Thursday, March 27th

Keith and I began our day by sleeping in and then heading off to the Imperial War Museum which didn't open until 10 anyway. Last trip, we hadn't allotted ourselves near enough time for this comprehensive place, so we thought it deserved a bit more.
Keith posed with Montgomery's tank here.

The sheer amount of artifacts in this building is amazing. I don't believe that any of these are reproductions. We spent most of our time in the WWI section and also went though the "Blitz Experience" as well as the Children's War special exhibit before heading off to grab a bite and meet our cohorts at St. Paul's.

St. Paul's Cathedral is impressive enough inside, but when you start climbing the stairs you get an even better perspective on just how big it is. The sign at the entrance warned us that the climb was not recommended for pregnant women and by the Whispering Gallery I was starting to think that I should have taken that a bit more seriously. After a rest, I did continue, and found the last two sections much easier.
The view is reward enough for climbing. It was particularily nice that the sun came out and it was quite warm while we were up there. Possibly more entertaining was overhearing groups of American teenagers talk about what they were seeing, especially the ones who were convinced that they could see the Eiffel Tower. Thankfully their teacher knew better and corrected them, but we giggled for quite some time. The picture above shows the Millenium Pedestrian Bridge and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and absolutely nothing from France.
A peek-hole into the nave below the dome gives a chance to appreciate how high up in the church we were.
Yes, we all made it to the top! Here is the requisite foot photo to prove it! After that climb we deserved some refreshment.

Afternoon tea was enjoyed at the Kensington Palace Orangery. Earlier in the week, at Hampton Court, we learned that an orangery is the place where you store your orange trees for the winter. Seems obvious, but I had no idea. Guess I hadn't given much thought to the name. This is basically a very nice shed. Please note the table center piece.
A sunken garden with part of Kensington Palace in the background. We never actually went in this palace either time we were in London, not that we couldn't have. Parts of it are open to the public for a price.

After tea, we parted ways as Keith & I headed off to do some brass rubbing at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields before joining Grant & Becky at the British Museum. Keith decided to do a griffin in red, while I had to wait for someone else to finish doing the celtic design that I preferred. It all worked out. I had initially wanted to complete my rubbing with silver, but seeing what an awful lot of work it was for the other lady, I opted to do it in white as I saw someone else's look quite nice with way less time consumed.

It was neat to see the design reveal itself as I first went over it lightly to find the edges, then put in the elbow grease to bring out the design more distinctly. We haven't decided where in the house to hang these yet, but they will go nicely wherever we move the Jazz Portrait from the office to since it is also black and white with red detail.

We didn't have long for the British Museum by the time we finished our rubbings, but there were far fewer people around this evening than there had been on our previous visit so it was easy to get around and see what we wanted umimpeded. We were even able to get a few good pictures of the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles.
I just really enjoy this sign. Yup, this place has been open since before our country was a country.
I don't think that the Elgin Marbles get any less impressive no matter how many times you look at them. These photos do them no justice whatsoever.

We ended our evening back at St.-Martin-in-the-Field's Crypt Cafe. Keith and I had noticed how excellent the food looked when we were here for our brass rubbing, and the prices were very reasonable. It was so nice to eat a meal which included steamed vegetables and NO gravy. After a week including a lot of pub food (read: gravy on everything), I will certainly not miss it for awhile.

Wednesday, March 26th

Our first activity on Wednesday was to walk the few blocks from our hotel to the Natural History Museum. It is a very impressive building, but that is just about where my enthusiam ends.
Although this is supposedly one of the "TopTen" places to visit in London, it is certainly nothing compared to the Natural History Museum in New York. It was the large quantities of dust found all though the large mammal exhibit which turned us off the most.
The Blue Whale had dust bunnies all around the top of its mouth. Very sad. As if being on the endangered animal list isn't enough!
In all, I think we spent 45 minutes to an hour here before deciding it was time to shake the dust from our feet and move on to something completely different.

After the Natural History Museum, Keith and I headed to the Chelsea Football Club's home stadium for a tour (2 for 1 paying off again!). I asked him to write about all the soccer related photos:

Stamford Bridge Stadium, Chelsea, West London

Keith sitting at the media desk where all Chelsea FC players sign contracts.

The home team dressing room at Stamford Bridge.

The pitch at the stadium. The large rolling lights are to keep the grass green throughout the many cloudy London days.

We took a tour of Stamford Bridge, home stadium for Chelsea FC of the Premier League. Our tour guide was great and extremely funny, taking shots constantly at anyone who wasn't a Chelsea fan. We began by going to the media centre which is decked out for journalists to set up laptops, watch the game when its cold, and have all the free drinks from the open bar. Team philosophy is that a drunk journalist will most likely give you a better review in the papers.

After this we were taken to the visitors' dressing room. This was nothing to write home about with bare walls, a few hard massage tables, and hard benches along the walls. They have also put the whiteboard for writing down plays in such a spot that they have to keep the door open to discuss them. Our guide told us that there is a competition in the Premier League for who can have the worst, most oppressive visitor dressing room in the league.

In contrast, the home dressing room is quite nice with safes for valuables, carpeted floors, nice showers and a other equipment for relaxing after the game. We were surprised however that it came no where near the Edmonton Oilers' new dressing room for fancy.

We then were divided into Chelsea fans and other fans and told to line up. We ran up the tunnel out onto the edge of the pitch taking pictures of the vast empty stadium. In the upper east end is a large box not for press, but rather for security. Mirrored glass hides a large team of security personel who can videotape/photograph every person in every seat of the stadium as well as listen in to all conversations. In this way, the Premier League has taken huge steps in calming football violence throughout England. It's way safer to see a game in England than in Holland.

At the end of the tour, Jenn and I returned to the museum which gives the history of Chelsea FC since 1908. It was an extremely great tour, and I say that in all sincerity. Even Jenn enjoyed it.

After finishing at the stadium, we met back up with the Grant & Becky at Sloane Square and walked over to the Duke of Wellington pub. Since it wasn't serving any food for another 2 hours, we decided that we had time to zip over to King's Cross Station for a photo op at Platform 9 3/4 and then to the British Library for a quick look at the Treasures of the British Library Exhibit. We made it back right at 6pm with time enough to eat, walk over to Victoria Station, then on to the Apollo Theatre for our evening entertainment.

On Monday, we had purchased tickets for the relatively new musical "Wicked" which had come highly recommended to us. We were in the orchestra stalls section, just enough to the left to make our tickets 30 pounds instead of 60. It was worth every pence and then some. If you ever get a chance, go see it. It is the "untold story of the witches of Oz" and recounts the days back when Glinda (the "good witch") was roomates with Elphaba (to be known in infamy as the "wicked witch of the West") back in boarding school. It had a great message, fantastic music, AND they sold little pots of ice cream at the intermission. What more could you ask for?

Tuesday, March 25th

So sorry, I didn't get to blogging yesterday. But really, if you know me at all, then you know that I am not likely to achieve much on a Friday evening, much less on a Friday evening when I am still feeling jetlagged. I did manage to run a few errands after supper which I thought was quite an accomplishment, but I suppose we should get back to pretending that it is really last Tuesday.

We all decided to go to Hampton Court Tuesday morning (actually, 3 out of 4 of us decided and the 4th went along with it). First, we had to go to Waterloo Station as they offered a 4 go for the price of 2 deal on train tickets to Hampton Court. We dealt with a delightful ticket agent (I'm not even being facetious here, he made us chuckle for awhile), got a booklet full of 2 for 1s for other attractions which came in very handy, and had just enough time for Becky to buy pastries for our train journey southwest of The City (central London). It was about a 30 minute train trip and then a less than 5 minute walk to the former palace of Henry VIII as well as other British monarchs.

You may notice that all these pictures at Hampton Court are taken outside. We did go into the castle (not that it was any warmer, in fact it may have been colder in than out, but I'll discuss that in a bit) but picture taking was not permitted. Interestingly enough, this had nothing to do with keeping artwork and tapestries preserved against flashes, etc, but everything to do with copyright. Every piece of art and furniture belongs to the royal family and apparently it becomes a copyright issue when just anyone is allowed to take a picture of it. I may have taken a picture or two inside before I honestly knew we weren't allowed, but I won't post any here lest the House of Windsor decides to come after me.

The gardens were beautiful, and quite expansive. Don't let these flowers fool you though, it may have looked like spring, but it sure didn't feel like it. There was a definite chill in the air, and it only got colder inside as the blinds were drawn against sunlight damage to the rooms and castles aren't exactly set up for central heating. At one point I actually asked one of the people working there if it was always this cold in the castle and, if so, how they could stand it. "We all wear thermals," she replied without any trace of humour. She was happy that she was at least inside, out of the wind which always came off the river, unlike the poor blokes in period costumes out front. The only time any of us was warm at Hampton court was in the Tudor kitchens where they had a big fire going in a fireplace and after we ran through the maze in the garden.
"The Great Vine" of Hampton Court has it's own room and outside there is a patch of earth which remains unplanted because the vines extend underneath it. They still get quite a load of grapes off this thing every year and it's in the Guinness Book of Records.
See- proof!
One of the inner courtyards of the palace. It's a mishmash of architectural styles as new parts were added on by one monarch after another and they all had different tastes.

The back side of the palace. Apparently I didn't take a picture of the front.
Self taken photo from the back of the catle in the gardens. Yes, we were travelling with other people who would have gladly taken our photo. No, I don't know why we still took our own.
Another courtyard. The sun is starting to peek out, but it won't last long.
Grant, Keith and Hercules. You figure out who's who.

Coming to the end of our time at Hampton court the boys start to get a little goofy. I'm not posting the next two poses they tried. Use your imagination. Or don't. :) The train ride back allowed us to thaw out a little and be entertained by Grant and Keith being silly. This is a rare moment when both their mouths were closed.

Arriving back at Waterloo Station, we stayed in the South Bank area to go to the Brahma Tea Museum. It was small and clearly a labour of love for Mr. Brahma, but the best part was that we could drink hot tea and eat warm scones and/or crumpets. Delicious. From there we walked towards the Thames and then along the bank to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
There were no performances happening at the Globe while we were in London (sigh), but we did at least get a chance to go in and look around a bit, and buy nerdy teacher-type things like pencils, posters and "Out, damned spot! Out, I say!" (Macbeth, Act 5, scene 2) erasers. We walked from there past the Tate Modern (which was about as close as any of us wanted to get to it), and then across the Millenium Bridge and up to St. Paul's to catch the tube.
Looking off the Millenium Bridge towards Tower Bridge (I think). There will be a picture of Millenium Bridge later that we took from the top of St. Paul's.

We still had a bit of energy left to go over to Harrod's (not pictured) before it closed to take a look around and then to Piccadilly Square (pictured above) to find a place that was still open to serve us supper (it was about 8:30pm and the pregnant ladies were getting close to violence). We found a tasty meal at an Italian restaurant and Keith had time to run back to a store he'd seen on our way to buy a couple warmer shirts as he was quite done with shivering. It was a full day, and I hope I've made up for not posting yesterday with all of these photos!

Monday, March 24th

Since riding the tube doesn't really help to orient a person to the above ground topography, we decided that Monday morning would be a good time to go up the London Eye. Despite the SNOW that was falling, the cloud cover was high enough to give us a view of London from this giant bike-wheel looking structure. The next morning we read about the Eye having technical difficulties and people being instructed to open up the emergency supplies while they waited for it to get fixed. They were only stuck for about 30 minutes, but I imagine it was a little nerve wracking for long enough.

From the Eye, we tubed it over to Victoria Station which is a place to see in itself. It was eerily quiet since it was still a bank holiday, but everything was open and we looked in vain for a few toques for our windblown selves. We knew that we wanted to see the musical "Wicked" and that it was playing across the street from Victoria Station, so we went directly to the theatre box office to inquire about tickets for later in the week before walking towards Buckingham Palace. On the way, we stopped in at Westminster Cathedral, the largest Catholic church in London I believe. The mosaics in there are beautiful, and many are quite recent and still in bright colours. We also found a pub on our way to eat lunch at, "The Bag of Nails". Excellent fish and chips, but , alas, they were out of mushy peas.

Once we got there, we took quite a few pictures in front of Buckingham Palace, Canada Gate and down the Mall through St. James' Park. The weather cleared up a bit, but there was still a nasty bit of wind to chill us. By the time we had walked to Trafalgar Square, my search for a toque was getting a bit desperate, and thankfully I found a cheap one so I could let Keith have his back (he had bought one at the Chelsea game the day before). We posed with the lions at the base of the Nelson Monument (they are higher up than they look!) before spending a bit of time in the National Gallery and then heading to supper.

Our evening was spent at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church listening to Handel's Messiah being performed. It as an excellent concert, though I would have preferred an alto to a contra tenor. Seeing a grown man sing with a woman's voice coming out just didn't do it for me. This church has been an still is undergoing major restorations, but at least this trip we were able to get in to it.

The pictures above seem to be loading in the reverse order that I choose them in. I'll see what I can do about it in tomorrow's post!

Better Late Than Never

As you may have noticed, we didn't do much blogging from England this time. I actually didn't go online all week as I was just too tired at the end of the day to go traipsing over to the internet cafe in the cold and wet. I didn't even manage to write in my journal most days! My plan is to post about one day from last week every day this week. Follow me? Mostly I am just trying to stay awake in my post-supper sleepiness until it's an acceptable time to go to bed.

Keith has already described most of Sunday, March 23rd, his birthday. I will just add that Madame Taussaud's is absolutely not worth going to on a Sunday afternoon with an incomparable amount of other people. In the end, Becky and I literally escaped out of a fire exit door! It was only 4pm and we knew the guys would be watching soccer somewhere, so we passed the time by picking up drinks and treats from the French patisserie down the street from our hotel and wandering around the neighbourhood a bit. We scouted out a few places for supper and then waited in the lobby for the menfolk. They came about the time we expected, grinning from ear to ear and going on and on about the match. We managed to turn them around and out the door to find supper where we shared stories of our respective afternoons (although I expect they didn't hear much of ours as it couldn't possibly be as interesting as the game). We retired for the evening fairly early for a London night, but very late in Alberta time.