Escapades in London, Day 3 -- after the fact

Dear readers,

Because I said I'd post about my last day in London: here is that post, about a month late!

Amy and I ended up spending the morning studying and blogging (or at least, I was blogging), before we walked to get postcards from a tourist-y store, and to get some food. As per usual we decided based on what restaurants had more dishes for close to 5 pounds, and we settled on this pub-style place, where I got a steak and ale pie with "peas and mash":

And Amy got fish and chips:

Excellent comfort food!

We then went to Tower Bridge:

(But before we crossed, we encountered a Paralympic team doing a photo shoot, and we creepily took pictures:)

Tower Bridge was bedecked for the Olympics:

(After that photo, my camera died, so I have no more photos for posterity -- so the rest are stolen from Amy's camera. Photo credit to her!)

We checked out the Tower of London area; it was VERY expensive to get in, so we just looked around and took photos outside.

Then we moseyed on down to Globe Theatre, and hung out in the area before the play started.

 

Right around there, we got lunch at this Italian restaurant/hole in the wall, that was really good and seemed authentic:

Mmmm, alleyway Italian food!

Then we got in line for the show (which, by the way, was Henry V, starring Jamie Parker):

And the line was pretty long, and there were definitely lots of other American college students there:

When we got in, the Globe was SO cool on the inside. We got floor seats, meaning we stood up for maybe 4 hours straight, but for what we paid for those tickets, it was SO worth it. We were literally right next to the stage.

And the show itself was pretty much perfect, too! I don't know how much I like the play itself, but it was the perfect show to watch during a trip to London: patriotic, both funny and sad, with wonderful acting, VERY good sets and costumes, and a FANTASTIC actor in the lead role. (I will admit to crushing on him a little bit -- but much of that crushing was due to his acting skill. Really! I swear!) Also: period-appropriate music, all the way through*. Something other productions could learn from.

*played by musicians who also acted; they played horns, recorders, clarinet-ish things, and lute, and all of them sang! Also, every single actor got a chance to sing and dance during the production, and they were all very good. They harmonized! The only flaw was that one of the songs the musicians played before the show began was an arrangement of Riu, Riu, Chiu -- which I thought was just for Christmas?

Either way -- guess who else liked the show, besides me and Amy? This guy!

You may recognize him -- and I did have his name in this post, but then I got at least 75 blog views in the course of 5 hours from random people in France, so I decided to remove it. Either way, this guy played Hamlet at one point, so considering that, I hope he enjoyed the play as much as I did.

So! Hope you enjoyed this post -- and it will be the last one on the subject of London. During this last week(!) in Egypt, I will focus on fitting in as many Egypt factoids as I can before I go.

Much love to my readers <3

- Beth C-C