There’s No Reading Here! (London, Day 1)

 So, Obviously Bored Readers, 

Here we are again. 

I am once again on the road, this time back to London.  This time with 6 students.  They are all young women, which may come into to play any given moment.  Although I am about to tease them, they have so far been very good.  Now whether that is some self-selection, or having just 6…or other things, someone else can figure out. 

Today was day 1.  We met at 930 and everyone said they got a decent night’s rest.  As details came out, some were out hunting for snipe until late hours, but we’ll ignore that. 

I gave them breakfast choices and they chose Joe & the Juice.  It was not clear if that was due to preference or the fact it was the first place they saw.  If you don’t know, J&J is an American franchise and it doesn’t really do food…so while four of the six juiced up…the other two were left struggling.  Oh the sign out front said “I’m ready to drink juice and kick ass and I just finished my juice…”. Huh.  I never saw any of the kick ass. 🙂

I made the now standard run to Westminster, where we looked at the river and the bridge, I did a short tour guide thing about the poetic value of the bridge (Wordsworth ca. 1814), and then we headed toward the Abbey.  One of them decided to jump the light, bringing my first gasp of the day. (Later, be ready for it)

As we crossed Parliament Square, the one looked at the statue of Nelson Mandela and read aloud “Nelson…” I don’t know how she pronounced his surname, but I only recognized it from the statue.  Then she got it! “Oh, Man-dell-uh, I’ve heard of him…”. OMG.  #1

I took no pictures of the abbey, so the marker is the one of the horse guard…something a bit different, I hope. 

There was a long, long line to get into the Abbey.  No one was interested, it seemed, especially a la a certain someone when they found out it wasn’t free! 😂 I did the tour guide thing, and they decided to go into the gift shop.  I ended up holding two J&J cups and two reusable water bottles.  A woman walked by and said “you need more hands.”  NS! 

We then circled the Houses of Parliament, which included these gems: “I see his name on the statue and I still have no idea who he is” (him being Oliver Cromwell, who not only has a statue but the commons there named after him) and then at the statue of Richard I, crickets.  “Was he important? What did he do?” 🙄 Let me just insert here: 5 of the 6 are English majors, one with a history minor.  

We walked up the hill to Trafalgar Square, stopping for photo ops at 10 Downing Street and the Horse Guards.  There was a discussion of what to do about horse plop in your way.

  AT some point, one of them said about the current king, “I know nothing about politics.”  Shortly thereafter it was “You know I can’t read.  Or I don’t.”  🤦🏻

There was a brief discussion of why there were “Fuck Biden” signs across from the entrance to Downing Street (I told them it meant something different here 😂).  I needn’t tell you what they knew of the guy on top of the column in the square or why it was called that. 

I sent them into the national gallery and told them I’d be in Caffe Nero, which you could see from where we were standing.  I took that as a signal that I could wait awhile, they took it that seeing 4 paintings and coming after me was the thing to do.  My bad.  

Then to Leicester Square, where, after a quick perusal of the tickets available, we were entertained (I use the word loosely) by a rendition of one of them’s “jazz hands” dance routine.  She was hoping to be discovered by a talent scout.  It turns out that this may be a trip where it is dance steps every possible time…instead of the trips with the musical numbers constantly ringing in my ears.  (No names mentioned)

Piccadily Circus, where I got them to take pictures of the supposedly famous statue, but they wanted to go into the thrift store.  They did.  No one bought anything.  One said it was amazingly expensive. I may have said something about being on Piccadilly Circus, but I’m not like that. :)

The walk to Carnaby Street and lunch was full of “I don’t know what that is.”  Burberry?  I don’t know all the others.  They knew Zara.  

Lunch at Dishoom, one of our favorites was a bit of a bust.  The waiter, Stuart 448 according to the receipt, started well, but forgot us.  He actually said “I should have spent more time with you” as we left.  I took one pic, of their black daal specialty and their “greens” — which are good, for greens.  I actually got none of the one order of their famous ruby chicken, because…well, we’ll blame it on Stuart. 

It had been decided to take a bus back to the flat, so they could sit on top and look out.  Okay. 

We walked over to Regent’s Street, which some readers will recognize as very busy, and we crossed with the green man to the median.  We stood there a moment and then — five of them decided nothing was coming so they were crossing. 

A bus was coming!!! 

Years of my life disappeared.  

It wasn’t really all that close, but…

The bus stopped in front of me and the driver was like 3 feet from me; he looked at me, smiled, tipped his cap, and eye rolled.  We both shook our heads.  

Geez.  

But, we made it back. 

But then comes highlight number two.   We are at the top front of the bus for this: we turn onto Marylebone Road, which is wider and busier, and cruising until…a guy on a bike got in the way. The driver honked at him and the rider, a rough looking middle-aged gent in a sock cap, turned and flipped him off.  The minions roared approval — and the bus driver rode right up his arse!!!  

This made things better, of course, bc this led to another universal obscene gesture, with another bird to boot, then…

There was a road maintenance truck blinking and stopped in our lane! We stopped but the biker slid around the truck, turning to our driver and giving him an exaggerated stroke off gesture and another bird and away he went. 

We were much impressed by his bravado. 

We went after the play to dinner; this is today’s food porn — my risotto al fungi.  It was a main-stream Italian place near the theatre, on the Strand (so a bit overpriced, if convenient), so decent, but nothing to write more blog about. 

The play (I arranged it this way so SOME of you could stop reading 😂): I blame Michael at least partially for this.  😁. He did recommend it.  To give him credit (okay, not really) they all liked it, or said they did (further discussion found a lot of kinks in that wall of like), and it was energetic and all kinds of possibly positive things.  It’s a new musical called Six and the six are the wives of Henry VIII (who fortunately never appears) all telling their story.  

First, I sat there, as we were 20 minutes early, wondering why I bought these tickets that were so high (how high were you?) that we couldn’t see inside the domed ceiling in front of us.  I remembered because this huge group came in and took up all six rows in front of us — yes, all the way across.  They were a Belgian school group (I was told that at least we spelled London right on OUR gear 😁).  The place was packed. 

The post-play discussion at dinner was mildly interesting — they tried to explain the “modern” (they used a term I don’t know that means modern and gay) outfits (they opposed it to Hamilton’s period costumes), but we struggled make the feminist message (of beheaded empowerment — ironic as that is) work with some of what was being sung.  It was ALL song.  The songs were okay, made better by some of the voices.  Anne Boelyn’s was the best, with repeated plays on the word head (I’ve not gone in order, the opening song’s repeated line, each bit sung by the appropriate queen — “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”), which she “milked” for all it was worth. 

And I hate to complain about brevity, but it was a no interval 85 minutes.  We discussed at dinner how we thought they were going to stretch it out and the answer was : they didn’t!  Felt a bit like a bust, but they liked it and it got their toes into the theatre.  At dinner, several made plans (they bought the tickets) to see Hamilton next Tuesday night.  They paid #63 for the tickets.  

And that, many pages later is day one.

Day 2 we have tickets to Hampton Court Palace (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived) which we are going to in the morning.  4 of us are going in the evening to the Globe to see Midsummer Night’s Dream.  I figured I might as well do one more London trip seeing the ass’s head. 

Good night.  Or good afternoon.   Sweet dreams. 

Today’s research question: what’s in a hookah?  There are 3 places on our street with people outside partaking.