Some more photos left over from yesterday.
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Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away... wait, wrong text. Yesterday, as I walked toward Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, I passed the Black Friar pub, a landmark that I’ve passed by more than a few times, photographed, and sketched. But I’ve never gone inside. I decided to take a look and it’s probably the most beautiful pub I’ve seen. It’s on the Must-Have-A-Pint-There list. Maybe Sunday afternoon after we leave the nearby Tate Modern and the Lichtenstein exhibit.
This pub is an art-nouveau masterpiece, built in 1905 on the site of a former friary which existed from 1279 to 1539, after which it became the parliament chamber of the monastery. It is believed (yeah, we’ve heard that before) that Emperor Charles V, the papal magistrate, and Henry VIII's court sat on this very site during the dissolution of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1532. |
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| I passed by my favorite car dealership. I buy all of my McLarens here. Or I plan to. |
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| My journey to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese also took me right past The Seahorse on the corner of Friday and Bread streets. In Shakespeare’s time there was a pub at this location named The Mermaid and on the first Friday of every month London’s most notable writers and philosophers would gather here as a social group, called The First Friday Club. Either Shakespeare didn't get the memo, or —like most other Shakespeare documents — no documentation of him ever being part of this luminary group has been found. |
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| A local businessman using The Seahorse as an afternoon office. |
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| Looking out the Mermaid Tavern — I mean Seahorse — window toward Friday Street. |
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| More evidence that I'm being followed by a homeless guy. |
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| Lots of school groups everywhere. I'm glad I don't have to try to keep track of them on the tube. |
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| A poster in the tube. Yes, I can see how you might call this stuff outsider art, if you wanted to be polite. |
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| If you're a kid, racing everyone to the top of an escalator is just another opportunity to burn some extra energy. |
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| I saw this couple in the tube. On a poster. Ha! Scared ya. |
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| A patient little guy deals with big city life. |
