Katie and Brad arrived yesterday. After lunch, naps, and showers they were ready to see London. The day being nice and fairly mild, we thought the best way to get a sense of the place was to take one of the hop-on/hop-off sightseeing buses. So, we became full-fledged tourists. However, we had to make our way to Baker Street to begin the tour and by then it was 5 PM. The sun was down and the wind picked up. But we were determined to stay on the top, open deck and take bad photos, which we did while the bus made a most zig-zaggy (I know, it's not a word) path through the city, crossing the Thames six times, I think. There is no way that anyone new to the city would get a sense of its layout based on the route we took. But we had fun anyway, laughing at our photos while we froze. Instead of dropping us back at the beginning, the driver left us near Speaker's Corner. We took the subway home, ate at Wagamama, shopped at Whole Foods, and then went to the Elephant & Castle for a pint.

Today we didn't get out of the house until almost noon! Using our tickets from the bus tour yesterday, we took a Thames cruise from Westminster to the Tower of London. After a longer lunch than we wanted at a not-so-great diner adjacent to the Tower, I left Katie and Brad to do the tower and I headed back home to prepare for the last of the student dinners. I made two stops en route--one at Victoria Street to buy tickets to Billy Elliott for Thanksgiving week when my sister and her family will be visiting, and the second at the library.

Dinner was pleasant.

Hopefully we will get an earlier start tomorrow.

Happy Halloween! Happy Birthday brother Rick!

My plan was to go to the Dulwich Picture Gallery and then walk over to the Horniman Museum today, but late last night I realized that the Dulwich Gallery is closed on Mondays. Duh! No problem, though. I'm flexible.

So instead I decided to go to Windsor with the plan of doing a walk around Windsor and nearby Eton, and including a visit to Windsor Castle. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I'm sure there won't be many of those days left. Well the best laid plans . . .

I bought my train ticket at Paddington Station and the guy said the train was leaving in five minutes. He neglected to say that platform 13 was as far from the ticket office as it could be. I saw people running and decided to run too. About a half dozen of us reached the train but the doors were closed and the train departed about ten seconds later. No problem. There was another train leaving in ten minutes on platform 11. Only this train was the local and stopped at every station between Paddington and Slough (rhymes with "cow"). But we eventually made it to Slough and I immediately caught the connecting train to Windsor.

I decided to do the Castle first, a truly beautiful place with a gorgeous view. They began building in 1070, amazingly enough! I went to St. George's Chapel first, in the castle's Lower Ward. After all, I saw where Charles I was beheaded last week, now I was able to see where he was laid to rest, along with Henry VIII, and Jane Seymour under the center of the Quire. Also buried in the chapel are King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mum), as well as Princess Margaret and a few other kings. This chapel, in the Perpendicular Gothic style, was under repairs of some kind so parts of the chapel normally open to the public were off limits, and we had to listen to a cacophony of noises, circular saws and such, all through the audio tour. No problem. It was still beautiful, the ceiling, the West Window, the Quire, the fan vaulting, the little carved angels under all the upper windows, the banners of the Knights of the Garter.

Next stop on the tour was Queen Mary's Dolls' House, built by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1924--replete with running water, electricity, vacuum cleaner, real silver on the tiny tables, a garden, and thousands of objects--the detail was incredible.

The Drawings Gallery displayed some of the royal family's collection of 600 drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. 600! They also have works by Hans Holbein, Michelangelo, Raphael, Parmigianino, Guercino, and Canaletto. These are just the works on paper. Throughout the state apartments, paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Lawrence, to name a few, graced the walls. The audio guide made reference to only a few of them, so I had to buy the souvenir guide. If I had known, I would have bought it at the beginning so that I could reference it during the visit. Oh well. No problem.

I will not go into a description of the china in the china museum or each specific room in the state apartments, but I will say that it is beautifully restored. A fire in November 1992 destroyed the ceilings of two rooms and gutted many of the others, and a five-year, thirty-seven million pound restoration took place.

When I finished the tour and went outside, it was still sunny, but the wind had picked up and it was brisk. I decided not to do the walking tour; hopefully I will get another opportunity. I stopped for tea near the train station, instead, to warm up; then I caught the train to Slough. On the platform in Slough, during the fourteen minutes before the train to London arrived, three "through" trains passed through the station (i.e., without stopping). There were multiple announcements prior to warn people to stay back from the edge. No wonder. They "passed" through at a very fast speed and were quite loud.

The train to Paddington made no other stops and was considerably faster than the train this morning. I was home by 5:30.

Katie arrives tomorrow!

I'm happy to report that my house survived Friday night's Hallowe'en party. At least that's what I've been told.

On Friday, Gord got back from class early enough to join me at the lunchtime concert at St. Mary Abbots Church. We heard a recorder trio playing Bach and some much earlier music, and the Alea Quartet performing Brahms's String Quarter in C minor. Another group of talented students. We then went to a restaurant across the street called Maggie Jones, which a student had recommended highly (we had also passed it many times and read about it in the Zagat's guide). It was very good, but the portions were huge.

Saturday morning we went to Borough Market, a wholesale and retail food market in Southwark (pronounced "suthuck") in South London by the London Bridge station. It was incredible, definitely the best food market I had ever been to, and it seemed that half of London was there! There were stalls devoted to everything you can imagine, olives, cheeses (one that sold only parmigiano reggiano), breads, chocolate, flowers, and of course fresh produce. You could even buy a rabbit or a quail (see photo). We picked up many bags of food for our dinner party that night. We made it home later than we intended, partly because the market was so neat and partly because the subway was so crowded (we had to pass up the first train because there was no room, waited almost ten minutes for the next one, only to be crammed in with someone's bookbag in my back most of the way), but it was definitely well worth it.

We spent the rest of the afternoon preparing our meal and, after J, J, R, and A arrived, we spent the next five hours serving and eating it. And, of course, drinking and talking and discussing, including a lively conversation on public versus private education. They are really delightful people. I have now moved Cairo, South Africa, and New Orleans up higher on my list of must-see places. Oh and we now have some beautiful fresh flowers in the flat, thanks to our friends. I must tell you that I have been admiring the flowers here in London on a daily basis and have wanted to buy some, but unfortunately I'm still converting pounds to dollars. So thank you so much for them. And for the very special chocolates. (Confession: they were especially delicious with my coffee this morning!) Oh and the dessert and wine, too. And, by the way, we still have your Lord of the Rings DVD set!

Today was rainy and a good day to stay indoors, doing the NY Times Sunday Crossword, blogging, indulging in chocolate, enjoying the flowers, reading, indulging in more chocolate, eating leftovers.

I'm getting lazy about my postings, have you noticed? Well, maybe it's really because I'm starting to slow down some and I'm not getting out to do stuff everyday. I've been busy with mundane stuff, marketing, that kind of thing. Not very exciting for the blog.

I opened a Facebook account yesterday and in my wanderings discovered that an invitation to an all-night Hallowe'en party was posted on a certain someone's page, inviting everyone to come and to bring their friends, too. Problem is, it was at our house!!! Now I knew that a party was planned but I was under the impression that it was going to be a few friends, people I knew. But my whole day was ruined with the visions dancing in my head, and they weren't of sugarplums either. Well I feel somewhat better after talking to the party's host on the phone late last night. They feel confident that they know who is coming, there was no address listed, they expect only fifteen people (all over 21), those fifteen people will make sure nobody else is allowed in, and the invitation is no longer listed on Facebook. I have no choice but to trust that all will be well. But if anyone wants to go check it out, feel free. And, since it's a costume party, might I suggest that you dress up as a police officer? Oh, and we don't normally have port-a-potties in our yard so, if you seen any, that's a bad sign.

We had four of the students to dinner last night. Next week is the last group.

Tonight we met J and J, our London friends, for dinner and a play. We ate at one of the first gastropubs in London, The Anchor and The Hope. The food was very good and what a "hopping" place it was. The crowds were even larger on the way out than on the way in. We went to the Old Vic to see All About my Mother, a play based on the Pedro Almodovar movie of the same name. Overall I enjoyed it a lot, although there were a few things at the beginning that didn't work so well I thought. Diana Rigg was in it, but we were well into the first half before I remembered it. (Admittedly she has changed quite a bit from her days on The Avengers!) I haven't seen the movie but will definitely do so (it's been on my Netflix list for a long time).

Trivia: We saw The Wind in the Willows at the Old Vic in 1996. Kevin Spacey is the Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theatre Company nowadays.

Reading: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

I went to the Banqueting House to see where they beheaded Charles I in 1649. Well actually I went to see the Peter Paul Rubens ceiling paintings, which according to the audioguide are the only Rubens paintings still located where they were originally intended. They were impressive even from fifty feet away. The building itself was an Inigo Jones masterpiece, with perfect proportions--a double cube. It was the first Georgian building in London, and was the beginning of London's distinctive architecture.

From there I walked the nearly four miles home, through the central parks. Using the Walking London book as a guide, I began in St. James's Park, the oldest of the royal parks (opened to the public by
Charles II in 1660). I saw a swan coming in for a landing on the lake and couldn't believe how loud his flapping wings were. (It was a little frightening, actually, having just watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy with those flying attack birds!) Just before I reached Buckingham Palace, I crossed over and walked the length of Green Park. From there I went into Hyde Park and along the Serpentine. I took a detour over to see the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain which was surprisingly very beautiful. It was too late to stop in at the Serpentine Gallery, unfortunately, so that will have to wait for another time. By the way, I was now in Kensington Gardens. I passed the Peter Pan sculpture but was disappointed that I couldn't see the Henry Moore sculpture that, according to the book, was on the opposite bank. I'm wondering if maybe it is part of the Kew Gardens exhibition, in which case I did see it. In the home stretch, I tore across Kensington Gardens, past Round Pond with more fowl, then Kensington Palace, and home.

Shortly after, Gord and I left to meet a friend who was interviewing for a position at Goldsmith's College in New Cross (near Greenwich). We ate at a pub called the Hobgoblin that served decent Thai food. At one point four young kids came in dressed in Hallowe'en costumes, saying "trick or treat" and asking for money. We gave them each a few pence. After all, we were at the Hobgoblin. We had a nice visit with our friend and left reluctantly around ten for the one-hour journey home.

(Ginger, I passed a lot of those deck chairs this afternoon but it was just a little too chilly to rent one, and besides I didn't have my book with me.)

We flew to Lyon, France on Thursday. Lyon is a beautiful city located at the convergence of the rivers Saone and Rhone. We stayed in a hotel on the peninsula between the two. It makes a nice impression to arrive by night and see the many bridges and monuments all lit up.

We set out exploring on Friday, first walking through a delightful market with a huge assortment of meat, delectable cheeses, vegetables and fruits of every kind, and one particularly appealing stall of pastries and treats, including those French macaroons that I love. Having just had breakfast, I was able to restrain myself. We walked across one of the many bridges into Old Lyon (Vieux Lyon) which has these quaint traboules, or passageways, under and through the Renaissance townhouses that were used originally by silkweavers to deliver their wares and later were used by the French Resistance in World War II. You can walk through them but we decided not to, but did see a group of Japanese tourists coming out of one. We then climbed way up Fourvière hill to the Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourvière for a spectacular view overlooking the city. The climb nearly killed me, much worse than the climb up into St. Paul’s, but I made it, red-faced and with a heart rate higher than it should have been (and that’s after weeks of walking all over London and climbing the stairs to our flat every day!).

From there we walked over to the Roman ruins and the Musée Gallo Romaine. This was once the site of the Roman town of Lugdunum, founded in 43 BC, with the remains of its two theatres. The museum had an amazing amount of artifacts, beautifully laid out, and the building itself was set into the hillside. Then we walked down to and across the Saone to one of Paul Bocuse’s restaurants, Le Sud, for a delicious lunch. The chill air of the morning disappeared and it was happily warm enough to eat outside by a beautiful fountain. We then walked to the train station to purchase our tickets to Paris on Saturday morning. We took the subway up to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and spent the rest of the afternoon seeing as much as we could see of that fine institution, although we did miss one floor. My favorite seventeenth-century painting was Vicenzo Campi’s Les Mangeurs de Ricotta. There were other paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens, Veronese, Boucher, Monet, Matisse, Leger, and Picasso, as well as many by an artist unfamiliar to me, Louis Janmot, one of which I particularly liked. After a short rest at our hotel, we walked back to Vieux Lyon for dinner. We found a cute little place where we enjoyed some delicious Lyonnaise food.

I wish my French were better. On the train to Paris on Saturday morning I thought the man said something about Depardieu (you know, the actor Gérard?)! But I later realized that he was referring to the other train station in Lyon, La Part-Dieu! We arrived in Paris over an hour late. At the train station’s taxi stand, there were many of us waiting for taxis and no taxis in sight. I must tell you that on Saturday night the final match in the Rugby World Cup was being held in Paris. France did not make it to the final match—it was between England and South Africa. Coincidentally or not, during this past week and including Saturday, there were strikes on the trains in France (and between London and Paris), causing a huge commuter problem. I guess the taxis were busy. After waiting over thirty minutes, with taxis trickling in every five or ten minutes, we were on our way to our hotel in the fourteenth arrondissement to meet my brother and sister-in-law who were spending the weekend in Paris en route to India. We walked to La Closerie des Lilas, a restaurant recommended by their friends, and had a fabulous lunch. We then walked and walked in the chilly by sunny weather—down Denfert-Rochereau, Boulevard Saint-Michel to the Seine, across the bridge to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame, first stopping for some Berthillon ice cream. The last time we were in Paris the cathedral was being cleaned and was covered in scaffolding. Today it looked beautiful. We walked along to the end of the Ile de la Cité and took a boat ride along the Seine. The young guide was not very good, but did point out the places of interest. We were on the open top deck initially but when we turned around to head in the opposite direction the wind forced us down into the interior of the boat.

Gord and I later tried to find a certain mussel restaurant from our last trip, but we walked and walked without success. We ended up in a small place in the Latin Quarter where the food was not great but not terrible either, and it didn't matter because we had a good time anyway. From there we decided to find a pub to watch the last part of the rugby game. We ended up in the Canadian, replete with hockey stick door handles and a wooden Mounty inside. England was losing badly, so the mood was fairly somber but very good-natured—there was one South African in the pub and everyone congratulated him at the end.

Sunday morning we went over to the Rue de Rivoli to Angelina’s for breakfast (really for their delicious hot chocolate). From there we walked down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, back down the Champs-Élysées through the Tuileries Gardens, past the entrance to the Louvre and out a side passage to the pedestrian bridge, Pont des Arts. It was beautiful on the bridge, with a nice view up and down the river. There were some people sitting on a bench with some bread and wine, looking quite content. We walked up to the Luxembourg Gardens. It was full of people, sitting in the sun, playing with their little sailboats in the fountain. Further down, there were a couple of outdoor ping pong (table tennis?) games going on. We went for an early dinner of crepes near the hotel and then said goodbye to J and K. Gord and I took the metro to the Gare du Nord where we caught the Eurostar train to London. I hadn’t realized that I had booked us to go first class (I selected the cheapest fare available at the time). And it included dinner! I was wishing I had foregone the crepes just a short while earlier. But it turned out well because the food on the train was terrible. It was wonderful to be in Paris and just walking around, enjoying the city. It was actually quite nice not to be in a museum for a change, although I thought how nice it would be to spend a semester there! There are many museums I haven’t seen yet.

Beautiful sunset tonight from our rooftop.









And, we finished the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy! Yeah!

I may not get a chance to post an entry for a few days. Stay tuned.

Early Monday morning we caught a train to Liverpool. The 2-1/2 hour ride was uneventful except for this one man in our designated “quiet” car who was just waiting for people to slip-up. So when a man in front of us made a cell phone call to confirm an appointment, the self-appointed watchdog actually got up and walked over to the man to tell him it was a “quiet” car and that he was not allowed to talk on the phone. The man ignored him and finished up his conversation. Then a woman behind him used her cell phone and he told her the same thing. She, however, talked back to him and then he appealed to everyone around him to back him up. No one said a word. The woman finished her call and all was well after that.

Then when we got off the train at Liverpool, I was looking up at some Tate Liverpool posters and stepped right off a curb, falling right onto the pavement and breaking the fall with my wrist and my knee. A classy move. The only thing bruised was my ego, fortunately. But honestly, we were on the platform! Why would they put a curb in the middle of the platform?

Liverpool is not what I would call a very pretty city, but it is where the Beatles were from, which was our reason for going (although this was Gord's second visit). We did the Magical Mystery Tour, but the special magical mystery bus (pronounced “boose” up here) had broken down so we had to ride in a regular chartered coach. We saw where George Harrison was born, where Paul lived for part of his life, where John lived with his Aunt Mimi, and finally one of the eight homes Ringo lived in growing up. We saw Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and Mathew Street where the original Cavern Club was and where the new one is. In fact, we had a pint there and also one at the Cavern Pub. Neil, our tour guide, was very entertaining. He just happened to mention that he played John’s boyhood friend Pete Shotton in the 2000 NBC movie In His Life:The John Lennon Story. There was a Beatles trivia quiz and guess who got all of the answers? Well I knew one of them and someone knew another, but Gord got all of the obscure ones of course. He tried not to answer them all, but when nobody else raised their hand he did.

We stayed down in the Albert Dock area which was, obviously, right by the water. It was pretty isolated at night but we did find one restaurant that was open for dinner and it turned out to be very nice, as was the sunset earlier.

The city in general is a lot less crowded than London, that is until we did the Beatles Story on Tuesday. Located underneath our hotel, this is an exhibition giving the history of the Beatles, with audio guides, but there had to have been seven or eight school groups going through in the two hours we were there. Apparently the Beatles are on the school curriculum. And apparently all of the teachers forgot to tell the kids about museum etiquette because it was very difficult to hear the audio over the children talking and laughing.

So now I know a lot more about the Beatles.

We spent the afternoon at the Tate Liverpool which is also located at Albert Dock. Their collection is primarily twentieth century art, or at least that is what was on exhibit. I became even more familiar with the Turner Prize winners from the other day--Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread. Instead of cows, this time Hirst had a piece that was a pretty, mandala-type, symmetrical design that, upon closer inspection, was made up entirely of different butterfly wings stuck on a purple painted surface. They had some very nice sculpture, including a David Smith, as well as Dame Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein, Julio Gonzalez (who reminded me of David Smith), Brancusi, Giacometti, Degas's Little Dancer. There was an Andy Warhol room with several works, a room of bathers by Pierre Bonnard, Degas, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, a couple of Francis Bacons and Jackson Pollocks, a Whistler, a Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, and I'm sure I've left out more than half. There was also a small Bridget Riley exhibition. I don't know how she could paint her pieces without getting dizzy. I couldn't look at each piece very long so I can't imagine painting them. The movement in them was incredible.

It was fun but we were more than ready to get on the train and head home.

Happy birthday to two of my brothers, Mark (42) and John (60!). Heal well, Tom, from your heart surgery. Roz, you too. We're thinking of all of you with love.

The day was nice so we went to Greenwich by boat. Our narrator was a witty character who pointed out interesting things along the Thames and added some jokes for the entire sixty minute ride. Had some Portuguese food in Greenwich's weekend market--I had a fritter with chick peas and cilantro, Gord had a little fish pie thing, and we shared a sardine fritter--a little more greasy than we would have liked.

We had purchased tickets for a 1-1/2 hour walking tour as soon as we arrived and got to the meeting place in the visitor centre a few minutes early. No one else was there but finally our guide arrived and then a while later the three other people who had purchased tickets decided to show up, a Russian woman about my age, and two German women in their twenties. After a brief introduction and just when we were about to set out, the Russian woman asked if we could wait two minutes while she went into the shop to buy something. We had already started almost ten minutes late--I couldn't believe she would ask. But Ago, our guide who was originally from Ghana, agreed. So we had to wait some more. Then Ago said we were going to head to the market first and my first thought was that we can't let the Russian woman go in there. It was a very interesting market, one in which I could easily spend two hours exploring, but we were on a tour and didn't have much time. Well we all behaved ourselves--much less fun but much more practical.

We stopped in at St. Alfege Church where General Wolfe is buried (and which is on the site where the Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered in 1012), then walked past the National Maritime Museum and Queen's House, in front of which Ago talked about Greenwich's history for a while before we headed up to the Royal Observatory. It was a good little climb, but fortunately I've been in training for the past five weeks so it wasn't too bad (if my cholesterol isn't down considerably when I get home I'm going to be very disappointed). Ago did some more talking, we saw a statue of General Wolfe, and we happily ended the tour. Instead of going into the observatory (Ago filled us in on everything we would have learned inside anyway, the crowds were intense, and we could see the prime meridian from behind the iron gates), we opted instead to head down to Queen's House, begun by Inigo Jones in 1616 for Queen Anne of Denmark wife of James I). She died before it was completed and Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, got to enjoy it instead. It supposedly was used as a model for the White House. Inside we raced through the collection of art, wonderful for anyone interested in ships at sea, and then hurried down to Christopher Wren's Old Royal Naval College to see the Painted Hall with ceilings painted by Sir James Thornhill and the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul with its altarpiece by American-born artist Benjamin West. There was filming going on for a movie and they had converted a large outdoor area into an eighteenth-century market. In just a few minutes you got the sense of how involved it is to create a set and also how tedious and slow-moving it is to film a scene.

We got back to the pier in time for the last boat back. We had the same narrator but this time he wasn't as amusing. There were just a few too many digs at politicians and people who could afford the real estate along the river. But the ride itself was very enjoyable. It was also very pleasant walking through Greenwich Park.

I am sorry to say that by the time we ate dinner and called daughters and parents, it was nine o'clock, much too late to start the movie. It will have to wait until later this week. Another busy day is scheduled for tomorrow.

Favorite sign of the day: Humped Pelican Crossing

Now if anyone can tell me the difference between a zebra crossing and a pelican crossing, please enlighten me.