Although it almost seems pointless to finish up London when there´s so much of the Canary Islands to explore, here goes anyway. Then I can finally move on!
On saturday we explored Leicester Square and Covent Garden, a winding netword o small charming shops, including a pilgrimage to Neal´s Creamery) from which the infamous Cheeseboard in Berkeley orders their British cheese. We stopped for a satisfyingly greasy and golden lunch of fish and chips at a place that stands on the site of the 3rd fish and chip shop in London. You can imagine the layers of grease building up over the centuries.
We then strolled down to the National Portrait Gallery for a brief fling, examing the portraits of notables such as Elizabeth I and dishevelled looking playwrites. Their cafe featured a lovely lavender shortbread. Next we went across the river to the National Theater and purchased the last two tickets to Women Beware Women, perhaps the second most famous Middleton play and one that certainly earns its name (but more on that later). Leaving Marianne and Ron, I rushed to the British Museum and Bloomsbury, walking through the latter to find the old houses of the Bloomsbury Group, including Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes, Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell, etc. (forgive my nerdiness; I read many of the Bloomsbury Group in my British Studies class and was minorly obsessed).
The British Museum, on the other hand, is a place that anyone can enjoy, and many do. I´d never made it there despite my other trips to or through London, so despite a short amount of time I made the trip. It was immensely worth it. The BM is a building as beautiful and impressive as the art it contains; the bright white space of the courtyard opens into rooms filled with treasures and beautifully designed and decorated. It reminded me of the Hermitage. I could have spent days in the BM (its somewhat of an anthropologist´s dream) but instead settled for a fling through the Enlightenment Room, a look at some antiquities from Kent, and the Elgian Marbles. The Marbles I have wanted to see since I took Classics in high school, and they didn´t disappoint. They seem to breath history and elegance, their crevasses invisibly caked with Greek anger and Western pride.
Leaving the BM, there was a quick stop at home for dinner, then off with Marianne to the National Theater. Its another interesting building, although probably built around the 70s so not in my favorite style of architecture. Women Beware Women was extraordinary, almost operatic in the production style, complete with revolving set, chandeliers that lowered from the ceiling, a live jazz band and sumptuous costumes. The production was set in the 50s, and with a level of vision and close-to overproduction that could have failed but instead was held up by the extremely high level of acting. The play itself is a little melodramatic and insane, but all the better for it. Scandal after scandal, and very few left alive at the end. An interesting contrast to Macbeth, since Middleton and Shakespeare were contemporaries (interestingly, Middleton also edited a version of Macbeth, he had a think for strong, debatably evil women, I think).
So that was London. On to the Canary Islands!
<3 Middleton
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