Living life on the fast track

Golden Jubilee Bridge

It has only been a week since my last post, but I am a week behind. So today is catch up day! The last two weeks have been very busy. I will start with Monday, 28 February. On Monday I met up with a friend that I made here. It was nice to spend time with someone who has lived here for many years and to get a few minutes away from the 19 students I am with every day (as much as I love them). We met at the Southbank Centre near the London Eye. The Southbank Centre was designed by the architect that I mentioned a few posts back. It was a freezing night, but we walked along The Thames past the London Eye and crossed Westminster  Bridge overlooking the beautifully lit up Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, back down the other side of the river and across the Golden Jubilee Bridge. It was a beautiful little walk.

On Wednesday, 2 March a few friends from school and I went to The Barbican to see the London Symphony Orchestra. They performed Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No 2 and Mahler's Symphony No 9. The cello soloist, Mario Brunello, was amazingly expressive, but I was not a huge fan of the cello concerto. I absolutely loved the Mahler though. The whole thing was pretty amazing and made me want to go to more concerts. The great thing about music in this country is that the tickets are subsidized, so I was able to see a world class symphony for £9 (~$13). Sometimes you can even get a student discount as well!

The next day my school made a trip to Kingston (south of Central London) to see Shakespeare's, As You Like It. The show was wonderful! The stage was a huge mound of dirt (real dirt) with little water holes in the corners. It was as real as it could possibly be. It was also very entertaining. I've never been the biggest fan of Shakespeare so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

My route from London Eye to St. Paul's

Friday I worked at my internship for half a day. So after I left I went over to the London Eye. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were lots of tourists out. There were various street performers on the embankment so I watched some of them and sat on a bench enjoying the sun and the view. Normally I would have hopped back on the Tube, but it was such a nice day that I decided to walk to my next destination. My housemate, Megan, and I met at St. Paul's Cathedral and attended the Evensong. Attending the evensong is the best way to see the cathedral because you don't have to pay (there is a fee for the tour) and there is music. The choir is really good and it was definitely an experience for me. We both enjoyed it very much. The only disappointment was that they didn't play the organ, which I would have loved to hear. The architecture was beautiful; you could stare at the ceiling for hours!

Now on to this week...

On Wednesday my school went to see The Mikado, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. I recommend that you watch the trailer. I'm still on the fence about opera, but the set was beautiful (all white), the costumes were neat, and the dancing was great. There was even some tap dancing! Unfortunately, the seats were ridiculously uncomfortable, and my feet hardly touched the ground. It had also been a long day, so I was ready to go home by the end of the show. Early in the day we watched Prime Minister's Questions, which is a weekly half hour slot when the PM must answer questions (surprise!). It was very entertaining to watch and nothing like American Politics. The two opposing parties pretty much jab at each other in a very unfriendly way until the "moderator" tells them the time is up. Then we went down to Houses of Parliament and watched part of a debate about Welfare Reform. Honestly, it wasn't very interesting. I had no idea what they were talking about!

Richmond - I sat on those benches

Thursday after class I took the train to Richmond in Southwest London. It's a town along the Thames. I sat by the river and watched people rowing downstream and some men were building boats on the side. Someone decided to feed the birds, which was a terrible idea because they started swarming and I was slightly fearful for my life, but I made it out alive. Then I walked up to the top of a hill and watched a smoggy sunset. It was still pretty nice and the view was expansive. The top of the hill is also right next to where Mick Jagger has a house, pretty neat. I don't think he actually lives there anymore though.

Yesterday (Friday) my school made a trip down to Portsmouth. I wasn't very excited about the trip. It sounded like it was going to be all about military/navy history, which I get bored with really fast. But it ended up being pretty fun. Portsmouth is about an hour and a half train ride south of London. The highlights for me were touring two ships. First we went on the HMS Warrior (1860). On that ship we could just wander around and look at everything. Then we took a tour of the HMS Victory (1765). The tour was very interesting, although sometimes a little too graphic. I am very happy that I did not live on that ship; it sounded pretty wretched! And even I almost hit my head on some of the beams. We even had some sun when we first arrived, but it was freezing cold by the time we headed back home.

Whew, so that is what I have been up to for the last two weeks! More adventures to come and spring break is almost here. I have been planning a week-long trip to Ireland (Dublin and Belfast) so if anyone has any suggestions of what I should do while I'm there I would love to know!