Back to school today. I’m running a bit low on food because I don’t really want to buy anymore sense I’ll be leaving in less than a week. It just means I’ll be eating a lot more yogurt and bananas each morning. Anyway, class today was on extra sensory perception, ESP, where people are aware of things they technically shouldn’t. However, I learned that many of the cases of ESP are simply the effect of conformation bias, which means you remember the things that support your ideas and you disregard or forget the things that don’t. So when people foretell the future, we often remember the famous predictions “seers” make that come true, and we forget the ones that don’t.
I also learned about that sensation you have when you feel like someone’s watching you, so you turn your head around only to find that someone is staring right at you! Don’t be alarmed, there’s a very simple explanation. When you turn your head around suddenly, other people’s eyes are drawn to the movement. So really, they weren’t staring at you. They’re just looking at you now because their sight is drawn to your movement. Glad to clear that up for all the paranoid readers out there.
After class there wasn’t much to do until we went to Wicked tonight. Let me say this right now, we did see the show tonight. I piddled around on my paper for class, which turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I’ve never written a research paper before, and what makes it different from normal papers is, well, the research. Pretty much, you can’t make any claims without something to back it up. Which means you have to read a lot of chapters and journals. Then you have to take the bit you want, but it in your own words, site it in the paper, then write up the reference for the reference page. For every claim you make. This is going to be really hard.
I didn’t want to leave anything to chance tonight, so my group left the dorms an hour and a half before the show started. The tube was crazy busy as it was about 6:00 and rush hour was at its worse, but we made it to the theater, if perhaps a little squished. I forgot to bring my camera to the theater, so I don’t have any pictures there, but it was really beautiful. The Apollo Victoria Theater has two tiers and a lot of seats in each one. The place is huge. It also has these really cool, really big pieces on the ceilings that make you feel like you’re in a clamshell. Our seats were fantastic, three rows back in the second section of seats. We could see the stage perfectly.
And what a stage. The whole thing was decked out in black and grey with ropes and wheels and staircases. There was the huge Clockwork Dragon puppet up above the stage that moved whenever the Witch’s magic was going on on stage. The curtain was a huge map of Oz with the glittering Emerald City in the center. It was just like it was supposed to be.
It all felt almost like a dream. I had dreamed of seeing this show for over three years, and now that I was actually here, if was almost like it wasn’t real. But the curtain finally came up and the show started. As I was already well acquainted with the music I could focus on everything else. I’ve wanted to know the story of the show for a very long time because I’ve heard that it was very different from the book, for which I am grateful because I hated the book both times I read it. I’m just glad to know how the story of the musical goes now, and I like it much better.
Everyone played their part very well. You didn’t really even think they were British until they said things like “can’t” or “dance” because they always used the long “aaaah” sound instead of the American “aaay” sound. So instead of hearing “Dancing through life” I heard “Daaancing through life”. It was fun to hear the difference. Elphaba (the Wicked Witch), was played beautifully. You don’t really get a sense of her character by just listening to the soundtrack, but she’s a very powerful, strong, hardheaded woman. Glinda was simply hilarious and was full of hair flips and ridiculous lines. Madam Morrible was fabulous and nasty. The Wizard had a very Vaudevillian sense to him that made him more entertaining when he was being nice, and all the more despicable when he was being deceptive, which was pretty much the whole time. Boq was Irish, which I loved because he’s such an impish character anyway I thought his Irish accent made it all the more impish (not that I think Irish people are impish, it just fit to this character). The rest of cast was wonderful as well. And the costumes were simply fabulous. The Emerald City costumes were my favorite by far. All the costumes of the different choruses were so different yet they all fit into one set. And even from a distance I could see how detailed they were. I would love to take a walk through that wardrobe department and look at them all up close.
Don’t even bother asking what my favorite song was. There is no competition. Defying Gravity was the most spectacular part of the show. I’ve seen pictures of Elphaba up at the top of the stage with that huge black cape billowing behind her, but it did nothing to prepare me for the moment when it actually happened in real life. It was like all the anticipation and excitement that’s been building for three years culminated into a big ball of happiness and exploded when the big black cape came out. It was simply spectacular.
After the show there was pretty much nothing to do but race back to the dorm and talk the show over with Hayley. After that, I went to sleep, perfectly happy and content.
British word of the day: handcart = stroller, like what you put a baby in.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
day 17
Today was the 4th of July, as well as mom's birthday. It feels ironic to spend the celebration of the day your county was liberated from the tyrannous rule of the country you're currently in, but there you are. I pretty much didn't do anything today. I know it sounds ridiculous, not being able to think of anything to in London, but I really couldn't, so I decided to have a day to relax and hopefully work on my final paper.
There was a little bit of paper writing, but a great deal more relaxing. I shared my time between eating meals, talking on skype, watching things online, and pretty much being lazy. I think everyone deserves a day like that every once in a while.
Anyway, I finally got together with my friends and went to Giraffe for dinner. This is the place I had the really good waffle and ice cream from before. We all sat and talked and said "Amurica" a lot, because it was the 4th and this was the only thing we could really do about it. I had these amazing BBQ chicken quesadillas, which was exactly what I was in the mood for. Something I will not miss about London is the food. It's pretty much sandwiches for every lunch, heavy meat and starch for dinner, and rarely any vegetables. Sure you're in London, so you would think there are tons and tons of options for different foreign food, but the foreign food is all wrong. There's are loads of Indian restaurants, but they are way too spicy for me. And the Chinese food isn't American-Chinese food, it's British-Chinese food. They have "American Fried Chicken" places, but once you've lived in the South no tea drinking Brit is going to know anything about how to make good fried chicken.
People are also very pushy in restaurants. You have to call the waiters over to do everything. They leave you alone until you catch their eye, which means meals take forever. You can hardly ever separate checks for some strange reason, so you always have to hope you have the cash to pay for your portion and contribute to the pot for the whole bill. Tip is also included in the bill, and if you want to leave less you have to ask, which means the waiter hates you forever and won't even come back to your table. Free refills and ice don't exist over here either. You get one ice cube because people over here think if you fill it up with ice the ice melts and you're paying for water. And if you want to eat at cafes you had better hope you only have one other person with you because they only have about 4 tables outside with two chairs each.
Now that I've ranted, I think I feel much better. London really is lovely and I hope you'll all come here one day, if you haven't already, but three weeks is a long time to be without a tall glass of endless, cold sweet tea.
Anyway, after dinner we walked along the South Bank for a bit, then made our way back to the dorms. Class starts tomorrow yet again, but I only have three days of class, then the test on Thursday. We'll see how that goes. Shower and then to bed.
British word of the day: digestive biscuits = Graham crackers, don't ask me why.
There was a little bit of paper writing, but a great deal more relaxing. I shared my time between eating meals, talking on skype, watching things online, and pretty much being lazy. I think everyone deserves a day like that every once in a while.
Anyway, I finally got together with my friends and went to Giraffe for dinner. This is the place I had the really good waffle and ice cream from before. We all sat and talked and said "Amurica" a lot, because it was the 4th and this was the only thing we could really do about it. I had these amazing BBQ chicken quesadillas, which was exactly what I was in the mood for. Something I will not miss about London is the food. It's pretty much sandwiches for every lunch, heavy meat and starch for dinner, and rarely any vegetables. Sure you're in London, so you would think there are tons and tons of options for different foreign food, but the foreign food is all wrong. There's are loads of Indian restaurants, but they are way too spicy for me. And the Chinese food isn't American-Chinese food, it's British-Chinese food. They have "American Fried Chicken" places, but once you've lived in the South no tea drinking Brit is going to know anything about how to make good fried chicken.
People are also very pushy in restaurants. You have to call the waiters over to do everything. They leave you alone until you catch their eye, which means meals take forever. You can hardly ever separate checks for some strange reason, so you always have to hope you have the cash to pay for your portion and contribute to the pot for the whole bill. Tip is also included in the bill, and if you want to leave less you have to ask, which means the waiter hates you forever and won't even come back to your table. Free refills and ice don't exist over here either. You get one ice cube because people over here think if you fill it up with ice the ice melts and you're paying for water. And if you want to eat at cafes you had better hope you only have one other person with you because they only have about 4 tables outside with two chairs each.
Now that I've ranted, I think I feel much better. London really is lovely and I hope you'll all come here one day, if you haven't already, but three weeks is a long time to be without a tall glass of endless, cold sweet tea.
Anyway, after dinner we walked along the South Bank for a bit, then made our way back to the dorms. Class starts tomorrow yet again, but I only have three days of class, then the test on Thursday. We'll see how that goes. Shower and then to bed.
British word of the day: digestive biscuits = Graham crackers, don't ask me why.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
day 16
Today is our trip to Stonehenge and Bath. As I’ve already been to Stonehenge, I was much more excited about going to Bath, which I have heard very nice things about. I had to get up quite early today to get on the tube and find out meeting place on Backer Street. For this trip my API friends were nowhere to be seen. Not one of them. I have no idea where they were, but they totally missed out on a very fun trip. Allison and Bryan we there, so I hung out with them for this excursion. We all got on the bus and we were off out of London to Stonehenge. I had a new guide Adrienne this time, and she was much less chatty on the microphone.
We made the drive to Stonehenge and when we got there I was surprised that I remembered them being much smaller. But those rocks are really huge. We walked around the stones while listening to the audio tour. It was pretty much the same as I remember it otherwise. All the crazy theories that everyone from Merlin to the Devil to aliens are the reason it’s there. The biggest mystery still is why is it there? No one knows, and our guide said we would never know, but as an anthropology major I have to think that someday we’ll find the answer.
I also learned while at Stonehenge that the druids have absolutely nothing to do with it. Druids are a Celtic-like religion that focuses on the powers of nature. From what we know about druids, we know that they never has a house of worship, they always did their ceremonies in woodland areas. We also know that the stones of Stonehenge predate the religion all together, so there is no way the druids built the circle or should have any claim to it. They may have used it along the way, but they certainly didn’t build it. I’m a follower of the idea that Stonehenge is a calendar. The fact that the “heel stone” lines up exactly with one of the arches on the summer solstice can’t be just a coincidence. Why they felt the need to drag those huge stones to that particular place is still a mystery to me, but I am confident one day we will know.
Once we got back on the bus Adrienne found me and gave me an envelope with 4 physical, hold in your hand tickets for Wicked. It was such a relief to finally have them. This means that we can walk right in without standing in line or dealing with the ticket office. Thank goodness!!
Then we made our way to Bath. Now that I’ve been there, I love the city of Bath and if I had to live anywhere in England, I think it would be there. All of the buildings are made out of the same golden yellow stone that comes from the Bath area, which makes it all look very charming and peaceful. Though they’re made from the same material, the buildings don’t all look the same. They all have different designs and special things that make each area look different, but they all work together as a whole. There is also a lot of history here. There are many periods where it is the most fashionable place to holiday, then it becomes a cesspit of dirt and vice. Then someone comes along and pretties it up again, and then it’s fashionable.
We walked around the town a bit and saw some of the more popular sights. We saw several house complexes that a famous man designed that were for the most fashionable people in Bath. I say fashionable a lot because it was said a lot on our tour. Most every house we saw has a charming back garden that has a secret back door that leads into the walkway we were taking to get down the hill. The nicer houses are very, very expensive, some as much as 23 million pounds each, but they have fantastic views of the city and they have the most room.
We went to the Assembly Rooms where Jane Austen was known to dance. This is where all the best people came to dance and to find a spouse. They said the chandeliers in this place are worth 10 million pounds if you added them up together. You can still get married in these very beautiful rooms, but you have to book it a year in advance and the smallest room is 500 pounds for half the day. You also have to use their caterers, but apparently they’re “brilliant”, according to the receptionist who is getting married there in the fall.
After that we had some time to eat, and it’s a good thing we had 2 hours this time, because lunch took forever! A word to anyone traveling in the UK: meals out will take 4 times longer than they should, so plan ahead. We really wanted burgers or at least something other than sandwiches, so we found a place that had burgers and went in. They didn’t have room for us, but we had already looked at the menu and gotten our mouths ready, so we decided to wait. When we finally got a table, they said the kitchen was delayed, but again we decided to wait because we really wanted those burgers. We waited 40 minutes for our food to come. I got the Americano, which was pepper jack cheese, bacon (which is more like ham here) and avocado with fries (they actually called them fries at his place). The burger tasted pretty good, so I guess it was worth the wait. We walked around a bit after lunch and saw that Bath has a lot of really good shopping. There’s another reason why I could live there.
After lunch we walked further down the hill and came to where to baths are. The Romans came here a really long time ago and saw that the Celts already there were using the natural hot springs to worship their goddess of healing and water. When the Romans conquered someplace, they didn’t just come storming in and demand the locals change their ways. They try to amalgamate the locals into Romans culture. So they saw that this goddess the Celts were worshiping there, Sulis, was similar to their goddess Minerva, the Roman version of the Greek goddess Athena (my favorite Greek goddess). So they built a temple and a bathhouse over the springs and unified the two goddesses under one name, Sulis Minerva, to try to win over the local Celts. It worked pretty well and things were going fine until the Romans pulled out, then the city was pretty much forgotten.
The baths were fascinating and beautiful. The water in the main bath has turned green because there’s no longer a ceiling and algae has grown in it. The other baths no longer hold any water, but they are still very interesting to look at. There were all kinds of different rooms that did different things. One of the processes people would go through is to exercise and get all sweaty, then dip into progressively hotter baths and get really hot and really sweaty, then get covered in oil, then have the oil scraped off, then jump in a cold pool to cool off. It sounds pretty gross, but apparently it felt really good. I walked all though the different areas that showed the artifacts they found around the baths and the different rooms and areas where things happened. It was very interesting and filled with Roman and Georgian history (The Georgian era is when England had 4 King Georges in a row, the third of which was the last king of America.) At the end of the tour you could taste some of the treated water from the springs. I was told it tasted pretty gross, but I tried it anyway. It tasted like warm, unfiltered well water, with a bunch of minerals and sulfur in it. I thought it was nasty, but it's supposed to have healing powers, so I guess I'm healed of anything that might have been wrong with me.
After the baths we got back on the bus and made the 2 and a half hour ride back to London.
The day was pretty much over after that.
British word of the day: bin bag = trash bag. One time the housekeeping people came in and asked if I wanted my bin bag changed. I thought she said did I want my beanbag changed. It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about.
We made the drive to Stonehenge and when we got there I was surprised that I remembered them being much smaller. But those rocks are really huge. We walked around the stones while listening to the audio tour. It was pretty much the same as I remember it otherwise. All the crazy theories that everyone from Merlin to the Devil to aliens are the reason it’s there. The biggest mystery still is why is it there? No one knows, and our guide said we would never know, but as an anthropology major I have to think that someday we’ll find the answer.
I also learned while at Stonehenge that the druids have absolutely nothing to do with it. Druids are a Celtic-like religion that focuses on the powers of nature. From what we know about druids, we know that they never has a house of worship, they always did their ceremonies in woodland areas. We also know that the stones of Stonehenge predate the religion all together, so there is no way the druids built the circle or should have any claim to it. They may have used it along the way, but they certainly didn’t build it. I’m a follower of the idea that Stonehenge is a calendar. The fact that the “heel stone” lines up exactly with one of the arches on the summer solstice can’t be just a coincidence. Why they felt the need to drag those huge stones to that particular place is still a mystery to me, but I am confident one day we will know.
Once we got back on the bus Adrienne found me and gave me an envelope with 4 physical, hold in your hand tickets for Wicked. It was such a relief to finally have them. This means that we can walk right in without standing in line or dealing with the ticket office. Thank goodness!!
Then we made our way to Bath. Now that I’ve been there, I love the city of Bath and if I had to live anywhere in England, I think it would be there. All of the buildings are made out of the same golden yellow stone that comes from the Bath area, which makes it all look very charming and peaceful. Though they’re made from the same material, the buildings don’t all look the same. They all have different designs and special things that make each area look different, but they all work together as a whole. There is also a lot of history here. There are many periods where it is the most fashionable place to holiday, then it becomes a cesspit of dirt and vice. Then someone comes along and pretties it up again, and then it’s fashionable.
We walked around the town a bit and saw some of the more popular sights. We saw several house complexes that a famous man designed that were for the most fashionable people in Bath. I say fashionable a lot because it was said a lot on our tour. Most every house we saw has a charming back garden that has a secret back door that leads into the walkway we were taking to get down the hill. The nicer houses are very, very expensive, some as much as 23 million pounds each, but they have fantastic views of the city and they have the most room.
We went to the Assembly Rooms where Jane Austen was known to dance. This is where all the best people came to dance and to find a spouse. They said the chandeliers in this place are worth 10 million pounds if you added them up together. You can still get married in these very beautiful rooms, but you have to book it a year in advance and the smallest room is 500 pounds for half the day. You also have to use their caterers, but apparently they’re “brilliant”, according to the receptionist who is getting married there in the fall.
After that we had some time to eat, and it’s a good thing we had 2 hours this time, because lunch took forever! A word to anyone traveling in the UK: meals out will take 4 times longer than they should, so plan ahead. We really wanted burgers or at least something other than sandwiches, so we found a place that had burgers and went in. They didn’t have room for us, but we had already looked at the menu and gotten our mouths ready, so we decided to wait. When we finally got a table, they said the kitchen was delayed, but again we decided to wait because we really wanted those burgers. We waited 40 minutes for our food to come. I got the Americano, which was pepper jack cheese, bacon (which is more like ham here) and avocado with fries (they actually called them fries at his place). The burger tasted pretty good, so I guess it was worth the wait. We walked around a bit after lunch and saw that Bath has a lot of really good shopping. There’s another reason why I could live there.
After lunch we walked further down the hill and came to where to baths are. The Romans came here a really long time ago and saw that the Celts already there were using the natural hot springs to worship their goddess of healing and water. When the Romans conquered someplace, they didn’t just come storming in and demand the locals change their ways. They try to amalgamate the locals into Romans culture. So they saw that this goddess the Celts were worshiping there, Sulis, was similar to their goddess Minerva, the Roman version of the Greek goddess Athena (my favorite Greek goddess). So they built a temple and a bathhouse over the springs and unified the two goddesses under one name, Sulis Minerva, to try to win over the local Celts. It worked pretty well and things were going fine until the Romans pulled out, then the city was pretty much forgotten.
The baths were fascinating and beautiful. The water in the main bath has turned green because there’s no longer a ceiling and algae has grown in it. The other baths no longer hold any water, but they are still very interesting to look at. There were all kinds of different rooms that did different things. One of the processes people would go through is to exercise and get all sweaty, then dip into progressively hotter baths and get really hot and really sweaty, then get covered in oil, then have the oil scraped off, then jump in a cold pool to cool off. It sounds pretty gross, but apparently it felt really good. I walked all though the different areas that showed the artifacts they found around the baths and the different rooms and areas where things happened. It was very interesting and filled with Roman and Georgian history (The Georgian era is when England had 4 King Georges in a row, the third of which was the last king of America.) At the end of the tour you could taste some of the treated water from the springs. I was told it tasted pretty gross, but I tried it anyway. It tasted like warm, unfiltered well water, with a bunch of minerals and sulfur in it. I thought it was nasty, but it's supposed to have healing powers, so I guess I'm healed of anything that might have been wrong with me.
After the baths we got back on the bus and made the 2 and a half hour ride back to London.
The day was pretty much over after that.
British word of the day: bin bag = trash bag. One time the housekeeping people came in and asked if I wanted my bin bag changed. I thought she said did I want my beanbag changed. It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about.
day 15
Today was a very lazy Friday. I woke up and had corn flakes and with cut up bananas in them. I waited around in the morning until Alison woke up and we went to King’s Cross to find Platform 9 ¾. We got on the tube and got off at King’s Cross Station, which, by the way, is not where they filmed that part of the movie. They filmed that at platform 4. But anyway, Alison and I had to look around a lot to find the sign and half a cart in the way they put up in honor of Harry Potter. It’s not actually between platforms 9 and 10, but in a hallway that connects 9 and 8. But there’s a gate that doesn’t let anyone go through, so you have to go around to platform 8 to get to it.
But then we finally got there and took pictures. It was really fun. It was sort of like a pilgrimage, a quest to find this special location that honors Harry Potter. It was also fun to see that there were people there before and after us, just as excited as we were that they had found this special site.
Alison and I had sandwiches for lunch. Something here about British food: they pretty much always have sandwiches for lunch, and the only vegetables you can find are lettuce, tomato, and peas. Forget about broccoli or green beans or squash or any other vegetable. Restaurants just don’t serve them.
I got back to the dorm and spent the rest of the day being lazy. I read and watched things online and skyped and did whatever I felt like. I decided I would work on my paper Sunday (the day I’m writing this) and worry about it later.
I bought some pasta and chicken thing at the convince store and went to bed not too long after that.
British word of the day: artifact is spelled “artefact” here. At first it doesn’t even look like a word.
day 14
This morning I had toffee yogurt for breakfast, which tastes something like caramel and butterscotch mixed together. I’m also nearly out of jam, which means I need to go to the store and get some. Something I’ve been meaning to add on here but keep forgetting it that in a lot of grocery stores and stores like them, the cashiers sit in chairs to do your check out. They work in small areas where two lanes are up against each other and they sit in chairs almost back to back. I don’t know which would be worse, having to stand all day or having to sit all day. I guess sitting. At least when you’re standing you can move around. You also bag your own groceries in many of the stores I’ve been to. There isn’t enough room for the big counters we have in America, so you have to bag your own and make room.
I had to go back to class today, where we talked about hypnotism, which is what my paper focuses on. There wasn’t too much valuable material in this lecture, at least as far as using it in my paper. We learned about the two theories of hypnotism, the state and trait theories. State means that you are put in a place where the executive ego and the things that keep you from doing things are separated, so repressed memories can resurface and you can be influenced to do something you wouldn’t usually. The trait theory says that only certain kinds of people can be hypnotized, and that they must have certain beliefs, expectations, and a level of suggestibility in order for it to work. We also learned a lot about the people who developed hypnotism, and most of them were nuts.
After class I waited in the Regent Street campus’s lobby for a while waiting for my friends to get out of class. We were going to the National Gallery today, so there wasn’t a lot of time to go all the way back to the dorms and then out again. I was feeling very blah about now because I had slept well because of really weird dreams where my API went to Africa to live with a tribe, and some missionaries were there that had been there for 20 years because the tribe wouldn’t let them go. It wasn’t a very nice dream and it made me wake up really early.
My friends finally got out of class and we made our way to Trafalgar Square, which is where the National Gallery is. On our way we wanted lunch, so we stopped at a Pizza Express to eat. I got the same pizza I got on my first day in London, and it was wonderful again.
We walked by St. James’s Park and saw the hoard of people that were around the read carpet for the Eclipse premier. I didn’t get close enough to see a red carpet or anything, but I did take a picture of the poster on the building. I’ve seen these posters all over tube stations and on buses all over the city. But it won’t even come out over here until July 9th in cinemas.
We got to Trafalgar Square and saw there was a huge event going on that took up the whole square. Turns out July 1st is Canada day in the UK, and a bunch of Canadians and Canadian business were celebrating with street hockey, bison burgers, and Canada-themed trivia. We hung around there for a while, looking at all the crazy Canadians, until we met Alex, our assistant director, to go into the gallery.
Again, most museums in London are free to get into, so I highly suggest you check out this art museum. It has art from 13th up to 20th century paintings and features artists like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Pousin, Vermeer, Hogarth, Monet, and Van Gough. Unfortunately, my friends were all tired from going out the previous night (something that happens very frequently) and they wanted to go home. They told me this by calling me, and I was in the middle of a gallery when my phone went off, so I was shooed out of the gallery by a museum staff person. I was very annoyed and not feeling to well so I went with them even though I wanted to stay. At least it’s free so I can go back.
When I got to my dorm I talked to Hayley on skype and she reminded me that I’m probably never going to be in London in this situation ever again and I shouldn’t spend a valuable evening sitting in my room. So, I bought a ticket to go see Les Miserables. That was my solution to not wanting a lame evening. I bought the ticket online and went to the theater super early, all by myself. I didn’t tell anyone I was going because I was a little irritated but also because I thought I should be spontaneous and do something fun by myself. I got to the theater, was handed my ticket by the very nice box office woman (Wicked could learn a thing or two from her) and went inside. It all went very smoothly and I didn’t have to wait on anyone or deal with any issues. I must admit I was feeling very nervous about seeing the show because I was all paranoid that something would go wrong, like they didn’t have the record of my ticket and I couldn’t print out the conformation so they would tell me to go away. But everything worked out as it should.
I was on the top tier of the 3-tired theater. It was very tall and skinny. I was in seat C3, so I was on the fourth row and had a pretty good view of the stage. But bad seats for buying the ticket 4 hours before the show. The theater slowly filled in as we got closer to the curtain coming up and, of course, a really tall guy sits in front of me. That wasn’t fun. If he had leaned back the whole time I would have seen just fine, but he kept leaning forward to see the entire stage, which was unnecessary. Lucky for me that tall guy and his family didn't come back for the second half, so I had a perfect view for the best part of the show. They are very strict about starting on time, so I wouldn't be surprised if they missed the door closing to let people in for the second half. I was very surprised to see that Nick Jonas, the youngest Jonas brother, would be playing the part of Marius. I didn’t know anything about the show before I saw it, other than it’s about the French Revolution and that there’s a guy named Jean Valjean in it.
Now I love the show! It is beautiful and moving and sad and very impressive. It’s more of an opera than a musical, where they sing every line, which I didn’t mind. Everyone played their part extremely well. Nick Jonas was surprisingly good and didn’t sound pop-y when he sang, but fit into his role very well. Eponine was very talented and I think she had the best female voice in the show. I think Susan Boyle has Rebecca Seale beat when it comes to singing “I Dreamed a Dream”, but Seale’s was much more vulnerable than Boyle’s huge operatic version, but maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be anyway. I think that “Do You Hear the People Sing?” was my favorite song of the show, but they were all wonderful songs, even though I didn’t recognize any of them.
The stage was also very impressive. It had a huge spinning floor that enabled the actors to look like they were walking down a street with people moving around them when really they were just walking in place. The floor moved silently and allowed for them to prepare one set in the dark, turn the floor to show the set, then clean up the last on in the dark again. There was also a huge shanty town set that was made up of boxes and crates and other things that moved in on moving platforms. When the rebels build the barricade, the shanty town comes back, but as it moves on it’s turned 90 degrees by some very impressive engineering, so that where there were once walls there are now floors and vise versa. It all worked very well and the effects and creativeness of the whole show was very impressive. SPOLIER ALERT There is a scene where Javert jumps from a bridge to kill himself. The bridge set is all the way on the ground, and Javert is just standing on the ground leaning against the bridge, but you really think he’s hanging off the side of a very high bridge. When he jumps, again he’s just standing there, but the way the lights, the moving floor, and the rising set appear, it really looks like he’s falling to his death.
Overall I thought the show was wonderful and I highly recommend it.
I made my way back to the tube then to my dorm, talked the show over with Hayley, then took a shower and went to bed.
British word of the day: aluminium foil = aluminum foil. They put an extra "i" in there. You can't just change the Periodic Table England!
I had to go back to class today, where we talked about hypnotism, which is what my paper focuses on. There wasn’t too much valuable material in this lecture, at least as far as using it in my paper. We learned about the two theories of hypnotism, the state and trait theories. State means that you are put in a place where the executive ego and the things that keep you from doing things are separated, so repressed memories can resurface and you can be influenced to do something you wouldn’t usually. The trait theory says that only certain kinds of people can be hypnotized, and that they must have certain beliefs, expectations, and a level of suggestibility in order for it to work. We also learned a lot about the people who developed hypnotism, and most of them were nuts.
After class I waited in the Regent Street campus’s lobby for a while waiting for my friends to get out of class. We were going to the National Gallery today, so there wasn’t a lot of time to go all the way back to the dorms and then out again. I was feeling very blah about now because I had slept well because of really weird dreams where my API went to Africa to live with a tribe, and some missionaries were there that had been there for 20 years because the tribe wouldn’t let them go. It wasn’t a very nice dream and it made me wake up really early.
My friends finally got out of class and we made our way to Trafalgar Square, which is where the National Gallery is. On our way we wanted lunch, so we stopped at a Pizza Express to eat. I got the same pizza I got on my first day in London, and it was wonderful again.
We walked by St. James’s Park and saw the hoard of people that were around the read carpet for the Eclipse premier. I didn’t get close enough to see a red carpet or anything, but I did take a picture of the poster on the building. I’ve seen these posters all over tube stations and on buses all over the city. But it won’t even come out over here until July 9th in cinemas.
We got to Trafalgar Square and saw there was a huge event going on that took up the whole square. Turns out July 1st is Canada day in the UK, and a bunch of Canadians and Canadian business were celebrating with street hockey, bison burgers, and Canada-themed trivia. We hung around there for a while, looking at all the crazy Canadians, until we met Alex, our assistant director, to go into the gallery.
Again, most museums in London are free to get into, so I highly suggest you check out this art museum. It has art from 13th up to 20th century paintings and features artists like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Pousin, Vermeer, Hogarth, Monet, and Van Gough. Unfortunately, my friends were all tired from going out the previous night (something that happens very frequently) and they wanted to go home. They told me this by calling me, and I was in the middle of a gallery when my phone went off, so I was shooed out of the gallery by a museum staff person. I was very annoyed and not feeling to well so I went with them even though I wanted to stay. At least it’s free so I can go back.
When I got to my dorm I talked to Hayley on skype and she reminded me that I’m probably never going to be in London in this situation ever again and I shouldn’t spend a valuable evening sitting in my room. So, I bought a ticket to go see Les Miserables. That was my solution to not wanting a lame evening. I bought the ticket online and went to the theater super early, all by myself. I didn’t tell anyone I was going because I was a little irritated but also because I thought I should be spontaneous and do something fun by myself. I got to the theater, was handed my ticket by the very nice box office woman (Wicked could learn a thing or two from her) and went inside. It all went very smoothly and I didn’t have to wait on anyone or deal with any issues. I must admit I was feeling very nervous about seeing the show because I was all paranoid that something would go wrong, like they didn’t have the record of my ticket and I couldn’t print out the conformation so they would tell me to go away. But everything worked out as it should.
I was on the top tier of the 3-tired theater. It was very tall and skinny. I was in seat C3, so I was on the fourth row and had a pretty good view of the stage. But bad seats for buying the ticket 4 hours before the show. The theater slowly filled in as we got closer to the curtain coming up and, of course, a really tall guy sits in front of me. That wasn’t fun. If he had leaned back the whole time I would have seen just fine, but he kept leaning forward to see the entire stage, which was unnecessary. Lucky for me that tall guy and his family didn't come back for the second half, so I had a perfect view for the best part of the show. They are very strict about starting on time, so I wouldn't be surprised if they missed the door closing to let people in for the second half. I was very surprised to see that Nick Jonas, the youngest Jonas brother, would be playing the part of Marius. I didn’t know anything about the show before I saw it, other than it’s about the French Revolution and that there’s a guy named Jean Valjean in it.
Now I love the show! It is beautiful and moving and sad and very impressive. It’s more of an opera than a musical, where they sing every line, which I didn’t mind. Everyone played their part extremely well. Nick Jonas was surprisingly good and didn’t sound pop-y when he sang, but fit into his role very well. Eponine was very talented and I think she had the best female voice in the show. I think Susan Boyle has Rebecca Seale beat when it comes to singing “I Dreamed a Dream”, but Seale’s was much more vulnerable than Boyle’s huge operatic version, but maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be anyway. I think that “Do You Hear the People Sing?” was my favorite song of the show, but they were all wonderful songs, even though I didn’t recognize any of them.
The stage was also very impressive. It had a huge spinning floor that enabled the actors to look like they were walking down a street with people moving around them when really they were just walking in place. The floor moved silently and allowed for them to prepare one set in the dark, turn the floor to show the set, then clean up the last on in the dark again. There was also a huge shanty town set that was made up of boxes and crates and other things that moved in on moving platforms. When the rebels build the barricade, the shanty town comes back, but as it moves on it’s turned 90 degrees by some very impressive engineering, so that where there were once walls there are now floors and vise versa. It all worked very well and the effects and creativeness of the whole show was very impressive. SPOLIER ALERT There is a scene where Javert jumps from a bridge to kill himself. The bridge set is all the way on the ground, and Javert is just standing on the ground leaning against the bridge, but you really think he’s hanging off the side of a very high bridge. When he jumps, again he’s just standing there, but the way the lights, the moving floor, and the rising set appear, it really looks like he’s falling to his death.
Overall I thought the show was wonderful and I highly recommend it.
I made my way back to the tube then to my dorm, talked the show over with Hayley, then took a shower and went to bed.
British word of the day: aluminium foil = aluminum foil. They put an extra "i" in there. You can't just change the Periodic Table England!
Friday, July 2, 2010
day 13
I didn’t have any class today, which meant I had a leisurely morning do what I wanted, which meant I needed to work on my paper due at the end of all this. I made an outline for what I want to go over and here is my thesis statement: There is not enough evidence to support that hypnosis has any real effect on smoking cessation. Impressive, I know. I read through my books from the library and found some interesting articles online, so hopefully writing this paper won’t be too hard.
Allie wanted to return to Primark today, so I went with her to return my pants. We got there much easier this time because there’s a tube stop right beside the store that none of us saw the first time we went there. We had to wait in line for 30 minutes to return our stuff. Basically, Primark is cheep and has great clothes, but you better be ready to stand in line and fight your way through a hundred people to get what you want. It’s pretty stressful in there. After we finally got through all the craziness I went a bought new shirt, Allie got a very cute purple dress, and we were out of there. We walked around Oxford Street for a bit, going into bookstores and just looking around.
Later that night we went to see “The 39 Steps”, a show you may not have heard of but you definitely need to check out. It’s a hilarious show where only 4 people play a couple dozen roles. Spoiler Alert: The protagonist, Richard Hannay, is accused of killing a Annabella Schmidt in his apartment, a woman who was a double agent before her tragic demise with a knife in her back. Before she dies, she tells Richard that a terrible secret is about to leave the country and he alone must stop this from happening. Dodging the ever persistent police, Hannay meets the Professor, who turns out to be the very man who is smuggling the information of the 39 steps out of the country. Richard meets Margaret in his journeys and is handcuffed to her by the police to prevent him from escaping. But escape he does, with Margaret along for the journey. Through a series of zany and hilarious events, Hannay and Margaret end up in London to see Mr. Memory, who is the only person who has the information the Professor is looking for. The Professor is shot, along with Mr. Memory, and both die a very long, very dramatic, very funny death. Mr. Memory is able to reveal the secret he has been hiding: the formula to make a fighter jet completely silent. Hannay and Margaret are married and live happily ever after.
The whole play was ridiculous and hilarious. The woman who played the three female parts used dramatic, exaggerated accents that made every character different and funny. The two men who played every role but Hannay’s changed into a couple dozen different hats and costumes to play different parts. At one point one of the men was playing two roles at once, one of the assistant to Mr. Memory and the other of the police. He had his trench coat half on and would turn to one side and talk as the assistant to the police, then turn and talk as the police to the assistant. The show also made very good use of very cheep props. They would take three chests and made them be the furniture of a room then the carts on a train then the seats in a car. There were also very entertaining sound and light effects that went perfectly with the crazy queues on stage. The show was amazing and a very good choice for my first West End show (seeing as the whole Wicked thing didn’t work out, but enough about that).
After the show we walked around Piccadilly Circus and Charring Cross road. We saw a group of people that were camping out for the Eclipse premier on Thursday. All the London premiers happen in St. James Square at the Odeon Theater. The girls wanted to go clubbing, so I went back to my room and happily went to sleep.
British word of the day: cinema = theater. Going to see movies is at the cinema. Going to see shows is at the theater.
Allie wanted to return to Primark today, so I went with her to return my pants. We got there much easier this time because there’s a tube stop right beside the store that none of us saw the first time we went there. We had to wait in line for 30 minutes to return our stuff. Basically, Primark is cheep and has great clothes, but you better be ready to stand in line and fight your way through a hundred people to get what you want. It’s pretty stressful in there. After we finally got through all the craziness I went a bought new shirt, Allie got a very cute purple dress, and we were out of there. We walked around Oxford Street for a bit, going into bookstores and just looking around.
Later that night we went to see “The 39 Steps”, a show you may not have heard of but you definitely need to check out. It’s a hilarious show where only 4 people play a couple dozen roles. Spoiler Alert: The protagonist, Richard Hannay, is accused of killing a Annabella Schmidt in his apartment, a woman who was a double agent before her tragic demise with a knife in her back. Before she dies, she tells Richard that a terrible secret is about to leave the country and he alone must stop this from happening. Dodging the ever persistent police, Hannay meets the Professor, who turns out to be the very man who is smuggling the information of the 39 steps out of the country. Richard meets Margaret in his journeys and is handcuffed to her by the police to prevent him from escaping. But escape he does, with Margaret along for the journey. Through a series of zany and hilarious events, Hannay and Margaret end up in London to see Mr. Memory, who is the only person who has the information the Professor is looking for. The Professor is shot, along with Mr. Memory, and both die a very long, very dramatic, very funny death. Mr. Memory is able to reveal the secret he has been hiding: the formula to make a fighter jet completely silent. Hannay and Margaret are married and live happily ever after.
The whole play was ridiculous and hilarious. The woman who played the three female parts used dramatic, exaggerated accents that made every character different and funny. The two men who played every role but Hannay’s changed into a couple dozen different hats and costumes to play different parts. At one point one of the men was playing two roles at once, one of the assistant to Mr. Memory and the other of the police. He had his trench coat half on and would turn to one side and talk as the assistant to the police, then turn and talk as the police to the assistant. The show also made very good use of very cheep props. They would take three chests and made them be the furniture of a room then the carts on a train then the seats in a car. There were also very entertaining sound and light effects that went perfectly with the crazy queues on stage. The show was amazing and a very good choice for my first West End show (seeing as the whole Wicked thing didn’t work out, but enough about that).
After the show we walked around Piccadilly Circus and Charring Cross road. We saw a group of people that were camping out for the Eclipse premier on Thursday. All the London premiers happen in St. James Square at the Odeon Theater. The girls wanted to go clubbing, so I went back to my room and happily went to sleep.
British word of the day: cinema = theater. Going to see movies is at the cinema. Going to see shows is at the theater.
day 12
Sorry I haven’t posted for a while, I’ve been super busy. Thanks to everyone for your kind words on Monday. Everything is hopefully going to work out with Wicked. It turns out the tickets were actually there at the box office, but because they didn’t take two seconds to look under the right name, the tickets were left unused. It’s that a kick in the head? But everyone at Proscenium worked very had to resolve the problem and now I am told I will be given our four tickets, real, honest to God, hold in your hand tickets, this weekend when we go to Bath and Stonehenge with Proscenium for next Monday night. So keep your fingers crossed that everything works out as it should.
Tuesday morning means waking up and going to class. Today was a very nice lecture because we were told that our Wednesday lecture was canceled because our lecturer was sick (wishing a speedy recovery to her). So that meant that today we were going to do Wednesday and Tuesday’s lecture in one day. This didn’t sound good, until she told us she’d just be going over the gist of both lectures and then going over the test questions from both sections with us so we wouldn’t be at a disadvantage. So that was great. We did the lecture on Dreams, where we pretty much learned we still don’t know why we dream, but it’s important that we do. We learned that symbolic interpretation of dreams isn’t really all that accurate because people try to put blanket meanings to things in dream when everyone has had a different experience and things have different meanings for different individuals. Then we went through the lecture on the placebo effect, which is a neutral treatment that doesn’t really do anything and how if people think they are getting medicine, they will see actual results. It’s sort of like it’s all in your head, but it can actually make you better if you think you’re being cured of something. Then we went over the actually test questions from those two sections and, of course, I wrote them all down. So I’ll at least get 10% on this test.
After class I went with Lindsey and Bryan to Camden Street market, a really crazy and cool place. There are tons of tattoo parlors and people selling things. We walked up and down the rows of tiny shops, mostly selling tourist stuff, but there were a lot of people that sold tee shirts the designed or art they painted. It was a very eclectic and fun place.
After spending a lot of time there we waited at the dorm to go to our Jack the Ripper walk. This is a walk through the locations (or near the locations) of the murders of 5 prostitutes that Jack the Ripper did really horrible things to. This was done by Proscenium, as are all of the Westminster cultural events. It was a very interesting tour. There were a bunch of other groups there with different companies, so we had to complete for space sometimes. Jack the Ripper was, of course, never caught, and there are a lot of theories as to who he was. But who ever he was, he was a sick old freak. Each time he killed, the scene was more brutal and violent. He would cut the throat of the woman then go to town cutting her up and removing all sorts of things that are meant to be kept inside. It’s amazing what someone could get away with in Victorian London. At night it was practically pitch black in the tiny alleys, and there were drunk prostitutes all over the place because that’s the only job a woman could really do, so they were pretty easy targets. After the 5th woman he killed, Jack the Ripper disappeared off the face of the map, and no one really knows who did it today.
After the walk my friends and I decided we wanted to get something to eat, so we walked around for a while. We were on the South bank, so we went to a place called the Giraffe and got desserts. Allie and I again shared a waffle with ice cream, bananas, and chocolate sauce. It was very nice to sit outside and talk over dessert.
Then we walked along the south bank of looked at the Thames at night. You couldn’t se how brown it is, so it looked quite nice. Parliament and Big Ben were all lit up, so we took some pictures, then walked back to our dorm, which is actually pretty close to Parliament.
British word of the day: peckish = hungry
Tuesday morning means waking up and going to class. Today was a very nice lecture because we were told that our Wednesday lecture was canceled because our lecturer was sick (wishing a speedy recovery to her). So that meant that today we were going to do Wednesday and Tuesday’s lecture in one day. This didn’t sound good, until she told us she’d just be going over the gist of both lectures and then going over the test questions from both sections with us so we wouldn’t be at a disadvantage. So that was great. We did the lecture on Dreams, where we pretty much learned we still don’t know why we dream, but it’s important that we do. We learned that symbolic interpretation of dreams isn’t really all that accurate because people try to put blanket meanings to things in dream when everyone has had a different experience and things have different meanings for different individuals. Then we went through the lecture on the placebo effect, which is a neutral treatment that doesn’t really do anything and how if people think they are getting medicine, they will see actual results. It’s sort of like it’s all in your head, but it can actually make you better if you think you’re being cured of something. Then we went over the actually test questions from those two sections and, of course, I wrote them all down. So I’ll at least get 10% on this test.
After class I went with Lindsey and Bryan to Camden Street market, a really crazy and cool place. There are tons of tattoo parlors and people selling things. We walked up and down the rows of tiny shops, mostly selling tourist stuff, but there were a lot of people that sold tee shirts the designed or art they painted. It was a very eclectic and fun place.
After spending a lot of time there we waited at the dorm to go to our Jack the Ripper walk. This is a walk through the locations (or near the locations) of the murders of 5 prostitutes that Jack the Ripper did really horrible things to. This was done by Proscenium, as are all of the Westminster cultural events. It was a very interesting tour. There were a bunch of other groups there with different companies, so we had to complete for space sometimes. Jack the Ripper was, of course, never caught, and there are a lot of theories as to who he was. But who ever he was, he was a sick old freak. Each time he killed, the scene was more brutal and violent. He would cut the throat of the woman then go to town cutting her up and removing all sorts of things that are meant to be kept inside. It’s amazing what someone could get away with in Victorian London. At night it was practically pitch black in the tiny alleys, and there were drunk prostitutes all over the place because that’s the only job a woman could really do, so they were pretty easy targets. After the 5th woman he killed, Jack the Ripper disappeared off the face of the map, and no one really knows who did it today.
After the walk my friends and I decided we wanted to get something to eat, so we walked around for a while. We were on the South bank, so we went to a place called the Giraffe and got desserts. Allie and I again shared a waffle with ice cream, bananas, and chocolate sauce. It was very nice to sit outside and talk over dessert.
Then we walked along the south bank of looked at the Thames at night. You couldn’t se how brown it is, so it looked quite nice. Parliament and Big Ben were all lit up, so we took some pictures, then walked back to our dorm, which is actually pretty close to Parliament.
British word of the day: peckish = hungry
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