Monday, April 22, 2019: London Theatre 1: Waitress!

After arriving at our hotel a little after 9am and being allowed to immediately check into our room, our next main objective of the day is to stay awake.  The longer we can stay awake today, the better the time adjustment is likely to be.  That means we need to do something outside, it is not a good day for museums.  So off we go on one of those "hop on, hop off" bus rides.  It is pretty bland but it keeps us in the fresh air and awake.  We have been to London before and have done some of the touristy things like the London Eye,
Parliament (notice that Big Ben is shrouded in scaffolding) and
Westminster Abbey.
We notice throngs of people surrounding the Abbey.  It is the Monday after Easter (remember the time delay) and it is a "bank holiday" in Britain.  The streets are literally crowded with people, presumably on holiday.  This is another reason to avoid the museums today.
This is as close as you or us will get to Buckingham Palace on this trip.
Spring is farther along in London than in either Minnesota or Wisconsin and the green trees are a pleasant sight.
Alas, the 'hop on, hop off" tour was mostly a bust as it took hours just circling on ordinary city streets.  But we are still awake.

We decide to adapt our day one routine by taking the advice of traveling friends and go back to the hotel and take a quick cat nap, only a half hour.  I think it helped.

That allowed us to have a glass of wine and hors d'oeuvres in the executive lounge of the hotel before going out for the evening.
The main event of the day is evening theatre seeing Waitress! at the Adelphi Theatre.  We chose a musical for the first day hoping that it would keep us awake and it did.  It wasn't very deep but it was entertaining.
Waitress! is set in a diner.  Notice the cherry pie crust design on the stage curtain.  The vertical panels on either side of the stage are actually pie racks.
After the play, we head back to the hotel dead tired and go directly to sleep.  Sleep came easily and long this evening as the hotel was dead quiet and we slept until 9am.  I got over nine and a half hours of sleep and an incredible over five and half hours of deep sleep.  Aah, I needed that.
Tomorrow we should be on a regular local time schedule as we do theatre number two.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seljalandsfoss, Skógafoss, Dyrholaey, Arnardrangur, Reynisfjara, Vik I Myrdahl

Image
It has been a big day.  Lots of driving and lots of stops.  A couple of waterfalls both very different from the earlier waterfalls.  Churches and more churches.  I hope that you don't get tired of churches.  And the black sand of the southern coast. As I'm driving to our first waterfall, I spot a church out in the country.  I stop.  It is Braeoratungukirkja.  Seljalandsfoss is a really cool waterfall.  It is a 220 foot monster. As you get closer it is even more impressive. But the really cool thing is that you can walk behind the waterfall.  The spray from the waterfall is impressive.  You will get soaked.  Guide books warn about ruining camera equipment.  So the Nikon goes back into the car and I don full rain gear.  There is no way that I'm not doing this.  You may laugh but my iPhone 12 Pro is submersible for 30 minutes and it has wide angle.  This is what it looks like. Skógafoss is 200 feet high and 80 feet wide.  Guidebooks warn that the hard part of photographing her
Read more

Reykjavik, a photography walk

Image
I'm out for a walk around Reykjavik on this, my penultimate day in Iceland.  Perhaps to make up for Iceland's long and dark winters, houses of Reykjavik are painted lively colors.  It is not Nyhavn but it is very pretty.  I pass a children's playground which I also find colorful and pretty. I have noticed that Icelandic houses usually have absolutely no landscaping.  Not much grows in this latitude.  This house in Reykjavik is an exception. Reykjavik has a park with a lake, also with landscaping. The park has sculptures I guessed that this one was called "blockhead".  I was wrong.  It is called "unknown bureaucrat". I'm thinking that this is either Lancelot or Elaine (you have to be from Iowa State). Reykjavik City Hall has been built out into the lake which was controversial at the time. After a break at Te & Kaffi, the Icelandic version of Starbucks, ... I am off to the National Museum of Iceland ... which has many exhibits on the history of Ic
Read more

Iceland Here I am

Image
It is not necessarily easy traveling this close to the pandemic edge.  I jumped at the chance to book this trip in mid-March when Iceland announced it was re-opening to vaccinated Americans without quarantine.  I had a difficult time booking and keeping hotel reservations as hotels kept closing.  I didn't understand why until yesterday when I discovered that after Iceland re-opened, they quickly closed again, then re-opened in April and the rules are still changing.  It was like playing whack-a-mole to find an open hotel.  But I am ecstatic about being able to be here.  Today's blog is more about traveling and less about Icelandic photos.  They will come.  Be patient. Delta has one flight a day to Reykjavik and it is from JFK.  Delta has only one flight a day from MSP to JFK to make the connection and that flight leaves MSP in mid-morning.  So I am off early Tuesday morning when my driver arrives. I find myself elated as I walk into the SkyClub at MSP.  I have never been so hap
Read more