Weekly Dispatch #13:In Which We Catalog The Things We Love The Best & Will Miss The Most
We are winding down our time here in Canterbury, and though we are both looking forward to seeing our family and friends (and horse), we are equally sad at the notion of leaving. Because I knew that this last week is going to be a busy one—in addition to packing, we are also hosting our neighbors for dinner, our students at a Christmas party, and I have papers to grade—we started talking a couple of weeks ago about the things we have enjoyed and will miss the most. Here then, in ascending order, are the 11 Top Ten things:

11. Charity Shops: Whenever a customer buys something in a retail shop in the UK, he or she is assessed a 17.5% VAT (Value Added Tax) which can, if the total from the store tops the minimum, be recovered through the customs office at the airport. But if you don’t top the minimum, you don’t get the 17.5% back. I mention this because it is one of the reasons we have found going to the many charity shops in Canterbury (and other communities) such an enjoyable experience: no VAT. Unlike the Goodwill stores at home, which are large and impersonal, the charity shops here tend to occupy small spaces, and each has its own character. The YMCA shop, for example, has quite a bit of furniture, while the Hospice shop is so packed with clothes that you can hardly turn around. And there is a higher quality to the “castoffs” in these places, too. Beth is quite proud of the cashmere coat, the tweed jacket, the wool winter coat and the “little black dress” she has picked up while we’ve been here. I’ve not been so lucky; the tweed jacket I saw in the front window was gone before I had a chance to get to the store the next day and I lost out in the same way on a tuxedo that looked like it might fit. We also picked up some kitchen things our house lacked when we got here and came across some great “white elephants” for the Christmas party we’re having this week with the students. What makes it especially enjoyable is that the stock is never the same from one day to the next, which means I may still have a chance to pick up a tweed jacket before we leave.

10. Historical Sites: A visitor to this country could spend weeks—probably even months—visiting places where, literally, history was made. It is possible to go from the Neolithic sites of Stonehenge and Avebury to the Roman city of Bath in a day, traveling only a few miles but through hundreds of years. There are notable Roman ruins, including Hadrian’s Wall near the Scottish border and a Roman fort near Richborough, and there are many more hidden treasures buried underneath London—and even Canterbury—which can be visited. At the British Library in London and in Salisbury Cathedral, you can see copies of the Magna Carta, one of the most important documents of law ever written, and, at the Library, you can also see Shakespearean folios, the working notebooks of Lewis Carroll and Jane Austen, pages from the sketchbook of Leonardo da Vinci and original, handwritten lyrics of Beatles songs. If you go to Hastings, you will be on the site of the 1066 invasion of England by the Normans. If you have a cup of coffee at Chambers in Canterbury, you will be sitting in the place where the Pilgrim fathers planned the voyage of the Mayflower to America. In Dover, you can walk through an ancient castle that stands above the subterranean headquarters of Britain’s navy during World War II. Everywhere you go, there is something of historical interest, and even if you’re not a history buff, you will still, I guarantee, pause for a moment when you look down from the parapet of a castle and think about what happened there on that very spot hundreds of years ago.

9. Train Travel: Probably the best purchase we made in preparation for this trip was a pair of BritRail passes. We thought at first that we would never recoup the cost (about $600 apiece), but we have far exceeded the amount we would have paid in regular fares during our visit. And more importantly, traveling by train was a delight—once we figured out how to read a timetable. Whether it be short trips to Faversham or Chilham or longer excursions to Edinburgh and Newmarket, the trains were clean and safe and on time. Most cars were equipped with tables, so it was possible to spread out a bit during the longer journeys and on some trains, a man with a catering trolley rattles—and occasionally crashes—his way down the aisle. As I mentioned in an earlier dispatch, the best thing about the trains equipped for longer runs was the quiet car. The trains that are primarily for commuters tend to be a little noisy because you will have business people on their mobile phones, kids on their way to school listening to music and goofing around, and you expect to have a bit of pandemonium on a trip of that nature, but when you know you’ll be in transit for six or seven hours, silence is the key, and the quiet cars provide that. Overall, unless it’s biking or walking, there seems to be no better way to get around England. Coaches are fine for local runs—and you do get great views from the upper deck—or, if you are going to a remote site and have the nerve, a car is handy, but pound for pound (pardon the pun), nothing beats the train.

8. Ale & Cheese: The Germans can claim to have the best beer in the world, and the French are fond of flouting their cheese, but, for my money, there is nothing better than a pint of hand-pulled English ale and a wedge of English cheese. On a recent tour of
Shepherd Neame Brewery—Britain’s oldest brewery—in Faversham, we learned that what we have been enjoying in pubs since we got here is real ale, ale that is put into a barrel and gets its fizz from yeast rather than carbon dioxide. It is served at room temperature and is remarkably smooth and tasty. The ales also range widely in color—I prefer the darker ales; Beth likes the paler varieties—and in alcohol content. (A comment from Beth: Pat prefers the higher, I prefer the lower.) Most pubs have the strength of the ale posted—from about 3.5 to 8.5 percent—so you have a pretty good idea of how many pints you can consume before you start proclaiming your love for all things British and actually worsen relations between our two countries. (Three is a safe estimate.) As for the cheese, we have grown to be great fans of great cheese with great names like Red Leicester and Stilton, Shropshire, Wensleydale, and Double Gloucester. Combine a pint of good real ale and a cream cracker topped with a chunk of blue-veined Stilton, and you’ll think you’re somewhere in the vicinity of heaven. Or Liverpool.

7. London: We did not go to London until October—not by design, but because we were finding plenty to occupy our time here—but once we did make our way there, we couldn’t get back often enough. With Oyster cards in hand, we learned how to navigate the Underground and how to Mind The Gap as we sped around beneath the city, popping up at all of the right places—OK, not always at all the right places—so that we could take in all that the city has to offer. London is a vast city—twice the area of New York City—but it’s a low-rise city, so there’s never the claustrophobic feel in a place like New York. It is—surprisingly to me, having Chicago as my most recent point of reference—a somewhat hilly city, so it’s possible to find places where a portion of the place is spread out below. We, of course, did not see everything—the trick, we’ve been told, is to always leave something undone so you have a reason to return—but we did get to take in most of the tourist attractions—Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, the British Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. James Park—and we did get to one show in the West End—a farcical and hilarious version of The 39 Steps, adapted from the 1935 Hitchcock thriller, well-worth seeing again. When we come back to England, as we surely will, more than a couple of days will be spend in the city, exploring as much as we can but, again, leaving a few spots unvisited for the next trip.

6. Pubs & Restaurants: Because the tourist trade is the city’s biggest industry (or so it seems), Canterbury is a city filled with places to eat and drink. While we’ve been here, we have dined on Lebanese, Italian, Portuguese, Mediterranean, Thai, Indian, and, naturally, English cuisines, with Indian being far and away our favorite. And we’ve also visited some of the city pubs, most notably The Thomas Becket and Simple Simon’s. These were all wonderful establishments, but what we found we enjoyed even more are the village and country pubs, where you get both a pint of good “real” ale (see Ale & Cheese) and great food. This is not typical bar food I’m talking about here. These little places in remote spots have actual chefs preparing meals that rival anything you might find in a swankier place in a city. For example, we recently had a lunch that consisted of “coriander carrot, curried parsnip with basil and croutons” soup and “Portobello mushrooms with minced Thai chicken in hoi sin sauce.” And that was at the Red Lion pub—our favorite pub—in the miniscule village of Stodmarsh—one of our favorite miniscule villages—five miles—twenty minutes by bike—outside of Canterbury. There are others, too—The Wool Pack Inn in Chilham, The Half-Moon and Seven Stars in Preston, The Duck Inn in Pett Bottom—where we stopped—typically during a bicycle journey—and dined royally and reasonably. We also found the country and village pubs to be warm and welcoming, with owners and staff who seem to truly love their places and their work. I wish there were something comparable at home, but our “native” bars just don’t have the same atmosphere, I’m afraid.

5. Canterbury: The novelist Virginia Woolf said, “There is no lovelier place in the world than Canterbury,” and we have to agree wholeheartedly. From the very first time we walked into the city centre on our first day here back in September, I have felt that we are living on a movie set—and I don’t mean that pejoratively. Outside of Disneyworld, where it is all a brilliant fabrication, I’ve never been to a place with more charm or character than Canterbury. From the towering presence of the cathedral to the narrow, winding cobblestone streets, the bustling crowds on High Street, the crooked houses with their chimney pots, the riverside parks, the city walls and tall stone gates, this is an amazing place to live. And to add to its allure, it is a compact city; everything a person needs or wants is within a few minutes’ walking distance. Maybe it was that we knew our time here was short, but we have taken in this place like no other place we have ever lived and will miss it in a way we have missed no other place.

4. The Cathedral: It’s hard to explain the feelings I have for this magnificent structure. Every morning, when I look out of our bedroom window, it is there: tall and solid and ancient. Every evening, I can see it lit up against the black night sky when I get ready for bed. I’ve never lived before in a place where a single building so dominates not only the skyline but the life of the city as well, but the Canterbury Cathedral does just that. Each day, there are hundreds of pilgrims clustered outside the gates, snapping photos and waiting their chance to tour the building, to follow the last, frantic moments of the life of Thomas Beckett and to see the place where he was murdered, to walk through the dark quiet of the crypt, to see the tombs of kings and princes and archbishops and to wander around the ruins outside. We have spent many hours in the cathedral, showing friends around or attending evensong (last week, we had the good fortune to get tickets to a stunning evening of Christmas music performed by the students of Christ Church University), and I suspect it will be one of the last—if not the very last—place we visit before leaving at the end of this week.

3. Pace of Life: Slower. That’s the best way to describe life in Canterbury, but that doesn’t mean it is not active or vibrant. Rather than drive to the grocery store, we walk or take our bicycles. When we want to go to the city centre, we walk. When we go to school, we walk. At mealtime, we don’t throw something in the microwave; we take the time to prepare and cook good meals. We’ve both been reading voraciously, and we rarely turn on the television. There’s no sense of rushing, no need to rush. Granted, we don’t have bundles of student papers to grade or lessons to plan, so the stress level is considerably lower and we have more time, but we are hopeful that we can hang on to at least some of this way of life when we get home, even though we both know how easy it can be to slip back into old habits. With that in mind, we’ve made a pact that our first and preferred mode of transportation will be walking and that we will continue to make our “at home” time as comfortable and relaxing and fulfilling as it has been here.

2. Countryside and Villages: A few weeks ago, Beth said, “I know this country doesn’t belong to me—obviously, I’m a foreigner—but I do feel that the countryside is mine. I don’t feel that way at home.” That may sound odd, but I know just what she means. Here, we have ridden country lanes on our bicycles and have walked public paths for hours, meandering across farm fields and through woods with complete freedom, never fearing that we were trespassing—or would be accused of trespassing—and getting to know the land in a way that is not as easy—or even possible—where we live. Granted, there are well-tended bicycle paths, and I’m sure we’ll use them more than we have in the past, but they are often crowded and, in some way, even more treacherous than the narrow roads we’ve ridden here. I know I’m romanticizing some because we’re about to leave all of this, but there is, quite honestly, something more satisfying about tramping out of town on a well-walked pathway than there is to driving to a forest preserve to take a hike. And it’s very possible that we just not ever tried it before we came here. Maybe it is possible to find a trail that leads us past the shopping malls and the housing developments, across busy highways and out into the countryside. But I really doubt it, and for all of the good things to which we will soon return, I don’t think anything will be able to replace or replicate this part of our experience in England. It is what we will both miss the most and will most look forward to when we return sometime in the future as shorter-term visitors.

1. People: Without question, it has been the people we’ve spent time with here that are the highlight of this trip. We’ve had the good fortune to be traveling with 13 wonderful students from home who have enriched this trip for us on a daily basis. And we’ve developed a fondness for the students in both the Missouri and New York groups as well. I’ve also been lucky enough to have worked with equally wonderful English students, a group which reassuring me that, no matter which side of the ocean, students are students. In addition, we’ve been extremely lucky to have had guests visiting regularly during our stay. We would have enjoyed traveling around on our own, certainly, but being able to share that with family and friends made it even more memorable and transformed us from strangers in this country to residents and tour guides, responsible for knowing what to do and where to go. And, lastly, we have met some truly lovely people while we’ve been here. Our neighbors, Reg and Sylvia Steel, took us under their wings and will, we hope, be coming for a visit, their first, to the States sometime soon. We hope we can be as gracious as they have been. Then there was Martin, from The Bushel Pub in Newmarket, who was such a jovial and enthusiastic host that we had a hard time leaving his place. The Ramblers with whom we hiked the public pathways, the owner of Red Lion in Stodmarsh, every person we met who helped us when we were lost, the driver who brought us to Canterbury, the driver who took us back to Gatwick when the kids flew home, every person we worked with at Canterbury Christ Church University, even the bearded busker whose gravelly voice made me drop coins in his hat every time we heard him in the city centre…without all—without any—of these people, our time here would have been diminished.

And so, we get ready to leave. As we re-stuff our suitcases and decide which things will make the trip and which will have to be left behind, we’ve been talking about this remarkable adventure and are incredibly thankful that all the stars that needed to align for us to be here did so. In less than 48 hours, we will drag our bags out of the front door of 25 Monastery and say goodbye to the house and to the city and to the country, and we, no doubt, will be a little misty-eyed when we pull the door shut for the last time. But, as with all good things, there is an end.

It’s time to come home.

Weekly Dispatch #12In Which We Welcome Our Final Guests, Cross the English Channel, Meet the Archbishop of Canterbury & Walk Along The White Cliffs
Winter in England is a different season from winter in the Midwest. Rather than freezing temperatures and inches of snow, the weather here today is a comfortable 50+, but a steady, heavy rain is being driven sideways by a gusty wind and sounds as if someone is throwing handfuls of pebbles at our windows. Add to that the fact that it starts getting dark between 3:30 and 4 p.m., and you’ve got a good picture of Canterbury in December. We aren’t likely to go out anywhere today, but having just received a stack of student essays—and with both of us in the middle of good books—staying inside where it’s warm and dry seems like a pretty good idea.

This past week, we hosted our last group of visitors. Jan Grainger, Lisa March and Shawn Skiver arrived by bus—in the rain, of course—a few hours after we put our kids on the plane home and settled in for a few days of sightseeing. Usually, people who fly to Europe leave the U.S. around 5 or 6 p.m. and land about 8 a.m. in the new time zone, but these savvy travelers left around 9 p.m. Chicago time—which meant, theoretically, that sleeping would be more natural and easier (if you can get comfortable)—and only lost a couple of hours on this end. Next time we take a trip abroad, I think we’ll do the same thing.

Our big outing with these guys was a ferry ride across the English Channel to Calais, France, for the day. We all studied the time tables for the trains to Dover and for the ferry and left Canterbury, we were sure, with enough time to make the required 45-minutes-before-departure deadline. And, we are all convinced, we would have done that had the train/bus/ferry companies made any attempt to coordinate their services. Instead, there is a large sign absolving them of any such responsibility. So, when we de-trained at Dover Priory Station, we discovered that the bus to the ferry port had left a couple of minutes earlier. Instead of waiting, we hired a couple of taxis—Shawn and I in the second one, and I got to say to the driver, “Follow that cab”—and hurried to the ticket counter, only to be told that we had missed the deadline for the 9:25 a.m. crossing by two minutes and would have to wait for the 10:10. We were not the only people who were inconvenienced, and more than one Brit said that the company had never been that bound by the 45-minute rule before. Needless to say, there were a group of grumpy people shooting dirty looks at the ticket clerk and watching the clock. Finally, they called us to board the bus that would take us to the boat, and we were off.

Sort of.

From the terminal, the bus took us along a winding route through chain link fences and warehouses and then into a barn-like building where we stopped and were told to get off for passport control. We followed the rest of the passengers into a large, bare room where two Frenchmen behind tall desks greeted everyone with a cheery “Bon jour,” looked at and stamped passports and then handed them back with a friendly “Merci.” We filed out of that room and got back on the bus which arced out of one gate, through another and into a barn-like building just like the one we had left. According to an announcement piped into the bus, our vehicle had been specially selected for additional screening, but we were all beginning to feel like refugees rounded up and about to be sent to a prison camp somewhere far, far away. Again, we shuffled off the bus and into another big, cold room where we had to pass through a typical security check (bags on the conveyor belt, walk-through metal detector, full body cavity search), collect our things and then re-board the bus again.

Until this trip, the only ferry ride I’d taken was out to Mackinac Island in Michigan, so I was surprised by the size and accoutrements of this massive craft. In addition to a duty-free shop that sold cosmetics and liquor and the biggest boxes of cigarettes I’ve ever seen in my life, there were a couple of bar/lounge areas, restaurants, a video arcade, and a casino. We took advantage of none of the options and, instead, went up on deck for awhile to see the White Cliffs of Dover as we pulled away and then settled into a quiet corner and watched people. A man who had mistakenly identified us as Canadians (can you imagine!) sat and talked with us for a bit as we were about to dock in Calais. He had been a disposable “nappie” specialist for Kimberly-Clark and had spent time in Racine helping folks in that plant get their production lines up to speed. He was traveling to Calais with his neighbor to do what everyone does when they come to Calais for the day: have a nice lunch, then go buy French wine, cheese and bread.

Once we were on French soil, we needed to get from the port to the city center, but, again, we had missed the bus. So Beth, who has studied French for the past five years and did a summer of language immersion in Dijon, went up to a taxi and flashing five fingers, asked “Quatre?” which, to those who don’t know French (like me), means, essentially, do you have room for four. There was actually room for all five, and Beth made the driver laugh by declaring “Je suis un idiot!” (I am an idiot.) The driver also recommended restaurants for lunch, and, taking his advice, we settled in at a table in La Mer, one of a dozen or more seafood restaurants in this part of the city.

Because there are so many Brits who come across the channel, the menu had English translations of all the dishes, but the specials of the day, which were printed on a chalkboard, were only in French. Lisa was interested in finding out what one of them was, but none of us could figure out what “sabaste” was. Our best guess was “sea bass.” When the waiter came to the table, Lisa asked him, “Is this sea bass?” To which he replied, “Oui, sabaste.”

“But is it sea bass?” she asked again.

“Oui, is sabaste.”

“I know, but what is sabaste?”

“Is sabaste.”

This went on for a few more volleys until Lisa managed to find out that it was a kind of whitefish, which both she and Shawn ordered. Jan and I had mussels, and Beth, inexplicably given that it was a seafood restaurant, asked for beef stew. Guess which one of us wasn’t happy with her meal? My mussels, for the record, were incredible. They arrived—probably close to 100 of the little black-shelled beauties—in a silver pot, having been steamed in a white wine/thyme/rosemary/bay leaf/onion concoction. I ate and ate and ate until Jan, a former biology teacher, wondered about the effects of all of these mollusks on American Midwestern gastrointestinal systems. Fortunately, there were no ill effects, and I wish now that I’d have finished the bucket; I’m not likely to get a delicacy like that again for quite some time.

Dragging ourselves away from the table—there was discussion of ordering a second bottle of wine and staying put until it was time to go back to Dover—we set out on the second part of our mission: bread and wine and cheese. Since arriving in Canterbury, neighbors and colleagues had been telling us we needed to get to France to pick up that trio because the French varieties are better than the British (I won’t concede that the French have the corner on cheese, however) and because the currency exchange rate favors the British pound, meaning your money goes farther. We figured that there must be shops nearby that specialized in one or all of the items we were looking for, but we wandered for a bit and found nothing but more restaurants and lots of souvenir shops. While we were looking, we caught glimpses of an impressive clock tower between buildings and, almost by accident, found ourselves in front of the place.

The clock tower—which we learned is a World Heritage site, like Canterbury Cathedral—is part of Calais’ Hotel de Ville (city hall). The clerk at the information desk in the vast, marble-floored lobby told us we could explore the first two floors, so we did, discovering along the way the “marriage chamber” where Charles de Gaulle got hitched, and letting ourselves into a plush meeting room where, I’m sure, we weren’t supposed to be. The architecture, which is Flemish Renaissance, features ornate and intricate ornamentation and more color than is found in some other, more sedate styles. In front of the building is a Rodin sculpture, “The Burghers of Calais,” which honors six local citizens who, in 1347, after an eight-month siege by the British, surrendered themselves and the keys to the city, hoping that their sacrifice would save the rest of the population. Edward III, the English king, was so moved by their bravery that he spared them and the city.

Our quest to find wine/bread/cheese led us, at last, to a rather uninteresting mid-town mall, where American Christmas carols sung by Perry Como and Bing Crosby and others played over the heads of the shoppers, and into a large supermarket. We made the purchases we wanted, but the quantity and prices that we had been told to expect weren’t there. Only later, after we were at home and re-consulted the guide, did we learn that a huge shopping mall located near the channel tunnel entrance in Coquelles, about 3 miles outside of Calais, was the place we should have gone to get bargains. So, lugging heavy bags, we trooped back to the spot where we had been dropped off five hours earlier and waited for the bus that would take us back to our ferry. As we waited, I struck up a conversation with a couple of Brits who were also heading back. The older of the two men told me that he had worked the ferries for years before retirement and came over once a month or so, but usually by car and not as a foot passenger. In fact, he said he was unlikely to come again without his car because it was more expensive and more difficult getting to places he wanted to visit.

On the bus to the port, someone wondered if we would have to do anything like the double security check we’d passed through on our way to France. Jan said she didn’t think so. “All the weirdness was on the other side,” she mused, not knowing there was, indeed, a little weirdness awaiting us in Dover.

It was probably my fault. When I presented my passport to the British agent in Calais, he asked what I was doing in Canterbury, and I told him that I was working at the university. He quickly flipped through my passport and said, “You don’t have a work visa here.” Remembering the conversation we had had three months ago at Heathrow when we tried to explain our reason for being in England and the difficulty that ensued there, I tried to backtrack without seeming guilty of anything, but I was feeling a little like the American spy in an old black-and-white movie who gets tripped up because he held his fork in his right hand rather than his left. Finally, I said that we were chaperoning a group of American students, and he let me pass. Shawn and Lisa and Jan were ushered through quickly, but the officer wanted to chat a little with Beth as well. She told him essentially the same thing that I had—without all of the hemming and hawing—and joined the rest of us. She recalled, as we were boarding the ferry, that we had been told to bring our appointment letters explaining the arrangement with Christ Church anytime we left the country. It didn’t seem to be a big deal, though, so we found comfortable couches and headed back to England.

We had pretty much forgotten the incident—in part because we were all drowsy from the trip—until we started through the Dover terminal and were met by four immigration/customs/security officers who were spaced the width of the hallway and seemed ready for action should we say or do the wrong thing.

“Do you have British passports?” one of them asked.

We said no, we have American passports, and suddenly the tension was gone, and they let us pass by. The ferryman we had met in Calais was right behind us, and I asked him what that was all about.

“They took your picture on the other side and sent it over here. They knew what you look like, and they were waiting for you.”

“Why?”

He just shrugged.

The only thing we could figure out was the exchange I had had with the agent prior to our boarding, but even that didn’t seem to warrant any kind of alert. It wasn’t a big deal, as I said before, but it was just weird and unsettling enough to be memorable.

On Wednesdays in London, matinee ticket prices for most of the theatres are half-price, so while Beth and I had a workday ahead of us, our guests were going off to the city. We broke out some of the French bread for breakfast, and Lisa ate a whole loaf by herself (she didn’t really, but she was so afraid that I’d say she did that I had to put it in here). We haven’t seen any productions yet, but we plan to go up this Friday to see a show and were happy that the intrepid trio came back from their adventure with good advice for us. They did a musical double feature: The Lord of the Rings in the afternoon at half-price (which all three said was stunning to watch) and We Will Rock You, a musical featuring the music of Queen, for full price in the evening. They didn’t have much time to eat, so when they got back to Canterbury after midnight, food was a high priority. About the only place open at that time is Efe’s Kabobs, where Shawn ordered a chicken sandwich with a “to-may-to,” which caused the rest of the customers and the entire staff to shout back at him in unison, “It’s to-mah-to!”

We really enjoyed having the three friends visit—just as we’ve enjoyed the rest of our visitors (we are envied by the other Americans)—and were sad to see them go on Saturday morning. Because the bags were heavier than when they arrived—we convinced them to take some of our stuff home with them—we called for a taxi. Shawn and I were going to ride with the bags, but Jan and Lisa and Beth decided to walk. A couple of minutes after they left—and just before the taxi arrived—we realized that they were going to the wrong station. So, with almost as much cinematic resonance as my “Follow that taxi” line from Dover, our driver said he would get us to the correct station on time and went wheeling through Canterbury’s narrow streets until we caught up with the three walkers. They jumped in, and we raced to the right destination with just three minutes to spare before the train left. Shawn and Lisa got tickets, while Jan and Beth and I hustled the bags down and under the rails to the correct platform and then convinced the conductor to please, please wait because our friends would miss their flight. He grumbled a bit about people missing their train connections, but he did hold the train until Sean and Lisa came flying up the steps and, literally, jumped into the train just as he was closing the doors.

The tone of the day changed after the train pulled away. I think it was because we had just said goodbye to our last group of guests and that the next time somebody was leaving Canterbury it would be us. We went home, got out the suitcases and put them in one of the extra bedrooms, and then started to consolidate things we were going to bring home in that same room. It was the same routine we had followed at home two weeks before we flew over here, and there was a real sense of déjà vu to our actions.

At the cathedral on Saturday night, there was a special World AIDS Day service with Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, presiding. It was a moving service, held in the cathedral crypt, attended by 80 or so people. When the service ended, because the crowd was so small, we had a chance to chat for a few minutes with the Archbishop—a charming man with white hair and beard and fierce black eyebrows—and found out that Chicago is his favorite city in the U.S.. Now that we’ve met the leader of the Church of England and have seen the Queen, who else is left?

I’ll end this dispatch with a quick report about an outing we took yesterday to Deal, a delightful seaside town with three castles—one of them the home of the late Queen Mum—and a beautiful view of the sea that stretches from Ramsgate to the north, Dover and its cliffs to the south, and the coast of France to the east. We were guests of Mandy Cooper, who teaches in the American Studies Department and has lived in Deal for the past twenty years. After a tour of the town, we headed to St. Margaret’s Bay, an even more picturesque place nestled between two white cliffs, for the best fish pie I’ve had since we got here. Mandy told us that a good number of celebrities—including Roger Moore of James Bond fame—have or used to have homes nearby. After the meal, we drove to the top of the cliffs and took a walk. The light and the clouds, the gulls hanging over the waves, the wind blowing the long grass along the path: I wished I was a painter struggling to get the scene down on canvas exactly right. Instead, I snapped a couple of pictures and hoped I captured a bit of the place.

These last two weeks are going to be very busy with us trying to get as many last-minute trips and activities completed before we have to leave, so the next dispatch—which will be the final account of our time here—will be a little different. As I noted before, I’ve been putting together a Top Ten list, and that’s what I’ll send along.

Thanks for reading…

Dispatch #11In Which We Introduce Our Children To Our Life Abroad, Learn That Most of England Closes in November & Still Manage to Have A Good Time
I don’t know if there is a gene for tough luck or for hapless traveling, but if there is, then our kids certainly inherited it. As I mentioned in the last dispatch, we had spent a quiet week awaiting the arrival of Andrew and Elise on Sunday. The weather had been wonderful—clear and cool but dry—until the day their plane touched down. That morning, as we headed for the train to meet them at Gatwick Airport, the wind was sharp and strong and often accompanied by a stinging rain. Despite the gloominess, however, we were extremely happy to see those two familiar, slightly dazed faces among the other travelers who made their way through the arrivals gate.

On the ride back to Canterbury, the sky lightened a bit, and we were hopeful that the umbrellas we had brought wouldn’t be necessary for the walk from the station to our house on Monastery Street. The rain, in fact, did hold off for the rest of the day, but the wind and cold remained, which meant our introductory tour of the city was a bit abbreviated. Beth and Andrew did duck into the cathedral for a quick look around, while Elise and I waited in the cloisters for them to finish. (In addition to the gene for luck, we share a penchant for phobias. Mine is heights, Beth does not care for bridges, Elise is uncomfortable in vast interior spaces—like the cathedral—and Andrew fears turtleneck sweaters.) That night, after dinner, we played cards and laughed a lot, as we are wont to do when the four of us get together. It was a great way to end a gray day, and we looked forward to our first full day of exploring, even though the weather forecast once again called for rain.

We decided to let the kids sleep as long as they felt like sleeping, but, eventually, had to wake Andrew because the morning was nearly over. He said he had not slept soundly, which was why he was still in bed, but Elise made it through the night. She did arrive with a cold, though, so we made a quick side trip to a pharmacy to get the British equivalent of DayQuil on our way to the bus station. The night before, we had decided to go to Whitstable so that the kids could see the North Sea, and we could all enjoy seafood at the East Quay Restaurant where we had eaten in October when Beth’s sister, Ginger, was visiting. We tempted fate and did not take umbrellas despite the dark, ragged clouds.

The bus ride was a treat. We were on the top deck of a double-decker and could see the countryside in a way that is not possible from a train. We also had a better vantage point from which to see the narrowness of the roads and the wideness of the buses. On more than one occasion, I was sure we were going to hit something—an oncoming car, a pedestrian on the sidewalk next to us—but the driver maneuvered skillfully the entire route. I should note that the trip took us about thirty minutes, even though Whitstable and Canterbury are only about six miles apart. In addition to a number of stops along the way, it is the narrowness of the roads and the constant need to slow down or stop to avoid collisions that accounts for the sluggish pace. We were not in any hurry, though, and didn’t really note how much time had passed until we disembarked in Whitstable and headed for the seafront.

About the time we got off the bus, the sun came out. Like the day before, it was still cold, but the sun and only a mild wind promised a good day of walking on the beach, picking up shells and skipping rocks. We walked along cobblestone streets until there was a gap between houses, and we could get to the sea. At the point in time, we had not yet begun to realize the familiar pattern of our previous travels, so when we emerged to find ourselves next to the commercial fishing wharves rather than the public beach area, we still believed this was going to be a day filled with fun and wonder. As we stood and looked out at the sea, the first thing we saw was that the tide was out—way out—which meant that any rock-skipping would entail slogging across a hundred yards of seaweed-strewn, dead-fish-smelling, slimy sand to the water’s edge. It was at this point, with the sea breeze blowing in our faces, that Elise noted that she could, despite the congestion caused by her cold, smell the fish and mollusks—not only the ones on the beach but those in the great wooden crates a few yards away—with perfect clarity, and it was not good.

The roof of the East Quay Restaurant was visible above the warehouses, so we made our way around the docks—where fishing boats sat at a tilt on the sand and the aroma grew more intense—looking forward to lunch.

A note to any of you who plan to visit Whitstable: don’t do it in November. When we got to the door of the restaurant, not only was the door locked, it and the windows were shuttered and chained, giving us good reason to believe that we were just a few minutes early. So, with heavy hearts and rumbling stomachs, we turned away from the water and resigned ourselves to a less memorable repast. After deciding not to eat at the health club/restaurant or at the snooker club/restaurant, we settled, instead, for the Hotel Continental where we had rather ordinary sandwiches. The sky, by this time, was starting to darken and the wind was picking up, so we wandered up the hill to the main thoroughfare and caught a bus back to Canterbury where we visited the Roman museum on Butchery Lane and learned about the city at its earliest. Established around 43 A.D., the town of Durovernum Cantiacorum thrived on the spot of contemporary Canterbury for nearly 400 years. The museum is below street level and includes actual archaeological excavations. The most impressive is the mosaic floor from the house that had stood on that spot and a section beneath that floor where hot water circulated to heat the house. The site, along with an even larger part of the Roman town, was uncovered during wartime bombing.

After the museum, which is small but very much worth a visit, Andrew and I went back to the cathedral, so he could have a longer look at the place, while Beth and Elise went to climb up in the West Gate Tower at the other end of High Street. I was giving Andrew my tour of the cathedral (most of it accurate and true) when I got a phone call from Beth telling me that the tower had closed just five minutes before the two of them arrived. By this time, Elise—more than Andrew—had begun to understand what it was like to travel with her parents. Andrew’s turn to learn would come the next day.

Beth and I had to attend a meeting on Tuesday—the only meeting we’ve had to attend since we got here—so we put the kids on the bus to Dover to visit the castle and the Wartime Tunnels. Again, the weather was blustery, overcast and cold, but bolstered by my story about the ghost that we had seen down one of the corridors, they headed out on their adventure. The plan was for them to be back in time for dinner with Phil and Jo Vandrey, who had been here in 2004 doing what we were doing. Phil was a colleague of Beth’s before he retired and was, in fact, the first Kishwaukee faculty member to serve as mentor/instructor.

An hour into the meeting, my phone rang, and I excused myself, embarrassed that I hadn’t turned it off. I missed the call but saw that it was from Andrew, so I called him back.

“It’s closed,” he said, in that flat way he has of passing along bad news.

“What’s closed?”

“The castle. It’s closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays until March.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“I hope not.”

Not only was the castle closed, but the bus only took them to the bottom of the very high hill (actually the top of the famed White Cliffs) rather than at the ticket booth, and they were forced to trudge up the a long and steep stairway in a steady drizzle only to find the gates locked and no one to tell them when the next bus might be by. I suggested that they find the bus station rather than stand out in the rain and hung up, knowing that the next time I saw them they would be bedraggled and cranky and more than happy to denounce their kinship with their mother and me. I was pretty much on target, except that they weren’t as angry with us for sending them off on a misguided mission as they were at each other. Elise was angry at Andrew because he would not ask for directions to the bus station, resulting in their having to wait an extra hour because they missed a bus by four minutes; Andrew was angry at Elise for being angry at him. We thought we could placate them by feeding them—they hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was 2:30 p.m.—so we took them to the place our students said had the best fish and chips in the city, but neither they nor Beth were overly impressed, and I can’t eat food that greasy, so we went to the ruins of the Norman castle built next to the city walls then ducked in and out of shops to avoid the increasingly steady rain. Luckily, dinner with the Vandreys was such a pleasant outing that it salvaged the day, and we went to bed that night looking forward to an overnight trip to London on Wednesday.

The next morning, the kids and I boarded the train for London while Beth—who would meet us in the evening—prepared for her class. Everything went smoothly on the trip—except for one man who felt it was necessary to let us all hear his mobile phone conversation—and we pulled in at Victoria Station around 11:30 a.m. After a typical “What should we do now? I don’t know, what?” conversation—and after discovering I had forgotten to leave my little pen knife at home, the same one that got me kicked out of the Scottish Parliament and would get me into trouble when we rode the London Eye—we decided to check into out hotel to drop off backpacks and weaponry.

Our first stop of the day was going to be the Royal Mews—the Queen’s stables—at Buckingham Palace, a place at the top of Elise’s list. I remembered where it was from our previous visit and took us to the Visitors’ Entrance without a false step.

“It’s closed,” Andrew said, echoing his message of bad news from Dover.

“What?” This could not be happening again, could it?

Andrew pointed to a sign next to the locked door: Closed from November 2007-March 2008, which Elise photographed.

"This is my souvenir from England," she said in a voice not unlike her brother's. "A Closed sign."

I wish I could say that, at this point, we all chuckled about our tough luck—“Bad timing, innit?”—and pressed on bravely, but that was not the case. What’s next? I asked myself, as I led my two suspicious offspring around the wall to the front of Buckingham Palace. Will the Eye be shut down for repair? Is Westminster Abbey on fire? Did Big Ben collapse? Has the Thames dried up? At least, I thought, as we came around to the grand statue of Queen Victoria that fronts Buckingham Palace, this is all intact.

The sun was shining, so we were able to get good pictures of the palace, and I noticed that the Union Jack was flying, which meant that the Queen was not in. In keeping with my theory that she’s trailing me around England, I checked every few minutes to see if the Royal Standard would appear, and then I remembered an offhand comment I had made when someone asked where we were going when the kids arrived. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Uganda, maybe.” Well, guess where “E II R” spent last week?

We were about to move on when I heard the tramping of feet and orders being barked from somewhere inside the wall surrounding the palace, and I could see a group of gray-uniformed soldiers marching in our direction.

“Come on!” I shouted to the kids. “It’s the changing of the guard.”

There were probably 30 or 40 other people at the foot of Victoria’s statue when I made my announcement, and all of them apparently thought I knew what I was talking about and ran along with us. We wedged ourselves in close to the iron spikes of the fence and started snapping pictures. When they were only a few yards away, the squad stopped—which, in retrospect, should have been a clue that I had completely misread the situation; the guardhouses were well behind this little cluster of soldiers—and, at their leader’s command, fell out willy-nilly came over to the fence where they each picked up a music stand (left behind, no doubt, when the real changing of the guard had happened), returned to their formation and marched away, leaving me in the middle of a crowd which had just realized, as my children had come to realize many years ago, that I am just not to be listened to. Before any harm could come to any of us, I grabbed the kids by the arm and ran.

The rest of the afternoon was less disasterous. We visited Westminster Abbey, rode the Eye at dusk—where we watched the lights of London blink on—walked through Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus and then took the Underground back to Victoria Station. This was also the day of the big England-Croatia soccer match which would decide whether or not England would advance in the European championship tournament, and we had seen, all day long, gangs of Croatian fans dressed in red-and-white checked shirts roaming the city, most of them clutching giant cans of Foster’s Lager. As we walked through the tunnel to our tube line, we could hear them singing in one of the other tunnels, and we were glad that Wembley Stadium was located in a completely different direction from where we were staying.

Our hotel was one of several small hotels along Belgrave Road. They all appeared to have been built as private homes and converted into lodgings. Beth had booked a family room, so we had three single and one double bed crammed into a rather small, but comfortable room. Had Andrew and Elise been younger, they would have had a great time jumping from one bed to another, but, instead, we all lounged around and watched British game shows, waiting for Beth to call. When she did, I walked back to Victoria to meet her. The weather had taken a sharp downturn while we were in the hotel, and I had to hurry through a downpour without an umbrella or a hooded jacket. By the time we returned to the hotel, I was soaked to the skin, and I draped everything I was wearing over the radiators, hoping it would all be dry the next morning.

I went back to Canterbury on Thursday morning while Beth and the kids went to Windsor Castle. When I found out later that they had actually seen the changing of the guard there, I began to think maybe I’m the source of the hapless traveling gene. But I did get home in time for class without a hitch—and I met a priest from Dallas who trusted me to give him directions to the cathedral—so I’m not yet ready to accept full responsibility. When the trio left Windsor, they went back into London where Andrew went off on his own for a lightning-fast trip to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles, among a few other things he had time to see, and Beth and Elise went to King’s Cross so that Elise could get a photograph of Platform 9 ¾ (Harry Potter’s point of departure for Hogwarts School) and then they saw the changing of the horse guard near Whitehall. The three of them met up at the British Museum and got home to Canterbury in time for Thanksgiving dinner, which was provided by the university. While a couple of things weren't quite right--instead of stuffing, we had stuffing balls; the pumpkin pie lacked nutmeg--it was a very kind thing for the school to have for us and a very filling meal. Several of the students had family members and/or friends who flew over for the week, so there was a real holiday feel to the whole thing, and we were all appropriately thankful.

Friday was our last—and best—field trip: The Tower of London and The Globe Theatre. There was room on the bus, so Andrew and Elise were able to come along, and they, like all of the students, were completely taken with both places. The Tower, which sits at one end of the Tower Bridge—the one most Americans always assume is the London Bridge we used to sing about when we were kids—and is not really a tower but a palace. There are, in fact, 11 towers on the site and most of them house a museum of some kind. In St. Thomas’ Tower, for example, visitors get a look at how the royals lived in the Middle Ages, and in the White Tower, there is an armaments museum. The Tower is also home to the Beefeaters, a torture museum, a memorial to those who were beheaded over the years (Anne Boleyn among them) and, of course, the Crown Jewels, which you view from a treadmill that moves you along at a steady pace—an setup necessary, I’m sure, at the height of tourist season, but not in November. Interestingly, after viewing the jewels and other treasures, there’s a collection box where you can contribute a pound or two to the upkeep of the place. I’d recommend they sell just one of the two-foot high gold flagons, but I doubt if anyone would pay attention.

The Globe was equally worth the time. Completed in 1997, the theatre looks as close to the one torn down in 1642 by the Puritans as possible. An American actor, Sam Wanamaker, was the driving force behind the reconstruction—which includes not only the open air theatre but an exhibition hall and a restaurant as well—but he died in 1993 and never got to see a performance. Our guide explained to us that there are 900 seats in the three-story building and room around the stage for another 600 groundlings. Because authenticity is of utmost importance, modern-day groundlings are encouraged to act like those who would have paid a penny in Shakespeare’s time, so it is not uncommon for people to lean on the stage, to talk back to the actors and to come and go during a performance—a far cry from the formality of theatre in London’s West End or on Broadway, but it is, according to our guide, an exciting way to experience a play. Once the tour was ended, Beth and the kids and I spent another hour or so in the exhibition hall where displays told of the history of the theatre in London, the life of Shakespeare, life in Elizabethan times and in an Elizabethan theatre. We ended the day with a quick trip to the Tate Modern art gallery to see “Shibboleth,” which is a crack that runs the length of the ground floor—and it’s art not bad masonry—along a few paintings before it was time to catch the coach.

Saturday was the day we took Andrew and Elise to Gatwick for their flight back to the States. After we watched them head off to their gate, we returned to Canterbury and met up with Phil and Jo again and went to the German Christmas Market, which is set up in White Friars’ Plaza—an open air mall—and will remain there until December 24. Our lunch that day was “currywurst,” an odd, but delicious combination of German sausage and Indian spices on a bun. Phil and Jo were off to Paris and then Strasbourg and other places, so we said goodbye to them and went home to wash sheets and towels before our next guests arrived on Sunday.

We’re now in our final three weeks of the visit, which is a bit astonishing; it seems like we just arrived. I’m not sure how many more adventures we’ll have during these last days—I know I’ll be reading student essays for a few days, but who wants to hear about that?—so I’ve been compiling a Top 10 sort of list that I’ll post sometime in the next couple of weeks (I was chastised recently because I said I’d address some subjects but never did, so I’m hoping to make up for the oversight) in case we don’t do anything worth passing along.

Cheers!

Dispatch #10In Which We Are Largely Idle, Except For a Bicycle Ride & Some Christmas Shopping
For the first time since we arrived, we had a pretty uneventful week. We spent most of the time in anticipation of our kids, Andrew and Elise, arriving on Sunday to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. A number of our students—and those from Missouri and New York—have family coming, too, so we’re looking forward to Thursday’s feast. The International Studies Department, as it has since the program began, is hosting the dinner, and we are all anxious to seeing how the Brits serve up an American meal. (There is no canned pumpkin in the country, but, luckily, a number of us asked our guests to pack a can, so we should have enough for a few pies.)

This is also the time when our students are preparing papers to be submitted to their instructors, and though it was suggested to them that they begin early, a good number let the time slip away and are now looking at long, sleepless nights. The British students in my class face an even more daunting task this term. They each have six classes and, as a result, must submit six major papers on the same day. This is the first term that first-year (freshmen) students like mine will have their grades decided entirely on the merit of papers rather than their writing plus a final exam. I am not sure I’m entirely sold on this pedagogy—especially given that the U.S. system incorporates a good deal of assessment during a semester rather than checking for understanding once at the end. But I’m trying to learn from the experience as much as possible and not be too skeptical; it could be that the papers I’ll receive in a week will be wonderful and profound and be a reasonable measure of the students’ accomplishments.

With the submission—and subsequent grading—of these final papers, it has occurred to both Beth and to me that our time here is growing short. We have, in fact, less than a month before we bid Canterbury adieu and board a plane for Illinois. Rather than lapse into nostalgia at this point, though, we are trying to use these last four weeks to do new things as well as to revisit some of the things we did and enjoyed. It was with that in mind that we decided to take another bicycle ride through the countryside, hoping that, this time, we would be better oriented to the landscape and could read the map more effectively than we did on our last outing. Chances were pretty good that we would not repeat our mistakes because Beth had already toured the country lanes a couple of times with guests, and, too, we have, over time, gotten a better sense of our surroundings.

So, on a cool and sunny Tuesday afternoon, we set out for the town of Bridge, a place I wanted to visit because they have an equestrian shop, and I thought I might be able to get Christmas presents for my “horsey” friends there. Rather than strike out in the wrong direction—which is what happened before—we went in the right direction, along city streets and, finally, onto a public byway. As we rode, it was clear that late autumn has settled in and that winter can’t be far behind. Farm fields are now plowed and bare, trees are nearly leafless, and the countryside, in general, has a washed-out quality we had not seen back in September. The hills had not changed, however, and we alternated for a couple of miles between lung-burning climbs and wild descents. The pathways are paved and in pretty good shape, but with the bright sunlight flashing through the trees as we flew downhill, it was hard to see the few potholes and buckled spots that threatened to unseat us. Luckily, neither of us took a spill, and we cruised into Bridge, found the shop, did a little shopping and then took to the bikes again.

Because it was such a perfect day, we decided to take a more roundabout way back to Canterbury. The first leg was a re-tracing of the route from Canterbury to Bridge, which took us through the little village of Patrixbourne. We stopped and took pictures of the church and of some of the cottages. Beth said that she couldn’t see moving to England to live in a city, but that she could easily settle in Patrixbourne. I had to agree. There is a peacefulness to the place and—to use a word I don’t much like but can find no other suitable replacement—a quaintness that seem to promise a life to match. But judging from the cars parked next to the homes (Mercedes, Jaguar, Porsche), the quaint and peaceful life is not cheap, so we pedaled on, knowing that we would not be spending our golden years in a vine-covered cottage here.

From Patrixbourne, we went toward Stodmarsh, a town we have visited two or three times, and then turned north to Fordwich, England’s Smallest Town. Along the way, we saw a sign for a farm shop and decided it might be fun to stop for some locally grown fruits and/or vegetables—one of the great treats of living in Kent County—but when we turned into the drive, we discovered the farm shop was part of Hewlett’s Wild Animal Farm, a kind of second-rate Busch Gardens (I guess; we only read the sign) that features gorillas (again guessing from the sign) and, presumably, other non-native wildlife. After tooling through the parking lot and discovering that the farm shop was closed and that there was no way we might glimpse a British primate in its natural habitat because of high wooden walls, we continued on to Fordwich.

As advertised, Fordwich is a tiny place, with two pubs and a church and a town hall. We stopped in at one of the pubs, The Fordwich Arms, where there was a fire going in the fireplace and a few of the regulars stood at the bar reading the newspaper and, occasionally commenting on the state of the world. We found a table next to the fire and had a pint of bitters. We don’t make a habit of mid-afternoon pub stops, but it’s easy to see why this is such a strong element in British culture. Some people, obviously, come to drink and can down three or four pints in short order, but most of the people do what we did, which is to nurse an ale for an hour or more and spend the time talking. Stopping for lunch is often a good idea, too, because some of the “pub grub” is among the best food we’ve had here. The sun was starting to get a little low in the sky by the time we finished our drinks—it’s setting now before 4 p.m.—so we hightailed it back to Canterbury.

Saturday was the only other day we did anything out of the ordinary. We had seen, in the free weekly paper, an advertisement for a Christmas Fair at the local leisure center—which is like a YMCA—and decided to go see if there were any gifts we might pick up. Sue, a secretary in the American Studies office, thought that it might include vendors from the continent because they were charging an admission fee, which made it sound even more likely that we would enjoy wandering around the stalls.

It did not take more than a few steps into the area where the vendors were set up to know that our hopes were going to be dashed. Rather than looking at Bavarian cuckoo clocks and Belgian lace and French whatever, we had, instead, wandered into a very American feeling flea market. There were old paperbacks and videotapes, clothes, knock-off Louis Vuitton bags and cheap jewelry. A few stands did feature handmade things, but it was mainly crocheted monkeys, soap and candles, a few wooden bowls. The only thing we found to buy were jars of marmalade and jams. We left with our Christmas spirit a little rattled, but not enough that it stopped us from heading to High Street, where we turned into shopping dervishes and got just presents for nearly everyone on our list. The major requirements were that the gift had to be flat or lightweight or, preferably, both. As we started for home, we heard someone talking over a loudspeaker on Palace Street, so we went to investigate where the local radio station was doing a remote broadcast and found out that the city’s Christmas lights were going to be lit that evening at 5 p.m..

So, at the appointed hour, that’s where we were, standing in the midst of happy Brits—some dressed up in odd, non-Christmas outfits (pirates, for example) and many armed with some kind of Star Wars light sabers (my second reference to this piece of American pop culture in two weeks!). When the lights finally went on, it was a bit anti-climactic—maybe we’re too used to American extravagance when it comes to Christmas decorations—but the crowd was genuinely charged with the spirit of the season, and many headed off in the direction of department stores and other shops singing along with the music blaring from the loudspeakers. We weren’t singing—or doing anymore shopping—but the cold night air and the families and the lights all served to remind us that Christmas is very nearly here.

First, though, is Thanksgiving. I’ll let you know how that goes in the next dispatch.

Weekly Dispatch #9In Which We Soar Above London, Meet Up With Olde Friends, See The Queen, Travel Back to Neolithic Britain & Begin To Grow Suspicious…

Our trip into London last Tuesday, I figured, was going to be a pretty low-key affair. The plan was to take the train to the city, switch to the Underground briefly and pop up near the Westminster/Whitehall area for some sightseeing. On the train going in, however, I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive because our tour was going to begin with a ride on the London Eye, which, for those who haven’t heard of it, is a 440-foot “observation wheel” next to the Thames. I have mentioned in earlier dispatches my anxiety about high places—thus the apprehension—but I have never, for some reason, had trouble with ferris wheels. Maybe it’s because I grew up near an amusement park and rode the wheel there many times every summer. Still, neither that one nor the Navy Pier wheel in Chicago rose as high into the sky as London’s, and I was hoping I would either not be bothered or would be able to cover up any anxiety (screaming, swooning) I might be feeling.

This trip also marked the first time that our guests, Terri and Gary Sible, would be seeing London, even though they had been in the city on three other days during their stay with us. On each of those days, though, they had been zipping around on the tube and had not gotten above ground. As we climbed up the stairs into the very bright and warm day, Gary asked, “Now, where are we?” Before either Beth or I could say anything, he looked up and over his shoulder. “Oh my god!” he said and grabbed his camera to take a photo of Big Ben, which towered glittering and golden above us on the corner across from where we stood. (Actually, Big Ben is not the tower but the 14-ton bell inside which has kept time in London almost continuously since 1859.) While he and Terri—with Beth’s help—located and snapped pictures of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, my eyes were fixed on the big white wheel across the river.

After a few minutes of photo-taking, we made our way to the other side of the river, bought tickets and climbed aboard the Eye. Immediately, a soothing voice welcomed us to our “flight,” and our car began its very, very slow ascent. Each car can hold up to 25 people, but we had only 10 on ours, so there was plenty of room to move around and see the city sprawling below us. London is a low-rise city, so we were able to see all of the landmarks—Wembley Stadium, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, to name just a few—and get a sense of the size of the city as well; it has the same population as New York City, but is twice as large in area. As we made our circuit, we met a couple who had lived in London but now owned a home and a holiday cottage in Wales. They were very willing to point out the architectural highlights, along with reminiscences of their life in the city and how much it had changed. They also gave us information about renting their cottage, so, before we leave this island, we may spend a night at their place. We also met a man who runs an antiquarian book shop in London, but I doubt that we could afford his wares, so, if we stop, it will be to browse not buy. The 30 minutes we spent revolving were, happily, anxiety-free. The only moment when I felt any vertigo was when we reached the top of the wheel’s circle, and I could look directly into the car just ahead of us. It was, in retrospect, a great experience, one I hope to repeat when our kids come to visit next week.

Because I had been so transfixed on the Eye when we crossed the river, I hadn’t noticed that both ends of Westminster Bridge were blocked by huge concrete barricades and guarded by police. We got to the other side, where we had planned to walk along Parliament and on to Westminster Abbey, but we were told by a bobby that we would have to go in a more roundabout fashion, skirting all of the barricades along the streets, because the Queen was opening Parliament.

“In fact,” he said, checking his watch, “she’s addressing the MPs right now.” He said that she would probably give a 45-minute speech and then would process back to Buckingham Palace about 1:30.” It was just a few minutes before noon, and, after a bit of discussion, we decided standing on the sidewalk for an hour-and-a-half wasn’t worth it. So, we made our way along Bridge Street to Parliament Street to the Underground stop where we’d emerged an hour earlier and were waiting at that corner for the light to change when we heard behind us, “I don’t believe it!” We all four turned, and there, having themselves just come up from the tube, were Clyde and Chris, our pals from the Newmarket railroad stop. What are the odds, we wondered, of meeting up in a city of six million people? Apparently better than one might think. At any rate, we talked for a few minutes—this time remembering to exchange email addresses, etc.—when I heard the distinct clopping of a horse’s hooves on the street. A single bobby on a white horse trotted past, so I held my camera up over the heads of the crowd in front of us and took a picture. I had no more brought the camera down than there was a more thunderous clatter of horses’ hooves and a whole cavalry troop—red jackets, white trousers, black boots, silver helmets with white plumes, silver swords held at the ready—trotted past on matched black horses. As soon as they passed, another identical cadre came into view, and we realized that something was happening. A loud cheer started to our left and swept toward us and, suddenly, right in front of us, in the Irish Parliament Coach she takes from the palace to Parliament, was the Queen herself!

Despite the fact that my photographic evidence merely shows a blur behind the coach’s glass, it was unmistakably the Queen of England in one of her trademark pastel hats. She was out of sight in a few seconds, but I am certain that she looked right at me and mouthed the words, “Call me.” Of course, none of the others believed me, but I was beginning to wonder about the coincidence of her showing up when I was at Windsor last week and then again here in London. Especially curious was the fact that the speech she gave was not 45 minutes—which would have meant that we would not have been on the parade route—but a mere three minutes. Still doubt me? Wait: there’s more to come!

Following the Queen’s coach were another four or five carrying various royals and dignitaries to the Mall and up to Buckingham Palace, and I took poor pictures of all of them, too (in my defense, I had my arms stretched as high as I could stretch them and was snapping pretty much blindly), many of them featuring the balding head of a man in front of me and several other upraised cameras. More cavalry passed, along with a coach that carried only the Crown of England and another that carried two golden maces, both of which were so large that they stuck out of the windows.

When the procession had passed, the six of us—already amazed at our improbable reunion—were even more stunned that we met at that spot and, delayed by our conversation, were there to see the Queen. Terri was perhaps more excited than the rest because her sister is a huge royalist and was going to be jealous beyond measure; something Terri said she would have fun exploiting at Christmas when the family gets together.

Chris and Clyde were heading in a different direction than we were going to take, so we said goodbye again—after inviting them to visit us in Canterbury—and walked to Westminster Abbey. We had to stop once more because the Royal Band and a number of other military groups were lining up for their march to the palace. While we were there, Beth asked one of the bobbies if he guarded the Queen regularly.

“No,” he said, “I’m just up from Greenwich for the day.” He was a burly man with a cauliflower ear and a build that we guessed later marked him as a rugby player, but when Beth then asked if this was as big a deal for him as it was for us, he got wide-eyed and gushed, “Oh my God, yes!” The rarity of our getting to see the British monarch became more apparent as, over the next few days, we asked people—including a number of Brits—whether they had seen her and were told by most that they had not.

We finally, after the last of the marchers went past, crossed over to Westminster Abbey where, on the lawn in front of the main entrance, a dozen or more people were preparing a Remembrance Day display. The whole lawn—perhaps 100 yards or so long—was divided into squares identified by military regiments. In each of those squares, the volunteers were driving into the ground six-inch crosses adorned with a poppy and the name of a soldier who had died. There were thousands and thousands of the crosses already placed and, according to a man we spoke with, there would be thousands more by Thursday, when the exhibit would be officially opened, and people could walk among the crosses.

Because of its proximity to Buckingham Palace and Parliament, Westminster Abbey, which is a working church with daily services, is known as the Coronation church. In fact, since 1066, when William the Conqueror was crowned, this is where the country’s monarchs have received the vestments of their office. In addition, this magnificent church is also the resting place for many famous historical figures from the last thousand years of British history, including Queen Elizabeth I; Mary, Queen of Scots; Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin. In the south nave of the church is Poets’ Corner, where the dead buried there reads like the table of contents of my British Literature textbook: Chaucer, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Jane Austen, Wordsworth, the Bronte sisters, and on and on. Unlike Canterbury Cathedral, where you can take photographs, the interior of Westminster is off limits to any kind of cameras, so I can’t show you what the place looks like, but I can say that the abbot who was in charge way back when was very good at convincing the government and the royal family to give him money because this is a much more ornate—lots of gold and polished stone—church than Canterbury’s. Still, I think I prefer the one we can see from our windows every day.

Our plans for our London day trip had also included Terri and Gary’s going to the War Cabinet Rooms while Beth and I took in the National Portrait Gallery, but after we had toured Westminster—and because of the Queen—it was later than we’d expected, so we stopped in St. James’ Park, ate a brown bag lunch, and then walked to Buckingham Palace. It was while we were walking that I became conscious of Gary and his prowess with his wheeled suitcase. I was carrying a backpack that day, but because he and Terri were staying the night—they had an appointment with the company that bought the firm where she works in Geneva—Gary was dragging a little brown suitcase. He pulled the same bag during our weekend to Newmarket and had apparently honed his skills at maneuvering through crowds and, more importantly, at manipulating the telescoping handle. If we came to a stairway, he collapsed the handle with one quick motion, and when we reached the top or bottom, he snapped the handle back into place and was rolling again. It got so that Beth and Terri and I would start laughing when we heard the metallic slide and pop, and we compared it to the sound Luke Skywalker’s light saber in Star Wars. Gary said he figured he had pulled it far enough that it was time to rotate the tires.

The Queen, of course, was still at Buckingham Palace (we guessed in the room with a lamp in the window), but we were too late for a tour, so we took some pictures from beyond the locked gates and then started off in the direction of Terri and Gary’s hotel—past the Royal Mews, the Queen’s stable and coach house, which was also closed for the day—in Grosvenor Place, a large area where most of the foreign embassies are located. After we left them there, we took a slow commuter train back home and talked about the day’s strange coincidences and the trip we had planned for the upcoming weekend.

Originally, we had talked with the Sibles about going to Paris over the weekend, but the logistics of the trip—not to mention the cost (the dollar is faring very poorly these days)—we decided, instead, to rent a car and head into the West Country. Because I was the only one with any experience driving on the “correct” side of the road—as opposed to the “right” side—I was given the job of piloting us safely to and from our destination. This time, when I reserved the car, I made it clear that I not only wanted a car with an automatic transmission but a small car as well. Beth talked me out of a Nissan Micra, which was wonderfully tiny but, as a result, lacked any back seat legroom, so we settled on a slightly larger small car. But, like last time when I thought I’d be driving a Ford Focus and ended up with a Mercedes, the car we rented was not the one I thought I’d be driving. Rather than a smallish vehicle, we were given a Toyota Prius, and I had visions of tire-rubbing and cursing and gasping from the seat next to me. But after a quick tutorial on how to make the car go, I got behind the wheel and headed out on the highway, looking for adventure.

Now that I have successfully completed the 450 miles we spent on the road and have returned the car intact and won’t curse my luck, I can say with confidence that I drove marvelously well. Only once did I scrape a curb—and that was early on—and only a few times did Beth feel compelled to let me know that I was a bit too close on her side to a car or a hedgerow or a pedestrian or livestock. I handled everything from an M road (major motorway) to the narrow B roads. And, I fell in love with the car. Not only was the mileage incredible (52 mpg), but the car also had great pickup and was as smooth a ride as in any car I’ve ridden in, including the Mercedes we rented last time out.

In order to beat traffic, which we were told would be heavy around London, even though it was a weekend, we left early and reached out first stop—Avebury—around 11 a.m..

Avebury is, like Stonehenge, a prehistoric site marked by rings of stones standing on end. At Avebury, though, it is possible to walk up and around the stones, which may account for the fact that a good number of them have, over the years, been removed or knocked over. Still, anyone wandering the 28 acres, through deep defensive ditches and around grazing sheep, comes away with a sense of wonder at how and why all of this was done. The stones themselves—100 in all and weighing up to 50 tons each—are a kind of sandstone native to the county and are more than 20 feet in length, but only about half of that is above ground. That means that the Neolithic engineers who put them in place had to dig deep holes and wrangle each stone into place, all the while keeping in mind the shape of the arrangement as a whole. Like Stonehenge, the purpose of the site is unknown, but its age and popular folklore suggests to some that it has something to do with pagan rituals, which explains why, in a local pub, there is a sign inviting anyone interested in paganism to attend a meeting at the “Avebury pagan moot” on the third Sunday of each month. Sadly, we were there on the second Saturday.

Once we were back in the car, we needed to make a choice. Either we could go into Bath for an abbreviated visit of that historic Roman city, or we could go to Lacock, which was just a few miles away, for a more leisurely stop. We opted for the second and were off. On the way there, we saw, scraped into a chalky hillside, a large white horse believed to have been created about the time that the Avebury site was being constructed.

Lacock is, simply put, a lovely little English village. The whole village, in fact, is a National Trust site and has remained largely unchanged since the 18th century. Lacock is so pristine that a number of films—Pride and Prejudice, Moll Flanders, Emma, and the next Harry Potter—have been filmed at least in part there. Wandering the cobblestone streets and admiring the architecture was a good way to spend the afternoon. As the sun started to get lower, we drove the last couple of hours to our hotel on the edge of the New Forest. We went through Salisbury on the way and could see the cathedral—its spire is the tallest in England—where one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta is kept. We had talked about going there the next morning, but after seeing signs indicating that anyone wanting to get to the cathedral would have to leave his car at a remote parking site and take a bus into the city centre, we decided to take a pass. We got to our hotel shortly after sunset and ended the day with a great meal at an Indian restaurant next door.

Sunday started clear and chilly, and as we drove into the New Forest for an early morning hike, it looked like the weather was not going to be a concern. But after we had walked for an hour or so among the wild ponies that live there and looked from hillsides over the 92,000 acres of woodland that William the Conqueror had set aside as a private hunting ground, the sky had begun to darken. It continued to get more blustery and threatening as we made our way to the last planned stop of the weekend: Stonehenge.

Ever since we had talked about spending this time in England, Stonehenge was a place I had hoped we would visit. It is a place of mystery and magic, an inexplicable prehistoric formation that continues to draw visitors and to puzzle historians, and I wanted to see it. My anticipation on the final few miles to the site was matched by that of everyone else in the car, and as we topped a hill and could see it below us on a broad grassy plain, there was a collective gasp.

Some people have said that visitors to Stonehenge are disappointed, that it is smaller than they thought or not as grand in some other way, but none of us felt anything but excitement as we walked up to the rope fence that marked the walkway around the circle of stones. We were given audio guides to accompany the tour, but it was so windy by that time that I could only hear about half of the commentary, and I finally gave up and just looked and took photo after photo. (None of those photos accompany this dispatch, however. If you’d like to see what it looks like, go to Start on your computer, click on Control Panel and then click on Appearances and Themes; click on Change Desktop Appearance and then scroll down the menu beneath this little display to Stonehenge; click on it and then on the button marked OK, minimize this screen and, voila, you can see what we saw.) What I learned from the audio guide before I stopped listening was that the engineering it took to make this ring of tall stones was even more impressive than that of Avebury because not only did the creators plant the rocks, they also carved them so that they fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and had dragged some of the blue stone from as the mystical Pressli Mountains in Wales, 240 miles away. By the time we had gone all the way around, the crowd was getting larger, and a stinging mist was blowing in our faces. We stopped briefly in the gift shop and then had to run through a downpour to the car.

As we headed back toward London in the rain, Terri and Gary began to doze off. Fortunately, Beth stayed awake and continued to read the map and navigate. At some point in the journey, it dawned on me that we were going to be within a few miles of Windsor Castle. Earlier that day, Gary had said that the only thing they would not be seeing on the trip was Windsor, so I suggested to Beth that we take a detour and let them get the full English experience before heading back to the States on Monday. Terri and Gary were up for the idea, too, so we left the M3, passed by Ascot racetrack—which is enormous—and on into Windsor. When we drove into town, I drew attention to the flag flying over the Round Tower (see last week’s Dispatch); it was the Union Jack, which meant the Queen was not there.

Beth is going to take our kids to Windsor next week, and I’ve already been there, so after a Sunday roast at the Carpenter’s Arms (Sunday roasts are a tradition and very filling), Terri and Gary headed into the castle, while Beth and I wandered around the High Street. When we met up again, I happened to look at the flag flying above the tower. It was the Royal Standard! The Queen! She hadn’t been there when we arrived in town, but now—just like the last time I was in Windsor—she was!

This was the third time in a little more than a week that the Queen just “happened” to be in the same place I was. Once may be coincidence; twice, perhaps. But three times? As much as I hate to believe it’s true, the evidence seems to point to only one thing: I am being followed by a royal stalker!

Stay tuned…

Weekly Dispatch #8In Which I Visit The Queen’s Home Whilst Beth Travels Underground To Collect Friends & Then We All Travel To Newmarket To Watch The Horses Run & Meet Great People
Prior to our field trip last Friday, the Modern Britain course instructor gave the American students a writing assignment: What does Windsor Castle say about the monarchy? Although I was not required to write on the topic, it was certainly in my thoughts as we boarded the coach that morning and prepared to visit Queen Elizabeth’s “weekend home.” We had already sampled some of the excesses of royalty at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and at Leeds Castle, so I had some idea of the grandeur I could expect, but the question seemed to suggest we should be trying to come away with something more than a guided tour through high-ceilinged rooms furnished in gilt and purple.

Beth did not make this trip; she was off on an adventure of own—to be related shortly—so when I climbed on the bus, I did not have a seatmate. The students had all settled in and were either with a buddy or had their backpacks next to them, and I have to admit I felt a little like I did in junior high when my family moved to a new town and I got on the morning bus the first day not knowing anyone and had to find a place to sit. Luckily, on this trip, the driver apparently sensed my confusion—or maybe I looked a little lost—because he offered me the seat upfront—the co-pilot’s seat, if you will—which provided great views and allowed me to see the correct way to maneuver through traffic (something I will need to do this coming weekend when, it has been decided, I will again be behind the wheel).

During the two-plus hour journey, I learned quite a bit about the British highway system from the driver, along with his own history as a coach driver in Europe and his dream of being Great Britain’s Minister of Traffic one day. I don’t know what qualifications one needs for that position, but he certainly had given a lot of thought to what could be changed to make travel easier and safer, and he told it to me in such great detail that I’m convinced he’s the man for the job. Interestingly, he was also an assistant dockyard manager in the port city of Ramsgate where, instead of bad drivers, he had to contend with poor sailors, and expressed an equal frustration with both.

As we approached Windsor Castle, the first thing that surprised me—and the students, too—is that the castle is not situated in the midst of a large estate but, instead, sits just off the High Street in the town of Windsor. We learned that the castle had first been a wooden fortress built by William the Conqueror on a high point above the Thames River to guard the western route into London, which not only explained its geographic position but also why the city had grown up around it; it afforded protection for the townspeople who could, in case of an attack, quickly get inside the castle gates and out of harm’s way. Now, the city benefits in other ways from the castle’s presence, evidenced by the dozens of souvenir shops, taverns and restaurants visitors pass through on their way to and from the gates.

Our tour took us through those gates and on into the castle. Compared to Leeds, which is surrounded by expansive grounds, Windsor is very modest. In fact, the only green to be found on the public side of the castle is in the old moat. Now that it no longer is needed for protection, the moat has been drained and turned into a very attractive garden that visitors can look at from above but not walk through. Rising above the moat is the oldest part of the castle, The Round Tower, built to replace the wooden tower in the 11th century and, from which, when we arrived, the Union Jack was flying. The path into the State Apartments, the public portion of the castle, follows the castle wall and provides a panoramic view of the countryside—especially attractive at this time of the year because the trees are now turning. Before entering the Apartments, visitors pass through a room that houses Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, an amazingly accurate and precise model of a palace, complete with working electric lights, functional plumbing, miniature paintings and books, a wine cellar containing genuine vintage wine, and a tiny reproduction of the Crown Jewels. As I looked at it, I was reminded of the dollhouse in the Science and Industry Museum in Chicago, but this one is more delicate and refined.

From that room, I passed through one chamber after another and was, admittedly, more overwhelmed by the amount of stuff. There were, of course, the perfectly crafted pieces of furniture—including a solid silver table and matching mirror—and remarkable paintings in every room. But there were also glass cases filled with crowns and scepters and robes and jewels—spoils gathered when the British Empire stretched around the globe—and magnificent displays of weapons. In one room, for example, wheels of flintlock pistols and herringbone arrangements of muskets climbed one wall of the room while a hundred crossed sabers hung on the opposite wall; massive suits of armor guarded doorways or sat astride full-sized, equally well-armored, wooden horses. In the hallways were floor-to-ceiling cabinets filled with the finest china in the world—only a few of the more than 100 sets belonging to the Queen—and hanging overhead in every room was a crystal chandelier. In another portion of the apartments is the Royal Collection, an assemblage of art that rivals the best galleries anywhere, including hundreds of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci.

After an hour or so of admiring all of these things, I needed to get outside, so I went back to the moat and watched rock pigeons flapping around. As my eyes lifted with one of the birds, I saw that the flag flying over the Round Tower had changed. Instead of the Union Jack, flying from the pole now was the Royal Standard which meant that at some time between my entering and exiting the Apartments, Queen Elizabeth II had arrived at Windsor Castle!

My first instinct was to tell everyone who walked past that “The Queen is here!” and point up at the flag. My enthusiasm, while understandable, was not well-received, so I stopped the pointing and announcing. Instead, I found a couple of students and suggested we try to go find her. I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to slip past the armed guards marching around the place and toss a few pebbles at a window in her part of the castle. Again, my enthusiasm went unappreciated, and I settled for taking a photo of the flag, instead.

I’m not sure what the students will have to say about Windsor Castle and the monarchy, but what I came away with, I think, is a little clearer understanding of how the royal family and England work together. It is very easy to condemn the notion of a monarchy and the kind of tax-supported lifestyle put on display at Windsor and elsewhere, especially in a country where pensioners have a hard time making ends meet and young people are looking to emigrate because there are limited opportunities for careers. It’s equally easy to find fault in the almost obsessive observance of tradition and of glorifying Britain’s golden days when theirs was the greatest empire in the world. And, indeed, there are discussions here about the need to be seen as a nation focusing on the future instead of the past, along with discussions about abolishing the monarchy itself.

On the other hand, England has the most recognizable monarch in the world in Queen Elizabeth II, and it has built an industry around her and her family. If the monarchy were no more, the number of tourists visiting would be certain to drop dramatically, and there would be less allure about coming to this island rather than going to Paris or Prague or anywhere else in Europe. The sense of tradition, too, while it can be seen as stodgy and outdated, has kept the nation’s courage intact, most recently during two world wars, and anchored the country in countless other conflicts. England’s is the longest continuous monarchy in the world, which says something about the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, and for all of its flaws, the system will probably continue for many years to come.

This same day, as I was waxing rhapsodic about the Queen, Beth was on her way to pick up two of our friends, Terri and Gary Sible, from Heathrow Airport. To get there on time, she had to leave Canterbury at 6:45 a.m., take the train into London, then take the Underground to a distant station where she would pick up another line that would take her out to airport. Of course, her journey did not go as smoothly as she had hoped, despite her having meticulously planned it all. There was again that moment of realization that things had gone awry—this time, Beth believed the sign which said that the line to Heathrow left from a particular station when she knew (and was right) that it departed from a different one. She ended up somewhere just shy of the Welsh border—at least she said it felt that she had gone that far—and had to take a taxi back to the airport.

As Beth was zipping along in the tube, Gary and Terri were getting a little concerned because she had not arrived at the appointed time. But they finally talked on the phone during Beth’s cab ride, and after meeting up at last, the three of them headed back to Canterbury. The trip back was happily uneventful, but an overheard conversation gave them (and me, when they told the story) a good laugh.

Seated nearby on the train was a young woman of 19 or 20 who was traveling with her grandmother. At one point, they were talking about Christmas presents, and the girl was asked if she had gotten anything for her father yet.

“Oh, yes, Gran,” she said. “I got him a razor and a box of shoes.”

As we have done with our previous visitors, we kept Terri and Gary awake until 9 p.m., which seems to be the magic hour for defeating jet lag. And like our other guests, they were wobbly-headed and cranky when we finally told them they could go to bed, but, when they woke the next morning at 6 a.m. so we could catch an early train, they were refreshed and did not have a jet lag hangover.

The early train we caught on Saturday was going to take us—via London and Cambridge—to Newmarket, home of English horse racing. We had decided to go there because we go to the track a few times in the summer at home with Terri and Gary, and we were all curious about racing here. As it turned out, Saturday was the final day of the racing season, which made us wonder if, perhaps, this was a lucky omen and that we would all come home big winners.

Newmarket’s train station is not really a station at all. It’s just a couple of rail lines and a shelter—like those you find at bus stops—and a map of the city. We checked the map and saw that we had quite a hike ahead of us to the track, but, deciding we had no option, we walked down the platform and around a hedge toward the street. Again, lady luck was on our side; waiting for us behind the hedge was a motor coach offering free rides to the track.

Newmarket is the home of English horse racing and, in fact, the first recorded horse race took place there in 1622. Charles II, the only British king to have ridden a winner, was so enthusiastic about racing that he brought his whole court to Newmarket every summer. The whole city, in fact, is dedicated to the horse. Along the High Street are shops that sell feed and tack and equestrian clothing and offices for international equine businesses. Horse transport vans are parked on side streets and, every morning of the week except Sunday, the heaths (large open grassy expanses) surrounding the city—and known as “the gallops”—may be filled with the sound of the pounding hooves of as many as 2,500 horses in training. Here, the horses have their own traffic lights and their own sidewalks, and people are, we were told, second-class citizens.

Unlike Arlington Park, which is surrounded by a suburban landscape, the Newmarket courses—there are actually two tracks—are situated on hundreds of acres of green, away from any buildings. The July Course, which is only open during the summer months, is the larger and more elegant of the courses. The Rowley Mile, where we were, was still an impressive place, with a large grandstand and paddock area. Though it looked a little different from the track we are used to, there was still something familiar about it. Once we got inside the grandstand enclosure, however, that all changed.

The first thing we noticed was “bookies row,” a cluster of thirty or so stands with electric tote boards giving odds for the upcoming race. The track itself has betting windows, so we asked a security guard why anyone would go to a bookie rather than to a window. He told us that the odds were usually better at the bookie stands—that is, you stood to win more if you picked the right horse—but that you were more likely to lose there, too. We decided we wanted to wager a little bit, so we went inside the clubhouse to the more familiar windows and, after a quick lesson in British betting, picked our horses.

Back outside, the second most distinguishing feature of British racing became apparent. While American racing takes place most often on clay or dirt oval tracks, most British races are held on a turf (grass) straightaway, one that is not planed flat like those at home, but one that may rise and fall with the land. The Rowley Mile track, for example, had a couple of swells along its length. Every race track in Great Britain, we were told, is different, and the tracks that do feature turns may have the horses run either clockwise or—as they say here—anti-clockwise. All races in the States are anti-clockwise. So we found a place as close to the rail as we could and looked off down the track where, a mile away, the horses were being loaded into the gates. There is no trumpet fanfare at the beginning of a British race and no ringing of a bell. At least not that can be heard from the grandstand. Rather, you keep an eye on the giant television screen and wait for the announcer to say, “And they’re off.”

We watched the horses on the screen for most of the race because it’s difficult to make out what’s happening in the pack from that far away, but as they got closer, we turned our attention to the track just in time to catch the horses and jockeys flying past in an indistinguishable blur, and the race was over. We weren’t sure who had won, so we had to wait for the results to appear on an electronic board before we found that none of us—despite the feeling that it was our lucky day—were a winner. We were just about to turn away from the track when I heard a horse galloping and looked toward the track. The others looked, too, and we all watched as the horse Beth had picked to win—Touch of Pep—ran toward the finish line nearly a full minute after the race had ended. That was the last bet she placed all afternoon.

Luck might not have been with us at the track that day, but a couple of other things that happened made us all feel very fortunate to have come to Newmarket. Our original plan was to come for the races only and then to take the train back that evening. But after figuring out that doing so would mean about eight hours on the train, we opted to stay overnight. Beth is very good at bargain-hunting, and she was able to get us us a half-price stay at the Bedford Lodge, a four-star place on beautiful grounds, set back off the road far enough that there was no traffic noise. After a taxi dropped us off in front of the place, and as we walked up to the desk with our backpacks and Terri and Gary’s tiny rolling suitcase, we thought they might not deem us worthy to stay there, but we apparently passed the test and were given keys to two very, very nice rooms. The Sibles had two white terry cloth robes hanging on the door of their bathroom, but we only had one; somehow the hotel had forgotten to provide one for Beth. After leaving our “luggage,” such as it was, we walked back into the city centre—at first along the horse sidewalk but then, after dodging the numerous and large droppings there, on the people sidewalk.

Since breakfast that morning, we had only eaten only a half a croissant apiece, so we looked around for a pub where we might get some lunch. We stopped at a place called the Bushel on a winding side street and were told that their kitchen, like all pub kitchens, closed at 3 p.m.—it was a little after 4 p.m.—but would open again at 6 p.m. Because the young woman had been so apologetic and cordial, we decided to go back for dinner and wandered the streets for awhile longer, trying to talk ourselves out of being hungry. We finally gave up, went back around 5:30, ordered an ale and waited.

Again, luck was with us, this time in the form of Martin Jarred, owner of The Bushel and one of the nicest people we have met here or anywhere else. When he was told by the young woman we had spoken to earlier that we were there and were hungry, he came down from the apartment he and his wife share above the pub, introduced himself to us and said, “I understand you’d like a meal.” As meals go, the one we had that not was not spectacular, but for the two hours we were Martin’s guests, he entertained us with stories about himself—he and his wife had run nightclubs in London until their children were grown, then they moved to Newmarket and bought the pub—and about the pub itself. He told us that there was a tunnel that ran from the pub to the Rutland Arms hotel on High Street for romantic liaisons between courtiers in Charles II’s court and that toward the front of the pub, in a spot occupied now by a large round table, there had been a pit used for cockfighting. He gave us a photocopied article about the pub, autographed a postcard of the place, gave us a pitcher of Pims and had his picture taken with Gary and me. We were having such good time that it was hard to leave, and when we finally did, Martin was in the kitchen, but he came running outside as we walked away to say thanks and goodbye.

Sunday morning, after a belt-busting full English breakfast (eggs, sausage, black pudding, bacon, stewed tomatoes, mushrooms, toast), we checked out of our hotel. I discovered as we were leaving that I wasn’t supposed to take the robe from the room and would have to give it back. Fortunately, I was fully dressed under the robe, so I was saved that embarrassment. Back in the city centre, we visited the National Horseracing Museum, where one of the docents took us under his wing and gave us an almost-guided tour of the exhibits. The hour-plus that we were in the museum was time well-spent and we might have stayed longer, but we weren’t sure when the train to London came through, so we headed back to the station. Along the way, we passed Tattersalls, an auction house where, over the weekend just ending, more than 1600 horses had been up for sale.

At the train station, we discovered the next train to London wouldn’t be arriving for an hour, so we hung around the platform and talked to a couple of other Americans who, like us, had come to Newmarket the day before for the races. Chris is an English professor at NYU spending a year with American students in London, and Clyde is a jockey/trainer from Philadelphia. They own a horse farm outside of Philadelphia and are waiting for their first foals to be born in the spring. When the train finally arrived, we hurried to get on and didn’t really get a chance to say goodbye to them, which we regretted because we had had such a nice time passing the time with them.

I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail about the difficulties we had getting back to Canterbury because travel woes are becoming a bit redundant, I think. Let me simply say that seven of the Underground lines in London were closed for “scheduled engineering work,” and that getting from King’s Cross to the station where we finally caught the train home was akin to a scavenger hunt, in which each stop revealed a tiny piece of information, but only that. As a result, we spent an hour or more underneath the great city, going this way and that, first on this line and then that line until, at last, just when we were sure the wheels were going to fall off the suitcase Gary was dragging around and that we were going to have to go up to the street to find a taxi, we got the last snippet of information we needed, found the right station and the right train and headed home.

Despite the nightmare beneath London, the weekend had been great. We all were in agreement that the races and the sights around Newmarket had been enjoyable, but it was meeting Martin on Saturday night and Chris and Clyde on Sunday morning that had been the highlights of the trip. We may not have won anything, but we had been very lucky, indeed.

Cheers!