London and other news
May. 12th, 2003 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zana16Sooo.... I just got back from London!!!! First time visiting England, it was a blast. I stayed with Tova from first-year (Capen House), who is there for the semester, which was interesting. Apparently Anya is visiting you, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beefive? Got lots and lots of Cadbury cream eggs, ate most of them on the way home. The Chunnel was not nearly as exciting as I'd hoped--just 20 minutes of darkness. No fun at all.
Spent obscene amounts of money. London costs exactly half again as much as Paris does.
I saw two musicals while I was there!! Our House, written by the people who wrote the song, I can say only one thing to: bloody brilliant. Splendidly choreographed. Great songs. Sure, the theme's as old as humanity, but it was well-worked, and also a nice little social parody of modern-day Britain. I even bought the CD. I also went to see Phantom of the Opera for the first time, which was not as well done, but the story as laid out was quite interesting. I kept going off on tangents, though, as implications of themes came to me, and were more interesting than following the play. Ah, well. Good music. I'm not sure if ALW meant to put in the themes I took from the musical, but it was good.
I managed to navigate quite successfully the London Underground until my last day, when it took me no less than an hour and five trains to end up a grand total of two stops from where I'd set off.
The Titian exhibit was pretty good. The National Gallery was way too huge, and of course they kicked me out. Seriously, I was the last tourist out of the building, and a security guard marched me to the door. The British Museum is way too huge, also, but very well done. Would like to spend about a week in each.
Westminster Abbey was great.
Did not get to see Baker's Street. For a major Sherlock Holmes fan, this is sufficient reason for going back. Did get to see Downing Street, but that was not nearly so interesting.
It was so weird in London: everybody in the streets was speaking in English. (I mean, really, what were they thinking?) There were British flags. The bookstores HAD BOOKS IN ENGLISH. LOTS of books in English. I spent thirty quid on books alone, carried away by the fact that they had almost everything I was looking for. Got a Tamora Pierce and the new Artemis Fowl book. Life is good.
Am rereading the Harry Potter books in anticipation of the fifth. And have finally discovered a plotline for a fanfic that I would not be ashamed to write. So I may be producing Harry Potter fic. I've promisedpashabird, though, to work on my screenplay, and that comes first. Especially as I am having trouble keeping Draco in character, and I haven't even started writing the damn thing yet.
Another fic rec: Not in Vain by the lovely Lucy (lucyhale), which I did not beta but did critique. Slash warning. Lord of the Rings Fic.
A few observations:
1) The Brits do not have Cheetos either. No wonder they're.... no, I won't go there.
2) Was singularly unimpressed with fish and chips. However, am willing to give it another try.
3) Want pumpkin pie.
4) Is it possible to overdose on Cadbury cream eggs?
5) Conseil europeene is not the same thing as Conseil de l'Union Europeenne, though both are parts of the institutional structure of the EU.
6) WMD = World Movements for Democracy
7) The ABC plan, introduced on the future of the EU by Aznar, Blair, and Chirac, is being referred to as the Plan ABC: armes atomiques, biologiques, et chimiques. Ha.
Ooo! Long entry. Yet I reiterate the fact that Hugo Weaving, Jeremy Irons, and Alan Rickman are all men I want to marry cause they're just that goddamn sexy. That is all.
beefive? Got lots and lots of Cadbury cream eggs, ate most of them on the way home. The Chunnel was not nearly as exciting as I'd hoped--just 20 minutes of darkness. No fun at all.Spent obscene amounts of money. London costs exactly half again as much as Paris does.
I saw two musicals while I was there!! Our House, written by the people who wrote the song, I can say only one thing to: bloody brilliant. Splendidly choreographed. Great songs. Sure, the theme's as old as humanity, but it was well-worked, and also a nice little social parody of modern-day Britain. I even bought the CD. I also went to see Phantom of the Opera for the first time, which was not as well done, but the story as laid out was quite interesting. I kept going off on tangents, though, as implications of themes came to me, and were more interesting than following the play. Ah, well. Good music. I'm not sure if ALW meant to put in the themes I took from the musical, but it was good.
I managed to navigate quite successfully the London Underground until my last day, when it took me no less than an hour and five trains to end up a grand total of two stops from where I'd set off.
The Titian exhibit was pretty good. The National Gallery was way too huge, and of course they kicked me out. Seriously, I was the last tourist out of the building, and a security guard marched me to the door. The British Museum is way too huge, also, but very well done. Would like to spend about a week in each.
Westminster Abbey was great.
Did not get to see Baker's Street. For a major Sherlock Holmes fan, this is sufficient reason for going back. Did get to see Downing Street, but that was not nearly so interesting.
It was so weird in London: everybody in the streets was speaking in English. (I mean, really, what were they thinking?) There were British flags. The bookstores HAD BOOKS IN ENGLISH. LOTS of books in English. I spent thirty quid on books alone, carried away by the fact that they had almost everything I was looking for. Got a Tamora Pierce and the new Artemis Fowl book. Life is good.
Am rereading the Harry Potter books in anticipation of the fifth. And have finally discovered a plotline for a fanfic that I would not be ashamed to write. So I may be producing Harry Potter fic. I've promised
pashabird, though, to work on my screenplay, and that comes first. Especially as I am having trouble keeping Draco in character, and I haven't even started writing the damn thing yet.Another fic rec: Not in Vain by the lovely Lucy (
lucyhale), which I did not beta but did critique. Slash warning. Lord of the Rings Fic.A few observations:
1) The Brits do not have Cheetos either. No wonder they're.... no, I won't go there.
2) Was singularly unimpressed with fish and chips. However, am willing to give it another try.
3) Want pumpkin pie.
4) Is it possible to overdose on Cadbury cream eggs?
5) Conseil europeene is not the same thing as Conseil de l'Union Europeenne, though both are parts of the institutional structure of the EU.
6) WMD = World Movements for Democracy
7) The ABC plan, introduced on the future of the EU by Aznar, Blair, and Chirac, is being referred to as the Plan ABC: armes atomiques, biologiques, et chimiques. Ha.
Ooo! Long entry. Yet I reiterate the fact that Hugo Weaving, Jeremy Irons, and Alan Rickman are all men I want to marry cause they're just that goddamn sexy. That is all.
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Date: 2003-05-12 06:07 pm (UTC)Fish and Chips requires that a) you have spent several days eating British Breakfasts, so anything not actually swimming in grease looks wonderful and b) enough vinegar to drown a hephalump. That, and the best place in London is out in a little suburb that I will probably never be able to find again.