Jan. 11. Major and minor miracles around Kingston

Adjusting 2 timezone change

The water levels continued to climb but the river did not breach our building's garage. A few cars parked along the Richmond walk did not fare as well. Isabella got very worried when we walked along the river on Wednesday evening. She did not want to go back home but because she was afraid it will get flooded too. We are having it much better than folks at home who have to deal with single digits in Fahrenheit. Even Niagara Falls froze over.
All the stores around are having a 30-40-50-70% sale. Even the store with clothing for full-figured women. That's what I call a minor miracle. Elaborate fabrics and designs and draw us close to the windows making us wonder how all these beautiful garments will look but we've never seen anyone inside. The sale did not seem spur fat women into action.

All the mentions of Christmas are taken down and work has resumed on the abandoned road construction sites in the old town. It seems that the first thing construction crews did was to dig up the original work that admittedly was put together hastily, with many cobblestone areas held together by cement.



On Wednesday we got back our lost duffel bag. That was the major miracle. We monitored the status of it on United website... For days it said something to the effect: "We are tracing where it is, come back later." No one ever picked up the phone for the hotline. I've sent emails to TSA, Newark Airport Police and Lost luggage email addresses expressing my bewilderment that 1 out of 4 identical duffel bags would get lost. They were actually good at responding within one business day, and suggesting to check United website. Then on Wednesday I got a call from Newark TSA. The guy said they had nothing to do with it and I have to keep on waiting. I went back to United and the message said something like: "There is no record like that on our system." We feared the worst and while waiting for 45 minutes on the United lost luggage hotline studied the claim processing.. it is painful, and not recommended. Finally, having learned about the same exciting bit on news about the airline for about like 100 times, we got a human being on the phone. He said they found the bag and are arranging a drop off. Then I got a call on my cell phone from a very lost delivery guy. Eventually he made it over to Kingston. He and another guy were driving around England in a sedan filled with bags and suitcases and with an archaic TomTom to guide them. Amazing!

On Thursday I had to do a long drive to visit a potential client. For months I had found the ways to put off the joy of driving by myself but on that day I was sort of cornered. In retrospect it really was not a big deal. It was my birthday, and I survived doing something not terribly comfortable... I hope to have more days like this one in the coming year and years to come. One of the best ways to grow :) In the evening we went out with kids for desert. They had a frozen yogurt with fixings from the new booth that opened up at the mall. Dan got us some delicacies from Paul. Short of having friends and relatives close by it was a great day.

On Friday we worked from London and visited Westminster Abbey for lunch. We thought it was pretty awesome that the church had stood there for almost 1000 years. Many British royals and famous scientists/statesmen are buried there. If you assume 20 years per each new generation (probably true until our generation came around), that's 50 generations of people. Most of us can hardly remember what happened 4 generations ago. The church is probably even more enjoyable to a history buff. We liked the earliest gravestones of  the kings like Edward the confessor. They are so old that they look almost primeval. The chapter house where monks gathered was pretty interesting too. Some of the surviving frescos had incredible colors.

We did not want to risk driving out on Saturday since some areas are still flooded and the roads may be closed. Instead we headed back to London hoping to visit the Bank of England museum. It was recommended as a good place for kids to visit. Isabella was looking forward to holding a giant gold bar. On the way we could not resist a detour to the Green market. Dan and Georgia were craving grilled cheese sandwich. I decided to try some jambon. After a short search we located that, and a French banquette, fresh mozzarella, and a handful of oysters. I'll keep within the bounds of propriety and will not provide any further commentary on the food.

The museum was closed. It is in general closed on the weekends (who would care such matters on the weekend anyway) and was in particular closed from January 1 through March, which you only find out by walking up to it. Unrelented we decided to go to the Transport Museum next. On the way we passed by the theater playing the Lion King musical. We dropped in just in case and fortunately they had some great tickets still available. So we saw the Lion King.

We were all mesmerized. It was magical. Isabella was concerned about Mufasa and was very relieved when she saw him well and back on stage when the actors all came out at the end of performance. Georgia really enjoyed it. I don't think that the Lion King cannot boast the same caliber musical pieces as Chicago & Phantom (for all our scant experience) but the visuals were second to none we've seen so far.

Back home everyone was barely awake to grab dinner and head over to sleep. I'll try to put out a posting because tomorrow night we are going to the Belgium office for a few days and I don't get another chance.