Because It's There: The Experience - Day 2 - London 2012

11/20/16, “London 2012”

London, England, United Kingdom

I’m home.  This moment right here, right now, sitting inside the London Stadium was the main reason why I came to London.  Being able to finally sit inside this Stadium and write this entry was worth every pound and pence I spent in getting here.  The third time’s the charm, apparently.  Prior to today, on two separate trips, I failed in my attempt to visit this Stadium.  The first time, January 2014, it was closed off due to the renovations, and I was struck with a devastating failure that ruined my time in Canterbury.  By June 2016, the Stadium was still not yet opened to the public.  Well, now, here I am.

The Games of the XXX had 302 Gold Medal events.  Of those 302 events, I watched 301 of them live, using as many six windows on four devices at various points.  The one event that I missed?  Well, that was, if I recall correctly, the women’s 75kg Taekwondo bout.  I was so caught up in celebrating Kerri WALSH-JENNINGS and Misty MAY-TREANOR celebrating their third consecutive Olympic championship in Beach Volleyball that I had forgotten about the Taekwondo bout.  I remembered, only to turn it on just after the woman had won.  I rewound to watch the winning point, but it was not the same.

None of that matters now.  All that matters is that I’m here, that I’m home.  Next month, I will visit the remaining two Stadiums in Australia to close out this quest, and that will be a time for celebration.  Seoul 1988, Athens 2004, Athens 1896, Rio 2016, Rome 1960, and, now London 2012.  Those are the Stadiums I have visited this year.  Each one was special, as will be the two I visit in Australia next month.  The next 30 or so hours will take me to the remaining World Heritage Sites on the island of Great Britain, but, for now, I will savor this moment as I recount the events of this morning.

After I closed last night, I soon went to sleep, waking up to my alarm relatively early.  My plan was to go to Pret a Manger, then walk to Westminster Palace and back, then go to the Stadium.  Well, Pret didn’t open until 8 AM, something I should have checked before setting my alarm for 6:47 AM.  I killed some time in getting ready and was at Pret right at 8 AM.  It brought back so many good memories.  After getting priced out of eating breakfast at The Savoy every morning during our 2000 trip, my father and I would make the exact same trek I made this morning, out the front door of The Savoy and around the bend to Pret.  There, we would pick up breakfast for ourselves, my mother, and my brother.  I remember being particular fond getting Frosted Flakes with milk.  They did not have that now.  Instead, I got a yogurt parfait and a cold bacon and egg sandwich, along with some breakfast tea.  It was okay, but the memory was made it special.

From there, I walked towards Westminster Palace, lighting up a Montecristo for the walk.  Eventually, I found the spot where the inscription photo was taken and took my ceremonial picture.  I headed back to the hotel directly, stopping only to get some souvenirs.  As I was walking, I noted that Google Maps said I was on Whitehall.  That sounded familiar.  Hmm.

I looked up and then I saw it: “CABINET WAR ROOMS”.  Oh, right.  New York, Los Angeles, and London share unique quality.  The streets and neighborhoods in those three cities are world-famous, something that cannot be said of any other cities in the world.  Try naming a single street or neighborhood in Chicago or Beijing.  People around the world know Broadway and Wall Street and Times Square, Rodeo Drive and Sunset Boulevard and Studio City, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus and West End.  That cannot be said of anywhere else.

After I got back to my car, I drove to the Olympic Park and was able to leave my car much closer to the Stadium than I had anticipated.  I walked to the Stadium and was soon inside.  They wanted to give me an audio guide, but I didn’t need it.  I didn’t anything other than to know how to get to this spot.  I had lived through this.  What would I learn that I didn’t already know?  I was home.  A few minutes later, I got to the seats.  After I made my way to the first row, then came the waterworks.  I was so home.  I took my ceremonial pictures, then sat down and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can make my way up to the North.

Liverpool, England, United Kingdom

I have driven 900 miles over the past two days, and I am exhausted.  Tomorrow will provide no relief, either, as it will even crazier than the past two.  I am now at Albert Dock in the heart of Liverpool, smoking my 2007 Christmas Pipe under very similar circumstances to which I smoked this exact same pipe in Budapest 3 years ago.  That cold December day in 2013, I went to Winter Stadium (Sarajevo 1984), went to one World Heritage Site, then raced to get to a bridge by dusk, which was another World Heritage Site, then had a 8-hour drive through Serbia to get to my hotel in Budapest, another World Heritage Site.

Today played out much the same way, though the drive to Liverpool was considerably easier than that brutal drive to Budapest.  This pipe, the one I am now smoking has seen some good times.  Besides Budapest, on the other Christmas trips, I smoked it in Ottawa and Beijing and, of course, the first night of my Antarctica cruise.  It has also seen some less glamourous locations, such as Greenbelt, Maryland.  I think Liverpool falls in between.  While the drive was brutal, it was not as bad as yesterday, and I’ve certainly done worse for less in the past.

Actually, though, this has been the first one of these trips I have done solo in quite some time.  I actually can’t remember the last one I did for more than just a 2-day weekend with these 8-hour drives racing from place to place.  The closest I can remember is Costa Rica in 2015, but that was only one site per day.  I had forgotten how brutal these trips were.  Fortunately, tomorrow will be the last day, and I will get to say “England Complete” tomorrow.

After I closed at the Stadium, I realized that I was on an extremely tight schedule, and I needed gas and lunch.  I knew that I would be very fortunate to get to the second WHS by dusk.  While I could still count the WHS after dusk, that is the latest I can take a ceremonial picture.  In other words, I could light up the cigar and hold up the printout, but the picture would come out too dark.  I stopped for gas and Burger King, lamenting that I had had McDonald’s yesterday instead of today, the Olympic Day, but the food was fine.  I gassed up and got some chips for the car, too.

When I went to get back on the motorway, I missed my exit at the roundabout.  The whole process, including the 6-minute detour, food, and gas, cost me 40 minutes.  I did not have 40 minutes.  I knew that I would need to make up that time on the road.  That was doable.  Well, I could make up half of it, and the other half would make up my Dutch Time.  My reader should understand something about driving in Britain.  On a proper motorway with good circulation, the speed limit could be 70 mph, but, if you’re driving in the far right lane at 90 mph, people will tailgate you.  I broke 100 at one point, and I could not keep up with the car in front of me.  I lit up an Aroma de Cuba and was on my way, following it with a Gurkha.

I easily made up about 20 minutes by the time I got to Belper.  The name of this WHS was “Derwent Valley Mills”, but the inscription photo was of a castle, not a mill.  I chose to find a mill, and they had one called Strutt’s North Mill in Belper.  That seemed to be the most famous of the mills.  The guide at the VC was very understanding of my desire to take a picture and leave, so that is exactly what I did.  Both of the sites from this afternoon related to the Industrial Revolution.  This site consisted mills associated with the textile industry.  I lit up a Romeo y Julieta and took my ceremonial picture before getting to the car.

Sunset was 4:09 PM in Ironbridge, my next site, which meant I counted dusk at 4:39 PM.  It would be very tight to get there in time, and I needed a hard arrival at the photo spot of 4:39 PM, not a soft arrival at the parking spot.  It would be very tight.  It was about 4:35 PM by the time I reached the river, and I had my GPS for the bridge itself.  This was Bosnia all over again.  Well, reader, here’s what happened, and I only figured all of this out later.  The bridge was to the left when I reached the river, but my GPS was having my drive very far to the left, take another bridge, then loop around.  It would be dark if I did that.  Well, the access to the bridge was from the north side of the river, but I didn’t care about that.  I just cared about taking a picture OF the bridge.  If I had realized what was going on, I could have parked in front of the bridge and taken my picture right at dusk.

Instead, I followed the GPS and parked wherever I was at 4:39 PM.  The site was inscribed as “Ironbridge Gorge”, not “The Iron Bridge of Ironbridge”.  Where I stopped at 4:39 PM afforded a perfectly good photo of the gorge.  For various reasons, Ironbridge was considered the most iconic cultural landscape representation of the Industrial Revolution.  I lit up a Partagas and took a (barely) usable ceremonial picture.  It worked, just not well, it already being slightly past dusk and getting on to night.  I then walked with my cigar to the bridge.  There was a souvenir shop that was just closing and had a keychain for me.  I walked across the bridge and then back to the car.  From there, it was straight to Liverpool, and I had a Carlos Torano for the drive.

When I got to Liverpool, that was when the fun began.  First, I had trouble finding my hotel.  Second, it was now approaching 8 PM, and I was on the belief that the souvenir shops would close at 8 PM (familiar theme, isn’t it).  I left my car outside the hotel and was told that they did not have valet parking.  I would need to self-park.  The hotel is actually the old offices of the White Star Line (as in the company that shipped The Titanic), and the whole hotel was done up like a ship.  There was also some kind of party going on, and I saw four girls in full party attire.

After I tried to check in and learned I needed to park my car, I went down and saw the four girls.  “Can you take us to [unintelligible]?”  Did I look like a taxi driver?  I asked what they meant.  “Is that your car?”  “Yes.”  They repeated their original question.  “Okay, but you’ll have to guide me.  The five of us got in, and, the car very heavily smelled of perfume.  I took them where they needed to go, and then went to park my car.  The night only got weirder after that.

I relaxed in my room for a bit before heading out to Albert Dock.  That was where I had dropped off the girls, and apparently it was the place to be, until 9 PM at least.  It was almost 9 PM, and most places were already closed.  The souvenir shop that was supposed to be opened until 9 PM was non-existent, and restaurant situation was a disaster.  I prepared to give up, but, as I was walking, I saw a souvenir shop that was still open.  I got my keychain and some pins and then went in search of food.  Well to make a long story short, most places closed at 9 PM, but, by the time I settled on a place, it was just after 9 PM.  Fuck.

The only place that was still open had more American fare than British, but it would work.  I got an Old Speckled Hen Ale, a cheese and mushroom bake (without the mushrooms, since they were out of them now), and a steak with onion rings and fries.  It was all quite good, and I smartly used the leftover cheese bake as a sauce for my steak.  After dinner, I headed to the dock, where I sat at the approximate spot of the inscription photo, though development has severely changed the vista, to the point where its status as WHS is literally “in danger” according to UNESCO.  I then proceeded to light up my 2007 Christmas Pipe and write this entry.

As I was writing, two odd incidents happened.  The first, a woman with her boyfriend came up to me, and she asked if wanted a selfie.  To me, that means, do I want her to sit next to me, as I take a picture of the two of us on her phone.  I asked her if that was what she meant.  No, she wanted me to take a picture of her and boyfriend, on my phone.  They stood by the water, and I took out my phone and snapped their picture.  She then thanked me and asked if I needed any money for my services.  I was too confused to ask for a few quid.  Reader, think what just happened.  She wanted me to take a picture of her and her boyfriend without me in it.  She called it a “selfie”.  She did not ask me to send her the picture.  She offered me money for all of this.

Almost immediately thereafter, two other girls walked up to me, and one asked if I wanted to take a selfie.  Again?  Is this like a thing here?  I asked if she wanted me to take a picture of the two of them on my phone?  No, she wanted to take a picture with me on her phone.  She sat down next to me, and took a traditional selfie.  Okay, then.  It’s been a weird night and tomorrow promises to be another brutal day.  My pipe is almost done, so I will close on that note.