The Globe, Tate Modern, Tower of London, and Billy Elliot

Seeing the Globe Theater (12/14) was pretty amazing (if you don’t know what that is it’s where Shakespeare’s plays were performed back during his time). It was very weird because there was no roof and it was like stadium seating? I don’t know it’s hard to explain, just look at the picture. The guy taking us around was explaining to us that the theaters unique design effects how the actors perform which I thought was very interesting.

After exploring the theater and doing an acting workshop, we went to the Tate Modern, which I had been looking forward to the entire trip! It was one of the best Museums I’ve ever been too! I loved it! They had all my favorite artists including Monet, Pollock, Dalí, Lichtenstein and… ANDY WARHOL! They ad an entire Andy Warhol Room! It was awesome :D

Yesterday (12/15), we went to the Tower of London. It was such a fiasco getting there. Basically, there was a ton of construction and delays on the tube, and Randy, Amy, Emily, and myself were about half an hour late. Patsy was not happy about it to say the least, so we had to pay for our own tickets. Patsy reimbursed Randy though so I need to e-mail her about that.

Anyway, the Tower of London was great! We saw the Queen’s crown jewels and Henry VIII armor and just walked all around. There were a lot of guards so we finally got some great pictures that we had been looking to take. We also saw the London Tower Bridge, which is so beautiful.

Later that night we saw Billy Elliot and it was phenomenal. I can’t even believe how good it was. I was crying during half the show; all the parts when he talked about his dead mom, and the talent of these kids was just so unreal. That show just made me wish I could do what those kids could do. I felt like such a dork crying during the show, but that’s just me for ya :)

Later that night a few of us went to a dance club called TigerTiger, which was a lot of fun. We danced and hung out and Steve tried teaching me how to Salsa, but that clearly didn’t work so well. We’ll have to try that again in the near future!

Today (12/16) was a day off so I slept in until about 1PM. Faryn had already left to go shopping. I considered going shopping myself, but I looked out the window and saw rain and lost my motivation. I finally submitted my Mother Courage review, so now I just have one more long review and one short review. I’m definitely writing a long review for Billy Elliot! Since its been a little while since Seize the Day so I might just do a short one on Peter Pan or War Horse since those are shows we’re seeing this week.

All of done today is THINK about writing my Billy Elliot review, and bought some groceries and went to Pret A Manger with Kamara. Don’t hate on me for being lazy, I’ve been doing so much! I bought myself a premade dinner thing so hopefully its good (trying to save a little money!) speaking of which, I’m all about of pounds! I need to exchange some ASAP. Don’t know what’s the plan for tonight. More to be continued!

Lots of Touristy stuff and SARAH JESSICA PARKER!

So the Toy Museum was a little lame, but it was cute. It had a lot of really old dolls that freaked me out. The gift shop was fun. I got to play with some stuff.

Leanne found out about a premiere that night for Did you hear about the Morgans? so we went to that in Leicester Square. WE SAW SARAH JESSICA PARKER AND HUGH GRANT! it was so exciting! i wish i had something for them to sign, but i probably wouldn't have gotten anything anyway. the crowds were pretty intense, but it was so awesome. SJP looked so good!

Seize the Day was really good! I enjoyed it a lot and we saw the original production of it. It was basically an all black cast and it took place in modern time and it was about a black man running for mayor of London. It was very well done, so I’ll probably write a review about it.

Yesterday (12/9) was a very touristy day. We woke up on the earlier side to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace (for the record, I always thought that Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament were the same thing. Well they’re not :P the one next to Big Ben that you see in all the pictures is the Houses are Parliament) the actual changing of the guards was pretty boring, but the whole experience was really great. Apparently it is the biggest visited tourist spot in the world. I definitely believe that because I heard so many different languages there. There was also a parade kind of thing that went on. There was a marching band and they played a medley of show tunes! It was so great! I’ll put a video below so you can see what I mean.

After that we walked through this park, which was really pretty. The walkway was named after Princess Diana which I thought was really nice. At the end of the walk we arrived at the Cabinet War Rooms, which was where Winston Churchill lead operations during WWII. It was also a Churchill museum and the place was basically left the way it was since WWII. It was pretty cool, and I little scary to see how it was then, but definitely an experience.

After this we went to Westminster Abbey which is where a lot of English figures are buried, including Queen Elizabeth I. it was a little freaky seeing tombs and whatnot, but the church was very pretty. It looked a lot like Hogwarts from the Harry Potter movies, so I have a feeling it might have been designed after that.

From there we walked over the bridge to the South Bank for our tour of the National Theatre, which is where we saw Mother Courage and her Children. It was cool to see the backstage workings and whatnot, but I was so tired so I didn’t get to really appreciate it unfortunately.

When we finally got back to the flat, I literally passed out (around 7:30). I woke up about 4 hours later and stayed up for a while. Luckily my sleep cycle wasn’t completely screwed up this morning!

So I woke up a little early this morning and Faryn and I walked to Starbucks for breakfast and then to the grocery store to get some food. Definitely needed to do that because I totally didn’t have any food in the apartment.

Today’s big sight was the Bevis Marks Synagogue, which is the biggest operating Sephardic synagogue in London (which is orthodox). It was nice seeing some Jewish culture considering half the sites in Europe are churches. This was in the East End of London where apparently a lot of Jews live. To be honest, I didn’t see anyone that looked Jewish outside of a 20-foot radius of the temple. The area seemed very Arabic, but it was cool to see a different part of London for sure. While seeing the temple we walked on the trail of Jack the Ripper, which was interesting. The shopping in this area was also very cheap so I might be heading back there.

Right now I’m on a little break until we see Pied Piper tonight, which is supposed to involve so hip-hop so that should be fun. Probably won’t write a review on this one however. I need to start writing about Mother Courage before Scotland tomorrow! I refuse to fall behind!

Shopping, and the WEIRDEST show EVER!

Today (12/4) we went on a shopping/walking tour. Faryn and I woke up excited to shop with everyone, but when I went to wake up Steve, Randy, Emily, and Amy, they all decided to stay in and sleep instead. Faryn and I ran to the tube stop and took it to the Marble Arch stop. The group for today ended up only being Faryn, Anna, Valerie, Patsy, and myself. It was actually good to have a small group because it was easier to go shopping that way! I can’t really remember the significance of the marble arch except that it is pretty and it used to be by Buckingham Palace and they moved it to its currently location? Whatever, all I know is it’s near the shopping district!

We walked into Governors Square which is across the road from the U.S. Embassy. It was cool seeing the embassy, and Patsy told us all about it. She said going in there is like crossing the boarder and they will check your passport and whatnot. She told us that she grew up in Switzerland as an embassy kid which I thought was cool. Her dad was someone important who worked at the embassy and it taught her to be tough. Every once in a while they would have kidnapping drills. Almost like fire drills but her family would practice what to do in a situation if her father were to be kidnapped or something and she wouldn’t know if it were real or not. I found that to be a little scary, but it was cool to hear about. She also said she used to have diplomatic immunity!

As we kept walking we located the house of HANDEL! That was so exciting considering I just wrote a paper on him for Baroque music. I wanted to go inside because it is a museum now, but nobody else wanted to go… I guess that’s something I’ll just have to do on my own one day soon. We went into the famous Liberty and Hamley’s Toy store, which was a lot of fun. We went to Carnaby Street which is where famous people in the 60’s would hang out (Beatles for example) and Piccadilly Circus, which is like the Times Square of London. We walked passed Waterstone’s, the biggest bookstore in the world. That’s something I also have to do on my own.

Around 1:30 we went to St. James Church which has free music concerts every Friday afternoon. We heard an orchestra of kids that looked about my age and they were incredible! We went to the famous Fortnum & Mason’s, which was so expensive haha. The shopping continued and then Faryn and I split and did our own thing and bought a few gifts :) then we went back to relax before the show.

That night we saw Endgame at the Duchess Theater. I honestly wish I could tell you what it was about, but I had no clue what the hell was going on during this show. The show was only one act, so there was no break. All I can tell you is that the main character was blind and sat in a chair the entire time, and he lived with his servant whom he always yelled at, and his parents lived in trashcans. It was so weird I cant even go more into it. Patsy loved it, but most of the group was so confused coming out of that theatre. Definitely not writing a review for this show.

A bunch of us found a place to eat a little. Most people wanted to stay out longer but I decided to go back and write my papers. I got back to the room and decided I wasn’t going to sleep until I had my long production review for Inherit the Wind finished. I eventually finished it, and went to bed at 5 in the morning. Oh well! Tomorrow is a day off and I can just sleep late! I’ll write a short review for The Woman in Black at some point during that free time.

Terrible Night Sleep & Theatreland Tour

I had the worst night sleep of my life last night. I fell asleep right away obviously because I was so tired, but I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep for a number of reasons. For 1, the fire department is down the block, so there are tons of sirens, 2. the streets are extremely noisy in general, and 3. The beds are still hard as rocks!!! I had to bunch up a blanket on top of the pillow for my head because it’s actually painful to sleep with my head directly on the pillow :( I was like wide away at 4 in the morning, I got up and had a glass of orange juice, got up and charged my camera, and basically waited for the sun to come up.

So a bunch of us woke up early and went to that shopping center. Faryn and I bought some groceries. I still don’t have a phone because the cheapest phone they had was out and I refuse to spend a ton of money when I’ll probably end up throwing out the phone. The line in starbucks was ridiculous, so I went to another coffee place called Giraffe, and the coffee sucked to say the least. We went back to our rooms, Faryn and I sat down and ate a little breakfast, and then the lot of us was off to the Tube (their version of the subway).

We arrived at Leicester Square in Westminster, which is kind of like the Theatre district of London (technically next to London), known as Theatreland. We met with Patsy and our tour guide named Val around 1:30 PM. Val was a great tour guide, but she had purple hair (I’m just saying). Anyway, we had a walking tour of Westminster for about 2 hours. I learned a lot from her. Some things that I found interesting that she told us was that London was not a planned city, therefore there are a lot of different kinds of buildings and architecture. WE went to a church called St. Paul’s, which is a church dedicated to the theatre and many English actors have memorials there. She explained to us how England switch from catholic to protestant around the time of Henry IIX because he wanted to get a divorce and the pope wouldn’t let him.

We also saw the Savoy hotel and theatre, which is supposed to be one of the most luxurious hotels in England. The street that drives up to it is the only street in England where everyone drives on the RIGHT side, rather than the left. The reason for this was back in the day, females needed to get out of the carriage on the side closest to the theatre (or something like that). There are no signs there though so I don’t know how they expect people to assume. That’s another thing I noticed about London… THERE ARE NO STREETS SIGNS ANYWHERE! It’s the most bizarre thing.

We went to Covent Garden, which is like a big piazza now, but it used to be a major farmers market. The walking tour continued until we got to the Thames River. Val explained the importance of the river and its history in London. She said that when the Romans developed the city, it was crucial to be centered on the river for trade purposes. She also said that the river is gradually getting narrower and deeper with time, which I thought was cool. We walked across to the other side of the river, which is considered London and the tour stopped there.

When we got there, everyone immediately agreed that we should go on the London Eye which is that Ferris Wheel looking observatory which has a perfect view of anywhere near the river, like the bridges and Buckingham Palace. The palace is on the Westminster side of the river, while we were on the other side in London. There was a really cute street fair going on around there so I’ll be wanting to check that out in the near future. We saw billboards for the Beatles exhibit and a Dali exhibit, so those are some things I might do on a day off.

For dinner we went to a pub called the Mad Hatter which had the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland painted on the ceiling. They claim to be one of the first pubs in London. I got vegetarian lasagna, which was different but tasty. Eventually we walked back to the tube stop and ended the night back in our flats. I am very exhausted but it was a great day. It was kind of cold out towards the end, but Steve tricked me into dressing very warmly in the morning so I was very content. A bunch of us hung out in Emily and Amy’s room later that night and ate chocolates. Amy

and Steve decided to make a fort in his room? And a bunch of us watch my dads bootleg of 2012. I fell asleep immediately :P when I woke up I had a second wind which sucked because I need all the help I can get falling asleep tonight. Oh well, hopefully tonight will be different! I am just going to finish up a homework assignment that’s due on Thursday and then I am off to bed (hopefully!). We are seeing Inherit the Wind tomorrow night with Kevin Spacey! I’m very excited.

Goodnight!!

View from the London Eye: