America Day
I knew I would be bad at doing this regularly. I’ll try to limit my pictures so as to not overwhelm everyone. So, this past week…
Monday I did absolutely nothing. I’m pretty sure the only time I left the halls was to go to Morrison’s for some groceries. I read Waiting For Godot and read some more of Midnight’s Children, but I think mostly I just lazed around.
Tuesday was Inauguration Day, which I felt the need to go somewhere properly American for. Manuel and I went to the Texas Embassy in Trafalgar for lunch (which apparently, I found out, was not the actual Embassy; that was down the street a few blocks. It was, however, the home of the White Star shipping line, which owned the Titanic. A somewhat less proud heritage, but no matter).
My quesadilla, sadly, was not satisfying at all; I can make better quesadillas. The chips and salsa were delicious though, and the old British man at the table next to ours apparently lived in Grand Prairie a while ago and told us about how he was granted an honorary Texan citizenship. And his son lives in Anaheim. So basically his life is intertwined with mine.
SIDE NOTE: I forgot before we went to the Texas Embassy, I went to Wyndam’s Theatre which was right outside our tube stop to see if I could get a ticket for Hamlet in the spring. The guy at the box office told me it was all sold out until August, and I was pretty disappointed but not surprised. I told him I was leaving in June so I guess I wouldn’t get to go, and he said he might be able to find a “limited viewing” seat for before June 8, where a part of the stage isn’t visible so they usually don’t get taken. Anyway, he found one for June 5 which means that I GET TO SEE JUDE LAW PERFORM HAMLET ON JUNE 5 AND I DON’T EVEN CARE IF I CAN’T SEE PART OF THE STAGE.
Anyway, after we ate, we had a couple hours to kill before the actual inauguration, so we wandered down Whitehall Street to Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey, which feels like the only thing I’ve done since I’ve been here, but it doesn’t get old. I wanted to find the Abraham Lincoln statue near Westminster Abbey, and we felt stupid when we couldn’t find it until we realized that it was because THE STATUE IS ABOVE AND/OR BEHIND A CONSTRUCTION SITE and you can only see it from across the street. I’m not happy about it at all. The one time that I’m in London, and the construction isn’t going to be finished until October. I was planning on going there on his 200th birthday, but now I’m not so sure what I’m going to do. London failed me.
Someone had written this on the construction site.
Really, London? Really?
My disappointment was a little overwhelming. It did not, however, stop me from having fun with Jan Christiaan Smuts.
This is not really the best set-up shot, for which I blame Manuel of course. I should lighten it but whatever. You can see me.
And we basically wandered down the Thames to get back up to Trafalgar.
yessss.
Ahhh watch out a huge bird is attacking Big Ben
Once we got back to the Texas Embassy, we pretty much had to squeeze our way in, and we got there early. Apparently the Democrats Abroad group were having their inauguration viewing party at the Embassy which we were not aware of, and even besides them the place was packed with Americans, Brits, and people from plenty of other countries as well. I don’t know what fire regulations England has, but I’m sure it was breaking all of them. British TV personality Vanessa Feltz was there, though I would have never known who that even was if the Scottish guy next to me wasn’t flipping his lid that he had just bought her a jack and Coke. We made a joke to me about how he was the minority in a room of Americans, and started asking me where I was from — apparently he goes to Plano a lot for business, which completely blows my mind. Such a small world.
I thought it was going to be weird watching the inauguration outside of the US, but I loved being around people from all over the world, listening to to the two old ladies behind me commenting on Laura Bush’s and Jill Biden’s outfits among other things, and hearing the Scottish man lean over to his wife during Aretha Franklin’s performance and say, “It’s moments like these when I wish I was American” (though I’m pretty sure his wish was not based on Aretha’s choice in hats). It was pretty amazing to be watching from Europe’s largest capital as Obama said, “to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born, know that America is a friend of each nation, and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity,” and listening to the entire room break into applause. It was also quite entertaining when Obama was recalling the American Revolution and commented that “the enemy was advancing,” and I heard the Scottish guy comment to his wife: “That was us….”
After the inauguration, Manuel and I came back to Wood Green and I don’t think I did much else that night except read more of Midnight’s Children.
I’ll do more later. I want ice cream.
