One liners, Wicked witches, and Hollywood stars!
London is fast becoming ‘my turf’. I found this feeling over the weekend while gallivanting around the city and ‘burbs with Doug. Said so casually, he took the long weekend to fly over from P.E.I., and I had a blast!
It was so great to take the day off work on Friday. I went and met Doug at the airport – an hour and a half train ride, ever stimulating! – and then we had to come all the way back. Love the toob! Friday was a bit of a pain, I was left in limbo by our letting agent who was going to move me into the new place at 4pm, which changed to 6pm with the other guy, and then he didn’t show till half 8. Not only wholly unprofessional, but just plain annoying, Andras let us into the new place because Lija was already out. Needless to say, I signed the papers, handed over my money, and now have a place that feels ‘homely’. It ain’t close to the home that’s in my heart, but it’ll do for now! We finally got out of there for a late dinner and wandered along Oxford Street, which just unveiled its Christmas light decorations during the week. So preeety!
We packed heaps into the weekend, intentionally and unintentionally. On Saturday, at Doug’s suggestion we went to see Wicked! The musical about the witches of Oz – it was magical hehe. I loved it, the costumes were bizarre but bright and subtle, the jokes ran fast and the innuendo thorough and witty, it really was a chick-flick musical. It was actually written in 1990 at the height of the Gulf War – based on the politics that before you can call someone an enemy or hate them you really should know their back story, know how they came to be there in the first place. It’s changed my whole perception of the original movie and I don’t know how I’d view it now. It was funny though, cos when we were walking out Doug noticed the carpet floor of the Apollo Theatre is emerald green. Hmm, did they choose that theatre for that reason? Or was it just a strange coincidence?
Mmm, we had marvelous Christmas coffees at Starbucks, they are the best invention. How can anyone not enjoy a coffee that smells of gingerbread or tastes like eggnog? Sublime. We wandered up through Leicester Square and found a nice Pommy pub for dinner, they have so much atmosphere and the food is always good. For some reason the pubs over here always do a good chicken tikka, which I was hankering for. It was up near the Roundhouse, where us girls were watching the rugby several weeks ago.
After dinner we headed down to Clapham Junction on the national rail for David’s birthday at The Holy Drinker. David said it was too crowded and the DJ was pretty bad but I wasn’t complaining, I hardly go to places like that so it’s all an experience to me. It was quite warm in there where the steps went below ground level, so to go to the bar was a cooling relief. David had been there for a bit, and tugged us around introducing Doug and me to various people he grew up with and used to work with – and damn there were a lot of people there! But they were all really nice, I enjoyed talking to Karen, who is Spanish, she’s lived in London for over eight years and used to be a journalist but moved into finance and prefers the stability and pay in that industry. Stacey was a hoot and said that he never did any work when he was over in Hong Kong at the same time as David, he just free-loaded.
They made a mean Cosmopolitan at the Holy Drinker, but we didn’t stay late because we had to get the last trains back to the city and back out to MY NEW PLACE!
Sunday was quite cold, but we dragged ourselves out to the Tate Modern art gallery on the bank of the Thames. Now I’m not quite partial to a lot of the modern art I’ve experienced so far, but I like checking out new things to see what I do and don’t like. Well, there were objects, paintings and ‘things’ that are construed as great art but I truly just don’t see the point of – the kind of things that open up the debate about what is art? What can be seen as art? A large canvass painted all in red, a canvass that had paint thrown at it to see where it lands, a film clip spliced together to make an interesting picture…these didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but then, is art supposed to make sense or is it just supposed to make you feel? In that sense, did it succeed as art with me because it made me think about it? It made me question its existence and worth. Ah, the great mysterious questions of life itself. But there was definitely art in there that I did appreciate (not to mention want to nick and put on my wall back home) but Jackson Pollock’s piece that I liked just wouldn’t fit onto the tube afterwards! They also had some interesting Picasso, Monet’s water lilies, oh too much to name. A sight to see if you’re ever in London, especially with the Turbine room’s ongoing ‘big features’. Their current exhibition is the giant crack in the floor, it’s made to look natural, as if the ground just split open and there it was.
We wandered up to find food at Covent Garden, where we had a Sunday roast in the well-known Punch & Judy, always packed on the weekends at night, the afternoon was a bit quieter and we got to sit inside. Oh yum, Yorkshire pud, meat and gravy, peas, potatoes and broccoli. Can’t go past a good British tradition. We went for a bit of a wander down to Leicester Square, and got stopped at the premiere of Beowulf, it was packed! Crazy screaming fans queuing up all day for that one glimpse of Brad and Angelina, you know, I was happier that I got to see Anthony Hopkins, what a master actor. He’s done many a great character. But yeah, I got a picture of the happy couple too. There was our little taste of Hollywood!
We met up with Lija after fighting our way out of the crowds, and took the train up north to the Hen & Chicken pub at Highbury & Islington, where Lija’s work mate Cath was putting on a comedy show with her two friends. We were in stitches it was so funny, it’s all improv performance art, with ideas coming straight from the audience and the guys are just happy to go with the flow. And damn, they’re really good for something they do in their spare time.
Tags: Travel
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