A decade ago, Michele and I flew to Germany to visit Jim’s family. The visit was great, but that’s a different story. After an umpteen hour overnight flight from Houston, we had an eleven hour layover at Heathrow Airport in England. Even as we made the reservation, that seemed like it would be long enough to drive us insane if we stayed in the airport, and just enough time to get out of the airport and back with a safe margin.
The musician to whom we owe our first date and wedding first-dance, has a lovely song called “Paris in a Day”, and I’ll trust you to figure out what it’s about. Dared to be brave by our favorite musician, and too tired to sleep, we took our first steps in Europe onto a shuttle train running into town, attempting to jam as much of a city founded by the Roman Empire into our souls before teatime.
We arrived above ground at Baker St station, but didn’t search too hard for the famous detective. We marveled at the crazy zig-zag traffic lines, and mused on whether finding a bike-share would lead to greater site-seeing or merely a quick death. It was late September, and as is our perpetual good fortune, we experienced unusually perfect weather at our destination. By the time we found Hyde Park, the sun was bright enough that the locals were sunning on blankets, pulling their pant legs up to warm their pasty shins. Strolling south through the park towards Buckingham Palace consumed an hour but filled us with buoyancy after a long night in a tin can. The pictures we have reveal us shedding layers of clothing and emotional armor as we get our traveling groove in our first “foreign country” as a couple. Michele found a London Phone box. I imposed upon a police officer for the requisite tourist photo with a funny helmet. I had the unreasonable goal of getting all the way to Westminster Abbey so I kept us marching away from the giant gates towards landmarks on the horizon.
We raced past the Horse Guards, but I’m going to go ahead and say we would have lingered if I’d realized at the time it was the home of His Royal Excellence Lord Edgar Darby Covington from Parks and Rec. So much history we missed. For the period of my life that includes this trip, I had an ironic tourism habit of taking pictures of the backs of statues. I thought it funny at the time, but I can’t really defend or recommend it anymore. Maybe I started the habit on a darier. Anyway, for reasons no longer relevant, when we reached Trafalgar Square, with lions and more sunbathers on the stairs of the Museum looking on, I took a picture of Lord Nelson where the sun doesn’t shine.
Knowing we were at the mercy of the train schedule, and the customs and security at the airport, we made our way to Charing Cross station, without browsing the bookshops, which is for the best, as my favorite, the fictional 84 Charing Cross Road (watch the movie) appears to be a vape shop. We made it back to Heathrow without drama, and had airport sushi, while Emma Watson encouraged us to buy Burberry coats.
The entire day was a folly, and if semi-angry shame-posts come in the replies, I wouldn’t defend myself. We “squandered” London, from one perspective. We were more enthralled looking out for Warren’s Werewolves than St. Paul’s Cathedral. It wasn’t the real London we saw, but a painted background of the city. It was an imagination of the two of us. It was the real us though. Our vacation became more concrete the more streets we touched down upon. We were waking up to our trip, growing more solid as a couple. Finding a rhythm where we centered each other. We tore through that city like a tornado that day: spinning around our own axis. Less property damage though. We rejoined the clouds and headed east towards family.