I overslept this morning intentionally
and didn't roll out of bed until 8. It was a cloudy day but not
raining so I still decided to keep on trying to walk around outdoors.
I made my way to Leicester Square to check out the discounted
tickets for the theater shows for tonight. I wound up buying a
ticket for Jersey Boys, which I can obviously see in the U.S. as well
(along with most of the other shows in the theater district here),
but I thought it would be funny to see how Brits play the “Jersey”
accent.
I made my way south down Trafalgar Square, which was nice for a
little bit of people watching. Then since it was close to 11 I made
the trek to Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guard. I
had read in my guidebook that it was really crowded and a haven for
pickpockets, but I wanted to finish up my touristy stuff and I was
close enough to the area that I thought I might as well go for it. I
lined up randomly on the left side facing the palace and wound up
standing for close to 30 minutes just waiting as other tourists
filled in the other areas – especially right by the gates of
Buckingham Palace. I couldn't see the actual guard exchange in front
of the palace since that area is actually gated and I didn't want to
press myself against the giant mass of people trying to get a good
shot of inside. Basically my view was of the guards parading in on
their horses with a brass section. There were at least 2 different
guard parades, and then I suppose it takes a while for all the guards
to be rounded up from all corners of the palace, because although
they were playing sort of traditional marches coming in, once they
were inside the gates the first song they played was John Williams'
movie theme from Superman.
I had assumed that it it was a super-serious affair and thought
maybe I was mixing the song up, but there were some Japanese tourists
by me and in between their chatting I caught the words, “Ohh,
Superman!” By the time people got tired of standing around and
left and I managed to get in front of the palace, the guards were
playing “YMCA.” Quirky I suppose. I'm glad I got to see it but
otherwise I think it is highly overrated to stand there with limited
views for 45 minutes. It's crazy to think how this is performed
every single day now and they have to block off the roads and deal
with hundreds of tourists trying to climb up on statues or the gates
to get a better view. I can't believe the palace is gated off like
that though; I guess it's only open those few months when the palace
is actually open for tours. I always thought I could be one of those
annoying tourists failing to make the palace guard laugh. Thank you,
Married with Children
for giving me false hopes.
When I finally escaped that tourist
mass I made my way to Coventry Garden – a marketplace of shops,
cafes and street performers. I found a pie shop (yay), where I
ordered the traditional steak and ale. Not as good as I hoped it
would be but I have 2 full days left here so that gives me a few more
opportunities. There were some entertaining buskers, including a
string quartet and a guy on a unicycle juggling 2 swords and an
apple. If I had any room in my luggage for souvenirs, and if I was
heading straight home after London I would have scoped the place out
because there were some interesting shops, but I'm afraid that will
have to wait for another trip.
Since the day was still early I decided
to hit the last outdoor place I could think of on my list of tourist
to-do items in London, and that was Shakespeare's Globe Theatre –
which is as close a recreation of the original theater as it could
be. Since they were doing tech rehearsals for “Faustus” based on
Christopher Marlowe's work, we couldn't take pictures again and
instead stepped inside to watch about 15 minutes of the tech
rehearsal while we sat in silence. I'm not familiar with the play,
but the scene they worked on dealt with making a deal with the devil
and the guy being tempted by a seductress – definitely not with
family-friendly gestures – and they kept on rehearsing that bit
over and over and over again. The actual theater layout looks pretty
interesting. They recreated the original as much as they could, such
as instead of using real Italian marble for the pillars, they used
wood and then painted it to look like marble. I think it would be
interesting to watch a show there, but I would definitely sit in the
covered section. The “groundlings” are the cheapest tickets at 5
pounds each, and they are standing tickets only, with no roof to
protect from the weather.
Finally I headed to Leicester Square to
try to find something to eat before my show, which was a bad idea
because I wound up circling the area right by Charing Cross Street
multiple times where the theater was so I wouldn't be late. I
thought I should attempt to look somewhat nice so I had to ditch the
Keen sandals and the tennis shoes and put on some black dress
sandals, but that also meant I didn't want to walk far so my food
choices were limited. I finally wound up picking this random
bar/bakery/restaurant called Pompidou. The virgin drink was good but
the food was definitely not. But I got out in time to catch the show
so I guess I can't complain too much. Then I found out that the tkts guy sold me a ticket for tomorrow night. I was already in the theater and didn't realize until someone else tried to sit in my seat (they didn't notice at the front door either). The usher told me to follow him but that it was going to be difficult since the show was starting in one minute. I thought they were going to tell me to just come back tomorrow, but thankfully he just radioed it in to the ticket office that he needed one seat, and there was one available so I wound up getting a better seat than what I had originally. Ah the bonuses of traveling solo!
Jersey Boys put me in a really
good mood, and yes from what I could tell they were able to pull off
the stereotypical Jersey accent pretty well for the most part. I
think the songs just put me in a giddy mood and I couldn't stop
grinning once they started going through the big hits like, “Sherrie,
Baby,” and “Big Girls Don't Cry.” It was nice to just sit
there for 3 hours and not have to worry about what I was going to do
for the rest of the day or stress about anything else. I could just
pretend like I was a Londoner. During intermission I also had a
Pimms – this fruity British alcoholic drink – and since I drink
about 1-2 times a year and I pretty much chugged it like it was glass
of water on a hot day, I was especially giddy during the 2nd
half of the show. Now I have Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
stuck in my head the rest of the night, which isn't a bad thing.
Tomorrow I'm planning to wake up late
and then maybe finally getting a “hearty” English breakfast with
bangers and mash and whatever else unhealthy food goes with it. I've
been making good use of my Cliff bars for whole grains and fiber for
breakfast but I think it's time to splurge a little. And then I'll
also finally head to the British Museum. I feel pretty good with
what I've seen so far; if I had to fly back now I wouldn't regret
missing out on something, so I think the next two days will be at a
slower pace and maybe my legs will finally get some time to recover
from being sore from walking around so much.
