Sunday Night adventures in a Country World....

Reba and her back up singer

On Sunday, London held the first International Festival of Country Music for the first time in 20 years.  The headliner was Reba McEntire and she hadn't performed in London for over 20 years and it was amazing to watch her perform. I have been trying to find a ticket to one of her concerts in America, but when they are in Texas they are really expensive.  But I was very excited to see her in London because the tickets were really cheap and I sat in the 5th row. 

Last picture i took

For the most part  the festival wasn't bad, but it was running an hour and a half late. The other artists performed really well and two of them were apparently a big deal. I was anxious to see Reba get on stage though so I wasn't very engaged in the other artist's performances. 

One of many eye contacts

When Reba came on stage the audience erupted, as well as I. She was a great performer and kept the audience engaged. I'm pretty sure she made eye contact with me on five different occasions. There was also a moment where I yelled "I love you" very quickly after a song and she looked at me and said "I love you too". That was the best part of the whole performance (for me at least). The worst part of the night was that I had to leave early because the tube (subway) closes at midnight, so I was not able to stage door her like I would have wanted. But I did only miss one song of the whole performance so it wasn't the end of the world. Overall it was a great experience to have while I was abroad.

Geocaching: Jack the Ripper Style

On Monday we did a Jack the Ripper series that led us to the six locations where Jack the Ripper's victims  were found. 

Ripper's Corner: The fourth location

I introduced everyone in our group to the wonderful world of geocaching. Geocaching is basically a cross between a scavenger hunt and hide and go seek. After we visited the six locations and collected clues from each one we solved formula given to us for the GPS coordinates to the last location, Jack the Ripper's supposed hideout. This series was a lot of fun as a first cache in London.

We found it!! 

Each site had a detailed story of how each girl was found and how her body was mutilated. I recited each story to the rest of the group as we journeyed through East London. Some of the sites still resembled 19th century London whereas others have been completely modernized. It was great exploring the different areas of East London and imagining the gruesome story of Jack the Ripper. 


   

SUCCESS!!!!!!!

Can I just talk about how excited I am for this week!! I am seeing Reba in concert and Wicked!!! I am really stoked for both of them and have been wanting to see both for about 2 years now!!!! 

                            

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Whitechapel Market

For starters, the ONE day I decide to go to a food market is the first day that it decides to rain hard in London since I have been here, but I survived. 

I have been wanting to get to a food market for the longest, but we hadn't quite made it there until today! We walked down to the Whitechapel Market which is about a 15-20 minute walk from campus in the direction of Central London. East London is a very ethnic section of London and mostly occupied by Western Asian cultures so there is a lot of Halal restaurants along the market stalls and many Western Asian inspired clothing. But the steal of the day were the fruits and veggies. We found tons of stalls that were selling bundles of fruits and vegetables for only £1 ($1.60). I bought 3 bunches of bananas, 8 oranges (with the green stem still attached), 5 bell peppers (2 yellow, 2 green and 1 red), and 11 onions for £4!!!! I think I won the fruit and vegetable lottery!! They were clearly picked recently and aren't that perfect grocery store shape or too big because of nasty pesticides pumped into them! Just regular old fruits and vegetables! 

Two Dimensional Life of Crap

Pretty sure I saw the biggest piece of a sorry excuse for theatre a few weeks ago. It was another assignment for my Theatre class and it was such a waste. I mean I don't go to plays all the time,  but it doesn't take an expert to figure out this does not belong in a theater. I almost went to sleep during the 40 minutes of torture. It was practically an £11 nap! There was no plot and the only actress showed up 35 minutes into the show and said a few lines then left. (What the what?) The only thing I gained from this play was the fact that I have a really short attention span and possibly ADHD.

Cabaret

I'm taking this class where we have to go see theater productions in London every week as a part of our course assignment. (I must say this class is way better than Introduction to Theater, but so much more work.) This week we were assigned to see a cabaret. I was very excited to see a cabaret 1. because I had never seen one and 2. because this era of music and dance is my favorite.

The cabaret only cost us £1($1.60) and was totally worth it! The venue was called the Proud Cabaret and was located in a well to do part of London. To get to the stage we had to walk down these really steep stairs to be met by straight darkness. I felt as if I was walking down to a upscale nightclub and I held the secret code to get in. (Not like I would know what that feeling is! :/) The club had a very 20s feel to it which made me really excited about the performance. It was the sight that you only see in movies. Where the guys are all wearing makeup and the girls are dressed scandalous! 

The restaurant/Cabaret from the back

The show itself was amazing!!!! There were 8 acts with a 20 minute intermission. The acts were the typical singing, striptease and flirting with every man in the audience! And I LOVED it! I laughed, I cheered, and I sang! The only part I didn't like was when one act came out the Beyonce "Single Ladies", I didn't pay money to hear that trash! But the host did sing two numbers from "Cabaret" (with Liza Minnelli): they were Mien Herr and Life is a Cabaret! That really put the performance over the top because I love both of those songs and the movie! I really wish I had it so I could pop it in my DVD player and watch it!

The restaurant/Cabaret from the back

The 20s, 30s and 40s have always been my favorite time in history and this show just strengthened my love. It's so sad that these decades have negative associations because they music and fashion were genius! We are definitely going back to watch another performance! 

Accents and Dialects...

So, unknown to me, I have this really strong southern accent/African American dialect! And apparently it's hilarious!!!!! I don't get it!! For instance "pen" and "pin" sound the exact same to me, but they have a distinct sound and are supposed to be pronounced differently! Oops! Also whenever I say the word "bench" everyone laughs because it sounds the same as the word I shall no type (rhymes with snitch). I feel as if I say them two completely different ways, but I guess I don't make much of a distinction with the word "bench". As you can tell all we really do is sit around in our kitchen and talk about each others accents and dialects! But those are some darn good times!

Snow!!!!!!

It's snowing in London!!!!!!!! Doesn't get much better than that!!!!!!!