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Travel

We’re in Rotterdam!

by Jonathan 15 September 2008 Travel

We made it to Rotterdam. As I mentioned in the last entry, we were able to get a train to Brussels as planned. fortunately, we already had our tickets–they told a few people ahead of us who didn’t have tickets that they weren’t selling them anymore, so they were pretty much out of luck for the day.

The ride through the English and French countryside was fun. The Chunnel itself was pretty uneventful–there’s not much to see in a tunnel. Customs on the London side were easy–the French border patrol pretty much stamped our passports and sent us on our way. Here in Europe, we didn’t have to pass through any other customs agents, so I suppose we’re all finished until we leave. Our train left at 13:25 from the beautiful London St. Pancras International terminal, and we arrived at somewhere near 16:30 in Brussels. We ended up getting through to an information desk to check on the next train to Rotterdam in time to find out that one was leaving at 17:15, which was about ten minutes away from the current time. We ran up to the platform and jumped on the train about two minutes before the doors closed. That ride lasted a while, too. It stopped in a few major places along the way from Brussels to Rotterdam, on its way for a final destination of Amsterdam. After getting lost trying to leave Rotterdam Central Station (the area outside is under major construction right now), a friendly person on the street helped us to get moving in the right direction, and we got to our hotel at around 20:00. I think our train deposited us in Rotterdam at around 19:00 or thereabouts.

We got checked-in and up to the room to collect ourselves a bit before heading out to dinner. We found a good Thai place which, unfortunately, had everything in the ultra-spicy variety. I like that, but it made it tough for Jenny to eat her shrimpy goodness. The dinner was good, though. We then explored Rotterdam some more looking for a “night market” (that’s what they call convenience stores open at night here–I seem to remember that from the last trip, too). Rotterdam seems to have most places close-up pretty early, so we had to search for a while to find this night market. We eventually did, got some good stuff (including “Cool American” flavor Doritos–I’ll let you guess what we might call them), and got back to the hotel at around 23:15.

There are more stories there, but I’m tired, so I’m headed to bed. I need to try to get Thunderbird working on my machine here so that I can read my work email, and then I’m going to call it a night. I have to be at the conference center tomorrow at around 8AM to register and get my sessions picked. It’s 02:00 here now, so I need to clean-up and sleep!

jonathan

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we have a train!

by Jonathan 15 September 2008 Travel

We were a little worried about the train to Brussels today. We had tickets, but with the reduced schedule, not everyone was getting a train. We arrived early, thinking that we might have a better chance of at least getting any train across the channel. They put us on the next available train at 1325, which is earlier than our original tickets. They aren’t even selling tickets anymore, so we feel fortunate.
Now we’re waiting in St. Pancras int’l station. I think we’ll be boarding at 1300 or so. By the way, french border security here was easy. I don’t know if we have to do anything at Brussels or not. I guess we’ll find out in a little while.

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London, Day 6

by Jonathan 15 September 2008 Travel

We’re getting ready to depart for the train station. Our train time isn’t until 14:53 or something like that. We’re going to try to get to the station and see what train they can get us. Because of the fire in the tunnel before the weekend, they are still running reduced services. Our train time isn’t listed on their reduced timetable, so we’ll either get a much earlier train, or a much later train. Fortunately, our tickets from Brussels to Rotterdam is an open ticket, so we should be OK there, as long as we don’t arrive later than the regional trains operate. I think that there are regional trains running into Rotterdam until after midnight, so hopefully we’ll be OK even there. It should be an adventure, in any case.

jonathan

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London, Day 5

by Jonathan 14 September 2008 Travel

Hi readers. Jenny and I are sitting here enjoying some “official” Champagne at the moment, courtesy of my co-worker who couldn’t take the bottle with him on the way to his interim destination. He received it as a gift for speaking at the work event I was attending, and he promptly gave it to us to share. Yay.

Jenny and I just got back a little while ago from the fireworks at the Thames Festival. We started off today with Mass (Roman Catholic, of course) at Our Lady of the Rosary near us in the Marylebone area. It was literally only a couple of blocks from us, so it was an easy walk. Interestingly, there are only a few churches that survived the Reformation, survived World War II, *and* reverted to Roman Catholicism after it was permitted again in the mid-19th century. One of those, St. Etheldreda, is the only one that I could find that was near a Circle Line stop. The church was originally built in the 13th century. It had a long and tumultuous history after the Reformation in the 16th century. It had previously been part of the estate of the Bishop of Ely, who had massive palace-like grounds that included the church. Through a series of Bad Things(tm), including a 300+ year-old property dispute, the church was the only building left from the estate, and was up on the auction block. Parliament had only recently officially permitted the practice of Roman Catholicism again. There were two RC groups trying to bid on it. The one who won ended up doing so almost by mistake–the other group thought that the agent bidding on the church was theirs, and so they stopped bidding themselves. The church went through some massive restoration at that point, and again after World War II. It is still an active church, buried among other buildings built up around it.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t make that one. They had a 9AM Mass, but the trip to get there would have required an exceptionally early start, and we just couldn’t do it. Instead, we opted for Our Lady of the Rosary near the hotel. The parish was founded in the mid-19th century, but the current church was built in the 1960′s. It isn’t all that bad inside, actually. Its exterior definitely looks like a typical 1960′s London brick building, but the inside is not the gaudy mess that one might expect from that time period. It looks rather nice, actually, though it clearly is not “old”.

After Mass, we came back to the hotel to change into jeans and have some quick breakfast, then decided to head out for a few relaxing afternoon events. First up was a trip to St. James Park. Jenny had been there, but I hadn’t been there yet. We intended to walk through the park on the way to see St. James Palace and the remains of Whitehall Palace (the only remaining building is the Banqueting Hall–the rest of the Tudor-style wooden palace burned to the ground in the 17th century). From there, we were going to attend Evensong at Westminster Abbey.

Well, by the time we got down to the park, it was getting close to the time that we would want to be at the abbey church, so we walked along the park towards the church. The service started at 15:00. Evensong is seated in the Quoire section, forward of the main seating section and in front of the high altar, right inside the Lantern. This was incredibly cool. I had hoped to attend this particular service, as it also included the granting of surplices to the new choir members from the abbey school, as well as acceptance of choir members into the abbey choir society. The organ and music were phenomenal. The service was really quite cool. It had that feel of something quite old but still relevant. There were lots of different types of staffs (I always thought that was “staves”, but all of the spelling things are yelling at me about it, so I’ll go with “staffs”) used. I don’t understand the meaning for each one, but different ones were used to present the two different classes, then there was one used to escort one of the ministers (I don’t recognize their clothing details, so I’m not sure what his rank was, but he gave the final blessing–he may have bee the dean of the abbey school), one used to escort one of the ministers for the two “lessons” (we’d call them “readings”), one used to escort the preacher for the sermon, and what looked like yet a different one to escort the celebrants and choir out of the church. I couldn’t understand all of them. They also had guys in red cassocks with military medals on them that were part of the celebrant party, but I don’t know who they were. They didn’t do anything other than process with everyone.

This was a great experience. We got to sit and experience the abbey church up close and personal, and we had a great time. It was also free, so double-cool. If I was not a Roman-variety Catholic for so long, I would seriously consider the Church of England.

We had initially intended to also hear the organ recital at 17:45. It was only about 16:30, though, so we actually had to exit while the staff prepared the space for the organ recital and subsequent evening service. We got another look at many of the memorials and areas of the church on our way out, and it was good. After we left the church, we decided that we were getting a little tired. We wanted to see the fireworks at 21:45 that were part of the Thames festival, so we headed over to St. James Park again to grab a bench and watch people and wildlife. Jenny worked on some writing stuff, and we both watched people for a while. The wind was picking-up, though, and it was getting chilly, so we both put on the sweatshirts that we had with us in case we got cold.

We were getting a little hungry after a while at the park, so we walked up to the “Inn the Garden” restaurant that was inside the park. We had a great dinner. It was a little on the expensive side, but not too bad. Also, since it was the only “big” meal that we had all day, it worked-out well for us. There was a self-serve and take-away section that I had intended to visit, but I walked right past it without noticing. I thought it was closed. We sat at the restaurant side, where things were somewhat more expensive. Oh well. It was quite good, and we enjoyed ourselves. We had to sit outside, though, and it was getting even colder.

When we were finished with dinner, we started to walk down to the Thames. We were on the Westminster side of the Thames, and intended to stay there, near Westminster Station. This would provide a good view of the fireworks (if the internet was to be believed), and a quick exit via Westminster Station on the Underground. We found a bench and kept each other warm for a couple of hours of people-watching along the river. Soon enough, we heard Big Ben toll 21:00, then heard the 21:45 bells, so we grabbed a spot along the wall. At 22:00 the show began, and it was absolutely fabulous. It was only about 20 minutes long, but there was a lot of pyro in the sky at one time. There were typically at least four big shells going off at once, with a multitude of smaller shells and/or jets/sprays at the same time. Awesome.

We headed down to the Underground, only to find out that the only line we could use from there to home (the Circle line) was running what they called “major” delays. It turned out that we had to wait about 20 minutes for a train to arrive in our direction that would take us where we needed to go. It was practically empty, too, which was odd. Good for us, though, and it got us home quickly.

Once off the Underground, we wandered up to the nearby grocery to get some soup-in-a-cup to enjoy with our Champagne (ha ha, yes, I’m serious), along with some hummus and diet coke. On our way into the hotel, we stopped at the bar to get some ice (no ice machines here), dumped the ice into the bathroom sink to cool our bottle, and enjoyed our soup. Now it’s getting time for bed.

Tomorrow, we’re scheduled for the Chunnel train at 14:30 or so. The current guidelines after the fire last week are to show up at the correct time for the train, and they’ll accommodate us as soon as they can. Our transfer is an anytime ticket for any train from Brussels to Rotterdam, so we should be OK there.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll finish packing and then be on our way to stop #2: Rotterdam.

jonathan

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London, Days 3 and 4

by Jonathan 13 September 2008 Travel

Yesterday was Day #3 for us in London. I had work events to attend all day, so I didn’t get out to see much of anything. The work event was great, though. I finished-up with the group with a few drinks at a nearby pub. Well, we started to go to a nearby pub, and it turned out that pub was running out of beer. Oops. So we ditched that place and went to the same one we were at the previous evening. I enjoyed a few drinks with the guys there, then headed back on the Underground to see if I could meet Jenny for dinner.

Our plan from the morning was that Jenny was going to go out and explore some places on her own. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be doing a work dinner with the guys, or if I was going to be free. We agreed that if we were both at the hotel between 19:00-19:30 and we didn’t meet-up, we would have dinner on our own. I got back to the hotel at right around 19:00, so I waited around until just about 20:00, when Jenny came in. She ended up out a little later than she had expected, and had not had dinner yet. After talking about her adventures for a little while, we headed up the street to a nearby gastro-pub for some good (but expensive!) dinner and a couple of pints. Yum good.

Jenny had been exploring Westminster, visiting Buckingham Palace for a tour, walking around the outside of Westminster Abbey, walking around Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and enjoying a nearby park. She took a lot of pictures. You can find them here:

http://www.jennyandjonathangetmarried.com/gallery/v/London_September_2008/Day3/

Today, Jenny and I set-off to tour the Tower of London. This was high on Jenny’s list. It was on the expensive side (16.50 Pounds/person), but it was one of those things that was just so intriguing that we had to do it. I was initially worried that it would be something like a one- or two-hour tour, and then we’d be done, so I had a few other things planned for the day. Well, the Tower of London is easily an all-day affair. After we got moving this morning, took the Underground to the right place, and bought tickets, it was probably close to 11AM. We got moving with what I think was the 10:30AM walking tour with one of the Yeoman Warders (these are the guys in the funny navy-and-crimson uniforms). The tours run for about an hour. He took us to a few of the major spots, gave us some interesting historical information, and showed us what was where along the way. We started at the tour at the Middle Gate entrance, which is currently the main entrance to the Tower grounds. This was the side of the medieval Lion’s Tower, so-named because of the menagerie nearby that included lions and tigers, who I guess would growl at incoming guests. Wow. The ruins of that tower have been excavated and can be viewed from the walkway above Middle Tower, which is pretty neat. When crossing from Middle to Byward, we walked across what I think was at one time a drawbridge (it was in the days of Lion’s Tower, at least) that crossed the moat. In the mid 19th-century, the moat had become so full of sewage and garbage that it consistently stank, and was rumored to have been the source of multiple cholera outbreaks at the time. It used to rise and fall with the tide on the Thames, but even that was no longer enough to flush it clean. It was drained and filled, leaving a lawn and gravel ditch around the Tower’s outer wall. Today, the lawn is used for some residents to exercise their pets and for demonstrations by what we would call re-enactors.

From Middle Tower, we were led inside Byward Tower and onto the outer grounds, which is a roadway named Water Lane. When the Tower was first built, Water Lane was, well, the Thames on the south side of the tower grounds. We saw the curfew bell, which was (and I think still is) rung every night. In the days of executions on Tower Hill, it was also rung immediately before every beheading. Fun stuff.

From Byward Tower, we continued on the south side of the grounds along Water Lane to Traitor’s Gate, the Bloody Tower, and the medieval tower palace of Edward I and Henry III. Here we heard about the palace’s construction–including that the original structure collapsed twice during construction. The king at the time blamed it on a mistake that had been committed during an earlier king’s reign, where Archbishop Thomas Beckett (one t or two? I can’t recall) was murdered by a few people who thought they were doing the king a favor. Oops. The current construction people swore that they saw Thomas’ ghost at the site levering-out the bricks from the wall with his crosier. The king decided that they would build an oratory dedicated to Thomas inside the palace. This was done, and there were no further issues during construction. Cool again.

From Traitor’s Gate, we walked up through another vault through the inside wall and into the inner grounds of the Tower. Up the ramp here was the actual Tower of London (circa 1100 or so, with lots of changes through the centuries), the Barracks building that houses the Crown Jewels vault, the Royal Chapel, the Queen’s House built for Queen Anne Boleyn, the Beauchamp Tower, some other residences, and other associated outbuildings (and, of course, don’t forget the ubiquitous tourist-trap gift shops).

From here, the tour took us into the Royal Chapel. Here, our warder told us about the 1500 bodies that had been buried under the chapel. This is the third chapel to be built on the site since the 1100′s. I can’t recall the year that this chapel dates from, but I believe it was the 17th century. At one point (I think under Queen Victoria), there was a massive effort to restore the chapel. When they were doing this work, they exhumed the bodies buried under the chapel in haphazard fashion, and reburied them in one of a few places. One place where a majority of them were re-buried was in a tomb in the one wall. Queen Anne Boleyn, along with a few other queens whose names I don’t recall, were buried under the altar. I believe that they remain there. Another interesting story was of a tomb sitting in the middle of the chapel. It was built by someone who worked at the Tower by himself, as he loved the chapel and wanted to be buried in it. At some point after it was built, he upset the king, who tossed him out to live in the countryside. He was not permitted to be buried in the tomb that he built, so it still sits there today, empty.

Here’s where things get really good. After the tour, there is still a ton of stuff to do and see. The tour really just gives an entertaining picture of the long history of the tower, and shows one the major sites and how to get to other interesting things. We literally ended up spending the rest of the day there. We were inside the gates until they closed at 17:30. To top that off, we actually didn’t even have time to see everything. We never made it into the Beauchamp Tower or the tower across from the Bloody Tower (I forget what it was called). There was also the Fusiliers Museum that we had to skip. We did get through all of the floors of the White Tower (the actual, original Tower of London) where the armory collection is kept. We went through the Jewel House in the old Barracks building, where the Crown Jewels are on display in their vault, along with other antiques of unimaginable value from the tower and royal family. We toured the Bloody Tower, the medieval tower palace of Edward I and Henry III, did the South Wall Walk that actually walks around two sides of the tower, terminating in a display titled “The Making of the Crown Jewels,” where multiple former crowns are on display (minus their jewels), and information on how the jewels were mounted and where they are now was presented. This ended with a walk through the life of the Cullinan Diamond. The largest piece of that stone is called Cullinan I, and is in the royal sceptre. The second-largest piece, Cullinan II, is mounted in the Crown of State. As it turns out, all of the other major pieces (there were nine all-told, not counting fragments) are also owned by the royal family. If I’m remembering the story correctly, some of them are currently in a brooch worn by Queen Elizabeth II. By this time, it was nearing 17:30, and the Tower was about to close to the public, so we made our way for the gates.

One of the highlights of the day was seeing a wedding party arrive by carriage. When Jenny and I came out of the White Tower (I think that was what we had just visited), I was watching the changing of the guard in front of the Barracks building. I then heard a Warder moving the crowds back, and heard horses. Around the corner came a carriage with what looked like two bridesmaids, plus a young girl and young boy dressed in high style. It was around 15:30, so we thought that the wedding might start near 16:00. We decided to wait to see if a bride showed up in a carriage, too. Sure enough, at just about 15:55, another carriage arrives with the bride and her father. We grabbed a few pictures. It was really pretty interesting. We’re not sure if it was the child of a warder or one of the royal guards, but it was likely someone who lives at the Tower. Speaking of that, did you know that all of the Warders (and at least some of the royal guards who guard the Jewel House and Barracks) live on the Tower grounds? I didn’t. They all live in the residences there, including the Queen’s House and residences on the inside of the outer wall.

All in all, today was a great day. After we got outside of the gates, we realized that we had only eaten cups of soup for breakfast, and were really quite hungry. We walked up a nearby street to find a gastro-pub called The Hung, Drawn and Quartered. Their kitchen was still open for a little while, so we grabbed some food and beer that turned out to be awesome and pretty inexpensive (for London, two full meals, two pints, and an appetizer for 26 Pounds seems to be a really good deal). It was good to sit down in a comfortable spot for a while and watch some football (soccer) while enjoying some good food. I had their fish and chips, and Jenny had a artichoke, pesto, mushroom and cheese sandwich that she really enjoyed. We also had an order of nachos. We were more than full by the time we were finished.

After that good meal, and the long day walking around the Tower grounds, we were pretty much done for the night. We decided to walk down in front of the Tower and sit by the Thames for a while before heading home. A little while later, I thought I remembered hearing that there were fireworks for both nights of the Thames Festival, which celebrates the yearly election of the Lord Mayor of London (different from the Mayor of London, the Lord Mayor is elected yearly and is primarily a ceremonial position, whereas the Mayor of London is elected for a term and is mayor of the Greater London area). We decided to stay where we were to see if we could see them. At about 21:30, one of the Warders comes by and starts telling everyone still down at the water that the West Gate was about to close, which was the only exit from where we were. We left and headed up towards the Underground station at Tower Hill, figuring that we would wait on Tower Hill for a little while to see if we could see them. Then Jenny suggested that we head over to Westminster station, since that deposited one right at the water next to Big Ben and across from the Eye, which is where the fireworks were supposed to be. We went down there and waited for a while. Then I remembered that I had my Blackberry, and it was working again internationally, so I looked-up the schedule. Of course, the fireworks are only on Sunday. Oh well. Back on the Underground and back to the hotel, after a long and completely awesome day.

Recommendation from today: Definitely do the Tower of London, if you at all into history. You’ll have far more questions about how things work when you come out of it, but it is really pretty awesome. There are special passes available if you want to do multiple events over a few days that would save a few quid per ticket, and these are recommended. We weren’t sure what we were going to do when we got here, so we didn’t get them. Knowing what we do now, if you want to visit the palaces, you’ll probably want to get these passes. Yes, it is pricey, but we spent the WHOLE DAY there. Really. We could have spent more time if we had it. The hours on Sunday are shorter, so definitely plan to do this on a weekday or Saturday.

Pictures? Of course. Here: http://www.jennyandjonathangetmarried.com/gallery/v/London_September_2008/Day4/

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London, Day 2

by Jonathan 11 September 2008 Travel

Today was our second day in London. It’s too bad that we can’t get assigned here for a little while (with a suitable adjustment for cost of living ). Today was a work day for me. I had an afternoon meeting, so we spent the morning sleeping-off the last of our jet lag and talking about the day, then I went off for my meeting and left Jenny to her own devices. She did a little exploring around the area, found a small grocery nearby and got some food for herself, and then read and did some cross-stitch until I got home. After my meeting, a bunch of us went to the pub, where we were treated to a bunch of drinks. Then one of the guys from the Netherlands suggested that we take a group and get some dinner, so some of us asked one of the Londoners we were with about local food, then walked across the street to the recommended curry place. There we were treated to heaps of good Indian food. Yum. By this time, it was rounding-up to 21:00, so we parted ways at the Underground and went off to our separate hotels.

Tomorrow is another work day for me with an all-day meeting. Jenny is planning to head over to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster and do some exploring over there during the day. I’m not sure what tomorrow night holds yet. I might be dining with work-related folks if any are getting together and it is appropriate for me to be there. If not, I’ll meet-up with Jenny and we’ll head for a local gastro-pub or somewhere to get some good dinner and kick-off the rest of our little mini-vacation.

Pictures from yesterday have been posted here:
http://www.jennyandjonathangetmarried.com/gallery/v/London_September_2008/Day1/

jonathan

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London, Day 1

by Jonathan 10 September 2008 Travel

We made it to London this morning. We arrived an hour early (um, who thought that airlines still even tried to do that?) to London Gatwick Airport. After going through passport control, we found a manned kiosk to buy train tickets. There are a few trains from Gatwick to London stations, but only the Gatwick Express train is non-stop to Victoria Station (thanks for the tip, mr. work colleague). We got tickets for that (only about 16 Pounds each), and the kiosk guy said if we were going to be using the Underground (London’s take on the subway/metro rail system), we could get access cards for that service that came loaded with 15 Pounds, and could be “topped-up” at any station. Good deal, said we, and we got them, too.

Baggage claim was easy. Customs coming into other countries is a cinch. Nothing to declare? Go through the “nothing to declare” doorway, which just leads you to an exit. We didn’t have anything to declare, so that’s just what we did.

And there we began our first adventure. We had to get to the train platforms to get on the Gatwick Express train to London. The train ticket kiosk guy explained about going out to a free shuttle. In my mind, this mapped to something akin to the free bus-like shuttles that exist in lots of airports in the states. So, after getting our luggage, I followed the signs for the shuttle area, instead of the train area. Doh. After talking to a nice traffic cop/guard/something outside, we got straightened-out and headed where the “Trains” signs pointed us. That put us on a “free shuttle” that is exactly like the unattended shuttle that runs between the airside and terminal buildings in Pittsburgh, and that run among concourses in other large airports. Cool.

We got to the train platforms five minutes before the Gatwick Express left the station, which was good–otherwise, we’d have to wait another half-hour for the next train. We jumped on and enjoyed the ride from the slightly-more-country Gatwick area into Victoria Station. Riding through these areas, I was impressed at a few things. First, lots of communities have community garden plots, with a big plot of land divided into smaller sections that look like they are maintained by individual households. This looks to be what folks do who live in a flat without a yard (or with a yard insufficient for a garden). There were lots of well-tended gardens, though, which I thought was cool. Second, there was a definite change in landscape as we got closer to the city. The green places started to become back yards again in single-family flats, and then got smaller and smaller as we got closer to the city. Third, the train systems are completely awesome. This would have been a 100 Pound cab ride for us. Instead, 32 Pounds got us both directly from the airport to the city, and a 1 Pound 45p Underground ride got us to our hotel. Fourth, they have it together here with regards to alternative power, at least in some regards. A bunch of the train signaling systems have wind generators attached to them, and I see lots of solar panels on things. Cool stuff. Anyway, back to the adventure….

We arrived at Victoria Station with no issues. Then we had to figure out how to navigate the Underground. The online system for the Underground gave me a route to the stop near our hotel that involved a transfer. I looked at the map and realized that we could go to a station about a block in the opposite direction without having to transfer. It might take us a few extra minutes on the ride, but the distance from the hotel was the same and not having to navigate a transfer on our first Underground voyage was a good idea. Unfortunately, on our way to the platform with our luggage, we had to use our access cards (known as “Oyster” cards here, they are an RFID-based automated fare system, similar to the newer metro cards, and systems available in other large cities) to “tag-in” at the station, which opens turnstiles so that one can walk through. They have nice turnstiles for people with baggage or disabilities, so I used one of those and then turned around to make sure that Jenny was OK. She tagged-in, the door opened, and the people pushing me down the stairs to get to the waiting train dragged me away. I waited a few minutes at the platform, and there’s no Jenny. I can’t go back up the stairs that I just came down. I start looking for her on the other platform in case she didn’t see where I went, and I started to make my way over to an information desk to figure out how to get back upstairs so that I could start looking for her. Fortunately, at just about that time, I spotted her standing in another section on the same platform. I waved, she saw me, and we were good to go. We jumped on the next train in the right direction (and, fortunately, we were waiting for a Circle Line train, which quite literally goes around in a circle, so we really couldn’t have gotten on in the “wrong” direction, just in the “it’s going to take longer” direction), and arrived at the stop near our hotel in a short while.

Our hotel had our room ready, so we got straight up, unpacked, and washed-up. We took a quick nap before heading out for the afternoon. We first walked around the hotel a bit to get our bearings in the neighborhood. We saw a little Spanish cafe on a cross street, so that’s where we had lunch. It was good stuff. I had chicken in a mushroom cream sauce, and Jenny had shrimp over rice. We decided there that we were both feeling awake and ready to do some more sight-seeing, after hitting a market to grab some fruit for the room. I also decided that I wanted to put on some long pants (it’s a bit chilly here right now, and I had earlier put on shorts), and we wanted to grab our tour book to figure out where we wanted to go.

Jenny had a few things on her list of must-see London stuff, so we grabbed the guidebook and took a look at a few of them before we headed out on our adventure. Two of the things on her list were the Tower of London and the London Eye (the giant ferris wheel built for the y2k celebration). We found out that both of these, along with the Tower Bridge and a few other notable attractions, were along a river walk that followed the Thames from the Tower of London all the way to Millennium Park and the London Eye. So, with our new-found knowledge and almost-comfort of the Underground, we took to it to get to the start of this little adventure.

The walk was about two miles or so, from the Tower of London, across the Tower Bridge, and then up the Thames to Millennium park. We saw all kinds of neat things along the way, including an old covered port area that became famous as “London’s Larder,” since most of the perishable goods brought into London were brought in through this covered dock. It has been restored now, and it is quite the sight to see. It is now a patio and courtyard for a bunch of cafes and other businesses, but the cover has been restored and it just looks cool. One can almost imagine the masts of the tea clippers cruising under the canopy to unload their cargo. Neat stuff. Speaking of masts and things, Jenny and I were standing across the Tower Bridge thinking that it would have been completely awesome to see it open. Right before we turn to continue our walk, we start to hear an enormous amount of warning-siren racket from the bridge, and all of the traffic comes to a stop on both sides. We wait for a minute or so, thinking that the bridge might open, and wondering what boat would need it to open–the only thing we could see in the river was a cruise ship that wasn’t going anywhere yet. Lo and behold, the bridge began to open, and then we caught sight of a wooden gaff-rigged yawl peeking out from behind the cruise ship. It was only under motor, but it was a cool sight nonetheless. We watched it close after the ship passed, then continued on our way. We saw the Globe Theatre, another old wooden galleon reproduction, the Cathedral for the Diocese of Southwick, lots of people, and lots of history. One of the neatest things we saw, and I still don’t understand why I didn’t take a picture of it, was part of a wall that was being preserved. The wall had been part of the Bishop’s Palace in London, a retreat for bishops and a place for them to stay when they had business in London. The wall was part of the Grand Hall, and was pretty complete, up to and including the framework for the rose window. Jenny found a little plaque about it, which told us about the Grand Hall and a bit about the palace area, and also gave this tidbit of interesting information: In the 17th century, the use of the area by the bishops was discontinued, and the buildings divided into tenements. A fire in the 19th century revealed the old wall, which had been practically forgotten. A formal restoration effort began in the 1980′s, and it is continuing now. Our final destination was the London Eye, which was a great ride. Yes, it was expensive, but it was completely worth it.

We got some dinner at a place near the Eye called Giraffe’s. This is apparently a small chain in London, but it was good food. Then we departed for Waterloo station to catch the Underground back to the hotel. Of course, that was complicated by the fact that the station was under construction. Fortunately, a bunch of other people were also headed for the station (or so I guessed), so we followed them to an entrance around the side. We took the Bakerloo line back to the hotel.

Now I’m writing this.

A little while ago, Jenny decided that she couldn’t wait any longer, and we absolutely had to have tea in our room (hotels here and in other pars of Europe have a nice tea service and usually a hot-water kettle instead of the standard-issue hotel coffee pot). The service here was actually better than it had been in the Netherlands last year, so we enjoyed some good tea and talked about our adventures while the pictures were fetched from the camera to the computer. In the process of talking, Jenny reminded me that I wanted to look up why the Tower Bridge is built the way that it is. It turns out that is a pretty interesting story. In short form, there was no bridge over that section of the Thames because it was a busy shipping port. The people settling in that area of London in the late 19th century were clamoring for a bridge, so finally they built a bridge. It had to be a drawbridge, though, to accommodate shipping use of the river. It was originally designed with walkways high above the road surface, in addition to the walkways at the road surface, so that pedestrians wouldn’t have to wait for the bridge to close before continuing on their way. The elevated walkways proved so unpopular that they were eventually closed for lack of use–everyone apparently was fine standing on the ground and waiting for the bridge to close. hah.

Now it’s time for bed. I have pictures, and will upload them tomorrow.

jonathan

Tagged as: vacations

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Beautiful cincinnati

by Jonathan 9 September 2008 Travel

sitting now in Cincinnati, just waiting to board our next flight. For the record, this is a tiny gate for this large plane. I think it is a 757–at least that is the line the plane is parked on right now. Jonathan

Tagged as: vacations

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Getting ready to leave

by Jonathan 9 September 2008 Travel

So Jenny and I are at the airport now. We got lunch and are waiting now at the gate. They screwed up our seats, and they don’t have us together on either flight. There is one flight leaving at our gate before us. After they board, I will see if they can do something at least about the flight from Cincinnati to London. Jonathan

Tagged as: vacations

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Vacation!

by Jonathan 10 August 2008 House and Home

Well, we’ve been back from vacation for a week now, but I haven’t had time to write about it yet! We got home and fell into a bunch of stuff that was waiting for us to return.

First up this week, of course, was our return to work. We arrived home late Saturday night, spent Sunday getting the house in order again, then we were back to work Monday morning. Ugh. Getting back to work was good, though. Though I think I could have done well with a few more weeks off, it felt good to get back to work. Jenny and I discovered that we were really missing the cats Sunday night, so I went to get them Monday after work. I had originally thought that we might leave them at the kennel for one additional night while we worked on getting laundry re-organized and getting the house cleaned-up before re-introducing cat fur to everything. However, we were done on Sunday, and we missed the cats a lot, so they came home Monday afternoon. They were initially a little confused and a lot upset when I brought them home. By the time that Jenny got home, though, they were pretty much back to their former comfort level.

Tuesday evening was National Night Out Against Crime. The Parnassus Civic League sponsored a block party on another block here. This was an important event to attend for me–not only because of my role as an officer in the organization, but also because I think that our efforts to get crime out of our neighborhood are highly valuable. A block party at night on a weekday is a great way to show the nefarious types that we don’t really appreciate them, and will not tolerate their element in our neighborhood. It’s also a good way to get people who rarely get a chance to come out to meet one another to do just that.

The rest of the week pretty much progressed apace. Jenny and I ment my friends Nick and Phil for dinner on Thursday evening, and that pretty much covers it. Overall, though, it was pretty busy as we both worked to catch-up on stuff.

Now on to vacation! We had a great time! We drove up on Saturday the 26th of July. We had good weather for the whole ride up. We woke up with a plan to leave at around 5AM. My parents’ car, which is usually notoriously late as we leave for vacation together, ended up leaving at just about exactly the same time. Jenny and I thought that we were going to beat them out of the gate by hours, but it didn’t happen. We ended up heading north pretty much together the whole way, which worked-out pretty well. We had our little sailboat strapped to the top of the car. Except for some major strap noise in the beginning, it worked pretty well. There was some high-frequency noise if we went faster than about 65MPH without a large vehicle in front of us to draft, so we tried to follow tractor trailers once we got into Michigan and onto 70MPH roads.

Everything was going swimmingly…

… until I ran out of gas!!!! Ugh. I’m such an idiot sometimes. We were about 35 miles outside of Mackinaw City when I saw that we were running really low. The "hey dork, stop for gas" light wasn’t on yet, so I figured I’d take the next close gas station, with the thought that we should easily make Mackinaw City if the light wasn’t on yet. Next thing I know, the light is on. Umm, OK. We’re too far from Macinaw City yet to make it there with the light on, but I should be able to make the next exit, which is only a few miles away.

About 2000 feet before the exit, the engine starts to heave, so we pulled-off. How embarrassing. I’ve never actually run out of gas before–ever! My parents were right behind us. They pulled-off, too. We weren’t sure exactly how far the exit was in front of us at that time. I placed a call to put our AAA membership into action, and finally convinced my parents to go on ahead over the bridge and to get into the house that they had rented for all of us. About fifteen minutes later, AAA showed up and gave us some gas, which got us safely to the next exit to fill-up. Ugh. I can’t believe I did that.

Drama aside, the trip to the house on St. Martin’s Point on the shores of Lake Huron was great. We (and the boat) arrived unscathed, only about ten or fifteen minutes after my parents got there.

That night we spent getting settled-in and making some preliminary plans for Sunday. My sister Marissa her her boyfriend Joe went off to pick up dinner for us at a take-out place we often use when we arrive in this area. I settled-in to do some reading and watch all of the stars. I always forget how many stars we can see from that area. With so little light pollution, the entire sky is dotted with stars big, small, bright, dim, and everywhere in between. With the start of the active meteor showers, too, this is a great time to be up there–I can usually spot at least one every night.

Sunday we went to Mass in the nearby town of Hessel. We then returned to the house, and Jenny and I went off to do the shopping duties to buy us most of what we’d need for the meals we were planning. As we’ve done this more and more, my Mom has become pretty good at making sure that we don’t over-plan meals. I remember the first time we joined them in Michigan at a rented house (actually, this same house) a few years ago. My Mom had planned a strict three meals per day, and brought many of the necessary ingredients with her from home. That meant an over-stuffed car, for starters. Also, we found that we usually only ate twice per day, and didn’t take into account days where we ate one meal at a restaurant due to our location (or due to the fact that Clydes, a drive-in hamburger stand, is a huge family favorite, and is usually the source of two meals while we’re there). All of that added up to a huge amount of food that had to be brought home at the end of the week, which was just insane. This trip was much better–we ended up with generally little to bring home, which was good.

I also got my Dad to help me to get the sailboat rigged on Sunday. This was my first time doing it on my own, so I took my time. It all went together quickly with my Dad helping, though, so it was ready in no time.

At this point, memory of the actual daily events gets a little foggy. I had meant to keep a good record of what we did up there specifically for updating the blog, but I just don’t remember. So, in lieu of that, here’s a shortened version in the sequence that I remember it all happening.

The first time I took the boat out, the wind was good and steady, and there were some light waves coming into the bay. It was an on-shore wind, which makes things sometimes a little harder for setting-off, but would make things easier for coming back, even if I had major issues. Well, I had major issues, but they weren’t involved with leaving, or coming back, for that matter. I couldn’t get the darn thing started! The beach area near the house is rocks and lots of soft mud and sand, which makes walking in it and standing in any one place pretty difficult. I would get the boat out to about the depth where I could still get into it and it wouldn’t touch bottom. I would get in, try to set the sails, and blow back onto some rocks and come to a stop. Argh. I tried this a few times. While I was doing this, I didn’t notice that the wind was getting stronger, and the waves were starting to get some whitecaps. At one point, after I had decided to start by setting-out further from the shallow area, I was climbing aboard the little boat when a wave came over the starboard side and completely swamped the boat. I dragged the boat as far as it would go full of water, pulled-out my manual bilge pump, and started to pump it out. Joe had cut a water jug into a scoop and brought that down to help. We’d empty a bunch of water until it floated free again, then drag it further on shore, then bail some more. We finally got it just about empty, and I pulled it up into the reeds for the evening. The wind now was getting pretty strong, and looking out on the bay, the waves were getting pretty strong for such a little boat. It was probably a good thing that this happened, and I wasn’t stuck further out trying to right a boat that may have capsized due to the waves and my inexperience.

The next day, I took the boat out again. This time, I decided to try just the jib instead of just the mainsail. I was having better luck with not swamping or capsizing, but I kept blowing back on shore. A friendly gentleman who was renting the house next door came over to offer some assistance. As it turns out, I think that the two most beneficial things he said were that I was right the first time, and should start with the mainsail hoisted; and that I need to have at least a little bit of the daggerboard in the water. The daggerboard is a board that fits into a pocket in the centerline of the boat. It sits down in the water to resist the force of the wind blowing the boat sideways, helping to translate that force into forward motion. Well, I didn’t realize that even a few short inches would be enough to get me out of the rocky area to where I could drop it the rest of the way. Those were the magic words. That short little bit of daggerboard got me forward motion instead of sideways motion back onto the rocks, and I was sailing!

Let me just tell you all that I’ve been wanting to learn how to sail ever since I was a little kid. It wasn’t something I talked about a lot because it seemed impractical at the time, and yet another draw on everyone as another activity, so I never really mentioned it. This was a fabulous feeling. I was out there, in control of my own little tiny boat, and I was having a great time with it. I was finally able to put all of the things that I’ve been reading into practice, and to actually see what was meant by some of the things I had read. I dealt with tacking only–I wasn’t ready to play with jibing yet. I also sailed mainsail only an no jib–it was one more thing that I was going to have to learn how to control, so it would wait. It was completely awesome, though. It was also tiring, as I found that my little boat wasn’t all that comfortable to kneel in for long periods of time, and I was doing a lot of work to keep things balanced in the wind. I came back in after probably an hour or so out there, and was completely and totally exhilarated and exhausted. I rested for a little while, then went back out again. I had to prove to myself that I could get it started and underway on my own, without the help of the kind gentleman next door. It was just something I had to do, and I did it! Wow. Awesome. Cool. My Dad, meanwhile, was filming everything. During this second session, I did some stuff for him specifically for the camera shots. I was in radio contact with him (yay for ham radio operator goodness, and waterproof radios!), so I also did a quick "how is everything going" report. When I came out again for the day, I did a short interview with him about how everything went. Unfortunately, when he went to review the tape later, he found that there was an error with the tape, and none of the second session was recorded. Argh! Oh well, I planned to get out again while we were up here, and I had a great time!

We all went into St. Ignace one afternoon for a walk around to look at things and do a little bit of shopping, followed by dinner at the aforementioned hamburger drive-in. While the girls shopped, Dad and I went down to the marina to look at boats. I’m seriously considering a bigger sailboat now, especially since I had so much fun on the little one. I’m completely hooked! After the women rejoined us, we all went to get dinner, then took it down to one of the Mackinac Bridge overlooks to eat and watch night fall over the bridge. They light it up at night, so it is really cool to watch the lights come on as the sun sets.

Jenny and I went into Hessel one morning to walk around the marina there a bit and look at boats there, then we headed to Sault Sainte Marie and the Soo Locks to watch BIG boats for a while. When I say big, I mean these are 1000-foot freighters moving through locks that are just barely big enough to hold them. It’s really something to see. We’ve gone there over the past few years with the whole family, but different people end up getting bored or wanting to do other things. We were specifically coming just to watch boats, so we dedicated the entire day to that. We had a late lunch in town across from the locks, then headed back to have the dinner that Joe and Marissa were making that night. Mmm.. Good.

I woke up one morning feeling really sick, which was no fun at all. I had felt a sinus problem during the week, and this was its culmination. Fortunately, it only was really bad in the morning, and I was up and fine by late morning. Mom and Dad were going on a drive that day to visit some of the beaches and things along the Lake Michigan side of the Upper Peninsula. Jenny, Marissa, Joe and I all decided to stay back and enjoy some sailing and kayaking time. There were kayaks at the house, which Joe and Marissa had out earlier in the week. Today, I took the sailboat out again, and Jenny and Marissa came out in kayaks. This was another great day, and I had an even better time. I got the jib up this time, and got some practice getting that set and making it work. That little boat packs some good speed, too–I turned on the little old Garmin handheld GPS that I had my dad mount to the boat with some velcro, and once it picked up a good signal, it indicated that I was traveling at just about four knots. That’s a good speed for a small boat like that. It had a little bit of heel to it, so I could hike out a bit on the windward side and really get a good feel for how the boat was performing and working. It was great fun. I also got a chance to practice some jibing, which was a good thing to do and to learn. Jenny had a great time out in the kayak, and was out there a good long while before she went into Jenny Daydream Mode for a second and turned-over. Her life vest kept her floating while she righted the boat, though, and she was able to swim it up to shore easily. I had the chance to practice a sort-of Man Overboard drill when I saw that, though, which was also a good thing to do. I headed back in shortly after she did. It was another great day of learning a lot and putting a lot of things that I had read into practice. Later in the day, we were getting a beautiful sunset. Mom and Dad had returned, and all of us "kids" went out to do a little sunset sail/kayak. I got Jenny into the little boat with me (and it is truly little with two people in it!), and we sailed-off pretty well, then the wind just about completely died. We had almost nothing. Instead of venturing out too far under these conditions, we turned around and headed for shore, using the tiny bit of existing wind to get us back there. We didn’t have to break-out the paddle, but it was pretty close.

Our final day we spent doing some additional shopping and sight-seeing in St. Ignace and Hessel. Friday night we started to pack up, and had a nice big fire outside to watch the last of the starry skies in that part of the country.

We set off early Saturday morning, aiming for Frankenmuth, Michigan. My parents and sister and her boyfriend were all staying there for two nights. Jenny and I had stayed for one night last year, but decided that we were going to drive all the way home this year on Saturday. We really wanted the day on Sunday to unwind a bit before going headlong into a full week of work. This turned out to be a good strategy for us. We actually beat my parents to Frankenmuth, so we stopped at the Frankenmuth Cheese Haus to get some chocolate cheese for Jenny and some cheese spreads for both of us (good stuff). We then went over to Bronner’s, one of (if not the) largest Christmas store in the world. They are open just about every day except for Christmas day itself. They carry ornaments and decorations from all over the world, and we like to shop there for unique and interesting things for our tree and our families’ trees. This year, since Mom and Dad were going to have more time, they met us just so that Mom could get a look around, and so that she could buy us our traditional ornaments (thanks Mom!). After we were done there, we headed over to get a famous Frankenmuth chicken dinner, which is served all-you-can-eat family-style. Jenny had the sausage sampler dinner, and the rest of us had the chicken. It was great.

We said our goodbyes after dinner (or more like late lunch, in our case), and we headed for home. We stopped a few times to stretch and once to get gas. We arrived home at around 11:30PM on Saturday night, and were exhausted. We unloaded the necessary things from the car, and left the boat and its stuff for Sunday.

Sunday we went to Mass in the morning (with the boat still on the car ) then came back to get ourselves relaxed and ready for the week to come.

Wow. There’s a lot of stuff to read. I’ll have pictures up soon–I simply haven’t had time to handle them all yet!

jonathan

Tagged as: neighborhood, sailing, vacations

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