We slept late…this time there was less rocking when the tide came in. Jess and I poached eggs, which is quite difficult because you have to crack the egg and drop it into swirling boiling water. I swirled the water and she dropped the egg in. We ate our breakfast and watched more movies.
When we finally set out for the day, we walked along the Thames toward the center of London. At one point, we came to a building where people were taking an elevator up and belaying down. We’re pretty sure it was a fundraiser of sorts. I was sad that I was wearing sandals and a skirt because I totally would have tried it. We walked through the Westminster area and Trafalgar Square heading east, toward Millennium Bridge. We stopped into a Korean culture center and saw an exhibit on comics. Artists had taken known paintings (by Mondrion and Lichtenstein for example) and re-done them as comics.
On the southern side of the city, we went to the Tate Modern to check out what was up in the Turbine Room. The Tate has a large room on the lowest level (which can be seen from other parts of the museum). They invite artists to put up large-scale shows there. Last time I was there, I saw what can only be described as a “city” made of gigantic sugar cubes. Jess saw one that was slides from the upper levels down to the room. This time, there was a series of gymnastics/playground equipment: slides, balance beams, a life-sized hamster wheel, and a section where you had to try to walk up two vertical walls (they were close together and you had to use pressure to brace yourself and climb up).
We played around on the slides (which were covered) for a while, before trying out the hamster wheel. I went in barefoot (better than wearing the sandals) and in my skirt. Jess used all her body force to make that thing roll. Luckily there were sandbags on either side to keep the wheel in place, because we both felt like we were going to roll away. When we exited, the next pair to enter (two teenage guys) actually got the wheel to roll over the sandbags and outside the barrier. The museum guard told them their time inside was over.
We left the museum and wandered around the neighborhood. We had tickets to see a show called the Cherry Orchard. The theater was near to the museum, so we walked over, picked up our tickets and walked around a bit more. The show was about a family who had lost all its money and had to sell their house and cherry orchard. It was set in Russia at the turn of the 20th century and spoke about the family’s hardships as well as Russia’s changes in labor laws and other social class issues of the time. The cast was a mix of English actors and American ones, including Ethan Hawk.
Our seats were super cheap. They were some of the only ones available when we purchased them. We were all the way upstairs in the “restricted viewing” area. Basically we were on the side of the auditorium. We didn’t really even have seats; we had places along a bench. No one really sat: you either leaned forward or stood in your place. We were lucky because we had the two best views (closest to the center) of this section. Even with this annoyance, the show was still enjoyable and we had a nice evening. Afterwards, we took the tube back to Kensington/Chelsea and walked to our boat.
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