London--9/10

Our day trip to London almost did not get underway.  We were waiting on the wrong side of the road for the bus to take us into Cambridge to catch the train!  Luckily the bus driver understood our mistake and laughed along with us as we boarded on the left (correct) side of the street.  (This just confirms my belief that my driving in England would be a huge mistake).  The train trip to London is quite fast--about 45-50 minutes which is less time than it would take us to walk from our apartment to the Cambridge train station.

Our goal was to see London from the streets since the weather hadn't paid attention to the forecast and was actually sunny and warm.  We took the tube (underground) from Kings Cross to Westminster station and joined the hoards gawking at London's iconic sights along the Thames.  The tower containing Big Ben and Parliament were on one side of the river.  I thought I had recorded the chimes of Big Ben at noon but alas! I have yet to master the video button on this camera.  The Parliament building is massive; I wonder if our Capitol and Congressional buildings take up as much space.  We decided to take a boat trip along the Thames to see what we could see from the river.

It's hard to miss the London Eye--the huge Ferris Wheel built to celebrate the millennium.  The guide told us it is already being remodeled to include WiFi in each of the "eggs" seating 25 people!

The next attraction for me was Cleopatra's Needle.  It was a bit jarring to hear this obelisk referred to in this way since I had thought Cleopatra's Needle was in Central Park which we have a family history of visiting.  I later read that this is a sister obelisk to the one in NYC, both coming from the same Egyptian city Heliopolis.

Our cruise took us to the Tower Bridge before we headed back.  One could probably spend the whole day exploring the Tower itself which is off to the left side but we simply took many pictures.  We were lucky to see the bridge open for the sailing ship passing through.  The Thames is the longest river in England at 215 miles; it flows west to east and drains into the North Sea.  Currently there is someone attempting to swim its length.

Of course there were many other noted buildings we could see at least in part from the river: St. Paul's Cathedral, the replica of the Globe Theater and the Tate Modern being three of them.  There is quite a mixture of old (stone) buildings and new (glass) all butted up next to each other.

After our boat trip we decided to walk along Whitehall, a short distance with lots to see.  Opposite Parliament is Westminster Abbey, site of THE wedding this spring.  The church was closed except for evensong which would be given later.  Over one of the doors (not the main one) on the front of the building were statues in honor of 20th century martyrs including Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King Jr.  We decided to keep walking after a quick stop at the gift shop.

Whitehall is the center of government so perhaps it should not have been surprising to see so many statues commemorating military leaders looking gallant astride their horses.  Then there was another statue which, much humbler, is more representative of war.

Continuing on Whitehall we passed the barricaded Downing St.  All we could do was to take a picture through the bars of #10.  Lots of unsmiling guards all over the place.

One of the side streets led to the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Room.  The War Room was the underground bunker where Churchill met with his war cabinet during WW II.  Although it was well fortified, Churchill knew it could not withstand a direct bombing hit. The Churchill museum is  all about Winston. Both museums were very good with lots of modern audiovisual displays.  What came across was that Winston was not an easy man to work for--he kept extremely long hours and expected his staff to do likewise.  Also, what a gift for language he had!  One display says the war was fought as much with his words as with guns.

Museum visiting is exhausting so we had afternoon tea at the museum cafe.  As the British would say, lovely!!  Those little cucumber sandwiches, cake, and tea  helped us keep going for another couple of hours.

From the museum we headed back to Whitehall and continued on towards Trafalgar Square. This "square" which from what I could see was really a circle, reminded me of Paris' Arc de Triomphe.  Lots and lots of visitors around a monument celebrating a military victory.  In this case it was Lord Nelson's victory over the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar in 1805.  Nelson died in the battle and his body, placed in a casket filled with brandy, was brought back to London for a state funeral.  The tall column shows Nelson at the top.

Our outing ended with a look back at where we had started.  The rain had come, umbrellas were out  and it was time to head home.

9/11 in England

All week long there have been shows on television remembering the events of 9/11.  Today the church we attended also made reference to the anniversary and asked that as a stand against terrorism,  people sign a letter in support of a political prisoner in Iran.  The newspaper we bought--The Independent--focused every section on various aspects of 9/11.  The opening article, "The American Dream and the missing years" talked about how we have changed as a nation--no longer are we a nation of infinite possibilities and ever growing prosperity.  In London's Grosvenor Square, site of the American embassy in England, Prince Charles and David Cameron spoke to the British families who lost loved ones in the attack (67 British died in 9/11).  Nearby, about 100 members of radical Islamic groups protested by burning an American flag.

Audley End House

Thanks to my intrepid friend Barbara who had no fear of driving over hill and dale (and the M11), I was able to visit the beautiful home I had glimpsed from the bus window on my ride into Cambridge two weeks ago.  Audley End is a Jacobean mansion, built for the entertainment of King James I by Thomas Howard aided by a bit of embezzlement of the King's treasury.  What exists today is only a third of the original size; the house was simply too large for people to maintain and today it belongs to the English Heritage foundation although the contents are still in the possession of the current Earl of Brayford.  During WW II the home was a secret training station for Polish soldiers.  Inside the house--where no photography was allowed--the most impressive room was the great hall with its high ceilings, intricate oak carvings, fireplace, animal heads, and many portrait paintings.  In addition to the bedrooms, drawing rooms, and libraries, there were rooms filled with stuffed animals and birds. Apparently it was very popular at one time to send away for fauna of many regions to put on display.  In addition to the house we visited the grounds which included the formal garden or Parterre at the rear of the house, the walled kitchen garden with its many espaliered fruit trees, the kitchen, and the stable along with horses Jack and Captain.  The flower gardens looked to be in full bloom with many of the same kinds of flowers we enjoy--only ours tend to look worn out by this time of year.

The River Cam flows in front of Audley End

Garden with Fountain 

More of the Parterre

Espaliered Apple Trees

Kitchen--So many pots and pans!

The stable--a beautiful building in itself

Workshop Underway

Colleagues started arriving for the workshop Tom has been organizing so that has meant many opportunities for dining out.  Sunday evening we went to the Castle Pub which is located near the highest elevation in Cambridge which isn't very high.  The beer and wine were good (can't remember the name of the beer) and not very expensive.  No mushy peas or soggy chips this time.

Since I have a whole week's experience in Cambridge, I was a tour guide for some women who have come to enjoy the sights while their husbands are giving or listening to talks.  I was able to see some new  locations as well as ones I walk by daily on my way to Sainsburys to purchase groceries.  Apparently a famous sight is that of cows munching away on grass with Kings College in the background. We found the cows but they would not pose for us in front of the college.  The "rough" grass is where the cows graze on the near side of the River Cam.  If you look very very closely you will see half of a body between the two kinds of grass.  The man is punting on the river, that is, steering a flat bottomed boat with a pole.  It's a popular activity in nice weather. The lush green grass on the other side is part of Kings College lawn and may be walked on only by fellows (lecturers and a few others in the colleges).  The gothic looking building is Kings College Chapel.  Every Christmas Eve a concert by the Kings College singers is broadcast live across the country.

The other new destination for me was Wren's Library.  What we were able to see was only one side of a four sided building. And definitely no pictures inside so I took a picture of the gates we walked out of.  A variety of manuscripts were on display: beautifully illustrated pages from Bibles, Shakespeare's folio, Newton's Principia, and A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh. Other than that, it was a high ceilinged room with lots and lots of old books on shelves.

Because Tom is one of the organizers for this workshop and because a featured speaker had given his talk during the workshop, we were invited to a dinner in his honor in the Mountbatten Room of Christ College.  The room was modest with a few pictures of famous people associated with the college on display.  Lord Mountbatten's picture and sword are on the far wall.  The food was good--roasted tomato soup, halibut served on something similar to seaweed (it grows in mudflats), vegetables, and perhaps the most interesting, tarte tatin with a scoop of clotted cream.  Clotted cream is almost like butter: very dense, slightly sweet, and most assuredly, very rich.  One attendee said we were to eat it only as a garnish.  I noticed there was none left on his plate.

Errands and Outings

Just like at home, Saturdays is the time for errands.  We needed to go to Barclays (the bank of choice for the Institute) and on the way over stopped at one of the colleges just to have a look.  This college, Gonville & Caius (that's pronounced "Keyes" and I have no idea why) is of particular interest to statisticians because the dining hall has a stained glass window commemorating R.A. Fisher who was prominent in the early development of the discipline.  The window (the one with the colorful squares) is an example of a Latin Square Design which is used in the design of experiments.  Fisher worked primarily in agricultural experiments like trying to determine optimal fertilizer regimens.  We were given an unscheduled tour of the dining hall by a porter of the college.  These men (we haven't see any women in this role) serve as gatekeepers to the colleges so it's best to keep on friendly terms with them.

(Tom with graduate students)

Later in the afternoon we met with Tom's graduate students and colleague who are all here for the workshop beginning on Monday. After walking around Cambridge and seeing some of the colleges that were open, we had dinner at a local pub, the Eagle.  There's a bit of history to go along with the food: Watson and Crick used to meet at this pub on a daily basis to talk about their work on DNA; there is plaque commemorating their table.  We ate typical pub fare: fish & chips with cool (not warm but also not cold) beer.  The fish & chips were served with "mushy peas."  The menu's description, not mine; but they were as unappetizing as it sounds.

Note to inquiring minds wondering about British fashions.  We have walked past several groups attending weddings and although we saw people fashionably dressed we have yet to see any "fascinators."

Bright Blue Summer Day

I don't think I've ever experience such a fine summer day as we did yesterday here in Cambridge.  Not a cloud in the sky all day long and no need for a jacket let alone a raincoat.  After a morning of "chores," I went to a small art gallery in Cambridge called Kettle's Yard. It was the home of Jim Ede, a former curator at the Tate Gallery.  Jim and his wife Helen lived there from 1957-1973 and the house is on display just as it was when the couple lived and entertained there.  Works by artist friends (Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Miro, Brancusi, and others from St. Ives) were in every nook and cranny as were Ede's collections of ordinary beach stones and bird feathers.  The ladies who volunteered at the home (called "invigilators") were delightful to talk to -- friendly and full of tidbits of information.

London Day Trip

Equipped with guidebook, water bottle, umbrella, and small snack, I set off for London yesterday with the wife of a colleague of Tom's.  Getting to London involved a cab to the Cambridge station, a train ride of about 50 minutes, and a subway trip to our museums of choice.  Half the fun(?) of getting to a destination is figuring out how it can be accomplished in minimal time and money.  I'm not sure we accomplished either but we did get to where we planned to go.  There is a cluster of museums-- the Victoria and Albert, Natural History, and Science--all at one stop on the Piccadilly subway.  Another attraction is that these museums ask for only a small donation so that return visits are quite possible--and necessary since they are huge.  We started off at the V&A which is a museum of decorative arts.  The museum grew out of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (celebrating the Industrial Revolution) and was named after V&A when the present building was opened in 1909.

My way of seeing a museum is to start at Point A and follow what looks interesting.  The Modern Glass exhibit was okay (Chihuly--he's everywhere!!) but not great.  What was more interesting was the architecture exhibit next to it and then the view of the castings that the museum is famous for.  It's  a little hard to miss the huge plaster cast of Trajan's column celebrating his conquest of what is now Romania since it could be seen from several floors (Note. Guess Trajan didn't want his exploits to go unnoticed. This picture shows only half the column).  The room was also filled with castings of sarcophogi of the Medieval Age, gates and altar pieces.  The idea was that the castings would provide models for art students who couldn't afford to travel to see the originals.  This room was reminiscent of the castings we had seen at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. Plaster casting must  have been a big business in the 1800s.

The second museum we visited was the Natural History Museum and like all museums with dinosaurs, it was packed with families.  We steered clear of the dinosaurs but did spend a lot of time on an exhibit of human biology.  I wasn't as impressed with it as my companion was--it seemed like it was from the 1980s and many hands-on exhibits didn't work.  However, it was very frank in its discussion of human heterosexuality and even touched on the question of abortion, two topics I'm not sure would be seen in general American museums.  What did look appealing to me was something new called "The Cocoon" which  talked about the collections at the museum.  We had to leave at that point (and even then missed the train back to Cambridge) so it will be something to see on a return trip.

(The black stump in the foreground of the picture is from an ancient tree which was growing about the time of the early reptiles.)

With all the museum visiting we did plus the trip to a mall afterwards, we didn't really see "London Outside."  I hope to go back with Tom and just walk and walk and walk...