London Day 5

    We had a later start, so I asked Lizzy if she would fancy a walk. I had postcards that I wanted to mail off. I asked the concierge for directions, and then we headed out. I saw this art shop and wanted to get a picture with my artist. She was nice enough to comply. The post office was closed until 9 am, so we walked around a park and talked about art and architecture.

    There was a little old lady who had been sitting outside the post office for some time when we walked by it. On our way back, there was a small crowd gathered. When it opened up, we were 4th in line. I was anxious that we were tight on time, but I needn't have worried.  The poor old lady was terribly hard of hearing, and she wanted to send money, but they don't offer that service anymore. I bought my stamps, but you don't mail them there. They had a red letter box right outside where you actually post them.  

We got back in plenty of time to have the Ratrick and Romeo reunited!

    Next, it was time for the tube so we could go take a tour of Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Claudia wanted everyone to feel comfortable with navigating London, so she picked someone to lead where we went next. This time, it was Scarlett who got us to our station. We passed the Ritz, which I wanted to snap a pic of since it's prominent in the series Good Omens. The angels dine at the Ritz. 

    Here we met our guide David, who was left on his own to his own due to his team getting sick with the flu. He was wonderful, though, even with feeling a bit under the weather himself. This theater, as many theaters do, has many legions and stories. It was first opened in the 1660s, and the present building, opened in 1812, is the most recent of four theatres that have stood at the location, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. In 2019, Andrew Lloyd Webber bought the crumbling theater, and after extensive renovations, it was reopened in its renewed glory. It's currently showing Hercules, so some of our group had been inside it, but this tour was so much more.

David was amazing as our guide and so accommodating. 

    This is the dining room where they serve tea and other delights from Wednesdays to Sundays. They adhere to the theatrical theme by serving your meal in Acts: A Savoury Prelude, a Sweet Dilemma, and the finale. site

    Here we are in the royal retiring room. Where Royalty stays before a show and during intermission. We got to sit on the same couches and chairs that royalty and other glamorous patrons of the arts have sat. There are actually two royal boxes, one is the Prince's box. The Lane was witness to an assassination attempt on King George III in 1800, and, after a long-standing feud with his son, the Prince Regent, in 1809, the Royal boxes were built to avoid any royal fisticuffs. The Royal Boxes and theatres on its site have been visited by every reigning monarch since the Restoration in 1663 and now us.

    I also needed the facilities and was able to use the private toilet in the royal room. Of course, I took a pic. Now I can say I peed where the Kings and Queens peed, that's better than Buckingham Palace!

    

    The Lane has had many amazing performances over the years, including a real live horse race on stage, a locomotive, and even a sinking ship. They had a hydraulic stage cut into three parts so they could move in different directions! There is a walkway below the stage, which originally was the only way actors could get from one side of the stage to the other. Now they have a way onstage, but the tunnel is still valuable. 

    Inexplicably, they have one of Hitler's chairs, yes, Adolf Hitler. It's down in the tunnel, so only cast crew or the lucky few who get a tour will ever see it. It's so random, but so British.

This is the original dressing room. 

    For more information, check out their history site. After our tour, we split into 3 groups for the afternoon. Lizzy went with a group to shop, and I went with a group to the art museum. 

We found this hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop, which had barely enough room to stand in to order.

    The ladies were so sweet, and I ordered the special. They kept calling everyone "My Love". "What can I get for you, my love?" It was fun. Zoey didn't want to eat there, so she went to a Burger King down the street. We got our orders and headed to the BK. Zoey was still waiting to order when we got there, so we sat at a bar that looked out to the street to eat our lunch.

    It was an interesting sandwich; I should have asked for more sauce, because it was a little bland. Timothy said that his was the best thing he had eaten in England so far. On our way to the museum, we passed a fun shop and picked up some trinkets. 

    I mean, come on, is there anything more British than the Weasleys' car, Buckingham Palace, and a tube station sign in one place?

    There was an Iranian protest in the plaza in front of the museum. You can just see Big Ben off in the distance.

    Lady Jane Grey. This painting is stunning in person. The next photo was inlaid in the floor. There were several of them, and I had to wait a bit for the crowd to move to get a shot.  The museum was quite crowded. That's why we were there, actually. It was Saturday and quite warm, and we had tried to go to the British Museum, but it was all sold out.

    I did get my Doctor Who moment. The episode about Vincent Van Gogh is so moving. It ends in this museum in this room with this painting. Yes, I was geeking out a bit.

Here's a peek into the Monet room.

    I was with Junette, and we lost the others in our group. We tried to go back to the front after messaging the others, but each exit let us out at a different place. We tried three times and then just exited and walked back to the front, since I could get my bearings that way. I found a place to rest while Junette visited the gift shop. Time was slipping away, though, and we were worried that we might be late for dinner. 

    Finally, the others found us. They had been lost as well. We legged it up to the nearest tube station and went to rejoin our group. One group had caught "Evita" as she sang from her balcony! If you were unaware, at the start of Act Two, the music is piped outside the theater into London's narrow Argyll Street. Rachel Zegler, playing Perón, emerges on a balcony. From there, she belts out "Don't Cry For Me Argentina," the musical's signature song. The performance is livestreamed back into the theater for the audience. As you can imagine, it caused quite the stir! If you want to hear it, here's a video:

    We passed the theater where Hamilton is being performed, and we will return later to see it. But first, we were heading to the Albert.

    Named after the Prince Regent, The Albert is a four-story pub chock full of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert memorabilia. Built in 1862, the Albert is a traditional English pub fittingly placed in Victoria.  The pub sits just a nine-minute walk from Buckingham Palace and seven minutes away from Westminster Abbey. It reminded me of the Old Spaghetti Factory in decor. 

    We were served piping hot beef and ale pies with chips and mushy peas. Seriously, we needed quite a bit of time with them cut open to cool down enough to try them. I loved the peas. There was a measuring cup of extra gravy to pour on your chips or pie; it did help to cool it down a bit. 

    There was another EF tour group up there with us on the top floor. I ran into a few of them waiting for the loo. The restroom was tiny; you seriously had to do acrobatics to get to the toilet! It was fun talking to the other group; they had seen a few of the things we had, but ours was different as well. When I returned to our table, one of the chaperones had a rather large glass of wine, which she had shared with Claudia and a student, who was not her relation. I found that very odd, especially since all minors had signed a waiver saying they would not consume alcohol on the trip. Adults had to sign that they would consume only one glass at dinner. 

    The girl said she drank all the time a home, but I was still shocked. I mean, if it were her child, fine, it would still be against the rules, but I'd understand a bit better. But to give alcohol to a minor you don't know on a school trip without parental consent? Yeah, I was judging pretty hard.

After a very filling dinner, we walked to The Apollo Victoria Theater to see Wicked!

The theater had little binoculars you could rent for a pound. They weren't very good, though.

    Lizzy had never seen the second half; she had watched the movie, so she didn't know how it ended. She slept during the first half! I was originally seated next to her, but a kid really wanted to sit with his friends, so I changed seats. The show was great, but hard to see, and we were not in the top tier either. I wonder how it looked from up in the nose bleeds.  Mrs O polled us to see which show we thought was better, Wicked or Hadestown. Overwhelmingly, Hadestown won, and she was shocked and more than a little defensive. 

    When you enter the tube, you hear "Mind the Gap" over the loudspeaker. There is a gap between the platform and the tube car. I heard this lovely story about that announcement years ago, so it was sweet to hear it for myself.