Belfast and Dublin

Apparently I was zonked last night, because I fell asleep at about 11:30 and didn't even wake up when my roommates, three loud French girls, came in.  I also slept until 9:30, though last night was the daylight savings change here so I lost an hour somewhere in there.

My train to Dublin left at 1:00, but I had time enough for a Black Cab Tour of Belfast, which took us to some sites significant to the period of time they call the Troubles, which were about 1969 to 1986.  I knew of course that Catholics and Protestants had never really gotten along in Ireland, but I hadn't realized how bad it still is.  Belfast has walls!  The tour guide compared them to the Berlin Wall, except these have been up for forty years and don't look to be coming down any time soon.  There are gates on the roads that close for the weekends, and walls separating the Catholics from the Protestants to stop them from beating and killing each other.

It was...really amazing.  First we saw the Protestant side of the wall, which was covered in spray-painted artwork.  It looked sort of like graffiti, except it was really art, and people have come from all over to decorate the wall.  On the other side, the Catholic side, we saw a memorial garden with large plaques on the wall listing names of Catholic martyrs -- the civilians who died since Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland separated, names going into the 2000s, and also members of the IRA.  There were portraits of the IRA volunteers on the wall behind the memorial plaque.  I grew up learning that the IRA are terrorists, but to these people, they're heroes.  It's just...wow.  I'm really not sure what to think about all this, except that it's so sad that there are walls in Belfast.

I got into Dublin at about 3:30 and decided to walk to my hostel, since it wasn't very far.  I checked in and dropped my stuff off, and then decided to go to the Guinness Storehouse, because I don't have that much time actually in Dublin and I definitely wanted to see that.  I walked there as well, getting there at about 4:15.  It stopped admitting people at 5:00, but people already in there could still finish their tours and so on, so I wandered around the factory (basically a museum) and got my free pint of Guinness at the bar at the top (awesome view of Dublin from there) and bought a shirt at the store.  Guinness is much better in Ireland than in America, apparently because it's several weeks older by the time we get it in America, because it all gets shipped out from Dublin.

When I was done at the Guinness Storehouse, I saw some horse-drawn carriages, and splurged a bit.  I've always wanted to take a horse-drawn carriage, and it feels particularly awesome to have taken one in Dublin.  It took me to Temple Bar, which is basically Dublin's night-life district.  I had dinner there, and then went to a pub and listened to traditional Irish music for awhile.  That was pretty awesome.

Another early day tomorrow, since my tour is finally starting.  Now to see more of the rest of Ireland!  This is so awesome!

Northern Ireland

Before I get to the spring break stuff, catch-up for the rest of the week:

The House of Commons was...boring.  This depressed me very much.  It was Budget Day -- I wanted people yelling and insulting each other!  But I guess we should have gone earlier for that.  Martin wanted us to meet at 3:00, and we got into the House of Commons at about 3:30 (I got some good pictures of Westminster Hall on the way), but by then there were only about ten MPs still there (there are 646 MPs total), droning on in stultifying speeches lasting fifteen or twenty minutes about economy stuff I didn't have the background to understand.  Very disappointing.  Still, at least I've been to the Houses of Parliament.

Thursday was the last day of classes before break, and I just had one test.  I had an essay due Friday (though he said he wasn't going to start looking at them until Monday, meaning we basically had until then to email them to him), but I finished that in the free time I had before my test, meaning I got in all three essays early.  Go me!  I think I did well on the test, too.  Oh!  I also had a test/quiz in my history class, but that was like forty multiple-choice questions.  There were about eight questions I wasn't sure about, but everyone finished the quiz so quickly that he went over the answers in class, and I ended up getting 100%.  Again, go me!

Anyway, now on to spring break!  My first train was at 9:10, but thankfully the closest tube station (which isn't actually the London Underground, but the Overground, which means I've now been on every single tube line), the one actually within walking distance, had the train that went straight to my train station.  It's much easier not having to change lines.

My first train had free wifi, but while my computer could find the signal, there was some sort of security issue I didn't know how to fix, so no internet on the train.  Which was just as well, because I started getting queasy just looking at the words on my screen while trying to fix the problem.  Bloody motion sickness.  It's the most inconvenient thing ever.  Since I can't read, my iPod is my lifeline.

I made it to Holyhead, where my ferry left.  The first Welsh town we went through was called Rhyl, and I knew it was Welsh not only from the name, but from the signs using Welsh as well as English.  Wales is the only UK country I've seen actively trying to hold onto its language like that -- I'd really only seen Scottish Gaelic at the Scottish Parliament, and I haven't really seen Irish Gaelic in Northern Ireland at all.  (Republic of Ireland, yes -- Northern Ireland, no.)

I'm not sure what I'd been expecting out of the ferry, but it was fancier than whatever expectations I'd had.  My ticket had a seat reservation on it, so I assumed we'd have assigned seats, and so on.  I did not actually find any such seat, but I did grab a couch so I could stretch out, and did not miss the lack of assigned seat.  Before the ferry left, I got a couple pictures of Holyhead from the ferry, and when I go back from Dublin, I'll probably get a couple pictures of that as well.

I could not read on the ferry either -- even looking at my itinerary was making me queasy.  I just listened to music and did a bit of wandering -- the ferry had a cinema with two theaters, a family entertainment center, a shop, two bar/lounges, and a cafe, plus cabins and car decks.  I appreciated it much more than flying.

What I did not appreciate was the delay when we docked.  The ferry was supposed to get into Dublin at 5:30, which is why I booked my train to Belfast for 7:00 -- plenty of time, I thought.  I did get to the train on time, but no thanks to the ferry.  First the pedestrian gangway broke down and they had to get a shuttle on board to get us off, and then the bus that was supposed to take us to Bus Arus (bus station) and Connolly Station (train station, where I needed to go), waited around for nothing to happen.  I finally got off the ferry at about 6:15, the bus left around 6:35, my train wanted me to be on the train twenty minutes before departure, and I didn't even have my ticket yet, I had to pick it up at the station.  Thankfully the bus got us there quickly, and it did not take me long to pick up my ticket, so I did make my train, but it was closer than I liked, and I did not have time to pick up dinner.  The dining car didn't have much of a selection (just those kind of sandwiches with all the butter, ugh), so I figured I'd just wait until Belfast.

I got to Belfast all right, but by then I was tired and decided to take a cab rather than walk the half-hour walk googlemaps told me it would be to my hostel.  It ended up being like a five minute drive, so the cab was pretty cheap.  I checked into my hostel, put my stuff down in my room, then went out to hunt down the elusive dinner.  I wandered around Belfast City Center (just a few minutes' walk away from my hostel) for a bit, then finally found a place to eat.  Belfast City Hall, by the way, is actually quite pretty at night.  It's lit up a bit and there's the Belfast Wheel (a ferris wheel -- what is it with the UK and having ferris wheels near their government buildings?) right next to it, which was also lit up.  I got a picture of that tonight.

I decided to take my shower and go to bed fairly early, around eleven, because I was very tired.  I slept fine, but when I got up I was glad that I habitually take showers at night, because apparently in the morning the shower became more of a trickle, and people were complaining about how they couldn't get any water.

I signed up for a tour to the Giant's Causeway today, which was absolutely wonderful.  The Giant's Causeway, of course, but also the tour in general, because it did so much more than just the Causeway.  We stopped for first a photo op at Carrickfergus Castle, had another one at Carnlough, then the Causeway, then another photo at Dunluce Castle, then fifteen minutes for the shop at Bushmills Whiskey Distillery, and finally the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.

The tour guide was great.  He talked pretty much continually when we were on the bus from when the bus left around 9:30 to when we were finally done with Carrick-a-Rede at 5:30, pointing out landmarks, other things of note, general history, and anything else pertinent.  Ireland apparently has a high concentration of castles, because I counted eight we drove past or stopped by just on our coastal road.  Also, North Atlantic salmon are almost extinct, the rope bridge was first built 350 years ago, people once taught school in a small limestone cave not far past Glenarm, and Winston Churchill used to own the Londonderry Arms hotel in Carnlough.  And these are only the facts I can remember off the top of my head.

He gave us about two hours at the Causeway, including lunch, and I needed pretty much the full hour and a half left after lunch to see everything on the entire hike.  There was lots of climbing up and down cliffs and rocks, and I don't generally enjoy hiking and climbing all the much, but I had a great time.  It was gorgeous scenery, and I got so many pictures.  It's also just generally very impressive.

I also got several pictures at Carrick-a-Rede, which was less impressive but still had lovely scenery.  You had to pay five pounds to go across the rope bridge, and I didn't want to, so I satisfied myself with just taking pictures of it.  It was another long walk to get there, with several sharpish inclines and climbing, but all the walking and stuff from this trip so far must be getting me in better shape, because I handled today much better than I would have a year ago.  And I've actually grown to enjoy the walking.  I'm going to try and do more of it when I get home.  (I can hear Mom's "Finally!" from here. :p)

We got back to the hostel at about seven, after more free history about Belfast -- our hostel is apparently in the Cathedral District, and is just down the street from St. Ann's Cathedral, which has the biggest Celtic Cross in all Ireland.  I booked a Black Cab Tour of Belfast for tomorrow morning, went out to have dinner, and then decided to come down to the lobby (which has couches and chairs much more comfortable than in my room) to spend some time online before I go to bed.

There's apparently a rave going on tonight, I was informed by some of the people dressed in the most eye-catchingly bright clothes I've ever seen.  There have been so many people dressed similarly tromping through the lobby in the past hour.  Neon tights and bike shorts, paint-splattered coveralls, floofy skirts (on both men and women), creative socks...it's pretty crazy.  And apparently the theme song for my travels is Journey's Don't Stop Believing, because I've heard that song every single day I've spent outside London, either on my iPod or sung by random people around me, this time by some of the people going to the rave.  It's actually pretty awesome, because I like that song, but we'll see how I feel about it at the end of my trip.

It's only been the first proper day of my trip and I'm having such a great time.  I can't wait for the rest of the week!

Mid-Term

On Thursday I met Maddy for lunch, the London Eye, and the Imperial War Museum.  The London Eye was fun, but not as impressive as I'd hoped.  I did get a very good view of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, but the sun was starting behind them so I'm not sure how well the pictures I took will turn out.

The Imperial War Museum was interesting, but I could only stay there for about an hour because I still had to get to class.  That night we had another show, The White Guard.

Awesome play.  It's about this family of Russians in the Ukraine at the very end of World War I and in the middle of the Russian Revolution, and it had some really amazing sets and wonderful characters and a great story and set of themes.  I loved it, so now it and Billy Elliot are my favorite things I've seen so far.

On Friday we went to Stonehenge and Bath.  We got a coach and a tour guide and stopped at Stonehenge for an hour, where it started raining.  I think it was raining the last time I was at Stonehenge as well.  It was pretty cool, but I have been there before and it hasn't really changed much.

From there we went to Bath, which I enjoyed.  It was still raining, and in fact rained the entire time, but I still enjoyed it.  Our tour guide took us on a walking tour of Bath, showing us some of the main streets, the river Avon (which I hadn't realized went through Bath at all), the Bath Circus and the Royal Crescent with their impressive architecture, and then Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths.  Bath Abbey had some absolutely gorgeous stained glass windows, and at the Roman Baths we were given audio guides that I found out today were narrated by my theatre teacher.

I enjoyed the Roman Baths, mostly for the omgRomans! factor.  After we were done there, we had about an hour of free time, so Sarah and I went to the Jane Austen Centre.  I wish we'd had more free time, because I enjoyed the mini-Jane Austen museum, but the Centre also had a tea room that advertised tea with Mr. Darcy, and I would have liked to do that.

We left Bath at about four for a three hour coach trip back to London, getting home in time for dinner.  Some people stayed in Bath an extra day, but I decided not to, because I had three papers due this week and I wanted to use the weekend to write them.  I did get two done and turned in already, and the third isn't due until Friday so I was going to do it tonight and tomorrow.

I had a bit of a weird experience (I'm not sure what to call it) with the papers, though.  When I write papers, I like to take a draft to my teachers for their feedback, which I can then use to revise the paper and turn in an improved final draft.  I'd intended to do that with these, but when I asked Martin if he'd be willing, he seemed very confused at the concept.  He said he normally looked at student summaries of what their papers were about so he could tell them if they were on the right track or not, but looking at a complete draft was too much like marking it, and he would prefer I do the summary.  I did, and he said my paper should be fine based on that, but I'm a bit eh.  We don't have a writing center here, so my only source of feedback on a rough draft is my teachers (I don't want to ask fellow students, who are busy enough, this isn't their job, and most of them are not politics students, but my teacher (who is also the program director) said he doesn't really do things like that.  I did do another read-through and make a few revisions before turning what I had in, but if I don't get as good a grade as I'd like, for the next assignment I might ask him to look at it anyway, even if it's not what he usually does.  It's really an important part of the writing process for me, and has resulted in the great improvement of many of my drafts, and is really something I sort of took for granted at UPS, since the teachers there encourage that sort of thing.  But it's not like I've never turned in a paper cold, so I suppose we'll just see how this goes.

This weekend I also finished Great Expectations!  Finally!  I "read" it in high school, which means I read the first part, did a bit of skimming of the rest with relying on SparkNotes, and read the final pages.  This is partly because I didn't like the first part and partly because that week was when I was stage crew for 42nd Street and I was busy enough, but I still did fine on the test we had on it.  This time I actually read the entire thing, and liked it somewhat better.  I still don't precisely like it, but it wasn't as bad as I'd remembered, and I enjoyed it more once Pip because less of a little snot.  I still didn't find it all that funny, though.  There were a few moments where I cracked a smile, but really, I find Dickens's style more annoying than amusing.

Moving on!  Monday night we saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and I was like finally! a playwright I recognize!  Apart from the Shakespeare I've seen, I haven't heard of any of the people who have written the plays I've seen, but of course I've heard of Tennessee Williams, and have even read one of his other plays (A Streetcar Named Desire).  I was rather eh about this play, though.  There were things I really appreciated, like the character of Brick and the actor playing him, some of the really great lines, and James Earl Jones, but there were things I rather didn't appreciate, like how the first two acts had mostly two people, only one of whom did much talking.  I found it sort of hard to pay attention with more monologue than dialogue.  Still, it was all right.  Not my favorite, but not my least favorite either.

Tomorrow we're going to the Houses of Parliament!  To watch a debate!  And it's going to be Budget Day, so the different parties are totally going to be all over each other about the budget!

British politics is hilarious.  This is going to be so awesome.

I've been having a good but busy week so far.  On Saturday I was feeling sick so I did nothing, but on Sunday, London was having its St. Patrick's Day celebrations, so I went into town for that.  There was a parade at Piccadilly Circus, and I enjoyed most of it, though I think I had a better time last year, when I was in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Spokane, as part of the Young Democrats delegation.  It's a lot more of a thrill being in a parade rather than just watching one, even if London is inherently more exciting than Spokane. XD

There were also performances going on in Trafalgar Square, so after the parade was over I walked over there.  It was absolutely packed.  Trafalgar Square is pretty big, but it was seriously packed, so it just looked like a sea of people.  I did manage to get a spot where I could sit at a good, fairly close angle to the stage.  I didn't watch everything, because I was still feeling sorta sick, but I listened to a couple different guys singing old Irish songs in both English and Irish.  A school orchestra played some traditional Irish music, and a dance school did some Irish dancing.  Pretty cool.

On Monday my 19th and 20th Century British Novels teacher took us out on a Dickens Walk -- she showed us places like the church where Dickens' parents were married, some places he lived, and several of the places mentioned in Great Expectations.  That was really cool.  When we were in the Temple area, she took us to Middle Temple Hall as well, where Twelfth Night had been performed in Shakespeare's day.

Our walking tour ended pretty close to St. Paul's Cathedral, which I very much appreciated, because Monday was when Maddy arrived and she was staying near St. Paul's.  I haven't seen Maddy since this summer, when I went to Davis to visit her after the Green Day concert in Sacramento.  I took her to Soho for dinner -- we had Indian, and it was actually really good.  I've had better naan, but I got this dish called honey chicken, and it was so good.  Anyway, after dinner I did a bit of playing tour guide, showing her Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus, and then we went to this pub I like for pear cider and to sit and chat for a while.

Yesterday morning I met her at Leicester Square again, because she wanted to see Billy Elliot while she was here, and I was completely fine with seeing it again, even just a few days after the first time.  After that I did more of the tour guide thing, since from there we walked to Trafalgar Square and then to Westminster Abbey.  I pointed out the theatre where I saw The Caretaker a couple weeks ago, and where St. James's Park was, and Downing Street, and the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Westminster Square, and felt sort of weird for even beginning to know this city.

So we went to Westminster Abbey, and wow, I really wished we were allowed to take photographs.  Especially of the graves of Mary Tudor, Queen Elizabeth, and Mary Queen of Scots, and especially of the poets' corner.  Unsurprisingly, the poets' corner was my favorite part.

When we were done at the Abbey, Maddy wanted to see Westminster Bridge, so we walked by the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben and I told her some of the things I've been learning about the British political system.  She got some pictures of Big Ben and the London Eye (which we've decided we're going on tomorrow, whoo!), and then we walked back to Trafalgar Square, where we split up, because she wanted to go to the National Gallery and I had to get to class.

We met up again for dinner, and then we saw Billy Elliot.  This time we were seated upstairs, but I enjoyed it just as much as I did on Friday.  It was interesting to see it from a slightly different perspective, because this time I could see their feet, and now I'm even more impressed with these kids' tap skills than I was before.  There were also a few things I noticed this time that I hadn't last time, so I guess it's true that every time you see a show you get something new out of it.  Anyway, I still loved it, it was completely worthwhile, and this time I bought a program as a souvenir.

Maddy and I did not meet up today because she was going to spend it with her cousin, but I had plenty to occupy myself with.  Our class schedule was rearranged a bit, and one of my classes canceled, because Martin wanted us to see the London Mayor's Question Time today.  We went to City Hall, which is across the Thames from the Tower of London in an extremely interesting juxtaposition of ancient castle and modern glass building, and listened as the Mayor answered questions put to him by his assembly of concerns brought to them by their constituents.

I found it really interesting, if very different from American politics, because it seems to me that American politicians try to be somewhat more diplomatic than British ones.    American politicians will be insulting, but indirectly so.  British politicians will just insult you to your face.  It was actually rather hilarious.  Some of my classmates wrote down their favorite insults, but I didn't have the foresight, and so I don't remember the best ones now.

It was still just plain interesting to watch, though.  I was sitting next to someone who is a PoliSci major, so we were taking notes and having a conversation through our notes on our thoughts on what was going on.  We did decide that the Mayor is not a very good debater because he spent his time interrupting people (even those from his own party), and most of the time when he responded to questions from the Opposition, he'd do it through straw man and ad hominem arguments.  I wasn't very impressed with him, though I did enjoy the session in general.

I only had one class this afternoon, thanks to the canceled class, which meant that I was done at 2:30, which is the earliest I've every been done.  I put my time to good use, however, and am now almost done with all the preparation for Ireland.  I have my transportation from London to Dublin and back, from Dublin to Belfast and back, my hostels in Dublin, and my tour.  The only things I have left to do are book my hostel for Belfast, but Maddy was just there and was going to give me information for the hostel where she stayed, and figure out how to get to the Giant's Causeway.  I think I saw that I can take a bus from Belfast, but I'm going to have to double check that.

Today I also got my ticket for Star Wars in Concert, for the day after I get back from Ireland, which happens to be Easter Sunday.  I'm going with another girl from the program, and she got our tickets so I'm going to have to pay her back, but I am so excited for this.  We got the cheapest tickets so pretty far seats, but I'll still be able to hear the music and see what's on the screen, and it's Star Wars in Concert in the O2 Arena.  This is going to be so awesome.

I just came home after I finished booking Ireland stuff, so I'm not going out on St. Patrick's Day, but I'm fine with that.  It's nice to have some downtime in the middle of a busy week.  Tomorrow Maddy and I are doing the London Eye and the Imperial War Museum, then I have class, and then a show.  Then on Friday we're going to Bath and Stonehenge.  Saturday and Sunday are also going to be busy, if in a different way, because I have three papers due next week and I'm going to try and get them all done this weekend so I can get some feedback from my teachers before they're properly due.

The week after next is midterm break.  I'm almost halfway done.  How did that happen?

Billy Elliot

Yesterday I went to see Billy Elliot.  I got up earlier than I'd wanted on a weekend to get to the theatre's box office early to see about day tickets before they were all gone, and the cheapest were actually in the front row.  I was a bit dubious about that, since I wouldn't be able to see everything, but the next cheapest tickets were a full twenty pounds more, so I got the front row seat.

Then I went to King's Cross to get a Youth Railcard, which gets me a 30% discount on all my rail tickets in Britain.  I'd been putting off getting that, but that was all right since I hadn't been going anywhere and the trains for Scotland and Birmingham (and Bath and Stonehenge next Friday) were paid for by AHA.  But I do need it before I go to Ireland, and there will be more trains I book myself in the future, so it'll be worth it.

For lunch I picked up something quick off a street vendor in Chinatown, and then I walked to Covent Garden Market, where I spent most of the rest of the afternoon.  My favorite parts were the crafts stalls and the street performers.  There were a lot of places to eat and some regular shops, and then just past the Covent Garden Market was another street market selling mostly souvenir-type stuff.  I definitely like the craft stalls and the street performers, though.  The performers alone I spent over an hour watching/listening to.

Just after five I went to find dinner at Pizza Express, because it's been a month since I had any pizza and I've been seeing Pizza Express all over and wondering how it was.  From the name you'd think it'd just be another fast food type pizza chain, but it's actually a sit-down restaurant.  I was amused that a plain pepperoni pizza was called an "American", but I still got it.  It was pretty good.  Not the best pizza I've had, but still pretty good.

I went not long after five because I wanted to be sure I had enough time to get to the theatre, but dinner was quicker than I expected, and I still had about an hour to kill before I could go pick up my ticket.  I ended up walking to Leicester Square, which is a big pedestrian zone filled with places selling discount theatre tickets.  From there I walked to Piccadilly Circus and ducked into the big Waterstone's on Piccadilly, but they didn't have anything new I wanted.  I decided to just walk to Green Park from there, since Green Park had the tube line I needed, and all of this did not take very long, because I was still about fifteen minutes early to even pick up my ticket.  Martin told us when we got here that however big and spread out London is, central London is actually a fairly small, compact space.  This is perfectly evidenced by the fact that I could walk down four tube stops on the same line (Covent Garden to Leicester Square to Piccadilly Circus to Green Park) in less than an hour, even with stops, detours, and just going slowly to see more.

When it was seven I picked up my ticket and found my seat, then read Great Expectations until the show started.  And now Billy Elliot is definitely by far my favorite thing I've seen in London (at least for this trip -- I still have fond memories of The Reduced Shakespeare Company last time).

Just -- oh my God it was wonderful.  Marvelous.  Whatever superlatives you care to name.  There is not a single thing I didn't like about it.  And my front row seat was awesome.  I often couldn't see their feet, but that really didn't matter.  What I could really see was their expressions, and I could hear everything, and just wow, that ended up being a great seat.  I was even pretty close to the center.

The kid who played Billy was amazing.  He's like half my age, but he could sing, he could act, and he was proficient in three separate styles of dance (ballet, tap, and hip hop).  All the other actors were great too, but that kid really shone.

The story was really tight and integrated.  Billy's family were coal miners going on strike in their village near Durham, and the strike was perfectly paralleled and integrated with Billy's quest to be a dancer.  Just before intermission Billy had an angry dance (tap), and during it police showed up rhythmically banging on riot shields, which Billy would also sometimes use as a dance floor -- Billy's quest wasn't going well, and the strike wasn't going well, but the dance was so well choreographed that it just threw all these things together and they really worked.

Billy's brother also had this line in the second half about the striking miners just wanting more equality (though of course the line was more eloquent than that) and I think that really tied the two storylines together for me.  The miners want more equality, and so does Billy, with his desire to pursue something considered to be just for girls.

The storytelling was tight, and the actors were amazing, and I loved the musical numbers, and I could see everything, and at the end, the bow ended up being another dance.  The entire cast came out and did this tap number that had nothing to do with the story but had the bows in it, and it was awesome.  Creative and skillful and fun all at the same time.

I loved it.  Adored it.  Spent the entire time grinning.  I stood up to applaud, and when I looked around it seemed like they were getting a real standing ovation, which I haven't seen in any of the other half-dozen shows I've been to so far.  But they deserved it.  That was such a wonderful show.  I would totally see it again.

I'm still high on the good mood from that, which is good, because I'm sick.  Again.  I felt myself start to come down with something on Monday, but I had school and a busy week, so I ignored it, and then yesterday I wanted to see Billy Elliot.  (And it was worth it, even if I am sicker today.)  But then today I woke up at almost 11:30, after ten and a half hours of sleep (normally I have difficulty sleeping more than eight), and my head feels stuffed, I'm sneezing all the time, and I have no voice.

So, today is definitely a day to recuperate.  I hope I'm better by tomorrow, because it's the St. Patrick's Day celebrations, and there's a parade starting in Piccadilly Circus and performaces in Trafalgar Square and I want to go.  So I will do nothing today, and hope I feel better tomorrow.

Two more shows since I last posted. The first was London Assurance on Tuesday, which I loved. It was packed with cliches and contrived plot devices, but the writing was good enough, and the actors amazing enough, that I still thought it was absolutely hilarious and loved it. The two main leads, especially, had an awesome sense of comedic timing that just enhanced the delivery of already great writing. Wonderful show.

The other show, last night, was the opera version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy it. I've never seen an opera before, and if this is what they're like, I have no interest in seeing more. I did enjoy the music and the singing, but I could only understand what they were singing maybe a third of the time, at the most. If I didn't already know the story, I'm not sure I would have been able to follow it. And I don't know if this was deliberate or just a byproduct, but most of the comedy was gone. Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's comedies, but while I found regular play productions very funny, I only laughed in this one a few times in the second act.

So that was a disappointment. Still, at least I can say I've been to an opera.

I'm getting things figured out for Ireland in two weeks (two weeks!). My host mum's daughter suggested I book a tour, and I thought about it and did some research and decided that was a good idea. So I found a tour that takes me around most of the places I want to go in the Republic of Ireland (including Dublin, Galway, Cliffs of Moher, and the Blarney Stone) in five days for £180, which is a good price for all the traveling and affords me the safety of being in a group. I will have to pay for my accomodation and food (they book the room, but I have to pay right there), but I'm quite pleased.

The tour leaves on Monday, March 29th, and my spring break starts on Friday the 26th, so I'm going to leave Friday morning and spend a couple days in Belfast and Northern Ireland, because I'd also like to see the Giant's Causeway. So I can get into Belfast Friday night, spend Saturday and most of Sunday there, go back to Dublin on Sunday night, and meet the tour on Monday.

So I've booked my tour, and my transportation to and from Dublin (train to Holyhead and then the ferry). Now I just need to do Dublin to Belfast and back, accomodation in both places when I'm not in the tour, and find out the best way to see the Giant's Causeway and the Hill of Tara. I can do that on Monday, though, since I have to go to class soon.

I did have to pay for these things with my credit card, since I think my bank put a freeze on my debit card. Sigh. I told them that I was going to be in Europe, but maybe the note expired or something. I emailed them about it, and hopefully that will be taken care of soon, because I also want to buy my tickets for Star Wars in Concert.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and see Billy Elliot, which I'm really looking forward to. But the cheapest tickets are always the ones you can get the day of from the ticket booth, so we'll see how that works out.

Between Ireland and my shows, I feel like I've spent a lot of money recently. But I have not been spending much money prior to now, and I'm studying abroad to do things like this, so I'm going to try not to feel guilty about it, especially since I've been looking for things that are economical. I might have to ask for more money sooner than I'd hoped, but on the whole, I think I haven't been doing too badly, money-wise.

Finally, the Tower

I finally made it to the Tower of London! I went with Sarah (who I had the pear cider with in Edinburgh), and we spent a good three hours there just wandering all over. The first hour was a guided tour by a Yeoman Warder who kept asking the group trivia questions relating to various things about the Tower, some of them rather tangential. What is funny is that most of the group seemed to be British (when other countries came up he asked for people from there to raise their hands), and though Sarah and I are American, we answered more of the trivia questions (and correctly) than the other people did.

I did not once find a bench and take out a book, nor did I even want to, so go me. I don't know what I was thinking ten years ago, because this really was very interesting stuff. We saw the Crown Jewels, and the Royal Apartments, and the White Tower (the first, central tower), and the Bloody Tower (where Richard III's nephews were), and that bit of Roman wall that's left, and the ravens. I got a lot of pictures of the ravens, because I find the raven legend very interesting.

We stayed almost until closing, which was at 5:30, and decided to go find dinner after that. We'd been talking about Whitechapel and finding a Jack the Ripper tour earlier that day, so we decided to just go to Whitechapel and check things out. Right out of the tube station was a street market, where some of the stalls had some...very strange things, like a crotchless fishnet bodysuit. We were somewhat disturbed by that.

We walked around a bit, looking for a pub, but there weren't that many that sold food and weren't really crowded. We also got the idea that Whitechapel is still not the best of areas in London, and it was starting to get dark, so we decided to look elsewhere for our meal. Today I looked up Jack the Ripper tours and I found a good one with reserved spots for £7, so I'll talk to Sarah and see if she wants to do that at some point with me.

We ended up eating in an Irish pub just down the road from King's Cross, and it had very good food and cider. Mmmm. Definitely remembering that place. While we were there, Sarah got a call from one of her friends in another program who invited us to see a band in a bar by Old Street, so we went there. The band was pretty good. Not my favorite kind of music, but still stuff I'll listen to.

I went home earlier than Sarah did, because they were willing to go on the last tube and bus home, and I didn't want to risk it. I got home just fine, though, and I was very happy to get into the warm. It's been getting colder again, and I wish it would stop that. I am definitely enjoying being here, but I could do with it being a bit warmer.

Yesterday...might well have been the easiest school day I've ever had.  I only have one class on Thursdays, and it's only an hour, and the last class of the day.  I had a bunch of free time before 4:30, so I decided to go to Chinatown.

I love Chinese food.  Mmmm.  I had lunch there, and it was very good.  I also walked around Chinatown a bit, and felt somewhat out of place, though thankfully I was not the only white person there.  I haven't been to any other Chinatown (not even San Francisco's, really), so what I was most reminded of was Bangkok.  Lots of people selling things (especially food) on the streets, lots of kitschy souvenir shops along with things like Chinese Herbal Medicine, lots of people in general.  Very interesting place.  I'll definitely be gooing back there, if only for the food.  Mmm, Chinese food.

I had class at 4:30, and this is my 19th and 20th century novels class, and we'd been intending to go to the Charles Dickens museum on Doughty Street (which is just two streets over from AHA).  Unfortunately, the museum is closed this month, so my teacher wanted us to watch a documentary on Charlotte Bronte, since we just finished Jane Eyre.  However, she couldn't get the TV to work.

So instead, she...treated us to a round of drinks at a nearby pub.  We did do some literary discussion while in the pub, but mostly not.  So that was basically my day.  Chinatown, and then a pub.

Today we went on an excursion to Birmingham, which is about two hours away from London by train.  When we got there we spent about an hour at the Birmingham Art Gallery, but the main point of the excursion was to go to Bournville, and Cadbury World.

It was actually rather hilarious, how excited most of the group was about going to Cadbury World.  I was less than enthusiastic about all the chocolate everyone else was in raptures over, but I was highly amused at just how bouncy everyone was.  There were some school groups of younger kids also doing tours, but people in my group kept joking that our group was so much more excited than the little kids, which from what I observed is actually a fairly accurate statement.

I was far more interested in the history of Bournville and the factory than in the free or otherwise very cheap chocolate, and the history was really why we were even there.  The Cadbury family seems to have been pretty awesome, very much ahead of their time with their treatment of their workforce and wanting to make sure the workers are taken care of even to the extent of building a nice village for them to live in.  I could have done without all the chocolate, but I did enjoy the history lesson.

I did, however, get some chocolate, because it really was very cheap.  I'm not sure whether I should mail them soon, or wait to give them out until I get back home.  I got different kinds, and I'm not sure what people would prefer.  Well, I actually only got four bars, two of milk chocolate, one of dark, and one that is chocolate-covered Turkish Delight.  But I got them for you people at home, and I'm not sure the best way to get them to you fairly.  I'll decide later.

Tomorrow there is once again A Plan to go to the Tower of London.  We'll see how that works out this time. :p

I'd been intending to see Alice in Wonderland on Saturday, but apparently it only premiered on Thursday and doesn't actually come out in cinemas (hah, watch me use the more British term. :p) until this Friday, so we did not go see it. Instead, I spent the day reading Great Expectations. Sort of. I did a lot of staring at Great Expectations, at least, but I've been reluctant to read it because I didn't much like what I did read in high school. Well, at least I don't have to have read it until next Monday, which is plenty of time.

We had theatre nights two days this week, Monday and Tuesday. Monday's performance was Dunsinane, which is a sequel to Shakespeare's Macbeth where Lady Macbeth survived, remained sane, and had a son. I really enjoyed the performance, especially coming as it did right after we came back from Scotland, since it was so much about Scotland. I feel like we've been inundated with Scotland lately, but I don't mind because it's really so interesting.

Last night we saw The Caretaker, which I...did not particularly enjoy. I thought it was boring and the characters unengaging, and I'm not sure what the point was, apart from that people are crazy and self-centered. It'll be interesting to hear what the rest of my theatre class thinks, though, since everyone else I've talked to seems to have enjoyed it.

Next week we have another two shows, London's Assurance and an opera of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I've seen Midsummer several times, but I've always enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to an opera version of it, especially since I've never seen an opera before.

There are two particular extra-curricular shows I want to see soon, though, and those are Wicked and Billy Elliot. I've also been seeing posters for Star Wars In Concert, at the O2 arena, which just sounds omg so awesome. That one, however, is April 3rd and 4th only, which is the weekend ending our spring break, so I'd have to cut short traveling a bit and come back to London sooner in order to see that. I think I will, though. Star Wars in Concert! How awesome is that?