English Lesson #1: The Car Park

The work I'm doing in England actually takes me to the southern portion of the country to a city called Gosport. Gosport is on the Western edge of Portsmouth Harbor and across the harbor is the city of Portsmouth, home of the Historic Dockyard for the Royal Navy. This is where we (I'm with one other colleague from San Antonio) spent most of our weekend. To showcase what the dockyards have to offer, Portsmouth has been revitalized in recent years and is actually a neat place to visit. Gunwharf Quays (pronounced keys) is an outdoor mall with plenty of retail and dining options. A great place to go recharge when you get tired of seeing the sites.

Spinnaker Tower, built for the Millennium celebration, soars 557 feet above the Harbor, offering awesome views from it's three separate viewing levels. The real gimmick is on level one, where in the center of the room is a glass floor that, if you remove your shoes, you can walk across, peering down to the ground 328 feet below. It's definitely a walk of faith and worth checking out if you happen to be in the area.

The real draw for sure is the historic dockyards. For about sixteen pounds you can get an all-inclusive admission ticket with eight attractions. There is no way you can do it all in a day and only the serious tourist could manage to master everything in a weekend, so it's convenient that the all inclusive ticket is good for one admission to each attraction for an entire year. The first day we were able to see the HMS Victory and the HMS Warrior 1860. Victory is the oldest commissioned ship in the British fleet and is most famous for its role in the Battle of Trafalgar, when the great Naval hero Admiral Lord Nelson was killed. Warrior is the first iron-hulled battleship ever made. She was in service for only ten years before becoming obsolete to newer technology. Warrior spent much of her life cast aside as an oil jetty and then an abandoned relic of history before being restored to her original glory.

After a full day of climbing about on old warships, we headed back to the car about seven o’clock to drive home to our hotel—a fifteen minute drive away. We were satisfied with our dockyard conquest for this trip and intended to see more of the six remaining attractions left on our ticket after our return to England in July. We parked the car on the ground floor of a parking structure that advertised a rate of ₤1 an hour. In this overpriced country where a pint fetches no less than $5 this was a bargain to be sure! When we arrived at the structure there was a giant metal gate blocking our entrance. In front of the entrance was the sign on which we carefully noted the rates six hours prior. Below the rates, in white block letters it said “OPENING HOURS 07.00 to 18.00”. At a loss for words, I took a picture.

For the next two hours my colleague and I got a scenic tour of Portsmouth, Titchfield, and every lousy residential area in the half dozen towns in between. The journey home involved two bus rides, a one-mile walk, two pubs, four pints, and six quid (not including the pints). The highlight for sure was the second bus driver, obviously from Scotland. We had just spent four quid each to travel the lion’s share of the distance, probably ten miles or so. The remaining trip was about two miles up the road but we had to switch buses. Since we weren’t familiar with the bus route or where it stopped, my colleague tried picking some landmarks that he figured might be along the bus route. When we mentioned Titchfield Abbey, the driver's eyes lit with recognition. We knew from experience the Abbey was within reasonable walking distance of our hotel and there was a nice little pub down the street where we could grab dinner and a pint.

“Two pounds” the driver said.

I was thinking the same thing, but my colleague managed to get the words out faster:

“Two quid from Fareham to Titchfield?”

“‘at’s a lot, in’t it?” he said with his thick Scottish accent. I thought, fuck that for a game of soldiers.

Unfortunately the driver didn’t take main roads to the abbey, so my colleague and I had no idea when to pull the stop cord for our stop. We were relying on the Scotsman to remember where we were trying to go. Sure enough, five minutes into the ride he stops the bus, looks back and says “hellooo, yew winted the abbey?”

We jumped up to get off the bus and he gave us kind of a confused look and said “there’s nuthin’ here”.

My colleague clarified our goal, “we’re trying to get to the Titchfield Mill pub.”

With the rest of the bus waiting, and I’m sure listening (it was not quite half full), the Scotsman then excitedly gave us more detailed instructions:

“Oh, yew hafta cross the duel carriageway. Make sure ya do not get run ovah. Hav a neece drrink.”

Not good luck, not have a nice day, not the ever prevalent “cheers”, but have a nice drink. What a lovely country. We disembarked from the bus in the midst of a tiny neighborhood street that you wouldn’t think a bus would travel. On one side of the street, sandwiched between rows of flats, an automotive garage. On the other side, a pub called the Wheatsheaf. Spot on. We stopped in after dinner at the Mill for a few sherberts before walking home to the hotel.