Sorry for not having posted anything in a while. Here's a quick summary with pictures of our trips of the last few months.

In March we spent a short weekend in London (the trains were offering promotional �10 (about $15) round-trip fares). We spent Saturday walking around (Jennifer and Big Ben) and visiting the Tower of London (an old fort where the crown jewels can be seen). Sunday was going to be spent shopping at Harrod's, an enormous luxury store, but it's closed Sundays. We walked through Hyde Park and visited the small shops on Portabello Road.

Two weeks later we flew to Paris for Lawrence's grandmother's 92nd birthday. The Seine was terribly flooded from the heavy rains Europe has gotten this winter. Saturday night we went to a concert of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" at a church called the Sainte Chapelle (their website). We could see why Paris is called the City of Lights.

We had been spending a lot of time for work in Derby, about three hours north of where we live, and on our last weekend we decided to pop over to nearby Nottingham. We of course visited the very touristy "Legend of Robin Hood" museum and had a pint at the "Olde Trip to Jerusalem", a pub built into the side of a cliff, immediately under where the Castle of Nottingham used to sit. The pub was built in 1189. We listened to a concern of Bach's "St. John's Passion" at St. Mary's Cathedral. (Also picture of a church converted into some kind of social club.)

For the weekend of Easter we were given three days off. We added two more to make a very long weekend to London. Frank, a college friend of Lawrence's, lives there and let us sleep in a spare bedroom. We packed the days with sight-seeing, starting with Harrod's (on a Thursday this time). We also visited the British Museum (which has a gorgeous library at its center), Hampton Court Palace (and its 500-year-old clock), and the Museum of London. We ate wonderful food every night (Tex-Mex, Belgian, Lebanese, and traditional English pub food). At the Lebanese place we had dinner with some friends of Jennifer's who were in town for the week.