May 5, 2010

I woke this morning bright and early to fix a few things left undone from my World Music class. I spent a good part of the morning finishing it up before Michelle woke up. Janice was up though and she supplied me with copious amounts of herbal tea to keep me warm and sprightly while I trudged through until breakfast. Janice made delicious sandwiches for breakfast of cheddar cheese and tomato put into a sandwich maker. By the way, cheddar cheese in the country where cheddar was invented reigns supreme. Albert was nice enough this morning to wait for us to get ready so he could take us to Hampton Court where King Henry VIII lived. Driving through London with Albert behind the wheel is an interesting experience. He’s 71 years old and still works as a handy-man. He drives a work truck that’s actually more like a van. The thing about it is that Albert drives this van/truck as if it were a sports car. The streets are already terribly narrow and he goes ploughing through. At one point we were careening down a residential street that was really only wide enough for 3 cars. There were cars parked on either side when another car came from the other direction. Without hardly slowing at all Albert swerved left and there were mere inches at most on either side of us as we came through unscathed. He truly is a man of mystery. When we got to Hampton Court we realized that entrance to the palace was 14 pounds. We weren’t about to pay that amount just to see a palace, especially with a limited amount of time since we had something special on our schedule at 2:00 pm. We got a nice look of it from the outside and a lovely walk through most of the gardens. Many of the museums and attractions in London are free. It’s a real shame that they aren’t all free, especially for students who, in my opinion, are the most important visitors a place like a museum can have come. Despite not going in, we really enjoyed Hampton Court and the gardens. The gardens reminded me a lot of the movie A Man for All Seasons about Sir Thomas More. We took a train to the South Bank in London and went to The Globe Theatre. I didn’t want to mention it before on my blog because I’ve been looking forward to it so much. We got tickets several days ago to see The Scottish Play (which is the euphemism for Shakespeare’s Macbeth, for those of you who might not know) performed at The Globe. Our tickets were in the yard as groundlings. They only cost 5 pounds! You’d never find that kind of price for tickets for any production of Shakespeare in any theater in the States. Luckily we got there early which gave us the crème de la crème for “seat” selection. We stood in the fourth row center, which proved to be the closest position possible to see everything close without being spit on by the actors! The setup for the play was incredible. Nearly the entire area for the groundlings had a black cloth suspended about 4 feet high. There were slits cut into the cloth that served as head holes. So for the groundlings all we could see of each other was our heads and this huge cloth covering everything else. This was all fine and good until we began to notice people running between our legs as the show began which caused no small stir. It was pretty creepy. The play was excellent. We read a review of the play before going. Most of the comments in the review about it being gory and in-your-face were true. At one point they depicted a man getting his tongue cut out. They threw the “tongue” into the audience and it landed very near Michelle’s head on the groundling shoulder cloth. We liked it anyway. I was really impressed by the music that was put with it. There were several musicians who provided the music with bagpipes, period flutes, trombone and a long tubular instrument similar to a didgeridoo but with much less beautiful tone. These instruments were used in different combinations which gave a surprisingly wide variety of sounds and colors. I was very impressed by the way the music was both period and contemporary. The use of modes and old Scottish melodies were mixed with a contemporary flair which added the “creep” factor. It was really brilliant. The only bad part of the whole experience was that we stood for nearly three and a half hours. Every time I started feeling the pain in my feet and legs I just said to myself, “Self, when this is all over you’ll look back and only remember how much you enjoyed the play. You won’t remember how much your feet hurt. So quit complaining and enjoy the show!” It worked pretty well. After the play, we met up with Steve Durtschi for a little while at Piccadilly Circus (one of our favorite parts of town because it’s right in the heart of the West End). Our visit was brief and then Michelle and I were off to find something to eat. We searched for too long and finally decided to have the fish-n-chips experience. I really like fish-n-chips, even though they don’t always make me feel like a lucky duck. Michelle didn’t seem to like them much. I was actually surprised that she agreed to eat there. She doesn’t much care for fish and even less for fatty foods. I suppose she agreed for the sake of the experience. I don’t think we’ll be eating it again though. We spent another evening walking about the West End and finally ended up on Tottenham Court Road when we finally headed back to Janice and Albert’s house. On our tube rides home, Michelle always seems to fall asleep on my shoulder, but this time being as sleep deprived as I was because of my sacrifices in meeting the demands of my internet audience combined with my responsibilities as a tourist, student, house guest and boyfriend, I too succumbed to the heavy weight of my eyelids and we were both surprised to be woken by other tube riders when we came to the end of the line, which luckily happens to be our stop.

By the way, I hope the pictures I am posting are clear enough since I never take the time to explain each one individually. If they’re not, too bad!