You guessed it! Show two friends who came up from Italy as much of London as I possibly can in the span of less than 72 hours!
Over the course of the first evening, we hit Green Park, Buckingham Palace, St. James' Park, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, and two football games (Manchester United in the first, Arsenal in the second) at the Rocket.
Nicole was not feeling well the second and third day, so it was just Elyssa and I trying to cover the rest of foggy London town. The first stop on the second day was something I hadn't even been to yet since I've arrived...
...the Tower of London. We were fortunate enough to catch the beginning of a yeoman warder (beefeater) tour, so that saved me a lot of energy.
Traitor's Gate, the entranceway for prisoners into the tower since the year 1XXX (this is why I'm not a tour guide for the Tower).
It's been about 4 or 5 years since I've last been in the Tower, but it doesn't really get old. I mean, the Tower itself is old, but...fuck it, you knw what I mean.
For some reason, the crown jewels were a little disappointing this time around. I ust don't recall there being so little of them on display. Even a majority of the White Tower was closed off due to the renovation and developement of a new Henry VIII exhibition due to be completed in the near future, but they still had the cool shit.
My favorite piece is still the 6'9" tall suit of armor actually worn by a human being. Talk about scary shit...you see this motherfucker coming at you with a broadsword the size of you, it's game over.
Interestingly enough, one of the English Kings (I think Charles I) received a suit of Japanese armor as a gift...so that made me happy.
This is Tower Bridge. This is not London Bridge. London Bridge is to the west. Don't point to this bridge and exclaim that it's falling down. You'll look like an idiot.
One thing I have never seen before at the Tower, however, was a pair of gentlemen, dressed as artillery soldiers, showing off how to use ranged weapons in the Tower moat. They fired off a giant crossbow and a perrier (which is a smaller, man-powered version of the trebuchet...not a fancy type of water) down the moat at a group of wooden dummies. Awesome.
The rest of the afternoon was a seat-of-our-pants marathon of failure. We couldn't go into the Globe because they had a performance that afternoon. We couldn't go into St. Paul's because there was a memorial service. Therefore, we just decided on doing the longest possible walking tour of London.
We headed down Fleet Street and saw the Royal Courts of Justice. If Judge Turpin was real, he would have worked here. I'm just so glad that Sondheim did some dramaturgy on the actual Fleet Street before writing Sweeney Todd.
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Later that evening, we at a little place in Chinatown that offered shark fin soup. I know sharks are in great danger because of overfishing in Asia, but I can see why. That shit is delicious and it made me want to hunt a lion with a katana.
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Even later that evening, we went to Slim Jim's Bar right by the Almeida Theatre. There was a slight confusion at the door because the bouncer thought he had thrown me out of the bar last month. I had not been there since January. Eventually, everything was resolved, Zack and I became friends and he let me in no problem.
We ran into our Aussie friends at the bar, believe it or not. It's kind of funny...everytime someone from NYU has run into them, I'm the only one who knows who they are. I also sort of accidentally became the drummer for their rock band, The Sluggers. It's a long story, but when they hit the US in 2010, I may suddenly be attending a lot of random jam-sessions.
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The next day, we hit the inside of Westminster Abbey, saw a bunch of famous dead folk, then hit the London Eye.
The London Eye is the world's largest Ferris wheel, just so you know.
Great shots of London from the Eye.
Best part about the Eye: NYUL students get reimbursed for going on the Eye. Woot!
After we said goodbye, I hit up my...
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Play of the Week: "Night, London" @ the Tristan Bates in Leicester Square
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This was like nothing I'd ever seen before. A cast of 25 people started a show on March 2nd, completely improvised, and every successive night, they continued the story with the same characters, totally unscripted. This was, probably, the most important piece of theatre I've seen so far. Sure, "Shun-kin" was phenominal, but this made me realize that if I was ever to direct a show, this is what I'd want to do. I wonder if the Edison Valley Playhouse would let me do that. One could only hope. It was a drama, but it was hysterical. The theatre was small, the majority of the audience were cast members whose characters were not in the show that evening, and after the intermission, the audience was invited in on watching a guest director work with the actors in an hour-long experimentation with what he saw in the performance. Coolest theatrical experience thusfar. I'm sure with the right people from And More!, Quaint Little Coffee Shop, and More Ways Out, we could pull something off.
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