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"Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details." --John Wooden
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- Get a London pass. It’ll save you a ton of money (pardon the pun, but that’s kind of funny considering their currency is the pound).
- Learn to use the subway first thing. It’s the best way to get around. If you packed light or are traveling along you can even ride it in from the airport.
- If you don’t see the Abbey and the Cathedral, you’ve wasted your trip. Shame! Shame! Shame!
- Eat up. I’ve often heard that London food was bland and flavorless, almost medieval. Not true. We ate in great restaurants and enjoyed our food. Its pretty much like eating at home, though you’ll have to fight for every last cube of ice in your drink.
- Talk to the people. They were glad to engage and shared with us about their country. One lady wanted to know “Is Starbucks in America like it is here in Wimbledon?” She also asked “What should I see in America.” Hah! What a question. She said she’d been to New Jersey and “it was so big I only got to see a little.” Wow! Wait until she goes to Texas.
- The streets are safe even at night. I never felt insecure.
- Go to Windsor and see the Castle.
- Confirm the cost of your taxi before hand. Unlike traveling in the third world and touristy areas I never felt taken advantage of. I only rode in two taxis. Unfortunately, I forget to confirm the taxi cost before I got in it to return to the airport and I thought I might have gotten spanked a bit.
- Go! You need to experience it.
June 12, 2010
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London: Observations on People & Crime
It seems to me, and I’d like to explore the notion further, that there is decidedly less anger in London than on the streets in America. This is purely anecdotal, and may not be true, but its something I sense and find interesting to ponder.
I’m too often the angry American. Cut me off in traffic or stumble into me in the line at the shopping center and I bristle. Often, the other party bristles as well. But it seems there is a decided lack of bristle in the UK. However, I’m on vacation, not facing the daily battles of life and work but rather on “holiday” as they so quaintly say it, so maybe it’s just that I’m easy going this week and thus everything around me is as well.
This thought crystallized in the subway. Somebody stepped on my foot. I don’t remember if it was male or female. Didn’t matter. I wasn’t upset. They weren’t in a huff that I was in their way. And neither of us is the worse for the encounter.
Brits in London live closely together. I live on nearly 100 acres. From my house you can’t see another. It would be interesting to know how many tens of thousands of people they’d pack into a hundred acres. It would be a staggering number.
Brits travel together. I’ve been far more intimate with nameless strangers than I’d ever hope to be as we’ve been sardined on subway cars, and I’ve been brushed with more female breasts than at any other time since being surrounded by all the black sisters screaming at the Barry White concert in Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. Nothing sexy in it. It was just people trying to get by me, through the crowd and get where they were going. These people are accustomed to living up close and personal with each other.
Then, there are the police. I haven’t seen any. Oh, I’ve seen a few here and there, mostly guarding the royal residences and seats of government. But I haven’t seen lots of cops on the street. Maybe that’s just because we’re staying in the high rent district and traveling to the tourist areas. But, I’ve ridden that darn tube all over London, so I’d think if there was danger to be seen I’d have seen it.
I’d be interested in knowing more about crime in England. There was a shooting here in London yesterday and they’ve been fishing dead bodies out of the river. So, maybe its no different from back home in the U.S. But my radar is telling me something may be different. That would be a good point of conversation for any of my U.K. friends who want to buy me a Diet Coke next time we visit in Chicago.
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London: Day 5, Part 3, Parliament
If you like history and government you’ll want to tour Parliament. Maybe I just timed it perfectly, but it was less than five minutes for us from street to sitting in the gallery for the House of Lords. There it was, 100 feet away, the Throne of the Queen of England. The clerk of the House of Lords even still wears the white wig. Everyone else was dressed in street clothes and it seemed like any other legislative body you’ve watched in action. Stuffy people. Big speeches. Really boring work.
The Parliament Castle is enormous, yet we navigated it very quickly. It didn’t seem enormous…..Washington D.C. like at all.
Warning: nobody in England can explain their political structure to you. I asked several people. They all start in---particularly explaining knights, peerage, and the House of Lords---and shortly thereafter they throw up their hands and say “Its really complicated.”
Had a fun conversation with a constable outside the doors of the Lord’s Chamber. She pointed out Hutch of Starsky and Hutch as he walked by. Apparently he was visiting an MP that day. Kind of funny when someone who escorts the Queen of England is excited to see Hutch! He look like any other washed up actor. Just a guy. Don’t even know his name.
The constable did tell us that Camilla was a very down to earth lady, and I commented that she was overshadowed by Diana. But she then pointed out that Fergie was doing a good job of making Camilla look downright royale. Touché!
I kind of collect state capitals, and have enjoyed my trips to our capital in D.C., so seeing the Parliament and the House of Lords in action was kind of neat for me. As a little boy cipherin’ at the Abesville Elementary School (where my first day of class in 1968 was in a two-room schoolhouse) I’d never have imagined I’d be sitting in the House of Lords under Big Ben, staring at the throne of the Queen. Kinda cool!
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I have a cousin who is rather famous in the family for his Redbirds and Bluebirds philosophy. He teaches his grandchildren that the Redbirds don’t mate with the Bluebirds and that’s the way it should be. The races shouldn’t mix to the point of marrying, though having a minority garbage man or housekeeper is likely OK.
He’s a racist. He’s wrong. He happens to live and work in a part of the U.S. where whites are probably a minority, and where negroes are mostly likely to be socially and economically in the lower class. He was raised with prejudice in the Missouri Ozarks, carried it with him through his military years, and maintains it today after some 70 years of living.
What’s this got to do with London? Everything! I was riding along on the subway just looking at people. Wow! There were a lot of colors, and shapes, and looks. You want Asians? London’s got them. Indians? Oh yeah, by the truck load. (That’s the type with a red mark on their forehead, not Tonto.) Blacks. Lots of ‘em. Mediterranean looking folks? Yep! Middle eastern? Many. And there are even white folks like me. Then there are what we farmers would call “crossbreds” of every sort. It was kind of fun to just look at the pallet of color and style that God had to work with.
It occurred to me as I observed this that my cousin’s philosophy wouldn’t work in London. Oh, if you wanted to be sure you only married someone from your racial gene pool you could do it; the pool is large enough. But I saw, interacted with, and observed many attractive, engaged, intelligent, vivacious people of every color and I’m figuring that if you wanted to be sure your grandkids only married your “type” that you’d be eliminating some great candidates and there’s a likely chance that at some point your kids or grandkids are going to bring home someone whose gene profile doesn’t match yours.
It’s a big world out there. God has created a lot of interesting people. I’m naturally more attracted to some than others, and find myself more at home in some cultures than others. But we in the Ozarks where I live need to get our mind finally and fully around the fact that God created them all, they are equal. There’s no need for separate. It’s wrong.
I pray often for the men my girls will bring home. I pray they’ll be Godly. I don’t ever pray they’ll be white. Good thing. Granting that request in London might be a bit of a challenge.
June 9, 2010
