Tuesday

Today was Tuesday. It is reading week. The week long break halfway through the semester to let people catch up on reading. So there's no school. And... today was Keelia's birthday. The combination of these things made a Tuesday, into a spectacular day.

It started off rather boring, I did some homework (I know! Shock of shocks, I actually did some work on the designated week instead of putting it off. Wowzers.) and some laundry. Cleaned a bit, you know, toodling around.

Then Drew knocked on my floor, and after a fun peeking out the window (and then coming upstairs to actually talk because his neck was getting a crick) conversation about the events of the afternoon to celebrate Keelia's birthday, I hurriedly got ready to go.

I had to run to the library to print out my train ticket for tomorrow (more on that later) and realized how convenient my printer is at home and missed it. Drew and I grumbled a bit about this on the way to the tube. We took the train to King's Cross and found Platform 9 3/4. It was really fun. And I honestly can't decide if being at Platform 9 3/4 or watching Cristin dork out about asking a porter where the Platform was (yeah, not in between Platforms 9 and 10...) was more entertaining.

Then back on the tube to Leicester Square, where we found the street that JK was inspired by for Diagon Alley. (Can you see the Harry Potter theme starting to appear in this day?) Then decided that a snack and some warm drinks were in order after walking through the drizzle. I got a delicious scone with butter, jam, and cream with a pot of hot tea. It was delicious. (I don't really remember what everyone else got because I was honestly so enthralled by my tea and scone.)

The back out into the intermittent drizzle where we found one of the skinniest streets I have ever walked down. My umbrella was scratching on both sides. Then we wandered by Covent Garden to try to find the telephone booth that would lead to the Ministry of Magic (we did not find one... yet) but got sidetracked by a string quintet that was playing. They bought the CD.

Then we went to an old fashioned candy store and bought some sherbert lemons. And some other assorted candies, we know about my sweet tooth by now. They had fun things like 'not fags' or candy cigarettes (like 'not fags' is any less PC) and 'fish and chips' and 'sugar mice.' (The 'sugar mice' reminded me of the ice mice in Harry Potter and was thus extremely satisfied with this store.) Then we went to Carluccio's for dinner, thus continuing the trend of this restaurant for birthdays. And it was again delicious.

I had to leave dinner a bit early because I had gotten a very cheap ticket to the ballet that night. So I made the 5 minute walk to the Royal Opera House, not having to sprint anywhere this time. Got my ticket and sat down to watch that evening's production of Mayerling. I had never seen or really heard of this ballet before checking out the ROH's website, but it is part of the Kenneth MacMillan repetiore (VIDEO), (a very famous choreographer) so I figured I should see it.

I was right. It was absolutely fantastic. It was completely different from The Sleeping Beauty, which I had seen just about a week ago. That production from the 1940's using Petipa's original choreography uses hand gestures to convey a lot of the story, and many of the scenes are dream sequences with more tutus than I could count. Mayerling (VIDEO) on the other hand, had nary a tutu or dream sequence or hand language in sight. Every emotion was clearly shown through the dance. It was vibrant and sumptuously angsty. The costumes were gorgeous. I could honestly go on forever. (Although seeing it makes me want to call Shannon, my friend from home that now dances for the San Francisco Ballet Company, and chat her up about all this and the history, yada, yada, yada.)

I am still on kind of a high from it. It put the icing on a wonderful cake of a day. And to think... it's only Tuesday.

It's a great feeling to head to bed with (although sleep is still far away for me) because tomorrow I head to Paris to visit OJ. (I have no school... it's going to be awesome.) And as we all know, I hate packing, so as soon as I upload this that is what I will be doing.

I hope that you are all having a wonderful week. More updates to come when I get back from Paris!

Cheers!