I've now left England to return home to the United States, but the last week of England was about as packed as any other during the trip (well, except maybe France).
Saturday I finished up my finals. Definitely the least exciting part of the week.
After finals I spent the morning going through Covent Garden doing a little shopping and enjoying all of the street performers. Can you see how tall these unicycles are?
I can't imagine how long it takes to wash out all that silver paint. Also, he doesn't talk. He squeaks like a chew toy.
In the afternoon I went by the Natural History Museum, which is possibly my favorite building now. All the intricate details and designs on ceilings, columns, and archways. It's really quite fantastic. And of course the dinosaur skeletons are fun too.
They also had a pretty cool life sized blue whale (and various other large mammals)
Dugong??
Saturday night I went and saw the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet. It originally had David Tennant and Patrick Stewart in it, which is pretty much amazing, but then David Tennant had to pull out due to a back injury, so I saw it with the understudy Hamlet. But considering they're all RSC actors, it was still pretty phenomenal. I actually showed up a few minutes late, so I missed the first scene or so (though they do have a convenient screen for you to watch it on) but as a result, they put me in a better seat. I was supposed to have one of the awful restricted view seats on the side of the balcony where you can't actually see anything sitting in your seat so you have to kneel and lean over the railing for like 3 hours (and I was fully prepared to do it for an RSC production of Hamlet with Patrick Stewart) but instead they put me in the stalls, and I had a wonderful, very comfortable, view. It was excellent. They did a modernish (probably 80's) production, with all the guys wearing suits and girls in fancy dresses. Except for when Hamlet wore a t-shirt with the muscles drawn on. He also wasn't wearing shoes for most of the show. And Patrick Stewart is very short. Even with his very thick soled shoes (must have been a good two inches) he was still the shortest guy on stage.
Sunday the Primary kids did their Nativity play during Sacrament meeting. It was fun, but I was conducting the music again, and I had a cold so I couldn't sing, and some of the people directing the kids on and off the stage must not have had the whole script because they kept skipping the songs and so I'd have to randomly insert them later and the poor pianist had been called up last minute because the regular one got sick, so she was sight reading everything and sweating the whole time, but she did a marvelous job so she shouldn't have worried. Anyway, it was still great fun, even if our organization was a bit sporadic.
Afterwards I went down to the Tower Bridge and walked along the south bank of the Thames all the way back to Westminster. I guess it was sort of my goodbye to London. But I saw some cool things. Like this tree.
And the Christmas decorations in Hay's Galleria
This is a little Christmas market that's exceptionally crowded.
More of the Christmas festivities by the London Eye
Another street performer.
They had these really cool sculpture based on Salvador Dali's paintings that I hadn't seen before.
Westminster
The Christmas tree from Norway in Trafalgar Square
In the evening I stopped by the Hyde Park chapel to watch the rebroadcast of the Christmas Devotional and hear the Institute Choir sing. It was quite nice. Of course. I love Christmas music :)Random picture of Covent Garden where they have a cool alphabet toilet.
Monday I went to Abbey Road with a friend and took pictures of the much graffitied door outside the recording studio. The wall next to this is all written on too. They repaint it regularly. I guess they've gotten used to people writing on it.
Abbey Road
Monday night, my last night in England, I went to the Nutcracker Ballet at the Royal Opera House with the Royal Ballet Company. So awesome! I've never seen the Nutcracker before and it's a wonderful little fanciful story, and of course, the Royal Ballet Company is just amazing (even if I was practically sitting in the ceiling).Tuesday morning I took a shuttle to the airport with a couple of the girls for our flight home. I read, napped, and watched Wall-E for most of the trip. I saw the longest sunset of my life. Because we were flying west and also curving south, the sun was setting for seriously three or four hours. In fact, I think at one point it actually got lighter rather than darker. We were delayed by about an hour trying to get out of the terminal, so I was a little worried about making my connecting flight, which I definitely should have missed, considering how freaking long customs took and then my gate was on the absolute opposite side of the ginormous Dallas airport. But through a stroke of luck, my connecting flight was considerably delayed as well. Which made me pretty happy, because by random coincidence my dad was on that flight on his way back from a meeting in D.C. And he moved us up to first class, where they serve you sandwiches and heated cups of nuts.
So that's the end of my London experience. There are things I will miss, like the Tube, and the thrill of the city with all the shops and shows and beautiful buildings. I'll miss the culture too, all the history and tradition, and how diverse the nationalities represented are. It's going to be a little strange not being able to hop on the Tube right after dinner and buy last minute tickets to a high quality performances for ridiculously low prices. And to not be visiting another ancient dusty architectural wonder of a cathedral every week. Also, I'm now living in a desert, instead of one of the more humid, rainy places in the world. England is a beautiful country. I'll miss all the green and the countryside. I'll miss the British accents too.
But it is nice to have space again, and not have to breath so much smoky air all the time. I've found there are actually things I like about the desert (in the winter at least, when it's in the 70's rather than 100+). It's a very different world over here, but they are both quite beautiful in their ways. And of course, America has real pizza, Mexican food, and rootbeer. That is a definite plus.
I've been asked to address the list of expectations I made in an earlier blog post.
- Everyone in England has a fantastic (and hot) British accent -- Yes. All the people actually from Britain do have fantastic British accents (they vary in levels of hotness--there's quite a variety of accents). But walking down the street you'll hear all sorts of languages and accents from all over the world
- It rains at least half the days -- ? I'm told it normally rains a lot, but while I was there, it really didn't rain very often, though it was frequently heavily over
- The rain is mostly a drizzle -- Yes, mostly it drizzled
- Thunderstorms are fairly non-existant -- Yes, I never saw a thunderstorm, I think that requires heat.
- Despite the rain, almost no one uses an umbrella -- No. Unlike Portland, everyone in England uses an umbrella.
- Americans are not popular -- I keep hearing about the "Ugly American" stereotype, but everyone was nice to me.
- There are fewer cars than in American cities -- Um, no. There were an awful lot of cars in London. Although I think fewer people own them. Public transportation is pretty big there. It's probably a similar situation in New York, I would think.
- Double-decker buses -- Heck yes
- At least some cobbled streets -- Yes. Especially in older parts of town, or places like Bath. They also have a lot of strange rough brick streets, which are fine, except for when you're walking in heels and your heels keeping slipping down in the cracks
- "British humor" -- Didn't hang out with enough Brits to know
- Breakfast is a bigger deal, dinner less so -- No?
- Fewer people at church play piano -- Yes. Certainly true in my ward. I don't know about the singles ward. The only people I saw playing piano there were guys though, so that was a little weird.
- The church buildings there are architecturally different than buildings here -- Yes. At least the ones I went to . The Hyde Park chapel is like a big rectangle with a tower, and my ward was in a school.
- Everyone drinks tea -- No. I think it's an older generation thing.
- Less hamburgers -- Definitely yes. And the ones that have are not like American burgers.
- Fewer jeans (are jeans an American thing?) -- No no no. Jeans are everywhere. Although they all seem to wear skinny jeans over there. It took a little getting used to.
- Less severely obese people -- Well I certainly didn't see any.
- More Beatles-esque music (ie: less hard rock/rap/punk) -- Maybe yes. I didn't really hear any of those, but most of what I heard was in stores and such, which isn't exactly representative.
- More international films -- Only if by international I meant American.
- More controversial films -- Again, mostly they seemed to be American.
- More boarding schools -- No idea.
- Smaller houses, or maybe flats -- Yes. Housing is VERY expensive there, so all the houses are tiny.
- Soccer is a bigger deal -- Yes, but it's "football"
- Pizza is not a staple of the diet -- Yes. Pizza is not a big deal, and it's much more Italian and American in style.
- Nightclubs -- well there was one down the street.
- Pubs -- Oh yeah. Lots of pubs.
- Fish and chips, sold by men on the street -- No. Fish and chips are sold in restaurants mostly. They do sell roasted chestnuts on the street in the winter.
- More traditional school systems -- I don't even remember what I meant by that
- Fewer people go to college -- I don't know. Certainly a lot of people do go to college.
- Lots of going out to socialize and hang out -- Never asked.
- More girls with short hair / guys with longer hair (not buzzed) -- No/Yes. Girls for the most part had longer hair, like mid-back. It was also a lot more curly and frizzy than I've seen in the States, probably because of all the humidity. You never saw girls straightening their hair. Guys for the most part did have somewhat longer hair. Although I feel like a lot of the Mormon guys still kept it short.
- Open markets - Oh yes. Beautiful open markets everywhere. Covent Garden, Portabello, Spitalfields, Hay's Galleria, Camden, and then in the winter on the south bank of the Thames and in Hyde Park.
- Rolling countryside with stonewalls and sheep -- Haha, yes.
- More TV shows, fewer movies -- We didn't actually have a TV, so I don't know.
