Electronic Biologia Centrali-Americana

http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/bca/
The electronic version of the 63 books made by Federick Ducane Godman and Osbert Salvin between 1879 and 1915, describing Central American flora and fauna (50.000 species!! 1677 drawings!!).

Hours of nerd fun garanteed ;-)

Temple Church, London (5-10-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

After walking along the banks of the Thames, which is terrific by the way, we wanted to visit the Temple Church but sadly it was already closed :-(
So this is not really a full review but a reminder to visit it the next time ;-)

The closed door felt kind of appropriate because of it being an old church of the secret Knights Templar. Unearthly singing could be heard behind it...
What secret ceremonies where being held here today? Or was it just a choir practice?

The church has been under personal authority of the ruler of Great Britain (Queen Elizabeth II today) since the late Middle Ages.
The Knights Templar are long gone (since 1312 to be more precise) but still...
And there are still Templar graves inside the church but they'll have to wait for another time.
The next time...when we will unearth other secrets in London ;-)

-waves goodbye to the Temple, the Thames, London and leaves for Waterloo Station-

The National Gallery, London (5-10-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

It's free and has a whole lot of beautiful paintings; any more reasons to pay a visit to the National Gallery??

All of the paintings in the rooms look very pristine; the colors are so vibrant and clear; it's amazing!
There's 46 rooms, 18 of those have only paintings from our low countries (the rest is mostly Italian, some French / Spanish / British). The works are from 1250 to 1900.
I think I'll just stay here ;-)

Highlights:
- 'The Arnolfini Portrait', Van Eyk
- 'A Grotesque Old Woman', Quiten Massys
- 'The Ambassadors', Hans Holbein the Younger (see pic)
- 'The Doge Leonardo Loredon', Giovanni Bellini
- 'The Virgin of the Rocks', Leonardo da Vinci
- all of the Rembrandts
- 'A Young Woman standing at a Virginal', Vermeer
- 'The Rokeby Venus', Velázquez
- 'The Fighting Temeraire', Turner (voted greatest painting in Britain!)
- 'Winter Landscape', Caspar David Friedrich

Don't miss:
- Italian masters like Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael, Botticelli
- the Van Dycks and Rubens
- Caravaggio and his followers
- the British masters: Gainsborough, Constable, Turner
- the Impressionists (including Van Gogh)

Well, I think that's quite enough to have a great visit right?
And after your visit you can sit on Trafalgar square and look at Nelsons butt ;-p

The Captain's Cabin

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Restaurants
Cuisine:	British
Location:	Norris Street, London

Well, we cannot leave London without visiting a pub can we??
This is the first one we found between the Royal Academy and the National Gallery. It looks great so we were quite happy to enter (even if we hadn't been hungry and thirsty and this was the first one ;-p).

As the name suggests the pub looks like a decent enough place for captains but I'm pretty sure at night the pirates come in to party ;-)
There's nice old pictures on the walls and the four chairs at our table don't match eachother.
We ofcourse want to eat something really British so we order jacked potatoes. They are delicious and as we're pretty hungry gone in seconds.

Next time we're in London we'll try some of the other British pub dishes ;-)
Maybe even in this pub because it has a pretty nice atmosphere (and is near a lot of the sites you usually visit in London).

Edvard Munch by Himself (Royal Academy of Arts), London (5-10-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

This exhibition started october 1st so we
are here at the perfect time to go
and have a look ;-D


I've always been a big fan of Munch's work so the chance of seeing any of his works life is something I jump at (literally ;-p).
And this exhibition is rather brilliant because it features a lot of works normally in the museum in Oslo (where I have not been, ever, sadly).
You can see the works very well, there's interesting info and it's a perfect overview of his life (you can see how the light in his works changes when he gets older; how his psyche slightly changes and influences his paintings).


The exhibit runs untill december 11th so any-one who has a chance to visit it should definitely do so! It's not cheap (8£) but a trip to Oslo is more expensive ;-)

Magic Wok

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Restaurants
Cuisine:	Chinese
Location:	Queensway, Bayswater, London

Yes I know, we ate Chinese the day before but it was so nice we wanted Chinese again ;-p

This restaurant is frequented by Chinese themselves and people that obviously have eaten here before and some tourists (that would be us ;-p).

The service here is very very fast (finish a plate and it's gone already), the food is quite delicious (the sweet and sour sauce is more traditonal Chinese, reminds me of the ones in Berlin), the prices are reasonable and you get fortune cookies and for some weird reason orange slices after your meal...

A bonus star is added because of the brilliant name. By the way there are several other Chinese restaurants in the area but this one gets very high marks: see http://www.london-eating.co.uk/2973.htm
So it seems we made the right choice in choosing for the nice name ;-)

St Paul's Cathedral, london (4-10-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Here's a tip for all of you! If you ever want to visit St Paul's but do not want to pay the high fee of 8£ because you don't want to visit the crypt anyway, go to the church at 17h when they have a service (evensong): you can see most of the church for free and you get music as a bonus ;-D

Personally I think it's even better to visit this church during a service because it adds so much to the atmosphere of the building. It was built for this kind of worship right? You can just sit on a chair and enjoy the sights and sounds.
And the sight is impressive! Well, you can see that on the picture yourself ;-)

Next time we'll be on time so we can watch the whole service (I've never been to an Anglican service yet and we saw only the end this time and I'm interested in what happens before the last song) ;-D