Thursday, June 22, 2023

Despite falling asleep after setting alarms for 7:00, we distinctly do not wake up at said time. I was barely conscious when I set it last night and didn’t pay attention to the fact that the alarm was the classic Apple tune “By the Seaside,” which I felt was cute and hilarious when we were at the beach but which now makes me want to scream. I snooze for an hour and mom makes no move to get up. When I do finally get up, I accidentally spill half of my posh little cold coffee drink I got at Tesco last night all over the counter. “SHIT!” I exclaim, and I can see mom giving me a look out of the corner of her eye, but I can’t censor myself to my mother’s curse-free register before caffeine.

I clean up the mess and then set about slurping my alive juice and eating a yogurt while I start a new book: Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. Holy shit. It hooks me immediately. The result of this is that we do not get out until about 10. I’m not really bothered.

Our first stop is Harrod’s, the iconic mega bougie department store that stocks every kind of imaginable item, particularly if that item costs several hundred pounds. It’s a cliché tourist stop, I know, but I kind of love it there, walking through the brightly lit Prada section in my sweaty running shorts and synthetic shirt from Target. We thrash around between floors trying to decide what to see first and what and where to eat. We sit down at a spot in the food hall, take one look at the prices on the menu, and then bolt out before anyone can come over and talk to us. Instead, we eat at the Pret across the street. I love Pret. I just do. It’s basic and fresh and serves my needs perfectly. I feel significantly more human after that.

It’s a relatively short Tube ride to the Charles Dickens museum. I’m not the world’s biggest Dickens fan or anything, but I like his work, and there is something special about being in the place where the person who birthed inspiring words lived. We wander about the five stories looking at artifacts, books, manuscripts, furniture, and other items belonging to the writer and his family. Some items of note include Dickens’s desk (he sat right there and wrote all those stories!) and his formal suit that he called his “fancy dress.” Same, Dickens, same. Love a good fancy dress, me. There’s a cafe on the ground floor with a lovely little garden. We sit there next to a fountain and enjoy some cold drinks. I could live in London if I had a little garden like this, all flowers and flowing water and stone.

We had hoped to make another trip to Covent Garden and Seven Dials to actually go into shops that were closed last night, but I concede to time constraints for once in my life and decide to navigate to the next stop on my list today: the Tate Modern art museum. It’s maybe my favo(u)rite modern art museum I’ve been to, and the building itself might be the reason: the huge open atrium between the two buildings and the great view across the Thames from the bar. We meander around a few exhibits, starting with a work called The Thamesmead Codex, which features words from interviews that the artist conducted in the Thamesmead neighborhood in the wake of the pandemic. We progress through the rooms, which hold art at varying levels of weird. There are films and piles of sand and wood carvings. There’s the famous Fountain, or a replica of it, anyway—the urinal that was presented as a “readymade” sculpture by artist Marcel Duchamp. Then there’s some metal furniture that was intentionally corroded with acid until it looked like what would appear in a haunted abandoned hospital. We wander through a few more galleries until the guards start coming around and telling people to leave. Dang, they aren’t messing around with that 6 PM closing time. It’s not even 6 yet and they’re shepherding people out. The English are punctual, I’ll give them that.

It’s busy out on the walkway by the Thames. I state out at the water for a second. What is it about the Thames? It’s a wild, choppy, tidal river that seems teeming with all the centuries piled upon centuries that make up this ancient metropolis. London would not be London without this river. Is that a dumb thing to say? Words fail me. Big river. Tall glass buildings. Neato!

We have just enough time for dinner before our show at the Globe. We end up at the Founder’s Arms, a pub right on the Thames, and somehow get a table immediately despite the fact that it’s packed with people. I get a beer, mom gets a coke, and we split fish and chips and croquettes while we people watch.

I love how you can throw a stone in this city and it will land at a pub absolutely teeming with people of all stages of adulthood, many of them just standing around outside with drinks, talking to their friends or partners or dates or work mates. Maybe this kind of thing exists in big American cities and I just haven’t spent enough time in them to have noticed? But this phenomenon seems distinctly European to me, or maybe specifically English. Sure, we have bars in the states, but this level of daily jam-packed socializing is amazing to me. I find myself wishing for another shot at my early 20s, post-college, living in a city like this. I can’t imagine what it’s like to get done with work and hop on the train to meet your friends for a drink, or see a show, or go to a club on a Wednesday—you could have your pick of anything here, day or night.

The meal is delicious, and we finish up and head over to the Globe to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream. These tickets were one of the first things I bought when I first started planning this trip. I’m not the hugest Shakespeare fan, but I really love Midsummer. It’s my favorite Shakespeare play, and the chance to see it here, just after the solstice, was too good to pass up. It’s my second time at the Globe—I saw Hamlet here in 2018—but it’s mom’s first, and it’s fun to watch her reaction to her first glimpse of the white walls and thatched roof and highly ornamented stage within this famed O. We’re groundlings; we’re standing in the yard for this whole show. It’s rough on the feet but feels like an authentic experience somehow.

The play is amazing. It’s always amazing, all the versions I’ve seen, but this one is next level. The costumes are wild, the actors are so talented, and there is live music worked in, including some righteous saxophone. Nick Bottom, who is a woman in this version, sends the crowd in to crying-laughing hysterics. Puck is a little creepy in this one; she has a mask made of branches and gold lipstick (always lots of gender-bending at the Globe, which I love), but she’s still great. Oberon and Titania have very cool blueish costumes. The actor playing Helena might be my favorite. She is so earnest and full of heart. I feel like I’m seeing the world through Helena’s eyes. And Hermia too! Her delivery is so strong. It’s just amazing all around and I’m so sad when it’s over.

I always think it’s wild that Shakespeare is still performed so prolifically today. Like I said, I’m not the hugest fan in the world, but there must be something in his work that explains why we keep going back to these same stories over and over. There are adaptations and different interpretations, of course, but Shakespeare plays are largely the same as they were back then. They examine the same problems and joys and human experiences we still have today. I think that’s pretty cool.

It’s late by the time the play ends. We walk across the Millenium Bridge to St. Paul’s Cathedral, where we catch a bus back to our flat. We pack up and get ready to leave early in the morning—flying to Ireland tomorrow!