Lord Mayor's Show & Hamlet

This past Saturday was a busy day of adventures. I set off early in the morning and got a bus to the Waterloo station, then made my way to the Young Vic to see if I could get tickets for the Hamlet show that night. Luckily there were some left, so I bought one for me and one for June. Then I walked back to the station and had breakfast at the Starbucks there. Y'all should try the gingerbread latte - it was pretty good.

After breakfast, I walked across the Thames and made my way to the parade route for the Lord Mayor's Show that was taking place that afternoon. I found where it was going to pass but had another OMG-why-is-this-city-so-complicated moment when I spent the next hour and a half looking for a bathroom. It shouldn't be that difficult. Finally ducked into a pub and then made my way back to find a good spot along the route to see the parade. June found me soon after the parade started. It was a good parade. Lots of horses and military people and military people on horses and bands and stuff.

There was a procession for the Lions Club International. I was really excited to see it! They even had a guy in a lion suit. Yay Lions Club! It made me miss the Georgia Lions Camp for the Blind and all my GLCB people.

At the end of the parade there was a golden carriage:

Fancy...

We had dinner at a restaurant back on the other side of the Thames and watched the fireworks once we were done. It was not as impressive as the ones we saw the week before on Guy Fawkes Day. It was only like 10 minutes of fireworks. Laaaame.

We slowly made our way to the theatre for Hamlet, which is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays (go watch the David Tennant version if you haven't seen it). It was an excellent show and a very interesting interpretation. Michael Sheen played Hamlet and he was absolutely magnificent in the role. The play was set in a psych ward and it was weird how well the play fit into that setting. It makes sense if you think about it though. The theatre was quite small so it all felt very intimate - the actors were right there in front of the audience. We had seats up in the gallery but they were still very close to the action. We have tickets to see Patrick Stewart portray Shakespeare himself in a play called Bingo at the same venue in a few months. I'm super excited for that one as well.

Until next time,
Duchess