So the tours for Wednesday and Thursday are: A Virginia Woolf tour of London--and High Tea (That just needs caps, doesn't it?). Then US Authors in London tour with a visit to the archives at the National Portrait Gallery (bc sometimes we just need to see a caricature of Poe in person). And oh-so many blue plaques… :)My fave blue plaque of the day? Probably Herman Melville… Who knew he lived in London shortly before writing Moby Dick?? Also, he was neighbors--separated by only 100 years or so--with Benjamin Franklin…
I'm going to take Thursday's students on a bit of a Henry James tour, as well. We're not reading him… but he was a contemporary and acquaintance of Twain's… and there's a nice walking tour I found for him. Put him together with Woolf the day before, and I get to talk about the flaneur twice in two days for my classes!Amid all my running around, I desperately wanted to have Chipotle! So I tracked one down and was so happy to finally find it! This is--I believe--my first US restaurant in the UK, not counting Starbucks, of course. I go to plenty of chains, but they're British/European chains… (Wagamama, anyone??) And, just like each of my students, pretty much, have posted in their blogs, eating at a US chain in the UK is just not the same. They try to be as similar as possible, but it's not the food I was craving. I should have just gone to a Mexican restaurant… The other week, I tried a Wahaca, a local chain, and it was delightful!! In other words, I just got to learn what I keep telling my students… Never too old to learn, right?? No matter how many times I get to learn it… ;)
THEN, I went to a show, The Ruling Class-- a play starring James McAvoy, a semi-big name--one of the biggest I'll see here, I think. Anyway, if Ralph Fiennes is the standard by which I will be judging these guys, McAvoy is right up there. He was great-- the play was fun (bitter satire as usual--that seems to be all that's out nowadays). He rode a unicycle on the stage-- in his tighty whities no less!! Jumped all over the stage… Really put in a lot of effort-- and it showed…
AND, this was the noisiest/rowdiest audience I've been in yet. They/we were up to mischief. What is the word for happy hecklers? That was us… We would interrupt the play, cat call, whatever… But it was all in good fun--everyone was having a blast. I counted twice that the performers had to pause in the show to wait for us to stop clapping/laughing… :) At one point, McAvoy's character made an obvious pun (for the life of me I can't remember it-- something about his staff or rod or something obvious like that)… and this one person off to the side of the audience (not me, I promise!!), called out like it was the cleverest joke in the world… It was the FUNNIEST sound--and it wasn't even from the stage. ANYWAY, we lost our ever loving minds in the audience. The performers had to stop and do double takes, too… At one point, McAvoy was addressing the crowd as part of the show, and he said "Listen to me…" and was supposed to go on. But we were all howling so loudly from whatever he'd just done (this wasn't the unicycle even) that it took a while… I get the feeling his "no, really, LISTEN TO ME" was ad libbed… :)
It was such a fun show! Right up there with the Ralph Fiennes (Man and Superman) and The Woman in Black and a few others for absolute faves…And apparently it killed me… because when I got home--around 11p-- I decided it would be a good idea to flop on my bed first thing and just close my eyes for a minute… Sigh! And then I woke up this morning--still in my coat--on top of the covers--Sheesh!
Today was a quiet day-- it really had to be after yesterday, I suppose. More frantic planning for my classes tomorrow and Thursday-- and I'm nowhere close to being ready. But it will all come together in the end, as it always does. :)
I'll let you know about the high tea-- ;)
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