I'm making a trip to London in partial fulfillment of a completely ridiculous bucket list item: to see the Swan Lake ballet on five continents. (but aren't bucket lists full of ridiculous items?) I had the chance to see it a few years ago in Prague, but decided to go to a networking dinner (ended up being useless) instead. I was hoping to see the ballet in Ireland so that I didn't have to hop over to Ireland just for this, but it wasn't playing in Ireland and The Mariinsky Ballet--arguably Russia's premiere ballet company--was performing. Plus, a ballerina featured in this documentary (YouTube), starred in tonight's performance. Triple ace.
Anyway, up until last night, my itinerary for Thursday and Friday consisted solely of the ballet on Thursday. I was sorely underprepared, especially considering I wouldn't have a data plan. Time to fly by the seat of my pants!
Side note: I would just like to document that I am currently surrounded by a group of 20 pre-teen Israelis who are living up life without chaperones. I'm old.
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Besides seeing Swan Lake an exhausting five times, I also have "go on a Rhine River cruise" and "go to the Olympics (or send a child to compete at one)" on my list. I'm a little nuts about the Olympics. Besides bovine powers, I have an unquenchable thirst for all things Olympics (I can name the Olympics back to 1992 [when I became cognizant] and up to 2020 Olympic Games) (Whitney and I watched the 2014 Olympic every night). And I've lived in three former Olympic host cities (I just can't get my timing right). Where am I going with this? Oh yes, I googled and found a London Olympics walking tour for this morning and clicked on "book" so hard.
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The site of the games was a huge swath of defunct industrial land that was fortunately close to city center. As the ground was poisoned with decades of industrial chemicals, the Games provided a great opportunity to pump money into the area to pump out the garbage. They even had an onsite "soil hospital" to decontaminate the soil and removed the tires and shopping carts out of the surrounding streams. The organizing committee were dedicated to producing the greenest Games ever, so they reused leftover concrete chunklets into retaining walls and designed super energy efficient buildings. One of the mistakes host cities make is building huge stadiums that will never be used due to the immense capacity (see: Beijing's Bird's Nest). London either built temporary stadiums (stadia?) or designed their stadiums to be down-sized. Furthermore, the whole area is being infused with massive contemporary urban housing developments (they have Europe's largest shopping center), and it was good to see locals and families using the area for everyday and destination activities. Whereas many host cities are faced with empty facilities, London had fantastic foresight in after-the-games usage. Bravo!
Between the tour and ballet, I had six hours. I pulled out my subway map, found where I needed to be at 7pm, and found a subway station about 7 hours of activities away. I got out at Green Park, and like Dorothy and company in a poppy field (have I said that before?) I got verrry sleepy. Walking towards Hyde Park, I stumbled to the side of the path and slumbered (don't worry, I didn't look too tacky; lots of people were resting. And if everyone's doing it, it's fine. Right?)
Twenty minutes later, I got up, walked a few hundred more feet, and was persuaded by a particularly plush plot of grass to nap again.
I guess this is what I get for taking a 10:30 pm flight and not getting to my hostel until 1 and then writing a blog until 3:30am. Sacrifices.
When I finally came to, I decided to walk to Westminster... Abbey? Cathedral? I wasn't sure. I'd read that there was Evensong at one of them, but as I couldn't check online (no data plan. gasp.), I rolled the dice and went with the cathedral.
Westminster Cathedral is a beautiful edifice with mosaics in the Byzantine style. Despite its beauty, when 5pm rolled around, the only voices I heard were from people praying the rosary. Derp.
Then I started making my trek across the city towards the Royal Opera House. Along the way I stumbled upon the National Portrait Library and checked out many of the famous Tudor paintings (Henry VIII in his classic stance, Elizabeth I) and walked through Chinatown looking for some quick kung pao chicken (no luck).
Then the time came for BALLET.
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The prince was so-so (Brazil's was way better) but Odille/Odette was superb. And the violinist who played during their pas de deux had impeccable intonation. In a very fitting coincidence, the mother/daughter pair next to me were fro Brazil! Funny to have this connection to the place where I first saw Swan Lake, when Bev and I bought tickets for an unknown ballet (though the water ripples and feather on the poster should've given it away).
Now I'm back at the hostel fading quickly.... and I have nothing planned for tomorrow! Like Helen Keller said, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." Looks like I'll approach tomorrow like a safari on the hunt for unplanned ex
Anyway, up until last night, my itinerary for Thursday and Friday consisted solely of the ballet on Thursday. I was sorely underprepared, especially considering I wouldn't have a data plan. Time to fly by the seat of my pants!
Side note: I would just like to document that I am currently surrounded by a group of 20 pre-teen Israelis who are living up life without chaperones. I'm old.
Besides seeing Swan Lake an exhausting five times, I also have "go on a Rhine River cruise" and "go to the Olympics (or send a child to compete at one)" on my list. I'm a little nuts about the Olympics. Besides bovine powers, I have an unquenchable thirst for all things Olympics (I can name the Olympics back to 1992 [when I became cognizant] and up to 2020 Olympic Games) (Whitney and I watched the 2014 Olympic every night). And I've lived in three former Olympic host cities (I just can't get my timing right). Where am I going with this? Oh yes, I googled and found a London Olympics walking tour for this morning and clicked on "book" so hard.
The site of the games was a huge swath of defunct industrial land that was fortunately close to city center. As the ground was poisoned with decades of industrial chemicals, the Games provided a great opportunity to pump money into the area to pump out the garbage. They even had an onsite "soil hospital" to decontaminate the soil and removed the tires and shopping carts out of the surrounding streams. The organizing committee were dedicated to producing the greenest Games ever, so they reused leftover concrete chunklets into retaining walls and designed super energy efficient buildings. One of the mistakes host cities make is building huge stadiums that will never be used due to the immense capacity (see: Beijing's Bird's Nest). London either built temporary stadiums (stadia?) or designed their stadiums to be down-sized. Furthermore, the whole area is being infused with massive contemporary urban housing developments (they have Europe's largest shopping center), and it was good to see locals and families using the area for everyday and destination activities. Whereas many host cities are faced with empty facilities, London had fantastic foresight in after-the-games usage. Bravo!
.JPG) |
| view from under-ish a bridge |
Between the tour and ballet, I had six hours. I pulled out my subway map, found where I needed to be at 7pm, and found a subway station about 7 hours of activities away. I got out at Green Park, and like Dorothy and company in a poppy field (have I said that before?) I got verrry sleepy. Walking towards Hyde Park, I stumbled to the side of the path and slumbered (don't worry, I didn't look too tacky; lots of people were resting. And if everyone's doing it, it's fine. Right?)
 |
| site of nap 1 |
 |
| site of nap 2 |
When I finally came to, I decided to walk to Westminster... Abbey? Cathedral? I wasn't sure. I'd read that there was Evensong at one of them, but as I couldn't check online (no data plan. gasp.), I rolled the dice and went with the cathedral.
Westminster Cathedral is a beautiful edifice with mosaics in the Byzantine style. Despite its beauty, when 5pm rolled around, the only voices I heard were from people praying the rosary. Derp.
Then I started making my trek across the city towards the Royal Opera House. Along the way I stumbled upon the National Portrait Library and checked out many of the famous Tudor paintings (Henry VIII in his classic stance, Elizabeth I) and walked through Chinatown looking for some quick kung pao chicken (no luck).
Then the time came for BALLET.
The prince was so-so (Brazil's was way better) but Odille/Odette was superb. And the violinist who played during their pas de deux had impeccable intonation. In a very fitting coincidence, the mother/daughter pair next to me were fro Brazil! Funny to have this connection to the place where I first saw Swan Lake, when Bev and I bought tickets for an unknown ballet (though the water ripples and feather on the poster should've given it away).
Now I'm back at the hostel fading quickly.... and I have nothing planned for tomorrow! Like Helen Keller said, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." Looks like I'll approach tomorrow like a safari on the hunt for unplanned ex
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