What a couple of days! Sunday would've been boring, had it not been for April, a friend of mine from back home, who got stranded in London for another couple days after she missed her flight back to Spain. So she asked if she could stay with me for the night; I said yes, of course, and went to pick her up, we went to the King's Tun, then came back and watched BBC Sherlock, s2. (Well, just The Hound of Baskerville, because she'd only seen Scandal.)
Monday, then, I was supposed to meet Bella up at Waterloo at 10.30 for our Sherlock Holmes Day. April ended up coming along and we left Waterloo around 11, headed for, first:
+ the street where they shoot the 221B exteriors in BBC Sherlock. We got off at Euston and wandered a couple blocks to number 187, North Gower Street, which is the beautiful deep deep blue-black door I recognize from the show. I didn't go in and eat at Speedy's cafe (supposedly Mrs. Hudson's shop, in the show, but a cafe in real life), but it looked cute.
+ And I saw my first I Believe in Sherlock Holmes! It was a small white index card, taped to the right and a little down from the number on the door. Quick rundown, after the last episode in the second series (where, supposedly, he dies; but he doesn't and we the audience know that--but no one else in the show does), the fans launched a campaign to try and tell the world that Sherlock Holmes was a great man, that he isn't dead, that he needn't have "died" in disgrace. It's a wonderful example of fandom at its best and one I'd really like to use in an ethnography of online fandom moving into the Real World. Go here or just google it if you'd like to see more.
+ After that, we walked up to Camden Market, which they hadn't been to, and spent a couple hours wandering around there. I'm just going to put it out there that Mexican food here is not like Mexican food in the states and I was rather disappointed. Not nearly spicy enough, for my liking. The banana-nutella crepe I had for dessert, though, was marvelous.
+ We then got back on the tube, and took a set of semi-complicated steps to get us on the Bakerloo line and up to Baker Street Station!
+ As soon as we stepped off, into the station that's decorated with silhouettes of the famous pipe-and-hat image, I started fangirling hardcore and had a hard time containing myself.
+ Even more so once we actually made it down to 221B/the museum. The gift shop came first, because that's where you have to buy your tickets (oh, they're good at this making money thing) and I had to keep telling Bella, "Tell me not to get a Death Frisbee" (what BBC Sherlock calls the deerstalker) or "Tell me not to buy Jack the Ripper related books in the Sherlock Holmes museum, they are two separate interests," which she repeated back dutifully at me, without much conviction. I managed to make it out with only the ticket and a book for someone back home, though, go me.
+ Walking up the seventeen steps to the first floor of Baker Street was wonderful. I'm not a full-on Sherlockian, I can't tell you all the little canonical details, but I am a fangirl and I can appreciate it all. Holmes' room was nice, and upstairs Watson's and Mrs. Hudson's rooms, but the sitting room made me shiver. I want to live there.
+ One thing that only some of my audience will get: the building next to Mrs. Hudson's cafe is used by, get this, Moffatt and Associates. I just about died when Bella showed me that.
+ After that, we walked around for a little while, then got back on the tube and headed to Charing Cross Station, where we took a left down Northumberland Avenue and hit up The Sherlock Holmes Pub. We were all so full from lunch that we ended up just having drinks and some garlic bread, but it was a nice place and I will definitely go back. I was particularly happy with all the paraphernalia on the walls and the fact that the Granada series (starring Jeremy Brett as a perfect Holmes) was playing just above our table. We missed most of the first one, but the second was The Speckled Band. (Really not a favorite of mine, honestly, but I do love Brett...)
+ Since we weren't hungry, however, we didn't stay there all that long (maybe an hour), and then headed back to Waterloo and caught the train back to Berrylands. April came because her stuff was still at my house and Bella came because I bribed her with chocolate if she came back and watched the unaired Sherlock pilot with April and I. (April hadn't seen it.) So that happened and we were fangirls and it was nice.
+ Bella left, I walked April to the station so she could catch the train back into London to go stay at her friend's place (he wasn't in Sunday and didn't get back until about 7 last night), then I put up pictures of the day and hit my bed.
A very busy but very good day! Bella and I are tentatively planning another Sherlock-centric day, in which we visit various landmarks from the show. So far all we have is St. Bart's, but I'd like to find some of the exterior shots, maybe trace a couple of their routes, because really. Sherlock Holmes and London is one of the most important relationships in the stories and it happens to be two of my current loves. I'd love to discover Holmes' London.
*Holmes in The Sign of the Four, one of my very favorite stories and one that gave me my other very favorite quote (which is quite long, hence why that wasn't my title):
"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation."
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