The V&A (again) and The Seagull. Day 13.

Today was a day for the birds and no food for me.

We woke up semi-early to go to the V&A museum again! That museum is too dang large to take care of in just one part of a day. I pretty much did what I did last time and wandered around towards things that visually intrigued me—no plan whatsoever. I explored and found things I enjoyed looking at…

This reminded me of beauty and the beast :)

After awhile, I felt like I had seen a lot and needed a simplicity break. So, I decided to go outside to the John Madejski Garden to sit by the pond and eat my poppy seed muffin I had bought earlier. It was a beautiful day..the sun was shinning and there was a slight breeze. I felt so at peace and completely content with where I was. While I was sitting, I people-watched a bit. I saw some children trying to swim in the pond…it was absolutely adorable.

Then I noticed some pigeons taking a bath in the pond water. They were so adorable and funny looking. Their feathers were all fluffed up from the water.

As I took my muffin out of my purse, I decided to feed the pigeons a bit. The first one that arrived was a scrawny little guy and he was my favorite right away..

Basically every time I grabbed a piece of the muffin for myself, I ended up throwing it to the pigeons because they were just so entertaining to watch and I as thoroughly enjoying their company.

There was one other pigeon that was my other favorite…he took me by surprise, I was looking at him and all of a sudden I noticed he was hopping around and then I realized he was missing a foot. I gave him more and more food after noticing that because I felt so bad for him. Poor little guy..

At some point, a little girl walked by us in the pond and splashed water at us for no reason! It wasn’t too bad at all though.. it was actually mostly refreshing.

Before I knew it, my muffin was finished and I had managed to get maybe one or two bites of it..haha!

After the V&A we walked to class. I really really enjoyed class that day. I am loving everything we’re learning in there..it’s giving me a whole new appreciation for theater, and is also definitely making me miss it. I wish it was still a big part of my life..

We discussed All’s Well That Ends Well and got a general idea of how everyone liked (or disliked) it. We also talked some more about realism and naturalistic plays. We discussed the writers August Ibsen, Henrik Strinberg, and Anton Chekhov and method acting. We also talked a bit about the “plot” of The Seagull to prepare us for seeing it that night. Anton Chekhov described his work (The Seagull) as containing “5 tons of love.” And that it explored the “human tendency to reject love and go after love that is withheld.”

After class, we all made the long journey to the Arcola Theater to see The Seagull.

We had a bit of time before the show started and we tried to find food real quick. I was so hungry because I still hadn’t eaten all day long. We found a KFC (and even though I promised I wouldn’t go anywhere that I could just go to in America ((other than starbucks))) We went there. I was excited to get warm mashed potatoes, but then I found out that apparently they don’t make those at London KFCs. So, I reluctantly got French fries..but I didn’t really eat a lot of them because I’m not a big fan of French fries.

We made our way back to the theater and found seats for the show. The theater itself was an extremely intimate set-up. The chairs in the front were practically onstage. The stage was sort of like a thrust stage type in that there were 3 sides of the audience. However, the stage it self was not risen in any way.

The Seagull was so much different than anything I’ve ever seen before. It was so raw and real (hence realism..).

The best way I was able to describe the play after seeing it was that it was beautiful. Not necessarily in the costumes, or the set, ..but in the words, and the symbolism-the dead seagull symbolizing the destruction of Nina..etc. I found some quotes to give you an idea of the type of language that moved me so much..

“I’m in mourning for my life.”

“ Do you remember you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw it and destroyed it, just to pass the time.”

“For the sake of happiness like that, being a writer or an actress, I would endure poverty, disillusionment, and in the hatred of those lose to me. I’d live in an attic and eat nothing but rye bread. I’d suffer dissatisfaction with myself in realizing my own fame.”

“It’s not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.”

“I’m the seagull. No, that’s not it. I’m an actress. That’s it.”

“How much love there is about this lake of spells!”

“You’re sixty-years old. Medicine won’t help.”

“It is a dream!”

There are so many more that I liked, but this could go on for a long time.. I think It was so beautiful because of how unique and new it was to me. I completely enjoyed it and am so thankful I had the opportunity to see it.

It was just simply beautiful. It was beautiful, but also haunting in many ways.

After the show, some of us wandered around looking for a pub that was open so we could celebrate the 4^th of July a little bit, but all of the pubs were done for the night-it was probably for the best because I was so tired.

Today was a Day of Getting Lost. Day 8.

June 29th

On this day, I was planning on waking up at 8:30am to be ready to go by 9:30am, but I overslept a tiny bit, but it was okay, because everybody else did too.  Larissa, Erin and I had made plans to go to the Victoria & Albert Museum before we had Theater class at 2pm.  So we got ready and  got some breakfast/coffee.  Then we walked to the tube and got way lost.

The whole time we were lost, I just felt extremely inadequate.  The tube overwhelmed me and I didn’t feel like I was helpful in getting us un-lost at all because none of it made sense to me.  That made me feel slightly bummed. But, eventually we (they) found our way and got to the museum.  The museum was really beautiful.  We split up so that we could wander around at our own pace.  I was pretty unsure of where to begin so I just walked towards things that looked pretty..lol!

Neptune and Triton by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini (About 1622-3)

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) by John Miller (1770-7)

THEN I found the Theater and Performance section of the museum and I was hooked.  I spent the majority of my time in there.  They had so many cool things and everything that was there was interesting to me!

The Lion King costumes!!!!!!

 Another thing that really intrigued me in the Theater and Performance exhibit was the beautiful work of Chris Nash.  He did dance photography and I loved it!!

Here's some of my favorites:

 We met back up at around 1:45pm to get to class in time.  I really enjoyed it!  We talked a lot about the history of theater.  Even though I’ve been doing theater my whole entire life, I never really knew all of the definite details on the history of it. So that was really interesting to me and I learned a lot!

After class, we went to the bookstore and some of us bought Imperial College sweatshirts and things like that. Yay!  Next, Allison, Jill, and I went to the library to try to print our confirmation letters for Spain and Amsterdam things, but it was too complicated so we put it off for another day..

Larissa, Erin, and I walked around the neighborhood by our school and ended up at this adorable restaurant named The Bunch of Grapes.

 We had delicious wine and desserts! Look at how pretty mine was!! 

After we were done, we found the tube and got lost AGAIN! It was a sad time.  Eventually we (but really they) figured it out and as we were walking up the steps to get out of the tube we ran into a group of our friends that were going out to the pubs. I decided to turn around and join them!

Once we got off the tube we realized we were at the wrong place, but we began walking…somewhere. I’m actually not positive where we were trying to go.  Allison, Jill, and I walked really fast ahead of the group and we ended up at a Sherlock Homes pub by ourselves.  We got a shot there, and then somehow found our friends at a different pub- I'm not sure which one.

When we got in there our friends were hanging out a pharmacist from Alabama and was in London on a business trip.  He had actually just arrived in London from Paris.  He was very friendly and told us all about Paris.

Overall he bought us all 2 rounds of shots.

After last call, the rest of the group wanted to go back to a hookah place near our housing, but Jill, Allison and I wanted to find a club to go dancing at.  So, we split up.  In retrospect, it was probably a very bad idea for us to go wandering around the city like that.  We’re just three little girls, and it was after midnight-ish..  While we were looking for a club we got kind of distracted and decided to walk towards Big Ben instead.  While we were walking, we could see the London Eye all lit up way in the distance so we wanted a picture in front of it.  We asked a random man named Kevin (who is apparently a boxer) to take it for us.  He did, and then I guess he offered to show us around the city some more and we thought that would be a good idea.  First we walked over to the Westminster Abbey and then we went over to Big Ben and Parliament.  We met a lady who apparently works for somebody important…I have forgotten who though..

We were having a lot of fun, but I was starting to get kind of freaked out by our “tour guide” because when we asked to get a picture with him he refused to be in one.  He was extremely paranoid about it and said stuff like, “if you take a picture of me I’ll take your camera and throw it in the river” – Kind of intense. But, he said he’d help us find a night bus home (the tube was closed by now…) Another weird thing about him was that he seemed to be semi-famous or something..people seemed to know who he was, but we had no clue who he was.

He took us across the river to the side that the London Eye is on and we got some amazing pictures!

 We also met David who owns a little coffee shop by the Eye.  He seemed really nice and said that we were in good hands.  That was reassuring ..even though we didn’t really know David either..

 We were walking down South Bank for awhile when we saw giant “grass” furniture in front of the National Theater! That was really exciting!

Then a bunch of girls who were from India (I think) came and wanted us to take pictures with them. So much fun and so many new friends!!

 We had been wandering for hours and were not having any luck finding the right bus to get us to Bakers Street.  Kevin was asking drunk people for directions…it was not very effective...then he was asking bus drivers and they were extremely rude to us..and somehow we ended up in a very sketchy area.  At this point all we wanted to do was get home safely.  We were more than willing to pay for a cab, so we went inside a store to get a number for one.

The cab finally arrived, and we FINALLY made it home!!

Even though that night was pretty dangerous and sketchy, we did have a lot of fun and a lot of cool experiences and got lots of beautiful pictures.  But I know that I don’t want to be in a situation like that again…just more lessons learned!