Tube Musings

image-xkcd

I feel like this is very true. I love xkcd. He's coming out with a book of a bunch of these brilliant comics. *hint hint* ;)

No, but seriously. I laughed so much with this comic because it's so true. Boys, this will not happen if you sweetly chat up a girl on the tube. Although, why she has her laptop out, i can't tell you. BUT, please, say hi.

Chinatown, Cemeteries and Lovely Autumn Days...

So we got out of classes on friday and had one goal. Frozen yogurt. We decided to make the stop at Piccadilly for Waterstones. Then we decided to walk from Piccadilly to Trafalger. A really really really easy walk. But of course we went the wrong direction and got completely lost.

After awhile we did find Chinatown, which made us all hungry for chinese food. But we had a frozen yogurt destination. Eventually we just jumped on the tube and went to Charing Cross. We then we walked around a bit longer and finally found the Frozen Yogurt place. After an hour of searching, we finally got there. Then as we were leaving, we decided to go hunting for chinese. We went to chinatown and walked into a nice place. But they had a 10 pound limit PER person. It was so annoying. WE were sitting down and had ordered when he told us. So we went somewhere else and they had the SAME rule. So we just got some take away and went to trafalger.

YUMM!

It was fantastic. I got dumplings, it was fantastic :D So we just sat on the stairs and enjoyed. Then we just caught the train and jumped home!

Saturday was our FIRST saturday off! So glorious! We woke up early and headed to Notting Hill for the portobello market! It was so great, there were shops which everything was 5 pounds! I snagged some cute dresses for only 5 pounds! I can't wait to go back, they had so much there! But i left the girls early and headed over to the London bridge stop to meet with Sarah! There were so many tube troubles, but eventually we met up and she brought me to the Borough Market! We walked around looking at all the amazing food, and finally hunkered  to eat and chat. Then we kept walking running into different Markets (a book market! :D) and performers. It was so lovely!

Later that night Aylia, Sienna and i went hunting for a nice pub. Sienna had done some research as to recommended pubs. We had a nice time, but there weren't as many people our age (guess there was like some party there...so people more in their 30's) so it wasn't too interesting. We did get to chat with a few people though, which was fun.

Sunday was also lovely. Sinead and i had been planning to visit Highgate Cemetery because a.) It's beautiful and really really really old and b.) it's in this book i read this summer so i was interesting in visiting (Book: Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger). It was nice but it costs 2 pounds, so we decided to come back another time where we could spend the whole day. So instead we went to the park (waterlow park) right next door and sat in the sunshine. It was gorgeous!

The Park

Peak at the Graveyard from outside fence

After a lovely picnic and chat in the park we decided to stop in this little Tea place we saw on the way to the Park. It was nice and we each got a tea for just a pound!

After another lovely chat, we headed home. I finished my lovely autumn sunday with lots of work :P But seriously the weather all weekend was GORGEOUS! Oh, and on our way home we of course saw a Spring Awakening poster i didn't recognize, so i needed to photograph it! <3

I am still upset i didn't get to see it here, but it is coming to Hartford in Feb. ;) I also had a lovely Skype chat with Jamie last night, it was good getting all the hot trinity gossip ;) Which...there really wasn't any of.

Alright gladly i'm all caught up now! <3 I'm off to do lots more work. Maybe i'll update once more tonight. This is going to be a busy week, i'm seeing LOTS of shows! :D

Cheers! T

Tarts, Fashion and Judgement Days

Why hello.

Ok so last tuesday was AWESOME. After classes we had "Tart Tuesday" (which has recently been changed to Twednesday because culture tuesday outings). We got the most brilliant Tarts, and have now offically decided to rate each tart on a bunch of different qualities. But i'll just give you the final result.

(Sinead)

(Sienna)

SO, this tart was pretty glorious! Although it was a little much, and it had LOTS of whipped cream. We couldn't eat it at the cafe because they charged an extra 1.20pound if it wasn't take away. SO LAME. so we deducted some points for that. Overall it got a 7. 


Then we all had our cultural outings. Cailtin and i went to the Somerset house to see some French Impressionist paintings. BUT, also going on was the LONDON FASHION WEEK which we accidently stumbled upon! How cool?! We both felt completely out of place, but it was brilliant! So we walked around a bit then jumped into the museum to see the paintings. A few of my favorites:

{image} Manet

{Image} Degas

{image} Seurat

It was all very beautiful. We even got to see an original Van Gogh, the self portrait after his whole ear incident (yes i did just phrase it like that). But those three were some of my favorite. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Degas. Every ballerina. So beautiful, and i really do love George Seurat. I think his paintings are magnificent!

Then Caitlin and i returned to the London Fashion week!

Don't o look fashionable? :P

Thats right, backstage ;)

Caitlin and Me

Then we headed to the theatre to see Judgement Day! I really liked the show, especially the production quality and the acting. We had a masterclass the next day with leading actor Joseph Millson, which was so wonderful. It was very different than the one with Naomi because Joseph is a very different kind of actor. He kind of stumbled up on whole thing. It was so great to get to sit and talk to him about the show and his experience as an actor.

And after the show, Aylia and i RAN to kings cross station looking for Platform 9 3/4. We were only one tube stop away so we had too. At first we couldn't find it so...

...ran into random walls on platform 9. It didn't work.

Eventually a member of staff watched us walk by, pegging us as Harry Potter fans, pointed us to the correct direction.

Cool Huh, total accident!

I tried really really hard.

It was a great day :) But now it's time for me to go to bed. Wednesday we had the fantastic Masterclass (hopefully another group show will be your way soon) and thursday was like any other. Friday, we'll you'll have to wait for that. Today (sunday) was very lovely. Sinead and i went to the park. Pictures to come.

Cheers, sleep well, and have a lovely week!
-T

Serendipitous Adventures in Londontown (Part IV)

Alright, still playing catch-up. Almost done. Promise.

So saturday night we went on a adventure for a missing person/missed connection. Aylia met this lovely boy on the bus, but all she had to go on was Trafalger Square, Bus 6 (other direction from us) and that his name was Sam B-(something). So we decided to let serendipity take over and head out to Trafalger. We took bus 6, and let the night take us.

She's Excited.

We're Cool.

At this point, we were also tired of being lost so we just found a tube station. Instead of getting off the tube stop for Trafalger Sq. We decided to walk from Piccadilly. But we got lost, and just took the tube to Charing Cross. But we're cool alright.

Dancing in the Tube

Then we finally got there and just walked around for a bit, every few minutes randomly yelling out "SAM?!" In the middle of the square there was a HUGE chess set. It was really cool.

I don't know why, but i thought it would be a cool idea to jump?

It came out kinda neat?

This is Rob.

Alright, so in the Square, there is this art project going on. There is this platform (Plinth) that is empty. So everyday, every hour there is someone up on the Plinth doing whatever they want for that hour. So we went to check out what was happening on the Plinth. We found this guy (very cute) just standing around chatting with people. So we came over and he ended up putting out a plea (to the internet) to Aylia's mystery boy. It was fantastic.

You can actually watch it here:
http://www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/Zoom

It's about 49 minutes in where we show up. And you can see us! The camera comes down to us every once and a while. It was pretty funny! :D

Then we walked around a bit. Unsure of where Serendipity would take us next. Interestingly enough, earlier that day Sinead had expressed a deep love/want of frozen yogurt. We had talked about it all day. We were standing in Leicester Square and i saw Sinead's face light up with shock. She twirled and pointed across the square. THERE was a lit up sign saying FROZEN YOGURT! Perhaps something in the universe was working out for us!

Yum!

It was seriously, SO FANTASTIC!

And after all that, we decided it was time to head back. We took the bus home, hoping maybe Sam would hop on. He did not. Oh well!

Alright, Sunday and Monday weren't too exciting. Tuesday was the next fun filled day. Of course we had Tart Tuesday! Although we're switching to Twednesday (pronounced twens-day) because tuesday we have cultural outings which cut tart eating short! But all that later <3

Cheers! T

A Real Friday?

I'm writing from school because i have half hour to kill. It's very strange to have an entire weekend looming ahead after my shakespeare class today. This is the first full weekend for us LDA kids and i think we're all pretty excited. I've got lots of very fun shows coming up. Next week Aylia, Sienna and I might go see this band, there are a few concerts Sinead and i want to see. Thats one of the great things about living in the city...there is so much going on. It's difficult to fit everything in because we are doing so much work, but we try. The one thing i miss is having a library so close at hand. At trin, i can just walk right over to the Library and have the entire researching world at my finger tips...but it isn't the same here. One of my goals this weekend is to find a good library where i can do some research. My obvious first stop is the British Library, i believe this is my best hope.

Tonight i'm going to finally see Sarah! She's starting classes here next week and it's so nice a.) knowing i have someone i know from home so close by & B.) that it's sarah because i love her terribly and i'm so excited to see and catch-up with her. So hopefully we'll get some coffee and do a bit of chatting which would be fantastic. <3

I've just got tickets to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in November with James Earl Jones. I can't wait, i just think it's going to be brillaint. I LOVE Tennessee Williams and i've never seen this play so...i'm very excited.

I'm also hopefully going to see Inherit the Wind with Kevin Spacey. Now, i did Inherit in my Sophomore year of High School and i'm very interested in finally seeing it. ALthough Miles and Anthony were fantastic, i'm just interested in getting the audience perspective. And, of course, getting to see Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic...well thats just awesome. I think we're going to try to get the tickets on Saturday (aka tomorrow) so i guess we'll see how it goes. Yesterday when Sienna and i attempted to find the Old Vic, it failed terribly. SO...we shall see.

Alright, i should head off to Shakespeare. Sorry this wasn't terribly exciting, and i've still got to finish up on last weekend. But sadly i've used up ALL my alotted badnwith for this week (posting all those pictures!) so i've got to wait until tomorrow.

Cheers,
T

Getting to Know Shakespeare (Part III.)

We woke up saturday morning bright and early to meet the bus outside our flats at 8:30AM. It took us until 11 to get to Stratford (or rather almost stratford). Michael gave us a little chat about Stratford and about Shakespeare's upbringing. It was really interesting, and our first stop was Mary Arden's house. Mary Arden was Shakespeare's mother. (The picture above is Aylia dancing around the May Pole!)

We were warned not to play with all the animals because apparently little kids had been getting Ecoli because of petting zoos. Great.

But isn't he so cute!!

The upstairs of the house had tiny little doors!

One of the childrens room...i assume.

(Aylia and Sinead)

Sinead and Owl. They had a whole bunch of Owls! :)

Inside Mary Arden's house which was under normal living until the 70's i believe. neat huh?

HOW CUTE?! I love piggies.

Some of the gang (Stephanine, Haley, Jeff, Vanessa and Eddie)

We also got to see a falcon demonstration and a bunch of kids got to hold it.

Then we got back into the bus and drove to Ann Hathaways house. We just drove by it but we wanted to see Shakespeare's wife's house :D

(Ann's house)

And then we drove to Stratford-Upon-Avon. We were allowed to roam around for a bit, along the street that Shakespeare was born. It was FULL of tourists and the street is also full of "shakespeare" shops. All the cafes have clever shakespeare names, such as the "as you like it cafe." And of course there is a fantastic bookshop all of shakespeare, where i got a tiny pocket romeo and juliet (so now i can always have it on hand :D). And i got some lovely postcards (which some of you can expect when i finally get around to writing postcards.) There were a lot of nice little shops, the gift shop was a little tacky...but what can you expect. I like the Globe gift shop better so i'm going to get more stuff there. But i really loved it. It's strange to think you're walking the same streets shakespeare did, seeing the place he was born, grew up and died.

(Haley, Kate, Stephanie, Sienna)

Sinead and i stopped at a nice cafe. But we had only a few minutes to chow down!

Lute playing jester :)

Steph outside Shakespeare's birthplace! :)

Then we all met up and Michael began to give us a little tour of Stratford! We went to the Church of Stratford-Upon -Avon. it's interesting because it was first a catholic church, and then when the Protestants took over they had the church officials white wash all the Catholic symbols, and as you can see in the second picture, some of them have been carefully recovered. It was beautiful :)

Then we went to the place where Shakespeare bought his last house. At the end of his life he had lots of money so he bough a bigger property (actually right near this church). Sadly the house was knocked down, but we did get to walk around in his back yard.

Shakespeare's Backyard.

Then we walked down to the water where the Royal Shakespeare Company. Because the RSC's production was deemed not up to snuff, we didn't see a show...but we did walk around. The theatre is under construction, so we didn't get to see shakespeare's theatre, but we walked around and it was packed with people. :)

Then we headed to the graveyard to see where shakespeare was buried.

Candid of Sinead :)

Group shot! <3

Now we travel inside the church shakespeare is buried. Because he's got a well off family he gets to buried inside the church. Interesting fact for those of you who care, if you look very closely at the stained  glass (particularly Jesus), you might notice something odd. That something odd is that his face is not faced in the Left direction, but rather the right. Which is not ususally how he is depicted. We learned that (Thanks Michael Winter!) but i'm not sure they know why. Strange, eh?

Hey Billy Shakes! Of course wrote some verse to go on his grave, making sure no one dug him up and moved his bones. Nice Job Will.

Shakespeare's actual birth/death certificates!

After this we headed back to the bus for our final stop. I wish i could tell you the last little town we visited but i can't remember it's name. We went to the Church there which was so beautiful! :)

Countryside from the Bus

A beautiful house in the town.

Then we got back in the bus and headed home. Holy crap that was long, and took me most of the day. I hope you enjoy all the pics. Saturday adventures continue with Aylia and Sinead but i'll post that later...i think this is enough photographs for now :D

Cheers loves,
T