London!

The Elizabeth Tower (aka Big Ben), the Thames and the Eye

We are in London, at long last, the city that I call home. It is certainly different from my time here, but that was centuries ago, or so it seems. When I lived here it was a bustling city, but now it is beyond bustling. It has definitely come into the twenty-first century, and seemingly beyond, Perhaps it is similar to New York, but I have not been in New York for even longer, so have no basis for comparison. Everyone walks around with at least one smart phone in hand, and either earbud plugged into the phone, or some sort of Bluetooth earbuds. They make me think of the Doctor Who episodes where the Doctor, Rose and Mickey are in the alternate universe and Rose’s father is still alive, but her parents’ Rose is a dog! Many of the people with Bluetooth earbuds walk around having animated conversations with themselves, or so it appears. I know better, but it is still amusing!

At present we are on day 5 of the planned 14 day Extinction Rebellion. People are camping in Trafalgar Square and at the London Airport (which I had never even heard of!). It is causing havoc in the city. Traffic which is normally horrendous is being diverted around the event, and on the narrow, winding roads that means taxis take forever and ever to get places, and cost a bloomin’ fortune. Yesterday after Phantom we walked to the nearest tube station which was Charing Cross at Trafalgar Square to get back to our B&B only to find the entrance chained. Our feet hurt, we were exhausted, and it was a long walk to another tube station (I don’t know the buses very well anymore) so be grabbed another taxi. At least we were headed away from the mess!

London with the Tower Bridge, the Tower, the Shard, the Gherkin and more!

But I am getting ahead of myself. On Tuesday Glenn arrived at Heathrow, but I was not there to meet him. And neither of us were able to communicate with one another. AT&T’s international system was not working - for us. My coach was a bit late arriving to pick me up, then had problems on the motorway. I tried to text, but had no service even though there was WiFi on the coach. Grrrrr. When we arrived I all but ran with my luggage through the endless halls of the mammoth airport to arrivals. Miraculously, as I hurried up the last stretch there was Glenn a little ways ahead of me, but walking away from me. The arrivals area is naturally huge, and yet he was right there! I couldn’t catch up with him, but managed to announce ‘Fischer’ in a strong enough voice that he heard me. Whew!!! It was lunchtime for me, so I grabbed a sandwich and some biscuits (cookies) and we headed to the tube. Our AirB&B is advertised as being in Notting Hill. That is a bit of a stretch. It is in Holland Park which is a ways away from Notting Hill. Not that terribly far if you are not hauling luggage and are not exhausted to begin with. Because we could not access the internet I could not look up the directions on the AirB&B site. I had an address, but it was rather confusing, listing two streets and the name of a building. We asked several people, all of whom were very nice, but hadn’t a clue. The A-Z (a very detailed map book of London pronounced A to Zed) was very unclear in this instance. We kept walking and walking, knowing that we were in the general region, but not finding it. At long last we saw the name of the building over a small entrance. Our instructions were to get the key from a lockbox, but the description did not match the lockbox at the entrance. It was a huge block of flats (apartment building) so I thought that there must be a ‘front’ entrance. Well, on the exact opposite side there was another small door, but this one had a lockbox with the correct description. Thankfully it was easy to get the keys, but then there was no visible lock on the door! It turned out the what looked like something to easily find the keys was actually an electronic entrance key. Once inside, our hostess had said that they were on the 3rd floor. In Britain that means the 4th, and there was no lift. UGH. We climbed and climbed, but it turned out that as she is not British, she really did mean the 3rd floor. The building is built around a big courtyard, and, of course, the flat was on the other side. We got there, but struggled with the two locks but only one was needed for the front door, the other was to our room, which, naturally, was up another flight of stairs! But we were there!!!!!

It was dinner time. I had not had a chance to eat my lunch and Glenn had not eaten anything since the meager breakfast on the plane. But we had seen nowhere close by to eat, and we definitely did not want to venture out again, so we shared my sandwich and biscuits and collapsed.

Wednesday and it was time to explore! I had a matinee ticket to the concert version of ‘Les Miserables,’ and Glenn wanted to go to the British Museum. To the British Museum we went. After getting our bags checked we went into the vast entrance hall, not really knowing where to begin. I asked directions for the short way to the Rosetta Stone, and suddenly we were there amongst a crowd all trying to get a close look. The stone is large, but the writing is so small that you must really get in close to see.

The Rosetta Stone

The stone dates from 196 BCE. The inscriptions are in Egyptian hieroglyphics at the top, Greek in the middle and Demotic on the bottom. Hieroglyphics had never been understood or readable. This amazing stone, with the same story in three languages enabled a man in 1822 to decipher the hieroglyphics after realising that they represented sounds.

From there we went through the Assyrian and Greek collections, including the stone frieze that was taken from around the Parthenon previously known as the Elgin Marbles. They are amazingly detailed, especially for having been mounted above the very tall columns of the temple.

Not long after it was getting to be time for us to eat so I could head to the theatre. There was a pizza place inside the museum near the entrance, so we had a yummy pizza. I searched online for a place that we could met after the show, found one, and wrote out directions for Glenn, plus giving him the A-Z so that he could see the general layout of the land. Then I left him to explore and headed of to Shaftsbury Avenue and the Gielgud Theatre.

‘Les Miserables’ is usually staged at another theatre, but that theatre was being upgraded, so this performance was a concert version. It had basically everything except the sets.

My view upon taking my seat

At home I had watched the televised version of the concert version of Les Mis performed at the Royal Albert Hall which was brilliant. Still, I wanted to see it live, even if it was the concert version. And I loved it! The cast was excellent. Valjean was Alfie Boe who had, this year, been awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) from Her Majesty. He was nothing short of amazing. When it came time for his famous solo ’God on high’ I could actually hear every note that he sang, at the proper pitch, and understand the lyrics. That has almost never happened since I lost my hearing. Tears streamed down my face, not only due to the text or the setting of the text but mostly due to the fact that I could actually hear it and tell what an amazing singer he is! Perhaps there is hope for my hearing yet???

I am so utterly happy that I went!

Following the show, probably with tear streaks visible down my face, I walked towards the museum to Frith Street and the Pret a Manger where we were to meet. A cuppa and purchasing sandwiches to take back to the flat for dinner, Glenn soon showed up, a bit bedraggled (it was only his first full day in London - getting over jet lag is not usually easy), I gave him a restorative mango smoothie, and we returned to the flat to supper, sleep and rejuvenation. A great first day!

As a side note, yesterday I discovered that my friend Kristin from Boulder is staying in a flat on Frith Street. Small world!