Back in London

So, didn't post yesterday because I was too tired. Here's what's happened in reverse chronological order:

Oh my gosh, Hair is the most amazing play I've ever seen! Fantastic songs, singing, really fun audience interaction (including letting people on stage to party it up with cast members for the finale). I was so star struck when main characters went up to the balcony and started climbing over us and joking and playing with our hair, etc. I had the cheapest seats (19 pounds) but it was a small theater like with Spamalot so it felt really intimate.

And it's really interesting to think that it was actually fairly influential and groundbreaking in the 60s and shows us both how much things have changed, stayed the same, or reverted. We were seated by a lady who first saw it when she was 18, 42 years ago. She was interested in how I was perceiving it, since I wasn't of her generation, and I was interested in finding out how it was perceived back when it was more pertinent and the people they were talking about were the audience.
/end gushing

What I did before Hair: we walked all around London kept getting lost (i.e. heading the wrong direction on the right street), but not stressing out about it too much and feeling like we still saw interesting things (e.g. stumbled upon a really classy and not overly touristy patisserie and got really yummy and decently priced fruit tarts and freshly squeezed orange juice, also strolled through an old creepy cemetery, stumbled on extra tourist spots like Trafalgar Square). We started with a quest to find a bank machine but the banks we went to (after much trouble finding) were closed, I think it was a bank holiday. Then we went to Covent Market which had amazing paella and talented street artists, particularly this one young opera singer who was really good at emoting during the song.

We walked through the City, St. Paul's Cathedral (which is normally is 25pounds admission, but we went when the choir boys were singing for their evensong and got to see it for free), we went across the millenium bridge to see the Globe, we explored the Tate (some of the ideas presented in their selected survey of art styles influenced what I was thinking about when watching Hair, particularly reflecting on how art is always (but in particularly in certain periods) moving to break down old conventions and expand definitions of what is allowable), we got on a random west heading double decker bus to head-ish towards the theater, while still seeing places/exploring. We ended up on Trafalgar Square and I kept wanting to reference Outnumbered but Katrina hadn't seen it. Then walked through the theatre district and found a Haggen Das (sp?) restaurant, we really wanted to go but didn't have enough time before the play.

What I did yesterday: Flight here (didn't get enough sleep, the guy beside me snored and the tvs kept flickering on the flight time, which had a white background and increased the light significantly which kept waking me up as i began to fall asleep). Had a little trouble finding the hostel (Mars, it's in the embassy area)… for some reason they have streets where on one side of the street the number goes up and on the other side the numbers go down. That greatly confused us. We walked through most of Hyde Parks (Mars, there were huge sections of it we hadn't see and didn't realize were there (e.g. the Diana memorial fountain, speaker's corner) and we walked all the way to Buckingham Palace. Was tired as shit from lack of sleep and 2 hours straight of walking.

Oh, and the hostel is pretty nice. We got our own bathroom, which I wasn't expecting.

Itinerary for tomorrow: Science Museum, possibly Victoria and Albert museum then head to Oxford. Also, we have to find a real fish and chips place. We keep finding pubs which advertise "great British" food. So I assume it's crappy overpriced tourist food.