Jan 20th

Hello,

This week had been busier than that last week that’s for sure. Things have started to pick up because classes are really getting into to swing and we’re starting to do excursions now. Things are getting into a good rhythm and I’m really enjoying myself here. I still haven’t heard about my internship yet. I talked to the people here and they still haven’t heard back from the company that I’ll hopefully be interning for. Just a waiting game now.

Jan 17th

This is my busy class day. I got up pretty early to make sure that I got my run in. There was a nice rain in the morning and it felt really nice to run through that. I haven’t had a nice run in the rain for a long time, so that was really nice. After that I had a quick lunch and then had to head to class. I have class for six hours on Wednesday, so that’s going to be a long day. The first class of the day was a lot of fun. The professor is just a really cool guy. We spent the entire time talking about who we knew from British culture. Justin was really impressed that I knew Christopher Eccelstion (Doctor Who) and Roger Banister (first man to break the four minute mile). Most of the people that we knew were from times of British crisis and popular culture. That makes sense overall. After class I had some time to burn until the next class. Its normally earlier, but this week we were going on a walking tour of a bunch of the theatres around the area in Soho. We went to the sandwich shop and sat outside on bus stop bench eating them. We waited around the at the bus arcade that’s by the Tube stop and that’s where I took that picture of the dog. I still can’t get over how people leave there dogs just sitting around here. The dog was just tied up outside the store. I just get a kick out of that.
Once we got to the theater we met up with the professor and started walking around. We had to go to ten theaters and get brochures from them. We got all but one that was closed. It took us a couple of hours and once we got done, we hopped a tube back to the flat. Once I got back, I sat around in my room and I actually talked to Katie for a while. That was really nice. I just read for a while then before going to bed.

Jan 18th

This was a much more mellow day than the one that proceeded it. I didn’t have anything to do today, so I just enjoyed it as much as possible. I went for my run in the morning and that was really interesting. That was the day that the huge storms hit Europe and things just got battered. The winds had to have gusted up to 40 or 50 miles an hour at a couple points. It was like running under water. There was one point that the wind hit me on the side and I think that I was at a 30 degree angle, or at least that’s what it felt like. I had a hurried lunch and then went off to have a meeting with the internship people. Like I said, they haven’t heard back from the office yet, so I’m still waiting. I at least got a look at what the sheet is going to look like once I have my placement though. I stopped by on the way back and got my international student ID card. This should get me discounts when I’m traveling around Europe and hopefully get me the discounts around here that the ID they gave me was supposed to give me discounts everywhere. I didn’t have anything else to do until the night so I just sat around and read. A bunch of people from the group got together to go get some food before the play we were going to that night. We ended up leaving about half an hour late because people just couldn’t get going. So once we got on the Tube, things continued to go even slower. Because of the storm and winds, everything was really backed up. All the roads were packed and so was the tube. Some of the lines were done and the trains were going really slow on top on that. We ended up only having about 45 minutes to find and eat. Some people branched off and went to a Subway. We soldiered on and found a really nice café that the proprietor was really trying to get us to eat at. It was 6.50 for a two course meal, but I was the only one who wanted to go. They decided that Pizza Hut for about the same price was a better bet. I just said screw it and headed out with another guy on the trip to find something else. I just wasn’t ready to eat at an American place at that point of the trip. We found a fish and chips shop and that was really cool. I had my first taste of that and I really enjoyed it.

The play itself was really cool. Their was a robbery or something outside that seemed to set the stage rather well, but I never did find out what was actually going on there. The playhouse was tucked away in a big block of buildings and from the way we came in; you really couldn’t tell what it was. The playhouse itself is really cool. The seats were really cramped, especially where we were sitting. The stage was surrounded by classical paintings of various Greek mythological scenes, but I didn’t recognize any of them. The play itself was called Blood Brothers. It’s a play about these two twins are separated at birth. The mother is a poor worker who can’t afford to feed the both of them so is forced to give one of them away. She gives one of her sons to the women she works for who is incapable of having children. The key theme in the play is a superstition that if you tell two twins that they were separated at birth, they will die that day. So a huge chunk of the play is spent with the parents trying to keep them apart. This invariably doesn’t work and they end up becoming best friends. The set itself was also really interesting. It was a double story set, with the orchestra hidden behind the second story. There was also a devil type figure who also acted as a basic narrator. He would come and go in the scenes from time to time and just generally hung around the edge of the set and as the play progressed became more and more involved. I really liked the play and thought it was really interesting.

Jan 19th

This was a big day. We went out to Warwick castle so we had to head out pretty early. We were on the road around nine and it took about two hours to get there. It really wasn’t that far, but the traffic in the city was really bad. I took a little nap in the way there and I was set. The castle itself was really cool. It was a really old place. William built the Conqueror the original castle in the 11th century. The newer stonework was a really cool place. I won’t go into a lot of detail because I put all the picture on my site, and that will be much better than I could ever describe it here. We spent about three hours exploring the old castle and then grabbed a bite to eat then headed home. I got back and did a little shopping before I had to go to a meeting with the RA’s that live in our place. Apparently, there had been a complaint filed against us by one of the other floors. They called the head place about a noise complaint and a complaint about a stranger in the flats. Well, it turns out the stranger was one of their boy friends. Woops. The problem comes from the fact that some of the people live with students from another floor. Instead of talking to us about the problem, they went over everyone’s head and made it a lot bigger deal than it had to be. There was some issue about people partying on the fourth floor and they didn’t like that I guess. Whatever. Its just more drama than I really want to deal with, especially at this point in the trip. I also don’t want it to have to come down to having to point fingers at the people in our group who are partying.

After that little bit of fun, I headed out with some people to go to a few pubs. We first hit up the Olde Miter, the one that I went to a couple of days ago. That was a fun time again. After that we headed out to a place called the Citi of York. That was one that was more popular with a younger crowd. We sat there for a long time and talked quite a bit. It was a really cool place but it was really smoky. We sat around there for about an hour then went to a place called the Queen’s Ladder. This was a place where the medicine and supplies were stored for Edward the Third (I think) when he was being treated for mental illness. We spent a good hour there too and then took the Tube home. That was an interesting trip. Nick, one of the guys with us, met a guy he had worked with a couple of years ago. The Tube itself was packed because of the outage and it was the time that all the pubs were closing and I think that they were still catching up to an extent. I got back from that and headed to sleep.