'Round the Neighborhood

Finally, after slightly over 2 months of being here, I have taken pictures of the area where my residence hall is located! I meant to take more, and I will, I just got slightly sidetracked into seeing Big Ben. Again. hahaha Hopefully following my eagerly-anticipated haircut tomorrow :D

The first 3 are located on my building by the entrance way, on each side of the doors (the second one is below the first one). The rest are of the area to the left of the building as I exit, towards Gloucester (pronounced: Glaw-stir or Glau-stir, not sure which yet). The street of white buildings is the other residence hall (though I can't remember what side of the street it is...) More to come :D

Oh yes, this last picture is in the other direction from the residence hall, around the corner, and Prince William and Kate Middleton purportedly ate there (at the black shop, Italian restaurant Locanda Ottoemezzo) in late September!! Oooooh!!

Love's Labour's Lost

I really need to get cracking with this blog...really sorry for the lack of updates. Last week was a nightmare, I had two papers due one day after the other, the longer one being 2500-3000 words, and the other at 1500. I don't know why they just don't tell you how many pages to write, maybe it's because the paper here is a different size - I might have started them earlier! ;)

The last place I left off was the performance of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. I thought it was hilarious! Much funnier than when reading it, that's for sure. One of the actors injured his foot in an accident a while back, and before the play started they announced that he would still be performing, though with crutches (which added a lot of comedic value, he used them to his advantage - and they were decorated! haha)! These crutches were the type that are actually closer to arm braces, they had supports for the forearm and above the elbow.

No cameras were allowed during the performance (understandable) so I took pictures before they started of the set. We were standing up the whole time (about 3 hours!) with a short break towards the end. I think we had a really awesome time standing, better than those stuffy people in the seats! :D heh heh

Luckily, the weather was perfect, so no rain fell through the open roof onto us. I wanted to go back and see it again, but the show (and the theater, for that matter) closed its season three days later, and there was no way I could get back to it before then.

The first few pictures are from the Millennium Bridge, a footbridge across the Thames River that leads to the Tate Modern Museum, Globe Theatre, and other goodies, while the other pics are the theater itself, the poster for Love's Labour's Lost and the interior.

Well, this past week has probably been the least pleasant of my whole time here, and not because something bad happened or anything like that. I was sick this past weekend, as it seemed was everyone else, and was not in the best of moods. On top of that, the weather has reached the typical "English" stereotype of being rainy, cold and cloudy. Today was actually the first day that it hasn't rained in a while. Temperatures are about upper 50s to mid 60s, but it always feels colder than that with wind chills and rain. At night it sometimes reaches the 40s.

Tomorrow, I'm going with my Shakespeare class to another production. This time, it's at the Globe Theatre , and we're seeing Love's Labour's Lost, one of Shakespeare's comedies (I had never heard of it before this class, and I hope the production is better than the book :D though the text wasn't all that bad...). For this performance, we have tickets for "the yard", which is where all the "groundlings" stand to watch the play. They're the cheapest "seats" in the house, at 5 pounds/ticket, though some say it's the best place to see a play because you're the closest to the actors. Unfortunately, the theater has no roof (like it would have been in Shakespeare's time) and so in the event of rain, the show continues though the groundlings are not allowed to bring umbrellas (brollies ;) )...there are always Globe Theatre Ponchos, I guess....

Anyways, I hope I will have another opportunity to write soon after I have seen the play, however that pesky thing called homework is getting in the way more and more. Next week I have 2 papers due and a LOT of reading...eeek! hahaha

Until next time, cheerio!