January 7th - Last day of our adventure

Well today finishes up our trip, I'm writing from Newark airport waiting for our flight to Denver.  The last few days in London were fairly quiet, we did go to the Wallace collection twice and had a couple pub dinners but we were sort of winding down.  We had a little housekeeping, such as turning in our 'Oyster' cards for the London Transport and claiming deposit money for them as well as for hotel stuff that required deposits too.  I've had a bit of a head cold for a couple days and was quite concerned about comfort flying, but it turned out to be pretty much a non-issue.   The flight back to the U.S. was very nice as we had 1st class tickets and could really stretch out, plus it allows us to wait in the United Club (formerly Red Carpet) for the next flight.   We can see the skyline of NYC from the club and the Empire State Bldg. and the new World Trade Center are glowing in the evening light atractively. We loved sharing our trip with you all and hope that you got a certain amount of enjoyment out of it, I know we did.

Field Trip - we spend the day in Teddington

Today we were scheduled to meet another friend, Howard Rushford, at Waterloo station and go with him out to his flat in Teddington.  About half and hour southwest of city center out past Wimbledon.  We arrived and spent an hour or so visiting and then had cold cuts, cheese and a bit of wine for lunch.  As we ate Howard made a call to the U.S. and we had a nice little chat with the Screiners in Denver.  After eating we visited some more and then Howard and I took a walk in Bushy Park.  It's a former hunting ground for Hampton Court Palace and was used extensively by Henry VIII in the 1500's.   But it had later importance as well, it was in a laboratory here that Radar was invented in the 1930's, also Alan Turing, who was so important to modern computing, also worked with the Enigma machine decoding German coded messages, the first atomic clock was invented, and finally Donald Davies worked out the details for packet switching in the 60's which formed one of the basic elements for the internet.   But even more interestingly it was the location of SHAEF, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, the place where the D-Day invasion of France was planned during World War II.  We then shared a lovely Thai dinner with Howard before finishing our visit with a trip to Howard's local pub, the Clock House.  Then a trip back to town and our hotel, a long but very enjoyable day.

January 3nd- A teeter-totter day

On the teeter-totter, market –museum- market, today we kept up our continuing tour style. We jumped on the bus and rode over to the Camden Lock market, we were looking for treasures (as usual) but it turned out to be like so many of the markets these days, its gone to t-shirts and cheaply made junk that are (not unsurprisingly) not cheap.   But not giving up, we headed to the Camden Passage market and did manage to find a few shops, no luck but we did see a vintage clothing shop where they were selling used Pendleton shirts for more than they sell new in the U.S.   But we had a nice lunch at a little pub called, ‘The Elk in the Woods’  Deb had a wrap of slow cooked beef with Feta cheese with a creamy Horseradish sauce and I had a sandwich of Veal, Swiss Cheese, and slice gherkin with a mustard cream sauce.  Very Tasty.    Next we headed down to the British Museum and spent some time looking at the exhibit of Mesopotamian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cultures from about 8000 BC.  Then we went over to view the Elgin Marbles, the gable-end and friezes surrounding the Parthenon.     As we were heading back to the hotel we found a dealer specializing in British art from the 18^th-19^th and 20^th century watercolors, oils, and prints and as if in lock step turned 90 degrees and went in through the door where we spend 30 lovely minutes.   Just a fine day out for us today.

p.s. having trouble uploading pics again stay tuned

Jan 2 - DOH and not in Spanish either

Today was a day of DOHs and nothing to do with Spanish either.   We got up and after washing up went down for breakfast at 9:30, breakfast ends at 9:30 in the hotel on weekdays, DOH!   So we had breakfast out and the girl taking the order mis-ordered it DOH.   We jumped on the bus to go to a new textile and fashion museum to look at textiles, well it turns out that it's more a FASHION and textile museum and no textiles on display, DOH!  So making lemonade from lemons we headed over to the Jubilee market which has antiques dealers, but wait, when we got there it turns out that the only time the antiques are there is on Mondays!  DOH!  But we had a lovely day walking around and saw many sites we haven't seen in over 10 years, my how London has changed!!  Tonight we go out to meet my ex-coworker and friend, David Head, for dinner.   I'm sure that will work out fine, otherwise...!!!!

P.S. I forgot to bring my camera to dinner, DOH!  But here's are pictures of David and Deb from earlier visits

January 1st – Happy New Year! A return visit to the V & A

Today it was sunny and cool so we jumped on the bus and rode over to the Victoria & Albert museum this morning.  We haven’t been to the V&A for over 10 years so it was nice to visit it again.  It has changed so much since we were last here that it was like visiting for the first time.  I think for me the highlight was to see two rooms of small oil painting/sketches painted by John Constable.  He is noted for his paintings of English cathedrals (like Salisbury) that capture the countryside and the dramatic skies.  We also saw a collection of gold and jeweled snuff boxes that had belonged to Fredrick the Great, of Germany.  We also saw what it reputed to be the finest Persian carpet in the world, the Ardebil carpet from the 1500’s.  For dinner we went to a pub a few blocks from the hotel and Deb had a steak & ale pie while I had Chicken Tikka Masala.

December 31st - Last day of 2012

Today was forecast for rainy and cold, and it was.... sprinkly and cool.   We have a 7 day unlimited metro pass so we jumped on a bus from Paddington to Trafalgar Square.  Once there we decided that a visit to the National Gallery would be nice, but first we went over to St. Martin's in the Field.  St. Martin's has musical concerts every week and around the holidays they have stuff practically every day.  Today was no exception and they were offering a matinee of opera arias given by members of the Academy of St. Martin's in the Field.  So we bought tickets, first row just on the left of the stage.  Then we went to the Gallery and spent a couple hours looking at the Impressionist collection; what a great change of pace, since for the last 3 months we've been looking mostly at paintings from the medieval through the early 19th century.   An hour before the concert we back to the church and had a lunch in the crypt,  they have a cafe down in the crypt so you get to have lunch sitting on all those who have gone before.   Deb thinks we should have two desserts because you start to realize that time is flying and you don't know just how much time you have.   What a great little concert, there were four young opera singers, a soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and baritone each of whom had a very polished voice.  We finished with Auld Lang Syne, them doing the verses and the audience doing the refrains.   I'm pretty sure we were sitting next to one of the BBC news presenters, her name is Sophie and I used to watch her doing news when I worked over here a lot in the early 2000's.  We're finishing the old year at our hotel room rather than navigating the complete zoo of downtown. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

December 30th – A walk in London

 

Today we got out around 10:00 and had a little walk from our hotel near Paddington across Hyde Park and into the hustle and bustle of London on Piccadilly.  We were headed for the Royal Society to see what sort of exhibition they were offering, the English landscape painters, so we may have to go.  Today however was just  a walkabout looking at so many of the  galleries in that neighborhood, and then  a paseo up Bond street to Oxford street  and back.  Finally we walked back to our hotel and a little dinner later in the evening.   It’s pretty disorienting right now because London is an hour later on the clock than Spain but Madrid is actually west of London, so sundown was well on its way by 4:15 today.