Hi readers, I feel as though I cheated a bit on my past entry, so here’s a more detailed synopsis of what I was up to yesterday, my final day in London…
From my Auntie Lucy’s, we took a bus to Saint Paul’s Cathedral. We didn’t go inside (A. it was crawling with tourists and B. you now have to pay to go in – unfortunately like most of the attractions in London now), but we took pictures of the gorgeous exterior and visited a nearby old-fashioned sweet shop. From there, we walked a short distance to the Millennium Bridge; that’s the one that gets destroyed in the beginning of ‘Harry Potter 6’, for all you HP fans out there. We didn’t walk on the bridge, but instead followed the pedestrian path along the River Thames. We passed London Bridge and eventually made our way to Tower Bridge. Again, we didn’t go inside since there were hordes of tourists all over the place and there was an entry fee, but we did get some wonderful, albeit foggy and hazy pictures in. We stopped off at the Starbucks and Saint Katherine’s Docks for a familiar pick-me-up before splitting up with Lucy to head towards Covent Garden to meet up with our good friends, Jane and Philip. We took a tube to Covent Garden, where we wandered around the market for a little bit. Back in the day, Covent Garden was predominantly a flower market, but is now instead filled with flashy merchandise stalls and street performance acts. Nevertheless, it is still a wonderful area, AND is home to the Royal Opera House and The Royal Ballet. We met up with Jane and Philip in a small pasta restaurant directly across the street from the Opera House for dinner. It was so lovely to see them again! Last time we saw them, they came to visit my family in North Carolina in the middle of one of our infamous ice storms. Following a delicious and conversation-filled meal, Philip took my dad and brother on a pub-crawl to some of Philip’s favorites, while Jane treated my mum and me to The Royal Ballet’s ‘Cinderella’. It was absolutely sensational. I could go into elaborate detail about the corp’s precision and the soloists’ and principals’ virtuosity, or tell you all about the wonderful sets and live music, but I won’t bore you with that stuff. I will let you know though, that it took me back to my roots (I first started my ballet training in the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus), and like the exhibition at the V & A, I was reminded again a little of why I love to dance. Everything about the production was just so. I wish one day to perform to sold out audiences like that all over the world. After the performance ended, us girls met up with the blokes again at a pub next door to Pasta Brown, where we had dinner. After more great conversation and company, we reluctantly parted ways with Jane and Philip and headed back to Lucy’s for our last late night in London.
0 comments:
Post a Comment