Queens, a Male Dancer and a "Queen"?

If you're one of our regular visitors, you know we are frequent audience members in London's great theaters. Our three most recent theatrical outings have all been really fine.

The first was "Mary Stuart", by Schiller, based on the conflict between Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I -- both members of the Stuart family. The play is a drama (historical, of course) and is wonderfully acted and written. We rated it one of the 2 or 3 best we've seen in the 43 shows we've seen in our 18 months here.

As one of Kathi's birthday presents from Chuck, we saw the stage version of "Billy Elliot". (It was a movie a few years ago, which we saw during our last UK adventure in 2000, and which we enjoyed a good bit.) It's the story of the young son of a dirt-poor miner in northern England who is attracted to dance (not the boxing lessons his Dad thinks he's paying for) and, ultimately, wins a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School. The stage version's music is by (Sir) Elton John and is a very well-done musical. Another we rated near the very top of our theatergoing experience.

And, most recently, as one of Chuck's Christmas gifts, we saw "The History Boys" at the National Theater. This drama takes place at a boy's high school in England in the 1980s -- primarily dealing with their interaction with their history professor, of course. It's by Alan Bennet -- fantastically inventive and extremely well-written (starting to sound like a broken record?) with a fair amount of comedy thrown in. It's supposedly to open soon on Broadway and is worth a look -- though be prepared for adult situations, including some very candid homosexuality, and some strong language. (Chuck said he'd never have let one of our daughters see it -- though he might relent when they're over 40.)

One of our favorite parts of living in London is the "theater scene". We plan to continue to be active patrons.

Christmas in Palma de Mallorca

Having spent last Christmas in London, and remembering how incredibly quiet and seemingly deserted the city was, we decided to go someplace a bit warmer and spend a few days enjoying new sights. Chuck had been to Palma a number of times while serving aboard destroyers which made port calls there, and he remembered thinking it was very nice. So that became our Christmas destination.

We left London on Christmas Eve morning, making the 2 hour flight from London's Heathrow airport. One of our first surprises at Palma (actually Palma de Mallorca -- the city of Palma on the Island of Mallorca -- one of the Baleric Islands in the Mediterannean off the coast of Spain) was the enormous size (and modernity) of the airport. We later understood that, while Palma is a city of only about 300,000 permanent residents, the islands are a major tourist attraction during the summer season, hosting several million visitors. The airport has been built to handle that seasonal horde.

We rented a car at the airport and drove to the very beautiful Nixe Palace hotel on the Western end of the Palma waterfront. The pictures referred to below show some of the views from the balcony of our room. We enjoyed several very good meals in the hotel's restaurant during our stay.

Palma has an unusual cathedral -- very large (very high and much wider than many we've been to, though not as long). But most of the cathedrals we've seen combine large scale with a beautiful sense of lightness in their amazing stonework. Palma's, though, just seems massive; and, frankly, less beautiful than most others. We visited the cathedral on Christmas Day while non-stop Masses were in progress and, of course, did not take any pictures inside. We spent most of the rest of Christmas wandering the downtown historic area of the city.

On the 26th we ventured out into the countryside to be surprised by how large the island of Mallorca seems and what wild scenery it has. There are many beautiful valleys between surprisingly rugged mountains; and an array of towns on beautiful coves all along the seacoast. Again, you can see some of our photos at the web site referred to below. We spent the morning and early afternoon of a rainy 27th on the Palma waterfront and again in the historic area, where we spent some time out of the rain in a very attractive coffee shop. Then, that afternoon, back to the airport and back home, where we arrived early that evening.

Palma and Mallorca are very attractive and we would certainly recommend them if you were looking for such a site to visit. To see some of our pictures of this visit, go to:
http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/1075148

London Christmas Lights

As we did last year, we took a walking tour of much of Central London to look at the Christmas windows of the various stores as well as the street holiday lighting. Thankfully, when we did it this year (on the 22nd) it was much warmer than the freezing weather we had on our Christmas Eve foray last year.

As we did last year, we started with the windows at Harrod's, the famous, VERY up-scale store whose Christmas windows are lengendary. Last year's, while having nothing to do with the purpose or spirit of Christmas, were at least very beautiful. This year's, in our view, were very disappointing -- as usual, they did not reflect the Christmas story, but they were also not very pretty or impressive. Oh, well -- no one hits a home run every time.

The famous food-specialty store, Fortnum and Mason, had some very interesting windows this year -- in the form of scenes from Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", with Scrooge acting out various parts of the story.

As was also the case last year, our companions were David and Leora Comis (David is the Commanding Officer of ONR Global). This annual tour was actually Leora's idea last year, based on her New York family's tradition of visiting the lights of Manhattan at Christmas. We also introduced a new wrinkle this year by stopping part way through the walk to have dinner at a favorite Italian restaurant -- Kathi thought that was a big improvement.

If you'd like to see a few more pictures of the London scene, go to: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/1077747

Is it Something in the Face(s)?

We don't understand it. It must be something in one of our faces. No, that can't be it, because it happens to us both. Must be something in BOTH our faces! It started our very first week in London and it continues to this day. It's an almost expected experience every time we go walking anywhere in London. Don't people know we're still somewhat new here ourselves?

Then why do they, with such amazing regularity, stop us to ask directions? They ask us where specific streets are; where tourist attractions are; where Underground stations are. This started the very first weekend we were free to walk in the West End, explorers ourselves. But even then, when we'd only been in this city for a few days, someone asked us for directions. And, as we said, it hasn't ever stopped. It happens when we're together; and it happens to us individually when we are alone. (Alas, little do any of them know that Kathi is "navigationally impaired" and not a good source for directions.)

We wondered, at first, if we looked like typical Londoners. But after 17 months here we are convinced there is NO ONE here who looks like a typical Londoner. In fact, in this most cosmopolitan of cities, there is NO typical Londoner.

So, it must be something else in our faces. But what???

Sparkling Show

On December 10th we attended a Christmas Celebration at Albert Hall with American friends Nick and Lee Baker, who are living near Bath while Nick is working in England. The show featured the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, joined by two choirs -- the Farnham Youth Choir and The Gentlemen of St. John's (from St. John's College, Cambridge University). The performance was conducted by John Rutter, well-known choral composer and conductor -- and it was spectacular -- in fact SPARKLING.

A major pleasure of attending any performance at Albert Hall is the venue itself. The Hall, built while Victoria was Queen and named for her beloved Prince Albert, saw its first performance in 1871. It was recently renovated and is once again spectacularly beautiful inside as well as out -- with the acoustics made even better by modern science.

The Hall is the home of many fine entertainments including, of course, the Royal Philharmonic, ballets, popular entertainments and even the occasional notable sporting event. One of the most heavily attended events there
(and one of the hardest-to-get tickets in the UK) is the annual Remembrance Ceremony honoring British war dead. (A scene from this ceremony is shown at the left.)

The show we attended included a joyful mix of orchestral and choral numbers. The youth choir, made up of kids from 12 to 17 and winner of many prizes, was unbelievably sophisticated. The men from Cambridge were a delight -- very rich singing, but combined with an easygoing and engaging style. The Philharmonic, it goes without saying, was absolutely first rate, and ended the show with two modern carols written by conductor Rutter.

It is a spine-tingling experience to stand in this large, beautiful oval-shaped hall and sing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" (and a few other traditional carols) with a full orchestra, organ, two choirs and 5000 other audience members. A fantastic and memorable afternoon for sure!

On the Rock

We took a weekend break over the Thanksgiving weekend by flying to Gibraltar, site of the famous "Rock" and gateway to (and from) the Mediterannean. It's been a British territory for over 300 years and the source of recent tensions between the UK and Spain (who would like the British to leave).

We all know the rock from the famous Prudential Insurance ads and it has long been an important fortress and naval base. Chuck paid a number of port calls there during his sea-going days and was looking forward to seeing it again. But, as is the case in so many places, the changes since the late 1960s have been enormous.

The Rock, itself, is honeycombed with tunnels for fortifications and gun emplacements dating back to the "great seige" when the British garrison was beseiged by a combined French and Spanish force for 3 years, starting in 1779. It's not hard to understand, when looking up at the numerous gun ports why the attacks never worked. More recently, during World War II, the rock was the site of additional tunneling, producing the much larger tunnels that served as the place where Eisenhower and his staff planned the invasion of North Africa and which also served as a bomb-proof logistics base.

There is only a small amount of relatively level land at the foot of the rock on which to build -- and recent growth has taken the form of additional land-fill. Because of the scarcity of land, Gibraltar is now the site of numerous high-rise apartment buildings (which were the chief surprise to Chuck, who remembered "the Rock" before all this growth). The population is, by blood, largely Spanish, but there is a major community of British-descended Gibraltarians as well. Because of all the battles, seiges and military and naval campaigns in which the Rock figured prominently the entire area is heavily populated with walls, revetments and casemates as well as countless monuments.

Being located on the Straits of Gibraltar, the Rock is only 9 miles from Africa -- the shores of Morocco to be specific. While there we took a day-trip to the Moroccan city of Tangier, which included a short bus trip to a second Moroccan city, Tetuan, where we lunched. While in Tangier we visited the legendary souk, or market, with an incredible array of items for sale and got an interesting introduction to the making of fine rugs. Our Moroccan guide tried very hard to convince us that religious tolerance prevails in this constitutional monarchy, though it is difficult to tell since over 98% of the population is Islamic and Jews and Christians are extremely small minorities.

To see some photos from our visits to Gibraltar and to Morocco, click here:
http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/1006754