Da Trip
Part Two

Wednesday, march 31
Bath, Late

blankWhat a day.
blankBreakfast was great - our host chatted with us between fetching our food - we were the only guests. He and his wife moved here from Japan to open this place - he said it was really hard to get a loan, since they didn't have jobs here (I never got around to asking why he'd been in Japan - he's English). He's so eager to please that one can't help liking him. Not liking him would be like kicking a puppy (An expression I admit to shamelessly stealing from Terry Pratchett).
blankMom and I headed out for my train to Oxford, hitting Bath Abbey on the way. That's an amazing building. Great stonework around the main doors (my favorite part is the pair of ladders with a bunch of angels climbing up... and two climbing down!). Inside, there are monuments and gravestones EVERYWHERE, except the ceiling. I wish I'd had time to read them.

blankAfter that, I caught the train to Oxford, agreeing to be back around seven, and meet Mom in the station, then head for dinner.
blankI hit Oxford around eleven, and went to the tourist info center after casting about a little while getting my bearings (read: getting slightly lost). They sold me a pamphlet on Oxford which included the opening and closing hours of the various colleges.
blankAfter killing time photographing the ubiquitous gargoyles and grotesques, I found the rear entrance to New College, and met up with one of my online pals for the first time in the flesh! That in itself is a weird experience - it seems like you know somebody, because you "talk" to them regularly; but when you're face to face as opposed to face-to-monitor, it's a very different feeling. Anyway, we went to a great little Japanese restaurant across from the entrance where we met for lunch, and then she gave me a quick tour of the college.
blankNew College is pretty cool, especially compared to the relentlessly "modern" (read: late sixties, maybe) college I'm at in York. It had nice gardens, complete with a Mound - which, although it had stairs to the top and looked rather pleasant (it's crowned with trees and a bench), is off-limits. Oy. I used to think Terry Pratchett was kidding in the Diskworld books when he writes about obsessive university gardeners and their protectiveness of college lawns. Ha. Totally realistic, every word. Sheesh! But it has some nice stonework and a substantial chunk of the old city walls (also off limits, naturally).
blankSadly, Sarah had to get work done, so after showing me around, we parted ways. I spent the rest of the afternoon tromping around Oxford. I hit the Bodlean Library, where I got some great postcards and posters for both myself and Mom; Christ Church College, which was charging admission, so I only admired the outside; magdalen College, which was rather dull as Oxford buildings go; a killer used book store, where I got some Latin texts plus a Latin and Greek anthology for Professor Puckett back at Oxy (she's my fantastic Latin and Greek professor); and the Ashmolean Museum, where I checked out the Classics exhibit and was impressed, and the gift shop, where I wished I had more money.

blankOxford's a great place to see on foot - there are all sorts of neat things to check out. I got some fantastic shots of a parish church (I think it was called "The Church of mary magdalen," or something like that), which was bracketed by an absolutely gorgeous cemetery. I don't know if I'd want to live there, though -- it has a sort of, oh, I don't know, "Yes, *sniff* we're Oxford" attitude about it. But the buildings are nice.

blankSo... my day was a success. But then we had...

blankI ambled back to the train station around 5:30, secure in the knowledge that my train was at 5:55. I visited the restrooms. When I came out, I discovered that the 5:55 train wasn't direct, like I thought, and that by taking my time in the toilet, instead of checking the boards, I'd missed the 5:40 direct service. I was annoyed, especially since the 5:55 didn't get in until 7:14. Sheesh.
blankI caught it (after calling the B&B to leave a message for Mom, like a dutiful daughter), and carefully got off at Didcot Parkway to make the change. But instead of getting on a train to Bath, I accidentally hopped on one to London which was running late (right time, right platform, wrong train.). And so my evening slid further down the drain.
blankWhen I realised my mistake, I thanked my proverbial lucky stars for my BritRail pass and got off at the next stop. Unfortunately, that stop was Kemble, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. I knew I could get from there to Swindon (since the train I'd just left had stopped there), and remembered a connection from there to Bath. But I'd just missed the train and had to wait.
blankOf course, I tried to call Mom.
blankBut there was no answer.
blankI tried several times during the 30-minute wait, without luck. Then I caught the train to Swindon.
blankWhere I just missed the Bath train.

Me: Hi, my Mom and I are staying with you...
Him: Uh... I'm just a boarder.
Me: Oh. Are the owners around?
Him: No.
silence Me: Well, I'm trying to reach my Mom, she's an older lady with long hair in braids. Is she around?
Him: I don't think so. There's nobody else here.
silence Me:[annoyed] Well, can you take a message?
Him: I don't have anything to write on.

blankAnyway, I FINALLY hit Bath around 8:45, to find Mom waiting in the station -- she'd only gotten my first message of the evening. After some searching (like almost everywhere in England, Bath seems to roll up the sidewalks around 6pm) we went out to a rather nice dinner at Garfunkel's.

blankTomorrow: London!

Thursday, April 1
London, Late

blankToday wasn't nearly as adventurous as yesterday. After breakfast (when we were joined by a pair of fellow boarders, one of whom was the one who answered the phone last night) we hit London. Finding our B&B was an adventure - no sign, and it took three tries before a youngish guy answered the doorbell. He showed us in, and we dumped our stuff and trundled off to meet Cecile, a friend of mom's from college.
blankWe had lunch at the Duke of York restaurant after getting our underground vouchers swapped for actual travelcards (when we learned that yes, we DID have to pay to take the Underground to a station that could give us cards for our vouchers) and buying tix for Kensington Palace, Hampton Court, and the Tower of London.

Saturday, April 3
London, Late

blankToday the old guy topped yesterday's breakfast conversation by demonstrating just how racist he is. We had a new couple (this time in their thirties) with us, and they asked him what it was like in South Africa, where he's from. He absolutely amazed me -- I mean, you see racists in movies or hear other people talk about 'em, but it just blew me away to see how casually he could say things like, "well, the blacks, you know, they're just so lazy," and things like that. He actually said, and I quote, "one good thing - at least the blacks are killing each other!" and chuckled! AND he clearly expected us to chuckle too. I was stunned! You never realize how tolerant your hometown is until you see someone who isn't, you know? It was really disturbing.

blankBut the rest of the day rocked, so it's not so bad.
blankWe got to the Tower pretty early, but there was a line already. We had to hunt around for the place to go with our advance tickets, but finally got in and got our audio tours - this time on CD. That took us around most of the buildings. The Tower is really a collection of buildings centering around the immense White Tower, which is a keep built by William the Conqueror to make sure London remembered he'd conquered. Surrounding that, is everything from pieces of the old Roman wall to Victorian buildings.
blankThe tour was titled "Prisoners of the Tower," and had a great collection of stories about attempted escapes and famous prisoners. We also checked out a series of rooms restored to their probable appearance during the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) and the Walls. There's actually a series of defensive walls ringing the Tower buildings, and it was interesting to see how they were used to defend the place. In one of the towers, there was an exhibition about the making of the Crown Jewels. It was cool - we got to see replicas of how crowns look without the jewels, and learned a bit about the history of the crowns used.
blankOne other terminally cool thing was the Tower Ravens. According to legend, Charles II was warned that if the Ravens ever leave the Tower, it will fall - and the monarchy with it. So, he ordered that a small population should always be kept there. One of the Yeomen Warders is assigned to the job of caring for them, and there's always at least six ravens in residence. There was a neat little display about them near their ... uh... what do you call 'em? Not cages, because they're free to come and go. Lodgings? yeah, that works. There was a neat display about the ravens near their lodgings.
blankAnd, of course, we checked out the gift shops. Yes, shops. The best one was the one near the Tower Ravens' Lodgings. I got some stationary, and a fantastic book about Richard III and the Princes in the Tower (for quite some time, it was accepted as fact that Richard killed them, but this book takes a look at what kind of man he was, as well as the evidence, and decides that although he probably did it, there's no real proof either way.

blankAfter the Tower, we just hung out. It took up most of the day, and we were ready to put our feet up for a while.