city livin'...

I'm trying to update more so I don't forget things when I go to write about the last 489509238748 million things I did in the last little bit. I'm trying to do the same with my paper journal.

Anyways. When did I last update? Friday evening? So Saturday Dianne, Steph, and I went to Buckingham Palace to tour through the State Rooms. It was really nice, the rooms are really opulent and ornate and really interesting to walk through. We got a complimentary commentary to listen to which I really appreciated because it had a lot of history of the building. I learned about the palace's history, how it used to be a house and was then renovated and recreated into a palace, and then redecorated by King George IV and then finished by Queen Victoria. I especially liked listening about how the Queen's Garden's got bombed during WWII, and then the King and Queen took lunch in an air raid shelter and then went to East London to tour around, which was the part of London that got bombed the heaviest. Oh, and for future reference, Buckingham Palace staff are not allowed to take pictures for you. Go figure.

Saturday night was good. Dianne and I went to South London (Clapham, to be exact) to meet Dianne's friend of a friend, James. He was really nice! Typical British guy, likes soccer (football) and cricket (we had a good chat about how much I like cricket, despite having never actually seen a match), is from Northern England (Yorkshire) and works for HSBC bank in the city. The three of us went out to dinner, which James generously paid for (I tried to offer money, he wouldn't take it... oh well?), which was really nice of him (!) and then went to see his flat and watch some British tv, which ended up being us watching a couple episodes of Friends (lol) before heading home. All in all, it was a good evening. We invited him to ISH karaoke.

Sunday was boring because I didn't do anything or go anywhere, and have no computer or tv to occupy me. I did some work, but there really isn't all that much to do here. So I got a little homesick, and then got frustrated with being homesick and decided that from now on I need only devote half-days to schoolwork in hopes of staving off the homesickness.

Anyways. Yesterday was pretty good. Lots of class. We had a really lively discussion in Drama about the show we saw last week (Poe's Masque of the Red Death at Battersea Arts Centre). It was really really great to discuss some of what we all saw and did, and I was pretty disappointed when the prof had to cut off the discussion. After class we went to Shakespeare's Globe to see The Merchant of Venice, which was so good! It was definitely an experience standing in the yard for three hours and watching the show very much like I would watch a costume today. I had visions of Shakespeare in Love, it was pretty cool. I took as many pictures as I could, and will put them up on Facebook and Flickr for y'all to see. (I have a link to my Flickr account in the sidebar, by the way) The show was bawdy and funny and the crowd got a little raucous and it was just so enjoyable. Add onto that the fact that the acting was amazing and Bassanio was gorgeous and I'm sold. :)

So that's about it. Oh! Dianne and I went to the Victoria and Albert museum today to look at the fashion stuff they had. It's a really nice place, I'd like to go back there.

In other news, it's about two weeks until Cara and Evan get here, and I'm SO excited! And in other other news, I foolishly didn't bring my tan cord jacket and I'm regretting it huge. Oh well. I guess I'll just wear my trench more.