travelogue fail
Well, I haven't done daily travelogues but I've been busy. Plus our lift broke down and by the time I climb five flights of stairs I just want to collapse and watch Damon leer at Elena.
It's supposed to be fixed tomorrow. It's been broken since Monday night. :P Last night, instead of going out to eat, we had breakfast for dinner.
Anyway...
London has finally cooled off! Really windy, though, which is just weird. And it rained for like four minutes as we hurried to the tube out at Kew. Cold, windy, wet. More typical. I really should have taken my cardy.
So, Tuesday, Wednesday and today were spent out at The National Archives at Kew. Our passes from three years ago are good through this Saturday so no need to take a horrible picture. I do like how technologically advanced and organized they are. You store all your stuff in a locker and carry your work material, camera, iPod (in my case), etc. in a plastic bag which you hand over to the guard each time you enter the reading room. You use a pass to swipe onto a computer and get a seat assignment in the reading room and order your documents which are then placed three at a time in a cubby with your seat number on it. Also, unlike most archives, you can take digital pictures. I've taken over 800. True, I err on the side of overly cautious since it's not my research, so anything about Americans in Britain during the war I snapped. The archive also has good lunches. Though I don't understand the need to put cherry tomatoes in mac & cheese. Yesterday was Cumberland sausage and mash potatoes. It's served with onion gravy but I forwent that. Today was Thai curry vegetables on rice.
I listened to my iPod which today gave me weird shuffles of mostly old country, gospel, and jazz/blues music.
To get there we take the tube. Yesterday we had a "severe delay due to signal failure" on the District Line which meant ten minutes...
*g*
Today's minor delay on the Piccadilly Line lasted all of ten seconds.
*g*
Today we left the archive about 3:30 instead of our normal 4:30 and it was amazing how there was no crush on the Piccadilly line--we actually got seats. I can stand, but my knees lock up after a while. I don't get at all how women can put on mascara--have seen two so far! Also a woman with her hair in rollers. *g*
Tuesday we had Tesco brand shepherd's pies and fresh peas for dinner. Yummy. Last night, as mentioned, we had breakfast--fried eggs, Old Spot Gloucester pork sausages, and toast. We've had Stilton every night--so damn good compared to the Stilton we can get at home. And I've kept up with most tv. Need to watch last night's CBS shows and Warehouse 13, though I may watch a couple more Vampire Diaries Season 1 tonight to wind down.
We went to the Persian restaurant and it was really good. Dad and I shared appetizers--lamb meatballs, and fried spinach in yogurt--and I had a salmon dish in a cucumber yogurt sauce with two kinds of rice. I also had crepes with rose water flavored bananas alongside saffron icecream. Yummmmy!
The play was just around the corner, across from last year's flat. It was "Million Dollar Quartet" based on a real event. In 1956 Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins all came together for a night at Sun Records in Memphis. Jerry Lee was a new signee, Elvis had been sold to RCA to keep Sun in business, and both Carl and Johnny had just signed with Columbia. Whether they made music or not, I don't know, but in the show they did 26 numbers. It was fantastic. Dad doesn't like musicals but he does like this music, especially Johnny Cash, so he agreed to go to it and he really had fun. The four actors actually played the instruments and really sounded like the originals. The guy playing Jerry Lee was fantastic at the piano. It was a great night.
And then we climbed the five floors. GACK
I do love staying right in the heart of the West End, though. The theater was five minutes walk away. In fact, there are two theaters right down our street.
Tomorrow I'm sleeping in, then going to the Natural History Museum while dad goes back to Kings College. We're just having "peel backs", prepared meals from the grocery. There's a wonderful bakery right down the street so I think I'll pick up some pastries for Saturday. On Saturday dad and I are going book window shopping--basically we drool over antiquarian books and jot down the titles of new books and then order them on Amazon. No way am I overloading my suitcase like I did last year with books and had to pay a heavy bag fee at the airport.
I can't believe how fast the week has gone! Darn vacations always speed along.
At least Saturday night I'll get to watch Merlin live. :)
Oh, my brother spent an hour on the phone with United and finally, hopefully, got everything straightened out with our tickets. He raised holy hell when he found out that basically I paid for an upgrade AND they took 3500 miles off his points twice. They guy told me it was $75. They took $550 off my cc! They have restored both the money and the miles AND they gave me an upgrade to first class on the Chicago to Kansas City leg. My brother told me (through an email to dad) that if they give me a hassle to step out of line, call him, and hand them the phone. He said I should have done that in KC and not trusted the idiot knew what he was doing. I told the counter guy there was a note on my "file" saying that this was all okay and he said there wasn't. This after my brother made sure there was.
Last time to fly United through my brother as his company switched to American. I'm convinced they're punishing him for no longer using them and being a super duper platinum plus guy. *g*
Now if American would just get the nearly flat pod beds in Business class...
Oh, and coming out of the restaurant tonight, we saw guys getting arrested. *g*
It's supposed to be fixed tomorrow. It's been broken since Monday night. :P Last night, instead of going out to eat, we had breakfast for dinner.
Anyway...
London has finally cooled off! Really windy, though, which is just weird. And it rained for like four minutes as we hurried to the tube out at Kew. Cold, windy, wet. More typical. I really should have taken my cardy.
So, Tuesday, Wednesday and today were spent out at The National Archives at Kew. Our passes from three years ago are good through this Saturday so no need to take a horrible picture. I do like how technologically advanced and organized they are. You store all your stuff in a locker and carry your work material, camera, iPod (in my case), etc. in a plastic bag which you hand over to the guard each time you enter the reading room. You use a pass to swipe onto a computer and get a seat assignment in the reading room and order your documents which are then placed three at a time in a cubby with your seat number on it. Also, unlike most archives, you can take digital pictures. I've taken over 800. True, I err on the side of overly cautious since it's not my research, so anything about Americans in Britain during the war I snapped. The archive also has good lunches. Though I don't understand the need to put cherry tomatoes in mac & cheese. Yesterday was Cumberland sausage and mash potatoes. It's served with onion gravy but I forwent that. Today was Thai curry vegetables on rice.
I listened to my iPod which today gave me weird shuffles of mostly old country, gospel, and jazz/blues music.
To get there we take the tube. Yesterday we had a "severe delay due to signal failure" on the District Line which meant ten minutes...
*g*
Today's minor delay on the Piccadilly Line lasted all of ten seconds.
*g*
Today we left the archive about 3:30 instead of our normal 4:30 and it was amazing how there was no crush on the Piccadilly line--we actually got seats. I can stand, but my knees lock up after a while. I don't get at all how women can put on mascara--have seen two so far! Also a woman with her hair in rollers. *g*
Tuesday we had Tesco brand shepherd's pies and fresh peas for dinner. Yummy. Last night, as mentioned, we had breakfast--fried eggs, Old Spot Gloucester pork sausages, and toast. We've had Stilton every night--so damn good compared to the Stilton we can get at home. And I've kept up with most tv. Need to watch last night's CBS shows and Warehouse 13, though I may watch a couple more Vampire Diaries Season 1 tonight to wind down.
We went to the Persian restaurant and it was really good. Dad and I shared appetizers--lamb meatballs, and fried spinach in yogurt--and I had a salmon dish in a cucumber yogurt sauce with two kinds of rice. I also had crepes with rose water flavored bananas alongside saffron icecream. Yummmmy!
The play was just around the corner, across from last year's flat. It was "Million Dollar Quartet" based on a real event. In 1956 Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins all came together for a night at Sun Records in Memphis. Jerry Lee was a new signee, Elvis had been sold to RCA to keep Sun in business, and both Carl and Johnny had just signed with Columbia. Whether they made music or not, I don't know, but in the show they did 26 numbers. It was fantastic. Dad doesn't like musicals but he does like this music, especially Johnny Cash, so he agreed to go to it and he really had fun. The four actors actually played the instruments and really sounded like the originals. The guy playing Jerry Lee was fantastic at the piano. It was a great night.
And then we climbed the five floors. GACK
I do love staying right in the heart of the West End, though. The theater was five minutes walk away. In fact, there are two theaters right down our street.
Tomorrow I'm sleeping in, then going to the Natural History Museum while dad goes back to Kings College. We're just having "peel backs", prepared meals from the grocery. There's a wonderful bakery right down the street so I think I'll pick up some pastries for Saturday. On Saturday dad and I are going book window shopping--basically we drool over antiquarian books and jot down the titles of new books and then order them on Amazon. No way am I overloading my suitcase like I did last year with books and had to pay a heavy bag fee at the airport.
I can't believe how fast the week has gone! Darn vacations always speed along.
At least Saturday night I'll get to watch Merlin live. :)
Oh, my brother spent an hour on the phone with United and finally, hopefully, got everything straightened out with our tickets. He raised holy hell when he found out that basically I paid for an upgrade AND they took 3500 miles off his points twice. They guy told me it was $75. They took $550 off my cc! They have restored both the money and the miles AND they gave me an upgrade to first class on the Chicago to Kansas City leg. My brother told me (through an email to dad) that if they give me a hassle to step out of line, call him, and hand them the phone. He said I should have done that in KC and not trusted the idiot knew what he was doing. I told the counter guy there was a note on my "file" saying that this was all okay and he said there wasn't. This after my brother made sure there was.
Last time to fly United through my brother as his company switched to American. I'm convinced they're punishing him for no longer using them and being a super duper platinum plus guy. *g*
Now if American would just get the nearly flat pod beds in Business class...
Oh, and coming out of the restaurant tonight, we saw guys getting arrested. *g*