I Have Found

I come to you now with a story of a journey home.

Months ago Anthony and I booked our flight to Orlando for a friend's wedding. We were to leave at 7:43pm on December 19th to attend the wedding the next day. I would then be picked up by friends and driven home on the 21st. A perfect plan.

My story for you begins at 10:30am, Saturday December 19th, 2009.

We'd been hearing tales of the blizzard on the way. Talks of historical snow buzzing in the air, we tried to pay no attention. But I was not completely shocked when I woke up at 10:30 the morning of our departure to discover that my bus into Philly for 12:30pm that afternoon had been canceled. Treacherous driving conditions cited as the reason. Things seemed serious. I predicted flight delays to Anthony as I looked into making my trip to Philadelphia via the New Jersey Transit.

Our flight was already delayed one half hour.

I boarded the 12:14pm train to Trenton, which would then connect me to a train into Philadelphia, setting my arrival time at 2:45pm. Perfect! Plenty of time to relax before heading to the airport for our 7:43pm flight!

Just before 2:00pm, I checked our flight status. Canceled.

I informed my travel partner of this news, deciding to call the airline upon my arrival.

The train pulled in promptly at 2:45pm. I pulled up my hood, tightened my scarf, and ventured out into the blizzard to complete the 15 minute walk from 30th Street Station to Anthony's apartment.

The walk took 40 minutes.

Climbing hills of snow, dragging my suitcase through mounds, slipping and tripping, wheezing and coughing, my hair freezing to my forehead. This was a blizzard.

I arrived at the apartment, a little worse for wear, but not discouraged. I settled myself in a bit and we called the airline.

The connection kept dropping before we got a chance to speak to anyone. The website wasn't giving us any information and/or was speaking in code. We took a break from this shouldn't be but was frustrating task.

When we did finally get through to a human being, we were informed there was nothing into Orlando until late the next night, long after the wedding. Nothing into Tampa. No way to make it in time. Discouraged by this news, I gave up but was able to book a flight straight home to Fort Myers free of charge. Leaving at 6:51 the following evening. We were missing the wedding, but at least I could still get home free of charge. Anthony canceled his flight altogether, as he was to return right after the wedding for exams. This was not the way things were supposed to go, but at least we had found some sort of resolution.

We went about our night satisfied with this outcome, though clearly not thrilled. I was supposed to sing in this wedding ceremony.

10:00am, Sunday December 20th, 2009

We awoke freshened by sleep and ready to explore a Philadelphia covered in snow. The day was full of promise and hope.

Wanting to be prepared, I checked my flight status after showering, just in case.

My 6:51pm flight out of PHL into Ft. Myers was already delayed. 2 1/2 hours.

Normally, why would this matter? Well, this was not a non-stop flight. I had a connecting flight in Atlanta, Georgia. A delay this absurd meant that I would miss my connecting flight and would be trapped in Atlanta.

Naturally, I called the airline immediately.

Naturally, I sat on hold for 20 minutes and never spoke to a human.

Frustrated, I hung up and just decided to go to the airport as if there were no delay, and figure it out there. Get re-booked on a flight that made sense. A different connecting city, a different part of FL, anything that could just get me home.

We successfully discovered a snow covered Philadelphia, though that doesn't even begin to describe it. This, however, is another entry.

I received a call from my mother around 4pm saying there was an earlier flight to Atlanta running on time. If I left right away, maybe I could get on the flight! We called a cab for me and I was at the airport by 4:23pm.

This earlier flight to Atlanta was not only sold out, but extremely overbooked. I sighed, but went about finding another way to get home.

"What is the first flight you have to Ft. Myers tomorrow?" I asked.

There were none.

I inquired about Sarasota/Bradenton. There was a flight out of Atlanta at 9:50am the next morning. Having no choice in the matter, I booked it.

This was now my itinerary:

6:51pm flight PHL to ATL

DELAYED until 11:10pm

Arrive in ATL at 1:45am

9:50am flight ATL to SRQ

Arrive in SRQ at 11:29am.

So, as I was at the airport at 4:30pm, this was around 7 hours of waiting at the Philadelphia Airport (as the flight didn't end up taking off until around 11:30pm, after a lot of bouncing back and fourth between 10pm and 11pm), and an 8 hour overnight stay in the Atlanta airport.

I watched half of Dexter season 1 in an effort to make time pass quickly. I slept for about 3 hours between 2am and 5am on uncomfortable seats in the freezing Atlanta airport. I ate expensive airport food and I resented 2 things that were being forced on me:

1. The song "Let it Snow" kept playing. A lot. I mean, come on.

2. AirTrain's slogan: "Go. There's nothing stopping you." I think it was mocking me.

5:00am, Monday December 21st, 2009

Horridly groggy and exhausted, but unable to sleep in such uncomfortable conditions any longer, I continued to watch Dexter and ate a muffin, impatiently waiting my flight to Sarasota.

I am happy to say that there were no delays in boarding.

We did, however, sit on the plane for a half hour before taking off waiting for people to board.

We landed in Sarasota at 11:51am. My mom and I went to Friendly's, and then made the hour and a half drive home.

And then... I was home.

I began this journey officially at 12:14pm on Saturday the 19th. It ended at around 3pm Monday the 21st.

I learned a lot about traveling during a blizzard: Don't do it.

I was interviewed for Fox 29 in Pennsylvania. (See the picture at the beginning of the entry).

I have slept about 4 hours, including some sleeping on the plane.

I wore the exact same outfit for 3 days.

But I did eventually shower and change and in a very short amount of time, I will even sleep.

I really wish we didn't miss the wedding. Not only because I was supposed to sing in the ceremony, but because we were supposed to be there.

I'm sure I may have forgotten little details along the way. I highly recommend taking a look at my Twitter timeline: http://www.twitter.com/Kerrie09 I kept track of pretty much every single moment of this horrific trip. For entertainment.

This concludes the story of my journey. I rest now in my bed in my room in my home in Florida. With a very large Australian Shepard lying next to me. Snoring.

Mike flies in tomorrow. Luckily, there will be no blizzard to stop him.

Happy traveling to everyone, and very happy holidays. It'll all be worth it in the end.

*K

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I cannot stay silent any longer.

That implies that I have been silent. I haven't. I haven't stopped thinking or talking about the Season 4 finale of Dexter since it aired 2 nights ago. I barely slept the night of, the final image burned into my mind.

I will say this once.

IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE SEASON 4 FINALE OF DEXTER, DO NOT READ FURTHER. SPOILER ALERT IS A VAST UNDERSTATEMENT.

Okay.

Dexter is a class in how to keep a show interesting and shocking and complex without going completely overboard. (I'm talking to you, Grey's Anatomy). 4 seasons in, and it is still completely solid. Not only is it solid, it changes and evolves, while still staying true to the major theme: Dexter is a serial killer. Point blank. He has something that he cannot control, and he has manipulated it to his and the rest of the world's advantage.

Every season has had it's own focus, but it seems that the writers have always played with a common variable: Dexter's hope of connection. Rita is a constant. (Well, not anymore). But there was Brian Moser, his own biological brother, there was Lila, there was Miguel - all people who Dexter saw promise in. There was the promise of connection and acceptance. Clearly, it never worked out. And at the end of the day, as it turns out, it was Rita who accepted him. And even though she saw the very very VERY tip of the iceberg in terms of his darkness, she could look at him and tell him he wasn't crazy. Hold him when he said he wanted to be a better man.

And now Rita is gone. And this begs a million and a half questions. What does this do to Dexter, a man who already claims he doesn't feel things like normal people, but who also came just short of renouncing his "Dark Passenger" for the sake of his family. What does that guilt do to a person, even a person like Dexter? That despite all his efforts to protect his family, he failed. What doors are going to be opened, but more importantly: which will be shut?

This season, for me, is the best they've put out. The writers really found what they wanted to go for, and how to balance it all out. But most importantly, they introduced a character so complex and so thrilling and so absolutely despicable who, as it turns out, really got the last laugh.

What does THAT do to a man? How do you avenge a death when the killer is gone?

The writers were extremely brave in what they did here. To let someone else get the best of Dexter. That isn't supposed to happen. They played a lot with Dexter struggling to be on top of his game - even from the very episode, juggling his newborn with his darkness, not being able to find a body, killing an innocent man. The dust settles over all those things, and you think the worst has passed - but it never did. The minute that he decided to let Trinity live was the worst mistake he could have ever made, and will haunt him for the rest of his life.

The last scene between Dexter and Trinity... I've watched it more times than I care to admit. When the episode aired, I found myself feeling bad for Trinity. He seemed so sympathetic in that light - tied down to a table, accepting his fate, needing to see a toy train and hear a record. It was sad. This guy had issues.

But we had no idea what he had already done.

Re-watching that scene is absolutely brilliant. The things that John Lithgow is hiding - the smirks, the tiny laughs, the way he looks at Dexter when Dexter says he has a family. Nothing is more disturbing. Watching that scene again is almost more disturbing and heartbreaking than the last scene itself. Dexter having no idea what is already done.

But nothing can really compare to the image of Rita in the tub. The baby on the floor in his mother's blood. And I need to address this now - the critics out there who are saying it's too far fetched for Trinity to have known that was Dexter's beginning - he didn't. He didn't do it to mirror Dexter's own past. That would almost seem less cruel. Trinity put that baby in a pool of his mother's blood for no other reason than to put the baby in a pool of his mother's blood. I have no doubt that Harrison was in the room as he was killing Rita. Because that is the kind of monster that Trinity was. It was no tip of the hat to Dexter's childhood. It was pure evil.

John Lithgow did the best work I've ever seen of his. The subtleties in everything Trinity said and did were mind-blowing. But that's nothing compared to the absolute agony in his face every time he killed. He was so much a slave to these compulsions, and it really tortured him.

Goes without saying that Michael C. Hall must be one of the most underrated actors ever. He's brilliant, plain and simple. Jennifer Carpenter also deserves her due - I couldn't even go into her storyline throughout the season. I'd need a whole other entry. That girl is raw emotion every single episode, and never fails to blow my socks off.

So what now? No Dexter until September 27th, 2010. Let the speculating begin! What happens with the investigation of Rita's death? It's going to bring a whole slew of problems for Dexter - it's not like he can tell people where he was prior to finding her. And what about him being at Arthur's house when Miami Metro and the SWAT team burst in? It's all suspicious and will, of course, make for another great start to what I'm sure will be another impressive season.

The Season 4 finale of Dexter had 2.9 million viewers. More than anything Showtime has ever aired.

3 Golden Globe nominations (as of today), and I'm sure Emmy nominations quite soon. I say this every year, but really you guys - This HAS to be Dexter's year. I don't see how anything could have been better in terms of writing and performances. Can we finally do the right thing here, people? Come on.

*K

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So here's the thing - I can't go to yoga by myself. I just want to start off saying that and get it out of the way. I just can't. Maybe soon. But in the meantime, to occupy myself...

The worst part of being home twice a week, especially without money to even go see a movie, is sitting around being hungry. I think that's been my major downfall. I've also sort of started becoming fascinated with baking. I enjoy it much more than making dinner type foods. It started with a blueberry oat cake one day when I had fresh blueberries. And then I made cakes and pies. Mike and I had always baked random desserts at odd hours in the past - but that was mostly me picking out a recipe and watching Mike cook it. Now that I've discovered that I can follow directions myself, things are different.

So in an effort to make my snacking more healthy and also satisfy this baked goods need, I'm going to tackle some healthier recipes on my days off. We will all gain from this. Watch out for boxes of cookies for Christmas presents....

So for my first recipe, I wanted to go for a cookie because I figured we had most of the ingredients here already. And I wanted to see different spins on a classic.

I found a great recipe for Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies from delish.com.

Each cookie with this recipe is only 80 calories. As compared to the standard Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe that is 110 calories per cookie. These cookies are also only 4 grams in fat and have 1 gram of fiber. Obviously these aren't health-tastic is excess, but for the occasional craving, they're going to be really helpful.

If anyone has any healthy dessert recipes to pass my way, that'd be awesome. This weekend I'm going to test out a Weight Watchers recipe for peach crumb pie for a work Thanksgiving get together. If it goes well, I'll probably make it for real Thanksgiving and bring it along to PA. :)

*K

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Today I went to the doctor. They put me on a scale. My thought process? Something like this:

"MOTHERF****R! REALLY? REALLY NURSE LADY? IS THIS NECESSARY? OH FOR THE LOVE OF ************ING *****!!@#$@#%@$"

So, as you may recall, dear blog, what seems like an eon ago I got ambitious and did Weight Watchers for a few months. I lost around 10 lbs before stopping, due to financial constraints and feeling like I could keep it up on my own.

That was a lie. Because all 10 pounds of that weight is back.

Weight Watchers was good, because there was a whole website to track myself and make myself feel guilty when I went over the points. It worked. Well, without that (because it was costing me $20 a month), I don't really care. I'll eat a box of Nilla Wafers in 2 days, I'm not ashamed to say it. Well, I am. But that's not the point. Moving was tough, and being home 2 days a week with nothing to do is tough, and living with a boyfriend who eats enough for 5 people all the time is ESPECIALLY tough, because then what is there to stop me?

ENOUGH.

I don't have enough money to start Weight Watchers again. (Read: I have no money. Click on the ads after this entry). So I'm going to do a little experiment, just to see if it's effective at all.

THE SPECIAL K CHALLENGE.

(Which is also fitting because my name starts with the letter K).

These crazy cereal people claim that if you just replace 2 meals a day with Special K (be it the cereal, protein bars, waffles, etc). that you can lose "6 pounds in 2 weeks" (though the disclaimer at the bottom says the average weight loss is 4.8 pounds). So whatever. It'll sure as hell save me money on dinner.

Given that lunch is purchased for me at work, I'm not giving that up. So I'll eat Special K for breakfast and for dinner. Which will probably make Mike's life easier since I never know what I want to eat anyway. Now I only have one option. And that's really the best for me.

So I guess this means I have to start weighing myself again. (MOTHERF$#@%$ B#%#@ STUPID @#@***). So that'll be even more stuff that no one wants to read.

Oh and I'm going to (I am GOING TO) start going to yoga on Mondays and Fridays, so I don't spend my life wasting away on the couch watching the Food Network.

I'll watch the Food Network before and after yoga. (If I can force myself to go alone. Urrrggghhhhhhblleeehhhh).

That is all for now. Be on the look-out for a possibly exciting, but probably not very exciting, hopefully effective experiment.

*K

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"This amazing charater lives within an extraordinary context and he asks the questions we all ask: Why are we here? Who are w? Where do we go from here? And what is the point of it all?"

- Jude Law, Playbill Interview

"A couple of thoughts spring to mind about the meaning of the play. One is that one must suffer in order to gain wisdom, the second is that life is a journey, and it is the journey itself that matters, not arriving at your destination."

- Jude Law, Telegraph Interview

I saw Hamlet two nights ago. I've woken up the past two mornings still thinking about it. Tossing the play around in my head, remembering Michael Grandage's direction, loving Ophelia's madness. Mostly, however, hearing, observing, obsessing over Jude Law's Hamlet.

And, in coming to this gushing entry, it's important to preface that I was never Jude Law's poster girl before. Besides thinking he's dayum sexy (and not to mention fertile as hell), imagining him as Ewan McGregor's roommate, and loving movies like The Holiday. I haven't even seen his two Oscar nominated roles. I was excited to see him live admittedly only because of his status as a celebrity. There have been other cases of this: Julia Roberts, Daniel Radcliffe. In both cases I left the theater no more of a fan than I was before (And maybe in the Julia Roberts case, less of a fan). I left Hamlet in a crazy eye widening, mouth dropping rapture.

I do believe that Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's greatest works. If not the greatest. It's the most psychological of his plays, looking really deep into the human condition. And it is really difficult to play Hamlet as something more than an angsty boy. It's true. But Law's Hamlet was something more. Yes, he was completely capable of putting the angst of a son home from college to find his world turned completely upside down. It isn't real without that emotion. His love of his father was palpable, and the need for revenge. The feigned lunacy was funny and riveting all at the same time - he knew how to play with the audience to keep them with him, engaged and entertained. It was distinctly clear when his facade of being mad became real. It's so easy to turn against Hamlet, but he had me from beginning to end.

I really can't imagine what it must be like to take on a role so iconic, and at a status where everyone will be watching for slip ups, and comparing to greater actors. What I loved the most is how unafraid he was to be fully unattractive. To put every emotion out there, even hideous and horrifying. Unattractiveness is a hard thing to fully embrace on stage in front of hundreds of people. His posture was slumped, his eyes wide, upset and destroyed and motivated. (I'm fully aware that this may not be making any sense.)

The set has been criticized, but I found it just simple enough to showcase the story and the acting. The ensemble is so strong, challenging and supporting Law throughout the 3 hours.

It was really, really good.

Obviously.

I can't gush anymore.

See it.

(Most abrupt ending ever.)

*K

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Hello, friends and random Next to Normal bootleg searchers who stumble upon my blog! You are in luck, my friends, for if you like theatre - you'll love QUESTIONABLE CONTENT - The 2nd annual one act festival presented by Co-Op Theatre East!

Questionable Content

Co-Op Theatre East's annual one-act festival Questionable Contentreturns with four new one-act plays about life in these modern times. Last year’s show included mysterious power brokers, children debating cultural tradition, and cats caught in their own mousetraps—check out what we have this time around:

– Steve Koppman's futuristic (prescient?) Homage to Catatoniaenvisions a world where we're all plugged in, and questions the cost. Directed by Ashley Marinaccio.
– Craig Abernethy's sharp comedy Do/Don't Do turns the playwright's incredible eye for social commentary on a (not so) ordinary street crossing. Directed by Robert A. K. Gonyo.
– In Reina Hardy's classic tale of truth versus fiction, Smooth Criminal, a writer of a fraudulent blog is forced to choose between integrity or a book deal. Directed by Casey Cleverly.
– And in COTE Artistic Director Robert A. K. Gonyo's Urinal Play, a young man must deal with his impertinent boss who has run out of toilet paper. Directed by Robert A. K. Gonyo.

The ensemble includes Kerrie Bond, Joseph Faranda, Ben Gooch, Stephen Hensel, Serena Miller, Veronique Ory, Nicole Perperas, Bethany Pollock, David Roberts, Adam Schneider, Jenny Stodd, and Michael Wetherbee.

September 17–19 @ 8 p.m.
September 20th @ 2 p.m.
The Kraine Theater, 85 E. 4th Street, New York
Tickets: $18, $15 students (reserve by e-mail, or available at the door)

See some still photos from rehearsals on the blog!

I'd love to see you there if you're free! Feel free to hit me up with questions!

*K

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Tomorrow is my 22nd birthday. It's the first year that I haven't planned anything big. Last year was a week in Florida, the year before was a big party, the year before was the zoo... etc etc. And while on one hand it's nice to not have to plan my own birthday, on the other it's weird to not have anything extravagent happening to look forward to. (At least not to my knowledge.)

I've been feeling a little blue about the whole thing. Maybe because for the first time since I turned 16, Anthony isn't going to be with me. Or maybe just that it doesn't seem like a big deal this year. I was told that this is "growing up", but that just made me more sad. Is part of growing up really not being excited for your own birthday? Isn't that half the fun? Shouldn't we be happy about the day we were born and willing to celebrate it to the fullest extent? Shouldn't other people be excited too? I look forward to other people's birthdays just as much as my own. Maybe we're just all too busy. I just know that losing track of these kinds of celebrations will NOT be a part of my growing up. If anything, they should become more meaningful.

I know tomorrow will be special no matter what, it's just different this year. But everything is different now, I guess. I'll be going to lunch with the people I work with, who are all extremely awesome people (how lucky am I?) And then who knows what for the rest of the day. We'll see!

*K

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I think this thing is about due for an update.

A normal person would say that after their week-long excursion in a foreign country, things settled down and life went about its usual pace. I, however, am not this normal person, and life has yet to regain its normality.

The Friday after we got back into the US, I jumped on a 6:30am flight into Fort Myers, Florida to surprise one of my best friends in the whole world for her wedding. I was home for literally 45 hours, 28 or so of those spent in secret. The only people who knew I was coming home at all were Ashton, Anthony, and my mom. It went off pretty well and I literally couldn't imagine not having been there. The three of us (me, Ashley, and Ashton) have been friends since we were 11. Well, since I was 11 and they were 12, since that's the way it's always been. ;)

It's funny, but everytime I'm home and I get to see both of them, it literally feels like nothing has changed.

We've gone from to . These pictures are 8 years apart - which is nuts.

I don't know what I'm babbling about. The point is being home for that short amount of time was actually really nice. Anthony was home the same weekend by crazy coincidence, which really made everything perfect. We even saw Barbara. My only complaint about the trip was that it was only 45 hours. (Oh, and I lost my wallet. That sucked.)

I took the 6:30am flight out of Fort Myers Sunday morning to get back into the city in time for Rose and Zach's engagement party, which was all kinds of fun. So, in summation, the weekend of the 26th was MARRIAGE WEEKEND.

The following weekend was, of course, my beloved 4th of July. My favorite holiday. We drove an 8 hour trip in an impressive 10 hours (hardee har har), pulled into my dad's place at 4:30am July 3rd. And we brought the sun with us. True story. It had been raining for at least 3 weeks prior to our arrival. Once we got there? Bam. Sunshine. All weekend. We work magic, people.

I love Bar Harbor, everyone who knows me knows that I spend most of my time missing it. It's beautiful and small and everyone knows me and I don't actually hate all of these people who know me, I like that they know me and I look forward to seeing them and I look forward to bumping into people I didn't even know were in town. It's all just GOOD.

Saw my dad, brother, sister in law, uncle, aunt, Noelle, and most importantly? BABIES! My brother has a 1 and a half year old girl named Willa, and my uncle has a 16 month year old name Griffin. They are both just the cutest things in the entire world.

And this is Willa smacking Griffin on the back of the head. They love each other.

The whole weekend was great, and the rain held off on the 4th until just as the fireworks were ending, which was perfect. And even then, it really didn't rain much. Everything was great.

Took my annual visit to the top of Cadillac Mountain, which is, and you'll know this if you know me at all, where I want to get married. Right on top of the mountain. May have even been subconsciously scouting locations while we were up there. Only not subconsciously.

Anyway, we're home now for a pretty substantial amount of time, despite my flirting with the idea of taking a bus to DC to see Jake Epstein in Spring Awakening. But that probably won't happen. Unfortuantely. We'll be in Seattle for a weekend in August for Mike's sister's wedding, but no big travel plans until then.

Other exciting news? I've officially signed with Maude Kaplan Management as of Wednesday. Which is just all kinds of exciting. She's really cool and I felt instantly that it would be a really good match. So hopefully my instincts are right. Had my first audition under her representation yesterday for a one lined part in a new HBO Series, which was pretty cool. So I feel like that part of my life is finally starting to go somewhere. My job at Levan Real Estate is still pretty much the best job I could have possibly found. I pretty much make my own hours and I work with really really great people. Couldn't have asked for much more than that.

Financially, things have been pretty tight for Mike and me, but I'm really not worried. We're just lucky to both have steady jobs, especially with Mike making $65,000 yearly he brings in enough to pay off debts and bills and survive. I do too, at least for the time being.

I love where we live more and more every day. I love the way we set everything up and I love coming home and I love the neighborhood and have recently found a new love for the bus, which will get us crosstown a hell of a lot faster than the subway will. So that's good.

Mike has been gone since 9:30 this morning and my laziness has taken new meaning. I'm not even lazy about big things. I get the big important things done almost instantly. I'm lazy about... moving. Or entertianing myself. I've been telling myself to write this blog since I woke up at 10:30, and am just now getting around to it. I'm lazy about finding something I want to watch on TV, and in turn spent about an hour watching Lifetime because it was on. I'm lazy about deciding what to eat, or getting dressed, or plugging in my computer. All of the arbitrary stuff. I cleaned the kitchen and took the trash out and went over my money status right away. Now I just need to make it about 3 more hours.

I won't keep typing that long, though.

Anyway, I am watching Role Models and I paid $4.99 for it, so I should probably pay attention. Especially seeing as how I spent 20 minutes on the phone with Time Warner tech support trying to get the movies on demand feature to work.

Ta!

*K

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Ah, last day across the pond... was a great day, though. :)

We successfully got up with our alarm this morning to grab breakfast. We then came back to the room where I proceeded to fall asleep again for another hour or so. (My body needs 8 hours of sleep!)

...I've just been distracted for literally 15 minutes because Minority Report is on our TV...

Anyway.

We took a bus out to the south bank side of the Thames River to pay a little visit to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. :)

Took a walk along the bank side to get to the theater, came across yet another crime warning sign:

We were lucky to get tickets - the show was completey sold out, but as we stood in the queue for returns, a woman came up to the line asking if anyone minded standing because she had extra yard tickets. Ah, I was a groundling at last! (Read a book, people.)

The theater is insanely gorgeous. Pictures don't even capture it. We were lucky to, yet again, have an absolutely gorgeous and sunny day. (In fact, the only rain we've had the whole trip was about a minute or so of light sprinkling. We're the luckiest travelers ever.)

The show was Romeo & Juliet, because I am destined to never see any other Shakespeare play... despite me being completely sick of seeing this play, it was really fantastic. But what else would you expect at Shakespeare's Globe? :)

After the show, we took a boat on the Thames up a bit to a tube station to connect to where we needed to be.

Stopped at a bookstore up near Charing Cross to grab a book someone asked Mike to buy for them, and then headed back to the Tower of London to take the "Grim Reaper" walking tour.

It was much shorter than the other walking tours we'd been on, but interesting nonetheless. It covered all of the hauntings and murders and the plague and the general "poor" area of London - the East End. We also followed the "trail" of Jack the Ripper, which was really freakin' cool.

Where one of the Ripper's victims was found:

The pub he used to hang around, where he'd find his various prostitute victims:

And, the clock tower the prostitutes would use to time their customers:

PLAGUE PIT:

Accidentally took a picture while walking, but thought it was kind of cool:

A man playing a piano in the middle of the street:

HAH:

Oh, and one other important thing to mention... our tour guide was a gorgeous british guy:

And, I'd seen this a million times on the back of ice cream trucks - or, rather, "super soft ice" trucks:

The tour happened to end around the corner from Brick Lane, home to ten or so of what we were told are the best Indian curry houses outside of India. And, having stated earlier in the week I wanted to try Indian food for the first time, it was pretty convenient. So we strolled over there and found a place to eat. The verdict? I LOVE Indian food, but I definitely need to have milk because water in not effective when your mouth is burning off. Right off.

Back at the hotel now... watching Minority Report, as I'd said before, and packing. Our flight takes off at noon tomorrow. The tube line near us goes right out to Heathrow, so we're going to take advantage of that. Eat some breakfast in the morning and then head out. Admittedly, I'm pretty sad to be going back. I really like it here and would love to spend another week or so. I definitely want to come back at some point in the future... it's a pretty remarkable city. And it's also, of course, made me want to travel pretty much everywhere else. But that's nothing new.

Okay, to sleep perchance to dream.

*K

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Day six in London, and I feel like we just got here yesterday... my how time flies.

Today was quite pleasant. We actually managed to get down to breakfast in the morning, though not without sleeping through the 7am alarm. TOMORROW we'll wake up with it. (She says as it slowly turns into midnight...) We then accomplished one of the highest items on my London list... Notting Hill. Just because of the movie? Possibly. But it's also a great spot to hit when visiting here. And I can vouch for it. The Portabello Road Market is GIANT and AMAZING. We didn't even get through the entire thing. Its all antiques and art and clothing and lots of really interesting little knick knacks. I got a great dress for only 5 pounds.

One of the first things we saw after getting off the tube at Notting Hill Gate. Very cool.

And, my attempt to recreate a picture of Hugh Grant from Notting Hill without even remotely remembering what it looked like except that he had his jacked swung over his shoulder and was at the flower stand...

Me:

Actual picture:

At least I'm 90% certain it's the same flower booth. So that's something. Anyway.

Had lunch at a cute place called Uncle's...

Spent a good hour or two just walking though part of the market. And then made the venture onto Abbey Road...

Similarity between the London Tube and the NYC Subways: Track work on the weekends. So that made our little trip out to Abbey Road just a *bit* more difficult. We had to take one line to another line to a bus at a bus stop which we could not find so we ended up at another that fortunately had a bus that took us to where we needed to go.

Anyway, we did finally arrive there to see the famous crosswalk and Abbey Road Studios.

The studio:

And then, of course...

Close enough.

Okay, so I've been meaning to take pictures of something and post them since I've been here, and was finally able to snap a couple.

Everywhere you go, and I mean everywhere, there are warnings about pick pockets and theives. It's a little unnerving to see them, but really I've felt pretty safe since we've been here. So either the signs are working, or the pick pockets are just as polite as the rest of the people here and you can't pick them out of a crowd.

There was a sign on the back of a bathroom door yesterday in a restaurant warning about bag theives. Unfortunately, I don't tend to bring my camera along with me to the loo. So I couldn't get a photo of that one.

After that fun jaunt, we successfully made it onto the bus back to our hotel to get ready to see X-MEN THE PLAY. Otherwise known as Waiting for Godot starring Professor X and Magneto. Or Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Whatever.

I hate Samuel Becket a lot, especially this play, but you know what- whatever. I'd watch the two of them read the dictionary. They're both completely astonishing on stage. I'd seen Jean-Luc Picard once before, but never Gandalf. It was pretty cool.

OH, and to give proof that they sell ice cream during intermission...

Okay, I really need to go to sleep so we actually wake up in the morning. Hopefully catching a show at the Globe. Yeah!

*K

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