Day 5

That little French restaurant is such a delightful way to start the day. We pull together 2 little tables, order on the large side from one of a series of French waitresses, and indulge in lovely eggs Benedict (not necessarily with a nod to the current big wig visitor) or granola and yogurt, or pancakes. They're getting familiar with us - feels nice. It also reminds me of France and reminds me of how much I love the French language and want to gain some sort of facility with it. In time...

THEN: an architectural smorgasbord of a day!
Walked through the K and H parks to John Soane's house in Bloomsbury. Fascinating to think of someone creating and then occupying such a place. Three Georgian houses merged together, a basement crammed with Greco-Roman fragments, a sarcophagus and Gothic bric-a-brac - a monk's cellar. Upstairs is increasingly lighter but still full of bits and pieces of buildings and art like a tectonic funhouse.

On to the British Museum to gawk at Norman Foster's elegant, airy, white, expansive and welcoming Great Court. Saw the spoils of the British imperial romp through the treasure troves of the Empire, e.g., Parthenon marbles. Saw my first in-the-flesh Charles Rennie McIntosh designs, e.g., a lovely clock and candlesticks in an early type of plastic.

Paula et al reasonably went back to Kensington for a nap and I skipped up the streets of Bloomsbury to see the University College Institute of Cancer Studies curtain of orange louvers, the marvelous and gigantic hanging sculpture by Thomas Heatherwick displayed in the most awkward spot so as to be practically unviewable, and then to Euston Road for the British Library and St. Pancreas Station.

The Library, like the McIntosh objects, made me feel breathless. The Library's paean to Alvar Aalto is commendable. A hair's breath "more" than the spareness of Aalto but still clean, balanced between curved and linear, white and wood. Very beautiful in an understated way - a successful library space in the way it welcomes with some grandeur while avoiding intimidation.

St. Pancreas' hotel is being rejuvenated! I had no idea. After languishing empty and pointless for decades and decades, it's coming back to a neo Neo-Gothic life as a hotel and apartments, with some of the rooms and much of the common space apparently to be carefully preserved. This is a happy thing.

Exellent Italian meal down the street in Kensington. Again, Jayme mercifully washed his feet beforehand.