London Eye

Kate sent me some photos from their visit. Here's one she might consider entering in the London Eye photo contest:



For that matter, she might enter this one of Flat Stanley and Thin Lizzy:



Still waiting for the prints from her Holga.

Last Day for my First Visitors

I stand corrected: It's Thin Lizzy with a y, like the band.

My visitors have (presumably) left by this point. It was great to have them here and sad to see them go. I'm sure Flat Stanley will miss having Thin Lizzy around too. Here they are with Matt in front of the Tower Bridge.

We had several aborted sightseeing attempts yesterday. We went down to the Tower Bridge and Tower of London, but decided not to go into either. Then we thought we'd see if we could go up in the 30 St. Mary Axe building, but they wouldn't let us. From there we headed to St. Paul's, but decided the admission price was too high (unless you're there for a service, you can't even go in and walk around without paying first) for that late in the day.

So we ended up at the British Museum. I love just walking into the British Museum. It's so beautiful. Here, Flat Stanley and Thin Lizzy (with some support from Matt) check out the Rosetta Stone. I learned that the Egyptian hieroglyphs consist of some phonetic components, followed by a picture. They had an example -- the word for cat is three phonetic symbols (which, together, make a sound like meow) followed by a picture of a cat.

After browsing through the Parthenon galleries, (this horse's head reminds me of The Godfather) we went to Chinatown for dinner before our second attempt to see some theatre in London. We were not plagued by power failure this time and had no trouble with our visit to the Criterion Theatre to see "The 39 Steps". Everyone enjoyed it, so I think it was a good choice after all.

After a week of beautiful weather in England (Briana was disappointed that she didn't get a chance to wear her new rain coat), the New Yorkers are heading home to a mid-April winter storm.

Introducing... Thin Lizzie!

Flat Stanley has a visitor too, and her name is Thin Lizzie. (Grandma keeps calling them Fat Stanley and Tin Lizzie.) Here they are, showing off their tickets to "Guys and Dolls". Unfortunately, we saw neither guys nor dolls.

The gang had spent the afternoon exploring the Tower of London. They had rushed out ("we didn't even get to see the Bloody Tower!") to grab some dinner before the show started at 7:30. I met up with them at a little Italian restaurant next door to the theatre.

We were hurriedly eating our dinner when the lights in our restaurant flickered and the power went out. It came right back on, but then we heard the faint ringing of an alarm, coming from the direction of the theatre. We laughed a bit nervously and hoped it wasn't a problem at the theatre.

Grandma started warning us that it was bad form on Broadway to show up late, so Barbara gulped down the tea she had just ordered and we got the check. A crowd was starting to gather outside, though it didn't look like an organized queue for the theatre. We went out and waited with everyone else to be let in. Standing in front of an Indian restaurant, we chatted unconcernedly. There was no way we would have known this milling crowd was unusual until the proprietor of the restaurant came to the door and asked if someone famous was nearby. When he heard that we were just waiting to get into the theatre, he said he had never seen this before. That's when we got worried.

Not long afterward, someone from the theatre came out and called for everyone's attention. It was hard to hear him in the open street, especially when he turned to face the other parts of the crowd. We heard him say something about a power loss. He was apparently pretty funny, as everyone kept laughing. They were going to try to put the show on, but it would be delayed; everyone should stay nearby and he'd come back and update us. Naturally a rush for the pub across the street ensued. We opted instead to return to our little Italian restaurant for dessert.

So we relaxed and enjoyed our dessert and waited for the inevitable. A little while later the same guy came out and apologized: They had to cancel the show.

Disappointed, we headed to Trafalgar Square. Here's a picture of Kate with Flat and Thin at this cool statue along the way. We decided it was reminiscent of the scene in the Lord of the Rings when Arwen gets the river to flood like a stampede of horses, trampling the Ring Wraiths. (This statue is actually a fountain, and is even more suggestive of this scene when the fountain is running.)

After hanging out in Trafalgar Square for a bit, we did as any good English person would. We went to a pub.

Easter Vigil at St. Paul's

I took Flat Stanley to the Easter Vigil service at St. Paul's Cathedral last night. We got there a few minutes early to get some pictures. The service started outside and here you can see folks starting to gather on the steps outside the cathedral.





Here's Flat Stanley with the famous dome of the cathedral in the background.






This is the back of the Queen Anne statue, where the service started. They had speakers set up so that, though those reading were standing in front of you, their voices came from over your shoulder and then reverberated around the enclave created by the surrounding buildings following the curves of the streets. The buses charging past and the tourists with their cell phone cameras detracted from the atmosphere. Fortunately, as we moved inside, folks were asked to put their cameras away. So, no photos of Flat Stanley taking part in the service.

The language of the service struck me as disturbingly militant. Outside, everyone gathers around a bonfire (well, a charcoal patio grill gone out of control) and listens to a reading of the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, "I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;/ horse and rider he has thrown into the sea... The Lord is a warrior;/ the Lord is his name." Later, the bishop said to the newly baptized, "Fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil". In his address (which was blessedly short, perhaps bearing in mind the unending line of confirmees to come), the bishop spoke of those joining the church as "being called up into action". It felt like an encouragement of this frightening "us against them" mentality, made even more potentially dangerous by leaving "us" and "them" open to interpretation.


Being a fan of Captain Aubrey and everything related, I was delighted to find myself sitting next to a statue with the above commemorative words chiseled underneath it.

Flat Stanley visits Scotland

Apparently, Eleni had a great time posing with Flat Stanley.


Here they are hanging out with some sheep on a Scottish plain in front of an old and crusty castle.


Stan shows off this great view of Edinburgh.


Eleni and Flat, enjoying Edinburgh castle.


Stanley's no different from any other tourist in Europe. He can visit churches with the best of them.


Here's my favourite. Flat scopes out some new duds.

Kudos and many thanks to Severine, who has again been an excellent tour guide for my little paper visitor.

Update

Where, you ask, is Flat Stanley? After dancing with the druids, he had been planning to spend some time in Regent Street and Leicester Square. I was supposed to get him back from Severine last night when I met up with her and a couple of other friends from our Chinese class for dinner. But it turns out that Severine is a much better Flat Stanley host than I; she's now taking him to Scotland next week!

I should be flat and made out of paper.

Stonehenge

I haven't been to Stonehenge yet, but Flat Stanley has! My friend Severine mentioned last week that she would be taking a trip out there, so I asked her to bring him along. Here he is, in front of Stonehenge in windy but otherwise lovely spring weather.




They also visited Salisbury cathedral. Looks like Flat Stanley enjoyed his first sightseeing trip in England.

I got a Flat Stanley!

Flat Stanley arrived safely last night after a long and tiresome but uneventful journey. He's still a bit jetlagged and cramped from the flight, but hopefully he'll straighten out soon.

I can't wait to take him around London, but I'm afraid Sarah may have overestimated the excitement of my life here. Her class might be disappointed when he comes back with a series of photos alternating between Flat Stanley at my office and Flat Stanley at the pub across the street from my office (where hopefully he can avoid the dreaded fate of being used as a coaster, or "drink mat" as they say here). Actually, last week at the pub we met a guy who does origami, a hobby that must really put the fear of God into a fellow like Flat.