Two Weeks Away

Another busy day of cramming sightseeing activities in.

We began the day by wandering through Hyde Park again, but this time on a eastwards journey, strolling past more squirrels, people riding horses, and pigeons, and stopping on Oxford St to pick up more (more!!) souvenirs for people at home (we’re really working hard to keep the economy going here!) Then headed down to Piccadilly Circus to buy tickets to the show we were planning on seeing tonight with L and T: Jersey Boys. On the way we ticked off another must-do: riding on a red double decker bus!

Our next goal was to walk down through Trafalgar Square and along Whitehall to eyeball Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, although the last had to be put off until after lunch, as we met A at a pub nearby for a bite to eat.

After fortifying ourselves with a Caesar salad and meat pie respectively, we headed off to wonder at Westminster Abbey. While I was initially a bit reluctant to pay the sixteen pounds entrance fee, it was really amazing. As well as the tombs of various monarchs, there were memorials to many of Britain’s noteworthy writers and poets, such as Shakespeare and Jane Austen, as well as scientists like Darwin and Newton. Plus the building itself is amazing, with hugely high carved ceilings and stone floors worn down with millions of feet over hundreds of years.

Plus, while we were wandering about, I bumped into two ex-students, M and M who are currently on a post-school junket around Europe from the sounds of things, staying with relatives here and there. A junket that involves coming and seeing cultural history like Westminster Abbey – pretty classy!

Then it was time to meet L and T for dinner and the show. We tried an Indian place near the Prince Edward Theatre, and while the food was good, it took them forever to bring it (we were in a bit of a hurry to get to the show) and then they asked us for a tip after paying for the meal! A bit rich…

The show itself was amazing. I wasn’t terribly familiar with The Four Seasons, but knew a few of their songs. The story itself was interesting, looking at the relationships and relationship breakdowns in the group over the years, and their rise to fame. The singing was fantastic! Apparently the guy playing Frankie Valli has a cd out, so it’d be worthwhile looking him up – a really amazing voice. The rest of the cast were great too – the actor playing Tommy Devito was fabulous and really played the crowd. This was needed, as he was the first of the revolving “narrators” of the story.

The staging really blew me away. They had a pretty simple set, but with various signs and props that came down from the roof or popped up from the floor, and lighting was used effectively, too. One scene we “joined them on stage”, as the back of the stage was lit with flashing bulbs to simulate a crowd, and the actors played to the back, with hot spotlights on us being “back stage”. Really really effective. It was a great show and I was sorry we’d not made it to more shows while we were here!

Back at the hotel we started packing for the trip home tomorrow. Even with an extra small case and Emirates’ generous 30kg/pp allowance we’re going to be squeezing it a bit – we weighed the bags and between us we have 55kg!

Today was started with a quick phone call to Emirates to see if we could snag a last-minute points upgrade on one of the legs on our homeward trip, and YAY even though they weren’t available on the online upgrade, they had two available on the phone. Goodbye frequent flyer points, hello business class on the A380! Back to economy for the long-haul leg, but I’m happy to get part-way there.

The rest of the day was spent being extremely touristy – we started out walking through Green Park to Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guards, would you believe! It was packed out, and people kept trying to squeeze in closer to the walls, even though when they were squeezing in front of us, all they could see was a better view of the pillar in front of the wall!

Even so, the ceremony and music and excitement in the air made it a fun occasion. We weren’t intrigued enough though, to hang around for the band’s third track after all the ceremonial walking around a lot, so we said hello to a few police people on horses and wandered off again.

Next destination of all true tourists – Harrods. I was pretty impressed. They had sports cars (of course), lots of big name stuff, and an entire hall devoted to chocolate and tea. Plus a chocolate cafe! What’s not to like? Well, the prices were certainly astronomical on some things – a pineapple for instance, was 14 pounds. Hmm. On the other hand, I cast my eye over the MAC cosmetics and I thought I saw that the eyeshadows were only 12 pounds – less than $20 when here they’re $32!

In any case, I picked up a few suitable “harrods” emblazoned gifts for people back home, and also found a set of the placemats from the gorgeous designs I mentioned the other day, at half price! They are the cheese-themed ones (not on the website – must be old stock) rather than the personality-plus-plus cows and pig ones I adored, but they’re still great! And heavy, as I found out after schlepping them around all day.

Next stop: The British Library to have a look at some cool books. We certainly found them – another Shakespeare First Folio, one of Jane Austen’s notebooks, the Magna Carta, one of the first Gutenberg bibles, some amazing old illuminated texts like more bibles and other sacred texts, and even the words to The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” as first written by John Lennon on one of Julian’s first birthday cards! No photos allowed unfortunately…

We headed back to the hotel to dump my Harrods plunder, then headed out to Fleet to visit cousin E again. After braving the commuter trains at rush hour, we met at a lovely pub, The Heron On The Lake, which unfortunately had only two ciders, both of which I could get at home. Nevertheless, a salubrious spot.

E took us back to her place for dinner, a yummy risotto. It was SO nice to have a home-cooked meal after eating out for so long! The bottle of red we shared also ensured a voluble evening, especially from me. I was particularly amazed at the treasured to be found in the Argos catalogue. Who would have thought you could get a Nerf automatic machine gun?? Three rounds a second! Pity you’d need a good few of the “dart” belts. I can just imagine someone with a bandolier-style belt filled with Nerf darts. Go ahead, make my day!

The trains were a lot quieter on the way back, but we managed to share a carriage with a drunken party of darts-players, strangely enough, who were waving a poster they’d nabbed stating “Go on, play darts!”. We all arrived back in London safe and sound!

Since The Globe was apparently open again today we decided that was our main priority!

First we headed to the Tate Britain, as R wanted to visit the Pre-Raphaelites again, and there’s a handy ferry that goes Tate to Tate (the Tate Modern is the big ugly building right next to the Globe – handy!) The TB have reorganised since R was last there, and the Pre-Raphs weren’t handily located in one place, but mainly weren’t even hung! Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott, Rosetti’s Monna Vanna, Millais’ Ophelia (and Sargent’s Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth which almost counts but not quite) were the only ones there!

We thought we’d not even get to see these ones, as when we were wandering through the early 20th Century gallery, we noticed the next room was blocked off as there was a film crew in there! Perfectly timed, though, as after a minute or two in discussion with the gallery attendant, we watched with big grins as the film crew dismantled their bits and pieces and let us in. I think we must have used up the bad museum/gallery mojo last week! (Touch wood!!!)

After drooling over the PreRaphs, we wandered through to the Romantics exhibition, which has a LOT of Turner, as well as one or two of his contemporaries here and there. This was really interesting, as I’d looked at Romanticism a bit at uni, but only as it related to literature, so the artistic interpretation was a new angle.

Then we walked down to the Thames to catch the ferry to Bankside, where the Tate Modern and The Globe sit. We started talking to a lady who was walking a baby in a pram and a big puppy (who looked like a Bernese Mountain Dog – biiiiig puppy!) who was very excited that I wanted to give him cuddles. So much so that he managed to get out of the nose strap part of his collar, which caused no end of consternation. Whoops. Ah well, he was still attached to the lead and all was well in the end.

The ferry was a very civilised way of getting from A to B, floating gently through the water, watching the sights slip smoothly past.

The Globe was pretty much everything I’d expected. There’s a great exhibition inside the Centre which gives lots of details about Shakespeare’s life and how life and theatre worked in Elizabethan times, and how the Globe theatre works to keep a lot of detail of their productions authentic, like the costume design and construction. I was amazed that it was nearly 50 years between the founder’s first idea and the theatre being opened, despite it being an amazing idea. Why wasn’t there some kind of monument to Shakespeare in London, as he is such a notable figure in London’s history?

In any case, we went out to the theatre itself for the “tour”, which was a lady telling us a few things about how the building was built and that we weren’t allowed onto the stage, while we eyeballed a group of kids on an “education” tour who were allowed on the stage! Ah well, we did climb into the audience and sat in the in-demand middle tier of seating for a bit.

All eyes were drawn downwards as we walked through the “piazza” outside the theatre, as one of the early fundraising schemes was to carve donors’ names into the pavers. We saw, among many others, Vivien Leigh, Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier, and even the Patrick Stewart Appreciation Society!

After saying goodbye to our guide, we plundered the gift shop. They have a lot of very cool things there, such as magnets and badges with great quotes on them, play-themed tshirts and mugs etc. I was very tempted by the blood-soaked “Macbeth” mug. I think that would have gone down a treat at morning tea at work, but the problem is always getting breakables home safe! Mugs are such a difficult shape…

Mid-afternoon we stopped for a hearty pub lunch at a “traditional” pub nearby, getting back onto the potato wagon well and truly with a bucketload of chips. What could I have been thinking, not eating any potato yesterday?

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, catching up on the laundry again and heading over the road to a rival hotel restaurant for dinner and making plans for tomorrow. How many of the last-minute sights can we catch? There’s only two days left!