The lovely Alison was in town for work, and since she'd already travelled across an ocean, it was the least I could do to make the short trip to London from the Ox. London is only about 60 miles from Oxford, but the trip--with the slow pace of Oxford's streets (the medieval design is obviously not car-friendly), the many stops the bus made, and the London traffic--took about two and a half hours.
The bus dropped me off near the hotel, but since I was working off of a relatively small google map and its shoddy directions (the google directions have proved highly unreliable since I've been in the UK, and I keep ending up in crazy places), I wandered around for nearly an hour before finding my hotel, oh, three blocks from where I started. I made the climb to the fourth floor (I keep finding myself living at the top of lots of stairs, which I'm taking as a universal push to get in shape), and found my room:
Aww yeah. I liked that it was about the size of a closet and every thing was pretty basic...but they made sure there was a tea kettle and cup in the room because we are in the UK, after all.
Shortly thereafter I grabbed a cab to the West End, where I'd booked a last minute ticket to see Avenue Q. The cabbie was chatty and hilarious, telling me about how his grandfather had been hairdresser to the stars in the days of old hollywood glamour. But then when he started telling me all kinds of other stories about how he knows all these famous people who do him favo(u)rs all the time, I became a bit dubious about the validity of his stories. But really, who cares?
Anyway: Avenue Q. It struck me as strange to see an American show set in brooklyn while I was in London, but you know, whatev. I knew all the music already and had seen several of the numbers on youtube videos, but I had a great time singing along and seeing the little bits of the story that didn't make it onto the internet.
The only other thing I have to say about that experience was that some of the actors' faux-American accents were WEIRD. One guy in particular had some hybrid of texan-brooklyn-minnesotan strangeness going on that was pretty distracting (and unlike anything I've ever heard before), and it made me wonder if that's what he hears when he listens to Americans speak. It was just funny because I really hate bad british accents done by americans, but I'd never heard bad (BAD BAD) american accents done by brits. Good to know it works both ways.
Outside the Gielgud theatre.
The next day I had most of the day to wander around town until I was supposed to meet Alison at 5. So I had breakfast at a cafe just around the corner from my hotel, then meandered through Kensington gardens and Kensington palace until I reached the other side, around Albert Hall and the Royal Albert Memorial.
In the gardens near Kensington Palace...maybe waiting for Prince Harry, who sometimes hangs out there? But let's not kid, folks: his brother is way yummier.
Part of the Albert Memorial... it might be nice to be important enough that the world commemorates your life with gold statues.
I made my way to the Museum of Natural History, where I chilled with the dinos, then headed to the Victoria and Albert (there he is again) museum, where I checked out an exhibit on fashion over the past few centuries. Realizing that a) my feet hurt, b) I still had several hours until I was supposed to meet Alison and c) I hadn't had enough musical theatre (because really, can you ever?), I high tailed it back to the West End & got last minute tickets to Oliver, which served as the very british antidote to the previous evening's very american show.
You are so not supposed to take photos inside the theatre. Too bad.
More west end. Hey, mj.
Then it was off to Harrod's at long last. After what seemed like an eternity wandering around the behemoth that is that store, Alison and I found each other and had high tea. It was good food and tea, and so, so nice to see a someone from home.
Fancy china
High tea happiness
We polished off about half the food before we could be bothered to snap a photo.
Annnd that was about it. I didn't see big ben or the london eye or parliament or anything like that because a) obnoxious touristy things are definitely not as fun to do alone and b) I expect that I will have visitors (so book your effin tickets) who'll want to do those things with me in the coming months. Headed to London next weekend, actually, for the Reclaim the Night rally there, and I think we'll go down early to check out some of the markets, etc, beforehand.
That's it for now. I started this nearly an hour ago thinking I'd do a couple quick updates because I'm so far behind. So next time, I'll be shorter-winded. I'll leave you with a rather apt message from the folks at Oliver:
xx,
Amanda
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