A Yellow Dress

Today I wore a yellow dress. It is bright and sunshiny and has little white polka dots sprinkled across it. I wore it because I love it, but also because I need to do laundry. I'll probably do laundry tomorrow, but that's beside the point. The point was the yellow dress. When I wear this dress in the States I stick out a little bit because it's a lot of yellow, but I don't get weird looks. When I wore the dress here you could have picked me out from the sky.

I felt a little bit like this guy

But that's okay because he's kind of my favorite.

This morning we did an assignment for our English class in which we followed Eliot's steps. More specifically, we followed some of the steps he took when he was writing "The Wasteland." This involved getting on the DL train to the City of London (which is the business center of town) right as the work day was starting at nine o'clock AM. I walked in a sea of black and grey suits and dresses, and I was in bright yellow. It was fascinating to see. I'm going to keep wearing my dress because it's a happy thing, but I stick out in it. I decided that I can't ever live in London because I wouldn't be able to handle wearing as much black as everyone does here.

The Eliot assignment was cool, though. I loved having the background my professor provided us with  before walking those streets. I had lines from the poem popping into my head any time I noticed something Eliot noticed back in his day, and I was grateful for literature.

This assignment led us to one of Eliot's favorite pub, the Larrick (at least I think that was its name) and told us to go inside and look around. We loved it so much that we decided to eat there for lunch. We arrived forty minutes before opening and so we found a church courtyard and waited until noon when we could go eat.

Most of us got eggs benedict (because it was cheap and also. . . eggs benedict. Whyever would you choose something else when that's an option?) and it was amazing. The waitress there was seriously the best waitress we've had here. She was so pleasant and helpful and we all loved her. I guess British people don't like Americans much? Or maybe we've run into all the grumpy ones who don't want to help us. Anyways, it was a pleasant experience having such a fantastic waitress and such a delightful venue.

After lunch we decided to do a walk for our London Walks class. We somehow managed to choose the LONGEST one and had to take the advice of the person who wrote the textbook and break it up over two days. We should be finishing the walk tomorrow.

The part of the walk we did see today was amazing, though. We basically walked down London's theater section and read about its history. Lizzie wanted desperately to see Gypsy (because Professor Umbridge was playing the lead role) so she and Sarah got student tickets to see it tonight. Neither Caitlin, Kenna, nor I was interested so we kept walking. We then came across a theater that was playing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, though, and decided to just check and see if they had tickets for a decent price.

We went up to the window and asked if they sold student tickets and were told that they don't. However, the super nice and helpful ticket lady, upon finding out that we were looking for tickets for tonight, told us to buy the cheapest tickets (for a mere 17 pounds) and not to worry about the seating because the balcony was going to be closed and we would be assigned much better seats.

We returned to the theater at a quarter to seven and were given tickets in the front row, middle section. I was sitting just to the left of the conductor of the pit orchestra, and we could see the sweat on the faces of the actors. It.was. incredible.

It wasn't my favorite musical in the entire world (I only really adored one song, really), but the set was amazing, and the way they utilized technology was perfect and smart and magical. And the actor who played Charlie was adorable. It was such a spontaneous thing, deciding to go to that play, but I'm glad we did. It was a magical evening.

This was the church referenced in The Wasteland. I think. It was actually super interesting: the church itself was empty, but its doors were busy simply because there was a coffee shop set up at them.

A part of my dress. Isn't it happy?

Another church referenced in The Wasteland (or maybe this is the church Eliot himself liked to attend. I can't remember).

The banks of the Thames. It. . .wasn't very pretty here. The Thames is not the prettiest river I've seen in my life.

A former fish market

The church courtyard we waited in until the pub was open for business.

These holes are from German bombings.

Cleopatra's Needle.

A somewhat hidden park across the street from the Thames and in front of the Savoy.

Caitlin, Kenna, and Sarah wanted ice cream so we stopped at this adorable little shop in the park.

The ice creamers

View from the Savoy (while we were waiting for Lizzie and Sarah to purchase tickets to Gypsy)

Kenna and me (and Kenna's loved ice cream cone)

This gorgeous church is in the middle of the street.

I believe this is Covent Garden.

The courtyard of St. Paul's Church

Stained glass in St. Paul's church

One of the many streets on our walk

We stopped inside a TK Max on the way home and Lizzie found this amazing hat. She didn't end up purchasing it, though.

This is how close we were to the stage tonight. It was incredible.

The beautiful ceiling in the theater.

A blurry picture of us because it was dark. Also, we somehow managed to squish Kenna's head between our own. This isn't a great picture for so many reasons, but the memories are sweet.

Today was a very good day.