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Les Misérables Bruni was meeting a friend for lunch in north London, so Sharon and I caught a ride with her. Bruni stopped at a park to show us a National Trust house. I liked the library best with its two ornate white and gold columns. Walking to a lookout point we saw London in the hazy distance. The National Trust house had changed the livery stable into a tea house. With my tea I had a large wedge of rich and creamy Black Forest cake. Eating my morsel, believing life couldn't get any better, Bruni had a surprise for me. She and Alistair had booked tickets to Les Misérables at the Palace theatre for my birthday present. It just kept getting better and better. We were riding high. Bruni dropped us off at an underground station. Sharon and I caught the tube to Covent Garden where some fruit and vegetable markets were. We bought cherries. The Outdoor Shop, to my surprise, agreed to exchange my cracked-sole Teva's for new ones. They said they had never seen anything like that before. I didn't tell them I had ridden my bike in them -- the crack was suspiciously close to the edge of where the pedal would be. But Sharon had rode in her Teva's many times and nothing had happened to hers. We walked to the theatre and picked up our tickets so we wouldn't be in a rush at show time. Then we went to Deep Pan, a pizza place that had an all you could eat offer for pizza and pasta. I didn't know how they could make money. Guess they didn't know I was coming. Les Mis was fantastic. The singing superb. The acting terrific. The ambiance of the theatre was wonderful with the warm carved wood, old-time seats and the way the balconies went straight up over the lower floors. Everything was compressed. Tiny binoculars were attached to the backs of the seats and could be liberated for a mere twenty pence. Unfortunately, they did little to bring the action closer -- true opera glasses. We were in our usual casual attire and didn't feel out of place. No one was dressed to the nines -- many people looked like tourists and probably were. One of the ushers was a Chinese girl with long blond hair. Theatre in London proved to be a relaxing venture available to the masses. The show ended at eleven. The downtown core was hopping with people walking from theatres and lined up to get into clubs while an amazing variety of wildlife hung around the fountain in front of blazing neon adverts. We strolled to Piccadilly Circus and caught the tube to Angel station. Exiting the tube I gave my transit pass to a guy saying goodnight to some friends. Sharon gave hers to his girlfriend. He looked happy as he hoisted the ticket and said, "Cheers, Mate!" A three block walk brought us to Ali and Sophie's flat. It was centrally located. And in a good neighbourhood I noticed as I walked past three Porches parked on the street. The flat actually belonged to Sophie's Dad who was away working in Rome. The flat was up two flights of stairs. Ali yelled down from an open living room window to come on up. Sophie was hunched over a portable computer writing a report. A myriad of scrunched up paper littered the floor. She was a correspondent for the Economic Times and was moving to China in a week to work there. Ali had just gotten a job working at a bank doing currency forecasts. "The only thing that I don't like about my new job is I have to wear a tie," he said. Alistair said they were paying him way too much for a starting salary. (Ali had taught school in Africa until he caught malaria.) Ali loved cycling the Swiss Alps. He had toured in a bunch of Eastern cis countries with names that end in Stan. "They have mountain scenery you wouldn't believe and people from a bypassed time," he said. His total kit was a mere six pounds and he usually cycled one hundred fifty miles a day. From his new Atlas he delighted in showing us routes along mountains and rivers we had never heard of. |
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