London Day 2
On the second day in London, we decided to take it easy as all the standing at the museum the previous day had been hard on moms foot. So we took a double decker bus which we caught right outside of our hotel to the British library.
The library has an old copy of the Magna Carta, An early Shakespeare folio and my favorite, a copy of the Gutenberg Bible. The Gutenberg Bible is one of the earliest works to be printed through a 2 sided printing process. It represents one of the great leaps in connecting common people with the written word. Before the printing process developed by Gutenberg, a copy of the bible would have to be written by hand, which took 3 years and cost 500 gold pieces (about 2.5 houses). The Gutenberg bible was created in 3 months (along with several other copies in the same batch) for only 1oo gold pieces. That drop in price would lead to further drops in price that eventually got us to the five dollar paperback and fifty cent newspaper that we take for granted today. In Civilization, the Gutenberg Bible is an early wonder you can build to gain a bonus in research and religious revenue and it was remarkable to see a real copy.
We were almost going to leave, when we got drawn into a conversation with a friend of the British Library. Now, I went to my mom's library often so I have met many a friend of the library. They are typically elderly people who have a passion for books and are eager to share it. As friends of the library go, the Friends of the British Library are the Big League Championship team. This guy knew his history, down to the funding disputes over the various wings. We could hardly pull ourselves away in time to catch a bus and a cab (as we were going to be late) to Shakespeare's Globe Theater.
I had bought some tickets to the Theater so that Mom could do something that would keep her off of her foot for a while so it could heal. The play we saw was Pericles Prince of Tyre. I stood with the groundlings at the front of the stage and Mom and Mandy sat in the bottom set of seats. The groundling tickets are just 5 pounds and you even get pulled into the show. In the second half, the pimp of Mitaline was trying to sell his girls to a guy next to me. He kept asking for 50 euros and the guy was holding up 50 pence. As a joke, I held up my credit card and the actor grabbed it and motioned the girls towards me. The whole theater laughed. He then went over to the other side of the stage and tried to sell my credit card to someone else. Finally in a later lull in the play, he came over and gave me the card back. This kind of playful interaction with the audience and the dramatic interpretations of the shipwrecks and the tournament of Knights gave me an insight into Shakespeare's works that I hadn't experienced before. Many shakespeare plays that one sees in movies or in traditional theater settings are essentialist interpretations, which focus on his timeless prose. There are other parts of his plays that were written to satisfy the demands for dancing, baudy humor and dramatic catastrophies, which audiences of his day demanded. At the globe theater, they still use these parts of his plays to full effect. They have series of ropes hanging all over the theater, even down along the fronts of the seats, where the actors would climb and swing holding different corners of a makeshift sail, turning the whole theater into a ship tossed by an angry sea. Its such a very personal experience, especially among the groundlings, where actors speak to you when they are not immediately involved in the play.
Unfortunately Mandy had to leave halfway through the play as she wasn't feeling well. So mom and I went out to chinese food after the play. The place was a bit pricey, but they didn't use any MSG and the dishes were prepared very simply and all the ingredients tasted very fresh.
Mom went back to the hotel and I went out to visit a few pubs I had wanted to see. I stopped at the salt bar first, with over a hundred whiskies available. I tried a tamnavulin, which was light and malty and a sherry casked, highland malt which was pretty forgetable. The bartender and I had a great conversation about American Bourbons, which he is a huge fan of. They even had peychauds bitters, which are nearly impossible to find in the states. After the salt bar, I caught the tube to Leicester square as Covent Gardens station was closed and walked over to the lowlander, a dutch and belgian beer bar. Unfortunately, the bar was only tables so there was no place to stand and chat. But I took a seat at a table on my own and found that they had Rodenbach. I had been searching for Rodenbach since I was told back in LA that they no longer produced it. It's a wonderfully tart red double fermented belgian ale. I found out that the brewery had just been bought out, not closed down and now the new company was producing the beer again. I'll have to find a way to get it shipped to the states. After the lowlander, I walked back to the horse and carriage for another sandwich and then caught the tube home.
The library has an old copy of the Magna Carta, An early Shakespeare folio and my favorite, a copy of the Gutenberg Bible. The Gutenberg Bible is one of the earliest works to be printed through a 2 sided printing process. It represents one of the great leaps in connecting common people with the written word. Before the printing process developed by Gutenberg, a copy of the bible would have to be written by hand, which took 3 years and cost 500 gold pieces (about 2.5 houses). The Gutenberg bible was created in 3 months (along with several other copies in the same batch) for only 1oo gold pieces. That drop in price would lead to further drops in price that eventually got us to the five dollar paperback and fifty cent newspaper that we take for granted today. In Civilization, the Gutenberg Bible is an early wonder you can build to gain a bonus in research and religious revenue and it was remarkable to see a real copy.
We were almost going to leave, when we got drawn into a conversation with a friend of the British Library. Now, I went to my mom's library often so I have met many a friend of the library. They are typically elderly people who have a passion for books and are eager to share it. As friends of the library go, the Friends of the British Library are the Big League Championship team. This guy knew his history, down to the funding disputes over the various wings. We could hardly pull ourselves away in time to catch a bus and a cab (as we were going to be late) to Shakespeare's Globe Theater.
I had bought some tickets to the Theater so that Mom could do something that would keep her off of her foot for a while so it could heal. The play we saw was Pericles Prince of Tyre. I stood with the groundlings at the front of the stage and Mom and Mandy sat in the bottom set of seats. The groundling tickets are just 5 pounds and you even get pulled into the show. In the second half, the pimp of Mitaline was trying to sell his girls to a guy next to me. He kept asking for 50 euros and the guy was holding up 50 pence. As a joke, I held up my credit card and the actor grabbed it and motioned the girls towards me. The whole theater laughed. He then went over to the other side of the stage and tried to sell my credit card to someone else. Finally in a later lull in the play, he came over and gave me the card back. This kind of playful interaction with the audience and the dramatic interpretations of the shipwrecks and the tournament of Knights gave me an insight into Shakespeare's works that I hadn't experienced before. Many shakespeare plays that one sees in movies or in traditional theater settings are essentialist interpretations, which focus on his timeless prose. There are other parts of his plays that were written to satisfy the demands for dancing, baudy humor and dramatic catastrophies, which audiences of his day demanded. At the globe theater, they still use these parts of his plays to full effect. They have series of ropes hanging all over the theater, even down along the fronts of the seats, where the actors would climb and swing holding different corners of a makeshift sail, turning the whole theater into a ship tossed by an angry sea. Its such a very personal experience, especially among the groundlings, where actors speak to you when they are not immediately involved in the play.
Unfortunately Mandy had to leave halfway through the play as she wasn't feeling well. So mom and I went out to chinese food after the play. The place was a bit pricey, but they didn't use any MSG and the dishes were prepared very simply and all the ingredients tasted very fresh.
Mom went back to the hotel and I went out to visit a few pubs I had wanted to see. I stopped at the salt bar first, with over a hundred whiskies available. I tried a tamnavulin, which was light and malty and a sherry casked, highland malt which was pretty forgetable. The bartender and I had a great conversation about American Bourbons, which he is a huge fan of. They even had peychauds bitters, which are nearly impossible to find in the states. After the salt bar, I caught the tube to Leicester square as Covent Gardens station was closed and walked over to the lowlander, a dutch and belgian beer bar. Unfortunately, the bar was only tables so there was no place to stand and chat. But I took a seat at a table on my own and found that they had Rodenbach. I had been searching for Rodenbach since I was told back in LA that they no longer produced it. It's a wonderfully tart red double fermented belgian ale. I found out that the brewery had just been bought out, not closed down and now the new company was producing the beer again. I'll have to find a way to get it shipped to the states. After the lowlander, I walked back to the horse and carriage for another sandwich and then caught the tube home.
posted by sfphotoblogger at 12:06 PM
1 Comments:
I saw both Pericles and A Winter's Tale at the Globe when I was in London a few weeks ago. I was on the ground, right against the stage each time, and it was one of my favorite things from the trip. So much fun. I'm glad you got to go.
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