This has been my primary view for the past few days.  I've been sitting in a chair here booking reservations and tending to this relentless bug.  Reservations, except for the Eurostar, have been completed after much adjustment and headache.  The rail/sail company has the equivalent of our 800 numbers for calling to make adjustments.  These cannot be dialed by my phone.  There's a website that translates these numbers into numbers that can be dialed.  Then, I had to determine what numbers to use to precede these to make them work.  Whew.  Then, other adjustments came up and I had to go through the whole query again as I didn't remember exactly what I did!

But the bug is still here.  I am better today.  Not so nasally congested and not coughing so much.

It's cold here.  High around 55.  Rainy.  Is cold in the flat.  We are undecided about turning on the heat so instead we have on warmer clothing.  And I'm drinking hot tea.

Last  Wednesday we went to see "Julius Caesar" by Shakespeare at The Globe.  We had bench seats.  The students stood.  Although I had not read the play beforehand and did not understand some or a lot of the dialog, I enjoyed it immensely.  There were funny parts.  The audience is so engaged and responsive.  There were actors in the standing audience and they interacted some with the actors on stage.  They were dressed in period costume.  Outside in the courtyard prior to the performance there were street performers dressed in period garb.  There was a prostitute with a little cart with doors containing a bed.  And out of it came a puritan.  At the end of the play after the last line was spoken, the cast commenced dancing period dances on stage while the audience clapped the beat.  It was so joyful.  Really thrilling.  Ralph and I went by FSU STudy Center on the way home to print off the paper he was to present in Le Mans.

And Ralph left for Le Mans on Thursday morning.  Anxiety.  I stayed and tended my cold.  At 8:30 I went out to Sainsbury to buy groceries and called Alberto on the way home to keep me company.  Remarkable how women walk around alone at night on quiet streets.  I have yet to be afraid here.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching hotels in Amsterdam and Paris.  Amsterdam hotels were booked and expensive.  I was not able to get a hotel in anything like a very desirable part of Amsterdam.  And a difficulty was determining what I had to be willing to spend to get something acceptable.  The final choice was a multistory glass corporate hotel not so close to town.  Oh well.
And then there was Paris.  I had planned for Ralph to call some hotels from Eurocheapo.com which did not book online.  He never had time and I never had the nerve.  So I looked at ones that were three and four stars which were attractive, in neighborhoods with restaurants, close as possible to interesting landmarks, not so noisy, near to transportation, and as cheap as possible.  Hard decision after narrowing to four.  Done.

Ralph called several times and called on Friday after his presentation to let me know it was okay.  He returned Saturday afternoon and was exhausted truly.  He rallied eventually and we went to an curry restaurant, Aladin, that I'd found a couple of months ago on the net.

Aladin is located in Spitalfields.  This part of town looks somewhat different than what we've seen.  At first there was a street lined with tall glass buildings.  The area of the restaurant was again smaller streets and the same multistory old row houses with shops on the bottom floor.  This surrounds a large area under a glass pavilion that is a shopping mall which I think is primarily clothing stores.  Pretty clothes perhaps not so pricey.  As we got near to our goal street we encountered a tour group.  It was night time.  Couldn't make out what the guide said.  Then we were accosted by men soliciting our patronage of their curry restaurants.  Many approaches.  We were early by 30 min. so we wandered and ran into other tour groups.  It occurred to me this could be Jack the Ripper tours and I found from the internet when we returned that that is what they were.  So we were in a much improved Spitalfields where Jack the Ripper roamed.  We both would like to go back there to at least window shop if not shop.  The restaurant was packed.  We had reservations.  People were seated next to each other at long tables.  It was loud.  And it dawned on me as we waited to be seated that people were bringing in their alcoholic beverages.  Ralph went off to buy beer down the street.  Meanwhile I fortunately was seated at a single table one door down.  Yes.  After sitting a while, the waiter asked if we would do him the favor of moving as he had a large party for the large table next to us that needed to spill over to our table.  We got a table all on our own at that point.  Good fortune.  Private.  Oh and delicious food at a great price.  Best meal I've had here so far.  Wish I had some right now.

Next day was Sunday, our traditional breakfast out day.  Quita from next door came on the ledge to the bedroom window.  Ralph let her in and she stayed perched in the window looking out until she finally jumped down and onto the bed and curled up.

I went out the front to check the temperature and an older woman than I came over to me from where she'd been feeding and petting cats on the lawn.  She said she loves cats.  She was sparkly eyed and witty.  Sorry to say she asked me the same questions more than once.  None of the cats is hers.  She says its too confining to have a cat that needs caring for if she leaves.

I found a restaurant in Little Venice on the canal.  This was a two train tube ride away.  Chilly day.  We emerged in a pretty quiet neighborhood.  We walked down a tree lined street lined with three or four story townhouse duplexes.  Substantial houses.  Now I would love to live here  Relaxed.  Although it was chilly, we sat outside and the breakfast of salmon eggs benedict for Ralph and scrambled eggs, mushrooms, and salmon for me was very good.  Best breakfast so far.  Quiet music in the background, erratic service, lovely setting.  We walked a ways down the canal.  Regent's Canal:  same as one going through Camden.  Canal boats.  Short apartment buildings along the canal with wide walkway.  Wonderful cool sunny day.

Next we went by tube to  Picadilly Circus to Whole Foods and stocked up on good food.  Ralph was valiant and carried both sacks of groceries a great distance to the bus stop and then from the end of the bus ride to home.

Ralph worked on his class preparation the rest of the day into the evening and when we tried to watch a Bogart film on Amazon, he gave out and we went to bed a short ways into the film.

Today it's rainy and cold.  Did I say that already?  Ralph is again preparing for class and I am doing this.  He'll leave shortly.  I'll be left to my own devices.  What is yet to be determined.