Avainsana: London

One night in London

julkaissut Nokisuu

and the world’s your oyster.

See what I did there? A terrible earworm but wrong city. So our trip to London was quick but very efficient.

On Friday we landed at 9 am to Heathrow and then took the tube to our hotel near Tottenham Court Road. A lovely hotel I might add. We got our room right away and took a little respite to think about what to do.

Since my friend M wanted to go shopping music we took the tube to Shepherd’s Bush and found HMV in Westfield shopping centre. Oh my. I’ve never seen such a huge shopping centre and believe me I’ve seen some pretty huge ones in USA too. I was awed. It was beautiful and nice and there wasn’t the horrible background music everywhere (or at least I didn’t hear it).

In HMV I left M roam free the cd’s and browsed some BR’s and other stuff. I found Doctor Who 11th season and Prince collector’s CD box and when I had paid for them I also found the book about Prince I’ve been looking for.

After HMV was searched through we went for late lunch and then did a quick round in H&M and M&S since they were close by. On our way back to the tube we bought some nice supply of delicacies to our hotel room to eat before the theater. We had thought about meeting some other fans (R) but decided not to and rested instead.

After the play we came back to the hotel and collapsed. In the morning we had a wonderful breakfast (I’ve never had such beautiful breakfast in any hotel). Then we went shopping to Foyles and Forbidden Planet and Primark. I bought (only) six books and found some nice t-shirts and we had nice coffee break too. On our way to hotel we found another music shop and I bought two movies. Afterwards we had some fun times trying to fit all our shopping into our bags..

We had nice late lunch at TAS next to our hotel and then collected our bags and left to Heathrow. In the tube we got so sleepy we tried to find the owls in the ad (below).

We had just enough time to do some quick airport shopping and sit a while until boarding and arrived to Helsinki around midnight. Hubby was waiting for us and we drove my friend M to her parents house and then came home and I went straight to bed.

A nice little trip to London, it felt like I had been there longer and I’m quite happy now.  I’ve always loved London, when I was 17 and visited it for the first time I felt like coming home.

Vanja-eno

julkaissut Nokisuu

Yes, that’s Uncle Vanya in Finnish. I always find it weird that English doesn’t have own word for different relatives since in Finland we have many words for different relatives, i.e. ”eno” is mother’s brother ( my sons have three eno’s :D) .

2020-01-24 19.13.28 - Copy

On Friday me and my friend M saw Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in Harold Pinter Theater and it was just as good as people have said. Toby Jones was awesome as Vanya, Cieran Hinds was perfect as narcissist Professor and the ladies were great too, especially Aimee Lou Wood and Rosalind Eleazar. Richard was of course quite perfect as the melancholy and given up Dr. Astrov. The play was very Russian and also quite universally applicable just like Chekhov has meant his plays to be, showing the humanity through his characters.

2020-01-24 19.27.00 - Copy

A word of the theater itself too. HP was a bit claustrophobic imo, old house with small interiors and steep stands, even the stage was quite small but it’s an old theater so we’ll forgive all that. I’m glad the play wasn’t any longer because the rows of seats were quite cramped and I felt sorry for anyone taller than me (I’m of average height and even I had trouble with my legs).

2020-01-24 22.34.35 - Copy

After the play we went outside to the stage door to wait for Richard. We had a small gift for him: some Finnish chocolate and a contemporary Finnish novel “My Cat Yugoslavia” by Pajtim Statovci which is pretty good. First out came Rosalind Eleazar who was very sweet and thanked all us fans as we praised her performance (she looked a bit overwhelmed). Then came Ciaran Hinds ready to sign the hand programmes and he was very nice also. While we waited for RA to show up we noticed Anna Calder-Marshall to go to the other way not wanting to walk through the fans and other people waiting there. Then came Richard and he started from the back of the line which was really nice of him. He was very quick and we barely managed to thrust our gift bag to him but we got autographs and it was all good.

EPFQRMDXkAAjSi2

We had agreed with R to meet afterwards and we saw them in the queue after RA left and went to a nearby pizza place to sit and talk (and to eat late dinner).  I felt like I had known R for years instead of just reading her tweets. It was so much fun but in the end we really had to go get some sleep.

I’ll write another entry about what else we did on our trip to London.

 

 

 

Halfway

julkaissut Nokisuu

through January already. I feel like time is going faster but it might be because I’ve had busy times again.

At my work the courses have begun again and so we’ve got lectures and classes in the library almost every day too. Also finally on Tuesday they called me from the University Hospital about my thyroid and I had an appointment on Thursday with the surgeon. She said they’d like to operate it during this spring and I said that suits me well. Then the nurse interviewed me and I told I’m available for cancelled times so it may be I’ll get the operation quickly but latest in June. She praised me for having filled the pre-questionnaire very effectively and when she asked my BP I had it ready on my journal since I’ve been trying to keep track of it and she was so happy. It was funny. The trip to the hospital isn’t funny because it’s on the other side of the metropolitan area and it takes about one hour and a quarter to get there by public transport but luckily now I can at least take the underground train half of the journey.

On Friday I had two meetings at work, first was for all of our full-time employees and later I took part to the Union reps meeting where I signed the papers to be available in the reps elections. I had thought not to take part but otoh I find it interesting so I said yes when they asked.  After the meeting I met my friend Heidi in the city centre and we had nice coffee and cake.

On the next Friday I’ll be in London to see Uncle Vanya. I’m already so excited that I try not to think about it so I can sleep during the night. My friend said just the same today as we talked about the trip. We’ll be in London only one night but it’s nice to have a mini-holiday. I already have plans for doing a bookshop-run and also some clothesshopping.

I’m knitting a pair of socks to give to Toby Jones, I really liked him in Marvel movies. I have already knit a pair for RA and he has said he doesn’t want them anymore which I can well understand. He only has two feet after all. I’m thinking about buying a copy of Uncle Vanya in Finnish and take it with me to London and get RA’s signature on it, it’d be nice since I have his signature on my The Crucible too.

I’m watching Money Heist while knitting, it’s very good. Only I don’t like they’ve dubbed it in English because their faces don’t match the sentences and it bothers me. We are having dinner soon, I’m so glad middlest son and hubby are cooking because I don’t have the energy right now and middlest wanted to do chicken curry which is his fave dish to cook and he does it well.

 

 

Finally

julkaissut Nokisuu

I’m at home again, have been since Friday morning. Hubby came to pick us from the airport at 1am even thou he had to go to work early in the morning. He is so sweet. Now I’ve been loading my batteries over the weekend and finished two books, an introvert after too much peopling so I decided to write something here too.

On Sunday morning we, me and youngest son and my friend Heidi, found ourselves in London. I almost lost Heidi when we changed underground trains in Green Park as the  train left before she managed to get on board. So she took the next one to Southwark (luckily the only possibility) and I spotted her sitting in the car and called her from the door. There was only one man so I didn’t quite die on embarrasment. After we had stored our bags to the hotel (LSE Bankside, a dormitory for LSE students with very cheap accommodation during Uni holidays) we took ourselves to the British Library. On our way there we popped by Forbidden planet, mine and youngest son’s fave shop, and then we walked to the BL via Russell Square which did good after all the sitting on the plane.

At the British Library we met Heidi’s daughter Mira who lives in London. She had got a bit cold and was sneezing all the time. Inside we saw the ’Treasures of British Library’ exhibition which had beautiful old manuscripts (poor monks in their cold cloisters) and also Beatles lyrics and so on, very interesting even on youngest one’s mind.

From there we went to the hotel to see if our room was ready (it was) and then we had some dinner and went to bed.

On Monday we visited the Science museum with youngest one, Heidi went to visit Mira for the whole day. When we were back on the street we noticed the Natural history museum’s ads and went in to see their exhibition of volcanoes and earthquakes, it was interesting but a video of the tsunami in Japan at 2011 reminded me too much of the Thailand tsunami on 2004 where my cousin lost his family and I just tried not to cry. Afterwards we realized we had been there over five hours, made a quick tour to Covent Garden where we watched a man ride a uni-cycle and jongleur with knives, he was very good. Then we had dinner and went back to the hotel.

On Tuesday we visited the National Gallery and especially the impressionists. Oh yes, the Monet paintings were wonderful and I recognized Turner’s art because of the RA-film.. so one can learn things watching good movies.

After that I went with Jimi to Science museum because he wanted to change a gyroscope he bought since it was keeping a noise it shouldn’t have. Heidi was going to Mira’s again. When we finally got out of the Science museum I called Heidi and she said she was going to Mira’s later since Mira was so feverish she was trying to sleep so we agreed to meet at Harrods. My phone died after I had sent a message to Heidi that we were going to the pet supplies (what a joke!) and finally we met Heidi there. As I had anticipated my phone to run low on batteries I had the charger with me and so we spent about an hour in a corridor in Harrods. Then we walked a bit around Knightbridge and went to eat fish and chips to a pub and then Heidi left to Mira’s and we went home.

On Wednesday we walked to Postman’s Park which is located near St. Paul’s Cathedral. I’ve wanted to visit it for years, I saw pics of it the net some time ago and now I finally got to see it and it was just lovely. From there we took a underground train to Baker Street. Oh yes, the famous detective himself. There was a bit of a queue but finally we got into the small house and it was lovely. The shop was just as lovely.. Then we had coffee and took a bus to Oxford Circus where we met Mira who was better. We did some shopping and walked to the Forbidden Planet where I bought some books and Jimi got three Funko figures. Well, actually two are his and I got Bucky ❤ Heidi and Mira left to have something to eat as Mira was feeling not so good. We took our shopping home and rested a bit and then went for dinner to restaurant Zizzi at Southbank. Oh boy the food was so good! and they were really busy too but very nice staff. Back at the hotel I tried to pack my suitcase and then Heidi came with Mira, who had gotten a huge migraine and fell asleep on Heidi’s bed. Heidi did some shopping and in a bit after Mira woke up she was feeling much better and Heidi walked her to a bus and her boyfriend was at the other end of the bus route to get her home.

On Thursday we checked out and left our luggage to the hotel to wait and went for a walk. First we visited Tate Modern and took the lift to 10th floor and also browsed the 4th floor free exhibition. I have always walked through the Tate Modern’s ground floor because it has good shops. This time I found just a fridge magnet. We walked to the Blackfriars bridge and had coffee and watched a pair of swans and enjoyed the sun. Then we got our luggagge from the hotel and walked to the Waterloo station, did some window shopping there too and took a train to Heathrow where we were in really good time. We did some shopping, had dinner and I and Heidi found ourselves in Cath Kidston sale and bought handbags for both of us.

Our flight was a bit late but we managed to get home nicely, hubby drove us home via Heidi’s so she got home too with ease.

Nice trip and I love London.