Canterbury Cathedral - Wednesday, 16 December

Gargoyles on the Cathedral: Spent most of the day touring the Cathedral – there were very helpful volunteers circulating the facility with information about the history and background. There was an interesting, very modern sculpture on the wall, so I asked a volunteer about it. He told me it was a memorial to Thomas Becket and that it was full of symbolism about the number of guards who struck the blows, etc. He explained in detail the whole event and showed me where everything took place, including the cloister where they chased him into the cathedral, ending up at the spot in the transept where we were standing, the exact location where Becket was killed. The candle on the floor marks the location of Thomas Becket’s shrine until it was demolished and removed during the Reformation by order of Henry VIII: I also heard a chamber group from the University of Kent rehearsing in the nave for that evening's annual winter concert. I later stopped in the office for the Save Canterbury Cathedral fund, which is in the process of raising 40 million pounds for badly needed preservation and restoration of stained glass and structural elements of the building. They had a couple of sections from one of the huge windows on display: I then went to the Roman Museum, an underground exhibit of the ruins of an ancient Roman house that were found under the city streets during a construction project. The ruins of the Roman town date to around 70 CE, but here is a glass flask that was also on display. It was found during the draining of a nearby lake and dates from the 4th century:

The Crab & Winkle Way - Tuesday, 15 December

Now that I've been home for a while, I'll try to finish this trip journal...

On Tuesday, I hired (rented) a bike to ride out to the seaside city of Whitstable to the north, anticipating fresh seafood at some local pub on the bay. The route is called the Crab & Winkle Way, and is a 7 mile walking/bicycling path that runs in part along an old railway track. It was originally the old salt road that the Romans used for transporting salt from the bay to the city. It is now route 1 on Britain’s National Cycle Network.

The Crab & Winkle Way through Clowes Wood:

I had gotten a nice guide to the route from the visitor center and stopped frequently to read about the area (and accidentally get off the route a bit in the University of Kent neighborhoods). About three miles out from Canterbury, I stopped at a little country church and visited with a couple of men doing some repair work on the inside.

The Parish Church of St. Cosmus and St. Damian in the Blean:


Turns out the church was built in 1233. They were very talkative and understandably proud of the history of their church and gave me a nice tour of the inside. One of them also explained how the exterior walls were set with pieces of knapped flint, which forms in the chalk – a construction technique I had seen frequently, but couldn’t figure out.

Church wall detail

I wandered around the grounds taking pictures when I started to see tiny snowflakes. By the time I got to Whitstable it was really coming down, so I just turned around and raced back to Canterbury. It was a nice ride for most of the afternoon, though, past farmer’s fields and through ancient woodlands. And blowing snow.


Returned the bike and had a bite to eat and warmed up a bit. I had met a sax player busking holiday songs on the high street as I walked to the bike shop. We talked for a bit about the jazz that had come from Canterbury in the past, and he recommended a club in town that evening, so I went out to hear “Swamp Duck”. It was pretty standard blues (Tuesday is blues night at the club), but the musicianship was pretty good.

Canterbury - Monday, 14 December

Had breakfast, updated the blog, finished packing up, and got to station about 10 minutes before the train left – after stopping at Camino again for another Valor on the way. It was sure convenient to be so close to the train.

It turned out it was only the second day of service for this high speed train, although it had been in trials for a few weeks. Not many people on the train, and since it was new, it was very clean. I was even interviewed on the train by a French TV crew (I may be famous in Paris!). It was a nice ride out – reached speeds of 140 mph and went through 3 large tunnels, an especially long one at the start. A very sunny day out in the countryside with some low clouds and fog drifting around – lots of green fields once we got away from the city. Listened to Richard Sinclair (one of my favorite bass players from Canterbury bands Caravan/Hatfield and the North/Camel) on the mp3 player on the way out. Canterbury music has an incredible amount of nostalgia for me...

Walked from the train station to the Pilgrim’s Hotel within the walls of the old city – only about a 10 minute walk and I had no problem finding the place. Much colder out here than in the city. Very nice, very small, loft ceiling room on the 2nd floor (our third floor), with tight stairs and hallway to get up to it. I could see the Cathedral above the rooftops from my room.

Had lunch in the Boho Café out on the High Street, the main street through the city center (the majority of the city center is pedestrianised and very nice, with cobbled streets and crowds of people constantly – it reminded me of the crowds in another tourist town – downtown Sedona). Broccoli and stilton soup and chicken livers with bacon in wine sauce on brown toast – very good, but rich. Friendly staff and funky, cluttered little hippie-like restaurant. Got some live music recommendations from the barista/host.

High Street:


Went to the visitor center to get a map of the city and find out about river rides on the Stour, which runs through town and into the countryside – sometimes they do it in winter, but there has been so much rain that the river is up and boats can’t get under the bridges easily, so no boat trips for a while.

Stour River:


Also checked on tours of the west tower – only on Saturdays in winter, unless there is a large group – the woman recommended I check with the Canterbury Museum to see if there is a large tour planned, so I headed over there next. A tour on Friday, at which time I will be back in London. :-(

Walked around town and looked in shops. Found a little indoor market with a cd booth which contained a section called “Canterbury Scene”. Turned out the owner grew up in Canterbury and was friends with a lot of the local musicians to whom I have always listened. We spend a good deal of time talking about Caravan, Soft Machine, Hatfield, Gong and the places around town where they played (the host at the hotel had never heard of the Canterbury music scene – but he was only in his 20’s…). He also told me about the funeral of his close friend, bassist Hugh Hopper, who died this year. Hugh evidently used to come in the shop quite often and ran it when the owner was away.

By the time we finished visiting it had gotten dark and quite cold (only about 4:30), so I went back to the hotel and put a t-shirt on under my cord shirt and got out my gloves and scarf. I headed back out and wandered around town. High Street was lit up with blue lights strung back and forth overhead and in trees and there were still quite a few people milling about. Walked around the Cathedral – as I walked through the gates the size of the building was stunning. It was beautiful lit up in the night. It had closed at 5, but you could still walk around the perimeter. There was some kind of night bird singing in the trees by the east end.

I planned to stop in at the Cricketers, a pub on High Street owned by the drummer from Caravan, but I was very tired and headed back to the room. Watched some British TV for a bit – a nice, small HD television mounted on the wall on a swivel so you could move it out of the way to get to the desk and back side of the bed. To bed about 10 after local news and Britain’s evening soaps, Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

Sunday, 13 December

Thoughts in the middle of the night: how many people (including the little germ factories we call children) had put their eyes on those microscopes in the gallery, and when had the scopes last been cleaned or disinfected, if ever? Was all my new panic about hand-washing so I don’t get a cold before or during the trip for nothing? Oh well…I have to have something to worry about.

Ate breakfast shortly after they opened at 8, showered and headed out to Kings Cross once again to try to find my train and ticket. Got in line at a ticket window and was told there is no high speed line to Canterbury from that station, but there are regular trains from three other locations around London on the National Line. Which has ticket counters in St. Pancras. Aargh. So I bought an Oyster card for the Tube and headed back over to St. Pancras. (Oyster is a refillable card for the tube that you just scan at the gates as you enter and exit – you only get charged an amount up to a day pass no matter how much you travel.) I went back to last night’s info desk and the guy there this morning said that it does in fact run out of this station and I can get tickets from the counter right next door to the info desk. The first clerk I got tried to issue me a ticket on his hand held device, but it wouldn’t find the train, so he sent me over to a regular clerk behind a window. I was beginning to think I would never find a way out to Canterbury, but she was able to get me a ticket right away. Afterwards, I went up to the tracks to make sure everything really was correct and told the ticket agent what a difficult time I was having finding the train. He said “yes we’ve hidden it very well - it is the English mentality and way of doing things”.

Regent's Canal walk



So I finally got on the tube and found my way out to Warwick Avenue and started on a walk along the Regent’s Canal that I found in the Eyewitness Travel book. The walk started in Little Venice, a fairly upscale neighborhood where a lot of people moor and live on their canal boats. A very nice walk, and the weather looked like it would be a bit cool, but nice – ended up drizzling on and off, but not too heavily.

A small French restaurant perched over the canal:



Lots of joggers, bikes, and other walkers along the old towpath, which eventually meandered through Regent’s Park and the London Zoo, next to the aviary designed by Lord Snowdon.



At this point, the tour instructions directed walkers away from the canal and up to the top of Primrose Hill for a view of the city. I had gone a little further along the canal than the directions in the book, but managed to find the way back. Beautiful view, with a plaque which showed landmark buildings. I took a photo for a couple of students (from Italy and Colombia) and they took one of me:



Then it started to drizzle as I headed down the hill. Luckily, I had bought an umbrella at Boots before leaving St. Pancras and opened it up. Turned out to be the absolutely flimsiest umbrella I have ever seen, but it kept me dry.

Before I continued on the walk, I went into the neighborhoods to try to find the Museum of Everything, which I had read about in the Guardian. Walked up and down the streets it was supposed to be on but couldn’t find it and nobody at the little open air market knew where it was. Finally a local woman coming out of her house directed me to where she had seen a sign and, sure enough, there it was, tucked away between a couple of buildings. From the outside it looked like a little hole in the wall gallery, but once you got inside, there was a maze of room after odd little room filled with unusual art. There were directional signs with arrows in the hallways that said “Something”, “Another Thing” (and “Nothing” for a room that wasn’t open to the public). Then I heard a couple in front of me laugh in amazement at the next room - you turn a corner and there are stairs going down into a huge, high ceilinged room with its walls covered with paintings, assemblages, and several floor to ceiling biro drawings. There were a couple of benches opposite with small binoculars on strings so you could look at the upper portions of the pieces. I couldn’t quite remember the details about the place, just that I wanted to see it, and it was amazing. It opened in October and is self-described as “London’s first ever space for artists and creators living outside our modern society”. From an article in TimeOut: “Hermit, hobo, medium, savant, autistic schizophrenic- just some of the descriptions applied to the creators of the 200 extraordinary works … The artists represented here are all outsiders; untrained individuals, often socially marginalised and psychologically fragile, whose drive to create powerful, fantastical drawings, paintings, objects and texts using whatever materials are at hand, comes purely from an obsessive need to manifest their often troubled inner feelings and experiences.” The place is a former dairy, then recording studio. Overwhelming. No photography allowed, unfortunately. http://www.museumofeverything.com/

It was 3:00 when I left the Museum and got started back on the path and I was beginning to get hungry. Luckily, within a few minutes, I ended up at the Camden Market, jammed with tented vendors of everything imaginable, along with an array of small stores. I bought a Venezuelan arepa, a cornbread pocket sandwich filled with grilled eggplant, peppers, and onions. They cook the cornbread on a griddle – delicious:



Grabbed a mocha from a vendor from Poland, visited with a couple of young women from Turkey in one of the regular stores in the Market. Jammed with people and everyone was friendly. It started raining pretty hard for a bit and everyone ducked under awnings and into shops. I realized that London is reminding me of BajaProg: you might start talking with someone and not have any idea what language they may speak, or if they even speak English.

I had found a link to the London Canal Museum on the web and had downloaded an mp3 audio guide to a walk along the Regent’s Canal from Camden to the area near the hotel, so I plugged the headphones in and started off on this stretch. Conveniently, this is where the guidebook’s tour ended. It was starting to get dark, but there was plenty of ambient light off the low clouds over the city. This section of the tour was very interesting, because there are a series of locks and the audio guide did a good job of explaining them and the history of the area.

Upper Camden lock:



Just after I had heard the section about the locks, I saw a boatman pulling into one of them, so I ran up and watched. We visited while it was emptying and he told me that he had bought the boat recently for 700 pounds and was in the process of fitting it out to live on (it was a former working boat). He didn’t even have a permanent place to dock; evidently, you can just find open docks up and down the canal and stay for up to 2 weeks in one place, like camping in National Forests.

Rope cuts in metal bridge guards, worn from hundreds of years of canal boats' tow ropes:


On the way back to the hotel, I stopped off at a Spanish restaurant, Camino, that was just around the corner from the hotel for another one of London’s top hot cocoas: a Hot Chocolate “Valor”. Amazing. Nothing but very good quality Spanish cocoa steamed into milk until it is a thick, dark, almost pudding-like consistency. Extremely rich – only about a half of a cup was more than enough.

Did some internet reading about London and checked email in the lobby before heading up to bed. A woman from the sandwich shop next door brought in a couple of baguettes that didn’t sell before they closed and the desk clerk gave me one. Very good late night meal (after my hot cocoa dessert), then I headed up to bed.

Last night I had looked out the window in the middle of the night and noticed a couple of pigeons roosting in the bare plane tree, just above the busy streets. I looked out again tonight and there they were again. Guess that’s home.

12 December - Saturday

You thought yesterday’s entry was long? Here goes:

Got a wake up call at 7:00 (after waking at 2:30, then finally falling back to sleep at 6) and went down to breakfast. Very nice, but small breakfast room in the basement under the lobby. Sausage, ham, corn flakes, beans, canned tomatoes, trays full of eggs - over easy and scrambled, and some kind of yellow, Tang-like juice drink. And bottles of Daddies Favorite brown sauce on the tables – very good. A couple of housekeepers were working the breakfast and one brought me a couple of pieces of toast, marmalade, and a little teapot of coffee – instant, but ok.

Evidently, it drizzled in the early hours – it was still a bit cloudy, but looked like it would break up. I put the news on – they take emails from viewers like PHX channels – they had a news article and interviews about how some people hate self checkout at grocery stores. I guess fluff news programs are everywhere. And the look of the morning news shows seem to be identical to Good Morning America. No Sarah Palin, but Tiger Woods’ infidelity was also on the news constantly… Only 5 channels on the tv in the hotel - Saturday morning cartoons and kids’ programs on a couple of channels, just like the US. And one channel was showing reruns of Friends.

Completed yesterday’s journal, transferred photos from the camera, foldered and named them, and updated the blog. Visited with the Italian/British woman working the desk – all of the desk staff speaks Italian and the chain of 4 or 5 hotels is owned by an Italian family. I showered and started out on the day’s activities. Even though the sun was out and it looked warm, it was colder than it looked, so I went back to the hotel and put the liner in my jacket. After another false start (I had left my credit card on my desk in the room after I ordered a ticket for a free jazz concert on the 17th), I got started back out.

Stopped at Pret a Manger near Russell Square and grabbed a brie, cranberry, pistachio, and lettuce sandwich and a triple layer chocolate mousse. (Pret is a nice sandwich/ soup chain throughout the city – I’ve already passed several as I have been walking. Very reasonable prices and interesting looking selection. Wish we had fast food like it.) Stuffed the mousse container into my coat pocket and ate half of the sandwich as I walked along, then stopped at the Russell Square park fountain and sat on a bench to finish.

Foot traffic started to pick up and soon I was in the West End - incredibly crowded with tourists, especially when compared to the smaller, more local crowds around Camden. Walked to Leicester Square to look for the half price theatre ticket booth and was almost there when it started to drizzle. I ducked under an awning with the rest of the crowd and it turned out to be the ticket booth (and the theatre was right across the street). Got in line, but found out that for An Inspector Calls they only release unsold tickets on the day of the show. They had gotten some for tonight, so he figured that they would get some next Saturday as well. They were showing clips from some of the shows on the video displays and I saw one for War Horse. The girl in line behind me said she’d like to see it, but it will probably be real expensive due to its popularity. The clip looked stunning – puppeteers operate several large horse figures. I’m glad I thought it would be too expensive, because it would have been too wrenching for me to sit through – I get choked up thinking of the video and photos. From the brochure: “At the outbreak of WWI, Joey, young Albert’s beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. He’s soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself in no man’s land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home”.

I started out back to the Museum and was about a block away when it started to rain again. I hadn’t put the hood on the jacket, since it is hot hanging down on my upper back and it didn’t even look cloudy when I started out, so I looked for a shop to duck into. I noticed a gallery with a show called I Spy With My Little Eye – it was a new show by Willard Wigan, who does the tiny sculptures in eyes of needles that were going around the internet a couple of years ago (google him if you want to be blown away). He was even in the shop for the afternoon signing copies of his new book. I was amazed at my luck, because I had been fascinated with the pieces when I saw them on the internet. It turns out that, like the Grand Canyon on a vastly different scale, photographs cannot convey the wonder of his art. An amazing exhibit – each sculpture was set up in its own special case to be viewed under the attached microscope. Some of the “larger” pieces – and by large, I mean they were constructed on heads of pins! – only needed high-powered magnifying glasses to be seen. There was even a piece by his brother – 3 poems about Willard’s art (in miniature print, with a magnifying glass provided for reading – the poems looked like plain lines on a piece of paper until magnified, at which point you could make out the letters and words). Wigan even uses pieces of spider web in his pieces, sometimes to suspend an object within the eye of the needle, sometimes woven into ropes. I ended up buying a copy of the book and visiting with him for a bit – very nice, interesting man – we talked about the parallels in macro and micro scale in the universe. He told me he likes Los Angeles and is planning to move there soon. I told him to come to AZ and see the Canyon – the detail is on such a different, immense scale, but related. He said maybe he would do a microscopic Grand Canyon.

Got to the Museum and spent a lot of time just wandering around the central Great Court - the largest covered public square in Europe. This totem pole will give an idea of the scale:



It is a two-acre display and restaurant space enclosed by a glass roof. The canopy was designed by computer and was constructed out of 3,312 panes of glass, no two of which are the same. A view of the dome:



Some of the sculptures in the Great Court took my breath away.



Among other things, I also saw exhibits of Etruscan mirrors and tombs like we saw in Tarquinia, Italy; the Rosetta Stone; a display on Ancient Levant (the area of the eastern Mediterranean beginning around 7500 BC – ceramic human figure statuary from 5000 BC were on display); and the Parthenon Sculptures (formerly called the Elgin Marbles, they are the sculptures that were “stolen” from Greece by Lord Elgin).

I headed back to the hotel, then up to Islington on foot – only about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. Found the O2 Academy, where the concert was to take place. I had looked at the entire route from home using google street view, so I knew exactly how to get to the location, but couldn’t see the entrance, box office, or anything that looked like an 800 seat concert venue. It turned out to be within a large 3 story open air shopping pavillion and couldn’t be seen from the google van. It wasn’t obvious even when I got there – I had to ask at the Marriott next door to the mall. There were already 3 people waiting who had queued up 3 ½ hours before the doors were to open, including a guy from Iran with whom I visited for a bit.

Finally, I took off to find something to eat, but first had to find something more important - Paul A. Young Chocolates (http://www.paulayoung.co.uk/). I had read an article during my advance planning that reviewed the best hot chocolate in London and this was one of the top rated places. Bought a cup of hot chocolate - made with a blend of 70% dark chocolate, 100% cocoa powder, organic unrefined muscovado sugar and water (to avoid the additional flavoring introduced by milk), then simmered for a long time. I wanted to use my Visa card, but they would only allow it for purchases over 5 pounds, so I had to buy a couple of truffles, too. I decided on two of their Christmas collection: Sea-salted roast hazelnut and sage/chestnut. They were actually very mildly flavored, but good. It was tough forcing myself to eat all that chocolate, but I suffered through it.

I figured I had better eat something real, so I asked the clerk at Paul Young for a recommendation for a vegetarian restaurant nearby and she told me about VEG, an Asian buffet, so that’s where I headed next. Pretty good, but a lot of imitation meat-type seitan and tofu dishes. I would just prefer creatively prepared vegetable recipes that don’t try to imitate meat.

Headed down to the IQ concert and got in the queue. Standing next to me was a guy from Switzerland and we had a good conversation about music while waiting. The doors opened right at 7 and the band came on promptly at 7:30, as promised (the tickets said “10:00 curfew”, evidently so the place can have their own “club night” after the concert). There was no seating and I was early enough to get about four layers of people away from the front of the stage- right behind a couple of Spaniards and next to a German. Very international fan base. The concert was quite good, but, like any show in a bar, marred by rude drunks pushing their way to the stage, spilling their beers on anyone in the way. And singing along, usually out of tune, at the top of their inebriated lungs. The band played for 2 hours straight, then came back out for 15 minutes of an encore. The first 4 band members who came back out had all put on Santa hats, but the guitarist didn’t come out with them. Finally, he came out, and had changed from his jeans and black T-Rex Electric Warrior t-shirt into white levis and t-shirt with big white angel wings strapped to his back (something that he did at last year’s holiday bash).
Very good, tight show. If you want to get an idea of what IQ’s music is like, check out their MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/iquk) and listen to the excerpt from the song Sacred Sound – the other songs are from their very early albums from the 80’s – pretty dated and not very representative of their current sound.

Back in the room I downloaded photos from the camera and foldered and labeled them, and worked a bit plotting out tomorrow’s activities. Ran across the street to St. Pancras International to purchase or at least check on where to get tix for the brand new high speed train to Canterbury, also mentioned in the Guardian. But the guy at the info desk (at the complete opposite end of the station from the hotel) told me that train runs from the King’s Cross station. When I got over to Kings Cross (it is right across the street, but St. Pancras is huge, so it took a while) there were no service counters open and the only access to tickets was via kiosks, so I decided to wait and talk to a human the following day. My humor moment for the day: walking through the station, I overheard a drunken woman, stumbling off the tube elevator, announcing to someone on the other end of her cell phone (but also to the entire surrounding crowd) that she was at St. “Pancreas”.

Stopped at Boots the Chemist (as ubiquitous in UK as Walgreen’s) to pick up an assortment of British snacks: Walkers Paprika Flavour Potato Crisps (tasted ok – like our barbecue chips), an Eat Natural bar (with cranberries, macadamias, and dark chocolate – very good), KitKat Chunky and Senses bars (don’t know what they are, yet), Shapers chocolate mint nougat bar, and Cadbury WispaGold bar (“the Wispa you love with a cheeky caramel layer” – Wispa bars are aerated chocolate bars like you can get from World Market). Hey - it’s research – I want the local experience – but really I want to also have something to nibble on while I’m on my walks without having to stop and track something down or pay ridiculous prices for something at a tourist trap or expensive local shop. And last night I woke up hungry in the night and don’t want to repeat it tonight.

Back to the room to work on my journal a bit, then edit it down for the blog. I don’t want to bore people with every little thing – and yes, there’s a lot more in m version! I just know that I have such a bad long-term memory, and this is a good way to supplement it. I tried the paprika crisps and Natural bar, drink an Airborne out of my new, red IQ coffee mug, then to bed shortly before 1:30. I wanted to go down to the lobby and try to chat with AJ – it was 6:30 in AZ), but I was exhausted. I ended up waking up about 4:30 and couldn’t really get back to sleep at all. This is a pattern I remember from our cruise – I’m thinking too much about has happened during the day and trying to anticipate and plan for what is to come. Well, better this than thinking about what I have to do at work, which is my usual pattern at home when I wake in the middle of the night.

London, December 11

Left Phoenix at 1:00 pm on Thursday, arrived in London on Friday morning at around 10:00. Nice, uneventful flights over, but as we arrived at London, we were briefly put into a holding pattern due to weather. At one point the captain announced that there had also been a security incident aboard the plane and once we landed we would need to stay in our seats until the officials had come through. The woman sitting next to me said, mainly in jest, “oh great - if it's terrorists, NOW is when they'll do something”. It turned out a kid had been getting stoned in a restroom…

Rode the Piccadilly Tube line in to the hotel - about an hour ride. I got a kick out of a sign I saw several times showing a blurry stick figure falling on electrified train tracks, reading “Take care after drinking alcohol”.

I realized that in the last 48 hours I have only gotten about 7 hours sleep in 2 and 3 hour increments. I had gotten to bed late before we left Flagstaff, and had only slept in bits on the planes, travelling for 22 hours from home to the hotel.

My room wasn’t ready, but I checked in, left my bags, and went for a walk through the neighborhoods south of the hotel.

Ate lunch at O’Neill’s Irish Pub across the road from St. Pancras station (fronted by the huge, ornate Midland Grand Hotel, opened in 1874, now in the process of renovation). I noticed their window menu included Guiness battered fish and chips (with tartare sauce and mushy peas). I had been told by a friend that I had to have fish and chips while I was in England, so that was my first meal in the UK (thanks for the recommendation, John).

Midlands Grand Hotel facade from my hotel room:

After dinner, I checked into the hotel, then went to the British Library, right down the street. Beautiful building with a 5 story atrium surrounding the “King’s Library” – a floor to ceiling, glass-walled column filled with shelves of ancient books. There were amazing documents displayed in their “Treasures of the British Library” gallery: Gutenberg Bible, Magna Carta, music scores by Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, some pages of Da Vinci’s notes, ancient maps, and examples of Asian printing from the 700’s – the earliest examples of the printed word. I was amazed by the detail in the Lindisfarne Gospels’ illuminations. There was even a display case full of handwritten lyrics by the Beatles. The Library has a tour of their conservation department on Thursday afternoons, so I’m planning on coming back for that.

The sun had set by this time (6:00 pm), but I walked around the area north of Euston Road for a while. Ended up walking through the beautiful St. Pancras Station, the main terminal for Eurostar services to Europe – an incredible Victorian building, filled with shoppes on the floor underneath the station.

I was exhausted, so I went to bed at 8:30 or 9, but woke up about 2:30 am due to jet lag and the excitement of being here… I booted up the laptop, saw Allen was online, so we chatted for a bit, then I worked on my plans for the next few days before I could get back to sleep.

New Travels to Europe

Since I am on my way to Europe once again, I've resurrected the travel blog. Hopefully, I will be at least a little more faithful about keeping it up. All of my hotels promise wireless internet access, so that should help...

This is what I am leaving - the remnants of our December blizzard:


This is usually a view of the San Francisco Peaks from my office window (taken Monday, December 7):


And now the weather report said London might get snow on Tuesday...

Finally getting a chance to update:

Tuesday, June 7 was Allen's birthday. We spent the day on Rhodes exploring the ancient walled city and walking through the old moat outside the castle walls. We also visited the 3rd century Doric ruins of Kamiros. In the evening, we had a performance of chamber music by a string quartet made up of students from the Royal Academy of Music.

Wednesday was spent on Crete and included an excursion to an extensive Doric hillside ruin called Lato and the Minoan site of Pyrgos on the south side of the island, dating back to 2800 BC.

Thursday we spent another day at sea, with 5 more lectures, another workout in the ship's gym, then relaxing in the sauna and large hot tub on the 9th floor at the bow. One of the lecturers showed some archival film of the WWII siege of Malta in preparation for Friday's arrival in Valletta.

We also have a classical guitarist on board along with a lounge pianist, and a dance band from Hungary (you can't imagine hearing YMCA and Tom Jones' Sex Bomb with a Hungarian accent). Also, a lounge jazz band which is described as having a "rat-pack look". I don't know what that means, but the singer does a good job of imitating Sinatra. We also had a performance of the Ramayana by Indonesian crew members.

My last entry ended up costing me 5.56 euros, due to slow internet and questions about how to use the computers by some of the other, elderly travellers, so I will cut this off now. I'm not even going to try to download photos - I'll set up a photo site when we get home.

More later, but it's time to go out and get some sun and watch the coast of Sardegna approach.

Ciao.