Another beautiful day! Gord and I had lunch at Belgo Centraal, a Belgian restaurant in Covent Garden that had come recommended by Peggy B. (as well as the Zagat Survey's, 2007 London Restaurants book) and it did not disappoint. Meals are served in an underground cellar seating 400 people at long, shared tables served by waiters dressed as monks.

We made our way across the Thames to Shakespeare's Globe where we purchased tickets to a performance of The Merchant of Venice later this month. We also took a tour of the ruins of the Rose Theatre and looked at the Globe's exhibition on Shakespeare which I had read was "the world's largest, with interactive displays and film presentations, a sound lab, a script factory, and costumes." Unfortunately most of the exhibits were under construction and it wasn't very worthwhile. There was a matinee going on in the Globe so we couldn't tour that; however we did walk over to where the original Globe Theatre once stood and learned that U.S. actor Sam Wanamaker spearheaded the project to rebuild the Globe near its original location. He was able to see the beginning of the construction (which began 23 years after he founded the trust), but he died six years before it was completed.

In the evening we went to our first play, Elling, which was adapted from a novel by Norwegian Ingvar Ambjornsen. The play was about these two men (another Odd Couple) living together after being released from a mental institution and their adapting to life outside. It was a very well acted comedy, with wonderful characters. We chose the play based on a list of recommendations I received from the professor teaching theatre at the institute. I look forward to seeing more on her list.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8

This morning we moved into our new home! It is probably five to six times larger than our last place, with two bedrooms, a living room, study, eat-in kitchen, and 1-1/2 baths. Oh, and I can't forget the rooftop garden. As soon as you open the front door you are greeted with the delicious smell of the French bakery two floors below.

We walked to the store to stock up on groceries and then I had my first experience cooking with an Aga (a heat-storage cooker that is used to cook as well as help to heat your home and your water). I had only read about them in novels and our landlords said that they are pretty rare in London, mostly thought of in rural contexts, families crowding around the Aga to keep warm in their drafty farmhouses. Appliance repairmen in London don't like working on them, so hopefully it won't need servicing. We do have a regular gas stove and oven so we should be fine. It's strange that the Aga is on all of the time. It has two cooktops (one very hot and the other medium) and two ovens (one hot and one with low heat). I decided to slow-roast some tomatoes as long as the warming oven was on anyway. (They should be done in another couple of hours.)

Now that we have a real kitchen, I guess I'm going to have to cook on a regular basis. It's really going to eat into my museum time and I'm starting to get worried!

After dinner, we walked two blocks to Kensington Palace where we saw all of the memorials and flowers left to honour Princess Diana ten years after her death. We continued through Kensington Gardens, passing the Royal Albert Hall, and on into Hyde Park for the last night of the BBC Proms (short for Promenade Concerts). This one was a live outdoor concert by the BBC Concert Orchestra. You could pay 23 pounds to go inside the fenced-off area and watch the concert on a big screen (it was so crowded inside, you couldn't get near the stage), or you could do what we and many other people did--watch the big screen from outside without paying. The music was good either way.

Speaking of music, for a couple of hours in the afternoon, we could hear the continuous peals of a nearby church's bells--pleasant for the first half hour or so.