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.