I had “A Day”

It certainly seemed as if it were tempting the Fates to make the Eid vacation plans meeting Christy again in London! Last year, if you remember my travel plans expertly, I planned to meet TIEL Queen and soulmate Christy in London. Last year it worked—we came from different continents, flew into different airports, traveled to central London on different subway lines—and had no cell phones to connect ourselves. And it worked! Last year she arrived within 10 minutes of the ETA I had established! Dare we, dare we, tempt the Fates that it could work again??!! We dared…

By the way, to refresh your memories, this Eid break is two moons since the last Eid celebration which marked the end of Ramadan. This Eid marks when many pilgrims will make the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. If you don’t go to Mecca, well, Muslim families revel in family time and celebrate and eat a lot of lamb.

As I wrote in a blog entry last year after the trip: “Now came the real worry—how would Christy and I meet up in London??? In the 17 years I have known Christy, while she is a genius about education and pedagogy, well, her genius stops short of being a whiz with plans and meeting and times. I could fill many a blog entry about the misfires over plans and where and when to meet (and not just say 8 hours away, just when we are in a museum and we plan to meet at the end—bathroom stops anywhere practically fill me with dread…will I ever find her again even though we had a plan. See here is the difficulty: we were coming from different continents into different airports. Christy—(oh, how can I put this gently???) is not good with maps or times or meeting points. They all run together and fortunately, the angels have conspired to nudge her along in life so that she stays out of harm’s way. Where shall we meet? I picked Victoria Train Station at Track #1!”

You must have guessed that it couldn’t work out so well twice! To be fair—and I must be fair—it wasn’t Christy’s fault. Her plane was delayed in New Jersey for three hours since they were missing a part to the door. But in our plans with no cell phones and instantaneous email access I didn’t know this. Her ETA at Victoria Station this year was to be 12:30 pm London time. After 2 hours had gone by, and not without fretting and freezing on my part with the Arctic plunge London had last Friday, I called Marcey, our friend and concierge (she was graciously offering free dorm rooms for our stay!) in London and worried. Marcey immediately checked the flight times on-line and discovered that Christy’s plane had had a 3-hour late departure…oh well…Christy arrived about 3 hours after the ETA and we began our London vacation!

Dear Hackley and KA colleague Julianne famously once spent “A Day” with me in Manhattan: she wanted to see what I did on a weekend day and she found out it was a busy, busy day. She has joked since that of all the things she can endure, she doesn’t think she can handle another “Day” with me as I make the rounds doing all the things I loved…

Well, last Sunday was one of those days in London…a beautifully planned and executed “Day” that just makes me smile and enjoy the busy-ness of all I enjoy. I thought I would walk you through “A Day,” a quintessential Day where I hit upon many of my favorite activities and haunts…Here is a run-down of last Sunday:

We stayed in these dorms (quite snazzy by the way with single rooms with a private bath—better than many B&Bs I have found over the years) out on Holloway Road in Islington in London. I woke up a little early, walked down the street on a brisk and sunny morning to go breakfast shopping at the Morrison’s grocery store. Oh, I got some English cheddar, Wiltshire ham, grapefruit juice, bananas and just-baked whole-grain bread. After Christy and I fed ourselves we went to take the bus southeast to church. We decided to attend the service at St. Paul’s Cathedral (and besides the spiritual fulfillment, it would save the usual $25 visiting fee!). The bus took us through some neighborhoods we didn’t know well, we arrived on time, and sat mesmerized at the sights and sounds of the choir. The church was one of those moments in my 1981 first trip abroad—I remember standing agape in St. Paul’s at the mosaics and exquisite beauty of Wren’s dome and cathedral. How moving to start the day here…

After a quick little pick-me-up croissant and hot chocolate we walked down the lane to the Museum of the City of London. We took in a tour of pre-historic London and then went down to look at some exhibits of 19th century London. I couldn’t resist the book store at the museum and I looked at books on Roman Britain and the many novels that could feast on my London obsession. Next we hopped a subway for a neighborhood that wasn’t even on most tourist maps—Stockwell.

We were on our way to Stockwell to see a play that was off the beaten path. As we emerged into this neighborhood—it reminded us of Greenwich Village—we loved the houses and shops. We found our way to the theater, bought our tickets, and had an hour then for lunch before the matinee. We passed a pub, The Priory Arms, that lured us in with its Sunday Afternoon Roast Special. Oh, we found a remarkably wonderful roast beef and yorkshire pudding meal, and the six vegetables. While we had enjoyed our Indian food and Thai food on our trip, this comfort food was heavenly. Christy, in her own hyperbolic way pronounced this “among the best meals of my life!”

The play is a new play called Peter about the effect on the Davies family their friendship with author James Barrie had. Barrie named his newest character “Peter Pan” after the youngest Davies boy and the play looks at the sad realities of that family’s life. Several scenes took place in Kensington Park at the famed statue of Peter Pan and how the namesake wished he had never heard of the little boy who couldn’t grow up. We made a plan to visit the statue the following day. The play was a great matinee…but the day wasn’t finished yet!

I timed it exactly right that we could take the Tube over to Westminster Abbey and make a 5:45 organ concert (again, another way to get into a famous church for free since the recitals are free and you skip the $25 fee!). We sat there in this nearly-1000 year old church enjoying the ogive arches and sumptuous trapping of British regalia along with the Cesar Franck organ piece. A great way to collect one’s thoughts and look back on the day. At the conclusion we headed out for a walk up by Parliament and Big Ben to Trafalgar Square on our way to Piccadilly! We met Marcey for dinner at a Thai restaurant. We regaled her with our completed for plans for the day: we had enjoyed new neighborhoods, church in a spectacular setting, comfort food, a museum, books, walking through a park, a play, a concert, foreign food, historic sights…seriously…like the Days of old in New York—this was A Day! After dinner we went back to the dorm to “meta” about the great day. Last year I wrote in the blog entry: “London is really everything Amman is not: there is variety in food choices, diversity in people, art, theater, bookstores…lots of music and attention to history, clean streets, abundant maps on the streets and easy to understand signs (and signs, of course in English!) and some very good manners.”

The trip is over; I am back doing laundry, preparing for classes and the onslaught of school. But the beauties of the break linger: a change of weather, time with a friend that enjoys the exact same things I do, laughter, exploring, delightful art works, new things to see and taste…just a lovely time. Each day of the trip was in and of itself, of course, A Day. I just thought I would focus on that lovely Sunday…

Oh, but I have to mention the weirdest thing we did…Kensington Palace is newly opened after a two-year renovation for the parts open to the public. It has a hefty visit price of $25 but we decided to go anyway. After all, Queen Victoria grew up here, Diana lived here, they must have prepared it well…

Imagine if film director Tim Burton were in charge of designing a museum. Go ahead—think about it for a moment—what would it look like? Think of his movies and think how he might design a historic museum. That is along the lines of how Kensington Palace is treated in its new incarnation! The strangest part of the museum is the floor dedicated to Queen Anne (she lived here around 1700) and her 18 children who died before maturity. There were piles of suitcases with Anne’s name and the destination of Kensington Palace. There was some wall text about Prince William’s upcoming 11th birthday party. The text began to dance as you read it! It told of how William looked forward to dancing at the party. Sad, but none of Anne’s other children lived so long, the text reminded. The end of the text kept reminding us how William looked forward to the dancing! Upstairs one learned that during the party, during the dancing, William got “overheated,” and soon developed “a fever.” Within days, he was dead. The museum seemed to delight in the macabre elements of Anne’s dead brood: there was a dining room set with 18 places, all with enormous gold bows, all for the dead children. There was whispering around, real recordings of whispers, “palace gossip” the text read, of what everyone said about the seemingly evil Queen with her dead passel of children. One could sit in a royal-esque chair and look up at “William’s dreams,” and see the hologram of the dead Prince. Need I go on? Every exhibit seemed like a Haunted House—seriously!! The creativity was over-the-top and bizarre. I guess children might fancy the place, but as a historic house, it was ridiculous. Eventually we decided to run out of there, run through the park, find the Peter Pan statue, and get back to a much saner real world.

From there we went on to High Tea…but I won’t regale you with any more itinerary nonsense…I am just reveling in the beauty of the Day in Londontown…