London

London

So Suvi and I went to London this past weekend. I had been a few years ago and was a little nervous that it was going to be different then I remembered. Wrong. It is the best. Chester is someplace I live, London is like…fill in this space with all cliché about souls and love and home.

We started got there around noon on Saturday after one of my first non-motion sick train rides, (hurray!), and Suvi showed me around the Tube, ending up at our hostel. It wasn’t really a hostel; it was the Finnish Church that had rooms for rent. Nice rooms. Like super clean, had a semi-private bathroom, delicious breakfast, and no bed bugs. It’s the little things in life. Anyway after a lot of Finnish conversations that I understood none of but enjoyed thoroughly, we hopped back on the underground and sped off to the West End.

I love Trafalgar Square. It was so sunny on Saturday, which made everything stunning. I just loved the pigeons, the people, the Bobbies, the behemoths of building, everything. We enjoyed the sun for a bit, and then headed off to find the Novello theatre to collect our tickets. It was so fun traipsing around the West End. I think if I’m ever a resident of a giant city and really posh, I will go to the theatre whenever a new play comes out. After getting our tickets, we had sandwiches at the best café ever. You got to pick out your own fillings, like Subway, but unlike that fine establishment, this place had fillings like sun-dried Italian tomatoes, grilled zucchini, goat cheese, smoked salmon, capers, and cutlets of beef. Listen folks, I live off of soup and toast most days, so this was like Christmas in my mouth. We then hopped on back to the Novello to watch Cat on A Hot Tin Roof. It was fantastic. James Earl Jones starred as Big Daddy, and the rest of the cast absolutely held up their own. I love Tennessee Williams, (really anything out of the Southern Renaissance), but it is so nice to be able to see his work instead of read it. Especially when in the hands of such talent.

After the show we had some pricey but tasty dinner and found out that our seats for Waiting for Godot had been cancelled by Mr. Internet, but the lovely man at the box office upgraded us three balconies down and kept our same price. Someone should beatify him.

I can’t even tell you how good the show was. So I won’t. But I will tell you that Beckett is brilliant. The cast was brilliant. And it was the best production I’ve ever seen. I was speechless at the end.

Thank goodness Beckett’s god isn’t my God.

Afterwards Suvi and I were like, hey let’s go stalk the cast at the stage door. So we did. Which meant we were rewarded by meeting the entire cast, and last not but not least, Sir Ian McKellen. Oh. Em. Gee. When we were waiting in line, Suvi, the guy next to us from Bellingham (weird right?) and I were all talking about how we had no idea what we would say if he came out, and that was accurate. Oh man, he was just the picture of an English gentleman. He was tall and polite (although I was expecting him for some reason to be like 6’11, probably because of Gandalf’s pointy hat…). He went through the entire line in front of me, and got to me and said:

“So we have France, Italy, England, Finland and…”

“Phoenix” (omg omg omg omg)

“Ah, Phoenix. What a lovely place. I’ve been there, so warm. Did you see William Hurst come out earlier?”

“Yes I did, that was neat… I really enjoyed the show, thank you so much…”

“Ah, I am glad, why thank you.”

(Rude-interrupting-French Kid) “Excuse me sir, may I picture?”

“Yes if it’s quick” Walks away after shaking my hand.

So that was like the highlight of you know, my month.

We finally after a lot of wandering and giggling made it back home. The next day was like knowledge overload. After taking our pictures at platform 9 3/4, we went to the British Library where I saw pretty much every famous manuscript ever. Including but not limited to:

Magna Carta, Guttenberg Bible, Beowulf.

Wow.

Then, we made a mad dash to Camden Town. Interesting place. Sort of like if a farmer’s market, punk music, and the Oriental Trading company had a baby. It was fun though. Suvi met a friend from home, so she was really happy. I kind of went off and did my own thing, mostly consisting of eating Mexican food and finding fun hats.

I got burned out pretty fast from all the crowds and selling and yelling, so I left Suvi and Camden to try to squeeze in a few hours at the British Museum. If the British Library has every manuscript ever, then the British Museum has the history of humanity. In four buildings. There is nothing like it in the States, save maybe all the Smithsonian’s put together. How do you even describe artifacts from Nebuchadnezzar, Egyptians, Assyrian, Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Anglos Saxons, the Americas, Chinese explorers, Indian temples, ancient masks from central Africa, ugh. Literally every culture in every epoch. Trying to narrow it down leaves me with, the Rosetta stone, the Sutton Hoo burial artifacts, a jade mask from South America, an Easter Island head, Ramses II stuff, and lots of things from Babylon. It was incredible. I basically ran through it because I only had an hour and a half, but I could have stayed in there for months.

I spent the rest of the day recovering from little sleep and lots of walking in a coffee shop, then met up with Miss Suvi, and headed home. I can’t wait until I live in London someday. Or at least go back this semester.

Here are my pictures.

http://s982.photobucket.com/albums/ae305/sglady11/London/