I left the window open last night and our room has gotten quite cool. It was so cold and I really didn't want to get up at all, let alone take a shower. I was in the fetile position for a while during my sleep. But then I got up and felt my hair/looked in the mirror... nope. Shower time. So after quite the scaling hot shower, I threw some clothes on and headed to meet up the group for the Shakespeare walk. Little did I know this walk was going to be incredible! And that I would have a love affair there.
The affair was pretty serious guys. So here's the deal. We went to Middle Temple today, which is a very spectacular place and incredibly rich with history. It looked a bit like a castle from the outside,
but then we went through and entered into a little city!
I'm pretty sure the archway was actually a time machine. But anyway - we walked around a while until we came to the actual hall of Middle Temple. And that's where I saw him.
He was a very attractive young man in a very attractive suit, sitting on a bench with his briefcase waiting for something. My friend pointed him out to me and it was love at first sight. He walked to sit at a bench closer to the fountain in the courtyard, and that's when he looked at me. We may have made eye contact. I turned away, and when I looked back, he was still looking at me. This continue for some time to my glee, until a man came out of Middle Temple to give us some information.
A man who I liked to call the Carson of Middle Temple (Downton Abbey reference came out to tell us the reason that the fire alarm went off in the hall was because "Someone was making toast. Badly. But don't worry - the kitchen has been purged and you may now all return." It was delightfully comical. It was here that my lover and I parted for all time and I entered the hall.
We had the cutest little tour guide who was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about her work. I'll post a few pictures here, but go to my Facebook for the full pictures and the little intro video ;)
those are the original paintings (Main Hall)
Ex Library now Prince's Room
Queen's Room
king's speech scene - but the actual historical event, not the movie
Ex Smoking Room now Library
Mr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde :)
Once our tour concluded, we went to Temple Chapel which was my personal favorite of the day. It was absolutely stunning. It literally took my breath away when I walked inside. I just love the feeling I get when I enter cathedrals and such of this nature; it really is sacred. And I just adore architecture from this era so I was in heaven. I may have been singing God Help The Outcasts from The Hunchback of Notre Dame a lot. Maybe I should save that for Notre Dame itself. Here are some of my favorite pictures. (FUN FACT: Part of The Da Vinci Code was filmed here)
there were tons of little faces around the church - they were all making different and quite animated faces
After Temple Chapel we did a lot of walking. We saw this:
(Me on the Millenium Bridge with Shard and Globe in background)
And this:
(St. Paul's and Millennium Bridge)
And these things too:
(The Globe Theatre)
(Some grafitti found outside the Globe)
(Will be seeing a show here, the Rose Theatre, soon)
(The original Globe foundation)
And then we topped it all off with the Borough Market. Below is where the greatest grilled cheese in all of the Earth is made, and to the right are my roomies; Chrstie, Melissa, and I, eating up our "toasties." MMMMMMMM. So good on a cold and rainy day after lots of walking. And just good in general. We walked around a lot looking and tasting things, but ended up settling on the greatest cookie I've ever had from the shop with the red awnings and rasberry and lemon cheescake ice cream made of English Goat milk. It was absolutely delightful.
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We then finished the day off with our first show! We went to see a production of Othello located above a pub called the Lion and Unicorn. It was a super small theatre - about 50 seats - and had little to zero set, etc. It was really the actor's theatre. But I must say it was the greatest Othello I ahve ever seen. Third times a charm I suppose. It wasn't the greatest show I've ever seen, but I think the best Shakespeare so far. I'm telling you, in regards to Shakespeare, the English just do it better. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the accents: the placement of the words and the way the actors say the words just sound better. That and English people actually know what their characters are saying when they perform Shakespeare. It was really cool though because there were some very good performances, like Roderigo. But it was cool to see some things I had learned from my acting class this past semester being implemented.
WARNING: "artsy- fartsy" acting talk. Go down past the picture to skip it. There was a moment where Iago twisted his head around to the audience in a specific way and kind of licked his lips a bit which reminded me of a snake. I immediately thought "he's being a snake." It's a technique we talked about in acting, thinking or portraying animals to further enhance performance. Like lions for heroic characters in confrontation, etc. I'm sure we could come up with better examples. But this is what I mean, and I could totally tell he was doing it. And it was really working! We talked about it in class but I'd never consciously been aware of it being used in a production so that was really neat. I thought it was interesting too that he chose a snake because the devil was a snake - and isn't he being the devil in this plot? I thought that was a very nice touch. And throughout the production, when other characters started calling him a dog etc, and he was wounded and captive, he was panting and even salivating a bit (so I've been told, I couldn't see it) which resembles a dog. While some people thought it was a bit much and distracting - and it may have been - I thought that it was a great idea. I realllly enjoyed seeing the animalistic interpretations of character in this performance.
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Good night!
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