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14-Mile Dog Tourism
Milo and I started our Easter Sunday at 6:45am so he could take care of business before catching the first train of the day. As it turns out, the first train isn’t at 7am from Fulham Broadway as promised and the first train to come by doesn’t stop. However, by 7:30 we were in Victoria ready to continue “Milo’s Tour of London”. I have been trying to capture Milo in front of iconic images of London, so I figured getting going before most people in London get up (on a Sunday anyway) would be good.
We walked up to Buckingham Palace, down The Mall next to St. James’s Park, then over to the Cabinet War Rooms where Churchill hung out during WWII. Then came New Scotland Yard, Westminster Abbey, and while getting the picture of Big Ben, a cop asked if Milo was friendly. They quickly became good friends. We then meandered a bit from Trafalgar Square to St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tate Modern museum and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre past the Clink Prison and through Borough Market, but it wasn’t operating today.
We then hit our turning around point: The Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, which means we also saw City Hall, the graffiti covered Southbank skateboard park (they leave it that way instead of repainting it all the time). We eventually made it to the London Eye, past the other side of the Houses of Parliament with Big Ben, down to Battersea with the power station and park. Finally we made it back to our neighbourhood with the houseboats in Chelsea, the football club, and finally saw a clean black taxi with no ads and sitting still.
We were gone 6.5 hours and walked a total of 14.3 miles with only one real stop to share an apple for about 10 minutes. I made a quick map here if you want to see the route along with all of the iconic London pictures with Milo.
Jazz at Ronnie Scott’s
Friday night I went to Ronnie Scott’s, which is a famous Jazz club here in London. I really don’t know much about Jazz, but I find it entertaining enough and Ronnie Scott’s is a cool club to people-watch. It was just Anne and I since sitting in a club listening to music isn’t really Lorie’s thing.
The guy in the first photo was the main act for the night. He is Pat Martino on guitar with Tony Monaco on keyboard and Lois Tsamous on drums. Pat told a story of hanging out in New York and learning from Les Paul, who basically invented the electric guitar.
The club is in Soho and is packed in with all the other clubs and theatres in the area. It has been there since 1959, which would be considered a long time in the US, but the nearby Dog & Duck pub is 275 years old.
It must be Easter time
The only thing these two photos have in common are the time of year. The time that England goes crazy for any form or chocolate egg and tulips daffodils bloom. I eat the chocolate and Milo pees on the flowers, so we’re both happy.
(yes Mom, I knew those weren’t tulips, but forgot that when I typed this up)
The chocolate egg craze is in full swing with Easter coming this weekend. They are usually hallow and everyone makes one: regular candy bar types, specialty chocolate shops, and even TV shows. This one is for Top Gear and the guy on the box is called The Stig.
I can fly
This was a very cool birthday gift that involved me putting on a jump suit and getting into a huge wind turbine and learning to freefall for two minutes, twice. I was home yesterday with a bad head cold, so I was concerned I would miss it (been planning it for a while), but I wasn’t dead this morning, so I went for it. Lorie and I took the train to AirKix in Milton Keys (north of London). Lorie attempted to take pictures through the scratched up plexiglass, but the photo here is one we paid for that the AirKix people took. For some reason, Lorie had no interest in flying with me.
My first flight was a little shaky as I tried to figure out how to hold my arms, hands, head, and legs. I had no problem relaxing and letting my body arc, but figuring out what to do with my legs was the weird part – how much should you bend your knees when free falling anyway?
My second flight was quite a bit more fun though. I was able to hold myself in position so I could then raise and lower myself or spin circles. You only have to make very minor adjustments to move around like this.
This is the perfect training for skydiving, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever do that. Being in the wind tunnel and just screwing off is fun enough and has no real risk to it.
Milkmen in London
Yes, milk is still delivered to your doorstep if you want it. There is even a site to nominate a Milkman Of The Year, but I doubt the milkman who was caught selling pot would win it.
I took this picture in Fulham at around 6:30am when walking Milo. It is of their electric truck/van that is open on all 3 sides for easy delivery.
Easter must be coming soon
Cadbury has been making chocolate eggs for 134 years. Tonight at Sainsbury’s (yes, Friday night at a grocery store!) we saw quite a few pallets of chocolate Cadbury eggs. They really are that popular, but even I thought this was an excessive amount of chocolate.
Talking about Devil Roadkill
Lorie just wrote up something I found hilarious: Devil Roadkill
It made my day, hopefully yours too. 
Snowmen in Helsinki, Finland
I have no idea why these snowmen are standing at a corner in Helsinki, but here they are, having a normal life. Maybe they are commuters that got frozen one day, I’m just not sure.
Other than this, Helsinki looked normal this evening. Normal in that Russian+Scandinavian sort of way that is Helsinki.
American Junkfood
I will let you know how we feel after we eat all of it. Hopefully we won’t really eat all of it – that’s what friends are for.
A Monty Python Moment
Even though I had been sick at home all day, I wasn’t about to miss this. Michael Palin was giving a talk about his new book that revisits his “Around the World in 80 days” show he did in 1989 for the BBC. He focused his story on a part of that trip where they took a dhow (boat) from Dubai to Bombay (now called Mumbai) and then, 20 years later, met up with the crew of that boat.
The talk was at Daunt Books in Marylebone (part of London), so it was a rather intimate setting and we (7 friends) were among 50 or so other people there. Afterwards, we were able to chat to him too. He’s a very friendly and approachable guy who admits that living in London provides so many opportunities that he doesn’t really need to travel as much as he does.
Since staring in Monty Python shows and movies, he’s been writing various travel stories and shows. See http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/ for more info. It looks like a great career!
The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth 