London: The Real Journey Begins... Again

For two boys from Ohio in 1977, crossing the English Channel aboard a ferry was as exotic a thought as entering Timbuktu aboard camels. So, after a few days of sponging off Jim’s brother and sister-in-law in the idyllic village of Hilton, Cambridgeshire, they were eager to get started with the “real” trip; namely, The Continent. Tom was especially eager to start using his two-month Eurail pass (not valid in Britain) to see as much of Europe as possible, and Jim was ready to start collecting the experiences he was sure would fuel his future career as a worldly-wise writer.

After finalizing plans to revisit Captain (later Colonel) King and his family before heading back to the States, Tom and Jim boarded the train to London’s King Cross Station. The itinerary called for a day taking in all the major London landmarks before catching the train from Victoria Station to Dover. From there, they would catch the ferry that crosses the English Channel to Oostende, Belgium.

            They’d heard about it all their lives: the white cliffs of Dover, Operation Overlord, courageous (crazy?) swims against the strong and unpredictable channel currents. They anticipated a body of water unlike any other they’d seen, which was largely limited to Lakes Erie and Michigan (awesome but familiar) and the Maumee and Cuyahoga (fire!) rivers. They sensed the crossing would be less about the view than the experience of sailing away from signs they could read and a language they could speak into the great unknown—to them, anyway. They couldn’t have known it at the time, but it would be a very different sort of connection to the water that they would later feel a year or so later, in Varanasi, India, as they floated aboard a boat on Mother Ganges and, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, took in the sights of crematory fires, floating bodies, and vultures. Lots of vultures.

As planned—well, as Tom had planned—they spent the day racing around London: Big Ben, check; Parliament, check; Buckingham Palace, check; St. Paul’s, check; Trafalgar Square, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, Fleet Street—check, check, check, and mate. They slowed down around happy hour to grab a beer (Newcastle for Tom, Old Speckled Hen for Jim) at a Fleet Street bar, expecting and hoping for a raucous crowd of boisterous Fleet Street journalists.

St. Paul’s Cathedral was more raucous.

Finally aboard the train to Dover, Tom dove into planning their next major outing—Copenhagen!—while Jim tried to record the day’s activities and insights in his journal. When he finished, he re-read his entry and decided he had a long way to go before he’d be giving Paul Theroux a run for his money.

Training through the Kent countryside, Tom and Jim had their first major “challenging” discussions. Paging through their respective travel guides (“Let’s Go Europe!” and “Europe on $5 a Day”) they agreed, disagreed, then agreed again—temporarily—about what to see at what pace, where to stay and where to eat and for how much, when to get started in the morning, and when to call it a day. It would have been difficult for an unbiased observer to determine who was the bigger control freak.

And then they were on the Ferry. It struck them both as a misnomer. This was no 20-minute trip from Port Clinton, Ohio, to Put-in-Bay Island. It was a five-hour voyage aboard a multi-tiered ship with restaurants, bars, shops, and even sleeping cabins for those who’d rather nap. Tom and Jim were way too keyed up to nap. They spent most of the time on one of the decks, staring at the receding white cliffs until they were out of sight, and darkness settled in.

“This is it, Doc,” Tom said. “This is where our real journey begins.”

There would be many real-journey beginnings to come.

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And now for the NOW: Reflections on The "Real Journey" Begins... Again

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