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!!!!!!!

Getting Around and New Friends

How could I have forgotten to mention the American friends I have met??? #blasphemy (yes I just used a hashtag in my blog, get over it) All but one are from up north and you can definitely see the differences in culture. We communicate via Facebook messaging so we only use text messages and minutes when necessary! We get together every now and again during the week and every night during the weekend and chat it up about the awesome time we are going to have and all of the some countries we are going to visit and the musicals and plays we are going to see. I think I'll just describe how I met each of them !

Jen I meet on the bus coming to university. When we got off the bus I really didn't think that I would see her again because we didn't exchange information or anything. Liz is my flatmate and I met her while we were both moving in. Later that night me and Liz were walking her mom to the buys stop where I again saw Jen. Me and Liz were on our way to dinner and asked her to join us. She said she would come later! Me and Liz were eating and had small talk with the two guys at the table next to us who happen to live in the first above us . Then Jen and Lorraine showed up (which is where I met Lorraine), and Darci asked to sit down at our table. Yaaay!!! The next day at breakfast I met Amanda and we all say next to each other at orientation. Unfortunately during orientation we had a fire drill, while we were waiting to get back in the building me and Liz met Joel. He goes to Texas Tech, but we forgive him. That's basically it!

The first Friday we were here we decided to go into central London and explore the city! The plan was to early rush Hamlet which was playing at the Young Vic and then walk around cereal London! When we arrived at the Young Vic there was already a line waiting on tickets. Were still waited only to be told there were no more tickets available for that nights showing. So we just started to weak around theatres and look for student tickets, but we came up short. Some told us to come back later that night.  So in the city we were, we stopped in Picadilly Circus and it was a wonderful site. When I stepped out of the tube station it was a mini New York City. Since I've never been to New York and I know nothing about architecture I didn't know that New York mirrors Picadilly Circus. We walked down towards the theatres and saw the theatre where Phantom of the Opera was showing. I'm still deciding if I want to see that musical, because the are others that I HAVE to see! (i.e. Wicked which I just bought my ticket for!!)

We came to The National Art Gallery and went inside. It was an enormous exhibit, but I found myself getting bored after awhile because I can find art to be boring after awhile. The museum reminded me of global/world and Spanish in high school because we looked at art as a part of our curriculum and went to an art gallery at SMU. Once we were done we took pictures in front of the art gallery. (I think it has some fancy name, but I don't remember it!) There were lions that sat on this really high pedestal that we had to climb to take a picture with the lions. Now it's about lunch time and I'm starving.  We ate at this cute little restaurant that I think was a public.  Actually that's what I'm going to call it because they have more pubs than restaurants. It seemed really fancy on the inside, but the servers clothing didn't look like something you would wear if you were working in a fancy restaurant.  I ordered honey glazed gammon (ham), fried egg (very well done), and chips. It was really tasty, and reasonably priced.

Once our bellies were full we continued our trek through central. We headed to Buckingham palace, because what is a trip to London without atleast one trip to the palace. The palace was really nice, but kind of unnecessary! I mean the was a lavish gate and it literally lead to the other side of the sidewalk. But we still took pictures and acted like complete tourists!  Once we were done at Buckingham Palace we walked through Hype Park. By the time we got here I was bored and tired so I was ready to go home, but we did see the Princess Diana waterfall tribute and the Peter Pan statue. When I got back I crashed in my bed and didn't wake up until late Saturday night!!