holiday: adventures 3

And the adventures continue...

The longer I stay in England the more I feel I will miss my friends and the country itself so much when I go, but I also know that the longer I stay away from home, the more I will miss my friends and the USA. I'm definitely stuck in one of those ironically nice conundrums.

After playing with Mr. Tubby I came back and made peach raspberry pie for my dessert-needing friends. By the time it was out it was about 10pm. Late night pie.

I went to Cat's flat to watch Badlands. I had been looking forward to seeing it very much and it lived up to the anticipation for me :)

The view from her windows.

On Wednesday I met up with Zoe (my one-day famous theatre director friend), to see her friend Morgan in an all-men cast of Midsummer Night's Dream. She had directed this company in previous summers so was interested in how they would be without her...

Unfortuntately the English summer rose to its reputation and started pissing it down, so after sitting under umbrellas (did I mention it was outdoor theatre?) for awhile and getting ourselves suitably soaked they came on and said the show would have to end :( So while we waited for Morgan and the guys to pack up the whole stage etc we went and got drinks as big as our heads. Literally. You needed both those handles.

Secretly we both enjoyed catching up more rather than watching the theatre, but shh don't tell anyone.

Now that I've been typing I think I actually saw this slug on Monday night after seeing Tree of Life again with Vicky. This picture is almost life size...

It was raining so much last week. We put out buckets.

Thursday night we went to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Very funny. And on the way we passed this cool art installation outside the National Gallery. It's supposed to bring art and nature together. This one was done after Van Gogh's paintings.

Then Friday night I went to see Dom's band (California Gypsies) play near Tottenham Court Rd. They're really good, check them out :)

holiday: adventures

Through a big coincidence my best friend happens to be in England right now as well. He's teaching on a program that travels to Oxford, Paris, then Tuscany... jealous yet? Did I mention that they spend a week at a private villa in Tuscany? Yea...

On Friday he came to London with his class of 6 students and I joined as an art historian/someone who knows their way around.

It was a blast.

free piano outside the Museum of London

Diane Arbus at the Tate Modern

challenging the kids to do their own street photography, resulting in hilarious events

And taking the Thames Clipper to Greenwich (one of my favorite things in London).

Not only did they pay for my tickets to exhibits, the program also invited me to dinner and paid for me to join them at a great show at the Soho Theatre. All in all, lots of fun was had. And it was great to spend some time with someone who lives the equivalent driving time away from me in the USA as a plane ride to London.

Hoping to have an encore this coming Tuesday. I may re-jig their schedule if I'm allowed, take out some of the things that weren't so great, and add in some other photo exhibitions that look promising :)

holiday: happy 4th

Luckily, since we now live in the city of independence I got to see real fireworks before heading back over the pond for 3 weeks. You see, in Philly we get fireworks in the build-up to the 4th as well. But even with that being said, it was still very exciting last night when Vicky remembered she had a whole bunch of unused sparklers from bonfire night!

unfortunately I only had an iPhone for photos, so no pretty long exposures with writing here, like on rockstar diaries, but still some pretty exposures :)

the most complete circle we achieved

yay sparklers!