Days 10, 11, 12, 13

So the past few days have been quite boring (the usual routine of get up, eat, go to class, eat lunch, have the afternoon and evening free, eat dinner, go to bed, get up the next morning and do it all over again) with the exception of the Globe performance of Merry Wives of Windsor. The play was an absolute farce, and I mean that in a good way. I really have no idea what any of the characters' names were or quite what motivated them, but that didn't matter; all that mattered was that I got to see an immense man resembling Santa Clause prance across the stage in the worst attempt at impersonating a woman I have ever seen. And although we got lost on our way to the theater and ended up in the entirely wrong district of London on the entirely opposite side of the river, we managed to make it in time for the show. One warning for anybody thinking of attending a Globe performance: no matter what the weather, the show will go on. And don't even think about bringing an umbrella, because you're not allowed to open them inside the theater, the rationale being that peasant groundlings in the fifteenth century didn't have umbrellas, so neither should you. Wear comfortable shoes, because the minute you sit down these old women who look like they've been sucking on lemons since the dinosaurs roamed the earth will stomp over and yell at you to get up. Standing for two and a half hours preserves the historical ambiance, you see.

I make it sound like I'm a whinging tourist who hates anything pertaining to any kind of exertion whatsoever, but I'm sarcastic because I love. It was a wonderful experience, and I'm pumped beyond belief for Henry IV Part One next Wednesday. Speaking of pumped, tomorrow I'm doing a solo hike eight miles to Epping, in preparation for hiking along Hadrian's Wall later in the semester. And Monday I'm seeing Les Miserables! The ticket cost 44 pounds, but I'm in the second row in the center section of the balcony, and Les Mis is my favorite musical ever, so I consider it a worthy sacrifice. Also today I spent four hours in the British Museum, so I've almost cleared out the first floor. Only four more to go.

But now for what I know everybody comes here for: the pictures! These are from Day 9.

This building has some sort of malignant tumor.

The memorial to the World War Two SOE, or Special Operations Executive. These were men and women, known as the Baker Street Irregulars, who were charged by Churchill with 'setting Europe ablaze.' They carried out their mission by instigating and organizing resistance to the Nazis in occupied countries. The bust is of Violette Szabo.

The outside of the tower over the Royal Entrance into the Houses of Parliament.
One of the ceremonial guards at the Horse Guards building, which was once Henry VIII's jousting ground before he got so immense he had to be lifted onto his horse with a crane and winch. These guards are part of the Queen's Life Guards, and so obey the same protocol as the guards at Buckingham.
Me, obviously, astride one of the Landseer Lions at Trafalgar Square. It really gives a sense of just how massive these things are.