Victoria and Albert

It was another coldish weekend and something indoors seemed desirable, so back to London for another museum.  This time we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum.  It was in a different neighborhood and also featured design. There was a trendy show on the fashion of Alexander McQueen which was sold out until May, but we got there early enough to get day of tickets for 3 hours later.  Filling up the time was no problem, the museum was huge and we were there from about 11 to closing at 5:30.  We then took a long walk, seeing the Royal Albert Hall and the glistening and golden Albert Memorial then walking through Kensington Gardens (via the Diana memorial) and along the pond (filled with interesting waterfowl) to Hyde Park.  Our goal was Chinatown but we passed a promising looking Ramen place and went there instead.

The day before we took the bus to a nearby village (unfortunately not charming) to hear John Bryden - Noah's Edinburgh piano teacher - practice the Mozart Wind Quintet.  He is doing a concert to thank donors of a new Steinway but we will be back in the US by then.

Cambridge catch up

We have devoted a day of each of the last two weekends to catching up on our Cambridge sights.

Last weekend we finally visited Kettle's Yard, a really quirky and great little art museum.  A former art curator bought some cottages in a former slummy area and made them into a home where he could display his own collection.  He would open up the house to the public in the afternoons and also hold concerts (like our living room chamber music concert event!). Now the university owns it and runs it the same way.  The art is everywhere and not particularly labeled, but it is interesting and the house itself is also cool.  Too bad we didn't make it to a concert.  Attached to the house is a newer more traditional gallery, and a very old church is also on the property.

We then went to the see the Annual Spring Revue of the Footlights Club - a group of comic writer-performers at the university with some very famous alum such as John Cleese and Emma Thompson. Seems similar to Second City when it was at UChicago.  Anyway, they were very clever and we quite enjoyed it, especially when we could actually understand some of the UK-centric jokes.

Last but not least, we finally heard the famous King's College Choir during Evensong.  The acoustics are horrible for understanding the service, but they are great for the choir.  Because it is the 500th chapel anniversary year, there was a special organ concert afterwards as well.

Norwich

Pig Farming

As noted in the prior post, we took a day trip to Norwich.  The train ride there passed several pig farms.  Who knew pigs had these little houses! 

Our first stop was Norwich Cathedral, which was very impressive (and very old, founded in 1096!).  "One of the finest complete Romanesque cathedrals in Europe, with the second tallest spire and largest monastic cloisters in England, it houses more than a thousand beautiful medieval roof boss sculptures."

We then wandered over to Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, which made me realize that there aren't any castles around Cambridge.  I guess it is too flat?  The castle is Norman and all that is left is the keep, which after being a palace became a prison, and now is the museum part.  In a new wing is a huge eclectic art gallery.  We particularly enjoyed the teapot gallery with its collection of over 300 teapots.

As dusk was approaching (and hoping all the soccer fans were gone) we wandered back to the train station, following a heritage trail of interesting old buildings.

Leicester Square Adventures

Attention Brits! Visit the US.

We are now almost 2/3 of the way through our stay and all of sudden are feeling some pressure to be tourists.  So we got over our inertia (last weekend I didn't even leave the flat) and followed our Saturday trip to the country with a Sunday trip to London.  The destination was the Sargent exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery.  However, when looking at a map I noticed that the museum was near Chinatown (I didn't even know London had a Chinatown!) so a dim sum plan at Imperial China was also hatched. On the tube going to Leicester Square (about a 5 minute walk to our two destinations in either direction), we saw this amusing Las Vegas tourism sign.

Wasabi Prawn Dupmlings

Lisle Street, Chinatown

Chinese New Year had been earlier in the week and (unbenownst to us) Chinatown was still hosting festivities days later.  So there were firecrackers and hordes of people, particularly around the Lion Dance  The dim sum (off the menu rather than carts though) was delicious and there were many things we had never seen before.  The shrimp dumplings in wasabi dough were an inspiration.

New Year's Float

Sir Paul

                 






The Sargent exhibit also lived up to the hype, what a master.  The rest of the museum was really interesting too, beginning with the Tudors and showing the history of Britain through portraits.  Ending with Paul! We were there almost 4 hours and were rushed. It would have helped to know more about British history though.

Modern Cambridge

Our old Pong game for the tv

Moving to modern times,  last weekend we visited  the 2 year old Centre for Computing History.  It is a quirky place - in a hangar like structure in some industrial park.  It is filled with some guy's collection of old and largely working machines, many of which Mark and I were familar with being old ourselves.

This was capped off with a viewing of Shaun the Sheep. Since one of us is into sheep, seemed like a must do here in the UK. The film is from the creators of Wallace & Gromit and is based on a tv show.  Before the film, it was interesting seeing all the UK ads geared to British children.

This weekend is Cambridge's e-Luminate Festival.  Much of it was kind of disappointing, just coloured spotlights, but there was one very cool dynamic installation at the Senate House.  The timing for this exhibit seems a bit off as there are noticeably less hours of darkness these days, so we are already in a festival of natural light.

Polar Museum

Dome in roof

Our walk from home to the Engineering building takes us by the university's Scott Polar Research Institute every day.  Several people at Pitt had recommended the museum, so today we went in.  It is small but quite interesting.  The first room is on native cultures of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions in Greenland, Scandanavia, etc.  The second room is on all the expeditions, particularly to Antartica.  Having just seen Scott's ship Discovery (in Scotland) last fall, this was a nice complement.  There were lots of artifacts from the ship (including chocolate wrappers/tins as that was essential for keeping up morale).  The letters Scott and his crew wrote when they knew they weren't going to make it were particularly poignant.

Inside OLEM

Inside OLEM

On the way back home we went into the big Catholic church that we pass by every day (and where we heard change ringing once!) - Our Lady and the English Martyrs (OLEM).  It is a dramatic 19th century Gothic Revival building and we admire the outside every day.  The inside is equally impressive and includes  a 16th-century wooden statue of the Virgin Mary from the original Dominican priory that became Emmanuel College.  The church also serves the Polish community as illustrated by the Madonna.

London Calling

Tea Department at Fornum and Mason

More friends from NJ (Howard and Lisa) inspired us to finally take the train to London.  It is actually quite easy and similar to getting from NJ to NYC.  Our flat is a 10 minute walk to the train station. From there an express train is under an hour to King's Cross, and from there we can transfer to the tube.

We had bought advance tickets to see Rubens and his Legacy at the Royal Academy of Arts (the first day of the latest "blockbuster").  Luckily the crowds were not horrific and the exhibit was not exhaustingly long.  It turns out that there is a lot more to Rubens than just Rubenesque women.

Since we got to the Academy early we had a little time to explore Piccadilly Street (in the ritzy Mayfair neighborhood, where we in fact passed "The Ritz").  We first discovered Hatchard's Booksellers which reminded us of the former Rizzoli Bookstore in Manhattan (interesting selection of books and a beautiful space).   Right next door was Fortnum and Mason. I have never been in such an elegant department store, not even in Manhattan.  It was like stepping into the original Selfridge's from the recent BBC show.  We focused on the famous food hall and purchased some tea.

The real point of our trip, however, was to eat our Michelin 2* dinner at The Greenhouse. It has been years since we have been at a restaurant of that caliber and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of our 4 hours there.  The food was French-inspired but very light (as these things go), with layered creations mixing many flavours and textures.  It was wonderful having a chance to catch up with Howard and Lisa as well as to revive our past eating days.

The Rest of the Week

Winter Jasmine

Geranium

Snowdrops

It is amazing how many things are in bloom here, although this weekend we are under a "cold weather alert" (level 3!).  This seems to just mean it might get below freezing.

We have a very nice walk to the Engineering Building through a pretty residential neighborhood.  Although someone told us that our flat is in a bohemian area, it seems to get pretty ritzy a block or two away. Here is a house for sale for over 2 million US $.  Most houses have nice front gardens as shown in the photos above.  It is a bit of a treacherous walk though as the pavement (sidewalks) are sloped and very slippery when wet which is most of the time.  And the street lighting is really poor for our walk home in the dark.  Even at midday the sun never really gets high in the sky.

I went to the cinema to see The Imitation Game.  Turing in fact was a student at Cambridge.  At least in the theatre I went to, you buy a ticket with an assigned seat.  The pre-movie trailers and ads were quite different than at home.

Today we went to see a free organ recital by Jack Spencer, with a program that was unusual and varied and which we both enjoyed:

Litaize - Épiphanie
Karg-Elert - Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (No. 64, Op. 65)
Buxtehude - Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (BuxWV 223)
Messiaen - Desseins éternels, Les mages (Nos. 3 and 8 from La Nativité du Seigneur)
Dubois - Marche des Rois Mages
Reger - Fugue from Fantasia and Fugue on the Choral ‘Wie schön leucht’ uns der Morgenstern’ (No. 1, Op. 40).

The Chapel

The Organ

The concert was held in  Queens' College Chapel, which also gave us an excuse to see that College.  Mark had the excellent idea that we should attempt to visit all 29 colleges of Cambridge University in our 3 months here. Queens is quite lovely and spans the river.  The Cloister Court has a really old timbered building (the oldest building on the river), and Mark found that he has a namesake (a Sanskrit expert it turns out).

After the concert we went to the Fitzwilliam Museum to see Silent Partners - a show about mannequins that is about to end.