SoHo and Lawrence of Arabia

I have to make this brief, unfortunately- we're leaving shortly to go buy train tickets to go to Oxford tomorrow! :-)

So, today we were on the tube, and I'm pretty darn sure that the guy standing up between where Mel and I were sitting was a pickpocket- his eyes looked at my well-guarded bag, then at Mel's, and began trying to figure out where this other woman kept her wallet. He didn't pay any attention to anything but bags and hip pockets the entire time he was riding.

Today we took the tube to St. Paul's Cathedral, and it was absolutely gorgeous!!! So much of the ceiling was done in glowing mosaics with gold and deeply colored tesserae. They're working right now on conservation of the cathedral in honor of it's 300th anniversary which is in, I think, 2010, so much of the walls were hidden, but many parts had been heavily scrubbed and conserved. They're working right now inside the dome- I'd love to see what those murals look like once the've been cleaned. Oh, and the Baldacchino over the altar is absolutely gorgeous. I loved the candlesticks- they were as tall as I am, not to mention the candles themselves! We walked up more than 700 steps to get to the different galleries in the dome, up rather treacherous spiral staircases. We went down to the crypt after that, and I took a picture of the bust of T.E. Lawrence- I was just so amused that the bust was actually entitled "Lawrence of Arabia." We finished up by sitting in the nave for a little while, listening to the choir which was practicing with organ accompianiment.

Alright, I've gtg! I'll tell you about SoHo another time ;-)