A special post just for my parents.

It's dad's birthday, so I'll humour him.

So, why was I running in my stocking feet through London last night? It's really not that exciting of an answer: I was running very very late. It was one of those situations where there was a cascade of poor decisions on my part, not really helped by the tube train we were on inexplicably stopping for several minutes a couple times on our way in. But mostly it was totally my stupid fault for not keeping a better eye on the time.

Because there had been some counterfeiting of the tickets for the production, the theatre had instituted a policy whereby the person who bought the tickets had to on the day-of exchange them for newly printed ones. I had given my ticket to the person who bought it for me back in September, and she was to meet me outside the theatre at 6:45. Curtain was scheduled for 7:15. At 7:10 I was just getting off the train, several blocks away. Pure panic. So, I took my shoes off and ran. I just about burst a lung I think, and ever since then I've had an earache and a developing cough.

When I got to the theatre, of course my friend had already gone in lest she miss curtain and the usher at the door suggested I inquire at the box office, which seemed sensible. But then the people at the box office totally jerked me around. I would have gotten seated before curtain if they hadn't been totally incompetent (and way too quick to assume that I was just a raving lunatic rather than actually really looking for wherever they'd stuck my ticket). Due to me just completely freaking out and not knowing what to do, I just kind of stood there for a while and gaped at them and asked them several more times to look, and lo and behold, right as the curtain was going up, they found it. So, I did miss the first scene as they couldn't seat me until the scene change, but the ushers were very nice about it, and the first scene is really just exposition.

So, that's the story.

Food-wise I've been spending so much time in the West End that I've been eating a lot of pub grub. Good pub grub though, washed down with cider on draft. Yesterday I did actually have fish and chips, sitting in front of a fire in a lovely pub. We went back to that same pub today for dinner because we were just too tired to go looking for anything else, and I had a great cheese and apple tart with chips. And of course the cider. I think I'll be leaving the West End alone for the rest of my trip, but there was all that theatre stuff and my friend's hotel was right down there on the Strand, so I just found myself there a lot at meal times.

Today I've got some video from the Tower of London from yesterday afternoon, and some pictures from the Tower plus more from the Royal Observatory today.

Pilgrim's Progress