Today was forecast for rainy and cold, and it was.... sprinkly and cool. We have a 7 day unlimited metro pass so we jumped on a bus from Paddington to Trafalgar Square. Once there we decided that a visit to the National Gallery would be nice, but first we went over to St. Martin's in the Field. St. Martin's has musical concerts every week and around the holidays they have stuff practically every day. Today was no exception and they were offering a matinee of opera arias given by members of the Academy of St. Martin's in the Field. So we bought tickets, first row just on the left of the stage. Then we went to the Gallery and spent a couple hours looking at the Impressionist collection; what a great change of pace, since for the last 3 months we've been looking mostly at paintings from the medieval through the early 19th century. An hour before the concert we back to the church and had a lunch in the crypt, they have a cafe down in the crypt so you get to have lunch sitting on all those who have gone before. Deb thinks we should have two desserts because you start to realize that time is flying and you don't know just how much time you have. What a great little concert, there were four young opera singers, a soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and baritone each of whom had a very polished voice. We finished with Auld Lang Syne, them doing the verses and the audience doing the refrains. I'm pretty sure we were sitting next to one of the BBC news presenters, her name is Sophie and I used to watch her doing news when I worked over here a lot in the early 2000's. We're finishing the old year at our hotel room rather than navigating the complete zoo of downtown.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
Today was forecast for rainy and cold, and it was.... sprinkly and cool. We have a 7 day unlimited metro pass so we jumped on a bus from Paddington to Trafalgar Square. Once there we decided that a visit to the National Gallery would be nice, but first we went over to St. Martin's in the Field. St. Martin's has musical concerts every week and around the holidays they have stuff practically every day. Today was no exception and they were offering a matinee of opera arias given by members of the Academy of St. Martin's in the Field. So we bought tickets, first row just on the left of the stage. Then we went to the Gallery and spent a couple hours looking at the Impressionist collection; what a great change of pace, since for the last 3 months we've been looking mostly at paintings from the medieval through the early 19th century. An hour before the concert we back to the church and had a lunch in the crypt, they have a cafe down in the crypt so you get to have lunch sitting on all those who have gone before. Deb thinks we should have two desserts because you start to realize that time is flying and you don't know just how much time you have. What a great little concert, there were four young opera singers, a soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and baritone each of whom had a very polished voice. We finished with Auld Lang Syne, them doing the verses and the audience doing the refrains. I'm pretty sure we were sitting next to one of the BBC news presenters, her name is Sophie and I used to watch her doing news when I worked over here a lot in the early 2000's. We're finishing the old year at our hotel room rather than navigating the complete zoo of downtown. 
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