NEW YORK - After an underwhelming start to the season which saw the Yankees fall as many as 11 games behind their arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox, in the AL East standings, the Yankees have again pulled out their checkbooks to lure another aging superstar from retirement: Ted Williams. This latest blockbuster signing comes as the Yankees welcome the Red Sox to Yankee Stadium tonight for a three game, must-win series. Having previously lured Roger Clemens, age 44, from semi-retirement with the promise of a big paycheck, the Yankees pursued a similar strategy in bringing Williams, 83 at the time of his death, to the Bronx.
Williams spent 19 seasons in a Red Sox uniform before retiring in 1960, and dying in 2002. He compiled Hall of Fame statistics: 17 all star game selections, 521 home runs, a .344 career batting average, and two American league Triple Crowns. Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman, in making the announcement, said, "I expect this will be a controversial signing, but the fact is Ted will bring a level of dynamism and leadership that's been missing from our clubhouse."
The headless, cryogenically preserved corpse of "Teddy Ballgame" will start out as a designated hitter. Current Yankees DH Jason Giambi could not be reached for comment, but his agent, Arn Tellem, said, "Jason's productivity has fallen off a bit since he got off the 'juice,' but I expect this is only a temporary situation. Eventually, medical science will develop an untraceable performance enhancing drug, and Jason will bounce right back."
Yankee Manager Joe Torre echoed Cashman's sentiments, saying "Teddy will fit right in in this clubhouse. There are a lot of guys here who've been around a while and know what it takes to get it done. Ted's had a full life and will fit right in. He'll make all the other guys feel younger and more alive."
Terms of the agreement were not released, but a confidential source within the Yankee organization reports that Williams' contract includes provisions for ongoing cryogenic support between games, and travel separate from the rest of the team in an ice cream truck. His contract also specifies that the Yankee team doctor be a specialist in geriatrics; given the average age of the current Yankee roster, this condition has already been met. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner has been undergoing cryogenic suspension treatments in the off-season, in what family members describe as a desperate and pathetic attempt to prolong his life enough to witness another Yankee championship. It is believed that Steinbrenner and Williams met in the same cryonics facility in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Williams will report to the Yankees' training camp in Tampa for extended defrosting before making his return to the major leagues some time next month. Cashman added: "This guy is one of the all-time greats, there's no disputing that. Sure, he's a little past his prime, being dead and all, but at least he's not getting any older. There's no other player in either league who can make that claim."
20 May 2007
17 May 2007
Yahoos at Yahoo!
A post I initially made to a Yahoo! sports message board in response to George Steinbrenner's announcement that Roger Clemens would return to the Yankees:
A short history lesson, for those who may be interested:
As World War Two went on, and it became increasingy apparent that Nazi Germany would not win, Adolf Hitler sank further into madness and insanity. He began to promise new 'wonder weapons' that would change the course of the war and bring victory to the Thousand Year Reich. Among these weapons was the V-2 rocket, the Vergeltungswaffe-2 (Vengeance Weapon #2). Many of these rockets were launched against London and other cities in England, and they did cause death and destruction, but they were ineffective in turning the tide of the war. As we all know, the Nazis lost, and Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker as Russian troops closed in on him.
Now look who is promising a wonder weapon, a 'Rocket' in fact, to turn the tide.
Who says history doesn't repeat itself?
And Yahoo!'s overreaction:
Yahoo! Administrative Notice
By creating and using your Yahoo! account, you agree to abide byYahoo!'s Terms of Service (TOS). Pursuant to the TOS, Yahoo! reservesthe right to terminate your account or otherwise prohibit use of youraccount in the event that, among other things, Yahoo! believes that you have violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of theTOS.
It has come to our attention that you may have violated the TOS(http://www.yahoo.com/r/ts) on Yahoo! Sports (http://sports.yahoo.com/).Please reread the TOS and cease any use of your account that may violate the TOS.
If your use of your Yahoo! account is brought to our attention again,and we believe that such use violates the TOS, then we may terminate your account without further notice.
Please do not reply to this email. Any questions concerning Yahoo!'sServices should be submitted through the on-line form in the help area( http://help.yahoo.com/).
-Yahoo!
Yahoo also expunged every single post I had made.
11 May 2007
Well, it couldn't have happened to a more appropriate bunch of guys...
From Yahoo! Sports:
The headline is funny, but the photo makes it hilarious.
21 April 2001
Moscow, Russia
14 - 20 April, 2001
"Moscow. It's another world!" A sign bearing that message, in English, is the first thing to greet visitors as they step off the plane at Sheremetyevo-2. It refers to the airport's duty-free shops, but it may as well refer to the rest of the city. I had the fortunate opportunity to visit Hannah while she was on her assignment in Moscow, and she has invited me to write my impressions. She's been writing of sightseeing and working, so I decided to write about my culture shock.
That sign is the first thing to greet visitors; it is not, however, the first thing a visitor sees on arrival. That distinction would have to go to the State Officer for Giving Permission to the Jetway Operator to Open the Aircraft Door. (O.K., I made that title up.) After landing, our Lufthansa pilot informed us that our entry into Russia would be delayed as this officer was not present at our arrival gate, and the door could not possibly be opened until official permission had been given. This was in spite of the facts that all of us on the plane had been issued visas which were checked by the gate staff at the Frankfurt Main airport, and we would soon enough have to present ourselves for passport and customs inspection at Sheremetyevo. Nevertheless, for the fully trained jetway operator to open the door without the approval of the state would have been an unpardonable lapse in security, surely resulting in a one-way trip to Gulag City. After giving the official "Da" required for the door to be opened, the officer stood by the door as we passengers filed past. She provided each of us with a working definition of "dour" as we passed, and pointedly failed to smile or in any other way welcome us.
Once one has successfully navigated one's way out of the airport, I believe it is possible to get by in any country knowing only six key words in the local language. In Russian, those words are: da [yes], nyet [no], pozhalsta [please], spasiba [thank you], piva [beer] and tualet [toilet]. These words, in combination with hand signals, are generally sufficient to meet life's daily needs.
The trick in Russian, though, is that they use a different alphabet. Just as the railroad operates on a different gauge to forestall invaders, I began to suspect that Saint Cyril's clever and devious manipulations of otherwise familiar letters were meant solely to confuse foreigners. In Russian, the letter "P" is read as an "R." "B" is "V," "C" is "S," "H" is "N." The "L" we know and love is replaced with a Л. "G" is Г, "P" is П, "F" is Ф. It gets worse. There are also letters that look like "3" and "4" (э and ч), and weird mathematical symbols (ж and ю, among others). Sentences begin to resemble physics equations. It goes on: a backward "N" is an "I," while a backward "R" is pronounced "ya." Reading Russian begins to resemble code-breaking, as each letter has seemingly been assigned a new value.
Once the substitution scheme has been learned, it becomes easier to decipher Russian words. "Ресторан" for instance, becomes, phonetically, "res-to-ran," or restaurant. A street sign reading стоп is clearly a "stop" sign, and the yellow cars labeled "такси" are taxis. "интернет каФе" is "Internet Cafe." Just when one begins to get comfortable, though, in sneak the lower-case letters. We might expect a lower case Russian "T" to be a "t," but of course it isn't. It's an "m." Thusly, a "Ресторан" and a "ресmоран" are both restaurants. An added wrinkle: that could be "ресmopaнь," the final "ь" being some vestigial appendage analogous to "e" in the "Ye Olde" version of English. Even though some of the words sound familiar, the only way to recognize them when reading is to sound them out. It was following this procedure at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R. (they haven't gotten around to changing the sign yet) that I found myself reading German written in Cyrillic.
All of this linguistic transliteration becomes important in places like the subway. Recognizing that what your guide book calls Novoslobodskaya and what the sign on the wall says is новослоBодская are the same place is crucial. Paying attention to the signs on the subway can lead one into other kinds of trouble, however. If you're concentrating on the signs when the doors open, you could find yourself shoved through them whether or not the train has stopped. The Moscow subway is allegedly the busiest in the world, and that's not hard to believe. I was never on a car that wasn't full, and trains come into each of the more than 150 stations at about two minute intervals. Each station is also a mini-museum of Soviet art, as they were set up to provide emergency fallout shelter in the event of a nuclear war. What better way to ride out a nuclear winter with morale intact than to spend it staring at statues, mosaics and other artwork depicting the heroic struggles of the proletariat?
The monetary system also presents some difficulties, but not because of any difficulty in understanding it. The Russian rouble has fallen on hard times, and as a result, so have the Russian people. One rouble is now worth about 3.5 cents US, down from a pre-devaluation high of 15.9 cents less than three years ago. Rouble coins come in denominations of five, two and one, and one rouble is divided into 100 kopeks. For some reason, coins of 50, 10 and one kopek are in circulation. Certainly, a 1 kopek coin (value: 0.035 US cents - that's right, 35 thousandths of a cent) must cost far more than its value to mint. My favorite souvenirs to collect while traveling are samples of the local currency; the only way I acquired one- and ten-kopek coins was to pick them up off the ground where they had been discarded as useless. How the people who had them on hand to chuck out got them I can't guess.*
One very effective way to save money in Russia is to only carry large bills. They cannot be spent. By large, I mean 100 rouble notes. No one can make change, so there are two potential outcomes. I tried to purchase a 6 rouble postcard from three different vendors inside G.U.M. using a 100 rouble note, and was turned away each time. Evidently "no change" is a well practiced English phrase among Moscow shopkeepers. Two of them didn't even bother to look up from their reading to dismiss me. They caught the 100 rouble note out of the corners of their eyes and knew not to bother.
The other possible outcome is somewhat friendlier. At the Moscow State Museum of Architecture, where the admission fee is 15 roubles, I presented my unchangeable 100 rouble note (mind you, this thing is only worth $3.46 US) to the attendant, who, of course, did not have change. I was therefore permitted to enter the museum for free. I initially felt some guilt at being a (relatively) rich westerner taking advantage of the kindly ladies who ran the place and resolved to return to pay my fee once I had the proper change. (Then I went in and reviewed both galleries and decided that at $0.52 US the place was a rip-off. Gallery #1 has about two dozen photos of the war in Chechnya. What this has to do with architecture, other than blowing it up, remains unexplained. Gallery #2 had some early 19th century French engravings of views of Moscow, but I would later discover prints of the same engravings on sale in the gift shop of the Hotel Russia just off Red Square. There was no Gallery #3.)
Perhaps the thing that struck me most about Moscow was the preponderance of Soviet era decor. I remembered seeing broadcasts about ten years ago of jubilant mobs toppling statue after statue of communist icons, and I remember reading that all of these statues had been carted off to a makeshift junkyard to have their bronze recycled (probably into kopek coins). The junkyard is now a "sculpture park," and these monuments have been stood back up for display. No jumble of sledge-hammered statuary here: "Iron" Felix Dzerzhinsky, grandfather of the KGB, strikes the same heroic pose here as he did for all those years in front of Lubyanka Prison. Elsewhere around the city, the Soviet star still tops the towers in the Kremlin walls, hammers and sickles abound as a decorative motif, and statues and paintings of Lenin are inescapable. You can't swing a dead dissident without hitting several likenesses of him. Also, most apartment blocks have granite or marble plaques embedded in their walls detailing the "heroic accomplishments in the name of state communism" that were perpetrated, er, accomplished by former (and maybe current?) occupants, including Ho Chi Minh among others. I had expected that these sorts of reminders of the Soviet system would have been the first thing to go after the reforms of a decade ago, but now I realize that if they took away everything that carried such reminders there would be nothing left. All the statues and all the paintings would have to go, all of the buildings would have to be renamed - it's far too pervasive.
I made it a point to visit Lenin's mausoleum. I happened to be there on a day with few visitors, so I had a private audience with him. (Well, semi-private; it was me, Lenin and the guard.) Considering he's been dead for three quarters of a century he looks remarkably intact. After Lenin's chamber, the tomb empties into a garden by the Kremlin wall where various heroes of the state have been interred. I had paused in front of Stalin's grave when I was nudged by the older gentleman next to me. I didn't understand his words, but from the grin, the hand gestures and the conspiratorial tone in his voice I gather he said something like "I'm sure glad he's down there and not still on the other side this wall." I got the distinct impression that he remembered Stalin well, and now simply relished the fact that he could say such things over his grave. So maybe the old monuments will go.
After visiting Lenin I headed off to one of the many monuments to the end of the Cold War that dot the city. They're not listed as such in the guide book, but they're easy to find - just look for the red and yellow signs that read "макдоналдс."
*I can help resolve this mystery, partially. Prices in stores are generally given as XX roubles and YY kopeks, where YY virtually always is zero. However, for items sold by weight, even if the unit price is in roubles, the weight of the product may cause a non-zero number of kopeks to end up in the price. Thus I bought an orange one day costing some number of roubles and 26 kopeks, which of course I did not have, nor did the cashier have change down to the kopek. But if she had, I could have acquired some very small denomination coins. - H
"Moscow. It's another world!" A sign bearing that message, in English, is the first thing to greet visitors as they step off the plane at Sheremetyevo-2. It refers to the airport's duty-free shops, but it may as well refer to the rest of the city. I had the fortunate opportunity to visit Hannah while she was on her assignment in Moscow, and she has invited me to write my impressions. She's been writing of sightseeing and working, so I decided to write about my culture shock.That sign is the first thing to greet visitors; it is not, however, the first thing a visitor sees on arrival. That distinction would have to go to the State Officer for Giving Permission to the Jetway Operator to Open the Aircraft Door. (O.K., I made that title up.) After landing, our Lufthansa pilot informed us that our entry into Russia would be delayed as this officer was not present at our arrival gate, and the door could not possibly be opened until official permission had been given. This was in spite of the facts that all of us on the plane had been issued visas which were checked by the gate staff at the Frankfurt Main airport, and we would soon enough have to present ourselves for passport and customs inspection at Sheremetyevo. Nevertheless, for the fully trained jetway operator to open the door without the approval of the state would have been an unpardonable lapse in security, surely resulting in a one-way trip to Gulag City. After giving the official "Da" required for the door to be opened, the officer stood by the door as we passengers filed past. She provided each of us with a working definition of "dour" as we passed, and pointedly failed to smile or in any other way welcome us.
Once one has successfully navigated one's way out of the airport, I believe it is possible to get by in any country knowing only six key words in the local language. In Russian, those words are: da [yes], nyet [no], pozhalsta [please], spasiba [thank you], piva [beer] and tualet [toilet]. These words, in combination with hand signals, are generally sufficient to meet life's daily needs.
The trick in Russian, though, is that they use a different alphabet. Just as the railroad operates on a different gauge to forestall invaders, I began to suspect that Saint Cyril's clever and devious manipulations of otherwise familiar letters were meant solely to confuse foreigners. In Russian, the letter "P" is read as an "R." "B" is "V," "C" is "S," "H" is "N." The "L" we know and love is replaced with a Л. "G" is Г, "P" is П, "F" is Ф. It gets worse. There are also letters that look like "3" and "4" (э and ч), and weird mathematical symbols (ж and ю, among others). Sentences begin to resemble physics equations. It goes on: a backward "N" is an "I," while a backward "R" is pronounced "ya." Reading Russian begins to resemble code-breaking, as each letter has seemingly been assigned a new value.
Once the substitution scheme has been learned, it becomes easier to decipher Russian words. "Ресторан" for instance, becomes, phonetically, "res-to-ran," or restaurant. A street sign reading стоп is clearly a "stop" sign, and the yellow cars labeled "такси" are taxis. "интернет каФе" is "Internet Cafe." Just when one begins to get comfortable, though, in sneak the lower-case letters. We might expect a lower case Russian "T" to be a "t," but of course it isn't. It's an "m." Thusly, a "Ресторан" and a "ресmоран" are both restaurants. An added wrinkle: that could be "ресmopaнь," the final "ь" being some vestigial appendage analogous to "e" in the "Ye Olde" version of English. Even though some of the words sound familiar, the only way to recognize them when reading is to sound them out. It was following this procedure at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R. (they haven't gotten around to changing the sign yet) that I found myself reading German written in Cyrillic.
All of this linguistic transliteration becomes important in places like the subway. Recognizing that what your guide book calls Novoslobodskaya and what the sign on the wall says is новослоBодская are the same place is crucial. Paying attention to the signs on the subway can lead one into other kinds of trouble, however. If you're concentrating on the signs when the doors open, you could find yourself shoved through them whether or not the train has stopped. The Moscow subway is allegedly the busiest in the world, and that's not hard to believe. I was never on a car that wasn't full, and trains come into each of the more than 150 stations at about two minute intervals. Each station is also a mini-museum of Soviet art, as they were set up to provide emergency fallout shelter in the event of a nuclear war. What better way to ride out a nuclear winter with morale intact than to spend it staring at statues, mosaics and other artwork depicting the heroic struggles of the proletariat?The monetary system also presents some difficulties, but not because of any difficulty in understanding it. The Russian rouble has fallen on hard times, and as a result, so have the Russian people. One rouble is now worth about 3.5 cents US, down from a pre-devaluation high of 15.9 cents less than three years ago. Rouble coins come in denominations of five, two and one, and one rouble is divided into 100 kopeks. For some reason, coins of 50, 10 and one kopek are in circulation. Certainly, a 1 kopek coin (value: 0.035 US cents - that's right, 35 thousandths of a cent) must cost far more than its value to mint. My favorite souvenirs to collect while traveling are samples of the local currency; the only way I acquired one- and ten-kopek coins was to pick them up off the ground where they had been discarded as useless. How the people who had them on hand to chuck out got them I can't guess.*
One very effective way to save money in Russia is to only carry large bills. They cannot be spent. By large, I mean 100 rouble notes. No one can make change, so there are two potential outcomes. I tried to purchase a 6 rouble postcard from three different vendors inside G.U.M. using a 100 rouble note, and was turned away each time. Evidently "no change" is a well practiced English phrase among Moscow shopkeepers. Two of them didn't even bother to look up from their reading to dismiss me. They caught the 100 rouble note out of the corners of their eyes and knew not to bother.
The other possible outcome is somewhat friendlier. At the Moscow State Museum of Architecture, where the admission fee is 15 roubles, I presented my unchangeable 100 rouble note (mind you, this thing is only worth $3.46 US) to the attendant, who, of course, did not have change. I was therefore permitted to enter the museum for free. I initially felt some guilt at being a (relatively) rich westerner taking advantage of the kindly ladies who ran the place and resolved to return to pay my fee once I had the proper change. (Then I went in and reviewed both galleries and decided that at $0.52 US the place was a rip-off. Gallery #1 has about two dozen photos of the war in Chechnya. What this has to do with architecture, other than blowing it up, remains unexplained. Gallery #2 had some early 19th century French engravings of views of Moscow, but I would later discover prints of the same engravings on sale in the gift shop of the Hotel Russia just off Red Square. There was no Gallery #3.)
Perhaps the thing that struck me most about Moscow was the preponderance of Soviet era decor. I remembered seeing broadcasts about ten years ago of jubilant mobs toppling statue after statue of communist icons, and I remember reading that all of these statues had been carted off to a makeshift junkyard to have their bronze recycled (probably into kopek coins). The junkyard is now a "sculpture park," and these monuments have been stood back up for display. No jumble of sledge-hammered statuary here: "Iron" Felix Dzerzhinsky, grandfather of the KGB, strikes the same heroic pose here as he did for all those years in front of Lubyanka Prison. Elsewhere around the city, the Soviet star still tops the towers in the Kremlin walls, hammers and sickles abound as a decorative motif, and statues and paintings of Lenin are inescapable. You can't swing a dead dissident without hitting several likenesses of him. Also, most apartment blocks have granite or marble plaques embedded in their walls detailing the "heroic accomplishments in the name of state communism" that were perpetrated, er, accomplished by former (and maybe current?) occupants, including Ho Chi Minh among others. I had expected that these sorts of reminders of the Soviet system would have been the first thing to go after the reforms of a decade ago, but now I realize that if they took away everything that carried such reminders there would be nothing left. All the statues and all the paintings would have to go, all of the buildings would have to be renamed - it's far too pervasive.I made it a point to visit Lenin's mausoleum. I happened to be there on a day with few visitors, so I had a private audience with him. (Well, semi-private; it was me, Lenin and the guard.) Considering he's been dead for three quarters of a century he looks remarkably intact. After Lenin's chamber, the tomb empties into a garden by the Kremlin wall where various heroes of the state have been interred. I had paused in front of Stalin's grave when I was nudged by the older gentleman next to me. I didn't understand his words, but from the grin, the hand gestures and the conspiratorial tone in his voice I gather he said something like "I'm sure glad he's down there and not still on the other side this wall." I got the distinct impression that he remembered Stalin well, and now simply relished the fact that he could say such things over his grave. So maybe the old monuments will go.
After visiting Lenin I headed off to one of the many monuments to the end of the Cold War that dot the city. They're not listed as such in the guide book, but they're easy to find - just look for the red and yellow signs that read "макдоналдс."
*I can help resolve this mystery, partially. Prices in stores are generally given as XX roubles and YY kopeks, where YY virtually always is zero. However, for items sold by weight, even if the unit price is in roubles, the weight of the product may cause a non-zero number of kopeks to end up in the price. Thus I bought an orange one day costing some number of roubles and 26 kopeks, which of course I did not have, nor did the cashier have change down to the kopek. But if she had, I could have acquired some very small denomination coins. - H
29 June 1999
London, England
Cleverly, we'd timed our arrival in London to coincide with another major sporting event: Wimbledon. Thus, hotels were scarce, but before too long we were ensconced in the Hotel Oliver, near the Earl's Court Tube station. We dropped our bags in the tiny room, then headed back out to the Imperial War Museum.
Navigating the Tube proved to be an experience (and it wasn't even rush hour yet) but eventually we did make it to the museum. Among the typical war museum exhibits (tanks, guns, planes, etc.), two stood out: the Trench Experience and the Blitz Experience. The Trench Experience was a walk-through reconstruction of a World War I trench at night. Realistic touches like the sounds of gunshots and tapes of soldiers speaking to one another made it feel authentic. Even smells were added, of gunpowder and meals cooking. Thankfully, the designers omitted the squish of mud underfoot.
The Blitz Experience was even more elaborate. Our group of about twenty visitors was first ushered into a bomb shelter, which shook with an explosion as we "survived" a German raid. Exiting the shelter, we emerged into smoke and confusion as the warden guided us past bombed out shops and homes, dust and debris scattered all around.
From the museum we walked to Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames to meet up with a walking tour. This tour was right up our alley: the "Along the Thames Pub Walk" from London Walks. Since it was a Friday evening, the pubs tended to be crowded, but we were still well able to enjoy the ambiance and the pints. Our tour took us backward in time, stopping first at a relatively modern bar right on the river with a great view of the city's skyline. Next we came to an 18th century labyrinth of a pub called The Anchor, not far from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Lastly, the George was renovated in the 17th century and has remained essentially unchanged since then. We had our dinner there, then, tired and sleepy, took the Tube back to our hotel.
The next morning we struck out intending to visit both the Tower of London and St. Paul's Cathedral. We decided to save St. Paul's for another day as the Tower was too fascinating to leave any of it unexplored. We spent the whole day there, beginning with a guided walk by one of the Yeoman Warders, the military guardians of the Tower. The tour led from the main gate, past the Traitor's Gate (where prisoners were brought into the fortress), under the Bloody Tower and all through the complex. The guide's script was very entertaining and contained a great deal of humor, but it was mostly made up of stories of barbaric torture and imprisonment and executions, executions, executions.
That tour finished in time for us to catch another entitled "Attack the Tower." This tour was by reservation to a limited group, so only nine of us got led around the Tower complex to examine its defenses. We saw the walls, both inner and outer and from inside and outside, the arrow loops, the murder holes and the two remaining portcullises. (Or is that portculli?).
We also saw the Tower's Armoury and its collection of weapons and armour as well as a demonstration of how a medieval knight's armour was worn. The poor chap who had to wear it was sweating buckets from the weight and the heat, but he still gave an entertainingly humorous spiel. Of course, we stood in line to see the Crown Jewels and all the Coronation regalia, but the most enjoyable part of that display was the video of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation shown to the line of people waiting to get in. All of the rituals with their attendant artifacts were depicted, the Sword of Offering, the Royal Orb, and so on. Elizabeth looked like she was ready for a long nap by the time it was all done. By the time we were done with the Tower, we, too, were ready for a long nap.
The next morning we partook of another London Walks offering, the "Old Westminster" walk. Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey; all the London highlights were on this tour. We heard many interesting stories, including coronation debacles: crowns put on backward, lords falling down drunk, parts of the ceremony skipped over, new monarch nodding off, etc. Then through St. James's Park for a look at Buckingham Palace, albeit only from the outside. Our timing coincided with the Changing of the Guard, so we watched as the band came down The Mall. Our tour continued through Trafalgar Square, home of Nelson's Column and several thousand pigeons. We finished up at Covent Garden with a pleasant lunch.
We had been fortunate enough the day before to purchase tickets to see "A Comedy of Errors" at Shakespeare's Globe. Seats had been sold out long ago, but standing room spots in the pit in front of the stage were available. The play was a delight, proof that Shakespeare shouldn't be just read, but seen. Since we were "groundlings," standing in the pit, sometimes the action took place all around us as the actors made their way on and off the stage. It was a pleasure to take in some local culture while still having it in our own language. (Well, almost.)
Our last full day of vacation took us to St. Paul's Cathedral, our last church of the trip. We climbed (and climbed and climbed) to the top of the dome for striking, yet overcast, views of the city. Back on ground level, we toured the inside of the church and saw monuments to various British notables from history, most (all?) of whom are buried in the crypt below. Down in the crypt, we saw the actual tombs of those memorialized above, such as Admiral Lord Nelson, Christopher Wren, and many others.
After lunch (mmm, pub food!), we took our last London Walks tour, this one in the British Museum, a thoroughly incredible place. It seems as though everything famous is here. There are friezes from the Parthenon, mummies from Egypt, rooms full of artifacts from civilizations throughout history, even the Rosetta Stone. Our guide told us that there is so much in the museum that if one was to read every exhibit label, allowing ten seconds each, it would take 38 years to see the entire collection. Using those numbers, we calculated that in our two and a half hours we saw 0.00002% of the museum. It is simply staggering. If we lived in London, I'd be there every day.
Another pub dinner, this one at the Orange Brewery, a 200 year old pub, followed by a farewell pint at the Rat & Parrot near our hotel, and we were back in our room to pack. We awoke the next morning both happy to be going home and sad to be finished with this grand vacation. At Heathrow, we boarded our plane for home.
Navigating the Tube proved to be an experience (and it wasn't even rush hour yet) but eventually we did make it to the museum. Among the typical war museum exhibits (tanks, guns, planes, etc.), two stood out: the Trench Experience and the Blitz Experience. The Trench Experience was a walk-through reconstruction of a World War I trench at night. Realistic touches like the sounds of gunshots and tapes of soldiers speaking to one another made it feel authentic. Even smells were added, of gunpowder and meals cooking. Thankfully, the designers omitted the squish of mud underfoot.
The Blitz Experience was even more elaborate. Our group of about twenty visitors was first ushered into a bomb shelter, which shook with an explosion as we "survived" a German raid. Exiting the shelter, we emerged into smoke and confusion as the warden guided us past bombed out shops and homes, dust and debris scattered all around.
From the museum we walked to Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames to meet up with a walking tour. This tour was right up our alley: the "Along the Thames Pub Walk" from London Walks. Since it was a Friday evening, the pubs tended to be crowded, but we were still well able to enjoy the ambiance and the pints. Our tour took us backward in time, stopping first at a relatively modern bar right on the river with a great view of the city's skyline. Next we came to an 18th century labyrinth of a pub called The Anchor, not far from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Lastly, the George was renovated in the 17th century and has remained essentially unchanged since then. We had our dinner there, then, tired and sleepy, took the Tube back to our hotel.
The next morning we struck out intending to visit both the Tower of London and St. Paul's Cathedral. We decided to save St. Paul's for another day as the Tower was too fascinating to leave any of it unexplored. We spent the whole day there, beginning with a guided walk by one of the Yeoman Warders, the military guardians of the Tower. The tour led from the main gate, past the Traitor's Gate (where prisoners were brought into the fortress), under the Bloody Tower and all through the complex. The guide's script was very entertaining and contained a great deal of humor, but it was mostly made up of stories of barbaric torture and imprisonment and executions, executions, executions.
That tour finished in time for us to catch another entitled "Attack the Tower." This tour was by reservation to a limited group, so only nine of us got led around the Tower complex to examine its defenses. We saw the walls, both inner and outer and from inside and outside, the arrow loops, the murder holes and the two remaining portcullises. (Or is that portculli?).
We also saw the Tower's Armoury and its collection of weapons and armour as well as a demonstration of how a medieval knight's armour was worn. The poor chap who had to wear it was sweating buckets from the weight and the heat, but he still gave an entertainingly humorous spiel. Of course, we stood in line to see the Crown Jewels and all the Coronation regalia, but the most enjoyable part of that display was the video of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation shown to the line of people waiting to get in. All of the rituals with their attendant artifacts were depicted, the Sword of Offering, the Royal Orb, and so on. Elizabeth looked like she was ready for a long nap by the time it was all done. By the time we were done with the Tower, we, too, were ready for a long nap.
The next morning we partook of another London Walks offering, the "Old Westminster" walk. Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey; all the London highlights were on this tour. We heard many interesting stories, including coronation debacles: crowns put on backward, lords falling down drunk, parts of the ceremony skipped over, new monarch nodding off, etc. Then through St. James's Park for a look at Buckingham Palace, albeit only from the outside. Our timing coincided with the Changing of the Guard, so we watched as the band came down The Mall. Our tour continued through Trafalgar Square, home of Nelson's Column and several thousand pigeons. We finished up at Covent Garden with a pleasant lunch.
We had been fortunate enough the day before to purchase tickets to see "A Comedy of Errors" at Shakespeare's Globe. Seats had been sold out long ago, but standing room spots in the pit in front of the stage were available. The play was a delight, proof that Shakespeare shouldn't be just read, but seen. Since we were "groundlings," standing in the pit, sometimes the action took place all around us as the actors made their way on and off the stage. It was a pleasure to take in some local culture while still having it in our own language. (Well, almost.)
Our last full day of vacation took us to St. Paul's Cathedral, our last church of the trip. We climbed (and climbed and climbed) to the top of the dome for striking, yet overcast, views of the city. Back on ground level, we toured the inside of the church and saw monuments to various British notables from history, most (all?) of whom are buried in the crypt below. Down in the crypt, we saw the actual tombs of those memorialized above, such as Admiral Lord Nelson, Christopher Wren, and many others.After lunch (mmm, pub food!), we took our last London Walks tour, this one in the British Museum, a thoroughly incredible place. It seems as though everything famous is here. There are friezes from the Parthenon, mummies from Egypt, rooms full of artifacts from civilizations throughout history, even the Rosetta Stone. Our guide told us that there is so much in the museum that if one was to read every exhibit label, allowing ten seconds each, it would take 38 years to see the entire collection. Using those numbers, we calculated that in our two and a half hours we saw 0.00002% of the museum. It is simply staggering. If we lived in London, I'd be there every day.
Another pub dinner, this one at the Orange Brewery, a 200 year old pub, followed by a farewell pint at the Rat & Parrot near our hotel, and we were back in our room to pack. We awoke the next morning both happy to be going home and sad to be finished with this grand vacation. At Heathrow, we boarded our plane for home.
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