Monday; class and then our weekly AHA meeting. A good short day, after which I went back to the British Library and finally got my readers pass, which now enables me to get beyond the lobby and into where the books are. Even if I never use it, which I have and will, it makes for an awesome souvenir. The picture is kind of crappy though, but not any worse then my driver's licence.

Tuesday: our London: Bio walk was not as much fun today as they have been in the past. It rained cats and dogs. Thank goodness for umbrellas.

Today Kate turned 20 years old, so we celebrated by eating cupcakes and going to see a show. We wanted to get tickets to Ivanov with Kenneth Branagh, but once again, they were sold out.Then we couldn't choose between seeing Rain Man and Six Characters in Search of an Author. Both had student concessions for £20. But Rain Man is going to be around for much longer, so Six Characters won out in the end. We bought out tickets and then went and had dinner before the show. Now, for those of you who did not take Theatre History II with me, I must inform you that Six Characters is a biteen of an obsession with me. It is nearly impossible to explain if you haven't read the play (if you NEED to know, Wikipedia it). It was written in the 20's by Luigi Pirandello and I spent the majority of last semester reading it over and over and writing at least three papers on it. So needless to say, I know it well. Three weeks ago I saw a poster of it in a tube station and have been bugging my friends to go see it ever since. So I was over the moon when they agreed to enable my craziness and go see it. It was both the most absurd and yet wonderful thing I have yet to see. An updated version, it took twists and turns that would make Pirandello loose his head. I was one of the few people laughing at the end (for those of you who have read it: not the end of the script, that's not funny obviously, but the ending they did here) because I knew the crazy Pirandello stuff they were referencing. And if you know me even a little bit, I laugh very loud and it takes me a long time to stop. I also cry when I laugh, so people were defiantly staring at me. It was a good night.

Wednesday: Shakespeare in the morning as usual, but for Britain Today we took a trip to Greenwich. I was surprised to learn how close it was, only about 20 minuets on the DLR (docklands light rail, a new bit of the London transport system). The train was really cool; it drove itself. We sat in the very front, so had awesome views of the docks on the Thames. Greenwich is really cool. We first wandered around the National Maritime Museum and learned more about the important relationship between GB and the sea.

That night we saw A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe-sadly our last show there. It did not disappoint. One of the best Pyramus and Thisbe's to date and the guy who played Theseus/Oberon was amazing. I was standing near Matthew and I think we made up a good 5% of the laughing we were so frickin' loud. It was a good night. Freezing, but good.

Thursday: Our playwriting class visited the Holocaust exhibit at the Imperial War Museum this morning. It was intense. We spent over three hours there and didn't even get through the entire thing. The thing that strikes me the most is that it really wasn't that long ago. Especially if you put it into context with the rest of the stuff we are learning about right now, with medieval London and the English Revolution.1939 doesn't seem quite as long ago when you are thinking about the 1500's.Later that night we helped decorate cupcakes for Jessie's party on Friday.

Friday: Megan had art this morning, so I also got my butt out of bed and headed off to the British Library to start my MSND paper for Shakespeare. It was really cool to flash my pass and get into the reading rooms. I think that the library is one of my favourite places in London. I will totally be going back. I met Meg back at home and we helped our family get ready for our host sister, Jessie's birthday party. She turned 11 and we celebrated in style. Four of her friends came over and we had a finger-food dinner, chocolate fondue (so good!!!), and lots of girly screaming and such. I forgot how loud pre-teen girls are! After cutting the cake, they settled down to watch a film and the rest of us had a bit of fondue as well. Around 10-ish Megan and I walked over to Kate's house to watch the VP debates with her and Matt. I do not know what we will do if that woman becomes VP. It's not like McCain is going to last very long, (he's like 80!) and she CANNOT become President. The whole country will just go down the pooper.

Good news! Megan and I finally settled on half-term break plans. We are going to Prague! we bought our plane tickets today, so that was exciting.

Saturday: we had a lovely, lazy morning. I met up with my friend Laura around 1-ish and we went and explored Notting Hill and Portobello road. It was a little wet, but a lot of fun. This girl is amazing. I loved spending the day with her; we never ran out of things to talk about. We ran into a café around 4 to get out of the rain and use the loo, and before we knew it, it was after 6. We had been there for 2 hours! Our stomachs started complaining, so we left to go get dinner. But wouldn't you know, the entire neighbourhood had completely shut down! So we headed back to Harrow-on-the-Hill to get some dinner and then had a bit of a pub crawl. It was so much fun. We met some very interesting characters (don't worry Mom, nothing happened, and I meannothing).

Sunday:Today was very, very, very wet. We haven't seen rain that bad since our second day here. It was very un-motivating and a good day to just stay in bed. I did manage to get half an essay written, so I rewarded myself by going to a movie with Laura at ISH (international students house) because they show free films on Sunday nights. We saw Son of Rambow, which was a lot better than I expected it to be. And Laura got another taste of my uberloud laughing; yet she informs me that she is still willing to be my friend, so that's good news ;-) I also bought a Prague guide-book today, so that will be my non-class reading for the week.