We're off

Not sure if anyone is reading this, so I am taking an executive action of discontinuing the blog!  We are so busy that it has become a burden to find time to continue!  If you are really reading it and I get enough response, please let me know.  Otherwise, au revoir from Paris!!

LITTLE GIRLS, LITTLE GIRLS EVERYWHERE I LOOK THERE ARE LITTLE GIRLS...

So, if it is Saturday in London, it means matinees in the West End.  And top that off with a beautiful sunny day where Londoners (and everyone else!) can get out of their flats and believe me, they did.  So 

Our task today was to go to see "Matilda" which I persisted in calling everything but Matilda!  And the theater was teeming with all sizes of girls, boys, and some you couldn't tell!  And that meant ice cream, candy, soda as well.  Along with parents trying to corral the aforementioned kiddies.  Iris was entranced by the whole thing -- on the stage and off.  Which meant her mommy was entranced watching Iris watching the event(s).  It ran 3+ hours and, when we emerged, it was nearly supper time.  We were in the vicinity of Covent Gardens, where there was much activity of puppet shows, impersonators, magicians, etc.  All I wanted to do was sit down with a glass of wine and, lo! and behold, there was a NYC restaurant called Balthazar, which looked IDENTICAL to the NYC one where we had an early dinner.

I had snails (ewww, was Iris's comment) and everyone else had Dover sole, as that is what you do when you are near the Channel, North Sea, etc.  And the best part, according to Iris, was that they gave her crayons and she could draw pictures on the tablecloth!  Her daddy spied a 007 drink on the menu, ordered it, and got loopy goofy (which we all enjoyed, because he gets really talkative when loopy!)  And then back to our apartment to pack.

You see, today we are going to Paris through the Chunnel, a 3 hour ride under the English Channel.  Bos was so efficient, he found a company that is picking up our luggage this morning and depositing it, we HOPE, at our hotel, the Bristol, in Paris this afternoon.  That way we are only lugging our extraneous carry-ons at the train station.  Another adventure is about to begin.

Forgot to tell you that David, our namedropper guide, said he spent a a day a week with Bill Gates and his family while they were living in London for a month and he said they were very quiet but also very polite.

A Day in the Country A La Jane Austen

David, our guide, planned a day in the country outside London for a total change from castles and traffic!  And what a day it was!  And I found David as interesting as the sights he showed us.  Can you say "name dropper"?  David was an actor in tv, commercials and movies from his teenage years...he is now 63 and still very handsome.  His parents were very affluent and, at the age of 8, he was sent to a boarding school in Scotland that was similar to Eaton, the most exclusive boarding school in Britian.  While his father had great hopes for his future, he chose acting and, as he got older and he had a harder time getting lucrative parts, he decided to get his "Blue Badge", which entitled him to be a guide in Great Britain.  And he was very proud of his badge, which he wore each day!

Cricket

My biggest disappointment was that his interests were not in history, but in sports like cricket (his passion), soccer, and field hockey.  Each time we passed a cricket field, we would get a lecture on the sport.  And he drove us through Windsor where Eaton is located so we could see the young boys in their tails (yes, they have to wear tuxedo like clothes to class!)   A sign of how exclusive they are at Eaton, according to David, is that their cricket field is exclusive to CRICKET, while other such fields trade off with other sports as well!

Boys in Eaton traditional tie and tails

Rowers at Henly

Following small paths through thickets we went deeper and deeper into the countryside, where we got to see the windmill in "Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang" and the adorable church where "The Vicar of Dibley" was shot.  It looked just like a church in a Jane Austen movie, with a churchyard full of tilted old gravestones dating from the 1700's.  Henry VIII had all the abbeys closed and he took all the valuable ornaments, Bibles, etc under Cromwell, which is how he financed his life and his wars.  So many of the abbeys and churches disappeared.  But, in some small villages, the churches remained, stripped of their wealth, but there was a center for village life.  The abbey we visited served 8 small villages, as picturesque as you could imagine.  You felt like you were back in the late 1700's, peeking into country life.

David, Iris (the star), and the Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang
windmill way up to the left...see it?

Tudor houses in "cute village"

Village church yard

Note the list of vicars starts in 1226.

Way out

Betsy and Iris in what feels like a Jane Austin setting.
Also it's where "the Vicar of Dibley" was filmed, a BBC
comedy about a woman vicar being assigned to a small
parish (perfect setting!)

One of the 'small' roads.

For lunch we stopped at a small pub, with those well known tudor timbers and low ceilings.  It is hard to see how the place could stay open, as we were the only people there for lunch.  And after a couple glasses of ale along with fish and chips, we talked to the owner, who said that, just up the road, was the former estate of the Getty family, recently sold to an Australian lady who wanted her privacy.  So we never found out her name, although it would not have meant anything to us anyway!

Driving away from the lovely non-rainy day, we drove down another cart path where we had to pull off the road when a car or tractor wanted to pass.  And then back to civilization.  My question to David was ,"Where do these small villages go for groceries?"  The answer -- "Far away>"  And I could see that.  But Betsy, Q and I all felt we would rather live in these isolated areas some 40 miles from London where "character" was more important than money and bustle!!

Dinner was back to our favorite pizza place not far from the hotel and then we begin packing for our switch to Paris via the Chunnel on Sunday.  Betsy and Q are off in the Tube to see the Globe theater, which Bos and I have seen numerous times.  And I am playing school teacher today with Iris.  Her teacher was kind enough to send 2 weeks worth of work for her and Iris LOVES showing me what she is learning in Kindergarten!!  Then, this afternoon, off to see "Mathilda" at a theater in the West End.

Sometimes It's the People, Not the Place...

Finally, Thursday we decided to follow one of travel "for sure" events -- taking the Hop On Hop Off bus.  So, we trek a couple blocks to the kiosk to get tickets.  For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, the bus is one that continuously circles throughout the city, wherever you are, and you can get on, travel to a site you want to see, get off, and then wait for the next bus to get back on again.  Only this time was different.  We waited...and waited...and waited...and waited. You get the idea.  Finally, with a group of people waiting with us, the young man selling tickets got a little nervous. And there were tons of busses -- city busses.  And they were all starting in front of us.  Probably 6 or more at a time headed to various parts of London.  Tempting, but NO.  So finally, the ticket guy called his office.  They told him they heard traffic was so bad they closed the road and there were no busses.  By that time, even though they said a bus would be coming,  I determined I WOULD NOT GET OFF THE BUS FOR THE WHOLE DAY!  So we got a 5 hour view from the double decker bus of London, all the sights BTW, whizzing past in good fashion.

Trafalgar Square (it's not) and Nelson's column

Big Ben

Thames and The London Eye

Just part of the scenery

Surprise church 

St. Paul's Cathederal (sorry the angle hides the dome)

The bus was stopped and the crane lifted the
"johnny on the spot" right over us!

Tower Bridge and the Belfast

The 87 story ultra modern "Shard"
tallest building in the EU. (during construction
a fox took up residence on the 37th and survived a long time
on workers lunch scraps.. he couldn't make the rent so he was
trapped and evicted.. humanely.)

Modern London next the Tower of London

Tower of London from landside

And when we finally got back to our hotel, we were so exhausted ...ROOM SERVICE!

Betsy, Q and Iris got off, brave people they are, and made a side trip to Westminster Abbey, where Q proudly stepped on Sir Isaac Newton and Iris finally understood that Queen Mary, who was buried under Queen Elizabeth, was Elizabeth's sister.  Oh -- and they very nearly saw Prince Harry as they drove past #10 Downing Street.  He was stopping there at that moment.

On to Friday and a whole day with David our guide in the country!  Looking forward to getting out of the city for sure.

Like Christopher Robin, We Went Down to Buckingham Palace...

Today was the day!  Iris was excited.  Maybe she would see the Queen.  While we assured her the Queen was not in residence, she was still quite optimistic!  And we all, in the perpetual rain, made our way to our 10 a.m. entry to Buckingham Palace for our tour.  And what a tour it was.  Despite the buckets of water coming from the skies, we wandered through all the public rooms, not the area the Royal Family lives in.

And the majesty of it all was evident.  I, on the other hand,  was annoyed with all the crowds.  And they "crowds" were from all over the world, talking in all sorts of different languages.  We were shoved through from the Japanese, the Chinese, the Italians, the Middle Easterners.  It was sort of like n unending wave of people and you just had to go with the flow, so to speak.  The banquet rooms (yes, more than one) with thrones for the Queen and Prince watching their guests eat; the music rooms, the ball rooms, the portrait rooms, the art galleries.  There were plenty of chandeliers, Sevres vases and dishes, gold place settings, tapestries -- and lots of Royal guards.  In fact, we had to wait an hour at noon while the guards had their change for the afternoon and no one could leave the grounds until it was all over.s'

This was enough for Bos and me.  So we went back to the hotel to collapse while the Greensboro crew decided to go to the London Eye -- in the rain, sheets of rain persisting!  And their story was disappointing.  Their taxi dropped them off with a wave of the driver's hand who assured them, with the protests in front of the Parliament, they could walk -- in that horrid rain -- to the Eye.  So they trudged, soaking wet, for about a mile to finally get to the Eye -- where the skies were so cloudy they couldn't see the sights over London.

To get back to the hotel they had to sit in a taxi for over an hour while the driver was caught in that protest march.  But they did get back for Iris's "Tea", a very important event.  And, with the plethora of food, including champagne, it turned out this was our supper!!  What a delicious way to end a day!

Tomorrow it is the Tower of London private tour before it opens to the public.  I've been there 3 times before, so I am planning on yawning and rolling over, while the rest get up so early and I can relax.  More tomorrow!!

Jet LAG!!

It is 1:15 a.m. and here I sit, staring at the ceiling, walls, the dark of the apartment.  And I wonder why they call it "Jet Lag".  It seems to me it isn't lagging at all, but taking control of my life!  I have tried reading, humming, furnishing a mythical new house if I were building one (which I am not.)  And tomorrow, or more correctly later this morning, since it is already morning, we are supposed to be going to Buckingham Palace like all those other tourists.  Betsy says Iris is really looking forward to it, although the Queen has abandoned her palace for the North country, not wanting to see the swarms of people, waiting in the rain.

Today Iris got a lesson on curtseying to the Queen --how you never turn your back to a ruling monarch and you have to keep curtseying every once in a while as you back up.  But, at Hampton Court Palace, where she went today, she preferred the maze, which she tried to do with her daddy.  In the rain.  Without an umbrella.  Until Daddy said no more and found the way out.  On the way home, the guide David took her past Windsor castle, which she proclaimed was the biggest and best, although the Queen was not there either.

Jet Lag, oh Jet Lag.  When will you go away??  This middle of the night stuff is pretty frustrating!