Grand Tour Epilogue

Lingering Impressions

Now that I’ve been home over a month and the experience seems like a dream, I’ve had time for my observations to crystallize. It was a different kind of traveling in that we returned to two cities that we visited previously, each once before. In the Loire, a new place for us, we found a quiet, inland beauty. This region of chateaux, wine, and cheese is saturated with history and tradition. I hope the young people don’t all move to Paris; some of the region’s towns are so small they don’t have cinemas. Paris and London juxtaposed reveal hugely different atmospheres. Though a beautiful, romantic city, Paris has a world-weariness that its young people, who are opening casual wine caves and rum-based cocktail bars, are trying to combat. I respect the country’s traditionalism, but I would hate to see ritual or conservatism strangle its culture. But Paris will always have wine, the best hangout spots (Canal St Martin, please; hold the Heineken) and miles of cafe seating facing the heart of the sun — maybe its rays temporarily quiet existential questions. London, meanwhile, feels vibrant and dynamic with its ever-changing skyline, street art, and easygoing dining conventions. It’s a city of contradictions: tea at the Ritz and packed Tayyab’s, stable ruins like Wilton’s Music Hall and spangly buildings that fry eggs. There’s good food and coffee now too! If only the city’s wealth would radiate outward to warm the rest of Britain — a hope of my friend in Cambridge. I have no cute sentence to sum up the trip. I am simply grateful that John and I could have these two weeks.

On Trip Planning

for Monica

I feel rather proud of myself for planning the trip. I’m always nervous about things going awry and I wanted to make sure that we wouldn’t be dependent on a cell phone or wifi connection for getting around. To that end, I created a binder with three sections for each leg of the trip with maps, the itineraries, confirmations for transportation and AirBnBs, and my ultimate planning tool: Google Map print outs annotated with options for eating, drinking, nightlife, and sightseeing.

I spend months doing my research (not slavishly, just as I discover possibilities) and store them on a custom Google Map. Closer to the trip I break the digital map into manageable sections for printing and write in the names of the places, hours, admission fees, and any other handy information. The map serves not as a checklist, but as a window to a variety of options, providing cues to interesting neighborhoods. I’ve been perfecting this method for almost 3 years and it works spectacularly well. I also love having Google Maps in progress for future trips and even for the exploration of my own city. Time to consult the map of restaurants and bars to try!

London Feast

(Grand Tour Part 7 of 7)

London’s Soho…the only place where you can see Imelda Staunton in a show, buy a latex body stocking, ogle rare books, and eat a fortune cookie within a 5-minute walking radius.

Art Deco in Holborn

Our AirBnB proved more elusive than we expected. The address posted on the listing was not where we ended up and though the host said someone would meet us, no one appeared. We had to keep calling and calling, but eventually we landed in a small, yet serviceable flat in the heart of Soho, a galaxy away from Aldgate and Whitechapel.

Grumpy about the awkward shifting of apartments and hungry, I convinced John to make finding lunch our first priority tempting though it was to go into the “G-A-Y Bar” where drag queen nurses spilled onto the street to sing someone “Happy Birthday” in glorious harmony. Then, a block later, when we spotted the sign “vegetarian-friendly” and heard traces of Jim Morrison’s voice, we couldn’t resist crossing the threshold of La Polenteria. Our cheerful Italian waiter zoomed from table and table pausing only to proclaim his love of the Doors. That was it. All they played in the restaurant. We shared a fava bean and pecorino salad along with a bowl of polenta with burrata and roasted tomatoes. Everything fresh and superb!

We walked through a craft market on Dean Street and I had lemon curd ripple gelato. John admired some beautiful leather bags, but we made no purchases.

Empty streets on a bank holiday weekend

We took a short tube ride to Holborn, where the streets were so quiet not even old St. Etheldreda’s Church was open. The trip wasn’t entirely wasted, however, because we spent a lazy Sunday afternoon at the Craft Beer Company. From the ample draft selection, I enjoyed a cider and John a brown ale and later a porter. We bought a packet of crisps too, which so many pubs sell. It’s a custom I’d like to see here.

We walked back to Soho and took some time to rest. Later we began an evening of walking, eating, and drinking, the three things we like best. Near Piccadilly Circus, we stopped at the huge Brasserie Zedel. It looks like a typical Parisian cafe, but then you take the red stairs down, down, down to a lobby: jazz club to the right, Art Deco bar straight on, classic dining room to the left. We chose the bar for wine, a Calvados cocktail, and fries. The complementary snack? Popcorn. The Belgian waitress confessed that she dislikes when people ask her where she’s from; she’s been working so hard to get rid of her accent.

More walking: a vintage magazine shop where we bought silly postcards (e.g. Elvis in a Che Guevera hat saying “Viva Las Vegas”), a book store that was 50% art books and 50% naughty books, a comic book shop. We stopped in the “Pillars of Heracles” pub, decorated with framed pictures of Greece.

During all the walking, we’d been looking for dinner options. John spotted a taco place a while back, right by the apartment, and that’s what stuck with us. At La Bodega Negra, we sampled practically the entire menu: margaritas, a series of small plates — a tostada with radishes, a quesadilla, 3 pork and pineapple tacos for John, 3 mushroom tacos for me — and a little salted caramel ice cream for dessert. We dined on the ground floor level (apparently a fancier restaurant lies below) and had a great time listening to the dancey music, looking at all the posters on the walls, and talking with Martina, one of the servers who looked after us. She reminded me of Pilar in For Whom the Bell Tolls with her open-heartedness and vitality (some people just exude joy and life). In her husky voice, she told us that we ought to visit Argentina, where she’s from. So we shall, one day!

It was our second to last night and we needed to celebrate in grand fashion. We ought to have gone to a show, but it’s too fun walking around looking at buildings and people. Lured by the red lanterns across Shaftsbury, we went to Chinatown and looked for the Experimental Cocktail Club. Counting the building numbers, we’d come to the spot, but saw no sign. Could that be a doorman? Ask and you shall receive. He revealed a staircase, so we climbed it and entered a small bar with great big windows. The tables and plush chairs were low to the ground and we were lucky to find an open spot for John to enjoy his “Handsome Jack”, a riff on the Manhattan with rye, cognac, bitters, and byrrh, and for me to struggle with my Montresor, strongly flavored with mezcal (try as I might, I can’t get into it) and super foamy from egg whites.

Still somehow craving dessert, I spotted a window of Chinese sweets, including little cakes with fondant pandas and pigs. We bought a big peanut cookie to share and walked back to Old Compton Street. On the doorstep to the townhouse, two young women sat eating ice cream. We talked to them for a moment and learned that one was Estonian and the other Polish before climbing the stairs for a good night’s sleep.

On Monday morning — the last day of a two-week tour — gray skies greeted us as we walked to Covent Garden. I hoped for something like Borough Market, but found antique bric-a-brac and many closed shops instead. We breakfasted at Caffe Nero, the European Starbucks. Our walk continued to the Thames, where we visited Cleopatra’s Needle and Boudicca. The commanding statue of the Celt warrior queen now has a ticket booth underneath it, an unfortunate development.

March 2007: then

May 2014: now

John and I parted ways to spend the next two hours as we wished. He window-shopped amidst the Charing Cross bookshops and I roamed the mammoth Victoria and Albert Museum, not knowing what treasure I would find around the next corner. Unlike so many museums of design and decorative arts, the V&A heavily emphasizes technique and its exhibits show not only fine examples of glass work or furniture, but also deconstructed pieces so that visitors can understand how seat cushions are made or how the joints of a chair fit together. Furthermore, the scale of the museum makes the displays jawdropping. With the museum’s endless holdings — porcelain from around the world, Asian textiles, sculpture from all periods, posters, one of Mick Jagger’s jumpsuits — you name it, they got — I could spend the rest of my life going to this one museum and find something new every time.

Photos from our separate exploits:

Our rendezvous: noon at Nelson’s Column. John suggested lunch at Notes, a cafe he’d spotted that he knew I’d like. I loved its art student clientele and we shared two delicious plates: a root vegetable and lentil salad and a mozzarella-pesto-tomato sandwich.

In perfect time we got to St. Martin-in-the-Fields for a free concert. I’d been hoping — romantically — for a group of madrigal singers. Instead, American engineering majors from a polytechnical institute gave a good performance and tried a bit too hard to get the audience to clap for a rousing folk song medley. To John’s and my disappointment, “What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?”, despite having been on the program, was not performed. The elderly woman next to John, however, found ecstasy in their singing and her hands moved to some unspecified rhythm. Later when the choir had choreographed arm movements (flashbacks to seventh grade!), she too felt the spirit and raised her arms. Before the concert, John had overheard the woman’s remarks to the man on her right: “I once had a horse eat a carrot right out of my hand. I like carrots. I put them on salads.” That put him on alert and with each of her actions, he feared her harmless looniness more and more until he glued himself to my side so as to be as far away as possible.

After the concert, we stopped in Gordon’s Wine Bar, packed on the bank holiday. A surly woman poured our glasses and, hunching down, we picked our way through the narrow cave (literally) to find seats. We didn’t want to spend too much time in a damp, though atmospheric, subterranean bar, so after one glass off again we went to do some gift-buying.

Near Piccadilly, Fortnum & Mason, one of London’s oldest department stores, did not disappoint with its endless displays of mustards, jams, spices, biscuits, chocolates, chutneys, pates. I picked out items for friends, including Monica whom I challenged to create recipes around three spices. See what she did!

Tuckered out from the museum-going and shopping, John and I visited Liberty, a fabulous home goods store with a small tea room. He drank a Pimm’s Cup, while I had a cream tea, that is two scones and mango flavored black tea. A casual pick-me-up was just what we needed. Afterwards we looked around at the twee plates, impressive oriental rug room, and the furniture section with its modern masterpieces. I was sad to leave empty-handed.

Back at the apartment, we ran out of toilet paper and took the time to start organizing and packing our stuff. In the early evening we set out again for a ramble with the aim of ending up at Ronnie Scott’s, a jazz institution, around 8pm.

We walked back toward Trafalgar Square and shared fabulous macaroni and cheese at the Opera Bar, above the London Coliseum, home of the English National Opera. The bar carried only St. Peter’s on draft, which was fine by us. It’s good stuff and expensive back home.

As the sun began its slow descent, we walked through St. James’s Park to watch the birds in the fine drizzle. A young man with a terrible cough lurked about demanding change from passersby. We crossed the quiet streets to Pall Mall and looked in the windows of all the fancy men’s dress stores and cigar shops. I now know where Bertie Wooster buys his pajamas.

Slowly we made our way back north to Soho and then up the narrow staircase to the bar at Ronnie Scott’s, where Italian saxophonist Renato D’Aiello holds the floor from 8pm to midnight on Mondays. The whole band, especially the pianist, rocked — wrong genre, but you get it. Renato had a special guest come up to improvise a spoken word piece to “So What.” The improviser-actor had a voice like Joe Williams, expansive as the plains, deep as a canyon. For the second set, Renato introduced Kai Hoffman, an American singer who’s made a career doing swing music in London. Certainly she has a great voice — I could hear Judy Garland at times — but more than that she was an entertainer. Even her counting off the songs was part of the performance and she dressed the part all in red with a flower in her hair. We had a great night; I couldn’t tell whether I’d died and gone to heaven or not. Walking back down the stairs, we knew this was it. The end of the trip.

The next morning we left for Heathrow early. On the long Tube ride, John showed me an article about the perils of wearing contact lenses for too many hours each day. My eye had been bothering me still, since Cambridge, and fear mongering was exactly what I needed. (I’m still not back to wearing contacts. It’s allergies the doctor thinks!) We had a good breakfast at the Giraffe inside Heathrow, across from the duty-free store larger than most supermarkets. The flight was easy; we arrived back in steamy DC and sprung for a Super Shuttle. The lady driver spoke beautiful French into an earpiece. Even I could pick out words!

It felt strange to be home in our apartment. In the night, I awoke to use the bathroom and couldn’t remember which way to go.

 

Oliver Cromwell’s Head

(Grand Tour Part 6 of 7)

Breakfast again at Trade: John ate eggs and chorizo for the second day in a row to the delight of the chef, while I branched out to just-right porridge.

I get anxious about trains, so we headed to King’s Cross early and stared at the board until our train arrived. Though lacking assigned seating and the speed of the French TGV trains, we still had an easy trip and arrived in Cambridge around 10:30am. First, we noticed all the bicycles, an army’s worth parked outside of the station. A twenty-minute walk took us through the typical college town drag (a bit like College Park, MD) and then we arrived in the beautiful, historic center with our rolling bags clacking loudly on the pavement.

John and I came to Cambridge for two reasons. First, on a group trip from my university seven years ago, we visited not only London, but also Oxford. Now it was time to see “the other place.” More importantly, however, we came to visit a friend — let’s call him Johnny Onassis — who now teaches at Cambridge University. J.O., one of the most enthusiastic, vibrant persons we’ve ever known, ensured that we had two fun, relaxing days.

J.O. met us in the porter’s lodge of Sidney Sussex College. We walked around the grounds, the grass more uniform than Astro-Turf, and into the college chapel. Oliver Cromwell was an undergraduate here and a skull — presumed to be his, but with questionable authenticity — was secretly buried in the chapel in 1960 (Oliver Cromwell’s head has its own Wikipedia entry!). A little later John and I were able to check into our guest room on the first level of one of the college buildings. The classic dorm room had light colored wood furnishings, a small kitchen, and a handicap-accessible bathroom like something out of a hospital. The door put up a bit of a struggle, but otherwise we were quite content.

We walked around town and J.O. pointed out entrances to the other colleges, some of which we visited the next morning. He’d sent us lots of pictures of Cambridge over the past 1 1/2 years; we knew it was gorgeous, but actually being there took our breath away:

For lunch, J.O. took us to a pub called the Mill. He and John had fish and chips, while I had a beetroot burger. A local wheat beer called “Wayne’s Brain”? John and I had to try it.

Then, we walked, ice cream in hand, and passed through the modern part of campus with its industrial library and departmental buildings that look like architectural case studies until we arrived at the Classics Department’s gallery of plaster casts. Much fun to be had here! It was like visiting all my best friends in the same place.

We walked along J.O.’s running route by the canal and all dreamed of buying a barge to house a new branch of the research institute where I work. Farther along, we encountered a small herd of cows. J.O. promised us livestock and he delivered!

The real party began now with J.O. inviting us to his flat for Champagne and Mediterranean snacks. It was a good chance to rest our feet and catch up on all the same people we know.

Photo by J.O. John doesn’t like this picture because he’s making a face. I want it preserved for all time because of my good hair day.

The highlight of the two days came next with the 41st Cambridge Beer Festival on Jesus Green (those English and their funny names. There’s a field called “Christ’s Pieces” too). J.O.’s friend Dr. Lazarus, dressed all in black with a handful of Starbursts, accompanied us to this low-key, super cool festival. Everyone gets a glass with admission and in one giant tent, there’s all the beer and cider one could ever dream of. John stuck mainly to the foreign beer booth and its dunkelbocks, but he ventured to try an English porter. I tried a cider called “Monk and Disorderly” (the same brewery had another called “Virgin on the Ridiculous”), a perry (pear cider), and a raspberry wheat beer: all exceptionally tasty. (I got 1/3 pints — it was the only way I could try what I wanted without getting trashed.) I love that English ciders come in a range of sweetness and I stuck to the drier side. John and I got donuts for the four of us to share. Truly, the day could not be more lovely. Everyone was sitting on the grass, hanging out, and drinking. People brought their dogs and their babies.

J.O., John, and I had good Italian dinner at d’Arry’s (smoked linguine, mushroom risotto, fish: interactive feature: pair the person with the plate) and an exciting dessert that looked like eggs, but was in fact coconut and mango. Then, the indefatigable J.O. took us to club for old people (i.e. anyone over 25) across from the club from young people. Amidst the buzzed couples making out, we found a table no one was sitting on to enjoy Old-Fashioneds and a Sauvignon Blanc. I was mildly scandalized by the number of people so obviously intent on a particular goal for the evening and well on their way to achieving it. Meanwhile, J.O. found my anthropological curiosity and American Puritanism surprising. I’d begun to feel, instinctively, that privacy in Cambridge might not be wholly possible. It seemed too easy to bump up against a student — purposely or not. Certainly everyone around us must be associated with the university. If not horny graduate students, who else could they be?

Much to my relief Cromwell’s headless ghost did not come by our room that night looking for its head.

The next morning J.O. met us for breakfast at Sticky Beak’s, where we found healthy options like yogurt with granola and fruit. J.O. turned us loose and off John and I went to the Fitzwilliam Museum. On the way, we stopped at the Saturday morning market in the rain to buy wasabi peanuts and to capture this photo:

The Fitzwilliam Museum offered more than simple shelter from the rain. The Victorian temple to art delighted us with its wide-ranging collections:  we saw paintings by Blake, contemporary glass art, armor from around the world, Egyptian antiquities, and much more. We both enjoyed the British Art rooms which introduced us to artists like Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) whose work we hadn’t seen before and compelled us. John and I also liked the Edouard Vuillard paintings on display, including this one of a woman reading. And to John’s delight, we stumbled upon a drawing class for children in a fabulous gallery with red walls. We climbed the vertiginous stairs to the room’s upper gallery to look at the paintings just a few inches from our faces; it was thrilling and slightly terrifying up there on the narrow cat walk. John may shake his fist at the world, but I was a witness to the happiness he felt the sight of young people making art.

Tempting as it was to spend the rest of our lives in the museum, we decided to explore Cambridge’s living museums: the historic colleges themselves. Cambridge turned out to be the perfect complement to our Loire explorations; buildings such as King’s College Chapel, which we went to next, are contemporaries of the region’s chateaux. Time for a quick slideshow:

The jaw-dropping “fan vaulting” of King’s College Chapel. The building was completed in only three years between 1512-1515 (brochure).

No ordinary choir stalls

Trinity College. Alumni include Lord Byron and Isaac Newton

The bridge of sighs at St. John’s College

Our lunch date with J.O. approaching, I took a short break back at the room, while John went to a shop across the street from Sidney Sussex College to buy a Harris Tweed vest. I didn’t think it possible, but the vest makes him even more handsome.

We had a good lunch at Pizza Express in the 19th century Pitt Club clubhouse (think Jeeves and Wooster). Afterwards, J.O. walked with us to Castle Mound for view of town (a few churches in the way, but nevermind) and we did a touch of shopping. I bought two music books: The Novello Music Hall Songbook and Great Songs of the Twenties. John bought a Cuban cigar from a Floridian in Cambridge!

The three of us tried a new classic pairing: sparkling Vouvray and wasabi peanuts in the temperamental afternoon weather. Then we all went our separate ways for quiet time. Earlier, in one of Sidney Sussex’s covered outdoor hallways, we’d all noticed a young man on a stationary bike training for serious riding; his physique could compete with the best of the Greek plaster casts. He’d disappeared by now, so I went and sat in the covered hallway to look at my new books and enjoy the air. As the rain grew heavier, a family playing croquet gave up and eventually I went inside myself.

By 8pm, we all felt rested and met for drinks at the Eagle, an old pub with WWII-era graffiti on the ceiling and where Crick announced his and Watson’s double helix discovery. We had reservations for a late dinner at celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s “Italian.” I love the old bank building that the restaurant is in. Our appetizers — arancini and “mushroom with magic bread”, my notes say — were awesome (I remember deliciousness, but not details). I couldn’t decide which luscious vegetarian plate to order until the waiter let me down gently with the news that the menu was new and two of my contenders were unavailable. I had one last option: gnudi. These nutmeg-scented ricotta balls were tasty, but rather, um, bare. John and J.O. leaned in their heads to look at the four nestled balls before turning to their pastas, one with crab and one with “meat” (my notes are really failing me now). We all got dessert and my elaborate strawberry meringue made up for the aptly named gnudi. John and J.O. too hit it big with their epic brownie and tiramisu. Meanwhile, we watched the wait staff pile up dishes precariously on the bar just a few feet from us. When John asked what was going on, they were excited that someone asked, let alone noticed. We learned that the dishwashing machine is very slow. The interaction made one of the waitresses break into a smile; before her austere, angular face fit for German Expressionism intrigued all of us, but when she smiled, she became even more pretty and didn’t seem nearly as serious as she had looked.

Eager to make the night last as long as possible, we went to the cool River Bar overlooking the canal. I knew to take it slow with a peach fuzz, but the two Johns kept on with a sazerac and a custom drink for J.O., who knew only that he wanted something with Grey Goose vodka. The bartender cooked up a delicious orange-scented drink for him, which we called, what else!, the Johnny Onassis.

Like our friend Ioanna, J.O. has an admirable stamina for evenings out with friends. I could have gone to sleep right then, but off we went to the Maypole. Though a student bar, it’s one of the few things open late. We sat in the pub’s quiet upstairs room, empty except for a young couple. John took an immediate dislike to the boy based on his prattish outfit and J.O. felt sorry for the girl, who wasn’t English, but was infatuated with a jerk who didn’t deserve her. I was too busy enjoying my half-pint and wondering why my left eye was being so irritable and a little red. As the couple became entwined across the room, we studiously looked away and entertained ourselves by trying on John’s hat and taking pictures. Finally, a large group of French students came upstairs and the awkwardness dissipated. The couple went off into the night. We all hoped there wouldn’t be babies. [06/25 – My mom thought this was a mean thing to say. By this, I meant: we hoped they would be responsible and live with no regrets.]

We three said our goodnights as well and made plans to meet at Patisserie Valerie for a full English breakfast. My salty vegetarian sausage, a rare fake meat treat, made me happy. With J.O.’s news that he would be in the U.S. on a lecture tour in the coming academic year, we rejoiced that we’d being seeing him again soon and could reciprocate his hospitality in our own city!

In the morning before breakfast: me and matching flowers

A bank holiday weekend meant that the Sunday morning train to London was crammed full. I sat on the floor with a few other girls and got super nauseated, while John stood for the 50 minutes. I got a great view of a man’s swinging socks, foreshadowing to our next two nights in Soho.

Whitechapel to Waterloo

(Grand Tour Part 5 of 7)

At Gare du Nord, we took the escalator to the Hall Londres and passed through security and the “board crossing” to the large, utterly packed waiting area. At a little shop, we found tasty sandwiches. As soon as I’d unwrapped mine, it was time to board. Juggling our rolling bags, back packs, my purse, hat, and food proved a bit challenging, but we made it and found a spot to store our bags.

I dozed on the train as I couldn’t see much from the window. A little more than two hours later we were in St. Pancras, a picturesque station with lovely brickwork. We queued to purchase Oyster cards and off we went to Whitechapel. The sight of punky kids warmed my heart; I suddenly felt at home. The realization too that we were in an English-speaking land also set in and slowly, slowly we began to relax more fully, not having realized before that the otherliness of France had been both a thrill and a burden.

As in Paris, we stayed at an AirBnb place. Our host Khurram gave us an excellent orientation to the perfect apartment on Commercial Road. I felt vindicated by his dinner recommendation which was already on the map I’d made of the neighborhood. Resorting to our prehistoric gender roles, I fluffed about the apartment bringing order to my suitcase, while John set out for the local Tesco in search of laundry detergent. I fell in the love with the shower and we made immediate use the washer/dryer combo, which took some experimentation before we got the cycles down.

I charted out a walk around the neighborhood to help us orient ourselves. We explored the market at Spitalfields where John bought a “Lenin hat” from an enthusiastic and helpful man. I couldn’t tell who was more entertained by whom. The haberdasher totally got John’s look (he was wearing a vest and he always has his bald head and beard) and egged him on. Lots of stalls sold airy dresses with cute prints and there were plenty of graphic designers selling thin cotton shirts. It reminded me that I should visit the craft market in my own neighborhood at home more often!

We continued north to admire all the amazing street art before curving east and south down Brick Lane. We stopped in three or four vintage stores with amazing collections of vests, track suits, preppy blazers, military units, and unfortunate castaways of the 80s and 90s waiting to be revived. I’ll never forget the two older women with husky smokers’ voices to match cooing (or should I say gargling) over the large selection of leopard print garments at one shop.

Time for a bathroom break, so we enjoyed the Stella Artois happy hour at a random bar called Exit. The half Canadian-half Kiwi bartender talked with us and gave his perspective on the cocktail scene (the art of mixology is slowly catching).

Our loop almost complete, we ate dinner at Tayyab’s, a Pakistani institution. It was only a little after 6pm and the place was packed (again a cultural shocker from France where the evening meal starts no earlier than 7pm and afternoon snacks are hard to come by). We had a short wait before we could get a table. We sat in the enormous downstairs dining room in a far corner between two young couples, presumably on dates. The place may be “no frills” (as described by Google) and the service a bit lacking, but John’s lamb and my baby pumpkin were super tasty and spicy (and cheap!). John ran back to the apartment to drop off his new hat, while I watched the waitstaff try to keep up with all the dirty dishes that needed to be packed into the dumbwaiter. It took a while for me to get someone’s attention so I could pay. The woman at the next table capitalized on my initiative too. Outside waiting for John I saw people continue to stream in, friends waiting for friends. Clearly, the place is popular.

We got on the Tube back to King’s Cross and St. Pancras. A few months back I heard La Femme on NPR and usually when I take an interest in a group I try to see them live. Though a French electronic dance band, La Femme happened to be playing in London. I bought tickets ahead of time and we went! The club, Scala, possessed a few clues to its past as an art deco movie house, but the music space reminded me of the 9:30 Club in DC. We passed through the stiff security (while in line John spotted a man in a Lenin hat — his sour, angular face just like one of John’s cartoons) and found a spot where we could sit. During the show we were forever stuck behind tall people (and I’m 5’9″!), so we went to the upper balcony where a middle-aged couple stood unmoving in the spray of dancing 20-somethings. John, like the 17-year-old he truly is at heart, broke their resistance down by clapping very loudly near their heads and eventually they moved away. A man who looked remarkably like Edgar Allan Poe — he had the mustache down perfectly — lurked in the corner. Finally, we could see until a frisky couple starting pressing themselves against each other and the railing. I couldn’t look away from their writhing tongues! And then we followed a few enterprising dancers to a secret gallery which offered a fabulous view! On stage: members of the band started out wearing Mexican wrestling masks. Then, the male singer — bleach blond hair, no shirt, and shiny gold pants — went crowdsurfing! We danced for as long as we could and then collapsed back at our Whitechapel apartment.

On Thursday morning, we decided to try Spitalfields Market for breakfast. On the way, we found Trade on Commercial Street, the cafe of my dreams. With its groovy soundtrack, back yard garden, design school chic interior, and a host of foodie options (the beautiful muffins took our breath away), we decided to look no further. We both shared a muffin (with a little cornmeal for crunch) and had eggs — gorgeous neon yellow things — with sourdough toast; John’s came with chorizo. We loved it so much we went back the next day.

Then we took the underground toward the city center with a gaggle of adorable elementary schoolers (maybe 1st graders?). We got on at Aldgate East and they at Whitechapel, as we overheard from their teacher, an energetic young man who expertly engaged each of the students by asking them questions or putting them in charge of counting the stops. The other chaperones were women in headscarves and we were struck by the demographics: only one white girl among the 30 or more kids.

At Cannon Street, we exited to see the legendary London Stone. We found the best view by going into the WFSmith convenience store and squeezing behind the magazine rack.

Seven years before we had visited London and while we hit most of the big museums, we missed the Cortauld Institute. For our second visit, we wanted to fill in the gaps, but also to re-experience the city whose skyline and taste for coffee has been utterly transformed. A place like Trade simply couldn’t have existed in 2007 London (I would be interested in either being validated or dissuaded of this unscientific suspicion); back then, John could not find “decent” coffee or really any coffee at all. Yet, over the intervening seven years, a new coffee culture, desire for local and artisanal foods (Borough Market exploded!), and perhaps a growth in the gastropub trend have all resulted in a smart, more foodie-oriented London that John and I are so excited about.

From the London Stone, we walked along the Thames and around the lawyerly Temple to King’s College London and the Cortauld Gallery. The exquisite collection focuses on painting and the medium’s development from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. We loved the small collection; we felt revived by the visit, not overwhelmed, and each piece of the collection seemed carefully chosen. And though we felt so sorry for Van Gogh, it didn’t stop John from asking me to take his picture.

From the museum we walked over Waterloo Bridge and counted the skyscrapers.

The previously unmemorable Southbank now seems a vibrant collection of rehabilitated industrial buildings. The British Film Institute redeveloped its Southbank building and now there’s construction at the National Theater, while spanking new buildings line Southwark Street. Borough Market has a permanent structure and it’s huge and so fabulous! I could stay at an AirBnb inside one of the market stalls next time. At Bread Ahead, we had a killer vanilla cream-filled donut and two festive foccacia. At Taste Croatia, John found a heavenly pepperoni. (I kept the wrapped slices in my pocket for most of the day and when I accidentally put a tissue in that pocket and pulled it out later to blow my nose it smelled of oily meat.) To drink we found fresh fruit juices and at the Veggie Table, I rejoiced at the sight of tattooed, plug-eared, all-black-wearing vegetarians who served up the best burgers we have EVER had. Tons of fresh vegetables bound together with halloumi cheese (there was a vegan version as well) on either a bun (as John had it) or on MORE SALAD (as I had it) — a mix of potato salad, a carrot slaw, some barley was in there too. Like so many other happy people, we ate in the shadow of Southwark Cathedral. Sorry, my beloved France: eating out was so much more fun in London.

To top it all off, we rested our feet a bit longer at the Wine Pantry, featuring only wines from England. Did you know there were vineyards in England? I sure as hell didn’t. We made immediate friends with Anna (I hope I’ve remembered her name correctly), who recommended we try a sparkling Champagne-like wine and a rose. The rose was good, but those Cornwall bubbles rocked our socks off! I must plan a trip around Camel Valley Vineyards in Cornwall.

We took the tube up to Holborn and John confessed that he didn’t want to go with me into the Sir John Soane House, which we had tried visiting seven years earlier. Mildly shocked and perturbed, I went off alone, while he found coffee and a newspaper.

Early 19th century architect John Soane had the collecting bug. Some rooms had normal dimensions and lovely furnishings, while others felt like I was trapped at the bottom of a well of art. His collection features paintings, plaster casts of antiquities, and a few bona fide antiquities, including a mummy in the basement. His house is a three-dimensional scrapbook of architectural fragments and sculptures. The museum is free and no pictures are permitted, so it makes for a short, but fascinating visit. Unfortunately, some restoration work was underway in the house’s central gallery while I was visiting.

Ready to depart, I looked out the door and saw the pouring rain. Poor John, I had both umbrellas. He was huddled under a tree with two other men in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He wasn’t too wet, but there was no point trying to go far. He’d spotted a bar on the corner, so we popped in to stay out of the rain. All Bar One turned out to be a chain we saw throughout London, but it couldn’t be any better placed at that moment. Their drafts focused on the big European varietals: Stella, Heineken, Amstel, Peroni.

The rain stopped and we thought why not visit the British Museum, since we’re right around the corner. We strolled in, said hello to the Anglo-Saxon collections, looked at the clock collection (very hypnotic), and breezed through the few Pre-Columbian rooms. I was a bit giggly from my one beer on an empty stomach, but that particular state of mind made the museum all the more fun.

From the BM, we walked the short distance to the British Library. With a little more than 1 hour before it closed, we went through the exhibit, “Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK.” The BL curators must have been so excited that they got the OK to do a comic exhibition that they couldn’t contain their enthusiasm. What could have been a focused look at comics, politics, censorship, and social commentary turned into a celebration of British comics and boundary pushing in all senses (it wasn’t a bad thing, just an interesting choice on the part of the designers). The last part of the exhibit provided example of artists breaking out of the usual conventions of storytelling with various sized and shaped panels. Somehow notebooks of Queen Elizabeth I’s astrologer and Aleister Crowley made it into the exhibit — there was a rationale, but it hasn’t stuck with me. John had a fabulous time and even I made note of two items to seek out later, including Sally Heathcote Suffragette. We found ourselves entranced by The Graphic, which illustrated the gruesome news of the late 19th century. After going through the exhibit, I spent the remaining 15 minutes in the BL’s main exhibit space and oggled all the fun things they had on display: some items I remembered seeing before and many different things, such as a large collection of bibles from Eastern Europe.

At this point, my notes say “———————————UG”. I initially understood this to mean “nap”, but now I believe it simply stands for a ride on the underground. The late afternoon provided an opportunity to rest and to do more laundry.

For dinner we walked to Wapping, an old neighborhood with at least one cobblestone street right on the river. On the way, we passed a voting center with jovial Muslim men handing out flyers and asking us if we would be voting. As we got closer to the Thames, the buildings became nicer and newer with unfriendly gates. We passed a canal — soberingly quiet compared to Canal St Martin. We ate on the patio of the Town of Ramsgate, a serviceable pub most notable for its view directly onto the Thames. Two couples sat together in the corner and talked about the easiest way to get into boating: “You buy a shitty boat” for about £10,000 and fix it up, but really it has to be a “shitty boat.” Bob has a “shitty boat” and so on it went. John had bangers and mash and I a satisfying cauliflower and cheese pie. To commemorate the first Hoegaarden I ever had — it turned out to be the beer that got me drinking beer — seven years ago in London, I had one that night. “Shitty boat.” They never stopped.

We walked along the river to marvel at the impressive clouds and the swanky residential buildings. East London was getting more interesting by the minute from the Islamic Center to the vintage store punks and street artists to the well-heeled river dwellers.

We started back north toward our apartment and paused for a drink at Wilton’s Music Hall, a stable ruin with two bars and a 19th century performance space, the foundation stone having been laid 127 years — to the day — before I was born. John had an Icelandic beer and I drank tasty sangria before we asked the man at the welcome desk for more information about the building. Though no performances were happening that night and he was in the middle of eating his “dinner” (a granola bar!), he showed us the music hall! An incredibly narrow, but long space with the stage 5’7″ off the ground. What I would give to stand on that stage! At the man’s recommendation, we bought the historical pamphlet by Carole Zeidman which goes into fascinating detail not only about the building, but about some of its legendary performers including George Leybourne:

Under contract for a year . . . he was obliged to live the life of a swell on and off stage, appearing each day in a carriage with postilions and grooms . . . He also agreed to consume large quantities of champagne, given free by wine shippers to gain publicity. An exceptionally highly-paid music hall performer, sometimes earning over £100 per week, he worked relentlessly, often appearing at six halls a night, gave generously to charity, but died penniless of liver disease and exhaustion at the age of 42.

Eager not to go the way of George Leybourne, we relaxed back at the apartment. John ran out to Tesco’s to get himself wine to go with the Balkan pepperoni. Then we watched the I.T. Crowd, not on Netflix, but actually on the telly, while I ate a Tesco cupcake!

Le Grand Tour

In the following posts, I’ll share stories and pictures from my and John’s trip to France and England, but first the facts:

Trip length: 16 days from May 12-27, 2014
Number of places stayed in: 7
Stairs climbed: countless. All but one place required stair climbing and twice we were on the top floor.
Pounds of goat cheese consumed per person: 17.3
Trains taken: 7
Seatless toilets used: 3
Harris Tweed vests purchased: 1
Roman ruins spotted: 2
Cows counted: impossible to say
Miles driven in a Renault Kangoo: 604
Vineyards visited: 3
Beer festivals attended: 1
Musical acts seen or heard: 11 if we include the chorus of drag queens dressed as nurses singing “Happy Birthday” on the street in Soho and the ubiquitous accordion players on the Paris metro
Stray cats petted by John: at least 2. He probably touched more when I wasn’t looking.

See Flickr for the full set of pictures and videos. The videos have two themes: Sounds of the Loire in four parts and Monty Python tributes in two parts.

The outline of the posts, each covering two days, is as follows:
Part 1: Paris
Part 2: Reims and the Loire
Part 3: Loire Valley
Part 4: Troo and Paris
Part 5: London
Part 6: Cambridge
Part 7: London again
Epilogue: Lingering Impressions and On Trip Planning