Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

Given that this was a work trip, we started the day out properly – we went to a church service so I could do a bit of ethnographic field work.  I had big plans for visiting a variety of different churches to get a sense of the variety within the Church of England.  But what I realized I really wanted to see was an average Church of England congregation. So we found the closest one to our hotel – St. Simons – and I considered it a “randomly chosen” congregation.  I normally would stay through the service, but Steve could’t stomach it.  So, we stayed for just a few minutes.  But the few minutes told me most of what  I needed to know.  Everything I’ve read about religion in the UK basically says it is dying.  Based on St. Simon’s, that’s a pretty accurate description.  There were a total of 20 people in attendance in a church that could easily seat 300 or more people.  The main sanctuary had been reworked to make it more cozy and less imposing for the dwindling congregation.  Intriguingly, only 11 of the people were female, which means 9 were male (intriguing because women usually far outnumber men).  There was one young family there with a toddler.  They created a play area for the toddler on one side of the sanctuary that was enormous.  When Steve and I walked in, the usher rushed to us, handed us a program, and urged us to sit down up front.  I really didn’t want to disappoint him, but we stayed in the back and left shortly afterward.  There were two large flat screen TVs that had been mounted on some of the old pillars that displayed scriptures and words to the hymns.  The average age was probably around 50, but there were some people in their 20s and 30s.  There were also 3 black people.  I also noticed a sign on the door advertising for the Alpha Course, which suggests it is more of an evangelical leaning congregation (which may explain the younger age).  In sum, my short visit to a Church of England service in the UK supports the work of David Voas and Steve Bruce who argue that religion is dying in the UK.

From church, we headed to Hyde Park to visit The Speaker’s Corner.  One of my colleagues at UT mentioned that there is a corner in Hyde Park where anyone can get up and say pretty much whatever they want.  Well, that sounded like it was visit worthy to me.  So, we stopped by.  There was a Muslim male from the U.S. speaking:

I caught him looking at me in this photo

Those who know me won’t be surprised to hear that I couldn’t help but lay into him.  Steve was kind enough to let me harangue this guy for almost an hour.  He made some decent points about corporate America, but he also said that America’s greed justified the 9/11 attacks, which is pretty tough to swallow.  At one point I had a little following of people urging me on as I wrangled with the guy.  It was fun.  At the end we had stuff to see, so I said goodbye and thanked him for the entertainment.

From Hyde Park we headed to The Tower of London, technically called “Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress.”  I knew this was a prison, as I had seen A Man for All Seasons, a film about Sir Thomas More, who was imprisoned in the tower and eventually put to death because he didn’t support Henry VIII in his separation from Roman Catholicism.  But what I didn’t realize is that the prisons were just part of one of the walls of the complex.  At the center of this massive complex is the White Tower, which was the first Royal Palace of unified England, built in 1078 by William the Conqueror (who is an ancestor of Debi’s family; something else I didn’t know – he was French).  I was expecting to just see some nifty old tower with a prison at it’s base.  Um, yeah, not so much.

aerial shot of the Royal Palace and Fortress

The above aerial shot shows the two rings of walls around the main palace (The White Tower), which is the white roofed building in the center.  To the upper left, the smaller white roofed building is the chapel (St. John in Chains).  And the long building right next to the chapel is the royal armory, but also the location of the crown jewels.  I was thinking we’d spend an hour or two here at the most.  We probably arrived around 10:30 and stayed until almost 4:00.  It’s fascinating.  I’ve always wanted to visit a castle and, well, now I have.

Unfortunately, this does cost money to get into it – around $20.00 per person.  But it seemed worth it once we could see how large it is:

a view from the ticket office of the Fortress

Having visited, it was definitely worth it.  There is a 1 hour tour to begin the visit, which was led by one of the Yeoman Warders.  They noted that the complex included a prison, though the prison here was generally just accommodations, not minuscule jail cells like our typical today.  He also explained that most of the executions here actually took place outside the walls, with the exception of a few, most notably Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey, which took place right outside the chapel on the green (they are now buried in the chapel floor).  Here’s a shot of the green:

the green inside the castle walls where several famous people were beheaded; it is now surrounded by housing for the Yeoman Warders

After the tour, you are free to roam.  We visited the crown jewels in the armory:

the armory building that houses the Crown Jewels

From the Armory we went inside The White Tower, which has a King Henry VIII exhibit right now.  We learned a lot about him and saw most of his suits of armor (he started out svelte and got pretty fat over the years).

the White Tower at the heart of the fortress

You’re not supposed to take photos inside the White Tower, but I snuck a couple:

this room was roped off and appears to be a forthcoming exhibit; I snapped a shot because it was so impressive as just a large, empty room in an 11th century castle

one of the stairwells; they were super narrow

this is a window nook in that same stairwell; note the thickness of the walls; this was on the 3rd or 4th floor and they were still several feet thick

From there we kind of wandered around, walking along the walls, visiting the Bloody Tower (lots of people imprisoned here), and the lodgings of one of the later kings, Henry VI, who stayed in one of the outer walls rather than in the White Tower.

the top of the inner wall facing the river

My childhood medieval fantasies of defending a castle played out as I walked around the walls:

using a crossbow to defend the castle

here I am with my imaginary longbow fending off invaders

I even got Steve in on the act as he defends the wall from the orc hordes

Here's Steve at the doorway to Henry VI's rooms

Henry VI's throne room (in the walls)

Henry VI's altar; the inscription reads "By Tradition Henry VI died here Day 21st 1471"

Steve pretending to have raised the 2 ton working portcullis

the Bloody Tower, the prison for lots of people over the years

And here’s my favorite picture from when I took out one of the Yeoman Warders, grabbed his pike, and took his spot in one of the guard boxes:

FYI - the guard box was empty and no, I don't just carry a pike around with me, though it wouldn't be a bad idea on the Tube; that was added later with the help of GIMP

The complex was built in the corner of the original walled complex built by the Romans in the first part of the millennium and some of the original wall built by the Romans was incorporated into the buildings.  It was pretty cool to see 2,000 year old walls around the fortress.

After several hours living out my childhood fantasies, we exited the fortress by the River Thames and walked toward The Tower Bridge:

The Tower Bridge

It’s a very cool bridge.  However, to go up to the top now costs money.  And since this was London on the cheap, we opted against it and instead walked along the bottom.

From here we headed to the London Museum, which is in a weird business district and can only be accessed by raised walkways (as far as I could tell).  We got there kind of late, around 4:30, and it is only open until 6:00 pm.  Normally that would probably make it impossible to see everything, but they were re-arranging the Museum and everything after 1600 CE was unavailable for viewing, including the Fire of London exhibit.  So, instead, we learned about pre-historic London, Londinium – or Roman London – and then medieval London up until about the time of the great fire 1666.  It was actually pretty fascinating.  I didn’t know that London was originally called Londinium and was basically founded by the Romans.  It was pretty much a Roman run city for 3 or 4 centuries until the Romans were weakened to the point that they abandoned it.  It remained important from then on.

We stayed at the museum until it was about to close then headed to a pub near our hotel for dinner and called it a day.

With just a couple days to see London, Steve and I tried to pack a lot in. So, even though we were up late (until about 2:00 am as I didn’t get to London until pretty late), we got up fairly early. We followed a self-guided walking tour I found here to see the London icons.  For our first stop, we popped out of the Tube station right next to Big Ben.

Steve by Big Ben

As I don’t really have much of an ego, I’ll note all of the things I didn’t know as I describe our adventures.  Turns out, Big Ben is attached to the Houses of Parliament.  I didn’t know that.  It makes sense now, especially once you see how ornate the Houses of Parliament are.  The photo below shows some more of the Houses of Parliament along the river:

Houses of Parliament along the Thames

Big Ben is just to the right of this photo.  Here’s another shot of the Houses of Parliament:

Steve by the Sovereign's Entrance

This is at the far end of the building, opposite Big Ben.  In the high resolution photo you can see the remarkable detail in the building.  As Steve and I discussed as we walked by these buildings, these have to basically be designed to impress the leaders of foreign countries.  Leader of foreign country on visiting the Houses of Parliament, “Hey, look at how much wealth they have.  They can build enormous, ornate buildings.”  Yeah, they are pretty intimidating.

We walked around the Houses of Parliament and into a park where we had a good view of the River Thames and the London Eye.  We opted not to ride the Eye (the big ferris wheel) as it’s pricey and a lot of people said it wasn’t particularly worth the cost.  But we took photos of it anyway:

Ryan in front of the London Eye

The London Eye is kiddie corner across the Thames from Big Ben.  We walked by Westminster Abbey, but decided to come back a different day as the line to get in was pretty long and it costs money (we were trying to see London for cheap, so we wanted to see what we could for free first, but we had to visit Westminster Abbey, as I will explain in that post).  We also skipped past Churchhill’s WWII bunker, which isn’t far from here as it was pricey and instead headed to Downing Street, where you can peak through the bars to catch a glimpse of the home of the Prime Minister.  Apparently whoever does the decorating was in the holiday mood – there is a Christmas tree outside the Prime Minister’s house:

Downing Street; the tree is right in the center of the picture

In the middle of Whitehall street opposite the gate to Downing Street there was a protest against the Iranian government going on.  Not sure what the point was as they were yelling in Farsi, but it seemed interesting.

A block or so away from Downing Street is another tourist attraction – the Horseguard House.  This is one of those quaint English traditions, kind of like the monarchy, that seems to be kept around just to entertain people.  And, well, it was entertaining.  Sitting on a couple of horses in a courtyard are some soldiers.  Another couple are standing around.  These are the guards who aren’t supposed to move.  What a terrible job!  It seems as though they are basically just there for tourists to stand next to, which we promptly did:

Steve by one of the guards in the Horseguard House

I got a picture by one of the guards, but it was impossible to get one alone as there were too many tourists. So, meet Tourist A, who is also in the picture though she appears to be running from the horse:

me taking my turn by the Horseguards

Just behind the Horseguard House is St. James Park, which buttresses Buckingham Palace.  We stopped at a nice little cafe in the park for lunch, then snapped a shot of Steve with all the birds, which the tour directions said would be there:

Steve and "The Birds"

After a nice walk through the park, we ended up at Buckingham Palace.  There are no tours in December (there are some tours during specific times of the year), so we just looked at the palace from the outside. As we approached it, some young people in their twenties approached us and asked us to support their cause.  They were working for some pro-environment, anti-global warming group and were taking pictures of people in front of Buckingham Palace with a little dry erase board that said how old we’d be in 2050 and what we want to save from global warming.  It sounded harmless enough, so we helped them out.  I’ll be 74 in 2050 and I want to save coral reefs:

Ryan doing his part to stop global warming ;)

Steve wants to save humans:

Steve ending global warming ;)

We took a couple more pictures at the palace, but didn’t stay too long (it started to rain on us while we were there).  All the gates around the palace have gold paint on them (you can see this in the picture above).  I took a picture of Steve at one entrance and he snapped one of me trying to steal some of the gold:

Steve by a golden gate

me trying to take back some of the tax money America paid to the UK before the revolution

From the palace we walked down the Mall to Admiral Gate, which is a large monument leading onto the Mall.  It was cool, though I don’t think it has any real function:

a very cool gate; it's a monument to something or other having to do with war or soldiers

Around the corner from the gate is Trafalgar Square.  Trafalgar Square is one of the most famous squares in London and happens to be of personal interest as there is a monument in the square to a relative of mine – Horatio Nelson, also known as Lord Nelson, the famed British admiral.  I don’t know all the details, but supposedly one of my ancestors was one of Lord Nelson’s mistresses.  Woohoo!  I’m a descendant of the bastard offspring of a famed British admiral!  Now that is a claim to fame!  Anyway, I snapped a couple of photos of my illegitimate ancestor:

me in front of the monument to Horatio Nelson

Here’s a close-up of the monument, which towers over the square:

monument to Horatio Nelson; he lost an arm and an eye in battle

At the base of the monument was another protest – a bunch of people had set up tents and were camping out to protest, well, something.  Frankly, I think they were homeless and just wanted a place to stay.  They claimed to be opposed to global warming, but then started a fire burning crates.  They were also anti-capitalism, as the picture below shows:

not sure what it means, but "capitalism is crisis" is what they were arguing

The primary attraction at Trafalgar Square is The National Gallery, which makes up one side of the square (you can see it behind the banner in the photo above).  It’s free, so we went in and spent a few hours here.  Basically it is a large art museum with a remarkable collection.  The art starts in the 13th Century or so and runs through the 19th and early 20th Centuries.  There are a number of famous pieces here, including work by Raphael, Van Gogh, Michaelangelo, Rubens, and many others.  I’m not much of an art connoisseur, but I still enjoyed it.  This was the view as we left the Gallery:

the view from the National Gallery entrance overlooking Trafalgar Square

From here we headed around the corner to check out The National Portrait Gallery, but realized it was too big to see in the hour or so we had until they closed.  So, we decided to come back another time.  As we exited the Portrait Gallery, we saw a bunch of people dressed up as Santa Claus walking past.  When the first group walked past we thought, “Hmmm… Odd, but it’s close to Christmas.  Big deal.”  But just behind them followed some more Santas.  And then more.  We eventually decided to ditch our tour and see what was up with the Santas.  So we followed them around the corner to Leicester Square, which isn’t far from Trafalgar Square.  When we got there it was filled with Santas:

Santacon in Leicester Square

I had to know what was going on, so I asked someone.  She was nice and told us that it was Santacon, an annual, impromptu celebration where everyone dresses up like Santa.  I just looked it up and it sounds like a lot of fun (follow the link and read the description; pretty groovy!).  Lacking Santa suits, we didn’t follow the party, but it was fun to see.

Lacking anything else to do, but not yet feeling tired, we decided to see one more London icon – Harrod’s department store.  It took a while to figure out where it was, but we finally found it and then regretted having done so.  It’s an enormous store, but ridiculously expensive.  Knowing I wasn’t going to buy anything for me or Debi, we headed to the kids section to look at clothes for Toren.  They had some cute stuff, but you won’t believe the cost.  How much would you spend on this coat:

infant coat at Harrod's

I might be willing to drop $15 or even $20 on a coat for Toren.  The price on the tag: £209.00, which translates into: $332.96.  T-shirts for babies were tagged at about $90.00.  Laughing, we left.

We stopped at a tapas place by our hotel for dinner then called it a night.

Here’s a map of our travels for the day:

12/12/2009 map: A-Big Ben, B-Westminster Abbey, C-Downing Street, D-Buckingham Palace, E-The National Gallery, F-Leicester Square, G-Harrod's

This was the day of the conference.  The conference was the inaugural conference of the Non-Religion and Secularity Research Network, an organization primarily made up of scholars interested in the non-religious.  The organizers of the conference were kind enough to invite me to give one of three keynote presentations.  The other two keynote speakers, David Voas and Colin Campbell, are luminaries in the field. I’m not sure how I ended up on the schedule with them, but I consider it quite an honor.

Aside from one question from a reporter who basically suggested I was over-stating my case, my presentation seemed to be well-received.  I’ll spare readers the details (the paper is under review, too, so I can’t really post it here), but my presentation was written up on one of my favorite blogs: Epiphenom.  I met the author of that blog at the conference; he’s a very nice guy.

The conference ran all day and about a dozen of us went out for dinner afterward where I made plans to meet up with one of them during the next few days to talk about collaborating on some research.  After dinner I took a train to London with one of the conference organizers and we talked some more shop.  She then helped me navigate the Tube (the London subway) so I could find my hotel in Hammersmith. Debi’s brother, Steve, who is doing a post-doc in Paris, came over to London to tour around with me for the few days I was going to be there after the conference.  I planned to stay only a few days originally, but when I went to book my flight, the cost of returning Saturday, Sunday, or Monday was equivalent to paying for a hotel and food through Thursday.  So, I opted to stay a few more days, which gave me a chance to not only see London but also to meet up with some of the people who attended the conference as well.

I arrived at Gatwick airport around 8:00 am, relatively unrested (thanks to my talkative neighbor).  I quickly made my way through customs, picked up my bag, exchanged some currency, then found the stop for the direct bus to Oxford.  I missed a bus by about 15 minutes, which meant I had to wait another 45 for the next one, but it eventually came.  The bus worked its way around London and through some of the English country side, allowing me to see some scenic vistas:

the route from Gatwick to Oxford

a photo of the English countryside from the bus

I arrived in Oxford around noon and took a cab to the college where I was staying, Wolfson.  The conference was in the same building where I was staying (in a guest room), but I couldn’t check in until 2:00 pm.  So I left my luggage there and walked back into Oxford (about a mile) to see what I could see.  Oxford is bigger than I thought it would be with a number of stores and shopping areas.  The main attractions are the various colleges and museums.  I didn’t have a lot of time as I was supposed to meet the conference organizers and some of the other conference attendees for dinner in the evening and needed a nap, but I spent a few hours walking around with my camera at the ready.

I walked through the Oxford College Park, then headed toward downtown Oxford.  As I was walking along Park Street I noticed a very large building.  At first I thought it was a chapel (which it included), but then it seemed to continue on for an entire city block.  I couldn’t imagine that the building was really that large, but I walked around it and it really is almost an entire block. Turns out it is a college – Keble College.

Keble College arial view via Google Maps

As I looped back to my starting position at the northeast corner I noticed a door in the otherwise impassable facade.  It was pretty cool – it looked like it was straight out of a medieval keep – the wooden door fit the arch, but a rectangular door opened inside the bigger wooden door.  People were walking in and out of it and there wasn’t a sign saying I couldn’t enter, so I walked inside.  It opened onto an immense, immaculately groomed courtyard:

here's the courtyard and chapel you can see in the above arial view

The street-facing side of the building wasn’t kept up as nice as this side.  The interior-facing side was really remarkable.  Here’s a shot of the inside of the door (the arch you see on the right of the photo):

the door into the courtyard

Right across the street from Keble College is the Pitt Rivers Museum.  I debated whether I should go here or to the Museum of the History of Science and opted for the later (a decision I later regretted), but I took a photo of the Pitt Rivers Museum just because it was such a cool building:

Pitt Rivers Museum

From here I walked down to Broad Street then over to Cornmarket Street, which is the main shopping center.  I wanted to see two other colleges while in Oxford – Christ Church (famed for its architecture and being the location for filming some of Harry Potter) and Nuffield College, which is where one of my former students got his Master’s Degree.  Christ Church is certainly impressive, but I didn’t want to spend the money for the tour, so I just walked around the grounds for a bit then left, snapping this shot on the way:

Christ Church College

From Christ Church I worked my way over to Nuffield College.  I didn’t know if there would be anything to see there but I thought it would be fun to visit the former stomping grounds of one of my students.  While not nearly the size of Keble College, Nuffield had the same basic layout – an exterior facade and a courtyard interior.  I slipped in one of the doors and saw this:

not as grand as Keble, but beautiful in its own right

From here I walked back up to Broad Street and visited the Museum of the History of Science, which wasn’t very impressive.  Per the tour guide, the pièce de résistance was a piece of chalkboard Einstein wrote on while at Oxford calculating the age of the universe (he estimated between 10 and 100 billion years).  I thought about stopping at the Eagle and Child Pub, famous for being the meeting place of Tolkien and other Oxford authors, but was too tired by this point so I headed back to Wolfson to check into my room.

It was at this point that I realized just how far north of the equator England is.  It was 3:30 or so in the afternoon and it was getting dark outside.  By the time I checked into my room, around 4:00 pm, it was dark.  I’ve never suffered from seasonal affective disorder, but I’m not sure I would be able to say that in England.  As soon as I checked into my room I laid down and crashed.  I woke up around 6:00 then headed out to a different pub, The Royal Oak, to meet up with some of the other conference attendees.  We stayed there talking shop and chatting until about 10:00 when we decided we should probably get some sleep for the conference the next day.

While I wasn’t particularly excited to leave for the UK on my birthday, in a sense it was kind of a nice birthday present, so I didn’t really mind.  I arrived at the airport a couple hours before my flight, checked in fine, and headed to the terminal from where my US Airways flight to Charlotte, NC was scheduled to depart.  I’m a bit neurotic about flights.  I always like to check at the terminal to make sure that the flight is actually slotted for that terminal (I missed a flight once because I didn’t check).  As I arrived at the terminal I noticed that my flight to Charlotte was listed as delayed by 15 minutes.  You may not remember, but that was the day that a storm hit the Northeast, delaying flights across the U.S. as a result.  I was connecting to Gatwick from Charlotte and only had about 1 hour and 20 minutes between flights.  A delay of 15 minutes probably wouldn’t make a difference, so I didn’t worry about it.

I sat down at a workstation (which the Tampa airport conveniently places all around the terminals) and logged onto the free wi-fi (Tampa’s airport rocks!).  I did a little work, then, as the time to board the flight drew near, I shut off my computer and pulled out my book (I treated myself to a fiction book as it makes flights go much faster for me).  When there was no boarding call at the time specified on my ticket, I decided to check the screen at the desk to see if the delay had gotten worse.  I walked over and still saw a 15 minute delay.  Assuming US Airways was being honest, I sat back down and continued reading.

Fifteen minutes passed with no boarding call.  I got up again and walked to the desk.  The flight was now delayed 45 minutes.  Not knowing if that would work for my connection, I got in line at the terminal to see what I could learn.  I waited in line for almost 30 minutes.  By the time I finally got up to the desk the plane had started to board.  When I asked about my connection in Charlotte, the gate attendant informed me that I would definitely miss it.  She then gave me my one and only option: be rebooked on the same connection to Charlotte the next day and catch the flight to Gatwick 24 hours later than my scheduled flight.  Basically, my trip would be delayed 24 hours.

If I were traveling for pleasure and not to attend a conference, I probably would have accepted the inconvenience and went home.  But this turn of events was unacceptable.  The flight across the Atlantic is an overnight flight – you leave here around 6:00 or 7:00 pm and arrive in the UK around 7:00 or 8:00 am.  I was leaving on a Wednesday so I could arrive on Thursday morning.  My conference started at 9:00 am on Friday morning.  From Gatwick to Oxford (where my conference was) via bus is about 2 1/2 hours.  If I flew out on Thursday I would arrive in the UK Friday morning at around 8:00 am.  By the time I made it to Oxford (after clearing customs and getting my luggage) it would be close to noon.  I was scheduled to give a keynote address at 1:00pm.  Yeah, flying out on Thursday wouldn’t work!

The person helping me at the counter basically told me that was the only option and that US Airways doesn’t put people on other carriers if it is weather related and not mechanical.  When I told her it wouldn’t work, she told me she couldn’t deal with me at that moment because there were more passengers behind me.  The passengers behind me were looking a bit annoyed as well because I wasn’t going to accept the alternative I was given.  I was furious!  Having been dismissed, I walked back to ticketing, stopping to grab my checked suitcase on the way.

When I got to the U.S. Airways ticket counter there were no people in line.  So, I walked up to Elliot D. (I still remember his name) and told him my situation.  He reiterated the policy that US Airways can’t put me on another carrier if the delay is weather related.  I told him I understood that, but that I couldn’t be delayed 24 hours or I would likely miss the reason for the trip – my keynote presentation at a conference.  Turns out Elliot D. was a nice guy.  He told me he’d see what he could do.  He started punching keys on his keyboard then told me he’d have to talk to the manager.  The manager said no the first time.  I told Elliot that I had to be there and that I’d go check British Airways if I had to (conveniently right next door) and just cancel my ticket (I did buy trip insurance).  He actually was on my side and told me what to tell the manager if he could get the manager to come out to talk to me: A delay of a few hours wouldn’t matter, but 24 hours was unacceptable.  He went back to see if the manager would come talk to me but apparently the manager was too busy.  He told Elliot, “Do what you want.”  Elliot came back with a smile on his face.  There was in fact a direct flight on British Airways from Tampa to Gatwick leaving at 7:40 that night and there were available seats.  He put me on the flight!

I thanked Elliot profusely and asked him if there was a way for me to let management at US Airways know that he had saved my trip and my conference.  He gave me a URL and his name.  After thanking him again, I went back through security then sat down at a workstation and sent a very nice email to US Airways management telling them that Elliot D. in Tampa had saved my conference!

I grabbed a bite to eat, then boarded the flight.  It turned out that I was in a window seat and there was an empty seat between myself and the other woman in my row, so we both had a little extra room, which was nice.  I was hoping to get some sleep on the flight so I would have energy to walk around Oxford the next day and still meet up with the conference organizers that night.  But the woman in my row was talkative – very, very talkative.  She ended up talking at me for about 4 hours of the 8 hour flight.  I think I got about 3 hours of sleep.  She was nice though, so I didn’t mind too much!

Tomorrow – Oxford.