Ketch-up

Wow, looks I got really behind on my blog. Not too surprising though, last 10 days have been very busy and fun. A quick rundown and I'll fill in the gaps where I can. At the start of last week, I went to a play at the Globe Theatre, which is an exact recreation of the theater where Shakespeare performed his plays. There they perform very faithful reproductions of Shakespeare plays, i.e. no Hamlet in space, with top quality actors. I saw Henry the VIII, a play rarely performed because the last time it played at the Globe, the theatre burned down thanks to a cannon firing at the end of a scene. The cannon fired again in this production but no fire ensued.

The balconies around the stage filling up. Don't think I was supposed to take pictures so I couldn't take very good ones.


The stage. Very well utilized in the play.

The play was great and it was particularly fun because I got floor seats. Well not seats actually, but standing room floor space right next to the stage. These tickets cost only 5 pounds, a great deal in super expensive London, and provided a great view of the show.

Oh hello stage.

In Shakespeare's time, the people who paid for standing seats were commoners who talked during the show, threw stuff at the stage, came drunk etc. Not much has changed since then actually, as many of my fellow standing room theater goers were loud Americans who cracked jokes about the lady actors' bosoms, bought a steady stream of beers from the wandering salesmen and left well before intermission. They were good company while they lasted though. The show did run pretty long, 3 hours+, but for a lesser known play, I enjoyed it more than I expected.

Anyways, the next few days were pretty busy with class and various world cup semifinals. Posted some of those pictures on Facebook again and I won't retread the ground of my last post by putting up more shots of drunken Dutch people. But I went back to the Dutch bar for the Holland semifinal and chilled with the Brazilians in my neighborhood for the Spain game. When Spain went through, I was probably the most excited person in the bar because it meant I was going to be seeing them in the final while in Barcelona (preview: yeah, it was sick)

On Thursday afternoon I went to the train station to catch my ride to Paris but when I got there, the train was delayed. "Train should be leaving in less than an hour, no worries" said the voice on the PA. Ok, no problem. 2 hours later, following many cryptic announcements: "There's a fire in the tunnel between Paris and London and there will be no trains leaving the city this evening. No exchanges can be made at this time either, come back at 4:30 in the morning when the ticket booths open. Have a great night." No explanation about refunds, places to stay etc. Long, crazy story short, ask me about it sometime, I dropped my luggage off in the train station, wandered around London until 4:30 in the morning, and stumbled back into the station to catch the first train to Paris.

Overall, I really liked London but was almost daily overwhelmed by the number of things to do. I was constantly finding out about shows to see, concerts to go to, bars/clubs to visit, DJ sets to catch a day after they happened and even if I had known, there was no way I could've have gone to them all. Of all the cities I have visited in Europe, it is the one I would most like to live in, not just visit, the most because I think it would be impossible to really see it fully any other way. Impressive/diverse/very full city, really great.

That's all for now, post on Paris and first few days in Barcelona upcoming.

Wild London

In the few days following my tour of the most majestic parts of London, madness (and the weekend) overtook the city. On Friday and Saturday were a full host of World Cup games that invariably concluded with fans spilling out into the streets, honking cars and daytime public drunkenness unlike anything possible in the US.

I put a bunch of these on Facebook but here are a few of the highlights from the post-game Holland celebration on Friday. For this game, I was particulary lucky to get taken to the official Dutch bar of London by my new friend from Amsterdam, Felix.

The two floored bar could not contain the post game celebration

Some Brazilian women came and were very warmly received by the drunk Dutch men.

After about an hour, the party started to disperse but the vuvuzellas were still going.

On Saturday morning I headed out early to see the National Gallery. After taking in the fantastic but reasonably sized collection (phew!), I was greeted with this crowd in Trafalgar Square.

Pride Day in London! Huge crowds came out for the parade and general merry-making.

Trafalgar square, overflowing in preparation for the parade. Pretty cool that the event begins in London's most iconic square. It also marched past 10 Downing Street, Britain's White House.

Things congregated particularly in Soho, the gay mecca of London.

And is if that weren't enough, I decided to catch the Spain quarterfinal in a multi-story sports bar complex that was overstuffed with excitable Spaniards. The game was a dramatic, twisting and turning affair that had the place really going strong for the entire second half.

Bedlam. I forget whether this was after the goal or the final whistle but regardless the Spanish were raucous from 1-0 til 30 minutes after the game was over.

Surprised not to see some wedding proposals. Maybe if they go to the final?

There were many matadors out on the town on Saturday night.


So London continues to impress with its diversity and multiple facets

Grand London

Up to now (sorry this is retrospective, so up til about Thursday) I had been avoiding the nicer, more traditional parts of London, saving them for later. I had been skirting around the edges of the city, checking out minor sites and mostly doing things I could enjoy for free and in the sun. As a result, I thought London was a pretty strange European capital: gritty, lacking many grand landmarks and generally quite unlike any other "great" city. Well at last I decided to head off to St. James, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and so on. In other words, the big hitters. Didn't disappoint.




Lost track of what manor/palace/social club/memorial these were part of, but trust me, there were plenty more where these came from.




The Canada and Australia gates flanking Buckingham Palace. Canada's is many, many times cooler. Rough.


Buckingham Palace was actually a bit disappointing, it's big, boxy and pretty uniform in the front. Gates outsides were nice though.


I really like the Capitol in D.C. but the Palace of Westminster (Britain's Parliament is just mindblowingly grand.




Aaaand Big Ben. Though CCTV isn't far behind.