Day 2: My Trip to London and Ireland

In front of the famous Eros Statue in Picadilly Square

Lisa and I woke up refreshed and ready for a full day of sightseeing.  After a continental breakfast, Job One was finding out exactly where to get on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus.

That done, we set out in a light mist. (The very light rain didn't last very long, although the skies remained mostly overcast that day.)  I loved how the guide filled us in on important sights we were seeing on the way to St. Paul's Cathedral, where we would exit the bus.

(By the way, I STRONGLY recommend the Hop On Hop Off bus! It's definitely the best way to see a big city when you have limited time.  We enjoyed our experiences on the buses in both London and Dublin.)

St. Paul's Cathedral

On the steps of St Paul's Cathedral

The iconic dome of St Paul's

This iconic London church, designed by renowned architect Christopher Wren in the late 16-hundreds and early to mid 17-hundreds, had long been on my bucket list.

I had read many books in which St. Paul's featured prominently, including Connie Willis' fantastic time-travel books, Blackout and All Clear (read my review here.)

The building has served as a timeless reminder of the courage and resilience of Brits.  Parts of it were even bombed twice by the Germans in World War 2, but it still stands, full of dignity and historical significance.

We were taken around the cathedral by an informative, humorous guide.  Pictures aren't allowed inside the sanctuary, as it is still a place of worship to this day, but our tour was truly fascinating.

St Paul's Cathedral

Our first fish and chips

After a fairly lengthy tour of the cathedral and some souvenir-shopping, we were ready for lunch.  Remember I told you about our bad eating experience the day before?  We weren't sure what to expect when we sat down at Joe's Kitchen near St. Paul's.  But we were more than pleased.

This was our first experience of eating fish and chips in London, and it was delicious! In fact, we enjoyed it so much, we ended up eating fish and chips two more times during our trip.

The Tower of London

The Tower was another landmark that I had always longed to see.  What an experience! One of the amazing things for an American visiting Europe is the sheer age of everything.  America is comparatively a very young nation.  But in London, you are surrounded by things that were functioning as far back as the 1000s, some even earlier.

Parts of the  Tower of London were built as far back as 1078.  It also features prominently is many historical novels I've read.  Just about anybody who was anybody in British history was imprisoned there, including wives of Henry the 8th.

We were given a tour by Billy the Beefeater, a guide who is a member of the Yeoman Warders.  Apparently they were called Beefeaters because at one time, they were paid in beef.

Bill was hilarious, energetic and very informative...he helped make the tour a truly amazing experience.

One part of the tour that I can't show you, because photos weren't allowed, was the Crown Jewels.  The room full of incredible sparkle and shine was awe-inspiring!

The tour ended up in a small chapel in which services are still held today.  Once again, we were awed by the historical significance of this place.

River Thames Tour

Just after our tour of the Tower, we stepped onto a boat for a tour of the River Thames.  Another informative guide kept us informed about all the sights we were seeing....the Shard, the Globe Theater, the Tower Bridge and several other bridges, the London Eye (the huge ferris wheel), and much more.

Aboard the Thames River cruise

The Tower Bridge from our Thames River cruise

Seeing the sights of London from a boat on the River Thames was a truly memorable experience that I highly recommend.

I'm ending my recounting of Day 2 in London with this picture.  I literally have dreamed of having this very picture taken...standing by a red London phone booth with Big Ben in the background.  A dream come true!

After a very long day of sightseeing, most of it on our feet, we headed back to the hotel for a much-needed night's sleep.

To Be Continued

Day One: My Trip to London & Ireland

On September 3, 2016, my sister Lisa and I set out on a journey I had dreamed of most of my life, but never really thought would happen.

We were off on a 10-day trip to first London, then Dublin, which would be our home base for some amazing day trips into the Irish countryside.

The trip was a Christmas 2015 gift from loved ones, so we had been planning it and talking about it for months.  Finally, the day was here!

The first leg of our journey took us from Chicago's O'Hare airport to the Charlotte, North Carolina airport.  We decided to exchange some American money for some British cash.  This was really starting to feel real.  We had money with Queen Elizabeth on it!

We thought we were prepared for the overnight flight to Heathrow.  We wore our most comfortable clothes and took Xanax, which normally makes us sleepy.

Turns out, there's no real way to be comfortable for eight hours on a plane.  We estimate that we each got about 3 hours at the most.  But when we woke up, we were in England!

Off on the tube

We reclaimed our baggage (they call it baggage re-claim, not baggage claim!) and went through customs fairly easily.  Our next step: getting an Oyster Pass for transportation, and finding our way onto the right train in London's underground that would take us all the way to Picadilly Circus, where our hotel was located.

Not all of the trip is underground, and we were charmed by the British neighborhoods we zoomed past.  It was so obvious we were in a different country.

When we arrived at Picadilly, our first problem was lugging our luggage (no pun intended) up the stairs to the outside.  We were doing this rather awkwardly and with difficulty when two men came along to help us! This wasn't the first time we would be charmed by the gallantry of British men.

I'll never forget our first glimpse of London when we emerged from the tube station.

We were smack in the middle of Picadilly circus.  We were awed. Lisa says if someone had taken our picture at that moment, our mouths were probably wide open.  London looks like no other place you've ever been.  It's hard to explain. We were gobsmacked.

After one scary moment when Lisa thought she lost her luggage (it had simply rolled away from her while we were getting our bearings), we made the very short distance to our hotel, Le Meridien Picadilly.

Pretty sure this was my first London selfie.  Any Dr. Who fan will get the significance of the police call box!
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Off to explore!

The hotel staff couldn't have been more gracious and welcoming.  Even though it was a good bit before check-in time, they said our room was ready for us.

Oh, the joy of a shower when you've been on a plane all night! We were refreshed, though tired, and ready to head out to the streets of London.

I hadn't really planned any sightseeing for that day, because I knew we would basically be exhausted.  However, everyone had told us NOT to go straight to bed.  They said it's best to just keep going, and then go to bed at a fairly normal time.

Trafalgar Square

Looking for the London Pass Office

Job One was to find the office home of the London Pass.  We had bought our passes before leaving the US, but you had to go to the office to get your voucher.  (This pass turned out to be one of the best decisions we made for our visit, and we highly recommend it.)

The office was supposed to be somewhere right off Trafalgar Square.  We found Trafalgar with no trouble, and were both blown away by it.  Finding the office was a bit more of a chore.

I couldn't use GPS, because I could only use the internet on my phone if I had WiFi.  Lisa was supposed to be able to use hers, but it never worked correctly throughout our entire trip.  We have no idea why.

Going around in circles looking for this office while we were jetlagged, exhausted and by now, hungry, was an exercise in frustration.  FINALLY we found it and got our vouchers.

We had no idea where to eat, and stumbled on a place called EAT that looked a little like a British version of Panera Bread.  Alas, neither of us (even though we're not really picky eaters) were pleased with what we got.  In fact, we were very disappointed and ended up eating only a few bites.

Also, I had picked up a bottle of "spring water" thinking it was just regular bottled water.  No, it was more of a seltzer, which I'm not a fan of.  Turns out if you want regular water you have to look for the ones labeled "still water."

This did not bode well for our meals in London.  But we needn't have worried.  That was pretty much the only bad eating experience we had on our trip.  We had some truly delicious meals in the days to come.

To bed!

I think we visited a few shops, including Boots, a drugstore somewhat like our Walgreen's. We got some soft drinks and snack items and headed back to our very nice and comfortable hotel room.

It was still fairly early in the evening, but I was soooo ready for bed.  We turned in early (probably the wisest thing we could do....we were so exhausted by this time), excited about what the next day would bring.

More to come!

Two of the Best Time Travel Books You'll EVER Read

Note: This review was originally posted on my book blog on 5/24/11

First of all, why am I reviewing two books at one time?

Take note: Do NOT read Blackout without a copy of All Clear right next to you. The two books are basically one book.

No, I don’t mean All Clear is a sequel to Blackout. I mean, they are two parts of the same book.

I, unfortunately, did not realize this when I checked Blackout out of the library and devoured it--only to get to the end and a message saying something to the effect of, "this story will be continued in the next book..."

Naturally, my library didn't have All Clear on the shelf when I raced back to get it, so I had to wait a few days.

The fact that I read this enormous book in one day (granted, it was a day in which I had not much else to do, and I'm a fast reader) is testimony to what an extremely good book this is.

Kind of obsessed with Connie Willis right now

I read Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog after reading a review of the book by one of my favorite reviewers, The Ink Slinger. His review prompted me to buy the book, and began a small mini-obsession with books by Connie Willis.

I've quickly surmised that my favorite books by Willis are those that involve time-traveling historians from Oxford, England, in the late 2050's.

Blackout

Blackout begins in Oxford with a few historians preparing for trips to World War 2 England.

Merope (who is going by the name Eileen in the past) is observing evacuated children at a rich lady's estate. Michael plans to go to Dover. Polly...who has already experienced V-E Day on a previous "drop" (as they call time traveling sessions), wants to experience London during the Blitz.

Fortunately, unlike most time travel related books I've read, these historians are totally prepared. They've been prepped on the fashions, manners and lingo of the time they're visiting. Polly even knows exactly where each bomb will fall during the time she's in the Blitz, so she can avoid those places.

Despite all this, all three time travelers quickly realize that something has gone wrong. They can't get their drop sites to open...which means they're stuck in the past.

Just at a critical point, the book ends abruptly. I mean, ABRUPTLY. That's why I'm telling you to have All Clear on hand so you can pick it up immediately!

Criticism of Blackout

During the time I was waiting to get my hands on a copy of All Clear, I read some extremely negative customer reviews of Blackout on Amazon.com

I could actually relate to some of the criticisms. For one thing, I agree that neither book needed to be quite as long as they are...and they are both very long books. There is quite a bit of redundancy and extraneous stuff that could have easily been trimmed down.

However, one of the common criticism was that Blackout introduced some characters whose stories seemed to go nowhere.

Well, those characters reappear in All Clear, and they are vital to the story.



All Clear

I don't think it would be too much of an exaggeration to say that All Clear is one of the best books I've ever read.

The suspense builds, with heart-quickening intensity, throughout the entire book. The criticism that Merope, Polly and Mike were hard to care about is totally voided (in my opinion) in the second book. I absolutely cared about them, and was vitally concerned about what was going to happen to them.

In Blackout, it was becoming obvious that something was going wrong with time travel. As All Clear picks up the story, the fear that the time travelers have done something to dangerously alter the space-time continuum solidifies.

And there's a lot at stake. If the historians have done anything, however small, to affect the course of history, then Hitler could have won the war, and we'd all be German-speaking slaves of the Nazi regime.

An eye-opening history lesson

I have to say that I came away from these books with something akin to awe for the British people who lived through World War 2, especially the Blitz. "Keep Calm and Carry On" wasn't just a cute poster for them. It was their life.

Can you imagine having to go through your daily life, going to work or school as if everything was normal, only to be constantly interrupted by air raid sirens and having a short amount of time to get to a shelter? Not to mention the shortages of food and clothing, and the frequent news that someone you knew and maybe loved had died on the very streets where you lived.

Yet the British people did this, with amazing strength and courage. These books were a vivid and fascinating history lesson for me.

I heartily recommend these books, under a few conditions:

--If you don't mind reading very long books (I happen to love them)
--If you don't mind losing some sleep staying up too late to read
--If you love history and are intrigued by time travel
--If you don't mind putting up with some frustration as long as you're rewarded with a satisfying conclusion.

For me, the journey was well worth it.

Why am I such an Anglophile? (From the Archives)

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The truth is, I have been an Anglophile ("one who greatly admires or favors England and things English")--http://www.merriam-webster.com/) for a very long time.

I suppose it all began in the third grade, when my family moved to Beirut, Lebanon to be missionaries. There was a long waiting list to get into the city's only American school, so my parents enrolled us in Manor House School, and a very proper British school it was.

I can remember nervously sitting in the lobby, facing a large portrait of Queen Elizabeth. I remember my first teacher, Miss Diamond, who insisted I pronounce words like "aunt" properly ("No, no, no, not 'ant'...an 'ant' is a little creature that crawls on the ground").



I remember Miss Gardiner, my next teacher, who terrified me. She was stocky and stern, wore her iron-gray hair in a braid that encircled her head, and she wore "chunky" shoes long before they were popular. Math was a hellish nightmare for me, because my fellow-students had learned their multiplication tables in kindergarten, and I was just now trying to learn mine. Agonizing.

But somehow I survived the trauma of adjusting to a British school, and I grew to enjoy many aspects of it. I loved my fellow students, many of whom were British, Australian or South African. And Manor House gave the gift of literature to a child who was already a voracious reader.

When fifth grade rolled around, I transferred to the American school. But somehow the love of "things English" had wormed its way into my heart, and it has never let go.

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A village in England

I love the British way of wording things, so it's no surprise that many of my favorite authors are British. From Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte to C. S. Lewis, Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton, Noel Streatfield, Mary Stewart (Victoria Holt, Maeve Binchy (Irish, but still...), Rosamunde Pilcher and (more contemporarily) Katie Fforde...the British world is one I enjoy visiting for the duration of a book. I just love immersing myself in that atmosphere.



Two of my favorite childhood books, both of which I have been able to find on the internet in recent years, were both British: Red Knights from Hy Brasil and Auntie Robbo by Ann Scott-Moncrieff.

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The Bennett ladies in the Pride and Prejudice movie

Speaking of British authors, are there any Christian British authors? If so, please recommend them to me. (I know of only one that I can think of...Sam Yarney, whose Ninety Days I read and enjoyed.)

As for British humor--well, I know it can get bawdy at times, but I find the uniquely British turn of phrase often makes funny things even funnier. I've done my share of laughing at Monty Python, the British version of "The Office," and various British movies (About a Boy, with Hugh Grant, comes to mind immediately, but there are many others.)

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And the accent. Don't even get me started. You could read the dictionary to me in a British accent and I could listen all day!

My dream is to someday take a tour of the UK that will let me visit England, Ireland and Scotland. Until then, I'll curl up with my British books or watch a British movie, a cup of Earl Grey tea in hand...


Originally posted 11/5/10

Follow-up: a beautiful old church in Owston Ferry, England

UPDATE: Owston Ferry photographer Steve Oatway sent me this beautiful photograph, taken by him, of St Martin's Church in the snow


I love this moody, evocative portrait of St Martin's Church in Owston Ferry, England


St. Martin's Church, Owston Ferry, England (Wikipedia)

Not long ago, I blogged about my connection with a murder in a tiny English village. It's a pretty fascinating story, if you have a moment to read it.

Granted, my connection is tenuous. It all revolves around a book called Red Knights from Hy Brasil, and this sticker inside the book:



Shortly after writing that post, I got an e-mail from a photographer named Steve Oatway who lives in Owston Ferry and actually knows Peter Torn and even the vicar who signed that sticker (now retired.)

Steve offered to send me some photos of the village, and I haven't received them yet. (UPDATE: Steve has now sent me a photo of St Martin's, which I posted above.) But I got curious about St. Martin's Church, and turned up some fascinating photos and info about it on the internet.

Photo by Paul McConachie via


A very old place of worship

When Steve Oatway told me that St. Martin's is 600 to 800 years old, I was awestruck. We simply don't have buildings, much less churches, in America that are that ancient.

According to the church's website:

The earliest reference to a church in Owston Ferry is about 1150 CE. As none of the present fabric dates before 1280, there must have been an earlier building on the site. The site itself is within the inner bailey of the "Motte and Bailey" castle which formerly stood there.

A triple archway was built in 1859 at the entrance to the avenue of trees leading to the church.

photo by wiatrak2 via

Stained glass window inside the church

Another website relates:

The parish church, situate at the western end of the village of Owston Ferry, is dedicated to St. Martin and contains much of interest to the family historian, not least are those tombs therein of local gentry, the family containing most being that of Pindar, prominent in the Isle since the mid-sixteenth century.

... On the south side of the Church can be seen the mound on which stood in former times the keep of a "motte and bailey" castle, said to have been built shortly after the Conquest and held at one time by the powerful Mowbray famiLy. It was taken by Geoffrey, Bishop elect of Lincoln, in 1174, on behalf of Henry the Second and was later destroyed and never after rebuilt.

A view of the church's interior, from a Church of England website


St. Martin's choir members (also from this Church of England website)

As a confirmed Anglophile and lover of history, all this fascinates me. How I would love to visit England someday and see this incredible old church for myself.

In the meantime, I hope you've enjoyed these photos.

Note: Every effort has been made to give proper credit for these photos, which do not belong to me