part…nonono! The bad part? The train came into the station ALREADY FULL.
We fought our way on. Everyone was Britishly pleasant, but it was a tight-assed fit. It was so crowded that we didn’t even make it as far back as to where the seats were in the train car…we were all squeezed near the door…for part of the hour and a half trip I was leaning over some guy sitting against a wall, my tilted position forcing me to prop myself up against the wall, my underarms right over his face…for the other part of the trip I was jammed up against the bathroom, my back hitting the automatic door button, causing the great curved bathroom door to slide open over and over and over again. But it was so crowded we all had no choice but to humorlessly watch it taunt us with its obnoxious repetition. At least the experience gave Charlie some inspiration…
Apparently, Bath to London on a Sunday afternoon is absolute chaos — one of those things you really wouldn’t know unless you lived there. By the time we got to London I was soaked in sweat and my back was murdering me.
At the train station we got into our first black cab and off we tumbled to our Airbnb. As we were weaving and speeding and jerking along, my mind kept going to the Knight Bus sequence in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban…it was very much like that. Now I know where JK Rowling found her inspiration…London traffic.
After we checked into our Airbnb in Kensington we walked down to the pub on the corner and enjoyed our first Sunday Roast. And a pint. Oh, and Charlie had a pint, too. Seems that in Britain 16-year-olds can drink beer if accompanied by an adult, so Charlie indulged…I got the sense she enjoyed the act more than the taste…which, of course, filled Chase up with about a pint’s worth of jealousy, causing her to demand that I sneak her some sips, too.
Until my next recollection…of “HARRY POTTER DAY!!!”