Scene 13: A Garden and A Show

I have been on many wanderings in the Garden of Covents (or, Covent Garden).

I got my hair cut! Well, I got it trimmed. Don't be alarmed.

I sought out an infamous coffee place called Monmouth Coffee (thank you, Diana) which was fabulous. It's tiny, about 95 degrees inside, and has seating for about 5 1/2 people, with 20 people trying to order at any time of day, but it's worth it. Go. Order. Prove me right.

Wandering around Covent Garden is an experience, and not just because the Town Crier will suddenly appear in full costume and start yelling about something on the street corner.

One thing I've noticed about London is that everything is divided into nicely named places like Kensington, Paddington, Leciester, and Piccadilly, but that everything is essentially in and of the other.

They aren't even fully divisible on a map. You just point to a general area and go, "Yeah, they call that Covent Garden."

It's as though the different places were all soups poured together on a plate and they called it London. Little peas of Paddington end up in Kensington's stew and no one can tell if that monument is in China Town's Won Ton Soup or Piccadilly's Crab Bisque. It all just kind of runs together.

So this means that I'll be heading to what has been labeled "Covent Garden" and pass The Strand, and Charring Cross Road, and go, "Wait, isn't that Trafalgar?" and be standing in a Covent Garden bookshop looking across the street at a Leciester ticket booth. I'll be at the Covent Garden Comic Book Museum and peer out the window and see The British Museum, which is in Russell Square.

And the great thing about every London mailman and every Londen-er in general is that they wade through their city with the philosophy: "Well, it's all soup to me."

I found a lovely bookshop called the London Review Book Shop, which had a cafe through the History section. (Isn't that great? "Want a mocha? Walk through History.")

 I also found Nordic Bakery, where they make pastry rolls. And really, they are just rolls and rolls of pastry. So much pastry. Did I mention there was pastry?

Don't be fooled by its condensed size. I was un-peeling for a very long time.

There are many bookshops I have frequented, some chains and some independent. Some selling brand new copies, some selling second-hand. I do not love them equally, but I do love them all.

**

By the way, I have been doing research for my screenplay, but I won't update that here. Everything that's exciting to me is depressing to everyone else. 

"Oh, guess what? 50 men were massacred in their beds by English soldiers in the Scottish Highland winter, after which their wives and children froze to death in the snow because their homes were burned. Isn't that awesome?!"

Me, I see a cliff-hanger. You see the depravity of man.  Tomato, tomahto.

**

On Wednesday night I saw the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, with Allison. 

The title pretty much gives away the ending. Disappointing.

But the play was wonderful! A quote to leave you with its core message:

"We're actors. We're the opposite of people."

Agreed.

-B