Friday, May 26, 2019: London Theatre 5: Come From Away; Victoria & Albert Museum

You have probably noticed that we have been sleeping late every morning.  Today we finally overdid it, arising too late to make the hotel breakfast.  But, since this is London, there is a Starbucks right around the corner.

I have been contemplating a new suitcase.  While shopping in Covent Gardens a couple of days ago, it came to my attention that, due to the current valuation of the British Pound and the refund of the VAT, that my new suitcase was cheaper to purchase in the UK than back at home in the US.  And it fits, barely, within my duty free allowance coming back into the US.  So I now have a new suitcase.  This morning we are off to the Global Blue Lounge, courtesy of the suitcase retailer, who does all of the required paperwork and provides the VAT refund on the spot.  The only other thing that I need to do is to obtain the customs stamp at the airport.  Easy peasy.

This is a building that I found particularly attractive while on the way to Green Park.

From Green Park, we decide to stroll along Picadilly and skirt Hyde Park

where directional signs make sure that you don't get lost.  This is also my GPS photo that I mentioned a couple of days ago.

We have lunch at one of the cafes in Harrod's department store where the fact that I am a minority was pointedly apparent.  I had the chicken Caesar salad which conspicuously came without any chicken, and for which Harrod's apologized and removed from the bill.

We have been in London for almost a week and we haven't had occasion to use one of the many famous and surprisingly still available British phone booths to make a call ... until now.

We continue our stroll down Brompton Road to the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Beverly enjoys perusing the special Beatrix Potter exhibit.

We don't really do the museum justice as it is already late afternoon.  Did I mention that we slept late?  Nevertheless, we admire this John Constable depiction of Salisbury Cathedral.

A stairway in the museum even contains art.

Beverly tries to emulate the reading pose in the sculpture.

A set of silver lions that I liked.

And no museum would be complete without at least one nude.

The museum even has their own CHIHULY, see Kew Gardens on Tuesday.  This seems to be a replica of one hanging in the temperate house there or perhaps they moved it here since Tuesday.

Our last theatre, and the fifth in five days that I promised, is Come From Away at the Phoenix Theatre.  Beverly saw this play on Broadway a couple of months ago and we thought it would be interesting to see how the British did it differently, if at all.  Bev noticed the different actors, of course, but otherwise it was pretty much spot on.  It is the story of Gander, Newfoundland, as they received almost 7,000 passengers and crew from airplanes diverted on 9/11 as US airspace was closed.  This just about doubled their population.  The story details the logistics of how the town scrambled to care for and how they welcomed the arrivals, the arrivals experience and friendships made and lost as they spent several days there.  Two strangers actually got married afterwards.  True story.

[Stock photo below.]

A feature of British theatre is that you are not only allowed to bring food and drink to your seat in the theatre but you are actually encouraged to do so.  Beverly chose crisps, otherwise known as potato chips.

The theatre provided a guide on how to speak like a Newfoundlander.  "Come From Away" means a traveler to Newfoundland, someone who wasn't born there.

We chose this play for our last night in London because it is relatively short and, hence, we could get to bed earlier.  Did I mention that we have been sleeping late in the morning?  We need to arise earlier tomorrow to prepare for our flight back across the pond.