The last day.  We depart at 6:45 a.m. for Heathrow tomorrow morning, and there will be no blog posting about that event.  So this is it.  The final posting for our busy three weeks.
     I am pleased to report that Groundhog Day was a huge hit with all of us, and we are all expecting it to become a hit when it moves to Broadway.  I will spare the non-theater fans the details of why the show works so well, but in brief we might credit the cleverness of the book, the brilliance of the staging, and the winning chemistry between cast and audience, starting with the letter-perfect performance in the lead by Andy Karl.  You'll be hearing more about Groundhog Day when it comes to the States.  See it if you can.
     Before the theater--an evening performance--we filled in a major hole in our London experience.  We had been to the city on three earlier occasions, but we had never been to Piccadilly Circus.  Now we have:

      These days, of course, Piccadilly Circus isn't even a real circus--a traffic circle--any more.  The pedestrian area where we are posing was once swirling with cars and buses, but now it's a pedestrian (in every sense of the term) strolling area.  From there we walked up Shaftesbury Avenue for a couple blocks, turned right for a walk through Chinatown, which looks rather seedy, and paused for a view of Leicester Square, which could also use a facelift, before we ended up at the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery.  At that point we broke into smaller groups to visit the museums as we wished.  I ran into a few Woodberry students in my own rounds.  Below, Edward stands beside a new acquisition at the National Gallery, a lifesize portrait of a horse commissioned by the owner and painted by George Stubbs:  

At the National Portrait Gallery I was happy to introduce Jackson and Charles to the Bronte sisters:

And to catch John C. in communion with our Tintern Abbey poet, Wordsworth, depicted in the large canvas to his left:

The group opted to walk from Trafalgar Square to the Old Vic Theatre, which is on the south bank just at the southern corner of Waterloo Station, and we found the opportunity for one more group photo on the Hungerford Bridge.  At the time I didn't realize that Thomas was getting blocked by Edward.  In the distance you can see the dome of our beloved St. Paul's Cathedral standing in contrast to some of the newer buildings on the London skyline:  

Tonight the college gave us a special gala banquet.  We had three superb courses punctuated by toasts from everyone.  

They even gave us the high table and the entire hall all to ourselves:

Here almost ends a great adventure.  I will relax once we're all back home safely.  Until then, thank you, readers, for your interest.