It was meant to simulate living there. Three weeks in London and no other travel (apart from the occasional side jaunt for the day to Oxford or Windsor). No obviously touristy plans – no Tower, no bus tour, no London Eye. Just a list of things we’d like to do accumulated over the last six years with an eye toward the day we’d finally get back, when we could use two years of accumulated credit card points and PTO to emulate life abroad.
The nice thing about staying in the Park Lane for the third time was that it meant close proximity to Shepherd Market, that tiny urban village down an alleyway and around a corner. Like some mystical portal, going around the curve of White Horse Street suddenly opens onto a courtyard with a couple of pubs, a couple of restaurants, a news stand, a pharmacy, a barber shop, and narrow streets to other shops and eateries. It was convenient, it was cozy, and – along with Ye Mitre in Holborn – it reinforced how much I like an alley and an interior courtyard with back-alley shops and pubs.
More than in years past – especially post-Brexit – the experience of London felt as if the British Empire had colonized the world, and in exchange, the world colonized London. It felt like the Bay Area, but different – less East Asian, more African and Muslim – but definitely felt like a world city. London is definitely a city-state the way California is a nation-state: something old, unique, separate from England or the UK. And I found that the older it was, the more I liked it – especially in pubs like the George or the Anchor or Ye Olde Cheddar Cheese or The Prospect Of Whitby, places that were serving ale before there was an English-speaking colony in North America, (But the resulting phenomenon of the toilets always being upstairs or downstairs in a stairway the width of an iPad makes me wonder how more people don’t break their necks.)
Actually maybe they don’t because every pub had two or three cask ales that were under 4.0% ABV. And because every pub serves halves which work out to about 9.5 ounces. I ended up celebrating my 50th birthday by having 50 different new beers I’d never had before, most of which were cask ales. If I can find 3.8% session IPAs like Ballast Point’s old Even Keel, that’s more or less what’s on offer, and I’m grateful for it because it means you can have a leisurely pint or a cheeky half most anytime without having to worry that you’re going to get completely hammerjacked. And you can tap to pay, too – you can tap to pay anywhere, seems like. The UK’s COVID response included a mass move to touchless NFC payments and self-checkout – even more than in the Bay Area.
So what am I bringing back this time? I’d love to bring back London cabs, which remain the world’s finest (even if the new electric ones only have a 60 mile range) or a pub in walking distance of anywhere you are (I might have to revisit the ostensible pubs in San Jose, now that most of the restrictions seem to be lifted). But what did I discover or learn about myself this trip that will enhance my life on the return?
For once, I’m going to ask for sparking water more often. More than any previous trip, I felt acutely the small size and lack of ice in most soft drink servings. How can they serve an Imperial pint of ale and a thimble of literally everything else? But sparkling water – especially with the house water filter in place – might be the hydration strategy this summer. Having the new ID4 is also a nice bring-back; the ID3 was surprisingly present, one for every two Teslas we saw, and while it took a year and a half for me to get my hatchback after 2005, this time I have the Euro-vehicle waiting in the driveway already.
There’s other stuff here already, too. Transit payment with the phone (my Clipper card is already installed even if the passes can’t be). There are new game shows of interest which are already available in BritBox, meaning we have new comfort-food content to pass a cozy evening. There were unexpectedly immersive settings like Mr. Fogg’s which can, in their way, be replicated locally (the new Dr. Funk’s, perhaps).
But most of all, London had already arrived in the new normal. You still have to be wary, and plenty of folks still wore masks on transit (as we did), but it was possible to while away a quiet evening upstairs in the pub. Or meet up with friends we hadn’t seen in six years and enjoy a dinner party or an afternoon by the river. California did its part for two years and is coming to equilibrium, and maybe just being able to go into the wider world again will mean enough.
And three weeks of detachment from the trauma of the real might be enough to reset the clock for a while. Your wounds can’t heal until the knife is pulled out, and for three weeks, the knife didn’t exist. That was a real and tangible blessing. Being allowed to catch my breath and enjoy life with my sweetie was as good a way of beginning my 50s as i could have hoped for. Fingers crossed we can keep the momentum.