We just got back from Woman In White, the 2004 Lloyd-Webber offering. It is a good story of classically Victorian proportions. Sadly, the music didn’t really grab me. There’s usually at least one or two things you can walk out of a Lloyd-Webber show singing, but not this time. The entire set was video projections on a white semi-circular screen with the rotating floor a la Les Miz. Background perspective would change along with the characters movements. It was trippy. The effect felt like a video game and all the swirling about got a bit tiresome, but it was a really neat concept and allowed for a much faster pace, since there were virtually no scene changes in the traditional sense.
Today was also Westminster Abbey, which was awe-inspiring. It is so densely packed with history that it is hard to wrap your brain around it. The oldest parts of that abbey have been there since 1066, and it’s seen every coronation since then as well (save two). Damn.
Tomorrow my family is doing the Portabello Road Market (a la Bedknobs and Broomsticks) and Steve and I are going to do a 2-mile or so walking tour of “the old city” before picking up a Buche de Noel (yum!) for Christmas dinner at Fortnum and Mason, this insanely posh department store. Red carpets, crystal chandeliers, leather trimmed shopping bags. It’s gorgeous.
It looks like we’re cooking in for Christmas dinner - the exchange rate is killing us over here, since the price in pounds is the same numbers as you’d find in the US (something that costs 5 pounds would cost $5), but the exchange rate means it’s double for us (so something that costs 5 pounds is actually costing us about $10). It sucks, because we’re living off Kensington High Street and there are these ADORABLE boutiques and I want to go shopping, dammit. WAH. It also means we’re not willing to pay 65 pounds a person to eat Christmas dinner out. So.
The weather has warmed up here quite a bit - it has been in the 40s during the day. I was actually able to go out without my coat the other day, which was intensely liberating. My shoulders have been really stiff, and I’m realizing that it’s due to the constant weight of a wool topcoat every day all day.
Next week it is supposed to get bitterly cold again - just in time to be below freezing when Steve and I go to the Aston Villa at Fullham football match. Joy.
We’ve still barely dented the surface of what there is to see. We hit the Victoria and Albert Museum which has an incredibly cool Asian
collection, and did a walk around West End that included the shops of Neal Street, Covent Garden (where we saw a street performer playing Christmas carols on a traffic cone like it was a trumpet), and the red-light area of Soho. Steve and I also did a window-shopping-type walk that ran from Leicester Square to Picadilly. The number of peopole is overwhelming. You’re constantly surrounded. I know that once the Christmas shopping rush is over it will be more bearable.
Steve has discovered sticky toffee pudding (my fault) and is completely addicted, so we’ve had it three times since we got here. He’s so cute about it, though. And we’ve seen shows. Lots and lots of shows. About which I would write, but it’s bedtime for me.
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