Here and There Blog

I just realized that I lost the weekend. It was just Friday night and now it's Monday and I'm in St. Louis. I spent all day Saturday doing school work and unpacking/repacking luggage. On Sunday I traveled to St. Louis and here I am in a hotel room on Halloween. There's nothing to do here and it's raining as usual. The hotel didn't even decorate with any pumpkins or ghosts!

Friday night. Movie night. Except I'm living the life of a student and doing homework. This month's class is fairly easy and now I've moved on to surfing the net. Mondo came home from London today and let me know that I missed the best day of the year. It turns out that after I cam home there was an unusually warm and clear day on Thursday. Mondo took the Thames river cruise to Greenwich and had a great time. I'm at home with a cold from rainy London so go figure. I've taken the school break to investigate Hotel 1898 in Barcelona as the possibility of our family Thanksgiving trip. It looks promising and I'll give them a call in the morning to confirm rates and internet connection. Spain at least has the same climate as San Diego. It's probably warmer than Carlsbad and certainly not as foggy!

Above - me next to the giant lion sculpture at the British Museum. According to the plaque the lion crowned a monumental tomb at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea in former Knidos (now Turkey) during the Hellenistic period in the late 4th-early 3rd century BC. The eyes were probably inset with glass to catch the light. Mondo in front of the Lord Mayor's coach at the London Museum. The London Museam doesn't try and impress you with works of art. It has the cool stuff - wax heads scarred with syphillis and leprosy, recreations of jails, exhibits of the great fire, exhibits of stuffed rats and the plague. It's free and fascinating!

Today was: British Museum, St. Paul's Cathedral, London Museum, Excellent dinner, and the Al Stewart concert (awesome!) I'll post some more photos when I get home tomorrow night.

Westminster Abbey against the gloomy London sky. This place is less of a church and more of a competition for the dead to see who could get the best tomb!

Here I am with my best deer in the headlights/jet-lag/rainy day expression. Mondo and I have wandered over to Buckingham Palace on our walkabout. This morning started off with power shopping, then walking, then more walking, and rain. Mondo looks much happier in the garden at St. James Church.

Mondo and I have made it to London and managed to get our exercise in today. We wandered around Chinatown and checked out the food in the grocery stores... Ate at an Indian restaurant where Mondo decided to drink coconut... Went to a pub so I could have a beer... And wandered the streets of Picadilly and Soho!