Day 3: A little history in situ

After a late night of watching the debates on a touch and go internet connection, Ryan and I slept in until midmorning. We met the rest of the group at a little before one to hit the Tube for our afternoon plans.

The Tube is a marvelous transit system that I’m sure I will grow to hate by the time I’m heading home (such is the way of all transit systems, I’m afraid) but for now, I’m in awe. Its fast, clean, comfortable, and it absolutely gets you where you need to go without much work.

We hopped off in The City and headed towards the Millennium Bridge, which is one of the nicest pedestrian only bridges I’ve ever seen. The bridge is perpetually crowded with people, but feels as solid as can be, and the views are beautiful.

We arrived at the Globe Theater just a few minutes before Timon of Athens began. We were standing in the Yard for the entire show, which was tiring, but well worth it. I posted pictures of the stage on Picasa, so you can see what I mean, but the work the extras did with the cargo nets above the stage was incredible. There was always something going on above the stage or in the crowd, the actors regularly played directly to one person or crowd of people in the Yard as they used the whole theater to tell their story.

I was worried that watching a Shakespeare play I’d never read would make it difficult to follow, but the actors did so well that almost no one I spoke with had any trouble at all. I loved the show, the staging made it even better and the atmosphere sealed the deal. It was simply incredible.

After the show, the group separated as some people went to the Tate Modern and some went to lunch. I got caught between the two and suddenly found myself very alone in the Globe. I had no idea where anyone was, or if people were still planning to go to the museum, but lacking a better idea than that, I headed Tate-ward.

Figuring the museum people would be hungry too, and remembering a previous email about coffee after the show, I headed to the café, where about 20 U of C students were waiting patiently for their table. I wasn’t too worried about being able to get back on my own, but I was less than stoked about traipsing around a pretty unfamiliar city all by my lonesome.

The Tate was a little underwhelming. Some of the stuff was very very cool (Soviet propaganda room, museum housed in a former power station) but a lot of it was just a little too far out for my taste,

As the group peeled off, about 9 of us decided to head to Fleet Street in search of dinner and possibly a pint. Shockingly, almost everywhere we went was closed. 7pm on a Saturday isn’t exactly an hour you’d think getting food would be an issue.
Nevertheless, we found a WONDERFUL pub called Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street which is about as good a pub as we’ll likely find. It was built in 1676, is known to have housed Charles Dickens, Dr. Johnson, and a number of other really famous authors, and it was cheap. Pints were between 1 and 3 pounds instead of between 3 and 4, and both the cider and the lager were very solid. The Chips were very good as well, but there was a solid menu beyond that. We’ll certainly be back.

We took the tube home, headed into the kitchen for a small bite of food and just to hang out. We met Paulo, the new IES student, and hung around with him for a while. He’s a nice guy, so that was fun.

Ryan and I concluded the evening by watching the single most ridiculous show on TV. Quiz Call is a show, where by they give a category (Movies beginning with R) and then people call in and guess. But it gets much worse. Each call costs 75p, whether you get through or not, and they take maybe as many calls as minutes on the clock (3-5) out of the 200-400 callers each minute. No lie.

On the insane off chance you get through, they let you guess and tell you if you’re right or wrong. People guessed Rainman no less than 10 times in the time we watched, if it was wrong before ITS STILL WRONG! People guessed Rocky almost as often. Correct Answer (1 of 12): Rocky V. That’s right, the worst Rocky movie ever made. The show was hypnotically bad, but the best part were people like Sharon from Cardiff. Sharon got through not just once, but TWICE. Rare of Rare. Given twice the chance to win 30k pounds, Sharon yelled “Righteous to Kill!”

Problem: That’s not actually a movie. Righteous Kill is a movie, but still wrong. Even better, when she got through a second time, she yelled the exact same thing. Simply incredible.

Tomorrow is an off day, so we’ll see what all transpires before classes on Monday!