And a great Sunday morning to you from across the Pond after a TERRIFIC Saturday in the Mother County. First off - CONGRATS TO BUTLER AND THE 'EERS!!!!! And also, thanks to Steve Markham for leaving his CBS Sports account open so we could watch the games last night. Watching TV in HD online for free - I know that I've admitted on multiple occassions that I was a simpleton (and HATE Excel formulas), but all I can say is WOW - that is some SWEET technology.
So after we bounced from the flat yesterday morning, we rolled over to the Prince Regent, site of THE BEST brekkie deal in the United Kingdom. Seriously - 5 quid gets you black pudding (and I always get JT's since she doesn't like it), two eggs (fried up over easy), 4 slices of toast, butter, a big ass mushroom cap, a tomato, beans, two slices of rasher (meaning country ham), and heapin' helping of veggie casserole, and a sausage link, all with water and a cup of coffee. How can you argue with that? We absolutely SLAUGHTERED that meal, leaving nothing but a vapor trail in our wake. That's the way you do it. THAT'S THE WAY YOU DEBATE.
After that, we dropped off some of Jenny's dry-cleaning before trying to get some cash out (Katy Perry style) from Barclay's. The nice thing about Barclay's is that they have a global ATM alliance with Bank of America, meaning they don't charge a transaction fee. The bad thing about their ATM's (called "Holes in the Wall") is that THEY NEVER WORK. EVER. There is CONSTANTLY a problem with them, and as a result we leveraged the good old mastercard instead of dropping cash on yesterday's activities.
The first activity was the Irving Penn Exhibit in the National Portrait gallery. JT and I got in free because it was sponsored by the Bank (saving us 10 GBP each!). I honestly didn't know much about this cat going in, but his photos were really cool. It was a great (albeit small) exhibit, and we covered it in around 45 minutes. In retrospect, had we not gotten in free, I would have been somewhat disappointed if we'd dropped the equivalent of $32 to see it. But hey, it made for a GREAT first activity of the day.
Next up was truly a wild card. JT and I had stopped off at the Leicester Square ticket office to see what discounted tickets were available. And whilst most were sold out, there was one show that we'd been vaguely intrigued and still had cheap seats. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how Muffin Puffin and I found ourselves seated at the Garrick Theater for a performance of "The Little Dog Laughed."
Okay, so background - we had NO IDEA what this show was about. All we knew is that we had THE BEST seats in the house, and the place was rammed. The show is only playing for another 2 weeks, and at the time we didn't know if tha
t was because it sucked or if the performers (none of whom we knew) had other commitments. With that framework, we cut to Sam and Jenny seated in a theater, staring at a pink stage...So bottom line - this show was GREAT. The performers, we later found out, were all Brits, but they were playing Americans living in New York and LA (and they were AMAZING, for the record). All of them are well established British performers (We found this out during intermission from the nice lady sitting beside us who found it interesting that Americans were in London watching Brits act as Americans. She asked our opinions of their accents, at which point I confessed that I didn't know ANY of these cats and just assumed they were all Americans. That should tell you how polished they were), and they were electric. Tamsin Grieg - simply BRILLIANT as the Hollywood agent.
The show was funny, well paced, VERY well staged, and certainly entertaining. However, I wasn't quite prepared for the fact that it was about 2 dudes admitting their love for one another, making out ferociously on stage, and at one point I saw a dude 100% nude from the back side. Jenny had the best line when she looked at me during intermission and said "can you imagine if this played in Charlotte?" Speaking truthfully, the only places this will survive in the US are New York, LA, Key West, and P-town. Price, I'm thinking this would be a great family outing for you after some Captain Pahkah's.
After the show, it was only 5:10, so we rolled over to De Hemm's, the Dutch cafe that serves Belgian Beer (Shogun - this should be on our "next weekend festivities list"). We actually got a table, and so we each rocked a pint of the Duvel Green (6.8% - SO GUUUUUUD) and a pint of Mardesous 6 (6% - Simply put - a PERFECT beer) before staggering home.
Once at home, muffin puffin prepare
d a bountiful feast for us of walnut and gorgonzola cheese tortellini, while I cut red leicester, blue stilton, and parmesean cheese for us to devour with Rosemary & Salt butter crackers. Yes - can someone say healthy? Because I can - CHUUUUBBBBBBYYYY BUUUUNNNNNNYYYYY!!!!! Oh, and throw in a Cask Ale and some Honeydew for good measure...oh, okay - throw in a bottle of Shiraz as well. After all - it's Saturday night!We then turned on the PC, where we watched the Bulldogs shock K State and then caught the first half of WVU vs. the Cats. I must confess, it was SO GOOD to watch some of the tournament, and even better (I can't believe I'm saying this) to see some quality commercials. I have no lie to tell, commercials over here are ATROCIOUS, and so I was LOVING everything from the UPS ads to the Bud Light commercials to the Aussie guy hawking HP.
We passed out around 11:30, but last night was the switch from GMT to BST (that would be the move from Guinness Mean Time to Bombardier Supping Time - thanks, Rev), and so we didn't get up until noon today. That being said, we're now devouring bread slathered in Nutella and enjoying some coffee, and all is right with the world.
Okay, that's all the news to print - save one final thing: GO VOLS!!!!!! AND GO BAYLOR!!!!! Rice - I'm counting on you to drink enough Rusty's, boil enough Ribs, drink enough Cherokee reds, and scream loud enough to lead them to victory, brother!
Chat tomorrow!
Love,
Sam and Jenny
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