In Its Depths What Treasures, Part I

Watching the Olympics take place in London and vicinity has been a real joy for Papa and I. When the Williams trumpet chorus begins as glorious vistas emerge of rolling, brilliant green hillsides with ancient ruins; of sailboat-dotted waves nestled close to seaside villages; of regal Buckingham Palace and stately Big Ben; even of drizzles misting the "wilderness of steeples peeping," as Lord Byron put it; all these images make us happily nostalgic for our brief time, as they say, across the pond.

A little sweet, romantic history: ten years ago this fall, Papa and I met in Cambridge (England, for those of you who weren't reading closely above) while we both studied abroad. Papa and I visited London separately during our time there, but we also went to the grand old city together one lovely Saturday. We took an early-morning bus through the ubiquitous drizzle, which dropped us off in the shadow of Big Ben. We wandered through Westminster Abbey, saw My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane, popped into the National Gallery, and ate some below-average steak and potatoes at a Trafalgar Square steakhouse before heading back north that evening.  (Side story to our little history: In a miracle of circumstance and twin intuition, my sister--studying in London for the semester--found us in a ticket queue. She spotted the back of my head as she peeked into the kiosk and pulled on my purse to get my attention. I thought I was being mugged, and then I nearly went into cardiac arrest when I saw it was her. I hadn't been able to reach her by landline phone that morning, but she remembered that we might go to a show during our visit, and the stars aligned. Okay, so maybe it wasn't completely circumstance. But hey--this was before we owned cell phones, before we had "smart" anything and had to figure out maps, times, and rendezvous all beforehand and hope nobody got lost or delayed. So it was pretty cool that Mil found us, and we had a nice picnic lunch all together. Um, guess that wasn't so much a side story as a big chunk of it.)

Anyway, we loved our time in England, and the Olympics has given us a chance to vicariously enjoy London's treasures again. As we watched the women's marathon twisting and turning through the city, pointing out places we had been and picturesque sights we never witnessed firsthand, P piped up, "I want to go to London." We will go there someday, God willing, little man!