Hiya --
I've been MIA for the past week, for which I do apologize, but I've just been so enamored with FINALLY being a traveler! I don't start class until Monday the 11th, so I decided to treat the past week as a vacation, my first in four or five years. As long as I spend very little money, I get to be a tourist in my new town, and am just soaking in the fact that I am living in this new amazing historic place.
I've been doing a good bit of touristing, hitting St. Paul's, Parliament, Westminster, the Globe (a dream come true for a theatre/literature nerd like me), and the Tower of London. I've gotten comfortable navigating the Underground, the cleanliness of which should make every New Yorker hang his/her slobby head in shame. I've seen some edgy performance art in Whitechapel, eaten ravenously of delicious Indian food in Brick Lane, gotten hugely lost trying to find Fleet Street, and gawked over the sheer fact the London is an old town with a very rich history.
I got a cheap ticket to the Globe today to see one of the final performances of Henry IV, Part 1. I have to say that, on risk of sounding desperately nerdy, sitting in that space seeing that company hard at work was a life-long dream come true. As an actor, it is so exciting to see actors performing passionately, in an environment in which they are free to work on impulse and to give voice to some amazing text. I sat on the edge of rental cushion for the duration of the three hour performance, just so thankful to be a part of it all. From moment to moment, I just fell in love with the text all over again, and couldn't wait to see how each scene was going to play out. This has to be one of the highlights of quarter-life to date. Definitely.
In addition to experiences like that, it's also so stunning to me to see buildings like the Tower which date back hundreds upon hundreds of years interspersed with modern constructions like the Millennium Bridge. As an American, I'm used to thinking of local history as a rather condensed subject, but here, the scale is so much bigger. I don't think i'll ever get my fill of just wandering about town, trying to soak it all in. I'm doing a couple of walking tours tomorrow, to learn more about this amazing place... plus, it'll help me to be a better tour guide to all of you who visit me (hint, hint).
If you're at all interested, I'm posting photos of my travels here. For right now, I'm being quite organized and labeling/captioning etc. We'll see how long your sloppy neighborhood That Girl can keep that up!
Cheers!
TGI
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