England 2002

Diary Entry 9

Monday, November 4^th, 2002

We return to school again. It’s great to attend class once again. History is full of notes before the midterm coming up on Wednesday. Science is a video and lecture. Our afternoon lecture is about British architecture. It’s very interesting. After classes, we head out. Around 6pm, I go to a quick rehearsal. Once my rehearsal ends, I trot on over to the Old White Lion pub for a study session. John is the only one there at our 8pm meeting time. Shortly after, Heather shows up. So our study group is slowly growing. Well, very slowly growing since Heather isn’t even in the class. Eventually, Kolaine arrives and we get a little studying done. We mostly would study for 2 minutes and then start chatting about something for 8 minutes. Then we’d say, “Okay, we really need to start studying”. And this would repeat itself until 11pm.

At 11pm, they closed the pub. Heather had already left. John took off, and Kolaine and I chatted for another hour outside. The weather was cool, but not terribly cold. Sometimes the weather is funny here. You won’t really feel cold but you’ll breathe out and your breath will be visible.

Tuesday, November 5^th, 2002

I headed to the school early today. Even with no classes, I had things to do. An afternoon rehearsal would take up most of the day. At 6pm, I finished rehearsing and met some of the others at the University of London Union pub called the Duck and Dive.

They order food and beer. I just order beer. It’s Tuesday night and on sale for 1 pound. Granted, the happy hour beer isn’t England’s finest, but it’s workable. That suits me just fine. Kolaine and I work some studying into this time, but then it’s time to go.

Tonight is another field trip. We’re treated to see “Umoja” (African for “togetherness”). There’s still time to kill before the show so about 8 of us wander down the streets and toward the theatre. I’m a little tipsy, but stilly fully cognizant of my surroundings. And best of all, I can still study just fine. A few of us toss questions and answers around. The midterm would be in 14 hours.

The group broke apart after a few more blocks. Several people were skipping the show to go and see a bonfire for Guy Fawkes Day. The rest of us made it to the theatre. Outside, a fortunate thing happened. The instructor for the history class, Dr. Rawls, was there with his wife and friends. He was more than happy to answer questions we still had regarding the midterm. Up until show time, he was fielding all the questions we could throw at him. Then we found our seats and the show began.

Umoja was a celebration of African music and dance throughout time. The first things you hear are drums and bongos playing. For the next few hours, the rhythm almost never stops. If the show doesn’t wake you up with the drums, some of the cast might. The first number has people come out in ancient African outfits and several girls are topless. Now, it fit quite well and was tastefully done. It matched exactly what was worn back then, but nevertheless, it’s still somewhat shocking for the first minute or two. As I said, it simply gets your attention fast.

The rest of the show was lively and enjoyable. We had great seats, which allowed us to feel the stomping and banging in our seats. Each number was finely done and the energy on stage just seemed to leap right into me. Before the show, we had decided to just watch the first half and study for the second half. That changed. We weren’t going to leave this show. It was much too enjoyable.

After the show, a number of us began walking around town again. Gardner had a box load of fireworks and couldn’t wait to light them off. They’re perfectly legal here, but have to be set off in a park. Trouble is, the parks all close at night. It’s a paradox indeed. When it gets a little too late, I depart from the group and head home. My plate is still very full. I have a midterm in the morning, a show opening in two days and a ½ hour presentation due on Monday. Once Tuesday comes, my trials will be over indeed. The rest will be downhill. But for now, I have a mountain to climb.

I left the curtains open last night. For today would be an early morning, and I invited the sun to visit at 7am and help wake me up. Whether it bothered to show up or not remains a mystery as the thick stormy clouds obscured any chance at a morning meeting. Nevertheless, the alarms rang out at 7am. I would not be snoozing for an hour today.

The shower went fast. Breakfast went quicker. By 7:40, I was walking down the cold wet streets heading to the tube station. The huge clouds loomed overhead – saying nothing and holding in their drops.

When I exited the tube station in downtown London, the clouds were waiting for me still. Only now, they were letting go. Heavy rain came down outside the station. But I’ve been here some time now. I’m not caught unprepared. A simple press of a button and my umbrella blossoms open. I exit into the rainy street. 

I’m kept fairly dry by the umbrella but the streets are quickly flooding with puddles. One wrong step and I’d have wet socks and shoes accompanying me around for the rest of the day. I make my way over to the school. Along the way, I keep a careful eye out for puddles and traffic – especially together. Almost every intersection has a puddle ready to be splashed all over an innocent (and oblivious) bystander by a passing car or bus. I’m careful and nothing soaks me.

The Dilke house gives me shelter for a short while. Then Kolaine shows up and we begin studying. The 2^nd history midterm is today and we both want to do quite well. At 8:30, we cross the rainy street and enter the University of London Union building. Inside the school snack shop, a few more students join us. But it quickly becomes 8:55 and we head up to the 4^th floor to take the test.

Studying has paid off nicely and I find most of the answers coming without a struggle. Only one question evades me – what battle was (in the instructor’s view) the turning point of the Civil War? Hmmm…let’s see. I have 4 choices: Corinth, Shiloh, New Orleans, and Vicksburg. I’m clueless. They all sound like winners to me. Let’s go with...Shiloh. Why not? It’s got a catchy ring to it. Go Shiloh! Hallelujah.

After the final, we’re free to go. Before I leave the classroom, I head up to Dr. Rawls’s desk. A quick whisper. A response.

Damn! Vicksburg!

Oh well. I discuss the test with fellow students until my science class begins. It’s interesting stuff. Things are discussed such as nerve gas, biological weapons, anthrax, VX gas, etc. Really neat, but I’m really tired. Getting up early is hard!

Once science class is done, my classes are complete until Monday. Heading over to the cafeteria, I meet up with some classmates. Having no cash left on me, I settle for a banana for lunch. It’s not half bad.

The cafeteria is somewhat like a greenhouse in design. There’s a clear glass roof all around it. We can hear the rain falling on the roof. But suddenly the sound intensifies. It grows stronger and more powerful. It’s not just raining now, it’s practically deluge. The rain is the hardest rain I’ve seen in many years. The clouds are holding nothing back now.

I head outside to witness the storm. Once the rain calms somewhat, I head to the ATM to get some spending money. Kolaine and Gardner pass by and invite me to join them on a quest to a record store. No can do. I have to head to rehearsal

I have to wait a while before my scene so I do some typing in the dressing room. That quickly is turned into studying lines. I lay back on the couch to study lines. I get sleepy. My studying turns into napping.  I awaken some time later.

Soon, I do my scenes and then wait for the report. We have a run through at 4:30. Without enough time to head to the Dilke House, I do some more typing and wait for the run through to begin. Again, it’s fairly smooth. I’m then told that 8:30pm would be the 3^rd run though of the day. I head back to the Dilke House. But all friends are gone. They went on a field trip, which I had to miss because of the show. No big deal. I can visit St. Paul’s Cathedral Evensong event later. I head to the tube station to return home until rehearsal time.

The rain has completely stopped. No sooner do I get off at East Finchley station, than my phone rings. It’s the director. Turns out I’m not needed for the 8:30pm rehearsal. They are going to work other scenes. Wahoo! Blue skies are smiling at me. Well, the could be since the rain stopped. But they aren’t since it’s now 7PM and dark. Rats.

I notice a vendor selling fresh fruit. It all looks good, but most of it needs cooking. I didn’t travel all this way to waste time cooking. So I look for something “snackable”.  Green grapes catch my eye. The vendor says there are two types: seedless and not seedless. The “seedfull” grapes are only a pound and that works for me. I buy a bunch and walk home.

It’s a lot quieter tonight. Some fireworks randomly go off outside. On TV, a story tells of the London newspapers over the years. It speaks of Margaret Thatcher busting up the unions many years back. It’s all interesting stuff, but I need to write. So I turn off the TV and catch up with things.

Thursday November 7, 2002

More report work was done. For film class, we had to meet at a theatre to see a movie. . While it sounded fun, I had a final rehearsal to attend.  I met the other actors down at the Garage Street theatre. We trotted through the show for one last time. After rehearsal, we had a short break. I headed over to the Dilke house to check email. But soon, the time had come. I walked back over to the theatre and prepared of the opening night show. The people arrived late and slowly, but they did arrive. My friends were faithful and about 8 students from the college arrived to watch my performance. The show went smoothly and 2 hours later, it was done. The crowd seemed to like the show and we received good feedback. This was refreshing to hear. A Pinter script can be quite hard to figure out. I really didn’t know if people would love it or hate it. When the show finished, we all went over to a nearby dance club at the university student union. It only cost a pound to get in. Ah. I couldn’t complain about this cover charge. Very nice. Dancing there wasn’t too easy. It was crowded. Having beers and cigarettes all around the dance floor might seem crazy. Well, it was crazy. But what to do.

Soon, we headed out. It was getting late. I mentioned that maybe it would be better to return to the club on a weeknight since it was so crowded that night. My friend replied, “It’s Thursday. It is a weeknight”.

Friday, November 8, 2002

No school, so I had a “Lie in”. a lot of my time was spent doing report work. And that night was another performance. Elika came and saw the show. It was good to have her there. Afterwards, we traveled down Tottenham court road and had dinner at Garfunkel’s. This even took a long time. We didn’t even have time to hit a pub after dinner. .

Saturday, November 9, 2002

More report work was done during the day. That night was my final show. It went smooth again and before I knew it, London England was actually a name I could add to my resume. I finished my last electrocution scene for now. My home stay folks showed up and really enjoyed the show. The cast decided to postpone cleanup until Sunday so we could all go out to a pub. I had a great time getting to know the other actors better. Kolaine even stopped by to hang out as well. It was a great night.

Sunday, November 10, 2002

I took the tube down to Goodge Street. At Nero’s, I picked up a grande café mocha. . From there, I walked over to the theatre. We spent the next couple of hours taking pictures of the various scenes that we had performed in. it was a fun and relaxing time. No pressure. No nervousness. Just a lot of fun. When the pictures were done, we cleaned up to theatre. At 2pm, another group came in and claimed the theater. I headed down to the Thames River to see the Golden Hind. The ship was finally open to the public. I snapped pictures of the vessel and explored every inch of it. Afterwards, I headed home to finish my project. There wasn’t much left that needed doing, so it was soon finished. Now, I could just relax. Kolaine and I went into town to sing some karaoke. We found the place after a brief search but the line (queue) to sing was too long. I missed singly karaoke at home – where I could just sing song after song after song. Here, I’d actually have to share and listen.

We then hit a local pub and hung out for a while. Rain was coming down lightly. My report would be given first thing in the morning. 

Monday, November 11, 2002

The clock showed 6:50am and I woke up fairly calm. This was it. This was presentation day.  All my weeks of preparation had led to this morning. I showered, dressed and headed to school.

My first stop was for coffee. Passing the Café Mocha for the plain coffee, I only shelled out one pound. After that, I entered the classroom on the 4^th floor. No one else was there. It was 8:30am now and class wouldn’t start until 9am. During which time, I drew a map on the dry erase board and tested out the transparency projector. Everything was in working order. Soon, students began straggling in and class began.

We spent the first 30 minutes discussing things and sorting out some details. But finally, it was time for my presentation. I was anxious to begin. Things went smoothly. Although, about 5 minutes into it, the teacher from an adjacent class popped her head in the door and asked if I could lower the volume a bit. Her students were testing. Apparently, I’m a loud speaker. No problem. I did my best. But being soft spoken doesn’t come easy sometimes. I was about 1/3 through my material when my time was up. But that was the plan – to have plenty of material.  I took my seat and relaxed. I had just reached the very top of the mountain. Everything would be downhill from this point onward.

At the end of class, we got our midterms back. I got a 96%. I’m pleased, but a 98% would have been nicer. I knew that 100% wasn’t possible since I missed the civil war question. No problem. I think the instructor said that 96% was the class high. So my studying paid off. Wahoo!

With history being done, I entered physical science class. More note taking and funny anecdotes from the instructor. All sorts of stories were covered including World War II test bats that were proposed to possibly have tiny napalm sacks tied to their feet. The idea was to freeze them into a comatose state and drop them into the enemy area. The warm atmosphere would wake them up and they would begin flying and find a house to burn down. The story goes that they never woke up during the testing. Splat! Boom!

The afternoon class was British Life and Culture. Our lecturer was well spoken and covered the European Union. His only visual aid was a pen and an easel of paper, but it was one of the best lectures yet.

Raquel was interested in doing the “Jack the Ripper” walk through London. So Gardner and I joined along. This walk was great. Our guide forewarned that he would be telling it like it was. This sounded good to me. Around 80 people showed up and we divided into two groups.

We saw the sights where the bodies were found. Murders were described. Theories were given. Suspects were named. But no one knows who the murderer really was. At the end of the tour, we chatted with the guide a bit. Apparently he’s been researching this event for years. I asked if he’d seen the movie, “From Hell”. Yup. He’d seen it. He even noted that Johnny Depp did the same walk a couple years ago to prepare for the movie. That was an interesting fact. I also inquired about Patricia Cromwell’s new book where she claims to have solved the case. Yup. He’d read that too. “Horse rubbish” was his response. Apparently, Patricia may have stretched (or torn up) a few facts to sell her book. Go figure: an author twisting the truth trying to sell a book. How nouveau.

Tuesday, November 12, 2002

It was a calm day. My site report was done. I could just kick back. In the evening, a group of us met in a reserved classroom to do some videotaping for Kalaine’s report on Pocahontas. My camcorder came in quite handy. The next few hours were filled with us laughing, goofing around, and trying to get a somewhat decent video shot. Not surprisingly, each pint of ale we drank added to the number of takes that we needed to do. But somehow, we got the scenes shot. Of course, that was the easy part. The hard work would be editing the footage. And my slow notebook computer was the only thing that could do the job. Oh boy. Oh boy.

We shot some pool after the shoot. Once that was finished, I returned home.

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

History class occurred again. No sweat for me. I could just sit back and enjoy. Rains came throughout the day. I don’t remember seeing the sun at all. Due to the firemen strike, the Northern tube line was shut down so I was forced to take the bus home. It wouldn’t have been so bad had the weather not been pouring.

Thursday, November 14, 2002

I had a lie in and it became a late morning. Video work was done. But during the day, we found an opportunity to buy tickets to the show ART. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see this show, but the tickets were only 7.5 pounds. Normally, they sold for 35 pounds. We couldn’t pass up this chance. Before the show, Kalaine and I grabbed some Chinese food. I ordered some curry. But alas, so far I’ve noticed that Chinese curry and Indian curry are very different. And I like the Indian curry much better. This food was fresh, but maybe a little too fresh. I was constantly finding little things beside meat in my lamb. It was probably just nearby cartilage and tendon, but nevertheless, it wasn’t going into my belly. After dinner, we met Gardner at the theatre and grabbed our seats. We were in the fourth row center. These seats were great. What made the night even better was that the show was tremendous! I laughed harder than I had laughed for years. ART is an extremely funny show. It was partly due to the absurdity of the plot. It was an absurdity that I could relate to. A guy paid 200,000 francs for a painting. It was supposed to be modern art. And to make it even more insane: the painting was all white (with off white diagonal lines when the lighting was just right). Yeah. It was hilarious. I highly recommend it.

After the show, we all elected to greet the cast. After that, we headed to another restaurant for food. This time we dined at an Indian food place. But heck, I was full now. No curry for me. I just got to smell how good it was. When the dining was done, we walked around the city fro a while and headed home. This time, I wasn’t lucky. The last train from the station had already left so I was stuck with no tube home. The buses were now on a night system. This experience wasn’t one I had done before. But the signs helped and I was soon waiting around at midnight for the 12:43 bus to come. It finally did and I got home around 1:30am.

Friday, November 15^th, 2002

We spent some time working on Kalaine’s video and then played some pool. Pool is much harder in the UK. The pockets are smaller and so are the pool balls. It should be about the same, but trust me. It’s harder. I just don’t play well at all here. And it’s not because of the drinking. I play poorly sober too.

At night, we took the tube over to Bank station to go on the Haunted London walk. Before the walk, we grabbed some sandwiches and at a nearby bench. During the meal, I happened to look up and see the London Monument. It towered above us and was really a sight to see. The monument was built in reflection to the great fire of London in 1666. I also noticed that had we been sitting here 60 years prior, German bombers may have been flying overhead and dropping their bombs. It was an odd reflection.

We still had some time so we visited a pub. It was called the Hoggshead. The place had no signs of pigs or hogs though. it mostly contained businesspeople relaxing from their week of work. Beer wasn’t cheap. One pint was the equivalent of $4.50. That’s kind of pricey. I guess the people in the business center make a decent buck (pound).

Finally, it was time for the walk. This group had about 20 people. We paid and a middle-aged lady led the group around the city. Many interesting things were seen. The ghost stories were cute, though we saw no ghosts. Still, some history was mixed into the tour. After the tour, we hung out at a pub with the guide. She was an actress and did the tours when she didn’t have an acting job on stage. It was a fun evening, though a very cold one. It was nice to get home.

Saturday, November 16^th, 2002

Ah. This was our trip to Oxford. The morning tube was somewhat troublesome. Several key stations were closed due to maintenance. Unfortunately, it was a key line for me to get to the train station on time. At Euston station, I was forced to exit the tube and find the connecting bus. Time was ticking away, but the bus was on time. Finally, I reached another tube station and made it to the train station only ten minutes late. Kalaine and Stephanie were already waiting there. But Stephanie was only waiting to say she wasn’t going to Oxford. She had a headache and didn’t feel up to the task. She had already seen many sites in England, so I didn’t pressure her to join. But I was reminded of something Dorris said earlier that morning. I was mentioning that we were heading to Oxford for the day. And she said she was amazed how we could handle doing so many things. Well, I told her that essentially I had to- it was now or never. Dorris then said, “Oh don’t say that. You’ll be back!”. Well, yes and no. I’ sure I’ll be back here in my life. Maybe even a few times. Maybe even for a decent period of time. However, it’s risky to get into that frame of mind. With only three weeks left, things have to be done now. Having an “I can always do or see that tomorrow” attitude will quickly leave someone with no time left and little adventures to speak of. No, things have to be approached in the now or never fashion. How often does one find themselves in London for three months? It’s easy to forget about that fact. It’s something I even have to remind myself of every day.

We had only a few minutes until the train was leaving, and Kalaine wanted to buy some food. I’m always hesitant about waiting until the last minute to board a train. Especially since there’s no tardiness allowed in train travel. It’s not like class. You can’t just walk in 10 minutes late. There won’t be a train to walk into. But we darted quickly through the store and bought some snacks. Then we ran over to platform 8. The train clock showed 3 minutes remaining. The car I chose was dark and empty. I figured it was still okay. Kalaine thought otherwise. We decided to go down a few more cards. 2 minutes left. The next car had passengers on it. We sat down and the train departed. It was a good thing we moved. The dark train car wasn’t even connected to our train. That would have been something, sitting there in a dark car waiting for a train to leave until who knows how long.  The train ride went by rather quickly. Next thing we knew, we were in a train station in Oxford, England.

It was a cloudy day, but there was no rain. The weather and ground suggested that the rain had fallen probably no more than an hour before we arrived. Hopefully, it would remain dry.

Walking along the streets, we saw old buildings and churches. The city still kept a huge reminiscence of the days long past. Tall cathedrals towered over the smaller buildings. At random, we chose a small dirt path that led around the outside of the city. Along the way, we saw long horn cattle, ducks and swans. The paths were quiet with a wet misty feeling about them. Time passed and an hour later, we were in the city again. A long wall next to Christ Church displayed the harsh effects of time. The mortar used to hold the rocks was decaying and breaking down. Around some areas, the mortar was no stronger than sticky sand.  Just running a finger across would call it to fall apart. (Okay, I’m not saying that I did that. I’m not saying it’s okay to even do that. I mean if everyone did that, the wall would fall down in no time. Although, if I’m the ONLY one who does that during ONE trip to England, well, then we should be okay. But nobody else!)

After the crumbly wall, we found a tall church to walk through. I liked it because it had a tower that could be ascended. And tall towers meant good pictures of the city. The cost was only 1 pound 60 pence. That was a good price for me. Going up was a fun experience. The spiral staircase was extremely tight and steep. It was made of old stone and a person could really sense a history of time. Only one person could travel one direction at a time. And there were many steps to climb. Fortunately, no one was coming down so we had little trouble climbing up.

On top, the ledge was very tight. It just wasn’t built for tourists. But the view remained awesome. Old Oxford could be viewed for miles. I made sure to grab a lot of shots. We remained up there a while before coming back down. Surprisingly, people had to go down the same way they came up. This time there was some traffic so getting down was difficult.

Once at the bottom, we again walked around the city. We mostly searched for a good place to eat (good meaning cheap). It took a while, but finally a Pizza place was located. Kalaine and I ate there for a while and then continued our walk in Oxford. We visited a recommended museum. It was a nice one. They even let you take pictures. Yeah. After the museum, it was getting late so we headed back to the train station.

I slept during most of the ride home. I was tired. Back in London, we decided to finish the video project. So we went to the Old White Lion. I ran home to get my computer. When I returned to the pub, we started to edit but the battery was dead. Uh oh. My idea was to go back to my homestay to edit from there. I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. Dorris and martin had no problem with this so we edit until 11pm. Martin even had some literature to offer Kalaine to help her with her project.

At 11pm, we stopped and I walked Kalaine back to the tube station. Our project was now almost done.

Sunday, November 17, 2002

Most of the morning was spent doing video editing. The day was rainy and cloudy. Later in the day, I met with Kalaine and showed her the video. She was happy about the results and offered to buy me dinner. I was hesitant, but I accepted the offer. Though I did prefer to have the thank you dinner after the video was successfully shown in class. That wouldn’t be happening until the next day.

Monday, November 18, 2002

 I was a little nervous during History class. While it wasn’t my presentation, I did have a lot to do with Kaliane’s video project s was anxious to see how the audience responded to it. The audience was much smaller than we expected. Many of the students were late or didn’t even bother to show up at all. I guess it’s the curse of Monday mornings. Though, itw wasn’t exactly the break of dawn. 9am was our beginning time. Sometimes, I do miss a few things about the full time working world.

The video went well. After our classes, Kalaine and I went down to Covent garden to see about tickets for the royal opera’s swan lake. No luck. The show was sold out. So we traveled on down to Big Ben and met the BLC class. From there, we entered the parliament building. Inside were so many great picture opportunities. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed. I’d gotten use to this little downside of London. But I could also understand the security reasons behind it.  We entered a discussion room and sat around a large wooden table. Our guest speaker was from the house of parliament. They aren’t too much different from American politicians. Still much was learned about the differences in the two governments.

When the lecture finished, I met up with a friend from California, Emily. She only had one day left in London, so we decided to visit the National Museum. Admission was fee. The place had art of course. Some paintings were really nice. Others weren’t as impressive. Not wanting to miss anything, I decided to keep track of the rooms that ii visited. I crossed off every room on the guide map. In the end, we had seen 80 of the exhibit bits before they kicked us out due to closing time at 6pm.  Emily and I then walked down Tottenham court road until we reached the student union. We grabbed some food in the cafeteria.  But soon it was 7pm and Emily had to depart. I went to the Dilke house to meet up with some friends and head down to the theatre.

Our walk was lengthy one, but we (barely) made the theatre before curtain time. Our seats were nice. We were in row E and the show was Phantom of the Opera. These tickets would have been around 100 dollars back home, but we were seeing the show for free. This made it extra special. Now when the chandelier fell, it would happen right above my head. Of course, my mind was now preoccupied we the question of “would tonight be the night that the chandelier cables broke and I was crushed under its weight?” these were the kinds of thoughts one never has at the movies.

The show turned out to be great. The leads were hit and miss, but with the spectacular sets, costumes, and lights, it’s a hard show to mess up completely. Afterwards, we attended a sports bar for a little while. I departed early to walk around London at night. I felt it would it would be a great night for pictures.  Approaching Big Ben, I could see the cold London fog swirling over the top of parliament. With so many lights in London, the sky had an eerie golden glow about it. Needless to say, I snapped a lot of pictures and may have gotten some good ones.

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

Today I met up with Lauren to check on the swan lake tickets. We met up with Josh and all trekked down to the royal opera house. Alas, no tickets still. Seeing this show would not be easy. From there, we returned to the student union for food. Next, we went down to the theater to see a movie for film class. We chose “28 days later”. It was a British film and very interesting. Though, the director was the one from “The Beach” which was a terribly awful movie. When we got out, it was around 6:30pm and the weather was now down to 6 degrees Celsius. London is getting cold.