LLL and LEL

(LLL stands for London-London-London (my trip) as opposed to Rick's London-Edinburgh-London.)


Coming round a bend and seeing St. Paul's Cathedral

Big Ben and Westminster Abby from the Westminster Bridge. Just a few blocks from my hotel.






Well I did make it to St. Paul's cathedral and did the whole audio tour thing. It took a long time but was worth it. I will try to do that with Notre Dame next time I'm in Paris. I learned a lot about the architect who was a mathemetician and professor of astronomy at Oxford as well as an architect. He designed the cathedral with it's huge dome but the city fathers vetoed it. Finally he got them to accept a small dome with a spire on top. Then he sited artistic license or something and built it his way anyway! I must admit, it's not the way they usually do things here in London. Spires were the thing for sure. Not knowing anything about it, I came upon St Paul's around a corner yesterday and was surprised to see the white rotunda shape. Felt like I'd passed through a window to Washington DC or Olympia!


Then I wandered in the general direction of Picadilly Circus just to see what that was about. Along the way, I passed by the National Museum and thought about going in, but it was so nice out right then that I kept walking. Just down the block I happened to look up and see Her Majesty's Theater where Phanton of the Opera was playing. I've wanted to see that for many years but it's never worked out. The sign above the door said there were tickets available for tonight's performance. OK. I would have no one but myself to blame if I missed this chance. I got in line and chatted with the gent behind me until I got up to the window. By this time he had convinced me this was the greatest show in town and that I shouldn't scrimp on the cheap seats if I was going to do it. So I went for the best seat they could give me. Ouch. About $125.00. Then on to Picadilly. Basically Picadilly Circus is an area with all the high end stores and it is a circus. I got out of there pretty fast. I had heard that London Hardrock Cafe was the original Hardrock so I thought I'd scope that out as a source of gifts. It was interesting and only time will tell if it worked out or not!



In all this caccaphony I missed a call from Rick. He texted me then and said the wind was killing them. He wanted me to see if I could find out what the direction and velocity was going to be for them over the next several hours. While I didn't understand why he would want to know since there were no real decisions to be made here, I did check with LeeAnne and she looked it up. Not good. On the nose through the night, maybe getting a little weaker in the early hours, but the rain was going to go from showers to heavy rain. And just now I heard the forecast and it looked like a nasty storm was going to pelt northern England and most of Scotland for the next day or so. Crap. The "sunny" day here clouded over and the wind was pretty cool off and on. It didn't rain here, though. Guess that's a winner with English weather.



Not able to help the kids at all, I got as gussied up as I could and walked over to the theater. I got there early enough to grab a quick dinner at the Italian restaurant next door and then went to my seat. Her Majesty's Theater has been rebuilt and refurbished, but has been on this site since 1705! The current building was built in 1897 and was refurbished from 1992-1994. I believe this was the original venue for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom. I had a seat about 10 rows back with some friendly Houston folks behind me so had someone to chat with. They'd seen this play in several cities and it's their favorite. They thought this production was the best. Lucked into that one!





The Ricky report this morning as I post this entry is that he is apparently still riding. Looks like he has about 425k left to go and the cutoff isn't until tomorrow afternoon or evening. The weather report is still calling for stormy unsettled weather with wind and rain so that sounds horrible but it should get a little better as he nears Cheshunt again. The news commentator this morning read a letter from a viewer that said Britains should embrace their weather and quit calling it bad. The anchor agreed saying there was really no bad weather, only the wrong clothing... Not sure Rick would agree, but I guess maybe it's just that he doesn't have enough sense to come in out of it?? arrrgghhh...

Well, it is raining again here, but I'm meeting Amy this morning for a tour of Buckingham Palace and lunch. Then I'm headed to the Tower of London for the doom and gloom tour.