New Year's Eve was a quiet affair for us. During the day, Mom and I braved the rain and headed to Kensington to visit an exhibit I've been dying to see since arriving in London.
Pearls are my absolute favorite accessory. They are classic, sophisticated, and timeless without being pretentious or ostentatious (usually). I have way too many, to be honest, but they go with everything. I wore pearls for my wedding and so did all of my bridal party. I have real pearls, fake pearls, white pearls, black pearls, heirlooms and new gifts, chokers and long necklaces, earring studs and drops, and even a pearl ring. I expected this exhibition to be a grand display of elaborate jewelry. What I didn't expect was that jewelry and fashion were only part of the experience, while the science behind pearl development and the process of diving for pearls and preparing them for use would make up the other half.
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| x-ray photogaphs of pearls inside various shells (not all oysters!) |
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| a pearl dealer's box, including multi-sized sieves to separate pearls of varying sizes, scales, and other tools of the trade |
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| on the left: a specialized scoop to count out 100 pearls at a time |
Among the jewelry and fashion pieces, there were also paintings (unexpected) depicting royal and aristocratic people bedecked in pearls. (Now, whenever I watch an episode of the Tudors, I am fascinated by the pearls dripping from the dresses, hats, and waistcoats.)
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| an exclusive project by Mikimoto; it took about a decade to collect the 5,000 pearls of equal size and lustre to create this solid pearl scarf |
Honestly, because of the sheer beauty but also how much I learned, this may be my favorite thing I've done in London so far. (The display ended on January 19, so unfortunately it's impossible to return.)
From the museum we headed to Notting Hill where the week before we'd incidentally passed by Jamie Oliver's Recipease on the bus and immediately searched and signed up for a class. The following is an adventure in filled pasta!
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| shop on the ground level, restaurant and school on the "first floor" |
Making our own ravioli, tortellini, and torteloni was so ridiculously simple that I think we will both be repeating the process in the future. Joe and I actually received a pasta maker as a wedding gift and now I can't wait to get it out of storage when we get home so that I can try things out!
Step 1: roll out the dough
Step 2: Play with your pasta scarf!
Step 3: Shape into adorable filled pastas!
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| Joe & Janis |
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| Joanne & Sarah |
New Year's Day we made one more trip to the Thames for our trip around the London Eye. It was grey, wet, and very windy, but seeing as Joe and I are suckers for a view-on-high, we still enjoyed ourselves. The whole rotation takes about 30 minutes. We had pre-booked our ride, which I thoroughly recommend since it saved us about 2 hours of queuing. Each egg-shaped pod holds about 30 passengers and it is essential to be as close to the front as possible, as nearly all of the recognizable London landmarks are on the north side of the river. (We can actually see the Eye from our neighborhood, but with the fog it was difficult to accomplish the reverse this time.)
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| a view from the top... of the carriage next to us |
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| Westminster Bridge across the Thames to Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey |
My ideas about visiting Westminster Abbey and having lunch at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese were both thwarted (the first by extremely high entrance fees and long lines in the rain, the second by New Year's day closing that was not listed on the website). We headed instead to Blackfriar's Pub next to the tube station of the same name and had a cozy, delicious British pub lunch. (The very first fish and chips I've tried where the fish batter actually tasted like something other than oil!)
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| wet and windy selfie |
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