Week 2

Saturday, August 30th
Today we took a walk with Bill around the western part of the business district of London. We saw St. Pauls Cathedral (holy crap it’s huge), St. Bartholomew’s Church (holy crap it’s old, and beautiful) and Guildhall (holy crap it’s nice in there, and the Arab guard did not like us too much). St. Pauls Cathedral is enormous and has been rebuilt 4 times (hopefully I’ll get the pictures up soon). St. Bartholomew’s Church dates back to 1120’s, and is the oldest parish church in London (it’s also where Shakespeare in Love was filmed). When we walked in, the choir was rehearing for a wedding later that day which gave an extra kick to the beauty of the place. Guildhall is where the City of London’s Mayor would hold meetings and all that jazz. Cool stuff.
Later on I went running with Erin in Hyde Park and it was beautiful in the evening. It was packed with people playing Frisbee, catch, everything. There was a random lake in the middle of the park (of maybe not even that, cuz the park is huge) with paddleboats and canoes. It felt great to go vent some stress and actually get a chance to run in London.

Friday, August 29th
Today I learned how to play cricket, and it was awesome. I won’t explain everything, but it’s almost like a variant of baseball (a bit more intense though). We played in Hyde Park, which is enormous and absolutely beautiful. Our backdrop was the memorial to Prince Albert, which is quite an awesome sight. Our team won because we had less drama majors than the other team. Go us.
After that, we took a tour of the International Student House (ISH) which is a place where students from around the world can live or hang out. They have a bar and food, and the prices aren’t bad at all. They also have places where bands come to play, sort of like a night club. It’s only two tube stops away from us, and we’re automatically members from our enrollment in Ithaca, so I think we’ll spend some of our Friday nights there (1 pound specials on select drinks).
In the evening, we went to see a Proms concert again, this time the New York Philharmonic playing Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin and Tchaik 4. That was amazing. After their program, they played 3 encores because we wouldn’t let them go. Afterwards we went to ISH for some cheap drinks and to celebrate Laura’s birthday.

Thursday, August 28th
British Pop is my only other class, and it’s awesome. The teacher is this lady who apparently knows a lot of people “in the business” and knows a heluva lot about the history of rock ‘n’ roll and the people behind it. This should be a fun class.
Later on I went to a play for my Shakespeare class, “The Revenger’s Tragedy” by Tourner/Middleton (no one’s sure who wrote it). The production I saw was very intense, and they left absolutely nothing to the imagination. It opened with a crazy loud explosion of noise and a techno beat broke out, and then a girl was raped. Seriously, on stage, **bam** right there. I felt violated just watching it. Then, some 3 hours later, everyone died. I’m sure what I saw was commonplace for theatre, but woof.