I made here safe and sound. The flights were good. Actually, they felt quick. My flight from SLC to Chicago was honestly one of the strangest flights I've ever been on. There were probably four babies on board, who took turns screaming. It was like they went in shifts. I've never heard so many babies on a plane. I'm super nice about it, though. I've been there. Lisa and I had an eight hour flight with a diarrhetic toddler back in '02. So I don't want to do anything to make those parents feel worse. They can't help it! Technically, they can. It's called Robitusson.
Also on board this flight was a middle-aged married couple who sat in front of me and had an enormous fight. They were very artsy and looked kind of sophisticated, but their mouths were venomous. I don't know what she said, but he kept hissing "How could you say that? How could you?" And then he shook his head. This all happened around take-off, and then they didn't talk the rest of the flight. My flight from Chicago to Heathrow was uneventful, unless you count the fact that I couldn't tell if my seatmate was a man or a woman. I honestly couldn't tell! And we even had a few conversations. He/She loved to order Dr. Pepper from the stewardesses, who, incidentally, get grumpier and ruder every year. What's going on there?
London is having a heat wave! Everything is very sweaty. Its been like this before in years past, and it usually only lasts a day or two. But you never know. I brought one - count 'em - one t-shirt. So it sounds like a trip to Primark is on the docket tomorrow! Judging by all the other dudes here, t-shirts can only have giant strategic rips in them or be so low-cut that they sling way below your nipples. I'm not sure if this is my look, but I'm up for anything to beat the heat!
I tried to see a show at the National Theatre, but they didn't have anything running tonight. So I walked down the river to the Globe and bought a ticket to see Gabriel, a new play by Samuel Adamson about the works of Henry Purcell. It's the first thing I've seen at the Globe, outside of Doctor Faustus, which was not Shakespeare. And I kinda super liked it. It's nice not to have to hyper-focus the entire time in order to follow the language or the plot. It's mostly just Purcell music anyway; there are large stretches of trumpeting and chamber music interwoven with different little vignettes from the 1690's. I liked it a lot. The crowd seemed to as well, except the two people I saw faint.
Now I'm back in my room. The window is open but there's no breeze. There's no air conditioning. But it's beautiful outside and I can hear the city slowly, quietly recovering from the weekend. Here goes another month!
