Wait a second, that’s not the title! And it sounds rather morbid… But that’s what we did! We went to a cemetery outside of London called Highgate Cemetery, where, as my professor Barrish would say, “Wasn’t where some scenes in Dracula happened, but they should have.”
London is such an old city that, what with the millions and millions of people who have lived there over thousands of years, there’s bound to be a lot of people buried under the city. London is a necropolis, a city of the dead, which is a concept I have never thought of pinning on London, being that it is so, well, alive. What with all of the decomposing bodies underneath them, people started getting ill all the time, and so in the 19th century (I think) they started to understand that they needed to move the cemeteries out of the city, and Highgate was one of the first ones. Karl Marx is buried there,
Douglas Adams, too, and wandering around the graves I found a strange sort of peace. It was a drizzly, rainy day – very Gothic of you, weather! – and it was somehow inspiring to see hundreds and thousands of markers for people who I never knew, but who were very much as loved as you or I or anyone.
We didn’t linger long in the cemetery, instead we broke off into groups and went in search of something to do in London before we went to the Globe Theater to see All’s Well that Ends Well.
My group really wanted to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which is a place whose outside I am familiar with, but I don’t recall ever properly going inside. Somehow I’ve managed to catch it at the wrong time, seemingly every time.
I couldn’t take photos inside, but I got some great ones of the outside.
We caught the cathedral at exactly the right time: they were just beginning the 5pm evensong service, and with the choir singing, the Cathedral absolutely came alive.
It was enchanting and breathtaking to stand in a place of worship such as that and witness people worshiping.
I would have stayed longer, but we were on a tight schedule, so we quickly ate pizza across the street from the Cathedral and then walked over the millennium bridge to the Globe!
Now, it’s been an awful tease for the last six or so years since I first saw the Globe and toured it with my brother and Dad one year when we were here for Christmas. But since it was December, we couldn’t see a show.
I was not familiar with All’s Well, but I loved every minute of it! I can understand why some call it a “problem play” of Shakespeare’s though, because especially the end was a little bit hard to follow, and it didn’t quite have the same kind of quality that some of his greater plays (Hamlet, etc.) have.
The actors were brilliant, the show entertaining (and raunchy, my goodness! Shakespeare was dirty!), and we all piled on the bus after the show clamoring for more. I can’t wait to go see another play there!
London, I'll see you later!
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