An English Odyssey Part Two: The Benefits of Jet Lag, Winning the Health Lottery, Discovering the Reality of English Tea, and Learning Unvarnished London History
Jet lag is a heck of a thing. A time-tested international traveler sleep aide since the first earthly wanderers managed to travel far enough quickly that their wanderings took hours instead of days, it really gets the job done sleeping-wise.
We woke around 6:30 am, London time, feeling exceptionally well rested after the sandman had collected his due.
I won the health lottery, and my body perfectly imitated a vital, robust, healthy 36-year-old man’s body. My parents were not so lucky.
Our miles-long hike the day before had claimed some casualties. My dad’s foot was on strike, demanding fewer hours, but it didn’t care about wages. My mom’s back, ornery before our walk, demanded that she wear a back brace, or it would continuously scream its frustrations at her.
Unfortunately, said back brace had become an unintentional gift for whoever claimed it after we vacated our aircraft.
We started our day with a great breakfast. The hotel restaurant was just as breathtaking as the day before. Surrounded by luxurious decor that looked like something from the Detroit Institute of Art’s (DIA) 18th-century furniture collection, I had the best tea I’ve ever had.
I’ve been a tea drinker way before I was a slave to the Java bean beverage of the gods. My gateway tea was the plain workhorse of Lipton regular tea with a lot of sugar. My tea tastes have matured since those early Lipton days of yesteryear.
Fostered by a large bounty of tea varieties in my parents’ cupboards, independent tea research missions through my grocery store adventures, and the allowed plundering of friend’s cupboards for new flavors, I thought I’d discovered the pinnacles of tea perfection. It just goes to show you how travel broadens the mind and expands one’s definition of “perfection.”
Drinking the tea at this restaurant was like being reintroduced to what “tea” really is. The scales fell from my eyes, and I realized that the stereotype of Americans not knowing how to make tea may have been proven solely by the existence of the ambrosia hot beverage that had just passed through my lips.
My waffle was pretty good, too. It tasted like cake. In fact, I noticed that most bakery items I had for breakfast in London tasted more like dessert than any baked goods I’d experienced at home. Truly, this country is a sweet tooth’s paradise.
London decided to show off for us. The skies were cloudy, but they also peeked through with blue and sun. The temperature was in the Goldilocks zone. It felt like it was in the low 70s (Fahrenheit), and a slight breeze made it feel like the rare, perfect Michigan spring day we sometimes experienced at home. We spent most of the day doing a hop-on, hop-off bus tour.
The street was packed with tourists from all over the world. As a disciple of the language-learning app Duolingo, I tried to test my Spanish and German-speaking knowledge. I quickly accepted that I still had a long way to go in my language-learning education. Our bus came relatively quickly. A double-decker brownish bus with an open top looked like most other city tour buses I’d experienced in the U.S. (aside from the steering wheel being on the right side of the bus).
Gifted with free headphones that could connect to an audio speaker that explained the history of the city that blurred past us, we learned a fair amount about the different districts that make up London. For example, the borough of the city of London (different from the overall London) within London has its own mayor.
Craving to experience all of London’s transportation system, we took the bus toward the Thames and hopped in a boat to tour the city from the water. The tour was facilitated by our outstanding captain, who, in addition to spilling out some genuinely fascinating details about local architecture, like London’s famous Ferris Wheel known as “The Eye” (which moves so slowly that it takes an hour to ride one time), spit out “dad” jokes like an old touring pro.
Hunger bearing its sharp fangs into our bellies, we departed our nautical adventure craft in search of sustenance.
Being sometimes a simple soul, or at least someone who derives pleasure from the simplest things in life, I found the fact that there is a well-known place with the same name as one of my best friends very funny. Thus, pictures were sent to said friend and another friend who felt the same way. The food was delicious, and I very heartily recommend the chips.
There are places in my life where I’ve felt an “energy.” This energy at these places has felt like standing on a boat in turbulent waters. I always feel this energy in locales where bad things have happened. The Tower of London is one such destination.
It felt like stepping back through a portal in time. We stepped through the castle’s main gates, walking over very cobbled stones (poor dad and his foot, poor mom and her back) into a world centuries gone. Our guide was dressed in 16th-century Royal Guard garb that Henry the Eighth would have seen daily.
Our “Royal Guard” described the entire, unvarnished history of the infamous complex. The worst and most tragic tale was not a famous one known worldwide. It was about an innocent 15-year-old kid executed for what were essentially political reasons.
A common theme of many of our tours that described such tragic stories was for the tour guides to be wholly truthful about Great Britain’s past sins and to acknowledge how much work needs to be done to right the wrongs of the present and the past.
The Crown Jewels exhibit was something to behold. Again, like at Buckingham Palace, the riches on display provoked a mixed reaction in me. On the one hand, everything was beautiful, and I’d never seen such extraordinary treasures. The “Treasure Island” part of me got real big eyes. On the other hand, I know how these treasures were acquired.
To the exhibiters' credit, the museum was very transparent about where the Jewels originally came from and how they were acquired. However, it felt a bit like when we in the U.S. acknowledge the horrors of slavery and racism but frame it like it’s something that happened in the past that has no relevance in the present.
Wearily, accidentally hopping back on the wrong line of our bus, we took the scenic route back. It was one of those mistakes you regret at the moment but appreciate later. We truly got to experience a much more significant portion of the city than we would have otherwise. It felt like we got a small peek at the “real” London.
The ride back was sans tour speaker (many of the speakers we tried to plug into were broken) for much of the trip. I mostly people watched and snapped passing pictures of various buildings and streets.
The city felt like a plant that had been planted hundreds of years ago and grown organically. There wasn’t a real planned-out vibe for much of the place. It felt like things had been built when they needed to be built without genuine concern for how one neighborhood would fit in with the next. Not a cookie-cutter home or building was in site.
Finally, we arrived back where we started. Exhausted, we made our way to a local chain restaurant called Itsu and feasted on noodles, kombucha, and a strange, vaguely gelatin dessert that was very delicious.
This day had a rich quality. It was like a finely made, small, decadent piece of fudge. We had made the most of our day despite the challenges. Once again, our bodies and minds were fully taxed, and we collectively collapsed into dreamland.
