Home again, home again

[dr_kromm]

I'm back from my first visit to the UK. To be precise, I arrived home last night. I did so much that I had no time to keep a travel journal; thus, I'm recalling most of this from memory. The broad strokes are accurate, but I might have the order of events a bit off in a few places.

The trip over was uneventful. I got on a plane and sat there for a little under seven hours. Then I got off, stood in various queues, collected my bag, and finally fled Heathrow. Next, I experienced firsthand the efficiency of British trains: The tube worked exactly as advertised and got me to King's Cross, whereupon I caught an electric train to Royston, to meet Phil Masters. All the signs, voice alerts, and maps made this trivially easy despite my travel fatigue. Montréal could learn a few things from London in this regard. 

On arriving in Royston, I realized that I had spent more time on a bus, aboard trains, in queues, and waiting than I had spent in the air. And between travel and time zones, I was having what felt like a 30-hour day. Fortunately, Phil had anticipated this, and had tea and coffee ready. (He also explained why there was Buddleja everywhere I had been: It thrives on crushed brick, which is all over the place along rail lines and road margins.) Suitably refreshed, we headed to Cambridge.

At New Hall, we checked in at the Constitution site, grabbed our badges and other information, and met some of the con committee. In particular, I finally got to meet Nicholas Caldwell (author of GURPS Age of Napoleon), who was instrumental in inviting me. After a pleasant chat, Phil and I fetched our bags and lugged them to our rooms. Then, as events didn't start until evening, Phil recommended a walk around Cambridge.

During our stroll, Phil pointed out many buildings that were five or more times as old as Canada. We also grabbed lunch, which for me involved truly monumental quantities of Shropshire Blue. Afterward, we went into the Fitzwilliam Museum, where we checked out much in the way of art and artifacts, including that old geek favorite: weapons and armor (yes, there were blunderbusses with bayonets). Unfortunately, jetlag chose that moment to hit, and I had to return to the residence for some rest.

Upon awakening, I felt really crummy. Nevertheless, I made my way over to the con facilities for the opening ceremonies. There, Nicholas had the brilliant idea that I should drink water. This cured me forthwith, and the con went well after that. The ceremonies were brief and to-the-point. Kudos to Clare Boothby for that. This is why I allowed her to strike me on the head with a large hammer. Perhaps there will be photos.

The con ran smoothly – I mean, without any hitch that I could detect – the whole way through. Kudos to the con for that! My panels:

Friday

• If We Write It, Will They Come? How to get into the gaming industry for love and/or profit, persuade gamers to read, play, and even buy your work, and still manage not to crack under the pressure.
• This Campaign is Not Just for Christmas. Some games are too good to end. How can GMs and players create campaigns that have the staying power to run and remain enjoyable for many years of real-world (and game-world) time?

Saturday

• The Importance of Being Systematic. What makes a rules system work? What breaks them? Do genres and settings make for special cases? Can broken rules still be fun?
• Miles, Dice, and PCs. Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan has captivated SF fandom and critics alike. The Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game is imminent. This crossover SF and gaming panel will look at Miles, his universe, and how to run games in this setting.
• Guest of Honor Slot.

Sunday

• It's a Kind of Magic. From the thaumaturgic artillery of magic missiles, prismatic sprays, and Take That You Fiend, to real-world historical beliefs, and everything in between. Magic is a staple of fantasy games. What's good, what's bad, what's different, and what's just magic with another name?

The evenings after the panels were spent primarily in being social and having much real ale and cider. England surely does these things well. Needless to say, I saw the bar close every night, and had many good conversations. (I was less thrilled with the evil English pigeons who woke me up with loud cooing every morning after.) I was quite sorry to reach the closing ceremonies on Sunday night. Fortunately, the festivities didn't end until something closer to early Monday morning.

Phil and I were both booked through until the part of Monday morning after sunrise. After grabbing breakfast and stowing our bags, we set out to wander around Cambridge again, minus jetlag. We saw quite a lot! Phil had tidbits of information pertinent to everything we saw, which made some already fascinating stuff considerably more interesting.

In particular, Phil showed me around the University of Cambridge (which is celebrating its 800th, by the way) – notably King's College Chapel and the grounds of Trinity College (his alma mater). Then we got down to the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, which is quite beautiful and has steampunkish glasshouses. After a lunch of Scottish smoked salmon and a bracing glass of wine (and dessert . . . okay it, wasn't a light lunch), we headed back out. A particularly amusing stop was the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, which housed much obscure scientific apparatus, including a leech stick: a fancy cane with a compartment for a leech. Every dapper gent should have one!

Eventually, the time came to head out. We journeyed back to Royston, where we had some coffee and chatted for a bit. We made plans to meet up in London the following day for more exploring. Then Phil took me down to the train station, where I caught my ride back to King's Cross. As the train streaked toward London at dusk, I was entertained by rabbits hopping about in the grass alongside the tracks! England truly is the land of Watership Down.

On my return to London I encountered the only hitch in my travels. My original plan was to spend the next two nights staying at the flat of my brother-in-law, Rob, up in Maida Vale. While Rob was out of town, he told the neighbors to expect me, and left his keys with them. So far, so good. However, the keys didn't work. Rob's neighbors deduced that the lock was blocked, and feared that a burglary attempt had damaged it. Out of concern for that – and in the interest of finding a place to stay – much long-distance messaging and telephoning ensued. With Rob being in Chile at the time, I shudder to think of the phone bill.

The upshot of all this was that I ended up crashing with a friend of Rob's, Koo, in Fulham. At first, I thought it would be awkward – Koo and I were total strangers. Koo was really wonderful, though. I also met her mum (who didn't speak English, but who made a mean bowl of soup), as well has her other visitors: her cousin Sung-aeh, Sung-aeh's husband Norbert, and their son, Mark-Philipp, all over from Korea. Despite starting out as total strangers, we had interesting conversations and ended up getting along quite well.

Thus, my Tuesday plans went off unscathed, with me simply operating out of Parsons Green instead of Warwick Avenue. I met up with Phil at King's Cross and we started our walk. I should note before I describe our route that I had already decided not to spend loads of time in the queues for popular attractions. Not with a solitary day to burn. My objective was to see the city on foot, and mostly from outdoors.

We strolled from King's Cross to the British Museum – the only place where we really did tarry a while, in order to look over the grand pilferage of the British Empire, including bas reliefs, coins, mummified cats, swords, withered heads, and goodness-knows-what-else. Then we headed to Covent Garden and meandered through Seven Dials, where we grabbed a lunch of Belgian food (again, we couldn't keep it light, because the beers and desserts were too tempting). From there, we headed toward the Thames, angling to put Trafalgar Square in our path.

At the river, we crossed via the Golden Jubilee Bridges, said, "What the heck?", and did the tourist thing by taking a flight on the London Eye. The wheel is a truly remarkable piece of engineering, and afforded us views of . . . well, pretty much everything, from MI6 HQ to the Palace of Westminster to the Gherkin. From there, we crossed back and took the tube down to the Tower, where we stopped for a fortifying cup of tea before walking across the Tower Bridge and pausing to gawk at the HMS Belfast. Then we hiked along the south side of the Thames, up as far as the reconstructed Globe.

By then we were peckish, so we grabbed a light dinner at a terrasse. I think we did all of our chatting about business over that meal! Come dusk, it was time to part ways – I had no desire to arrive late at the home of my gracious host, while Phil had a train home to catch. Thus, we crossed the river for the third time and bid each other farewell at Embankment. I made my way back and spent some time chatting with Koo over a glass of wine.

On Wednesday, I had to fly out in the early afternoon, so I had little time to go anywhere very distant. Fortunately, Norbert and Mark-Philipp were up for a walk. We took a good stroll around a big chunk of Fulham, which gave me my only glimpse of the non-tourist parts of London. After that, I grabbed the tube to Heathrow. Luck was with me, because I was neither queued up and waiting nor unduly early and bored. I pretty much went from street to tube to gate to plane, with the only major stop being at the duty-free shop for some amazing deals on Talisker and Strathisla.

And after just over seven hours in the air, the usual queues, a bus ride, and a taxi ride, I was home. It was a good trip, but hectic, with a lot of talking, a whole lot of walking, a few moments of panic, and probably too much ale. Well, okay . . . merely enough ale, but more than usual for me. And of course I missed my dear Bonnie, who was the first to hear this whole long account.

Now I have about a day to get ready before various friends headed to Worldcon look me up!