London

Here are some shots of our recent trip to London. The pastoral one is from a walk we did the week before--just to show you what a contrast it was to land in the big city of London. It IS big...really too overwhelming for my taste, and Mary's too. We arrived fine but then ended up with out suitcases on a tube that was crammed with people--we just had to shove in and stand, nose to armpit with the masses.

It got very cold and windy, so some of our plans for walking went out the window. However, I did get to meet with Oliver, an ASL/English interpreter from the US working in London and it was great to hear about his experiences working in the UK--plus he took me to a fab Vietnamese restaurant for lunch, and then to a cool place for a glass of wine, so that was fun.

You also see the Tower Bridge, and Mary in front of it--that was one of the freezing cold days though, where we ended up abandoning our walk and sitting having coffee and reading the newspaper for hours.

But our highlight was meeting with Jane and Sharon, two Australian women I met this past summer in Spain, who are living in London. We met them at the Tate Modern, browsed some of the great exhibits, then went for Turkish food and finally went to a women's dance. The dance was in a bar that overlooked the Thames, where we could see the boats going by and the lights on St. Paul's cathedral. It was really something! We had a great time with them and they are going to come for a visit in May.

However, going home we discovered that our train wasn't running, and there was no night bus from our tube stop and no one seemed to have any idea how we would get where we were going, so ended up taking a mini cab for more money than I care to mention. That was a lot our experience--trying to figure out transport and maps, looking at everyone else walking around with their "London A-Z " maps and no one seemed to know where we were talking about. We were going to meet at a cafe for Valentine's Day--I spent 45 minutes walking around the neighbourhood til I finally found it, almost by fluke..and then spent ten minutes on the cell phone with Mary trying to describe landmarks I could see out the window. She made it too, and decided to have a martini to get over the frustration...oh sorry, no olives :-) This seems to epitomize our English experience--you just can't always get what you want--and they don't really care either!

Mary didn't get as much reading done as she had hoped so she is glad to be back here and heading to the university again. We both have colds so are sniffling away, but at least the weather forecast looks warmer in the days ahead. We're planning on a quiet weekend, possibly another pub walk.

Mary swears she is never going to London again. I'll be going in early April, to an interpreter's conference--I am co-presenting with Deb, my friend and colleague who I met up with in Ukraine last October. But I plan on staying in the hotel and not venturing out around the city much--though we did get tickets to see Billy Eliot, the musical--music by Sir Elton John--and I am very much looking forward to that.

Hope you are all seeing signs of spring approaching.

Karen