London Calling

Like the proverbial white knight, my dad, Pally, and I swooped in to London to save (i.e. feed) my nephew, Matt the college student, who was down to his last $28. Matt is here studying and “working” for the summer. I’m always looking for any reason to get a couple more passport stamps, and “saving” Matt was a great one. He’s been in London for 3 months and is making the most of it, travelling to Barcelona, Amsterdam, Venice… He’d flown in at 3am from Ibiza the day we got here (!).

I’ve been to London a few times, so I’m spared doing most of the tourist agenda (which I actually love). We did start the day trips with a visit to the Clink Prison and torture museum, which will surprise no one who knows me. This is the diabolical prison where the term “throw that dude into the clink!” came from. People’s capacity for cruelty still shocks me. They had this one dungeon where they put people in solitary. The cell flooded when the Thames rose, so prisoners had to stand for days in sewer water and who knows what else. After a couple of days, they’d have open sores all over their bodies, and after they were waterlogged enough, their skin would fall off their bones. I was mesmerized and horrified and mesmerized.

So far, the highlight of our trip has been the Admiral’s scoring of tickets to Book of Mormon in the Prince of Wales Theatre. I’ve wanted to see this since it opened but hadn’t made my way to NYC. And there’s pretty much zero chance it’ll ever come to Salt Lake. Both Matt and I were thrilled that we’d see “Mormon” on the West End. And O. M. G. I will absolutely have to see this again so I can hear all the dialogue and lyrics I missed because I (and the woman next to me) laughed so loudly. Howled. Hooted. It’s hilarious, smart, politically wrong, naughty, but not mean at all. I won’t ruin it for you, except to say that bringing up Hello, Hasa Diga Eebowai, and Spooky Mormon Hell will have me convulsing in giggles for a while. It’s one of my all-time favorite shows.

We also saw Rock of Ages in the Garrick Theatre. Also lots of fun…. a collection of all the 80s hair metal band songs your ex-boyfriend played air guitar to. I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was a clever weaving together of rock songs that actually told a story. It was a good show to see the night we arrived because it’s so loud there’s no way I could have nodded off. (Once, I made Patrick come to a late showing of the Sundance movie “Animal Kingdom.” Patrick has a habit of using theater seats as a warm-up for going to bed. He was very annoyed that the characters in the movie kept shooting each other LOUDLY because he couldn’t fall asleep)

One of my favorite places to visit and take pictures in London is, of course, the food department at Harrod’s. It’s just beautiful and colorful and yummy. Here are a few of my favorites:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   I rarely buy any of it, but I do appreciate how great it must be. If you lived here, you wouldn’t ever have to cook. You could bring home something different every single day. And you’d probably be broke fairly quickly.

I’ve never been overly impressed with restaurants in London, but I did make a terrific find this trip. In Barcelona, we got into the habit of Yelping restaurants; it worked then, it worked now. That’s how we found Dishoom, a fantastic Indian small plate restaurant that has a couple of  locations in London. We went to the one on Upper St. Martin’s Lane. The paneer tikka and black daal were particularly good. Get there early: We arrived at 6:30 and by the time we left, the line was down the street.

I’m still in search of outstanding fish and chips, but there’s no shortage of places to test. I even ordered fish and chips at an Italian restaurant the day we got here. Not awesome.

I have had quite a few days of not running recently (as opposed to my days of not biking, not lifting, not contracting my core), but I have two days in a row in the Newtons here so far. I found a perfect place to run in Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park. I’ll leave you with a photo of my running route (today was the slow, photographic run, as opposed to yesterday’s slow, which-way-do-I-look-on-the-street-to-avoid-being-hit-by-a-car run. More on running next time.