Well, as most of you following the blog will have realized, I have gone on a hiatus. The trouble I have having to pay for my internet access on a per-hour basis, added to the inability to post pictures, has contributed to the decision.
But worry not! (Like you are, heh.)
This coming Sunday,31 July, I'll be back in Indiana, and we shall resume.
Until then...tinkerty tonk.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Something Old, Something New
Good news, followers! Pictures should be returning to TBP soon. I'm now blogging from a shop down the street that allows me use of a flash drive.
Today I walked up through Kensington to visit the Royal Albert Music Hall. Proms is underway (the 75-night string of concerts BBC and the RAMH put on during the summer--read about it here), and I paid the £8.50 to take the tour. I had no idea it was Britain's #1 concert locale, sort of like the Madison Square Garden of London. Everything from Cirque du Soleil to any Philharmonic worth its salt to Eric Clapton. During Proms, concert goers willing to camp out can basically be groundlings to the ongoing concerts at £5 a head. Also, I got to see the Queen's concert box...not too shabby.
The Hall was Prince Albert, the Queen's Consort's idea. He died at 42, and it took a while to be completed, because Queen Victoria was so devastated by his death that she took all the money and built a memorial across the street from the Hall. The Memorial is pretty amazing, too, by the way.
I also hit the British Museum of Natural history today. Highlights? I got to see a coelecanth (read Ghosty I), see a full-sized, naked Neanderthal lady statue, and by far the most awkward exhibit of the summer--how sexual intercourse works.
There was a display where it had a slice view of a man on top of a woman, and how their parts interact during...interaction. I took a picture, because it's my duty as I see it, but there were a few people looking at me like I was a creeper. But to them I say, look, if people are going to put on a show, then they shouldn't be surprised when people stand around and watch. Just like that couple at Hampton Court Palace.
Lastly, I went into Harvey Nichols department store. (Fans of the show Absolutely Fabulous know to call it Harvey Nicks.) I viewed this as a fact-finding tour of commercial excess. Where else am I going to have the chance to try on a Mark Jacobs Italian leather jacket priced at £1,465 (about $2,400US)?
Thinking about where to use up my last 4 BritRail pass destinations. So far I have Winchester Castle and Canterbury Cathedral. I ruled out Bath because it was too far away to get there and back in one day and do anything while there. I'm on the fence about Windsor Castle because I saw Hampton Court Palace, and they might be too similar. Ditto with Dover because of Beachy Head.
Any ideas?
Today I walked up through Kensington to visit the Royal Albert Music Hall. Proms is underway (the 75-night string of concerts BBC and the RAMH put on during the summer--read about it here), and I paid the £8.50 to take the tour. I had no idea it was Britain's #1 concert locale, sort of like the Madison Square Garden of London. Everything from Cirque du Soleil to any Philharmonic worth its salt to Eric Clapton. During Proms, concert goers willing to camp out can basically be groundlings to the ongoing concerts at £5 a head. Also, I got to see the Queen's concert box...not too shabby.
The Hall was Prince Albert, the Queen's Consort's idea. He died at 42, and it took a while to be completed, because Queen Victoria was so devastated by his death that she took all the money and built a memorial across the street from the Hall. The Memorial is pretty amazing, too, by the way.
I also hit the British Museum of Natural history today. Highlights? I got to see a coelecanth (read Ghosty I), see a full-sized, naked Neanderthal lady statue, and by far the most awkward exhibit of the summer--how sexual intercourse works.
There was a display where it had a slice view of a man on top of a woman, and how their parts interact during...interaction. I took a picture, because it's my duty as I see it, but there were a few people looking at me like I was a creeper. But to them I say, look, if people are going to put on a show, then they shouldn't be surprised when people stand around and watch. Just like that couple at Hampton Court Palace.
Lastly, I went into Harvey Nichols department store. (Fans of the show Absolutely Fabulous know to call it Harvey Nicks.) I viewed this as a fact-finding tour of commercial excess. Where else am I going to have the chance to try on a Mark Jacobs Italian leather jacket priced at £1,465 (about $2,400US)?
Thinking about where to use up my last 4 BritRail pass destinations. So far I have Winchester Castle and Canterbury Cathedral. I ruled out Bath because it was too far away to get there and back in one day and do anything while there. I'm on the fence about Windsor Castle because I saw Hampton Court Palace, and they might be too similar. Ditto with Dover because of Beachy Head.
Any ideas?
Friday, July 15, 2011
A Second Go
With 15 days left in England, it's time to start making some choices.
I promised myself that if I really liked something, I'd go back and visit it again before I left. Today I did that with The Globe and the British Museum.
When you buy your tickets online, you have a free tour and admission to the exhibition hall. I took advantage of that today, and while it's no substitute for attending a performance (which EVERYONE should have the chance to do before they die), it's a great stand-alone experience.
A well-informed guide walks you through the theater and gives a presentation about the theater itself, its construction, and Elizabethan times. If you've attended a performance, or have drama experience, or love Shakespeare, then odds are most of it will not be news to you, but that's okay. It's fun to watch other people get stoked by the experience, too.
The exhibition is a wonderful little museum, filled with play artifacts and interactive displays about the different aspects of play production at the Globe, which is really unlike play production anywhere else. It's important to remember that a play at the Globe is not just a play performance, but a play performance done under Elizabethan conditions. In other words, no miking, uniform lighting at night, and virtually no electronics.
My favorite part of the exhibit was the giant bear (as in, Exit, pursued by a ...), the Elizabeth I costume, and the musician scores/director's books on display from different plays. Makes me very excited about seeing 'Anne Boleyn' next Saturday afternoon.
I hit a couple of book stores I had read about. (I picked up Antigone from a store called SKOOB. Get it? 'Books' spelled backwards. It's a second-hand shop, and I could plunk down a LOT of money in there if it wasn't for my budget.) Then I trekked north to the British Museum to revisit Sutton Hoo, the Rosetta Stone, and a few other items, but also to see the stuff I missed the first time. There's a great Japanese wing with a bunch of cool crap from the Edo period (samurai armor, amazing statues and prints, and a daimyo's clock that really looks like a Dalek). There's also an Enlightenment Wing that covers the Renaissance and later...but the coolest discovery I made on the second pass was a statue of Thalia (pronounced tha-LIE-ah), the muse of comedy.
Should have left an offering!
I promised myself that if I really liked something, I'd go back and visit it again before I left. Today I did that with The Globe and the British Museum.
When you buy your tickets online, you have a free tour and admission to the exhibition hall. I took advantage of that today, and while it's no substitute for attending a performance (which EVERYONE should have the chance to do before they die), it's a great stand-alone experience.
A well-informed guide walks you through the theater and gives a presentation about the theater itself, its construction, and Elizabethan times. If you've attended a performance, or have drama experience, or love Shakespeare, then odds are most of it will not be news to you, but that's okay. It's fun to watch other people get stoked by the experience, too.
The exhibition is a wonderful little museum, filled with play artifacts and interactive displays about the different aspects of play production at the Globe, which is really unlike play production anywhere else. It's important to remember that a play at the Globe is not just a play performance, but a play performance done under Elizabethan conditions. In other words, no miking, uniform lighting at night, and virtually no electronics.
My favorite part of the exhibit was the giant bear (as in, Exit, pursued by a ...), the Elizabeth I costume, and the musician scores/director's books on display from different plays. Makes me very excited about seeing 'Anne Boleyn' next Saturday afternoon.
I hit a couple of book stores I had read about. (I picked up Antigone from a store called SKOOB. Get it? 'Books' spelled backwards. It's a second-hand shop, and I could plunk down a LOT of money in there if it wasn't for my budget.) Then I trekked north to the British Museum to revisit Sutton Hoo, the Rosetta Stone, and a few other items, but also to see the stuff I missed the first time. There's a great Japanese wing with a bunch of cool crap from the Edo period (samurai armor, amazing statues and prints, and a daimyo's clock that really looks like a Dalek). There's also an Enlightenment Wing that covers the Renaissance and later...but the coolest discovery I made on the second pass was a statue of Thalia (pronounced tha-LIE-ah), the muse of comedy.
Should have left an offering!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The National Portrait Gallery
Went to The National Portrait Gallery this morning after typing out nearly 1K on Ghosty 3 in nearby Trafalgar Square. (Hoping some of the Britishness rubs on my characters.)
What was cool about the NPG? Number one was the Romantic painting of George Gordon, Lord Byron. I have got to get me an Albanian costume. Also, pretty much all of the other big shot writers I love had portraits there, too...Coleridge, Keats, Cassandra Austen's portrait of her sister Jane...of course, there were the famous Warhols of Liz Taylor and Mick Jagger, too...I was told that going to the NPG is like looking through someone else's yearbook, but I disagree. It's like looking through a history book of famous English figures in history, art, music, literature, and popular culture. Pretty cool, and at 3 stories, it won't kill your knees, either.
Lots of sculptures, too. There's a cool one of Darwin, and one of Tennyson that makes him look like Santa. There's a painting of Bernard 'Monty' Montgomery pointing at Normandy that just oozes smugness. Well done, painter!
I bought a ticket to go see 'Anne Boleyn' at The Globe on Saturday. It's a matinee, and it's a groundling ticket. Don't know the show at all, but I can hardly wait. (AnnieB is Henry VIII's 2nd wife, the first to be executed.)
I also visited the Museum of London (free). Some cool stuff about the Anglo-Saxons and the Great Fire, but if you're interested in 20th century London, you're much better off going to the Imperial War Museum. Still, pretty cool for free. AND it's right next to the original wall of Londinium outside, so there's that. Well, rubble of it anyway. It's been like 2000 years.
Well...back to writing!
What was cool about the NPG? Number one was the Romantic painting of George Gordon, Lord Byron. I have got to get me an Albanian costume. Also, pretty much all of the other big shot writers I love had portraits there, too...Coleridge, Keats, Cassandra Austen's portrait of her sister Jane...of course, there were the famous Warhols of Liz Taylor and Mick Jagger, too...I was told that going to the NPG is like looking through someone else's yearbook, but I disagree. It's like looking through a history book of famous English figures in history, art, music, literature, and popular culture. Pretty cool, and at 3 stories, it won't kill your knees, either.
Lots of sculptures, too. There's a cool one of Darwin, and one of Tennyson that makes him look like Santa. There's a painting of Bernard 'Monty' Montgomery pointing at Normandy that just oozes smugness. Well done, painter!
I bought a ticket to go see 'Anne Boleyn' at The Globe on Saturday. It's a matinee, and it's a groundling ticket. Don't know the show at all, but I can hardly wait. (AnnieB is Henry VIII's 2nd wife, the first to be executed.)
I also visited the Museum of London (free). Some cool stuff about the Anglo-Saxons and the Great Fire, but if you're interested in 20th century London, you're much better off going to the Imperial War Museum. Still, pretty cool for free. AND it's right next to the original wall of Londinium outside, so there's that. Well, rubble of it anyway. It's been like 2000 years.
Well...back to writing!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Portmeirion: A Review
First of all, let me say that the night before, I saw 'Much Ado About Nothing' at the Globe Theater. So anything that followed that was going to suffer in comparison.
If you're a fan of the quirky 60s show, 'The Prisoner,' then a visit to Portmeirion on the western coast of Wales has to be on your bucket list. That being said, you cannot go into your journey expecting too much.
First of all, it's a difficult journey. From London, expect a trip of 5-6 hours, excluding a layover at Birmingham station. (Be careful to be in the right car, because the route splits.) The long part of the trip will be along the Welsh coast, where there are easily 15 stops. Then, if you elect to stay in Porthmadog (I imagine there are more places to stay here than in smallish Minfford), you'll need to tack on an extra hour or so taking the train to Minfford. This can be pleasant, because the view is nice, and it is a narrow-gauge rail which has a lot of steam train traffic on it. In fact, you can continue on this train throughout picturesque Wales and the Snowdonia Park.
Then, you have a good mile walk (rent a car!) through a frustratingly poorly-marked park surrounding Portmeirion. By the time you get to The Village, you will completely understand why Number 6 never tried to escape via land.
As for the village itself, you will see many of the familiar sites of the show, although it will seem far more cramped, and the geography of the place will be confusing. Also, most of the place is off-limits to tourists, as a large portion consists of private residences and hotels.
Fans of the show will be disappointed that nearly everything Prisoner-related has been scrubbed from the attraction, save for a Prisoner Shop tucked away in what was reputed to have been Number 6's residence...although this last bit is a fabrication. No way. If I could post pictures, you would see what I mean.
I probably was poisoned by my affection for the show, but knowing that many people share my perspectives, I thought it was important to put this out there. All I'm saying is, that unlike the vast majority of places I've been to in the UK, I was underwhelmed. Doc Martin's Port Isaac was superior in nearly every respect.
Portmeirion can be done in 1-2 hours, unless you are there to sketch or paint. Go after 3:30 in order to get the half-price admission, and you will still have several hours to enjoy it. Nearby (well, in the area, anyway) is a castle/hotel that is of local interest, and if you have a vehicle, you might want to travel to the other side of the estuary and visit Harlech Castle, one of the most important fortifications in Wales.
If you're a fan of the quirky 60s show, 'The Prisoner,' then a visit to Portmeirion on the western coast of Wales has to be on your bucket list. That being said, you cannot go into your journey expecting too much.
First of all, it's a difficult journey. From London, expect a trip of 5-6 hours, excluding a layover at Birmingham station. (Be careful to be in the right car, because the route splits.) The long part of the trip will be along the Welsh coast, where there are easily 15 stops. Then, if you elect to stay in Porthmadog (I imagine there are more places to stay here than in smallish Minfford), you'll need to tack on an extra hour or so taking the train to Minfford. This can be pleasant, because the view is nice, and it is a narrow-gauge rail which has a lot of steam train traffic on it. In fact, you can continue on this train throughout picturesque Wales and the Snowdonia Park.
Then, you have a good mile walk (rent a car!) through a frustratingly poorly-marked park surrounding Portmeirion. By the time you get to The Village, you will completely understand why Number 6 never tried to escape via land.
As for the village itself, you will see many of the familiar sites of the show, although it will seem far more cramped, and the geography of the place will be confusing. Also, most of the place is off-limits to tourists, as a large portion consists of private residences and hotels.
Fans of the show will be disappointed that nearly everything Prisoner-related has been scrubbed from the attraction, save for a Prisoner Shop tucked away in what was reputed to have been Number 6's residence...although this last bit is a fabrication. No way. If I could post pictures, you would see what I mean.
I probably was poisoned by my affection for the show, but knowing that many people share my perspectives, I thought it was important to put this out there. All I'm saying is, that unlike the vast majority of places I've been to in the UK, I was underwhelmed. Doc Martin's Port Isaac was superior in nearly every respect.
Portmeirion can be done in 1-2 hours, unless you are there to sketch or paint. Go after 3:30 in order to get the half-price admission, and you will still have several hours to enjoy it. Nearby (well, in the area, anyway) is a castle/hotel that is of local interest, and if you have a vehicle, you might want to travel to the other side of the estuary and visit Harlech Castle, one of the most important fortifications in Wales.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Hampton Court Palace
Traveled by boat to Hampton Court Palace today, the home of Henry VIII and several other royal people of note.
While it's pretty and a unique way of seeing London, I don't recommend traveling by boat. It took about 4 hours to get the 15 miles or so upriver, and we often were moving slower than the joggers along the banks. Still, it affords views you would not see otherwise, so if a relaxing boat ride is your thing, go ahead. They serve alcohol, not that I would partake, but there you go.
HCP is as advertised, and worth the admission. I was struck by its scale right away; it dwarfs many of the older structures I've seen in the UK, and its caretakers have struck a good balance between preserving the authenticity of the site vs. making it accessible to tourists. The clock in the Clock Court was boffo, and while I'm not a garden guy, I couldn't help but to be impressed by the magnificent Privy Gardens and the Ponds Gardens on the grounds. The hedge maze did not live up to its hype, I'm afraid, but the great halls inside gave me pause.
However, the highlight of my tour came when Henry VIII and one of his wives were posing for a picture with a family, and a teenager attempted to stand next to him. Fake Henry VIII yelled at this kid.
"On your knees, boy!"
The kid turned red immediately; Fake Henry VIII seemed genuinely angry. (I'm sure he wasn't, but this kid believed he was.) I laughed for a good 15 minutes afterwards. I followed the family to see what would happen next, and sure enough, the little sister ratted out her older brother, telling them, "Jeff said the F-word!"
Thank you, Hampton Court Palace. You were marvelous.
While it's pretty and a unique way of seeing London, I don't recommend traveling by boat. It took about 4 hours to get the 15 miles or so upriver, and we often were moving slower than the joggers along the banks. Still, it affords views you would not see otherwise, so if a relaxing boat ride is your thing, go ahead. They serve alcohol, not that I would partake, but there you go.
HCP is as advertised, and worth the admission. I was struck by its scale right away; it dwarfs many of the older structures I've seen in the UK, and its caretakers have struck a good balance between preserving the authenticity of the site vs. making it accessible to tourists. The clock in the Clock Court was boffo, and while I'm not a garden guy, I couldn't help but to be impressed by the magnificent Privy Gardens and the Ponds Gardens on the grounds. The hedge maze did not live up to its hype, I'm afraid, but the great halls inside gave me pause.
However, the highlight of my tour came when Henry VIII and one of his wives were posing for a picture with a family, and a teenager attempted to stand next to him. Fake Henry VIII yelled at this kid.
"On your knees, boy!"
The kid turned red immediately; Fake Henry VIII seemed genuinely angry. (I'm sure he wasn't, but this kid believed he was.) I laughed for a good 15 minutes afterwards. I followed the family to see what would happen next, and sure enough, the little sister ratted out her older brother, telling them, "Jeff said the F-word!"
Thank you, Hampton Court Palace. You were marvelous.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Idler's Academy
Sorry, guys...no pictures today, but I wanted to post anyway. It's not that I haven't taken any recently, but the computers at the hostel I'm staying at don't allow me to transfer stuff via jump drive, so...just text. That being said, I'll keep it short.
Went to the Idler's Academy in West Kensington today. It's a bookstore/tea house that has some amazing books in it, and it has the kind of "here we are, the last bastion of civilization standing against the creep of Phillistinism" feel to it. Perfect for a grammatical, literature-oriented, writerly snob like me.
They have a tea towel with all the Latin conjugations and declensions on it, for cripe's sake! They have a great all-around selection, which included titles like The Idler: Smash the System, Roland Barthe's Mourning Diary, and a book I hope I can find on my Kindle, Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. The idea is that the internet is becoming more and more personalized which, like 24-hour cable news fragmentation, actually prevents us from getting a clearer, broader picture of the cyberworld. Apps like Facebook and Google tend to reinforce this.
Anyway, great place. But don't take my word for it.
I stayed for a few hours this afternoon, sitting by the window, drinking five (!) cups of Earl Grey, and typing out some notes on Ghosty 3.
By the way, it has a title now.
Ghosty: Trip No Further. It's a reference to a line from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting
Journeys end in lovers meeting
This every wise man's son doth know.
What's the significance? That would be telling, as Number Two would say.
(By the way, Portmeirion is still on. If I cancelled, I'd eat the cost of the lodging, so I guess I'm going after all!)
Went to the Idler's Academy in West Kensington today. It's a bookstore/tea house that has some amazing books in it, and it has the kind of "here we are, the last bastion of civilization standing against the creep of Phillistinism" feel to it. Perfect for a grammatical, literature-oriented, writerly snob like me.
They have a tea towel with all the Latin conjugations and declensions on it, for cripe's sake! They have a great all-around selection, which included titles like The Idler: Smash the System, Roland Barthe's Mourning Diary, and a book I hope I can find on my Kindle, Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. The idea is that the internet is becoming more and more personalized which, like 24-hour cable news fragmentation, actually prevents us from getting a clearer, broader picture of the cyberworld. Apps like Facebook and Google tend to reinforce this.
Anyway, great place. But don't take my word for it.
I stayed for a few hours this afternoon, sitting by the window, drinking five (!) cups of Earl Grey, and typing out some notes on Ghosty 3.
By the way, it has a title now.
Ghosty: Trip No Further. It's a reference to a line from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting
Journeys end in lovers meeting
This every wise man's son doth know.
What's the significance? That would be telling, as Number Two would say.
(By the way, Portmeirion is still on. If I cancelled, I'd eat the cost of the lodging, so I guess I'm going after all!)
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Staffa
Staffa Island, population zero. Long ago, it was formed by a volcano, which exploded a couple more times, which led to its interesting tripartite structure. It's a little hard to get to; you have to charter a boat or get into a tour group chartering a boat. There's a good one that includes the islands of Mull, Iona, and of course, Staffa.
It rained the whole time. It was fairly cold. The sea spray was wet. The rocks were slick. I cracked my elbow when I slipped on one. I turned my ankle when I stepped in a hole hidden by some brush. I kept having to pull up my pants because my pantlegs had absorbed so much water. I nearly tumbled into the ocean at one point. The boat nearly left without me.
All that being said, totally worth it. Dream come true. You can totally see why Queen Victoria, Mendelsson, and Tennyson went potty over it.
By the way, if someone gets seriously hurt on the island (or near it, in the case of Miss Thammavongsa), he'd be airlifted to Glasgow, not Castlebay. Oops.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Lessons About Getting From Here to There
Rough day. I got up at three a.m., thinking that was plenty of time to get to Euston Station for a six o'clock train. I even prepared for it by riding the route the day before.
Lesson #1: The Underground in London is not 24/7. Before 6 a.m., you need to take the night bus. This isn't posted anywhere. You just need to know it.
Lesson #2: Trying to figure out bus schedules on the fly at 4 a.m. is very difficult. You stare at the local map, and all these individual bus stops dot the map like acne on a teenager's face. At some point in the future I will describe this in more detail, because it's actually a lot more complicated than I'm letting on.
Lesson #3: When you go to London, or anywhere in England for that matter, do be careful when you're looking at posted maps. Even when they have a "you are here" indication on them. I keep forgetting that they are never lined up with what is in front of you, as is typically the case in the US. It's a small difference, but a maddening one, when you realize you've wasted 20 minutes or more walking in the wrong direction.
Lesson #4: Remember that London doesn't have street signs per se. Usually, street signs are located on the buildings themselves. Usually. Sometimes they aren't. Of course, it gets really interesting when street names change on you. This usually only happens every few blocks, though.
So I missed my train by a half-hour. But, keep calm and carry on, I'm here now. I booked a boat tour of the Inner Hebrides, and tomorrow...Staffa Island. Hooray!
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Comic Book Crawl in Camden Town
Tomorrow, I leave Ilford for good and head to Scotland for a couple of days. So today was a light day...laundry, getting organized, and a comic book crawl.
Oh, yes. A comic book crawl.
In central London there are a handful of different comic book stores, and I've noticed that each one is situatated within a 5-minute walk of their respective tube stations. How cool is that? Mega City Comics for instance, is located in Camden Town near Regent's Park. Now CT is one of the cooler markets I've seen, and it's easy to find a Sex Pistols t-shirt, or a floor-length leather coat, or a tattoo of a goat-devil.
Also, while you're eating your lunch, why not watch one of the narrow boats go through the locks? I knew how it worked, but I've never seen it before. Pretty cool.
What comics did I get? Mark Waid and Mirco Pierfederici's Ruse, a copy of The Simpsons, and a Dark Horse title called Silke. Something for the train ride tomorrow.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Avebury, Where the Demons Do NOT Dwell
Everybody knows Stonehenge. Stonehenge is iconic. Stonehenge inspired Spinal Tap, dash it. So why did I elect to go see Avebury instead?
In a word, access.
The stones are not as big, and they're not piled on top of each other as at Stonehenge (trilithons), but there are more stones at Avebury, it's older (about 2500-2200 BC), and you get to touch them. Some archaeologists suggest that Avebury may have been a more important site, based on its size, the number of stones, barrows, and circles. And they're still fairly large, ranging from a ton to Swindon Stone, 65 tons (one of the few never to have been toppled here).
The site is about 350m in diameter, and is surrounded by a ditch about 6-9m deep, and an outer circle consisting of a high earthen bank. The village of Avebury with its roads divide the site into 4 quadrants. You have to be careful where you step, however, because goats graze among the ruins. Goat poop is just another thing Avebury has over Stonehenge.
One of the problems with Avebury is that many of the stones are missing, due to medieval Britain's embarrassment over her pagan past. In 1934, the site was restored, and markers were put down to indicate where the missing ones were.
Also, the site extends way beyond the circle itself. Walk through the Wiltshire fields for about a mile and a half, through a cow pasture and up a flipping large hill, and revealed to you will be the 4500 year-old Silbury Hill, Europe's largest constructed burial mound. You can't go on it, but you can see it from a long ways off, and at 40m high, it's still very impressive. Worth the walk, and if I had had the heart attack I thought I was going to have, the World Heritage people could have just thrown me on top of it.
What was the purpose of Avebury? Well...like Stonehenge, experts are not 100% certain.
Friday, July 1, 2011
0° 0' 0"
Went to the Royal Observatory today. You know, the place where they store the Prime Meridian? Right now, I'm 6 hours ahead of my home town, which translates to roughly 90° of longitude (at 15° per hour). It's in Greenwich, as in Greenwich Mean Time, at the top of a very, very, very steep hill. About halfway up, I was beginning to think that John Flamsteed, the first Royal Astronomer, was just a jerk that the King wanted out of the way.
Now, I have to admit that this was one of the big things I wanted to do upon coming to London; it's a touristy thing, sure, but there is a reason why these things become touristy things. That being said, I perfectly understand why someone would say, "Why the hell are you paying 7 pounds (!) so you can climb up a big hill and have your picture taken standing on a line?" There were fifty-some people, most of whom were high schoolers from Spain, irritating the bejeesuz out of me, the first time I've really been irritated by fellow tourists since I've been here. I asked the kid behind to take my picture on the prime meridian, and he proceeded to zoom in on my face. I could have been sitting in my living room, for all anyone knew. But then again, I guess I wasn't specific.
I also hit the National Maritime Museum, the highlight of which is the gallery of Admiral Nelson memorabilia. The uniform in which he died at Trafalgar is located there. Pretty darn cool, that one was. Nearby Greenwich Market was this store called...wait for it...Meet Bernard, which is a men's shop for casual wear. I really wanted to get a shirt from there, but short-sleeved shirts there were running 75 pounds ($120). Yikes. The ones on sale were 25. Yikes x 2. MEET BERNARD!
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