London -- Sept. 9 & 10, 2010

Margaret and Brian drove Aprel and me to Southampton Thursday morning, Aprel to catch the National Express bus to Heathrow and me to catch the train to London. Aprel left earlier so Brian, Margaret, and I had the chance for coffee overlooking the docks. Unfortunately, there were no interesting ocean liners in port.

Train left and arrived on time. Juggled luggage from train to tube, including a change; arrived at Gloucester Road and walked the block to the hotel. My room is a typical single -- very small and stuck in next to the stairway door. My view overlooks the air conditioning units and brick walls. Given that the front of the building is on Cromwell Road which is very busy, the back may be preferable. Anyway, I won't be spending a lot of time here. And the tub is huge; definitely need to find time to take a long, soaking, bath.

After organizing a bit, I took off on a walk. Decided to see if I could get tickets to a Proms concert at Royal Albert Hall, which I did -- for tonight's performance. So I went to the "second to the" Last Night at the Proms. -- Not quite the same, but. . . .

After buying the ticket I walked across Kensington Road at the Albert Memorial, quite amazingly pretentious,
and then through Hyde Park, checking out the birds lined up across The Serpentine, the Peter Pan statue, and lots of dogs being taken for walks.












Returned to the hotel to change clothes and then get back to the Royal Albert Hall for the concert. It was an enjoyable concert. The BBC Philharmonic, one of four BBC orchestras, performed Schubert, Schumann, Mozart, and a new piece by Robin Holloway who was in attendance. I doubt that a hundred or two hundred years from now any orchestras will be playing that piece. . . .

I sat next to a young man who, it turns out, sings in one of the BBC choruses (there are two) and did Beethoven's Ninth some weeks ago with the Minnesota Orchestra. It is a small world. He was quite complimentary about the conductor, Osmo Vanska, and thought the orchestra played extremely well, especially after a bad rehearsal. He will be singing on Saturday at the Last Night. He gave me a lot of information about the Proms and the BBC musical operation; apparently this year has been extremely successful.

Got back to the hotel about 10, but it took a long time to do blogs leftover from the Parish Holiday and get to bed. I was moving very slowly so didn't get to sleep until after 1:30 a.m.

But there I was on Friday morning, awake at 8 a.m. Again moved slowly so didn't get out of the room until 11 a..m. Took the tube to Westminster and walked along the Thames, crossing to the south side at the Hungerford Pedestrian Bridge, which is also a railroad bridge. There are good views back up the Thames to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
The Hungerford Bridge ends at the Royal Festival Hall which has an outdoor Thamesside cafe, with a view of the Millenium Pedestrian Bridge.
Had a little lunch and then walked on to Shakespeare's Globe Theater where I'd gotten tickets for a performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor. While I usually read a Shakespeare play before attending, obviously I couldn't -- and with this play which I've read and seen multiple times, it probably didn't matter. The play was performed well and was quite enjoyable.









When the play was finished, I went "next door" to the Tate Modern Museum and saw the exhibit, "Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera." I'd read about it somewhere, perhaps in Newsweek. It raised interesting questions and issues.
Had a wrap sandwich at the Museum and then walked across the Millenium Bridge I'd been looking at. It leads directly to St. Paul's Cathedral which, at 7 p.m., was of course closed but was still photogenic.
Took the subway back to the hotel arriving at 8 p.m. Nine hours of sightseeing on 6 hours of sleep isn't bad. . . . Tonight should involve more sleep (I hope).