Summer comes back to London before the autumn, apparently. It was an early day again today, but a hot one, which was good and bad, since we were doing plenty of walking. We had matinee tickets for Marlowe’sDoctor Faustus at the Globe, and D. Nichol wanted to walk down to Westminster before the show (about an hour and a half after we left Liverpool Station). Ambitious, and a bit lacking in any conception of time, but we tried to make a go of it.
We didn’t quite make it all the way to Big Ben, and had to head back over the Thames sooner than planned in order to get to the theatre on time. It didn’t help that we ran into a used book sale on the way – twenty English majors, on their way to Shakespeare’s old theatre to see a medieval play, have a very difficult decision to make. Kinda like when Spiderman had to pick whether he saved the bus of innocent people or Mary Jane.
The Globe is a fantastic spot for a show, especially one like we saw. The building was reconstructed to be like the one that stood there in Elizabethan times, and was apparently built without any modern tools. It’s an open air space – even when it rains, which it most certainly didn’t today – with tiers of balconies in a semi-circle around a wicked looking, gilded stage. The open space near the stage is for the standing Groundlings, kind of like the setup at a rock concert. Our seats were on a wooden bench (you could buy cushioned pillows in the lobby) to the right of the stage; pretty close, but with a pillar directly in front of us.
The story of a dude bored with his studies and aspiring to loftier heights, so much so that he ends up selling his soul to the devil, is an old one; hell, Marlowe’s play itself is 400 years old. It had an old-school feel to it, for sure, with long, eloquent speeches, lavish costumes, religious imagery and symbolism, and a general atmosphere of something tried and true.
The first half was decent, but not as good as I had been hyped up to think. Screw this, says I, I’m joining the poor souls on the ground. I don’t want to look at Faustus’s half-concealed side profile anymore – I wanna see when he spits.
That’s kind of my thing. If I go to a concert and don’t end up in the artist’s personal space, it almost feels like a waste. It's all about endurance, and counting on the fact that nobody else is stupid enough to stay standing in the same spot for 10 hours. These can attest to that creepy persistence:
Maybe creepy was an understatement
Once I got up alongside the wooden catwalk . . . what a change! I was actually euphoric once we left the theatre – I loved the second half of the show, and was just absorbed in being a fan. The actors came right out next to me and interacted with the crowd – just like catching a pick at the KISS concert. The costumes and over-the-top theatrics were right in front of my face – just like Gene Simmons at the KISS concert. Faustus got his head lopped off, and I’m still not sure how it happened (the rest of the group – poor suckers – stayed in the seats, and missed this little touch) – I assume KISS pulled a similar stunt at some point in their careers.
It was fun, and it was dramatic. Doctor Faustus was straight up entertaining.
This afternoon was definitely my standout theatre experience, although this could just be the start of great things; we’re heading to Oxford tomorrow, to see The Wild Bride by the Kneehigh Theatre Group. Their story sounds pretty cool: they’re a troupe exclusively bashed out of Cornwall that prepares their shows, usually seeped in surrealism, in obscure places, like barns. The Blues-Gothic feel of tomorrow’s show sounds cool too, and the timing is right, since I’m already in the zone of being fascinated by the consequences of selling your soul to the devil.
At any rate, after Faustus got pulled off and damned for eternity, he ended up partying with the demons and the furies, rocking out on the lute with Mephastophilis, so maybe the consequences aren’t that bad after all. I might have to look into it, to wish for more time to live this dream.
When you’re waiting for something, the wearing away of time is a lot different than when you’re trying to hang on to something. When that something is the same thing, you notice it all the more. This Europe trip is a lot like that. It was about a year ago that I decided I’d come over here for the semester (although I can’t place exactly when that would have been, or what made me finally commit), and so it’s always been something that was going to happen. Yes, no worries, there’s plenty of time to make big plans and to see the world. Now that I’m actually here, I’m starting to realize how quick the days are; how it’s easy to make the most of the time here, but how it’s also easy to completely lose track.
It’ll soon be Thanksgiving break back in Canada. That thought scares me, and has also prompted me to scour booking websites, to think about trips for the coming weekends so I don’t miss out on anything. It’s too easy to put that off.
Yesterday, we made the trek into London in the early afternoon, to see an evening showing of Mike Leigh’s play, Grief, at the National Theatre. Mike Leigh is a director with a decent-sized Wikipedia article and a few Academy Award nominations, if that gives any indication of his merit. One of Gary Oldman’s first films was a Mike Leigh one, back in the ’80s.
Before we went to the theatre, we went to the Tate Modern, a huge (and, surprisingly, plain-looking) modern art gallery across the Millennium Bridge. The place had a real large-scale, impressive feel to it on the inside, with lots of empty space for contemplation (read: wasted space; what do you need a room the size of my house to look at a few paintings?). The rooms were divided based on the time periods and the artistic movements, which helped give some focus and context.
Now, here’s the thing. I get why this is amazing:
Not that this is at the Tate; "The Raft of the Medusa" is at the Louvre
Really, I do. I tried to paint more than once, and it didn’t turn out like that. And some of the surrealist stuff we saw was really cool. Like this one of a German witches’ gathering:
Look closely
And hey, the room on dark comedy and satire was pretty funny:
But. Just because you tack up a nice little description about your piece and explain how this canvas represents human fragility or oppression or whatever, doesn’t necessarily mean that it does. That’s kind of something altogether different, isn’t it? I hate pretentious people, really I do. If you really connect to Modern Art, cool; I respect that completely. I don’t connect, but then again I don’t like sushi, and it’s totally cool if you do. But, if you go into the Tate because you want to sound like you’re better than us lowly cave dwellers who think that pictures that look like the stuff they’re representing are actually pretty good, you have sadly failed to impress me. It’s like people who can’t deal with poems that rhyme. Get over yourself.
I asked Kayla what she thought of a pair of paintings, “Adam” and “Eve,” that were solid-coloured works with single lines drawn up vertically. “What,” she asked, “that piece of shit hanging there?”
There you go. That’s not pretentious, and it’s sure more valid than some of the things I heard on that trip.
A pile of crap
A pile of crap Modern Art
Don’t get the wrong idea; I enjoyed the few hours we spent there, I just got off to a rough start. The surrealist stuff was cool, there were works by Monet and Picasso, and a really cool photo exhibits on families that look at all kinds of different definitions of “family.” After our time was spent, it was time to head to the National Theatre, just a few minutes down the southern bank of the Thames.
Too bad that it was monsoon season in London, apparently.
We’d been lucky up to that point in avoiding the rain. But not that night. It was pouring, and I didn’t even have a jacket. We made it about halfway before D. Nichol made the practical suggestion of popping into a restaurant for a pint. We waited out the rain, so that the second leg was much drier.
When we got to the theatre, it turns out that our seats were in the front row. Much better than the usual balcony seats with a post in front of your face. Grief actually had the biggest impact on me so far; the pacing was slow, focussing on a single mother, her useless older brother, and her daughter, who despises not only her, but life itself. Whereas some people found it boring, I thought it was subtle. Not a lot happened until the ending, but my attention was still held all the way through.
Meanwhile, the ending was devastating, disturbing, and unavoidable. It still gives me a bit of shudder. It also made me realize how nasty kids can be to their parents and what the other perspective looks like; I thought a lot about being 15, and even though I can’t remember ever slamming my door shut and screaming how much I hate the people who did everything for me, I still did some shitty things. We all did, I guess, but I don’t know that that makes adolescence any more bearable.
Anyway, it was the play that had the strongest hold on me, and next week we’re actually seeing Mike Leigh speak about his work. Should be cool. Made the 11 o’clock train out of Liverpool Street, and back in Harlow just shy of midnight. The days are long, and yet, at the same time, they go by so quickly.
It’s that perspective thing again. A blessing and a curse.
Tomorrow we’re heading back into London in the early morning, this time to go to the Globe Theatre – Shakespeare’s alma matter, an authentic 1997 reconstruction not far from the original site. We’re seeing Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus – when I studied the play in second-year English, I absolutely loved the medieval story about selling your soul to the devil, so I’m really excited to see a modern adaptation in a theatre that reverberates with an Elizabethan feel.
For now though, I’ve got to see if I can find a flight that’s cheap to a place I’ve never heard of, for an experience that’s unforgettable. Is that too much to ask for?
Edinburgh is one of the most gorgeous cities I’ve ever been in.
Pulling into Waverly Station in the early afternoon and walking up a cobblestone hill to Castle Rock Hostel, carved into a niche in a stone wall that happens to be in the dominating shade of Edinburgh Castle, your mind flips through its rolodex of the places you’ve been before and looks for a comparison. London has its seeping history – that’s undisputed – but it also has its crowds and its modern buildings and its traffic lights and its burgeoning capitalism. All the yuppies running around as if someone’s pushing them. Not that I’m throwing London under the bus here or anything, but the old section of Edinburgh, basically contained within Princes Street and High Street with Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace serving as bookends, felt completely removed from that mindset – like it’s a city that’s quite capable of existing in the past because it works, not because it’s gimmicky.
Ok, it can be a bit gimmicky at times
The eleven of us that went to Scotland this weekend were only there for about 48 hours, hardly enough time to get an authentic feel for the city, let alone the country. All this can be is a glimpse.
Loch Ness, the Highlands, ruined castles dotting the countryside . . . of course there’s a list of things that I would have loved to have experienced, if I had the time. That’s not the point, though – if I had a chance to redo the trip, the pictures that I would post on Facebook from this hypothetical trip would look pretty similar to the ones from the past weekend. If I chose to do something different, it wouldn’t have been a better adventure.
But I digress. Let’s get back on track; Edinburgh is one of the most gorgeous cities I’ve ever been in.
We left for Scotland on the 9:30 train out of King’s Cross Station in London, which meant getting up, bleary eyed, around 5:30 in Harlow (we got back to the Maltings from London after midnight the evening before). I always feel bummed out, starting a trip before the sun comes up; I know that’s a first world problem that’s too petty to even mention, but it really does mess with your internal clock and plays tricks with your mood. It was a slow morning of getting into London and taking the tubes from Liverpool Street, but by the time we got to King’s Cross – with about an hour until we had to board – the sun was up and the jittery excitement was back on track.
Heading north from London, cities started taking on stone facades, hills started to weave their way along the coast of the Atlantic, and sheep started lining the tracks in uncomfortable numbers. Hundreds. Just hanging out, waiting. An American woman who figured her neighbourhood in West Philadelphia (probably where Will Smith was born and raised) was safe (even though people occasionally got shot there) tried to give me some life advice on the way – hah! joke’s on her, I’m too stubborn to listen. She bailed in Durham, giving just enough time to shake off the what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up-and-bear-in-mind-the-economy-sucks mindset and get into the we’re-in-Scotland-let’s-have-a-few-onboard-beer-and-look-at-sheep mindset.
Once we pulled into the station and grabbed our bags, it was a short walk to Castle Rock Hostel, where we quickly filled up small reception area and had to squeeze around each other to pay our meagre £14 and get orange passes to let us into the living area. Because of renovations, there was no hot water at that point; let the hipster-vagabond lifestyle begin.
The building was surprisingly large, with a full kitchen and multiple common areas, and full of people from all over the world; we had a single room between us all (plus two other random girls who we inevitably scarred by the time they left on Sunday morning), on the bottom floor, and shared a bathroom with a few other rooms. “Edinburgh Pubs” was our room, with each bed named after a watering hole in the city.
Self-fulfilling prophecy? Kinda, but more on that later.
We made up our minds to get a move on as soon as we could. Popped into a tourist shop that was prepared to convince you that, if you went back to Canada wearing a kilt, people would totally respect you and not think you were a jackass. I managed to not buy into that – instead, I was all about the Scotch Whisky Experience, a guided tour through the process of distilling the liquor (this part was gimmicky; it was like a Disneyworld ride in a wooden liquor barrel), a sample of whisky, and a tour through the biggest whisky collection in the world, belonging to Claive Vidiz and brought to Scotland from Brazil. One bottle cost £1000 when it was purchased in the ’60s; none of the bottles were opened, let alone sampled, although plenty had evaporated over the years.
So, unless you’re the guy who invented Google, you probably can’t afford to get the world’s biggest whisky collection, so you should stop now and just enjoy it. If you happen to like scotch, which it turns out I don’t. But I’m not trying to collect bottles either.
After the tour, it was about time for supper. We found a pub near our hostel and took the chance: ordered up some haggis. It came out in a circular chunk, with potatoes, turnip, and a creamy sauce all stacked together. I wasn’t turned off by the fact that haggis is gross (probably because it’s not, at least not relatively – check the ingredients on your gummy worms next time), but the sauce made the whole thing a bit too rich for me, and the meat had too strong a taste.
But I ate haggis in Edinburgh; ate all of it. This is bucket list material (right up there with eating escargot in France, which I did in St. Pierre in 2005).
After supper, a few of us went to a Middle Eastern shisha bar down the street from our restaurant. Doncha worry, Mom, hookahs are totally legal and not gonna kill me, it's just a relaxing way to spend an hour on a balcony overlooking a city more than a thousand years old. Plus, it tasted like bananas and melons.
Back to the hostel then, to get a cup of tea and relax. We ended up chatting to a few people from Toronto, and decided to have a chill evening at a pub. Naive fools we were.
It was at this point that the Australian guy from the front desk burst into the common room, announcing that the hot water was back. And there was much rejoicing. Oh, and to celebrate he was giving everyone free booze.
There was more rejoicing.
We ended up back in the kitchen, a huge mob of travellers, huddled around a stewing pot that made up a concoction of blended alcohol that tasted like sweet green apples. Any pretensions of a pub night were literally scooped away by a steel ladle; instead, the hostel crowd knew about a backpacker’s bar, down the other end of High Street.
And there was much more rejoicing.
I had thought about taking a hike in the morning; apparently there was a decent, full day one, just a short bus trip out of Edinburgh. I guess I’ll never know.
Actually, the morning wasn’t that bad, even though 3 a.m. almost ended with my head over the toilet (almost); it started early, with plenty of bacon and tea at an outdoor café. After that, we hoofed it out on own, finding an ancient graveyard that led the way up Calton Hill, a melting pot of architecture that ranged from a half-finished Parthenon-like construction (the National Monument, known as Edinburgh’s Disgrace) to the towering Nelson Monument. It also offered a cool view of the city, from the castle right to Arthur’s Seat.
Countdown was on though, no time to stop for long. We passed a few more statues and monuments on our way back through the city, as well as a really cool, cheap music store. Myself and Tash separated from the rest of the gang who went in for some pub food, instead grabbing a baguette and continuing along the road. We ended up at the Scott Monument (for Sir Walter), this giant, Gothic tower right on the cusp of Princes Street in the historic centre of Edinburgh.
Now, I don’t exactly have a fear of heights, but I don’t really like them, either. I can’t change the light bulb in our front porch back home, and I just about had a heart attack one summer when I got hoisted on a roof at West Haven to retrieve a Frisbee. Shat, I guess I do have a bit of a fear of heights. So, when it came time to ascend 287 steps through narrow corridors (the kind that you imagine you should be carrying a torch and fully prepared to fight a dragon), occasionally meeting someone coming down and having to somehow manoeuvre, even when the passage was barely shoulder-width, I had to fight to stay calm, cool, and collected. The top was intensely claustrophobic, and I dreaded having to make my way back down.
But what a view. Plus, you could still hear the bagpipe strains from the street – and a repertoire that’s more than just “Amazing Grace,” like that guy on Water Street.
We planned on meeting the rest of the group back at Edinburgh Castle around 3 o’clock, so once we got back to solid ground and I’d kissed it, promising never to leave it ever again, we headed for a forested path that we thought would take us right there. Once we were right in the shadow of the castle, the way was blocked by construction, and a sign telling us to turn around; no access this way.
They're bluffing
Naturally, this sign wasn’t meant for the twenty-year-old Canadian tourist. So, we wiggled past the fencing, and I went from being positive I was going to die on the Scott Monument to being positive I was going to be arrested for trespassing. To make a long story short, I’m actually writing this from an Edinburgh lockup, where they feed me a bowl of porridge twice a day, and I call myself lucky.
Not quite, but we didn’t get to the castle that way, either. Backtracked, and went the conventional route to the entrance. The interior of Edinburgh Castle is a) much larger than I thought. Jaysus, this is basically a town in and of itself, b) a bit of a tourist trap, but c) cool, too. St. Margaret’s Chapel is the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh, going back to the 12th century, and if there hadn’t been cars driving through the portcullis gates or slews of Japanese tourists posing in front of every other brick in the wall, I’d believe I was in an episode of Games of Thrones. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t completely buy into that, since just about everyone dies in that.
Also, the Crown Jewels were there, as well as a legitimate piece of Scottish history called the Stone of Destiny. Yup, I’m in Game of Thrones after all.
Reassembled at home base, AKA Castle Rock, where we opted to take a ghost tour through the underbelly of Edinburgh, literally heading down to the ancient vaults beneath the streets. The tour was fun, maybe a bit less about stories and more about atmosphere than the St. John’s Haunted Hike . . . or at least, I imagine it was. I wasn’t paying that much attention; turns out, once I get it in my mind that a certain place would be a terrible place to have to take a piss, my bladder becomes as fragile as that piece of Tupperware that they run over in Napoleon Dynamite, and just as easily ruptured.
A crowded room in an underground vault that may or may not be haunted is a crappy place to be bouncing around on the heels of your feet. Oh, and didn’t I know it.
That night (after I made a life or death stop at a coffee shop across from the vault exit) we found a pub that was basically a frat house, with fossball, pool, a jukebox, and student rates on pints. That was one of the coolest things about Edinburgh; how it was a town that accommodated students, rather than thinking them the scum of the earth. It’s the second most visited place in the UK, and for good reason.
Called it quits early on Saturday (by Newfoundland standards, anyway; the bar was closed when we left), with plenty of time to assemble our stuff for the 10:30 checkout on Sunday morning. After a light breakfast, I was going on a hike, come hell or high water. Tash, Lor, and Terry were up for it, so we headed down High Street to the base of Arthur’s Seat, a green lump on the edge of the city.
It was a wicked day for it; better than Saturday would have been, not to mention the fact that we were all in better shape for it. We had a great time, exploring the different pathways skirting the hill, before making the final trek to the rocky, windy tip of the hill. The best things in life very well could be free. Great view of the city, and a great parting glance – it was from here that I got a feel for how big Edinburgh was, and how we had only seen a small slice.
What did we miss out on? Crowds and modern buildings and traffic lights and burgeoning capitalism. AHHH, full circle, betcha didn’t see that coming! Seriously though, for such a short visit, we somehow managed to be concentrated in the most impressive area of the city, to have no plan and yet have everything work out as if we’d bent ourselves on making it happen.
We had next to no time, and yet there was time to meet people, to explore, to drink, to sit, and to laugh. So, do I wish I could have seen Loch Ness or the highlands, or anything outside of Edinburgh? Sure I do. I also wish I had a million dollars. I don’t though, and it doesn’t bother me one little bit.
There are still a few more stories to tell – after class yesterday, we headed back into London, and checked out the Tate Modern, got practically drowned in rain, and stopped at the National Theatre for a production of Mike Leigh’s new work “Grief,” the first play that really left an emotional stamp on me after leaving the theatre. That comes later though; as in showbiz, always leave them wanting more.
Mind, body, soul -- all intact. Better than intact: rejuvenated and stretched to the limits, all at the same time.
My bank account might be more aligned with the stretched to the limits category, but it's better not to think about that.
Scotland was a lot of things, but most importantly it was a lot of things that I wasn't expecting. There was haggis (only about three quartres as good as the chicken innards soup we had last semester), there were dudes in kilts, and there were sheep and bagpipes and scotch, but there were also some of the friendliest people from all over the world hanging around our hostel, rolling green hills for hiking on the fringe of Edinburgh, a cozy old world feel reverberating from the cobblestone streets, and a sense of removed familiarity. St. John's on steroids.
More will come -- much more. It's after midnight now though, after a weekend that began at 5:30 on Friday morning and didn't include enough time to see all of the city, let alone get proper rest. For now, these glimpses will have to do.
Before we left Edinburgh this morning, myself and a small group went to the top of Arthur's Seat, a hike in Holyrood Park that goes about 250 metres up and offers a panoramic look at Scotland's capital. On the way up, it came up how we often get ourselves into these situations where we don't really see the world around us because, instead of actually looking at it, we're so preoccupied with taking a camera out and clicking away, we create an artificial memory to savour later, rather than just existing in the present. It's not the same -- not even close. But we all do it.
This time around, I didn't bite. I still took pictures, but I also took the opportunity to sit on the edge of a grassy knoll on a Sunday afternoon overlooking Edinburgh and just take it all in for a real, legitimate moment. The memory of today just might stick around for a long time yet.
You should stick around too, and I'll tell you all about it, as soon as I get the chance.
I was out for a run through Harlow Town Park this afternoon and “Crowd from up the Hill” by the Sharecroppers came on my iPod. For the indoctrinated, that’s a crowd of teachers from home who formed a rock band once upon a time and put out a few hair metal albums (including one single feat. Akon), although the three “Unplugged” discs are probably the only ones anyone has ever heard. Pity, that.
Thistle Avenue in Pasadena doesn’t quite cut it as a hill, and there’s no real reason why Home, Boys! should even be on my iPod in the first place (read: there’s every reason in the world why it should be there. I’ve got Natural too), but it was a moment where the strangeness of this place really hit me. This isn't Newfoundland. This wasn’t just a turn about Quidi Vidi Lake where the only navigating you have to do is keep the lake at your left hand (or your right, if you go the wrong way); this was a foreign world where I didn’t know the way, where I zigzagged and careened under arched bridges and through tangles of trees just to find a path that would take me a little bit farther and which avoided the road.
Summer’s over today, and it felt it, not just in the air and with the falling leaves, but in the general acceptance of change. In the uncertainty of what’s ahead, the excitement – and in the looking back at what’s already happened, and wondering where it’s gone.
And still, when that song came on, I was back home, even if it was just for 3 minutes and 42 seconds.
Today, of all days, this might have been more fitting, but we don’t get to pick our moments of epiphanic, nostalgic reflection:
There really is nothing like a Newfoundland autumn, especially in the Humber Valley, but there’s a lot of other things out there worth seeing and worth doing. Great Big Sea (what else?) came on next on shuffle, with a tune all about (again, what else?) making the most of your life while you’ve still got it in the palm of your hand:
“The hardest part of life is to live while you’re alive.” – That’s what this is really about, and of not missing out on the things that really matter when you have the chance. Also, I'm not bullshitting you on the order of these songs, which conveniently enough made a full-circle extended metaphor about life. That's just what happens sometimes.
We're heading out to an amateur production here in Harlow tonight, all about cricket.
Not quite
I guess that’s about equivalent to seeing a play about hockey in Canada. Inevitably it’s going to be more stripped-down than what we’ve seen thus far but, if nothing else, it should be a laugh.
The Newfoundland autumn will be over when I get home, but God willing the crowd won’t be gone. Till then, I’m gonna keep my fake British accent and keep my eyes fixed on the horizon.
Except for every so often when the Sharecroppers come up on shuffle.
That’s not even a lie. Plus, I was once assured that the oldest rocks in the world are in Newfoundland (that, I’m pretty sure, is a lie), so I don’t see what the big fuss is over the British Museum.
Then again, I kinda do.
Before I left St. John’s, myself and my brother spent a solid few hours at the Rooms, and actually found the provincial collection pretty cool. I should have been prepared to up the scale appropriately; whereas Newfoundland has a 500-year history, England stretches back thousands of years, nevermind the fact that at one point the sun never set on the English empire, which meant that the museum had all kind of colonial artifacts to borrow (read: politely steal) from classical antiquity to the present day, from pockets all over the world.
That thought should have at least crossed my mind. Instead, I was naively expecting something that was a cross between the gimmicky exhibits at the Ontario Science Centre (which, by the way, you should avoid on your next Toronto adventure. You’re welcome.) and the displays at the Mary March Museum in Grand Falls-Windsor (which, by the way, you should see on your next adventure through Scenic Green Bay. You’re welcome.)
We arrived at the museum around 3 o’clock, giving us only 2 hours before the exhibits closed for the day. Under a dull afternoon sky, the building, not too far from the northern bank of the Thames in the central part of London, looked a little like the Roman Pantheon (in my uncultured opinion, anyway).
Here are some specks that I only just found out – in some way though, it was better going into today unprepared, because the impact was that much more overwhelming. Anyway. The British Museum has about 7 million things in it: vases, gems, statues, clocks, books, currency . . . basically, a picture of global human civilization. It’s got 2 miles of exhibition space in 100 galleries. It was established in 1753, and it’s the second most visited museum in the world, after the Mary March Museum in Grand Falls-Windsor (although someone hacked Wikipedia to change that stat to the Louvre).
Once we entered the Great Court, a huge white room with the circular Reading Room in the centre, the size of the museum hit me. And you can only see a small sliver from that initial vantage point.
But you can definitely create a good echo
Still unimpressed, however, we took a chance and went to the exhibit on Ancient Egypt, right off the main hall. And there, first thing, was the Rosetta Stone.
Sweet Jesus.
Hey Rosetta [Stone]!
I’ve already confessed to being naive about the British Museum, and I admit that I had no idea the Rosetta Stone was even in England, let alone right in front of my face. History lesson: it’s a stone engraved with a decree from 196 BC. The age is cool – well, at that point; this was before seeing preserved items from Assyria and ancient Greece that made this chunk of rock look like a youngster – but the real deal with the Rosetta Stone is that, in the 19th century, it was responsible for finally understanding hieroglyphics from Ancient Egypt.
It’s also really damn significant in Western history, and there it was in front of me. And behind it, to the sides of it, above it, and beyond, were millions of other things from a time disjointed from our own, more than you could possibly see in an afternoon, let alone 2 hours.
I tried, and it ended up with me feeling incredibly overwhelmed. That, and realizing how small and fleeting our existences are, and how little a grasp I have of the depth of human history. Humbling, really.
I picked my was through sarcophaguses, a chunk of the Sphinx’s beard, armour and weapons, an actual preserved mummy, stone busts, carvings and statues retrieved from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, look it up), a Moai (one of the stone dudes from Easter Island), gold medals from the 2012 London Olympics, and a hodgepodge of everything else.
It got to the point where I was completely jaded by the end of it. “Oh, what’s that? This intricate statue, carved by an actual human being, is 4,000 years old? Oh, and that bust of Socrates was carved from life . . . as in, he once stood in front of it while it was being chiselled out? Oh, and there are endless hallways of cooler things in every direction? Cool, I guess. I wonder what we’re having for supper?”
To add to it, admission was free. I just may have to return again one day before December, once the feeling of being overwhelmed leaves me; that way, I’ll have time to properly digest the place for what it is.
After the museum, we grabbed some takeout and a tube to Charring Cross Road (the same spot where Spirit of the West got drunk for a solid month in “Home for a Rest”), where we walked to the Royal Court Theatre on Sloane Square. Amongst other things, it was here that The Rocky Horror Show made its debut in 1973. The main theatre area has a similar, tiered layout to the other theatres that we’ve been to; back up in the balconies, with one of the worst views of the stage, but I’m good and nimble for leaning over the edge.
We were there to see a three-act play, The Faith Machine – the show was based around a troubled young couple, distracted by their past and their very different ethical code and world outlook. The dude was a shallow capitalist – and American, a strange British interpretation; meanwhile, the gal, the daughter of a Bishop who voluntarily left the church because he sympathized with homosexuals, was decidedly unreligious, but compassionate and wary of universal human suffering around the world. The clash between them, and the attempt to reconcile their relationship in light of outside forces, including the disintegration of the father character and the September 11 tragedy, was the stuff of compelling drama.
Plus, not only was the father played by an awesome random actor, but that random actor wasn’t random at it – it was Ian McDiarmid. Not familiar? I didn’t recognize him with a stubble beard either, but I can see the resemblance now to a dude from a galaxy far away:
He also looked a bit younger and less evil than Palpatine
Can’t say that the cute, picture-perfect, tied-up-with-a-ribbon-and-a-bow ending was as good as it should have been though, but for a show that ran nearly three hours, it was engaging and enjoyable.
After dragging my umbrella around all day, I finally got to use it on the way back to Harlow. The rain’s making a nice little drum beat outside my window now, which should be nice and soothing for getting some sleep now. Class has been postponed to 11 o’clock tomorrow morning, to recompense us for staying out late and suffering through both the British Museum and a professional theatrical performance in London.
