Farewell England

We woke up this morning to a misty grey, very English day. We walked around the town for a bit, which didn't take long. It's not large by any means. Here's a picture of the pub from last night. We had breakfast back at our B&B, which consisted primarily of yogurt, fruit, cereal, and toast. We later got some pastries at the nearby mini mart.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle getting money to pay for the B&B since he didn't take credit, and there was no ATM in town. I drove to a petrol station, only to find that their ATM was out of order. It was good practice driving through narrow streets from the right seat, though. We ultimately had to arrange some kind of money transfer, for as a lady in the mini mart said, "You in the middle of nowhere here."




We stopped briefly on our way out of town to eat our pastries and take in the view of the english countryside before ultimately dropping our car back off at Heathrow. From there it was a seamless process of checking in and getting seats for our long flight back to LAX. Now we had some time to reflect on our unique trip to England. I had been to London a few times before, but hadn't really spent much time outside the city, so this was all new to me -- particularly the driving bit.

You see quaint looking homes and pubs in movies and think that it's a manufactured reality created by Hollywood, but then discover that such things actually exist. It was a very different feel out in the country. We certainly didn't encounter any American accents like we did in London. After all, who has heard of Old Harry Rocks? In any event, not a bad way to spend four days. Having recently received my March schedule, I won't be able to muster any time off until April, so I'll have to savor this one for a while.

A Durdle Door, Some Old Hairy Rocks, & a lot of Roundabouts

It was a short drive down to the coast, albeit a bit harrowing with the narrow roads, and driving a manual from the right side of the vehicle. Our first stop was Lulworth Cove, which you see here. I had mistakenly driven beyond the car park down a very narrow street that led to the cove, where there was no parking. My only option was to reverse all the way back up. The real sights were not the cove itself, but a natural arch on the other side of a large hill (known as Durdle Door). Someone at the visitor's center said we could hike over it in about 45 mins, but it wasn't hugely appealing.

We were able to drive the car somewhat nearby on the other side, we walked through a caravan park and down a steep gravel trail to where we could see the arch and some white chalky cliffs. I had always wanted to see these mythical white cliffs. It's not exactly Dover, but Nicole was able to find a spot where we could actually see them quite well. You see, it can be hard to see the white cliffs if you're standing on them. The area was very scenic, and the water looked almost tropical. We spent a good amount of time at the bottom at the beach, but unfortunately we had to climb back up to the top.

From there we continued on to a place called Old Harry Rocks. I don't know or why it got this name. Also saying it over and over again makes it more ridiculous. Ah yes, I'm looking for old hairy rocks! So what are they exactly? Just some more chalky white rock formations rising up from the water. The old hairy rocks were not as popular as the arch from the previous picture and they also required a fair amount of walking to get to. I decided to just wear a sweater on my way out, but as we got close to the shore, it seemed like the temperature dropped 20 degrees.

After we returned to the car park from the old hairy rocks, we decided to eat at the pub that was there because . . . well, it was there. I had fish and chips. We were able to enjoy a nice lunch while overlooking the coastline and some sheep. Then we began the long journey back in the direction of London. We wouldn't be staying in London, but rather the village of Shere in the Surrey hills south of London. This was going going to be a three hour drive or so. I don't think I've ever driven around so many roundabouts in my life.

It seemed that they were every 1/2 mile or so and that's not an exaggeration. It made for some stressful driving for someone not used to driving manual or from the right seat or around roundabouts. Miraculously we made it through an estimated 57 roundabouts with only stalling the car once. After a few more narrow, winding roads and an adequate number of roundabouts, we arrived in Shere. We are staying just across the street from a pub, so we didn't have to go far. I had a steak and ale pie. The pub also stars in the movie, The Holiday. As it was nighttime, and they don't believe in streetlights around here, we felt it best to walk around town in the morning when it's safer. 

Pub? Pub.

After settling in, we got back in the car to drive to the nearby village of West Stafford. The road there was extremely narrow, and there are no street lights to speak of. It could not have been any darker. The village itself was quite small with its main attraction being the pub. Coincidentally this was our destination as well. I ordered a beer called Butcombe Bitter, which was a bit of a dilemma. You see, I didn't want a lager or anything light. It was cold out and I wanted something heartier, but I wasn't sure how to pronounce Butcombe. Butt comb? Butt com? I asked for the bitter and the bartender understood.

Nicole had a steak and I had the fish n' chips. For the second time this trip, it was served with mashed peas. This is an aspect of the fish n' chips order that has not taken off in America and I'd be interested to know how exactly I'm supposed to eat them. Do I dip the fish in it? Do I eat it straight up? Are they for the chips? The world continues to surprise me. After a most hearty dinner, we slowly drove back in the pitch black night. The strong winds seem to have pushed a lot of the clouds out of the way, and we could see lots of stars. Unfortunately when we got back to the Yalbury cottage, the lights from their restaurant and the motion sensing lights in the car park proved to be too much light pollution for good star pictures. Nevertheless, we walked around to the street-side to make the best of it. There were some power lines that were unavoidable in our shots, but this was the end result . . .

Into the Countryside

It was a bit of a stressful beginning to our day of adventure. We had to take two trains to get out of London and had to exit the station and buy a new ticket at the transfer point, run back in and hop on a new train with about 15 seconds to spare. By some miracle, we made it and were then evidently the only people to have ever rented a car from Hertz in Guildford, England. The rental office was even smaller than I expected and our car was parked in the regular parking lot for the train station. Perhaps it is the only vehicle Hertz had on property. It is a Vauxhall Astra and I will tell you that shifting in and out of 3rd gear is not very smooth.

After some challenges with navigating near Salisbury, we eventually found our way to Stourton in hopes of viewing some gardens there. Our reason for the stop is that they were used in the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice as you see in this screenshot here. While it wasn't raining like it was in the movie, the wind gusts were easily over 30mph and when we arrived at the Visitor's Center, we discovered that they were closed for the day due to wind. I guess they are concerned about falling trees and such.

Nicole inquired with a man at the desk and he said that all roads going around the area are public access, so whatever we decided to do was fine by him. We couldn't walk on the paths, but we could at least see the main areas. Basically we saved ourselves 17 pounds per person and saw what we wanted to see. Fine by me. Nicole later read that it's extremely rare for the gardens to shut down due to wind. Oh well. Such is life. From there we continued down the road to another filming location -- this time from 2015's Far from the Madding Crowd.

The town of Sherborne in Dorset doubles as the main village from the movie. It is where all major commerce takes place in the film whether it be recruitment for the Army, gambling over boxers, or observing bears . . . luckily not boxing bears, it all took place in the main square near Sherborne Abbey. They covered the driveway with a bit of dirt, but that's about the only change they needed to do.

Most of these towns in this part of England are stuck in a different era. We are a long way from London. While it may be just over 100 miles or so, the cultural differences are vast. Nicole recalled seeing a toy store in Sherbourne that looked like it had not changed since the 1970s. People were driving massive trucks at blistering speeds on these narrow country roads that could barely fit one car, much less oncoming traffic. It was a harrowing experience, but despite driving a manual on the wrong side of the road, we emerged unscathed, and I was only honked at once when I stalled out at a traffic signal.

It had been a stressful day of driving yet we were rewarded with some beautiful views of the countryside. As we got closer to the finish line near the town of Dorchester, I was on the Vauxhall Express, first stop Pub. Pint, please. Maybe make it two.

Lights Out

Eventually we set out for dinner around 7. Nicole picked out a place just a couple blocks away where I had a Shepherds Pie and a pint (naturally). Then we set out to go to Piccadilly Circus. It wasn't quite raining, but it was very misty. It created a nice reflection of the wet pavement and I thought it would be a perfect way to capture the Times Square-esque neon lights at Piccadilly. As I remembered it from years ago, it was just outside the Tube stop, but after doing a quick scan it was nowhere to be found. Nicole and I began to wander aimlessly around the tourist-centric neighborhood.

We walked by the Rainforest Café, the TFI Fridays, the Shake Shack, the Bubba Gump's, and various multi-story tourist shops full of tchotchkes. No big neon lights. We walked through a Chinatown area, but couldn't track down the main area. After circling back toward the tube stop, I looked around and it dawned on me that perhaps the lights were off. The shape of the building looked familiar, as did the fountain across the street, but it was now covered in scaffolding and paper banners. Sad pants.

So, instead of nice shiny reflective neon lights you get to look at photos I took earlier today. Tomorrow we leave London and take the train to Guildford where we'll be renting a car. Initially we were just going to take a train and be done with it, but despite being just 12 miles from Heathrow, it would have been more than two hours on train to do it whereas it would be less than 30 minutes by car. This then evolved into more of a roadtrip, so if all goes according to plan, we will be spending the night in a cottage near Dorcester near England's southern coast. Perhaps we will meet this mythical Brexit voters.

Fuzzy hats, wind, and tea

After a decent night's sleep, we had breakfast at a café across the street and then walked the two blocks over to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. There were a lot of tourists waiting, at least six layers deep and I didn't feel particularly inspired to fight my way into the crowds, so we walked down the mall toward Horse Guard's Parade to see the changing of the guard there. As it turned out, there was some construction going on outside the building, so it was a no go, but we happened to be in the right spot at the right time as one of the regiments marched from around the corner toward Buckingham Palace.

Then we took the tube to Tower Hill. We walked by the Tower of London, which we elected to just view from the outside since it was quite expensive. After snapping a few pictures of Tower Bridge, we walked toward St Paul's Cathedral. On the way, we made a stop at The Monument, a tower built in the 17th century to commemorate a big fire back in the day. I had read that there were decent views from the top, so after waiting for 30 schoolchildren to clear out from the narrow spiral stairs, we scaled the 301 steps to the top.

We had to shoot our photos through some fencing going around the top, but we made it work. It was quite windy at the top of the tower, so we didn't spend too much time loitering and taking in the view. We walked down the 301 steps to the bottom and grabbed some lunch down the street at a French café chain with views of St Paul's Cathedral while we ate outside in the cold (there were no seats inside). Then we jumped on the tube once more to go to the British Museum. We checked out the main highlights such as the mummies from Egypt, the Rosetta Stone, and the sculptures from the Parthenon in Greece. Having been to both the Pyramids in Giza and the Acropolis in Athens, the originating countries of these exhibits are not too pleased that the British have not offered to give back their treasures. Tsk tsk. After the museum, we headed back to our area near St James's Park, but before we went to our "flat," we grabbed some scones and tea at a small café. It seemed like the proper thing to do.

 It was a delightful mid-afternoon snack and a nice warmup from the cold weather outside. I may have initially stated that the weather isn't that different from LA, but I retract that statement. We very rarely get any kind of strong wind in Southern California, and the wind here is quite biting. Poor us. We had a busy day, so we just spent some time at the "flat" relaxing before trying to figure out what we will do for the rest of the evening.

London Town

Nicole and I set forth on an impromptu trip to London, England. We had been deciding between primarily that and Hong Kong and London won out because there were more seats on the plane. This was our first adventure in flying American Airlines long-haul. The gate agent was sympathetic to us since there were over 20 seats in business class, but we are not able to be awarded them because we are not mainline American employees. Silliness. Downright silliness. We had to settle for a row to ourselves in economy comfort.

Some ten hours later, we arrived at Heathrow airport, where the weather was surprisingly not all that different from Los Angeles. It was overcast with a dampness in the air and a temperature around 55. After Customs, we had to take the Tube for about an hour until we arrived at our Air BnB in the middle of the city. It's about two blocks from Buckingham Palace and around half a mile from Parliament. We both took naps in an attempt to find some semblance of a normal sleep schedule and woke up to get some food. I found a pub down the street that seemed to fit the bill. I had fish and chips, which came with a rather sizable fish. It could have doubled as a baseball bat in a pinch. We each had a pint to go with our meals (naturally) as we commented on how the U.S. is the only country to serve its beer ice cold...perhaps to cover up the lack of flavor or substance. After the pub we went out for a walk around the area. We spent a while trying to get some decent pictures of Big Ben at night, but that bright face of the clock complicated the exposures.

It was a bit brisk out with an occasional snap of wind throwing dirt in our eyes, but it was nothing compared to our recent stopovers in Tokyo and especially Vienna. At one point I even started shooting some timelapse. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to share the video that was created from that shoot because I am using the Microsoft Surface to blog, which cannot do basic editing or importing. In order to get these pictures in the blog, I had to send them from my camera to my iPhone through WiFi and then back them up to a cloud drive and then re-download them on the surface. Contrary to what the commercials may lead you to believe, the Surface is really not that versatile. They may show someone pretending to be creative and drawing and doing fancy things, but they don't show the 30 minute process of trying to connect a Bluetooth keyboard. So I apologize for the crudity of the images, as I'm not even going to attempt to edit using the surface. Use your imagination to fix the exposures and levels.