A WINTERS'SAIL

We docked in Greenwich in the early morning of 5/4 and spent part of that day on an bus tour of London highlights and the remainder walking around Greenwich.  There is quite a lot to see in Greenwich and all of it is close to the dock.  The Royal Observatory (”where time begins”, they advertise) is the location of the marker for the prime meridian.  It is on a hill in a lovely park overlooking the Thames, the nautical museum, and a former royal residence (The Queen’s House) which is now an art museum.  

We disembarked the Viking Sun on the morning of 5/5 and checked into the Bloomsbury around 11.  It is a beautiful boutique hotel in a building which was originally a YWCA. Because the hotel is only a block from the British Museum, we made that our first stop.  We spent most of our time in the Egyptian and Middle East sections.  Many of the artifacts in these galleries originated in the places we had recently visited, so it seemed appropriate to focus here.  In fact, the British Museum has a far larger collection of Egyptian antiquities than were displayed in the Cairo Museum.  I think this a sore point with Egypt.  It also has the Rosetta Stone, which occupies a featured location in the main entry hall.  By the way, the food in the restaurant here is very good.

The West End theater district is just a short walk from the Bloomsbury.  We went to a discount ticket broker and decided to see a  new musical called “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie”.  It is based on the true story of an English boy who aspires to be a drag queen and who wants to attend his high school prom in a dress.  Susan described the plot as “Dear Evan Hansen meets La Cage Aux Folles”.  It is also the plot of a lawsuit I defended for the Edgewood School District many years ago.  Spoiler alert:  Jamie is allowed in the prom; the Edgewood student wasn’t.  Thus, the lawsuit.  

The rest of our time in London was devoted to seeing as many of the usual first-time tourist sights as possible in 3 days.  We visited:  The Tate Modern, The Tower of London, The Tower Bridge, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (the new one), Churchill’s War Room, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Kensington Palace (and Park), and Hyde Park.  Our favorite was St. Paul’s, probably because we climbed the 528 steps to the Golden Gallery.  Except for one short cab ride, we easily got around by “The Tube”, which is very simple and convenient.  It’s not as nice as Singapore’s subway, but not many places are. Our time here included a “bank holiday “ which means that Monday was a national holiday. Apparently this coincided with a holiday in Italy, so in addition to the many Italians who live in London there were lots of vacationers. I was able to stumble through a few brief Italian conversations.

I have mentioned before that we had wonderful weather almost everywhere.  So it was further proof of our power to bring the sun, that London had record temperatures while we were there. Five straight days of sunshine and 75-80F. Unbelievable.  We were able to celebrate our 45th anniversary on the last night (a couple days early) with dinner outside at The River Cafe, courtesy of Matt, Shannon and Dan. 

So, loyal readers, this is the end.  We traveled 42,000 statute miles, made 62 port stops in 33 countries, crossed the equator a few times, transited the Panama and Suez Canals, made new friends, stayed married, took 8000 photographs, saw much, ate (too) much, and got new perspectives on much of the world.  The Viking Sun was a beautiful home, and its officers and crew were great.  We had 71 guest entertainers, numerous historians, naturalists, political scientists, retired military officers, and other interesting speakers.  We also had some serious drinkers aboard.  The final wine total was 125,000 bottles consumed by approximately 850 passengers.  I think we lost a few bottles one evening in the Mediterranean when the pilot took sudden evasive action to avoid collision with a fishing boat, but the rest were guzzled by our shipmates. 

A few very brief observations:  1. My history background is too Euro-centric;  2. We need to remind ourselves that nations, empires and dynasties don’t last forever, and that even the most powerful ones decline and fail when their lack of internal cohesion makes them vulnerable to disintegration and conquest: 3. China is a huge presence in much of the world; 4. Unless we want China to replace Pax Americana with something we are not going to like, the US needs to lead the forces of democracy.  The post-WW II world order has been a success and should not be abandoned even if we have to pay more than “our share”.  We are still admired and envied by much of the world, and we should not throw that away.  The alternative will not be pretty.