I went to London again today, and no, before anyone asks, there were no monkeys or witches involved. I went with my friend Stephen from Lincoln (it’s in the Midlands) who, while growing up in England, had never properly explored London, so that was my day today. I, an American, took it upon myself to play tour guide to a Brit. Yeah… and despite a few setbacks, it was brilliant fun.
Yet, I learned a few things today. If you’re planning on exploring London, there are a few Underground lines you really will need, at least to see the items on the typical “tourist” itinerary. They are: the Piccadilly Line (for sights including, but not limited to, Harrods, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, The National Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery.), the Victoria Line, (for Victoria Station, my main station into the city, along with quicker access to Buckingham Palace, along with Oxford Circus, the main shopping district), and the Circle Line, which, just as the name suggests, encircles the inner part of the city, stopping at most of the places on people’s “must see” lists, including: Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes Museum), The V&A, Kensington Palace & Kensington Gardens, The Houses of Parliament, Victoria Station (and thereby, Wicked), and Tower Hill (among others).
Which lines do you want to guess the London Transit Authority decided needed “planned engineering works” this weekend? The Circle… The Victoria… and (parts of) the Piccadilly. That made for some fun maneuvering around the city, but we still had a great time. We started at Leicester Square, working down to Trafalgar Square, then down to Parliament and across the river and back up the Millennium Bridge. I tried to pick up my tickets for La Cage Aux Folles for later in the month, but they don’t release them until the day of for Ticketmaster orders.
Looping back up to Trafalgar Square, we went down along the Mall to Buckingham Palace, and then up around Green Park to the Underground, which we took back to Leicester Square to Wagamama, my favorite restaurant in London, a Japanese noodle bar. We then tried to get tickets for a show for next weekend, but, unfortunately, they were all sold out except singles, so we passed it up.
We then went to Harrods to kill a bit of time before getting on the train, and I’ve never more amazed at a store in my life. Now, obviously, I’ve been to Harrods before, several times in fact. But, approaching the store this evening, it looked a bit… odd, a bit… green? All Harrods regular white light bulbs have been, temporarily, changed to green! But… why? Well, walking in the sto
re, I noticed something… the floor was yellow… yellow brick. In the entrances to the store was a huge mat on the floor which read “Harrods Celebrates the 70th Anniversary of The Wizard of Oz.” Now, as a life-long Oz fanatic… I was in heaven. Covering the store (and Harrods is massive) were posters suspending from the ceiling showing images from the film, hundreds of them. Around every corner were displays of dolls, figurines, a special edition of the film, it was… fantastic, especially as the film’s soundtrack played on the overhead speaker, and the film graced every television and computer screen in the electronics department. Even the Christmas trees (of which there were many) were covered in Emerald green ornaments and lights. One almost felt the need for those green glasses Dorothy received at the gates to the Emerald City! Leaving it became clear that even Harrods massive shop window displays had all been decked out in green and yellow, with very stylish versions of Oz’s characters gracing each of the windows.
(Even if much of the time I wondered how happy Judy would have been to have seen such an outpouring of love, as she died within a half mile of Harrods.)
Now, I realize this was all a promotion to sell a Harrods special edition of the DVD (available only at Harrods, of course), but it still pulled at my heart strings, to think that a store would go to this expense just to promote a DVD, seems a little insane, but when it’s your favorite film, when it’s the film that has very much shaped your life, somehow you just go with it and don’t feel so insane for five minutes.
Coming back from London, I still have my cold, despite buying some throat lozenges at Boots in London, and my feet and legs are killing me from all the walking, but somehow, I just feel happy for the day away. Oh, and, for the record, I didn’t even buy the DVD. It was £19.00, and given it’s Region 2, it wouldn’t even work on my computer. But since James told me I might be able to change that, well, there’s always next weekend!
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