London Calling

London calling, yes I was there too.
An' you know what they said - well some of it was true!

But before we get there, we have a full day of other things to get around to.

Like go to Anne Hathaway's house (on the right).

It seems there was this little fellow who lived back in the 15- and 1600's who wrote a few little plays and stories and such like that. I guess he had a sort of "following" back in the day, and even today some people like to read his stuff. You might have heard of him. His name was William Shakespeare. Anne Hathaway was his sweetie pie.

The cottage is in Stratford-Upon-Avon, a lovely little town on the banks of the Avon River. The flower gardens surrounding it are gorgeous and they are actually raising cabbage, beans, peas and host of other veggies. After her death, the house stayed in her family through the mid-1800s. Now it's owned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which conducts all of the tours and such.

I've read a lot about their relationship and some suppose that William grew to dislike and even hate Anne. I'm not sure about all of that, but it seems to me, after spending time in that house, that they loved each other very much, though he spent a lot of time in London with this plays.

Be all of that as it may, it was fun to spend time in her home. As you exit, there is a bulletin board (above) full of little sticky notes. What you're supposed to do is tell about how you met your significant other on a sticky, then tack it to the board. As you can see, many people obey.

In true Shakespearean fashion, I did so, too, but did it in verse form. I only had about 30 seconds to think about what I could write, so it's not anything fancy. But you can see the results just above. See? Even in England I was thinking about you, sweetie!

Now, I've been a fan of the Bard for any number of years. I love Hamlet, have memorized parts of Macbeth and Henry V, and can even quote a sonnet or two. So being able to go to the house (left) where he was born...priceless.

They have beds there that were being used when little Billy was just a pup. They have actual utensils and cooking implements he might have actually used.

The only problem with the time we were able to spend in his house is that it went by WAY too fast. Not only that, but Jacob hadn't eaten all day. So finding a place that served something his finicky pallet would accept took quite a bit of our time. As far as we could tell, there's no BK hanging out on the corner in this little burg (Wiki pic at right). Plus, daddy had to desperately find a place to, um, shall we say, call his bookie. So, we wandered the streets until we found a place that made chicken nuggets, blasted out of there with nuggets in hand like our pants were on fire, and got back to the bus as the last ones on. Whew! Talk about your whirlwind romance!

The next stop on the road to London was Oxford. You know, the university I couldn't go to even if I wanted to? This town, for centuries called "The Most Beautiful Town in England", partly because of its famous Dreaming Spires, has more than the university, though. It also has Christ Church (left). Christ Church is not only a cathedral, but a working college.

Started in 1525, its members include Albert Einstein, William Penn, Lewis Carroll, John Locke (hurray Lost!), and John Wesley. Founded, suppressed and refounded by Henry VIII ("I got married to the widow next door, she'd been married seven times before, hick!"), it is the setting for many famous adventures, such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and will probably be interesting to some of my readers because The Great Hall was used in the Harry Potter movies. You can see my picture of it on the right above. Was that a snowy owl I just saw fly by?

You might also recognize the steps in the picture to the left. These are the actual steps that were used in some of the opening scenes of the first Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (in the US you might know it as Sorcerer's Stone). Don't ask me who the gal is in the photo. She climbed up there to get her picture taken just as I was snapping my picture. I didn't feel like waiting for her to move.

When we got finished buying Jacob another sweatshirt (this one from Oxford) we got back on the bus and drove to our final destination...London. Can you hear that? It's Big Ben!

I'll save you all of the boring facts about going to the hotel, catching a train, riding the subway, etc, etc, etc. Suffice it to say that we finally got to London and got on the London Eye (giant Ferris wheel across the Thames from Big Ben) that carries you way above the city skylights, and scares the wee wee out of anyone afraid of heights (I'm raising my hand). I was not anxious to go near the edge of our gondola, instead preferring to remain at the center, lest I have some embarrassing staining issues in front of everyone. But I did get in, and ride around, as you can see above. That's the Elizabeth Tower behind us. It's where Big Ben actually is.

INTERESTING FACT ALERT

Did you know that Big Ben is not the name of the tower, but only the bell that is contained within? Yea, neither did I. It was probably named in honor of a guy named Benjamin Hall back in 1856. Now you have something semi-interesting to tell your nietos, don't you?

After riding the London Eye, we ate, we saw, we rode The Tube/train back to our hotel. When we finally got there, literally at about 1am, I walked down to the front desk and called a cab.

Ruh roh.

Something wrong?

Yea. Jacob was hungry.

The restaurant in the hotel was closed, the kabob place down the street was closed, and so were all of the pizza joints I called. Including Dominos.

So what did we do? Well, like I said, we called a cab. "And where did you take that cab?" he asks knowingly. If I tell you that there was a red-haired clown in the window, a giant, golden M in the front of the establishment and a big box of chicken McNuggets in our lap as we rode away, will that give you a good enough clue?

But oh, boy. Ground up chicken lips never tasted so good!

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Coming soon - Part VII - Abbey Road