Awwwww, don't they look happy? Usually, they were.
Monday: Travel — Des Moines to Detroit to London
Sister-in-law promises to make sure the house doesn’t burn down while we’re gone. (Thanks, Kendal.) Watched the movie “I Love You, Man” on the plane with Arabic subtitles. Hope it’s funnier in Arabic than it was in English. Cort took her first trans-Atlantic flight like a champ. At least she could sleep. I completely whiffed.
Tuesday: West London, Harrods, Picadilly Circus
Lack of sleep + jet lag + wrong flavor of Walkers Crisps (Builder’s Breakfast, bad idea) + insane shuttle driver from Heathrow = upset stomach. Cannot recommend the Renaissance Chancery Court in High Holborn strongly enough; lovely rooms, lovely courtyard, great location (with access to Central and Picadilly Tube lines just two blocks away). You’re a bit far from the Thames and some of the more conventional tourist traps, but that’s a minor quibble. Woke up in mid-afternoon in time to catch a train to Harrods, which is Younkers on steroids — really, really, really powerful steroids. Bonds steroids. Had dinner at a pub in Harrods’ basement, a little nook called The Green Man. The food was fantastic; the bill ($74-ish for two) was not. Did a walking tour of Picadilly Circus on the way back home. Not quite as big as I’d remembered, and not quite as overwhelming as Times Square. Pretty, though.
Tube stops: 3. HMVs visited: 2. H&Ms visited: 1.
Wednesday: Portobello Road, BBC Television Centre, Oxford Circus, Hampstead Theatre
Cort made a new friend: Pret A Manger, one of a chain of sandwich shops about a block from our hotel. No item on the menu was more than $8, much to our mutual delight. We headed west in early afternoon to the Notting Hill neighborhood, so Cort could a) shop the outdoor markets at Portobello Road; and b) find a souvenir that would sate her sister Leslie, who apparently has an encyclopedic recall for all things in the movie, “Notting Hill.” (Haven’t seen it. Is it funnier than “I Love You, Man?”) The centerpiece of the day was a tour of BBC Television Centre, where the public-television icons of our youth used to roam the halls. The first place they took us was — a newsroom. On vacation. Wonderful. Passed through Oxford Circus on the way back to the hotel for more shopping. Back at the hotel meant a change of clothes, then a train north to the Hampstead Theatre to watch “Hitler: My Part In His Downfall,” a play based on Spike Milligan’s World War II memoirs.
Tube stops: 6. HMVs visited: 1. H&Ms visited: 1.
Thursday: Tower of London, Knitting Shoppe, BFI Southbank, London Eye
Got off to a slow start and never quite recovered. Bottled Welsh water didn’t sit well with Cort’s stomach — she went back to the hotel over lunch to lie down; I went to another pub for a pint. (OK, two pints. Fine. Three.) Anyway, eventually, we made it to the Tower of London. I despise long lines, but the crown jewels were almost worth it. The idea was to spend the rest of the day and evening on the south bank of the Thames, only it took us forever to find this little knitting shoppe that Cort had targeted a few weeks back. (On the plus side, it had a very comfortable couch. One of the dozen lady patrons sidled up to me at one point and proclaimed: “Wow. I’d never get my ‘usband in ‘ere.” Me: “That’s OK. She’s going to a (football) match on Saturday as payback.”) Another pub dinner was tasty but took forever to prepare, setting us further behind. By the time we got to BFI Southbank (run by the British Film Institute), the ‘Viewing Centre’ was about 47 seconds from closing. Still, a fantastic building — more an art gallery than a theater, really, with a superlative bookstore in the foyer. If it weren’t for the DVD region-code difference, we would’ve done a helluva a lot more damage. Sadly, the pub dinner didn’t sit well with Cort’s guts, either, and we were dragging to the London Eye for our 9:30 p.m. appointment. Fortunately, the sky was clear. She loved the view.
Tube stops: 5. HMVs visited: 0. H&Ms visited: 0.
Friday: St Paul’s, Old Street, Abbey Road, Paddington Station, Harrods (again), late dinner
A quick morning jaunt to St. Paul’s Cathedral, followed by lunch at an Indian café at Whitecross Street Market with an old college friend of mine and her husband — both incredibly fun, cool people, so it was great to see them for a little chicken balti and another round of pints. (Pints, as you might imagine, were a recurring theme of this trip.) Also: we finally got to Abbey Road Studios, which I sensed — and predicted correctly — Cort would find a tad underwhelming. (Tip: If you want to recreate that infamous 1969 album-cover shot, you’re putting your life in your hands because of heavy traffic in the area). It took us a while to get to our next port of call — Paddington Station — but the quest was worth it as Cort finally got to fondle her beloved Paddington Bear statue (it’s in front of the Krispy Kreme) and snatch a few Paddington souvenirs. From there, it was a second trip south to Knightsbridge — mainly, to Harrods for family gifts and other odds-and-ends to commemorate our last full day in London. Cort also wanted to try the nearby H&M one more time, leaving me in The Green Man Pub to read the day’s tabloids and pound a few more pints (this time, Fuller’s Honey Dew, which in addition to being slightly sweet, seemed unusually potent.) She came back an hour or so later, short of breath and declared — which I’d also predicted — that the crowds in London were starting to annoy the hell out of her. Buzzing, I smiled.
Tube stops: 8. HMVs visited: 0. H&Ms visited: 1.
Saturday: Leicester (City Centre, Highcross Mall, The Walkers Stadium, Kayal)
Leicester Day. Memo to self: The last thing you want to do to someone who feels like they’re being dragged to somewhere they don’t want to go is actually physically drag them there. Because of typical WiHi morning slog and an unexpected police search at the Holborn station that held up our train, we found ourselves sprinting from one end of the King Cross/St Pancras station to the other in order to reach our East Midlands Trains connection. Which we did — with about 90 seconds to spare before the doors closed. Cort, needless to say, was not amused. When I mentioned that this is what those poor sods on her favorite TV show, “The Amazing Race” go through all the time, she became less amused — an 80-minute train to Leicestershire felt more like three hours of silence. Thankfully, a hearty lunch at Urban Pie — think Chipotle but with various stuffed pastries and pot pies — cooled the ice. Downtown Leicester looks like one giant farmer’s market, and more than few storefronts are true eyesores. That said, the people we met could not have been nicer. At least three different folks, unprompted, offered to give us directions or asked if they could help. Like Cleveland, it’s not your traditional tourist stop, so the locals don’t seem jaded in the least by strangers wandering around while pointing at maps. But while Cleveland has the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, Leicester has — well, um, The Walkers Stadium. And from the rail station, brother, it’s a hike: 1.2 miles each way by foot, according to Google Maps. By the time we arrived, Cort’s feet were turning the same shade of blue as Leciester City’s home shirts. The stadium itself — a 32,500 all-seater that opened in 2002 — was clean and tidy but somewhat non-descript. The first-half between Leicester and visiting Barnsley wasn’t much better, as the two Coca-Cola Championship sides battled to a 0-0 draw at halftime. Cort’s feet improved in the second half — and so did the Foxes. Forward Matty Fryatt’s strike at the 54-minute mark gave the hosts a 1-0 lead, and Leicester played keep-away from there to hang on for the victory. I went a little crazy at the club shop, as you might imagine, which amused Cort somewhat. Leicester has a large and storied Anglo-Indian population, and the cuisine at dinner — Kayal, an award-winning, South-Indian-style eatery a few blocks from the train station — more than lived up to the hype. Yet again, the folks at the restaurant couldn’t have been kinder; Cort couldn’t stop raving about her dinner. Left on a high note. Or at least medium high.
Tube stops: 2. HMVs visited: 1. H&Ms visited: 1.
Sunday: Travel — London to Cincinnati to Des Moines
Once again, Cort took the long flight like a seasoned pro. Once again, I couldn’t sleep. Watched an episode of “The Mighty Boosh” on her iPod during the trans-Atlantic leg. Holy crap — nearly wet myself laughing. I must confess — the long layover (four hours) in Cincinnati was by design. Set a new personal record (low?) by eating six cheese coneys from the Gold Star Chili stand at the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International airport. I was ravenous. Cort was visibly apalled. Such is love.
Tube stops: 2. HMVs visited: 0. H&Ms visited: 0
Want more? For a complete photo gallery, check out The BBCWiHi Flickr page. Big props — and belated thanks — to DFK and PK for gifting us the trip.
The BBCWiHi Blues 