A Wicked Weekend

Keith and I had a completely AWESOME Saturday. I don't regret my decision to only do wedding videos during the week. If I were still doing them on a whim there's no way we would have had such a lovely weekend!

We started our Saturday by waking up (of course!) and made the hour drive to Redbridge (suburb of London) to catch the Central tube to St. Paul's.

St. Paul's Cathedral

We walked the few blocks from there across the Millennium Bridge

Millennium Bridge

Once across the bridge we were directly in front of the Tate Gallery of Modern Art.

Tate Gallery of Modern Art

This is where we met with Harold Frickner who had invited Keith and I to give the lecture at Solent University in Southampton. We both really think highly of Harold - and I particularly enjoy our intellectually charged conversations. It isn't often that you can discuss art (in its many mediums), society, and Second Life all to a receptive person and still get great feedback without it feeling like propoganda!

We all met on the 6th floor in the Members Only cafe where they have the biggest croissants I've ever seen in my life! The three of us sat and had croissants and cappuccino while just taking in the view before we walked the few blocks to Borough Market which we're told is probably the most trendy market in London. We weren't there for trend so much as to just enjoy the market.

Market Days are unfamiliar to us. There's really no such thing in America. Markets are purely medieval which would explain why since there was no Medieval period in the United States. And markets are something that Keith and I really enjoy. The closest thing we have in the US would be what most here call a 'jumble sale'.

After we had taken a trip through the Borough Market we hopped in Harold's car as he gave us a driving tour of London. We even drove past the Ten Bells - and we must MUST round up Tree and her man to take a Ripper tour one day soon! Its one of the many things which are mandatory on a trip to London.


Harold drove us to the theater where we had tickets to see Wicked - and let me tell you ... its been far too many years since I've seen a play/musical/opera! I almost cried when the curtain came up. A bit of it was sadness of "That could have been me" - the other part was just sheer glee. I'll have to explain the "Coulda Been Me" syndrome another time.

Apollo Victoria Theater

During intermission I didn't even want to get up. I sat there hoping that if enough people stayed in their seats that the director would decide to start the next act early ... but of course this was all just a fantasy played out in my head.

The play was spectacular and I would recommend it to anyone with children who are old enough to understand it (8 and up). It really gave a good positive message that I think young girls SHOULD hear on a daily basis but probably don't. Let's not mention the fact that it was also really funny!

We then had dinner at the MOST posh Pizza Hut I have EVER seen. This place served WINE!!!! On top of that .. they served like .... gormet desserts! I was over the moon at how swank the place was! I absolutely LOVED it! It was something that felt familiar but was all together different. It just goes to show you how different cultures are. In America -- you'd NEVER find a pizza joint like that.

At any rate - I told Keith that we mustttt see more plays and musicals because back "home" I would have to drive 5 hours (estimated) just to see a musical ... and here its so much more convenient. Oh and London's transportation system is so so so good. They really make it easy to get about - which makes me feel less intimidated. We had a LOVELY weekend and I hope to have another soon!

Weekend Trip and other Things

So for the first time in a couple weeks Keith and I decided to take a weekend trip. We don't stay gone all weekend, but we take a full day and go do stuff. Saturday we spent the entire day in London just wandering aimlessly and stopping of anywhere for a pint. We didn't want to be tourists, but we did just want to be somewhere unfamiliar in order to just relax. Unfortunately it was a VERY nice day out so the tourists were in full force. Maybe I'm weird - but hearing so many languages at once gives me a headache :(

So the entire river front was crawling with tourists, and we did the tourist thing of taking a boat down the river and back. And it was really relaxing! Of course it was crowded with tourists taking pictures of every single thing possible and yelling things which I assumed to be "No turn that way! Can't you smile?!" etc.

I got myself a bit of a sunburn (I'm very fair skinned. I blame by Irish ginger-haired parents) which is a bit achy today. It was worth it though. It actually didn't rain in London! We of course took along an umbrella anyway - but we didn't need it! We took the tube from Redbridge to St Paul after it took us about fifteen minutes to find the damn car park there at Redbridge :( We found it, though!

We haven't yet taken the pictures off the digital camera, but I remembered that we both have Flikr accounts, and I have yet to really share our pictures from both Chicago and all over England. I've been in the process of putting together a DvD for my family to mail to them so they can see our pictures also, but with all the weddings I've been doing in SL I haven't really had the time to sit down and work on it. Soon though, I hope. I've only got 4 weddings to do this month so far so I'll find time in the next couple weeks I'd say.

So yeah I'm going to add both mine and Keith's Flikr Tikr (haha I'm clever) to the side over there somewhere ------------------------------------------------------------------------>

Song of the Day

Falling by Emmy Rossum (she reminds me of Imogen Heap which is GOOD!)