Friday, May 25, 2007

A day on the river

Britney and I in front of Tower Bridge

Rachel and I in front of London Bridge, which is way boring. Plus people make stupid jokes about it falling down...


Wow! Busy couple of days!
After the AP interview, I went exploring London with a couple of roommates. I ended up running into Rachel and Britney, my two good friends on the trip, who yelled across Leister Square that they bought me a ticket to Les Miserables!!
The show was wonderful. Despite the nosebleed seats, there wasn’t a bad seat in the house. Brittney had never seen the show, so Rachel and I got to experience it with her, explaining who Valjean was and watching for her reaction at the ‘lovely ladies’. Between the three of us, there was always someone crying, the show was just incredible.
Today, we had an early morning tour of Fleet Street, the old newspaper capital of England and the UK. I’d expand, but no one would be interested I think. Even the people on the tour thought it was boring. I was the only one nodding and laughing when the tour guide made obscure literary references and showed us where the dailies and weeklies of the time held their offices. The group did like the pub, ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese’, where many literary greats spent their nights…and mornings. Everyone from Dickens, Conan Doyle, even Mark Twain got to knock back a few in the old pub. It’s halfway between my offices at the AP, Britney’s offices at CNBC, and Rachel’s offices at Retail Weekly. So we may have to meet there after work and pretend we are on the verge of writing the great American/British novel.
Then Rach and Brit and I went to the Tower of London. Well, we wanted to. When we got there, we realized we didn’t want to spend $36 to spend only a couple hours in such a huge castle, so we toured around the river Thames instead. We crossed the Tower Bridge, shopped in a river side gallery, got some gelato, and bought tickets to a show at The Globe. We waited for the show on the steps of St. Pauls cathedreal, where we held a competition: Each of us would wave to tour busses in turn, and whoever got the most people to wave back won. Rachel won, because someone gave her a fist-pump.
The Globe show, called In Extremis, was a modern play written about Shakespeare’s time. It was a wonderful examination of reason’s place in faith and religion. We again had nosebleed seats, but they ended up being an incredible view of the stage. Rachel and I really enjoyed the play, but Brittney said the seats were too wooden. Good point, that.

The River Thames

London's City Hall

The Globe Theatre's stage

2 comments:

TDT said...

Ye old Cheshire Cheese, eh? Love the note. Fun to hear of the internships by your 'mates.

TDT said...

Les Mis is simply my fav of all time. It is remarkable, especially with a Brit accent!!