London's West End

We finally went to see a show in London - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  We both read the book (or so we think, I couldn't remember it at all), but in any case, we enjoyed the show and I used my birthday present to upgrade to excellent seats.  Mark won a trinket for sitting in a seat with a prime number and having a name that translates into a prime number.

It was a beautiful day, the warmest since we've been here and very sunny.  It finally felt like spring, especially with the crocus and daffodils in bloom.  So before the show we spent a few hours walking around the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London, enjoying the residential squares (green spaces) and thinking of all the literary figures who lived there.

After the show the neighborhood around the theatre (Soho) had totally changed. It was Saturday night in what reminded us of a mix of Times Square before it got cleaned up and the West Village.  There were lots of trendy and relatively inexpensive restaurants to choose from,  so we went to a very yummy Udon Noodle / Japanese place called Koya Bar and even had to wait in line even though it was only 5ish.

On the way to the tube we also went to the flagship branch of Foyles, a huge and yet another amazing London independent bookstore. 

Photo catch up

Norwich Cathedral

Norwich Cathedral

Gate to Norwich Cathedral Close

Norwich Cathedral

Roof boss, Norwich Cathedral Cloister

Norwich Cathedral

Norwich Castle

Chapel at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

Gandhi, Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, London

St. George's, Bloomsbury, London

Crocus field by the Cam, U of Cambridge

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.

Football (soccer that is)

We got to the train station today about 10am and immediately noticed all the police presence.  So we were wondering what was up, it isn't usually like that.  Was there some sort of terror alert? Then when we got to our train we observed that all the police were getting on our train in particular!  So I asked, and it was because there was a football game that afternoon in Norwich (our tourist destination of the day).  At the next stops, people in green and yellow started getting on.  We later learned that the team is called the Canaries, that explained the bird on the jerseys. Then the beer cans were opened.  I guess tailgating starts that early in the US too?  Once we actually arrived in Norwich there was even more of a presence, police vans everywhere and officers outside of all the pubs.  It was like Pittsburgh during the G-20 (ok, that is a slight exaggeration, but downtown Pittsburgh has nothing like that level of security during a Steeler's Game). Luckily the stadium was in the opposite direction from the tourist sights, and we took a late train home to let things clear out (good choice reading the news):

Police praise Norwich and Ipswich football fans as East Anglian Derby passes without major incident: "The match, which saw the Canaries beat Ipswich 2-0 in their fourth consecutive win over their rivals, resulted in just four people being arrested in the lead-up and during the game held this afternoon at Carrow Road. About 2,000 Ipswich Town FC supporters travelled to the city for the mid-afternoon kick-off with friendly, but firm policing. Earlier in the morning 14 Ipswich supporters were given direction to leave notices by British Transport Police as a result of their behaviour at Norwich train station..."

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.

Transcendence in a Winter Garden

Silver Birch Grove

While we have enjoyed many gardens over the years, to date only the White Garden of Sissinghurt (viewed in 1989 I think!)  provided a transcendent experience.  All that changed this weekend with our visit to the Winter Garden of Anglesey Abbey. "The gardens boast 270 different varieties of snowdrop (including 20 discovered there) scattered across 114 acres. Meander along the paths for fabulous displays dotted across the gardens. The Winter Garden – designed with plants that give winter colour and fragrance – also bursts with life at this time of year." 

We actually went to Anglesey because of the February Snowdrop Festival, as the snowdrops were reported to be virtually 100% in bloom and the weather was decent. Despite being a flowering bulb fanatic, for some reason I have never planted a snowdrop. Perhaps this is because snowdrops are quite short-lived in places that I have lived.  Or maybe it is because the charms of snowdrops are  rather subtle.  In any case, the lack of snowdrops in my life must change next year! The Festival seemed to be quite a draw as the garden was packed with Brits wearing Wellies.

The Angleseybbey Snowdrop itself

Parkland Snowdrops et al.

There was quite a useful display of many different snowdrop varieties before entering the garden, and each variety was also well-labeled in the Winter Garden.   We learned that the motivation for the relatively recent Winter Garden was that after some disease killed some other plants,  there were favorable conditions for the snowdrops' natural revival. The gardener built on this to turn kind of a garbage area into this beautiful garden path. In our later walk through the rest of the property, there were also many unlabelled fields of snowdrops (where we could test our new found knowledge regarding varieties).

The Winter Garden itself, however, stole the show.  The garden was filled with grasses as well as shrubs and trees with stems and barks and even flowers that provided an amazing rainbow of colors in the dead of winter.   Winter would be bearable with such a garden! Unfortunately for me,  I fear that this particular winter garden would require a winter with very little snow and would not work in Pittsburgh.

Tibetian Cherry