It's raining out and I'm still sick with this cold and trying to unpack, but in between naps and chores, I've managed to write up the first installment of my trip diary.
August 2005: Trip to England and France
Day 1: There may be people who go in for a full day of sightseeing on the day they arrive in Europe from the U.S., but I am not one of them. Jet lag kills me. So I had nothing planned that first day other than a nap, a walk around town, dinner and bed. I flew direct from Minneapolis to London Gatwick, arriving at about 9am UK time. I waited a long, long time for my luggage, wondering why the heck I do this to myself and missing my family already, then took a train south to the town of Chichester, and a taxi to my hotel, The Ship. Fortunately, I was able to check-in as soon as I arrived. My room was small and stuffy, with a view of other rooftops, but I was too tired to care. I flung open the window and slipped between the sheets for a few hours. When I woke up from my nap, I ventured out and was delighted to find that Chichester is a lovely city, and that my hotel was in an interesting pedestrian area full of shops and within a few blocks of Chichester’s 1000 year old cathedral.
Once out on the busy streets, I asked a strolling passer-by to take my picture by the cathedral; the great problem with traveling alone is that you have to rely on others to document your trip. He seemed like a respectable, fifty-something Englishman. One arm, however, was heavily bandaged. As he gave me my camera back he explained that he’d been in the tube bombing, had narrowly escaped with his life and therefore would I like to go out with him. (The other great problem with traveling alone.) No, therefore I would not, thank-you, and I slipped into the cathedral for refuge, wondering if his bandage was some sort of Ted Bundy-like ruse. Resolution: only ask women to take one’s picture.
Back at the hotel, I had a dinner of fishcakes with my companion for the journey, Ms. Rose Wilder Lane. I couldn’t lug a lot of books across the ocean, so I knew I needed one good, dense one. The Ghost in the Little House is a fascinating biography, although the author gives a pretty one-dimensional portrait of Laura Ingalls Wilder as the manipulative martyr of a mother. Lane herself traipsed all over the world, as a foreign correspondent, falling in love with Albania, of all places, but always finding herself unhappily drawn back to the home farm at Mansfield, Missouri. The book is rife with American History, tracing Lane's journey from budding socialist to full-bore Libertarian. I could go on about her story, but for the moment, it’s sufficient to say that whenever I felt discouraged as a traveler, I only had to read about a few of Lane’s tribulations to buck up.
10:05:11 AM 
|
|
