London: day twenty-four

After class today Hannah and I stopped by NIDO for lunch (I actually made noodles and chicken – something other than sandwiches!!!!!) before heading over to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Even though we had been here before, on our previous visit we had only covered one small portion of the first floor. Today, we spent a little longer and finished off the first floor before breezing briefly through a tiny section of the second floor Medieval/Renaissance exhibit. We saw exhibits that covered the Asia and the Orient, sculptures, a massive room dedicated entirely to Raphael’s paintings, and the aforementioned Medieval and Renaissance exhibits. And even though we walked until our feet hurt, we had only been able to say we finished the first floor – sooo, that leaves us with five more floors to go…One of the great things about the museum was that, even here in London, I was able to find a little piece of Tacoma - in one of the lobbies, hanging high above everything was a blown-glass sculpture by none other than Dave Chihuly. 

For tonight, we decided to make a return to the same comedy club that we had visited last week. This week’s setup was a little “different” though – upon entering, there were no chairs arranged around the stage as there had been before. Instead, they were letting people roam throughout the building, checking out all the rooms. Which was great and all, if there had actually been anything to see. Really confused by this point, Hannah and I asked one of the workers what we were supposed to do, but we got no more than a vague, “explore the building, but at 7:30 keep an eye out for the performance” – um, okay? No directions as to where, or what to expect, nothing of any detail. So we ultimately ended up standing awkwardly in the narrow hallway laughing at ourselves for getting into such a weird predicament. Eventually, other people started showing up, and we were relieved to see many of them wandering around looking incredibly confused – so at least we weren’t alone. When Abi showed up to meet us there, we eventually asked one of the performers what we were supposed to be doing to which he replied, “I’m not the one to really be asking (he is one of the actors, if anyone should know, it should be him!), have you talked to them” – pointing to some of the other actors. But at least he was friendly, and chatted with us for a brief time before telling us to follow him downstairs. As it turns out, throughout the building, in the different rooms, various performances were going to be going on at the same time, and the idea was for groups of people to move through the building separately and attend each. It was still a little awkward because this method made it so that the audience groups were much smaller – thus it was easier for the comedian to sort of pick on individuals. But they were pretty funny – not quite as great as last week – but it was, well, “an adventure.” And we came out laughing at the strangeness of it all. The walk back to NIDO was quiet in the “well, I don’t really have any words to describe that” kind of way.

I need to work on some other writing, so I am going to keep this one pretty short tonight.

Cheers!