oui, merci!

Just got home from the airport- Paris was amazing. I can't believe I was only there 36 hours, it felt like so much longer. In fairness, I think some of the surrealness comes from leaving at the crack of dawn to get there, but still, a wonderful whirlwind of a weekend.

After checking in to our hostel, David and Sarah and I separate from Alex, who's off to see a friend of hers for the day. I should mention that Alex is the only one of us who actually speaks French. I've got a handful of phrases, and David learned how to count to ten on the train, so the fact that we got anywhere at all is truly a feat of its own. That said, the majority of the French speak English (if you're nice to them), and are very helpful. Saturday we saw Notre Dame, the Seine, Luxembourg Gardens, and the Eiffel Tower (we walked up 800+stairs to get up there... dios mio!). The night was filled with good food, a dash of alcohol and dancing. Walking out of the club these guys were complimenting me, but I hadn't a clue what they were saying... I also met up with Ben's (one of my oldest friends, basically a brother) dad who I hadn't seen since I was eight. Also very surreal.

This morning was lots of walking around, hot cocoa and croissants, rude waiters (ah well), and the Louvre! (with no line to speak of!). We then wandered down the Champs de Elyseé and saw the Arc du Triumph, which is much bigger in person, (so to speak...). Ended the trip with gelato. On our flight home we remet this nice guy from Arizona (I had taken his picture earlier today at the Mona Lisa). Turns out he's been scattering his mom's ashes around Europe. What a son... the five of us were really amused by a sign in the airport that said "no firearms. no weapons. no endangered species." One feels like there's got to be a story there.

And now I'm home. With only my pictures, beginnings of blisters, and a souvenir to prove this weekend actually happened. Bit of a fairy tale, really. As much as I love London with all its edginess and history, France has its own history, in a more whimsical way. It brings out the dreamer in me. And possibly the fairy princess in me a bit, too. :P

pictures to follow... somehow.

Cadbury for all

Because I got out of class early today, and it was lovely lovely weather, I decided to go on an exploring adventure. Hopping on the tube, I headed over to Liverpool Station (which is very nice by the way), to check out two markets Jenny had recommended to me: Spitalfields and Petticoat Lane.
Petticoat lane is pretty straightforward in terms of what you'd expect from a street clothes market: lots of little stalls, clothes on wheely racks, a variety of nice stuff and brand knock-off with suspiciously removed tags. And of course, the vocal vendors, reminding you that everything is "very nice! very cheap!" One guy just kept yelling "Fiver, fiver!" (as in five pounds).

I liked Spitalfields a little more. It has more the feel of an open artfair, with brightly colored stalls packed together in a lovely sheltered but open market area. While some of the vendors were typically aggressive, many were friendly and charismatic. Like my buddy Ric, the print maker/stenciler (I mentioned my friends made stencil shirts to him, he thought that was cool...) Also met a guy who had been to Iowa of all places. I bought a shirt (black...) and a skirt. I also had my first patsy (yum!), AND on the way home Cadbury was giving out free samples of a new dessert, so I grabbed that, and am eating it right now. Hurray.

In five hours my roommate will be waking me up (as she will just be getting home from partying), and I will drag myself on to a train, and then a plane and fly to Paris for the weekend. I'm super excited. Won't be able to check email until Monday, but I'll let you know how it goes.

respirar!

I may be temporarily allergic to my room.

See, my roomate burned something eariler this week (she was cooking and fell asleep while home alone and forgot about the stove...), and now our flat smells faintly burnt all over. Since then, I have been short of breath. Except in the shower- i love it there.

wasted cucumbers and tempting icecream

I just got back from seeing a production of King Lear. Probably one of the goriest I ever hope to see. To give you a hint, the bit where Regan plucks out Gloucester's eye? She does it with her teeth. ...I'll just give you a moment with sit with that. She's struggling with it and then she leans her face in, and there's a popping noise and a blood splatter. I still get the shudders. Apparently one guy opening night passed out in the audience.

Past the shock-factor, though, it was a pretty good show. It was actually the play I wrote my IB paper on, almost four years ago now. It seems like longer. I could hear bits I'd used in my argument, and new piece of diologue stood out to me that should've been in there too, but I didn't understand fully.

In other news, got the much longed for nod of approval from Natalie today in stage fighting. I apparently excell and the volte. Am still floating.

"please come back with a british accent"

I realized over the weekend, I have started to adopt a British accent. But only in one word, "sorry." I now say "soh-ree" instead of "SAR-ree". This isn't a noticable accent, the way a fake Beatles or Cockney accent might sound, but there's a softer quality to it. I also think it's very telling that my first word is sorry. Though really, it's somewhat of a defense mechanism; so that when I elbow someone on the Tube, or pass them on the wrong side (left! it's always left now!), they don't shoot "stupid American" glares over their shoulder. Actually, I get mistaken for French more often. (Which is usually followed by "Good, I hate the French!" when I say no. I think they're kidding...)

Friday late start!

Derek Jacobi came and talked to us today, that was pretty cool. It made me laugh, because among other things, he was Claudius in the Keneth Branagh Hamlet we all saw senior year, and now here he is, Mr. Pouring Poison in the Ear himself sitting four feet away from me. Naturally I did not address him as thus. But he told us a really wonderful story of how he figured out he liked acting as a six year old, playing dress up in the streets, and how this one time he stole his mother's wedding veil for some game of pretend and ended up ripping it. He said a good play should have the audience come out thinking "what a wonderful journey we were just taken on!", and I really agree with that.

I'm starting to lose my voice a little, it's dropped down an octave to what I usually refer to as my "sexy husky voice", which actually ends up workign great for my Shakespeare class where I'm playing Viola in Twelfth Night (a girl who is pretending to be a guy). Anyways, it really pleased my teacher, which is always handy since she's a little fussy. My roomate says she likes this voice better than my normal voice, which worries me ever so slightly. But on a high note, I got one of the four A's in my theater crtiticism class, wheee!!

Tonight as a treat, two of my friends and I went out to a little funky Italian place for dinner, which was delicous. For dessert we got a treat called The Godfather; basically a massive chocolate brownie sundae with generous portions of everything on top. I felt like I was gonna burst at the seams, but it was so worth it.

Metal overload, a taste test

This is a bit of what's going through my mind right now:

Why should I love this gentleman, tis odds
He never will affect me. I am base,
My father the mean keeper of his prison,
And he a prince. To marry him is hopeless.
And I'll lay my life, he deserves your love more than he wants it. Did I not tell you my lord would find a way to come at you? Love's his distemper and you must be the phsyician. Put on all your charms, summon all fire into your eyes, plant the whole artillery of your looks against his breast and down with him!
A thousand knees,
Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting
Upon a baren moutain, and winter still
In storm perpetual could not move the gods to look
That way thou wert.
Once he kissed me,
I loved him the better ten days after!
Would that he do so everyday! He grives much.
He oughta ask that cop who put Eathan in jail if I'm tough. "I'm just trying to teach him a lesson." Well, I let him know what I thought about lessons like that at a hundred and sixty decibels and he goes "stop, stop, you got a voice like an ax, and my head is splitting!"
I suppose, madam, you made him drink plenty of asses milk!
I have made fault, I am sorry for it.
All faults I make when I do come to know them,
I do repent.

...So yeah. When you go to a liberal arts school, you get things like cross disciplinary skills and lots of stress during midterms when you write multiple papers simultaneously. Here at BADA, you just have a million different lines running through your head. As well as a different style of acting for each.

Also, a word on corsets: put on your heels before hand. Putting them on after is nigh-impossible. To clairfy, this is not the satiny numbers you buy at Vistoria's Secret. This is the bonning sticking you in the back, tightly laced up by hand by someone else canvass corsets. We wear them in my High Comedy class. Plus side, I get great cleavage, downside, breathing and memorization are not as enhanced.