Well now that the craziness of the past week and a half has calmed down, I can finally write this weeks blog.
It was basically a typical work week. I attended a few sessions, and did a few things in the office. Still working out the last little kinks and things in the Westminster bid. Soon we will be contacting businesses for consultations. School is finally over for everyone over in London, which means that this was the last week of school sessions. Next comes summer camps… Should be interesting.
On Monday after work my roommate and I went to go see Shakespeare in Love. The show is actually still in previews, but it was wonderful! The show is about William Shakespeare, and he falls in love with a woman (not Anne Hathaway). Through out the play, Shakespeare is attempting to write a show, first entitled Romeo and the Pirates Daughter. But through the things that happen to Shakespeare the play he’s writing becomes a tragedy, entitled Romeo and Juliet. But even though it sounds like a tragedy it’s very much a comedy. Throughout the show characters would have lines from other Shakespeare plays. My favourite one was when they dog named Spot ran across the stage, jumped on someone, and someone yelled, “Out damn Spot.” Which I’m sure you all recognize from Lady Macbeth’s most famous speech in the play Macbeth. The show was quite cute, and very funny. I really enjoyed it and now I want to watch the movie. After the show, Courtney and I went for a glass of wine and some pasta to end our night.
Skipping ahead a day, on Wednesday we went to go see Les Miserables. Now, talk about an incredible show! The tickets were provided to us from AIFS and they amazing. We were in the stalls in row J. Close enough to see everything, not so close that our necks were hurting!
The show itself was incredible, and thankfully Russell Crowe didn’t make an appearance. All the actors did a beautiful job, and I was brought to tears at the end. The set was absolutely incredible. It was on this giant turn table and the set could switch in an instant. During the scene where Jean is carrying the boy through the sewers, they used the turntable and the lighting to switch moments. As Jean was walking around the turntable, the lights would go off, and a few seconds later it would go back on and Jean would be carrying the boy in a different way. It was just a wonderful, wonderful show.
Since it was a rather a long week for us all, my friend John and I went to a restaurant called Burlan and enjoyed Happy Hour and a delicious dinner. It was so nice and relaxing, and was just what we needed to unwind after the week. After dinner we went over to Holland Park and walked around. The thing I really love about London is the countless number of parks and how beautiful each one is. This one in particular was absolutely beautiful. We walked through a Japanese Garden, where peacocks were roaming free, and giant koi fish were swimming in the pond.
We walked through beautiful flower gardens, passed by a fountain with baby ducks swimming around in it, and even walked by a cow farm.
It was truly a perfect way to end the week. That night we headed off to a club called Verve, which was pretty dead, but the music was great and we had a lot of fun dancing! As we were heading home, a promoter came up to us and said he offered free entry. So we decided why not try out a Salsa club. Now this club was hopping, and we all split a pitcher of sangeria. We danced, and laughed, and finally decided we were all exhausted from the week and headed home.
Friday was our last British Contemporary Culture class with Justin. We talked about diversity and all the different cultures in London. I’m going to miss this class and Justin specifically because he is just an incredible professor. He truly loves London and loves teaching about it. We all tell him that if being a professor doesn’t work out he should go into the theatre because he tells a great story. It had been so hot that we had originally planned to be outside, but we just couldn’t handle the heat. So instead we went to explore The Tate Museum of Modern Art. Ah, modern art… Some of it was quite interesting and they had artists there like Picasso, and Dali. But then they had artists like Jackson Polluck. I had two favourite pieces. One was a mirror to show that we, the viewers, are the ever changing art. The best part was when someone called it, “Brillant.” I laughed out loud at that, and quickly walked along. My other favourite piece of art work was this huge canvas painted grey, and was entitled… any guesses? Yep, it was entitled, “Grey.” Really wonderful…
But like I said some of the modern art was really interesting. I love looking at pieces and trying to interpret what the artist is trying to convey. Not when an artist dumps cans of paint on a canvas, lets it drip down, and calls it “art.” Maybe I’m ignorant, but modern art just isn’t my thing. But after the lovely art, Courtney and I went to the Borough Market. We enjoyed a prosseco spritzer and cooled off. The market was very similar to the food market in Brooklyn. Local meats, cheeses, vegatables, baked goods, wine, beer, the list goes on and on. It was a really cool market and I’m glad we stumbled upon it. Then we headed back home, and went out. We had plans to go to Gordon’s Wine Bar, the oldest wine bar in London, but it was closed. So we headed to a local pub and waited for the rest of our friends to get there. We hopped around a bit and a very fun girls night! Great way to end the week.
Saturday was entitled, “Courtney’s and Katie’s Date Day.” We literally spent the entire day together, and nicknamed it our date day. We woke up early and headed off for Bath which is about two and a half hours outside of London. Bath is most famous for the Roman Baths. Unfortunately it was bombed in World War II, and some of the architecture was ruined. We had a tour guide that walked us around a bit, and the city is beautiful! We felt like we had left England and had been transported to an italian city. We started our “date day” off by heading into a medieval church that was actually filled with light because there are large windows that aren’t stained, so a lot of natural light flows into the church. Then we had a quick walk around the gardens, and headed over for afternoon tea. Courtney found the cutest little place right next to the river off of the bridge that was influenced by the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. We had our afternoon tea, scones, and locally made jam.
After the rain stopped pouring we walked around looking at the architecture, saw the Crest, and the Circle. Apparently the Circle is where Nicholas Cage had a house for awhile. Then we got to tour the Roman Baths! It was so cool! We weren’t allowed to touch the water because it is polluted, hence why its that strange blue color.
There are baths inside closed spaces and they still have clear water which was it would have looked like back in the day. They had a lot of ancient pieces of the baths on display, and it did feel like we were transported back into Roman times. At the very end of the tour you can drink the clean mineral water and it’s supposed to make you feel 10 years younger! All in all Bath was a great day! Once we got back, the “Courtney and Katie” date continued to dinner, where we shared Bruschetta and Gnocchi. We headed back to the room where we split a bottle of wine and watched Midnight in Paris. Then drifted off to sleep. It was a wonderful day!
Sunday was somewhat of a relaxed day. We got up and headed over to Brick Lane Market to see what the market was all about, but more importantly Brick Lane is famous for their bagels, or beigels is how they spell it. We walked around for quite a bit, but finally ended up at Brick Lane. The beigel was so delicious, and well worth the wait! However, it still wasn’t as good as a New York bagel, but since were thousands of miles away and bagels are not a thing around here, they were delicious! Brick Lane was essentially just Camden Market, just in little India. A huge market with cheap stuff. We then ate our delicious beigels and headed back to work on our essays. That wraps up this week. With only 4 weeks left to go theres quite a lot that needs to be checked off our lists.
Katie Navarino 