Reflections on London...
Carla was a FANTASTIC hostess. I could not have asked for anything better! She opened her apartment to me as her guest for 3 nights (which is a long time!), and cleared her schedule so that we could spend a lot of time together.
She met me at St. Pancras which is where the Eurostar arrives, and we hopped on the underground (the subway, the metro, the tube, call it what you like) to her apartment. She lives in student housing for graduate students, and it's a brand new building! We sat around for a few hours just catching up with each other (and each of us calling our respective family/friends on Skype) before heading out to the local Chinese Takeaway for a greasy dinner. Cheap, quick, and reliable. We brought everything back to her place and probably finished dinner after 10pm. Great on the tummy, right? Well we stayed up chatting until after 2, which my body thought was 3, so we really had to just call it a night.
The 2nd day involved the grand tour of some main attractions in London including Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye (the big ferris wheel), and Trafalgar Square. We went to Wahaca for dinner, which is a Mexican restaurant that Carla LOVES! I love Mexican food because I can always find something vegetarian there, so it's always a good selection for me. They have lots of tapas on the menu, plus main dishes, and lots of vino! I started with a garlic mushroom cheesy something or other, followed by a beautiful salad which included sweet potatoes, goat cheese, pumpkin seeds, on mixed greens. From dinner, we went to the theatre!
We saw WICKED, somehow getting tickets less than 2 hours before showtime, in the 4th row, in the center, for 27 pounds. That's like $40! Pretty good deal for any show, but for this one in particular, I was very happy. (Carla has already seen the show before, so I told her that I didn't mind seeing another show that she had never seen before so that we could both experience something novel, but she said she loved it so much as a show that she wouldn't mind seeing it again, that it was her favorite musical.) I didn't really know much about the show besides it was the pre-quel to the Wizard of Oz that shows where the witches came from. I won't give anything away here because I don't know who is reading this that might ever see the show, but I was thoroughly impressed by the acting, the singing, the costumes, the set, the entire production. I have always known London to have top notch theatre but I was just completely impressed by the production of the show, and the story itself. I kept making connections between this show and the story of the Wizard of Oz, translating characters in one to each other, remembering that this came first, leading up to the adventures of Dorothy, Toto, and the others following the Yellow Brick Road. I can't wait to see it again. I'm turning into Carla!
We met up with the one and only Phil Carroll, another Londoner from Echo Lake, who actually lives closer to Carla than to where he met us (by the theatre) but location didn't really matter. It's the company that does! So we met him for a couple of drinks at two different pubs to catch up on the last year (and then some), what's been going on at camp since he couldn't come back last year, and how the Eurotravels have been going. It was good to see him after all that time. Reunion all the way!
The next day, we slept in a little bit, given how tired we were from a busy day before, and we slowly got out of bed. We started our day walking toward and throughout Regent's Park, one of the largest parks in London. We people-watched, had hot beverages, enjoyed the fresh air (and even a little bit of sunshine!), and did a lot of walking around. We eventually hopped on the tube toward the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, where I had to take some pictures. Unfortunately it was still overcast so the pictures do not do that bridge justice. I don't know why I think it's so pretty, but it just is! It reminds me of a castle. Or a really fancy wedding cake - the kind that they decorate on those shows on the Food Network. Delicate and precise. So I was really excited just to look at it!
We finished off our afternoon/early evening by walking to the National Theatre area to look for a nice place to have some dinner. We went to the theatre, getting our tickets less than 1 hour before showtime, and this time, for only 10 pounds! Even more impressive than the previous night's cost. We found a place right next door that has us out of the restaurant in time to get our seats. Unfortunately, we both had more criticism of this show than WICKED. The show was called Greenland, and addressed the issue of climate change. It had 15 actors (men and women) all portraying different real life characters who encounter this global issue. It certainly made the issue current and interesting, but my main criticism was that it just had too many story lines going on. There was one about a guy who was on "Deal or No Deal" trying to make a decision to take it or continue playing the game, making the analogy that our world is in one box and we all have to make the decision as to whether or not we want to take the world as is or try to address ths climate change issue and take a stand; take a different box. There was a potential romantic encounter with a scientist and someone else interested in the environment who somehow finds him online and they go to the g8 summit together, UN committee on global warming having meetings, etc. There was another one about a girl named Lisa who stages a protest in a grocery store about the use of plastic packaging on most food items in the grocery store, and how most of the food items in the grocery store has been chipped in from abroad. There was one about what seemed to be a lesbian couple in therapy, one of whom is trying to educate the other on environmental issues, but to an extreme. It was just a lot to remember and blend together, and then figure out the main point. Was there a point though? A main message to take away? I didn't think so, really. I thought the acting was very good. (They all also spoke "British" not "English" so of course they sounded good to me.)
The last day I had with Carla was a short one because Carla had to go to her afternoon classes. She took me to a place called "The Breakfast Club" for a huge, hearty, greasy, yummy brunch! The place had really awesome decorations, in the spirit of the movie, and the 80s and 90s, and a great menu. It is located in Angel, a neighborhood filled with students. It's not cheap, so it's not the kind of place you can go to every day! But for me, it was one restaurant I didn't want to pass up. Everything was delicious. We hopped back on the bus for Carla's so she could get her books and head to class. I had to pack up my things! Thankfully, Carla said I could leave as much as I wanted in her place because I am coming back to London next week. So I packed up for a week in my backpack, shoulderbag, and purse (I'll be doing some laundry in the next few days for sure!), and left my big bag with most of my belongings staying in her apartment.
Glad I'll be returning to London in a few days to finish up any last London sightseeing business I need to take care of!
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