6/19
Tuesday
we had the luxury of not having class until noon, I took advantage of the free
morning and worked out and stopped by Sainsbury’s to get more groceries for the
week. After coming back and getting ready, I headed to Faraday for a day of
project presentations and another guest speaker from BBC. Though what he talked
to us about overlapped greatly with the other speaker from BBC, it was
interesting to her the editorial side of the London 2012 team. He also told us
his role in the big concert this upcoming weekend, BBC Radio 1’s Hackney
Weekend, that includes headliners such as Jay-Z. His job is pretty much being
on censorship duties and issuing any apologies if need be if Jay-Z drops the
f-bomb too many times, for example.
The British are definitely a lot more liberal in their television
content and commercials, and him explaining how there’s not even a delay used
for live performances definitely showed that. We wrapped up around 5:30 PM and
I headed back to the flats. Though I didn’t make it to a pub for the England
versus Ukraine game, I am definitely going to try to as they won their group
and are heading to the quarterfinals in Euro 2012! We hung out the rest of the
evening until going out to O’Neill’s, a bar, later in the evening. This is
probably one of the best known places to go out in London, especially for
international students. It was also located in the heart of Chinatown, which I
will hopefully get to go back to during the day sometime to grab dim sum and explore.
It got increasingly crowded after
we got there even though we didn’t get through the doors until around midnight.
They had a live band that did a pretty impressive set for a while. I’m really
only used to DJ’s but it was a cool change of pace in terms of music when we’re
out. It was nice that we were actually capable of hearing each other unlike
when we were at Club Aquarium over the weekend. I ended up staying later and
then going to a club/casino, that other’s had been to before, with a group of us.
The main motivation in going was a place to watch the NBA Finals, naturally on
during the wee hours of the morning for us. We ended up hanging there, I got
nachos and probably four things of water prior to getting really sleepy really
fast. I’ve heard of people staying out until 5 or 6 AM, but I guess I’m not
that resilient. Before I left I went over to the guy wearing the Washington
Redskins hat that I had spotted before to see if he was from the area. As many
people probably know that have been to Europe, you’re pretty much instantly
bonded with other Americans. Turns out he’s from Miami, not DC, but still
pretty cool nonetheless. Three of us headed home on the bus and that’s when I
realized that it was starting to get light out (I think it was around 4 AM). I
got overly excited that I had finally made it out until sunrise, and that
excitement probably kept me from falling asleep on the bus on the way back. We
eventually got back to the flats and I hit the hay for the night.
6/20/12
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| St. Paul's Cathedral |
After sleeping in, working out, and getting ready for the day, we headed across the Thames to tour Shakespeare’s Globe. Though London is a massive city, the ease of getting from place to place really makes it seem smaller. We took a bus down Blackfriars Bridge and walked to the Globe to meet Professor Hollenbeck. She gave us our tickets and we had a bit of time to kill prior to our tour. At 3:30 PM we gathered in a room downstairs to begin our tour of the Globe. We first went outside where the guide versed us in the history of the current Globe, and the two prior that came before it. The original burned down following when a flint from a prop cannon caught fire and burnt the entirety of the building to the ground in one hour. The funding for the current Shakespeare’s Globe began in 1970, but construction wasn’t completed until 1997. The architecture is completely recreated from the original Glove, from the thatched roof to the handmade bricks that it is mounted on. Then we went inside where they were rehearsing for their upcoming show, The Taming of the Shrew. Luckily they gave us a heads up, but our eyes were first met with a scantily-clad groom who had just wed his wife, Kate. It was really interesting to see the behind-the-scenes aspect, with the stage manager cutting in and giving directions every few minutes. It made me really appreciate and understand how much work goes into putting on a production. Afterward we went outside where the guide talked to us for a bit longer.We had gotten tickets to Henry V but the show wasn’t until 7:30 PM so we had about three hours of down time beforehand. Some of us grabbed lunch at Pizza Express, probably the sort-of equivalent of California Pizza Kitchen here. Afterward we walked across the Millennium Bridge (which you would recognize as the bridge from the Harry Potter film) to the other side of the Thames to visit St. Paul’s Cathedral. The afternoon turned into a nice way to knock a few more things off our bucket lists. We didn’t realize St. Paul’s was open at first, but eventually made our way into the cathedral.
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| Millennium Bridge |
They were actually having a service when we went in, so
it was the first time that I got to see a church in action during my European
trip. The ceilings were towering and the building has such a presence in the
surrounding area, which makes sense as it is the third largest cathedral in
Europe. Around 6:00 we walked back to the Globe as you could start queing for
the show if you were a groundling at 6:30. “Groundling” is the name of the
people who stand for the entirety of the show in the middle of the Globe for £5
tickets.
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| View of the Globe from the Millennium Bridge. |
After finally filing into the main area, we took a stand (instead of seat..get it? get it?) toward the back wall where we could lean against it during the show. The inside of the Globe is beautiful. You almost wouldn’t expect it with the simplicity of the exterior. Before the show began, a man strummed on a Shakespearian guitar (sitar? Not sure of the type) and then a few other musicians of sorts came onto the stage. Though I knew going into that Shakespearian English can be relatively difficult to decipher, it was definitely tough to follow as this was a play that I wasn’t familiar with. As the Syracuse people booked the show for us, we didn’t really have a choice with what we were seeing-I was sort of hoping to see The Tempest, as we put it on as our 5th grade play at Canterbury Woods. I tried to enjoy the performance as best I
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| Inside the Globe! |
could and understand. It didn’t help that
the people in our surrounding area were incredibly frustrating. A group of
students who didn’t speak English continuously talked and moved about during
the performance, and a man standing directly in front of our group kept
shuffling about to get a better view. As much as we had hoped to have stayed
and enjoy it, we decided to leave at intermission. I’m not usually one to dip
out of anything early, but we felt like we got enough of the experience to have
left then. I probably would’ve stayed if 1. I had been able to follow the play
better and 2. If the people around us weren’t so incredibly annoying. Despite
that disappointment, it was great to have the experience of seeing a live
performance at the Globe! We grabbed some warm Starbucks for the bus ride home
on the 63. I had a late dinner from Perfect Chicken and got to chat with Kaele
on the phone before hitting the hay.
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