Seattle Yogini

Back to the Story....

Sorry about the rather large delay in my story-telling.  What can I say?  Actually living my life must take priority over talking about my life.  :-)

Anyhoo, I was telling you about our trip to England, or as my friend/student/commenter called it:  "Britland"  After our chocolate-enhanced slumber on Sunday evening, we got up Monday morning and headed down to the hotel's restaurant.  We got the general impression that when one secures accomodations in England, breakfast is included in the price.  So, down to the main floor for a "Full English Breakfast" (click for a photo of the real thing!).  This consisted of a buffet of what we later learned are standard English breakfast items:  two or three different kinds of meat ("bacon", which was less Oscar-Meyer and more Canadian in nature), black pudding (which does not resemble pudding at all, and is essentially a blood sausage patty), and eggs.  Then there were the usual assortments of cereal, pastries (croissant, pain au chocolat, etc.) and yogurt.  The best was that every breakfast we had during the week included two or three little grilled mushrooms (like mini-portobellos, they might have been cremini) and oven-roasted tomatoes (cooked just until sweetened and the skin starts to break), and baked beans.  Yes, that's right!  Baked beans just like we have at summer picnics here in the States.  So fun!

That day was a bank holiday, but seeing as we were in London, plenty of businesses were open.  We were staying in an area called Russell Square, and decided to walk until we couldn't stand it anymore or we'd seen lots of stuff - whichever happened first.  We headed off past the British Museum and toward the shopping street that would eventually lead us to Buckingham Palace.

Neither Rob nor I are much for shopping, so we mostly people-watched and enjoyed the walk.  As pedestrians in a big, strange-to-us city, we were glad that every curbside had a "Look Right" or "Look Left" written on the pavement so that we could make sure to look for oncoming traffic.  We walked and walked with no real plan in mind.  It was cold and drizzly, but we were dressed appropriately for that so we happily walked off the 8-hour plane ride from the day before.

Eventually we came upon a park, so we veered off into it.  Well, lucky us, we had found Hyde Park!  It was lovely, the daffodils were in full bloom and definitely cheering up the otherwise cold and gloomy day.  We walked through Hyde Park until we came to St. James Park and Buckingham Palace. 

We decided against a Palace tour, as the place was crushed with people and we were quite happy just walking around.  After all, we weren't interested in seeing the sights - we wanted to get a feel for the town and its people, and that requires being amongst them.  So we decided to start looking for a not-too-touristy pub for lunch.

That close to the Palace, it was hard to find anything that wasn't touristy.  We perservered, however, and after a few twists and turns off the main drag we came upon a place that was warm, still serving lunch, and had an open table.  We got inside just before the hail began, and were very glad for the warmth of the pub.  The food was fine, surprisingly good for pub fare, and we took our time (waiting out the storm) before heading back out onto the streets of London.

Fed and warmed, we headed back toward our hotel and realized just how far we'd walked!  I think that in the end it was a four-hour walking tour of that part of London.  It felt so good to walk, and was so fun to hear all the accents (few English speakers, when all was said and done, but I suppose that's how it is in Europe), and let our senses experience this new place.

Back at the hotel, we freshened up and laid down for a much-needed nap.  Later we walked down the street to a little cafe for some tea and pastry for "dinner" and then came back and settled in for bed.  We watched some fun English TV...which somehow didn't seem as horrible as American broadcasting is.  There weren't continuous commercials for drugs, nor obnoxious local ads for car sales (or, really, name your annoyance).  We were hoping for a better night sleep that Sunday, since Tuesday was to be another big travel day.  We slept well enough, and on Tuesday we went down for our second "Full British", checked out, and made our way to Euston Station to catch a train...

(to be continued)

There and Back Again

For Rob's spring break this year we decided to finally do something we'd been putting off for far too long.  His break is only ten days long and every year we stay home rather than trying to fit in a trip.  Not this year.  This year, we went to England!

Due to the time change, long travel hours, and the studio schedule, we made the trip - there and back again - in six days.  It was exhausting, but totally worth it.  We had no e-mails, no cell phones, no junk mail, just us and London, us and the train, us and the Lake District, us and 500 other people on a plane.  :-)

We really needed to go because we have this burning desire to return to our roots.  I say return, even though neither one of us has lived there, because ultimately we are both from that part of the world.  Generations removed, to be sure, but we have heard the siren song of "home" for a long time.  For me, the desire to be in or near Ireland has always been present; the melodic intonations of an Irish accent are like a lullaby.  For Rob, who knows that members of his family sailed from Manchester in the 17th century, England is where it's at.

How to get there, though?  It isn't easy for Americans to emigrate...even to what is perhaps the most US-friendly country in the world.  We can't claim political asylum (though lately we find that we'd often like to - lol), nor religious persecution (though sometimes it doesn't feel far off).  We have no living relatives there.  Our only way there is through work, and that option will be thoroughly explored.  Anyway, this is for another blog posting...for now let it serve as background for why we needed to go to Britain - to see if our idea of it was a romantic notion, or if it could really offer us the kind of life for which we long.  Our trip served as a scouting mission, and provided just enough exposure and time for us to see that a longer trip would be in order.

We arrived in London after a point-to-point flight from Seattle (yay for direct flights!) on Easter Sunday and took the train from Heathrow into town.  We were able to get off a mere 1/2 mile from our hotel, so we walked.  We'd been able to sleep a bit on the flight, so we weren't zombies, but we weren't really sure what to do with ourselves quite yet.  In-country for about three hours, and already we were struck by many things:

-  Everything smelled so differently!  Since they use different soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, cleaning products, you name it, every-thing and -one smelled interesting...in a good way...to my sensitive nose.  It reminded me of my years living in Spain, which has a smell of its own.
-  Everything was tiny!  Of course, we'd noticed it looking at the cars zoom by as we pulled our luggage down the street.  Upon checking in to the hotel we were directed to the lift, which was smaller than a shower stall.  Rob almost had to turn sideways to get his broad shoulders through the door, and we feared for a moment that our one large bag wouldn't make it!
-  Water pressure is a matter of perspective.  Um, yeah.  What we think is a nice, long, hot shower is...well...overkill, I suppose, to Brits.  The trickle of the shower pretty much ensured that we were expeditious in our self-care.  Ha ha ha ha!

Anyway, we decided to look for a pub so that we could experience "real" fish-n-chips for dinner.  It wasn't hard to find a suitable establishment, and we got there just before they stopped serving lunch (thank goodness, because we were famished).  I had vegetarian chili, which was delicious, and Rob had proper fish and chips with a beer.  The food was delicious, and we felt hopeful that what we'd heard about the lameness of British food would prove false.  The pub patrons and staff were friendly, but the exchange rate was not.  >:(  Lunch, after conversion, was an almost $50 affair.  We decided that if we were going to enjoy the trip, we had to stop figuring out how many dollars each transaction was costing, and just go with the flow.

Bellies full, we headed back to our funny little hotel room.  On the way we stopped at a corner store and bought some water and a chocolate bar.  Everything tastes better in Europe, let me tell you, even the Cadbury's chocolate (which I avoid like the plague here in corn syrup land).  Anyway, we bought a two-liter bottle of Evian, and it cost (here we go, still figuring out the conversion) under $1.50.  Anybody bought an Evian in the U.S. for that much?  You're lucky if it's a 12-oz bottle!  We were amazed, and perplexed, and interested that basic things like water were so much cheaper...even with the wretched exchange rate...in England than in the U.S.

We settled in for the night, drinking lots of water and leaving the chocolate handy for the inevitable 2am wake-up of our disoriented bodies.  By 7pm we were asleep...and sure enough I awoke at 2ish to the rustle of the chocolate wrapper.  We weren't so much hungry - as in rumbling tummy - as we just had low blood sugar, so we drank a bunch of water and shared the chocolate in the dark.  We happily fell back asleep until a proper wake-up time.

We awoke on Monday to a cold, blustery day, and headed down to the restaurant for our English breakfast.  I'll tell you all about it, and the great day that we had in London, next time I write.

Cheerio!