Wednesday, January 29 – Harrow on the Hill

As I was roaming around last week prior to the Lee Miller talk at Bonhams, I came across The Royal Academy of Music in Marylebone. While pausing to look over their list of upcoming performances, it occurred to me that I had never attended a concert there. That’s rather disappointing. It’s time to rectify that! (I actually ended up booking 4 concerts – making up for lost time!)

The Royal Academy of Music is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822. It provides undergraduate and postgraduate training across instrumental performance, composition, jazz, musical theater and opera, and recruits musicians from around the world. Famous academy alumni include Elton John and Annie Lennox.

Tonight I’m attending a concert by the Academy Jazz Orchestra, with two guest performers – Jim Hart and Sylvaine Hélary.

The cost of the concert was £12, with a 2 hour duration (no interval). And it was wonderful!

Thursday, January 30 – Harrow on the Hill

I’m on a mission this morning to finalize the bookings for my April trip to Victoria Falls. And it was going pretty smoothly until I came to the return flight from Namibia to London on Ethiopian Airlines. I was able to take care of all the details via their website, until it came time to pay for the ticket. First attempt: Payment rejected. Mmmmm. Maybe my credit card company blocked it with a fraud concern. Called them. Nope. So I tried again on the website. Second attempt: “Payment In Progress” screen on an endless buffer. After 5 minutes I gave up and called to speak with a customer services agent. And I got through fairly quickly, which was nice. Well, surprisingly she had a record of my reservation. Really? She ended up emailing me a link which she said I could use to pay for the ticket. Third attempt: Of course the link didn’t work! I was still on the line with the representative while being denied once again; she suggested I try the link again in hour. Will do.

In the meantime, I also had to deal with an issue on a Tunisair flight that I had already successfully booked. I received an email from them yesterday stating (in French, by the way) that my 1pm flight from Casablanca to Tunis had been canceled, and they had rebooked me on a 2am flight. I don’t think so! Fortunately there is also a flight with the same itinerary offered by Royal Air Morocco, departing at 2pm. Perfect. I’ll book that and then cancel my Tunisair flight (in that order!). More on the cancellation process later…

Well, just like my Ethiopian Airlines experience, I got all the way through the reservation process on the Royal Air Morocco (RAM) website, only to be stalled when trying to make a payment. More frustration!

Okay, while I’m figuring out the next step with RAM, enough time has elapsed for me to go back and try the Ethiopian Airlines payment link that was emailed to me earlier. I click on the link…and I’m directed to a page telling me that my reservation does not exist! What the?!?

This write up of events may seem kind of short, but in actuality all of the above activities took a fair amount of time, and by now I’ve got a throbbing headache! I need to get out for a walk!

While I’m heading towards South Harrow I remembered that there is a travel agent near the Aldi where I shop. So I stopped in there to see if they could handle booking my tickets on Ethiopian Airlines and Royal Air Morocco. The woman there confirmed that they could and asked that I come back tomorrow at 11am, as she was rather busy for the rest of the day. No worries.

Alright! It looks like my problems may be sorted…

Back to the cancellation of the Tunisair flight. I called their customer service number (again a quick pickup – a good sign) to find out the cancellation process. Apparently I need to send an email to an address the representative provided, explaining my situation, and I will then receive the refund in 45 to 60 days. I’ll give it a shot, not very confident though. It’s not a huge deal, the flight was around $200. I’ll let you know what happens…

I need to do something enjoyable today!

Thankfully, The Old Speech Room Gallery at The Harrow School is open to the public this afternoon. On display is a new exhibit of Japanese woodblock prints, and what they are calling “A Cabinet of Curiosities”. There was a reception held for this new exhibit a couple of weeks ago, but I was unable to attend because it was on the same night of my booking for Dr. Strangelove. Bad luck on my part.

You may recall that I attended a reception at the Gallery last year, and I posted a few pictures then. I attempted to take some pictures of the woodblock prints, but they are housed in glass cases, and the reflections were problematic. Take my word though, the prints are beautiful!

Friday, January 31 – Harrow on the Hill

I’m in a good mood this morning. Looking forward to getting these problematic flights sorted!

I made it to the travel agency a little after 11, and the woman I’m supposed to meet with isn’t there! And the only person that is in the office can’t help me because she only works on Nepal bookings. Are you kidding me!

Time to regroup and go to Plan B (which I just though of!). Using my phone, I do a search for Travel Agents near me. And I fortunately find one that is close to the Harrow on the Hill tube station, and with very good reviews. Bonus!

Sidenote: While doing the travel agent search, I notice that the agency I first tried to use has terrible reviews! Lesson Learned: Don’t walk into the first place that happens to be convenient!

And now there is finally a happy ending to my ordeal. This second agency was very helpful and able to get both itineraries taken care of. The combined bookings ended up costing me about £100 more than if I had booked online, But that’s fine. There was one glitch, but I anticipated it: The agency did not accept U.S. credit cards. Cash is okay though! And I just happened to have a fistful that I was going to use to pay my February rent. Sorted. (and back to the ATM to replenish the rent cash!)

Fortunately all this was done in time for me to get into the Capital for a tour of the U.K. Supreme Court that I had booked for 3pm…

I was surprised to learn that the Court only dates to 2009, when it assumed the judicial functions previously undertaken by the House of Lords.

This is the final Courtroom, Number 3. It is used exclusively to hear cases from U.K. Territories.

The carpet throughout the Court building depicts a pattern representing the four floral emblems of the United Kingdom: a Tudor rose, representing England, conjoined with the leaves of a leek, representing Wales; a flax (or ‘lint’) blossom for Northern Ireland; and a thistle, representing Scotland. The carpet was designed by Sir Peter Blake, creator of such works as the cover of The Beatles’ 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I like the story behind this artwork. The painting has an estimated value of £400k, but the frame is worth double that at £800k! Why? Because it’s an original Chippendale.

This was a fun tour. Well worth the £10!

Travel Note: It is not necessary to book a tour if you’re interested in visiting the Supreme Court. The building is open to the public, free of charge. The only room that is solely accessed via the tour is the Library.

When leaving the tour I was rather amused to see this long line of people waiting to have their picture taken by the phone booth. Tourists!

Sidenote: Tickets for The Who concert went on sale this morning. And I went for it! (thanks for the encouragement Holly!)

Sales of tickets began at 9am (I completely forgot about this when I arranged to meet the travel agent at 11am. My mind was elsewhere at the time! It’s a good thing she suggested the 11am time. Stupid, but lucky…again!).

Anyway, I’ve booked tickets before with The Royal Albert Hall, and therefore knew to go to the website early, in order to be placed in a waiting room and then in a random queue at 9am. When the sales opened, I was number 2,510 in line. My estimated wait time was over an hour! But again, I’ve done this before and understood that the estimated times are typically much longer than what actually happens. In this case, I was at the front of the line in 23 minutes. And I ended up snagging a very good seat in a box. Brilliant!