Day 9 {London}

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much rain in my life. No, I don’t think I’ve ever walked in this much rain in my life. The plan for today was to at 10am go to the Tower of London with my friend. Things started out smoothly, not too rainy, no need for an umbrella at the time (thank God I brought one just in case. I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet and Keira had brought a lunch with her as well, I decided to get some food at Costa with James (and a large tea, which always baffles the people over the counter –“You sure you just want regular tea? Nothing in it? It’s not coffee you know”). After that we got on the tube and off at King’s Cross and then headed in the wrong direction. That’s when things started to take a little turn. We eventually made it to Tower Hill station and by that point the rain was really coming down. Because of my destroyed feet from the “interview” on Friday my feet were still in repair so I had made the decision in the morning not to wear my clunky, support-less rain boots but instead to wear my flimsy, practically-paper flats today. Mistake #1. By the end of the day these things were soaked completely through. Poor shoes. We walked over to the shop and bought tickets to the Tower of London and headed inside. It was like being transported into another time. The walls were complete stone and head small cut-outs of crosses. The ground was 90% cobblestone and there were (what I thought at the time) tour guides wearing insane blue and red costumes and top hats walking around the place screaming various Olde English terms. First we checked out this place called “Bloody Tower” which is where prisoners were tortured. This was very interesting to me. On all the plaques at the exhibit it stated very clearly that England no longer tortures prisoners, which is interesting because America definitely still does, which probably seems quite medieval to English folks but is quite normal for us Americans. Outside the tower were cages of ravens that had their ability of flight severed as to not “end the tower’s reign”. Americans still may torture terrorists for information, but at least we don’t cripple birds because of urban legends.

                After the Bloody Tower we headed to the crown jewels (my main attraction). The line wasn’t too bad in length but it was entirely outdoors so I turned my scarf into a hijab and attempted to gain complacency. Once we gained entry it was definitely worth the wait. We got to see all the royal housewares and armor (including swords and shields and protective gear) and then my favorite of course, the crowns. I’ve never been more comparable to a fish in my life, everything was so shiny! It was very difficult to look away, fortunately the whole tour is on a moving walk-way so you are literally pried from the sights. Next we headed to the White Tower which wasn’t as exciting for me because I’m not a big history buff but I did appreciate all the different types of armor (see: fish comparison). The last thing we did on the tour was pop into another tour group where the “tour guide” in “costume” talked to a group of about 50 people in a church. He was very funny and especially liked to make jabs about Americans. I didn’t mind that, Americans are pretty stupid, I can be pretty stupid at times too (see: fish comparison). I did find out that the people I thought were costumed tour guides were actually real British security for the queen. I wonder if the queen picks out their outfits…

                Finally after all this we left and I headed off home with James and Keira headed off to get some new socks. Once I got off the elevator and onto my floor it was the best feeling in the world to take off my soaking wet shoes and get on some cozy socks. Right now it’s 10:49pm and the shoes are still wet. Oy vey. 

Day 8 {London}

                My first day of understanding what 4 and a half hours of class feels like! I got some lunch and tea before trekking my way over to Kensington. I fortunately bought some energy bars the previous week so I brought a few of those to eat during my 30 minute break. How nutritious. As I said previously that I cannot say what exactly what we did and who taught the courses and what not but I can say that it was a very loving experience filled with trust and bonding, which I really loved. The course is quite intense, it's a show-all, tell-all course where baring your soul is a requirement. Fortunately this course isn't all indoors as I had originally thought. I did learn in the lecture that the Wednesday 3 hour class would be entirely outdoors and would be a tour of different parts of London and acting in different parts of town (as if on set). I was excited and then worried. My feet were still pretty torn apart and the Band-Aids weren’t helping one bit. Also there have been a lot of bad weather in London recently so that might also, pardon the expression, rain on our parade. 

                After class I got dinner and then headed back to homebase and watched Wanted while I showed James my series on the Boosh. 

Day 7 {London}

Today I decided to take it easy and go hang out with Noel. So, after a quick cereal breakfast at my apartment I headed on the northern line to Camden Town station. It was a quick tube trip so I got there around 11:30am. Camden is fantastic! The shops on the main street are for goths and punks and other wacky fashion cliques. Also, a lot of the shops have giant statues on the sides of the building. I saw a store just for punk shoes and on the building was a giant metal spiked platform boot, wild! Camden Lock has a giant market, lots of food and tourist-y souvenirs but also lots of handmade gifts as well. I got a few things there as well as some West African food! I’ve made it a goal of mine to try as many foods from different places as possible. I figured the food would be more authentic here since it is closer to most other countries known for food (not a lot of Canadian food to try in the US…). The food I got was red rice with this off tomato mush on top and then some chicken, corn, and lettuce. Quite delicious! There were so many things to behold in Camden, a man riding a double decker unicycle, a magician fooling a little kid with some pretty cool tricks, a tank of fish that would eat dead skin off your feet if you put your feet in there…such a diverse culture of what-on-earth?

                I walked around that market till 1:30pm and then decided to head back to the tube, however what I didn’t know what that on Sundays the Camden Town station becomes an exit-only station and I was on the wrong end of the deal. So I took a nice 15 minute walk to the next station which featured a 10 minute walk down a spiraling staircase, I’ve never felt so dizzy before in my life. I did make it back after a nice read of my book (I’m aiming to finish it by the time this trip is over, 500 pages, wish me luck!) and then I took a shower and relaxed for a bit.

                Around 6pm Noel and I started getting a bit bored of just hanging around a lounge so we looked online for some fun, cheap events. I happened upon a website called Angel Comedy which I thought was a comedy club for comedians to do their acts, and Sunday was “First-time comic night” and was free. Hell yes! A night of watching comedians sweat their way through terrible jokes and me being there to witness it in all of its glory!? It was a must see. So at 6:30pm we went to 12 Pins for some food and drinks and then headed to Angel station for the comedy club. Now, I thought this place was a comedy club when in reality it was a small stand-up comedy show in the attic of a bar. So the website told us to get there at 7:30pm to ensure a seat but I figured since it was Sunday and it was “First time comics” night, not many people would go. Apparently, London and I are in accord when it comes to schadenfreude (pleasure derived from the misfortune of others, what a surprise, it’s a German word). After getting lost for 20 minutes in the back walk-streets of Angel we asked a fro-yo vender where the “comedy club” was. “Oh that one inside the bar? Yeah it is 2 blocks that way”. In a bar? Thanks website. We made it to this bar at 8:05pm and headed up, expecting people but still expecting a seat, nope, that place was packed! On a Sunday! In a BAR! So Noel and I chilled at the bar for a bit and then headed back to homebase, happy to have been out and definitely wanting to go back and see some terrible comics. Overall good day of exploring!  

Day 6 {London}

Saturday! This was to be my lazy day. I woke up around 10am (heavenly), ate lunch around 12pm (more heavenly) and then decided, hey, I’m in London I’m not going to sit around all day, let’s go see some OLD STUFF (heavenly for some). So Keira, James and I set off for Tottenham Court Rd. station and ended up at the British Museum! Definitely one of the most grandiose museums I’ve been to as of yet. The inside is all stone and the ceiling is glass, quite a sight. I had three things on my agenda for the British Museum, (1) See the Rosetta stone (2) See some mummies, and (3) Get a hotdog from the food truck outside. I’m happy to say that all 3 items were met and all three have a lovely story.

(1)    The Rosetta stone is a small child sized rock that has writing of ancient Egyptian upon it. That’s what it is and it was very useful to scholars trying to translate ruins. What I thought the Rosetta stone was, was a giant boulder from outer space that had an alien language on it that stumped scholars and was originally at Area 51 and was now, for the first time ever, at a museum. That’s what I truly believed. That’s what the Nickleodeon show “Jimmy Neutron” taught me, and that’s what I told Keira who was also unaware of what the stone actually was. When I finally saw the rock I was slightly disappointed. Did I confuse Roswell space crash thing for the Rosetta stone? Maybe. Am I leaving this museum with actual new knowledge that I’ll hopefully remember for some time? Hopefully.

(2)    I’m quite The Mummy-buff. The reason why I capitalized “the” and “mummy” is because I’m not an expert on mummies but if I don’t have the Brendan Fraiser epic trilogy of The Mummy damn near memorized by this point then I’ve wasted 10 years of my life. My Brendan Fraiser/Rock O’Connell obsession has dated all the way back to my kindergarten diary where “CHRISTINA LOVE RICK” can be quoted. I recently as a college student watched the movies and the love returned after a solid 3 year lull. Mummies! How very interesting they are and I was quite excited to get to see some disgusting greenish bandaged bodies. However this is a free family museum and I’m sure showing dead bodies is somewhat traumatic to children (I guess). So my friend and I got to see some lovely Egyptian tombs. Still cool, dead bodies still would’ve been cooler.

(3)    After we saw all the housewares and gear from the 1200s and beyond we headed outside into the pouring rain and went to the hotdog vendor. At the time I was wearing bright, white bell-bottoms and because of the rain the bottoms of them got soaked and dirty. So, like any American trying to make new friends in weird places (the hot dog place not the country), I said to the vendor “Man, I can’t believe my pants are wet! What a shame, these were nice too”, to which he aptly replied “Your pants are wet?”, “Yeah! And these were my mom’s too, oh well”. Not of course realizing that the word “pants” in London meant “underwear”, I had apparently just revealed to a stranger that my undergarments were quite wet and previously owned to my mother. What a lovely image for a man handing a young girl a hot dog…After Keira and James finished snickering at me, we headed home. 

Day 5 {London}

According to the form I received from the center I had my interview for the one-on-one teach at 10am on Friday. Exciting! This means I get to work early and get to know people earlier and therefore longer. The place is a little far away and I didn’t want to be late so I left early. For my 10am interview I left at 8:15am and woke up to get showered and ready at 6am (it takes a long time to air-dry my hair, and even by the time I left it was still wet). I went on the tube and read my book S. by JJ Abrams until 9:10am when I arrived. Now Newham is in East London and it is a little scary, especially for a girl who decided to wear a dress and no panty hose and is walking outside alone. Either way, I survived. I tried to find a coffee shop to chill in before my interview but there really weren’t any so instead I walked around a super market for a bit, hung out under a bridge until a man asked me in a thick cockney accent where my phone was (odd), and then loitered by a solely Muslim apartment complex. Finally the time came to when it would be appropriate to say “Sorry I’m a little early”. I entered the stone building which was surrounded by a stone fence and barred windows at 9:51 and passed the metal detector to the sectioned off receptionist window. However once I said why I was there they looked confused. They told me to sit down and wait, I felt like I was in trouble. Moments later a woman came by and sat down next to me and put her hands on her lap like she was about to explain to a child why stealing is wrong. “Didn’t XX tell you? The interview isn’t until next Thursday”. Well thank you so very much XX for making me look like the most incompetent idiot in the world for my first impression. Truly, my gratitude goes to you. After a laugh over XX’s mistake she sends me off. By this point my ankles and toes were blistering and raw from my terribly business-woman-like shoes and I pressed the heels down and limped my way back to the station (a good 20 minute walk by the way). I was very angry, the only thing I was truly frustrated at were these damn shoes that I would surely need to burn as soon as possible. After an hour on the tube, I finally reached homebase, chucked my shoes across the room, and slept for 3 hours.

                Due to my odd morning I decided to make the night much better. Keira, Tom, James and I went out to go watch X-Men Days of Future's Past while we basically made fun of James and his crazy outfits the whole time. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS MOVIE. With thick socks and bandaids on my wounded feet, Keira, Benedict, Tom and I headed to Shoreditch to go check out the pub/bar scene. It was quite nice actually! I wasn’t going to get belligerent on my first drink out so I only had 1 drink there. We went to two different bars in Shoreditch and then went on the funniest tube ride back to Finsbury Park. I thought Americans drank a lot, I once knew a “man” in Indiana who drank a fifth of Jaegermeister every day but even this guy had nothing on the Brits. Almost every man I walked by was stumbling his way along and the girls were literally screaming at each other. Not with malice, that’s just the level of sound that was needed to break through drunken ear drums. “HEY WANT TO GO BACK TO ESSEX? MY HAT’S GONE WRONG” The reason why Finsbury Park was especially trashed was because there was an Artic Monkeys concert going on and people were drinking as though it were the last day of their life. Thanks Artic Monkeys. Once the four of us got back to Finsbury Park we went to some secret pub and had a truly great time talking to the locals. The night ended around 1:30am and it definitely made up for my interesting morning.

Day 4 {London}

This day was probably the one I was looking forward to the most. Finally! Some information about my crazy, out of zone, dangerously located one-on-one acting teach! The internet is not very nice to East London and especially not the borough of Newham. So after forgetting to eat breakfast, I left for the tube around 11:45am with Tom and James. The session was at 12:30 so I figured I’d have some time to get a bite to eat there as well as go to Boots and get some razors and try a Barclays. Sadly because the tube was a little behind schedule I only had time to get razors from Boots (easily the most non-urgent thing on my morning agenda) and then trekked 15 minutes over to the center. Normally us students would get off at Gloucester Road but it’s closed so now we have to go to Earl’s Court which is slightly farther away. I did get there with a few minutes to spare but not as early as I would have wanted (punctual, remember?).

                The class was everything I had hoped for. A smart and funny professor that explained in detail just what we should expect and even gave me some insight to my personal teacher. He told me that I am definitely in a safe area, and I don’t have it as bad as others though, Colin has a one-on-one teach in zone 5! So I’m grateful nonetheless. 

Day 3 {London}

Day 3 – CAPA Orientation

                I took a shower at 6:30am and got dressed in my nicer clothes, with the motto of “First impressions are everything, Christina!!” ringing in the back of my head. I decided to not bother Keira for the trip from Islington to Kensington so I braved it alone. With some pretty terrible cereal in my stomach and a death grip on my purse, I headed off to the tube. Being from New York, I’m pretty skilled at the Metro, so in actuality the tube was pretty easy to maneuver. It was actually easier than the Metro in NYC because it had way more signs and information clueing you as to where you should go. So, so far I haven’t gone in the incorrect direction…but I’m sure that will change.  

                I arrived to the Gloucester Rd. station and saw Keira there! So we navigated our way to the center and made it there with 20 minutes to spare. I’m a very punctual person so 20 minutes early on the first day was right on time for me. The center is a very nice building in a gorgeous location! It looks expensive at least. The rooms are air conditioned (unheard of in the UK apparently) and there is even a little hang out and drink soda/water area. Once it was 10:10am we were escorted upstairs to the “Kensington Room” (one of many classrooms in the building). Off the bat I was a little tired because of the jet lag but I was instantly awakened by the teachers for the 10:30am-12:00pm orientation session. There we learned about safety procedures, the staff, basic SOPs (standard operating procedures) really. I also found out at that meeting that I had a focus session in zone 3, meaning that I’d have to pay myself to get there every day to work instead of everyone else with a zone 2 internship who got to go for free. That was a little annoying, according to one of the teachers I am going to get reimbursed but not until the end of the trip…right when I won’t need the extra 50 pounds. Oh well, be flexible right?

                After the orientation session there was another orientation session with a man whose name I cannot remember. He talked to us about the serious side of the program and how attendance was very, VERY mandatory and how instead of buying textbooks for my course I’d have to pay 30 pounds instead for special trips and what not. This was good news to me because for some reason I had received an email saying that I needed to buy 2 books and I had put it off till I was in London and I wasn’t sure how the postal system worked in this country…SO, this was good news. The second orientation session wasn’t very long (thankfully) and so after that we were given a break and this bit was probably the best part of my day. Keira, Tom Hiddles and I walked in the opposite direction of the main crowd and found a small little Italian place about 10 minutes away. Inside were squares of pizza – not slices – pasta that was sold in bags, and cooked lasagna and other Italian treats. I got the cheese square of pizza and it was probably the best square of pizza I’ve ever had. The crust was so delicious and light and crunchy tasted of polenta somehow…Along with my pizza I got a large tea (“when in Rome”) and enjoyed it thoroughly. Everyone who worked there also spoke fluent Italian because some people would then order in Italian! It was like I dropped off the planet and landed in Italy. Truly amazing.

                Keira, Hiddles, and I then headed back to the course building and got on a luxurious coach bus for a panoramic tour of London that would last 3 hours. My oh my, 3 hours is a long time. I popped in and out of sleep after hour 1 because of the terrible jet lag I was facing. But the sights were beautiful nonetheless. One of the stand-outs was Buckingham Palace where we couldn’t get in because of HM the Queen’s Garden Party! There were about 100 people lined up outside in these large, outlandish hats and very formal, yet conservative, attire. It was like a scene out of “Downtown Abbey”. I also liked the story about how the London Bridge used to be a bridge where old Englishmen would put the heads of traitors on stakes and place them on the bridge, as a warning to those who enter. Quite disturbing, but also very interesting. By the time we all got back to Finsbury Park we were exhausted. I got some fish and chips (maybe one of the greasiest things I’ve ever put in my body), watched a little TV, and fell asleep around 10pm. 

Everyone loves James McAvoy. He's okay. haha im literally typing this with this bitch behind me. (not my images obviously)