dramaturgy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dramaturgy) wrote2007-02-22 10:52 am
dramaturgy) wrote2007-02-22 10:52 am
Wednesday - City Walk and Thankfully There Is Moonlight!
Sarah had told us that this was going to be an omg, strenuous day! so I prepared for something that tried my patience even more than usual. At least I didn't have to hear again about how London was really the City, one square mile, surrounded by other buroughs, blah blah blah, ad nauseam. I'm getting a little sick of that.
So in one of my first posts where I said the thing by St. Paul's Cathedral was the Monument to the Great Fire? I lied. Sorry. :x
Designed by Christopher Wren, this column is 202 feet tall and supposedly if you laid it on its side, it would reach the site of the baker's shop in Pudding Lane where the fire originally broke out. How they can tell conclusively where the fire started, I'm not all that sure, but hey. I'll go with it.
Sarah: What does this relief sculpture depict? John?
John: Well, I was going to say Charles II.
Sarah: That's right, it's our good friend Charles II. How could you tell.
Liz: The hair.
I stood back a bit and took a real picture. John and I stayed on the ground while everyone else went up to the observation deck because I guess he's not good with heights and given I have inherited my mother's tendency towards vertigo, they may have had to carry me back down the 311 spiral steps. Whatever. I was perfectly okay with terra firma.
A police car. Just for Bill.
The church of St. Magnus the Martyr. One of the many churches to be rebuilt after the Great Fire. It's Gothic layout but Classical decoration, blah blah blah shut up. I was more amused by the name of St. Magnus the Martyr. </![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
leviosarpg>
We walked along the south bank for a bit, and I got this outstanding view of Tower Bridge.
Next, we came upon St. Dunstan's church. (Cue moreleviosarpg sniggering.) It was bombed in 1940 during the blitz and I guess they made it a garden. I took a lot of pictures here because the sun had just come out, and it was gorgeous.
Sarah said that when they were building this spire, they weren't sure that it would hold up once they removed the scaffolding, and so Christopher Wren's daughter climbed the scaffolding and laid underneath it in a pile of late 17th century indignance - she was that confident in her father's design.
I'm not sure what Christian thought that he was doing. Then again I'm not really sure that it matters.
This was a church that we didn't actually talk about, but I loved the look of it. I thought it was much prettier than all the sky scrapers around it.
Particularly this one. WTF all the apparatus on the outside. :\
During the daytime, this is a bank, the Swiss Re building. I don't think I need to tell you what it's inappropriate nickname is.
This is the Temple of Mithras, dating from the third century AD. It was unearthed when they were building the building behind it, and they actually moved it in order to preserve it. I guess I don't know how I feel about that, but I got to see it so I guess I shouldn't complain. More :\
After this, Sarah dismissed us and everybody and their dog flocked to the nearest tube station. I was (and still am, actually) getting a little sick of most of the people in the group (see this rant), so I split off and hopped a bus to Waterloo station because I wanted to go back to the National Theatre bookstore and buy a copy of Coram Boy - novel and script. (I also ended up buying Rock 'n' Roll, but that has nothing to do with the price of tea in China).
It was pretty cool.
At night, we hopped a train at Charing Cross Station to Greenwich, where we were to see Thankfully, There is Moonlight! (yes, the exclamation point was in the title, I wasn't that excited about it). It was a very intimate space above a pub, I can't imagine that it seated more than fifty or so people.
The play itself felt like the actors were playing to a much bigger space than they had, and I was just sort of confused by it. It's originally in Portugese and this was the English premiere, and I guess I enjoyed it (particularly the second act because I had some Smirnoff during the interval and it made me very happy), but I dunno. I felt like I should have been more connected to it than I was, but I think it had the same effect as if the average Portugese person had seen 1776 without any background of American history. I felt like "So what?" Which annoyed me a bit because I don't like that feeling, but that was that. That said, I liked being that close to the actors and the space. There was a point when one of the actors was monologuing and he was staring right at the girl sitting next to me - not off into space in her general direction, at her. It was intense. I felt like I shouldn't move because then he would be looking at me. XD
Also, the big important bad guy kept sitting on his coattails and I'm not going to lie. That annoyed me. I can't be scared of a guy who sits on his own coattails.
So in one of my first posts where I said the thing by St. Paul's Cathedral was the Monument to the Great Fire? I lied. Sorry. :x
Designed by Christopher Wren, this column is 202 feet tall and supposedly if you laid it on its side, it would reach the site of the baker's shop in Pudding Lane where the fire originally broke out. How they can tell conclusively where the fire started, I'm not all that sure, but hey. I'll go with it.
Sarah: What does this relief sculpture depict? John?
John: Well, I was going to say Charles II.
Sarah: That's right, it's our good friend Charles II. How could you tell.
Liz: The hair.
I stood back a bit and took a real picture. John and I stayed on the ground while everyone else went up to the observation deck because I guess he's not good with heights and given I have inherited my mother's tendency towards vertigo, they may have had to carry me back down the 311 spiral steps. Whatever. I was perfectly okay with terra firma.
A police car. Just for Bill.
The church of St. Magnus the Martyr. One of the many churches to be rebuilt after the Great Fire. It's Gothic layout but Classical decoration, blah blah blah shut up. I was more amused by the name of St. Magnus the Martyr. </
leviosarpg>We walked along the south bank for a bit, and I got this outstanding view of Tower Bridge.
Next, we came upon St. Dunstan's church. (Cue more
leviosarpg sniggering.) It was bombed in 1940 during the blitz and I guess they made it a garden. I took a lot of pictures here because the sun had just come out, and it was gorgeous.Sarah said that when they were building this spire, they weren't sure that it would hold up once they removed the scaffolding, and so Christopher Wren's daughter climbed the scaffolding and laid underneath it in a pile of late 17th century indignance - she was that confident in her father's design.
I'm not sure what Christian thought that he was doing. Then again I'm not really sure that it matters.
This was a church that we didn't actually talk about, but I loved the look of it. I thought it was much prettier than all the sky scrapers around it.
Particularly this one. WTF all the apparatus on the outside. :\
During the daytime, this is a bank, the Swiss Re building. I don't think I need to tell you what it's inappropriate nickname is.
This is the Temple of Mithras, dating from the third century AD. It was unearthed when they were building the building behind it, and they actually moved it in order to preserve it. I guess I don't know how I feel about that, but I got to see it so I guess I shouldn't complain. More :\
After this, Sarah dismissed us and everybody and their dog flocked to the nearest tube station. I was (and still am, actually) getting a little sick of most of the people in the group (see this rant), so I split off and hopped a bus to Waterloo station because I wanted to go back to the National Theatre bookstore and buy a copy of Coram Boy - novel and script. (I also ended up buying Rock 'n' Roll, but that has nothing to do with the price of tea in China).
It was pretty cool.
At night, we hopped a train at Charing Cross Station to Greenwich, where we were to see Thankfully, There is Moonlight! (yes, the exclamation point was in the title, I wasn't that excited about it). It was a very intimate space above a pub, I can't imagine that it seated more than fifty or so people.
The play itself felt like the actors were playing to a much bigger space than they had, and I was just sort of confused by it. It's originally in Portugese and this was the English premiere, and I guess I enjoyed it (particularly the second act because I had some Smirnoff during the interval and it made me very happy), but I dunno. I felt like I should have been more connected to it than I was, but I think it had the same effect as if the average Portugese person had seen 1776 without any background of American history. I felt like "So what?" Which annoyed me a bit because I don't like that feeling, but that was that. That said, I liked being that close to the actors and the space. There was a point when one of the actors was monologuing and he was staring right at the girl sitting next to me - not off into space in her general direction, at her. It was intense. I felt like I shouldn't move because then he would be looking at me. XD
Also, the big important bad guy kept sitting on his coattails and I'm not going to lie. That annoyed me. I can't be scared of a guy who sits on his own coattails.