Highlights from the UK pt. I

I'm finally back stateside, in Ponca city, Oklahoma, after nearly two weeks in the UK. So far I've been through no less than eight airports, and I can tell you that I am so incredibly happy to be driving the eight hour trip to St.Louis tomorrow morning.

Broadly, I spent a few days in the villages around London, a few days in London, a few more days of villages and towns, a few days in Edinburgh, and a few more days in London. My favorite moments from the trip:

• Wandering the cobblestone streets and alleys of Oxford, which were dark, misty, and severe with the gothic architecture of the ancient campus spires looming overhead.
• Christ Church College in Oxford, which was an amazing campus which was the inspiration for Hogwarts with a dining hall lined with with the glowering portraits of the famous graduates including Kings and Queens of England. We were one of the last people admitted to see it, and we got trapped in a loop for awhile looking for the exit. Wandering around the giant courtyards, cathedrals, halls, and arcades in the dark punctuated by sparse lanterns was really wonderful.
• Buttermarket square in Canterbury is where three narrow streets lined with old shops and pubs come together at the gate to Canterbury cathedral. It felt right out of the middle ages.
• Canterbury Cathedral was is a phenomenal piece of architecture, a unique cathedral split into three levels, with the nave two flights of stone stairs up to the apse. Not one, but two crossings, and cavernous crypts. An extremely contentious site in the history of Christianity in England.
• The Tower of London: taking the tour, wandering the grounds, walking the battlements, the Crown Jewels.
• Starting the new years eve early with several pints with Tay and Brit at the Albion Pub in downtown London, not far from St.Pauls Cathedral.
• New Years Eve in Central London.
• Brit got us a hotel about two minutes from the embankment on the Thames, right across from the London Eye, which is where they shot off the fireworks. Walking back to the hotel after drinks at the pub, there were already huge patrols getting set up to handle the crowds, errecting barricades at various street junctures. The deal was that there were several areas along the Thames that were designated firework viewing areas, and later that night, at a selected time or when a viewing area reached a certain population, the barricades would go up and no one else would be allowed inside. Our hotel gave us a pass that allowed us passage through the barricade like a VIP.
• We got to our hotel fine, where there was already a huge line for the Sherlock Holmes pub next door. We hung out in our hotel room for awhile and then Tay and I set out for food around 9pm. By then, all road traffic had been blocked off, and the streets were absolutely filled with people. It was scary and exhilerating. We fought our way along the streets, looking for food with no luck.
•  First, as the heart of London is mostly government and ministry buildings (think parlement and big ben) there were limited options to begin with. The line at McDonalds stretched out the door, across the sidewalk, and across the street. Tay and I walked for awhile before calling it quits and hitting a pub for a pint so Tay could use the bathroom. By the time we got back, the viewing areas were totally full, so we had to use our pass and explain to several police that we had our hotel in there before we were allowed in.
• We picked up Brit and headed out to the Embankment at 11:40PM. The policy of crowd control was effective. It was just the right amount of people, so we could see and weren't squeezed to death. There was a DJ working the crowds and broadcasting music, and we had a great view of the London Eye and the south bank. At one minute till, a massive countdown clock was projected on a tower next to the eye and started ticking down.
• At 12:00, the biggest, best fireworks I've ever seen commenced. It was fifteen minutes of finale, huge. Disneyland times ten. They shot off fireworks from the eye and from nearby. It was fantastic. You couldn't help but be blown away. Afterwards, they played Auld Land Syne (which is Scottish, incidently) and everyone sang. Finally, we got the supreme value from the hotel by simply walking five minutes to get to our beds, where the rest of London faced a long difficult trek through congested tube and buses.
• Ghost town walk through London. I got up with Tay and Brit and after they took off, I wandered the empty streets of London at 9 am. There was not a soul in Picadilly Circus. The streets were as desolate and errily silent as 28 days later as London slept off its revelry from the night before.
• Westminister Abbey is pretty amazing mostly for its history and the dead entombed there. It is the amazon.com of notable British dead. Handel, Issac Newton, Charles Darwin. Ancient Kings and Queens including the tomb of Edward the Confessor, Elizabeth, and Mary, Queen of the Scots. More impressive than the slick St.Pauls.
• Visiting the Tate Modern which struck me more powerful as architectural space rather than art gallery.

More to come....