Going to England for a couple days and I’ll be staying in Coventry (actually Kenilworth) and going to classes at Warwick. What should I know about afternoon tea? Will the city stop for 2 hours? Will it be available for the poor colonist in the mother country? What is the etiquitte?
Second question. My flight leave Heathrow at 9 in the morning so early is good. Any help finding a hotel close to the airport with service (taxi, public, etc.) that can get me to the airport early. How long should I anticipate needing to get through security? 2 hours for an international flight?
None, unless you go to a top-class place but I can’t comment on that.
Heathrow is choc full of hotels. Look on their website or any of the hotel booking websites (I like laterooms.com)
I think they recommend 3 hours checkin for an international flight, but usually 1/2 an hour max is what security would take. But I’d allow an hour just in case.
Just spent a week in London, and nobody stopped for any tea as far as I could tell
As for check in/security time, I’d recommend getting to the check in line at least an hour, preferably 90 minutes prior to departure. I flew out of London (Gatwick tough, which is smaller than Heathrow) last week, and spent 20-25 mins in the check in line (only two booths operational for the airline I was travelling with), then 5-10 mnutes walking to security, then another 25 minutes to navigate security. (Granted, my bag was flagged, so I had to wait for somebody to search it, and it was apparaently training day for the staff manning the checkpoint I went through). So an hour there, and then I’d recommend another half hour to navigate to the correct gate, buy snacks and all those little tasks.
As for hotel - be sure to check which terminal you’re leaving from, so that you can get an hotel that is conveniently located with regards to the terminal.
I’m going to America in a few weeks. Can you tell me where to get my cowboy hat, six-shooter and horse, and how often one should exclaim “Yeeeeehaaaawwwww!” per sentence?
And please advise me on the pilgrim-style clothing I should wear, and how I should refer to the Red Indians!
I got a Stetson and Ruger .22 single action you can borrow while you’re here. And we colonists prefer using “y’all” at least twice per sentence (if you use “all y’all” only one is required). Jeans and a t-shirt are mandatory at all times.
It doesn’t happen. The whole “at 3pm, everyone stops and sits round a table with a white tablecloth and all the good china, for tea and scones” thing is a thing of the distant past in regular England. A lot of people will drink tea, but the default for that is breakfast tea with milk out of a ceramic mug, at any time of the day (breakfast in particular though) and with no ritual or etiquette to it beyond the same etiquette that would be expected in, say, a Starbucks in the US. In fact if you do have a cup of tea out in the city it might well be in a Starbucks. There’s not much romantic about tea-drinking in England any more I’m afraid. Still the greatest drink on Earth though.
That said, if you go to certain up-market restaurants or hotels, such as the 5 Star hotels in London, they do still offer a genuine “afternoon tea”, which is served in the mid-afternoon and for which you’re expected to be dressed up and to use proper etiquette. But that’s a pretty rare service even in London and it costs a bomb (about £60, or $90), so I’m not sure you’ll find it in Coventry.
Pub drinking, on the other hand, is something we still do pretty much as per the stereotype. You’ll be able to find some 500-year-old pubs with that “Ye Olde Inn” kind of look anywhere you go, with pints of warm ale on tap and everything. Try and buy a pint of ale and finish it at least once. Personally I’m not an ale guy but it’s something you’ve got to try if you’re over here right? Ask the bartender what they recommend because some of the mass-marketed ales are really sub-par.
Etiquette? One mug, chipped. One tea bag, Yorkshire. Water, boiling. Milk, semi skimmed.
Biscuits, digestives, or Hobnobs if you’re feeling especially indulgent.
Try not to slurp too loudly.
BTW, I notice in the post above mine that yet again “warm ale” is mentioned. I have been living in this country for 33 years, and drinking beer for more than half that time. I have never once come across “warm ale” and I’ve been to several hundred pubs in my lifetime. Where do people get this idea from that we drink beer warm? We don’t!
‘Warm’ being room temperature, or slightly below room temperature. If you’ve never seen that in someone’s house or a pub, I don’t know what to tell you!
Afternoon tea is a thing of beauty, an extended staybit between lunch and a latish supper. Say in the break between two innings at cricket on a lazy late spring afternoon. Tea, sandwiches, and scones or a bit of cake. But it’s an experience to be shared. On your own, it’s just another meal. As the rich American student, treat your impoverished British counterparts.
Tea as a drink is ubiquitous. Try and stay away from the dross like Typhoo and Liptons. Earl Grey’s (hint of orange), Yorkshire (very stiff), and Lapsang Souchong (more delicate), are three for which you should look out. Don’t be afraid to add milk and sugar and always remember to remove the teabag when the strength is correct.
There are plenty of hotels within a few miles of Heathrow. Try to find one which has a hotel bus, else you’ll have to fork out for a taxi. I recommend getting there very early - a bit after 6. This means that you won’t have time to eat at the hotel in the morning, so ask if they can make you some sandwiches. Get through security, then sit back, relax with a good cup of tea and a newspaper and eat your sandwiches.
I don’t touch beer. Cider (hard cider in Yank-speak) is my tipple.
As much as I love England, you folks drink like fish. I don’t think I could ever live there because of the whole “pub culture” thing. I don’t enjoy drinking alcohol, though when pressed (and one is always pressed) in a pub, I’ll have a cider.
But I did discover I enjoy tea. Can anyone point to when, exactly, “teatime” as an institution died? Was it about the same time as American men stopped wearing hats?
I know what you mean. It’s not even the amount we drink (there are quite a few countries that drink more beer per capita), it’s the normalcy of it: you find yourself going for a couple pints after work, evening after evening. Or you end up having a pint or two at lunch, which I find just makes me shatteringly lethargic by late afternoon. I’ve worked with people that leave work at 6pm, have 3 or 4 pints in the pub (ie. half a gallon of beer) then go back to work! It’s fun and I enjoy that culture but it can get a bit much at times.
Asking a local about hotels is usually not very helpful. Locals tend not to stay in a hotel, they live nearby. I have little clue about Chicago hotels, for instance.
I used to travel to London a fair amount. As others have said, there are lots of hotels near Heathrow. If you travel much and have a membership in one brand or other (to accumulate points), that would be good. I’ve tended to stay at the Sheraton, nice swimming pool, quaint pub within walking distance, but somewhat pricey. Again, others have said: check that the hotel has its own shuttle service to avoid cabfare.
Afternoon tea is one of those quaint holdovers from a bye-gone day, basically a snack (tea, sandwiches, biscuits [American: cookies]) to fill the gap when dinner wasn’t until late. Going to an authentic afternoon tea at some major hotel can be fun – pricey, but fun. Most of the people having tea will be tourists, of course. If you can get yourself invited to some duchess’s afternoon tea, that could be cool, but it’s never happened to me.
It is NOT like siesta time in Mexico City or August in France, nothing slows down in the least. High tea is now rather like the Crown Jewels or the immobile guards at Buckingham Palace – tourist attractions. Doesn’t mean they’re not fun.
As with so many aspects of British culture that are lapped up by tourists, this point cannot be emphasised enough.
To experience true British culture you need to do one of the following:
spend an hour or two in a motorway service station,
go to a lower division football match,
go to a bar in a medium sized town on a Friday night (but be careful, that’s in many ways more dangerous than going to a football match, seriously),
go to an ASDA supermarket,
go on a long bus or train journey linking non-touristy cities
go to a seaside resort out of season
go to a popular countryside attraction in season, especially on a bank holiday.
My list is subjective, but I personally feel that if you do not experience any of these things then you will have no idea what Britain is really like. I’m really surprised that anyone would think afternoon tea was still a big thing. Of course they still take ‘tea’ in cricket matches, but that’s a jargon term, it shouldn’t be applied to wider life.
Furthermore, afternoon tea was never a big thing for the majority of poor sods who had to spend their lives in coal mines, sculleries, kitchens, laundries, cotton mills, fields, shipyards etc etc.
If the OP is set on doing the tourist thing and actually having some fancy pants* afternoon tea, then Coombe Abbey is happy to oblige at £10.50 per person.
