Hampton Court and Parliament Buildings

Hampton Court

Megan had the opportunity to visit Hampton Court a couple of weeks ago with her parents and some of their friends. We've finally managed to upload some photos of the Palace and its costumed guides. It was originally owned by Cardinal Wolsey but it got pinched by Henry VIII in 1525 when he decided he'd quite like it. We had an interesting time imagining Tudor life in the Palace - it added a bit of factual information to the stuff I have otherwise "learnt" from reading Phillippa Gregory...

We got our money's worth in the hedge maze in the gardens - I'm sure you're not supposed to get quite that lost in a maze the size of a large conference room! A highlight of the day was meeting Dennis's leprecaun and kiwi toys that he is photographing in various tourist poses on his trip - similar to our travels with Bear. Dennis is sending his photos back to his school kids to enjoy, not sure we have quite such a good excuse.

Arsenal

On Tuesday 25th September, we were back at Emirates Stadium to watch Arsenal play Newcastle in the 3rd round of the Carling Cup. Despite it being a Carling Cup match (meaning it was effectively a second string Arsenal side) and a cold Tuesday night, it was another sell-out of 60,000 at Emirates Stadium. Arsenal continued its brilliant start to the season with a comfortable 2-0 win to progress to the 4th round.

Parliament Buildings

On Friday 28 September, Tim enjoyed a tour of the Houses of Parliament. For two months each year (the Summer Opening of Parliament) the public can wander through the New Palace of Westminster, as it is officially known. The New Palace contains Britain's two Houses of Parliament, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Around 900 years ago, Edward the Confessor established the medieval building now known as the Old Palace of Westminster (close to Westminster Abbey), which was both a meeting place of parliaments and the principal residence of the kings of England until 1532. The Old Palace burned to the ground in 1834 and during the next 40-odd years, the New Palace was carefully planned and built on the same site specifically for its purpose.

The tour follows the same route that the Queen takes when she arrives for the State Opening of Parliament in November each year. We entered the building through the Sovereign entrance at the bottom of the Victoria Tower (not by horse-drawn carriage as Her Majesty does) and walked up the Royal Staircase to the Norman Porch and then into the Queen's Robing Room. This is a beautiful room with enormous paintings all around the walls, including portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, gilded statues, wooden carvings of King Arthur and the Chair of State. In this room, the Queen is dressed in her robe and puts on her Imperial State Crown, brought especially from the Tower of London for the ceremony. The Queen then walks through the Royal Gallery (used for parliamentary ceremonies, including meeting foreign statesmen) and the Prince's Chamber (also full of beautiful statues, paintings, etc) and into the House of Lords, where she is seated in her throne and addresses members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, about what Parliament aims to achieve in the coming year. Interestingly, the Queen is only allowed as far as the House of Lords, but not further down the corridors of the building to the House of Commons. This is to emphasise that the Queen has no undue influence over the democratically-elected House of Commons.

There is a clear difference between the interior design in the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The Lords enjoy beautiful paintings, stained glass windows and red velvet seats. The dominant colour is gold. In the House of Commons, plain wooden walls, green vinyl seats, dull colours and no gold to be seen. Also, there is only room for 437 members of the House of Commons to be seated at any one time, despite there being 646 members of the House! In the central lobby, there are larger than life-size statues of some of Britain's most famous prime ministers, including Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

The last stop of the tour was Westminster Hall, the huge hall of the medieval palace that largely survived the 1834 fire and was retained as part of the New Palace. Westminster Hall has witnessed some famous events in British history, from coronation banquets to monarchs (and the Queen Mother and Winston Churchill) lying in state. It was also the venue for the trial and condemnation to death of William Wallace in 1305, Guy Fawkes in 1606 and Charles I in 1649. From Westminster Hall, we exited the buildings into the New Palace Yard, under the huge clock tower, which has housed Big Ben since 1859.









Hampton
Court









David and
Carol with
their friends

King Richard I
"The Lionheart"















Parliament



















Westminster
Hall











Big Ben
looking fine

Bruges, Belgium

Megan's parents (David and Carol) are currently travelling through Europe. Last week they were in London visiting their daughters and checking out some of the sites. On Friday we set off with David, Carol, Anna and Guy for a few days in Bruges, Belgium. It was a pretty big day in the lives of Tim and Bear, both notching their 10th country visited.

Friday

We caught the Eurostar train to Brussels (via Lille in France), then switched trains at Brussels and headed up to Bruges. After checking into our B&B, we set off to explore the centre of Bruges. Bruges is a small city, and quite touristy, but it is a beautiful place to visit, very clean and peaceful. After Tim had sampled some french fries and mayo (sooooo good), Megan and Tim wandered the narrow cobbled streets, marvelling at the dozens of chocolate shops. Belgium is famous for its fine chocolates and even finer beers, so we were determined to sample lots of both!

After buying our first instalment of chocolates, we found a nice pub with seats outside in the afternoon sun, and ordered some beers. Tim was keen to re-acquaint himself with the old favourite from the Belgian pubs in New Zealand, Hoegaarden, while Megan tried out the raspberry beer. We checked out the main town square and found another pub, and thought it would be rude not to, so we sat down for another beer, see photo below of Tim's enormous glass of Leffe Blonde. Note that Leffe Blonde gives you the ability to ride tiny motorbikes in the childrens' playground on the way back to the B&B (see below).

Then it was time to meet up with the others and we all headed to a restaurant near our B&B for dinner. Anna and Guy had chosen well, as the restaurant was very nice. We all gave it an A. Happy days. Megan had steak, which was almost as big as she was, and Tim had an enormous pot of steamed mussels. When in Belgium...

After dinner Guy, Anna, Tim and Megan headed to the Irish pub (yes, they are worldwide) to see the second half of the France v Ireland Rugby World Cup game. The place was packed but we managed to get some good seats and order a couple of beers, so it was good times. France dominated and won comfortably, almost certainly ending Ireland's campaign.

Saturday

On Saturday morning the Comptons headed off to join a tour of the battlefields near the lovely town of Ypres. It is hard to express how it feels to stand on the WWI battlefields and imagine desolation, mud and desperation where farmhouses and cows now stand. Over 26,000 New Zealanders died (highest per capita of any country, we only had 1 million total population at that stage) in that war for no apparent purpose. An atrocious waste of young lives, but Megan felt it was important to pay tribute to the personal sacrifice of the soliders and appreciated the opportunity to visit the graves of our ancestors.

On a less gloomy note, we had a very informative coach driver who helped bring the scenes to life and explained the impact of WWI then, and still now, on the Belgian people. I noticed a parallel with what we learned in Vietnam, that it is often the people who do not ask for war who are left to pick up the pieces. The area around the "Western front" is still turning up 750 tonnes of ammunition each year - including live stuff that unfortunately kills people (mainly children). Belgium bears the cost of disposing of all that ammunition safely, as well as construction costs when buldings sink because of the extensive tunnel network running below the surface. When the local council recently did some digging to build a new roundabout they uncovered an underground German bunker with six soliders still in their bunks! Madness - 90 years on.

Meanwhile, Tim spent the morning exploring more of the town centre, including visiting a big marketplace and buying some more chocolates. At lunchtime, Tim met up with Guy and they headed back to the Irish pub to watch some of New Zealand's Twenty20 World Cup cricket semi-final against Pakistan. Unfortunately a swarm of South Africans invaded the pub not long after we arrived, all demanding to see the South Africa v Tonga rugby, so we didn't get to see much cricket (probably for the best, as NZ got hammered). We grabbed some BLTs and a few beers for lunch and watched the rugby. We were the only two guys supporting Tonga in the whole pub (of course, we could easily be mistaken for Tongans given our muscular physiques, tanned skin and abundant hair), and it was a fantastic game, as Tonga led for much of the match, then fell a long way behind, but came storming home to almost snatch a huge upset win. Giddy up.

Once the others returned from the battlefields, we all set off for dinner to another super restaurant. Plenty of beers, steamed mussels, steak and french fries with mayo for all! After dinner, the "young ones" stopped in at a pub for another beer/hot chocolate.

Sunday

First thing Sunday morning we all had a boat trip down the canals that run through the centre of Bruges. Our boat driver / commentator was very funny, cracking jokes at every opportunity in his strong accent that made him sound a little like Borat. The boat tour was really fun; it was a good way to see a bit more of the town. After the boat trip, we all went our separate ways. Tim and Megan bought more chocolate (surprise, surprise) and then headed to the main town square for a horse and cart ride!!!

Horse and cart dominates the narrow streets of Bruges; every few minutes you can hear a horse trotting along the cobblestones on any given street. Sunday proved to be a very popular day, with loads of tourists lining up for a horse and cart ride. Eventually we hopped on a cart and were introduced to our driver, Maria, and our horse, Chico. Giddy up. We had a half-hour tour of the city and definitely felt like "king of the castle" (see below)! Very fun.

While on our tour, Tim spotted a pub that claimed to have over 400 different beers, so we checked it out for lunch. A cheese and salad sandwich and 5 beers later, we can confirm that they do have an awful lot of different beers, some with quite high alcohol percentage. Megan was keen on the fruit beers again, she tried the cherry beer and apple beer, while Tim sampled a chocolate flavoured beer. We were so impressed that we went next door to their bottle store and bought a dozen bottles to take back to London with us!!!

It was then time to meet the others at the Irish pub to watch the All Blacks play Scotland. A comfortable win for the All Blacks, another few beers and a solid pub feed made for a good end to the afternoon. However, we were determined to show Guy and Anna the fine pub we had found, so we took them back there and tried all sorts of crazy beers, including goat beer and elephant beer (not actually made from those animals, although who knows what those crazy Belgians will add to their beers next). Very nice.

On Monday morning we (eventually) made our way to the train station and headed back to London, while David and Carol were off to Amsterdam to sample the cake they had heard so much about.






Clock tower
in main town
square

















Tim and his
Leffe












Tim in the
playground
















Soldiers'
graves












Church in
Ypres

















Pretty
Bruges











Guy and Anna
on boat











Canal
cruise












Megs and Tim
on the boat













Main town
square












Our noble
steed











Megs and
Chico














The Cambrinus
pub...400 beers











So much
chocolate

Shakespeare's Globe

On Wednesday 12 September, we went to Shakespeare's Globe to see The Merchant of Venice, a late birthday treat for Megan. We managed to get tickets for the seated area, so we avoided the riff-raff in the standing room. We had been advised to take cushions to put on our old fashioned wooden seats, as the play lasts for over three hours.

The theatre was amazing. We weren't supposed to take photos, but Tim managed to sneak a few pictures on his mobile phone. The plays are performed the same way as they were 200 years ago, with the crowd being very much part of the action. The actors pass through the crowds to get on the stage at times, and one girl even got a bit of tongue action from one of the actors...she must have asked nicely.

The Merchant of Venice was fantastic. The actors were all very good. To memorise that many lines, some of which are huge, and in Shakespearean language, is very impressive. As the theatre is open air, performances are only during the summer, so this season's shows are nearly finished. We would love to go back next summer to see another play.

Brendan was in town again last week, and we met him for dinner on Friday night. We went to The Cinnamin Club in Westminster, a restaurant we had heard very good things about. While not really an Indian restaurant, there is an Indian influence in the flavours. We all enjoyed our dinner and some New Zealand wine!

Saturday meant sport for Tim, so Megan took the opportunity to head off with the girls for cupcakes and shopping in Notting Hill. It was great to see the famous markets but even better to see our good friend Neena, who is doing a bit of travelling in this part of the world. We stopped outside the travel book shop which featured in the movie and took the obligatory photo (see below).

After seeing the All Blacks romp home against Portugal, we headed off for a night out at Wandsworth Common where we shocked the pants of Anna (not literally) with a surprise dinner for her birthday at Chez Bruce. The restaurant had been recently named London restaurant of the year and we gave it two thumbs up.

Cupcakes

Anna and Guy,

full of Chez Bruce

Megan's Birthday

1-2 September

After recovering from our time in New York, the first weekend of September was relatively quiet. Megan turned 27 and, depsite being made to work most of Saturday, she had an enjoyable birthday weekend.

On Sunday, we trekked over to Putney to meet Guy and Anna for brunch. Anna chose a very nice little place, tucked away from the swarms of people on the main street, and we had an excellent brunch. Definitely one to go back to!

Then Megan and Tim rushed home to watch Arsenal v Portsmouth on TV and enjoy some a glass of bubbly to celebrate Megan's birthday. Arsenal won 3-1 and Megan's favourite player, Cesc Fabregas, scored a goal - his birthday present to Megan no doubt! Another work phone call for Megan meant that the scheduled visit to the Dali exhibition at Tate Modern had to be postponed. But once Megan was free, we headed out to a nice little Greek restaurant on the banks of the Thames for dinner. The food was fantastic, another place we will surely re-visit!

8-9 September

On Saturday morning, Megan met her friend Natalie (from Auckland) for brunch and a wander through Borough Market. Megan returned home just in time to see the All Blacks demolition of Italy in their opening game of the Rugby World Cup. Impressive start, but you can read very little into these one-sided pool matches. After the rugby, we set off for Tate Modern to see the Salvador Dali art exhibition. We had planned to see the exhibition the weekend before, on Megan's birthday, but we ran out of time. (Megan is a big fan of Dali's work).

The exhibition was very popular; we had to buy tickets an hour in advance and queue up to get in, and it was very crowded inside. But we both really enjoyed it. Dali was clearly either a genius or a complete fruit loop (or maybe both), as most of his works are very very odd and made little sense to us. However, the minute detail and striking colours in his works were amazing.

After the exhibition, we stopped off at a couple of pubs along the river bank down from Tate Modern. At our second pub, we met a couple called Sean and Jade. Sean was Irish (and also answered to the name Shamus), and Jade was a Kiwi. Sean didn't seem to mind the "de be de dee potatoes" call; in fact he even said it for us in his crazy accent. Apparently Sean has a part-time role on a really really crap Irish soap, worse than Shortland Street, so they told us. Very funny. We had a few drinks and watched some football on TV (Ireland was playing). When we went to leave, they gave us their phone number and insisted that we contact them the next time we are in Ireland so they can show us the best bars!

We discovered an interesting Turkish restaurant and had dinner there on our way home. It wasn't Turkish food as we knew it, but it was very good. Tim had a terrible experience when Megan tricked him into trying a black olive. Tim has always insisted that he hates olives, although he cannot ever remember trying them...perhaps he had blocked out the bad memories of the past. Anyway, he tried a black olive and it didn't go well. He claimed that it was the most disgusting food he had ever tasted and that it wasn't even worthy of being described as food. Never again.

Sunday was a very lazy day: sleep in, house work, watching more rugby and watching Roger Federer clinch his 12th grand slam singles title in his US Open final win over Novak Djokovic.

New York, New York: Part 3

Tuesday

We started Tuesday with a big breakfast at the Tick Tock Diner, next to our hotel, which kept us going until 5pm! We then went our separate ways, Tim on a one hour tour of Madison Square Garden, Megan some more shopping!

Madison Square Garden was brilliant. It is the home to the New York Knicks basketball team and the New York Rangers ice hockey team, but it has also hosted some of boxing's biggest fights, including the "fight of the century" Ali v Frazier in 1971 and their re-match in 1973, and concerts by anyone who is anyone (Elvis, Queen, U2, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Billy Joel, Led Zeppelin, Frank Sinatra, etc and so on).

Interestingly, MSG is unique throughout the world in that all four of the Beatles have played there, but never together as a group, all as individuals. John Lennon appeared at the Garden along with Elton John in what was to be his last ever performance before he was shot dead. Elton John holds the record for the most number of individual concerts performed at the Garden with 60 and Billy Joel holds the record for the most consecutive performances, with 13 in 13 straight days.

The Garden has also been used for political conferences, dog shows, religious ceremonies (including a visit from Pope John Paul), musicals, and athletics. Carl Lewis broke his own world indoor long jump record by a staggering 9 inches at MSG, with a jump of around 28 feet (that's 9 metres!!!).

Tim visited the locker rooms of the NY Knicks and the NY Rangers and got a look inside a corporate suite, but the highlight of the tour was going courtside of the main arena (capacity 20,000), where all of the sport and concerts take place. It was pretty amazing to be standing in the arena where so many massive names in sport (Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Carl Lewis, Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman) as well as all of the artists named above, have performed.

They explained how they make the ice for the ice hockey matches (which involves five layers of water vapour and a special paint that freezes well) and how they then lay the individual wooden planks for the basketball court on top of the ice like a jigsaw puzzle when the Knicks are playing. Sometimes they have to convert the arena from an ice rink to a basketball court in a matter of 2-3 hours when matches fall on the same day.

Megan gave her credit card another hiding at Macys and several other stores before we met up and headed for Grand Central Station. The station really was beautiful (see photos below). We walked up some more of 5th Avenue on our way to the Rockerfellar Centre. The Rockerfellar Centre was a bit of a mystery to us, we had heard it was one of the attractions, but we didn't know what it was! There is an observation deck at the top of a very tall building, which we by-passed, as we had already done the Empire State building. However, there is a beautiful little garden / courtyard area, which during winter is converted to an ice rink! However what we found was the summer version: bars and cafes. We sat down for a beer and watched the crazy NY world go by. We also checked out the collection of shops and the food court under the Rockerfellar building. Very nice.

On our way back to the hotel, we wandered down 7th Avenue and stumbled across Hershey's World and M&M World. Both such fanciful lands! We bought some mini peanut butter cups and Hershey's Kisses at Hershey's World and then checked out M&M World, where Megan met a new friend (see below)!

We got changed for the baseball and caught a train out to the Bronx early, so we could visit Yankee Tavern, a couple of blocks from the stadium. Yankee Tavern was great, and we would recommend anyone going to a game at the stadium, to go to the tavern first. We had a couple of beers and some dinner there (buffalo wings and cheeseburgers), which was all very cheap. We also had a great waitress who just thought our accents were the funniest thing ever. So we were generous with our tips there! Once at the stadium, we visited the official Yankees store, where Tim bought a Derek Jeter bobblehead figurine. We got some photos outside the main entrance and then headed in.

The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox share one of the greatest rivalries in sport, stretching back around 90 years. This season the Red Sox hold a pretty solid lead in the American League east division, so this game was important for the Yankees to win, to close the gap. The stadium was pretty much sold out, with around 60,000 fans. The atmosphere was great, plenty of chanting, and the match was really tough, with the Yankees eventually winning 5-3. The highlights were Derek Jeter hitting a home run (he doesn't hit a lot of home runs, so it was pretty special to see one live!) and when the Yankees closing pitcher, Mariano Rivera came on in the final innings and completely shut out the Red Sox, with 2 strike outs, to ensure the win. Once again we were amongst celebrities, with both Cameron Diaz and Tiger Woods in the crowd.
After another beer at the Yankees Tavern, which our waitress gave us for free, we headed back to Manhattan and stopped in at the Tick Tock Diner for a late night ice cream sundae. The perfect end to our holiday!






Madison Square
Garden










Main arena
in MSG











Grand Central
Station



















Rockerfellar
Building















Rockerfellar
Centre













Megan and
friend











M&M World














Yankee
Stadium










































60,000 odd
fans
























Derek
Jeter











Closing
pitcher
Mariano
Rivera












Final score
Yankees 5-3

New York, New York: Part 2

Monday

Monday was another massive day. We got up early and headed for the Empire State building, via Dunkin Donuts for breakfast!!! We had been advised to get to the Empire State building early to avoid queues, and it worked a treat. We went straight in and up the 90-odd floors to the observation deck. The views from the top were breath-taking. Out to the west we could see across the Hudson River to New Jersey, to the east Brooklyn and Queens, to the south the financial district, where the Twin Towers were and the Statue of Liberty off in the distance, and to the north, Central Park and down 5th Ave to the rest of the city. We spent well over an hour up there, listening to "Tony" on the audio guide, pointing out some of the buildings, bridges etc and giving us a little history lesson about each one!

It is unbelievable that such a massive building was put together in a little over one year, and even more so when you consider it is right in the middle of Manhattan. The steel beams that form the frame of the building had to be dropped off by truck at the exact time they were needed to be fitted, as there was obviously no room to store them next to the building site, like they usually do. So it must have been a logistal nightmare. We discovered that only 5 workers were killed during construction, which was a magnificent effort, as they had "budgeted" for one fatality per floor (around 100 in total) which was the norm at the time!

The rest of the morning was spent shopping. Megan shopped up a storm at Macys, Banana Republic, Bloomingdales and various other stores. She bought some really cool clothes, including a pink Rainbow Brite T-shirt! Meanwhile, Tim was searching Manhattan for a New York Yankees jersey with Jeter on the back. He eventually struck it lucky in a store in Times Square, and is now the proud owner of a limited edition Derek Jeter Yankees jersey.

After lunch, we headed over to Greenwich, which is a student area, quite arty and laid back. There were loads of really cool restaurants, bars and cafes and a lot of fun shops selling art, clothing, jewellery, etc. We also sat and rested in George Washington square. It was nice to see some grass for a change! The main reason we had visited Greenwich, however, was to go to the world famous cup cake shop, as featured in Sex and the City! The little corner shop was bursting at the seams, so we bought a couple of cup cakes and escaped while we could, across the road to a little park to eat them. They were very good, quite rich but well worth the journey! Word of warning for anyone planning on going to the cup cake shop: the icing melts very quickly in 30 deg temperatures and has a tendency to explode all over you. Eat with caution. Right around the corner from the cup cake shop is Perry Street, where Carrie Bradshaw supposedly lived in Sex and the City. Megan was proud as punch to get a photo on the steps of what we think was her apartment...

The evening saw us catch a train to Flushing Meadow in Queens to see the opening night of the US Open at Arthur Ashe Stadium. We didn't know until we arrived, but there was an opening ceremony / tribute to Althea Gibson (an African American female tennis player of the past, who struggled against racism and sexism to succeed in tennis and pave the way for future African American players). She passed away a few years ago, but was inducted in to the "Court of Champions" at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday night. As part of the ceremony, Aretha Franklin performed what else but R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and various people including New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and former tennis great Billie Jean King spoke. Then in very American fashion, we had a brass band play and some marines marched in with a huge American flag while the anthem played. Then there were some fireworks and finally...some tennis.

Fitting with the tribute to Althea Gibson, Venus Williams and Serena Williams were on centre court for the night session and both demolished their respective opponents with ease. Venus was absolutely brilliant to watch; she is such an amazing athlete, so agile and graceful, while little sis stood behind the baseline and bashed her opponent off the court with sheer power. There was at least one big name celebrity in the crowd, with Janet Jackson appearing on the big screen several times between games. Both girls spoke very well after their matches; they come across as very down to earth and humble, rare in tennis players these days! And especially rare for two who between them have 14 grand slam singles titles and 3 Olympic gold medals!

It appears that the "City that never sleeps" closes just before midnight on a Monday night, as we struggled to get an ice cream on the way home. Disappointing.

Empire State
Building

View to south:
financial centre

Chrysler

Building

View to west:
New Jersey

Famous

cupcakes from

Sex and the
City

Perry Street: Carrie
Bradshaw's steps?

US Open:
Arthur Ashe

Stadium

Venus

Williams

Serena

Williams