London - The British Museum, Trafalgar Square and a Bit of Canada!

Oh, yes, there is yet more travelogue to come...I was gone for two weeks and took over 600 pictures!

May 11th was Mom's birthday - Happy Birthday, Mom! We went to the British Museum:
I love that museums in London are free (special exhibits like the Grace Kelly one at the V&A cost extra) - I wish they were freee here. I miss going to our local museum more often.

I won't bore you with all the amazing things in the British Museum - but if you haven't been, you should go! The marbles from the Parthenon were amazing, including this incredible temple:
It's called the "Nereid Monument" and it was just amazing.

I also saw the Rosetta Stone. Yes, the REAL Rosetta Stone:
That took my breath away. Imagine, finally being able to translate heiroglyphics due to this hunk of stone!

I also loved this cat statue (of course):

It's called the "Gayer-Anderson Cat", it's Egyptian and is from c. 600 BC.

After major art overload at the British Museum, we wandered around in an "art daze". We found Trafalgar Square!

I climbed up on the lion for a picture:

"No, L, I am not climbing up any further! Take the danged picture!"

As we were looking for Charing Cross Road, we saw - *gasp* - a Canadian flag! What's this!?

It's the Canadian High Commission! It's Canada House! It's the Canadian embassy! We were so excited.

This sign, however, really reminded me of home:

Hee! Canadians are known for being polite and lining up. Please get in queue - no budging in line!

We specifically wanted to go to a pub on Charing Cross Road because of this awesome song (YouTube link) from Canadian band Spirit of the West, from 1990. Please click and enjoy! It's a rollicking good time!

Here's L keeping "the shine on the bar with the sleeve of his coat":

Yay for beer!

And now on to fashion:

I went pretty classic and conservative (for me). I got this pretty blouse for $10.50 at a thrift shop on the weekend.

I also just got my hair cut tonight after work - gotta go dye it, my grey is showing!

I really liked the pattern on the blouse and the odd mix of pinks, orange, green and purple. One of the flowers on the shoulder is outlined in red sequins. I also really like the ruffle at the neck. I have a hard time with ruffles as they tend to emphasize my already rather emphatic boobular region.

The stuff:

I thought these shoes went well.

Blouse (Nolita, thrifted), skirt (Kensie), shoes (Hilary Radley, consignment), pearl necklace & earrings (Aldo Accessories).

London - Victoria & Albert, and the Houses of Parliament (and Sort of Westminster Abbey)

And we're back to my vacation pictures. You've all been such a captive audience (heh heh).

We ate our dinner in this fancy-schmancy pub one night:
I worked in the service industry for over a decade, and I've never had such poor service as I did in London. Sorry to make such a sweeping generalization, but I guess I am spoiled by the service in restaurants I frequent. Things we noticed:

• no greeting;
• no taking a drink order right away (we have to get our priorities here!);
• no checking in to see if our food is okay/we need another drink;
• leaving all the dirty dishes on the table until everyone is done (ew); and
• not up-selling (dessert? coffee? another drink?).

It was just weird. No wonder the tip is included in the service! I wouldn't have tipped otherwise! It's been so good to get home and eat out properly. Hee!

Anyway, that pub above, aside from having bad service, also had a wandering saxophone minstrel. Oooooh, boy. He played the lyric line along with a karaoke-style music track for all kinds of songs, merrily butchering them as he went. It was standard AM radio fare until...oh no, he couldn't...oh, god, I hope he does! He is! Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"! Yes, it was a bad as you can possibly imagine.

I'm glad I caught a picture of the train coming in at Paddington Station:
We headed off to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where we took hundreds of pictures! I can't believe they let you take pictures in museums! It seems so strange.

Don't worry, I'm not going to bore you to death with pictures of sculpture and objets d'art. I went to this exhibit of Grace Kelly's fashion and I wandered in the general fashion exhibit for about an hour. Mom and L did their own things.

After that, we took the tube to Harrod's:

It was okay. Lots of snooty shoppers vying for attention with hordes of tourists. I liked the Egyptian escalator.

Then we wandered over to the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben:

Everything was still in security lock-down following the election:

Yikes, that's a machine gun!

We fully intended to visit Westminster Abbey, but they closed at 3:30. What's up with that?

It did have some cool gargoyles:

Wait till you see the pictures I took of the ones at Notre Dame!

This pigeon was baiting me as I sat on the curb, waiting for Mom in the gift shop (yes, of course the gift shop was still open!):

He kept zooming in for a close-up, then would take off.

And on to fashion! I got this jacket for 10 pounds (cheapy cheapy!) in Camden Market:

It's sort of an irridescent grey scrunchy nylon, with gold trim on the shoulders and silvery-gold buttons.

I bought it because I loved the collar:

Isn't that cool?

I kept the rest of the outfit fairly low-key with a high-waisted vintage pencil skirt and shiny gold top with built-in embellishments:
Inigo's blocking the shoes, but I think he approved.

The stuff:

I was pleased with the gold and grey combination.

Jacket (A--- style, I can't read the label, it's too stylized), blouse (Casual Corner), skirt (vintage, Gianfranco Ferre), shoes (Aerosoles), earrings (Plum).

Long Weekend - and Book Blurbs

This is a long weekend for us - we celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday with Victoria Day ("the 24th of the May is the Queen's birthday!" we are taught as children). Woot! Day off today/Monday!

Yesterday, L and I went out for lunch and then to the mall to buy him work shirts (I bought a new jacket, which I'll show at some point). I couldn't resist wearing my new "Le Chat Noir" t-shirt that I bought in Paris - it's the only really touristy thing that I got. It reminds me of Othello.
Edit: This jacket is one of my consignment finds - it was a spring '06 item from the Gap. I've worn it once here. It's turquoise corduroy.

I got the sandals for $20 at Shoe Warehouse on Saturday. Last year, when I was in the midst of my year-long "no new clothes or shoes", I had an awful time finding sandals and summer casual shoes. These should last the summer.
I got the orange scarf in my hair a few months ago and just haven't worn it. It helps keep my hair down when we have the top down on the Miata.

As promised, here's my new bag by Ollie & Nic:

It's a very soft fake leather, with a big centre pocket and front and back zip sections:

My odds & sods bag in there. I love the soft flannel fabric on the inside.

Inside the back zip:

Those are my Strepsils for my cough (I got sick in London, and am still trying to shake it).

I finished two books while on holiday! Hurray for reading time!

Book 1: "Diary" by Chuck Palahniuk

Stats: 261 pages. Started May 5th (in London) and finished May 12th (also in London).

Blurb: My second favourite Palahniuk book, after "Invisible Monsters". I have only read 4 of his books ("Fight Club" and "Snuff" being the others), and have about 3 others in my stack of books to be read. I enjoy his writing style - it's very staccato, with choppy sentences and odd points of view, but they work for me.

I really liked the plot of this one: a trailer trash girl who's always dreamed of specific locales becomes an artist who paints them...and falls in love with a man who comes from that place. What happens from there is weird and strange and creepy (almost in a "Stepford Wives" kind of way), and Palahniuk builds the suspense right up to the end. Vivid imagery and characters.

Book 2: "The Guardians of Time" by Poul Anderson

Stats: 243 pages. Started May 12th, finished May 17th.

Blurb: I'm a big fan of Ray Bradbury and Robert A. Heinlein, both contemporaries of Poul Anderson's. I own 24 of Bradbury's books and 23 of Heinlein's, so I was hoping for more of the same from Anderson. Maybe this was not the best book for dipping my toes into his literary waters - but I'll probably read a couple more of his before I write him off completely.

This book is actually a compilation of five of his "Time Patrol" stories, in which agents travel back and forth in time, working to keep events on track. Naturally, things get mucked up frequently and have to be fixed. The main character is Mason Everard, sort of a stoic Han Solo type of man, very much in the 1950s/1960s model of "how a man should be". The stories were interesting, giving a lot of historical background on the events they were based around (I skimmed some of it, not being especially interested in Persian kings c. 546 AD.

Anyway, I'll read a couple of Anderson's other books (we have a few that we picked up second hand some months back) and see if I want to continue reading him.

Next book: "The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill (a Book Club book, picked by Daisy). I'm already halfway through this (started it today).

London - Camden Market and the Tower of London

Hey! It's Casual Friday and that means...

Camden Market!
Camden Market is a long strip full of head shops, punk/skater culture, pin-up and goth, hippie and of course, lots of tourist crap (and pickpockets, according to the guide book I read when I got home).

I loved browsing through these shops:

Absolutely crazy stuff, but also a lot of crap. I did buy an amazing dress, which I wore today (I'll forgive you if you scroll down and peek).

After Camden, we took the Tube to the Tower of London:The Tower is actually a complex of a bunch of towers. That's the White Tower on the left in the above picture.

You're permitted to wander through all the towers, taking pictures (except for the Crown Jewels exhibit, where they will take your camera and delete pictures of the Jewels). We climbed a lot of these staircases:

A view from a tower of the courtyard, with remnants of the original Roman city walls (Londinium):

Those are the famous ravens in the cages.

I got a great shot of Mom and L against the Tower Bridge.

L's doing his "serious" face.

Another view of the courtyard. The far side of it is the square where Anne Boleyn was beheaded!

Inside one of the towers they had helmets and crossbows that you could play with and try:

L and I joshing around. L likes this picture of me; he says it's my "real" smile.

Of course, I got a picture of a guard:

The White Tower had on a really awesome exhibit of armour - I'm a total geek when it comes to this sort of stuff. I took about 40 pictures here, but this is my favourite:

Now that's a suit of plate mail! That's Henry VIII's, and you can definitely see the man in this. In fact, maybe more than you want to see...

He seems to have had an er...inflated opinion of himself? Hee!

A picture of the Tower from Tower Bridge:

And turning around:

Wow. I love all these old buildings.

What I do not love is having my picture taken:[Through gritted teeth]: "Just take the damned picture, L!"

And now back to fashion! This is the dress I got in Camden Market:

Okay, first of all OOH! I love the cut of this. And the print! And that it was actually made in England!

And because it was Casual Friday, I had to dull it down:

Yes, so much more casual, ha ha! That's my new bag from Ollie & Nic. I absolutely love it. I'll do a close-up and details of it later this weekend.

But I know those shoes have you agape! Aren't they fab? Would you believe I got them in Heathrow Airport? In Kurt Geiger, on sale for 59 pounds ($90 Cdn/$85 US) - brand is Carvela.

The big straps across the front help hold them secure on my feet and make them easier to walk in. The platform is intimidating, but I carried flat shoes all day whenever I had to walk further than my desk to the loo.

The stuff:

The shoes are a nice orangey-red, and I love the stud details on them. The platform is real wood.

Look at the awesome lady in the pattern:

Love it!

Dress (Lirub), shoes (Carvela), jacket (Ann Taylor Loft), bag (Ollie & Nic), bracelet and belt (Plum), earrings (vacation).