To make up for absence, now a blog of ridiculous length!

Where to begin…Life has been insane for the last week and a half! Amy, even after a week, is still without a normal voice. Finally the notepad and whispers was abandoned after day 3 and now when she talks she sounds like frog with a serious nicotine addiction. It’s quite entertaining to watch her interview people

On Friday we wandered around in the morning—-by this point I’ve seen so many of the sights that I’ve lost track of when I saw them, and there still so much to see! Because we are here doing grant work instead of being tourists, all we can really do is walk past all the museums instead of actually go in them, something I look forward to doing when I come back next month.

I did make inside one museum though; I met up with my good high school buddy Ben who is here for school. (Westpoint bootcamp in Scotland; you know, nothing too out of the ordinary.) He was in-between British military schools and a soldier's personal pilgrimage to Normandy, and had a couple of days in London with a buddy. The Tate Modern was smack in the middle of my two appointments that day, so I suggested we meet up there. I didn't intend on going inside with them, but the insisted, then spent most of the time asking me "how is this art." Apparently modern art and the military don't mix. But is was great to see Ben and we had a nice time eating fish & chips in a pub.

That night Amy and I and her friend Jami went to see Pink Martini at the Barbican. It was incredible. Ironic that we were watching a Portland band in London, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

On Saturday Amy and I spent hours doing computer research and comparing notes...also we had dinner at this great Belgium restaurant. That night we went to the all-Sondheim concert at the Proms. It was awesome. I got to see Bryn Terfel! who is just as incredible as you would imagine, even when he’s singing Sweeny Todd instead of Don Giovanni or The Flying Dutchman. Also, Judi Dench made a special appearance and sang Send in the Clowns. Then Sondheim himself came out for a curtain call at the end! It was a great concert, and we had a blast.

On Sunday we went to the church service at Westminster Abby. That was really special for me; I sang hymns, took communion, lit a candle for my catholic grandmother, and got a chance to find God in the midst of a giant urban jungle. Then Amy met up with her friend Jami to help her find a dress. (Glyndeborne, which is on Wednesday, has a dress code we didn’t notice—-black tie! Thank goodness I randomly packed a bowtie; of course, it would have been more practical had I remembered to pack an outlet converter.) We met Jami for lunch before the two girls had their adventure. Amy was dreading shopping. When I asked Jami how excited on a scale of 1 to 10 to help Amy find a dress, she said 11. So I left them to "have at it" went exploring.

My exploring took me to Oxford Street. The only way I can describe it is think the chaos and shopping of Westlake center in Seattle, and instead of being a single block, extend it for a mile. Eventually I got so overwhelmed with people I got off Oxford Street and went to Hyde Park, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite places.

Then I attended a literature lecture about famous literary lovers that was connected Proms. It was pretty cool---I got to see a feminist Greek poetry specialist from Cambridge duke it out with an established British romance author a la manner of Nicholas Sparks, while a Tony-nominated actress performed various readings. The fight did get quite aggressive, and at one point I was worried if they would start throwing their glasses of water at each other, but British restraint rule sovereign in these situations.

After the literature lecture I met up with Amy, now the proud new owner of a fancy dress and shoes, and we went to the Proms again. The 2nd half was dedicated to Tristan und Isolde act 2, which I can now say with certainty does not work in concert version. The worst part was that Ben Heppner, Heldentenor God, was horribly disappointing. He cracked at least 5 times, and the long lines were beyond the control he was retaining in his 60s, though his voice did prove that it was beautiful none the less. King Mark (Franz-Josef Selig) was the best, but 105 minutes of unstaged Wagner is too much even for me.

Monday we went to our first “lunchtime concerts.” There are so many ways that London is simply brilliant: amazing, cheap public transportation, amazing, free Museums, and amazing, free Lunchtime concerts! It was a piano violin duo, and we got to hear some Gershwin, which was a little weird considering we’re in London.

That afternoon we interviewed Mina, a local pianist and friend of Amy’s. Mina is your typical freelancer/teacher/artist making her way in the city, and out of her numerous jobs two of them definitely sound like dream careers for me. 1, she’s a cruise ship pianist, and thinks it’s awesome. Goes to places like Caribbean, Greenland, Norway, and gets paid great for it. 2, she’s a piano teacher at a private all-boys school. Awesome.

That night Amy and I did the actual Prommer thing where we stand for the whole concert. We opted for the gallery up top instead of the arena down below, but it was a little disappointing. A Mozart piano concerto isn’t really suited for something the size of Royal Albert Hall, and where we were it was impossible to hear nuance. There was a modern piece as well that got it’s London premier that was slightly interesting, and then a Ligeti piano solo piece that was absolutely boring in my opinion. Amy and I decided we really wanted dinner instead of hearing the 2nd half, so we left. I mean, it’s not like we short on concert attendance or anything.

Tuesday was pretty wild. We met up with a young conductor at his flat in South London. We had to reschedule to Tuesday from our appointment a week before because of, well, Amy’s frog-like condition, but though she still sounded like an amphibian a week later we had to go. When we rang, we must of surprise the man. He had completely forgotten about our appointment, but he was very hospitable and super energetic. Since our scheduled time was 11, Amy and I figured we would be done at 12 or 1, but it wasn’t until 3:20 when he was dropping us off at a bus stop. We had spent the 4+ hours talking in his tiny flat, having lunch with him on the roof (awesome, random, weird, incredible), seeing some very poor sections of London, seeing a community house where he started a youth music program, and going to a pub with him and the man who currently runs that community house. The information we collected was perfect, plus he has set up interviews with other important people he knows.

That evening we took our host Re and David out to Ronnie Scott’s, this swanky jazz bar in Soho. Apparently all the greats have played there, the atmosphere was incredible. The 2nd band was too loud in my opinion, but the rock fan inside Amy came out and she had a great time.

Then yesterday was all Glydebourne, which I will dedicate a complete post to because it deserves exactly that!