Engineering Conference in London

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This year the annual Engineering Conference was held in London. Joe, Carol, Linda and I decided to drive there and spend a few days after the conference visiting the southern coast of England on the way home.

On Monday we drove directly to London via the Calais to Dover ferry. After the business meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we were able to spend the evenings taking in some of the cultural aspects of London, including theater.

Linda’s tourist passport was about to expire so we took advantage of being across from the U.S. Embassy to go there to renew it. The British guard at the entrance (the U.S. Marine was inside) looked at her about to expire passport and told her that the picture was not her. Linda was taken aback. Then he explained that she was much prettier than the picture. Anyway, once inside it took about 30 minutes to process the new passport.

On Friday morning we drove to Stonehenge and walked around once. At the time we could walk right up to the stones. Then we drove south to the Salisbury Cathedral to see a copy of the Magna Carta, a very old clock, and the magnificent architecture. From there we headed south through Southampton and along the south coast, stopping a Arundel Castle, Brighton, and Beachy Head before arriving at Rye as the sun set.

We tried to find a B&B in the Rye area and found the Old Post B&B in Stone-on-Oxney, just north of town. Oxney used to be an island before the land in this area rose. The B&B was a former post office run by two elderly sisters. Upon signing in we noticed a map of southeastern England that plotted the location of bombs dropped during WWII. I asked about their experiences during the war. They told us a story about the coast watchers who had been employed by the government since the early 1800’s to sound the alarm when they saw Napoleon sending his invasion force. In 1940 when the Battle of Britain took place, the coastal watchers did not raise the alarm when Nazi patrol boats approached the coast. When asked why, they replied that they had been hired to look for Napoleon, not Nazis.

We asked where we could find supper and they told us that the Ferryman Pub was just a half mile down the road. As we had been riding all day, we decided to walk. After a delicious pub meal we walked back to the B&B in the dark. Fortunnately, there was only one way to go, so we didn't get lost, although we kept our eyes open for the Hounds of the Baskervilles and other evil creatures of the night.

Saturday we continued to Dover and took the ferry to Calias and then on to Brussels for the night. The US Mission to NATO had booked us into the Astoria, a grand hotel near the Grand Place. Somehow the hotel had misplaced our reservations, so offered us the two remaining rooms at no additional cost. Linda and I were given the Presidential Suite, or maybe it was the King’s Suite. In any case, it was ornate and huge…thirty steps from the King size bed to the bathroom. We ate off the Grand Place.

Sunday we drove the rest of the way home.

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