Back to town again today, with sights to see and a lunch meeting.
Went to Barbican, a district of London just east of The City (you remember, the financial district). We wandered about the area which is, as well as a financial center, a cultural center as well. The Barbican Center is a complex built for the arts, theater, drama, music, and art education. Opened by the Queen in the early '70s and still in excellent repair. The whole area is very pretty, with some of it elegant and some of it funky.
The funky part includes an open air market on a closed off street called Whitecross, which extends from 'Old Street' which becomes Clerkenwell which becomes Theobald's Road which becomes Bloomsbury which becomes Oxford which becomes ... and so on. The other end of Whitecross is the junction between Beech and Chiswell, where Leanne works at LLoyd's Bank TSB. Same street, different names after the intersection of Whitecross, go figure. Like I said yesterday, the streets here were originally mapped out by goats following their noses, and nothing is straight. Anyway, Whitecross is closed to traffic and has become a day market of tents and temporary structures. They sell everything from food to clothes to hand tools. English is definitely a second language to the vendors, and most of the customers too except for the ones in fancy suits and ties who buy their lunch at the curry stalls.
Leanne has her lunch there on most days, except for today when we met her at 2 pm. The stalls were shutting down after the normal lunch hour, so Jan and I and Leanne went to 'The Trader' which is, what else, a pub. We had a wonderful lunch and chat, and arranged to meet later for shopping with Jan.
After Leanne, Jan and toured more of the Barbican area, including Bunhill Field. This is a truly historic graveyard right in the very heart of London. I'm not a big fan of graveyards (I may spend a lot of time there one day and that will be soon enough) but this one is a beauty. Residents include William Blake, the poet, and Daniel De-Foe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, and John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress. Well, they do call it 'English Literature' after all. At some levels here, literacy seems to be conferred at birth.
After that, Jan toured the Barbican Center some more while I went to the Barbican tube stop and, after a transfer, wound up at Green Park to meet Tara after her work. She and I went off shopping and to, where else again, a pub after touring the London 'Liberty' store which was wonderful. After Jan and Leanne finished shopping, and Tara and I finished, we met for a late dinner and then the four of us were off for home via the tube.
Now we know that the girls have warm coats and clothes for the London winter, so Jan and I are happy. Important visitors coming tomorrow so a relatively early night tonight.
Sidebar on the street names listed above. As far as I know, based on what I have seen, no street in the London area is more than about 3 or 4 blocks long, and most are around two blocks long. You never have addresses like '4830 Collingwood St', our old address, or '47360 Keith Wilson', our new address. Streets have go straight for a long distance to get house numbers that high, and they don't do that here. Instead, whenever a street curves by more than 25 degrees, they just change its name and start the numbers from one again. I'm making up the details here, but the evidence is clear that some logic of this sort prevails. Not complaining, mind you, though it does make map reading a challenge here. We have a 'London A-Z' book which claims to list 30,000 street names in the map's area, which is limited roughly to 'central' London. Thirty Thousand!!!! And that doesn't include the suburbs like Acton Town, Hammersmith, etc.
