I love the English countryside. For one thing it’s green. We’re back in Berkeley where the hills are brown as they will be until November (if we’e lucky with rain) or more likely December -- January if we’re unlucky. England is not known for its mountains but it has rolling hills aplenty and scattered about are rivers, streams, creeks and brooks. White sheep and multi-colored cows dot the countryside. There are stone walls everywhere and houses and other structures that look like they’ve been there for centuries. Many of them have. As previously mentioned we stayed at a friend’s house whose house was built in the 1700s. Next door is a Quaker meeting hall that was built in the 1600s.
The days we spent a large part of on trains were days well spent. I love to read on trains but who can take their eyes of the views when riding through England?
Then there is London. Saying it’s a big city is like saying the next galaxy is far away. London left being merely "big" a long time ago and is now massive. The humanity. In our week there we saw — good God how would I even even began to guess how many people we encountered? Let’s simply go with a lot. Mind you we were in places that draw crowds such as the British Museum, Trafalgar Square and Westminster Abbey. London draws people from all over the world both as immigrants and tourists. We saw group after group of students. We encountered some obnoxious French high schoolers, Spanish middle schoolers and countless British students, some maybe were even from London. I'm not always sure what six and seven-year-olds are doing in museums.
The traffic in downtown London has three speeds: slow, slower and slowest. Less people drive in England than in the states but there are more than enough cars and boy are there are a lot of taxis (they’re quite nice to ride, roomy and comfy) and one helluva lot of double decker busses. The underground is the way to go. It’s fast, efficient and not at all difficult to navigate.
London is similar to New York in a lot of ways one of which is the quality an quantity of excellent museums. We made our third visit to the British Museum, perhaps the granddaddy of them all, on our last day. It’s one of those museums that you need several trips to if you mean to take it all in. I always make a point to see the watches and clocks collections. I love the medieval collections and the ancient civilizations as well.
Highlights of the trip were our visit visits to Scotland and to England’s Lake District, going to see the Arsenal play and win, my first visit to the National Portrait Gallery and all the many excellent meals we enjoyed. We ate like royalty spending freely always adding dessert. I’m going to need to get back to the gym as I will tomorrow.
It was a fun trip and a nice break from the normal routine. Though that being said a good vacation helps you really appreciate the creature comforts of home.
Glad to have gone and glad to be back.
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