Thunder and Fire and Faustus

Yesterday I experienced my first-ever London thunderstorm. Boy this place has weird weather. I went from sweating my eyes out one day to staying indoors amidst torrential downpour the next. Anyway, we used it as prompting to sit in our living room and read Doctor Faustus, our next play, which we are seeing tonight. The wonderful thing about it was that Faustus is this really dark show about demons and Lucifer and all that incredibly cheerful stuff, and it literally says things like "Faustus is in his study. Thunder." and thunder would bang in the background, right on cue. So that was fun.

FIE, the Foundation for International Education, is the organization that is looking after us while we're here--it's their housing and such that we're staying in. Anyway, they had a meet and greet type thing last night over at the Imperial College. I was actually genuinely looking forward to getting to know some of the students from other schools--they have people here from like Santa Clara and Ohio State and U of A who live in our building but we never see--but of course we pretty much stuck to ourselves, had our 2 free drinks, and left.

We went over to Piccadilly Circus, which I had yet to go to and was like a much smaller Times Square, with big video screens and stores and such. There were a ton of people around, despite it being fairly late on a Tuesday. We went to this bar/restaurant called O'Neills that had dancing and a live band and three stories. Definitely one of the most fun places I've been since I've been here. We took the night bus home since the Tube stops at 12, which was kind of an experience.

Anyway, we're back off to the Globe tonight to see Doctor Faustus. I'm feeling more than a little sad that we aren't seeing a comedy, but oh well. We're first going to the London Eye, one of the most overpriced touristy things in London, but still something you've got to do while you're here (kind of like Madame Tussauds, which is also on my list). Should be a good time.

Here's hoping the rain stays away. I hear there's lots of fire in Faustus.

-Charlotte