I really feel pressured to come up with awesome titles for my blog posts and I never can. Deal with it.

So finally I have gotten bit by the tourist bug I think because I’ve done about 80 zillion things in the past few days. One night (I don’t remember which night) we went as a group to a play at the National Theatre called “The Power of Yes”. AWFUL. I did not like it one bit. It was about the financial crisis. The play was less of a play and more of a documentary. The play was about the author talking to different people in finance and them telling him all these confusing things. So I was unable to follow what was happening after about 15 minutes. And I tried really hard to follow it. I was bored the whole time and the only thing I really gathered from the play is the bankers are the reason that the world is falling apart. A bit extreme, right? Well that’s how author David Hare really portrayed them. But I am not letting this blog get political, so let’s suffice it to say that the play was boring and one sided. And extremely uncreative.

One redeeming factor of the play was that it had another Harry Potter actor in it! Jeff Rawle played two characters in the play who’s names I could never tell you, but he plays Cedric Diggory’s dad in Goblet of Fire. So cool! This trip is like Harry Potter to the extreme.

Then we went to the Imperial War Museum. This museum starts with World War 1 and then chronologically goes through each war or conflict that England (or the British Empire) has been a part of through the years. Most of it was about England’s colonies trying to get out from under their power (although there was no mention of when America fought for independence…).

The museum was very well done. Dad you would be proud of me because I stopped and read most of the plaques although I missed having you there to explain everything to me (Now I will know whether or not you actually read this Dad). They had an entire floor devoted to the Holocaust as well. I’ve never been in a Holocaust exhibit of this magnitude so it was a very hard experience. Also they had interactive things like a trench experience and a blitz experience. The line for the blitz one was too long but walking through the fake trenches was actually kinda scary. That night we went and saw Wicked, but you want a full and separate blog post for that right? Thought so. Then, a couple of days ago I went to Platform 9 ¾!

Huzzah! Actually right now they’re doing construction at King’s Cross station so it wasn’t actually between Platforms 9 and 10, but that’s a minor detail. King’s Cross was surprisingly ordinary really. I wonder if they actually film there or not?

Anywho, right after that we went to the British Library. Of course I love libraries. They had a lot of cool artifacts. They had the other copy of Shakespeare’s first folio (I saw the other in Stratford), handwritten Beatles lyrics, and a copy of the Magna Carta to name a few. Actually my favorite part was a section about music and it had several handwritten copies of famous pieces including Handel’s Messiah and The Wedding March from a Misummer Night’s Dream. So what did I do but rip out my iPod and follow along with these old pieces of sheet music.

That night we went to Harrod’s. Really impressive place but also terribly out of budget for me! One weird thing they had was two separate monuments to Princess Diana and her secret boyfriend Dodi whose family owns Harrod’s. The monuments were tacky and just strange. They had like a wine glass from the limo with residue in it. Gross.

Yesterday I went to Camden Road Market. It was really cool! They had typical touristy stuff but also like vintage clothes, antique and everything you could imagine. The market used to be stables, but now the market operates 7 days a week there.

After that I went to Westminster Abbey. It was really neat. I went there the last time I came to England but I had forgotten how impressive it was. Every king and queen is crowned, married and buried there. Literally buried there. There were so many coffins of Kings and Queens dating back to the 1200s. Coolest of all was the Mary Queen of Scots is buried there (but her monument still has her head on her shoulders). Also located in Westminster Abbey is poet’s corner, which is where many famous authors are either buried or have a monument in their honor. That afternoon I stayed for Evensong. I’d never been to an Evensong before and it was really neat. We actually got to sit up in the choir area because there wasn’t really a huge crowd gathered there for Evensong.

More importantly, last night the Rebels played Arkansas! Pig soooooieeeee! Gross. But the Rebels pulled out a win! Highlights: 1. Jerrel Powe went in at fullback! What a man of many talents.

That's not a picture from last night, but it's just shows his greatness the best, I think. 2. Being able to hear the crowd chanting "HOUSTON NUTT!" over the commentator's mics through the internet and into the earbuds of my headphones. Houston Nutt for president!

3. Winning a game. Sad that my highlights have come to that, but its the truth! Go Rebs!

"Like Electricity..."

Ok about a week ago I went and saw Billy Elliot The Musical for the first time. It completely blew me away. The story, the dancing, the kids, the music is all wonderful. The show was much more emotional than I was anticipating, too. You may have heard of it because it is based off of a movie from a few years back and the music is by Elton John.

Basically Billy Elliot is about a 12 year old boy who lives in a small mining town in County Durham, England during the 1980s miner's strike. His whole family are miners, but one day he gets caught up in a ballet class by accident and decides he wants to be a ballet dancer. The musical explores how he struggles with the expectations of his family and his community in order to pursue his dream.

We got so lucky with our tickets. The great thing about being in London for 5 weeks is that we don't have to buy tickets ahead of time. Most places offer day tickets for way more than half price off that are on the first two rows and some places offer student tickets as well. We went to the Billy theatre about 4 hours before showtime and got front row seats for about a third of the price! This was my view.

Some of our view was restricted, but I just love to be so close to the stage, that I did not care one bit! So many of the actors would come and sit smack in front of us on the edge of the stage. We totes made a connection with Billy too. I think it's so fun when you're so close that you constantly make eye contact with the actors.

Our little Billy was 12 year old Ollie Gardner. SO CUTE! I just wanted to steal him! I was totally blown away by what these kids do onstage. In addition to Billy there are 3 other little boys and about 15 hilarious ballet girls. But Ollie totally dominated this show. Billy has to be able to tap, sing, act, ballet, street dance and so much else. And this kid was awesome at all of it.

One thing I do not enjoy about English theatre is the audiences. Seriously, everywhere we go it is like pulling teeth to get a standing ovation. One of the craziest moves in Billy Elliot is during the song "Electricity". The boy has been dancing and sing for awhile already and then at the very end he runs up a wall and does a back flip. WHAT?! I was freaking out and in America that would totally deserve a standing O. So I almost jumped out of my seat (and the Billy jerked his head to look at me) and had to restrain myself from standing up. Come on England!

So at the end of the musical me and the girl I went with were one of maybe 8-10 people in the entire theatre who stood up. Come on now. In America even the dumbest plays get standing ovations. A-mazing.

One thing about this show is that it really has depth and heart. There were moment where you were laughing so hard one second and then on the verge of tears next. The show really has complexity to it. You have political tensions (heightened by the weird scene with a giant Margaret Thatcher puppet), family issues and then just the simple fact that a boy wants to dance.

Everyone else in the show was great as well, just a little upstaged by all the kids in the cast! I really like Mr. Elliot and Tony Elliot. The scenes between the two of them especially when they would watch Billy dance were just so sweet. Watching two grown men cry is never easy!

All in all I highly recommend this show. I think anyone would like it whether you like dance or not. It's a feel good show with a good, however cliche, message to follow your dreams and do what you love.

Londres!

Well I guess I've waited long enough to update my blog. Sorry guys it's just that here in London I'm much less busy doing sightseeing so there's less to talk about. So we've been having lcass 3 times a week all morning and also attending some "briefings" which are poli sci or economics oriented, so I'm generally lost when we go to these places. So these are gonna be brief. We went to the Bank of England, watched a rich dramatic documentary about a girl starting a juice stand and I got to lift a brick of gold. Actually a lot more heavy than I thought it would be. We went to the Commonwealth Secretariat which basically used to be the British Empire's colonies minus America. Worst part of that--that mean lady put me on the spot first asking me what I knew about the Commonwealth Secretariat. I told her I had no idea what the Commonwealth was. Done.

Last Thursday night (I think it was) we went to see a production of "Mother Courage and Her Children" at the National Theatre. It was crazy! First of all it starred Fiona Shaw and Harry Melling who play Aunt Petunia and Dudley Dursley in Harry Potter!

Btw Dudley is hot now. So the play is really an anti war play written by Brecht in the 1940s during WWII. Here starts the confusion it was written in the 1940s about that time, set in the 30 years war in the 1600s, but with modern costumes, uniforms, etc. Whew! It was staged magnificently. I won't bore you with too many details, but it really felt more like a rock concert or at least a rock musical.

There was a band up there called "Duke Special and His Band" that played all the music throughout as well as sang with the characters. They were really good.

Best part-afterward me and another Harry Potter fanatic Alison Reeder went to the stage door and got autographs from both Aunt Petunia and Dudley! They were very nice. We decided not to mention Harry Potter so we wouldn't look completely insane. Harry Melling was so nice! He stopped and talked to us for a few minutes about the theatre he's doing. So cool!

At some point I went to the British Museum. Um it's enormous. It's about five minutes from our hotel so one day when we had a spare hour I just spent some time walking around in there. It's very hard to focus because there's just so much stuff! I did see the Rosetta stone.

I've been to some shows too which I'm doing a separate post about later. Sorry but you know how much I love theatre! Or if you didn't know you will figure it out soon!

One day we ventured out to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It's so beautiful.

One of the more famous things there besides Kensington Palace is the Peter Pan Statue. Also they had this awesome pirate themed playground with like a ship in the middle of it. BUT you couldn't go in if you were over 12 and didn't have a kid with you. We were all very mad about that.

This week we went to the London Metals Exchange for a briefing. Sounds boring right? Actually not so much. This is the place where they set prices for metals to be traded around the world. Each metal gets 5 minutes and there is a group of about 8 people representing all the major buyers and sellers of metals in the Western World. They have clerks behind them and more people on phones with their customers, etc. Some metals aren't exciting, but for some the last minute or the selling time turns into a shouting match with people screaming prices and making deals among each other. It was like an old school stock market. Also it gets so loud in there that they have hand signals to motion to each other the prices, bids and offers. It was really neat.

The other day we visited the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. There are many famous artists represented there including Michelangelo, Raphael, Monet, etc. We then visited Trafalgar square.

It's a Rick Pick!

This week as we have been set loose in various places with no schedule and no agenda we have begun to rely on Rick Steve's guidebooks to Great Britain. Hence the title of this post because each of Rick's 3 diamond (not stars!) recommendations have been dubbed a "Rick Pick". Here is us posing with Rick. Moving on.

After leaving Edinburgh we went to the lovely town of York. The only thing really to see in York is the York Minster. It is a giant cathedral built on a Norman Cathedral, built on a building used to baptize a Norman king, built on a Roman building. So lots of stuff going on there.

It had some of the coolest stain glass windows and carvings and statues.

The giant window they are famous for was not even there. They are repairing it piece by piece and apparently it's going to take 15 years to do it! So now they have a giant photograph where it was. Actually the photograph alone was impressive. They had to get HP to make a special printer in order to print this thing!

After we toured the Minster we got to hike up the York Minster Tower. It took about 10 minutes to get up the tiny spiral staircase. But the view was totally worth it!

The next day we headed out to the town of Cambridge. First we stopped at the American Military Cemetery. I have never been to a military cemetery before that I can remember. The experience was humbling and a bit overwhelming. Seeing the graves of a fraction of men and women who died for our country in one place makes their sacrifice more real to me. Reading numbers out of a textbook is one thing but seeing graves is another.

There was also a little chapel there that had a cool mosaic as well as a giant map showing the different squadrons (? I don't know my military terminology) from America that were stationed around the world. Fun fact: The architects for this cemetery were also the architects for Furman! Such a weird connection...

Then we finally hit Cambridge. Its a cool city. There are about a zillion colleges and pretty buildings there. We were all so tired that it was kinda hard to take in everything in under 24 hours.

Coolest thing we found in Cambridge was this random alley with a sign that said FU (for Furman University of course!). So we absolutely had to take a picture!

That night we had dinner at the Eagle's Pub. This was so cool because it is a place where the RAF (British air force) and American Air Force hung out during WWII. There are patches and stickers of all the squadrons around the room and they wrote on the walls and the ceilings. Also this is the place where Watson and Crick would hang out and they even announced their discovery of DNA from this pub.

We visited King's College the next morning and guess who's camera died. That's right, mine. Here's my one picture of the outside.

Then we drove to LONDON! Woo hoo! Downside: we had to say goodbye to our lovely bus driver Seamus. It was heartbreaking. He said goodbye to us and started crying. Ahhhh I hate goodbyes!

So yesterday we spent the day exploring London a little bit. We took a night walk as a group to get oriented and here is my first picture from London...I thought that was kinda a milestone, right?

Today I did nothing really. Slept til noon. Got out of bed at 1. Left the hotel room at 2. Then I just explored the city. I found my way to the main shopping area of town (I think I have a natural sense of finding my way to places where I can blow my money). Picture this--two H&Ms within 4 blocks of each other. Yesssssss!!!!!!!

The Red Hot Chilli...Pipers?

Alright, let’s see if I can catch you up since I left Stratford! It has been very hectic as we jump to a new city almost every day. First we went to the town of Carlisle. Carlisle was boring and was basically a jumping off point for us to see other things in the area. First we visited Wordsworth’s homes at Dove Cottage and Ryder Hall. I didn’t take any pictures of Dove Cottage because it was pouring down rain, but Ryder hall was very pretty.

Wordsworth bought Dove Cottage because it was in the country and more condusive to his Romantic way of writing. Ryder Hall also had very pretty gardens, but once again, I did not enjoy them because it was so cold and wet. And I was in a skirt and ruined my favorite shoes…

The next day we hiked the third highest mountain in Britain, Helvelyn. It was ridiculous. When we started I was col wearing a t shirt, sweatshirt and north face jacket. Within 5 minutes I had shed down to my t shirt because the walk was SO HARD! The entire way up was an intense incline.

The hike took us about an hour and a half to get up. When we got to the summit it was freezing! Apparently it had been snowing up there earlier that day…I was wearing leggings and shorts. Oops.

So our time at the summit was very short! Then we began the long climb down. It was like walking down very very long, rocky and uneven stairs. It took the same amount of time to get down as to get up. Whew! We felt very accomplished when we were done and we ate a very large dinner at Wetherspoon’s that night!

The next day we began our drive into Scotland! Scotland is my favorite country in the world. That could be an exaggeration, but I do love it. The people are so kind, the land is beautiful and the accents are awesome! Before our arrival in Glasgow, we stopped at Hadrian’s wall. Eh. It was alright, some more ruins and lots of sheep poo everywhere.

So we arrived in Glasgow. It was a pretty neat city with tons of shopping. Unfortunately my suitcase is already busting at the seams! I did manage to squeeze in a pair of adorable boots from Glasgow…Anywho, we spent the first afternoon there just walking around the city and getting our bearings. We ate at this place called campus that was trying to hard to be American. There were American flags and cowboy boots everywhere. And the walls were covered with pennants from American colleges. Crazy place!

The next morning we took a bus tour of Glasgow. I really enjoy those because I get a feel for the entire city, not just the areas that are close enough for me to get to by foot. Things I learned: a) St. Mungo lived here, as in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries b) Glasgow used to be a very polluted city and they don’t clean their buildings now because it actually makes them grow a fungus on them… c) sitting on a bus is like a beautiful lullaby that puts me straight to sleep. We took a pitstop at the Transport Museum of Glasgow. Actually much more interesting than it sounds. They had the Ford Anglia from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets complete with a model Hedwig in the back!

Me and Alison are all over that stuff. We had the rest of the afternoon to walk around again. The next morning we took a tour of the City Council building and had a briefing on rebuilding Glasgow. Boring. After that we began the trek to….EDINBURGH!

Funny story, almost three years ago I came to the UK for my senior trip and we spent a few days in Edinburgh. When we pulled up to our lodgings I realized that we were staying in the same Travelodge that I stayed in three years ago! Crazy. Edinburgh is truly an awesome city. It is beautiful and there is so much you can do there. The first afternoon we went to St. Giles Cathedral. All these Cathedrals are really starting to run together for me.

That night was the best night of all. We ate at the Elephant House. Sounds pretty ordinary right? Well, actually it's where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter books! There were articles on the wall showing pictures of her in the cafe. Apparently she's been spotted in there recently writing...

Thursday morning we got an early start and tried to hit as many of Edinburgh’s fantastic sights as possible. First we went to Holyrood palace. This is the Queen’s residence in Scotland. It was really cool. Actually I had been there last time I was in Edinburgh but it’s still cool.

They don’t try to make the palace gaudy or anything, it is just presented as it is. We really appreciated that after all of England’s attempts to make everything in your face touristy. Mary Queen of Scots lived there actually along with many other famous monarchs. Best part of the palace—we got a free shortbread crown from the café.

Then we quickly hit the Museum of Childhood since it was free. Not that exciting really so it was a quick breezethrough.

We had more fun playing with all the toys in the gift shop. Then we met up with our group for a trip to the Scottish Parliament. Actually Scotland is far more independent than most people think. They don’t try as hard as Ireland to be independent either. The Scottish don’t seem to fight against England for their independence, they just declare that they are independent. So they have their own parliament among other things.

Then we went to Edinburgh Castle. This was the most ridiculous castle that I have ever seen. It was HUGE. I get easily tired of castles because typically they are all the same…this was definitely an exception. The only downside—five minutes into the tour my stomach decided that it did not like what I had for lunch that day. Too much info? Sorry.

This castle had a lot of stuff in it.—the national war memorial which was quite impressive, St. Margaret’s chapel the oldest building there, the national war museum and the Scottish crown jewels. Also a spectacular view of the city.

There was also a room where Mary Queen of Scots had her son Edward. Cool story about the Scottish jewels. They were locked up for years and actually the author Sir Walter Scott got permission from the reigning monarch to open up the room and bring them out again. Then in World War II they were hidden again in this very castle because of the impending German invasion. Only a handful of people were told one of whom being the Canadian Prime minister. So if all the Scottish people were killed the fate of the Scottish Crown jewels were in the hands of Canada. Hmmm.

There were so many statues of William Wallace, which is awesome! I was really kicking myself for not bringing Braveheart with me (what was I thinking?! I decide to bring Devil Wears Prada over Braveheart. Dumb). So me and Kelsey watched Gladiator instead. Same thing.