Roman(+Florentine) Holiday

I am back after skipping a week of blogging...Last Monday I was busy with school work plus not that much happened the week before but I will recap a bit now. Then I will talk about my Italy trip(so yes this will probably be a long post)

Tuesday for Industry class we went to a homeless shelter where this theatre group, Cardboard Citizens(who performs for the homeless) was performing that day. It was so interesting to see and really opened my eyes to a different kind of theatre that is really affecting and helping people.

Tuesday night I then saw Hairspray with Kat, my roommate. Though I have seen the show before I went to see the people Sam worked with this summer. It was a really fun time! Always a fun show! I went to the stage door afterwards to tell people Sam said hi, I did get a few autographs too.

Wednesday after classes I met up with Katie to wait for the Frost Nixon Premiere. The red carpet London premiere was that night & we stood outside in the cold waiting for it to start. We had a good time though & got to see Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Ron Howard, Jim Broadbent & Matthew Mayfayden. I had a fun time yelling out names in British accents as everyone else was.

Thursday morning I went and watched the British Olympian parade. They had a parade because they were proud of how well their Olympians & Paralympians did this year. I didn't know any of them & felt weird not being British, but it was still fun to see. Then that night for weekly Theatre Thursday for class we saw A Disappearing Number. It is a show about math actually and follows the relationship between a math professor and her husband alongside two mathematicians with math interconnecting them. There was lots of movement with dance and there were really cool projections. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance, unlike anything I have ever seen. I even understood some of the math from calculus which was scary & funny that I liked it..haha

That Friday we headed to Stratford Upon Avon with Shakespeare class. Stratford is a really cool place but was less exciting thinking about how Marina told us Shakespeare was just an actor who didn't write the plays. It was still neat to see some of the places(Shakespeare's birthplace-on the left, Hall's Croft, Holy Trinity Church) The most fun part was Mary Arden's house(who was Shakespeare's mother). Her house is on a farm & there were lots of farm animals. The man who worked there thought I was crazy when I asked if I could touch the animals(which is what came out instead of asking if there was a petting zoo). My favorite animal was Larry the sheep but there were also some really cool birds, including a falcon show. It was a nice day spent with some good friends.

The rest of the weekend and up to Tuesday was filled with paper writing, studying & midterms with movie watching breaks to keep us sane...haha! Then Wednesday after my outside class I left for Rome....

I got to Rome around 8:45pm & then had to venture to our hostel alone(because Steph & Kristen were already there). It was less scary than in Germany cuz though I don't know Italian, it's still easier to understand and read I think. I finally got to the hostel, which ended up being a long journey & went to sleep to rest for the next day of sightseeing.

Our first stop on Thursday was the Trevi Fountain(after having our first yummy pizza is Italy). The Trevi Fountain is absolutely beautiful, definitely my favorite thing in Rome. I threw a coin in over my left shoulder(after throwing it over my right shoulder & told that was wrong) & therefore I shall return to Rome one day. Also by the Trevi Fountain I had my first of many gelatos...SO delicious!!

Next we headed to the Colosseum, passing some sweet ruins & such on the way.(& all the trees I am obsessed with! I forget the name of my favorite tree which is all over but I love the palm trees too!)It was pretty sweet to be somewhere that was such a huge place so long ago. We got a tour inside where I learned some cool things. We then took pictures pretending to be spectators watching a bloody event as they did back then. After the Colosseum went continue to the Roman Forum & Palatine Hill, the other ancient sites in the area(which is all included for the price of one..haha). Again it was hard to grasp how long these buildings, now in ruins, have existed. It was pretty cool to walk around & take it all in.

After much walking and sight seeing we went to have our first Italian pasta meal, which was quite delicious of course! Afterwards my dessert was another gelato cone...duh!haha! We then walked around Rome at night which is really pretty. We visited the Spanish steps which is especially pretty! After walking around a bit, we went back to the hostel for bed, tired from walking so much. Plus I was waking up early the next morning to go to Florence!!

5:30am came & I woke up & got ready to journey to the train station for my then long train ride to Florence. Though long(which was cheaper than the much shorter train ride...i am poor! haha) it wasn't that bad & I spent my time listening to songs in Italian(The Light in the Piazza & Josh Groban) while looking out the window at the Italian countryside. I finally made it Florence where Abbie was waiting for me. She is studying there for the semester & agreed to show me around for the day! yay!

I will try to remember the order of where we went....haha! First we walked around the train station area & saw Santa Maria Novella. We then went inside the Duomo. Then we walked around even more through Piazza della Republica and then explored the Boar market a bit & I rubbed the boar statue's nose which means I am going to return to Florence too. We also passed through Piazza della Signoria & The Uffizi Gallery. We then journeyed to the other side of the Arno(walking along the river a bit first seeing Ponte Vecchio & then walking over it) & hiked up to Piazzale Michelangelo. This was probably the most beautiful spot. There is a great picturesque view of the city of Florence as well as the Tuscan countryside. Abbie also treated me to yummy gelato which was probably the best flavor combination I got the whole time in Italy(carmel & coffee). Afterwards we headed back into the city.

We went to where Abbie takes classes & I met a few of her friends. We then went to a nearby place to get lunch where Abbie & her friends go sometimes & they are known there. We got very delicious paninos(I mention ood a lot cuz it was Italy & all delicious so I ate lots haha). We then wandered the city even more passing through Santa Croce(where we saw a super weird puppet show) and by the Duomo again. We then went to Galleria Academia where the David statue is. The whole place has some really cool artwork but the David definitely is the star. He is even bigger than I imagined & the detailing on him is so amazing. I also learned, from Abbie who is taking an art history class & was very informative the whole day, that he was originally supposed to go on top of the Duomo so his hands and feet was very large and not proportionate to his body. I couldn't get over how big they were!! It was really cool to see him in person. Sad you can't take pictures of him(though some people illegally were, I followed the rules...)

We then headed to the San Lorenzo market. It was fun to shop around though the salespeople are very persistent in trying to make you buy something. We met these crazy men selling leather products who asked who we were voting for and would hug you if you said Obama. The one then led Abbie away & me & her roommate who was with us at that point were very confused. The guy then took us to her in their shop where they had her try on so many different leather jackets. They were quite amusing but hard to get away from. Abbie finally said she didn't have money now and would come back when she did. They were quite hilarious though & it was quite an adventure.

After the market we walked around some more, past some places I had already been. We ended up in Palazzo Pitti for a bit & posed with a statue, unfortunately not the turtle statues there cuz there were always people around them(lame). We then traveled back toward the train station, seeing more pretty Florence on our way. I then got something to eat and Abbie waited with me until the train came. I also unexpectedly ran into my roommate who I knew was in Florence, but it was still random. My train then came & I said by to Abbie, who was a fabulous tour guide for the day. I am definitely glad I decided to visit Florence.

The next day, back in Rome, we headed to the Vatican. We first went to the Vatican museums(after getting ripped off by the man selling paninnis-oh the tourist areas). The museums were really cool. I knew the Sistine Chapel existed but not all the rooms and artwork leading up to it. There were so many pretty rooms with pretty statues and paintings. It seemed to go on forever as I joked that we would never reach the Sistine Chapel as every room leading to it had a sign with "Sistine Chapel" on it with an arrow. We finally did reach it though & it was more than I expected. The whole entire room is just filled with paintings in bright colors. It was a definite sensory overload! I also kind of couldn't believe I was straining my neck looking directly up at the real Creation of Adam painting. Again it was sad not to be able to take pictures but I did see those magnificent paintings with my own eyes!

Afterwards we took a gelato break(always needed in Italy haha) & then headed to the Vatican & St. Peter's Plaza where the Pope comes out. Unfortunately he did not make an appearance that day. We hung out a bit there in the shade(it was hot in the sun that day) which was very relaxing. We then continued to explore Rome, getting a delicious huge donut on the way. We walked by the Castel Saint Angelo & along the Tevere River. We then got a very early dinner, giving into the delicious pasta. We then walked around a bit. I found my first cannoli in Italy which made me super excited & it was super good. We then passed these ruins that are in a very random place & were not discovered very long ago. Interestingly there are a bunch of cats from a shelter that like reside there. It was very strange to see but kind of cool. Kinda felt like I was in the musical Cats though..haha!

We then decided to visit some of the major sites at night, like the Colosseum & the Trevi Fountain. Both are super pretty. Since we ate so early, we got pizza & gelato at the Trevi Fountain(love it! haha). We then journeyed back the hostel after another grand day of walking. We however gave into McDonalds again, which is by the bus stop. We each had McDonalds as our first meals in desperation but then kept going back cuz they had curly fries & would get them...so good! haha

Sunday we didn't have any big plans so we just spent the day wandering Rome before our flight back that night. We saw the Pantheon where we ate a delicious pizza lunch, which was probably the best pizza I had the whole time, though definitely the messiest. We then headed to Piazza Navona, where we spent most of our day. We got more gelato and then spent time watching some of the many street performers, who were quite fun. We then proceeded to wander the city a bit more(where I found another cannoli.. a bigger one this time..yummy!) but came back for dinner to Piazza Navona where they advertised free bread! haha! I had a nice dinner & my first glass of wine while being in Italy. It was nice to sit outside in the piazza for dinner, especially since it was a nice day. We then began our walk to the metro to head to the airport, stopping at the Trevi Fountain one last time and having our last gelato of the trip. It was a very nice end to our time in Rome.

The journey home then seemed like an eternity since it was so late by the time we got back, but the trip overall was lots of fun. I got to see things I have heard of & only seen pictures of & I still can't believe I saw some of them. The food was definitely amazing & it was nice to be a country where they speak a different language. It makes it more difficult but definitely feels like I am learning more about the culture. My new favorite word is grazie(thank you)..hehe! Definitely glad I went. I feel super lucky to be having these opportunities here!!

This week I gotta get back into classes & schoolwork. This coming weekend should be fun staying in London & having a few Halloween & Guy Fawkes activities.

Moving Too Fast

Quoting The Last Five Years(which I just saw last night!!! more later...) But time is going so fast! I thought October just started & it's like the middle of the month practically! crazy!

Tuesday I woke up & went to the Victoria & Albert museum, which is right by where I live. It's a really cool museum, with a whole bunch of different things in it. My favorite part was the fashion section...so cool! It was such a nice place though! Then I had classes & unfortunately they went til 7(like every Tuesday) cuz the London premiere of High School Musical 3 was that night! By the time I got there, the stars were already inside. I was very bummed! I got to see some of the mayhem outside the theatre though....hehe!

Wednesday after classes & cookies at Ben's(a now Wednesday tradition) I went & saw Six Characters in the Search of an Author. It was INSANE!!!! Such a new adaptation that was disturbing and mind-boggling but SO well done!! Def an intense night of theatre.

Thursday I woke up & decided to break out the walking cards my grandmom bought for me. I chose to do a walk through Hyde Park. It was such a beautiful day& I saw a lot of the park & it was just so lovely! Also everyone has a dog & I loved seeing so many dogs, including a couple black labs(I miss Elphie!) That night for class we saw Ivanov. It was my first time seeing Chekhov but it was a new version by Tom Stoppard which I really liked. Also seeing Kenneth Branagh was amazing cuz he was so good! As was Gina McKee & most of the cast(except the girl who played Sasha..ugh).

Friday was a stay in & do work day. I did get things done which was good. I eventually got out of my room for dinner & then we had a girls night watching Music & Lyrics(we love our neighbor Hugh! hehe)

Saturday began my weekend fun!! Woke up early to go to Portobello Market in Notthing Hill. It is so cute & such a nice area! I made a couple of purchases...bargains of course! Twas a very nice morning. I definitely want to go back(especially to get delicious donuts that I mistakingly passed up while there! The produce too!) Then after the market I met up with John(friend from PSU studying at another program) & we saw Riflemind(new play that was directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman). It was a really intense play, interesting though. It was also nice to see a familiar face! After John & I parted ways, I met some of my friend at the London Eye. We tried to go at sunset, but ended up waiting in line longer than we hoped. It was still beautiful to see London from so high up & when it was dark & all the lights were shining. It was pretty & there were especially good views of Houses of Parliament(my fav fav building!). Unfortunately my camera stinks at taking pictures at night so perhaps I will go back during the day? We shall see

That night then I went to Cadogan Arms(pub down the street) with Katie & Kinsey. Good music was playing & we had some good girl talk. The night ended with us walking by Hugh Grant's house. We didn't see him..sad.

Sunday I woke up & traveled to Abbey Road with some of the girls. It was another beautiful day & it was so fun to be able to stop traffic to try to imitate the Beatles' famous picture. The funniest moment is when a guy yelled from his car "It's supposed to be blokes, not girls!" It is hilarious to watch so many people stop traffic to take a picture(which we did several times. I even got my own pic where I finally took off my shoes trying to channel Paul but I was just silly). Many drivers just laugh. We also saw Abbey Studios, which is right next to the cross walk & there is a wall there people sign when they visit. We all signed the wall with our own Beatles Lyrics(I wrote "Love is all you need. Kaitlin B." We then hung out a bit at the Beatles Coffee Shop.

Katelyn, Kinsey & I headed to Parsons Green to see Tranports Exceptionales for our Industry class. It was in a park & this guy did a dance duet with a digger. Sounds strange but it was actually very moving at parts & all around awesome to watch!

Then at night I saw The Last Five Years with Katie! I actually bought these tickets back in June when they announced there was gonna be a 1 night engagement of the show. It is now actually 3 nights, but still glad I rushed to buy tickets! It was so good of course(how could it not be...the show is amazing!) I had to get used to the voices of the actors, but once I did I was totally into it. How I love that show!!!!!!!

Today will be a productive day...grocery shopping & school work. Boring but it has to be done. I am sure I will have a fun week ahead anyways!

Home Visit, The Globe, Chocolate, Waffles, Beer

Time for a weekly European Update!

Tuesday began yet another week of classes. I went to the Queen Mary library with headphones this time to watch my movie for class. I then headed to the IES center for a meeting about the upcoming Belgium trip & then class. After performance class, we all headed with Marina, our teacher, to her house for industry class. There we had tea & she made us dinner, while Kinsey led class discussion. After dinner we went through the hundreds of monologues Marina has, picked out some, and she told us our types and such. It was such a nice evening to be in a house with a home cooked meal, very nice of Marina!

Wednesday was my first real outside class. It's so interesting what we talk about I just kind of feel stupid when people talk. Hopefully it gets better & at least I love what they are talking about! haha! Shakespeare was then good, as usual, including the normal cookie stop on the way home(Ben's Cookies=delicious!)Wednesday night I then just hung out..nothing too exciting....

Thursday morning I was a bit productive, but ended up getting bored..haha! I have way too much time before class on those days. That night though we went to the Globe for class to see The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was so exciting being at the Globe though it was cold out! It was still such a neat experience & the play was so funny & has Falstaff in it(my fav Shakespeare character!) It was a joyous night with great people!

Friday morning I then had to wake up super early to go to Ieper, Belgium! It was a long ride but it wasn't that bad since I slept for a lot of it. We had a nice little break from driving too when we took a ferry over the channel from England to France. When we finally got to Belgium, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel & had free time to explore. Of course the first thing we did was get Belgium waffles, complete with ice cream & chocolate sauce...so good! Hot Chocolate too! We then went to the In Flanders Field Museum, which was a really cool museum. It was very interactive, with each of us getting the card of a person who lived during WWI and throughout the museum we could find out what happened to us during the war. I learned a lot in that museum and really got a feel for what we would be seeing during our trip.

After the museum, we all bought some chocolate(mandatory to do in Belgium) & 55,000 names of men who were lost and never found during the war. We had a tour guide, Dominick, tell us all about the Menin Gate. We then got to see the Last Post Ceremony which happens every day, honoring those lost soldiers. It's amazing that at 8pm everyday theythen went back to the hostel for a bit, then out for a group dinner. After the dinner we went to the Menin Gate, where there are over stop traffic for this ceremony. It's very touching. After the ceremony, we continued our tour with Dominick who took us more around Ieper telling us war history and showing us a few sites. The tour ended at a local pub called The 12 Apostles, where Dominick treated us all to our first Belgium beers. The beers were quite good and strong as Julian(the teacher leading the trip) had warned us. After hanging out at the pub for a while, we headed back to the hostel and hung out in the guys' room which ended up being quite a good time. We def laughed a lot & were only a bit tipsy, if at all! After leaving the guys, Katie, Katelyn (prob my two closest friends here) & I chatted for a bit longer, acting like we were at a sleepover. Was quite cosy & nice!

Saturday we woke up, had breakfast & headed to the Ieper Market in the main town square. It was a nice little market & I of course bought sweets(chocolate & waffles!) We then loaded on the bus & started our day with several tours of cemeteries, led by a native guide. At the first cemetery there was a Dressing Station where injured soldiers were taken and later after the war people lived in since the town was destroyed. It was hard to picture them ever in use, let alone lived in. Surprisingly while we were there, a couple of horse & buggies went by & it ended up being a Belgian Wedding! There were dressed so proper & it was so pretty!

After that cemetery we went to a restored trench, which was probably put things into perspective for me the most. It is strange because it is now surrounded by industrial buildings. I had always learned about trench warfare, but really seeing how it was first hand was just crazy.

The next cemetery we went to was a German cemetery. Here the headstones were flat on the ground. There was a beautiful statue in the middle of German soldiers mourning plus a beautiful flower patch. There were also Oak Trees all around, which the cemetery was named for.

The next and last cemetery we went to, Tyne Cot Cemetery, is the largest in the area with almost 12,000 graves. The lines and lines of graves at all the cemeteries is daunting to see, especially how many there were here. There was also a visitors center showing pictures of many of the men buried there.

We then traveled to Poperinge, another Belgian town, where we got the first taste of some good that came out of the war. We went to the Talbot House which was established to give soldiers a break from the war where they could rest and be entertained. Shows were put on there and there is a beautiful garden, as well as an attic Chapel. It was truly a beautiful place where you can still stay to this day. I would love to stay there!

We then finished the trip at a very chilling place. We went to the Poperinge Town Hall where they executed men during the war who were cowards, perhaps who attempted to run away. We saw where they were held before they were executed, which is filled with graffiti. It was interesting though because Julian, the teacher leading the trip, had researched this place and discovered the names of the people executed there.

Though the whole day was chilling, it really put things into perspective, always learning about WWI but never really understanding, it not occurring on US soil and the US entering the war very late. I gained a great appreciation being in that area.

We then began our journey back to London which ended up being epic. We were so excited to get on the earlier ferry, but then because of bad weather we were stuck on the ferry for an extra two hours and it was hard to walk with it rocking back and forth. Being so tired did not help at all. It was amusing though because several people, not with us, got very drunk & were singing Mamma Mia & later I walked by them when Bohemian Rhapsody came on. Quite an amusing experience. We were SO glad to get off the ferry though & continue the drive to London.

It was such a great trip though. I had fun, but learned a lot, which as I said put things in perspective to me. I am really glad I decided to go!

Sunday then, I was a lazy bum all morning, still tired, especially since when we got home the night before I did laundry instead of going to sleep right away. Instead of being a bum all day though, I went with Katelyn to see Brief Encounter. It was quite a theatrical experience. It was a movie about a love affair which they turned into a play & they transformed a movie theatre to a theatre for the show. It wasn't a musical per say but there was lots of singing. Most of the actors played several roles and at intermission interacted with the audience in character. Before the show they were also singing & entertaining in character. There were such happy cute moments, but the show ended up being heartbreaking. The performances by the actors were fabulous however, and I quite enjoyed myself. It also brings my show count up to 9! woo! After the show I was a bum a bit more then we had girls night watching Project Runway.

Today was a total day in doing work. It is so hard to be motivated here but I did get things done! I still have a few more things I would like to finish though before bed. Then tomorrow starts, yet again, a new week of classes!