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| Why do rich people's lounges always have so much free food and booze?? |
First off, I was ushered directly into the Executive Lounge, where I could eat and drink to my heart's content. Sadly, I wasn't hungry so I only partook in some very expensive tap water. I should have stocked up on random snacks, but I was too lazy to carry them. sigh. The lounge was nice and quiet, shut away from the airport hoi polloi. We even boarded the plane directly from the lounge, so I literally never had to look at the poor saps flying cattle class.
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| That panel at my feet? A footstool that folds down to create a full lounger/bed! |
And holy cow, people. Real silverware. Steak. A thick, comfortable blanket. A bed that, while not quite 180° flat, was long enough that I could stretch all the way out.
Now I know how business travelers and frequent flyers do it... SO COMFORTABLE!!!
This is not good, people. I'm not sure I can ever go back.
I need to win the lottery. (speaking of which, I bought a mega lottery ticket on the way to the airport - half a billion jackpot! This coulda been my life. There was genuine disappointment when I didn't win...)
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| The nearly-overflowing Cam |
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| Anil's first Easter Egg Hunt! |
This morning I woke up late and met Lizzie for brunch. Then Anil and I went to see our friend Tom for an Easter Egg Hunt with Tom's family. Tom's dad is the former Master of Christ's College and a famous mathematician - he's a Fellow of the Royal Society and Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He also lived in Palo Alto as a visiting prof, and spent time at UCLA, so I could actually keep up in conversation!
That's one of the things I love about hanging out in Cambridge - I always end up meeting the most interesting people!
Monday, April 2
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| Nice job, Hot Numbers - no plastics! |
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| The thatched roof of The Fox |
We drove out through the rain to the Cotswolds, where we stopped for lunch at The Fox, a cozy pub in a tiny village called Denchworth. In the Cotswolds you can find lots of thatched-roof buildings, and The Fox was one of them! Just as we parked, we heard a piercing screech... turns out there are several neighborhood peacocks that roam around the village.
After a leisurely lunch, we continued on through to Bristol. We didn't really know what there was to do, so Anil quickly got on Tripadvisor and decided on a new museum called Brunel's SS Great Britain. To get there, we navigated the tricky streets of Bristol - many of their roundabouts go back and forth over the River Avon - a strange and meandering way to get around. We finally made it to the museum, which was actually quite good - the SS Great Britain was the first iron steamer to have a screw propeller, and the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic. It was the most technologically advanced ship for its time, and the restoration and museum were really interesting - they set up really interesting tableaus and gave a good glimpse of life in the 1800s.
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| The Dry Dock of the SS Great Britain |
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| Bristol, along the banks of the River Avon |
Tonight, we're in an AirBnB in Bath - will tour around the town tomorrow!
Tuesday, April 3
Today was chock full of Bath museums...!
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| New King Street, Bath down the street from the Herschel Museum of Astronomy |
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| The Roman Baths |
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| Bath Abbey |
After a quick takeaway lunch of burgers, we went to Bath Abbey - the large church in the square by the Roman Baths. It would have taken too long to take the tour to the top, so we decided to leave (and possibly try again tomorrow) and we headed to the Postal Museum. This was a tiny museum under the Bath post office, with information about the history of the British Postal System and samples of the Penny Black - the world's first postage stamp - issued in May of 1840.
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| With Mr. Darcy at the Jane Austen Center |
From there we went to the Jane Austen Center, where we learned about the author and her time living in Bath. She was influenced by her stay here and many of her novels have characters that either visit or were from the area. Upstairs in the center is a Victorian Tea Shoppe, where we had a proper cream tea with scones and clotted cream - yum!
Finally, we went to the William Herschel Museum - an unexpected small museum the we all loved. Herschel and his sister Caroline lived in Bath, and in their backyard is where he discovered Uranus! What we didn't know what that Caroline had never married and spent her time as her brother's assistant, but was a noted astronomer in her own right. Also, Wm was an accomplished musician before being paid off by King George III, who gave him 200 pounds a year to focus on astronomy. He made several reflecting telescopes, he discovered infrared radiation, and figured out that coral is not a plant. Cool guy, and a museum that was out of this world (haha)!!
Left Bath this morning and headed out in the rain to Wookey Hole, an amusement park-like crazy attraction near Wells in Somerset. Wookey Hole is built up around a limestone cave system, where the skeleton of a woman was found in 1912 near a 'crystal ball' (actually a limestone ball, but that doesn't sound as witchy). |
| Cave-aged cheddar in Wookey Hole Cave |
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| Wells Cathedral |
From Wookey Hole, we went to Wells - known as England's Smallest City. It did have a small-town feel, but also features a huge cathedral in the center of town. Built between 1175 and 1490, it has one of the world's oldest medieval clock faces. It also had a cool circular chapter house, whose inside looks a lot like a palm tree.
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| The steps up to the chapter house - so well-worn that the stones are grooved |
We then walked across the street to see the Wells and Mendip Museum, where we saw the remains of the Witch of Wookey Hole. They also had an interesting WWI exhibit.
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| The area where we're staying is green green green! |
We then decided to head to the AirBnB, by Milton Clevedon between the villages of Evercreech and Bruton in Somerset. It took a while to find - we're in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, but it's beautiful and the surrounding area is like a postcard. Definitely what you think of when you think of the English countryside! Had a lovely dinner of fajitas made on the Aga, then relaxed before bed.
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| Our country farmhouse |
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| The kitchen, with a Rayburn (Aga-like) stove. That means it's always on, and it heats the whole house! |
Thursday, April 5
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| The view out our kitchen window |
We made our way to Cheddar Gorge, a limestone gorge carved from glacial meltwater during the ice age. We climbed up the 274 steps of Jacob's Ladder on the west end of the gorge, and hiked up towards the east along the top. There were beautiful views of the surrounding countryside, all the way to Weston-super-Mare (the Bristol Channel). It was a gorge-eous (haha) day, and we hiked up to the far end of the gorge before coming back down for lunch.
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| The lane outside our farmhouse |
When we got back to the farmhouse, I had enough time to go on a walk around the area to see some of the fields and hedgerows.
We also went down to the pond, where Anil, Benji, and Zia took out the little rowboat.
We're now having difficulty making dinner - apparently, an Aga shares heat with the rest of the house and it's actually really difficult to boil water... and we're trying to make pasta. The stove won't get hot enough, so it won't cook. So now I know what the problem is with an Aga... many people actually have both the Aga and a traditional cookstove. Imagine how big your kitchen would have to be to have that!
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| Sunset in the countryside |
Friday, April 6
Ahh, the country life. It means you can't actually cook anything in the morning because the Aga automatically turns off, and you have no clue how to turn it back on again... and even if you did, it takes min 30 minutes to heat up. So after a hearty breakfast of microwave porridge (which was actually really good), we drove out to Stonehenge (listening to the Hamilton soundtrack along the way, in preparation).
Stonehenge is so strange because it is literally in the middle of an empty field, next to a pretty major road. It's also smaller than I expected, but nicely laid out so that you can circumnavigate it and get close enough to get photos, but stay far enough away that people won't mess it up (as you know people are likely to do). I thought I'd feel more of a spiritual connection or some kind of reverence, but there are so many people and it is so bustling that it was just something to gawk at and a place to take a few photos. We did spend a little time in the museum, and I learned something about neolithic peoples (like how they were lactose intolerant so they ate yogurt and cheese that was low lactose). |
| Westminster Abbey |
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| Like the rest of the world, Big Ben is under scaffolding |
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| The London Eye |
From there we drove to the outskirts of London, where Gemma dropped Anil and I off in Egham so that we could catch a train to Vauxhall. Made it to the Grange Rochester and relaxed a bit, then walked through Westminster (past Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, and across the Westminster Bridge by the London Eye) to get to the Westminster IMAX. We watched Ready Player One on the big screen in 3D, which was really good and definitely kept me awake!
Saturday, April 7
On my last full day in England, Anil and I wandered around and saw a bit of touristy London. In the morning, we decided to make a late start and sit in a coffee shop to work for a bit. I have a presentation for the CA State Assembly on Wednesday, and notes for my talk are supposed to be submitted ahead of time so I needed to get something in writing. We worked until around noon, then headed off to Chinatown for dim sum.We took our time walking over, passing Buckingham Palace and St. James Park along the way.
After lunch, we took the tube to South Kensington, and went museum hopping. At first we wanted to go to the Natural History museum, but the line to get in was ridiculously long. Instead, we went across the street to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which surprisingly I'd never been to. Wandered around for a while, then went to the Science Museum. Spent most of our time in the Illuminating India exhibit, which showed many early photos of India during the revolution against the British. It was interesting to see some of the older pictures of places that I went to two years ago - some places looked exactly the same, and others were completely different.
We came home to shower and rest up before meeting up with KC and Gemma - then went to the Victoria Palace Theatre to see Hamilton. I was really wondering how the UK audience would take it - but everyone seemed to understand what was going on (several people were talking about reading up on Hamilton in preparation for the show), and apparently Lin-Manuel Miranda changed three lyrics for the London production - mainly to clarify things that American audiences would have understood but would have been confusing for the British. Otherwise, it was exactly the same, and it was just as well received here as it was in San Francisco.After the show, we walked over to the Clarendon Cocktail Cellar for an after-theater drink, then took a cab home. Overall, a lovely night!