Last Minute Greetings From London

Today is the last day of our two-week trip in the U.K.  And it’s the first that I don’t feel like I was left in a pocket and run through the wash cycle. Jet lag. A wee problem, that. Son kept me company in this misery. Hubby wakened daily raring to go. Good he was nobbled by incipient arthritis of his hips, or we’d have killed him. 

Befogged from flying across the Atlantic instead of sleeping, we no sooner stepped off the plane than the problem solving that IS travel began. How to get from the airport to London (train). From the train station to the hotel (tube, or underground). In the tube, which line, and then which platform. All this while buffeted by surging and eddying crowds. 

My jangling ganglions stuck out at least a foot from my body. Hubby, bright eyed and bushy tailed, laughed at me. Shamed, I let him lead us onto the wrong train. 

It flooded over me, why my reluctance to take this trip. Hubby and I travelled extensively during our training years. Our travelling needs and realities are hardly complementary. Yet we’re still married. That says something. What, I don’t know. 

Hubby thinks he’s spontaneous. I think he’s impulsive.  He thinks I’m controlling. I think I’m anxious. He wants to get up early and go to bed late, seeing and doing everything he can in between. I like to sleep in, take it easy. He thinks getting lost is an adventure. I think it’s a total pain in the patootie, especially when exhausted and hauling heavy luggage.

My eyes burned with tears of self pity: All I want from this vacation is a rest. Ha. Travel is stimulating, not restful. At least this time we speak the language. I’d love to follow Hubby.  But going from A to D back to C en route to B just doesn’t work for me.  And there’s Son to consider, whose tolerance for conflict is nil and ability to go with the flow limited. I have no choice but to think and negotiate. Well, a woman’s work is never done, is it. We have the obligatory spat.

That out of the way, it was on to feeling trapped in a biting cloud of midges for the rest of the week in London. Could not sleep. Ooked-up stomach. One logistical problem after the other. Could not think at all. But thought I could. I actually threw out sixty dollars worth of unused train tickets. What was I thinking? No clue. Diagnosis: Jet lag. Terrifying. 

And speaking of terrifying— the exchange rate for dollars to pounds was approximately 2:1. The numbers would look OK, then I’d remember to double, and get that nasty shock. Can you believe six pounds— twelve dollars! for a watery scrambled egg and two slices of white toast? Two pounds— four dollars! for a cup of coffee? Fifteen pounds— thirty dollars! Each! to visit the Tower of London? No wonder the Brits rioted. Just as we arrived. But thankfully, north of us, in Manchester.

Let me not mislead you. It wasn’t all doom and gloom. Just a lot. Daily, I scolded myself: You’re on vacation! Enjoy! We did some very cool things. The British museum of course. A day trip to Bath and Stonehenge. The Tower of London, with a special exhibit of the Royal Crown Jewels.

Wow! understates a scepter topped with a diamond the size of a jumbo chicken egg.  And “jewel-encrusted” doesn’t do justice to the majesty of crowns fronted by diamonds, emeralds and rubies the size of golf balls. They screamed Empire! And, World Domination! As did all the venerable buildings bloody with history littering London. Yes. England was a great world power, for centuries. This is whom we broke away from, in 1776. Quite the act of treason, what?

We spent last week in a lovely flat (Son: "I miss my bed.") in lovely Edinburgh (pronounced Eh din burr ah), Scotland, declared the world’s first UNESCO City of Literature. Home of poet Robert Burns, and novelists Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. Did you know Stevenson modeled The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde after someone he knew? A man named Deacon Brodie: by day a respectable cabinetmaker; by night a gambler, whoremonger, and thief (who robbed his daytime clients). 

And as every Harry Potter fan knows,  J.K. Rowling lives in Edinburgh. We took a hop-on, hop off bus tour, hopping off and on three times. Three different tour guides pointed out three different tea shops as the one where J.K. Rowling wrote The Sorcerer’s Stone. 

At one end of the Royal mile, ancient crenellated Edinburgh Castle towers over the city from its volcanic mount of rock. At the other lies Holyrood Palace, the home of the Queen when she’s in residence. Close by Holyrood is Arthur’s Seat, a high hill or low mountain, whichever you fancy, favored by King Arthur of legend as a strategic stronghold. We hiked up to the summit and indeed the vistas were grand and sweeping. As was the wind.

Scotland is chilly (highs in the mid-fifties last week) and rainy, gray stoned and hilly, made incredibly beautiful by the emerald greenery and shining mirrored lochs, lakes and rivers.

We took a bus tour to the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomand and medieval Stirling Castle and learned much of the murderous treachery and deceit of the royals, both Scots and Brits, during the time of Mary, Queen of Scots and her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. Son loved it. I thought about ants.

When the new queen ant hatches, she kills off all the other emerging queens. That’s just the sort of thing these medieval royals got up to. I don’t know about you, but “It’s good to be king” just doesn’t look that good to me. 

Tomorrow we fly westward home sweet home over the Atlantic. Jet-lag from flying west is supposed to be worse than flying east. Something to do with going against the Earth’s spin. But that’s OK.  Cars will be driving on the correct side of the street, things won’t cost twice what they’re supposed to, and I’ll be sleeping in my own bed. Cheers!

PHOTO CREDIT: Dan_DC