Wednesday and the Imperial War Museum

So the Amoxicillin has been giving me the runs as well as an upset stomach. Yesterday I took my pill when I woke up and was feeling a little naucious when I left for work, but I was bound and determined to make it to work. About half way through my ride to work, my stomach and the moving tube began to not get along, so I got off at the next station to use the toilets. At the same my boss called to see how I was doing. She asked where I was at (which I thought was curious because I wasn't late) and I told her the name of the tube station I was at. She must have put together that this stop wasn't a stop I normally make a transfer at and insisted that I go back home. When I kept saying that I was fine and I was almost to work and would be in shortly, she said that they wouldn't have room for me to sit on the level with the bathroom and I would have to run down two flights of stairs to get there. I kept saying I was fine and once I was sitting at a desk at work I'd be okay. She said that she didn't want to see me come in to work since they had a lot of client meetings scheduled and she didn't want to risk giving them something and insisted that I go back home. So I finally gave in and went back to Vandon House. I did some work and had e-mailed Sophie to ask her what the next step was. She e-mailed me back saying that she had been informed that the Red Cross simply decided to modify their current walk-in support group because they won't have a budget to start and maintain another one like they had been planning and that I should focus more on general service support groups for my research. This means that my work has been drastically reduced which doesn't make me very happy.
Today I decided go to the Imperial War Museum, which we have to go to for one of our assignments. I ended up going by myself because everyone else waits until the day before things are due and then goes to visit them (most of the people went the day before journals were due to the Museum of London, spent about twenty minutes there standing in the lobby and then decided to call it good and wrote about how much they hated the Museum. I for one, would like to get more out of my experience here then drinking and would prefer to spend time at museum's and explore and learn some new and interesting things). I decided to walk there because I was feeling a little woozy from the pills and decided that the tube might not be a smart choice. It was a nice half hour walk from Vandon House but I enjoyed just walking and people watching and being outside. When you walk up to the Imperial War Museum there's two big cannon things at the enterance. I was stunned at how massive they were. When you walk into the lobby area of the museum you're surrounded by all sorts of gigantic military equipment. They had all sorts of different tanks and missiles as well as huge planes hanging from the ceiling. I think everything was real because they were life size and a few of them had part cut away and a glass window so you could see what the inside of the machinery looked like. It was really cool and I was overwhelmed by the amount of tanks and planes they had to check out. You could also experience what it was like to be in a submarine that existed during WWII. That was pretty neat only I was surrounded by a bunch of screaming elementary students. Then I decided to check out the Ian Flemming/James Bond exhibit which closes on the 28th. It was really cool learning about Ian Flemming and how he came up with some of his story ideas for the James Bond books. The director here in London had suggested the exhibit saying it was a good one and at first I wasn't sure how I would feel about the exhibit but I decided to give it a chance and I'm glad I did. I learned that Flemming had a fascination with golf and gambling (which was prohibited in London in the 50's when he was writing the books) and the majority of his books are based around these two things. I also learned that he had a fascination with how to cheat at both of these and those people that cheated at either of those two things in his books were the villians. I also learned that there were two movies (I don't remember which two) that invented villians that weren't in the book version. Then after I finished checking out that exhibit I decided to explore the Holocaust exhibit which is one of their permanent exhibits. I read almost everything, that was until I got towards the end of the exhibit. I think the most moving thing was the model of Auschwitz with a detailed description of how the gas chambers worked and behind this model was a wall of shoes. I think this was the most striking images and the one that caused me to begin to tear up. I worked my way quickly though the rest of the exhibit since it moved from that into the torture and forced labor of those in concentration camps. Then it went to the liberation but it was still hard to read people's testimonies about what they found when they entered the camps. Before I had entered the Holocaust exhibit I had planned on checking out the crimes against humanity exhibit as well. I guess that goes into more detail about the concentration camps and inhuman treatment of the Jews during World War II. I decided after I finished the Holocaust exhibit that was enough for me for one day. I plan on going back sometime to see that exhibit and they also had an exhibit that showed paintings from artists during WWII. I think it would be interesting to see that an find out what artists thought about what was going on during the time.
Besides that there's not much to say except that I can feel the medicine working even though sometimes I still get the cough that's so bad it's gagging and I do still have a massive cough and last night I had to sleep sitting up my cough was so bad, but I can take death breaths AND I can breath through my nose both of which are major improvements. Hopefully the rest of this goes away in the next few days.

I'm sick in London

On Wednesday, our theatre class went to see Twelfth Night. I could have been really good but our seats were crappy. Our view of the stage was not very good and our ability to hear the actors was not very good either. The actors had not been trained to speak upwards to the people in top seating rows, so we had to strain to hear and everything was still muted. If we hadn't read the book for class before we went I would have been so lost. I was disappointed by the actors and the director of this show. On Thursday, one of the girls we stayed with in Wales, Megan, came to visit. She came in on Thursday night so she wasn't able to see a whole lot when she got in. The next day I was feeling better so we went out to a dance club with Megan. It was a lot of fun. On Saturday we took Megan to two of the markets here in London. One of the markets we were able to find a lot of cool stuff for cheap and some of the sellers are even willing to baragin the price down a few pounds more. I bought three gigantic pictures of different sites in London to give as gifts to some people for only 5 pounds total (this is about 8-9 dollars). We then took her to another market which was more high end. Most of the stuff was ritzy and expensive, so we simply looked around at stuff not willing to spend an arm and a leg to buy anything. On our way to and from the market we passed George Orwell's house which was very different from what I was expecting. It didn't look like the inside of the house was open to the public, otherwise I might have gone in to investigate, but the house was really tiny and a pastel pink color. The sign on the house was really tiny, which led me to believe that a lot of people didn't care it was George Orwell's house. On Sunday I was feeling better so I went for a walk around St. James park and people watched. I also brought a book, so I sat and read my book on the park bench for a few hours. Yesterday, I woke up feeling worse than I had before, but I didn't think it would be a wise decision to miss class two weeks in a row, so I made the journey to class. That night our theatre class took a tour of the National Theatre then saw the play Every Good Boy Deserves Favour by Tom Stoppard. Stoppard was influenced by Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot for those of you who may know plays but not authors) and other other absurdist playwrites. This made the play very interesting. It was a play about Russian dissidence during the time of the USSR. The play included a full orchestra and some interesting things happened in the show. During one of the songs, guards came out and began kidnapping and beating up members of the band, it was interesting to watch and it took me a few minutes to put together the meaning of it with the story. Overall, I thought that this play was one of the best plays I've seen for class yet. Today I went to work and within a half hour of me showing up Sophie, my boss for those of you might not remember, told me I didn't good and suggested I go to the walk in health centre. Locating the nearest health centre to work, I went in, filled out the paperwork and sat down. I usually bring a book with me to read on the tube ride to work, so I pulled out my book and began to read. Within five minutes of sitting down my name was called and I followed the doctor into one of the "conference rooms"--it's the examination room, but they don't call it that. He asked about my symptoms and then we talked a little bit about politics all well I continued to cough up a storm. Within two minutes of sitting down with the doctor, he told me I had an infection from the symptoms I described and the way my cough sounded. He hadn't used a stethoscope or done any tests at all when he made his diagnosis, and this scares me a little bit, but at this point my cough was to the point where it was so bad, it would gag me and I couldn't breath, so I'm willing to try anything he gives me, so long as it makes me feel better. He prescribed amoxicilin and sent me on my way. Then I went to the nearest walk in pharmacy, handed them my prescription and was almost immediately handed back my pills. I have to take three pills a day, and I have to make sure to take them at the same time every day. The doctor suggested taking it around the times I eat so that I remembered easier. He said I could start today, but should keep in mind that I can only take three a day so if I take one later tonight I won't be able to take one tomorrow morning since it might throw off the medicine. He said I should only take two today and end with one in the am on the seventh day. I walked back to work with my pills and took my first one. Sophie said that I was starting to sound a little better later in day after I had taken the pill so I'm hoping that it continues that way, even though right now, I don't feel much better from earlier. I'm hoping that these pills make me better because if they didn't work, I was suppose to come back in after the seven days are up and we would try something different. He told me the name of these other pills but I forgot the name, all I remember is that it starts with a A and sounds funny. He said those pills were much bigger, but would be a little stronger, if these didn't work. He said that these pills were so big, I'd have to break it into two and then swallow the two parts. I'm praying that the amoxicilin makes me better because I'm not really wild nor enjoy taking huge horse pills. I'll try to keep you guys updated throughout the week as to my health.

Pictures From London

Oh, so I forgot to mention that I couldn't figure out how to post all my pictures here on my blog, so I created a photo bucket account instead. I attached the link. More pictures will follow, but the computer was running really slow and I got impatient.

http://s651.photobucket.com/albums/uu232/deepice/London/

My Week So Far

So when I got back from Wales on Sunday, I wasn't feeling very good. When I woke up on Monday I had a really bad cough, a sore thoat and I threw up. I didn't go class, e-mailed the professors and told them so that I could get my assignments that I missed. Well on Tuesday I woke sick again and so I e-mailed my work and explained it to them. My boss, Sophie, was really nice about it and told me I could work from home this week. She sent me everything that I had saved in my file from last week so that I could continue working well I was in bed. Wednesday, I still felt a little sick and my cough is still here and my throat hurts like none other but I'm sure it's just a flu that turned into a cold. I met with the director on Tuesday because he wanted to see how I was doing. He told me that London is a dirty city and that last semester the students kept dropping like flies. He said that if I don't feel better by the end of the week I should go to the NHS walk-in centre (which is a walk in health clinic, all of the UK has NHS which is govenrment run so anyone can walk in and use it). I'm starting to feel a little better and got some cough drops eariler today, so that helped. Anyways, just wanted to give you that update on my week. It's not very fun being sick well in London.

My week.

Sorry that my posting has not been the greatest this week. The internet has been crappy and people have been working on it so then it gets shut down completely...sorry. Anyways, on monday the 9th we went to class for the first time since the snow storm. For our Contemporary Britian class, the students all take a week in which they prepare to lead our seminar/discussion group which follows the class. My partner and I were suppose to go this week but because of the snow last week the lecture from the week before had been skipped and was then going to be rolled into this weeks lecture. We figured that our week would be skipped over, so we didn't bother keeping any of the materials we had found. When we got class she asked if we had prepared anything and we said no and she said that was okay since the snow threw everyone off and gave us a different week to present. That night for theatre class we went to see the show The Pitman's Painters at the National theatre. The National theatre was cool, since there's three theatres in it and each theatre is different, one is even a black box and I'm really excited to go see a show in that theatre.
On the 10th one of the boys in our group turned 20 and we celebrated by going to a place called Zoo Bar and Club. The Zoo Bar normally costs 15 pounds to get in, but we had called ahead and told them how many of us were coming and we were able to pay a discount rate of 5 pounds (that's about 7 or 8 dollars).
On Wednesday, I went to Oxford Street, which is the main shopping street and most of the popular stores are located here. I did some window shopping, found a few touristy stores, looked around in there (i thought of ideas for what to get some people well I was in the stores) and then went back to the house and hung out with friends.
On Thursday, I went to my internship for only the third time ever. My job well I'm here is to research different support groups for both men and women that are found around London. The Red Cross is looking at making a support group of some sort and wants to find out if it's necessary/reasonable to do this. After I'm done researching online we compile the data and make a list of 15 places we want to go out and visit and some others that we want to call to get more information. I've already been told that a few coworkers want to go check out certain places, so they'll be going with me to help me evaluate those places. Then when/if I finish all of that I then evaluate and write up my findings and make a recommendation to the Red Cross. Later that night I went to go see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Othello. In order to get to the theatre, I had to take the tube, then get off the tube and transfer to the London overground rail system. I may have mentioned this earlier but London has this thing called the Oyster Card which I pay for one time each month and that gets me on any form of public transportation within whats called Zone 1 and 2 an unlimited amount of time during that month. The two zones cover the main parts of London like Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Street as well as my internship. This means I can get on the tube, bus and London overground (the light rail) in these areas with my card. Getting there took a while but it was worth it since the show was amazing, and yes I cried when Desdemona and Othello died.
On Friday a group of us left for Wales. There's another Central program there, so some of the students here know students there and we crashed in their rooms, which saved us money. We had to wait for one girl to finish her internship so we didn't leave London until about 9 pm. Then we had to make one train transfer which the others in the group almost missed. Once we made the transfer, we got to about two stops and then we sat at the platform for 15 minutes and then the engine and lights were turned off. We were worried that we'd have to spend the night in the town we stopped at and none of us knew where we would be able to go/how to find our way around. We arrived in Bangor finally around two am so we didn't obviously see a whole lot when we got there.
On Saturday we did some sightseeing around Bangor which had some really pretty and scenic views. We walked down the pier in Bangor and spent time admiring the mountains. It was really cool because it was a little bit cloudy so the mountains looked mysterious and tucked away behind the clouds. I'm still trying to figure out how to post pictures on here and once I get it figured out, I'll be putting up some of my favorite pictures for you to see. Then we went shopping for some Valentine's Day stuff so that we could have a party. Then we went back to the University of Wales dorm--where the Central students stay in Bangor, they don't get a hotel like we do, and had a Valentine's Day party. From there some of us went to a dance club for a few hours.
Today we headed back to London. We had to take a bus to get us to the station we left Wales from, but once we got to the station, we were able to ride all the way to London and not make any transfers. It was early when we left, so I slept for most of the three hour trip, but as we were leaving Bangor by buss, we got a beautiful view of the Menai Strait, which leads out to the ocean. The sun was coming up and the clouds were clearing up and the water looked so blue it was breath taking and I was tempted to ask the bus driver to stop so I could get out and take a picture but I didn't but the beauty of it will be in my head forever. Later today, I'm going to get a drink and catch up with one of my friends from Northwestern who's getting her Master's somewhere in England and came to London to take some classes at the Globe theatre. She was the technical director for the scene shop last year and I'm really excited to see her again.

Greenwich

I think I forgot to mention this so for those of you that don't know, I got picked to be an RA which means that I cover reception one day a week for an hour during the manager's lunch break and I also clean up the kitchen that night. Anyways, my first day as an RA was Thurdsay (the 5th) and it seems relatively easy.
Yesterday we went on a trip to Greenwich since it was an assignment for one of our classes. Greenwich used to be a sleeper community outside of London then as London grew it became a suburb of London. We took a river boat up the Thames in order to get there. It was really cool to see everything from the water, it was also really cold so we said inside the boat where it was heated. Once we got to Greenwich we went to the Greenwich Observatory where the Prime Meridan is located. It was, in it's own nerdy way, cool to be standing in two hemispheres at once. I even jumped over the line a few times going "eastern hemisphere, western hemisphere" and of course took my picture straddling the line. Then we were told we could do whatever we liked for the day so a group of us went to the National Maritime Museum. I thought it would be boring and dorky but I actually learned some really cool facts and played with the wave machine and had fun there. Then we went to a really good Mexican restaurant well we were there. Then we took the light rail back into London where we took the tube the rest of the way back to our house. Then I spent the rest of the day simply hanging out with friends.

Dick Turpin and Duet For One

I'm going to review both of these shows in one entry to reduce the amount of posts and to reduce the amount of work for me.
Dick Turpin is an original pantomime written by Berwick Kaler. Let me begin by explaining what a pantomime, simply called panto, is. A panto is based on a fairy tale or folk hero and is done around Christmas time mostly. Turpin is a local hero of York. He was a highwayman who stole from girls then returned the stolen goods for a kiss. There's a lot of cross dressing and men often play women roles. There's always someone good and bad, a person who falls in love with the hero, and a simple character (someone who does silly things). The scenery is often extravagent and a lot of costume changes. At the end of a panto the audience learns a song and then gets divided in half to compete against each other. There's also messages that are read out saying hi to people in the audience. All of the above was true. The lighting was amazing with about 4 IQ lights being used along with regular lights. Everything was over the top extavagent and it was really cool. There was a lot of audience participation as well as some parts where the characters looked as though they were improvising, even though many of them had probably been written into the script or broke character to start laughing, which I guess is normal for a panto. It added to the excitement and humor of the show. There was humor for all ages I enjoyed it.
Duet For One: was written by a man named Tom Kempinski. We saw it at the Almeida Theatre which caters to a more upper class population like BBC executives and business owners, so I dressed up really sharp. The lighting and set design was really simple. There were only two people in the entire two and a half hour show. The whole story took place in a psychiatrist’s office so there were no set changes. The coolest part of the set was that there was a fake window which could be light or dimmed to create the time of day and sometimes it would be opened and you could hear the sound of birds in the background as the scene was taking place. The story was interesting since it revolved around a famous violinists struggle with MS, which is actually suppose to be about Jaqueline Du Pre with a name and instrument change. You could see the changes and stages of MS as the women went trhough them. There were a few times where I didn't understand what was going on but I was able to catch up in the next scene. The actors were capable of capturing the audience's attention but I had trouble paying attention since there were no lighting, scenic, or character changes to focus on.

Snow in London

On our way back from York it began to snow and as we got closer to London the snow got worse. There are a few people from Texas here and they'd never seen stay on the ground and most hadn't seen snow ever, so we went outside had a snowball fight, showed them how to make snow angels and made a cute little snowman with them. They were wearing about 10 layers of clothing well those of us from the midwest were wearing a coat, hat and mittens.
Our heater hasn't been working since Sunday, so our room is freezing. Anna and I put about ten layers of clothes on before we've gone to bed the past two nights. We went down to reception to ask for a space heater but they were all out by the time we got there so we've been spending the least amount of time possible in our room. They're suppose to fix it today so hopefully we will be able to sleep in warmth tonight.
A bunch of us decided we were going to go to a pub to watch the Superbowl on Sunday night. Here in London it began at 11:30 pm. It normally takes us about 15 to 20 minutes to get to this pub (it's one of our favorites because it's so cheap) and that night it took us almost an hour. The snow that we were getting in London was the worst snow storm they've had since 1991 and many of tubes which have part of their route outside were not able to run causing some lines to not be running at all and most others were seeing major delays. At one point we had to wait 30 minutes as opposed to 2 minutes for a train to arrive. It was really great to meet other American students not from our program, we meet a ton of people from Minnesota well we were there. After the Superbowl was done we found the right bus station and waited about an hour and a half for the bus to arrive. When it didn't come we called a number called Transportation For London which you call and tell a live person your location and where you're trying to go and they tell you what bus to take and what stop to get off at or how to contact a cab and even what tubes to take if they're still open. We found out that all the buses had been halted because of the storm so the guy gave us a number to text to get three different cab company numbers. We called all three numbers and they were all booked up for the entire night so we had to walk home. None of us really knew where we were going because we'd never walked it before and it took us two and a half hours in the cold and snow to finally get home.
Yesterday our morning classes at the University of London were cancelled but we still had our theatre class because that was in the Vandon House. It was still snowing out and the buses still were not running and the tube was still majorly delayed. Most businesses either closed early or didn't open at all yesterday and it's reported that due to the weather it cost London almost half a million pounds to close down. We also had to go to a theatre performance yesterday and it took us about two hours to get there.
It amazes me that only about two inches of snow can cause a city to come to a complete stop. I don't think London owns a snow plow since I haven't seen one cleaning the streets. Most Londoners don't know what to do in this weather. Yesterday morning alone there was about 45 car accidents because people were driving too fast on the snow. I saw a guy riding his bike with only biker shorts on and another person walking around in snow pants and a t-shirt. One of the boys from Central for some reason had brought a collapsable shovel with him (it must be an Iowa thing) and walked around offering to clean storefronts sidewalks off. He made a fair amount of money doing it.

Weekend in York

This past weekend our group went to York. I hadn't been feeling well when I woke up and less then five minutes into the five hour trip I ended throwing up all over my clothes. Luckily, I had a change of clothes with me, so I was able to get cleaned up. Once we finally arrived in York and had checked into my Bed and Breakfast, I found a little laundrymat close by that closed at 6. I walked in at 4:32 and asked the lady how much it cost to do one load of laundry. She said that the last load of the day went in at 4:30 and so I would have to wait until the next day. That night went went to go see a pantomime (it's different from a mime...I'll expain it later) at the theatre. It was really good and I have never laughed so hard at a theatre show before. The next morning we went on another hour and half trip to see the Yorkshire Dales (which was all vast nothingness. and farmland..it reminded me of Iowa) and visited a town called Skipton. My friends and I went to go see the castle at Skipton which was really cool. We ate at a really good fish and chips well we were there then headed back to York. Once we were in York we were given a few more hours to do some sightseeing there and my friends and I decided to visit the Viking Museum. This museum put you in a moving cart thing and you went along learned about what York was like during the time of the Vikings. All the sights, sounds and yes, even smell was acurate. Then we went on a ghost walk where we heard ghost stories about different buildings and areas in York. It was really cold and I had gotten back too late to do my laundry, so I was wearing a shirt and my coat and that was it to keep me warm. On Sunday, we headed back home and I made the trip without getting sick this time. It was a fun weekend.

Spring Awakening

Spring Awakening written by Wedekind was in a musical form at the Lyric Theatre in London. I thought that the play was mediocre because there were some parts that I hated and some that I enjoyed. To start with some of the lighting in few scenes could have been done better. There was a scene where people were singing and a pink box surrounded them and then this blood red lighting came up and totally clashed with the pink. Honestly, it was so ugly that I literally threw up in my mouth, there was a few scenes where they didn't dim the spot enough to match the stage lighting and they totally clashed with the lighting. There was a spot light used in every scene except for two, mainly because the actors missed their lights. In one scene, the stage lighting was green and they threw a spot on his face making everything from the neck down green and the head white. It would have looked cool if he had been all green. There was a really cool scene in which one of the actors had blue light on them and another had a redish color and they walked towards each other and as the colors ran into each other it turned purple. The set was a simple design and the top layer could be removed to reveal in under layer. They were able to raise one of the platforms suspending it above the rest and they could slide the set foward and backward revealing a tombstone underneath or to move an actor during a song. The director of the show attempted to make the show Brechtian. The actors made tabloos when they weren't involved in a song and there wasn't any backstage so all the actors sat in chairs on either side of the stage and the band was visible as well. A lot of the actors were appearing in their first production but seriously, they need to be taught to find their lights and maybe the crappy lighting was an attempt at Brechtian theatre, but the lighting ruined the show for me. They succeeded in Brechtian theatre in all other aspects of the show.