Amsterdam & London (2000)
This was my first trip to London and my second venture to Amsterdam. I was hitching myself to my friend Tony who traveled a lot for his job. At the time, Tony loved London like no other I’d met, and I loved Amsterdam so we’d be sharing our favorite cities with each other.
Tony and I met in the late 80s while we both lived in Boston. It was a chance meeting during group therapy we both were attending to figure out why we couldn’t make a relationship work. We did what we weren’t supposed to do, socialize outside of therapy. He asked me out, and I said “As long as it’s not a date” and our friendship bloomed. We talked about everyone in the group and couldn’t believe how crazy they were. We spent the next number of years developing the closest of friendships and our love of Buffy the Vampire solidified it and until this day our names for each other are Buff and Will.
In 1991 I moved to Chicago and as much as we didn’t want our friend drifted up and down, but in 2000 he was heading to Amsterdam and London for work and I got to tag along. This was our first trip together, the second being my first Italian Adventure which Tony was pivotal in organizing.
I had forgotten I had these pictures until I unpacked boxes from my move to Reno and there they were. Lots of pictures of this trip. Not the best quality for sure; it’s what I love about digital nowadays, I can fix them in the digital darkroom. Back then you got shit quality film photos from developing them at Walgreens. But I am thankful I found these photos and now all scanned in.
Never ever put a time/date stamp on your pictures. Maybe I thought this would be a good way to keep the photos organized, but what a mess it made of the photos.
This post won’t have my ramblings; gosh it was 23 years ago, but as I was scanning in the photos key memories definitely came to the forefront. Walking along the canals in Amsterdam after dinner how romantic it felt even with a friend. Seeing the Anne Frank House and trying to take in what it must have been like for them hidden away until they were discovered. And, seeing the van Gogh Museum and the emotions it brought sitting and trying to take in the works of art.
During this trip, we also took a day trip to the Hague for Tony’s work so I got to meander around and take photos and enjoy cafes.
Tony
We were only in Amsterdam for a few days, I was so glad to have been able to go back and share it with Tony.
It was a pretty short plane ride from Amsterdam to London. I was excited. I read a lot of English history; Tudor England and couldn’t wait to see it all. We would only be in London for a few days before heading back across the pond to home so I needed to make the most of it. How did I do this? The red bus tours; yup I was one of those on the open double-decker bus zooming around London. Yes, I know it sounded horrible, but truthfully it was a great way to get around. You could get off anywhere and catch another red bus anywhere.
We woke up the next morning. Tony had to work so off I went. It was a drizzly, cloudy, and occasionally sunny day, the perfect English weather.
Tower Bridge
Key places I visited were the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey, and then Tony met me and we walked down the mall to Buckingham Palace.
What seems I missed taking a picture of was Henry VIII’s armor, oh well.
This next set is generally walking around the city. What struck me was how many of the buildings didn’t seem to fit. Tony reminded me that during WW2, London was almost demolished so a lot of the buildings were put up quickly after the war.
If you want to learn more about Hampton Court, then I’d invite you to visit here. We all know it as the home of Henry VIII, but it originally was Cardinal Wosley’s home.
The kitchens consisted of @30,000 square feet if my mind remembers correctly and when the Court was in residence, the staff would serve @800 meals a day, burning 1.6 million logs a year in the fireplaces.
The Gardens
During the reign of William and Mary, they started a building project to update the Palace but ran out of money. So now the Palace has two distinct styles. The front is the Tudor style and the back is the Baroque. In truth this was for the best, they wanted to demolish the Tudor palace; can’t imagine not having this around today.
This was an amazing trip being my second to Europe. In 2013 I did a genealogy search of my Grandmother Abby’s family, her maiden name was Carleton. We knew two Carleton brothers came over to the US from England in 1640; thank you Ancestry.com. I discovered I could trace, through the female line back to King Edward III and through his son John of Ghant, a bloodline down to Henry VIII.
I am sure most of us can trace our family roots back to some interesting people for sure, we all come from somewhere. But fortunately for me, the Carleton family had money and so there were records. For someone who was obsessed with English history, this discovery was life-changing. It set me on a path to discover more about our family line…so my advice discover your own family history, it’s fascinating.