Ketch-up

Wow, looks I got really behind on my blog. Not too surprising though, last 10 days have been very busy and fun. A quick rundown and I'll fill in the gaps where I can. At the start of last week, I went to a play at the Globe Theatre, which is an exact recreation of the theater where Shakespeare performed his plays. There they perform very faithful reproductions of Shakespeare plays, i.e. no Hamlet in space, with top quality actors. I saw Henry the VIII, a play rarely performed because the last time it played at the Globe, the theatre burned down thanks to a cannon firing at the end of a scene. The cannon fired again in this production but no fire ensued.

The balconies around the stage filling up. Don't think I was supposed to take pictures so I couldn't take very good ones.


The stage. Very well utilized in the play.

The play was great and it was particularly fun because I got floor seats. Well not seats actually, but standing room floor space right next to the stage. These tickets cost only 5 pounds, a great deal in super expensive London, and provided a great view of the show.

Oh hello stage.

In Shakespeare's time, the people who paid for standing seats were commoners who talked during the show, threw stuff at the stage, came drunk etc. Not much has changed since then actually, as many of my fellow standing room theater goers were loud Americans who cracked jokes about the lady actors' bosoms, bought a steady stream of beers from the wandering salesmen and left well before intermission. They were good company while they lasted though. The show did run pretty long, 3 hours+, but for a lesser known play, I enjoyed it more than I expected.

Anyways, the next few days were pretty busy with class and various world cup semifinals. Posted some of those pictures on Facebook again and I won't retread the ground of my last post by putting up more shots of drunken Dutch people. But I went back to the Dutch bar for the Holland semifinal and chilled with the Brazilians in my neighborhood for the Spain game. When Spain went through, I was probably the most excited person in the bar because it meant I was going to be seeing them in the final while in Barcelona (preview: yeah, it was sick)

On Thursday afternoon I went to the train station to catch my ride to Paris but when I got there, the train was delayed. "Train should be leaving in less than an hour, no worries" said the voice on the PA. Ok, no problem. 2 hours later, following many cryptic announcements: "There's a fire in the tunnel between Paris and London and there will be no trains leaving the city this evening. No exchanges can be made at this time either, come back at 4:30 in the morning when the ticket booths open. Have a great night." No explanation about refunds, places to stay etc. Long, crazy story short, ask me about it sometime, I dropped my luggage off in the train station, wandered around London until 4:30 in the morning, and stumbled back into the station to catch the first train to Paris.

Overall, I really liked London but was almost daily overwhelmed by the number of things to do. I was constantly finding out about shows to see, concerts to go to, bars/clubs to visit, DJ sets to catch a day after they happened and even if I had known, there was no way I could've have gone to them all. Of all the cities I have visited in Europe, it is the one I would most like to live in, not just visit, the most because I think it would be impossible to really see it fully any other way. Impressive/diverse/very full city, really great.

That's all for now, post on Paris and first few days in Barcelona upcoming.