so, its been a while. so sorry.

this last week in a nutshell:

Tuesday: we had academic orientation at the AHA Centre where we got to meet our professors (well, most of them at least, two couldn't make it) and hear them talk about why we should take their class. I am taking four classes: Britain Today, the required class for everyone. It's labeled as an IPE class (international political economy) and we will be looking mostly at British Political History; Shakespeare the Dramatist, mostly a discussion-based class on the Shakespeare plays we will be seeing over the course of the semester, including Hamlet, Midsummer, 12th Night (maybe), Timon of Athens and Merry Wives of Windsor. Most of them at the globe even, with the exception of Hamlet, which we will see when we travel to Shakespeare's birthplace of Stratford-Upon-Avon; London: Biography of a City, which is half lecture, half walking tours, so that should be really cool; and last but not lest, Writing for the Stage, which if you can't tell is a playwriting class and fulfils my UPS Fine Arts credit, so that will be nice to have out of the way.

After orientation we took a boat tour down the Thames from Westminster to the Tower Bridge and then explored the Tower of London for a few hours. So much history in just one spot, it's amazing. After the Tower, Martin (the programme director and our Britain Today professor) took us all to a pub called The Hung, Drawn and Quartered and bought us "some real English beer."

Wednesday: our first day of class. We met at 10 am for the Britain Today class, went over the syllabus and had lecture for an hour or so and then we walked to the British Museum. This place is HUGE. I mean, I knew it would be, but wow. When we walked into the lobby, I was just floored; I felt so small. And to look at things that were over 2000 years old, yet they could have just come out of my grandma's china hutch (at least the silver stuff) was so cool!

That night a bunch of us went to see The Duchess with Kiera Knightly. It wasn't bad, though it was prettier to look at then actually a good film. But I've seen much worse (like The Other Boleyn Girl), so I didn't mind much.

Thursday: Second first day of class. I had playwriting from 10 to 1 and then London: biography from 1:30 to 3, so that was a fairly full day. After class, Matt, Megan and I took a bus to King's Cross and went a gawked at Platform 9 and 3/4. Then we came home for dinner and I watched tv online and uploaded a bunch of pictures, which if you havent seen them yet, you should check them out.

Today (friday): this morning we slept in a bit, which was wonderful and took our time getting ready. Then we took the tube into town and Megan went to her drawing class and I met Matthew at Camden town to check out the "world famous" Camden Markets. Didn't buy anything except lunch, but saw a lot of cool stuff. I definitely want to go back again. Then we met Meg at Leicester Square after her class , had some Ben and Jerry's and looked at the half-price (yeah right) theatre tickets, maybe for tomorrow night.
Then we went back to our house and had some pizza and watched a moive. A slightly boring Friday night, but a good one.