19. Ottobre 2011: Too Marvelous for Words

*note the addition to the previous post.

After yet another delicious and filling breakfast at our hotel, I departed alone for the Victoria and Albert Museum. I got off the Tube and started walking towards the museum when I realized that a group of people in long black robes were walking towards me. I gasped quietly because I knew what this meant. Everything was real. These were obviously wizards in their everyday wear. The world in which Harry Potter existed was real. My heart pounded for a moment until I realized that I was approaching the Imperial College of London and I remembered that students in the UK wear graduation robes for matriculation at the beginning of the year as well as for graduation. But for one moment there, everything had been perfect.

I entered the striking Victoria and Albert Museum (did I mention that all museums in London are free? Yes, free!) and meandered through the Greek and Italian art until I saw the sign for the theatre exhibit. I made a beeline for the costume exhibit where I saw some truly beautiful originals including Lady Bracknell from The Importance of Being Earnest and Mufasa from The Lion King. There were also several renderings displayed including a design for a stripper outfit that represented Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The headdress, featuring a skull and the head of a ghost was also displayed.

I won’t lie though, the museum was quite overwhelming. There was so much interesting material within a single building and it became clear to me that this museum deserved several weeks of visitation. So I resolved to move to London so that I can visit the V&A at my leisure until I have seen every last item on display. I had to hurry through the rest of the museum because I had a meeting to get to!

I boarded the Tube to Camden Town which had an entirely different feel from the center of London. Everywhere I looked I saw tattoo and piercing parlors and the bustling on the sidewalk was comprised of a younger and more eclectic demographic. I walked towards Regent’s Park and was stopped by someone who asked me for directions. I smiled, happy to finally be fitting in somewhere. I did not, however, have any idea where she was talking about so I apologized and moved along. I met Sophie, a friend from high school theatre, in front of the British American Dramatic Academy where she is studying this term. We had lunch at a sushi place and I realized how much I’ve missed sushi! I’ve also really missed discussing the philosophies of theatre, which was the topic of most of our conversation after we had caught up for a bit. Our goodbye was not sad at all because she informed me that she will be visiting me in Florence in several weeks! I look forward to her visit.

At this point, I decided to be the brave Harry Potter fan that I am and visit King’s Cross Station. I had forgotten, of course, that all of London is under construction for the Olympics so it was very difficult to navigate around the construction. When I finally found the entrance to King’s Cross I discovered that it was entirely covered with construction crews. I timidly entered the station, saw the sign for Platforms 9, 10 and 11 and saw that I could not follow the signs without a ticket. So, being pushed by irritated travelers, I snapped a photo of the sign and moved back towards the Tube station...missing Platform 9 ¾. Of course, that is another site that would have been much more fun to visit with a fellow Harry Potter geek. I did, however, visit Tottenham Court Road (Harry Potter Trivia, anyone remember the significance of that location in the final book?).

I then trekked to the other side of town (changing Tube lines four times and thanking my experience on the Chicago “L” for preparing me for this) to visit the Imperial War Museum. This was possibly one of the coolest museums I have visited yet. It has displays on every war that England has been even remotely involved in since WWI. It would take me hours to describe how incredible this museum is and again, it requires several weeks’ worth of visits but I will try to touch upon the most striking experiences for me.

First would be to describe the “Blitz Experience” where they take you through what it would be like to be in a bomb shelter during the Blitzkrieg in London and then emerge to find your town destroyed. The lighting, the smell, the sound effects were quite potent and it gave a new perspective to that experience. I found myself incredibly angry while watching a video on the Vietnam War—a war that has never sat well with me. The exhibit about the “Children’s War” was a heartbreaking account of what it was like for children to experience WWII. Many of the children in London, especially Jewish children, were taken to Canada or another safe place for the duration of the war. However, many did not make it or when they did, they had awful experiences.

 I got to hear some of the real King’s Speech and see the uniform that George VI wore during that speech. I watched part of a video on Crimes Against Humanity and was appalled to learn that it was during the Rwanda Genocide that rape was first recognized as a crime connected with genocide.

Finally, I entered the exhibit on the Holocaust. As a person who is quite proud of her German heritage, the Holocaust has always been a bit of a tough subject for me to discuss. However, I am a firm believer that one must learn about history so that one is not doomed to repeat it. So I’ve developed a bit of a thick skin when it comes to the Holocaust, wanting to learn as much about it as possible so that I can combat future genocides with my knowledge. This exhibit was different though. I’m not entirely sure what happened—if it is my current circumstance or situation, but I couldn’t handle it. I could not look at the pictures, look at the names of the victims or read their stories. I took some anti-anxiety medication and hurried through the exhibit.

I finally looked at the time and raced back to Victoria Station to meet Kari for dinner at The Shakespeare, an English pub and restaurant. We ate quickly and headed to the Victoria Palace Theatre to see the London hit musical Billy Elliot.

Now, I have been scolded on my choice of theatre to see while in London but here I shall defend my choice wholeheartedly. Billy Elliot is, first of all, nothing like the movie. It was a lot of fun and exciting to see such beautiful talent from such a young cast. The funniest part of the show was not on stage though. Before the show, I was looking around and realized that a group of Asian tourists were taking up most of three rows behind us and about thirty of them were fast asleep. The picture on the right is us trying to subtly take a picture of all of them. I was bemused at why a tour of so many people would choose to sit in a dark theatre when they are clearly victims of jetlag. But maybe they would wake up during the show. The first act ends with a number titled “Angry Dance,” which is an incredibly noisy tap dance to almost metal music. When the lights came up, I looked around, sure that this group would not have slept through that number. Proved wrong! All thirty of them were still asleep. Bewildering.