A Favorite Place

Keith here. We're down to two weeks before we return to the States and we're beginning to feel a little urgency about what we've been intending to do, but haven't -- or going back "one last time" to do something.
I'm hoping that our excursion today wasn't one of those "last" things, but it's definitely one of my favorite places to go in London, or on the planet for that matter. We visited Trafalgar Square.
It's one of London's iconic locations, a must-see for any visitor to the city, and a place I've loved since our first visit to London in December 2000. We spent that New Year's Eve there, a celebration equivalent to ringing in the new year on New York's Times Square in America.
Our main destination today was the National Portrait Gallery for a look at a special exhibition of photographs by Annie Leibovitz, best known for her work in American magazines like Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. But the gallery also has lots and lots of portraits of famous Britons, from the royal family to authors, athletes and war heroes.
Trafalgar Square is one of those places where there's something to see everywhere you turn. It's named for the Battle of Trafalgar, in which Admiral Horatio Nelson led a decisive 1805 naval victory over the French. Nelson, who died in the battle, is memorialized by a statue perched atop a 169-foot tall column in the middle of the square. Statues of lions made from melted-down French artillery ring the Nelson memorial and are a favorite photo opportunity for anyone nimble enough to climb aboard.
Another of my favorite London churches, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, is a fixture in the area since 1726, about 100 years before the actual square took shape. It's famous for its choir and also notable for the Cafe in the Crypt, where you can have a tasty and cheap lunch dining over 200-year-old grave markers and memorials to members long gone -- not nearly as creepy an experience as it sounds. (The name of the church, by the way, made literal sense back in the 1720s, when it was surrounded by green space.)
A little digression here. I don't think we've discussed this topic much, but the difference in American and British society is especially notable in the two nations' approach to religion. Religion (and religiosity) is pretty ingrained in American public life, but despite all the beautiful churches in London and elsewhere in the UK, England has a reputation as a pretty secular country. It was surprising to me on our first visit here to come to St. Martin's for a Wednesday night service and to be one of about a dozen worshippers in that vast and beautiful sanctuary.
The other main attraction on the square is the National Gallery, bigger and better known than the underrated Portrait Gallery, and another essential site for the London visitor. We didn't get there today, but we're definitely returning before we leave. It's an easy place to spend a day and there's something for every art lover, whether you prefer medieval Madonnas (the Biblical kind) and saints, or the French impressionists.
Our afternoon out continued with some more favorite sites and sights -- a walk across Leicester Square up to Picadilly Circus where we lunched at Ponti's a favorite sandwich shop of ours. This was one of those London days where, as we've noted a few times, it wasn't raining, but looked like it had just finished raining. We strolled on down Picadilly (the street) in an actual sprinkle to Hatchard's, booksellers since 1797, and the magnificent department store and food emporium Fortnum & Mason's, open since 1707, where we enjoyed tea, coffee and some scones and pastry.
It's always interesting to us to note how long some of these more famous London businesses have been in operation. As a comparison, Macy's, the granddaddy of U.S. retailers, has "only" been around since 1858.
And that's what we'll miss about this place -- the history and the fact that there's something interesting to look at everywhere you turn. Jayne and I both wish American cities and towns were more aware of their own history, and it reminds me of the criticism of the city of Charlotte, where we live -- and where government officials and developers often seem determined to tear down anything that was built before 1975.

Just Another Thursday

Well, it may be Thanksgiving where you are, but over here, it's just another day.
Keith and I walked down to Old Street and beyond to do a few errands earlier today. One stop was the grocery store. No mad dashes for the dinner rolls. No runs on the pies. No empty case where frozen turkeys rested just days ago.
Just a normal shopping day.
Our students - except one - embraced their travel bugs and went away for the break. We're coming home in two weeks, so they're taking one last chance to travel. They're spread from Amsterdam to Spain and points in between.
I didn't really feel like cooking a traditional spread. Back home, my sister Cara is the Queen of Thanksgiving - her turkey and dressing can't be beat. I contribute very little to the annual feast - a Waldorf salad here, a basket of rolls there. So we decided to take Wingate up on their offer to treat us to Thanksgiving dinner at a local hotel.
Our reservation was for 6 pm, which seemed wrong to us. I always think of Thanksgiving as an afternoon thing - around our house, the ritual is eat about 2 p.m., fall asleep in front of the TV around 4 p.m. and gather in kitchen about 7 p.m. for a turkey sandwich and a piece of pie.
We set out for our dinner journey around 5 p.m. One bus, three subways and 10 blocks later, we walked into the hotel. They had a nice table set up for the three of us.
We had several slice of nice, juicy turkey, a strange black sage-less dressing (I didn't eat it, so I'm going on Keith's description), roast pumpkin, corn, roasted potatoes and sweet potato mash. Instead of cranberry sauce, we had a cranberry jelly - not jellied cranberries. There is a difference.
For dessert, we had a choice of apple or pumpkin pie. Ever the traditionalist, I chose pumpkin.
I learned something today. We had the meal with all the trimmings, but it didn't feel like Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is a day to take it slow. It felt funny to see people scurrying around with briefcases.
TV was the same old chat shows and soaps. No NFL and Macy's Parade.
I missed walking into my sister's kitchen, smelling that intoxicating mix of roasting turkey, simmering green beans, dressing with celery, onion and sage and the heady, spicy aroma of pumpkin pie.
I missed talking over holidays past, planning Christmas shopping and weighing the merits of this year's bird over last year's. (This year's is always better.)
Food is the glue that binds the holiday, but the laughter and love of family is what makes the day special.
We had our turkey dinner, but we missed Thanksgiving.
On the other hand, we're the luckiest people in the world to have had these weeks in London. Every day we're thankful and grateful for this experience.
So this year, we learned that giving thanks is an everyday ritual and Thanksgiving is more than a meal.

The Not-So-Small World

Since we came to London, I've marveled at all the technology that keeps us connected to home. I can use my computer's built-in camera to see my dog eat a jelly bean. The same technology allows me to have a chat with my boss, just as if I were sitting at his desk.
I can use email to communicate with friends and family all over the USA. I can even "chat" in real time to friends, and using a microphone and Skype to make calls on my computer costs me just 2 cents per minute.
So staying in touch is easy. It's a small world, after all.
The world got a whole lot bigger for me over the weekend. As we were leaving Budapest, I checked email and a few news sites, including my hometown newspaper, the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a daily ritual for me to check the Journal's obituaries.
As I pulled up the site, a name popped off the page at me. Dr. Carl Michael Beavers. The husband of my oldest and dearest friend was dead.
He hadn't been sick, I knew, but that's all I knew But I only knew what was in that short notice and I wanted to know more, but I was six hours ahead of Winston-Salem time and it was too early to call anyone - except my mother. She was shocked too.
As soon as we got back to London, I called Leigh. Carl suffered a heart attack and died very late Thursday night. He'd had a heart workup a month ago and everything was fine. This was a total shock.
I've known Carl for more than 30 years, since he was a young medical student. Over the years I seen him become a loved and respected family physician, a father of four, and earlier this year, a proud first-time grandfather.
For the past few days, the Atlantic has become wider and wider. I wanted to be there to hug my friend and help her through these horrible days. I wanted to comfort the children. I wanted to attend the funeral and see him laid to rest in God's Acre in Old Salem, where my own father and grandparents are buried.
All that wonderful technology seems useless today and I feel so far away. The connections I'm relying on right now are the ones in my heart and soul, not broadbands and webcams.
The world is not so small after all.

A little more Goulash

Thought I'd share a few more observations on Budapest ...It's really a pretty city (as always, click the photos to see them larger), but we were really disturbed by the amount of graffiti we saw. Everywhere - on buildings, in subways, on billboards. I know defenders of graffiti believe that it is expression of an art form. This was in no way art - it was vandalism. And it was everywhere.

You just don't see much graffiti in London. There is never any in the underground and I don't want to think of what would happen to you if you tried to deface a building. But in Budapest, it is rampant.

We brought Hungarian currency (forints) into the country with us. We're glad we did because we found that credit cards were not widely accepted. This almost became a problem at dinner on Friday night. We had chosen a restaurant (from the guide book, of course) called Trofea. It's a hunting-lodge style buffet restaurant, highly recommended. You pay a set price and there's a vast buffet. They have many kinds of soup, salads, fruit, fresh breads, cheeses and vegetables. Then there is a section with lots of marinated meats. You pick your meats and take them to a grill where they are cooked. Beer, wine and soft drinks are all-you-can-drink.Hungarian food is quite heavy, and it was late so my meal was a chicken breast marinated in garlic and beer, some marinated cucumber salad, cheese and fruit. Keith went a different way, sampling a variety of meats, veggies, salads and of course, more goulash.Did I mention dessert was crepes made to order with a variety of toppings, including cherries and chocolate?Anyway, we ate and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We asked for the check and handed the waiter a card. No cards, he said. We're down to the last few forints and it looks like we'll be washing dishes until the plane leaves ... until the waiter says there is an ATM outside, around the corner. Keith got the cash and saved the day.You assume most nice restaurants take cards and the guide book said they did. But apparently the policy changed. Boy, I am so glad the Russians aren't in charge anymore. I might be sending this blog from a Siberian work camp.

One of the Magyar words I learned over the weekend was "barack." Our president-elect's name means "apricot" in the Hungarian language.

The subway system in Budapest is the world's second oldest, behind London. There are only three lines and it seems very primitive compared to London. The trains, for example, look very old - but kind of neat, almost retro. And the stations look like they haven't been changed since the '60s - lots of plastic molded seating and orange and yellow.
But their escalators are the fastest I've ever been on! They really fly! We were riding the escalator today in the London Underground and it seemed so slow compared to Budapest. One of the last things we did in Budapest was visit Heroes Square. This was built in 1896, for Budapest's 1,000th birthday celebration. It's a sight to behold - enormous statues all around. Look at the size of these monuments!

48 Hours in Budapest ... or szszvgdgyjtszsz

We just got back from a wonderful holiday in Budapest. Why Budapest, you might ask? Well, we wanted to go somewhere that we would probably never travel to from the states and somewhere that was relatively far away and really different.
We made the perfect choice. Budapest was a terrific break.
If you don't know a lot about Budapest, I'll give you a quick rundown. The city is actually two cities - Buda and Pest - separated by the Danube River. They joined together as one in 1867. Until the end of World War I, Hungary was Austria-Hungary. When World War II rolled around, Hungary aligned itself with Germany and Italy. Toward the end of the war, the country began to rethink that alliance and as a result, the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944. Losses in Budapest were huge. Citizens were rounded up, jailed, persecuted and killed. As a parting shot at the end of the war, the Nazis blew up all the bridges across the Danube.
Hungary pretty much went from bad to worse, aligning itself with the Soviets after the war. They were under Soviet occupation until 1989.
You can see Communist influence around the city, especially in the architecture. Riding in from the airport, we saw mile after mile of big, boxy high-rise apartments built in the no-personality Russian style. In the past 20 years, Budapest has tried very hard to shake its past 70 years. The beautiful historic buildings are still there and there is much that's new and Western-culture glitzy.
We arrived from London on Malev, the Hungarian airline. They served lunch for free (take that, all you American carriers!) and once they served the meal, the flight attendants passed around a basket of warm rolls, which seemed funny to us. We stayed at a small place called the Hotel Sissi - small but very nice and just a few blocks from the Metro. Perfect location.
It was overcast as we began exploring the city. I must be part fish, because I'm always drawn to water. We got off the Metro and I spotted the mighty Danube and decided that even though it was cold and rainy, we just had to walk across the bridge. So we did, snapping photos every few steps. Beautiful views, but definitely gray. Once across, we strolled in a park and walked back. (There are lovely pedestrian walkways along the bridges, so we didn't have to dodge crazy Hungarian drivers.)
Now, we were under the impression that we were walking across the famous chain bridge. But once we found a warm and dry spot for tea after our walk across the water, we found out that we had actually walked across the Erszbet (Elizabeth) Bridge. So the chain bridge moved to the to-do list for Friday!
Dinner on Thursday night was at a nice little place called the Blue Tomato Pub. Keith, the Guide Book King, found this one in a book and made a reservation for us. We took the train out to the general area and were early, so we ducked into a mall that is adjacent to the metro. I thought it was just a few shops but it turned out to be about the biggest mall I've ever seen, the West End City Center. Budapest's monument to capitalism.
Now, I must share with you one of the strangest things about visiting Budapest. Hungarians speak a language called Magyar. It is unlike any language I've ever seen. It uses the same alphabet as English, but with 15 added letters consisting of accented letters. There are 14 vowels in the language.

When you're in France, Germany or Spain, you can figure out a lot of words because of Latin or Anglo-Saxon roots. In Hungary, nothing looks familiar. It has no Latin basis and the words are really long, with lots of "s" and "z." So we're strolling through the mall, and nothing - nothing! - looks even glancingly familiar. Except that halfway through the place, there was a TUPPERWARE kiosk. I am dead serious. We laughed so hard. Between C & A Aruhaz and Darvas Kepkeret, ladies were buying their air-tight plastic containers. Capitalism lives!

At Blue Tomato, we both ordered soup as a starter. Keith got goulash and I got a corn chowder. The soup arrived in the biggest bowls you've ever seen! They were serving bowls - they must have held three cups of soup, which was okay because it was the best soup I have ever tasted. Mine was creamy with the consistency of creamed corn, only it had nice chunks of smoked ham and slivered almonds in it. Keith's goulash was big chunks of beef, potatoes, carrot and spicy red pepper. I cannot tell how it tasted because I was so enamored of my corn soup that I did offer to let him taste mine and he was selfish too.

We sure wish someone had told us how big those bowls were because we also ordered an entree. Keith got weiner schnitzel and I ordered pounded steak. When the waiter brought the plates, we just cracked up because the portions were beyond enormous. Spa food, this was not!

Thank goodness we had some walking to do before we got back to our hotel!

Friday was a jam-packed day of sightseeing under less-than-favorable conditions. Our first stop was the Budapest Christmas Market, an outdoor festival with lots of food and homemade crafts. Keith got a mug of Gluhwein, a heated German wine that warmed our souls because it was starting to get cold and windy. Then the rain started, but we were determined. We had one full day to explore and we weren't going to spend it looking through a window at the rain. So we slogged on.

This time we found the chain bridge and walked across. When we reached Buda, we took the funicular (incline railway) up the steep mountain to Castle Hill. Tremendous views of the river and Pest. We tried to get a few shots in the pouring rain. It's a huge place there on top of the hill with winding cobblestone streets. We were already soaked so what the heck. Our umbrellas weren't much defense against the weather!

After exploring Castle Hill, we went down the mountain and back across the river on foot. From there, we sought warm refuge in the coffee shop at the Hotel Sofitel. Oh, that tea tasted good!

From there, we headed to a controversial place in Budapest, the Terror House. Located on Andrassy Ut, this building was Nazi headquarters during the war and Soviet Secret Police headquarters from there. It was turned into a museum to honor the victims of both oppressions. Apparently some people think it somehow honors the past, but I don't know how anyone could get that impression. We spent several sobering hours there.

When you get in the museum, you walk into a darkish, three-story atrium with huge panels of tiny black-and-white mug shots. These are the victims of Nazis and Soviets - thousands of them. We saw the actual cells and they were grim. It may seem a strange choice of a way to spend an afternoon but we wanted to see things that make Budapest the city it is and this is certainly one of them. We're both students of history and while it's not pleasant, this is part of our life.

Keith and I are baby boomers and we grew up on phrases like "Iron Curtain." This was our first peek behind that curtain, and it makes you think about freedom in a whole new way.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

One of my favorite movies is "About a Boy." The movie, set in London, stars Hugh Grant as a quirky man who forges an unlikely relationship with an even quirkier young boy. Hugh's character, Will, doesn't work - he lives off the royalties of the only successful song his father ever wrote, a wildly popular holiday tune called "Santa's Super Sleigh." The song has allowed Will to live an enviable life, but he cringes whenever he hears it.
A pivotal scene in the movie comes when Will is grocery shopping and "Santa's Super Sleigh" comes over the store intercom for the first time that holiday season.
"November the sodding 19th," Will grumbles. He knows that means the festive period has started.
I love that movie so much. And I couldn't help but think of it today - because it is, after all, November the sodding 19th. And like Will, I got bombarded with holiday sight and sounds today. Only I was thrilled about it!
I ventured down to the Oxford High Street today. I had specific errands in mind, all concerning our trip to Budapest tomorrow. I bought one of those little foldout, tuck-in-your-pocket map books we've become addicted to - and I had to hit the Bureau de Change at Marks & Spencer to get some Hungarian money. The currency in Hungary is the forint. I gave them 100 pounds sterling and walked away with 30,000 forints. I'm rich!
Anyway, when I got to Oxford Street, every store was decked out in its holiday finery. Trees everywhere, lights, tinsel, music. I love it!
The only thing that compromised this run-up to Christmas was today's weather. It's really warm here - much warmer than in North Carolina. We didn't need coats today - a sweater was fine. Hey, it's November the sodding 19th ... a little chill would be appreciated!
Random note: Are you a "Dancing with the Stars" fan? The hottest thing on British TV is "Strictly Come Dancing," and let me tell you, this is serious business.
One of this season's contestants is 64-year-old John Sergeant, a retired political columnist. He's a huge audience favorite but a terrible dancer. He basically stands there and lets his partner dance around him. Every week the judges rate him lowest but the audience votes keep him in. This week, a judge favorite got knocked off and now the judges are furious. The show airs on Saturday and every day since, judges have spoken out in the press about how bad he is for the show, what a terrible dancer he is and how he's making a mockery of the show.
Today, Sergeant quit. He said it looked like there might be a real chance he could win, and that just wouldn't be right.
You cannot believe what a big deal this is. It's the top story in every newspaper tonight. It's the top story on the news. "Strictly" is serious business here in the UK!

We see the Irish Sea

Last week we headed back to Northern Ireland at the invitation of our September hosts, Marian and Derick Woods. We enjoyed their hospitality so much two months ago and as always is the case, three days just wasn't enough time to see all that beautiful Belfast has to offer. Marian insisted that we hadn't "done" Northern Ireland until we saw the coast, so it was our mission on this visit to see plenty of water.

We flew to Belfast Thursday morning. The weather was beautiful - cool and clear. On Thursday, Marian cooked one of her fabulous dinners for us, an incredible stuffed pork loin. We had a delicious apple tart for dessert, made from the bounty of apples found on her backyard trees. It was so good, especially washed down with a cup of tea.

Friday morning, we headed for the northern coast. From Belfast, we took the road that hugs the Antrim coast. Such a beautiful drive - water to the right, rolling green hills to the right. And sheep. Lots and lots of sheep grazing on that green grass.

Our destination was Giants Causeway, but we made a stop along the way at Carrickfergus on Belfast Lough. Unlike our experience in Edinburgh, when we walked up a steep hill to reach the castle, Carrickfergus just sits at the side of the road, with a parking lot beside it. We got out and approached the castle, Perhaps because it was on a flat patch of land, it didn't seem as imposing as Edinburgh Castle, but trust me, it's plenty big. And when you get inside the tall walls of the castle, you are greeted by some cutting winds.

Carrickfergus was built during the Norman Period, in 1177, and it was used for various military purposes until 1928, when it was turned over to the government for restoration purposes. We didn't spend a lot of time there but I did get some good photos and had a chance to climb up to the ramparts for a better view.

I'm amazed by the castles I've seen. They certainly were built to last. There's something really overwhelming about standing in a building that was constructed 900 years ago and imagining the history that it's seen.

On to Giants Causeway, again along the Antrim Coast. I'm not sure anything can prepare you for the sight of the rocks there when you see them, and I love the wonderful giants' legend.

More about that later. For now, a little background. About 25 million years ago, there was a huge volcanic eruption in the area that is now County Antrim. As the lava rapidly cooled, thousands of rocks were formed, many in a hexagonal shape. There are many different heights, and as they form amazing stepping stones on the coast. Waves pound the rocks and all that pounding has resulted in a natural phenomenon that is hard to describe. You could spend hours there and see something different in every direction. Some rocks are jet black, others are white. Some are staggered in heights, others look like vertical stacks of logs.

Now, the fun part of Giants Causeway is the wonderful Irish legend that surrounds it. It seems that back in the day, there was a giant named Finn McCool. His Scottish counterpart, Benandonner, lived across the sea. (On a clear day, you can see Scotland from the causeway.) So the story goes, Finn built the rock causeway so he could head over to Scotland to fight his rival. When he didn't show up, Benandonner came looking for him. Finn's wife hid him by pretending he was a baby. When Benandonner got a look at the McCool's baby, he was seized with fear: if the baby was that large, how large would Father Finn be? Benandonner didn't want to stay and find out. He ran back to Scotland, tearing up the rock path in case Finn decided to follow him.

The next morning, we went south to County Down, heading to Newcastle on the Irish Sea. What an adorable little resort town! There's a wide promenade built beside the ocean and we walked for a good ways and just sniffed the sea air. The Mountains of Mourne are there, including the 2,786-foot peak Slieve Donard.

There's an old Irish tune by Percy French that mentions these mountains that come to the edge of the sea at the end of every verse. Here's one verse:

I've seen England's king from the top of a bus
And I've never known him, but he means to know us.
And tho' by the Saxon we once were oppressed,

Still I cheered, God forgive me, I cheered with the rest.
And now that he's visited Erin's green shore
We'll be much better friends than we've been heretofore
When we've got all we want, we're as quiet as can be
Where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.


While at the shore, I picked up a few shells, got my foot wet in the Irish Sea and found a funky grey striped rock. Souvenirs!

Since we were in County Down, we drove through Downpatrick, a town that dates back to at least AD 130. There's a lovely cathedral there, Down Cathedral, and in its graveyard is the grave of St. Patrick. At least they say his body is there - but several other areas claim to be his final resting place. You might say Patrick was spread a bit thin, but he's supposedly been there since 461. That's the story and they're sticking to it.

We departed - sadly, because the Woods home is one of the most warm and charming places we've ever been - for London Saturday night.

As we got off the plane at Heathrow, I spotted a Christmas tree in the gate area. First one I've seen this year. No holiday music yet, but we've got the iPod full of Christmas songs. We're getting ready.

The Journalists' Church

Keith here. There are so many beautiful churches in London, and most visitors to London are familiar with Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s, to name two of the most awe-inspiring.

But one of my favorite churches in this city is St. Bride’s, located on Fleet Street. Fleet Street was literally for centuries the home of London’s newspapers, which fled to cheaper and more spacious facilities out in the Docklands back in the 1980s. These days, the only traces of the Golden Age of English newspapers are the wonderful former homes of the Daily Mail and the Express, and -- just off the street -- St. Bride’s, known as “The Journalists’ Church.”

There’s been some sort of church on the site of St. Bride’s for nearly 1,400 years, the first one built over ruins of the Roman city of Londinium. History hasn’t always been kind to the church, which has been destroyed and rebuilt twice -- first by Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul’s, after the Great Fire of 1666, and the second time after taking a direct hit in the Blitz on Dec. 29, 1940. The classic many-tiered look of about every wedding cake you’ve ever seen was borrowed from Wren’s soaring design for St. Bride’s, which was preserved in the 1957 rebuilding. Those Roman ruins were discovered during the excavation for the new foundation.

The church has always has a connection to the printing and journalism businesses, starting from about 1500 when a man named Wynkyn de Worde (I’m not making that up) set up London’s first movable type printing press in a shop next to the church. Churchmen were among the few literate people of the time, so the astute Wynkyn made the wise move of locating his business near his best customers.

The visitor to St. Bride’s will see lots of evidence of the news business connection, as many pews have memorial plaques to various journalists or publicists who worshipped there. (This may come as a shock to those who believe that no member of the “mainstream media” has ever darkened the door of a church.) Many of the church’s activities and ministries involve participation or sponsorship by media organizations.

Jayne and I attended a service tonight at the church which annually remembers those journalists and writers around the world who have been imprisoned or tortured just for doing what a journalist is supposed to do -- finding out the truth and telling the public.

The service is sponsored by the UK chapter of PEN, an international writers’ group devoted to the practice and promotion of freedom of expression. As a writer and someone who teaches college students about the First Amendment, it’s an issue close to my heart. Listening to a list of those imprisoned writers whose cases are being monitored by PEN is a sobering experience.

We left with a feeling of gratitude for the freedom of the press and freedom of expression that we enjoy along with the other rights we have as U. S. citizens. Not only do we have the right to select our leaders in fair and open elections, but we have the right to express either delight or dismay at the results. Whatever your politics, that’s something to be thankful for.

Good Manners?

When my mother was visiting back in September, we noticed that every time we got on the bus or Tube, if seats were scarce, someone would get up and offer her theirs. It's not like my mom is a dinosaur, but she is - in the local lingo - a pensioner. This gesture, which happened every single time we were in this situation, really impressed us. It was so mannerly and respectful.
Since then I have seen it happen countless times. I have seen young people - male and female - nearly get into a row about who will give up the seat. I've even offered my seat a time or two.
Well, tonight Keith and I hopped on the bus for a short hop to the Tube stop. It was rush hour and the bus was crowded. I was standing up.
A young man tapped me on the shoulder and offered me his seat.
"Oh no, I'm fine," I said. We weren't going that far and I wasn't even carrying a purse.
He insisted, so I sat.
When it happened to my mother, it was such good manners. When it happened to me, I just felt OLD.

Coming Clean

One of my great guilty pleasures is enjoying a long, soaky bath. It doesn't matter whether I use bath oil or bubble bath, I just love sitting in the warm water, usually reading a book and relaxing. Even if I took a shower in the morning, my nightly ritual always involves that warm bath.
The first time I came to England, I found a virtual feast of bath products that I'd never seen in the US. My two favorite brands are Radox and Original Source.
Whenever I've traveled to the UK, I always bring back bottles of both. And whenever I meet someone who has either lived in or grown up in the UK, we always talk about our love of Radox and Original Source. It's something you have to experience.
Radox makes a number of products - shower gels, deodorants, scrubs and handwashes - but my favorite Radox is the large bottles of herbal bath. Put a little in the tub and you get lovely, fragrant water with a small amount of bubbles. Want more bubbles? Add more Radox.
Radox comes in a range of wonderful scents. There's Muscle Soak, which lets you "soak away the tension" with clary sage and sea minerals. Time Out has lavender and mimosa. Sleep Easy contains chamomile and jasmine. There are lots of others, too.
Radox was founded in 1908. Its original product was a salts foot bath that RADiated OXygen, hence the name Radox. The company is now owned by none other than Sara Lee. American as strawberry cheesecake, right? But you cannot buy Radox in the US, nor will they ship it to you. So when you're here, you must cram as much as you can into your suitcase so you enjoy that wonderful Radox feeling for weeks after you get home.
Since they just celebrated their 100th birthday, all the bottles say "100 years of herbal knowledge." But I loved their old slogan and thought it was genius - "Radox cares for you." Because, when you're in that wonderful bath, you really did feel like Radox cared for you.


Original Source is our other indulgence, but this one is for the shower. You can buy Original Source a number of ways too - shave gel, bath soak and shampoo - but the original and still the best is shower gel.
We have several favorites - Mint and Tea Tree, Lime, Lemon, Dragonfruit and Capsicum, Almond and Coconut. So far, we have 12 bottles lined up on the shelf to go home. It's Keith's goal to take Original Source showers for one year after he gets home.
The British have such a sense of humor. Here the instruction on the Lime Shower Gel: "Pour out, feel fruity." On Mint and Tea Tree: "Pour out, wake up." On Coconut and Almond: "Pour out. Go nuts."
Like Radox, Original Source is not available in the US.
We have two bathtubs in the flat and both are rather unusual. They're very long porcelain tubs. How long? At 5 feet, I can lie perfectly flat on my back in the tub and there's room left over. It's soaking treat, and I will miss it But I'm taking my Radox and Original Source home with me.
If you're visiting England and you love a good bath, go into any grocery store or drug store and pick up some Radox and Original Source. I check Boots and Superdrug regularly - almost always, one store has them half-price, which means I can get a bottle for about a pound.
You know, some people come to London and bring home fine china and antique silver. I won't have much to declare, but I'll be the one in customs who feels really refreshed and smells really good.

A Couple of Good Meals and Remembrance Sunday (Plymouth, Part Two)

Keith again. I guess it wouldn’t be a blog without one rambling and random personal note. I enjoyed two really nice meals in the evening while in Plymouth. Jayne has noted my love of the restaurant Nando’s in a previous entry. There is a Nando’s in Plymouth but after spending the better part of an hour trying unsuccessfully to find it on Friday night, I stumbled onto a nice pub with a crackling fire and enjoyed a fine platter of fish and chips. And on Saturday I braved a lashing rain, as they say here, to find a restaurant called Lanterns in the City Centre where I had a brilliant mixed kebab and Greek salad.

The weather wasn’t any better for our final day, which started with a memorable small-town experience. Sunday was Remembrance Sunday, a holiday of special significance in Great Britain. On the calendar, it’s close to our Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I. But in spirit it’s more like our Memorial Day, a solemn remembrance of those who gave their lives in defense of the nation. The British Legion, a veterans’ organization, gives out red paper poppies in return for donations in the days leading up to Remembrance Sunday.

In the tiny bar at the hotel in Plymouth on Saturday night, I watched a part of a live BBC broadcast of a Remembrance Day observance at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Lots of stirring music, pomp and ceremony, with Prince Charles in attendance, and ending with a shower of those red poppies from the roof of the hall.

As we set out on our final day of the trip on Sunday morning we saw a Remembrance Day program at the other end of the spectrum in terms of elaborateness, but certainly no less moving. We were in the little town of Tavistock, actually the birthplace of Sir Francis Drake, as their Remembrance Day parade came down the town’s main street -- a small band, some military men in uniform, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and a church choir. The procession ended in front of the local parish church for a memorial service. Unfortunately, we had a schedule to keep to and couldn’t stay for all of it.

On the road again, we rode down narrow stretches of highway through the legendary English moorlands which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made famous in “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” We stopped in Princetown, where the creator of Sherlock Holmes started writing the most famous story starring the fictional sleuth. Princetown is also near the notorious Dartmoor Prison, a forbidding 200-year-old facility which still houses convicts. It was originally built to hold French prisoners from the Napoleonic Wars, but some Americans ending up doing time there after being captured in the War of 1812.

We learned that in addition to being the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles is the Duke of Cornwall and as such owns about 70,000 acres in this area. His interest in ecology and conservation is evidenced in an informative visitors center which explains the natural history of the Moorlands. Not much else is open in Princetown this late Sunday morning, but the visit is capped off with a nice version of a Sunday pork roast at a café located in the town‘s former police station. Another walk, thankfully short, through sheets of rain back to the bus.

Last stop is Buckland Abbey, about 8 miles from Plymouth. It was founded in 1278 as an abbey for Cistercian monks. It became a private residence in the 1530s after King Henry VIII ordered all monasteries in England closed. Drake shows up one more time in our story as this was his home from 1581, when he purchased it from fellow seafarer Sir Richard Grenville, until his death in 1596. There’s a good video on the life and career of Drake, who was part pirate and scoundrel, part hero. And the tour of the Abbey is a walk through the Elizabethan and Georgian eras of English history.

From there, it’s back on the bus and back home. We’ve learned a lot, hopefully -- the students have to report on the weekend for their class -- and have had some fun. But it’s nice to be back in London, which we’ve come to look at as home. At least for a while.

A Trip to Plymouth, Part One

Keith here. It’s been a nice relaxing Monday around the flat after a big weekend trip to the South West, as Brits call the southern tip of England.

Our final excursion as a group was to Plymouth and the surrounding area for the students’ Geography class. Clive Charlton, the instructor for our class and a professor of geography at the University of Plymouth, explained that geography is all about studying what’s in a locality, and trying to discover how what’s there affects the way people live -- and is affected by the way people live. We got a good taste of that this weekend and saw a good bit of a part of the UK that’s quite different from London.

Plymouth is a city of about 250,000 people, not quite among the Top 10 cities in England in population. It’s in an area of England called Cornwall. For centuries, we learned, the people there have been an independent lot, with a sense almost of separate “nationhood” and culture. (Having lived in Texas for nearly five years, Jayne and I can relate to that sensibility.) Historically, it’s famous as the embarking point for the Pilgrims’ voyage to America in 1620, and before that, as the home of Sir Francis Drake, conqueror of the Spanish Armada. More on him later.

The first stop for the visitor in Plymouth is The Hoe, a large grassy area leading to the city’s waterfront. Legend has it that Drake was playing a game of bowls here when he was informed that the Spanish fleet was on its way to attack the English coast. There’s plenty of evidence of city’s role in the defense of the country here, with memorials to those killed in the World Wars and ships from a nearby naval yard visible on the harbor. Another unmistakable part of the landscape is The Citadel, an imposing fortification at the water’s edge built during the reign of King Charles II -- as much, some say, to keep an eye on the rebellious residents of Plymouth, supporters of Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War, as to defend against foreign attackers.

Saturday’s tour of the coastal area south of Cornwall was another “big picture” lesson in how a place adapts to a changing economy. We learned that Cornwall was a mining center for years, with rich deposits of tin, copper, and other minerals in the rolling countryside. You can still see excavated areas where there used to be mines. The mining industry started leaving in the 1850s, and many of the miners emigrated to Australia, Canada, the United States and even Mexico. By the start of the 20th century, mining was history here.

The towns on the coast depended -- and to some extent still depend on -- fishing, with tourism now a a major source of income, too. Our tour took us to the picturesque seacoast towns of Looe and Polperro on the English Channel. (You probably don’t think of "going to the beach” in your mental images of England, and both reminded me a little of some of the ramshackle coastal villages I’ve known and loved in my lifetime, like Folly Beach, S.C., and Cedar Key, Fla. -- same funky little beach cottages and cafes, fishing piers, arcades and souvenir shops.) It was a fun day that the students enjoyed and we managed to beat a terrible rainstorm back to the hotel.

Tomato Paste

Yes, tomato paste. Back home, I always have several little cans of tomato paste in the pantry. It's something I know I can always reach in and grab.
Keith has been gone all weekend. He is in Plymouth and Cornwall with the students. I decided not to make this trip - I really had a lot of work to do, plus we're traveling for the next two weekends. So I have been here alone since early Friday morning.
He's had a fine time on the coast but it rained a lot, he said. He is due back around 8 p.m. I decided to have a big pot of meatball stew waiting for him when he gets home.
Meatball stew has a place of honor in our shared history. Back when we lived away from family, we had a Christmas Eve tradition. We worked for newspapers, so we always had to work on Dec. 24, usually until around 7 p.m. Then we'd go home and have a pot of meatball stew, watch "White Christmas" and "It's a Wonderful Life" and maybe open a few gifts. The recipe came from a Southern Living Soups and Stews cookbook. We associate it with good times.
For years, we only had meatball stew on Christmas Eve, but a few years ago I started making it more often. It takes a while because you have to mix up the meatballs, bake them and then add them to the stew. It's worth it though, because it is so good.
So yesterday, I walked to the store and bought meat, onion, carrots and potatoes. I had tomato paste back at the flat; I used it a while back to make spaghetti sauce.
At home, I always buy the little cans. Here. they don't sell the little cans. They sell tubes of tomato sauce. It looks like red toothpaste.
So about 3 p.m. today, I mix up the meat and bake the meatballs. Then I put my big pan on the stove, add seven cups of water and reach for the tomato paste.
Uh-oh.
Apparently, after you open the tube, you're supposed to refrigerate the paste. And you have to use in within three weeks.
I did not refrigerate the paste. And I last used it the first week in September.
That meant I had to make a mad dash to the market.
Back home, that's an inconvenience but not a real big deal. Here I grabbed my keys and my cart and walked 12 blocks to Waitrose.
A disadvantage of living on the fifth floor is that you really don't know what the weather is like until you're out in it. It's hard to tell up here. I could have made an educated guess - London in November ... probably wet and windy and cold.
Well, I didn't. I ran out with just a sweater on - no coat, no umbrella. Guess what? It was wet, windy and cold.
I walked to Waitrose - got there about 4:35. They closed at 4.
So I walked another six blocks to Somerfield, a tiny little grocery store on Old Street. I got there at 4:50. They were closing at 5. I grabbed my tube of tomato paste and started home in a steady rain.
I'm back - obviously - and the stew is simmering. I'm proud of myself - I saved dinner!

Thursday on the Town

If you're in London and are craving a taste of the old Myrtle Beach pavilion, have I got a place for you. It's called the London Trocadero and it's so wonderfully tacky, you just gotta love it.
Thursday is a day Keith doesn't teach, and we have sort of fallen into a fun habit. After I finish my work on Thursday, we leave the flat with no particular destination in mind. We more or less decide on the way ... and we end up walking around a lot, just exploring London. Tonight we went to Picadilly Circus, the "Times Square of London." It's so cool to ride the Tube to Picadilly at night - when you walk up the stairs and into the street, it's a burst of color, sound and activity. And if you're on the Haymarket side of the circle, you walk right by the Trocadero.
As you walk in, you'll smell something fabulous - Cinnabon, a brand-new phenomenon in London. It's the tiniest Cinnabon you ever saw, because the goodies are actually baked on a lower floor. Moving past that, you'll pass a couple of discount ticket booths - we stopped and asked about tickets to "The 39 Steps," which is playing across the street, but the tickets weren't discounted enough for our pocketbooks.
And then you get the Trocadero in its three-story glory - souvenir shops with everything London - Union Jack hats, pencils, paperweights, knickers (that's underwear in the States), T-shirts and plates with Prince Charles's face on them.
Cheap jewelry? Check. Cookie stand? Check. Video games? Check. Knock-ff purses? Check. Planet Hollywood AND Rainforest Cafe? Check and double-check.
After a dodgy escalator ride (the thing kept lurching forward - yikes) to the third floor, we found slot machines! Now, you have to understand that I am the cheapest gambler in the world. In Las Vegas, I am a nickel slot fiend and once I won $340 playing those cheap-o slots. The idea of putting a quarter or 50 cents in a slot machine makes me shake - I cannot imagine playing a dollar slot. Here, the cheapest bet you could make was one pound. That's a lot less American cash than it was two months ago, but still way too rich for my blood.
So we kept walking, first through Chinatown and then up Charing Cross, where we ended up in a bookstore.
Finally, we went to dinner. We've latched on to a fabulous Italian restaurant on the edge of Covent Garden, and we go there at least once a week, sometimes more.
The restaurant is Da Mario and it was recommended to us by an American couple we met in another restaurant! Da Mario is tiny and very authentic. The pasta is made fresh. My favorite thing to get there is spinach ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach in a brown butter-sage sauce. Keith often gets something called Casarecci with Sausage and Broccoli, which is a rolled and twisted pasta tossed with olive oil, chili and garlic with bits of broccoli and sausage. It is so good; I always steal some off his plate. Tonight I branched out and got lasagna and it was excellent.
Because Da Mario is so tiny, your table is right beside someone else's. It's not hard to overhear the conversation. Tonight we met two American fellows who are in London on business. It was their first time in Da Mario's and they loved it. We ended up spending an hour chatting with them so we got home much later than we expected.
That's one of the neatest things about London - you dine here. You're expected and encouraged to linger at the table. No one rushes you out the door, and restaurants stay open late. You always to ask for your bill; apparently they consider it impolite to just throw it on the table.
One more thing: Something we like here is that when you pay for your meal with a credit card, your card never leaves your sight. The waiter comes over with something that looks like an old TI calculator, swipes your card at the table and prints the receipt in front of you. Are these in the States yet? I don't remember seeing them, but we really like it.

Oedipus and the Bonfire

Keith here. Tonight was theatre night for the Wingate-in-London students, an experience I've enjoyed this semester. Each week, they've seen a different play for their Drama class, from contemporary one-acts to classics like tonight's performance of "Oedipus" at the National Theatre on the South Bank of the Thames.

Ralph Fiennes -- you may have seen him in movies, like a couple in the Harry Potter series and "Schindler's List" -- gave a pretty powerful performance in the title role. It's not exactly the feel-good story of the year, as they say in the reviews, but the National's take on Sophocles' classic tragedy, in which the actors dressed in modern-day clothing, was interesting.

But I'm digressing already. Our journey (they don't say "trip" here) to the bus stop to get to the theatre was marked by a dramatic display of another kind. It's Bonfire time in London and here, that means fireworks on the order of our Fourth of July celebrations back home.

As near as I can figure out, Bonfire goes hand-in-hand with the celebration of Guy Fawkes Weekend in London. Fawkes, a former soldier and explosives expert, was the head of a gang who conspired in 1605 to kill King James I and blow up the Houses of Parliament. The so-called Gunpowder Plot was foiled on Nov. 5 and the date has been set aside for celebrating the preservation of the monarchy ever since. (For their trouble, Fawkes and his co-conspirators were executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered -- look it up, but not while you're eating.)

Anyway, Bonfire Night and Nov. 5 are a big part of English culture. Jayne is now hooked on a British soap opera called "Coronation Street," and on today's episode one of the characters explained to his grandson what Bonfire Night was all about. Charles Dickens wrote about it and John Lennon mentioned it in one of his songs.

Since darkfall tonight, which is now happening at about 5 p.m., we have been able to see the fireworks out the window of our flat here in the Towers, and they're still going off every once in a while. And our group enjoyed seeing the display and dodging some stray bottle rockets or something as we walked down the alleway to Old Street.

It reminded me a little of our visit, as Jayne recounted a few days ago, to the Imperial War Museum -- our own personal Blitz experience!

Election Results, British Style

It's nearly 3 a.m. and we're glued to the TV, watching the US election results trickle in. We don't get American channels so we're watching the BBC's all-night coverage. They've got reporters all over the US and a panel of pundits that keeps changing. Ted Koppel was on earlier and it's been interesting hearing all the different opinions.
When the program started, they did a long explanation of the Electoral College. They should show that on American TV - it was a good bit.
The Beeb is very conservative on calling states - they're taking it easy on that, and that's tough on us. But we're not sleepy - we're both trolling the web for results as well as monitoring the tube.
Both of us being former reporters, we've covered our share of elections - short nights, like the Reagan landslide, and really long nights, like 2000. There's always such excitement when you're at the courthouse, waiting for the next precinct to roll in.
No matter what your politics, Election Night is always fun.

All-American Dinner

Tonight we had Keith's students in for dinner. We decided to do something that would be a treat for the students - and for us, too. A meal that's as American as you can get - hamburgers!
Easier said than done. Hamburger is easy to come by - British beef is really good. We buy the Aberdeen Angus beef and it is very tasty. What makes it tough to serve burgers is that finding buns is a bit like the proverbial needle in a haystack.
We visited several stores to find three packages of buns. We bought 18 buns and felt lucky to find them. I had to slice the buns myself and they were a bit more like dinner rolls than buns, but once we slathered them with mustard, slaw, tomatoes and lettuce, nobody knew the difference.
Good old yellow mustard is another hard-to-find necessity for the all-American feast. We had only one choice, a large squeezy bottle of French's. No other size, no other brand. We also opted to cans of Pringle's because you can't find large packages of potato chips (excuse me ... crisps) over here. You can buy a large bag but within that large bag are six small bags. Not the best for a crowd.
These nine kids who have come over from Wingate have just amazed us. They have really taken advantage of their opportunity here in London. They're intrepid as they see the city and they've traveled like crazy on the weekends - the students have been to places like Rome, Barcelona, Dublin, Florence - and they're not done yet.
I envy them so much. They're young and they're enjoying the chance of a lifetime. We're pretty proud of them.

War and Remembrance

If you read travel guide books as I do, you know there are always attractions and sites that are must-see. When you read London books, you know that there's a Top 10 that includes Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, British Museum, National Gallery, London Eye and so on. I've seen them all, and they are all worth a visit - or two. They're all iconic.
We visited a museum that doesn't make the must-see lists, but it probably should. We spent hours there and didn't come close to seeing it all. And with Armistice Day just around the corner, a visit to the Imperial War Museum seemed like a good way to spend a Saturday.
It was definitely the worst weather day we've had since we arrived in August. As they say here, the rain was lashing down. It was also cold and turn-your-brolly-inside-out windy. London is fairly flat so when it rains so much, puddles are everywhere. Walk with caution.
To get to the Imperial War Museum, we traveled to Lambeth North on the Tube and then walked for about eight blocks. On the way to the museum we passed a house where Capt. Bligh (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame) lived. Old house - the man died in 1817. How do we know this? A really cool thing you see around the UK are round blue signs affixed to buildings that give you an historical tidbit about someone who worked there, lived there , etc.. Look for them if you're here - they're fun to spot. (There's one for John Lennon on Baker Street.)
When you walk into the Imperial War Museum (it's free), you see a display of artillery and tanks. To see and touch a tank is just amazing - the size is awesome.
From the first floor, we walked upstairs to two emotion-packed exhibits. The first was on the Holocaust featuring paintings by three Holocaust survivors. Three different styles and the most haunting images you can imagine. I could never describe it. I left the exhibit with anger and tears - how could people do this to other human beings? How could anyone with a heart or mind think this was something right to do?
The second exhibit focused on the "Great War" - World War I - and the Britons who fought in it. It was very personal and heart-tugging. One story that touched me was about a soldier who would not leave his post despite being gravely injured. Two days later, he died - at age 16. We saw a diary entry from a soldier who said we was prepared to die but the thought of never seeing his wife and baby daughter again turned his "bowels to water." He died the day after he wrote that entry. He asked his commanding officer to take care of his family - and indeed he did. He married the soldier's widow.
The collection of letters, personal artifacts and photos is impressive, particulary for a war that was over 90 years ago this month. There are three British WWI veterans alive as of 2008.
From there we moved to an exhibit called "The Blitz Experience." London was hit so hard in World War II, bombed daily for three solid months. Londoners spent their evenings in air raid shelters and subways. We were taken into a darkened room where we sat on a bench. Immediately you notice the acrid smell. Then the sounds of bombing, bombing, bombing. Nonstop bombing. The bench we were on would shake occasionally. The smell, the noise, all in the dark - it was so jarring.
There was so much more to see, but the museum was getting ready to close. Outside, it was dark and still raining heavily. I could only describe our mood as somber. We were walking down the street in a city that was rocked by bombing 68 years ago, but is still standing.
To get in out of the rain, we popped into a pub, The Three Stags, for a warm cup of tea. Only in London ...