From London With Love

30th July 2009

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“I love you that’s why I say cheerio not goodbye!”

First person to name that tune gets a self hug.

So, I saw Oliver! last night! We got there an hour early and got the student discount tickets. We ended up with absolutely perfect seats - second row, center of the first tier. The cast members were absolutely brilliant. My favorites were Fagin and the Artful Dodger. There were some technical difficulties during the first half of the show, but the cast worked their way right through it without a hitch, making us laugh the entire time. I’d forgotten how much I loved going to see shows!

We went to Manchester today for fieldtrip #3. We got there and it was super cold and raining hardcore. Our guide was a professor at a local university. He grew up in Manchester, so he had some great stories to tell us about the show’s he had seen there - he saw Dylan’s 1966 gig there! We walked around the city for about 3 hours, but I really couldn’t tell you much of what we saw. It was an odd tour- a mix of the history of the city and a bit of music blended in. Not my favorite place so far. We met up with Dave Haslam, the author of the Manchester book we’d been assigned to read. He talked to us for about an hour and was really great about answering our questions. He had some good stories about the music scene he was a part of here (he’s a world famous DJ) and some food for thought about where it’s going. After our chat with him, I hopped on the next train headed back to London. Like I said, Manchester just didn’t do anything for me.

Tomorrow’s plans are a bit up in the air. I only have about a week left so I’m frantically trying to fit everything in! We’re talking about going to Buckingham Palace in the morning in attempt to catch the changing of the guards. Afterwards, we’re going to see Abbey Road (the last on my list of Beatles sites to see!) and maybe enjoying the rest of the day in Camden.

I hope it was warm and sunny back home today - we were all missing the Tennessee sunshine during our walk!

Lots of love,
mch