sgnituO dnekeeW

Almost three weeks later, I can finally emerge from my hole and begin my weekly updates again.

Lots of things have happened since my last post. To facilitate your reading, I’ll upload them in chunks.

Back at the end of March, I met up with my aunt and uncle again one Saturday. The weather was quite good that day—perhaps a little chilly. We began at Borough Market, which is fast becoming one of my favorite places in London. Cheeses. Pastries. Vegetables. Fruits. Meats. We got a coffee and took a look around Southwark Cathedral nearby, stopping for a while at a Norman ruins excavation at the side of the church. We proceeded from there into the City of London to find Wilton’s Music Hall, a real old-fashioned music hall. We discovered its pockmarked yet (several decades old) brightly painted exterior down a small side street, then set off to find a cafe for lunch. We returned to the music hall for a performance of Sentimental Journey, a musical about the life of Doris Day. It was very good for a semi-professional cast. We then went for a walk along the Thames and found a pub for a beer and some crisps and later a restaurant for a lovely dinner overlooking the river.

I was extraordinarily lucky that the next day I met up with an American friend from my time in Australia. She had visited the week before on her way to Paris, and we went to a lovely Chinese restaurant for dinner and chatted for a few hours. She returned, and we spent the day hanging out. We started with a lovely brunch, and then we went to the National Portrait Gallery for an exhibition of Irving Penn, which contained a very interesting array of portraits of famous people from the 20th century. We then took a stroll down the Thames and encountered a chocolate festival where we bought chocolate eggs. Then we ventured to the Tate Modern for a gander at an exhibit that was really interesting. It was meant to represent existence—a big steel cube with no light, open at one end. You walked into darkness, then turned around and walked into the light amongst non-lit faces and bodies ambling toward you. Really good.

We walked to Borough market next, but it was closed, so we had supper at a Russian tea room.

The play this week was Waiting for Godot, with Sir Ian McKellen. The play reminded me of the pacing and general mood of Our Town, which I despise. It was probably the best production of that play that I will ever see, though, as the acting was superb.

This week, volunteering went well enough. I worked in the emergency department doing odd jobs for the housekeeping staff. Not much interaction with patients.

I also saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D. It was good.