Where's Julia...where's [can't say]...and Two Ignoble Kinsmen

Today was the last day.  Period.  Right after breakfast tomorrow taxis arrive, we load up, get on the express back to Heathrow and try to survive the 7 hour flight back to Newark.

But today we were in London.  Still. 

First world problem, this morning's version: we were out of coffee in the flat.  For those of you who forget (this was a rift many Bob and Bing trips ago), "Bing" has no personality without coffee.  So I walked to the Starbucks and got 2 vientes and my decaf (because I have no personality).   BTW, here in London I ordered "dark roast" and they all looked at each other and one shook her head no.  "You can get an expresso."  So, I got 2 vientes made from expresso.  M had some personality this morning, but we missed it.

K came with the students on our morning adventure.  Step one was a bus ride "across town" (more accurately, across some of the center part of town) to Kensington Park Gardens.

We are ostensibly supposed to be here to see the places from some books we read this spring semester in my upper level lit class and this one was set here -- in one of those row houses facing the private garden.  In fact the author,  Alan Hollingsworth, has said he was inspired to write the book based on walking by here and wondering what went on inside.  I think this is cool -- that location is such a feature of the creative part and the texture of the novel.

Then we walked to Portobello Road (I was working on a mushroom joke for the title and didn't get there).  Portobello is one of those "markets" like so many others where people set up stands daily and close the street for pedestrians.  They have more kitsch than Branson.  Okay, maybe not more. 

We shopped.  Ian wrote his mother a text about fondling too much stuff; she actually did
fairly well.  "We" bought EH a "cute dress" for cash (this is where the "we" part comes in :)) and some other souvenirs.  I didn't buy it, but I sure feel like I could use this kitschy poster/sign:

Oh, yeah.  I turned the students the wrong way down Portobello Road.  I said Notting Hill Gate station was to the left when it was to the right.  I corrected it with them before leaving the scene, but still...can't effin' read Google maps!  ):

One feature of Portobello Road is that it serves as the setting for the movie Notting Hill, which I actually watched on the plane over to get ready for London (it's a very London movie).  Floppsy, played by Hugh Grant in one of his more charming roles as a young man, owns a travel book store there, which Julia Roberts drops into as she's in London on a movie promo tour.   Here's the store today --

You'll notice it doesn't sell travel books anymore.

And you don't see Julia Roberts going in and out.  I tried.

Then we sat down and had a light gnosh.  At a Pain Quotidien, which is an American chain, or there are stores in New York, anyway, but still.  Here's your brunch nuts & twiggy food porn --

Okay, only the bread and the yogurt with granola is nuts and twiggy, but they were organic eggs.  Right?

Then we went to Oxford Circus, where we entered multiple shops and spent money like American tourists with money.  Some of that is true.

Somehow we ended up in Selfridges, which reminds me a lot of Macy's home store at Herald Square New York. 

I ended up in their foodhall.  Sat in the corner and ordered this --

Afternoon tea.  Sans all the cakes and sandwiches.  This was English Breakfast tea -- which is often described as "light."

Home to rest and pack.  Dinner out at Nando's (see night 1) with Bing and one of the Dorothys.  Peri peri chicken.  Heartburn.

To the play.

Again, a discussion of how to get there.  Google maps and I agreed the best/fastest way while M said he "always goes the other way" -- which is to say what we did last Wednesday (there were pictures of my students on the Milennial Bridge, which we didn't cross today).  Well, I didn't know which exit to come out of from the station and so we wondered around the train station.  It seemed like a long walk.  K wasn't happy, having walked almost 20,000 steps today (it's not true that 10,000 were in Selfridges). 

And then there was the play.  We went because it's kind of a bucket list thing to see every Shakespeare play and this was Two Noble Kinsmen, which has only been produced two times in the last xxx. 

There's a reason it is rarely produced.  Here's your Wiki-summary: it's late Shakespeare, in fact, it's not all Willy, parts are by John Fletcher -- and you felt like you could tell.  It's also a "problem romance," hence, the subplot has a young woman in love with one of the "heroes," yet she doesn't know that the next guy on stage isn't him (despite being cast as blonde where Palamon was dark).  In the end, the young woman with the mental problem is married off.  And the two heroes fight over Emilia, only to have Palamon die.  Of course, being good...whatevers...the other guy goes ahead and marries Emilia, who, of course, doesn't give a flying fig which of the two guys she's never actually talked to that she's married.  All this weirdness is made worse -- did I mention Palamon and his cousin Arcite fall in love with her at first sight -- by the fact the actor playing Emilia was flatter than my home state of Indiana.  She even had a song in act two and it was deader than disco. 

So.  I've seen it.  We've seen it.  We don't want to see it again.  Controversy reigns over whether it was better or worse than Monday night's King Lear.   But Lear was supposed to be a tragedy and was.

And that is our last day.  Sobs.  Tears. 

So, gentle reader, I leave you again for awhile.  But we'll be back.  There are more trips to make, more food to eat, more songs NOT to be sung...so adieu.

Oh, and BTW, here is the public access to my students' blogs for the trip.  I have to work on the pictures, but here is the link: HERE.