O Wonder!
“O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
that has such people in’t!”
-Shakespeare, The Tempest
Well, I’m here!
I arrived four days ago and my first big challenge was staying awake long enough to unpack and try to get my body on the proper time zone. My roommate Ashley and I are getting settled in nicely, though, and I love our little flat. It’s already starting to feel like home. It helps that it’s stinking cute, inside and out.
Thursday, we started on orientation, and Friday we had a last-minute boat tour on the Thames. It took us from Westminster all the way to Greenwich. Along the way we saw Big Ben, London Bridge, the Tower, the Globe, and all the modern skyscrapers that Londoners love to hate. The boat tour was a nice overview, but I can’t wait to get to explore the city better up close!
After our boat tour and a lovely evening exploring Greenwich, we successfully made our way back to Piccadilly on the Tube for a big night – our first theatre visit! We all met up at the Criterion Theatre to see The 39 Steps, an adaptation of a spy mystery and a prime example of British comedy. The play’s cast of four takes on multiple characters per actor, changes setting frequently, and breaks the fourth wall to interact with the audience. It’s an Olivier Award winner, the fifth longest-running play in West End history – and we were really lucky to see it, because it’s due to close on 5 September.
I took off by myself yesterday to try and familiarize myself with the city – a struggle when you have no international phone plan, so Google Maps isn’t an option! Armed with a loose list of sights to see and some screenshots of maps taken in my dorm, I set out. My planned stops were Chinatown, St. Paul’s Church (not the cathedral – this is a smaller church known as the Actors’ Church because it welcomed theatre folk back when we were looked down on as immoral scum), Somerset House (an old Tudor palace, today an art museum), and South Bank (literally just the south bank of the Thames, known for street festivals and lots of things for tourists to do). Along the way I found a skyscraper viewing gallery, a couple of other art exhibits, and Covent Garden. When it came time to make my way back, I was totally lost, but I knew as long as I found a tube station I could make it home from there. I definitely feel more settled and a little more oriented in the city as a whole.
Today has been mostly calling people back home, blogging, and trying to get organized for our official first day of class tomorrow. We’ve only just begun!