London Proms

When Rachel first told me that she had purchased tickets for us to attend the a night of the London Proms I was a bit dubious (and concerned that some of the old dresses in purple, emerald, etc. that we used to have in the basement in San Francisco might have made a stealthy trip to London..)

It turns out that these events are billed as "The Worlds Greatest Classical Music Festival" (see here) - and do not involve any dj's or a bunch of kids dancing tight circles as one might think from the title...

The event we attended was the last performance of a series by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Crystal Palace the 26th of August -- a park that we had not previously attended in South London (map here- the event was in front of the pond at the top).

We had a big day earlier - where I kind of suggested that we walk to the Tate Museum from our flat to see an exhibit that was due to end soon (which took maybe just slightly a bit longer than I had originally anticipated) and were considering not going to the Proms - but we were glad that we did make the effort to get the train south from Westminster.

Rachel had gotten the 'premier tickets', which provided reserved canvas beach chairs up front by the pond - providing great views of both the performers and the fireworks display at the end.
the looks I get here are great:



We were amazed by the size of the crowd, their enthusiasm, patriotism...

patriotism:


fireworks:

...and atmosphere that was more lively than we thought a philharmonic audience would provide. In all it was a great afternoon and evenign out, even when I suggested that we got off of the train a stop early to walk back through Battersea Park, which was just a bit too much -- but also gave us this view to end the day:

***EDITOR'S NOTE****
For the record, I never wore an emerald prom dress....to be precise, it was for the Junior prom, and was "electric blue" not purple. After all, it was Long Island in the late 80's. For the senior prom, I went with an understated white. Goodwill in San Francisco must have been quite surprised opening that bag of donations.