Land of the Beatles, the Queen, Ashley Taggart, Sweeney Todd, Sandy and Geoffrey Rush

I know it's been a long time, but thank you for all being so patient :-) Here's about what I wrote in my journal while I was in London:

Arrive home from Pisa at 8:30pm Wednesday.

Leave for airport on 5am Aircoach Thursday Morning.

Approximately 4 hours of sleep in between.

Flight at 7:30am which goes off without a hitch (with the exception of a girl who forgot her passport at her apartment... She got it and eventually got on, but it caused everyone to panic a little).

Sat next to Cozy and Lee (both girls) and I realized how much there still is left to know about the people on this trip. They are both musical nerds and we talked about Spring Awakening and Wicked and Last 5 Years the whole way to London (about 1.5 hour flight).

Our hostel is 10 minutes away from the Russell Square tube stop, so we arrive, put our stuff in storage, have enough time to sum up the building in one word: Sketchy.

Have just enough time for lunch. I ate with Pete and Bri and we found this really cool world cuisine restaurant called Giraffe. Very cool. Then we found a meat pie shop that would have been cheaper, but oh well. They had a sign that said "The Best Pies in London!" and we all burst into song "The WORST pies in London- if you doubt it take a bite! Is that just disgusting?" Ah Sweeney Todd. It has seeped into everyday life in a way that it should not have seeing as he's the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and makes pies out of humans...

We met up with the rest of the group to get to Leinster Square to see our first of four shows. It was raining. And I've never seen so many movie theatres in one place. Apparently this is where they do premieres. This WILL come into play later on.

Boeing Boeing was our first show. It was kind of entertaining. It was a man (Kevin McNally of Pirates of the Caribbean Gibbs fame) who had three girlfriends, all flight attendants, in the 1950's and balances their flight schedules so he never has to deal with all of them at the same time. Until Boeing comes out with this new faster jet and all the girlfriends/fiances end up at home at the same time, driving everyone to a hysterical frenzy. It was written in French originally but is written in the traditional British farce style. Think Noises Off but not as funny.

Crisps and a drink at a pub loaded with Beatles memorabilia? Check. Killed time waiting for a restaurant to open for us to have dinner. The pub was about the size of a golf club and there was already probably 20-30 people jammed in it before we brought our group of 15 into it. Cool atmosphere, but a little to close to the locals if you ask me. I sat at a table with a man who thought it was a really good idea to order two drinks at a time while intermittently chatting me up and staring off into space. Yeah.

Indian cuisine dinner on IES (HURRAH!) with the entire crew. We had a really good dinner and laughed a lot at each other trying to figure out how to eat sauce with a fork. I guess quite a few people had never had Indian food before and all were amazed that they'd gone so long without it. £250 spent at one place? Check.

Arrived back at the hostel, ready to fall into bed. We reach our room (I'm in one with Katie V., Mikah, Meghan, Rachel and Lee) and we realize that we have made a mistake. Or rather IES made a mistake. Because while I realize that location is important, putting us in a spaceship that turns into a night club was overdoing it a little. The walls were alternating colors or bright orange and bright sky blue. We were on the 6th floor (of 6) and had no bathroom on our floor so we had to trek down stairs to reach the one bathroom available to us. The sheets had spots on them, the pillows still had other people's hair on them, the showers made you feel dirty while you were in them, the people were nasty and when you wanted to eat breakfast, you ventured downstairs. Then you sat at a metal table in a metal chair, illuminated by a black light and a blue light, had either cereal or tea or coffee, and tried with all your might to not step in whatever that might be on the floor. They sold things at this little store in the breakfast room. You think this is nice, no? We did too until we realized that they sold thong underwear that said "At the Generator, the hangover is always included!" and t-shirts that said "I Survived My Stay at the Generator!" I still have nightmares.

The next day was the Tower of London where we saw all the crazy places where people were killed, queens were coronated, and Kings of England slept. I stood in the spot where King Henry VIII saw Anne Boleyn for the first time, and I stood in the spot where he saw her for the last time as she was beheaded. It gave me chills up and down my back thinking that her blood was in the ground I was standing on... I'm such a history geek! At least I own up to it :-) The crown jewels of England are housed at the Tower of London, and while you're not supposed to take pictures of it, I snuck a few. They're amazing! The jewels, not the pictures. The pictures are nothing special except for the fact that I have them... That's pretty cool. Saw the place where they house the guns, swords and suits of armor. AND had a tour led by a Beefeater. I'm not being mean, that's what they're really called, and they ACTUALLY LIVE IN THE TOWER OF LONDON. They are locked in every night at 10pm and the Beefeater said that it was the ultimate place to raise your teenage daughter.

We saw the Tower Bridge as we left the Tower of London and headed down toward the London Bridge. We walked along the River Thames until we reached the fabled bridge itself. Umm, has anyone actually seen the London Bridge? It's the most disappointing bridge I've ever had the privilege of seeing. I'm not sure why it's been the source of a great many songs, but who ever decided that THIS was the bridge to sing about must've been blind. Granted, this is not the original London Bridge. The original is in Arizona on Lake Havasu, but still.

Met up with the rest of the group in front of the Globe Theatre. While we were waiting a man in a bright green scarf walked by and was talking about "the press" having a field day with something. It took no genius to figure out that this man obviously wanted to be recognized. Duh, Captain Barbossa has invaded England and now we will all become part of his curse... We waited in anxious anticipation of the moonlight that night. Thankfully it was cloudy and no one had to discover their skeleton. Anyway, that was my poor way of saying that Geoffrey Rush walked by us outside the Globe. Sorry :-)

Tour of the Globe. While very cool, the theatre that we were standing in was a replica that was built between the mid 1980s and the mid 1990s. I'll get excited about how cool everything is and how closely they followed the original structure, but I just can't get as excited when I realize that the theatre isn't even on the same spot as the original. They have to point you in the direction of it and say "Look for signs!" That's a little strange if you ask me. Anyway, our tour guide was funny. He kept talking about his theory that all South Park episodes are based on Shakespeare. No joke, he's really proud of this theory. Then, before he asked us if we had any questions, he wanted to tell us all the really stupid questions that he's been asked. Here's a sampling:

"What's Shakespeare's last name?"
"Does Shakespeare ever attend any of his own plays here?"
"Who painted the ceiling?" (It's an open air theatre)
"Do you have that version of Romeo and Juliet on a boat?" (referring to Titanic)

After those questions, none of us really had anything left to say, so we meandered through the rest of the museum on our own. Somehow Rachel and I always end up being the last two people somewhere (maybe because we get distracted by coloring and stage fighting and bringing Elizabethan style clothing back and feel sorry for little dog stuffed animals that are left behind by a child...) Anyway, Rach and I finished up at the Globe and wandered next door...

... To the TATE MODERN! Hooray! We also saw this really cool bridge that leads right up to it called the Millennium Bridge. The Tate had all this modern art (duh) and some really cool installations. There was this one that was done by a Colombian artist who had installed a gigantic crack in the floor of the museum. It was called "Shibboleth" and it was just there, with a crowd of people kneeling down to look inside, walk over, doing anything to figure out if this was an actual piece of art or an earthquake had just happened and no one but the Tate had felt it. We picked up a flier on it to satisfy the question, and promptly became enchanted (this word will come into play later as well) with the piece. Doris Salcedo has said that the crack reveals a "colonial and imperial history [that] has been disregarded marginalized or simply obliterated... the history of racism, running parallel to the history of modernity and... it's untold dark side." The word "Shibboleth" comes from an ancient incident in the Bible where the Ephraimites were attempting to cross the River Jordan to escape their enemies, the Gileadites. As the sound "SH" did not appear in their dialect, the Gileadites stopped and killed all those who could not pronounce the word "Shibboleth". The word stands for violence, intolerance and power, and putting a crack in the floor of the Tate Modern is a mighty big symbol for this horrific word.

We caught up with a few other people (Nora, Cozy, Meghan, Kate and Kenna) and went to find dinner before another show. Fish and chips in London? Check.

The show we wet to see was called Enchantment. It was a cross between A Doll's House, Miss Julie and Hedda Gobbler, and to top it all off, the author committed suicide shortly after the plays completion because the piece was somewhat autobiographical. And the main character in the play committed suicide. So one can't help but wonder if the author also fell in love with a man who looks like Rafi and likes to lick his lips before going in for a romantic kiss. Ew. I was less than impressed with this show, even though the story was alright, there was a certain lack of sympathy for the characters that is essential to even the worst of them. Laughing hysterically at the saddest play of the season? Check. Having a stomach ache from holding in laughter during the performance while sitting in the front row? Check.

Saturday morning was a walking tour of London. Well, almost a walking tour of London. More like a sprinting tour that lasted maybe an hour and a half. We stopped exactly twice, once at Westminster Abbey and once at Buckingham Palace. The rest of the time we were seeing the sights as if we were on a bus tour. Ashley Taggart was our guide (he's the head of IES Dublin and he was born in Northern Ireland and lives in Dublin now, but lived in London for years and years) and he has some mighty long strides to keep up with. Buckingham Palace, Canadian Embassy, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery, Double Decker buses and red phone booths? Check.

We had about two and a half hours before our next show. Let's see, what have we not done in London that needs to be done at least once in your life? That's right. Abbey Road, of Beatles fame. We get there, following Pete's handy dandy maps (that's right, he has at least two at all times), and realize that taking these pictures will be harder than anyone thought because Abbey Road is an actual working street where cars fly down it at a million miles an hour despite the fact that people are continuously crossing it. In fact, they probably have a tally sheet in their car of the number of points they get per person, with a sliding scale depending on time of day, age, country of origin (if you hit an English person in the afternoon, 0 points because they should have known not to cross at that spot, but if you hit an English person in the morning who looks like they could have been IN the Beatles, 25 points). Anyway, our group of 13 people wanted to cross the street at the same time, but someone had to take the picture, so I opted out. Later, Kate, Rach, Cozy and I decided that there needed to be a four person walk, so we tried. Pete tried to take the picture. We all tried really hard. It didn't work. But, we did take the next album cover photo as the four of us were walking back, laughing hysterically at the fact that all of us almost got run over... Abbey Road? Check.

Off to the Portrait Gallery back in Central London. There was a Pop Art exhibition that had a bunch of Andy Warhol paintings, including his famous ones of the Queen and Marilyn Monroe which was pretty cool. They also had this entire room designated to Diana, and all the photographic portraits of her from the time of her engagement to the last picture of her before she died. For the Queen not liking her, Londoners seem awful proud of their princess. See a princess, a queen and a legend? Check.

The afternoon show was called Dealer's Choice, and it was at a place called the Chocolate Factory. We figured that since the name of the venue sounded amazing, the show probably would be too, and that since the name of the venue included the word chocolate, that there were probably going to be chocolates on/under our seats. One out of two ain't bad :-) The show was incredible. It was written by the guy who wrote Closer and Notes on a Scandal, and starred a few well known faces (Samual Barnett who played Posner in the Touring Company and movie versions of History Boys and Roger Lloyd Pack of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire fame, Malcolm Sinclair who has been seen in V for Vendetta, Casino Royale and played the Headmaster in the National and Touring Company of History Boys). This was by far the favorite show of the trip. Three mega stars in one show written by a mega writer? Check.

Taxi to the Royal Court Theatre (the taxi almost took us to the Royal Court, which is the jail...) to see Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco, one of the major absurdist playwrights of the 20th century. And it didn't fail his reputation. It was about this man who was bored with life in his small town when all of a sudden, rhinos start appearing out of no where. It turns out that people in the town are turning INTO rhinos, first really slowly, then all at once. The first act was really funny while the second kind of dragged on. We were in the first row and one of the men onstage stripped completely naked and stood at the edge of the stage. A little more than we bargained for. Male Nudity? Check.

Called Sandy Freborg, figured out how much I miss her, after much screaming we decided to meet up at 10am the next morning at King's Cross tube station.

As disappointed as we were to leave, Rachel's friend offered us a place to crash at her apartment for that night and the night after. We arrived at 12:30am and fell asleep at almost 4am.

Arrive at King's Cross Station at 10am, which is really 9am because the damn clocks fell back an hour because of daylight savings time ending and me, being the smart one, completely forgot about it. SO I'm there an hour early, walking around the station, being bored, eating breakfast, walking through shops. Sandy calls at 10:15 and says she's been there since 8:30 because she forgot too, and we'd both been wandering around the station killing time when we were there together the entire time. Wow, we felt smart...

From King's Cross to Hampton Court Palace (where King Henry VIII lived with all his wives) took us an hour and a half, but we didn't mind so much as we hadn't seen each other in ages and we needed all that time to catch up on each other's lives. The castle was amazing, but the highlight was definitely being there with Sandy.

High Tea in jeans? Check. Went to Kensington Palace in Hyde Park for High Tea, and while it was expensive, it was definitely worth it. Beautiful!

By the time we left, I realized that I wasn't with Rachel and her phone was dead and I had no way of getting back into the apartment now that I was out of it. So Sandy volunteered to wait with me and we took the tube over to Mariah's apartment. We get off and there are only three other people who get off too. Mariah, Rachel and one of her housemates. Hallelujah!

The next morning we got up, Rachel went out to buy breakfast, and we sat and had a great talk with Mariah and her housemates before Rachel and I said our good-byes and headed out for the day, wheeling our super cool suitcases behind us. She headed for the London Eye while I headed for Covent Garden to buy a t-shirt I fell in love with on the first day.

Wasted time, hung out by myself for the day, it felt wonderful. I needed that alone time before heading back to the hustle and bustle of Dublin.

OK, now that that is finished, I can stop procrastinating on my paper, then, later, when the paper is finished, I can tell all about my parents and how they're visiting right now :-)

London Post? Check (phew).