Back-to-School Party and Art Show
Monday October 10, 2011
We had a fabulous art show yesterday at the Institute from 5 to 7pm........we did it one week later than usual since they were working on our roof and there was a danger of too many trucks and things in our parking lot....so then they finished in time for our sunday oct 9 show.....this was a brilliant idea for a show and we had never done it before....it was all the idea of Sharon Martin...she had talked with some of the artists as they worked......(Karen Traiger works on her quilts in Renaissance class...yup..right there in front of the lecturer....!! i like it....) so she thought of the idea of getting a group and doing a whole show so it went from there and people we didnt know about appeared and friends told us about friends..
Was a great process since we met new people (Anne Lanborne) and discovered new artists sitting right there in front of me....(Debbie Imerson) and so the show developed over the months...it took a lot of work.....Sharon and Donna Ludlow worked one whole day arranging and fixing and tacking and pounding......and then flower arranging (another Sharon Martin art) and VOILA! there it all was on sunday afternoon....
Here is one beautiful ensemble right at the door....love the Karen Traiger geometric design over my Aunt Mable's chest....our Institute is full of my dear aunt's things that came to me when she passed away.....and now it looks even better with this great brown and blue and golden geometric..and then you all see the wonderful baskets that mary Jo Stowe created for the show...they were a huge hit and were snapped up like hot cakes....why do people say that....hot cakes???? do any of us stand around waiting for hot cakes? oh well.........Mary Jo way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!
Over the wine counter we have Maria Klein's wonderful olive tree...isnt it gorgeous....Maria is Kate Curry's daughter so it seems right and a good thing to have another member of the family with works of art on our walls after all the years during which our precious Kate's works graced the same spaces....
here below is Debbie Imerson in front of her huge handsewn quilt in
our office.....
and Karen Ashton from the Renaissance class with this
gentle myriad of colors........
and Mary Jo Stowe stands here in front of the Kate Curry
Library holding one of her baskets....we all just loved them
and bought them all.....
Karen Traiger is here in front of her beautiful homage to
Van Gogh.....I loved it.....so I bought it...
Below you see Anne Lanborne wearing a spectacular green and blue outfit
standing in front of her wonderful textile with images and designs that were inspired by ideas she brought home from her recent trip to Spain. It is perfect for our year-long History of Spain class.
Here is Soosang Park and his wife Grace and their three
children.....standing in front of Debbie Imerson's quilt...
and here are all the artists....Mary Jo Stowe on the left then
Karen Traiger and in the middle Karen Ashton and Anne Lanborne
with Debbie Imerson the last on the right...
The whole event was a huge success with great food (tables full.....all eaten...) great wine....happy times.....
it is all like a great big family.....so many know each other from so many different places and there is so much fun and good talk and good times..
the Institute rolls on....
Bill's London Trip
DAY SEVEN Wednesday September 21, 2011
so sad so sad so sad.......the week is over and so now this morning up early to pack and get ready for the huge marathon voyage back in the westerly direction.....with stopover in dallas the whole thing will be 24 hours from morning getup to sleep in los altos.....so now i trundle my little red suitcase (red so i can find it on the airport carousel) out the door of the very pretty old royal park hotel (look how understated thier brass sign is on the post) and jiggiddy jog down westbourne terrace...feels like an old pal cause have been heading to westbourne terrace on the tube and on the buses and in the cabs every day for a week..goodbye royal park..good bye mark battle and marketa and mahmoud and thomas...all my pals....
the first big step in the trip is getting to heathrow from london and here is where the choice of the paddington area becomes a huge benefit....if you stay within walking distance of paddington station it means you can go out the door of your hotel and walk over to the station with no waiting for cabs, or tube or bus......you are there as quickly as you can walk......its all easy....one level......walk right into station from street level so if you are dragging a roller suitcase it is totally easy....good chance there will be one of the sleek heathrow express trains sitting right there on its dedicated track in the middle of the station and if you bought a round trip ticket when you arrived at heathrow you dont even have to stop to buy a ticket you just get right on and sit down in the comfortable seats and relax for the super fast trip to heathrow....(15 minutes)...
so now zip tp heathrow where you make sure you know which stop is yours at the heathrow destination....there are multiple stops depending on which terminal you are using...and for the USA it will be the all new Terminal 3 the international departure terminal. big and busy....divided among alpha letters designating the various airlines....american is in section A...........
security in the new terminal is extremely rigorous......more so than SF or SJ......so i just start peeling everything off since anything metal makes the bell ring...and then you can end up with the famous "patdown"...........security at heathrow is pretty much the same as in USA so small liquids in transparent plastic bags, shoes off if they have metal, big belt buckles off, laptops and cell phones into the plastic tubs.........coats off,......
heathrow has always been crowded, waiting rooms crowded, cafes crowded, and now with a whole new terminal its STILL crowded..funny...i dont get it....what were they thinking...one thing that makes it feel crowded is the fact that they must have a real racket with the airport no tax sales shops cause the amount of space they give over to the boutiques is huge and they do not just sit over at the side...but you have to walk through them all sort of zig zagging left and right until you finally reach a sitdown area....feels sort of like running a gauntlet.....with channel and louis vuitton and scotch whiskey and everything else beckoning you to come buy...BUY BUY NOW!!!!!
once you are through security there is one thing you DO want to buy....the biggest bottle of water you can find....dont worry that it is large cause you can tuck it into the corner of the seat and always have it ready.....you can drink drink drink....and also use it to splash your face if the AC is hitting you (what i got this trip)....you dont want to dry out....so just keep pumping the water in...yes yes i know you will be off to WC (see how brit i am) a lot but thats ok.....
learned a great lesson from my seat mate this trip.....while i was eating a not very great meal she was eating a spectacular one....and then she clued me in...she had requested a special KOSHER meal.......well a kosher meal is a very good one on the airlines........so you might consider it.....
some tips: your laptop power source on all american airlines (and most others) uses a cigarette lighter type insert....for apple macs they have them at apple store...your iphone needs a different kind of cord for insert into phone but the same kind of insert for the airline power source...you will only have ONE plug at your seat....so dont plan to charge BOTH laptop and phone unless you can swap one out for the other one.....my new apple laptop has a very specific cord for airline power with specific plug on laptop end that fits my laptop power source input....i highly rec that you carry BOSE noise reduction earphones esp on a long flight esp on flight all way to europe....if you have them you can put them on immed. and they will allow you to avoid all the crackling and crashing sounds of airlines esp the other people....talkers and coughers and all the others...ye ai know that SOME flights hand out bose earphones in BUSINESS but you will still find yourself without them at various points....there is a BOSE store at stanford shopping...yes i know they are "expensive" but nothing makes a long airline flight nicer than those earphones and then good music or better good books...you can plug the earphones into your iphone or your laptop either one.....
about flights back to the USA: most international flights to california will use some city (NY or chicago or dalles) to set down, go through customs and then board you onto your connecting flight. i have used all three...and there are advantages and disadvantages to all three......of the three dallas is least likely to throw you a weather surprise and delay or cancel your whole itinerary, but it has one huge negative..you have to use the Skylink monorail to move from one terminal to another and coming in on an international flight will certainly require you to move over to a domestic terminal using the Skylink .....this can be a big time eater and if you are hurrying the skylink will drive you nuts.....except for this, the dallas terminal is the most roomy, most comfortable, nicest food, etc........JFK-NY has one big advantage if you are flying american and that is their new gorgeous fabulous really beautiful terminal at JFK with its own customs reception...thus this is the best of all places to land......negative: huge delays in landing schedules due to the amount of traffic at JFK......so that leaves chicago....the worst weather situation, in winter a predictable disaster, massive traffic delays, and other issues.......all of which suggests that if you have to book a flight with a connecting city changeover dallas may be the best choice esp if you are traveling American Airlines..if it is delta then that means Atlanta...
ok here i come...
DAY SIX Tuesday September 20, 2011
now after almost a week of glorious sunny fall weather today finally i have a more typical grey london day...but no rain...just grey overhead....threatening....
so off to the Tate....since there are 2 Tates now they have to have extra names so the old Tate is now the Tate Britain (since 2000) and the new Tate is the Tate Modern.. this will give you and idea..here is the grand old Tate... The gallery opened on 21 July 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art, but became commonly known as the Tate Gallery, after its founder Sir Henry Tate. There have been several extensions over the years.
and here is the Tate Modern..
both sit along the river...the old tate on the north bank of the Thames at "Millbank" and the new tate on the south bank...
in order to get to the old tate it is best to take the undergound (tube) to the Pimlico station...easy walking distance...and the tube gets you right through the busy middle of central london in less than 15 minutes....so having a travel pass for the city is worth it...(the Oyster Card)....which you then just flick against the turnstile auto. monitor and in you go.....very easy..
after the massive british museum and the also very grand national gallery the tate is very manageable and for that reason a very pleasant visit....not too much to see....a very sweet little cafe....lots of places to sit and rest and watch the people...so its the kind of visit that fills either a morning or an afternoon...its not a whole day like the british museum....
the great treasure of the old tate is their collection of 18th and 19th century british painters especially constable and turner and their contemporaries...its worth it just for them.....beautiful rooms set up in very comfortable formats with seating everywhere...
romanticism in britain was a powerful force (byron, shelley, wordsworth) and turner became a kind of supreme painter of the romanticist movement.. here is his wonderful painting based on byron's long poem which we read in Making of the Western Mind, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.....looking out into a typical italian valley view with travelers stopping along the river...i will show it to you in our Tate lecture night...a great painting and one of the most complete summaries of Romanticism that i can imagine.....turner went as wild about italy as byron did....they all loved it....loved those italian lasses with their long dark lashes....
after you enjoy the paintings i would encourage you to go downstairs to the charming little cafe in the basement...decked out in a sort of early 20th century art deco look with nice little booths and tables with a great buffet of snacks and coffee etc...
then when you are finished at the tate it is an easy straight journey right north to westminster....abbey, etc, and on to trafalgar if you want another stop at the national gallery or some of the other attractions in the general piccadilly center...
one thing you may want to know is that WHOLE FOODS (yes !!! all caps!!!) has come to london (5 stores) and when it is lunch time and you want a hearty california type lunch with great breads and yogurts and delicious fruit and all of it you will be happy to know there is a whole foods store right in the heart of Sojo just minutes from the national gallery....on Brewer Street....you will be delighted to enter....will feel like old home week...although here the cashiers are shockingly undecorated: not one tatoo.......nice place to sit and eat either upstairs or out on the streetside tables.....it is an oasis after too many white flour pastries etc.....more to come.....
DAY FIVE Monday September 19, 2011
London. it is another spectacular gorgeous september morning....even the hotel people are surprised....day after day...so now i can zip out the door of the lovely royal park and walk into hyde park at the lancaster gate which is just a block from the hotel and start my morning walk across hyde park to the opposite (south) side of the park where you find the whole victoria albert complex..the statue to victoria's beloved albert, royal albert hall just at the south edge of the park......and then down exhibition road to the victoria and albert museum...
have saved this....it was going to be a surprise...something i didnt know....sort of fun...to go tramping across the meadows to victoria's territory....i had never been to the V&A before so this would be fun....
the V&A is sort of an anomaly among museums...not really a painting gallery...not a sculpture museum...not really any one thing but everything....painting, sculpture, furniture, fashion, interior decor, and on and on...there is everything here...it sits in a great big red pile of bricks which is totally out of fashion now in our sleek hard bleak new modern buildings with no personality no nothing...
but the V&A is absolutely gorgeous in a wonderful funny way...if the Brit Museum has a kind of classical perfection and the Nat Gal has all the magnificence of trafalgar....the V&A is totally "vctorian" as it jolly well should be....(see....am getting more and more british every minute now saying "jolly well" and "mate")...you can see here some of the spires and cupolas that grace the soaring towers of the museum...
so off of exhibition road and on into the V&A...
is it worth the trip?....absolutely....i come away now looking back on my day there as one of the best of all museum days ever anywhere....it has everything.....incredible welcoming visitor services..beautiful clean restrooms...the best restaurant/cafe i have ever seen in any museum restaurant with the nicest staff...and magnificent central courtyard that circles the reflecting pool and around which people all sit on grass and chairs eating and drinking and on this day, basking in the gorgeous september sun....the central court may be the best thing about the V&A because it restores your spirit and energy and you are ready to run back in after 30 mins of sun....(yes i know you are saying hey what about winter when it is cold and dark....well you cant have everything)
so if it is beautiful..are there things worth seeing inside the galleries? yes yes yes i will give you a taste,..but you have to come to the lecture to see all the goodies at V&A.. you will love it....
here is one great thing in the medieval galleries..
what a great place..what fun what a perfect day.......
DAY FOUR Sunday September 18, 2011
London-Norwich-London. so today is sunday and had known all along that i might use it for a little day trip....my oldest friends in jolly olde eng live in Norwich and they had said please come out if you can...so had been thinking about it all week.....thought would be nice interlude to all the museums and a chance to see a little of the country...and now here sitting in the hotel sunday night am so glad i went....
was sort of worried because they said there was a RR deviation due to work on the lines that they do sundays...so i knew would be a little longer RR trip...and almost decided to stay in London, but my sister said on the phone GO....so ok got organized and early sunday AM was out the door for a taxi trip over to Liverpool Street Station....quiet and deserted early sunday morning....another one of the grand old London RR stations....problem for the trip was that the man who sold me my ticket sent me off to a town i had never heard of at which i would then change to another train to another town i had never heard of...left the station worried about riding the rails of england heading to towns had never even heard of all on the directions of a man who didnt seem to be paying much attention to it all.....but it worked....
so why all the effort to go to Norwich? well the Pollards are my dearest long-time friends in England...i met Sarah in Perugia when we were teenagers on our first trip to Italy..she was studying italian there and my pal from Cal Larry Schwartz was also there and said come see me in Perugia so i did.....that night in Perugia he said come to a Spanish guitar concert with some English chicks tonight and so off we went and there was gorgeous Sarah Pollard flowing strawberry blond english beauty (still is)....vibrant witty fun....we immed. hit it off and then she said my parents are coming to Florence in a week...meet us there....so we all met on the steps of the Duomo in Firenze and went for a wonderful lunch on via proconsolo and have been dear friends ever since...the Pollards have been to California and all of our family have been to see them again and again and so now i was off to see them in the wonderful city of Norwich....
Norwich is the capital city of Norfolk and East Anglia (big important east engish area), that great round far eastern county up against the sea in the southeast corner of England....the oldest settled part of the country with its welcoming green grains growing all the year .....the most attractive part of this green island to all the invaders from the continent as far back as three thousand years ago....celts, vikings, normans, french, angles, saxons on and on and on.....all have come to east Anglia (angles.....)
Norwich should be way high on your tour list of places to see in england.....the city is a jewel.....with waterways and hills and the most magnificent of all the cathedrals of england.....built in the late 1000's all out of beautiful golden limestone imported from NORMANDY!!!!! imagine carrying over millioins of tons of norman stone from france so that the cathedral would be built with what they all believed was the most beautiful stone on europe...
So off on the british railroad to get to Norwich....my worries about the RR and the deviation proved pointless because having to descend from the train and use a bus for part of the journey was actually fun since it meant i had a charming little bus trip through the beautiful english countryside dotted with ancient dairy farms and tiny little villages on my way to the big city of Norwich.
Norwich is the most isolated and independent of all the major cities of England......it sits way out in the east on its own....the absolute dominant capital of this very important part of England and the Duke of Norfolk was often the most powerful of all the dukes since if the king did not hold Norfolk his enemies could easily use a base in Norfolk to drive west all the way to a coup in London....many such coup attempts started here....the Duke of Norfolk was the first Elizabeths most dangerous enemy and she ended up having to execute him in the Tower....
my trip to Norwich would bring me right here to the cathedral since Barbara Pollard, Sarah's mom lives within the "Cathedral Close" ie the closed inner garden/yard around the cathedral, often within walls, with gardens and many buildings, residences, monastery etc all within this special inner space.....here below is a photo of Barbara now 96 years, the most gorgeous witty fun wildly attractive 96 year old you will ever meet.....here is Barbara and me standing in front of the magnificent crazy old Victorian mansion where she lives, the great Bay window is her favorite spot to sit and watch the cathedral..
thats the cathedral reflected in my glasses...it is only about 20 feet in front of the house....
so this was my reason for journeying across eastern england on this sunday...to see this great lady who entertained us all with great stories and laughter and magnificent memories of our days together in florence and santa barbara and london and wonderful wimbledon where the pollards lived for years in a great mansion looking out over the Wimbledon Common.....i can remember on my first visit Barbara's handsome Academy Award winning film maker husband William ("English Bill" and i am "American Bill") took us on bicycles over to see the Tennis courts......Bill is gone now but not ever gone from the memories of all of us.....one of the most generous courteous attractive men i have ever known....can remember how Barbara would mutter at Bill for trimming his gorgeous Commander Whitehead beard at the living room mirror and thus would leave a little pile of white hair trimings there on the mantelpiece after each clipping session....ha...i think of it every time i trim my own moustache in california....
the whole day in Norwich was a english sunday paradise....gorgeous bright september sun, clouds rolling through the blue sky, a wonderful lunch the home of Sarah and her brilliant art historian husband Richard who is a world expert on Veronese, delicious food as we looked out into the sunny flower garden outside the dining window, great stories, laughter, and through it all Barbara's magnificent deep sexy voice remembering our other times together and planning the next one: a trip on the Broads of Norfolk.....one of the great delights of Norfolk are the many rivers and bays that link together into a network of hundreds of miles of waterways upon which you can take your boat- houseboat if you choose- and then wander among the innner channels of Norfolk.....
here let me close this account of one of the great days of my life with a photo of Barbara and her daughter Sarah in the living room of Sarah and Richard's charming Mill Hill home..with the flowers out in the garden bright on this beautiful sunday.....
what a great day it was...
DAY THREE Saturday Sept 17, 2011
after two days of stunning bright sunny days we got some clouds so my hotel people said take the umbrella so off i went with my london black umbrella all ready just in case...(i needed it) but nice in the AM as i headed off to British Museum....big day big job....thought i would try out the tube today...you can walk from the hotel to trafalgar so usually i love a walk through hyde park but this morning i wanted to be fast so down into the tube...one important thing for all of you....as you know you can have a card that works on all transport (tube buses everything) that you just scan as you go through...(called an Oyster Card) BUT muy importante....you cannot use a non brit Credit Card in the machines...so when you get here remember to buy the card and put value on it at a tube ticket office.......you need to step up to a ticket office of the tube thus its important to do that in a tube station that is NOT too busy...this morning there was a HUGE line....at the paddington station tube tix office...so choose it carefully..then get value onto the card once....there is a price for a week so thats the best if you are staying a week like i am...so down into the tube..packed..always is...stairs..changes...connections..one thing i can tell you about using the london tube system....have glasses ready if you need them like i do to read all those maps....otherwise you will go nuts....
so then up out of the tube station and a nice brisk morning walk to the British Museum...i chose the busiest day of the week and probably of the whole summer....a beautiful sat morning...taxi driver told me that september is now the busiest month....anyway when you come if you can AVOID the Brit Mus on sat do it.....in all the days of all the museums i have been to this was the most packed i have seen any major museum......although it is large and you can move around o avoid the crowds the fact is that it is the rooms where the crowds are that you want to go to....so there really is a way to avoid crowds on a sat morning...so if possible choose another day of the week....the brit mus is at the top of the list of places tour guides take their bus tours to...thus out in front there is a steady stream of these mastodons unloading their seething masses all day....then they crowd into rooms and the guides talk loudly...so you want to avoid them if possible and i imagine that is hard to do at the Brit Mus....
the museum is in the Bloomsbury District located in the grand old classical building that makes you think of the Parthenon and that is a good thing since within this building are the greatest marble sculptures from the Parthenon anywhere in the world...will show you some here....the museum is free as is the National Gallery so there are contribution spots all around and it is right and a good thing that we all do help support it...the museum is well appointed with one of the best museum stores anywhere in the world, many food spots, a nice cafe and a nice sit down waiter restaurant...so you can easily spend the whole day....
i headed straight to the Elgin Marbles (Parthenon) because those were the photos i most wanted so i wanted to see the situation..crowds angles everything...it WAS crowded but fortunately the marbles sit up high so you can photograph over the heads...the museum has what i consider to be an insanly liberal photo policy...ie..anything goes including flash...i coudlnt believe...after yesterday in the national gallery where NO photos allowed today all photos allowed and so the crowds go nuts with their little flashers....every gallery is just alight with flashes....they dont need them...many of these galleries have fabulous atrium natural light...but everyone just flashes away anyway so it sort of hurts the aesthetic experience....her below is my handywork today...have to say some of these are just what i have been dreaming of having for all the years since i first snapped old fashioned slides....these sculptures come from the pediment of the Parthenon....
DAY TWO Friday Sept 16, 2011
you will love this...my room service waiter who brought up a great cafe latte this morning had a strong accent so i asked where are you from and he said "Italy" so i immediately went into italian and said where from and he beamed,,,,,Milano he said so we did a whole morning routine on his city...he was ecstatic...was so perfectly london.....everyone here is from somewhere else...all the waiters all the service people are from poland or hungary or india or pakistan or nigeria on and on....no englishmen left...they are all on holiday in spain....
so day two..at my wonderful little hotel where they greeted me after my whole day at the national gallery as if i were coming home...was quite sweet: "how did it go?" "did you see what you wanted" etc..the weather continue to be astoundingly gorgeous..breezy bright blue skies with sharp sun...everything is green...went by the palace on my way back to national gallery to wave to the Queen...flag up so she is in town...maybe she saw me as she looked out her window at all the american tourists outside...the palace area is just swarming with tourists from all over the world...italians...spaniards...they love this month just before they start university...had a handsome spanish guy come up to me and ask me if i knew where piccadilly was..i guessed he was spain so i responded in spanish and he just lit up....my second linguistic triumph of the day....luckily he didnt need to know much....or i would have run out of my new spanish that we are all learning with Citlalli on tuesday afternoons at the institute...trafalgar square has to be one of the most exciting civic spaces in the world....i cant think of anything like it anywhere else...not pairs not rome not florence....an international circus that does on all day..speakers, dancers, bagpipes, photographers, red buses, and thousands of people just having fun....the whole world....
today has been totally devoted to getting pictures inside national gallery...as i have told many of you photography is STRICTLY PROHIBITED inside the gallery so i knew when i went in that anything i got would be surreptitious (an under statement)......so it has been a challenging day...but i did it....probably shouldnt be revealing my methods here...who knows but what national gallery has web crawlers looking for the words "photographs in the national gallery" so will wait til we can talk in person....but .....I DID IT....
want to tell you about one of the most delightful places in all london for lunch...since i was at the gallery all day i needed lunch at mid day.....so here is a great idea...as most of you know the beautiful church of St Martins in the Fields is across from the museum (east side).....down in the crypt..the space down under the church is one of the great lunch spots in london...Cafe in the Crypt....just a totally fun place to eat with all the in crowd of londoners....anything you want at the buffet counter then tables and much space to sit and eat in this wonderful old london church basement....with the illuminated arches casting a glowing historical frame to a great and reasonably priced lunch.... here is a photo
the gallery was packed today...but still fine...there is always space to move around and sit down...every room has a nice place to sit....which is one of the greatest conveniences of Nat Gal....no other museum i know is so accomodating to its visitors....its all FREE..imagine.....
here is one of my first photos today from the museum. those are california levis in front of the swedes in the gallery......
DAY ONE Thursday September 15, 2011
ROYAL PARK HOTEL. Here I am writing to you from my sweet little london hotel 2 blocks from the paddington station...i choose this spot because you can walk over to the hotel dragging your suitcase on wheels in 5 mins thus you have easy access to the station to which and from which goes the super fast heathrow express trains...a key link for you to the airport...no need for taxis buses or tube to and from hotel..so it trumps all other locations....yes you have to go over to the center from the hotel each morning but it is easy and actually pleasant to walk through hyde park to get to trafalgar etc on any day...much easier than worrying about taxis etc on the morning of your flight back to USA...
so here i am in room 610 at royal park hotel....what a charming little hotel...19th century row house (3 of them combined) very small very intimate on a park like street with big trees outin front....40 rooms or so....with room service if you want a coffee brought up to you or a whole meal...and yet small enough so they know you at the desk when you come home at night...my room is esp great cause when i told them i was coming for a whole week they upgraded me...so if you want a really really cool room ask for 610...called a 4 poster as you see in the photo....but there are cheaper ones if you want.....
so..have already been to the national gallery..that was first thing above all to get ready for oct lecture...
just as great as ever...packed with people ...packed with ITALIANS. yea a great big group of high schoolers from italy wandering all over the place but esp flocking to the renaissance rooms to see the ITALIAN artists....i love those italians...so totally chauvinistic...italians are best....ha! but of course they are right!!! oh oh i can hear your francophiles scoffing....
anyway..nat gal...so great.walk in free...love that...all the world is here today...every language..and every guard talking with all the people...are there better guards at any museum in the world? i think not....engaged...well versed on the art....love them all...
so then closing time and hungry....so wanted something nice and close to nat gal...what better than the National Cafe....right there across form St Martins in the Fields....in the south east corner of the nat gal building..it stays open late even though the museum is closed at 6..and it is busy place since it is right in the edge of the theater district....a very nice place for a little pm dinner....and for me all alone loved being able to sit at the bar and eat and talk with the russian bar tender (ALL service people in london come from some other country) and eat a little risotto with italian truffles and parmigiano...very good....its not cheap....but it is so well located that it is perfect ..and THEN you can just go out the door and around the corner and enjoy the late evening opening of the National Portrait Gallery which stays open thursday nights..
ok thats it DAY ONE....more to come tomorrow....
