London. A wonderfully creative chaotic bustling beautiful city. Add the business of our class schedule and squeezing in as many shows as we possibly can and you end up with an incredibly hectic three weeks. Three weeks stuffed full of all sorts of arts and all sorts of great experiences that one can never forget. Yesterday (Sunday the 12th), started off with a trip to Brick Lane to check out the Sunday market that is full of vendors of alls kinds. Every direction one turns they are surrounded by jewelery, foods from around the world, homemade sweets, headbands, bags, shoes, clothes, artwork, and lots and lots of people. The smells are enchanting and make you wish your stomach could grow to hold all the food your mouth wants to taste. It’s a very dangerous place to be when pounds in your pocket are few and your imagination and desires are great. But it’s also a great place to be to see all sorts of people in all sorts of fashions and get out of the typical London life. After walking around so much we decided to take a nap break back at the hotel before heading to Shakespeare’s The Tempest, being performed at The Globe Theatre. We all took part in standing through the entire three hour show and were all feeling the stress on our bodies while our minds were staying busy focusing on Shakespearean conversation and hilarious characters. Even though standing in the rain and cold was not the funnest, I still enjoyed being able to touch the stage and be right by the actors on it. Interaction between actors and audience was a common occurrence in Shakespeare’s time and it is still something that is done today.
After class today (Monday the 13th), I enjoyed a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich before whisking away to the Wallace Collection, which is only 20 minutes away by tube (subway). It’s basically a gigantic mansion full of art, sculptures, furniture, jewelery boxes, armour, and all sorts of knicknacks that the Wallace family collected and have now put on display. It was quite impressive but I was ready for some more modern art, which is what I got when I went to the Tate Modern museum right after the Wallace Collection. The building this museum is housed in is quite large and I was expecting a good sized collection but was disappointed to see that only a quarter of it was being used for the free exhibits. However, the collection was different than things we had been viewing before and I enjoyed the variety in mediums. After the Tate, a group of four girls and myself went out to eat at a pub and filled our hungry bellies with enormous hamburgers. Ice cream filled in the cracks and we headed towards the New London Theatre to see War Horse. I was worried about the horses being puppets and being distracted by that fact, but by the end I had to keep telling myself that the horses were not real and would not charge into the crowd unexpectedly. The show definitely played with many of our heartstrings and there were multiple people with tears in their eyes when the lights finally came up in the audience. The walk to the bus and the ride home was brisk and rainy and we were all glad to get back to the Hotel and take in the warmth and comfortableness that is felt here.
What a busy time it’s been here in this city that is so far away from home, but I have met so many wonderful people and experienced things that I feel so privileged to have seen. A whirlwind has swept through my life and it will be bittersweet when it all comes to an end. Enjoy it now.