London: Summertime, Jojo and War Horse

It seems like when the weather gets warm here women take off their tights and bras and men take off their shirts. I was in Hyde Park for a walk yesterday afternoon and this was the general trend. Ick. I prefer Hyde Park in the morning when just joggers and commuters are out and about.

It was rather warmer than it has been today. I didn't think it was all that hot, but apparently since I have 0% body fat I don't get to have a say. After class I went to find Jojo, Caitlin's friend from Australia (who is in fact English, living in London). I googlemapped the cafe she works at and it all seemed fine and dandy but it took us forever to find. We had to stop into a shop called Magma to ask for directions. As luck would have it, Magma is a fabulous little place with all sorts of interesting and novelty books. I got one called Listography that has lists for me to fill out. I like lists.

Eventually we found J & A Cafe, after much twisting and turning. Below is evidence of how ridiculous finding this place was. But find it we did and I met Jojo who's a dear and had a great (very late) lunch.

After turning onto what we think is Sutton Lane all we find is this big "Sutton Lane" sign...and a sandwich board for the cafe.
We look down the alley and can't see the cafe.
Finally a glimmer of hope...
And we found it!
And met Jojo.



Tonight we saw War Horse which is a big budget West End musical about WWI horses. I'm learning that I don't like reading the plays before we see them because then I know what happens at the end and how much I have to sit through and I notice deviations from the script and all. It takes away the wonder. All in all though War Horse was visually stunning. I didn't care for some of the actors, but the costumes were fantastic, the horse puppets were spectacular (google image it up) and the music was inspiring. The music was my favorite part by far. One actor, the Song Man, had the sole purpose of singing the songs. The main characters are English farmers so the songs had a haunting, lilty, quintessentially English sound to them. The Song Man a)was handsome b)played the harmonica and accordion and c)had a beautifully true tenor voice that pierced through all the rest of the show. At times the chorus or playback would join him, but my favorite parts were when he'd just sing by himself to the audience. So wonderful.