Thursday, May 01, 2008

letting the cables sleep

I have arrived in London! And I have proven that business class was not designed with 5'0" girls in mind -- maybe I should start a class action. Even after takeoff, there were only a couuple of positions in which I could put my footrest so that I could rest my feet, and I didn't sleep much because the ultrafancy reclinn function made me uncomfortable. But I got food on real china, and cloth napkins, and wine in a glass rather than warm tap water in a plastic cup, so all in all it was a great time. I also spent a lot of time in conversation with the woman sitting next to me, which I usuallyy avoid, but I'm trying to practice so that I am ready for whatever happens on the bus tour.

So I got to London with minimal drama, bought my Underground pass, found my hotel, took a fast shower and unpacked a bit, and then went to Aspley House. It is the former home of the Duke of Wellington, who was one of the foremost English heroes of any era after defeating Napoleon (both before Elba, and after his escape which culminated in Wellington's victory at the Battle of Waterloo). Waterloo happened in 1815, smack in the middle of the Regency period, and the Napoleonic Wars had a tremendous effect on England. Even better (for me), the house has lots of lovely reconstructed wall hangings and rugs, as well as the massive portraits and paintings that Wellington decorated his house with. Apparently the custom for royalty back then was to send you a life-size portrait of themselves if you did something noteworthy, which is why he had to find a place for eight gigantic portraits of the kings who ruled the Allied countries during the Napoleonic Wars. If I follow that tradition, do you think Chris and Connie would appreciate an oil painting of me for their wedding?

The most amazing thing in the house, though, was this silver table centerpiece commissioned by the Portuguese in honor of Wellington's victory at Waterloo. It was part of a complete dinner service of more than 1000 pieces, and the centerpiece ran down the length of a dining room table that could easily seat thirty people. It commemorated all of his major battles, had a bunch of dancing nymphs that could be linked by garlands of live flowers, and the center contained a globe, supported by four figures representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, with a Victory figure standing on the Iberian Peninsula (key to the earlier victories in the wars). The craftwork was stunning, and the amount of stuff that Wellington ended up with (most nations gave him a full dinner service in addition to portraits of their monarchs, titles, swords, field marshal batons, artwork, ribbons/medals/orders, etc.) was overwhelming. While Apsley House is probably a second- or third-tier London attraction (and rather expensive given that it can be easily seen in an hour), it was worth it for me just to see the interior of a Regency-period home, with the connecting drawing rooms, the mirrord gallery, etc.

Aspley House is at the entrance of Hyde Park, so I went for a bit of a walk through the park after finishing up. For those of you who read Regency romances, you know that Hyde Park was one of the main places to see and be seen -- people used to ride up and down an area called Rotten Row, or park their carriages and gossip with each other. Rotten Row still exists, preserved for horse-riding even though there are v. few horses left in London. I also had tea in a cafe overlooking the Serpentine -- it's a lake in the middle of the park, also typically mentioned in romance novels, and I was surprised at how large it was. 'Serpentine' made think long, thin, and wiggly, but it's actually rather wide and rectangularish. I'll post pics sometime soon, but I'm blogging this on the tv in my room (which is why there are some weird spacebar issues).

After that, I came back to my hotel. It's in a great location - 2mins' walk from the tube, a Boots pharmacy (where I got a couple of things I forgot), and a Marks&Spencer (where I got a sandwich, teabags, milk, sugar, and cereal). Now it's 8:15pm -- I'm going to try to stay up until at least 9:30 and figure out what I'm doing tomorrow before going to bed.

Finally, happy birthday John! And I hope the rest of you are also having lovely days.

No comments: