Monday
We be LAZY. I slept in for the first time in weeks and made a decent breakfast that was only slightly spoiled by a Jammy Dodger and a cupcake (for the Jubilee!). I spent the rest of the morning finishing the Tempest and actively working to not read Henry the Fifth (not having the book helped, but not much at all, way to exist, Sparknotes). I also went for a solo walk through the park and saw a lot of things that warranted photos, including more baby water fowl (ducks this time), but Henry had put me in too bad a mood at the time to take out my camera. Sorry.
Then it was time for a play, "Detroit," at the National (with me buying some veggie tacos from a street vendor on the way, because if I know one thing, it's never turn down a street taco). Fantastic contemporary play about a couple fresh out of rehab who move in next door to a bored couple. There was a lot of BBQ involved and also spit, blood, and gasoline (very messy stage). After, I felt a bit wistful and adventurous, mostly because the skyline looked like this:
So flatmate Eva and I did a bit of wandering about and found this great pub!
The Sherlock Holmes!
We simply had to go in for a pint and sticky toffee pudding.
Win my heart? Buy me cider and laugh at my Sherlock quotes.
After, the full moon was out and the sky and the Eye looked something like this
and it was all just so beautiful, I could have cried. Maybe I did, a little bit.
No wait, that was probably just pollen, this city is windy.
Tuesday
I worked on my final paper all morning (can you believe I have to do, like, school work here?). It seems like I spent an appalling amount of time this week just lying in bed eating candy, frankly, but in my defense, it's been cold out and my paper is in fact, bitchin' (Is one allowed to use "bitchin'" to describe Shakespeare? I'm just going to roll with it.) and British candy is just so, so good.
Ain't no party like a Tesco candy party 'cus a Tesco candy party be CHEAP. (Please also note my brand-new British copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)
In the evening we made another journey out to the Roundhouse to see "Twelfth Night," on the very same stage and with the very same cast, it was much more successful than "Comedy." I again sat in the front row and I again got SPLASHED. It was pretty hilarious though because this time around there was actually an attendant who warned front-row patrons and made sure everyone had a towel, but both she and the towels vanished after the first act (during which time no water was splashed) and did not reappear for the second (splash city).
Wednesday
Class. Then I journeyed alone out to Camden Market, yet another outdoor market near the Roundhouse, to try and find gifts and fun. The shopping itself was pretty unsuccessful as the stalls seemed to consist only of shoes (great shoes, I'll warrant), bongs, cheap t-shirts, bootleg anime merchandise, bongs, Indian necklaces, and bongs (technicolor!). The whole experience was kind of surreal, in part because of the strangeness of the buildings:
and in part because I kept popping around corners and ending up in dark covered stalls and grungy back alleys. I even ran across a gang of punks, complete with pale dirty skin and leather. (But they were only about fifteen, I'm not yet such a hardened Londonite) Seeing as there was absolutely nothing there I'd ever want to buy (except for some heavy platform leather boots that probably cost as much as they weighed) (Geddit? POUNDS! hahahahleastfunnnyposteverI'membarrassingmyselfnow), I left fairly soon to wander Picadilly, which yielded much better results. And did some serious wandering around the city. My city now. A few more snapshots of Camden:
Sure was pretty though.
Thursday
Class. Then Eva and I took a lot of trains and buses around while she bought play tickets and went to a cool store that specialized in Doctor Who memorabilia. The rest of the day was so lame and uneventful, it's nearly shameful. Pretend it's exciting that I got a really high score on Ticket to Ride on my phone and called my mom. Wait, I just found a photo someone took of me reading a book, look, I'm deep and need time to just soak in my surroundings like an intellectual sponge.
So yeah. Deep.
Friday
Oxford! This day was mixed-up and long and weird and educational, but mostly? It was cold and rainy. And just a bit nerdy.
Also gorgeous.
This is Christ Church College, also known as the Harry Potter college and the Alice in Wonderland college because Lewis Carrol taught here and as we will now see, several places around campus served as either inspiration for parts of the movies or parts were actually filmed here (!).
This is the Great Hall, where students continue to have their meals (we were just in time for the last walk-throughs before lunch was served). It's also the inspiration for the Hall in the movies! There are a number of long tables
and a high table, where I believe the staff eats.
This unassuming stairway? It's where McGonagall stands to greet first-year Harry and co.
This room with the weird celling detail? It's where McGonagall teaches the kids to dance in the Goblet of Fire. Believe it, kids.
Quads. They exist because of this college, it was the very first. By the by, did you know there's no such school as "Oxford?" It's a cluster of 39 colleges in the area, most of which are extremely old and all of which are horribly difficult to get into and afford for Americans (poo).
This is where students live. Some students. Some lucky students...we were there the day before exams for term, so there was confetti and champagne in the streets all over town.
We broke for lunch next at the Covered Market (which was in fact, and thankfully, covered from the elements), where I bought an enormous vegetable quiche and a horrible cup of what claimed to be hot chocolate with a shot of expresso. Our director also bought us AMAZINGLY delicious cookies at the original Ben's Cookies.
Pretties from around town...
Blackboard equation written by Albert Einstein. No really, that's all the story there is to it, once Einstein came to lecture at one of the colleges and they saved the blackboard.
Astonishingly huge book store (this was just a back section of it!) with a great selection of psych textbooks.
To the left, parenting manual with typical and hilarious Brit frankness and to the right, a 106 pound, thousand page handbook on yes, eye-movements (if you don't understand why this was in the psychology department or why I'm so excited to see it, we obviously need to talk soon so I may fill you in on my current career choices).
Things got a bit muddled after that because for our train tickets, we had to return in groups of four, which was extremely hard to coordinate, especially as my regular group left immediately after (in a group of four). I hung around with some of my other flatmates and some girls from the U's Graphic Studies in London program (who came with us...how exactly? And why? *shrug*) and our director, who lectured around town at sites where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien hung out (he's quite an expert, having written about them extensively, including a screenplay). I learned a lot, before I didn't even know they knew one another, but they actually influenced each other's work quite a bit and lectured at the same college (neither was especially good at teaching, Lewis refused to answer any questions and Tolkien mumbled and ranted away on tangents).
Pub where they met up and read one another's work.
Room where Lewis taught.
It would be incredibly boring to describe how much I really wanted to go home by this time, as well as how frustratingly long it took and how wet and cold I was, so let's all admire this photo of a wall where Lewis received the inspiration for two elements of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: the lions in the wall eventually became Aslam and the streetlight in the forest.
Really quite magical.
Saturday
A few (very few, four) flatmates and I got up fairly early to go to Hampstead with Jane, a pretty little artsy community on the outskirts of town. Mostly we walked the park, which was enormous and lovely.
Why, yes that is Keats' house!
We scattered around noon to do as we pleased, I went back to the Borough Market and bought a delicious veggie burger with red onion jam, and met up in the evening to make one final trip to the Roundhouse for "The Tempest." Did I like the play? Was it well-performed? Sure, yes, yeah, whatever, because it is fantastically hard to concentrate on a bunch of people singing and scheming onstage when ALAN RICKMAN IS SITTING A MERE TWENTY FEET AWAY FROM YOU. I was so excited, it would have been embarrassing if I were able to look at his general direction more than a handful of times. How did this all occur? LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT.
We always arrive early to chat and swap seats and whatnot, and I was just sitting around chewing a bagel (after you bring fish and chips to a play, you can bring pretty much whatever in with no self-consciousness) when one of my flatmates came up and started quietly murmuring to her friends next to me. The stifled excitement was palatable. I asked, "What's going on?""Alan Rickman is sitting right. over. there," she whispered as quietly as possible. My heart galloped. I stopped breathing. "How can I look at him?" I asked. She smiled and widely gestured behind me, "See, that's where Jessica and I are sitting!" "Oh! I see!" I exclaimed, heart thundering even more wildly. I had seen. He was with his lady and so darned distinguished-looking I could hardly bear it.
You may be wondering why I didn't, well, do anything about being so near such an amazing and talented individual. The thing is, big-name actors attending plays in London isn't such a big deal and apparently they don't like to be disturbed when they do, which I whole-heartedly can respect and appreciate. So I didn't talk to him or ask for an autograph (Good God, I could barely even look at him!) and he acted like a normal person, filing out slowly after the performance and crossing the street to catch a cab. Still, it was an incredible happening.
I breathed the same air as Snape, muggles.
(And strangely enough, even though it was yet the same stage and "Tempest" opens with a dramatic shipwreck AND I was in the front row again, the pool at front was drained of of water. No SeaWorld.)
Sunday
Today we went to our only required performance at the Globe, "Henry the Fifth." I hadn't been looking forward to this one as much because, urgh, history and urgh, rain and urgh, standing, but the actor playing Henry was incredible, he made the whole show (not to mention, he was very good-looking...). The Globe was fun too, there were minstrels singing with old-timey instruments before the show began, giving the whole thing a Renaissance faire kind of feel, but in a good way. Plus, it didn't rain much. Not a bad afternoon.
Best Play of the Week
After much deliberation, I'm going to say "Detroit," because the level of realism and sincerity made it one of the most believable and well-acted plays we've seen.
Most Magical Moment of the Week
NEED YOU ASK?
Absolute Strangest Moment of the Week
Whilst walking down Piccadilly alone Wednesday, I came across a white van caught in traffic. Large. Unremarkable. Somewhat rectangular. Tinted windows. In the front seat, two people dressed in black uniforms.
In the back, someone banging against the windows and screaming to be let out.
It was so absolutely bizarre, I could barely process what was happening, let alone respond in an appropriate way (call for help? take down the license plate numbers?). The drivers seemed perfectly unconcerned, but everyone on the streets noticed and stared too. I've been puzzling it through ever since and still can't imagine what was going on. A kidnapping? (It was certainly an adult) A transfer of a mental patient? (They'd definitely knock them out for that though, wouldn't they?) It was the worst kind of scary-bad, those screams stay with me.
Candy of the Week
Eclairs! Fat little caramels with chocolate in the middle, I like to suck them until it explodes out the sides. Also Starmix, a variety of gummy candies in weird shapes like fried eggs and diamond rings.
