Okay, we've established that I don't like crowded sidewalks. But what I do like is that you can't get through a day without hearing at least four or five different languages being spoken. That's one of the things I always like about going down to NYC and in the galleries of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. You just don't get that in Saratoga. Now if I could just understand what they are all saying . . . .

Today was another concert at St. Mary Abbots Church by Royal College of Music students. A string quartet played Mendelssohn's Quarter in F minor, opus 80 that had me crying in the third movement (caught me during a weak moment, I guess). Then a wind trio played a piece by Gordon Jacob, a composer who taught at the RCM until 1966.

I had planned a great afternoon. I was going to take the subway to the Westminster exit and then walk through all of the central parks, St. James's Park, Green Park, Hyde Park (with a stop at the Serpentine Gallery), Kensington Gardens, and ending at our flat. But Gord just happened to get off of the subway I was about to get on and suggested we go for lunch. So I decided to consume calories rather than burn them, which is always more fun. It was a nice enough day to eat outside so we found a place near our flat.

After lunch we stopped in at Whole Foods for milk. It really is a wonderful store and if you just buy a few things at a time it doesn't seem so expensive. I always wanted to see what they had on the top floor and discovered that there is seating for 350 people with various food stations around the perimeter and in the middle. There was actually a DJ at the entrance(!), then a pub, and vegan, vegetarian, and carnivore stations on one side, a coffee bar and dessert bar with gelato and crepes in the middle, and then an oyster bar, sushi bar, tapas bar, and a fair trade gift shop. It was pretty amazing, although I doubt we would ever be tempted to go to the pub there. It's just not the Elephant and Castle.

We went home from there for the rest of the day and night. We were hoping to go to Ronnie Scott's to see Georgie Fame but alas there were no tickets to be had. But remember that lovely dinner party with the magically refilling glasses (as J so aptly described them) last weekend? Well, at some point that night I apparently mentioned that we hadn't yet seen the Lord of the Rings films (well we rented the first one, The Fellowship of the Rings, once but I slept through a good portion of it). Well, lo and behold, when I got home, I had the whole set of the extended version in my hands (something like twelve hours!). I guess I borrowed them! Anyway, we watched the first one tonight and I only nodded off for about ten minutes which is pretty good for me (albeit at a crucial point near the end). We'll watch the rest soon, and I can then remove them from my Netflix list. :-)