Getting Personal with Jane and Billy, Birthday Celebrations, Highgate Cemetery

Saturday i woke up early and decided to make my way to the British Library, which i had been waiting to visit for AGES! It was FANTASTIC! I saw so many breath-taking things! Sadly, i couldn't take any pictures but i'll give you a list of my favorite. Like a total nerd i took notes so i would remember everything i saw!

1. Original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which i read my freshman fall at trin trin. It was in the original hand, so beautiful
2. John Milton Commonplace book (Original hand written)
3. JANE AUSTEN: They had her original desk, and on it was a few of the last pages of Persuasion. So beautiful. I almost died, i think i stared at it for like 10 minutes. It even had her glasses sitting there.
4. Original Alice and Wonderland: Maybe one of the most beautiful things i saw. They have copies of the hand written (with his beautiful pictures) book in the shop. This ones one of my favorites, the drawings are so beautiful. I was SO CLOSE to buying one because, it is such a treasure. I might actually go back at some point and get one. It really was so beautiful, and it's so wonderful you can buy the entire book with his writting and drawings on every page.
5. Original Virginia Woolfe
6. They had a whole Beetles section with scribbles of lyrics, like Yellow Submarine and even some records
7. Also in the music section they had some original Mozart compositions.
8. They had the most important texts from basically every religion imaginable.
9. Bibles and Testiments and early manuscript of psalms from the 3rd century
10. THE MAGNA CARTA! Which was really beautiful and very very tiny print. They had it in it's own separate room. 
11. There was also a roll of arms dating to  1270 which i thought was really really neat!
12. SHAKESPEARE. I am not kidding you, i almost cried when i saw the first folio of Romeo and Juliet. It's so beautiful. I certainly stared at this for at least 10 minutes with my face pressed right up against the glass. I practically gasp when i saw the huge shakespeare section and ran straight to it from the Mozart section. They even have a sheet from this play that was written by a bunch of different playwrights and based on research they believe that this page is in Shakespeares OWN hand. That was glorious.

Basically it was the best time EVER and i need to go back again at some point. But i loved it. I got lots of wonderful postcards which some of you can expect in the mail someday. I hopefully will send them out tomorrow...we'll see depending on time ;)

Sagan, Me and Stephanie

That lovely saturday night the gang all got together to celebrate our (my and Kate's) birthday's! It was soooo much fun! It was great just to hang out with all (or most of) the LDA kids and just have fun--without worrying about classes, homework or anything. It was great. We even went dancing at a club! I had such a blast, and took lots of silly pictures! <3

Marlee, Caitlin, Me, Sagan

Sagan had the most beautiful white vintage dress! And Kate got us little pink buttons to wear that said "birthday girl" on them!

Steph and Me

Alright, i'm all caught up now :D So i head off for ROME tomorrow! I promise of course to let you know how those wonderful adventures go! I'm not bringing my laptop so i'm not sure if i'll update FROM rome but we shall see. <3

I love and miss you all so much!

I ALSO wanted to make a shout out to both my beautiful grandmothers: BURGA and GRANNY. I miss them so much and i send them all my love. xoxoxo I am so lucky because i have the most supportive and loving family.

My aunt Kathy recently sent me a picture of Burga on her wedding day and it is so beautiful. I love pictures so much, so many lovely memories!

Cheers all,

T

Ps. See post above for Highgate, i'm a dumb dumb and forgot to post about it. :P

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