This past week was quite a busy one. From the crazy start on Monday to the World Cup final on Sunday. So for starters Monday was a relaxed day. Since we got back in too late I wasn’t able to go to work, but I did manage to go to one session with some of the older kids at a secondary school. After that it was back to the room for a nice long nap. Afterwards we got dinner, hung around for a bit, worked on our essays and then went to bed.
On Tuesday it was another typical work day in the office. But afterwards I got to see the show Once. It was so amazing! The music was beautiful and the story, however slightly predictable, was still great. There was no orchestra or pit and all the music was performed by the actors. It was a very Mumford and Sons style music, similar to modern folk music. All the actors had a different instrument like a violin, cello, flute, guitars, an accordion, and a few other things. There was just one set and it was an old run down bar. When they needed a different scene they would use the lights to just highlight one section of the stage where the actors were performing. When the actors weren’t acting they were sitting on the side of the set with their instruments. My favorite part of the whole musical was when the chorus would sing. Their voices were just amazing and so perfectly in tune and together I would melt a little bit every time they sung. Also during intermission they invited the audience up on stage to walk around and buy a drink. We, of course, took quite a few selfies on stage, and bought a drink (which came with a free Once tumbler!). The only thing that I didn’t like was that since the tickets were free (provided by AIFS) we were all the way up in the top balcony. The show is a very intimate show and I would love to watch it closer to see the actors faces as they react to each other. I think that way you can really feel and understand what the actors feel. But other than that I can absolutely see why it won the Tony Award for Best Musical. I highly recommend it and you should definitely go see it!
Wednesday was again a typical work day, just in the office doing office work. I’ve actually been working on a bid for the London Sports Trust. They want to start doing sessions in Westminster and in order to do that they have to put in a bid to the borough. So I’ve been helping by doing research and creating the presentation. Anyway, after work we all came back, had a quick dinner and got to work on our essays and our final that were due the next day. It was a typical work night of food, and lots of writing. Thankfully I had been working on the two projects throughout the day and had some of it done. It wasn’t too late of a night, and I got to bed relatively early.
So apparently over here in the UK teachers are allowed to go on strike and that’s what they did today. Because of this there was no one in the school to open the office for us so I had the whole day off to work on my essays, and catch up on sleep. It was a wonderfully relaxing day (besides the essay writing). I went to a coffee shop and finished my essay, and then walked around Kensington Park for a bit. Then for our final class our professor took us on a tour of Greenwich. We started at Canary Wharf, and he talked a bit about that neighborhood and area which is the financial district of London. Afterwards we hopped on the DRL (basically the tube) and headed over to Greenwich. We walked by the Thames and I got to see rowers row by which was very exciting! Then we took a huge elevator down underneath to the depths of the earth. Okay not that far, but we did take it down underneath the Thames and walked a very long, ominous tunnel to the other side. We then walked around and made our way up a large hill (which I actually didn’t know there were any in London) and saw the Prime Meridian line! For a moment I was standing on both the East and West hemispheres of the world! It was very, very cool! One of the cool parts of taking a summer class in London is that your professor takes you to a pub after the class is over. So we went to this very cool pub right on the Thames called Trafalgar Bar and had a pint with our professor to end the term. We walked back along the river and headed for some dinner in Leicester Square and then headed to bed. All in all I really, really enjoyed this class. Despite the fact that the European Business Environment is sometimes not all that interesting, our professor made it very interesting and he was such a blast! I’m going to miss his class and his fun field trips!
On Friday we had our other class with Justin which is British Contemporary Culture, and we talked about the most famous London mobsters, the Kray twins. They are really interesting! They really put on an image of good, but behind the scenes they were true mobsters. Our professor wrote a theory on them and told us this wicked story about how he was giving a lecture about the Kray twins and when he had finished a guy in a trench coat and a hat told him that he represented a man who had listened to the talk and was very interested in meeting with him. The catch was that the man was sitting at the pub next store. So reluctantly my professor went over to meet this man, and it turned out to be a representative of one of the Kray twins who was interested in my professor’s article. I believe it was Reggie Kray who was in jail at the time, and my professor actually sent him drafts of his article. He would get the drafts back with comments and corrections from Reggie himself! Slightly creepy, but still really really interesting. The Kray twins were really interesting and are still very relevant in todays London world. Even last week a news story broke out about how some things had been covered up that are now being uncovered from back when the Kray twins ruled. We only have one more of this class and we all are going to be very sad when it’s over. After class I had to pop over to work for a bit to even out my schedule because I didn’t work on Thursday. After work my roommate Courtney took me to go see Two Gentlemen of Verona put on by a grad program that she’s looking into. Unfortunately the show was pretty awful. The acting was lacking, and clearly the Shakespeare training wasn’t there. But we made a night out of it and stopped in at Scoop for some delicious gelato!
Saturday was a fun day as well! Marielle and I hopped over to Convent Garden Markets and walked around there for quite a bit. This market is a little more upscale and filled with more tea shops and other fun stores. We stopped into a delicious crepe place and indulged ourselves with the OMG crepe and the Cheap date. The OMG crepe was a delicious combination of fresh strawberries, white chocolate, cream, and nutella, and let me tell you “OMG” was indeed the first word that came out of my mouth when I took my first bite. The Cheap Date was also delicatable with Mars Bars and Bailey cream. It was super duper delicious! After lunch we walked by a tattoo stand and I did indeed get one! So you all probably won’t even get to see it, but you can look at the picture! (it doesn’t look that much like a cross in person)
Then we headed back and I got ready to hit the town with the guys at my internship. All the employees are actually my age from like 21-24. We headed over to Hammersmith and started out at one of the oldest pubs in London, established in 1722! We were right on the water and walked past quite a few rowing clubs. No one was rowing, but quite a few of them were throwing parties. After Hammersmith one of the guys drove us to Shoreditch, which is a cool sort of hipster area. We walked around for a bit, popping into places to watch the World Cup game. Then we ended up at one of the guy’s friend’s bar. It was really a lot of fun with good music, and ping pong in the back. I played a few games and won one of them! Then the other intern and I decided that it was time to hit the hay and we headed back to Kensington. Surprisingly the other intern, Cody, and I live on the same street in Kensington! It was a really fun night out with everyone and it was fun to get to know them outside of work.
On Sunday we all decided that we wanted to go see Westminster Abbey but we didn’t want to pay to get in. So we found a loophole! If you go on Sunday for the mass you get in for free, which is exactly what we did! We did have to go to mass though, but it was pretty to see the Abbey. It is absolutely stunning inside! Unfortunately because it was mass I didn’t get to take that many pictures, but I did sneak a few. During the mass one of the priests got up and was giving us a little story and it was about a US president. It’s amazing that even in Westminster Abbey in the heart of London the US is still relevant. After mass we got to walk around for a brief moment, and as we were leaving we looked to our right and there was Issac Newton’s crypt! I also accidentally walked over Winston Churchill’s grave before I noticed what I was walking over. It’s a beautiful church filled with lots of history! Next since we were on that free church grind we headed over to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Once we got there we learned that they actually don’t allow visitors into the galleries or for people to go up to the top on Sundays. So we just walked around and looked at the beautiful statues that are in the church. We then hit up lunch and headed back. We relaxed for awhile, and I went for a mid afternoon run through Kensington and Hyde Park. The wonderful thing about London is that it’s basically always a good temperature. Even when it’s raining, it might be a little chilly but its never too hot. There’s usually a breeze even when the sun is beating down. After my run I showered up and got ready to go watch the final game of the World cup! We headed over to Porterhouse which is a very cool pub! There are so many different levels with lots of different bars, and they even brew some of their own beer. They even had blue moon which was like a little piece of home! However the game was slightly uninteresting and we had work to get done so we left at half time. Once we got back home there were quite a few people watching it across the street, so we came up with the brilliant idea to just lean out our window and watch it through someone else’s window! It worked really well and we even saw Germany score the winning goal!! Yay Germany!!! They deserved to win and it was a great game!
It was a busy but productive week in London. Our weeks seem to be getting shorter and we can’t believe how soon it’s all finishing! But we still have quite a lot left to do in London! Next up… who knows! Actually this week I’m seeing quite a few shows including Shakespeare in Love, Les Miserables, and hopefully Julius Caesar at the Globe! More to come!
PS: Don’t worry (I can hear the gasps from here about my “tattoo”) it’s only a temporary henna tattoo and will be off in 2-3 weeks.
Katie Navarino 