Although Matthew labeled our travel day as "Day 1," the fact that we had no sleep really makes Day 2 blur together with Day 1. Our flight got into Gatwick early in the morning and by the time we got through immigration, got our luggage, and cleared customs, it was rush hour. So taking our luggage on the train and the Tube was a bit more crowded than we would have liked. In fact, I kept thinking the ticket machine was broken by not giving us an off-peak travelcard, until I realized we were actually traveling in rush hour. After that many hours of traveling and no sleep, you have no idea what time it is!
We trooped our way to our hotel and dropped off our luggage. As the hotel website promised, it wasn't too far from the Kensington (Olympia) Tube station. We were a bit concerned because this Tube stop is a limited service station, but we later figured out that it wasn't too bad and ran late enough for our needs. We figured the only reason the station was even still operation was because a big exhibition center was right there, as well as a transfer to several suburban train lines. Anyway, the hotel location worked well, and the price was right.
After some brainstorming, we decided to see a matinee show and headed off to the half-price ticket booth. Along the way, we went in search of an ATM and something to eat. We satisfied both of these requests on Kensington High Street, including a stop at Marks & Spencer (department store -- it'll come up in a story later in the week again) for lunch. I got my first taste of typical English fare -- a prawn sandwich! From reading Time Out, we found that not too many shows have Thursday matinees but we decided on "Sweeney Todd." It turns out it's another Stephen Sondheim musical, which is the same as "Assassins" that we saw in New York.
In between buying our tickets and the show starting, we wandered around Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. I was really hoping to see the London Christmas tree, which was supposed to be in Trafalgar Square, but it wasn't there yet. In the National Gallery, we joined a gallery talk by one of the docents, but we were both so sleepy from the lack of sleep that both Matthew and I started dozing off. We quickly realized that sitting still was not a good idea (as good as it felt) and we moved on. The National Gallery was one of my favorite places when I lived in London -- great works of European art, a beautiful museum, and free. I found my favorite works and even noticed some I hadn't noticed before.
We finally made it over to the theatre, exhausted but happy to be in London. Just like "Assassins" this Sondheim musical had a very bizarre story line. "Assassins" was about presidential assassins, while "Sweeney Todd" was about a barber that kills his clients and bakes them into pies. It takes quite a skill to take these topics and put them into musicals. Despite such a morbid topic, I actually rather enjoyed the musical. I liked the staging and how they put it together. (After we got back to the States, we actually saw a scene from a earlier production of "Sweeney Todd" on a PBS pledge drive special and decided we far preferred the production we had seen.)
On our way back to our hotel that evening, we took a detour to Harrod's -- got to get that shopping in, right? We also finally got some Thanksgiving dinner -- a chicken sandwich from a sandwich shop near our hotel. Definitely not the traditional turkey dinner, but we weren't exactly in a country celebrating the holiday with us. The guy running the sandwich shop teased us a bit and wanted to know why we were having sandwiches for our big Thanksgiving dinner. Turns out they were some really tasty sandwiches with some British television and an early night to bed.
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
