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Londinium.
Nov. 1st, 2007 09:55 pmI love London. I don't know exactly why; I can't give you particular reasons. It's just that something about that city--upon which I can put no claims except those of a repeat visitor--something about the Tube & the old stone buildings & the insane amount of Indian food & the museums which are all free & the constant construction & the plethora of old theaters playing a grand variety of plays, about the way they play up those emblems that make the whole world recognize England (the red buses; the taxi cabs; the telephone booths); it all just makes me terrifically excited, like a little kid.
I do have one exception to the amazingness that is London, which is also a warning: should you ever go to London (& go, I say, go), NEVER, EVER stay at the Generator Hostel. Just don't. We were all in disbelief about how awful it was, although given that we were all at the hysterical point of tiredness, everything was just hilarious in it's terribleness. Oh, Generator.
But I digress. We caught a flight to London early early Thursday morning, catching the 5am bus to the airport. There were thirteen theater kids, Ashley our program director, & Siobhan, who works at IES. For all the things that could have gone wrong with this many people, it managed to work out fairly well (even though one of us left her passport at home & just barely got it in time. & no, that wasn't me. But it all worked out). We landed, all fairly delirious, at about 9am, and rode blearily on the Tube to Russell Square, where the British Museum is. Ashley led us down a few streets to our hostel. We all stood around the lobby (as it was) while he checked in. The hostel was all metal & neon & florescent lights. They sold a thong at the front desk instead of (in addition to perhaps) a t-shirt. Also it has a nightclub attached to it (or maybe I should say that the nightclub has a hostel attached to it), and a skeezy one to boot. We put our luggage in the storage room, which had a leak. When I say it had a leak, I mean that it was raining inside there. Still, we found dry places, stowed our luggage away, & followed Ashley back out.
We walked to Leicester Square, with Ashley showing us around, & he let us free for a few minutes before our first show. Some of us walked up the next block to Piccadilly Circus, where we stood in the rain & took photos. I got some of one of my favorite statues:
(I wrote these horses into a story once. And by "story" I mean two or three scenes that look a lot like a couple of other books I really loved at that point in time.)
( more blabbling! and photos. those are good. really. )
I do have one exception to the amazingness that is London, which is also a warning: should you ever go to London (& go, I say, go), NEVER, EVER stay at the Generator Hostel. Just don't. We were all in disbelief about how awful it was, although given that we were all at the hysterical point of tiredness, everything was just hilarious in it's terribleness. Oh, Generator.
But I digress. We caught a flight to London early early Thursday morning, catching the 5am bus to the airport. There were thirteen theater kids, Ashley our program director, & Siobhan, who works at IES. For all the things that could have gone wrong with this many people, it managed to work out fairly well (even though one of us left her passport at home & just barely got it in time. & no, that wasn't me. But it all worked out). We landed, all fairly delirious, at about 9am, and rode blearily on the Tube to Russell Square, where the British Museum is. Ashley led us down a few streets to our hostel. We all stood around the lobby (as it was) while he checked in. The hostel was all metal & neon & florescent lights. They sold a thong at the front desk instead of (in addition to perhaps) a t-shirt. Also it has a nightclub attached to it (or maybe I should say that the nightclub has a hostel attached to it), and a skeezy one to boot. We put our luggage in the storage room, which had a leak. When I say it had a leak, I mean that it was raining inside there. Still, we found dry places, stowed our luggage away, & followed Ashley back out.
We walked to Leicester Square, with Ashley showing us around, & he let us free for a few minutes before our first show. Some of us walked up the next block to Piccadilly Circus, where we stood in the rain & took photos. I got some of one of my favorite statues:
(I wrote these horses into a story once. And by "story" I mean two or three scenes that look a lot like a couple of other books I really loved at that point in time.)
( more blabbling! and photos. those are good. really. )
