London-Day 3

So we woke up Saturday morning with ambitious looks on our faces. Actually, it was more like "are we really going to walk 5 or 6 more miles today?!". We packed up our stuff and headed out to Leicester Square in search of some West End tickets. Originally we were going to try and see Chicago, not for it's stellar plot and phenomenal actors, but more for the fact that one of our professors at UE was the associate scenic designer. He's kind of a big deal. Anyway, we got there and discovered to our dismay that the cheapest seats for Chicago were 30 pounds and none of us was willing to spend that much on that show. SO... we did some looking and finally decided to go see The 39 Steps instead. I actually worked for the stage manager who is currently stage managing the Broadway production. Deciding to go to 39 Steps was the better decision by far, but I'll tell you more about that later. So after we got our tickets we hung out in the little Leicester Square park for awhile and then split up into two groups. One group was going to take the Tube out west to the Portobello Market and the other was going to take a short train ride to the Camden Market. I chose to go to Portobello market and I personally think I made the better decision. So we had to take this totally round about way to get to the Portobello Market which is near Notting Hill if any of you know where that is. So this market... is like a flea market on steroids and heroine except it is full of really class, upscale stuff at ridiculously low prices. I was talking to a booth owner and he said that it's even larger on Sundays and that some people have had a booth there for 30 years, so this is no 21st century invention. This stuff is old school. They have everything from handmade jewelry that is one of a kind to off the beaten path designers, to antique stuff, to impossible to find vinyls. They have food from everwhere including fresh fruit, really really fresh fish and bread that literally just got out of the oven. They have jackets and scarves for miles and silver tea sets and typical touristy souvenir things. If you can imagine it they have it. There were hundreds upon hundreds off booths that took up almost this entire neighborhood. It was incredible. You could spend a whole weekend there and still not be able to stop at every booth. Almost immediately after we got there we got separated from each other, but we had made a plan to meet back at the tube station in time to take it down the the British Museum to meet up with the other group. I was with my friend Dani and she and I barely got half way through when we had to stop looking at stuff and book it towards the end of the Market. Even when we stopped looking and just walked we didn't make it to the tube on time. I definitely plan to go back there as many times as possible. 

We made it to the tube station about 10 minutes after we were supposed to and so we just hopped on because we figured the other group would figure it out. We arrived at the Tottenham Court Road station 15 minutes later and walked another 10 minutes to the British Museum. The British Museum is another hopeless case. It is huge and you couldn't get through it if you even tried. I think we saw 3 exhibits and that is pathetic when you understand the size and scope of the museum. We were so exhausted from walking so we kept it simple by going to the see Ancient Egypt exhibit and the Greek Pantheon exhibit as well as part of the Mesopotamia exhibit. I know you'll hate me, but I didn't take many pictures because it was pointless. The museum is SO overwhelming and everywhere you turn there is more stuff and it just starts to give you a headache. So I kept the pictures to a very very bare minimum, but includes the Rosetta Stone and a few statues from the Pantheon and some of the Book of the Dead. So after all this we crashed on the floor of the British Museum and waited for others to finish up and meet us. We all went to dinner at this pub called The Plough and after dinner we headed to the theatre for 39 Steps. We could have taken the tube, but we decided to walk instead. Yes, we are fools.

The show was incredible and before curtain I met these 3 lovely English gentlemen who were sitting behind me. They were three brothers who got together for the day to go to a boat show down the river and then came up to see a theatre show. They were charming and witty and half the time I couldn't understand a word they were saying because their English accents were so thick and they were speaking so fast. They told me that Grantham doesn't have a good crop of good looking young men and that I should hit up Nottingham instead. We had a lovely chat and they were so kind even though I am American. 

After the show we went back to the hostel and decided to stay in for the night because we were all exhausted. We sat around talking in the lounge. Oh wait, we did go down the street to a little coffee shop/ internet café because we were starving. I don't know what it is in the food over here, but it leaves you less full and so you get hungry every 3 or 4 hours. Anyway, while we were there there was a torrential downpour and so on our way back to the hostel we got soaked to the bone. AFTER that we called it a night.

So I guess this means end of day 3.

London-Day 1

So I know I'm skipping a few days last week but that's okay. If you are really interested in what happened bug me and I'll tell you. Also, there won't be any pictures posted with these because I took over 330 pictures, BUT I will put up some London pictures at some time, somewhere. 

Okay, so I got out of class on Thursday at 11:30 and ate a hurried breakfast followed by a quick taxi ride to the train station. The Grantham train station is this cute little 2 platform station with a small station house with a little café type area for people to get a bite to eat and sit in the warmth. We got there about 45 minutes before our train was schedule to arrive so we sat in the café and studied for Shakespeare because most of us have a 15 to 20 minute presentation in that class this coming week. YIKES!!! I am doing a presentation with 2 other theatre students about film and Shakespeare in the context of Romeo and Juliet and how Shakespeare translates from words on a page to images on a screen. Anyway, the train arrived on time and we boarded heading south towards London. I wasn't sitting with any of my friends, but I was sitting next to two lovely elderly English gentlemen. There was an English woman sitting across the aisle from me who was heading into London because her daughter and been "knocked down" by a car. Despite the tragedy she was living through she was very upbeat and asked if she and I knew each other and when I told her that was impossible because I just arrived in the country a few days previous, she told me that I had a lovely face. So anyway, the train ride was pretty short, about an hour, and in now time we pulled into Kings Cross Station. We all got off and were shunted off the platform like confused fish. We figured out we had to get Oyster cards and so that took awhile, but after that we hopped on the Tube (Picadilly line) and headed towards our hostel. London's underground is pretty much identical to New York's except cleaner and less dodgy, so I won't describe it in much detail. We got off in South Kensington and walked a couple blocks to our hostel. Our hostel is a youth hostel with alot of character. Most of the employees are from Australia and New Zealand, but their cliental consists of people from all over the world. Most of us were staying in different rooms, but 4 of the 11 were in the same room so that was comforting. When we got there on Thursday we had three other roommates. Two guys in their early to mid twenties from Australia and a English girl from Devon who is up in London for 6 weeks doing an internship. I think that there are several people at the hostel who stay there for extended period of time/ maybe live there.

Anyway, we dropped our stuff off and decided to take a walk because the rest of our group (4 other people) wouldn't arrive until 6pm. We walked down Cromwell street that runs right in front of our hostel towards the Natural History Museum and the V & A museum. The Natural History Museum is gorgeous! We didn't go inside, but the outside of it is exquisite, just wait for the pictures. The V & A (Victoria and Albert) Museum is also pretty stunning. We didn't go in there either, but instead walked up Exhibition Road towards Hyde Park. We walked past the Imperial University London, yeah I know it's a weird name, and when we got to Hyde Park we headed west. We came upon the Royal Albert monument right across the street from the Royal Albert Hall, which is a multi-purpose performance space. The monument is incredibly ornate and shows Albert as a golden ruler surrounded by the people of the world and the sects of his own society such as the merchants, agriculturalists, scholars etc. We walked over to the Royal Albert Hall and discovered that Quidam, the Cirque de Soleil show was currently playing and we could get tickets to the matinee for the next day for only 17 pounds. We all decided we wanted to go see it and so we got tickets. Afterwards we walked back to our hostel via another street... not sure of the name, but it was a street lined with embassies for other countries, most outside of Europe. We hung out at the hostel until the rest of our friends arrived and then we headed off in search of dinner because were all starving by this point. We found a pub, The Earls Court Tavern, and had lovely dinner there. After dinner we walked back to the hostel and decided that we wanted to go to SoHo later that night so we jumped on the tube up to Tottenham Court Road (Harry Potter reference: Book 7). I don't really know how to describe SoHo to you because it's not like anything I've ever experienced. It's a combination of clubs and pubs and patisseries and shady looking places and beautiful architecture and people hassling you to go to clubs and people EVERYWHERE! It made me wonder where the youth of London goes to party/ hangout because most of the people we saw there were mid to late twenties some pushing the 30 year mark. We went to a couple different pubs/ clubs but for the most point it was pretty disappointing. As you will learn on day 3 I have real doubts about the pub scene in London, for various reasons. Anyway some of us decided to leave SoHo and go back home to the hostel. A few stayed to hit up a few more places but the majority of us went home. When we got back to the hostel we talked to one of our roommates, Sam from Melborne, Australia for a little while before we called it a night.

And so ends my first day in London.

P.S. The hostel beds were amazing!!!