London, that glorious, invigorating crush of humanity is now receding into the mists history for me.  Sally and I left the city at 1:30 this afternoon.  Between us, we had six bags of various weights and sizes, and Sally decided that the splurge of a taxi to the airport was worth avoiding the aggravation and sweat that we would have endured had we taken the Tube for the 90-minute ride that would also have included lugging our bags up and down stairs inside the subway.  She was so right!  Our stress-free ride  lasted 50 minutes and took us though a beautiful area of London with swanky homes and apartments called Marylebone that I had not explored.  So even my last few minutes of experiencing the city were filled with unexpected delights.

On Thursday, the first stop for Sally was (of course) Trafalgar Square where we took photos.  Then we joined my friend Alison at a showcase created especially for casting agents, directors, and producers that displayed the graduating class of actors from the Mountainview Academy of Theatre Arts.  We went to the Criterion, a West End theatre, and watched the student actors perform a hodgepodge of scenes from a variety of plays.  It is common for theatre schools to create this opportunity for their graduates to be seen by professionals.  I found most of the young actors quite talented, and it was so interesting to see excerpts from contemporary plays (mostly British) and get a window of observation into the caliber of acting student graduating in Britain.

We squeezed in about an hour at the National Portrait Gallery, and then I took Sally to one of my favorite hangouts, the National Gallery Cafe, for dinner.  This time I did not sit in the bar for a snack but indulged in a delicious dinner of chicken and pumpkin curry.  It was the best thing I ate in London.  Then to the National Theatre for my very last visit there.  This time we saw Nation, an adaptation of the fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett.  I had saved this one for Sally because the advertisements indicated that it had lots of great spectacle.  There were, in fact, several very interesting puppets that incorporated the puppeteers in a similar fashion to Julie Taymor’s Lion King designs.  A huge warthog was very fun and a 30-foot tall puppet that represented an island god descended from the flies at an awesome moment.  The premise of the story is that a Victorian English ship crashes on a fictional South Pacific island, and the native young man who becomes the leader establishes a relationship with the young English girl.  Sound familiar to those of you who know The Tempest? Of course they fall in love, but she actually chooses to go back home to England at the end.  Sally and I both found the story and themes too simplistic, and despite the fantastical elements or perhaps because of them, we were not drawn into the characters.  To be quite honest, Nation gets my Prize for the Production through Which I Slept the Most!

I must mention that we took my usual detour after the show to do a little grocery shopping at my neighborhood Marks and Spencer.  All month I would go by on my way home (circa 11:00 P.M.) when there was virtually no one in the store, and so I developed an acquaintance with the lone cashier who began to tease me about my affinity for “milk chocolate digestive biscuits.”  These were my only treat and selected specifically to satisfy my chocolate urge.  They are hard unsweetened cookies that have a thin layer of chocolate on one side.  I gravitated to them on my very first visit to the grocery simply because they were cheap!  A mere 78 pence a package!  Every few nights, my ritual was to stop off and buy a package.  So here I am with Sally, and Robbie is behind the counter as always, only this time he holds up a package of fancy “chocolate chip butter cookies” to tease me.  Busted!!! I had not planned to divulge to my very food conscious friend that I had been indulging in cookies all month!!  Anyway . . . Robbie was so sweet, and I so looked forward to having just a bit of conversation with him at the end of my long days alone.  A real pleasure to see a familiar face.

On Friday we took the Original London Bus Tour and from the open top of a double-decker bus (red, of course!), we saw the major sights of the city in a mere two hours!  We got off near the buildings of Parliament and strolled though a lovely park on the Thames that allowed us to take some spectacular photos of each other with the huge tower of Parliament looming in the background.  Then we ventured into one of the most remarkable churches of the Western world, Westminster Abbey.  This superb example of Gothic architecture is also a tribute to the great movers and shakers of British history.  Kings, queens, military leaders, artists et alia are buried there, accompanied by extravagant marble sarcophagi and memorials.  We spent a solid three hours roaming around the cathedral with the audio guide glued to our respective ears and learning all about the people who are honored there.  Sally especially liked the Poet’s Corner that is crammed with tributes to Great Britain’s greatest writers.  I found two different tombstones dedicated to two men by the name of Stanley!

We ate at a pub just down the road from the tower of Big Ben called the Red Lion, and Sally had her first (and only) fish and chips.  She didn’t like the mushy peas any more than I did!  Our theatre for that night was at the Barbican.  A Polish company renowned for its avant-garde work presented just a few performances of a play called 4.48 Psychosis. It was written by Sarah Kane, a Londoner who burst on the theatre scene in the 1990s and wrote five disturbing plays to huge acclaim before she committed suicide before the age of the 30.  This was her last play–a study in the deterioration of a woman’s psyche.  There were seven characters in the play, but it was dominated by the lead character.  The actor was so emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically intense that her performance was genuinely riveting.  In addition to this excellent performance we were treated to another opportunity of serendipity.  The director of the play came on stage afterward for a question-and-answer session.

Saturday morning we went to Westminster Pier expecting to take a boat ride on the Thames, but the tide was so high that the boats would not be able to safely clear the bridges!  Disappointed but not daunted, we took a walk along St. James’s Park to the Banqueting House, a superb example of Italian Renaissance architecture designed in the early 1600s by Inigo Jones.  This building was the sight of lavish court extravaganzas called masques, and it was very special for me to see the space because I teach my students about it and masques in theatre history classes.  It also has a enormous ceiling that is covered with paintings by Peter Paul Rubens.  It was from this building that Charles I stepped out onto the scaffold in 1649 to face his execution.  The place vibrates with history!!

Spent a couple of afternoon hours in the National Gallery, where we tried to stay on task and follow the museum map, which took us to highlight paintings from the collection by the likes of Manet, Monet, and all the major Impressionists, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Turner, Constable, and more!  We looked at a painting by John Constable for quite a while called The Hay Wagon. It depicts an idyllic landscape with endless rolling fields as the backdrop and the wagon in a river that dominates the foreground.  Sally and I discussed the little English Springer Spaniel barking on the riverbank and its uncanny resemblance to Ms. Scarlett!!  (Side note:  as we were in the apartment packing up to leave this morning, Sally says, “Look J., this print on the wall is that exact same picture we saw at the National Gallery!!  Who knew??)

We jumped on the Tube to visit my professor Sheila in her apartment near an area called Marble Arch.  We really enjoyed seeing inside a London abode.  We found it surprisingly spacious with really high ceilings and big airy rooms.  Her apartment is classic London, facing a lovely green square–just as I would like to live if I could retire there as Sheila has!  We had such fun visiting with Shelia, who recommended her neighborhood “gastro pub” (with its own French chef) to us for dinner.  (She was headed for a concert so couldn’t join us.)  The Duke of Wellington pub turned out to be a great find.  We had a leisurely dinner that was topped off by a plate of four different kinds of cheeses with various crackers and breads.  Delicious!

Sunday = my last visit to the local laundrette!  We went to the Barbican again, this time for an art installation that Sally had happened to hear about on her local NPR station in Bloomington!  How’s that for cosmic!  The French conceptual artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot had created a very large space that was inhabited by 50 zebra finches, both male and female.  The floor was covered with planks of wood like a boardwalk with islands in between filled with sand and sea grasses.  In the islands were music stands supporting electric guitars and cymbals.  The finches would fly freely all around the room and land on the guitars, inadvertently “plucking” them when they landed.  Thus their actions created a multitude of random yet melodious chords.  The finches were not remotely afraid of the people, who gingerly walked among them.  Mating season had begun by the time we viewed the installation, and the finches were busily pulling the sea grasses up and making nests all over the room, including on the tops of some guitars and thereby walking on their strings a lot!  It was such an ingenious concept, and we could feel the gentle delight experienced by every human in the room.

We then took a verrrrry long walk through many off-the-beaten-track neighborhoods of northeastern London.  It was very quiet on this Sunday with lots of shops closed, so we could window shop at our leisure.  We happened upon Smithfield Market, which had been a bustling public area for centuries.  It was a huge meat market as well as a site for executions!  We managed to arrive at the British Museum (the one place Sally had expressed that she would really like to see) just five minutes before it closed!  So we set off to find her other heart’s desire, Indian food.  We actually found a lovely restaurant just a few blocks from the apartment.  Our final meal in London was completed by a shared order of pistachio and almond ice cream.  Yum.  We stayed up desperately trying to cram all our clothes and gifts and brochures and postcards into our poorly insufficient luggage and didn’t get to sleep till the wee hours.

Since we were all packed and ready to rumble this morning, there was time left to return to the British Museum for a very absurdly quick tour of some of the its highlights.  I guided Sally to the three major sights:  the Egyptian mummies and their coffins covered with dazzling colors, the frieze of the Parthenon, and the Rosetta Stone.  Talk about a whirlwind tour!!

So this writing finds me in Petersborough, just about 30 miles northwest of Cambridge, for the night.  More adventures await, discovering another side of England that is worlds away from the bustle of London as Sally and I explore the English countryside for the next four days.  My mind and heart are reeling still with so many images and experiences this blog didn’t express, but I am satisfied that the spirit of these 29 unique days is captured between the lines.

Life in London changed dramatically today because I got a pal!!!  My old friend Sally Sturgeon arrived today to spend the rest of the trip with me.  So today was a “transition” day.  I took the Tube out to Heathrow and found Sally and brought her back to the humble abode.  She unpacked and napped and then we were out on the streets in the late afternoon.

We walked around the Leicester Square area just a bit and had a fun, cheap dinner in a little chain restaurant called Pizza Express.  It has gourmet pizzas along the line of California Pizza Kitchen.  I know what you’re thinking:   Sally’s first dinner in London and only my third to share with another human being here, and we choose a pizza chain?? This was because we were pressed for time because we were going to see the one and only SHIRLEY JONES, a Legend in Her Own Time, in concert at a little West End theatre.  I had gotten us seats on the first row, dead center, of the Dress Circle (aka mezzanine)–fabulous!!  For those who need to know, this is the Shirley Jones who starred in the film versions of Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The Music Man, among other films.  She still has her phenomenal crystal clear soprano and looks gorgeous!  She sang lots of songs from these films and a whole range of classics, including a version of “Send in the Clowns” that made me cry.

And . . . she came out into the theatre after the show to autograph CDs and photos.  I was so mesmerized by her charm that I had to buy one of each!!  We actually chatted for a few minutes, and Sally took our picture together!!!  She was so sweet and down to earth.  It was really a thrill for me.  Interestingly, this was the first time she has ever performed in London. We also learned that she will have her 76th birthday here on March 31, during the run of this show.

Then, after the show, we went (finally!) to my first pub, Sussex #20.  We just had drinks, but had to laugh at the cover of the menu that said in very large letters “Real British Pub Food”!

I have been remiss!  I seem to be running out of steam, i.e., when I drag my heels into my apartment after the theatre every night, I don’t seem to have the same energy as i did a week ago to stay up another couple of hours in order to write the blog.  So having gotten myself so far behind, I will try to practice brevity.  (Note the operative word “try.”)  Today was very eventful.  I met my new friend Pam (who also introduced me to the walking tour of Islington) at a little French bistro for lunch called Little Bay, and we had a fascinating conversation, much of it about her travels to such places as Finland to go dog sledding and the country of Bhutan, which is a neighbor of Tibet.  The restaurant was actually along our previous walking-tour route, but to get there I created my own walking tour and discovered another section of the city I had not seen before.  I passed Coram’s  Fields, which is a huge park for children.  Unaccompanied adults are not allowed in!  So I looked through the gates to witness parents and little childern playing on swings, etc., as well as a small heard of goats roaming about and one huge dark gray sheep!

After lunch, I walked for another couple of hours taking a different path to the heart of town.  I stepped into the Charles Dickens Museum, which had been his residence from 1837-1839.  He finished several books while living there in including Oliver Twist. Time was short, so I just perused the shop and saw a bunch of his original letters that were framed on the walls.  Interesting how, in all the letters I saw, he always signed his first and last name and with a very elaborate series of lines underneath!   In the road again, I looked into a gorgeous walled park about a block in size called Gray’s Inn Gardens that had a sign warning it was only open to the public for two hours a day.  It was surrounded by buildings with a gated entrance and a little guard house.  I stepped in to ask the guard what this was and learned that the building housed the offices of barristers and judges.  I also learned from this very chatty gentleman named Richard Jones that he had found two different letters written by Dickens that had literally appeared near his guard station.  He revealed that Dickens had had a law office nearby.  (A long story I shan’t go into with many more unanswered questions than I’ve indicated here!)  Most illuminating, Mr. Jones sang me a Christmas carol he had written before I was finally able to tear myself away.

There is a huge old theatre called the Palace, which sits majestically at an intersection called Cambridge Circus.  Currently, it houses the extravaganza Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which just won the Olivier Award last Sunday for Best New Musical.  (It will be blowing into New York next fall.)  There was a big crowd in front of the theatre and lots of flashes going off.  Odd at 5:00 in the afternoon.  So I dashed across the street to discover that four of the play’s chorus boys dolled up in their full drag costumes and humongous wigs were doling out cupcakes in little boxes to the crowd.  I got my cupcake, of course, and it was explained that today is the show’s first birthday on the West End!    The joys of traveling–you never know what’s around the next corner!

Then I met my friend Alison the casting director at her club, the headquarters of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.  It is a very prestigious organization of which she is a member.  The interior is very posh with huge gold masks all over the walls.  We watched a screening of a very funny new film called It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, by the same writer-directer who created Bend It Like Beckham. The story centers around the Indian community in West London, and it was so fun to see all the London backdrops that I recognized and some where I had actually been.  Then the director appeared on stage for a question-and-answer session afterward.  Alison and I then retired to the BAFTA restaurant to have a late dinner, and I finally experienced the ultimate staple of British food:  fish and chips and mushy peas.  Yes, you heard the last right.  Alison informed me that mushy peas are the traditional vegetable dish to accompany the famous fish and chips.  I am proud to say that I actually ate those peas!  A pretty shade of bright green, by the way!

Now a backtrack to Saturday.  It was a double-whammy theatre day.  I took the Tube to Stratford East, which is all the way out to the suburbs, to see a play called Two Women. It was performed at the Theatre Royal, built back in the late 1800s and completely surrounded today by modern glass and concrete buildings.  The play was based on a novel by a very popular British novelist and traced the story of two women who were in prison for killing their husbands.  It was somewhat clunky, with tons of scene changes and very plot driven, but it certainly kept my interest.  More exciting was being in that theatre building, which became internationally famous in the 1950s and 1960s because a visionary by the name of Joan Littlewood produced many very daring plays there.

After the show, I went into something called Stratford Center, which was directly across the road from the Tube station and which had crowds of people pouring in and out of it.  So I determined it was worth a look-see.  What I found was a huge suburban indoor mall,  just like the zillions across America except for one distinctive difference.  The big open center area was filled with stalls like a flea market.  Not that unusual, except that some of the stalls sold fresh produce and one was even filled with all kinds of raw fish!!!

Then back to the National Theatre once again for a fabulous piano player who performed the jazziest version of “Goin’ to Kansas City” that I’ve ever heard!  I saw a beautifully acted and designed production of a play called The White Guard, all about Russia  in revolution during 1918-1919.  It had three different sets, one of which rose from below while the previous set glided backwards.  And there were three live explosions onstage!  Big lighting and sound effects that made me jump out of my seat!  I had never seen that before in a theatre!

Sunday I cleaned up the apartment and watched a program about a British TV celebrity who kayaked over 2,000 miles down the Amazon River for a charity called Sport Relief.  I went online to learn more about it, which then revealed that she had only recently accomplished this record-breaking feat last January and February!  I spent the afternoon at the National Portrait Gallery, picking up where I left off.  So in four hours, I managed to see all the portraits representing British history from about 1650 to 1850.  There are still two more floors that I will not get to see this visit!  It is a marvelous place!  I learned so much about the kings and queens and how the crown transferred.  (This is why it takes so long, if one reads each and every plaque mounted next to each painting, which obviously I did.  I bet many of you are thinking, Ooooo I’ll never go to a museum with her!)  And there were so many portraits of famous actors and playwrights and scientists.  I saw Samuel Pepys, the man whose diary provided a remarkable insight into everyday life in London during the 1660s.  People are the makers of history, so what a way to experience the history of England.

Sunday night I spent watching the Olivier Awards live on my laptop being streamed via the internet.  These are comparable to our Tony Awards, given annually to theatre (and a few recognizing excellence in dance).  Interestingly, this was the very first time in history that the public had been allowed into the room.  Can you imagine?   In the U.S., we put every awards show in captivity on TV–with as many bells and whistles as humanly possible.  They are not nearly as interested in flashy theatrics here.  It was very interesting to me since many of the plays I had seen were nominated in different categories.

Monday I went to see the Guildhall, which has been the center of London city government for 900 years.  I wanted to see the Great Hall, which is a huge Gothic room built in the 15th century.  It is about four stories high with stone walls and a timber ceiling.  This room is used today for ceremonies and the monthly meeting of the Court of Common Council, which is made up of about 20 members representing their individual wards (i.e., districts) within the City of London (not the whole metropolis, just the old City Center).  So there is NO ONE in this huge room but me, then two ladies and a man come in.  One of the ladies (wearing marvelous red glasses) is clearly in the know and telling the other lady about the room’s uses and all the fantastic sculptures, etc.  So I start edging closer so I can hear her and before long she is just throwing me a glance now and then, and then I venture to ask questions and she answers and we’re off and running!  I learned all kinds of cool stuff from her.  Her name is Vivienne Littlechild, and she represents the people of the Ward of Cripplegate.  I found her on the City of London website and wrote her an e-mail to thank her, and she even wrote me back!  What a lovely lady!

I then spent over an hour in the Guildhall Art Gallery, which had tons of fabulous painting of London through the ages.  I loved seeing the evolution of the skyline and how the ships in the Thames changed and the streets and every little thing.

A few blocks away was the Museum of London!  Again, I engrossed myself in history.  The earliest displays had artifacts from prehistoric times, then sculpture, pottery, glass, tombs (I!) from Roman Londinium, and then Medieval London.  My favorite thing was a display of several pairs of leather shoes from the Middle Ages with the pointiest toes you’ve ever seen!  The population of London during the Black Death (1346-1350) was about 80,000 (the size of Williamsport and vicinity), and more than half the population died.  Really hard to wrap your head around.  As usual, I didn’t have enough time, so only got to the 1600s when the museum closed.

Oh!  Minor revelation!  When the area designated for the Guildhall Art Gallery was being excavated next to the original Guildhall in the late 1980s, archeologists discovered the stone foundations of a Roman amphitheater built in the first century A.D.!   All of the foundations found still intact can be seen in the basement of the new building.  What a find for those archeologists as well as for me!

Monday night I saw Enron, yet another play documenting the corruption of the corporate world.  It is the story of how the company deluded its employees and stockholders and the rest of the world.  Sounds like pretty straightforward drama, but the director added many ingenious ideas that made the play very entertaining and, yes, energized. There was a chorus of Enron employees who sang and danced in between scenes and lots of innovative staging.  The show opens in New York next month, but I wanted to see the original cast rather than wait.  By the way, the director just received the Olivier Award for Best Direction.  He definitely deserved it; the show was a feast for the eyes and ears, although I don’t think the play itself is that strong.  It will be interesting to see how American audiences take to it.

I will start with today, because it was filled with so many unexpected surprises.  I spent the entire afternoon at St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was completed in 1708 by that marvel of an architect Sir Christopher Wren.  I believe it is one of the three largest (Christian) domes in the world, the two others being St. Peter’s in Rome and the cathedral in Seville.  (Both of which I have seen . . . not to brag or anything!)  I had been inside the church in 1987, but did not remember the mosaics that cover half of the ceiling.  The pieces of glass were placed at an angles so that they would reflect the light better, and they literally sparkle!

After walking all around the church and admiring the gorgeous sculpture and wood work and the glory of its design, I climbed the 257 steps that took me to what is called the “Whispering Gallery.”  This allows you to walk all around the base of the central dome and observe the minute people below on the floor of the cathedral.  Then came the best of all.  I climbed another 119 steps up a very narrow flight of stone stairs to the “Stone Gallery,” which is outside the church and almost at the top of the inner dome.  But that’s not all.  THEN one can climb another 152 steps up a (very narrow) wrought-iron spiral staircase to the “Golden Gallery,” anther outside vantage point that is at the top of the outer dome.  It is 85 metres from the cathedral floor.  I have no idea how much that is in feet, but there may be somebody out here who cares enough to find out!  It was frickin’ far to the street below, I can tell you that!

It was a very gray and windy day, maybe not the best for this kind of thing, but on the other hand, typically London.  The views were spectacular!  I could see up and down the Thames–the highlight was a fabulous view of Shakespeare’s Globe and the Tate Modern right across the river.  Despite the ferocious wind, I stayed up on the two outer galleries about an hour and still didn’t want to leave.  It was a 360-degree view!  I had no recollection about being able to go up to these viewing areas, so it was a special thrill to discover them.

I also roamed around the crypt to see the all the monuments and burial sites of the rich and famous, especially the sarcophagi of Admiral Nelson and the Duke of Wellington.  There were lots of military men but also an entire room of painters and writers, including William Blake.  I should add that the only woman I saw honored was Florence Nightingale.  There is a little chapel in the crypt, and I happened upon a small group of people rehearsing their wedding ceremony, which, according to what I overheard, will take place tomorrow.  I had tea and a scone in the cafe and then went outside to take some photos of the front facade of the cathedral in order to document where I had been on the outer dome.  And what do I discover but a bride and groom (in full regalia–long white dress and train for her and silver tuxedo for him!) who are having their picture taken on the steps.  I jumped right in and took their picture, too!

By the time I came outside, it was raining.  That classic London drizzle, definitely enough to warrant getting out your umbrella.  I decided to walk back to the theatre district, so I took Fleet Street (no sign of Sweeney Todd), and it was bustling with lots of traffic and people cramming the sidewalks since it was 5:30 on a Friday afternoon.  I spotted what looked like a medieval church and people coming out of it, so I crossed the street to investigate.  (I love exploring churches because the architecture is undoubtedly interesting, and usually by 5:00, most churches are locked. )  Well, I unknowingly entered the Romanian Orthodox Church of London, and they were in the midst of a prayer service.  I stood at the back for about 20 minutes, and watched people moving all around the church, going to several different points where they would purchase a piece of paper and one or a few long, thin candles.  All the while a few young men grouped at a microphone were singing  a very haunting melody in Romanian, I presume.  Every few minutes, a few people would go up to the small alter with their lighted candle(s) and piece of paper and hand it to the priest.  He would blow out the candle, appear to read the paper, and then lay both paper and candles down on the tiny alter.  This ritual repeated several times before I finally left.  I waited outside until a young couple came out, and I asked them the significance of the paper and candles.  The young man explained (in a very heavy accent) that the paper had a list of names, living and dead, for whom the person wanted to pray.  When the priest was handed each person’s piece of paper, he would read all the names as his prayer for each of the people remembered.  It was so beautiful.  I felt like I had stepped into a different world for those precious minutes.

I arrived at the London Coliseum, which is a huge theatre devoted mostly to opera, to see Philip Glass’s three-hour sage on the early years of Mahatma Ghandi called Satyagraha. The theatre was enormous (at least 2,000 seats and three balconies), and the walls and ceiling were covered with carving and sculpture.  All white with gold trim!  It was one of the most ornate theatres I have ever seen.  In an entirely different way, both the theatre and the performance were spectacular.  The proscenium is about three stories high, and the set was equally as high.  It formed a huge curved wall at the back of the stage that looked like it was made of corrugated metal.  The stage floor was raked and covered with spread-out newspapers that appeared to be varnished on top.  This “wall” backdrop broke apart and moved during the course of the performance, and huge sections of it would fly out, leaving shadow-boxes where actors would appear doing a variety of things.  There were also huge puppets (I would guess about 30 feet tall!) that appeared to be made of paper mache and then covered with newsprint.  The music was mesmerizing, and the voices (the cast had at least 75 people) were stellar.  It took me a little while to realize that no microphones were used!  The actor playing Ghandi had one of the purest tenor voices I have ever heard.  I was truly wowed.  (P.S.  “Satyagraha” is a word Ghandi coined to mean nonviolence, literally “truth force.”)

I spent Wednesday back in the area called Islington.  I wanted to experience a London tradition that is unfortunately fading called “lunchtime theatre.”  I went to a space above a pub to see a play called The Condor and the Maiden, performed by a company of young people who were just beginning their career.  The stage was about the size of our living room in PA (no, a little smaller)!  The play left a lot to be desired:  about a woman and her daughter trying to live off the land in Bolivia while her brother-in-law tries to steal it from her.  Some good performances and some bad.  Afterward, I walked all around the main street and window shopped.  I found a lovely church garden that actually had crocuses popping up and sat on a bench and read the newspaper!

Took the Tube to an entirely new area to see the premiere of a Royal Shakespeare Company production called The Gods Weep, starring Jeremy Irons.  The play was based on King Lear but with a very contemporary twist.  Irons plays a corporate mogul who decides to split the running of his company between two of his executives.  They turn on each other and create a (literally) all-out war.  It made me wonder that since religion and politics have been the primary causes of war, why NOT corporate greed?  The set was a huge building facade (again, two-plus stories high) with a full-scale tree.  Suffice it to say, there were some ingenious solutions to create a variety of locations with this one stationary set.  It even rained for one scene!  I wanted Irons and everybody else to be more energized, to fill this space that was so vast.  The acting was very good, but everyone seemed too small.  Maybe they all needed to be projected onto a movie screen on the back of the set!  The director needed to tell them that they were doing theatre, not film.

Thursday I had to do laundry–a necessary but nevertheless waste of valuable time.  Managed to see two more rooms in the National Portrait Gallery.  I am taking things chronologically, so following my investigation of the Tudors last week, I embarked on the eras of James I and Charles I and II.  This is how the museum is arranged, and I really am loving this idea of tracing the history of England through portraits!

I actually had a real dinner last night with a real person.  I met up with an old professor from my Indiana University days who now lives in London.  We had not seen each other in almost 20 years!  It was a great meal with lots of catching up, as you can imagine.  We then parted and I went to see Serenading Louie at the Donmar Warehouse.  This was also a relatively small space.  The play follows the intertwining lives of two 30-something couples in the mid-1970s.  The playwright’s conceit is that the same exact set serves as the living room for both couples.  Shifting from one couple’s house to the other was very cleverly done (kudos to the playwright, Lanford Wilson, who I’m sure gives guidance in his stage directions).  It is otherwise very realistic in terms of the acting and regarding the themes of infidelity and identity crises.  The two men were excellent; sadly, I thought the two women were weak.  The style of the dialogue is also realistic:  conversations overlapping and unfinished sentences, etc.  The men made the dialogue seem entirely natural while the women were flat.  They had no musicality in their voices and so the language sounded self-conscious, stilted.  Overall, a very captivating production but unsatisfying.

Monday and today were absolutely gorgeous!  Crisp and blue skies all day.  Monday was errand day to purchase theatre tickets for some upcoming shows, so I walked all around the Covent Garden area and stopped in at some box offices.  Did some window shopping in the neighborhood and ended up at St. Paul’s Church in Covent Garden.  The church was designed by Inigo Jones, who was a famous scenic designer in his day (partially during Shakespeare’s time and after), and since this neighborhood also housed several theatres, when the building was constructed, St. Paul’s Church became known as the patron church for people who worked in the theatre.  The church is filled with plaques and marble monuments that have been erected in honor of theatre people, both famous and obscure.  It was really interesting to walk around the church and read all the tributes that have been erected along the walls.  I also met the resident church cat who sidled up to me for a butt scratch.

I then walked along Strand Street, a very busy and famous boulevard, to the Courtauld Institute and Gallery.  When Samuel Courtauld became the head of his family’s textile business in 1921, he began spending money on collecting art, particularly the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.  His collection is one of the most prestigious private collections in the world.  It was especially exciting to see his two greatest treasures,  Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergere and Renoir’s La Loge. If the titles don’t mean anything to you, I challenge you to Google them!  I promise you will recognize the images!  There was also a whole room full of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens.  The icing on the cake was a special exhibit of what are considered Michelangelo’s greatest drawings.  It was a lovely few hours being engrossed in these artworks.

Took the Tube across the Thames to my favorite twilight hangout, the National Theatre, for their music hour.  Brazilian music again, but by a trio of men this time.  Great stuff!  Then I went to one of London’s most prestigious theatres, the Old Vic, to see an American play called Six Degrees of Separation. It’s about a young con man who maneuvers his way into the lives of several Upper East Side New Yorkers.  Very interesting staging yet again, with a living room that consisted of only a sofa and coffee table, but it was on a revolve that was shifted around to create many different  visual looks.  Unfortunately the lead actor was absent and I saw her understudy, whom I thought did fairly well until she just couldn’t reach her character’s emotional climax.  It was nice to hear American accents, although a few of the actors needed articulation lessons!

I have not been very lucky with my shopping!  London is so unbelievably expensive, and my excursions today were no exception in the luck department.  My guidebook told me about a store called Contemporary Applied Arts, with everything made by British artists.  Well, it was a veritable art gallery!  Gorgeous jewelry and ceramics and cloth goods, but nothing I could afford!!  This led me to discover an adorable, quiet avenue called Charlotte Street that was lined with a zillion different kinds of restaurants.  I decided to walk down Charing Cross Road after that and snooped around a section of the street that is dedicated to the city’s best bookstores.  I spent an hour wandering around Foyles Book Shop, which is the largest in London–five floors and 200,000 different books!  They had more plays than anywhere I have ever been except for the Drama Book Shop in New York City!

Then back to my other favorite haunt, the National Gallery Cafe, where I sat in the bar and had a glass of wine with hummus and flatbread.  It was quiet, being a Tuesday night, so I could just hang by myself for an hour and read the latest version of  Time Out magazine to see what plays I am going to cram into my few available remaining time slots!

I took a stroll through Trafalgar Square on my way to the theatre.  Tonight’s fare was called The Fever Chart, another play written by an American.  It is a trio of short plays:  one set in Israel, one in Palestine, and one in Iraq.  They were  performed in a tiny theatre of about 100 seats, and all three were very moving.    The last piece was a monologue by a young man who had raised morning doves and pigeons with care and dedication.  He talked about how much he loved them and what they meant to him as a young boy growing up . . . and then how he was forced to sell them during the Gulf War to make some money because times were so hard.  He sold them to neighbors who were desperate for something to eat, and then he asked for the birds’ bones, which he would boil to clean and preserve them.  In the final moments of the play, he brought on a bucket that was filled with the bones of all his beloved pigeons.  He gestured as if to toss the bones out of the bucket, but instead of bones, white feathers cascaded all over the stage.  Ahhhh!  The actor was so tender, it was easy to feel for him.  It is always such a dynamic experience for me when I am so physically close to the actors.  I love tiny theatres!

A bit if backtracking is due.  Friday saw a few scattered rain showers across London–my first since my arrival, so I wasn’t at all bitter about whipping out my new navy-blue Tote umbrella purchased especially for the occasion!  My neighborhood of choice for this day was Kensington, a “rich” neighborhood that is home to the famous department store, Harrod’s.  (A moment of reminiscing is in order.  On my very first trip to London in 1987, my mother and I went to Harrod’s, and I distinctly remember my biggest splurge of the entire trip:  a pair of red suede penny loafers!  I went to the shoe department just to see if they might have a 21st-century pair for me to consider, but so such luck.)  My cruise through Harrod’s was relatively short.  Within just a few minutes, I discovered a phenomenon called the “Harrod’s Arcade,” which consisted of several rooms jam packed with British paraphernalia of all sorts–pens, scarves, tins of tea, magnets, keychains, beanie babies, on and on–all of which were crowned by the imprint “Harrod’s.”  Every room was equally jam packed with people!  I decided to pass on purchasing any of it, but if someone out there is desperate for Harrod’s memorabilia, you’d better get your order in quickly!

Harrod’s was en route to my main mission, the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is dedicated to the decorative arts and a little bit of everything else.  I first headed for several rooms dedicated to “Theatre and Performance.”  There was a plethora of interesting artifacts, including the original document from 1662, which granted Thomas Killigrew one of two official patents, this one to operate the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.  This may not be too exciting to most of you, but this is an enormously important document in the history of the theatre!  After 40 years of theatres being closed by the Puritans, Charles II re-instituted the legitimacy of the theatre–and made it legal in this document for women to appear on the English stage!  Go Charlie.

Then I wandered through a huge hall filled with British silver from the Tudor era to the nineteenth century.  Most fascinating were toiletries for the rich–men’s traveling kits filled with razors and lots of gizmos and women’s versions of the same.  My favorite tool was an “ear scoop,” found in the collections of both sexes, which I gathered was for cleaning out ear wax!  There were also dozens of display cases filled with table settings and gigantic tureens and candelabras.  Did you know that the fork wasn’t introduced to England  until the 1660s?  (Thank you, France.)  Another several rooms were filled with jewelry.  I especially admired a huge hammered gold collar from Ireland (looking very Egyptian) circa 800 B.C.  I wandered though rooms and rooms of 17th-19th-century European sculpture and another with Buddhas from Southeastern Asia.  Lastly, I cruised the area devoted to fashion.  I learned that to celebrate Queen Victoria’s 50th Jubilee, novelty bustles were made that hid little music boxes that played “God Save the Queen” every time one sat down.  Don’t get the wrong impression that my observations covered the entire museum; I would guestimate that I saw about one-tenth of the whole collection!

Friday night marked a highlight experience.  I went to the Royal Albert Hall, which is a huge round structure built for concerts (it felt like the size of a football field), where I saw the remarkable Spanish flamenco dancer, Sara Baras.  On Friday at about 2:00 A.M. right before going to bed, I had the inspiration to perhaps see an event in the Royal Albert Hall just because I wanted to experience the building.  So I went online to its website, and what immediately splashed across the page was the advertisement for Sara Baras, performing that very night!  I practically fell off the chair I was so excited!  Last May in Madrid, my friend Sandy and I saw Baras perform a flamenco version of Bizet’s opera, Carmen. It was the most thrilling theatrical experience I have ever had.   Baras is a huge celebrity in Spain and has danced all over the world, including the U.S.  At the Royal Albert Hall, she performed a compilation of dances from her repertoire.  I was soooo lucky to be seated with no one in front of me, about 50 feet from the stage, so I had an excellent view.  I had my binoculars (thanks Mom!), and with their assistance, I could see the sweat on her brow and the fire in her eyes.  She is so emotionally intense to watch;  she is one of the best actors I have ever seen, not to mention her grace and those feet that move so fast they are literally a blur.  It was a WOW experience!

Saturday morning I went on a walking tour of the borough called Islington in northeast London, thanks to my new-found friend Pam, who invited me.  David, our guide, concocted his tour around the subjects “Visionaries, Dissenters, and Rebels.”  He took about 15 of us all through this neighborhood and told tales about many people who had lived in the area, including Lenin and Thomas Paine.  It was cool to actually see the buildings where these vary famous movers and shakers had lived.  The tour lasted three whole hours, although it felt like half of that.

Immediately afterward, I walked through the heart of Islington, a long street crammed with shops and restaurants, to the Almeida Theatre, where I saw a matinee of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Two famous young English actors played the leads, and despite all its good reviews, I didn’t like their character interpretations.  My biggest praise went to the set design.  It was a very small theatre (maybe 200 seats) and a small stage to match.  There were two wall sections that  rotated right before our eyes and transformed the space from an interior (the Duke’s office) to stone walls that became exterior building facades and a jail cell and lots of other locales.  Everything was on a revolving stage and used hydraulics to magically (and silently) shift.  It was quite impressive!

Last night I went to St. Martin in the Fields, a very old Anglican church right on Trafalgar Square, to hear a concert.  There were pieces by Bach and Vivaldi, but they all led up to the pinnacle of the evening, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. It was performed by about 15 violinists and three cellists.  The young woman who played the solo violin parts was astonishing.  And needless to say, there was something very special about hearing that glorious music ring through such a reverent building.

Today I had expected to spend my afternoon at the Courtauld Gallery that has some very famous Impressionist paintings, but instead was reminded of the  value of spontaneity!  As I was walking south of Leicester Square on my way to the gallery, I saw four young men in front of me all dressed in bright green costumes.  I stopped them and asked to take their picture, and then the (mental) light bulb flashed.  I asked, “Is today the Saint Patrick’s Day parade?”  Indeed it was!  So I followed them instead to Trafalgar Square, which was teeming with at least a thousand people and a big stage set up for Irish musicians to play nonstop.  I bought myself an Irish cider and sat on the edge of one of the fountains people watching, then around 1:00 P.M. the parade passed along the southern edge of the Square.  I was several people back in the crowd, so it was a bit hard to see, but I was still excited to be in the historical moment (ha!).  (Compared to Mardi Gras, this was a very tame parade.  No throwing of trinkets of any kind and therefore a relatively quiet crowd, although the Irish music coming live from several floats and especially the bagpipe band were great.)

After the parade, I popped inside the National Gallery once again.  I had 45 minutes to do something with myself, so I tackled two more rooms of the National Gallery.  I am so appreciative that these national museums are FREE, which means I can go for small doses when I have time to spare.  I saw three rooms of paintings by Titian and his contemporaries, including a huge painting by Titian, a new acquisition purchased in 2009.  At today’s prices, I wondered how many millions of pounds that painting cost!

I went to a matinee of Waiting for Godot, arguably the most important play of the 20th century.  It starred Sir Ian McKellen and Roger Rees, two stalwarts of British theatre and film.  The performances were, of course, excellent, and I loved the set, which looked like the stage of a bombed-out theatre building all done in shades of gray.  And despite the fact that the largest, tallest man I have ever sat behind was immediately in front of me and I had to crane my neck one way and then the other to see around his gargantuan hulk, the play was so good that he only dampened my spirits just a little!  (Actually, he dozed a lot through the first act, and so his head would droop and I could momentarily see over it!  Unfortunately, he was alert throughout the second act.)

Most theatres are dark on Sunday nights, so I came home early tonight with a detour to the grocery store for what has become my standard fare:  bread, apples, and cheese.  Oh, I actually branched out tonight and got a bunch of bananas and a small bag of raw vegetables for those of you worried about my health!  I watched a wonderful program about Victoria and Albert and another called “The Seven Stages of Britain,” this one focusing on “The Age of Empire.”  Gotta love the BBC!  I also watched an episode of the latter program last Sunday night.  It gives me an odd thrill to learn more about Britain on the telly while I am actually HERE!!  (Reminded me that I spoke to an Irishman in Trafalgar Square today who told me how much he loved listening to NPR via his computer, and especially “Fresh Air”!   That one’s for you, Susan!)

At this moment, I am eating an English butter biscuit with a slice of Devon cheddar cheese on it!  The cheese came from my neighborhood grocery store, but the biscuits were purchased this afternoon at Fortnum & Mason, the oldest grocery store in town. ( “Piccadilly since 1707″ is printed everywhere beneath the name.)  I might add that it is the swankiest grocery store I have ever been in.  The entire first floor was filled with nothing but chocolates–mostly for Easter.  Oh, yes, and they also had a huge counter with giant tubs of loose teas from all over the world.  The fresh produce was on the lower level, along with rows and rows of fine wines.  I saw a bottle of champagne in a velvet-lined box including two glasses . . . you know, for a quick little picnic on the green.  And the people shopping there were all dressed to the nines!  I bought the biscuits because they were on sale and the cheapest thing I could find– a real steal at L1.25 for a small box–as opposed to a plain chocolate bar that went for L5!  This was yet another happened-upon adventure.  I was walking down Piccadilly, which is a main east-west boulevard, and stopped  to look because the Fortnum & Mason window displays were so fantastic!  They were all in the style of a perfect 1950s kitchen, except that in each window was a GIANT appliance–a big red mixer about 10 feet tall!!  I asked a man who was going in, “What store is this?”  His immediate reply, “Why, Fortnum & Mason, the oldest grocery in London!”  His jaunty air told me I must go in!

I was walking down Piccadilly this afternoon because I had just finished having lunch with an old family friend of my parents, Michael Chard, and his daughter Alison.  Mr. Chard invited me to lunch at his “club,” better known as the Royal Automobile Club, which was founded at the end of the 19th century and is the epitome of the British upper crust.  There was a bar and restaurant and indoor swimming pool and ho knows what else.  The building was four stories high with all kinds of other spaces I couldn’t see.  This is the kind of place where all the staff called Mr. Chard by name, and they put your napkin on your lap for you after you sit down.  The dining room was about four stories high and had murals of angels painted all over the ceiling!  Needless to say, I had a lovely time and my best meal in London thus far!

Tonight I went to the Barbican Center, which is a huge arts complex built in the early 1980s, to see a concert by the London Symphony Orchestra.  It was conducted by the American composer John Adams, and I went because he was conducting the European premiere of his own work called City Noir. But first I was treated to  works by Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky.  I had never heard any of these particular pieces before, and they were all fantastic.  The concert hall is huge (maybe more than 2,000 seats) and everything is wood–the backdrop of the gigantic stage and the ceiling and the whole shebang–so the acoustics were superb.  But the best was truly saved till last.  City Noir is an homage to Los Angeles in the 1940s and 1950s.  The music was often clashing and dark and scary and at other times plaintive and quiet.  It was 25 minutes of ecstasy with nothing but the roaring music filling my consciousness.  My first thought after it ended was, “That was thrilling!!”

Ah . . . and what of yesterday?  I got a late start because I spent the early part of the day writing e-mails to my designers discussing Parallel Lives, which I will be directing at the end of April.  So I went to the National Gallery because I thought it was supposed to be open late on Wednesdays.  Alas, my guidebook was wrong, so I only had a little over an hour.  I went to the wing with all their oldest paintings–from roughly 1350 through 1500.  Lots of early Christian altarpieces and more images of Mary and Jesus than you can shake a stick at!  Still, it is fascinating to witness the evolution of the flat, cardboard-like lifeless figures as they transform into distinctive personalities as the aesthetics of painting changed and became more sophisticated.  The highlight was a painting by Botticelli (of The Birth of Venus fame), which was called Venus and Mars. It was a rather erotic composition with them lying beside each other.  The little plaque next to the painting wrote that Venus (goddess of beauty and love) had “vanquished” Mars, god of war.  Ha!

When they threw me out of the museum, I took some twilight photos in Trafalgar Square and then went to the National Cafe–to the same bar I had been a few days before.  I was writing in my journal and overheard the young couple at the table next to me planning rehearsals for two Shakespeare plays they were working on!  As they were preparing to leave, I told them my two-minute spiel and asked for recommendations of Fringe plays to see.  They gave me several good recommendations!  The young man was disappointed that I wouldn’t be here long enough to see their plays.  I was too.

Last night I went to see my first major disappointment.  The play was called War Horse. It originated at the National Theatre in 2007 and was so popular that they moved it to a West End (commercial) theatre where it has been playing ever since.  The hype of all the critics’ quotes had me very excited.  The play is set during World War I, and the basic premise is that a young man’s beloved horse, Joey, is sold to the British government to be a cavalry horse in the war.  The story follows Joey’s adventures, first in the British army, and then by a twist of fate in the German army.  Young Albert, his owner, enlists to find Joey, and at the end (of course!), human and horse are miraculously reunited.  The theatrical centerpiece is the fact that Joey is a life-size puppet that is manipulated by three different puppeteers, and his movements are remarkably life-like.  And they made horse noises for him, too, so that was really cool.  (There were also several other life-size horses in the play.)  However, it was one of the slooooowest plays I have ever experienced.  Every scene went on for ten more minutes than it needed to, and every scene had the same tempo.  I was so bored I spent quite a bit of time looking around at the audience!  And so I experienced so much emotional distance from what was happening on stage that by the time Joey and Albert finally came together, I didn’t care!!!  Lots of people stood up and cheered at the end, which really amazed me.  I’m the mushiest person I know; I should have been crying with the rest of them!  But this show was proof of how a director can ruin a production.  A prime example of directorial self-indulgence!  (Actually, I think the playwright should share in that award!)

Let me begin with yesterday.  I took the Tube to the venerable museum called Tate Britain, which is dedicated to works by British artists from 1500 to the present.  I thought I would spend the entire afternoon there because I wanted to see the general collection as well as a special exhibit that was a retrospective of the 20th-century sculptor Henry Moore.  I have loved his work since I first saw a bunch of his huge reclining figures at the Art Museum of Toronto in the early 1980s.  So I get there and the exhibit of Moore’s work really is wonderful.  Thank goodness, because the rest of the museum was closed because there was a STRIKE going on!!  (I thought that only happened in Italy!)

As I was leaving the museum, I heard a voice saying, “Well, hello there!” to me.  I was taken aback to think I would know someone, and looked into the face of a woman who looked vaguely familiar.  She said, “You don’t remember me, do you?”  And I said, “Yeeeeees,” drawing out the word because my mind was whirling and I was trying to but a few extra seconds in order to place her, “you sat next to me at the theatre.”  Indeed, I had had a nice conversation with her during intermission of the play Really Old, Like Forty Five that I had seen the week before.  She and the lady on the other side of me had talked about Alzheimer’s and the National Health Service and the absurdity of the present system in the U.S.  Anyway, I chatted with her (whose name is Sherry) and her friend (Pam) for a few minutes and then they went on their way.  It took me several minutes to realize I had missed an excellent opporotunity to make some new British friends!  I was so mad at myself!  Lo and behold, I caught up with Pam on the Tube (Sherry had taken the bus), and I mustered up the nerve to say, “I’m desperate for human contact.  Maybe we could have dinner while I’m here?”  Pam and I have since communicated by e-mail and I hope to have an outing with her and Sherry!  Will keep you posted.

I went back to the heart of the city, Trafalgar Square, and was heading south to my evening theatre venue, when I saw a sign, “The National Cafe.”  This was connected to the National Gallery, which is a magnificent building facing the Square.  It was that nebulous time in the early evening when I don’t know what to do with myself.  Once again applauding my spontaneity, I went in and sat at the bar and had a Mojito!!  The server brought me three little crackers with chopped tomatoes as a little complimentary snack.  I was in heaven!  Went to see Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker at a small theatre south of Trafalgar Square.  It was excellent!  A very strange play about two very strange brothers who take a drifter into their squalid flat.  Lots of unresolved mysteries about the characters and their relationships.  The drifter was played by Jonathan Pryce, a very well known British actor whom I had seen here in London in 1990 in Miss Saigon! How’s that for history repeating itself?  BTW, I saw him in the same theatre where I watched Oliver! a few days ago!

Today I went to Pollock’s Toy Museum, which is crammed into a tiny house with a little winding staircase.  Eevery square inch of wall up the staircase was crammed with glass cases filled with board games and dolls.  There were five tiny rooms, again jammed with tin toys, teddy bears, dolls, trains, wooden toys, puppets, you name it.  It looked as if nothing in any of the cases had been touched for decades!!!  The highlight–and the reason I went–was a huge display of paper toy theatres from the 19th century.  They were designed by Mr. Pollack and sold in sheets, with printed stage faces, scenery, and actors.  Children would cut everything out and glue it all together to create a three-dimensional stage.  The package would include an abbreviated script so the children could act out the play!!  At the museum, there must have been a few dozen of these original toy theatre assembled.  Very fun!!

I then washed my clothes at a “laundrette”  later in the afternoon.  A very kind gentleman from Cornwall explained to me how to use the “pay point,” which was a bunch of slots and key pad built into the wall where you actually pay and turn on the machines.  For those of you who haven’t had to do this in too many years, in the States, one actually puts the money into each individual washing machine.

Tonight’s play was waaaaay out in the suburbs.  It took me an hour on the Tube to get there!  The play, called The Dead School, was by an Irish company and followed the parallel lives of two teachers at a boys’ Catholic school–one conservative and the other more free thinking.  The play actually told their whole lives up to joining the faculty.  Three actors played about a dozen parts each, in addition to the two main actors who performed as the teachers.  It was like a mini-epic told on a very tiny stage.  I was amazed at the ingenuity of how that stage became dozens of different locations with just simple changes and moving props around.  I actually got some great ideas to steal for use in the production of Parallel Lives I will be directing in April!

Just a little piece of history for you:  I have the BBC news on TV and just heard that tonight was the premiere of Love Never Dies, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new sequel to his Phantom of the Opera. I’m sure it is on its way to Broadway, but still, I was here first!  I have no desire to see the play; I thought it was enough to walk by the theatre a few days ago and see the marquee.  But I still think it worth noting some phenomenal stats the BBC just offered about Phantom. It has been seen by over 100 million people, has been translated into 15 languages, and has won over 50 awards.  Wow!  Hard act to follow!  Good luck Andrew!  I’d like to know what a young man (maybe in his early 20s?) who was interviewed on the telly thinks about the sequel.  He didn’t offer his opinion on the air, but he did reveal that he had seen Phantom 134 times in four different countries.  We all know I believe in the power of the theatre to change the world, but that’s just absurd.  He needs to get a life.

OMG, my first day without theatre in it!  That’s because Sunday is the “dark” day for most theatres in London.  So I decided to do a little shopping.  Another gorgeous, brisk sunny day, although once again the temps were in the low 30s with way too much wind!  I decided to walk down Regent Street, which is a very wide, busy boulevard lined with all the hoity toity stores.  I actually chose this area because I wanted to go to Liberty.  It’s one of London’s premiere department stores.  Originally famous for manufacturing fabrics with all kinds of interesting prints (think William Morris), Liberty now puts its fabrics on everything imaginable, from furniture to scarves to journal covers to wallets.  But the store also sells everything else you can imagine.  What I didn’t know until I arrived is that everything is absurdly expensive!  A scarf for 135 pounds.  A single plate for 40 pounds.  My favorite thing was a purse made out of snake skin that had been dyed a gorgeous shade of sage green.  It was 2,000 pounds!!  (Remember, one pound = about $1.60.)  The store is built in a classic Tudor design, with a huge center atrium and dark wood everywhere.  It’s four stories high, and I wandered around the place for about 90 minutes.  There was so much to oggle over!  Amazingly, I found three small gifts to buy and only spent 20 pounds total!  It took a lot of work to find three things that were cheap!  I was very proud of myself for my frugality.  Ha!

Then I continued down Regent Street and out of nowhere heard the sounds of a band.  Coming up a side street was a band composed of about 40 people, and they marched right onto the verrry trafficky Regent Street as if they owned it!  Cars just stopped and let them take over the street.  I was amazed.  All dressed in plain navy-blue suits, both men and women, playing all different kinds of horns.  Then I looked at their hats; the band around every hat said, “The Salvation Army.”  How British is that??  I wondered if this is a ritual they do every Sunday?  There were no converts following them, however!

After a while I saw a sign that had an arrow pointing down a side street and said “Carnaby Street.”  Ha!  Suddenly I was thinking the 1960s and had to go see!  I discovered that Carnaby Street is about two blocks long and designated for walking traffic only.  It was very cute and filled with shops of hip clothes for the 20-something set.  It was a fun thing to have happened upon.

I walked all the way to Picadilly Circus, which is a major plaza where a bunch of streets converge.  I popped into the London Trocadero, which my guide book says is a major hangout for teenagers with lots of amusements and video-game arcades and the like.  I lasted about 15 minutes!  It was very junky and cheesy and looked like everything needed some major repairs and a new paint job!  I took an escalator up two flights and then realized that the down escalator wasn’t working!  Did you know that escalator steps are higher than normal ones??  Not fun for a five-foot person with short legs!  I really had to concentrate to get down without falling on my face!

Back on the street, I followed the crowd of people not knowing exactly where we were going.  Lo and behold, Leicester Square opened up before me.  This seems to me to be equivalent to Times Square in NYC in terms of its centrality, although they are nothing alike.  (Picadilly Circus is actually more like Times Square; it even has two huge digital screens perched on the roofs of the surrounding buildings.  You don’t see a lot of glaring technology like that around London.  The biggest lights are mostly reserved for the theatre marquees.)  Leicester Square is in fact a park the size of a city block with lots of benches and green grass and a huge statue of my man Shakespeare in the center.  The streets that spoke off of it are crammed with restaurants and pubs of all kinds, which is why there are always lots and lots of people.  (BTW, for those struggling with how to say it, the Brits pronounce it “Lester.”)  So I took this as a good sign to head for home.  It was dusk, after all.

I approached the entrance to the Tube station and saw down a narrow little alley some inviting windows with the sign “Browns Bar and Brasserie.”  On a whim, I decided to follow Suze’s advice.  After living on apples and bagels and cheddar cheese for the last six days, I decided it was time to treat myself to dinner.  I had a prix fixe dinner, which allowed me an entree and dessert for only 13 pounds!  Woo hoo!  I knew it was time for vegetables!  I had a huge (warm) salad with lots of mixed greens, and on top were red peppers, chunks of butternut squash, cherry tomatoes, tiny white beans that tasted like garbanzos to me, pomegranate seeds, and some kind of sweet vinaigrette.  It was interesting–yes, I would definitely say good.  I had a “poached pear with chocolate sauce” for dessert and a small scoop of the best chocolate ice cream I have ever had!  There were zillions of slivers of milk chocolate in it!  Oh, and did I mention that I had two martinis??  I tried a Cosmopolitan and what they called a “Chocolate Strawberry Martini.”  Sadly, they were not very good, but they certainly made me more relaxed about eating alone!

Ahhhh . . . back at my humble abode after yet another day of trekking about the streets of Londinium (I just learned today that the Romans called it that).  The weather has stayed dry, although the temperature dropped about 10 degrees and a bitter wind kept up all day!  I kept hearing Londoners complaining as they passed me!  I am happy to take this compared to the gray cold of central PA this time of year.

Yesterday, Friday, I headed for the South Bank once again because I read that the Borough Market is open on both Fridays and Saturdays.  When I was last here in 2007, I happened upon this extravaganza of food and drink, and so I knew it was a delight and worth the return.  There are dozens and dozens of stalls under a huge roof, selling all kinds of fresh produce.  This area is the size of a city block, and outside the central market are more and more stalls selling prepared food to go.  For lunch, I had something called a “Boston hot dog,” which was, in our parlance, a grilled sausage with onions.  I also bought a slice of cheese made in Wales that was one of the most delicious taste experiences I have ever had.  There were mounds of chocolates and Turkish jelly candies and sandwiches of every description, too.  I got a cup of hot mulled wine and set out along the walkway known as Bankside that borders the Thames River.

Ooops!  Actually, before I wandered around the Market, I toured Southwark Cathedral, just a few yards away.  A church was founded on this site in 1212.  It is a gorgeous Gothic cathedral that includes the tombs of lots of interesting people, including Elizabeth the I’s personal chaplain.  There is a tribute to Shakespeare (because he lived and worked in this area known as Southwark) that includes a (reclining–don’t ask me why!) bronze statue and a stained glass window with a collage of many of his characters.  I tried to name as many as I could, but some remained a mystery!  I also learned that Shakespeare had actually been inside this cathedral to attend his brother’s funeral!  I learned that a “boss” is a huge decorative wooden carving that artisans in the Middle Ages made to cover the peaks where multiple Gothic arches meet.  There were several mounted on the wall at the back of the cathedral that had originally been mounted on its ceiling.

So, after braving the wind along the Thames and keeping myself warm with the wine, I arrived at the new Globe Theatre, which was completed in 1997 based as accurately as possible on Shakespeare’s original.  I saw a play at the Globe in 2007, but wanted to take the tour so I could experience the theatre from a lot of different perspectives.  Spent an hour in an exhibit area that was chock full of information about the theatre during Shakespeare’s life.  Yes, I teach this stuff but am always thrilled to learn something new.  Then a lovely man took me and my group around the theatre.  We got to sit in the galleries and walk around the yard.  A production of Macbeth performed exclusively for school children had just finished before our tour, so we could see stage managers cleaning up the scenery left onstage after the show.  I took zillions of photos to show my Theatre History students, of course!  Spent some time in the Globe Shop laughing at all of the absurd things for sale and wondering what Will would think of this blatant commercialization of his life and work.  Anyone want  a pencil eraser with the Globe printed on it?  How about a ruler with all of his plays printed on it?

I left the Globe around 6:00 and saw a gorgeous pink sky spread out in front of me above the London skyline.  Then back to my favorite hangout, the National Theatre, to sit in the lobby and listen to music once again.  This night there was a trio playing electric guitar, drums, and electric keyboard.  Their sound was basically like jazzy muzak.  I sat among the crowd and wrote in my journal for a while, then had to laugh when the muzak penetrated my consciousness and I realized they were playing “Consider Yourself” from the musical Oliver!

Believe it or not, I took a break from “legitimate” theatre last night and went to the Queen Elizabeth Hall, a venue mostly for music, and saw a very strange dance-performance piece called sans, which means “without” in French.  The choreographer is a French woman who has worked all over Europe.  It consisted of three men who performed all kinds of unexpected movements, from automatic-like gestures that made them appear almost robotic to tumbling in a big heap together all over the stage.  This sequence of events lasted about half an hour, then they did everything all over again in double-time!  It was quite fascinating and very funny at many points.

Today I learned that the entire population of London uses the Underground on Saturday!  I couldn’t believe how crowded it was!!  I made my usual trek to Leicester Square and was looking at the half-price tickets board when an elderly man came up to me and asked if I wanted to buy a ticket to the musical Oliver! for 40 pounds (regular price = 65 pounds).  Well, I hadn’t really planned on seeing many musicals here at all.  Most are also playing in the U.S. and I am more interested in the straight plays.  Anyway . . . there was a line at the TKTS booth and we got to chatting and I got him down to 25 pounds.  Sold!  This whole concept of avoiding planning has been so liberating for me!!!  I would never have guessed when I got up this morning that I would see Oliver! (And don’t you think there was something cosmic about the musicians last night playing a song from Oliver!?)

The scenery was actually quite breathtaking.  Three dimensional flats kept moving in and out to create full-scale models of London streets in forced perspective.  Three-dimensional bridges flew in and out, and there was a huge cast.  The opening scene in the orphanage easily had 100 little boys all crying for “food, glorious food” in unison!  Great fun overall, with two minor caveats.  One:  I was in the last seat in the row virtually against the side wall of the theatre, so it was impossible to see the whole depth of the stage and all that great forced-perspective illusion.  Two:  the man next to me was obviously a huge Oliver! fan, since he felt compelled to sing or hum the entire show softly under his breath.  Believe it or not, I didn’t have the heart to ask him to stop.

After the matinee, I wandered all around Covent Garden, just a stone’s throw from the theatre.  This site has been another huge market for several centuries.  It used to be another produce market, but in the last hundred years has been enclosed and turned into little shops–all under one huge roof.  There is also a second market area adjacent that is filled with artisans who each have a little stall selling everything from jewelry to scarves to leather to wood carvings, etc., etc.  I remembered buying a purple shirt when I was here in 1990, one of my favorites my first year teaching at CMU . . . wonder whatever happened to it?

I stayed till the artists started draping huge cloths over their tables and closing up shop, then back on the Tube and back to the National for music and a Magner’s Irish Cider (yum!) while I listened to what I think was Brazilian music.  Then I went to their very small theatre to see a one-man show called The 14th Tale. The actor-writer was born in Nigeria, and the play was composed of stories about his youth and all the trouble he managed to get into!  He was mesmerizing, and the text was as rich and dense as poetry!  I felt transported into another world just through his voice and body.  What an enormous contrast I experienced today in terms of what theatre can do–from millions of dollars worth of spectacle in Oliver! to a single human body onstage in The 14th Tale.