Brad's England Journal- May Entries

Wednesday, May 7, 1997

A lot has happened in the last week or so, not least of which is that I finished and turned in my mini-project. The train ride in to London last week was pretty uneventful, although the cab ride from London Euston to the Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge took almost as long as the train ride due to horrible London Traffic! That night Deborah took us all out to eat at the Savoy, a very nice Hotel right on the Thames. We didn't get a table overlooking the Thames, but the food was still incredible.

I worked during the day on Thursday, except for a brief trip to Harrod's (which is only a block or so from the Royal Thames) for lunch in their food halls. That night we had tickets to see Miss Saigon, which had some spectacular special effects, but a rather weak story-line and music. We ate near the theater at Bertorelli's, an Italian restaurant, which is owned by the family of my Dad's ex-wife, Jane Bertorelli. Although the food was good, I think the meal we had at San Carlo in Birmingham was better.

Thursday was also the General Election in the UK, the first in five years. The conservative Tory Party with John Major as Prime Minister had been in power during that time, and had finally been forced to call an election since a government can only hold power without elections for five years. There was a general consensus in the country that it was time for a change, and the Labour Party was playing on this feeling. In the past, Labour has been a very socialist and pro-union party, and dismay with the state of the country after years of Labour policies had left the economy in bad shape, the country elected the Tories and Margaret Thatcher into power in the early 80s. Labour changed their name for this election campaign to "New" Labour, and rejected many of the socialist and pro-union positions it had held in the past. In any case, there was a lot of excitement in the air on Thursday (as well as concerns that the IRA might blow up some bombs to disrupt the election), but everything went smoothly. When I woke up on Friday I found out that Tony Blair of the Labour party was the new Prime Minister, having won by a sizable margin (several hundred seats I later found out). It was also interesting to see that on Friday morning John Major left 10 Downing, and the Blair's were there moving in. None of this waiting around for a couple months to hold the inauguration!

I spent the rest of the day on Friday working, again, but this time it was such a beautiful day that I couldn't bear to be stuck inside in my "cabin" (a small room in the basement of the Yacht Club building). Instead I went outside to Hyde Park and found a bench by the Serpentine, where I typed for several hours. It was quite nice being out in the open air, although it did make it difficult to see the screen on my laptop. For dinner that night we went out to another nice restaurant in the Conaught Hotel. I had some very nice Scottish beef.

On Saturday morning we caught the train up to Bedford. A friend of my Dad's back home used to be a chef for the Duke and Duchess of Bedford at Woburn Abbey, and my Dad wanted Deborah and I to go out and see the Abbey. We took the train into Bedford, but unfortunately, the Abbey was in Woburn which was 20 miles outside of Bedford. It turned out that by the time we would have arrived at the Abbey on Saturday it would have been about to close, so we were not able to go on Saturday. Instead we walked around the town of Bedford, which was very nice in and of itself. We were able to watch the local rowing teams practice on the River Ouse that flowed through the town.

On Sunday we got up at a reasonable time and took a taxi out to Woburn Abbey. On the way in we traveled through the grounds of the Abbey, which were quite extensive. In addition, one of the former Dukes of Bedford had established the grounds as a deer refuge, and driving in we passed quite a few herds of different types of deer. It also took a long time driving in, as a crafts fair was being held on the Abbey grounds last weekend, and many other people were driving to the Abbey. Eventually we made it there, and wandered through the Abbey, which was more like a large palace. There were many magnificent rooms, and an impressive collection of China. They also had one of the largest collections of (can't remember the artist right now...) paintings in the world. They were mostly scenes of Venice that were painted with spectacular detail.

The taxi met us after we had seen the mansion, and we made it back to Bedford just in time for the last train back to Birmingham. The trains were delayed going back to Birmingham, however, so we didn't arrive back until almost 6pm. This wouldn't have mattered to much, but we had arranged to meet the Pearce's at 7pm at the San Carlo restaurant for dinner. Deborah and my Father went back to their hotel, and I went back to my flat, so that we could change clothes, and we all decided to meet up back at the restaurant. Fortunately, the Pearce's had called and left a message on my answering machine that they couldn't make it until 7:30pm, so even though we were running late, we managed to make it to dinner in time, and had a tasty meal with the Pearce's.

With my mini-project due on Tuesday, I told my Dad and Deborah that I wouldn't be able to spend any more time with them until Tuesday night, after my paper had been submitted. We planned to meet then and go to the Birmingham City Symphony Orchestra, which my Father had purchased tickets to before we went to London. So, I spent all day Monday typing up my paper. At the start of Monday I had 24 double-spaced pages typed, and by the end of the day I had 51 pages, having typed 27 pages in one day! I was quite impressed as I didn't think I could possibly type that much. I also didn't need to have that many pages, as 35 or so would have been adequate. I spent Tuesday during the day proof-reading and tidying it up, and turned it in at a little after 5pm.

Tuesday was also my last German Class of the year and it started at 5pm. I didn't manage to get there until more like 5:30pm, though, since I had been turning in my paper. We didn't practice German very much, but mainly discussed how the year had been. I also picked up my certificate for taking the course, which I got a "Distinction" in. Then, I had to leave early as well, since I needed to meet my Dad and Deborah at the Symphony Hall at 7:30pm. When I got home there was a note from my Dad that Deborah had decided to go home early, and when I called him up he agreed to come by in a Taxi and pick me up, since I was running late.

The Symphony was incredible. The Symphony Hall in Birmingham is widely hailed for its marvelous acoustics, as is the Symphonies director, Sir Simon Rattle. After having heard a symphony there, I can verify that all of the accolades they have received are merited. The sound was absolutely incredible; it was very crisp, and we were sitting on the second tier quite a ways from the platform. The pieces they played were: Delius, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Schumann, Symphony No. 1 in B flat, Op. 38 (Spring), and Britten, Spring Symphony. The Britten piece in particular was enjoyable, as it featured a 250 voice chorus, as well as some exotic instruments including a cow horn.

Now that I have turned my mini-project in, and there is a little less pressure on me, my Dad and I are going to the Cotswolds until Saturday. We hope to do some bike riding while we are down there, but we will play it by ear. I've arranged us a room in a B&B in Moreton-in-the-Marsh, and there is supposed to be a couple of places to rent bicycles in the town.

Tuesday, May 13, 1997

It's been a busy and exciting week. I toured in the Cotswold's with my Father, had my Parallel Computers Exam, saw my Father off, and gave a speech at the Stourbridge/Brierly Hill Scholar Night.

Last Wednesday, the day we left for the Cotswolds, was the weirdest day, weather wise, that I have seen so far in the UK. There are many famous sayings about English weather, such as: "Don't like the weather? Wait a minute.", and "You can see four seasons in a single day." I had of course noticed that the weather is quite variable here, but didn't give much credence to such drastic statements as those just given. On last Wednesday, however, I came to believe. Wednesday morning was pretty warm and sunny, then it started to rain, then the sun came out again, then it started to get cold, then it snowed, then it stopped and was just cloudy, and then it started raining again, finally drizzling off and on for the rest of the day! I think you could legitimately say that there were four seasons in that single day. Absolutely amazing.

Despite the weather, my Dad and I managed to make it down to Moreton-in-the-Marsh, and check into our room at the Blue Cedar Inn. We took a walk around town to see where everything was (which didn't take to long since it is a pretty small town), and found that we could rent bicycles from Jeffrey's Toy Store. We also arranged for a bigger room at a different B&B for Thursday and Friday night, since the one we were in was quite nice, but also quite small. We then went back to the Blue Cedar, and rested a few hours, before going back into town for dinner at the White Hart Pub.

Thursday morning we moved all of our stuff to Treetops, the new B&B, which had a much larger room, but was a little more expensive. After that we went to the Toy Store to rent our bikes. The owner helped us get our bikes, and gave us a map and directions for a decent ride of about 18 miles. We had heard about a gypsy fair in Stow-on-the-Wold, and indicated to him that we were thinking of stopping at the fair. The first thing he did was give us an extra lock, because he said that when gypsies are around, things have a way of getting legs. At this, my Dad and I were a bit taken aback, and said that maybe we'd better just avoid Stow, but he assured us that it was worth seeing as long as we were careful.

So, we took off on our rented mountain bikes for a ride through the Cotswolds. We rode from Moreton down the backroads through Evenlode, where we stopped briefly to look at a small church, and down to Broadwell. There we stopped for a drink at a small pub before we rode up a fairly steep hill to Stow. As expected, Stow was packed with people there for the fair. The fair was in a small open area on the outskirts of the town, and we walked our bicycles through parts of it. The weather of Wednesday had left lots of mud around, so it was a fairly dirty business, and some sections we avoided altogether. The gypsies had parked their trailers all around and had set up stands telling fortunes or selling various knick-knacks. Some of the trailers were very ornate with plush interiors and gaudy chrome trim on the outside. Of course, the gypsies are also know for their horsemanship, and there were all sorts of horses, mules and ponies everywhere.

After we had had enough of the gypsy fair, we rode down the hill to Bourton-on-the-Water, one of the more scenic and touristy towns in the Cotswolds. The River Windrush (?), which is more of a stream, runs through the middle of the town and there are several quaint stone bridges which run over it (see photo at left). We stopped here for a picnic lunch, and a stop at some of the woolen mills in town. My Dad was feeling a little tired at this point, and didn't want to exhaust himself to the point where he wouldn't be able to ride over the next two days. I convinced him, however, to ride an extra mile or so to Lower Slaughter, which was also supposed to be nice, and was the last main stop on the route Mr. Jeffrey from the Toy Store had plotted for us. Lower Slaughter turned out to be a much smaller town than Bourton, but it also had a stream running through it, with some small bridges and a mill (see picture at right). My Dad tried to call a taxi from here, but he wasn't able to get the number of the taxi company, so we went up the road a bit, and finally found a pub that he was able to reach the taxi company from. I was still feeling okay, so I went on ahead of him, and met him back at the Toy Store. Afterwards, we went back to our B&B to shower and change, had dinner in town and then turned in early so we'd be rested for the next ride.

On Friday we rode in a loop to the North and West, instead of to the South. Our goal was to ride to Broadway, another famous Cotswolds town, and back, seeing the countryside along the way. We started by riding up past Chipping-Campden, stopping briefly at a small pub for a drink shortly before getting there. Chipping-Campden was actually quite a big town by Cotswolds standards, but we didn't stop, partly because the clouds were beginning to look threatening, and there was a lot of riding ahead of us. We made it into Broadway just as it started to bucket down rain, and, after locking our bikes up under a protective tree, took refuge in a Pub, where we both had drinks, and I had a bowl of hot soup. As usual, the weather changed very quickly, and within a half hour it had stopped raining, and we headed out again. We rode up a very steep hill from Broadway to Snowshill Manor, where we thought we might stop. Snowshill Manor was the home of a man who was an avid collector of anything and everything. Although it looked interesting, it didn't seem worth the admission fee considering we could only spend a short amount of time before we had to bike back to Moreton. We'd been told when we set off that the ride back from Snowshill Manor should be all down hill, since that was the high point of our journey. Unfortunately there was still quite a bit of uphill, as we would go down quite a bit, then back up again. Eventually, though, we did make it back to Moreton, and again had an early evening.

Saturday was our half-day ride before going back to Birmingham. This time we headed out to the East, to go and see the Rollright Stones, and ancient rock circle. The weather did not look good when we headed out, but we decided to go anyway. We hadn't ridden more than 15 minutes when the sky opened up and rain poured down. We forged ahead, though, occasionally sheltering in the lee of a hedge for the times when it was raining especially hard. Eventually we made it to the Rollright Stones, soaked to the skin. When we got there, however, we found that we didn't have the correct change to pay to see the Stones. The man collecting the money kindly let us in anyway, saying that he wasn't about to deny anybody crazy enough to ride around in that kind of weather. The stones are probably a circle indicating the tomb of some chieftain, but nobody is certain. The legend has it that a king and his army were about to go into a town, when a witch came up to the King and made him a prophecy that he would be the King of England if in three steps he was able to see the town. Since he was already at the peak, he tried to take three steps forward to see over to the town, but the witch raised a mound of dirt in front of him, and he wasn't able to see the town. Instead, he was turned to stone where he stood and his knights and soldiers as well. The circle of stones are supposed to be his soldiers. We crossed the road from the circle to see the "King" stone which was supposed to be the king, and saw in a nearby field the "Whispering Knights", which are three or four stones that look like they are all leaning into each other, as if in a whispered meeting. From the Stones we rode on in the rain to Wyatts Cafe and Garden Shop where we dried out a little and had some hot drinks. Before long the sun came out, and we headed back to Moreton, managing to escape getting any wetter than we already were.

When we got back to Moreton, we returned our bikes, and got our bags from the B&B, then caught the last train back to Birmingham. My Dad checked into the Prince Hotel right next to Birmingham New Street station so that he could make easily get on the train and out to the Airport when he left Monday morning. We had dinner at the New Happy Gathering, which was right next to the hotel, and served a very delicious meal.

I spent Sunday studying for my Parallel Computer Architectures examination, which I had on Monday, then met my Dad for dinner that night. He had a hankering for some Prime Rib, so we wandered around town looking for some place that would serve it. We never managed to find anyplace, and finally went to a Swiss Hotel that served a fillet with Yorkshire Pudding instead.

Yesterday was a long day, but hopefully the last one for a while. I got up at around 7am and took the train into the City, and then out to the Airport with my Dad, where I saw him off. I gave him a bag of clothes to take back as well, so that I won't have to ship anything back when I leave next September. I came back to campus, and did a bit more studying for my exam, which I then went in and took at 2pm. I was able to finish the two hour exam in one hour, so hopefully I did okay, although on some of the questions it was difficult to know exactly what information was desired. Finally, at 6:45pm, I went to a joint meeting of the Stourbridge and Brierly Hill Rotary Clubs, with all of the District Scholars. I had to give a five minute talk, so I spoke a bit about the projects I had been working on during my Masters Course here in the UK. That was probably my last Rotary talk during my year over here, and I am a little sad that they are over. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk with people, and share my experiences with them.

Now I can relax for a few days until my Mom arrives this coming Saturday-- then it will be another two weeks of travel.

*** Reconstructed Entries Begin Here ***

Sunday, May 18, 1997

As the footnote indicates, this is the first reconstructed entry for the period that the original entries were lost. I am writing these sometime after the fact (July, actually), so they probably won't have as much detail as normal entries, but I will try my best. For the most part I will try to write them in a first person perspective as if they were written on the date of the entry, but for some of them I may not remember enough to make it worth it. We'll see how it goes.

My Mother is now in town, and I will be traveling with her for a while. Up until her arrival I did little other than laze around the house, so I won't get into that. She flew into Heathrow yesterday, arriving in the morning. We had talked before she came, and decided that I should join her in the evening at her hotel, in case of flight delays, and so that she could get a nap in the afternoon to get over jet lag. I went up on a 4pm train, having missed an earlier one that I was supposed to have caught with my roommate Greg (although Greg did catch the train). When I got to the room my Mom was still resting, and had had a bad flight in to the UK. Before her arrival I had asked her if she wanted to go on Eurostar to Paris for a day, since I still had my free one way ticket from Rebecca and my delayed journey back in January. At the time she said that she thought she better stick to the UK for this trip, since there would be more than enough to do. The first thing she said, however, when I met her was that she was wrong about not going to Paris on this trip. It turned out that they had been prevented from landing at Heathrow, and were diverted to Paris, where they were forced to sit on the runway for five hours! Eventually they took off for Heathrow, but the delay almost doubled the length of the trip. They were all given vouchers for an unspecified future discount on tickets, but one would hope so considering the length of the delay!

We ate last night at a small Italian restaurant we found near the hotel. My Mom ordered an 'Ice Tea' from the waiter, who looked at her kind of funny, and said "You mean an 'American Ice Tea'. Only American's have Ice Tea. My Mom said that would be fine, and chalked it down to getting used to differences in the language between the two countries. It was a new one on me also, but I still get caught up every once in a while on a difference between 'American' and 'British'.

It has been very hot in London, and the room we are in is hot even ignoring that fact, so last night it was like an oven, and neither my Mom nor I slept hardly at all. The room was also expensive, so today we called around and found a new room, which was both cheaper and had air conditioning. By the time we had done that, however, most of the day was gone, so we just decided to go to dinner and a movie and call it a night. We went to a mexican place at a nearby Mall, so I was able to get another fix, this time just a couple of weeks after my Dad had taken me out for mexican. Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to do more in London.

Thursday, May 22, 1997

One thing that I hadn't had the opportunity to do during my previous trips to London was take a bus tour around the city. I usually

find them pretty informative, since when you wander around on your own, it is difficult to appreciate the significance of what you are seeing. So, I agreed to go on a bus tour with my Mom on Monday. It was a nice tour, and while some of the things, like Parliament, or St. Paul's, I had already seen and knew about. It also took us to some places further afield, like the south bank of the Thames, which I had not seen before. The highlight of the tour was probably when we saw the Queen drive by. We had gotten off the bus near Victoria Station to make reservations for Starlight Express, when a man working for the bus company told us to wait right there and get our cameras ready, as the Queen and Prince Phillip were about to drive by on their way to open the Chelsea Garden Show. Sure enough, a few minutes later they did drive by, and the Queen waved at us as she went by (see photo at left).

Monday night we went out to a New Orleans theme restaurant which was in the same Mall as the Mexican restaurant we had been in the night before. This time, my Mom felt that she was prepared, and ordered an "American Ice Tea", as the waiter on Saturday had advised. The waitress looked at her funny, and said, "We have 'Iced Tea', but I am not sure what you mean by 'American Ice Tea'." My Mom assured her that she just meant regular Iced Tea, and explained about the waiter the other night. So, now we are not sure what to believe. I suspect that the first waiter wasn't trying to indicate that it was "American Ice Tea", but just that only American's drink Ice Tea.

Our bus tour ticket was good for 24 hours on the buses, and allowed us on three different circuits around the city. Monday we had only managed to go on two of them, so we tried to do the third Tuesday morning. Unfortunately by the time we got to a stop on the third route, and waited for the bus to come our ticket expired and we couldn't get on. So, instead we headed down to the Natural History Museum and the Museum of Science and Technology in South Kensington, which I had missed during Jeff, Alex and Carrie's trip when Carrie and I went shopping while Jeff and Alex went to the museums. The Natural History museum had a good exhibit on geology, including a demonstration of what it is like to be in an earthquake. Having been in an earthquake I wasn't too impressed. The Science and Technology Museum (see right) was incredible, and I could have spent days in there, but we only had an hour or so, and only saw a few exhibits. We ate a late lunch/dinner at Harrod's, which was right down the street, then rushed home to change, before coming back to Apollo Victoria Theatre to see Starlight Express, which was done all on roller skates, and very impressive, if a little weak in the plot area.

I had told my Mom that on one day she should go and see the big things like the Tower of London, Westminster, and St. Paul's on her own, since I had already seen them, sometimes several times. I stayed in our room instead and worked on booking a place for us to stay after London. My Mom had read an article about staying at Manors and Traditional English Country homes, so I arranged one near Burford in the Southern Cotswolds. After that I went to Pepsi Trocadero, which is sort of a virtual reality amusement park. I tried several "VR" rides, including some with the head mounted displays which I hadn't tried before, and my main comment would be that this technology still has a very long way to come! When I got back in the evening, my Mom told me about how she had seen Westminster Abbey, and how she had to go through three security checkpoints, and then got to watch the two sides arguing back and forth below her for a while. I thought about it for a while, and it didn't sound very much like Westminster Abbey, which is a church. Further questioning revealed that she had gone to the House of Commons at Westminster! I didn't even realize that you could go in there without a letter from the U.S. Embassy, but I guess I was wrong.

We were renting a car to drive to the Country Home that we were going to stay at in Burford, and since I was more used to roads in the UK, my Mom wanted me to drive. Unfortunately I had left my Drivers License in Birmingham (I don't carry it with me since I don't use and don't want it to get lost). This meant I had to take the early morning train up to Birmingham to get my license, and then caught a ride back to London with my roommate Shaggy who was moving back to his home in London. I met my Mom back at our hotel, and then we took the tube to Heathrow where we rented the car. It was about an hour and a half drive up to the home in Burford, where we were greeted by Caroline Eckersley, who will be our host for the next few days. She cooked us a wonderful dinner, and now we can relax where we are staying, which is a converted barn next to her house. It has two stories, and there is a lovely lounge with a fireplace downstairs (see picture at left).

Monday, May 26, 1997

On Friday my Mom and I drove around the Cotswolds some. First we went to Bourton-on-the-Water, which I had already seen with my Dad. The only new thing that I did this time was go to the model village, which, as the name implies is a model of the village of Bourton-on-the-Water done in something like 1/20th scale. You can walk among all of the buildings feeling like you are Godzilla or some other giant monster from a cheap Sci-Fi movie. It was also interesting that in the model village was a model of the model village, and in that another model (although it stopped at that level). For dinner we drove up to Broadway, and then called it a day and headed home.

The Bike Ride
Mom Riding Through the Cotswolds	Mom at the top of a Steep Hill

We took a bike ride on Saturday, renting bikes in Burford, and taking something like a twenty mile loop up to Bourton-on-the-Water along the Windrush, and then back through the Rissington's. It was a fairly enjoyable ride, and the weather was nice, although we took longer than expected. We took a wrong turn in one of the villages and had to push our bicycles along some footpaths through some fields. When we got back we ate dinner in a nice restaurant in Burford. My Mom tried an Ostrich steak, which turned out to be rather tough. We are not sure if that is because it was Ostrich, or because it wasn't prepared very well.

At the Eckersley's House
Me with a Horse	Caroline Eckersley, my Mom, and Caroline's Daughter in the Garden

My Mom had wanted to seen Blenheim Palace, but we it had gotten too late the past couple of days. So, on Sunday morning we went to Blenheim after moving out of Caroline Eckersley's house. When I had gone to Blenheim with Jeff,

Alex and Carrie back in March, the Palace proper had been closed, and we weren't able to tour the building. This time it was open, and we had a chance to go through the Palace. The Palace belongs to the Duke of Marlborough, and was given to the first Duke after his outstanding military victories back in the 1600s (?). Many of the rooms featured some spectacular tapestries that documented his many battles. Winston Churchill was also the nephew of one of the Dukes of Marlborough, and had been born in one of the rooms in the Palace, and we had a chance to see that room. The back of the Palace also had some very pretty fountains (see right), and we were able to have a snack while sitting in the sun by the fountains.

After Blenheim we drove back to Birmingham to attend the Church service at the University which is every Sunday night. Fortunately we made it just in time, and afterwards I took my Mom out to eat at a Balti restaurant in Selly Oak, a delayed Mother's Day present. The dinner was nice, and they even gave us a complimentary appetizer. Then when we got back to the car we found glass everywhere. Closer inspection revealed that the rear window had been broken and two bags had been taken from inside. This just about ruined an otherwise lovely day, and the rest of the night was taken up contacting security and the police, and getting the window in the car replaced.

Friday, May 30, 1997

Okay, I am not going to even pretend that this was written on Friday, May 30, 1997. This was the week following the robbery, and I was pretty much in a daze the entire time. I spent most of the days working on details with the robbery, and my Mom stayed at the Pearce's. She went down to Warwick Castle one day, and apparently enjoyed it. We also went out to dinner with the Pearce's on one of the nights.

On Thursday we drove the rental car back down to Heathrow, and visited Windsor on the way. Unfortunately we got there after the last admission to Windsor Castle, so we were only able to walk around the town, and see the outside of the Castle. We spent the night at the Airport Marriot, and Mom left the next morning early, while I slept in some (it later turned out that she was bumped to a later flight). Finally, I took the tube and train back to Birmingham, ending a hectic but enjoyable two month period of visitors from the US, exams and the completion of a second mini-project.

Robbery Footnote: On May 25th, while traveling with my Mother, thieves broke into our rental car while we were attending a Church Service. They stole two bags out of the car, including a laptop which I had been typing journal entries on. Because of this, entries beginning with the one on May 18th, and concluding with the entry for Monday, June 9 were written after the fact, although they are dated for the time when the originals may have been written (I can't remember exactly which dates I wrote on!).