Bubbles and Globes

I was so cold this Saturday. The past few days before that had been relatively warm, and I had been glad I was wearing dresses, so I naturally wore another dress on Saturday except I did not know London had decided it was getting a little too warm and better cool off with some icy rain and wind, and thus I was in a constant state of shivering.

That morning Cassidy, Olivia, and I were going to go to a cute breakfast place that Olivia had went with her mum before, but we didn’t wake up as early as we wanted to and when we got there we saw a long line of people waiting outside the door, so we said ummm not today and kept walking. We got tea at this cute tea and biscuit place, and the tea was kind of gross, but I drank it anyway because I’m in London. The biscuits were decorated like those fancy ones you see on Instagram and they were selling boxes of four biscuits for like £20. Lots of people walked by and took pictures, too, and we happened to be outside because there were no tables inside and unfortunately there were only two chairs so Olivia was nice and drank her chamomile tea hovering over Cassidy and I. She also got a gluten-free biscuit shaped like a butterfly.

We then contemplated between getting Thai with one group or fish and chips with another, and we flipped a coin, so we got fish and chips, which were good, except we had to eat them on the go, and I was still freezing, and they left the skin on one side of the fish and that grossed me out. But besides that they were delicious.

After we bought the fish and chips, we took the tube to the football game. We didn’t have to worry about where to find it after we got off the tube, because there was a very large crowd walking there, too. It started to rain as we got closer, and Ryan said “you don’t look wet,” but that was because my jacket was so soaked that the rain marks had turned my jacket a solid shade darker of violet, and when he touched my jacket he was like, “Oh, nevermind.”

After we got into the stadium and climbed all the way to the top, which I was only unhappy about because it wasn’t in the sun, we sat down and admired the vast football field. I’ve definitely never seen a football field like that. I haven’t been to very many huge sports games either, just a few Twins baseball games, probably because I don’t like sports all that much. But this was really cool. I liked how the seats were covered but the field was exposed to the sky, and I liked the way the sunlight (when it wasn’t blocked by clouds) flooded the field like a spotlight.  

Twice before the game started fans in the stadium bellowed the bubble song, while people close to the field had bubble machines that spewed bubbles out and up. We watched to see which bubble would get the highest before it popped, and hearing everyone sing the song made me grin, probably because I was in London and everyone knew the words and it reminded me of being at a concert when the band plays their most popular song and everyone in the room knows it and sings along even if they liked them mostly but only came with a friend, or whatever. I have included the lyrics:

I'm forever blowing bubbles,

Pretty bubbles in the air,

They fly so high,

They reach the sky,

And like my dreams they fade and die!

Fortunes always hiding,

I've looked everywhere,

I'm forever blowing bubbles,

Pretty bubbles in the air!

United!

United!

I was mildly surprised that watching the football game itself was actually fun too. I absolutely cannot watch American football; it is so, so, so, boring, but I could follow along with the British soccer game.

I would also like to mention next to the stadium was a huge, gigantic slide. I was wondering what it was and it struck me it might be a piece of art, so I looked it up and I was right, it’s called the ArcelorMittal Orbit and is a statue by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, which was exciting for me because I have learned about Anish Kapoor in my art classes.

So, after we followed the crowd back to the tube, we headed to the Globe Theatre. On the way we passed the Tate Modern, and we were going to walk through it to get to the other side, but I’m glad we didn’t, because I think it would’ve been cruel to allow me to enter the Tate Modern just to leave. The weather was sunny now, but by the time the group of us had ordered hot chocolate or croissants and went outside to eat it because I guess there wasn’t enough seats in the cafe, (which I thought was ridiculous, because I was so cold and I’m pretty sure there were enough seats), it started to rain violently and the wind gusted and we all scrambled inside, and oh look, we all fit. As Cassidy sipped her vegan hot chocolate (because they were out of regular hot chocolate) she expressed her concern about being a groundling at the Globe Theatre parce que the weather and the Globe Theatre does not have a roof. However, by the time we walked there and got our groundling tickets, deciding it would be better to get the suffering over with first, the sky was the faint, luminescent blue of being past the day but not twilight yet, and the rain had stopped.

The play was very interesting. It did take me a little while to understand what was happening, but with my background knowledge of She’s the Man, I was able to eventually connect the dots and realize he wasn’t a boy pretending to be a boy but a boy pretending to be a girl pretending to be a boy.  Everyone in the cast was gorgeous and brilliant and so talented, and I also noticed they were all wearing Doc Marten boots. There were also several humorous parts, that for the most part I was able to understand.

For the second half of the play I got to sit on the wooden benches surrounding the stage and floor, and I sat by Lisa Soper who was an angel and gave me her scarf and jacket to cover my legs, because I was wearing a dress, and gloves. I especially loved when the fool would sing, she was a gorgeous black woman with a beautiful voice.

We made it back to the center, and I was warm again.