England, Here I Come!
It was my first trip abroad, and we were planning to be gone for several weeks, so I went on a preparatory shopping spree. Naturally, I purchased a couple of books on England, including one by the master of European travel, Rick Steves. He was my main guide in planning our three-week tour of the UK. As I would later discover, the things he said to do could all be done, but not, for travelers like ourselves, so easily and breezily. The most important thing he taught me probably wasn’t stated anywhere in the book, because it wasn’t about places to visit or things to do. It was simply this—always give yourselves more time at a location than you think you’ll need. When you see how we hurried through some of the most wonderful places, you’ll understand what I mean.
The books were just the start of the preparatory spending. My old suitcases were not only embarrassing (dated Jordache bags in a tapestry pattern), but inadequate. I needed something larger, more durable, and with wheels. I found a lovely, almost iridescent, green bag that was small enough to qualify as a carry-on, but as large as the airlines would allow. Perfect! I probably paid too much for it, but I’ve gotten so much use out of it that I’ll never regret buying it. I do, however, regret not having bought the matching set. Had I done so, I probably wouldn’t still have to use those ugly Jordache bags for my overnight trips!
With all that spending, which even included a timer to turn my living-room light on and off while we were gone so that people would think we were home, there were nonetheless some critical oversights. They were things that anyone with even a passing knowledge of England ought to have known to bring—raincoats and umbrellas! It was a rookie mistake, but one which we would rectify quickly, as you’ll see.
We were living in Milford, Connecticut at the time, but we chose to fly out of Boston because it was cheaper than Hartford and less of a hassle than New York. My parents drove us to the airport and rather than search for parking, they dropped us at the curb and said a quick farewell. Airport security was still tight, thanks to the terrorists, but no longer paranoid, so we made it through the airport and onto the plane without incident.
The thought of terrorists made me a little more nervous than usual. I’m not sure “nervous” is quite the word for it. I don’t so much fear flying as I dislike it. I don’t obsess over terrorists, though I remember scanning the plane for terrorist types (and who wouldn’t?). I also don’t worry too much about crashing. I accept the statisticians’ claims that people are more likely to die in car crashes. What I really hate about flying is simply being cooped up for so long in that stale air with a bunch of noisy strangers with whom I have to share a limited number of stinky, cramped, pathetic excuses for bathrooms.
Go ahead and laugh. It’s justified. If I had been scared about explosions and crashes, frightened and ill from the turbulence, then you might feel sympathetic. Very few people, I think, fret over the bathrooms when they’re flying. I wonder if I managed to get through the whole flight without using the bathroom. I know I would have tried. I probably still would, actually, but with less likelihood of success. My bladder and I have come to an agreement. I go when it tells me to go and it doesn’t do anything to embarrass me.
There were no terrorists or crashes or embarrassments to ruin the flight. It went as smoothly and as quickly as it could have. I must have been sitting near the window, because I remember looking out the window as the plane descended toward Gatwick. The English countryside was divided into pieces by hedgerows, creating a pretty patchwork of interesting shapes and colors. It reminded me of the picture that was on the paperback copies of The Lord of the Rings that my parents had when I was a kid. I wish I had a photograph of that aerial scene to bolster my memory, because it was a perfect first image of England.
We arrived at Gatwick at some ungodly hour of the morning. Flying into Gatwick represents one of the few regrets I have about our trip to England because I never got to see the famous Heathrow airport. But I am as practical now as I was then, and the difference in price was more than enough justification for missing one of London’s landmarks. Maybe next time.
Not to dwell on bathrooms, but it was in Gatwick that I noticed one of the odd differences between England and home. The bathrooms in Gatwick weren’t arranged in stalls. They were more like tiny rooms. They may even have been walled off from one another. I’m not sure, but I do remember the doors. The doors to the bathrooms in Gatwick, and in most of the country, were huge, compared with American bathrooms. They extended from the floor to well over my head. When you closed that door, you were in your own space, with all the privacy in the world. Contrast that with the doors in American bathrooms, which the average person can look over or under without straining too much, and peeping toms can get a quick thrill just by peeking through the wide cracks between the doors and jambs. Those tall, protective, English doors seemed not just different, but protective.
After a quick and easy pass through Customs, we dragged our sorry selves and our luggage to the shuttle area. We were both exhausted, so I don’t know how we found the place or how we got ourselves onto the right shuttle and trains to get to Bath, but we did.
On the first train, I remember looking out the window and being as enchanted by the countryside even though my eyes threatened to shut themselves tight at any moment. I saw a field of yellow flowers, and I said to Faithful Reader, “So that’s what Sting meant when he sang about ‘Fields of Gold!'” (Not really—I think he was actually talking about barley, which is a completely different shade of gold, but it was the kind of thing that dumb tourists are supposed to say, and it made sense at the time).
It was on one of these trains that I picked up a newspaper, abandoned by some early-morning commuter, and encountered my first British-style crossword puzzle. The British crossword is quite different from its American cousin. The grids are not as full and they contain singleton letters (letters that appear in only one word). The clues are also of the cryptic variety. Since I am something of a puzzle “expert,” it was a shock to find myself completely unable to make an inroad into the puzzle. The problem was not simply that the clues were cryptic, but they were filled with references to all things British, and I, as an American, was out of the loop. I left the puzzle where I found it.
On the second leg of our train ride, Faithful Reader dozed off. It irritated me, which wasn’t fair, since someone had to stay awake so that we wouldn’t miss our stop. Actually, I was irritated during much of the trip. I blame some of it on birth control pills. During the years that I was on them, I tried three different prescriptions. One made me fly into rages, one caused depression, and one made me paranoid. I was probably on the first, rage-inducing variety at the time. Combine that with a lack of sleep, and no wonder I was so cranky.
It was still morning, local time, when the train pulled into Bath.