Thinking Outside the Academic Box

Hello blog readers (whoever you are...)!

Its Thursday evening here, but lets trace back to Tuesday to keep you up to date on my daily adventures (: 

Chinatown! 

      Tuesday I had my government class (which is on the other side of London) at 9am. That meant I had to leave my apartment around 8:15 and battle morning rush hour on the tube. The professor for this class is not a Centre professor, but rather a British politician who has volunteered to teach us. However, instead of him coming to us, all thirty or so of us have to go to him... but thats okay. We all got there okay. A two hour summary of the last 60 years of British politics and 5 or 6 pages of rushed notes later, we wrapped everything up and headed all the way back... I came back to the room just in time to see Olivia off to her Shakespeare class. I had about two hours to kill before my next class so I scrambled an egg and took a nap! My next class was definitely not what I was expecting though. Here, "class" doesn't always mean your typical college class: four walls, desks, lectures, and notes. Here, we have a lot more liberty. For my class, we spent two hours walking around London, philosophizing about Kant's view of truth, beauty, and aesthetics. Then we strolled on down to the poet John Keat's house and read some of his poetry in his front yard. No big deal.... It was just a simple reminder of the fact that I am living in a hub of culture, literature, and history and how very exciting that is! Olivia and I hated to head back to our apartment after such an exciting afternoon, so we headed to SOHO for some wings. Yes, wings. I realize that this is not the most English of meals, but we had been craving them...so, yeah...haha. It ended up being an awesome evening. Little did we know that Leicester Square and Chinatown were all within a few streets of each other. As we walked around we kept stumbling on these major London attractions! Plus, we found the largest candy store I have ever seen...four stories of JUST MnMs. It verged on ridiculous, haha. Chinatown was very different than what I pictured. The only thing I had to compare it to was the one in NYC, but this one is very much less market orientated, and is instead very focused on food. Plus, it was decorated with beautiful strands of lit paper lanterns that hug up and down all the streets. This was also the location of my very first London souvenir! What, you may ask, did I choose for this monumental purchase? A scarf, of course. Olivia and I found these beautiful Chinese scarves for quite cheap, so i picked out a blue and silver one with a peacock :) Perhaps it will show up in later pictures... After we got home I caught up on this week's episode of The Bachelor and then watched A King's Speech with a few friends. It was such a great movie! It dealt with a part of history that we have been talking about a lot in my WW2 class, plus it was shot in London so I had fun trying to identify landmarks. I recommend this movie!!

John Keat's house.

At the heath, after all that
philosophy.

Learning on the
 move!

     Wednesdays we don't have class! Yay! Instead, we get to spend the whole day on excursions and explorations! We all went to the Museum of London with our professors. It was so cool! It covered everything from the Roman Roads, to the Black Plague, to the Great Fire. We left with heavy hearts in remembrance of those killed in the recent Tube system terrorist attacks. Olivia and I made our way to the grocery store to pick up a few things that we still needed for dinner that night. It was our turn to cook for the cooking group, so we need enough food for nine hungry people. We timed it just right though, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Then it was a rush to clean up as much as we can, make ourselves look presentable, and head to our first play of many! We saw "Our Country's Good" at the St. James theatre, which is suprisingly difficult to find. A group of us knew what tube stop to get off at, and hoped it would be obvious from there. That, unfortunately, was not the case. However, after wandering and getting lost together, we decided to just make things easier and catch a taxi. It ended up being really exciting, cause it was my first taxi! That was our silver lining! Plus, when we got to the show, it was SO GOOD. I had no expectations going in, simply because I had never heard of it. It was the story of criminal immigrants to Australia and a Lieutenant who cast them in a play rather than hanging them, as instructed. It was so funny, and yet heart wrenching at times. The best part is that this is the show selected for Centre Players in the upcoming fall! Looks like we will be spending a lot more time with it.

Our attempt to translate how cold we
were. haha.

      Today I had another "adventure class." Instead of sitting and learning about British Theatre, we went out and embraced it. We toured the globe, saw some beautiful churches, and stood on the land where important things once stood....(we just had to use our imagination). The only problem was that it was below freezing... which tends to put a damper on a four hour adventure. We were all wrapping our scarves around our faces and craving soup! Luckily, we found a coffee shop and I warmed up with some hot chocolate! Plus, my rosy cheeks faded and my ears thawed, so no harm. haha. It was a lot of fun. Plus, our professors surprised us with tickets to see The Tempest in April AT the Globe. I kept the theatre momentum rolling by booking tickets to see The Lion King with my parents.

     Now I'm singing country music loudly in my room in memory of home with my homework sitting beside me. I should probably get on that...but not without my list....!

The Globe!
CTPOD

New things that I have learned!
1. How to make a vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and lactose-free dinner that is actually pretty good.
2. If you do not charge your camera, you will not have pictures to put in your blog... (thanks to Olivia for letting me use some of hers! haha)
3. HOW TO CONTROL THE TEMPERATURE ON THE SHOWER
4. All those creative strategies that Pinterest has for curling your hair are difficult
5. Where to buy really cool postcards (hint, hint)
6. There are a lot of really awesome people on my trip with me.

Love from London,
Deanna