Two More Things off the List in London

London probably set a heat wave for this day today.  One of my vanities now that I have reached a certain age is that I do not wear sleeveless tops in public.  Well, honey (as we say down South) that rule went away today.  Before I had gotten very far on my journey today, the jacket came off and there I was in London, in public, in a sleeveless tank top.

Our first to do thing on our list for today was to tour St. Paul’s Cathedral, the magnificent house of worship that was built by Sir Christopher Wren built during the 1600’s after the great London fire that destroyed its predecessor.  We stopped after getting off the tube close to it to get some water for me and an expresso for Klep.  While we were there, we fell into a conversation with a London business woman who handles commercial real estate in the city.  We had a wonderful talk that lasted close to an hour and covered a wide range of subjects such as Briexit, the American political scene, Ireland, Irish history, and the concern Londoners have about what is going to have concerning relationships with Europe now that Britain is leaving the European Union.  After she headed off to her next meeting, we headed on over to the Cathedral and spent a couple of hours doing the tour with the headsets.  Since there were worship services going on, there was no photography within the building.

Klep gave me the gift of a taxi ride from St. Paul’s to the St. Martin’s Theater where we had theater tickets to see the long running play, The Mousetrap written by Agatha Christie. 

After we picked up our tickets, we grabbed a quick sandwich and more water.  The play was a delight.  Even though I had read it and

knew, “Who done it’” I did not give the secret away to Klep.

After the play, we joined commuters on the tube to head on our sweaty way back to the hotel.  I hear that by this time next week, a cool front will be here.

A Tale of the Day

Once upon a time, two people from Jennings got on a big, two-decker red bus in London and rode to Museum Street where they walked one block over to a really, really big building

called the British Museum which has been there for hundreds of years and has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.  They got in the line with a bunch of other people and walked through security.  They must have looked really innocent because they breezed through security very, very fast and soon got to walk up some steps to the main door and into a large area with a lot of light coming through a dome high up in the air. 

Being really good map readers, they found a magic lift which transported them to the third level where many treasures lay in store.  They saw urns and mummies, and urns and tools and jewelry and

money and sarcophaguses and gold stuff and marble statues and things that were really, really old like thousands of years.  By the time they took a break for a small lunch, they had gone back thousands of years in the British Isles, Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt.

After lunch, they set off to find all the things that were listed as DO NOT MISS!!!  They found the

Rosetta Stone but they could not really make out much what it was saying.  They found the carvings from the top of the Parthenon, a statue from the Easter Islands,

and an ivory mask from Africa that was really a pendant and not what they would think of as a

mask.  They found the most famous chess set in the world,

but since it was in a glass case, they could not play with it.  They found samurai armor way up on the fifth floor close to the exhibit of the tea house from Japan.  Down in the sub-basement, they found some tomb figures.  They also found a whole lot of other interesting things that did not make it on the list.

Klep was particularly thrilled to find the wonderful Parthenon exhibit. 

He learned more about it here in the museum where Lord Elgin brought all his treasures  than he found out when he visited the Acropolis in Athens last fall.  Probably the only reason these treasures have survived is because they were moved out of Greece.  Now the Greek government is complaining that they should be returned to them.  Klep thinks they should stay right where they are.

The last room they found was a room called The Enlightenment Room or the reading room. 

In this wonderful place, a person could find something like or about everything that is in the museum.  Just the room itself was a delight from the oak floors to the high paneled and decorated ceilings.  The walls are lined with glassed in shelving holding treasures from around the world and back through time.  Statues are placed along the great hall like structure.

  This structure was completed in 1828 to house the collection of king George III.  He was better at collecting things than he was at keeping colonies.  Anyway, both Barbara and Klep really, really liked that room.

Since they had diligently pursued things of the mind for hours on end, the two old people rewarded themselves with afternoon tea in the Great Court Restaurant under the dome.  They sipped delicious tea and dined on savory sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and more sweets than anyone could imagine!

Tired and fed, they walked back to the bus stop and caught the #55 big red bus back to their hotel where they put their tired feet up and watched the rest of the day slip away.

Sunday in London Under a Clear Blue Sky

During the night, the last of our clouds disappeared.  With the rising of the sun, London was blessed with a clear blue sky.  After a leisurely breakfast we strolled past the Old Street Tube station in search of a store that would stock knee high hose to protect my feet and toes from blisters from all the walking.  I had been so used to summer sandals that I had forgotten what real shoes are like.  The desk clerk at our hotel had suggested we try Argos which we found in a shopping area a block beyond the tube.  Just going in was a true experience.  We finally figured out that we had to type in what we wanted at a terminal and then, if it was in stock, we would pick it up and pay one of the attendants.  We tried every way we could think to name knee high stockings, but never found them.  We did find a store carrying clothing on our way back to the tube.  We found exactly what we were looking for, purchased a package and set off for another day in London.

We needed to check our balance on our Oyster cards since they had gotten a lot of use the last couple of days.  The helpful attendant Craig was there this morning and he showed us how it was

done, we popped in some more cash, and we were on our way to Leicester Square.  When we were here thirty-one years ago, we got some real bargains on theater tickets but that was before the number of visitors had risen to the level that it has now.  We thought it was worth a shot.

The square is loaded with American Chains, everything from a Radisson Hotel to TGI Fridays.  It is also loaded with tourists speaking a whole lot of different languages.  We knew that the best chance of inexpensive tickets would be for a matinee today, but we had other plans for this afternoon.  Anyway, we enjoyed our visit to the square, visited the ticket booth, and picked up a bagel sandwich for a snack after we got to Westminster Square.

We people watched.  This was the first time we saw a Muslim Woman completely covered.  Most have had scarves but showed some of their faces.  This one actually even wore gloves so that all that showed were her eyes. 

The square in front of the cathedral and next to the parliament buildings complete with Big Ben was full of people enjoying the beautiful September day.  We sat behind the Churchill statue, shared our bagel and drank our water.

We were facing the South side of The Collegiate Church of St. Peter at Westminster commonly referred to as Westminster Abbey.

After Klep got himself an ice cream cone, we headed to the Western Door of the Cathedral.  To get to the queue for Evensong.  Trip Advisor had advised that we should get there an hour before the service and we did.  There were about twenty in line when we got here and there were over five hundred in the service.  We had a pleasant conversation with a couple of young women from Salt Lake City who flew over yesterday and are flying to Ireland for a road trip for a week.  We shared ideas and enjoyed chatting until the security line started and we went into the abbey.

Before the service, I just sat and enjoyed the peace and the beauty of the organ music as I gazed up at the wonderful stained glass windows on the North Side.  At three, the service started.  The choir was wonderful.  Today was the day that the choir boys who had completed their first year of training received their surplices and were challenged to do well.  Afterwards another group of older boys took an oath and were recognized.

Our sermon was on the necessity to love one another even when we have trouble liking someone.  It was a good one.

After the service, we stayed until most of the people had filed out just to enjoy the last little bit of organ music.

By the time we made our way back by Big Ben, across the street, into Westminster Tube Station, over to Monument Station, and to Old Street, we were ready for supper and a much needed rest.

We chose a Thai place just down the street.  I had noodles and chicken with sprouts and lime.  Klep had stir fry with prawns.  Both dishes were excellent.  We called it a day.  It’s been a beautiful Sunday.

Tourists, Rain, Upscale Shopping: Doing the Tourist Thing on a Saturday

Some Highland Shortbread and a cup good hot tea is just what we needed when we got back to our room after nearly eight hours out and about in London.  We had way more stairs and steps than we had planned on when we left our hotel in Shoreditch and headed to the Old Street Tube Station this morning.  We were hoping the weather would hold, but we had showers off and on all day and pretty steady from lunch time until we got on the tube at Tower Hill to head this way.

We saw a lot more of London today. 

Many of the workers were working on Saturday and we watched a crew use a pretty basic method to get scaffolding parts from the street level to the upper levels of a building.

We also observed a lot more privately owned vehicles on the streets today since the ten pound tariff does not apply on weekends.

We rode by most of the major museums.  We will be back to them next week.  Today the crowds of tourist was horrendous and the lines into some like the British Museum (security check point) were really backed up.

About eleven we ended up at Harrods.  The store takes up an entire block and has enough high end merchandise to bankrupt a third world country.  It also has a lot of delectable items to eat such as caviar and truffles…..that’s the mushrooms not the candy.  Klep found a bottle of wine that cost about three hundred dollars. 

I found a few designer dresses, but I thought I would be overdressed rolling the garbage can to the street in them.  Klep remarked that he didn’t know there were as many perfume scents as we passed going through a section of the ground floor.

After we left Harrod’s, we ducked in a little restaurant Richoux established in 1909 in London, to get out of the rain and had lunch.  We decided to try something we’d never had before. 

I ordered Welsh Rarebit and lime squash to drink; Klep, Buck Rarebit and orange squash.  It was tasty, but Klep wasn’t too excited about his anchovy.

While we were in Richoux,

we had a dozen or so police cars scream by with their sirens sounding and their lights flashing.  I must admit, that always makes me a tad nervous.

While we awaited our next bus, fortunately in a covered by stop, we were entertained by a bagpiper across the street in front of Harrods.

We took another tourist bus to Speaker’s Corner at Hyde Park, hike around the corner to another bus stop and found the one on the route we had not covered.

I think when we boarded the tube to come back that we had seen most of what we wanted to see.  For those of you who watch Mr. Selfridge, the show on PBS about the store in London, you can still shop there and it is, I believe, on Oxford Street.

We stopped in at Sainsbury’s, our local grocery, picked up some shortbread and called it a day.  If we do dinner, it may be take-away kabobs!

London: Then and Now

On the tube returning from our day of touring, I sat next to a nicely dressed young man who asked if this were our first trip to London.  When I told him he had been here thirty years ago, he asked if much had changed.  That got us thinking as we relected on our day with our feet up in the air conditioning of our room at the hotel in Shoreditch.

The first unique thing we saw this morning was a mini-minivan selling coffee on the street.  It was untra cool and had the cheapest coffee we’ve seen anywhere.

The subway stops were still a lot like they were.  We love the feel of the little village of each station, some with more shops than others.

We did not have to pay fifty pence to use the loo thirty years ago.  There were no oyster cards thirty years ago.

There were helpful workers in the underground to help, instruct, and talk to us blundering tourists.

Piccadilly Circus still has the statue of whats his name in the center of the circle.

The bobbies now wear bullet proof vests.

There are security announcements on the underground.  The recorded message still tells us to mind the gap on the train.

Londoners are still willing to advise and help in the tube station.

Traffic is worse in London center even though it   costs to drive there now.

More radical, trendy buildings have been built; more are being built.

The Thames still runs. 

Big Ben still strikes the hour.

The eye now sits by the Thames.

Now there are tours of Buckingham Palace.  People still flock to the tourist sites.

Musicians still perform in the tube stops.

The young man I talked to on the tube assured me there was still good fish and chips and gave us directions to what he considers the best at the junction of Hanbury Street and Liverpool.  He was a native Londoner and like many native Londoners, his parents immigrated from another country.  His parents came to London a decade before he was born in 1983.

One thing that has definitely changed in the last thirty years is that after eight hours of tourist activity, I am ready for a rest!