LondonWeekendFriday

Last weekend was a non-stop mix of intensity, fun and culture. It started off with my first behind the wheel driving lesson. It went pretty well. I like my instructor and he recommended I book my driving test right away, so a couple of more months and I should be driving in the UK! It was however, really intense. Trying to learn the UK way of doing things, which often involves unlearning the US way of doing things, combined with having a teacher in the car with London traffic - certainly not a Sunday drive.

I couldn't wait to get to lunch and have a glass of wine. Joe and I met up with our friend Bernie at a quaint French bistro near Covent Garden. She's from South Africa so mostly we talked about our pending safari plans.

On the way to lunch I stopped at the Tkts booth for the Official London Theatre Society and picked up two tickets for Plague Over England. It was a great play. Using the "tea room" (what the Brits call "cottaging") arrest of Sir John Gielgud in 1953 as the center of the story, the play explores the nascent gay rights movement in England at the time. As a play it was engaging and well done. As an opportunity to learn about a moment in time and juxtapose it against my knowledge of the gay rights movement in the U.S. it was excellent.

Before the play we had dinner at Sitaaray, in the West End theatre district. The food was good, but the concept was great. Essential it was a tasting menu, we received a couple dozen of things to taste, which was fun for me. I tend to stick to my favorites at Indian restaurants and don't explore much so this really gave me that opportunity. And the price was really reasonable.