One of the things I absolutely love when going to English-speaking countries is witnessing the different ways people greet each other. The one that I keep encountering here is “are you alright?”
“No I’m jet lagged and confused, but thanks for asking,” or “it’s 2025, have you looked at the news?” is how I want to respond, but don’t because I just assume this is merely hello. (It is hello)
This is how the magical breakfast lady greets us when we go check out our free breakfast. Turns out, it is an A++ breakfast and it’s included with our stay. It’s probably one of the best hotel breakfasts I’ve had at this price point (it was about £159 a night, so midrange outside of London), on par with the hotel breakfast we had in Aalborg a few years back. We’re kind of at the hotel price point break where bfast is extra money and is not really as good then, for some reason.
The food is to order (?!), tea is good, and they have extras you can take with you. They deeply want us to take these goodies with us, and keep stressing that we should take them. What are you, the narrators for St George’s chapel yesterday? We oblige them and take some fruit and are on our merry way. I am now officially alright.
I wanted to walk along the riverbank – the Thames flows thru here – and look at the swans and boats and willows along the path. It’s a wonderful place to go for a walk, especially this morning – sunny.
There are swans! So many swans! None of them were mean swans! But they were v hungry and I witnessed them try to gang up on a child who was being allowed to feed them (why? Why parents? Do you want to be rid of this child?? The birds will consume your child!).
There are a few river boats moored along the way, as it is a Thing to live in riverboats. There are a few long-style ones that I’ve seen before in London, and some that give yacht. The best boat name I saw was a yacht named “Le Boat.”
After some morning meandering into some shops, it was time to hit the road. We took the train to Rochester and this is when I realized that the trains in Japan gave Rhett exceptionally high Train Standards and now he judges trains everywhere else. The inter-city trains in England are just fine – on time and clean – but the leg room and interior design is not as comfy. Rhett’s poor knees are very sad.
Also we have to switch two times, which is kind of annoying. I am cursed and never find a lift or an escalator going the right way so I have to haul my shit up and down steps like 10 billion times. The universe is clearly punishing me for bringing my own suitcase to fill with cookies, tea, and some other shopping I want to do so I don’t have to pay orange man’s tariffs (does it matter? no. but it makes me feel better, so the answer is yes).
Rochester is hoppin with festival crowds when we get off the train. We dodge high street and the crowds and find our very old little house up a hill (hill is in the name of the street, who could have foreseen this?)
It’s 350 years old and has a step that tries to kill Rhett (it nearly succeeds too). It is overall relatively not crooked and the only place he can whack his head is in the front door. (Foreshadowing: he does this)
The Sweeps festival’s history goes back centuries as a festival for chimney sweeps, as May 1 was their only day off in the year. Now, it’s celebrated over a long weekend with lots of morris dancers, folk music, people dressed up as chimney sweeps, and a parade featuring the green man on the final day.
Saturday is a busy day for the festival. It’s filled with festivalgoers and colorful, jingly morris dancers clacking morris sticks to music by their bands. Accordions (Weird Al would be proud), stringed instruments, and drums accompany the dance troupes dotted all along High Street.
We take a little detour through the cathedral – they you take pictures inside! Success. (Take that, St George).
It’s less grand than St George’s, but still has a lot of beautiful stained glass and a pretty cool organ. I really like the dark timber ceiling. There has been some kind of churchy place on this site since the 600s, but this one was built from the 1100s onward, by a dude named Gundulf. (Any relation to Gandalf?).
Rhett was checking out some of the names on the wall when he was befriended by an older nun. She mentioned that the names were memorials dedicated to engineers who had survived various wars, vs ones who had died in the war.
It’s pretty rowdy outside the cathedral’s other side – which exits into a street food vendor street. There is a delightful amount of food – vendors range from standard food of burgers & fries to korean corn dogs and donuts. Every single stand even has vegetarian items, which would literally not happen at home. Yay!
