Bank Holiday Weekend

This weekend was a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK. I love long weekends. It started great on Friday, which was the last day I was allowed to take summer hours and left work at 1pm. I went home, hung out a bit and had a nice lunch with my bf who had taken the day off work. He had spend the morning at the immigration office and got a new visa. He is now allowed to stay and work in the UK indefinitely. Yay! We celebrated a bit but then I had to leave for a birthday party.

It was at one of my favourite pubs. Waxy's Little Sister, right between Leicester Square and the main street through Chinatown. They have a little food lift in the middle of the pub where you can order drinks to the first floor without having to go downstairs. It was brilliant! I forgot to take a picture of it, but you can see it on their website. It's the wooden box thing on their bar. They also have a couple of fireplaces which was perfect as it was pouring down rain when I walked from the tube to the pub. My legs were soaked!

Of course, when we got hungry we made our way over to Chinatown and had some food. I was expecting to get something really greasy, but we managed to squeeze into a nice restaurant and had really good and healthy Chinese food (who ever heard of that). I didn't mind since I hadn't been drinking anyway.

After dinner a friend of mine and I slipped away to make our way down to the Globe Theatre to watch Shakespeare like it's meant to be. It was very exciting. We went to the midnight showing of 'As You Like It'. I had not seen the play before and really enjoyed it. The atmosphere was brilliant. They sold food and drinks outside the theatre. Our seats were all the way at the top in the last row. But we could see really well. I thought it was a bit irritating that they left the lights on full even during the play. It's just weird when the spectators boxes are illuminated during a performance. And I loved that all the windows that were in the staircase leading up to the floors didn't really have windows in them. The windows were holes in the wall. Loved it!

 View back into the audience. It looks really dark, but was not at all. I am just photographing against the light.

We were sitting on the side of the stage. I liked how the stage had it's own roof. Poor people standing in the middle of the theatre. No roof at all. Luckily it didn't rain. I completely forgot to take a picture of the middle bit.

Notice the people standing in front of the stage. They had to be there for almost THREE hours! Play started at midnight and we got out at 2.45am. Only a small break of ten minutes in between. Gosh was I glad that we paid more for seats!

Overall it was a great experience. In the three years I have been here I always wanted to go to the Globe but somehow just never made it. And I think the midnight showing is just such a great idea. It was great to walk through the city along the South Bank towards the cinema. The area is really cool. You can see all of the old buildings on the north side of the river that give way slowly to more modern buildings the further east you walk. It's just such a nice walk. And I love the smell and sound of the Thames. Need to remember to leave the house more often and do new things!