Carnaby Street

Last weekend, Darrel and I did a little more exploring and we came across this in Soho.  After we saw the sign welcoming us to Carnaby Street, we both thought we had heard of it before but couldn't really put our fingers on it.  I proceeded to look it up in Wikipedia, and found out that Carnaby Street is the place where the original "mod" fashion movement started back in the early sixties.  It's a really fascinating part of town and would've been brilliant to see back in the day.

Also last weekend, we were able to go and see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and our friend Erik perform Carmina Burana at the Royal Albert Hall.  For this performance, the Royal Philharmonic was joined by 3 choirs, which included a youth choir.  I have always loved Carmina Burana and it was quite amazing to be able to see it performed live in the Royal Albert Hall.

Borough Market and All's Well That Ends

Yesterday, I met up with my friend Andrew from New Orleans (he's been in town this week) and headed down to the Borough Market, which is a huge farmer's market that runs on Thurs, Fri and Sats.  It is underneath the rail on the Sounthbank of London.  That area of town is really interesting becasue it is the old port of London, and has cobblestone streets and many warehouses...you can almost imagine what it would've looked like way back in the day.  The Market has all different kinds of stalls, and you can get almost anything there.  We ended up eating meatpies for lunch and they were really tasty :-) 

Entering the Market

Further in the Market...the stall on the right is selling Turkish Delights

After lunch, we caught a matinee performance of ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL at Shakespeare's Globe Theater (which is about a 10min walk from the market).  We had much better seats for this performance than Darrel and I did the last time we saw something at the Globe.  It's quite brilliant watching a Shakespeare play here in London (let alone at The Globe), because the English have such a better understanding of the language...it's much easier to understand and follow  than having an American try to perform.

The play is about to begin...

The British Museum

Yesterday, Darrel and I made our way to The British Museum.  The items that are on display in the museum are definitely one of the best collections of looted and pillaged items from around the world.  Wikipedia is a little bit better with their political correctness and state "The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London.  Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present."  It is really quite brilliant what you see when you go there:  they have a portion of The Rosetta Stone, which was used to decipher ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics;  they have one of the larges collections of Greek and Roman Antiquities, which include many of the original pediment sculptures and friezes (known as the Elgin marbles) from the Parthenon; and, they also have one of the Easter Island Statues on display...just to name a few of the things we saw. 

The museum and its collection is truly unbelievable.

A little blurry, but it does describe the Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone

Gayer Anderson Bronze Cat from Egypt

"Lely's Venus"

The East Pediment from the Parthenon

Another view of the East Pediment from the Parthenon

The Churchill Arms

Today, Darrel and I decided to explore a little bit more of our neighborhood.  We ended up walking up a really cute street called Kensington Church Street that connects Kensington and Noting Hill, and has many antique shops on it.  When we got to the top of the street we found a great pub called The Churchill Arms, which had many flower boxes adorning the walls outside.  It was very inviting, so we decided to have lunch there as well.  When we walked in and made it to the back where the restaurant was, we were very surprised to find the menu contained thai food and not traditional pub food which we were expecting.  However, the food was really really good and we were happy that we found it and decided to eat there.

This is inside the pub, where the restaurant was located...there were hundreds of flowers
in this part of the pub and was quite brilliant.  The picture doesn't really do it justice.

The Queen's Club

Wimbledon starts next Monday, and the final ATP men's grasscourt warm-up tournament was held all last week here in London.  The tournament was The Queen's Club and because of rain on Sunday, the final match between Andy Murray (from England) and Jo Wilfried Tsonga (from France) was postponed to yesterday.  Andy had beaten Andy Roddick to reach the final, and Tsonga had beaten Rafeal Nadal.  There were 1000 tickets (out of 7000) available, so I decided to show up and stand in the que.  Luckily I was able to get a ticket, and it was a great match.  Murray started out kinda sluggish, and Tsonga was playing really well and won the 1st set.  However, Murray came back and won the 2nd set tie breaker and was able to pull out a win in the 3rd set.  It was a really great day.

I was 853rd in line...the line stretched around
probably 4-5 blocks

 

WooHoo, I got a ticket...this picture was taken from my seat



Tsonga serving...

...many of his serves were over 140 mph and Murray
had much difficulty in trying to break his serve

Murray celebrating the tie breaker win in 2nd set...going to a 3rd

Murray just missed a volley

Tsonga dove and missed the ball

Murray hits an overhead smash...

...and wins the match!

The final score...Murray pulled it out in 3 sets

Pomp and Circumstance

Nobody does it quite like the British...they love their official ceremonies and pageants. 

Today, the Queen's birthday was officially celebrated with the Trooping of the Colour.  This ceremony has taken place since 1748, and consists of a parade with the Queen carried in a Royal Carriage to the Horse Guards Parade.  She is met there by her official troops (the Horse Guards in red jackets and big black hats) and the Household Cavalry.  It is quite a spectacle because in formation within the Horse Guards Parade are over 1400 officers and men, along with 200 horses and 400 musicians from 10 different bands and corps of drums play as one.  At precisely 11am, the Queen takes the Royale Salute and watches the Trooping of the Colour, which is a custom wherein the flag (or colour) is paraded down the ranks of officers and past the Queen and Royal family. 

As I stated, this ceremony has taken place since 1748 to mark the "official" celebration of the Soverign.  What's very funny about this is that the Queen's actual birthday is on April 21st.  However, King Edward VII (who reigned from 1901-1910) decided that he wanted to have the Soverign's birthday "officially" celebrated on either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd Saturday in June in order to have a chance at better weather (I'm not kidding).  Since then, it has always taken place in June rather than on the actual day of the Soverign's birthday.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the Horse Guards Parade to watch this ceremony in person, but rather watched it on the "telly".  If any of you are interested in seeing what it looks like, the BBC has a really nice 2 min condensed video of it (seeing that the whole ceremony lasts about an hour).  Just go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13737041 to watch. 

 

Paris, Versailles and a flat tire

Darrel and I just got back home from Paris.  We took the train there on Friday to meet up with our friends Bill and Eugene from Toronto, who were there to celebrate Eugene's birthday. 

Dan, Darrel, Eugene and Bill

 


The Seine at night...a little blurry
(I tried to take it without the flash)







Dinner at Chez Julien

 On Saturday, we all went to Versailles and took a tour of the Palace.  Bill had arranged for us to be picked up at our hotel and be driven out to Versailles, which is about 30mins outside of Paris.  As Darrel says....you can really see why there was a revolution in France because the Palace was so opulent.  The pictures really don't do it justice..

Courtyard in front of the Palace

Palace from the back

  

Let them eat cake

Us with the Fountain Gardens in background...the fountains did turn on eventually,
but we we're in the Palace at the time

The Chapel in the Palace

Entering the Hall of Mirrors (this is where the King would
meet his guests and do his best to intimidate them)

The King's Chair in the Hall of Mirrors

The back of the King's Chair

Now, about that flat tire...

Our tour guide Thomas was driving down the Champs Elysees on his way to our hotel, and had spotted 2 20-something muscle boys trying to cross the street.  Like every forward, aggressive and self-respecting Frenchman he proceeded to pull up next to them (they were in the median in the middle of the road...see the picture below), wave at them and give them some choice words in french (no, none of us understood what he said...but probably got the jest of it).  Now, instead of stopping the van while all of this going on...he instead watches the 2 boys rather than the road, and proceeds to run over the median....first with the front tire, and then the rear tire.  After the jarring we had in the van, we could hear the hissing of the air escaping from the tire.  Luckily for Thomas...only 1 of the tires were blown and not more damage.  Unlucky for us...we had to walk back to our hotel and had a really good laugh. 

We're just bummed that I didn't get a picture of Thomas, the van with the blown tire on the side of the road, nor the 2 muscle boys.

For those of you who have never been to Paris, I found a picture on the web of the Champs Elysees. 
In the foreground, is an example of one of the medians that Thomas ran over.