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Waterfalls!
Iceland is a land of wind and volcanoes and glaciers—and also waterfalls! They pour over the volcanic cliffs onto the flat coastland below. Highly dramatic and incredibly photogenic, they are sure crowd pleasers. The first one we visited was Seljalandsfoss, which was also the largest and busiest. Next, just a few hundred yards up the […]
More art! Wandering around Frieze London
Now that I’m a fancy art collector I have to hang out with other artsy people and cultivate my “eye”, if that’s the term that I want. Where better than at Frieze London? I had never heard about Frieze London before two days ago when I read an article about how it was a major […]
Planning, plus dance and a movie
I had intended to go to Greenwich this weekend to see the Royal Observatory, the Prime Meridian, and whatever else there is to see. But last weekend’s cold, wet excursion, combined with literally everyone around me being sick, has got me perilously close to being sick. So I’ve kicked into mind-over-matter mode and am taking […]
Guests!
Dinner was loud and delicious at Yauatcha Soho, followed by an uber-glamorous after party at Disrepute, a subterranean speakeasy that was notorious for scandal and international intrigue during the Cold War. Today I turned Nicole and Bruce loose to explore Notting Hill and Little Venice without me (in the pouring rain) while I sat (cozily […]
Friday night with a populist Julius Caesar
Nicholas Hytner’s production of Julius Caesar at the Bridge Theatre has gotten strong reviews — and it’s one I still needed to cross off my list for my goal of seeing all of Shakespeare’s plays before I turn 40 — so Friday night after work I went down to the south bank of the Thames […]
Luxor temple at night
We visited the Karnak temple early in the morning to beat the heat. After lunch and an air-conditioned nap back on the boat, we headed out again to see the Luxor temples at dusk. The Luxor temples aren’t quite as old as Karnak (only 3,000 years instead of 4,000 years) and are on a slightly […]
Egyptian museum
Before visiting the pyramids we spent the morning at the Egyptian Museum, which is a late 19th Century museum stuffed to the gills with more mind-blowing antiquities than you can believe. In a whirlwind tour with our guide, we all all the greatest hits. Rameses, Hatshepsut, Tutankamen, the pet mummies, and all the other fascinating […]
Pyramids!
I saw and touched and went inside one of the seven wonders of the ancient world! Pretty incredible. The Great Pyramid was built some 4,500 years ago. That’s mind-blowing to me. I mean, woolly mammoths were around for roughly another 1,000 after it was built. That’s farther before the birth of Christ than we are […]
Christmas Day
Oh, Christmas! Always a lovely, low-key day, and even more so in London where the city really shuts down and I don’t have relatives or friends to visit outside my own home. We let ourselves sleep in until we woke up naturally, and then began opening presents after a quick first-breakfast of English muffins (or, […]
Semiramide
6:30pm is an inconvenient time for an opera to start. One barely has time to get home from shopping, call one’s boyfriend, change into a suit and bow-tie, slurp a dinner of oatmeal, catch the bus downtown, snarf a second dinner of German sausage under the pillars of Covent Garden market (My Fair Lady!), and […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 