Blimey! she's still writing about London!

PETER AND THE OPERATOR

         As part of the “Remembrance Day” festivities, they had a performance of Peter and the Wolf going on in front of the altar. If you are not familiar with this composition (or if you are and have just forgotten), it is a musical children’s story that is traditionally told with a full orchestra. Each animal is represented by a different instrument (flute = bird, oboe = duck, cat = clarinet, and so on and so forth). 

         At St. Paul’s, a woman narrated the story while a man playing the organ interpreted all of the different sounds for each animal. This woman’s reading voice was about as enthusiastic as the recorded operator that tells you that if you’d like to make a call to please hang up and try again. I was trying not to openly mock her. Yet again, the kiddies did not appear to mind. The organ bit was cool though. They’re surprisingly versatile instruments, they have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves.

IT'S HIGH TIME WE HAD TEA TIME EVERYWHERE 

         We had to climb a mountain of dizzying steps to get out onto the Stone Gallery. It was brisk, but the sky was atypically clear for England. We were able to linger comfortably out there while Emma got me acquainted with London’s skyline. I took some mediocre photos and then we carefully worked our way back down the winding steps and got “proper” tea.

Note that the tea didn’t even make it in this picture. That’s the funny thing about “proper” tea, it’s not really about the tea. Don’t get me wrong, the Darjeeling is great, but the scone and condiments steal the show. Clotted cream is everything that butter wishes it could be.

Emma, I have a mission for you: you must find out their secrets so that we can do this when we get back home. I’ve got to move on, I’m getting too hungry just thinking about this.

SIR EMMA

For the record: Emma is becoming British. She’s picked up a handful of British words (i.e. flat, lift, and describing things as “properly” this or that). Occasionally sentences slip out with a British intonation or a semi-british accent. She was horrified when I pointed this out. Emma, if you’re reading this (which clearly I’m assuming that you are because I’ve already written to you directly…), don’t worry, when you get home it should only take one “ladies dinner” to scrub all that refinement right outta you.

URBAN JUNGLE     

         After tea, we walked around downtown and waded through the crowds while commiserating about how miserable it is navigating through the throngs of people that come with a major city. In Paris, I usually get frustrated because people don’t abide by “road rules.” In London, there is an added degree of difficulty because they drive on the left, so road rules are technically reversed. Except that there are oodles of foreigners. With the road rules all confused, people resort to jungle rules. It is pure chaos.

         When a walk light turns green, the pedestrians on either side cross wherever they gauge they’ll have the best chance of making it over with all of their body parts. This creates two walls of people rushing directly at each other, not unlike the frontlines of battle. And I thought Paris was barbaric!

Still more on London to come! I know, I know, how am I not done with that yet? Well, I'm trying to pace myself these days so that I can have shorter, more regular entries instead of monstruous ones once every 2 weeks. Hopefully this week will be boring so that I can get caught up.

à bientôt tout le monde!