MONDAY - It was FREEZING cold today. Barely got above 45 F and with the wind chill and the humidity it was horrid. We went to class (which was uneventful, as usual) then I went back to the flats to write my paper for Lance's class that was due on Wednesday. I stressed over it more than was necessary but got it done before anyone else so I didn't have to worry about it. A bunch of people went out Monday night to West End shows, but I decided to relax and stay home. It was a little boring, but kind of nice at the same time to have some alone time, even though our little basement flat was so icy that I had on a long-sleeve shirt, a hoodie, sweatpants and socks and was under my covers and was still cold. We can't figure out how to make the stupid radiator work. Oh well. I survived :)
TUESDAY - Today we played at two touristy stops as a group: Musuem of London and the Banqueting House. The Museum of London was just that: a museum. It was nothing spectacular. There was some interesting information about medieval London life and I got rather upset by the gross disparity between the classes during that time period, but hey, it was just my inner Marxist flaring up. Wasn't too much to be seen or had there. Then we wandered about looking for the London Central Market, thinking it was like the Borough St. Market. When we found it, it turns out its not at ALL like Borough St. It's a wholesale food/meat/produce market and it was closed. So we puttered around until we finally found some places to eat. Christian and I went to a little shop called "FARM" where he got bangers and mash and I has a pumpkin and goat cheese pie and mash. It was delicious! Everything lacked salt, but that's generally how London is. No. Flavor. Anywhere.
After our food adventure we traveled over by St. James park again to what's called the Banqueting House.
Essentially it's the only building that survived the London fire in the 1600s and was part of Henry VIII's Whitehall Palace. Its this random little building just up from the Thames and its BEAUTIFUL. It was built for performing Jacobian Masques (YAY THEATRE HISTORY 201!!) as well as entertaining and impressing foreign dignitaries. James (something) had commissioned some gigantic portraits by Ruebens for the ceieling
and they've lasted all these 600+ years. It was incredibly beautiful.
We listened to these silly little audio-tours, but there was only one room in the whole place so they basically just talked about the cool stuff that goes on there. There was this lovely throne that, of course, being the American tourists that we are, we decided was an excellent photo-op. The following pictures ensued. We don't know if we were actually ALLOWED to sit on the throne, but no one said "No" nor was there a sign so we went ahead. There was actually one point where Rodger was on the throne and about 20 girls from the trip were posing around him with their best ANTM faces/poses.
I decided to use it for better things: beheading the peasants. It was a lovely time!
That night there was a group of us (including Rodger) who went to go see a show called "Psy" at the Peacock Theatre.
It was a circus/acrobatics dance show all about the different psychological disorders of the mind. There were 11 acrobats in all, each representing a different disorder or neurosis. This show was INCREDIBLE! Seriously it was such an incredible piece of theatre. Not only because of the incredible skill of the performers and my love of the circus but the characters and their relationships were heartfelt and believable even though there was no dialogue. I can't stress enough how cool this show was. Watch this trailer to get a basic idea if nothing else. Afterwords we ran into the cast in the street so we got them to sign our programs like the little 14-year old fan-lets that we are. It was so amazing though. By far one of the best, if not THE best shows I've seen so far.
WEDNESDAY - Went to class again. There were some events, but they are negative and I don't know who's reading this so I'll refrain. Suffice it to say that more than one of us was unpleased. Anywho. After class came the matinee of "Enron". Oh, "Enron". Rodger went and previewed it and said it was so horribly written and had so many content issues that the program could no longer endorse the show. The tickets were already bought so we could go if we wanted, but it was not at the suggestion or support of BYU. Which is fine. Of course, I still went.
As was to be expected the content wasn't really all that bad. It was the show itself that was terrible. No joke, it was possibly one of the worst written shows I have EVER seen. It had a few neat visual effects and some staging stuff (including a light sabre dance-fight and a pack of half-businessman/half-velociraptors). It was awful. The book was horribly written, the set was tacky for the most part, the acting was sub-par and there were dinosaurs. Like, wtf mates? It was bizarre and terrible. My suggestion is, do NOT go see it. I just had to break down laughing at certain parts just to keep myself sane. Heidi and I made up a song about "Enron" that encapsulates the message and effect of the show. I don't know that it will translate properly without the music and appropriate dance moves, but here is part of it:
"Theres a lot of F-words and a random sex scene!
Enron! Enron!
And there's a little girl who's a metaphor!
Enron! Enron!
And America sucks!
And so does capitalism!
Enron! Enron!
And theres some dinosaurs
And a part that looked like it may have been a gay bar!
Enron! Enron!"
The song goes on, but you get the idea. Don't see it.
Luckily that same night we went to another show. "Anderson's English" which was AMAZING! But before we get to that, let's talk about Allan and I's adventure. We went straight from the "Enron" experience over to where the other show was playing and we were like and hour and a half early so we decided to randomly explore. We saw a sign about a Freud Museum so we set off to find it. Turns out, we didn't find it, but we wandered into this DELIGHTFUL little Victorian suburb that looked like Jim-Dear's house in "Lady and the Tramp". They were these beautiful brick houses with like 4 stories each and trees everywhere and I loved it. My favorite building we dubbed "Toad Hall"
because it looks JUST like Toad Hall in Disney's "Adventures of Mr. Toad" and looks remarkably like the ride at Disneyland as well. It was hard to get a good picture, but trust me, it was cool.
So we finally found the theatre and saw the show and let me tell you, "Anderson's English" was INCREDIBLE! It's about Charles Dicken's family and when they receive a visit from Hans Christian Anderson. It sounds dull, but it was actually some of the most brilliant and compelling writing and acting I've seen in a long time. TOTALLY made up for the hot-mess that was "Enron". I loved the show so much I'm trying to find the script online. It was that incredible. It was a fabulous way to end a very long day and to get the taste of bad theatre out of my mouth.
THURSDAY - Now we are finally caught up through today. This morning we decided to venture off to a store called "Primark". Now "Primark" is a lot like an H&M or Zara, but is DIRT CHEAP! It was fantastic! Cheap Euro-trash clothing everywhere. I bought some things, but they were so stinkin' cool and cheap that I couldn't resist. And the store was HUGE! Christian and I spent about 2 hours in there finding stuff. We avoided the shpants (or man-pri's as some call them) and we definitely avoided the gay-or-european underwear section, but it was still awesome! I love "Primark"!
From there we went to the Tricycle Theatre up in some other random part of town that I could only call "Little Middle East". Everything was in either Arabic or Pakistani or Israeli, and then there is this random little theatre. It was actually really cool. We saw "Twelfth Night"
and it was an interesting production. It was set up like some small band rehearsing in a garage, but it worked pretty well. There was audience participation (including dancing on stage, throwing velcro balls a a guys head and being offered tequila by the actors) and it was a fun show. Very different and very innovative. The acting was incredible. It was really quite good and overall I enjoyed the show, even though I left it with a sense of wanting. I'm not sure what, but it felt incomplete or dumbed down or something. Not to say it wasn't good, because it was. I guess I'm still just trying to figure it out.
So after that, we hopped a bus and came home. Christian, Allan and I are tired and we figured it might behoove us to have a night in. Especially since we are going to be out and about all day tomorrow and Saturday.
It's been a CRAZY first week! I'm so excited to see what else London has in store!
Over and out!
P.S. That was a totally lame way to end the blogpost, but I don't know what else to put :)
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Wow! That dance thing really does look exciting! I want to see it now! haha! And, I guess, it is kinda fitting that the Enron play is a flop ;)
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