London, Hands Down

25 November 2014

Yesterday, with plans to meet friends for dinner in Oxford, we took the train to London so that we could ensure we'd be back in time.  The train ride was faster than the bus, taking less than an hour to Paddington station.

I used the pretext of visiting a couple of open-air Christmas markets as the excuse to wander about the city.

First we went to Southwark, a pocket of new buildings across the Thames from Parliament.  This is where the London Eye is.  We had no desire to stand in line for a ride in the Ferris wheel, mainly because it's a massive tourist trap.  Instead we went into the Christmas market there.  We didn't see much, but the first stall we found had a large selection of wooden moose.  Jack bought a small one with spots.   I wavered, then picked up a bracelet from Shrieking Violet.  I might keep it; I might make it a present for someone.  There were more than a few mulled wine stalls, and one that was cooking goose burgers.

This is the view of Whitehall from the South Bank Centre.

We took the tube up to Mayfair, where friends had recommended a restaurant, and then walked to Hyde Park to find the Christmas market embedded within Winter Wonderland.

We knew there'd be amusement park rides, but neither of us was expecting the visual assault that lay before us. This was a combination of American county fair and the New Jersey boardwalk, with a European twist.

Here, one could win a moose-like reindeer (no, we did not try):

It was disappointing to see another Shrieking Violet stall, and another stall selling wooden moose.  This time I took pictures.

More rides:

A Germanic fun-house:

There was a Ferris wheel, that, unlike the London Eye, turns at a perceptible speed:

A moose guards the Ferris wheel:

Ferris wheel mechanations:

The entrance, at about 4:00 p.m., almost sunset.

As we left the chaos, I said to Jack, "That was more fun than it should have been."  I'm not one for fairs and crowds, or even for shopping.  But I was enjoying walking around, looking at everything, and just moving. There's only so much of that we've been able to do in Oxford without retracing the same steps we've taken over and over and over again.  I know that, when I get back to New Jersey, people are going to ask me if I like London or Oxford better. The answer is London, hands down.

A man amid a sea of pigeons at Marble Arch:

 (He was feeding them.)

We walked over to Marylebone, where we'd stayed last year, so that we could visit Mederic at the wine shop called Nicolas. When we walked in, Mederic recognized Jack immediately.  He brought out some open bottles from the back of the store.  Of the four wines, I tried three and even liked (which is to say, had more than one sip of) two of them.  So now there are two German grapes I'm not leery of.

St Christopher Street, near Oxford Street:

This is how the English do candy:

I sampled (and bought) sour lemon drops so strong that I think I stripped the enamel off my teeth and tanned the roof of my mouth. This is the candy to eat if one wants to stop eating for the rest of the day.

We got to Paddington train station before 6:00 p.m., with plenty of time to get home for our 7:30 dinner plans. What we hadn't taken into account, however, was that our off-peak tickets put us on a train that would take an hour and a half to get to Oxford, and we had to wait half an hour for it.  We could have upgraded our tickets to a faster train, but it would have cost us nearly $45 apiece to do it.  Instead we texted our friends and pushed the meeting time back by half an hour.

It was something past 10:30 p.m. when we left the restaurant.  A thick fog had descended on Oxford, which has been happening almost every night here.

I was thinking about walking some more along the canal tomorrow, going north this time, if the weather would permit it.  Our friends suggested we walk at Port Meadow, so I put that on my down-to-nothing list of things to do in Oxford.

At the moment we're stuck inside again.  The forecast of "mostly cloudy, a little rain" is now mostly rain.  I guess we'll try for the walk tomorrow or Thursday.