This is my first blog post. It will be formatted like a journal, because it is more or less copied from my iPhone notes that I wrote each night. It is paired with photos of things that are mentioned. I will try to add some summary details as well at the top.
What we booked before going: hotels, flights, 3 proms shows, dinner at St John, and a few days before leaving I planned and booked activities for the first two days since we’d be tired and disoriented
What’s the point of this trip? What’s the vibe? BBC Proms!
Stats!
Pubs: 4 The Victoria (Paddington), The Flask (Hampstead), Ye Olde Rose and Crown (Greenwich), Zetland Arms (Kensington)
Money spent on transportation: $110, $80 on public transit and $30 for a day taking the Uber boat
Miles walked: at least 40
Saturday 8/29
The flight to London was a little weird because we left at 7:30pm eastern, and landed at 6:30am GMT, which would be 1:30am eastern time. We basically ate dinner in the lounge, ate dinner again 2 hours later, ate breakfast at 12am, and then landed an hour later and it was somehow morning. And somehow, we were absolutely starving. I had preplanned our first two days to make things easier on our brains, so the first stop was Station Cafe in Hounslow. Hounslow is a town between Heathrow and London and I would describe it as a more working-class or normal-people town than London. It was grey and raining and around 8am when we got off the tube, and the streets were fairly empty. The people that we saw were just living their lives and trying to get places. We each got big breakfasts: beans, toast, sausage, ham, very delicious mushrooms, eggs, and an extremely hot latte each. No one was in there, probably because it was a Saturday, but during our meal a friend of one of the staff walked in and they talked for a bit about his stolen scooter (sad).
We then took a bus to Brentford, stashed bags at a weird budget hotel using the Stasher app, and walked to London Museum of Water and Steam. I really wasn’t sure about the Stasher app but the hotel staff seemed to know what was going on. We needed to kill about 3 hours, because we guessed we probably couldn’t check in until around 2pm, and we were deciding between the museum and Kew Gardens. In the end, our desire to be indoors won and we chose the museum. It turned out to be a great choice for reasons you will soon see.
The Museum of Water and Steam chronicles the history of water management in London, and it is geared towards kids. Guess who is a lot like a kid? Two adults that just got off a redeye whose bodies still think it’s the middle of the night. We were delighted to watch the engineers start up 3 enormous steam pumps in the pump room. We accidentally took a nap on a bench, two different times. We took a ride on their steam train (again, meant for kids). Museums are really nice places to be if you’re exhausted and can’t be anywhere else; there was water, bathrooms, food, and benches.
When we decided we had used up enough time that our rooms would probably be ready by the time we got to London, we walked back to the weird hotel and while we were there we watched someone get kicked out of their room for smoking in their room. He tried to lie and say he didn’t, but she was not taking any crap from him. We took another bus to South Ealing and ended up at a Gail’s for lunch. Gail’s is a lot like Tatte or Le Pain Quotidien. But in the moment, it was exactly what we needed. I had my first cream tea (tea with a scone with clotted cream and jam). And then we finally, finally made it to our hotel beds. Past Val had generously scheduled a nap for us at 3pm with nothing to do until dinner and our first BBC Proms show, so Present Val and Alex were able to sleep for about two hours.
After our alarm went off around 5pm, we showered and then ventured to South Kensington, the place in Kensington where all the museums are (the V & A, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum) as well as Royal Albert Hall. I wasn’t feeling very hungry, even though I should have been. I guess the meal times weren’t when I’m used to eating (although I eat at all hours normally so I don’t know). We ate at Comptoir Lebanaise on Exhibition Road, it was very fresh and tasty. We weren’t that hungry so we got the grilled halloumi, za’atar flatbread, sundried tomato dip, and a delicious fattoush salad.
-saw oslo phil play forest morning oyvind torvund, stravinsky violin concerto with patricia kopatchinskaja, she played a great encore with the concertmaster, prokofiev romeo and juliet. that woke me up! they played all the usuals except a movement called dance which I had not heard before. we were in the choir section and the oslo
percussion asked me to take their picture
-oh also, the king of norway Harald V died so they played the national anthem and then held a moment of silence and it was the quietest I’ve ever heard 5000 people be
-gelato on the way back! then we were dead to the world for the next 9.5 hours
Sunday 8/29
-we needed an alarm to wake up by 8:30! who knows when we’d have woken up without it
-breakfast at the hotel – lots of international options. english breakfast, european breakfast, american breakfast, congee!
-we took the train to twist museum, had some fun exploring optical illusions. then we took our time walking to the corinthia hotel through soho, picadilly circus, and trafalgar. we popped into hamley’s to satisfy alex’s curiosity, since he had been there as a child. so many toys! (note from the future: we would later decide that children were better behaved in hamley’s than in the natural history museum!)
-so much high end shopping in that area!
-tea at the corinthia! wow, so fancy. we brought a change of clothes so we would look nicer. I had 2 pots of tea, one black tea and one red tea. Extra sandwiches. We decided we liked putting the cream first on the scone then the jam (note from the future: val would later change her mind on this matter)
-we could not finish the cakes and took them with us (future val will unexpectedly appreciate this)
-from the Corinthia, we walked along the river to see Big Ben, and then to St James Park, where we saw what looked like giant bird statues on a rock in the pone, but when we got closer we realized they were actual giant birds, pelicans! They were brought to London as a gift to someone? Maybe the king? And they have been there ever since.
-We continued on to Buckingham Palace, and then walked around the outside and into Hyde Park
-We walked through Hyde Park and saw lots of people roller blading and roller skate dancing, and then went to the lake
-we had just decided to go to a pub in notting hill for dinner when my mom texted that my grandma needed a lot of care and they wanted to cancel a trip that I had been planning.
-I was very sad about this and crying and venting to Alex and it was at this point that a child with a folded umbrella casually over his shoulder walked right between us and said “sorry!” as he did so and this made me laugh a lot because there was a lot of space around us, we were really the only two people in the whole vicinity and while I was laughing his mom came up and apologized for him and I told her it was a much needed laugh for me so no worries
-We decided we’d go back to the hotel and regroup at this point
-we went out again to find a pub in Paddington called The Heron, but found out they didn’t have food, only a thai restaurant in the basement. We went down and sat down but I really wasn’t in the mood for Thai so Alex made the decision that we’d find another pub
-We walked to The Victoria and luckily for us, it was Sunday so we got a Sunday roast! Pork (beef for alex), potatoes, carrots, gravy, and yorkshire pudding. What a treat. And a cask ale
-We had no solid plans for Monday, over dinner we decided to go to Brigadiers indian BBQ restaurant for dinner but didn’t make any other plans so I made a reservations
Monday 8/30
-we are still requiring alarms to wake up by 8:30!
-I tried to make a reservation for the natural history museum but they didn’t have space -We decided to head straight to Spitalfields market for an early lunch – I found jollof rice and plantain almost immediately and housed it even though it was burning my mouth, alex had a coffee and eventually decided on chicken katsu
-I also had a cardamom chai!
-We decided to try to get into Sky Garden (free but you need a ticket, they were sold out but i had heard that they reserve walk in tickets each day) – we managed to get tickets and it was really cool! Long queue to get in and the spritzes were $22, no thank you, but the view and the plants were amazing. It gave us a nice idea of where we actually were and how London is laid out
-it had gotten very windy and it was
nice to be inside for a bit
-we then walked to st paul’s and walked all around it and I sang Feed the Birds the whole
time!
-We walked to a pedestrian bridge we had seen at the sky garden, it is called the Millenium Bridge. Across the bridge we saw the Tate Modern and noticed it was free entry so we went in and saw some really great art! My favorite was a Guerilla Girls exhibit about how female and artists of color are extremely underrepresented in museum art
-there was also a huge wall made of orange carpet and I guess the artist noticed that you could trace words into it and so the museum started asking visitors to use their hands to draw on the carpet so there was all these patterns and messages all over it
-then we walked even more! alex wanted to go to the Ferryman’s Seat, a tiny little stone seat on the river, so we walked there and the walked all the way back to the millenium bridge and then back over and to brigadiers, an indian restaurant styled after an indian military mess hall
-it was so delicious. we decided that while there are a few good indian restaurants in our area, the baseline in London is just much higher quality. there is good indian food everywhere!
-the paneer lettuce cups were standout surprisingly but everything was so good –
goat curry, chicken kebab
-we think we walked about 9 miles today
Tuesday 9/1
-I slept like crap last night – woke up every 2 hours, alex was snoring which is unusual these days (thank goodness!) and couldn’t get back to sleep after waking up early
-we decided to do some chores in the morning (laundry and getting some sandwich supplies) before going to the natural history museum
-laundromat was nearby and also near a tesco so we got peanut butter, jelly, bread, and sandwich bags and did our laundry
-I was very tired and glad we were doing easy things
-we made pb&js and packed apples that I took from breakfast and went over to natural history museum
-it was nice but sooo crowded and really hard to navigate, we liked the whale exhibit and we had a picnic lunch outside
-right before we left, we found volcanoes & earthquakes which was my favorite exhibit
-it was getting really crazy inside and I was sort of in a bad mood
-we walked over to molly rose from the museum because I wanted a cream tea, the scone was just ok but the green tea was
excellent
-We had a short break in the hotel, I finished the three hearts quest in silksong and beat the watcher at the edge
-Then it was time for St JOHN!!! Actually first we went to the Barbican and got visited by a very bold duck who evidently thought we had food, and then we went around to the london wall which was on the way to st john anyway. It’s a roman ruin, very strange to see in London
-When we walked in, there was possibly the biggest dog I have ever seen. A wolfhound named Vitus and he got all the leftover marrow bones from their meal!
-We had smoked eel with horseradish and roasted beet, marrow toast with parsley salad, welsh rarebit, and crispy pork cheek and then dessert which were huge portions!!!
-when we walked back we totally went the wrong way and ended up walking through a construction site which was creepy
Wednesday 9/2
-today’s first task was to switch hotels, we packed up and I ate the last 2 cakes from tea, I didn’t eat much for breakfast because I wasn’t hungry yet but then I was very hungry again after packing! I thought I’d eat a couple bites and then finished both
-we actually got to check in at the second hotel and we hardly even needed to look up directions to get there because it’s in kensington and we have been there a lot
-we changed our shoes and then it was tower of london time! Right after our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
-We managed to get a yeoman warder tour and he was welsh so I could hardly understand what he was saying for the first 10 minutes. He made some very bad jokes but gave us lots of interesting information.
-Ravens!!! We saw the ravens, they are very funny and they have toys all over the place. There are six of them, the one I saw most was harris and I took a lot of pictures of him
-the crown jewels were quite surreal, no country that I’ve been to so far places such a high value on ornamental stuff as england, at least in the modern age
-the modern crown jewels exhibit has people movers on either side to keep you from bunching up I guess
-the weather was quite moody and dramatic which was a good complement to the subject matter
-It is really a huge place. I see why people say not to rush yourself. We were in there for 3 hours and we probably saw half of it
-the yeoman warders live on the property!
-afterward we walked over the tower bridge to borough market, we only had an hour until closing so we ran around the market super fast and I saw paella with these huge shrimp and I got that, and it turns out it’s a big influencer dish to get at borough market 
it was good but expensive, the shrimps were all overcooked but the flavor was good and it was soooo much shrimp!! I had to wash my hands before and after
-we relaxed for a while, had an absolute meltdown laughing because alex was trying to throw swedish fish into my mouth
-alex got hungry so we went out and he got a burger and I got boba. I was slightly annoyed because I didn’t want to leave the bed! I was drinking tea and in my pajamas.
Thursday 9/3
-first night/morning in the new hotel – it’s fancier than the other except our room is on the first floor and the window looks out into the tea room, which meant the lights were on all night, the blackout curtain wasn’t enough of a blackout so I sort of just felt like it was daytime all night
-Alex took two towels from the hotel gym and we packed a bag and hopped on the train
-there was a switch problem on the northern line so we had to take a bus, it was a double decker and we sat on top and it was pretty fun! lots of huge windows everywhere
-we had a short walk to waterlow park and stopped in the restrooms
-there are bathrooms everywhere here
-There was a very fun kids’ park with a swing and things to play on which we did since there was no kids there!
-we finished walking through the park and checked in for our Highgate cemetery tour only to realize that I had made the reservations actually for tomorrow! The lovely person at the desk Marion fit us in anyway while I apologized repeatedly and we filled our bottles, there’s also bottle fillers and taps all over the place
-Our tour guide Martin told us that everyone there is a volunteer, and he did a really amazing job with the tour – so dramatic and engaging. I really thought we were going to just be shown the famous graves but no, we learned all about victorian symbolism and the different ways people were buried, and how women lost their identities in marriage and death. We went in the catacombs and an annoying lady (thankfully British not American) almost got locked in the catacombs because she took too long and Martin didn’t notice that she was far behind me and I had to stop him from closing the door! She also was very annoying, asking questions then interrupting him while he was answering.
-I asked whether there were cemetery cats and he said no, there’s foxes! And we saw 2
foxes after that! There is a fox lady who gets them veterinary care.
-Martin had a great way of delivering information that both conveyed the mindset of the victorian times, as well as exactly what he thought of that mindset and it was particularly apparent while talking about the lost girls, ten women (the youngest only fourteen) who had died while in a penitentiary for “fallen women”. they had been lured to London with the promise of a better life and had to turn to sex work and other occupations like that just to make ends meet and stay alive. They were allowed in the cemetery but with no marker and only recently had been found.
-After our tour, we went over to the east side, the “new” side to find Anna Mahler, Karl Marx, and Douglas Adams. A slightly agitated woman asked me at Adams’ grave why her husband kept saying the meaning of life is 42. So I explained that whole thing to her, and she said she would read the books. I recommended just reading the first one unless she wanted to feel very sad
-After that we rented lime bikes and immediately rode the wrong way on a one-way and got (very politely) corrected by a driver. We turned round the right way and rode through Hampstead Heath to Hampstead High Street. I was terrified, I felt like I had completely wrong instincts because everything was on the wrong side including my bicycle brakes
-We walked up the high street, It’s a nice walk but we weren’t in the mood to shop, luckily we happened upon a pub that our tour guide has mentioned, The Flask. We had delicious pork sausage sandwiches and beers. I’ve had lots of cask ale this trip
-During lunch, we saw a woman riding an ebike with her elderly mother in law riding on the back!
-After lunch we walked to Highgate Mixed Pond for a swim! I have been looking forward to it and had picked today for Hampstead and Highgate because it was warm and sunny.
-The pond is completely natural, very deep and cold but muddy and there is no beach, you have to get in off a dock
-It was full of locals having a swim with their friends, I loved it! I went in twice
-Afterward we walked to Hampstead Heath overground stop and took the overground back to Kensington
-I was happy to have time to take a nice long shower, I washed out our beach towels, shaved, and did my hair.
-We walked to the museums and Alex wanted a sausage from the sausage cart but I wasn’t sure what I wanted until I spotted the smash burger place that Alex had last night (Supernova) and that sounded great. They’re not that big, and I wasn’t that hungry so it was perfect. It actually rivalled In-N-Out I’d say.
-Then it was time for Proms show 2, the second night of Berlin Philharmonic! They played Beethoveh violin concerto with Augustin Hadelich and it was a real treat. Hadelich is a very understated performer compared to some of the classical superstars (Ray Chen and Yuja Wang come to mind, I love them too though!). He played a slow, quiet encore and the entire audience was barely breathing.
-When the orchestra came onstage (Berlin all comes out at once instead of trickling) I pointed out Sarah Willis to Alex and said how much I love her, and then I got to meet her at intermission!!!!! I saw that she was onstage after the first half saying hi to the audience members on the floor and I ran down to the railing really just hoping to wave hi and say how much I enjoyed it. But she stopped and had a whole conversation with me! I said I was a horn player and she immediately showed me her new mute and said how hard it was to play quietly enough in the muted section in Beethoven!!!! She was like “How did it sound” and I was like…it sounded amazing. DUH. And she asked who my teacher was, and said to say hi to Hazel and then said we should do a selfie!!! So I got a photo with Sarah Willis! And she is the nicest!
-The second half was Scriabin 3, and I did not know at the time that it is 4 parts played without breaks so I really thought we were listening to a half hour long first movement. I was thinking how I may not make it through. But then it ended spectacularly and the audience made Kirill Petrenko come back out like 6 times for more applause! The audience is amazing here.
-We were both roasting though so we were happy to go outside and cool off.
-When we got back, we wedged my raincoat and a shirt into the window to make the room darker.
Friday 9/4
-we got to wake up late again except I had a sore throat all night which was weird and annoying, and my back was hurting which was also weird
-We had breakfast, I got a pot of tea too because I felt like I was maybe getting sick
-I got annoyed at an older american couple who waved at the server and just said “more coffee” ugh
-I sneakily made some saltwater at breakfast to rinse my throat with, my throat was hurting a little yesterday after I dove into the pond and got water in my nose so I was wondering if maybe something in the water that my body isn’t used to was bothering my throat.
-We walked through Chelsea after breakfast and it is posh. We saw another Rolls, we’ve seen several at this point.
-We took an Uber boat to Greenwich pier and it was fun but long! We had nice seats and it was fun to watch a little girl and her abuela interacting and pointing at stuff.
-We were really hungry when we arrived so we went in search of food and found a gay pub, Ye Old Rose and Crown. The food was just ok but it was hot and tasty, we had steak pies, mash and mushy peas. The bartender was super chatty, he had recently been to Seattle and we talked about all the differences we’ve found between the US and London (both expensive!) and the things we thought were just in movies (for us, it was “mind the gap” and for him, it was the steam coming out of the sewer covers!) He also told us that his pet theory is that he thinks covid was real, but put in the population intentionally to reduce the population. I was like…if that’s true it didn’t really made a dent, also donald trump is not capable of working with people like that lol
-His friend that came in for a visit told us about a pedestrian tunnel under the Thames!
-After lunch, we walked to the Maritime Museum. It’s free like many other museums here, and there was an AMAZING exhibit on loan from the Windrush Museum about the Windrush generation, the generations of people from the Caribbean who came to England on the HMT Windrush. England “welcomed” them to help rebuild after the war (a lot of them had received british schooling before they came because the isles were colonialized so they felt English in a way) but they faced a lot of hardship, racism, institutionalized racism, and unjust policing. The exhibit was about the food they brought to England but about the Windrush generation as a whole as well. I LOVED it, I looked at every single thing in the exhibit.
-From there we found coffee, I was getting very tired and worn out by then but I didn’t want anything to drink.
We found the pedestrian tunnel! It is weird! It’s not a tourist thing, it was mostly just people getting from one side of the thames to the other after work. It is damp and a little creepy but clearly used frequently by normal people.
-On the other side we sat on a bench because I was so tired! Then we walked up through Mudchute Park intending to walk to Canary Wharf to get an Uber Boat over to dinner, but I saw a sheep through the trees and we went over to see it and found a huge urban farm! There were sheep, goats, cows, pigs, horses, chickens, ducks, it was amazing!
-We got the next uber boat instead and went over to Blackfriar and Holborn to The Fryer’s Delight, a delightful old chippy. It was so delicious, like any proper chippy they fry their fish in beef fat. We had cod and chips, 7up, and a sausage in batter. Afterward I felt much better, I didn’t realize how hangry I had
gotten. Alex did because of how fast I was walking!
-We took the train back to Kensington and got a gelato for the walk back to the hotel.
Saturday 9/5
-I slept better, I actually woke up before the alarm today. I still woke up a lot and I felt like I was snoring
-We got coffee with breakfast and I discovered that the lattes we’d been ordering with breakfast were not included in breakfast and I was upset because I had thought our breakfasts were free. But then alex reminded me that we had hotel credits so I guess it’s ok. Money stress never really leaves my mind for long, even though we make ok money now.
-I tried really hard to get Promming tickets for the BBC proms saturday show, Martha Argeruch and Munich Philharmonic but they were gone by the time I got through the queue 😦
-We took the tube over to Picadilly Circus, which really looks and feels a lot like a toned-down times square. Our mission was gifts for Sam and my coworkers at TWG, a very fancy, very expensive tea place which supplies Corinthia London with their teas for afternoon tea! We got Sam some chamomile in teabags and a small package of loose rooibos, and I got some tea bears for work.
-Next mission was coffee! We went to watchhouse, a very bougie coffee chain, although it’s surprisingly not overly expensive. They give you a card with the source of your espresso with your drink.
-Then we schlepped down to Brixton, one of the historic neighborhoods of the Windrush generation for Caribbean food. We found a bathroom in a lively market and then walked to Maureen’s Brixton Kitchen, a Caribbean grill operated out of the patio of an apartment in Brixton. The vibes were amazing, we were so excited but we waited for SO long and eventually discovered they lost our order. We got food after about an hour but it was still so good, I had curry goat and Alex had jerk chicken. And we had homemade tropical drinks that were also really good.
-It was really bizarre because it was like 80 degrees, we were at a Caribbean grill and there were also palm trees everywhere because London weirdly has palm trees. I couldn’t believe we were in London.
-We walked through Brockwell Park, a huge park with open space, trees, a splash pad, trails, a community garden, a pool, ponds, and a BMX track where there was a BMX birthday party happening complete with coaching. It was really fun and I’ll recommend it to anyone with kids who comes to London and wants to get out of the city a bit.
-From there, we walked to the Tulse Hill National Rail stop and took trains back up to Battersea Park
-I don’t know exactly what I expected, but Battersea Park was not what I expected. The first thing we encountered was an absolutely jammed bar playing super loud music on the banks of this shallow pond with ducks and paddleboars. Picture club music next to the duck pond on the Boston Common. The next thing we encountered was an absolutely massive Grease singalong. The whole park was just slightly unhinged.
-We decided to walk back to the hotel from there and take a break before dinner, I was worn out and tired of big meals so I decided to find a pastry and tea on the way back. I was slightly despairing though because it was 5:30 and lots of tea places were already closed. Thankfully a french bakery right around the corner had tea and delicious little cream and meringue specialties called merveilleux. I got two different flavors and a pot of lemon ginger tea.
-Then we relaxed in the hotel and Alex found the BBC radio broadcast of the show! We started it in the hotel room and then Alex decided he wanted dinner at the pub so we went to Zetland Arms with airpods to keep listening to the show.
-I had a scotch egg and a half pour of one of their cask ales, and alex had sausage and mash and a half pour of another beer not on cask.
-We listened to Martha Argerich finish Beethoven’s second piano concerto and come out at least six times including an encore that was a piano duet with her and the conductor of Munich Philharmonic Lahav Shani. She’s 85! The audience was going absolutely nuts. Audiences here don’t just clap out of politeness, they really get a kick out of performers coming back on stage. Also, I noticed that standing ovations still seem to mean something here. In the US people stand basically at the end of every performance. Martha Argerich got a standing ovation but I haven’t seen one at either of the shows we went to.
-After our pub dinner we went back to the hotel and saw some very rowdy teenagers (???) apparently coming out of a club at 8pm???
-Now I am finishing listening to the broadcast of Brahms 4, unfortunately the horns aren’t having the best night but the rest of it sounds great.
-I think I might need a pb&j now
Sunday 9/6
-Sadly our last day 😦 I am pretty sad to be leaving tbh. Normally I’m looking forward to normal life but we have been having a great time
-We got up a little early in order to meet Maridel Fredericksen and her family at the Museum of Science, I was happy to have time for a pot of tea at breakfast
-We walked to the museum and met up with Maridel, Georg, Basti (3) and Felix (4 months!)
-The science museum (especially first thing in the morning) was a really nice place for us to go, we went straight to The Garden, a play area for kids age 3 and up and Basti immediately went for the water play table. He is very confident, he was comfortable playing there by himself. We were all just using the time to catch up. Georg is a postdoc working at the Institute of Opthalmology in Zurich, he does things with mouse brain cells in order to visualize the cells better for therapy development I think? And Maridel is also doing a postdoc, plants and parasites?? In England. They live in Norwich right now
-Basti is really into transportation so we next went to see die Flugzeuge. Basti speaks German at home and English at school and it is funny because I can actually understand him…because he is 3. I think I should listen to kids programming.
-We also went to see Space but we spent most of the time in another kids’ exhibit with lots of interactive exhibits.
-At this point we were pretty hungry so we walked to get takeout burgers from Supernova and then walked to Kensington gardens, we lucked out because there was a nice table right there. a
-Then I got us slightly turned around because I didn’t realize we were in a tennis court area with no exits except the one we came in, I felt extra bad because we had a baby, a toddler and a stroller with us
-Eventually we found our way out and came across ice cream and a playground. Basti and Georg found the swings and Maridel fed Felix and we had a nice chat about working out and building muscle. We also have been talking about adult ADHD because Maridel got a diagnoses recently (sort of).
-We went back to the ice cream stand and got beers this time and filled waters, then we walked back and said bye at South Kensington.
-It was after 5 so Alex and I had to hustle back, shower, and have dinner. We got free dinner at the hotel restaurant because we had credits left and it actually turned out the coffee was included in breakfast after all!
-I had burrata that unfortunately was in a bed of entirely roasted red pepper, and grapefruit for some reason. The burrata was good. I also had octopus, surprisingly delicious. Alex had fish that was good, accompanied by a truly enormous pile of not great creamed spinach. Vegetables are sometimes a bit of an afterthought here.
-Our show started out strong with Britten’s Young Person’s Guide. BBC radio symphony played it really well. The next piece was a contemporary triple concerto, composed for 3 winners of the BBC young musician contest I think? Jess Gillam on soprano saxophone, Ben Goldschneider on horn, and Shaku Kanneh-Mason on cello. The piece was quite long and contemporary so I think it was a little hard to absorb for a lot of the audience, me included. I was explaining to alex how contemporary music is tough because we aren’t sure yet which pieces will endure. People like knowing what they should like or not. Mahler wasn’t universally loved in his day either.
-The musicianship and stamina of the soloists and how well they worked together was super impressive
-The second half was Dvorak 9, I was happy to hear one of the classics 
-Alex was impressed by the soloists in the first half but felt similarly as me. The pianist had a really nice cadenza in the middle that we liked.
-We had to pack when we got back 😦 and get up at 6! Sad.
Monday 9/7
-on a plane 😦
-I took a nap 🙂
-we got 2 meals 🙂
-we had candy left to snack on 🙂
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