Did I mention the women's accordian division?

Most of the drummers had tatoos

Train to Scotland

I've headed up to Scotland; Edinburgh to be specific. I have a peer review to participate in on Thursday and a talk to give on Friday then I am staying through Sunday just to soak up the city. It is a planner's dream.

There's the old town: the castle and south--all crazy shapes on hilly forms about a mile long and 400 yards wide according to my guidebook and then there is the new town: a rational planned 18th Century construction north of the castle.

Our office in Edinburgh is at the base of the castle in an old church building, oddly over looking the cemetery where Burke and Hare did their body snatching. Can't wait to see more of the city; but as far as offices go this one is quite scenic!

I decided to take the train which was the right thing to do. It takes about 4 hours but its comfortable, has a table and wireless internet. You can get a lot done in the quiet car of a train! Plus then after three hours the scenery starts to become amazing. It was green green green. and then as you get closer to Edinburgh you start seeing glimpses of water, I assume the Firth. There are some great views of really large estates (too big to be houses - I guess you could call them country houses in the British sense) not castles but BIG brick piles...

Pilates number 3

In my continuing effort to get outta the house, I signed up for 10 Pilates lessons. The first was two weeks ago and I could barely sit up for at least three days after that session. Last night, I had my third lesson; this time I didn't feel like I worked hard enough. Hmmm, does that make me a masochist or am I just getting a little bit better every time?

The funny thing about Pilates is that the movements are so small, my theory is you really have to pay attention or you can just fake the whole thing. Of course my "core" can be as strong as I like it but I need to start swimming again to really get the physical fitness level up. Its just that swimming isn't really social; and right now I need social.

On an unrelated note, I have become obsessed with Nina Simone - isn't (wasn't) she the most interesting, amazing vocalist? A couple of years ago I went to see Shirley Horn at the Masonic Hall in SF; amazing free tickets given to me by a friend. It was all about Shirley Horn after that. Nina and Shirley have completely unrelated style but yet somehow remind me of each other.

Bookclub - back in session

Much to my relief, Jenifer and Shannon have hooked me up with their old London book club. So on a blustery St. Pat's Saturday, I headed over to Muswell Hill to go to my second session of my latest book club. I was invited and attended in January - I'm just so stoked they invited me back! We read On Beauty by Zadie Smith, I really enjoyed it but thought that the whole north-east US collegiate setting was difficult to translate to non-US-ers. Not that they didn't understand it and I'm sure that the North London setting also had things in it that I didn't get. But most of all, I'm just happy to have folks to see on on evening who aren't work related.

We are going to be picture free for a while, same old technical difficulties. I'm hoping to get the photo-thing sorted before next weeks trip to Edinburgh. talk later.

My new favoraite place

This is a seat in the Reading Room of the British Library. Actually its at the British Museum, which used to surround the British Museum. It is a circular temple of knowledge inscribed within the square of the Museum. Of course the Library holdings completely outgrew the circular space so the Library itself moved up the road to the Kings Cross-St. Pancras neighborhood.

But the Reading Room remains at the center of the British Museum. It now has a beautiful glass dome connecting what I presume used to be a courtyard to the Museum itself. The dome is beautiful--lacy, airy and inviting. Plus the whole thing is FREE! Crikey, it is FREE to walk into that museum and stroll around through the amazing collection. OK, it is plundered from all around the world but, whatever, its astounding to just see all that stuff in one place. And then in the middle there is this library. I love libraries. Particularly old ones, with books. I could and do spend hours just wandering around looking at the books, thinking, "Maybe I really should read this volume on Textiles of Abyssinia?"

The point is this is my new favorite place in London; Seat E5, just near the little bit of a history section that the British Library has thoughtfully left there.

Who knew rhubarb was red?

More pictures from the market day. Proving once again that I don't eat enough vegetables, I took this picture because I didn't know rhubarb was red - or, frankly, that it looked so much like celery.

My only experience of rhubarb is reading about its poisonous leaves and as an ingredient in pies. Its the pie thing that makes it so confusing. A) Isn't it a vegetable? so B) why is it in fruit pies? and C) since its usually with a red fruit I always though it was being dyed in the pie. Not that it was actually red itself.

the things you learn by moving to another country. My mother reads this blog and she's going to be upset that I told the world I didn't know rhubarbs are red. It is really fine, Mum, I know a lot of other really important stuff!

Street signs

Gotta love the signs that spring up; this graffiti was sprayed on the wall of a picturesque house (in a run down and surely expensive) in an alley near Borough Market. I can imagine that the folks who lived there got sick of tourists taking pictures of the front so they gave us something to take a picture of.

P.S. I figured out how to get photos off my camera so now I don't have to worry about the silly camera and batteries issue, so look forward to more posts.

Cheese!

This weekend I went back to the neighborhood were I stayed when I was first in London and explored a bit deeper. This shot is from the interior of the Neal's Yard cheese shop at Burough Market. You walk in and the ceiling goes up 15 feet and its cheese stacked all the way up.

Its like walking into a Wallace and Grommit store; you can almost see Wallace twiddling his fingers saying "Wenselydale." They had two kinds of cheese for tasting. One of which I bopught a hunk of to go with the apples I bought at the market proper.

One small problem, my bag smelled like smelly cheese all day as I wandered around.

Coffee to go with the Cheese?

Next to the Neals Yard cheese shop is the Monmouth Coffee shop. Doesn't it look cosy? The line snaked out the door into the rainy street. It was still pretty early when I got there, and they told me that it really got a lot busier when its sunny and a bit later in the day.

I really think that this kind of food/veggie/coffee retail is not a flash in the pan. The Ferry Building in San Francisco, I just wrote off to the crazy food-culture of the Bay area. I am very interested to see how this kind of retail is doing in cities that are NOT London or San Francisco.

Another vending machine

This machine sells paperback books. I think its great, running through a train station - "oh damn, I need something to read. Look here's a machine selling books." Really cool.

Have I mentioned how much they read here in UK? Its very interesting to see everybody with their heads bent reading on trains; even if they are reading horrible crap newspapers.

My Tennessee Street neighbors hit the road...

day four sunset
Originally uploaded by sproutgirl74.

and sent me pictures of their tour of northern California. The best part of this is that they now own my lovely red Cabrio. And they take pictures of it in wonderful locations. I don't miss the car but I enjoy seeing her out and about, doesn't she look lovely for eight years old?

cemetery near the office

Old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh, Scotland
Originally uploaded by Doctor Beef.

Amazing Painted Hall - updated

Went to a very fancy dinner last Thursday night at the Painted Hall at the Naval College in Greenwich. It was an amazing room, luckily my camera is still acting up so I didn't even try and take a picture of its loveliness, so click on the above link to a 360 degree view of the room from BBC.

From a guide book here's a little background - Situated within the Old Royal Naval College, the Painted Hall was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1694 and was originally built to serve as the dining hall of Greenwich Hospital. The hospital was established for the relief and support of seamen and their dependants and for the improvement of navigation. It became the Royal Naval College in 1869, and recently the University of Greenwich has moved in.

It was here in January 1806 that the body of Lord Nelson lay in state after the Battle of Trafalgar as thousands came to pay their last respects to one of England’s finest Seamen. The paintings on the wall all represent a story or an event that happened, and took Sir James Thornhill 19 years to complete.

Dinner was to hear speakers from the British Antarctic Society, they have just design and will soon start building the next version of their research station called Halley VI. Full disclosure, a sister company of my employer did th engineering, which is why I was invited. The speakers were excellent and th eroom really was lovely.

Walking in Florida

So far behind, I haven't even posted the scary gator picture from my too-short visit to the 'rents in FLA. Picture was taken by my male parental unit while Mum and I were safely up on the overlook high up thing. To be honest, he was all the way across the lake-ette when he took the picture - but still brave.

I swear I'll go back to blogging about the UK and London soon.

Driving with Mum and Sis

My sister (who turned 40 this week! haha) lives in a little beach town near to St. Petersburg, Florida. The town is called Gulfport and its sort of an art/beach/sleepy/small town. Lots of colorful painted houses and its cool. This is a picture of the dragon of Gulfport, protecting one of the apartment houses. It has a sign which says, "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons; for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

Who would buy this?

How's this for being out of touch; on this trip I discovered that one of my alma maters - the University of Florida (go gators) - has won the national football championship. Now, even I would have know this had I been in the country but it didn't cross my radar screen in the UK. Imagine my shock at the closing dinner for the conference on Wednesday night when the conversation turned to football (and here I am required to say American football) and what school did you go to and national champions. I'm shocked I didn't even have a clue they were in the running; especially since I only left the US in November.

But this entry is really about this commemorative Waterford crystal football, advertised at the Macy's in Tyrone Square Mall. I hope I am not offending any gentle readers - but who would buy this!? and why is it in crystal? there are really so many questions that this brings up, what are your questions?

Moms and babies

Completely off topic--just to remind you the topic is me moving to London and the delights I find there--I was in San Francisco visiting Henry and his parents and another new baby joined in the party, the one NOT in blue is the newest addition to my ever-growing cadre of under-one friends, Riley.

As you can see San Francisco was bright and sunny. Now I am in Phoenix headed to Florida; where it is completely possible I will get too much sun and begin to look forward to grey London. Oh, and the camera batteries died so no pictures of this portion of the trip - so imagine the lovely Arizona Biltmore Hotel in all its FLW-inspired beauty on gorgeous winter days in the 70s during the day and 40s at night. Then imagine me writhing in pain from some sort of food poisoning. Shout outs to friend BF who decided to call a doctor and get those so important drugs! Sigh, you would think I would be a good traveler by now.

House of Booze

This is a shop near my tube station on Finchley Road. One thing I love about the UK is how they name things. As my friend Marcia just said their Environment Protection Agency is called British Nature; it just is what it is. So this shop; which sells all sorts of liquor is called "House of Booze." They just call it what it is.

Sun is finally coming up...

... at a decent hour. Was walking to the tube station this week, I think I took this on Monday, and suddenly it dawned on me it was not black as night. I was out walking around and it was almost daylight - well there was the blush of dawn, anyway. Hallelujah - I think the days are getting noticeably shorter. Surely summer is around the corner. But is doesn't matter because tomorrow I'm leaving for a trip to the US; first San Francisco, then Phoenix and finally Madeira Beach to hang out with my family. Yay, sun and the beach.