Leisette

During the nearly four months we spent in Great Britain, we learned more than most tourists. The following are some of the things that we've really enjoyed during our stay: 1. British humor- It's not just on television. When you see people talking on the streets, they always have a smile or a joke, no matter how grim the political or sports situation is. I love talking to the small shop owners in Basingstoke because they are friendly and more helpful than I am accustomed to in the U.S. Consumer goods are expensive here (more than twice what they cost in the U.S.) so the British make a virtue of going without and feel a real pride in not consuming too much. They have a history of hardship. So many English soldiers were killed in WWI ... read more

In many ways the Victoria and Albert Museum is much more interesting than the British Museum. The collections are certainly more varied. They have colorful and beautiful objects in the following categories: architecture, Asia, British collection, ceramics, childhood, contemporary applied art (such a furniture and appliances), fashion and jewelry, furniture, glass, historical styles, metal work, painting and drawing, photography, prints and sculpture, and textiles. To amass a good collection in any of these categories would be an achievement for any museum. The V&A has beautiful objects of great craftsmanship and historical value in all the exhibitions I saw. We had only a few hours before closing and were able to see the sculpture galleries, the cast collection, stained glass and silver, the photography galleries, painting and drawing. We entered the museum from a subway (tunnel)... read more

A couple weeks ago I put the spare flash card into the camera and discovered some July 2005 photos of Texas that I took in San Antonio and and on Highway I-35 between Austin and Fort Worth. That there are beautiful parts of Texas is an open secret to natives but unknown to most visitors. There are miles and miles of the state that are brown, sun-parched plain most of the year except for that brief blissful period in the Spring when the wildflowers bloom. It doesn't help the state's reputation that movie westerns show Texas as a barren wilderness where cows go mad and stampede when they finally smell that rare water hole. Even the television series, "Dallas," didn't show much more than the downtown Dallas skyline. When I moved to Texas from Germany in ... read more

While taking a leisurely Sunday stroll around the park in Basingstoke yesterday. Jay and I discovered some public art that we hadn't seen before in a pedestrian underpass (called a subway in England). The work consists of five green painted panels with cutout, backlit text that refers to the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice (pronounced 'oo rid' ee kee"). Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, was bitten and killed by a snake one day while fleeing the amorous advances of Aristaeus. Orpheus (son of Apollo) composed and sang such mournful music in his grief for Eurydice that even the gods were moved. Hades, the god of the Underworld, agreed to release Eurydice and allow her to return to Earth on the condition that during the journey to light and air, Orpheus not look back toward the ... read more

From childhood, Jay and I have always wanted to see a real castle - not the sort where Queen Elizabeth lives - where you pay a lot of money to see silk and velvet draperies, numerous portraits of royal ancestors and a fortune in antique furniture and crystal. No! We wanted to see a stone fortress where you could really imagine the Normans raining arrows through narrow stone slits and pouring boiling oil down on the invading armies - a place where you could envision chain mail clad invaders catapulting boulders over the crenelated towers and trying to scale the rough walls with hastily constructed ladders. The Welsh claims they have more castles per square mile than any other country and I think that is probably true. We could see on the map that there are ... read more