Earthquakes in London

No no, not an actual earthquake. But a play called "Earthquakes in London." We just got back around 11:15 pm from the performance that was at the National Theater right along the Thames River. When you walked into the theater, it was a big winding runway looking stage with barstools surrounding it on either side, which is where I sat. Other audience members stood in different areas on the ground floor, and others were in balconies above the performance. The performance was about climate change, and was incredibly moving and very depressing. I cried almost the entire way through the second act and ate some ben and jerrys directly afterwards. It took place with three sisters being introduced as three completely different characters, each with extremely different personalities. Jasmine, the youngest sister at 19 years old, was a crazy university student, with a sort-of porn-star vibe. She even stripped at one point during the show. Then Friar, the middle sister was pregnant with her first child, but her father basically told her to "do what you have to do" because a child should not be in the future world. Basically, the father was a environmentalist to the extreme that believed the present generation was creating this awful world run by disease, terrorism, plague, smog, pollution, etc and to bring a child into a world like that was cruel. (I am clearly not explaining this all too well, but you truly felt this was a correct statement throughout the whole performance.) Then the last and oldest sister, Sara, actually raised the other two sisters because their mother died from cancer and the father was absent. She was a politician that was involved in environmental issues, and was about to announce a proposal to expand airplane travel across Europe. Anyway, the play was extremely intense, pulling at your heart-strings and toying with your emotions the whole time, and the performance was also extremely long. (Lasted over 3 hours) But I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the setting with the stage sort of becoming part of the audience, it made for a very interesting feel.

We will see a play every Tuesday night for the rest of the semester, so I am excited to see what the next one will be!

Birthday celebration

My birthday was so much fun in London! A big group of us on Sunday went to the Nottinghill Carnival. It was completely insane. To compare it to something at Bucknell, it was like houseparty weekend times 7103413. It was over a million people dancing, rapping, grinding, drinking, etc over about 10 city blocks. The normal clothing was bathing suit tops with mesh shirts over the top, booty shorts, tight corsets, etc. I have never felt more over-dressed in my life. Grabbed some Red Stripe and joined in with the parade of Jamaican music. Tons of fun! We then walked back to the tube stop as it started to get dark and then headed to the London Pub (our "spot") to celebrate my birthday. Joe got me a tequila and tabasco shot. Gross. Never do it. Woke up Monday morning in time and healthy for class! So it was a sucessful birthday. 

Hello from London!

After settling in this past week, I have really gotten used to the lay of the land where I am living. I am living near Russell Square, which is right around the corner from the British Museum. Its a great flat, where I am living on one floor with four other people. And I am in a triple room with Kelly and Maggie. Here are my roommates (Me, Kelly, Maggie)

We live also with another five people in our program that are on the second floor. We've named ourselves the "superflat" and all ten of us do almost everything together. The first few days here we got oriented to the area with different tube stops around. As a whole class we went to Regents Park and saw a play in their outdoor theater. We saw "Into the Woods" it was a riot, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. It was nice that rain held out, we've been getting a lot of that here. 

Last weekend, me and a few flatmates went to the Tower Bridge and did the Queen's Walk along the Thames River (pronouced Tims I found out.) Beautiful sights and we also saw the London Bridge on that same walk. Here is Joe, me, Kelly, Maggie, and Carl in front of the Tower Bridge.

 We also went to Southwark Cathedral which was beautiful!! Here is a picture of that: 

This past Saturday, we visited the Burough Market near Southwark Cathedral. Which had great food! We ate lunch there, and I had falafel. Delicious! More updates and pictures will come soon, with birthday celebration updates.