Catching Up before leaving town...

I've been remiss over the past week or so about posting. And, unfortunately, we're now very busy getting ready to leave town -- on Sunday-- for our fall break trip to Holland and Belgium. So, in the interests of time I'm just going to list off some of what I/we have been up to without much comment:

1. Last Wednesday the BLC trip was to Dover Castle and Canterbury Cathedral. The cathedral was amazing. My colleague Ginny Blanton -- the medievalist- had plenty of great stories about the different saints, tombs and effigies. I was personally most interested in the gargoyles. After the cathedral, Ginny and I walked around the (amazingly still well preserved) city wall and visited the ruins of the Canterbury castle. We also had coffee and lovely scones with clotted cream (which is very habit forming stuff).

2. Thursday of last week was our big family outing to see Les Miserables. The show was fantastic-- great singing, great sets, good music and lighting, and we had fairly decent seats. The kids were enthralled from the opening number on. We didn't get home until around 11 but it was well worth it.

3. Friday night we had dinner with the family of our daughter Aleeza's friend Sarah. The father, Mike Sarne, was once -- in the 1960s-- a fairly hot British director and still acts and makes documentaries. He has a bit part in David Cronenberg's newest film ("Eastern Promises", set here in London). He is Jewish and apparently has become more religious in his old age and so invited us to "schule" (or temple) the following day. The synagogue was beautiful (and a historic landmark) but it was orthodox, which meant Jackie had to sit upstairs while I was downstairs (in a talise, no less) for two solid hours of prayer and pretending to sing in Hebrew. Mike's wife Anne ( a younger French woman who is not Jewish) was not feeling well and so didn't attend. The kids were supposed to have some sort of children's service but there weren't many kids there so Sarah, Aleeza and Sebi just sort of ran around. Afterwards we had drinks, chopped liver and surprisingly good rugelah in the party room where we got to meet some of the members of the congregation.

4. Monday night I attended a lecture at Kings College by famous Marxist philosopher Alex Callinicos on theories of imperialism and why the history of imperialism has become such a hot topic these days. He was good although he covered a lot of ground rather quickly and I took issue with some of what he said.

5. Tuesday night we had our midterm faculty dinner at an Italian place not far from Imperial. The program manager, Ashok, kept buying more and more wine and then later a couple of us stupidly went to a pub for a nightcap. I awoke the next day with a bit of a hangover.

6. Yesterday I led my students on a walk through London's East End where we saw, among other things, the site of the Old Nichol slum (which is the setting for one of the novels we read), Brick Lane, Toynbee Hall and Petticoat Lane. As usual, we didn't have nearly enough time but at very least they a) got to see many of the places and streets we've been reading about and b) got a sense of just how different (and gritty and "foreign") the East End still is compared to the pampered, high priced, yuppified world of South Kensington.

Whew. That's it for now. Later this afternoon I am taking some students to a screening at the BFI/London international film festival. On Saturday the whole family is going to see Fulham vs. Derby ( a Premiere league soccer game). Then we leave for a trip to Amsterdam, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Brouges and Leiden (where we will be visiting Jackie's pal Marit and her family). Fun fun.