Day 2 in London was a very ambitious (meaning long) tour day. We had an excellent breakfast at the hotel (they have a hot buffet every day), so that was a good start. We had one room of girls who all managed to sleep through their alarm, but Mer checked on them in time that they were still ready to go when we needed to leave. We headed out the door to the Tube at around 8:30, and we would be gone the rest of the day until about 11:30 p.m.

We went downtown to Victoria Station. Victoria Station is a large Tube/train/bus station where we were going to pick up a double-decker tour bus. We used the bathrooms, and I asked at a couple of information desks about where to get the bus. So, we ended up being in Victoria Station for about ten minutes. Meredith and I love train stations in Europe, because they have the huge boards with place names and train numbers on them. They sound exotic, and it is cool to think you can get to these places by just getting on a train. Train stations are full of possibilities. I hope the kids felt some of it.

Anyway, we tracked down a Big Bus Company bus, and the driver told me how to walk the block-and-a-half to get to the company shop, where I could cash in my internet voucher for real tickets, and then we could catch a bus from there. That went smoothly, and we hopped on a bus and went up to the second deck. The front few rows of seats were under cover and behind a windshield, and were thus warmer. Still, the day was sunny, if cool (in the low 40s), so several of us decided we liked the glass-free views and the option to look up, so we sat out in the wind. Yes, it was cold by the end of the two-hour trip, but it was a great way to see the city.

We did want a live guide, as opposed to a tape-recorded commentary. Mer and I are huge believers in live guides. They tend to love what they do, are entertaining, and can answer questions. Our first bus was of the recorded kind, so we transferred after two stops to a live-guide bus. We wandered up to the top floor of the bus, and were immediately greeted by a very friendly guide who wanted to know where we were from. When he found out we were from (roughly) Cleveland, he announced he had a fun fact about Cleveland, and proceeded to tell everyone on the bus that London had the first traffic signal, which was run by a man pulling various strings, but that Cleveland had the first electric traffic signal. It was a promising sign that he was going to be a great guide.

His name was Phil, and he was probably in his early 50s, and he was a wonderful guide. He had a funny and charming and informative style of commenting on what were seeing (while we were in the theater district, he told the ladies of the bus that their men really did not want to go see Dirty Dancing the Musical), and still managed to convey lots of information about London (including being able to rattle off all forty-plus monarchs of England since Edward the Confessor from 1060 onward). Mer and I loved this guide – he was very very good at what he did.

The Big Bus tour took us all around London in a kind of figure-8. We saw all the major sights, in two hours, with sparkling commentary. Some of the sights I remember are: Speakers’ Corner in a large park (where anyone can say anything they like on Sundays to anyone who cares to listen), the shopping district, the theater district, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, Westminster Abbey and Parliament and the London Eye, the new and unimpressive London Bridge, the much more impressive Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, and many more places that I am now forgetting. It was a great tour, and well worth getting cold for.

We alighted (a favorite British Tube word) from the bus back at Victoria Station, and we jumped back on the Tube to get back to the Thames near Westminster. There, we picked up a riverboat that took us downstream to the Tower Bridge, which took about twenty or twenty-five minutes. They also had a person providing commentary, and it was interesting to see things from the river, something neither Mer nor I had ever done.

This got us to near the Tower of London bridge at about 12:45, and we had a scheduled tour at the new Globe Theater at 2:00. The Globe is not really near any mass transportation stops, so Mer and I decided we would use the opportunity to walk from the Tower to the Globe. This let us cross the very cool Tower Bridge on foot, and then we were able to follow the river back upstream to the Globe, which took about forty-five minutes at a pretty fast pace. I think the kids may have been caught off guard at the walking pace I set in the front, with Mer keeping people moving along from the rear of the group. We did get to the Globe at around 1:30, so the kids had about twenty-five minutes to find and grab something quick to eat before our tour.

The Globe is an accurate-as-possible reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and it is an active theater from about March through October. Since it is an open-roof theater, there is no live theater during the winter, but they do have a museum about Shakespeare, and they offer live tours of the theater. We started with a live tour, which was given by a charming (and rather handsome, which probably did not hurt) man who had worked at the Globe since it opened in 1998. He was also a director, and so was a great resource for us. He was delighted with our small group, so he was able to take us to all three levels of the galleries in the theater. He told us lots of amusing stories about how theater was banned in London proper, so the Globe was across the Thames from London, and how the modern Globe was built by the efforts of an American ex-pat, and he shared with us some of the odder questions he had gotten over the years, which included, “What was Shakespeare’s last name?”, “Who painted the sky in the theater?” and “Does Shakespeare ever come to see his plays here?”  He was a lot of fun, and again showed the wisdom of getting live guides as much as possible.

  We then let everyone loose in the gift store and museum for a little over an hour. The kids especially liked the interactive exhibits that let them record themselves reading Shakespeare. Mer and I and several students got to see a demonstration of how scripts were printed using early printing presses, which looked really difficult since it involved a lot of careful manual labor.

At around 4:30 or so, we headed back across the river. We walked along the pedestrian-only Millennium Bridge, which is cool in itself, but also offers my favorite view in London – the head of the bridge frames St. Paul’s perfectly, and it is breathtaking. We walked up to and around St. Paul’s, and jumped on the Tube nearby. We headed back to the theater district, where we were going to see War Horse. We showed the kids where the theater was, reminded them to stay in groups of three or more, and turned them loose to go find supper wherever they wanted, as long as they were back to the theater by 6:45.

Mer and I found another very authentic Italian restaurant, which we followed up by a piece of cake in a British cafe. We wandered around for a few minutes just to be wandering in London, and then went to the theater. Happily, all the kids did arrive by 6:45, and they had all found good places to eat.

After everyone was back at the theater (the kids have been wonderful about being on time), we hung out until the doors opened. We had fifteen seats together in the back row of the main floor, sixteen rows back; they were very good seats for a sweeping play like War Horse. I had come across War Horse while looking online at other plays, and from what I could see from the website, I fell in love with the story. Without giving too much away, War Horse is based on a children’s book (and thus qualifies for Literary London), and is about a sixteen-year-old boy who raises a horse. The horse then gets taken by the British Army for use in World War 1, and the boy decides to enlist to go find his horse. It is a powerful story with lots of magnificent relationships, but the jaw-dropping part of the show were the horses. They were full-sized puppets that could actually carry a full grown man. They had amazing range of motion and emotion, including fully articulating ears. It was very easy to forget they were puppets. Check out a short clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-bni4QqSv4

I actually expected to get misty-eyed during War Horse, but what surprised me was when – it was not during battle scenes, but during touching moments when everyone was at home before the war. War Horse is one of the most remarkable pieces of theater I have ever seen, and not just becuase of the horses – the story is very well written. I am delighted we got to see it, and the kids all seemed to be very moved.

We made our way back home after the show pretty directly, but still did not get home until almost 11:30. The kids never complained and kept up with everything all day. What a joy to have kids like these along on this trip. This really is what Meredith had envisioned when she proposed the class.

After months of planning, over one hundred e-mails, dozens of international calls, and one organizational meeting, our “Literary London” CVCA J-term class finally arrived. For those not familiar with the concept of J-term, schools sometimes take some time after Christmas break to offer unusual classes and trips for the students. Our college, Middlebury, had this program for four weeks in January, and this year CVCA implemented a J-term program of eight school days, from January 3rd to January 12th. Meredith proposed that we offer to bring a group of students to London, and last spring we had thirteen students sign up. It always seemed as if we had lots of time available for the planning, and we did make good use of the time, but suddenly Mer and I were meeting students at CVCA this morning at 8:00, with the bus to the Pittsburgh Airport leaving CVCA at 9:00.

A note on the interesting use of time in this entry – “today” is a funny term, in that Mer and I woke up at 6:00 am on Monday the 3rd, but did not land in London until noon London time on Tuesday the 4th – it is all the same day for us. Happily, all of the students seemed to get some sleep on the plane. Sadly, the old-and-used-to-a-bed folks did not.

Anyway, Mer and I were very pleased with how things went this morning – everyone was at school by 8:45, as we had told them to be. We were all loaded and on the bus and underway right at 9:00. The students were cheerful and chatty, but certainly not bouncing-off-the-walls excited. I think they knew we had a very long day ahead of us.

The bus ride was uneventful, with the exception that we had to circle around the airport one full time. It turns out that if you try to obey the signs and follow directions for buses at the airport, you end up at a gated road; it seems the airport meant commercial buses with special passes. A nice man gave us directions and got us all set.
The check-in at the airport went really well. Our students were great – they did whatever they were told, and the process of checking in fifteen people went really smoothly. The Delta counter people were very helpful, and one of the ticket agents got me and Mer signed up for a miles-club so we could take advantage of all of the miles for this trip – we ended up with enough miles for two free domestic tickets. That was very nice of the lady to point out. They also offered me and Meredith free drinks on the plane (of the imbibing kind), which we turned down, explaining we were with a Christian school; maybe it was a small witness. We got to the gate about ninety minutes before our flight to Atlanta (where we would catch the big plane for London), so that gave time for some of the students to get lunch if they desired and come back to the gate area to eat it. Everyone was back on time, and the flight to Atlanta was smooth and on time (after a few minutes where it looked like we would be delayed because of a stuck pin on the loading ramp, but they were able to free it after just a few minutes).

We got to Atlanta, where we were scheduled to have a layover of over seven hours. Mer and I decided that was too long to spend in an airport, so we decided to take a field trip to downtown Atlanta. We figured out the inner-airport train and got to the city train system (the “Marta”). We were again helped by a very friendly worker who helped me buy fifteen round-trip tickets for the Marta system. We figured out how to get through the turnstiles (all the mass transits of various cities seem to be slightly different), and we headed north to downtown Atlanta.
We got off at the Peachtree station, and headed off down the street – I was aiming for Atlanta’s Olympic Park, which is a short walk away from the Marta station. It was sunny, but cool in the shade of downtown, but it felt good to be outside.  We started heading down a hill, and I could not see any space opening up. After three blocks, I stopped and dug out my map in my backpack, and discovered we were heading east when we needed to be going west. Mer and I chalked it up to showing off downtown Atlanta.

We did get to the park, but the sidewalks turned out to be very crowded getting there – we were walking against major crowds that turned out to be there for the Passion Conference 2011 (it appeared to be a huge Christian conference). Somehow we managed to run into the huge crowds both going to the park around 4:00 and coming from the park around 6:30.

We got to the park, which is not very big, but is well laid out. We took some photos near the park’s dancing fountain, which is in the shape of the Olympic rings, and then we got an early supper from Googie Burger, a burger stand on the edge of the park. It was cool (in the mid 40s), but we were still able to eat outside.
After supper, we wandered around the edge of the park. We took a bunch of pictures of various statues and well-lit flora, and we took the time to cross the northern edge of the park to see the outside of the World of Coke (the softdrink manufacturer is based in Atlanta). We did not have time or money to go in to the World of Coke, but we took some pictures with the statue of the inventor of Coke.

The walk back through the park was pretty. We watched the small but popular (covered from the sun) ice rink, then took in the well-laid-out streams and waterfalls of the park. We stumbled across the “Quilt of Remembrance” – a stone “quilt” laid out in memory of the bombing attacks in the park during the games. We finished the park portion of the evening by watching the city lights come on as twilight fell, and we got great enjoyment out of the now-colorfully lit fountain (and the groups of people who liked to try to run through the dancing fountain without getting wet, which included several of our own students, who managed to not get seriously wet).

By a little after 6:00, I decided we should head back, so we went walked back to the Marta station, and took the twenty-five-minute train back to the airport. We got through security efficiently, and actually were ready to go to our gate just a little after 7:00 (for a 10:50 flight). We were early enough that our plane did not have a gate yet. I made an educated guess that we were in Terminal E, based on the number of international flights that seemed to be leaving from there. I was fortunate and turned out to be right. So, we spent about three hours reading or talking or getting food or playing games. The time passed pretty well, and we got on board the airplane on time, and the plane left around 11:00 as it was supposed to.

I can’t speak to what everyone did on the flight. It was an 8-hour flight, and it certainly looked as if all of the students got at least a little sleep. Mer graded papers for a little over half the flight. I tried to sleep, and when that did not work, I  watched movies. I got to see Despicable Me, an animated film I had wanted to see for some time. I loved it. The I took a chance on a film I knew nothing about called Flipped. It turned out to be a Rob Reiner film, and I enjoyed it. It was the story of a boy and girl who met when in second grade, and the story of how they came to value and care for each other. It was worthwhile, and helped pass the time. I also spent time writing up some of this blog entry.

We got to Heathrow at around 12:15 London time. We managed to get off the plane, get through customs, find bathrooms, and get our luggage with some efficiency. We headed over to the Heathrow Underground station, and a very helpful Tube clerk helped me sort out getting a one-day group pass (the rest of the trip will be covered by our week-long Tube passes). We got to to the platform, which was pretty clear, and then waited for what seemed like a very long time. I’m not sure what was going on with the Tube schedule, but we waited at least twenty minutes, and maybe as much as thirty before the train arrived. As such, it was very crowded. Since we were there early, we managed to get on without any real trouble, and the practice on a crowded line was probably good for us.

We transferred trains twice; the second time we changed right outside of the Tower of London, which Mer pointed out to the group, but I was so focused on trying to figure out where were were going that I missed it. We got to the Limehouse station and got off the train, and managed to find our hotel after one more of my little wrong-way detours. The hotel is about a five-block walk, which is not too bad. We managed to get checked in and had about an hour to rest and unpack before we needed to meet at 5:00 to head back into the city for supper.

We were out the door at about 5:00, and the Tube got us to downtown at about 5:30. We got off at the Westminster stop, and the kids finally got to feel they were really in London – the Westminster stop dumps you out in full view of the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament. The kids got very excited, which was understandable. It may have been a bit of a disappointment that I then marched them past all of the sights to get to our restaurant, the Italian Locale, County Hall. Once in the restaurant, Mer did assure everyone we would see those sights and have time for pictures.

The restaurant somehow did not have our reservation, but hurried to get us two tables anyway. Supper was excellent, and most welcome. After eating, we walked over to the Eye, which included coming around the massive County Hall building to see a tree-lined walkway framing the Eye. It was very impressive. For those not familiar with it, the London Eye is a huge Ferris wheel, with enclosed cars that hold about twenty-five people and go over four hundred feet in the air.

I got our tickets, and we all filed into a theater to watch a cheesy but fun 4-minute “4-D” film on London and the Eye. The 4th dimension of the film was tactile – the system blew bubbles in our faces, fog machines spit out fog, and so on. After the film, we went out to the Eye, where the people in charge gave us a car all to ourselves, which was really great.

Any doubts about this trip were laid to rest while watching the students run around the car, being excited over the sights, and snapping tons of pictures. This sharing of London was exactly what prompted Meredith to plan the trip, and it was very gratifying. I handled the height pretty well, except for the very top, where I had to sit down and not look down. Some of the kids joined me on the bench in the car at that point. Still, it was a great experience.

We took our time (and lots of pictures) in getting back to the Tube stop. The day finally caught up to me on the Tube, and I almost fell asleep twice on the trip back to the hotel. Once there, we handed out cell phones, and then told everyone to get to bed efficiently. It was about 10:00 or so when I finally got to sleep, and I was out pretty quickly. What a great day.

As we wrapped up 2010, Mer and I finally broke into a gift from late 2009 – The Premiere Frank Capra Collection. This contains five films, all of which are amazing, and all of which are stories of the little guy winning over long odds (and winning the love of the smart and witty girl along the way). These include:

American Madness – a bank president sticks to honesty and fairness
It Happened One Night – a reporter falls in love with a rich girl promised to be wed to a famous aviator
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town – an ordinary many inherits a huge fortune
You Can’t Take It With You – a family lives doing just what it wants to do and ignores the rat race
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – an ordinary man becomes a Senator

All of these films were incredibly entertaining and wonderfully witty. They are also all feel-good films, and darn it, I like to feel good. I know the world is not really a place where the ordinary person wins against long odds, but I don’t care. I still want to believe that.

The casts were star-studded, with Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and Jimmy Stewart (one of my favorite actors). The actresses were less well known to me, but they were all sassy, pretty, intelligent, and snappy dressers (with the exception of the occasional very odd hat). It Happened One Night in particular is an amazing film for romantic comedies (and, as an aside, the creators of Bugs Bunny cited Clark Gable’s character as a major inspiration).

Four of these films were new to me (I had seen Mr. Smith years ago), and I could not have been more delighted. Mer and I actually spent New Year’s Eve finishing up Mr. Deeds and then watching Mr. Smith. We each had a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream, and I went to bed quite happy, but well before midnight. The odds were not terribly long on that.

New Year’s Day, we went to Aunt Mary’s. As often as we all are around, she tries to have a New Year’s Day party every year (some years it is in March, but she tries to have it). She keeps it fairly small, and the people she invites are fun to be around – this year it was the Georges and the Bakers and us. There was good food, and then we always play games. Sadly, this year, I had a migraine move in on me right after dinner, and I skipped the games in favor of taking a nap. Mer played the games (Catch Phrase and Would You Rather?), and she reported they were much fun.

I took Mer out for dinner at Aladdin’s – my head was feeling better, but my stomach was queasy from the headache. Aladdin’s has healthy food, and it did the trick – after supper I was feeling much better, so I drove to the Churchills’ to see if they wanted some dessert. Zach was entertaining a friend with New Year’s Day football, but Londa joined us at Friday’s for dessert. We got to catch up with Londa for about an hour, and that was much fun. Dessert with a good friend; I think Frank would have approved.

Well, another year has wrapped up, and it is time to see how ye olde goals worked out for last year.

I had wanted to log 1,000 miles of running on my Nike+ system. This seemed easy enough – it is just 20 miles/week for all year. There are several times a year where I run 20 miles in one day! Surely, this is possible.

Sadly, it will have to be a goal for 2011. I missed it for the second straight year. I had to take all of last January off to try to let an injury heal. The Nike+ seemed to always be locking up or being out of battery on the days over the summer when I was doing 12+ mile runs. Also, I know for sure it missed 55 miles of races that I ran this year, since I don’t wear my iPod while running races. I’m guessing the iPod/Nike+ missed about 100 miles of running (possibly more). Having said all of that … the official Nike+ stats for 2010 are:

888 miles (931 in 2009)
113,000 calories (106,000 calories – I ran about the same amount of time – slightly slower pace)

So, in all likelihood, I got to 1,000 miles for the year, but the goal is to get the iPod to register them all.

As far as the goal of losing about 10 pounds, I did at one point, losing 8 pounds by last October. Sadly, I have gained them all back over the holidays. So, the 113,000 calories, which equates to 32 pounds, was all eaten back over the year. I guess I’m glad I run.