Fun Things This Week

      The last few days have been pretty awesome. On Tuesday, we went to see an Edwardian satire called The Charity That Begins At Home at the Orange Tree Theatre. The play was fantastic, like watching a Jane Austen movie. Beautifully written and flawlessly acted. The theatre itself was really cool - it was a tiny theatre-in-the-round. A small square room with a set in the middle and a few rows of chairs around the outside, and a balcony with one narrow row of chairs looking down onto the floor. A few lighting effects, and doors in each corner. And that was it. So simple, and yet so effective. I sat up in the balcony and felt like I was in the room with the characters. I loved it - probably my favorite performance so far.
      Wednesday morning, while messing around on my computer, I found that The Shins (one of my favorite bands) had just added a second concert date in London because their original show had sold out so quickly. The show happens to be on a free night while Nik is here visiting, so I immediately bought two tickets to see them on March 23rd! I let my friends know there were tickets available, and Louise and Julia both bought tickets as well. That is the day before the St. Petersburg Phil with Martha Argerich concert, so it's going to be an excellent weekend. I also bought tickets to see The Lion King musical and St. Martins-in-the-Fields play Bach, Handel, Britten, Elgar, and Bruch. So excited for all of these!!
      Thursdays are my favorite, because I get to sleep in, I get paid my weekly stipend, I have art history classes, and it's weekly pub night with a few friends. And then it's the weekend. Hard to mess that up. Yesterday our art history professor, Giovanni, took us to Greenwich to study 17th century architecture. It was, again, a perfectly clear and bitingly cold day. I wore tights, leggings, jeans, wool socks, boots, a tshirt, sweater, sweatshirt, wool coat, two scarves, gloves, and a hat. And I was STILL cold. I really think there's nothing else I could have done.
      The train ride to Greenwich was pretty and fun. When we got there, we walked around some of the construction sites for the Summer Olympics, which was cool to see. We looked at the Cutty Sark and the Naval Academy, and then walked up the hill to the Royal Observatory. There is an amazing view from up there! You can see all of London and the River Thames weaving through it. I don't have any camera batteries right now, but I solemnly vow to go back and take billions of pictures. The Royal Observatory is the also the site of the Prime Meridian! I made all 30 of us line up on it and take a group picture. It's on Albert's camera, but I will post it when I get it from him.
      The coolest part of the Observatory was their Camera Obscura - basically a very large pinhole camera which was developed in the Middle Ages as an early means of capturing perspective in art. Their camera obscura is a pitch black room with a set of mirrors which reflect light from a small hole in the ceiling onto a flat surface in the middle of the room. The light portrays a perfect reflection of the Queen's House, a quarter mile down the hill! We could see small shapes of people moving along the walkways and climbing the stairs. Very cool.
      Next we visited The Queen's House (remembering that people were watching us above in the camera obscura), which is the first building in the UK designed in the Roman classical white-marble/geometrics style. The art history aspect was fascinating and the building itself very beautiful. Greenwich was the original royal area of London and so there was a great deal of history imbedded in it as well.
      We stopped in Queen Mary's chapel, accidentally intruding on a fabulous counter-tenor's voice recital. Then we visited The Painted Hall, which was breathtakingly beautiful. It is an enormous banqueting hall and every inch is painted with images of monarchs, battles, mythology, iconography. We sat on the floor and stared as Giovanni read a long list of the scenes portrayed on the ceilings and walls. We spent a long time looking (especially since it was blissfully warm inside).
      And then it was pub time! A baked potato, chocolate cake, and a couple warm drinks thawed me out... and then I fell asleep at the table. Perfect end to a perfect day.