Filling in the details

My feet hurt. We've walked up, down and around this damn city and my feet hurt. Don't get me wrong, I still swear by my Merrells, but when you spend one day walking through 3 museums (Globe Theatre, Tate Modern & Hayward Gallery) and then walk from Trafalgar Square down The Mall to Buckingham Palace, you're tootsies are bound to be in pain. But I guess it's worth it...

I've done a lot in the past two weeks that I haven't shared with you either because I didn't have the time or I forgot. Now is no better a time nor has my memory improved but here we go:

Out in the countryside, while staying with Gillian's family, I drove their car. Sure it doesn't sound like much until you remember that they drive go-carts with manual transmissions and if you drive on the right side of the road you face the distict possibility of driving into oncoming traffic. Luckily, (or not depending on the way you look at it) out in the countryside the roads are only wide enough for one car anyway so worrying about left and right is almost moot. The grass along the roadside is littered with tire tracks... and provided that the steering wheel is on the other side of the car I also deem it an accomplishment that I only struck the curb once as a result of a screwed up sense of perspective.

Theater: We've seen 2 shows. 1 musical and 1 play. The Producers was lots of fun but not as good as the production I saw on Broadway. Gillian throughly enjoyed it but agreed with most of my critcisms and even had a few of her own. All in all, it was worth seeing and a most enjoyable evening.

The play we saw was A Few Good Men starring Rob Lowe and written by Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing. A beautiful production but alas not good enough to escape my critical eyes & ears. Unfortunately, it seems that shows produced in the West End that take place in America require the british actors to put on bad american accents, and this in turn screws up the comedic timing and ultimate flow of the show. Both The Producers & A Few Good Men were plagued by this. Gillian astutely referred to the productions as "crippled." I whole-heartedly agree.

That's just a brief overview, if you really care about my thoughts on either show in depth, email me and I'll elaborate. For now, I'm moving on.

Dessert: After The Producers, Gillian and I felt like dessert and popped into an interesting-looking establishment around the corner from the theater. Decor designed by an operatic set designer, you can imagine what it looked like. We sat down, glanced at the menu and ordered, Gillian the Creme Brulee and myself the assorted cheese platter. We wait. Out comes the tiny dish of Creme Brulee and for me a huge tray with 6 cheeses. Full wedges and blocks of cheese accompanied by a beach ball sized basket of breadsticks and toasts. Gillian and I are stunned long enough for the waiter to go back into the kitchen and return with a "on-the-house" fruit platter incuding 6 apples, 6 oranges, 3 banannas and 1 kiwi all nicely arranged around a gigantic pineapple. At this point we think it to be a joke... you know, "Ha, ha, stupid americans, think they can come in here and order dessert like normal people. We'll show them!" But alas, it was no joke, and I proceeded to eat lots of cheese.

So that's all I can remember for now. I'm sure there's more and I'll remember it all as soon as I sign off and start wandering around the next museum. Hope alls well at home!