Saturday, May 9, 2009
London
The weekend dawned in Holborn with its customary silence as the legal world ground to a two-day halt. Chriselle and I showered, ate our breakfast and set out as quickly as we could taking buses to Kensington and passing through most of the important sites along the West End that I pointed out to her.
The Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall:
Our first stop was the Royal Albert Hall where, with our London Pass, we were entitled to a one-hour long tour of this famous auditorium upon whose stage everyone who is anyone has performed. Discovering that it would not start for another half hour, we walked outside, crossed the main road and arrived at the ornate and very beautiful Albert Memorial with its gilded sculpture of Prince Albert surrounded by more sculptures representing four of the world’s continents (Asia, Africa, America and Europe) and a stunning frieze upon which was depicted a multitude of personages from the worlds of science and industry, arts and technology. It was indeed a monument worthy of a king and spoke volumes of the stupendous love and devotion that Victoria had for her beloved Albert. Chriselle was as deeply moved by the depiction of an elephant (for Asia), a camel (for Africa), a bison (for America) and a bull (for Europe) as I was and was deeply struck by the thought that went into the creation of this marvelous piece of work.
Across the street, the round contours of the Royal Albert Hall were equally striking especially as it is set in the midst of Albert Court which is surrounded by the Royal College of Organists, the Royal College of Music, etc. each building of which is more beautiful than the other. I am thrilled, so thrilled, to find that Chriselle is reacting to London’s architectural grandeur with the same delight with which I have reacted for years–how fabulous it feels to be able to share this sense of wonder with her. She wanted to take pictures of so many of these courtyards and we requested ever so many passers-by to oblige us.
As for the tour, it was worth every second of our time as the guide took us to so many hidden corners of the Hall. It was, in many ways, a behind-the-scenes look at the mechanics of putting so many grand productions on stage from musical entertainment, to interviews, to the BBC Proms, etc. It was not long before we were led into the auditorium itself where the crew were getting set for a performance of Verdi’s Requiem later that evening. Our reaction on first setting eyes on the interior was one of the utmost wonder for the Hall is so large, so richly furnished and so beautifully decorated that we were lost for words and could only gasp. Seated right next to the Queen’s Box, indicated by the presence of a crown right above it, we could only imagine how it must feel to actually be a spectator in this amphitheater-like enclosure.
From here, the tour took us to the Private Rooms where the monarch meets the performers and is introduced to them. This allowed us to sit on some of the seats used by these ultra famous personalities. The tour ended with a short film which summed up a great deal of what we had seen and it was with a sense of deep satisfaction that we left the Hall delighted to note that we had just seen one of the greatest spaces of public performance in the world.
On the Bus to Kensington Palace:
A quick bus ride later, we were striding through Kensington Gardens where late spring flowers were valiantly hanging on to their ribbons of color. The gorgeous morning had lured a number of strollers and joggers to the park while other lazed or basked in the warm sunshine. Arriving at Kensington Palace was a first time for me and I was inevitably reminded of the sea of flowers we saw outside its gates, ten years ago, when Princess Diana who occupied and lived in the palace after her divorce, passed away.
The ground floor was devoted to an exhibition of clothing in the Edwardian era and took us through the etiquette involved in the Debutante Ceremonies that were part of the formalities of upper crust life in that era. A room was devoted to some of the formal dresses worn by Diana during her lifetime including the famous black velvet number in which she had bogeyed with John Travolta at a formal White House dinner in the Reagan era.
Once we left the ground floor behind, however, and climbed the grand staircase that led to the upper storey, the place truly began to look like a Palace with each room more glorious than the next. We learned a lot about the various members of the royal family through the centuries that called this Palace home. For me, the most moving room was the bedroom in which Queen Victoria was awoken at the age of 18 and delivered the news that she had just become the new Queen of England! She had loved Kensington and it was with a very heavy heart that she left it for the last time to take up her new residence at Buckingham Palace as Queen. By now, you have probably guessed that Queen Victoria has been my favorite British monarch for ages–actually ever since I red Antonia Fraser’s biography of her more than fifteen years ago! To walk through the rooms in which she was born and lived as a teenager was deeply poignant and I was moved almost to tears. Also pretty wonderful to behold was the wood carving of Grindling Gibbons whose work I first grew to love at Hampton Court Palace a few years ago. Gibbons specialized in the depiction of fruits and flowers. I was struck, therefore, by his depiction of human faces on a skein that adorned a mantle in one of the rooms.
Kensington Palace has lovely gardens surrounding it as well as a lake with a wide promenade–reminiscent of the landscapes of Capability Brown. By the time we had toured the Palace, we were ready for a cuppa and thought that the Orangery would make the ideal place to take a break. Seated in the pretty interior with its marble sculpture and fresh flower arrangements, we sipped our Darjeeling with lemon and then made our way towards the Tube station at Kensington High Street in order to get to Warwick Avenue.
A Canal Cruise to London Zoo:
It was our intention to board Jason’s Canal Cruises to London Zoo–indeed it would have been a treat as the cruise takes one at a very leisurely pace along Regent’s Canal in a 100 year old narrow long boat that is painted in vivid red or stark black. When we arrived at the pier, however, we discovered that the last cruise for the day had left fifteen minutes earlier. Now had we not stopped to sip that tea, we might have made the cruise–but then I guess you can’t do everything!
At the Zoo:
Deciding to take the bus instead, we made our way to London Zoo–another excursion for me after 22 years. I do remember when I had last been there, the pandas were the big attraction and indeed I had seen a pair of them. Now the pandas are no longer around, but Chriselle and I had such a blast crossing the Regent’s Canal on one of the bridges and making our way into the zoo in the midst of a vast number of kids who were caterwauling all around us with their harassed parents scrambling all around them.
We spent the next two hours having such a wild time–there was the most amusing gorilla in the world, a true show-off who put on such a display of antics as to have us all in splits. We saw lions and tigers, penguins and pigs, birds of such colorful plumage and so many other creatures as to leave us enthralled. We truly wished we could have spent a much longer time in the zoo but I had to run an errand–I had some graded papers to deliver to NYU and we wanted to grab some dinner before we hit the Globe Theater for our performance later than night of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
So off we went, on the bus to Baker Street and from there, we took yet another bus to Tottenham Court Road to arrive at Bedford Square where Chriselle was able to see our beautiful campus building as well as peek into my basement office that I have so grown to enjoy. We did not linger long, however, as we did want to get some dinner and since the South Indian restaurant called Malabar Junction was close by, we went there and requested the wait staff to serve us as soon as possible. With a delicious paper dosa, appam and vegetable coconut curry, we had ourselves a very good meal indeed and were able to head off to the theater for the next part of our evening.
Romeo and Juliet at the Globe Theater:
Having had the experience of sitting in the galleries last September when I had watched A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I decided that this time we would be groundlings. Tickets purchased for five pounds a piece took us to the groundlings area where we spent the next hour having a truly grand time. This play was especially significant for Chriselle as she had played the role of the Nurse many years ago while in high school and knew every line by rote. Though we were both beat and had spent most of the day on our feet, we found the energy to stand for the next two hours and watch a wonderful production of Romeo and Juliet. It was only at the intermission that Chriselle told me how badly her back was aching and that she had really had enough for the day. We left, fifteen minutes later, after taking a rest during the intermission and made our way across ‘Wobbly’ Bridge to St. Paul’s Cathedral from where we took the bus back home. All along the way, we talked about the play and discussed the performances of the various characters.
Despite the fact that our day was long, neither one of us was able to get to sleep right away and after some more chatting, we finally called it a day.