blog crack

London Day 9 basically consisted of this:


It was cold, I was freezing and, on top of it all, I had to work. One day I'm going to figure out a way not to have to work every single day of my breathing life. And, while I try more often than not to get out of it, I even have to work on the weekends if I have a deadline. Argh. It's a catch-22. Because I can work from almost anywhere, I can go away a lot. But everywhere I go, I have to work. So was my Thursday passed here in London.

At least I made two very delicious meals.

Day 10 was a lot more exciting. I worked during the day and made all my deadlines. I was supposed to meet the G.O.P.I. at Tower Hill downtown so we could do the Jack the Ripper walk. But take 2 was unsuccessful. I had to finish something up and ended up leaving the flat late which, thanks to the London underground, brought me to our designated spot almost an hour later than anticipapted.

And since I have no cell phone, Gopi had to wait for me outside in the freezing night. When I finally reached her, the tour was long gone and she was frozen into a popsicle. I was a bad friend.

After apologizing profusely and coming to terms with the fact that the Jack the Ripper walk just wasn't meant to be, we decided to make to best of it and go to the Tate (are you happy now Ziggy?)! We had some time to kill until the big event of the evening and we needed to warm up.

So we made our way to Monument, walked over the extremely well designed Millenium Bridge and over the Thames River to our new destination: modern art.



I'd like to say that the exhibits were fascinating and gave me new interpretations of art itself but, alas, I cannot. We did the Tate in 10 minutes tour. =). Maybe I'm a jaded New Yorker, but I wasn't that impressed. Plus, I'm not a big modern art fan preferring pre-Raphaelite and Oriental period work to anything else.

But I was impressed with the hot chocolate. Yum. AND the cafe makes a mean, if not terribly overpriced, cup of tea. And the Tate bookstore was fabulous, providing me with an outlet at which to do all my gift shopping. Excellent!

After dropping way too much money at the shop, we went in search of sustenance.

We passed the Globe Theater:


And walked back over the bridge:


to make out way to Tottenham Court Road, otherwise known as the seventh circle of hell. Do yourself a favor and avoid this area at all costs. I believe I've discovered where all the binge drinkers in all of London are as where all the obnovious tourists and American exchange students are lurking.

We found an "Indian" restaurant called Spice! Spice! (I think it was more like Bangladeshi food) that ripped us off big time. But at least we didn't starve.

Call me a dork, but I really want to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire whilst here in London. And I was *very* excited to do so. I had been trying to buy tickets on-line for days and was thwarted at my every attempt. Film listings were hard to find and when I did finally locate the theaters at which to see the film, found where I could buy tickets on-line, punched in my credit card info and crossed my fingers-- it gave me an error! Damn. If I find 8 pairs of tickets charged to my account, I'm going to go ballistic. I mean, what do you have to do around here to get yourself a simple pair of tickets to a film? Forget it -- I don't want to know.

Well, we finally did see Harry Potter. It was the last show (midnight) at what seemed to be the biggest (at least the craziest) theater in all of London, the Odeon Leicester Square. It was insane. I suddenly felt much less dorky as hundreds of other people were also milling about trying to see Harry Potter as well. While waiting in line and fearing tickets may be sold out, two young women approached us and asked us if we wanted to buy their extra tickets. Perfect.

I guess they do assigned seating at this theater. So we got seats in the Stalls, the ground floor of the theater (translation in terms of high school: the bleachers). This may be the rowdiest movie screening I've ever been to. Half the people were drunk. Scratch that -- 75% of the audience was drunk everyone was in "high" spirits.

I think Gopi and I may have been in the thick of it; the people around us were shouting and cheering and yelling out their fav characters. It was like being at an actual sporting event. It was incredibly fun!

When we exited, there were lights shining on the maple trees in the park right outside the theater, making it seem like hundreds of twinkling stars were falling down on you as you exited. Beautiful.

We caught the bus back home (more on this later) and were entertained by a group of drunken yet well-meaning guys singing, of all things, Karma Chameleon, line by line. They were quite good actually and put a smile on all the other passengers' sleepy faces.

What a night.

My last days here (they include going dancing, going to a secretive members only bar and more good food) and the rest of my observations will have to wait, unfortunately, till I get back to SF on Monday.

Until then.