Bus Tour to Brighton

BRIGHTON

On Friday, we visited the seaside town of Brighton, full of kitsch and glamour, only 55 miles from London.  It was one of the Cultural Calendar options for our AIFS students, and I thought we might skip it, but our friend Celia (an expat Brit) convinced us to try it out.

The rather sarcastic Blue Badge guide, Sean, gave us an historical overview of Brighton interrupted by asides about dogwalkers, fashionable dressers (or NOT), and an explanation of the upcoming pram race to be held in Brighton’s city park.  Our first glimpse of the Royal Pavilion was breathtaking.  Its multitude of onion-shaped domes make it appear like a cheesy imitation Taj Mahal, yet it is oddly beautiful as well.  We learned that King George IV, son of the mad King George III, is the monarch who commissioned the palace for endless rounds of entertaining and a playboy lifestyle.  He first came to Brighton in the 1780s as a young man and rented what was then a small farmhouse overlooking the promenade of fashionable shops.  When he finally came into money as regent some years later (he didn’t actually inherit the crown until he was in his 60s), he commissioned architect John Nash to design this “oriental fantasy,” which today reminds me of an elaborate movie set. 

  

My favorite rooms (and the most visually impressive) were the Banqueting and Music Rooms.  We oohed and aahed over an elaborate dragon chandelier.  A silver Harry Potter-type dragon forms the base of the structure and above are six smaller dragons out of whose jaws emerge shaded glass lotus lamps.  You have to see it to believe it!  The Music Room boasts a domed ceiling, thick carpets and rich gold colored walls with nine lotus-shaped chandeliers.  There are hidden doors set into the walls for servants and musicians to enter and leave and a large set of organ pipes leading to a hidden keyboard in a different room.  

From the palace we wandered down the shopping street, just as fashionable a promenade today as it was in the late 18^th century, with high end and bohemian clothing stores, and shops selling various knick-knacks.  We spent a half hour at the beach—only pebbles, no sand—and then strolled over to the pier. Lily and Abby shared a delicious crepe and Peter and I had a milkshake.  Then it was time to re-board the bus to return to our urban home. Beth

Beth and Lily's solo London week ends--Welcome Peter and Abby!

Lily at dinner in our Wood Green home

Lily and Beth in front of Buckingham Palace

What are you still doing here!?

SFO AIRPORT, SAN FRANCISCO
Abby and I have been hearing variations on this question for the last week. From friends at church, from our neighbors, from the office administrator at Abby’s school, even from my employees! 

Back in March when I bought our tickets to London Beth and I agreed it would be an excellent plan for Lily and her to leave in time (just in time, as it turned out) for her program to start and for Abby and me to follow a week later.  The logic was that Abby could use another week with her classes and teachers because she will be an “independent student” for the rest of the semester and will have to complete specific assignments from each of her teachers.  (Lily, by contrast is officially dis-enrolled from Sequoia High School and is taking On-Line High School courses which are independent from her classes and teachers.  When she returns the credit will transfer and she will plug back into her classroom classes for the spring semester).  And I figured I could use another week to get my business (and myself) ready for being away from each other for four months.

As I waved good bye to Lily and Beth at the International Terminal security check-point, however, the logic for our separated departures escaped me.  I wanted more than anything to get on the plane with them and get this adventure off the ground!

For the past week Beth and Lily have lugged their bags up out of the Tube, scope out the super markets, claimed the comfy pillows in our London house, and work on their proper British accents while Abby and I have gone to our same old school and work.  We tried to make the best of it.  We ate out at several restaurants (collecting in doggie bags some amazing lunch goodies for Abby to take to school!).  We dropped by our house to explain to the lovely German family renting it the fine art of coaxing the three remotes next to our TV to show a DVD and how to find the proper home for each type of trash in one of the three curb-side containers.  But really, our minds and hearts were 10,000 miles away.

So it was with relief this morning when WE could pack our bags (for the last time), weigh each (for the n^th time), and catch a ride to SFO with my parents and sister, Liz.  While we waited for their car to pull up I saw our next door neighbor and walked over to greet him and make sure he had met the renters.  “What are you doing here?  I thought you were already gone!,”  he exclaimed.  “Don’t worry, we’re on the way to the airport,” I replied with satisfaction. 


Peter

London Bus #230

WOOD GREEN, LONDON
Aside from preparing for and teaching classes—which have gone quite well at first, I’m pleased to report—a lot of my time this past week has been spent figuring out transport.  I’ve been studying  tube lines (there are 11 different ones in London), planning flights and train rides for weekend excursions (and trying to figure out in vain some way to purchase a cheap ticket), and the past two days Lily and I have been trying to figure out the myriad bus lines that crisscross the city.

Our first objective was to plan a route to her swim practice at Tottenham Green Leisure Centre.  Yesterday, for her first day of training, we gave up on taking the bus because a neighbor acquaintance of mine told me it was perfectly safe to walk. Besides mid-September in London the sky stays reasonably bright until about 8 pm.

Back to my story about the bus. . .Our walk was brisk and pleasant but I did end up feeling a little uncomfortable strolling through an unknown neighborhood so we decided to take the bus on the way home.  We took our chance on taking the correct number; any one that stopped along Philip Lane would probably take us to Turnpike Lane, our home tube stop.  We waited, and waited and waited.  Across the street was a well-lit green grocers, so we felt pretty secure.  Finally, after about 20 minutes (the schedule said 12 minutes) a double decker bus arrived.  We climbed aboard, swiped our passes and walked up to the upper deck.  It was a lovely ride home looking down on all the lanes and the lights of the early evening.  And then an easy walk back home from the tube stop.

Today we decided to take the bus both ways.  Lily charted our route and figured out which bus stop on the High Street we should stand by.  (Buses here are both numbered and lettered—don’t ask me why—you need to know both the number of the bus and the letter of the appropriate bus stop before you set out.)  I had dashed home from my Shakespeare class for a quick bite, but we still left by 7 pm, in plenty of time to reach the Leisure Centre at 7:30, or so we thought.  We stopped at stop “MA” along with a cluster of other shoppers and commuters: a woman in a long dress and head scarf with three squirrely toddlers, several middle aged Middle Eastern women carrying shopping bags, a young man in sunglasses (at dusk), smoking a cigarette.  Bus after bus pulled up at the stop with all the different numbers posted on the sign: W4, 123, 184, etc.  It looked like about nine different buses used the stop “MA.”  After fifteen minutes we started scanning the number of each approaching bus, sure that ours would be next.  Bus riders came and went, mounted and dismounted.  The minutes ticked by VERY slowly and now it was 7:25.  No way would we make it to practice on time.  We should have walked this time, too.

One of the women shoppers then approached and asked us which bus we were waiting for.  She said she had been waiting over 45 minutes for #230 and that’s when Lily and I decided to cross the street and try another bus line/route.  We saw the bus we wanted up ahead, so we crossed at the light and dashed toward it.  We couldn’t see where it would stop, however.  We kept racing up the High Street until suddenly Lily noticed the #230 coming straight toward us.  By now we were a few hundred yards from our original bus stop so we had to run in a very undignified way back in the other direction to catch up with the now long line of riders who were waiting for the same bus.  Later Lily told me that the woman who said she had been waiting for 45 minutes actually came to the stop after we did—which goes to show that “patience is a virtue” (did Shakespeare coin that phrase?) especially when riding buses is concerned. 

Epilogue: Lily made it to practice only 15 minutes late.

Beth

Schlepping to Shopping

WOOD GREEN, LONDON
One of the things I was most excited about before coming was grocery shopping. Normally I don't care for the barrage of decisions I am forced to make about which of the ten varieties of whole-wheat tortilla to get. I feel obliged to compare the prices on every option I have, spending minutes dividing in my head as my mom whizzes through the produce section. However, I see grocery shopping in a foreign country as a window in to that country's culture.

Our first shopping expedition was on Friday, the day after we arrived. Our first stop was Lidl. It was a warehouse-like building with the food around the edges and bins of random things in the middle. There were some good deals, which improved its rating in my view, but Mom wasn't a big fan. Next we went to Tesco Express. It was more like a mini-Safeway. It was rather small, so it didn't make it to the top of Mom's list either. There's also an open-air market with good produce for good deals. It's very high on both our lists. A few days later we went to Sainsbury's. It was much larger, and had a bigger produce section. It topped the charts with Mom, and I like it too.

Here are some observations I've made about British supermarkets in general:

• There are loads of sweets. Everything from candy bars to trifles to cookies and puddings. However, there are only a few freezer-door-fulls of ice-cream. All the goodies (especially the puddings) look delicious, and they more than make up for the lack of ice-cream.
• They don't sell big containers of milk. The largest we can get is about a half-gallon, but we probably couldn't walk home with a gallon anyway. They also don't sell fat-free milk, only 1%. This may be because they take things more literally than we do, or maybe the .01 stops it from being blue.
• The shopping carts are tiny. Most people (including ourselves) use baskets. There isn't room for carts outside the store, so it makes sense. Most people also have to carry their groceries home, so they probably couldn't walk with the amount of food that can fit in an American-size cart.
• There is an abundance of meat pies. I've seen Cornish pasties, sausage rolls (mini and regular), mince pies (these technically don't have meat), and pork pies (mini and regular).
  
• You have to pack your own bags. This sometimes holds up the line a bit, but people often bring their own bags. It helps to have a shopping buddy to pay while you bag.

I'm looking forward to investigating more stores and trying all the delicacies they have to offer!

Lily