An afternoon at the NPG

A few days ago we indulged CC’s mission to squeeze in sightseeing and activities in the weeks leading up to her baby’s arrival. After a delicious lunch of vegetarian dumplings at Jen’s Cafe, we visited the nearby NPG. As expected, “Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power & Brilliance” was more M’s bag than ours. I find it difficult to relate to technically-brilliant yet stuffy portraits of powder-wigged aristocrats suited up to mimic classic Grecian and Roman heroes. “Satan as a Fall Angel” was probably his most compelling portrait in the collection.

 

 

The “Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010″ show celebrates contemporary portrait photography coming out of the UK. Some of the photos had a painterly quality in that their compositions were so exact that it was hard to believe they weren’t carefully-planned paintings. A conspicuous number of photos were of the female subject in more modern and non-traditional poses and, notably, many the photographers whose works were exhibited were also women.

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Last night we walked to the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank where we listened to the London Philharmonic Orchestra perform a programme of Spanish music. Composers included Debussy, Lalo, Strauss and Ravel. In keeping with the evening’s Spanish theme and our recent sojourn to Madrid, we concluded the night with tapas at one of my favorite restaurants in London, El Pirata.

AL’s London visit

AL is visiting from Hong Kong with his wife and baby, both of whom we met for the first time.  Needless to say, it was great to see an old friend with his new family. 

Little Chalfont

Today we spent the day in Little Chalfont, a suburb northwest of central London. There we met more of M’s cousins and enjoyed a bountiful outdoor lunch of baked salmon, avocado sauce, rice, and three types of desert– a fruity custard cake, lemon merange pie, and pavlova.  The weather was gorgeous: sunny with a slight breeze.

Expats in Ldn

Here are some of the expats we’ve met while in London, mostly Americans and Kiwis.

Cambridge

Today we visited M’s father’s side of the family in Cambridge. We feasted on delicious paella his uncle prepared for us and discussed the differences between London and New York.

Visiting the Bs

HB is my father’s bestfriend from college. Last night we visited him and his family for dinner (I can’t believe I managed to get M to leave Zone 1!). My “aunt” prepared an amazing vegetarian Indian meal (spicy paneer cubes, potato-and-pea-filled samosas, lentil daal, rice, naan, mixed vegetables, and corn curry), and we spent four hours catching up while M was meeting them for the first time. Perhaps my fondest memory of the Bs was when my uncle shared a coke with me at a pub on my last day in London during my summer abroad. Totally unaware of what he had planned, my uncle explained that it was “impossible” for me to leave London never having “visited a pub.” I couldn’t bring myself to disabuse him of the notion that in my whole summer abroad I had never visited a pub, so I let my religious, vegetarian, teetotaler uncle take me to a blue-collar, ethnically homogenous pub where we ordered a coke. Of the two of us, one of us had never been to a pub, and it definitely wasn’t me.

Dr. Carter

We’re in the British Airways lounge waiting to board our flight that leaves in about forty minutes. I had to logon and mention our Noah W sighting. He looks exactly like his character, Dr. Carter, on ER. He and his family sat a few tables away from us during dinner and later, to my dismay, I almost ran over him and his son on my way to the ladies room. Not exactly the most romantic of celebrity encounters, I must confess.