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London Weekends

I spent the Fall 2008 semester abroad in the UK with twenty-five other students and two professors. We did our coursework on the road, traveling to various cities while studying the literature and drama of each region.

We stopped in London several times to catch various performances, so it became a common weekend location. At the very end of the semester, my parents met me in London, and we stayed two more weeks.

Even though I had already been to Edinburgh, which is a decent-sized city, London’s scale crippled me. I hardly left the hotel that first weekend. This was, in part, because I had homework to do, but mostly I was overwhelmed by the expansive map in front of me. So, I went back to the Globe for another performance, since I already knew how to get there, and left major sight-seeing for next time.

During that first stay, I was very skeptical of a performance at the Barbican our professors booked. All I knew was that this Lipsynch would take three evenings of three hours each to watch. I envisioned nine hours of avant-garde theater with no plot. I dreaded it. However, Lipsynch turned out to be one of my favorite performances all semester. The performance had a scope as big as my concept of London but was moving, not paralyzing. Even after nine hours, I did not want it to end. I sobbed all through one of the most sincere standing ovations of my life.

I was much more confident during our second London trip. I went to the Tower of London, which I found fascinating. It is one of the largest and most engaging historical sites I have visited. Some of us went to see Les Miserables in the West End. I was a little disappointed that the orchestra consisted of a keyboard, a trumpet and a couple of others. However, the vocalists were phenomenal. Also, it was Les Mis’s birthday, so the cast came out at the end and led a song in the show’s honor.

One day, we took a tour of the National Theatre—or rather the National Theatre’s three auditoriums. We learned about the Olivier Theatre’s unusual design, where and how they build and arrange enormous sets in the Lyttelton Theatre and the history of the comparatively small Cottesloe Theatre. This was my favorite backstage theatre tour.

A few of my classmates and I made a fortunate error that day. We had a few hours to kill after our tour, so we went in search of a tea shop we had seen in a newspaper article. After some searching, we discovered that the tea shop was now a hardware store. Disappointed, we turned to our trusty maps and realized we were right around the corner from Borough Market. A market has stood on that spot near London Bridge since at least the 14th century, and today it has about 130 stands of just about any edible thing imaginable. After demolishing a picnic of cheese, bread, olives, pesto, pears, wine and truffles, we were rather happy the tea shop had closed.

Despite my original timidity, I had really found my footing in London by the time my parents arrived. Over the course of my London visits, I discovered that the Tube really is not complicated. A few trips sufficiently acquaint most people with the layout of the city.

I did not expect to enjoy the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms very much, but I knew my history buff dad would love to go. By the end of our visit, I did not want to leave. Visitors get to delve into a highly interactive exhibit in the middle of the war rooms. Between recordings of Churchill’s speeches to a fascinating biography to a highly-detailed timeline of his life, I spent well over an hour just in the exhibit and did not notice the time passing.

My mom especially wanted to see Kew Gardens, where the plants British explorers found were kept. We could have spent a whole day there if we had seen all of the grounds, but we stuck mostly with the greenhouses. It was a bit forlorn in December with bare trees and a gray sky, but the greenhouses were lovely. Kew was very pretty in winter, but if you visit London during spring or summer, be sure to visit Kew, because it must be stunning that time of year.

Christmas in London was the perfect time for my parents to visit, though. The streets were decorated with lights (and one even with a chandelier), Covent Garden glinted with metallic icicles, Trafalgar Square displayed a crèche and angels, brass bands played Christmas carols during the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and everywhere we looked posters proclaimed Christmas events and performances.

One particularly special event was a carol service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields right next to Trafalgar Square. We (fortunately) arrived very early, because there were no seats left a half-hour before it started. I really appreciated seeing the London community come together to sing and worship. A testament to London’s character, the service combined traditional Christmas carols with modern poetry and beautiful choral pieces. The new and old melded perfectly into a whole. The building itself had that same character: after the service everyone took an elevator down to the old stone crypt, the sign of which was contemporary and clean-cut, for miniature mince pies and mulled wine.