London - Wednesday: Walking through the Globe, the City and Avenue Q
After spending a day inside a museum, we decided to walk around the cit a bit on Wednesday. So with a route in mind and another English breakfast in our tummies, we put on our shoes.
While starting our stroll, we saw the Oxo Tower on the other side of the river. It's funny looking with the large OXO letters on it. The story behind it is great too: the company owning the tower wanted to put advertising for Oxo on it. However, advertisement was not allowed on such a building. So instead, they made sure the windows of the tower just "happened" to have a certain shape.
But we were actually on our way to the Globe (completely ignoring the Tate Modern next to it; it's not for me). I really wanted to see the Globe on our trip, because it seemed like an interesting building, and it did not disappoint. There was also an exhibit and everything of course, but really, the building itself is the main reason for going there.
We were given a tour by a lady of a certain age (who gave off an "I used to be an actrice"-vibe, do we do not know for certain). The building looks old (even though it isn't really) and the wood everywhere gives it a unique character.
We also saw a demonstration, where a volunteer was put upon the theater clothing associated with a noblewoman. If found most interesting, that they also got something like a sausage of cloth filled with cotton around the waist. The sausage (it has a fancier name of course, which I forgot) then sits at your back to give you the illusion of a large bum. It looked completely unrealistic, then but again, so do modern gigantic silicone breasts.
Continued walking & evading tourists and crossed the Tower Bridge to end up (of course) at the Tower in the beginning of the afternoon. The crowd and queue's were huge and neither me nor Patrick felt like becoming part of that. So we only saw the Tower from the outside and continued walking through the City. Which meant: lots of offices & banks and therefore more quiet streets.
We passed the The Monument and climbed all its 311 steps to the top. According to Pat (I couldn't remember it anymore), we climbed a similarly tall building in Prague a couple years ago. But then it was a bit of a disaster in terms of me being completely out of breath and being exhausted. The Monument, however, was no problem now and I easily climbed to the top (apart from one stop due to the dizzyness with walking in circles all the time). To me, this sucks. Because it means that my recent exercising these last few months have had a positive effect and therefore, I really should continue doing them. Ugh.
We walked through Cheapside, which I always enjoy as a street name. It just sounds funny when characters from Jane Austen's novels pronounce it with great disdain.
We went on to Sint Paul's Cathedral and we did stood in line inside for a ticket. But there would be less than an hour left before closing. Also, the queue went really slow due to some great incompetent organization and a ticket was rather expensive. So me and Pat didn't feel like doing it and left to the hotel for some freshing up.
During all the walking of the day, the weather was warm, but thankfully cloudy. So you didn't have a hot sun burning directly on your head.
We had dinner in Chinatown in the Bazoa Inn. A small, simple & cheap place with the majority of the customers being actual Chinese. Now, I had recently visited another authentic Chinese restaurant with my Chinese colleague. And when she ordered a meal with 'mild' spicyness, I couldn't say anything for a couple of minutes. So, since this again seemed an authentic place, I was warned. Thankfully, the spicyness wasn't so bad here. We got a big bowl of ramen and some dumplings delivered very quickly. After starting eating it, the waitress immediately corrected us: we were supposed to mix everything. So I tried to do so with my chopsticks, but clearly I was being a clumsy Westerner. So the waitress took over and mixed it up for me right before my nose. A somewhat interesting experience.
It was a nice restaurant: good food for little money and quickly prepared. Great as a quick stop before you go to a nearby theater. Which we did...
We had ordered tickets to Avenue Q in the morning, because when you're in London, you're supposed to go to the theater. Plus, I wanted to see this musical anyway after hearing bakenius rave about it. Patrick had never heard of it before and since his musical-knowledge is even more limited than my own, he left it up to me to decide where to go. Also, he had no expectations (the musicals in the Netherlands do not exactly appeal to him), so he couldn't get disappointed anyway. I, however, was very nervous on whether or not it would live up to my expectations.
But, because the service at dinner was so quick, we still had some time left. So we went to a nearby Starbucks (in London, there is always one nearby). We hadn't been to a Starbucks before and it is not our thing. Pat wanted a simple, straightforward black coffee. This greatly confused the waiter.
Avenue Q itself was utterly hilarious. We both had a complete blast. The performance were great, there was lots of rauncy humour in the beginning and more heart-warming moments later on.
We had an understudy for the Princeton/Ron character, but we didn't notice that at all during the show. Of course, I already knew "the internet is for porn" and "if you were gay". But the show also offers a lot of depth and many more funny moments.
We also found that, while the puppets are the main character, the expression of the actors' faces is still very important. This in particular is highly limited with the puppets, so you do need the actors to also act on their own to get the emotions clearly across.
If there were more musicals like this being performed in the Netherlands (and in English), then we'd happily go there often. But I'm afraid that's simply not the case, so it will probably also be our last musical for quite some time.
In the end, I think Avenue Q was one of the highlights of our holiday. And me & Pat have been quoting from it quite frequently ever since. :)
Lonneke
While starting our stroll, we saw the Oxo Tower on the other side of the river. It's funny looking with the large OXO letters on it. The story behind it is great too: the company owning the tower wanted to put advertising for Oxo on it. However, advertisement was not allowed on such a building. So instead, they made sure the windows of the tower just "happened" to have a certain shape.
But we were actually on our way to the Globe (completely ignoring the Tate Modern next to it; it's not for me). I really wanted to see the Globe on our trip, because it seemed like an interesting building, and it did not disappoint. There was also an exhibit and everything of course, but really, the building itself is the main reason for going there.
We were given a tour by a lady of a certain age (who gave off an "I used to be an actrice"-vibe, do we do not know for certain). The building looks old (even though it isn't really) and the wood everywhere gives it a unique character.
We also saw a demonstration, where a volunteer was put upon the theater clothing associated with a noblewoman. If found most interesting, that they also got something like a sausage of cloth filled with cotton around the waist. The sausage (it has a fancier name of course, which I forgot) then sits at your back to give you the illusion of a large bum. It looked completely unrealistic, then but again, so do modern gigantic silicone breasts.
Continued walking & evading tourists and crossed the Tower Bridge to end up (of course) at the Tower in the beginning of the afternoon. The crowd and queue's were huge and neither me nor Patrick felt like becoming part of that. So we only saw the Tower from the outside and continued walking through the City. Which meant: lots of offices & banks and therefore more quiet streets.
We passed the The Monument and climbed all its 311 steps to the top. According to Pat (I couldn't remember it anymore), we climbed a similarly tall building in Prague a couple years ago. But then it was a bit of a disaster in terms of me being completely out of breath and being exhausted. The Monument, however, was no problem now and I easily climbed to the top (apart from one stop due to the dizzyness with walking in circles all the time). To me, this sucks. Because it means that my recent exercising these last few months have had a positive effect and therefore, I really should continue doing them. Ugh.
We walked through Cheapside, which I always enjoy as a street name. It just sounds funny when characters from Jane Austen's novels pronounce it with great disdain.
We went on to Sint Paul's Cathedral and we did stood in line inside for a ticket. But there would be less than an hour left before closing. Also, the queue went really slow due to some great incompetent organization and a ticket was rather expensive. So me and Pat didn't feel like doing it and left to the hotel for some freshing up.
During all the walking of the day, the weather was warm, but thankfully cloudy. So you didn't have a hot sun burning directly on your head.
We had dinner in Chinatown in the Bazoa Inn. A small, simple & cheap place with the majority of the customers being actual Chinese. Now, I had recently visited another authentic Chinese restaurant with my Chinese colleague. And when she ordered a meal with 'mild' spicyness, I couldn't say anything for a couple of minutes. So, since this again seemed an authentic place, I was warned. Thankfully, the spicyness wasn't so bad here. We got a big bowl of ramen and some dumplings delivered very quickly. After starting eating it, the waitress immediately corrected us: we were supposed to mix everything. So I tried to do so with my chopsticks, but clearly I was being a clumsy Westerner. So the waitress took over and mixed it up for me right before my nose. A somewhat interesting experience.
It was a nice restaurant: good food for little money and quickly prepared. Great as a quick stop before you go to a nearby theater. Which we did...
We had ordered tickets to Avenue Q in the morning, because when you're in London, you're supposed to go to the theater. Plus, I wanted to see this musical anyway after hearing bakenius rave about it. Patrick had never heard of it before and since his musical-knowledge is even more limited than my own, he left it up to me to decide where to go. Also, he had no expectations (the musicals in the Netherlands do not exactly appeal to him), so he couldn't get disappointed anyway. I, however, was very nervous on whether or not it would live up to my expectations.
But, because the service at dinner was so quick, we still had some time left. So we went to a nearby Starbucks (in London, there is always one nearby). We hadn't been to a Starbucks before and it is not our thing. Pat wanted a simple, straightforward black coffee. This greatly confused the waiter.
Avenue Q itself was utterly hilarious. We both had a complete blast. The performance were great, there was lots of rauncy humour in the beginning and more heart-warming moments later on.
We had an understudy for the Princeton/Ron character, but we didn't notice that at all during the show. Of course, I already knew "the internet is for porn" and "if you were gay". But the show also offers a lot of depth and many more funny moments.
We also found that, while the puppets are the main character, the expression of the actors' faces is still very important. This in particular is highly limited with the puppets, so you do need the actors to also act on their own to get the emotions clearly across.
If there were more musicals like this being performed in the Netherlands (and in English), then we'd happily go there often. But I'm afraid that's simply not the case, so it will probably also be our last musical for quite some time.
In the end, I think Avenue Q was one of the highlights of our holiday. And me & Pat have been quoting from it quite frequently ever since. :)
Lonneke