suziebeezieland

penwith

So here's the UK, and that little pink balloon is marking the town of St. Ives, in Cornwall. 

Here's Cornwall closer up. The Celtic Sea borders it to the north and west, and then that's the English Channel to the south and immediate southeast.

Cornwall has a population of just over half-a-million people, and is one of the poorest areas in the U.K. It used to rely heavily on tin mining and fishing, but both those industries declined, and now tourism makes up about a fourth of Cornwall's economy.

It's administered as part of England, but Cornish nationalists would like to see Cornwall recognized as a "home nation" similar to Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. Cornwall is one of the Celtic nations (along with Brittany, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland, and Wales), and the Cornish language (Kernewek) is currently undergoing a revival. Fluent speakers had died off, but now it's being taught again, and some children are being raised to be bilingual in English and Cornish. I think that is fantastic. Some signage across the land is also starting to be in both English and Cornish.

In Cornish, Cornwall is "Kernow".  

Claire and I are going to be in Cornwall for a few days at the end of June. We will be staying in St. Ives and exploring the Penwith peninsula.

Penwith is also known as the Land's End peninsula. Land's End is the farthest westerly point in the U.K., and is just south and west of Sennen on the map there. (Land's End is also apparently a ghastly tourist trap, and we won't be going there.)

St. Ives is about nine miles from Penzance, to give you an idea of scale here.

(Bob, who must vacation around his hectic work schedule, is joining us later in England for two weeks, then leaving back to the U.S. for two weeks, then coming back to England for two weeks. Claire and I are just staying there the whole time. It's long-winded to explain, but I will blog and post photos while we're there, and hopefully that will be more interesting than just explaining it with words here. We'll all return to the U.S. in the middle of August.)

Claire and I will get into Heathrow and take a train down to Penzance (no pirates, although I plan to hum I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General quietly to myself), then catch a cab to St. Ives (no man with seven wives, although I plan to recite this poem quietly to myself).

We'll be staying at a place called The Little Leaf. The newly married proprietors of the Little Leaf have a fun YouTube channel we have been enjoying.

We plan to take two, half-day minivan tours while we're there, and see some ancient monuments, mining works, and coastal scenery on the Penwith peninsula. We'll kick around St. Ives itself the rest of the time, hopefully walking some of the South West Coast Path. I am also hoping we can get down to The Minack Theatre to see a play. (Regular season tickets go on sale this coming Monday. It looks like The Importance of Being Earnest is what will be playing when we're there. That is one of my favorite plays!)

Minack comes from the Cornish "Meynek" and means "a rocky place".  The Minack is an open-air theatre that faces the sea. A woman named Rowena Cade planned, built, and financed The Minack between 1931 and1983. What a legacy!

It is built of granite on top of a black crag that makes a sheer drop into the Atlantic. 

Here is a photo of it when a play is going on.

And here's a screen shot of The Minack Theatre's live web cam from a couple seconds ago. 

You should see the breeze ... it is WINDY right now. Brr.

The Minack Theater is in Porthcurno. ("Porth" means "port" in Cornish, and "Curno" comes from the previously mentioned Kernow ... so, Port Cornwall.)

It bravely faces south toward the ocean.

Part of the novel I am writing (and have been writing for four years) (I'm slow) (as molasses) (or slower) is set in a fictional town on the Penwith peninsula, west and north of Porthcurno (facing the Celtic Sea), and I am excited to see what it actually looks like.

Not the town, because that doesn't exist. Except inside my head, and inside my computer, where it is full of people and wildlife and all sorts of happenings.

But where it would be if it did exist. I'm excited to see that.

adidas

I've been thinking about Paris a lot lately. We're going to spend some time there this summer. The last time I was in Paris was 27 years ago. I spent a semester there my sophomore year in college, and turned 19 that November. Good times.

I guess the traditional thing for me to say is, "It seems like I was just there yesterday." But it doesn't. It feels like I haven't been there in about 27 years. :)

I'm excited to show Bob and Claire around, if I can still orient myself. Alas, I'm not known for my sense of direction. But when I lived there, I slept with a big map of Paris taped to the wall next to my bed, so I kind of got the hang of where things were. 

This is Sandro in Paris. He was my boyfriend for a few months while I was there, until he had to go home, which was the saddest day of my life up until then. :) He was Italian, from a suburb just outside Venice. He lived in the same student dorms I did. 

I went and visited him in Venice later in the fall. When I was in Venice, I stayed in a convent with my also-Italian friend Sonia, who had lived in the room next to me in Paris. (I met Sandro through her.) I took the train from Paris to Venice, which is a very long train ride, and when I got there I was exhausted, but they pumped me full of espresso and showed me around.

Everybody's mom kept making me eat and eat and eat.

It's funny, the details you remember. I remember how Sonia handwashed her clothes out in the sink, and I remember her grandma squeezing my cheeks and saying "Bella!" like something out of a movie, and I remember the convent had marble floors. I remember Sonia explaining prosciutto to me, and saying that Americans never wanted to eat it because they were nervous about uncooked meat. And there was a trash strike in Venice, which was embarrassing to all of them, and intriguing to me. I was so surprised that gondolas were just normal, and you zipped around in them as if you were in a taxi in any another city. And we went to a party and everybody was really nice to me, and I was barely awake, just running on espresso fumes and five full meals in one day.

And below, that's me. We were climbing around on the roofs in Paris, which is surprisingly easy to do. I am not sure why we were dressed the same: jeans, red sweaters, and Adidas. I think that was probably accidental. That doesn't seem like something I would do on purpose.

I think I owned that sweater for about 10 years. I really loved it. And those Adidas, too.

the wizarding world of harry potter

I took all these this morning with my iPhone in one hand, a mug of butterbeer* in the other, and a huge, gigantic grin on my face.

If you'd seen me, you'd have known right off I was a Muggle tourist.

(*A very sweet and creamy non-alcoholic beverage. Perhaps the best thing I've ever had to drink in my whole life.)

the tournament house

Yesterday Bob and I had a nice opportunity to attend a fundraiser for the Catalina Island Conservancy. It was held at Tournament House in Pasadena, which was one of the Wrigley family's mansions. (I think I've mentioned the Wrigleys before.) They presented it to the City of Pasadena when Mrs. Wrigley died in 1958 on the condition that it would become the headquarters for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, which it is.

I didn't get any good photos because I just had my phone and was trying not to be too obnoxious as the docent spoke, but every now and again I just kind of waved it in front of something I was interested in, in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner. :)

Here is the front door. That door knocker is actually carved into the wood.

Look at how thick the door is below. That is four inches of solid mahogany! It weighs hundreds of pounds, but you can push it open with one finger, because it is balanced so well on its hinges.

In our house, the doors are also all solid wood, and warped from 72 years of wild spikes and dips in the humidity and temperatures inside. You have to give any door a good slam in our house to get it to even partially close, which I'm sure has led the neighbors to believe that Bob and I fight all the time. ("We're not fighting!" I want to shout. "I just don't want the cat to come in the bathroom and drink water out of the faucet while I'm in here!") 

Ada Wrigley chose some beautiful silver foil wallpaper (decorated with intricate painting) for one room, because she liked the reminder from the foil that their fortune had come from chewing gum. :)

The house was originally built for a tycoon named George Stimson. He sold it to the Wrigleys in 1914. Stimson's son was the architect, and created very fancy ceilings.

This one looks like Lego. 

Several of the ceilings had lovely decorative painting. 

This little bathroom is known as the Eisenhower bathroom, because Dwight D. Eisenhower got stuck in it in 1964 (he was no longer president) and couldn't get out. Nobody could hear him calling because a band was playing and the walls are very, very thick. The Secret Service was convinced somebody had nabbed him, but eventually they found him.

This is going to happen to me one day, because as I mentioned, our doors stick. But I will not have any Secret Service to rescue me, and I will end up spending the day cleaning the bathroom, talking to the cat, and alphabetizing the medicine cabinet until Bob gets home.

This door in the living room was made of Circassian walnut. 

And here is the Baccarat crystal chandelier in the living room. It came from Argentina.

Upstairs is full of neat Tournament of Roses memorabilia.

Bill Cosby, Art Linkletter, and Mr. Rogers were all Rose Parade Grand Marshalls in 2003.

But usually there is only one grand marshall. Here is one of my favorites:

Shirley Temple was the grand marshall once when she was little.

And then again when she was big.

Here are some former Rose Parade Queens, back in the day when photo coloring was popular.

And here is this year's Queen and her court, inside the Queen's Conference Room.

Here is the bathroom inside the Queen and Court room where they get ready before the parade or other photo ops. :)

And here is a Bohlin saddle. Edward H. Bohlin made saddles for Roy Rogers and other riders in the Tournament of Roses parades. His "P.K. Wrigley" model saddle sold for $5,750 (with all its matching tack) in 1941 when it was new. The average cost of a new car at that time was $925.

One of Roy Rogers' Bohlin parade saddles sold at auction for $463,800 last year. Our docent told us that other Bohlin saddles sold at auction have gone for close to one million dollars.

The rose garden outside was in full bloom, and lovely.

And here's a nice California-y view of the front lawn and Orange Grove Boulevard, which the house faces, to finish this post off. :)

a weekend in cambria

We're spending the weekend up in beautiful Cambria with my parents. Here are a few snapshots. :) (The sleeping elephant seals are north of Cambria, up the coast a few minutes, just past San Simeon.)

vancouver, british columbia 2011:the float plane + a bit of downtown

On Saturday morning, June 18, we took a float plane (a DeHavilland DHC-III Turbine Otter, to be precise) from Victoria to Vancouver.

The weather was a bit iffy, and the pilot flew extra low, to stay below the chop. It was one of the neatest things I've done in a long time. I mean, really super duper fun.

We flew over the Gulf Islands, which are gorgeous, and which I am now very attached to. I am planning our retirement. :)

Bob was across the aisle (about three inches away) from Claire and me, and he and the woman in front of him saw an orca jumping in the water while we flew.

Here is a wee short video I took for you. It's not good, but you will get the general idea. :) 

When we landed, some luggage was unloaded from the back of the plane, and our luggage wasn't there. Where was it? Surprise!

It was in plastic bags inside one of the floats. I had no idea. So clever.

Goodbye, float plane. I loved you.

We took a cab the short distance into the city, left our luggage with the nice concierge at the Sutton Place Hotel (it wasn't quite time to check in), and went and got lunch at Moxie's Classic Grill on Bute Street. Yum.

After lunch, we took a little tour around part of the city on a Big Bus. We were staying in the West End, which is one of the most densely populated areas in all of North America. It's an area less than one square mile (about .788), and contains 45.5 thousand people. That is 56.5 thousand people per square mile. Yikes!

Needless to say, there were lots of highrises. 

The windows of The Bay (as in "Hudson's Bay Company") downtown had gotten smashed in three days earlier during the hockey rioting. They were covered with plywood, and the plywood was covered with notes from Vancouverites discussing their disgust, anger, disappointment, and sorrow about the riots, as well as their pride in their city and their love for the Canucks. They were pretty supportive of the police, too, which was nice to see.

See that big word "We" down there? The pieces of plywood that came after it said "find you all." As in, "we will find you all, rioters". Which they probably will. People took photos and videos, and sent them to the police during the riots. Since June 15th, 24 people have turned themselves in to the police. An Integrated Riot Investigation Team is in the process of sorting through 4,000 emails and have flagged 1700 which identify potential suspects involved in 120 separate incidents.

The Vancouver Police were worried (and continue to be concerned) that social media will be used to mete out vigilante justice. I hope this doesn't happen, because that would kind of be in the same spirit as the rioters themselves. We live in such interesting times. You can't just flip a car over, set it on fire, beat someone up, and skip off on your merry way. You'll end up on Facebook with a trazillion people seeing you within an hour.

Many Vancouverites got up the next morning, grabbed their brooms and dustpans, and hit the streets to help clean up the mess. It made me get tears in my eyes to see the news footage.

The city library is below. If you look closely, can you see some trees sticking out of the arches on the right? It has a living (green) roof. So do many of the roofs in Vancouver. The Vancouver Convention Center (which I didn't get an aerial shot of) has the most famous one ... six acres of wild grasses on top!

Green roofs filter pollutants out of the air, filter rainwater, and help insulate buildings, which reduces their heating and cooling costs and their noise levels. I was fascinated because I'd never seen so many before. They were everywhere, once I started looking up.

Something else we saw that I liked that first day on our hop-on, hop-off bus was the steam clock. It was built in 1977 as a tourist attraction in renovated Gastown. And tourists are, indeed, attracted to it! :) Gastown is a national historic site. It was Vancouver's first downtown area, and was founded by Gassy Jack Deighton. Yep. Gassy Jack. Gassy Jack was a seaman, steamboat captain, and barkeep. He showed up to open the area's first saloon in 1867. Good ol' Gassy Jack.

We also zoomed by Canada Place. Did I mention it was raining? This was the first day of the trip that we had rain.  All the cruise ships berth at Canada Place, and the 2010 Winter Olympics flame holder thingy is there, too.

We were pretty tired, and went back to our hotel when we could check in. I was surprised to see that it was a suite! Yay. Claire was so excited to have her own room that she didn't want to leave the hotel again. :D

I have to admit, though, that the West End was kind of depressing to me. People are just so squashed into those highrises, and I watched a lady hanging her laundry out, and I kept wondering, is she alone, does she have somebody, what does she do? I probably wouldn't do too well living there in that particular part of the city, with the weather and the population density. I felt pretty claustrophobic.

Although there was, I kid you not, coffee for every single block. More coffee than anywhere I've ever been. That part was great. And Tim Hortons. :)

And. We had the best (BEST) waiters we have ever had at the restaurants we went to. I kid you not. I don't know if they were just bending over backwards to show us that Vancouver is actually a neat city, despite the riots, or if they are just naturally down-to-earth and friendly, but our service there was completely outstanding. We had dinner that first night at The Keg, and it was one of the best meals we've ever had on vacation, anywhere.

The next couple days were great, because we got out of the squashy part of the city and went out to enjoy nature, which there is a ton of around Vancouver. :) I like being outside best. I'll tell you about that next time. 

victoria, british columbia 2011:beacon hill children's farm + the royal bc museum

The Inner Harbour in Victoria was all pretty with colorful flags on Friday, June 17, because the Van Isle 360 International Yacht Race was in town.

This happens every two years, and is a 580 nautical mile point-to-point race which circumnavigates Vancouver Island. 

Pretty interesting, eh? :)  

But we didn't see it. We were off to explore nearby Beacon Hill Park.

I'm telling you, these Canada Geese were unflappable. I walked right up to them, and they glanced at me very nonchalantly, as if to say, "Lady, we have waited a long time for a sunny day up here, and we ain't movin'."

(Although these geese look somewhat too elegant to say "ain't." They probably said, "We are not inclined to go elsewhere, madame.")

I wonder if these are the same Canada Geese who spend a big chunk of the winter down here in Lacy Park. I love these geese. 

I was sorry to disappoint these ducks, who started swimming straight toward me in hopes of delicious snack items. Look at the anxious wakes behind them. I'm sorry, guys. Next time I'll bring bread.

There was a long dispute relating to Beacon Hill Park that you can read about here if you like long disputes.

Basically, the Hudson's Bay Company claimed it (and other land) for awhile in the mid-1800s, and then the Company had to give it to Her Majesty. When Vancouver Island was becoming a colony, there was a Legislative Assembly that ran things on behalf of Her Majesty, but then the colony disbanded and Vancouver Island became part of British Columbia, and a Legislative Council ran some things, while the Municipal Corporation of Victoria ran others. And they fought with each other a lot.

Meanwhile, British Columbia was on its way to becoming part of Canada. While things were in the midst of becoming this and that, everybody claimed the park. But finally, it was turned over to the City of Victoria in 1882.

(Note: If you are a student reading this for a report or something, don't quote me or you'll probably get an F. I was a bit fuzzy on some of the who's-in-charge-now details.)

It's so beautiful ... two hundred acres in downtown Victoria. And there is this delightful petting zoo in it, called Beacon Hill Children's Farm.

I don't actually know who Mrs. D. is, but I like her.

There were a LOT of exciting things going on. Just look. 

I'm sorry to say, we missed the goat stampede.

Right off the bat, they try to just kill you with the cuteness of baby pigs. These two piglets are named Fleur and Noir. They were born in January. They will never, ever become bacon, because a spider named Charlotte is going to save them. I just know it.

These alpacas are named Donny and Osmond. The brown one is Donny.

The peacock is a nameless hanger-on.

There was a miniature horse named Peanut Butter who is twenty years old.

(Li'l Sebastian. Hee.)

There was also this sweet baby donkey named Jeneece who really liked having her ears scratched.

And guinea pigs. And bunnies.

And several batches of baby goats.

And a little aviary. It was the greatest little kids' farm, and we all liked it. We were probably there about an hour.

Then we walked on back into town, and the Royal BC Museum.

We looked around for a couple hours, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's full of nature and wonder and mystery.

John Lennon’s 1965 Yellow Submarine Rolls-Royce is sitting in its lobby when you walk in.

It is the same age I am. But I think it's in better condition. :)

victoria, british columbia 2011: the victoria butterfly gardens, the butchart gardens, + fisherman's wharf

On Thursday, we rented a car and drove up to The Butchart Gardens. On the way, we stopped at the Victoria Butterfly Gardens.

The Victoria Butterfly Gardens is a 12,000 square foot enclosure full of 3,000 butterflies. It is fun to buy the butterfly identification chart when you come in, and then misidentify butterflies for about an hour. :) We recognized the Blue Morphos, but that's about it.  

It's really cool, how much is going on inside that space. Very enjoyable.

However, I should warn you in case you care about such things: your hair will get frizzy from the humidity.

This Blue Morpho from South America very obligingly landed on a the bench next to me.

I hope what you notice most about these next two photos is that I have a butterfly on my head. I hope what you notice least about these next two photos is the lovely gray stripe in my hair, and the aforementioned frizziness. Yeesh.

 

Then we drove down the road a bit more to The Butchart Gardens. If Francis Rattenbury's legacy of beautiful buildings in Victoria is testimony to what one man can do to make a big difference somewhere, The Butchart Gardens is testimony to what one woman can do to make a big difference somewhere.

Jennie Butchart's husband made cement, and when he used up all the limestone in the quarry near their home in 1908, Jennie decided to turn the quarry into a sunken garden. 

That big chimney in the background is from an old kiln, and is all that remains of the cement factory.

Jennie didn't just point her finger and tell other people what to do. She worked hard herself. For instance, she hung in a boson's chair to plant ivy in the barren rock walls of the quarry.

I don't think you'd catch me dead hanging off a rock wall in a boson's chair. (Maybe dead.)

Later, Jennie added a Japanese Garden, an Italian Garden, and a Rose Garden to their home. (She got rid of their tennis court to put in the Italian Garden.) By the 1920s, fifty thousand people a year were coming to see Jennie's gardens. 

The Butcharts' grandson, Ian Ross, designed this spectacular fountain and had it installed in this smaller quarry in 1964, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Butchart Gardens.

Nowadays, close to one million people a year visit the Butchart Gardens, which is about the same number of bedding plants used there. Fifty-five acres of the Gardens are available to the public, with even more "off stage". The suggested route (shown with little pink arrows) on the map makes for a very pleasant walk, and we recommend it.

 

I love rose names. :) 

After lunch, we left Butchart Gardens and headed back south to our hotel.

Fisherman's Wharf (which was a short walk from our hotel) is a marina with a bunch of floating cabins around it. If the weather is nice, it's worth a visit to sit outside and eat fish and chips from Barb's, and to feed the harbour seals who come up to the dock looking for handouts. You also have a nice view of float planes taking off and landing, and of cute little water taxis zooming back and forth to the Inner Harbour.

Do you see the red-haired woman sitting in a chair on the balcony? It's a mannequin. Kind of creepy. :) I'm guessing she's to keep the birds away.

Here comes our hungry, pig-nosed friend.

Here's Claire buying six more herring with her own spending money. She would have fed this harbour seal all day if we'd let her.

But we didn't let her, because we needed to get some food of our own. 

victoria, british columbia 2011:the victoria bug zoo + tea at the empress

On Wednesday, we slept in and then headed to the Victoria Bug Zoo.

What is that, you say? You would not head to the bug zoo on vacation, necessarily?

Do not scorn the bug zoo. The bug zoo is awesome.

Here is Mr. B. wearing a millipede moustache.

I politely declined the opportunity to wear a millipede moustache myself, because ... I needed to hold the camera. Yep, that's it. 

The Victoria Bug Zoo guides are biology students and biologists with recent degrees, and are enthusiastic, knowledgeable, funny, great with kids, and remarkably unsqueamish.

The kids can hold many of the bugs if they care to. You have to be 19 or older to hold some of the creatures, such as tarantulas, which are very delicate. If a tarantula is dropped on the ground, he can break his leg, and a tarantula can die from a broken leg.

I was so happy that I'm not yet 19, and therefore did not have to hold a tarantula.

I politely declined holding anything, actually, because I needed both hands for my camera, if you recall. 

After the bug zoo, I think we went back to the hotel and took naps or something. I can't really remember. I know I made everybody wash their hands and upper lips really well.

Then in the afternoon we headed over to the Empress Hotel for Afternoon Tea. Afternoon Tea at the Empress is something else. They've been doing it since 1908. Our waitress told Claire that when Queen Elizabeth has tea at the Empress, she takes two sugars. :)

I like how our waitress used the present tense verb -- "Queen Elizabeth takes two sugars" -- instead of saying "That one time way back when she came here, she took two sugars." That makes Afternoon Tea that much more exciting, because you expect the Queen to just walk through the doors at any minute.

The Duchess of Bedford is credited with inventing the ritual of afternoon tea back in the 1700s, when she would get a "sinking feeling" in the afternoon. Next time you get that afternoon "sinking feeling," you just sit yourself down and ask for somebody to bring you some tiny little cakes and thin little sandwiches and a pot of hot tea. It's all very civilized and restorative. The Empress has its own bakery and makes all its own goodies. They were all delicious. There was real clotted cream, which I piled up so high on my scone that it toppled over. Thank goodness the Queen had not just walked through the door to see such greediness.

I apologize for the lack of a good buffer photo between bugs and tea. We find that the best family vacations involve an odd mixture of activities that cater to all of our individual interests. :) 

There was a fancy mom and two fancy daughters at a table next to us, and they wanted to know what we had done that morning. They were surrounded by shopping bags and they smelled like perfume and lived in a gated community in Texas and had traveled hither and yon quite extensively to escape the scorching summer heat, but Claire just very cheerfully told them all about the bug zoo, and Bob chimed in, and I stood there smiling but thinking, "These are not bug zoo ladies."

But Claire and Bob must have sold it, because we ran into these same women several days later on Robson Street in Vancouver, and they had gone to the bug zoo! They said it was one of the best things they did while they were in Victoria. They even held the tarantulas.

So you just never know about people, and let this be a lesson to me never to assume that sweet-smelling fancy ladies from gated communities dislike bugs. 

After tea, we went over to the Imax Theatre in the BC Museum, which we had mostly to ourselves because the rest of Canada was watching Game 7 on the telly. We watched a very lovely film called Born to Be Wild, which is narrated by Morgan Freeman and is the story of a woman in Borneo who rescues orphaned orangutans, and a woman in Kenya who rescues orphaned elephants. We all loved it. I recommend it if it is playing somewhere near you. I got a bit choked up when the older orphaned elephants came to greet the newer orphaned elephants. 

Then we poked around the National Geographic shop by the theatre for a bit, and then we had dinner and watched the Canucks lose to Boston on the television in the Old Spaghetti Factory, and I was so sad about that because I had become a staunch Canucks fan in just one day, and then of course all H-E-double-hockey-sticks broke loose in Vancouver, which I followed for a bit via a news feed on my phone, but then we just conked out and went to sleep. 

We kept wanting to see the lights on the Parliament Buildings, but I think you have to stay up until eleven or midnight before it gets dark! And I get a Duchess of San Gabriel sinking feeling at around eight p.m., so midnight wasn't working for me.

victoria, british columbia 2011: around town

We just got back Monday night from a week in the cities of Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

It was such a lovely trip. It is cool and green and friendly-like up there. :)

We flew into the city of Vancouver and then took the ferry over to Victoria bright and early the next morning. The ferry was huge. Our bus drove right onto it. 

The most exciting thing that happened on the ferry was that a huge bald eagle flew right by. Everybody was talking about that. It was so much bigger than I would ever have guessed from our money. :) I still get a thrill just thinking about that.

Here's a wee map if you need a quick refresher. Vancouver (the city) is on the mainland of British Columbia. Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is located on Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island is west of the city of Vancouver and north of Edward Cullen.

The mainland is separated from the island by the Straight of Georgia. We went past the Gulf Islands on the ferry. The San Juan Islands are just south of the Gulf Islands.

Vancouver Island is about 286 miles from top to bottom, and a bit more than half of its population of 750,000 live in Victoria.

The last time I was in Victoria, I was 14 or 15 years old. It is every bit as picturesque as I remember it. :)

We stayed at the Best Western Inner Harbour. It was a really nice hotel for families, and I recommend it. It was clean and friendly, with a nice outdoor heated swimming pool, and the location is perfect. It is about a block away from the British Columbia Parliament Buildings, and short walking distance to almost everything else you'd want to see.

We got in the afternoon of Tuesday, June 14th, and walked around some to get a feel for everything.

An architect named Francis Rattenbury gave Victoria much of its beautiful look. He designed the Parliament Buildings, the Empress Hotel, and the Canadian Pacific Railway Steamship Terminal, which are all in the Inner Harbour.

He was a very successful architect, but had a very messy private life. You can read about it online. Wild.

The Parliament Buildings face the Inner Harbour and are diagonal from the Empress. The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia meets here.

This was the day before Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, and everybody had Canuck Fever. Even Parliament. :)

I guess now is as good a time as any to mention that we missed the hockey riots in Vancouver on Wednesday night but got there Saturday when things had cooled off and everything was being analyzed. It's always a shame when a small minority of idiots (is there a worse trifecta on earth than youth + testosterone + alcohol?) mess things up for the majority of nice people. We have stuff like that happen here in southern California, too.

Everyone we spoke with in Vancouver was delightful, and really bent over backwards to let us know that they loved their city and their hockey team, and were mortified by the hooligans. But we'll talk about that a bit more when we get back to Vancouver.

For now, let's look at Victoria in all its loveliness. :)

We were told several times that the weather has been unseasonably cool. Rose gardens that were typically in bloom had not had enough sun and were still closed up tight as buds. But the spring flowers that typically would already have died were still going, so it was still lovely. My geraniums at home are starting to wilt in the heat, but these were still fresh and so pretty.

This is the BC Museum, which is also right there close to the Inner Harbour. It's fantastic, and I'll talk more about it later.

We snuck up on the Empress Hotel from its south side.

Victoria is known for its lush hanging baskets and pretty street lights.

That middle flag up there on top of the Empress's front facade is a Canucks flag. :)

And here's the Empress from its north side. 

Well done, Francis Rattenbury. I'm sorry your second wife's lover murdered you.

After we'd checked out the Inner Harbour, we went north on Government Street to check out the shops. Some of Government Street (the bit closest to the Inner Harbour) has succumbed to tacky souvenir shops, but it's not too bad. There is still plenty of loveliness to be found.

I think several of you would like the Button & Needlework Boutique in Trounce Alley off View Street. I didn't buy anything, but I wanted to. :)

 There is coffee to suit any mood you can think of. :)

Such a good day. :) I'll show you more later.

summer tour guides

ETA: I bumped this post back up to the top in hopes of getting some more responses. :)

Where do you live? If someone came to visit you this summer, what are five (or so) things you would take her to see in your area? What's great about where you live? What's not-so-great?

It dawned on me this morning that some of you might be visiting areas this summer where some others of you live, and such info might come in handy.

london 2011: windsor castle

I think maybe my very best day in London was the day we went to see Windsor Castle. (It was on Tuesday, February 15. We returned to the U.S. on Wednesday.)

Windsor Castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world and the longest-occupied royal palace in Europe. It is more like a fortified town than a house: it covers thirteen acres, and includes the palace itself, a large chapel, housing for scores of the 500 people who work there, and a guard (and you will recall that by "guard," I do not mean "one guy". I mean, "a group of guys".) 

Nobody knows exactly when Windsor was founded. It was one of a chain of castles established as a defensive ring by William the Conqueror in the 1070s and 80s to protect London. (If you have forgotten who William the Conquerer is, he was the first Norman king of England. He invaded England in 1066. We talked about him a bit last summer.) 

Windsor is a good example of a motte-and-bailey castle. But you can call it motte-and-beezie for short.

Ha. :D

I was so excited to see Windsor that we were the first people to arrive that day! (You can get to Windsor from London's Paddington Station on a train that changes at Slough and gets in to Windsor & Eton Central in 30 to 40 minutes, total. They run pretty regularly.)

We pretty much had the place to ourselves for the first half hour or so. It was incredible. It is good to travel off-season, and to get to places first thing in the morning. I am not a morning person (AT ALL), but I make myself be one on vacation, and it is worth it. Groups started arriving about the time we left. Note the exciting lack of other people in the photos below. :)

The Castle contains a significant chunk of the Royal Collection (of art). The Royal Collection is managed from Windsor. It is worth more than 10 billion dollars.

It is unbelievable. I would just be standing inside one of the rooms in the Castle, looking out a window or at a piece of furniture or something, and look up and notice I was standing an inch away from some famous painting. I am sorry that I don't have photos of the interior to show you, but of course you're not allowed to do that. We were able to tour the Semi-State Rooms as well as the State Rooms, which was exciting, because the Semi-State Rooms (which are the private apartments created by George IV) are only open to the public sometimes during the winter months.

Queen Elizabeth spends most weekends, as well as a month over Eastertime and a week in June, at Windsor. She also likes to do much of her entertaining there. It is reported to be her favorite residence. When she is there, The Royal Standard flies. It looks like this:

When she is not there, the Union Jack flies.

She wasn't there. :)

If any of you have seen documentaries on Windsor (I recommend this one), or watched footage of Charles' and Camilla's wedding, you'll recognize the quadrangle here, where William and Harry threw rice on their car as they drove away. :) The quadrangle is not open to the public.  I'm photographing it here through a window from inside the castle. 

That thing with the clock on it is the entrance to the State Apartments, which are all along that north side.

The stone tower below (called The Round Tower even though it is a very wobbly type of round) is a good example of how castles evolved. The earthen motte (little hill) was constructed by William the Conqueror. Henry II began the circular(ish) stone keep on top of the motte. Jeffry Wyatville added the battlements to it (on behalf of George IV), because it improved the skyline.

I'm hoping Elizabeth II will add a nice pom-pom fringe to top it all off. 

The moat around Windsor has always been dry. Nowadays, it's a pretty garden.

Here's a statue of King Charles II on horseback.

Do you see, to the far left of the picture, a big open arch? That is the George IV gateway, which is the main entrance to the Upper Ward (the Quadrangle) from the Long Walk. You'll see the Long Walk in a bit here.

Anyway, if you rent that video about Windsor from Netflix, you'll see Prince Philip and others driving in and out of Windsor through that gateway. They just pull their Range Rovers into the quadrangle, zip. 

If any of you like aerial maps, this might help you orient yourself a bit. Top of the map is north. :) This shows you the Upper Ward/Quadrangle area. (The Lower Ward is to the left/west.)

You can click on it to make it bigger. The side of the quadrangle on the far right (east) are the Private Apartments, where the family actually lives when they are here. It looks out over the East Terrace, which has a lovely, symmetrical rose garden in it.

A pretty good chunk of my novel takes place at Windsor Castle, so I really needed to know it, and know where things were. It was so helpful to actually go there and see stuff.

These guards are marching close to where you enter for the interior tour of the castle. I was amazed at their focus. Bob and I were the only people out there, and they must have felt self-conscious with me clicking away like that.

The waiting area before the interior tour begins is a room full of some of the royal china. It's fun to look at while you wait to go in. You can also see Queen Mary's Dollhouse, which we did. It has working elevators in it. And lights. I wanted to play with it so bad. :)

Sweet yellow signs of spring. :)

See that plaque below? That's the emblem of the Order of the Garter. It says "Honi soit qui mal y pense," which is interpreted in modern times as "Shame on him who thinks this evil." 

The Order of the Garter is the highest and oldest chivalric order in Britain. Edward III founded it in 1348. People are appointed to this Order solely at the discretion of the Queen. (She doesn't have a whole lot of decisions solely at her discretion, so I think that must be really fun for her.)

The number of knights in the Order of the Garter is limited to 24, plus "Royal Knights and Ladies of the Garter" who are those knights belonging to the Royal family. (Prince William became the 1,000 member of the Knight of the Order in 2008.)

Here is a list of the current members of the Order. You will probably recognize Margaret Thatcher's name. You may not recognize the name "Baroness Soames," but she is the youngest of Winston and Clementine Churchill's five kids.

The British Honours System is pretty complicated. (You're going to love this, Valeria. Ha.) You won't find "Sir Elton John" or any of those "celebrity" knights on the list of the Order of the Garter. There are several different chivalric orders, and there is also something called Knights Bachelor, which is the most basic rank for someone who has been knighted by the Queen. Sir Elton John, for instance, is a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, which is why he has "CBE" after his name, and is a member of the Knights Bachelor, which is why he has "Sir" in front of his name.

Each year in June a procession and service take place at Windsor Castle for the Order of the Garter.

St. George's Chapel is independent of the Royal Household, but sits geographically within Windsor Castle. It's in the Lower Ward. It is one of the great masterpieces of English Perpendicular Gothic.

 

St. George's is the "spiritual home" of the Order of the Garter. It is what is known as a Royal Peculiar, which means that it falls directly under the Queen's jurisdiction, rather than under an Anglican bishop. This is a working church, with daily worship services that are open to everybody.

Queen Elizabeth's parents (King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother)(I still haven't seen The King's Speech, by the way) are buried in a little chapel room that is inside St. George's. Princess Margaret's ashes are also there, and there is room on her parents' gravestone for her own name to be inscribed.

I liked the room, because it felt small and personal and familial amidst the splendor of Windsor. 

One of the nicest things about our time at Windsor was that, because there were so few people there that early, all the guides and docents wanted to talk to us. They all had plenty of time to answer anything we wanted to know. I had a long, interesting talk with a woman in St. George's whom I would have liked to be friends with. She was so nice. She volunteers there twice a week. 

One interesting plaque on the floor notes (almost casually and incidentally) that "In a vault beneath this marble slab are deposited the remains of Jane Seymour Queen of King Henry VIII (1537), King Henry VIII (1547), King Charles I (1643), and an infant child of Queen Anne."

If you have kept up with Henry and all his wives, you will know that Jane died a few weeks after the birth of her son (Edward VI) from childbirth complications, and was Henry's only wife to receive a proper Queen's funeral. He didn't have time to get mad at her and chop off her head. She is his only Queen to be buried with him. If you ask me, they should have just buried him by himself somewhere, off in a corner, or maybe out in a field. Or a horse stall. But nobody asked me. :)

I could talk about St. George's all day, because it was so neat, but you should just go see it yourself. I could have stayed inside it much longer, just looking at everything.

If you look at the columns on the roof, those are some of the Windsor Beasts. There are a total of 76 of these stone animals holding wind vanes and coats of arms. There are fourteen different animals, all associated with the Plantagenet & Tudor Royal families.

Bob is standing just to the left of the main entrance to the Chapel.

Do you see more Windsor beasts? There are also gargoyles lower down on the chapel.

This guard is not just for tourist show. None of them are.

This is the West front of St. George's chapel.

When we had toured the outside and inside of Windsor, we left the Castle and walked a few blocks down a bit to see The Long Walk. I have been waiting and waiting for ages to see it, and it did not disappoint me. The Long Walk links Windsor Castle to Snow Hill in Windsor Great Park. A copper statue of King George II atop a horse sits on Snow Hill. It is 2.64 miles from the Castle gate to the statue.

All that land you see (Windsor Great Park) used to be private deer hunting grounds for the castle. It still has a lot of deer in it, but it's open to the public now.

So when I was facing the Long Walk above, the Cambridge Gate entrance to Windsor (also known as the Royal Tradesman's entrance) shown below was to my back. Do you see that Royal Tradesman looking at me? :) 

A guard at Windsor told us to check out this lovely pub called The Two Brewers. It is a few steps away from the Castle gate above. It was really great. Lots and lots of very interesting stuff on the walls, lots of interesting castle-related chatter going on, and the food and drink were fantastic.

We laughed so hard, because they had this typical pub sign displayed, which becomes quite funny, given their location:

Please be quiet when leaving the pub.
This is a residential area,
And we do not wish to disturb our neighbors. 

The neighbors. Hee hee hee. 

london 2011: the british museum

Bob and I went to the British Museum (or, as our brother-in-law Greg calls it, The Museum of Plunder) on Valentine's Day. Our hotel was across the street from it, so it was just a hop to get there.

I tell you in all embarrassed honesty that I did not anticipate liking the British Museum, simply because I don't think of myself as an "antiquities" girl. 

But it was really wonderful, and I would gladly have come back for several days in a row, if we'd had the time, just to look around. They take a very interesting "storytelling" approach to many of the exhibits, so that instead of feeling as if you're standing around looking at a bunch of old stuff, you find yourself becoming so intimately involved in the lives of people who used or made these things, that you end up really caring. 

And the building itself is quite stunning. It is open to the light as much as possible, and is expansive. 

We spent quite some time in the Enlightenment Room (Room 1), where I had the epiphany that Martha Stewart has probably been there and liked it. That room felt like her magazine. Everything was collected, explained, and cataloged for posterity.

It was very interesting. 

We spent the majority of our time at the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead exhibit. Again, I was not particularly excited about seeing an Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, but I don't think I will ever forget that exhibit. It was absolutely fascinating. (It ran through March 6 and has since been replaced with Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World.) Again, they used a storyline to draw you through the exhibit and make you care very much about Hunifer and his wife, Nasha, and some other ancient Egyptians. I found myself thinking quite a lot about their respective fates.

The "Book" wasn't a single text.  It was a compilation of spells that were designed to guide the deceased through the dangers of the underworld, ultimately ensuring eternal life. The spells were on papyrus and linen. There were also funerary figurines called "shabtis", amulets, jewelry, statues, and coffins in the exhibit. Here is a little video about it if you get curious.

We also spent quite a bit of time looking at Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sculpture on the first floor.

Here is the Rosetta Stone, and me reflected in it. :)

I liked this sarcophagus.

Here is a marble bust of Alexander the Great from Alexandria around 2 or 1 B.C. Alexander ran his own P.R. campaign pretty tightly. He controlled how he looked in all the representations of him displayed throughout his empire. He only used a few, select painters and sculptors, and they always had to make him look young and clean-shaven, with long hair and this dynamic turn of the head. Alexander was deified in his own lifetime, which is really never a good idea, but goes to show you what a good job he did in making himself seem greater than he really was. 

I always think such men start believing their own progaganda about themselves, and half believe they won't actually die. And yet they do.

He reminds me quite a bit of Lord Byron here. Don't cha think?

I think she looks like she is ready to backhand anybody who gets too fresh.

The Parthenon Sculptures (a.k.a. the Elgin Marbles) were quite impressive. They were (as you probably know) sculptures that decorated the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens.

There are Parthenon sculptures in several museums in countries around the world, including the Louvre, the Vatican museum, and some others in Austria, Germany, and Denmark. And of course there are also some Parthenon sculptures in Athens, at the New Acropolis Museum.

Greece is kind of angry that all the Parthenon sculptures are not in Greece. They would like to restore the Acropolis, but can't really do it without all the sculptures. On the other hand, the British Museum has this to say:

The British Museum exists to tell the story of cultural achievement throughout the world, from the dawn of human history over two million years ago until the present day. The Museum is a unique resource for the world: the breadth and depth of its collection allows the world public to re-examine cultural identities and explore the complex network of interconnected world cultures. Within the context of this unparalleled collection, the Parthenon sculptures are an important representation of ancient Athenian civilisation.

Each year millions of visitors, free of charge, admire the artistry of the sculptures and gain insights on how ancient Greece influenced, and was influenced by, the other civilisations that it encountered.

The Trustees of the British Museum warmly welcome the opening of the New Acropolis Museum which will allow the Parthenon sculptures that are in Athens to be appreciated against the backdrop of ancient Greek and Athenian history. The new museum, however, does not alter the Trustees’ view that the sculptures are part of everyone’s shared heritage and transcend cultural boundaries. The Trustees remain convinced that the current division allows different and complementary stories to be told about the surviving sculptures, highlighting their significance for world culture and affirming the universal legacy of Ancient Greece.

Do you have opinions on this? 

The frieze (a bit is pictured below) ran high up around all four sides of the Parthenon inside the colonnades.

It's really hard to draw horses on paper. I can't imagine carving them out of stone and making them look so fluid and horsey-like.

We wandered around the Museum for five or six hours, and then I pooped out and went back to the hotel to take a nap. Bob stayed another hour or so and went upstairs and saw more neat stuff. I really hope to go and spend more time there. Who knew that I was, after all, an antiquities girl? I just needed to find someone who would explain it well to me. Thanks, British Museum. :)

london 2011: hampstead heath

If you are ever in London on a Sunday morning at ten a.m., Bob and I both recommend that you take the Old Hampstead Village walk with London Walks. (We would like to plan an entire London vacation some time centered around the London Walks walks. They are fantastic.)

If you take this walk on Sunday, your guide will be David, who owns the company. Don't let the fact that he is American (from Wisconsin) deter you. He is brilliant, and has lived in London for a very long time. He went over from the U.S. as a lad to do a doctoral dissertation on Charles Dickens, and just stayed.

Here is the London Walks description of the Old Hampstead Village walk:

This is a great walk. They just don't come any better than this. Our setting is London's most picturesque neighbourhood – a perfectly preserved Georgian village crowning the top of a handsome hill and garnished with the capital's most elegant old world promenade, a medley of cobble-stone lanes, pretty cottages, surprising turnings, and unsurpassed views. As for our cast of characters...well it's every bit as beguiling as our setting, ranging from the highwayman Dick Turpin to the painter Constable to the poet Keats; from Freud and D.H. Lawrence to Sting and Boy George; from Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Dench and Emma Thompson to Rex Harrison, Peter O'Toole, Alan Bates, Liam Gallagher and Jeremy Irons. And for good measure, there's London's most villagey atmosphere, white swans on a lake, and magnificent Hampstead Heath. 

Bob and I also recommend that you hit The Holly Bush for lunch after the tour if you can squeeze in. We spent a really enjoyable couple of hours there.

A whole slew of very interesting creative types have lived in or do live in Hampstead. Seriously, take a look at the list of literary folks. Dude.

This is Jamie Oliver's old house, kitty-corner to The Holly Bush.

George Romney was a great English portrait painter, and a poster boy for selfishness. He moved out on his family, lived the life of the womanizing artist for years and years, and then showed up back home (after being gone for forty years) once he was old and sick and broke, expecting his wife to take care of him. And she did, for two years, until he died.

George DuMaurier is all over Hampstead. Everywhere you turn, there he lived. If you are not familiar with George, he was a cartoonist and author. He was also Sylvia Llewelyn Davie's dad and Daphne DuMaurier's grandfather. (Sylvia's five sons inspired J.M. Barrie to write Peter Pan, which you know if you saw Finding Neverland, and Daphne wrote Rebecca, which you know if you read Rebecca. Ha.) He was also a close friend of Henry James.

He lived in the house below, and so did Ridley Scott. But not in the same century.

If you look at the roof of this house below, you''ll probably recognize it. 

Here is a hint:

And then there is the Heath itself, which is large and lovely.

Here's the English flag. (Not the British.)

The Vale of Health is a bit of a misnomer. It would have been a swampy, mosquito-infested and decidedly unhealthy area when it was named. 

People get pretty animated talking about parking in Hampstead. It's a bit of an issue. 

The house below used to be a carriage house. You can see on the bottom where the old, huge doors have been replaced by new brick, two windows, and a front door.

Here's an art studio where Mark Gertler lived.

Here's the Everyman Cinema. It used to be a very influential little theater theatre.

If you take the walking tour, it winds up on a beautiful little Georgian street in front of St. John-at-Hampstead church. The churchyard is lovely.

John Constable is buried here.

And here's George DuMaurier again. Three of the Llewelyn Davies children and their parents are also buried here.

I don't think my photos catch the most interesting thing about walking around Hampstead, which is that it's on a hill, in London but high above London. It's really lovely. Walking around Hampstead on an overcast Sunday morning is a really pleasant way to spend a couple hours. If this is something you would enjoy, I hope you get to do it sometime. :)

one little photo of windsor

I saved the rest of our London photos (from February) to share now, this week, because I knew I would be wanting to bask in the glow of the Royal Wedding. :) 

I took 119 photos the day we were at Windsor. I may have gotten a bit carried away. I promise not to show you 119 photos of Windsor. But Windsor has been home to the Sovereign for 900 years, and it is fantastic.

Here is one of them. I'll post some more photos later this week.

Yay, William and Kate. Yay!

catalina island

On Tuesday morning, we took the Catalina Express over to Catalina Island. The trip takes about an hour from Long Beach. Catalina Island is 26 miles from the mainland. But you may have known that already, from the song:

Twenty-six miles across the sea
Santa Catalina is a-waitin' for me
Santa Catalina, the island of romance, romance, romance

I'd never been to Catalina before. Neither had Claire. Bob represents the Santa Catalina Island Company (known as "The Company" to locals) and the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy (known as "The Conservancy" to locals) and goes over fairly often for business, so he was excited to show us around.

Pulling out of Long Beach harbor, we got a better view of the Queen Mary.

Bun Bun had a good seat in Claire's cupholder on the Catalina Express.

As you approach the island, you see the Casino (built in 1928-29 by William Wrigley Jr. of the Chicago Wrigleys) and the rest of Avalon (the only city on the island).

It feels so Mediterranean! And a little bit how I've always imagined Sardinia or Cyprus to be, maybe. Or even Smuggers' Island in Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun, when they made it into a t.v. movie with Peter Ustinov in the eighties. That one. Smugglers' Island is just off the coast of Devon in the book, but they filmed that movie in Majorca, so now if I read the book, the ambiance is a bit messed up. 

Anyway, it feels like you're sailing into a fishing village that should have an exciting mystery happening in it.

It's strange to imagine what California in general would look like today without the mediterranean influence.

I heard that part of Catalina Island still accidentally belongs to Spain. The story is that the ownership description on the title documents left off a small portion of the island when it was transferred to the U.S., so that bit is still Spain's.

You might not want to quote me on that, because I'm not sure it's true. But it's sure a mighty interesting story.

We stayed at the Pavilion Hotel, which is a short walk from the pier. It was renovated in 2010. It's lovely, and has a very pleasant courtyard garden.

Oh, the joys of investigating a new hotel room. The little bottles of shampoo and conditioner! The closets with the extra pillows and the hairdryer and the luggage rack! The two beds to jump between!

After we got settled, we went out to investigate things and get some lunch.

Tile was manufactured on Catalina between 1927 and 1937. William Wrigley Jr. found clay deposits there when he was developing the island, and so the Company invested in the development of a brick and tile factory. It only lasted a decade, but the tiles are still famous. There are several tile artists now in business who try replicating the old tiles, but one woman does such fine work that everybody hires her for new tiles or replacement of old tiles. 

We had a pretty view while we ate lunch. See that cruise ship out there? That's the same one that was in the harbor in Long Beach. Avalon was filled up with cruise ship people during the day, but it emptied out after three in the afternoon because they all had to go back to the ship, or be left behind.

Catalina runs on island time, so everything is kind of slow. I love that. It took awhile for our lunch to arrive, so we talked and then a woman with leopard spots tattooed on her arm walked by, so then Claire drew a leopard. 

If I were forced to say what my favorite thing to do is, I think my favorite thing to do is to eat outside when the weather is nice and I am with people I like. So I was pretty happy at lunch, even though it took a long time.

We walked back to the hotel (everything is close together in Avalon) to get our sweaters because it was windy, and to buy tickets to the undersea tour.

The undersea tour takes about 45 minutes. They take you out to Lover's Cove Marine Preserve in a semi-sub, and feed the fish, who go nuts and come swimming all around you. It's super fun. Here is a short video I took. It looks like we're looking into an aquarium, but nope, we're underwater in a boat.

Claire is good on boats for about half an hour before she starts feeling seasick. However, she always wants to go on boats, anyway. She was happy to go upstairs and feel the fresh air on her face as the tour came to an end.

After the undersea tour, Bob and Claire went miniature golfing, and I went and sat in the lovely courtyard garden of our hotel and worked on my book for about 90 minutes. I am not going to make my self-imposed deadline of April 29, and I'm kind of sad about that, but that's okay. I will get it done.

Then they came back and told me all about golfing, and then it was time for the hotel's free wine and cheese time, which is between 4 and 4:30 exactly. So Bob brought me a glass of wine and some cheese, and brought Claire some lemonade, and brought himself some wine and cheese, and we sat in the courtyard some more and enjoyed each other.  It was very relaxing.

At about six, we decided it was time for dinner. This is the lovely thing about vacation. It's a bunch of meals strung together with things like reading and writing and looking at fish and tiles and having cheese and drawing pictures of leopards at one's leisure.

We went here for dinner, to the Ristorante Villa Portofino. The service was really excellent. The pasta was your basic pasta. :) I think the facade is so cute. Look at the plants on the balcony.

After we ate, Bob really wanted to show us the Casino. Up until this point, I thought there was a casino in the Casino, and I wasn't all that interested in seeing it. But it hasn't been a casino in years. Now it houses the Avalon Theatre and the Catalina Island Museum, and is really beautiful. I'm glad I didn't miss that walk or the Casino, because it was one of my favorite parts of our time there.

At dusk everything starts feeling magical.

This mermaid is iconic. She is one of several painted frescos (circa 1929) outside the entrance to the Avalon Theatre in the Casino. The architect ran out of time to create the vignettes in tile as originally planned and so had workmen paint them, instead, but the mermaid was finally converted to tile in 1987.

Here Bob is teaching Claire some of the differences between art deco and art nouveau, which are both featured here. :) I got a kick out of that.

I would not have been too terribly surprised if a mermaid peeked up out of this water. 

long beach

Claire has spring break this week, so Bob took a few days off work and we took a little mini-vacation. We spent Monday night in Long Beach, and last night on Catalina Island. Then today we came home. 

Long Beach is a working port (second busiest container port in the U.S.), so there is all kinds of shipping activity going on in the harbor (there were a total of 4,691,258 loaded inbound and outbound containers through Long Beach last year) as well as tourist-oriented attractions such as the harbored Queen Mary steamship.

Bob used Priceline to get us a reservation for one night at the Hotel Maya in Long Beach. It was so relaxing, and we just hung out there the whole time. :) The weather was perfect.

First we checked out the funky lobby and restaurant areas.

Below is the view from the restaurant. The hotel is located right on the harbor. The ship that is horizontal to us below is a Carnival cruise ship that docks there every few days. The ship perpendicular to it is the Queen Mary. That dome to the right is where Howard Hughes's Spruce Goose used to be on exhibit.

Here's downtown Long Beach.

There are some cool public lounging areas, so we lounged. :)

After we checked out the public areas close to the hotel entrance, we jumped in our car and drove over to our room. We had a nice view of the swimming pool and harbor. The Queen Mary and the Carnival cruise ship are behind the trees. :)

After we settled in, Bob and Claire went down to swim and I sat on the balcony and watched them and dozed off for a few minutes. It was awesome. :)

The lounge chairs make the pool deck look like a piano. (That's Bob and Claire down there.)

When they came back from swimming I decided it was time to bust out my real camera and quit using only my phone. :)

Many of you are familiar with "tag team parenting," which is often necessary when the parents are tired but the children are not. So after Bob took Claire swimming while I relaxed, he took a nap and I took Claire for a walk around the beautiful hotel grounds. 

We made a few stops when she felt the need to dance.

This is looking back towards the hotel, which are those modern-looking buildings on the left. 

Then we went back and Bob was awake and we decided it was close enough to dinner time. :)

I needed to crop Bob reading a map out of this photo (you can still see the map), but I wanted to show you the headboard. Our room had two queen beds. I don't really think stones are a practical headboard, and I piled about three pillows behind Claire's head when she went to bed at night, but I wanted you to see it. :)

The room was nice, and I'm sorry that I didn't take more photos of it. I think I was just mesmerized by the balcony. I just wanted to be outside.

We decided to eat at Fuego, which is the restaurant at the hotel itself. I told you, we did not set foot away from the hotel our whole time there. :) We all highly recommend the sopes at Fuego. It's an appetizer, but if you ate the whole thing it would make a great meal. YUM. I would drive back to Long Beach just to eat those sopes.

Here is a Shirley Temple.

The restaurant looks out on the water.

On the way back to our room, we checked out one of the fire pits, lined with orange glass. So cool.

It was a really good day. :)

london 2011: the victoria + albert, harrods, kensington gardens,+ the white horse pub

On Saturday (February 12), we headed over to the Victoria and Albert Museum, a.k.a "the V & A". It is located in South Kensington, and is the world's largest art and design museum.

You creative chickies would LOVE it. :)

In the museum's Grand Entrance, the domed ceiling and the Dale Chihuly glass chandelier will grab your attention right off the bat. :)

Here is the index, and I took a few photos to kind of give you an idea of how large and diverse their collection is.

 

 

I thought this might interest several of you. I am sorry my photo is not better. This is the oldest dated surviving embroidery sampler in the world. It was worked by a girl named Jane Bostocke in 1598. 

I was amazed at how the color saturation of the floss has been preserved this long. Look at the red!

It was absolutely astounding to me that Bob and I were able to just remove the frame from its wooden case, prop it up on the table as you see above, examine it, photograph it, and return it to its case. There weren't even any other people in the room!

Hundreds of such textiles are cataloged and housed in cases in the Textile Study Room, and you can just slide them out and look at them as you wish.

I was sorry to hear the Textile Study Room will be closing permanently on March 1. But it's making way for a new Clothworkers' Centre for Textiles and Fashion Study and Conservation, so maybe that will be even neater.

After we looked around the V & A for a couple hours, we headed along Brompton Road.

And here is Harrod's.

Our jet lag had caught up to us on Saturday morning, so we sat down for a cup of tea and some scones at Harrod's before we started walking around it, which helped quite a bit. :)

I am not usually a big fan of department stores, but you really have to see Harrod's just to marvel at its hugeness. It encompasses 7 floors and 4.5 acres. I'm not sure how many of those acres we saw, but it was fun to peek at everything. The interactive store guide here is fun to play with if you want to know what all Harrod's has.

I think the thing that stuck out to me most about Harrod's was the Pet Kingdom, which is 11,000 square feet devoted entirely to pet accoutrements. And it all cost more than I would spend on any of the humans in my life. :) Astounding.

After Harrod's, we jumped back on the Big Bus (which I really don't recommend in Knightsbridge/Kensington on a Saturday, because you could probably walk more quickly, although it's always fun to be up high on top of the bus rather than down at street level) and went over to Kensington Palace and Gardens.

Of course, when Princess Diana was alive, this was her home. It is now owned and managed by Historic Royal Palaces, who are in the process of refurbishing it. In the meantime, it is housing a funky, Alice-in-Wonderland-ish exhibit/experience called Enchanted Palace, which I wasn't interested in seeing, but which many folks seem to love.

But I was interested in seeing Kensington Gardens, which used to be the private gardens for the Palace. The Gardens cover 275 acres, and are on the west side of Hyde Park. We entered on the Bayswater side, and walked south toward the Palace. 

Here is the clock tower in the Gardens, outside the Princess Diana Memorial Playground, which, may I tell you, is a hoppin' place on a sunny Saturday morning. (I didn't take a photo of the playground itself, but it was darling and looked fun. There is a huge pirate ship in it!)

And here is the Round Pond. It was created between 1726 and 1735, and the Victorians used to sail model boats on it. 

J.M. Barrie liked Kensington Gardens, and set one of his earlier Peter Pan stories there. There is a Peter Pan statue in the Gardens, which we did not see.

And then there was the Palace itself. We came up to its back.

And here is the adjacent Orangery, which is supposed to have one of the best afternoon teas in London. There was a big line for it.

We walked around to get a better look at the front of the Palace.

It felt ... sad to me. I miss Diana.

It was late in the afternoon, and we had reservations for 6 at the White Horse Pub on Parson's Green, which some folks reckon is the best pub in London. I didn't take any photos of the White Horse, but have grabbed three photos off their website to show you below. 

I have to tell you one funny thing that happened, which is so typical of me.

I had researched dinner places before we left the States, and then made a reservation at the White Horse through its website. There were options to make the dinner reservation in the bar area itself, or in an area called The Coach House.

Well, I'm looking at the photos of the bar area online, which are below, and I think "Oh my goodness, Bob would love this bar area. I'll make the reservation there."

But, duh, the photos on the website show the pub empty.

When we get there, it is PACKED with people, because there is a huge rugby game on t.v. You can't even see what it looks like, let alone hear yourself think. So a lovely man who was, I think, a manager, shows us our table, which already has a bunch of people at it, and sees our faces, and asks, "Would you like somewhere quieter?"

And I say sheepishly, "Yes, please, if something is available."

And it turns out that there is, in fact, a table available in the attached Coach House, where I should have made the reservation to begin with.

Here is the Coach House. And in fact it looked exactly like this when we walked in, because no one else was there yet. (Six p.m. is early for dining in Europe.)

And this was one of the best meals we had during our stay. We had the Beef Wellington. Yummers. :) And our waitress was delightful.

Also, I could just see the t.v. screen out in the bar area, and am delighted to tell you that I now completely understand the game of rugby. It is exactly like hockey, without ice, sticks, or any safety equipment. 

You get the ball and move a few inches, and then a bunch of guys dogpile you. Over and over again. It's brilliant.

london 2011: the changing of the guard at buckingham palace, the london eye, the tower of london, + the along-the-thames pub walk

A week ago Friday (February 11) we went over to Buckingham Palace in the morning to see the Changing of the Guard.

My whole entire life, I have thought it was "the Changing of the Guards" (plural), thinking a guard was one person, and that one guard was coming in to replace another guy in the sentry boxes.

But no! It is "the Changing of the Guard," singular, meaning (of course, now that I stop to think about it) that one entire contingent (a guard) of soldiers is replacing another entire contingent of soldiers.

The things I have gone through life not knowing!

(Remember when I found out a couple years ago that the expression is "one-way street" and not "one-way streak"? Also, until maybe three years ago, I thought a troop was a group of soldiers. So when they say "30,000 troops," I thought it meant 30,000 groups of soldiers. I was so shocked to find out a troop is one soldier. Which is kind of exactly the opposite problem I had with "guard."

Obviously, I need to read more military history and whatnot.

Also, and I hesitate to tell you this because you won't believe it, but I didn't notice that the back lights on cars turn white when they are backing up until about three years ago. Astonishingly, I have only been in one minor accident in my entire driving career, and that wasn't even my fault.)

And it is quite a long ceremony (the Changing of the Guard), and mostly very interesting, with some long pauses inbetween of uninterestingness.

We got there early enough to get right up against the fence, which is where you want to be. This was my view straight up. I was squashed right up to that fence, so I could stick my camera through the fence posts.

Below was my view to my slight left. That's the front gate of the palace. 

Below is the New Guard, all formed up (that took awhile) and led by the band. They march across the forecourt of the Palace, and then turn around and slowly face the Old Guard.

The Old Guard presents arms, then the New Guard presents arms, and then the Captains of the Guard march toward each other and turn over the keys to the Palace. 

Then the new sentries are posted. (This last bit, where the new sentries are posted, is what I had always imagined the entirety of the ceremony to be. I was so wrong.)

It takes a long time, but Bob explained everything to me as it happened, so I was less confused than I would have been if I were a whole lot more confused. :)

One neat thing happened. When we got to the Palace, the Sovereign's Flag was flying. That means she's in residence. Then they switched to the Union Jack as we watched. So that means the Queen left the palace while we were standing there! I think she must have snuck out the back. We did see some of her folks leave out the front gate in two big black Land Rovers, however. So that was a bit exciting. It was Friday, so I hope she was headed out to Windsor. 

I still haven't figured out which guards we saw, exactly, because they were wearing their winter grays.

But I like saying "Coldstream Guards" because it kind of gives me a shiver. It sounds neat. Coldstream Guards, Coldstream Guards, Coldstream Guards.

I gave you the Big Bus tour of London in some detail last year when we went, so there is probably no need to rehash it. But once again, we jumped on a Big Bus and made our way around to the London Eye. (The Big Bus is a jump on, jump off tourist bus, which is so handy.) I will show you a couple highlights on the way. 

Right now, there is a lovely model of Nelson's Ship, the HMS Victory, in this bottle on Trafalgar Square. This exhibit switches out periodically.

Last year, Trafalgar Square was filled up with a huge group of people for a Good Friday Passion Play, so it was nice to see it again a bit more cleared out, so I could see the buildings.

You'll have to check last year's post for a view of Nelson's Column, which is the main thing, because I managed to completely miss it in the shot below. You can see one of the lions at the base just to the right.

If you are not up on your British naval history, you should read up on the Battle of Trafalgar and Horatio Nelson before you ever set foot in London. 

No, really.

Here's something I found on Wikipedia:

I feel like this next photo should win some kind of "most British icons in one photo, ever" award. I'm sitting atop our bus, and this is looking south down Whitehall (Trafalgar Square is at my back) toward Parliament Square.

There is even a red phone box. Can you spot it?

Here is Westminster Abbey, and the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square. I can't remember if I told you this last year or not, but Winston Churchill really didn't want a statue of himself erected in London, because London statues are always covered in bird mess. So his statue has a current of electricity running through it, and is, therefore, always bird-free. :)

I am very fond of Winston Churchill. We named our first Corgi, Winston (whom we called "Winnie") after him. (Winnie lives with Bob's mom now.) When I lived in Poland, the only in-English books in the apartment I rented (it was furnished and full of books) were Churchill's six-volume history of World War II, and so I read them, and my life is the better for it. 

I guess several of you have seen the movie The King's Speech. (I haven't seen it yet, but am anxious to.) When George VI died, and his grief-stricken daughter Elizabeth flew back from Kenya after receiving the news (and of course she'd just become Queen, as soon as her dad died, although they're not sure of the precise moment because he died in his sleep), Churchill (among others) met her at Heathrow. And then of course he was her first Prime Minister. (He had started his second term under George VI a couple years before George died, and Elizabeth loved him and kept him on.)

When we got to the London Eye, we were tickled to see that the base was decorated for Valentine's Day.

We'd ordered our tickets online before we left the States, and so had a very short wait before we got on.

The London Eye is not a ferris wheel, we learned, but I can't remember why it's not. :) Something about the axis. It's an observation wheel. It was created and then opened on December 31, 1999 for the start of the new millenium, and was expected to last only one year, but of course is now going on eleven.

There is lately always one pod missing (you can see where one is missing in the photo of the Eye above) from the wheel as they refurbish each one individually. Each one of the 32 pods represents one of the London boroughs.

The views are great! I am afraid of heights and so was worried that I would end up freaking out (internally)(and then not talking to Bob for ten minutes)(kidding), but something about the way the pods are constructed fooled my brain into thinking I was on solid ground.

I did, however, focus on looking straight out of the pod rather than straight down, because no use being stupid. :)

Here's a view of the Thames.

Charing Cross Railway Station is down in the lower left corner, below. The bridge in front of it (and also in the photo above) that looks like Spiderman made it is actually three bridges. The middle part, where the trains go, is called the Hungerford Bridge. Then on either side are two pedestrian bridges called the Golden Jubilee Bridges.

Can you see the tallest skyscraper on the horizon, in the back towards the left? That's the Shard, under construction. When it's done, it will be the tallest skyscraper in all of Europe. Until another country one-ups it. Nevermind. That's not the Shard at all, now that I look at it. I think it's the British Telecomm Tower.

You can see St. Paul's Cathedral to the left, below. And that partially obscured building in the middle back that looks like a bullet is the Swiss RE building, known as The Gherkin. (That means "pickle," if you aren't familiar with gherkins.)

Here's the pod (I think they are actually called "capsules") that was below our pod. If you look inside, you can see that there is a bench in the middle, in case you need to sit down.

And of course here's Westminster Bridge, the Palace of Westminster (Parliament) and the Clock Tower (the bell inside the Clock Tower is named Big Ben, not the Clock Tower itself, but everybody calls the whole Clock Tower Big Ben, so whatcha gonna do?)

The sun was on this side when I took this, so it's a bit bright.

I do recommend the London Eye. It's a lovely, slow (half hour) ride around, and it gives you plenty of time to really examine the skyline, which is fantastic.

So then we hopped back on the Big Bus and rode on over to the Tower of London. 

(I just remembered another huge hole in my knowledge. Remember how I learned last year that the Tower of London was its own separate thing, and not just part of the Tower Bridge? My whole life, I thought the Tower of London was one or the other of the two towers on the Tower Bridge. And then this year I was surprised, again, to find out that the Tower of London is actually comprised of several buildings. It's actually like a little hamlet, once you get there.)

Legend has it that should the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, the White Tower will crumble and a great disaster will befall England.

When Bob saw these ravens in cages, he said "Hey! That's cheating!" :)

But there were some free ravens, too, kind of hanging out by the caged ravens.

They were probably planning to bust out their caged brethren after dark.

First we went and saw the Crown Jewels. We weren't allowed to take photos in there. They are magnificent! Just like you'd think. And I'm telling ya, visit London off season! We practically had the Crown Jewels to ourselves. I've heard that in the summer when it is crowded, you have 28 seconds to see the jewels as you stand on the moving walkway that goes by them. But we had loads of time, and I got up close as I could to everything and just stared at it all hard, to imprint it in my brain. 

The Koh-i-Nur diamond is pretty impressive.

Then we went to the White Tower, where the Royal Armoury is, and Bob was as excited about that as I was about the jewels. 

The armor below, which dates from 1540, was made for Henry the Eighth. He had lots of different armor. He needed it when he jousted and engaged in foot combat in tournaments, and when he invaded France. (He invaded France three times.)

He kind of let himself go there at the end, and by the time this particular armor was made for him, he was no longer participating in tournaments. But he was still excited about going to war, so it was in his (big huge) size, just in case he needed it, although frankly, he would have really had trouble actually moving in it, given his state.

I really can't stand Henry the Eighth. He was a total creep.

Here's the suit of armor for a man named John of Gaunt. It's the tallest suit of armor in the world, at 6 feet 9 inches. (John was 6'7".)

I don't know who the little armor was for.

There was armor for each Royal House on display, right through the Windsors, but of course once firearms were readily available, metal body armor became obsolete.

So armor today looks a bit different. That photo (hard to see) on the back of the case is Prince Harry.

After we left the White Tower, we breezed quickly through the Medieval Palace, which looks out over the Thames. (Sadly, the Tower of London was closing.)

Out a window in one of King Edward I's rooms in the Medieval Palace, you can see City Hall (which to me looks like a giant, reticulated roly poly bug wearing a Shazam! shirt) by looking straight ahead, and the Tower Bridge by looking slightly to the left.

I recommend the Tower of London at dusk in February. It's not crowded, and everything glows in the low light, and you can imagine, so clearly, what it must have been like hundreds of years ago.

When we left, we walked along the river for a bit.

There is my Shazam! roly poly on the far left. Everything about it, from its design to its function, is slightly confusing. City Hall houses the Greater London Authority, which includes the Mayor of London and London Assembly. You have to be careful throwing the word "city" around in London, because "the City" or "the City of London" is a section of what we think of as London. (It's the financial district, and the historic core of London.) City Hall doesn't serve the City of London. It serves London (Greater London, or the London metropolis, or whatever you want to call it -- just not "the city of London").

And here's the Shard again, in progress. That whole "and now we'll have the tallest building in Europe again" thing seems kind of dumb to me. I wonder at what point you start compromising the integrity of your building and skyline just to make it taller. Although I do think the completed Shard will be a pretty building. It will look a bit like the TransAmerica Pyramid in San Francisco when it's done.

Right now it kind of looks like that tower in Mordor, where Sauron lives.

Tower Bridge is my favorite edifice (is a bridge an edifice?) in London, I think I have decided. I like everything about it, all the time.

Do you see those little sparkly dots in the sky? I am pretty sure those are Peter Pan, Wendy, Michael, and John. Tinkerbell has flown on ahead, in a huff. :)

After I finished sighing at the beautiful Thames, we walked over to the Mansion House tube station. It was a few minutes before we were to meet our London Walks guide for our Along the Thames Pub Walk, so we checked out a new, interesting outside shopping mall called One New Change close by.

Jamie Oliver and Perry Lang's Barbecoa restaurant and butcher are there. 

The butcher had beef on one side ...

And pork on t'other ...

Gordon Ramsay is opening up shop next door soon. That should get interesting.

There was also the loveliest, loveliest view of St. Paul's.

And then it was time to join our tour. Boy, I tell you, if you do nothing else the entire time you are in London, get yourself out on some of these London Walks. Bob concurs. They are superb, and this Along-the-Thames-Pub-Walk is probably the superb-est. 

Don't confuse "pub walk" with "pub crawl" ... we don't do pub crawls. :)

This pub walk was a history-and-culture-filled walk along the river and its environs, strung together by twenty-minute stops at four worthy pubs. We started at 7 and finished up around 10.

The owner of London Walks (and our guide for this tour and a few others they offer) is a Wisconsin farmer's son. He went to London forty years ago to get a doctorate in Dickens (which he did), and ended up staying forever. He is absolutely delightful -- brilliant, dramatic, informative, entertaining, and friendly -- and Bob and I were so hooked that after this pub walk, we canceled our previous Sunday morning plans to sleep in and do nothing so that we could go on another walk with him (which I'll tell you about later).

I couldn't get many photos because it was now nighttime, and also I wanted to pay attention to the tour. But here is our third pub, the Market Porter, on Stoney Street in Southwark, next to the fabulous Borough Market. 

And here is our fourth pub, The George. The George is London's only surviving galleried coaching inn. It is a medieval building, owned and leased by The National Trust, and it shows up on the first known map of Southwark, dated 1543. 

I was super excited to see The George, because I am reading Little Dorrit (I still am reading it, and was reading it on our trip) and in it, Dickens mentions The George. William Shakespeare also visited The George. 

Another inn in this part of London was The Tabard. It no longer exists, but that's where Chaucer started The Canterbury Tales. 

What a great day! Friday was our busiest day in London, because I think a good way to handle jet lag is to stay so busy that you forget you're tired. And then when you get back to the hotel you fall asleep in about two seconds because you are not only jet-lagged, you are completely exhausted from your day. It's awesome. :)

london 2011: the montague on the gardens + the fitzroy tavern

Bob and I got into London a week ago Thursday (February 10). It was, in all honesty, a practically perfect week.

I did cry once on the whole trip, and it happened right at the beginning, and when I think about it now, it is extremely embarrassing yet hilarious. So I have to tell you.

We took the London Underground (hereafter known as "the tube") from Heathrow to our hotel. (It's a straight shot on the Piccadilly line.) The stop for the hotel where we stayed is Russell Street.  The Russell Street tube station has three lifts to get you above ground, but there were a lot of people at the lifts.

To me, this meant that taking the lifts was a great idea, because a lot of people were doing it. To my husband, this meant that we should take the stairs. 

Now, before you judge me too harshly for what I am about to disclose, keep in mind that we had been on a plane for about eleven hours (and it was very squashy), and although Bob had napped a wee bit, I hadn't slept a wink, and so we had been up for about 27 hours, and were therefore prone to irrational behavior.

While Bob's irrational behavior often takes the form of impatience, mine often takes the form of crying like a baby followed by not talking. I am extremely good at not talking.

And keep in mind that we were carrying luggage. 

And keep in mind that there were 177 steps to get out of the station, which was built in 1909. It's a spiral staircase that goes up, and up, and up, and up.

Also, keep in mind that my husband goes to the gym and is very fit, and I am a couch potato.

Somewhere around step 100 or so (I'm just guessing), I just started crying. My lungs were okay, but my legs that hadn't really done anything for 27 hours were no longer wanting to move. At all. (Lactic acid buildup.) And we couldn't see the top of the stairs, and didn't know how many there were, because we had missed the (large and prominent) signs that said there were 177 steps.

(I have since learned that's nothing, and we're just lucky not to have gotten off at Hampstead, which is the deepest in the London Underground, at 192 feet below ground level, and has over 320 steps to exit if you choose to bypass the lifts.)

So I just stopped climbing and stood there and boo-hooed a little bit, while young, spry Londoners who chain-smoked and subsisted on caffeine, chocolate, and alcohol sprinted up past me, and I contemplated what my week of vacation would be like, stuck in the Russell Street tube, and then I got mad at Bob and wouldn't talk to him for about ten minutes.

Because I had to be mad at someone, and being mad at myself for never exercising so that I was in good shape for moments such as this was out of the question. And I couldn't be mad at Leslie Green, who designed the station, because he died in 1908, before the station was even built, when he was only 33, from tuberculosis, and it wasn't his fault that The Underground needed to be underground. 

I am ashamed to even remember those ten minutes. Let us never speak of them again. I am always disappointed at how little it can take, given the right circumstances, to turn me into a nauseating, first-world Princess. I mean, I am on VACATION in LONDON, and I am having a meltdown over stairs and luggage. I keep remembering a friend in college who used to remind me that who we really are is the person we are when we are under duress. Yikes.

Anyway (I said, let us never speak of it again), after we emerged intact and took a quick walk through Russell Square, we arrived at our hotel. We stayed at The Montague on the Gardens, which is in Bloomsbury, across the street from the British Museum. It is fabu. (I found out about it on Trip Advisor.)

Upon arrival, we were happy to find out that they had upgraded us to a suite. Actually, this was still within the ten minutes that I was not talking to Bob, so I was still crabby.  He had cheered up completely, however.

When we got to the room, he said, "You know, it will be funny when you look back on it." 

And I said, "It will NEVER be funny." (I actually said that.)

And then I laid down on the bed for twenty minutes and took a nap, and after I opened my eyes, I sat up and felt better, and started laughing and couldn't stop for a long time, and we both laughed, and laughed, and laughed. (Also, I apologized. The part where I started crying and couldn't walk was funny, but the part where I didn't talk to Bob was just mean.) And then I was so excited that our room had been upgraded, so that we had a little sitting area.

And then Bob took me downstairs for a cup of tea and some scones in the sunroom of the hotel, which we had all to ourselves, and it was raining and it was dusk and there were pretty shapes of trees and birds outside, and then I was the happiest girl who ever lived, and felt resolved to never be so petty again. And also, to get in shape. 

The hotel is perfection itself.  

(This one sole photo below is from their website, because my photo of the bed didn't come out. It looked almost just like this, except in my photo the bed is kind of messed up, because remember, I had been lying on it for twenty minutes.)

Here Bob is getting his shoes on after we rested, so we can go look around.

It was late afternoon when we arrived, and by the time we had tea and settled in, it was time to go get some dinner. We had wanted to check out the Fitzroy Tavern close by, so we did.

George Orwell and Dylan Thomas used to hang out at the Fitzroy. 

It was absolutely packed with people stopping by after work, and also with Dr. Who fans who meet there the first Thursday of every month.

We managed to wait and grab a cozy corner booth when some people left, and we had a pint and a really enjoyable hour relaxing. We decided to go elsewhere to eat. (Wagamama was our very favorite restaurant, even though it is a chain, when we were in Bath last year, so we were happy to find so many of them in London, including one right by the Montague on the Gardens.)

Here is Dylan Thomas hanging out at the Fitzroy. (This photo is on the wall there.)

And here is Bob hanging out at the Fitzroy.

So that was Thursday, our first evening in London. Except for ten minutes (let us never speak of it again), it was a really good time. :)