London, London, Oxford

Sat 25 Mar

Plan: Walk down Oxford St, catch Big Bus to Trafalgar Square, walk to Westminster Pier, river ferry to Tower of London.

Actual because of road closures: Walk to Carnaby St (+ shopping), Big Bus to Tower of London via roundabout route. Last visited here in 1994; still a very interesting site especially if you want some knowledge of English history. Followed a Yeoman Warder around on a free tour - lots of "dad jokes" e.g. "We'll beheading this way next."

Took the river ferry back to Westminster and the tube back to Bayswater. Pub dinner at our local, the Prince Albert.
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Sun 26 Mar

Last full day in London. Tube to the Millennium Bridge then walked across to the Tate Modern Gallery. I was suffering from a cold that someone on a plane/train/street had shared with me. So after viewing one level of the gallery, I found a comfy chair while Steph made her way through the rest. I may have been snoring, but I didn't hear anything and I was a bit more refreshed when Steph returned.

View to St Paul's Cathedral from the Millennium Bridge

Back across the bridge and another tube to Camden, to have a look at the markets there. The place was crowded with lots of stalls selling all the usual stuff, t-shirts, food, cheap jewellery and so on. Crowded trains on the return.

Likes this T-shirt - hope you get it.

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Mon 27 Mar

Packed all our stuff and tidied the apartment then walked to Paddington Station to get the train to Oxford. Very comfortable way to travel. Then had to walk about a kilometre to the Hertz depot to collect our hire car. On the way we broke a wheel on Steph's suitcase - bumpy footpaths are a bugger. Got a surprise at Hertz - we were expecting a Ford Fiesta but ended up with an Audi A3!

Leather seats, auto wipers & lights, 2 cyl highway economy mode;
but took me 5 minutes to find the handbrake ... button!

Thankfully, we brought our TomTom GPS with us so we easily found our way to the Oxford Guest House where we'd booked - it's about a 5 minute walk to where our friends, Peter and Lesley are staying. We went with them to a local pub for a delicious dinner.

At the local with Peter & Lesley

Brace for impact - London

Wed 22 Mar

A Frankfurt stop-over on the way to London - yes, it's the long way around, but that's what happens when you fly Lufthansa. Arrived at 05:30. Steph got a bit of sleep on the way over - I didn't. Once we got off the plane we had to find gate B20 for the leg to London. We must have walked 2km in that terminal - maybe in a circle - before we found the gate. Got to Heathrow at 07:45 local then caught the Tube to Bayswater. (Immigration & customs was a breeze, by the way.) Got the keys in the rain and into the apartment were we found the cupboards were bare, so a quick trip to the supermarket for supplies. Nana nap in the afternoon, dinner and early night.
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Thur 23 Mar     OMG it's Kate!

Slept kind of late (jet lag?), made a packed lunch and headed out to walk around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens about 3 minutes away. Everything is trying to struggle into spring and there are many daffodils and tulips blooming. Wandered around Kensington Palace and had to stop with some other people near a rear entrance as a motorcade was leaving: 3 Police motorcycles, large Bentley, 2 big 4WDs, 1 more bike! "Oh my god! It's Kate! It was Kate. Did you see her? In the first car. It was definitely her. Oh my god!"  ... Um, no. Saw the driver. Didn't see Kate. Continued through the gardens and Hyde Park and eventually back to the apartment.

 Scenes around Hyde Park - waiting for spring

Part of the Italian Gardens in Hyde Park

We went online and got some tickets to tonight's "Book of Mormon" at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Took the tube in to Piccadilly Circus by 6pm to collect the tickets then wandered up through nearby Chinatown to get some dinner. Stopped at O'Neills (doesn't sound very Chinese) but we got a nice meal, beer and wine before heading back to the theatre for the show.

Wardour St, Chinatown

Irish pub in Chinatown?

Prince of Wales Theatre

Book of Mormon: never laughed so much! What a blast! All I'm going to say is: Go and see it!
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Fri 24 Mar

Walked over to Paddington Station to buy our tickets to Oxford. Paddington Station is huge but there's plenty of help around. Headed towards Hyde Park then down Oxford Street. Didn't realise how many shoe shops there are along here. Steph was very tempted but was restrained in the end.

Bought tickets for the hop-on-hop-off bus and rode it to the Tower to eat our lunch. Then back to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park followed by a walk back to Bayswater to check out the Main Street. Found lots of pubs, cafés and restaurants for eating out.

Views from the hop-on-hop-off bus

Our local

Last few days of NYC

Other than walking around the city streets, here's the highlights of our last days in New York.

Detail on a local fence. You may recognise this scene from a very early
adaptation of a Jules Verne story: From the Earth to the Moon

Sun 19 Mar: Dinner at Le Grainne Café (corner of W 21st St and 9th Ave); a traditional French menu. Stephanie had a pan seared salmon, which tasted delicious (I tried some) and I had Coq au Vin, the best I have ever tasted. Really.

Mon 20 Mar: Subway to Times Square to find a beanie to mail to Steph's dad. Hope it arrives.
Evening walk to the Village Vanguard for more jazz by the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. 16 piece big band doing great tunes and featuring fantastic solos by most of them. First time I've ever seen a bass trombone.

Tue 21 Mar: Last day. Packed, cleaned up the apartment, returned keys, caught taxi to JFK airport. Did the whole airport security rigmarole and waited for our flight. Plane pretty empty so got 3 seats each!

Hooroo NYC

New York's version of a parade

Thur 16 Mar

Took the "local" train on the subway uptown to the north end of Central Park but halfway there the train became an "express" and sped past the 110th St station where we wanted to get off. When it finally stopped we had to go back a few stations. Central Park after the snow was a totally different scene. There weren't many people about and the snow was pristine in most places, however, the main roads and pathways had been cleared. The smaller lakes and ponds had started to freeze over and we found a dry bench to sit and eat our lunch. We wandered around for ages occasionally getting hit by a cold wind, but we were well rugged up.

 Central Park with snow covering

Took subway back to the apartment for an early dinner as we had tickets to see the Bill Frisell Quartet at the Village Vanguard. They played an excellent one hour set with a couple of "free-range" spots in some tunes. The solos by the drummer were particularly impressive (but maybe we're biased towards drummers).

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Fri 17 Mar

Went out via the subway to watch the St Patrick's Day Parade along 5th Ave. The sanitation department had done a lot of snow clearing overnight to make the avenue safe for the parade. We found a spot in the warming sun and watched for the first hour (11:00 - 12:00); by then we were in shadows and the snow/ice we were standing on gradually froze through our shoes. The parade itself was initially centred around police, firefighters and other military groups (there's a strong Irish tradition amongst them). They were followed by other Irish groups representing various counties in Ireland. All this interspersed by different marching and pipe bands, occasional baton twirlers and flag groups - lots of flags!

 In the massed flags on the left, each flag represents a 
firefighter lost in 9/11.

We were alongside Central Park so we explored it a bit more while slowly making our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yes, more art as well as artifacts from ancient and contemporary civilisations. The Met is another huge museum and would require many more days to explore fully (and, yes, another Jackson Pollock).

 

A long walk then to the nearest subway (the parade was still going) and got there just after 5pm. Crowded again!

The Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park

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Sat 18 Mar

The weather turned overcast and threatened rain. We took an afternoon walk first to Billy's Bakery just around the corner to have coffee and cakes. Then walked further to the Chelsea Markets to find food for dinner  - and some shopping.
Just starting to rain on the way back to the apartment.

Inside Billy's Bakery

Snow snow snow

Tue 14 Mar

The long-predicted snow storm arrived during the night and we woke up to a snow covered neighbourhood. The furthest we ventured out today was to the front door of the apartment building to take photos down the street. There were workers out pushing the snow off the footpaths and into the gutter with shovels and powered devices. The snow ploughs had already been down the street clearing the roadway.

The storm didn't hit Manhattan as badly as predicted but other areas got hit badly. Looked out a couple more times through the day and noticed a gradual increase in the thickness of the snow. Steph just looked out (17:30h) and it's snowing again.
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Wed 15 Mar

Steph needed some shopping therapy today as the weather is still windy with sub-freezing temps. All the snow piles here have either turned to dirty slush or to solid ice. Took the subway to find a UNIQLO store but Steph got distracted by a sale at Macy's and some shoes first.

Decided to take our shopping back to the apartment, had a very late lunch, then headed back to Times Square to see if we could get some cheap tickets to a Broadway show, but no dice. Discovered that you shouldn't take the subway during peak hour - everyone is very friendly about squashing together.

We changed our plan and headed back on the subway to have dinner at The Meatball Shop just around the corner. ("We roll our own balls.") It's a great idea for food: 5 different types of meatballs x 5 different sauces x 5 different sides like pastas, veg, etc. - so 125 different combinations. So we warmed our outsides and insides by eating inside then braved the cold for a 200m walk home through the snow-pile obstacle course. 6 km of walking today.

Cultural NY

Fri 10 Mar

Woke to an overcast day and fine snow that melted once it touched the ground. A couple of hours later and the snowflakes were larger and falling heavier. Very soon everything had a coating of snow. We rugged up and walked down to the Chelsea Markets. Got some delicious soup for lunch and other items for dinner. Stephanie enjoyed walking in the snow and took lots of photos. I just don't like cold - and this is wet cold!

 Local streets get a dusting of snow

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Sat 11 Mar

Spent most of the day at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). They have an extensive collection spread over six floors.  The feature was an exhibition of works by Francis Picabia. His work is extremely diversified was heavily influenced by other European impressionists. His style changed and developed throughout his life.

Other works on exhibit are by Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and one of Jackson Pollock's.

Inside MoMA

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Sun 12 Mar

Cold again. 2 deg C maximum. There's still ice around from Friday. Off to the Guggenheim.
Another huge art collection - this time it's private! We climbed the internal helical walkway inside this iconic building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. There's works here by Kandinsky, Chagall, a large number of Picasso's paintings and another by Jackson Pollock.

 Inside the Guggenheim

The sloping floors in the helix can be a bit nauseous and the large void in the middle induced a bit of vertigo. We were overwhelmed by the amount of art that one family could accumulate. At least they made it available for the general public to enjoy.

This is inside the 53rd Street Library - an off-shoot of the New York Library. We ate our lunch in here on a couple of occasions, while watching a video. This little library has a lot of community based activities.

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Mon 13 Mar

Got up early to get to the supermarket to stock up in preparation for tonight's forecast BLIZZARD. I was so early some shelves hadn't even been stocked. They're forecasting up to 24 inches (60 cm) of snow.

We took the subway up to the American Museum of Natural History. This is the museum that the movie "Night at the Museum" is based on. There were a couple of dinosaurs here who were able to get a seniors' discount for entry - sweet! The museum is huge with an extensive collection of items on display from each continent - humans, animals, dinosaurs even the geological history of the world. We also sat in on an IMAX movie about humpback whale that featured some amazing photography.

Outside the museum there were a couple of food vans so we decided to try the famous NY hotdog. I must say they were nothing to write home about - so I won't.

We then took the subway down to Washington Square. It was a lovely sunny spot with it's iconic arch and (dry) fountain. This is at the end of 5th Avenue so we walked north up the avenue, window shopping on the way as far as 21st St where our apartment is. Then a few blocks to "The Meatball Shop" to get a "take-out" for tonight's dinner.

View across Washington Square and up 5th Ave.