City Kids

It's a glorious autumn day in Nottingham! The sun is shining brightly, birds are singing, and the day's high temperature is in the mid-70s. (The weather-caster on the BBC described today as "a scorcher." Anything much over 75 and the National Health Service starts issuing alerts for heat stroke.)

Our two weeks of frenetic activity have come to an end. Students are registering for classes now, and all of us will soon settle into a routine.

We returned late last night from two days in London -- something we wanted the students to experience early so that they will know how to go back on their own. Our focus was entirely on things that can be done free or on the cheap. We booked them on an inter-city bus for the ride down, and on the train for the ride home. And we booked them four to a room at an inexpensive hotel.

Arriving in London on a Sunday morning, we took them to Morning Prayer at St. Paul's Cathedral, which avoids the sight-seeing tour fee and is completely free. (Some of them caught on to this and went to a mid-day service at Westminster Abbey the next day.)

We bought (well, the program bought) them day passes on the London Underground ("The Tube" or subway), and gave them a brief lesson on how to get around, including a stop next to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Then we paired them up with a partner not of their choice and sent them off, two by two, to the best free stuff in London: British Library, Museum of London, National Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum. They had to come back and report to the rest on what was there and whether or not it would be worth seeing. The first two on the list got the highest ratings.

The Yard at Shakespeare's Globe

In the evening, we had tickets to Shakespeare's Globe -- a re-creation of the theater in which the Bard himself worked some four centuries ago. Just as in the day of Queen Elizabeth I, the cheap seats in this theater aren't seats at all. Rather, the common folks stood in the "yard" around the stage, frequently interacting with the characters and becoming part of the action. Our students seemed to enjoy doing the same.

Monday morning we walked the group to the British Museum at opening time to see the Rosetta Stone and other ancient wonders which Britannia stole from its colonies in the days of empire. Some stayed there much of the day, while others set out to see the museums they'd missed the day before. We were pleased that they all seemed to manage to avoid the temptation go shopping or head for the clubs, but spent their energy in cultural pursuits.

Group at British Museum

Mary and I took a tour of the houses of Parliament at Westminster as our own cultural exploration. This was something we had not done before, but may try to weave into a spring trip for the students. The palace is interesting and the guide was superb. We also took a stroll down Fleet Street to see some of the historic sites along the way.

Our students enjoyed their first trip to the countryside of southwest England. But they were beside themselves with excitement over London. It seems that they are city kids, even more than they are country kids!

¡Madrid!

Our daughter's employer sent her to an international conference in Madrid, Spain last week. Sarah's work is not always so glamorous, and she seldom gets sent out of Georgia, much less out of the country. So we had to take the opportunity to see her when we could.

Our students left "the flat" (their apartment) on Tuesday to move to the University of Nottingham campus for a four-day international student orientation. That gave us four days to slip away, but it meant that we had only one night back in our own bed before getting up and heading off once again on a back-to-back trip.

The train takes two hours to London, the Tube takes another hour out to Heathrow airport, but then it's only a two hour flight. There was no jet lag, because there's only one hour time difference for us. The Madrid Metro system is easy to navigate and inexpensive. We reached the hotel by early evening, found our offspring right away, and followed her to a reception where we met some of her co-workers and others. After that we hit the town with her -- well, to the extent that old folks do. We had one drink and came back, in bed by 11.

The following day, while Sarah was working hard and attending sessions, Mary and I set off with our guidebook to take the walking tour of the city center. I discovered that my high school Spanish classes were a very, very long time ago! But some key words and phrases come back quickly. It wasn't long before I could ask where the restrooms were, practically like a native.

In addition to walking the main streets and plazas, Madrid's cathedral, the royal palace, and the Prado art museum (home of Las Meninas) were all on our itinerary the first day. No wonder our legs were tired by evening! But we still managed to rally for the closing banquet of Sarah's conference, for which she had secured tickets for us. We were taken by motor coach to a villa outside the city, met by a troupe of traditional musicians, and served an excellent three course meal.

After a brief shopping excursion back in central Madrid the next day, we accompanied Sarah and some of her co-workers on a trip by rail to the medieval city of Toledo. The architecture was fascinating, the cathedral amazing, and the general ambiance of the city inspiring.

On return, we joined many of the same folks for a tappas dinner, followed by a late show at a flamenco bar. The interplay among the guitarists, singers, and dancers was fascinating! But we didn't get back to the hotel until after 2 a.m., which was less fascinating.

We managed a brief stop at the Reina Sofía art museum to see Picasso's famous Guernica and some Salvador Dali paintings on our way to the airport. We had allowed several hours in London between our flight and our train to Nottingham, mostly in case of a flight delay, but also in case we had energy for more sight-seeing. Unfortunately, we were too tired for much of anything but a pint at a pub followed by a nice, leisurely dinner. Again, one takes one's opportunities as they present themselves (and as one has the energy to enjoy them).

First Outing

What a great group of students we have! After retrieving them from Heathrow we had two days of settling them into the flat, an historical walking tour of Nottingham city centre, and a day of learning to navigate the neighborhood.

Our group is now on its first excursion, taking in Avebury, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Bath, Glastonbury, Wells, (so far) Stow-on-the-Wold, Blenheim and Coventry (tomorrow). Based on the war stories from previous program directors we had prepared for the worst, but we have been more than pleasantly surprised. These kids don’t complain about anything, seem to be game for everything, and take every glitch in stride.

We bought a professional tour at Avebury and the guide was pretty good. He was straightforward and clear about the limits of knowledge about the site, and refused to speculate on any of the “new age” ideas that some wish to associate. He demonstrated divining rods, but was fairly dismissive of the ley lines and the gendering of stones.

As expected, Stonehenge was a bit of a disappointment for them compared to Avebury, but it is such an iconic site that they were glad for the photo-op nevertheless. On to Salisbury, where we spent our first night in a place that isn’t exactly the world’s best hostel, but nary a complaint.

We walked to Salisbury Cathedral, only five or six blocks away, where they suffered through the Mark Johns tour. It was a basic introduction to the fundamental shape of this, their first cathedral. I’m sure that a resident guide could have done better at pointing out the details, but unless one has a basic idea of what a cathedral is all about, the details matter little. I expected they might all head for the nearest pub for the evening, but they all came back to the hostel to play cards.

On Saturday we were up and off to Bath. It was a very short day for our bus driver, who dropped us off at our hostel near the city center and was done for the day. We happened to hit the weekend of the annual Jane Austen festival, so immediately encountered several hundred Austen fans in period costumes. During our city walking tour (good guide!) we saw them all marching in procession as part of the annual promenade. It certainly added to the ambiance.

Mary and I have always found the Roman Baths to be pretty phenomenal, and especially so since they have been recently expanded (see below). We were rather shocked that our students found them to be merely interesting, and not totally astounding. We had expected them to be blown away, as we were.

We had also built a required second museum experience into the day for them. We wouldn’t have had to require anything. They were most eager to see and experience every cultural activity Bath had to offer. A couple of them even showed up for a free organ concert we attended at the Abbey in the afternoon.

But we were further shocked when we offered them the opportunity to spend £6 of their own money to sit in the nose-bleed section of the Bath Theatre Royal to see a rather serious play, Three Days in May (fresh off the West End), about the British war cabinet in the dawning days of World War II. All twelve of them lined up for the rush tickets! We expected maybe a couple English majors to be up for that. Again, they preferred culture to the pub.

Today was a less hectic and packed day. We drove down to Glastonbury for a tour of the Abbey ruins (in the rain). The guide was quite English (tweed suit, hat, scarf), and very entertaining, but the tour was short, and a little light on hard facts. So we continued with the Mark Johns version, which they actually seemed to welcome.

From the Abbey, the bus dropped us at a spot part way up the Glastonbury Tor (see below). It was unfortunate that we climbed in the rain and a nasty gale-force wind. But the students seemed to think it added to the experience! No complaints. They made the wind part of the fun. We were so wet and cold at the bottom that I marched the whole lot of them into a very traditional little pub and ordered hot tea all around. This amused the barman, who said that most people come in to drink beer. But I don’t think I could have gotten that receipt through the college audit process.

On to Wells, where we spent quite a lot of time in the cathedral and attended a rather long evensong service. The students were quite taken with the boy choristers. The choir was quite good, and several of the boys were extremely talented. But the amazing thing is that the students did not mind a bit sitting in a church service all that time.

Mary & Group with famous former Nottingham resident

In short, we couldn’t be more pleased with our group of students. I’m sure that in the course of a year among 12 personalities there will be some clashes. But we are off to the smoothest imaginable start.

The Trip Home from Edinburgh

The return try from Edinburgh was along the seashore. We made a brief stop in the market town of Berwick -- a place that has changed hands between England and Scotland a number of times in various wars, but has remained for the last couple hundred years on the English side. We walked along fortifications built in anticipation of a northern invasion by Napoleon in the 1810s.

Next we got off the beaten track to take a closer look at the Holy Island and the castle/monastery of Lindisfarne. This is supposedly the place from which Christianity was first introduced to Britain by Saint Cuthbert, a monk in the Saxon period (although Christian artefacts dating to Roman times are fairly abundant from many sites around Britain). It was also home to the famous Lindisfarne Gospels which now reside in the British Library in London. We wound up getting a closer look at the island than we’d imagined.

Holy Island is only an island at high tide. At low tide there is a road across the tidal marsh that will take you there. People plan their visits to Holy Island very carefully around the tide tables, but we just happened to hit there at low tide. We drove to the island, snapped a few photos, and drove right back. The tide was already starting to come in, and once it does, one can to stuck on Holy Island for five or six hours.

After getting safely off the island we scouted things out at Alnwick Castle, a place Luther groups have gone before us, and home to both the Duke of Northumberland and family, as well as to a study program run by Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. We learned that it's good to be the Duke, but probably not a bad thing to be a student there, either. We also learned that (in the usual British manner of omitting consonants, it's pronounced Anick.

We detoured next to a couple of sites along Hadrian’s Wall (a fortification built to keep the unvanquished Scots from invading the northernmost reaches of the Roman Empire). The first and most impressive was a place called Vindaloo, where a Roman fort and extensive trading village outside the fortress walls have been excavated. They number of Roman artefacts in the museum here is truly astounding, but some of the “historic” recreations of things are a little hokey. All in all, however, it was better than the English Heritage excavations a few miles away.

Online we had discovered a country B&B about 6 miles south of Durham that was reasonably priced. When we first drove in we were afraid we’d made a terrible mistake, but it was quite nice on the inside. It seemed as though the entire population of Kirk Merrington had come to the village’s only restaurant that night, so no wonder the service was pretty bad, but the food was OK. Our B&B hosts had also recommended a pub in town, but we didn’t find it our sort of place and stayed only briefly.

Durham Cathedral was wonderful, though Mary found the side chapel with the tomb of The Venerable Bead to be “kind of creepy.” Unfortunately the castle was closed for extensive renovation, so we could not visit that portion.

Our last stop we almost skipped because we were tired, but Fountains Abbey, the ruin of a major monastic site abandoned after Henry VIII’s dissolution of the abbeys, was well worth the time. It’s quite an amazing site, but a long way from anywhere.

All in all, our Edinburgh trip was one of the best -- not only the destination, but also the sites along the way.

Students!

We have been joined in Nottingham by a dozen jet-lagged Luther juniors. All went without incident in the process of picking them up at Heathrow airport and getting them back to Nottingham by motor coach. One had flown for over 20 hours from Asia. Another had been in Iceland for three days, but for some inexplicable reason had not slept the night before and had been awake 30 hours.

Mary stayed behind to cook all day, and had prepared a feast for them of two homemade soups (one chicken, one vegetarian), salad, bread, and dessert. They hadn't eaten much, so that went down well. They got oriented to the flat -- how the showers work, the difference between rubbish and recycling, etc.

I went back to the flat around 9:30 p.m. to pick up something we had forgotten. It was already pretty quiet there. All had crashed for the night, I think (unless they were all out at a pub already?).

More news as we have it.

Edinburgh -- WARNING: Long post!

We had been told a number of good things about Edinburgh, Scotland. However, the actual visit exceeded expectations. What a wonderful city! Our impression may have been influenced by the fact that we had nearly ideal weather, whereas most of our other scouting trips have been drenched in rain. Nevertheless, we found Edinburgh to be delightful. It is easy to navigate, has tons of things to do (many of them free) and just has a great feel to it.

Known as "the Athens of the North," Edinburgh went through a dramatic urban renewal in the late 1700s, continuing through the Victorian period, in which the neo-classical style was popular. Banks look like Greek temples, department stores have statues in their facades. There is even a Parthenon, of sorts, on a high hill overlooking the city.

Mary at the Castle

We wanted to find a B&B close to the city center so that we could put the car there for the entire stay and not worry about it. As with most cities -- or at least European cities -- a car is far more of a nuisance than a help. As it turned out, the B&B was a converted Georgian house in Edinburgh's "New Town," so we got to sleep in an historic old mansion (even if the splendor had long since worn off the place).

Our first afternoon focused on the "Royal Mile," the main street of old Edinburgh. It runs down hill from the Castle to Holyrood Palace, which was home to Scottish monarchs until James VI of Scotland became James I of England and the whole Unification thing. It's still the official residence of Queen Elizabeth whenever she happens to pop in at Edinburgh.

Along the Mile are countless shops where one may buy a kilt, bagpipes, or Scotch whisky, not to mention normal stuff and cheesy souvenirs. It's also alive with restaurants, coffee shops, and pubs. But we were there for the free stuff and just to soak up the atmosphere, which is festive, complete with street performers and plenty of people-watching opportunities.

St. Giles' Cathedral is the mother church of Scottish Presbyterianism. The reformer, John Knox, used to pack the place when he preached here. He's buried in the church yard, but unfortunately the church yard was later paved in cobblestones and is now a "car park" (what the British call a parking lot). So you can only see Knox's tombstone if there doesn't happen to be a car parked in that particular space at the moment! We've noticed this in many old churches here, that just because you bought a slab in the floor or yard under which to be buried, doesn't guarantee that something won't be built right on top of you a century or two later on.

St. Giles'

We also visited Gladstone's Land, a six story merchants house and shop, built in 1550, that has been restored by the National Trust to show how people would have lived and worked along the Mile over the centuries. A partner site, The Georgian House, is a restoration of a late 18th century mansion in the "New Town," not terribly far from our B&B. It shows how things changed when Edinburgh's well-to-do left the cramped Old Town to settle in the fashionable new development. New Town, commissioned in 1766, was designed by architect James Craig to be strictly a residential area. It remains so even today. Even though most of the mansions have been converted to apartments, the streets are quiet, even within a short walk of the business center.

Georgian homes in New Town

Meanwhile, back on the Royal Mile, we visited several other free museums, one cleverly named The Museum of Edinburgh, another called The People's Story (devoted to the lives of common working people through the centuries, and to the labor movement), and the Museum of Childhood (toys and games through the centuries).

We also saw The Writers' Museum, dedicated to Edinburgh homeboys, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Robert Burns. Scotland loves its writers, poets, inventors, and philosophers! Where other cities have war memorials (those all seem to be in the Castle), Edinburgh has statues of these guys, plus folks like Adam Smith, James Watt, Robert Fergusson, and David Hume. There's even a Scottish national Storytelling Centre on the Mile!

Sir Walter Scott Memorial

At the bottom of the Royal Mile, just up from Holyrood Palace, is a complex of ultra-modern buildings, which some say are totally out of place among so many ancient structures, but we thought the design fit in nicely. These are the brand new buildings of the Scottish Parliament. After nearly three centuries of being ruled from London, in 1998 Scotland was granted limited autonomy within the UK, and established a unicameral legislature that deals with local issues. The Parliament's new building was completed in 2004.

Walking in with no appointment, we went through security and looked around a beautiful lobby area, but aside from a very few exhibits, there wasn't much to do or see. We asked a woman in uniform about what one could do, and in the sort of voice that law officers use when they are being official, she told us we could look around the lobby and that was that. But a few minutes later the same woman tapped us on the shoulder and slipped us two tickets to the gallery to see Parliament in session!

The debate was mundane, and there were only about a dozen of the 129 members present. It reminded me a good deal of a state legislature (Scotland only has a population of about 5 million people -- less than some U.S. states), but in very beautiful new digs.

There was certainly no shortage of restaurants from which to choose, and we found a quaint little neighborhood pub less than a block from our B&B for some evening relaxation. I've been in some great cities in recent years: London, Reykjavik, Berlin, Gothenburg, and Copenhagen, not to mention Cairo, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Lima, Beijing and Shanghai. But Edinburgh is right up there at the top.

Calm Before the Storm

We've just a week before our students arrive. We're going to squeeze in one more scouting trip this week, then it's non-stop. A coach trip to Heathrow to meet planes, two days of orientation to the city and the neighborhood, which I will be leading, then we're off on our first excursion for four days.

Immediately after our return, the students go live at the university for four days of international student orientation -- which would normally be recovery time for us, but it turns into another trip (I'll provide more on that later). We, and the students, have one day off before our second, two-day excursion. After that, they register and begin classes.

So basically, for the next three weeks we'll be running full tilt and seldom sleeping in our own (well, Luther's) bed. I'll try to post along the way as I'm able. Hopefully this intense period will be a bonding experience for our group, and will keep everyone far too busy to get homesick.

Today's project was a last cleaning at the flat and some experimenting with different bus routes around town. I've also been on the phone and online nailing down last-minute details of our first excursion. And this is the calm before the storm. It only gets busier and busier from here!

On the Road Again

We've been traveling once again. Our daughter, Katherine, and her husband, Matt, have been with us for a week, so some of our travel was to take them around to see some sights, and part of it was further scouting of places to take students on field trips when they arrive. This mixing of business and family will make the college accountants crazy, but I'm trying to sort it all out.

We returned to Avebury and Stonehenge. This time we actually took time to stroll through the museum at Avebury and to go in and visit Stonehenge. The GPS brought us to Stonehenge via a completely different route this time, even though we left from the same place (I have yet to fathom its mysteries), so we got to see some different countryside.

On to Bath, where we scouted some things we missed last time while Matt & Katherine did the Roman Baths. The guide for the city tour had been first rate last time, but the guy this time was absolutely terrible. We abandoned the tour after 45 minutes and did our own, but by that time we were in driving rain, so we finished back at the car soaking wet. Fortunately, our B&B hostess was willing to put our jeans in the dryer that evening, or I'm not certain they would have dried.

Mary, Katherine & Matt at Blenheim

The next day we set out across the Cotswolds. The villages are all cute, and the little shops and tea rooms do certainly appeal to the mature audience, but we had trouble seeing college students being enthralled. We decided that a brief walking tour of Stow-on-the-Wold will be sufficient. Blenheim Palace (birthplace of Winston Churchill) will be a place where students' time is better spent. It's probably the most spectacular manor house in all of England, and still home to the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. I hope they get to enjoy it after the throngs of tourists are gone for the day!

We spent another day in York, checking out museums for which we hadn't had time before, while Matt & Katherine did the basics. Again, the city tour was inferior to what we had had previously, but not so bad that we bailed out on it in disgust as we did at Bath. Matt and I enjoyed the National Railway Museum. It may be sexist to say so, but I think locomotives must be "a guy thing," because Mary and Katherine were quite bored with it, as they had been ten years ago on a previous visit, despite the presence now of the locomotive used in the Harry Potter movies to pull the Hogwarts Express.

Shakespeare's birthplace and associated sites at Stratford-upon-Avon were good to see again. We had not visited many of the other sites previously, and they were quite worthwhile. Warwick Castle had changed drastically since our visit there a decade ago -- not the castle itself, but the Disney-esque approach to making money from it. It's no longer a historical site, just a theme park. Entertaining, but our students will see better, more authentic castles in Wales.

Matt & Katherine hiking by Derwent Water

New to us was the Lakes District in Cumbria. Unfortunately, rain followed us once again. But the scenery is gorgeous. We were there in high tourist season, which made lodging difficult to find and high in price. We did manage one very nice long hike, as well as visits to sites associated with authors and poets. Wordsworth may have lived on a shoestring in his little cottage here, but probably never had to turn in his receipts to college accountants.