London Calling

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,-
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

from Richard II by William Shakespeare

Um, it's been awhile, so I won't try to recap. The last two weeks were a blur of papers, finals, packing, sadness, happiness, stress, partying and generally staying up way too late and getting up way too early. We had an amazing farewell dinner cruise. Now I'm in Frankfurt with Niqui. Frankfurt is not a very exciting city, but it has a tower so you can see the whole city. And another tower. And an old church. And a river. And cool shoes. Tomorrow we're going to Cologne and then Vienna for the weekend, then I'm meeting Tessa, Kelsey, and Dylan in Croatia, then going back to Frankfurt and I guess it's like €40 to go to Paris for a day so we'll probably do that...... funny enough because I had such a hard time deciding between Paris & Rome and finally decided but then I couldn't afford Rome soooo... but yeah. I MISS LONDONNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The rest of Spring Break... HA. that was awhile ago. Let us see. I did end up seeing Magic Flute and it was frickin awesome. It was like south african version and the entire score was played with marimbas and wow yeah. Then everyone came home. Then stuff. Then I can't remember. Then bleh. Then last week sucked. My computer broke and the only apple store not 29384623 miles away is booked up like ALL THE FRICKIN TIME so I couldn't even get an appointment until yesterday. It broke like the day before I had a paper due so I was like shit and I emailed my teachers and was like ummm can I have extensions on everything and they were like yeah! So that was good butttttttt not because more stress for this week. Anyhoo it will be fixed in the next week. Yesterday we saw scenes from Shakespeare from all these acting schools around the UK at the Globe. That was way rad. blehhhhhhhhhh I don't know. I am in the metrogate pc lab ahora and I am doing my music history paper but I figured i should blog because it's been a while. Oh yeah and Friday was amazing. I spent 4 1/2 hours in the park reading, homeworking, playing frisbee and feeling the sun on my face and it was beautiful beautiful weather. Saturday was York and it was ok but kinda boring but I walked around and looked at local art galleries with Jodi so that was cool and I picked up some souvenirs for people. Yesterday I woke up and it was snowing. It even stuck, Hyde Park was covered but not too deep but it was really weird. It was so cold. such a difference from just 2 days before. blargh anyway. 9 days left. Oh yeah my travel plans for afterward: Vienna, Croatia, Paris/Rome (I CAN'T DECIDE!!!! HELP!!!!!!!!), Frankfurt. challah!!!

has been crazy sauce. Interesting. I will try to remember as much as I can

Friday - woke up late, watched some Anastasia on BBC4, had a fantastic breakfast of honey nut cheerios (thanks, ma!), took a long shower and went out for a walk. I walked around Royal Albert Hall as people were entering for a matinee and thought about how lucky I am to be in the best part of London - surely the most beautiful - and how happy it makes me to be here in springtime and watch it bloom. For some reason I didn't expect it, because I got here in the middle of winter and everything was bare, now everything is just bursting with color. I love it. I ended up at the Science Museum where I went through a few exhibits - one about coal mining, space exploration, and penicillin. They were all really cool. Then I went and got Indian food with buddies.

Saturday I have no frickin idea. Maybe I will remember later.

Sunday I went to St. Paul's for Easter!!! It was incredible. You can still hear the music for about 10 seconds after it stops playing. After the service while the organist was doing the... recessional, or whatever you call it, I went and stood in the very center under the dome and I'm sure this is the effect they were going for, but it seemed like it was coming from the heavens. It sure is something to be in a place like that. Afterwards me and my church going companions, aka Sue and Albert and Emily and Emily's mom and Emily's sister, went out for tea and scones. Then I decided to hop across the river to the Tate Modern because I really wanted to see the Duchamp/Man Ray/Picabia exhibition. It was grand, totally worth the 9 pounds, very comprehensive and interesting and multimedia-ish. And I saw the urinal and the bicycle wheel and the Mona Lisa with the moustache. =) Then Sue invited me over for Easter dinner and we had delicious lamb chops and mashed potatoes and talked about wine and doing a musical next year.

Monday I woke up at 2pm after sleeping for 13 hours. Oh it was simply grand. I really needed it. My day had barely started when I went to see Much Ado at the National Theatre with Emily and her family. It was really, really good, except Claudio was just kind of a big baby. But Benedick and Beatrice were fabulous, and it brought back tons of memories and all the lines sounded so familiar and it just made me really happy. And I just discovered that the lady who played Beatrice was Madam Hooch in Harry Potter!!!! whoooooooooa. I thought she sounded familiar.

Tuesday I went to Oxford for a few hours, wandered around and thought about the Golden Compass. Now I am about to leave for my internship and hopefully tonight, crossing my fingers, seeing Magic Flute finally. And almost everyone is ocming home from Ireland today!! hurrahhh!!!!

uuummmmmmmmm um um St. Ives. Well, let's see, uh, it was, FANTASTIC?! Sue told us it was on the coast but I guess it didn't register somehow, sooo I went on the train by myself because everyone took the 7 AM train and when my alarm went off at 5:30 I like, literally couldn't move, so I went on the 10 AM, anyway I was looking out the other window/sleeping most of the time so when I happened to turn my head and the beach was RIGHT THERE. I was like. wait. what?

And then I was like. can I stay here?

Oh it was beautiful. It was like the Oregon coast in that it was chilly and windy and the water was cold but it was generally somewhat warmer. And not so weathery. and tons and tons of seashells. Oh and in England, not Oregon.

Mostly just played on the beach all of Saturday. Sue & Albert took us all out to dinner which was so nice of them. I got fish & chips which had no flavour. Then I'd say most of us went back to the [adorable] hostel and picked out a random British movie to watch from their collection... "Blackballs," it's about lawn bowling or, I hope i spell this right, bocce ball. It's kinda Happy Gilmoresque but about effing bocce ball. And Vince Vaughn is in it. and... it's great. And then I went to bed because I was exhausted from a tiring week. Sunday morning I went to breakfast with Liz and her friend who was visiting, we ended up at this little café where I got Cornish cream tea. omG. Why aren't British people fat. I could eat that all the time. It was so good. 2 DECLICIOUS scones with homemade jam and CLOTTED CREAM and tea. Oh my. Scones, I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Then to the Tate St. Ives which was cool because Albert said there's only one other place (museum?) in the world that has that kind of lighting, like from the sea - cause it's like RIGHT on the beach - and it's somewhere in California. How famous. It was good. It didn't seem like it should be a Tate. It should have been a smaller more independent museum. Not so much of the grand, sweeping, ornate TAte Britain or the stark, imposing open spaces of the Tate Modern, and not as cute as Tate Jackson Parker.

And um........... then I played on the beach more. And shopped a little. Then rode the train home. It took forever.

"I like the flowers
I like the daffodils
I like the mountains
I like the rolling hills
I like the fireside
When the night is low;
Singin a doo-wop a doo-wop a doo-wop a doo-wop"