D. S. Friberg Blog

St. James Park

We began Saturday with a trip across the Millenium Bidge,  past the Tate Modern and Globe Theater, to Borough Market.  A market has existed near London Bridge in one form or another for over a thousand years, and it remains a great place to buy produce, gourmet food items, and a quick, high-quality lunch.  I tried a Pimm’s lemonade and Katie and Wes shared a regular lemonade.  Next we took the Tube to Trafalgar Square to meet my friend Ramon.  Having not yet changed the clock on my phone from Belgian time, we arrived over an hour early.  Once I realized my mistake, we took the opportunity to visit St. Martin-in-the-Fields church and the National Gallery.  Most of the big museums in London, including the National Gallery, are free, which is a great idea in my opinion.  We spent just one hour there, but we saw enough to understand that it is one of the world’s great museums.  We managed to see most of the Dutch and Flemish paintings, including two Vermeer’s and a full room each of Rembrandt and Rubens.  St. Martin-in-the-Fields church was interesting to me because it is the original home of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields chamber orchestra, which is, so I’ve heard, the most recorded orchestra of all time. 

Millenium Bridge near Tate Modern

Borough Market

St. Martin-in-the-Fields

Interior of St. Martin-in-the-Fields

National Gallery

Baby tourist

Saturday was the only day that we had any rain in London.  The rain was not hard and lasted just long enough to give us a taste of London in the rain.  It stopped by the time we met Ramon.  He took us through Piccadilly Circus, Soho, Covent Garden, and to dinner in Chinatown.  After dinner, he helped us onto a double-decker bus back to Club Quarters, our home away from home away from home.   

Staying dry in Trafalger Square

Dan and Ramon in Piccadilly Circus

Ramon is one of my best friends from the time I spent at the Yale School of Music.  He moved to London six years ago and has developed his career as a clarinetist and clarinet mouthpiece craftsman.  On Sunday, he came to the hotel and let me try some of his mouthpieces.  He also put a terrific new facing on the old Lelandais mouthpiece I found in our Sint-Jacob flea market.  

Ramon working his mouthpiece magic

After the mouthpiece session, Ramon took us via Kensington Gardens and Royal Albert Hall to the Royal College of Music, where he did an artists diploma.  We had Sunday dinner (Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for me) at a pub, and stopped briefly outside of Harrods department store.   

Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

Ramon in front of the Royal College of Music

Sunday dinner in a British pub

Monday we checked out of our hotel, visited the Tate Modern, met Ramon for lunch at a fantastic Turkish deli, and then went to St. Pancras to catch our afternoon train back to Brussels.  On our way to the station, we spent some time in Regent’s Park.  British gardens have a charm distinct from those of the continent.  They are more wild and whimsical, and to me more relaxing.  Katie had read online that a gate at Regent’s Park was the model for the one in Disney’s Mary Poppins where Bert makes his chalk drawings.  The park certainly reminded us of the movie, but we couldn’t pin down an exact match with any of the gates we saw.   

Bro and sis relaxing in the hotel

Tate Modern

The view across the Thames from a Tate Modern balcony

Turkish Deli

Wes's "house" in Regent's Park

English-style garden (St. James)

After nine months in Belgium, London felt several steps closer to home.  Everything was back in English, buildings and streets had a familiar feel, and in general we felt more at ease.  Moving from the exotic to the familiar, we felt a little as if we were on a vacation to home.  Indeed, we relaxed and slept quite a lot during our five days there, just like you do when you are home from college.  Talking to my Belgian friends, I was surprised to learn how many of them, given how short the trip is, had never been to London.  To me, this is a good example of why the European Union is not directly analogous to the United States.  EU countries have relatively little in common with one another culturally speaking.  Ghent is just 200 miles from London, yet almost everything about the two places is different.  

The differences between American and British English caused one or two misunderstandings.  For example, when we got on the tube for the first time, an older man asked us, “Are you alright?”  We replied that we were alright, but that we were getting on the Tube for the first time and trying to figure out the system.  He showed us the way to our train.  Later, a cashier asked Katie, “Are you alright?” and she responded that she was fine and then asked if he was alright.  We were beginning to think that we must really look like a wreck and in need of help, but Ramon later explained to us that in England “Are you alright?” is used the instead of “How are you?”  We were relieved to know that we don’t look like a total pity case.