This is totally not cool, but I am jumping ahead to London temporarily, will come back to the stops in Australia, Indonesia, India, and Jordan shortly (or sometime thereafter). This is mostly to reassure those of you who have inquired about our well-being (okay, the one of you) that we have made it here in one piece (or make that, two pieces, depending how you count).

I’ll leave the end of the organized trip for later, to be recounted in sequence (no spoilers here), so I’ll pick things up here from after checking in to our new hotel, the Lancaster London, near Lancaster Gate (meaning, gate into Hyde Park). On recommendation from several of the folks on the tour, we decided to get tickets for one of the double-decker tour buses to see the famous sites of central London (makes a round in two to two-and-a-half hours, stupposedly [sic]), then to use the 48-hour ticket as a hop on/hop off pass to get around to the sites we want to actually visit. Big mistake. Or, at least a 50£ ($85) mistake, which I guess in London may not be that bad, a stick of gum isn’t too much less than that. Anyway, after noticing that the Original Tour T2 (red) line bus started deviating from the planned route, I asked the driver, “What the crikey???”, and he informed me that there was a fatal accident in the West End, after which they close the street for the investigation, and the bumper-to-bumper maze-crawling that is normal traffic in central London actually just comes to a halt. Here is our front-row seat view it:

Being stopped in traffic, I was able to snap this beautifully framed, artistic view (some would just say, obstructed view) of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. Brings memories rushing back of The Giant Alexander (continuing the theme of memorable/haunting childhood books).

We were actually on our way to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which those of you who have been to my house know I have a painting of hanging over my living room mantle (the pride of my meager collection). I also have 25+ recordings of St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir, including the full set of 150 Psalms set to Anglican chant (which I listen to soothe me through troubled times—this is true). I have always wanted to visit. So we did. And it is spectacular.

We didn’t actually do a full visit of the cathedral and climb the dome as most do (of course, I didn’t climb the Citgo sign in 4 years of living a block-and-a-half from it in Boston either), but really only because we arrived when visiting hours were ending (having traveled at an average speed of a snail on crutches from Kensington Gate). We did however stay for the Evensong service, which is open to the public. We actually got to sit in the quire (not “choir”), which was a nice experience. I think the sound in the nave, under the dome, is probably bigger and more reverberant, but the quire was closer to both the choir and the lector, and more intimate. The choral director, by the way, is now Andrew Carwood, of Cardinall’s Musick fame, which is very interesting since he is not an organist (the first ever?). We’ll give him a pass, however, since I believe he knows something of liturgical choral music. The choir performed very nicely, except for a little shakiness in a couple of the solo trebles during the prayers (“collects”). It actually turns out that it was the feast day of St. Edmund, so the service included a hymn and a few other extensions (I think). In the Wikipedia article on Edmund the Martyr, it says “Almost nothing is known of Edmund”—the article then goes on for another 3,600 words. Go figure. Anyway, it was a really nice experience, at least for me. Mom was not so moved. She’s not so happy in cold and rain. Welcome to London.

The next day (which would be today), we headed out in the morning for Westminster Abbey. We had wanted to walk across Hyde Park to Knightsbridge to see Herrod’s, but guess what? It was cold and rainy. So we decided to switch to plan B and “Tube” it. We switched trains at the beautiful old Notting Hill Gate station (no facetiousness there, it really is old and beautiful).

We got out at the Westminster station, right by the Westminster Bridge, the House of Parliament, and Big Ben. How happy does Mom look about being there in the cold and the rain?

Of course, you can’t actually see Big Ben, since it is the bell in the tower, but we did hear it chime 10:15 (either Ben, or one of his presumably smaller siblings). I just did a quick Wikipedia look-up (aka. “research”) on Big Ben, and found out that the tower popularly (though incorrectly) known as “Big Ben”, and formerly called the “Clock Tower”, is now named “Elizabeth Tower”. Great monarch that she may be, this moniker doesn’t quite have a ring to it (so to speak), sounds more like the wife of a Mr. Tower (whoever he may be). May be as hard to get used to for Londoners (and the world) as “Willis Tower” is for Chicagoans.

Just a block away from Big Ben (the bell, not the tower) is Westminster Abbey. The most familiar façade of Westminster Abbey is the “Great West Door”, flanked by two square towers (picture later). But instead, we entered through this measly side door:

Okay, maybe not so measly. This is actually known as the “Great North Door”, which is actually the greater door (in my humble opinion), with its tremendous rosette and visible buttresses. You are not allowed to take pictures inside the church proper, so I didn’t, but it is absolutely teeming with history and architecture and reverence and—to be honest—clutter. But it is good clutter, not planned out and managed, but spontaneous and haphazard (again, in a good way) and evolutionary and amazingly human. As transcendent as cathedrals are supposed to be, the plaques and memorials and statues and sculptures are about people who have given to England and to humanity. Poets’ Corner was very cool (the most surprising thing to me was the bust of Longfellow, which carried an inscription from “the English admirers of an American poet”), and the number and scope of noble and royal and historical figures celebrated and exalted is nearly inconceivable, but the most moving section to me was Musicians’ Aisle, close to the very start of the tour. I won’t/can’t go into all of the names now, but they range from Orlando Gibbon to John Blow to Edward Elgar to Benjamin Britten, and even some perhaps lesser-acknowledged figures such as Adrian Boult, but the plaque commemorating Henry Purcell is just stunning, less so for its magnificence (it is large, but low-key for Westminster Abbey) than for its importance and profundity.

The Abbey also houses Britain’s oldest door (illuminated by Britain’s oldest stainless steel halogen torchiere).

Here is a view of the cloister garth, showing the incredible incorporated design of stained glass windows, rosettes, and stone buttresses.

Here’s finally the familiar west façade, which is actually the exit of the tour, with the mostly cheesy gift shop on the right hand side.

Yeah, this is fairly great, but I’ll take the Great North Door any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

On our way to Oxford Street to see the central shopping district, we re-entered the Westminster Underground station. This is the view looking back up from the Jubilee line level:

You can see why they call it the “Tube” (haha).

After a cold and rainy walk up and down Oxford Street and Regent Street, we ended up at the little tea shop on the LG level of Selfridge’s. There we had tea (no great surprise).

This is what was hanging over our heads:

Mom did not love the bells. Especially, since, in keeping with the theme of the décor, there were off-rhythm and random-pitch chimes emanating from some electronic sound system throughout our meal there (these actually being non-functional bells themselves).

After browsing Selfridge’s a little (nice store, I’d say on par with New York’s finest), we tubed it back down south (south of Hyde Park, that is) to Herrod’s, which is the mecca (get the double-entendre?) for high-end department store shopping. Never seen anything like it. Not even close. There is way too much to describe (even with us just the small portion of the store that we saw), it would probably take as much time to really see it as like the Metropolitan Museum in New York (and I think the Met is a wonderland). They have a riding department—as in equestrian, with riding clothes, boots, gear (like saddles, quirts, and stuff), etc. In a department store. That’s bonkers.

Here are two other crazy venues within the store that we saw: first, an absolutely insane food section, with about 15 different places to eat, including a caviar bar, seafood bar, steak place, sushi bar, dim sum bar, etc., and at least four huge rooms of every kind of high-end foodstuff you can imagine, like spices, jams/jellies, dried/packaged food, etc.:

The cheese counter, charcuterie, and boulangerie:

Beautiful prepared foods:

Chocolates, candies, and the such:

And that’s not to mention the fresh vegetable and fruit markets (separate displays, sorry no pictures), all within the department store. Bonkers, I say.

The second crazy (as in, whackers) thing was the “Egyptian Escalator”:

WTF?

Here is a final view from outside the store, on the Brompton Road side (I believe), showing the lights illuminating the façade and framing the famous display windows:

Very tiring day, with much walking and much tubing (using awesome one-day travelcards, at one-quarter the cost and a zillion times the efficiency as the double-decker tour bus). One last note, I thought the London Underground was on par with (or actually, somewhat better than) New York subways (which I also like); Mom was not impressed. Some stations needed a fair amount of walking and stairs to make the connection between lines, and there are mile-long escalator rides everywhere, but the trains were clean and the displays showing upcoming trains and routes were very informative and accurate. Mom didn’t like the fact that there were varying step-ups (steps-up?) to board the cars at a number of the platforms. It’s true that handicapped folks would seem to be mostly SOL in the Tube, but I fancied rubbing/trading elbows with the commuters.

Anyway, we’re off to Oxford tomorrow, though there’s no telling when I may actually blog next, and what quantum time-jump I may make when doing so.