There's no business like show business

Day 98

Apparently the fact that we're almost out of time has made us realize that there's a lot of shows we still want to see. So Monday we went to see Twelfth Night with Derek Jacobi playing Malvolio. It's one of my very favorite Shakespeare plays, so I was pretty excited to see it. I was surprised by how serious they played it. But the lighting was fantastic. I love plays.

Tuesday I wrote papers all week. Huzzah for finals week! /not.

Funniest quote of the week:

NC: Is that Obama?
TA: No, that's Heath Ledger.

Hehe, because those are the same person... In their defense, they actually were looking at two different pictures, but still.

Wednesday was the last day of classes, yay! I also managed to get sick that day (and still am not quite over it). Probably something to do with being stressed about finals and not sleeping.

We went ice skating in Hyde Park. They have this cool little Winter Wonderland carnival set up with slides, a glass maze, a ferris wheel, carousel, and various beer huts (also a haunted mansion ride--a little unusual for Christmas, but cool). They also have the little outdoor ice rink. I love ice skating, but I've never been outside, so it was lots of fun.
Yeah, not sure where everyone is in this picture... there were like a million people on the ice.

And now for the story event of the week/month/year. My friend David has this awesome job as an agent for classical musicians, so he gets to go to all sorts of concerts, and since his boss was sick he had an extra ticket, so he asked me if I wanted to go. So after a rapid reassembling of my evening and wardrobe, we went to dinner at a nice restaurant near Covent Garden that had like eight pieces of silverware and served baby squid with green bean salsa (???). I decided to be a bit more boring and go for the chicken with aubergine (which is what they call eggplant). It was quite good. After dinner, we ran over to the Royal Festival Hall and saw a concert with a couple pieces by Olivier Messiaen. He's a modern French composer, so the music was all crazy and dissonant. But surprisingly, I rather liked it. Particularly the second piece, Seven Haikus. It kind of reminded me of the soundtracks for those old creepy black and white horror films. David pointed out a couple of emminent British composers sitting near us, so that was pretty cool. Turns out David also has this nifty little badge that gives him backstage access, so we went through a door that totally looks like the wall and saw the backstage area. And apparently, since this concert was part of a festival celebrating Messiaen the French composer, the French Ambassador decided to invite all of the music people over to his house, which apparently includes agents. So we got to take a coach from the Festival Hall to the French Ambassador's House. And by 'house' I actually mean 'small and very expensive mansion'. It was pretty incredible. At the party we didn't really know many people, so we just sat on the couch chatting, drinking tomato juice, and eating strange varieties of fish (salmon, crab, monkfish, and swordfish--definitely won't be tryin the monkfish again). When we were ready to go, we went over to thank the French Ambassador. So I've now shaken hands with the French Ambassador! It was basically the most amazing night ever.
Thursday I studied for finals, and went with some friends to 'Potted Potter'. It's a parody of Harry Potter where these two guys do all seven books in 70 minutes. It was hilarious, we were laughing the whole time. And we got to play a game of quidditch, got sprayed with a water gun, watched a kid judo tackle the snitch, and heard the 7th book turned into a song. It was brilliant.

Friday. Judgment Day (aka: Finals). I had my three literature finals back to back from 9 to 3. Which is highly unfortunate, but now I just have religion left. All in all, it was one of the most painless finals weeks I've ever had. Well, except that my hand was slightly in pain after writing two finals for every test in addition to all the essay and "short" answer questions.

Afterwards I ran over to Harrods, which is like a giant six level mall. I was told that you can buy absolutely anything, and I'm beginning to think it's true. I saw chocolates, sushi, antiques, hair dryers, pet costumes, pet food, junior Armani, jewel encrusted decorative keys, raw meat, perfume, designer clothes and shoes, artwork, glass sculpture, lingerie, children's books, gelato, washing machines, flat screen TV's, washing machines, bath robes, and I don't even know what else. It was quite an experience.
Tonight I went to Warhorse. It's this super amazing play about a young boy and the horse he raises and has a deep bond with, and then the horse gets sold to the war effort in WWI, and the boy goes off to find him in the war, and they each have many terrifying experiences, but in the end all is well. It was really cool how they made the mechanical horse, with two people under the wooden frame controlling the legs, and one person with a pole controlling the head. But they were so good, you forgot they were even there. It was amazing how convincingly they moved that horse. A spectacular performance.

I started packing today.

SCOTLAND

Day 50

This weekend I went to Scotland!! I figured as long as I was only a few hours away, I ought to try to go up and reconnect with my heritage or something. So a group of five of us decided to take advantage of our long weekend and go up to Edinburgh (that's edin-burrow, not edin-burg).

We left Thursday afternoon out of King's Cross Station. And of course, while we were there, we had to stop by Platform 9 3/4, of Harry Potter fame. They've set up a whole little thing for tourists with a trolley going through the wall. It's not actually between platforms 9 and 10 though, it's next to them. In fact, it's not actually even inside the station. It's conveniently outside the station so tourists can come by with out crowding the station. Don't I look like a wizard? We're about to leave for Scotland! Yay!!
Here we are on the train. The ride wasn't too bad. They now have WiFi and outlets on the train. But due to "gale force winds and debris," the train lines were closed in both directions, and we were delayed for two hours (which conveniently means we should get a full refund on our train tickets!). So then we decided to read Hamlet while we were waiting. Out loud. With different accents for every character. I think we probably annoyed some of the people around us, but it was priceless.
We got in pretty late, so we just decided to take a cab to the place we were staying. But split between 5 people, it wasn't expensive at all.
One of the girls knew a senior missionary couple in Edinburgh from her home ward in Santa Barbara, and they let us stay with them in their flat, which was so incredibly nicer than staying in a hostel. It's the homiest place I've been in two months.

The next morning bright and early we headed off to Edinburgh Castle. Unlike some of the places we've been, this one actually looks like a castle.

The view from the castle.
The city of Edinburgh.
My first deep fried Mars bar! It was heavenly. The batter they dip it in is actually really thin, so basically it's just a warm, gooey, candy bar.
The weather in Edinburgh was crazy. I have seriously never seen clouds move so fast in my life. It went from cloudless sky, to overcast and rainy in under half an hour, and then back to sunny again. It was always a surprise coming out of the stores whether it would be rainy or sunny. It was also ridiculously windy. As someone noted, it's really the most unlikely place in the world for the development of the kilt. Most people were smart enough not to try umbrellas, but we laughed at the ones who did.Despite the weather, we decided to climb Arthur's Seat. I'm assuming this is in reference to King Arthur, but I'm not sure what it's doing in Scotland. It's also the place where Parley Pratt went to dedicate the land when he was on one of the early missions of the church. That's the hill up behind us, looking very huge.
The views were pretty awesome. We also saw like 5 or 6 rainbows that day.
We made it to the top! I'm a bit wet.

Scotland is soooo beautiful!
It was really wet and slippery on the way back down, and we were supposed to meet with our hosts for dinner, so we were trying to hurry, and we kept slipping all over the place and half of us fell over in the mud. Including me :)
Saturday we decided to explore the city a little more. We stopped by the Elephant House for some hot choclate. This cafe touts itself as "the birthplace of Harry Potter" because J.K. Rowling used to come and sit here while writing Harry Potter.
Apparently, she sometimes wrote on napkins, because napkin writing is now all the rage. The table we sat at had a drawer on it, and it was filled with napkins from people who'd been there. We had fun writing on napkins too!
It was one of my favorite things, just sitting having a cup of chocolate and enjoying being in Scotland. Basically, Scotland was amazing and I loved it, and it's beautiful, and despite the crazy wind and rain, I think I would enjoy living there, at least for awhile. I think the crazy weather actually makes it that much better.