So, this past week I've gone to see a live production of the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, gotten a haircut, visited a sweet shop and a bookshop in Colchester, and went into London for the first time! Unless you count the airport, but if you count the airport you are a stupid butt.
Samuel and Mona went with me to the sweet shop, bookshop, and musical. I think I entertained them by being way too entertained by all the different kinds of candy and how good everything was. But I have a sweet tooth the size of Manhattan, and besides that, English sweets are massively better than American. Something to do with using real flavors and real sugar instead of wax and corn syrup, I think. But I tried black licorice filled with fondant (which was a bit weird) and some rum raisin fudge (which tasted like sweet, solid rum), and Samuel shared some sherbet-y thingies (the English kind, which is a fruit-flavored sweet powder that fizzes; in the US, if you get sherbet it will actually be a type of ice cream), and Mona got a bunch of things and shared all of them -- including some boiled sweets with sherbet in the middle. Then we ate McDonald's, so I guess it wasn't so different from being in America after all. Except here, the apple pies are deep fried rather than baked, so they're more like a doughnut than a pie (turns out Mona has a sweet tooth to rival mine, which is great because I'll have someone to share candy with). On the subject of sweet things, I think I may need to try some ice cream parlours around here as well -- during the intermission of Sweeney Todd, Mona bought a miniature tub of vanilla ice cream from concessions. It tasted like vanilla extract mixed with cream.
So, screw drinking. I'm saving my money for sweets. (Though before the show, I did also try a lemonade shandy, which was interesting but not quite to my taste.)
Seeing Sweeney Todd live was utterly amazing, but I kind of wish we'd gone earlier in the run. As it was, the show was a week in and the actors had obviously been pushed too hard. Sweeney's voice was downright raspy at points (which admittedly could have been intentional), but I knew there were problems when the Johanna started having to force her notes. Still, the show was lovely, the Mrs. Lovett was a classless manipulating bitch (as is proper), and Anthony and Johanna's duets were amazing.
Now. London. OhmygoodnessLondon.
To start off, I didn't get much sleep last night due to being overexcited. Which was fine until like ten minutes ago. Or maybe an hour. I've only just started winding down, so it's hard to tell.
First, I took a train to Liverpool Street Station, which was uneventful. I also got a very good deal on a travelcard, which allowed me to use the Underground all day as well as the Colchester-London train. Emerging from the station the first time, though. . .
It probably would've been properly romantic if I hadn't almost been knocked off my feet by the wind. Now I know why everyone in movies set in London wears a hat. It's not a matter of style, but necessity. My hair was everywhere at once -- more so than usual, considering that even normally it's in ringlets. I wandered around like a dope for a little while before realizing I was going in the wrong direction, but eventually I oriented myself and made my way to the Tower of London. Where I took pictures. Then I hopped back into the Underground and went to the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, with a brief detour into Victoria Gardens. Again, pictures were taken.
After all this, it was barely ten o'clock, since I'd caught the first train out, but for some reason I was starving. So I stopped at a tea house and had a cup of tea and a Danish. Halfway through my pastry, I looked up at the shop clock. It was past noon. Checked my phone again. Still 9:50. Turns out that when my phone loses its network (such as when going underground), it freezes the clock until I manually select a new network. I think maybe I should buy a pocket watch. Still, it was a very good Danish.
I hit Covent Gardens next, and this was where I first started finding crowds. It wasn't, say, the UofM Diag at one o'clock, but it was close. I watched street performer AJ James make a surprisingly large number of innuendos for a family-friendly show (seriously. He used the term "love-hole." Brilliant). He also juggled knives, did backflips, and enticed two grown men to chain him up. After he'd stripped down to just his trousers. He turned out to be a fairly good escapologist as well.
The Apple Market was nearby, so I wandered through there for a while (and bought a knitted headband to help me manage my hair). Really, most of my visit today was of the wandering sort. I grabbed an actual lunch at a cheap Japanese/Asian place, then went to the British Museum.
I didn't spend long enough in there, and really only seriously viewed the Egyptian and Greek statuary. I know a fair amount of the history behind these, so frequently I know what I'm looking at. Also, Egyptian statues, while not as sensuous as the Greek and Roman, are awe-inspiring for sheer size. I'm afraid I don't quite have my mother and sister's appreciation for fine art*: I adore Impressionist and Surrealist works, but not to any greater extent than "I like how they look/how they make me feel."
I'm still not sure how I feel about mummies being put on display, though, and allowing people to take photographs. I did end up taking a few myself, though, so apparently it's not a very strong feeling either way.
Lastly I took a run into Piccadilly Circus, where I took a quick look into Hamley's. Hamley's is a five-story toy shop. Tons of teddy bears and hobby-type toys like Playmobil. However, not a stuffed dragon in the place, which was disappointing to me. Then a look into TopShop, a mishap with US vs UK sizing, and I headed back home because my feet hurt. I arrived back in Colchester at about 7:15 pm, having left at roughly 8:15 am.
A good day -- and I apologize if my summary of it is rough. I think my flatmates are planning something again. Hopefully this time they'll be wearing more than towels.
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Footnote added 6/2/2011
*"fine art" -- my sister just pointed out that my usage of the term implied some very nasty things, including that Egyptian -- or any non-Western art -- isn't really "art." Not what I meant, at all.
I should have said something like "more modern-ish art," because that is what I meant. I know very little about art made after about 100 CE. And only an idiot could look at hieroglyphs, Nordic weaving, or Celtic metalwork and believe that they weren't art.
As I said, I do love "modern" paintings, and my sister has even shown me abstract pieces I enjoyed. I just don't know enough about their history or composition to, I feel, truly appreciate them. Some pieces still make me want to cry or laugh, though, which I think is more the point. Egyptian and some Greek and Roman works do the same to me. More than once, while in the museum, I couldn't fight back a gasp. Even Celtic and Nordic pieces, of which I have so far mostly seen only photographs, have inspired a quieter awe; when I get the chance to view originals, I may indeed have a more visceral response.
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