LONDON AND AMSTERDAM 2013

September 12
Expanded bus tour took us through Mayfair and Kensington. One property in Kensington cost 300 million pounds. Mind boggling. Spent the afternoon at the magnificent Victoria and Albert museum, my current favorite London museum. It houses every form and era of art from every corner of the globe. Glass, porcelain, silver, fashion, sculpture and jewelry; rooms and rooms of treasures. It could be said that the British Empire pillaged the riches of the countries it colonized and explored but in the 21st century I'm grateful to the British taxpayers for the opportunity to visit all London museums for free.
We had a light lunch in the Pre-Raphaelite room adjacent to the V&A tearoom. The decor is 19th century elaborate, over the top elegance. Delicious.
Sat at a bus stop on the way back to the hotel and had a fun conversation with two little sisters and their mother from Kent. The older of the two was severely disabled and was on the way to a doctor's appointment. The little sister got off school in the bargain. We talked about pop music, who they liked and didn't. They were big fans of Emilie Sande. Both wanted to be actresses/singers and had already chosen their stage names. Reminded me of myself at their age and really made my day.

September 13
Moved on to the Grange Whitehall Hotel next to the British Museum. The Grange is an old world hotel housed in a Georgian building on a short block of Georgian buildings, literally right around the corner from the BM and Russell Square. We had a spacious room with an elegant decor. Great breakfast in the dining room overlooking a private garden. Really friendly and helpful staff and lots of American tourists.
We toured the library at the BM; a treasure trove not only of rare books but all form of ephemera so popular in the 18th century private collections of the upper class. Natural wonders of the world; shells, corals, gems, rocks, taxidermy, coins, pottery and an enormous collection of wax seals took hours to see. There was an exhibit of Meso American wall friezes and sculpture that was creatively curated.
Amazingly bad Italian take away spaghetti dinner in our room.

September 14
Another day at the British Museum. Very crowded. Paul pushed me in a wheelchair  today because of bad knees. Saw every manner of artifact from every century and culture. Viking hoards, mummies, Etruscan wall friezes. After a while it's a little overwhelming and needed a slow lunch in the restaurant. The Elgin marbles are so impressively displayed in the bright, white galleries lit by skylights overhead.

On the bus tour back to Bloomsbury we passed the tower of London via the Tower Bridge. I've seen so many films about King Henry VIII lopping off the heads of his wives, these places seem a little cinematic at first until it sank in that the tower has stood there since 1066 and that the people portrayed by so many actually walked these grounds, languished in the tower bridge prison and lost their heads on the grounds. It is sobering to think that this city and these buildings which have witnessed so much human history still stand. We Americans love to tear things down and build new things all the time.
London has its share of new architecture too. The bullet shaped building known to locals as the gherkin, the city hall they call the onion and an enormous tower nicknamed the shard.

MUSEUM VISIT TO LONDON AND AMSTERDAM 2013

For two consecutive years I was unable to travel to Europe due to back problems. After a lot of physical therapy, shots and chiropractic adjustments, Paul and I finally went this September for 19 days.
What follows is a journal of 9 museums, 2 cathedrals and two synagogues in London and Amsterdam.
September 9th
10 1/2 hours to London Heathrow arrived September 10th at 11

: a.m. I was wheeled one mile from the gate to baggage claim by Mr. Bradshaw from Leeds. Shuttle to Hotel Mercure Bloomsbury, one of a chain owned by a French company. Chilly but efficient reception. We slept 4 hours to recover from an uncomfortable, bumpy flight then had dinner at Anatol, a Turkish restaurant decorated floor to ceiling with hand painted, Turkish designs. Great meal, excellent service at a reasonable price. Lamb mussaka for me and lamb stew with tomatoes and peppers for Paul.

September 11
Hop on hop off buses run in the big cities of the world touring the major sites. They are double deckers, the upper deck open air with recorded historical commentary. Passengers are boarded and dropped off at their desired stops at regular 15 minute intervals. While it's a little touristy, it's the most convenient way for people like me with limited mobility and energy to get around a big city. We braved the cloudy, brisk weather and sat upper deck for the best views of this remarkable city. First stop St. Paul's Cathedral. Sir Christopher Wren's church was built after the great fire of 1066 with a tax on coal. While it creates a majestic impression from outside, it's interior leaves something to be desired. Dark, gloomy nave with a cold, uninspiring rotunda to follow. In my opinion its historical importance is all that accounts for the pricy admission charge; Queen Elizabeth's coronation, Diana and Charles wedding and a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr.. An interesting and moving fact;  on 9/11 hundreds of American tourists and Londoners gathered for a sermon delivered on the grand stairway in front of the church.
Just an hour left to see the Turner collection at the Tate before closing. Turner's paintings explode with light like drug induced revelations. Strange muddy glazes and surrealistic imagery sets him so far ahead of his British contemporaries.
Ate at an Indian restaurant next to the hotel. Had the fixed price, dinner for two which was delicious but way too much food. I should complain?

More entries to come.

MY LOS ANGELES

I lived and worked in San Francisco and later the Berkeley/Oakland area for 40 years before moving to Los Angeles in 2011. Recently I received a rather condescending reply to an invitation I made to a Bay Area friend.  I invited her and her family to stay with us in Los Angeles.  The friend said that she was surprised we had moved to LA but was sure it had 'its charms'. She didn't think she'd be visiting.

I was disappointed by her dismissive attitude but understood where she was coming from. My husband and I felt the same way when we visited family here on holidays year after year. We were typical Bay Area xenophobes with a Northern California superiority complex.  It wasn't until we briefly lived in Prague then relocated to Colorado that we changed our perspective.  Living in the same small area for so many years had blinded us to the fascination of other places.

We didn't make a conscious choice to live in Los Angeles. The needs of an ailing parent brought us. But now that we've settled into life here we see the city with new eyes. We frequently visit the Getty, LACMA, Norton Simon and other museums.  On Sunday we read the LA Times and have dim sum in Chinatown or drive up the coast and walk along the Malibu pier.  We shop at the Vallarta Market for the cornucopia of fresh vegetables and fragrant, warm bread. Actually the adjustment has been pretty smooth.  OK,  so LA traffic is bad but try to drive on the Bay Bridge or Highway 880 at 9 a.m.  One thing we learned from all this....get out of town before your feet get stuck in a rut!

March Suggested Reading

THE ASSISTANT by Bernard Malamud

Excerpt from HONOR REDEEMS book two of The Singing Fountain

The Palace gardens were silent and dark, with only an occasional flash of headlights through the trees from the street several meters away. Honor led Jan along the elegant arcade of Ionic columns that encompassed the Palace, past the Singing Fountain in the center of the wintry, courtyard garden. They cautiously made their way down a trail that wound through a grove of old trees until Honor stopped behind the Royal Hall. It was a magnificent Renaissance building with a series of arched windows, its facade artfully decorated in white sgraffiti depicting the four elements. She tugged on an inconspicuous wooden door at the building's foundation and it reluctantly opened. "You'll have to duck down low to get in. Watch your head," she whispered.

Excerpt from book one of my Singing Fountain Trilogy

The kitchen door exited onto a small courtyard enclosed on either side by ivy covered, stone walls. Two long, wooden benches and a table stood in the center and a bronze boar's head was embedded in the tower wall. From the courtyard, Diane strolled a gravel pathway around the tower by the oak grove, inhaling the earth brown scent of decaying leaves and wild mushrooms after a light rain. She heard faint, foreign voices, the distant whistle of the ferryboat on the river and was filled with a sense of belonging.

Excerpt from my novel, Love's Lost & Found

Not since his first kiss as a teenager had he felt such a current flow through him. It wasn't passion or lust. It was the first breath of love that rocks you to your core, the kiss you remember all your life. When they drew apart, the sight of her was seared into his brain; her exotic grey eyes, the glint of diamonds, her faint smile and the wisp of dark hair that had fallen on her cheek. He knew that he would carry that image in his mind and recall it in quiet moments as the years bent and finally bowed him.