IC London...I See France

06 May 2007

Shakespeare, Brighton, and the Circle

To open this year's season at The Globe, Othello was being shown. Lucky me, it's the only Shakespeare play I actually enjoy, so I was a bit more than excited to get to go see it on opening night. Meg, Jessie, her friend Kat, and I paid just £5 each to stand in the ground and watch like peasants. Yay! After about an hour, the fun of being groundlings and standing the entire time got a little old. Furthermore, somehow May has become colder than February and, in the open air of The Globe, we were freezing. At intermission, we sat and watched people bring out elaborate picnics to eat, wishing we'd thought to do the same. Though mostly we just enjoyed sitting. Intermission lasted for only 15 minutes (we want more sitting!), so we got up and endured the last 2 acts for another almost 2 hours. I honestly loved Othello a lot more before I was made to stand for 4 hours and watch a production of it in the cold; I just don't see how this works for people. The production itself wasn't bad, though it was obvious at some points that it was their first night - Iago had to call out for lines twice and the bed canopy had a heck of a time coming down, which was great comedic relief by the time 3 and a half hours had gone by. I loved the play and the atmosphere and everything about the evening, but I'm just saying that The Globe wouldn't suffer from a couple of space heaters.

Meg, Jessie, and I spent the better part of Saturday in Brighton at the beach. We actually didn't spend much of it on the beach, but Brighton's at the beach and there you go. I have quite a knack for accidentally planning excursions that occur at the same time as fun festivals. Cinco de Mayo happened to be the first day of the Brighton Festival, so we were greeted with a children's parade and lots of festivities. We wandered the streets looking at shops, bought some candy by the kilogram (gummy bears!) as well as amazing milkshakes from Shakaway, and saw all the little kiddies being parade-y. We finally found the boardwalk and the beach and the Brighton Pier. We spent lots of 10p and 2p coins in all the machines that look like you'll win if you just try one more time. We did, I must point out, win a 10p and a 2p, and I won't mention that we chucked them right back in the games to try to win some more. Shh, it's fun. We bought fish and chips (and mushy peas for me - mmmm) and sat on the beach to eat them. The beach is rocky instead of sandy, proving much better for lunch-eating. We strolled along the beach on the side with all the shops and bought some things that broke our rules for money-spending, but those rules were too strict anyway. We also stopped into an old-fashioned penny machine place and got our fortunes told to us and played fun games with Victorian-style pennies (huge!). We struggled to take some Brighton pictures with all 3 of us in them and sort of succeeded, meaning the best one of us doesn't have any of Brighton in it except for the sky. But we tried.

Once back in London, we didn't have too much time but quickly made some pasta and gathered the troops for our randomly organized Circle Line pub crawl. Jessie, Jennie and Megan (from downstairs), Alyssa and Tim, and I started at the Prince Alfred at our stop in Bayswater with shots of Tequila, to honor the Mexicans and everything. On the way to Notting Hill Gate, we began the tube surfing challenges with Alyssa vs. Tim. I forget who won in the end, but Alyssa and I really did the best of everyone, so that's all that counts. We got to Notting Hill and went to a purple pub where we split a pitcher of Pimms. We lost Jennie after Notting Hill (she had to chase Dan Radcliffe down one last time), but picked up Francia at Sloane Square. There we went to the Royal Court Bar - not a pub, I know - and got various beers. At Embankment we went to Queen Mary, a pub on a boat on the Thames that Alyssa knew about. The bartender was crazy, we were on a boat, and it was a great stop. We then walked to Temple and took our faithful friend the Circle, which was actually behaving itself and being relatively punctual that evening, to Tower Hill which yielded no open pubs. We turned around and ran back to the tube to pick up the next coming Circle and rode it to Liverpool St. where we found a traditional pub called, A Traditional Pub, and thought it appropriate. We got a round of snakebites, stayed past last call, and kind of caused a scene just before leaving. Oops. On our way to Baker St., Alyssa and I decided McDonalds was in order, so the whole group of us just stayed on until Bayswater again to spend our last drink's money on cheeseburgers and fries. They were delicious, and we probably didn't need any more drinks anyway. Despite all of the Circle's faults - forgetting where it's going and severe delays all the time and being the one of the slowest lines in London among them - there's not a better line for a pub crawl.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home