To Blog or Not To Blog

I'm traveling again. We never did go on the biology field trip with William. Turns out we waited too long to sign up and now they've got all sorts of rules for parents to participate. Background checks, fingerprinting, TB testing and so on. Dang! I know that I want the kids to be safe and all but I have to say it was a bit annoying. I've been volunteering at this school for over a decade and HELLOOOO, no one has ever mentioned these things before. And yes, it's for the kids. And if they let me continue without all that, then they have to let others..... I just miss the good ol' days when we were a small town and acted like one.

ANYWAY.

So Hubby and I decided to go to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for a couple of days. Because of course we haven't had nearly enough vacation recently. Snort. I remembered my camera and my laptop but forgot to bring the teeny little card reader, so I can't upload any photos for you from yesterday. And then I had an inspiration. Why not upload some photos I already have with a travel theme. But where to find such photos? Hmmmmmm.

Oh, I know! What about that little trip we just took to... where was that again? London? Of course!




We all love riding on the top of the double decker busses. Great view from up there and if you can get the front seats, I like to pretend I'm driving. I know, I'm five years old. At night I like to pretend I'm on the Night Bus. Or is it the Knight Bus? Well, Harry's bus anyway. I was trying to snap a photo here of the Joseph sign before we raced by it.



Here we are in the Underground. At St. John's Wood to be exact. Those signs are so iconographic of London to my mind. I took this photo because hubby loves Pushing Daisies and apparently so do the Brits. These huge billboards are all over the metro stations in both London and Paris. To get an idea of how large it is, you have to know that hubby is standing on the platform in front of two lines of track and the sign is on the other side.



Another photo of Sam and Kyla (and two other traveler's in the foreground) trying to get their tickets to work. It wouldn't let them out of the turnstyles. We're at the Abbey Road station here, although I don't think it's actually called that, trying to get up and do some staged walking.



In my efforts to take photos of things you wouldn't think to take photos of, here's a photo of some underground stairs and escalators. I was taking photos of the Way Out sign. There's also a sign somewhere in the picture, which didn't show up, reminding people to stand to the right. They take their escalator positioning VERY seriously, so people can race up the escalators to wherever they need to go in such a hurry. And of course MORE posters. These are tiny ones that line all the escalators. There are also midsized posters for the hallways that connect everything.

I know this is boring for all of you who actually use subways as a matter of everyday life. But for us small town folk (and most U.S. Westerners) it's all rather exotic. Easily entertained. Ooh, look, something shiny!



And the perfect tie in to our current location, here's a photo of the original Globe Theatre in London. I understand it's the only thatched building left in London. For safety purposes. This isn't the original original. The original burned down - several times if I'm not mistaken. But it's on the same site. We didn't go in because there was a huge crowd of teenagers going through the door and we figured it was either a private tour or a matinee going on. Wish I could have seen what it looked like inside. The outside isn't terribly impressive. No, I mean, it's lovely. But sort of lost in amongst all the other buildings. But, as the bard himself says - "The play's the thing." Doesn't he say that?

Honestly, and I know some of you will gasp at this, but I think the Elizabethan Theatre here in Ashland, made as a recreation of the Globe, is much prettier, at least on the outside (and the inside is cool too.) It sits on a slope overlooking Lithia Park on two sides and down on the town on another. I'll try to get some photos of it while I'm here, although it's not open for the season yet this year and it's sort of hard to get a good shot of the entire thing.

And now, off to see faeries and mortals run around the woods in confusion. Name that play.