Photos from England!
As promised, here are photos from our trip to Cheltenham and London. First off, here I am with Dr. David Sims! We are feigning lively chatter in front of the tomb of John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress.
Before we met Dr. Sims, Mr. Improbable pointed out, "You know academics tend to study what they know. What if he is a bastard?" I said that based on my e-mail correspondence, I didn't think he was, and I was right. We had a wonderful dinner, the three of us, and talked about everything from the Velveteen Rabbit to cognitive psychology to Jesus's leadership style to why there are possums in England, Australia, and America.
More pictures below the fold:
We've been to England a fair amount, so we don't take pictures of Big Ben or the Palace guards anymore. And why would you want to see those anyway? You can go to lots of places to see the standard pictures of England. I wanted to show you some different things. Like the street performers we saw as we took a walk along the Thames. Mr. Big Arms:
And Mr. Invisible:
... and this guy, an acrobat who in another trick did a slow-motion breakdance with a bicycle balanced on his head:
Then we went to a wonderful installation art exhibit at the Hayward Gallery, called Psycho Buildings. Two works were on the roof. One was a huge, two-story bubble--kind of like a bouncy castle big enough to hold adults. Mr. Improbable and I went into the first story. Here I am:
... and here is what people on the top story looked like to those of us below:
Even better was this. A group of Austrian artists filled one of the building's terraced roofs with water and put three little wooden rowboats in it! Museum staff helped you into the rowboats so you could paddle around on the roof. You can't imagine how wonderful it is. Here is a picture Mr. Improbable took while we were on the dock waiting our turn to row:
You can see the Royal Festival Hall, the Eye, and Big Ben from the roof, so I guess we did take some iconic pictures after all.
Sometimes simple things are delightful, too. The above pictures were taken on our first day in the city. Then we went to Cheltenham, and then came back for a couple more days in London. The day we returned we ate dinner at Buonasera, a charming little Italian restaurant in Chelsea. It was very clever: a two-story restaurant in a one-story building! The tables were put together like a puzzle of upside-up and upside-down Y's. The upside-down Y's had a table on the floor and a narrow space for a light fixture above. The upside-up Y's had a narrow staircase on the bottom leading up to a table near the roof. Like so:
Comment
Permalink
E-mail
Who is Miss Conduct?
Robin Abrahams writes the weekly "Miss Conduct" column for The Boston Globe Magazine. Robin, who has a PhD in psychology from Boston University, has worked as a theater publicist, organizational-change communications manager, editor, stand-up comedian, and professor of psychology and English. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, Marc Abrahams, founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are given annually for achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.
