Harriet's Recital

We came up to Hayward this weekend to watch Harriet's dance recital.  The only problem was that her act came in the second half of the show.  Yikes.  The first half had 44 different dances and three slide presentations.  We had a great time anyhow.  Harriet is really quite good! She has pizzazz!

This evening as a celebration we went to a buffet Chinese/Japanese restaurant.  It is in Hayward and is an all you can eat place -and- really reasonable.  Beyond that it's on the 2nd floor of a building with great window views of Hayward.  OK it's not San Francisco, but the sunset was lovely.

Here's some views of the pre-recital wait and the recital itself.

AN UPDATE IN VANCOUVER

We left LA at 9 and got to Vancouver by 11:30.  Easy flight.  Glenn met us at the airport, and we drove to his house.  Our first day, we walked up to Broadway and had lunch at the Banana Leaf, a Mallasian restaurant.  Later, we went to Tattilow Park and Kayley played on the slides. She's gotten so much better in the last six months.  She can really climb up all sorts of ladders and had no problem with slides - huge change.  For dinner we walked up and got sushi at a great place on Broadway and Balaclava.

Tuesday,  after breakfast, we drove over to Grenville Island.  Our original goal was to replace our daily tea pot that has had a bit of a difficult time of it recently (broken lid).  We also had a goal of buying groceries for dinner Tuesday night and Wednesday.  While Kayley and Krystie went to the children's park, Charlie and I stomped around finding things on the shopping list.  There were the largest cherries I have ever seen. We got some, hard not to, a pyramid of monster cherries is really a draw.  We found Kayley and Krysty later.

We had lunch at Grenville at the "Juice Shop".  They have Vietnamese wraps with smoked salmon (my special Grenville Island treat), they also had some salads which were delicious.

When Kayley went down for her nap, Charlie and I walked back to Broadway.  We first stopped at the tea shop and got some of their great English Breakfast Tea.  We also stopped at Safeway for more supplies.  I made orange chicken for dinner - great day.

Yesterday, we went to Bloeddell Conservatory.  Kayley chased around the circular route, and we watched birds.  After our chase around the interior paths, on the way back to the car, Kayley had a bit of a splash in the fountain.  It really is a great fountain.

We then went to a vegetarian Indian restaurant.  Delicious lunch.  And we picked up samosas for dinner.

During Kayley nap time, Charlie and I, again, tromped up to Broadway.  This time we stopped at the children's bookstore, then we picked up wine and beer for dinner.

At 5 Jim and Christie Tiempo came for dinner.  Glenn had cooked up a portabello mushroom dish and a barbequed chicken.  Both were really wonderful.  We had the samosas as well.  That was a GREAT indian restaurant, they were great.  Glenn made flan for dessert - he's good at that too.

Thursday, today, we went up to Glenn and Krystie's.  I walked Holly first thing (it's kind of my morning routine).  I'll finish our day later.

LONDON - FULL DAY OF STOMPING

We got up this morning and had a breakfast at the hotel.  Error!  We were forced to demand coffee.  After that, the rest of the day, fortunately, went beautifully. We first walked to the British Museum Store - one of the greatest museum stores ever.  It had been undergoing renovation the last time I visited, now it's fixed up and gorgeous!

 We began our stroll through Gray's Inns and Lincoln Inn Fields - beautiful buildings and gardens hidden amongst them.  Off to the Temple, then down to the Embankment,  It was a beautiful day with big fluffy clouds and wonderful visibility.  We walked down to Westminster bridge.  A great stroll.

The Griffin is the symbol of London.  These symbols mark the borders of the city sections.

We took the Westminster tube to Leister Square.  Normally, we end up in the square itself, brassy, loud, full of cheap restaurants and touts.  By a slight error, we went into China town.  I don't remember it being as large as it seemed today.  It's probably grown.  By error, again, we wandered into a restaurant called Baozi - we had meat baozta (yum!) and dumpling soup.  Mine was outstanding.  Charlie ordered sweet and sour which was very spicy.  On our way out the door, we found out the place was Zagat rated - I would have, too!

From lunch, we took another tube (we, obviously had a day-pass) to Charing Cross tube station and went to the National Portrait Gallery.  With all our walking, and being leg-weary, we found it interesting anyway.

From there, we took another tube to Piccadilly Circus.  We walked down Regent street to Fortnam and Mason's.  Nothing really appealed, although I was drawn to an "Owl and the pussy cat" lunch box.  Reason prevailed, and I didn't buy it!  We needed a bit of a rest, so we stopped at a Starbucks.  Hey!  They have flat whites here AND lemon cake - the best of Australia and Canada!

We then got on the Green Park tube and went to Covent Garden (ack!  another station with elevators - or 192 steps)  We found some cute kid's T shirts.  Back to the tube then to Tottenham Court Road and walked down to Foyles.  By that point we were getting really foot weary.  We went back to the hotel, got our suitcases out of storage.  It was only 4 pm.  We really didn't want to have dinner - too full - so we decided to go out to the airport on the tube.  We walked to Holborn Station (not too bad) and took the 1 hour ride to Terminal 1, 2, 3.  Outside of Terminal 1 we got a bus to our hotel, Sheraton Heathrow.  Had a nice dinner at the hotel, early bed.  Tomorrow back to LA.  How weird!

BACK TO LONDON

For a very hurried trip to London and Paris, it worked out well.  We got up, had our tea with Geoff this morning, then walked to Cactus Cafe for the wonderful croissants.  Geoff's leg was bothering him, so Charlie and I hoofed it down Rue de Temple to the Jewish Historical Museum.  Weirdest part were two semitic guys out front hovering around.  They didn't seem to belong to the place, but as we walked up to the door, they asked us to put our carry bags through security.  It's a beautifully laid out museum, but many of the items, I knew - torah decorations and the like.  One room, however, had models of Eastern European Temples which were interesting. They had another room of Hanuka lamps, many the traditional candle holders, but some with oil that were more interesting. Another larger room had costumes and jewelry from Sephardic Jewish communities in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria.  Really interesting, and things I had never seen.  I was gearing up for the historical drag through the Nazis, but fortunately, they first had a room of art ( a lot of which was black on black), another artist did doll-like things hanging from threads, then a wall which was visible through a stair landing with people's names on it.  Then they gently let us outside.

Back to Geoff's.  After a bit of conversation, we walked downstairs to his local boulangerie - it's called Le Gai Choc - Geoff's section of Paris is famous for it's gay and bisexual population.  This particular boulangerie has brioches made in the shape of men's parts.  Last year when we visited the creations were prominently displayed because there was a gay pride parade.  This time, they were discretely in the back.  We got sandwiches which were delicious.  Charlie and Geoff got ham and cheese, I got a chicken all of which were on wonderful short baguettes.

After lunch, we walked to the Pompidou centre.

 Geoff went off on a bus to work, Charlie and I took the 38 bus to Gare du Nord.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the bus is very easy to get, clear as to where you are (there is a LCD display telling you what the next stop is, what the last stop is, and how long you can expect to get there).  Gare du Nord is the terminus for the 38 bus, so we really couldn't mess this up.

We took the ride back to London, and, of course, gained our hour back.  We then got tube tickets for today, and day-passes for tomorrow.  I remember that the ride to Heathrow by tube is 5 pounds each.  For 8.50 pounds, we got day passes that would let us ride to Heathrow at the end of the day.  We took the Piccadilly Line from St. Pancreas to Russell Square.  Charlie remembered (I'd forgotten) that particular station has an elevator to the street - that or 175 steps - we took the elevator.  We then walked to our hotel.  Radisson Eduardian Kennelworth on Great Russell Street.  There are two Radisson hotels within a block of each other - ours and the Bloombury (something) - ours is clearly the "deal" of the two.  We still have a fun view from our window.

We walked to  Covant Garden for dinner.  Right in the middle is "The Pie Shop"  Hurray!  More pies!  Back to the hotel for a quick pint.  Now in our room with free WIFI.    Tomorrow - our last day of the trip - will be wandering around London for fun.

Hasta manana

WEDNESDAY IN PARIS

We had a cup of tea, then a stroll out for a croissant and coffee.  (coffee creme is pretty close to flat white) After breakfast we walked over to the Doll Museum very close to Geoff's flat.  It is a wonderful museum. Dolls are sorted 1.) by what they were made from (porcelain, paper mache, "biscuit" a lower fire clay, and plastic.  2.) where they were made  3.)  what they were representing (babies, adults, foreign places) 4.) what companies made them.  Some were really nice, some were down-right scary.  My favorite bits were the doll dishes, silverware, pets, etc.  There was a room of dolls representing characters from history.  As Charlie said, they were definitely nice versions of the people.  Finally, my all-time favorite, they had a special display of Ken dolls through the years.  He was always a wimpy doll - even with added muscles.

Building was across from the cafe where we had breakfast

Geoff and me in Anne Frank's Square near the doll museum

After the museum we had a perrier near the Pompidou Centre (also near Geoff's flat)

We then walked to the river, and took a bus to the Jardin des Plants.

We went to the Natural History Museum.  Lots of great displays of all types of animals, emphasizing evolution and diversity.

A stroll for lunch through the Jardin des Plants.

A plant house at Jardin des Plants

We then took the Metro back to the river.   Geoff bought a few plants for his house.  Geoff and Charlie then lugged the larger of the two back to his house.  Rest this afternoon - dinner at a close restaurant tonight.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN.....

This is already Wednesday, but I'll try to fill in on the last few days.  We left LA on Saturday.  The great fear at the time was that CARMEGGEDON  would destroy the traffic in LA.  The powers that be were closing a 10 mile stretch of the 405 Freeway.  Friday night was a barrage of new-casts basically declaring that we would be stuck for hours on any Freeway we tried.  We dropped Wally at Jodi's at 1:00. (Our flight wasn't until 5:55 pm - but CARMEGGEDON was here!!)  All the traffic reports Saturday morning had nothing to say.  We left Jodi's at 1:10 and drove straight to LAX.  HO HO HO.  We got there in 40 minutes.  We had checked in to our flight and were sitting in the Red Carpet Lounge by 1:45.  CARMEGGEDON was an exciting story, but there was no there, there.  Our flight was as smooth as smooth could be.  We landed in London by 11:30 Sunday morninig, easily found the bus to Cambridge, and were met by Mike, who walked us to their house.  Tea, and a nice chat.  Walked back along the river to a pub for some English beer. We got Indian take-out for dinner.  Easy easy easy.

On Monday we had a slow nice breakfast, then took a walk to town.  We strolled up and down the river went into town briefly,  got a coffee, then back to Mike's for our quesidilla lunch.  After lunch we went to Newnham - our old hangout.  We wandered past 27 Marlowe Road - our old flat looks pretty much the same.  The yellow door is now white and the kitchen looks like it's undergone renovation.  From there we walked to Grantchester - one of our favorite strolls.

Punters can be seen on the Cam from the path to Grantchester.  Since the Cam is level with the path, it gives a surreal view of people on the river - they look like they're plowing through grass.

Back to Mike's.  Last night we had a meal with Mike, Maureen, Vikram, Norman, and his new girlfriend, Jeanette.  Interesting night.

This morning after another leisurely breakfast, we wandered to town and went to the Scott Polar Research institute (the Scott Polar Museum).  There were exhibits from the Arctic explorations, the Inuit people, and the Anarctic explorations.  Lots of memorabilia.  Very interesting.  Learned a lot about Franklin (as from the Canadian folksong - the "hand of Franklin" - which describes the hunt for the Northwest Passage).

We met Mike for a coffee, then went back to his house.  We picked up our bags and he drove us to the train station.  We got the 12:45 pm train to King's Cross, and got over to St Pancreas Station to get the Eurostar.  Things had gone so smoothly, we were there by 1:45.  We tried to get an earlier train, but we had bought our tickets on-line, and, unbeknown to us, got a great deal.  So here we sit, in the St. Pancreas station waiting for our 4:22 pm train to Paris.  Nice WIFI though.

Hasta Manana -

BACK HOME

We're back home.  Wally is conked out in the dining-room (it's the coolest room in the house).  Back to an almost normal like do laundry, pay bills, and settle into a summer routine. 

Our flights went smoothly, but...   Charlie and I like to get to the airport for our flights nice and early.  You can relax in with a book or a coffee (preferably both) and wait for the flight to go - no muss no fuss.  Our travel arrangements were set up by an Australian tour company and our old buddy, Marsha, who's been helping for a long time.  Marsha's getting old (aren't we all) and had a few scrambles setting up this trip.  After a month or so, the whole thing had been "arranged",  Marsha called us with the details.  She left out the Tasmanian part.  Back to the drawing board.  Eventually, we got all the pieces together, but we really didn't see the details until a week or so before the trip got going.  Given the last minute feel to the set up, it really went nicely.  However, we spent our last night in Australia in Hobart, Tasmania.  This meant a flight from Hobart to Sydney with only two hours between that domestic flight and our big, international one back to the states. Had anything gone awry, we would have missed the flight home.  Since we had upgrades to business, that would have meant losing the upgrades and 14 hours or so (probably longer) getting home any which way we could.  The other issue that was concerning us was that we were landing at the domestic terminal and leaving from the international terminal which was too far to walk.  We had 3 choices, a tram, a cab, or a train (it really is a long distance).  We opted for the train, the fastest method of the three options. $5 Australian dollars each and a 2 minute ride.  We knew we were OK when the Quantas flight went well, even though getting to the train involves elevators, tickets, more elevators.  Also, leaving internationally takes a lot of fiddling around - check-in, customs, security.  We were also helped a lot by the Australian signage - it really is wonderful - signs everywhere.


The moral to my tale is that in future, we'll set up the trip details ourselves.  No more middle-(wo)men.