Corsets, and Tumblers on Ropes

This morning I wake up early because the French girl on the other bunk has been snoring all night and it's impossible to sleep in. My sleep cycle still hasn't synced to the northern hemisphere anyway, and so I am awake and alert. And I pull out the guide book whilst munching on the hostel's breakfast of jam on toast and decide that today is the day I visit Shakespeare's globe.

I am in love with the Underground. I purchase an all day ticket, and then my journey is easy. I cross vast distances all under the city and pop up next door to my destination. Or sometimes not. The closest station to the Globe is London Bridge, and I climb up the stairs there, and then have to make my way through large walled in markets and past little cafes and wine bars to the side of the Thames. I stand, perplexed, for ten minutes outside of a bar called "Walkabout". They claim to be Aussie and sell kangaroo burgers. I am disturbed.

The Globe is easy to find, and not as expensive as some other attractions. A slightly bored looking guide takes us around the rebuilt theatre. It’s built to the same specifications as Shakespeare’s Globe and using the same techniques as would have been used in Elizabethan times, although it’s not in the same location as the original. We stand in the pit in front of the stage and then we climb to the highest galleries. It’s an open air stage and the clouds look like they're about to open onto us – very authentic. I buy a ticket for the afternoon's matinee of Pericles and then wander around the museum.

In each year's season, the Globe puts on about five or six productions. Some of them are Shakespearean, some of them are not. Some of them are modern performances, and some of them are produced just as they would have been in Shakespeare's day. That means no light but what the sun provides, few props, costumes made from fabrics available in Elizabethan times, in Elizabethan style using Elizabethan methods. And girls’ parts are played by men. In the museum, they call everyone's attention to a small stage. Here, a costume mistress and her assistant bring out the outfit the actress playing Ophelia wore in last production of Hamlet, and offer to dress someone in it to give an idea of what the actors go through, and also what Elizabethan women went through. Of course, I volunteer myself to be dressed.

I am taken backstage and given knitted silk stockings and a linen chemise. Back onstage, my stockings are cross-gartered and leather shoes are put on my feet. I am strapped into a corset - a real corset - and I have to sit tall or I can no longer breathe. Next are hooped petticoats and a roll of fabric which ties around my bum to give me hips, and then a heavy skirt and jacket. Linen cuffs are tied to my wrists, and a linen cap to my head, and finally I am dressed. As if I were to be sitting in my chambers all day and not greeting people. I can barely move, and even sitting down takes preparation and thought – care to arrange my skirts just so – and this is the Elizabethan equivalent of tracksuit pants and slippers.

It takes nearly as long to undress me as to dress me, and when I am finished it is time for the show to begin. I am seated in the galleries, because I am too tired to stand in the pit. The play is a modern version of Pericles, but there is still very little set or costumes, and the only light is the sun (behind the clouds). Half the cast is a troupe of acrobats and to indicate a ship on sea during a storm they swing and hurl and climb and tumble on ropes hung from all around the theatre. The actors interact with the audience and the whole thing is much like it would have been in Shakepeare’s day - big on music, and sound and spectacle. Nothing at all like seeing a civilised production of Julius Ceaser at Newcastle’s Civic Theatre.

Afterwards, I catch a train back to the city, and wander through the streets. I find a little Italian restaurant and have pasta and wine for dinner. The place is tiny, yet the head waiter is manic, taking everything on himself whilst the rest of the staff stand behind the counter polishing glasses. I am stunned to see someone at the next table light up a cigarette. Apparently, you can still do that here.

With jetlag, I went to bed early, it is going to be a long journey in the morning. I think tonight, I will sleep straight through the snores.

London, Now.

I’m in London, still, and I am very, very tired. Today, I looked at the tombs of Kings and Poets, stroked the stone carvings of their faces. I strolled along the Thames, bathed in the accents around me, and smiled big, silly, ecstatic smiles to be on the other side of the world, looking at things that were old before white man had even heard of Australia. There is nowhere I have to be, except where my feet and sense of adventure lead me. I have no obligations yet, and sitting sipping tea I pondered a guide book like the touristy traveller I am almost ashamed to be, and picked, based on proximity, the sites I would like to visit, and visited them. The Temple Church was closed until further notice, but rather than disappointed, I simply shrugged my shoulders and found something else to visit. In the evening, I ran late to see a production of As You Like It; I giggled though the first half, and struggled to keep my eyes open through the second half as jet lag hit. Tomorrow, I’m going to visit Shakespeare’s Globe.

Love you to wee bitsies and I mean it when I say I wish you were here.

Hyperactive Jetlag

I’m here. I am so out of it. My body does not have any idea of what time it is, nor what state is should be in therefore is compensating by just being exhausted. I want to walk around. After nearly thirty hours of travel time, I never want to sit again. I want to curl into a little ball and sleep for the next three days. I want to cram everything there is to do in London into three days. I can’t wait to go exploring.

I wanted this, my first entry from a new country, to be interesting and exciting. I wanted to tell you about the fully-veiled Muslim women I saw in KL airport, about the Egyptian men in turbans, how there was three distinct smells between the plane and the customs desk at Heathrow (detergent, sharp and overly clean in the halls; curry-stuffy and hot in the line up for passport check, surrounded by Indian women in sari’s; and an exotic perfume that wafted by me in the wake of a hidden Muslim woman). But I am too tired for length and eloquence. I just wanted to let you all know that I am here and I am safe. Tonight, I sleep. Tomorrow the adventures can begin.

Looking Forward.

I’m even looking forward to the plane trip. Two hours in a cramped car with emotional best friends and excited parents, followed by two and a half hours of agitation in the airport, torn between wanting desperately to get on the plane, and get the adventure on the way, and wanting to spend every single last second I can with my favourite people. I’ll check in, make sure they’ve got my vegetarian meals and try and get a window seat, or failing that and aisle seat, or failing that, anything but a seat in the centre of the plane. I’ll pick around the duty-free stores with Dad and Jess, and Mum’s maternal instincts will override her anti-commercialism and she will panic that I haven’t packed enough underwear, jumpers, chocolate biscuits and buy them all for me. I won’t want to go through security until I have to, but I’ll also worry the whole time that I’ve left it too late and I’m going to miss my flight. Through the gates, and it wont hit me yet that I am on my own. That won’t happen for hours yet. Not til I am exhausted and hungry and smelly from travel and then I’ll just want the comforts and ease of home. It won’t be until I want it, that I’ll realise what I can’t have.

But back to the flight: for the first hour, it’ll all be very exciting: the take-off (hopefully watched through the window next to my seat) will keep me entertained for its duration, then the exploration of the radio and movie channels, and the in-flight magazine. My flight is a late flight, so I doubt it will be long before they hand out the blankies and the eye-patches and switch off the cabin lighting. I can’t tell yet which will be strongest – my excitement which will keep me awake, or my instinctual sleep mechanism that sends me into unconsciousness as soon as I board a moving vehicle. I’m hoping I’ll be able to sleep; time flies when you sleep.

Eight and a half hours later, I will land in Kuala Lumpur. This will be the test – seven hours in KL airport. Not long enough to actually leave, it is long enough to be truly annoying. But I am looking forward to this leg of the journey, too. I’ll arrive at 4.45am local time, just in time to find a cafe for a morning cup of tea and breakfast. I look forward to searching out the suitable cafe, settling in with a pot of tea, pulling out a journal and watching the other travellers go past. When I can no longer stand sitting still, I’ll take a walk around the airport to stretch my legs. Last time I had a stop over in an airport, I had a huge bag stuffed with carry on luggage. This time I anticipate having nothing but a small and light backpack, no trouble at all to sling over my shoulder. I will browse through the shops and allow the multiple languages to flow around me, drowning out my native, boring, common and egotistical English, no longer the all important only language. I hope to find an internet cafe, and leave you all long emails, telling you of my so small adventures in the hours since I left your side. Once I have nothing more to say, I will find a table in a cafe again, perhaps the same one, and I will have lunch and still more tea. In such ways I will pass the time in KL

The last leg of the journey is also the longest. Thirteen and more hours, in my little seat by the window (I am being optimistic here). And now all my tricks for self entertainment will come out. The long and trashy novel, the 150 hours of music on my personal music player, writing in one of three travel journals, whatever movies I haven’t already watched, and when all else fails, solitaire. Perhaps there will be someone interesting to talk to sitting next to me. And hopefully I will be able to sleep.

At six o’clock at night I arrive at Heathrow. After all the rigmarole of clearing customs and baggage collection, I have a trip on the tube to the centre of London. Here, I have a bed in a hostel booked for me, and three days in which to sleep, sightsee and adjust. Then it’s up north. Camping in the rain and searching for ancient Roman remains.

A month and a half ago, I was nothing but eager excitement, but now as the time approaches I swing from one state to its opposite: at times I am boldness and adventure and anticipation. At others, I am nervousness and anxiousness and I am missing you already. But as I draw nearer to the date, I am reassured by all the little pieces I have planned falling into place. I am calm now, and ready.

I am missing you already.