(Please beware: this post contains 13LBE Spoilers)
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| Standing in front of Harrods |
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| My beloved copy of 13LBE opened to the Harrods chapter! |
As long time readers
of my blog will know, Maureen Johnson's 2005 novel 13 Little Blue
Envelopes inspired me to travel. One of the most important places
that the main character, Ginny goes to is London. There she follows
the directions in envelopes 2 and 3. The entire adventure her Aunt
Peg leads Ginny on comes to an end in London as well.
When I went to
London I knew that I had to try and see some of the places that Ginny
went to. First on the list was Harrods. Harrods is where Ginny's
uncle Richard works and where Aunt Peg ultimately led Ginny to find
her paintings. When Ginny first gets to London Richard takes her to
Harrods. So of course I wanted to make sure that one of the first
things I did was head to this huge department store. I underestimated
it's size. This place is almost too big. I don't think I seen even a
quarter of it because it was getting very late and my mom and I were
exhausted. Originally, I was planning on finding Mo's Diner, where
Richard and Ginny eat in the novel. I didn't though. Honestly, I'm
not 100% positive it existed. I could have been searching for a
fiction, but I didn't mind.
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| Ginny "looked left" but in front of Harrods you must look right! These were very helpful in London. |
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| The Egyptian Escalator |
I also wanted to find the chocolate
counter that Ginny went to so often in the novel to have the woman
working there page Richard for her. I found it and was extremely
pleased with myself. I didn't buy any chocolate there though because
I had already bought a bar from another shop just in case the counter
was a fiction too. The chocolate bar I bought even had a picture of
Harrods on the wrapper (which I saved and pasted into my copy of
13LBE). I was amazed by the sheer size and weirdness of Harrods, just
like Ginny was. They really do have a escalator that looks like it
was ripped out of stereotypical ancient Egypt. I was so astounded by
this that I stopped dead in my tracks and some guy bumped into me!
Harrods was a strange, sort of wonderful place and I could see why
Aunt Peg liked it so much!
Envelope #3
instructs Ginny to “become a mysterious benefactor.” Aunt Peg
tells her to give an artist she likes £500.
I do not have that kinda cash so I settled on a fiver.
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| Alex and Jim! |
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| I wasn't kidding about all the sheep! |
Richard tells
Ginny she should check out Covent Garden and while Ginny didn't find
her artist there I did. Jim and Alex performers who haunt the Garden
regularly. They were fantastically entertaining and I wished I had
more to give them. They did everything from juggling to unicycles. I
really liked how they asked a young boy from the audience to help. I
encourage you to go on youtube to look those two up. Covent Garden
itself was a strange place though. It is an indoor/outdoor market
type place where a lot of artists busk for a living. Among Jim and
Alex there was also a man playing this crazy multi-piece instrument,
a man who could make a creepily accurate sculpture of you in a half
hour, and for some very odd reason a hundred or so Shaun the Sheeps.
I could have stayed there for hours just watching all the people
perform.
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| Standing in front of Aunt Peg's favorite painting. |
My small tour of
Ginny's London also took me to the Courtald Gallery where they have
in their collection a very important painting to Aunt Peg, Manet's
The Bar at the Folies-Bergere. Aunt Peg loved this painting so
much she had a print of it on her wall where ever she lived. She also
hid the key to the cupboard that held all her paintings under the
left top corner, directly under the famous green slippers. I needed
to see this painting for myself and so very early on our last morning
in London I made my mom go to the museum when it opened. I was a girl
on a mission! I was here to see Peg's favorite painting (also to see
Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear but that is another
story). I am so glad that I went to see this painting in person. I
never really understood why Peg loved this painting until I went to
London. You stand looking at it like you are the artist, facing the
bar. It portrays a young woman who looks terribly bored despite all
the action that is happening in front of her (we see what is
happening behind us through the mirror behind the woman). All of this
excitement is happening and yet the girl is not enjoying it. That was
sort of me in London at times. I was doing exactly what I had always
wanted but I wasn't enjoying it, more like checking it off a list.
However, here in this gallery with only my mom, the guard, and this
painting I was finally seeing. I was seeing Peg's love of this
painting and my own love of London.
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| My copy opened to the page the painting is first mentioned. I pasted in a print of the painting ages ago. MJ herself took a picture of this page when she saw what I did to it. |
13 Little Blue
Envelopes came alive for me in London. This year I plan to follow
more of the envelopes as I backpack across Europe almost like Ginny
does in the novel. I encourage you to read this amazing book if you
haven't already. You can read my semi-incoherent-because-I-was-too-excited review of the book here, and my post about meeting the book's
author, Maureen Johnson here.
More to come soon,
~Laura
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