Tuesday night, we had a fun St. Patty's Day. Everywhere downtown was so crowded, but we actually took a nice break from everything and sat on the Trafalgar Square monument for a while.
Picture: Left to Right--Amanda, Ashley, Katherine, MeOn Wednesday, with my History of London class, we went to the reconstructed Globe Theater. It has hands down been my favorite trip of the class. We took a fairly brief tour of the inside of the theater by a Globe tour guide. It was a pretty day, so it was not difficult to imagine seeing a show in the roofless theater. Although, shows are staged there no matter what the weather. We also had time to go to the giftshop, and I bought refrigerator magnets of Shakespearean insults and a graphic novel of Hamlet. If they have a more detailed tour, I would really like to be able to go back.
Picture: Me in front of the Globe StageAfter seeing the Globe, we walked around the South Bank a little more to see the original sites of The Rose Theater and The Globe Theater.
On Wednesday night, we attended a concert at Scala, a venue near King's Cross Station. We saw GirlTalk, which consists of a man and his MacBook. He makes remixes out of beats and lyrics from Top 40 and classic music, rock, rap, everything. For example, he might make a remix out of the hook from 'Tiny Dancer' and then throw Lil Wayne rap over it. The concert was one big dance party, and we danced for two hours straight in a jam packed room!
On Thursday night, I went to see Avenue Q with Rachel Weinthal. It was such a funny musical and the way a lot of people describe it is an R-rated Sesame Street. Hilarious! It was not really like any musical I had seen up until this point. I'm used to Rogers and Hammerstein musicals or classics such as Phantom or Les Mis with clear morals, simple songs, and clean cut characters. This was definitely not one of those shows, and it was refreshing. Some of the things were a little questionable...but when the puppets said inappropriate things, it was only funny rather than offensive.
My roommate and her friend that has been visiting for over a week went to Paris for the weekend, so Friday was a really nice day for me. I was able to catch up on all the sleep that I had missed from Spring Break and this past week, and then do a lot of homework. We went to dinner at Da Marios, a great Italian place in our neighborhood. It is the same restaurant that we saw Dustin Hoffman a few weeks ago, but we didn't see him again this time.
On Saturday, the musical bug hit us again, and we went to the Novello Theater is Covent Garden early Saturday morning to get some tickets for Spring Awakening at a cheaper, day of show rate. We were able to get seats, good ones at that. While we were on that side of town, we walked across London Bridge, explored the South Bank a little more, and then crossed back over to city London on the Tower Bridge.
Before dinner, a group of us (Caroline, Christina Jones, Rachel, and Katherine) went to eat at a Mexican place called Los Locos in the theater district. I didn't know very much about Spring Awakening before going to the show, other than that it was supposed to be amazing and that it won a lot of Tony's. I could not be happier that I went to see it. It was such a beautiful and heartbreaking musical. The staging of the show was very minimal, and musical numbers were very uniquely stage. Even the lights were awesome! Everyone in my group simply loved it...but a couple in front of us left at intermission. I think that they didn't love the themes of the play...eek!
It has been a very cultured week. I don't have anything specific planned for next week, but I know that, in London, anything can come up!
2 comments:
What could make Julianne Crew happier than to go to 2 plays in a week!!
Have been reading, but realized not commenting, so "how would you know?"
You have been busy! What an experience. Your experiences in Paris were similar to ours. Not fond of non-natives, especially non-French speakers, but then you speak French don't you? The photos from the Louve reminded me of a movie, "The Rape of Europa" which showed the removal of the sculptures during WW II - interesting DVD if you have a school project involving art and history. Most amazing was the removel of the Winged Victory with pulleys down the stairs.
After reading your blog, I decided to try reading "London", a novel by Edward Rutherfurd which had been on the shelf for years. Difficult start, but several days of snow and no work, did the trick. After 829 pages, pre-Roman to the nineties, I've had my only "mini-history of London." Your visit to the Globe reminded me of the description of how it came about in the book.
Keep having fun! I look forward to more impressions when I see you.
JHC
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