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More Art History and a Shopping Mecca

There is a 100-foot column split in two on display in theVictoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. Naina and I can’t imagine how it got there. It takes the breath of any visitor who enters the cast gallery. Except this isn’t a cast it is the real thing. A Roman column dating back to 113 AD recounting the story of the Emperor Trajan’s victory in a great war in intricate carvings winding their way up from its base. The battle looked fierce and the victory sweet based on the carvings. Across the balcony is a replica of Michelango’s David and we are struck by it’s height, we can almost see into his eyes and we are at least a story up. It takes us a moment to leave this room after marveling over replicas of entire cathedral fronts that have made their way into the massive room. Intricate ironwork in the form of gates, railing, benches, locks, keys and fireplaces capture our attention as well and we morn the loss of such artistic trades. Everyone today seems to want the same thing pre-made. We navigate our way through the enormous halls, art in and of themselves, to the theater and performance exhibit, which features a breakfast dress worn by Dame Edna, the mangled guitar of Pete Townsend from the Who and the Punch and Judy puppets. That gives you a sense of how ecclectic this exhibit is. Naina has to leave to pick up her sister, but I go on to see an Elton John costume, Adam Ant’s Prince Charming outfit and one of Mick Jagger’s unitards. I am equally thrilled to see costumes worn by Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton. I also learn a bit about the first black man to play Othello and make the part famous in England, Ira Aldridge. He was African-American and a stand in for the white actor who suddenly fell ill.

From theater and performance, I move on to the jewelry exhibit that showcases beautiful and not so pretty pieces that date back to early Egyptian times through present day. The baubles are organized by date and what was happening culturally at the time as well as by purpose. Jewelry has been worn throughout time by men and women to bring fertility, protect children, ward off evil spirits or show religious fervor and devotion, as well as just to show off. An amazing emerald and diamond encrusted, crown, necklace and earring set worn by a Duchess is across the room from Art Deco rings that a flapper may have worn in the 1920s. If you are woman who loves her trinkets, it’s worth the trip. Finally, I stop for lunch and I decide not to go far and visit the museum cafe. What a treat. The dining rooms are works of art. I am having a slice of quiche and salad in a room depicting the seasons and months in stained glass and blue and white tile. It is gorgeous. I linger longer with a pot of tea and scones.

I want to stay longer at the museum because there is so much to see, but Harrod’s is nearby and I want to hit the famed department store before it closes. I’ve never seen so many women in berkas or hijab in one place in my life. Some women were dressed completely in black from head to toe with just eyes showing, others had more fanciful head wraps that shimmered or twisted in unique ways. They were mobbing the handbag counters, Louis, Chanel, Marc Jacobs, you name it they were there. The Harrod’s in London may very well be the shopping mecca of the Muslim woman’s world. I make may way to the Egyptian escalator and it is unexpectedly garish in a place that you might associate with staid style. But there it is, full of tourists and shoppers making their way between five floors of luxury and designer clothes, furniture, china, etc. I have to stop at the shoe floor where I spot one of the black-blanketed women trying on a pair of red suede platform pumps matching the color of her painted nails. I guess if you can only wear black and remain covered head to toe, you have got to find other ways to make a fashion statement and a pair of red suede pumps are definitely saying something. I wander around on the designer dress floor through Balenciaga and the British designers like Rag and Bone and Karen Millen. The salespeople looked bored out of their minds. They are dressed in black too and wear kind of hollow looks as they ask if they can help you. They all look similar as if they stepped out of Vogue. In fact, I imagine that working at the Harrod’s maybe a lot like a scene from “The Devil Wears Prada.”

After my luxury shopping encounter, I decide to head back towards the museum to Kengsington Park to see the Prince Albert and Princess Diana Memorials. Making my way down Brompton Road, I spot more Arab folk taking in afternoon hookahs rather than afternoon tea. The Prince Albert Memorial is stunning. You can tell that Queen Victoria’s hubby was well loved and respected as you look skyward at the gold-spired gazebo with a golden Albert in the center. Diana’s memorial is more understated. Maybe she would have wanted it that way. It is described as a memorial fountain, but it is more like a babbling brook and kids have rolled up their pants legs to traverse the concrete loop of running water.

It’s my last night at Naina’s so I head back to Wimbeldon to enjoy a quiet dinner with her, Josh and her newly-arrived sister from California, Sonja. Naina and Josh have made a nice cozy place for themselves despite the challenges of having to hang dry their clothes versus drying them in a dryer, dealing with poor customer service or longing for ziplock bags, band-aids that stick and other things you never thought you’d miss back in the States. But I think any place where you where you connect with good people over food and wine for good conversation can feel homey and their place feels that way. Another London ex-pat perspective to come from my friend Ugo.

 

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Beefeaters Do Show Tunes and Brushes with Fame and Infamy

We aren’t sure if we are watching a marching band at the Macy’s Day Parade or the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace when we hear the James Bond theme music, followed by “Goldfinger” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” But we are definitely in front of Buckingham Palace watching the guys in the big bearskin hats and red uniforms march in tune. They don’t do the dips and formations like a good high school marching band, they just peel off from the rest of their regiment in twos, sometimes groups of six and march past or right up to the gate. Some of the guards carry heavy flags. One guy looked too small for his heavy hat, which was slightly askew. Other guards carry massive riffles with the deadliest looking bayonets on the end that I’ve ever seen.

Yesterday, Naina told me that these guards are called Beefeaters because back in leaner times, they were fed beef and the best cuts of meat because they had the duty of protecting royalty. Folks with less were resentful and called the soldiers “beefeaters,” meant to be a derrogatory term. Times have changed, especially once they appeared on a gin bottle.

When we first arrive at the palace gates there are throngs of tourists and we have to crane our necks to get a peek at what’s going on. It’s like a gathering of the United Nations. We hear Spanish, Italian, Japanese, English, maybe even some Farsi. Little kids sit on their father’s shoulders and narrate the scene unfolding just beyond the gates. “They are coming this way! They went over there!” It’s a little chaotic, but kind of fun.

We are standing behind a family from Portland, Oregon. The wife is from Silver Spring, Maryland. We learn that this is about a half-hour long ceremony. I was thinking that it would be over in about 10 minutes. We guess at what the guards are doing, unsure if we’ve seen the change over in guards or not. There’s alot of passing of guards and because they all look pretty much the same, it’s hard to tell if new guards have come out and taken their place or not. And, there appears to be a lot happening that may or may not be related to the actual ceremony.

At one point, a horse drawn carriage arrives and passes through the gates. We wonder who is inside. We think something important is happening today because we saw a lot of Brits dressed up, ladies in hats or wearing those now famous fascinators. Some men were in suits and even in tuxedos and tails. Maybe it WAS the Queen. A short time later we see a less swanky vehicle pass through the gates, something that looks like a green smart car. Was all this a part of the ceremony? We even think we may be on the site of a crime scene as a woman behind us whispers that the police found a man hanged nearby. As I said, there was alot happening. Eventually, some of our fellow curious tourists start to lose patience and the crowd starts to thin. We are able to get right up to the gates for a better view of more passing guards and marching band tunes. Finally, it appears to be over. Guards process out of the palace gates and start a parade towards St. James Park. We decide not to follow the parade or the crowds and turn in the other direction in search of lunch. We stop at a cute cafe not far away for sandwiches and return to the palace for more pomp and circumstance.

There is plenty of pomp and circumstance at the Royal Mews, the working stables of the palace. The horses snack on hay as we pass through to see the carriages, which are definitely something out of a fairytale, each used for different occassions. One is for the Queen to ride in to open Parliament and another just carries her lighted crown for all her British subjects to view. Then there is the royal Bentley which was built for her to stand up in. Naina and I guess that the Queen must be 4’2, because it doesn’t look like an average-sized person, let alone a petite 5-foot person like me, could stand up in the vehicle. The most ostentatious thing we have the pleasure of laying our eyes on is the Golden State Coach, which weighs 4 tons and can only go about 10 miles per hour with six horses pulling it. It is baroque with a capital B. I like to think of it as the royal pimp mobile. It is only used for the most special of occassions like coronations, most recently for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebration. Only the pictures can do it justice. The tour ends with the carriage that carried William and Kate to Buckingham Palace after their nuptials at Westminster Abbey in April.

 A few steps from the Mews is the Royal Gallery, which houses a rotating exhibit of art and decorative items aquired by the royals over the years. The current exhibit features items based on greek myths and mythology. There were paintings, jewelry and furniture showcasing Cupid, Diana and Apollo throughout. My favorite was a painting, possibly painted by a suitor of Queen Elizabeth I. She is painted into the greek myth “The Judgement of Paris.” She appears to be in the role of Paris, judging the beauty of Athena, Aphrodite and Venus. But the Queen holds the prize, suggesting that she is more beautiful than these goddesses. The next room holds the fanciful collection of King George IV, who apparently had a passion for decorating and just acquiring the most exotic items of questionable taste that he could find. Naina visited an entire palace of his over-the-top collection just outside London recently.

 

Feeling a bit of museum fatigue, we decide to break for tea and stroll through St. James Park, which is home to a bevy of unusual-looking waterfowl like the coot, a small shiny black bird with a white beak and face plate. I tell Naina that Mike Tyson would love the place with all the pigeon varieties strutting past. (He has a thing for pigeons, if you didn’t know.)

The St. James Inn is a lovely place for tea, except that they’ve run out of scones. We make do with finger sandwiches and tasty little cakes. Then it is off to the top London sites. Trafalgar Square is first and it is characteristically mobbed with tourists and Londoners just hanging out between the fountains, on the stairs and in any other open space that we can find. There is a man playing a fire-breathing tuba, headless people holding umbrellas and other odd street performers. From there we make our way over to Westminster Abbey, passing Big Ben and the Parliament on the way. There is a massive line to get into Parliament and we can’t figure out why. A policemen tells us that it has something to do with the newspaper phone tapping scandal. There’s also a small demonstration against the Libya bombings just across the street in a space similar to Lafayette Park in DC. We make it to the Abbey which is quite impressive from the outside, but not more so that Notre Dame in Paris in my opinion. We see the entrance where a commoner named Kate stepped out of a carriage to marry a prince.

We’ve crammed a lot into one day, but it is rush hour and rather than fight our way through the crowds on the tube, we walk along Thames and the South Bank Centre past the Eye, the massive ferris wheel and what one of the writers from Lonely Planet says reminds them of the Eye of Mordor from the Lord of the Rings.

Along the South Bank there is a skate park and I see a group of teens practicing dance moves, maybe they hope to be Britain’s next Back Street Boys. Naina and I end our day in a warm, bustling Italian restaurant famished after about 8 hours of walking, but satisfied with the days events. When we get home, we catch up on London’s news and learn that we hadn’t been invited to the Queen’s annual garden party at Buckingham Palace. We are sure they wouldn’t have noticed us among it’s 8,000 guests. We also learn that a man really did hang himself from a tree just across the street from Buckingham Palace. A police officer covered his body with a tarp during the changing of the guard. And, police testified before Parliament as they investigated the newspaper tapping scandal that shut down the News of the World paper last week. All the people we saw at Parliament were press and spectators. It seems that more than Naina and I had a very busy day.

 

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Wimbeldon Dream Realized and A Sri Lankan Feast

I didn’t quite want to reach down and grab a handful of grass and eat it, but I was definitely thrilled to be touring the grounds of the All England Tennis and Lawn Club. Finally, I’d made it to Wimbeldon and I didn’t even have to lift a racket! I am sure eating the grass would have been prohibited, given that we couldn’t even touch it on our tour. Besides, this seems to be reserved for people who actually win Wimbeldon, beating Rafa Nadal in the process, like Novak Djokovic. I am with my friend and former Discovery colleague, Naina Mistry, who now lives a short bus ride away near downtown Wimbeldon and had the distinct pleasure of actually attending some of the matches a few weeks ago. I am green with envy when she talks of having Pimms and strawberries and cream on Henman Hill and scoring Center Court tickets to see Andy Murray play in the early rounds. I resolve to return as a spectator as we stroll through the museum before our tour. I find out why this is THE place to win a grand slam in tennis because it is the birthplace of tennis as we know it. The winner of the very first match at Wimbeldon, on space loaned at the existing cricket club, said that he didn’t think the sport had much of a future. We later learn than over 38,000 people attend Wimbeldon each year. It’s a pretty nice museum and we wish we’d allowed ourselves more time to see all the exhibits as we blow by a tennis fashion display, featuring lace ruffled and shiny blue tennis panties worn by past women’s players. I can’t miss the chance to get a shot of the gold and silver plate and trophy. The tour is chock full of tennis buff tidbits and behind-the-scenes peeks at Wimbeldon, like where the pros check in for their matches and winners collect their prize money of 1.1 million pounds. Even the first-round losers collect 1,000 pounds for their troubles. I pose for a photo in the place where the press interview players after each match. If only I’d started playing tennis at age 5. I could see my name listed with all the other tennis greats on a wall where members and players pass. We actually do see members of the club playing tennis. They look to be 80 or older, hair as white as their tennis togs. Their balls fly outside the court lines more frequently than they would like, I am sure. The only way you can become a member is if you have won Wimbeldon or if you’ve got a lot of money and connections and can play a bit of tennis. The tour ends appropriately at Center Court. It’s actually kind of cozy. I imagine sitting on the edge of my seat as I watch Rafa and Roger play for four hours straight or agonize over which Williams sister to root for in the finals. A lot of great tennis has been played here and I hope some of it rubs off on me. In the gift shop, I buy a Wimbeldon visor and t-shirt for inspiration.

After our tour, we have to rush back to Naina’s to meet her husband Josh and make a dinner date with my friend Sid’s sister in a town about 20 minutes away. Naina’s neighborhood is quite cute like most of the British neighborhoods I’ve seen so far. Each house seems to have a colorful door with colored glass cutouts, but no door knobs. Colorful tiled walkways lead up to these doors preceded by immaculate small gardens. Naina’s neighborhood seems to be ethnically diverse too. I’ve seen South Asians and people of African descent. Naina says there is a large ex-pat community here too with people hailing from Germany, Australia and America. One of Naina’s friends calls Wimebldon Nappie Town because of all the babies. I count about six strollers, called push carts or buggies, as we make our walk back. Josh walks in moments after we arrive. I’ve never met Josh before and he welcomes me warmly with a handshake and proceeds to pick large-winged ants, or may be they are gnats, out of my hair. We passed through swarms of them on our walk back and Josh witnessed several people freaking out at the bus stop in what appeared to be a mini plague. I am grateful for his help. Insects in the hair definitely are not cool. Once we appear to be bug-free, we head to New Malden for a Sri Lankan dinner prepared by my friend Sid’s sister Iresha. I’ve only just met Iresha a few weeks ago via Skype at Sid’s place. I met Sid at a New Year’s Eve party waiting in line for the bathroom and we became fast friends. He insisted that I meet his sister while in London and it was a lovely idea. Iresha greets us with a kiss on each cheek when we arrive at her home and the smell of curry emanates from the kitchen. We meet a few of Iresha’s house mates, also from Sri Lanka, and chat over tea before dinner. When Iresha laughs, she has the same laugh as Sid, genuine and contagious. Naina shares a bit about her travels to Sri Lanka as a child and Iresha knows a bit about the places she’s visited. Soon dinner is on the table. There is chicken curry, potatoes, dahl, basamati rice and a salad of pineapple, bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots and peppers. You recognize good home cooking no matter the nationality and we were about to have some good home cooking. There were only three places set at the table and we asked if they were eating with us and they said no, this was all for us. We couldn’t believe it and insisted they dine with us, but they would hear none of it and said this was their culture. So, we dug in, piling on rice, then curry, followed by potatoes, dahl and salad. It was all so good. Just the right spice. But the dahl was phenomenal. Unlike any dahl we’d ever tasted. The coriander burst in your mouth with perfectly cooked lentils. Iresha practically cheered when we got second helpings and Josh wiped out the last of the dahl. Josh, by the way, appeared to be in food rapture. He moaned happily with each bite. He said he was a fan of South Indian cuisine, but had never had Sri Lankan before. I am certain that he is a fan of Sri Lankan food now, too. We linger a bit longer before we say our good-byes. On our way back to the bus, we encounter the sweet greasy smell of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. A surprising sight in a south London neighborhood. Its sign says drive-in, which appears to mean drive in, park and sit at a picnic table to have a doughnut. Naina remarks that it is probably good that we have stuffed ourselves with food, otherwise we’d be lured in by the intoxicating smell. The bus arrives just in time.

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Place Where the Cows Cross the River

We are in the process of walking through a herd of cows when Helen mentions Oxford’s etymological origins. Oxford means literally ox fjord or ox passage way. It makes sense in the current situation. She also says the cows won’t bother us if we don’t bother them. I just take a photo or two or three. I’ve never walked through a herd of cows before and it’s pretty smelly as you might imagine. We are again doing something very British and taking a walk through Oxford’s Port Meadow on our way to a proper British lunch at The Trout. We’ve already passed another cow gathering on the other side of the Thames, two women who seemed to be fine with being surrounded by a gaggle of geese and a man with a piece of grass in his mouth like an old Huck Finn. It is the most beautiful day of my stay in England by far and I’m overdressed. You just never know how to prepare for the weather, so you over prepare. I’m wearing a scarf, black long-sleeved shirt and and a thin black jacket during what appears to be a heat wave. I wore a scarf and a jean jacket yesterday and kept my umbrella half open to ward off intermittent rain showers.

 After successfully walking through a herd of cows without incident, we continue along the Thames as Brits breeze by on bikes and paddle past in canoes on a gorgeous Sunday. When we reach The Trout, it’s an oasis of umbrellas with mellow happy Brits under them. I look forward to joining them. We start with a refreshing Pimms on the patio overlooking the Thames. This time I get a picture of the fruit-filled beverage. Helen and I just take in the lovely day and when we get to our table we order traditional British dishes, fish and chips for Helen and beef rib roast with Yorkshire pudding, also known as pub roast, for me. There is a lively group of women sitting behind us. Their conversation ranges from eHarmony to a date with a DJ who was cute but as short as a midget. I am reminded of an episode of “Sex in the City.” As we wait for our dishes, a very bold duck visits the diners from time to time, eyeing each patron and table for tasty scraps. He even lingers at our table for a bit in a staring contest. Luckily, we’d finished our appetizer of bread, olives and vinegar and oil. When our main meal comes, it looks amazing. Helen’s fish is perfectly battered and golden brown. A fluffy puff pastry, which is also known as pudding, sits atop juicy slices of beef, covering roasted parsnips, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli with golden potatoes that taste like they’ve been roasted in apple juice. Gold star for The Trout.

 

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Churchill’s Palace of Wonders

Blenheim Palace grandly emerges from a cluster of verdant trees. Its amber walls appear to glisten in the English sunlight. Helen has recommended that we enter the back gate of the palace for just this view. It is stunning. To the right of the palace is a great stone bridge crossing a serene lake with ducks and swans lazily paddling past. We make our way across lush, yet closely cropped grass to the main entrance just beyond rows of tour buses which mar the reverie that one could be approaching the palace on important business. It’s still pretty grand though.

 

Blenheim Palace is the home of the current Duke of Marlborough, the 11th of a long line dukes carrying the same title, and was most notably the birthplace of Winston Churchill. In 1705, the first Duke of Marlborough, Sir John Churchill, a distant cousin of Winston, was given the property and funds to build a palace by Queen Anne after winning a crucial battle at Blenheim. A copy of the note that he wrote to the queen announcing his victory is on display in one of the many ornate state rooms. It was written on the back of a pub bill. The tapestries in that same state room tell the story of the victorious battle. A 110-pound silver centerpiece in the Salon shows the duke riding on his horse on the way to share his news with the queen. An American, and a Vanderbilt to boot, was a Duchess of Marborough in the 1940s. Her portrait appears throughout the house and in one of the state rooms is a carved golden bassinet, a replica of one that her mother saw in an Italian museum and insisted that her grandson sleep in something similar. Just down the hallway is the room where Churchill was born and exhibit featuring his letters, writings, family portraits and his water paintings. Did you know that his art has been featured on Hallmark Cards? Me, neither. I love learning random facts like that, which made this an enjoyable tour. The tour guide looked like he could have been one of the previous dukes, old and stately. One of the most impressive rooms inside the home was the library, said to be the second longest library in a private home in the UK. Not a bad statistic when you can also boast that you have the largest organ in a private home in that same library. It’s a large grey pipe organ sitting at the opposite end of the library from a marble statue of Queen Anne. Also, in the room are photos of past presidents and dignitaries who have visited Blenheim like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, along with clear signs that a duke lives there such as an invitation to the wedding of Charles and Diana.

And, as impressive as the inside of the palace is, the outside is even more so with gorgeous grounds and gardens. Helen and I decide to take a walk, a common British past-time, and plenty of others have the same idea. Apparently, locals like to spend their weekends at the palace, packing a picnic or just strolling its paths. We start at the Water Terraces at the back of the palace where little cherubs balance on the edge of still pools lined with precisely cut bushes. It’s the perfect day for a walk and we need to walk off the bacon sandwiches and cream tea that we had for lunch earlier. It is cool with a slight breeze and moments of brilliant sunshine. We walk along the lake and spot an interesting tree with a sturdy low hanging branch and wonder how it grew without snapping. We stop to take photos of dainty waterlilies a few steps away, then walk on to pass a water cascade and into a beautiful rose garden with at least 10 varieties of roses ranging in color from coral to red and yellow to white.

 

 

elen and I could have spent even more time exploring the grounds, but we had to make our way back to Oxford to meet one of Helen’s friends for dinner. On the 25-minute bus ride from Woodstock back to Oxford we sat in the front row at the top of the double-decker bus for a fun view of a poppy field and a plane flying into the Oxford airport. Our first stop in Oxford was the Turf Tavern, apparently the place to stop for a beer in Oxford. We enter through a narrow cobblestone alley way and find ourselves in a crowed courtyard of rosy-faced students, older academics and familes with kids. We can’t find a seat outside, so we duck inside the stone-walled pub with low ceilings and mismatched wood furniture and banquettes. We finally find a spot to sit and save a spot for Helen’s friend Duncan, a writer for Newsweek, covering China. Helen sends me off to get some beers and while at the bar, I remember that she said that I had to have a Pimms, so I order one and get a cider for Helen. The Pimms is my new favorite drink. I failed to take a picture of one because I liked it so much. Basically, it is gin-based liquor, reddish in color, mixed with ginger ale and garnished with fruits and some vegetables. Mine had oranges, apples and cucumbers. It was so refreshing and delicious.

Duncan arrived with a ginger beer and snacked on potato chips, or crisps as they are called here, a common thing to do while having a beer in a pub. We started talking immediately about the journalism news of the week–the shutdown of the News of the World, Britain’s largest tabloid paper owned by Rupert Murdoch. NoW, as it is called, was at the center of a wiretapping scandal, alledgely tapping phones of celebrities, soldiers and missing children, in order to get private details and the first scoop on big stories. The scandal even touched the prime minister’s spokesperson, a former editor. Duncan and other British journalists suspect that Murdoch shotdown the paper to take any heat off his son in top management at the paper. We went on to talk about Weiner-gate and other topics surrounding the sad state of journalism before we all made our way to a quaint Bengali restaurant. We dined on mildly spiced chicken and lamb dishes as the conversation turned to China’s desperate desire to become more modern at the expense of its amazing ancient cultural architecture with skyscrapers and malls replacing gardens and old homes.We also laugh at ridiculously translated signs that we encountered while visiting China. Duncan recalls a sign on a drink vending machine recently, which was loosely translated into English: Don’t share cans unless you are lovers. Before we know it, it is almost midnight and we part ways on a clear, cool and pleasant evening. Honeysuckle blooms perfume our slow stroll home.

 

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Soaking in Bath and Finding Jane Austen

I think I was a Roman noble woman in a past life. I am certain that I frequented the Roman baths at Bath, known as Aquae Sulis, in that former life. It would explain why I like spas so much. I would have started in the hot spring waters, about 114 F, of the Great Bath, relaxing in one of its alcoves after my swim and maybe purchasing the latest Egyptian fragrance from one of the roaming vendors. I’d probably move to one of the steam rooms in the West Bath and take a cooling dip in the natural spring waters of the frigidarium, a wonderful cleansing treatment for my pores. It’s hard not to get immersed in the rich history presented at the Roman ruins of Bath, the original health spa. It clearly deserves its status as a World Hertitage Site from UNESCO. The two-hour long audio tour is an expert bit of storytelling, laying out the historical, cultural, archeological and architectural significance of the place in a very accessible way. It is truly stunning to see how well preserved the ruins are from the baths to a temple worshipping the wise goddess Sulis-Minerva. I loved learning about how the Romans of Aquae Sulis turned to Sulis-Minerva to dole out punishment to people who had wronged them, hiring professional curse-writers to put their offenses to paper or pewter and tossing them into her sacred springs for her consideration. A perfectly-preserved bronze head from a statue of the goddess at the temple is the crowned jewel of the entire site. While wandering through the relatively manageable crowds, I was was struck by a small group of students who looked to be no more than 6, cradling audio phones almost half the size of their bodies to their ears and scribbling notes on the ruins on clipboards. At the end of the tour, you are invited to sample the spring’s restorative waters, which I do. If you like your water warm with the taste of a copper penny, you’ll enjoy it. The water was definitely minerally and you can imagine the infirmed “taking the water” like taking Phillips Milk of Magnesia. Not tasty, but something you have to do in the hopes of feeling better.

 The water tasting takes place in the “Pump Room,” a dining space built on top of the temple ruins that harkens back to the 18th century history of Bath. A piano player plays a delightful tune and I decide to have lunch and imagine couples waltzing beneath a golden chandelier. I am starved after the two-hour tour and order a roast beef sandwich with tomato soup and fries along with a ginger beer. I relish the fact that I’ve missed another one of Brittain’s unexpected cloud bursts as I lunch. I don’t have much time to linger because I want to visit the Jane Austen Center about a 10-minute walk away. A top-hatted, white-haired gentleman greets me as I enter the center to explore more about another one of my favorite authors. Jane Austen lived in Bath in a house similar the one that the center is housed in a few doors down. The city is featured prominently in her first and last novels “Northhanger Abbey” and “Persuasion.” If you are a fan of Austen, you’ll appreciate this thoughtful, but small exhibit placing her life and work in context in Bath. I studied a copy of a portait of Jane as drawn by her sister and a letter written in her own hand. The Regency Tea Room sits on the top floor of the Jane Austen Center and this would be a perfect place for afternoon tea. I order the Jane Austen Blend of loose teas and the Bath bun, a sweet yeasty bun dotted with raisins. Once again, I marvel at my luck dodging a particularly fierce rain storm with lighting shooting from blackened clouds. I am cozy in a room full of portraits of Austen and Mr. Darcy; harpsicord music plays in the background. I’ve gone from feeling Roman to positively British.

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Smarty Pants on Parade

There are lots of smart people hanging around Oxford, in case you didn’t know. The place is lousy with them–the confidently smart, the unassumingly smart, the old and smart, the young and smart. My friend Helen is one of these smart people. She has just written a book, “Keeping the Nation’s House: Domestic Management and the Making of Modern China,” on the role of women and home economics in forming modern-day China. She’s a tenured Chinese history professor at Virginia Tech University and she’s a research associate for one of the leading academics on Chinese history. This is how I come to attend a lecture on western journalists covering China. It interests me too, given my journalism background. The panel is made up of two journalists and two academics who discuss the challenges of covering China accurately and trying to avoid spreading stereotypes about the nation and its people. Covering any topic honestly and accurately is the goal of any journalist, but covering a place as complex and with a history as vast as China’s appears to be particulary difficult, and few do it well, according to this panel. We are in a room full of equally smart undergraduate and graduate students from China who ask all the questions we want to ask and crowd the panelists as if they are rock stars once the lecture is over.

After the lecture, Helen and I join her equally accomplished friends and colleagues for Sichuan Chinese food in an building that looks like a lecture hall called The Old School. Her friends Amy, Jen, and Lily share her interest in China and they order from the menu in fluent Chinese. It is impressive and an impressive array of food arrives at our table. It is all spicy and delicious and we cool our mouths with Tsingtao beers.

It’s the end of a day full of marveling at the history smart people at Oxford. Earlier, I went to the Ashmolean, the oldest public museum in the UK, chock full of artifacts from early European, Asian and Middle Eastern cultures. I was stopped by Powhatan’s Mantle. Powhatan was the chief of the Powhatans when John Smith arrived at Jamestown. There is debate as to whether or not Powhatan’s mantle was a cloak or a wall hanging, but it reminded me of Aboriginal art, circles of beads surrounded beaded images of two animals, maybe deer, on either side of a man. The museum did a great job of linking the intersection of cultures, art and religion through trade and wars that brought these diverse peoples in contact. It’s why Spanish tiles look like Morrocan tiles, which also look like Turkish tiles. I couldn’t make it though the entire four floors of the collection. I found myself practically running though the exhibit rooms before I had to meet Helen for lunch in the museum’s cafe.

The smarty pants tour continued through a few more of Oxford’s colleges and sites. We wove our way through trongs of tourists and prospective Oxford students along the way, making our way to the courtyard of the Bodleian Library, one of the world’s oldest public libraries. At New College, we marvelled at its beautiful gardens. Due to a shout out from my former colleague Beth, we stopped at St. Edmund’s Hall, the last of the medieval halls, which actually looked quite modern and quaint at the same time. It reminded us most of our alma mater, Swarthmore, somehow. I think Magdalen College was one of my favorites of the bunch, its chapel boasted a replica of DaVinci’s Last Supper. The cloisters were bursting with white hydrangeas against a vibrantly green lawn. One of England’s famed red phone booths was a pleasant surprise along with a deer park, where the deer put on a little show for us. Legend has it that the deer here inspired C.S. Lewis to include the fawn character in his Narnia chronicles. We stopped for scones and a pot of tea at the country’s oldest coffeehouse, maybe the world’s first, Queen’s Lane, where apparently Tolkien, Lewis and other liked to have literary chats. And, we ended our tour at Queen’s College, site of the lecture, which had a very Baroque feel. It’s chapel featured a guilded eagle, chandeliers and a ceiling painting ala the Sistine Chapel. Having seen smartness through the ages and walked along the path of past smarties, I am now feeling rather smart myself.

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Narrow Boating and Walking in the Cotswolds

Mark and Helen are Great Britain’s answer to RVers. They sold their home to follow their dream of navigating England’s 2,000 miles of canals and inland waterways on their 6.9 foot wide narrowboat called the Morialta II. Helen and I met Mark and Helen as we walked along the Oxford Canal on our way to the train station. They were drifting along as we walked and struck up a conversation. They’d been traveling since May and guessed they would reach their goal by October, but they were taking their time. They’d just come from the Henley Royal Regatta festivities. Mark and Helen looked like they didn’t have a care in the world. Helen wore a pink tube top, while Mark sported a blue and white stripped polo shirt, fitting for the captain of his very own narrowboat. Mark and Helen are also quite trusting. They invited us onto their boat for a tour and a quick ride down the canal towards the train station. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I grabbed Mark’s arm and jumped on the rear where he had been steering. Helen took us the length of the boat about 60-feet of compact living space including an expandable bed, full bath with small tub and shower, kitchen with washing machine and living room with working fireplace. After our quick tour, Mark asked us if we wanted to steer. Helen declined, but there was no way I was going to pass up the chance. He turned over the tiller without a second thought and just at a point where there were other narrowboats to the left and the canal’s edge to the right. I found myself drifting toward the boats, narrowly missing another narrowboat. I over-corrected and navigated the boat into the canal wall at which point Mark thought better of his decision to let me navigate, cooly taking the tiller back from me. It was awesome! We only had a few more minutes before we had to catch our train to the Cotswolds, so we said our good-byes hoping Mark and Helen would stay in touch.

We made our train just in time, which was ridiculously hot and stuffy, but had cart service. I found that interesting on a commuter train. We were on our way to Moreton-in-Marsh, a town in The Cotswolds, which is basically the British countryside known for its quaint villages and old manor houses. There is a popular open market in Moreton-in-Marsh on Tuesdays, so we thought it would be a good day to visit. Sadly, it started to rain as we arrived and the market was fairly small, selling a hodgepodge of items, from shoes to fresh fruit and vegetables. We bought a pound of cherries to take home and then wandered around town stopping at the church. Helen pointed out the fact that all the buildings in the Cotswolds are distinguished by their yellow brick. We also stopped by a little art gallery where I bought two items representative of my journey, a pair of painted wire robins. The proprietor of the gallery suggested that we walk to the town arboretum, but first we decided to have lunch at one of the many tea shops in Moreton-in-Marsh. We chose The Marshmallow on the main street with its proper country decor of white table and chairs, pale blue table dressings and an outdoor conservatory, what we Americans would call an enclosed porch. I dined on a sausage sandwich and Helen had a bacon and mushroom sandwich. We shared a pot of tea and a slice of tasty carrot and ginger sponge cake.

 We were thankful that the rain had stopped as we started the 20-minute walk to the arboretum, unfortunately about 10 minutes into our walk it started to rain again. It was enough time to get a few pretty pictures of rolling hills dotted with grazing sheep before we decided to head back to the train.On our walk back to Helen’s we stopped at one of her favorite pubs in Oxford, The Anchor, for a beer and light fare. I ordered the IPA and we decided to share the woodpigeon with a butternut squash risotto and sage frites. It was delish.