most recent England trip
Feb. 24th, 2014 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauradi7dwArthur had a 2.5 day trip to London scheduled. I keep saying "skype" to him when he goes long distances to work with co-authors, but his claim is that they need to be physically together when working. After reading ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nineweaving's longing posts about the new Jacobean Theatre at the Globe (named for Sam Wanamaker), I first was going to buy Arthur a ticket to see a show while he was there, and ended up deciding to go along, plus adding additional time by myself while he was staying home to teach. I spent a couple of days in Lincolnshire, looking at old buildings and snow drops (and some daffodils!) and ringing bells. This is the school young Isaac Newton attended in Grantham.
I found the B&B people in Grantham really pleasant, and we ended up staying up late chatting.
Upon emerging from King's Cross station when I arrived in London, I saw this street performer, whose sign claimed that he spent ten years learning to stand on his head in a bucket.
Where we always stay is near the film location used to substitute for Baker Street in the Sherlock series. I went by there a couple of times, and there were people taking turns photographing each other in front of the door. This place was by coincidence one that I had planned to seek out because of a reference in a book, but it turned up in the last Sherlock episode as well. There was also a couple taking pictures (plus me)
http://www.urban75.org/london/leinster.html
I went to an Elizabethan house in Barking (a good bit out from downtown) and bumped into a woman who had been on the plane with me. She could hardly believe it, but I'm not usually surprised by coincidences. Also coincidentally that day, I ended up outside the O2 auditorium (originally called the Millenium Dome) as celebrities were arriving for the Brit Awards, which are basically their version of the Grammys. The lines of fans trying to get close to the red carpet were such that all I could see was the backs of the press photographers, but it was mildly entertaining to be there. I was actually on the way to the nearby pier, to ride the commuter boat that goes through the Thames Barrier. My photos of that didn't really come out well. It's been closed more than usual because of the flooding, but it gets opened as the tide goes out, so it was dark by the time the boat went through.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Barrier
It was school vacation week in England, too, and there were family outings most places I went (not in bell towers or theaters). The Natural History museum was touting its dinosaur exhibit. I was there for a different thing, (see below). The line just to get into the museum took 40 minutes on Friday morning. Once there, the dinosaur fans had to wait for another hour, with just one large skeleton in the hall to hold their attention until they arrived at the exhibition area
Slow zigzagging line.
I had gone to see the special exhibit about ancient humans in England. There were a couple of (male) life-size models, one each of Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens, but I chose to pose next to the life-size (?) photo of a Neanderthal woman instead. It's not obvious in the photo, but the shawl is net-like. Not as complex as sprang. Her skirt is animal skin. She probably would have worn more (especially when it was really cold). The guys were entirely naked, so that we could see their proportions and muscles and tattoos and such, not because they wandered around in the buff.
That night we finally saw "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" (really) at the Sam Wanamaker theatre. We didn't see anybody standing around with buckets of water, even though there were dozens of candles lighting the stage.
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/theatre/whats-on/sam-wanamaker-playhouse/the-knight-of-the-burning-pestle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knight_of_the_Burning_Pestle
BBC story about the opening of the theatre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S49ih3Jw_Y
The first show was "The Duchess of Malfi." What we saw was much sillier.
Seeing friends, more museums, more bells, etc. Home again, back to normal.
nineweaving's longing posts about the new Jacobean Theatre at the Globe (named for Sam Wanamaker), I first was going to buy Arthur a ticket to see a show while he was there, and ended up deciding to go along, plus adding additional time by myself while he was staying home to teach. I spent a couple of days in Lincolnshire, looking at old buildings and snow drops (and some daffodils!) and ringing bells. This is the school young Isaac Newton attended in Grantham.I found the B&B people in Grantham really pleasant, and we ended up staying up late chatting.
Upon emerging from King's Cross station when I arrived in London, I saw this street performer, whose sign claimed that he spent ten years learning to stand on his head in a bucket.
Where we always stay is near the film location used to substitute for Baker Street in the Sherlock series. I went by there a couple of times, and there were people taking turns photographing each other in front of the door. This place was by coincidence one that I had planned to seek out because of a reference in a book, but it turned up in the last Sherlock episode as well. There was also a couple taking pictures (plus me)
http://www.urban75.org/london/leinster.html
I went to an Elizabethan house in Barking (a good bit out from downtown) and bumped into a woman who had been on the plane with me. She could hardly believe it, but I'm not usually surprised by coincidences. Also coincidentally that day, I ended up outside the O2 auditorium (originally called the Millenium Dome) as celebrities were arriving for the Brit Awards, which are basically their version of the Grammys. The lines of fans trying to get close to the red carpet were such that all I could see was the backs of the press photographers, but it was mildly entertaining to be there. I was actually on the way to the nearby pier, to ride the commuter boat that goes through the Thames Barrier. My photos of that didn't really come out well. It's been closed more than usual because of the flooding, but it gets opened as the tide goes out, so it was dark by the time the boat went through.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Barrier
It was school vacation week in England, too, and there were family outings most places I went (not in bell towers or theaters). The Natural History museum was touting its dinosaur exhibit. I was there for a different thing, (see below). The line just to get into the museum took 40 minutes on Friday morning. Once there, the dinosaur fans had to wait for another hour, with just one large skeleton in the hall to hold their attention until they arrived at the exhibition area
Slow zigzagging line. I had gone to see the special exhibit about ancient humans in England. There were a couple of (male) life-size models, one each of Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens, but I chose to pose next to the life-size (?) photo of a Neanderthal woman instead. It's not obvious in the photo, but the shawl is net-like. Not as complex as sprang. Her skirt is animal skin. She probably would have worn more (especially when it was really cold). The guys were entirely naked, so that we could see their proportions and muscles and tattoos and such, not because they wandered around in the buff.
That night we finally saw "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" (really) at the Sam Wanamaker theatre. We didn't see anybody standing around with buckets of water, even though there were dozens of candles lighting the stage.
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/theatre/whats-on/sam-wanamaker-playhouse/the-knight-of-the-burning-pestle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knight_of_the_Burning_Pestle
BBC story about the opening of the theatre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S49ih3Jw_Y
The first show was "The Duchess of Malfi." What we saw was much sillier.
Seeing friends, more museums, more bells, etc. Home again, back to normal.
