Globe Withdrawal

I think Kensington may be the most wonderful place I will ever live. You've got all the perks of the city, like restaurants, and the Tube, and a fun atmosphere, but it doesn't feel like the city, not with its white buildings and trees and clean streets and not a sketchy person in sight. I love it so much. It's getting to the point where getting off the Tube at our station feels like getting home. I can't help it; I'm attached.

I'm also incredibly attached to the Globe theatre, where of course I've been spending a great deal of time and falling increasingly in love with it. I actually miss it when we don't go there at night. Last night, FIE treated us all to tickets to The 39 Steps, the West End play comically based on Hitchcock's movie. It was amusing and all that, but all I could really think about was how much I'd rather be up in the third level at the Globe being treated to some 400-year-old witty banter. And as incredibly excited I am to see Kevin Spacey in Richard III this week, I do wish it was at my beloved Globe (although it will be nice to have seats with cushions--those benches can be brutal). Anyway, we're all finding it terribly ironic that instead of pining for the weekend like normal students, we can't wait until our next class and our next show. I was very close to hopping on the Tube and going to be a groundling (that's what they call the people who stand in the pit-like thing at the Globe, right in front of the stage) for Much Ado tonight, especially when I discovered it's not showing again until next Monday. But I resisted.

I've definitely been getting in my history for the last couple days. Yesterday after class we went to the Tower of London, which was incredibly interesting and also incredibly large. I had no idea there was going to be so much to see. We saw the Crown Jewels, of course, which were amazing and very sparkly. Then we spent the rest of the time exploring the various towers and walking along the wall and checking it all out. There was so much history there. We spent almost three and a half hours, which is by far the longest we've spent anywhere.

Today we continued our sightseeing with a walking tour that took us to Buckingham Palace to the see the Changing of the Guard, then over to Westminster Abbey. How beautiful. It was very fun to stand in the place I had watched at 5 in the morning a few months ago when Will & Kate were married, & of course where good old Colin was crowned in The King's Speech (speaking of The King's Speech: I was told that the woman we saw play Beatrice in Much Ado played Wallis Simpson, the divorced lover/fiancee of Guy Pearce... fun fact). There were also a ton of famous graves, monuments, etc. A lot of famous writers were commemorated there, like Jane Austen and DH Lawrence and Lewis Carroll and Charles Dickens and of course the man of the hour, Mr. Shakespeare. It was nice to get the tour, we got a lot of interesting information we wouldn't have otherwise. The whole thing was three hours, though, so we were pretty tired.

I came home and considered going to the Globe and took a nap while most of my flatmates went to Madame Tussaud's. Nicole and I are going to go some other time when I'm not so tired and my camera isn't dead. It's one of the places I'm most excited to go so I want to be prepared.

Have I mentioned I miss the Globe?