Kate and I

Today I hopped on the train to Cambridge hoping to catch a glimpse of Kate. (That's a teaser of course; not the Duchess of Cambridge, but my own lovely Kate.)

We left from Liverpool station about 9:45. (I can tell that we're on vacation because both of us are sleeping in.) I started to purchase our tickets from an automated machine, but waited too long counting out the bills and coins, and it erased our order. Instead of trying again, Kate (sorry, Kathy) suggested that we talk to a human at the ticket counter. That was fine with me, because if anyone needs to talk to a human, I have her do it.

And she did. She got our ticket for about $10 less than I would have paid through the vending machine.

The trip to Cambridge takes about an hour and a half, stopping at about a dozen very small stations. It was really relaxing; maybe a little too relaxing. Both of us wished we'd picked up a pair of Venti Starbucks for the trip.

When we got into Cambridge, we walked around town, gawking at the different sights. (That's what tourists do, right?) We saw the "great" St. Mary's church, and walked through the market stalls in market square right in front. (I bought some pear drops. Kathy looked for a scarf but didn't find what she wanted.)

We walked around King's College, but didn't want to pay $20 to go inside, like we did at Oxford. After all, they didn't use this King's College as a set for Harry Potter's Hogwarts. (I'm kind of joking, but it's terrible that I'm so shallow!) In any event, with our late start we really didn't have time, so I'll fall back on that as my excuse.

We saw the alley next to the Wren library where Sir Isaac Newton clapped his hands to measure the speed of sound. We didn't go inside there either.

We even saw one of the mechanical Locusts from the Apocalypse in a store window. (It was moving as the circle it sat upon rotated. Very eerie; like something out of Alien.)

On the map I saw "The Wesley House", so we went looking for that. (It's at the end of Jesus Lane.) It turns out that it was the dorms for one of the colleges, so there was nothing to see. We tried to walk through several of the colleges, but didn't want to take a tour. (I guess educational institutions in England are trying to make ends meet any way they can. I've gotten some good ideas for OCC once I get back.)

On the other side of Trinity college we watched some tourists punting on the Cam. The actual students were doing the punting, taking group tours up and down the river.

At Christ Church they had a beautiful entry way, but no pictures of Christ. The only ornamentation was a relief of Charles Darwin.

What I'll really remember about Cambridge, though? I finally got my Fish and Chips! I wonder if the British feel about Fish and Chips like the French do about French Onion Soup; they only sell it to the tourists.

We left Cambridge about 4:00. I knew a shortcut to get back to the train, but thankfully, Kathy insisted on asking a human where the train station actually was before we went too far afield. The trip back was really relaxing (that is, we slept almost the whole way, despite remembering to buy coffee this time).

When we got back, around 6:00, Debbie had prepared a delicious roast chicken dinner. Afterwards we spent the rest of evening "telling our stories"; Kathy and I told Marshall and Debbie about spending time in Shiloh, and later working for Calvary Chapel. I thought that our story was pretty exotic. Debbie and Marshall had us beat though. Who knew that he'd marry a girl from his kindergarten class. They still have the picture; Kathy was able to pick out Debbie, but both of us missed picking out Marshall.

Another wonderful day. I'm thinking about leaving my job at OCC and going "on holiday" permanently.

A Little Rain, a Little Tea

I'm shocked, just shocked! There's rain in London.

We had a very restful night's sleep and didn't wake up until after 7:00. I'm always terrified that I'll wake up at midnight with Jet-lag and be completely awake, still on California time. Instead, we both had a full night's sleep and woke up ready to go.

Debbie and Kathy planned an afternoon (girl's only) tea at the Fan Museum, which left the morning free for the two of us to visit the sights. After breakfast, we got on the tube, and rode downtown to Westminster.

Walking out of the tube station is neat because you come out right underneath Big Ben, with Westminster Cathedral to your right. It's immediate sensory overload; it reminded me of getting off the train in Venice--it's so different.

As we walked around, the rain lessened a bit, until it was just a light drizzle, like Seattle or Portland. We walked around the Parliament buildings, then around the outside of Westminster Cathedral. (The line to get inside stretched about a block in either direction.)

After that we took a leisurely stroll down Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square. We passed some mounted  Cavalry Guards, advertising a museum exhibit.

And Kathy took my picture at 10 Downing Street (or as close as you can get these days).

When we got to Trafalgar, we looked at the iconic lions, the famous pillar with Admiral Nelson on top, and, a new addition: a large purple chicken. (Probably part  of the collection from the National Gallery which fronts Trafalgar square.) My picture isn't that good, since it was raining again.

The real reason we came to Trafalgar Square though, was to eat lunch again in the Cafe in the Crypt at St. Martins in the Fields church. The food is delicious and inexpensive, and the atmosphere just can't be beat.

Visiting Greenwich

 After lunch, we took the tube and DLR back to the Alnutt's,

where Debbie took Kathy away for tea with some of the other ladies from the church. Marshall took me in hand for the afternoon. We walked down the block and crossed under the Thames in the Greenwich pedestrian tunnel which comes out right at the Cutty Sark (which was closed the last time we were here.)

I managed to take a little tumble when I missed a step, and twisted my ankle slightly. Later this evening, though, it seems to be much better. There is a lot to see in Greenwich. The old Royal Naval Academy buildings are very impressive, and used for a lot of "period" films. Marshall tells me that much of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was shot here at Greenwich.

The first place we visited was the "painted hall" (which featured in the movie). Apparently, you can also rent it out for weddings, etc.

To save you from injuring yourself craning your neck to look at the ceiling, mirrored carts have been placed around the room so you can examine the paintings, or, take your own picture.

We also visited the Chapel next door. These are the only two buildings still open to the public. The rest of the buildings are part of the University of Greenwich, or a music conservatory. (You can sometimes hear the music across the Thames at Debbie and Marshall's house.)

One thing I had wanted to do (and that we didn't have time for on our last visit) was to climb the hill to the Royal Observatory. This is literally, the place where time begins. Everyone wants to get a picture like this:

I'm standing right on the Prime Meridian, with one half in the Western Hemisphere and the other in the Eastern. This is Greenwich Mean Time 0.

After quite a long walk around the grounds (which are beautiful in the rain, and, Marshall tells me, very popular and crowded when the sun comes out) we headed home to prepare for the Tuesday night Bible study. Since we couldn't get here for the Sunday service, both Kathy and I were excited to see the City Temple church where they have services. City Temple is the tower in the background; the church in front is an Anglican parish church.

Right across the street, on one of the businesses, someone hung a banner congratulating Will and Kate.

After service (Marshall taught on Hebrews chapters 12 and 13), we drove back home.
Another great day. I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Leaving for London, 2013

Well, we made it to London. As I write this, Kathy is unpacking our suitcases and we're getting ready for a little sleep. It's been a pretty great day (or two, depending on how you count things.)

Sunday morning was a steady stream of tasks to be completed-checking off the things we couldn't forget (tickets, check-money, check, passport, check), and all the little things that go into packing. When we finished up around noon, Kathy's suitcase weighted in at 22.2 pounds, and mine at 26.5 pounds.

Hosanna and Patrick came over to say goodbye; I played with Phoenix for one last time, and Judah loaded up our suitcases in Kathy's car and we set out for LAX, where we found:

• no traffic or trouble on the freeway; we made it there by 2:45
• no trouble getting our boarding passes (well maybe a little trouble; we had to ask someone to help us use the scanner. The helpful young lady did exactly what I had done, and our reservation popped up.)
• no trouble going through security
• no trouble getting on the plane (it left right on time)

Once we took off, it was fun to see that United Airlines uses Linux for their in-flight entertainment system. While everyone else was watching the takeoff video on their seat-backs, our row and the row in front of us were watching Tux the Penguin (the Linux mascot) as the system rebooted itself three times.

Coming into Heathrow was very pretty. There were a lot of very high, almost monsoonal clouds, but you could see the ground through them. It looked a lot like a movie. 

Just before we landed, we flew low over the city, so we could see all of the sights: Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, and so on.

When we got off the plane I forgot my backpack, so I had to go back and get it. After that, we took our time making our way over to immigration (border control here). It was kind of eerie walking through the miles of Heathrow corridors almost completely alone.

Because I had to go back and get my backpack, we were near the end of the short line for entering the UK. When we got to the head of the line, the Border Agent asked what we were doing in the UK. We said we were visiting friends in London, and then heading to Cornwall for a festival called CreationFest. He noticed (from my entry card) that I was a professor, and asked if I was speaking there. I told him no, not at all, but we'd be happy to volunteer to take out the trash or anything like that needed to get done.

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. If you are going to volunteer to do anything, you need a different kind of visa. The agent was very nice though, and told us, "I'm sure that you mean you just intend to go to the festival to look around, right?". Kathy and I looked at each other, and then back at the Border agent. "That sounds right", we both said.

On to London

Once we got through immigration, we headed downstairs to get on the Tube. We stopped off for a "toastie" at Costa on the way--a tomato and cheese toasted sandwich, just to take the edge off. We stood in line to get two Oyster Cards (the subway-bus-mass-transit pass) and then caught the Picadilly line to downtown.

We're staying with Debbie and Marshall Alnutt here in London; Marshall is the pastor of Calvary Chapel of the Docklands, which now meets in City Temple in downtown London. Debbie and Marshall live on the Isle of Dogs over past Canary Wharf, so we had to change tubes to the Jubilee line, and finally to the DLR train (Docklands Light Rail).

It sounds a lot more exhausting than it was. It was more like sightseeing (although we both kept drifting off every few minutes). When we finally got to the street Marshall and Debbie live on, the weather was beautiful and we could see across the Thames to Greenwich and the Cutty Sark.

When we got to the Alnutt's, it looked as if they weren't at home. (They actually were at home, but couldn't hear us because we didn't know how to use an English-style door-buzzer. We just kept pressing and letting up, generating no sound at all, instead of holding the buzzer button down.) We asked the property concierge if he would call Debbie's mobile for us, but that didn't work either. (It turned out, we'd written the number down twice, once incorrectly. The number we called was the incorrect one.)

After about an hour, we decided to head back to Canary Wharf to try and pick up a SIM card for the inexpensive Quad-Band GSM phone we'd purchased from Amazon before we left. (It's called a BLU Jenney). We found a store that sold SIM cards, about 10 pounds for 40 minutes of UK calling, and tried Debbie's phone again; that's when (with the help of a nice phone-store employee) we found the phone number mistake.

Once we got through to Marshall and Debbie, they headed on over to Canary Wharf (where we'd been planning to have dinner anyway.) We all when out for noodles at Wagamama's (I think that's right), and then headed back home. 

It's been a wonderful day!

Leaving For England Tomorrow...

And so much to do. Today I have to:

• unhook my school email and phone
• finish up the first week's lectures and assignments for when we get back (done)
• get packed
• try not to forget anything important

Judah's birthday is next week, and we'll be gone, so it would be nice to celebrate with him. (Although I did take him to breakfast this morning.) We'll see if I get finished.

We're both looking forward to the trip, unlike my brother Gary, when we set sail for England in 1960.

Steve, Gary and VaLois Jean Gilbert in 1960