Sunday morning Jen, Anna, Nora, Charis, Erick and I went to the eight o’clock service at Westminster Abbey. I had forgotten that despite being held in Westminster Abbey, an Anglican service that early in the morning would be without a homily or any music. But I was surprised to find that the the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was being used!!! The service was nice in its own way, and you could really tell that there was a genuine of small community of believers who were regular worshippers at that time. A couple of the older folks, priest and assistants seemed particularly familiar and friendly with each other.
The unexpected delight was getting to exit the Abbey through the otherwise empty cloisters while the rays of morning sun was still slanting through the pillars. The muted colors of the architecture, the perfect morning light and my girls in their Sunday dresses playing hopscotch over the gravestones: this is a perfect storm for photography and I did get probably my favorite shot of the vacation there in the cloisters.
Among the interesting discoveries were the graves of the “Surveyors of the Fabric” -- the official church architects and aesthetic overseers.
We could never had this experience had we not been worshipers there in the morning. While there is a charge to enter the Abbey as a tourist and large crowds to contend with, there is no charge to worship in the Abbey. We had planned on returning to see more another time but never made it back, so this visit became like of my “found souvenirs” - a special, unexpected moment that lingers as a treasured remembrance.
We made our way back to Fraser Park and, on the basis of our great experience with the Seine tour decided that we would start taking in the London sights with a ride on the Thames. First we stopped at our local Starbucks. Yes, they’re everywhere. Paris and London. Gramps told stories to the kids outside while Mary, “Jane” and I waited for our drinks. We took the train to where the boat launched at Greenwich, but before boarding we stopped to have lunch and do a little shopping at the Greenwich market.
I think the best of London cuisine was on display here in booth after booth of food choices -- which means no British food but an inexhaustible supply of authentic ethnic foods from around the world. I had a couple selections from the Thai food booth. The calamari yellow curry was especially tasty. Despite my delightful discovery of escargot in Paris, this was the most enjoyable meal I had yet experienced in Europe. I might even have gone back to Greenwich just for lunch at one of the other booths, but they were only open on the weekends.
After lunch we departed on our boat trip on the Thames. What was most striking about the view from the boat was how integrated modern London is with whatever remains of historic London and how progressive the city continues to be architecturally. London’s City Hall looks something like a glass egg. The London Eye is a constantly surprising visual presence. Buildings with nicknames like the Gherkin, the Cheese Grater, the Walkie Talkie and, most notably, The Shard continue to rise, transforming the London skyline and throwing historical architecture like St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Palace of Westminster and the Tower Bridge into strange relief. London’s identity must be in perpetual motion.
We disembarked at Westminster and made our way through St. James Park towards Buckingham Palace. This afforded us the best look so far of Londoners and, I must say, the sight was surprising. If you would have told me before my trip that Parisians would be exponentially more modest in their attire than Londoners, I certainly would have been skeptical. But dress in Paris was consistently elegant, restrained and fine -- even in the parks. Dress in London was … well … none of the above. A picture is worth a thousand words in the picture gallery, “Londoners: Volume I” and a deeper reflection on this surprising difference will follow at some point.
Another interesting phenomenon we discovered was “London Litter.” The closer we got to Buckingham Palace, the more impossible it became to find a simple trash can. Nowhere in sight. Not one. Dietrich carried his pitiful apple core halfway across the city. And yet the streets seemed twice as clean as the streets of Paris! What was going on???
We learned later that this was because of London’s terrible experience with the mostly IRA initiated bombings in mid 1980’s and 90’s. Trash cans were huge security concerns. So instead of depositing trash in a trash receptacle, in high threat areas of London people simply start neat little piles of trash off in some inconspicuous corner, other people add to the pile, and eventually someone comes and sweeps them up. Neat litter. This, too, is London in a nutshell.
After seeing what was to be seen at Buckingham Palace (the changing of the guard was not one of those things to be seen), we headed back to Canary Wharf. Upon coming out of the Underground, we were met by the strangest intermittent, roaring reverberations echoing off the surrounding skyscrapers. Those of you who are keeping pace with the dates of travel may have already realized that this was the sound of Andy Murray closing in on the end of his quest to become the first even sort-of-Brit to win Wimbledon in 77 years. The match was being televised live on a huge screen in Canary Wharf park, and the park was packed with onlookers who were cheering every point.
Dietrich and I raced to get there for “the moment” but heard the loud sustained cheer of final victory erupt and eventually die out before we could make it to the park. Nonetheless, we did get to see the happy afterglow.
Jen and I went out to a pub on the Thames again that night, but were very put off by the London pub culture as on display in this particular location - which was pretty bourgeoise. Loud, rude, and raucous.
The several experiences of the day left me with the following impression of London at the end of day two: This is essentially an American city. I’m not certain I have much to learn from it.
Day 11 Reflections
Reflection One: The service at Westminster Abbey led me to reflect on something I have often thought about with respect to religious, civil or other authority figures -- the tension in such a figure between his office, his role and the personality of the man. It’s a beautiful thing when done well. In American evangelicalism, we seem to emphasize, in order of importance, the personality of the man, the role of the preacher, and the office of the priest. I suspect the order is not quite the same in Westminster.
Reflection Two: In the context of Britain's reputation for having the world’s worst native cuisine, Greenwich market’s marvelous and authentic ethnic food put me in mind of something Jean Jaques Rousseau said about man among the other animals in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality: “Men, dispersed up and down among the rest, would observe and imitate their industry, and thus attain even to the instinct of the beasts, with the advantage that, whereas every species of brutes was confined to one particular instinct, man, who perhaps has not any one peculiar to himself, would appropriate them all, and live upon most of those different foods which other animals shared among themselves; and thus would find his subsistence much more easily than any of the rest.” I wonder if this isn’t the genius of London and, by extension, the United States.
Reflection Three: The Thames is a very different river than the Seine and makes its way through London more as an obstacle than an invitation. There is no real way to have a culture along the river in quite the way that Parisians can. This must affect the overall spirit of the city.
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