Great Performances

Another big highlight of my time abroad was the great performances I got to head to. Mostly opera. The list, here:

• Miranda and I saw Sharon Gless in "A Round-Heeled Woman" at the Aldwych in the West End.


• Ross and I saw "Cosi fan Tutte" at La Fenice in Venice.




• I made it to Aida at the Arena di Verona. I was on my own for that one, but it was completely worth it to go, and sitting in the cheap seats worked out just fine.




• Linda and I took her friends Phillis and Roger to Musica a Palazzo to see an evening of love duets.


• I hit up Musica a Palazzo a second time to take Ross, Mark, and Mary to see "Il Barbiere di Siviglia," it was another big hit!


• I hit up a cafe to see my friends Pete Ross and the Sapphire do their live show.


• I made it to La Scala on my last night in Milan to see "Lohengrin", a classic Wagner opera. And it's a beautiful opera house.

I am going to skip talking about all the art and gallery and museum shows I saw, since if I listed it down it would be a distressingly long list!

Memories... Visiting Out!

Wow, while writing yesterday's post, I was surprised by how many people visited in Italy! Not all of them came specifically to visit me, but I am still surprised by the sheer number of visitors I had. I also did a good amount of visiting myself. Here's where I visited:

• In December 2011, I headed to London to stay with Miranda. I also got to see Peter, a sweet family friend. He took me to his print shop! I had so much fun doing all the Christmas stuff there. London really is a smashing place to be.




• I visited home for the winter holidays. Ross and I made it out to Christmas with my family.


• I mentioned yesterday that when Ross was here we visited his sister Dawn in Paris for a few days.




• I visited in the US in March for Esther and Tom's wedding at West Point. That's a beautiful campus!


• I had lots of visitors in April, May, and June, so while I did visit some other cities in Italy during that time (like Riccione, as mentioned in my last post!), I didn't go for travel anywhere else until my cousin Ferg's wedding in Newport Beach. Ross joined me for that. A fun time hanging out with all the relatives!


• During true Italian Vacation Time (aka August), I headed for 11 days in Germany and Luxembourg. Esther and I saw the whole country of Luxembourg in one weekend, it was awesome. I spent a couple nights visiting with my friend Stacy in Oberkochen in the middle of that time. It's a really picturesque spot in the summer! Then Esther and I joined her husband's family near Worms for a weekend of wine. I had a blast!




• I mentioned that I traveled to Rome, Venice, and Florence and the like with visiting friends and family during the fall. My only "independent" trip in that time was to a conference in Istanbul. Now that's a cool city, layers of history underneath but modern and happening on the surface, with great food. I also had a blast with the other conference participants, they were fun. I would give Istanbul high marks, worth a trip.

I had a lot of awesome trips. While I did do a lot of visits back to the US (one for Christmas, two for weddings), I made it out a few times. I really did more traveling within Italy. I was lucky that I had so many visitors!

More Londons

Looking through all my photos while backing them up, I saw a few more London ones that I thought I should include!

This one of Miranda at Harrods is sharper than the one I originally uploaded... (I often pick my uploads from the thumbnails... leading to these problems!)



Similarly, I didn't quite realize what was in this picture from the Natural History Museum! If it doesn't make you laugh, you need to click on it and see it full size to get the detail.



Peter sent me a few of his photos that we took at his flat, so I wanted to share a bit.



I love his flat. He has lovely art and books and check out that molding on the fireplace!

London Trip's End

On Wednesday morning, Miranda took me out to the posh parts of her neighborhood. Belsize Park has lots of cute streets.



And there are lots of lovely trees.



We had pretty traditional breakfasts in a "Coffee Bar" pub place. I had the vegetarian British breakfast: veggie sausage, toast with beans, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes...



And then we went shopping at Sainsbury's, where I marveled over the British foods, including meat flavored crisps.



My flight back through Copenhagen was delayed, so I was stuck there overnight... Luckily they put you up in a hotel... One of the fascinating things was the alarm system. The TV gradually brightens and plays soothing music...

London 5

Tuesday morning, after class, I went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. There's a lot going on down there! The Olympic countdown clock...



This ship in a bottle on one of the plinths...



In the National Gallery, they had a few Christmas decorations up.



After a fiasco involving Southern Rail, I ended up joining Mew back at King's College. The student union has a few spaces, we were at the Waterfront pub for a post party with the history program master's students.



We took the 13 bus home, and saw the lovely lights on Oxford street and the like!





Yay!

London Part 4

Monday last, I spent the morning in class with Miranda (the history of medieval Scotland) and then headed to Brixton to meet up with Peter. I got the full tour of his neighborhood! He's got a lot of his work in his studio, I got to see the wide variety.



He's a part of the Artichoke Print Workshop, which we visited in the afternoon. It's a large shop with several serious presses.



Peter makes lots of trouble in the studio!



Miranda and I decided to grab dinner at Wasabi, a Japanese fast chain. I really liked the food, and the variety of choices was quite impressive. You can buy single rice balls or single nigiri or two-packs of little maki roll bites, adding it up to a meal, or large soups and large dinner plates or bowls or salads and garnish with some little stuff. Downsides: you have to pay for individual soy sauce packets (a few p.) and like many English fast food places, you have to pay extra to sit at a table, even though they don't really serve you or anything.



We also bought some candy bars on the side for our night at the theater... They were all actually quite good.



We were at the Aldwych to see "A Round-Heeled Woman" with Sharon Gless...



Another fun night!

London Part 3

Sunday was a busy day. Almost impossibly so! We headed first to the Natural History Museum, which is famous for its dinosaurs. A pretty good exhibit. The museum is overall a little stuffy, but very beautiful. The outside is quite nice, also. I have more photos of it on my flickr, just click through on one of the pictures.



After leaving we received some free cough drops from this guy in a Dickensian costume. Miranda says Dickensian=Christmas in London.



The Science Museum is right next door. I feel like it's larger than the Natural History Museum. The hit exhibit for both me and Miranda was the 17th century science exhibit. This picture is a demo of an Archimedes screw.



Then we headed to Harrods, where we had tea and appetizers at Caffè Espresso, which is on a balcony in the food halls.



We walked over to Hyde Park, which was having Winter Wonderland. Whoa, it was packed, and huge. We actually didn't do the shopping side, just the carnival side, which was actually huge and great people watching. There were multiple fun houses, and that was our choice of ride. We picked the "Alpine Hotel", which had traditional fun house stuff (mirrors, moving floors) and then some odd vignettes of "being in the hotel". An odd bar scene with a moving floor, spinning platforms with spitting fountains, a fake elevator, and spinning barrel room. It was great! Here's Miranda at the very beginning of the fun house.



And then we headed to Camden to do a little last minute shopping.



It started raining like crazy, so we had a really good Chinese dinner before we headed home. We walked to Miranda's place through the Mews, which were back streets and stables back in the day.

London Part 2

Miranda's neighborhood is posh but a little quirky. Walking out Saturday morning we saw a guy in a Halo costume.



We went down to Brick Lane area, to head to the Water Poet Christmas Fair. The Water Poet is a large multi-bar pub, we had really great mulled wine and shopped a little. One cute booth had teacup candles.



There were tonnes of shops, flea markets, and Christmas markets around. One of the vintage shops had lovely old uniforms.



We met Peter down at the London Bridge underground and went to Borough market, an old Victorian market. We headed along the Thames and popped into the Tate Modern. The turbine hall had a Tacita Dean video exhibition. Not in love with it.



We crossed on the Millennium Bridge.



Over to St. Paul's... The shopping center next door has great views of the dome of the church.



And some fascinating stairs.



Peter and I went out to dinner in Chinatown. It was quite yummy! Hot deep fried tofu with chili and salt and pepper. After dinner I made it home to Mew's without too much getting lost. I figured out what "subway" means in London...



An under-pass for pedestrians. And this is pretty much what the street signs look like in London...

London Part 1!

London is a great city! The Christmas decorations were out in full swing when I arrived. I met up with Miranda in Trafalgar Square, where there were carolers alongside the Christmas tree from Norway.



Covent Garden was just awash in glitter, giant ornaments, and lights.



The evening activity for my arrival was to check out the National Portrait Gallery. All the national museums in London are free, which is awesome.



Miranda loved this statue of Victoria and Albert in Norman costumes. Overall, I quite like the Portrait Gallery. It's a good idea. While not all the portraits are compelling, they are at least interesting. If you are in London, it is an easy stop, and I would put it on the list. Bonus, late hours on Friday!



We had dinner at Fire & Stone, where I had a Thai pizza that was quite good and spicy. Then we headed back to Miranda's. Her apartment is in Belsize Park, a really nice neighborhood. It's a small place but quite cute!

Oh Heathrow

Heathrow did not disappoint. The Christmas decorations are already up in Terminal 5...



There was a large tree in the atrium, and all the glamorous stores already had lights and decor up. Harrods had several tasteful trees, as well as an odd sled thing going. And of course, handbags to die for. I ended up having a "before sunrise" breakfast at Wagamama, right next to Harrods.



I went for the traditional Japanese breakfast, rice and miso soup with some pickles. You know me, I love Japanese pickles!