March 16:
National Gallery, Parliament, Westminster, Buckhingham Palace, and Wicked
Today was my SUPER busy day. I woke up at 8 am (on spring break? this is madness!) so that I could get ready and travel down to buy Wicked tickets at the Apollo Victoria Theater. The London West End is basically the second best thing to Broadway but much cheaper. I really enjoyed seeing the Broadway show How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (I think that's what it was called) and have been dying to see Wicked so I was super excited to hear that not only is it playing here on the West End but every day the theaters sets aside a certain amount of tickets for that night's production to be bought by students at a discounted rate. So in order to make sure that I got a ticket I stood in line and waited for the box office to open. It wasn't that bad, only about 30-45 min, but it was much colder and grayer than yesterday so that kinda sucked.
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| The National Gallery |
After I got my ticket, I took the subway to the National Gallery and got to see a whole bunch of artwork. It was really exciting because I got to see some of the paintings that I have studied in past art history classes in real life! I particularly enjoyed the high Renaissance paintings from Italy. So cool! Some of the highlights were:
The Virgin and Child by Masaccio
Mars and Venus by Botticelli
Virgin on the Rocks by Da Vinci
The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio
Sunflowers by Van Gogh
Mr and Mrs William Hallett by Gainsboroug
The Fighting Temeraire by Joseph William Turner
And that's not even all of the notable paintings I wrote
down!
Needless to say, I was exhausted so I decided to spend the rest
of the day kind of walking past notable things. After the National Gallery, I
walked over the Hungerford/Golden Jubilee Bridge where I got a really cool view of
the London Eye (the giant Ferris wheel in London) on one side of the Thames
River and Big Ben & Parliament on the other. Once I reached the river front
of the other side (the side with the London Eye), I was greeted by some
interesting sights. You know how in movies where the characters go to Europe,
they always encounter statues that turn out to be real people, just painted
and standing still? Well I saw some of those, as well as some "statues" of Papa
Smurf, Shrek, and a Lizard; people in Mickey Mouse and chicken costumes;
children break dancing; some people doing these awesome sidewalk chalk drawings
of various country flags; and just a lot of other fun, attention attracting
street entertainers. I walked by the London Eye but didn't go on because there
was a super long line. Instead, I walked right back down the river bank and
across the Westminster Bridge to see Big Ben and Parliament. Then I passed
Westminster Abbey but didn't go in that either because it was a bit expensive. I
kept going and walked to St. James' Park, which is a park right in front of
Buckingham Palace that the king built for himself. It had a nice little pond
filled with bird and ducks. It was really nice and relaxing but since it was
getting rather chilly, I didn't lounge around too long. Just walked around the
pond and sat down
to watch a squirrel literally walk up to a girl and eat some bread out of her
hand. London animals are so domestic!
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| Jubilee Bridge |
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| The London Eye |
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| Big Ben & Parliament. This totally looks like a postcard except for the grey sky
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When I finally had enough of the cold, I made my way to
Buckingham Palace. It's not nearly as grand as I thought it was but I still felt
like it was good to see, if only because it's one of the things you think of
when you think of London. You couldn't go inside or anything so I just took a
quick picture and beat it. By that time I had been walking around in the chilly
(it wasn't cold but it certainly wasn't warm) for hours and was ready to sit
down somewhere warm and read. I had gone through all of the places I meant to do
today and had
about 5 hours left before my show but since I was so close to the theater it
seemed silly to waste money taking the subway somewhere else. I ended up walking
to the theater area, stopping at souvenir shops on the way to see if there were
any postcards I liked (didn't find any yet). It took a bit to finally find my
way to the theater area (which is called Victoria by the way. Obviously fate)
but it took even longer to find a good place for me to comfortably sit inside
and read without feeling like I should leave soon. Eventually I found this
organic food place, got some edamame (hey, I still have some! Late night snack
it is!), and just read for an hour or so. Once it hit 5:45 and I felt like I had
spent enough time there, I got dinner at an Indian restaurant across the street
from the theater. That's one thing I love about London: Indians, and therefore
Indian restaurants, are everywhere! They didn't have my favorite dish on their
menu but unlike in Prague, they made it for me anyway. Yay! 
At about 6:45 I finally left the Indian place and went to the
theater. It was so exciting! My seat was actually pretty good and the
performance was awesome! Wicked is a musical which basically takes up the
origins of the Wicked Witch of the West and tells things from her point of view.
It's HUGE on Broadway and everyone who has ever seen it is in love. Even before
I saw it I had heard about the story and was already interested but boy do I
love it now. It was kind of weird to hear everyone sing with British accents but
they were all just wonderful. The set was so complicated and well made. The
actors, despite their accents, were wonderful singers. The story was brilliant.
Agh! Go look up youtube clips. Actually, you know what? Here are two: This is the song
"Popular" performed by the original Broadway cast. It is hilarious song in which
Galinda the Good Witch decides to give her roommate Elphalba ( Wicked Witch ) a
makeover.
This is the song
"Defying Gravity" performed by the original Broadway cast at the Tony
Awards. It was such an incredible, powerful, moving scene. I got a
bit misty-eyed.
I really want to get the book and read it!
