The past two days with the family have been great. Yesterday we headed down to the National Gallery. I’ve been a few times, but going with an artist like my sister, and generally brilliant people such as my parents yields very good conversation. Annalisa really helped me appreciate some paintings in a new way – even the one I claimed was my favorite. Shows what I know. She noticed that the pines in A Winter Scene by Friedrich mirror the cathedral’s shape in the background.

Annalisa and my father both successfully guessed which one was my favorite in the room, although my mother’s guesses made me pay closer attention to a few other ones that I really enjoyed.

Today we went to Westminster Abbey.

A quick side note – London weather. I left Camden at about 12:30 and my walk to the tube I had to take off my coat as it was sunny and hot. When I emerged at Leicester Square 30 minutes later it was pouring and hailing. Chunks of ice were on my shoulders. Baffling.

It was really stunning how many royals and authors are buried at Westerminster. Edward I and III, Richard II, Henry VII, Elizabeth I and Mary I. Then there’s Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Noel Coward, and on and on. A beautiful building, although very busy. Tons and tons of people, and tons of objects and coffins and tombs packing every inch of it. Not the big open spaces like Salisbury Cathedral, for example.

The highlight had to be my dad noticing that the author my mom had written her PhD on was buried there as well. Thing is, it took her ages and she hated him. Bulwer Lytton I believe it was. So we watched and waited until she noticed it, and her reaction was priceless.

As we were all starving, we took the opportunity to hit up the National Gallery restaurant, and had a great tea and meal. We then went to the theater to see the Lord of the Rings musical/play thing. It was very strange, but on the whole enjoyable. Some scenes were kind of asinine, and the story telling was truncated in the interest of time. They skillfully (as Annalisa said) adapted the script, though, and their shortcuts made sense. The stage was a rotating disc, except it also had square sections of it that could rise and form ramps, platforms, and rocky scenes. The lighting was spectacular, and actors could descend from the ceiling.

The small scenes amongst Sam and Frodo and Gollum were very, very good, although I think I had quite enough of Galadriel whimpering about Lothlorien. The acting was spotty. Actors would be strong in one scene, and then behave as if they were uncertain of their lines and not pick up their cues quickly in the next. Gandalf sometimes spoke with great understanding, but other times bellowed for no reason. Boromir put in a strong performance. The best dialog was lifted right from the books, and fortunately they did that frequently.

The most amusing thing for me was that in between Acts II and III, orc actors roamed through the audience with the house lights off, growling at people. It startled me as I was right by one of the doors they first came through, and their movements were very animalistic. The best had to be when they found people in the audience who were terrified by it, and they hounded them. Excellent.

So tomorrow we head out to Italy, Switzerland, and France. I will try to update from the road, but if not, this will be on hiatus until April 27th or so. Needless to say, I will have quite a bit to write about then.