Globe Theater Hysterics and the Beauty of a London Evening

Two shows at the Globe in two days and the Sherlock Holmes Museum tomorrow morning. Add a slow and relaxing walk along Queen’s Walk (or rather, from Waterloo station to The Globe), and night pictures with a tripod, and you have one of the best days ever, quickly to become two of the best days ever! Today our class met in the evening and the majority of my class went up in the London Eye. After my panic attack at the Eiffel Tower, I decided to opt out of the Eye and walk along the Thames to the Globe by myself. And oh my gosh, it was amazing! I was able to take a bunch of pictures of the graffiti/skateboarding area, and a couple panoramas of this huge sandbox by the water (fingers crossed they turn out). I took photos of this open air used book sale and pictures of street performers and so forth. The weather has finally cooled down, so it was a really nice evening for walking. And possibly the best part was this huge penguin outside the aquarium! I got so excited. I just wish someone had been with me so they could have taken a picture of me posing with the penguin.

And then we saw A Midsummer’s Night Dream at The Globe Theater, which was absolutely hilarious! I can’t even begin to describe how much fun the play was. The actors were superb. The physicality of their performances made it hard not to go into hysterics. If you know me, you might know that I went through a stage in my preteens when I had a problem with getting hysterical frequently, so I’ve learned to restrain myself because I hate feeling like I can't breathe. Thus, it takes a rare spot of genius to make me hysterical these days. The play scene at the end was still the best part, but even the lovers made me laugh, and sometimes I find the first part of this play a bit tedious. I am really looking forward to seeing Macbeth (I refuse not to use the name) tomorrow.

And our night photography session tonight was more fun than I had anticipated. I had never taken pictures with a tripod before and I love the way mine turned out. Unfortunately, because it’s late and I am getting up early to go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum with Liz tomorrow, and then Macbeth with Hilary, I am only uploading a few pictures now. I plan on updating this blog entry (both the written and the photo portion) tomorrow, after all the fun is over and I have some time. Honestly though, I think today and tomorrow will be two of my favorites in London. Manchester and Doctor Who Experience don’t count because they didn’t take place in London.

Promised update: So, here are more photos from my stroll along the Queen's Walk. I finally got a relatively good picture of Big Ben. I wish it was more golden, but this is the best picture I've gotten over the course of two trips to London. And I also am very excited to have gotten a good picture of the fish lampposts that line the Queen's Walk.


I also took this nice evening picture of the London Eye. It has some camera flares, but I happen to love camera flares, as my friend Kait Dowling can attest.

My favorite parts of the walk though were the skateboard/graffiti area and the giant sandbox. If I remember right, this skateboarding area was even featured in a BBC's Sherlock episode. I love going back and looking at it again because it changes constantly. I love that about streetart. And this sandbox was super awesome. I don't even know how many meters long it is, but I'd guess over a dozen. And there were lots and lots of kids playing there. It's so great to see kids being encouraged to play outside in a social environment like this.

And last but not least, I love street performers and this was my favorite from yesterday. There were actually a whole bunch of these performers based off of famous paintings.

The night shooting was really a lot of fun, and I just want to include a couple more photos taken last night, as well. This is what St. Paul's Cathedral looks like at night. The second is a general cityscape.

I also want to say a couple additional words about A Midsummer Night's Dream because it was truly a wonderful production. I am amazed at how multi-talented these actors are. They all seem able to act (superbly), sing, dance, etc. I loved how minimalistic the play was too, so much in the spirit of Shakespeare. There were very few props, the set stayed the same, and much was left up to the audiences imagination, but the physical actions of the actors made it easy to engage with and follow the context. A lot of the characters were also slightly reinterpreted. For instance, Puck was more curious and innocent, Peter Quince was extra hilarious and ecstatic (and the whole acting troupe worse tap shoes!), and the guy playing Lysander had that love-sick drunkenness behavior down to a science. This was, handsdown, my favorite production of this play that I have ever seen.