Life is Good!

We woke up a little late yesterday morning and hurried to get ready in time for our free breakfast. Then we bought an all-day Tube pass to jet down to South Bank and see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and The Tower of London. We also saw the Tate Modern, which blew our minds. It contained more familiar works like Picasso, Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, etc. One thing in particular that stands out though was a video we watched by an artist named Ana Mendienta. In 1974, she stood out by a river bank and poured blood all over her naked body, rolled around in a bunch of feathers, and then stood up and posed like a bird. It was supposed to be some sort of statement towards self-harm, but we were just really creeped out. Actually watched it twice before leaving, and I think it was worse on the second round.

After our daily nap, we attempted to find something to do in this city - as pubs close at 11:30 at the latest, and we normally don't even venture out until 8 at the earliest. We decided to take a suggestion off the hostel wall directing us to The Sports Cafe near Trafalgar Square. We spend 20 minutes walking there and it's a total dud, so we leave hungry, thirsty, and irritated. We stumble our way back towards the West End and find a very lovely pub called The Lyric, and have delicious meals with a pint of Leffe. We decide to go downstairs and find a local to talk to for some information about what people do around here at night. A man sits down next to us and we grill him on his city, and he tells us he works with 50 Americans. I assume this means finance or something. Then, some older gentlemen walk in and ask us if we were at their show tonight. I said, "No, but obviously we should have been. What show did we miss?" He said, "HAIR!" and I nearly lost my mind. Here we were having normal conversation with the musical director and musicians of HAIR!!! This was especially thrilling for me considering it was my 2nd choice after Avenue Q because the entire Broadway cast is here for the West End run and I love Gavin Creel. I casually mention this fact, and they ask if we are interested in seeing it on Wednesday. Obviously this is necessary, so the musical director scribbled his name and number on a paper for us, and said that he will have two tickets reserved for us at the box office before the show!

So now we are about to set off to see Harrod's, the 7 floor department store, Kensington Palace, the shopping district along Oxford Street, and then HAIR! tonight. Very exciting! Tomorrow we take the Eurostar from London to Brussels. The trip should take 3 hours, and we will arrive there at 2pm. We'll definitely be needing to do laundry too because it's been so cold that we have been wearing the same jeans for a week straight! Gross!