London

The two full days I spent in London were a whirlwind of activity.  The first day I toured the Churchill Wartime Bunkers beneath Britain's Treasury Department, rode in one of the fabled Black Taxis in London, ate lunch at a teeming outdoor market, visited historic Trafalgar Square, took High Tea at the Portrait Gallery and went to see the production of Company starring Patti LuPone at the West End that evening.

Things didn't slow down the second day.  I took a long walk along the Thames to go see all the statues around Parliament Square, visited the Supreme Court building and passed by Big Ben, had lunch at the Temple Gardens Hall, toured the replica Globe Theater, saw an all-female-of-color production of Richard the Secondhand walked by St. Paul's Cathedral when it was all lit up.

This was an exhausting pace but well worthwhile for the limited time we were in London.  There is so much history there, I saw pockmarks from a bomb dropped by a German zeppelin in World War I, a statue commemorating heroic first-responders during the London Blitz, the aforementioned Globe Theatre recreation, Parliament, the Thames and more.

The next morning we got up early to take a 6:30 a.m. chunnel train the Paris, and oddly, we had to show our passport to leave London.  Whenever the Uber driver made a turn or crossed over a street I always felt panic because at first glance it seemed he was driving down the opposing lane with oncoming traffic due to the insane way that British drivers drive from the wrong side of the car.

Over There.

A few pictures from my recent (and first) trip overseas, to England and France.  (The killing ground on Omaha Beach in Normandy.)

Oxford was a very picturesque English town, an hour north of London.  (Having a draft at a pub on my first night in Oxford with my running buddy from last decade, Bex.)

London is a great city, with a lot of history in it.  (Trafalgar Square.)

Paris is Paris.  (An American tourist in the City of Lights.)

Europe at last

I was a history major at the university, and I primarily read history now.  I force myself to read literature occasionally, although once I get into a great book, I can love it.  Like reading Great Expectations recently (apparently I didn't read it in ninth grade, although we spent a whole semester on it), the first 100 pages were bewildering, the last 400 pages were pure pleasure.

Coincidentally, this year I read a book on D-Day after finishing a book on the Second World War in Europe.  Then I got a call from my friend Eric, the husband of my first and best running buddy, Rhea.  He said, "Rhea and I are going to England for my Oxford reunion and then to France to go on a personally guided tour of the D-Day beaches, and Rhea insisted that I call you to invite you to join us."  Rhea and I used to take long runs on the Mall and the trails in Northern Virginia and talk about battles, before she and Eric moved back to California a decade ago.  Yeah, that's the way she is, and me too, I guess.

So I went with them, to Oxford and London and then to Normandy to visit the D-Day beaches and then to Paris.  They both have long known that I have never been outside of North America and this has always mystified them.  They were excellent traveling companions and the perfect travelogue hosts.

I spent twelve days in England and France, flying to London to meet them and flying home from Paris after spending the last two days there alone.  Oxford was charming and London was terrific, touring the D-Day beaches on this 75th anniversary of the battles in Normandy was memorable and providentially I toured Notre Dame barely two weeks before it burned so catastrophically.  I liked spending time on each of the five D-Day beaches the best, and the impressions of the days I spent in Paris are steadily growing in my memory.  I came back just in time, with a bad cold, for my fourth and hopefully last eye surgery; after being shown the wonders of Gay Paree, I suppose it's a wonder I ever came back.