Tate to Tate to the West End

ST. PAUL'S OVER MY SHOULDER


CAN YOU FIND THE RUSSELL SQUARE IN THIS PHOTO?

We're at yet another internet cafe near our hotel. This one is called Bread and Butter and is also a proper cafe serving food and coffee. We've ordered double-shot cappuccinos but they're too hot to drink yet. I was awakened promptly at 8 a.m. by the phone ringing. I thought it was the wake-up call I had ordered the night before. It was actually Brad calling to wish me happy anniversary. Today is our 11th. I was so surprised and happy to hear from him. I will try to call him again later today on my mobile phone.

We had a delicious dinner Thursday night at Thai Garden Cafe on Museum Street near the British Museum. Breakfast at the hotel is your typical British B&B fare: cooked full English plus a selection of cold cereals, juice, yogurt and fruit. Most of the fruit appears to have come from a can and sits in a bowl full of heavy syrup, the cereal selection is not very inspiring. The eggs are fine and you can have toast non-stop if you want. They also have croissants and hot cross buns available.

Vince and I had a full day yesterday. We stopped by the half-price ticket booth at Leicester Square and managed to pick up tickets for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? We then had an invigorating walk from Leicester Square to St. Paul's Cathedral. We had hoped to take a look around inside the Cathedral but the £9 admission fee put us off. We instead went down to the cafe in the crypt for a mid-morning treat: tea and coffee and cakes. From St. Paul's it was a short walk to and across the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern. We spent about an hour or so wandering through the regular collection full of bizarre, sometimes grotesque, sometimes funny modern art. My favorite was a small understated painting by Dali.

We had originally planned to take the boat from the Tate Modern to the Tate Britain but opted instead to make use of our one-day travelcards and took the tube over to Victoria station. From there it was a short walk to the Tate Britain. We were both interested in seeing a special exhibition there: Gothic Nightmares. It featured paintings from the 18th century by Henry Fuseli and William Blake and their contemporaries. The entire exhibit seemed to be built around and inspired by one painting by Fuseli entitled The Nightmare. It is a famous image and has had resounding influence even until modern times.

We were fairly tuckered out after our visit to the Tate Britain, so made our way back to the hotel to rest up and get ready for our evening out in the West End. The play was showing at the Apollo on Shaftesbury Avenue, so we just wandered around in that area till we came across a restaurant that caught our fancy. That turned out to be Don Luigi, where we each had some good pasta and salad. Watching Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf turned out to be a draining experience. I'd never seen the movie before (I was in my early teens when it came out and my mom wouldn't let me go.) but had a fair idea of what I was in for. The thing that surprised me most was how much laughter the play elicited from the audience. You'd've thought we were watching a comedy rather than a wrenching heartfelt drama. It starred Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin in the Liz Taylor and Richard Burton roles and they both did a great job.

We were both exhausted after the play, abandoned our plan of visiting a pub after the theater, and made our way back to the hotel.

It's another beautiful day today. The sun is shining right now and it's a little on the cool side. Perfect sightseeing weather. Our plan is to go to
Sir John Soane's museum today and maybe take Afternoon Tea.