part the third

I now have access to a few of our trip photos and will be inserting them in appropriate places within my blog. You should note, however, that my sister was the only one who brought a camera (my mom forgot and my 35mm is a piece of crap) and while I love my sister dearly, her "artistic vision" is...quirky...to say the least.

Christmas night I couldn't sleep and spent a long time hanging out in the Greatest Bathroom Ever (so I wouldn't wake Mark and Lynn) leaning against the heated towel rack and writing. Lots of stuff for the hypothetical musical (Brian- don't let me forget to tell you about what I did) and my usual late-night insomnia. When the parents tried to wake me the next morning I must have been rather convincing because the rest of the family went off to shop for a new wardrobe for my brother and let me sleep. I don't know what happened to that boy since, oh, five minutes ago, but he went from refusing to wear anything with zippers, buttons, or socks to Mr. Stylish. He let my sister (who's always been the most aware of and willful about trends/fashion/appearance) help him pick out all kinds of quality sweaters, pants, shirts, and even jacket-like items. He's going to be hot stuff when school resumes.
My brother and father then headed off to a Chelsea-Fulham "football" game.

My brother's two cents:

The game was fantastic, you had people yelling 'wanker' and swearing at the ref the whole time, the Brits sure know their football!

While the boys did boy things, the girls obviously had to go shopping. After a lovely pub lunch (my steak sandwich and "chips" were delicious) we headed to the Boxing Day sales. My mom and sister had already shopped for several hours that morning, but we found an open air market that was extremely cool. Lots of random collectables and crafts and flea market-esque junk.

HANNAH SPENCER DON'T READ THE RED TEXT THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW A GOODLY PART OF YOUR PRESENT.
One booth particularly caught my eye. I've seen people make jewelry and other things out of silverware before, and it's kind of neat, but usually it just looks like they bent a fork around their wrist. People did this a lot in my metalsmithing classes at Interlochen and I've seen more professional versions as well. This guy's stand was completely different. He'd done incredible things with the tines of the forks, twisting them and twirling them into almost Celtic designs. The artist himself was running the stand and he talked about each item with a certain nostalgia for the original piece of silverware. I ended up buying Hannah a ring that I particularly liked and thought she would, too. He turned it over lovingly in his hand and said that it started as a sterling silver cocktail fork. He polished it up and offered to resize it to my finger (damn you, Hannah, and your fingers that aren't the exact same size as mine) and I did a lousy job of bartering the price but I felt somehow obligated to pay for the entertainment value of the whole experience in addition to the ring. Yes, I know that's stupid. Bad pictures of the ring taken with my phone: 1 and 2

Around this time my stomach started making very loud painful glurpy angry noises. We kept shopping, it kept hurting. We were meeting the boys for tea at 4:45 so we headed back to the hotel. I promptly barfed up mostly stomach acid and had my tummy explode. I stayed in the room during tea, spending much time in the bathroom, in the fetal position, and in bed. After a long nap, two Pepto-Bismols, and an Imodium I felt a bit better, or at least better enough to join the family for the London production of Chicago. Yes, we Chicagoans went to London to see Chicago. Irony abounds. None of us had ever seen the stage version before. It was very good. Somewhat entertaining to hear Brits trying to hold Chicago accents (some did better than others) and both Velma and Roxy were played by older (probably in their late 40s or early 50s) actresses. The ensemble was tight and the dancing was awesome and the men were particularly beautiful. "Pop Idol finalist Darius Danesh" played Billy Flynn. This is apparently a big deal, though I don't even watch American Idol let alone its British counterpart.

After the show we walked for about six months and in somewhat of a circle to dinner at Hakkasan. We had no idea how trendy this place was going in and my sister and I were a bit embarrassed at being both blandly dressed and with our parents. My stomach was still very cranky but the Chinese cuisine provided for some easily digestible and delicious options, including the jasmine chicken I chose. The rest of the family devoured an exotic fruit plate for dessert that I wish we had a photo of. That's what I get for not bringing my own camera.