Miscellany

We generally focus on the big trips and events, but during that time the little things accumulate, so we thought we might put together a few of the memorable things we've done lately that don't deserve their own posts.

Concerts

One of the great things about living in such a major city is that pretty much any major concert tour makes its stop here. The problem is that in a city so big, they tend to sell out right away. We were lucky enough to be on Ticketmaster first thing for two that we really wanted to see though, and got great tickets for Both U2 and Coldplay at Wembley Stadium.

U2 was about everything you'd think it would be. They are probably the biggest rock band on the planet and led by one of the most recognizable names in music, the one and only Bono. Aside from the fact that they've put out some great music in the past 20 years, we also have a lot of respect for what the band does with their popularity - getting involved in a lot of charitable causes. The show was incredible. The stage was something between a space ship and a giant spider - I don't think it would fit in any stadium that didn't have a open top. They played all their best songs, except of course Jenna's favorite (The Sweetest Thing). We didn't have the best seats (they looked mostly like ants), but luckily their ridiculous stage had a giant screen that made things a little more visible. Anyway, not sure why we've never made it to one of their shows before, but we'll definitely try to catch them again.

Coldplay was also very good. Like U2 they are a British band, and their lead singer Chris Martin (a household name here) is married to American actress Gwyneth Paltrow. U2 is a little pretentious, thinking they're about the best band ever (which, to be honest, they have an argument for), and as such they had two no-name English bands open for them. Coldplay on the other hand still has a little humility, and had two big openers. First was Girls Aloud, which is a Spice Girls type band that is really big here but probably hasn't quite picked up across the pond. We didn't care much about them so we skipped it. The 2nd opener was Jay-Z, probably the biggest name in rap music. It was a pretty odd choice, but apparently he and Gwen are good friends, and he and Coldplay collaborated on a song on Coldplay's newest album. Anyway, it wasn't necessarily "our type of music", we did know a few of the songs, and he put on a super-high energy show. When he walked off the stage it felt like the show should be over, and we still had the main act!



They also put on a really great show. They are pushing their new album, so it was pretty heavy on the new stuff. That was okay, since we like most everything on the new album, but they also did mix in a lot of their older stuff, including dropping in about 50 huge "yellow" beach balls for the song that made them famous. They also did not sing Jenna's favorite song, Bonus Track! Again, one that we'd definitely go back to.

Greenwich



Greenwich (pronounced "grin-itch"), is a town on the Thames that used to be just east of London, but has now been swallowed by the city, and is actually quite central. We had a free Saturday in September and decided to spend the afternoon there.


This is the home of the famous Prime Meridian - 0 Degrees Longitude. It is also the home to GMT - Greenwich Mean Time - essentially ground zero for how we tell time. Officially, all time zones are given a time of GMT plus "x", So CST is actually just GMT + 6:00. As such, there is a big conservatory here. Apparently there was a lot that went into determining the longitudes. It has a lot to do with the rotation of the earth and time and a bunch of other scientific stuff, and it was all very important to navigation and seafaring. The conservatory had a little museum that explained it all, but to be honest we didn't understand it too much or care. We pretty much just wanted to say that we stood on, or stradled, the Prime Meridian...which we did.


The picture above is supposedly the line of the meridian leading up to a sculpture of the globe.

The 4th Plinth


Trafalgar Square is a major landmark in London - a large open square in front of the National Gallery art museum. When it was built, the plan was to put statues at the corners of the square. They built all four plinths (fancy name for the base that the statue sits on). They put up three of the statues, but for whatever reason they didn't have the money to build the fourth. They held off for several years, and by the time the money was available, the powers that be couldn't decide on which king/general/rich guy to put up there. While they were deciding, they started putting up temporary statues, and apparently it stuck.


For some time now, they've been putting statues that were on tour or waiting for a permanent home or whatever on a short term basis. So, the 4th Plinth has become famous as either a place to see something on display short term (usually a piece of art work as opposed to a classic statue), or to see an empty plinth.


A local artist named Anthony Gormley recently came up with a great idea for the plinth. (He was also a professor to Jenna's brother Hesse when he got his master's in Switzerland.) He decided that it would be nice to put the "normal man" up there. I think it is supposed to be something about the importance of the standard citizen - something along the lines of them being as important as the guys who stand on the other 3 plinths. Anyway, his plan came to fruition, and for 100 days from July to October, for 24 hours a day, some random person was standing on the plinth (anyone could apply online, and they were selected at random). Each person got 1 hour (that means 2400 people) to do whatever they wanted. A lot of the people were trying to bring awareness to some cause or another. Others tried to just have a fun time or show off in some way. We made our way past the plinth a couple times in the 100 days, and here is a recap of the ones we saw:

Chiari Malformation - Lady bringing attention to this rare sort of brain malformation. Not really sure but I guess it affects balance? Her presentation worked at least a little, because we'd never heard of it, and now we have.

Bingo! - This guy had assistants in the crowd who handed out bingo cards. He then drew out balls and called numbers with a megaphone. It was fun, but we didn't stick around long enough to win a prize.
Lady with crazy pink wig and swimsuit dancing - This lady was, well, wearing a crazy pink wig and a swimsuit and danced around. She was promoting families taking vacations in England.

Fisherman - He sat in a chair and...fished. Get Hooked on Fishing is a mentoring program for children while fishing.

Lady (we think) wearing a big eye - She was trying to speak for the blind. She also tried to throw balls out into the crowd, presumably with information on them. Ironically, the giant eye made it so she couldn't see, so the balls didn't get out to the crowd too well.

Indian Elvis - By far our favorite. It was 9:00 at night. He told us that he only found out about being on the plinth 24 hours earlier. In his short time to plan, he came up with dressing up like Elvis and singing his songs. He only had an iPod connected to a cheap boombox, so the sound wasn't great. Also, he obviously didn't know all the words, because he was using a clipboard with the lyrics. It was hilarious, though - his thick accent singing these songs by The King was great. The crowd got really into it - especially one crazy guy who was running around and dancing and singing like he was the main attraction. Anyway, we'd planned to stay fro 5 minutes, and ended up watching this guy for 30.

Windsor

Windsor is the official residence of the Queen, and at 800 years old it is the oldest occupied castle in the world. If you've been reading, we were thwarted in our first attempt to visit when they closed the entrance five minutes early. This time, we had a free Saturday, and devoted the whole of the day to getting out there.

It was an interesting visit. There's a big mix between the castles that you see everywhere else that are simply tourist attractions, and the palaces that you see everywhere else, that are super fancy. On the outside it looks like your standard castle, but on the inside it is very palatial, fitting of the fact that the Queen and her family do spend a lot of time here. It is supposed to be the Queen's favorite of all her homes, so she's there quite often. She was actually there the day we visited, but didn't happen to be greeting guests.

Could go into a lot of detail about all the stuff we saw - royal apartments, the grounds and gardens, and the chapel, but I'm sure people don't care that much, and this post is starting to run pretty long, so...