Why Were We Up Again at 5 AM?!?!? And, Who Knew? The French Riviera is Gorgeous

Ah, dear Reader, the choices your intrepid Blogger has to make.  In fact, M said over dinner, "How in the world are you going to blog THIS day?"  Fair question.   "Briefly," but not shortly.

I start with today's money shot.  Okay, one of the day's better money shots:  from the palace at Monaco.

Or from the garden at the Villa de Rothschild down the road in Cap St Jean Ferrat.

I provide the link to picks:  I have captioned them...to a point.  https://picasaweb.google.com/105397618648885302074/RiveraDay1?authkey=Gv1sRgCLep9pLst7S0NQ

But, we must start at the ugly, auspicious beginning.  We were up early enough that we were ready to hop in the taxi we had requested for 530.  Off to Victoria, through a typical London rain, to the Gatwick Express.  My cc didn't work in the first machine, but then in the second to collect pre-paid tickets.  Then we sat on the platform 15 minutes.  Then they announced  the trains were running 8 mins slow due to construction.  We were cutting it close.  We, of course, were in the cheapo, farthest terminal, and had 9 mins (I saw on the guy's screen) as we got into security line.  Then! both M & I got pulled out for our bags.  They went through them, tested everything, threw out my shave butter (too much liquid...though probably technically not) and we bolted for the gate.  It was the last gate.  No one was there (of course) when we got there, but the plane was there.  We had missed it!  A helpful staff person sent us ALL the way back to the departure lounge to talk to the agent there.  She was a big help and put us on the next plane, at 915, not 7 AM, which had a cancellation of two seats and that's all they had!  By the time we sat at 7:30 at Starbucks for our first coffee and a pastry, we had walked 4200 steps, many of them at a fast pace.  I was knackered (I've learned the term over here).

Once to Nice (I'm skipping A LOT of Nice/nice jokes because it's not clear which Bing or Bob has gotten more annoying with them), I went to Hertz and got in the gold club line.  M says it took an hour.  Finally! we got into our delightfully small Renault Clio (no backseat, no trunk, 5 speeds, shift shift shift, my left leg hurts like hell!) and away we went.

The wrong way for awhile.

It took some time for M, riding shotgun to really figure out "Ken," our mobile GPS.  See, I looked to change it from Spanish, which it was set on, and the first English voice it came to was "Australian, male...Ken" -- so we spent the day saying "Ken said..."  As we can all imagine, except the original Ken, "Ken" is wrong fairly frequently and we are both used to saying "Okay, Ken." :)

Goal one was Monaco.  After Ken took us to a dead end at the top of a hill outside Nice, we made it, though M said multiple times "I thought you were going to kill us."  I will just say the one time he said "scenic overview" and at 70km/hr I dove from the left lane, over the curb, to a screeching halt.  If Charlie Sheen can do it in the Fiat commercial...Here's THAT picture:

Then, after some confusion (Ken wanted us to go into a parking garage rather than to the casino -- saved I don't know how much money), we parked -- across the street from, yes, Virginia! a Starbucks.  Photo proof.

After a quick cafe lunch, we went up the hill.  I didn't have my camera and the pedometer was over taxed on my iPod and turned it off, so it is hard to describe the steps up to the Monaco palace.  Okay, this gives you an idea -- there are TWO defibrillator stops on the way up!  I told M that I should have a picture laying in front of one.

My cardiologist and stress test tech will be happy that I made it and was able to catch my breath after only about three hours.

Here's your photo of the palace:

Then back, circling the principality (which is charming and exotic -- sits on the side of a significant hill) and eventually heading east to what was supposed to be stop one -- the Rothschild Villa in CAp St. Jean Ferrat.  You ask, what is grand about it?  Okay, it sits on a hill on a point so you have views of the Meditteranean in 3 directions (have a mentioned it is the most beautiful water I've seen since the Carribbean?).  And it has huge gardens, with a fountain, or two, or three.  Requisite picture.

Of course you had to walk a lot of steps straight uphill to get to there.  I made it to the scenic view before stopping.  And then in the garden, where there's a pic of me trying to breath on a bench (the heartless, pun intended, bastard took a picture of me convalescing.  Is that wrong or what?

The hotel is over an hour away, via roads one car wide, and by one car, I mean one Renault Clio wide, and it turned into a nice hotel -- deserving of the 4 stars it got on Travleocity.  And here's the pic from the front door.

And, now, the FP -- M's dinner which is shrimp (gamba -- which my phone meant legs in Italian) and scallops.

We have not figured out what exactly to do tomorrow.  There's an very old fort here and a Picasso museum.  And a beach.  I have a suit.  Wish me well.

Bon soir. #

Day 6: Paris, then back to London

[Editor's note: again today the blog site and the picture site don't want to correspond; you will have to make due with the link to today's pictures on Picasa.  Sorry]

Today, Tired Reader, was a much less busy day than yesterday in Paris-Rouen-Paris.  Today, M & I planned to “eat brunch, go to the d’Orsay, and putz around…” & that’s pretty much what we did.

Here’s the link to the other pictures – I have added a caption to help in places.  I apologize that the pics at the d’Orsay aren’t better (go online and see them if you want better), but it was crowded, and, as you can see, the lighting wasn’t always conducive. https://picasaweb.google.com/105397618648885302074/Paris2015?authkey=Gv1sRgCO2M3uaK14fqyQE

BTW, faithful Reader, today is Bob Hope’s birthday.  To celebrate, we watched this video version of Road to Morocco before breakfast (you may recognize it from last summer’s “road show.”  Psyched us up.  I’m the good-looking one on the back. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_w3UG6C_Mo

We started the day with an object lesson: J texted that “I am down in the breakfast room, having free breakfast, and it’s excellent.”  We questioned the “free” part but she insisted, so we all ended up there around 10, having breakfast.  It was a typical French full buffet breakfast – scrambled and hard boiled eggs, cold ham, cold salami, six kinds of fruit, two kinds of juices, croissants, chocolate croissants, baguettes, jam, and lots of coffee.  The wait staff didn’t take M or my room number…

When I went to check out, I was asked if I had breakfast.  I said we both did and he got my card and charged me 34Euros!  Whoops.  The same happened, of course, to several students.

J was amazed.  M and I weren’t.  The students, eh…it cut into their alcohol budget for the day.

We took a taxi to the d’Orsay, whipping past the front of Notre Dame, and across the river onto the road right along the river on the Left Bank.  Scenic.  We waited in line only about 10 minutes to get into the d’Orsay (for the uninitiated, it houses the French national collection of their art from around 1865 till the early 20th century; in other words, the Impressionists.  One student asked if they had Monets.  Uh huh, like 100 of them – notably four from the series on the west face of Rouen Cathedral, where we were yesterday [without Monet’s light]).  M repeated often (remember, he’s famous for NOT exaggerating) “this is my favorite museum in all the world.”

We agreed to split up to do our own things and M asked when to meet back.  I said 90 minutes and he said “not long enough.”  I said, “funny, I stretched it because it’s your favorite museum in the world – I was going to say an hour.”  He turned as white as he was Friday morning! :)  We ended up with 2 hours.  I was pooped after the 90 minutes, having taken many many pictures and journeying to the 5th floor (there’s an escalator, but still).  You can look at the pictures via the link – there’s none I think stands out as amazingly good (in terms of my photo).  Though I have grown on this trip to appreciate Sisely more.

We then had lunch, though we weren’t sure we shouldn’t eat dinner near the hotel/rail station before leaving Paris (the food is better there than London).  As you can see, J & M had plenty in the mussels marinade.  J was talking about having had 5 kinds of muscles, to which I said “what abs, pects, triceps…”  I was waved off.  Genius is rarely appreciated by its own generation.

We then walked across the Seine (some pictures) and into the crowd at the Louvre.  We ran into 3 of our students doing this, which M deemed “too small a world” and I deemed a not unlikely coinkydink, and then wondered off through the Tuilieries.  As is it was getting late to get too inventive and yours truly admitted to being leg weary and tired, we got a taxi at the Place de Concord (famous for its obelisk built by Napolean – who else? – to honor a victory in Egypt) & also J & I had an ice cream.  Mine was so-so chocolate, but she ordered “peche” (peach, the sign said) and got this:

She said (here comes the jewel du jour): my mind says no, but, surprisingly, my mouth says yes yes.  I guess it DID taste like peaches.  Or she was saying something else I don’t get.

To the students’ credit, they were all at the rail terminal at around the right time, and we got onto the train easily enough.  No glitches this time.

M & I have to pack ALL our stuff tonight as J’s family comes in tomorrow morning, missing us as we go out to the French Riviera.  Tomorrow should be even more interesting than the last two days, given we have a car and are going someplace we’ve never been before (I guess like Rouen yesterday).  We are staying on the Mediterranean in Antibes tomorrow might.  Scenic porn expected.  I am taking bathing suit – I have a tradition of getting wet in cold water photos to continue.

With that, dear Reader, I bid you adieu & good night – confused as to where I am or where you are. #

The Ghost of MS, or There're Starbucks in Paris, or Can I Ef Up Again? or who is Jeanne d'Arc? The longest blog since Tolstoy

Dear Reader, you are warned.  This will be neither short nor pretty.  But there are plenty of pictures and comedy (some even intentional).

I begin as some wit as said to -- at the beginning. MY day began poorly.  Okay, everyone's in Flat 5 did, as we were all up by 5 AM.  J & M growled like two bears awakened from hibernation early before I left before them to get to the station and collect the tickets.

I wanted to take a taxi.  There's a main street less than a block from the flat, so I went there and looked.  And walked.  And looked.  I crossed Marylebone Rd, a major, major road (like 4 lanes each way across) and nothing.  I ended up all the way to the tube stop & just took the subway.  Luckily, a train was only a minute out.

Then there were the Eurostar tickets.  It went well; Daniel printed them off and said "there you go." I was about to step away when he said "how many did you say you had?"  I said 14.  He dealt the card stock and got 12! I counted the out tickets and there were 13.  He dug around on the computer and said "there's a file with that name on it that had one ticket in it but for some reason it was emptied on May 15."   No, he couldn't tell why.  He ended up selling me another ticket for an extravagant amount of money.  Yikes!

M & J and the students showed up, a few mintues later than planned, but ok.  But M was...well, he said he didn't feel well.  We got through Customs and he went and sat down immediately.  He was white as a ghost and said "I may throw up."  He had his new hat between his legs and I wondered...oh, nevermind what I wondered.  We sat 20 mins till boarding and he sat there, head between his legs, then sitting looking, as they say, peaked, and then more between the legs.  When they called our platform he got up and I followed him up the moving ramp.  He tried ot fall back on me about a third of the way up, but caught himself.  "I'm feeling dizzy" he said, fairly needlessly.  I guess I should have given him a nitro tablet.  :)  He got to his designated seat and went fast asleep; when I walked up and said to everyone "welcome to France" after we got through the Chunnel and he claimed he heard but couldn't open his eyes.

Good news was the ghost left after two hours of sleep on the train and he was ready to go once we got to Paris -- after we got coffee.

The next screw up was the hotel.  The good news is it's really RIGHT across from the train station; and I walked out of the right train station door right to it.  The bad news was when I gave the clerk my name he said I only had one room!  Ah oh!  I had 8!  So, after much back and forth, and me getting on their WiFi with difficulty and bringing up the booking.com number, he pulled out the paperwork for more rooms.  One student after another signed in -- turned out they had put the rooms under the students' names.  Huh.  But we were still a room short.  I pulled up booking.com again to the second # -- they would only let me book 7 rooms at a time, the bastards! and he brought it up and it was under J's name!  How?  IDK.  Ah, well.  8 rooms.  But then I wanted to switch "my" single for one student's double & was told, no, we could swap keys ourselves.  Of course, this meant coordinating when we got back to the hotel, etc (since it was too early then for check-in).  Sacre bleu!

Okay, we were on the road to Morocco, which we didn't listen to this morning at 5 AM, which might explain M's ghostliness.

But, check this out!
[pics won't load from laptop, see link below to all from today on picasa]

Yes, they do have Starbucks in Paris.  The picture is for our wives, who suffered through "there's a Starbucks here" routine throughout last summer's west coast trip, as the avid Reader may recall.  When I sent this to Mrs. S I received a class "barb" (today's BTW) in return: American tourists!  I hpe he at least ordered the French Roast.  Nope, the Americano, of course. :)

When then hit the road (think Bing & Bob, sans Dorothy) to Rouen.  We were pretty much winging it, English-only speakers in a strange land.  But we found lunch -- here's M's caesar salad.   A light repast.

Then to the Cathedral, the object of our visit, painted often by Monet.   Here's the west side he made famous on today, which was overcast.

We went inside, took many pictures, and then moved on.  We saw another Gothic steeple and walked to the nearby parish church.  Divey little place -- you can see the pictures with the link below.

Then to the Hotel de Ville (City Hall), which happens to be based on an old abbey that's a high spired Gothic structure, too.

Then to the Musee de Beaux Arts.

I will admit that by this time, with somewhere over 10,000 steps on the pedometer, I wasn't sure any of this was a good idea.  I won't go into the details (neither my wife nor cardiologist would approve, let alone the ICU nurse who kept saying "YOU HAD A HEART ATTACK."  With some gentle movement, we finished there (they had a few nice Impressionists) we slogged UP the hill ( yes, it was a pretty steep incline) and I got to rest for the 70 minute direct train back to Paris.

I now whine.  The MFers in the train stations in Paris had TWO escalators on our path shut down AND we had to climb A LOT of other steps to get around.  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  Right?  It's that first part I find a bit troubling and not worth testing too far.

We came back to the hotel (remember it's RIGHT across from the station) & went to dinner, a place Yelp gave high marks .3 mile from the hotel.  This is what they brought for the cheese plate.  I'm not making this up.



WE finished around 10 Paris time and embarassedly returned to the quite nice hotel room to listen to the police (in French that's gendarme, if you missed it) run their sirens past our window.  City life.

Day one of S & H on the road to France.  We will play the damned song tomorrow morning (NB -- he hasn't had his daily apple for two days either).

More tomorrow from Paris.  Wish us few steps and more good food.

Adieu, Indiana Jones, adieu. #

Photo link: https://picasaweb.google.com/109226699284146086382/RouenDay?authkey=Gv1sRgCKHIuPCB4Lv6Ng

Day 4: The Stratford Trip

Today was the annual trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of Willie Shakes (as he is known to friends) and, now, home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who claim (with little dispute) to be the world's leading Shakespeare Company.  If that means anything to you.

Since we began coming in 2000, I think the Stratford trip as always been on a Thursday.  It's tradition (cue M singing from...some damned musical).

But first, some program history, so you know the kind of "fun" that can be had on the Stratford Thursday trip.  In 2006, for reasons I can't remember or recover, we (that being the Queen and I) decided to go by train.  In fact, a direct train to Stratford runs from Marylebone (Mar-lee-bone -- it's sort of French) station, three-tenths of a mile from our flats.  There were like 18 students and two faculty colleagues who had not made the trip before, so were feeling their way.  2006 was my fifth trip.

To make this story work, you need to know that the group that year fairly quickly determined the one young woman was not okay, let's call her Mary, and so I ended up sitting next to her at play after play (that year we did 10 in 12 days).  I could see where they were coming from, but she wasn't that bad -- remember the high social tolerance level of 20-year-olds.

Anyway, we collect the students, walk the three-tenths of a mile and stand, as one does in Britain, in the middle of the station, looking up at the signs for the platforms.  See, in Britain, you might tell you the time the train is to leave, but not which platform.

I had everyone as we stood there and, with about 5 minutes till departure, the board flipped around and told us to go to the platform.  There may have been an announcement, jumbled in the crowd noise, too.  I said "platform 4, let's go" and we went to the gate, waited for the detraining passengers and climbed into the train and sat.  Within minutes, we pulled away.

I pulled the stack of train tickets out of my pocket and distributed them.  I got to the end and I had mine and one other.  Huh!  I asked if everyone got theirs, and they said yes.  I asked if anyone was missing.  No.  It was a mystery.

We got to Stratford, made the ten minute walk to the theatre, and I collected the tickets there.  I turned into the front yard and distributed, with the usual pairing up, etc.  I had two tickets when I was done.

I realized at that moment that the missing person and extra tickets were for Mary!  She wasn't there.  She hadn't been on the train.

No one had missed her!  Most troubling to me, I hadn't missed her, not on the hour plus train ride or the walk to the theatre.  When asked, some of the students remembered she said she was going to look at something on a cart for sale in the station plaza...that's the last we knew.

I spent the next hour or so rather depressed, wondering.  Ten years ago, not everyone had a cell phone  in London -- service was expensive and, to students, so was buying a pay-as-you-go.

Ten minutes before the show started, here came Mary out of the crowd like nothing happens.  As Readers will recognize, I'm always overly effusive (see yesterday's hat picture), but I was happy to see her.   I was apologetic; she was nice and okay with it.  To her great credit, she kept her head, bought her own ticket for the next Stratford train, and arrived and bolted quickly (I took the earlier one to have time in town) to the theatre.  And, yes, she admitted wandering off to a cart with a stuffed bear display, shopping, then turning around to find us gone.  By the time she had figured out which platform, the train was gone!

All ended well.  But it wasn't "fun."

Today went much better.  The biggest disaster was the play, which was not terribly well done in many ways.  It was Merchant of Venice and it started with a burnished metal floor and back wall.  The audience gasped in the opening scene when Antonio and Bassanio kissed (I leaned over to the student next to me and said "I don't think that's in the play") and we went from there -- in "post-modern garb" (i.e. no time period discernible).   Many of us thought Portia was weak, a problem in the play, though the Palestinian Christian who played Shylock was pretty good.  They cut a couple scenes, including part of the final scene, yet it ran over two hours.  There's your review.  5 out of 10.

Before we leave Stratford, here's the appropriate tourist photo: that's Shakespeare's birthplace behind us:

Then off to Oxford.  I had Manjit, our driver, take us down the scenic route between and we passed the gate at Blenheim Palace (a few miles out of Oxford, most famous now as the birthplace of Winston Churchill -- one student had a descent picture from the bus but it'll have to wait to post here) and then spent a couple hours in Oxford.

Michael and I, who have been there several times, took the opportunity to eat at Browns, which was only like 5 minutes from where the coach dropped us.  For those of you reading this only for the FP (if you have to ask...), here's the appy, which was their house platter.

We both had steak, which isn't really worth the photo, but I finished with this dessert -- it's salted carmel & chocolate pot.  It was like 70% dark chocolate with a heavy dose of the carmel.  It was to die for.

And now we are home.  And up tomorrow to go to Paris for a 7 AM train.  Much discussion today about whether or not to stay up "all night" or try to get some minimal amount of sleep.

Her's the jewel of the day: J took a bunch of the students to lunch in Stratford at a Witherspoons.  It was Indian day there.  This is funnier if you know J seems to relish Witherspoons and we ate there for lunch Tuesday already this week (it was Mexican day or something) and it is a pub chain that serves food.  You know, their value meal is a burger and a beer or glass of wine.  She says, "and that's the kids meal."  Rim shot.

On that happy note, ooo la la, Paris here we come. #

Hats, Pints, and Taxi Cabs

Ah, it was Wednesday in London, intrepid Reader, and it was an "easy day," according to the pedometer.  :)

However.  The day started with the coach company that is coming to pick us up tomorrow to go to Stratford-upon-Avon emailing to say they'd be here at 11 and it's a 2 or 2 1/2 hour trip, depending on traffic.  The play begins at 1.  I did the math.  We talked on the phone and I was told there was no driver AND no refund -- not less than 24 hours before.  I pointed out that at that moment it wasn't less than 24 hours.  In the end, after a couple calls, they got us a driver for 9 o'clock instead, but who needs the stress?

Class was languid, with few japes worthy of repetition.  However (the word of the day), M did readings of Shylock's "are we not flesh?" speech, to rave reviews.  More, more!  So much for ageist jokes.

Then we ventured to Portobello Road Market (I am still surprised there aren't more large mushroom stands) and found reasonably priced hats.  This continues a tradition going back to New Orleans in '13 (NB -- we spent MUCH more money on those than today's).  He went for the straw panama style and I went for the larger brim Fedora.  As pictured:

And, yes, before you say something, I AM smiling!

I won't repeat M's comments comparing this trip to Portobello Market with last weekend's, but only will say, according to him, the group had stopped at four souvenir shops BEFORE I stopped outside the Tube station for a Starbucks (M is not prone to exaggeration).

We came back, I had a short "lay down" as they say here, and then we went for drinks with our landlord and staff (who I've known now for 10 years, through his cancer, now my "event," and hundreds of students).

But, of course, I screwed up the cab thing, again.  We hailed a cab outside the flat and said "take us to the Barley Mow."  The driver didn't know it.  He looked it up and asked "the one across Oxford Street on Duke Street" and I shrugged and said, M says too knowingly, "yes."  A mile and a fare later, we are out on the curb at the Barley Mow and I look around.  I had been there before, in 2004 with the two other faculty members that year, and I admit it was not our first pub of the evening (nor first pint), so I only had an indistinct idea of where it was.  To M's credit, he said "isn't that a bit far for them to go for a pint?" But, I trusted Google.

Immediately I knew it was the wrong pub.  The one in Marylebone, which says it is the oldest in the village, has a large round red sign on the corner -- quite distinctive.  After some consternation, some discussion on the sidewalk about who had data service (M finally did), we determined there was another Barley Mow (who knew?) blocks from our flat.  Like I said "who knew?" (as he reads this, I can hear M saying "I did, I did.")  We catch another cab (and another fare) and he says "Oh, Barley Mow is a popular name for a pub in this country" (WTF?!?!) and drops us back, within four blocks of our flat, after another fare.  SMN.

Now, for "drinks."  Clearly, M and I were strangers in a strange land.  Or rather unpracticed in a land of professionals.  Our landlord, McG, bought us one round, M had a cider, I had a pint of Frontier (not American, from Fuller's, a brewery in London) & the others had pints.  Then McG's nephew, who works in the firm, offered another round.  I took a half and M nursed his cider.  Then McG's daughter appeared and offered a round, but I ended up buying it as our turn.

There was much banter, stories, remembrance of famed students, including the two who got married a weekend ago, and, of course MC stories.  But P fed us this tidbit: the second biggest consumers of Guinness in the world are Nigerians and he claimed (no one confirmed on Google, yet) there's a brewery there.  (the nephew was drinking Guinness and two of our students visited the brewery in Dublin last weekend on a visit).  We discussed the strangeness of this "fact."

Then McG got to telling grandson stories.  He's five.  The story goes that grandpa was helping him dress and scraped him with a fingernail as he tucked in the shirt; then he went to pull up his fly and he said "grandpa, watch my beanbag!"  We laughed and laughed at this, in part because we've spent two days on The Merchant of Venice with the footnote in the commentary that the famed "pound of flesh" would have meant the Biblical flesh to Shakespeare's audience.  "Beanbag" seems to go well with that notion.

We finished with a bunch of old codger stories, of days before bathrooms, and what a "grinder" is -- the answer is both a device that turns toilet flow into slurry (think about it) OR (and P says this is somewhat unfortunate) the phone app for same sex hook ups -- the parallel to Tinder.  Ugh.

We shook hands and adjourned to M and I stumbled slightly up the alley to Zizzi's Italian restaurant -- or, as my daughter would identify it, "mediocre Italian."  The waitress snickered repeatedly at M (at 78, and P asked M how he was retiring at 39!!!! I might as well be invisible) and he gave her a big tip.  Here's HIS dinner, which he could only point to the Italian name in the menu, which is far more photogenic than my mushroom risotto (no, not a predictable order at all).

Now back to the flat to rest up for tomorrow's trip, first to Stratford and Merchant, then stopping "only for dinner" to quote J in Oxford.  Then back to rest for Friday at 5:30 AM when we head for Paris.

The good news tomorrow is I don't foresee any cabs to get into and go the wrong way when I could walk.  But maybe I'll get lucky.  #

Day 2: Brilliance, Food porn, & class, including smart ass comments & students "earning" D's

Where to begin, gentle Reader?  It was another big day.

But let's start with a thing that might not be said much of anywhere else: tonight M, J & I agreed that we saw an absolutely brilliant new play.  The Hard Problem by Tom Stoppard, who is very flippin' famous already, was all that last night's play wasn't: it was thought-provoking (the hard problem of the title is how to define and study consciousness among neuroscientists), it was funny (the billionaire asks the young scientist if she has any money and she responds "how much do you need?"), and it was brilliantly designed and acted.   It ends tomorrow after a short run.  There were only 3 tickets left when we bought them last week.  It will be the best thing we see this season in London.  And, yes, somehow, I guess it's called both art and genius, Stoppard makes the discussion of the mind-body separation interesting -- because the characters espousing the ideas are.  Unlike last night (he says again).

Then there's the food porn.  We decided we'd eat at Jamie Oliver's relatively new restaurant next to St. Paul's, Barbecoa.  Here's the Devil's cornbread "app-i-teaser":

And the pork chop...yes, that's a big pork rind on top.

It was excellent.

We also had class today.  Remember, I told you 11 students would be good for material.  So, here goes --

Out of nowhere, or maybe not, in the midst of class one student says "Dr. S, I thought you were only 50."  He's still beaming with pride from this.  So, I asked, "who do you think is older?" and was told that I was.  (FYI: I'm not!)  When asked how old they thought I was, they said "78."  Mrs. H says that's how to earn a D. :)

Over lunch, the student sitting next to MS said, apropos to who knows what, "runaway, runaway."  MS says, "Oh, Monty Python."  She says, "What?"  He says, you know, like the scene in the Holy Grail.  She says who?  Before we can explain she says, "they're running from a snake?"  Straight person me says "no, a rabbit," which MS thinks is as funny as the snake-python line.  :)  No, Virginia. the current generation is NOT soaked in Monty Python.  Dammit! (I am now out of a whole series of pop culture references)

And, one more, when discussing, briefly, Marlowe's Jew of Malta (showing but we aren't seeing at Stratford), MS says that the Jew of the title is aptly named Barabas.  I innocently (cough cough) ask, "why? who's he?" and he starts to mock me and then hears the room ask, yes, who's he?  They didn't know.  MS gave the Bible lesson, with appropriate Jesus Christ Superstar reference.  Another thing you can't count on them knowing -- the Bible.

And, finally, the daily "jewel."  Remember, dear Reader, that J took her class this morning to the Freud Museum (where someone actually bought Freudian slippers...no, I'm not making it up).  Many jokes were made over lunch and in class and I guess from the story the guide was a true believer, including tidbits like Freud not being a coke addict, he was just experimenting, and he was not an atheist but only "a godless Jew."

So, with that in mind, and the "you're 78" reference, as we leave the flat for dinner we are discussing MS's looking more youthful and his (almost) full head of hair.  I keep telling him he might lose it yet and he's denying it.  J says "you have follicle envy."  Ouch.

On that note, we go to Wednesday, with class, shopping (I don't know where J's going but she's psyching [yes, I did that] them up), and then the Jack the Ripper Walk tomorrow evening.  Bon unit. #

Day 1: Can Steve say or Do 1 more stupid thing; or, Shouldn't they be called Float-ee-o's?

Ah, Gentle Reader, your intrepid scribe will be brief tonight (today) because...well, okay, let's admit it  "we" (that's Queen talk) overdid it today.  Leading to this comment on our way out of the theatre around 10 PM: "You know, I probably ought to carry the nitroglycerin with me."

It was a good day, but a tiring one, and I had A LOT of duh moments.

But let us begin the day with breakfast.  As long-time readers recall, we used to have a daily "barb."  We now will have a daily "jewel."  Today, as I ate my newly purchased Cheerios, J says, "I'm shocked that you could get actual Cheerios here.  I mean, I can't believe they aren't called 'Float-ee-o's.'"  Yeah, makes you want to eat more, doesn't it?

We went to Windsor.  It is about an hour out of London by train, which is kind of fun in this country (as opposed to the pain of Amtrak in the States).

I was there once with the family, years ago.  I remembered a steep climb up the hill to the castle (I won't bother with the poorly composed shot from a distance to prove this point) -- a climb I warned my companions I was not willing to do it to start the day.  They agreed.  So, we got in the taxi rank and jumped in.  I said "take us to the castle" and the driver said "it's right there!"  We said, yes, but we didn't want to walk that far.  He said, "but it's just right there."  We said okay but...he said, "okay, but it'll cost you ten pounds."  We said fine.  As he drove us, he asked where we came from and suggested he drive us all the way back to London.  As M repeated often during the rest of the day, he thought we had more money than we knew what to do with and he wanted some of it.

Here's the kicker: although uphill fairly steeply, from the taxi rank to the gate to get tickets might have been...200 steps?  If that...yes, duh.  Yes...well, as M said, maybe you came out a different side and up the hill.  Or maybe I'm old and senile.

The castle is a great place.  The vista to the north, towards Eton and over the Thames, is magnificent. Here's my shot from there.

Then there are the State Apartments.  It's unbelievable to an American to see such opulence, even decadence in rooms.  Here's a quick rundown:  one room has like 20 van Dycks (all priceless) on the walls; another room, the Order of the Garter hall with a 50-foot high vaulted ceiling with chandeliers, has almost that many Sir Thomas Lawrence's (the premier portrait painter of early 19th c Britain); another room has several HUGE Rubens (I'm sure you can get them 2 for 1 someplace); another room has half dozen Holbein portraits.  I'm just talking the paintings.  Several rooms have HUGE tapestries (like 10' x 25') from like the middle ages or early renaissance.

And those aren't the rooms the Queen lives in when she's there (J spent time with a warder trying to figure out where the hell she was) and remember there was a fire in the early 90s that destroyed a big portion of that part of the building.  Seems the Windsors have some stuff laying around.

It should also be noted that J seemed to convert, or something, in the St. George Chapel.  She talked for like ten minutes to the warder in the choir there, with M and I pacing around outside, wondering.  I said "it only takes like two minutes to convert to Episcopalianism."  But, it turned out she is still some kind of Druid, Reformed, and was just talking about blah blah blah blah blah.

We came back, ate dinner at the much used if not quite famed Nando's, which is not quite the nearest restaurant to the flat (we actually passed an Italian place -- mon dieu!), where we all had charcoal grilled chicken.

Then M & I went to the National, on the other side of the Thames, for those of you lost geographically, and saw Caryll Churchill's Light Shines on Buckinghamshire.  Which is about the English Civil War.  And the theological debates and social reforms that were argued, then discarded, in the rebellion.  Lots of speeches.  Long speeches.  About how God is inside you, which made M bored (he said).  But they started with this huge table on stage with people standing on it (so huge, in fact, it was bigger than anything at Windsor!), and at the beginning of act 2 they tore the table apart, to reveal dirt!  See part of the plot was about the Diggers in Surrey in 1649...nevermind.  There was a lot of dirt and kicking around.  But then!  yes!  the final scene it rained!  Yes, they showered water from the ceiling onto the dirt!  M and I wondered what the grounds crew did with that...blow dried it after each performance?

And now home.  Tomorrow will be a lighter day, physically.  Class and a play, again at the National.  And maybe, gentle Reader, a nap (much beloved), in between.

Till then...eat your Float-ee-s and keep your nitro close by. #

Living with Sheldon (Ok, Sheldons)

A brief note to start the week: I got into London at a decent time last night -- thank you, United for arriving 35 minutes ahead of schedule, and all went well until...I got to the flat.

First, no one answered the buzzer at the front door.  I tried not to take this as an ominous sign.  I ended up calling the flat (and, again, thanks Verizon for actually working in London) & having M say "we didn't know you were there."  Right.

After the usual greetings among old friends, I was told that I was to sit "over there" because, yes, of course, in the two weeks without me, they had designated seats!  And one of them, who will remain nameless here so I don't die in the middle of the night, actually indicated that this seat was his/hers because "it has the right angle to the TV, there's the correct air flow" -- you know, dear Reader, the whole Sheldon speech from Big Bang Theory.

Having disrupted the seating chart, I finally noticed what was on TV.  Keeping up with the Kardashians.  !!! Really?!!?!

Finally, to end the evening, since we are sharing a bathroom, there was a discussion of bathroom schedule.  Yes, a la Sheldon and visitors to the apartment in BBT.  I got second shift.

Maybe as humorous as all this were the quirks of the flat.  Let's just stick with the shared bathroom: there's no cold water in the shower, the diverter for the shower doesn't work, and the sink "sometimes stinks...it's not me."  In England, this is known as charm.

We may need a roommate agreement.

We have a fun day planned.  More later.

To MC (revisiting 2000)

After much London driving (diving across lanes of traffic, sharp turns into tight little roads), we arrived in a neighborhood full of big warehouses and stopped in front of one.  We could tell the river was right there.  He led us into the building, telling us these buildings had been refurbished and reconfigured from their warehouse days, and walked us into a flat that wasn't grand, but it was two bedrooms, a largeliving room, an eat-in kitchen.  And the price was right.

June 3:

I spent the afternoon returning to 2000.  And the haunts of "the other M" and I in the early days of the  program.

So, this famed background story:  2000 was our first trip, pulling in 11 students (we thought we needed 10 to make LHU's requisite summer numbers and added the 11th after arrangements had been started to be made).   Following the model of others, we put the students in a b & b, near the British Museum (in London talk, near Tottenham Court or Goodge St tube stations -- this will come in handy later).  I found a realtor online who was willing to provide M and I a 2-bedroom "faculty flat" for a price we could afford.  We dropped the students off & our landlord-to-be picked up us, and our luggage, in his "auto."  Remember, we had been on a plane all night and my 11-year-old daughter was with us (she slept through the car ride).  He took us, with a series of cuts, somewhere north and I vaguely remember east of Kings Cross Station (I vaguely remember we thinking we were in Hackney, but memory seems to be wrong). Anyway, he showed us this flat and the stairwell outside smelled of urine and I wasn't sure my daughter would survive in the neighborhood.  The flat was large enough, but with someone's exotic taste in decor, and dark and musty.  We asked, rather quickly, if he didn't have another.   He said "yes" and got back into the car.

On the way, he made phone call after phone call on his "mobile."  At the time these were relatively new in the States and neither M nor I had seen anyone conduct business -- one call after another after another -- while driving on one.  He told us about a wonderful flat that was coming open in the Docklands (well east of the city) -- in fact, we might have had a view of Greenwich!  Yikes.

But on the way he got another call (have I mentioned that both he and most of his callers had a heavy accent -- West Indian? that made half of what they said unintelligible to us Yanks?) that said the young man whose father was kicking him out of the Docklands flat had reconciled and was staying; another call.  "I have this place coming open in Wapping.  But we haven't yet cleaned up after the last renter."  Okay, we said, not knowing where Wapping was, but it was after noon on a day with with no sleep, a grumpy 11-year-old, no place to stay, etc.

The deal was half in cash, which I gave him.  He gave us the keys and we left our luggage and were told to come back in a couple hours and it'd be clean.  We did and it was.

But here's the kicker: M is fixing dinner in the kitchen, the flat was set up so the front door entered into a hallway with the kitchen door the first door you came to, and a key rustled in the front door, and this guy walks in!  F***!  M asks "can I help you?" as cool as can be and the guy says it's HIS flat!  M and I worried about it all being something shady, so this didn't look good.  M said we were told the old tenant had just moved out; the guy pulls out his mobile and there's a message from the landlord on it!  Yes, he was evicted!  His stuff was in two garbage bags at the door, which we had thought was garbage left by the cleaners.  M was all apologetic; the guy was an itinerant construction worker from the Czech Republic, here he hoped short term.  He had a bag of groceries to fix his dinner.  M even offered for him to stay and eat with us.  He nicely said no, he needed to figure things out.

And that was the most excitement we had in that flat.  But both our pulses were up for some time after that.

Oh, yes, the other excitement: the place had a small balcony (it was on what the British call the first floor).  We invited the students out for burgers and dogs for Memorial Day and bought a small charcoal grill to cook on.  We put it on the balcony and were in the middle of cooking when M left it too long and the balcony was on fire!  We got it out fairly quickly, and it turned out it was just the rubber mat covering the balcony floor was burned, but it made that horrid burning rubber smell and there were briquettes everywhere...it was one of those things all the students thought was hilarious and teased about constantly.

Back to today.  Here's the flat and it's balcony.

And, indeed, here's the shot to the river, which we could see a bit of from that balcony.

And the pub, directly across the street, where we sat for some hours watching "futbol," as we were there in during the group round of the European Cup and everyone in England thought they were favorites, until they either lost or tied their first two games and it was clear they weren't going through.  M became a big fan of the Portuguese, who played "the beautiful game," with speed and attack that made the English, led by a doughy lout at striker (Rooney's predecessor), look like elephants chasing greyhounds

And, finally, Wapping tube station is on the East London line.  Or was.  It is now the London Overground line (I'm not sure why).  From Wapping Station to where the kids stayed took almost an hour on public transport.  There was a bus stop right outside our building that would take you to Liverpool Street (whence you could take the Central Line to Tottenham Ct) or...I won't bother you with the permutations.  But a conversation every day when M and I got together after our two classes had met was "how did you go and how long did it take?"  The best we ever did was 45 minutes.

BTW, our provost, due to some supposed disaster with a group at another school, mandated that we stay "close" to the students.  Since the second year we contracted with a firm for flats, it was not a problem after that.  But the first year was...well, part of the adventure was the commute to "work" each day and wondering where the students might be.

Today, I took the train there and the bus out, as the bus stop was right in front of the flat.  I also took a Tube route we almost never took, the Jubilee to the East London via Canada Water, which is much on  south side of the river.  It was much quicker than ways we used (the Jubilee goes nowhere near Goodge St or Tottenham, which is currently much under construction).  The bus goes around Tower Hill, to Aldgate, then to Liverpool Street, where it terminated then.  I got off at Aldgate, and started exploring the east end (as in the blog).

Funny, the neighborhood hadn't changed much in 15 years, though our flat building looked a bit more clean and upbeat (there wasn't the gaudy blue paint on the balconies in '00), and the bus was different, peeling south from Aldgate towards Elephant & Castle -- a piece of prime London I didn't want to sit through today (if any other).

The journey through the Wren churches reminded me how much I've grown out of shape in the intervening years.  In '00 I did the entire circuit (here's the link, if you care) from St. Magnus at the Monument to St. Paul's and I'm not sure I was even tired.  15 years and X pounds, and, doubtless the heart attack, meant I wasn't willing to even try to cover most of them.  And it was a very busy day in that part of the city.

And that's my recreation of 2000.  

The Return of S&H, with New Sidekick, and a New Venue

Yes, Gentle Reader, in a surprise move (there will be no reference here to "heart events," or even hearts in general, unless it's artichoke hearts) S & H are back together again, overseas, in conditions that beg for comedy.  I mean three unrelated, semi-grown adults living together under one roof, supervising 11 college students (there might be material right there!), with a whole series of travels (what can happen? I mean only occasionally have I left anyone behind) -- boy, THERE's material for you.

So, yes, Gentle Reader, we are back as of next Monday.  Expect a daily blog, filled with pictures (and food porn may NOT be included daily [just warning]), quips and travelogue.  I mean, we're going someplace Monday, Stratford-upon-Avon on Thursday, Paris Friday and Saturday and the French Riviera Sunday and Monday and the racetrack on Friday the 5th (with hats).  Oh, yes, there are even a handful of plays to be seen.

So, hold onto your seat (and your barf bag), it should be a wild ride.