Inspector!

I continue to be unimpressed with JMW Turner. Some pictures are pretty, but he should stop comparing himself to Rembrandt and the like, 'cause it's not doing him any favors. I like Rembrandt a lot more than I used to, and I definitely like him better than Turner. Turner had some pretty ones, but I think his paintings tend to be rather ill defined. They're great from a distance, but up close I want some detail. I'm not sure what will happen when I see more of the Impressionists. Poor Monet. But for one of Turner's paintings, my response was, "I hate it. It sucks."
But that was over fairly quickly and relatively painless.
The Tate Britain's cafe has Pepsi in glass bottles, and the lady at the cash register had to pop the top off for me. Overall, Coke has been better here, Pepsi has been worse. I like that it's real sugar though.
We hung out at Trafalgar Square for a while. There was a guy simultaneously juggling and unicycling, and he wasn't wearing a shirt. Besides that, it was the photo ops that I liked best. It's really pretty there, and there's all these monuments, including giant lions that people apparently like to climb on.
We also went to a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown (which I learned today is overpriced), and the food was pretty good. The waiters were very concerned with the state of my tea and kept checking the teapot then pouring me more. I don't quite know why.
We hit up a couple bookstores. I decided to wait on a book about the Anglo-Saxons, but I went back 5 MINUTES later for it and it was gone. SO MAD.
By this point I really had to go, and I ran into the theatre just as the doors opened and I flipped out because the door was stuck. One of the ushers yelled at me, "Twist and pull, love, twist and pull!" and I figured it out and a crisis was averted. And I've finally been called "love". Score!
(In retrospect this doesn't sound like a cool story, even to me, but it was a happy moment. And the usher was cute.)
I enjoyed An Inspector Calls. The set was amazing - they had built this little house, which was smushing the people inside and they had to duck to step out of the doors. And it eventually swung open to reveal the inner workings, and then tilted so all the dishes fell out and smashed and the lights burst. (I think it was indicative of the institution of upper-class privilege being brought down, but that's just me). I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it said that the original was done in a single-room setting, whereas this version put the house in context with the surroundings. The play also had a framework of WWII, although the majority was set in 1910 - when the Inspector talked about the people being brought together by fire and destruction and such, it seemed to me like he was talking about people coming together in WWII during the Blitz.
Normally I don't like plays just because they've got a good message - they've got to be interesting too - but I was really interested in the culture of the characters, especially set against the backdrop of WWII.
Theatre geek moment over.
Today was our second Contemporary Britain class, where we talked about our conceptions of Britain and the stereotypes surrounding both our cultures. I impressed my professor by mentioning Spike Milligan. It was fun overall, and I like that the professor is willing to make fun of us (especially when he makes fun of the annoying girl in the back).
Tomorrow is Screenwriting (eek) and History of London, and we've got Windsor this weekend.