An Evening in West End

The West End here in London is the theatre district, and since this is the London Theatre Study Abroad program, we are going to be spending quite a bit of time there in the next five weeks. This evening after our jaunt to Buckingham Palace my friends Becca and Kenzie and I went over to the West End to catch one of the final showings of The King's Speech. SO good, by the way. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So we went and bought our tickets, and then we had an hour to kill before we could go in the theatre. I was ravenously hungry, and I decided to splurge and get the traditional British fish and chips (9 pound 25! So expensive!). So I march into this pub and order my fish and chips, and when I was ordering I (stupidly) asked for water. I thought it was just going to be a glass of water, but no--it was gourmet glass-bottle Strathmore Still Spring Water. That cost 3 pounds! For one tiny bottle! That's like, 5 American dollars! Ridiculous.

Kenzie pointing out the water on the menu--we didn't get the price, unfortunately.

Anyway, I also didn't realize that when they say "fish and chips" they mean almost an entire fish--deep-fried, tail, skin, and all. Do you see this? Do you see how huge this is?? See the tail??

But once I got past that, the fish was really good. Excellent flavor, and so tender that it was falling apart. This was good, in that it tasted good, but it was also problematic, because when one is attempting to dip one's fish into one's tartar sauce one has a difficult time when one's fish is so tender it won't stay on one's fork.

Becca got ahold of my camera and had a good time watching me try.

Sometimes I was less than successful. But I managed to eat nearly all of it without too much mishap. 

Kenzie and Becca helped me finish it off, because there was no way that it was going to waste after all the money I paid for it.

Becca wanted the lemon. And I took this picture to get back at her for stealing my camera. Hahaha.

After we were done we proceeded to Wyndham's Theatre around the corner.

The Wyndham Theatre was built in 1899, and was as richly furbished as the Noel Coward Theatre. I love these old historic buildings. They seem to reek of class and style. There's a real ladies' powder room!

Becca modeling the powder room for me

They get mad at you if you take pictures in the auditorium, but I snapped this picture before they could catch me. Sneaky sneaky. Super fancy, huh? What you can see of it, of course.

The play itself was brilliant. It's about Bertie, Duke of York, who becomes King George VI after his brother's abdication, and his struggle to overcome a debilitating speech impediment and "find his voice as king." So beautiful. My favorite lines?

"Why should I listen to you?"

"Because I have a VOICE!"

Chills.

The Queen and I

"Ariel, Ariel, where have you been?"

"I've been to London to look at the Queen!"

Or at least to look at Buckingham Palace. Because it was so nice outside today, a couple friends and I ventured out after the British Library to see the most famous residence of the Royal Crown.

We have seen the outside of all these places, but we haven't been inside or gone on tours of any of it. I'm thinking that needs to change in the next five weeks.

Cool statues

The iconic red-coated Guards. The Changing of the Guard happens daily at 11:30, and I'm planning to go see it quite soon.

Becca and I

So I didn't see the Queen, but I did make her a tributary toast with my Coke (tea, obviously, was out of the question). Yes, I said "Coke." Don't judge me, okay? It's medicinal--I take it for my college-induced narcolepsy. 

Cheers!

A Nod to Harry Potter

So I don't read Harry Potter, but I do not begrudge anyone their love of said series. So, to all my friends out there who are Harry Potter lovers (*cough cough*--Megan, for instance) this post is for you. I'm sure you understand the significance of these places far more than I do.

St. Pancras Station: Supposedly the outside of King's Cross Station in the Harry Potter movies

The real King's Cross Station

Inside King's Cross

This looked significant...

...so I took a picture. 

You're welcome!

The British Library

In front of the British Library

British Library Entrance

This post could also be titled, "Lots of Really Old and Really Cool Manuscripts."

This afternoon after class was our first official field trip as a group: the British Library down by King's Cross Station. And it was only "official" because it was on our official schedule and we all met up before going in, but other than that we were free to go about as we wished. We went into the Sir John Ritblat Gallery that houses the Treasures of the British Library (see below).

There was no photography allowed (for obvious reasons) but let me tell you, the Treasure Gallery lived up to its name. Among the things we saw today (as listed on the handout our professors gave us):

• Codex Sinaiticus: Mid 4th century. Christian Bible in Greek. Oldest complete copy of the New Testament
• Magna Carta: 1215. (um, kind of important, don't you think??)
• Gutenberg Bible: 1454. First book printed with moveable type.
• Leonardo da Vinci manuscripts--pages from his notebooks
• Shakespeare's First Folio: 1623. First collection of plays published after his death
• Handwritten music by Handel (The Messiah!), Mozart, Mendellsohn, Haydn, Beetoven...all the greats. Just amazing.
• Handwritten works by Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf. (Both had rather neat hands, if you care to know. Wordsworth? Not so much. But his words are worth reading anyway. Hahaha.)
• Jane Austen's lap desk. In Jane Austen's time women who wrote were frowned upon, so she had a little desk that opened up so she could slide the papers she was writing on inside when someone came into the room.
• A handwritten copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
• The Commonplace Book of John Milton! Woo hoo! Back in the 17th century when people read poetry or heard songs or found quotes they liked, they copied them into commonplace books. And I saw Milton's!

I didn't spend a terribly long time in the gallery because the dim lighting wreaks havoc with my eyes, but it was so cool. This is why I'm an English major--because the ideas that define us as people and as cultures are preserved in these writings, and I want to study them.

Check out the links here for more detailed descriptions of what I saw today.

What Do YOU Pass on Your Way to School?

Because I pass this...

Kensington Palace

And this...

The Round Pond in Kensington Gardens

And this.

Queen Victoria

Our neighbors the royals. 

Kensington Palace grounds. The flowers are breathtakingly gorgeous.

The Orangery--also on Kensington Palace grounds

Walking through Kensington Gardens

Palace Court--where the London Center is.

Look! This is where I go to school! The BYU London Centre: 27 Palace Court.

Nice, huh?

The walk to school this morning was glorious. It rained ALL DAY yesterday (surprise) and so I was that much more excited when I woke up to see the sun outside our windows. Some days I love living in London.

First Play: Hay Fever

Today... it rained. And rained and rained. Thus, I did not feel much inclined to do much of anything, though I did venture out with our group to see Noel Coward's Hay Fever presented in the Noel Coward Theatre. Fitting, don't you think?

When I walked inside, I was struck by the ornate plush opulence. According to Wikipedia, the theatre opened in 1903 as the New Theatre, built in the classical style.

It underwent major refurbishment in 2006, and was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre when it re-opened for the London premiere of Avenue Q on 1 June 2006. Noël Coward, one of Britain's greatest playwrights and actors, appeared in his own play, I'll Leave It To You, at the then New Theatre in 1920, the first West End production of one of his plays.

(pictures by Kenzie Ottley--I didn't have my camera yet again. :P)

Oooh.

Aaah.

The play was really good. As some of my classmates remarked in class the other day, nothing really happens, but it sure is funny. This rather eccentric Bliss family wreaks havoc on a houseful of weekend guests with their theatrical idiosyncrasies. They are definitely bohemian--"person[s] with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who live and act with no regard for conventional rules of behavior" (American College Dictionary)--and yet there's something intriguing about their strange family dynamic. They're all, well, a little crazy, and the way they interact drives their guests up the wall, but they're still a family. My family isn't quite so crazy, but we do have our ways, and I hope guests find our house, shall we say, a little more blissful than Blissful.

Going to Hellenism in a Handbasket

Apparently in the study of classics there's a divide between the Hellenists (those who specialize in Greek) and the Romanists (those who specialize in Latin)--or is it the Latinists? I don't know. I studied Latin, but I must admit that I'm rather partial to Greek statuary. There's something so...real about them. A sense of life force, or something like that. Looking at these statues, I can see how Keats and Shelley were inspired to write poetry by sculpture. Art inspires art, so I'm told.

My favorite statue I saw: "The Trentham Mourning Woman"

Naiads (water nymphs)

Of course, I didn't look at the inscriptions very closely, and there's a lot of overlap in the mythology and the art of the Greeks and the Romans, so some of this could be Roman...

Heck--it's all Greek to me.