Mary Jane and Anna in Europe

Sept 13: Our first evening in London at Liz and Michael's we had an intriguing 70-something year old guest for dinner named Shirleybelle, who claimed to be sixty two and was a double for Grace Kelly back in the day (i'll post a pic of her when i get to a computer with a usb port). She's truly a former B movie actress who stood in for Grace Kelly and somewhere along the way, got religion and lived with Mother Teresa in Calcutta for 5 yrs. M. Teresa told her she would be a nun but i guess even saints can be very wrong sometimes. Anyway, MJ crashed early but i stayed up with Liz and Michael to be entertained by Shirleybelle and Michael's sangria. M. insisted on blaring Louis Armstrong until 12:30 am. He says he first learned about the Old Testament from Louie.
A fine beginning.
Sept 14: Awoke to a screaming hedge-trimmer RIGHT outside our window (the flats here are all overlapping), so gave up on sleeping in and got up to read Rumpelstiltskin to Georgiana. I tried out an English accent on her during the reading and she only gave me a few funny looks so I thought i must be pretty good, but then she later corrected me on my pronunciation of "oratory." Today i said it right and she really patted me on the back about it. "You remembered!" - all pleased.
MJ and i took the lightrail to Waterloo Station, walked across the bridge and went through Covent Garden, where I spotted an actual Tintin store. Found Trafalgar Square and ate lunch in St. James Park. There are these cool little cafes every two shops or so in London called Pret a Manger, so we stopped in at one on our way to the park. We sat in some stripey lawn chairs that turned out to be a pound fifty a piece (a black man that we thought was a bum a-begging demanded his queenship's dues) for two hours, so then we had to sit there forever to make it worth our change. Fell asleep- jet lagging pretty badly at this point- and finally got up to check out Picadilly Circus, Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens.
Highlight of the day: evening Tridentine mass at the Oratory (founded by John Neumann) in celebration of the Motu Proprio. Celestial! The church, organ, choir - fantastic. We got confused on our way there and went to the Protestant church next to it first. They could tell just by looking at us that we were Catholic and politely asked us to leave. Not really, but a nice Protestant man directed us to the proper place. "Our church was built ten years before yours,"he said, smiling,"but now yours looms over ours and hides it." That would have been a fun conversation, but we were about to be late.
Elizabeth had to pick up the children from a birthday party after mass but she told us to go meet people at the church's wine reception. I expected it to be a boringish 10-15 people thing but Franz Forrester ushered us into a large upstairs drawing room packed with English Catholics. Everyone was friendly; we met an American girl with killer shoes (the girls dress so smashingly here) who just got her MBA in London, and then a Polish-British chap named Karl. Also talked to an Englishman named Robert who loves Buenos Aires.
We went to our first English pub in Clapham with an Englishman who doesn't drink. He had a fresh lime soda. He doesn't smoke either. Probably the only one in the city.
Sept 15/16: Slept really late yesterday, went for lunch at The Princess of Wales pub in Waterloo, named for the Catholic woman that George IV was illicitly married to for a short time before his father got wind of it (read this off the menu) - the influence of Catholicism is strangely present here even though everything's so Protestant. Found St. Paul's and had a heck ofa time finding the old globe to get tickets for a play. can't wait for that.
woo, running out of time here. went to the oratory for mass today, had brunch after in South Kensington with the Forrester family (Michael's family). Talked to Thomas and Franz on the patio overlooking the street.