London in two days

One reason that we had chosen to stay in Oxfordshire was that it was within driving distance of London. London is one of the most expensive cities I’ve ever been in (topped only by Oslo, perhaps?) and we didn’t want to have to overnight in London. Instead, we drove down to Heathrow airport, parked in long-term parking, and took the Tube into the city.  

The red phone booths are so iconic that we actually had to wait in a line of tourists to take our photograph in the booth, even though it was one of dozens that we saw that day. Here, my father takes a trip down memory lane while using a corded telephone.

Buckingham palace was all booked up, so we decided to get our history fix at the Tower of London. I think my parents were a bit dubious about this choice, because the name "Tower" doesn't really describe it well. The true name is "Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress" and if you appended "Founded in 1066, Serving as prison, armory, treasury, royal zoo, mint, and home of the Crown Jewels during the past 1000 years", you'd get a bit more of the flavor.

The Tower of London, looking large and impressive. We took a guided tour, viewed the Crown Jewels, which are as shiny and impressive as you'd expect from a former empire. The Tower also host ravens, which are part of a myth. It is said that when the ravens leave the tower, the kingdom will fall. Nowadays, the clip the ravens' wings to prevent them from flying away. This seems a bit unsporting to me.

There's a large building in the center of the compound, called the White Tower, which was constructed in the 1070's. It's had various purposes, including a royal residence and gunpowder storage. Now it hosts a display of historical weaponry and this oddly delightful dragon.

We also did the London Eye, a giant ferris wheel. (The picture below shows how big the pods are - they hold about 20 people.) You do just one rotation, but the wheel moves very slowly so that it takes about a half an hour. There are wonderful views of the city,

A note about vegetarian food in England: it is rather easy to find veggie options, particularly in the selection of sandwiches and fake meats. I've never seen a country that does fake meats as well as England. And it's very convenient for the restaurants, because all the pub meals (meat, cooked vegetables, potatoes and maybe a Yorkshire pudding) can be made vegetarian by swapping out the real meat for a fake meat. However, I dearly love noodles, so Andrew convinced the family to have lunch in an Asian noodle shop, which made me very, very happy.

Here, I look upon my noodles and tofu with glee. 

We also spent two afternoons on the open-top bus tours. These are a bit pricey, but they're extremely useful for groups. We had 7 or 8 people each day, and keeping us all together was something of a challenge, particularly as one parent or another was always wandering off to take a picture. The tours were a good way to see large parts of the city and not have to continually check if we'd left someone behind.

England, the first few days

(Warning: Vacation slide show ahead. If you don't want to hear about every fascinating detail of my recent trip, check back in a few weeks. Otherwise, proceed with caution.) 

My parents-in-law hunted far and wide to find a house that would hold four couples- them, my husband and I, my parents, and Andrew's sister and fiance. What they found was "the Old Bakery". It was lovely: recently renovated, half-timbered, four-bedroom house with a brick-lined kitchen and beautiful gardens around it.

We didn't manage much on the first day beyond a walk around some gardens, a nap, and a family meal. We were all fighting jetlag, although my father and I have different philosophies. I wanted to struggle through with a short nap, so that I'd fall asleep on time. My father thinks you should sleep as much as you need whenever you are tired. I suspect that part of his philosophy may be based in the fact that he never gets enough sleep at home, either.

Since we were jetlagged, we didn't drink too much alcohol at the start of the week. My parent-in-law had something just as delicious - bottles of the apple juice they bottled from their own trees.

For the first few days, we mainly split along gender lines, which correspond to differences in interest. My mother and mother-in-law both love to garden, so we went to the Botanical Gardens in Oxford. My mother also had a chance to experience a full English breakfast, which involves sausage or bacon (or both), eggs, toast, mushrooms, tomatoes, and beans. As you can see, it's very protein-filled and very filling. I stuck to the vegetarian full breakfast. We also fit in an organ concert in Birmingham and a visit to a wonderful museum exhibit of the Staffordshire Hoard, a collection of gold coins, emblems, and weapons that offers an unprecedented look at English life during the Dark Ages.

Andrew accompanied the fathers to events that I was happy to miss. My father loves motorcycles, and I spent many days in my youth visiting sites like the one below, the National Motorcycle Museum. (The day before they had gone to the races - motorcycle races, that is.) I am utterly grateful that although my husband loves motorcycles, he doesn't make me go look at them.

A house in the country

Usually when I go on vacation, I like to choose one place to stay. When we've gone to Europe in the past, that typically meant that we stayed in a large city where we could depend on public transportation. This was my first trip to Europe where I stayed in a house in the country. In England, my parents-in-law rented a house in Oxfordshire which was large enough for them, my parents, Andrew and I, and his sister and her fiance. This meant if we could drive all over central England, to London or Oxford or Birmingham. In Spain (the second week of our vacation), my uncle rented a hotel/villa which had plenty of room for 7 different couples. These were therefore very different vacations than whatI'm used to. On one hand, I didn't feel like I was really part of the neighborhood and didn't get to experience what it might feel like to live in that area as a local. On the other hand, I got to see a lot more parts of the country then I would normally. Sometimes I wasn't so keen to spend two or three hours in a car on my vacation, but since I was with a big group in each place, I had lots of interesting people to talk to during the drive. And it's great to stay in a house rather than a hotel because you can eat some of your meals at home and lounge around. At the house we stayed at in southern Spain in Andalusia, we spent lots of time lounging on the terrace looking out over the city. Perhaps "city" is that too large of a word for Casarabonela -  while it is technically one of the white cities of southern Spain, but is really a village  of 2500 souls tucked up into the hills.

Almost every morning we woke up at the civilized hour of 8, since the sun didn't rise over the mountains until 8:30. We'd drink coffee on the terrace, and then head out for the day's adventures. In the afternoon or evening we'd be back on the terrace for drinks. One of the group in Spain was a gin and tonic master, and I learned a few secrets from him. One is to roll the lime until it's very soft, so the oils and juice are easily released into the drink. The second is to just use a heck of a lot of gin.

R&R

The bags are packed, the animals are dropped off at other people's houses, and there's no more perishable food in the fridge. I'm ready for a vacation.

It seems a bit scandalous to take a two-week vacation in the middle of the school year. I'll be missing group meetings, and I needed to make sure the student that I supervise had enough work to keep him busy. Even more importantly, Andrew is teaching this semester and he had to find someone to cover the twelve hours of class time he'd be missing. But my uncle arranged a holiday in Spain during the quieter, less touristy fall season, and we decided to add on a visit to Andrew's parents in England.

This is the first international trip we've taken since I've had my Kindle, and I'm really appreciating having an electronic reader. I've loaded it up with a dozen library books, and this is the first time our suitcase was decidedly under the maximum weight.

The previous trip to Europe

This trip. 

Tomorrow morning, if all goes well, we'll get off a plane in Heathrow airport and meet Andrew's parents and my parents (who are flying in from Ohio), and then we'll all drive over to a house in Oxford that they've rented. There's supposed to be wifi at the house; if so, I'll be able to post updates from England.

Shopping the past

When my parents called me up and asked what I'd like for my birthday, I told them I'd like some kind of book that had pictures of people from the 1940's or 50's. I'm always looking for collections of pictures showing how everyday people dressed back then, because then I can figure out how to style my hair or purchase modern clothes that fit into that look. My father exclaimed, "I have just the thing!" and he ran upstairs to fetch a Sears, Roebuck, and Co. catalogue from 1949 that just happend to be sitting on his bookshelf. He promised that I could borrow it for a few years, but then he'd want it back. It's a perfect gift, and it arrived in the mail today.

What I most love about this is how it shows that my father can literally "shop his closet," picking out gifts for people from the treasures accumulated during decades of garage saleing. It also demonstrates how my father and I share a love of old stuff. He might collect tractors while I collect hats, but we come from the same stock.

Singing "en plein air"

Singing in a semi-professional choir doesn't just mean that I have singing homework every week, it also means that I get to hang out with lots of cool musicians. And on Labor Day weekend, it meant that I had the chance to participate in a flash mob. (Officially, it was called a Random Act of Culture). To the people standing around in the open-air mall in downtown Miami Beach, it looked like a violintist started playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy. A string quartet soon joined in, followed by a small orchestra, and 80 chorus singers (that would be my group). One stanza later, a jazz band and gospel choir joined in, followed by Afro-Cuban drummers and dancers. The Miami Herald wrote up a bit here. I think a bit of information got leaked to the press beforehand - otherwise I don't know how all the cameras knew to be there at precisely 5:30 pm.

I'm only visible for a moment, at 1:16 in the video:

It was great fun to sing for a a surprised, appreciative audience. Most of the time when we sing, we're not supposed to smile or move very much, because classical choral singers are supposed to blend into the background. We got official permission to show that we were having fun during this performance, and I didn't need much urging.

Three choir members and I try to smile while singing the word "Freude". (Thanks to my friend Jan for the picture.)

Hiking in the "woods"

  As you might have heard, Isaac turned out to be rather less than a hurricane, at least for South Florida. I know that a number of states have really suffered from it, but we only experienced a few periods of wind and rain, and a bit of flooding. In fact, Andrew and I were driving during the worst part of the storm, because I didn't realize that it was supposed to hit that early in the day. It felt far less dangerous that driving during a big thunderstorm.
  The worst part turned out to be the day after. Our power was out for twelve hours, and since the university was closed, we just sat at home and waited. I can see now why hurricanes can be so awful; even after the storm passes by, you can lose your power for hours days. Someone in our neighborhood had no power for three days, which isn't very good news when you consider that this was only a tropical storm.
  To celebrate the clear weather, we headed out to the great (humid) outdoors. I wanted to use the Labor Day weekend to check out a state park, because state parks allow dogs. We drove a few hours north, which meant that the vegetation was slightly (but sufficiently) different - look at the pine trees in that picture. You don't see trees like that in Miami. Of course, Labor Day doesn't mean it's cool - that won't happen until November, so we just drank lots of water and wore hats and trudged through the heat.