On Saturday Liz, Jess, and I went on a 5 hour walk around London, with no destination in mind. It was a beautiful day and we ended up discovering some great places. We walked first to St. Pauls church, then over the wobbly bridge to the Tate Modern. We only looked at one exhibit, seeing as the Tate Modern is enormous and would take days to truly do it justice. Next we made our way to an unexpected location, Borough Market. Now this is the place to go for any food lover. There are endless stations of all foods imaginable, from fresh baguettes to turkish delight to octopus. We clearly stayed there for a while, and finally decided on a mixed bag of honey glazed nuts and dried fruit - beyond delicious. From there we ended up at the Unicorn, and I took them on a short tour of my work which was cool. Finally, we walked over Tower Bridge which is absolutely beautiful at night. Doesn't this look fake?
Anyways, later that night we gathered Marissa and Shelby to venture out to Chinatown for some much needed Thai food. We found this amazing place that was a bit pricey but completely worth it. It was even Steph-friendly! Rice noodles, chicken, veggies, miso soup, yet another type of food I have found that I can eat. London is so good to me. The best part was my mango sorbet for dessert. There were even chunks of mango in it! On Sunday a bunch of us got up early to head to Oxford for the day. You know what this means - Hogwarts. Again, I could not have asked for better weather and better company. Oxford is quite smaller than I expected, so it was perfect for meandering around at our own relaxed pace to enjoy the beautiful architecture and sights. Highlights include: the milkshake cafe that we found, where they served HOT milkshakes, and even made special dairy free, gluten free shakes for me!! I was in heaven. And to make the day even more magical, (no pun intended), we headed over to Christ Church where parts of Harry Potter were filmed. Basically, this is the closest I will ever be to actual Hogwarts, so please try to understand the joy of this moment for me. I have been waiting to go to Hogwarts since age 11, and here I was, walking up the steps to the Great Hall. We topped off the night with dinner at the pub where Bill Clinton smoked pot.
Monday night was another life-changing event - I finally got to see Wicked on Broadway. The tickets were only 25 pounds and our seats weren't bad at all! I finally saw the musical I have been obsessed with for years, and it exceeded all my expectations. I sat google-eyed the entire time. Everything was phenomenal, from the set designs, costumes, acting, music, I loved it all so much. Even with me knowing the whole soundtrack by heart, it brought a whole new dimension to my love for the musical. I cried twice. I have decided it is my life goal to be Elphaba before I die. Either that or be in a musical sometime soon. Every time I see a show it makes me ache because I realize how much I want to be on stage performing.
Work has been great, it's still been a mix of intern stuff (they have me running errands now, which I'm not a huge fan as the public transportation system makes me ridiculously anxious, but whatevs), and also they've been giving me more responsibilities within the company. Friday I got to work backstage on one of the performances. I'm still working on the youth theatre production which I'm really enjoying - it's much more of where my interests lie. The more I work with children the more I realize I want to go into education or psychology, but somehow combine it with the performing arts.
My coworkers invited me to the pub the other night! I was so excited. They're such a great group of people, I really lucked out. Oh and Prince Charles came in on Monday!! I stood on the same stage as him! Granted he didn't acknowledge my existence, but he made a really kind speech and seemed genuinely interested in mingling with the groups of children present.
With all this said, now that I'm finally in the working routine, I'm starting to feel the full effects of exhaustion. Getting up every morning at 8 is really strating to take its toll on me. I've been doing my best at getting to bed early (with the help of benadryl) but it's so hard to get myeslf to bed. The problem is that because I'm so tired by the time I get home I don't feel like doing anything. It's been difficult finding the balance between forcing myself to go out and accepting the fact that I need my down time.
PS - Counterpoints, I want to thank you for the Skype date. It made my day to see your faces and hear your lovely voices :)
Until next time
