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London: Days Three and Four

Checking out colleges for junior year abroad and shop till your drop

By: Mark Favermann - 01/16/2007

    On just about every previous trip to England or Europe, I had some sort of quest, a serious mission, even something of a heroic task. In a medieval way, these mandates were to find someplace special, to see the rare or unusual and to buy something not found in America. However, on this trip my daughter had the mission. She was looking at possible London colleges for fall semester of her junior year.

    On just about every previous trip to England or Europe, I had some sort of quest, a serious mission, even something of a heroic task. In a medieval way, these mandates were to find someplace special, to see the rare or unusual and to buy something not found in America. However, on this trip my daughter had the mission. She was looking at possible London colleges for fall semester of her junior year.

    As an economics concentrator at Harvard, The London School of Economics (LSE) would be the ideal choice. Unfortunately, LSE required a full year in residence. It is part of the University of London that is made up of a number of colleges with campuses in and around the city. She was interested in looking at University College London because this was on the approved list, and it allowed one semester's residence. So her quest was to visit the campus, environment and surrounding neighborhood to see if that would be a good choice.

    Another option was to take a trip to Oxford by train, but due to the weather, we decided to travel around London and let her shop until I dropped. A positive note was that my legs had gotten a little better, but potentially agony could set in at any point. On this day, we woke up to a more traditional London sky—dark grey, cloudy and rainy. Strangely, this was the first day of our visit that was not at least partially sunny. Like Boston, the weather had been surprisingly mild for late December. After breakfast, we again walked to Temple station.

     After buying our day passes (about $9 each), making the usual train transfers and long marches from the District Line to the Northern Line, eventually we arrived at Euston Station. We walked what seemed like about a mile in the underground and eventually got to the main station. With open umbrellas, we ventured into the rain and started to look for Gower Street.

    Walking down a couple of mega-blocks on Euston Road, we asked a bearded fellow for Gower Street and he pointed across a major road barrier indicating it was on the other side of the main street. We crossed over and walked up to the closed university buildings. Continuing down Gower Street and finding the Victorian urban campus buildings quite different than anything that we had seen (clearly these were not Boston University or Northeastern structures), we happened on an actual campus courtyard. We stopped at the guard office and asked if we could walk in. The guards politely allowed us admittance.

      As we entered, I noticed something very interesting: The Slade School of Art was part of University College. The Slade School has graduated a number of prominent artists including the rare 1920's-30's female artist/designer Eileen Gray, the very British artist Augustus John, abstract master Ben Nicholson, super realist Richard Hamilton, sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi, painter Stanley Spencer as well as recent Turner Prize winners sculptor Anthony Gormley (1994), conceptual artist Martin Creed (2001), and installation artist/sculptor Rachel Whiteread (1993). Art is often where you are not looking for it.

    On Gower Street the university bookstore was a Waterstone's. As an Anglophile who loves English mysteries, it is always a treat to find British authors' work published earlier than their American editions. So, I searched for a couple of my favorite authors—John Mortimer and Frances Fyfield. There was a new "Rumpole of the Bailey"   by Mortimer and a couple of Fyfield's psychological thrillers that I had never seen before. However,  I cringed at the prices. At $1.95 to the pound, the books were nearly forty bucks apiece. I would wait until they came out in the States. On the positive side, I got to see some books that were coming out later in the US, and Waterstone's was a pleasant place to get a little dry.

    My daughter, Evan, had never ridden on a red double-decker bus. Though the old fashioned model has been substituted for new models, we still got severely jostled as we climbed to the second deck. As our tube passes were accepted on buses as well, we didn't have to think about paying. This was a good thing in the cascading rain. On the whole, our experiences with bus drivers and transit personnel was totally positive. The driver on our first bus ride through London made sure that we knew where to get off for Convent Garden.

    Covent Garden is similar to Boston's Faneuil Hall Market in age, architecture and use, but with one major difference—Convent Garden is a major retail area of London with close-by cultural institutions such as the Royal Opera and various theatres instead of just a shopping center. Entertainment seemed to be on a higher level the day we visited as there was a wonderful string quartet. The usual jugglers and living statues were also around. I loved the quartet.

    After visiting a few shops, Evan wanted to spread her retail wings and start marching in and out of stores unfamiliar in the US. We strolled down Neal Street heading for Neal's Yard, formerly a dairy and bakery area that was converted into a colorful post-punk environment set at the back of large buildings filled with small boutiques, shops, restaurants and cafes.

    We stopped at a pasta and pizza restaurant for lunch. The restaurant only took cash, but cleverly had an ATM in line with the tables to take care of poundless visitors like us. The salad and pizza were quite fine, and the bill with desert was under $30.

    We walked toward Cambridge Circus and eventually got to Piccadilly Circus. It had been a long way to Piccadilly, but once there, we saw the electronic billboards, the statue of Eros and  heavy traffic congestion. We carefully wound our way to narrow Jermyn Street, where, during the 1980's, it was almost affordable to buy gentlemen's clothing in its many shops, but now not so. A few blocks away is Saville Row, where gentlemen buy suits that are bespoke or handmade. I wanted my daughter to see Paxton & Whitfield's, an elegant cheese shop that Charles Dickens frequented that has a strong cheesey bouquet that entices the nose as you enter.

    Across Jermyn Street was Fortnum and Mason's, the Queen's grocery. It has been around since the early 18^th Century. These old boys sent packages and food baskets to soldiers during the Crimean War. If they were lucky, the Light Brigade got to nibble on treats before dashing into the valley of death. A server offered us the Scottish delicacy haggis to taste, but we respectfully declined. The other meats were presented in the most beautiful way as were cheeses and pastries.

     As she wanted to continue to shop and look for the newest technomusic CD's for friends, we decided to separate and meet back at the hotel later to go to dinner. We had taken father and daughter togetherness about as far as it can go, and both felt each needed a little personal time. Anyway, my feet were starting to hurt again. I thought that she would like to explore London, at least the West End, on her own, and I had a small quest of my own.

     My mission was to find and if possible purchase a Shepherd's Hotel Art Deco Poster from Cairo that I once saw a picture of in a book. Shepherd's Hotel was a famous westernized hotel that was first built in 1814 and over the years hosted emperors, kings and queens.  The original structure had burned down during the rebellion against King Farouk in 1952. However, due to an interest in Art Deco and my wonderful trip to Egypt in 2004, I wanted, no I coveted the poster. However, to my surprise, after several enquiries and walking around St. Martin's Lane (a wonderful short street full of theatrical charm and shops), I discovered that there no longer existed any vintage poster shops in all of the West End! I am sure that dealers exist in England, but this quest ended empty-handed.

    I was pleased to find a current copy of Britain's Blueprint Magazine (one of the best architecture and design magazines in the world). I wrote a few articles for it several years ago. I walked down to the Strand and stopped at the Tesco's Express, a medium sized grocery store and bought a bottle of Sprite, bottled water and some chocolate chip cookies for my daughter. Prices at this store and the small Sainsbury's Market were the best for incidentals and treats-half of what they were in the hotel mini bar. Chocolates were almost reasonable there as well.

     Eventually, I hobbled back to the room since my feet and legs  hurt. And I lay down on my bed to watch nonsense television for the next couple of hours. I also read my magazine and the Herald Tribune. I must have dozed off as my daughter awakened me about 5:30 PM. She had traipsed all over and was quite tired. Unlike me, she had a quality art experience. She had discovered quite close by to our hotel Somerset House and had stopped at the Tiffany Exhibit there.

    Located at Somerset House with its ice skating rink and fountain, the Courtauld Institute of Art is one of the world's leading institutes for teaching and research in the history of art and conservation. There is also the Gilbert Collection and the Hermitage Rooms. The Courtauld Institute houses an amazing collection of masterpieces, the Gilbert Collection has decorative arts and the Hermitage Rooms recreate in miniature the splendor of Russia's Winter Palace. The exhibit "Bejeweled by Tiffany (1837 to 1987)" was the most comprehensive Tiffany's exhibit ever shown. My daughter commented on the workmanship of the pieces as well as the size and sparkle of the gems.

    After a short rest, we freshened up and went to dinner at a surprisingly wonderful restaurant, Thai Square, which is part of a chain of ten restaurants. The Strand restaurant was the first and its  flagship. The food was excellent. This ranks as the best Thai restaurant on either side of the Atlantic. The chicken satay was extremely moist, and spiced just right and our main dishes were wonderful. We even shared a dessert that we completely gobbled up.

A very pretty. talkative waitress with a strangely American accent shared with us that she was actually Korean passing for Thai and studying fashion design at University College. She recommended to my daughter that she investigate King's College as well which was a few doors down from the restaurant and around the block from our hotel Dinner including starters and dessert ran less than $60.With full stomachs, smiles on our faces, and fatigued we staggered back to the hotel and watched TV until we  passed out.

    On Saturday morning, we ate an early breakfast as there were a couple more things to do before getting picked up for a return to Heathrow. It was another bright sunny day with warnings of rain for later. We went just two stops to visit Westminster Abbey. The throngs were already baring down on the cathedral so we arrived not a moment too soon at 10 AM. It was almost like an ecclesiastical Harrods's on sale day. After looking at a recumbent Elizabeth I, Evan and I ducked under a rope and scampered to Poet's Corner to read the plaques of Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Tennyson and their literary brothers. Soon, we left the cloistered areas and walked through the back of the cathedral complex.

    When we got around to the front, we saw the huge lines of people we had just missed. A few more pictures were taken, and we headed back to the tube stop. We got off at Embankment Station so we could walk down the Strand and look for chocolate to bring to Evan's friends. We visited Boots, the UK version of CVS, then to a Tesco's and a Sainsbury's Express. The two grocery stores had better selection and chocolate prices. She bought her gifts, and then we headed back to the hotel to finish packing and meet our driver to the airport.

     On the way back, Evan checked out King's College and took a few pictures. After we noticed that BBC International was across the street, we visited its shop. I noticed a beautiful highly decorated lamp post. This would almost never be seen in the States. We still have a lot to learn from the Brits.

      We were driven back to Heathrow in a new Mercedes, however, our driver spoke almost no English. He was Portuguese as well and the opposite of our earlier driver. The lines at Heathrow were huge. We quickly went to a self-help line. My daughter knew how to work it and saved perhaps 30 minutes or so before we got into the security line. That line took 45 minutes. Then there was about 15 minutes left to visit duty free shops. There was just enough time for Evan to buy a Burberry scarf.

    Thinking about our journey, with the pound so high ($1.95), I attempted to plan as cost-effective trip as possible. The travel and hotel were chosen from a Virgin Air Jaunt package. http://www.virgin-vacations.com/site_vv/pub_detail.asp-iDept-333-id-2614-k-752-nav-0 These can be done for between $629 and $1100 per individual depending upon the schedule and the quality of hotel chosen. None of our meals were fancy, but all were quite adequate and ranged between $28 and $60 for both of us.  Most museums are free. Special exhibits and some attractions run about $20 a piece. The all day transit passes were very helpful at $4.80 each. So going to London and doing a great deal was not terribly expensive. You need a plan, a lot of energy and tough legs.

    Evan and I agreed that we were ready to come back so we could get some rest.

  

    

 

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