First of all, I noticed a typo in my August 31 entry that was bothering me to no end, as many of you can imagine, because I couldn't find a way to correct it! You'll be happy to know that I eventually discovered that there is a way to edit an entry after posting it. I feel so much better now. :-)

Gord and I made our way over to the National Gallery yesterday where we spent five hours. We started out in their cafe for a sandwich and then joined a tour led by a very entertaining docent who, in one hour, showed us only four paintings! Needless to say he had a lot to say about each one. The first was the Virgin and Child with Saints Francis and Sebastian by Carlo Crivelli (15th century), the second was The Adoration of the Kings by Jan Gossaert (16th century), the third was Self Portrait at the Age of 34 by Rembrandt (17th century), and the fourth and final was Van Gogh's Chair, by Vincent Van Gogh (they pronounce it "goff" here). You may be surprised that the theme of the tour was portraits--anyone want to take a guess how they are all considered portraits? Anyway, with thousands of pieces in their collection, I could take a museum tour every day and at this rate not even scratch the surface!

We spent the rest of the afternoon touring the museum on our own, seeing lots of wonderful pieces. Gord recognized van Eyck's The Arnolfini Marriage (1434) from his art history class of 35+ years ago. The painting of the month was Paul Delaroche's The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833) coincidentally enough because afterward we passed by the Tower of London where the horrible event took place. There is just so much to see here that I can't begin to list them all. I do try to discover a new artist/painting (at least new for me) and I found one here. It's an image of Lake Keitele by Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela. If you want to see it, here's the link: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk. After you get to their home page type in Gallen-Kallela in the search area (they only have one painting of his).

After that we took a bus to the Tower Pier (with views of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge) where we met up with the students for a Thames River cruise to Westminster. Lo and behold, there was Big Ben! From Westminster Gord and I walked to Leicester Square for dinner at Wagamama, which is a chain of Japanese noodle shops.

We have seen a number of hookah bars here, where people smoke tobacco or something through these water pipes. At one of them we saw the EMTs walking a gentleman out who was wearing an oxygen mask. Evidently he overdid it!

Off to the Camden Arts Centre for an exhibition. More later...