Rain....again

Yesterday was sunny and warm, but today the rain has returned. The bad thing about rain here is that it it more often a drizzle than a downpour, making it too much not to use an umbrella and not enough to warrant having it out the whole time. One spends a tremendous amount of time putting the umbrella up, and taking it down. There's probably a trick here that I've yet to totally figure out.

Thursday was the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, so I went to mass at St. Mary's Bourne Street . Frightfully high church with bricks that positively reeked of years and years of incense. Nice, but a bit much. This church is distinguished by OWNING a pub. Frequently mass will be advertised as "with drinks afterward." I think that the Anglican church throughout the world might gain new members with an advertising campaign like that.

On Friday I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. It's a magnificent museum, but like all here, it's best done in chunks. One can't do all of it in a day. I went until I couldn't walk anymore, then headed out. With time, I'll go back, or else save it for the next trip!

This afternoon I took in the Imperial War Museum. I don't normally go in for this sort of thing, but it was fascinating. I went as much for the building as the exhibits, as it's housed in the former Bethlehem Lunatic Assylum (aka "Bedlam"). When it no longer became fashionable to go and gawk at the lunatics (as they were then called) and all of them were moved out to nicer, more sanitary quarters, the two wings were demolished leaving the central space with its distinctive dome. In time it was converted into the IWM. Definitely worth a look. I didn't finish all of it either, but there's always tomorrow.

Tonight the Olympic flame will be relayed up to Buckingham Palace. There's a huge concert, for which 70,000 tickets have been distributed. I would like to see the relay, but the thought of going near 70K+ people has me a bit turned off.

More soon!