Canterbury

Today is the first real day of 'London weather' that I have had since I got here. It is rather gloomy and overcast, there is a slight breeze and intermittent rain. Thankfully, especially for those of us who do not like being cold, it is only chilly out. I suspect that that will change shortly though. I already miss the sunshine though.

Fortunately, the days that I was in Canterbury visiting Robin and touring about with some other girls from QM were very sunny and not too cold, just very windy. I must amend this statement slighty in saying that I was not cold. The girls that we were going around with were very cold. They sacrificed warmth (like my nice fleece jacket) for fashion (their rather pitiful tights and cotton sweaters). Those that have spent any length of time with me, know that I greatly dislike being cold, and will tell anyone who will listen how to best avoid getting cold, (example, I made a power point presentation for the Hellions on how to dress for cold/rainy tournaments). Robin and I were dressed warmly, we even had flip-flops on (after unfortunate incidents with blsiters, but that is another story) and were just fine. So I really had no sympathy for everyone else, but back to Canterbury.

Toni, a fellow USC student at QM, and I went on the tube to get to Victoria station to catch the bus to Canterbury on Friday afternoon (after my exploration of Portobello Road). Despite having a phone loss on the tube (it was actually in her backpack, but caused a lot of drama) and heading to the 'bus' station instead of the 'coach' station, we made it to the bus on time and made our way out of the city and into the countryside. It was a very lovely drive and I was fascinated by the way that the city turned into industry and slowly into the quintessential English countryside. 

We got off in Canterbury, and met Robin at the bus station to take another bus up to her house/apartment at Kent. We had some dinner (thanks again Robin! yummy!) and went out to a club on campus. We had to get the dance floor going because all the little awkward first years wouldn't do it and the DJ wasn't playing really danceable songs. I must have looked like a madwoman attempting to dance to rock and roll at a club, (another good question would be when don't I look like a madwoman dancing...) but we had fun. Called it a night early-ish because we were knackered (British for tired as hell) and had a big day planned.

Saturday we woke up after a surprisingly restful night spent on the floor and headed into Canterbury to meet up with the other QM people arriving on the bus from London. We found them in the Top Shop (England's version of Forever 21) and then made our way to the Cathedral. Robin split off from the group as she had already seen it and didn't want to pay again, and the rest of us headed in. We got a discounted rate (besides the student one, they discount everything for students, it's awesome!) because there was a church service going on, but we stayed long enough to see the nave of the Cathedral anyway, so that was lucky. 

The Canterbury Cathedral is famous for lots of reasons and has been involved with all sorts of British history, even today. I don't really want to go into all the details, but some of the high points were the murder and martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Henry VIII changing it to the Church of England, stained glass installed in the 1950's with swastika's embedded in it to show the plight of the Holocaust victims (I couldn't find any), really pretty architecture. It was really interesting and great to go and see.

We were attempting to do a jumping picture in front of the Cathedral, and an old woman in the background (not pictured) told us off a bit. It took her awhile to come over to us to do so, for she had a walker, so she must have been very upset. For the rest of the day she was known as "that old hag." I saw her shaking her finger at some accordionist later in the day, so probably aptly named.

After getting out of the Cathedral we found Robin again and had some lunch and found an old fashioned candy shop. I was dead set on finding some sherbert lemons (because they are in Harry Potter) and they had some! Dumbledore was totally right, they are fantastic. I also got some sour plums and raspberry fizz balls, which actually did fizz in your mouth. I will never get rid of my sweet tooth I am afraid, candy is just far too awesome.

We then tried to go to The Canterbury Tales (the English majors just had to see it) but some of us decided it was too expensive (and too hokey) so we split up. We ended up going to check out the Norman Castle, which was built after William the Conqueror came over in 1066, and was used as a prison until about 1200 and most of the walls still stand today. We had fun exploring the ancient building.

We then wandered around Canterbury enjoying the cobblestone streets, the quaint (non-tourist parts) houses and pubs, and found a butterfly garden. By then we were all exhausted from walking all day, so we made our way to a pub for dinner. I attempted to expand my palette by getting some steak and kidney pie, but a very nice waiter told me not to try it there, so I had a lovely chicken pie with gravy and some ale and felt very English. And satisfied.

Then we headed back to the bus station, parted ways with Robin, and headed back to London. I slept almost all the way home, and must have been doing something very awkward in my sleep because the woman next to me gave me the nastiest look when we got off. Oh well.

It was a great weekend! 

Prick Up My Ears and Portobello Road

Because we pay so much money to USC to study abroad, they see fit to give us free things to do. (That or the cost is included in the study abroad fees, but I am choosing for the moment to think that the University loves us.) 

For the first USC event, we had a dinner and a play. John, the USC coordinator, took us to dinner near Piccadilly Circus where we met members of the USC Alumni Club in London. Yay Trojan Family! They gave us free T-shirts and invited us to view the USC vs. Cal game in Chelsea with them. 

Then we headed to see the play Prick Up Your Ears at the Comedy Theatre. It's a play based on the diaries of Joe Orton, a famous-ish playwright from the 1960's. He and his lover Kenneth Halliwell and their busy-body neighbor Mrs. Corden are the only characters in the play. It details their imprisonment for defacing library books while struggling playwrights. Afterwards, Orton's rise to fame and Halliwell's fall into depression and addiction ends tragically when Halliwells snaps and hammers Orton to death. True story.

It's a very dark play with spots of humor, usually coming from Mrs. Cordon (love her!). I enjoyed it, I think it could definitely use some tweaking in terms of the length of the scenes, and the foreshadowing of Halliwell's madness. Not knowing anything about the play going in, they tipped their hand too early, and then dragged out the fighting couple for far too long. Really great actors, just needed some tweaking. The set was really cool, and the set changes, scene changes, transitions and lighting were just gorgeous and seamless. (I could go on for far longer about all this... but for those of you non-drama folks, it probably get unbelievably dull). 

My next adventure was supposed to happen on Wednesday, but I got distracted by going to the grocery store. I decided to make beef stew, a new culinary challenge, which took up most of the afternoon. As I am only here for 3 months, I have no culinary equipment of my own, which means that I had to be creative. So beef stew turned into beef stew in one pot and a beef/vegetable/rice soup experiment in the other. Beef stew turned out fantastically, will definitely be making again. And the soup... it tastes awesome, but I got a bit overzealous with the rice, so its somewhere between a soup and a risotto. At least I have good, cheap food for the week. 

So my adventure into Portobello Road was postponed until Friday, but turned out to be fabulous, probably better than on Wednesday. On the weekends it is mobbed with tourists, but on Friday, most of the stalls and shops are open, but with far less people. Portobello Road is in Notting Hill. For those that have seen the movie, it's right where his Travel Book shop is. It's also in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and I couldn't get the song out of my head the entire time I was there. 

It's a long meandering street filled with antiques booths with everything from old China and furniture to old printmaking stamps (made me think of Roberta)and Victorian toy soldiers. It's fascinating to look at. There are also trendy shops, discounted booths, second-hand clothing, and some good eateries. I spent about 4 hours wandering around doing the odd-bit of shopping, picked up some cool second-hand boots and other knick-knacks. Made a point to visit the Hummingbird Bakery, the Sprinkles of London, and got a fabulous carrot cake cupcake. 

Then got back on the tube to meet up with Toni to head to Canterbury to visit Robin and see the sights for the weekend, but that my friends, is a different post.

QM Classes

So I have decided to split up the week into a series of different posts, because so many things have been going on that trying to do them all justice in one post would be a) incredibly boring, b)extremely long, and c) let's face it I would get tired of typing and gloss over most things. So short and sweet it is, here goes...

This past week was my first week of classes in the UK. I am taking a full course load, but have only 8 hours of scheduled class a week, which is significantly less than I would be taking at USC. Queen Mary is also a theory-based learning environment, as opposed to a practice-based one. The idea is that they give their students all the tools to understand and compete in the theater world, but they don't do any of the actual practice in most classes. 

Example, in my 'Director's Theatre' class we are learning all about the art and history of directing as well as different directors and their approaches to theater. My directing classes at USC focused minimally on history or technique but forced us to find and work with actors on different pieces to give us practical experience directing. For me, having exposure to both types is really fascinating and gives me so much more perspective on the field. I am excited for the rest of the semester.

I am also taking Performance Studies and Interdisciplinarity (the way that theatre uses other disciplines, like anthropology and sociology, to inform it's work, and the way that those other disciplines use aspects of performance to explain principles in their work) and Dramaturgy and Translation (basically a playwriting class that deals with analyzation of dramaturgy and the influence of a translation of a play on performance aspects).

Things I didn't know about the UK school system:

• All exams are at the end of the year, which means I don't have to take them.
• If you miss more than 2 classes (skip) you will be disenrolled.
• Degrees are only 3 years.
• Universities do not require any GE's.
• "Unsupervised Practice" means that you have to show up, because there is no other way to watch the assigned videos. Oops.

Also, in being in classes I have realized:

• Although a loud person, I am exponentially louder than all my classmates, even other American theater students.
• British students find American accents sexy. I thought it was only the other way around, but now I officially have a sexy voice.
• Even in my upper division classes, I am still older than everyone (Except for the PhD student from Holland).

I now also have a ton of reading to do, which I should be doing instead of updating this blog, but let's face it, even in London, I still procrastinate.