January 5th, Saturday I find it's tricky to get computer time to catch up on my blogs. So I'll post this from an email I sent to Kari and Andrew to tell about last night. I'll hopefully get my Norway time posted soon. Today we're heading out to Boroughs market, one of the largest outdoor food markets in the world, and to find a bball court. Hi honey, Yesterday, I was just checking on Time out and put in "classical music". St Martins in the Field is an amazing church for acoustics, many groups record there. Other than lights on the stage, the rest of the church was in candlelight. It's at Trafalgar square. A Brandenburg Choral Festival just started which includes 28 concerts over the next 4 months. Last night, the first one was a group of about 50, Vivace, mostly older people with an orchestra and they did Mozart's Requiem. We had just sung it last year and it was awesome to hear them. They went faster than we did. The dynamics were awesome. When they started singing "Rex" it was so loud I almost covered my ears. Then the second concert was Vivamus, a 15 member group of mostly young adults your age, post graduate students, etc. They did all acapella songs, mostly Christmas ones, but only In Dulci Jubilo was familiar. They could blast it and sing so quietly too. Then, my favorite of the evening, the women in the group performed Britten's "Ceremony of Carols" accompanied by a young man on harp. Wow, wow! I could go home to Oregon after last night and be happy. It was so wonderful. As soon as they started singing "Wolcum Yole" tears sprang to my eyes, I've not had that happened often. Then they all ended the concert with Eric Whitacre's "light and Gold", singing it from the balcony. This concert as #14, but worth every pence. I got the inexpensive seats, 8#, for the first concert and was in the balcony, with restricted views. I could see half the choir if I stood. The second concert, Pappa joined me for, and we sat in the front row, since all the seats were the same price. Erik was so good, he came with me on the tube down to the church, and we ate in the Crypts under the church, in their awesome cafe. Then he hustled back to the flat for a Skype conference call and then hustled back to the 2nd concert. I am not confident finding my way around here yet. What a wonderful guy he is. Plus it helped him get his steps, he has 18000 as his goal for London every day, that's about 10 miles! I'm hoping to catch more of this festival's concerts. Hope you all have a great weekend, Love, Mamma