Jottings From Journeys

LONDON

I’ve been to London three times: first, during my youth days; second in 1986; third on our way over to mainland Europe to sightsee and to attend my husband’s nephew’s wedding. The wedding was great, though the marriage didn’t last. What lasted were the memories of a grey, cold, rainy London during late October and on our way back from the Europe tour at the end of November.

The first trip is foggy in my memory for it was just a hop on the way to someplace else and I only stayed in a small hotel near the airport. The second one was in 1986 to visit a cousin of mine who married an Englishman and settled to keep house in Kent for a short while.

Most of what we could see of London at that time was probably the highways around the Heathrow Airport. Then, my cousin and her husband drove us around their area to show us the farmlands, chalk hills, fishing villages, and marshes of Southern UK, but not London. In those days, only ferryboats went to France and the laid-back Britons were only more laid-back.

In retrospect, I find that trip to be one of the most interesting and enjoyable, for we were with family and the sights were stunningly beautiful.

At this writing though, I’d like to focus my attention on London, because it is more recent and lucid in my memory. More than the sights, I remember the experiences and feelings, tastes and smells, and for reminiscing any trip, these things are the most valuable.

The last time we were in London was in 1998, mid October, and then late November because that London trip was made up of two trips. On our way over to Europe we stayed in London for four days, and on our way back we stayed for another three days. We knew it was off season, but the timing of the wedding and other circumstances warranted it, and we thought of ourselves as being flexible and any journey as being a matter of attitude.
We usually travel very light, but this time it was different because we were going to be attending a formal wedding, which made it necessary to pack an extra bag for my evening gown, shawl, light shoes, evening bag, and formal man’s wear with all the details for my husband. Also before the wedding, we would be gallivanting around Europe probably with no opportunity to launder anything. Plus, it was winter, which meant extra sweaters, clothes, shoes etc. etc. So we made sure that the hotels we reserved rooms in had elevators for the several pieces of luggage we had to carry. Then to be on the safe side, we printed out maps for our destinations, so we wouldn’t get lost in any taxicab going from airports to hotels.

It was yours truly who insisted that the lodging in London be not so expensive. I should have known better. I reasoned that, England being more or less like the United States, London’s cheaper hotels would be comfortable or at least tolerable, since I considered us somewhat travel-conditioned; therefore, after finding a hotel on the internet with an elevator, we called the hotel and made our reservations for both of our stays. We checked again on the phone if they had an elevator. They said, yes, they did have a lift and the hotel was just across from Paddington station and we’d have no trouble finding it.

Everything went well while we were in the air and at Heathrow. Our flight with British Airways was fantastic, as it has always been with any British airlines. Since we had our clumsy pieces of luggage, we opted for a taxi from the airport. I don’t know how it happened, but instead of the larger black London taxicabs, we were led into a small yellow taxi. The taxi driver was from Pakistan and had arrived at the United Kingdom only a week ago. He said his father had been in London for several years and was working for the same taxi company and he was hired through his father’s sponsoring. He said he knew the routes because his father taught them to him. Thus, we started on our way into London.
There wasn’t much problem with the taxi driver’s knowledge of the route until just before we arrived at Paddington. He seemed confused somewhere with the one-way roads, so we gave him the map we had printed out from the internet.

In Paddington, the streets, most of them one-way, formed a grid and the hotels on them were stacked against each other like a row of sardines. They looked kind of cute to me for most were of red brick or painted white with red brick chimneys, elongated windows and before-the-war style entrances. I thought with so many hotels in this place, nobody could be left out at any time.

Here again, the driver got confused. Some of his confusion was with the name of the hotel we had made reservations in, because there was another hotel with exactly the same name with a different ending; one of the hotels ended in “Plaza,” the other in “Towers.” Thanks to me, ours was the cheaper one.

Our driver took us to the expensive one first. Then he couldn’t find his way back to where the cheaper one was because of the one-way streets. So I gave him our second sheet of paper, which had the more close-up map of the streets around the hotel. Then we had to direct him through the streets and signs whether they were one-way or not, since he couldn’t keep his mind on driving and read the signs as well. In retrospect, maybe he didn’t understand the street signs as well.

When we finally stopped at the door of our real hotel, he said he wouldn’t charge us for the last part of the trip, because the confusion was his fault. We felt sorry for him and paid him in full anyway. When my husband asked for the maps back, the driver asked to keep them. He could use them and he’d like to study them, he said. So we let him keep the maps.

There were several steps leading to the swinging, thick glass entrance doors. There was no doorman or anybody by the door to help us up. The taxi was long gone. I stood by the luggage while my husband went in to get help. He came out empty-handed, saying there were only two little fragile looking girls at the desk and he would in no way ask them for help.

At this time, the unspoken “help each other” code of all American tourists came to our rescue. Two young men with backpacks helped us up into the hotel. One of them held the swinging glass door open, since it wouldn’t stay open on its own, while the other hauled the one heavy piece inside and we managed to carry the smaller lighter bags. We learned later that these nice people were Texans.

Inside, to the right, two young women barely through their teenage years, both with dark straight hair and black dresses, sat chatting at a desk that seemed smaller than the one I have at home. Both girls strangely resembled each other almost like twins. I surmised they might be sisters. Behind them a half glass door was left ajar, showing shelves and files. Neither girl stopped talking to the other while we stood in front of them for a few minutes and waited.

“Excuse me, Miss. We have a reservation,” my husband said finally.

“Please, sit down over there.”

One of them pointed to the only corduroy covered sofa and armchair. “I’ll look for your reservation,” she said, taking our paper with the reservation number. Then, while one girl stood up and reached in from the door that was left ajar behind them, the other sat at the desk opening a large file folder, still talking.

“It must be a British dialect. I don’t understand anything they are talking about,” my husband whispered.

“They are talking in Spanish about us,” I whispered. “They just made fun of the way we lugged ourselves in, wearing rumpled raincoats.”

He didn’t argue for he knew that I understood enough Spanish to not misinterpret. “I wonder what these Spanish girls are doing here,” he murmured instead.

“European Union. Remember, the continent is all one country now.”

Since the plane had landed after the break of dawn, 6:30 AM in London time, despite our taxi driver and his circling around the place, we were inside the hotel too early, which was about 12 noon.

It took the girls quite a while to find the reservation, but when they did, they wanted to be prepaid because their papers said so. We told them we had already paid for the entire stay with our credit card before. No, they had us pay them again. Luckily, we put the bill on the same credit card. When we returned home much later, we found that we were billed twice for the same stay and it took several overseas calls and the intervention of our credit card company to straighten the matter out.

The girls told us our room would be ready at 3:30 PM and meanwhile we might leave our luggage in the luggage room right by the lift and we might go lunch or something.

We dragged the luggage toward the pointed direction. What they called the luggage room was a not-too-large walk-in closet. Truth is, you couldn’t hold its door open because if you did, the people coming out of the lift (elevator) couldn’t get out since the corridor in between was probably no more than three or four feet wide. The luggage-room, rather closet, was of bare unpainted, unfinished wood with large splintered shelves inside. I thought I saw a tiny shadow streak by the opposite wall and almost shrieked. Was that a mouse?

We had no choice but bring in the luggage, consoling ourselves that at least, except for our softer carry-ons on wheels, we had solid Samsonites no vermin could break through. One of the terrific Texans, without being asked, rushed to our aid again and lifted the softer bags on one of the wooden shelves.

At the other end of the hallway where the lift and the luggage room was, we saw another half-glass door. When I looked through it, I saw a stately hall with dark cherry-red wall-to-wall carpeting. On that huge hall, long winding stairs appeared to be imperial with wide, also dark cherry-red carpeted steps, boasting of polished cherry wood banisters. Maybe there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Jet-lagged, hungry, tired, and not yet with a room, we walked out of the hotel to the corner where the restaurant, highly recommended by the young women at the hotel desk, was situated.

After lunch, we went back to the hotel to see if the room was ready. It was by now 2:30 in the afternoon. No, the room wasn’t ready and it wouldn’t be until after 3:30. It was suggested that we take a tour or go for a walk.

We opted to walk around since what I ate was making me queasy. Across from the hotel, at the corner where two streets met, was an entrance to the famed Paddington Station. Opposite the hotel, there was a small grocery with fresh fruit, like the small delis in New York City. As we ambled around, we saw several stores resembling that first one. Most of them were operated by Orientals and people from other ethnic groups. There were also pubs and small shops for different needs. We saw a large steak pub where we thought we might eat sometimes and never did, because inside, it looked foggy from cigarette smoke. Wouldn’t that be perfect for the asthma I have, which always waits to receive the slightest encouragement to squish me?
While we strolled under the on and off drizzle, one thing immediately grabbed my attention. People in London walked very politely and this wasn’t only on that day but during our entire stay. Londoners are very civilized when they are on the street. The only place in my memory that came closest to this London behavior was in the town of Marion, Virginia, where, during our two-month stay, the people always made way for us, and while driving in traffic, they would stop to let us pass even if it was their turn. I had truly loved Marion; therefore, I had to bet then that I would love London.

It was four o’clock when we got back to the hotel. By this time all I wanted was to get in bed and sleep. At the desk were still those two girls who spoke Spanish. When they saw us, one of them arose and said that the room was ready. She gave us the room number and accompanied us to the luggage room to unlock its door. After we got the luggage out, I turned around at the door and pressed on the elevator’s up button.

“No, no, no,” she said, “You have to take the stairs. The lift doesn’t connect to that side of the building.”

Then she explained. “This hotel is two separate buildings that don’t really connect.”

“What?” I asked, “We asked on the phone if the hotel had an elevator?”

“Yes, it does,” she said. “Here it is, but it doesn’t connect to the other side. You’re on fourth floor on the opposite building. If you insist, you can take this elevator to the seventh floor on this building. Between the two buildings there is a metal bridge but it isn’t very sturdy. Only one person at a time can walk over to the other side. Your bags are heavy and there are two of you.”

She stopped and stared at us, assessing the situation. Then she continued. “If you want to, go ahead. Don’t forget that the top of the bridge is open. It is also windy and rainy outside.” She smiled politely.

Out of curiosity, I asked.

“Suppose we crossed that thing. Didn’t you say it connects to the seventh floor? How do we get to the fourth floor then?”

“You have to take the stairs down to the fourth floor.”

Was she joking? I looked at her dumbfounded.

“I said that because you asked.” She was apologetic.

“All right, forget the elevator. We’ll take the stairs,” my husband said.

We carried the luggage one by one into the dark cherry-red carpeted stately hall to the bottom of the imperial stairs with the regal banisters.

“They are not bad, those stairs,” the girl commented. “Everybody uses them.”
Sure enough, two men with small beards --one older, the other younger and both with well-developed muscles-- walked down the stairs carrying their lightweight carry-on bags with wheels. Obviously people who stayed here used the tube (London metro) to and from the airports; therefore, they used one or two small bags.

My husband asked, “Is there a bellboy or somebody to help us carry the luggage up?”

“If you want to wait, the night watchman comes in at 11 PM,” the young girl said hesitantly. “But I can help you.”

“No thank you,” my husband said. “We’ll manage.”

My husband went for the big piece of the luggage, but the girl took it from his hand and started walking up without listening to our pleas. For a second there, visions of her tumbling down those stairs with the big bag on top of her crossed in front of my eyes, but she was already halfway up the stairs.

I have difficulty going up any stairs, thanks to asthma or whatever; now, besides myself, I also had to lug a bag, my purse, a raincoat, and an umbrella. The stairway stopped at each landing, and at each landing, to find the next stairway up, we had to go through some heavy doors that threatened to close on us and narrow winding hallways that twisted, turned, and gave us another up or down step.

This hotel was a labyrinth of narrow spaces and doors, the kind Sherlock would get lost in. At least, my curiosity was aroused and when curiosity is aroused, discomfort fades.

Our room was at the end of a corridor. It had a platform with extra three steps to get to its door. Inside the room was a small partition at the entrance which hosted a tiny shower with a door, and a small commode without a door. That is, except for the partition wall, the commode was open to view.

I laughed out loud when I saw this, because it reminded me of a hotel room in South America we once occupied where the commode was smack in the middle of the bedroom and open all around. That room had always come up as a joke in our conversations.

When she heard me laugh, the girl said, “We have rooms with totally separate bathrooms, but they are all occupied now. I promise to reserve one for you for your return trip.”

She was really so sweet, trying to please the customer, yet also doing a job in a place with limited options.

I looked around the small, sparse room with tiny cot-size twin beds with one nightstand in between them. There was lamp and a telephone over it. A small wooden desk with a bare top and a wooden chair were the only other pieces of furniture. The two tall, narrow, rectangular windows had the view of the street up front, which we had walked on while waiting for this room.
One of the beds was adjacent to the wall where the windows were, with little space in between anything. Once we put the luggage down there remained no surface to walk on. I took the bed near the window, hoping I wouldn’t wake up at night to use the commode, for there was no way to get to the other side without stepping on a piece of luggage.

“Were you speaking Spanish when we came in?” my husband asked the young girl who had carried the big bag.

Her face turned ruby red. “Yes,” she answered meekly. “My cousin and I are from Spain. The other girl is my cousin. Do you talk Spanish?”

“No,” my husband said. “I don’t. We just guessed it from the accent.”

I said nothing about knowing Spanish or having understood their gossiping about us and she seemed relieved. After all, with all the carelessness youth bestows, she was kind-hearted. When I looked more carefully at her face, I saw how pretty she was with white creamy skin like that of a china doll large pretty dark eyes and straight black hair to her shoulders. She was petite, probably five feet plus a couple of inches only, and she moved with grace, although she acted with abandon.

When she turned around to leave, my husband wanted to tip her, but she refused the tip. She said she did it as a favor, since the hotel didn’t have the night manager in yet or the boy who worked as the handyman.

“Great, so you do have a guy downstairs,” I said.

“Yes, except today he’s off-duty. He’s fixing a faulty door knob at the owner’s house,” she said, as she opened the door to go out of the room. “The breakfast is served in the dining room at the second floor. Just follow the golden arrows on the corridors. They’ll get you there,” she added as she left.

By this time, it was dark outside, for in fall it gets darker earlier the further up one goes to the north. “Let’s get some fruits or something for supper and eat here,” I said, since for all the travel I have done in my life, I could never get used to the time change. At that moment, I only wanted to hit the bed and sleep.

“I want to eat something decent. I am hungry,” my husband complained.

We dragged ourselves to the corner restaurant where I ordered fish and chips since I was dying for tasting fish and chips English style again. The last one I had eaten was in a small fishing village when we visited my cousin a long time ago and I never forgot that taste. This one seemed quite delicious too, with pieces fried crisp on the outside; yet, when I bit into my first piece, oil oozed on to my chin. So, after cutting the food into the smallest pieces, I squeezed the oil out on the plate. Still, the flavor of the dish was fine. It may have been just that cholesterol tastes good.

Later that night, inside the dark of the room, I looked out the window from my bed. The lights from the still open stores reflected on the sidewalk and I could see well into the small deli across. Two men with white aprons were carrying the boxes of fruit at the entrance of the store to the inside. The street looked a luminous slick grey under the probable drizzle and the tops of a few opened umbrellas sailed over the sidewalks. Even those people without protection from the wetness walked with no hesitation as if they were supposed to get wet.

During all the time we were in London, in harsher weather or under a downpour, I never witnessed anyone snap their umbrellas open and close with harsh motions. Truth is, I noticed no crude motions coming from Londoners. Probably, the breast plate of the empire still protected its subjects from discourtesy.

In the morning, breakfast was a pleasant surprise. As instructed by our little Spanish lady, we followed the arrows to the dining room. Here, rectangular tables were covered with starched white tablecloths. Around the tables wooden high-backed chairs stood in a row like soldiers. Not one chair was misaligned. We saw several tourists get up and leave. As soon as they were out the door, a waiter rushed to straighten and align the chairs, even before clearing out the table. Then he turned around and looked at us questioningly. We were standing there waiting to be seated. Understanding the situation, he looked directly at my husband and talked.

“Take any seat you wish, Sir.”

We sat ourselves at the nearest table by the window. Since breakfast was uniform for everyone, there was no ordering. The waiter poured water on our glasses and asked if we cared for orange juice. “Coffee or tea?” was the next question. I went for tea, husband opted for coffee. Then, when cereal and milk was served, we were asked how we liked our eggs cooked. With eggs came two pieces of toast with butter and marmalade, tiny sausages, a slice of tomato, and surprise of all surprises, baked beans. This was enough food to last until the late afternoon and probably all the way to supper and the price was included in the room’s charge.

After breakfast, we wanted to take a bus tour. Since it was early morning, people had crowded around the desk but there was a young man who stood by the door and opened it for the tourists to pass inside or out. Assuming he was the handyman mentioned by the young girl before, we asked him where we could take any sightseeing tours. He brought a few tour pamphlets and showed us the way to a bus stop outside the post office. In a short time, we found ourselves inside a red bus with an open-top second deck. Since the weather was insanely cold and wet, we stayed downstairs in the covered part.

I can’t recall the name of the tour, but we could get off the bus at any one stop to eat, shop, walk around, or do whatever we wanted and hop on the next one, since these buses came one after the other and the same ticket covered everything.
Here are some of the places I wrote down from the recorded tour guide, not necessarily in any order: Fortnum & Mason store, Buckingham Palace, Royal Academy, Downing Street, Piccadilly Circus and Eros Statue, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, The National Gallery, Nelson's Column at Trafalgar Square, The Tower of London, Big Ben & The Houses of Parliament.

Most of the buildings in London were bombed during World War II but were later rebuilt exactly as the originals. Was this another example of the cool and gentlemanly British ways? Or was it, "we don’t want to remember the awful stuff"? Or, "if it’s just as before, it didn’t happen"? Or was it out of politeness to the Germans that they wanted to cover the mess the enemy made?

When something burns or is destroyed, the reaction I notice most of the time is “We’ll do it better, stronger, fancier etc.” When my son’s school burned down when he was in fourth grade, people built a bigger, better, fancier school. Ever since we came back from UK, these questions keep popping up inside my head and I wonder about the British psyche, since emotions have a public function. What made them rebuild exactly as before?

Small talk aside, after the tour, at least we knew where anything was, more or less. From the bus stop we walked a block to the hotel. Since it was late fall, people were dressed in coats. The more one ventured into the city the darker the coat colors became, mostly in the shades of black.

When we returned to the hotel, we met a couple who said they were going to the theater. Being Broadway Bums, we checked what was being shown. Unfortunately, we had seen most everything at one time or another. Some of the plays on schedule, if I remember correctly were: Rent, Annie, Oklahoma, Sweet Charity etc. The only one I wanted to see was Whistle Down the Wind but that one was sold out. (Little did I know that if we had attempted to go the last minute, we might have found tickets at half price.) Having ruled theater out, since Paddington Station was so close, we decided to explore the British subway in the afternoon.

The stairs going down into the station from the corner of a building, which I later learned was built in mid nineteenth century, were steep but not too many. The interior of the subway, the British call it the tube or underground, was arched and well-lighted like a greenhouse. Between the two platforms we saw a war memorial with the figure of a soldier in battle gear. Also I remember a statuette of a seated figure with funny shoes and above the ticket office ornate leaf designs.

On one wall, they had a map or rather a chart of the lines, the most clear and understandable map of any underground system probably in all Europe. The zones and lines, all interchangeable, were drawn in separate colors. We could buy a day pass or tube pass and travel the tube as much as we wanted. Tube trains ran from 5 AM to midnight. One thing to remember was which direction we had to be going and if we were on the right platform. I think all the time we were in London, we goofed only once and went to Victoria Station instead of someplace else we were planning to go.
Once inside the train, the ride was easy, and my favorite pastime, watching the passengers without really staring, was the fun thing to do. Each person minded his own business and was untouched and nonchalant when something unusual happened. “Pardon me,” “Sorry,” were just about the only words of conversation heard even from those who traveled together.

I used to ride the Long Island Railroad a couple of decades ago and there even strangers ended up knowing each other’s story, especially if they traveled the same route same time everyday. What a difference!

I recall the names of the tube stations still, since each station was announced inside the trains. They are, without any logical order: Waterloo, King’s Cross, Marylebone (pronounced not like Mary-lee-bone but more like Marla-bun), Liverpool Street, Euston, Charing Cross, London Bridge, and of course Paddington Station.

Once, in Paddington Station, something so weird happened to me that I’m hesitant to write about. I don’t remember if this occurred during that first day or later, but I remember the beige and white with light-bluish tinge of the tiles (Were the tiles marble? I don’t know) coming at me while walking on the platform. I was puzzled.

In discomfort, I raised my head to overcome the dizzy feeling and saw the arched dome overhead and its sides where the alcoves and balconies were and noticed a clock with roman numerals. Adjacent to the clock, I saw something pulsating. It was a gruesome scene, as if on a movie screen, showing a train collision with blood spurting out of the windows. I abruptly pulled on my husband’s arm, saying loudly, “Look!”

He was suddenly taken aback and was so annoyed that he yelled at me. “Are you trying to push me down? Watch what you’re doing!”

An Englishman passing by gave him some nasty stares and moved his hand to his forehead as if to greet me in consolation.

I looked at the wall again. Nothing! There was no scene, no screen, but just archways and the clock, and a little further down a sign saying “babycare, first aid, accessible toilet, Station reception.” I stood there dumbfounded, thinking maybe I needed first aid.

“What came over you?” My husband was still annoyed. “Why are you looking there?”

“Did you see that?” I wasn’t going to tell him anything, unless he’d seen it too.

“You mean the clock? What’s so special about it?”

“Nothing,” I said, growing timid. He wouldn’t understand even if I told him. “I just wanted to show you that.”

“Don’t do things so suddenly. You’ll make me fall down.” He was really annoyed.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

We had been such a spectacle to the well-dressed, serious, proper, and so chivalrous British subjects.

I’m not sure of what happened there at the Paddington Station then, but I had my blood pressure medication changed as soon as we returned to the States. For a long while after this incident, I doubted my head and never mentioned this to anybody until now.

A year later in October 1999, two trains collided somewhere around or just before coming into the Paddington station. There were deaths and injuries. Was that the scene I had seen? I’m not psychic, and at that time, I hardly believed such things. Sometimes I have had dreams that came true and I still do, but I give that to a mixture of coincidence and intuition. This one was far out. My husband who believes nothing of this sort would have me committed if I ever told him of this. So I never did.
Some people told me recently that they splashed in the water on Trafalgar Square because the weather had turned out to be so hot during the summer they visited London. For a long while, I couldn’t remember the fountain in Trafalgar Square. Neither could I envision anyone in a bathing suit or even shorts in the middle of this so proper a city.

I remember, however, sitting on the wall of a fountain somewhere but with nothing splashing, probably on our return trip, because on our return trip in November the weather was warmer than in October so we could sit out, but I’m sure that fountain was away from the lions and the Nelson’s Column.

The walls of the fountain didn’t seem to be so high, probably three or four feet. They curved around into forming triangles next to circular sections and perpendicular corners succeeded each other. I just don’t know why I don’t recall any water splashing in the fountain. Yet, there was water all right, all around, on the asphalt, coming from the sky, in drizzles, in puddles.

What I remember of the Trafalgar Square where we went repeatedly are the way the façades of the buildings curved at the corners as if appeasing both streets, Big Ben and the Houses of the Parliament in the distance, the National Gallery, and the tall Nelson’s Column with four huge lion statues around it, also statues of several generals plus the statue of King George on horseback. Talking of statues, London certainly has to be a sculptor’s paradise with no lack of statues. We saw so many statues everywhere that I am having a difficult time remembering them.

Once we had lunch in a restaurant at Trafalgar Square. There was a buzzing noise inside the restaurant with people conversing as they ate. At the table next to ours, businessmen in business suits with sleek attaché cases sat across from each other discussing, I surmised, serious things and occasionally taking out papers and passing them to each other. They hardly ate. We, on the other hand, had a full lunch and even asked for desert watching the waiter’s shocked face, but then, neither of us was young and working in the city.

People like me who are used to big cities such as New York, where people interact so brusquely, feel out of place in London expecting to be pushed, shoved, and talked down to. Yet, London is civilized, gentle, and the most chivalrous of all the cities I have visited. Even during the rush hour, nobody ever pushed me. If they touched me ever so slightly, a “Sorry!” or if, heaven forbid, stepped on foot a “Terribly sorry!” --even when it would be my fault-- was offered easily. After London, once in a while, I keep wondering what Londoners think of other cities when they visit them.

In addition to courtesy and statues, another asset London can boast of is its parks. Small and large, nestled on the squares, there are parks everywhere. Buckingham Palace itself is situated in between large parks. St. James’ Park, Regents Park and Hyde Park are some of the names in the memory.

What little I saw of the parks were the leafless rusty branches of trees etching the grey clouds as the taxicab we were in passed by and the friendly black taxicab driver pointed to the place and told us this was Hyde Park, saying that a squiggly lake runs through it and at the end of it, there is a place for horseback riding for the elite. Also, he said, come spring, Londoners stand in the middle of the park soapboxes and give speeches to their hearts’ content. Maybe some nice summer or early spring day, when the rain takes a break and stops chiseling the city, I’ll return to London and visit its parks to my heart’s content.
Another thing that attracted my attention in London, where the second floor of a building was called first floor, was the telephone booths on the sidewalks. In addition to the red ones, I guessed as being the originals, they had green phone booths and even blue ones. I think people used special cards or tokens for each color but we couldn’t tell which was which for whichever call. We opted to make our calls from the hotel but paid the price later.

Since it was so cold to walk outside, although Londoners didn’t seem to mind the weather, we decided to go to Harrod’s one day. I’m not much of a shopper but to shop or in our case act like it in such a magnificent place was rather funny, and of course we couldn’t leave without buying something. Since our bags were already full, we bought food in Harrods’ food halls where they sold delicacies from all over the world, cheeses from Europe, patés, sushi, baquettes, assorted pastries, hors d’ouvres, finger sandwiches (or what I thought were finger sandwiches), and lots of other things. We ate some of it in the hotel and threw out the rest before we left for Europe.

I think it was in a place close to Harrods or Regents Square maybe, where my husband bought an alarm clock because ours had stopped working and we couldn’t depend on being “knocked up” by the hotel clerks in order to catch our too early flight. A few times, we went to Piccadilly circus and Leicester Square, but there, the stores were American stores or their imitations.

A taxicab driver, sensing our interest in food, recommended us Albert’s Pub and took us there. The place had an authentic feel to it with cut-glass windows and original gas lights and we learned that it had been in operation since 1806. Inside, Albert's Pub isn’t a big place, just a few booths, tables, and a snack bar with old-fashioned swivel stools in front of an open grill. Since too many tourists go there and the place is packed, they make people sit next to each other whether they know each other or not. I even saw them move a lone customer from one table to the next -after the customer had started eating- just to make space for larger parties. I remember having the real fish and chips there and shepherd’s pie; also we sat at a separate table and from where we sat we could see the Westminster Abbey.

Westminster Abbey is across the street from the Parliament buildings. This is where coronations and weddings of royalty take place and where noted people are buried. The structure of the Westminster Abbey is the combination of a few different styles of architecture. Its West Front View is best known, because the two classical towers are there, although the lower section is Gothic. Over the door there are niches with figures of saints and martyrs in them. Inside the huge interior, we were told that taking photos isn’t allowed.

Westminster Abbey began as a monastery and we were shown to the tombs of historical people, kings, queens and even other simpler people. I remember the tombs of Mary, Elizabeth I, Handel, and Richard the lion-hearted. They had to have the world’s largest cemetery of famous people here. Among the writers and poets buried in the cemetery’s poets’ corner are Chaucer, Spenser, Byron, Robert Browning, Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Kipling, Samuel Johnson, Milton, and Tennyson, We also visited the back abbey where treasures were stored and monks used to pray during the black plague.

For some reason, as we walked around this overwhelming place, a song kept repeating itself inside my head. I just couldn’t think of the words until later but they were for the wrong place. “Winchester Cathedral, you’re bringing me down...” Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me, but someone later told me that they did have a song for Westminster Abbey.

“Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben
The rosy red cheeks of the little children”
On our return trip to London, they gave us a different room on the sixth floor. This time the room was accessible by the “lift.” The clerks boasted of the room as having more space and having a separate bathroom with a commode.

When we saw the room, it seemed just fine, though still cramped but larger than the first one. Also there was space to stand between the wall and one bed and the other bed didn’t abut the wall where the windows were. Happy with our final conquest, we thanked the clerk and walked in.

The bathroom was in the corner. One had to climb three steps up to the bathroom. What we found out was a joke. The shower space was squeezed into the commode. We couldn’t get into the shower without stepping on top of the toilet seat. Yet, the toilet seat was of flimsy plastic and crackled even when putting it up and down. Also if I stood by the sink to wash up or brush my teeth, I had to be very careful so that my nightgown or skirt wouldn’t dip into the toilet. My husband couldn’t shave without bending because the ceiling was so low. I estimated it to be about or less than five and a half feet. Yet, despite the late fall weather and the cramped hotel space, we were enjoying London so much that we took this little inconvenience in stride.

Next time I go to London though, I’ll either stay in an American hotel or I’ll rent an apartment and stay much longer so I get to see the East end, Chinatown, the museums, Covent Garden Market, and Billingsgate, walk inside Hyde Park and take a cruise on the Thames. Maybe I’ll add in a few excursions outside the city also, to the Globe Theater and the Roman Baths. This is one city I would like to visit again when I have another opportunity.

Usually we explore cities by taking walking tours, but at this time, we could walk less than we thought we could. Still despite the cold and the rain, when staying outside was nearly impossible, we enjoyed London. London in rain boasts of a different kind of splendor, especially when one is inside a taxi or a bus. The drivels of water soften the view of the street from the windows, as if looking out of something frosted but liquid at the same time. The edges of buildings, people, vehicles, street signs blur into each other and the city seems as if one framed piece of art.

On one of those really rainy days we took a bus somewhere. Since people wore bulkier clothes, the size of the seats were smaller, the aisles were tighter, and the railings too slippery to hold. Once we sat down, it was the view of the people from the back.
We saw people around us checking their bus route maps. The tube is easier to figure out than the bus routes and even Londoners themselves carry these route maps with them.

The bus felt jerky as we pulled out of the station. The floor inside was wet and the windows fogged up. The driver was having difficulty stopping and starting. Yet the people knew where they’d get off by the sheer sense of the road from the movements of the bus, just like time travel.

Even though it was such a rainy day, when the bus slowed down at some place, we heard Bible verses penetrating the interior, reminding me of Broadway preachers in New York City. I wasn’t so far off. When I wiped the window with the back of my hand, I saw a guy under the eaves of a shop with a Bible confronting the passers-by. He had a megaphone in his hand. From their body language, I understood that the people were not very happy about this because the flow of the crowd parted and left this man in the middle as if he were stranded on an island.
I don’t know where London got its foggy reputation, it must be the burning of the coal in the olden times, but I didn’t see any fog. Rain, drizzle, cloudy skies, mist, a slight haze, yes; but fog, no.

The things that are foggy in my mind are the ghosts in the Tower of London. Yet, the Tower itself didn’t start out to be a supernatural undertaking. Since erecting castles meant marking the Normans’ territory (wild animals come to mind), Norman the Conqueror ordered a castle built by the Thames during the eleventh century to provide a base for his power. The Tower first was a palace for the royalty. Later it was turned into a prison and served as the backdrop for royal murders to take place.

What I saw when we walked through dim hallways and up and down the spooky stairways was not ghosts but excited yeoman warders drumming up the tourist business with titillating ghost stories. Still, it was a very entertaining though a very tiring trip. The architecture of the buildings and the view of the Thames and the bridge from the Tower were breathtaking, and the stories told by the warders grabbed everyone’s attention. Listening to them, I thought, “No wonder Shakespeare erupted from England. These Brits know how to ham it up.” To add to the aura of it all, inside the buildings, it was freezing cold, and if we weren’t dressed warmly enough, we’d surely have left no matter what the expense.

Not that I’ve witnessed them, but let me see if I can remember the bits and pieces of the ghost stories I heard. Sir Walter Raleigh’s image was supposed to be visible on a wall in the Bloody Tower overlooking the Traitor’s Gate. He was held prisoner here and tortured. At the base of the White Tower Ann Boleyn was decapitated by a Frenchman and her ghost pays visits there. There is another Countess whose ghastly murder didn’t quite go right, for the axe-man missed the mark and panicked. So he hacked her to pieces. Now her ghost screams on the windy nights but especially during the night of the anniversary of her death.

Since the Yeoman Warders live in the buildings with their families, they seem to have become buddy buddy with the ghosts. There’s a ghost smelling of saddle soap, a cavalryman for sure, who joins the residents to celebrate all the events like birthdays and such.

At the Martin tower where the crown jewels used to be housed, resides Mary’s ghost who opens doors and climbs stairs. If treated kindly, she’s an easy ghost to live with.

The Salt Tower is the toughest tower to be in, they say, because here Catholic clerics were incarcerated and people have reported feeling pressure on their chests and not being able to breathe. Here, there were words scratched on the walls by the inmates. Although I usually suffer from asthma in cold and damp places, I could breathe just fine.

As St. Thomas’ Tower, where St. Thomas a Becket was kept and murdered, was being built, the tower kept collapsing due to bad workmanship. So the workers blamed it on St. Thomas’ ghost. Once we climbed to the top of the stairs in this tower, we entered a very impressive room with a fireplace, candelabras and a chest. The chest stood by a descending staircase. This used to be St. Thomas’ room.

People swear seeing many ghosts dressed in Tudor garb and Yeomen of the olden times with spears inside Traitors Gate, the most disreputable entrance to the Tower. Allegedly, the wives of Henry the VIII, after being brought down the river by barge, entered the tower from here.

This tour really started from the West gate but I wrote down what I could remember regardless of the tour’s progression. The funniest thing was the beefeater with the fur hat standing in front of his black hut without blinking and teens jumping up and down and waving, trying to make him move or blink. I don’t know who was more ridiculous, the soldier doing his duty or the crazy teens.
The Tower of London housed lions, bears, and until recently, flightless ravens. Flightless because of a ridiculous prophecy. If the ravens flew away, it would mark the end of the royalists in Britain. So they are kept there, fell fed and well cared for but with maimed wings never to experience freedom. Maybe Poe’s “ungainly” Raven had its wings clipped by the British and he ended up “perched upon a bust of Pallas just above Poe’s chamber door” and that’s why the raven kept saying: “Nevermore.”

The day before we boarded the plane back home, we went to Piccadilly Circus. As luck would have it, the weather was tolerable enough to walk. So we strolled along some elegant stores and BBC’s headquarters. I made a mental note of coming back to see the inside when we passed by The National Gallery. Some day, I'll go around the world just to see the artwork in the museums. Tour organizers should take note.

Afterwards, we ended up in Leicester Square where the London Film festival was going on. The good thing about Leicester Square was that it was totally a pedestrian area. Leicester Square is pronounced as “Lester’s care” really fast by the British. It took us a while to recognize that. The Square is a large busy place with a park-like grassy center with lots of park benches, pigeons, and a fountain I fell in love with. I wanted to walk there a bit. Since the rain had stopped and it was a bit milder than before, lots of people were sitting on the benches and giving free lectures here and there. We stopped to hear someone tell everybody why the distant stars were not distant but they were the mirror images of earth in space. According to him, the entire sky was a gallery of mirrors and what we thought we were seeing were distorted images of ourselves. So he went on and on. I was having a pretty good time actually, until my husband pulled me by the arm with a tsk tsk. While we watched an entertainer doing tricks, somebody warned me: “Take care with that bag, Madam.” Could there be any purse snatchings here? I didn’t think so. Actually I never heard of anything like that happening in London at all, especially because we had stuck with the West End.

The Swiss Centre with is Glockenspiel Clock is also on the Leicester Square. The square was named after an earl who lived there during the mid 17th century. Circling the outside of the square are multiplex cinemas, clubs, cafes, and bars. I counted seven bars then lost count. These Brits certainly love their stout beer, Guinness.

Toward the south where the road leads back to Trafalgar Square, there is whitish small pavilion or a building like a kiosk, the Half Price theatre ticket booth. There was a chalk board with that day’s deals on it. None of them were the hit shows. A theater that shows films is called a cinema. If you say theater for a movie-house, they look at you funny here because a theater is where plays are shown on stage. Also it is not the schedule you look for but a programme.

Movie premiers are usually associated with Leicester Square and there’s a statue of Charlie Chaplin here. Some names of cinemas I remember are Odeon with a fenced-off path I surmised for the celebrities to walk through. We were told a premiere would be showing tonight and if we stayed to watch we’d see celebrities maybe even royalty. There was a cinema building with large white archways in front. I think it was named Empire. Quite an impressive building, I thought.

Just two years before, 101 Dalmatians were filmed here around Leicester Square, which would make the film’s shooting date 1996 since we left London in mid November 1998.

We didn’t want to see any shows because of the flight early next morning and my husband didn’t care too much about hanging around the park area and watch people as I would have loved to. So we walked back to the Piccadilly area, to Oxford Street with shops and department stores.

We saw a few traffic jams but no private cars. There were buses and taxis though. The Oxford Street was very crowded since the Christmas shopping had just begun. I’m not much of shopper for many things but when it comes to books and music, I’m there. So I remember big music stores like HMV and bookstores like Dillions and Books Etc. My husband remembers Evans Marks and Spencer and also Selfridges which was a huge store near the tube station where they gave us a printed floor plan at the entrance.
One thing that attracted my attention was the way the traffic lights worked in London. They still had red, green, and yellow, as we did in the US, but when the yellow light came up before it turned green, red light stayed, so we ended up looking at red and yellow together.

This I witnessed while we were in a cab on our way to Charing Cross Road. I was the one who had insisted we see that place because of the books; my husband would have opted some other place like the Tower of London again, but since we had already seen that, he couldn’t object.

Charing Cross Road is a London street which runs north from Trafalgar Square to St Giles' Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road. Charing Cross Road is not just any street with bookstores, it is THE street of bookstores in London, as each town should have one and those that do get visited by me to the exclusion of anything else.

On Charing Cross Road, bookstores stand side by side like wallflowers at a dance wearing different colors. Above them, acting like their chaperones, are old brick buildings. Maybe these are separate edifices, but they look as if they are one massive structure because their bricks appear to be in similar colors showing the same age and wear and tear. As little as I understand from architecture, I think, the long rectangular windows with white tops and tiny sills point to the same style.

If you go to the Charing Cross Road take the tube. You’ll save a lot of money. We could have taken the tube very easily but for some reason we didn’t.

That day, the black taxicab left us at one corner where the reddish brown Zwemmers’ beckoned us to its large window, boasting art, film, and photography books. We didn’t go in that store but wandered into the one painted in blue near it. This was Al Hoda, an Islamic bookstore with quite an impressive selection of books on art and architecture of the Islamic world. Plus they had other books pertaining to Middle-eastern culture.

Next to Al Hoda was Smith and Sons, an old-fashioned pipe and cigar shop in red. We looked through its window and wondered why people would spend so much time and energy carving fancy figures on elephant tusks just to smoke dangerous stuff from them.

Next, there was a store where they sold graphic, web, and commercial design books. After that came Shipley Specialist art books and then Silver Moon Women’s bookshop. I wondered why they would have a separate women’s bookshop. Were we being talked down to as if in a harem or were we being revered? I opted to choose the latter idea, since the books inside were not all that different from any other store’s.

Then, adjacent to a shop called “Any Amount of Books,” stood “Henry Pordes Books” with a large white sign covering its whole façade. Next was a used book store “Charing Cross Road Bookshop.” By the way, “antiquarian” and “2nd hand books” are the names given to used books. They don’t call them used books.

The most interesting shop to me was the “Scot Centre” selling everything Scottish from books to pipes to tartans. After the Scot Centre, another used book store curved into the Great Newport St. I know all this because I wrote down the names of these stores in my tiny pad. Seeing me do this, some people in those stores gave me their cards and promised a discount if I ordered from them. Is it possible to hassle on book prices?

Then, there was an elderly gentleman at the Scot Centre who volunteered to enlighten us about Charing Cross’s history. Charing Cross was one of 12 “Eleanor Crosses” erected by the grieving Edward I when his wife Queen Eleanor of Castile died at the end of the thirteenth century.

At each place where Queen Eleanor’s funeral’s procession stopped for the night, Edward built a memorial cross in her honor. Charing Cross was one of them. Later this cross was removed and replaced by the statue of Charles I. Much later, a replica of the cross was placed at the rail station. Since most of London was demolished either by fire or by Hitler’s bombers, many authentic looking things are only excellent replicas of what has been.

As to the name “Charing” there are many interpretations. The most romantic one is “Chere Reine” meaning “dear Queen.” but the word could also come from “cierring” which means turning or bending, which might refer to the Thames River.

In London, all the lines painted on the roads are white. There are no yellow lines like we have in US. I was surprised when the cars and buses stopped while we were waiting to cross a major street. Later we realized that we had stopped at a “zebra” crossing and annoyed the British drivers. A zebra crossing is when they paint slanted parallel white lines on the street where all traffic has to wait for the pedestrians to cross.

For crossing the street, sometimes there are warnings for pedestrians saying, “Look Right.” We thought that this had to be because they drove on the left side of the street, but then we saw signs saying, “Look Left.” Go figure! "Beware of loose CHIPPINGS" on the side of the road meant loose gravel. “Instead of “Exit” we saw “Way Out.”

“Offside” of the car is its left side. A “tarmac” is the black top when paving the road. “Verges” are road shoulders. A “Zed bend” is the z shaped bend of the road, similar to our s curve. An overpass is a “flyover.” When you pass another vehicle on the street, you “overtake” it. If you “undertake,” that means you are passing on the left, which is illegal.

You have to “dip” your lights if you need to lower them. If your car has a “drop head,” it is a convertible. A “transport cafe” is a truck stop and a “casualty entrance” is the emergency entrance of a hospital. Plus, surgery doesn’t always mean surgery; it may mean a meeting or another event.

More words and usages that surprised us (some I later got from a book): To a Brit, pants means underwear but women’s underwear is knickers. What we call pants are “trousers” and pant cuffs are “turn-ups,” as “Wellies” are rubber boots.

In many stores, our “custom” (patronage) was appreciated. Also the Brits “hire a cab” “see telly” and offer you an “American dinner,” which is potluck food, or “bangers and mash,” which is sausages with mashed potatoes. While “Chinky nosh” is Chinese food, “crisps” are potato chips. “Faggots” are duck sausages. Their “French Dressing” is our Italian dressing. I don’t think they have our kind of French dressing, not that I minded it.

Also, never ever ask for a napkin in a restaurant for it means sanitary napkin or baby diaper; instead ask for a “serviette”. By the way, my husband did just that and asked for a napkin. The waiter didn't even blink; he was probably used to oddball American ways. Also one mustn't say, “I’m stuffed” after eating too much, since being stuffed has an off-color connotation.

If someone tells you, “That takes the biscuit,” he’s meaning “That tops it!” or “That beats everything.”

A “tannoy” is a public address system. “Crackers” are firecrackers or small Christmas gifts. A “hooker” is not a prostitute but a member of a rugby team and Europe is referred to as the “continent.”

The apartments “flats” may have “mixer taps,” which are the faucets with cold and hot water but since there’s a law (a great law in my opinion) against mixing them inside the tap, they are mixed in some way outside. If your appliance’s electrical wiring is grounded, it has an “earth wire.” If you “hoovered” your carpets, you vacuumed them. You tea-cart is your “tea trolley,” since any cart is a “trolley.”

A thumb tack is a “drawing pin.” Scotch tape is “sticky tape” or “sellotape.” A “rubber” is an eraser. A “dustbin” is a trash barrel. A “waste bin” is a wastebasket. A garage sale is a “jumble sale.” A “lucky dip” is a grab bag.

“Nevermind” doesn’t always mean “don’t pay any attention”; instead, it may answer any question no matter how shocking. “So sorry, you cut off your finger. Nevermind.”

To the English, a tabby cat is a “moggie.” A “nappy” is a diaper. A “push chair” is a stroller. A “natty dresser” dresses in fancy clothes. “Noughts and crosses” is tic-tac-toe.

If a business is “off sales,” it is operating without a license. If your sales “come a cropper,” your business might be ending badly. If in the bank, you have a savings account, you have a “standing account” or a “deposit account.” If you’re “on the rag,” you’re angry. If you “hump” something, you’re carrying a heavy load and you’re too tired, that is you’re “whacked” or “shagged out.”

A “Charlie” is a stupid person and a “Wally” is an idiot. Something “sharp” is suspicious.

“Loo,” “Toilet,” “Cloakroom,” “lavatory,” and "WC" (water closet) are the names given to restrooms. A bathroom means a room with a bathtub but not necessarily with a commode inside as we had witnessed.

Your bathrobe is your “dressing gown,” and if you “wash up,” it isn’t your hands and face you wash but pots, pans, plates, forks, knives etc.

Oscar Wilde said, "The Americans are identical to the British in all respects except, of course, language." If I may, I'd like to imitate him in reverse: “The British are identical to Americans in most respects except, of course, language.”