PJ Party at the Palace

So yesterday was just the usual. We had class (our last Stacy class!) and, since it was Tuesday, we went to Sports Cafe. This morning, Greta, Mal, and I went and got tickets for Billy Elliot, which we are totally stoked to see. We decided to walk to Buckingham Palace to take a peek, since we hadn't seen it yet. Awesomely enough, when we got there, the changing of the guard was happening! That was pretty sweet and we had a lot of fun taking pictures in our pjs in front of the palace.

That you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear...

Yesterday was catch up day. As you can see, I updated my blog like crazy. Greta, Nobe, Evan, and I went to the post office and went down by the river to study lines and hang out. Everyone else went to Wimbeldon for the day. It was nice to sleep in and not really have any plans until the evening. Greta, Noelle, Amber, and I saw A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe last night and it was wonderful. We enjoyed it a lot more than the production we saw in Stratford. It's funny how Stratford had all of the fancy lights, tricks, and crazy costumes and the Globe had none of that, but, in my opinion, was a lot better. Afterwards, we stopped and grabbed food along the Thames and then made our way back to Schiller. I went to bed around 1:00 last night, which was actually kind of early... it was nice.

Going to The Clink...

Yesterday (Sunday), Mal, Noelle, and I went to the British Museum and St. Paul's Cathedral. The mummies at the museum were pretty sweet and the American exihibit was cool as well. St Paul's was gorgeous and much bigger than I had anticipated. We took the tube an extra stop so we could walk along the Thames to get back to school. We got some ice cream and sat by the water. I'm relaly going to miss that when I go home. Mal, Nobe, Greta, Ricky and I went to The Clink Prison Museum that evening. It was kind of short and stupid, but we took some fun pics and got grossed out by some crazy forms of torture. We stopped at The Anchor on the way back for drinks and nachos. I have never laughed so much. The four of us sat outside telling goofy stories until they finally made us leave (after they had cleaned up and stacked the forty tables around us). I booked my flight to Edinburgh. Kurt, Noelle, Trevor, and I are going there for the weekend of July 4th.

West End Live

Saturday, Greta, Kurt, Noelle, Ricky, Mal, Amber and I went to West End Live. This is an annual celebration where a bunch of shows each do a couple songs on a big outdoor stage and anyone can go watch for free! It was a really great, and crowded, time. We saw We Will Rock You, Grease, Buddy, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Chicago, and Mamma Mia perform. Noelle and I did a little shopping after the show and she picked up a really cute dress. We both got our haircut at this really interesting salon where nobody spoke English and the man who cut my hair did it with the most precision I had ever seen. We took a little longer there than expected, so we booked it to the restaurant, Tiger, Tiger, where we met Greta and Ricky for dinner. I had salmon for dinner that was absolutely delicious. It was a really nice restaurant and we definitely treated ourselves to a delicious meal. After dinner, we popped right next door to meet Mal, Kurt, and Amber for Marguerite. Marguerite is a musical about a forty year old woman who is the mistress of a Nazi general during WWII. She falls in love with a young piano player who's sister is part of the resistance movement and best friend is a Jew. It was very moving and the operatic music was beautiful. Some of the moments were a little over dramatic and corny, but that's musical theatre. After that, some of us bought wine and went down to the river for a bit to sit and drink. Then Rick and I watched Phantom of the Opera, the movie.

Loathing, Unadulterated Loathing

Friday, the 20th, we woke up at a decent hour to go to the Wicked box office and get tickets. Dan, Ricky, Mal, Noelle, Greta, and I got fourth row balcony for Wicked. Then, Greta, Rick, and I did a little grocery shopping. Rick and I watched The Office for a bit and then I took a nap, but not for long. Greta had gone to the British Museum with Kurt and Trevor. Kurt and Trevor would jokingly hide from Greta throughout the outing, but accidentally lost track of her and poor Greta came back to school by herself very angry that the boys had ditched her. When Trevor knocked on our door an hour later, Greta yelled at him. It was awesome. Of course, we all started laughing hysterically in the middle of Greta's scolding. Anyway, we went to Wicked that night and it was amazing. I've seen it before with Idina as Elphaba, but I actually preferred this Elphaba better and the show is so much sweeter with British accents.

Classy Buffet

Thursday, June 19th, we went to the Pizza Hut lunch buffet before class. Pizza Hut over here is way nicer than the Pizza Huts at home... it's pretty funny. We did more animal movement work in acting and picked our scenes. Jared, Preston, and I are doing a scene from Troilus and Cressida together. After acting, we met Valerie's friend Clare, an actress from the National Theatre. We had a great chat with her and then watched her perform in the show Major Barbara. Clare was amazing, but I don't really care for the play. The show was very well done, but I'm just not a big fan of the script. A lot of long winded moral debates. Afterwards Mal, Evan, Rick, and I played cards.

Dear Schiller, Thanks for the Delicious Food

Wednesday was a day of celebration. I'll catch everyone up on the Schiller food situation in case you aren't familiar with it. Well, Ricky found a bug in his sandwich and wrote some letters so all of the NU students got the option of having the money we paid for our meal plans, for the second half of our Schiller stay, refunded. All of the NU students opted to get their money back and on Wednesday, most of us cashed our checks. This works much better. Greta and I keep fruit, sandwich stuff, milk, cereal, and juice in our room for breakfast and lunch and then we usually use the refunded money to go out for dinner. Anyway, besides cashing our checks on Wednesday, Greta and I also bought an alarm clock, which doesn't sound that exciting, but it was for us. After class, Greta, Trevor, Ricky, Evan, Amanda, Pat (Amanda's boyfriend who was visiting from the US), Kurt, and I went to an Italian restaurant down the street. After that, all of the NU peeps went and saw Pygmalion at the Old Vic. It was very good. The leads were extremely impressive. I ended the night with a little of The Office and went to bed.

Holding Hands and Being a Circle

Last Tuesday, June 16th, was our first movement class. This was... interesting. We spent a good portion of this two and a half hour class holding hands with each other and being different shapes. Of course we also acted like bears, birds, and tigers... really funny when you think that the other students at Schiller are in economics class. That evening we saw Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe. This was probably one of my favorite theatre experiences here so far. It was by far my favorite of the four Shakespeare productions we've seen. We stood for the whole show as "groundlings", directly in front of the stage. The show was hilarious and the two women who played the wives were especially wonderful. The atmosphere is great as well, being under the stars and people played old school instruments before the show started. It was a really fun night at the theatre. Afterwards, we went to the Sports Cafe... duh. It was Ricardo's (Schiller student from Italy) last night. Good night as usual.

Dublin (June 14-16)

(the ladies outside St. Patrick's Cathedral)
(under the waterfall at the Guinness Storehouse)
(a pint of Guinness)
(the coast)
(pub crawl!)

Our Dublin trip did not start off well. We woke up uber early to catch the EasyBus to the airport. Unfortunately, we were not quite clear on where the bus stop really was, so we were all running around London like crazy people at 4am. Luckily, we were able to flag it down as it was driving away. This was also our first Ryanair experience... plastic, ridiculous looking seats, long lines to get on the plane, and the roughest landing I've ever experienced. But, it got us to where we were going for very cheap. We took the public bus from the Dublin airport to our hostel. Our hostel was in a great location. Not the nicest building, but the beds were clean. The eight of us (Mal, Noelle, Greta, Me, Jared, Preston, Trevor, and Kurt) were in a room together on bunk beds. We had two other French female roommates who we saw only like two times. The room was really hot with all of us crammed in there, but it was kind of fun all being together like that. After we got settled in our room, we met Amanda and Jackie, who were staying in the same hostel, and made our way to St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was really beautiful, but unfortunately there was work being done on a good portion of the front of the building and there was scaffolding covering parts of it. We hung out there for a bit and sat on the grass and, get this, got Tim Horton's!!! The place next door to the cathedral had Tim Horton's coffee and donuts. Funny to think that we don't even have Tim Horton's in Albany, but we found it in Dublin. After the cathedral, we went to the Guinness Factory. We had to wait in line for a while to get it, but it was worth it. You make your way up by floor and learn about the ingredients and how it's made and whatnot. When you get to the top, you get a pint at this bar that overlooks all of Dublin. It was really awesome. I am proud to say I was the first girl to finish my Guinness (Greta got a soda, Nobe didn't like hers and gave it to Kurt, but Mal was right behind me). We found a great pizza place, Apache Pizza, and had dinner there. Tons of food for a decent price. We went back to the hostel to clean up and then we headed out for a pub crawl. The pub crawl took you to two pubs, a bar, and a club. It was fun, but clearly the places where all of the tourists went.

Day 2 in Dublin we wanted to see the "real" Ireland and get out of the city. So the eight of us booked a tour (Jackie and Amanda went back to London because they came a day earlier than us due to a different class schedule) that took you up the coast to the north of Dublin. The tour guide was probably the best part of this whole experience. He sang Irish folk songs on the bus and was absolutely hilarious. The tour took us to Malahide Castle and the most interesting part about that was as of 30 years ago, it was still somebody's house. I would have loved to live there. The bus continued up the coast and we got to see some beautiful green islands and lovely beach. I honestly would have liked to have seen more, but I'm really glad we got this little peek of Ireland outside of the big city. We got back to Dublin around 3:00 and we split up for lunch. Noelle, Preston, and I went to a pub we had been to the day before to order what other people had the day before. After that, Nobe and I split from everyone, a lot of people decided to nap and we were not down with that. We found a great area for shopping. We went to a couple souvenir shops and then we went on a hunt for a jewelry store because I really wanted a nice claddagh ring. I ended up getting a silver one with my birthstone at a jewelry store that we found on our adventure. We all went back to Apache Pizza for dinner (really healthy, I know) and then afterwards we made our way to this street Trevor had gotten the name of from some guy in the bathroom the night before. The guy said it was an area where tourists didn't really go. The first pub we went to, Ryan's, was great. Greta and Trevor talked to these two older Irish gentleman, who were very difficult to understand, and Trevor ended up singing Irish songs with a couple people. After Ryan's, we went on a hunt for dessert and ended up at Eddie Rockets (that would be Johnny's younger brother). It was a 50's diner type thing where a bunch of us got Kit Kat sundaes. After dessert we went to a pub across the street that didn't have many people in it. Some of us were beginning to think that this whole thing was kind of a bust at this point. But then we met Michael. Trevor started talking to this group of guys who were all about 28ish. Before we knew it, our two groups were sitting together, singing each other songs and whatnot. We went to two other pub's with them after the first one closed and Michael bought rounds of Guinness for us at each place. We had such a great time.

Monday we all got up and went to a souvenir shop and grabbed a delicious breakfast. Then, we all went to the airport. Noelle, Jared, Kurt, and Preston had an earlier flight (by about an hour and a half) than Greta, Mal, Trevor, and I. So, the four of us had a bit of time to kill. We broke out every stupid game we knew and ending up having a lot more fun than we should have playing the "I'm going on a picnic..." game. We hit up Subway for dinner when we got back to London (this is something we do a lot... because of the "Two can dine for 5.99" deal). We got back to school and shared stories and pics with Rick (Evan and Rick had gone to Brighton for a day), I watched some of The Office, and went to bed.

STRATFORD (June 11-14)

(roomies in Stratford)
(Shakespeare's grave)
(RSC's Taming of the Shrew)
(Anne Hathaway's cottage)
(Warwick Castle)

Last Wednesday the theatre kids and our professors (Stacy and Valerie) went to Stratford for two nights. Stratford is the birthplace of William Shakespeare so the whole town is on Shakespeare overload. We arrived mid morning, by train, and walked to our B&B. Our B&B was absolutely wonderful! Greta, Rachel, and I shared a lovely room with extremely comfy beds. It was nice to get away from Schiller for a little bit and stay somewhere that felt like a home. They put the boys in a totally separate B&B down the street and the owner of our B&B read us off a list of rules where under no circumstances were the boys to come into our B&B and how if we wanted to see them, we should meet them in the park across the street. Very funny. And probably Charlie's fault from last year, but that's another story.

After we were read our rules, we took a nap for a bit (we were just soooo excited about sleeping in real beds). After a wonderful nap, we went to the boys' B&B and stood under Trevor and Kurt's window and made jokes about Romeo and Juliet. All of us went to a pub called The Lamplighter for linner for cheap, delicious food. After that, we stopped in a couple little shops and then went to Trinity Church to see Shakespeare's grave. Stratford is beautiful and the walk to the church was along the water. It was nice to see a different side of England that didn't include big red buses, crowded streets, and newspaper salesmen. We went to the theatre and got cappuccinos and sat outside for a bit. We saw RSC's Taming of the Shrew and it was very well done. It was a much darker take on Taming of the Shrew than I had every seen, but I really liked this approach and thought it was very cleverly done. After Taming of the Shrew we went back to our repective B&Bs to go to sleep.

We woke up at 8:00 on Thursday, which we were not too happy about. But, when we got breakfast I'm pretty sure we realized we would have gotten up at 5:00 to eat this breakfast if need be. We had eggs, bacon, orange juice, English tea, and hash browns... it was sooooooo good. After breakfast, we showered and got ready for the day. We took a bus tour for a good portion of the day. We went to Anne Hathaway's cottage (Shakespeare's wife) and Mary Arden's farmhouse (Shakespeare's mom). Anne's place had a beautiful garden and it was lots of fun to watch Kurt trying to get around in the cottage. It was not made for people of his height. Mary's pad was fun as well. There were really big pigs and cows and all that kind of stuff. There were also actors eating dinner in period costume, which was pretty groovy. Trevor decided that this was a career he must have- getting paid to act and eat. We took the bus back into the main part of town and split up for lunch. Mal, Trevor, Kurt, and Greta went back to The Lamplighter and the rest of us tried a new pub where I got delicious lasagna. After that, Nobe and I split from the rest of the crew and went back to the B&B for a bit. Then, we did a little shopping. We bought some chocolate truffles and found a big beauty supply store where we got shampoo and conditioner that was pretty inexpensive. The two of us then went to a pub where they had a burger and a beer deal for five pounds. Believe it or not, we actually got some Coors Light to go with our chicken burgers. We met the rest of the group at the theatre for A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was not my favorite. Visually, it was incredible. The costumes were fabulous and the fairies flew in the air. But, the 3/4 of the lovers weren't that impressive and I didn't really laugh at the acting troupe as much as I wanted to. After the show, we went to the pub where all of the actors go- The Dirty Duck. We talked to the guy who played Oberon, the fairy king, for a while because he knew our professor, Valerie. We met ten or so theatre students from Vermont and the ten of them, all of us (minus Jared and Preston), and a bunch of the actors went to a kareoke bar called Ripple after the pub closed. It was such a good time. We were the only people there and we had a ball singing, dancing, and getting half priced cocktails. This was also the night that Mal, Nobe and I discovered Pimm's and lemonade... our new favorite drink. Trevor and Kurt did a great rendition of Tainted Love as well as I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing. Greta, Mal, and I sang Son of a Preacher Man and there were loads of other songs performed throughout the night. We stayed until they closed, exchanged facebook info with the Vermont peeps, and walked back to the B&B.

Friday, we had a wonderful, early breakfast again and then took a bus to Warwick Castle. This was uber amounts of fun. There was a trebuche demonstration that we went to where Preston almost got attacked by a swan. Trevor, Nobe, Kurt, Mal, and I went on a Ghost Tour of one of the towers where actors jump out and yell in your face. It was hilarious... especially because Trevor was screaming. We walked in the non-haunuted towers, went to the dungeon, and saw a really cool birds of prey demostration. After a full day at the castle, we went back to the B&B and got our stuff, then went back to Schiller. At Schiller, a bunch of us hung out for a bit in Rick and Evan's room and just watched Ricardo, an Italian guy who goes to Schiller, be ridiculous and make us laugh.

web address to more Stratford pics in an online album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030173&l=cc341&id=47002203

Stratford and Dublin

The past week has been soooo busy! The theatre kids were in Stratford from Wed-Fri and now Dublin for the weekend. I'll update a ton when I get back tomorrow. Just wanted everyone to know that we're safe and having a fabulous time. Happy Father's Day, Daddy and all the other dads!

PS

Thanks Mom, Dad, Matt, Summer Mom, Summer Dad, and Uncle Tom and Aunt Connie for the cards!!! They made my day! Love you guys :)

Midterms

(at the National Theatre)
(Greta, Rick, and I at Sports Cafe)
(Jess!)
(Roomie Love)

Yesterday (Tuesday, June 10th), we had midterms... blech. We had to do presentations and an in class lit review for Stacy and perform scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream for Val. The presentations were really long and really boring and Stacy talked about each one for a half hour. Our performances went well and I think, for the most part, we had fun doing them. Kurt, Noelle, Trevor, and I did the four lovers scene and I didn't laugh when Noelle called me a "juggler" and a "cankerblossom" as she flew threw the air and Kurt tried to hold her back. So, that was good. Last night we saw a play called Harper Regan at the National Theatre. Really weird show about a woman who's dad passes away, so she runs away from her home temporarily (her husband had been found guilty of taking inappropriate pictures of children a few years earlier) and ends up stabbing a guy in the neck with a bar glass and spending the night at a hotel with a man she has never met. All in all, I liked it. There were many talented performers and the story was unlike any other play I've seen. After the show, all of the theatre majors met the non theatre majors at Sports Cafe. Stressful day, fun night. All of the theatre kids leave for Stratford (Shakespeare's hometown) in a little bit. We'll be staying at a B&B there for two nights. Then it's off to Dublin this weekend! I'll write again on Friday.

PARIS

(Noelle, Me, and Victoria in front of the Eiffel Tower)
(yummy lunch)
(Arc de Triomphe)
(top of the tower)
(bonjour!)

I'm a couple days behind... so, before we get to Paris lets talk about Thursday (June 5th)...
Thursday we had class. That was class. Thursday night, Kurt, Noelle, Jared, Ricky, and I saw Lord of the Rings The Musical. I didn't like it. The spectacle was amazing; some of the coolest, craziest stuff I've ever seen at the theatre. At one part in the show there's all of this wind, smoke, and confetti and it makes the audience feel like they're in a wind tunnel. The set was unbelievable with all of its vines that reached into the house and unbelievable scene changes. To be perfectly honest, the story kind of sucked. I'll give them credit for trying to cram three huge books into a three hour show, but not much. They threw way too much information at the audience very quickly. A lot of the lines were extremely corny and ridiculous. The music was good. The two female leads who sang all of the haunting elf music were fabulous, but it got old after a while. I'm glad I saw it, but I won't be going back. After the show, Ricky and I took a walk by the Thames until about 1:00am. The Eye and Big Ben were still lit up and that's always a beautiful sight. Some lady who was drunk and probably not too with it to begin with came over to us and played a recorder and talked about Santa Claus in a language we didn't understand. Awkward, but pretty amusing. When we got back to Schiller, Trevor, Mal, and Evan were in my room, so we all stayed up a bit longer.
Kurt, Noelle, Jared, Savannah, Victoria and I left for Paris about 2hrs after I went to bed. Luckily, I slept the whole train ride, which was good because the whole going through the tunnel thing kind of freaks me out. When we got to Paris, we hopped on a coach and did a three hour bus tour. We saw the Opera House, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, etc. It was a great tour. Our guide, Jude, was just full of information, much of it very useless, but fun. We checked into the hotel after the tour and I found out I was rooming with Kurt, which was pretty funny. After we got settled, we took the metro to the Champs-Elysees and mostly did a lot of window shopping because everything was soooo expensive. We went in the huge Louis Vuitton store (designer handbags and shoes galore for those who do not speak twenty-something girl) and that was pretty sweet. We went to some souvenir shops as well and picked up some postcards and whatnot. I got a t-shirt that says "J'aime Paris" Then, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe and had a brush with death crossing the road because we didn't realize that there was a tunnel under the busiest, most chaotic road in the world to get to the middle of the circle where the Arc de Triomphe was located. After this adventure, we went back to the hotel to take a little nap and freshen up. When everyone was good to go, we took the metro to Montmartre to take some pics in front of the Moulin Rouge and grab dinner. We got deeeeelicious crepes at a stand on the street. We then met Jude at the metro station and he showed us to the cabaret show. The cabaret was amazing! Jared got pulled up on stage to be assistant to this crazy acrobat and I have never laughed so hard in my life. There was lots of great dancing, juggling, and some pretty cool contortionists. We all got a glass of champagne for the show as well. Afterwards, we retired for the evening so we could wake up early and go to the Eiffel Tower.
We woke up around 8:30, showered, and grabbed a delicious breakfast at the hotel, which I then proceded to throw up. I don't think my stomach was used to real food. We (except Noelle because she didn't feel well) went to the Eiffel Tower at about 10. It doesn't look as big as it feels when you're on the top floor. It was an incredible view. Paris is gorgeous. It doesn't have all the tall ugly buildings and smog that most US cities have. We finished at the tower at about 1:00 and Jared, Victoria, and I made our way to a sandwich shop while Kurt went to to the French Open. We, once again, got delicious sandwiches and sat in a little park and ate them. It felt like something from a movie! We met Noelle after lunch and took a long walk that would eventually end up at Notre Dame. We sat outside at a little cafe and had coffee, then did some shopping. Nobe and I both got really cute dresses at this fun clothing store we found. We met up with Kurt at Notre Dame and it rained as we took our pictures and looked around. It was truely amazing. We met Jude and two girls from Florida State who were also on our tour, Dana and Marla, soon after and walked to this cute little French restaurant across the river. Some people, like Kurt, were brave and decided to try the whole snail thing. I, however, did not (although I did help Kurt pry one of his snails out of the shell), but instead had a ham and cheese crepe and salad, salmon and rice, and an ice cream puff pastry dessert. We were all extremely pleased with our meals and it was a lot of fun getting to know Dana, Marla, and Jude as well. After dinner, we took a boat cruise down the Seine. This was probably the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. The Eiffel Tower twinkled, Noelle and I shared a bottle of wine, and all the couples along the river would stop their major amounts of sucking face to wave hello (or "Bonjour" in this case). It was a beautiful night and something that I will never forget.
Sunday we got up early to go to the Louvre. Kurt, Noelle, Jared, Victoria and I went to the Mona Lisa right away. That was pretty groovy. Lots of tourists taking lots of pictures though and you can't get very close. Then, all of us split up to wonder by ourselves. It was really nice to have some time to myself to explore. I went through all of the Greek statues and the Egyptian exhibit they had. Then I was feeling kind of faint because it was really really hot in the museum, so I took a little walk around the gardens outside and wrote my parents a postcard (I've written postcards for many others as well, but unfortunately they didn't give me the correct stamps at the post office the other day). We all met back up for lunch in the garden and then we broke off. Noelle and I just wandered around the gardens and got some ice cream, while Jared and Victoria left to shop and Kurt checked out one more exhibit. Kurt, Noelle and I took the metro back to Montmartre because Kurt wanted to get a hoodie at one of the souvenire shops there. We had one last delicious sandwich for lunch then went back to the hotel. We all met up and got on a bus to the train station, then made our way back to London. It was nice getting to see all of our other friends and tell them about our trip. Evan and Ricky had gone to Belgium for the weekend so we swapped stories and pics. I watched an episode of The Office with Rick then went to bed.

Monday, we slept in and awoke to a beautiful day. Mallory, Greta, Ricky, Amanda, Evan, Dan, and I went to the park by the Eye to study and memorize lines in the sun. I got a bit of a sun burn. The rest of the evening was spent studying and rehearsing- not the most fun. Rick and I went for a walk until about 2:00am. We keep trying to take pictures with our cameras at night, but none of them really come out.

Fat Pig, Classes, and Beer... Oh My!

(Victoria, Amanda, and Me at Sports Cafe)
(Evan, Mal, Me, and Ricky at Sports Cafe)

The past couple days have been pretty good. Monday, we all slept in late and I did some laundry and later in the evening Mal, Noelle, Greta and I had a girls' night out. We saw the play Fat Pig, which we are doing next year at NU for the student directed show. It was really good. The four actors were fabulous (2 of them were from the movie Love Actually). The play is about an overweight girl who starts dating this guy who is kind of "out of her league" and everything is going great until she realizes that he isn't introducing her to his buddies and coworkers. When he finally does introduce her to his friends, they give him a hard time about dating a large girl. After the show, we went to The Wellington and got a bottle of wine and just hung out and girl talked for a bit. After that, we went to the market to get some food because all we had eaten that day was pita at lunch because there was nothing good. Oh yeah, speaking of Schiller food... Ricky found a bug in his Schiller sandwich the other day. He talked to some Schiller person about it and about how the cafteteria people don't wear gloves and lots of other lovely things. Since then, they've been wearing gloves. Unfortunately, the food is still shit and everyone is scared to know what's in their tuna... oh, Schiller University. Back to Monday night... we picked up some pasta and juice at the market and came back to school. Then I stayed up later than I should have watching The Office with Ricky, Evan, and Trevor. I love Casino Night.
Tuesday we had class. Classes are going well. It's kind of brutal to sit through the theatre lecture class we're taking, but acting isn't so bad. Both of the professors are ridiculously quirky and always say something that makes us laugh for at least twenty minutes. That evening all of the theatre students saw Troilus and Cressida. It was very well done, but very long. We just read that play last week, so it was great to actually see it performed. After the three and a half hour show, Mal, Kurt, Trevor, Jared and I met most of the non-theatre majors at the Sports Cafe for drinks. Student Night=A pound fifty for a pint. We danced and had a really great time. Instead of taking the bus, Evan, Ricky, Victoria, Mal, and I walked home at 3am. Now, there is a much easier way to get home, but we walked by Big Ben and the London Eye on our way back to Schiller. Seeing them lit up late at night when there aren't many people around=really flippin amazing. I <3 London.
Today it was not fun to wake up for our 9:00 class, but we managed. Tonight I'm just staying in to memorize my lines and catch up on stuff (like writing my blog).

BERLIN

(Turkish lunch in Berlin)
(Greta, Kurt, and I in front of the Brandenburg Gate)
(throwing Trevor off the Reichstage)

(Olympic Stadium)
(The Wall)

Hello blog readers!!! I just got back from Berlin not too long ago and I am very excited to report that I now get wireless in my room! It'll be soooo much easier to update and download pics now. But anyway, about Berlin...
Mallory, Noelle, Jared, Preston, Kurt, Trevor, Greta and I took one of the school offered trips to Berlin through Anderson tours this weekend and it was AMAZING! The trip started with getting up at 3am on Friday morning and taking a cab to where the Anderson bus was going to pick us up and take us to the airport. This ended being a bit more difficult than expected. All we had was a street name for the place that we were supposed to be picked up. Baker St. Baker street is a relatively long street. So we wandered a lot and made a fair amount of phone calls and found out that we were to be picked up in front of McDonalds. Crisis averted. We took the bus to the airport and flew Air Berlin to the city. Immediately after getting off the plane, we got on a tour bus to take a 3hr. tour ride of the city. This was really cool. First we went to the Olympic Stadium and got off the bus and walked around. Our tour guide, Gareth, a young Irish guy pointed out where Hitler sat and all this crazy stuff. Here, we also met a new friend who we called "abuelo" (Spanish for grandfather). He was an older gentleman from Argentina who was traveling by himself. He was such a kind man and he took some pics with us and spoke to Trevor in Spanish because he knew very little English and German. We got back on the bus and didn't get off for another 2hrs and 45mins. This was a little rough for most of us, especially considering the fact that we got up so early and none of us had eaten anything. Trevor, Noelle, and Mal were passed out for almost the whole tour. Those of us who were awake saw the US embassy, the German Parliament buildings, where the chancellor lives, the tall television tower (looks kind of like the Space Needle), the Sony Center, the Tiergarten (big park), the Reichstage, the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, parts of the Berlin Wall, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the place where Michael Jackson hung his baby out the window. At the very end of the tour we got out and got a closer look at part of the Berlin Wall. As fascinating as all of this was to see, my initial impression of Berlin wasn't exactly a great one. Berlin, isn't a "pretty" city. It's very industrial and extremely spread out. I don't know why, but I wasn't too impressed, but that eventually all changed...
We checked into the hotel and freshened up a bit, then the eight of us walked down to this Turkish restaurant and had pizza and falafels. Then we decided to take the underground to this shopping area that Gareth told us about. Not as easy at the tube. In Berlin they have an underground, overground and a tram. It took as a good hour and a half to get to the shopping area that wasn't that far. We shopped around for a bit and then we split up. Mal, Noelle, and I decided to hang around and do a little more shopping. I bought sunglasses and then we sat and had iced caps at this outdoor cafe. This is where my feelings on Berlin started to change. I was sitting with my two best friends at a beautiful cafe in the center of this lovely area with a sax player just as the sun was going down. The rest of the crew ended up playing a lawn game with some people from Norway in front of the Berlin Cathedral... but I'm sure Preston will write about that.
Gareth called Noelle's phone and all of us met up with him to follow him to this bar. I think it'll be hard to put how completely awesome this place was into words, but I'll do my best. There's this building that is about seven stories high and it is completely ugly and falling apart. The walls on the inside are completely covered with graffiti and there are a couple studios on each floor where there are all of these artists hanging out drinking, smoking, and selling jewelry and paintings. Ont the top floor there is a bar with old mismatched furniture and it's big and open and has an incredible view. After a drink there, we went outside in the back of this building where there is sand all over (like a beach) and big tire, tube things and tables and benches all over. We stayed there pretty late. It was probably my favorite night abroad so far.
Saturday started wonderfully because we had a great night sleep in the hotel beds... much better than Schiller. We had breakfast and Trevor and Kurt went to meet Trevor's friend, Michael from Nuremberg, at the train station, then brought him back to the hotel. The nine of us made our way to the Brandenburg Gate and then the Jewish Memorial and Museum. It was really intense. The museum was very well done. It was very heartbreaking and something I will never forget. After that, we went souvenir shopping and got popsicles. Did I mention that it was in the mid eighties the whole weekend? Yeah, totally sweet weather. We took our popsicles to the park and layed in the grass for a while and rested. After that, we went to the top of the Reichstage where there's this really huge glass dome with a spectacular view of the city. Then we made our way back to the hotel to change and get un-sweaty. Greta's friend, David, had a photography exhibit going on so we all went to check that out around 8:00. Being in Germany, we decided to go to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. It was fun and delicious. There were three different languages going on that evening. Spanish, German, and English... it was pretty cool. We went back to the bar from the previous night and stayed there until about 1:30 hanging out and having Michael teach us dirty German words. We also had a good laugh at the only other Americans in the bar and their obnoxious state of intoxication. Oh yeah, and we saw 4 guys dressed up like The Beatles.
Sunday we went to this HUGE flea market with Gareth. Trevor, Michael, Jared, Greta, Noelle, Mal and I had a great time looking at all the cool handmade art and jewelry as well as all of the complete junk that was there as well. Afterwards, we went to a place called Fat Ass and had New York style pizza... YUM!!! We eventually made our way back to the hotel and hung out until the bus picked us up for the airport. The one and only bad part of the trip is the fact that the plane really messed up my right ear. Ouchies. Now, I'm uber excited to take other trips. Trevor and I started watching the movie Paris, Je T'aime the other night and after seeing all of the beautiful shots of Paris... I'm sooo ready to go.