Category: Travel

On a clear day

Amy O3 Comments

With the rain in the rear view window, we woke early and visited Cafe St. Pierre for breakfast. I had the “French breakfast” which was the croissant of your choice, a baguette with butter and jam, and a “bowl” of coffee. I thought maybe they just meant a large cup, but they really did mean a bowl. I had to lift it up and slurp it like a cat. (I hope that is what I was meant to do.) Lot of carbs in that breakfast but we had an active day planned.

Shower Report for the day: After the hotel invested a bit of time evaluating and fixing the prior day, water heat was by now a bit of a lottery. My husband won the warm shower and I won the lukewarm one. Steps in the right direction.

We took the train from Canterbury’s other station, Canterbury East, to Dover. It was quite a beautiful ride through cute towns and forests on a nearly empty train.

You should probably never judge a town by the appearance around its train station, but Dover seemed surprisingly gritty. We searched out a Welcome Center, which turned out to be associated with the Dover Museum and Bronze Age Boat Gallery. My husband was familiar with the bronze-age boat on display and asked about it in the Welcome area. They invited us to head up and see it on the top floor of the museum.

The boat was found near Dover in some sludge in 1992 during a construction project. Later evaluation determined it to be about 3,500 years old, the oldest boat ever found in the world. The original boat is displayed in a giant glass case. It’s in unbelievably good condition. As with many archeological finds, the discovery of this boat adds to our understanding of how humans lived many years ago and what they were capable of.

The exhibit included displays of bronze-age tools such as may have been used to build the boat. Because the boat was missing the back end, it also included an exhibit on how archeologists have built theories for what the back of the boat may have been like. I thought that was super interesting. Interesting to experience the thought process of curious and knowledgeable people.

My favorite exhibit walked through an exercise that had been completed after the boat was found. A modern team attempted to replicate how the boat was built using bronze-age tools. They were able to build a replica of the boat (part of which is in the museum) in 6 weeks. In theory, the original builders probably were more familiar with the tools and boat building and could have completed it more quickly. But, in a bit of shade thrown by the people replicating the process, they concluded that, in part, it took them the long 6 weeks also because they also tried to provide beautiful finishes which the original team had not. That also provided clues as to the use of the boat. It was utilitarian and probably not ceremonial. But it certainly stood the test of time.

From the Welcome Center we walked over to the harbor and up the shore until we reached where the path is accessed to go up on the famous cliffs. The harbor is a functional harbor from which a number of huge ferries left or returned from trips over to France. It is not a beautiful stretch and sits right next to an extremely busy road. There are some cute cottages as you seek the path but they do not have a pretty view.

We climbed up and up the path. The wind was whipping but with the steepness of the path I became overheated pretty quickly. I stopped to remove my raincoat to finish the rest of the climb. On a clear day it’s possible to see France across the channel and we could make out the outline in the distance. In fact, we were close enough to France from the cliffs of Dover that T-Mobile sent me a text welcoming me to France and explaining the rates for texts and calls.

We were starting to be in a space that was far more beautiful than gritty. We could see the beautiful white cliffs, rolling hills, grazing sheep, the Dover castle. Even the harbor, which had seemed so industrial near the bottom, was pretty as we got higher on the cliffs.

At some point we had to make a decision about taking the high road or the low road. Our choice lead us very close to the edge of the cliffs. Although I’ve done a lot of Colorado hiking and skiing in my life, I’m not super comfortable with heights and I sensed my husband was also not so comfortable near the edge. We did all right and ultimately came to the part of the path that’s not so “out there.”

Our destination on the trail was the South Foreland Lighthouse. To reach it you go through a field of giant cattle. On the first floor of the lighthouse there is a cute little tea shop called Mrs. Knott’s Tearoom. It has a limited selection of items but who cares? It has cream team, which as we know means scones and clotted cream. It was served in lovely china in a beautiful room. It was a delicious way to celebrate the mid point of our hike.

We intended to go to Dover castle after our hike and, while we could see the castle from the cliffs, there is really no way to get to it without leaving the cliffs. So we hiked back down and then walked up a different hill, more or less in town, to get up to the castle.

If you may remember, my husband hurt his back on our last trip to England and it was not healed for this trip. He was able to do most things, but I tried to help with his luggage on stairs from airport to tube to hotel and carrying our shared backpack on our trips around Kent to try to preserve his ability to tour. He was still using heating belts to keep his back limber.

We had already walked more than 16,000 steps and 111 floors (so says Apple) and I felt maybe we could admit a small defeat and take a cab up to Dover castle. My husband would not hear of it. I’ll admit I was cursing his not-good-at-that-moment name as we climbed up the new hill. The fact is, we won’t always be able to do what we used to be able to do in the way we could do it. I hope over time we’ll be able to adjust our travel to fit our bodily realities and not have to stop travelling just because we can’t do it the way we used to. i.e., we may not always be able to hoist our luggage up and down stairs of stations on the Piccadilly line. Admittedly the cab in this case was for me as much as it was for him. I was pretty tired.

Now I’ve exposed you to the key conflicts in our household at the start of my retirement. My husband worries about spending too much money and I worry about losing our health while pushing to do things our bodies may be on the verge of no longer being able to do. My husband, the one with the sore back, seems to feel that he is not getting any older physically. In fact, this morning (a few weeks after this trip) he told me my feelings about aging are “a self-fulfilling prophesy.” I’m pretty sure our bodies will themselves fulfill my prophesy and, you know, “My Body, My Self,” so I can’t argue with his statement even though I suspect it will go down a bit differently than he intended with that turn of phrase.

But–this time–we made it to the top and made some quick calculations of what we’d be able to do at the castle. We were running out of time and it turned out there was a lot more to see and do at the castle than I had realized. This was not just another medieval castle (although it also was that), this area was used to protect England during modern wars also. Assuming it is ok to consider the World Wars as “modern.” There was also an very old church on the site. I think it would be easy to spend a full day at Dover castle.

We decided to hit the church and the medieval castle and skip the “modern” wartime tunnels, fire command post, underground hospital, etc. It was a tough call because those things looked very interesting.

The St. Mary in Castro church was built around 1500 years ago, probably on the site of a much earlier church. It apparently was a building that was not affected like other churches by the boring people coming in and demanding that color be removed. It had beautiful, colorful tiles in walls and ceilings, in addition to lovely windows. It’s a functional church. We had very little information about it as we toured, but it was lovely to be in. Next to the church sits a Roman lighthouse that’s been converted into a bell tower. Pretty cool.

We explored the castle proper. Although a building of some sort was in place during the Roman occupation and was damaged and rebuilt following the Norman invasion, the medieval castle as it exists now formed under Henry II, who we met yesterday as the person responsible–accidentally or intentionally– for Thomas Becket’s death. We walked through the external walls and the grassy enclosure and then through the keep. It was quite large with several floors to explore.

The way the castle was exhibited with representative but somewhat cartoonish furnishings was quite a lot like the castle at Norwich we toured last month. Similar set-up geared well for kids to explore. This castle was in much better shape, though. Because it was before Halloween, what the kids seemed most interested in in the castle was a worker dressed up for Halloween like a witch.

My favorite part of the castle was he views from the roof. It was unbelievably windy up there but you could see all over town, out on the country side, over to the cliffs. Beautiful.

We made our way down the hill again with sheep visible grazing in the moat of the castle. Our next destination was the rail station. We had decided to take the train to Deal, which we had not been able to visit as planned on our recent trip to Sandwich. The plan was to see Deal and have dinner before heading back to Canterbury where my husband was hoping to join his Italian language class online.

However, by the time we arrived in Deal we had new learnings about the train schedule and our time was going to be much shorter than we had originally understood. I had found a restaurant close to the station with acceptable ratings that also looked like it might make for a quick dinner, The Lane. It was early for dinner and there were very few people in the restaurant. Upstairs there was a Wicked-themed birthday party going on and the sound system in the restaurant was playing “For good.”

You may have noticed from my recent reports of what I’ve eaten in various places, except for breakfast, I’ve been leaning toward soups and salads. It was that point of traveling when your body demands vegetables. But when I sat down at the table at The Lane and reviewed the menu, my body demanded, of all things, a hot dog. And chips.

As you know, I live in the suburbs of Chicago, and what Chicago is known for, in addition to deep-dish pizza, is hot dogs. And I love a hot dog with everything that a Chicago dog normally comes with, except sport peppers. Tomatoes, relish, celery salt, a dill pickle spear, onions, mustard. Never ketchup. If you ask for ketchup in Chicago you will be abused. Sport peppers are a little too spicy for me and I’m in danger of having a sneezing fit when I eat them. Then it just becomes a Whole Thing. I remember ordering hot dogs in the Chicago Loop at lunchtime when I was working downtown. I would always say “Dog with everything except sport peppers.” And the worker would always repeat back my order, “Dog with everything, extra sport peppers.”

I digress, big time. The “classic” hot dog I ordered at The Lane was not a Chicago hot dog, but instead had on it ketchup, mustard, pickles, and “crispy onions.” As it arrived at my table I noticed it was HUGE. I figured I could manage about half that. I didn’t take a picture of it because it was just a hot dog. Then I took a bite. It was messy but the most amazing and yummy thing I’ve eaten for a while (this on a day I had scones and clotted cream). Maybe it was the crispy onions that made it so good? Maybe it was just a better quality hot dog? Maybe I was just really hungry after so much walking? I changed my mind and took a picture of part of it. My husband seemed to enjoy his tacos as much as I did the hot dog. And I did eat the whole thing.

As we were leaving, we asked the server if she had suggestions about what we should do if we had only 20 minutes in Deal. The thing she could think of was a local bar with a two-for-one drink special. I know she had just witnessed us eating our meal in a hurry and that may have made an impression, but I don’t think I could do two drinks in 20 minutes. In any case, we were not up for the challenge.

We thanked her and walked 5 minutes to the shore, took in the shops along the street next to the shore and the pier.

Deal is a cute little town, worthy of more than a 20-minute tour some day. But we had a train to catch and an Italian class to attend back at our temporary home in Canterbury.

Canterbury Tales

Amy O2 Comments

We woke to a raw, wet day, endured the cold showers I mentioned in my last post, and then walked several blocks to the highly recommended Refectory Kitchen for breakfast. We made a point to sit far from the door and were quickly served a much-needed warm drink. My husband had a dish called “Green eggs and ham” (green because of pesto) and I had a French toast with blueberry compote. Great way to start the day.

We steeled ourselves and walked through the rain in our practical footwear over to the Canterbury Cathedral. We’ve seen a lot of Cathedrals lately and I know that, to some people, they start to be all alike. While it may be true that many parts of the physical cathedral are similar to others, what I usually find so interesting is the unique history of the people connected with the Cathedral. The Cathedral at Canterbury has a notably colorful history. We used the audio tour available and found it interesting and useful.

Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer includes imagined stories of pilgrims who traveled to Canterbury Cathedral. I read parts of it either in high school or college and, although I’ve forgotten so much from many books I’ve read, the details in some of those stories are still fresh in my mind.

People made the pilgrimage to Canterbury in homage to Thomas Becket. Thomas Becket had been a nobleman and friend of King Henry II who was made Archbishop Of Canterbury. Kings and archbishops had great power over the subjects and King Henry II had reason to believe that by installing the like-minded Becket he would be able to exert more influence on the church. But as soon as Becket was made Archbishop, he began to go his own way to the great frustration of the king.

What happened ultimately is in dispute. Henry II either A) sent soldiers to kill Becket or B) said something innocuous that made the soldiers incorrectly believe they were being sent to kill Becket. Regardless of Henry II’s actual intent, the soldiers went to Canterbury and killed Becket inside the Cathedral.

Now martyred, he was named a saint by the Pope. And although pilgrims previously trickled to Canterbury Cathedral, Becket’s martyrdom and subsequent canonization turned that trickle into a deluge. Becket’s remains are buried in the cathedral and formerly could be viewed by visitors who were willing to pay for the privilege. I believe that is not possible today. (Maybe I should have displayed my crypto.)

The site where Becket was murdered is commemorated with some art that includes representations of the swords of the soldiers.

I’m a sucker for the cloisters in a Cathedral. It was still dark and rainy when I stepped out and took these photos which I think made them feel even more alive. You can just picture hundreds of years of monks coming and going.

My husband and I also loved the area called the Chapter House, which served as a place where monks learned the rules of the order. The carvings in the ceiling are gorgeous.

In the crypts, the sculpture called Transport is especially interesting. Created by British artist Antony Gormley, it’s made of nails from the Cathedral formed in the shape and size of a typical human body. It hangs from the ceiling using wires or strings. Photos aren’t allowed in the crypt but I found a picture of the sculpture online here. My husband enjoyed the display in the Water Tower that described how ink was made back in the day and also included a pocket sundial.

There is only one monarch entombed in the Cathedral, Henry IV. His uncle Edward, referred to as the Black Prince, is entombed close by. The Black Prince has an inscription on his tomb: “Such as thou art, sometimes was I, Such as I am such thou shalt be.” There is a lot more gory detail in the inscription, but that’s a good summary. You’re no different from me. The end is coming and you can’t avoid it.

As with all Cathedrals, there are some beautiful stained glass windows as well as some very plain windows that were forced into place during periods in history in which the powers that be disliked color in church and got rid of it. Or that had been removed to protect them from bombing in World War II and then had to be painstakingly reinstalled. Or that had not been removed and had been bombed and replaced. I particularly enjoyed the windows created by the Hungarian artist Ervin Bossanyi that were installed in 1960 and commemorate themes around World War II, salvation and peace.

We took a lunch break at a cute Mexican restaurant called Cafe des Amis du Mexique. I had a salad that was so yummy I’ve tried to recreate it at home. Don’t quite have it right as of this writing. I really enjoyed the papier mache art on the walls by Total Pap, which was available for sale.

With the rain now stopped, we took a short walk along the River Stour.

Our final serious destination for the afternoon was the Canterbury Roman museum.

This museum is built on the site where a Roman floor mosaic was unearthed by a public works drainage modernization project. Later, work to excavate rubble from World War II bombings exposed further elements of a Roman home on the same site. These elements are encased and visible for viewing in the museum. Prior to the section of the museum that contains the Roman house, there are interesting exhibits about Roman history in England and Roman life. By the time you get to the excavation site, you feel awfully darned smart about the Romans.

We ended the day with a nice walk through town and along the river and dinner at the oldest pub in Canterbury, the Parrot, dating back to the 1400s. Pretty cool place for a pint.

Charing Cross to Royal St. George’s

Amy O1 Comment

We had such a wonderful time in East Anglia on our last trip that, with four days between matches on this trip, we decided to spend some time in Kent. The regional train system is a bit different there from East Anglia. Instead of a pass you can use any three days over a seven-day period, you can buy a three-day pass. That worked well for us given the relatively shorter time we would have in Kent versus East Anglia.

On Wednesday morning we got up relatively early to get on a train from Charing Cross. As we waited for the track the train would be on to be announced at Charing Cross, some workers were handing out samples for an immunity drink called Moju. In contrast with other samples I’ve seen handed out around London, this one seemed very popular with the arriving passengers. I saw very few decline the small bottle. My husband decided to give it a try. He was unimpressed. “Unimpressed” is the wrong word. He seems to think that rather than being given this spicy mango juice for free at the train station, people should be paid to drink it. Hopefully, he is now immune to whatever it is that Moju will guard against. After his critique, I decided to take my chances with the germs that be.

We ultimately boarded the train and rode to Swanly, changing again at Sevenoaks to ride the rest of the way to the Canterbury West station. The weather was brisk as we waited for the train changes and I was glad I had my hat and gloves.

We were expecting rain the next day, Thursday, so we designated Thursday as the day we would spend time in Canterbury. After arriving in Canterbury on Wednesday, it was our plan to drop our luggage off at our hotel, aBode Canterbury, grab a quick lunch, and then take the train to Sandwich.

Canterbury city center is roughly in a circle, like Chicago’s Loop but a thousand times smaller. (That may not be a factual representation of scale.) aBode is on High street, which cuts the circle in half, quite well located. One of the things we noticed right away on our way to the hotel was signs for punt boat operators in Canterbury. Since we had just done that in Cambridge, it was not in our plans for this trip.

We completed all the steps of our actual plan, returning to the train station to get the next train to Sandwich. What he had planned to do in Sandwich was find the Saxon Shoreway trail that allows you to walk South along the coast for seven miles to a town called Deal.

We successfully found the trail but took what I perceived as a detour on the part of the path that went through The Royal St. George’s Golf Club. I’m not a golfer, have golfed maybe three times in my life excluding the decidedly not-real golf activity of mini golf. My husband, on the other hand, is a prolific golfer and also loves to watch the sport. As an insomniac, I watch the sport when I desperately need to catch up on sleep. In retrospect, my husband was doing the navigating at this point, so I suspect the “detour” to the golf course was not quite as unplanned as I may have initially believed.

I think golfers and non-golfers can all agree that most golf courses are quite lovely places to be. As we arrived on the public foot path at the edge of the course, I could see that the Royal St. George’s was something special. Undulating hills, amazing shadowy bunkers, grassy roughs and the sun shining just so on all of it. The pubic foot path goes right through the course on its way to the Sandwich Bay. At the edge of the course we stopped in the Pro shop which was open to the public and my husband reviewed some gaudy shirts, which he appeared not to be tempted to buy. Then we followed the path over the course and across the street to the Bay.

I gave my husband a chance to review this before I published it and it was very important to him that I make sure you understand that this course was the host of 15 British Opens and that he merely hoped to be able to see it from the path. The fact that he got to walk across this hallowed ground was both a surprise and a life experience he treasures.

By the time we reached the bay we had hiked quite a long way and I was ready to find a bathroom. We had seen no bathroom options since leaving the train and there clearly were none along the path to Deal. It was also getting to be a bit late to start a big hike and we suspected it might be dark before we arrived in Deal. So we made a decision to turn back toward town and see what there was to see in Sandwich.

As we left the golf course we saw two golfers starting a round with their dogs. What a place to walk your dog.

In Sandwich we stopped at the lovely Bell Hotel near the water and had a drink and an early dinner on the porch. I had wild mushrooms on toast and a tomato pepper soup along with a gin & tonic.

While the patio was bathed in sun, it was lovely. As the sun went down, a cloud of mosquitoes emerged so we closed shop and headed to the train station. Even the train station, which was pretty far from the water, had a lot of mosquitoes. We kept moving up and down the platform until the train came to avoid them.

Upon arriving back in Canterbury we were able to check into our room. The backstory of our hotel selection in Canterbury was that after we returned from our last London trip, the one in which we traveled through East Anglia, my husband did something he had never done following a trip to London. He counted up every expenditure we had made and worried about it. Not having a paycheck coming in has been a real mental challenge for him and, in a life that did not include me, I think he’d be tempted to live on his Social Security check.

As I mentioned before, my job before I was retired was helping my employer create financial planning software for planners employed by our firm. The software could complete a monte carlo analysis to understand, based on assets and likely expenditures, what is the probability you’ll have enough money to live on for the rest of your life. I used software many times to run our own projections. To be clear, I have some guilt about using money in this way in a world that has so many needs, but I know we can afford these trips for a while. It would be ideal and better for our financial future if Arsenal could just go ahead and win the Premier League this year.

In any case, I realized that the hotel price point we originally set when we started this going-to-London-to-watch-Arsenal thing had slid upward a bit over time, maybe more than inflation would suggest, and it’s been a long time since we had anything but a great hotel experience. To give my husband greater peace of mind, I suggested that we could downgrade our preferred price point and save a bit there and take a bit more risk that maybe every place we stay is not delightful. So this trip, that’s what we tried to do. We could not do it for the first weekend in London–hotels were just too tight due to what seemed to be Diwali celebrations and a literature convention–but we did it for our hotel in Canterbury and for our hotel after our return to London.

And on this backdrop, I can tell you our hotel in Canterbury was maybe not the luxe experience that you long to reach at the end of the day but was just fine. Our room was spacious, had wooden floors which I like, and nice lighting that made it appear to have more character than maybe it actually had. The bathroom was fine and had a combined shower/tub combo. It had a very functional towel warmer that like all towel warmers, it seems, was not quite close enough for you to be able to reach from the tub. You have to either remove it first and place it closer (no longer warm) or not remove it before your shower and stand dripping on the floor to retrieve it (beautifully warm). Or, what I did at the aBode, call my husband to deliver it. This warm towel became especially important, as I’ll explain.

But first, some context. On the train ride to Canterbury we had been reading in sports news that on the day before the match we had just seen, Atletico Madrid had held a practice at the Emirates. Upon arriving they noticed that the hot water was not functional in the visitors’ locker rooms and had complained to the club. They ended up having to shower back at their hotel and made an official complaint against Arsenal. Arsenal was ultimately forced to apologize. Arsenal’s side of the story was that upon learning the hot water was not working they managed to restore it before the end of the scheduled practice, but Atletico had ended their practice early. Both an excuse and maybe a bit of shade against the team Arsenal just beat. Maybe practice a bit longer and you’ll have both hot water and a win.

In any case, when I woke up on Thursday my husband informed me I was about to get a lesson in empathy. Our room, which had very warm towels available assuming appropriate steps were taken, had no hot water.

All the single ladies

Amy OLeave a comment

I’ve found that when I travel I’m drawn to certain themes and narratives. When I was working in software the themes were often around how projects came about. In software, a big project is usually completed through a series of smaller projects that can involve multiple teams and stages toward the desired end. How that comes about can be quite complicated and is part of why I found my job interesting.

So while traveling and touring I’m drawn to the project aspect of anything. Last week, I was at the Gustave Caillebotte exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago and especially enjoyed looking at the methodology for completing his projects, how his trial sketches were a key part of the process of producing the final painting. I remember touring the iconic Sydney Opera house years ago and learning that the design for the Opera house was based on an artist’s rendering. After it won a competition, architects had to figure out how to build it somehow. It was a project in which there was a tremendous amount of trial and error toward producing the artist’s vision. Kind of the original Agile project. In this trip around East Anglia, one of my favorite parts of the audio tour for the Ely Cathedral was a representation of the stages of building across close to a thousand years. Every hundred years or so a big project would happen. What made me laugh when reviewing the time lapse representation of the build timeline was the times they would add something in one century that in the next century they would remove. Human nature. One man’s innovation is another man’s mistake.

In this trip, one of the themes that was present in my mind was the impact of women across East Anglia. Don’t get me wrong: history always includes the stories of men, and in our touring of cathedrals and museums there were plenty of male historical figures of note. But the history of East Anglia introduced me to several interesting and notable female figures.

The first one was Etheldredra, important in Ely. Ultimately, she became the founder and abbess for a monastery in Ely in the 7th century, the land on which The Ely Cathedral was later built. But before that she was a king’s daughter and was married off to an elderly king. The audio guide at the cathedral tells us that her husband died before they could consummate the marriage. It says she married a second time, different king, and was released from that marriage since she was still a virgin.

A lot to take in and it made me curious. For one, when I heard about the first marriage in the audio guide, I had the impression that the first husband must have died quickly after the marriage. But other sources indicated they were married for several years. Some sources claim that the deal that was made prior to both marriages–which had been political in nature–that she would be permitted to remain a virgin.

Apparently her second husband came to regret that deal many years in, which led to the marriage being dissolved.

To doubly prove that she really, really was a virgin at the end of that marriage, the audio guide tells a story of her walking stick sprouting leaves overnight.

Interesting that it was an acceptable deal in both marriages that she would remain a virgin when the marriage was presumably for political reasons. The tale of Henry VIII communicates that producing an heir–about 900 years later–is a very big expectation for a royal wife. A lot must have changed in the ensuing years.

Anyway, by today’s standards, kind of a weird origin story for a woman who ended up doing something very, very important when she was allowed to stop getting married off and fulfil her longtime dream of starting an abbey. As an abbess she was highly influential and successful, both in life and after her death, after which she was officially sainted.

The buildings Etheldreda was part of building were destroyed and rebuilt in subsequent centuries. The Ely Cathedral was built on the land starting about 300 years after Etheldreda died. Coincidentally, the monastery at Ely–by then a Benedictine monastery–was closed down by Henry VIII himself.

Another woman we became re-acquainted with in Norwich was the mystic and theologian referred to as Julian of Norwich. We had encountered some of her writings when we visited the British Library exhibit Medieval Women: In Their Own Words a few months ago. In the 14th century, Julian wrote the first English language book known to have been written by a woman. Very little is known about Julian, including whether Julian is even her name. She was an anchoress–a religious devotee who lives in a cell–in St. Julian’s church, and her understood name may have come from the church itself. She was inspired to write two versions of a book titled Revelations of Divine Love following an illness in which she was close to death and experienced visions relating to Christ’s death. The first version was written shortly after she recovered from the illness and the second one, much longer, after many years of intellectual and spiritual exploration. Her manuscripts were preserved for 200 years before being published. Although she claims in her writings to be uneducated, her work continues to inspire theologians even in our time. Famously, she posited that God is much like a mother. Our guide at the Norwich Cathedral quoted some famous words of the book that she found comfort in: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” Julian is commemorated in stained glass in the Norwich Cathedral we visited. Note in the picture the woman on the right pane carrying a book.

Photo from Norwich Cathedral web page

Moving on many years, we quasi-encountered Edith Cavell who was born at the end of the 19th century. As we were walking for the first time from the Norwich train station to The Maids Head I saw a pub named The Edith Cavell. Then once we checked in to The Maid’s Head, on the way to our room, there was a meeting room labeled The Edith Cavell Room. I asked myself “who is this Edith Cavell?” She sounded familiar but I couldn’t remember why. It turns out she was the daughter of Norwich-area clergy and had an increasingly interesting nursing career that presumably started either because experienced a failed romantic relation OR because she helped her father through a serious illness. Or both. Her nursing took her into teaching and administration and allowed extended travel in Europe. She was notable as a nurse in the first World War for treating war wounded from both sides but ended up running afoul of the Germans for aiding the escape of more than 200 soldiers from Belgium. She admitted her “guilt” and was executed at age 49 by a German firing squad. She showed virtually no fear leading up to her death, glad to die for her country and with her soul at peace. Her body is buried outside the Norwich Cathedral.

And finally, we encountered Edith Pretty, the woman responsible for sharing the Anglo-Saxon treasure of Sutton Hoo with the world in the mid 20th century. Born into a wealthy family, she became deeply interested in archeology and, with her husband, purchased the Sutton Hoo property on which the burial mounds were located. (Interesting side note: before her marriage she, too, was a nurse and served in Belgium in the first World War.) Although many people believed the mounds had already been robbed, as indeed they had been, she was convinced that they contained additional treasure. After her husband passed away, she hired a local excavator, Basil Brown, to explore the site further. He is often credited with the find, as he should be, but the excavation occurred only because she was willing to invest toward the work. She waited patiently for the coroner inquest that would rule on who had rights to the treasures, rejected rewards from the crown for gifting the property, and as soon as it was clear it was hers to dispose of as she wished, she donated all artifacts to the British Museum to add to our understanding of the Anglo-Saxon culture and be enjoyed by everyone. Like our other women, Edith Pretty was a Boss.

It occurred to me that every one of these women became known for what she did when she was single, regardless of how she came to be that way. Perhaps being single contributed to their being able to pursue a deep-seated interest given the times in which they lived. You have to admit we are looking at a very long period, more than 1000 years, in which it seems true that it has been quite difficult for a married woman to pursue the kind of work that speaks to them as a person, unless that work happens to be taking care of family. (I do note that some of these “jobs”–like being in a monastery–just require being single.)

To be clear, we know about these women because they became famous. In my mind, fame is not the object for most of us. The object is being able to do work that interests one greatly.

And as much as I note that women have made progress since Edith Pretty’s death in the 1940s, it seems there are still forces that hold us back. In fact, forces that existed in the past that were briefly weakened seem lately to be coming to greater strength.

Ominously, women leaving the workforce at high rates. Although unexplained, some factors believed to be involved include rapidly increasing cost of child care and the newly growing wage gap between men and women workers. Removal of women from government positions under a new regime, where the claim is that they are insufficiently qualified. And my social media feeds over the summer included a video in which a well-known male operative, leading seminars for young women, encouraged them not to work or attend college. Or if they attended college not too work hard at it. Ok to pursue “an MRS degree,” where you are only attending college to meet eligible bachelors. Indeed, ready yourself for a life of servitude where you take care of family and be subservient to your husband, the boss of your family. Sorry for the bad luck of the accident of your gender.

As a recent retiree from a job I loved I’m so thankful for the period in time in which it’s been possible as a woman to pursue interesting work. My fervent hope for all women is that one is not required to be single or childless to be able to freely choose and grow in an occupation. That women be judged on their objective merits instead of assumptions about people of your gender. That when partnered, their partners support their self-actualization, just as they support the same in their partners.

I bet all the single ladies of East Anglia agree.

New territories, Norwich edition: part 1

Amy O2 Comments

One “downside” of the Anglia Plus Three-Day Ranger train pass was that you can’t use it before 8:45 a.m. This was a downside only for my husband. He is the early bird for whom the worm is waiting. For me, a consummate midnight oil burner, mostly because I’m too wound up at night to sleep, it meant very reasonable departure times each day. On Tuesday morning, we packed up our suitcases and rolled them to the Cambridge train station across from which we had scones at the bakery chain Gail’s. At the allowed time, we boarded the train to Norwich.

While on the train, we learned that the weather was going to be rainy on Wednesday across East Anglia so we made a quick change on the planned order of activities to take advantage of the rather better weather on Tuesday. Upon arriving in Norwich, we carted our luggage to our Norwich hotel, The Maids Head, and checked it at the desk. Then, instead of touring Norwich as planned, we went back to the train station and took a short trip to a seaside town called Cromer and walked the short distance to the city center.

Cromer was lovely. We walked though a charming district looking for where we might have lunch. At last we found a sign pointing from the main drag to a neighborhood for a restaurant called Browne’s on Bond Street. After consultation of very good online reviews we walked over. They were fully booked inside and offered a table in the garden. It was a chilly day but we were dressed for it and happy to have the table. I started with a pot of tea. Having tea was starting to become habitual away from London. My husband had the local dish of Cromer crab prepared kind of like a gratin and I had a tuna melt. Quite yummy.

After lunch, we wandered over to the seashore. The wind and waves were wild. A group of wet-suited surfers were having some great rides. We walked on the promenade along the shore and Cromer Pier. Our fellow wanderers included a lot of dogs who were enjoying the walk and the beach. We took a small detour back to town and The Craft Bakery in search of a baked good. I had a delicious Orange shortbread cookie and my husband had something called a white chocolate rocky road cookie which was kind of like a giant block of fudge. (It was so good that on a later date on the trip my husband said “maybe we should go back to Cromer for a cookie?”) We had to work that off, so back to the beach and to a very cool miniature gold course on a bluff above the ocean.

The planned activity for the evening was to watch Arsenal’s first round Champion’s League match against Athletic Bilbao. It was being played in Spain rather than home. Upon returning on the train to Norwich we had to nail down a pub option where the match would be televised. We’ve found using internet search engines to produce unreliable results, so we made an insurance stop at the pub we’d chosen to make sure. It was on the way from the Norwich train station to our hotel. Sure enough, The Compleat Angler intended to televise the match. After quickly checking into our hotel we doubled back to the pub where a kind bartender had reserved us a table.

It was a pretty interesting match. Manager Mikel Arteta selected the same forward line and the same back line as for Nottingham Forest but obviously had to make a decision about what to do in the midfield in the absence of Martin Odegaard. He’d been re-injured in the Nottingham Forest match and didn’t even take the trip to Spain. In the Nottingham Forest match Arteta had replaced Odegaard with 18-year-old Ethan Nwaneri and he did quite well, but in this match he chose Declan Rice along side an unchanged Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino. That Declan Rice did NOT start against Nottingham Forest was a bit of a surprise.

The atmosphere in Bilbao was nuts. That must be a wonderful place to attend a match if you’re a fan of the home side. Arsenal dominated possession for most of the match but struggled to produce a goal. Eberechi Eze, who was so wonderful against Nottingham Forest really struggled in this match. Noni Madueke continued to impress. Viktor Gyokeres struggled and, in the second half, also took a blow to the head that produced a big gash that was taped up. Lots of tape. He was ultimately removed, replaced by Leandro Trossard, as was Eze, replaced by Gabriel Martinelli. Good changes that sparked something in Arsenal. About 70 minutes into the match, the Athletic keeper kicked a ball into Arsenal’s defensive half which we cleared out to the halfway line. Trossard dinked it over the defender, perfect for Martinelli to run on to. Keeping two defenders at bay he slotted it under the Athletic keeper into the net. Later Martinelli returned the favor, driving toward the left corner and passing to Trossard who’d made great movement to open up space. Trossard’s shot bounced off a guy’s foot and into the goal. The match ended 0-2, not a bad outing.

Meanwhile, beer and dinner for us.

The weather forecast had been accurate. Rain had started early on Wednesday and our new plan was to see Norwich during that rain. Our hotel was very close to a historic area in Norwich called Elm Hill. Like all “Elm” hills in all the world, there are very few remaining Elms due to Dutch Elm disease, but there are cool cobbled streets and interesting old buildings.

We stopped for breakfast at a place called Olive’s. Mostly traditional British fare. I had a Benedict that had hash browns in place of the usual English muffin. My husband had the veg version of a traditional English breakfast: eggs, sausage, baked beans, bubble & squeak. We had long heard about the thing called “bubble & squeak” but never had it and did not know what it was. Our helpful server pointed it out on the plate and explained it. It’s kind of like hashbrowns but includes cabbage. It was pretty delicious.

Because it was very rainy by this point, we took our tour inside to the Norwich Cathedral. This cathedral is not quite as old as the one in Ely but it’s old, 900 years worth. We were given a wonderful 1-hour tour of the cathedral by an enthusiastic, elderly volunteer and member of the active church since childhood. Not only did we learn about the very interesting history of the cathedral, she pointed out interesting details, like ancient graffiti, the cool glow from the McClean stained glass windows that were installed in 2014, the misericord in the choir that’s intended for the assistant dean and includes a carving of the Norwich Canaries football team logo, and the amazing 12th century Despenser Reredos that was protected and preserved from destruction allegedly by hiding it as the bottom of a table. We also heard about the cat called Budge that lives in the Cathedral and unofficially serves as the Bishop. Budge did not make an appearance while we were there.

Following our tour we walked near the city center for lunch at an Italian restaurant called Yard. Freshly-made pasta with delicious sauces. I had the Pappardelle with 12-hour beef shin ragu and my husband had Bucatini cacio e pepe. I followed mine up with this crazy and amazing dessert that was a croissant filled with salted caramel ice cream. Oof. Very delicious lunch.

We walked by the beautiful medieval Guildhall and art deco City Hall City Hall and walked through the cool Norwich market. It was a bit late so many stalls were closed but enough was open that you got a flavor for the diverse products on offer. Spices, wine, prepared food, produce, clothes.

Our last big stop for the day was at the Norwich Castle. This was kind of a crazy, interesting experience. It is a museum that’s built in and around the ruins of an actual Norman castle. The castle was started by order of William the Conqueror in the late 11th century and was only briefly and very occasionally used by a monarch. It also was used as a jail. Where the museum can include the actual remnants of the castle it does; where it cannot, it includes recent building intended to help depict what the original castle looked like. When you stand within any one room you might see one original wall (it’s very clear which one that is) with three new walls that help you imagine what it must have been like. You can also go to the rooftop to see the defensive structure. From the rooftop, I could see all the sights we had seen that day.

We did a quick refresh at our hotel after visiting the castle and then went back over to the Norwich Cathedral for the Evensong service. Our guide from the morning had told us that the Cathedral had had Evensong services every day for the last 900 years. One of them included us. The music was quite beautiful, from a choir of adults and children.

After the service, we went to dinner at St. Andrew’s Brew House, so named because it’s across from a church called St. Andrew’s. A bit comical since they were out of almost everything we wanted to order for dinner. We were together able to cobble something together that worked.

Norwich surprised me. I’m not sure what I expected but it was not that. Such a great city! We thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

Friends in low/high places

Amy O1 Comment

We stayed this time at the Andaz London, a very nice hotel on Liverpool street that briefly came into our price point during this trip. On only one other occasion while visiting London was breakfast included in the price of the room, but the Andaz’s breakfast had such interesting and extensive options I feel like I want to pay more attention to this feature when selecting hotels in the future. Although it’s fun finding new places to eat for each meal, it was very relaxing to start the day in our own restaurant and fun to try the many different options they offered. For example, salad. Charcuterie. Also the usual stuff–toast, croissants, waffles, eggs, smoothies, fruit, yogurt.

I’ve often felt that my favorite, most meaningful activities in London have been the cheapest and this trip also had those cheap–and free–moments. Although it’s been our rule not to go to a theatre production on the night we arrive in London, lately it’s more like a guideline. As soon as we booked our flights we checked in on what was playing at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre since the outdoor theatre is only in use during seasons in which temperate weather can be expected. In the course of the football season that’s usually only possible early on. There was only one performance that would work for us, the one on the Friday night we arrived in London, which turned out to be a late arrival after significant flight delays.

The reason for the rule not to attend theatre is simple: we are usually seriously jet-lagged and can’t keep our eyes open after the lights come down. I felt we’d be able to stay alert and enjoy this play for two reasons. First, The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy, albeit one I knew very little about (with apologies to instructors of the two semesters of Shakespeare I took in college). Second, we bought tickets as groundings, the peasants that traditionally stood in front of the stage during a play in Shakespeare’s time (in contrast to the wealthy, who sat in seats above the groundlings). I felt that we’d be forced to stay awake while standing, but if we became too tired to continue we could always depart at intermission. Tickets for groundlings are about $10 each so the sunk costs are reasonable enough to walk away from.

My husband, who clearly paid more attention in his Shakespeare’s classes, recalled that this play had been written by Shakespeare over just a few days at the insistence of Queen Elizabeth. As a result, possibly not his best work. One of few plays set in what would have been Shakespeare’s current day, it’s the story of a man who seeks to seduce the wives of two gentlemen. The wives compare notes and conspire to seek revenge against him. It’s kind of a weird play, but mostly light and enjoyable. Shakespeare often played to the groundlings in his plays and this is expertly done at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Groundlings find themselves in the play and it makes the experience both authentic and a lot of fun. We’ve been to a few plays at the theatre and they are always excellent and well-acted. This one was no exception. We were tired but made it through the performance and felt that we got tremendous entertainment value for a very reasonable price. I never intend to sit in a seat at the Globe.

Our second peasant experience of the weekend was trekking over to the Palladium Theatre and seeing Rachel Zegler sing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from the balcony during the matinee performance of Evita. She literally sings to a gathered crowd below the theatre balcony while, for paying customers inside the theatre, they stream live video of her doing this. When we arrived about an hour before the scene would occur there were already thousands gathered on Argyll Street. While we were waiting, the silly thing that kept coming to my mind was the old, comical sketch about Father Guido Sarducci’s Five Minute University, where he advocates for a college experience where he’ll teach you in five minutes only the things you’ll remember five years after you graduate. I know the outline of what happens in Evita, but literally the only song I’ve ever heard of in a musical of dozens of songs is “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” To be able to spend $0 hearing Rachel Zegler sing this song beautifully in 5 minutes in this amazing setting instead of watching the whole musical for $600+ is pretty great. I wasn’t prepared for how moving it would be. The video I linked above is not my video or from the day we were present, but it gives you an idea of the experience. I really wanted to be in the moment (and I was).

Although my favorite things to do in London are almost always the cheapest things, we were in London, so we also did some fancy things. Had a perfect glass of wine in historic Gordon’s Wine Bar on a day so beautiful the ubiquitous line outside was for the garden instead of the wine cave. (We waited for the garden.) Had a delicious Sunday Roast at a pub chain we hadn’t tried before, Blacklock.

We also attended the BBC Proms 2025 piano performance of Bach’s “The Art of Fugue” played by Andras Schiff at the Royal Albert Hall. Many years ago we toured this facility and I had always hoped we’d be able to attend a performance there. It gave me chills to be part of a crowd walking blocks together toward the concert hall to hear music and then, afterward to be walking away together, everyone chatting about the performance. We were seated in a stall to the left of the piano, selected so that we could see Andras Schiff’s hands while he performed. Unfortunately, the positioning of the piano only allowed us to see his back. Best laid plans…. There was a “groundling” equivalent available for the concert, but I was happy not to be standing during this performance. A lady in the first row of the “groundlings” actually seemed to lose consciousness and collapse. For a passed-out person she was quite well-behaved. She seemed to ultimately get back on her feet, the pianist seemingly never knowing that it had happened and continuing on. The acoustics in the hall were great and the music was beautiful. Schiff has claimed that he’s waited 70 years to be ready to play this piece, likened to Mount Everest. I’m a lazy person, but I don’t mind watching someone else scale Mount Everest.

On Sunday before Roast, we visited the Barbican’s “Feel the Sound” immersive exhibit. The exhibit was focused on how we experience sound, not just with our ears but with our whole bodies, and how sound can be created, including with pulses inside our bodies. Super interesting and interactive exhibit.

Each time we go to London I wonder how we’ll continue to find interesting and fun things to do and experience.

It’s a baseless worry. While Arsenal can sometimes be disappointing, London never is.

Devil & God, dirt & light

Amy O3 Comments

Breaking our supposed rule never to see a play on the first night we arrive in London, we located reasonably-priced tickets to Thursday’s production of the musical The Devil Wears Prada. It was easy to break because, as evidenced by even events in the dark on the last night of a trip to London, I still seem to be able to sleep through parts of any production.

I am a complete sucker for the movie and cannot resist watching it when it’s available on a streaming service. Meryl Streep is so deliciously bitchy. I could never tire of her delivery of “That is all….” Now, Meryl Steep is of course not in the musical, but add music by Elton John, how can this not be a load of fun?

Well, it was a load of fun. They liberally used much of the movie (which in turn was probably from the book, which I have not read). The actress playing–I’m just going to call it–Meryl Streep’s character (because she OWNED that role) couldn’t begin to match Meryl but she played it her way and it worked. The music was wonderful, the costumes were great, the actors did a wonderful job.

And, yes, I did doze off some. But I’ve watched the movie dozens of time. I could still follow the plot.

On Friday morning we embarked on an excursion to the The Somerset House where there was an exhibit on Soil. Yes, Soil.

It was unbelievably fascinating. Photos of tiny bacteria blown up huge, video of the sights and sounds of roots growing, a mesmerizing video of the development of a mushroom, including ethereal flows of spores. Information on gardening techniques. Stories of human response to plants, flowers, gardens. Every time I tried to hurry along some new narrative or visual captured my attention. Highly, highly recommend this exhibit.

That afternoon we took a long train ride to a different kind of exhibit, God’s Own Junkyard. This is a museum of neon signs, many created by one artist, Chris Bracey, who sadly passed away in in 2014 due to cancer. You can walk through the museum and see the works of neon art displayed and there’s a little coffee shop to sit and enjoy them while relaxing. It is very cool, and very overwhelming.

One thing that became clear to me seeing the Soil exhibit and this one in one day is the power of narrative. The way Soil was exhibited helped you to notice things you might have glossed over. God’s Own Junkyard had every square inch covered with neon signs and art. It was hard to appreciate each one individually.

But perhaps that is the point.

Later that day we went out to Battersea Power Station to view installations for the Light Festival. Battersea Power Station was formerly a literal source of electrical power for London that had been closed down in 1983 and much later converted to a very fancy mall. The light festival was a little, well, little, eight installations from very awesome to kind of ho-hum. But the mall….I am not a shopper but it was beautiful. I especially loved that they retained the old towers from the original building when they built the mall. It’s also full of old equipment from its past as a power station. There is an unbelievable amount of housing development around the mall. One of the reasons I love visiting London is the juxtaposition of old buildings to new, modern ones. This area was all new, but it was all awesome.

Our final tour was to the Brunel Museum, a museum in Southwark on the site of an engineering marvel of a tunnel under the Thames that was built by a father and son team. The tunnel was intended to allow movement of goods from one side of the Thames to another during a time when heavy boat traffic on the Thames made it very difficult to add bridges. The tunnel was started in 1825 and finished in 1843. It was never used to transport goods and initially was more popular as a tourist attraction for pedestrians. It is now used for train travel, ironically, by the London Overground.

You can enter the original shaft and, in the museum, view exhibits and equipment displaying how the tunnel was built and all the challenges the engineers and construction crew faced. Great little museum.

And close by, nice views of the city on a somewhat dreary London day.

No one likes us

Amy O1 Comment

Although we weren’t able to do much London stuff in this visit, we did have Saturday gloriously open for fun around town.

Sadly, storm Darragh, which caused rain and winds all over the UK that day, wanted her say. So we made two plans that were respectful of her and one plan that ignored her completely.

It was pouring rain in the morning but we stepped out with our most rain-resistant shoes and umbrellas and went to the highly-rated local diner, Peter’s Cafe, for breakfast. It was nothing fancy but I had a perfectly delicious, basic, and reasonably-priced breakfast of eggs on toast with a latte.

After that, we went over to the Gunpowder Plot Experience close to the Tower of London. This is a tourist attraction whereby you participate with a group in simulating the attempted coup of 1605 on King James by Guy Fawkes. It’s a combination of interactive theatre and virtual reality. Not our usual thing! It was a lot of fun, albeit a part of history I’ve spent zero time thinking about. We played the part of Catholic co-conspirators. My favorite part of the experience was the virtual reality. It’s not that it felt actually real, but it produced some interesting effects and sensations of being there. With virtual reality, we flew over the city, took a boat over to Parliament, saw the aftermath of the attempted coup.

After that nice, dry activity we took the bus over to Millwall’s stadium, The Den, to take in some Championship football. We’ve attended a Championship match in the past at Fulham after they had dropped from the Premier League and before they came back up. Championship matches offer a grittier, and some say purer, experience than the Premier League. Whatever. We just wanted to go.

Millwall currently sits in the bottom half of the Championship and was playing on Saturday against Coventry City. It was very easy to get good tickets because of the expected bad weather and probably that thing I said about “the bottom half.”

Coventry City was even bottom-er in the Championship, and only recently started being managed by the villainous Frank Lampard, formerly of Chelsea. The fans at The Den seemed particularly annoyed by the presence of Frank Lampard. One guy near me shouted at him and insulted him the entire match. There is no possible way Frank Lampard heard a word of it, so far away were we and as windy and rainy as it was. Maybe Frank will read this and know the truth.

The chanting is a bit different at Millwall than at the Emirates. The chant we understood best went something like this:

We are Millwall
No one likes us
We don’t care

It was a bad day for Millwall and good day for Frank Lampard. Coventry City ended up winning the match 0 – 1. It was his first win as the manager of Coventry City, we learned the next day.

We took the bus over toward our evening activity and stopped nearby at a nice pub, The Royal Standard. Beer for my husband, mulled wine for me. Fish & chips for him, Avocado & Mango salad for me. Brownie for him, Apple, plum & Damson (don’t ask me) crumble for me. Very delicious, and a nice atmosphere.

Our final activity of the day was Edwyrdian Tales’ Christmas Ghost Stories at Charlton House. Charlton house is a 400-year old former manor house, so a great setting in which to hear three old ghost stories. For me, it was only two ghost stories, for, as good as the program was, I was exhausted from a long week and being in the cold and rain for hours (and maybe the mulled wine had something to do with it). I slept like a baby during the first tale about Jerry Bundler. Well refreshed from my nap, I thoroughly enjoyed the next two ghost stories, “Smee” about a haunting that occurs while people are playing a game at a holiday party and “The Kit Bag,” where a lawyer is emotionally haunted both by his involvement in a trial for a horrific murder and actually haunted by something in the bag in his room. The stories were performed by a single actor, writer, and historian Matthew Wood, who did a wonderful job transporting us to a time in which these stories would have been very popular. Great atmosphere and great stories, well told.

It was good to get out into London at last before heading back to Chicago.

Never gets old

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We had the extreme fortune of being successful in Arsenal’s ballot for the Manchester United match so no additional persistence was required to get tickets. Unfortunately, the match was midweek and I’ve just taken a 4-week sabbatical from my job. I felt disinclined to ask for the almost full week off required to travel to London to be there for a Wednesday match.

Also, my husband was scheduled for his upcoming Italian language test on Thursday in Chicago after the match. Virtually no way we could get back to Chicago on Thursday and also see the match. Fortunately, the Italian test is delivered on that day all over the world. We found it was possible for him to reschedule in London. Meanwhile, the cost of airfare was a nightmare. We actually found it significantly cheaper to stay in London for the full week than traveling back the day after the match.

So we decided to leave for London on Monday night with plans to study (him) and work (me) all week. That might sound like a bummer but it turned out to be pretty nice. We stayed in a hotel that we’ve been in before, the Doubletree London – Tower of London, not because we love it so much but location is great, rooms are a bit more spacious for a week-long stay, and it promised to be a good place to work.

I work so much more efficiently with a second monitor that I was a little nervous about how productive I could be on the road. But I researched and found a very cost-effective and sweet portable option from ARZOPA that could fit into my backback with my laptop. It was pretty perfect for my needs and the price was right.

My husband works better in quiet so he used the desk in our room and I worked from the lobby. I’d go down in the morning with my stuff and all day long I was pampered by the staff with cappuccino and tea and at mealtime by my husband who would pick up sandwiches and quesadillas and bring them back.

So yes, it was London and I was working and not seeing much of London, but here is the equation I learned: Playing from London > Working from London > Working from Lombard, IL.

I was out in London mostly in the dark. Walking around the neighborhood in the morning, going to the match on Wednesday night, meeting a friend for dinner on Thursday at our favorite London restaurant, Dishoom. But London is so lovely at Christmastime in the dark. Trees and lights and markets and everyone is so damn cheerful. During the evenings while I was working the lobby became a loud nightclub with lights everywhere, loud music, everyone dressed in sparkly skirts and tuxedos. And the staff took care of me by bringing me glasses of wine.

One morning we were out walking next to the Thames. It was so magical with lights playing on the surface and mist in the air. My husband looked at me and said, “This never gets old.” In a trip that really did not involve much fun, where we stayed at a hotel we’d been to before and ate mostly at restaurants we’d eaten at before, where not much was novel and everything was just nice, I can only agree.

Mission Possible

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It’s continued to be difficult getting tickets to Arsenal matches after our more reliable source dried up before last season. Currently, we’re arguably able to get tickets because we paid the club the annual membership fee of about $60 to be “Red Members.” A Red Member is able to participate in the Ballot for each home game, essentially a lottery. About 5-6 weeks in advance of each match, the lottery opens and we are able to enter a ballot for one ticket per person. Then a few weeks later, we receive an email from the club about how we fared. If we are successful, our credit card is charged for the tickets and we can plan our travels. (We refer to this as “winning the lottery.”)

If we are unsuccessful in the ballot, two additional avenues remain for receiving tickets. We can attempt to buy them in Arsenal’s official exchange, which for most matches is limited only to those who were unsuccessful in the ballot for that match. Or, we can attempt to use secondary websites where tickets are resold, like StubHub. We refer to the latter as “illegal” tickets, not that they are technically illegal in any way, but the club really does not want them sold that way and has been hammering away at eliminating this market. And you are for sure taking your chances about whether you will actually receive them and whether they are legit.

Many of the secondary resellers guarantee your purchase in the sense that if the tickets are not received and/or not legit they will intercede and make sure you are made financially whole. Which is ok-ish when your failed ticket only involves you taking the Tube across town and being turned away from the match. For us, we have invested in air tickets and hotels and taken PTO, and being repaid for the failed/illegitimate tickets doesn’t quite get the job done.

We had a fair amount of luck with the ballot early last season. We applied for all matches except for a couple during the month in which I was undertaking daily radiation therapy for breast cancer. (BTW: I’m fully healthy now!) We were able to get three matches via the ballot. My husband was able to get one ticket from the official Arsenal Exchange after a failed ballot.

As you may recall, the Premier League was only won on the last day of the season and Arsenal were fully in the running. I could not get even a nibble of a ticket on the official exchange even up until 10 hours before the match when we would absolutely have to be boarding a plane to get to the match in time.

To torture myself, I even kept checking even after there was no possibility of being able to get to London on time for the match. Not one ticket.

This season, we’ve applied via the ballot for every match except one….and been unsuccessful in every ballot. This leaves only the possibility of getting tickets on the official Arsenal exchange. Keeping in mind that every ticket in a stadium that holds 60k people has been sold, you’d still think someone might get sick, need to attend a wedding, have something intervene and sell their ticket. But a remarkable few end up arriving on the official exchange. When one does arrive, it gets snapped up immediately.

This creates a necessity–for those who are committed to getting to a match–of committing to keeping the exchange app open on your phone as much as possible and regularly clicking the button to see if any new tickets have arrived. 99.91% of the time, none have. 90% of the time one actually comes up, by the time you click less than a second later, it’s already gone.

For me, I have to also commit to being aware at all times what the operative cost is for airfare. If airfare is completely unreasonable, it saves a lot of clicks on the Arsenal exchange.

This brings me to the Leicester City match last Saturday. We received the rejection email from the ballot about a month ago, but I had a particular reason for trying my best to get tickets through the Arsenal exchange. We were already going to be in Europe for a trip taking place during a 4-week sabbatical offered by my company. If we’d been able to get tickets by Monday the week of the match, we would have been able to change our travel plans and go directly to London instead of flying back to Chicago from Amsterdam. But no matter how many times I clicked the button to refresh the results on the official Arsenal exchange, no tickets were available.

That is, until we were in line to board our flight from Amsterdam to Chicago on Tuesday morning. I clicked ONE MORE TIME and a ticket came up. I actually could select it and get to the payment page of the app.

I dropped out of the boarding line, pulled out my credit card and worked through all of the problems that occurred during the timed period by which the transaction needed to be complete–both because of restrictions on the Arsenal web site AND because the door to that airplane was going to close.

Given the fact that our luggage was already loaded on the plane and my husband was on the plane and our travel agent who could have helped with rescheduling flights was asleep in the US, there was no question that we HAD to fly back to the US rather than going to London. And that meant arriving in Chicago from Amsterdam on Tuesday and making air plans to travel to London on Thursday.

I was the last person boarding the plane, but I owned an official ticket to the Leicester match. I was shaking with excitement as I sat in my seat.

Once one of us had a ticket to the match and both of us had air tickets to get to London, we still had to work to get a match ticket for my husband. A great amount of clicking occurred over two days with nibbles of tickets, but no actual tickets.

As we were driving to the Chicago airport on Thursday, we finally were successful. The transaction was completed as we pulled off the highway into the exit to O’Hare. We both ended up having to buy Club tickets, but at least at market price.

Much as we hoped that a more reasonably-priced option might come up on the exchange (and then we could sell our Club tickets), we were never able to get one before the match.

But we had tickets! And we were happy.