Old Man River

So, I have to backtrack a bit, because I broke my own chronology-of-events rule to post about Under the Blue Sky. Which, by the way, I tried to see on Tuesday night, but Catherine's accident forced the opening preview to be canceled. So I had to return my ticket and go again on Thursday night.

So rewinding back to Wednesday. Wednesday was our recitation day in class, which means all of us preformed a Shakespeare scene in front of the class. I did Titania's speech about the little Indian boy's mother in in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

Set your heart at rest,
The fairy land buys not the child of me
His mother was a votress of my order
And in the spiced Indian air by night
Full often hath she gossiped by my side
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands
Marking the embarked traders on the flood
When we have laughed to see the sails concieve
And grow big bellied in the wanton wind
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
Following (her womb then rich with my young squire)
Would imitate and sail upon the land
To fetch me trifles and return again
As from a voyage rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die
And for her sake do I rear up the boy
And for her sake I will not part with him.

Yup. That was from memory. Me and my awesome Shakespeare memorizing, recitation skills. And those are skills to have.

After the recitation, I went to Dim Sum for lunch with some classmates - good, cheap Dim Sum in Chinatown. Really, really good. We stuffed ourselves silly. I wouldn't mind going back there.

From Dim Sum, I split off from my classmates, who were going to the National Gallery, and instead walked down to Westminster, and jumped on a 3-hour boat cruise of the Thames. Because why not? It took me from Westminster to the Tower Bridge, and then on to Greenwich, and the Thames Flood Barrier, before heading back to Westminster.

Obviously it was ridiculously and awesomely scenic, and I took a ton of pictures. For the full experience, check out my flickr account as always. But here are a few of the highlights:


Attempting creativity with myself while the boat stopped at the Tower Bridge.


Greenwich. They're attempting to compete with the Eye with their own new Ferris Wheel. I believe it just opened right around the time I got to London. It looks really similar to the Eye only much, much smaller, and about half the price.


The Thames Flood Barrier is pretty freaking impressive looking. Complete with flood walls and all sorts of stuff. The dorky flood control office employee in me found it fascinating.


The Millennium Dome is a pretty wacky structure. And apparently useless. They built it for an exhibition at the millennium and now that the millennium celebration is over, they're having trouble finding a use for it. Apparently they're trying to make it some sort of entertainment center, but there's drama. Wednesday night when I got home from my cruise I saw all sorts of news reports on it. Hmm.


The Thames really is one hell of a river. Seriously. I've spent God only knows how much time in the past two years learning about the Sacramento River thanks to my job, but the Sacramento River through downtown Sac is like a baby compared to the Thames through London. It's a monster. I think it'd be fascinating to learn about the Thames like I know about the Sacramento. For instance, the river rises and falls more drastically each day than most rivers in the world. I believe, and I could have this wrong, I heard somewhere on this trip that it rises and falls about 7 feet, 3 times a day. That's insane. And it's a VISIBLE, noticeable change in river elevation. Go into a play at the Globe, it'll be at one level. Come out, and it'll be a tremendous difference. It's all kind of fascinating. At least to me. But then again, I'm becoming a river-dork!