update: England days Thursday-Sunday

[lauradi7dw]

I switched Thursday afternoon and Friday afternoon plans due to the weather, and did the Museum in Dockland on Thursday. It was the first time I'd been in that area. I looked around Canary Warf for Cybermen, but fortunately didn't see any. Thursday evening I went to the University of London practice, and was surprised & pleased to see Ana Tam.

Friday morning we did more walking along the canal and saw the Canal museum, stopped by the British Library to see the Sacred books exhibit
http://www.bl.uk/sacred
and went to one of the all you can eat vegetarian Indian restaurants near Euston Station. Then I really did see the Physic garden, looked around in an astoundingly overpriced (even by London standards) organic food place, back to the British Museum, and then met Arthur to go to a birthday gathering at a pub with friends of Ana's.

Saturday morning we had planned to rent an car from Europcar and reserved an automatic in case Arthur decided to try driving in England (he never has - he's always the navigator and I'm the driver). Apparently they didn't have an automatic available and borrowed one from somewhere else.
It was a Mercedes (not a very fancy one) and they were convinced somehow that I was planning to steal it, so in addition to requiring their usual deposit on my credit card and my driver's license, they wanted to see our passports and took my thumb print! I was outraged and argued with the manager but it was either cancel our weekend trip or go along with their requirements, so now I guess they're all set up to steal my identity. We won't be renting from them again. There's not much idea of privacy around here anyway - there are closed circuit TV cameras almost everywhere, including little cars with cameras on top that drive around.
Eventually we made it out into the countryside. We saw the reconstructed Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow, some historical stuff in Bury St Edmunds, and then did the last 8 towers of an open day in what used to be the county of Rutland (which I think has been absorbed into other areas). Gorgeous countryside, interesting bells (including several 4 bell towers), pretty little mostly medieval churches, and then a tiring drive to Norwich.



This morning by chance we happened to be in the right neighborhood at the right time and ended up ringing in three towers, including the amazing St Peter Mancroft and a former church that's now a kids' science museum. There are a number of former churches in Norwich, as medieval rich people donated money to build lots of them. One still functioning one that I wanted to see was the one that Julian lived in (in her little cell attached to the side). It's relatively new, with only a few of the original bits left - the
original was bombed in WWII - but we were in the same space she inhabited, sort of. Norwich cathedral is very nice. The castle has been theme-parkized, so we didn't pay to see the
old stuff (or fun activities) that they offered. We walked lots of little streets. It's a pleasant city. Also drove out to the coast and learned about how they reclaimed the land for farmland with sea walls and pumps - an area that was an estuary in Roman times has been (sort of) dry land for a long time, but there have been occasional disastrous floods and if the sea level rises much due to climate change, that area will be gone.
back to London.