Out and about, a bit
Nov. 19th, 2000 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetI actually got out and did some touristic stuff in the last week. On Monday
night we hooked up with Jason's former housemate, Seth, and two of his
friends from the University of Edinburgh, where he's spent the last year
getting a masters degree in CS. The five of us went around the corner to
one of the many Italian restaurants in Notting Hill and had a reasonably
good dinner. The stracciatella was some of the best I've ever eaten.
On Tuesday Seth came by and the three of us went to the British Museum.
It's a cavernous place and partly under construction, so it has a real feel
of "The Warehouse of History." We started with the Egyptians and saw the
Rosetta Stone, among other impressive artifacts, whetting our appetite for
our trip to Egypt in January. From there we moved on to the Assyrians and
the wall carvings from two of their palaces in Ninevah and Nimrud and the
enormous reconstructed doors from one of the temples (they had found the
bronze collars for the doors and filled in the wood). We had lunch in the
cafe (yummy yellow pea & sage soup, with sandwiches) and then started on the
Greeks, but didn't make it as far as the Elgin Marbles before Museum Feet
set in and we decided we needed to either sit or walk. So we walked back to
Notting Hill along Oxford Street/Bayswater/Queensway/Notting Hill Gate (it's
all one street, but it changes names every few blocks). We spent the
evening looking at pictures and I made the pan-fried salmon filets with
lemon caper sauce that Jason really likes.
On Wednesday we stayed in most of the day, getting various stuff done. In
the evening Jason and I walked down to Kensington High Street and had a
mediocre steak dinner at the Angus Steak House and walked back.
On Thursday Jason went up to Cambridge and I went over to Baker Street.
First I visited Madame Tusseaud's. I had been prepared for it to be fairly
cheesy and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The first area is The
Garden Court and includes the figures of the more recent celebrities they've
modeled. I remember Pierce Brosnan, Sean Connery, Joanna Lumley, Patrick
Stewart, Gerard Depardieu, Jean-Paul Gaaultier, David Copperfireld (in
mid-air), Robert Carlyle (one of the best, I thought), Brad Pitt, Morgan
Freeman, Nicholas Cage, Samuel L. Jacson, Dame Edna Everage and a number of
other British TV/sports figres that I didn't recognize. I was somewhat
surprised by how short Mel Gibson is, even though I've been told. Next is a
small area of sports figures that includes a great one of Torville & Dean in
the midst of their Olympic gold medal-winning "Bolero" program. There's a
section where they explain a little about how the figures are created. Also
in that section they have one of the several Napoleon figures, this one on
his deathbed with the Duke of Wellington looking on. THere's also a figure
of Tom Thumb dressed as Napoleon. From there I moved on into the Stage &
Screen area, which included Humphrey Bogart, Anthony Hopkins, Telly Savalas,
Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Harrison Ford as Indiana
Jones, Arnold Schwarznegger as the Terminator, and Christopher Reed as
Superman. Next was the Great Hall, which included political and
intellectual figures from history (most of the British monarchs, a selection
of US Presidents and British Prime Ministers, various other leaders, the
current Royals, Lady Di, the Pope, the Beatles, Einstein, Picasso, etc.).
Downstairs was the Chamber of Horrors, which focused on real-life torture
and execution. After that was a ride through a fairly odd selection of
London's history, called The Spirit of London. Then out into the London
Planetarium. Since I was there I went ahead and did the show, but it was
pretty much a waste of time and not very impressive.
After that I wandered up to 221B Baker Street to see the Sherlock Homes
Museum. It's not very large and doesn't have much explanation, but their
recreation of Homes' rooms at Mrs. Hudson's is very good and it really has
the right feel, so it was very good to see it. I wandered through their
shop and the Beatles shop next door and then headed back to the flat. I did
some cleaning and made a beef Bolognese sauce with pasta for dinner.
On Friday we went to the estate agent's office and signed our lease and got
our keys and went over to our new flat. It's a good thing we didn't have a
truck of our stuff to unload, because it would have been very difficult,
with the workmen still very much in evidence. Ah well, the joys of a brand
new flat. So we put together some of the furniture that had been delivered
from IKEA and made a list of things that we'd like to have done to the flat,
which Jason discussed with the landlord, Mark, when he came around later in
the afternoon. We went up to the grocery store and to the home & hardware
store up the road and got a load of essentials and brought those back to the
flat. We went back to Barbara's and discovered that she had cancelled her
plans to be away for the weekend and was home and free. So we ordered
Chinese food and rented _Notting Hill_, which she'd never seen. It's a very
fun movie and we enjoyed seeing it again.
Yesterday we packed up a bunch of our stuff and took a cab over to the flat,
but realized it still needs a fair about of stuff done before we can start
to unpack, so headed back fairly quickly and went out for dinner with
Barbara to another of the many Italian places around. This one, Arlecchino,
was my favorite of the three we've tried. I had another good stracciatella
and a nice veal piccata with sautéed potatoes and French beans. Jason had
the rocket salad and their chicken "Principesa" (with cheese and
asparagus). Barbara started with a salad of tomatoes, mozzarella and
avocado and then had grilled salmon with sautéed potatoes and spinach. She
wasn't as happy with her salmon as I was with my veal. I also had a lovely
apple tart for dessert. I played Snood and read email far too late, and so
slept fairly late this morning.
Barbara and I went over to the Camden Market and looked at some furniture
and enjoyed the atmosphere...serious street fashion. We came back and
ordered Chinese food and have all been lying around in the living room
gathering strength for the week ahead. I think Jason and I are going to go
over and spend the night in our new flat for the first time. Since there's
no phone (and won't be until December 7th, it seems) my connectivity may be
more limited in the next couple of weeks. There is an Internet cafe just
down the road, so I may become a regular customer.
Speaking of which, our new address is: 364 Green Lanes, London N4 1DA and
while there's no phone there, you can reach us on our mobiles (E: 0775 992
4594, J: 0775 992 4565). And we will probably be coming back to Barbara's
pretty often, so you can always leave messages here.
Hope you had good weekends. By the way, if you wanted to go ahead and pick
a president already, we really wouldn't mind.
night we hooked up with Jason's former housemate, Seth, and two of his
friends from the University of Edinburgh, where he's spent the last year
getting a masters degree in CS. The five of us went around the corner to
one of the many Italian restaurants in Notting Hill and had a reasonably
good dinner. The stracciatella was some of the best I've ever eaten.
On Tuesday Seth came by and the three of us went to the British Museum.
It's a cavernous place and partly under construction, so it has a real feel
of "The Warehouse of History." We started with the Egyptians and saw the
Rosetta Stone, among other impressive artifacts, whetting our appetite for
our trip to Egypt in January. From there we moved on to the Assyrians and
the wall carvings from two of their palaces in Ninevah and Nimrud and the
enormous reconstructed doors from one of the temples (they had found the
bronze collars for the doors and filled in the wood). We had lunch in the
cafe (yummy yellow pea & sage soup, with sandwiches) and then started on the
Greeks, but didn't make it as far as the Elgin Marbles before Museum Feet
set in and we decided we needed to either sit or walk. So we walked back to
Notting Hill along Oxford Street/Bayswater/Queensway/Notting Hill Gate (it's
all one street, but it changes names every few blocks). We spent the
evening looking at pictures and I made the pan-fried salmon filets with
lemon caper sauce that Jason really likes.
On Wednesday we stayed in most of the day, getting various stuff done. In
the evening Jason and I walked down to Kensington High Street and had a
mediocre steak dinner at the Angus Steak House and walked back.
On Thursday Jason went up to Cambridge and I went over to Baker Street.
First I visited Madame Tusseaud's. I had been prepared for it to be fairly
cheesy and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The first area is The
Garden Court and includes the figures of the more recent celebrities they've
modeled. I remember Pierce Brosnan, Sean Connery, Joanna Lumley, Patrick
Stewart, Gerard Depardieu, Jean-Paul Gaaultier, David Copperfireld (in
mid-air), Robert Carlyle (one of the best, I thought), Brad Pitt, Morgan
Freeman, Nicholas Cage, Samuel L. Jacson, Dame Edna Everage and a number of
other British TV/sports figres that I didn't recognize. I was somewhat
surprised by how short Mel Gibson is, even though I've been told. Next is a
small area of sports figures that includes a great one of Torville & Dean in
the midst of their Olympic gold medal-winning "Bolero" program. There's a
section where they explain a little about how the figures are created. Also
in that section they have one of the several Napoleon figures, this one on
his deathbed with the Duke of Wellington looking on. THere's also a figure
of Tom Thumb dressed as Napoleon. From there I moved on into the Stage &
Screen area, which included Humphrey Bogart, Anthony Hopkins, Telly Savalas,
Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Harrison Ford as Indiana
Jones, Arnold Schwarznegger as the Terminator, and Christopher Reed as
Superman. Next was the Great Hall, which included political and
intellectual figures from history (most of the British monarchs, a selection
of US Presidents and British Prime Ministers, various other leaders, the
current Royals, Lady Di, the Pope, the Beatles, Einstein, Picasso, etc.).
Downstairs was the Chamber of Horrors, which focused on real-life torture
and execution. After that was a ride through a fairly odd selection of
London's history, called The Spirit of London. Then out into the London
Planetarium. Since I was there I went ahead and did the show, but it was
pretty much a waste of time and not very impressive.
After that I wandered up to 221B Baker Street to see the Sherlock Homes
Museum. It's not very large and doesn't have much explanation, but their
recreation of Homes' rooms at Mrs. Hudson's is very good and it really has
the right feel, so it was very good to see it. I wandered through their
shop and the Beatles shop next door and then headed back to the flat. I did
some cleaning and made a beef Bolognese sauce with pasta for dinner.
On Friday we went to the estate agent's office and signed our lease and got
our keys and went over to our new flat. It's a good thing we didn't have a
truck of our stuff to unload, because it would have been very difficult,
with the workmen still very much in evidence. Ah well, the joys of a brand
new flat. So we put together some of the furniture that had been delivered
from IKEA and made a list of things that we'd like to have done to the flat,
which Jason discussed with the landlord, Mark, when he came around later in
the afternoon. We went up to the grocery store and to the home & hardware
store up the road and got a load of essentials and brought those back to the
flat. We went back to Barbara's and discovered that she had cancelled her
plans to be away for the weekend and was home and free. So we ordered
Chinese food and rented _Notting Hill_, which she'd never seen. It's a very
fun movie and we enjoyed seeing it again.
Yesterday we packed up a bunch of our stuff and took a cab over to the flat,
but realized it still needs a fair about of stuff done before we can start
to unpack, so headed back fairly quickly and went out for dinner with
Barbara to another of the many Italian places around. This one, Arlecchino,
was my favorite of the three we've tried. I had another good stracciatella
and a nice veal piccata with sautéed potatoes and French beans. Jason had
the rocket salad and their chicken "Principesa" (with cheese and
asparagus). Barbara started with a salad of tomatoes, mozzarella and
avocado and then had grilled salmon with sautéed potatoes and spinach. She
wasn't as happy with her salmon as I was with my veal. I also had a lovely
apple tart for dessert. I played Snood and read email far too late, and so
slept fairly late this morning.
Barbara and I went over to the Camden Market and looked at some furniture
and enjoyed the atmosphere...serious street fashion. We came back and
ordered Chinese food and have all been lying around in the living room
gathering strength for the week ahead. I think Jason and I are going to go
over and spend the night in our new flat for the first time. Since there's
no phone (and won't be until December 7th, it seems) my connectivity may be
more limited in the next couple of weeks. There is an Internet cafe just
down the road, so I may become a regular customer.
Speaking of which, our new address is: 364 Green Lanes, London N4 1DA and
while there's no phone there, you can reach us on our mobiles (E: 0775 992
4594, J: 0775 992 4565). And we will probably be coming back to Barbara's
pretty often, so you can always leave messages here.
Hope you had good weekends. By the way, if you wanted to go ahead and pick
a president already, we really wouldn't mind.
