It was Penny's idea, and subsequent petition, to take everyone to Portsmouth. We imagined walking on the stone walls of Lyme in the freezing ocean air and rain--accordingly, we all showed up at the coach with Wellies and trenches and umbrellas, prepared for the worst. But it was unnecessary; our arrival in Portsmouth revealed the most glorious sunshine and blue sky, reflected on the calm Atlantic. We emerged onto old cobbled raods, reminiscent of Liverpool, and saw two ships that looked straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. I was all vestiges of delight--so much so that Katy and Emily could only laugh at me.
We were the second tour, so we whiled away some forty-five minutes in the Maritime Museum, which had everything from female uniforms to miniature battleships to modern military technology blurbs. I spent some ten minutes on a military helicopter training demo, complete with joysticks, buttons, and monstrous consoles--I could not get off the ground without failing. And neither could anyone else, from what I heard. The most fun we had took place upstairs in the Figurehead Museum. We were hard-put to find any traditional mermaids--more common were Welsh dragons, slaves from Madagascar with enormous comic lips and eyes, and even characters from Turkey and the East Indies with earrings and turbans. It was marvelous to see these treasures of the British Empire, and yet unhappy to consider the effects of colonization.
My favorite place had the largest textile artifact in the world--the Victory's main sail. It lay splayed out in over 90 square feet, under cool yellow lighting and punctured by over 90 shots from bullet and cannon fire. In the background were scenes from Master and Commander, my very favorite period movie (we'd watched it on the way, and Penny couldn't handle the violence--I was so enthused to see something blow up again after all the Austen flicks). I wish we could have gotten closer to the canvas sail and investigate; it's probably wise that we were left squinting in a dark room to see it all.
On Board
Our tour finally began--we hurried over to the HMS Victory, the cutting-edge warship that mostly guaranteed England would never get along with France again. I barely caught one picture outside the ship before we headed up the gangway; the white sails rustling against the blue sky, held up by spiderwebs of taut ropes. I was all smiles, remembering beaches and little rowboats from back home. The gangway flexed and bounced up and down as we thundered up and said jovial hellos to our tour guide. He was a dark-haired, bookish sort of man who had a nervousness about him we hadn't seen in any guide yet. Accordingly, a white-haired supervisor shadowed our tour, constantly trying to calm his greenie down (10 years vs. 10 weeks' experience).
Ben and Andrew suffered most; they had to crouch under every single ceiling on board, with the exception of Nelson's deck; this was where a wreath lay, the spot where Admiral Nelson was shot and fatally wounded. We saw Nelson's dress uniform in a glass case next to his quarters, where the doors were fastened about the table and china. The guide showed us how a cannon is fired, how the jumpback is cushioned, and how English cannons kicked the trash outta French and Spanish guns (lock, stock, and barrel=less than 60 seconds, vs. three minutes). Underneath the guns were the quarters where hundreds and hundreds of hammocks were hung from the beams with 18 inches or less of room to sleep. This was where the men worked, slept, ate, and cleaned themselves (however they did that). Bit cramped. The kitchen and boiler could have fit on a twister board.
The deck below that held the medical quarters--one look at the screws, scissors, and hack saw convinced us that the tour guide was right ("Life was hard back then. We're softer now. We would die on the operating table.") The ceiling was less that five feet now. We headed down below even further to the gunpowder room, which was air-tight and protected from stray rats. Barrels and barrels of black gunpowder, kept two floors below the actual guns. Our mousy tour guide was replaced by the red-faced Englishman, who explained that, "God put the English Channel there for a bloody good reason." We cracked up--the whole rest of his tour was colored with anti-French comments, and we (being Americans) felt right at home. The guide took us back upstairs to where Lord Nelson finally died. His last wish was not to be buried at sea, however; the physician had a job figuring out how to keep a corpse onboard long enough for him to be buried in London (St. Paul's Cathedral). Since the sailors had far too many barrels of rum lying around, it made the most sense to pickle his body in one of them...? Three weeks or so later, they pulled a perfectly preserved Nelson out of there and his most loyal men drank the rest of the rum. Quite possibly my favorite part of the tour.
Mr. Darcy's Match
Our biggest problem was that we all realized we had fifteen minutes to get back on the coach. Plenty of time--except it was imperative to get to Cadbury World and make purchases at the outlet store. We struggled to get there, and saw Penny just barely leaving as we arrived. I was irritated; she said, "Everyone needs to get on the coach!" like it was our fault we were the second tour. I stayed for five minutes and found communist quantities of chocolate I desperately hoped were nonexistent in America, just plain chocolate and a string of caramels. Amanda Poppe summed it up; "The looks on their faces on Christmas morning will convince them that I was ALWAYS their favorite sister." We ran back to the coach and realized our stress in line was unnecessary, as it was a short day anyway.
Our next stop was just as beautiful as Cadbury world; the seaside, at Brighton. The pier had a full-out carnival/amusement park/casino arcade. None of us was interested in anything except finding a loo for the first twenty minutes, but we definitely got some great pictures, considered what rides we'd hit had we the money, and shrugged off the restaurant's outrageously priced fish and chips. Down at the beach, the kids from Utah (some of whom had never been to the ocean before), we slogged through the pebbly bars to the frothy tide, some ditching shoes and socks and rolling up pantlegs. I was so excited, even after a wave dowsed my shoes--it was the first time I'd ever been to the Atlantic, and I reveled in the cold sea so familiar to me. I even saved a pebble and stuck it in my Beatles bag. Such a beautiful day, and one we got to spend with the seagulls everywhere we went. Shame there was a gay parade out in front of the palace as we headed home to London. But five-pound night was destined to be a success.
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