Greatest Hits, continued.

Friday, we went to see Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, which is famous for being the longest running show - of any kind - in the world.  It's in its 59th year and has been performed over 23,000 times.  We figured if it has that kind of showbiz longevity, it must be good.  And it was!  But then, who can resist that mixture of English decorum and perturbing murder mystery that is oh-so-Agatha Christie?  Judging by her status as the best-selling writer of all time, not many.

Developing a dangerously fast-growing addiction to the theater, Saturday we went to see George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (the play My Fair Lady is based on), starring Rupert Everett, Dame Diana Rigg (she was a Bond girl but is most famous for being Emma Peel in The Avengers) and Kara Tointon (Eastenders - she's a big deal here).  Again, it was fantastic.  Since it deals heavily with class, it was especially interesting to watch after having been here a few months and having seen how the class system is still very much present.

Alex also conned me into going to the Imperial War Museum with him, which turned out to be cooler than I gave it credit for.  Although judging by their displays, the English seem to be under the impression that World War I is the only major war ever to have occurred. They had an impressive plane collection...

...and, among other things, TE Lawrence's motorcycle!

Not to be deterred by abysmal weather, we spent Sunday sloshing around in Greenwich.  To get there, we had to go through the Greenwich foot tunnel.  Linking Tower Hamlets to Greenwich across the Thames, the foot tunnel actually goes under the river.  Already having serious doubts about whole walking under water situation  (phobia and all that), learning that the thing was built in 1900 didn't make me feel much better.  It was pretty dodgy, as my English friends would say, and the roar of the water around you was more than a little disconcerting...

Greenwich was (almost) worth putting our lives in danger, though.  It is a very nice area, outside central London and thus more green and suburban.  Or, I think it would have been green if we could have seen through the rain, anyway.  Among a number of sites, Greenwich boasts the Old Royal Naval College and the Queen's House.  The latter was designed by Inigo Jones who is best known for bringing proper Palladian architecture to England, and the former was designed by Christopher Wren who is best known for designing pretty much every building in England that Inigo Jones didn't (best known for St. Paul's Cathedral).  It's really unique to get to see works by England's most famous architects side by side:

The Old Naval College is the Baroque thing in front,
which flanks the Queen's House, at the center .

Greenwich is most well-known, however, for its Royal Observatory and the line which demarcates the Prime Meridian (longitude 0 degrees), and the Mean Time which originates there.

The Prime Meridian is that brick line.

Finally, we made it to the British Library, which I was surprised to find housed almost everything I've ever wanted to see.  They have everything from Jane Austen's writing desk , to Darwin's letters, to Mozart's scores... it was pretty fun seeing the original manuscripts of pieces I'd played.  They've got a Gutenberg Bible and another copy of the Magna Carta - which means I've now seen two of the three Magna Cartas that have been dated to 1215! They also had a really interesting sci-fi exhibit.  I definitely underestimated the Library; it's fantastic.  My favorite find was probably Beethoven's tuning fork:

That about wraps things up for now.  It's amazing that after feeling like I've done a thousand things, there are still a million more to be done!  London can be described by many words, but one of them is certainly not "boring."