1968
LONDON
A 50-YEAR REVISIT
2017
From Gull's View I can see the wind pushing the waves in one direction while the current flows in another. The sea is restless. In 1968 I was 18 - Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, Humphrey would run against Nixon, I had completed 2 years of JC in a year and a half and was supposed to start at UCLA in the fall. But I was restless. I bought a one-way ticket on a British Airways charter flight to Gatwick, applied to a drama school in Cardiff, Wales, and began a year of adventure in Britain.
In retrospect, it was probably my way of "seeing the continent" or "doing the grand tour" like Jo or Amy in Little Women. I had a reader's dreams then.
Now I am 68 and restless again. Though common sense and Thomas Wolfe would say otherwise, I want to revisit Coldstream Terrace, the street I lived on, in Cardiff. The College of Music and Drama has become the Royal Welsh Academy, and moved to a new beauty of glass and concrete with a real stage! I want to feel the grass between my toes on the castle green, where, on sunny days, we would spread our blankets, put on our bikinis and laugh at the outraged groups of tourists gawking at us. My home base will be London with day trips planned to Stonehenge and Avebury, Windsor Castle and a final weekend in Cardiff.
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Reservations are made, tickets purchased, guide book and maps are in hand!
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Let the journey begin - come along!
Day 1 - Arrival and dinner at Pizza Hut
From my window at Pizza Hut, I see the bus, stopped for the red light.
How much my perception of London has been framed by writers - from Wordsworth's "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge" to Dickens' David Copperfield, to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Baker Street and now, a new writer, J.K. Rowlings, with an olde background - London.
And I find that the old city itself is being written upon by new people, bringing ancient cultures together in different, yet familiar ways. Yes - I went to Pizza Hut for my first meal in London. I'd been craving pizza for a week and there's no good pizza place in Cambria, so when I saw the Pizza Hut on Baker Street - I said, "YES!!" Scene: old American woman eating ham and pineapple (Hawaiian) pizza, sitting next to mom, dad and 4-year-old from the neighborhood (mom in hijab), being served by porcelain-complexioned young waitress. (All speak English with strong British accents - exception being old American woman who speaks Southern California American!)
London is renowned for its fine book stores, Waterstones is on my list of "must see's". On my way back to the B & B at 22 York Street, I happened to stroll into one of London's newest establishments.
On Baker Street tradition is being followed in a new way at Alef - a Middle Eastern bookstore for the community that surrounds it. Here are shelves and tables full of books, some written in Arabic (?) and some in English - all about Middle Eastern religions, philosophy, politics and culture. Note the Thoreau quote above the shelf of paperbacks. I have never seen a bookstore like this and it makes me smile. How inventive we are - how capable of embracing each others' cultures - how adaptable God made us! There is proof - here on Baker Street. (I returned to the shop the next day and talked to the proprietors. The owners of the bookstore are Egyptian. They were delighted that I enjoyed the store. We had a nice chat and I got some recommendations for a good Middle Eastern restaurant to try in the next week and a half!)
Click on the links above for "Sights" - Sherlock Holmes Museum, V & A Museum, Hyde Park, and Regent Park; "Art and Theater" - the Tate Modern, Courtauld, Millennium Bridge and the Old Globe; "Salisbury/Stone Circles" - Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge and Avebury; "Regent/Piccadilly" - for views of Liberty, Fortnum & Mason, Hamley's; "Windsor/Thames" - Windsor Castle and a river cruise down the Thames; "Cardiff" for a final weekend in Wales.