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Saturday and Sunday
Saturday we went to the Science Museum for quite a while, and did the thing that Toby wanted to do, which was see the Babbage engine. And we saw half of Babbage's brain.
Among the other things we saw there was the Listening Post art installation, which is made of a bunch of tiny little LCD screens, which display words taken from message boards and chat rooms across the Internet. It was nifty and deeper thoughts about it will have to wait until I'm not typing with one finger on my iPhone.
We had lunch there, then headed for the tea shop Whittards of Chelsea, off of Piccadilly Circus. Ended up buying three cans of cocoa--it was but two get one free--and two containers of tea. Then we got drinks at a tiny cafe one street off the Circus and sat until we were ready to face the Tube again.
For dinner we walked down to James Street and found a great little French cafe, Cafe Rouge, where Toby got boeuf bourgignon and I had roast chicken.
Today was laundry day. After breakfast and out abortive attempt to find speakers at Speakers Corner, we stuffed our dirty clothes into a suitcase and trundles them to a nearby launderette, which is another reason I recommend this hotel as it is literally around the corner. The launderette experience now is the same as it was for me twenty years ago--inefficient machines that cost too much.
Toby was feeling kind of puny, as my East Texas relatives would say, due to an allergy attack we think, so after a quick lunch at the Pret a Manger he stayed at the hotel and I went on to the Dennis Severs House.
It's a house restored to the way it was during three different centuries, and set up as if the inhabitants had just left the room you're in a moment before. It's lit only by windows, candles, and firelight. It gives a much more vivid impression of daily life in the past than your typical historic home, but I didn't get the magical, mysterious feeling that I was back in time like all the literature claims you'll get because the place was full of tourists. All being silent, as they ask you to be, but still *there*, so no time-transport for me, as I was busy trying not to bump into other modern-day people. I think it would have been a powerful experience if no one else was there.
I came back for a bit, then went out again to participate in a ceremony that it seems every tourist must do: yes, Virginia, I went shopping on Oxford Street. I was looking for one particular place but either it had moved or the map on the website was wrong, so didn't go there. I ended up walking back the whole way from Oxford Circus to Marble Arch, and stopped in at Evans to shop a bit. I only got a shrug and a necklace, as there wasn't anything there that either I couldn't get at home or I didn't want to carry with me (i.e. a lovely blue wool military-inspired coat).
For dinner we ended up at Garfunkle's, which is a sort of generic chain, but neither of us wanted fancy so it hit the spot.
My direction mojo finally kicked in. I was a bit worried that nobody had stopped me to ask for directions yet this trip, but on the Oxford Street walk today, a British boy and a German woman asked for directions to Selfridges and Marks & Spencer, respectively. (As it didn't kick in until Toby wasn't with me, it tends to confirm my suspicion that I am always asked for directions because a lone woman or two women are much less threatening than a man or a woman with a man.)
Tomorrow, off to Wales!
Sent from my iPhone
Among the other things we saw there was the Listening Post art installation, which is made of a bunch of tiny little LCD screens, which display words taken from message boards and chat rooms across the Internet. It was nifty and deeper thoughts about it will have to wait until I'm not typing with one finger on my iPhone.
We had lunch there, then headed for the tea shop Whittards of Chelsea, off of Piccadilly Circus. Ended up buying three cans of cocoa--it was but two get one free--and two containers of tea. Then we got drinks at a tiny cafe one street off the Circus and sat until we were ready to face the Tube again.
For dinner we walked down to James Street and found a great little French cafe, Cafe Rouge, where Toby got boeuf bourgignon and I had roast chicken.
Today was laundry day. After breakfast and out abortive attempt to find speakers at Speakers Corner, we stuffed our dirty clothes into a suitcase and trundles them to a nearby launderette, which is another reason I recommend this hotel as it is literally around the corner. The launderette experience now is the same as it was for me twenty years ago--inefficient machines that cost too much.
Toby was feeling kind of puny, as my East Texas relatives would say, due to an allergy attack we think, so after a quick lunch at the Pret a Manger he stayed at the hotel and I went on to the Dennis Severs House.
It's a house restored to the way it was during three different centuries, and set up as if the inhabitants had just left the room you're in a moment before. It's lit only by windows, candles, and firelight. It gives a much more vivid impression of daily life in the past than your typical historic home, but I didn't get the magical, mysterious feeling that I was back in time like all the literature claims you'll get because the place was full of tourists. All being silent, as they ask you to be, but still *there*, so no time-transport for me, as I was busy trying not to bump into other modern-day people. I think it would have been a powerful experience if no one else was there.
I came back for a bit, then went out again to participate in a ceremony that it seems every tourist must do: yes, Virginia, I went shopping on Oxford Street. I was looking for one particular place but either it had moved or the map on the website was wrong, so didn't go there. I ended up walking back the whole way from Oxford Circus to Marble Arch, and stopped in at Evans to shop a bit. I only got a shrug and a necklace, as there wasn't anything there that either I couldn't get at home or I didn't want to carry with me (i.e. a lovely blue wool military-inspired coat).
For dinner we ended up at Garfunkle's, which is a sort of generic chain, but neither of us wanted fancy so it hit the spot.
My direction mojo finally kicked in. I was a bit worried that nobody had stopped me to ask for directions yet this trip, but on the Oxford Street walk today, a British boy and a German woman asked for directions to Selfridges and Marks & Spencer, respectively. (As it didn't kick in until Toby wasn't with me, it tends to confirm my suspicion that I am always asked for directions because a lone woman or two women are much less threatening than a man or a woman with a man.)
Tomorrow, off to Wales!
Sent from my iPhone
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I knew that, really I did. Um, yeah...a bit much of a "road trip" for me. :-(