Sunday, December 27 at 3 pm, Bryan and I taxi to JFK airport to begin our New Year’s Eve trip to London!  And we start off with great luck; we get two seats together and alone on the plane (British Airways flight #2172, a Boeing 767).  We board around 6 after drinks and snacks (the best thing about the airport for B is that there are smoking areas) and take off near 7 pm.

Monday, December 28 … because of airport laws in England, we cannot land until 6:02 am at Gatwick, which is what we do.  It’s an easy flight (although the movie is “The Parent Trap” and the food is especially lousy) and Bryan sleeps most of the way.

At 7:30 am, after training from the airport, we arrive at the home of Donald and Carol Mason.  He is the father of Bridget, one of the two women with whom we swap apartments.  They live in the Camberwell area of London.  He makes us a very good cup of coffee and we chat with Carol and him until he drives us to our “flat” around 9 am on the Old Kent Road in the Elephant and Castle area of London.   And contrary to what everyone tells you to do, we sleep all day until 6 pm.  I simply don’t agree with the concept of fly all night and tour all the next day!

Anyway, around 8 pm we go to our first pub, The World Turned Upside Down, just down the street from the flat and we have our first British pints of beer.  We’re back at the flat around 10 pm after a stop at Dixy Chicken; this will be our staple for the next week.  I watch a little of the video of “Ed Wood” while Bryan naps and then we really go to sleep to catch up.

Tuesday, December 29, we finally get up around 11 am and finally get out of the house around 1 pm.  Our first stop is to pick up week-long “Travelcards” which allow us to use the buses and trains around the London area without extra cost.

At 2 pm, we go into Piccadilly Square on bus #53 which will become our regular bus.  It goes right over the Westminster Bridge over the Thames and past Parliament and Big Ben. From the square, we walk into Soho and up Shaftesbury Avenue and Old Compton Street (the “gay” street).  There’s lots of stores in this area and lots of gay people although it’s not what some of us would consider a gay area although the locals do.  The area is bordered by Regent Street on the west, Charing Cross Road on the east and Oxford Street on the north.

At 3 pm, we stop in at the Edge (on the northern edge of Soho Square) which I see listed in Spartacus and have a drink and light snack (so-so).  Walking around the area, we decide to get tickets for the night’s performance of the revival of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband at the Lyric Theatre, now the oldest theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, having opened in 1888.

Then it’s drinks at Freedom on Wardour Street (it’s a coffee shop cum bar).  There’s a nice Italian bartender from near Bologna there so we have martinis with the M&R bianco that we’ve seen in Europe before.  But we never do find any Ketel One in England!  I find a big wool sweater for 20 quid (that’s slang for pounds) at an outdoor market; I’ll use it for the whole trip to ward off the damp.

Before the play, we have dinner at Amalfi on Old Comptom; it’s not very good.  Indeed, the spaghetti bolognese doesn’t have any tomatoes in the sauce!  Now, it looked like Swedish meatballs because of it but didn’t taste half as good!  Then a quick drink at Freedom again before the play starrring Simon Ward as Lord Goring and Susannah York as Mrs. Chevely.

Speaking of which, Lord Goring, essentially the lead, is a substitute for Wilde himself.  I really enjoy its timelessness and Wilde’s sense of morality.  Bryan sleeps through most of the first half, but that seems to be the general consensus of most the audience!  Our seats were not bad, towards the back of the orchestra and to the side; but the theatre is intimate so it wasn't a problem (see link for seating chart as well).  After the play, we bus back to Elephant and Castle, stopping for a nightcap at the same pub.  We’re both a little stressed after a very long day, so I suspect I got a little grouchy as Bryan just went downstairs a little after midnight and fell promptly asleep.  I followed soon after.

Wednesday, December 30, we’re up at 10 am to have coffee and bathe.  Then at noon it’s off to Piccadilly Square again and Wendy’s for lunch (now, just keep quite you!).  We get on a London Pride double-decker tour bus for a general over-view of the area, including passing by Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  I had imagined a much grander place on more area but it was neither.

We then switch to a more specific bus but it’s not very satisfactory and it’s getting cold so we jump off at Trafalgar Square and go into the Trocadero (essentially a tourist trap with game areas and souvenir shops).  I get a couple of white t-shirts (essentially my only souvenirs of the trip) while B picks up souvenirs.

Then it’s Freedom for a couple of drinks while we decide on dinner.  We decide on Chinese as Chinatown is right nearby; our choice is Luxuriance “Peking Cuisine” at 40 Gerrard Street.  Not very good; very fancy but the food is quite bland.  Looking for a mai tai, I wind up with a “mou tai” which is a very foul, strong liquor.  Then it’s drinks at the West End (a small gay bar around the corner) and then bus back to Old Kent Road and the pub.  After phone calls (to Bryan’s boss Michelle, check in on Rosebud at Danger and Susan’s – she’s very happy – and a chat with Matt and Paul, a gay couple in Brixton who are friends of Bridget and Jude’s), it’s bed by midnight.

Thursday, December 31, we’re up at 10 am when Donald Mason calls to invite us to dinner on Friday night.  By noon, we’re out of the flat and off to Brixton to meet Matt and Paul for lunch.  Their basement flat is very nice and they’re lots of fun. We walk into Brixton center, passing the Fridge (a famous gay disco) and the first electrified street in London (made famous in Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue”).

There’s lots of stores and shops and we eat great Italian-style pizza at Eco in Market Row, an arch-covered building of shops.  We each get an individual pizza and salads, the bill comes to 32 pounds with a 6 pound tip.  Expensive but well worth it.  Another store in the building is army surplus where Bryan gets very stylish desert boots made of suede for 20 quid and gloves while Paul tries on and buys two pairs of pants.  BTW, he and Matt are both bike riders and are in great shape without being the clonish Chelsea boys we see here.  Then it’s off to the local pub for drinks and back to their flat for tea at 6 pm.

We’re barely back to our flat at 7 pm when they call to invite us out to a New Year’s Eve Ceilidh Dance.  So off we go in the tube to East London, meeting them along the way at one of the stops.  Our first stop is Andy and Rebecca’s; she runs the gallery around the corner from their flat where the dance will be held and he’s a solicitor (that’s lawyer in Americanese).  We get there around 9 pm and they’ve got a great food spread of salad with avocado and mint, potato salad and a cous-cous and aubergine (eggplant to us) dip that is out of this world.  Also there is Matt and Paul’s friend Tabitha (an artist who we hope will visit us in NYC), Trevor and Helen (they work for a children’s organization) and Lucy (who ran the first lesbian dance club in Glasgow).

Around 10 pm we all walk around the corner to the Chisenhale Gallery at 63 Chisenhale Road E3 (it’s near the Bethnal Green tube stop).  We have great fun for the four hours we’re there; it’s listed on the flyer as  “2K-1, a ceilidh thrashin’, slam-bam smashin’ new year’s eve.”  It’s 30 pounds each but we split the free tickets so it’s only 15 each and all the wine and beer you can drink along with a bottle of sparkling wine for each person at midnight.  Not a bad deal!  As for ceilidh dancing, you’ve seen it in “Titanic” (the wild dancing in steerage class); much like country line-dancing (they even have a do-si-do).  Of course, by the third dance, I’ve got to try it also but someone lands on my foot and almost breaks it!

By the time we’re back at the host’s apartment around 2 am, I have to put ice on to keep down the swelling!  Nonetheless, we all have a great time and a little afterward we all cab back to our respective flats.  After a quick stop at Dixy Chicken, Bryan and I are in bed before 5 am.

Friday, January 1, 1999, New Year’s Day, and we finally get up at 4 pm!  I guess we needed to catch up on sleep this week.  We actually do nothing until about 7 pm as my foot hurts.  But we still wind up walking all the way to Donald and Carol Mason’s house in Camberwell for dinner as we can’t seem to connect with a bus; surprisingly my foot cooperates.

After a nice single malt Scotch for Donald and me, we sit down for dinner along with Bridget’s sister Ruth who regales us with tales of her “Heaven and Hell” NYE party.  The menu is mixed – leftover turkey (very American) with basically British vegetables, beets in sweet and sour sauce, parsnips, boiled potatoes and cabbage – along with three types of wine.  After coffee and trifle (sponge cake with port, bananas with a type of pudding topped by whipped cream and pecans – wow!) we returned home; thankfully Donald drove us.

While we did a late laundry and watched Alien (Channel 4 is doing the whole series and British television doesn’t censor the language), we got a phone call from Paul and Matt who would like to go on a day trip to Brighton with us on Saturday; with that we go to bed around 1 am.

Saturday, January 2, the alarm goes off at 8:30 and so do we … only three hours later.  We meet Matt and Paul at the Victoria train station and hop the Connex train to Brighton on the south shore of England.  It’s a beautiful sunny day and a lovely train ride, passing Battersea (yes, the Pink Floyd power station) and dykes (just like Holland).

Getting into Brighton, we have lunch at Grinders on a very cute Provincetown-like street. The service is slow as a cook is out, but the food is good.  Bryan and I both have baquettes like we had in Spain, his with a great New Zealand ham, mine a very moist chicken.  The boys had to wait for theirs, a huge English breakfast (beans, tomato, meat, potatoes all piled together – a cholesterol horror).  We then walked around the town which is very beautiful; make sure to take a day trip if you’re in England.

While the boys meet friends for a drink, Bryan and I go to the Royal Pavilion built by George IV.  It’s quite over the top.  At 4:30, we all meet up again and go out to the Pier which is quite like the Steel Pier in Atlantic City.  But the weather turns on us so we dive into Dr. Brighton’s, a gay bar right off the pier, for drinks.

Bryan gets introduced to the whisky mac (Scotch and ginger wine) and then it’s dinner at Brown’s Restaurant and Bar on Duke Street.  This is good food so of course I’m going to describe it to you. I had smoked salmon (spelled gravadlax on their menu) along with a very superb fettucine arrabbiata; who knew I’d have to travel so far for good Italian!  Bryan had a mozzarella, avocado and tomato salad followed by spaghetti with a hot shrimp sauce.  Paul, Caesar salad and the leg of lamb with mint sauce (B finally tries lamb -  and mint sauce, separately and with the meat – and declares “no” on both for himself).  Matt has the gravadlax also, followed by steak frites.  Along with two bottles of pinot grigio and coffee, the bill is 87 pounds with a 15 pound tip (approximately $175).  But it’s quite worth it and I recommend it to you.

Off for drinks at the Queen’s Head (a gay bar for the mature set) for drinks and then it’s the 11 pm train back to London.  Since it's so late, instead of taking the tube we all taxi back (passing Clapham Common where an m.p. was caught a la George Michael) and drop off Matt and Paul in Brixton.  We get back to the flat and Bryan and I are asleep by 2 am after, yes, Dixy Chicken.

Sunday, January 3, the Second Sunday after Christmas and I’m up at 9 am, Bryan at 10.  Racing to London on the bus around 11 am, I just get into Westminster Abbey for mass at the beginning of the sermon.  I’m just glad I found it though, as I have to admit that I originally thought that Parliament was the church!  As someone who correctly directed me said, “the Queen would slap you if she were here!”

Bryan goes sight-seeing around the grounds while I attended Sung Eucharist 1115 (Missa brevis setting by Andrew Carter sung by the Bristol Cathedral Girl’s Choir, fairly good sermon by the Rev. David Hutt, Canon in Residence).  All of my favorite classical music heroes have a plaque here or are buried here; e.g. Vaughan Williams, Britten, Adrian Boult and more.  B particularly likes the memorial to the discover of Haley’s comet.

At 12:30 we taxi to the Albert and Victoria Museum (admission five pounds each); we particularly like the 20th Century collections, especially the furniture.  At 2:30 it’s lunch at McDonald’s as they’ve just kicked off a two-for-one Big Mac promotion.  We wander around the area where Harrod’s is located but most of the stores are closed on Sunday.

Taking the tube from Knightbridge to Leicester Square (unfortunately missing the fair that had gone on all week), we have a quick drink at Freedom and then taxi back to the flat.  Side note:  the driver is listening to a football game (that’s soccer to us) featuring Manchester United; he tells me they have more international fans than local ones.

We nap from 6 to 9 pm and at 10 take the bus to the center of Elephant and Castle for my first and only Indian food at Castle Tandoori in the shopping center; the appetizers are somewhat bland but the entrees (particularly my chicken and vegetables in a spicy brown coconut sauce) are good.  The bill, including some very bad martinis, comes to 32 pounds with a 4 pound tip.  By midnight, we’ve taken the bus back and are under the covers.

Monday, January 4, we’re up at 8 am so Bryan can watch the Big Brekkie one more time.  At 10 am, we’re at Enterprise Rent-a-Car to pick up a Vauxhall Astra (not bad, a little light in the wind) and Bryan takes over the wheel and we’re off to Stonehenge. Unfortunately, the maps we have are terrible and we take an hour’s detour east towards the Docklands until we find the M3 (a freeway circling London).  But then it’s straight sailing with only a stop at McDonald’s on the M3 before arriving at Stonehenge around 1 pm.

Ok, let’s be honest … the first thing one notices is that the stones are much shorter than one would have thought although still it’s quite impressive especially when taking the audio tour. We stay about an hour as it’s quite cold and windy; on the way back we stop at a tiny town where Bryan gets a haircut.  Yes, he really wanted one for days and had finally become exasperated and essentially pulled off the road and found a barber!  As for Bryan’s driving, I have to say he did extremely well considering he has not been driving often and it’s the opposite side of the road for Americans.  He actually clipped the edge of someone’s door with our (thankfully sprung) side mirror but they were parked illegally and nothing really happened so I think he gets 100%.

We managed to dropping the car off right at the 6 pm closing and this is an good time to point out something interesting.  The man who attended us, Brian, was originally from Utica NY and moved to London to be with his English wife (Enterprise is an American company, he reminded me).  Yet his accent, slang and mannerisms were very British.  The accent just seems to take one over!

We went to the flat and got ready for Matt and Paul’s dinner party at their flat in Brixton.  Arriving at 8 pm, the other dinner guests are Tabitha (from NYE), along with Jo from South Africa, Pempem (a nickname) from Bhutan and her husband (I think) Wolf from Germany.  Bryan is pleased that the entrée is “bangers and mashed” which is essentially sausages and mashed potatoes.  But quite, quite good; and the appetizers (incredible stuffed grape leaves from a Deliah Smith recipe and arugula salad) were a perfect introduction.  Dessert was caramelized oranges with hand-whipped cream while the town’s power went out and we enjoyed a candlelit dinner.

During the dinner they also played some fine Portuguese “fado” music (see the European diary and search for Dulce Pontes) along with more modern music.  Afterward, Tabitha, the boys and Bryan and I played “Dad Splashed Happily in the Bath” (separate the various grammatical parts, draw columns, write words, pass to your neighbor, read the results) while getting drunk on ginger wine.

We got home around 1 am and said good-bye to our Albanian friend at Dixy Chicken and it was off to bed by 2 am.

Tuesday, January 5 … it’s flying day.  We’re up at 7 am to get our final details together and then we’re in a taxi to Gatwick by 8 am (the cost was minimally higher once you factored in all the various trains and buses to get there normally).  The flight leaves right on time at 11:30 am and takes eight hours to get us to JFK.  Oh, yes, I think we’ve decided that Newark really is the only airport to fly into and out of New York City and Continental is the airline to do it on.

After arriving at the apartment, we change and then have the opportunity to meet Bridget and Jude, the women that we traded apartments with.  Around 7 pm, we all go to dinner at Flamingo East on Second Avenue and have a really enjoyable couple of hours discussing each other’s experiences for the week.  They’ve turned out to be great people and while I can’t say anything about the experience of switching apartments in general (this was the first time for both of us) it certainly worked out well!

And to add to that, Bryan noted to me that one of the most endearing things about the people we met in England was they’re being civilized.  There was a graciousness to all of our trip and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the people that made our stay so wonderful.