London!

Another eventful day, just got back from our day trip to London. I love London already, even though I didn't even see that much of it. It's such a huge, vibrant city, I can't wait to go back and explore more at the end of this program (though I also don't want to leave Cambridge...ahh, if only I could be in two places at once!). It was a short trip (since I decided not to stay the weekend with my buddies who planned to do so because I'm going back in a couple weeks) but it helped me get oriented for later.

We arrived in London a little past 11 and did a quick walking/picture taking tour of some of the sights. We saw:

- Trafalgar Square (big lion statues, nice fountains, The National Gallery)
- Downing Street (couldn't go down it, of course to see Number 10...huge iron gate and LOTS of security)
- the Parliament Buildings (very gothic with lots of gold gilding, very majestic looking!)
- St. Margaret's Cathedral
- Walked through St. James park to get to...
- Buckingham Palace (just stopped by to take a couple of pictures)
- took a taxi to The Imperial War Museum. Very cool place with great exhibits, but we only had 2 hours to spend there, so I didn't have time to see everything I wanted to. Went to the Holocaust and the Children of WWII exhibits. Didn't make it to the Trench Warfare Experience exhibit, which I heard from other people was the best part - trenches re-created for you to walk through complete with effects. Must go back for that. Really sad but most moving part of the Holocaust exhibit was the plexiglass wall filled with victims' half decayed shoes.
- took another taxi to Tate Modern - I LOVE THIS MUSEUM! Amazing building and exhibits and a spectacular view from the top floor (8 floors total, I think). We went to the cafe up top and had tea while taking in the view, then worked our way down. So much art, so little time! Have to come back here too, I raced through the exhibits trying to see as much as I could but wanted so badly to stop and look at lots of things longer and more closely. Saw some very famous artists' works, including some Warhol, Rodin, and Picasso. Awesome!
- Finally, for the reason we came to London in the first place: met at the (faithful reproduction of the original) Globe Theater at 7PM for The Tempest (Shakespeare's final play, for those of you not familiar with it). Dr. Dawson had half sitting tickets and half standing tickets and distributed them at random. I got a standing ticket which a lot of people complained about, but I was excited for. We talked a lot about the Globe in my Shakespeare class last quarter and even took a "virtual tour" of it online. The people who stood in front of the stage were the "groundlings", poor people who paid a penny to get in. Then there are 3 tiers of seats for increasingly affluent people, and the most affluent ones used to be able to sit on stage. I was glad to be a groundling, my feet hurt a lot from standing for 2 hours but I sucked it up and it was worth it, what a great, authentic experience!

The play was very well done, despite being very experimental. There were 3 main actors playing at least 2 characters each (there was even a point when one character was talking back and forth to himself as two different characters conversing), which made it hard to follow sometimes even though I've read the play, but overall it was funny and very entertaining. The costumes were great, the actors had lots of energy and interacted with the groundlings a lot, and the women dancers who played the Fates did some amazing acrobatics and rope stunts. Great experience!

And now I'm back. Tomorrow will be another exciting day; I signed up for the trip to Ely, a nearby city with a(nother) beautiful cathedral. The kicker here is that there is a Schubert and Mozart concert to be performed in the cathedral tomorrow night, and we are going to be watching it, only £5 for seating in the nave. I'm excited!

Sunday I was thinking about going to Norwich with our TAs, but I may end up just staying in Cambridge. I love seeing lots of new things, but I'm a little overwhelmed with all the traveling we've been doing and sort of want to just relax and see more of Cambridge, there's still a lot I haven't done here yet. Or I might take my class reading to Jesus Green and read by the river or something, we'll see. Have a great weekend, all! New pictures up in the online album, of course!