London – Day 1

 We had an overnight flight from Accra to London, thankfully in business class on BA.  Leaving at 11:30pm there wasn’t much time to enjoy the entertainment system before promptly laying my chair out flat and trying to catch some sleep.  It’s amazing what a difference stretching out can make on a long flight – I think I might need to upgrade my Peru flights now that I’ve had a taste of the good life.  I slept more than I usually do on a plane and was ready to land in London for a couple days of fun. 

Getting through immigration wasn’t too bad, but they clearly have still not fixed all the luggage problems going on at Terminal 4.  It took forever for the bags to come out.  Once they did though, mine was like #3 so I was then off to the tube and into town.  I’m staying at a Hilton in Kensigton that Shelby got an awesome priceline deal on.  It’s out of the center of the city, but still close by, and clean and safe. 

Those of you that have traveled with me know I love the music TV channels, especially in the UK territories.  I hit the jackpot yesterday while getting ready to head out and wander London – check out this Wham! video of a song I’ve never heard of and give thanks to YouTube while you’re at.  This is awesome:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIzVoNq9f9s .  To my road trip posse, this was preceded by BSB “I want it that way” and and followed by S Club 7.  No joke!  How amazing of a triple play is that!?!

Speaking of music, my Brit Pop new music find of the trip is Duffy:  http://www.iamduffy.com She is a welsh singer whose album will not be released in the States until May, but if you’re nice to me I may let you borrow my UK copy.  And, you can thank me later for keeping you informed and on the cutting edge

Anyway, back to London.  It was raining when our plane landed in the morning, but by the time I was ready to set out, the sun had broken out and turned into a good afternoon.  There was a nip in the air, but after two weeks of super muggy heat the chill felt good.  I had no real agenda for this trip except to visit the Tate Modern, the Portabello Market and maybe see a show.  Like New York, London has a half-price ticket booth you can visit day-off and see what shows are trying to fill their houses.  Since I hadn’t seen Spamalot yet, this Monty Python spoof seemed the logical choice for a night out in London.  With ticket in hand, my next stop was lunch at Wagamama, convenently located down teh block from the ticket booth.  Wagamama is a UK chain of Japanese noodle houses beloved by Eleni and they’ve just opened thier first US shop in Boston.

Re-nourished, I walked around the neighbourhood and over to Covent Garden before catching teh tube down to the Tate.  The Tate Modern was still being built the last time I was in London, opening just two months after we left.  It was the talk of the town at the time because it was moving into a huge building on the Thames that formerly housed the electric company, in area that was previously not very developed.  But times have changed – Every little spot along teh water is now being refurbished into mixed-use buildings, with nice walking paths lining the river, winding their way past the ground level bars and restaurants.

The Tate was good.  As with most modern art museums, I left pondering many pieces.  I love the “older” modern art like Miro & Picasso, but then “newer” stuff sometimes leaves me stumped.  (as in “really?  that’s art?  That was hard to create?”)  I was also surprised at how busy it was.

From the museum, I just wandered for awhile along the river, down to the Tower bridge, and walked across. Then I caught the train back towards the West End to find a dinner spot before the show.  I settled on a bar called Suzie Wong which was pretty good and just a couple blocks from my theater. 

 

Spamalot was funny, though sleepy time was definitely starting to catch up with after only having a couple good hours of sleep on the plane.  It was fun to see in London where many of the other audience members were clearly Monty Python fans and had the “in” on some of the jokes and antics.