First House Guests
We've had our first house guests in London -- Bill and Sandy Solitario. Bill is a Visiting Industry Professor of Systems Engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School where he and Chuck worked closely together. He is a senior executive and engineer with Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, which builds Navy ships (and many other things). He and Sandi are living in Monterey for what is expected to be a three-year assignment and Chuck and Kathi spent many enjoyable hours at their beautiful house there. Bill delivered a paper at a symposium in London and he and Sandi combined that business travel with a personal vacation, including three days at Chez Calvano.
After they arrived at our house at noon on Wednesday, Chuck took them to a pub for lunch then a walk around the Marylebone area, where we live, to give them a chance to see some of residential London. Bill and Sandy are both experienced travelers and have been in London many times, so they were on their own the rest of Wednesday. On Thursday evening (thanks to Sandi's willingness to spend two hours in the ticket line) we were able to get tickets to Mary Poppins, the musical based on the movie and one of the hottest tickets in town. The show was spectacular. Most good musical shows have a number which is a "showstopper" -- but Mary Poppins has four of them. The stage version of "Supercalifragilisticexpealidocsious" was almost unbelievable. It was one of our best-ever theater experiences.
Kathi and Chuck both had Friday off and we used the day to go back to Greenwich; Bill and Sandi had never been there and our visit a couple of weeks ago had been so short that we'd barely seen any of it. This time we made it to the famous Royal Observatory, the sight of the prime meridian from which the longitude of every place in the world is measured. It was a bit of a rainy, cold day, but we were all in good company and enjoyed it. Friday evening we had dinner with American friends of Bill and Sandi who also are living here in the UK; they hosted us to a sumptuous dinner and we feel that we've made some new friends whom we hope to be able to visit at their place in the country, while they may visit us in the city.
For the pictures from the Solitario visit, go to: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/485269.
After they arrived at our house at noon on Wednesday, Chuck took them to a pub for lunch then a walk around the Marylebone area, where we live, to give them a chance to see some of residential London. Bill and Sandy are both experienced travelers and have been in London many times, so they were on their own the rest of Wednesday. On Thursday evening (thanks to Sandi's willingness to spend two hours in the ticket line) we were able to get tickets to Mary Poppins, the musical based on the movie and one of the hottest tickets in town. The show was spectacular. Most good musical shows have a number which is a "showstopper" -- but Mary Poppins has four of them. The stage version of "Supercalifragilisticexpealidocsious" was almost unbelievable. It was one of our best-ever theater experiences.
Kathi and Chuck both had Friday off and we used the day to go back to Greenwich; Bill and Sandi had never been there and our visit a couple of weeks ago had been so short that we'd barely seen any of it. This time we made it to the famous Royal Observatory, the sight of the prime meridian from which the longitude of every place in the world is measured. It was a bit of a rainy, cold day, but we were all in good company and enjoyed it. Friday evening we had dinner with American friends of Bill and Sandi who also are living here in the UK; they hosted us to a sumptuous dinner and we feel that we've made some new friends whom we hope to be able to visit at their place in the country, while they may visit us in the city.
For the pictures from the Solitario visit, go to: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/485269.
posted by Chuck and Kathi Calvano @ 7:08 PM
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