The outdoor stage at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park. I waited for two hours for "Much Ado About Nothing" and then the play was cancelled. It's a requirement for my Shakespeare class, so I will get to watch it eventually. You can't count on picture from it though. I got yelled at for taking this one. The yelling was done a polite British tone though, so it was ok. I strongly recommend you all going to check out the Open Air Theatre website though. It is really cool.
My favorite British drink: Pimms!! It's fantastic with lemonade and yes, those are pieces of floating strawberries and oranges in there. Yum.
The program for the Open Air Theatre at Regent's Park.
A cool fountain in Regents Park.
The beautiful Regents Park. This is one of the most popular parks in London, and you can see why. The place is amazingly gorgeous. I apologize for these pictures being so dark; the sky was really overcast, of course.
The entrance to Regents Park.
The bridge leading into the park and the small river running underneath it. It smelled strange and I'm convinced there is a creature living in there. It looks like it has the best hiding spots.
A sporty version of the tiny car?
I'm not sure what this building is (sorry!) but I thought it was really neat. Those golden statues at the top are gorgeous.
Another blue plaque. I saw the one for Sherlock Holmes too, but it was already too dark to take a picture.
The Sherlock Holmes statue outside of the tube station on Baker Street.
The interesting "botanical soda" I had for lunch yesterday. I think not, England.
For those of you who miss my face (aka: my parents) this section is for you. For those of you who don't, well, bear with me. I had two hours to kill, a gorgeous park, and settings on my camera to play with. :) Humor me!
This is what happens when Mattie gets out of the shower without brushing her hair, throws it up, walks around in the rain for two hours looking at Beatles sites and comes home and takes her hair out of the ponytail. Glorious.
Good evening all-
I'm sorry this post was/will be slightly less interesting than others have been, but yesterday was not the best of days.
In a nutshell: I went to class, got my grade for my session one class (B+), grabbed some lunch at Whole Foods where I had the most interesting "ham and cheddar"sandwich and "soda" ever. When they say "ham and cheddar" they mean garlic, cucumber, tomatoes, bell pepper, American cheese, various funky smelling sauces and seasonings, and a slice of ham and when they say "soda" they mean botanical soda with herbs and "health" coated at the bottom. I then came home and took a nap, got up and showered and got ready to go to "Much Ado About Nothing" at the Open Air Theatre, I arrive by tube to Baker Street and wander around aimlessly until by some miracle I reach the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, purchase my ticket for Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing", explore more of the gorgeous park, and drink a glass of Pimms and a cup of coffee as I wait for the play to start. The play was supposed to start at 20:00 (8:00 pm) and at about 20:30, they say the show has been canceled due to technical difficulties. I was pretty disappointed, but the show will be running for the next few weeks, so I will get to see it eventually. The tube strike through off my navigation skills on the journey home and after a lot of waiting for buses, getting on the wrong bus, walking, asking a million different people for directions, and everything that could go wrong, going wrong, I made it home alive and went to bed! I did get a good night's rest and am ready to conquer the day today though and also on a happier note, I ended up not having to buy the books for my Shakespeare class, I borrowed them from a girl who had the class last session. Her name is Juliet. :) This made my day...borrowing Shakespeare books (Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet) from a girl named Juliet.
I have decided to include in my blog (at least for the last three weeks I'm here) a "Quotes from Dr. Tucker & What I Learned in Shakespeare Class Today" section to my blog posts. I learn so many interesting things in that class that I feel like sharing, so you may stop reading at any point when you come to this section, but I think you will also find what Dr. Tucker has to say as interesting as I do on a daily basis.
Quotes from Dr. Tucker & What I Learned in Shakespeare Class Today:
- When we see/hear the words "thou, thee, thy" as opposed to "you, your" in plays from the Elizabethan time, it is a way to address someone formally or informally. Using thou, thee, or thy is addressing someone very informally, like a master would use addressing his servant, and calling someone you, your is a sign of respect, like how a servant would address their master. This adds a whole new richness and interesting element to reading plays of that time.
- The first sound anyone ever hears in the entire world is the sound of their mother's heartbeat. I know, this is an obvious one, but I've never thought about things that way and I thought it was really sweet. Also we use the "Shhh...." sound universally to comfort babies because it mimics the whooshing of arterial blood driven by our mother's heart that we hear the whole time we are in the womb as infants. I thought that was so interesting...and this ties to Shakespeare by his use of hard and soft words in his plays and sonnets and the effects it has on how a reader deciphers his works.
- The word "person" is derived from phersu (civilization that came before the Romans) which means "mask". This makes sense because we all have different masks we wear in our lives; one around our friends, a different around our teachers, etc. In Shakespeare plays there are often scenes where the characters wear masks. Also, if the word "person" is broken down it becomes per/son: per-through, son-sonar/sound. Shakespeare understood that the voice (and not the eyes) is the window to the soul. I think that is brilliant.
- The working vocabulary of humans today is about 5,000 words, in the King James Bible it's about 7,000 words, and Shakespeare's working vocabulary consists of over 30,000 words!
- Quote from Dr. Tucker after he couldn't get the VCR to work; "Did I just utter that vulgarism out loud?!"
- Quote ABOUT Dr. Tucker (said by Juliet from earlier in the post): "If he was 40 years younger, and single, I would woo him."
- When we say "God bless you" to someone, we are literally telling them "God bathe you in blood". The word bless has a root meaning of "to wound". This applies to the story of Abraham and Isaac in The Bible.
- When we tell someone "goodbye" we are saying "God be with you."
That concludes this section of "Quotes from Dr. Tucker & What I Learned in Shakespeare Class Today". It was a lot of information, but hopefully you all learned something new. :) If not, thank you for letting me release my inner-nerd for a spell. I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday. As always, I miss and love each of you.
Always,
Mattie.
No comments:
Post a Comment