two tickets to paradise

C man and i went to London and Paris for a honeymoon type experience. Today I want to share with you some of the highlights from our trip - none of the dirty stuff, C would never approve.

London
okay, the underground is genius and easy to navigate and thanks to my friend E we knew enough to use osyter cards to pay for our transit. genius. the ride from the airport to gloucester road (location of hotel) was quick and easy. The first hotel was really an apartment hotel called Fraser Place Queens Gate Gardens. We had a huge room, bigger than many apartments, and it was clean and lovely.

Old Vic Theatre was host to the final days of Kevin Spacey's tour as artistic director and his production of "Moon for the Misbegotten". This is a hard play. Despite the excellent performance of Eve Best and Colm Meany--it is just a hard play. My thought was that the moral crisis of Spacey's character just doesn't translate today. What do i know.

Food near the Old Vic - there are many places to eat around the theatre but the tastiest and cheapest italian i've ever laid eyes on was at a place called Ray's. The staff don't speak much english but the pick and point menu is very helpful. Dinner for two, with wine and dessert and cappuccino cost a total of 20 pound. I can't find the "pound" symbol on my keyboard.

Spamalot is on at the Palace Theatre in London with Tim Curry (Arthur) and Christopher Seiber (Galahad) and Hannah Waddingham (Lady of the Lake) was fall out of your seat funny. Seriously, we got these super cheap tickets at Leicester Square which where row H seats 8 & 9 - a total score!!

Frost/Nixon was newly opened at the Gielgud Theatre (written by the same man who wrote The Queen, The Other Boleyn Girl). Anyhoodle...fucking brilliant and excellent. Frank Langella plays Nixon and Michael Sheen plays Frost. I believe this will be on Broadway soon - if you are going to be in NYC - go see this play! It's tight. It's funny. It's dramatic, well written and intense.

At each play i thought of my friend TB and wondered what she would think.

the Tate Modern...we went twice...it bears repeating. Okay, so art and that is cool, hurray for art and Cameron and I will travel just about anywhere to visit Jackson Pollock. The collection is fantastic. Now, Cameron hates installation art, mostly, and i love it mostly - well specifically I like sound installations BUT the coolest installation ever is Carston Holler's Unilever series at the Tate Modern. A series of giant slides that run from each of the floors down to the bottom floor. If you've ever seen the Tate Modern it is a converted power plant of some sort--it's huge! The slide from the top floor was like riding a rocket. So fun!! As a sidebar...i begin to love the Marcel Duchamp. Also, the Tate cafeteria...super yummy.

The Globe theatre - well, so it's not the original site of the Globe, which is too bad. And they actually have the entire Rose theatre unearthed but opted to build the Globe instead. Oh well. The history lecture was very cool. The thatched roof is very cool. The cafeteria where they serve a yorkshire pudding the size of a hat filled with mashed potatoes, cumberland sausages and gravy rocked my world. If there was a church of sausage, I would go.

London churches - Westminister Abbey was, well, underwhelming. I don't know why but i didn't feel that crazy sense of awe that often scares me into thinking i should give up my pagan ways and pick a god. What can you do? St. Paul's, however, scared the bejesus into me. It's grand. It's beautiful. The Temple Church, very small compared to these others, but spectacularly beautiful--the windows are amazing. And the organist, perhaps annoyed by tourists, was rocking out on the organ when we were there--i think it was Iron Maiden.

Oh - and the Salsbury Cathedral also pretty swany. And the Abbey at Bath which was amazing from the outside but was locked up tight at 4:30 in the afternoon so i didn't get to go inside. Perhaps i tarried to long in the Baths.

The Roman Baths - very interesting. Bath itself, beautiful. i mean really beautiful. wow.

Okay, i have to get back to work but will post more soon. and will include Paris too.