New Friends and Stranger Companies

“And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,

To seek new friends and stranger companies.”

-Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

What a busy week! I think I’m coming to accept that while I’m here, I’m just going to be constantly tired. . . but I’m loving every second of it, so it seems like a pretty good deal.

Classes this week were great. Highlights include finding out our casting for scenes from La Ronde in acting class, feeling like a sword fighting pro now that I can sort of successfully carry out four different attacks and five parries, and having class in our corsets for the fist time in period dance. It’s hard to believe we’ve only had two weeks of classes, but so exciting to think of how much more is still to come.

Like I said, this week was extraordinarily busy. Wednesday after class we headed out to see Song from Far Away at the Young Vic, a one-man show about mourning and isolation (with plenty of full-frontal nudity just for fun). Thursday was the same, except classes got out much later, so we had an hour to commute to Sadler’s Wells in rush hour tube traffic, plus eating anything we had time to scrounge up for dinner. We saw Lest We Forget, a compilation of three dance pieces in tribute to World War I.

Friday we had classes in the morning and a walking lecture in the afternoon. We started out back at the Globe Theatre, learning all about the theatre’s history and beginning to talk about the transition from Elizabethan staging to later proscenium theaters. Then we walked across Millennium Bridge (yeah, the one that gets destroyed by Death Eaters in Half Blood Prince – luckily our trip across was very uneventful) up towards St. Paul’s for a lot of architecture history. We finished up with the site of the Blackfriars Theatre (roughly the same time period as the Globe) and Fleet Street.

Saturday came bright and early as we all trekked out to London Bridge Station to catch our train to Brighton. Once there we got a tour of the Royal Pavilion, a pleasure-palace built by George IV when it first became fashionable for Londoners to spend time at the seaside. We learned lots more about Regency architecture and had a guided walk down to the beach before being set free to explore. We spent a little time at an outdoor cinema event on the beach and some people went to pubs or thrift shopping, but I caught the first train home. I was so exhausted that by the time I was back in the flat and had cooked myself dinner, I was too tired to eat it.

Today has been another lazy Sunday for blogging, homework, and fighting with the terrible Wifi signal in our flats. We went out for a little while, to a garden party hosted by a Fordham alum. She lives in posh Kensington now, so we all got to get dressed up and pretend we’re the kind of people who regularly go to garden parties.

Cheers until next week!