Staying Grounded
Mood:  happy
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Life has been very exciting (comparatively) as of late, and so I am struggling to stay grounded. And struggling to stick to a budget.

The Neko Case concert was fantastic, as to be expected. Her singing voice is angelic yet raw at the same time. But when she speaks with an American accent to a British crowd, it was met with a little misunderstanding I think. She's excellent when it comes to heckling the hecklers and funny anectdotes, but it seemed she ran into some culture clash with this one. But she's unphased and professional and eventually won everyone's hearts, and got everyone to stand up (the whole concert was seated--and I agree with Stephen that it sucks...) and had 2 encores, which were fab.

On Friday I left work early and met up with Susannah, my high school friend, and we had dinner at the Barbican before watching The Changling. This was an excellent production by Cheek by Jowl and I will try to go back to see their other production running at the moment of Twelfth Night. After the play we had a few drinks and crashed at her hotel.

In the morning we had a coffee/pastry breakfast before setting off towards the south bank where we met up with Stephen and the proceeded towards the Borough Market.

Susannah on the South Bank:

Stephen being Stephen:

Unfortunately a stubborn rain descended and so we ducked into the Tate to see what was in the main exhibition hall. It was Surrealist Saturday and this is what we stumbled across:

Not very impressed, we left the Tate Modern only to see a fellow casually walking down the side of the building, suspended by a bungee cord.

The rain was bad so once we got to the market we tried to find a place to eat, but London is so damn crowded it took a while. Finally found a pizza place and took refuge there for a while.

After chilling out we wandered around the market sampling cheese, oils, and a very fine brownie indeed. We checked out Neal's Yard Dairy, and found a queue of people for their famous cheese and breads:

Some of the cheese:

We decided to go for an indoor activity and so headed up to Islington and watched the film "Brick" which was very good. No doubt about it. I, however, didn't find it was my cup of tea. So sue me.

We then found a place to eat where the waiters were hell-bent on confusing us, but managed to get out alive without having been charged for everything. Bizarre.

Sunday, Susannah came out to Woking for the afternoon, was greatly amused by the aircraft on a stick and the giant alien. It's refreshing to be with someone seeing Woking with new eyes, as it confirms just how weird it really is.

And now it's Monday. Bank Holiday! Stephen's off to work though, for a sleep-in as well. Tomorrow I'm off to London again to see Susannah, so only a 3 day work week.

My head's just spinning from all the fun.