Pub Lunch

Our class fieldtrip to London materialized rather last minute. I had been told about the excursion about a month before hand, but due to the necessity of purchasing tickets well in advance the initial outlook for our accompaniment was bleak. Luckily for us the French do not seem to be very adept with planning out schedules too far in advance. Thanks to one students test to obtain a permis de conduire, and another’s misplaced National Identity Card, Kathryn and I were able to join the group just one day before the trip. I had never been to London before other than three hours spent navigating the underground to Heathrow while coming home for the Winter Holiday. For Kathryn this would be her second tour through the capital of the United Kingdom, but her first time there in the last eight years.

The fieldtrip itself had a very “play-as-we-go” atmosphere, but one goal was to have as much time as possible for sight-seeing, museums, lunch, and a favorite Lillois pastime…shopping. With that in mind we met the electronic engineering BTS class at the Lille-Europe station to board our 7:35am departure. We arrived in London just before 8am local time. Once we had disembarked from the train our group traversed back and forth across the length of St. Pancras station twice before finally locating a currency exchange where we could turn our euros into pounds. While the students were exchanging their money Kathryn and I grabbed a croissant to hold us over seeing as our 5am rise that morning left very little time for breakfast.

First up on our list of activities for the day was a visit to the London Science Museum. The original plan was to take one of the famed double-decker buses which would provide a great opportunity for the students to see the city compared to the underground. Unfortunately the cost of a daily pass for the buses cost double that of the subway so we gave in to frugality, and the kids got their first chance to practice their English skills. None of them took that chance; instead they just walked up to the teller’s window, handed her the money, and waited for their change hoping they would receive the correct amount as well as their pass card. Our first challenge of the trip came just minutes later as we attempted to catch the blue-line of the underground.

It was still rather early in the morning London time, and we seemed to be right in the heart of rush hour as thousands of Londoners were making their way to work that morning. This was the main contributing factor to almost losing Kathryn before the day even got started. When the train pulled up it was, expectantly, filled to capacity. As the doors slid open about half the train car squeezed and pushed their way off as about the same number of people did to get on. We were a group of about twelve students, the teacher (Catherine) and one of the school administrators who is in charge of much of the schools financial expenditures (Eric).

Kathryn and I had stayed at the back of the group with the intention of corralling stragglers, and making sure no one was left behind. This almost came back to bite us. Kathryn, coming from Portland, was not exactly practiced in the art of forcing oneself onto a train car, and took more of a passive and accommodating approach rather than one more aggressive. In most aspects of life this is the best way to handle interpersonal relations in a foreign land, but anyone who has ridden the “L” during rush hour knows that’s not the best way to get onto a train. That being said, as the class piled on we quickly ran out of space and Kathryn was left standing on the platform as the ominous tone sounded indicating the doors would be closing. Neither Kathryn nor I had brought our phones with us because of the exorbitant out-of-country charges, so separation was not an option. Thinking quickly I was just able to fit my arm through the closing doors, and pry them back open enough to yank Kathryn onto the ledge while pushing a couple students further into the cabin to make room for her to fully board. That little dust-up aside the biggest problem we encountered the rest of the day was merely which pub to stop at and eat lunch.

We got off the train at Piccadilly Circus then stopped in the middle of the square so that Catherine could get her bearings (and actually decide what we would be doing seeing as the trip had no itinerary, but only a few ideas about possible things to do). After only a few minutes of impeding foot traffic (in normal French style) and consulting the map we headed off towards the science museum. Our walk there took about 45min, and took us through a major upscale shopping and hotel district. This was most apparent by the students stopping every block or so to take pictures of the numerous Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, Ferrari’s and Aston Martins. The BTS students we quite obviously very excited for the trip, but it seemed they cared more that they were missing school rather than for the cultural experience. The kids were all between the ages of about 19 and 22 so who could really blame them?(I carefully selected this specific picture of two of the students that more or less sums up their behavior throughout the trip) One thing they really enjoyed was singing, loudly, in French (kind of). As we marched down the street Kathryn and I did our best to keep some slight distance between ourselves and the group so we wouldn’t be mistaken for French. Their tune of choice was not really a song at all. They just sang at the top of their lungs “Thierry Henry, Thierry Henry, Thierry Henry,” and then followed it with something in French that was incomprehensible. In fact it wasn’t until about an hour or two before we left that we actually realized what they were saying. To us it just sounded like “Cherriarty” (pronounced similar to the last name of the Sherlock Holmes nemesis Prof. James Moriarty). Aside from singing they also enjoyed clapping in unison at random people or at street musicians, and of course shouting and gesturing at the women of London.

The science museum was on the campus of the London Royal Institute College, (and as we found out at 9:30am when we arrived) didn’t open until 10am. When the doors finally opened we all poured in and the students went off on their own to (I assume) explore the engineering wings while we accompanied Catherine and Eric to the cafeteria to have a coffee. We didn’t spend too much time at the museum, and soon enough we were meeting back up in front to discuss lunch options. The students were unwaveringly bent on getting Macdonald’s (apparently because it was “cheap), but the adults wanted sometime a little more traditional. So we hopped the subway (this time without incident) back to a less costly area of the city in a bit more of a touristy district, and split up from the students who went off in search of their precious Macdo.

As per the suggestion of one of the other English teachers at Baggio who had spent significant time living in England when he was younger, we searched out some pub-lunch which was described as cheaper and in most cases tastier than any restaurant you might encounter. Based on our previous experiences with British cuisine (tuna/corn/carrot lasagna, burnt-to-a-crisp sausages, and mushy peas) we figured we would stick to the staple delicacy: fish n’ chips and a pint. Lunch was really good (and it turned out cheaper than the kid’s meals at Macdo), and because Eric didn’t speak English we spent a majority of our trip conversing in, and improving our French.

After lunch we met back up in front of the National Galleries, and Catherine took us on a mini sight-seeing tour. We started off seeing the guards on horseback in front of the palace guard’s stables. We continued on passed Downing Street (which was completely closed off), then to Westminster Cathedral and Abbey, and got a good picture across the street from Big Ben. Next we took a stroll through the Jefferson Park Gardens detouring for a few minutes while half the class took a bathroom break. One of the hopes for the trip was to be at Buckingham Palace in time to see the changing of the guards, but no one could seem to figure out when exactly that was so we hung around the Palace gates long enough for the kids to snap some pictures and determine if they could climb over safely, which luck enough they figured they could not.

For the final segment of the trip we convened at Piccadilly Circus one more time and laid out plans to meet up two or three hours later, and everyone was given some free time to explore London (and by “explore” I mean go shopping). This gave Kathryn and I a chance to first indulge in something that is non-existent in Lille: latte’s and more specifically Starbucks. I mean mini espresso shots are great from time to time, but other than that Lille doesn’t exactly have variety when it comes to getting a caffeine fix. One other motive in stopping for coffee was the fast approaching exhaustion from our early morning departure coupled with hour after hour of walking around the city. So we used this opportunity to relax and spend up the last of our pounds. After Starbucks we wandered around a bit more and Kathryn stopped in a couple boutiques before heading back to meet the class in front of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum.

Once everyone had returned from their shopping adventures, some with kitsch London souvenirs, others with British flag apparel, and one kid with a Yankee’s hat, we still had about two hours to kill, and the general consensus was to pass the time in one of the cities pubs. No one had any exact pub in mind so we began to wander along the streets, with the students peering into every pub we passed to see if there was enough room or if it looked accommodating. Finally they settled on one place down a side street and one by one they all piled in. Again we were bringing up the rear and just as we were walking in the door the students were quickly shuffling past us back out onto the street. It seemed a little odd since they had been kind of choosey when deciding. Then we noticed the all male customer base, the mesh tank-tops worn by the bartenders, and the gay-life magazines on the tables. No rude or degrading comments were made by any of the students; they just turned on their heels and walked right back out the door. Thinking they had just made a bad judgment on that particular bar the group walked about half a block down, and were about to enter a new pub when Kathryn and I figured we should inform them that they had stumbled upon “Boys Town” and it didn’t matter what bar they chose in this small quarter…they would all be gay bars.

The class then agreed the best course of action would just be to take the underground back to St. Pancras International train station, and find a pub around there. Again there were no problems with the subway, but the first pub we went into refused to acknowledge the student’s international identification cards as proper forms of age verification and wouldn't serve them. The bar next door did, so we all got a pint, raised our glasses to a day well spent, and then the class erupted in to their “Thierry Henry” chant. Apparently on the screen right behind where we were sitting was a large screen showing soccer highlights, and at that very moment they had just replayed the incident during the match between France v. Ireland when Mr. Henry reached out and palmed the ball to prevent it from going out of bounds, then proceeded to kick it back in front of the goal where a waiting teammate headed it in. This was met by a chorus of “Boo’s” from the English patrons, and the bartender quickly grabbed the remote and changed the channel.

That was the end of our fieldtrip to London. We had an amazing day getting to see most of the major sights and attractions, and Catherine was a fantastic guide helping us navigate the underground and through the streets of the capital (however, we did spend approx 30min or so lost in the parking garage back at the Lille-Europe train station trying to find her car). To be perfectly honest before this trip I did not hold London or the English in very high regard. All I had ever really learned or heard about them was that we kicked their ass in the Revolutionary War and then again in 1812; they were oppressive colonizers, spoke with a funny accent, had bad teeth, and worse food. While most of those ideas have stayed the same (and actually been exemplified/proven correct) I have a whole new list of reasons of why London rocks.

A bientôt,

-Jordan and Kathryn